Leighton Smith Podcast #328 - May 13th 2026 - Oliver Hartwich

An inventive way to encourage the understanding of the stupidity in New Zealand's governance... 

Oliver Hartwich, Executive Director of the New Zealand Initiative, has authored a novella, ‘The Martian Audit: Or, How New Zealand Repelled an Invasion Through Procedural Complexity’.  

It’s a satirical work in which Martian invaders are held off and eventually sent packing by the country’s planning system, consultation requirements, and public service culture. 

The novella is meant to entertain but reeks of reality – especially for those who have been challenged by the system. 

We also bring to your attention the latest, very significant, information about climate change. 

And we end in the mailroom with Mrs Producer.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from NEWSTALKSB. Follow this and
our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio. It's time
for all the attitude, all the opinion, all the information,
all the debate used now the Leyton Smith Podcast powered
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Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to podcasts three twenty eight for May thirteen, twenty
twenty six. Well, it's an inventive way to encourage understanding
of stupidity in New Zealand governments. Oliver heart Which the
executive director of the New Zealand Initiative, has authored a novel.
It's called The Martian Audit, or How New Zealand Repelled

(00:49):
an Invasion through Procedural Complexity. Now. It is a satirical
novella in which Martian invaders are held off and eventually
sent pagging by the country's planning system, its consultation requirements,
and its public service culture. Well, the book is meant
to entertain reeks of reality, especially for those who've been

(01:11):
challenged by the system. We shall be entertained by Oliverer
Hartwich very shortly. But first, isn't there always a butt? First?
And on this occasion it's a climate change. Now I've chosen.
This article that is dated December ten, last year, twenty
twenty five chosen for a particular reason. Here's the headline,

(01:34):
The Charmers net zero Modeling faces major credibility concerns, written
by Nick Cator, with whom we are all well familiar.
Jim Charmers net zero Modeling faces major credibility concerns. And
the reason I've chosen it, of course, is because the
Australian budget was read to the country last night and

(01:57):
now they're all suffering today from what they know is
here already and coming. But this is related to it.
In September of last year, Jim Charmers joined Anthony Albinezi
for the big reveal. Would Treasuries Modeling support the government's
twenty thirty five emissions reduction target or might it politely

(02:18):
advise the adviser that the government was bugging up the
wrong tree. The Federal Treasurer summarized the report's findings for
the Press gallery. Net zero was a substantial economic opportunity
for Australia. Quote we would be mad not to grasp it,
Charmers said. In a better world, writes Nick Cata, In

(02:38):
a better world where advice from public servants was not
constrained by groupthink or anything as mundane as an impending
performance review. The report would have rejected the idea that
the most significant economic transition since the Industrial Revolution would
conform to a timetable. It might have begun with the

(02:59):
section of uncertainty quote the future of climate change and
the net zero transformation is uncertain and will be affected
by men, interrelated and evolving factors. Close It would have
been followed by a sentence along the lines of we'd
better leave it there. Instead, the authors adopt the nauseating

(03:20):
tone of absolute certainty that distinguishes today's laptop class from
its humble predecessors, who understood the limits of forecasts. Budget
convention limits predictions to the next four years, and even
then they're little more than educated guesses. At which point
in the article there is a picture of Chris Bowen,
who is the Climate Change and Energy Minister in Australia.

(03:44):
There are three fools in Australian politics at the moment
that stand hidden shoulders above the rest. Anthony Albinizi is one,
Jim Chalmers is the second, and Chris Bowen probably probably
beats them all to the top of the Ladder for
his stupidity, Minister for Climate Change and Energy. Now the
rest of it. The rest of the article is on

(04:06):
Treasury matters and not relevant to us some, but allow
me to include these few short sentences. In the twenty
seventeen budget, for example, Treasury projected annual real GDP growth
of three percent across the next four years, or twelve
point five to five percent cumulatively. The forecast didn't come close.

(04:28):
Actual annual growth was one point nine percent, minus zero
point two percent, one point four percent, and three point
nine percent. Cumulative growth at seven percent was more than
five points lower than forecast. Yet treasuries Net zero report
abandons modesty, confidently forecasting that GDP per capita will increase

(04:53):
by thirty six than by twenty fifty if we follow
the quote ambitious but achievable path advocated by the Albanesi government.
The sheer audacity of predicting macroeconomic data with absolute precision
a quarter century ahead is enough to tell us that
the Treasury has lost the institutional restraint that once refined it. Now,

(05:17):
like it or not, we have our own group of
fools in this country when it comes to climate change.
But fortunately there is news afoot that can straighten them out,
although I doubt very much whether they have the ability
to make the adjustment, but we shall investigate that further
after our discussion with Oliver Hartwich, who will be here

(05:38):
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(06:40):
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Always read the label and users directed, and see your
doctor if systems persist. Farmer Broker Auckland, let me begin

(07:20):
this interview this way. The High Council of Mars convened
in the chamber carved from the red rock of the
canyon wall. Seven figures sat in a semicircle, their forms identical,
their patients infinite. They'd been governing the Martian Cooperative for
eleven thousand years. They had seen empires rise and fall

(07:41):
und a dozen worlds. They had learned that most problems,
given sufficient time, solved themselves. Senior Auditors Zelos stood at
the center of the chamber. He looked tired. He was
holding a small orange cone, which he had brought back
as evidence. He began, High Auditors, I have completed the

(08:03):
preliminary assessments of the territory designated New Zealand in the
Pacific sector of the third planet. He placed the cone
on the speaking plinth. It looked small and absurd in
the ancient stone. My recommendation is as follows. Do not
invade now. The author of the book is out of

(08:25):
a heartwitch. The Martian audit or how New Zealand repelled
an invasion through procedural complexity out of a heartwitch from
the New Zealand Initiative. It's very good to have you
back on the podcast and congratulations on this book.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Thank you, Laden, It's great to be with you.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
I have to say that at the beginning I thought
this is going to be a tough one, and then
as I read it fell into place and it started
a formation that I never experienced before. It's really, it's
really if I said a centric an a centric approach,
would that offend you?

Speaker 4 (09:03):
No, it wouldn't. I mean, it is certainly not something
I write every day. This is my first piece of fiction.
Usually I write columns, I write reports. Yeah, eccentric, I
think actually characterized it quite nicely.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Why don't we start with this question? I've concluded it,
but nobody knows what's happened from the beginning. They don't
even know how it starts. So why don't you take
it from the beginning on the story itself and the
wise and the way forward.

Speaker 4 (09:32):
Well, I can read you the first chapter, which probably
makes things a little bit clearer. What's happening here? So
the first chapter is called arrival in paradise and in brackets.
Terms and conditions apply. The invasion of Earth, or specifically
the realm of New Zealand, did not begin with a
laser blast or demand for surrender. It began with a

(09:56):
clipboard I above the Tararua Ranges. Inside the Martians Scout vessel,
Logos seven, Senior auditor Xylos was studying the local transmission.
Frequently it is an agrarian utopia, Zylos declared, gesturing at
the holographic screen. The selection had not been random. Before departure,

(10:19):
the Ordered Division had compiled a preliminary assessment of Earth's
self reported performance metrics. One territory appeared repeatedly at the
top of the indie ceas low corruption, high social trust,
exceptional natural duty, regularly ranked among the most livable places
on the planet God's Zone. The locals called it without

(10:44):
apparent irony. If we wish to order the species at
its best, Xilos had noted during mission planning, we should
begin where they claim to have succeeded. Now, watching the
footage on the holographic display, he felt vindicated. On the screen,
a television program titled Country Calendar was playing an acoustic

(11:08):
guitar from a gentle, optimistic melody. A man in gum
boots was leaning against a fence, smiling at a dog.
The sun was shining. The mud looked honest, observed Junior
Soilos said. The indigenous population is relaxed. They value mud,
dogs and acoustic simplicity. There's no bureaucracy here, only golden

(11:29):
light and gentle guitar music.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
It looks peaceful.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
Barra said she was studying the linguistic databases, trying to
understand how a culture communicated. Every planet had its rhythms.
It shortcuts its ways of saying I see you without
saying it directly. They have a phrase sweet ass. It
means approval, contentment. I think it is how they express belonging.

