Kiwiblog

The Police Complaints Authority has said they will not investigate the claims made in Investigate about the Dunedin Police, as there is no formal complaint for them to act on, and that the Police should investigate first.

I think this is regrettable. Not because I think the claims made in Investigate are necessarily correct. But because they are serious enough to damage public confidence in the Police, if there is not an independent investigation into them. Before the Bazley Report came out, one might have been more secure in thinking that there is no way this could be true, but that benefit of the doubt has been removed.

Ian Wishart points out that the PCA went out of its way to say that the relevant Act of Parliament does not give the PCA the functions of a Commission of Inquiry. This is language like the Ingram Report, which said a body with the appropriate powers is needed to fully investigate the claims.

If I was one of those police officers named in Investigate, I would be demanding a proper inquiry to clear my name.

First we had the Greens sulking at the influence of United Future beign greater than the Greens, despite three times the MPs.

Now Peter Dunne is sulking because Labour keeps flirting with the Greens and National is trying to seduce the Maori Party ahead of United Future.

Peter’s problem is that in political terms, he is an easy lay.

Now I don’t mean this as a bad thing. Peter is a very good guy, who is always a safe and competent Minister, and he doesn’t go troppo like Winston does. But it does mean both major parties do tend tio take him for granted.

We may be about to see a more frigid United Future as they struggle for profile and relevance. Already Peter has started to publicly push for personal tax cuts in 2008 – something which would get any other Minister sacked. It may be interesting to see how far he will push. Not that it matters for tax cuts – no one will believe election year tax cuts from Labour, after they broke their word and cancelled the last set of election year promised tax cuts.

They are having a hilarious time on One’s Breakfast TV reading out extracts from some sort of who we trust survey.

Paul Henry just read out that Matthew Ridge is more trusted than Trevor Mallard, and they all burst into laughter. Took a while for them to be able to carry on.

UPDATE: Oh it gets even better. Henry just announced that Ian Wishart was at no 57 on the trusted list – one spot ahead of Helen Clark. Ha ha ha ha ha. Priceless.

Stuff has further details here.

UPDATE II: The full list is at Readers Digest. Ian Wishart is also ahead of John Key, but the difference is that this won’t worry John Key, while I am sure it pisses off Helen. If John had been behind Winston, then that might be another matter!

I’ve previously blogged my disagreement with Archbishop Tamaki’s assertion that Christianity is NZ’s state religion. Specifically I disagree with his assertion that the parliamentary prayer should continue to refer to “the Christian god Jesus Christ”, when we have MPs of other faiths in Parliament.

But is there a middle ground between Tamaki claiming NZ’s official religion should be Christianity, and the declaration that “New Zealand has no official or established religion”.

What I am thinking is some sort of acknowledgement about the role of Christianity in our history, because there is no doubt for many years we were very much a “Christian nation” even if we are not today.

I recall this debate when the EU was writing the proposed Constitution for the EU. There was significant criticism of the fact that it didn’t even mention the role of Christianity in the history of Europe. And it was ridiculous to not make mention of that, as it was probably the biggest influence of the last 2,000 years. I mean my God we even had Holy Roman Emperors up until 1806.

I can understand the concerns many Christians have that over time we may lose Christian traditions such as Christmas and Easter. I agree they are very much a part of NZ, even if they do not have the religious significance they once did.

So while not supporting any concept of Christianity being an official or state religion, some recognition of its special status or heritage would not be a bad thing.

Labour can’t win in the real polls, so once again they are rigging the online polls.

Does everyone remember the story in the Dom Post a few months ago about how parliamentary staffers tried to rig a poll on John Key by casting 14,000 or so votes against John Key.

Well it has happened again. Peter McC noted last night at 7.15 pm that a poll on the Stuff homepage had National at 55% and Labour at 22% and Greens at 6%. Now a couple of hours later it was National at 34% and Labour at 35% and Greens at 15%.In those two hours Labour gained at least 3,500 votes.

And he kept watching and in the next five minutes Labour gained another 400 votes.

Now of course this time the poll rigging might not have been from parliamentary machines, but as they did last time, Fairfax should investigate which IP addresses were responsible, and publish this info. Also they really should get a poll script which prevents multiple voting.

