Kiwiblog

Bronwyn Torrie at Stuff reports:

Wellington’s most loathed car will be reined in and reviewed after public outrage.

Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown has ordered a review of the Parkwise spy car after growing pressure for it to be scrapped. It follows a flurry of complaints about unreasonable parking fines and overzealous operators.

The car will be limited to monitoring school zones – its original purpose – while the review is done.

Hopefully it will stay focused on school zones rather than revenue maximisation.

In my Herald column I argue Auckland needs to get bigger:

I’m not sure if Aucklanders are aware how much is at stake with this Auckland plan. Do they want a city where almost half the dwellings are apartments?

The other impact of this proposed intensification will be on house prices. Currently there are 400,000 houses and 100,000 apartments for 1.5 million Aucklanders. By 2040 there would be 2.5 million Aucklanders competing for only 500,000 houses. I can’t think of anything more guaranteed to push house prices up massively so only the rich can afford one.

House prices are deemed to start to become moderately unaffordable when the median house price is three times the median income, seriously unaffordable at four times and severely unaffordable at five times.

In Auckland the median house price is currently 6.4 times the median income.

Under the draft Auckland plan, Auckland could by 2040 end up like Hong Kong – where house prices are more than ten times the median household income. Again, this will restrict ownership to the wealthy, but also lead to rents significantly increasing as a proportion of income. Already a growing number of families are paying more than 30% of their income in rent. Under the intensification plan, some families could end up having to spend over half their income on rent.

I conclude:

Auckland needs to grow outwards as well as upwards. A plan to have 75% of new dwellings occur within the current urban limit is too draconian. A 50/50 split would be a far better balance for Auckland’s future. The Government and the Productivity Commission have both asked the Council to alter their plan, to allow the city to grow outwards as well as upwards. I hope they listen.

If they don’t, I pity those under 20, who will have to live with the consequences.

Ports of Auckland have put out a PR around their plans to expand their current space:

In the context of the Auckland Plan process, the Port’s key interest is in protecting the current port zone, which has been through two public submissions processes and has been in place and public since 1987.

The zone effectively allows the option for port expansion in the future, but any actual proposals for expansion of Port operations would then be subject to widespread public consultation and Resource Consent processes.   

While I’m on POAL’s side when it comes to having an economically sane labour market, I’m very much against any expansion on their current site.

POAL say that their zone has been in place since 1987. That is in fact the problem. They were zoned for that area when the waterfront in Auckland was massively different to what it is today.

The same applies in Wellington. In 1987 the waterfront was a collection of sheds.

Waterfront space has become the most valuable space in urban cities. It is where people want to dine, drink, walk and shop.

In Wellington I am an advocate of shifting the port entirely from its current location over to Petone/Seaview. That will provide more jobs in Seaview, and open up the current port space to immense possibilities. Yes, it will cost money to shift – but a shift should be inevitable – when not if. The current port is an eyesore.

The same applies in Auckland. Ports of Auckland should not be relying on a 25 year old zone. They should be looking for a new site away from the centre of the city, as their long-term home. Sure you have issues such as rail and road links, but they can all be planned for also.

If you want to have your say and hopefully oppose Port expansion on its current site, go to Your Port Your Call’s page on Facebook or Twitter.

The small circle represents the size of the Crafar farms at 8,000 hectares. The large circle represents the amount of land sold to foreign owners under the last Labour Government at 650,000 hectares.

Under Labour, the equivalent of the Crafar farms were sold each and every month they were in office.

The table below lists in order what percentage of people who gave the Greens their party vote, gave their electorate vote to the Labour candidate.

This sort of split voting is somewhat different to Labour and Green voters voting for a National candidate or vice-versa. This is more left-wing voters splitting their vote between two parties of the left. It is more a measure of how tactical Green voters were.

