Word of the day

Perfuncturate – to  perform in a perfunctory manner; to do negligently; to perform a task in a careless or listless manner.

Sowell says

"Deceptive appearances have been with us long before the rise of the modern mass media. But never before have those appearances been able to reach so many people, with so much immediacy and so much seeming reality."

— Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) April 7, 2019

Rural round-up

Intensive forestry creates ‘too many environmental risks’ – lawyer – Kate Gudsell:

The rules governing forestry are too light and need to be reviewed, environmental groups say.

The National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry came into force in May last year but are about to be reviewed by the government.

The Environmental Defence Society and Forest and Bird decided to conduct joint analysis because of increasing public concern about the impacts of commercial forestry in light of events like Tologa Bay last year.

An estimated one million tonnes of logs and debris was left strewn on properties and roads on the East Coast during two bouts of heavy rainfall in June last year.

Farmers put the cost of the damage in the millions of dollars. . . 

Overseas Investment Office approves Craigmore $52m apple orchard investment – Gerard Hutching:

Foreign investors headed by New Zealand management have been given the green light by the Overseas Investment Office to buy two horticultural properties after being rebuffed last year over a bid to buy a kiwifruit and avocado orchard.

Craigmore Sustainables has received permission to buy 479 hectares of sensitive land inland of Waipukurau in Hawke’s Bay and 59 ha near Gisborne. They will invest $52 million to develop apple orchards on the properties. . . 

Was a great afternoon for harvesting the Hemp.
The combine (Frank) loved it and never missed a beat, no issues what so ever. Job done, beer time. #Hopefieldhemp pic.twitter.com/itmmcJKNPI

— Blocka Ⓜ️ (@blairdrysdale77) April 6, 2019

Mustering tradition continues – Sally Rae:

The likes of helicopters and, latterly, even drones, have replaced horses for mustering on many properties in New Zealand’s back country. But in remote South Westland, traditions remain alive and well, as agribusiness reporter Sally Rae reports. 

Mustering in the remote and beautiful Cascade Valley in South Westland can come with its challenges.

But for Haast-based farmers Maurice and Kathleen Nolan, those challenges were amplified as they prepared for today’s Haast calf sale.

The sale is a major calendar event for the Nolans, a name synonymous with South Westland since the family arrived at Jackson Bay, south of Haast, in 1876. . . 

DairyNZ Schools website launched:

DairyNZ has launched a new website for teachers, giving them free, curriculum-based learning resources to help children learn about dairy farming.

The new website, called DairyNZ Schools, is part of DairyNZ’s in-school education programme. The programme is designed to ensure New Zealand school children get the opportunity to learn about dairying.

Learning resources

The website has learning resources for teachers of children from Year 2 to Year 11. The resources are free to download and teachers can filter resources by year level or subject area. . .

Course closures make farming a tough industry to crack – Esther Taunton:

Young people looking for farm jobs are being hampered by dwindling training options but farmers can help fill the void, Federated Farmers says.

Taranaki teenager Braydon Langton said on Friday he had been turned down by dozens of potential farm employers because of inexperience.

He said it was frustrating to hear farmers repeatedly complaining about a worker shortage but being unwilling to invest time in eager young people.

Chris Lewis, Federated Farmers’ spokesman for tertiary and workplace skills and training, said he sympathised with Langton and other young people in his situation. . . 

Beautiful picture of these cows out at grass and the sunset over Loch Lomond… 😍😍😍😍

📸 Portnellan Farm pic.twitter.com/EdKa00PyzR

— Farmers Guardian (@FarmersGuardian) April 3, 2019

Sales of Southland dairy farms down on past years –

While there is still a good selection of dairy farms available in Southland, there have only been a limited number of sales in the province compared to previous years, according to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand.

Despite this, the REINZ said in its March monthly sales data release that two sales in Southland of larger dairy units were significant in terms of total price involved and there was a good level of activity on finishing properties

In Otago, there was restrained activity in the drystock sector where prices eased 10% to 15%, with reports of capital constraints from banks making finance difficult to obtain and therefore harder to get transactions together. . . 

What’s she hiding?

Government Statistician Liz MacPherson is facing a contempt of parliament charge after refusing a select committee request for information on last year’s census:

In an unusual move, a select committee invoked a standing order compelling Statistics NZ chief executive to produce the number of partial responses were received in Census 2018.

This is not a partisan request, the whole committee is seeking an answer.

National state services spokesman Dr Nick Smith said the committee unanimously decided such an extraordinary measure was required after MacPherson again refused to answer on the basis it would require “extensive contextual information”. 

“It is the first time ever that I have seen a select committee having to use its powers to require a public servant to provide an answer to a basic question.

“I can only draw the conclusion that Stats NZ has something to hide.”

This is public information. The refusal to supply it begs the question: what is she trying to hide and why?

Last year’s census was a shambles and the failure to provide parliament with the information requested does nothing to improve confidence in it.

 

Union funded CGT campaign ‘astrotruf’

A union-backed lobby group is campaigning for a capital gains tax:

Tax Justice Aotearoa, a coalition of community and union groups, has spent $15,000 on ads in major newspapers, billboards and buses.

