rdytdy

A lot of that did happen. It was obvious that Labour would have the largest majority going into this election. The "biggest danger" to the country was that they NEEDED the Greens to form a government. MMP creates strategic voting and by giving Labour your party vote to ensure they could govern alone and thereby taking power away from the mad Greens was a positive vote this election. Thus the tail cannot wag the dog.

And if the socialist gets back in then the country has lost.

A Contest of Ideas By Dr Muriel Newman The election that started out as the Labour Party sleepwalking to victory on the back of the COVID-19 crisis has become a contest of ideas. In the red corner are Labour and the Greens promoting higher taxes, less freedom, and more State control. In the blue corner are National and ACT championing lower taxes, more freedom, and less regulation. Setting aside the matter of the wasted vote going to parties that will not reach the 5 percent MMP threshold, the latest Colmar Brunton poll puts Labour on 47 percent, the Greens on 6 percent, National on 32 percent and ACT on 8 percent. The significant 13-point difference between the two blocks makes an election victory for National extremely unlikely, but not totally impossible. The polling gap is largely the result of some 200,000 former National voters – mostly women over the age of 45 – switching their support to Jacinda Ardern for her management of the COVID-19 crisis. If enough of those voters returned ‘home’, Labour’s support would slide and if the Greens dipped under 5 percent, National and ACT would have the numbers to govern. The election result therefore hinges on whether Jacinda Ardern can hold onto those former National voters, or whether Judith Collins can attract them back. While some of the policy stances taken by the main parties are not too dissimilar – see the Herald’s summary for an excellent review of policies – others give voters a clear choice. One such area of significant difference is tax and the economy. With the country in a recession and facing a mountain of debt, boosting economic growth is a priority. This raises questions over whether higher taxes and more government spending is the most effective approach to growing the economy, or whether freeing up the private sector to invest and create wealth through lower taxes and less regulation delivers a greater economic benefit. At the heart of this debate is a concern that in a free society, increasing the size and scope of government power is dangerous – as President Gerald Ford once warned: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” Essentially, Labour and the Greens are proposing higher taxes because they believe they know best how to spend your money. In contrast, National and ACT want lower taxes to allow families to keep more of what they earn so they can use it to build a better future for themselves – and the country. Labour is promising a higher tax bracket of 39 per cent for those with incomes over $180,000, while the Green Party, in what has variously been described as a ‘bottom-line’ and ‘top priority’ policy in any coalition arrangement, not only wants higher income taxes but a wealth tax as well. The Greens are proposing two higher tax brackets of 37 percent from $100,000 and 42 percent from $150,000, along with a wealth tax payable each year of one percent on all assets – including the family home, bach, land, and super savings schemes (even if they are held in family trusts) – valued at over $1 million, with 2 percent on assets over $2 million. Those who are asset rich but cash poor – including many farmers and pensioners – will be expected to borrow to pay the tax. In comparison, tax cuts form the basis of a growth agenda being promoted by National, which is promising to lower income tax thresholds to effectively give middle New Zealand an average of $3,000 a year. ACT supports tax cuts, but would like to see taxes flattened further to 17.5 percent in the longer term. Labour’s response to the promise of tax cuts has been to go on the attack. Their strategy is to scare voters with claims that tax cuts will result in less funding for health and education. But that is a lie. Tax cuts target ‘wasteful’ public spending – and under this Labour-led Government, there has been plenty of that. Many projects of dubious benefit have been financed by the Government’s $3 billion Provincial Growth ‘slush fund’, which has been liberally splashed all around the country. The same can be said of the $3 billion ‘shovel ready’ Covid recovery fund. Vast amounts of taxpayers’ money is being ploughed into hastily assembled and poor quality projects, like the $12 million allocated on the recommendation of the Green Party’s co-leader James Shaw to an elitist private Green School that charges New Zealand students almost $30,000 a year in fees and international students $50,000. With the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Jacinda Ardern, pouring hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars into the creative sector, there are growing concerns that the Government is using the Covid crisis as a pretext to “do special favours for their favourite interest groups”. Questions have also been raised about the value for money of some of the 647 grants worth $16 million that have been allocated by Creative NZ under the PM’s new Arts Continuity fund, including $13,000 to research and write the first draft of a novel about male affection in hypermasculine spaces, $17,798 to fund poetry that explores indigeneity and love in the time of climate change, and $26,000 towards a novel about the collapse of democracy in an association of alpaca breeders! Was the architecturally designed slide on Parliament’s lawn that over-ran its $400,000 budget to cost over $570,000 a good example of prudent spending by this Government? The BFD. Source: Taxpayers Union Concerns have also been expressed about Labour’s expansion of the core public service over the last three years – not only have they significantly increased the regulatory burden on New Zealanders, but they have added more than 6,000 staff to create a 53,000-strong bureaucratic army. Reducing it back to 2017 levels would save around half a billion dollars a year. With Labour’s love of regulation and bureaucracy, nothing epitomises the difference between the two main parties as starkly as farming policy. National’s leader Judith Collins has accused the Government of regulating farmers “into oblivion” leaving them “feeling like they are bagged all the time by this government”. During their time in office, Labour has piled regulations and costs onto the agricultural sector through new health and safety standards, animal welfare and biosecurity requirements, the Zero Carbon Act, a strengthened Emissions Trading Scheme, restrictions on natural gas, increased regulations on waterways fencing, fertiliser, fresh water, winter crop grazing, and even attempts to control the amount of mud on a farm in winter. To cap it off, Labour’s requirement that everyone earning a living from the land must develop farm plans for annual inspection have been estimated to cost the industry over $100 million. Under pressure to reduce the cost burden they have forced onto the agricultural sector, instead of promising to get rid of some of their over-the-top regulations, Labour has pledged to use $50 million of taxpayers’ money to subsidise the cost! In effect, they are turning farming into a regulated industry, totally beholden to bureaucrats. In comparison, Judith Collins aims to encourage innovation, rather than constrain the sector with excessive regulation, by promising to review and repeal unwarranted requirements, including the need for farmers to obtain consents to farm. She says farming will not be included in the Emissions Trading Scheme, and the Zero Carbon Act will be amended to ensure it complies with the fundamental requirement of the Paris Agreement, that climate change policies must “not threaten food production”. When it comes to freshwater, with less than 2 percent of New Zealand’s resource captured and used, National plans to promote storage options so communities and farms do not run out of water. And with regards to the ownership of water, National’s leader says water “belongs to everyone but is owned by no one”. Labour on the other hand is promising to progress Maori rights and interests in water, and to ensure iwi are involved in the development of a new Resource Management Act to no doubt further enshrine Maori cultural values within the consenting process. When it comes to the protest action over Ihumatao, while Labour wants to intervene to resolve the stand-off through a possible taxpayer funded deal with Fletchers, Judith Collins says it is private land and the Government should not be involved. She would not give in to Maori activists and says that no public money would go into a purchase of the land if she is Prime Minister. The issue of free speech also provides a clear choice between the parties. While the Bill of Rights Act guarantees everyone in New Zealand the “freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form”, the Human Rights Act prevents New Zealanders from inciting racial disharmony. The BFD. Cartoon credit BoomSlang The Prime Minister has confirmed that if re-elected, Labour would beef up hate speech laws by including religion along with race as grounds for prosecution under the Human Rights Act. She also wants to add sexual orientation, age and disability to any proposed changes – and she would require all hate speech ‘incidents’ to be recorded by Police. Neither National nor ACT support hate speech laws saying they would not commit to any change that would lead to a further loss of our freedom of expression. While it can be tempting to think of an election in terms of a smorgasbord of policy choices, it is crucial to keep the long term interest of the country in the forefront of our minds. Elections are not just about the here and now – they are about deciding which pathway we wish to take to protect the future for our children and grandchildren. This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator Sir Roger Douglas is no stranger to the long-term impact of good policy decisions having done more to improve our economic outlook than any other New Zealand politician. He was responsible for getting the country back onto a path to growth in the tumultuous 1980s, after Prime Minister Robert Muldoon just about destroyed the economy. His policy programme was focussed on the plight of the ‘working man’ – those who work hard but struggle to make a headway because the tax and cost structure of the economy is skewed against them. Sir Roger believes that if you can help hard working New Zealanders to get ahead, then their success not only lifts outcomes for the whole country, but inspires those on welfare to find jobs so they too can lead fuller and richer lives. In his article, Sir Roger is critical of governments that load unaffordable debt onto future generations, because they only want to do what is popular, instead of what is right: “Governments will need to remove the blinkers of self-interest, own up to our debt crisis, acknowledge the responsibility they have to future generations, and look to implement imaginative policies that are focused on the medium to long-term, rather than the toxic desire to hold onto power for three more years”. The reality is that the public debt that Labour has burdened us with as a result of their hard-line lockdown and cavalier attitude to borrowing is expected to peak at over 56 percent of GDP in 2026, up from 19 percent in 2019. It will be a massive liability for future generations unless the next government can successfully get the country on track to rapid and widespread economic growth. The polls are open. Labour and the Greens are encouraging everyone to vote early to capitalise on their favourable poll ratings. They are concerned that as voters begin thinking more about the future and less about Covid-19, they may switch allegiance to parties promoting freedom and growth. Whether enough do so to alter the outcome of this election remains to be seen.

