I blogged previously on how Whale Oil won the first ever OMSA decision against a blog.

The complainant appealed the decision and the Appeal Committee has ruled, upholding the original decision.

Good to see self-regulation working well.

A guest post by Victoria Crone:

The waterfront stadium topic is back again and I wanted to share some key points of this with you:

My key priorities as Mayor of Auckland will be to keep your rates as low as possible, get Council back to basics and delivering core services well, and to address our significant transport and housing issues. Given Eden Park received around $300 million of development for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and the Warriors are contracted to Mt Smart Stadium to 2028, the development of a waterfront stadium is simply not a priority right now. 

We need to get this Council delivering good, value for money services to Aucklanders and ensuring on-time, on-budget management of billions of dollars worth of infrastructure investments throughout the region. We still have neighbourhoods such as Rodney and Franklin without footpaths and communities facing further postponements of key local assets. 

Take a look at the Super City Council, it has 11,500 staff, (and those staff costs blew out by $63 million last year), it needs to service 1.5 million residents, with 750,000 more people on the way in the next 30 years. Then there’s an $18.5 billion infrastructure programme over the next 20 years that in too many instances is not funded properly, our housing supply isn’t where it needs to be and traffic congestion has been getting worse. We have a lot of work to get through and we can’t afford to get these crucial services wrong. Most recently the $1.2 billion IT blowout demonstrated a complete failure not just by Council staff accountable but the governors of Auckland. We face significant challenges and I will be channeling my strong business and governance expertise to address the key priorities immediately.

In saying that, Auckland does need fresh thinking to grow a vibrant, world leading city. Our waterfront has great potential that’s why I agree it needs serious attention. My view is that rather than starting with “what can we build here”, (which is an exciting conversation to have), we have to start by looking at what we’ve already got. We have a Port with rapidly growing activities constrained by limited space, and part of this prime land is still a car park. The Port is the biggest occupier of our waterfront. With its projected growth over the next 20-30 years we must consider relocating it as it simply cannot go out into the harbour. We should ultimately return the waterfront to the people of Auckland. This is the long-term strategic leadership that our city needs.

Moving a port is a big task, it demands substantive scoping and due diligence. Other cities around the world, such as Sydney and Seattle, have undertaken port relocations to accommodate growth. It also puts us in a better position to then have that exciting and robust conversation about what the waterfront with more available land could be used for. I’m open-minded about a stadium being part of that conversation amongst the many other things that could be included in our vibrant waterfront development. However, all sporting codes would need to be involved in the discussion and the proposal would have to bear no extra costs to ratepayers. 

As Mayor I will ensure that Auckland reaches its potential by providing strong leadership, fresh thinking and delivering real results.

Vic Crone is a candidate for Mayor of Auckland. Vic has over 20 years’ business experience at the forefront of the IT and communications sectors with Chorus, Telecom (now Spark), and most recently as Managing Director of Xero NZ.

Stuart Nash writes:

Police statistics show 1504 guns were confiscated in 2015-15, almost 500 more than in the previous year.  We need to know what’s behind that.

Police Minister Judith Collins and I are working together to find common ground on what form an inquiry will take and what the terms of reference will be. Labour is also prepared to assist with the implementation of recommendations that may come out of the inquiry.  

The Herald reports:

Fresh off three more primary victories, Donald Trump said he’ll blow off the next Republican presidential debate and warned of “riots” if power-brokers deny him the nomination at the convention even if he’s leading in the delegate count.

The billionaire New York developer, who held a narrow lead in Missouri and lost Ohio on Tuesday (Wednesday NZ time), is faced with the prospect of a floor fight at the party convention in July if he’s leading in delegates but falls short of a majority, 1,237.

“I think we’ll win before getting to the convention, but I can tell you, if we didn’t and if we’re 20 votes short or if we’re 100 short and we’re at 1,100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400 cause we’re way ahead of everybody, I don’t think you can say that we don’t get it automatically,” Trump said on CNN on Wednesday. “I think you’d have riots.”

