Bruce Cotterill: Asylum seekers ahead - Proceed with caution

It’s nice to see our political leaders playing a constructive role on the international stage again.

Last week, we saw our Foreign Minister joining other global leaders in calling for both sides in the Israeli conflict with Palestine to give serious consideration to the cease fire terms that were before them.

Cam Slater: Covered by the Green Shield of Sanctimony

Chloe Swarbrick went on Jack Tame’s show on Sunday as the Greens seek to influence, by their handmaidens in the media, the outcome of the looming Privileges Committee hearing into Julie Anne Genter’s misbehaviour both inside and outside the House.

The matter of privilege arose when she crossed the floor of the house to vociferously and vehemently remonstrate with Matt Doocey about something she disagreed with.

Rodney Hide: My journey

It’s been awhile since I have written. I have tried. But I have not had anything useful to say.

My concern has always been public policy. What should the government do for the best result?

My writing on the government was technical. Here’s what the government is doing. Here’s what they hope to achieve. Here are the perverse incentives created and here, the counterproductive result. I would conclude it was far better to do X than Y.

David Farrar: A PM who believes in measuring performance

The Post reports:

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s new “delivery unit” is not just designed to monitor the public sector’s performance, but also his own Cabinet ministers.

Briefings to Luxon, obtained under the Official Information Act, show how the new unit is expected to help the Government hit nine targets across health, education, crime, welfare, and climate, that were announced last month. …

Sunday May 19, 2024 

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Alwyn Poole: The Huge Potential Benefits of Charter Schools

In New Zealand we have approximately 460 high schools. The gaps between the schools that produce the best results for students and those at the other end of the spectrum are enormous.

In terms of the data for their leavers, the top 30 schools have an average of 87% of their students leaving school with university entrance (UE). This includes two outstanding schools for Maori, in St Joseph’s Maori Girls and Manukura. Both these schools are superbly led and also approach things a bit differently to the norm.

David Farrar: 50 charter schools for less than the cost of moving two schools!

David Seymour announced:

The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 19.5.24

Sunday May 19, 2024 

News:
Government faces further legal action over Māori Health Authority axing
The government is facing further legal action from a group of Māori health providers over the way the Māori Health Authority was disestablished.

Alongside seeking a judicial review and claims of breaches against the Bill of Rights, the plaintiffs are seeking a declaration of inconsistency against Te Tiriti o Waitangi, something the courts have never done before.

David Farrar: The left may help Chung win in Wellington

Tom Hunt at The Post writes:

Already, with almost half the current council term still to run, Chung is confirming he is running for mayor in 2025. This time it is serious and he stands a good chance with the left on council partly to thank – or blame – for it.

Many Wellingtonians, even lifelong liberals, are increasingly frustrated with a council that appears not to be listening. ,,,

Roger Partridge: The Tikanga challenge for law schools, the rule of law - and Parliament.

Barrister Gary Judd KC’s complaint to the Regulatory Review Committee has sparked a fierce debate about the place of tikanga Māori – or Māori customs, values and spiritual beliefs – in the law.

Judd opposes the New Zealand Council of Legal Education’s plans to make teaching tikanga compulsory in the legal curriculum.

AUT Law School Dean Khylee Quince derided Judd on social media as a “racist dinosaur”. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters condemned the planned tikanga requirements as “woke indoctrination”.

JC: Luxon Has a Vision and a Plan

On Wednesday I listened to Christopher Luxon giving a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber, the CEO of which is Simon Bridges. It was a speech, delivered without notes, containing a vision and a plan to implement a means whereby the goals in the vision would be achieved. The speech was from the head of a businessman, someone who could both identify the problems and then the strategy needed to go about solving them.

Dr James Kierstead: The future of our universities

The Future of Our Universities is now in the past. The long-awaited symposium, hosted by the Initiative, took place on Wednesday at the Royal Society Apārangi in Wellington. It brought together senior academics, politicians, and policy wonks for a day-long discussion of university reform.

The ongoing cuts at several universities loomed large. One speaker with experience in banking regulation argued that our universities’ finances are basically sound, with adequate liquidity and very low debt. Others warned that university balance sheets can create a false sense of security. Property assets, for example, are not easily realisable.

 Saturday May 18, 2024 

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David Farrar: Is it time to take the Interislander away from Kiwirail?

The Herald reports:

KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later.

Not what most people regard as worst case.

Heather du Plessis Allan: Steven Joyce is right, tax cuts are the way to go

I'm gonna back up Steven Joyce on something that he’s said today.  

He's written a piece for the Herald arguing for why we need tax cuts - which is an argument at the moment. 

Because you have commentators and economists lining up saying Nicola Willis is doing the wrong thing by giving us tax relief. Because she can’t afford it, because she’s got a deficit and therefore she's basically borrowing for tax cuts.

Barrie Davis: Science and Universities

The ironic decision to cancel a meeting to discuss free speech at Te Herenga Waka University was because some students were ‘freaked out’ that there were some rightist speakers. That was not an isolated case but rather an example of mass hysteria on the Left and mass decadence on the Right that has taken hold in the West.

In recent times various people have been stopped from speaking in New Zealand because they hold rightist views: In 2018 Don Brash was banned from talking about Treaty issues at Massey University by Vice-Chancellor Jan Thomas after a complaint by some students. Also in 2018 commentators Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux were stopped from coming to New Zealand to speak by Auckland Mayor Phil Goff. In 2023 Kelly-Jay Keen-Minshull abandoned her tour of New Zealand without speaking after being booed, heckled and doused with tomato juice at Auckland.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 12.5.24

Saturday May 18, 2024 

News:
Iwi pledges to use only te reo Māori to communicate with Govt
A south Taranaki iwi will use only te reo Māori when corresponding or speaking with central government officials from now on and hopes other iwi and kaupapa Māori organisations will follow suit.

Michael Reddell: Two central banks

I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s CPI had risen by 30.3 per cent and Australia’s CPI had risen by 30.4 per cent.

And that piqued my interest because the two countries have different inflation targets: New Zealand’s centred on 2 per cent per annum and Australia’s centred on 2.5 per cent.

So I drew myself this chart

John MacDonald: Come Monday, the bullies will be back on the job

If you talk to anyone who has been a manager and you ask them what’s the best thing about being a manager and what’s the worst, the answer will be the same for both. The people.

I know, because I’ve been a manager before, and I know exactly how brilliant it can be when things are going great with your people. But, when they’re not, it can be a nightmare.

Dr Matthew Birchall: Efficiency first in road pricing case

The Government plans to implement road pricing tools like congestion charging and toll roads. This will be an important first step in establishing a more rational transport system.

Over time, the transport funding model has become increasingly dysfunctional. Late last year, the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) observed that it will have to invest about twice as much as it expects to receive in revenue over the next decade – an annual funding shortfall of $4-to-$5 billion. In this context, a shift to road pricing and user-pays principles makes good sense.

However, its implementation is also likely to arouse passionate debate.