"Is the concept of personal responsibility foreign to Maori? I don’t believe it is.

"The latest 'Salvation Army State of the Nation Report 2026' presents a litany of excuses for the sorry state of New Zealand’s social statistics, in particular, those relating to Maori. ...

"'The over representation of Māori tamariki and rangatahi in state care [is said to] reflect ... the enduring impacts of colonisation and breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi ... disproportionate inequities are due to current systems and the lasting impacts of colonisation ... and institutional racism...'
    '[T]angata whenua experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness, ... disrupts connections to te ao Māori and limits the ability to exercise tino rangatiratanga. ...'
    'Colonial policies, land alienation and the imposition of state justice systems that do not represent partnership have had long‑lasting effects that continue to shape Māori experiences in the criminal justice system today.' ...

"The [report's] 'Maori lens' response run to pages. ... 

"[I]s the concept of personal responsibility foreign to Maori? I don’t believe it is. ...

"In the face of this report the best response the government could make is to defund the Salvation Army for being part of the problem."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'A litany of excuses'

Your complete five-minute summary of yet another round of 'negotiations' in Geneva

"I’ll save you five minutes of your time today so you don’t have to read the news about yet another round of 'negotiations' in Geneva.

"[First,] Ukraine is still willing to agree to absolutely any ceasefires, compromises, a halt to the war, a freeze along the front line, and all possible and impossible mineral deals to please Donald Trump -- but it is not willing to capitulate and be destroyed by Russia. 

"[Second,] Russia still refuses any ceasefires, any compromises, any halt to the war -- and agrees to nothing short of Ukrainian surrender, with ever-growing demands leading ultimately to Ukraine’s destruction. 

"And [third] the U.S. administration still has neither the power to force Ukraine to surrender, nor the conscience or the wisdom to stop this idiotic charade with Putin and instead to begin pressuring Russia and arming Ukraine so that Ukraine can make Russia accept a stable and lasting peace. 

"[In conclusion:] The parties agreed on nothing and will meet again at yet another meaningless 'summit' in a month, so that Russia can continue buying time and making a fool of Donald Trump while continuing to destroy Ukraine. 

"You’re welcome."

~ Ilya Ponomarenko

On the 'living wage'

"Wanting to afford rent and food on 40 hours isn’t unreasonable. But declaring it should happen doesn’t make it happen. 

"Affordability isn’t created by slogans. It’s created by productivity, supply, and competition. 

"If housing is expensive, ask why supply is restricted. If food is expensive, ask why production and distribution are burdened. If wages are stagnant, ask what’s blocking entry level opportunity. 

"You can’t legislate 'I should be able to afford it.' You either remove barriers that lower costs and raise productivity, or you shift the cost to someone else. And when you shift the cost, you don’t make things cheaper. You just move the bill. 

"The real question isn’t whether your desire is reasonable. It’s whether the policies being proposed actually increase supply and opportunity… or quietly reduce both while promising relief."

~ Rock Chartrand

'Education Through Recreation'

"A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both. Enough for him that he does it well."

~ Lawrence Pearsall Jacks from his 1932 book Education Through Recreation (pp 1-2)

"Since then, poverty has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded."

 

"While the share of people in extreme poverty has been falling since the 19th century, the total number didn’t begin to decline [at scale] until the late 20th century, when [communism collapsed and] rapid economic growth spread worldwide.

"Since then, poverty has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded."

~ post by Human Progress

“The champions of socialism call themselves progressives..."

“The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterised by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement.

"They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty.”

They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship.

"They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent.

"They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau.”

~ Ludwig Von Mises from his 1944 book Bureaucracy

"This should be basic teaching for school children. And their teachers..."

"Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification."

~ Ayn Rand from 'Galt's Speech' in her book For the New Intellectual

"What is the actual structure of human reasoning when we engage in deduction?"

