Die-hard Republicans are among those who have bridled at Donald’s idea of delaying the election

Is the Republican Party actually coming to terms with President Donald Trump and the challenge he poses to the GOP flame – the party of Abraham Lincoln?

Since 2016 the GOP blazed its support across crises and challenges.  Now, with the elections only three months away, it is in what looks like a modest revolt.

First, the White House had to pull the nomination of an ex-army general, Fox News contributor and Trump supporter Retired Army Brigadier General Anthony Tata to become the Department of Defense’s next undersecretary  for policy.

Tata was scheduled to testify in front of the committee yesterday but the hearing was pulled at the last minute after several Republican senators jibed at supporting him following claims he had made numerous Islamophobic and offensive comments and promoted conspiracy theories.

In the course of the day, Trump tweeted that he might delay the November 3 elections because of the risk of fraud in mail voting. This brought the house down.

The PGF trough managers (we learn) have their own events centre – and some lucky people were invited to watch Winston in action

Take a note of this email address, dear reader. The right approach to Events <PGFEvents@mbie.govt.nz> could result in your being invited to an occasion where Winston Peters, Shane Jones, Fletcher Tabuteau or one of their esteemed and oh-so-generous colleagues announces another handout from the Provincial Growth Fund.

Who knew it? The PGF management bunch have their own Events Centre for organising this sort of thing.

Our attention- and that of the Point of Order Trough Monitor – was drawn to it by a reader who (presumably) had been invited to join the Deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters

“ … at an event where Investment announcements will be made for the [Bay of Plenty} region”.

The recipient was asked to please arrive at the Opotiki Golf Club at 11am for a prompt 11.20am start.

Peters did not disappoint.  He came to town with a $26 million investment in Ōpōtiki to upgrade important public amenities and fund further progress on new aquaculture opportunities.

Success for bereaved petitioners – Govt introduces legislation to facilitate roadside drug tests

A petition with 1300 signatures calling for random roadside drug testing on New Zealand roads had a rocky experience with our law-makers.  It was set to be submitted to Parliament on May 9 last year but this was scuppered when its main champion, National MP Nick Smith, was suspended from Parliament for 24 hours.

The petition was started by a family who lost their son to a drugged driver in a crash in Nelson on New Year’s Eve 2017.

Before it was re-submitted, the way we remember it, the Government announced plans for public consultation on the introduction of roadside drug testing. And yesterday the Land Transport (Drug Driving) Amendment Bill was introduced to the House.

Its first reading is intended next week.

The new law will allow Police to test if drivers are under the influence of drugs anywhere, anytime, just as they do now for alcohol, Police Minister Stuart Nash said.

Last year, 103 people died in crashes where the driver was later found to have drugs in their system.

The Bill allows Police to use oral fluid tests to check drivers for drugs which are likely to include THC (cannabis), methamphetamine, opiates, cocaine, MDMA (ecstasy), and benzodiazepines. These – we are told – are the most prevalent and high risk drugs and medications used by drivers in New Zealand.

When the cause is waste minimisation, it’s appropriate that the minister isn’t too lavish with her handouts

The Point of Order Trough Monitor sniffed out the handouts of small sums of public money in the press statement from Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage, when she announced the Government is stepping up action to deal with environmentally harmful products – including plastic packaging, tyres and e-waste – before they become waste.

We say “small sums”, but only because they are paltry when stacked against the multi-million-dollar grants which the Government increasingly is dishing out in the name of job creation and restoration of the economy as the general election nears.

Auckland-based TechCollect will receive a $320,000 grant from the Waste Minimisation Fund for building on its successful e-waste pilot programme, expanding to more collection points and designing options for a regulated e-waste product stewardship scheme.

 “TechCollect represents product stewardship in action. TechCollect reduces the amount of waste ending up in landfills and the amount of raw materials needing to be mined by collecting electronic goods, such as computers and TVs at the end of their life and recovering valuable materials” said Eugenie Sage.

Sage slaps six products on a “harmful” list for regulatory treatment to keep them (but how?) from becoming waste

Latest from the Beehive

What happens to the Resource Management Act, after its great ungainly bulk  has been committed to the trash basket, is something worth considering in the context of the Government’s commitment to reducing waste.

That commitment was translated yesterday into a declaration that the Government is stepping up action to deal with environmentally harmful products – including plastic packaging, tyres and e-waste – before they become waste.

As part of the wider plan to reduce the amount of rubbish ending up in landfills, Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage announced six products are to be declared ‘priority products’ for the establishment of regulated product stewardship schemes under the Waste Minimisation Act. The products are:

• Plastic packaging
• Tyres
• Electrical and electronic products (e-waste)
• Agrichemicals and their containers
• Refrigerants
• Farm plastics.

We Kiwis are wealthier (per capita) than the Saudis? Indeed we are, according to a new natural capital study

New Zealanders  have  more  to  celebrate  than   being  virtually  Covid-free, or having  Jacinda Ardern  as  prime  minister.

According  to  a  report  in the London  “Economist”, NZ  has  more natural  capital per person ($US380,000)  than  oil-rich  Kuwait  ($US362,000)  or  Saudi Arabia  ($US180.000).

