By Chuan-Zheng Lee

I get that racism stirs emotions, but I try to give attempts at statistical analyses a fair hearing. About half of the work released by Labour on Saturday is actually sound. This half is also the half that has received the most criticism. Bayesian inference is a perfectly good means of developing probabilistic models about things like “based on their name, of what ethnicity is this person?” Reading Rob Salmond’s explanation of it yesterday, there’s nothing obviously untoward about this part of their methodology. I know a lot of people have felt offended about an apparent conflation of last name with role in the housing market, but strictly speaking, Labour’s analysis doesn’t imply it.

In statistical jargon, what Mr Salmond’s Bayesian analysis computes is an expectation (over Bayesian probabilities) of the number of buyers of each ethnicity, among those who bought a house between February and April with an unidentified agency representing 45% of…

By Lamia Imam

The current National government stopped recording the number of overseas residents buying houses in New Zealand. There’s actually no way for us to know the extent of damage non-residents are causing by buying up houses that apparently are rightfully ours. The way the Herald chose to present the problem in yesterday’s story is not only xenophobic but statistically unsound. The story is about a large chunk of buyer’s name being “Chinese”. Basically we have resorted to racially profiling buyers to explain why Kiwis are unable to buy their own homes? This is particularly heinous, given other surveys show that British and American buyers also make a chunk of the foreign purchase of Kiwi homes. And on top of that, Labour’s solution is really not a solution but rather an idea with little policy merit.

Keith Ng over at Public Address has broken down the actual number, addressing the…

Skypath – the cycle & pedestrian path on the Auckland bridge – is a good thing. I’m looking forward to using it. But some of those celebrating its recently-granted resource consent could show more sympathy to the people of Northcote point, some of whom were inclined to oppose it.

I like Nortcote point. I like the cinema, the restaurants, the ferries, and one of Auckland’s best (and few remaining) pubs. But the best bit is right at the end. You can’t really see it on the Internet (although it’s poetic that the Auckland Council consent documents have a couple of blurry shots). Google’s street view won’t take you there, even though there’s a road with houses on it. There are no photographs posted there, either on Google or Flickr No, you have to go there.

The road narrows and then suddenly slips under the bridge, like a secret doorway into a private world…

Reprinted from The Standard.

The publicity onslaught on Auckland Council this week was somewhat predictable although it could have been handled better.  There were some pretty simple mistakes made.  The spending of $1,296.60 excluding GST on a small celebration after the budget passed was bound to attract attention.  Clearly it did not matter how much or how little the amount was it was always going to be news.  Spending council money on a celebration after rather significant increases had been passed was insensitive and gave the Herald and others the perfect opportunity to attack.  Although I should note that as an employer I regularly put on drinks for my staff and in that regard can see nothing wrong in principle in Council doing the same.

A whole lot of figures have been thrown about concerning the increase and horror stories of $1,000 plus increases in yearly rates have been talked…