You know there are times I’m glad we don’t use Diebold voting machines in NZ. I could just see them declaring universal satisfaction with the Government every election!

A useful collection of quotes from a poll commentator, this year:

29 Jan – “The headline for this one really ought to be “Key delivers a backwards bounce to National”

5 Feb – “This poll is very good news for the forces of the left. Labour and the Greens together poll 52% which if it held in an election, would be a resounding majority under MMP.”

19 Feb – “This is a reasonably good set of numbers for Labour. National will be concerned with these numbers. The Great Key Bandwagon continues what I identified from all other polls – Key’s takeover of the leadership has been met with declining poll results for National, and rising poll results for Labour.”

26 Mar – “The honeymoon bounce has always been inevitable – the same part of the cycle in 2004. The last two Roy Morgan polls, for example, have shown solid but declining National leads.”

1 Apr – “After what has happened to the government since 4 February, the date of the last TV3-TNS poll, to hold fast to these results is a nice vindication. It vindicates what is a boring and oft-repeated story on this blog: the government has been delivering things that ordinary Kiwis want. The reverse political correctness of the right – trying to stir fears about crime, lies about smacking, etc – just do not seem to be getting the kind of traction some of our dear colleagues on the wrong side of politics seem to demand and expect as their due.

24 Apr – “I’m fairly pleased to see the left doing better than it was seven months ago, and Labour’s support increasing. I do not believe that National’s support is solid at 49%, given the results of the last election, and Helen Clark’s continued strong showings in the preferred PM numbers show that Labour remains fully competitive.”

14 May – “Not a good result for Labour or the left, but nor is it an overwhelming endorsement for the right – the left:centre:right balance in this poll is 44:6.7:48.5.”

28 May – “Self evidently, the problem isn’t substance. People aren’t unhappy with particular policies, though the call for a tax cut is very widespread (and shows Labour’s handling of the tax debate has not succeeded).”

The solution it seems is merely better spin.

Green co-leader Russel Norman has blogged on the latest poll results. Norman notes that it is hard to see where Labour can go now, and also criticises their lack of substance on sustainability issues.

Now here is my challenge to the Greens. I don’t expect that given a choice between a Labour led or National led Government, the Greens will ever have National as their first choice. But what if Labour were not a viable choice. Would the Greens be open to an agreement to at least abstain on confidence and supply, and what would their key priorities be in exchange for such an agreement?

Would the Greens be better off just opposing a National led Government, or should they try and influence it?

And even if National did gain enough votes to govern alone, should it try and get agreements with various parties to form a broader coalition? One could do coalition agreements with ACT and United Future and confidence and supply agreements (either to vote for or to abstain) with both the Maori Party and the Greens. It might mean a less distinctive programme in some areas, but it also might mean a more sustainable government?

This isn’t taking 2008 for granted by any means. I am sure the polls will change over the next 18 months. But they are useful questions to consider.

A Re-elect LBJ ad from 1964. It isn’t subtle.

Kieren McCarthy writes in The Times about the titantic battle for control of the sex.com domain. He’s just written a book about the battle.

Damian Christie is not a fan of the NZ Herald’s new “Blonde at the Bar” feature. For some reason he thinks a newspaper should have more actual news in it. Outraegous.

The Fiji Times reports on the new chief prosecutor for their Independent Commission against Corruption. Some of us online will recall Grant from his blogging days! Well done.

Whale Oil casts a tiny bit of doubt over Whoar’s claims of three million page views a month.

Bruce at Aardvark is not a fan of Xero and advises against.

Mr Tips at NZ Conservative has an amusing recollection of Clayton Cosgrove:

In Form 2 (year 8 to Generation Y), a planned outing for 30 rowdy boys was in jeopardy because the teacher got the bus time wrong. We were highly annoyed, but Clayton slipped out, got on the phone in the school office and managed to get the bus to come earlier. The teacher naturally took umbrage at this and Clayton simply replied:

“Who the hell is running this class, me or you?” The class descended into chaotic laughter.

The NZ Herald asks people for advice on what Labour can do now.

A comment had me go read the Hansard of what Labour said in Parliament *after* the Ingram Report was released. Again, this is what they said after such a damning report had come out.

Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister): Dr Ingram found that no conflict existed, or appeared to exist, between Mr Field’s private interests and the use of his influence as a Minister. The report does imply errors of judgment in respect of Mr Field’s MP role, and those issues are being addressed by the Labour Party leadership and whips.

Note no mention of unethical or immoral here. In fact it is all just an error of judgement.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Mr Brownlee, of course, leads this debate for another reason. Nobody will ever be able to accuse him of overexertion on behalf of his constituents. After all, the fundamental fault Mr Field committed was to work too hard on behalf of the many, many hundreds of people who come to his electorate office on immigration matters.

Here Dr Cullen says the “fundamental” fault was working too hard for constituents.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: This inquiry has gone on for a long, long time. It has cost a lot of money. National Party members forgot the lines in the opening speech. They want the inquiry to go on longer and to cost even more money. They want another inquiry, because National likes commissions of inquiry, as Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith PhD said. He says: “Let us spend more taxpayers’ money and we’ll get to the bottom of things.” Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith likes to get to the bottom of things in life. Well, we say to National members that these matters can be put behind us in this respect. This report is now in the public arena. Does it conclude what Mr Brownlee says it does? No, it does not.

Dr Cullen gets nasty, rejects a proper inquiry and says it is all behind us now and time to move on.

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: So Mr Field has some matters to work through with the Labour leadership and the Labour whips. But he works incredibly hard on behalf of his constituents. He has people coming to him from all over Auckland for assistance, not just in immigration cases but in many other cases. He works harder on those matters than I suspect the entire National Party caucus does on constituency cases. If that is what he is guilty of, then I am sure he is happy to plead guilty to working hard on behalf of his constituents.

And again he proclaims Mr Field to be a model MP,

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour): So the conclusion of the inquiry is that it was a very satisfactory inquiry. There is no evidence to doubt what Mr Field says. The overall conclusion is that we have a member of Parliament who works very hard and very diligently, and who cooperated fully with the inquiry

Russell backs field 100% and says the diligent MP cooperated fully with the inquiry. Never mind that Ingram basically said he did not believe him.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour): This is a report that Mr Field can wave around as a tribute to his integrity, and it suggests he will continue to be a profitable and good member of the House.

And this is the clincher – Mr Fairbrother claimed the Ingram Report is a tribute to Field’s integrity.

Did a single Labour MP publicly express concern over what Field had done? No. They defended him.

The woman who blew 1943 mcg over the weekend, one of the highest breath-alcohol readings police have seen, was thought to be going to Hamilton to meet her Alcoholics Anonymous adviser.

Maybe next time, she could just phone them!

Most commentators have been saying that Labour’s political management over the last year has been a series of blunders. This is why they are behind in the polls.

The PM says they have been dealing with some tough issues? Really? Which tough issues are they? The smacking bill was not a tough issue – they made it tough through stubbornness. Fixing NCEA is not a tough issue – simple steps such as reintroducing recording of failure have been asked for, for years. The economy is still growing strongly enough for all the usual spending bribes. There is now a parliamentary consensus on tough issues like climate change, allowing the Govt to make decisions.

Labour is not suffering because they are dealing with tough issues. They are suffering because they are not dealing with tough issues.

And Clark still argues tax cuts are unaffordable, despite the fact Cullen gave away $2b a year in the last budget and has a $10b spending contingency in the budget for out years.

Whale Oil has pictures from a Chinese hostage negotiation. The ending doesn’t involve bail or parole!

He also corrects the Herald about who has been voting for increase in water rates in Auckland.

Morph discovers research that shows straight men and lesbian women are best at map reading. That explains a hell of a lot to me – yet to meet a straight woman who can navigate well. Thank God for GPS!

Welly Girl has a list of what they don’t teach you at school. My favourites are:

4. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

23. Light travels faster than sound. That’s why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Lindsay Mitchell endorses Steve Maharey as Labour Party Leader on the basis of her theory that women are now supporting National solely because John Key is good looking.

There’s some increasing tension between Labour and the Greens.

The Greens feel somewhat betrayed by the budget. They made the mistake of mistaking a slogan from Helen Clark about carbon neutrality as actually meaning something, and couldn’t believe how little there was in the budget about carbon neutrality.

