Kiwiblog

The Herald reports:

Education Minister Hekia Parata is refusing to say how much top teachers will earn under a performance pay scheme or where the funding for extra pay will come from.

How dare the Minister keep secret these key details of the performance pay scheme approved by the Government.

Oh wait …. there is no actual scheme approved, so no details to be released. Oh that means the entire story is absolute nonsense. Damn.

In a pre-Budget speech in which she announced $511.9 million of extra education spending over fours years, Ms Parata said performance pay was among the options being considered as part of an appraisal system to boost quality teaching.

So the article even notes that a performance pay system was merely an option, and not in any way decided upon. Yet the article is all about the Minister keeping the details secret!

Danya Levy at Stuff reports:

Labour’s MP Trevor Mallard says he’ll be driving an unmarked car to avoid having papers served on him, as he and fellow MP Andrew Little laugh off defamation proceedings against them by ACC Minister Judith Collins.

If they were really laughing about it, they’d be keen to have their day in court. The poor duo in fact seem very anxious not to end up in court before the election having to detail the proof for their claims.

Trevor is already reporting to unmarked cars. Will he go further and start wearing a disguise? Will he refuse to turn up to electorate clinics, in an attempt to delay his day in court? His constituents may not be too happy with an MP that might shirk his duties so he can remain in hiding.

Mallard said he hadn’t defamed Collins and he had a good understanding of defamation law.

He has faced several legal threats but has only been sued for defamation once, by former NZ First MP Tuku Morgan.

This is what you call a partial truth. Someone should ask how often has he had to settle out of court or do an apology? I think he had to do three just to Rosemary Bradford.

Prime Minister John Key said the Labour MPs ”could run but can’t hide”.

Heh.

Bryce Edwards has a collection of quotes from MPs and candidates on same sex marriage from his pre-election interviews. A summary:

• Kevin Hague – in favour
• Stephen Whittington – in favour
• Annette King – in favour
• Clare Curran – in favour
• Catherine Delahunty – in favour
• David Shearer – in favour
• Holly Walker – in favour
• Carol Beaumont – in favour but not high priority
• Grant Robertson – personally in favour but Labour policy just to modernise relationship law
• Heather Roy – would vote in favour but state should not be involved
• Rahui Katene – undecided, thinks civil unions are enough
• Simon Bridges – undecided, but relaxed about civil unions
• David Cunliffe – supports civil unions, but guided by public opinion on gay marriage
• Hone Harawira – against
• Peter Dunne – against, as civil unions sufficient
• Winston Peters – against, wants a referendum
• Bill English – against, has changed view on civil unions which he is now relaxed about
• Tim Macindoe – against

Andrea Vance profiles Bill Liu:

He was a high-rolling gambler with a mysterious fortune who lavished cash on political parties and boasted of his connections to MPs – the curious case of Chinese millionaire Yong Ming Yan, also known as Bill Liu, surfaced in the weeks leading up to the 2008 election, embarrassing senior Labour figures.

It has now returned to haunt Labour MPs in Opposition, as they face awkward questions about just how a wealthy donor, wanted for fraud in China, was granted citizenship – overruling the advice of high-ranking officials.

And was given it the day after approval in a special private ceremony in the Labour Caucus Room.

Yan donated $5000 to both National and Labour during the 2005 election campaign. A host of politicians, including Mrs Wong, held fundraisers at his Manukau restaurant, which he is believed to have sold in 2008.

The fundraisers do not count as a donatiion

Oh dear, where do I start. A revealing interview by David Fisher:

Mr Crimp, a multimillionaire businessman, said he was inspired by Dr Brash’s controversial 2004 Orewa speech and supported Act when the former National Party leader took over as Act’s leader last year.

“I supported Act because I thought Brash would go along the way for Maoris to be treated like equal New Zealanders … they don’t get any more than a normal New Zealander and we’re all the same.

So far so good. A perfectly normal view.

I know white New Zealanders want the Maoris to be treated like ordinary New Zealanders.”

Then it starts to go down hill. Referring to “white” New Zealanders and also referring to “the Maoris” as if they are a separate species.

Mr Crimp said Act should have taken a harder line on Maori during the election even if it led to public outcry. “All the white New Zealanders I’ve spoken to don’t like the Maoris, the way they are full of crime and welfare.”

Oh my God. Mr Crimp is from Invercargill, but that doesn’t excuse such bigotry.

Asked if his political views could be labelled racist, he said: “I don’t give a stuff what I’m called. You have to look at the facts and figures. This is the problem with New Zealanders. Most of them dislike the Maoris intensely – I won’t say hate – but they don’t like to say so.”

Thankfully Mr Crimp is wrong. Most New Zealanders dislike racists intensely, not “the Maoris”.

He said there was such nervousness among those he expressed his views to that he would ask if they had Maori blood.

Oh God. How very sad.

A wonderful own goal at The Standard. Zetetic blogged on Peter Dunne:

He lashed out that those who pointed out he’s voting for asset sales he never told his electorate he would support.

Now this is a lie the left keep repeating. And watch it bite them hard.

Pete George pointed out this was a lie and Eddie ranted:

three choices. Present evidence Dunne explicitly said he would support the partial sale of the energy companies and air nz, withdraw your comment, or face a three month ban. 

So Mr George gets to work.

First he brings up this quote from Zetetic him or herself:

and National is on a razor edge, with a 2 seat majority but the rest of Parliament opposing asset sales if ACT and Dunne lose, or on Dunne.

Absolutely proving Zeletic is lying about Dunne. He warned people before the election that a vote for Dunne was a vote for asset sales, and then afterwards he claims no one knew a vote for Dunne was a vote for asset sales. I think we now understand why he or she does not dare to post under their own name. They would be unemployable.

A second quote is found, this time from Eddie before the election:

This is high stakes stuff. If ACT goes and Dunne loses too, as looks likely, National will be bereft of natural allies. And National’s support is tracking down to the point where it can’t govern alone. The Banks endorsement should only make that more likely.

What happens in this scenario? There would be no parties that would support its asset sales policy through Parliament, except perhaps the Maori Party

So Eddie is also exposed as a liar. Remember this if anyone from the left ever claims Peter Dunne’s position was unknown – the left were actively campaigning against him on the basis they knew he had said he would vote for partial asset sales proposed by National.

Eddie, also very glad he does not use his full name or possibly even his real name, doesn’t give up and basically says that what he said is not important, but that he will ban Pete George for three months if he doesn’t come up with something directly from Dunne.

Then the final knock out blow as Pete George quotes from a live chat on Stuff:

The Dominion Post:
To Peter Dunne, from Joe Brown: Will you say no to all state asset sales like Labour and Charles Chauvel have this year?

Dunne Peter:
In principle, UnitedFuture does not advocate selling state assets, but in the event National putst up its mixed ownership model for the electricity companies and Air New Zealand we would be prepared to support that, provided the maximum was 49%, with a cap of 15% on any indivudual’s holdings. We would never support the sale of Kiwibank, Radio New Zealand or control of water assets.

Game, set and match to Pete George.

A huge thanks to The Standard. The left have got away with lying about Dunne for months on end now. Thanks to this thread they started, we now have nice documented proof that they have been lying.

Labour with their proxies in “People’s Power Ohariu” have an Operation Ohariu next weekend to try and build opposition to asset sales. I wonder how many of them will also spread lies about Dunne’s position?

I’d point out in Ohariu National got many mroe party votes than Labour and Greens combined, and that Dunne and Shanks (both known to vote for the mixed ownership model) got almost 20,000 electorate votes between them and Chauvel got 13,000 and Hughes 2,000 so not even close.

Alan Wood at Stuff reports:

Shudderomg, broken buildings, bloodied, terrified people, swarms of orange-jacketed rescuers probing huge piles of concrete for signs of life, these were the images of February 22′s earthquake that beamed around the world last year.

And after every major aftershock in the past year there have been more pictures of destruction.

Little wonder that international tourists are giving the region and the South Island a wide berth. How does an industry recover when its lifeblood, international tourists, has shrunk massively? …

Rotorua’s Kay Clarke says her central North Island clients, a range of tourism operators, have certainly been hurt.

Her Stay and Play NZ Tourism Connections business has 46 clients in businesses ranging from accommodation, lake cruising to fly fishing adventures, with many reporting traveller numbers have dropped off.

Her team helped to market and promote these clients to Australia, Europe, the Americas and Asia, putting them in touch with wholesale buyers in these markets who bring tourists direct to the operators.

Clarke says the Canterbury earthquakes have “absolutely” impacted her clients in several ways. For some it’s having to change itineraries on tours. For others it is much more.

The perception that the whole of New Zealand was damaged is a real issue.

“Some of that is ongoing. Even when there is a little shake, sometimes the international media are showing old footage.

“We’re hearing even from some of the people at Trenz that it’s still impacting on their businesses. It therefore impacts on ours.”

The industry is made up of hundreds of small businesses. Some were noticeably downbeat at the Trenz tourism industry conference in Queenstown last week but they are looking for a silver lining to their troubles.

Tourism is one of our best ways to earn money, as it brings money directly into New Zealand. So what is the silver bullet?

All around the conference centre were billboards of the upcoming Hobbit films, one to be released at the end of this year and the second 12 months later.

This is the great hope of the industry – hope that it will set off a pilgrimage of tourists to New Zealand and showcase the glorious scenery and leisure and adventure options this small country can offer, just as the Lord of the Rings films did 12 years ago.

Just as well then that the Australian union did not succeed in killing off the Hobbit, supported by the hobbit haters in Labour. Everytime someone in Labour spits bile at the name Warners, consider what would have happened if they had won.

At the moment, New Zealand’s tourism industry is worth $9.7 billion in foreign spending a year, it keeps nearly 180,000 people in jobs and makes an 8.6 per cent contribution to gross domestic product.

I say keeping an Australian happy is more important than that.

The Herald editorial yesterday:

Even the Treasury, which suggested the move this year, believes class size does matter. But it said the quality of teaching mattered more, and in a world where Governments had to make trade-offs, this was one that would have minimal effect on pupil achievement.

Using much the same language, Ms Parata announced that a standardised teacher-pupil ratio in Year 2 to 10 classes would free $43 million each year over the next four years to improve teacher quality. “We are opting for quality, not quantity, better teaching, not more teachers,” she said.

This policy is based on new research, led by an Australian think-tank, the Grattan Institute, which suggests improving teacher quality is far more cost-effective than reducing class size. To that end, the Government will invest an extra $60 million over four years to boost teacher recruitment and training. A post-graduate qualification will become the minimum requirement for all trainee teachers, and a new teacher “appraisal system” will be developed. Ms Parata said performance pay was one of “a basket of options” to recognise and reward teacher quality. It should, in fact, be at the head of any moves to encourage excellence in the classroom.

There can be few qualms about the accent on quality. The Treasury has suggested the effect on pupil learning of moving from a class with an average teacher to one with a high-performing teacher is roughly equivalent to the effect of a 10-pupil decrease in class size.

In one sense it is a classic debate about quality vs quantity when you have limited resource. Not that is not an argument to go crazy and halve the number of teachers. But it is an argument that when there is limited money to go around, the focus should be on quality over quality – especially when the research shows a high-performing teacher is equivalent to a 10-pupil decrease in class size.

John Drinnan writes in the Herald:

Since this column started nearly six years ago it has maintained there is demand for a non-commercial TV channel in New Zealand.

I agree. But it must not be part of TVNZ. You can not be a commercial broadcaster and a public service broadcaster.

On Tuesday, the Save TVNZ 7 group held a meeting in Auckland, the first of many around the country, which happily was more focused on building momentum to make public television an election issue in 2014, rather than reviving TVNZ 7.

Of course it is. The campaign is purely about the election, not about saving TVNZ7 whose funding decision was announced well before the last election.

But I was struck by a few things as I listened to the debate. The first was the age of the audience. Which is understandable since older people are naturally ignored by commercial television programmers. Few young people seem to be upset by the absence of non-commercial TV.

The second aspect of the audience was race – appearances can be deceptive but I saw just two people who were not Pakeha. This may be due to the fact that Maori have their own channel, while Chinese and Indians have developed their own channels and programming on Triangle TV. But different ethnicities would clearly have added fresh ideas.

It was also worrying that there seemed to be a party political bias in the crowd – veering to the left. Public television should allow all perspectives.

So it was a bunch of grumpy old leftwing whities. Most of them probably think Coronation Street should be on for two hours a night.

There seemed no acknowledgement of the concept of personal video recorders, of the internet and the development of internet TV.

The danger is that some supporters want a TV channel that is just right for them, supported by taxpayers. Users of Apple TV and YouTube are doing just that by choosing the content themselves. There are lots of options for public television.

