Duncan Storrar appeared on the Australian Q+A programme and asked a question attacking the Government’s announced tax cuts as they were providing nothing for low income earners like himself. He said more help for families like him would mean he could tell his little girls they can go to the movies this weekend as Daddy isn’t broke.

He became a hero to the Australian left and Australian liberal media. He was the perfect symbol of an out of touch Government. They didn’t just fete him as the face of the ordinary Australian whom the coalition doesn’t care about, but they raised A$60,000 for him. The Twitter hashtag #duncanforpm started trending.

Then the truth about Storrar started to come out. And remember now that he decided to go on Q+A and to ask his question. Storrar put himself in the media spotlight, no-one else.

Then Storrar’s son spoke out, saying how at age 17 he went to live with him and got addicted to drugs due to him. He urged people to donate to charities, rather than giving to a someone “undeserving of the money”.

And then it came out that Storrar is a recidivist criminal with a list of convictions 20 pages long – including three spells in prison. So those blaming the Government for his situation start to look stupid, let alone those who raised $60,000 for him and proclaimed he should be Prime Minister.

His convictions include threatening to kill, unlawful assault and repeatedly breaching intervention orders.

We see this in NZ often too. Media rush in to fete someone who puts themselves forward as a victim without doing any due diligence on them.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key said Inland Revenue staff have trawled through the Panama Papers and found fewer than 200 foreign trusts registered in New Zealand had links to Mossack Fonseca and all had been disclosed.

The Inland Revenue ‘crack squad’ was charged with looking through the files released early this morning to ensure no New Zealanders were dodging their tax obligations and that foreign trusts in New Zealand were within their legal obligations.

A gleeful Mr Key reported their findings this afternoon after facing days of questioning about whether the papers proved New Zealand was effectively a tax haven targeted by Mossack Fonseca.

He said of 500,000 entities and organisations Mossack Fonseca had a link to, fewer than 200 were trusts with any link to New Zealand. All of those were disclosed, which Mr Key said meant they were subject to information sharing requests from other countries and Inland Revenue.

So what is the wrong doing here?

Chris Trotter writes:

BRINGING DOWN JOHN KEY has become an abiding obsession of the New Zealand Left. As if all of New Zealand’s problems have their origins in the actions of a single individual. As if the Prime Minister hasn’t been shaped by the people he governs every bit as much as they have been shaped by him. As if Key’s uncanny ability to extricate himself from scandal after scandal hasn’t been made possible by the electorate’s willingness to look the other way while he does it.

All of which suggests that the Left’s obsession with bringing down Key isn’t about the National Party Leader at all, but about its own inability to attract and hold the same level of popular support that keeps him in power. All of which raises the possibility that the Left’s real problem isn’t with Key at all – but with the democratic process itself.

If I was a Labour supporter I’d be more worried about the fact that the 2014 NZ Election Survey found only 35% of NZers even like Labour (58% liked National). That is an effective cap on your support.

Over the past fortnight, for example, the Left has been outraged by revelations contained in the so-called “Panama Papers”. These have been seized upon as conclusive proof of John Key’s determination to transform New Zealand into a tax haven.

That the New Zealand-related documents contained in the Panama Papers might be interpreted as the legal firm at the centre of the controversy, Mossack Fonseca’s,  back-handed tribute to this country’s reputation for honesty and fair-dealing does not appear to have occurred to the implacable prosecutors of the Left.

Similarly failing to register with them is the indisputable fact that the formation of trusts (both foreign and domestic) is a perfectly legal activity engaged in not only by dubious South American businessmen, but also by thousands of ordinary New Zealand families. The purposes of these legal instruments is much the same in both instances: to shield the assets of their beneficiaries from the fiscal and/or administrative exactions of the state.

Well said, yet Andrew Little thinks they should all be banned.

The New Zealand Left’s animosity towards John Key is, thus, curiously reminiscent of the early Christian Church’s animosity towards the Roman Emperor, Nero. In both cases we are presented with a minority utterly convinced of its moral righteousness, and absolutely unwilling to compromise its principles. Unsurprisingly, such stiff-necked insistence on their own rectitude, asserted aggressively in the midst of an avaricious and morally undemanding society, not only got these groups offside with their neighbours, but also with the authorities. Finding themselves under political pressure, it is hard to blame either Nero, or John Key, for making scapegoats of their unpopular critics.

Not that John Key has gone so far as to transform his left-wing opponents into human torches! Like Nero, however, he has boosted his own popularity at their expense – and they hate him for it.

The Early Christians worked Nero’s name into their identification of the Beast of the Book of Revelation: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”

The New Zealand Left is equally obsessed with numbers – even if, in the case of John Key, they are the numbers hidden in the spreadsheets of the Panama Papers.

Heh.

Jonathan Coleman announced:

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman is encouraging people to use a new online map to see whether their GP offers a patient portal.

“A growing number of general practices are introducing patient portals. These secure online sites are the health equivalent to online banking,” says Dr Coleman.

“Portals enable patients to book appointments, order repeat prescriptions and view lab test results online.

