Mole News

Kupe Scholarships encourage Māori and Pacific students into teaching
Thirty highly-accomplished Māori and Pasifika student teachers have been awarded prestigious Kupe Scholarships.

The Scholarships aim to attract Māori and Pasifika high achievers to the teaching profession and support them to become inspiring teachers and role models in early childhood, primary and secondary education.

Frank Newman: Unlocking leasehold land

This week, a bouquet for the Napier City Council (NCC). It has decided to sell it's industrial leasehold land. It is doing so because of its concerns the leasehold land is holding back development. Those concerns are not unique to Napier. They apply to most provincial cities, including Whangarei.

Most of the ground leases around the country are legacy properties created by local councils or state owned organisation in days long ago, usually through land reclamation.

The NCC owns 74 leasehold properties, worth about $34 million. That portfolio generates about $1.6m a year in rental income a year.

Nicholas Kerr: Socialism’s apologists ignore Venezuela’s human tragedy

Supporters of socialism have taken to suggesting that the human tragedy unfolding in Venezuela has nothing to do with socialism, rather it’s the result of the dictatorships of former President Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro. In their view, dictatorships lead to the deprivation we’re witnessing, not socialism. They’re confusing types of government and economic theories.

Dictatorships or authoritarian regimes don’t always lead to economic misery. We only have to look to Venezuela’s south to see that’s true. Chile was under a dictatorship for 17 years, yet President Pinochet pursued free market economic policies that, in spite of the (inexcusable) tyranny and unchecked power, lifted huge numbers of Chileans out of poverty, the exact opposite of what is taking place under Maduro.

Viv Forbes: Drought Proofing a Dry Continent

Earth is a blue watery planet.

70% of its surface is covered by oceans of salt water, some of which are extremely deep. These oceans contain about 97% of Earth’s water. Another 2% is locked up in snow, ice caps and glaciers. That leaves just 1% of Earth’s surface water in inland seas, lakes, rivers and dams. We have plenty of water, but not much to drink.

In addition to these vast surface water supplies, water vapour is the fourth most abundant gas in the atmosphere, after nitrogen (76%), oxygen (21%) and Argon (1%). Moisture in the atmosphere varies from almost zero over deserts and ice caps up to 4% over the wet tropics. (Carbon dioxide is a miniscule 0.04%).

GWPF Newsletter: Aussie Climate Wars Escalate As Rebels Challenge Turnbull

Brazil: Presidential Frontrunner Promises To Quit Paris Climate Deal

In this newsletter:

1) Aussie Climate Wars Escalate As Rebels Challenge Turnbull
The Australian, 15 August 2018 
 
2) Climate Wars 2.0 Threatening To Engulf Australia’s Green Prime Minister
Dennis Shanahan, The Australian, 15 August 2018 

Karl du Fresne: I'm a bit happier now than I was a few weeks ago

So where are we, after a month of fervid debate about freedom of speech?

Call me a pollyanna, but I reckon we’re in a slightly better place than before.

I didn’t feel so optimistic when Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux were barred from speaking in Auckland Council-owned venues, and even less so when the owners of the Powerstation in Ponsonby were intimidated into reneging on an earlier agreement to host the Canadians.

Lindsay Mitchell: Not naming fathers a "rort"

MSD Minister Carmel Sepuloni, and Green Party MP Jan Logie are promulgating misinformation about sanctioning mothers who won't name the fathers of their children.

The sanction, which takes around $28 from beneficiary mothers who do not provide the name of the father, is neither cruel nor excessive. If the mother fears risk of violence from a named father, Work and Income already provides an exemption. 

NZCPR Weekly: Grow a Spine or Resign

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we look at the growing threat to free speech in New Zealand, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Dr Don Brash discusses his recent ban from speaking at Massey University and he shares his Auckland University speech on whether the PC culture is undermining free speech, and our poll asks whether you would support a call for the separation of the State and Culture in New Zealand.

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

GWPF Newsletter: Musk's Oil Conspiracy Against Tesla Ends With Saudi’s Oil Billions

U.S. Democrats Lift Ban On Donations From Fossil Fuel Companies

In this newsletter:

1) Elon Musk's Oil Conspiracy Against Tesla Ends With Saudi’s Oil Billions
Bloomberg, 14 August 2018 
 
2) More Green Hypocrisy: U.S. Democrats Lift Ban On Donations From Fossil Fuel Companies
Independent Journal Review, 12 August 2018  

GWPF Newsletter: Study Finds Conservatives Are ‘Right To Be Skeptical Of Scientists’

Breaking The Climate Spell

In this newsletter:

1) Study Finds Conservatives Are ‘Right To Be Skeptical Of Scientists’
Toni Airaksinen, Campus Reform, 6 August 2018
 
2) Welcome To Dark Age Britain: Anti-Frackers Demand Research Ban On Shale Gas
Global Warming Policy Forum, 12 August 2018 

Clive Bibby: The Moral Authority To Govern

Legitimacy should be based on more than wining an election. 