At its launch at Parliament today, about 15 members of Tax Justice Aotearoa gathered holding signs saying: “Fairness is the Kiwi way, it’s time for a capital gains tax.”

It’s also calling for tax cuts for low to middle income-earners and hikes for the highest paid.

Spokesperson Paul Barber responded to questions from the Taxpayers Union about the source of the money used to pay for it.

“We’ve funded the campaign by chipping together our various skills and resources, and we’ve had a bit of support around communications work and that’s all we’ve got at this stage.”

Mr Barber from the Council of Christian Social Services earlier told RNZ the group’s campaign had been largely supported by the Public Health Association.

The association’s a registered charity which is partly funded through a contract with the Health Ministry, but also receives donations from the public. . . 

Registered as a charity, partly funded by the Ministry of Health and spending money on a political campaign? . . .

How can that be?

But Mr Barber said the ads were paid for from donations, and the Public Health Association only contributed by offering communications support.

Services in kind for a political campaign still isn’t right from a publicly funded body.

Jordan Williams from the Taxpayers’ Union says:

“This campaign is not a grassroots movement – it’s more like astroturf. The campaign group is a union-funded front for New Zealand’s usual left-wing agitators. They are funded by the same people who bankroll the Labour Party’s campaigns and even include the Labour Party’s recent General Secretary in their steering committee.”

“The group’s key message – claiming that ‘most’ New Zealanders support a capital gains tax – is false. Public polling consistently shows Kiwis want the Government to axe Dr Cullen’s unfair tax.”

“Despite extensive media coverage of their campaign ‘launch’, the front organisation has attracted just a few hundred signatures on their pro-CGT petition. That will be embarassing for the union cronies when more than 3,000 New Zealanders have used the Taxpayers’ Union’s email tool to tell Jacinda Ardern to axe this tax.”

“If the Government is too afraid to promote Michael Cullen’s unfair tax itself, it should scrap the proposal, instead of palming off the politics to a front group for the Labour Party.”

“Anyone with big-union money can hold a press conference in Wellington and set up a website with American stock images, but until this group can show that typical New Zealanders are engaged in its campaign, it shouldn’t be taken seriously.”

A Reid Research poll confirms a majority are opposed to a CGT::

New Zealanders do not want a capital gains tax (CGT) – not on their investment property, not on their farms or businesses, and definitely not on their KiwiSaver.

Newshub has been given exclusive access to a Reid-Research poll commissioned by Business New Zealand that shows an overwhelming majority of voters – 65 percent – don’t think a CGT should be a priority for the Government.

The poll found that just 22.8 percent think it should be a priority. And nearly half of voters – 47.8 percent – say the CGT debate has harmed the Government, while 33.1 percent say it hasn’t, and 19.2 percent don’t know.

David King, a waterproofing and industrial coating master, spent 26 years building his business Modern Maintenance Products from scratch. And it’s endorsed by Parliament – he just finished fixing up a bunch of MPs’ leaky homes.

But King told Newshub he’s livid about a potential CGT on his business.

“I’m a bit hot under the collar about this. I don’t have a KiwiSaver, I don’t have any other savings – my savings are in this business.”

That’s the case for a lot of small businesses people. They work long hours and pour their profits back into the business leaving little if any for other savings.

Most New Zealanders are also opposed. The Reid-Research poll asked New Zealanders: “Do you think there should be a capital gains tax on things like businesses and farms?”

The majority – 54.3 percent – said “no”, while just 31.6 percent said “yes”.  . . 

On taxing property profits, half of voters pushed back. The poll found 49.8 percent don’t think there should be a CGT on property – the family home would be exempt. 

And that’s versus just 39.1 percent that support it.  . . 

When it comes to KiwiSaver, voters say hands off. The poll found that 90 percent do not think there should be a CGT on KiwiSaver earnings. That leaves just 4.4 percent – next to no one – that support the idea. 

Ninety percent is a very clear majority, even with a margin of error of 3.1%.

Fairness and justice that are motivating supporters of a CGT are abstract concepts but neither would be improved by the proposal put forward by the Tax Working Group with three of its members dissenting.

The proposal would be both unfair and unjust and would do nothing to counter the inequity which concerns its supporters.

Quote of the day

New Zealand has been moving forward with these trends. That’s the only way to move. The alternative is going backwards.

The period I’ve been involved in has been about New Zealand finding its feet and the making of modern NZ.

The country we have now is rather more like the NZ of myth.

It’s place where people get things done for themselves, and where the country is self-reliant.

There is concern for the other person, but not the stifling reliance on the government.

It’s more realistic, it’s healthier, it’s different. We’re not a perfect country yet.

But if you think about it, we’re a damn sight better placed than in 1972. – Bill Birch who celebrates his 85th birthday today.

April 9 in history

32 Jesus Christ ascended into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday.

193 Septimius Severus was proclaimed Roman Emperor by the army in Illyricum.

475 Byzantine Emperor Basiliscus issued a circular letter (Enkyklikon) to the bishops of his empire, supporting the Monophysite christological position.

