Ian Bradford: Is any of the material we are fed by the climate alarmists’ reliable?

More and more people are coming to the realisation that Carbon Dioxide and Methane and therefore humans are not responsible for climate change.  The climate alarmists’ cause is not helped by the continuing finding of false data. Here are but a few examples.

Data from non-existent temperature stations.

“Earth’s issuing a distress call,” said UN Secretary General  Antonio Guterres on March 19^th 2024. “The latest state of the global report shows a planet on the brink.” 

(Actually it’s been on the brink for at least 30 years now!)

Caleb Anderson: What's bugging the left? Why are they sometimes so very nasty?

Politics doesn't always bring the best out in people, but have you ever wondered why, or how, the left has made such a fine art of being nasty.  While they don't have a monopoly on nasty by any means they seem, quite simply, to have refined the art.

I recall, as a child in the seventies, the Labour Party (or the left generally) as being less vicious than the left today.  In those days a good number of Labour MPs had come from working-class backgrounds, and they seemed to have a sense of what it was to be decent, they played a hard game but there were rules.  At least that's how it seemed to me.

Richard Treadgold: Defeat is Near - when will we roar?

We are an unhappy people. Years of intellectual darkness gathering across the country have been followed by Labour’s unequivocal socialist-inspired vandalism.

They bent the law’s neutrality out of shape with widespread racist meddling, fiddled with our institutions, granted political power to anti-democratic tribal leaders, appointed racially selected representatives to elected bodies and turned a blind eye as tribal and socialist activists saturated universities, civil service and judiciary.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: New Zealand's education revolution

In New Zealand, one of the most exciting education reforms in the world is quietly getting underway. Erica Stanford, the country’s new Education Minister, is on a mission to overhaul the education system from top to bottom – and she is leaving no stone unturned.

Stanford, a rising star in Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s cabinet, has hit the ground running since taking office in late 2023. In just a few short months, she has announced a suite of reforms that promise to fundamentally reshape the way New Zealand children are taught.

Cam Slater: Make Your Mind up Willie

Willie Jackson is a motor mouth with a poor memory. Just a few weeks ago he was attacking Melissa Lee and calling her ‘useless’, ‘stupid’ and ‘incompetent’, and yesterday he was waxing lyrical about her skill set after Christopher Luxon sacked her as Broadcasting Minister. Make your mind up Willie!

Breaking Views Update: Week of 21.4.24

Saturday April 27, 2024 

News:
Decision to quash the Waitangi Tribunal's summons was 'a very good one' - barrister
A barrister says the High Court's decision to overturn the Waitangi Tribunal summons of the Children's Minister was a good and clear decision.

It ruled Karen Chhour could not be compelled to appear before the Tribunal over her plans to repeal part of the Oranga Tamariki Act.

David Farrar: Hipkins wrong

Newshub reports:

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins has stood by increasing the public service workforce during his time in government, saying it’s been proportionate to the growth in population.

The Coalition Government has directed the public services to cut costs by between 6.5 and 7.5 percent to help reduce annual public service spending by $1.5 billion. It’s resulted in thousands of jobs proposed to be axed across the sector.

Brendan O'Neill: Elon Musk vs the globalist censors

Australia’s demand that X take down a violent video clip in every country in the world is wildly authoritarian.

I’m in Australia at the moment, which means I am bound by Australian law. If I do something here that this great democratic nation has decreed to be a crime, I’m in hot water. And rightly so. Yet when I jet back to Britain in a week’s time, that will no longer be the case, right? Surely no Aussie lawmaker, no Aussie cop, no Aussie bureaucrat will enjoy jurisdiction over the behaviour of this free Brit some 10,000 miles away? Actually, they might, if Australia’s ‘eSafety commissioner’ has her way.

Michael Ryan: Does fighting inflation always lead to recession?

Does fighting inflation always lead to recession? What 60 years of NZ data can tell us

There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession.

Suze: A Well Kept Secret

If you think politics is about unacknowledged influences misusing power, you’d be spot on, which makes me pessimistic about our political future.

Gone are the days of the altruistic politician with a heart of gold saying all the right things and attracting grassroots support because of their genuine, honest and hardworking characteristics. Even if you find such a rare naïve beast in politics today, they won’t survive long, as we saw during the 2023 election.

Capitalist: Their Low Standards

Los Angeles prior to World War II was a bit of a joke; it was isolated and difficult to get to; it had Hollywood but not much else. If you research the 1930s golden age of Hollywood you will be hard pushed to find a single movie actually set in Los Angeles – even the movie moguls considered their own city a joke! San Francisco was the major California city, home to banking and corporate headquarters. San Diego was home to the naval base. Even during the war, troops exiting the US for the Pacific left from San Francisco. LA was on very few radar screens.

