Lindsay Mitchell: Council of Trade Unions economist wrong on many counts

Council of Trade Unions economist had this piece published in the DomPost, December 27 (not on-line):

Mike Butler: Where not to drop your aitches

“H” or no “H”, what is the problem? The councillors of Wanganui/Whanganui all good and true on Friday voted 10 to 2 to support the name of their town having the “H”. A referendum in 2006 found that fewer than 3 per cent of residents wanted to change the spelling. Is this a case of yet another council being out of step with its constituents?

A quick look at history shows that settlers asked for the name "Wanganui" to replace the New Zealand Company name of Petre in a petition dated May 3, 1844, noting that the name “Petre” was “universally disliked”. (1)

Mike Butler: Separatist drivel from Delahunty

Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty tried to stick up for Maori seats on local authorities in the New Zealand Herald today after withering criticism from commentator Gareth Morgan but the more she started digging away at her topic the bigger became the hole she was burying herself in.

Delahunty wrote: “Anyone can stand for a local election but the low numbers of Maori speak for themselves and Maori who speak for haputanga rather than as individuals are extremely rare on councils unless Maori wards are created”.

Brian Gaynor: Petrol price still too high

The sharp decline in oil and dairy prices could have a huge impact on the domestic economy as the former is our largest import item and the latter our biggest export earner.

Petroleum imports were $8 billion, or 15.8 per cent of New Zealand’s total imports in the October 2014 year while milk powder, butter and cheese accounted for $15.5 billion, or 30.4 per cent of the country’s exports over the same 12-month period.

The benchmark Brent crude oil price has fallen 45 per cent – from US$115.65 a barrel to $63.16 a barrel – since its year high on June 19 while the important whole milk powder price has plunged 55 per cent – from US$5005 a tonne to $2229 a tonne – since February.

Mike Butler: A new look at the old pioneers

The word “pioneer” describes a person who is among the first to explore or settle a new country or area. The term was widely used in 19th century accounts of the settlement of New Zealand. However, the “we were here first” brigade in the treaty industry tend to use the word “colonizer”, bringing with it the negative connotation of subjugation.

A new book titled Voyages of the Pioneers to New Zealand 1839-85, by historian John McLean, has a new look at how those early pioneers spent up to five months in dirty, smelly, leaky ships traveling 26,000km to start a new life of unimagined hardships building the New Zealand that we know today.

Frank Newman: Amalgamation agendas

Local government amalgamation is back in the news. Earlier this month the Local Government Commission (LGC) released its draft recommendation for Wellington.

True to form the LGC had little regard to what the community wanted, and recommended a super city structure, much on the lines of the Auckland model, and similar to that proposed for Northland and the Hawkes Bay.

Under the Commission's proposal, the super city council would take over the functions of the existing nine councils: Masterton District Council; Carterton District Council; South Wairarapa District Council; Upper Hutt City Council; Hutt City Council; Wellington City Council; Porirua City Council; Kapiti Coast District Council, and the Greater Wellington Regional Council.

Matt Ridley: Pilotless planes and driverless cars

The Civil Aviation Authority is concerned that pilots are becoming too reliant on automation and are increasingly out of practice in what to do when the autopilot cannot cope. We now know that a fatal Air France crash in the Atlantic in 2009 was caused by confused co-pilots reacting wrongly when the autopilot disengaged during turbulence. They put the nose of the plane up instead of down.
 
But there is another way to see that incident: the pilot was asleep at the time, having spent his time in Rio sightseeing with his girlfriend instead of sleeping. When roused as the plane stalled, he woke slowly and reacted too groggily to correct the co-pilots’ mistakes. Human frailty crashed the plane, not mistakes of automation.

Richard Epstein from the US: The Way Forward On Police Reform

For the past two years, I have taught a course in criminal procedure at the University of Chicago Law School. A key component of that course dealt with police behavior leading up to an arrest. In the class, I pointed out that relations between the police and the public have improved from the bad old days, and that much of the credit should go to the increased professionalization of police departments in controlling police abuse. 

