Chalkie writes at Stuff:

Last year, Auckland Council spent $82 million on consultancy and professional advice.

Ouch.

This may sound extravagant but Chalkie reckons we should adjust our thinking. Expensive consultancy is surely a sign of civilisation and the democratic process, whereas absolute power means never having to justify your actions with an independent report.

After all, did Vladimir Putin hire an accountancy firm to consider the costs and benefits of invading eastern Ukraine?

True, but there is a happy mid point!

The NZIER report concludes, as have other studies, that Auckland’s port will run into capacity constraints as the economy grows and ships get bigger.

“Ultimately POAL will either lose business or need more land, structures or berth-capacity to allow for the future demand,” the NZIER says.

The predicted timescale is 20 years, but the issue is really the same whether it’s 10 years or 25 years – how big should the port be?

Chalkie reckons the port is Auckland’s commercial heart and its bustling presence is a constant reminder of what makes the city tick, but as a regular harbour-goer he has recently been struck by the huge sprawl of Fergusson’s extended terminal at the port’s eastern end, which looms a lot closer to the North Shore than it used to.

Would a further 5.3-hectares less water be oppressive? It’s hard to say. More than 230ha of harbour has been filled in since the mid-19th century, covering well over a third of the original waterscape.

I think the long-term solution in both Auckland and Wellington is to move the ports from the current prime locations on the waterfront. This land is too valuable to be used for containers and logs. It could be used for amazing cafes, bars, accomodation, parks etc. The waterfront is now the crown jewel in a city. It wasn’t 100 years ago, but times have changed and long-term the ports should be in places like Manukau and Petone – industrial areas. Yes it will cost a lot to move them, but it would be w worthwhile long-term investment for better cities.

Steven Joyce has announced:

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce today announced that the Government and SkyCity have reached agreement on the next stages of the International Convention Centre (NZICC) project.

SkyCity has agreed not to pursue a financial contribution from the Government and instead will amend its design to ensure the facility can be completed without financial input from the Crown.

“I welcome SkyCity’s agreement with the Government’s approach,” Mr Joyce says. “This clears the path for the project to continue.

“I have repeatedly stated since December that our least preferred option is for the Government to contribute funding for the project. I am pleased to confirm that will be the case.”

That’s a great outcome – both for taxpayers, and the Government. Also a great outcome for Auckland in that they will get the 800 jobs and $49 million economic boost from having an international convention centre. I’m pleased Sky City saw sense, and that the Government held firm.

3 News reports:

Mita Harris is the Chair of the Northland Conservation Board. A member of Ngapuhi, he stood for National in 2008. He is involved in numerous heritage, recreation and conservation projects in Northland.

Matt King is a local farmer, businessman and former police detective. He sought the nomination in 2011, and runs a private investigations company.

Grant McCallum is a local diary farmer and an elected board member on National’s Board of Directors.

Mark Osborne is the general manager of the Te Ahu Trust.

Karen Rolleston has stood for National in previous elections. She is the CEO of 3P Learning, and lives in Kumeu.

I’d say Karen and Grant are the front runners but all five candidates are credible and strong, and it will come down to the 120 local delegates, as they meet them and hear from them over the next fortnight.

News.com.au reports:

The Citrix Mobile Analytics Report, which looks at the a global cross section of mobile network usage for 2015, found that Apple fans who own a 5-inch iPhone 6 Plus use twice as much data as those with the 4.7-inch iPhone 6.

The report attributes that extra data demand to a insatiable hunger for video for those people with the bigger screen phablet.

This does not surprise me. I have a 6 Plus. Since I got it, I have not used my iPad in over two months. I can use the 6 Plus to view videos, read documents, browse more websites etc. I was nervous about it being too big when I ordered it, but am very very glad I did get a 6 Plus, not just a 6.

It is no coincidence that this week Apple became the first company in history to break the $700 billion mark in terms of market capitalisation.

The Herald reports:

A wealthy American businessman wants to set up charter schools in New Zealand that he believes could lead to an education “revolution”.

