Newshub reports:

Today the MediaWorks Board has announced that Mark Weldon has resigned from his position as CEO.

The Board has accepted Mark’s resignation and respects his decision.  

Mark Weldon commented: “I wish to share the news that, last night, I notified the MediaWorks Board of my resignation from my role as CEO.

This is not a huge surprise. There was such obvious internal discontent that it seemed obvious either Weldon would go, or more staff would leave.

Mediaworks staff may find a different CEO won’t result in better outcomes for them. Television and media companies face a very challenging environment and declining revenue.

USA Today reports:

After spending years trying to convince consumers to buy more of their famous-name products, now some of the biggest players in the food industry are trying to get people to eat less of them.

Burgers are shrinking, cookies are becoming thinner and package sizes are getting smaller.

In at least one case, a company is telling customers to cut back on its more indulgent foods. Mars, maker of M&Ms and Uncle Ben’s rice, said earlier this month that it would start labeling some of its products to indicate that they should only be eaten occasionally, due to being higher in sugar, salt or fat.

Mars is the latest company to take this seemingly counterintuitive approach. A look at grocery aisles and restaurant menus shows how prevalent the trend has become toward products with leaner messaging.

Responding to consumer pressure.

Other changes nudge customers to make healthier choices on their own, such as posting calorie counts on menu boards. The Subway sandwich chain became the largest restaurant chain to start posting the health information earlier this month.

Information is better than taxes or regulation. Having calorie counts on menus and boards is probably one of the most effective things you can do to help people make informed choices.

A guest post by Mike Wilkinson:

I’d make a great left winger!

I reckon I’d make a great left winger.  You see, I believe there are lots of issues our Government could do more to help people with.  If only left wingers and their political parties were better at recognising them.  In New Zealand, is the Labour Party bogged down in forever fighting the battles of yesteryear?  Will it be the Green Party that’s the first to embrace a new approach to the issues it fights for?

For parties on the left, there is much to distract them.  Their remaining supporters keep demanding they take more and more extreme positions.  And parties on the right keep eating their lunch: witness National significantly raising benefits for the first time since 1970s or ACT playing to environmental concerns.  

How do left wing parties recover their mojo?  Be more appealing to Kiwi voters is the obvious answer.  However, doing so looks to require a new approach.  Parties of the left wing might need to embrace reforms once derided as neoliberal.  And they might need to think carefully about the policies right wing parties will find it hard to support.

Being on the left

What would it mean for me to say I’m a left-winger?  The term left wing has its roots in the French Revolution.  It referred to the seating in the assembly, the Estates-General: those on the left generally opposed the monarchy and supported the revolution, while those on the right supported the traditional institutions of the French state.  At its simplest, this suggests left wingers want to change the way things are run and right wingers to keep them the same.

So left wingers want change; but why exactly do they want it?  Arnold Kling offers one way of thinking about that with his model, the three “languages” of politics.  These are the three ways people often talk about politics and government, frameworks by which they measure what’s good and what’s bad.  According to Kling, progressives typically express opinions along an axis of “oppressed-oppressor” – things that help the oppressed are good and the oppressor bad.  Conservatives generally use an axis of “civilisation-barbarism”.  He introduces a third axis for libertarians: “freedom-coercion”.

Kling uses this model to suggest that people are drawn to those who use the same axis as themselves for discussing their opinions – a group will be stronger the more who are comfortable with the way it makes its arguments.  Left wingers are regularly seen as being against things like capitalism and free trade.  Am I gonna feel comfortable when left wingers argue the TPPA is somehow oppressing the unemployed?  Hardly.  Yet a simplistic history of left wingers suggests fewer and fewer of them will say such things.

Left wingers in recent history – Organised labour and ‘neoliberal’ reform

The world has changed much since the time of the French Revolution. In the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, organised labour became involved in politics in many countries, doing such things as promoting socialism as an alternative to capitalism.  It gradually established itself as an important focus for left wingers, helped by things like the Great Depression and a moderating of its views to promote a mixed model economy, rather than full socialism.

