PHOTO-South Auckland Middle School facebook page

In honour of Maori Language Week, we at Whaleoil have decided to dedicate one post each day to highlight a Maori word that has particular significance to Maoridom.

Today’s Maori Word of the Week is: piki.

Definition: success.

Thanks to the innovation of New Zealand’s Charter schools many Maori and Pasifika children have been experiencing lots of piki.

Sadly the Labour coalition government is forcing the closure of all charter schools and making them conform to an education (one size fits all) system that has been a barrier to piki for so many Maori children.

PHOTO-Supplied to Whaleoil
Dominic Elliot holding a sign: “Jacinda where is your support now?”

Mike Hosking says Jaciinda Ardern lacks a spine: Quote:

I assume no one is missing the irony that poor old Clare Curran could see what needed to be done, but her boss once again couldn’t.

And because of that it raises once again the question as to just what, in Ardern’s mind, you have to do to get sacked.   

She, of course, claims Curran had already been sacked as a Cabinet minister. But we know differently.

Ardern seems to be keen to play with words, Curran was already gone on Friday when she was busy on this radio station giving no indication whatsoever that that was the case.

Oh there was an excuse, some rationale about family members and party officials being told.

But that’s the stuff that looks manipulative and dodgy. It’s the stuff that’s never quite as clean and clear as it needs to be. End quote.

Sneaky and furtive as her ex-minister. Quote:

Now, in her mind Ardern might well still be sitting there this morning having convinced herself she is right, and we are all wrong. And that some sort of touchy-feely approach to discipline is the modern way.

But it doesn’t add up. You can’t, on one hand, stand there talking about the high standards you expect of your ministers, while on the other hand defending a serial offender and refusing to sack them and offering up excuses about having a bad day at the office.

The two don’t gel.

So at least Curran has done the right thing, but in doing so has highlighted how Ardern didn’t.

And that’s before we get to Meka Whaitiri. If it’s true what Stuart Nash told us last Wednesday that she denies it, it’s a “she said, she said” sort of affair. And that is a mess that doesn’t easily get resolved.

And goes further to highlight that, one, it’s the Labour Party that is letting the coalition down. And Ardern’s other excuse that “this is government” and “it’s what happens in government” equally doesn’t wash, given her partners seemingly have nothing like the same trouble Labour has.

And two, both of those in trouble are women in a Cabinet Ardern was desperate to make 50/50 gender-wise and has already fallen short, before she losses potentially two of them.

And three, this increasingly looks like a party that had no expectation of government, has put all hands to the pump, and too many of those hands don’t know what they’re doing. End quote.

They haven’t a clue. They are led by a clueless prime minister. Quote:

And that is before you get to Winston Peters, who increasingly looks like an experienced settled, if not, ever so slightly Machiavellian sort of operator. He’s increasingly offering policy influence and direction for the Government without seemingly keeping the Prime Minister in the loop. End quote.

Winston is actually doing a good job.  Quote:

And all of this was put in to spectacular context on Friday with Curran’s emotional resignation, he talked of her time in Cabinet, the achievements, the areas she worked on.

All of which would have been fine if it encompassed five or six years of service, but in reality it’s not even one.

These guys have just arrived last week, and look how loose the wheels are already. End quote.

Very loose and in danger of falling off. Labour’s problem is two fold. First their leader is an emotional wreck who seems to want to govern on feelz. Just the other day she was saying being criticised for her $80,000 jaunt to Nauru hurt deeply. The second issue they have is their exceedingly shallow talent pool. It is so shallow you could wade through it and not even get close to wetting the hem of your trousers.

Melissa Lee has got her scalp. Clare Curran, The Minister of uhms and ahhs has…ahhh…uhmm…resign. The NZ Herald reports:  Quote:

Under-fire Clare Curran has quit as a minister.

She becomes the first casualty of the coalition government.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a radio interview with Newstalk ZB recorded at 8am this morning that Curran’s job was safe.

 

But it has now emerged the errant minister told Ardern last night that she would quit – and Ardern accepted her resignation.

“Clare Curran contacted me last night to confirm her wish to resign as a minister and I accepted that resignation,” Ardern said today.

“Clare has come to the view the issues currently surrounding her are causing an unacceptable distraction for the Government and immense pressure on her personally.