Marc Holtzman was pen-pals with his political hero Ronald Reagan and secured millions of dollars from Microsoft founder Bill Gates to found a charter school in his home state of Colorado.

He told the Herald that, while it was early days, he planned to see if Mr Gates and other acquaintances might help raise the $10 to $15 million seed money for a first New Zealand school.

The 54-year-old backpacked in New Zealand as a young man and has had his luxury Gibbston, Queenstown property on the market for $4.75 million for over a year, with plans to build again in the region.

The Hong Kong-based businessman contacted Ngai Tahu about the possibility of working together to open schools as well as Act Party leader David Seymour.

In January he took a delegation, including Ngai Tahu’s Sir Mark Solomon and Che Wilson, to the United States to look mostly at charter schools based around science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem). Among the schools visited was the successful Denver School of Science and Technology, which Mr Holtzman co-founded.

A Ngai Tahu charter school would be an excellent idea. I’d love to see Labour then campaign on scrapping charter schools!

Stuff reports:

The ability to board a plane and shut off from the world is a luxury in an always-on world of technology. Or so it used to be. Airlines across the world are increasingly offering free on-board wi-fi, or at somewhat affordable prices.

Domestically, it was once an offering on Air New Zealand flights when it launched its Rugby World Cup branded A320s in 2011 (at a trial rate of a whopping $20 per megabyte). Quietly, and presumably because the trial was a flop, in-flight wi-fi disappeared within months and has never returned – not even on the new international 787-9 Dreamliners.

How surprising that people don’t want to pay $20,000 a GB!!!

Qantas in Australia experienced similar disappointment. In 2012 it conducted trials of wi-fi (at prices ranging between $14 and $43, depending on pre-purchased data allowance), but less than 5 per cent of customers used the service. It seems now, though, that New Zealand and Australia’s national airlines are falling behind.

In late 2014, Emirates launched free on-board wi-fi for the first 10MB (enough to check emails and social media accounts), with a nominal US$1 (NZ$1.35) fee for the next 600MB. This includes some flights in and out of New Zealand, such as the daily Auckland-Sydney A380 flights.

That’s not bad.

Eventually, Emirates will offer wi-fi as a free and standard in-flight service, much like its on-board entertainment selection.

Superb.

Emirates reported a daily average of 3500 global connections across all of its flights last October, with the highest number of users on a single flight being 153 passengers.

Shows there is demand for it at the right price.

The Dom Post reports:

Almost a century after talk began about building an inland motorway north of Wellington, the first act of building Transmission Gully has started.

That first act has involved more dismantling than building, however. Just over a week ago, work began to remove 24 kilometres of high-voltage power lines that run through the gully, including 48 towers and 210 pole structures.

The lines are expected to be toppled by next month, clearing the way for construction joint-venture company Leighton-HEB to begin exploratory earthworks on the $850 million, four-lane motorway.

The project director, Michael O’Dwyer, said the demise of the gully’s titular transmission line was an exciting and important step in the motorway’s five-year construction.

He was all too aware the project had been nothing but hot air around Wellington for decades now. Many people he came across had told him they were not prepared to believe it was actually going to happen until they saw the finished product with their own eyes.

I still find it hard to believe that we have reached the point that it can’t be backtracked. It is happening.

An interesting article at CIS:

Jennifer Buckingham is a prominent advocate of school choice. She’s middle class and strongly believes parents should be able to choose where they send their children to school. So which primary school did she choose for her two daughters? ­Raymond Terrace Public School, located in the low-income town of the same name, just north of Newcastle in NSW.

More than half its students are from the bottom quartile of socio-economic rankings and about a fifth are indigenous, both indicators that are statistically linked to lower academic outcomes. Buckingham says that when her eldest daughter, who has just graduated from year six, started at Raymond Terrace in kindergarten it was perceived by many in the town “as a school people wouldn’t deliberately send their children to”.

What makes her choice of school all the more interesting is that Buckingham is an education policy specialist and research ­fellow at a right-wing think tank, the Centre of Independent Studies (CIS). From her perch at the CIS, Buckingham is a strong advocate of private schools and their role in providing wider choice to parents.