The reason for this change is that it is never possible to effectively control the operation of thousands of individual police officers by ex-post interventions through the criminal justice system. What was needed was a strong police management team that sought out hotspots before they erupted, in order to create a culture in which police self-discipline would eliminate many of these problems before they occurred.

Karl du Fresne: Stop bullshitting us, prime minister

The day after winning re-election, prime minister John Key warned that one of the biggest risks his government faced in its third term was arrogance. What a pity he didn’t heed his own advice.

Over the past few weeks, we have observed a National government that seems determined to live up to every stereotype about third terms. It has been arrogant, smug and incompetent.

Worse than that, it appears to have undergone an integrity by-pass.

Mike McVicker: Maori Appointments to Council

The issue of Maori Wards on Councils has certainly been rearing its head around the Country recently. Here in Rotorua this political demand by Maori is certainly heating up again and will come to a head on Thursday 18^th December at the final Council meeting of the year. 

This week speculation proved to be correct when it was confirmed that our Mayor, Steve Chadwick, was behind a proposal to push significant change relating to Maori appointments through at this very last meeting. She was clearly hoping that the political fallout will fade over the Christmas holidays.

A very similar proposal to give Iwi two unelected representatives on the Rotorua District Council (now the Rotorua Lakes Council), plus 50% control of the Resource Management Committee was similarly launched by the Mayor in May. Once the public were alerted to this somewhat underhand move, it was flatly rejected by Rotorua ratepayers.

Reynold Macpherson: Nonsense reasoning behind council rebrand

On 27 November the Mayor and her Deputy announced that the Rotorua District Council was considering a name change to Rotorua Lakes Council to “refresh” its branding. On the following day we were told the decision had been made. The reasons given for ramming the decision through are silly, insulting to citizens and appear to be a frivolous waste of ratepayers’ money.

Mayor [Steve] Chadwick said that “the lakes defined the district”, hence the need for a change of name. Nonsense. The boundaries of the district define the district. That’s how the Rotorua District Council got its name. That’s why the rest of New Zealand will keep using the name.

It was then admitted on the 28^th that “the official name will remain unchanged”. So the ‘rebrand’ is only a symbolic change? A pretend name change. What a shambles.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek: Saving Black Pete from the New Puritans

It shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows anything about names to learn that I’m Dutch. My parents took advantage in 1961 of the assisted passage scheme that brought 10,000 of us to NZ between the years 1947-62.

One thing I had to get my little head around was that Saint Nicholas didn’t do his annual stuff in the Antipodes on the 5^th of December as he did back at home, but almost three weeks later. 

Well, he’s a busy guy, I surmised, so I guess he starts in Europe and works his way down, and that takes time. But he didn’t quite look the same in NZ either – perhaps his wife was washing his Northern Hemisphere clothes when he went south.

Richard Epstein from the US: Ferguson and the Rule of Law

As most people by now know, on August 9 of this year, 18 year-old Michael Brown, a black man, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a 28 year-old white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. On November 19, the Ferguson Grand Jury decided not to indict Wilson. 

Few events this year have attracted more attention than the fatal interaction between Brown and Wilson and the grand jury decision to not to prosecute Wilson for any criminal offense from manslaughter to murder.

The chorus of criticism in response to these events in Ferguson has been harsh, widespread, and unrelenting. To many activists and social critics, Ferguson reveals that racism remains unabated in the United States 50 years after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Fiona Mackenzie: Need Public Healthcare? A name change may help.

At a recent speaking engagement, Sir Bob Jones said he had known Sir Tipene O’Regan before he was a Maori. Bob had apparently grown up with one Stephen O’Regan – a man who made the politically and financially rewarding decision to strengthen his Maori identity and change his name in middle age. 

Well, it may be time for all of us to start digging out an inner Polynesian. As the baby boomer bubble moves into old age and increasing demands are put on health resources, activist bureaucrats have announced plans for race-based financial control and preference in our public health system. Choosing to identify as a “Maori” or “Pacific Islander” may leapfrog you over other Kiwis.

Matt Ridley from the UK: The EU versus the UN - who makes the rules?