“You can have secure conversations with your GP via email, and in some cases, patients can also view their notes online.

“Portals are convenient, secure and real time savers for both the patient and staff at their general practice.

“A new interactive map launched today makes it easy for patients to check which general practices are offering portals. Patient portals are a great step towards enabling New Zealanders to manage more of their own healthcare.”

Over 330 general practices are now offering patient portals, with nearly 136,000 New Zealanders registered to use one.

The map is here.

You can quickly see which medical centres in Wellington City have a patient portal. They are:

• Island Bay Medical Centre
• Peninsula Medical Centre
• Newtown Medical Centre
• Newtown Union Health Service
• Brooklyn Central Health
• Brooklyn Medical Centre
• Karori Medical Centre
• Capital Care Medical Centre
• Evolve Wellington
• City GPs
• Kelburn Medical Centre
• The Terrace Medical Centre
• Onslow Medical Centre
• Johnsonville Medical Centre
• Newlands Medical Centre

I’ve been using Manage My Health for a couple of years and find it great. The main attraction is being able to see which doctors are free when, and book yourself in. But lots of other good features also:

• Can see your vaccination history and recalls
• Blood Type
• All test results
• Previous prescriptions
• Secure e-mail with doctors

Stuff reports:

What do you get when you give a man six months and NZ$2400 (US$1500)? A single sandwich.

But it’s not just any sandwich, of course.

Andy George, host of YouTube series How To Make Everything, attempts to make everyday things from scratch, gathering and growing the raw ingredients before assembling the final product.

This is a good lesson about the value of trade.

Some people think trade is a zero sum game. Exports are good and imports are bad.

Trade is about relative value. You could spend six months of your time making a sandwich from scratch, or you can trade with other people who allow you to purchase a sandwich for $5 instead of $2,400.

As I’ve said before, there is a challenge with not just jihadists, but also what I call extreme views among a minority of Muslims. The example I use is support for the death penalty for apostates. That is a view incompatible with a free society. You should not face any criminal penalty for changing your religion, let alone death.

A survey was done of views among Muslims in the UK. The full results are here. Now there has been some criticism of the survey methodology such as possible over-sampling in areas with a high Muslim population (which is more likely to foster radical views). So these findings should be taken as approximate. Maybe 38% is only 30% for example. And you have sample margin of errors. But nevertheless the high level of support for some views is a concern, and something that needs to be confronted.

There is also good news in the survey – most Muslims strongly feel they belong to Britain, and only 1% was separate Islamic areas.

• 86% strongly feel they belong to Britain (which is good)
• However only 63% in the North East strongly feel they belong
• Only 3% think they are treated worse than other religions by their local doctor or schools
• However 17% think treated worse by Police
• 22% of Muslims think religious harassment of Muslims is a big problem and 73% not a problem
• 17% have personally experience harassment while 82% have not
• 36% mix socially in their home with non-Muslims at least weekly, 39% infrequently and 22% never
• 39% want to fully integrate with non-Muslims, 29% mainly integrate, 17% some integration and only 1% want seperate Islamic areas with sharia law and government
• 33% think boys and girls should be taught separately and 46% disagree
• Only 28% think it is acceptable for a homosexual to be a teacher and 47% say unacceptable
• 31% say a British Muslim should be able to have more than one wife and 46% disagree
• 39% say a wife should always obey their husband and 32% disagree
• Only 18% think homosexuality should be legal and 52% disagree
• 23% support sharia law in some ares of UK, and 43% opposed
• 88% say UK is a good place for Muslims to live and only 3% a bad place
• Negative feelings towards other religious groups are Catholics 12%, Atheists 23%, Buddhists 20%, Jews 25%, Protestants 13%, Hindus 17%
• Only 1% think the Holocaust is a myth
• 4% support and 83% condemn terrorist acts
• 5% support stoning for adultery and 79% condemn
• 18% support violence against those mocking the Prophet and 64% condemn
• Only 4% believe publications should be able to publish depictions of the Prophet and 78% say not okay
• 7% support objective of Islamic State (but not methods) and 675 oppose
• 3% support actions of Islamic State and 73% oppose

Overall some of the results are very encouraging, with very low levels of support for Islamic State, stoning for adultery etc, Holocuast denial. However other findings such as criminalising homosexuality and prohibiting publications showing Muhammad are more challenging.

The Herald editorial:

Let us not soften the language we use about a man who hits a woman. It has been called domestic violence or partner violence. Our in-depth examination of the problem today and through next week is labelled “family violence” because an entire family suffers when a parent resorts to violence to control a partner or children. But at its most serious level, this problem is men. Not all men, not even most men, and, as some men always point out, not just men. Women can, and do, resort to violence too.

But this subject is too important to be blurred and broadened for the sake of gender neutrality. New Zealand has one of the worst family violence rates in the world and it is a fair bet women are not responsible for most of it, and certainly not the worst of it.

Why guess? we have a very robust and reliable survey of crime in New Zealand.

