Stuff reports:

Hundreds of people — if not the entire population of Woodville — turned out for a public meeting in the small town to oppose plans to toll a state highway in their area.

Te Ahu a Turanga, the replacement road for the Manawatū Gorge, is set to open in May 2025, but at “last minute” proposal has been made by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) to charge motorists.

It would bring tolls of $4.30 for light vehicles and $8.60 for heavy vehicles travelling between Ashhurst and Woodville, and many residents said the additional costs would be a “cruel” burden to bear.

Children sat watching iPads in their Oodies while parents asked NZTA representative Linda Stewart how they were going to afford to take their kids to sports and other regular appointments in Palmerston North.

Tararua College presiding member Bexx Brown said they too had concerns as many of their students needed to travel for educational purposes.

Woodville also had a median income of $22,700, and with limited employment in the area people had no other option but to travel for work.

Rangitane representative Mavis Mullins said those most impacted by the proposal would be the most vulnerable people in their community.

As a general principle I support user pays for roads and tolls are a better form of user pays than simply petrol tax. I have no problem with every new major road being tolled. Better those who use the road pay for it, than people from all over New Zealand.

But I can see the impact of tolls on this particular community could be significant. However it is worth pointing out they can use the existing SH3 so people could choose to use the free longer route or tolled shorter less windy route.

Another option could be whether locals could purchase a monthly or annual pass that would have a cap on using the toll road. $4.30 a trip is $8.60 a day return, $43 a week, $170 a month or $2,100 or so a year. A $100 monthly pass could be reasonable?

Radio NZ reports:

A project to replace a system that dishes out $12 billion of health payments every year is in trouble.

Health NZ / Te Whatu Ora’s health sector agreements and payments system was rated three years ago in danger of complete failure. But three years on it has spent $85m only for the replacement project to appear to be “unachievable”, a newly released Treasury paper prepared in March shows.

By then, the $116m budget approved in 2021 had already expanded to $140m, with officials warning: “Successful delivery (to the approvals in the last Cabinet approved business case) appears to be unachievable. There are major issues which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable.

Think how many nurses or doctors that money could have hired!

A guest post by Owen Jennings:

Airlines have trees to offset their CO2 Greenhouse Gas emissions.  That’s recognised and acceptable.  More than that it is encouraged and subsidised.

Farmers have grasses to offset their CH4 (methane) Greenhouse Gas emissions.   That’s not recognised and it’s not acceptable.  More than that, they are heavily criticised and are threatened with severe penalties.

Humans emit CO2 Greenhouse Gas.  We are not penalised because we are part of a closed, natural cycle where we eat greens that are grown by photosynthesis that uses CO2.  That’s IPCC policy.

Cows emit CH4 Greenhouse Gas.  They are to be penalised even though they are also part of the very same, closed, natural cycle where they eat greens that are grown by photosynthesis that uses CO2.  That’s IPCC policy.   But is it equitable?

I am told size counts. Airlines produce 1.0 billion tonnes of Greenhouse Gas a year.  Humans breathing, 2.94 billion tonnes.  The world’s sheep and cattle produce 4.03 billion tonnes of Greenhouse Gas a year.  Pretty straight forward facts?  Well, no, they’re not actually.  To get the 4.03 billion tonnes the world’s climate experts multiplied the actual figure by 28.  The true amount of methane gas emitted was a much more manageable 144 million tonnes.

Why multiply by 28?  Cows and sheep emit methane, and the experts want us all to believe methane is 28 times more of a warming problem than CO2, the gas that aeroplanes and people emit.   But is it 28 times stronger, in fact?  It’s not, and any school kid doing science could demonstrate why it is not.  

Remember the silly question we asked as kids – “what weighs more a tonne of feathers or a tonne of lead?”   The explanation included the reality that the feathers took up a huge amount more space.  And thereby lies the simple mistake of the ‘28 times’.  It’s the reverse to the feathers.  The “28 times” proponents use weight instead of volume or mass.  Their proposition is that every extra tonne of methane added to the atmosphere does more warming than an extra tonne of CO2.  