In today’s speech on the European Union, previewed in this morning’s Times, Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary, will make a surprising and telling point.

It is that many of the rules handed down to British businesses and consumers by Brussels have often (and increasingly) been in turn handed down to it by higher powers. This means, he argues, that we would have more influence outside the EU than within it. We could rejoin some top tables.

One example is the set of rules about food safety: additives, labelling, pesticide residues and so on. The food rules that Britain has to implement under the EU’s single market are now made by an organisation that sounds like either a Vatican secret society or a Linnean name for a tapeworm: Codex Alimentarius. Boringly, it’s actually a standard-setting commission, based in Rome.

Mike Butler: Landlords and smoke sensors

Four deaths in two house fires two weeks ago got tongues wagging about smoke sensors, landlords, and property warrants of fitness, but the war of words raged in a largely fact-free environment.

The Fire Service’s investigation manager Peter Wilding demanded compulsory smoke alarms in rental properties after three young people died in a house fire in Hamilton -- even though it was not known whether there were smoke detectors in that dwelling and what caused that fire.

Wilding’s call brought further demands from the crack-down-on-landlords brigade that not only should landlords install smoke sensors, they should ensure that sensors continue to function and be responsible for replacing batteries.

Karl du Fresne: Labour picked the right leader

Initial reaction to Andrew Little’s election as Labour Party leader was mostly dismissive. 

Critics pointed out that he couldn’t win his home town seat of New Plymouth and was lucky to squeak back into Parliament at all. They also made much of the fact that Little won the leadership contest by the narrowest of margins and wasn’t the choice of his fellow MPs.

We were repeatedly reminded that without union support, Little’s bid would have failed – choice propaganda material for the Right, given older New Zealanders’ memories of the damage done by militant trade unionism in the 1970s and 80s.

Richard Epstein from the US: Obama's Amnesty Problem

On Thursday November 20, President Obama delivered a controversial address to the nation on the contentious subject of immigration. In it, he outlined his plan to grant amnesty to some 3.5 million illegal immigrants in the United States. 

Recent polling data suggests that the President is sailing in choppy waters. The opposition stems in part from concern about the abuse of presidential prerogatives and in part from the unpopularity of his pro-immigration policies. Democrats have remained relatively silent on the matter. Republicans, meanwhile, have decried his unilateral executive action, which bypasses Congress, and are now considering the political and legal options to either block or slow down the President’s initiative.

The stars are aligned for a major shake-up of immigration policy. Without question, the pressures on immigration policy are intensified by the forces that shape the global economy.

Kevin Donnelly from Australia: ‘Chalk and talk’ teaching might be the best way after all

Seventy teachers from the UK were sent to Shanghai to study classroom methods to investigate why Chinese students perform so well. Upon their return, the teachers reported that much of China’s success came from teaching methods the UK has been moving away from for the past 40 years.

The Chinese favour a “chalk and talk” approach, whereas countries such as the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand have been moving away from this direct form of teaching to a more collaborative form of learning where students take greater control.

Given China’s success in international tests such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS, it seems we have been misguided in abandoning the traditional, teacher-directed method of learning where the teacher spends more time standing at the front of the class, directing learning and controlling classroom activities.

Bruce Moon: What really happened at Waitangi on that day

It is time to set out what really happened at some critical moments on New Zealand's history.

From Hobson's brief from the Colonial Office, 14th August 1839: "The Queen ... disclaims ... to govern them ... unless the free intelligent consent of the natives, expressed according to their established usages, shall first be obtained."

At Waitangi on 5th February 1840 in his opening remarks, Hobson stated "You yourselves have often asked the King of England to extend his protection unto you.  Her Majesty now offers you that protection in this treaty ... But as the law of England gives no civil powers to Her Majesty out of her domain, her efforts to do you good will be futile unless you consent. (Our emphasis)

Karl du Fresne: Unfortunately, the migration door swings both ways

I’ve recently been reading a book by the English journalist A A Gill. The Golden Door is a book about America – a country that fascinates Gill, and in which he finds much to like.

