If David Seymour wins his Epsom seat again, which is likely, under the MMP system he will bring list MPs with him in proportion to the percentage of the party vote ACT gets. In the last opinion poll this stood at 3% which would mean another 3 MPs on the list as per its nominated order of ranking:

David Seymour

David has been an MP for five years and named MP of the year in two of them. Nobody in living memory has entered Parliament alone, represented an electorate, led a party and been part of a Government straight away. David was responsible for charter schools that transformed kids’ lives for the better and even Labour could not close. The End of Life Choice Act is a landmark piece of human rights legislation that nobody thought a sole MP could navigate through Parliament. Part of the answer is that he was not a sole MP.

Brooke van Velden

Brooke is the future of ACT and New Zealand politics. Likeable, smart, and classical liberal, she will speak for a generation who care about the planet and are socially tolerant, but don’t want to live in communist cauldron of identity politics. She left the private sector, where she was involved in lobbying for businesses affected by government overreach, to work at Parliament. She had with one mission, to get the End of Life Choice Act passed. Seldom does a parliamentary staffer get national media attention for their effectiveness, but Brooke van Velden is a future leader.

Nicole McKee

In the wake of our nation’s tragedy in Christchurch, Nicole McKee provided the calm and intelligent voice of reason on firearms law. So much so she was awarded communicator of the year as spokesperson for COLFO through this difficult time. Nicole runs her own business providing firearms safety training, and is a four-time New Zealand shooting champion. Nicole is a mother, passionate about welfare reform, and freedom of speech. She will make an excellent MP.

Chris Baillie

At a time when New Zealanders are rightly concerned about how small business has been treated through the COVID-19 crisis and before, ACT’s number four is a real small business owner who employs 30 people. At the same time crime, poverty and gang violence are worrying many New Zealanders. Chris was a police officer for fourteen years, specialising in Youth Aid. Today, in addition to his business, he is a full time secondary school teacher helping special needs students. Chris will bring a powerful and experienced voice to Parliament.

Simon Court

Farmers are facing punitive and destructive water regulations while city councils have resource consent to discharge raw sewage from their leaky infrastructure into the sea. The problem may be solved in Auckland if the punters run out of water to flush with. Simon Court is a civil and environmental engineer who has worked internationally on waste management and infrastructure. Simon admits he once voted for the Greens, but nobody is perfect and ACT believes in redemption. He voted Green to save the planet, not destroy the economy, and his message that we need more innovation and less regulation to solve environmental problems is pure ACT.

Media release:

The Taxpayers’ Union has released the results of its public consultation on the Christchurch City Council’s revised draft annual budget – with just two percent of Christchurch locals backing the Council’s proposals to increase rates.

“This result is an overwhelming endorsement of those councillors who are championing a rates freeze in the garden city,” says Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union.

“Of the 1,371 people who submitted to the Council via our Christchurch rates consultation website, more than two thirds explicitly backed the rates freeze policy. Seventeen percent backed rates being slashed by five percent, and eleven percent opted for a modest rates decrease of two and a half percent. Just two percent backed the Council’s proposed rate increases.”

“The Council has a month to finalise this year’s budget.  They tried to screw the scrum by limiting the options in the official consultation material to a range of rate increases.  Now we know why. Christchurch residents are united – cut the waste and the ‘nice to haves’ and don’t hike council taxes during a recession.”

Editor’s note: breakdown of submissions submitted to the Council using the www.chchrates.nz website:

ENQUIRIES: Louis Houlbrooke 021 950191

by Guy Burns

The publication of the independent organisational Review of Kapiti Coast District Council by Martin Jenkins (known by some as the Cootes Report) is a mighty disappointment. Nearly $200,000 of report fails to deliver. The Report lacks depth and doesn’t penetrate the inner workings of the organisation that it was tasked to review.

The wide ranging scope of the investigation set it up for failure. Tasked to cover governance, leadership, staff, services, external relationships and Maori engagement—it comprised too many topics to properly analyse and find robust and meaningful recommendations.

