If we had never named covid 19 and swerved around it like it was a dinosaur in the road instead of a squirrel, we’d probably have barely noticed it. “Huh, baddish flu this year” would have been about the end it of. no lockdown. no mask up. no EUA jab. just life.

hat tip: The Automatic Earth

from MSN.net

Former AM host Ryan Bridge is believed to be the frontrunner for a major radio presenting role at Newstalk ZB.

According to reports on Stuff and the New Zealand Herald, Bridge is the favourite to take on Kate Hawkesby’s former role as host of Early Edition, which runs from 5am to 6am.

Bridge left AM in 2023 as part of a plan for a new current affairs show at 7pm to replace The Project NZ, which was axed in December 2023.

He was to be the sole host of the hard news show, reportedly to be entitled simply ‘Bridge’.

However, the planned show was axed before it had even launched when Warner Bros. Discovery announced a proposal to shut down its New Zealand news operations in their entirety.

Read more

Bob Amsterdam tells Tucker:

“Since the passage of the [$US 95 billion aid] bill in the House, Ukraine has gone into full war mode against my church. They are launching a massive PR campaign internally and again in Washington, attacking the church, attacking me, attacking everyone connected with the church. Because they can’t stand the truth to come out.”

Biden’s handlers want to pretend this highly embarrassing moment didn’t happen.

Here’s how it played out in the official White House transcript: pic.twitter.com/ZvM2noAKD5

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 24, 2024

by Mike Butler

Maori wards became an issue again when the New Zealand coalition government announced, on April 4, 2024, that it would restore the rights of communities to determine whether to introduce Maori wards in local government.

Since the Ardern Labour government in 2021 removed the right to petition for a vote, 32 councils imposed Maori wards knowing that mostly whenever a vote was held, substantial opposition would block the proposal.

This piece serves to fill in the gaps because recent commentary promoting Maori wards mostly neglects to give basic facts, context, or background.

A Maori ward or constituency is a change to local body representation where a seat or seats are set aside for voters on the Maori roll.

The number of seats is based on the Maori population in the council area, not the numbers on the Maori roll in the area.

This has the effect of inflating the number of Maori seats on any council. Only around 50 percent of Maori vote on the Maori roll.

A curious feature is that a Maori roll candidate does not have to be Maori.

This has never been explained. It looks like a move to increase job opportunities for unemployed politicians of the virtue-signalling type.

A Maori ward is a voting arrangement.

This is unlike another innovation in local government in which the local “mana whenua” iwi get to appoint members to vote on council committees.

Councils argue that this is quite OK since the appointees don’t vote on the main council.

But councils never say that council committees frequently vote on decisions on behalf of the full council, and the tribal appointees share in this vote.

Maori wards have existed in local government since 2001, when the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Maori Constituency Empowering) Act set up three Māori constituencies.

This was after that council’s Maori Regional Representation Committee proposed, in 1996, that the council establish Maori seats similar to the Maori seats in Parliament.

Iwi leaders supported the move.

Proponents argued that Maori “deserved” a seat at the table.

This argument is disingenuous because “Maori” already have a seat at the table.

This is because all New Zealand citizens over the age of 18 have the right to vote, seek a seat, and sit on any local council in New Zealand if they so wish.

The establishment of the Auckland Council in 2010 brought up the issue of separate Maori representation and that resulted in the creation there of the Independent Maori Statutory Board.

In 2011, the then Human Rights Commissioner, Joris De Bres, wrote to 77 councils, asking them to consider the question of Maori seats in their next representation review.

Three councils – the Nelson City Council, the Wairoa District Council, and the Waikato District Council –agreed to start the process of establishing Maori seats.

Affected electors petitioned for votes. A whopping 79 percent opposed proposals in Nelson and Waikato while 52 percent were against the Wairoa proposal.

Representation reviews come around every six years. In 2017, five councils proposed Maori wards, there were five votes, and five proposals were rejected.

Of those who voted, 80 percent opposed the proposal in Kaikoura, 78 percent voted no in Western Bay of Plenty, 77 percent in Manawatu, 69 percent in Palmerston North, and 56 percent in Whakatane.

The overwhelming no votes prompted Local Government New Zealand president Dave Cull to send a letter ostensibly representing the 78 local authorities throughout New Zealand to party leaders in Parliament asking for such a law change to outlaw the right for affected citizens to petition for a vote.