(11:58):
Prepare for ending, Silas commanded. We will be greeted with
smiles and perhaps a rustic woolen garment. The logo seven,
a masterpiece of of impossible geometry, capable of folding spacetime
into a silver doughnut, descended silently. It settled onto the
paddock with a soft thumb, crushing a patch of clover

(12:20):
and startling. A hue named Barbara Silos lowered the ramp.
He stepped out, ready to embrace the acoustic guitar lifestyle.
He was met with a silence that was not so
much peaceful as it was lititious. A white youth sent
by the fence line leaning against it was a man.
He was not smiling. He did not have a dog.

(12:43):
He was wearing a high visibility vest that seemed to
absorb the joy from the surrounding air. He checked his watch,
He checked the landing struts. He made a note on
his clipboard. Greetings, Silos said, extending along slender hand. We
come from the Valles Mariners. We seek the simple life

(13:04):
shown on your transmission country calendar. The man looked up
his name tag red Wayne, his eyes with the color
of a council meeting room wall Afternoon waynset Southware Rapper
District Council. You the owner of this structure. It is
a class for interstellar transport. Silos corrected, right, Wayne said,

(13:30):
so a non consented dwelling. He walked around the ship,
tapping the hull with a pen. You're in a significant
natural landscape overlay. You've exceeded the hight to boundary ratio
and judging by the sheen on this alloy you're well
over the visual reflectivity limits. I'm going to have to
issue an abatement notice. Bar A stepped forward, her large

(13:52):
iridescent eyes filled with confusion. But where as the guitar music,
we have visitors, We bring gifts. We have a cure
for all viral diseases. We have a recipe for coffee
that never gets cooled. Wayne didn't blink.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
Look love.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
That's all well and good, But you can't just drop
a tiny home in a rural zone without a geotech report.
Have you paid the development contributions? We have gold silos
offered materializing a bar of solid bullion from the air.
It is worth four million of your dollars. Wayne looked
at the gold for a second. Flicker of humanity crossed

(14:29):
his face, the desire to pay the mortgage to buy
a board. Then the training kicked in. I can't take
that way inside. I'd have to fill out a gift
declaration form. Anything over fifty dollars figures a contract of
interest review. Plus, if you pay the levey up front,
it messes up our long term financing model.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
Silos front.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
He reached for his belt and activated his incentifiz on
the world turned into a wire frame grit to silos.
The laws of physics will reply placed by the laws
of economics. On Mars, they had discovered that bureocracy was
simply a form of friction in life heat. It could
be measured calibrating. Silas muttered, visualizing the floor of reward.

(15:14):
You see dangerous, but asked, I'm checking his spectral output.
Silas explained. The visor displays the source of an entity's
caloric intake. Green means the entity is fed by velocity.
They get paid when something happens. Red means the entity
is fed by friction. They get paid when something stops.

(15:36):
Silas looked at Wain. Wain was glowing a deep radioactive red.
It was the color of a stop sign in case
in concrete.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Oliver. That was extremely well done. Only the only, the
only the writer, I think the artist could have could
have interpreted it so well. Now there is there is
a reason for this book. There's a reason it came
of bad.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
What is it?

Speaker 4 (16:06):
The reason is it's an election here and we at
the New Zealand's Initiative tried to produce a volume for
each election, summarizing all the recommendations we've made over the
past few years. And tell the incoming government, whoever it
will be, what they should do. So we started this
in twenty seventeen at the then election, and it was

(16:26):
a relatively modest volume because the initiative only started in
twenty twelve, so we hadn't actually done that much research
and we had a limited amount of recommendations. Over the years,
then the recommendations became more frequent we made and the
volumes were produced that the elections became longer, and so

(16:46):
in twenty twenty this was already quite a significant report.
In twenty three it was an even bigger report, and
as we were putting together our recommendations for the twenty
sixth election, well the current draft once to about ninety
thousand words. Honestly, we know, of course that all of
these reports are mainly read by bureaucrats, peticians, people inside

(17:09):
the Beltway, and we felt that was a shame because
in the end, the things we're writing about education policy,
housing policy, health policy, these are issues that really affect
every New Zealander. So it would be a shame if
we couldn't actually share our findings with the broader population
outside of Wellington. And so the idea was born to

(17:32):
produce two documents, one for the policy insiders in the Beltway,
but the other one an outward facing version of that.
And then my colleagues delegated that outward facing version to
me and asked me I to produce something, except I
wasn't quite sure what that something was going to be. Initially,
I thought, maybe we're by a manifesto, but the problem

(17:54):
with other is that's still policy. More then I thought,
maybe we do infographics, the collection of infographics, but again
it's still a technical thing. Or maybe we turn this
into a graphic novel. We thought, problem is I can't draw.
And then as I was getting increasingly frustrated and despondent,
I had this idea to turn this into a piece

(18:16):
of satire. Because you may not know this, but I'm
a huge fan of satire. We always include a bit
of satire in every weekly newsletter we sent out, and actually,
when I was at school, I even performed political cabaret
satire on stage, and that would have been my third
career path except pays well.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Well, I'd suggest to you that the satire comes through
very very clearly but subtly at the same time.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Well that's good.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
So a satire I thought, well, I'd turn the whole
thing into satire. And I've had this other thought. I've
been in New Zealand now for fourteen years, which doesn't
quite make me an alien, but it also enough as
a German in New Zealand, you still observe this country
and you're trying to make sense of it, and sometimes

(19:06):
that's really hard. And I thought, well, it was hard
to me of it, it must be even harder to
a proper alien. And all of that came the idea, Okay,
let's take two aliens to New Zealand, let them lend
their spaceship somewhere in the end it was the wire Rupper,
and then take them on a tiki tour, take them
around the country and show them how it works. And

(19:27):
then let's explore New Zealand and New zealand bureocracy in
all its beauty. And that was the starting point of
the satire. And then I thought, okay, how should I
construct this alien? And I thought I'd make it a
little bit well, if she like, send the autobiographical. So
this alien had in mind was an economist, someone who

(19:50):
thinks about incentives, tries to be very logical. So a
Mister's bog like figure. So if you marry mister Spock
with me, that's basically a senior auditor violence. But then
I thought that's not enough because that is just a
little bit too analytical and coo app tracked and you
know too economics scene. Silos needs a companion, someone who feels,

(20:14):
someone with a bit of an emotional depth to her,
So I gave him a junior auditor, and that's Vara.
So Vara does the other side of the brain. Where
Silos is the oraginal side of the brain, Vara is
the feeling, emotional side of the brain. And together they're
traveling around New Zealand and because this is a science
fiction satire, I then invented two devices that these two

(20:39):
carry around the country. So Silos uses an incentivizer which
allows him to really spot the incentives by which the
system works, and Vara his colleague. She carries a temporal
scope which allows her to look into the future of
the people she meets. And that was the basic idea
for the characters. I then invented a few more characters

(21:01):
along the way. So they meet a bureauc called Ben,
who basically becomes their guide to guide on the way
around New Zealand. And then they also encounter the quint
persential New Zealand public service leader, a guy called Kevin.
Might get to Kevin a little bit later. So I
had the characters to find. But then I had another thought.

(21:24):
I didn't want to introduce anything like a villain into
the story. I mean, usually any novena needs a villain
in my case, and that's more observation. Really, after fourteen
years of New Zealand, New Zealand doesn't have villains. New
Zealand is inhabited by mainly friendly people who want to
do well and to mean well. And so the problem

(21:45):
actually with New Zealand is not from the people that
inhabited The problem is actually from the structures under which
New Zealand operates. And so you can read it through
this entire novella and you will not find any evil people,
but you will find people doing the wrong things out
of the right motivation. And that was basically my concept.