The fallacy is that warming is done on a molecule by molecule basis, not weight. Methane has an atomic mass of 16 (C=12, H=1), whilst CO2 (O=16) has a mass of 44.  So, one kilogram of methane has 2.75 times the number of molecules in an equal weight of CO2.  If equal volumes of the two gases are compared, rather than equal weights, the “28 times” is grossly over-stated. Molecule for molecule, the warming ability of methane compared to carbon dioxide is 28 divided by 2.75 times (44/16) – i.e. a much more modest multiplier of 10.2.

The difference between 28 and 10 times is massively significant when the gun is at every farmer’s head to reduce or pay.  

But wait, there’s more.

Using weight measures shows that the mass of CO2 currently in the atmosphere is 3000 gigatonnes, as compared to methane at only 5 gigatonnes. By weight, atmospheric methane is a mere one six-hundredth (0.0016%).  It is widely accepted, by the IPCC and sceptics alike, that doubling the weight of CO2 in the atmosphere is likely to cause a direct temperature rise (without feedbacks) of about 1.0°C. 

Doubling the weight of methane in the atmosphere adds only one six-hundredth as much greenhouse gas as doubling CO2. When multiplied by a multiplier of 10.2, this would produce warming of only (10.2/600 x 1°) or 0.017°C.  Now, factor in that all ruminants worldwide, domesticated and wild, are only responsible for 15% of the methane entering the atmosphere so their contribution is now a lowly (0.017C X 15%) or 0.00255 C.

At the present rate of increase methane will need 360 years to double.  That means all the cows and sheep on the planet, at the very most, are warming the planet by (0.00255C divided by 360) or 0.000007 C per year.

New Zealand has just 1% of the world’s ruminants so that makes our cocky’s contribution a heroic 0.00000007 degrees C per year.  Yes, it’s absurd and beyond all comprehension that many New Zealanders from our “climate-woke” Prime Minister down to the tea person at the University can believe that Kiwi farmers are still a problem.

All these ridiculously miniscule, inconsequential numbers are utterly meaningless because no matter how much we multiply and divide and argue decimal points the simple fact is that farmers are using as much Greenhouse Gas from the atmosphere every day as they put back, if not significantly more.  There is literally no scientifically based case to tax ruminant emissions.

As cows consume grass, they stimulate its regrowth, which sequesters additional CO2 through photosynthesis. While cows emit methane as a byproduct of digestion, this methane eventually breaks down into CO₂ and water, completing a natural cycle.

Moreover, livestock contribute to carbon sequestration by storing carbon in their bodies and the soil by enriching it through their waste, promoting further grass growth. This creates a positive feedback loop, enhancing the pasture’s ability to capture more CO2. Methods of increasing soil sequestration are emerging, so several tonnes of carbon per hectare are locked away permanently.  Consequently, New Zealand’s pasture-based farming system is acting as a net absorber of greenhouse gases, challenging the notion that livestock farming solely contributes to emissions. 

The great tragedy is that New Zealand’s leaders over the last 30 years or so haven’t bothered to learn the facts or even tried to convince the UN and its IPCC sidekick that ruminant methane is not a problem using the available science.  Too many of our scientists are unwilling to challenge the prevailing IPCC conclusions – its job threatening and odium producing.  Farmers feel sold down the creek.  

DPF: Note scientists say it is not just about weight. MIT notes:

Let’s say a factory releases a ton of methane and a ton of CO₂into the atmosphere today. The methane immediately begins to trap a lot of heat—at least 100 times as much as the CO₂. But the methane starts to break down and leave the atmosphere relatively quickly. As more time goes by, and as more of that original ton of methane disappears, the steady warming effect of the CO₂ slowly closes the gap. Over 20 years, the methane would trap about 80 times as much heat as the CO₂. Over 100 years, that original ton of methane would trap about 28 times as much heat as the ton of CO₂.

