Utopia, you are standing in it!

After Parliament voted to ban agents and landlords imposing letting fees on tenants, Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford said the change will make a real difference to struggling families.

The ban was a good first step in improving the life of renters while the Government continues its broader review of the Residential Tenancies Act, he said.

Twyford foreshadowed tenancy reforms earlier this year, when he said New Zealand tenants had fewer rights than any in the Western world – really? – and said he wanted to modernise the law to improve their lot and to encourage longer, more settled tenancies.

The reforms he discussed then were likely to include restricting rent increases to once a year, banning letting fees and abolishing no-cause terminations, but …

…Twyford has also confirmed that rent controls will not be part of the reform package.

That’s because he thinks rent controls are bad…

The World Health Organization’s declaration that wind turbine noise is a serious health hazard, is a liability bombshell for developers and governments, alike.

No longer can wind power outfits and those that make a living running propaganda for them claim that ‘there’s nothing to see here, move on.’ The wind industry’s victims – mocked and denigrated for years – have been vindicated. Now comes the vengeance. Litigation is already on foot in Victoria, with more claims to follow.

The significance of the WHO’s new noise guidelines hasn’t been lost on STT Champions Alan Jones and Liberal MP, Craig Kelly.

Liberal MP Craig Kelly on renewables and the Paris agreement
2GB
Alan Jones and Craig Kelly
19 October 2018

Alan Jones: Look, this Wentworth stuff, seriously. Dave Sharma is an outstanding candidate, but you’ve got Kerryn Phelps. She has a profile. They’re saying in Wentworth, climate change is an issue. If…

Here’s a 6½-minute segment on Halloween from Bill Maher’s latest show, which covers offense culture, snowflakes, Republicans, wokeness, and many other topics of interest (and humor). The part about cultural appropriation of costumes, which is great, begins at 3:05.  I like the whole thing, though.

Investor’s Business Daily has published this editorial Midterm Elections: 5 States Could Wreck Their Economies In Futile Fight Against ‘Climate Change’  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and titles.

Election 2018: Next week, voters in five states will decide whether they want to raise their own taxes, kill jobs and lower their standards of living. All in a fanciful effort to stop “global warming.” They’d be better off letting the free market do the work.

Washington, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado all have global-warming ballot initiatives, each heavily financed by environmental activists. New Mexico voters will decide whether to elect a powerful land commissioner who promises stiff curbs on emissions.

None of these will make any difference in the global climate. But they will cost their residents dearly.

How Much do We Love the Climate? Let us count the ways.

How about a carbon tax on everything?

In Washington, voters…

I’ve been among those suggesting that the KiwiBuild programme –  even if it involved the government itself directly commissioning the building of new houses that no existing developer already had in prospect –  was unlikely to increase overall housing supply very much, or affect overall average house prices very much.  It was never clear how such a programme could affect overall housing supply very much.  For it to do so, there would have to be large unexploited profits left sitting on the table by private developers (properties selling for far more than it would cost to bring new developments to market).  If that isn’t so –  and we don’t see any obvious signs of such unexploited opportunities – whatever the government itself builds or commissions is just likely to mostly displace and replace houses that the private sector would have built.   (There is another possibility, that the government not…

Yet another climate conference?
These people seem to have become addicted to their own process, which invariably just leads to the next meeting, ad infinitum. Hotels and airlines aren’t complaining though.
H/T The GWPF

The cost of United Nations climate summits have ballooned in tandem with the carbon dioxide emissions officials are trying to restrain, according to estimates put together by environmental economist Richard Tol.

Tol estimates that the costs U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) annual negotiations exceed $150 million in the last three years.