Stuff reports:

Laws to limit how many dairies are allowed in one area are “over the top”.

In the fight against obesity, the Auckland Regional Public Health Service have put together a proposal to limit the amount of dairies in one area, as well as banning the sale of junk food to children.

So good bye to the corner dairy.

I there no end to the social meddling these taxpayer funded activists will propose?

He said there are about 3,900 dairies in New Zealand, and they provide thousands of jobs for their communities, including families working in the dairy as well as distributors who deliver to the dairies.

Dairies don’t just sell junk food, they sell newspapers, they sell bread, they sell fruit and vegetables, he said.

Labour health spokesperson, Annette King, agreed with Patel, saying that she thought the idea was “over the top”.

It would be “incredibly hard to police and I think we would get a backlash from the public,” she said.

While she admitted high sugar intake is a big issue for New Zealand, restricting dairies would not be the right approach.

Great to see some common sense from Labour.

King said an educative approach within the community was the best idea, where dairies and schools can work together to ensure healthy food is consumed.

“I don’t think restricting dairies would be the right approach. Why don’t we restrict supermarkets as well?”

I’m sure that is next on their agenda!

Stuff reports:

Michael October’s murder and rape conviction could be the first case challenged by a high-powered team formed to investigate suspected miscarriages of justice in New Zealand.

Charitable trust The New Zealand Public Interest Project (NZPIP) will launch on June 1. Its panel will investigate potential injustices.

The conviction of Michael October, who spent 11 years in jail for the 1994 rape and murder of 22-year-old Christchurch woman Anne-Maree Ellens, is among four high-profile criminal cases in its sights. Civil proceedings of public interest, including test cases and class action, could be considered.

The voluntary board consists of sociologist and University of Canterbury (UC) lecturer Jarrod Gilbert, UC dean of law Chris Gallavin, private investigator Tim McKinnel, lawyers Nigel Hampton QC and and Kerry Cook, forensic scientist Anna Sandiford, legal expert Duncan Webb, and founder of investigation firm Zavest Glynn Rigby.

Gilbert said countries including England and Scotland had independent criminal cases review commissions that pursued potential miscarriages. While these organisations were created and funded by Acts of Parliament, successive New Zealand governments refused to establish a similar body.

I’d like to see such a body in New Zealand. We generally have a very good justice system, but beyond doubt there are cases (think Peter Ellis) where innocent people get convicted. In the US there is no doubt a number of innocent people have been executed, as DNA evidence allows us to look at old evidence with new ability.

In the absence of a government body, its a good thing to have a group of people volunteer their time to investigate cases where they think there may have been a miscarriage of justice. It doesn’t mean they’ll be right, but new evidence can come to light (think Amanda Banks).

I’m not sure Mr October is a great initial case for them. While he claims his initial conviction for murder and rape is due to a wrong confession (think Teina Pora), he also did some very serious offending in 2011 of which there is no dispute:

Fifteen years after his conviction for the schoolyard rape and murder of a Christchurch woman, Michael Wayne October has been jailed for 21 months for strangling and threatening to kill his girlfriend.

October, who now goes by the name Mikaere Oketopa, told his girlfriend during the July 30 incident at his home: “This is the last night you will have air in your lungs.”

He also told her: “Too bad your son’s not going to have a mother.”

Oketopa stopped the attack when she told him she loved him and let her body go limp.

She said later she believed she was going to be killed.

Of course this doesn’t mean he was guilty of the 1994 murder.

2014 Labour Leader: I’m sorry for being a man

2015 Labour Leader: “I’m quite happy with my gender.”

I’m wondering what the 2016 Labour Leader will say!

In 2013 Lynton Crosby talked to a dozen young people on how to be a good political campaigner. If you want to learn from one of the best, then spend an hour watching the video.

Lynton ran successful campaigns for John Howard in 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2004, for Boris Johnson in 2008 and 2012 and David Cameron in 2015.

News.com.au reports:

INDONESIA will stop sending maids to 21 Middle Eastern countries, after the recent execution of two Indonesian women in Saudi Arabia angered Jakarta.

Indonesia’s anger at the executions of its citizens abroad comes despite the fact that Jakarta last week executed seven foreign drug convicts, including AustraliansMyuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, drawing a storm of international protest.

