Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Volvo Cars says it will limit the top speed of its new cars at 180 kilometres per hours (112 miles per hour) in all markets as of next year because "too many people get seriously injured or even killed because of excessive speeding."
CEO Hakan Samuelsson says Monday that "while a speed limitation is not a cure-all, it's worth doing if we can even save one life."
He adds there are two other major causes of traffic fatalities — intoxication and distraction.
The company cited figures from the U.S. government's highway safety agency showing that 25 percent of all traffic fatalities in 2017 were caused by speeding.
Volvo Cars is based in Goteborg, Sweden, but is owned by China's Geely holding company.

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A New Zealand man's stint with ISIS has ended in a whimper.
Mark Taylor, infamously dubbed the "bumbling Jihadi", has been captured in Northern Syria.
Taylor, also known as Mohammad Daniel and Abu Abdul Rahman, burnt his New Zealand passport after going to Syria to fight for Isis.
The 42-year-old surrendered to to Kurdish troops and is now in prison.
Taylor told ABC news he constantly ran afoul of ISIS rules, and was locked up a number of times.
"The last time tey put me in prison was for a ridiculous reason, it was because I accused of drinking alcohol and making alcohol and smoking hashish."
Taylor, who had two wives, says one of his biggest regrets is that he couldn't afford to buy a slave.
The Kiwi gained notoriety after accidentally revealing his location in the Middle East on social media.
Newstalk ZB political editor Barry Soper told Andrew Dickens that he surrendered because "there was no food, no money and the basic services were pretty much collapsed in ISIS".
"He's a 42-year-old and he's known as a bumbling jihadi because over the recent years he let his location been known in the Middle East on social media."
However, Soper said Taylor, who was born in Hamilton, could cause problems if he survives.
"We can't deny him his citizenship because he is a New Zealand citizen, but what do with him when he does return, other than keeping him under very careful surveillance."
In 2014, Taylor, declared a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US, claimed he'd contacted the New Zealand government to try and get a new passport.

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So a second summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump has ended before dessert with both parties storming out of Hanoi.
I’d love to say I told you so except I didn’t tell you so. That’s because after my cynicism regarding the first summit I got attacked by a lot of you as a warmongering Trump hater who couldn’t bring himself to praise the greatest peacemaker of our time.
But the failure of the second summit is proof to me that the first summit was a mistake.
Kim came to Hanoi and demanded that sanctions were lifted. Trump said no and they all went home. But the problem is that Kim is framing everything and leading everything. Twice in nine months, he has roused the President of the United States out of the White House to make a sojourn to Asia.
Twice Kim has been pictured shaking Trump’s hands and being treated as an equal rather than as the outlier despot he really is. While Kim will never say a bad thing about Trump, the real reflection of his attitude to the States is heard as he roundly slags off lower level representatives like Pompeo and Bolton.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump kow-tows calling Kim an impressive man and ruminating about pausing military exercises in the area. With Chinese aspirations rising in the South China Seas I wouldn’t be pulling the fleet back.
The timing was also terrible for the President as a propaganda event. Instead of being seen as a world leader he attended an abortive summit while world headlines concentrated on his former lawyer calling him names like racist and conman and reaffirming the idea that the President likes the company of pornstars.
And all along Kim’s nukes sit waiting in a mountain somewhere. And while everything is on pause North Korea can potentially carry out further work on its nuclear and conventional weapons programs, upping the stakes in future talks.
I never thought Kim has given anything so far. He has disestablished a launch facility that was broken and was going to be abandoned anyway. His tests had achieved what they needed to and I believe North Korea was going to pause it’s programme anyway.
And while Trump scurries home, Kim is hanging out in Hanoi sightseeing and enjoying diplomatic relations that the Koreans have not enjoyed for decades.
Much is made at home of Trump’s success in getting Kim to the table. That is ignorant of the US attitude of maximum pressure that has existed since the 50s. The Koreans have been begging for respect and a summit for 50 years. Mr Trump was the first of nine presidents to grant that to them and in doing so North Korea is enjoying better times with no relief for their own oppressed and starved people and no relinquishing of the nuclear arsenal.
There was a better way of handling all this rather than Trump’s grandstanding for some grandiose clicks and tweets.

