The Government has published targets and minimum levels to be achieved for charter schools. A charter school that doesn’t achieve these minimum levels can have its registration cancelled, which is a type of accountability other schools do not have.

They are:

Attendance

• Target: 80% attending regularly (90% or more)
• Minimum fewer barriers schools 60%
• Minimum moderate barriers school 50%
• Minimum more barriers schools 35%

Reading

• Target: 80% at or above curriculum level (currently 47%)
• Minimum fewer barriers schools 67% (currently 57%)
• Minimum moderate barriers school 50% (currently 44%)
• Minimum more barriers schools 30% (currently 34%)

Writing/Maths

• Target: 80% at or above curriculum level (currently 22% for maths)
• Minimum fewer barriers schools 35% (34% currently maths)
• Minimum moderate barriers school 35% (20% currently maths)
• Minimum more barriers schools 25% (8% currently maths)

NCEA Level 2

• Target: 95% achieve NCEA Level 2
• Minimum fewer barriers schools 95% (85% current average)
• Minimum moderate barriers school 80% (78% current average)
• Minimum more barriers schools 65% (62% current average)

So these charter school are being set minimum levels which are higher than the current average for their type of school.

The Herald reports:

A woman who assaulted an NZME journalist outside a courthouse has been sentenced to 18 months’ jail, but is expected to be released almost immediately because of time served while awaiting sentencing.

Rosie Morunga – who is a person of interest in the killing of Baby Ru – last month admitted 18 charges including assault, theft of a cellphone, using a document, aggravated assault, wilful damage and shoplifting, between June 2022 and November 2023. She was also sentenced for one assault bringing the total number of charges for sentencing to 19.

18 months jail for 19 offences!

According to the summary of facts the assault occurred in November when Morunga was standing outside the Hutt Valley District Court. When the journalist, whose name is suppressed, began questioning Morunga she was spat on, her hair was pulled back and she was punched in the head multiple times. In the fracas the journalist dropped two cellphones containing three bank cards.

Morunga picked these up and visited a Lower Hutt liquor store where she used the cards to buy bottles of spirits and RTDs.

So she has literally just appeared in court, and then assaults a journalist and steal her bank cards to stock up on alcohol.

Judge Wills said the aggravating factors in the case included that the offending occurred while Morunga was on bail and, for part of the time, a sentence of intensive supervision.

She noted that Morunga had an extensive criminal history with 74 previous convictions, half for violent offending. There had also been nine assaults while in prison.

But she’ll be out very soon so she can crack the ton.

Reuters reports:

A majority of Gazans believe Hamas’ decision to launch the Oct. 7 attack on Israel was incorrect, according to a poll published on Tuesday pointing to a big drop in backing for the assault that prompted Israel’s devastating Gaza offensive.

The poll, conducted in early September by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), found that 57% of people surveyed in the Gaza Strip said the decision to launch the offensive was incorrect, while 39% said it was correct.

PSR’s previous poll, conducted in June, showed that 57% of respondents in Gaza thought the decision to be correct.

So support in Gaza for the terrorist attack has dropped from 57% to 39%. That is a small glimmer of hope. There will never be an independent Palestinian state (which I support) if a majority of the residents think what happened on October 7 was a good idea.

Just as the IRA eventually abandoned terrorism, hopefully the same will occur in Gaza.

Defenders of the massive 20% rates increase in Wellington would have you believe this has nothing to do with decisions made by Councillors, but it was instead just due to the need to spend more on water infrastructure etc.

So the next time you hear someone claim this, recall the following decisions made by WCC:

1. $593 million on social housing
2. $400 million for a sludge minimisation facility at Moa Point
3. $330 million on rebuilding the town hall so we have another music venue
4. $240 million on Civic Square
5. $236 million on food recycling
6. $189 million on Te Matapihi library
7. $180 million on the Takina convention centre
8. $160 million on cycleways
9. $139 million on removing cars and redeveloping the Golden Mile
10. $55 million to “upgrade” Thorndon Quay
11. $42 million on renovating St James Theatre
12. $32 million to Reading Cinemas (attempted but failed)
13. $13 million on a carpark building

This is why rates are going up 20%. That’s well over $2 billion in non-core expenditure which comes to over $25,000 per household.