The 2014 NZ Crime and Safety Survey found:

• 6% of women and 4% of men were victims of a violent interpersonal offence in 2013
• 26% of women and 14% of men were victims of partner violence at some stage in their life

So yes most domestic violence is by men (and certainly the worst domestic violence is), but in the latest year 40% of victims were men which is a very significant minority. A 60/40 split is very different to say a 90/10 split.

We should not listen to claims of provocation, verbal or physical. If we are going to eradicate this disgrace on our society the truth needs to be implanted in every male mind that there is never an excuse for a man to hit a woman.

I agree. I abhor such violence.

People wonder why I prefer Hillary Clinton to Trump. Trump is far more anti free trade than her, and how he is saying lets increase taxes and the minimum wage:

United States Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump yesterday said he was open to raising taxes on the rich, backing off his prior proposal to reduce taxes on all Americans and breaking with one of his party’s core policies dating back to the 1990s.

“I am willing to pay more, and you know what, the wealthy are willing to pay more,” Trump told ABC’s This Week. After effectively sealing the Republican nomination for the November 8 presidential election last week, Trump has used speeches and interviews to offer more details on his policy positions.

The billionaire real estate tycoon has said he would like to see an increase in the minimum wage, although he told NBC’s Meet the Press yesterday he would prefer to see states take the lead on that front instead of the federal Government.

“I don’t know how people make it on US$7.25 ($10.63) an hour,” Trump said of the current federal minimum wage.

“I would like to see an increase of some magnitude.

Trump is not a conservative, a classical liberal, a fiscal conservative or anything but a nationalist and populist. His fiscal policies would see a huge increase in debt.

Stuff reports:

Finance spokesman Grant Robertson mental health funding  was one of the “yawning gaps” in the health system. 

Labour figures showed his party increased health spending by an average of 8.1 per cent, while National had increased it by 3.4 per cent, he said.

“In the real world, that means people are not getting the surgeries they need, they’re not getting access to the mental health system, they’re not getting primary health care they need.” 

Health spokesman Annette King said Labour would fund health properly.

This sums up pretty much everything that is wrong with Labour. They think that what matters most is spending more money – rather than what that money actually achieves.

According to Labour, if DHBs manage to reduce their property costs by say $200 million, then that is bad as that is $200 million less spending. If DHBs save $100 million on accountants and increase spending on doctors by $50 million then Labour thinks this is bad because that is overall less spending.

I’m not sure Labour will ever get that what matters is results, not spending. Of course you need spending to achieve some things, but claiming an 8% annual increase in health spending is better than a 4% increase is focused on the wrong thing.

The reality is that almost every significant health indicator is better now than in 2008. A few are:

• Youth smoking rates halved
• Youth hazardous drinking rates halved
• 100% of cancer patients now getting timely treatment, compared to 65% under Labour
• 94% of patients being seen within six hours at ED, up from 70%
• A 42% increase in the number of elective surgeries
• An 18% increase in nurses and 27% increase in doctors
• Immunisation rates up from 76% to 94%

Now if you go back to what Labour achieved despite their massive spending increases, well the answer will be not much. In fact the number of elective surgeries declined from 2000 to 2006.

Here’s the challenge for Labour. Don’t come up with a policy of simply promising more spending. Make a commitment on some outcomes.

John Palino has released a detailed 97 page book outlining what he sees as wrong with the Auckland Council, and what he wants to do to fix it.

It’s superb to see a Mayoral candidate offer so many specific policies. I hope all the other Mayoral candidates will do the same. Too many campaigns are about style not substance.

A summary of what John Palino is proposing includes:

• Reduce rates by 10% over the first term
• An Auckland Ratepayers Bill of Rights that will hold Council responsible for meeting and managing within budgets limiting future rates increases to no more than inflation and population growth
• Any project with spending of over $1 billion to go to a referendum
• Make Council spending transparent to Ratepayers so they can judge whether or not their money is being spent sensibly with all spending to be placed monthly on the Internet
• To provide a long term city plan that reduces traffic congestion by creating an environment that encourages and allows businesses to develop in locations and provide employment opportunities near where people want to live
• Remove the Metropolitan Urban Limit
• To abandon the current council ideology that increasing housing density in existing suburbs will solve traffic congestion problems and provide affordable housing
• Change zoning to allow intensification of housing, commercial and industrial greenfield sites near existing major transport routes in order to support and develop satellite CBDs. .
• To provide an Iwi consultation process for resource consents that is limited to genuine cultural issues, that is speedy and cost certain
• To hold council officers to account for poor or tardy decisions by establishing a Citizens Decision Review Panel, including relevant external experts, that ratepayers can appeal to
• Will make the 10% rates reduction a KPI indicator for the CEO
• Have all consenting decisions made within half the statutory deadline
• Support tolling for new roads

Stuff reports:

Finance Minister Bill English has outlined a Budget plan that promises cake today but gruel tomorrow – and marries the justifiable with the downright perverse.

The justified part is his decision to spend more this year and put on ice plans for a 2017 tax cut.