Gill’s observations about immigration particularly resonated with me. Writing about the great wave of humanity that left Europe for America in the 19^th century, he cites some striking statistics.

Between 1800 and 1914, 30 million Europeans emigrated to the New World. If that doesn’t sound a big number, consider it in this context: Ireland lost one in four of its population, Sweden one in five. Five million Poles, four million Italians and three million Germans crossed the Atlantic.

Viv Forbes: Carbon Capture and Burial – a Biocidal Policy

There are four non-toxic gases-of-life in Earth’s protective atmospheric blanket. None should be captured and buried.

The most abundant is nitrogen – 78%. If there was no nitrogen there would be no plant or animal protein and a very different world.

Next most abundant is oxygen – 21%. Without oxygen most of today’s animal life would die within minutes. Both nitrogen and oxygen can moderate climate by absorbing surface heat and transferring it aloft by convection.

Steve Baron: A $25.7m blunder waiting to happen

I suspect the government is about to make a huge blunder. They are investing $25.7 million in a flag referendum but they have made a crucial mistake in selecting the voting system to decide the referendum. As my mother always told me, if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing properly—especially when spending this amount of money on a significant issue.

A briefing paper issued by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Bill English) has recommended the use of the First-Past-The-Post (FPP) voting system in the first referendum. This referendum will choose from a potential list of three or four flags that will go up against the existing flag in a second referendum. Using FPP in the first referendum is a disaster waiting to happen and could cause ongoing derision for generations to come. 

Unless there is an absolute clear preference (50%+) for just one flag (highly unlikely) in the first referendum, using the FPP voting system may actually mean that the LEAST

favoured flag could win and that really would be a disaster.

Mike Butler: Ngapuhi report reason to can tribunal

A report by the Waitangi Tribunal that argues Ngapuhi chiefs did not agree to cede sovereignty is deeply flawed and provides further evidence that the tribunal should be abolished.

The report that was released on Friday, He Whakaputanga me te Tiriti The Declaration and the Treaty: The Report on Stage 1 of the Te Paparahi o Te Raki Inquiry, is the first stage of the tribunal's inquiry into Far North treaty claims and looks at events before 1840. (1)

Ngapuhi leader David Rankin, a descendent of chief Hone Heke who was the first to sign the treaty, said that the tribunal's emphasis on the Declaration of Independence, which a few had signed in 1835, as being the basis of their relationship with the British, is a lie and that is not what the tribunal was told. (2)

Matt Ridley from the UK: Ants, altruism and self sacrifice

I find it magnificent that a difference of opinion about the origin of ants between two retired evolutionary biologists, one in his eighties and one in his seventies, has made the news. On television, the Harvard biologist EO Wilson called the Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins a “journalist”, this being apparently the lowest of insults in the world of science; it was taken as such.

I know and admire both men but having read the relevant papers I think that on the substantive disagreement between them Dawkins is right. Which is just as well, I shall explain, or we would need many more poppies for the Tower of London.

Before plunging (briefly) into the arithmetic of genetic relatedness within ant colonies, let me first pose a simple question: why do people care for their children? Raising children is expensive, hard work and intermittently stressful, but most people consider it rewarding in the end. What do they mean by that?

Kevin Donnelly from Australia: Funding no education fix

A prevailing myth of Australia’s left-leaning education establishment is that increased funding of government schools leads to improved educational outcomes.

Analysis of the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment international tests across the past 14 years, however, shows increasing expenditure is not the solution.

The OECD’s Education at a Glance 2000, analysing results for 25 countries, including high-performing nations such as Japan and South Korea, concludes: “There seems to be neither a strong nor a consistent relationship between the volume of resources invested nationally and student outcomes.”

Richard Epstein from the US: Republicans Won. Now What?

In the aftermath of the decisive Republican sweep of the midterm elections, the question on everyone’s mind is how the Republicans will govern now that they control the Senate and have a larger cushion to work with in the House. The overall objective seems clear enough: find ways to whittle down the size of government so as to reverse the current trends, perpetuated by the Democrats, of higher taxes and greater regulation. This objective will also help reverse the decline in household income in the midst of an era of slow economic growth.