1241  Battle of Liegnitz: Mongol forces defeated the Polish and German armies.

1413  Henry V was crowned King of England.

1440 Christopher of Bavaria was appointed King of Denmark.

1682 Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River, claimed it for France and named it Louisiana.

1807 – James Bannerman, Scottish theologian and academic was born (d. 1868).

1835 – Leopold II of Belgium  was born(d. 1909).

1850 – Nine Sisters of Mercy arrived in Auckland on the Oceanie with Bishop Pompallier and a number of priests.

1860 The oldest audible sound recording of a human voice was made.

1865 American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, effectively ending the war.

1865 Birth of Charles Proteus Steinmetz, German-American mathematician and electrical engineer (d. 1923).

1867 Chris Watson, Chilean-Australian journalist and politician, third Prime Minister of Australia, was born (d. 1941).

1867  Alaska purchase: Passing by a single vote, the United States Senate ratified a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska.

1872 – Léon Blum, Jewish-French lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of France  was born (d. 1950).

1898 Paul Robeson, American singer and activist, was born  (d. 1976).

1909 The U.S. Congress passed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act.

1916  World War I: The Battle of Verdun – German forces launched their third offensive of the battle.

1917 World War I: The Battle of Arras  started with Canadian Corps executing a massive assault on Vimy Ridge.

1918 World War I: The Battle of the Lys – the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps was crushed by the German forces during the Spring Offensive on the Belgian region of Flanders.

1926 Hugh Hefner, American entrepreneur and publisher, was born.

1927 – Stanley Frank “Tiny” Hill, All Black,  was born.

1929  – Fred Hollows, New Zealand-Australian ophthalmologist was born (d. 1993).

1932 Unemployed workers in Dunedin reacted angrily to the refusal of the Hospital Board to offer assistance, protesters stoned the mayor’s relief depot and tried to storm the Hospital Board’s offices, before being dispersed by police batons.

1934 – Bill Birch, New Zealand politician, was born.

1937 The Kamikaze arrived at Croydon Airport – the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.

1939 Marian Anderson sang at the Lincoln Memorial, after being denied the right to sing at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall.

1940 World War II: Germany invaded Denmark and Norway.

1942 World War II: The Battle of Bataan/Bataan Death March – United States forces surrendered on the Bataan Peninsula. The Japanese Navy launched an air raid on Trincomalee; Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and Royal Australian Navy Destroyer HMAS Vampire were sunk off the island’s east coast.

1945 World War II: The German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer was sunk.

1945 – World War II: The Battle of Königsberg, in East Prussia, ended.

1945 – The United States Atomic Energy Commission was formed.

1947 The Glazier-Higgins-Woodward tornadoes killed 181 and injured970 in Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

1947 – The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride  started through the upper South in violation of Jim Crow laws. The riders wanted enforcement of the United States Supreme Court’s 1946 Irene Morgan decision that banned racial segregation in interstate travel.

1948 Jorge Eliécer Gaitán’s assassination provoked a violent riot (El Bogotazo) in Bogotá, and a further ten years of violence in Colombia known as La violencia.

1948 – Massacre at Deir Yassin.

1952 Hugo Ballivian’s government was overthrown by the Bolivian National Revolution, starting a period of agrarian reform, universal suffrage and the nationalisation of tin mines.

1957 The Suez Canal in Egypt was cleared and opened to shipping.

1959 Mercury program: NASA announced the selection of the United States’ first seven astronauts,-  the “Mercury Seven“.

1965 Astrodome opened and the first indoor baseball game was played.

1967 The first Boeing 737 (a 100 series) made its maiden flight.

1968 Martin Luther King Jr’s funeral.

1969 – Paula Bennett, National Party Cabinet Minister and Upper Harbour MP, was born.

1969 The “Chicago Eight” pled not guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

1969 The first British-built Concorde 002 makes its maiden flight from Filton to RAF Fairford.

1975 The first game of the Philippine Basketball Association, the second oldest professional basketball league in the world.

1978  Rachel Stevens, English singer (S Club), was born.

1989  The April 9 tragedy in Tbilisi, Georgian SSR an anti-Soviet peaceful demonstration and hunger strikes, demanding restoration of Georgian independence was dispersed by the Soviet army, resulting in 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

1991 Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

1992 A U.S. Federal Court found former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega guilty of drug and racketeering charges. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

1992 John Major‘s Conservative Party won an unprecedented fourth general election victory.

1999  Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara, President of Niger, was assassinated.

2002 The funeral of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother at Westminster Abbey.

2003 2003 invasion of Iraq: Baghdad fell to American forces.

2005 Charles, Prince of Wales married Camilla Parker Bowles.

2009 In Tbilisi, Georgia, up to 60,000 people protested against the government of Mikheil Saakashvili.

2011 – A gunman murdered five people, injured eleven, and committed suicide in a mall in the Netherlands.

2013 – A gunman murdered 13 people in a spree shooting in the village of Velika Ivanča, Serbia.

2014  – A student stabbed 20 people at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, Pennsylvania.

2017 – Palm Sunday church bombings at Coptic Churches in Tanta and Alexandria.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia