Older generations will recall when the police were known as “bobbies”, after their founder, Sir Robert (Bob) Peel, in England in 1829. He formed the world’s first professional police force in London. Prior to that, governments used the military, and wealthy private citizens or companies hired night watchmen for
Information Opinion A week ago, The BFD published a review of the Pfizer vaccine trials in which I analysed the actual data released by the company. The takeaway for readers was that the numbers simply did not justify government decisions. Pfizer trumpeted headlines about over 43,000 participants enrolled in
I am a nerd and I do statistics as a hobby! For the record, I am double-jabbed based on an assessment of my personal risk but I am absolutely pro-choice because the risk for many other people is more from the vaccine than the virus. The abuse of the unvaccinated
The New Zealand Transport Agency, rebranded as Waka Kotahi, is using our taxes to mess up our streets without public consultation. A fund of nearly $30 million is being given to councils to come up with crazy changes to city roads, such as painting polka dots in the middle of
Labour has announced a need for a $120-185 billion programme over thirty years to fix the country’s water infrastructure. This is a crippling amount of money. To put it in perspective, the total income tax paid in 2019-20 was $37 billion. It is fundamentally the result of councils failing
New Zealand’s Royal Commission into the Christchurch shooting rubbishes Jacinda’s gun law response. This has been widely reported in the US and Canada in this article, while I have seen nothing about it in New Zealand media! Police negligence Ardern claimed that new laws were needed because the
The reason why so many politicians and commentators get their policies and predictions wrong is because the housing market is made up of three distinct yet overlapping sub-markets: the homeowner market, the rental market, and the new-build market. It is relatively easy to understand how a landlord could buy a
Once upon a time, in a fairy-tale world, “Democracy” meant something to the people. It was worth fighting for. The sacrifice of those who died in two terrible wars was understood and honoured. Young people were taught to value and respect basic principles, and leaders were elected to serve the
I am writing this a few hours after Labour’s big announcement on measures to make houses more affordable. Jacinda naturally led the press conference before handing over to Megan Woods to talk about measures to dampen demand from evil investors. Grant finished off with the handouts to boost supply.
Housing New Zealand, now rebranded as Kainga Ora, has been given power by the government to issue its own building consents. A branch called Consentium has been set up within the organisation, which will also carry out its own inspections and code compliance certification. This is because the government has
Tauranga City Council was in such a mess that it was replaced by a commissioner, Anne Tolley. No surprises that she recently noted that the situation was more difficult than she thought. How bad is it? A rates rise of 9.7% has been proposed. Not good, but not the
Last week, Hamilton hosted the national economic forum at the University of Waikato. Former governor of the Reserve Bank, Alan Bollard, who now chairs the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, made a couple of interesting points. The first was that almost none of the 150 “Shovel Ready” projects totalling $2.6
A recent investigation by Newshub has put a much-needed spotlight on suicide rates in the construction industry. Research back in 2019 identified construction as the worst sector for suicides both per capita and by the total number, with over 300 between 2007 and 2017. The Newshub report reveals the rate
A year into Covid and Ports of Auckland has failed to adapt. A massive snarl-up of shipping containers is choking the supply of goods into the country, and now some ships are skipping New Zealand altogether. The building industry is in a boom right now, and there has been much
One of the problems with large organisations, including city councils, is they inevitably treat people as numbers. This applies not just to the public, but also to their own staff. A typical example is when the chief executive, usually an accountant or lawyer, has an engineering project that s/he
Anyone outside Labour and the Greens knows the housing market is just like any other market. Prices are set by supply and demand. We have heard so much for so long about the demand for houses pushing prices up but the price is also being forced up by supply issues.
