Andrew Dickens Afternoons

The most amazing thing about this Tax Working Group report is just how much people want to talk about it. And that’s a good thing because the more we talk about things the more we can understand things and make the right decisions.
Yesterday I opened the lines at one and then for three hours we have a never-ending stream of calls. I tried to change the subject to talk about zoos. But you wouldn’t have a bar of it.
So imagine my surprise this morning as I was walking my dog that person after person came up to me and started talking tax. Do I look like an accountant?
One dog walker used a good word and I warned her I’d use it this afternoon. She said the real reason for the Tax Working Group is for conditioning. To raise the spectre of a big old hairy chested broad and comprehensive Capital Gains tax to scare the bejesus out of us so that come April when the government releases a scaled-down property capital gains tax we’d breathe a sigh of relief.
It’s a theory favoured by many, particularly in the business world.
Of course, a lot of the scrutiny now falls on Winston Peters, who has the ability to boycott any move towards a CGT.  Yesterday Winston got a bit of heat from the farming community after appearing on thecountry.co.nz and telling Rowena Duncum that Farmers would not be hit by a Capital Gains Tax. But then lo and behold out comes a tax on farms apart from the farmhouse and an acre around it.
People said that Winston has been telling mistruths.
Or maybe he isn’t.
It could be that Rowena got herself a scoop and the first indication that NZ First is not going to let a wholesale tax reformation happen. Let’s wait and see. 
So let’s remind ourselves that we already have a capital gains tax with the bright line test for property investors.
Let’s also remind ourselves that this is a suggestion from a group and not concrete government policy.
Let’s also dismiss the idea that the government sent the group back after the interim report with a directive to include a capital gains tax. The interim report had a CGT but also an indication it was going to be hard. The only real difference is that for this report 3 members of the Group have said they’re not in support of a comprehensive CGT but they are in favour of a tax on investment property.
So my call on the whole thing is that we are being conditioned. Brace yourself for a stronger brightline test. And don’t panic yet.
Meanwhile on zoos.  I can’t see them existing in 25 years time.

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Another day, another storm in the gender identity teacup.
To support Plunket, the chocolate company Whittakers has launched a gender reveal version of their coconut ice blocks.
I know.  Already this sounds like a ridiculous story.  There are some people in marketing departments who really do over think things.
Here’s the logic.  The new coconut Ice blocks normally come in pink.  So someone thought if we colour some blue, it would be like the baby colours. 
That led to someone thinking, why don’t we colour some blue and some pink but not label them as either pink or blue so when people open them up it’s a surprise as to what colour you get and that’s like the surprise when you hear what gender a baby is? 
And gender reveal parties that are all the rage right now, so that’s cool.  And since this is all about babies, let’s donate some money to Plunket at the same time we sell our pink and blue blocks of coconut ice.
Imagine how horrific the brainstorming meeting that came up with this was.  The whole idea is clunky, antiquated, artificial and cynical.  To be honest, it doesn’t make me want to buy the product.  Just sell some coconut ice and give some money to Plunket.
But then Twitter found out and things got weirder. The gender police got stuck into Whittakers. 
Firstly for their antiquated binary notions of gender. Someone from Rainbow Youth said it erases many of the identities that exist in the rainbow community. It ignores the intersex and the trans gender which as we know can make up two per cent of the population.
A Victoria University sociologist who recently came out as intersex said that while she supports Whitaker’s supporting Plunket, the marketing move is one of many "small everyday reminders that me and trans people and gender fluid people are not included in society to its full extent. These things seem minor but they add up".
Well, I’m sorry but it is minor.  Can the colour of a coconut ice bar truly erase the identities that exist in the rainbow community.  This is a level of hyperbole and exaggeration that does no one any favours at all.
It’s very similar to the opinion piece in the paper the other day criticising the move to allow people to self-identify their gender which led to the writer claiming that men would do this to enable themselves to enter women’s changing rooms
This was shot down by the Privacy Commissioner John Edwards who said, “Are men really going to complete and file a statutory declaration to change their declared gender on official documents just so they can sit in a women’s changing room with their genitals on display? Really? I’m informed there are much more straightforward ways to be a perv.” Exactly.
Both sides of the gender battlefield are as bad as each other in over egging the issues. Frankly  I’ve never understood the fascination with gender and sexuality issues.  It’s your business, nobody else’s.
But a final word on gender reveal parties.  I remember the constant gender questioning when we were having children.  “What are you having?”  they’d say.  “A boy or a girl?” “ We’re having a baby”, I’d say.  That’s all that matters

