Kiwiblog

A book co-authored by the chairman of the Kotahitanga Community Trust, a taxpayer-funded charitable organisation, claims the following:

* The health system is racist and opposes activities like smoking and eating fatty foods simply because Maori enjoy them.

* Calls for taxpayers to provide Maori with pills to prevent illnesses like diabetes and heart disease instead of expecting Maori to stop smoking or start dieting and exercising.

* labels as “house niggers” and “Uncle Toms” Maori who disagree with them.

* says cervical screening “contravenes significant cultural norms” and has been imposed on Maori by Pakeha.

* claims Maori babies do not benefit from routine childhood vaccination against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and polio

“Anti-gambling research is rubbish. It can be seen as just another example of the health Nazis looking to extend their empire,” the book says.

The Trust received around $300,000 of Government funding last year. And while the taxpayer did not fund this book directly, you do have to wonder whether an organisation with such extreme views is actually helping health outcomes at all.

I think the first challenge for National should be to get Clem Simich made Speaker, instead of Margaret Wilson. Simich is well liked by most MPs and seen as scrupulously fair, so this is not an impossible task. However National needs to start pushing his candidacy before Labour signs minor parties up to agreements which include a requirement to vote for Labour’s nominee for Speaker.

Wilson will be guaranteed 51 votes from Labour/Progressive. And despite all their noble squeals about MMP and independence, the Greens will vote for a partisan Labour speaker over a neutral National one any day. So that is 57 votes.

National and presumably ACT will vote for Simich which is 51 votes. So the parties to target are NZ First, United Future and the Maori Party.

The fact Clem is technically part-Maori may help with the Maori Party. But the stronger argument to make to them, is that voting Simich for Speaker will be a perfect way of showing to their voters that they will not be Labour’s lapdogs. And a neutral Speaker will help them in the House as they ask questions to the Government. So if Maori Party on board that is 55 for Clem.

NZ First will probably need little encouragement to vote for Simich over Wilson, especially with the antipathy between Peters and Wilson. It also needs to be sold to them as a way to be seen as independent, despite voting to keep the Government in office on supply and confidence. So with NZ First you have 62 for Clem and 57 for Wilson.

If you get NZ First and Maori Party then you don’t need United Future. However would be best to talk to them at an early stage and try and persuade them to not include voting for Speaker in any support agreement with the Government. Labour need the minor parties more than they need Labour, so this should not be hard to achieve.

If Greens pick up a seat off National, and United Future did decide to vote for Wilson, you could have a 61:61 tie. In that case I would expect a deal to be done to have Simich made Speaker.

PC has a photo of a near naked Keith Locke. He has some nice body paint on, and for the fain of heart he has underpants on so it is safe viewing.

Technically it is the first Green broken promise!

There is a two week long meeting at present in Geneva, where various countries want the UN (or similiar body) to be placed in charge of governance of the Internet.

I like this statement from the US Ambassador, David Gross:

“The United Nations will not be in charge of the Internet. Period.”

Straight talking is a relief!

Helen Bain in the SST speculates that Hawkins and Samuels will be dropped from Cabinet, and what a reshuffle may involve.

Now predicting Hawkins will be dumped is about as safe as predicting the sun will rise tomorrow. Her picks of King to Welfare and Mallard to defence sound common sense to me.

If I was Clark, here is what I would do:

Cabinet

1 Clark – PM, SIS
2 Cullen – Finance (but with a deputy he hands over to in 2007), Treaty
3 Anderton – Associate Education (Schools)
4 Maharey – Economic Development
5 Goff – Attorney-General, Education
6 King – Welfare
7 Mallard – Defence, State Services
8 Hodgson – Health, Transport
9 Horomia – Maori Affairs
10 Sutton – Foreign Affairs
11 Burton – Police
12 Swain – Labour
13 Dalziel – CYPFS
14 Hobbs – Environment
15 Dyson – ACC
16 Carter – Conservation & Local Govt
17 Benson-Pope – Justice
18 Cunliffe – Deputy Finance, Comms/IT
19 O’Connor – Immigration
20 Okeroa – Ass Maori,

Outside Cabinet

21 Chadwick – Ass Health
22 Barnett – Ass Welfare
23 Fairbrother – Ass Justice
24 Mahuta – Ass Maori

Dump

Hawkins
Barker
Tizard
Samuels
Duynhoven
Field
Ririnui

This would leave a slightly smaller executive of 24, which would allow people such as Shane Jones or Darren Hughes to be considered for promotion mid way through the term.

Anti Iraq war protesters closed down an ANZ branch in Auckland, led by permament protester John Minto.

Why the ANZ? Because they are helping finance some of the rebuilding work being done in Iraq.

Oh how evil. God some people are morons. Regardless fo whether or not one thinks the war was a good idea or not, I would have thought most people would agree helping rebuilding the infrastructure was a good thing. But no, not for Mr Minto.

National MP Sandra Goudie has upset Jeanette Fitzsimons as she lent moral support to 120 Coromandel locals who dared to clear a mangrove patch without resource consent.

This is the country that now requires building permits for tree huts, and food certificates for sausage sizzles.

A very timely article in the NZ Herald which suggests the problems with polls is not how they were conducted, but the way they were reported.

I have an obvious bias as I own a polling company, but I have long advocated that this is an issue.

In fact when NZ First had a bill to ban publishing opinion polls during election campaigns, I suggested to some of the media, that a reporting code for polls would be a useful compromise.

If we had such a code, here is what I would include in the draft:

1) Reserve the term “poll” for scientific random samples. 0900 phone ‘polls’ and other devices which depend on reader/viewer response should never be called polls but surveys.

2) Always include in the story the level of undecided respondents. One of the most important thing in political polls is seeing who goes in and out of being undecided. Sometimes a party can go from say 35% to 38% without any more people saying they support them, because another party has had some of its previous supporters now say they are undecided.

3) Publish not only the margin of error for the poll, but if you report on any demographic breakdowns, include the margin of error for them. The moe for a 1,000 string poll is 3.2% but for say the Wellingtonians in that poll, it is 10.0%.

4) Always include the time period it was conducted over.

5) Always include somewhere the actual question asked.

6) If the media organisation has a website, include a link to the full poll report from the polling company.

There’s a lot more than that one could do, but it is unrealistic to expect media stories to include the full disclaimers etc a full poll report normally has.

Personally I would also like to ban media from declaring a 1% change in a party’s vote is significant, but that is getting too subjective.

In another article on polling, Janet Hoek also slams reporting of minor parties as being under the margin of error. I have blogged about stupidity of this label on half a dozen occassions.

The NZ Herald reports on how the sale of the Skyhawks is expected to raise around $120 million.

I suspect I am not the only one who upon hearing on election night that a plane was threatening to fly into the Sky Tower, though “Damn wouldn’t it be useful to have not abolished our combat wing”.

My other thought is that Labour have this twisted logic that you can not afford tax cuts because every cent of the operating surplus is needed for capital expenditure; hence using their twisted logic the sale of the Skyhawks means you can now afford tax cuts.

This is bizarre.

The Slovenian who disrupted Tauranga, causing around $500,000 of costs to businesses, had this crazy crazy idea that if you commit a crime the Government will then deport you for free.

So he says he has a bomb and holes up in a building for half a day.

And then incredibly rather than prosecute him to get accross the message that the last thing a foreigner should so is break the law, they fly him home for free to Slovenia, along with two police escorts.

This is just stupidity. People who seriously break the law should be prosecuted.

The latest article reinforces my point that NZ is lacking by not having a list of people eligible to enrol. Over-stayers can easily enrol. Even tourists can enrol.

The system is based on people who are not eligible choosing to be honest and not enrolling. That isn’t much of a system. Again the criticism is not of the electoral officials. We need law changes so there is a register of citizens and permanent residents and also proof of ID requirements.

Putting aside the entire case of hiring a tiler for $1.20 an hour, we learn Taito Phillip Field has also had his wife receiving money from taxpayer funds. Now how many rules does this break:

1) Strictly forbidden for MPs to hire spouses or children

2) The payments were in cash, so bang goes the tax laws

The e-mails make very clear that there was a deliberate attempt to flout the laws by not listing her on the payroll, but to have the money paid to another staff member who would then pay her.

What would be interesting to find out, is how long this has been going on for.

Michelle Boag and Matthew Hooton are on Eye to Eye at 930 am to discuss a National-Maori Party coalition, with Pita SHarples and Tariana Turia. Should be interesting!

Rodney has on his blog an e-mail from John Armstrong agreeing that he/the media should not have discounted the Roy Morgan poll showing Rodney in the lead.

I think it speaks volumes that John is willing to admit when a mistake has been made. I personally regard him as one of the most respected commentators.

Rodney has also been having some fun highlighting Aaron’s predictions.

Gonzo has some ideas on ways to minimise the effects of the NZ Herald changes.

It is worth noting that from what I understand, links you browse off the main NZ Herald pages, will remain intact indefinitely. It is only if you use their internal search engine, that such links will disappear after a week.

Crikey has the transcript of an interview with Mark Latham, where he gets to basically tell the interviewer what he really thinks of him and the media. Very amusing.

Brian Easton has blogged on No Right Turn regarding “The Banzhaf Index” which measures the power of parties negotiating coalitions.

Warning: Do not attempt to read the post, when drunk. Not that I am, just that I am sure it would make your head hurt if you did.

I’m on Agenda this morning, about political blogging. Jordan and Colin Espiner were interviewed also.

Also made NBR again yesterday. A very sarcastic article on on “Farrar Aid” for victims of Hurricane Hobbs. The article is below.

Benefit album for hurricane victim

LOS ANGELES, Sept 23 – Some of the biggest names in the music world have agreed to record a benefit album for the victim of Hurricane Hobbs, which lashed the New Zealand capital last Saturday night. The album is to be called Farrar Aid a play on the words Farm Aid, with royalties earmarked to assist David P Farrar, the hapless National party political operator who oversaw one of the most inert political campaigns in the history of Wellington Central. Among the top-line acts expected to contribute their talents to the project are the iconic Finn Brothers, singer-songwriters Dave Dobbyn and Shona Laing, popular Auckland band the Mutton Birds and hiphop legend David P Money. The selections include: He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Blumsky, Take Me To The April Sun In The Cuba Street Apartments, So Farrar Away From Here, I Fought The Hobbs And The Hobbs Won and a special reworking of the old Bob Geldolf hit I Don’t Like Saturdays. “It’s going to be a little beauty of an album!” declared music critic Grant Smithies, one of the few industry insiders to have heard outtakes from the project. “Prepare to weep buckets!” Rolling Stone

As I will be heading overseas next week and want to minimise my e-mail, I’ve turned off the function where comments get e-mailed to me. This means that while I will still browse and reply to them on the blog itself, I am far less likely to read them all, so e-mail me directly if you need to contact me.

I’m down in Dunedin for InternetNZ meetings. Likely to have some spare time late this afternoon and on Saturday. Any suggestions from locals as to good places to have a drink or two? My intentions are my old local the Captain Cook, but it may have gone downhill recently?

Will also have a look around campus, as I normally do when visiting, and maybe grab some photos of my old hostel, Carrington Hall.

As I’m in Dunedin today, and going to visit my old university this afternoon, I should offer a view on the near annual outcry against a student newspaper article – this year being a Critic article on drug date rape. Warning the article is truly offensive.

I don’t have an issue with the article. I think it does more good in wanring people about how it can be done, than any harm it may do by telling would be rapists how to do it. They can find that out from the Internet (quick ban that also) anyway.

I do have an issue that students are forced to fund Critic through compulsory fees, but that is a seperate debate.

You can also see TV cameras being set up to interview the Critiic editor here.

A Queenstown man managed to enrol his Jack Russell dog, Toby, on the electoral roll listing his occupation as “rodent exterminator” and including a paw print on the form.

In my view New Zealand has possible the most lax regime in the developed world when it comes to ensuring only people entitled to vote, can enrol and vote. This is not the fault of the electoral agencies, but of the law.

There is no requirement to provide proof of identity when enrolling, or even when voting. There are no cross-checks against the births register, or a register of migrants who have permanent residency.

Personally I believe voting should be restricted to citizens, not just permanent residents (we are one of the very few countries where in law there is almost no difference between a citizen and a permanent resident) and that there should be a register of all citizens that the electoral roll is checked against.

Our current electoral enrolment system has so many flaws in it, that fraud is trivially easy to commit and never be detected.

The Dominion Post editorial strongly attacks Helen Clark’s request for Parliament to review third party advertising in campaigns.

They conclude that “She was implying, of course, that, because the religious sect had not backed Labour or the Greens, it should not be allowed to support anyone else. What about freedom of speech?”

The editorial also mentions the Bill of Rights, namely “Section 14 of the Bill of Rights Act