Frank Newman: The Te Huia express

Te Huia was speeding its way from Hamilton to Auckland. The conductor had just finished clipping tickets in the second carriage when he noticed something amiss.

"Where have the carriages gone? he said. "I am sure there were four when we left the station", he added with some certainty.

He was right. There had been four when they left Hamilton, and now there were two. Somewhere, somehow, two carriages had "detached" on their journey through the Waikato.

NZCPR Weekly: Spotlight on Covid-19 Response

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR newsletter, we shine the spotlight on Labour’s pandemic response including the finding that their “go hard, go early” slogan was misleading, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Professor John Gibson shares his research showing that New Zealand is amongst 17 countries that imposed their lockdowns too late, and our poll asks whether you agree or disagree with Labour’s claim that they ‘went early’ with their Covid-19 response.

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NZCPR Weekly: Political Agenda Endangers Lives

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

In this week’s NZCPR-Weekly newsletter, we investigate the dangerous separatist agenda that claims institutional racism and colonisation are to blame for Maori child abuse and highlight the real problem, our NZCPR Guest Commentator former Judge Brian Giesbrecht shares his first-hand experience of the disastrous impact on children when Canada allowed tribal authorities to gain control of child protection services, and our poll asks whether you believe priority status on hospital waiting lists should be based on clinical needs or race.

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Clive Bibby: Opportunities abound but we need to take advantage of them

The current argument about the need to reduce our core debt to below 30% of GDP before we lose the ability to manage the process within politically
acceptable guidelines is a good indication on who should be in charge of our  recovery.

It is clear that Labour and their mates have no idea about how it might be  achieved and worse still, actually don't want to know about the monster they have created.

I am amazed at the continued announcements of cash available for just about anything you like to name - much of it of doubtful necessity but supported by the usual special interest groups who recognise a gift horse when they see one.

NZCPR Weekly: Border Botch-Ups

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week, we raise concerns about Government incompetence at the border and the risk that this creates for all New Zealanders, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Barry Brill outlines the case against the Government over the legality of the Alert Level 4 lockdown, and our poll asks whether you consider the Government’s border control performance has let the country down.

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Point of Order: Gun owners aggrieved by new firearms legislation

Latest from the Beehive

The New Zealand Police Association has declared it is both pleased and relieved that Parliament voted to pass into law the Arms Legislation Bill.

Association President Chris Cahill said many of the reforms heralded in the bill fall into the ‘better late than never’ category with some at least 30 years overdue.

Henry Armstrong: The Great New Zealand Dichotomy

Contemporary New Zealand is an extremely unsettling, somewhat sad, place to live in the 21^st century. It is full of absolute  contradictions; has a political system which vigorously pursues  ethnic difference yet claims “we are one” or, “a team of five million”; where one’s individual, personal and social identity is far more important politically, than  any concept of unanimity-except for the sporting All Blacks rugby team. Prime Minister Ardern’s earnest exhortations at her daily COVID19 briefings that “we are all in this together” is absolute nonsense and verges on dishonesty.

In reality, New Zealand is well on the way to becoming a seriously divided nation endorsing overt ethnic separatism and social division. How can the PM claim such gushing unanimity when she and her government overtly act to the contrary?

Mike Hosking: Labour's Pike River disgrace now that victims' remains will not be recovered

So the day of reckoning, or at least a day of reckoning, has arrived. The jig is up.

Andrew Little, the Minister in charge of Pike River, fronts the appropriate select committee and reveals what most of us had worked out well before they ever entered the mine.

The retrieval of bodies is no longer practical. The simple truth, a decade on, is that the retrieval of remains was never practical.

Little perpetrates the con a little further by suggesting that the main reason they are still there, apart from perceived political gain, is to gather evidence for the crime committed.

NZCPR Weekly: The New Normal

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week, we reflect on our journey to Alert Level 1 and raise concerns about official decision-making, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Professor John Gibson shares his new research showing that lockdowns, which come at an enormous economic cost, are ineffective at reducing Covid-19 deaths, and our poll asks whether you think that Labour will introduce a capital gains tax if they are re-elected into government.

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Henry Armstrong: The Ardern Government and Ageism - fact or fallacy?

                           

This article is purely speculative, a conspiracy theory if you will. But as an over 70, I cannot help but feel just a little uneasy at what I see and read in today’s media, regarding us oldies. What do footpaths; access to health; and taxation, all have in common? Read on!

Several recent comments by the Prime Minister , members of her Cabinet and her professional advisers  during the COVID19 pandemic crisis  suggest that lurking just below the surface of the political landscape may be an ageist agenda? That the elderly pose an economic burden on future generations?