Jakarta, which has long complained about the treatment of Indonesian maids in the Middle East, had already placed a moratorium on sending new helpers to Saudi Arabia in 2011 following the beheading of a worker.

Maybe Indonesia would be a higher moral ground to complain about executions of their citizens in Saudi Arabia, if they didn’t execute people themselves.

Dhakiri cited the execution of Indonesian domestic workers Siti Zainab and Karni binti Medi Tarsim, who were both put to death for murder in April.

I don’t support the death penalty for any country for any crime, but I have to say it seems more justified for murder than drug trafficking.

Some interesting submissions to the 2014 general election inquiry.

Conservatives

• Against prohibition on parties purchasing broadcasting advertising
• Makes a case that Electoral Commission did not allocate broadcasting funds appropriately

Labour

• Proposes cutting off welfare to people who don’t enrol
• Wants enrolment on election day itself
• People should be able to enrol on the Maori roll even if they do not indicate they are of Maori descent!
• Wants the broadcasting allocation extended to all mediums (ie a general allowance for advertising)
• Scrap TV opening and closing broadcasts

National

• Supports restrictions on campaigning at polling places during advance voting
• Look at changing boundary reviews from every five years (post census) to every six years (the year after every second election)
• Increase electorate population tolerance from 5%

Stuff reports:

Smoking a cigarette while enjoying a beer outside one of Wellington’s waterfront bars could soon become a thing of the past.

A proposal to make the waterfront and Civic Square smokefree will be brought before Wellington City Council on Wednesday night, after the Public Health Association called on the council to show leadership on the matter.

If successful, the smoking ban could be in place by the end of the year.

But the owner of waterfront bar St Johns has condemned the move as discriminatory against smokers and businesses, and says if smoking is to be banned in one place, it should be banned everywhere.

Will it reduce smoking, or will it just mean smokers go to other bars?

The ban on smoking inside bars worked because it applied to every bar, and the justification was that staff and other patrons were being exposed to second hand smoke. I love the fact that I can now go to a bar and not be exposed to smoke. But this isn’t about protecting people from passive smoking.

But Trinity Group director Jeremy Smith, whose businesses include St Johns, called the move  “crazy” and “discriminatory”.

Smoke was not a problem on the waterfront, as outdoor areas were large and smoke was swiftly blown away. It was unfair to drive away people who chose to partake in a legal activity, he said.

I agree with Jeremy Smith. There are some bars whose outdoor areas are unpleasant as they are largely enclosed, and stink of smoke. But waterfront bars do not have that issue – I’ve never ever been affected by smoke in the outdoor areas of waterfront bars – because they are so open and large.

If a ban was to be introduced, it should be city-wide. “It’s just another nail in the bar/restaurant coffin in terms of driving people away from areas where they can socialise.”

It is unfair to have it apply to only those bars.

Asked what the impact on smokers at waterfront bars would be, Lester said: “They won’t be able to smoke.

“It’s a benefit, it’s a privilege, to operate a business down there … I don’t think it’s a big ask.”

A privilege? Don’t they pay rents and rates? Isn’t being able to operate a business a right, not a privilege someone gives you?

The Press editorial:

The suggestion that Christchurch residents support  more councillors is rather surprising.  There has been no hint of it in public debate recently. The last time the number of councillors was reviewed six years ago there was no hint of dissatisfaction with the council’s size and that review passed virtually unnoticed. …

There is no doubt that the governance decisions councillors must make in the rebuild are of fundamental importance and require close attention. But councillors are well paid for their work and it is far from clear that increasing the numbers will improve the decision making. Indeed, studies on board governance suggest that the council is somewhere near an optimum level for efficiency and performance. To take an obvious if not quite exact parallel, the boards of giant companies making billion-dollar decisions are rarely much larger.

 Any suggestion of a council increase will have to go to public consultation. Ratepayers are unlikely to support it. What they want is sound and efficient decision-making, not a handful more decision-makers.

The Council struggles to make sound decisions with 13 Councillors. Going to 19 will only make the problem worse.

The order paper is here.