David Farrar: Possible changes to End of Life regime

The Herald reports:

The End of Life Choice Act needs changes when it comes up for review later this year, say both the architect of New Zealand’s assisted dying laws and hospice leaders.

Friday April 26, 2024 

                    ⇩

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 26/4/24

Luxon’s demoted ministers might take comfort from the British politician who bounced back after the Gallipoli debacle

Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up.

In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled world.

Sir Bob Jones: The way things were

Recently someone sent me a faded photo of my standard four class in Lower Hutt, 75 years ago.

The oddities vis a vis the current situation were first, a total of 44 of us. I’m told in state schools today the maximum class size at that age is nearer 30 or less and in private schools, about 20.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: NZ's Worst PM Ever - Chris Hipkins

NZ's Worst PM Ever, Chris Hipkins, Hit Kiwi Families with the Biggest Tax Hike in the Developed World

Whilst Australia newspapers are blaring the headline, "Australians flattened by biggest Tax Increase in World", if you look at the OECD figures released yesterday from its publication called, "Taxing Wages" (where that Aussie headline was sourced) it reveals a startling fact. Whilst Australia had the biggest increase in the tax wedge (i.e., the amount of taxes taken from your wage as a proportion of gross wages) for the average worker out of 40 developed countries (NZ is third highest) when it comes to families, NZ had the largest increase of all. If you look at column (4) in Table 2 below, the annual change in the 2022-23 year in the Family Tax Wedge in NZ was over 3%, with Poland second at 2.8%.

Gary Judd KC: The Waitangi Tribunal is not "a roving Commission"

it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisition

The High Court is today [22/4/24] hearing an application by the Crown to set aside a witness summons requiring the Minister for Children, Karen Chhour to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal to be questioned as part of an inquiry into her plans to remove s 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act, which sets out the duties of the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi. The section says, among other things, that the chief executive must ensure: “The policies, practices and services of the department have regard to mana tamaiti (tamariki) and the whakapapa of Māori children and young persons and the whanaungatanga [kinship] responsibilities of their whānau, hapū and iwi.” This description is taken from Audrey Young’s article in the Herald.

Bob McCoskrie: Jacinda’s legacy – Increasing number of abortions

Four years ago, our politicians decriminalised abortion and introduced one of the most liberal and extreme laws in the world, effectively legalising abortion to 40 weeks with token safeguards.

And remember – the law was rammed through by our politicians in March 2020 while we as a nation were all preparing to go into lockdown for COVID in order to protect the most vulnerable amongst us. But our then-PM who had recently had her first child prioritised this liberalisation of abortion. It really seems a sick joke, doesn’t it.

Ele Ludemann: Shades of 80s agsag

North Otago was particularly hard hit by the agsag of the 1980s.

The problems with farms that were too small to be economic units were compounded by recurring droughts.

Inflation and interest rates were high, input costs were too and the axing of subsidies by the Lange government resulted in very low prices for stock. Returns were so low that farmers were getting bills from meat works because what they earned didn’t cover the costs of transport and killing.

David Farrar: Three Strikes saw lower reoffending

Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017:

In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’.

In the five years prior to three strikes, 5517 people were convicted of an offence where that conviction would have been a ‘first strike’ had three strikes been in force at the time, and 103 were convicted of an offence that would have been a ‘second strike’.

David Farrar: Hysterical Hipkins

Newshub reports:

He [Hipkins] said the government had only been in office for six months, and “the wheels are falling off already”.

This is beyond stupid. Hipkins claims taking two portfolios away from Ministers who were seen to be struggling is the wheels are falling off.

Peter Dunne: Prime Ministers

The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives, Liberal MP Jeremy Thorpe wryly commented – in a clever paraphrasing of St John’s Gospel – that “greater love hath no man than he lay down his friends for his life.”

Dr Eric Crampton: A new kind of city deal

For a few months after last year’s elections, Wellington consultancies seemed to be scrambling to publish reports on city deals.

National’s coalition agreement with ACT promised long-term city deals for funding and financing infrastructure but was short on details.

Thursday April 25, 2024 

                    ⇩

Clive Bibby: Deterrent or Paper Tiger

As the Ukraine war drags on with little show of victories (even small ones) on the Russian Front, and the much needed American replacement armaments package stalled in the US Congress, the question surely needs to be asked of the NATO alliance members - “Isn’t the outcome of this war EUROPE’S RESPONSIBILITY?”