NZCPR Weekly: A Covid Farce

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week, we outline how the Covid-19 lockdown has now become a farce and explain why an inquiry is needed, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Anthony Willy outlines the important role that Judges play in upholding the Rule of Law – especially when a government acts unlawfully, and our poll asks whether you support an independent inquiry into the lockdown.

*To read the newsletter click HERE.
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NZCPR Weekly: Democracy Under Threat

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week, we investigate how the Government’s race-based Treaty partnership agenda is fracturing society and undermining democracy, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Michael Coote explains why an independent inquiry is needed into tribal roadblocks and those who condoned them, and our poll asks whether you support a race-based health system.

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Mike Hosking: Just what is the government's plan?

The unions are telling the government they need to move faster on infrastructure. When the unions are telling Labour to hurry up, you know this is not a government of action. And isn't that their real reputation? The government of announcements.

We've got $15 billion for shovel ready projects, and the crickets are chirping.

The Prime Minister's own handpicked advisory board in their final letter before being disbanded for the election are telling her Australia is beating us, and they're doing it better than us.

It is one thing to write cheques having borrowed or printed the money, but that is not delivery, and it's not a plan. Announcing the spending of other peoples money isn't even a skill. So just what is it we are doing? And is any one actually asking?

Bob Edlin: Race-based Aging Policy

We are all getting older, but some of us (according to the Minister of Health) are getting older much faster than others.

“Older” New Zealanders have been defined for policy purposes in a press statement that emerged from the office of Health Minister David Clark at the weekend.

And guess what?  Being “older” depends not on when you were born but on your  ethnicity, which is something we define for ourselves.

A distinction between “older” Maori and Pacific people, compared with the rest of the country’s “older” people,  was drawn at much the same time as the government was affirming its  funding of another race-based programme.

Frank Newman: Straight Talk - The good news and the bad news

The good news and the bad news.

The good news first. The latest round of relief for business was announced on the 14th of April.  There are a number of measures but two points are significant:

NZCPR Weekly: New Zealand's Democratic Vacuum

Dear NZCPR Reader,   

This week we raise concerns about the democratic vacuum that has been created in New Zealand and the lack of scrutiny over how Jacinda Ardern is using the virus crisis to impose her socialist world view onto our nation, our NZCPR Guest Commentator Frank Newman explains that if the government is genuine about wanting to get New Zealand working it should get rid of the Resource Management Act, and our poll asks whether you believe taxes should be increased to pay for the cost of Jacinda Ardern’s lockdown.

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Sir Bob Jones: The Coming Economic Crisis and its Political Consequences

Have an election today and the government would bolt in, primarily because of Jacinda’s star power induced by the media’s obsession with her. But the election is six months away and then, I’m picking a change of government.

First, to clear the air, I like Jacinda and don’t wish the government’s demise. 

Long before there was any thought of her rise I admired her and Julie Anne Genter more than any other MPs. That’s because when I occasionally tuned into Parliament and they were speaking they did so enthusiastically, arguing for initiatives they thought beneficial, without ever resorting to the customary and tiresome abuse of the other side. This I found refreshing.

Bob Edlin: Do iwi roadblocks signal a policing “partnership”?

The proposition that our Police are paving the way for a partnership in which former MP Hone Harawira and other iwi leaders police communities within the borders they define went unchallenged when put to press officers working for the Prime Minister and the Police.

The picture painted in the preceding paragraph was drawn from Deputy Police Commissioner Wally Haumaha’s statement on road blocks Harawira set up in Northland to check tourists’ health.  He declared:

” … we want to model what it looks like when iwi, police, councils and other agencies work in partnership”. 

But nether the Police nor the Prime Minister’s Office directly answered questions put to them by Point of Order about the legality of Harawira’s blocking public roads while policing the a border which he presumably established.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Get PM and ministers up to speed on coronavirus details

The Government better sit the PM and the health minister down and get them across the details of our coronavirus response.

I am astonished at what these two key ministers don't know.

Our Health Minister doesn't know how many testing kits there are in this country.

We have been asking about this for days, because we're being told behind the scenes we only have limited supplies.

Mike Hosking: Now is not the time for benefit increases

Quietly unveiled at the end of Jacinda Ardern's post-Cabinet press conference on Monday was confirmation of benefit increases based on wage increases, not the consumer price index, as has traditionally been the case.

It was a change made in the 'Wellbeing Budget' and this ironically is in part why the books aren't what they were, or indeed should be. The books were talked of in the same conference by Finance Minister Grant Robertson, who assured us all that we are busy working on three separate coronavirus plans, and we are in good shape to deal with all three.