Evil vs Evil

The attack by Islamic State terrorist in Moscow was an act of evil. 133 innocent people died. Islamic State is an evil organisation.

The response of the Putin Government was also evil, albeit in a lesser way.

The United States privately and publicly warned them of a likely terrorist attack on a concert, based on intelligence they intercepted from Islamic State.

Islamic State has publicly claimed credit for the attack.

Yet the Putin Government is publicly blaming the attack on Ukraine.

Principles prevail sometimes

The ACLU said:

On March 18, the ACLU appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court to argue another free speech case of great significance. In this case, the ACLU represented the National Rifle Association (NRA) against government overreach and censorship. Some may have wondered why the ACLU was representing the NRA, since the ACLU clearly opposes the NRA on gun control and the role of firearms in society. In fact, we abhor many of the group’s goals, strategies, and tactics. So, the reality that we have joined forces, notwithstanding those disagreements, reflects the importance of the First Amendment principles at stake in this case.

The ACLU made the decision to represent the NRA in this case because we are deeply concerned that if regulators can threaten the NRA for their political views in New York state, they can come after the ACLU and allied organizations in places where our agendas are unpopular.

This gives me hope, when we see principles win out. The ACLU abhors the NRA but are fighting for them in court, because they believe Government shouldn’t be able to threaten you for your views.

Likewise am pleased in NZ where we saw the FSU defend the rights of libraries to have drag queen story time. I know quite a few FSU officers probably personally abhor the concept, but they put the principle first of not letting security concerns take away people’s right of free association.

It brings back the quote from Noam Chomsky:

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all”?

Common sense wins again

Simeon Brown announced:

Cabinet has agreed on the coalition Government’s direction of travel for a new Land Transport Rule to be signed by the end of 2024. This new rule will reverse the previous government’s blanket speed reductions imposed on motorists across New Zealand, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.

“The new rule will ensure that when speed limits are set, economic impacts – including travel times – and the views of road users and local communities are taken into account, alongside safety.

“The previous government’s untargeted approach resulted in blanket speed limit reductions across the country, rather than targeting high crash areas of the network. The new Rule will lead to blanket speed limit reductions being reversed by the end of next year, except where it is unsafe.

The new approach is basically just common sense. It’s amazing how many of the former Government’s policies were just ideology gone mad. Taking into account travel times, community views as well as safety is a balanced approach. Otherwise we’d just have a maximum 30 km/hr limit on all roads.

More claims against Tana

Stuff continues to break stories about Green MP Darlene Tana. The TLDR version is:

  • A migrant claiming they are owed $25,000 and were sometimes paid under the table
  • A second worker has also lodged an Employment Relations Authority (ERA) claim for lost wages
  • E-Cycles NZ had lost two previous ERA claims by former staff members.
  • In August 2023, Tana’s husband told staff their wages would be paid late due to cashflow issues, while he was holidaying in Europe
  • Membership has been suspended from Waiheke Boat Club due to unpaid costs
  • 12 Personal Properties Security Register against Tana or E-Cycles NZ
  • IRD withdrew liquidation proceedings against the company in May 2023 after agreeing a settlement
  • A process server on Friday served a Statutory Demand on Friday after E-Cycles had still not paid the about $30,000 they were ordered to give to former employee 
  • Other former staff say they are owed wages and/or were paid late
  • Disgruntled customers say their refunds have not been processed
  • A former staffer has offered to brief Chloe Swarbrick

I think it is fair to conclude this issue isn’t going away anytime soon.

Bad GCSB

A quite stunning report by the Inspector-General of Intelligence. He has found that the GCSB hosted in New Zealand a signals intelligence system controlled by a foreign partner agency, and failed to even mention it to their Minister, or indeed their incoming Director!

He finds that the capability operated at GCSB:

  • without adequate record keeping;
  • without due diligence by GCSB on the capability tasking requests;
  • without full visibility for GCSB of the capability tasking;
  • without adequate training, support or guidance for GCSB operational staff;
  • with negligible awareness of the capability at a senior level within GCSB after the
    signing of the MOU in 2012 and until the system was shut down in 2020;
  • with no apparent access for GCSB to the outcomes of the capability’s operation at
    GCSB;
  • without any auditing;
  • without the required review of the MOU;
  • without due attention to the possibility, recognised within the Bureau, that
    support for the capability could contribute to military targeting; and
  • without clarity, in consequence, as to whether data supplied by the GCSB to the
    capability did in fact support military action.