There were 15 seats where over 60% of Green voters voted for the Labour candidate. This included the marginal and potentially marginal seats of Palmerston North, West Coast-Tasman, Rimutaka, Waimakariri, Acukaldn Central, Hamilton West, Wellington Central and New Plymouth.

In 28 seats over 50% of Green voters voted for the Labour candidate.

At the other end of the table, in 11 seats the Labour candidate got less than 25% of Green voters electorate votes.

Nicola Brennan-Tupara reports at Stuff:

A “tongue-in-cheek” advertising stunt telling people they were being evicted from their homes has backfired, forcing a public apology from the company responsible.

The orange flyer, left, has “Home Eviction Notice” written on the front, but inside explains the benefits of Generation Homes’ home and land packages.

It was sent to 15,000 Hamilton properties last week and while it generated some interest from potential buyers, it also upset a few. Generation Homes’ Hamilton director, Alana Savage, yesterday apologised for any offence caused after receiving a barrage of complaints from Hamilton residents.

“They were really quite upset by it.

“We’ve had people leaving messages on our phone really swearing.

“People are very, very upset,” she said.

It’s not all bad for Generation Homes though. They are probably now short-listed to run Labour’s 2014 campaign

Yes the awful secret was that John Key said he doesn’t like nasty politics, and thinks it doesn’t work for Labour.

Holly Walker blogs at Frog Blog:

The release of these studies comes while Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is in the middle of an intensive road trip consulting on her Green Paper for Vulnerable Children. She was in my town, Lower Hutt, last night, and in Whangarei earlier this week while I was there. From local reports, it sounds like the consultation process has been somewhat fraught, with locals in Whangarei frustrated that the Minister wasn’t open to hearing from people directly, insisting instead that they “put it in a submission“. Nevertheless I applaud the proactive way that the Government has approached the task of consulting on the Green Paper – they’ve really gone all out with meetings, websites, social media, and NGO engagement. Submissions close on 28 February and I do encourage you to make one.

It’s good that Holly is encouraging submissions, and encouraging participation in the process.

I’ve heard from those who were at the Lower Hutt meeting last night that the cost of living and inequality were are major theme of responses from the audience, but that the Minister’s focus was very much on reporting and information-sharing. …

Until we address child poverty and inequality, we can’t hope to make serious inroads on the child abuse issue.

I don’t accept that child abuse is just about child poverty and inequality. There are Asian countries with much greater poverty and inequality that have almost no child abuse.

While I commend Holly for her post, and promoting the green paper consultation, could I suggest MPs “eat their own dogfood” so to speak. Rather than rely on third hand reports of what was said at a local meeting, I would hope local MPs would go along and attend.

I understand there were 150 people at the meeting in Lower Hutt, including six National MPs. Labour and other parties have been calling for a bi-partisan approach to child abuse. So I would have though local MPs would go along to hear what their communities are saying. But none on non-National MP attended – despite all being invited.

I think it would be of more importance than a Frocks on Bike bike maintenance workshop. Frocks on Bikes is a commendable initiative, but I do think it is a pity none of the local MPs actually attended the meeting, and heard first hand what people were saying. I recall Metiria Turei attending the launch of the green paper, which was commendable.

I don’t think you can declare an issue will be bi-partisan or non-partisan as different parties have genuinely different beliefs on how to reduce child abuse. National will believe their welfare reforms will help reduce child abuse, while the Greens will disagree (for example). But despite those differences in beliefs, there is no reasons people can’t take part in the process, and have their views heard. I do not believe the Government in any way has pre-determined outcomes on this review. There are no easy solutions, so whatever decisions do eventually get made will inevitably upset some segments of the community.

UPDATE: Holly has commented below, explaining she was running the session she attended and had agreed to do so back in November. But she did send her EA to take notes.

Came across this reptile from his comments on the You Tube tape. It is hard to believe, but people like this really exist. His comments on You Tube include:

charlie sheen is a jew, always has been, always will be.the only good jews a dead jew.