Meanwhile, the push for separate Maori seats on local bodies continued and affected residents continued to vote them out.

Eighty percent opposed Maori wards on the Hauraki District Council in May 2013, 68 percent voted no to the Far North District Council in March 2015, and 83 percent said no to the New Plymouth District Council in April 2015.

In 2020, nine councils proposed Maori wards, signatures were collected for nine petitions but on February 1, 2021, before votes could proceed, Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced that the Local Electoral Act would be amended to outlaw votes on Maori wards.

Two councils installed Maori wards after a petition and a yes vote

They were the Waikato Regional Council in 2013, and the Wairoa District Council in 2016.

The coalition government’s new policy on Maori wards would include holding binding polls on wards that were established without the ability for local referendums to take place.

But, don’t hold your breath. The change won’t take effect until October 2028.

from Antinuclear

As finance journalist Jacob Wolisnky put it in a recent preview of defense stock picks, “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made.” At least one member of Congress agrees. Yesterday, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) disclosed that he bought Lockheed Martin stock on 29 March. Defense contractors are actively shaping U.S. foreign policy through lobbying and campaign contributions, among other tactics.

Last week, Iran launched over 300 missiles at Nevatim Air Base, a base in southern Israel that houses U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who oversaw a strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria just a few weeks ago, has already promised to retaliate. Observers viewed these brewing tensions with concern, ringing the alarm bells of the breakout of a wider war.

Not JP Morgan analyst Seth Seifman. On Monday morning, Seifman upgraded JPMorgan’s outlook from “hold” to “buy” for Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of Israel’s F-35s, and set a higher price target for the stock.

Seifman says the change was pre-planned, but noted that these developments could be good for business. “What we can say is that it’s a dangerous world and while that is not a sufficient condition for defense stocks to outperform,” he said, “it is a potential source of support, especially when they are under-owned.” JP Morgan owns $355 million worth of Lockheed Martin stock, about a third of which was bought in the last quarter of 2023.

UK investment bank Liberum Capital was similarly bullish on defense stocks, so long as a wider war does not break out. “In our base case scenario of Israel retaliating but in a limited way that keeps the conflict from escalating further, this could lead to a 5-10% correction in the stock market together with further strength in the U.S. dollar,” Liberium told investors. “The obvious short-term winners will be oil & gas stocks as well as defense contractors.”

As finance journalist Jacob Wolisnky put it in a recent preview of defense stock picks, “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made.” At least one member of Congress agrees. Yesterday, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) disclosed that he bought Lockheed Martin stock on March 29.

Lockheed Martin has played a large role in Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza, manufacturing Hellfire missiles, providing transport planes, and supplying F-16 and F-35 fighter jets. A missile that hit journalists on November 9 of last year in Gaza City was reportedly manufactured by Lockheed Martin. “Their core business model has no respect for human rights,” said Jilianne Lyon, who leads shareholder advocacy campaigns at Investor Advocates for Social Justice.

While privately acknowledging conflict is good for business, the defense industry and its financiers publicly claim they are simply doing America’s bidding. As Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet once said, “It’s only up to us to step to what we’ve been asked to do and we’re just trying to do that in a more effective way, and that’s our role.” After all, it was the U.S. government — not Lockheed Martin — that came to Israel’s defense and intercepted the majority of Iran’s missiles.

But this “we just do what we’re told” defense doesn’t quite work given that defense contractors are actively shaping U.S. foreign policy through lobbying and campaign contributions, among other tactics. Aaron Acosta, program director at Investor Advocates for Social Justice, told Responsible Statecraft that defense contractors “are often the ones creating demand by lobbying the U.S. government and pushing for sales of these weapons.”

In 2023, Lockheed Martin spent over $14 million lobbying Congress. The three companies that lobbied the House’s version of the annual defense policy bill the most were RTX (formerly known as Raytheon), Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics. During the 2022 election cycle, Lockheed Martin contributed nearly $4 million to political candidates. So far, 2024 promises similar results. In its 2023 annual report, Lockheed Martin wrote that, “Changes in the U.S. Government’s priorities, or delays or reductions in spending could have a material adverse effect on our business.”

