The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Intergenerational inequality is growing larger by the day and things will only get worse unless action is taken, an ANZ Bank report says.
It says young people are disadvantaged by a trifecta of labour market conditions that favour older skilled workers, unaffordable housing and an ageing population, in addition to a climate change crisis, which would cost future generations in more ways than one.
ANZ senior economist and report author Miles Workman said the government could narrow the gap, but it would require transformational change, which would not be easy against the backdrop of an ongoing pandemic.
He said some of New Zealand's lost economic activity may never return and international tourism was unlikely to fully recover.
Reduced business investment would also keep New Zealand's capital stock on a lower-than-otherwise path.
"That means, in short, that we can't make as much stuff," he said.
"All else equal, a smaller capital stock implies a lower productive capacity, weaker economic activity, and lower incomes than otherwise."
He said there were no silver bullets to address the problems, although there were a number of things the government could do.
Among the suggestions were to build more houses, take steps to encourage investment, broaden the tax system to include a wealth tax and apply more scrutiny to government spending.
In addition, the report said New Zealand's pension plan needed attention.
"We urgently need to take a good hard look at superannuation settings to make them fairer," he said.
"It's more complicated than just increasing the eligibility age and/or means testing."
Text by Nona Pelletier for RNZ

Grafton’s Daisy Apartment block has triggered a timely debate about the downstream impacts of multi-level developments not including on-site car parks. No provision at all. Now this building of several dozen apartments was built a couple of years ago as a model of sustainable low energy urban living. The developer, Okham, was talked up as a pioneer in getting Kiwis to ditch their dependence on cars. The rubber had hit the road – and sure enough, the surrounding neighbourhood has been swamped by carmageddon. On-street parks chocca with the vehicles from the buildings dwellers, constant problems with illegal parking, loading zones hijacked, the works. It’s a disaster for businesses, for shoppers and visitors. One business, Soni Design has had a gutsful, they’re pulling stumps, and shifting to Mount Roskill.
Now this dynamic of a multi-level residential development triggering such a crunch on nearby car parks is morphing, far beyond the CBDs of our biggest cities.
Pre-election, Phil Twyford issued a National Policy Statement. And in all urban areas with more than ten thousand people, the planning rules have been defanged. Minimum car park requirements which councils would typically insist upon, are being abolished. No minimum provisions at all. 
In my hometown, the council has already surrendered to this expedience. In the CBD, on the city centre fringe and now across suburbia, it’s game on. Vast residential developments are being rolled out with zero car parks. And they monster the surrounding on-street parks.
Now I fully appreciate, wiping the on-site car park provisions is slashing thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars off the cost of these units. It’s the wider neighbourhood that cops the price. Double parking, cars parked on the berm, on the footpath, straddling the road and the footpath, you name it.
It’s all very well for the developer to be able to sharpen the price, but to hell with the neighbours and the surrounding streets who ultimately have to sacrifice their car parks.  Call me old-school if you like, but there’s nothing sustainable about this nasty neighbourhood takeover.

