The Herald reports:

Staff working on TV3’s Story have been told the programme will be dropped by the network at the end of the year.

The show, which replaced Campbell Live last year, is hosted by Duncan Garner and Heather du Plessis-Allan and has met with mediocre ratings success.

It’s understood TV3 will launch a new entertainment-focussed show, similar to Australia’s The Project, in its place – with comedian Guy Williams tipped to be involved.

Oh dear. Less news and more entertainment. Inevitable I guess.

And the replacement will probably be three left wing comedians.

Phil Twyford has been joined by Andrew Little in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They had a moderately successful conference with a big policy release.

One media outlet pointed out that their costing of it at $60 million did not add up, and they them revealed that they were assuming beneficiaries would only spend four months in paid work, despite the policy saying six months.

Now if they had just accepted that they did not make their communications material at all clear, then the story would have been a one day wonder.

Instead Twyford and Little have successfully managed to have the narrative all about their attack on the journalist concerned, and the fact their policy wasn’t up front on the assumptions for the entire week. There’s been multiple stories in all the major news outlets and it has knocked out any positive coverage of the conference.

So a totally self inflicted blow.

The latest story in the Herald reports:

Little said Labour’s concerns with 1 News’ report were “being dealt with formally” but would not confirm if an official complaint had been lodged.

Twyford said they were lodging an official complaint. But presumably they realised it would have no chance of being upheld by TVNZ or the BSA so decided to settle for the Trump tactic of declaring you will take action, but not actually doing it.

John Gillespie, 1 News head of news and current affairs, said the network “absolutely stands by the journalism and the journalist.”

“We are more than happy for Labour to follow the standard process and submit a formal complaint which will be assessed against relevant Broadcasting Standards.”

So if Labour really think that a story pointing out that their costings were based on four not six months is “unprofessional” and “biased” then why haven’t they complained?

Anyway the issue isn’t so much the story, but Labour turning one minor bad story into a week of bad stories. Why did they think having a senior MP attacking a press gallery journalist on Twitter would be a good idea, and then have the leader follow up?

I’ve compiled the projections from the four main “poll of polls” sites in the US. They are Five Thirty Eight, Huffington Post, Real Clear Politics and the New York Times.

The only states they disagree on is Nevada and North Carolina.

If they are accurate then Clinton wins 322 to 216. Or with RCP, it is 301 to 237.

Of course they may be wrong. It is all about turnout. But in the 2012 presidential election 538 projected all 50 states correctly and others generally had 49 out of 50 correct.

On the 538 forecast if Trump does 1% better than expected then he picks up Florida, Nevada and North Carolina which gives him 266 electoral votes. That is why 538 still have him at 28% to win.

After that he needs New Hampshire which he is 2.9% behind on.

So Clinton the clear favourite and non polling data such as turnout suggests Latino voters are voting early which helps her. So I expect Clinton to win but Trump’s chances are not insignificant, and in fact amazingly high considering all he has said and done.

Later today I’ll do an open thread on the results and find out what how 100 million Americans have voted.

The DIA e-mailed me this week to say that they are releasing the data below, sought by Nicky Hagar since February 2015, showing calls and texts from Jason Ede to me between January to August 2011 when Jason worked for Ministerial Services.

So eliminating the one minute ones which would be no answer/voicemails, this shows 13 phone calls over eight months, which is around one phone call every 19 days. Note that over that time period I’ll generally write 200 or more blog posts. A huge conspiracy I am sure. For stats fans, the average length of the phone calls was six minutes and 32 seconds.

Considering most days I get 20+ phone calls, it shows that in fact Jason was one of my more infrequent callers. I talk to quite a few people in Labour more often than once every 19 days!

Oh yeah there were also six text messages over eight months. This will of course be breathlessly reported by Hager as proof of, well something, and repeated uncritically by some in the media.