“I agree with her assessment that resigning is the best course of action for the Government and for her.”

Just this morning Ardern had said Curran’s job was safe. End quote.

Did she resign via Gmail?

Ardern is going to have plenty of questions to answer given her stupid comments this morning. She’s now confirmed that Curran offered to resigned last night so what promoted this fool of a prime minister to make that statement this morning.

The PM endorsed her this morning and now she’s gone? What happened?

Jacinda Ardern is showing a distinct and profound lack of judgment.

Who would ever have thought that Melissa Lee would claim the first scalp.

Digital image: Technomage

Mike Hosking doesn’t believe a word Phil Twyford or the government says on Kiwbuild: Quote:

The Government has pledged to build 100,000 homes over a decade, which averages out at 10,000 per year.

The KiwiBuild plan includes 1000 homes in the first year.

So far we’re only at 18, quite a few short of that promised 1000.

But what no-one is pointing out here, and it needs to be because this is the Government’s biggest noise and they’ve promised to fix the housing market with this piece of snake oil, is that the 982 that are missing out of year one go into year two.

Which then means into election year they’ll likely be hundreds short – and they’ll be busy promising more smoke and mirrors if only you re-elect them.

It is possible they’ll have another 12 ready by Christmas, but even at 30 in one year it’s a pretty pathetic start to what is supposed to be one of the biggest infrastructure programmes this country has ever seen.  End quote.

It is worse than that. Every single one of these so-called Kiwibuild houses, were started or consented under a National government. Furthermore, and this is something media seem rather lax on, Labour promised 100,000 extra houses over and above that which the private sector was already producing. All Kiwibuild homes claimed by Twyford thus far have not been extra houses. It is a fraud, a sham, a lie even that these are extra houses. Quote:

No wonder Housing Minister Phil Twyford is bulldozing the Unitary Plan in Auckland and taking it over himself. But an even more important aspect that was missed, and one mentioned in passing once, was the developer – who doesn’t know whether he’ll break even on the project.

And in that is the time bomb.

These homes, 12 at $579,000 and six at $649,000, are at the upper end of the so-called affordable range the Government has invented.

We all know, of course, given we have seen the numbers, they’re not affordable and a very small percentage of people who are new to the market have the deposit or the income to actually afford them.

But if the developer is not breaking even you know what happens next. Either he’s not back for more, or the price of the so-called affordable house is going up. And it’s already gone up $50,000 in the time it took to announce the policy and actually produce the first houses.

And if he’s not back that’s a supply issue, in an industry we are already critically short in.
And if he is back but the cost rises, and let’s be honest we all know the cost is rising, because we have seen those numbers too.  End quote.

It is a fraud on the electorate…and we are paying for it. Quote:

Labour costs are up because this Government is handing out pay rises left, right, and centre. And building costs rise because the market on product is broken, if not stacked.

So 18 homes in … just 99,982 to go over the next decade.

And already we have signs of what a house of cards this whole thing really is. End quote.

A house of cards, built on quicksand.

Digital image credit: Technomage

Golriz Ghahraman is the best example of why MMP has been a complete failure for New Zealand as a system. She is the poster girl for list MPs on massive salaries who would not be taken seriously in the real world. In the real world, she would have been fired at least twice already for her lack of honesty. In the real world, she would not have been able to afford a QC to intimidate an Australian Immigration lawyer into removing his article and messages on social media that challenge her ‘refugee’ backstory.

In the real world, she would not be invited by mainstream media to write opinion pieces. In the real world no one would pay the slightest bit of attention to her ridiculous claim on One news that the free speech of Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux is a threat to the safety of New Zealanders and Chelsea Manning (who spilled state secrets and put the lives of undercover people’s lives at risk) in contrast is perfectly fine and is a hero whistleblower.

[…] the question when deciding whether to approve Ms Manning’s visa isn’t her criminal history, Ms Ghahraman told TVNZ1’s Breakfast today. It is whether she would pose a threat to New Zealand, she said.

[…]But Ms Ghahraman hasn’t been an advocate to opening our borders to all speakers.
Recently, she was among the prominent voices calling for far-right Canadian speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux to be denied entry. Those two didn’t have felony convictions, Breakfast host Jack Tame pointed out.

