Kiwiblog

Cool. Orcon is looking to bring in VDSL2 technology which will allow speeds of up to 100 Mb/sec over the copper lines. This is 12 times ADSL of 7.6 Mb/s and 4 times that of ADSL2 of 24 Mb/s.

Definitely a case of better (slightly) late than never, Don Brash has ruled out further meetings with the Exclusive Brethren, saying they crossed a line in their use of a private detective.

Yay!

The NZ Herald Digipoll is fascinating. Not for the party vote figures (which have National well ahead) but for the question of whether people agree with Labour being called corrupt, and Helen Clark calling Don Brash cancerous.

52% say Dr Brash was right to call Labour corrupt, with only 38% disagreeing. This should ring massive warning bells to all Labour MPs (esp as even 30% of those voting Labour agree with the corrupt tag). Not that I am in the habit of giving friendly advice to Labour but for the love of God just follow what the Greens have done and say “As much as we disagree with the Auditor-General, we will pay back any money he declares was not appropriate to pay from The Parliamentary Service”. This will get rid of the corruption stench overmight – well that plus finding a new candidate for Mangere.

Most NZers are fair minded. They will not judge Labour corrupt off the original decision to fund the pledge card from their parliamentary budget. It’s the refusal to pay it back which brings the corrupt tag with it. The electoral over-spend was also corrupt but that can now never be determined in court.

As for Helen calling Don Brash “corrosive and cancerous”, my insitinct when I heard it was a blunder of massive proportions. And in the poll 74% of voters say the comment was “not okay”. The PM has forgotten the difference between language hard-core partisan activists will agree with, and language which resonates with most NZers.

There have now been four decisions made by expert panelists under the new dispute resolution process for .nz names.

The decisions are a fascinating read for the 0.1% of the population who, like me, are interested in domain name issues.

One of the four cases had the respondent contest the claim, and this was resolved in favour of the complainant – Intercity.

The other three were uncontested, but despite that one case was unsucessful as the complainant did not establish they had legitimate rights in the name.

Oh this is a superb hidden gem. Scoop has dug up some old audio archives of Don Brash before the last election being interviewed by student radio, and the hosts turned it into an agony aunt session with Don giving advice to students ranging from cyberspace love to hairy partners to blondy bimbo beauty queens.

I can only imagine the press secretary slitting his wrists while listening to this, but I actually think Don comes out really well in them – gives good advice mixed in with his own experiences. It’s a testament to his good nature that he went along with it. I can imagine many politicians would have refused to take questions of that line.

I find it somewhat bizarre when people try to paint Don as some sort of far right extreme “cancerous” figure propped up by the religious right. I suppose they have to try and paint him that way, but those lucky enough to actually get to know him see the sense of humour and disamring nature where he’ll go along with something like this.

Hat Tip: David Slack

I’m glad to see I was not the only one who felt uneasy reading the Dominion Post headline “Labour strikes back at sect“, detailing how the Government is looking to strip the Exclusive Brethren of labour law exemptions in response to their foray into politics.

It has all the overtones of a vengeful Government seeking to punish a group simply because they campaigned against them in an election. It’s a style of politics we don’t see overtly in New Zealand, or not until now.

idiot at No Right Turn and Greenie Phil U share the sense of discomfort.

I actually disagree with the law having a faith based exemption. Just as I don’t want power stations not built because of the spiritual life-flow of rivers, I don’t want some people to have a different employment law because of their religious belief.

But the way the Government plays it as an issue of revenge is what makes a lot of people nervous. As we already see a Government which believes it is above the law and will attack anyone who threatens it (including the Auditor-General), this is just another symptom of a sick culture.

Congratulations to NZ First who have said “We have the capacity to pay, we will pay, but when we know what we’re paying and why we are paying it”.

While there is some wriggle room, it is a very welcome statement, reinforcing MPs are not above the law.

This now leaves only two out of eight parties off-side. The common sense of United Future doesn’t yet extend to a statement they will pay it back. And we have Labour whose strategist Pete Hodgson has declared that under no circumstances whatsoever will they pay back even a cent.

Most Kiwis will know the classic Rolling Stones song “Paint it Black“. Well the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has released a new version of it called Pay It Back.