In the 1970s and 80s, governments around the world started responding to concerns about their excessive size and role in the economy.  Many began extended periods of economic reform, reform by governments on both the left and right wings.  Still, the anti-capitalist roots of some left wingers made it understandable they’d resist market-orientated reform, including things like free trade.  The dislike of such reform was so intense that some left wingers invented a code word to describe it – ‘neoliberalism’.

Yet, is there a future for left wingers who resist reform? In a world of increasing globalisation where nimbleness becomes ever more important, it’s hard to see one.  And the success of New Labour in the UK suggests other routes are available to left wingers.  With the New Zealand Labour Party bogged down and going nowhere, will it be the Green Party that first starts to embrace reforms that were once derided as neoliberal?

What might become of Labour and the role of organised labour in politics?  I’m certainly not brave enough to predict the end of either.  However, with Labour’s Future of Work Commission generating little more than a proposal for a universal benefit, it’s easy to feel doubtful about their future.  When it comes to guiding principles, there might not be much left in the bank.   

Who ya gonna call?  Right wing busters!

Yet, there are already issues affecting NZers that our Government could do more to help.  Can’t find a job in your region, yet can’t move to Auckland because NIMBYs have made housing there too expensive – could there be a more obvious case of oppressors holding back the oppressed?  And don’t get me started on the inequality caused by a substandard public education system.  Although government handouts won’t fix these things. left wingers should be all over them.  I hope they one day will.

So it might gradually become less controversial for me to call myself a left winger.  But why would I choose to do so?  Well, since it currently derives much support from conservatives, people who dislike change, at some point the current Government is going to stop changing.  Following the last election, John Key warned his party about losing touch and becoming arrogant – we can tell it’s only a matter of time, though.  If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who ya gonna call?  Right wing busters!

I acknowledge this guest post is very simplistic.  I’m hardly an expert on left wingers and have no doubt ignored factors very important to their way of thinking.  Also, change happens only slowly, especially when it involves people’s opinions – you don’t suddenly ignore a century of resisting capitalism.  Still, I am by nature an optimist.  Do readers agree with my case for the rejuvenation of left wingers?

Nick Smith released:

Labour’s so-called Healthy Homes Bill is lacking in detail, slow in timing and unworkable in practise, Building and Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith says.

“The surprising flaw in Mr Little’s Bill is that it has a timetable four years slower for insulating rental properties than the Government’s Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill. Mr Little’s Bill provides for 12 months before it comes into effect, six months for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to develop an insulating standard and then five years for compliance.

“Assuming the Bill went through a normal select committee process of six months, this works out at July 2023. The Government requires compliance by July 2019.”

“Mr Little’s Bill is little on detail. It simply requires MBIE to develop an insulation standard but is silent on whether it applies to walls, ceiling or underfloor or to what standard. It is dishonest for Labour to claim it provides a higher insulation standard when no insulation standard is specified in the Bill.

Labour seem to specialise in these cheap shoddy badly drafted bills. They had one bill on adoption that merely said the Law Commission should write the law for them and have the Government introduce it. This bill is barely better, saying MBIE should decide on an insulation standard.

Why with all their taxpayer funded staff members, are they unable to write a coherent bill that actually sets out the specific actions they want, so it can be considered on its merits.

Having just had a house insulated, I know first hand the big difference between ceiling, walls and underfloor. In some places you can’t do all of them.

“This Bill is unworkable in requiring a landlord to maintain all rental property at a specified minimum indoor temperature – although it does not actually state what the temperature is. The temperature in a home is affected not just by design but by how tenants use a property, including using heating devices, pulling curtains and managing ventilation. In attempting to specify indoor temperatures in rental property, Labour is showing it has learnt nothing from its excessive nanny state policies in government.”

That is just nuts. Stating a set temperature by law is a bit like King Canute. We have central heating, but even with that sometimes we can’t get the temperature up to the desired temperature because it is just too damn cold outside.

“This Bill is unworkable in requiring a landlord to maintain all rental property at a specified minimum indoor temperature – although it does not actually state what the temperature is. The temperature in a home is affected not just by design but by how tenants use a property, including using heating devices, pulling curtains and managing ventilation. In attempting to specify indoor temperatures in rental property, Labour is showing it has learnt nothing from its excessive nanny state policies in government.”

As I said, Labour often do this, with bills that are more about platitudes than actual workable policies.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key has signalled New Zealand’s annual refugee quota will be lifted from the current levels of 750.

Speaking at a NZ Institute of International Affairs conference, Mr Key said the three yearly review of the quota was currently underway. That has been at 750 since 1987.

“You ask a fair question, is it enough? We have had that number for a very long period of time. It is quite obvious the world need for host countries of refugees has been accelerated quite rapidly in recent times.”

He said he had not seen any of the work of the review. “But it’s far from impossible New Zealand will lift its annual quota.”

Mr Key said on the basis New Zealand could offer the same or a better level of re-settlement service to those refugees it would be “realistic” to argue for an increase in the quota.

It comes as Labour leader Andrew Little reignited his calls for the quota to be doubled to 1500 a year following his visit to a refugee camp in Jordan.

Labour were in Government for nine years and didn’t lift the annual quota by a single person. Then in the comfort of opposition when they don’t need to actually decide anything, they declare it should be doubled.

However, Mr Key issued two sounds of warning, saying any change would have to leave some leeway for New Zealand to offer one-off emergency intakes, such as last September’s decision to accept 750 Syrian refugees over three years. Of those, 600 were part of an emergency intake outside the quota. The extra intake was expected to cost an extra $49 million over three years in resettlement costs, on top of the $58 million spent on refugee resettlement annually.

Mr Key said it was also important New Zealand had the capacity to properly re-settle those refugees if the quota was lifted.

What I would do is move the quota to what it would be if it had increased by population growth since 1987. That would take it to around 1,100.Further I would peg it to our overall population so every 1% increase in our population sees the quota automatically increase by 1%.

As important as quantity, is quality. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in the UNHCR system. We should choose refugees who have the best chances of integrating into New Zealand – as most refugees already do.

Radio NZ reports:

Three new charter schools have made a good start, according to the Education Review Office.

The reports covered two of the publicly-funded private schools in Auckland, Te Kura Māori o Waatea and Pacific Advance Senior School, and one in Whangarei, Te Kāpehu Whetū -Teina.

The report for Pacific Advance Senior School said it had 105 students in Years 11 and 12 at the start of this year and the school had done a good job of engaging them in their learning.

It said many students started at the school well below achievement expectations for their age level and to get students confident and able to complete Level 1 NCEA qualification was a significant success for the school.

It said 36 students were awarded Level 1 NCEA, which was 57 percent of the student body.

“Most of these students had been out of school for at least half a year prior to coming here. The ongoing challenge for staff is to accelerate formal student achievement.”

Many students at charter schools were failing in other schools, or had failed. Charter schools are not for everyone, but they are doing a good job helping some of the most educationally disadvantaged who are failing in mainstream schools.

Yet Labour and Greens want to close down every charter school and force these students back into the schools where they were failing.

The Herald reports:

Auckland Council has moved on from the politics of the past, say three right-leaning councillors whose voting with Mayor Len Brown has come into question.

Councillors Bill Cashmore, Calum Penrose and Linda Cooper say the council is not the old Auckland City Council of pre-2010, where power was tightly controlled by the majority ticket. …

Mr Cashmore, Mr Penrose and Ms Cooper have consistently voted for the policy platform of Mr Brown, including a 9.9 per cent rates rise this financial year. …

Mr Penrose said if he decides to stand again for council he will stand as an independent. He did not believe signing up to a fiscal envelope.