There is a more serious issue in The Ombudsman directing DIA to release this info. It means there is now a precedent. So hey someone should ask DIA for the details of all phone calls and text messages from say Helen Clark to journalists from 2000 to 2008. Imagine the fun we could have looking at her call logs and what stories were published by the journalists within the next 24 hours?

I am sure Peter Doone would love to be able to OIA details of all texts and phone calls between Clark and her staff and media around the time of his ouster.

At some stage Labour will be in Government again, and this means we can OIA every one of their press secretaries every month demanding a detailed list of every phone call they have made, how long it lasted and to whom.  Will be great fun.

I don’t mind the data on phone calls to me being released.  It’s laughable showing six texts and 13 phone calls over eight months. About as exciting as watching paint dry. But there is a bigger issue with this precedent.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand First will not stand a candidate in Auckland’s Mt Roskill by-election, narrowing the field further after the Greens and ACT also opted not to stand.

Leader Winston Peters said a “serious number” of candidates had come forward, but the party decided to focus its resources on the 2017 election.

So it may only be Labour, National and the new migrant party.

Politik reports:

Michael Cullen, by whose name the New Zealand Super Fund is better known and who until yesterday was the Chair of NZ Post thinks the fund should own all SOEs.

But only on Sunday, Labour’s former Finance Minister and (until yesterday) Chair of NZ Post, the owners of Kiwibank, Sir Michael Cullen, floated the idea of putting all the SOEs into Super Fund ownership and also having them pay their dividends directly into the fund.

“I’ve got a personal hobby horse about transferring what little is left of actual valuable commercial enterprises the Government owns and putting the shares into the super fund,” he told a Fabian forum in Auckland.

“That would help protect the shareholding as well as actually assist in paying New Zealand super in the long term.”

Sitting alongside Sir Michael at the Forum was Labour’s State-owned enterprise’s spokesperson, David Parker, who appeared to agree with the former Finance Minister.

I think the Government should sell most SOEs, especially ones like TVNZ and NZ Post which are at risk of becoming worthless due to technological challenges.

But if they are to remain Government owned, there are advantages to doing in through the NZ Super Fund.

The first is it reduces the ability of Ministers to interfere in decisions of SOEs by having chat to directors (whom they appoint).

The second is that NZSF has many staff who are commercial experts in assessing performance of a company, and would be better positioned to monitor how an SOE is doing and whether or not there is a case for more capital.

The third is the NZSF would then appoint the directors, rather than Ministers.

So I’m in favour.

This is wonderful reading from Radio NZ:

The jobs policy would be for those on the Jobseeker benefit for more than six months, and would not be compulsory.

But that’s where the policy could get tricky for Labour as Mr Little said there were already sanctions in place for those on the Jobseeker benefit who did not fulfil their obligations; sanctions Labour has previously described as punitive.

When Mr Little was asked about how young people would be made to do the paid work if they flat out refused, he referred to the sanctions, and in the next breath reverted to the criticism of them as punitive.

So his policy has no teeth except for the sanctions regime that he has opposed and labelled punitive and wants to repeal.

Then he settled on young people being “actively managed” after their six months on a benefit, which left reporters none the wiser about whether those young people would have a choice about whether they would take up the six months work, or how much pressure they would come under to do so.

Makes as much sense as their costings.

There were strong words from Mr Little during his speech about Labour winning the next election, but the party lacks the feeling of true confidence about its prospects of actually defeating John Key and his government – a feeling that was starting to build in the National Party ranks as they eyed the Clark government before its defeat in 2008.

Labour has not been able to break through past the early 30s in most of its polling, except for the odd spike, which puts it in about the same place it was this time last year.

If it is not starting to make some real gains at the start of next year and make inroads into National’s vote, it faces an uphill battle if it hopes to win next year’s election.

In October 2007 National in opposition were at 48% in the polls. In October 2016 Labour in opposition are at 27%.  National led Labour by 9% in October 2007 while Labour trails National by 21% in October 2016, or 10% if you include the Greens.