~ Leonard Peikoff from Lecture 15 of his lecture series 'History of Philosophy'

"To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes. Centuries ago, the man who was—no matter what his errors—the greatest of your philosophers, has stated the formula defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge: A is A. A thing is itself. You have never grasped the meaning of his statement. I am here to complete it: Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification.

"Whatever you choose to consider, be it an object, an attribute or an action, the law of identity remains the same. A leaf cannot be a stone at the same time, it cannot be all red and all green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time. A is A. Or, if you wish it stated in simpler language: You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.
...

"The law of identity does not permit you to have your cake and eat it, too. The law of causality does not permit you to eat your cake before you have it. . . .

"The law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. All actions are caused by entities. The nature of an action is caused and determined by the nature of the entities that act; a thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature."

~ Ayn Rand from 'Galt's Speech' in her book For the New Intellectual

[Hat tip Louise LaMontagne]

'The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to AI'

"Start with what a reverse centaur is. In automation theory, a 'centaur' is a person who is assisted by a machine. You're a human head being carried around on a tireless robot body. Driving a car makes you a centaur, and so does using autocomplete.

"And obviously, a reverse centaur is a machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine.

"Like an Amazon delivery driver, who sits in a cabin surrounded by AI cameras, that monitor the driver's eyes and take points off if the driver looks in a proscribed direction, and monitors the driver's mouth because singing isn't allowed on the job, and rats the driver out to the boss if they don't make quota.

"The driver is in that van because the van can't drive itself and can't get a parcel from the curb to your porch. The driver is a peripheral for a van, and the van drives the driver, at superhuman speed, demanding superhuman endurance. But the driver is human, so the van doesn't just use the driver. The van uses the driver up.

"Obviously, it's nice to be a centaur, and it's horrible to be a reverse centaur. There are lots of AI tools that are potentially very centaur-like, but my thesis is that these tools are created and funded for the express purpose of creating reverse-centaurs, which is something none of us want to be. ...

"Tech bosses want us to believe that there is only one way a technology can be used. ... The promise of AI – the promise AI companies make to investors – is that there will be AIs that can do your job ... Now, if AI could do your job, this would still be a problem. We'd have to figure out what to do with all these technologically unemployed people.

"But AI can't do your job. It can help you do your job, but that doesn't mean it's going to save anyone money."

~ Cory Doctorow from his speech 'The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticising AI'

RELATED:

"You don't work less. You just work the same amount or even more."

~ Frank Landymore, 'Researchers Studied What Happens When Workplaces Seriously Embrace AI, and the Results May Make You Nervous'

It's Liberation Year [updated]

Remember so-called Liberation Day, when the Toddler in Chief announced to the world tariffs that split asunder world trade, and wrecked the very domestic economy he reckoned he was going to "save."

Well ...

... and ...

UPDATE:

"There is nothing like a Jobs Wednesday report to remind you that the Donald is utterly clueless when it comes to economic reality. He got a report card for January that shows during his first 12 months, the US economy did not generate a single new job in the goods producing sector!

"That’s right. The jobs figure (SA) for the combined manufacturing, construction, mining and energy sectors (blue line, below) for January 2026 was 21,501,000, which was actually 58,000 below where it stood in January 2025 (21,559,000). And in the case of manufacturing alone (dotted red line), the job count was down by 83,000 in January compared to a year ago.

"It is thus hard to see how those 'big beautiful tariffs' have generated the boom constantly ballyhooed by the White House. For crying out loud: The jobs count in the entire US industrial economy has been shrinking for the entire past year! 

"Not surprisingly, the dismal graph above didn’t dissuade the Donald one bit from crowing about 'GREAT JOBS NUMBERS,' even though the 130,000 monthly increase in January occurred in all the wrong places and then only by virtue of the BLS’ seasonal adjustment black magic.

"We treat with those factors at more length below, but here’s the spoiler alert: During the Donald’s first year the overall US economy purportedly generated 334,000 new jobs (according to the BLS), but fully 789,000 or 236% of those additional jobs were in the education, health care and social services sectors—the funding for which comes almost entirely from government budgets or tax exempt employer health care plans 

"The rest of the economy actually recorded a 455,000 job shrinkage!"

