Heather du Plessis-Allan: This won't magic up houses

 

Today’s move by the Finance Minister and the Reserve Bank on housing is an admission that the changes they made back in March to ‘fix’ the housing market are not working .

Tony Alexander’s survey out today shows two thirds of agents report that buyer FOMO is back, three out of five agents say prices are rising, and fewer agents say investors are selling

The Government won’t admit publicly that the changes have failed, but if they had any confidence that their punishment of investors back in March was going to materially change things, they wouldn’t have needed to add more tools today.

Barry Soper: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's policeman father carried out Dawn Raids as junior officer

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's father, Ross Ardern, was one of the police officers who carried out the Dawn Raids on Pacific Island families in the 1970s - something the Prime Minister said he was uncomfortable with.

Newstalk ZB's Barry Soper reported Ross Ardern's part in the raids as a young police officer, saying the Prime Minister had told him her father was a junior police officer who had to follow orders but had not believed it should be part of the job.

It follows the Prime Minister's sincere apology at the weekend on behalf of the Government to the Pacific community – and that community's emotional acceptance of the long-awaited apology - for the discriminatory raids targeting Pacific Islanders in the mid 1970s.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 1.08.21

Tuesday August 3, 2021 

News:
Ructions at West Coast Conservation Board over iwi role in Punakaiki DOC centre
Tensions erupted at the West Coast Conservation Board in a clash between Ngāi Tahu representatives and board member Neil Silverwood over the new visitor centre planned for Punakaiki.

Silverwood stormed out of Friday’s board meeting in Hokitika, accusing manawhenua of a “huge conflict of interest” between their role as board members and their future ownership of the $26 million visitor centre.

GWPF Newsletter: Science magazine blows the whistle on climate model failure

 

Global temperature for June signals a slightly colder year

In this newsletter:

1) Science magazine blows the whistle on climate model failure
Graham Lloyd, The Australian, 30 July 2021

2) Global temperature for June signals a slightly colder year
Clive Best, 27 July 2021

Graham Adams: Kris Faafoi is too busy to discuss proposals for hate-speech laws

The Minister of Justice appears to have gone into hiding. Graham Adams provides an update on how the public debate on hate speech regulation is going, especially in terms of whether political opinion should or shouldn’t receive an exemption from new laws - first published 16 July.

It fell to RNZ to break the news to the nation late last week that the Minister of Justice, Kris Faafoi, had “gone to ground”. Despite making repeated requests to interview him about proposals to expand hate-speech laws, the public broadcaster has been told the minister in charge of managing their introduction is too busy — even during a three-week parliamentary recess — to discuss them.

With her Minister of Justice having gone AWOL ever since a disastrous television interview on the topic a month ago, the Prime Minister’s call for a national debate has lurched from a shambles into farce. The government allowed only six weeks for public submissions and now — with less than two weeks to go until the August 6 deadline — the cat has apparently got Faafoi’s tongue in an iron grip.

Clive Bibby: Another time - another place

Some would say that my wife and l have entered the twilight zone of our lives - at 75 and 77 respectively, the mind is definitely willing but the body is in constant need of repair just to keep us mobile. Our personal maintenance bill is growing faster than our ability to pay for it.

However, a view on whether one accepts that interpretation of our future prospects as fair and reasonable will depend on expectations for the time we have left on this mortal coil.

The kiwi way has always been that the onus for determining what happens next is less dependant on the goodwill of others and more to do with our own ability to make it happen. Although that is how it should be in principle, the following narrative shows how difficult it can be to achieve in a modern society.

Reynold Macpherson: Rotorua's Representation Review Biased Towards Co-Governance

Introduction

New Zealand’s central government ended local referenda on 1 March 2021[1]  that had retarded the introduction of Māori wards. Rotorua Lakes Council (Council) decided on 21 May 2021 to introduce a Māori ward to elect a member or members to Council. 

Council also decided to establish a Representation Review. It specifically authorised consultations with mana whenua and wider stakeholders with a view to reinforcing co-governance:

4.     That Council agree to carry out a wider review of Council’s governance framework, including the purpose, membership and powers of Council’s committees and community boards, and a discussion with Te Arawa and the broader community about the possibilities of strengthening co-governance. [2]

Karl du Fresne: Another dismal setback for intellectual freedom

Attacks on free speech – even freedom of thought, since that’s what the enemies of free speech ultimately want to control – are coming so fast, and from so many directions, that it’s hard to keep up with them.

The latest involves seven University of Auckland professors who have effectively been blacklisted for writing a letter to The Listener politely but firmly challenging the notion that matauranga Maori – which can be defined as the traditional body of Maori knowledge – should be accorded the status of science, as proposed by an NCEA working group preparing a new school curriculum.

In the febrile ideological climate of 2021 the professors’ stance counts as heresy, and it brought the full, vindictive fury of the woke academic left down on their heads. Already the pressure has proved too much for Prof Douglas Elliffe, who has stood aside as acting dean of science. In an email to his colleagues, Elliffe said he was concerned that his involvement in the controversy would cause “division” within the science faculty. That doesn’t say much for the intellectual open-mindedness of his colleagues, but there you go.

NZCPR Weekly: He Puapua in Action - Labour's Three Waters Reform

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter we outline more details of the Government’s Three Waters proposal for tribal control of council water services and expose their plan to rush it through before the public becomes aware of what’s really going on; our NZCPR Guest Commentator the Mayor of the Westland District Council Bruce Smith updates us on his decision to hold a binding referendum so his community can decide whether the council should opt in or out of the Three Waters scheme; and our poll asks whether you support the Government’s intention to force Councils to cut short community consultation over their Three Waters proposal.