How did this happen. Some extracts:

Late in 2011, the then Director-General, Simon Murdoch, noted in an email that GCSB legal
would need to be closely involved in the matter and that it would potentially require the
awareness or consent of the Minister, as well as consultation with the IGIS. This inquiry
found no record that the legal analysis, consultation and engagement with the Minister or
IGIS contemplated by Mr Murdoch occurred.

So Murdoch correctly said the Minister and IGIS should be consulted and a legal analysis done. It never happened.

Simon Murdoch’s tenure as Acting Director-General ended the week before Christmas 2011. On 3 February 2012 Ian Fletcher took over as Director-General.

The MOU was signed in March 2012 by a GCSB Deputy Director. My inquiry found no
records to indicate the Director-General was involved. Mr Fletcher advised the inquiry that
he did not recall being briefed on the capability when he started at the GCSB, and has no
recollection of the capability operating at GCSB or of Simon Murdoch’s concerns.

So a Deputy Director signed the MOU without doing what the Director had asked, and didn’t even mention it to the new Director.

I think it would be appropriate for the Deputy Director responsible to be named. Not briefing the Minister, the IGIS or the new Director undermines accountability.

School Lunches: The $324million question (or ten questions)?

  1. Why are some children in NZ going hungry in 2024?
  2. What is it about our welfare system that needs to be fixed to ensure every child receives breakfast, lunch and dinner via their parents or caregivers?
  3. Prof Boyd Swinburne stated this week that the school lunches have improved school attendance by 3 days a year (.75 days per term, 0.075 days per week) and had shown some mental health improvements. Is the $324m on food the best way to do that? How about the mental health gains from actually doing well at school – not just eating a sandwich?
  4. How many children are taking time out of class to help organise/prepare lunches and how many teachers are involved in those activities?
  5. Why can’t parents opt out and send their choice of lunches with their child?
  6. Some children burn a lot more energy than others at school through their level of activity and engagement. What is the response if they say: “Please sir, can I have some more?”
  7. Did taxpayers know that they were also feeding people at caravan parks and supplying foodbanks through school lunches? https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/512573/how-free-lunch-leftovers-are-helping-beyond-schools
  8. Why are so many of the programmes so inflexible that they do not supply lunches each day on the number of children present but the number enrolled (in our system that only has 50% full attendance)?
  9. What education improvement plans are being put in place to make sure that the children being fed today are able to feed themselves and their children in the future? Where is the 15 year sinking lid plan?
  10. As the teacher unions like to state – no one is supposed to make a profit from education”. Then why are multi-nationals like this: https://compass-group.co.nz/supporting-the-ministry-of-education-healthy-schools-lunch-program/ involved. Isn’t that a PPP and isn’t that form of provision supposedly hated by the Left in education?

Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
www.innovativeeducation.co.nz
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

A terrible crash that could have been worse

I never realised that a bridge would collapse so thoroughly and quickly from a ship hitting it. While this was a horrible accident, it makes you think about how vulnerable bridges would be to deliberate attacks.

The loss of life is only six at this stage and could have been so much worse. Kudos to local authorities who managed to stop most traffic entering the bridge when they were alerted to the out of control ship. If this had happened at rush hour, the death toll could have been in the hundreds.

US $80 billion of trade travels in the now blocked waterway and the cost off rebuilding the bridge which the US Federal Government has pledged to fund) will be massive.

Listen to Deborah not Otago University

Newsroom has an article from two academics at Otago University supporting the removal of GST on food – something opposed by almost every tax expert alive. The article is labelled “expert opinion” and they support the Maori Party bill on the grounds of “we need to start somewhere”.