So trump is threatening the Republican Party with riots if they don’t nominate him, even if he doesn’t get a majority of delegates- as required by their rules.

Trump claimed to have been caught off guard by the next televised debate, set for Monday in Salt Lake City hosted by Fox News. “We’ve had enough debates,” he said on the network Wednesday. “Nobody told me about it and I won’t be there.”

And now refusing debates previously agreed to. He’s scared to go one on one.

If Trump does not have a majority of delegates, it is quite legitimate for Rubio and Kasich delegates to give their second preferences to Cruz over Trump.

Vernon Small sums it up well:

Labour? 

Well, It seems rough to criticise an Opposition, stranded around 30 per cent in the polls, for trying to make a splash. Yet while it wins full marks for backing the battlers and exploiting the bankers’ discomfort, its brain explosions quite simply took it over the edge.

Little is having these brain explosions on a reasonably regular basis now.

The SMH reports:

Former human rights commissioner Tim Wilson has gambled his $400,000 a year job to punt on a career in Canberra, and won pre-selection in the safe Liberal seat of Goldstein.

Mr Wilson beat Georgina Downer, the daughter of former foreign minister Alexander Downer, and local favourite, Denis Dragovic, during pre-selection in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon.

Ms Downer was eliminated after the first round of voting, leaving Mr Wilson and Mr Dragovic.

Mr Wilson won a close head-to-head vote.

Goldstein is one of the jewels in the Victorian crown for the Liberal Party,  centred around the city’s well-heeled Bayside suburbs of Brighton and Sandringham.

Tim used to work at the Institute of Public Affairs thinktank.

He is a fearless defender of classical liberal values, and was a Human Rights Commissioner dedicated to free speech.

Very pleased to see him become an MP, and hopefully in time a Minister.

Stuff reports:

Sir Michael Hill wants only the right kind of tourists in “unique and precious” Arrowtown.

Hill, one of the Wakatipu’s most prominent citizens, believes tourist numbers and development need to be capped to maintain the simplicity of the area.

Capped? If he suggested barbed wire fences around Arrowtown, and security guards only let in so many a day?

“With golf we’re bringing the tourists here that are well-heeled. That tourist spends five times the normal tourist.

“What I’m fearful of in this district is we get too many people, too many tourists. We don’t want any more. We want the quality ones,” he said.

So the security guards will demand tourists show their bank statements before allowing them in?

He urged that the “simplicity” of the region be maintained

“This place is very precious. It could be easily lost.

“If we could put a cap on this place it will be the most amazing place on this planet.”

The cafe worker in Arrowtown who has a job dependent on tourists visiting and buying a coffee may disagree with such elitist views. So might the store owners.

Victoria Carter writes in the NZ Herald:

Last year Auckland Transport announced an international tender for a car-share service. Chairman Lester Levy and the mayor were photographed with electric cars and talked about how they hoped that, as a result of a tender, Auckland might get 300 cars. They haven’t got a single one.

In the fervour to get more electric cars on the road, are we missing the point? Sydney has more than 1000 car-share spaces thanks to its progressive mayor but Go Get, its largest car-share operator, has no electric cars. The electric car won’t reduce traffic, sprawl, road accidents, red light running, parking issues and so on.

Our roads are already crowded. We need more focus on encouraging people to reduce the number of cars we own.

For businesses, using cars by the hour is safer and more economical than paying a staff member to drive their own car or get in a taxi. Keyless technology enables members to book on line and then get into cars through a card reader on cars conveniently located all over city streets and inner suburbs.

The Netherlands understands car- share. As part of its Green Deal, it’s working on getting 16 million people to share 100,000 car-share cars by 2018.

I think car sharing has a big future. It is economically inefficient to own a car which sits unused 95% of the time. But you want to have a car available when you need it for short trips. So we own cars rather than hire them as there is no flexible hire model.