They also feel that United Future with two votes has massively more influence than they do with six votes. They are correct – Dunne (and others) has got Transmission Gully agreed to, a business tax cut and donations to charity tax deductible. The Greens have got a slogan. This is because Labour knows when push comes to shove, the Greens are so red that they would never seriously consider not supporting a Labour-led Government.

But the Greens went too far in threatening to block Transmission Gully, and Cullen has now fired back with threatening to remove funding for rail electrification of the Greens try to black individual projects.

The irony is that the Greens are worried the new regional petrol tax will not be high enough!! The first 5c can go on roading only or a mix of roading and public transport, while the next 5c has to be public transport if the first 5c was all roading. So they want to guarantee a 10c petrol increase, even if local authorities only want a 5c one.

Personally I think public transport, when there is a case for it, should be funded from taxation, not petrol tax.

The petrol tax issue will be one to keep watching, to see who blinks first.

Belated congrats to Rod Drury and team for winning the International Technium Challenge for tech start-ups.

They get not only $120,000 but some free office space in the UK. Cool.

Disclaimer: I have applied for $5,000 of Xero shares.

The NZ Herald has a lengthy profile of Clayton Cosgrove.

Cosgrove for many years was pretty unpopular with his colleagues, and this clouded appraisal of his future. A self described moral conservative in the Labour Party can be about as welcome as a zoophile would be in the Animals First Party.

But Cosgrove has done well as a Minister and has certainly proven his appointment was made on merit. I’ve been impressed with most of the work he has done on Building Issues.

It’s 33 days until 30 June, and NZ First and United Future are yet to pay back the amounts identified by the Auditor-General. In fact NZ First has only hinted it will do so, and has not even agreed to do so.

Time for some more media questions!

I generally don’t comment on every single poll on the blog, preferring to do monthly commentary in my newsletter, but tonight’s One News Colmar Brunton can’t be ignored. The last time any party made 56% or higher in a Colmar Brunton poll was in September 1990 when National got 59%. Labour last got 56% or higher in this poll in July 1987.

On the ON/CB results, the seats in the House would be:

National 70 (+22)
Labour 38 (-12)
Maori 4 (nc)
ACT 1 (-1)
NZ First 0 (-7)
United Future 1 (-2)
Greens 7 (+1)
Progressive 1 (nc)

Total 122

Based on the above, Labour will be losing a dozen incumbent MPs, but not to bring in new blood – just through lost seats. They would need to lose around 20 MPs to actually bring in significant new blood.

National would have the problem of having every single list candidate making it into Parliament. That would send a collective shudder through Caucus.

Now I should state the obvious. There is no way there will be an election result like this. ON/CB polls tend to be more positive than others, and a lead of this magnitude can’t be maintained. But when the lead ranges from 12% to 25%, that’s all very grim for the Government.

Clark’s preferred PM rating of 27% is a long way down from her high of 52% in June 2002. It is the lowest she has been in that poll, since she became PM. The last time a PM trailed by 11% or more was Jim Bolger in October 1997.

The budget hasn’t provided any immediate assistance to the Government. In fact the vindictive cancelling of the 2005 announced tax cuts may have contributed to the decline.

On the face of it, the thought of crown owned companies hiring people to infiltrate and spy on a protest group, would fill most people with unease.

However before condemning Solid Energy, it is worth considering that Save Happy Valley is not just a protest group, but often breaks the law in their attempts to physically disrupt Solid Energy’s legal operations.

If a group is known to be planning what might effectively be sabotage, are you then justified in trying to find out to protect the company?

As far as I know it is not illegal to pretend to support a group, and to reveal information from that group to others, so long as you were legally entitled to that info (ie did not ransack the office for papers after the meeting)? The ethics are quite a different matter – especially from a crown company.

But most of all, I look at the irony that the story is from Nicky Hager. Nicky Hager makes tens of thousands of dollars by publishing a book based on either stolen e-mails or information from a spy in National. He has no problem with spying on National MPs. But he has outrage when a group which breaks the law, is spied on by the target of its law breaking activities.

The SST reports on the speculation that Labour, desperate to retain power, is considering endorsing Winston Peters in a safe Labour seat. On present polling NZ First will be wiped out of Parliament.