Aucklanders will have a clear choice.

They can vote for Councillors who have promised not to vote for any rates increase of greater than 2%, or they can vote for Councillors who increased rates by 9.9% last year and if re-elected will no doubt continue to vote for massive increases.

I hope Aucklanders vote for Councillors who are committed to cutting wasteful spending, not increasing it.

Adam Thierer writes:

Permissionless Innovation

Experimentation with new technologies and business models should generally be permitted by default. Unless a compelling case can be made that a new invention will bring serious harm to society, innovation should be allowed to continue unabated, and problems, if they develop at all, can be addressed later.

Precautionary Principle

This is the belief that innovations should be curtailed or disallowed until their developers can demonstrate that they will not cause any harms to individuals, groups, specific entities, cultural norms, or various existing laws, norms, or traditions. The tension between these approaches dominates almost all modern technology policy debates.

The NZ I want is one that allows innovation without permission.

A good 10 point checklist is provided for policy makers:

1. Articulate and defend permissionless innovation as the general policy default.
2. Identify and remove barriers to entry and innovation.
3. Protect freedom of speech and expression.
4. Retain and expand immunities for intermediaries from liability associated with third-party uses.
5. Rely on existing legal solutions and the common law to solve problems.
6. Wait for insurance markets and competitive responses to develop.
7. Push for industry self-regulation and best practices.
8. Promote education and empowerment solutions, and be patient as social norms evolve to solve challenges.
9. Adopt targeted, limited legal measures for truly hard problems.
10. Evaluate and reevaluate policy decisions to ensure they pass a strict benefit-cost analysis.

Let’s have the Productivity Commission evaluate our current laws and policies against this checklist.

The only way as a country we get richer is with innovation.

The order paper is here.

Oral Questions 2.00 pm – 3.00 pm

1. JAMES SHAW to the Prime Minister: On what dates did he discuss with the Minister of Revenue his conversation with Ken Whitney on foreign trusts, and what specifically did he say to the Minister?
2. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement on 11 November 2015 regarding Silver Fern Farms, “The parties to the deal have every incentive to ensure that it is a good deal, and actually, every incentive to ensure that it is lawful”?
3. ANDREW LITTLE to the Prime Minister: Why, on 13 April, when he told reporters that he had been approached by someone in the foreign trusts industry who was concerned that the rules for trusts were about to be tightened, did he not reveal that person was his personal lawyer?
4. SCOTT SIMPSON to the Minister of Finance: What reports has he received indicating continuing economic growth in 2016, low inflation for New Zealand households, and increased business activity?
5. ANDREW LITTLE to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that we are “on the cusp of something special” given the median Auckland house price has risen by $100,000 since January?
6. Dr JIAN YANG to the Minister for Primary Industries: What reports has he received on growth in horticulture exports?
7. GRANT ROBERTSON to the Minister of Revenue: Why was the review of foreign trusts proposed by IRD in 2014 not undertaken?
8. DENIS O’ROURKE to the Minister of Transport: Is the Government committed in the long term to a sustainable railway network for New Zealand?
9. Dr PARMJEET PARMAR to the Minister of Transport: What steps has the Government made on strengthening New Zealand’s air links with India?
10. GARETH HUGHES to the Minister of Energy and Resources: Does he stand by his statement that Genesis Energy’s decision to stop burning coal at Huntly is “a sign of the times and reflects the growth of New Zealand’s world-leading renewable energy industry”?
11. JACQUI DEAN to the Minister of Justice: What recent announcements has she made on the social investment approach to Justice?
12. JACINDA ARDERN to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in the Minister of Building and Housing in light of the Commissioner for Children’s criticism that the Government’s Bill on rental standards “will do little for children living in cold, damp, mouldy housing”?

