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

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

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

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

Professor Robert MacCulloch: Why is NZ Struggling?

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

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

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

Liz Truss has a book out.

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

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

Muriel Newman: Submission on the Fast-track Approvals Bill

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

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

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

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

Can taxpayers be confident PIJF cash was spent wisely?

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

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

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

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

Fish farming — injudicious and flawed

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

Ele Ludemann: Pot, kettle, black

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

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

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

David Farrar: Two terrible attacks in Australia

There have been two terrible attacks in Australia.

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

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

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

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

Liam Hehir helpfully provides that context:

Breaking Views Update: Week of 14.4.24

Friday April 19, 2024 

News:

Tūroa deal leaves iwi disgruntled
A Ngāti Rangi leader says the iwi is keen to have a better relationship with the new managers of the Tūroa skifield than it does with the Department of Conservation.

DoC has granted a 10-year concession to Pure Tūroa to run the skifield after previous operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts went bust despite a series of government bail-outs.

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

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

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

Suze: The Wellbeing Budget That Wasn’t

Don’t let the abject failure of the infamous Jacinda Ardern’s Wellbeing Budgets deter you from pursuing your personal wellbeing goals, but don’t expect the government to help unless your goals line up favourably with te tiriti.

Even as previous Finance Minister Grant Robertson was being hustled out the back door he waxed lyrical about the Labour Government’s ‘groundbreaking’ wellbeing budgets, despite the fact that more children were in material hardship and young people still couldn’t access mental health services following the introduction of the Wellness budget in 2019. Beware the politicians who refuse to depart from pet ideology even with the facts staring them down.

Kerre Woodham: The Police are right to be brassed off

New Zealand police officers have overwhelmingly rejected the government's latest pay offer and have given the government one last chance to lift its game. The latest offer was put to the vote on April the 8th by the New Zealand Police Association. More than 75% voted against the offer. That is overwhelming. President Chris Cahill said the outcome sends a clear message to the government that the offer falls well short of addressing officers' concerns and very real needs. Police Minister Mark Mitchell was on with Mike Hosking this morning and says the rejection is an incredibly disappointing outcome.

Dr Eric Crampton: Despair - construction consenting edition

Kainga Ora is the government's house building agency. It's been building a lot of social housing.

Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium.

It's a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora can run building consents, inspections, and Code of Compliance Certificates through Consentium.

Peter Dunne: Media students and jobs

There has been a positive but restrained response to the deal announced between Stuff and Warner Brothers Discovery to “save” TV3’s six o’clock nightly news bulletin, currently screened under the Newshub label. According to Stuff, the deal will mean that around 40 of the jobs involved can also be saved.

Thursday April 18, 2024 

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Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 18/4/24

Jones finds $410,000 to help the government muscle in on a spat project

Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development.

He relishes helping the fishing industry too.

Cam Slater: 1000 Jobs Cut in a Single Day

The Government is swinging the axe hard, cutting more than 1000 state sector jobs in a single day yesterday. Even with these cuts, the state sector will still be larger than in 2017 when Labour took office. The Government should, and indeed must, cut more:

David Farrar: We still have an inflation problem

The drop in overall inflation to 4% is welcome, but it masks we still have a real problem.

The graph below shows the annual inflation rate for both tradable and non-tradable inflation. Most of the tradable sector is international, so we have benefited from the trend there. But non-tradable (generally domestic) inflation remains very high at 5.8% and has barely come down from its peak.

Lindsay Mitchell: Babies and benefits - no good news

Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column:

Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. Add to this Treasury's advice to the Ministerial Committee on Child Poverty,

"...around 1 in 5 children will spend more than half of their first 14 years in household supported by main benefit. This group is at the highest risk of material hardship and poor outcomes across a range of dimensions”.

I am reflecting on this as I receive the latest update in an OIA response from MSD.