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The number of arrests in New Zealand for strangulation could be just the tip of the iceberg. 
Figures this morning reveal that since a new violence law came into effect in December making strangling or suffocating a partner an criminal offence, police have arrested 416 - or the equivalent of five a day.
The shocking figures have outraged Andrew Dickens, who says that the figures are "incredible".
"This was a quarter of a year. Let's times that by four. It could be, at the end of this year, we will have found 1600 people arrested for strangling people in this country, they are only the ones we've arrested.
"We don't know about all the others in the privacy of their home doing their own version of domestic violence that nobody knows about."
Dickens says that we have spent years on White Ribbon and domestic violence campaigns, but this shows that New Zealand is once again a nation of domestic violence. 
"It's such an insidious way of asserting power."
Talkback callers shared their experiences with him, including how it is not just between male and female lovers, but how it happens between parents and children and same-sex partners.

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Here we go again - another debate about old buildings, history and legacy and of course, money.
The Dominion Post reported today that the cost of Wellington’s Town Hall earthquake strengthening project looks set to expand to $130 million, as contractors are understood to be counting on a $20m contingency fund.
It may officially stand at $112.4m as reported yesterday, but capital developers say the cost of Wellington’s Town Hall project will rise by a further $20m and that everyone I the construction industry knew that.
Add to that the fact that the Council’s Chief Executive Kevin Lavery said last week that the price of the contract could not be fixed because of the high demand for construction and workers in the city, then you have to feel that the Town Hall project could end out being a never ending money pit.
David Farrar figured out that if the project costs $130 million then that would force every household in Wellington to pay $1800 each. He reckons it’s a terrible idea and the money should be spent on libraries and parks and not a big hall for what he calls the elites.
Another critic calls the hall an old dog and he reckons it would be better and cheaper to just keep the façade and build a new building to modern standards behind it.
While I can understand that sentiment, I can also understand the desire to fix the building because it is a classic with a history.  Opened in 1904, it used to have a handsome 150 foot tall clock tower which was removed after the Napier Earthquake. Now that showed some forward thinking.  Such a pity they didn’t maintain the hall all through last century.
There’s the famous story about when Kenny Rogers and the First Edition played in the 70s.  When they hit a big note the stage ceiling collapsed on them, dropping pigeon bodies, empty and dead eggs, nesting material and plaster rubble and dust all over the stage and the band's equipment.
The Hall, by the way, has been rated one of the best in the world for acoustic quality. Indeed back in ’86, I saw Simply Red there.  The band lowered their volume and Mick Hucknell put aside the mic and sang without amplification and it sounded amazing and Mick said it was a hell of a room.
Now, New Zealand is a young country and there’s not a lot of history or historical buildings anyway, and the ones we do have are ticking over 100 years old.  So of course they’re going to be expensive to maintain, but they become even more expensive the more they are delayed. And we would be far the poorer without the little history we have preserved. Maybe we could do this better.
The Royal Albert Hall in London was built in 1871 and has undergone a slow and continual renovation programme since the 90s which so far has cost $80 million. It’s also a charitable trust supported by their lottery and the National Trust and not tax or ratepayers.
They know a bit about history, the Brits, and they know how to preserve it.  It is something we were been terrible at through the 20th Century.  How about we just admit we’ve been dumb.  Fix the good stuff up and not make the same mistakes through the next 100 years.