The legitimacy of this government will continue to be debated until the dodgy deals that were the basis for its formation are overtaken by a public acceptance that the coalition is indeed working in our best interests by trying to keep us safe.

No amount of posturing on the world stage will convince those of us at home that this mob is any better at honouring that commitment than any previous government if the evidence suggests they are simply on a mission to satisfy the hunger pangs of their own narrow ideology.

GWPF Newsletter: Popular Climate Myth In Doubt

ONS: Fewer Deaths This Summer, Despite Heatwave

In this newsletter:

1) Popular Climate Myth In Doubt
South China Morning Post, 8 August 2018
 
2) New Study Reveals Declining Risk & Increasing Resilience To Extreme Weather In France
Weather and Climate Extremes, 28 July 2018

Frank Newman: Another block in the wall

It seemed like a simple enough job - building a block retaining nine metres long and rising to about two metres high at its tallest point. The wall was to tidy up a crumbling bank that had been excavated to give site access for house repairs after the Christchurch earthquakes.

Well, it seems that these days, nothing to do with building and local councils is easy. Everything  is complicated by layers of rules and regulations that create obstacles and costs - even simple jobs like retaining walls (and  a kids tree house for that matter).

Karl du Fresne: Arthur Miller's epigram no longer holds true

One of the most striking points to emerge from the free-speech furore has been the failure of the media to reflect public opinion.

In my column in the Dominion Post today, I noted that a Newshub poll – not a scientific opinion sample, but still an indication of what the public was thinking – showed that 78 percent of New Zealanders thought Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux should be allowed into the country. (This was when their immigration status was still in doubt.)

It can be inferred from this that the majority of people believed the Canadians should be allowed to speak here – and more to the point, that we should be allowed to hear what they had to say so that we could make up our own minds about whether their views were harmful or hateful.

Brian Giesbrecht: You are on Home Land of the Metis Nation

I have recently been paying attention to public event openings announcing that we are now on treaty land. Perhaps the most unusual is the one advising people that they are now on the home land of the Metis Nation.

Consider this: Does an acknowledgement that one is on Metis treaty land not imply that the Metis were the first people to occupy the land in question, or at least that they acquired it lawfully from the previous owners? If so, this is clearly not the case.

GWPF Newsletter: Satellites Reveal China Is Quietly Building Many New Coal Power Plants

Pakistan To Kick-Start New Coal Boom

In this newsletter:

1) Satellites Reveal China Is Quietly Building Many New Coal Power Plants
China Dialogue, 3 August 2018 

2) Pakistan To Kick-Start New Coal Boom
Financial Times, 31 July 2018 

NZCPR Weekly: Time for More Action on FASD

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we look at the huge problem that is being caused to children and society when women who are pregnant drink alcohol, our NZCPR Guest Commentator former Canadian Judge Brian Giesbrecht shares his thoughts on some of the devastating consequences of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in Canada, and our poll asks whether you believe enough is being done in New Zealand to warn women about the dangers of drinking alcohol while pregnant.

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

GWPF Newsletter: What Is Behind The Latest Climate Doomsday Scare?

'Only Global Socialism Can Save Us From Climate Apocalypse', Radical Scientists Claim

In this newsletter:

1) New Doomsday Paper: Only Worldwide Socialism Can Save The Planet From The Climate Apocalypse
GWPF, 7 August 2018 
 
2) Hothouse Earth: It’s Extremely Dodgy
GWPF Observatory, 7 August 2018

Jarrett Stepman: As Venezuela Collapses, Inflation Careers Toward 1 Million Percent

Venezuela’s inflation may hit 1 million percent by the end of the year, the International Monetary Fund announced on Monday.

This incredible hyperinflation is reminiscent of Weimar Germany during the years immediately after World War I, in which wheelbarrows full of cash were required to buy bare essential items, like a loaf of bread.

David Skilling: Keep calm and carry on

Trade tensions rumble on, with whiplash-inducing tweets from the White House: from ‘tariffs are the greatest’ to we are ‘believers in no tariffs, no barriers and no subsidies’ within 24 hours.  And although there was good news as well – the EU/US truce (for now) and the EU/Japan FTA – the global trade system faces deep challenges.  Unfortunately, the emerging global trade tensions are unlikely to be resolved quickly.

A cottage industry has emerged to identify those economies that are most exposed to trade conflict.  One of the common themes is that small economies are particularly exposed.