Because the current stalemate is looking more and more like a lost cause if the European member states of NATO continue to allow the Americans to do the heavy lifting.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 25/4/24

Maori Party (with “disgust”) draws attention to Chhour’s race after the High Court rules on Waitangi Tribunal’s summons

A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night.

It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it.

Lindsay Mitchell: Is Oranga Tamariki guilty of child neglect?

One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?

Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care.

David Farrar: High Court quashes Waitangi Tribunal summons

The Herald reports:

The High Court has ruled Children’s Minister Karen Chhour cannot be compelled to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal.

In a just-released decision, Justice Andru Isac granted the Crown’s application for judicial review, setting aside the summons issued by the tribunal.

Roger Childs: Anzac Day - Origins, Changes, Controversy

Anzac commemorations suited political purposes right from 1916 when the first Anzac Day marches was held in London, Australia and New Zealand, which were very much around trying to get more people to sign up to the war in 1916–1918. –Australian historian Martin Crotty

The first day of remembrance

The first Anzac Day was on 25 April 1916. This was exactly one year after New Zealand and Australian troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey in a joint Anglo-French invasion designed to capture Constantinople and take the Ottoman Empire out of the First World War, The first service in New Zealand, and the World, was held in the small Wairarapa town of Tinui where patriotic citizens dragged a large cross to the top of a local hill to remember the fallen.

JC: PM Needs to Don His Hard Hat

First, let me say I think overall the Prime Minister is doing a good job. He didn’t disappoint in executing his 100-day plan. He and his ministers have been getting on with the job, and publishing a plan for the next few months was a good move. I do however have one area of concern. Christopher Luxon appears to not want to offend those who would seek to derail his well-intentioned ambitions. I refer, in the first instance, to that august body (well, that appears to be how they think of themselves), the Waitangi Tribunal.

Chris Trotter: Comity Be Damned! The State’s Legislative Arm Is Flexing Its Constitutional Muscles

THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE of “comity” acknowledges the susceptibility of what should be complimentary state functions to dangerous entanglement. It enjoins the three branches of government; executive, legislative and judicial; to demonstrate a mutual respect for each other’s functions. Without “comity”, not only is the smooth functioning of the three branches of government put at risk, but also the political legitimacy of the state itself.

idbkiwi: About as Non-partisan as You Can Get

I listened to a Mediawatch bulletin from RNZ and heard the authors of the Trust in Media report exhorting news outlets to carry less opinion, emphasising that the issue of opinion, and the slant of such, was a major, very major, concern to news-consumers and a huge factor in the decline in trust we place in those outlets.

Bruce Cotterill: When TV news is the news

Media people love reporting on the media. As a result when media companies start shedding services, people or programmes in this case, it can become the biggest story in town.

And so we’ve had the news items, the coverage of meetings with staff, and finally the announcement about where to next. Compare the coverage to any other company or government department decreasing personnel numbers at the moment and you get the idea.

John MacDonald: Who says farmers can't be trusted?

Welcome to another war of words between the greenies and the government over changes to the Resource Management Act.

With the poor old farmers stuck in the middle, just wanting the chance to be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to protecting the environment. And that’s what I think we should be doing.

We will remember them

 

Wednesday April 24, 2024 

                    ⇩

Heather du Plessis-Allan: NZ deserves Luxon's style of performance management

I have got nothing bad to say about Chris Luxon demoting Melissa Lee and Penny Simmonds today.

This is exactly the kind of performance management that the country deserves, don't you think?

Obviously on a human level, I feel sorry for both of those ministers because this will be humiliating - but don’t tell me this wasn’t deserved.

Mike Butler: Maori wards basic facts

Maori wards became an issue again when the New Zealand coalition government announced, on April 4, 2024, that it would restore the rights of communities to determine whether to introduce Maori wards in local government.

Since the Ardern Labour government in 2021 removed the right to petition for a vote, 32 councils imposed Maori wards knowing that mostly whenever a vote was held, substantial opposition would block the proposal.

This piece serves to fill in the gaps because recent commentary promoting Maori wards mostly neglects to give basic facts, context, or background.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 24/4/24

At a time of media turmoil, Melissa had nothing to proclaim as Minister – and now she has been demoted

Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot below – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of Media and Communications.

To the contrary, her career has been besmirched by her failure to do anything – an accomplishment embarrassingly recorded on a blank sheet on the official government website (which was updated this afternoon to remove her name from the page).