President Donald Trump's campaign will join an improbable case before the Supreme Court challenging election results in Pennsylvania and other states that he lost as he tries to look past the justices' rejection of a last-gasp bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory
The high court has asked for responses by Thursday. Out of the roughly 50 lawsuits filed around the country contesting the Nov. 3 vote, Trump has lost more than 35 and the others are pending, according to an Associated Press tally.
The suit from the Texas attorney general, Republican Ken Paxton, demands that the 62 total Electoral College votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin be invalidated. That's enough, if set aside, to swing the election to Trump. Paxton's suit repeats a litany of false, disproven and unsupported allegations about mail-in ballots and voting in the four battlegrounds.
“We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case,” Trump said. “This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!”
Legal experts dismissed Paxton's filing as the latest and perhaps longest legal shot since Election Day, and officials in the four states sharply criticized Paxton. “I feel sorry for Texans that their tax dollars are being wasted on such a genuinely embarrassing lawsuit,” Wisconsin's attorney general, Josh Kaul, said.
The Supreme Court, without comment Tuesday, refused to call into question the certification process in Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf, D-Pa., already has certified Biden’s victory and the state’s 20 electors are to meet on Dec. 14 to cast their votes for the former vice president.
In any case, Biden won 306 electoral votes, so even if Pennsylvania’s results had been in doubt, he still would have more than the 270 electoral votes needed to become president.
Shortly before tweeting about joining Paxton's case, Trump distanced himself from the Pennsylvania challenge, saying it wasn't his. “The case everyone has been waiting for is the State's case with Texas and numerous others joining," he said.
The court’s decision not to intervene in Pennsylvania came in a suit led by Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and GOP congressional candidate and Trump favorite Sean Parnell, who lost to Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa.
“Even Trump appointees & Republicans saw this for what it was: a charade,” Lamb said on Twitter.
In court filings, lawyers for Pennsylvania and Wolf, said the suit’s claims were “fundamentally frivolous” and its request “one of the most dramatic, disruptive invocations of judicial power in the history of the Republic.”
“No court has ever issued an order nullifying a governor’s certification of presidential election results,” they wrote.
Having lost the request for the court to intervene immediately, Greg Teufel, a lawyer for Kelly and Parnell, said he would request that the court consider the case on its underlying merits on an expedited basis.
Still, hopes for immediate intervention concerning the election “substantially dimmed” with the court’s action Tuesday, Teufel said.
In their underlying suit, Kelly, Parnell and the other Republican plaintiffs had sought to either throw out the 2.5 million mail-in ballots submitted under the law or to wipe out the election results and direct the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature to pick Pennsylvania’s presidential electors.
The Republicans argued that Pennsylvania’s expansive vote-by-mail law is unconstitutional because it required a constitutional amendment to authorize its provisions. Just one Republican state lawmaker voted against its passage last year in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
Biden beat Trump by more than 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, a state Trump had won in 2016. Most mail-in ballots were submitted by Democrats.

THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Thursday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) No/Ongoing Student Fails/Sky News Dodgyness/Let's Roll

Rich countries are being urged to band together to ensure people in developing countries have fair access to Covid-19 vaccines.
New research shows nine out of ten people in the poorest countries will miss out on a vaccination next year.
Meanwhile, high-income countries, like New Zealand, have purchased enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations multiple times over.
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark is investigating whether the World Health Organisation failed to adequately warn of the pandemic.
“There's a lot of concern globally that countries with less means and capacity to procure and distribute won't be able to move anywhere near as fast.”
Clark says there will be soft power exercised around vaccines.
She says that's the trouble with countries doing it one-on-one, rather than putting the cash into a global facility.
"The COVAX Facility is specifically designed to deal with this and needs support."
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The Australian federal government is “increasingly concerned” over a flurry of trade attacks by Beijing after lamb became the latest product sanctioned by China.
Lamb joins a long list of Australian products sanctioned by China that also includes barley, timber and beef. A sixth Australian beef exporter was hit with a ban on Monday.
Tariffs up to 200 per cent were also slapped on Australian winemakers, while China also threatened Australia’s international student market.
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said the government had become “increasingly concerned” by the number of sanctions imposed by Beijing. He told parliament the government had raised the concerns directly with Beijing and left open the option of taking a complaint to the World Trade Organisation.
“These disruptions have increased significantly in recent months,” he told parliament.
“The targeted nature of Chinese government (sanctions) on Australian goods raises concerns about China’s adherence to the letter and spirit of both its ChaFTA (China-Australia Free Trade Agreement) and WTO obligations.
“We continue to raise issues of apparent potential discriminatory actions targeted against Australia. The Australian government is considering old dispute settlement options in order to support our exporters and ensure they can compete on fair terms.”
It comes after China blocked imports from JBS Brooklyn and Australian Lamb Company, two exporters that were briefly shut due to COVID-19 outbreaks.
China has continued to accept imports from lamb companies in the US that have also suffered outbreaks.
Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said the government was working to ensure the exports resumed.
“We continue to raise the recommencement of exports from these facilities with China through our agriculture counsellors and DFAT officials in Beijing,” he said.
“We remain open to constructive engagement with China and will continue to press for a relisting of these establishments as soon as possible.”
The ban comes after Beijing suggested COVID-19 may have arrived in China in frozen meat, including Australian steaks.
The claim appeared in Beijing’s mouthpiece, the Global Times, and sparked widespread derision in Australian media.
In an editorial on Tuesday, the Global Times insisted Australia was referenced just once in the piece, accusing Australian media of “attempting to deflect the blame”.
“Tracing the origin of the virus is a major issue that concerns the success or failure of humanity’s COVID-19 fight,” it read.
“The Global Times has worked hard for this. But Australian media outlets see it as a new battlefield for public opinion and political struggle.”
It comes after over a week of deteriorating relations between Beijing and Canberra, prompted by the Chinese foreign ministry tweeting an image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child.
The tweet referenced the Afghan war crimes report, which found evidence elite Australian soldiers murdered 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners.
The government and opposition have called for China to take down the tweet and apologise.
Beijing has refused to do so, while Twitter has failed to act on a request from the government to remove the post.
The Global Times said Australia’s attack on its COVID-19 claim was an attempt to distract from the damning Afghan report.
“Australia has lost its moral high ground in its troops’ brutal murders of Afghan civilians,” it said.
“Feeling embarrassed, it now wants to save face. But facts are facts. No matter how hard Australia tries to condemn China, reality will not change.”