Population growth, especially from migration, is putting real pressure particularly on health and education that the existing $1 billion allowance for new spending simply cannot meet. A significant hike can be expected to both when Bill English stands to deliver his eighth Budget on May 26.

The Government’s “investment approach” to social issues, that favours a dollar spent now to save two dollars later, will also demand extra resources.

That will be funded by dismembering his 2017 election year war chest of $2.5b – of which $1.5b was earmarked for tax cuts.

They are now off the agenda, pending a significant improvement in the economic and fiscal situation, though English insists they are still a priority.

I think this is pretty appalling. If the Government can’t deliver any tax relief in next year’s Budget, then I don’t think they ever will. Due to fiscal drag, most New Zealanders end up every year paying a slightly higher proportion of their income in tax than the year before. I want a Government that slows or reduces the proportion of income people pay in tax – not one that allows it to keep increasing.

The Government has done a good job keeping spending under control, and the exceptional circumstances of the Global Financial Crisis and the Canterbury Earthquakes have meant that tax cuts prior to now were fiscally difficult. But patience will run out, if there are no tax cuts announced in 2017.

I was thrilled this week to meet Hyeonseo Lee.

I got a call from Melissa Lee last week telling me that she is hosting a dinner at Parliament with the National Unification Advisory Council and the guest speaker is a defector from North Korea. She thought I might be interested as I had blogged on North Korea.

A few months ago I had read an amazing book about North Korea by a defector, Hyeonseo Lee. It is called The Girl with Seven Names. I had raved about the book to friends and family and even lent it out to them.

So I asked Melissa ho the defector was, not expecting it would be a name I had heard of. When Melissa said it is a young women who wrote the book “The Girl With Seven Names” I excitedly exclaimed to her how I had not just heard of her, but read her book and been talking about it for months. So I was very excited to get to meet Hyeonseo in person.

She spoke on her life story to around 100 MPs, diplomats, members of the National Unification Advisory Council and some of the NZ veterans of the Korean War. Earlier that day Melissa had moved in Parliament a resolution:

That this House condemn the human rights record of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is detailed in the United Nations 2014 commission of inquiry into both systematic abuse and repression, and that this House call on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to give access to human rights bodies and international agencies to improve the lives of the North Korean people.

This passed without dissent.

There are two major themes to Hyeonseo’s book that resonated with me – her personal story, and the insight into what life is really like in North Korea.

Her personal story is quite amazing. She was basically an accidental defector. She lived on the border with China and the day before her 18th birthday, she decided to cross the border just to see what life was like in China. Her intention was to return, and as she was not yet an adult, there would be lesser consequences for her if she got caught – would be a youthful prank. Her family were not enemies of the state, they were fairly well off middle class (for North Korea).

However the security police got wind that she had gone missing and may have crossed the border, and her family warned her that if she came back then the whole family might be arrested and sent to a camp. So she had to stay in China.

She then spent around seven years in China living undercover. Chinese authorities will send back North Koreans to North Korea so she had to pretend to be Chinese. This involved assuming a number of identities (hence the title of the book, The Girl With Seven Names) and years of living in fear that at any point she may be discovered and deported.

She eventually made her way out of China and with fake papers managed to fly to South Korea. She was petrified that they would not welcome her, but when she declared she was a defector, their first words were “Welcome home”. However it then turned bad as her fake Chinese papers were so convincing that they decided she was Chinese and might deport her back to China (and then North Korea). After a couple of weeks thought she convinced them that she was in fact North Korean, and she got to live in South Korea.

Her story did not end there, as she later went back to get her mother and family out. They came close to disaster many times, were blackmailed and betrayed and eventually arrested in Laos. Then a good samaritan struck, as an random Australian businessman who was in the building paid a huge sum to authorities to get her family released, and they got back to South Korea. The generosity of strangers can be staggering.

So her personal story is an adventure that would be amazing even as fiction, let alone as a true story.

But her depiction of life in North Korea is also powerful. She writes of the weekly inspection of their houses to check their photos of the Great Leader are straight. They can be punished if one of the photos are crooked. They are forced to effectively worship the Kims and schools are basically state run brainwashing camps.

And the brainwashing works. Until she ended up in China, she had no idea that it was all lies.  The control of the people by the state is so total, you have an entire population enslaved.

I actually got angry reading her book, recalling a certain prominent New Zealander who visited North Korea and declared how wonderful it seemed to be, and how happy the people are that they met – seemingly unaware that all they saw was propaganda put on by the Government.

If there is any one book you should read about North Korea, this is the one. It’s not written by an enemy of the state. It’s just the life of a normal 17 year old girl who crossed a river and ended up being hunted for the best part of a decade.

On a personal level was great to meet the author of a book which I had found so compelling. I had so many questions for her, that Melissa finally had to take her away around the room, as I was hogging her time 🙂

A while back I got an invitation from Float Culture to try out their flotation pools where you lie in a super-saturated Epsom-salt solution.

As I finally had a spare day in Auckland last week, I headed along to them to try them out.

You fill in a quick medical form and they take you into one of their five rooms which consist of a bathroom and another room with the pool.