~ David Stockman, from his post 'Schooling The Donald On The BLS Jobs Scam'

"Like so many of the Trump administration’s actions, this is simultaneously weird, dangerous, and profoundly stupid. And we are all going to pay the price for it."

"Last night brought news that the US Food & Drug Agency (FDA) has refused to review Moderna’s application for their new mRNA influenza vaccine ...  Right off, let’s just make clear that an outright refusal-to-review rejection like this is quite unusual ... especially unusual for a vaccine. If there is a prior example like this with the FDA, I am unaware of it. ...

"[T]his application is being denied personally by Vinay Prasad [an anti-vaxxer appointed by RFK Jr to be the agency's top vaccine regulator] and against the recommendation of the FDA’s remaining experts, because he and the rest of the Trump administration are hostile to vaccines in general and to mRNA technology in particular. I don’t see how anyone can look at the statements and actions of the political appointees (from RFK Jr. on down) and come away with any other impression. We are deliberately walking away from the most advanced form of one of the most effective public health measures available to the human race, and instead we are investigated older technologies that happen to involve the administration’s friends. Meanwhile, mRNA therapies are under investigation - in more advanced parts of the world - for far more than vaccines, including various types of cancer. But we, on the other hand, seem to be plowing money into ivermectin (of all things) for that purpose.

"Like so many of the Trump administration’s actions, this is simultaneously weird, dangerous, and profoundly stupid. And we are all going to pay the price for it."

~ Derek Lowe from his post 'An mRNA Refusal to File' [hat tip Duncan B.]

"Those saying we need more welfare in order to produce more children are pushing a remedy fraught with risk, cost and irresponsibility."

"Their study was based on a population of children aged 0-14 years 'informed by a cohort analysis of individuals ... who can be observed through to age 21 .'... One of four risk factors for poor outcomes later in life [is b]eing 'mostly supported by welfare benefits since birth'...

"[In other words,] children raised on welfare [tend to] become adults who are less educated, have poorer mental health, are more likely to become single parents, to rely on welfare and fall foul of the law.

"If being born onto welfare and staying there long-term is a risky business for children, why would any government want to encourage this? In other walks of life we are bombarded with health and safety regulation. And in an environment where 'sustainability' is a constant clamour, how does growing costly dependency stack up?

"Those who advocate limitless number and duration of child benefit payments — the situation that currently exists in New Zealand and the UK is returning to — are ignoring the evidence.

"Those saying we need more welfare in order to produce more children are pushing a remedy fraught with risk, cost and irresponsibility."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'Boosting birth rates with benefit payments is a very bad idea'

Testing

"After 8 billion doses (yes 8 BILLION, not a typo) Covid vaccines are at this point one of the most tested medical interventions in history and one of the safest ever."

~ Dr Neil Stone

The 'Sovereign Citizen' scam

"Sovereign citizen belief is linguistic magic.

"They believe: 

Legal power comes from words
If you refuse the words, the power disappears
Jurisdiction is a speech act you can decline
Law is a contract you never signed

"It’s almost medieval in structure: the right incantation breaks the spell.

"That’s why they obsess over:

Capital letters
Punctuation
Specific phrases
'I do not consent'
'Under duress'

"They treat law as performative language gone wrong. ...

"They are not anarchists.
"They are not libertarians.
"They are not anti-democracy.

"They are people who believe the legal system is a linguistic scam."

~ Tim Harding from his post 'What sovereign citizens believe'

Americans? Libertarians did try to warn you

"[I]n light of how the past year has unfolded, consider cutting your friendly neighbourhood libertarian some slack. After all, we did try to warn you.

"On immigration, speech and trade, Americans are living in a libertarian’s nightmare. ... a terrifying pattern and an undeniable vindication of the long-held libertarian view that the steady growth in the size of the federal government and executive power would lead to precisely this kind of runaway authoritarianism.