The reality is the average programme on TVNZ7 was watched by a miniscule number of people. Between 0.1% and 0.4% of the population. This is not because they programmes were not good, but because the concept of having them within TVNZ was fatally flawed, as TVNZ has no interest in promoting those shows rather than ones with more advertising dollars.

But it is a myth that the demise of TVNZ7 is the end of public broadasting, and more than the myth there was none until we had TVNZ7. The taxpayer currently spends a significant $150m on public broadcasting.

Stuff reported:

The Christchurch City Council has asked for an “immediate pause” in the demolition of Christ Church Cathedral in a move hailed by campaigners.

After a lengthy debate, councillors voted 10-4 to call for a halt to demolition while “deeper and more open consideration” of restoration plans took place.

I had some friends around at my place yesterday. We call on the owners of the Ibis Hotel to knock a floor off, as we  think it would be better that way.

Oh wait, we don’t own the Ibis Hotel, so we don’t get to vote on what happens to it.

The Christ Church Cathedral is the property of the Anglican Church. They have the legal liability if they decided not to demolish it, and people were killed in it while trying to restore it. They are the ones who have to pay (after insurance pays out) for demolition or reconstruction or replacement.

If the City Council really wants to have a view on it, then they should offer to buy the Cathedral for $100m, and then they can decide what to do with it. Of course ratepayers may have a view on that.

My Herald column is on Greece, after I asked on Twitter and Facebook what was the biggest issue of the week (as domestically nothing too major happened). An extract:

Currently there is no Government in Greece, as they head off to the polls for the second time in as many months. The Acting Prime Minister is Judge Panagiotis Pikrammenos. Ironically one of his more famous judgements in Greece was that it is illegal to imprison people for debt. The entire country is facing debtor prison. 

And what may happen:

There are three possibilities for the next election. The first is that SYRIZA gains even more support and forms a Government that will then default on its debt. The second is that ND and PASOK gain enough support to clearly govern and continue the austerity programme. The third is another hung Parliament and a third set of elections.

No matter what happens, there is a reasonable chance that Greece will end in default (technically it has been already). Some, such as the new executive director of the NZ Initiative Dr Oliver Hartwich, say it is a matter of when, not if. The Bank of England has already started contingency plans for Greece departing the Euro and possibly the EU.

And what could this mean for Greece:

The Euro is likely to decline in value as Greece, and possible Portugal and Ireland, revert to their old currencies. This means that exports to Europe from New Zealand are likely to decline. In Greece it will be even worse. Their new/old currency of the drachma will probably be worth half a Euro, which means high inflation and a big drop in the standard of living. One expert predicts interest rates for home owners and businesses will double, and a lack of credit may lead to shortages in basic commodities like oil, medicine and food.

I don’t think one can even rule out a military coup if this happens, and you get widespread rioting. I hope I am wrong, but time will tell.

Inventory2 blogs:

Remember Daljit Singh? Sometime before the 2010 local body elections, he was a Labour Party-endorsed candidate in South Auckland. He appeared in in the Manukau District Court on 5 October 2010, was remanded, and name suppression was refused. 

The charges related to alleged voter fraud on a massive scale.

To the best of our knowledge, Daljit Singh has not yet been tried on these charges. We do know that he was back in Court less than a month after first appearing after being accused of breaching his bail conditions.

The breach was about associating with a co-accused. In terms of the trial, I understand it is set for October this year. Four weeks has been assigned for the trial, which is why it has taken so long to bring to court.

So why the interest? Well; on TVNZ’s Breakfast programme this morning, a chap by the name of Daljit Singh appeared, representing the New Zealand Supreme Sikh Council. And we have to say this; he bore a striking resemblance to the Daljit Singh pictured above.

Interestingly, Mr Singh was talking about proposed changes to the immigration laws, which will affect applications under the family category. We wonder whether TVNZ was aware of the “other” Daljit Singh, especially given the numbers of people reportedly living at certain South Auckland addresses, many of whom claimed to be family members!

Stuff reports:

Slipped a cheque in the mail lately? Or left one on the back porch for the lawnmower man?

The stereotype of a cheque user is elderly and a little distrustful of the digital world.

But a study on how best to nurse cheques through their last few, terminal years has found that is not necessarily true.

Bank-owned payments regulator Payments NZ is working on a project to help its bank owners through the phasing-out process.