Mark Robinson is the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina and standing for Governor. His social media history has come to light, and wow does he have some doozies. Some extracts:

• I sat there for about an hour and watched as several girls came in and showered
• I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson wrote. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!
• I’m not in the KKK. They don’t let blacks join. If I was in the KKK I would have called him Martin Lucifer Koon!
• Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few
• I’d take Hitler over any of the sh*t that’s in Washington right now!

Robinson has been trailing in the polls by around 10% on average. I suspect it is about to get a lot larger.

Stuff reports:

However, the Qantas Group’s submission claims this is what they are:

Domestic fees per passenger: $6.73 in 2023 rising to $30.30 in 2032 (350% increase).

International fees per passenger: $23.39 in 2023 to $79.95 in 2032 (240% increase).

Those Qantas figures were put to Auckland Airport, who did not agree with them.

That level of landing fees would be way way too high. It would add a huge cost to cheap domestic airfares.

Stuff asked the airport for its high and low path fee increases over the same period as the Qantas figures but they didn’t supply them. Instead, they said this: “We haven’t set prices out to 2032, only to 2027. Prices are set every five years because they rely on big variables such as interest rates and cost of construction. We will consult airlines again for the 2027-2032 prices, but we see a viable pathway for domestic jet charges to average $25 over PSE5”.

“Our charges will be going up $1.76 per year on average and at the end of 2027 will be $15.45 for domestic and $10.70 for regional.”

So let’s try and unspin this. Ab average of $25 over five years means they should add up to $125. so it could be.

• 2028 $20.00
• 2029 $22.50
• 2030 $25.00
• 2031 $27.50
• 2032 $30.00

So what Auckland Airport says doesn’t contradict what Qantas claims.

Air New Zealand’s main argument is around the proposed size of the new domestic terminal. It hired global design and engineering firm ARUP to compare Auckland Airport’s proposed domestic terminal with others around the world. It concluded the proposal is twice as big as it needs to be. It also blasts the airport for using New York’s JFK Airport as a benchmark, calling it an “inappropriate comparison”.

JFK Airport has 90 airlines, 1,200 daily flights and 62 million passengers.

Auckland Airport has 27 airlines, 210 daily flights and 16 million passengers.

On the claim of excessive profits: “Airport charges at Auckland make up just 4-6% of an average domestic airfare.

At the moment. But if they increase to $30 then they might make up 25% of an average airfare, and for cheaper airfares over half the cost!

Auckland Airport’s domestic charges have been 40-50% lower than similar airports for many years and at the end of our current pricing period will remain at or below other New Zealand Airports”.

Would be nice to have public data on landing charges for each airport in NZ, so we can judge for ourselves.

It also points out the airport has moved up the rankings of the most expensive airports in terms of operating expenditure per passenger, from 43rd in 2022 to 26 in 2023.

Not good.

Earlier this year I formed a new Charitable Company (Education 710+) with some outstanding people. The purpose was to apply for Charter Schools and, if successful, make a big difference in the lives of children and families that we would get to work with.

We put in four applications and had the great news this week that all four have gone through to stage two of the application process.

The applications are for

– City 008: A Primary School in Auckland Central

– Warkworth 710: For Years 7 to 10.

– Epsom 710: For Years 7 to 10 with high ability to cater for children not suited to cookie cutter education.

– City 1113: A Year 11-13 school in Auckland Central focused on students working towards and obtaining University Entrance.

(NB: There are 57,000 households in central Auckland and not a single walk-up school.

Although it will be a big task there are HUGE education advantages in having a great set of schools as a part of one organisation. I have some excellent leaders and teachers lined up to help create brilliant schools.

We would very much welcome support and people who would like to work with us. Please get in touch.

Very excited.