(22:06):
And then I developed this to make sure that we
cover as much ground as possible and introduce readers to
all the things that we at the Initiative work.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
On, so you don't you don't think there's any evil
people in New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Well, not more than anywhere else, I would say.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
I mean, of course you always find some objectionable people,
but that's not Easyland's problem. The problem, I think is
actually that we have too many people just functioning within
a system that is not conducive to good policy or growth.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
In the journey through the through the country, which only
lasted eight days, by the way, it's amazing what you
can pack into eight days. But with that, with that
in mind, did the people involved and the aliens involved,
and again there's only two of them, did they discover

(23:02):
anything that well you could call verging on evil? I mean,
what about the last six years?

Speaker 4 (23:12):
Yeah, they don't encounter the last six years. Know, what
they do encounter is a system that constantly underperforms. So
they find a system where people can't afford their homes anymore.
They find the people where the education system does not
actually deliver proper education, but functions according to some weird
sociological theories. They find a health system that drives doctors

(23:37):
away because the hospitals don't function well and doctors can
earn a lot more money on the other side.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Of the testament. So they find loads of things that
don't work.

Speaker 4 (23:46):
They find a bureaucracy that doesn't solve problems, They find
local government that doesn't solve problems but actually creates them.
So they encounter a country that is not perfect by
any means. But crucially, they don't find people who are
sabotaging this system actively. They're finding people who are basically
performing as they are incentivized. And that is the crux

(24:10):
of the matter here. You don't have to be evil
to or you don't have to assume there are lots
of evil people controlling the place to understand why New
Zealand doesn't deliver it is perfectly sufficient to just look
at the incentives under which the country operates. So basically
what they find is we have a bureaucracy, a public
service that encounters problems and then starts processes. So you

(24:32):
encounter a problem, typically in Wellington, the first thing, the
first response you have is to have a stakeholder consultation,
to get a working group together, to socialize the problem,
to park it somewhere, to write a white paper, and
by the end of it you would have had a
perfect process, except you would have not solved the problem.
And that is what the Aliens Encounter.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
I found it intriguing because of the descriptions of various
places as being one point and parts of the country
that I know well other parts that I don't know
at all, but it describes I have them and the
atmosphere extremely well. At at the end of every chapter

(25:15):
there is what is called the Martian audit log, and
from entry number two, I just want to quote this
because it appeals to me. The prophetess. I mean, you've
got you start at the top, and you've got observation.
The transport network is a ritualistic exercise in patients. The cone.

(25:38):
I should let you handle the cone, because you've featured
it and you deserve it. But if I look down further,
the Prophetess in the ministry, there is a woman named Cassandra.
She writes accurate predictions. She is ignored. She continues writing,
this is either madness or faith. Vara believes it is

(25:59):
the latter. Truth without audience is just noise. Now that that,
to me represents so much of what goes on behind
closed doors.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yes, and we return to this, of course in a
chapter that deals with treasury. So Cassandra is one of
the good people working in the ministry. She writes reports
detailing what doesn't work. And believe me, there are good
people working in our ministries in Wellington. There is no

(26:32):
shortage of good documents, good analysis of things that are
going wrong. I mean, the government has absolutely no shortage
of analysis. The problem is that nothing ever happens with
these reports. We have analyzed our problems to death. We
know exactly where things work and where they don't work.
The problem is that nothing ever follows from this. And

(26:53):
so Cassandra is the typical kind of ministerial official, still
writing these reports, knowing that they will probably never really
see the light of day, that they will never be
acted upon, and she still keeps writing. So that is
the tragedy Actually comes a chapter then where they are
in Treasury and discover whole library of reports written over
the decades on everything wrong with New Zealand public policy.

(27:17):
But these reports turn out to become costers and ministers
may use for their coffees. And yeah, there is no
shortage of analysis. There comes a scene, of course, towards
the end of the book where you know, the worst
thing possible happens to these martians. They are invited to
present their findings to cabinet, and they're in cabinet. The

(27:38):
worst thing happens as well, which is that everybody agrees
with their analysis and their recommendations, which means of course
that nothing will ever change, because that's how our system
deals with challenge and criticism. So everything becomes a bureaucratic
process and nothing ever changes. That's the tragedy of New Zealand.
And that's all the tragedy of this deputy Chief Executive

(28:02):
who appears from time to time throughout the NOVELA Heaven
is the kind of dampener turns any kind of energy
into basically just a stop sign where nothing happens. Kevin
is characterized by one sentence, he never lost a battle.
He did not fight. That is the tragedy again of

(28:22):
New Zealand, that we have too many of these Kevin's
occupying the welling bureaucracies that did the biocracy, that the
dampeness that ensures that nothing ever happens.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
How did Kevin get his name? Was he related to Karen?

Speaker 4 (28:38):
No Kevin? That was a name pretty much true chorsn
at random. It's not a single person I had in mind.
Kevin is the kind of well, the quintessential Wellington, senior bureaucrat.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Did you get to the point where you where you
were learning from what you were doing, what you were investigating,
what you were writing, not just that you had already
absorbed when you took this on, but that you you
were continuing on the in the learning process.

Speaker 4 (29:07):
Yes, I did, because I summarized all my observations and
learnings over fourteen years. I mean, when we typically write
our reports, they are dealing with individual policy issues. This
one takes a very macro view. Rather than looking at
individual policies, I really want to look at the system.
Why does the system not deliver? What is wrong with us?

(29:28):
And writing the martial order actually made this a lot
clearer to me. On the other hand, as much as
I was learning about the system, it was also quite
cathartic because I find this incredibly frustrating dealing with the
bureaucracy and the political process. We have often seen how
great ideas are born outside the bureocracy, then they are

(29:53):
adopted by politicians who want to champion them, and then
they go into the death zone of the bureoucracy, where
these good ideas started with the best intentions basically go
to die and just to write all of this up
was because it gave me a valve basically for my frustration.

Speaker 2 (30:12):
How long did it take you, by the way, from
beginning to end?

Speaker 3 (30:15):
Oh god.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
I started this project in late November last year, and
until I had my first draft, we didn't take too long,
probably about a month or so. But then I kept
refining it and ensure that, Yeah, I've basically got most
of the policies correct. I mean, of course this is
a satire, so you're able to exaggerate by ten or

(30:36):
fifteen percent, but the basic policy structure I described that
as all real.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Well, I met some characters in the book who I
had met, not by name, of course, but I had
met in I'm sure we say structure over the years,
and it seems that nothing changes. As you've said, it.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Is a structure, it's a system.

Speaker 4 (31:00):
And I mean you would have also seen that on
some occasions the media appear and they have their own
function within the system. So the media, they do report
on things as they happen. It's not as if they're
making up stuff, but they turn everything into basically a
piece of entertainment. So even when the Martians then present

(31:22):
their findings to Cabinet. It does not lead the six
o'clock news. It does appear, but between kind of human
interest stories and some sports coverage. And even when the
Martians then present to Cabinet, the question that the Prime
Mini says to answer is whether he's introduced them to
pies rather than what they've actually sold us about the system.