"Libertarians have argued that the only way to prevent such abuses is to reduce the power of the federal government itself — abolishing unaccountable federal agencies, scaling back the administrative state, cutting spending — and to restore the balance of powers by reining in the executive. This path has generally been treated as hopelessly naïve at best, and morally suspect at worst. ... Yet it has never been more obvious that the grab-and-grow approach to power is a destructive and self-defeating way to conduct politics.

"To see why, consider how we got here.

"The Department of Homeland Security arose with very little opposition in the wake of Sept. 11 ... As the years went on, Homeland Security — and especially Immigration and Customs Enforcement, within it — got comfortable operating under a series of exceptions to the Constitution ... So it can be no surprise that ICE officers are roaming the streets of American cities today with an unclear mandate, overpowered military-style gear and a dire misunderstanding of the constitutional limits on their behaviour.  ...

"Trump 2.0 has made the libertarian case more obvious ... But it would be a mistake to treat President Trump as the origin of the ultra-powerful presidency. He is merely picking up the weapons that previous administrations left lying around and waltzing through the loopholes they opened.

"Mr. Trump has a record of threatening media and platforms under various statutory and emergency authorities. He recently mused that when '97 percent' of media coverage is negative, it ceases to be 'free speech.'  ...

"But the project of growing executive power has been bipartisan. On speech, officials in the Biden administration leaned on social-media platforms to take down what they deemed Covid and election misinformation without explicit action from the F.C.C. The Supreme Court disposed of a case, Murthy v. Missouri, challenging this “jawboning” ...

"And Mr. Trump’s tariffs — levelled and removed at will and without the participation of Congress, where the Constitution places the primary power — have disrupted and destabilised the global economy and undermined America’s role in it. ...

"Mr. Trump’s tariffs depend on a legally dubious claim that trade deficits and ordinary commerce constitute a national emergency, allowing him to bypass Congress under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. (Jimmy Carter once invoked it to freeze Iranian assets.) Mr. Trump’s tariffs are not an aberration so much as the latest example of how emergency powers, once normalized, become a standing invitation to rule by fiat.

"One thing immigration, speech and trade have in common is that in recent American history, the power to control each of them has settled into the hands of the executive. ... The Supreme Court is reviewing the limits of the president’s control over tariffs and executive agencies. ... The libertarian prescription, now and always, is to scale back the size and scope of the federal government. Devolve power to states and individuals. Cut spending. And rebalance power away from the executive branch. ...

"The good news is that Americans are increasingly waking up to the dark reality of [an] overbearing federal government. ... Similarly, Americans of all stripes have turned dramatically against Mr. Trump’s ICE enforcement actions. There could be — a libertarian can still dream — a grass-roots movement to shrink government that doesn’t end up co-opted by one of the major parties, as the Tea Party was. ...

"But this glimmer of hope is faint. ...

"Instead of a winner takes all approach to power, it’s time to consider working toward a system where there is much less power for the winner to take. No one wished events would prove libertarians wrong more than libertarians themselves. There’s nothing more annoying than an 'I told you so.' But if more Americans are now ready to limit power before it is abused again, they are welcome to join us."

~ Katherine Mangu-Ward from her New York Times free-access op-ed 'Libertarians: We Told You So'

Collectivism v Democracy

“It is now often said that democracy will not tolerate 'capitalism.' If 'capitalism' means here a competitive system based on free disposal over private property, it is far more important to realise that only within this system is democracy possible. When it becomes dominated by a collectivist creed, democracy will inevitably destroy itself.”

~ Friedrich Hayek from The Road to Serfdom, Ch. 5

"It’s NZ’s own Emancipation Proclamation!"

Good to see more folk acknowledging that Waitangi Day should also be recognised as NZ's Emancipation Day. 

Posted on the 6th, by David Farrar, was this:

Today we celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi – a day which should be called Emancipation Day. ....

We should celebrate 6 February 1840 as the day slavery was made illegal in New Zealand and tens of thousands of Maori slaves gained the rights of British citizens.