Actually Carlos Estevez is Catholic.

i fully agree, fuck the jews, especially that black jew they call the worlds president. THEYRE ALL LIARS…. fucking scum…

Well that is a new twist – he’s not only from Kenya, but he’s Jewish also.

GO WINSTON!!! NZ’S ONLY HONEST POLITICIAN!!!!!

So hates Obama, and loves Winston.

wow talk about a faggot cocksucking poofter yaself, maybe you should get off john keys cock you jew faggot

Not a fan of the Prime Minister it seems.

The reason I am shedding some light on this reptile, is because sunlight is the best disinfectant. Also though, I’d welcome anyone who can work out his identity, based on his Internet footprint.

At Stuff I blog on Winston’s dilemma:

The sale of the Crafar farms must pose an awful dilemma for Winston Peters.

The leading bid for the 8000 hectares of farmland is $210 million from Shanghai Pengxin, a Chinese company.

Winston has spent most of the last 20 years railing against the Chinese. He has railed against Chinese immigration to New Zealand, he has railed against Chinese investment in New Zealand and despite being the foreign minister, railed against the 2008 free trade agreement with China (despite its having increased our exports to China by $3 billion and reducing our current account and trade deficits). …

But look at who else is lined up to buy them. Sir Michael Fay leads a group which is offering $170 million for the farms – $40 million less than Pengxin. If Pengxin is turned down, then Fay will pick the farms up for $40 million less than the market price.

Now if there is one person that Winston Peters hates and rails against even more than the Chinese, it is surely Fay. Peters alleged all sorts of wrongdoings by Fay and Richwhite in the late 80s and early 90s, and this led to the Winebox inquiry.

It gives me a certain pleasure to reflect that whatever the outcome, Winston will be unhappy

John Key has said in a speech:

the Government’s four key priorities for the term are to:

• responsibly manage the Government’s finances
• build a more competitive and productive economy
• deliver better public services
• rebuild Christchurch.

The rebuilding of Christchurch may prove to be the most challenging. The continual after-shocks are making it very hard.

Mr Key said that the Government’s focus on responsibly managing its finances includes a commitment to return to surplus in 2014/15 – which National campaigned on at the election.  The Budget Policy Statement, which will be released on February 16, will update the track toward that surplus.

“Today I can confirm that we are still on track to post a surplus in 2014/15, and the upcoming Budget Policy Statement will show a forecast surplus in the range of $300 to $500 million in that year,” Mr Key said.

That is getting tight. It will be extremely challenging.

A copy of the teapot tape has been placed online, and the link e-mailed to a huge number of people from an anon e-mail address.

There are a very small number of people who have that file. Bradley Ambrose and the senior staff of the Herald on Sunday and TV3. Will any of them be brave enough to admit they did it? I will say I don’t think it is anyone from the Herald on Sunday. To be fair to them, they didn’t publish the tape originally, and it was TV3 that turned it into a daily circus.

I said before the election it was inevitable it would come out at some stage.

The recording is on You Tube (uploaded by 2Johns2Cups), plus two other locations. I’m not providing a direct link due to the questionable legality, but I do not believe saying where it has been published (as I have done) makes me a publisher, anymore than when newspapers reported Whale Oil had broken a suppression order (which sent everyone off to his site).

The irony is that the recording is quite benign, as the PM has said. The media beat this up into a nonsense, that just lowered their standing with most New Zealanders.

Hopefully this release will mean that we can all move on now, except of course we await the Police decision on the legality of making the recording.

Please do not post a direct link in the comments.

Jordan Carter blogs:

I am not yet sure of it, but I think it is possible by the end of this year, the New Zealand Labour Party will have an institutional role for members in choosing the leadership of the Party.  We will, if that is so, be joining our fraternal parties around the world, and will be giving people a big new reason to join the party and be involved.

I’m a fan of giving the members a vote, as the UK Conservatives did in choosing David Cameron.