Why bother owning a car for the few trips you might do every week if you can use a car by the hour? Leading cities encourage developers to include car-share and bike infrastructure.

With improved public transport options, cycleways and so on, car-share makes it possible for Aucklanders to own fewer cars. If we want more people living in the city then we need more solutions to discourage car ownership, otherwise congestion will only get worse. The drivers who car-share do us all a favour. Selling their car frees up parking and road space. They tend to bike, bus, train and walk more, which makes them healthier. Studies show they also drive significantly less than when they owned a car.

The trick is not to publish people for owning cars, but to make it easy for car sharing services to prosper.

The Herald reports:

Men’s current options when it comes to contraception are either to use condoms or, for a permanent solution, undergo a vasectomy. There is also a male version of the contraceptive pill due to become available.

But politicians in Sweden have proposed another option involving a swift signature on a piece of paper: Male abortion.

The youth wing of Sweden’s Liberal Party wants expectant fathers to be able to “legally abort” their unborn child up until 18 weeks gestation – the country’s cut off point for physical abortions.

Marcus Nilsen, chairman of the party’s youth wing West (LUF) told the Aftonbladetnewspaper, “Men should have an equal right to opt out of parenting and choose whether or not to become a parent.

“There are endless examples of men who can’t even say whether they want to be involved in parenthood or how involved they want to be. It is important that men remain honest with themselves and their intentions,” says Nilsen.

Male abortion would be a legal decision, allowing unwilling fathers to relinquish parental responsibilities for their unborn child. The decision would render them without future rights to see the child, and alleviate them of providing financial support.

The youth wing claim that their concept of male abortion is a feminist policy that will provide equality for the sexes and allow expectant mothers to know whether their child’s father will support the child or not.

Sounds more like a way for men to escape any responsibility for their actions.

The youth wing has previously proposed radical policies, such as legalising necrophilia and consensual incest. Along with these, their latest proposal has been firmly rejected by the Liberal Party’s central office but has sparked debate in the country.

I can understand the libertarian argument for consensual incest, but not for necrophilia. How can a corpse consent? That’s of course putting aside any other arguments against.

WCC has now started to release details of whom they have secretly been giving money to. It includes:

NZ Cricket – For help in delivering the Cricket World Cup programme in 2015, which resulted in 45,637 international and domestic visitors.

English Premier League – Contribution towards exhibition games at Westpac Stadium in 2014 featuring Newcastle United and West Ham United, which resulted in $6.3 million of economic benefit.

Gillies McIndoe Research Institute – Support to help advance its cancer research and keep it based in Wellington.

NZ Water Ski Racing Association – Support for the World Water SkiRacing Champs in 2015, which was attended by 10,000 people.

Positively Wellington Tourism – Help with the Middle of Middle-earth Costume Trail, which saw Hobbit costumes on display at locations across the city.

Wellington Phoenix – Sponsorship of marketing for the football club’s final game of the 2015 season, which was attended by more than 12,000 people.

I wouldn’t support funding for any of these. Sports competitions should not be dependent on ratepayer funding. And don’t even start me on hobbit costumes around Wellington.

Stuff reports:

Nearly a quarter of homes built for a brand new state housing development in Christchurch have already been contaminated with P less than a year later.

In most cases, the tenants were single mums with small children, including four toddlers under two.

Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett said she found the figures “shockingly high” and the age at which some children were being exposed to P, or meth, was an “extreme concern”.

“Four of them are two years or younger, so wee babies. It’s at a time when they are most susceptible to their environment and they need the healthiest environment they can possibly get. There are some quite serious health effects [from P] with skin and respiratory conditions. And equally you have to question if its a healthy and safe environment. “

It’s not.

Of 19 houses built, two tenants have since been evicted after tests returned positive for P and two more evictions are underway.

And in a few months when they can’t get accommodation, they’ll run to the media who will run heartless government stories.