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David Bain was "shocked to the core" to hear his groomsman had committed a second murder.
Paul Wilson, 55, also known as Paul Tainui, has pleaded guilty to raping and murdering Christchurch 27-year-old Nicole Tuxford in Merivale last year.
He raped and murdered 21-year-old West Coast woman, Kimberly Schroder, in 1994.
Wilson met Bain in jail and was groomsman at Bain's 2014 wedding.
Joe Karam, long-time advocate for Bain, says Bain is distressed Wilson inflicted such terrible disaster on the victim and her family.
He says Bain thought his friend was managing life well and there was no indication he wasn't.
Wilson lay in wait for eight hours overnight, before 27-year-old Nicole Marie Tuxford arrived back in her Merivale home – in April last year.
Wilson has pleaded guilty to sexual violation in the High Court in Christchurch this morning.
On talkback this afternoon, people shared their experiences with criminals – including one who knew Paul Wilson in
Caller Lyall met Wilson while on a tour of Papamoa Prison. He had dinner with him as part of the tour, and that Wilson surprised him.
“I couldn’t help himself and I asked him ‘what did you do’? He said ‘I won’t tell you that, but what I will say is that if this was France, I wouldn’t be here, as it was a crime of passion, I would have got off.”
Lyall says that Wilson seemed like a nice guy, but when he got home, he Googled and was blown away by how horrific the crime was.
“It reaffirmed my view that those people should never go to prison, they should go straight to the gallows.”
Caller Susan added her take, with her experience of befriending a gentleman who raped her daughter.
She said that at face value, he seemed like a really nice guy.
“The thing is that he also offered to be the person where my children could go when I had a protection order, the person who was going to oversee that they were okay.”
She says that she regularly appealed the parole as she did not feel he had been rehabilitated.

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So Jordan Peterson, the Canadian self help clinical psychologist guru, has come to the country, sold out, talked to his disciples and harrumphed his way through a few interviews and caused little or no upset, outrage or unrest.  And that’s a good thing.
There were a few who before his visit seemed to be willing the country into a free speech panic. The ones who were itching for someone to stand up and try and ban Jordan.  Not because they were against Jordan but because they hate the sort of people who get their knickers in a knot by people like Jordan.
That did not come to pass with the exception of a few tut-tut remarks from the peculiar people at Auckland Peace Action. Even Rachel Stewart was as welcoming as she could be by saying that when people say things you dislike then that doesn’t mean they’re the devil incarnate.
And here is the thing about Jordan Peterson.  He’s bland, really. His 12 rules that have been welcomed by many sound like just the things my Dad used to say to me when I was a kid. Stand up straight, make good friends. Discipline your kids with boundaries.  I like number nine: “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't”.  Then to prove he is a fun guy he throws in a couple of wacky ones like pet a cat in the street and don’t bother kids when they’re skateboarding.
But I’m not a huge fan of the book or the man due to a couple of things. Firstly, the books and his talks are very mellifluous, which I find surprising when one of his rules is be precise in your speech.  Particularly in his interview with Russell Brand, I found that some of his sentences were so convoluted that by the end of them he was contradicting himself and Russell was grinning.
The other problem I have with him is that he’s so grumpy in interviews. His fame can be traced to a couple of incendiary interviews with interviewers who were trying to disprove and vilify him which he defended well.  But now he takes a wary and snappy attitude into almost every interview, particularly if he senses that the interviewer might be a lefty.  This is especially so in his interview with Simon Wilson where Simon quotes him and then Jordan says he’s been taken out of context but never provides his own context leaving Simon bemused.
Many of his interviews now are not about his thoughts but the reaction to them. Which is a strange place for Jordan to be.  He hates collectivism both on the left and the right, and I love that because many on the right don’t seem to recognise the collectivism they exhibit when they behave like a mob with their practised lines.
But when he defends himself against the reactions of a minority, he often makes broad collectivist statements which brands all feminists or opponents as the same, which is exactly what he preaches against.
There’s a book written by Vox Day, a right winger, called Jordanetics, criticising him and his rise to become a generation’s Philosopher King. In an interview on Breakfast this week Jordan Peterson criticised Vox as being a man dreadfully  in love with his own voice. I laughed and hoped that underneath his steely facade that Jordan Peterson was laughing at the irony of his own words too.