The  study which produced this  ranking   is  the  work of  economists  attempting to put a  dollar  figure  on the  value of the world’s land, forests, fisheries, minerals,  and  fossil fuels, or  what is left of them.  Their  work has  fed  into the inclusive  wealth project, initiated  by the United  Nations, directed by  Managi Shunsuke of  Kyushu  University and  advised by  Sir  Partha Dasgupta  of Cambridge.

They  estimate the  world’s  natural capital  amounted  to  over  $US91trn in  2014, or  over  $US13,000  per  person.   The  world’s  natural  capital  is  predicted to   decline   by a  fifth by  2040.

On  average,  countries  with  more natural  capital  tend  to have a  higher GDP  per person.

The  “Economist”  wonders  whether  this  is a  curse or  a blessing.  It  says  some  economists argue that  natural  bounty raises  the  level of  GDP  but  slows  its growth  rate:  it  provides an additional, steady stream of  income  that grows  less  quickly  than  the  rest of  the  economy.

Those  authorities   who carried  out  the  study    have  calculated  the future trajectory of  natural capital  under  a  variety of  scenarios.  In  a  future of  continued high energy demand,  carbon emissions can be expected to grow  by 7% in high-income  countries  and by 44% in the rest of the world over the  next two  decades.

In such a  scenario, the  world’s people  will  continue to grow  wealthier,  but natural  assets  will  diminish  rapidly as a  share  of the  portfolio. According to these projections  only  12  countries  will increase  their  stock of  natural  capital over the  next  two decades.

Point of  Order   suspects  this  will  not  provoke  a  “gee, whiz”   reaction from  NZers—but  certainly  there  is  some  food  for  thought  there.

At long last, the vexing RMA is bound for the dustbin – but we are not being rushed to bring in replacement legislation

Latest from the Beehive

Before Point of Order had wrapped up the previous bulletin, the busy bees in the Beehive were releasing the most comprehensive review of New Zealand’s resource management system since the Resource Management Act (RMA) was enacted in 1991.

At much the same time, the Government was signalling its intention to introduce legislation to allow it to recover some of the costs for managed isolation and quarantine.

This isolation measure is something of a rarity in the run-up to the election – it will result in the Government collecting money rather than borrowing to give it away in billions.

The RMA review is reported in New Directions for Resource Management in New Zealand,  commissioned by Environment Minister David Parker and prepared by an independent review panel led by retired Court of Appeal Judge Tony Randerson QC.

Among its recommendations is the replacement of the existing RMA by two separate pieces of legislation, a Natural and Built Environments Act and a Strategic Planning Act.

Keeping track of our railways investments: more than $4bn has gone into a revitalisation programme including a new maintenance facility

When shunted out of Parliament at the general election (their likely fate if Shane Jones fails to win Northland), New Zealand First’s MPs at least will be able to look back at their contribution to the revitalisation of the country’s railways.

Mind you, they are doing this with our money and the billions of dollars debt we will be expected to pay back.  And whether the revitalisation makes good economic sense is open to argument because the investment has been huge.

The Government has already committed more than $4 billion to bring New Zealand’s rail network back from the brink after decades of under-investment, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones said in a press statement which he and State Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters released to announce the latest investment.

This is a $39 million investment to build a new rail maintenance facility in Christchurch, which will support hundreds of construction jobs and ensure a strong future for South Island rail, they said.

Almost 300 people will be needed to construct the new facilities in Waltham over the next two to three years and (Peters said) KiwiRail has assured him  it will be using local civil contractors and material suppliers wherever possible  in addition to its own staff.

Algorithm charter (with a Maori perspective embedded) is a world first while banking become NZ’s first sector committed to a living wage

Latest from the Beehive

While Shane Jones was distributing his latest serving of public funds to causes in the Far North, a New Zealand First colleague was showing that veterans haven’t been forgotten in The Great Covid Handout.

Ron Mark, Minister for Veterans Affairs, announced the Coalition Government has approved a one-off grant of $2.53 million for the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association (RSA) and – in a separate statement – said 11 further declarations of operational service have been made. This means those who took part in those deployments will qualify for support and services from Veterans’ Affairs.

While the money-dispensing ministers were focused on different constituencies, another minister was announcing world-breaking news.

Our government became the first in the world to outline a set of standards to guide the use of algorithms by public agencies when Statistics Minister James Shaw launched the Algorithm Charter for Aotearoa New Zealand. The aim is to give New Zealanders confidence that data is being used safely and effectively across government.

The charter has been signed by 21 agencies, including the Ministry for the Environment, Ministry of Education, the Department of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Justice, and Inland Revenue.

It might be a rogue poll but the Nats must offer alluring policies – and get back to championing our rural regions

Latest  political    polling    puts   Labour   at  60.9%,   which – if  carried  through  to  the election – would   give  it  77  seats  in the  next  Parliament.    Is  anyone  (apart  from the  most fervent  National supporter)   surprised?

National’s  campaign  manager,  Gerry Brownlee,  dismisses   the   Newshub  Reid Research sampling  as  a   “rogue”  poll.    This begs   the   question  whether  he  would  have done  so,  if  it had   shown his own  party  a  bit  higher than   25.1%.

Other   polls   (even  one suspects  National’s  own  private polling)    have  had  Labour     above  the  50%  mark.

With  the  Covid-19   pandemic  raging  around the   world,  New  Zealanders  are  comforted their  government  has  got it   right:   they  only  have to  look  as  far as  Victoria  to see  what happens    when   the  governing  authorities   make a  mess  of it.