Enjoy the song and share it with your friends and colleagues so you can sing along to:

I see a red card and they got to pay it back.
They stole from public funds now they must pay it back…

I’m going to steal this idea from the NZ Herald. They asked for feedback on who would be suitable to join the Order of New Zealand – our highest honour and restricted to 20 NZers.

So lets have nominations in the comments section below. No negative nominations such as “Not Helen Clark” but positive ones. You can disagree though with nominations others make.

Chris Trotter yesterday joined the chorus of people saying Labour must pay back any money the Auditor-General finds was unauthorised.

Now this is a huge change for Trotter who just a couple of weeks agao was definiatly praising Labour for stealing the election, saying that breaking the law was a good decision if it kept National out of power.

Audrey Young in the NZ Herald has a brillant section on what the so called reprimand from Helen Clark to Trevor Mallard would be like:

“Trevor, it’s me. I’ve had to call you deplorable and say you’ll agree to lift standards in the House.

“Just tell them you’ll agree. I was a bit tough on the Auditor-General yesterday but I think it’s finally working. By the way: have you got any ideas on how I can put the boot into Brash tomorrow? What did you say? ‘Cancerous?’ Ha ha ha ha.”

Young notes that Mallard is not some errant backbencher but the 4th most powerful person in Labour after H1, H2 and Cullen.

Helen Clark has tried to spin the issue of the $800,000 as an issue nothing to do with her or Labour but as a dispute between Parliamentary Service and the Auditor-General. She has declared we have done nothing wrong and they have said they refuse to pay it back, regardless of what the Auditor-General says.

Now think if National applied the same tactics to the GST broadcasting error. The Electoral Commission actually pays the bills for the broadcasting so if National spun like Labour, they would have claimed “This is nothing to do with National – its is a dispute between the broadcasters and the Electoral Commission”.

And instead of agreeing to pay it back, and proposing a bill which will legally allow them to pay it back, they would have said “No it isn’t our fault the advertising agency booked too much time. How we were to know. We have done nothing wrong so won’t pay a cent”.

And instead of immediately notifying the Electoral Commission of the error, accepting all responsibility for the error, and agreeing to face any penalthy that comes their way, National would have constantly attacked the Electoral Commission as “unfair” and “smearing” National.

The difference between the two approaches is huge.

Wow. That is what you call a decisive swing. National has gone from a 2% lead in the party vote to an 11% lead. Also of key interest is that the very important government approval rating has gone from +3% to -11% which is a 14% change.

Greens doubled to 6% which shows good things happen when you agree to pay the money back.

The PM doubts 49% support National. She is partly right that no party tends to get that vote in an election. But these polls are of decided voters only and what may have happened is a lot of Labour voters gone undecided which would make National go so high as a percentage of the decided vote.

The net disapproval ratng is the one which should worry Labour. That sends a very clear message that voters disapprove of their role in publicising Don Brash’s alleged affair and also the “non-personal” cancerous attack. Oh yeah, plus they also want Labout to pay the money back no doubt!!

The SST reports Katherine Rich as agreeing with Gerry Brownlee that the Brethren involvement cost National the election. I basically agree with this in that I have long thought they lost more votes off National than their pamphlets lost off Labour. Whether it was enough to change the result is speeculative but the notion that their $500,000+ helped National is not the case.

Their problem, as I have often said, is not being upfront with their activities. One press conference or press release announcing what they were doing and why would have changed the reaction entirely.

That secretive behaviour, combined with the private detective hiring, do make them electoral poison. Of course National MPs should not refuse to meet with members of the Exclusive Brethren over constituency issues or at public meetings but any private meetings with church leaders to discuss political issues and strategy should be ruled out. Otherwise they remain Labour’s universal answer to any allegation:

Nat: Labour broke the electoral act spending limit
Lab: But you meet with the Exclusive Brethren

Nat: Labour won’t pay back the $800,000
Lab: But you meet with the Exclusive Brethren

Nat: Labour has the largest current account deficit in history
Lab: But you meet with the Exclusive Brethren

Nat: A Labour Minister has been savaged over his marina decision by a Judge
Lab: But you meet with the Exclusive Brethren

Nat: Prisoners are getting flat screens TVs which sost four times a normal one
Lab: But you met with the Exclusive Brethren

The SST also has a more in depth article on The Brethren.