The Republicans must consider both the ends and the means. The ends chosen should be determined by a consistent theory of the relationship of the individual to the state. To a classical liberal like myself, this means a limited government focused on social order, national defense, infrastructure improvement, and regulation of private monopoly, while limiting federal programs of wealth transfer and income redistribution. 

The guiding light in this venture is to reduce government subsidies that alter the balance of competitive forces, and to lighten the burden of regulation across the board by cutting back on the endless sets of permits that must be obtained before engaging in any economically productive activity.

Frank Newman: The good oil on interest rates

Last week the Reserve Bank issued its latest review of the Official Cash Rate (OCR). As expected the OCR remained unchanged at 3.5%.

The last rise was in July. At that time the consensus amongst interest rate watchers was for a rise in the OCR before the end of this year. Now the consensus expects interest rates to remain at current levels until September next year. Some are of the view that the next rise could be even further out.

With annual inflation running at about 1% and the heat coming out of the Auckland property market, there appears to be little need for the Reserve Bank to clutch the interest rate levers just yet. Contributing to the lower inflation are falling oil prices, a weaker global economy, and lower ACC charges.

Muriel Newman: The Danger of Cannabis

As Professor Beasley explains, smoking cannabis is far more harmful to human health than smoking tobacco cigarettes. In terms of cancer risk, smoking one cannabis joint is the equivalent of smoking 20 cigarettes, and in terms of the risk of lung disease, smoking one cannabis joint is the equivalent of smoking up to 5 cigarettes.

Given the significant health and safety risks associated with cannabis use, why don’t our health officials and community leaders speak out more strongly about the dangers of this drug? Is their silence the reason that New Zealand has one of the highest reported rates of cannabis use in the world, with about three-quarters of the population having tried cannabis by the age of 25?

Why don’t the public service advertising campaigns that highlight the risk of lung cancer from smoking cigarettes warn young people of the dangers of smoking cannabis?

Richard Beasley: Cannabis and the lung

New Zealand has one of the highest reported rates of cannabis use, with about three-quarters of New Zealanders having tried cannabis by the age of 25, and nearly 10% cannabis-dependent by this age.

The potential adverse effects such as the dependence syndrome, impaired adolescent psychosocial development and mental health, and increased risk of motor vehicle crashes are well recognised.  

In contrast the potential for habitual cannabis smoking to cause adverse respiratory effects is less well recognised, in part because there has been less research undertaken in this field. In some respects this is surprising, as the usual way to take cannabis is by smoking, and it is known that cannabis smoke contains many of the same constituents as tobacco smoke, including higher levels of some carcinogens. 

Karl du Fresne: When a whanau places itself above the law

If you had to name the vital principles underpinning our civilised, democratic society, what would they be?

One would surely be the rule of law, which provides a framework by which injustices are dealt with, disputes resolved and the weak protected against the powerful.

Respect for the rule of law is one of the factors that distinguishes liberal democracies from countries where despots rule, and where justice, if it exists at all, is administered very selectively.

Barend Vlaardingerbroek from Lebanon : No more emailing of Irish jokes

I won’t be sending any more Irish jokes to my mates via email – certainly not from my workplace email. One of the recipients might rat on me by forwarding a particularly pungent sample to a thin-skinned member of the Irish Anti-Defamation League who then slaps it on the internet with my name alongside it, thereby inciting a hue-and-cry against me that could see me lose my job and being black-listed for the rest of my life.

Admittedly, this is not a likely scenario, but there is a serious side to my jocular narrative: I am indeed going to be more careful about what I put in my private emails. I have been known to make some scathing comments about various groups and individuals (which of us hasn’t?) which in retrospect I would prefer to remain cosily entre nous between me and the intended recipient. Maybe I should have a jolly good look at the people I send emails to – is there a potential back-stabber among them, someone who maybe has the huff with me and would just love to drop me in it?