They also suggest that an alternative strategy could be to have Ron Mark stand without opposition from Labour in a Christchurch seat. But anyone who studies WInston knows it is more likely Keith Locke would campaign for George W Bush, than Winston allow his place in Parliament to be reliant on one of his MPs. The MP who has the seat which keeps a party in Parliament is the de facto leader.

Standing again in Tauranga is highly implausible unless Winston wants to be humiliated.

Fran O’Sullivan takes a well deserved swipe at Clark’s handing of the Taito Phillip Field corruption allegations. To quote her:

The terms of reference the Prime Minister set for her ministerial inquiry into Taito Phillip Field’s dealings have finally been exposed as a sham by the police decision to lay corruption charges.

Clark can be criticised in many many areas for how she has handled this issue. Going off teh top of my head chronologically:

(1) She did not suspend Field from the Executive once she knew of the allegations. The fact it was the week before the election is irrelevant. Jenny Shipley showed what a PM with integrity should do in 1999 when just two days before the election, one of her Ministers had serious (but less serious than Field’s) allegations made against him. She dismissed Delamere from Cabinet , despite the looming election, because it was the right thing to do.

(2) She defended Field, without knowing the facts.

(3) When she did set up an inquiry, she set one up with grossly inadequate powers, in fact with no powers. And contrary to Russell Brown claiming “not even National was saying so when the inquiry was announced”, National raised the issue of inadequate powers (such as to subpoena witnesses) on 22 September 2005, the day after Clark announced the inquiry. Also prior to the election National called for a judicial inquiry by a Judge, not a QC. Clark ignored the requests and complaints.

(4) The terms of reference were ridiculously limited to only investigating Field’s actions as a Minister, rather than as an MP also. As he had no portfolio responsibility for Immigration, the terms of reference made it almost impossible for the Ingram Inquiry to find any wrong doing, as it could only look at if he abused his Ministerial role, not his parliamentary role. Now again Helen Clark is a smart woman, and would have known this.

(5) When the Ingram Report came out, Helen Clark did not condemn Field, but worked to placate him, to stop him leaving Labour. As I blogged back in July (thanks for the reminder Russell), the Ingram Report savaged Field’s credibility, and was critical of him in around 44 areas. Her Deputy PM attacked National MPs for not being as conscientious as Field!

(6) Only many months later did she start to use language that she should have used at the beginning such as grossly unethical.and immoral. She now pretends this was her stance all along.

Helen Clark may not have actively covered up corruption (and of course there is a trial still to be had). But she went out of her way to do as little as possible about it.

On Agenda Labour Party President Mike Williams said:

“Tax cuts are a very sort of blunt weapon to redistribute income”

This sums up everything wrong with Labour. They have no empathy at all for the notion that the money belongs to you in the first place, and allowing you to keep more of your own money might possibly be justified. Incredible.

To make it simple for Mr Williams – tax cuts are indeed not about redistributing income. They;re about letting people keep more of their own income.

Williams also hints that Dr Cullen may now deliver tax cuts in 2008. But even if he does, who will believe him? He announced them in 2005 election year and then reneged and broke that promise. No statement by Cullen on tax cuts can now be treated as genuine. He’s broken his word once already on it.

Thank God we are starting to see some decent analysis about the long term implications of Kiwi Saver. I’m going to post more next week on this topic – including a list of reasons why “the right” should support Kiwi Saver.

Last night we had a first class speech by the person who privatised Chile’s pension scheme, and has consulted for around 30 other countries to do the same. And let me tell you that what struck me was how what Cullen has done is entirely consistent with privatising superannuation – making it compulsory for employers but voluntary for employees and incentives etc.

John Armstrong covers these issues in his column today. His final paragraph is very apt:

The more successful KiwiSaver becomes, the greater the risk that it may ultimately end up dissolving the very state-funded super scheme which Cullen has worked so hard to preserve.

Audrey Young in today’s Herald has a detailed examination of John Key’s performance and tactics.

It’s a pretty positive review, but it is fair to note that Key has yet to make a massive mistake, and face the pressure of recovering from that. And it is inevitable that at some stage he will make stuff something up – everyone stuffs up at some stage.

Poor Rick Ellis. What was his brain doing when he included a crime show and a prison reality TV show in his list of programmes which highlight Maori.

TVNZ should give Rick Ellis his own comedy TV show.