A guest post from a reader:

This question has been debated a lot and on the Right the answer is invariably, yes.

Having followed the media carefully since the election it is my view that it is extremely hard to deny that assertion.  Let me share some insight as to how this has occurred.

I am not going to discuss Winston Peters and how his comments are reported.  This is newsworthy and would be so irrespective of the political backdrop in my view.  Although as always the blending of news and opinion is irritating.  There is a world of difference between a politician actually having lost control and a journalistic assertion that he has.  If the PM has agreements in place about what his colleagues can and cannot say then by definition he has not lost control when they are followed.  Actually journalists I do not give a shot for your deduced conclusions when you have interviewed only your keyboard to reach them.

TV ONE Policy Reporting

For the past month TV One has on a regular basis run stories that follow the same trite formula:

1. Pick a new government policy.

2. Find a perceived loser under the policy.

3. Get them to moan or do it for them.

The bias in this simplistic nonsense is the level of analysis which occurs.  The Right believes in prudence.  By definition it likes to save and spend carefully rather than borrow and spray.

What journalism does is that it treats the funding of anything as neutral or irrelevant and discusses only the impacts arising from that spending.  This inherently favours the Left of politics.

Let me express it this way.  Have you ever seen an item which takes a proposal from say a government like the last one which involves copious amounts of borrowed spending and analyses it in terms of the impact of future borrowing, the crimping of the private sector, the impact on tax rates, inflation and so on?

Similarly, have you ever seen reporting on proposals from the new government which sets them in the context of running balanced books, paying down debt and avoiding some of the problems mentioned above?

You just won’t see it.  All that will be reported is that some group or another is advantaged or not by the end result of what is spent. 

Katie Bradford why not actually use your talents to get under the hood?

Journalists Don’t Do Logic

In a similar way journalists appear  incapable of placing any proposal in the context of wider philosophical principles or values, and have no grasp of logic.

Look at the proposal to remove the smoking ban which doesn’t exist yet.

The Right generally places greater emphasis on individual choice and responsibility.  That is not nothing.  It matters.  

It is self-evident that a right-of-centre government will draw the line between paternalistic prohibition of society’s evils and freedom to make mistakes in a different place than a left-of-centre government.  That is a perfectly reasonable and debateable set of values.

Have you heard anything in the media that implicitly or explicitly acknowledges the right to differ in that way?

Rather in the same way that TV One can’t get below the trite and superficial in policy matters the whole sector lacks the wit to see or acknowledge that different perspectives result in different policies and different boundaries.  It once again focuses on the immediate, calls it harm and uses it to bludgeon the government.

The clincher here though is the utter unwillingness to see this reversal against the larger backdrop of every policy choice around harm that a government can make.

My point is best explained thus:

1. Government could ban cars and save many lives.

2. Government could shut down the internet and stop scammers and hate-crime and improve mental health.

3. Government could require all buildings to survive a force 9.5 earthquake and save lives.

4. Government could put centre barriers on every road in the country and save lives.

When one thinks about that one realises the choice of the new government is but one of an infinite range of choices it could make of fundamentally the same type which reflect its values and philosophies.

As such the journalistic outrage is banal, infantile and I suspect deliberate.

Special mention to Lisa Owen here who in interviewing Dr Shane Reti adopted such a vile tone she should in my view have been invited to express her questions more civilly before he answered.  

Hyperbole is Only Wrong if Coming from the Right

I leave you with one last thought.

Imagine the journalistic hysteria if a member of the current government asserted that teaching young people about homosexuality represents the systemic rape and perversion of our children.

Set that alongside the total non-response to Debbie Ngarew-Packer accusing the current government of deliberate systemic genocide of Maori.

Star-date: Last Thursday at 8pm.

I left Cambridge with 157k to travel to the North Shore of Auckland. I was aware that I had the use of the 110km Waikato Expressway and the Auckland Motorway. Both my leaving point and destination were close to on/off ramps. I estimated 1hour 40mins for the trip – without troubling the speed cameras.

I was incredibly impressed that Waka Konetahi managed to get this trip to take me 3 hours … an average of just over 50kmph. On the way there were three major detours. There were also three other road-works sets and one 70kmph one that went for 5kms with no sign at all of a pot-hole mission. One of the re-directions had a detour within a detour. The detour through Papakura managed to create complete gridlock with hundreds of truckies looking more frustrated than David Tua trying to land an owesome punch on Lennox Lewis. The city detour took traffic right down the water front and then to Victoria Park and to a situation where it was one lane to the top of the Harbour Bridge.

I assume someone is in charge but they are clearly a mercurial genious.

Then there are the CONES.

We have heard the term Cone-ageddon. It is worse as my next trip was to and from the Bay of Islands. I believe it is now right to call New Zealand Orangeatearoa – “the land of the tall orange cone”.

I believe that we have been softened up right back to when Jeremy Coney was involved in NZ cricket.

I understand that Sam Cone is a potential captain for Scott Robertson’s first All Black Squad.

There are rumours that the cones are about to organise politically and form an “Orange Party”. This may confuse our Dutch community but we have a Green party already. I understand the the member for Rimutaka is considering defecting and leading the Orange Conies.

With the explosion of the Auckland sewage system and denigration of the city’s beaches … with all of the allocated cones in the area do we now have a “Sewer’s Conal”?

Could we name another waterway after the great couple … Pamela Stephenson and Billy Connelly and call it the “Pamela Conal”?

Are they breeding or C(l)oning?

If you accidentally sit on a clone do you need to get a “cone-aloscopy”? If the cone has to be surgically removed is that an “cone-o-dectomy”?

Are we planning University qualifications in coning? The geometry of cones? The history of cones? Clone-al spacial awareness? The manufacturing technology of cones? Health and safety distribution of cones including the logistics of transport?

New Zealand used to be the country of 3 million people and 20 million sheep? What is the current ratio of people to cones?

Truck-loads of cones are heading north, south, east and west. I have also seen cones dying in their duty to our nation.

It has taken me a week to realise the genius in this for the military/strategic protection of our nation. Here it is:

Should we be invaded – and let’s assume Tauranga as the landing point.

The invaders need to be coned and detoured through – Matamata, Te Awamutu, (it is too cruel to send them through Morrinsville), Otorohanga, Te Kuiti, Taumaranui, National Park, across to Turangi, then Waiouru, Taihape, Hunterville, Marton, Whanganui and then Palmerston North (to be greeted by John Cleese). This will not only demoralise all soldiers but many will simpy die of boredom. If any invaders are left alive at that point they can be mobbed by cones and Waka Konetahi bureaucrats and sent to the Shannon gulags.

Like many NZers I regret not having invented, manufactured and invested in the ubiquitous cone. But I do appreciate the travel and strategic safety.

Please share your cone stories and safety. In a multi-cultural society we must show kind-ness to our orange brothers from other mothers.

None of us would celebrate the cone-death shown below (viewer discretion needed) in the second picture.

Lindsay Mitchell blogs:

When did you last read a headline in MSM about more children being raised on welfare? Yet latest Ministry of Social Development benefit statistics show at the end of 2023 the number reached a new high of 222,500.

So they dropped to 2017,. but since then has increased by 50,000 or so.

Look at the stats for Northland: lowest regular school attendance at just over a third (34.2%) and highest dependence on a single parent or jobseeker benefit (14.5% of working-age population). Christchurch has the highest regular attendance at almost half (49.4%) and second lowest reliance on the same benefits (6.4%). Mere coincidence?

There is a wealth of evidence that being raised in a household where no one works is correlated strongly with bad outcomes in later life.

A fascinating article about the growing difference between men and women’s politics.

So women have always been slightly more left than men, but with younger generations, the gap is huge. The big challenge for the CR is how to talk to younger women.

Gerald Hensley has died aged 88. He was the head of the PM’s Department to both Muldoon and Lange, then was Co-ordinator of Domestic and External Security and finally Secretary of Defence. A very patriotic public servant.

You can read some of his interactions with Muldoon here.

Hensley wrote a book about serving various PMs, and one of my favourite was when he wrote about the attempt to save ANZUS. Basically a deal had been done with the US that they would send a ship that clearly wasn’t nuclear armed or powered and that Cabinet would allow it to visit, even though the US would not publicly state it was non-nuclear.