The process we choose will be important.  My view is that in a country as small as this, we should do our best to keep it deliberative.  We could, as Patrick suggests, have an electoral college model between the Caucus, Members and Affiliates, and that would work for me to a degree with postal ballots for the latter two, and in person ballots for the Caucus.

I’m more a one person one vote person. Jordan’s model (which is used in UK Labour) would see union bosses controlling say a third of the votes.

Why not just have a postal ballot of all members of the party, a member being someone who has filled in a membership form and paid a sub.

But good to see Labour looking at involving their members more.

Stuff reports:

Auckland media celebrities Mike Hosking and Kate Hawkesby are reportedly preparing to tie the knot.

Hosking, NewstalkZB’s breakfast host, and Hawkesby, a former TVNZ Breakfast host and Newstalk ZB newsreader, are reportedly getting married at her father John’s Waiheke Island property in the coming days.

I’m glad they are finally getting married.

When they were on One’s Breakfast together, they always looked liked they desperately wanted to jump each other.

The table below lists in order what percentage of people who gave the Greens their party vote, gave their electorate vote to the National candidate.

It is worth noting that not all electorates are equal. Where a seat had a Green MP as a candidate, few Green voters voted for the National candidate. Also in seats where Labour were trying to win the seat, many Greens voted tactically for the Labour candidate.

Epsom at the top is again no surprise, and represents tactical voting. It is interesting that more Green voters tactically voted than Labour voters. In hindsight standing Parker in Epsom was a mistake.

In seven other seats, the National candidate got more than 25% of Green voters.

The seat where the National candidate did best with Green voters, but did not win the seat was (excepting Epsom) Manurewa with 15.4%.

The seat where the National candidate got elected but got the fewest Green votes was Coromandel with 7.8%. Green MP Catherine Delahunty stood there.

The overall bottom seat for Greens voting for the National candidate was Rongotai where Russel Norman stood.

Headline in The Press:

Plea for Canty fracking moratorium

But how will they repopulate Christchurch with a fracking moratorium?

In my blog at Stuff, I ask can Christchurch’s council be saved?

But the pay rise granted to the CEO seems to be the issue that has generated the most heat. Unfortunately for the council it is the one issue they cannot fix. Once an employment contract has been signed, there is no legal way to require the CEO to accept a lower salary. The council cannot legally cancel the payrise. Only if the CEO voluntarily agreed to go back to his old salary could it happen. And it is hard to see what motivation he would have to do so. …

What do you think is the answer? Do you think the council can right itself? Do you think the only solution is to wait for the October 2013 elections, or is a commissioner warranted? Or perhaps, should the local body elections for Christchurch be brought forward to, say, March 2011, allowing residents to sack or re-elect the incumbents? Is an election campaign though what the city needs now?

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James Murray, TV3′s online editor, has done a very well researched and comprehensive blog post on the proposed TPP free trade agreement.

I am a huge supporter of free trade and my ideal free trade agreements simply consist of saying “You can sell our residents us anything you want that is legal and safe and we can sell your residents  anything we want that is legal and safe”. Of course then up to individual consumers what they choose to buy and import.

But free trade agreements are rarely that simple. They have a mixture of good and bad stuff in them. Overall the ones we have signed have been massively beneficial for New Zealand such as CER and the China FTA. But that does not mean all future ones will be. Murray points out some areas of concern in the TPP:

Hughes points out that proposed changes to copyright law could see the international copyright term (the author’s life plus 50 years) extended for another twenty years.

This would mean that no new works would enter the public domain in any of the countries signed to the TPP until 2033.

To steal a quote from the analysis linked to above – lengthening copyright terms would “impose severe costs on the American public without providing any public benefit. It would supply a windfall to the heirs and assignees of dead authors and deprive living authors of the ability to build on the cultural legacy of the past”.

What would this mean for publishing in New Zealand?