Yes, we should. After all, as someone has been saying for a while now:

It’s NZ’s own Emancipation Proclamation! 

Catastrophic sewage failure starts with pisspoor decision-making

"[T]he cause of the calamity are ... sitting, neatly itemised, in Wellington City Council’s own records. ...

"On 27 May 2021, Wellington City Council’s Long-Term Plan Committee faced a clear fork in the road."Officers presented councillors with water investment options, including one — Water Option 3 — that contained a $391 million wastewater renewals programme... to reduce sewage pollution, starting with the central city and south-coast catchments now making headlines.

"At the same meeting, officers recommended Cycleways Option 3, with capital expenditure of $120 million over ten years. ... An amendment was moved by then-councillor [and now Green MP] Tamatha Paul ... to adopt Cycleways Option 4, expanding the programme to $226 million — nearly doubling it.

"That amendment passed.

"Accelerated wastewater renewal did not.

"The vote is on video. The numbers are in the Long-Term Plan. The consequences are now floating in Cook Strait."

~ Peter Bassett from his post 'Wellington’s Sewage Crisis Wasn’t an Accident. It Was a Vote — and Everyone’s Pretending Not to Remember'

Just how reliable are AIs? A historian's examination.

A historian and cultural commentator has been examining the reliability of AIs for historical research, with thoughts on the future of AI & us. She summarises what she's discovered below, including answers to such questions as:

• Which AIs got the highest scores overall?
• Which AIs got the highest scores by topic: scientific/technical, historical context, creativity, historical and legal?
• Unavoidable methodological issues with As
• Lessons on use of AIs for historical research
• Will AIs surpass and replace humans?

Dianne Durante has written several books, and maintains a historical blog. What she has used AIs for in the past, "and will still use," are for very specific questions:

how to trouble-shoot the document feeder on an HP 8000-series printer/scanner, where to find Gaussian blur on the Adobe InDesign menu, what stretches to use for a tight IT band, how much time to allow for a visit to the Kingsley Plantation, or what the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party is. An AI [she says] gives me answers much, much faster than I could get them by wading through Google search results. ... 

As a historian [however], I tend to need answers to much more obscure and complex questions. When I started using Grok for such questions last summer, it gave me egregiously incorrect answers. (See Part 1 of this series.)

So I set out to discover:

Are AIs reliable for providing historical facts? Can I trust them to accurately deliver all the relevant details on matters such as Chladni figures and the Proclamation of 1763? Should I assume I always need to do further research? Should I avoid AIs altogether, and spend my research time looking for other sources?

Are AIs useful for going beyond facts to analysis? For example, are they good at providing interpretation, overviews, and/or inductive conclusions, such as a list of the most significant artworks of the 18th century, or of the major events of the 1790s?

Are some AIs better than others, in general or on specific topics?

Head to her many earlier posts (starting back in xxx 2025) to see her detailed methodology and results.

So, how did they all do?  In summary, based on the average of the scores from all 7 of her questions:

Winner: Grok, with 70%. That’s better than the others, but if you were using Grok to write your answers on an exam consisting of my 7 questions, you’d barely scrape through with a C. [That caveat is important.]

Loser: Perplexity, with 38%.

Mid-range: ChatGPT (50%), Claude (48%), and Deepseek (56%).

There was no way to ask Britannica or Wikipedia several of the questions, so I didn’t give them an overall score.

For results by category, best for Scientific and Technical: Grok and Deepseek (100% and 95% respectively; average = 81%).

                                    ... best for Historical Context: Claude and Deepseek (60%, 58%; average 51%)

                                    ... best for Creativity: Perplexity (85%; average 76%)

                                    ... best for Historical and Legal: Grok (70%; average 52%)

Head to her post to see what specific questions she asked, and why. She has a few thoughts ("If you have limited time for research, don’t spend every minute of it with AIs"), and a reminder:

LLMs don’t think. All the AIs I looked at except Britannica’s Chatbot are large-language models, a.k.a. LLMs (see Part 3). An LLM is fed an enormous amount of data so it can generate human-like language by predicting what words will follow a particular word or phrase. An AI doesn’t receive your question, gather data, observe how it relates what it already knows, analyze it according to scientific or philosophical principles, and then consider the most effective way to present the information to you. The AI just predicts what might come next. That’s why it can slide seamlessly from truth to hallucination. An AI will repeat any errors in the data fed into it, be it from major media, random posts on the internet, or Wikipedia. An AI is the ultimate in second-handedness.