After the jury note in the Polkinghorne Trial was read out, I commented on Twitter it is hard to see a guilty verdict based on it. In fact the nature of the question was so easy to answer, that I seriously think the jury may have in fact been sending a message to the public, not a question to the Judge.

The note was reported as saying:

“Most of the people on the jury do not think there is enough evidence to support Pauline having committed suicide. However, some people on the jury do not think that the Crown has supplied enough evidence that we can answer yes to the question, ‘Has the Crown made you sure that Dr Polkinghorne caused the death of his wife, Ms Pauline Hanna, by intentionally strangling her?’ Please can we have some direction.”

The Judge responded:

The judge responded by noting that each question in the question trail begins with “are you sure” and that the defence doesn’t have the onus of proof. “At the end of the day, it’s not sufficient for you to say that Dr Polkinghorne is probably guilty or even very likely guilty,” Justice Graham Lang repeated from his summing-up.

Now this is no surprise. One of the most basic points of law almost everyone is familiar with is that the prosecution has to prove guilt, the defence doesn’t have to prove innocence.

I find it difficult to believe the jury didn’t understand this, and needed direction. Unless Ron Mansfield is incompetent (which clearly he is not) he would have made this point many times. Unless Justice Lang is incompetent (which he is not) he would have stressed this in the summing up. The question trail ever made it clear.

What also strikes me as unusual is the jury indicated their thinking in detail, saying both that some though the prosecution had not made it case, and also most do not think it is suicide. I can’t recall a trial where the jury indicates their thinking in such detail, and the judge reveals it in public session. Off my lay experience, I can only recall situations where a jury was having trouble reaching a unanimous verdict that all they reveal is they are not unanimous. They don’t say the majority think not guilty and the minority guilty. Yet in this case they do give such details.

Also the view that the majority think it wasn’t suicide is superfluous. The test is whether the prosecution had established the facts beyond reasonable doubt. There was no need to offer their view on suicide.

It gets even more interesting when you consider the original note, as found by Steve Braunias:

After we spoke, I went back inside courtroom 11, that hothouse where everyone wilted these past eight weeks, to check on the jury’s document. A word had been crossed out. I wanted to take a closer look to see which word.

The foreperson’s handwriting was very nice and his spelling was immaculate. The word crossed out was “everyone”. It had originally read, “Everyone on the jury do not think that the Crown has supplied enough evidence.”

It was a prophecy of their verdict.

This strongly suggests that the vast majority thought the prosecution had failed to the make the case. Maybe even everyone thought that. But maybe they realised sending a note saying we all think the Crown has failed to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, would look ridiculous as it is so clear that means they need to deliver a not guilty verdict. So they downgraded “everyone” to “some”. That is also intriguing as they had previously said “the majority” in relation to suicide. Why did they go from “everyone” to “some”?

My theory is the jury think Polkinghorne did it, and wanted the public to know that. That explains the note. They had reached a stage where “everyone” thought the prosecution had failed to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt. They knew they had to do their duty, but they didn’t like Polkinghorne, and that he would be officially declared not guilty. They thought it was more likely than not he did it, and by sending that note, they made sure the public knows that too. So their not guilty verdict is seen as a verdict of “not proven” rather than “innocent”.

I welcome feedback from readers, especially those with legal experience, as to how unusual it is to have a jury note like this one. To me I don’t think they needed direction at all. They just wanted to explain their verdict in the only way they could.

Stuff reports:

There are calls from some Wellington businesses for the Government to follow the lead of one of the world’s biggest companies – Amazon – and order workers to stop working from home.