The officials had Lange all prepped to take it to Cabinet and were dismayed when he came back and told them Cabinet had vetoed the visit. Hensley and co were aghast at how the PM could have failed to get it through his own Cabinet. Lange responded that they didn’t understand that in Cabinet he was in a minority of one on this issue.

Hensley in his book truly noted that Lange’s predecessor would have regarded that as a comfortable working majority 🙂

The other strong memory I have is when he took part in a TV show, game playing how NZ would respond to a potential terrorist attack. The scenario was that radical Australian Aboriginal activists have taken over an Australia boat in NZ waters by force.

Hensley talked about how the SAS would be dispatched to retake the ship, rather than let the Australians do it. The host then turned to a Maori activist (I can’t recall her name) and asked her what she would say if her son was in the SAS and called her as he felt conflicted about the mission.

She replied that she would tell him that the Aboriginal activists were his brother and cousins and in no way should he or other Maori members of the SAS take part.

The host then turned to Hensley, seeing this as a potential trump card or huge issue, and asked how he would respond.

His response was along the lines of:

“In my experience, members of the SAS don’t call mummy about their deployments”

It was the highlight of the (interesting) show.

A guest post by Lucy Rogers:

As some readers may recall, I was arrested last November for holding a sign saying “SELECTIVE CONDEMNATION OF GENOCIDE IS EVIL” at a pro-Palestine protest on Queen Street.

There was a lot of interest in my case at the time, so I thought readers might appreciate an update. The Free Speech Union has this afternoon announced via email dispatch that we are going to file a lawsuit against the police officers who arrested me. The wheels of justice turn slowly and it will be some time before the case is heard in court. A press release will be issued closer to the time and no doubt will receive media attention.

I would like to take the opportunity while I may to respond to one of my detractors. Following my arrest I have continued to counter-protest weekly at the pro-Palestine demonstrations on Queen Street. On one of those occasions Greg Presland (whom I understand is a local politician) took a photo of me holding a sign saying “WHY ARE YOU NOT ALSO PROTESTING HAMAS?” and posted it on Twitter, expressing scepticism about my claim that on the date of my arrest I had just happened to run into a pro-Palestine protest on a smoko break and engage in an impromptu protest.

My reply is thus: yes, I have continued to protest subsequent to my arrest. In fact I have done so every week since mid-December without fail. Although I would probably not have bothered otherwise, I decided that it was important to do so in order to maintain the right to protest in this country. That does not remotely disprove that my actions on the date that I was arrested were on the spur of the moment, and nor would it matter even if I had planned it in advance.

By the way, a number of people asked where I was able to purchase an A2 piece of paper in Auckland CBD for my sign. It was purchased from the Look Sharp store on Victoria Street East.

If you would like to donate to my legal costs, your support is appreciated: https://www.fsu.nz/donation

Stuff report:

Almost 50,000 people claim NZ Super while also earning more than $100,000 a year, data from the Retirement Commission shows – and income-testing them could be one way to make the system more affordable.

There have been concerns that NZ Super will become too expensive as a growing proportion of the population reaches the age of 65.

The commission has released a paper outlining policy options. It says leaving the age of eligibility at 65 is the best option. But income-testing would be a fairer way to reduce the cost of the system rather than raising the age of eligibility, if required.

I’d do both, but one is better than none.

Here’s my ideal NZ Super scheme.

• Private savings should be main source of retirement income through KiwiSaver etc. Potentially have state top ups into KiwiSaver to ensure people are saving at the minimum needed.
• Full NZ Super starts at age 70.
• A transition benefit between NZ Super and Unemployment Benefit available from age 65 to 70
• NZ Super is set at a level based on empirical cost evidence and then only adjusted for CPI (but CPI for super annuitants).

In 2013, NZ Super cost $10.9 billion. In 2023 it costs $21.6 billion. we need to reduce the cost.

Radio NZ reports:

A fourth option – alongside fire, ambulance and police – could be created for those who call 111, the new mental health minister says.

A recent ministerial briefing proposed police withdraw from some family harm and mental health calls, saying other agencies should fill that role.

Minister Matt Doocey said he was getting more information, but was considering a specialised first responders group for people in mental health crisis.

Doocey told Midday Report “it might be time for New Zealand to have a fourth option” when they call emergency services.

“Potentially we have fire, ambulance, police, maybe we have a fourth option of mental health, which will help triage the calls and get a better response out to those people in a time of crisis.”