Books by James K. Baxter, Dame Ngaio Marsh and Ronald Morrieson, all soon to come into the public domain, would stay in copyright.

The US in 1998 increased the term of copyright from 75 years to 95 years, partly at the lobbying by Disney to stop early Mickey Mouse works entering the public domain. This was in my opinion not needed, as Mickey Mouse would still be a trademark owned by Disney and not able to be used by others.

Critics of the TPP point out that the agreement spelled out in the leaked document would lead to a situation where pharmaceutical companies would be able to extend patents on medicines more easily and also delay generic drugs from hitting the market.

Ever picked up a camera or mobile phone from a Parallel Import shop for less than an approved supplier?

Nicholas Jones at NZ Herald reports:

Tow-truck companies have been accused of paying “spotters” to dob in motorists – a lucrative practice that helped to pay the rent for one former student.

Several Herald readers yesterday said they knew of cases in which flatters and a dairy owner were paid to report illegal car-parkers in a practice going back at least nine years.

One reader said he’d seen taxi drivers “spotting” for tow-truck drivers, but did not know if they had been paid.

Tow firms dismissed the claims as “rubbish”, but Luke Turner, 32, said his flat was paid a $10 kickback from a towing company, which has since changed hands, when he lived in Galatos St, Newton, nine years ago. …

Tow firms the Herald contacted said such arrangements did not exist and to their knowledge never had.

I have no doubt such commissions have existed and may still exist. I don’t see why the tow truck firms deny it, as I don’t see anything wrong with it from their perspective? I mean in a moral sense, it is like being a Stasi spy, but in a commercial sense it is not an issue and tow truck firms are already hated.

Just to show you how money hungry they are, let me relate a story told to me by a friend who used to manage some inner city land in Auckland which he turned into a parking lot. Obviously he needed the services of a tow truck company to deal with those who parked there without paying the fee. He got paid a portion of the towing fee, in return for having selected that company. So that generated a bit of extra income, on top of that from actually leasing out the parks (which was considerable). There were a total of 30 parks or so, so at say $30 a day that was say $900 a day income.

Anyway after this business had been going on for some time, the tow truck company made a suggestion. They said that what he should do is actually refuse to lease out any of the car parks to people wanting them. Why? Well a piece of land with 30 empty car parks would be an irresistible honey trap to motorists. They would risk a quick park there, not knowing there would always be a tow truck waiting around the corner to pounce and tow them.

I don’t recall the exact numbers but the tow truck company was insistent my mate could make much more money by not allowing anyone to park on his site through a commission on towing them, than through actually leasing the parks out to motorists who want them.

My mate declined. He is a fervent capitalist and loved making money. But that was a step too far for him. however it does give a good insight into the behaviour of tow truck companies.

Edward Gay at NZ Herald reports:

Internet multimillionaire Kim Dotcom has been declined bail.

The German businessman, a resident in New Zealand, is accused of being at the centre of a computer piracy empire through Megaupload, a website business he co-founded.

Judge David McNaughton delivered his decision at the North Shore District Court today in front of a packed public gallery. …

An immediate appeal has been lodged at the High Court.

The decision is totally unsurprising. His behaviour when arrested combined with four passports and 45 credit cards, screams out flight risk.

I predict the bail decision will not rest at the High Court but they will seek leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court. Likewise the extradition hearing itself will be appealed all the way to the top. The longer they can delay things, then they will use the Ahmed Zaoui trick and argue the time it has taken to get a decision, means it is unfair to keep him in jail (even though they have caused all the delays).

When he finally does get extradited back to the US, I note he has hired Bill Clinton’s old lawyer so that one will also be taken all the way to the Supreme Court. I expect a resolution to be two to three years away.