Ron Smith: Scholarship and the 'end of days'

Over all of the last week, the airwaves and print media have been telling us that humanity faces an unprecedented challenge due to the increasing use of fossil-fuels.  The carbon dioxide produced by these carbon-containing materials is progressively accumulating in the atmosphere, where it causes the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’.  The inescapable consequence of this is destructive sea-level rise, an increasing incidence of weather calamities (hurricanes and floods), and particularly a rapid increase in average global temperatures.  

All this from the Secretary General of the United Nations, an internationally-celebrated railway engineer (Dr Pachauri), and numerous experts from home and abroad.  Interestingly, these experts did not include anybody who had any contrary opinion on the thesis as a whole, or on any particular claim.

The crucial question to ask about this most recent spate of claims about imminent climatic disaster is whether it is to be taken as an essentially scientific claim about how things are, or, rather, whether it simply reflects an essentially middle-class liberal unease, about the consequences of human civilisation on the global environment, which has coalesced into a political movement. 

Pat Palmer: Air quality PM10 standards and health in Christchurch

In May the Press published a summary of a Ministry for the Environment (MfE )report extolling the improvements in health which have been achieved in New Zealand by the reduction in concentrations of PM10 in the air we breathe. 

The report said an 8 per cent nation-wide reduction between 2006 and 2012 resulted in 14 per cent fewer deaths and 15 per cent fewer hospital admissions from man made air pollution. Other reports from the Ministry say that respiratory health is the main effect. These numbers came from a model relating numbers of premature deaths and hospital admissions to measured or estimated concentrations of PM10.

What the Press (Fairfax NZ) report did not say was that the health impacts were not derived from hospital records or mortality statistics (which seems strange seeing that one of the contributors to the report was the official Government Statistician). This is "I say so" science. The sort the church authorities relied on to prove the sun went round the earth each day. Not the "You can see so" science of Galileo and Copernicus.

Mike Butler: More on the big climate lie

The United Nations repeated its Big Lie today in yet another report that breathlessly asserted "the gathering risks of climate change are so profound that they could stall or even reverse generations of progress against poverty and hunger if greenhouse emissions continue at a runaway pace”.

But first, look at what former broadcast meteorologist John Coleman says. The founder of the Weather Channel, who produced a video explaining the history of the man-made global warming hoax, says that if there were evidence of man-made global warming, he would have dedicated his life to stopping it.

Environmental activists now call it “climate change” instead of global warming because the warming has stopped, Coleman added, and US$4.7-billion in taxpayer money is funding “bogus reports” and “bogus research.”

Mike Butler: Maori students avoid gravy train

Victoria University’s business school axed its Maori business programme because of little interest from Maori students who overwhelmingly opted for mainstream commerce programmes, the Dominion Post reported.

In 2012 there were 10 Maori students in the Maori Business programme and 360 in mainstream commerce programmes, according to Dean of Commerce Professor Bob Buckle.

No details of Maori business programme papers were available in the notice posted on the university’s website dated October 16, 2014, apart from a note that the School of Maori Studies there offers a major in Maori Resource Management, alongside other courses, that cover material similar.

Frank Newman: Relentless planners and you

Planners are never satisfied, and never give up. Central and local government have departments full of them - all charged with the task of regulating what landowners can't do on their land. Increasingly, permitted use rights once held by landowners are being replaced with discretionary rights exercised by council planning staff (and enforced at the landowners cost).

Underlying it all is preservation and a (false) presumption that landowners can't be trusted to do the right thing for future generations. Fortunately, Neanderthals had a more enlightened view of innovation and preservation.

Planners are dangerous people - dangerous in that they elevate their own perceptions of the world above those they are supposed to serve. In an ideal world landowners would be protected from such people by their elected representatives. They are our line of defence against socialist planners and the like of radical environmentalists such as the Department of Conservation (DoC); that's why we elect them.

Mike Butler: Quake hysteria hits Opera House

How could the Hawke's Bay Opera House suddenly switch from being the jewel in the Hastings District Council’s crown to a dangerous no-go zone surrounded by safety barriers?