No Minister blogs on the four nominees for the National candidacy for Northland:

Darren Edwards, 45, Dargaville born, married and resident in Kerikeri.  Darren is Maori with tribal affiliations to ReRoroa, Ngati whatu and Ngapuhi.   He served 15 years in the Police reaching the rank of Sergeant, followed by 2 years with the Ministry of Fisheries as their Team Leader in Kaitaia and 9 years with the Ministry of Primary Industries as their Northland District Compliance Manager.   Currently he is employed by the Far North District Council as the Compliance Manager.   Darren is a graduate of the New Zealand Defence Force Command and Staff College and has a Masters of International Security from Massey University.   He is a member of the Northland Conservation Board, member of Kerikeri Rotary and is involved with the Diabetes NZ Northland Branch where his wife is the treasurer.

Ronald (Matt) King, 49, born and resident in Okaihau, married.   He initially qualified as a telecommunications technician but left soon after to join the Police where he later qualified as a Detective.   In 2007 he left the Police to work as a farmer/contractor and fraud investigator and later established a successful business – Mid North Honda.   He has his own farm at Okaihau.   Matt has a Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in Physiology, from Auckland University and a Diploma in Policing.   He is a Volunteer fire fighter with the Okaihau Fire Brigade, a senior rugby referee and a Board Member of Polocrosse New Zealand.

Dr Chris Reid, 48, born in the UK, married and resident in Russell.   Chris is a General Practitioner in Kerikeri.   He graduated MBBS from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne including an Elective in Trauma and Orthopedics at the University of Virginia.   He served 10 years with the Royal Marines including 2 years as the Senior Medical Officer to the Special Boats Service.    He is currently the Clinical Director at the Kerikeri Medical Centre, a member of the Health Advisory Group for Green Cross Health and a member of the National Advisory Council, Royal NZL Council of General Practitioners.   He enjoys spear fishing and photography and has published ‘Patient – Portraits from a Doctors Surgery’ … with all royalties donated to St John Ambulance.

Ken Rintoul, 54, born and resident in Okaihau, married,    Ken has an extensive business and farming background given his involvement with Rintoul Civil Ltd (major contracting firm) and  Kauri Brae Farms Ltd (both family businesses).  He was involved with the Northland Transport Committee; Far North Holdings Ltd as a past director; interim Chairman, Northland College BOT August 2015-June 2016; a trustee with Top Energy Consumers Trust; Northern Rural Fire Board, Chairman; Northland Youth Development Trust, Chairman; Youth Development Trust, National Supporters Council, Northland Representative and a Member of Lions.  

Looks like a good selection to choose from. The decision will be made by grass roots members elected by local branches representing the 1,500 party members in the seat.

PredictIt is a US version of iPredict in New Zealand. Here’s how they have the key states in terms of probability for Clinton:

1. Nevada 83%
2. Pennsylvania 82%
3. Colorado 80%
4. Missouri 79%
5. New Hampshire 75%
6. Florida 67%
7. North Carolina 55%
8. Ohio 33%
9. Arizona 25%
10. Iowa 18%
11. Georgia 16%

Since the FBI announced they had still concluded no charges, Clinton’s odds have increased significantly. She is at 81% to win overall.

They have the Democrats at 58% likely to win the Senate but only 6% likely to win the House.

Stuff reports:

A $300 million funding injection for emergency housing will provide another 1400 places for vulnerable Kiwis, Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett says.

The Government has announced the funding boost for more emergency housing places, extra support for tenants and more frontline staff.

Bennett said the $303.6m package would run over five financial years, including:

– $120m in capital funding to buy build or lease properties for emergency housing, with $100m as a loan to Housing NZ, to be repaid within 10 years;

– $71m in rental subsidies;

– $102m for providers to support, stabilise and help tenants into long-term housing;

-$10.4m for more dedicated frontline staff at the Ministry of Social Development.

Bennett said the funding boost would provide up to an extra 1400 places at any one time, with 600 of those in Auckland and the other 800 in “areas of high demand” around the country.

Good to see action on treating the symptoms – which is needed. But also need to do more on treating the causes.