Rosie is in the Intensive care Unit at Wellington Hospital in an induced coma. Has some fractures to her face. Wishing for the best possible outcome for Rosie.

NZCPR Weekly: SPOTLIGHT ON COVID-19 RESPONSE By Dr Muriel Newman This week’s latest Colmar Brunton poll has Labour on 47 percent, National on 33 percent, New Zealand First on 1 percent, the Greens on 7 percent, and ACT on 8 percent. If this translates into election votes, New Zealand will have a Labour Green Government for the next three years. Labour’s high poll rating can be largely attributed to the Covid-19 crisis. The final Colmar Brunton poll to be published before the emergence of the virus was in November of last year. It showed National on 46 percent, Labour on 39 percent, New Zealand First on 4 percent, the Greens on 7 percent, and ACT on 2 percent. On that polling, with New Zealand First failing to make it back into Parliament, National, with the support of ACT could have formed a government. Labour’s over-regulation of farmers, firearm owners, rental property investors, and the wider business community had contributed to their poor showing in the polls. Their failure to deliver on their election promises was also a significant factor – but more on that later. Without a doubt the way the Prime Minister fronted the pandemic response looks likely to have saved Labour. In the May Colmar Brunton poll, taken just after the lockdown ended, they had surged 20 points to a stratospheric 59 percent, National had slumped 17 points to 29 percent, New Zealand First was on 3 percent, the Greens just under 5 percent, and ACT was steady on 2 percent. It is a well-known phenomenon that when confronted with a national crisis, voters tend to “rally around the flag” in support of the incumbent government. Their leaders benefit from undivided and usually beneficial media attention. But our Prime Minister exaggerated the scale of the threat we faced using claims that “tens of thousands of New Zealanders will die” if we didn’t follow her prescribed pathway. Anyone questioning her lockdown strategy or challenging the lies that were being told to cover up such things as the chronic shortage of facemasks for front line health workers, or even the availability of the flu vaccine, were regarded as traitors to the ‘team of 5 million’ and vilified. As a result, the Government’s response to the pandemic was never subjected to the critical scrutiny it deserved given the widespread economic and social disruption it created - including the loss of life. This week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator, Dr John Gibson, a Professor of Economics at Waikato University, has bucked the trend by putting the Government’s management of the pandemic under the spotlight – including through research into the effectiveness of lockdowns in New Zealand and other OECD nations. Contrary to the popular view, Professor Gibson’s findings indicate serious incompetence in the Government’s pandemic response. He firstly points out that the deadly impact of Covid-19 was plain for all to see well before it reached our shores in late February. While other countries were proactively introducing border controls, establishing testing and tracking protocols, and setting up isolation facilities, in those early days our Government did little. According to Professor Gibson, they “botched” the preparation for the arrival of the virus: “I say ‘botched’ advisedly and would ask readers to consider the following four facts: Taiwan recorded their first case of Covid-19 on 21 January, a full month before New Zealand’s first case Taiwan usually has about three million visitors a year from China, while New Zealand gets about 400,000. The gap is even bigger in terms of visitors to China (who posed a risk of spreading the disease upon their return) Taiwan has not had a lock-down Yet despite earlier exposure and much greater risk due to more travel to and from China, Taiwan has just 22 cases per million of Covid-19 while the rate in New Zealand is currently 17 times higher “Similar comparisons could be made with respect to Hong Kong or South Korea, who also provided lessons on management of this new risk. The complacency by politicians and bureaucrats in New Zealand, who had the advantage of an extra month for preparation and much greater distance from China, is staggering. Obviously that chance to respond to the risk in a low-cost manner was missed and so a very costly lockdown has resulted.” The Prime Minister didn’t close our borders until March 19. She issued her doomsday predictions of widespread deaths four days later on March 23. Professor Gibson explains that the exaggerated Covid fatality predictions used by the Prime Minister came from an “off-the-shelf European model” that had “no empirical data from New Zealand on key parameters”. Questioning the use of a model designed for high density, public transport-reliant Northern Hemisphere populations that are older and have poorer respiratory health, on New Zealand’s low-density, younger population, he concludes, “Prime Ministerial claims that ‘tens of thousands will die’ are vague at best and alarmist at worst.” The Prime Minister used her alarmist claims to justify a lockdown that Professor Gibson describes as “the most stringent in the world”. At the time the lockdown was imposed, it was difficult to understand why butchers and greengrocers were not allowed to open in the same way as supermarkets. Why greenkeepers, wildlife officers, and others who operate in isolation, were not permitted to work. Or why builders, manufacturers, and others working in jobs where social distancing was possible were not able to carry on. And we questioned why hospitals did not re-open for elective surgery once it was clear the anticipated deluge of Covid-19 cases was not going to arrive. In analysing the effectiveness of policies to manage the spread of the virus within OECD countries - ranging from the harsh lockdown imposed in New Zealand to relatively minor restrictions in Sweden - Professor Gibson and other economists have found, from using seroprevalence studies of population samples, that Covid-19 deaths data provides a more accurate measure of infection rates than official case number tallies. This is because with limited community testing - and virtually no testing at all of asymptomatic cases even though they are thought to comprise the majority of Covid-19 infections – the official case tallies significantly undercount the virus infection rate. Newsroom’s political reporter Marc Daalder highlighted this accuracy problem in a report in which he compared the officially announced case tally to the case data collected by the Ministry of Health: “On March 25, the day New Zealand moved into Level 4 lockdown, the official Covid-19 case tally was 189 confirmed cases and 16 probable cases. There were actually 552 cases that would be confirmed and 60 cases that would be considered probable in New Zealand that day.” As could be expected, in their analyses of government responses to the pandemic, economists have found that restrictions imposed before Covid infections had peaked were effective in reducing the spread of the virus, while those imposed after the peak, had no statistically significant impact on death rates. Professor Gibson’s analysis of government responses in all 34 OECD countries found, “New Zealand is amongst 17 countries whose peak policy stringency occurred after the likely turning point in infections. For New Zealand, new infections peaked on March 16, over a week before the strictest restrictions began on 26 March.” This result is a bombshell. Essentially it means the huge sacrifices New Zealanders made during the lockdown had little impact on the virus because it was imposed after our infections had peaked. In other words, Labour’s response was too late! As Professor Gibson explains, “A popular narrative that New Zealand’s policy response to Coronavirus was ‘go hard, go early’ is misleading. While restrictions were the most stringent in the world during the Level 4 lockdown in March and April, these were imposed after the likely peak in new infections. So based on comparing policy timing with likely progress of the virus, the ‘go early’ claim seems untrue.” To make matters worse, Professor Gibson further explains that the economic decline caused by Labour’s lockdown, will result in a reduction of the life expectancy of New Zealanders. His research finds that for every 10 percent fall in a country’s GDP, life expectancy across the whole population is reduced by 1.4 years. In other words, economic damage has a material social cost. More people will now die as a result of a lack of affordable health care. With the latest economic data from Stats NZ showing a 12.2 percent fall in GDP over the lockdown period - the largest quarterly fall since records began - the full extent of the economic and social cost Labour has caused is only just starting to be revealed. Professor Gibson concludes his analyses by reinforcing this point: “New Zealand went hard but not early in responding to Covid-19… Any review of New Zealand’s decision-making about Covid-19 should especially focus on what was (not) being done in February and early March. The repetition of the ‘go hard, go early’ phrase should not distract from this task.” Rather than admitting they had responded too late in closing down our border or introducing lockdown restrictions, Labour ploughed $16 million into the taxpayer-funded public relations campaign that gave rise to the “go early” slogan despite it being false. This is not the first time Labour has created false narratives in the minds of voters by repeating a lie. Former Labour Party Cabinet Minister Richard Prebble tells one such story: “It was in 1981. We did a party poll and found the electorate thought that Labour had no practical positive solutions. The Labour party's policy machinery takes months and the election was only six months away. So what to do.” Richard explains that every MP was instructed to include in every speech and radio and television appearance the statement “Labour has practical positive solutions”. “There were prizes for MPs who managed to get the line on to the TV news. Heaven help an MP who gave a speech in parliament, no matter what the topic who did not include the line. “We changed not one policy. “We polled three months later and asked ‘What is a good thing about Labour’. Even a majority of National voters said that Labour had some practical, positive solutions.” As Richard notes, “Jacinda as a graduate in PR no doubt knows the value of repeating a slogan like the false statement that we went early. We went nearly too late and way too hard.” It’s not just the Covid response, of course, that will determine voters’ election choices. The Government’s track record of delivery of their 2017 election promises will no doubt play a part. It does not make for happy reading. After three years of pursuing their flagship KiwiBuild pledge to build tens of thousands of homes, Labour completed just 548! That is failure on a monumental scale. In spite of their commitment to end homelessness, the State house waiting list has blown out from just over 4,000 in 2017 to over 17,000 in 2019. Their plan to build light rail in Auckland was abandoned – but the increases in petrol tax that were introduced to fund it have remained in place. Not only did the Prime Minister fail in her promise to reduce child poverty, with the number of children living in material hardship increasing from 12.7 percent in 2017 to 13.4 percent in 2019, but under her watch, between December 2017 and 2019, a record 12,000 more children have been born into benefit dependent households, significantly increasing their risk of poor life outcomes. In spite of widespread policy failures, Labour is claiming that their track record of managing the Covid-19 health response should entitle them to win the election and lead the country’s economic recovery. But as we now know, the truth is very different from the spin. Labour’s track record in government is littered with incompetence. But whether enough voters will be awakened to that reality - before they cast their vote - remains to be seen.