A Government Minister is defending the Speaker, who's apologised to the Parliamentary worker he accused last year of rape.
Trevor Mallard now says the man's alleged conduct did not amount to rape.
Stuart Nash told Mike Yardley Mallard has put a real drive in to making Parliament a safe place to work.
"There are hundreds of people who work at parliament and keep the wheels of government turning. That is Trevor’s focus."
When asked why taxpayers should pick up the Speaker's legal bills, Nash says it would be chilling if people become too afraid to say something - and are sued every time they do.
Nash says since a report last year uncovered serious bullying, Mallard's drive has been to clean up the Parliamentary precinct.
Listen to the audio above as Stuart Nash and Mark Mitchell join Mike Hosking to discuss this, along with more issues making news this week.

Investment platform Sharesies has raised $25 million from new and existing investors including Trade Me, Stephen Tindall's investment company K1W1 and Icehouse Ventures.
Sharesies, which has had record growth this year off the back of a rise in new investors entering the sharemarket, will use the funds to expand its platform and support its expansion in Australia.
Brooke Roberts, co-founder and one of its three co-CEOs, said Sharesies had recorded 227 per cent user growth in 2020, demonstrating people's appetite for simple and low-cost ways to invest.
"Sharesies has grown a lot this year, with more than 250,000 Kiwis embracing the platform. We also built out our investment platform by adding US shares, so investors can access US and NZ share offerings in one place."
Roberts said the new funds would be used towards recruiting and growing the business in both New Zealand and Australia.
"As we head into 2021, we are excited to continue strengthening our platform and expand into Australia, where we feel Aussies will enthusiastically embrace the way we provide access to investment opportunities," Roberts said.
Trade Me remains the largest shareholder at 15.4 per cent while Discount Nominees - a company owned by John Benton is the second largest at 9.5 per cent.
Co-founders and co-CEOs Leighton, Brooke Roberts and Sonya Williams own 6.26 per cent each.
The capital raising also attracted new investment from US venture capital investment company Amplo which now owns 2.73 per cent and Givia Pty - a charitable trust whose directors include Xero's director Craig Winkler which owns 2.32 per cent.