The Herald reports:

Two of New Zealand’s biggest media companies should not be allowed to merge, the Commerce Commission said today.

In a draft determination released this morning, the Commerce Commission has proposed to decline the NZME/Fairfax merger. In a tweet it hashtagged the proposed merger as #StuffMe.

Heh love the hash tag. A good description of what may have happened if approved. I suspect it refers to NZME and Fairfax’s Stuff but still amusing.

The Commission said in its preliminary view, the merger would be likely to substantially lessen competition in a number of markets, including the markets for premium digital advertising, advertising in Sunday newspapers and advertising in community newspapers in 10 regions throughout New Zealand.

“It also considers the merged entity would be likely to increase subscription and retail prices for Sunday newspapers and introduce a paywall for at least one of its websites,” the Commission said in its draft determination.

The two media companies made a joint statement to the NZX this morning, saying the Commission’s concerns relating to plurality of media were “unquantified.”

“The parties’ view is that the NZCC has failed to properly take into account the diversity of opinions that will continue post-transaction in an increasingly converged digital world,” the statement said.

The media companies actually cited Kiwiblog as one of their competitors and as a reason for the merger to be approved. While flattering, I don’t think you can compare blogs to media companies with hundreds of staff.

I’m glad the provisional decision is to say no, as the merger would have resulted in a lot of job losses. But if the final decision is also no, that doesn’t mean the status quo will continue. Both companies are likely to continue reducing staffing numbers regardless.

Commission chairman Dr Mark Berry said the merger would result in one media outlet controlling nearly 90 per cent of New Zealand’s print media market.

This would be the second highest level of print media ownership in the world, behind only China, he said.

The merged entity would also control New Zealand’s two largest news websites – nzherald.co.nz and stuff.co.nz – which together had a population reach more than four times larger than the next biggest domestic news website.

Further, the merged entity would own one of New Zealand’s two largest commercial radio companies. “All this would result in an unprecedented level of media concentration for a well-established liberal democracy,” Dr Berry said.

Doesn’t make it sounds like a close call.

See what Labour’s campaign chair does if a journalist dares to run a report they disagree with. Phil Twyford commences a public bullying session on Twitter, where he incites people to climb in and attack the journalist.

.@avancenz Appalled by your biased story on @1NewsNZ last night. You were fully briefed on numbers but you chose to run Nat attack line.

— Phil Twyford (@PhilTwyford) November 6, 2016

.@avancenz Appalled by your biased story on @1NewsNZ last night. You were fully briefed on numbers but you chose to run Nat attack line.

— Phil Twyford (@PhilTwyford) November 6, 2016

Not so. Andrea was briefed personally on modelling and assumptions. There was no mistake.Numbers do add up. @CTrevettNZH @avancenz @1NewsNZ

— Phil Twyford (@PhilTwyford) November 6, 2016

Not so. Andrea was briefed personally on modelling and assumptions. There was no mistake.Numbers do add up. @CTrevettNZH @avancenz @1NewsNZ

— Phil Twyford (@PhilTwyford) November 6, 2016

So you got Twyford lashing out at Vance and Trevett because Labour’s numbers only add up if you substitute four months for six months.

Richard Harman points out:

Labour in many ways is its own worst enemy.

It surely didn’t matter all that much whether the scheme cost $90 million or $60 million so why it chose to present the lower figure seems a bit odd. And why it thought it could get away with it is even odder.

And when they don’t get away with it, they launch personally abusive tirades on Twitter – designed to incite people against the journalists concerned. Twyford seems to be taking lessons from Donald Trump!

This comes from Dim Post who got it from the NZ Election Study.

So broadly speaking, women’s views are:

• Do nothing 45%
• Just encourage more women 29%
• Party quotas 12%
• Legislated quotas 5%

Quotas appeal to the Wellington beltway, and not much beyond.

The Herald reports:

Cullen played a part in a remit in support of euthanasia which was passed by the conference. He had proposed an amendment to acknowledge there were differing views on it among members to make them more comfortable about supporting it.