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How do you want your funeral to unfold?
Death and funerals have been on Andrew Dickens mind after the loss of a family member last week.
It has also been the subject of some discussion in the media, in light of a Stuff story that highlighted the benefits of a'DIY funeral'. 
Sue Allen wrote about the cheap funeral they arranged for her friend, Paul, after he asked for the money to be spent on food and wine rather than an expensive coffin or funeral director.
Based on that, Andrew asked listeners what their funeral experiences had been like, and received some fascinating responses. 
Caller Ross spoke of how his father wanted to go from "hospital to the furnace", and it took just two days for them to get his ashes home with limited fuss involved. 
"Even doing it as simplistically as that, it was still a $5000 event, and I know dad would be cringing at the cost of that as he would have wanted it to be close to nothing." 
Caller Frenchie says that his family has measured everyone up in order to make makeshift coffins to save on the cost, as some can cost thousands of dollars. 
Vicki had a more colourful experience, as her father died while he was travelling on a cruise ship!

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Yesterday a lot of the conversation of the world centred around Shamima Begum. The Islamic girl from Bethnal Green in the East End of London.  A girl who was radicalised, left the UK for Syria and the ISIS caliphate at 15 and now aged 19 is stranded in a refugee camp in the desert wanting to come home.
It’s not something I did talkback on because really there’s no debate. A spokesperson from the Home Office said what I think we all think.  Shamima made her bed and she should lie in it.
But, the law must prevail and the UK will probably have to let her back in.  Statehood is one of the hardest things to strip and if you’re going to deny it you’d be better off denying it as someone leaves and not as they try to return
So things got interesting when Helen Clark waded in.  First on Twitter, and then on this radio station.  She said we should have more sympathy for Shamima because she was radicalised as a kid, and she’s made a terrible mistake and she should be allowed to go home under the closest security.
I certainly agree with the last part.  I'd keep a very sharp eye on her.  She’s no reformed radical.  In the past four years she’s witnessed all sorts of things, she’s seen all sorts of horrors.  She’s had two children that have died and she’s pregnant with a third.  And she seems coldly calm and unrepentant about it all She’s only 19 for goodness sake.
But Helen Clark’s statements got a lot of people’s noses out of joint. And some have emailed me.  They’re saying what right does Clark have to meddle in the business of another country. 
One said that Helen Clark should never be heard on issues and also questioned why Clark’s former advisor Heather Simpson has had an office at the Beehive. An allegation has been around the traps that Helen Clark and Heather Simpson are the real power behind the Labour Party and that they hold undue influence.
So Heather Simpson first.  Or H2 as she’s known because of her close relationship with Helen Clark over decades.  She’s been her trusted advisor as Minister of Health and Prime Minister and her time at the UN.  A couple of years ago the Labour Party employed her to sort out their campaign and organisation.  She’s currently the chair of the review into our DHBs. 
Then there’s H1.  Helen Clark, who we know well.  A career politician.  PM for a decade.  Head of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009 to 2017. 
Both these women have a wealth of institutional experience and knowledge and you’d be silly to ignore that.  If anyone knows what they’re talking about on refugee issues it’s Helen Clark.  Simpson knows more about running an efficient government than most.
Wanting these women to keep their traps shut is a strange position to take.  Because it’s against their freedom to speak.  Believing that they have undue influence is also weird. They’re paid up members of the labour Party and if they have an opinion on where it should go it’s their right.  Of course, that doesn’t mean you need to agree with anything they say but you do need to defend their right to say it.
There’s a funny convention around regarding former leaders commenting on current issues which I’ve never understood fully.  Of course if they show up the current leaders then that’s unfortunate and embarrassing. But in the dialogue about our country I personally would like to hear from the people who know the most.

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Viagogo have hit back over claims they are scamming people over Elton John tickets, saying that they offer better prices to his concerts than the legitimate re-seller site.
Legendary rocket Elton John is set to play three shows in New Zealand early next year, with standard tickets ranging from $130 through to $330.
Fans have been left distraught after tickets were snapped up quickly, with the Mission Estate concert in Napier selling out entirely during the pre-sale. 
Yesterday, promoter Michael Chugg told Andrew Dickens that those who miss out should not buy tickets from Viagogo as they would not be honoured.
"Half the time they don't even have the tickets. They're taking the money and speculating that they're going to get tickets."
Viagogo today responded to Chugg's claim. In a statement, a spokesperson claims that "a majority of tickets" are being sold through the most expensive VIP and Platinum channels, shutting out most customers.
"In fact, last week so called “platinum tickets” were already on offer on Ticketmaster (ahead of the Elton John fan club presale) for upwards of $1,000 per ticket," the spokesperson said. 
He says that Viagogo provides a competitive price to those packages, "which are just window dressing to charge triple the face value for a cheap glass of wine and a lanyard". 
“The tickets sold on Viagogo’s platform are genuine tickets that have been sold on by the original ticket purchaser in good faith."
Refusing people entry for using resold tickets is "unfair, unenforceable and illegal", the spokesperson said. 
A second Mission Estate concert has been announced.

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The Australian promoter of Elton John's upcoming New Zealand tour has addressed the ticketing problems that plagued yesterday's Napier sales and left fans who missed out feeling angry.
Michael 'Chuggi' Chugg dispelled rumours of gremlins in the ticketing system or bugs instead saying that there was just too many people wanting to go to the show.
"I've seen a few complaints about people not being able to get tickets and all that stuff but when you've got a 25,000 capacity venue and there's 60,000 people trying to buy tickets obviously a lot are going to miss out," he said. "And that's what happened."
"From the reports I'm seeing this morning it was basically just too many people."
One particular source of ire for fans was waiting online to buy tickets and then finding themselves being bumped down the queue.
"When you sell out you need to tell the 15,000 to 20,000 people that are still online that you have sold out, rather than just all of a sudden there's zero tickets," he said. "But you know, everyone keeps learning from this procedure."
"Hey, let's face it, an hour's sell out is pretty unusual and it just shows the incredible strength that Sir Elton's got and what these final shows mean to people."
Chugg also had advice - and a warning - for all those who missed out on the Mission show and for any people who miss out when tickets go onsale for Dunedin and Auckland tomorrow morning at 9am.
"I'd say to people don't panic and don't go and pay $900 for a $300 ticket. We're a year away and with the size of the show and the production there's always going to be more tickets released," he said. "Your son could decide to get married on the day of the show and you're going to have to sell your tickets. You can officially resell your tickets if you can't go to the concert. So there will be tickets across the year. Don't panic.
"But don't go and buy tickets off Viagogo or any of the other reseller sites. The tickets won't be honoured. Half the time they don't even have the tickets. They're taking the money and speculating that they're going to get tickets."
In response to the criticism, Viagogo reiterated it was a "marketplace and doesn't buy or sell tickets".
A statement from the company said it was a platform for third party sellers to sell tickets to event goers and did not set ticket prices.
"Sellers set their own prices, which may be above or below the original face value. Where demand is high and tickets are limited, prices increase. All tickets on Viagogo are valid and it is perfectly legal to resell a ticket or give it to someone else if you want to."
"The main concern for me is that people don't get ripped off," he said.
Chugg also hinted that there is a possibility that Elton John may add an extra show or two to the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour.
"People are asking me if there's going to be other shows but the itineraries very tight. We're basically coming from Australia to New Zealand and then going back to Australia," he said. "But you never know. Elton loves playing and on this final world tour he really wants to make sure he gets to as many of the real music fans, his fans, as he can. So we'll see what happens."
Mission Estate has admitted its ticketing system simply couldn't cope with "overwhelming" demand for tickets to next year's Elton John concert in Napier.
The concert is now officially sold out, with all 25,000 tickets snapped up in less than an hour.
Four per cent of fans in line were pushed to the back of the queue in the first 15 minutes of the sale, because the queuing system was "overrun", Mission Estate spokeswoman Sandra Roberts said.
As the pre-sale site went live at 9am there were over 45,000 people waiting on the website to buy tickets.
"The Queue-it system is used to moderate the amount of people going on to the Mission Estate purchasing site and it was simply overwhelmed," said Roberts.
There...