Yet she chose a struggling public primary school for her daughters. Why? “I could see the potential at Raymond Terrace Public School, and thought that I had something to contribute,” she says.

And how did she contribute:

But along with the right to choose, another part of Buckingham’s education credo is that parents should be able to be influential in their children’s schools – and that is exactly what she has done.

With Picton at the helm, and plenty of input from Buckingham, Raymond Terrace has seen a remarkable lift in performance. In 2008, Raymond Terrace’s Naplan results were level-pegging with similar schools in the area. The latest available 2013 figures show it is significantly ahead of its peers. It is also well ahead of the three other primary schools in the town – two public, one Catholic.

At a time when Australia’s schools are seen to be failing – with literacy and ­numeracy standards falling against ­comparable countries, and a sharp ­ideological divide over the Gonski funding scheme and the national curriculum – ­Raymond Terrace stands out as an example of what can be achieved in an individual school by a ­committed principal who has solid support.

The Raymond Terrace story is also notable on another level. ­Buckingham is an education commentator who walked the talk and enrolled her own children in a failing school she intended to help improve.

So school success is not predetermined by socio-economic status.

One key development was a visit from noted educational reformer John Fleming in 2010. Fleming’s 10 years in charge of Bellfield Primary School in Melbourne is one of the celebrated success stories of turning around a failing school, and last year Fleming was appointed by federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne to be deputy chair of the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership. Fleming came to Raymond ­Terrace to offer his advice.

It was a turning point in Picton’s ­willingness to engage with Buckingham.

“Had John Fleming been a waste of time, I probably wouldn’t be here talking to ­Jennifer today,” says Picton.

It led to three “pillars” – principles set then which the school still operates by.

One is explicit teaching, where the key skills of reading, writing and maths are taught explicitly and directly to students and then practised repeatedly until testing shows they have got it. This is in contrast to still-popular education theories in which children are expected to master these ­fundamental building blocks of knowledge by exploring for themselves.

Another is building a relationship with the children, and expecting teachers to get to know each child well and understand what they are capable of, with the aim of boosting self-esteem.

Last, there is creating high expectations, in which children and parents are ­encouraged to aim for the best.

The three pillars seem very sound.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand Post will cut mail delivery in urban areas to three days a week from July.

The State Owned Enterprise has been telling staff of the move today, which follows a change to its deed of understanding with the Government in 2013.

The move is a step to protect the organisation from a fall in mail volumes which is hitting profitability.

Mail and communications chief operating officer Ashley Smout confirmed standard mail would be delivered every second day to households in urban areas starting from July in larger towns and cities.

Over the following two years it would be rolled out to smaller centres.

I check my mail only around once a week. I reckon the number of people who need daily mail delivery is quite small.

I don’t want NZ Post to end up needing taxpayer subsidies. So reducing their costs is inevitable, as revenue falls.

Jim Rose blogs:

SkyCity is sniffing around the New Zealand government for a $130 million bailout. The initial project estimate was $402 million for a convention centre and enlarged casino.

SkyCity was very clear when the convention centre deal was announced that it would be at no cost to either taxpayers or Auckland ratepayers. That is a clear assumption of the entrepreneurial risks – both the upside of high profits and the downside of cost overruns and losses.

The literature on mega-projects suggests that large engineering projects frequently fail to achieve their intended financial and operating objectives. Nine out of ten mega-projects have cost-over runs:

1. Miller and Lessard (2000) studied 60 large engineering projects with an average size of $1 billion. Almost 40% of the projects performed very badly and were abandoned totally or restructured after a financial crisis.
2. Merrow et al. (1988) found that four of the 47 megaprojects they studied came in on budget – the average cost overrun was 88%. Of the 36 projects that had sufficient data, 26 failed to achieve their profit objectives
3. Flyvbjerg et al. (2003) analyzed 258 large transport projects (toll roads, bridges, railroads, etc.). Cost overruns of 50% to 100% and revenue shortfalls of 20% to 70% were common.

As Jim Rose says, both the risks and the benefits should be borne by Sky City.