The Report fails to find inefficiencies and needed improvements regarding the organisational structure. Rather, like a mantra, Martin Jenkins recommends spending more money and resources on training and mentoring:  training/mentoring for Councillors on governance, training/mentoring for managers, training for staff, training on the use of technology and systems, training on communications and engagement.

The question needs to be asked — why is so much training and mentoring recommended?

Martin Jenkins identifies that better communication from staff, to both the public and Councillors is needed, but doesn’t explain a better system or methodology to do so. Utilising the resource of Community Boards has been highlighted and the Report notes the need to utilise the Boards in a better way. Maori participation in Council needs strengthening and Martin Jenkins outline some useful recommendations.

Overall, Martin Jenkins relies too much on Council’s own documents and the less than robust NZ Taxpayers’ Union for its information. Interviews undertaken by the Report writers provide more useful data. But the net was cast too wide to provide any in-depth and meaningful findings/recommendations needed to achieve transformational change at Kapiti Coast District Council.

Guy Burns is deputy chair of the Paraparaumu-Raumati Community Board and is one of several in the community who for some years have been calling for organisational reform at KCDC with greater efficiency.

Chinese authorities deceived the public, suppressed crucial information, arrested whistleblowers, denied human-to-human transmission in the face of mounting evidence, destroyed critical medical research, permitted millions of people to be exposed to the virus and even hoarded personal protective equipment – thus causing a global pandemic that was unnecessary and preventable. —Eric Schmitt, Attorney General of Missouri

A strong case

by Roger Childs 

There is no doubt that Covid-19 started in the city of Wuhan in Central China and that the Chinese government delayed telling the World Health Organisation (WHO) for at least three weeks. In fact it was Taiwan who first informed WHO. While the epidemic raged in Wuhan and a lockdown was imposed, thousands of people flew out of the city, taking the virus to countries around the world. Many scientists feel that if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had sounded the alert after the first few cases were confirmed, the Coronavirus could have been contained within China.

Not only did China delay reporting the outbreak, but it was also tardy in reporting that there was human-to human transmission. 

Cartoon of Xi washing his hands of responsibility by John Tiedemann. Concept Sarah Dudley, Spectator Australia, 24 April 2020

There are two main theories on how it started:

• It came from one of the Wuhan wet markets where they sell live animals, birds and fish, and that it “jumped species”.
• It “escaped” from a laboratory in Wuhan.

The wet market theory

A Wuhan fish market is where Covid 19 – also known as SARS2 — was possibly first noticed. SARS1 also started in a fish market. Dr Michele Barry, Director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University and other experts know that many viruses and diseases have emerged in the changing relationships between people and animals.  

According to Dr Barry: We have changed the ecology of how we live with animals, so that if you look at most of the emerging viruses and the emerging diseases that have happened over the last hundred years, they’ve been what we call zoonoses.

However, in recent months the “escaped from the lab” theory has gained ground.

Out of the laboratory and into the world

In Unrestricted Warfare, retired Red Army officer Qiao Liang explains how a technologically superior United States  can still be defeated in a war through the use of other methods including ‘cyber and biochemical warfare’. —David Flint, Spectator Australia, 24 April 2020

In Tracking Down the Origin of the Wuhan Coronavirus, American investigative journalist Joshua Philipp, demonstrates that it probably came from a major research project into cross-species infection at the Wuhan Institute of Virology led by notorious ‘bat-woman’, Shi Zhengli. 

He also provides evidence suggesting the virus was probably genetically modified to make it transferable to humans and even more contagious — a taboo subject which most media won’t report. 

Chinese government reactions

Your government and your scientists had to know long ago that coronavirus is highly infectious, but you left the world in the dark about it. —Julian Reichelt, Bild April 2020 

China’s diplomats are quick to react to any criticisms of their handling of Covid-19. 