Oral Questions 2.00 pm – 3.00 pm

1. CHRIS BISHOP to the Minister of Finance: How will Budget 2015 progress the Government’s commitment to manage the Government’s finances, while delivering better public services?
2. ANDREW LITTLE to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that there is no housing crisis in Auckland in light of the fact the average Auckland house price has risen by $100,000 in the past year and the Reserve Bank says this is “increasing the risk of financial instability”?
3. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?
4. GRANT ROBERTSON to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by his statement that “we believe the strong underlying economy and responsible fiscal management can deliver a surplus when the final Government accounts are published next October”?
5. SARAH DOWIE to the Minister for ACC: What indicative reductions to ACC levies are signalled in Budget 2015?
6. METIRIA TUREI to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?
7. Hon ANNETTE KING to the Minister for Social Development:How much in real terms has Government funding for Relationships Aotearoa changed since 2008?
8. JONO NAYLOR to the Minister for Economic Development: What progress is the Government making in developing New Zealand’s ICT sector?
9. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN to the Minister for Climate Change Issues: What is the range of potential costs to the Government resulting from New Zealand’s current forecast for increasing net greenhouse gas emissions for the period 2021-2030, as reported in the Treasury’s climate change briefing dated 6 October 2014?
10. BRETT HUDSON to the Minister for Building and Housing: What changes is the Government proposing to ensure New Zealand is more resilient to the significant risks we face from earthquakes?
11. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?
12. JACINDA ARDERN to the Minister for Social Development: Does she stand by her statement that “it’s a priority for this term of Government that all New Zealanders benefit from the growing economy with a focus on children who are living in hardship”?

National: Four patsies on Budget 2015, ACC levies, ICT and earthquakes

Labour: Four questions on Auckland housing, surplus, Relationships Aotearoa and child poverty

Greens: Two questions on Pm standing by his statements and climate change

NZ First: Two questions, both being does the PM stand by all his statements

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

Environmental Reporting Bill – second reading continued

The bill provides for independent environmental reports in the areas of air, climate and atmosphere, freshwater, marine and land.

• Introduced February 2014
• 1st reading: March 2014, passed 78 to 41 with Labour and NZ First opposed
• Select Committee report: March 2015, supported with amendments by the majority, minority views by Labour and Greens

The second reading debate has 4 speeches remaining of up to 10 minutes, so a maximum debate of 40 minutes.

Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill – second reading

The bill makes a number of changes to the status of parcels of land, land titles, and previous Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Acts.

• Introduced: July 2008
• 1st reading: March 2009, passed 113 to 9 with only Greens opposed
• Select Committee report: September 2009, supported unanimously with amendments

The second reading debate has 12 speeches of up to 10 minutes, so a maximum debate of two hours.

Standards and Accreditation Bill – second reading

The bill amends and consolidates the law relating to standards and conformity assessment bodies “to ensure the New Zealand Standards and conformance system is viable, well-functioning, and meets the needs of business, regulators, and consumers into the foreseeable future.”

• Introduced: July 2014
• 1st reading: November 2014, passed unanimously
• SC report: March 2015, supported with amendments with a minority report from Labour

Radio New Zealand Amendment Bill – second reading

The bill amends the Radio New Zealand Act 1995 to implement a new Radio New Zealand Charter

• Introduced: June 2009
• 1st reading: June 2009, passed unanimously
• SC report: December 2009, supported without amendments with a minority report from Labour

The Herald reports:

The case against John Banks has been thrown out and he will not face a second trial for allegedly filing a false electoral return.

The Court of Appeal has sensationally reversed its previous decision to order a retrial following the late disclosure of a document, which Mr Banks’ lawyer David Jones QC said “contradicts all evidence given at trial” by the Dotcom witnesses and made the prosecution “untenable”.

In a judgment just released by the Court of Appeal, Justices Ellen France, Forrest Miller and John Wild ruled that Mr Banks should not stand trial again and he was acquitted.

Extremely pleased for John Banks, and huge questions to answer for Crown Law whom with-held critical evidence from the defence team, and hence the Court of Appeal.

The trial largely hinged on the credibility of who was right about a contentious lunch at the Dotcom mansion. Banks was convicted but his wife Amanda later unearthed new witnesses who corroborated their version of events, so the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial. However, in response to the evidence of the new witnesses, Dotcom said there was now two lunches – but this was not disclosed ahead of the appeal hearing.

Well done Amanda Banks for exposing the Dotcom evidence as false.

It is worth noting that while John Banks has been acquitted, his behaviour with the donations was not best practice. He should have shown more interest in the documents he was signing. But there is a difference between poor practice and breaking the law, and he has been acquitted.