Last night when I looked at it. Over 20,000 votes. Ardern 35% Collins 61% Undecided 4% Easy win to Collins.

Yes Baz, you should be ashamed. These days you can only make jokes about older white male heterosexuals. Must be the only ones left who actually still have a sense of humour.

This will help you Uriah seeing you didn't see it: Reflections on the First Leaders’ Debate The Empress Without Clothes By Edward Persimmon A great many urban leftists are wealthy and vote for socialist parties as a kind of penitence. One such leftist took a brief pause recently from the administration of her family-owned businesses and trust accounts to ask what would have to happen for me to vote Labour. Pondering this, I imagined, short of having the better part of my brain surgically removed, there is nothing which would prompt me to vote that way. I have always found Jacinda Ardern’s persona to be strangely repelling. Tuesday night’s leaders’ debate did nothing to alter my impression of being talked down to by a snotty intermediate school prefect, aged about twelve-and-a-half, who wants us to know that she both is captain of the hockey team and has her own pony. The most important point, therefore, conveyed with great success by Judith Collins, is that she herself is a middle New Zealander. This may seem an obvious, unnecessary or even strange observation to make, but it highlights, significantly, the chasm in both style and substance which has opened up between the two leaders. Not only was Collins empathetic to the pre-recorded debate questioners, her New Zealand ‘story’ placed her close to them. She displayed a practical familiarity with the work of the Auckland City Missioner. Mentioning that her husband is Samoan, she was able to speak ‘with’ and not ‘to’ the South Auckland school girl with family concerns. And finally, as the daughter of Matamata dairy farmers herself, Collins obviously knew about farming and engaged the farmer directly. Conversely, and aside from her mangled accent – which she could have picked up at the burger joint of Auckland Airport’s travellers’ lounge – nothing that Ardern said or did during the exchange indicated that she has even visited New Zealand, let alone that she has an interest in the place. Ardern ran through her usual set pieces, which always include the words ‘I hope’ or ‘I empathise’ precisely because she doesn’t. She deployed the ‘smiley face’, but then, increasingly, the ‘scowly face’ as the exchange wore on. And always the ‘scowly face’ when questioned, as if questioning her were an impertinence. Where has Ardern been for the last three years? She displayed only the most superficial grasp of government policy and was clearly in not possession of facts or numbers. Labour policy is still being presented, after a term in office, as the sweaty workshop musings of a youth summer camp. Ardern comes from a family of civil servants and has obviously never been near small business, let alone blue-collar workers, who are probably forced to use the servants’ entrance at her and Clarke’s place. Assuming the attitude of a television celebrity with minor celebrity boyfriend in tow, Ardern appeared unprepared for the rigors of debate and was visibly unimpressed when things didn’t go exactly her way. Anything off script aroused huge visible discomfort. One imagines her being similarly socially uncomfortable when not breathing the rarefied air of the Ponsonby social circuit. Ponsonby, where the elect quaff Châteauneuf-du-Pape and get up to all manner of great japes is clearly Ardern’s environnement natif approprié. “I don’t need your tax cut!” she snapped at Collins, responding as if Collins had just condescended to pay this wealthy Marxist’s bus fare. And she didn’t offer to give it back either when Collins prompted, the deduction being that she would trouser it, believing that she deserves every penny she earns. Collins’s well-timed interruptions, one-liners, and grasp of simple facts prompted Ardern to sneer repeatedly during questioning – the sneer being a much closer expression of her true character than the make-believe happy/serious expressions she learned from her drama coach. Ardern attempted to open the debate by employing Angela Merkel’s static hand gestures, but as she came under pressure these soon gave way to wild gesticulation. At one point she seemed ready to wrestle John Campbell with her hands, perhaps hoping to silence him by (metaphorically, of course) sitting on him. This is one socialist lady who does not like to be questioned, however sympathetically. It is fortunate for her that she has managed to sail through much of this year unscrutinised, by evoking mass national hysteria. Last time around, voters were sold lies (otherwise known as ‘aspirations’) about transport and public housing, from which very little has materialised. This year’s policy offering appears to have been developed on the hoof at a Davos love-in attended by Justin Trudeau. Labour, we were told, will rapidly convert the national grid to 100 per cent renewable energy using “pumped hydro” – a term unfamiliar to many. The reason for the lack of public interest is, perhaps, that we are entering a recession, and upmost in most constituents’ minds are issues like employment and the cost of living. For those residing outside the Herne Bay dinner circuit, “pumped hydro” doesn’t even exist. In reality, the commitment to 100 per cent renewable energy will make achieving high-speed rail to Hamilton look like a piece of cake. The entire policy appears to have been pulled off the internet. With her towering Marie Antoinette complex on full display, the Ardern really did appear to believe that she can bamboozle the gullible with the ‘internationalist’ bons mots of the latest climate change conference, while expecting them to be too stupid to realise that they will have to pay for them. Collins front-footed most of this, but she really needs to press the point further. Almost all of the debate questions were framed in terms of the established leftist orthodoxy. The political right should not feel it has to apologise for negating the climate agenda, or for introducing measures to reduce welfare dependency. It is not only beneficiaries, but New Zealand’s ‘stretched middle’ which is struggling. A great deal was made of the minimum wage, which is approaching $20 an hour, but nobody pointed out that the median wage is itself only approaching $30. ‘Good’ incomes chime in at $40-70 per hour, and Ardern’s ‘very high’ $180,000 per annum earners, whom she plans to tax more, are really only on around $100 an hour gross. Rather than suffering from ‘disparity’, Kiwi incomes are remarkably, if not ridiculously, egalitarian. Despite the reforms of the 1980s, our wage range is not in the least expansive, and remains determinedly ossified – at least in mindset. Kiwi companies are not incentivised towards performance-based pay, and on top of this both corporations and the workforce are heavily taxed. Unlike in certain overseas jurisdictions, families here often can’t get ahead, despite both parents working. People find it difficult to understand why we need to subsidise children’s meals when, by working hard, most manage to feed their own children. And they find it incongruous that a part-time youth worker must now be paid not much less than full-time employees who have served for many years, are qualified, and possess expertise. Collins needs to capitalise on this, and also the fact that many landlords, who are being forced to renovate their rental properties to the new ‘healthy homes’ standard, live in properties which would fail the same standard. Ardern, who is no economist, has perhaps taken Milton Friedman’s ‘helicopter money’ concept too literally, seeking to actually throw money out of a helicopter at people she has never met, doesn’t want to meet, doesn’t understand, and probably doesn’t even like. She only needs them to vote for her. Collins referred throughout the debate to “Miss Ardern”, an appropriate epithet for someone whose patronising soliloquies came across as those of a petulant bourgeois child impatiently explaining luncheon etiquette to the gardener. Could somebody remind me again, please: who made her the leader of our country?