(31:43):
So everything becomes an entertainment story. Or take another example,
the Secret Service appears, but the Secret Service also appears.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
In this very New Zealand bureaucratic way.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
So they have been aware of the Martians presence in
New Zealand for about a week, but they only approach
them after a week because they had to first do
some intra government agency consultation. I mean, it sounds credible,
doesn't it. That things where you would think, oh, this
would require an urgent respond from a secret service. We've
got Martians in New Zealand. You would kind of think

(32:14):
that would bid all over it, But no, we have
a process for that. So everything becomes a bureaucratic process
in New Zealand. And so I think you will probably
recognize quite a few of these patterns if you're dealing
with either the Secret Service or journalists or any of
the other professions that you will encounter in the book,
because that is how New Zealand works. Everything becomes a process,

(32:35):
or it becomes entertainment, but nothing ever gets solved.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
So I mentioned cones, and I need you now to
give us your story or give us the story on
the cones aspect of things, because everybody feels the same.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
In the Martian ordered lock entry, the Martians right, the
corn is a sacred object that multiplies when unobserved. I
think to read us in order, and this must sound
very familiar. Demployed via a traffic management plan, a document
that controls physical reality from a distant office, immune to

(33:16):
local amendment. So the Martians, they first encountered the corn
in chapter two when they've traveled back from the via
Upper to Wellington, and they.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
Are just.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
Flabbergas to discover an army of traffic management corns on
the road. And they are so flabbergasted by this human
invention of the road corn that they take one of
these corns back to Mars. And you already read this earlier.
When they then present their findings to the High Council
of Mars, they have brought along this one single corn

(33:50):
to everybody's surprise, because that symbolizes where we stand as
a country.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Lining the road, stretching as far as the sensors could see,
with thousands of bright orange cones, they stood in silent vigil,
guarding empty patches of gravel, minor potholes, and sometimes not
at all the orange cones. Ilus mused, I have counted
fourth housand since we left Heatherstone. What do they signify?

(34:16):
What do they signify? Is this ground sacred? Therefore safety
Ben mumbled, But there are no workers, Zilos noted, I've
scanned the last six kilometers. There is no machinery, There
is no construction. There are only cones. And he activated
his incentive visor, which is very clever construction on your part.

(34:37):
The windshield of the car flickered with data overlaying overlaid
on reality. The gray road was covered with complex with
a complex web of financial piping. Xylos zoomed in on
a single cone object retro reflective safety cone class three.
Cost to deploy two dollars per day, rental benefit to driver,

(35:00):
negligible benefit to traffic management company. Infinite. You've covered it perfectly.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
Yeah, I was in Queenstown last week and you know,
when you get out of the airport and you want
to drive through that round about their building there, and
our taxi driver told us that they've been building this
bit of road now for about a year and they
will probably spend another two years until they've got that
new round about, a much better round about completed. What

(35:32):
we saw was one worker, a lot of machinery and
an army of road courts. It seems to be a
New Zealand term kind of tradition now to have workplaces
where nothing really happens for a long period of time,
but there is very expensive machinery deployed and of course
hundreds of road corns to protect everybody from roadworks that

(35:54):
don't really happen. So the Martians are just puzzled when
they observe that, and of course they take one back
to Mars.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Can you can you recall the part where they're driving
through the countryside on the way to Wellington and they
stopped in a road stop. You know, the stop sign,
stop go tell us tell us the stop ghost story.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
The stop core story is some where they encounter someone
holding a stop gore sign. It was another thing that
they had never encountered before, and they find a rather
board road worker standing there with a stop gore sign
who was also in his other hand holding a play
that is eating at the same time. So that is

(36:39):
on the way from the upper into Wellington, before they,
of course encounter a wonderful capital and are puzzled by
the fact that Wellington was forty percent of its water
leaking pipes.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
There was this There was this part where where Xylos
I think, spoke with the stop ghost sign guy and said,
why have you stopped us? And he said he name
three things.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
Let me just found that and I can read it
to you. The logging truck in front of them hissed
at the air brakes and came to a complete halt.
A man in a high visibility ves stood in the
middle of the road holding a sign that said stop.
He looked bored. He was eating a pie with one
hand and holding the sign with the other. Why has

(37:24):
he stopped us, Bara asked quietly. There's nothing ahead. I
will negotiate, Silo said, he opened the car door. Don't,
Ben shouted, sitting up too fast. You can't negotiate with
a stop gold man. He controls the floor of time.
He's the most powerful being in the Transport Network. Silos

(37:46):
ignored him. He stepped out of the car and walked
over to the man. The worker looked up. He took
a bite of his steak and cheese. He did not
seem surprised to see a seven foot tall alien standing
on the center line. It was the remotagus. He had
seen weirder things in Corollas meetings. Silo said, I am

(38:08):
ordered to Silas, why have you holded the floor of
commerce slips? The man said, chewing upsilers on the cliff
loose rocks. Silas looked up at the cliff. There were
no Upsilas, there were no rocks. There was only a
single seagull looking for a chip. My sensors indicated the

(38:28):
cliff is stable. Silos said, there's no danger. Yeah, well,
the men flipped the sign. It now said slow traffic
Management plan says we got to hold you for five minutes.
Health and safety can't be too careful. But there's nothing happening.
Silas insisted, well, that's the best kind of safety, mate.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
The man grind nothing.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
I love.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
Nothing happening means no accidents. You want to go or what?
Silas walked back to the car. He looked defeated. He's
immune to logic, Silos reported as he climbed back in.
He operates on a plane of existence where potential danger
carries the same weight as actual fire. It's not as hard.

(39:12):
Bar said she was still looking at the men through
the rear window as they pulled away. He's following a
plan written by someone who's never seen this road. The
plan is in a bind, the binders in an office.
The office is in Wellington. By the time the plan
reaches him, it's been approved by four committees and two
legal reviews. You cannot deviate. You can only hold the sign.

(39:34):
Then the plan is the problem.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
Silos said that that line with regard to that's the
best kind of safety, Mate, having nothing happen. It's just
so dry.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
But it sounds correct because I think we've all experienced.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Totally totally anyway, I've got to say that about two
hundred yards three hundred yards from where I'm where I'm
sitting at the moment and at home, there's been a
lot of cones up the side road just a couple
of hundred meters away, and one of the guys on
the on the stop go was the friendliest, most cooperative

(40:19):
stop go man that I've ever ever had to deal with.
And when I say deal with, I mean just just
negotiate with to get through. It was so good. And
he every time he came through there for a few days,
he would he would go out of his way to
make sure that you got through quickly. I don't know
what his name is, I don't know where he lives,

(40:40):
but they should they should get him and market him.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Well that's New Zealand again. I mean, everybody operates within
a system. It may be a very annoying system. It
may not be a very productive system. Of the people
inhabited the system are all very friendly.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
It's nice.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
Yeah, we are a very nice kind of people. That's
the problem with New Zealand. It's very nice, but it
doesn't get much done.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
No, And that's the problem. At the beginning, in the
beginning of the book, somewhere there is mention made of productivity,
and I thought, I can't wait to get to the
productivity bit. But later in the book, on page one
O six, actually they're walking. They're walking through the building
in Wellington and they walk they walked past a doorway

(41:24):
that says productivity lab Lab. Now please please.

Speaker 4 (41:30):
Expand, Okay, so they're walking through a government building. They
get to the productivity lab and I reached from here.
They passed a secure corridor with a heavy door marked
Productivity Lab. The room inside was dark. Through the reinforced glass,
Ben could see rolls of server racks, their status lights

(41:50):
blinking slowly. Dust had begun to settle on the casings.
Xylos pressed his hand against the glass. His wiser flickered rapidly.
This is a Tier one compute cluster, significant processing capacity.
Why is it idle? We ran a pilot three years ago.
Alistair said, that's the Treasury official an AI model trained

(42:14):
on the Resource Management Act. In forty years of case law,
We've had a constant application for a wind farmer. As
human takes eighteen months. The machine took four minutes, legally perfect.
We'll turn it on. Silos said, immediately, we can't. The
other ministry s objected. They said an algorithm couldn't understand
the cultural dimensions of a resource consent. They demanded a

(42:38):
review of the ethical implications of automated decision making, and
the review well still ongoing. The server has been idle
for two years. Silos turned to Vara. His voice was flat.
They built a tool that works, they're not permitted to
use it. The inefficiency is not accidental, it is enforced.