Cullen – whose previous Labour roles have included Deputy Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Attorney-General – said he personally supported euthanasia.

He said he was already being kept alive by medical science, courtesy of a pacemaker installed two years ago. However, if he lost his mental or physical functions he supported the right to choose to die.

“My own personal position is that if it was me, I don’t want to get to the state where my mind deteriorated to the point where I might actually support the National Party. In other words, I’ve forgotten who I am and what I am.”

Heh, the Cullen of old.

The Herald reports:

Labour has hit out at criticism of its costings for a new policy to give unemployed youths up to six months of fulltime community work at the minimum wage.

The party’s campaign manager Phil Twyford took to Twitter today and in a series of posts accused some media of bias and carrying out a “hatchet job” after reports questioned the accuracy of how the policy had been costed.

“There was no mistake. Numbers do add up,” Twyford, Labour’s campaign chair, tweeted.

Labour thinks pointing out their numbers do not add up is a hatchet job.

Labour said it expected the policy to cost $60m a year, based on an estimated 10,000 participants per year.

Its promotional material said eligible young people would be offered full-time employment for six months. That was the time period outlined in Little’s speech, where he said “we’ll set them up for six months with a job”.

However, Labour subsequently clarified that its $60m figure was based on an assumption that those on the scheme would do an average of four months’ paid work – not the full six months available.

Little had been asked about how the $60m figure was calculated in a stand-up with media after his speech, and did not mention the four month timeframe.

So the actual cost is $90 million plus admin (which would be huge).

But they had a secret assumption that they told no one about that people would only stay in their six month job for four months. And then they get angry that people who don’t know about their secret assumption can’t get their numbers to add up.

Plus of course their secret assumption is crap – what evidence base is there for it?

Labour of course could have released their detailed costing of the policy, when their leader announced it. As it was the major focus of his conference speech, that is what a serious party would do.

The NZIER looks at what a Donald Trump win might mean for NZ:

Short-term

Financial markets generally don’t like uncertainty. If Trump were to be elected POTUS, it’s difficult to see this being anything but a “bigly” headache for markets. Moreover, the way he has managed his campaign and the people associated with it suggests there might be a degree of chaos about the process of selecting and confirming key players in a Trump administration.

The immediate impacts will likely be seen in credit conditions, the exchange rate and the US sharemarket.

If US and international financial markets perceive the economic and political outlook to be more worrisome under a Trump presidency, this has the potential to push up funding costs as increased risk aversion leads to a deterioration in access to credit. Given the international linkages of markets, this could flow through to New Zealand retail interest rates, making household and business borrowing more expensive.

And on exports:

The US is a crucial market for many New Zealand firms. We exported $8.4 billion of goods and services there in CY2015, accounting for 12% of our total export revenue. Key products are beef ($1.6 billion), dairy ($1 billion), wine ($432 million), lamb ($288 million) and wood ($182 million), plus tourism (over 240,000 visitors).

Despite Trump’s assurances about how “great” or “terrific” the economy will be under his watch, his policy prescriptions don’t warrant a great deal of optimism in our view. Certainly, there has been no reputable economic assessment that shows just how his bright ideas will generate sustained productivity and living standards growth.

One estimate is that Trump’s trade policies alone – namely imposing 35-45% tariffs on Mexican and Chinese imports – could result in the loss of up to 4.8 million US jobs. Ouch.

If Trump’s economic policies result in a slower-growing US economy, either directly through poorly designed interventions, or indirectly via a loss in investment or hiring intentions from nervous firms (again, à la Brexit), we would expect the demand for New Zealand’s exports to drop.

His protectionism is possible his worse possibly, after nuclear proliferation.

538 report:

Halloween may be over, but there’s still a zombie among us: the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP is the trade deal many thought was already killed off, but it just won’t go away. During the primaries, it served as a policy pinata — with Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, in particular, taking turns excoriating it as a raw deal for American workers. Hillary Clinton, once a supporter, came out against it, too. (She now says the final version of the treaty doesn’t mean her standards.)

