Breaking Views Update: Week of 23.02.20

Monday February 24, 2020

News:
'Excellent' source tells Simon Bridges Crown is purchasing Ihumātao from Fletcher Building
Simon Bridges says he has it on "excellent authority" that the Government has struck a deal on Ihumātao and that it will be announced next week.

But Bridges told Newshub he understands Auckland Council is no longer involved and that he's been told the Government is buying the contested land from Fletcher Building to put into a mana whenua trust for heritage purposes.

GWPF Newsletter - Boris Beware: Tory MPs Threaten To Rebel If Fuel Duty Is Raised In The Budget

Boris Johnson Risks Betraying The Very Voters Who Trusted The Conservatives

In this newsletter:

1) Boris Beware: Tory MPs Threaten To Rebel If Fuel Duty Is Raised In The Budget, Warning It Would Hurt Northern Voters
Daily Mail, 21 February 2020

2) Meddling in Domestic Heating is Foolish: Increasing Fuel Duty is a Blunder
Global Warming Policy Forum, 21 February 2020

Karl du Fresne: Not before time, an English judge upholds the right to free speech

Until a few days ago, I hadn’t heard of Mr Justice Julian Knowles. Neither, I daresay, had many other people. But we owe Mr Justice Julian Knowles a debt of gratitude for driving a long-overdue stake into the ground in defence of free speech.

Knowles, a judge of England’s High Court, presided over a case in which a man named Harry Miller challenged the legality of police action taken against him over comments he had made on Twitter relating to trans-gender women.

Miller opposes planned law changes that would make it easier for people to legally change their gender. Along with many British feminists, he’s concerned that this would allow traditionally female spaces – for example, women’s changing rooms, women’s gyms and women’s refuges – to be invaded by people who are biologically male but identify as female.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 16.02.20

Saturday February 22, 2020

News:
Pou ‘creates a sense of place’
A new pou was unveiled and blessed yesterday at the Motu Bridge.

Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency and Te Aitanga a Mahaki yesterday celebrated the unveiling of Hinetapuarau, a seven-metre-tall steel pou installed at the State Highway 2/Te Wera Road intersection just north of Matawai.

GWPF Newsletter: Will A Green Boris Face Macron’s Fate?

10 Downing Street Pushes To Hike Fuel Duty ‘So That Boris Will Look Good For UN Climate Conference’

In this newsletter:

1) Dominic Cummings Pushes To Hike Fuel Duty ‘So That Boris Will Look Good For UN Climate Conference’
The Sun, 20 February 2020
 
2) Read My Lips: Boris Explicitly Told Voters He Had No Intention Of Raiding Fuel Duty
Guido Fawkes, 20 February 2020

Eric Crampton: Where do we go from here?

The government this week extended the COVID-19 (coronavirus) travel ban barring foreign nationals from arriving in New Zealand from mainland China and suggesting self-quarantine for Kiwis returning.

The continued ban feels like the right decision for a highly contagious disease with mortality rates that appear to be around twenty times higher than the seasonal flu. But feels are a poor basis for policy.

The disease has some very worrying features.

Bob Edlin: How the management of monetary policy and other RBNZ activities are being steeped in Maori mythology

Acculturation – the cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture or a merging of cultures – is increasingly evident in this country’s public agencies.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has not escaped the process.  In July 2018, soon after Adrian Orr became the governor, the Otago Daily Times reported the new  head of the country’s august central bank was planning to shift the mindset of the institution towards better embracing the rich cultural diversity of the country.

Since he had taken up the post (the ODT reported)

… phrases like tikanga Maori and te reo have begun to feature prominently on its priority list.

Viv Forbes: The Looming Collision between Electric Vehicles and Green Energy

Two green-dream fantasies are heading for a massive and costly collision.

Firstly they dream of generating all grid power from wind/solar propped up by battery storage (such as lots of giant Tesla batteries and pumped hydro).

Secondly they dream of replacing all petrol/diesel/gas cars, trucks and buses with electric vehicles, powered by more batteries.

But wind farms do well if they can average about 35% of their rated capacity with low predictability, while solar panels average just 25% of their capacity, produced intermittently. To generate zero emissions energy for Australia, we would need hills covered with turbines, flats covered with solar panels, the countryside spider-webbed with access roads and transmission lines, and much more hydro.

GWPF Newsletter: Europe’s Anti-Science Plague Descends On Africa

The Radical Greens’ Role In Africa’s Locusts Crisis

In this newsletter:

1) Europe’s Anti-Science Plague Descends On Africa
James Njoroge, European Scientist, 17 February 2020
 
2) The Radical Greens’ Role In Africa’s Locusts Crisis
Richard Tren and Jasson Urbach, CapX, 28 February 2020

Karl du Fresne: The new ruling class

Politics in the 21^st century is often characterised as a contest between the elites and the populists.

The elites – often referred to as the metropolitan or inner-city elites – are Leftist idealists who prefer to describe themselves as “progressive”. Leading global figureheads include the two HCs, Hillary Clinton and Helen Clark.

You could almost call the elites the new ruling class, since they have power and influence far beyond their numbers. They predominate in the universities, the media, the arts, schools, the churches, the public service and the not-for-profit sector – that vast and perpetually busy plethora of organisations, mostly taxpayer-subsidised, that lobby for politically correct causes.

Marco Navarro-Genie: Want to Help Harry and Meghan? Leave Them Be.

