The Herald reports: The Supreme Court has ruled the majority of the Court of Appeal “erred” in a major decision that ultimately eased the test for Māori to gain customary rights for use of the foreshore and seabed. Its just-issued ruling allows an appeal by the Attorney-General against the Court of Appeal’s decision last October, at a time the […]
So will they call the Supreme Court racist names now?
So will they call the Supreme Court racist names now?
19 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: free speech, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
GARY JUDD KC: SUBMISSION ON TREATY PRINCIPLES BILL
18 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: constitutional law
Support for the bill 1. I support the bill. My primary reason is the need for robust affirmation of the twin pillars of our constitution: New Zealand’s commitment to the rule of law and to the sovereignty of Parliament (Senior Courts Act 2016, s 3(2)). I wish to be heard in support of my submission.…
GARY JUDD KC: SUBMISSION ON TREATY PRINCIPLES BILL
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman’s GDP Graph Confirms the Bottom has Fallen Out of the New Zealand Economy
18 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand

High profile US Economist Paul Krugman has written a New York Times article in which he shows in one graph the incredible resilience and performance of the American Economy. The dark blue line below tracks the pre-pandemic long-run trend in Real GDP. Meanwhile the orange line is actual real GDP. Krugman remarks that now, in…
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman’s GDP Graph Confirms the Bottom has Fallen Out of the New Zealand Economy
Now In A New Wrapping
17 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: recycling

Most plastic simply cannot be recycled – Greenpeace, October 24, 2022 I posted about this matter a couple of years ago, based mainly on 1996 article in, of all places, the NYT, that trashed the whole concept. The writer of that original article, John Tierney, says he got more hate mail for it than any […]
Now In A New Wrapping
Call in the Bailiffs: How the NZ Government’s Green Investment Fund Turned Itself Into an Unpleasant Predatory Lender and Debt Collection Agency.
16 Dec 2024 1 Comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, energy economics, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: solar power
The just resigned Chair of the NZ Green Investment Fund (NZGIF) and Chancellor of Auckland University, Cecilia Tarrant, previously worked at Morgan Stanley Bank in New York, starting in 1997 and finishing in 2009. She’s a very nice person, a lawyer by training, and Structured Products expert, in particular on Mortgage Backed Securities. The collapse of…
Call in the Bailiffs: How the NZ Government’s Green Investment Fund Turned Itself Into an Unpleasant Predatory Lender and Debt Collection Agency.
OWEN JENNINGS: Banks Flout their Social Contract
14 Dec 2024 1 Comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, financial economics, global warming, politics - New Zealand
For a civil society to work smoothly and effectively certain ‘social contracts’ need to have broad acceptance and be honoured by all individuals and groups. They are unwritten rules we tacitly observe. They provide a framework of understandings that allow us to live harmoniously. Some of these ‘rules’ or social contracts get defined or backed…
OWEN JENNINGS: Banks Flout their Social Contract
Democracy Briefing: First among equals? New Zealand First’s year in government
14 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
Bryce Edwards writes – For the governing coalition of National, Act and New Zealand First, its first year in power can be divided into three distinct periods. During the first phase, spanning from its formation in late November 2023 until early March, the coalition increased in popularity. This was the era of “the great rollback”, […]
Democracy Briefing: First among equals? New Zealand First’s year in government
New Study: Achieving A ‘Net Zero’ Emissions Policy Would Have A ‘Negligible’ 0.28°C Climate Effect
14 Dec 2024 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, development economics, economics of climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming, growth miracles, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA

Cost-benefit analyses affirm it would be better to abandon Net Zero policy initiatives and instead “do nothing” about greenhouse gas emissions. New research finds CO2’s largest possible climate impact is “negligible.” The cumulative expected temperature change in doubling CO2 from 400 to 800 ppm is only 0.81°C at most, and this is “certainly not cause…
New Study: Achieving A ‘Net Zero’ Emissions Policy Would Have A ‘Negligible’ 0.28°C Climate Effect
It’s the Maori Party that is driving division
14 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: racial discrimination
New Zealand women got the vote in 1893; they got the right to stand for parliament a generation later in 1919. But there has never been a parliamentary party based on gender. That’s because most women do not put being female first and foremost in their lives. Their gender is an accident of birth. So…
It’s the Maori Party that is driving division
The NZ Green Investment Fund should be Liquidated for Losing Money that could’ve gone into alleviating Poverty.
13 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of climate change, energy economics, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, environmentalism, financial economics, global warming, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, rentseeking

Only a few months ago, the Chair of the NZ Green Investment Fund (NZGIF) and Chancellor of the University of Auckland, Cecilia Tarrant, visited my “Law and Economics” class. Why? She’s a lawyer who worked in “structured products” and “real estate finance” at Morgan Stanley in New York – and knows a Kiwi friend of…
The NZ Green Investment Fund should be Liquidated for Losing Money that could’ve gone into alleviating Poverty.
The People’s Front of Judea
13 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand
Readers who have viewed The Life of Brian (as I have done 20 or so times) will recall how The People’s Front of Judea didn’t just battle the Romans, but also The Judean People’s Front who they regarded as splitters for not being pure enough. I have discovered the real life equivalent – the World […]
The People’s Front of Judea
Has an Anonymous Political Donor to Schools Sabotaged National, ACT & NZ First? Will Children be Educated Not to Vote for them, as of Next Week?
12 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, economics of education, politics - New Zealand Tags: constitutional law
The State-owned Broadcaster has just announced, “Every high school in NZ is set to receive a copy of a new book about the Treaty of Waitangi following a surprise donation by an [anonymous] Auckland couple”. One News says the book, “Understanding Te Tiriti”, is “a guide to NZ’s founding document”. Except that’s not the book’s…
Has an Anonymous Political Donor to Schools Sabotaged National, ACT & NZ First? Will Children be Educated Not to Vote for them, as of Next Week?
Supreme Court into the political arena again – this time with MACA
12 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand Tags: constitutional law
Gary Judd KC writes – This morning the Law Association’s LawNews published my criticisms of the Supreme Court’s purported judgment in the Edwards case under the title The Edwards judgment: a nullity designed to pre-empt Parliament? I explain that what the Court called a judgment is not a judgment at all, but a pronouncement the Court had no jurisdiction to make. […]
Supreme Court into the political arena again – this time with MACA
Indigenous government
11 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: constitutional law, racial discrimination
Grant Duncan writes: Te Pāti Māori have a policy to “establish a Māori Parliament”. According to the NZ Election Study 2020, however, the proposal for a Māori upper house of parliament is only supported by a minority of Māori, let alone others.* This made me look up the data from the 2020 NZES. Net support for a […]
Indigenous government
JOHN RAINE: Why Engineering Cannot be Decolonised
10 Dec 2024 1 Comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, political correctness, regressive left
Concordia University is Decolonising Early 2024, Lawrence Krauss reported [1] that Concordia University in Canada is in the process of decolonising and indigenising its curricula, including Engineering. He noted that this will put Concordia on the Map, but not in a positive way. The new university plan at Concordia is drawing on “principles embodied in…
JOHN RAINE: Why Engineering Cannot be Decolonised
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