So do not assume accuracy in your answers, especially if it's a topic you don't know much about.

I like her conclusion:

Re AIs becoming indistinguishable from humans, and then making humans obsolete: if philosophers, biologists, psychologists, et al., can’t explain the mechanisms of free will, the procedure for induction, etc., then we cannot program a computer to do those things. Until and unless we can, AIs are not human-like in the ways that matter most, and cannot replace humans.

 Head to her post to read it all.

At dawn

Hobson's grave, at the end of K Rd, beside Grafton Bridge.
Worth a dawn visit on Feb 6?

At dawn tomorrow an assorted rabble of politicians, protesters and hosts will make an appearance up at Waitangi.

I might do something different.

At dawn (to be fair, it will almost certainly be more like morning-tea time) I might head along the road to the grave of William Hobson, New Zealand's ailing first governor who died after barely two years in office. I might head along there to his forgotten resting place and, on the anniversary of perhaps his only political triumph,  pay him due respect.

It's the least I can do.

Now, while Hobson was a dashing sea captain, and one of the best at clearing slavers and pirates out of the Caribbean — his daring exploits were the basis of a Hornblower-like novel by Michael Scott (1789–1835), several of Frederick Marryat's naval stories— eat your heart out Johnny Depp—his appointment as consul here is yet another data point in the theory that everyone will eventually be promoted one job above their level of competence.

He was awful. He knew little of the treaty he co-authored. He battled metaphorically with settlers and govt finances. He suppressed newspapers who criticised him. His small staff, the dregs of the NSW administration cunningly offloaded onto the political naif by the NSW governor, exploited his naivety to line their own pockets. And he left his own family in dire financial straits at his death.

But he did leave behind the rudiments of and respect for the Rule of Law. And he was an instrument, and a powerful one, in removing pirates from the world’s trade routes and eradicating slavery. 

Michael Joseph Savage has as his sainted memorial a whole beautifully-presented mausoleum overlooking the Waitemata Harbour. The late governor Hobson deserves more than to be forgotten about under a disrespected bridge beside a busy motorway.

Auckland can't afford a second crossing ... or can it?

OVER SUMMER ONE ALWAYS gets a few ideas. Some good, some questionable. Some that just seem obvious once they've occurred to you. 

Here's one of those.

Let's start with three propositions: 

1. Auckland can't afford new infrastructure.

2. But Auckland would like to move its port. (But Auckland can't afford new infrastructure.)

3. Auckland will soon need a second harbour crossing. (But Auckland can't afford new infrastructure.)

Auckland can't afford that new infrastructure. Can't it? Perhaps it can.

Let's see what happens if we put those three problems together. As architects like to say, the solution is often contained within the problem ....

LET'S START WITH A CONTROVERSY from a few years ago when then-mayor Phil Goff complained about the Ports of Auckland steadily encroaching on the harbour with its ongoing reclamation work at the Ferguson container wharf. We joked that if they kept going, the Port would eventually end up in Devonport ...

A good joke.

But what if the wharf—or some part supported by the wharf—somehow did end up there?

Might that be a good thing?

Let's think: at the moment (see below) 

• the gap between Devonport and Port is just 800 metres -- that's compared to the 1000 metre length of the existing Harbour Bridge
• the rail line to Britomart passes right beside the container wharf
• the Grafton gully motorway points in a straight line down to the container wharf
• RNZ Navy land takes up some of the best land in the country to house the world's most ineffective navy
• existing tidal wetlands and greenspace on Belmont/Devonport (Charles Reserve, Hauraki Primary, Philomel Reserve, Bayswater Park, Plymouth Reserve, Hill Park, Ngataringa Park) offers scope to avoid simply dumping traffic on Lake Rd, and instead to link up with existing Northern Motorway at Takapuna.

