Brendan O'Neill: The classist lunacy of Net Zero

This eco-ideology is a cruel imposition on the lives of the working class.

So even one of Just Stop Oil’s wealthy donors is tiring of its classist stunts. Trevor Neilson, a co-founder of the Climate Emergency Fund, which has pumped money into Just Stop Oil, says the eco-irritants’ funereal, road-blocking marches for Mother Earth increasingly come off as ‘disruption for the sake of disruption’. You have ‘working people that are trying to get to their job, get their kid dropped off at school [and] survive a brutal cost-of-living crisis’, he says, and then along comes a ‘pink-haired, tattooed and pierced protester standing in front of their car’. It pisses people off, he said.

Garrick Tremain: Chippy meets Xi

 Here is Garrick Tremain's cartoon commentary on Chippy's Chinese lessons! 

Robert MacCulloch: Kings Fund report in the UK pays bare how both the UK & NZ centralized health systems are failing

A few days a report to which the British PM has had to respond laid bare the failings of the National Health System in the UK. The problems relate to the fact that State centralization of service provision is becoming a gigantic failure & decentralized health-care systems where public & private providers compete, thereby offering higher quality services, with bills paid by social insurance, are now performing better. There need be no difference in coverage between systems - both can offer "universal" care. The UK is reacting with shock & horror to graphs below, on intensive-care beds & dependence on foreign doctors & nurses. Germany has nearly 10 times more intensive care beds than NZ & nearly half of our doctors are foreign trained. What the hell has Labour done these past 5 years when the most pressing issue on the planet was getting health-care right? The UK is bad - NZ is off the charts:

Net Zero Watch: Net Zero at risk after surge in wind energy costs

 

In this newsletter:

1) Net Zero at risk after surge in wind energy costs
The Sunday Telegraph, 25 June 2023
  
2) Nobody should say they haven't been warned
Global Warming Policy Foundation, 27 July 2019

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Does the Prime Minister really need two planes?

Look, I’m not upset about the cost of taking those two planes on that diplomatic trip to China.

Of course, $150,000 on fuel for the backup plane is a lot of money, it’s not a great spend. But the alternative is spending up to $6 million on buying a new plane. Which is what we actually need to do, but until we do that, we’re probably going to have a bunch of these costs.

No, my problem is the climate miles.

Kate Hawkesby: We need to build more roads

I’ve decided we need to build more roads.

I don’t know why we don’t just build roads everywhere all the time. The most transformational thing this government –who said they’d be transformational– could have done was build more roads. I don’t know why they hate them so much and cancelled so many of them.

John MacDonald: Time to rein-in judges?

Imagine being the victim of a crime and you’re sitting in court for the sentencing of the person who offended against you.

You listen to both sides of the argument putting their case for a stronger sentence or a lighter sentence. You might even read out a victim impact statement. Or it might be read out on your behalf.

And then, after all that, the judge clears their throat and starts to read out their judgement.

Andrew Dickens: The treatment of the Police is regrettable

There's an old political wisdom that if you've got bad news to tell, drop the news last thing on Friday so it gets buried by the weekend.

So I was a bit confused to be watching One News on Friday with John Campbell oozing and gesticulating all over the screen, telling a story that on the surface seemed to be good news.

1News exclusively revealed that nearly 40,000 charges have been laid with over 8,300 people arrested to date as part of Operation Cobalt, their operation against gang activities.

Kerre Woodham: We need both punishment and rehabilitation

Well, the National Party delegates and the party faithful didn't have a weekend off.

This was their party conference weekend, so it was all guns blazing as the faithful gathered together to hear how New Zealand would look under a National government, and more specifically, how National was going to get them the votes that would enable them to form a government.

They didn't really introduce anything new and experimental. The party stuck to its greatest hits, fixing the economy, pointing out Labour's out of control spending and the big one, law and order.

Monday June 26, 2023 

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Mike Butler: What triggered Julian?