Home General Business Green Party Farming Policy Sets the Framework for Economic Destruction Green Party Farming Policy Sets the Framework for Economic Valetta Farm, Ashburton. David and Jayne Clark farm an irrigated mixed arable farm at Valetta in Mid Canterbury, running breeding ewes, finishing winter lambs and growing a wide range of grain, forage and vegetable seed crops. It is a proudly inter-generational farm business with David’s parents living on the farm and their three sons taking a keen interest in farm life. David is currently Provincial President of Federated Farmers in Mid Canterbury. Over the weekend I had a phone call from a mate who lives in urban Auckland and he wanted to have a yarn about the new Green Party Agricultural Policy, that to his mind seemed logical, fair and reasonable, almost an exciting step forward, but he wanted to see the policy through the lens of a farmer as well. I have been reflecting on his question regarding the launching of the Green Party Agricultural ‘Policy’ trying to quantify the feeling of hopelessness that I and many farmers feel. So let’s unpack this a bit. How our business works is we have a farm income, that is the culmination of all the stock we sell and the grain and seed crops that we grow and sell to processors as it eventually makes its way to your local supermarket. Out of that income, we pay our farm expenses, seed, fertiliser, fuel and electricity, farm supplies, and various services. Most of this expenditure benefits businesses in our local town Ashburton and across the wider Canterbury economy. The BFD. A crop of wheat at Valetta Farm to be harvested for milling into flour for bread baking. Photo David Clark. Once we have sold our produce and paid for our expenses, there is hopefully a wee bit left over, which is what most business owners refer to as their return on investment. Last year our arable and stock farming business made a pre-tax return on total equity of 3.6%, which is a good result for this farming type. The Greens intend to impose a ‘Wealth Tax’ of 1% on assets over $1m and 2% over $2m. That leaves us with just over 1.6% return on assets before we pay any Income Tax. The Greens then plan to “charge a fair price” for the Methane burped by our sheep. I have previously heard prices of $50-$250/t of Carbon Equivalent suggested by the Greens, but let’s say at the low end of that range, our Climate Change cost just for Methane will be 1.5% of total assets. That leaves us with 0.1%. The Greens intend to develop a Water Charge in consultation with Iwi. Previously the Greens have stated that charge should be 10 cents per cubic metre. David Parker publicly stated an intention for a water charge of 2 cents per cubic metre. Here at Valetta, even at the lower charge of 2 cents per cube, the cost of watering our arable crops would be another 0.4% of total assets annually. That leaves us making a 0.3% loss. The Greens then want to impose a levy on fertiliser, and want us to run a zero-till or minimum-till system. Not sure how that works in a long term seed production system and adopt Regenerative principles. The BFD. We’ve done it! Green Loons celebrate the destruction of Kiwi farming. Photoshop courtesy of ExPFC. But here’s the clanger, they intend to impose a Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen (DIN) level of 1 mg/litre for all waterways in New Zealand. Currently, water flows out of DoC land at the western side of Mid Canterbury at 3.2 mg/l. To meet a DIN of 1 mg/l, Environment Canterbury’s own report from 2017 found that land use in the neighbouring Selwyn Te Waihora Catchment would have to revert to dryland sheep grazing. We have budgeted that impact on this farm and it looks like this- Crop Income, down 92% Sheep Gross, down 62% Expenditure, down 70% Wages, down 91% EBIT (Earnings before Interest and Taxation), down 68% Capital Re-investment, down 74% Net Profit, down 105% Tax Paid, down 75% The actual numbers are irrelevant, because the percentage drops will be seen across many or most farm businesses, regardless of size. Of course, that is before any of the other new taxes and levies they wish for detailed above. This conversation hasn’t even begun to touch on the significant investment in technology and infrastructure we have made in the last 15 years to reduce our environmental impact, all of which would be both unaffordable, and irrelevant because none of it will get us even close to meeting the limits the Greens wish for. The end result of all this is we would now own a totally unviable, un-bankable business that is not much more than a glorified life style block and has no economic future in food production. The knock on impact is that land values will collapse. My suggestion to my mate, or anyone else in urban New Zealand reading this is to enjoy and savour the standard of living that you currently enjoy, make diary notes and take photographs so that you can look back on the “good ole days” as we embark on our journey to becoming a Zimbabwe or Venezuela of the South Pacific. It was not sensible policy announced last week, it was the framework for economic destruction. Given the catastrophic economic news released in the PREFU this week, I’m not sure we can afford to take a wrecking ball to the agricultural and horticultural sectors right now.