Sure, 84% of voters might be concerned about the U.S. being drawn into conflict in the Middle East. But as far as defense companies and their shareholders are concerned, business is booming.

The geniuses at MBIE take 18 months to officially decide that a water tank is not a fire risk 💦 ≠ 🔥

The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) took 18 long months of umming and ahing to come to the bold conclusion that a water tank on a Kāinga Ora development did not – in fact – present a fire risk.

Peter Hird, MBIE’s Principle Advisor eventually made an official determination that:

 “[It is] very unlikely a fire could occur in the tank given that the plastic tank would contain water and air”

No …. Sherlock!

Remember too that these are the same people who are desperately trying to justify their own bureaucrats. I mean, without them, how would we know water tanks are ‘very unlikely’ to burst into flames?

Sticky government-driven inflation is still punishing Kiwis 📈 😳

Stats NZ have published the latest inflation figures showing that prices have increased by 4% in the last year – making it now 34 months since it was last inside the Government’s target range of 1 to 3%.

While the rate of price increases is slowing a bit, domestic inflation – the inflation that is driven up by the huge increases in Government spending – is still running red hot. The latest figure of 5.8% is just as bad as it was last quarter.

The difference between “tradable” inflation (i.e. what we get in from the rest of the world) and “non-tradables” (domestic) suggests that while the rest of the world will start to lower interests rates, New Zealand is in for a longer hangover. That’s not good.

Those living paycheck to paycheck – especially those facing higher mortgage repayments – will feel it. We say Nicola Willis needs to go much further and faster to tighten the Government’s own belt in next month’s budget to get domestic inflation back under control.

Misinformation on public service ‘cuts’ continues 📰 🔄

Speaking of belt tightening, the reporting on the Government’s Public Service ‘cuts’ through Wellington-tinted lenses continues to be one-sided.

From the wilful misinterpretation of back-office savings as ‘stabbing at the heart of front-line’  to the unquestioning regurgitation of public sector union talking points, most of the reporting on the Public Service reductions fails to put the savings in context. 

Let’s be very clear – it’s not nice to lose your job and most of these public servants are in this position through no fault of their own.

But let’s get the story straight.

The Government’s ‘cuts’ to the bureaucracy are not drastic. In, fact, they are small fry when compared with the astronomical staffing increases we saw under six years of Labour.

👆Mr Luxon is miles off his pre-election promise to cut 14,000 bureaucrats👆

And the Government knows it. In the run up to the election, Christopher Luxon and National were banging on about how we had seen very little in return for an extra 14,000 (now 18,000) bureaucrats since 2017.

“We’re spending a billion more each and every week, when you think we’ve added 14,000 more bureaucrats to Wellington and yet on the economy, on health, on housing, on crime and on education everything is going backwards, the outcomes are going backwards.” (Luxon 2022)

But on current plans Luxon isn’t dismissing anywhere near that.

In fact, on current projections, the Public Service won’t event be stripped back beyond what it was at the election back in October.

Sign the petition: Save the money, sack the bureaucrats 🖊 ✖️🧑‍💼️

The Government was elected to take a chainsaw to the bloated back-office bureaucracy. Instead, the Mr Luxon’s barely applied a bonsai pruner.

If you agree that Luxon needs to stick to his promise and sack the 14,000 extra bureaucrats that were hired under Labour’s last minute hiring bonanza, take 30 seconds to sign our petition calling on the Government to go further and faster with their staffing reductions to cut the waste and balance the books.

👉 Sign the petition calling on Luxon and his Government to sack Labour’s 14,000 extra public servants 👈

Labour tackling the real issue on voters’ minds: the Taxpayers’ Union 🧐

After a slow start from the now opposition Labour Party, we’re happy to report that its MPs are making good use of Parliamentary written questions to Ministers. Written questions are the primary way MPs hold the Government to account and elicit detailed information out of Ministers and their officials.

But, it seems Labour’s political radar about what New Zealanders are most worried about right now is a little off. Cost of living crisis? Tax relief? Budget deficits? Infrastructure? Government debt? No, no, no, the real issue deserving His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’s attention is none other than the Taxpayers’ Union!

No less than sixteen Labour MPs have taken the time to file 182 questions about the Taxpayers’ Union since they’ve been in opposition. That’s more than one question about the Taxpayers’ Union every day since the election! 