In the bathroom you shower and clean, remove any piercings (not an issue for me!), and put ear plugs into your ear (to block out the water).

Then you enter the pool room.

The pool has around 30 cm of water in it. It’s heated to 35.5 degrees and as there is so much salt in it, you easily float on it. The temperature means you can’t tell what parts of you are under water and on top.

You then close the door and turn out the light, and the room goes pitch black.

For the first ten minutes they play soft music, and then it stops so you have near total sensory deprivation with no light, sound or feeling for the next fifty minutes.

The aim is to remove all stimulation from you so you destress and muscles relax.

So how did it got for me?

Some people can’t handle it and freak out. That definitely wasn’t me. Enjoyed the sensory deprivation.

It took me a fairly long time to relax though. That is more due to me. Ask anyone who has ever shared a bed with me, and you’ll hear complaints about how I twist and turn and roll over. I’m not good at not moving – even when asleep!

So by the time the music ended I was still not entirely relaxed. I was enjoying it, but still fidgeting a bit. And the movement would sometimes have me brush against a wall and then you lose the effect.

But after I guess 20 or 30 minutes or so, I got there and was just not moving or thinking but totally relaxed on the water. I know this, because suddenly the music started up again which meant the hour was up.

So overall a very pleasant experience. I’m someone who actually really enjoys sensory deprivation, so loved that aspect of it. Once I fully relaxed, ended up nicely in my own little world and was sad when the time was up. Would definitely do it again at some stage.

Stuff reports:

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff bowed out defiantly on Thursday (Friday NZ Time), suspended from office after the Senate voted to put her on trial for breaking budget laws in a historic decision brought on by a deep recession and a corruption scandal.

Rousseff, in office since 2011, will be replaced by Vice President Michel Temer, for the duration of a Senate trial that could take up to six months.

Rousseff, speaking shortly before she left Brasilia’s Planalto presidential palace, said was notified of her suspension on Thursday morning.

Her suspension came hours after the Senate voted 55-22 to put her on trial, a decision that ended more than 13 years of rule by the left-wing Workers Party.

That vote suggests she may well be convicted and permanently removed as they need a two thirds majority.

Her wonderfully enlightened socialist policies have seen GDP decrease for two years in a row by around 4%. That is not just a recession but on the verge of an outright economic depression.

The budget deficit as a percentage of GDP is around 11%. Interest rates are around 14% and inflation close to 10%.

Unemployment is at 8% and expected to hit 10% then. Real wage rates have fallen by 10% or so.

This is what happens when you can’t control spending.

Stuff reports:

Seventeen Uber drivers have been issued warnings, and another ordered off the road after they failed to comply with revved-up NZTA rules. 

Less than two weeks ago, Transport Minister Simon Bridges hit back against Uber’s decision its New Zealand drivers no longer needed a passenger (P) endorsement, which was issued after checks on drivers’ medical, criminal, behavioural and driving histories.

Bridges said this was illegal, and drivers would require P Endorsements to stay on the roads.

Since then, 17 official warnings have been issued and one driver ordered off the road for not holding a Passenger Services License.

I’m a huge fan of the Uber service. I’ve also been very supportive of their desire to have regulatory settings that support innovation in the passenger transport market. The changes announced last month represented some great wins for Uber (actually more for passengers like myself).

But Uber’s decision to unilaterally declare they are a ride sharing service, and hence their drivers don’t need a P endorsement is an unwise one. I don’t think they’d win a court case on it, and they are putting their new drivers at risk of  fines.

Their strategy should be to continue to push for law changes, but not to ignore the law. Their current strategy risks them losing a lot of the goodwill they have built up.

By John Stringer

6:2. So this week we waited to learn if Jon Snow was really dead…and waited to see if he was really alive. The Red Witch (star of the final scene of 6:1 – no spoiler; go watch that) tries to revive his very dead corpse but failed. But watch the Dire Wolf’s eyes under the table. Red Witch is disillusioned; her gods have failed her with false visions (or have they?)  “F**K em all then!” (Lord Davos).

Below: Jon Snow; Daenrys Targaryen (true heir to the Iron Throne); the Dwarf Tyrion Lannister (everyone’s favourtite)
Review: GoT 6:2 (The Dwarf gets his dragon-on) | coNZervative

[Spoiler] Meanwhile Ramsay’s adopted dad has had a son (his first true born) and second heir which to Ramsay the Bastard means only one thing; Adopted-Daddy-o needs a knife in the nethers and Ramsay of course doesn’t hesitate. He also dispatches his new brother and his wet nurse to a rather grisly nasty end – Ramsay is being set up as a nastier bit of work than Joffrey Baratheon/Lannister.  Oh come back Theon and wreck your terrible ‘Reek’ vengeance!
[Actually the ‘wet nurse’ is Lord Bolton’s wife and Ramsay’s step-mum (Ramsay is really a ‘Snow’); but this seems unlikely in the episode: Bolton simply chose this woman as her father offered a dowry of her weight in gold – so Lord Bolton took her: she seems like the baby’s wet nurse to me in this episode].
[Spoiler] Meanwhile in the Iron Islands another father and House lord is despatched in this game of epic musical thrones. Balon Greyjoy as the Lord of House Greyjoy of Pyke – not to be confused with Lord Walder Frey who is Lord of the Crossing and mastermined the infamous Red Wedding (referred to in Obama’s White House Correspondent’s dinner) they both have long straggly white hair – goes out on a swing bridge in a storm. That can mean only one thing in GoT!
Funnily enough I was watching an episode of MythBusters just before in which Jamie (not Lannister) and the beret Walrus build a 100 foot long rope bridge out of duct tape and attempt to cross it.