David Farrar: Is the Commerce Commission for consumers or suppliers

Max Salmon writes:

Last week the Commerce Commission announced its concern with a proposed merger between Foodstuffs North Island and Foodstuffs South Island. Their concern is a decrease in competition in the market.

It sounds crazy when you first hear it, but it’s even weirder when you see what the Commerce Commission is actually worried about.

Hon Chris Bishop, Hon Todd McClay, Hon Andrew Hoggard: RMA Bill

Urgent changes to system through first RMA Amendment Bill

The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month.

RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment Bill which will make urgent changes to the resource management system.

David Farrar: Two Ministers lose portfolios

1 News reports:

Melissa Lee has been relieved of the role of Media and Communications Minister, while Penny Simmonds has also lost her disabilities portfolio.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has explained the change saying due to significant challenges in each portfolio they should be held by senior Cabinet ministers.

Sir Bob Jones: Reefton - The new Paris

In an at times ridiculously over the top article by an Annamarie Quill, the Stuff website recently waxed worshipfully about the virtues of the West Coast town of Reefton.

First, it had the cheapest houses in New Zealand. There’s an age-old reason for that being few people want to live there, notwithstanding its vaunted trout-fishing, potential gold mining resources and the discovery of a rare mineral, antimony, yet to be mined but apparently in hot demand.

Cam Slater: Labour – The Party for Crims

While the Government moves to honour an election promise by introducing legislation to bring back the Three Strikes laws, Labour is hell-bent on proving that they are the party for the criminal classes in New Zealand.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: How National Can Neutralize Serious Allegations of Corruption

How National Can Neutralize Serious Allegations of Corruption Should the "Fast Track" Bill Become Law

Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National's Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator Bryce Edwards has summarized them - noting that even National Party pollster and analyst David Farrar has written about his concerns, saying that a “legitimate concern is the potential for corruption” flowing from the new rules.

Professor John Raine: Refocusing our Universities on Excellence

Many will have raised a glass to the 27th March Government announcement of the establishment of the University Advisory Group (UAG), which will consider the effectiveness of the current university system in supporting teaching and research. There are key issues to address around the university business model, operational efficiency, and the loss of political neutrality.

Mike's Minute: The moral question around advertising on social media

One of the mysteries of our time is why so many businesses, and big businesses, spend so much money on social media platforms, given what's on those platforms.

Hyundai are the latest to pause their advertising on 'X' after anti-Semitic posts were highlighted and the car company's ads were right next door.

Dr Eric Crampton: Still no prudential regulation case around climate change

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change.

It makes little sense.

They've run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case.

John MacDonald: The Government is playing placebo politics

Have you ever heard of a placebo policy? That’s what this Three Strikes law is, and I don’t think bringing it back is going to make one bit of difference.

You’ll know what a placebo is when it comes to things like clinical trials where they give someone a sugar pill but tell them it’s medicine, and the person says ‘oh I feel much better, thanks’.

Eliora: At Last, It’s Coming Back to Bite Them in the Bum

Watch These Three Declarations Backfire

In March 2020, then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told the country she had all the legislative means and enforcement powers to tell us what we could and couldn’t do. The doctors in New Zealand were told they must be positive about the Covid-19 vaccine. New Zealanders were told they must affirm the wishes of a child or young person wanting to change gender. Three forceful declarations.

David Farrar: A good win for Newsroom

Newsroom has won in the Court of Appeal over whether it can make available its video exposing the then practice of reverse uplifts because the foster parents were the wrong ethnicity.

A key quote:

Tuesday April 23, 2024 

                    ⇩

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Bizarre Claims

On Richard Prebble and Don Brash's Bizarre Claims about the link between Trade and Military Alliances

Last week, former ACT Party leader & Labour Minister, Richard Prebble, who reads this blog, wrote an opinion piece for Main Steam Media behemoth, the NZ Herald, with the blazing headline, "It is lunacy to join a military alliance aimed at our biggest trading partner". Don Brash, former National Party Leader & RBNZ Governor, together with Helen Clark, our former PM, have been writing articles with the same theme.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 23/4/24

RMA reforms aim to ease stock-grazing rules and reduce farmers’ costs – but Taxpayers’ Union wants even more changes

Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken.

The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says they go much too far.

Mike’s Minute: Ideology is hijacking reality on climate

Surely we didn’t miss the irony on climate change?

On the day it's announced we have reduced our emissions now for three years in a row, so good on us, the very next day Transpower, the people who get the electricity into your lounge, tell us yet again that this Winter has issues and peak load and demand might be problematic.