Matt Ridley: Too virulent to spread

Here we go again. A new bird-flu virus in China, the H7N9 strain, is spreading alarm. It has infected about 130 people and killed more than 30. Every time this happens, some journalists compete to foment fear, ably assisted by cautious but worried scientists, and then tell the world to keep calm. We need a new way to talk about the risk of a flu pandemic, because the overwhelming probability is that this virus will kill people, yes, but not in vast numbers.

Phil McDermott: The Unravelling of the Auckland Plan

Getting the housing equation wrong
The failure of the Auckland Plan to reflect the simple aspirations of Aucklanders for home ownership and predominantly low-rise suburban lifestyles and promote instead the lofty compact city vision held by its planners and policy-makers made its unravelling inevitable.  And now it’s started. Rationing land to squeeze the city upward was always going to create problems.

Stephen Franks: FTAs inevitable for loan-dependent NZ, but expect one way enforcement

I've just listened to Nathan Guy talking down concern about Chinese blocking of meat imports on Radio Live Drive, before Andrew Patterson interviewed me on the topic. My firm has paid particular attention recently to the way FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) can effectively over-ride Parliamentary sovereignty (our legal self determination).

Frank Newman: Budget 2013

This years Budget has good news, but not for those who are expecting a handout. The good news is the government’s books are on track to return to surplus. That’s a remarkable achievement given the dire state of many of our trading partners, and the billions of dollars the government has contributed towards the rebuild of Christchurch.

Lindsay Mitchell: 'Feed the kids' bill starts with a lie

Hone Harawira's bill, Education (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in School) Amendment Bill, starts with a lie. From the Explanatory note:

Growing levels of poverty in New Zealand have resulted in too many parents being unable to afford to provide their children with breakfast before school and/or lunch at school, or being unable to afford to provide their children with sufficiently nutritious meals before and during school.

Eric Crampton: Breakfast

A few months ago, Social Service Providers Aotearoa asked me to review the literature on school breakfast programmes and provide an assessment of whether public funding of school breakfast programmes offered value for money. I spoke on the issue in Wellington and in Christchurch in February. As the government seems to be looking at the Mana Party's proposals around food in schools, it seems worth posting things here as summary.

Karl du Fresne: The elimination of poverty will just have to wait

The team of Key and English may go down as one of the more effective political partnerships of modern times. John Key is the schmoozer, the salesman. His incorrigibly sunny disposition infuriates a lot of people, who see it as smarmy and ingratiating. But it’s hard to argue with his poll ratings, which have held up extraordinarily well after one and a half terms during which the government has had to grapple with one crisis after another.

Richard Epstein: The Way Forward in Bangladesh

Its hard-working people have suffered far too long under the weight of its bankrupt public institutions.

The death toll from the recent collapse of Rana Plaza, a garment factory in a suburb of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, is still climbing. The Rana Plaza catastrophe comes on the heels of a smaller Bangladesh tragedy at Tazreen Fashions that claimed the lives of 112 people in 2012.

Karl du Fresne: Confessions of a dinosaur

My wife reckons that if I had been alive in 1893, I probably would have opposed women getting the vote. Ouch. That’s a bit harsh. I would, of course, prefer to think it’s not true – but how can I be sure? It’s unknowable. I have never thought of myself as sexist; quite the reverse. The people I most admire and respect have been strong women. I have never identified with the Kiwi bloke culture that thinks women should be kept in their place, whether it be the kitchen or the bedroom.

Reuben Chapple: Gross Impudence

“In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King. And he that does not know his own history is at the mercy of every lying windbag.” – outgoing Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, in his 1922 farewell address

 New Zealand is increasingly being referred to in the public square as “Aotearoa” or “Aotearoa New Zealand.” This fiction deserves to be mercilessly deconstructed.

Mike Butler: State houses checked for WOF

A scheme to impose warrants of fitness on residential rentals is well under way with Housing New Zealand going through state-owned rentals to make sure they are up to scratch. Former Housing Minister Phil Heatley confirmed last August that he would go along with child poverty lobbyists’ demands for such a scheme, while the new Housing Minister, Nick Smith, who is known for his ready adoption of trendy causes, presides over the current scheme.

Karl du Fresne: Debasing Debate

Once again, Radio New Zealand has debased the word “debate”.

It’s currently broadcasting what it calls a series of “debates” on the current review of New Zealand’s constitution. But they are nothing of the sort.

Bryan Leyland: Auckland will be liveable only if it is affordable

The Auckland plan ignores the potential for modern technology to solve our transport and other problems and, instead, pushes expensive and inappropriate 19th and 20th century solutions. They plan to spend about $3 billion on a rail tunnel that, like all tunneling projects will cost much more and will demand huge subsidies for every passenger. The tunnel is needed only because the plan decrees that people and employment must be crowded into the city centre.

Ron Smith: Losers

For some while now it has been evident that President Obama is reluctant to talk about ‘terrorism’ and, still less, about ‘Islamic terrorism’, or ‘Jihad’, or ‘the war on terror’, or all those other things that are so offensive to the political correct.  It is now becoming clear that this ideologically-driven denial is extracting a price.  Apart from the absurdity of continuing to refer to the Fort Hood shooting as ‘work-place violence’, it is now emerging that the various agencies responsible for home security have seriously dropped the ball in regard to the Boston bombing.

Richard Epstein: In Praise of Income Inequality

You cannot make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.

One month into the second term of the Obama administration, the economic prognosis looks mixed at best. On growth, the U.S. Department of Commerce reports the last quarter of 2012 produced a small decline in gross domestic product, without any prospects for a quick reversal. On income inequality, the most recent statistics (which only go through 2011) focus on the top 1 percent.

Karl du Fresne: Not an easy woman to like

LIKE a lot of people, I’ve been thinking lately about Margaret Thatcher. My feelings about her are, to use a fashionable term, conflicted. The best way I can explain it is to say that it was possible to respect what she achieved without actually liking her. 

Mike Butler: Bombers’ anti-West influence

“Dzhokhar was a normal American kid,” the flabbergasted, politically correct media reported after it was discovered that the Boston Marathon bombing was carried out by two Caucasian Muslim brothers, one an American citizen, the other likely a green-card holder. Talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh came under liberal media attack for linking the bombers’ behavior to the “liberal elite intellectual thought” that infects the Boston community.

Frank Newman: TV tenants

The Herald reports a tenant advocate has complained about the TV reality programme Renters. They claim it unfairly portrays tenants as villainous machete-wielding, house destroying, rent absconding characters, and has ignored the many very good tenants.

Mike Butler: What the principal principal said

A simple press release from the president of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation, Philip Harding, that claims the ACT party’s proposed charter schools will open the door to religious groups to teach Kiwi kids discriminatory practices, including that same sex marriage is wrong, offers a glimpse into the brain-dead leadership of the movement opposing charter schools.

Mike Butler: Sparks fly in electricity fight

A proposal from Labour leader David Shearer and Green co-leader Russel Norman, announced on Thursday, to bring down power prices, is the latest round in a tit-for-tat political struggle started by the National-led government’s policy of selling assets to keep the ship of state afloat. Labour had joined the Green Party in collecting 320,000 signatures to oppose the part-privatisation of electricity generating companies, and then 400,000 pre-registered for the Mighty River Power float, with 400,000 trumping 320,000.