(43:02):
This is what we have observed everywhere arabset. The system
generates friction as a product, not a byproduct. Alisa stopped
at a desk near the window. A briefing paper had
been left open, covered in handwritten in notations. He pulled
a pen from his pocket and drew something in the margin,
two small circles connected by a short line. Ben looked

(43:25):
at the drawing, what does that mean? An old Treasury notation?
Chadwyn invented it in the eighties. Very efficient, which is
Alistair kept his pen. Here's your imagination. Silos scanned the document.
The section he has marked claims the physical position is
broadly sustainable given reasonable assumptions about productivity growth. The assumptions

(43:50):
required would be unprecedented in the post war historical record,
and the notation Alistair said. He called up a second pen,
respond with green ink and made a longer notation in
the margin. In the green that's for when something can
be improved, rather than simply to be discarded. Roger Kerr
taught me that he used to annotate everything in green

(44:10):
explaining exactly why section was not just then that he
wanted people to get better, not just feel that. You
still believe in improvement are observed after forty years of
being ignored. I believe in standards. Improvement is what happens
when you maintained that and maintain them long enough. So
this section actually found its way into the novella after

(44:32):
a bit of a back and forth with Brice Wilkins
and my colleague here at the Initiative, who of course
worked with Roger Kerb my predecessor at the New Zealand
Business Roundtable, and I put the section in not just
as a nod to Roger Kerr in his work back then,
but also because it just symbolizes how long we've been

(44:53):
discussing these issues, because Roger started the Business Roundtable in
the nineteen eighties and let it until his death in
twenty eleven, and so practically all the problems with the
New Zealand economy and with our productivity levels have been
discussed for decades, going back to the nineteen eighties, and
there is a collection of documents of reports, some of

(45:14):
them we've got an office, many more reports of sitting
in Treasury and they're basically all explained the story, the
same story of how New Zealand never really caught its
productivity rates to improve. And so in this one chapter
in the novela where they're going through treasuring and encountered
this productivity lab that is basically a graveyard of every

(45:35):
report ever produced for any New Zealand government or the
past decades.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
I've got to tell you something. They were responsible. Roder
Kerr was responsible for bringing Thomas Soul to New Zealand. Yes,
in nineteen ninety six to Leighton Smith, with best wishes,
Thomas Sol six November nineteen ninety six. That was the
book Race and Culture. It was It was one of

(45:59):
the highlights of my career that Thomas Soul came here.
He did an interview, he did he did lunch, and
it was an extremely impactive moment. I think for a
lot of people, are there any more Thomas Souls in
the world. This is a matter of byproduct.

Speaker 4 (46:23):
I think there are plenty of good economists still in
the world. There are also plenty of good economists in
New Zealand, and they're doing a good job of analyzing
again and again what's wrong with our policy settings, what
could be done to improve our productivity record. But as
I said in the book, the problem is not with

(46:44):
a lack of analysis. We have plenty of analysis, and
we've had it for decades. The problem is actually that
we don't act on the analysis, that we turn everything
into a process, a consultation, and then ultimately, when it
comes to reporting in the media, into entertainment. And that
is why the system fundamentally never changes.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
Is that there is is it a contributing factor, the
fact that there are not enough people educated in such
areas and I mean school.

Speaker 4 (47:12):
Wise, yes, of course that is a problem because if
you had the proper education, you would demand better analysis
and better policies for a policy response. Of course, but
if you're never trained in these matters, you prefer just
watching other stuff on TV. You prefer trifles and trivia,
and I think that's what we get. And that's why

(47:34):
the way that the explanation of the response of the
New Zealand public then to the appearance of the Martians
when they get to cabinet and how that's reported. I mean,
if you want me to, I could talk to you
through that scene in the book where the six o'clock
news report on the Martians.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
Well, I was going to I was going to I
was going to say, why don't you do a bit
of what you've done on media?

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Yea.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
So here we have the situation. So the Martians have
just briefed cabinet. They have just explained how they think
we could get New Zealand out of its problems. And
now the Martians and their friend Ben are curious to
figure out how all of this is covered on the
six o'clock news. So at six o'clock Ben sat in

(48:24):
the Beehive cafeteria with a cold coffee, watching the wall
mounted television. His phone was still off in his pocket
there since the press conference ended two hours of vending
machine hum and fluorescent light and staff from other officers
eating early dinners, talking about their weekends, oblivious to what
it just failed to happen upstairs. Silos and Vara had

(48:46):
retreated to the ship after the press conference. They needed
to recharge, they said, but Ben suspected they also needed
to process. Even Martians apparently could be disappointed. He had stayed.
He needed to see how it would be framed. The
news opened with sport good evening. The All Blacks have
named their escort for the end of year tour with

(49:07):
a supprise call up for young half bake Ariki Penney
will have full reaction from former coaches and expert analysis
of what this means for the World Cup. Three minutes
on this court announcement, extended footage of training runs, a
former player explaining that the new half backhead X factor
and would bring a different energy. A graphics package showing

(49:28):
the tour schedule. Ben waited and still to come. The
Deputy Prime Minister faces questions over a luxury fishing trip.
Did taxpayers for the bill? Our political editor has the
latest cut two advertisements, a bank promising to help you
achieve your property dreams and sub driving through pristine New
Zealand wilderness. A retirement village with the elderly played golf

(49:50):
in perpetual sunshine. Ben's coffee was completely cooled. Now the
news returned. Now to politics. The Deputy Prime Minister has
defended a fishing charter in the Hierarchy Golf, saying he
was on official business meeting with recreational fishing stakeholders, but
questions remain about who paid the five the dollar launch
footage of the Deputy Prime Minister walking past cameras without

(50:13):
comment an opposition MP calling it a bad look, A
brief clip of the charter board analysis from the political
editor about whether this would hurt the government's polling two
and a half minutes. Then, finally, and in an unusual development,
at Parliament today, the Prime Minister hosted two visitors from

(50:35):
mass footage of the ship on Parliament lawn forurus taking photos.
A shot of Xilos and Vaur entering the beehive towering
in silver and profoundly out of place. The extraterrestrial auditors,
who've been touring New Zealand for the past week, presented
their findings to Cabinet this morning. The reporters understood to
include recommendations on housing planning and local government reform. To

(50:58):
a property analyst in a television studio, he looked concerned. Look,
we don't know the details yet, but any talk of
planning reform tends to spook the market. If we're talking
about six significant changes to density rules or z owning,
that could have real implications for property values. Homeowners will
be watching this closely, being connected nodded gravely, and what

(51:18):
might this mean for interest rates? Well, if we see
a correction and property values that feeds through the household wealth,
consumer confidence and spending. The Reserve Bank will keep will
be keeping a close eye on this. It could affect
their thinking on the ocr something for homeowners to watch, certainly.
The Prime Minister says a Ministry of advisory panel will
consider the marginal recommendations on report back in eighteen months.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
Cut back to the studio.

Speaker 4 (51:41):
Now to the weather as southerly is on the way
with temperatures dropping sharply across the law and norviland then
turned away from the screen. First contact with an alien civilization,
a comprehensive diagnosis or systemic failure, a roadman or a
different future. Third item after the rugby squad, after a

(52:01):
fishing trip. Ninety seconds of coverage, and most of that
was about what it might do the house.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Well, it all sounds very familiar.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
Yeah, doesn't it doesn't it?

Speaker 4 (52:14):
Actually, if we talk about the Ukraine War or the
Middle East War. Typically we frame this in a way
that we ask ourselves, what would what would a nuclear
holocaust in the northern hemisphere due to Auckland house prices. Yes,
and that is the angle that we take. We always

(52:34):
turn this into either something entertaining or something with very
local relevance, but we never see the big picture. This
is a feature of our news supporting It's not that
the news don't report these events. I mean, obviously the
news did report at the Martians presented to cabinet, but
they turned this story, which should have led the news

(52:54):
and should have actually deserved proper debate, into something basically entertainment.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Is it going on public sale?

Speaker 3 (53:03):
The book?