“I suppose some people would look at it and say you’re happy for the rules to be relaxed for a message that you want to hear, but you want different rules to apply in another circumstance for a message you don’t want to hear,” Mr Tame said.
But the situations are starkly different when weighing the risk to New Zealand, Ms Ghahraman responded.

“We have a right to protect ourselves against hate speech, which is defined in New Zealand law,” she said.[…] end quote.

Hate speech is NOT defined in New Zealand law at all. Does this woman never get tired of making stuff up? We have legal speech and illegal speech and that is all. There is no legal definition of hate speech anywhere in New Zealand law.

Out of all the politicians in the Beehive Golriz is the one that pushes all of my buttons. She simply should not be there. Having someone of such a low calibre sucking on the public tit offends me on every level. To paraphrase Blackadder…

• Her brain is so minute that if a hungry cannibal cracked her head open, there wouldn’t be enough to cover a small water biscuit.
• She is wetter than a haddock’s bathing costume.
• Most of New Zealand thinks she’s a prat. Ask them who they’d rather meet, Green party list MP Golriz Ghahraman or the man who cleans out the public toilets in Aberdeen, and they’d go for Wee Jock Poo-Pong McPlop every time.
• There hasn’t been a person doing this badly since Olaf the hairy, King of all the Vikings, ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.
• Golriz wouldn’t recognise a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on a harpsicord singing “subtle plans are here again”
• In the Amazonian rain forests there are tribes of Indians as yet untouched by civilisation who have developed more convincing MP impressions than Golly G’s
• Her head is as empty as a eunuch’s underpants.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Housing Minister Phil Twyford ignored Treasury advice on HNZ debt. Credit, Stuff

In a sterling effort to avoid Steven Joyce being proved correct, Housing New Zealand has borrowed off-book to keep the debt out of the Crown accounts.

Well done Henry Cooke from Stuff for holding the Government to account on this fiddle.Quote.

The Government allowed Housing New Zealand to borrow billions of dollars to build new state houses despite advice from Treasury that such debt would be expensive and risky.

In May, the Government announced it would be building 6400 new state homes over four years.

The funding for this came principally from $2.9b Housing New Zealand was allowed to borrow independently, instead of through regular Government borrowing.Just $234m of new money was allocated to the crown agency.

Documents released by Treasury on Thursday reveal the agency repeatedly warned the Government against allowing HNZ to borrow money this way in the lead-up to the Budget, suggesting instead that the money should come out of normal Crown debt.

This money would have likely come with cheaper interest rates but would vastly increase the amount of core crown debt. That would likely stop the Government achieve its key Budget Responsibility Rules target of getting core crown debt below 20 per cent of G.D.P. in five years.

The advice echoed similar words given by Treasury when the National-led Government decided to allow Housing New Zealand to borrow over $1b in the last Budget.

In a February briefing, Treasury analysts wrote that borrowing directly through the crown would save $11 million per year. This was based on a plan to borrow $1.75b instead of $2.9b. A later analysis estimated an additional $3m-$6m in annual interest costs for every $1b borrowed by Housing New Zealand.

Treasury analysts said letting independent agencies borrow money of their own accord made sense with properly independent state-owned enterprises like Solid Energy, but not bodies that delivered “essential services” and would obviously be bailed out by the Government if something went wrong like Housing New Zealand.

“This is because failure to deliver these services will be unacceptable to the public and Ministers (and rightly so), meaning that further public funding will be made available to continue service provision should it become necessary,” the analysts wrote in a February paper.

In essence, overseas credit rating agencies would not see this debt as separate from Crown debt given the agency delivered such a core service, and thus would just factor it into their decisions about New Zealand anyway.

Because of this it risked the credibility of the Government’s Budget Responsibility Rules – as it was essentially a loophole through them.

“Decentralised borrowing could undermine the fiscal management approach, weakening fiscal control, the ability to manage total levels of debt to prudent levels, the prioritisation process that the Budget applies to spending proposals and the credibility of the fiscal strategy,” the analysts wrote. […] End of quote.

There’s nothing like a good bit of creative accounting when those pesky pre-election slogans come home to roost.  Watch carefully now, which thimble is the pea under …?