Geoff Parker: Corey Hebberd’s humbug taken to task

Recently Stuff published an article titled ‘Coalition’s petty reversal on Māori wards a threat to local democracy’ dated 17th April 2024, it does not clearly show who the author is, but the article leads me to believe it is Corey Hebberd.

This article seeks to address Hebberd’s humbug.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: What were they doing?

Have 308 People in the Education Ministry's Curriculum Development Team spent over $100m on a 60 page document of shallow nothingness?

In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Education Ministry employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. This past week it was announced 202 of them were being laid-off. When you look up "The New Zealand Curriculum" on the Ministry of Education's Website, it says, "We're preparing to close this site as we transition to Tāhūrangi" but if you click on that site you get an incoherent jumble of chaos.

Cam Slater: Would Helen Clark Please Just STFU

Most Kiwis prefer their past Prime Ministers to either be dead or silent, but since Helen Clark shuffled off in ignominy in 2008 after being trounced in the election by John Key, neither she nor Key have managed to put a cork in it. Bill English thankfully has barely uttered a squeak, but don’t even get me started on Jim Bolger and Jacinda Ardern.

Ele Ludemann: What is a woman?

What is a woman?

That is a question that few, if any, would have asked, and few, if any, would have had to think about a few years ago.

Now it’s a politically loaded question, and one which some find difficult to answer.

One who doesn’t is J.K. Rowling who nails it in this explanation to her critics:

Roger Partridge: A crisis of ambition

When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand's first-world status was at stake.

Resolving these daunting policy problems is difficult enough. But there is a deeper, more fundamental challenge confronting the nation. It is one of ambition and identity.

Breaking Views Update: Week of 14.4.24

Saturday April 20, 2024 

News:
Luxon: Waitangi Tribunal comments from coalition parties 'ill considered'
Comments from ACT and NZ First ministers about the Waitangi Tribunal were "ill considered" and "that message will be underscored" to them, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says.

Resources and Regional Development Minister Shane Jones' comments to Radio Waatea this week attacked the Tribunal after it summonsed Children's Minister Karen Chhour for an urgent hearing over the government's plan to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.

Brendan O'Neill: Liz Truss and the tyranny of ‘the markets’

Globalist cliques have far too much power over democratic life.

Britain’s chattering classes have a new hobby: mocking Liz Truss for crazily believing there’s such a thing as ‘the establishment’. They have a hearty chortle every time Truss, famously the most shortlived PM in British history, says ‘deep state’ or ‘the blob’. Why’s she always droning on about a ‘so-called establishment’, wonders that most establishment newspaper, the Guardian? Her new book, Ten Years to Save the West, has caused an epidemic of eye-rolling. Once again, ‘up pops Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister’ to moan about the ‘economic establishment’, says one sniffy review.

Kerre Woodham: Take the jobs that are available

Well, the Reserve Bank has got what it wanted. Maybe not what it wanted, it's possibly the hard landing that they were hoping to avoid, but it got what it engineered.

Back in 2022 the Reserve Bank told a Select Committee that, yes, it was deliberately engineering a recession to rein back inflation after being slow to raise interest rates. Governor Adrian Orr said as a result of raising interest rates to slow spending, there would likely be a rise in unemployment, but it may be a job-rich slow down because of the severe lack of labour in the economy.

David Farrar: Singapore takes defence very seriously

The recent visit to Singapore by the PM has seen some commentators say we should have a defence posture such as Singapore’s where there is no defence treaty with the US.

Friday April 19, 2024 

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Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 19/4/24

On Lee’s watch, Economic Development seems to be stuck on scoring points from promoting sporting events

A few days ago, Point of Order suggested the media must be musing “on why Melissa is mute”.

Our article reported that people working in the beleaguered media industry have cause to yearn for a minister as busy as Melissa Lee’s ministerial colleagues and we drew attention to the government website page which records all her statements as Minister of Media and Communications. It was – and still is – blank.

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Why is NZ Struggling?

Why is NZ Struggling? Because it has prioritized equity above all else. Take the Retirement Commission for example, why do we pay it $8 million a year to be told you're not stupid if you're a woman?

Many governments are increasing the retirement age when the pension starts due to ageing populations. As life expectancy has risen, encouraging more people to be productive for longer is no bad thing.

Mike's Minute: The West is losing to Russia and China

Liz Truss has a book out.

It's what you do when you have been Prime Minister, even though she was only Prime Minister for about three and a half minutes.

Slight digression - I am going to be fascinated to see how they promote Jacinda Ardern's book when it finally arrives.

Muriel Newman: Submission on the Fast-track Approvals Bill

Submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill close today 19 April just before midnight. The Bill includes a statutory requirement for an iwi representative to be appointed to the four-person Expert Panels, which, in light of the Coalition Government’s commitment to equality before the law, is totally inappropriate.

Below is a copy of the submission sent in by the New Zealand Centre for Political Research.

If you would like to send in a submission but haven’t done so at this stage, please feel free to use the arguments we have presented below - but please ensure you do so IN YOUR OWN WORDS, since copied submissions are usually counted as one.

Graham Adams: The $55m media fund continues to stir controversy

Can taxpayers be confident PIJF cash was spent wisely?

When Patrick Gower was asked by Mike Hosking last week what he would say to the many Newstalk ZB callers who allege the Labour government bribed media with $55 million of taxpayers’ money via the Public Interest Journalism Fund — and that journalists “sucked up” to the government — Gower’s response was brusque: “I’ll tell them pretty much this, mate: Get stuffed.”

It seemed a curiously contemptuous response from a broadcaster who had just told Hosking that taxpayers’ money dispensed by NZ on Air might be his best chance of making another television show after Newshub’s demise.

Tony Orman: Shane Jones’s snapper farming proposal ‘full of fish hooks’?

… fish farming is capital intensive, high risk and only marginally economic. –American fisheries expert

Fish farming — injudicious and flawed

A proposal by Fisheries Minister Shane Jones for the farming of snapper has been described by an outdoor recreation organisation as “injudicious and flawed”.

Ele Ludemann: Pot, kettle, black

Some journalists are blaming politicians for the lack of trust in the media.

This is a very sooty pot calling s slightly dusty kettle black.

Politicians usually rank at or near the bottom of trust surveys and one reason for that is the way they are treated in and by the media.

David Farrar: Two terrible attacks in Australia

There have been two terrible attacks in Australia.

The first, was the stabbing of 18 people by Joel Cauchi, with six dying. The method of attack, plus the fact an infant was stabbed, had many think it was a terrorist attack. But it seems it was a combination of mental illness, and hatred of women. The stabbing of the infant especially is incomprehensible.

The only silver lining was the heroism shown by various people such as “Bollard Guy” and the Inspector who shot him.

Cam Slater: Why? Because They Don’t Add Any Value

The media luvvies are all exercised about the pending job losses in the state sector. It’s a shame that they weren’t similarly exercised about job losses in the private sector as a result of ill-considered Labour Government actions, like the oil and gas exploration ban.

Liam Hehir helpfully provides that context:

John Porter: Why We Must Re-Elect the Current Government

On October the 23rd a majority of New Zealand said they had had enough. The Labour Government of the previous six years was swept from office in a near landslide.

New Zealanders made their views on the future of co-governance quite clear. On election night it was a resounding: ‘We do not want it!’