Speaker 4 (53:04):
It is not on sale. It is free of charge.
It is available on the New Zealand initiatip's website, in
that initiative dot Actold and that, and we've produced it
in two versions. So one version is a PDF. Everybody
knows PDFs, of course. The other one is an epup file.
So if you have a Kindle or any other book
reader or an Android tablet, you can just use the

(53:26):
epop and read it on your device as you would
read a normal book. And that way, I wanted to
make sure that we spread the news of this book
and make it as available as possible. So there's only
a limited print run, and only my best friends and
you're one of them, got a print copy, no members,
of course, but for everybody else there's a free epop
and a PDF on the website, and I hope it

(53:48):
spreads from here.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
I would like to think. So I'm even wondering if
there's a chance of a follow up somewhere down, somewhere
down the track. So I know I stole you thunder
a little at the beginning, but there's more to the
to the end of it. Why don't you how din'd
you conclude with the situation on Mars?

Speaker 4 (54:14):
Yeah, you had already given it a little bit of
way that the Martians of course returned to Mars in
the end, and in the epilog of the book we
find out why they were on Earth in the first place,
because all the first ten chapters of this book we
were still wondering, so what on Earth did they have
in mind or what on Mars last did they have

(54:35):
in mind when they visited New Zealand. And now in
the final chapter we finally understand that the Auditors were
sent to ensure that an occupation and invasion of Earth
starting with New Zealand would really be worth it. And
so you already read it at the beginning. I might
actually just read that bit again and then continue a

(54:55):
little bit on. This is what they had to say,
Senior Auditor Xilos stood at the center of the chamber.
He looked tired. He was holding a small orange cool
which he had brought back as evidence high auditors. He began,
I have completed the preliminary assessment of the territory designated

(55:18):
New Zealand in the Pacific sector of the third planet.
He placed the corn on the speaking plinth. It looked
small and absurd against the ancient storm. My recommendation is
as follows, do not invade. Russell passed through the council.
The invasion of Earth had been on the strategic calendar

(55:40):
for six centuries. The fleet was built, the logistics were mapped.
New Zealand had been selected as the beachhead, remote, temperate law,
population density, minimal nuclear capability. It was supposed to be simple, explain,
said the first auditor. My loss activated his VISal. A

(56:02):
holographic display materialized above the plinth, showing the now familiar
shape of the two islands at the bottom of the world.
The territory is not a civilization, Xilos said, It is
a kinetic trap. It is a black hole where momentum.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Goes to die.

Speaker 4 (56:21):
If we lend our fleet there, we will not be fought.
We will be consulted. Expanded the display to show a
network diagram, arrows pointing in the directions that contradicted themselves,
feedback loops that fit nothing, back decision trees that branched
into infinite consultation. Our warships will be issued with abatement

(56:42):
notices for exceeding visual reflectivity limits. Our death rays will
be classified as non consented structure upgrades and subject to
a resource consent process with more discernible end date. We
will not be defeated by weapons. We will be defeated
by a man named Wayne holding a clipboard, asking if
we have paid the development contributions. The second order to

(57:06):
lean forward countered resistance. I encountered something worse. Silas past
I encountered agreement. He pulled up a new display, Kevin's
face smiling, warm, professionally empty. This is the primary defensive
unit designation, Kevin. He holds no military rank, troops. He

(57:30):
controls nothing except what reaches the decision makers and what
does not. Silos's voice dropped. I attacked him with logic.
I presented data so clear that any rational entity would
have no choice but to act. He did not argue,
he did not resist. He agreed with everything I said.

(57:51):
He called my analysis very brave. He thanked me for
my averse perspective, and then he established a working group
who socialized the findings with stakeholders. Display showed the timeline
Silos's recommendations, entering the system being noted, being parked, being referred,

(58:13):
dissolving into an endless recursion consultation. Our invasion fleet would
not be destroyed high Orders. It would be absorbed within
six months, or Commanding General would be sharing a subcommittee
on cross planetary engagement frameworks within a year. He would
have forgotten why we came the third Orders Book one.

(58:36):
If their infrastructure, surely we could disable the systems and
force capitulation. Their infrastructure is already disabled. DilOS pulled up
the data on the pipes, the roads, the bridges. They
lose forty five percent of their drinking water two leagues.
Their primary transport corridor is a nineteen fifty nine bridge
held together with clips. Their library has been closed for

(58:58):
seven years. They are doing our work for us. Then
there are weak right for conquest, that is what I thought.
Sylas shook his head. But their weakness is that a fins.
If we invade, we inherit their problems. We become responsible
for the pipes, We become responsible for the library. We
become entangled in the Resource Management Act, which have analyzed extensively,

(59:20):
in which I believe may be a form of monetic
weapon designed to neutralize external threats through procedural complexity. He
displayed a section of the Act as text stored for
ninety seconds without reaching a full stop. Any species that
attempts to build anything in this territory will be destroyed,
not by opposition, but by process. The process is the wall.

(59:44):
The process is the mode. The process is why they
have not built a second harbor crossing in sixty years,
and why they will not build one in the next sixty.
The fourth Orditor stirred. He painted a picture of total dysfunction,
and yet they persist. They have not collapsed. No silos, admitted,

(01:00:05):
this is the ANOMAAE. He pulled up a new displayed
two data pulsing faintly. During the audit, I identified two
entities who did not conform with the standard behavioral model.
The first is designated Cassandra. He's been producing accurate warnings
about the stemic failure for a decade. No one reads them.

(01:00:26):
She continues to write. He highlighted the second point. The
second is designated Ben. He was our liaison, mid level
bureaucrat who spent ten years learning to say nothing in
words that sounded like something. By all metrics, he should
have been fully absorbed into the system. The display showed
Ben's date approp while Cortisol levels career trajectory for mobility assessments.

(01:00:50):
But when we offered to extract him, he refused. When
Kevin offered him a promotion to oversee the burial of
our recommendations, he refused that too, he said. Salos consulted
his notes. He said he would be the grit. The
grit a particular that creates friction within a machine. He
intends to document that his functioned to expose it, to

(01:01:12):
grind against the system until something breaks. The fifth auditor's
voice was dry. And what is the probability that he succeeds?
Zero point zero zero three percent negligible? Yes, Silo's pause.
But I also calculate the probability he continues to try

(01:01:32):
despite the odds and ninety seven point four percent silence
in the chamber. I've designated this variable the hope coefficient
signus continued, It was not part of my original assessment framework.
It does not respond to incentive analysis. It is, by
any rational measure form of malfunction, a persistent commitment to

(01:01:55):
action despite overwhelming evidence that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:57):
Action is futile.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
He looked at the council, and yet I left the
beacon with then a communication device. If the coefficient proves contagious,
if he finds others like in others like Cassandra, a
system may eventually change. The odds are small, but they
are not zero. The six auditors spoke for the first time.
You recommend we do not invade, but you also recommend

(01:02:20):
we continue to watch. Yes, the humans have a phrase,
She'll be right. It means that problems will resolve themselves
without intervention. It is usually wrong, but occasionally, very occasionally,
it is not. Silos deactive vector. Silos deactivated the display.
The hologram collapsed, leaving only the small orange corn on

(01:02:43):
the planet. My recommendation sense New Zealand is not worth conquering.
The cost of occupation would exceed the value of the territory,
which spent more resources fighting the Resource Management Act than
we spent building the fleet picked up the corn. This
object is a traffic management device. It serves no function
except to indicate that a function might one day be served.

(01:03:06):
I've brought it back as evidence of a civilizedation that
has learned to monetize delay. We cannot defeat that, we
can only avoid.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
It once again. Just tell us quickly how to get.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
It very easy.

Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
Go on to the New Zealand Initiatives website at end
that initiative dot org, dot m s. The book is
called The Martian Order. You will find links to download
it as a PDF or as an ebook for your
book readers. It's free of charge and I hope you
have a lot of fun. And once you've read it,
send me your feedback.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
They came to conquer Eorth, they started with New Zealand.
This was a mistake. They could not get a building consent. Well,
I think it's a great effort and I wish you
well with it. And the message is the important thing,
the most important thing of all, and I think it's great. Oliver,
thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
Thank you very much. Lateon, it's been a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Now mail room three to eight and missus producer Awaits.