The day that correspondents on the tail of an email from Heritage New Zealand gloated about getting control of a picturesque Bay of Islands homestay property via “wahi tapu” legislation was the day Julian Batchelor launched his Stop Co-governance crusade.

Batchelor, a former teacher turned real estate salesman, has held dozens of hall meetings throughout New Zealand and distributed hundreds of thousands of booklets.

At those meetings he tells his story of an attack on his two-storey villa at 2am on January 1, 2016, that involved a haka by 20 Maori men on his front lawn, death threats, and $10,000 worth of damage.

That was just one of a series of incidents since 2008, when Batchelor bought the villa on 3.5-acres of land at Rawhiti on the Cape Brett peninsula about 35 minutes from Russell.

Karl du Fresne: Guest post - Why I have left the Labour Party

By Perce Harpham

(As founder of the Progeni software company, Perce Harpham, now 91, was a pioneer of the New Zealand computer industry. He is also a former Green Party candidate.)

After some 16 years of loyal support I have left the Labour Party because it has left me. I am so ashamed at how “my” party is destroying our legal system and democracy that I wish to be completely dissociated from it.

Michael John Schmidt: From the Desk of a Male Pale and Stale

Archaeological evidence suggests that tobacco was discovered in the Americas and was being cultivated and used by the indigenous culture as early as 5000 BC. It was introduced to Europe in the 16th century and became popular as smoking was often associated with a certain level of status or sophistication. In many cultures smoking was considered fashionable and associated with the upper classes or influential individuals – leading to the growth of the tobacco industry. New Zealand was no exception to this. The renowned New Zealand artist, Charles F Goldie, even depicted this devotion in his paintings of Maori women.

Mike Hosking: Why has the government brought Three Waters back?

If you haven't caught up, Three Waters is back.

That surprises me to a degree, given the trouble the Government has had with Three Waters, the problems they have in the polls and the trouble they dug themselves into last week over race issues in health.

Just to recap - when the Prime Minister became the Prime Minister he tossed a bunch of stuff out, or on the bonfire. But one of them wasn’t Three Waters.

Jacqui Van Der Kaay: Rules can’t restore personal integrity

While Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is to be applauded for strengthening the rules around conflict of interest for Ministers, questions need to be asked about why more rules are needed.

Alwyn Poole: The Mental Health of Our Children and Young People

It is to the shame of New Zealand’s adult community that news came out last week that in the last five years the number of anti-depressants issued to children and teens has increased by 53 per cent.

My memory of the mental health situation for children and young people five years ago was that it was not that things were utopian. It looks like the disappearing $1.9 billion for mental health is still on the way to being a solution.

Life is always difficult for someone, somewhere and every human being will have their share of that. Tragedies happen: sometimes deliberate or caused by the negligence of others, sometimes through sheer accident or illness. People get hurt in relationships or do the hurting.

David Farrar: Media Bias Exposed

I want to talk about media bias in New Zealand. Now by media bias, I don’t mean that there is a cabal of journalists deliberately being biased, as you sometimes see in the United States. The bias I mean is unconscious bias, where many journalists have a worldview that makes it impossible for them to fairly report on values, beliefs and policies supported by people, not on the left of politics.

It has generally been accepted in many countries that more journalists lean left than right, but until recently, we have not had any hard data for New Zealand. Fortunately, the Worlds of Journalism Study in late 2022 has now provided some useful data through their survey of working journalists.

 Sunday June 25, 2023 

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Clive Bibby: Once were Warriors

Kiwis of all shapes and sizes will no doubt identify with this message from the provinces.

I say that because our region is not the only one that has felt the full force of the climate change induced destructive power and no doubt it won’t be the last.

But because of our position at the most exposed NE part of the North Island, we do appear to be more vulnerable on a more regular basis.

Karl du Fresne: Kiwi life

They closed the schools for several days recently in the small New Zealand town of Opotiki. A gang leader had been killed and the police expected trouble as his associates massed in their hundreds for the funeral. Principals were worried about their pupils’ safety and many of the town’s older residents similarly decided it was wiser to stay at home.