An actual tax expert is Labour’s spokesperson Deborah Russell who noted:

I just want to take the House through some numbers and some evidence on this, to explain why we think there are better ways to address the cost of living. So, back in 2018, in the midst of all its paperwork, the Tax Working Group did produce a background note on GST, and, in it, it very explicitly examined the possibility of taking GST off kai, and looked at some of the numbers. They estimated which households would get a benefit from it. Now, by the time that’s adjusted for food price inflation since 2018, there’s been about a 28 percent food price inflation. A decile 1 household—so that’s the lowest-wealth 10 percent of our households—would, in today’s terms, get maybe about $19 a week benefit from taking GST off kai; a decile 2 household would actually get $18 a week; and a decile 3 household would get $23 a week. That’s the kind of benefit that would flow to low-income households from taking GST off kai. But a decile 8 household would get $46 a week, and a decile 9 household would get $53, and a decile 10 household would get $68 a week. The benefits of this change would flow primarily to high-income households. That’s the evidence of the Tax Working Group in 2018.

So the “expert opinion” from Otago University is that we should reduce the cost of living for the lowest income households by $19 a week and the highest income households by $68 a week!

The actual fiscal cost of doing this, of taking GST off food, would be—again, in today’s terms—about $3.3 billion to $3.9 billion.

That’s a lot of money to only reduce costs for the lowest income households by $19 a week.

The UK shows why it is one of the most tolerant countries there is

Vaughan Gething has just been elected as First Minister of Wales. He is black (his mother is Zambian) and this makes him the first black leader of a country in Europe.

It also means that none of the four leaders of the UK are white men. And I (especially) have nothing against white men, but it is pretty remarkable that a country would have so many leaders not from the majority ethnic group. In most countries it would be unthinkable to have one, let alone so many. And this hasn’t happened because of quotas or a desire to have diversity for its own sake, but because they happened to be the ones who got elected. It speaks well of a country that people are judged not on their skin colour or religion.

So the UK currently has:

  • A Prime Minister who is Indian and Hindu
  • A Scottish First Minister who is Pakistani and Muslim
  • A Welsh First Minister who is Zambian
  • A Northern Ireland First Minister who is a Catholic woman
  • A Home Secretary whose mother is from Sierra Leone
  • A Secretary of State for Business who grew up in Nigeria
  • A Secretary of State for Energy who is Indian
  • A Mayor of London who is Pakistani and Muslim

It is ironic that so many young people are brought up to think the UK is a racist country, when in fact they show the benefits of not judging people on their race or religion.

Unaffordable and Undeliverable

The Herald reports:

Of the currently estimated $280 billion required to deliver these investments, only $80 billion has been appropriated.”

Officials warned that the $280b cost of that investment “far exceeds the funding available”.

They sought new Transport Minister Simeon Brown to note that Labour’s planned investment was “unaffordable and undeliverable”.

This is Labour’s transport package. They announced projects which had no capacity to be delivered or funded, yet they continued to try and pull off what was effectively a con job.

he officials estimated that in order to pay for the plan, revenue into the National Land Transport Fund (NLTF), which mainly comes from fuel taxes and road user charges, would need to increase by 17 per cent a year for the next five years until revenue into the fund doubled from $7.3b in 2021/22 to $15.6b in 2026/27. Fuel excise duty is currently charged at 70 cents a litre. If all of that increase came from fuel taxes, it would mean increasing that to $1.40 per litre. GST and ETS would add another 40 cents to that price.

So Labour’s plan would have seen petrol tax doubling and the cost of petrol exceeding $3.50 a litre so a 50 litre car would cost $175 to fill up.

Petitions can have an impact

Most petitions to Parliament achieve little as they are raising a policy issue that MPs are divided on, and hence won’t lead to any change.

But some petitions can lead to change, and even lead to a debate in the House as happened to the petition of Claire Dale about mobility parks. It was debated in the House on Thursday and the recommendations from the Petitions Committee supported by all parties and the Government.

It is a useful reminder that disagreeing on many policy issues doesn’t mean MPs won’t work together in other areas where the common goal is to improve things for New Zealanders.

Highlight’s from Grant’s valedictory

Grant Robertson’s valedictory is here. Some of the more humorous extracts:

I was poached from Marian’s office by Heather Simpson to come and work for Helen Clark. My job description was to count to 61—the number of votes that we required to pass legislation. In the five years I worked for Heather, I received four emails—take that, Mr Ombudsman. 

She set incredibly high standards and is the best political operator I have ever seen in this building. She also had a Southland sense of humour that I appreciated. One day, a mysterious stain appeared on the carpet immediately outside her office door. Her executive assistant (EA) Stephen Woodhouse and I were staring at it when Heather appeared, grunted, and said, “Well, I guess now you know where the bodies are buried.” I have always presumed that was a joke.