The results will not be public until later this year, but early hints confound some of the more common stereotypes.

The vast majority – about 90 per cent – of cheque users also use electronic banking, says Payments NZ chief executive Steve Nichols.

Only a small proportion is wholly reliant on cheques.

Most users write a mere five to seven cheques a year, suggesting they do most of their transacting by other means.

I do not think I have done a cheque for some years. I will even ring people and ask for bank account numbers than do a cheque. Thi is partly because I rarely go to the post office also, so dislike having to post things.

But more to the point Internet Banking means your bank records show who you paid and why. Cheques do not. Maybe a feature for banks to consider is the ability to electronically edit or tag transaction lines, so if you do write a cheque you can have recorded in your bank records who it was to, and why.

Stuff reports:

Binge drinking could follow smoking in losing its fashionable status, says a Wellington emergency department consultant hoping a sobriety campaign will help reduce alcohol-related harm.

Hello Sunday Morning encourages those wanting to take a break from alcohol to blog on the booze-free experience. The project has already attracted hundreds of followers around New Zealand and is today being given a push with its national launch in Auckland.

Wellington Hospital emergency department consultant Mark Hussey said it “certainly sounds like a good idea” and thought the initiative may lead to binge drinking becoming “uncool” in the same way campaigns against smoking had worked, especially with young people.

This is exactly the sort of initiative that we need. It is a culture change among youth that will see a reduction in harm from alcohol.  It is not making it illegal for a 19 year old to buy a bottle of wine.

Something very local this time, from the bush around our house.  The three tricks to getting a good photo of a kereru  are to get a vantage point that puts you at the same level, a relatively clear line of sight (always challenging) and some light falling on the breast to bring out the sheen.

Click for larger, higher res image

Michael Field at Stuff reports:

A Chinese millionaire on trial in the High Court at Auckland for fraud boasted to immigration officials that he had MP friends who would ensure he got citizenship.

The high-ranking officials were stunned when then Cabinet minister Shane Jones approved the application one day after getting his file. They were certain Yong Ming Yan, also known as Bill Liu, who had been red-flagged by Interpol, stood little chance.

And what we have never heard is why Shane Jones granted citizenship over the advice and warnings of officials. Let alone why Liu got a special citizenship ceremony just for him in the Labour Caucus Room.

But Yan leaned back in his chair, with his arms behind his head, and said he was 99 per cent confident he would get citizenship, the court was told yesterday.

“He said he had a lot of support from members of Parliament … he was going to take them to China,” Internal Affairs case officer Olele Johannes Gambo said.

I don’t think one can be overly critical of MPs who advocated on Liu’s behalf, unaware of his background. The issue is the MP, or Minister, who was made aware by officials and ignored them.

Mr Gambo said that when Yan was told he could not have citizenship, he said friends in Parliament would ensure he got it.

Mr Jones, who refused to comment on the allegations last night, was named in court with former Labour MP Dover Samuels.

The court was told Yan was sworn in as a citizen within a day of Mr Jones approving citizenship.

In the Labour Caucus Room.  One can only assume he was told of the approval directly by the Minister and/or a Labour MP, who then arranged the ceremony.

Obviously the MPs involved can not comment during the trial. But once the trial is over, there can be no more dodging of accountability.

This should be a superb debate and discussion in Auckland.

Eurocalypse Now?

a discussion with

Daniel Hannan, Member of the European Parliament

and

H E Francis Etienne, French Ambassador to New Zealand

chaired by

Dr Oliver Hartwich, Executive Director, The New Zealand Initiative

Can the Euro crisis get any worse?

With a pro-growth Socialist president firmly installed in France, Greece in political gridlock, soaring unemployment and a deepening banking crisis in Spain, and Angela Merkel’s pro-austerity Christian Democrats suffering a crushing defeat in the big German state of North-Rhine Westphalia, are we finally approaching the end game for the European Union?

Join Dr Oliver Hartwich, executive director of The New Zealand Initiative, for a moderated discussion with firebrand anti-EU Member of the European Parliament and Youtube sensation Daniel Hannan and French Ambassador to New Zealand and EU cheerleader His Excellency Francis Etienne.

I so wish I could attend. If you wish to attend, you need to register at this page.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs:

Why are we paying for Murray McCully to stay in hotels in Auckland?