I hope they are investigated by CYF to ascertain if they are providing a safe upbringing to their kids.

The most recent figures show nearly 400 HNZ properties are uninhabitable as a result of P, and clean ups can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Most are a result of P use, rather than the houses being used as P labs.

So we give them massively subsidised income related rents, so they can spend the extra money on buying P!

In Christchurch alone there were 426 people on the social housing register – the millions of dollars spent on testing and treating P houses could have bought an extra 15 properties.

Just wasted money.

Audrey Young writes:

But Little also exposed his own weakness: thinking aloud.

He shocked almost everyone yesterday when he raised the prospect of Labour legislating for interest rates in government if the banks weren’t as responsive as he thought they should be.

The only person not shocked was Winston Peters who said Labour was pinching his policy.

But tweeting National MP Chris Bishop said it was “heading back to the 70s” and “trashing” Labour’s proud record on monetary policy.

Respected economist Shamubeel Eaqub on Radio NZ described it as “terrifying” and he was made the case for banks building up more capital for possible bad times ahead.

Terrifying is a good word for it.

Maybe Andrew could tell us exactly which interest rates he plans to legislate to set. This page shows there are at least 100 products in the market. Will he decide the rates for all of them or just some of them?

Interesting that when you can now get a mortgage for 5% or less interest, Labour says government legislation is needed. Yet when interest rates were over 10% under Labour, that was fine.

NewstalkZB reports:

One of parliament’s most senior MPs is to attend a global conference for young parliamentarians.

69-year-old Labour deputy leader Annette King joins New Zealand First MP Tracey Martin, National MP Andrew Bayly, and Gareth Hughes on the trip to Zambia later this week.

There they’ll attend a Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians, as well as an assembly of the Inter Parliamentary Union.

This is almost as funny as Winston Peters accusing Andrew Little of dog whistling on immigration.

A 69 year old attending a conference of young parliamentarians!

Anything for a junket!

John Drinnan writes:

MediaWorks’ withdrawal from current affairs and its focus on reality shows has led to the perception that it is being dumbed down.

Chief executive Mark Weldon’s “no dissent” management style and a flood of staff departures have led to criticism in the media, and on the left of the political spectrum.

The commonly advanced view from many of those critics is that the current management is taking TV3 to hell in a handcart.

I have had my own differences with Weldon, but I believe that to a degree, coverage of MediaWorks has been personalised against him.

With an open letter this week from Labour MP Jacinda Ardern, TV3’s shift appears to have become politicised.

Ardern accused Weldon of destroying TV3.

I found the political attack on a private business appalling.

I hate to think of the reaction from the Left if a National politician had attacked another media business for its business plan.

Admittedly, TV3 plays a big part in the culture.

I asked Ardern if it was appropriate for a senior politician to attack the business plan of a private business.

She said she would not have written the letter if she was a Cabinet Minister.

“I am an Opposition MP, and on this occasion chose to use my voice to articulate concerns that I know are shared by many.”

The column attacking Weldon was personal and nasty. Decisions at Mediaworks are not made by one individual. I don’t think Mediaworks is doing well, but you have a board, major shareholders who appoint the board, a CEO and a senior leadership team.

Ardern made it all about Weldon and personalised it. If she says the letter would have been inappropriate as a Minister, then how does it look coming from an aspiring Minister. Think if she became Minister of Broadcasting. It would be an effective demand to Mediaworks that they sack Weldon, or face a Government that will look to punish them.

Stuff reports:

The United Nations human rights investigator called on Monday for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and senior officials to be prosecuted for committing crimes against humanity in the isolated authoritarian country.

North Korea is devoting huge resources to developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction while many of its citizens lack sufficient food, Marzuki Darusman told the UN Human Rights Council at a session boycotted by the delegation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

Darusman, referring to his report issued last month, told the 47-member Geneva forum: “I would like to reiterate my appeal to the international community to move forward to ensure accountability of the senior leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, including that of Mr. Kim Jong Un.” 

