Dr Eric Crampton: Interchange fees

A few years ago, MBIE ran an inquiry into credit card interchange fees.

Most of the analysis seemed predicated on an assumption that retailers could neither impose surcharges for card transactions nor avoid accepting cards.

Max Salmon: Where is the commissioner?

New Zealand’s most recent Public Services Commissioner announced his retirement in September 2023. He retired in February 2024. The government has yet to find a replacement. Meanwhile, a quarter of its elected term has elapsed.

The role of Commissioner comes with considerable power to shape the face of the public service. The Commissioner is responsible for finding and hiring candidates for the Chief Executives of the public service. The Commissioner can shuffle Chief Executives between ministries, an ability that allows those candidates to avoid an open and competitive hiring process. The Commissioner is also charged with the development of senior leadership in the public service, and the enforcement of its standards.

Peter Dunne: NZ has no provision for the removal of a Prime Minister who becomes incapacitated

The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1967, regarding sudden vacancies in the office of President and Vice President also includes a complex procedure whereby the President can be removed from office in the event of incapacity, infirmity or other impairment rendering them incapable of carrying out their duties.

Saturday July 27, 2024 

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Kineta Knight: High hopes for laser weeding system after successful trials here in Canterbury

Technology that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to hunt weeds and zap them with a laser has won praise from industry leaders after successful trialling.

A prototype of the Map and Zap® system, designed by a group of AgResearch scientists and engineers, led by Dr Kioumars Ghamkhar, was put through its paces at a recent demonstration at a Canterbury vineyard.

Graham Adams: Chlöe Swarbrick’s education in disaster management

Darleen Tana is only the latest chapter in an annus horribilis.

When she was recruited by the Greens in 2016, Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick probably never imagined that when she was finally promoted to co-leader it would mean a very public baptism in disaster management. Now having achieved her longstanding ambition to climb to the pinnacle of Green politics, her most immediate challenge has been to stamp out the smouldering fires among the ruins of the party and to somehow restore its battered reputation as its annus horribilis grinds on.

This year, the party’s ranks have been seriously depleted or damaged through death, defection and disgraceful behaviour.

Dieuwe de Boer: Judges Are Ruling by Psychobabble

Judge Michael Crosbie concocted a psychobabble explanation for why the paedophile did it.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care in NZ from 1950 to 2019 was released this month. The Government issued an apology and made the usual promises to do things better.

The entire thing rings a little bit hollow when this Government is currently in the next phase of irreversible child abuse in this country through sterilisation drugs and chopping genitalia off mentally ill adults. One day in the not-so-distant future some hapless Prime Minister will be making another empty apology for his predecessors. ‘We didn’t know, we followed the science, we listened to the experts,’ and so on.

Dr Michael Johnston: Dr Reti prescribes a bitter pill.

Health New Zealand has been quite economical lately.

I don’t mean ‘economical’ in the fiscal sense, of course. This is the public sector we’re talking about. No, like any good government agency, Health NZ has been spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Indeed, when it comes to financial extravagance, the organisation is an overachiever.

Guest Post: Amy and Hamish Bielski - Our Research down on the Farm - Part Two

Hi. I am Amy. We are the regen farmers who shared a story on this blog of our research into whether methane emissions from our livestock are a real problem or whether it is something caught up in a phenomenon of hyped-up pseudo-science.

This is a sequel.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 21.7.24

Saturday July 27, 2024 

News:
Hapu fights back against Waiuku Wind Farm proposal
A Māori trust says plans to bring people back to their ancestral land have been put on hold as it fights to protect sacred sites, one more than 1000 years old, from a proposed wind farm development.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Andrew Coster not seeking a second term will upset almost no one

So Andrew Coster has revealed he will not be seeking a second term as Police Commissioner.  

Which will upset...almost no one. 

I think most of us will be happy to see the back of him. 

Because while he does seem like a decent and smart guy, he has been rubbish at the job.

Bob McCoskrie: Who is JD Vance and is he a social conservative?

Who is JD Vance

Ohio Senator JD Vance has been announced as the running mate for Donald Trump at the upcoming presidential election. He’s only been in the senate since 2022.

But this means he could be the next vice-president and replace possibly the worst vice president in history Kamala Harris. So who is JD Vance and is he a friend or foe of social conservatives.

Professor Ian Wright: Declining PhD student numbers are a warning sign for NZ’s future knowledge economy

The decline in the number of doctoral candidates at New Zealand universities is a worrying sign for the country’s effort to build a knowledge-based economy.

Aotearoa New Zealand’s economic trajectory has long been characterised by its reliance on primary commodities, such as unprocessed forestry exports, where high volume and relatively low value are common.

Successive governments have recognised the need to shift towards a more knowledge-intensive economy – one that fosters innovation, higher productivity and greater value.

Dr Bryce Edwards: NZ’s health system in crisis

As of today, New Zealand’s public health system – the biggest government agency in New Zealand’s history, which goes by the name of Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora – is being run by just one reforming bureaucrat – Prof Lester Levy, after the Government sacked the recently installed board. This is because the hospitals around the country that employ nearly 90,000 staff and have a budget of about $28b and assets of $25b are apparently in financial crisis.

JD: The Ex-Pollies at the Trough

JD writes on BFD as a Guest Post:

When you look at the rewards our politicians reap, it is patently obvious to whom their service was, and is, rendered.

As the miasma thickens around the John Tamihere, Te Pāti Māori, collusion case I wondered how JT got those highly paid chief executive jobs at Waipareira and Whānau Ora, with his wife Awerangi similarly ensconced as CEO of both operations.

Lushington D. Brady: They’re Not Even Hiding It

Is no one listening to what Muslims around the world are saying, loud and clear?

They’re not even hiding it – but is anyone in power taking notice?

History, as they say, repeats. Looking back on the inevitability of WWI,
H G Wells wrote, “Why did humanity gape at the guns and do nothing?” As it happens, he wrote that in 1933. In the same text he also foresaw the inevitability of war with Nazi Germany, even getting the location of the spark (Poland) right, if for the wrong reasons. Wells was also only a year off, guessing the outbreak of War in 1940.

Friday July 26, 2024 

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Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 26/7/24

Tax relief is on the way (hurrah), but help for the wine industry draws attention to the issue of corporate welfare

From one part of the Beehive comes a reminder that tax relief will be delivered next week.

From another comes a reminder that this government is no less willing than its predecessor to dispense the taxes it does collect to provide corporate welfare.

Jeffrey A. Tucker: During the Crisis, Free Speech Worked Brilliantly

There is only one major social media platform that is relatively free of censorship. That is X, once known as Twitter, and owned by Elon Musk, who has preached free speech for years and sacrificed billions in advertising dollars in order to protect it. If we don’t have that, he says, we lose freedom itself. He also maintains that it is the best path to finding the truth.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: Replacing Health NZ board offers glimmer of hope

In a dramatic move this week, the government replaced the board of Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) with a commissioner.

Dramatic but not much of a surprise. Last November, health expert Ian Powell wrote, “The health system is in a state of chaotic crisis (carnage is what it often feels like to those at the clinical frontline).”

He thought that if the new Minister of Health did not decisively change the board’s direction “nothing would change”.

Take a bow then on this first step, Minister Reti.