Ardern Is in La La Land By JC he Prime Minister’s obsession with control in relation to COVID is making her look like the fool that she is. Often what comes out of her mouth is not the reality being experienced by many in her dream team of five million. As I have mentioned in earlier articles she can get away with it as she is simply taking advice from officials, be it on health-related matters or the economy. Two areas where this is currently happening is retail and sport. According to Ardern, using Treasury’s latest figures of card spend and traffic volumes in Auckland City, there were good increases in economic activity since the start of level 2.5. She went on to say that Treasury’s latest economic update showed economic activity across the Auckland region and the country bounced back to levels experienced under alert level one following Auckland’s move out of alert level three. She said this showed we have got better at adapting to shopping ‘local’ and logistics and keeping our economy moving, ultimately outperforming countries that decided against an elimination strategy. Ardern offered no evidence to support the last part of her comments so we are supposed to just take her word for it. That is difficult as she would be the least reliable source of accurate information, along with Hipkins, in the country. Take the first part of her statement. She gets some broad-brush figures from Treasury and glibly reads them out implying Auckland and the rest of the country are economically a bed of roses. Not so. Certainly not in Queenstown. In the Auckland CBD, the streets are empty. Without asking for or doing any breakdown of the information she just stands up at her daily afternoon soirée and purports to make a statement of fact. She obviously has no idea or doesn’t want her adoring five million fans to know small business is doing it tough, really tough. Businesses in the Auckland CBD also have significant disruption with the CRL. According to an article in the Herald many retailers spoken to were not on Ardern’s wavelength. Roger Marbeck, owner of Marbeck’s record store described the lack of customers as “disturbing”. The chief executive of Auckland’s city centre business association Heart of the City, Viv Beck said because Treasury figures generalised the whole Auckland region, it didn’t take into account the “perfect storm” in the city centre. She said shops, bars, restaurants and services that usually make up 20 per cent of the region’s revenue were beginning to reach breaking point. Beck said normally 130,000 people a day come into the CBD but this was not happening. Evidently it’s not happening in Sandringham either. This, apparently does not bother ‘Dear Leader’ any more than losing a rugby tournament. She obviously did comprehend the added significance of the Wallabies not pitching up for the Bledisloe tests, as Scott Morrison had to endure a phone call from her begging them to come and alerting him to quarantine rules changing to suit. If she’d done that at the start instead of acting like some childish dictator we would be hosting the whole tournament. Rather, she agreed with some juvenile made up training rules, and a large economic opportunity has gone begging. You have to wonder about the intelligence of these people. Adopting an elimination policy is daft to start with. Ardern is trying to achieve the impossible while the economy burns. The best hope she has of achieving her goal is to keep the borders closed for years. How realistic is that for the economy? Tourism and the associated businesses will all be out of business if tourists aren’t allowed in. There are no plans in place for this to happen. The only plan seems to be to wait for a country to be COVID free. There’s no guarantee any country will remain COVID free. We haven’t, if in fact we ever were. It is becoming increasingly apparent, though not to her, that she needs to rethink her strategy. Elimination may be her goal, but I’m picking it could well be an own goal. A penalty goal against the team of five million.

Second paragraph mentioned that Trump "This woman would be the worst and most incompetent Prime Minister in my 74 years of drawing breath. It is not difficult to fathom how a person of so little ability and intelligence has managed to gravitate to a position that is so beyond her capability. A mix of personality and petty politics got her there. It is worth remembering that her party did not win the last election. The vagaries of how we operate MMP and the ancient resentment towards a certain party by he who held the balance of power put her there."

Ardern Is a Disgrace The Most Unfair Election That I Can Remember Jacinda Ardern is a disgrace. She is a disgrace for managing, in just three years, to exacerbate all the problems the country was facing and starting to solve. She has failed in all the areas that she says her party stands for. She has completely failed her voter base. All the statistics relating to social problems have got worse. She has failed in housing, education, poverty, sport, and the economy. Not to mention COVID. In all the policy areas that matter when it comes to growing the economy, she has also failed big time. This woman would be the worst and most incompetent Prime Minister in my 74 years of drawing breath. It is not difficult to fathom how a person of so little ability and intelligence has managed to gravitate to a position that is so beyond her capability. A mix of personality and petty politics got her there. It is worth remembering that her party did not win the last election. The vagaries of how we operate MMP and the ancient resentment towards a certain party by he who held the balance of power put her there. This woman is no more capable of running the country than the New Conservatives are of winning a seat in Parliament. She says her government has built more state houses than any other. If that is the case why in June 2020 were there 16,651 families on the Priority A waiting list up from 4,054 in 2017? Labour said 4,054 was a disgrace. I don’t know what they call a 400% increase. Punishing landlords and causing skyrocketing rents won’t fix the problem they’re trying to solve. In education, we rank 35 out of the 41 richest countries. One-third of our fifteen-year-olds don’t have proficiency in reading and maths. The schools that were helping the most for the underprivileged were scrapped by Ardern purely for ideological reasons. Charter schools were a great alternative to those whom the state system had failed. They were not welcome by the Teachers’ Union so she quickly acquiesced to their demands. PHOTO-Supplied Dominic Elliot holding a sign: ‘Jacinda where is your support now?’ Ardern appointed herself as Minister to eliminate child poverty. Stats NZ in February reported that there were 151,700 children living in material hardship. These are children who live in households which can’t afford the essentials. They can’t afford fresh fruit or vegetables, can’t afford to go to the doctor and they can’t pay their bills on time. Poverty was remarkably worse in Maori and Pacific Island households – her voter base. There has been no improvement during her three years as Minister. Her latest blunder is losing the Rugby Championship to Australia. Her childish and stupid quarantine rules have cost this country and its economy dearly. She appears to have failed to recognise that rugby is pretty much a religion in this country and there was no reason, given a little bit of flexibility, that we could not have hosted the tournament. Even the Bledisloe tests are in doubt. One is scheduled on election night but she doesn’t see a problem with that. A bear with very little brain could work out that was a conflict of interest. She has now extended COVID restrictions in Auckland for another week at least. How very convenient. Judith Collins says it’s starting to look a little political. Not just a little. How are parties supposed to campaign to groups of ten? This is a straight-out political ploy which gives her all the initiative. There she was at 1 pm all over the television for half an hour talking not just about COVID but also her policies. This outrage needs to be looked at by the Electoral Commission. This is turning out to be the most unfair election that I can remember. The most hopeless person ever to hold the office of Prime Minister is being allowed to gerrymander this election to suit her own ends. This is a disgrace and so is she.

Our Queen of Corona By George With sincere apologies to Paul Simon, our very own “Queen of Corona”, through the medium of Chris Hipkins, has warned the Mt Roskill Evangelical Church congregation that the teachings from their Christian bible, delivered from the church pulpit, is misleading and that the only source of truth is delivered from the Labour Party pulpit each day. That debate is for another day considering the spread of the virus emerging from this church and this Government’s inability to control our borders. What is significant though is that whilst condemning the strict adherence of the congregation’s spiritual faith, Labour recently promoted a public holiday to celebrate the spiritual beliefs entrenched in Maoridom. So it appears one’s spiritual following has to be endorsed by Labour. Now it is not my point to debate the merits of either party’s articles of faith but to expose the hypocrisy that is entrenched within this Government. We can allow planeloads of Muslim mourners from all points of the globe into the country for a court hearing, but not rugby players. Those with spiritual connections to Allah were sponsored at the taxpayer’s expense to pursue their will whilst an economic windfall that would have been provided by the rugby tournament was kicked into touch. However, Ardern has proven once and for all that she is very adept at multi-tasking as she can lie and smile at the same time. But we all knew that anyway

Labour Dropped the Ball…again! By JC What a bunch of killjoys in the Labour Party. We have now been denied the chance to hold the Rugby Championship. Of course, don’t for one moment think it was solely their doing. They have all these so-called health experts in the field of academia giving them advice. If you, as a Government, take someone else’s advice when making a decision then effectively it’s their fault, not yours. In this particular case, it appears even they have avoided blame. So whose fault could it be? Well, according to the Prime Minister, who’s the Past Master at apportioning blame, it’s the rugby people themselves. Evidently they were really keen to have New Zealand host the tournament but just not keen enough to adhere to the Government’s silly training rules. Who would blame them? If another country is going to allow teams to train in such a way as to prepare properly for games that’s where they are going to go. The idea that you can’t have more than fifteen players training at one time shows just what an imbecilic lot we have running this country. They are devoid of any semblance of intelligence on anything, even a game of rugby. According to Ardern, the Government worked really hard to accommodate the needs of the tournament and the players. If we’re not successful she blames “Sanzaar politics”. No lady, you might not be bright enough to recognise it but you can blame your own politics. The responsibility for this fiasco, yet another one, lies fairly and squarely at your door. Once again you have stuffed up big time. If one country offers the means for teams to train together and another doesn’t, who do you think is going to win the day? This isn’t rocket science dearie. In terms of recognising the obvious this is kindergarten stuff. You, Sports Minister Robertson and Health Minister Hipkins are akin to The Three Stooges. They were before your time I know but while you three are around they’ll never be dead. For your information they were a vaudeville and comedy team. Their hallmark was physical farce and slapstick, not unlike how you run the country. Your overcautious nonsense caused New Zealand to be put in the too hard basket. Sport at this level isn’t just a game sweetie. It’s big business, something you have no experience of or understanding of. Again, your obsession with the health side of COVID has cost this country big time. Just when something of this size and interest was needed you kicked it for touch. You need to now reflect on the further economic damage you have done to the business sectors crying out for such a thing to happen. A couple of COVID bubbles in Auckland and you drop the ball. It might not have occurred to you yet — after all, we’ve only had COVID for six months so you might need a bit more time — but this country can’t go on like this. We need to divest ourselves of your draconian edicts and get back to normality quick fast. Hosting the Rugby Championship would have been a great way to signal that was happening. That was never going to happen though, was it? With you, it’s always control over commonsense. That’s how you operate. The reality is that there will be those who are not in your team of five million who may penalise you for this. Maybe others as well. Two Bledisloe Tests won’t suffice. Rugby coffers, restaurants, cafes, bars, hotels etc, all those who desperately need the patronage of the size this tournament would bring have all missed out again. All because of you. Not Sanzaar, not anyone else, YOU! It’s time to face reality Jacinda, time to be a big girl, and start taking some responsibility and some blame!