Could we all win?

I think we could.

So the project could feature

• elegant new 'gateway' bridge for road, rail and foot
• new spur rail line from existing Quay Street rail line to Devonport
• new Devonport railway station, with platform under bridge (with a later link to Takapuna as well?)
• new road connection to existing motorway at Takapuna and at Grafton
• new apartments and marinas on and around existing container wharf (southside) and on former naval base (northside)

The latter (i.e., apartments) would pay for the former (i..e, everything else) --- and for the port and the naval base to move. They would have to.

The port is important, make no mistake. But viable plans for the port to move have already been drawn up. And there's no reason for New Zealand's Navy, who would be second in a fight with Switzerland's, to be there at all—squatting on some of the country's most expensive real estate rather than hanging out somewhere much less expensive. If you must keep them in Auckland (why?) then dredge the Manukau. Removing them will help to some small extent in removing pressure from Devonport's housing market -- as will new apartments built around what will be a new transport hub there.

IN ITS FAVOUR:

• very little distance to build the crossing (just 800m at present, compared to 1000m for the existing bridge, which could still be further reduced)
• done well, the bridge and apartments together become a gateway to the city's inner harbour, framing it and re-defining it
• curved bridge which, like San Diego's renowned curved Coronado Bridge, would be high enough for ships to pass under, 
• and/or, like Santiago Calatrava's magnificent structures, delicate enough to enliven the harbour, which would be both structurally elegant and appropriate as a harbour-side gateway to the city
• even a 'utilitarian' suspension bridge or cable-stayed would suit (we have plenty of great bridge designers here)
• removes some proportion of traffic from existing Harbour Bridge 
• easier Devonport road connection, removing congestion from Lake Rd
• immediate foot, cycle, and rail access to/from Devonport
• high-density apartment living on former container wharves, enjoying spectacular harbour views, a new marina, and easy walkable access to city wand waterfront
• high-density apartment living on former naval base waterfront living enjoying spectacular city views, with a marina, an easy commute to city and beyond (and public transport direct to city via new spur rail line!), and easy walkable access to both the waterfront and to Devonport...

What's not to like? Even Wayne Brown should like it, because he'd get to bully the Navy, the Port authorities, AT and ministers of transport and defence.

San Diego's renowned Coronado Bridge

Sharq Crossing, Doha, by Santiago Calatrava

PROBLEMS?

• Nimbys, of course, in Parnell, in Devonport and in Belmont
• some property in Belmont and in Devonport will need to be bought, voluntarily -- or perhaps the air rights bought
• Parnell owners already regularly whinge about the existing container wharf anyway
• work on coastal wetlands
• that said, this would be an ideal opportunity to fix (properly this time) some of the drainage issues around these areas
• new location needed for the container port, and imported cars...
• not an insignificant cost, but relocation also paid for from apartment sales...
• bridge needs to allow large cruise ships underneath
• so it needs to have some height!
• cost

Cost is always the biggest problem. And too much taxpayer money has been wasted already. But that's the benefit here: these apartments on both sides, sit on over 100 Hectares some of the most valuable real estate in the country -- currently occupied only by cars, containers and a Navy that needs to bugger off. At even just 50-100 dwellings per Hectare that's still between 5-10,000 apartments to be sold. Multiply that number by a few million dollars or so, and you're in the ballpark for your project budget.

The revenue from the new development (apartments, marinas, hospitality etc.) should more than pay for the project -- and have the added benefit further helping intensify the central city (a god thing), and bringing down house prices all over the(a great thing!). 

The only major problems I foresee, apart from the bureaucratic haggling about which branch of government owns what, is that government (central or local) would set themselves up as the developer. Which never ends well. And that, inevitably therefore, given the glacial rate of progress of recent projects around the city, it will be the next half-century before anything is ever completed.