They were furious when President Trump accurately called it “The China virus”. They also complained when New Zealand closed its borders to flights from China. When Scott Morrison pressed hard for an independent investigation of the origins of the pandemic, tariffs were placed on Australian barley imports and some beef exports were blocked, and in June a spate of cyber-attacks were probably the work of Chinese hackers. There was also an angry diplomatic reaction to a hard hitting criticism of China’s duplicity over the Coronavirus spread in the German newspaper Bild.

The CCP has also been upset over claims that they have put pressure on WHO to accept their version of the virus origins, however in the face of most countries asking for an investigation, they finally agreed. Not surprisingly, they want WHO to lead the inquiry.

A New Zealand exposé of Covid-19

China Lied, Thousands Died is Ron Asher’s second book outlining the adverse impact of China’s attempts to increase its world power and control of global resources. In the Covid-19 exposé the author is highly critical of the repressive dictatorship which rules China and its handling of the Cornavirus.

 Quoting scientists, journalists and politicians from around the world he makes a strong case that the CCP deliberately deceived WHO and world governments over the origins of Covid-19, silencing critics within the country and being dishonest over its own cases and deaths.

He is also critical of New Zealand being over-dependent on China for trade and its reluctance to upset the Chinese government. Like Julian Reichelt, he feels there is a strong case for China paying reparations to countries who have not only suffered major casualties from Covid-10 but also faced a major economic downturn.

China Lied, Thousands Died: The Origins and Spread of Covid-19 by Ron Asher is available from Coastlands Paper Plus, or online from https://trosspublishing.co.nz/ for $30)

A vocal session this time

by Mary Gow

Our next concert is our first full vocal recital for a long time. Some will recall the songs of Jeremy Commons sung by Rona and the soprano/trombone recital from several years ago. (See www.mulledwineconcerts/archive.)

Three extraordinary musicians get together….read on and BOOK SOON with marygow@gmail.com or purchase from one of the outlets listed below.  It is already showing signs of being a very popular concert.  Maaike is already well known on the coast – she gave several training sessions to the Kapiti Chorale, which I, for one, found hugely helpful in getting that little voice to expand!

“Winter and Love” Vocal Recital

As the golden days of summer and autumn have become the colder and wetter days of the winter, music lovers will be enthralled by a concert at the Paekakariki Memorial Hall which presents beautifully poignant song-settings with texts from Shakespeare, Houseman and Brecht, depicting love and ordinary life. 

A duo of fine singers, soprano Maaike Christie-Beekman and baritone Robert Tucker are accompanied by pianist David Barnard in this unusual and different presentation of a song cycle drawn from many different writers. Being organiser of the Mulled Wine Concerts, now in its fourteenth season in Paekakariki I acknowledge that this format represents a new departure for the series. 

We usually present classical chamber music with the occasional concert in a lighter vein, like our last concert featuring the Rodger Fox Jazz Combo. But our audiences have come to expect something adventurous, something that expands their musical horizons and so we have decided to showcase these very talented singers who have put together a delightful programme which is just right for a winter Sunday. 

Highly talented musicians

Maaike Christie-Beekman studied in the Netherlands and in France. She holds a master’s degree in vocal performance and has sung opera, oratorio and chamber music throughout Europe. On moving to New Zealand, she was a Resident Artist for the New Zealand Opera and has sung in many performances with orchestras and choirs around the country. 

Robert Tucker hails from Australia, but was raised in Dunedin. He is a current Freemasons Opera Scholar with New Zealand Opera. 

David Barnard is Head of Accompanying and Vocal Coaching at the New Zealand School of Music coordinating the team of staff accompanists and vocal coaches. He is widely known and respected in the choral world. The programme draws on songs by Arthur Somervell who draws on the poetry of A.E. Houseman’s A Shropshire Lad contrasted with the deeply intoxicating writing of Kurt Weil and his songs, alongside dreamy duets by Fauré and Schubert and the Hollywood Songbook of Hanns Eisler. 