NZ Businesses Will Not Thrive Until COVID Elimination Policy Ends A Vaccine Fix Is a Fantasy No matter how much you try to find economists who claim that the COVID elimination strategy is great for the economy, the stories from the ground and reality aren’t reflecting the optimism. Businesses are restructuring and cutting locations, jobs and hours. Some are closing even after many years operating. More than you’re hearing about. We, the public know them. They are friends, family, us. Tourism businesses can only go so far catering to domestic tourists alone. So if there’s no end in sight to border closures, most aren’t going to survive long term. Add to that, the possibility of the NZ government closing off a third of possible domestic tourists – Auckland – at any time. If the rest of the world starts opening up – and they are – I don’t think tourists will flock to NZ if they will continue to face the cost, inconvenience, invasive testing, and prison sentence of a 14-day quarantine just to visit. No thank you, they’ll be vacationing elsewhere. Just like wealthy NZ yacht owners and holidaymakers heading to Europe, with some unwilling to return as long as quarantine measures at the NZ border remain. There won’t even be money to be made from visiting family members of New Zealanders. No, they’ll stay away, too, for the same reasons. Tourism isn’t alone. Walk down just about any suburb business street or visit an Auckland mall since the August lockdown. It’s not just one or two shops. It’s four, five and six or more this time. Restaurants, retail, service businesses. There simply isn’t the same retail rebound this time. The public is losing confidence. Even McDonalds is starting to pull out of some malls. Why operate in a mall if it can be closed at any time by the government? Nor can one plan or invest properly in the current COVID policy climate. Plenty of businesses are actively planning to close at the end of September as the wage subsidy ends. Others have lost their drive to continue long term in New Zealand and plan to close or sell out in the coming months unless there is a change. There are even those who are looking at leaving New Zealand permanently if lockdowns, closed borders and elimination are to remain policy. They’re over it and know they can’t continue to live or do business like this, nor is it a great future for their children. Potential lockdowns at a moment’s notice are poison to business, creativity and mental health. Mandating masks is still a slow poison as many New Zealanders will stay away or limit their time at indoor businesses if they are forced to wear masks. There are a lot of people for whom wearing masks is uncomfortable at best. Not to mention they are more than capable of reading the fine print on boxes of disposable masks, telling them your average mask doesn’t keep out a virus and isn’t even designed for medical use. And a vaccine? Even the flu can’t be stopped by one. Nor most other illnesses completely. Did you hear? The WHO has had to retract its recent proclamation that polio has now been eradicated from Africa by vaccine. Meanwhile, the death rate for Coronavirus continues to drop, even plummet along with increasing proof of previously inflated death rates in many countries overseas. It’s becoming clearer every day that it’s not dangerous for the majority of the population. Two deaths here, this “wave” after over a month of known cases, one over 80 – a tragedy of course definitely and deepest condolences to their loved ones, but how many die every day, every week, every month from cancers, TB, heart attacks, stroke, suicides and many other things including accidents? We don’t do a daily report in the news or from the government about this. We don’t set out the number of cases at 1 p.m. every day. We don’t social distance or mask up. Of course not! We didn’t do this with Swine flu or previous pandemics. It’s never been done like this before. Tell us what changed, please? Because the truth is, NZ is now using dynamite to blow up the ship in order to kill a flea that’s really only an ant. We’re going to sink if we don’t stop. NZ’s current refusal to change course with updated information doesn’t make sense. No wonder people are starting to question both narratives and motives.

We Lost the Rugby The Rugby Championship Is Going to Australia By Christie t has really surprised me how compliant the New Zealand public has been over COVID. We have had most of our human rights and civil liberties taken away by a benign dictator who has persuaded us all that it is for our own good. Yes, the country is locked off to the world, we are not allowed to travel, gather in large groups or stand less than 2 metres away from others. We are asked to log our movements in a way that any Soviet dictator would be proud of. All this for a disease that kills only small numbers of people, usually only those with serious health conditions anyway. But we have done it, mostly willingly, with maybe a few grumbles but with the majority of people being totally compliant. Probably the thing that makes me laugh most is watching people actually queue up to access the COVID tracer sign at shops and restaurants. They are not queuing for the hand sanitiser. They are queuing to tell the government all about their whereabouts. You couldn’t make this stuff up. However, there was always going to be a turning point, and I think we may have just reached it, because on Friday, we lost the rugby. We were in the running to host the Rugby Championship this November, this tournament being a sad second best after the loss of the full Super Rugby and All Blacks tours this year. Rugby fans were really looking forward to it, and with New Zealand being the most rugby-mad country in the world, of course it had to be held here. Unfortunately, it is going to be held in Australia. No, the Aussies have not pulled the rug from under us, like they did over the 2003 World Cup. We lost the hosting rights of this tournament because the government would not relax its rules around quarantine and social distancing for the players arriving from overseas. Australia saw sense and realised that it would be imperative for teams going into a top level tournament to be able to start training almost as soon as they arrived in the host country, and amended the rules, allowing players to commence training almost straight away. New Zealand didn’t. It stuck with its quarantine policy, bending the rules a little, but not enough to make it attractive for players to be able to reach a suitable level of match fitness by the time the tournament started. The rugby-loving New Zealand public is furious. Not only have we lost a major sports event, but we have also lost a huge economic opportunity, providing some relief for bars, hotels and restaurants, not to mention the sports venues themselves. It would have been a welcome boost to businesses that have done it hard for most of this year, with the COVID outbreak and repeated lockdowns. But no. Now people are beginning to wonder if we are ever going to have anything nice again. After all, this tournament is being held in November. We all keep hoping that these lengthy periods in lockdown are going to come to an end before too long. But now we have clear evidence that the government does not see an end to it all any time soon. We are caught in a witches curse, destined to be in lockdown for a hundred years or more. What it really proves, once again, is that this government has no Plan B. Lockdowns and quarantines are the only tricks they know. They cannot be flexible, they cannot compromise and they cannot find a way out of the hole that we are in. Lockdown is all they have. Most rugby fans will not be able to go to the games, of course, and the really sad thing is that Australia is not really a rugby nation. Nevertheless, Australia saw an opportunity for its flagging economy that our government was too stupid, too inflexible or too naive to consider. However, it has been said before. Elections held in World Cup years often go badly for the incumbent government if our team loses. Judging by the comments on talkback radio this weekend, losing this tournament because of inflexibility and a lack of vision is not going to go down well with voters. Labour dropped the ball. And it will have lost us at least $100 million.

