Property Investors Federation’s Richard Woodd and Tim Horsbrugh on how runaway house prices hit a brick wall. Or have they? On the day that the roof fell in on New Zealand’s landlords the president of the Taranaki Property Investors Association Richard Woodd (pictured) delivered a speech on the technicalities of moving houses. Actually of transporting the house itself from one location to another. Moving house, as in putting them on a truck and then installing them somewhere else, is a peculiarity of the residential side of the New Zealand property sector. Another peculiarity is how in an agrarian nation in…

Royal Family, New Zealand, Coronation Street populated by strong women and biddable blokes New Zealand was cited during the Oprah show as a refuge for the expatriate branch of the royal family. “We had suggested New Zealand, South Africa, Canada,” said Meghan to Winfrey, detailing her proposal for establishing possible residency in the commonwealth. In court circles Harry remains viewed as being a bit of a chump. How then could this simple soul have been instrumental in igniting the most embarrassing episode to be endured by the Royal Family since the Abdication in 1936 of Harry’s great great uncle King…

New Zealand South Seas Switzerland revisited role needs selective electronic niche selling A global specialist in niche marketing has described focused selling as the most overlooked area in New Zealand climate preparedness. Mathew Collins said that with the era of bulk commodity exporting fading now looming in its place is a new epoch of selective, high process and high value product selling. This new specialised premium era of exporting is imminent as a direct result of the New Zealand government’s determination to include food production restrictions in a rigidly-enforced regime of conformity to international climate change standards. Mathew Collins founder…

Sino Sting Robbed New Zealand of home grown computer base Forty years ago New Zealand’s Hutt Valley was a mini Silicon Valley as a world research and development focus for information technology. This was not realised in New Zealand, but it was grasped in China which sought to transfer ground-breaking technology to China, and do so without paying for it. The computer technology developed in the Hutt Valley (pictured) was a breakthrough in that it speeded up computing to the point at which it seemed to behave like the human brain. For many years there was a coordinated operation centred…

Target Marketeers take advantage of Atonement Cult In today’s age of the apology proliferating atonements are encouraging another fast-growth fashion in which commercial interests seek opportunities to publicly demonstrate cohesion with diversity and equality. Advertisers are now on the look-out for mainstream media transgressions that allow them to mass signal their own virtue by withdrawing their patronage from selective broadcast programmes and even from print titles. Their target demographic is composed of a university-catchment in its later teens and on the verge of entering middle age, the advertising agency prime target sector. In order to reach this cherished segment the…

Orchestrated Litany of Half-Truths Gags Watchdogs Eliminating natural gas will cripple a hospitality industry already reeling from the absence of foreign tourists. Restaurants and hotels rely on natural gas to provide low cost power. Especially in kitchens. But the value to the hospitality industry of natural gas is being tossed aside as the New Zealand Labour government sacrifices small businesses in the rush to accelerate man-made climate anxiety. The Labour government is determined to be Best In Show internationally in the climate alarmism stakes. The ACT party in Parliament has been silenced, and even bends a climate knee because it…

Mysterious Balkan War operative traced to renowned private school in England A soldier who in three armies participated in at least four wars and changed the face of United Nations has been identified as a pupil of Hill Brow Preparatory School in Somerset recognised as epitomising the high noon of private schools in the 1950s when Bill Foxton was there. The bizarre disclosure came when the young Foxton was identified in a school photo as the near-mythical soldier of fortune by the mother of his daughter Billie. The mother is Sally Becker aka the Angel of Mostar who teamed up…

Dismissal of Prime Minister in 1975 proves impeachment only legal if former President holds office Because only a serving public official can be impeached the former president’s accusers will have to discover hitherto hidden constitutional prerogatives in order to legitimise their case against him. Capitol Hill impeachers must first somehow identify the former president as a current public or federal official. Only then does he become impeachable, stoppable. The notion of a retrospective impeachment has no precedent. Impeachment crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers. It is derived from the old Norman English word meaning to stop or otherwise impede.…

Converged social and broadcast mix formula will challenge shared orthodoxy In a welter of claims and counter claims centred on social media the fadeout of the Trump presidency brings it full circle to its point of departure just because President Trump detonated a press rage by dealing directly with the public through social media. At the outset of his campaign Donald Trump by-passed the conventional media by using social media to communicate with anyone and everyone anywhere. Everyday people however remote from Washington now enjoyed the same access to Donald Trump’s confidences as members of the White House press corps,…

Canberra and Wellington Awkward exhibitions of Righteousness generate only contempt China does not change. But the perceptions of it do. In recent weeks attempts by liberal democracies in Australia and New Zealand to influence China via governmental morality signalling mechanisms have had diametrically the opposite effect of the virtuously-anticipated outcomes. In Australia the government instituted charges against its soldiers for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan and in doing so ensured that pictorial evidence of several supposed incidents was made publicly available to support these accusations. The result? Chinese media quickly responded with conflated images designed to portray Australia’s soldiers in…

Diversity, Multiculturalism shunted aside in Councils CBD “Quick Win” Wellington City Council’s scheme to turn the capital’s restaurant and entertainment district into a car-free zone was sprung on business proprietors there in the middle of the Covid–19 series of alerts. Traders in the Courtenay Place district have united under their SOS (save our street) banner and are stating bluntly that the car ban will put them out of business. Businesses in the area now believe that the council’s ambition to implement the scheme so rapidly meant that the time was similarly compressed for the multi-racial restaurant proprietors to learn about…