According to his latest Ministerial credit card receipts [PDF, p. 12], we paid for McCully to spend two nights at the Heritage Hotel in Auckland. The expense is justified as “accommodation during RWC”. This would be entirely uncontentious, except for one thing: McCully represents an Auckland electorate, and I am informed he is on the electoral roll there. Which means he has a home of his own to go to in Auckland. So again, why the hotel? …

Ministers are given credit cards to cover actual, reasonable and necessary expenses – not because they feel like spending a night of luxury on the taxpayer, or just can’t be arsed driving home.

I’m sorry but this is ridicolous. First of all staying for two nights in the Heritage hotel is not a night of luxury. I’ve stayed there as TVNZ put you up there if you are up for one of their shows. It is a very standard hotel. Nothing wrong with it, but not a luxury hotel.

As for why McCully was staying there for two nights, during the Rugby World Cup. Well he was the Minister in charge of a event which is broadcast to a billion people, and has overall revenues of hundreds of millions. At an event like that you could well have meetings starting very early and finishing late, plus a hotel room allows you to hold meetings in it.

I speak from experience. I was the Chair of the organising committee for the ICANN meeting in Wellington some years ago. This is a fraction of the size of the RCW, but was a fairly major event to host, as you had 500 – 700 Internet policy makers here. Despite living in Wellington, I stayed at the official host hotel of the Duxton (and if anyone calls that a luxury hotel, they have not been there often) as it was decided that the extra cost was fairly minimal in the context of the importance of smooth management, which was having all the key decision makers staying together so that as issues arose, decisions could be made quickly.

In the context of an almost billion dollar events like the RWC, a decision by the Minister to spend two nights in the Auckland CBD rather than what can be an hour away in East Coast Bays, is unremarkable and trivial – and frankly criticism of it is ludicrous, especially painting it a night of luxury.

I think those that glamorise hotels have never stayed in one themselves. In the main they are just places they supply a bed you can sleep in and a bathroom you can shower and freshen up in. Sure there are some luxury hotels with stunning views and the like, but 95% of staying in hotels is just about a well located bed.

When I go up to Auckland, I much prefer crashing at a friend’s place than staying in sterile hotels. However sometimes I will reluctantly go into a hotel, because the location in the CBD allows you to do business more efficiently.

Why did McCully stay in a hotel for two nights in Auckland? The exact same reason – it allowed him to do his job as RWC Minister more efficiently.

UPDATE: Looking closer at the actual DIA documents, the title page is headed up “Credit Card Statements and Reconciliations – Staff of the Office of Hon Murray McCully”. This means it is not McCully’s credit card, but his staff’s ones. And when they are paying for something on behalf of the Minister, they always note that. So when there is no such notation, then the expense is presumably for them, not the Minister.

Having made inquiries, it turns out that in fact the two nights at the Heritage was for a Wellington based staff member who was in Auckland for RWC duties. So I look forward to NRT doing a retraction.

This comes from this OECD study. That huge increase in number of teachers didn’t seem to have much impact did it.

Adam Bennett at NZ Herald reports:

Justice Minister Judith Collins has initiated High Court defamation action against Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little but the two Labour MPs remain defiant, saying the case is unlikely to make it into the courthouse.

They also said they didn’t think she would file in court, so their track record on this is not good. I thought Trevor and Andrew would welcome the chance to prove in court that what they said is true.

Mr Mallard late yesterday confirmed he’d received a letter from Ms Collins’ lawyers Morrison Kent informing him proceedings had been filed and asking him to co-operate in allowing papers to be served on him.

“I see no reason to co-operate in what is clearly a vexatious action.”

Oh dear, this means that Trevor is going to play hide from the lawyers, rather than man up. Expect several weeks of Trevor cowering in Parliament where he can’t be served.

UPDATE: Little is also refusing to accept service. I think both men are idiots. The average Joe Public think the sort of people who avoid court documents being served on them are gang members and criminals. Little rather hysterically says:

Labour MP Andrew Little says ACC Minister Judith Collins will have to hire ”thuggish characters” to serve defamation proceedings against him and fellow Labour MP Trevor Mallard after the pair refused to cooperate with demands from her lawyer.

I’ve got the perfect person for the job. He has had to collect debts off gang members and the like, so this should be easy fodder for him – Whale Oil!