I knew someone would mis-represent what I said on Christchurch City Council, I just wasn’t sure who it would be. No Right Turn claims the prize. he says:

What is it with the right and democracy? In response to tensions in the Christchurch City Council, which have seen councillors criticise the Chief Executive’s lavish pay increase and autocratic style, DPF demands that “some or all” of them “must go”. Because obviously, the last thing you can possibly have in an elected body is disagreement. No, we should shut it down, sack them all, appoint a dictator.

Now unless Idiot/Savant neglected to read past the first paragraph of my post, he has deliberately over-looked the part where I say:

I am not an advocate of the view that on every issue, the minority on a Council must accept the view of the majority if it goes against them. It is quite legitimate to (for example) continue to fight against say an alcohol ban policy, if you as a Councillor thought it was a bad policy and a bad decision.

So I explicitly said disagreement in not the problem.

The fact of the matter is that these councillors are elected. They are there to represent their constituents, some of whom are not exactly happy with their council or its CEO. In other words, they are doing exactly the job we expect elected representatives in a democracy to do.

And again he has missed the key point. I never said Councillors can not criticise the Council, the Mayor or even the CEO.

But what they can not do is publicly state that the CEO should be sacked. Why? It’s simple – they are his employer. The Councillors who have done so have exposed ratepayers to a massive personal grievance and also made sure that if the majority on Council did want to sack the CEO, that they could only do so via a huge payout.

A Councillor can criticise the CEO when their performance warrants it (mind you it is the height of hypocrisy to attack the CEO for accepting a pay rise that the Council itself signed off on), but they can not publicly call for them to be sacked, as they are their employer.

What next? DPF will advocate the unseating of MPs who disagree with the government and criticise the public service?

No. What I would advocate is that a Minister who publicly called for their Departmental CEO to be fired, should be sacked. As their (effective) employer, that would also create an untenable situation. You can’t have employers publicly call for someone they employ to be sacked. I would have thought Idiot/Savant would have some regard for employment laws.

Richard Meadows at Stuff reports:

Sir Michael Fay’s band of farmers has launched legal proceedings today in an ongoing battle to prevent the Crafar farms group from being sold to Chinese firm Shangai Pengxin.

Represented by legal heavyweights Alan Galbraith QC and Bell Gully, the group filed proceedings in the High Court at Wellington to try and get the Official Investment Office’s (OIO) recommendation to be made public. A final decision on the OIO recommendation will be made by Government because it involves sensitive land.

There is no chance of this court action succeeding, in my opinion. The legal action is being done as part of a PR strategy designed to allow Sir Michael to pick up the Crafar farms cheaply.

Fay is a very crafty investor and businessman who has made hundreds of millions out of cunning deals, and is cleverly manipulating Labour’s xenophobia and public opinion to get a a great bargain. Good luck to him with that, but let’s be clear about the motives.

Fay’s alternative purchase group comprises several trusts as well as Aitchison Farms, Donovan Group and Brent Cook. The group had offered $171.5 million for the 16 central and southern North Island dairy farms, which KordaMentha rejected as too low.

Pengxin, which applied to the OIO to buy the farms nine months ago, is the preferred bidder with an offer believed to be around $210m.

So the Fay group is trying to pick up the farms for $40m less than others are willing to pay. What a great bargain, and definitely worth spending a few hundred thousand on PR and law suits, to pressure the Government into making the receiver sell them the farms at a $40m discount.

And here is the interesting thing. If the Fay group do pick up the farms, they will not have any obligations or conditions around their purchase. In fact they will be at total liberty to sell the farms a few months later – including to foreign investors. If they sell them one farm at a time, there will be less of a hurdle with OIO approval, and they’ll make a very tidy profit. So the end result will be the farms end up (inevitably) with those willing to pay the most for them, but the extra $40 million goes to Sir Michael and colleagues rather than the existing owners of the farms.

You can see why Sir Michael is such a cunning businessman, who has made so much money. And good on him – nothing wrong with that. What I am less clear on is why Labour are so keen to help him make a $40m profit at the expense of the actual owners?