Heh. Great sense of humour.

Being the Minister of Finance is an extraordinary privilege. It gave me the unparalleled opportunity to spend time with my colleagues when they were at their most stressed and anxious. I want to—[Laughter] You’ll know! I want to particularly thank Willie Jackson for his patient and calm advocacy. I genuinely felt his aroha when he said to me “Why do you hate the Maoris?” when I had just given him a billion dollars’ worth of funding. I also want to thank “Chippy” for not following through on his annual threat to resign during the education budget process, and all other colleagues who responded so well to the limited amount of funding we had available.

LOL at the Willie quote. I guess he is the same in private as in public 🙂

I remember vividly the day we shut the borders. We did it on a teleconference of Cabinet. I was in Jacinda’s electorate office with her. When the call ended, we looked at each other and recognised the enormity of what we had done. It felt very heavy. I tried to lighten the moment by noting that I knew when we went into coalition with New Zealand First our immigration policy might change, but I didn’t think it would go this far. Jacinda didn’t laugh.

I would have!

I endorse “Chippy” ‘s view that you cannot be the dog that barks at every car. It can be tough if there is a convoy of stupidity going by, but it’s still the right strategy. 

I know National MPs in Opposition who would agree with that!

What if the Interislander folded?

The Herald reports:

StraitNZ was founded by Ōtorohanga businessman Jim Barker in 1992 as Strait Shipping.

Its current Cook Strait vessels are the Strait Feronia, and the Connemara.

They each make four Cook Strait crossings daily and carry about 35 per cent of total Cook Strait passenger volumes. The business also operates a road freight network which carries about 55-57 per cent of all road freight, said McMahon. The company employs up to 600 people, depending on the season.

I didn’t realise they already did 35% of Cook Strat passengers and over 50% of road freight.

They do all this without costing the taxpayer a cent. In fact I presume they make a profit.

This makes me wonder what would happen if say Kiwirail just announced it would stop the Interislander service in say five years time.

The first thing I expect would be StraitNZ (Bluebridge) would increase their capacity – perhaps going from two to four ferries.

The second thing I expect is that one or more other operators would emerge as competitors to them.

This could be a good outcome.

An okay bill

Labour MP Camilla Belich has had her Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill drawn from the ballot.

The bill, on the surface, seems quite good. Basically it strengthens the rights of employees to disclose their salary or remuneration to others. I see this as a good thing. There might be unintended consequences but would definitely be worth supporting at least to select committee.

Will the media call him far left?

Green MP Ricardo Menendez March said in Parliament:

I rise in support of the Companies (Address Information) Amendment Bill. As a true Marxist, I’m not really one to stand up for the petite bourgeoisie …

Now it is no real surprise that Ricardo is a Marxist. But what I find interesting is that an MP can call themselves a Marxist and the media won’t even blink. Will they ever refer to him as a far left politician (hard to go further left than Marxism). Some try to call anyone on the centre right “far right” but not even Marxists are called far left.

You do have to admire the tenacity of Marxists though. There’s been around 50 countries that have implemented Marxism, and it has failed in every single one of them. In fact up to 100 million people have died at the hands of communist regimes. But the Marxists insist that it is simply because none of them have implemented it the right way, and give them a taste of power and all will be great!

NZ’s problem is too much spending, not a lack of tax

Labour and Greens in 2017 campaigned on capping core crown expenditure at no more than 30% of GDP. This was their election pledge. At one Budget I asked Grant Robertson about the policy and he (admirably) replied it was a limit, not a target.

The latest forecast had expenditure at 33.4% of GDP. That 3.4% difference is massive. It is $14.3 billion.

If Labour had kept to their 2017 promise (the temporary increase in 2020 for Covid-19 doesn’t justify it still being this high in 2024) then there would be no need for expenditure cuts. In fact we would have a $5 billion surplus instead of a $9 billion deficit.

The tax take as a percentage of GDP has increased also. It is currently 29.1% (32.3% for all core crown revenue) or $122 billion and in 2017/18 it was 27.9% or $80 billion. So tax has increased $42 billion in nominal terms and as a percentage of GDP it is $5 billion a year higher than it was.