UPDATE: The Herald now has the judgment. Extracts:

This court possesses an implied jurisdiction to recall judgments delivered in its criminal jurisdiction, where it must act to prevent a miscarriage of justice that has resulted from some serious error or process. This jurisdiction is reserved for exceptional cases.

What they have done is very rare.

We hold rather that the Crown could not both withhold the memorandum and resist the appeal in the manner that it did. The effect was to mislead the court.

Ouch. Bad Crown Law.

We are satisfied that had we known of the Butler memorandum, we would not have ordered a retrial.

I presume John Banks will now seek costs against the Crown.

The Greens announced:

The Green Party will deliver Kiwi kids a more financially secure future, while reducing inequality, by introducing a national savings scheme for all New Zealand children.

The Green Party announced a pre-Budget savings policy today, called Kids’ KiwiSaver, which will provide all newborns a kick-start deposit of $1,000, on-going top-up contributions, and matching savings incentives to assist families to save for their children’s future.

With careful saving, most children could reasonably build a nest egg of $12,900 by the age of 18 that they can then use for either tertiary education, a deposit on a first home, or roll over into an adult KiwiSaver account for their retirement. The scheme was fully costed by Infometrics and will cost $224 million over the first three years of operation.

The initial cost is not what is important, but the full annual cost once implemented. This is $248 million a year. That has to be funded, which means increasing taxation, or not spending the money elsewhere.

Is giving 18 year olds a “free” $13,000 they haven’t earned the best use of taxpayer money?

The full benefits of this policy would only be reached in 2037, during which time $1.4 billion net present value would have been spent. Would we get a better return investing that instead in better schools?

Stuff reports:

Farmers seeking staff for the new milking season risk being named and shamed on social media if the money being offered in their job advertisement  is below the minimum wage.

Outgoing Waikato Federated farmers dairy chairman Craig Littin revealed that trade unions were picking apart farm jobs placed on Fonterra’s Farm Source website.

Littin told farmers at the group’s annual meeting that unions were doing simple calculations around listed salary, hours worked and days off and posting them on social media.

“It’s painting our industry in a really bad light,” he said.

He urged farmers to take into consideration the total job package and think really hard about how the advertisement was perceived. He reminded the farmers to keep accurate time and wage records to ensure staff never fall under the minimum wage.

Littin said it was too easy for Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly to look online at the vacancies and then post any ads that were offering poor or illegal wages on her Twitter account.

Kelly was unapologetic with her stance. Most of the jobs on Farm Source were without remuneration but those that put detail of the jobs in were often paying below the minimum wage for the number of hours worked.

“There are heaps of jobs on there with hours that were far too dangerous and too long,” Kelly said.

These included jobs where workers were expected to work up to 80 hours a week, which Kelly called “crazy”.

“Some of them are paying $11-12 an hour and all I do is tweet them.”

That’s quite smart work by the CTU. A few tweets, and you’re having an impact.

No employer should be advertising jobs for a pay rate below the minimum wage.

However important to note that sometimes a job will come with accommodation, and that is factored into the pay, which may mean the gross rate is higher than that advertised.

Waikato Federated Farmers provincial president Chris Lewis said it was hard to disagree with some of Kelly’s claims made on social media, particularly when some of the ads looking for a manager were only paying $18 an hour.

“If you employ a manager at $18 an hour, don’t whinge to the Feds about the performance. A good manager should be getting $30 an hour.”

Yep.  Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

Brian Easton writes at Pundit:

You may have been surprised at the outcome of the recent British elections, but New Zealand’s experience shows you should not have been surprised that you were surprised …

In about one in three elections under FR/FPP outcomes were markedly eccentric (space has meant leaving out some of the nuances) where parliamentary outcomes did not reflect voters’ wishes (even ignoring the Non-Vote Party). The effect was especially strong when there was a significant third party support reflecting that the populace’s opinions could no longer be treated as simply being on a left-right spectrum.

The surprise then is not that New Zealand switched to an alternative voting system but that it took so long to do so.

The May 2015 British election underscores the same lesson. Labour’s share of votes rose 1.5 percentage points, more than the Conservative’s 0.8 percent;, but it lost 26 seats while the Conservatives gained 24. At the specific level one can explain this by the complexity of the other third of voters switching between a multitude of minor parties. Conservatives got 36.9 percent of the vote, Labour 30.4 percent.*

As I watched the run-up to the election I wondered how anyone could predict the election outcome with confidence. I was not surprised the outcome was surprising.