But the Obama administration, which negotiated the treaty, isn’t giving up on it. The White House is pressuring Congress to approve the 12-nation trade deal during the lame-duck session after the election. And on Thursday, Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers published a report warning that if the TPP isn’t passed, a China-backed trade agreement will takes its place. That could put U.S. manufacturers at a disadvantage when they try to sell to customers in Japan and other Asian nations. The report argues that if China’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership goes into effect, at least 35 U.S. industries as diverse as plastics, fishing and footwear will be at risk of increased competition from China in the Japanese market.

I’d be surprised if Obama can get it through. He has no chance if Trump wins but a reasonable chance if Clinton wins so all the anti-trade activists in NZ should be praying that Trump wins.

The Legatum 2016 Prosperity Index is out and the top 10 are:

1. New Zealand 79.3
2. Norway 78.7
3. Finland 78.6
4. Switzerland 78.1
5. Canada 77.7
6. Australia 77.5
7. Netherlands 77.4
8. Sweden 77.4
9. Denmark 77.4
10. United Kingdom 77.2

The sub-rankings for NZ are:

• Economic quality 1st
• Social capital 1st
• Business environment 2nd
• Governance 2nd
• Personal freedom 3rd
• Health 12th
• Natural environment 13th
• Education 15th
• Safety & security 19th

Their commentary includes:

New Zealand has the strongest society in the world, with 99% of New Zealanders saying they can rely on family and friends in times of need. This social strength has been proved globally to not only have a significant impact on wellbeing, but on economic growth also. New Zealand’s mighty Social Capital performance is certainly at the heart of its success. …

The Business Environment sub-index has risen from 11th to 2nd over the past decade. This is the result of infrastructure improvement – namely greater broadband penetration – but crucially also structural changes. Labour market flexibility has risen noticeably, as has access to affordable financial services or credit for businesses. New Zealand now scores the maximum possible on ease of getting credit. Other areas crucial to New Zealand industry, particularly its highly innovative sectors such as bio-tech, like IP protection, has been improved. The result of this reform is that New Zealand has one of the best environments for business in the world …

Ranked 20th in 2007, the country now ranks 12th in the Health sub-index. This improvement is particularly notable in comparison to UK performance. The two countries’ health systems are the most comparable in the world, and both set out on very similar reforms to the service commissioning process. New Zealand’s ‘Alliance’ model, brought together not just GPs (as in the UK model of reform), but professionals from across the local healthcare sector, encompassing multiple different service providers, from the ambulance service, to local clinics, to major hospitals. Its progress in the Health sub-index has far outstripped that of the UK. In 2007, New Zealand ranked 20th in this sub-index and the UK 22nd. In 2016, the UK still ranks similarly at 20th, but New Zealand has climbed to 12th.

A long way from the hell hole that some opposition politicians make NZ out to be.

The Herald reports:

But the Prime Minister said like many “big personalities” who have tried in the past, it wasn’t easy to get into Parliament.

“There are plenty of people who have come into politics with quite a bit of cash and a big personality and haven’t really got there,” he said.

“I think it is very unlikely that he’d get above 5 per cent, but I mean if Labour and the Greens really implode he could.

Not sure Labour imploding is very unlikely. If the best they can come up with after two years of studying the future of work is a new tax on employers, their propensity for self-immolation should not be under-estimated.

Liam Hehir writes:

If you do arrive home on Wednesday next week to find that Donald Trump has somehow pulled it off, my advice would be to try not to worry too much about it. There will be an awful lot of hysterics from the media, of course. Nevertheless, things will probably work out OK.

In the forlorn hope that I will not be accused of being a Trump supporter for saying that, let me be clear that I cannot stand the man. If I were an American, I could never vote for him. At the start of this campaign my estimation was that he was a vulgar charlatan – and nothing that’s happened since has given me cause to reconsider that view.