If it transpired that they could do the convention centre for say $50 million less than budgeted, would they be offering to give that $50 million to the Government?

In just 24 hours Tony Abbott performs greatly and also appallingly.

The good is his response to the Australian Human Rights Commission:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott says the Australian Human Rights Commission ought to be “ashamed of itself” over its children in detention inquiry, which he says is a blatant attack on his government.

The commission report – tabled by the government on Wednesday – called for a royal commissionafter finding there were 233 recorded assaults involving children and 33 incidents of reported sexual assault. It also reported there were 207 incidents of “actual self harm” and 436 incidents of threatened self harm.

In an interview on 3AW radio in Melbourne, Mr Abbott slammed the commission, questioning the timing of the report.

“Where was the Human Rights Commission during the life of the former government when hundreds of people were drowning at sea?” Mr Abbott asked on Thursday morning.

“Frankly this is a blatantly partisan politicised exercise and the Human Rights Commission ought to be ashamed of itself.”

When asked whether he felt any guilt over the horrific findings in the 315-page report, Mr Abbott replied: “None whatsoever.”

“The most compassionate thing you can do is stop the boats. We have stopped the boats.”

The 315-page report interviewed children in detention from January 2013 to March 2014 under both the Labor and Coalition governments.

But the Abbott government is questioning why the commission announced the inquiry in February 2014 once it had come into power, rather than when the Labor government was in power and the numbers of children in detention were at its highest. The last national inquiry of children in detention by the commission was in 2004.

Mr Abbott said Gillian Triggs, president of the Human Rights Commission, should instead be thanking the former immigration minister Scott Morrison for dramatically reducing the number of children in detention.

“I reckon that the Human Rights Commission ought to be sending a note of congratulations to Scott Morrison saying ‘Well done mate because your actions have been very good for the human rights and the human flourishing of thousands of people’.” 

It was an appallingly partisan hatchet job on the Coalition, and Abbott was great calling a spade a spade.

But then later that day:

Mr Abbott was answering a Labor question about the latest unemployment figures, including a rate of 7.3 per cent in South Australia where defence industry jobs have traditionally been strong.

“Under members opposite, defence jobs in this country declined by 10 per cent,” Mr Abbott told parliament.

“There was a holocaust of jobs in defence industries.”

Mr Abbott subsequently apologised and withdrew the comment. He replaced the word “holocaust” with “decimation”.

“I shouldn’t have used it, I did withdraw it and I do apologise,” he said.

You should only use the term holocaust if you are talking about the extermination of six million people in WWII, and not any other context.

Stuff reports:

For an ever-so-brief moment, rabid fans of the Netflix series House of Cards had a glimpse into Season 3, two weeks before its scheduled release. 

If users did managed to log into Netflix on Wednesday afternoon (US time) and clicked on Season 3, the stream worked. A description of Episode 1 says the Underwood presidency gets off to a “rocky start.”

The third season of the drama starring Kevin Spacey as scheming President Frank Underwood was taken down within 20 minutes of its posting. Netflix blamed the incident on a technical malfunction.

“Due to a technical glitch, some Frank Underwood fans got a sneak peak,” Netflix said in a statement. “He’ll be back on Netflix on Feb. 27.”

Just two weeks to go!

MBIE has the latest quarterly report on UGB progress.

• 43% of homes in the target areas are now UFB capable
• Almost 70,000 homes now have fibre connected and working
• Northland is 100% complete, Waikato 77% complete and Bay of Plenty 68% complete

The Herald reports:

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman is looking at introducing a Health Target to control child obesity. …

Auckland University obesity expert Professor Boyd Swinburn, representing 40 public health specialists, is scheduled to meet Dr Coleman at his Beehive office today to discuss a child obesity target. “We want to show there’s substantial public health support if he wants to go down this track,” Professor Swinburn said.

He wants the Government to aim for reducing our rate of obese and overweight children from around a third at present to around a quarter – Australia’s current rate – by 2025.

It is not inappropriate for the Government to want to reduce the obesity rate with children. A lower obesity rate would be a very good thing.