Brian is right that FPP elections are difficult to forecast in terms of outcomes. However apart from the uneven seat allocations, the polls did still get it wrong by saying Labour and Conservatives were neck and neck when in fact the Conservatives got 6.5% more.

The Daily Mail reports:

When Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn split over a week ago, the Olympic skiier posted on Facebook the explanation that ‘both lead incredibly hectic lives that force us to spend a majority of our time apart.’

Daily Mail Online can now exclusively reveal that during one of those ‘times apart’ Tiger cheated on Lindsey – with a ‘faceless, nameless woman’, a friend reveals.

Who is surprised? He cheated on his wife with over a dozen women. His 45 day therapy programme doesn’t seem to done the job!

But the news does remind me of this interview John Key did in 2008:

OH: Who are your heroes and role models?

JK: Bill Clinton and Tiger Woods.

Heh, with hindsight perhaps not the best two choices. Of course he was referring to their success in the two areas he is passionate about – politics and golf.

“Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance.”

– John F. Kennedy

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.

Grant Robertson has exclaimed:

The National Government has big questions to answer about how a provider of services to thousands of vulnerable New Zealanders is set to fold, Labour’s Finance spokesperson Grant Robertson says.

Relationships Aotearoa which provides support and counselling to families, individuals and survivors of domestic violence is set to shut its doors, minus any last minute intervention.

“There are thousands of vulnerable people and families who rely on Relationships Aotearoa for critical services. The government cannot leave them in the lurch.

“Like other non-governmental organisations, Relationships Aotearoa has been seriously underfunded in recent years. It has been asked to do more with less and the strain has clearly started to tell.

This is typical Labour. If an NGO has financial issues, then the answer is the taxpayer must throw more money at them. In the same breath they expect us to believe they would ever have lowered the deficit.

Let’s take a look at the latest accounts for this NGO:

• Income of $9.8 million – mainly from the Government
• Expenditure of $10.3 million
• Central expenditure has doubled in one year from $984k to $1,957k
• Equity of $1.5 million
• Cash in bank of $3 million
• Central salaries doubled from $551k to $1,065k

So the obvious conclusion from all this is it is all the fault of the Government – yeah right.

Does Labour ever find an issue, where the answer isn’t tax people more and spend more.

PRIME TV’s “BACK BENCHES” IS BACK!!!!!: Watch Wallace Chapman, Damian Christie, the Back Benches Panel and special guests discuss the week’s hottest topics!

BUDGET 2015:  Budget Day is nearly here. As always-there are winners and losers in the yearly lolly scramble. But if the budget was strictly up to you-what would be on your wish list?

A HOUSE & A QUARTER ACRE:  The kiwi dream-a house on a quarter acre. It is quickly becoming a daydream for many, particularly for those in Auckland? What can we do to make this dream a reality? Is it a Capital Gains Tax full stop or a tax targeting house flippers? Is it regional development? Is the solution to move to Tauranga or Timaru? Is buying a house-the end all be all? Should we be renters instead?

There are two ways to get in on the political pub action:
First, you can join the live audience in Wellington’s iconic Backbencher Pub on Wednesday, 20th of May at 6pm. Filming begins around6:15pm.

Or watch us that night on PRIME TV at 10:40pm!
http://www.primetv.co.nz/

Plus, Follow us on Facebook (BackBenchesTV) or on Twitter @BackBenchesTV.

Our Panel: Green Party Co-Leader Metiria Turei, Labour MP Stuart Nash, National MP Judith Collins, and United Future Leader Peter Dunne.

” This show is shaping up to be essential election year viewing ” – Paul Casserly, NZ Herald 3/6/14

Oliver Hartwich from the NZ Initiative writes:

One of the greatest advances of civilisation is also one of the least obvious: branded products.

We take brands for granted because they are everywhere. People do not just drive any car but a Holden, a Ford or a Ferrari. For fast food lovers, there is a world of difference between McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King. Fashion aficionados care about labels as much as techies do about smartphone brands.

The reason we care about brands is because they provide orientation in markets. People trading with each other have spontaneously found out how useful brands are in this process.

Part of the usefulness of brands is that they signal a certain quality. They become worthless if their products do not deliver. As they say in marketing, “nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising”.