National: Four questions on the economy, horticulture, air linsk with India and social investment

Labour: Four questions on foreign trusts x 2, Auckland house prices, and rental properties

Greens: Two questions on foreign trusts and coal

NZ First: Two questions on Silver Fern Farms and rail

Government Bills 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm and 7.30 pm to 10.00 pm

Appropriation (2014/15 Confirmation and Validation) Bill – committee stage

This bill confirms and validates unappropriated expenses and capital expenditure incurred for the 2014/15 financial year.

• Introduced: December 2015
• 1st reading: March 2016, passed 63 to 58 with Labour, Greens and NZ First opposed
• 2nd reading: March 2016, passed 63 to 58 with Labour, Greens and NZ First opposed

This bill has a 10 hour debate consisting of up to two hours on the Government’s financial statements for 2014/15 and the remainder of the time on 10 sector debates. There are four and a half hours remaining.

Taxation (Residential Land Withholding Tax, GST on Online Services, and Student Loans) Bill – third reading

This bill allows sharing of information between the Inland Revenue Department and the Australian Taxation Office in relation to New Zealand student loan borrowers residing in Australia; proposes a new residential land withholding tax to act as a collection mechanism for the bright-line test; and provides for the collection of GST on cross-border services and intangibles, including internet downloads and online services.

• Introduced: November 2015
• 1st reading: December 2015, passed 109 to 12, NZ First opposed
• SC report: March 2016, supported unanimously with amendments
• 2nd reading: March 2016, passed 108 to 12 with NZ First opposed
• Committee of the whole House: March 2016,

The third reading consist of 12 speeches of up to 10 minutes each, for a maximum debate of two hours.

Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill – third reading continued

The bill proposes amendments to the Building Act 2004 to improve the system for managing earthquake-prone buildings.

• Introduced: December 2013
• 1st reading: March 2014, passed 106 to 14 with Greens opposed
• Select Committee report: September 2015, supported unanimously with amendments
• 2nd reading: March 2016, passed 120 to 1 with ACT opposed

The third reading consist of 12 speeches of up to 10 minutes each, for a maximum debate of two hours. There are 11 speeches remaining.

John Key has announced:

Prime Minister John Key has today announced the appointment of Peter Hughes CNZM as the next State Services Commissioner and Head of State Services.

Mr Hughes has been appointed for a five year term starting on 4 July 2016.

“I am very pleased to appoint Peter Hughes as the next State Services Commissioner and Head of State Services,” says Mr Key.

“Peter has dedicated his working life to the public service and is one of New Zealand’s most experienced and respected Public Service Chief Executives.

This is a very good appointment. Hughes is arguably the most capable chief executive in the public sector since Dame Margaret Bazley. He did a very good job running the Ministry of Social Development, and then after a brief stint at Victoria University returned to head up the Ministry of Education.

Stakeholders (including unions) say he has made a huge difference at the Ministry, as they have got far better at working with the sector and supporting the Minister.

The SSC is not seen as hugely effective at the moment. I’m one of those who has advocated that it might be better to have abolished it, and transferred its functions to DPMC. The appointment of Hughes is the best opportunity it has to regain the high respect it used to have as one of the three central co-ordinating agencies.

The only downside with the appointment of Hughes, is he will be very hard to replace in Education.

Lachlan Forsyth at Newshub reports:

I’m a poorly researched schill who’s been brainwashed by Big Pharma, apparently.

I shouldn’t be surprised. My story addressing commonly held myths about the flu jab brought the anti-vaxxers out in force.

• “In the pocket of big Pharma.”
• “One-sided hatchet job.”
• “One lemon drink in hot water every morning will keep the flu at bay.”
• “Seventy percent of cot deaths happen within 10 days of a vaccine.” (This is the sort of vile comment that infuriates me. Not only is this completely and utterly false, it’s incredibly dangerous.)
• “Why didn’t you do your research?”

Hang on, why do the anti-vaxxers assume I haven’t done my research?

I have. I just choose to listen to the scientists, doctors and researchers, rather than the cranks, frauds and nut-jobs.