Part of this is because of fiscal drag. We have an intolerable situation where people who do not work and are on welfare get their welfare payments indexed to inflation, but working people do not get tax brackets indexed, which means you net income drops due to inflation even if your gross income stays the same in real terms.

In April 2011 a worker earning $70,000 paid $14,020 in tax or an effective rate of 20%.

In December 2023, a worker earning the equivalent of $70,000 in April 2011 would earn $94,282 today.

The tax on $94,282 would be $22,033 on an effective rate of 23.4%. You have had a tax increase in today’s dollars of $3,177.

What the Government has promised in its budget is not tax cuts in the normal sense of the word. All they will be doing is partially refunding us for 13 years of tax increases.

The claim that spending has to be cut because of tax cuts is nonsense. Spending has to be cut because it exploded to $14 billion a year more than what Labour promised. This is why Labour was also announcing spending cuts just before the election.

The tax cuts will not restore us to where we should be. The person on $94,000 will only get a tax cut of $1,043 to compensate them for tax increases of $3,177. It is less than a third of the extra tax we have been paying.

The real solution is to treat tax brackets like benefits, and have them automatically adjust every year. If it is good enough for people not working to protect them against inflation, it is good enough for those who do work.

Home detention for attempted murder

The Herald reports:

A high school student wrote a detailed “kill plan” and told his ex to stay away from school on the day he wanted to kill her new boyfriend.

But when his plans went awry, the teen instead went to his schoolmate’s home days later, swinging a machete at his victim’s head, slicing open his chest and forearm. …

The defendant started dating a girl in 2021 but, as the relationship progressed, he became “possessive” and would get jealous if she spent time with other boys.

Police told the court the boy felt deeply for his girlfriend, verging on an obsession.

The pair split after several months, and she began seeing the victim.

The defendant started to compile information from the internet and began forming a “kill plan”, which Judge Kelly described as “chilling”.

The last entry in his kill plan notes read: “If arrested, it is what it is”.

Days before the attack he told another classmate he had been hired to kill someone.

The next day he went to school, planning to use a knife to kill the victim, but his plan was thwarted after showing the knife to a friend.

He cold bloodedly planned to murder his classmate because he saw his ex GF as his possession.

Justice Grice took a starting point of seven years in prison, but with discounts for factors including rehabilitative prospects and time already spent in a youth facility and on bail, she came to an end sentence of 12 months home detention.

Once the law changes, his sentence would be four years and three months which seems much more appropriate for attempted murder.

A worrying $52 billion discrepancy

Bryce Wilkinson writes:

Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.

Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have made a significant contribution to funding that $158 billion.


“We do not want more natural disasters, so we can hope this source of funding is temporary”, says Dr Wilkinson.


But the big mystery is who has been funding the $52 billion that Statistics New Zealand has had to attribute to “errors and omissions”. This discrepancy is even more pronounced in the past two years, with $36 billion of the $62 billion current account deficit seemingly funded by mysterious sources.

I had no idea there was such a mismatch between our current account deficit and our balance sheet. There should be serious work undertaken by Statistics NZ to try and reduce this discrepancy. $52 billion is too large an error, even over many years.

Good suggestions on fast tracked consenting

The NZ Initiative has some good suggestions around the Govt’s fast track consenting law:

  • Eligibility criteria for projects should include economic efficiency, with cost benefit analysis used to help prioritise projects for referral and approval.
  • Expert panels should include expertise on economic analysis.
  • Final decision approval, including the ability to apply conditions, should either be given to
    the expert panel rather than Ministers, or if Ministers remain decision-makers, disclosure
    requirements be included covering reasons for declining expert panel recommendations,
    applicants’ meetings with Ministers and any political donations applicants make.
  • Include the Minister for the Environment in the decision-making process to ensure
    environmental considerations are given sufficient weight.
  • A sunset clause to make fast-tracking temporary while wider substantial RMA reform (and
    reviews of other conservation-related legislation) is undertaken.
  • The compensation payments under the Public Works Act should be increased to incentivise
    early agreement with landowners.

I have previously written on the need for enhanced disclosure requirements if Ministers are decision makers. I like the proposal to have a fourth Minister involved as decision maker, and to have a sunset clause for it. Also a very good idea to make sure all expert panels have an economist on it. We’ve seen with Wellington City Council what goes wrong when no one on an expert panel understands economics.