The Letter
Xenophobia
Someone must have called an election. First David Cunliffe says Labour is going to change the rules for foreign
investment. Now Winston Peters is sure foreigners are stealing our fish. The Letter suspects if it was not election year
and Judith Collins had been meeting with an EC civil servant Labour would not be claiming “scandal”.
471,711
The 2013 Census reports there are half a million Asian New Zealanders. The Number of Maori is over stated as a person
only has to say they have a tiny fraction of Maori blood to be recorded as Maori even though they may regard themselves
as being of another ethnicity. (There are people who are less than 1/200th Maori. They are known at universities as
“quota” Maori). Commentators opined last week that the Maori seats may decide the election. Unlikely. The reality is the
Asian vote will be decisive.
Strategic mistake
Chinese New Zealanders have no doubt who Cunliffe and Peters are attacking. John Key’s public reluctance to be in
coalition with Peters is very good politics. The Asian community has taken note. Asian leaders have also noted with
alarm Cunliffe’s statements that Labour would like to be in coalition with NZ First. Labour to quote President Obama “is
on the wrong side of history” and could in 2014 suffer a reverse in the immigrant vote that could damage the party for
years.
Most popular NZ Chinese politician
The best known and most popular Chinese politician is Kenneth Wang . Kenneth was an ACT MP. We have attended Chinese
functions with Kenneth Wang and seen how well he is regarded. Kenneth has recorded the highest electorate vote by any
ACT candidate outside of Epsom and Wellington Central. He is the reason ACT does so well with the Asian vote. The party
is keen for him to take a senior position in the campaign. If Kenneth accepts, ACT could become the natural party for
New Zealand Chinese and be a major barrier to a Labour/NZ First government.
Innumerate
Nobel Prize winner for economics psychologist Daniel Kahneman says most people are poor at statistics. When we were on
the African Savanna we needed to be able to spot lions and hostile humans so no computer can match our human face
recognition. We did not need to know probabilities to know it was time to run. This inability to do numbers is
Kahneman’s theory why many of us make bad economic decisions like having Lotto as our retirement scheme. The evidence
seems to be mounting that David Cunliffe is innumerate. We do not know if he can add or not. The evidence is he does not
know what figures mean. He just does not understand the meaning of census data or overseas investment. A person who
knows what figures mean could not have made his mistake in the baby bonus speech.
Figures sing to him
You only have to read an article by Dr. Jamie Whyte to realize figures sing to him. In one article he quotes the BMA
(British Medical Association) saying “Anorexia nervosa affects about 2 percent of young woman and kills a fifth of suffers”. (The Times 30 May 2000). Does something in that statement seem wrong to you? Figures have meaning to Dr. Whyte so he
knew it could not be right. As he says “There are three and a half million British women between the ages of 15 and 25. If 2% of them suffer from anorexia
nervosa, that is 70,000. And if a fifth die from it, we should expect 14,000 young women to die from it a year”. Jamie Whyte says he thinks the public would notice an epidemic. Just 855 young women died in 1999 and only 13 from
anorexia nervosa.
In the land of the blind
Jamie Whyte is going to be devastating in parliament. Most MPs could not balance their cheque books. Many have
difficulty realizing the difference between their money and the taxpayer’s. Once there are more than 5 zeros their minds
mist over. Jamie Whyte is giving us a taste of what he will do as he has begun posting critiques of politicians’
speeches. David Cunliffe’s latest effort according the Herald was to establish his economic credentials. Jamie Whyte’s
analysis shows David Cunliffe has made a fool of himself. Cunliffe has actually got the effects of devaluation around
the wrong way. It makes great reading. www.act.org.nz
No disclosure
The Letter revealed that David Cunliffe was not the only Labour leadership contender to receive $1,500 from a prominent
businessman. The MP concerned has not outed himself. Under parliament’s lax disclosure rules the statements did not need
to be filed until 1 January and then follows three months when MPs can remember “gifts” or simply change their
declaration. The Registrar has ruled that MPs who are not trustees but simply beneficiaries of trusts need not disclose
gifts at all. The filings are not public until 1 July. You would have to be arrogant and reckless to think that you do
not have to disclose that your leadership primary was financed by big business. Does that sound like someone we know?
More leaving
Usually reliable sources say two more National Party MPs have indicated they are going to retire. Regardless of the
election result National will have significant renewal. Only Ross Robertson has announced his retirement from Labour.
Trevor Mallard, Phil Goff and or Annette King are not going anywhere. But David Cunliffe says "We don't need to go
through a culling process to get renewal; it is going to happen naturally through the swing of the pendulum." Yeah
Right.
Monday 17/03/2014