For companies, a brand is not just nice to have, but one of their biggest assets. Brands take a long time to build because they contain everything that consumers associate with a product. This is why Apple’s brand, for example, is now estimated to be worth $US118.9bn.

In a world of complex markets with millions of buyers, sellers and products, brands provide orientation. This is what brands contribute to civilisation. Imagine a world without them and how much more difficult it would be to navigate.

Unfortunately, this dystopian vision is where we are heading. When plain-packaging rules for tobacco products were introduced, the justification was to promote health goals. Fair enough, but these could have been achieved in different ways as well. The negative side effect of plain-packaging, however, was the precedent it set for other product classes.

In Australia, packaging and labelling limitations on pharmaceuticals are being discussed. If implemented, logos for pharmaceuticals would disappear, making it harder for consumers to pick their preferred painkillers. Meanwhile, confectionary producer Mars has voiced its fear that soon Mars, Snickers and Twix could meet the same fate. Who knows what will be next?

The International Trademark Association has expressed its concerns over the increasing reach of plain packaging rules for different classes of products. They rightly see them as an interference with property rights and warn of the detrimental effects on competition.

I would go beyond that. By limiting companies’ ability to brand their products, we are taking a backwards step on civilisation.

This is one of the best summaries I’ve seen of the dangers of having plain packaging as a precedent. You can be in favour of increased tobacco control measures, but against plain packaging due to the very bad precedent it sets.

I would support plain packaging for tobacco if it could be proven to work and guaranteed it would not create a precedent for other industries. But we know it will. Almost every tobacco control measure has now been endorsed or promoted for other industries such as alcohol, food, soft drinks, pharmaceuticals etc etc.

Anne Tolley has released the latest report on the welfare system. Lots of good news:

• 38,000 fewer people on welfare than three years ago
• 42,000 fewer children in benefit dependent households over three years
• A halving of young mothers on welfare since 2009
• The average time a teen parent spends on welfare has reduced from 19 years to 17.5 years
• Total long-term liability has dropped $7.5 billion or 10%
• A reduction in total time on main benefits by 1.2 years for sole parents and 2.8 years for youth beneficiaries

The key is reducing the teenagers going onto welfare, as history shows us they then tend to spend most of their working life on welfare.

It is not often I refer people to a really good article on The Standard, let alone one by a Labour candidate, but Deborah Russell has done an easy to read analysis of the Government’s tax changes around property.

She doesn’t say whether it is a good or a bad thing – just calmly explains what the change is, how it will work, what impact it is likely to have, and whether or not it can be regarded as a capital gains tax.

One extract:

So what difference will it make? Very little in terms of tax revenue. I imagine that most property speculators will simply elect to hold onto their properties for at least 731 days, thereby avoiding paying tax on their capital gains. The real effect will be to slow down the property market in Auckland, and elsewhere. It will knock the top edge off the market, winding it back just a little bit. Together with the Reserve Bank’s new rules about the deposits that Auckland property buyers must have, the heat may be taken out of the property market. There will still be pressure due to inwards migration, but frantic speculation in property should calm down.

So why use a tax measure at all, if it’s not going to raise any revenue? And heaven knows that the government must be looking for every possible tax dollar it can find.

It’s a preventative measure, not a revenue raiser. Back when we had a gift duty in New Zealand, there was never very much gift duty raised. Instead, the threat of gift duty meant that people didn’t try to avoid income tax by gifting away assets that earned income. So they couldn’t engage in all sorts of elaborate tax schemes, or if they did choose to do so, there was a price to pay. Most people elected not to engage in the elaborate schemes, and so very little gift duty was ever collected. It was a very effective tax measure.

Likewise, this measure should be very effective in shutting short term speculation down. I suspect that once the two years is up, plenty of properties will end up on the market, but very few properties will be sold under the two year mark, and so very little tax revenue will be collected.

I always enjoy an insightful analysis, regardless of medium or author.

Stuff reports:

Pensions have risen by $67 a week in the last five years –  while the incomes of parents of childre

n born into low income and beneficiary households have fallen further and further behind.

The gap is poised to grow even larger as the country enters a long period of low inflation because while pensions are pegged to average wage rises, benefits are linked to living costs, or the CPI.