Also remember I had an earlier bet at the same price done on my computer. Exactly the same $3.30 odds as 6:38 at the TAB Tue, 08 Sep 20204:20pm 14. Cornflower Blue @ 3.30 FFWIN Matamata:Matamata Race 9 When I did my selections for the Boys Get Paid making her a Best Bet at around 10am race day she was at $2.40FF

Trust Us They Say, They’re Our One Source of Truth… By CS The Prime Minister and her Health Minister are constantly telling us that they are our one source of truth. That when they speak from the podium of truth, it is right and we can believe them. It’s nonsense of course. And so it has proven yet again. Again it was Chris Hipkins speaking mistruths. #UPDATE The new case at St Dominics was not a close contact of the initial Mt Roskill Evangelical cases, contrary to what Health Minister Chris Hipkins said this morning. https://t.co/2j6Jxk9DfR — RNZ (@radionz) September 9, 2020 On top of that, yesterday morning Chris Hipkins was singling out members of the church for some public embarrassment and Police action. Clearly the Government is looking to sheet home the blame for ongoing infections on some of the so-called team of five million, rather than acknowledging that their incompetence at the border let the plague back in. We’ve also seen blame-mongering from Labour-aligned public health officials. It certainly looks like the “team of five million” slogan is out the window as the luvvies move to protect the COVID Queen: Then there was this from Dr Siouxsie Wiles, who assists Labour with their fundraising. “The reality is that we have a current government that has a strategy and we have a pandemic that is raging overseas and there is no guarantee that a different government would stick with the same strategy.” She has decided to use her new found fame to blatantly politick against a change of government. She’s an academic, not a politician. But there is clearly a move on, of which she is a part, to silence dissenting voices when it comes to alternative strategies for dealing with the Chinese plague. She and Shaun Hendy have both been pushing Hendy’s shame list where they even label other academics with different ideas, like the Plan B people, as conspiracy theorists. Latest #COVIDー19 graphic from @XTOTL & me is on information hygiene & the difference between #misinformation & #disinformation. Let's see if we can make this one go viral! More in the accompanying @TheSpinoffTV piece here: https://t.co/TgScnx7JNj #COVID19 #covid19nz pic.twitter.com/oyYNqhPHAc — Dr Siouxsie Wiles (@SiouxsieW) September 7, 2020 There is a real push for us to all comply with their thinking and strategy. No alternative must be tolerated, which is the antithesis of the scientific method. It is becoming more and more obvious that the wheels on the strategy are coming off. It shouldn’t really be a surprise, after the stuff-ups of Kiwibuild, light rail and child poverty, that the COVID strategy is similarly flawed and destined to fail. The problem is though, when your sole strategy relies on meek compliance with harsh lockdowns and you keep stuffing up and financially destroying the economy through your strategy, the compliance gets less and less the more pain we suffer. Which is why we are having the false war of Level 2 and Level 2.5, cajoling people into compliance with mask wearing by using fear. It can’t continue, mainly because sensible people start asking inconvenient questions, like why are you mandating mask wearing in Level 2 when you never did under level four? We now have more people in the community with the plague than when the first lockdown occurred. It doesn’t add up and it doesn’t make sense. The only people who now want lockdowns are basically those employed by the state or councils, who haven’t suffered the loss of a single dollar, let alone their entire income or business. All those telling us to take the medicine of lockdowns aren’t the ones having to swallow it. I’ll bet their enthusiasm for lockdowns would dissipate rather quickly if they lost 10% of their salary for each week we have to spend locked down. Expect the rhetoric against alternative views to escalate. They must protect the strategy and the COVID Queen at all costs.

I'm spot on. Opt 229 $3.30FF 8 September 18:38

You could have got $3.30FF last night.

Guaranteed to Raise your Hackles and Blood Pressure Common “Cop Out” Phrases By Suze The PM’s skinny frame and tired face is an indication of the tough road she’s on. Faced with hard questions from Ryan Bridge on the AM show earlier this week she pursed her lips and sniffed when asked to accept responsibility for the border failure that allowed COVID back into Auckland. “Where’s the evidence? she demanded, and immediately threw the blame at her “team of five million”: “We actually need people to do the right thing as well. We can’t be solely reliant on every single time the assumption that we’re going to stop everyone’s bad behaviour. We need a team effort. When we set out a rule, when we make an ask we need everyone to play their part as well.” The PM pushes a juvenile “dob in your neighbour” policy. I’m not sure what’s worse: police making up COVID rules as they go along when they hauled people off beaches and out of parks, or asking the public to spy on their neighbours. Both are highly incendiary. Whatever happened to openness and transparency? It was neither smart nor honest to shift the blame onto the imaginary “team of five million” cowering at home during the first lockdown, but once bitten twice shy judging by Auckland’s blatant disregard for the second lockdown. If something can be stuffed up expect the government to do it. Below are phrases the PM and her media protection squad trot out to confuse and divert attention from the disasters now coming thick and fast. Impeccable timing prime minister. “A tricky virus” All virus are tricky. This is a lie to divert attention from their latest lapse. What happened to alleged gold standard tracing, or arrivals tested on days 3 and 12, or border officials regularly tested? “Again” and “well, again” The PM uses this as a small break to gather her thoughts in a losing debate. Used as a last ditch, mostly unsuccessful, attempt to make the interviewer back off. “Aotearoa” We have been New Zealand since 1642 so why the recent undemocratic name change to Aotearoa or the equally awful Aotearoa New Zealand? “Be kind” A demand made of the “team of five million” that was not reciprocated by the government, e.g. over 220,000 people on the dole, annihilating the travel and tourism industry and forcing the closure of up to a quarter of retail stores. Due to hypocrisy please disregard this governmental instruction and adopt your own view of kindness. Example: it would be a kindness toward the poor and jobless not to support the current prime minister on October 17th. “Bin” Translation: “been.” A grating example of sloppy diction rampant among Ardern’s sycophantic media protection squad. “But ultimately” Used to gain breathing space and change the subject. Ask yourself why. “COVID election” This might have worked if elimination had been achieved but now it’s just another failed strategy. Also reinforces political bias in the government’s handling of the COVID crisis where economic consideration didn’t get a look in. Count your failures one by one…. “COVID longhaulers” Just in case you’ve recovered from the first round of COVID scaremongering, meet round two. COVID longhaulers have ongoing health issues after ‘recovering’ from COVID. All viruses affect the immune system, some people suffer longer, but how many and whether it’s permanent is unknown. “Elimination” The government’s chosen COVID strategy receiving worldwide acclaim for 102 vainglorious days. It didn’t work, won’t work, and any honest politician would stump up and admit their failure at the border. Second in command (apologies to Winnie but you are MIA) was Robbie who recently tried to pass off an AVSEC failure as entirely the fault of airport security, forgetting he’s part of the small (incompetent) team supposed to be running the show. “Facilidate, facilidy” More recognisable as facilitate and facility, used to inspire confidence in the clown show but only works on the clueless. “In this space” Your response should be: What space? I see idiots occupying that space.” “I’ve made my views very, very clear” “very, very, clear” and “clearly” Means this is a stupid question. The PM is always right so clearly, very clearly, you are wrong. Delivered in the kindergarten tone the PM is so fond of. “I will have to get back to you on that” Means I’m not up to speed, let’s hope you forget to ask this question again next week. “Leading the world” and “World Class” This is futile tall poppy territory. In the globalist world faring well against other countries is more important than addressing your own nation’s problems. “Not my expectation” and “we had an expectation” This is the PM’s usual response when confronted with failure. It means she is not (and never will be) held responsible for the latest stuff up. Also known as passing the buck. “Settings” A tricky way of saying “rules”, or this is how things will be, until we tell you otherwise. The government can change the “rules” at a moments’s notice. “Single source of truth” A statement that preceded several government failures, one of the funniest being their website instruction that everyone in South and West Auckland should immediately take a COVID test. Testing stations were inundated and the PM was “very angry” at the screwup. Time to adopt a “single source of responsibility” prime minister? “Stay in your bubble” The correct response now is “what bubble?” The initial scaremongering with the threat of tens of thousands of deaths faded after the departure of 17 (22-5) elderly souls with pre-existing conditions. That bubble has well and truly popped. “Test, test, test” This instruction didn’t stop the virus re-emerging, or the government reneging after their ridiculous instruction for 700,000 Aucklanders to get tested — see “single source of truth”. “That’s one of the things we’ll be looking at” I can’t answer your question, in fact, it’s not my fault because someone else stuffed up and I don’t know when, how or if they can fix it. “The long tail” This is pseudo-science that was supposed to garner public confidence in the failed elimination strategy which failed after round one on all but the naive and the clueless. “The new normal” is an oxymoron. If it’s new it’s not normal. Don’t believe them. Korau’s comment in General Discussion 31 August nailed it: “Hello Auckland. Welcome to the new normal, Level 2.5. It’s a Claytons level apparently. The level you have when you’re not having a level”. “The team of five million” An imaginary concept Ardern uses to pretend full national support for her disastrous and unsuccessful elimination strategy. It has a very short tail. “Tools in the toolbox” Meaningless words offered up when the latest failure becomes public. A failing attempt to promote false optimism. “Unprecedented” Also known as “excuses, excuses” but sounds better than the whiny “no one has faced the challenges we have”. “We can beat this!” Where’s the “we” white woman? Others might, but you can’t. You allowed the biggest cluster yet to develop in Auckland after the monumental border failure you still haven’t owned up to. Donald Trump was paying attention. “We will get to the bottom of that” The anticipated response to yet another stuff up. Do not expect resolution. “We’re working hard” and “we’re working very hard” Explaining yourself is losing (Cam Slater). “What something might look like” Pure speculation. Tell the truth so we can see what something actually looks like.