Best

Alwyn Poole
alwyn.poole@gmail.com
Innovative Education Consultants Ltd
Education 710+ Ltd
(both sites currently being re-done)
alwynpoole.substack.com
www.linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole-16b02151/

The US Federal Government is now paying over $1 trillion a year in interest on its $35 trillion debt. So they are paying more in interest than the entire GDP of New Zealand four times over.

The major contributors to the debt have been:

1. Obama $8.3 trillion
2. Trump $8.2 trillion
3. Biden $6.7 trillion
4. Bush $6.1 trillion

So their share of the debt is:

1. Obama 23.7%
2. Trump 23.4%
3. Biden 19.1%
4. Bush 17.4%

So the interest being paid due to each President’s policies are:

1. Obama $237 billion or $1,810/household
2. Trump $234 billion or $1,788/household
3. Biden $191 billion or $1,461/household
4. Bush $174 billion or $1,330/household

Overall each US household is paying $7,633 in interest payments on behalf of the last four Presidents. Sadly no matter who wins, the debt and interest will just continue to grow until one day the bubble collapses.

I have not checked all the stories out, but hugely one-sided reporting if true.

I wonder if Radio NZ did 30 stories covering the views of opponents of Maori Wards when Labour in 2021 without electoral mandate abolished referenda on them? They did so using urgency to push it through Parliament in under two weeks. I bet you Radio NZ had at most a handful of articles on it.

In 2023 National, ACT and NZ First were all on the record opposing the scrapping of referenda. They got elected in that knowledge. It was in their coalition agreements, yet it gets 30 articles on it.

An important paper from NZIER:

The discount rate is basically the estimated cost of borrowing or capital, used to calculate if a public sector project will produce a net positive benefit.

If it is set too low, you spend too much money on projects that are uneconomic and if it is set too high, you may decide not fund a project that is worth funding. So the rate used has a massive impact.

NZIER point out:

Since 2020, interest rates have risen significantly, but the Treasury has not updated the discount rate. This has caused the discount rate to become untethered from interest rates. The last time interest rates were at today’s level, the Treasury’s discount rate was 8.0% – three percentage points above the current value.

And they show this by this graph:

incredible that is hasn’t increased in the last few years. I would have thought 7% would be a suitable rate for now, based on the likely drop in interest rates occurring.

A very important cabinet circular:

The Government seeks to ensure that all New Zealanders, regardless of ethnicity or personal
identity, have access to public services that are appropriate and effective for them, and that
services are not arbitrarily allocated on the basis of ethnicity or any other aspect of identity. …

Cabinet expects agencies will recognise that there are many variables that can be used to identify and assess need, and that all variables should be considered before ethnic identity is automatically used to determine need.

So it is not a ban on any service based on ethnicity, but it sets a very high threshold – as opposed to the current near zero threshold.

Also Nicola Willis has announced:

“The Government also wants to ensure that Government contracts are awarded within a robust and merit-based framework that focuses on delivering public value.

“As such Cabinet has removed the previous Government’s target for 8% of government agencies’ annual contracts to be awarded to Māori businesses.

“This target risked a perception of discrimination and gave the impression of an uneven playing field for suppliers.

No perception about it. This was a terrible policy. Let’s say there are two companies competing for a government tender. Both produce work of the same quality and price.

One is owned by five people, who are all very wealthy. One of them has Maori ancestry through their great great great grand father. They qualify for the 8% quota. The other company is owned by five people, none of whom are very wealthy. They are a mix of races, but none of them Maori. They do not qualify.

The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance released:

he Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance can reveal through Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act that Auckland Council spent $263,000 on four sets of stairs for Milford Beach’s Southern Walkway.

As part of council’s coastal asset renewals programme, the total figure adds up to $8,218.75 per step, replaced like-for-like with the addition of a handrail.

Staggering, even for local government.