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

 

Breaking Views Update: Week of 24.07.21

Saturday July 31, 2021 

News:
Te Tiriti O Waitangi And Māori Equity Front And Centre In New Te Pūkenga Report
Boosted outcomes for Māori and te whakatinanatanga o Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi in practice) are key outcomes of Te Pae Tawhiti Insights Report released today.

GWPF Newsletter: Net Zero by 2050 is dead in the water. So what's plan B?

 

COP26 in trouble as India asks rich nations to reduce per capita emission by 2030

In this newsletter:

1) Fraser Myers: Net Zero by 2050 is dead in the water. So what's plan B?
The Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2021
 
2) COP26 in trouble as India asks rich nations to reduce per capita emission by 2030
Times of India, 26 July 2021

Bruce Moon: Tall Tales vs True History

On 9 July 2021, stuff newspaper the “Waikato Times” comes up with a headline: “Rangiriri Pā trenches where Māori fought British invasion of Waikato to be restored”.

And spokesman Brad Totorewa chips in with “We’re still in grievance mode. But we know sharing our narratives of the invasion of our people will transform and enhance the thinking of all New Zealanders.”

Now since the Waikato had been sovereign British territory for more than twenty years by all due processes of law, that is a bit curious, is it not? No country “invades” its own territory, but if, as in this case, it is under the control of a rebel faction, then the legitimate government has every right to take action to recover it. And this is what Governor Grey did, his patience exhausted by the continued defiance of all his attempts to resolve the issues, so well described by John Robinson in “The Kingite Rebellion”.[i]

Clive Bibby: Free speech and false allegations

Andrea Vance appears to be the latest in a long list of woke journalists who masquerade as bearers of the truth on climate change.

And the method used by almost all of these false prophets to justify their criticism of those with differing views is to accuse their opponents of being in “denial” of reality.

It is as if the accusation would have the effect of leaving the word scarred on the forehead of anyone brave enough to voice an opinion contrary to the party line - a bit like pointing the Christian cross at Count Dracula’s sweaty brow or branding the Jews with serial numbers during the Holocaust.

Kate Hawkesby: Odds are... Delta could make its way to NZ

 

My kids and my husband think I’ve gone mad; it wouldn’t be the first time.

But I can't help this sense of foreboding at the moment, that we just won't and can't escape Delta coming here.

I’m not scaremongering; I’m not saying this to cause alarm. I’m just incredulous as to how we’ve escaped it thus far.

Because we are virtually the only country to do so.

Yes our geography and isolation helps, yes sheer good luck helps, we avoided potential catastrophe with the Wellington traveller didn’t we? That could’ve been a lot worse. But I can't help thinking logic would dictate that’s it’s only a matter of time.

GWPF Newsletter: Boris Johnson’s Net Zero goal in disarray as Rishi Sunak baulks at the £1.4trillion cost

 

Everything you have been told about Atlantic hurricanes and global warming is wrong, new study reveals

In this newsletter:

1) Boris Johnson’s Net Zero goal in disarray as Rishi Sunak baulks at the £1.4trillion cost
Mail on Sunday, 25 July 2021

2) Offshore power ‘will fail without subsidies’
The Times, 26 July 2021

Barry Brill: The Real Green Glossary - FAQ

The innovative manipulation and misuse of the English language is the proudest achievement of that new breed of media entertainers – ‘climate change journalists’.

Attuned to a post-modern society where truth is in the eye of the beholder, reportage of climate science is dominated by fudge and misdirection. Even the Green Prince has become so confused that he is to publish his own Glossary. The UK Telegraph reports:

“The Prince of Wales will on Thursday launch a "green glossary" for farmers after warning that environmental jargon is so obscure that it can harm efforts to combat climate change. 

He said it was vital that everyone "speaks the same language”… 

Kate Hawkesby: The Govt's 'Kindness Programme' shouldn't extend to ISIS terrorists

 

So, in what should be a surprise to absolutely no one, we are taking back an alleged ISIS terror suspect and her children. Why?

Because we snoozed, and we lost.

ScoMo snookered us. Australia was first out of the blocks in revoking this woman’s citizenship – she had both Australian and NZ citizenship, but she hadn’t lived here since she was 6.

When she was captured on the Syrian border and detained by Turkey for deportation, Australia promptly revoked her citizenship so she couldn’t go back there.

They did this on the basis of her travelling to Syria on an Australian passport in 2014 to join ISIS.

GWPF Newsletter: US and EU outmaneuvered as G20 ministers fail to agree on climate goals

 

Global coal use soaring, expected to set new record in 2022

In this newsletter:

1) US and EU outmaneuvered as G20 ministers fail to agree on climate targets
Reuters, 23 July 2021 

2) EU climate plan in disarray as France opposes proposal for new carbon market
Bloomberg, 21 July 2021

Roger Childs: New Zealand’s Growing Apartheid

Partnership is well established; we are emphatically two people divided by race.
- Dr John Robinson

The original apartheid

The policy of apartheid (an Afrikaans word meaning “apartness” or “separation”) became official in South Africa with the election of the Nationalist Party to power in 1948. However policies in the country, based along racial lines, dated back to the early 20^th century. The successive governments of the Union of South Africa passed many laws giving preference to the white minority – under 20% of the population – and discriminating against other groupings – Blacks, Asians and Coloureds. However from 1948 onwards apartheid was fine-tuned to base life in South Africa on the principles of “separate development”.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek: The ‘Incitement of Hatred and Discrimination’ law change proposal - Humpty Dumpty let loose

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

- Lewis Carroll in ‘Through the Looking Glass’

The Government’s proposals regarding the changes to the law governing incitement and discrimination are so loaded I decided to not complete the ‘consultation’ form.