Personal autonomy and the exercise of individual conscience are cornerstones of western civilization. We expect mature individuals to accept that personal autonomy includes embracing the consequences of independent decisions. We have entrenched these values in the canon, from Magna Carta (1215) to Canada’s Constitution Act (1982). 

So, when Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, announced they no longer wish to have official royal duties, our generous inclination is to support their desire for greater autonomy. 

Plenty of ink is being dedicated to the Sussexes, but little has focused on an important consequence of their decision: they have renounced their public duty. 

Mike Hosking: The political money fight is on

Do you feel $4000 worse off?

If Simon Bridges' numbers are to be believed, that's his claim, on average after all the new taxes, fees, and compliance under the Labour/New Zealand First/Green Government we are about $4000 a year worse off.

Median rent is up over $2500 a year. That will come as no surprise if you've looked for a place to rent as our family has. Queues are long, competition is intense, choice is small, and the quality at times is frightening.

Petrol taxes $200 a year, tax cuts you never got $1000 a year, and so it goes.

NZCPR Weekly: Judicial Activism

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we look into the disastrous impact the former Chief Justice’s judicial activism has had on the country as the first of 200 tribal claims to the coast reach High Court hearings this year; our NZCPR Guest Commentator British journalist Melanie Phillips outlines the positive change that is occurring in the UK now that they have a conservative Judge as their Chief Justice, and our poll asks whether you support introducing Maori tikanga into the law.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
*To register for the NZCPR Weekly mailing list, click HERE.  

Matt Ridley: Britain needs to rediscover failure if it wants to prosper

What was Brexit for? After finally taking Britain out of the European Union, the Prime Minister can now start to give us his answer — and the opportunity in front of him is pretty clear. He could speed up, perhaps double, the rate of economic growth by unleashing innovation. After leaving the slow steaming European convoy, Britain must not chug along but go full speed ahead. That means rediscovering trial and error, serendipity and swiftness — the mechanisms by which the market finds out what the consumer wants next.

The stifling of innovation by vested interests in the corridors of Brussels has held Britain back for too long — but it is not the only reason for our sluggish innovation capacity. We can also blame creaky infrastructure, neglect of the north, a glacial-speed planning system, the temptations of a speculative property market, low research and development spending, and a chronic inability to turn good ideas into big businesses.

Bryce Edwards: Political Roundup - Is Government policy for sale in New Zealand?

Does money buy policy in New Zealand politics and government? Based on the ongoing political finance scandal involving New Zealand First, which comes hot on the heels of the Serious Fraud Office charging four people in relation to donations to the National Party, New Zealanders have every reason to doubt the integrity of the electoral process. It’s no wonder there are growing calls for reform of a broken political finance system.

The ongoing leaks about the donations received by NZ First, and what look like attempts to at least circumvent political finance laws, saw the Electoral Commission refer the matter to the Police, who have now passed the scandal onto the Serious Fraud Office for investigation. At question is the role of the NZ First Foundation, which Winston Peters argues is separate from the party, but which appears to have been used to collect the donations in a highly questionable way.

GWPF Newsletter: Arctic Sea Ice Much More Resilient Than Thought

Unknown UK Politician Appointed President Of COP26 Climate Summit

In this newsletter:

1) Arctic Sea Ice Much More Resilient Than Thought
Meteorologist Paul Dorian, Perspecta, Inc., 12 February 2020
 
2) We Have A Winner: Tallest Climate Tale of 2019
Global Warming Policy Forum, 12 February 2020

Breaking Views Update: Week of 9.02.20

Saturday February 15, 2020

News:
Moriori Treaty Settlement to be signed: 'It's been a long wait'
More than a 100 years since Moriori were slaughtered, enslaved and falsely classified as extinct, a true account of their story is about to be entrenched in the law.

Moriori descendants and representatives of the Crown will meet in Rēkohu, or the Chatham Islands, today for the signing of the Moriori Treaty Settlement.

Mike Hosking: Is coronavirus exposing NZ's over reliance on China?

The obligatory commentary has already started on whether we should continue to be doing business, or the amount of business, we do with China.

The racism is already well entrenched all over the world as Asian restaurants empty out.
It's a funny thing isn't it? For the most part we celebrate our globalness, our connectedness, the fact we are all a village, until it doesn’t suit us or it momentarily appears to get a bit awkward.

The chances of you ordering a dumpling soup and getting coronavirus is, of course, a lot less than it is you getting run over by a car or bus on the way home. But logic it, would appear, has been suspended.

GWPF Newsletter - New Survey: Climate Is One Of The Lowest Priorities For Americans

How To Turn COP26 Into Another Flop

In this newsletter:

1) New Survey Confirms: Climate Is One Of The Lowest Priorities For Americans
Donna Laframboise, No Frakking Consensus

2) End Of A Giant Con Trick: Wind Giants In Germany No Longer Keen On Market Rates
Bloomberg, 10 February 2020

Karl du Fresne: On moral panic and the Doomsday Clock

There are two types of panic. There’s ordinary, everyday panic, and then there’s moral panic. 

The first is the type that happens when you look out the window of your plane while flying at 30,000 feet and notice the wing has fallen off.

With this type of panic you either quickly recover once the danger has passed, or you face a genuine risk of death. If the wing of your plane has fallen off, it’s likely to be the latter.

The other type of panic, moral panic, is a socio-political phenomenon. It’s defined as a contagious fear that some hazard threatens social wellbeing.