Balon walks out on to the rope bridge in the rain and dark only to meet his brother and a show down. Without a spoiler let’s just say the rightful heir Theon (‘Reek’)  Greyjoy now has some room to move and a kingdom to inherit and sort out (now there is some vengeance that could sort the psycho Ramsay!)  Who else? That showdown is VERY personal. This may help kinda (flowcharts are necessary when watching GoT)…

Review: GoT 6:2 (The Dwarf gets his dragon-on) | coNZervative

Tyrion and Varys are still setting about re-establishing order in ‘Dragon town’ since Daenrys flew away.  Tyrion does something incredibly brave but foresightful: he goes in to the dark dungeon where the dragons are chained and tells them a wee story and unchains them (how come my trailer chain and ‘D’ ring is never that easy to unshackle? Even with Dragon drool all over it?).
Tyrion sets them free so they can fly out and ‘forage’ (ie burn up insignificant rural hamlets like Bulls and eat their BBq-ed people and -well- bulls). In doing so Tyrion is now ‘Friend of the dragons’ and maybe setting himself up as a consort to Daenrys? OR are we seeing a  transfer of power from Daenrys to Tyrion and Daenrys will end up Dothraki horse-shag?  Interesting. You read it here first! You can never underestimate the Dwarf!
The Wildings take the Wall back. (“The Wildings” as flogged from Tolkien’s Dunlendings or Wildmen of Dunland also wrapped in fur skins as the Dothraki are pinched as the Roharrim but with a cross-breeding of Southron Haradrim). It’s not epic-fantasy without generous helpings of Prof Tolk.)  There’s a great scene where a BlackWatchman shoots one of the Frost Giants in the neck with a crossbow bolt and gets “splatched” against a concrete bulwark and tossed across the snow leaving a crimson ribbon like the line of a red marker.
There’s another similar scene where Cersei’s Giant Knight bashes the head of a disrespectful village man against a brick wall while he’s relieving himself: quick efficient and bloody and a taste of the efficient desptaching of all Cersei’s enemies by this hulking Hulk Hogan in armour known as “The Mountain.”

I’ve always found the men of the Black Watch a bunch of wimps so an all round massacre by the bearded WWF Norseman in pelts would not be remiss. But effectively they are now a combined fighting host of the North and can meet the hordes of Dothraki migrating West; under Jon Snow if he ever resurrects perhaps joinde by House Stark and Theon Greyjoy etc.

Arya Stark is accepted as Girl with No Name among the Faceless Gods Helter Skelter cult but I’m sure is still Arya Stark inside (maybe she’ll even find Needle again and do some more family dynasty utu-ing). Speaking of which two Kiwis star in this series: Keisha Castle-Hughes in Dorne and Joe Naufaahu (runs an Auckland gym) amongst the Dothraki. Once Were Warriors!

Some backstory to Hodor arrives via a vision of the past while Bran Stark and Co (kind of Hobbits on a walk about) are wrapped in to that weird memory tree. Tree huggers with the Three-eyed Raven played by the famous Max von Sydow (who usually plays a WWII German General). This is cool; a kind of future and past wandering Internet service where they can see the past and future and make decisions for the present.  Bran played by Issac H-Wright has had an adolescent growth spurt and is now a young man; he was a small child in Season 5. Bran is still crippled but how will Hodor carry him about on his back now? Might look a bit gay (the actor who plays Hodor actually announced he was gay; who cares?). When Bran is eventually united with Sansa and Arya Stark (a holy Trinity?) as the House Stark they’ll be like super-powered X-Men or Mighty Morphing Power Rangers.

Cersei Lannister is recovering from her Walk of Shame and Inquisition but faces down the Red Keep guard with her Giant house gimp with the bruised face (who is this person? Is it the Hound returned?). Cersei is reconciled to her soft insignificant ‘king’ son the ring-in Joffrey Baratheon/Lannister II (I can’t even remember his name. He’s like some guy from Spot On). But the script appears to set him and Cersei Lannister up as a despicable Mum + Son vengeance troupe ala Alexander the Great and Olympias or Nero and Agrippina-the-Younger.

Episode 6:2 pretty much a forward development of all the story strands: but the end of two lines: 1) House Bolton (Father and second heir first-born after dastardly deeds done dirt cheap by the bastard Ramsay) and 2) the brother-cide of Balon Greyjoy setting up a murderous uncle for ‘Reek’ to go and sort out (to Sansa Stark – “Can I borrow one of the horses?“).