While we’re flattered that Chris Hipkins and Labour are taking so much interest in the work we do, we do have to ask … 

Next time, save the money, pick up the phone 📞 

We know Chris Hipkins’ staff read our emails (hi, Chris! 👋) so next time, rather than waste hundreds of hours of officials’ time, just ask us for the information! What we say to Ministers is no different to what we say publicly (our “secret agenda” is no secret: Lower Taxes, Less Waste, More Accountability) and we’ll be more than happy to provide any information you like!

With Labour so interested in our work, (and wanting to see every communication our supporters have with Ministers) your humble Taxpayers’ Union has decided to cut out the middle man and will now copy Labour into our advocacy emails sent to Ministers.

In fact, we’ve starting doing it already. Willie Jackson wanted to know what we’ve been saying to Melissa Lee about media bailouts, hoping to ‘catch us out’. Well, we’ve copied him into the 7,000+ emails sent by our supporters to Melissa Lee on the subject. You’re welcome, Willie! 💁‍♂️ 

Unelected Commissioners use ratepayer money to lobby for postponement of democracy (and keep cushy jobs!) 🙄

Earlier this month, we slammed Tauranga City Council Commission Chair, Anne Tolley for some disturbing comments she made on an interview with Mike Hosking, where she warned against going back to a democratically elected council as it would bring back the ‘old guard’ and make the city go ‘backwards.’

Apparently the good people of Tauranga might vote for the wrong people! 😱

Anne Tolley also said she would ‘personally’  prefer a ‘hybrid model’ of democracy, where the council would be made up of elected representatives and unelected commissioners (i.e. her!).

Her reasoning: because “at times [democracy] fails.”

Yes – you read that right.

But it turns out that wasn’t even just her ‘personal’ wish. In fact, according to a letter sent by the Commission to the Local Government Minister late last year, all four unelected commissioners have been pushing hard to make this hybrid version of democracy a reality.

In that letter they even refer to a report they commissioned – which cost local ratepayers $32,817 – that advocates a hybrid model with a 60/40 split for the next two elections, prolonging the return to a fully elected council until 2028!

What rubbish. There is no such thing as a hybrid democracy. You either have democracy, or you don’t. Tauranga residents have waited long enough for a return to accountability and they shouldn’t have to wait any longer.

Anne Tolley’s $1,800-a-day gravy train needs to be derailed 🚂

While Anne ‘unelected’ Tolley might still be drinking Nanaia Mahuta’s ‘anything-but-democracy’ cool-aide (and savouring the $1800-a-day she’s being paid), we were delighted to see one of Tauranga’s local National MPs Tom Rutherford rule out Tolley’s ridiculous proposal.

Tauranga-based ACT MP, Cameron Luxton, has also previously called for the commissioners powers to be limited in the run up to July’s election. It’s not too late, Simeon…

2024 student interns: applications now open  🧑‍💻️ 🆕

Do you know any bright young students based in Wellington who might be interested escaping the left-wing groupthink that are our universities?

We’re looking for our next intake of part-time student interns.

The internships  are varied as we like to play to people’s strengths and interests. On any given day, our interns:

🔸 File information requests with government departments to expose wasteful spending

🔸 Help draft media releases for our spokespeople on breaking news stories;

🔸 Write briefing papers or short reports on public policy issues;

🔸 Create video and other content for our social media platforms;

🔸 Man our stands at grassroots events such as Fieldays and A&P shows

If you know someone with a keen interest in politics, public policy, or economics who wants to gain some valuable experience working in New Zealand’s best union, send them our way.

Taxpayer Talk – MPs in Depth with Mike Butterick 🎙 🧈

This week on Taxpayer Talk, Connor sat down with newly elected National MP, Mike Butterick

Mike, a farmer and farming advocate, was elected as the MP for Wairarapa in the 2023 General Election. He has previously been involved with Federated Farmers and was the spokesperson for 50 Shades of Green, a lobby group addressing forestry encroachment on farmland. Mike is also active in community organisations, including serving as a director of Wings over Wairarapa. Passionate about education, his constituents, and the rural sector, Mike advocates strongly for local, community-led solutions to various issues.

Purely coindental to the A/NZ Anzac Day commemoration, this event over 26-28 April in Georgetown, Texas, nevetheless seems apt for the time of year in the Northern Hemisphere.