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Aucklanders will be able to have their say on a proposal to lower the speed limit on 10 per cent of the city's roads.
Reducing speed limits will help towards ending Auckland's "road safety crisis".
Auckland Transport is proposing to drop speeds on the majority of the streets in the central city from 50km/h to 30km/h.
Chief executive Shane Ellison said safety was the primary concern for them.
"In 2017, over 800 people were killed or seriously injured on Auckland's roads. These are real people and the human cost of these tragedies are real as well."
The proposed bylaw will be put out for public consultation from Thursday, February 28 until March 31 and could be in place by August.
Hundreds of streets are on the list and the majority are in or around Auckland's CBD, including Wynyard Quarter and surrounding areas such as Freemans Bay and St Heliers.
AT chairman Dr Lester Levy says lowering speeds is one of the quickest and most effective tools the organisation has to reduce road trauma.
"Auckland is facing a road safety crisis and our top priority is to address this," he said.
While the Automobile Association supports efforts to bring down speeds on high-risk roads, it will be calling on AT to dial back its proposal.
Spokesman Barney Irvine said the clear message from Auckland AA Members is that, in its current form, it's a step too far.
"People are pretty open to the idea of safer speeds in the central city, but a blanket 30km/h limit just doesn't pass the credibility test," he said.
"On top of that, the Transport Agency and its Speed Management Guide recommend 40km/h for most roads in the CBD, and AT has shown no evidence to say we need to go below that."
The AA will therefore be calling on AT to instead opt for a 40km/h CBD limit.
Ellison says if you are a pedestrian and you are hit by a car travelling at 50km/h your chance of dying is 80 per cent.
"If that speed is reduced to 30km/h and you're hit as a pedestrian - your chances of dying drops to 10 per cent."
Levy said recent research from Monash University in Melbourne showed a significant difference between 40km/h and 30/km/h.
"In a trial they've undertaken in Melbourne, where they were going to do 40 - they've now reduced it to 30."
He said the World Health Organisation also recommends 30km/h when there is a high residential population and high pedestrianisation.
"This is very much in line with research and international practice."
There are also changes proposed outside of the central city.
Rodney Local Board member Louise Johnston said they did not have footpaths, traffic lights or pedestrian crossings - but they have 80km/h roads next to schools.
A crash on the motorway last year still haunts her.
She says a year 12 girl is lucky to be alive after she was hit by a truck at the Coatesville and Riverhead Highway intersection.
After that accident, she said AT changed the speed to 60km/h and there have been significantly fewer accidents there.
"I'll remember that, and everyone who was there and heard the screams will remember that for the rest of their lives as well."
Public consultation on the proposed plans is open for submissions tomorrow until Sunday 31 March.

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Yesterday my Facebook started pinging as the connections started sharing some sad news.  It’s always worrying when you feel your phone buzzing away in your pocket as the hive connects and gossips.
The news was that Dmitri Edwards had died, before his time at 49.
Dmitri. Dom. He did ZM nights and fill in shifts in Wellington back in the 90s. He was a sports editor at Radio New Zealand for 10 years and then worked at Beach FM on the Kapiti coast. After a restructure or two too many Dmitri quit the broadcasting game and went to work on the buses.
I never worked with Dmitri but he worked with other mates of mine and we chatted whenever we met and had a couple of epic nights together.  When he died yesterday, I was shocked and so was everyone I knew. He’d had a stroke at work on Friday and while things looked ok for a day, his condition worsened and he slipped away.
The reason I mention this is that I woke up this morning and saw his death had made the papers. His family had made the claim that the situation at NZ Bus in Wellington was so farcical and chaotic that the stress of Dmitri’s job was a contributing factor to his stroke.
I can confirm this because I phoned Dmitri a few months ago knowing that his job was as an operation manager.  Knowing that the Wellington Bus service was a nightmare, I asked him about it. 
He confirmed it’s a nightmare: the schedule revamp that doesn’t work, the lack of drivers to fulfil the promises that NZ Bus made to Wellington. He was tearing his hair out.
Dmitri had been there since 2012 running the ops, the schedules and the drivers. Last Friday he was midway through his shift.  He’d already made 85 changes to the schedules and drivers.
A bad day normally involves 20 changes in an entire shift. A bad day. And then he had his ultimately fatal stroke.
His family recognise that there are many factors behind strokes but say the working conditions at NZ Bus were the final straw.
So, in the memory of Dmitri, I’m going to say enough is enough.  I know public transport operation is a devilishly complex beast, but the suits and the brains behind bus operations around the country keep getting it wrong. 
The schedule revamps that look good on paper but are beyond the capabilities of the companies that won the tender.  The driver shortages that are chronic spurred on by the low wages which you can sheet home to the cut rate tender the bus companies made in the first place to get the gig.  The shuffling of drivers from one area of shortage to another because the shortage is worse. Auckland has a driver shortage but drivers were siphoned off to Tauranga because their shortage was worse.
The council and transport middle management who work their eight hour days at their desks staring at computer screens in a fantasy world of what is possible and have little idea of what’s going on on the street.
This has got to stop.  Because public transport can work and has worked.  I’ve used it all my life.  But everytime we cock it up, it gives its critics another chance to put the boot in and that makes it worse for everyone - including the snobs in their cars.