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The Education Minister Chris Hipkins has just released his review of our polytechnic education system. The blighted tertiary sector that seems to have lost its way and required you and me to stump up with $100 million to bail it out over recent years.
So Chris Hipkins has decided that the 16 existing institutes of technology and polytechnics will be brought together under one entity - the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology.
Education providers and Industry Training Organisations will also have their roles redefined.
And the whole thing is now up for consultation
I’m a graduate of the polytech system.
Back in 1982, I was a graduate of the Auckland Technical Institute’s Certificate in Journalism, which was at the time the only journalism qualification.
Over 18 weeks I was taught the basics of journalism; the writing styles, the law, how to type at 40 words per minute, how to take Teeline shorthand. I was seconded for a couple of fortnights to various media. I spent a week at the Northern Advocate in Whangarei and two weeks at Radio I in Auckland.
At the end of it, we had the basic skills and then we were snapped up by outlets where we learnt our craft on the job and under the guidance of hardened seasoned journalists. In my case, I was shipped off to Whanganui to work on a radio station. Other graduates ended out in all sorts of small towns, from Stratford to Gore and even one guy in Te Kuiti.
That’s how it worked, and it did work. It was heavily overseen by the industry we were supplying. The Technical Institute taught techniques and the industry sharpened the skills. It also understood that journalists were essentially born, not made and it's important for the industry to find the stars.
But somewhere along the line, the polytechs got bigger ideas. These days the journalism courses are university level and take three years and obviously cost an enormous amount more. Three years of theory with little practical experience.
It became a competitive, semi-privatised, neo-liberal experiment that measured itself by bums-on-seats, with the taxpayer underwriting the risk.
People have been trained in skills that were not needed, for jobs that didn't exist purely because they and their parents, in their naivete and ignorance, were prepared to pay for it. To my mind a halfway pregnant dog of a model that was neither one thing or another.
Now you hear a lot that the polytechs are to be blamed because of incompetence. But I’d remind you Governments were complicit with their policies and I’d remind you industries were complicit as well.
This is vocational training and the people with the vocations need to be helping, rather than leaving it to the boffins who don’t know the full story, and then complaining when they get it wrong.
So Chris Hipkins has decided to centralise the sector presumably under more Governmental control. Over the past week, critics have been saying that this would be ideology gone mad. The death of choice and private education. Maybe Simon Bridges will bring out his new favourite phrase that this Government is Venezuela-ing the education system.
But I’d argue that the problems in our polytechnics are already the result of ideology gone mad. A neo-liberal experiment that was done extremely poorly and a blow against the idea that private industry can always do better than Government.
Frankly, I don’t care what the ideology is. All I want is some proficiency.

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Those who use medicinal cannabis illegally are concerned that their supplies are running out. 
Radio New Zealand reports that 1200 cannabis plants in Northland were poisoned last month in an aerial cull that has been blamed on police. 
Police have refused to comment on their involvement in the drops, but local growers say that they will continue as long as the drug remains a black market activity.
The crops would have gone towards people who can't afford the high prices to obtain cannabis oil legally. 
Talkback callers told Andrew Dickens that cannabis has helped them or friends of theirs as they deal with pain. 
Caller Gee says that a friend of his uses the cannabis oil to help tend with seizures as he battled cancer.
He says that he has seen a shortage over the last two weeks, and that it has become more difficult to obtain it. Gee says that they will have to go black market in order to 
"It sucks. Why can't we have it?" 
Chronic pain patient Lisa says that people like her need medicinal cannabis, and she is disappointed that Labour has not yet made it legal, and is not happy to wait for a referendum. 
"So people are going to get it for pleasure at the same time as I get it for pain?"
She says that she can't wait until the end of 2019 for it to be legal, and that she cannot afford to obtain it either. 
That was a call echoed by many others, who say that the cost for the oil, around $900, is not affordable for them. The cost is particularly high for callers such as Susan, who is disabled and unable to work. 
She wants to see the Government subsidise the drugs so that people can actually use it.

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