Selecting the ‘mental health’ option would ensure people in distress got the right support, he said.

“I think it’s very clear when you call 111 with a physical health crisis [currently] you get a health response. When you call 111 with a mental health crisis in New Zealand you get a criminal justice response.

This seems to be a very laudable idea.

The Post reports:

A move to stop a $32m Wellington City Council deal, seen by some as corporate welfare for Los Angeles millionaires, is gaining momentum with a majority now possible to derail the plan.

At a Wellington City Council meeting on Thursday, Pukehinau/Lambton Ward councillor Iona Pannett plans to issue a “notice of motion of revocation” — a council mechanism to reverse an earlier vote and, if it gets the numbers, for the council to withdraw from a $32m purchase of the land under the Reading Courtenay Place cinema complex.

Councillor Nicola Young confirmed she was seconding the motion, with backers Ray Chung labelling the $32m deal a “vanity project” and Diane Calvert calling it “absolutely bonkers”.

Councillors Tony Randle and Sarah Free have confirmed their support for Pannett, taking backers to six. A vote would need at least eight on the 15-member council. But two — Nureddin Abduraham and Ben McNulty — are on the fence with others failing to return calls and emails.

Wellington ratepayers are facing huge double digit rate rises for years and years. To reduce this, the WCC has done the usual trick of proposing options they know will be deeply unpopular such as closing pools and libraries, while protecting their massive wasteful spending such as the Town Hall renovation and corporate welfare for a multinational cinema company. They do this, so when there is a backlash to closing pools and libraries, they can claim the rates increases are necessary as ratepayers didn’t want the spending cuts.

Six of the Councillors are refusing to play ball. They are rightfully saying that if you are prosing closing libraries and swimming pools, then you can’t justify $30 million of corporate welfare to a cinema company.

Any Councillor who votes to prioritise corporate welfare over libraries and swimming polls should be voted out at the next election.

Liam Hehir writes:

Unpopular stances held by politicians can come under intense scrutiny. Sometimes.

Consider Christopher Luxon’s pro-life position on abortion. Under repeat questioning, he painted himself into a corner by saying that the termination of a pregnancy is tantamount to murder, which is not the pro-life position. This sparked relentless questioning by the media and the controversy is still cited by his enemies today.

Such scrutiny isn’t unwarranted. After all, Luxon’s view is not a popular one, which I say as someone who is staunchly pro-life myself. 

The media’s role, among others, is to dissect controversial positions, especially those held by political leaders, and to hold them accountable for their views. That often involves the initial posing of the controversial subject then followed by probing supplemental questions and attempts to push them into difficult positions. This allows news consumers to make informed judgments about the consistency and sincerity of the politician’s views. 

So far, so good.

However, what is very notable is the apparent asymmetry in the treatment of unpopular politico-ideological positions. Right-leaning stances like Luxon’s are rigorously grilled. Equally if not more unpopular leftist positions, however, usually escape intense scrutiny.

Consider the case of Chloe Swarbrick, who is on the cusp of becoming the co-leader of the Green Party. Swarbrick has, in the past, voiced her support for prison abolition – not simply reform to make prisons more humane – but complete abolition. No more prisons, even for those convicted of terrible crimes.

Try running this concept by the average person, not those within the echo chamber of social media, and you’re likely to be met with a bewildered look of incredulity. People are often open to reduced sentences or non-custodial sentences for nonviolent offenders. But for violent criminals? That is a fringe position.

The idea of a society without prisons, particularly for murderers, rapists and the perpetrators of such terrible crimes seems, to normal people, bonkers in the extreme. And yet it is almost impossible to imagine Swarbrick facing anything like the media grilling Luxon received for his own unpopular views.

If the media were fair, then they would be asking Chloe the following:

• Would a Government you lead release Brendon Tarrant from prison?
• Why do you think mass murderers should be out in the community?
• Do you think serial rapists such as the Hooch rapists in Christchurch should be at large?
• Do you honestly think that every criminal can be rehabilitated?
• How would you protect abused women from their former partners who constantly break protection orders?

Of course this will never happen.

Joel MacManus at The Spinoff writes:

To start, the panel considered two very tricky questions: would making it easier to build more houses lead to more houses being built? And would an increase in housing supply help improve housing affordability? 