It’s Not Easy Being Green Shaw Played To His Voters But Got It Wrong By Christie I have always said that the Greens are people who live in an ideological world, but I have recently changed my view. Their world is not entirely ideological. It is, in fact, quite possible. They live in a world where there are cycle lanes everywhere, pop-up walkways, few cars (and those that exist are electric), lots of trains, welfare is rampant and those on it live a decent and lavish life. I was travelling on the Kapiti Expressway recently with a Greenie friend who waxed lyrical about the fact that the new motorway has a cycle lane, blissfully ignoring the fact that the cycleway was completely empty and added millions of dollars onto the cost of the road. Greens don’t worry about trivial things like the responsible use of taxpayer funds. In their utopian world, all these things can be achieved… we just have to tax people more. How else can a party that claims to want to see less inequality in the country want to give discounts on cars that cost in the region of $70,000 when the people they claim to care about will be lucky if they can afford a rust-ridden, 20-year-old smoky old Toyota? The truth is that those people do not vote Green. Their voters come from the leafy suburbs of Auckland or the trendy parts of Wellington; wealthy urban dwellers whose wealth makes them feel guilty and whose world has to be the way they want it, whether it will bankrupt the country or not. They can always blame climate change if anyone gets antsy about the cost of things. I mean, a perfect world will never come cheap, will it? Thus James Shaw has found himself in very hot water this week, not only with taxpayers, but with factions of his own party, and his political career hangs by a thread. But the Green Party has only itself to blame, because its various factions are likely to disagree with each other as their different priorities take hold. If you are not sure what I mean, then just think about the fact that, if Shaw is forced to resign, the next male co-leader of the party will be either Teanau Tuiono or Ricardo Menendez-March. The thought of either of them in government roles should fill a reasonably thinking person with terror, but here we are. The BFD. Cartoon credit Boomslang Shaw knows many of his voters really want the Green school. The wealthy urban elites can probably think of nothing better than composting toilets and crystals for their kids. Shaw knows it would have won votes for the party, but the activist wing of the party wants nothing to do with the kooky elite wing. They want to burden white people with guilt, force everyone to speak Te Reo and increase tax rates to such a level that working people will leave the country in droves. No, the country will never be able to afford what the activist wing wants, but it cannot afford what the elite wing wants either. Cycle lanes and pop-up walkways don’t come cheap, no matter how many “car fascists” there are. And if it means you can’t get to work on time, never mind. Such things are not important to an elite Green. However, either despair or over-eliteness has finally driven James Shaw too far. Aware that his party is on the brink of annihilation, he has acted in desperation, as supposedly he refused to sign off on $3 billion of ‘shovel ready’ projects unless the green school was included. Holding up projects that will create thousands of jobs for New Zealanders in an economic crisis unless he can get a pet project funded is blackmail. He deserves to lose his political career over it, and apologies simply don’t cut it. Such a person is not fit for the responsibilities of being a minister, and many ministers have stepped down for much less. It is as simple as that. The prospects for the party are not great. If the activist wing takes over, in a conservative country, oblivion awaits, but pandering to the Green elite probably has no future either. Still, in Shaw’s utopian world, the green school was a great idea. Pair it up with Jacinda’s unicorns and rainbows and New Zealand would be a fabulous place indeed. It would be bankrupt, but no matter. No one ever said it would be easy being Green.

Our Political Comedians By JC Jacinda, Grant, Chris, Megan and Phil, do me a favour and just naff off. I am sick to death of being told what instructions to follow on a daily basis. I wouldn’t mind quite so much if you could implement your own rules but you have shown consistently that you can’t. But you expect the so-called team of five million to obey all the orders you trot out every day. Most of your edicts are nothing more than telling us how you would like us to live our lives. After months of being ear bashed about how you went “hard and early”, the new catchphrase is “it’s a tricky virus”. It is not a tricky virus. It is only tricky because you are out of your depth when it comes to knowing how to handle it. The endless bungles have made that only too clear. Even Winston gets it, the man who gave you the path to power. Stupidly. Your one o’clock stand-ups as you call them are aptly named. Are you aware it can take an amateur comedian about ten years to perfect the technique needed to become a professional; this is a constant process of learning through failure. As the name implies stand up comedians usually perform their material while standing. As has been all too obvious comedy and failure have been your constant bedfellows throughout the COVID crisis. Practically all your instructions have had a two-fold effect: control and contract. Control the people and contract the economy. Take the latest two edicts. Aucklanders are being told it would be preferable if they didn’t attend a conference in Queenstown. Why not? Plane loads of them are going down for holidays. They’ll all be jamming restaurants and bars. Those venues will probably be more tightly packed than the conference. You are so fixated on control that common sense has gone out the window. It turns out that once again Hipkins hadn’t done his homework thus was unaware that the rules in place excluded conferences. He’s either lazy, has too much on his plate or is just plain incompetent. The other dumb decision is to call off the Youth America’s Cup. Which Minister is linked to this decision? You guessed it, Phil Twyford. The event involving mixed crews from thirteen nations was to be held next March. Twyford weaselled his way out of it by saying that while the Government had invested $100 million in the America’s Cup they had not done so directly with the Youth Cup so there will be no travel exemptions. This is lunacy. There will be no crowd at the North South rugby game; meanwhile we watch crowds attending the NRL games across the Tasman. As far as I am concerned you lot are a bunch of idiotic killjoys. People are over this obsessiveness with control and want to work and get on with their lives. Your contact tracing is another disaster in the making. You are now going to produce a silly little notebook for people to use if they don’t have a phone. Here’s a little piece of advice. Stop throwing the rule book at us. There are so many rules even you can’t follow them. Stop treating us like little children. Most of us don’t want to be brought down to your level. This country is a democracy, not a dictatorship.

Ha ha no Rev. I am not down in the River City. I am managing Chelsea Burdan (as well as Jason) now and she has staying down there after riding at Otaki yesterday as she is riding at Wanganui. Hoping for a special day for her tomorrow ie riding a stakes winner on her birthday.

Anyone know where the Raceform publication can be purchased in Wanganui. Thanks.