So House Bolton destroys Stennis Baratheon’s pretensions (and his army) only to disintegrate internally via Court regicide? Awesome! Go the Bastards!

Prediction: Theon will obviously return to the Iron Islands; unite that empire with Winterfell and the other people of the North around Jon Snow and House Stark for the epic showdown with Daenerys and Tyrion et al that – like Winter – you can tell is coming! With bells on – or maybe fox pelts.

 

 

 

Richard Harman writes on Politik:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has simply dismissed claims that some of the economic modelling on the TPP contained a basic arithmetical error.

The report back to Parliament yesterday of the Select Committee considering the TPP does not show any substantial reasoning behind the Ministry’s conclusion.

The error was allegedly contained with the modelling of the economic cost of extending the copyright term on recorded music from 50 to 70 years.

The Ministry’s National Interest Assessment claimed this would cost New Zealand consumers $55 million.

In fact, said an internationally recognised copyright lawyer and economist, Dr George Barker, Director of the Centre for Law and Economics from Australia National University the total cost to New Zealand of the copyright extension term was more likely to be around $250,000.

In his evidence to the committee, Dr Barker said Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment officials who did the calculations for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had simply guessed how much the cost to New Zealand of extending the copyright term on film and television would be by assuming it would be exactly total figure as for recorded music.

“But, he said when they did that they  did not realise  that  the original calculation supplied by an Australian consultant had seriously  overestimated   the costs for music  by more than 40 times

“The Government officials may have inflated the already overestimated   annual cost of term extension by around  $49 million,” he said.

I don’t like the increase in copyright term in TPP. I disagree with Dr Barker on most copyright issues. However I suspect he is right on the issue of the estimate that the cost of extending the term of copyright from life plus 50 years to life plus 70 years would be $55 million a year.

That figure fails the common sense test.

Think about what that change means over the next 20 years? It means that works created by artists who died between 1945 and 1965 now won’t come out of copyright for another 20 years.

Now I can’t imagine that NZers consume $55 million a year of works by people who died between 50 and 70 years ago. 99.9% of what I watch and listen to is far more recent than that.

So the MBIE figure of $55 million a year fails the common sense test. Unless they can provide the detailed calculations they used to calculate it, the estimate is very suspect.

Ironically the thrust of Dr Barker’s evidence is to make the TPP more attractive to New Zealand since it would lower the estimated cost to consumers of the extension of the copyright term.

This is the irony. The Government has seemingly over-estimated the costs to NZ of the TPP.

DW reports:

Talks in Stuttgart have finalized Germany’s first Greens-Christian Democrats regional government. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives will be junior partners in Baden-Württemberg’s coalition.

The Green party state premier for Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, and Merkel’s conservative stalwart Thomas Strobl said their seven weeks of talks resulted in a deal, adding that they would present their cabinet on Monday.

Ministers were not named on Sunday, but they said it would comprise five Greens and five conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). The line-up will be finalized by May 12, when Kretschmann is due to be inaugurated in the Stuttgart assembly.

Hard to imagine this happening in NZ, not while the Greens have a policy that they will only ever support Labour.

Nikki Kaye announced:

ACC Minister Nikki Kaye has welcomed the results of a Research New Zealand survey which shows that public trust and confidence in ACC has reached a new high.

“The survey shows that 61 per cent of New Zealanders surveyed in the 12 months to March 2016 have full trust and confidence in ACC, up from 56 per cent in the previous 12 months, and the result for the last quarter is 64 per cent, which is the highest result since the survey began in 2004,” says Ms Kaye.

ACC used to be in the news a lot for the wrong reasons. It hasn’t been for some time. And levies are dropping and the scheme is now fully funded.

A guest post by Rees Ward:

One hundred years ago, our export trade revolved around packing up sheep carcasses or their wool into a ship and waiting two months before they got to market. Today, some of our best export earners can weigh nothing and are delivered in fractions of a second.

New Zealand’s economy is transforming as the new service driven economy is broadening our export base beyond our traditional agricultural exports.

I have recently returned from working for the New Zealand Consulate General based in Los Angeles. Much of my work there involved supporting New Zealand firms, who were engaging with the rapidly growing tech sector Silicon Valley and across the wider Western USA economy.

California is growing jobs fast on the back of the tech sector – and this is creating additional demand for the supporting professions that drive business growth. These well paid jobs are available to those with the skills and the education to be part of that economy.

It is acknowledged that Silicon Valley emerged from the leadership and innovation of Stanford University. That has evolved to create an eco-system of venture capital, research and innovation. Silicon Valley has nearly a third of private sector workers in the tech sector firms. These are some of the wealthiest and best paid people in the United States. American firms are now fighting to get their hands on a tech capable workforce.

The New Zealand tech sector is also growing fast and has its heart in our own “Silicon Harbour” – the Wellington region. Firms like Xero, Weta Digital, Datacom and Trade Me are based here. They are joined by other yet-to-be household names such as Wipster, Fronde, Aurora 44, PledgeMe, Intergen and 8i who are creating good jobs and strong export revenues.