But the Government does not have a huge influence of issues such as obesity. It can guarantee good outcomes for elective surgery, and ED waiting times because it funds the public health system and can put resources in to achieve the outcomes.

On other public health issues it can reasonably comfortably achieve a target such as x% of kids vaccinated, as getting parents to vaccinate their kids is not asking them to do something radically different. It is just getting them in to see a doctor.

But to try and have fewer obese kids is a different category. That requires parents (and kids) to quite radically change their behaviour. It means better parenting skills where parents take more care with what they feed their kids, and make sure they exercise more. And improving parenting skills is about as tough as it can get.

The NZ Medical Association has called for a broad front to tackle obesity, with measures such as a tax on sugary drinks, greater protection of children from the marketing of unhealthy foods, traffic light food labelling and a halt to fast-food outlets opening near schools.

Dr Coleman said the Government would not introduce a sugar tax because it wouldn’t work.

It is good that has been rejected. But we should be wary of some of the other proposals which all involve the state deciding what foods can be advertised and sold. That is a slippery slope. Any policies should be focused on supporting parents and kids to make healthier decisions around food and exercise. Not about new taxes and restrictions.

The 2015 World Press Freedom Index is out and NZ has gone from 9th place to 6th place, which is great. Few things are more important than a free press.

This is the highest ranking for NZ since the index began in 2002.

NZUSA have said:

The Government passed its widely-panned Education Amendment Bill in a rush through Parliament last night. The bill shrinks New Zealand’s university councils down to a maximum of 12 and removes the requirement for student and staff representatives on councils.

The new law makes New Zealand’s university councils amongst the smallest in the world, with none of the world’s top universities having councils so unrepresentative and dominated by government appointees.

The move now leaves it up to each of the eight universities to determine how they allocate their few seats by rewritting their constitutions ahead of the Minister’s deadline of 2016. That gives national student president Rory McCourt hope that all universities will use this opportunity to choose to keep students and staff at the top table.

The new law says that the Minister appoints 3 -4 members out of a Council of 8 – 12. I predict every Council will go for 12 members, so Government appointees will be 4/12 – one third.

I do agree with NZUSA that all universities should ensure that at least one of the Council members is a student representative. Student fees fund around 25% of the university and they have a strong interest in how the university is governed, its costs, its quality etc.

I’m more equivocal on staff representation. Staff are a vital component of a university, but they do face a conflict of interest when they are on the governing body. I don’t think it would be sensible to have no staff representation, but you don’t want an excessive number because then the Council will be dominated by its own staff.

Paul Buchanan writes:

There are three specific reasons why NZ has to join the fight, two practical and one principled.

The practical reasons are simple: First, NZ’s major security allies, the US, UK and Australia, are all involved as are France, Germany and others. After the signing of the Wellington and Washington security agreements, NZ became a first tier security partner of the US, and as is known, it is an integral member of the 5 Eyes signals intelligence network. It therefore cannot renege on its security alliance commitments without a serious loss of credibility and trust from the countries upon which it is most dependent for its own security.

Secondly, most of New Zealand’s primary diplomatic and trading partners, including those in the Middle East, are involved in the anti-IS coalition. Having just secured a UN Security Council temporary seat at a time when the UN has repeatedly issued condemnations of IS, and having campaigned in part on breaking the logjam in the UNSC caused by repeated use of the veto by the 5 permanent members on issues on which they disagree (such as the civil war in Syria), NZ must back up its rhetoric and reinforce its diplomatic and trade relations by committing to the multinational effort to defeat IS. Refusing to do so in the face of requests from these partners jeopardises the non-military relationships with them.

The third reason is a matter of principle and it is surprising that the government has not made more of it as a justification for involvement. After the Rwandan genocide an international doctrine known as the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) was agreed by UN convention to prevent future horrors of that sort. It basically states that if a defenceless population is being subject to the depredations of its own government, or if the home government cannot defend the population from the depredations of others, then the international community is compelled to use whatever means, including armed force, to prevent ongoing atrocities from occurring. There can be no doubt that is the situation in parts of Iraq and Syria at the moment. Neither the Assad regime or the Iraqi government can defend minority communities such as Kurds or Yazidis, or even non-compliant Sunnis, from the wrath of IS.