A great opportunity for this seldom heard repertoire to be performed and in the intimate setting it was originally intended for. Kapiti concertgoers are in for an enthralling time! 

Concert timing and bookings

Mulled Wine Concerts presents “Winter and Love”, a Vocal Recital 

• at Paekakariki Memorial Hall 
• 96 The Parade, Paekakariki 
• on Sunday 26 July 2020 at 2:30PM 

Tickets: Pre-sales (until 24 July)  Adult $25/ Student $10 / DOOR SALES  $30.

Online sales: marygow@gmail.com Info: 021 101 9609

Available from Magpie at Paremata, 99 Mana Esplanade; D’Arcys Paekakariki Fruit Supply, 11 Beach Rd Paekakariki; Milk and Ginger, 18 Margaret St Raumati Beach; Moby Dicken’s Bookshop, Paraparaumu Beach; La Chic Hair Design, Kapiti Lights, JENOA Shop. 2 Mahara Place, Waikanae.  

2019 was the year NZ went mad; 2020 is the year the World went mad

the statue of Vladimir Lenin in Seattle — although it looks like symbolic blood on the left hand which would be quite appropriate for one of the worst criminals in history

Simon Black
June 26, 2020

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.

Today we tackle the woke.

NYC’s inspiring breakthrough in the science of contact tracing

“Contact tracing” is a tactic whereby public health officials attempt to track where you’ve been, and who you’ve been in contact with, in their efforts to contain a pandemic.

And we’ve seen a lot of contact tracing efforts lately.

New York City hired thousands of contact tracing specialists who are tasked with calling everyone who tests positive for Covid-19 and interviewing them to help identify who else they might have infected.

But now New York City’s Comrade Mayor Bill de Blasio has instructed his contract tracers to specifically NOT ask if an infected person attended a Black Lives Matter protest.

Seriously… what’s the point?

The entire idea of contact tracing is to find out who else might have been in close proximity. To deliberately NOT ask someone if they’ve been in close proximity of thousands of other people sort of defeats the purpose of the entire contract tracing program to begin with.

Naturally, New York City health officials have already said that any spike in Covid infections should be blamed on racism, and not mass gatherings of people.

Full piece

by Michael Dowling, Chairman, Council of Licenced Firearms Owners

On Thursday afternoon Justice Cooke issued his judgment on our High Court Judicial Review case. While this is not a clear win, Justice Cooke’s comments are a significant endorsement of many of our principle-based arguments. The Judge was clearly sympathetic to our cause but as you’ll read in his judgement, he believes his hands were tied by Parliament’s actions.

Our lawyers are going through the detail now. In the meantime, this is what we had to say to the media:

HIGH COURT DECISION EMBARRASSES GOVT THURSDAY 25 JUNE 2020

A High Court decision today on a case taken by the Council of Licenced Firearms Owners (COLFO) is an “intensely awkward and embarrassing moment for the Government”.

Jacinda’s Police Minister, Stuart Nash

The Court found that the Minister of Police had acted against property rights when he banned some classes of commonly held ammunition without compensation, but that it was legal because Parliament endorsed this decision by passing legislation to do so. COLFO Chairman Michael Dowling says:

“This Government claims to be fair and honest, but has been found to have acted against the right of every New Zealander to compensation for their property, citing reasons that are not true.

“The High Court found the Minister of Police acted unjustly and without good reason when he deprived thousands of New Zealanders of their lawfully purchased property without compensation.

“The judgement said it was not true that the ammunition was particularly dangerous, and not true that it must be removed following the Christchurch shooting to make people safer. This is damaging for a government that claims to be honest and transparent.”

Mr Dowling says that while the judge was unable to over-rule the Minister’s reclassification, voters can.

“Parliament has destroyed property rights. The power is now in the hands of the people. Come September, it is essential to vote for a Government that protects the rights of citizens to their property.”

Read the rest including a link to the Judgement