Well said.

It’s the same rationale that says if you’re building a bridge, you listen to engineers; if you’re getting a wisdom tooth extracted, you go to a dentist; if you’re having a WOF done, it’s better to ask a mechanic than your neighbour Phil who once electrocuted himself by chewing on a car battery.

Why do people think that a bit of googling and reading on the internet is an adequate replacement for years of professional study and research?

Doing your own research is a good thing. But if you only are looking for research that supports your beliefs, and will ignore all other research, then it is less of a good thing.

Bernard Hickey writes:

The benefits of a 1 per cent land tax on that engorged base of land values shouldn’t be sneezed at either. It would generate $6.7 billion of tax revenues that would allow either income taxes to be cut across the board or for the GST rate to be cut back to 10 per cent.

Key could engineer a massive new tax cut switch that would help address the housing affordability crisis and reset the incentives for business investment in one swoop.

This is key. A land tax that increases overall tax revenue for the Government should be resisted. A land tax which allows other taxes to be cut (especially income taxes) is a different proposition.

A 1% land tax would allow the top tax rate to go from 33% to 27%, the third rate from 30% to 24%, the second rate from 17.5% to 12% and the bottom rate from 10.5% to 5%.

The politics of it would be awkward, but not insurmountable. It would be progressive tax (ie, it hurts more as wealth levels rise) that falls more heavily on some more than others, in particular richer and older people, and especially those on New Zealand Superannuation.

However superannuation is calculated on average after tax income, so they would get a big boost.

The benefits are obvious. It would finally send the right signals to investors, that capital gains are not completely tax free, that more productive and intensive use of land makes sense, that land banking does not make sense, and that investing in equipment, research and development would be as sensible as gearing up to buy land.

Most taxes reduce whatever is taxed – income taxes reduce labour, capital taxes reduce investment, consumption taxes reduce consumption. A land tax can’t reduce land – instead it incentivises better economic use of land.

John Roughan writes:

Why else, the campaigners ask, would rational people fail to do everything in their power to improve public health?

Well, I can think of a reason but I’m running a risk in advancing it, because health campaigners are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause they can only conclude that anybody who questions it also has a vested interest. I’m constantly surprised how quickly these people, who must be good-natured, public-spirited, socially responsible and intellectually stimulated, play the man, not the ball.

The first thing they do when challenged is to call into question the challenger’s motive. If the person works for a think tank that is privately funded it will almost certainly have the relevant industry among its sponsors. Expose that and health professions see no need to address the argument. Their own reliance on grants awarded for research that tends to reinforce an institutional view is, in their view, not the same thing.

You see this constantly playing the man, not the ball. They are very bad at being able to debate ideas on their merits, and resort to personal attacks on motives.

The reason governments don’t regulate and tax these vices to near extinction, I’d suggest, is that while health is important, it’s not all important. Other things are important too, such as the integrity of the tax system. Health professionals may be aghast at that suggestion but tax principles are socially important.

We have a simple, fairly comprehensive tax on consumption that should not be made more variable, complicated and compromised without very good reason. Discouraging sales of fizzy drink or hamburgers is not, to my mind, sufficient reason.

The soda tax idea is a great example. Would massively complicate the tax system, and would have a near zero impact on obesity as calories from sugary non alcoholic drinks make up a minuscule 1.8% of average daily calories.

“At some point, some person or persons must decide who gets what. Political mechanisms, bureaus and bureaucrats, follow their own ends just as surely as individual entrepreneurs follow theirs.”

– David Friedman

The quote of the week is brought to you by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. To support the Union’s campaign for lower taxes and less government waste, click here.

The Listener writes:

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

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

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

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

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

This is sadly very necessary.

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

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

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

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

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

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

They are again their most important reforms.

The Herald reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also an idea well worth looking at.

Peter Dunne has announced:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Herald reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Guardian reports:

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

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

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

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