You can get sets of outdoor steps for a few hundred dollars. I could even imagine you spending a few thousand dollars on them – but over $60,000 each is incredible.=

From Radio NZ

This is great. Emergency housing should be for emergencies and temporary.

Stuff reports:

Hundreds of explosions that erupted from handheld pagers across Beirut may have been the result of booby-trapped devices rather than a cyber attack, security experts have suggested.

The pagers, which were being used by Hezbollah officials to communicate privately, detonated across the Lebanese capital on Tuesday, reportedly injuring thousands of people, including civilians and militant fighters.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the explosions, but the dramatic attack triggered an obvious question: how did they do it?

One theory is the explosions were the result of an unprecedented cyber attack, with hackers somehow overheating and destroying the pagers remotely.

Another is supply chain sabotage, with Israel able to booby trap hundreds of pagers destined for use by Hezbollah.

A cyber attack could have involved manipulating these devices and causing their batteries to overheat. Lithium batteries will smoke or melt if overheated and can catch on fire, with past fires reported on gadgets including smartphones, e-bikes or scooters.

This is fascinating. Instinctively I don’t think it is overheating as a fire is not the same as an explosion. Not sure we’ll ever find out, but I will predict pager use is about to plummet!

Hezbollah is recognised as a terrorist entity by over 60 countries including the EU, UK, US, the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Interesting speculation here.

The Herald reports:

Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has acknowledged the economic challenges facing residents in the capital, saying she’s “feeling the crunch” too and recently sold her car to help pay the bills.

The mayor’s annual salary has increased to $189,799 following a 3.7% pay rise in July. She also won $1.4 million through Lotto in 2002.

Maybe if rates were not going up 20%, then an adult with no children on almost $200,000 a year wouldn’t be forced to sell their car!

The Herald reports:

A person has died on Mount Ruapehu.

Local iwi have placed a rāhui over the Tūroa ski area. …

“The rāhui acknowledges the sacredness of our maunga, the sacredness of the loss of life and acknowledges the family’s loss.”

The rāhui meant operations on the ski area would be paused to allow for a “quiet time” to heal the mountain.

“This is done to uplift the spirit of the deceased and restore the elements to make it safe for visitors to return,” the statement said.

Mountains don’t have spirit. They don’t have feelings. They don’t get sad when someone dies on them., Mountains are made of rock and soil. The rocks are mainly silicon and oxygen.

I wouldn’t have a problem with a place being closed because of mourning the loss of life. That is not superstition. But to give credence to claims that rocks need time to heal because someone died on them is just more mixing science and mythology.

I love mythology. I love reading about and studying the Greek Gods, the Roman Gods, the Norse Gods and the Maori Gods. They all have a wonderful place to play in culture. But they have no place to play in science or law.

I love the Media Insider columns by Shayne Currie. They are my first read in the Herald. It is rare for me to disagree with one, but I must do so with this one on Google.

Media Minister Paul Goldsmith faces a huge test of will as he oversees a new law in the face of strident opposition from one of the world’s biggest tech companies. Some industry and Government insiders accuse Google of employing bullying tactics. Shayne Currie reports.

Tech giant Google – whose New Zealand operation made almost $1 billion last financial year – has been accused of employing hardball tactics with the Government and media companies over a planned new law which would force it to pay for the journalism and news content that help drive its business model.

Several sources have alleged Google’s tactics include threatening to not renew existing contracts with media companies, while the new law goes through Parliament.

One source said the tactics were tantamount to bullying. “They’re playing their usual games, being as obnoxious as they can be.”

First of all the statement that journalism and news content help drive their business model is an assertion made by media companies, but is far from a fact. An article here points out less than 2% of searches new news related, and most of them don’t have ads on them. Media of course have the choice of setting their content not to be useable by Google. However none of them have done so – presumably because they benefit from doing so.

Secondly who is the bully. The organisations trying to force a company to hand over money to keep them happy, or the company saying it doesn’t want to hand over money?