Stuff reports:

New Labour leader David Shearer will visit one of the 16 Crafar farms in Taupo today and is throwing down the gauntlet as the Government prepares to make a decision on the politically charged sale.

“We believe foreign investment should add value to New Zealand. We don’t believe this does,” Mr Shearer said yesterday on the eve of a two-day caucus retreat.

“It asks a fundamental question about who owns New Zealand.”

No it does not. Labour during their nine years in office approved the equivalent of the Crafar farms being sold to foreign owners every single month! Yes the Crafar farms are around 9,000 hectares and Labour approved 650,000 hectares – equal to 75 Crafar farms.

So this is not a huge chuck of NZ land. It is not a fundamental question on anything.

And the politicians often neglect to mention the rights of the owner to get the best price they can for their land. If the owners are forced to accept an inferior offer which is $40m less than their best offer, then those owners have $40m less to invest elsewhere. That $40m may have ended up capital for a couple of small businesses employing 100 people each. It may have been used to invest in an Australian company, hence bringing dividend flows back into NZ.

I should state my view on the Pengxin bid. It is:

1. Ministers should follow the recommendations of the Overseas Investment Office. If they recommend approval, they should approve it and if they recommend it is declined, they should decline it. Ministers should not over-rule decisions based on the law, because of a PR campaign by Sir Michael Fay and Labour.
2. The current criteria for approving purchases by foreign owners, being that it be in the national interest, seems sound to me. But I’m not against some modification to the criteria for future decisions – however they can not be retrospective, and hence the Pengxin bid should be judged on the current law, not what the law might be changed to.
3. The free trade agreement with China has been hugely beneficial to New Zealand. Our exports to China have soared in the last three years, and it has reduced our trade and current account deficits. The xenophobia against this bid has dangerous economic risks. We all know that if this was a British company bidding, it wouldn’t have had one tenth the publicity. It seems silly to spit in the face of our largest growing export market.
4. With regards to (3) this does not mean the bid should be accepted if the OIO say it does not meet the criteria set down under law. It means that the bid should be judged on its economic case, not on the colour of the skin of the proposed investors.

Danya Levy and Andrea Fox at Stuff report:

Prime Minister John Key says proposed changes in the diary industry may result in cheaper milk and will give consumers confidence they are “not getting ripped off” by Fonterra.

Key this morning rejected claims by farmers that plans to force the dairy giant to provide five per cent of its raw milk to independent producers, up from three per cent, was sending profits offshore by assisting largely foreign-owned New Zealand-based exporters which compete with Fonterra.

Labour’s primary industry spokesman Damien O’Connor has voiced similar concerns. …

Key today said proposed provisions to phase out well-established competitors would alleviate concerns about overseas-owned companies profiting at Fonterra’s expense.

It was in Fonterra’s interest to have competition in the market.

“It’s very important that we have transparency because Fonterra find themselves primarily in a monopoly position, they control about 95 per cent of raw milk production in New Zealand,” he told TV3′s Firstline programme. …

Fonterra chairman Sir Henry van der Heyden has said it is valid for Fonterra to assist domestic market suppliers with milk, but requiring Fonterra to supply overseas-owned competitors “defied logic”.

The extra milk obligation would cost Fonterra $200 million over three years alone, he said. …

Dairy farmer James Houghton, a Fonterra supplier and president of Waikato Federated Farmers, said if Fonterra lost money, farmers’ payouts would be affected.

“I believe it is the Government wanting to control an industry it doesn’t need to control,” he said. “The more rules and regulations, the more control it has.

Hmmn, an interesting situation. On one side you have the Government and on the other side you have Fonterra and Federated Farmers, with some opportunistic backing by Labour. So is the Government doing the right thing or not?

Former Green MP Sue Kedgley, who was a member of the parliamentary select committee looking into milk pricing last year, said the proposals were good steps.

Well that solves it for me. The Government must be wrong!