The latest round of benefit adjustments painted a stark picture of the growing disparity. Pensions increased 2.07 per cent, or $11.60 a week for a married couple, in line with wage rises. But other benefit rates rose by only 0.51 percent.

This is deliberate. Benefits are tied to inflation so they remain static in real terms. NZ Super has a floor tied to the average wage, to maintain relativity to working income.

The reason is because retiring from employment and going onto NZ Super is meant to be permanent.  While going on a benefit should generally be temporary. You don’t want people remaining on welfare for an extended period of time. Making benefits more generous reduces the gap between work and welfare.

Analysis of household data by Stuff.co.nz shows Government payments to over-65s have eclipsed those of any other age group, sparking harsh criticism the Government prioritised elderly over the young, which make up nearly half of New Zealands lowest earners.  

This has been the policy of all Governments in the last 20 years or so. NZ Super is linked to wages, and other benefits linked to inflation.

If you linked all benefits to the average wage, it would have costed tens of billions of dollars and many more people would be on welfare.

I actually think having NZ Super linked to the average wage will become unaffordable in the long term. As more and more NZers are aged over 65, we won’t have enough working NZers to support a universal wage linked pension. I’d propose that it be also linked to inflation – but say CPI + 1% – this would mean it always grows in real terms, but becomes more affordable.

In 2010 the Government adopted a policy change, to index superannuation with the average wage, while benefits remained driven by inflation. GST rose to 15 per cent that year, and tax cuts were not applied to benefits. 

No. Wrong. This has been policy for 15 years. In 2010 that policy was put into statute, but the policy has applied since the 1990s.

Labour Party finance spokesman Grant Robertson said while the elderly had been looked after, Government policy meant younger generations would not reach retirement with the same level of savings or income base.

“If you look at the 2010 tax cuts, they very specifically protected the incomes of the elderly, and that’s good that they did that.

“But at the same time they completely failed, and in fact went in the opposite direction, for people on main benefits. They took a policy decision to deliberately exclude those on main benefits from having their incomes protected, so to me that is definitely to the detriment of other age groups.”

Also wrong. The main benefits being inflation adjusted were fully compensated for the increase in GST.

Like many I was outraged when I read in the MSM:

A Christchurch school principal is defending contentious material given to pupils labelling women in de facto relationships “cheap prostitutes” and male partners “cowards” for not proposing marriage.

The literature has drawn criticism from the Ministry of Education which says it does not fit with the sexuality education curriculum, while Labour education spokesman Chris Hipkins says it should be withdrawn completely.

The text titled ‘Safe Sex’, produced by the American-based Bible Baptist Publications, came to light after Papanui High School parent Lydia Clark complained to the school when her 15-year-old daughter brought it home from a Year 11 health class.

It included strong Christian views, branding unmarried couples who live together “habitual and irresponsible fornicators”, while “death and hell” awaited those having gay sex.

“She thinks he’s a wonderful man, yet he’s such a coward he can’t even ask her to be his wife. He thinks she’s a fine lady, yet she’s nothing more than a cheap prostitute who allows herself to be used for his sexual gratification in exchange for what seems to be a stable and secure home life,” the material said.

“Either you are married or you are not married. If you are not married, yet you have sexual relations, then you are a wicked fornicator.”

My first reaction was that the school must have rocks in their heads to think this is appropriate, but the full story of how this happened is on Gaynz.com:

After discussion with the school, the mum who complained, Lydia Clark, says the school has since explained the pamphlet was only used in a section on ‘views on sexuality’.

“It was used because the sex ed teacher found it underneath her car window wiper at the local mall car park, and as it was something obviously being pushed in the school’s community she wanted to show it to the children as an extreme view of religious opinion,” she says in a post clarifying the situation on Secular Education Network’s Facebook page.

“Unfortunately where this all went wrong, was she had a planned discussion/critical evaluation to take place as part of this lesson which would have presented this a lot differently than how it came across to my daughter, but she was sick on the day of the lesson and left the pamphlet and ten questions with the reliever teacher, who didn’t do the discussion part. If the discussion had taken place immediately following, I think this would have mitigated the situation a lot.”

This makes a lot of sense. The teacher just using the pamphlet as an example of extreme views, as it was left on her car. It wasn’t the teacher promoting this in school as a legitimate view – just to show what views are out there.

It’s a pity that one has to go to non MSM sites to get the full story.