To support the development of the “Silicon Harbour”, the Wellington City Council opened a tech hub and collaboration space in November, to support this growth. This is part of developing connections which nurture the next generation of IT firms.

But what one of our fastest growing sectors is calling out for most, is more talent. Further the demand is just not for “geeks and nerds” – but the soft skills able to integrate technology solutions into the business environment. To become part of the new economy – and to get a better paying job – retraining to acquire new skills might be required.

The Government announced in October that it is backing a new collaboration between Victoria University, Wellington Institute of Technology and Whitireia to develop a post graduate school for ICT. This idea was too exciting opportunity for me not to sign up.  The Wellington ICT Graduate School deliver five Masters degree programmes in 2016. The courses have been designed to bring a diverse range of skilled and talented people into the ICT industry.

For most mid-career people, the thought of returning to University to complete a “new” undergraduate education is not only impractical, it is impossible. The solution has been to develop one year post-graduate “conversion” Masters degrees. A background as a teacher or a social worker could be a bonus rather than a barrier.

ICT firms are actively engaged in the education process at the School. Some learning will take place through internship, mentorship and entrepreneurial programmes as well as project work and placements in the workplace. This brings the education closer to what firms need today, rather than what the textbook printed last year says. Founder of Green Button, Scott Houston has bought his considerable mana to the board and bought a strong focus on creating a talent generator that will fuel the growth of our ICT industry.

Our economy will be increasingly reliant on our Silicon Harbour as a route to the global economy. The Wellington ICT Graduate School will soon start developing new leadership. For firms wanting to bring on that talent, we are open for business.

Rees Ward is the Director of the Wellington ICT Graduate School. https://wellingtonict.ac.nz/

Simon Bridges announced:

Transport Minister Simon Bridges today announced an ambitious and wide ranging package of measures to increase the uptake of electric vehicles in New Zealand.

“It’s clear that electric vehicles are the future. A move from petrol and diesel to low emission transport is a natural evolution, and it is our aim to encourage that switch sooner, rather than later,” Mr Bridges says.

“The benefits of increasing uptake of electric vehicles are far-reaching. They’re cheaper to run than petrol or diesel vehicles, they’re powered by our abundant renewable electricity supply, and they’ll reduce the amount of emissions that come from the country’s vehicle fleet.”

I think electric cars are part of the future. The speed of change though is something that will be predominantly decided by price and technology. Paying huge subsidies to purchase electric cars is very wasteful spending (which the Greens advocate).  So long as we have an ETS which imposes a price on CO2 emissions, then you don’t need Government subsidies.

On the specific measures:

• Extending the Road User Charges exemption on light electric vehicles until they make up two percent of the light vehicle fleet
• A new Road User Charges exemption for heavy electric vehicles until they make up two percent of the heavy vehicle fleet

I’m okay with these as they are temporary (and minor). I’m pleased they’ll stop once there are a significant number of electric vehicles.

• Allowing electric vehicles in bus lanes and high-occupancy vehicle lanes on the State Highway network and local roads

Quite a smart way to give people an incentive to go electric as it doesn’t cost taxpayers or ratepayers anything.  Might lead to some road rage though!

On average, charging an electric vehicle at home is equivalent to buying petrol at 30 cents a litre, compared to petrol which is around $2 a litre.”

So if you drive 15,000 kms a year then you use around 1,500 litres of fuel which for petrol is around $3,000 and the electric cost is around $450. That has to be weighed up against the purchase price differential.

The Greens want an $8,000 tax break for electric cars:

“The Green Party would exempt electric vehicles from fringe benefit tax, a move that would cut at least $8,000 off a $40,000 electric vehicle.

This would have a massive cost. With no FBT on electric cars, hundred of thousands of people would have their employment packages redone so they get a car as part of it.

Every sole trader will get their business to buy a car for them, claim the car off tax and not have to pay FBT on personal use of the car.

The Greens policy would cost several hundred million dollars a year I’d say.

Stuff reports:

Labour leader Andrew Little has been given a week to retract and apologise for his comments that a Niue resort tender process “stunk to high heaven” or face defamation proceedings.

Last month Little called on the Auditor-General to investigate Scenic Hotel Group being awarded a management contract at the Matavai Resort.

Calling on the Auditor-General to investigate was fine. In fact I’ve said they should investigate also.

But his comments that the tender “stunk to high heaven” were very unwise, and if it does go to court he could face a real problem.

The tests for defamation include:

• Did the statement harm the reputation of the person?
• Is it true?
• Is there malice?
• Is there qualified or absolute privilege?

It seems to be there is no doubt it harmed the reputation of the Hagamans. And I doubt there is any evidence at all that it is true that there was any wrongdoing or improper influence (unless you believe the father of a Labour MP is part of a conspiracy to raise money for National). So it may come down to qualified privilege and fair opinion.

What would be fascinating if it goes to trial, if if the trustees would be asked to testify, and to hear the testimony of Ross Ardern as to the statement by Little that the process of the board he appoints “stunk to high heaven”