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This Government is lurching towards another embarrassing stuff up, either based on their naiveté, or their incompetence, or a belief they can do whatever they like because they know best.
Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin has announced that the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Bill will be deferred to deal with problems caused by the select committee process.
This is the bill that streamlines these administrative processes as they try to make it easier to do the paperwork online.  But it also attracted some controversy when it outlined ways for transgender people to self-identify their gender. It’s a big change from the current regime which is a Family Court process that requires evidence of medical advice and treatment.
This change caused a lot of surprise and condemnation when it came to light and a lot of mickey taking.  Callers to talkback were amazed that you might be able to change something as fundamental as your gender without a burden of third party impartial proof and assessment.  I had people texting me and asking that if they self-identified as wealthy or attractive would it work?
So why has the whole idea been put on hold?  Did the government just get cold feet, the way they've been getting cold feet on all sorts of transformative policies they've floated?
Tracey Martin said there has been inadequate public consultation given how significant the proposed changes are and the clauses were added at select committee after submissions on the bill had closed. Can I just repeat that - clauses added after submissions had closed!
Frankly, this is worse than the Government thinking it went too far.  This is a fundamental cock up, if you’ll excuse the term, but it feels apt. 
The whole point of select committees is to raise some ideas, prepare some legislation and ask for submissions on the proposed rules and after three readings come up with some laws.  If you throw in un-notified changes after submissions close, you are flaunting the entire process of making law.
At its worst, you could call it authoritarian and dictatorial.  We’ll just make up whatever law we like and enforce it. 
Well done to Crown Law for picking this up, but it raises some big questions about the way this Government is working.  Are they just stupid?  Or do they have a radical agenda they’re trying to sneak under the radar?
Meanwhile, transgender activists are quite upset the whole things been put on hold.  What about all those people that have differing genders on their driving licences and their birth certificates when it comes to a situation where they need two IDs. Well frankly that’s not enough an excuse to throw away the democratic process.
What about students forced to wear the wrong uniforms or go to the wrong toilet? One thing I know from the families I have known dealing with this stuff is that negotiation and communication amongst the affected parties is always what is needed most rather than a law.
I also know from families facing these gender issues is that self-identification is obviously the first step. But before you can be granted the power to change legal documents, however you feel, there has to be a burden of proof and approval from an independent third party.  At the moment, that’s the family court.  That could change, but providing independent evidence should not.

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The capital gains tax debate rumbled on over the weekend.  Maybe it’s something in the weekend air but there seemed to be more opinion writers in the weekend media who wanted a Capital Gains Tax than there were during the week and there were some common themes amongst them all.
They all banged on about the concept of fairness saying how is it fair that not all income is taxed. Fairness is an easy argument but it cuts both ways.  If you want to go down the fairness avenue then you end out asking yourself why is it fair that some people are asked to pay a larger percentage of their income than others.  How is it fair that someone paid up to 70 grand effectively pay 20 per cent of their income but over that anywhere up to 33 per cent.
Fairness is a weak argument for a capital gains tax but it’s also a stronger argument against a progressive tax regime.
The other weakness of the weekend’s argument for a CGT was the use over and over again of the residential property market as the driver.  Some opinion writers even thought that the family home should not be exempt.
Now that’s an interesting idea because I don’t know about you but I’ve never found any real capital gain from buying and selling the family home. Because when I’ve sold the family home I’ve had to buy a new family home in the same market and strangely enough the house I’ve had to buy has had the same capital gain.  It’s about relativity.
With hard work and financial management I can see capital gain from investment property but there’s two things there.  Firstly rental income is subject to tax so the government gets some cash and secondly there’s already a capital gains tax on that sector with the brightline test.
Where their fairness argument really comes unstuck is on small and medium sized businesses.  That sector seemed barely mentioned in their articles but that’s the sector that going to get hit the hardest.
Small enterprises are firms with fewer than 20 employees. They make up the majority of businesses in NZ and are the backbone of our economy. They employ 29 per cent of our workforce and contribute over a quarter of our GDP.
These are the people who take a risk.  Generate revenue.  Pay tax on that revenue.  Pay GST on that revenue.  The people who hire people through that revenue and pay them wages which the government taxes. But then at the end of the day when they sell the business to retire and it has grown it over $5 million then the government will say thanks very much for a lifetime of work and take a third of that money away from them.
What people forget is that owners of small businesses don’t really pay themselves. In fact, one business mentor I’ve spoken with said that any small business owner that pays themselves a salary is not worth supporting. Their pay is whatever the profit is and particularly in the early days those margins are negligible.
Why we would penalise the backbone of the economy is beyond me. And I was watching the news last night and they were talking about a recent MYOB survey of small business owners which shows just how much pressure they’re under.  Nearly a third (31 per cent) report experiencing a mental health condition since starting or taking over their business.
Of those who have been affected by a mental health condition, more than half (59 per cent) say they experienced depression, while two-fifths (41 per cent) say they had anxiety.
MYOB country manager Ingrid Cronin-Knight says small business owners tend to put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform, maintain their business, pay staff and earn a living, which can lead to increased levels of stress and anxiety.
Add a capital gains tax and take a third of their money when they try to quit and you have to ask yourself what's fair about that.