Just give the papers to Cam, and a travel allowance and I’m sure he’ll have them served within a few days.

The Daily Telegraph reports:

Under-performing civil servants will be identified and fired under plans to rank all government officials in order of ability, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Now that would be a fun league table to compile!

Sweeping plans to overhaul the civil service are expected to be published within the next month. They are bound to infuriate public sector unions who yesterday staged another day of industrial action.

According to the Cabinet Office, there are currently 434,000 civil servants, the lowest number since the Second World War, as a result of an efficiency drive by the Coalition.

At the time of the last general election, in May 2010, the civil service numbered more than 500,000.

NZ had around 39,000 public servants and it is now around 36,000. A fairly modest 7% reduction compared to the 12% or so in the UK.

However interesting to note the UK has one civil servant per 143 people, and NZ is one per 119 people.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

ACT leader John Banks says he gave away a luxury gift basket from German millionaire Kim Dotcom, who is at the centre of a series of allegations surrounding donations to the former Auckland mayor.

Mr Banks confirmed yesterday that he had failed to declare the gift in the register of MPs’ pecuniary interests. MPs are supposed to declare all gifts worth more than $500.

The register is due to be published by the end of the month and MPs were supposed to complete their declarations by February. They are allowed to make adjustments, however.

Mr Dotcom has reportedly claimed that in December he left the hamper worth about $1000 for Mr Banks at the Hong Kong Grand Hyatt.

Mr Banks responded to the gesture with a thank-you note signed “warmest best”.

In a statement last night, Mr Banks confirmed he received the gift basket but said he did not accept it and gave it to hotel staff.

“I have learned through the media today that the gift was supposedly worth more than $500, an amount which requires disclosure under the Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests.

“Subsequently my office sought clarification from the registrar on the appropriate course of action. As we are unable to confirm the actual value, their advice was to make an addition to my return … which I have now done.”

An MP could complain to the Privileges Committee, if thy think the return was deliberately inaccurate. However that would only be accepted if there was some evidence that Banks knew the value of the gift basket was over $500. I have to say that I would not generally assume a hotel gift basket was worth over $500, so even if a complaint is lodged with the Speaker (which Labour could well do as a publicity stunt), I’d be surprised if it is referred to the Privileges Committee.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister John Key confirmed yesterday that he had met Mr Dotcom’s bodyguard, Wayne Tempero.

The meeting was about a self defence programme for young women and happened before Mr Tempero went to work for Mr Dotcom.

Good God. How is this relevent.

It was claimed yesterday that Mr Banks had proposed a meeting between Mr Tempero and Mr Key over Mr Dotcom’s “future efforts for New Zealand”.

Mr Key has repeatedly said he had never heard of Mr Dotcom till his arrest on internet piracy charges.

A spokeswoman for Mr Key said he has met Mr Tempero once at his electorate office “many years ago”.

“Mr Tempero had returned to New Zealand and was looking for support for self-defence programme he was looking to run for young women,” she said.

I suspect this was before Key was even PM. The reality is that once you are PM, you spend less time in electorate clinics.

Stephen Stratford blogs on lunch with Winston:

NBR has posted online the official text of the speech here. It was the usual stuff, a mixture of charm, bluster, fudging the historical record and blaming the media – especially two social-media operatives, Whale Oil and “a mischievious [that’s how he pronounced it] blogger known as Kiwiblog” who apparently are responsible for NZ First’s dismal result in the last election.

Heh. Again, if this is true I want a knighthood.

When in government Peters was notorious for not reading Cabinet papers. He seemed not to have read his speech either – we were all discovering it together. We were on the same journey. At one point he extemporised then went back to the speech notes – and repeated a couple of paragraphs. He didn’t notice but we all did.

Oh dear, senior moments.

On Kim Dotcom: “Tim Dotcom”.

On Jacinda Ardern: “Jacinda Ahearn”.

More blather followed about finance and speculation, all of it about John Key and all of it economically illiterate, as I said to Joshua later. He replied, “But he’s very politically literate.” Yes. I suppose that’s why he is still with us.

Among the audience eyebrows had been raised and eyeballs had rolled throughout. But not as much as when – after some shameless pandering to the audience about how wonderful “TV7” is – he got onto immigration and Asians, as we all knew he would eventually

Drive down Dominion Road, there’s 150 restaurants. Now there can’t be that many people eating.