That low opinion aside, the hysteria from the New Zealand media about this election has been over the top.

As an illustration of this, you needn’t look any further by an opinion piece recently published by Left-of-Centre broadcaster Radio New Zealand. The article condemns Trump for refusing to accept the legitimacy of the election in advance, of wishing to jail his opponents (based on a quip during the debate about Clinton’s alleged lawbreaking) and of fomenting violence in the pursuit of his aims. The conclusion was that Trump was threatening not only the integrity of the American electoral system – but the social contract and, indeed, civilisation itself.

Now, in fairness, I haven’t checked the author’s back catalogue of writings on American politics. It could well be that he has penned similar excoriations of those who claimed the 2000 election was stolen, of those publicly worried that the 2004 election would be stolen, against those members of the present administration who have talked of imprisoning climate change sceptics and who are acknowledged to have used the IRS to harass and attack Obama’s critics.

For all I know, he’s written similar screeds about the Clinton campaign in the wake of high-level Democratic operatives being caught on camera admitting to a strategy of trying to incite riots at Trump rallies.

Whether the criticism is consistent or one-sided hackery, it doesn’t take much reading to realise that politics and elections in the US has always been pretty dirty. That’s probably because it works – there have been some unsavoury characters in the White House over the years. The American republic has survived such people to date.

One of the dirtiest elections ever was 1800 Jefferson vs Adams.  Read all about Jefferson’s attack dog, James Callender.

One of the key reasons for this is that the whole American system of government is designed to prevent election winners from overreaching. Despite his sweeping mandate in 2008, Obama’s first two years in office were frustrated by the procedural tactics of his opposition in Congress, the Supreme Court and state governments. In substance, he’s been a pretty ineffective president since the Republican takeover of the lower House in 2010.

In the media, this has generally been called “obstructionism”. Under a Trump presidency, the terminology would flip back to “checks and balances” in pretty short order. Were Trump to overreach, he would find himself consigned to lame-duck status pretty quickly. 

He would also be loathed by the media which, despite its diminishing influence, is still a formidable opponent. In the second half of the last Bush presidency, we heard ad nauseum that “dissent was the highest form of patriotism”. For the most part, this has been set aside during the Obama presidency, with a preference for critiquing the critiques of the president. If Wikileaks is anything to go by, a similar spirit of deference and co-operation can be expected under a Clinton presidency.

Some argue the case for Trump on the basis that Clinton would face no opposition from the civil service or most of the media, while Trump would.

Having said that I still think Clinton is a preferable choice to Trump. At the end of the day Trump’s narcissism makes him an unsafe choice.

To repeat: I think Trump is an awful man who would be a terrible president. His qualifications for office are about the same as Paris Hilton’s – and I think she would probably do a better job. But if he is somehow elected, I don’t expect it to be the end of the world.

Very true. Except maybe in NZ where house prices will soar even higher as residents of New York, DC and LA flee to Auckland.

Radio NZ reports:

Small companies could suffer under a Labour Party proposal to tax employers who are not providing training, Business New Zealand says.

But Business New Zealand chief executive Kirk Hope said many employers couldn’t get local staff in the first place, whether skilled or unskilled, and so couldn’t train them.

“So the problem with the policy is that it’s a fairly blunt instrument and it wouldn’t go anywhere near addressing what is a fairly complex problem.”

Mr Hope said small businesses also might not have the capacity to deliver training.

“If you think about a small- to medium-sized business that can’t get the skills that it needs to grow it will then also be negatively affected by being taxed so that’s not really a helpful solution to what is a growing problem.

“Given there are around 500,000 businesses in New Zealand, and only 2000 of them have 100 or more employees, it would be far better to provide some form training subsidy to the small to medium enterprises to help them access industry training and organisations to provide the training and capability building that we need.”

Effectively this will be a tax on small businesses. Large businesses will be fine, but small businesses will be whacked with Robbo’s tax.

A recent survey showed only 10% of small business owners backed Labour. I suspect that number is going to shrink even further.