The capital gains tax debate rumbled on over the weekend.  Maybe it’s something in the weekend air but there seemed to be more opinion writers in the weekend media who wanted a Capital Gains Tax than there were during the week and there were some common themes amongst them all.
They all banged on about the concept of fairness saying how is it fair that not all income is taxed. Fairness is an easy argument but it cuts both ways.  If you want to go down the fairness avenue then you end out asking yourself why is it fair that some people are asked to pay a larger percentage of their income than others.  How is it fair that someone paid up to 70 grand effectively pay 20 per cent of their income but over that anywhere up to 33 per cent.
Fairness is a weak argument for a capital gains tax but it’s also a stronger argument against a progressive tax regime.
The other weakness of the weekend’s argument for a CGT was the use over and over again of the residential property market as the driver.  Some opinion writers even thought that the family home should not be exempt.
Now that’s an interesting idea because I don’t know about you but I’ve never found any real capital gain from buying and selling the family home. Because when I’ve sold the family home I’ve had to buy a new family home in the same market and strangely enough the house I’ve had to buy has had the same capital gain.  It’s about relativity.
With hard work and financial management I can see capital gain from investment property but there’s two things there.  Firstly rental income is subject to tax so the government gets some cash and secondly there’s already a capital gains tax on that sector with the brightline test.
Where their fairness argument really comes unstuck is on small and medium sized businesses.  That sector seemed barely mentioned in their articles but that’s the sector that going to get hit the hardest.
Small enterprises are firms with fewer than 20 employees. They make up the majority of businesses in NZ and are the backbone of our economy. They employ 29 per cent of our workforce and contribute over a quarter of our GDP.
These are the people who take a risk.  Generate revenue.  Pay tax on that revenue.  Pay GST on that revenue.  The people who hire people through that revenue and pay them wages which the government taxes. But then at the end of the day when they sell the business to retire and it has grown it over $5 million then the government will say thanks very much for a lifetime of work and take a third of that money away from them.
What people forget is that owners of small businesses don’t really pay themselves. In fact, one business mentor I’ve spoken with said that any small business owner that pays themselves a salary is not worth supporting. Their pay is whatever the profit is and particularly in the early days those margins are negligible.
Why we would penalise the backbone of the economy is beyond me. And I was watching the news last night and they were talking about a recent MYOB survey of small business owners which shows just how much pressure they’re under.  Nearly a third (31 per cent) report experiencing a mental health condition since starting or taking over their business.
Of those who have been affected by a mental health condition, more than half (59 per cent) say they experienced depression, while two-fifths (41 per cent) say they had anxiety.
MYOB country manager Ingrid Cronin-Knight says small business owners tend to put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform, maintain their business, pay staff and earn a living, which can lead to increased levels of stress and anxiety.
Add a capital gains tax and take a third of their money when they try to quit and you have to ask yourself what's fair about that.