Lifetime busybody complains about busybodying

"[A]fter 31 years as an MP, where he spent inordinate hours in creating nonsensical rules that impinge on the personal responsibility of all citizens, [Nick Smith] is now complaining as Mayor of Nelson over being declined to being allowed to purchase a 'bottle' of wine at a vineyard function where patrons were only allowed to buy wine by the 'cup.'

"Such micro-managing of behaviour is ... permitted by endless legislated nonsensical garbage emanating from the Beehive. ...

"[N]ow retired [as an MP, this pathetic little man] is reduced to whining to media about stupid inane rules he has been a prime mover in creating, one way or another, for over 40 fricken' years."

~ Gravedodger from his post 'Oi Mr Smith, read again the oft quoted statement by Cromwell to the Rump Parliament' PS: Feel free to let us know what Nick Smith is trying to demonstrate in the picture above. Answers on a postcard please.

"Profit is the signal that a need was actually satisfied by voluntary choice"

"What’s always evaded when people say 'capitalism is about profit, not needs' is that profit is the signal that a need was actually satisfied by voluntary choice. 

    "No one earns profit unless others judge the product or service worth more than the money they give up. ... 

    "When they say capitalism 'fails' to supply needs that aren’t profitable, what they’re really admitting is this: People do not value those needs enough to sacrifice their own resources for them."

~ Rock Chartrand

The Chart of the Century, in context

"Imagine a horse race between Smith, Schumpeter, and Stupidity," begins economist Peter Boettke. Who wins?

The horse "Smith" is Adam Smith. He represents the gains from trade and division of labour about which Adam Smith spoke so well.

"Schumpeter" is the horse representing gains from invention, from new technology, from all the gains that innovation brings.

Together they drive the race forwards.

But "Stupidity" is the horse sponsored by the government, and trained by big-government worshipping economists. He bumps into the others, bites at their heels, and generally gets in their fucking way. 'Stupidity' represents every stupid idea, every stupid regulation—and all that insane tinkering with counterfeit credit as if it were the way to economic nirvana. 

He takes it all backwards.

We can see Leg One of that race below: Mark Perry's famous “Chart of the Century,” tracking the price of 14 items over the last quarter-century. 

It's pretty clear that when 'Smith' and 'Schumpeter' can run largely unhindered, then nearly everyone gets better off. Even if the change in average hourly wages is taken into account, all but five of the items tracked above give those two horses (and every wage-earner) a win.

It's only when 'Stupidity' is allowed a free rein that he starts to come out ahead. (And I'm fairly sure that an analysis using NZ data would show something very similar.)

Let's hope the lesson is clear?

"The point is not to get 2 million homes."

"Right now, Auckland Council’s zoning allows people to build about a million shops selling tasty pies. ... Can you imagine it? Auckland with a million pie shops – and hardly anything else.

"Of course it is ridiculous. ... The number of pie shops finds its own level, adjusting as demand changes. There is no 'right' number that can be determined on its own. The right number is found as entrepreneurs take punts and consumers make choices. ...

"When central government asked Auckland to zone to allow up to 2 million additional dwellings, it wasn’t a demand that Auckland build that many homes. Or even an expectation that anyone would ever try to build nearly that many.

"The point is not to get 2 million homes.

"When lots of places can turn into houses, townhouses and apartments when housing needs change, then new housing can just turn up when and where it is needed. Developers watch where people most want to live, look at the cost of developing in different places, and try their luck. ...

"[Councils however] have been reluctant to allow enough new housing to keep up with demand ... [so] as a way of resetting planning culture, central government has mandated that [councils] allow more housing, using numerical targets. ...

"For now, just remember that Auckland allows about a million pie shops. Look around. Do you see a million pie shops?

"Things being allowed does not cause them to exist. But allowing competition changes, and improves, what can exist."

~ Eric Crampton from his op-ed 'The misguided fuss over ‘2 million more’ houses for Auckland'