The media are the bullies – trying to get the government to pass a law to steal money from Internet companies and pass ist on to them.

Todd Stephenson released:

ACT MP Todd Stephenson has lodged a member’s bill in Parliament’s ballot to extend eligibility for End of Life Choice services.

The End of Life Choice (Extended Eligibility) Amendment Bill removes the requirement for a terminally ill person to demonstrate a six-month prognosis, while retaining all other safeguards. …

This means the criteria would then be:

• is aged 18 years or over
• is in an advanced state of irreversible decline in physical capability
• experiences unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved in a manner that the person considers tolerable
• is competent to make an informed decision about assisted dying.

I’m in favour.

The Spectator reports:

The price we’ve been sold for, £100 million, speaks to that belief in our potential. We were valued at £20 million when we separated from the Daily Telegraph in 2005. Since then, the magazine market has fallen by about two-thirds but our subscriptions have more than doubled. This five times valuation increase is, to put it mildly, rare in our industry. The auction attracted 22 potential bidders, including some of the greatest and most respected names in British and European publishing. Not bad for a publication with barely three dozen journalists. 

This deal is vindication of The Spectator’s unusual business model. In this trade, there is always pressure to go for the digital ‘quick wins’ (clickbait articles, advertorials, etc.) but we rejected this as a false economy – so commercial that it’s uncommercial. It would take us downmarket, deform our character and, ergo, reduce the company’s value. So we went the other way, using our success to double down on the magazine’s finest traditions in the belief that quality of writing matters above all. We did a lot that went against the conventional digital wisdom. We put together a different business model and a unique way of working, based on close collaboration between all departments and journalists equally comfortable with print, digital and broadcast.  

When other publications were shedding sub-editors, we poached the best ones we could find. When newspapers shrank their books sections, we proudly kept Sam Leith’s at ten-plus pages and gave him a podcast. We created a research team who apply perhaps the most robust pre-publication scrutiny on Fleet Street (mindful that it matters more than ever that readers can trust the facts they read). When other weeklies started cutting costs by not printing over Easter and the summer, we put more effort than ever into the issues released in those holiday periods. 

I am a huge fan of the Spectator and they have shown how quality can be profitable. Their daily podcast, Coffee House Shot, is also a must listen.

Lukje Pierson writes:

A few weeks back, Wellington City Council published a story summarising what thousands of us think of its priorities for the next decade. Buried on page 40, you’ll find what Wellingtonians really think of the council’s controversial new cycleways. It turns out just 30% of us are happy, while 60% want to see the work reduced, or stopped altogether.

In other words, twice as many Wellingtonians oppose council’s cycling network as support it.

This is not hugely surprising.

Wellington’s cycleway shambles has become a regular topic all over town, but I’ve never met anyone opposed to cycleways in principle – we’re an environmentally and socially conscious city, and most agree cycling should be a choice in our transport mix.

So why are we all so outraged?

For a start, we’re doing them atrociously. Our streets have become littered with a mishmash of painted strips, cones and poles, stapled bits of plastic, incoherent road markings and routes that weave in and out of parked cars and through groups of pedestrians at bus stops.

Then there’s the impact on parking. Aside from the obvious inconvenience, removing parking from the central city alone has cost council $8m annually in lost revenue – directly contributing to record rates rises.

The best cycleways should be removed from roads, not created by abolishing car parks or taking away lanes.

This, to me, goes to the heart of the problem with Wellington’s diabolical cycleways. Council is quite literally bulldozing ahead with $111m more of this work, ignoring the pleas of our emergency services, struggling small business owners, vulnerable healthcare workers and two thirds of Wellingtonians just trying to get by, in favour of cycling extremism.

This story isn’t over, but we can all see how it ends. Far from being environmentally and socially conscious, council will double down on a privileged few, while making the city less liveable for everybody else – and force the rest of us to pay for it, at a time we can least afford to.

It is a wealth transfer from the many to the few!