Wendy Geus: It Is Not Words That Are ‘Unsafe’

A lesson (for Ardern and Victoria University students): actions, not words, can be ‘dangerous’.

The ‘inappropriate’ (quote unquote Gerry Brownlee) actions of Julie Anne Genter when she accosted mild-mannered National minister Matt Doocey in Parliament this week waving a booklet in his face, demonstrated it is actions not words that are dangerous.

Nick Clark: Navigating the belt and road

New Zealand has an infrastructure deficit of at least $100 billion, a significant drag on productivity and economic growth. Not all this deficit can be financed from within New Zealand, meaning we will need overseas investment.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been touted as a potential source of overseas investment. The BRI aims to increase trade volumes between participating countries by improving infrastructure and lowering trade costs.

Owen Jennings: Country Update From Klaus

Memo to: Executive Council

From: Klaus

Date: May 2024

Subject: Country Update – New Zealand

Guten Morgen.

Our operatives report that plans are in hand in New Zealand. Despite a seeming shift to the despised right, Prime Minister Luxon and his sidekick, Climate Change Minister Watts, are holding the line on warming and are staying staunch on our demands for tight emission targets.

Mike's Minute: Where are the solutions from the Reserve Bank?

The Reserve Bank has an odd mandate.

On one hand they directly involved themselves in cocking up the economy to the extent it has been by throwing printed money about the place, often with no real guidelines to banks as to where it would end up. Small clue: it went into housing.

David Farrar: Two more Genter altercations

Stuff reports:

Another allegation has come to light against Green MP Julie Anne Genter, with a business owner claiming the MP, who is working from home after an incident this week in Parliament, grabbed her arm “and gave it quite a strong shake” as they spoke.

Wellington business owner Nicola Cranfield said she saw Genter at Midlands Park at the end of last year.

Net Zero Watch Samizdat: Green Suicide

The headlines: 

British government to allow oil and gas exploration at sites intended for offshore wind
The Guardian, 2 May 2024

Bank of England's climate change remit is 'ridiculous' and 'needs to be culled'
Daily Mirror, 3 May 2024

Brian Easton: The Post-Covid Economy

Is the economy in another long stagnation? If so, why?

This is about the time that the Treasury will be locking up its economic forecasts to be published in the 2024 Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) on budget day, 30 May. I am not privy to what they will be (I will report on them in due course) but the Treasury are competent economists persuaded by the evidence, so other economists should be able to make reasonable guesses at what is bothering them

Dr Bryce Edwards: Accepting a significant pay rise shows how out of touch MPs are

How entitled are New Zealand’s politicians? Right now, MPs across the political spectrum look entirely out of touch in their unified stance of accepting the hefty pay increases recommended by the Remuneration Authority.

MPs should simply reject the pay increases – which they can easily do – rather than risk a legitimate public backlash from constituents who feel betrayed by an already well-paid political class that insists on austerity for others but not themselves.

Lushington D. Brady: Arking up against the Rainbow

Anti-groomer wave gains momentum

It looks as if the backlash against the ‘rainbow’ groomers is really hitting its stride.

The only surprise is that it’s taken this long. Of course, the only reason the groomers got away with what they did for even this long is because most people blindly accepted the mantra that ‘We just want to be left alone in the privacy of our own bedrooms.’ But the truth couldn’t be hidden forever. Not once they came for the kids.

Dr Eric Crampton: Defending speech

History often helps put current controversies in context.

In 1968, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Ira Glasser defended racist Alabama Governor George Wallace’s right to speak at a city-owned stadium in New York. It most certainly was not because he agreed with Wallace.

Indeed, Glasser later said, “there was, at that time, no one whose speech I despised more than Wallace’s.”

 Saturday May 4, 2024 

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Cam Slater: Winston Calls Carr an ‘Irrelevant Ill-Informed Shill’

The Media Party is all aquiver that Winston Peters seems to have more courage than them when it comes to calling things as they seem. He’s doubled down on Bob Carr, calling him an ‘irrelevant ill-informed shill’ which, given the ample information that abounds on the internet, seems entirely accurate:

David Farrar: How Hipkins hid the $400 million school move blowout

The Post reports:

As parents, teachers and community leaders shivered together on that wintry morning, the project was already in trouble: costs had blown out from an estimated $63m to a staggering $405m.

Gary Judd KC: Senior King’s Counsel files complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students

The tikanga regulations will compel law students to be taught that a system which does not conform with the rule of law is nevertheless law which should be observed and applied

I have made a complaint to Parliament’s Regulation Review Committee concerning the Professional Law Examinations Tikanga Māori Requirements Amendment Regulations 2022 (“tikanga regulations”). Today the Law Association’s newsletter LawNews published an edited version of my complaint with the headlines reproduced above. My complaint in its edited form follows. The original, complete with LawNews graphics can be found here.

At present, the compulsory law degree subjects are The Legal System, The Law of Contracts, The Law of Torts, Criminal Law, Public Law and Property Law.

Owen Jennings: Radio Spectra and Methane

I am old enough to remember getting out of bed at 3.00am on cold mornings to listen to the radio broadcast by Winston McCarthy of the All Blacks playing in South Africa. No TV’s back then. McCarthy’s inimitable voice captured not just the passage of play but managed to lift excitement levels several notches even in dull games.

Dr Bryce Wilkinson: What activist kids should know about productivity growth

It is fashionable to see climate as the main threat to the future quality of life of young people today. The word “climate” is commonly followed by “crisis” or “emergency”.

School kids are being organised and encouraged to march the streets. While it is commendable that young people are taking an interest in important issues, agitating for uncosted policies assumes New Zealand households have no competing spending priorities.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 28.4.24

Saturday May 4, 2024 

News:
Māori win customary title over Tokomaru Bay on East Coast
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea.

A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for their rights, had proven they had held the area under tikanga, or custom, without substantial interruption since 1840.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Do Newsroom's staff think they are culturally superior to the rest of us?

Do Newsroom's staff think they are culturally superior to the rest of us? Are they arguing that Amazonians & other Indigenous Societies are "philistines"?

Can't remember the last book by a Kiwi author you read? Think the NZ government should spend less on the arts in favor of helping the homeless? If so, as far as Newsroom is concerned, you probably deserve to be called a cultural ignoramus & philistine. This past week it targeted MP Todd Stephenson, ACT's Spokesperson for Arts & Culture, in a "Gotcha" interview. Here is an extract:

David Farrar: Some three strikes data

1st strikers

• 55% of 1st strikers were sentenced to less than 2 years imprisonment (or no imprisonment)
• 20% of 1st strikers were sentenced to 2 – 3 years imprisonment
• 25% of 1st strikers were sentenced to more than 3 years imprisonment

Capitalist: Hold the Guilty to Account

As I write this, facebook.com is alive to the sounds of National Party MPs crowing that the ban on cellular telephones has come into force in schools; something fully supported by your favourite capitalist. In recent days they’ve been crowing about a 2030 target to get 80% of year 8 students doing the 3Rs at their age level. Once again, noble objectives that are fully supported by the man in the street.

But why is it required and why do so many National Party politicians go full retard off the reservation so often? Let me explain…