It might seem like a simple question for anyone who learned about supply and demand in NCEA level one economics, or even a toddler who has grasped the basic concepts of cause and effect. Not so much for the Independent Hearings Panel: “We agree that enabling intensification does not, of itself, improve or even address affordability.”

Astonishing – they think supply doesn’t impact price.

One of the biggest battlefields in the War for Wellington is around the Johnsonville rail line, a 10km route between Wellington city centre and the northern suburbs of Johnsonville, Ngaio and Khandallah. 

The areas around train stations are some of the best places to build apartments, because people don’t need cars in order to get to work in the city; they can just walk down to their stop. That’s why the NPS-UD required councils to upzone to six storeys within walking distance of any “mass rapid transit station”. 

In fact, the Ministry for the Environment’s own guide, written to help councils implement NPS-UD, explicitly states: “Examples of existing rapid transit stops include train stations on the commuter rail services in Wellington.” 

But don’t worry: the independent hearings panel managed to wriggle its way out. The panel “put little weight on the MfE guidance document”. In a piece of Suits-level legal analysis, it discovered: “It does not say all rail stops qualify.” There’s also no rule saying a dog can’t play basketball.

The law is clearly designed to include area around train stations, which is sensible.

One of the most important decisions of the entire District Plan is the central city walking catchment. Anywhere close enough to town for people to walk to work should be zoned to allow six-storey apartments. But “walkable” is a very subjective term, and once again the panel was determined to allow as little new housing as possible. 

Kāinga Ora argued it should be a 20-minute walk. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development wanted a minimum of 15 minutes, ideally more. Waka Kotahi pushed for the walking catchment to be a minimum 1.5km from the edge of the centre city zone. 

During the hearings, Waka Kotahi provided census data showing that vast numbers of Wellingtonians walk to work, even from suburbs as far as Newtown (which is not that far). The panel rejected that census data with a truly spellbinding feat of argumentative trickery: the census had only asked how people get to work. It didn’t ask how they got home. 

“We can readily believe that people might walk a reasonable distance to work, because that is generally downhill. That did not tell us, however, how they get home (back up the hill from which they have come). We do not consider that an area can be considered within a walkable catchment if people have to rely on other modes of transport to travel in one direction.”

The Panel looks ridiculous as it tries to argue the sky is not blue because sometimes it is cloudy.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have been running a Doomsday Clock since 1945. This used to be a very useful thing, as it was a group of experts in an area, advising how close we were to a global nuclear war.

From 1945 to 1989 it ranged from two minutes to 12 minutes to midnight, reflect9ng changes in technology and the Cold War.

The Cold War ended in 1989, and with it any significant risk of global nuclear war. It moved to 17 minutes to midnight in 1991.

But then in 2010, as they faced irrelevance, they decided they needed to move the clock closer to midnight so decided climate change was an event akin to global nuclear war. Then. they over the next few years moved it to 90 seconds before midnight.

In 2024, they have kept it at 90 seconds and justified this on the basis of the risk of AI. So what once was a useful measure of the risk of nuclear war has become a useless scaremongering device where they look for anything scary to include in the clock.

A guest post by Scott Guthrie, CEO, Justice for Kiwis:

As the country transitions into a new government, now is the time to watch in earnest and see what election promises are followed through, which will give us a clear understanding of what Winston has managed to rape on his way through.  

We have all heard National, Act and Winston pledge to make our communities safer, through building new prisons and eradicating gang patches publicly, which all makes spoken common sense, but does it make economic sense.  

We all know gangs are a scourge of society, and all agree the sooner they are eradicated the better, but building new prisons and locking people up forever? Is that the real solution? Isn’t it time that we started looking for a solution that actually works, because clearly our current judicial system is not, and has not been working for decades.  

If we look at Sweden as an example of a like minded and populated country, we see a very successful judicial system where since 2004 prisoner numbers have fallen from 5,722 to 4,500 out of a population of 9.5 million, and they are at a stage of closing prisons not building new ones.  

Sweden’s reoffending used to be similar to that of our own, some 70% of convicted people went on to reoffend, where now it sits at less than 40% and is dropping yearly.  