That, more than any other reason, is why NZ must join the fight. As an international good citizen that has signed up to the R2P, NZ is committed in principle to the defense of vulnerable others.

The best summary I have seen of why NZ should contribute. Buchanan continues:

Most of all, why has Andrew Little run his mouth about reneging on the NZDF contribution to the anti-IS coalition (which involves formal and time-constrained commitments)? Little has previous form in displaying ignorance of international affairs, but this level of hypocrisy takes the cake. Does he not remember that the 5th Labour government started the rapprochement with the US after 9/11, and that it was the 5th Labour government that initially deceived and misled about the real nature of the SAS role in Afghanistan as well as  the true nature of the mission in Southern Iraq (which is widely believed to have involved more than a company of military engineers). Is he not aware that a responsible country does not walk away from the security alliance, diplomatic and trade commitments mentioned above? Did he not consult with Helen Clark, Phil Goff or David Shearer before this brain fart (or did they gave him the rope on which to hang himself)? Does he really believe, or expect the informed public to believe, that on defense, security and intelligence issues Labour in 2015 is really that different from National? If so, it is he, not us, who is deluded.

All this shows is that Labour is still unfit to govern, or at least Little is not. If he does not understand the core principles governing international relations and foreign affairs, or if he chooses to ignore them in favour of scoring cheap political points, then he simply is unsuited to lead NZ before the international community.

Buchanan concludes:

Andrew Little should know that, and the Greens and NZ First need to understand that this is not about belonging to some exclusive “club” but about being a responsible global citizen responding to the multinational call for help in the face of a clear and present danger to the international community. Because if IS is not a clearly identifiable evil, then there is no such thing.

In any event the fight against IS is dangerous but cannot be avoided.

It is worth remembering that Dr Buchanan is from the left himself. This makes his criticisms all the more stinging.

Xero’s Victoria Crone writes:

I recently attended Labour and Opposition Leader Andrew Little’s State of the Nation speech and heard first hand how the Labour Party is throwing its weight behind small business by placing a big emphasis on the small business agenda. …

There are a few areas where I think that they’re barking up the wrong tree, one being around starting a business. The World Bank Group already ranks New Zealand as the easiest place to start a business.

However, with small business firmly on Labour’s agenda, this bodes well for a great policy debate around small business for the next election.

I agree. I hope they come up with some innovative policy.

I see a few challenges for Labour’s small business policy:  

– Labour has a dilemma as it tries to encourage small business to create jobs. The first is the dilemma between what is essentially a nation of very small and often fragile businesses (remember 92 per cent of our small businesses employ less than five people and these businesses have the highest death rates), who will be taking on additional jobs which represents massive risk for them. A small business has to be able to sustain the extra cost of an additional employee over the long run. The average business owner is already wearing 20 hats. Adding managerial and employment policy to their already long list of day to day tasks will provide extra pressure.  Labour’s policy on encouraging job growth while minimising business risk could be challenging philosophically for the Party.

Most of Labour’s current policies are bad for small businesses. Their policy to scrap 90 day trials especially. But also their policy to massively hike the minimum wage, and make it illegal for a small business to gain Government work unless they pay a “living” wage.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

In a move that won’t surprise anyone in politics, Green MP Kevin Hague has put his hand up to be the party’s co-leader.

The West Coast-based list MP is first out of the blocks, and rookie MP James Shaw was expected to follow, but this morning Shaw said it was “highly unlikely” because it was too early in his parliamentary career.

Nominations for the role don’t open until next month, ahead of the party’s annual conference in May, but Hague, an MP since 2008, explained: “I am certain to stand, and I thought it could be useful for Green Party members to know that.”

Without discounting who else might stand, it is fair to say that Kevin Hague is a very good potential co-leader, and he could do significantly better than his predecessor, if elected.