It could be “the number one” fix for an economy that bankers in a recent Kiwibank report described as so low it was “icy”.

I know WFH has contributed to the problems some Wellington shops have. But banning WFH for the public service would be wrong. The role of the public service is to provide effective and efficient public services. It is not to create shoppers in Wellington.

If a public agency decides that they can best achieve their mission by allowing staff to work partially from home, then they should be able to do so. It also reduces congestion, transport costs and emissions.

I note the Government has said:

The Government wants to see more public servants come into their place of work each day and is taking steps to make this expectation clear to chief executives, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. 

“Updated guidance for the public service will make clear that working from home is not an entitlement and must be agreed and monitored,” Nicola Willis says.

“While carefully defined working from home arrangements can benefit workers and employers, if the pendulum swings too far in favour of working from home, there are downsides for employers and employees. That’s even before we consider the effects for the CBD retailers, restaurants and cafes.

I think it is far enough that WFH is not regarded as an entitlement, and should be monitored. But public service employers should be focused on whether WFH arrangements are good for them achieving their mission, not the impact on CBD shops.

Paul Goldsmith announced:

Capping the sentence discounts that judges can apply at 40 per cent when considering mitigating factors unless it would result in manifestly unjust sentencing outcomes.

This is much needed. Some offenders have had 85% discounts which just makes the starting point almost irrelevant. No matter what the starting point is, you end up with a short sentence or home detention.

One defence attorney even tried to claim cumulative discounts of 110%. Presumably that would mean they get not only zero sentence, but time off their next offence!

I do worry about the manifestly unjust exception though as an activist judiciary have changed this from something that used to be very rare, to very common.

Preventing repeat discounts for youth and remorse. Lenient sentences are failing to deter offenders who continue to rely on their youth or expressions of remorse without making serious efforts to reform their behaviour.

Yep, remorse shouldn’t apply more than once, and same for learning from a youthful mistake.

Encouraging the use of cumulative sentencing for offences committed while on bail, in custody, or on parole to denounce behaviour that indicates a disregard for the criminal justice system, as committed to in the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement.

Great idea. Will judges ignore it though?

Implementing a sliding scale for early guilty pleas with a maximum sentence discount of 25 per cent, reducing to a maximum of 5 per cent for a guilty plea entered during the trial. This will prevent undue discounts for late-stage guilty pleas and avoid unnecessary trials that are costly and stressful for victims.

To a degree the judiciary already does this, but it varies from judge to judge. Having more consistency and certainty should be useful.

There is one problem with the proposal though. The proposed 40% maximum cap includes the potential 25% for pleading guilty. Now if the offender is likely to get a 40% reduction anyway due to youth and background, then they may calculate that there is no benefit in pleading guilty as they will get 40% anyway.

The way to solve this would be to remove the guilty plea discount from the overall cap, and reduce the overall cap.

So for example you could have:

• Maximum 25% discount for pleading guilty
• Maximum 20% discount for all other factors

I wrote this post before the jury delivered a verdict, but after the conclusion of evidence. It will only be published after the verdict is announced (which was just announced as not guilty).

Like many I have followed the media reports of the death of Pauline Hanna since it occurred. It is worth reflecting that regardless of the cause of death of Hanna, it is a very sad and tragic story. You had an incredibly competent professional woman in a top job, earning a high salary – yet she was in a relationship which saw her apologising for not paying enough for groceries, not always looking “good” enough, trying to please her husband through group sex etc. It was so sad having her life and insecurities exposed through her death. Regardless of the verdict, she is a tragic victim.

To a degree Polkinghorne is also a figure of sadness. He was one of the most respected eye surgeons in New Zealand, if not outside. He was earning $750,000 a year. He had an amazing wife and house. He was popular and had a wide circle of friends. It’s a life many would aspire to. But he was using P, addicted to sex, worrying about money and most sadly of all fell in love with his escort, mistaking a transactional relationship for a true relationship.