Speaker 5 (01:04:23):
Layton, I'm great, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
How are you? I'm surviving?

Speaker 5 (01:04:28):
Good?

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
We like that I'm surviving. Ah, it's been a tough week. Well,
if you don't say you have, you're having a tough week.
Occasionally people take it for granted.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
You see, I.

Speaker 5 (01:04:37):
Know nothing seriously tough, though not so far, So let
me to start.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Yeah, why not?

Speaker 5 (01:04:46):
Laden Chris has written to you in response to Rodney
Hides interview, and he said, as a parent, I think
a lot about the future, but my kids are filling
me with hope for the next generation. My ten year
old has made the connection that the larger the problem
you solve, the greater your earning potential. So she asked
me to detail the top ten problems in New Zealand.

(01:05:08):
After giving her my thoughts, we dug one layer deeper
and found that every problem comes from believing a lie.
The fact that our problems are built on lies isn't
the exciting aspect. It's that children are recognizing there are
problems that we have built, and if we built it,
we can dismantle it. I'm thrilled that conversations normally held

(01:05:30):
behind closed doors in our mainstream. I'm happy that big
problems no longer scare those who are determined to fix them.
If the young people aren't just believing what they're told,
but are actively searching for truth. Then our future is
looking bright.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
Indeed, that's nice and positive. Except I think I think Chris.

Speaker 5 (01:05:49):
Is could just be your kids, Chris.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
I think does that make a difference. Well, when you
said he, oh, okay.

Speaker 5 (01:05:58):
Well either way, Chris is the parent of a ten
year old. And whoever Chris is, they're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
A great job.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Indeed I do not disagree, okay from our So now
the gormless Prime Minister is planning to canvass this election
with a promise, a threat to raise the eligibility age
for the retirement benefit. This despite how many times I've
told him and other politicians that the obvious first thing

(01:06:25):
that will reduce the cost of the RB is to
exclude those who are not retired. What a strange idea.
It'll be like excluding workers from receiving the unemployment benefit
sorry job seekers allowance. Oh but that's what we do. Heavens,
how cruel to anyone with just a little left of

(01:06:48):
the gray cells. It's clear enough that there's no place
for a retirement benefit to be paid to those who
continue to receive income from wages, salary or self employment,
and What a saving that would make to the cost
of the retirement benefit. But hey, just too hard. Raising
the eligibility aim is much simpler for lazy politicians, signed Jones, EPs.

(01:07:14):
Do you think it'll win votes for national O contrere
act in New Zealand? First must be laughing. Well it
could have been indicated by the latest poll.

Speaker 5 (01:07:25):
Leyton Gin says, I noticed that both David Bell and
Ramesh the Kerr always rightfully touch on health or national
sovereignty whenever they bring up the WHO or the UN.
After COVID, a number of First World countries have become
increasingly frustrated with bureaucratic overreach. I believe this translated beautifully

(01:07:46):
into the recent victories of Nigel Faraja's Reform UK in
the UK and Pauline Hanson's Won Nation in Australia. In fact,
One Nation's Pharah by election victory was described by a
spectator as the single biggest swing against any one party
in modern Australian political history since nineteen sixty six. This

(01:08:09):
is a national awakening at a grand scale. But I
think this awakening is now starting to go beyond just
First World countries. In David Bell's Brownstone Institute article The
Pandemic Agreement fails again. He attributed the latest stalling of
the insidious Pandemic Agreement to a block of African nations,

(01:08:32):
and he wrote it has fallen on African leaders attuned
to the model of rich countries and their corporations imposing
rules designed for wealth extraction to protect the rest of
us from the face that the current public health approach
to pandemics has become well, I think Whinston Peters smells

(01:08:53):
blood and New Zealand First is going to swoop in
for the kill. This selection. With an authoritarian hard left
opposition like Labor, the Greens and the Mari Party, it's
easy to be the Night and Shining Armor work hard
together to keep that communist lot out of power, says Jim.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
That's bottom line, is it not? You don't not on
the microphone, you say something. Look at this. Look at
the size of it. One, two, three, four.

Speaker 5 (01:09:22):
Somebody's been busy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Well, it's not all written by them, but it's been
collated from elsewhere. And I'm going to leave it, I think,
until next week because it requires a little more investigation.
But it looks promising now. Noel writes, I had a
gotcha moment with Simon Bridges years ago when he attended
a North Harbor Business Association meeting about the dreaded Supercity.

(01:09:49):
I think it was when he was Minister of Transport,
around twenty fourteen twenty fifteen, but maybe it was earlier
than that. What ab out big complaints was that the
Supercity did the business rating differentials. There the loadings applied
to businesses over the normal residential charge. North Sydney City

(01:10:09):
Council had the lowest business loading in the Auckland region
and the super City decided to standardize them. Of course
they didn't standardize on our lowest loading, so north Shore
businesses got a hiding. Simon was defending the super City
and said something like you should be grateful because you've

(01:10:30):
got the Northern Busway. I said, excuse me, Simon, but
the Northern Busway was established by the North Shore Council
and paid for only by north Shore Council rates. So
all these years later, I've now got you too because
I asked the question last week. Well, I didn't ask
the question. I raised the point after a letter that

(01:10:53):
I wasn't sure how the Northshare Busway was paid for anyway,
Having experienced the move from separate councils for East Coast
Bays etc. Where you could meet the local mayor at
the shopping center and have a chat. To the North
Shore City Council. I'd say NSCC was optimum maximum size

(01:11:14):
for local democracy. Anne Hartley was a great mayor, open
and transparent. It was easy to attend local council meetings,
handy Takapuna office, plenty of car parking, etc. And to participate.
We even met the engineer who designed the Northern Busway.
George Wood was a pretty good mayor too, unlike the

(01:11:35):
arrogant Wayne b. Imagine attending a council meeting and trying
to ask him a question that criticizes him. Well, George
Wood was pretty good and I was south of the
bridge by quite some distance at that point, but we
had conversations on the radio a number of times. It's

(01:11:56):
been such a success that for years the Alberty Park
has been Choka boch early in the morning. Quite a
while ago, there was talk of opening an additional car
park across the road with a footbridge over O'tea Valley
Road to connect. It never happened. Does anyone know why?
It seems crazy to me that we subsidize public transport

(01:12:17):
and then put barriers in the way of the service
being optimized. Regards Noel, No, you would have appreciated the interview,
the discussion today over well over local council and all
sorts of things. I'm sure you did. If you'd like
to make a contribution to that too, feel free, missus producer.

(01:12:39):
Thank oh you've got another one. All right, thank you,
Thanks later, we shall see you next week. You will

(01:13:03):
now back to the climate change scenario and picking up
where we lift off earlier in the podcast. I want
to ask a question and I would like a response
from it please, and this includes you. I want to
read you two headlines. I want to know. I want

(01:13:24):
to know if you have heard this before. If so,
where did you hear it or read it or become
aware of it and when? And there's obviously a very
good reason for it, and you can and you can
understand why. And I'd like you to send me an
email to Latent at Newstalks ab dot co dot nz.
If you've heard this before, then put your fingers to

(01:13:46):
the keyboard. From Climate Change Dispatch Climate Science's biggest shift
in decades IPCC's RCP eight point five is officially dead.
Delving into it a little, the International Committee responsible for
the official scenarios that feed onto or into climate modeling,

(01:14:07):
which are the basis for most projective climate research and
the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The
IPCC has just published the next generation of climate scenarios.
Big news. The new framework has eliminated the most extreme
scenarios that have dominated climate research over much of the

(01:14:29):
past several decades specifically and then lists RCP eight point
five and a couple of others. This is an absolutely
huge development in climate science that will have lasting impacts
across research and policy. The future is not what it
used to be. Today's post commends the researchers who have

(01:14:51):
brought climate scenarios more in mind with current understandings, but
also raises some significant to continuing issues with the scenarios,
then goes into into more detail. The better probably for
our purposes at least, is from The Daily Skeptic by
Chris Morrison admits apocalyptic climate scenarios are implausible, meaning most

(01:15:14):
media scare stories over the last fifteen years are officially junk.
It was about two weeks ago that I found this story,
and I've been pursuing it ever since. But I have
not seen anything at all on any of the local media.
Now I could be quite wrong because I don't spend
a lot of time on the media. But we have watched,
or at least I have watched a bit of local news.