In a somewhat sycophantic interview with the PM by the HoS, Clark declares she always keeps a sense of humour.

How-ever the NZ Herald editorial the day before poses the question “What is eating Helen Clark?”. Indeed the constant topic around the chattering classes, and including senior Labour Party figures, is how Clark’s normally excellent instincts could fail her so badly that she did not see the idiocy of labelling Brash cancerous in the same breath as deploring personal attacks. It was a error in judgement you might expect from a first time candidate, not someone who has been an MP for 25 years.

Incidentially I hear froma reliable source that the phone lines at the Cancer Society have been running hot with people complaining about her use of “cancerous” especially.

Anyway onto the editorial:

What is eating Helen Clark? What can have possessed her to term National leader Don Brash “corrosive and cancerous”? By any yardstick, there was little to gain, and much to lose. Could it be, then, that the weight of criticism levelled at Labour over the use of public funds to produce its election pledge card, allied to the smear campaign against her husband, has caused her to lose her bearings? Has a usually calm and astute figure fallen victim to the perils of personal politics?

There is one logical solution for Labour’s difficulties. It must pay back any taxpayer money found to have been unlawfully spent on electioneering. The Greens this week joined several other parties in opting for this. Labour should follow suit, abandoning its deeply unpopular proposal to introduce legislation to validate spending identified as unlawful in the Auditor-General’s final report.

The Greens’ move, decided even though they are puzzled by the Auditor-General’s interpretation of the rules, has been widely applauded. This, to some degree, would also happen if Labour took the same action. More importantly, it would, in one step, take the party to the political equivalent of clean air.

National, for its part, must rid itself of the hindrance that hovers, sword of Damocles-like, over it. Its links to the Exclusive Brethren, and the $1.2 million campaign orchestrated by the sect, may well have cost the party the last election. Now, National is caught in the wash whenever Helen Clark accuses the Exclusive Brethren of smear campaigns. Again, the solution is simple. Victoria’s National Party leader, Peter Ryan, who is contesting a state election in November, has said he will not accept donations from the sect. Don Brash should dissociate his party in the same way.

Will all this happen? The omens are not propitious. Even United Future leader Peter Dunne, Parliament’s self-proclaimed voice of reason, is becoming more irrational by the day.

Not content with breaching protocol in a particularly jarring way by claiming the former Solicitor-General had besmirched the reputation of MPs, he now claims the Auditor-General’s investigation into election spending is “a mess”. The intimidatory intent and luridness of his tone are as disgraceful as the extent of his disconnection from reality.

I think the Leaders of Labour, United Future and National would all do well to take the advice on the editorial.

Helen is musing about an inquiry into the activities of private investigators and politicians.

It will be very ironic if after having a toothless inquiry into Taito Philip Field, she then sets up an inquiry into what she sees as her enemies with the powers she should have given the Ingram Inquiry.

Personally I have no problem with such an inquiry, so long as the terms of reference include how Labour and NZ First MPs came to possess or have knowledge of personal e-mails to and from Don Brash.

It seems there are VUWSA elections next week. VUWSA spent lots of money justifying why their levy should go up, yet is doing a crap job letting students even know about the elections. Jordan Carter is very unhappy, justifiably.

Compulsory membership associations of course have little inecentive to communicate well with their members – after all you can’t leave if they do a crap job. And another great reason for voluntary membership comes in this quote from the VUWSA Campaigns Officer:

“Nick [Kelly], Joel [Cosgrove] and I agreed that the meeting to increase the VUWSA levy was more important than the University fee setting meeting on Monday”

They regard getting to put up their own fees as more important than restricting any fee increases from the university. Hell they will all be invited to the Vice-Chancellor’s Xmas drinks.

Finally for those who are Victoria students and wish to vote, Jeremy Greenbrook-Held, has a list of whom he is voting for, and whom he thinks will win.

The imfamous Dave Letterman “Top Ten Signs Your Husband Is Gay” is online at CBS.

My favourites:

9. On your wedding day, you wore the same dress

1. Says he got rear-ended but the car looks fine

A huge hat tip to Spare Room (if you do not visit them daily you are missing out) for this youtube video of the TV3 item showing Mallard and Hodgson dancing. It is mixed in with grabs from Brash and Clakr interviews and is superb.