Building owners throughout New Zealand are being penalised by faulty advice from earthquake engineers. Banks have climbed on the bandwagon by insisting on earthquake risk reports on buildings that have no structural issues whatsoever as a condition of mortgage finance, creating a new industry for engineers to print out largely pre-written reports for $600 to $1000.

The 99-year-old Hastings council-owned Opera House was suddenly closed on March 4 of this year after advice from engineers that parts of the building were less than 34 percent of the new building standard of earthquake resistance.

Lindsay Mitchell: Feed the Kids Bill - say something

From the Green's blog:

Please help me get my Feed the Kids Bill to Select Committee

October 30, 2014 Metiria Turei 

Last week I took over the Feed the Kids Bill that Hone Harawira had introduced to Parliament. If passed, my Bill will provide government-funded breakfast and lunch in all decile 1 and 2 schools.

Hungry kids can’t learn and are left trapped in the poverty cycle when they grow up.

Let’s break that cycle, lunchbox by lunch box. We can feed the country’s hungry kids, if we work together.

Matt Ridley from the UK: The World Health Organisation attacks vaping instead of Ebola

Is there a connection between ebola and e-cigarettes?I don’t mean to imply that vaping has caused the epidemic in west Africa. But the World Health Organisation (WHO) now has serious questions to answer about its months of complacency over ebola. WHO’s director-general, Margaret Chan, made a speech only two weeks ago implying that tobacco control and the fight against e-cigarettes is a more important issue.

On October 13 Dr Chan gave her apologies for not being able to attend a conference on ebola and made a speech instead at a WHO summit in Moscow on tobacco. This is what she said there: “Some people speculated that I would not attend this meeting because I am so busy with so many other outbreaks of communicable diseases [ebola was third on her list, after flu and Mers coronavirus].No. No. No. I will not cancel my attendance at this meeting because it is too important . . . Tobacco control unquestionably is our biggest, surest and best opportunity to save some millions of lives . . .The next challenge is that the tobacco industry is increasing its dominance over the market for electronic cigarettes.”

Mike Butler: Harawira’s murky past

An alleged offender in Northland’s latest high-profile sex case had been working for former Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira and paid by the taxpayer, according to news reports last week. (1) Harawira and his family seized a leadership position in New Zealand’s treaty grievance industry. The eratic positions of Hone and the Harawiras over the years show lack of moral compass and unfitness for leadership.

The link between Harawira and Patrick Rivers, who goes by the name Mangu Awarau, one of Mr Harawira's closest friends, is the latest in a line of murky links with the former politician ousted in the September 20 general election.

Awarau spoke at Mr Harawira's election night function, just days after being charged with raping a girl younger than 12. Awarau has pleaded not guilty to three sex offences.

Benjamin Herscovitch: What is the right standard for success in Iraq and Syria?

In 1954, then United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld remarked: 'The UN was not created to bring us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.'

Hammarskjöld's point was that in the often messy and brutal world of international affairs, the standard of success is not perfect peace and security but whether war and genocide can be minimised.

Despite ongoing strife in Iraq and Syria and sustained Islamic State combat strength, Hammarskjöld's lesson should chasten critics of the US-led campaign of air strikes.

Matt Ridley from the UK: Ebola needs beds on the ground

It is not often I find myself agreeing with apocalyptic warnings, but the west African ebola epidemic deserves hyperbole right now. Anthony Banbury, head of the UN ebola emergency response mission, says: “Time is our enemy. The virus is far ahead of us.” Dr David Nabarro, special envoy of the UN secretary-general, says of ebola: “I have never encountered a public health crisis like this in my life.”

However, this is a case where the hype could serve a purpose if it motivates action and thereby proves itself wrong.

Two things could happen over the next few months. The more probable is that the brave aid workers, soldiers and medical teams heading for the region, and brave local health workers and burial teams, will gradually get on top of the epidemic in the three affected countries, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the infection rate will peak and start to drop, and the crisis will pass.