For me the proof is in the pudding, so lets start the conversation to see if there is actually an appetite to change a system in this country that is aloof, tired and seemingly out of align with likeminded constitutions.     

Simeon Brown announced:

The Coalition Government is continuing work to restore council ownership and control of water assets by repealing Three Waters and appointing a Technical Advisory Group to provide expert advice on the implementation of Local Water Done Well, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says.

“The Government will pass a bill to repeal Labour’s divisive and unpopular Three Waters legislation by 23 February 2024 as part of our 100-day plan. This will restore continued local council ownership and control of water services, and responsibility for service delivery.

“Local Water Done Well will then be implemented by progressing two further bills through Parliament.

Great news.

This is the famous photo of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing Captain Nguyễn Văn Lém of the Viet Cong.

Like many, I always assumed it was a terrible war crime. but I’ve found out the case is more nuanced.

Lém was in civilian clothes, despite being an armed solider. This arguably makes him a spy, for which there is a long history of summary executions.

Also Lém was accused of murdering South Vietnamese Lieutenant Colonel Nguyễn Tuân, his wife, six children, and 80-year-old mother. Only the first was a legitimate target.

Now don’t get me wrong. I still think he shouldn’t have been summarily executed. He should at least have been given a quick military trial. But it does make you understand better why he was executed – because he was not in uniform, and had slaughtered a family.

The Herald reports:

Bright orange, 61m long, and 16m wide, the Anuanua Moana jars against the crystal blue waters of the Cook Islands. Kelvin Passfield hasn’t seen the research vessel head out to survey the ocean floor so much recently, but when he does it serves as a bad omen: its work is making the small island nation the new frontier of environmental extraction.

Its survey work is part of the first steps towards seabed mining, a controversial practice where machines trawl up to 6000m below the surface for nickel, manganese and cobalt. These metals are in demand for building electric cars, wind farms and batteries, and advocates argue sea bed mining could speed-up the green transition away from fossil fuels.

They are needed not just to speed up the transition, but to make it possible. You can’t make batteries out of plastic. You need metals.

He sees deep sea mining as the latest existential threat to life in the Cook Islands, a group of 15 islands with more than 17,000 inhabitants, and a realm country of New Zealand. Cook Islanders have New Zealand passports, and use the New Zealand dollar.

This is hysterical. Mining has an environmental impact, but to call it an existential threat is ridiculous.

The mineral-rich nodules offer a way to boost its revenue, outside of tourism. Odyssey, on its website, claims the region boasts the world’s largest collection of polymetallic nodules estimated “at a staggering 6.7 billion tonnes”.

This is huge and if one doesn’t mine it here, then it will come from other locations such as the Congo which actually uses child labour.

And while deep sea mining will have an impact on the ecosystem, it is unlikely to be major as they basically just trawl the minerals off the seabed – they don’t actually dig or drill. And this occurs kms below the surface. Any environmental impact should be studied and monitored, but you can only that by allowing it in the first place.

The Post reports:

Wellington’s mayors can agree on one thing — water meters are coming.

Greater Wellington Regional Council chairperson Daran Ponter on December 14 issued mayors in Wellington, Hutt City, Upper Hutt, and Porirua an ultimatum: His council would consider a higher charge for water supply beyond allocated limits if it did not see plans for water meters by January 31.

Hutt City Mayor Campbell Barry and Porirua Mayor Anita Baker responded within days, while Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau waited until nine days before the deadline and Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy waited two days before deadline.

But all agreed that water meters — by which users pay for the amount of water used — were inevitable. The cost of installing water meters has previously been put at $1500 to $2000 per household ‒ up to $300 million for the 151,000 households across the region. Kāpiti, where water supply is not under threat this summer, already has meters.

It is a lot of money, but a necessary investment. Water meters are a good form of user pays which encourage water conservation, and also allows leaks to be much more easily detected.

The grandmother who uses 50 litres of water a day shouldn’t pay the same as the family of five using 400 litres a day.

Stuff reports:

Donald Trump has suggested that as US president he would encourage Russia to attack American military allies who do not spend enough on defence, in a significant escalation of his rhetoric against the Nato alliance.

This is why the Democrats must replace Biden. Trump doesn’t understand that NATO is about protecting freedom – it isn’t a pay for protection scheme.