“Allegations of corruption are intolerable in a Western liberal democracy.” – Helen Clark.

No, Miss Clark. Corruption is intolerable. When allegations of corruption are intolerable, it’s no longer a Western liberal democracy.

A perfect summing up from Teenage Pundit.

Hat Tip: Not PC

Rob Hosking blogs about the PM, the gallery and the Davis rumours. An extract:

Seriously though, by my count, the gallery offices of TVNZ, TV3, and Radio New Zealand have all said they have never heard National MPs pushing the rumours.

The Dunedin PI who has admitted wroking for the Exclusive Brethren has claimed that Labour had hired people to spy on National, the EB and specifically to go through the rubbish bins of Brash and Key. It is on the record that Key’s neighbours have twice seen men in suits going through the rubbish bins at or near his place.

Let me say that I do not for a second that believe these claims. Neither major political party is of the type that would engage in these activities. I do not believe the media should give any credence to the claims by Idour, unless there is at least a shred of proof.

Yesterday’s confirmation that the Exclusive Brethren did hire Wayne Idour as a private detective to investigate Labour MPs is deeply troubling. It is not quite as bad as having a PI “follow” MPs but it is still an activity which has no place in NZ politics. It also confirms Mr Idour and the some in the Exclusive Brethren are both liars, having both denied this activity previously.

I actually agree with the Prime Minister that National must now renounce any dealings with the Brethren. Their tactics condemn them. It was pleasing to see Don Brash condemn their behaviour (based on the reports) and that he would be very wary of ever agreeing to a meeting with them again. Personally I would like to see very wary become “not”.

In saying this I do not criticise previous meetings. Any party is going to be happy to meet with a group which says “Hey we don’t like the Government and want to help get rid of them”. Likewise dozens of electorates around the country were I am sure delighted that a few extra people came forward to volunteer to help deliver letters etc. You’d be mad not to.

However the situation has changed since then. What was fine back then, is different today. We now know the following:

1) The EB were not upfront with their authorship of the pamphlets. They made a huge tactical error in not announcing what they were doing and why, Their actions in the end caused damage to National. And the covert nature of their activities is not a once offer, but repeated around the world.

2) Their involvement does not appear to be a local decision, but part of a global trend, presumably upon orders. No Right Turn has done a good job highlighting these.

3) Most importantly they are now confirmed as having hired a private detective to investigate Labour MPs.

The combination of those three factors makes them a group one should stay well away with. They are free to campaign against whom they want, but National needs to be explicit that it will not be holding any exclusive meetings with them. One gets tainted by association, so the association must end.

I am sure there are many lovely members of the Exclusive Brethren. In fact I’ve met myself probably more than a dozen of them, and they all seem genuinely nice decent people. But they are being let down by the leadership of their “church” who presumably signed up to the decision to hire a private detective.

Heh I got sent this by an anonymous donor

After calling Don Brash “corrosive and cancerous” Helen Clark then tried to claim this was not a personal attack because she did not mean Don personally, but the “Don Brash brand”.

She has obviously been spending too much time with Alistair Campbell.

This did not impress The Press, their editorial quoted below:

The personalised attack by the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, on the Leader of the Opposition, Don Brash, is something quite extraordinary in New Zealand politics.

For a serving Prime Minister to attack her chief political adversary as a “corrosive and cancerous” person and as “not fit to be a leader in New Zealand” is probably unprecedented. Not even in the rancid days of Robert Muldoon was such bitter, venomous language used by a politician in public discourse. That it should be possible to make a comparison with Muldoon – a model in personalised politics no-one should wish to follow – shows how lamentable the Prime Minister’s attack is. Despite Clark’s promises to raise the tone after the descent into the gutter in the last couple of weeks, she has regrettably only succeeded in lowering it.

caucus, and ultimately, voters to decide. By wading in with her two-cents worth, Clark clearly hopes to divert attention from herself and her own party’s misdeeds.

In the end, it all comes back to Labour’s profound discomfiture over its election mis-spending. In addition to assailing Brash, Clark this week again launched into the Auditor-General, Kevin Brady. It is very hard to see how this can be anything but an attempt to put public pressure on the Auditor-General at a time when he is considering his final report on the matter, with the aim of discrediting it in advance. It is a disquieting manoeuvre and further evidence of how far Clark has become unnerved.