U.S. regulators have released their first scientific evaluation of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and confirmed it offers strong protection, setting the stage for the government to green light the biggest vaccination effort in the nation’s history.
The analysis by Food and Drug Administration scientists comes ahead of a Thursday meeting where the FDA's independent advisers will debate if the evidence is strong enough to recommend vaccinating millions of Americans. A final FDA decision and the first shots could follow within just days.
They are among a whirlwind of developments that are expected to make multiple vaccines available by early next year, in the U.S. and beyond.
Britain on Tuesday began vaccinations with the shot made by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech. The FDA later this month will consider one developed by Moderna. Also Tuesday, a medical journal published early data suggesting a third vaccine candidate, AstraZeneca's, also protects people, though not as much as the two other frontrunners.
The vaccines emerged from an all-out worldwide race and are reaching the market less than a year after the virus was even identified — a remarkable scientific achievement that shaved years off the usual process.
The encouraging developments come as the coronavirus continues surging across much of the world. The scourge has claimed more than 1.5 million lives, including over 284,000 in the U.S., the highest toll of any country.
FDA scientists reanalyzed data from Pfizer's huge, still-unfinished study and found that so far, the vaccine appears safe and more than 90% effective across patients of different ages, races and underlying health conditions. The FDA specifically confirmed it works well in older people, who are especially vulnerable to the virus.
Thursday's public meeting will be closely watched by health authorities around the world and is considered key to bolstering confidence in the shots amid skepticism about vaccine safety among many Americans.
“We want people to see this discussion, to see the issues that are brought up, and have a vigorous discussion of the data elements by the outside experts,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in an interview. “That will be an important part of showing what goes into our decision making.”
The FDA is expected to follow its committee ’s advice, and first in line once vaccinations begin would be health care workers and nursing home residents.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla declined to predict how quickly FDA might issue a decision.
“They need to take as much time as they need to feel comfortable. It’s very important for the trust of the vaccine from the people,” he said.
Pfizer and BioNTech previously reported the shots appeared 95% effective at preventing mild to severe COVID-19 disease, based on the first 170 infections confirmed after participants' second dose. Only eight of the infections were among volunteers who had been given the real vaccine; the rest were among those who had gotten a dummy shot.
Moderna has reported nearly identical protection in tests of its vaccine, which was developed with the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
A third option, from AstraZeneca and Oxford University, appears safe and about 70% effective, according to early test results from Britain and Brazil. But that report, in the medical journal Lancet, showed that questions remain about how well it helps protect those over 55.
Still, British regulators are considering emergency use of that vaccine, too, and if it pans out, it could become the vaccine of choice in the developing world because it doesn't need to be kept in the deep freeze like Pfizer's formula.
A big question for all the coming vaccines is how long protection lasts.
FDA said partial protection appears two weeks after the first dose of the Pfizer shot, and greater protection seems to last at least two months after the second and final dose.
As for...

Survivors, families of the dead and first responders will today fill Whakatāne's Mataatua Marae on the one-year anniversary of the White Island/Whakaari eruption.
At 2.11pm on December 9 last year, the volcano, based 52.3km off the coast of Whakatāne, erupted killing 20 tourists and two tour guides.
The dead included teenagers, elderly tourists, a family of four, and two Kiwi tour guides who showed visitors around what was regarded as one of New Zealand's most unique tourism destinations.
Many of those injured or killed were Australians who had been visiting from the Ovation of the Seas cruise ship docked in Tauranga.
Those who survived spent months in intensive care units in New Zealand, Australia and others fighting for their lives and receiving multiple surgeries to treat the extensive burns suffered in the eruption.
On the anniversary today, survivors, victims' families and first responders have been invited to the marae for a commemoration service.
It's is closed to the wider public and Māori Television is the only media present. It will be livestreaming the event to the public and the livestream will also be broadcast on a big screen at Mataatua Reserve from 1pm.
Last week WorkSafe New Zealand confirmed charges had been laid against 13 parties in relation to the eruption.