So before we get to the criminal side, it is worth remembering it is also a strategic story of two unhappy individuals, and how so many people have lives that appear perfect on the surface, but are deeply flawed underneath.

When Hanna first died, it was difficult to reach conclusions on what happened. The Police seemed to be very effective at leaking evidence to the media that portrayed Polkinghorne is a bad light. The rushing off to the arms of Madison Ashton made him look guilty, and the rumoured affairs and drug use made it look like a typical he killed the wife to get her out of the way.

But then more stories came out that Hanna knew of his outside relationships, and even took part in some of them. It didn’t appear she was going to leave him. Motive was less.

When the trial started I thought it was probably murder on the balance of probabilities. There didn’t seem to be much of a motive though. And then the opening statement for the prosecution was that he had pleaded guilty to P charges. To me this filled in a missing link. People on P can do insane things, go into a rage etc. It seemed very possible that he snapped under the influence of P. So at the beginning of the trial, I thought it was very very likely a murder, but not quite at the level of reasonable doubt. The rope evidence also pointed to a staged scene.

But as the prosecution went on, the case was underwhelming. Admittedly Ron Mansfield is stunningly good defence lawyer (can someone send me his cellphone number in case I ever get charged with murder), but the evidence was not overly strong. The lack of significant injuries on Hanna was a major factor. Now it is possible that Polkinghorne managed to kill her in a way that very cleverly left no evidence and made suicide plausible – but if he was high on P at the time and in a rage, how likely is it that he was coherent enough to cover it up so well.

The tech experts introduced more doubt, and the evidence on Hanna’s mental health was heartbreaking but made suicide more plausible. And the two Crown pathologists said they could not rule out suicide, which by itself seemed to be reasonable doubt.

So by the end of the (reporting of) the prosecution case, I was in the not guilty beyond reasonable doubt space – before even hearing the defence’s case. I just didn’t think the prosecution had eliminated reasonable doubt. I still thought on balance of probabilities he may have done it, but a long way from beyond reasonable doubt.

Then we had the defence case, and the evidence from the two defence pathologists was very powerful. Basically the only thing the four pathologists agreed on was that it could have been suicide, and they were split 2/2 on whether it could have been homicide. Again hard to see this being beyond reasonable doubt.

The defence also resonated with the lack of evidence for homicide compared to the evidence for suicide such as decades of anti-depressants, a previous failed attempt, the massive work pressures etc.

The summings up went the other way to how I saw the evidence. I thought the crown did a much better summing up than the defence. The defence was too focused on outrage that there was even a trial, and not enough on the numerous areas of reasonable doubt.

Anyway by the end of the trial, I now shifted on the balance of probabilities to it being suicide. I will be very surprised if he is convicted, but of course respect the jury’s decision as they heard all the evidence, and I have relied on media reporting.

By coincidence Martin Lally has done an intriguing bayesian analysis of the trial, and he concludes:

Fourthly, when applying a Bayesian analysis to the case, there are plausible combinations of
views about the evidence that lead to a high probability that the case is a murder, of 87% in
Table 11, but there are also plausible combinations of views about the evidence that lead to a
very low probability that the case is a murder, of 0.7% in Table 10. If one took the view that
the parameter values underlying Table 11 were correct, one would be at or close to the point
where reasonable doubt about guilt did not exist. Alternatively, if one took the view that both
tables 10 and 11 deserved some weight, and further weight on other possibilities between them,
such a person would have reasonable doubt about guilt.

I’ve never seen this approach to trial evidence before, but it is sort of what juries are meant to do – look at the evidence as a whole, not just as individual strands. Lally finds the most favourable interpretation of the evidence is an 87% chance of murder (which would still be reasonable doubt) and the least favourable is a 0.7% chance.

An interesting article in Nature about the impact of Nature endorsing Joe Biden in 2020.

Overall, the study provides little evidence that the endorsement changed participants’ views of the candidates. 

So they didn’t have any impact on the candidates.