(01:15:38):
I've read papers and what have you, and nothing. So
I'm intrigued to know if any of you have, as
I've said, already, have seen it, were aware of it.
So to the Daily Skeptic and Chris Morrison activist, climate scientists,
journalists and net zero obsessed politicians, can I repeat that please?

(01:16:01):
Zero obsessed politicians are in shock following an official admission
from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that a set
of key assumptions promoting a climate crisis since twenty eleven
are implausible. The notorious set of always improbable RCP eight

(01:16:22):
point five pathway assumptions, which fed into computer models trying
to measure an unmeasurable climate, are no more. Since around
twenty eleven, these business as usual assumptions have produced outlandish
claims of future climate catastrophe, which have been lapped up
by lapdog journalists and politicians. How are you Simon. The

(01:16:46):
influential writer Roger Plke Junior called RCP eight point five
demise the most significant development in climate research in decades.
Others might observe that we have not heard the last
of RCP eight point five. Its gross misuse is likely
to be given a starring central role when the history

(01:17:06):
of the Great Climate and net Zi Zerro Scam comes
to be written. Pilchi lays it out clearly what has happened.
What matters today is that the group with official responsibility
for developing climate scenarios for the IPCC and broader research
community has now admitted that the scenarios that have dominated

(01:17:26):
climate research assessments and policy during the past two cycles
of the IPCC assessment process are implausible. They describe impossible futures,
and he goes on to note that tens of thousands
of research papers have been and continue to be published
using these scenarios. In addition, a similar number of media

(01:17:50):
headlines have amplified their findings. While governments and international organizations
have built these implausible scenarios into policy and regulation, including
New Zealand, it cannot be overemphasized how important this finding
of implausibility is. It means that almost every fearmongering mainstream

(01:18:11):
media climate headline and story that has ever been written
over the last fifteen years is junk. Of course, it
also explains why a growing band of skeptical commentators have
refused to accept the political concept of settled science and
have engaged in widespread debunking. Shooting vision a barrel is

(01:18:31):
one way of describing this work. At times, with just
a modicum of investigative skepticism, the stories can be seen
as little more than an insult to the average human intelligence.
There is considerably more to that article, but i'll can
it for this week. Let me just quote you a
few of the headlines from various times That last one

(01:18:56):
mentioned twenty eleven. Of course, editorial un climate propaganda exposed.
This is from the Washington Times. The entire world will
soon depend on renewable energy, so governments ort to start
subsidizing these industries immediately. It so said the United Nations
in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, in a

(01:19:20):
report released Tuesday. The study's conclusion was such a blockbuster
that the panel issued a press release last month previewing
the finding. Quite close to eighty percent of the world's
energy supply could be met by renewables by mid century
if backed by the right enabling public policies. A new

(01:19:41):
report shows it proclaimed. Since this statement was supposedly based
on actual scientific research, Steve McIntyre, the editor of the
Climate Audit Blog, did what the IPCC must have assumed
nobody would bother doing. He checked the sources cited in
the report. He discovered the IPCC's banner claim was not

(01:20:05):
the work of prestigious and disinterested scientists toiling away in
a laboratory, but it was of hacks with a political
agenda and direct financial stake. In the issue that was
twenty seven June twenty eleven, way back then now from

(01:20:26):
Quadrant magazine, a climate modeler spills the beans. There's a
top level oceanographer and meteorologist who is prepared to cry
nonsense on the global warming crisis evident to climate modelers,
but not in the real world. He's as well or
better qualified than the model as he criticizes the ones

(01:20:47):
whose year twenty one hundred forebodings of four degrees centigrade
warming have set the world to spending one point five
trillion dollars a year to combat CO two emissions. The
iconoclast is doctor Mototaka Nakamura. In June, he put out
a small book in Japanese on the sari state of

(01:21:08):
climate science. Its titled Confessions of a Climate Scientist. The
global warming hypothesis is an unproven hypothesis, and he is
very much qualified to take a stand. From nineteen nineteen
to twenty fourteen he worked on cloud dynamics and forces
mixing atmospheric and ocean flows on medium to planetary scales.

(01:21:29):
His bases were MIT for a Doctor of Science in Meteorology,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Duke and Hawaii Universities, and the Japan Agency for Marine
Earth Science and Technology. He's published about twenty climate papers

(01:21:49):
on fluid dynamics. Today's vast panoply of global warming science
is like an upside down pyramid built on the work
of a few score of serious climate modelers. They claim
to have demonstrated human derived CO two emissions as the
cause of recent global warming and project that warming forward.

(01:22:09):
Every orthodox climate researcher takes such output from the modeler's
black boxes as a given. A fine example is from
the Australian Academy of Sciences explanatory booklet of twenty fifteen.
It claims absurdly that the model's outputs are compelling evidence
for human caused warming. Specifically refers to model runs with

(01:22:33):
and without human emissions and find the with variety better
matches for the one hundred and fifty temperature record, which
itself is a highly dubious construct. Thus satisfied, the Academy
then propagates to the public and politicians the model's forecast
for the disastrous warming this century. Now for doctor Nakamura's

(01:22:55):
expert demolition of the modeling. There was no English edition
of his book in June, and only a few bits
were translated and circulated, but doctor Nakamura last week offered
via a free Kindled version his own version in English.
It's not a translation, but a fresh essay leading back
to his original conclusions. Do we want to go there?

(01:23:20):
The temperature forecasting models trying to deal with the intractable
complexities of the climate are no better than toys or
mickey mouse mockeries of the real world. He says. This
is not actually a radical idea. The IPCC, in its
third report two thousand and one conceded in climate research
and modeling, we should recognize that we are dealing with

(01:23:42):
a coupled, non linear chaotic system, and therefore that the
long term prediction of future climate states is not possible. Somehow,
that official warning was deep sixth by the yelamists. Now
Nakamura has found it again, further accusing the orthodox scientists

(01:24:02):
of data falsification by adjusting previous temperature data to increase
apparent walls. The global surface mean temperature data change no
longer have any scientific value and are nothing except a
propaganda tool to the public, he writes. The climate models
are useful tools for academic studies. He says, however, the

(01:24:23):
models just become useless pieces of junk or worse worse
in a sense that they can produce gravely misleading output
when they are used for climate forecasting. And I suspect
that that is enough for one podcast. Don't forget if
you'd like to write, and we'd like you to, especially

(01:24:46):
if you can respond to that last request. Latent at
newstalksb dot co dot nz or Caravan at Newstalk ZB
dot co dot nz. I've gone through so many pages
of printing that I've done over the years, I've hardly

(01:25:06):
scratched the surface. Same applies to books. You can you
can consider that the last few minutes has been the
forerunner of what will follow over a period of weeks,
because there is much to uncover. I'm going to say discover,
but it's not discovering, uncovering and it needs to be

(01:25:28):
pursued and the more people who do it the better.
So as usual, it's a case of saying thank you
very much for listening, and we shall return in a
few days time with podcast number What are we three
hundred and twenty nine? Oh how the time plies until then?

(01:25:49):
I guess say thank you for listening and we'll talk soon.

Speaker 1 (01:25:59):
Thank you for more from news Talks, there'd be listen
live on air or online and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcast us on iHeartRadio.