There could not be a stronger case for prosecution. North Korea is basically a slave state.

NZIER report:

The latest NZIER Consensus Forecasts shows forecasters have revised up expectations of growth and employment through to 2019. Despite the more favourable growth outlook, expectations for inflation and wage growth have been lowered.

Forecasters have pushed back by around one year expectations of when headline inflation would get back within its 1-3% inflation target band. That said, the consensus is still for headline inflation to edge close to the 2% midpoint target from the second half of 2017.

That’s promising. Stronger growth and low inflation is good.

The UK is introducing a sugar tax:

HOW WILL THE SUGAR LEVY WORK?

Britain’s sugar-levy will begin in 2018 which the government hopes will give manufacturers time to reduce the amount of sugar in their drinks. 

Drinks will more than 8 grams of sugar per 100 millilitres will be taxed at a higher rate than drinks with less than 5 grams of sugar per 100 millilitres. 

“Pure fruit juices” and milkshakes will not be subject to the sugar-levy. 

ISN’T THAT UNFAIR?

Expect the soft-drink industry to argue this point given thickshakes, milkshakes, smoothies and juices can all contain a lot of sugar but won’t be taxed under this measure.

This will raise the Government a lot of money but I guarantee it will not reduce obesity in any way. Calories come from multiple sources, and a tax on a source which in NZ is just 1.5% of average calories consumed will achieve nothing in terms of reducing obesity.

Stuff reports:

Labour is calling for all teacher graduates to be bonded to schools in a similar way to the Teach First programme, which has been ruled unlawful. …

Labour’s education spokesman Chris Hipkins said Teach First has a much larger “on the job” training component and that should be a focus of all teacher training.

On this part I agree.

Hipkins wants to see a “guaranteed placement” for all graduates once they’ve completed their teaching course.

Umm, the days of the Government guaranteeing jobs was another Muldoon era policy.

Why just guaranteed jobs for teachers? Why not nurses, doctors and engineers? Why not everyone?

“Teach First are doing a really good job and they’re turning out high-quality teaching graduates who are in high demand.”

Great to see Hipkins supporting Teach First though.

Former Reserve Bank economist Michael Reddell writes:

But I still have no idea what, if anything, Labour is proposing the government or the Reserve Bank should do to “stiff arm” the banks, to prevent widespread sales.  I’m pretty sure there are no existing legal powers that could appropriately be used for that purpose.  Of course, behind the scenes all sorts of threats and pressures could be brought to bear, but surely that isn’t how we want to country to be run? 

I think most people don’t. It the sort of talk you expect from Australian thuggish unions, not the leader of the opposition.

It seems pretty clear that any dairy debt losses are not likely to be large enough to threaten the health of the financial system –  especially, as this is a slowly developing situation in which banks have plenty of time to bolster their capital buffers if that is required.   And to bailout individual farmers, or the sector as a whole, would represent a material new source of moral hazard –  a message to borrowers that they need not bear the consequences of their bad choices.  That would only increase future demand for debt –  in an industry that seems likely to continue to face considerable output price fluctuations

This is polite talk for it’s a bloody stupid idea.

Stuff reports:

A Christchurch couple say they were shocked to discover the city council was spying on their dogs using a listening device covertly placed in their garden.

The move has astounded Jenny and Tim Bennett and a human rights lawyer, who said the couple’s right to privacy has been breached. 

The Christchurch City Council admitted on Tuesday it used the devices and normally sought permission before installing them.

That did not happen in the Bennetts’ case.

It has now recalled all listening devices until its animal management officers have received refresher training to ensure they followed correct procedure.

This is appalling. To have the Council bugging residents because they own a dog. I’d be horrified at the thought that any conversations I’d had in my garden were being recorded by the local Council.

It’s fine to do it with permission, so you know it is there. But to do it without permission just to record the noise level of a dog is appalling.