Steve Lafleur from Canada: “Privatization is Not Inherently Good or Bad”

“Privatization is not inherently good or bad – the performance or effectiveness depends on implementation.” That isn’t the type of rhetoric one might expect to hear when describing something as polarizing as privatization, but it is one of the conclusions from the Urban Institute. 

Variants of that same phrase have been written by Leonard Gilroy of the Reason Foundation and Harvard privatization expert John Donahue. Despite the divide among politicians and activists, scholars who investigate the nuts and bolts of privatization recognize that, like any tool, privatization can make a mess if used for the wrong job. It can also help provide better and more efficient services when used for the right job. 

As we further our understanding of when and how privatization and public-private partnerships are succeed, we will see less and less failure if we have the right institutions.

Chris Trotter: Labour Needs To Stop Saying What People DON'T want to hear

The anguish of Labour supporters on election night was expressed mostly in Anglo-Saxon. Polite English just doesn’t have the emotional range for disaster on such a lavish scale.

Unquestionably, as political disasters go, this one was a biggie.

Bill Rowling told the nation on election night 1975 (when Rob Muldoon sent Labour plummeting to the abysmal depths of 39.6 percent) that he “felt like he’d been run over by a bus”. Oh, what David Cunliffe would have given for that bus! On the night of 20 September 2014, Labour’s hapless leader must have felt like he’d been run over by a fully-laden freight train, which had then stopped and reversed back over him, just to make sure.

Mike Butler: Forestry trust’s vanishing $1m

The Far North Parengarenga 3G Trust that received more than $1-million two years ago now has $13.41 in the bank after allegations that trustees paid themselves $600,000 and with a further $400,000 unaccounted for.

The Maori Land Court appointed seven people in 2009 to replace the Maori Trustee as responsible trustees for a 500ha plantation forestry block in Parengarenga, according to a reserved judgment by Judge David Ambler.

The Maori Trustee transferred $1,090,000 into its accounts in September 2012.

Frank Newman: Regulation risks for property investors

The ANZ Bank and the New Zealand Property Investors’ Federation (NZPIF) have released the findings of their annual property investors’ survey. It’s an interesting insight into the thinking of residential property investors and how that thinking has been shaped by government policy and market conditions. Members of the NZPIF tend to be larger investors who have been in the game for a number of years which is reflected in the results.  1156 property investors took part in the survey.  

The general themes to emerge are:

• Concerns about government regulation,
• Debt reduction, and
• An expectation that property prices will continue to rise.

Brianna Heinrichs from Canada: Communities Should Say “No” to Youth Curfews

This Halloween, children younger than 16 will not be allowed outside without an adult after 7:00pm in Bonnyville, Alberta. The Halloween curfew has been around for decades, but some parents requested that the curfew time be extended an hour, or maybe two. But the mayor decided against honouring the parents’ request.

For generations, numerous places in Canada have experimented with different versions of a youth curfew. They typically apply to those under the age of 16 or 18, start between 10:00pm to 12:00am, and are in effect year-round.

Matt Ridley from the UK: Bees and pesticides

The European Union’s addiction to the precautionary principle — which says in effect that the risks of new technologies must be measured against perfection, not against the risks of existing technologies — has caused many perverse policy decisions. It may now have produced a result that has proved so utterly foot-shooting, so swiftly, that even Eurocrats might notice the environmental disaster they have created.

All across southeast Britain this autumn, crops of oilseed rape are dying because of infestation by flea beetles. The direct cause of the problem is the two-year ban on pesticides called neonicotinoids brought in by the EU over British objections at the tail end of last year. 

Richard Epstein from the US: We Need a Real Flat Tax

I was heartened recently to see Edward Kleinbard’s op-ed in the New York Times, with its alluring title, “Don’t Soak the Rich.” But as I read the piece by Kleinbard, a law school professor at the University of Southern California, it became clear that his proposed solution was a classic bait-and-switch operation. Kleinbard’s so-called flat tax soaks the rich by a different route. He proposes a tax hike on everyone evenly and then suggests that the government spend most of the extra revenues on the poor, either by direct grants or public expenditures from which they derive the lion’s share of the benefit.

The flat tax deserves a better send-off.