The strengths that Hague would bring to the Greens are:

1. He is not a communist (or former communist)
2. He has significant political skills, playing a key role in campaigns such as the marriage equality campaign
3. He is trusted and respected with most MPs from both National and Labour
4. He will generally put progressing an issue, ahead of point scoring, for example working behind the scenes with National MPs on adoption law reform rather than grand-standing on the issue such as a Labour MP did
5. Has the ability to work with MPs from other parties, including National. Involved in many cross-party caucuses.
6. Has been influential in the Greens in reducing the power of the anti-science brigade, and has moved the Greens away from blanket opposition to fluoridation and vaccinations to more balanced positions
7. Has significant management experience, having been a CEO of a District Health Board

I think Kevin Hague would be an excellent choice by the Greens to replace Russel Norman as the male co-leader.

Hague said he had good relationship with both major parties – but said the Greens made the right decision in aligning with Labour.

“We are not a party that is going to throw away our core principles and our values or actually a very large number of our policies in order to make that political accommodation … it’s hard to see National providing the level of policy gains for the Green party.” 

But Hague found common ground with National over national cycleways and pest control. “I’ve got a track record … of finding ways of working with them. I look forward to doing that more.”

The Greens would never choose National over Labour, but a Hague led Greens would be more likely to be able to have a constructive relationship with National, where they can work together in a few areas. This would be a good thing.

Karl du Fresne writes:

It’s hard to think of a more challenging conundrum than the one posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis).

Labour leader Andrew Little was right last week to describe Isis as evil. It’s a word seldom heard these days because it implies a moral judgment, and moral judgments are unfashionable. But “evil” is the only way to describe men who coldly behead their captives, and then amp up the shock factor by burning one alive.

There is an element of gleeful sadism in their barbarism. Last week they pushed a gay man from the top of a tall building – reportedly the fourth such execution for homosexuality.

Sadistic is a good work for it. It is not just that they revel in killing people, but they revel in killing them in such sadistic ways. Being thrown off a building or burnt alive as examples.

Almost unnoticed in the background, Isis is proceeding with its grand plan to establish an Islamic caliphate, which means systematically slaughtering or enslaving anyone who stands in its way. No-one, then, can dispute that Isis is evil. The conundrum is what the rest of the world should do about it.

This is why it is not a fight one can ignore. This is not just a localised civil war in Iraq and Syria. They literally wanted to expand to as many countries as possible. Anyone who thinks they will be content with what they have is detached from reality.

Yet doing nothing is not an option. Either we believe civilised values are worth defending and that vulnerable people deserve protection from mass murderers, or we don’t. And if we do, we can’t just whistle nonchalantly while looking the other way and pretending it isn’t happening. …

This is not like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the objectives were hazy (or in the case of Iraq, tragically misconceived). Isis is not some shadowy terrorist entity; it’s a functioning army, operating in plain sight.

That doesn’t make it easy to defeat, but neither is it an excuse to do nothing.

Unfortunately Andrew Little, while condemning Isis as evil, doesn’t think it’s our business to stop them.

It’s interesting that where Isis is concerned, the Left sharply deviates from its tradition of siding with the weak and vulnerable.

The Islamic State, it insists, is not our problem, no matter how many innocents die.

Labour’s policy is to do nothing but send out press releases.

I suspect the Left is unable to see past its antipathy towards America and can’t bring itself to support any initiative in which America plays a leading role. Its ideological blinkers blind it to the fact that on this occasion, America is on the side of the angels.

Most reprehensible of all is the craven argument that we should avoid antagonising Isis for fear that some deranged jihadist will strike at us in revenge.

That’s moral cowardice of the lowest order.

Prime Minister John Key is right to highlight the inconsistency in the Left’s stance, and I applaud him for saying that New Zealand will not look the other way.

It’s rare for Key to commit himself so emphatically, and commendable for him to do so on one of the pressing moral issues of our time.

Imagine if the 1st Labour Government was led by modern day Labour. Michael Joseph Savage and Peter Fraser committed NZ to fight against the Nazis. The Little led Labour would be insisting that we do nothing without the League of Nations okay.