Those who viewed the endorsement also rated Nature significantly lower as an unbiased source of information on contentious or divisive issues. 

So the endorsement didn’t help Biden or damage Trump, but did damage Nature.

Zhang also found that viewing Nature’s political endorsement reduced Trump supporters’ willingness to obtain information about COVID-19 from Nature by 38%, when compared with Trump supporters who saw the formatting announcement. This finding echoes other work on how partisanship influences interest in scientific information⁵. Furthermore, Trump supporters who viewed the endorsement also rated US scientists, in general, as much less well informed and unbiased than did Trump supporters who viewed the formatting article. 

So basically an own goal.

There’s been quite a lot of attention on the September 2024 Taxpayers’ Union – Curia poll that showed a significant dip for Chris Hipkins as Preferred PM, and with his favourability.

Now it is only one month and one poll, and my advice is to always look at the average of all the polls, and the trend over many months.

Individual polls can bounce around due to sampling probability or sampling error. So I thought I would have a look at the cross-tabs of the poll to see if they explain why Hipkins dropped. Maybe it was just a sample with fewer Labour voters in it?

Well I dive into the details on Patreon (paywalled) but the short answer is Labour voters are the reason Hipkins dipped. Not that there were too few of them, but that they were less favourable towards him.

The Post reports:

Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has confirmed she did not sell her car to pay the bills before he office clarified that, in fact, she did.

So last week on radio she said she did sell her car to pay her bills. Then on Q+A she said she didn’t. Then after the interview her office pout out a statement contradicting what she said on Q+A.

This resulted in something I’ve not seen before. Host Jack Tane having to say at the beginning of the episode “For transparency’s sake there is some misunderstand and confusion in this interview and the Mayor amends some of her answers”

It wasn’t just her car sale to pay the bills she got wrong.

Whanau also told Tame Wellington rates “will start to decrease over time”. In reality, the council’s 10-year plan shows percentage increases are planned for rates for each of the next 10 years. What will decrease if the amount they increase each year.

There is no decrease. Far from it. Rates will be 50% higher in 2028 than earlier this year. Next year is already forecast to be 10.8% and the year after 13.1%.

She also told Tame an October 10 vote to stop the sale of Wellington Airport shares would likely succeed, before later clarifying that it would likely fail.

Confused? You’re not the only one!

The Ministry of Justice is consulting on two possible changes to jury trials, to reduce the huge delays in scheduling them as the number of trials has been increasing. It now takes an average 498 days from charging to trial conclusion.

At the moment you only have a right to a jury trial for offences that carry a maximum sentence of two years or more. This is most offences. They are consulting on whether they should move to three, five or seven years.

If it moved to three years, it is estimated to reduce the number of jury trials by 7%.

Five years would see a 16% reduction.

Seven years would see a 23% reduction.

I think seven years would be too high a threshold. A possible sentence of five or six years should need a jury trial.

There is only one offence that has a maximum four year penalty so that if one goes for five years, effectively you will be saying that offences with a two or three year maximum will not get a jury trial. Those sort of offences never get the maximum, so in. reality would almost always just get a home detention sentence unless they are a serious recidivist.

Very amused that a company polled on how favourably people viewed empires from over 2,000 years ago. It got me thinking how I would assess them. On a favourability score out of 10, I would be.

• Roman Republic 9/10 – a stunning model of checks and balances, an army loyal to the state
• Ancient Athens 8/10 – invented democracy, cool Gods, great thinkers, not too stable
• Carthage 7/10 – great navy, prosperous, an oligarchy
• Holy Roman Empire 6.5/10 – stables, long lasting. Limited central control.
• Persian Empire – 6.5/10 good bureaucracy and army. Not as miliatarily successful
• Roman Empire – 6/10 – long lasting. Game of two halves. A few good emperors, many terrible ones
• Visigoths – 5.5/10 good integration and laws. Not very impactful.
• Huns – 5/10 too nomadic, and Attila only successful leader

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/