Kiwiblog

Ha.  Helen Clark on Agenda says because of Investigate’s attacks on David Benson-Pope, it made DBP on the defensive with the media which contributed to his downfall on the issue.  No end of excuses.

Clark didn’t rule out Benson-Pope could be re-elected to Cabinet in the future.

Clark did say she was disappointed that both her and the SSC were not told all the facts at an earlier stage and even used the term deception.   Hugh Logan was (rightly) specifically criticised for concealing information from the SSC.

A lengthy debate on whether Setchell’s relationship meant she should not have got the job.  Jenny McManus said she should not have been hired, while Dick Griffin said the civil service should not exclude people on the basis of who they sleep with.

Mike Moore was very funny talking about how adept Helen Clark is at shooting the wounded. When asked how good he was at that, he said he found that the wounded shot back and he should have strangled them at birth

The hugely popular Daily Show in the US has noticed our MPs ban on satirical use of footage from Parliament. Their intro says “Fear not, New Zealanders, you may not be able to shit on your politicians, but Jon will be your anus.”

Heh. Wait until they notice the far more outrageous requirement to register with the Government in election year if you want to criticise it.

Anyway thanks to the MP who sent me the link – proof that some of them do have a great sense of humour.

This should be saved for election year!

Hat Tip: Mike Heine

1. Dover Samuels – sacked June 2000, reinstated August 2002
2. Ruth Dyson – sacked October 2000, reinstated June 2001
3. Marian Hobbs – sacked February 2001, reinstated a few weeks later
4. Phillida Bunkle – sacked February 2001
5. Harry Duynhoven – stood down July 2003 while not legally an MP
6. Lianne Dalziel – sacked February 2004 for lying, reinstated 2005
7. Tariana Turia – quit in protest April 2004
8. John Tamihere – sacked November 2004
9. David Benson-Pope – stood down May 2005, reinstated months later
10. Taito Phillip Field – sacked October 2005
11. David Parker – resigned April 2006, reinstated May 2006
12. David Benson-Pope – sacked July 2007

Thanks to DBP I have been unable to blog until now the fact the Electoral Finance (Supression of Criticism) Bill has passed its first reading.  I went into the House for the debate.

The Minister told two big porkies in his speech.  Mark Burton said that the reason there was no clampdown on anonymous and trust donations was because it was difficult to word, and also that one should have a cross-party consensus on such a change.

This is of course a lie.  And not even a plausible lie, but an incompetent one.  The PM herself the previous day had said the reason it wasn’t there was because Labour would be too short of money if they did clamp down.   But even if she had not said, that the excuses were feeble.

The claim that getting the wording right wasn’t possible in the time is nonsense.  They have the wording in the third party regime and could just substitute it.  1/10 for that lie.

Then we have the claim that such a change should have a broad consensus.  0/10 here.  You see this is the one part of the bill there was a broad consensus on.  Everyone except ACT had said they supported a clampdown.

Again the hypocrisy that they have no problem with restricting the advocacy rights of every third party in NZ without a consensus,but suddenly claim to need one for removing anonymous donations.

Bill English spoke next and was superb.  You could tell he was enjoying himself as he held up full page PPTA ads that had appeared that very day, and pointing out that under this bill they’ll be illegal next year once the $60,000 cap is exceeded, and that those two ads were 50% of the annual cap – in just one day.  Bill also covered how one won’t be able to campaign in favour of hard work if a political party is associated with hard work.

Lynne Pillay was third and almost seemed embarrassed by the Bill.  She didn’t talk about any of its features (as they are so bad) but just berated Bill for National saying it would vote against when they had previously said they would support a bill.  Well Lynne, the answer is bloody obvious.  National had no idea that the bill would be so retarded when they said in principle they support change.  And they had no idea Labour would renege on its word and protect anonymous donors after all.

Simon Power was not as animated as English, but clinically dissected it with precision.  He made the absolutely salient point that this is a bill designed for just one election – 2008 to keep Clark and Cullen in their jobs.  He said they care nothing about the next Labour Party Leaders who in opposition will hate and resent this bill as it is such a gerrymander in favour of the Government of the day.

Doug Woolerton then spoke.  I fell asleep.  NZ First are supporting it just because Winston got to change the law relating to his unsuccessful electoral petition.

I missed Tony Ryall’s speech, as I had a meeting with an MP later on, but understand some of the material from here made its way into the speech.  Excellent.

It was a shame that during the speeches, the only journalist present was Peter Wilson of NZPA.  And today neither the NZ Herald not Stuff appear to have any articles online regarding the bill’s passage, despite its huge importance.

The bill was passed 65-54 with Labour, Greens, NZ First, United Future and Progressive in favour.  Against were National, Copeland, Maori Party and Field.  ACT failed to vote.

One major victory was that the House agreed to change the composition of the Justice & Electoral Committee for submission on this Bill.  Normally it is 3 Nats, 3 Labour and 1 Green which would allow Labour/Green to put in whatever they want.

Now it is Labour 4, National 4, Green 1, NZ First 1, Maori 1, ACT 1, United 1.  It is much better to have seven parties, instead of three parties, on there.  The Government did not want to change the composition but some intense lobbying from Phil Lyth (former Parl staffer) convinced all the parties except Labour and NZ First to support a change.

I guess I had better start work on a submission.  I could see the submission being almost as long as the 73 page bill, as it is so badly flawed.  I’ve started a clause by clause analysis and I suspect over a hundred clauses need amending at a minimum.

The PM has announced at 11.40 that David Benson-Pope is no longer a Minister.

Their management of this issue has been awful.  They should have sat down with him a week ago and got him to tell them every detail of his dealings on this.  The fact they did not suggests perhaps they knew what the truth was.

Four young adults in Rotorua (aged 17 to 21) have tortured a three-year old girl.  It almost makes me sick even typing this up, but they:

• hung her on the clothesline
• spun her around until she flew off
• put her in an ice cold bath
• put her in a drying machine
• used her as a professional wrestling prop

And even worse they were members of her extended family.

I’d be appalled if someone did that to a pet, let alone a child.

Intellectually I am against the death penalty.  Emotionally I’m all in favour at the moment.

Kiwiblog is four years old today, having started on 27 July 2003.  The first post was about Labour’s then abusing of the Electoral Act to re-elect Harry Duynhoven to Parliament without an election.  Four years on and they are still treating the Electoral Act as their private plaything rather than a vitally important constitutional act!

So what have we had over four years:
- 7,707 posts made by me
- 218,544 comments by you
- 1.75 TB of data (1,746 GB) downloaded by you

And for the big number, there have been 5,927,555 visits since I started.  We should hit the six million mark in early August.  On current projections may make ten million before the 2008 election.

Wednesday’s NZ Herald Editorial on Auckland Airport was a welcome breath of fresh air. It said:

There are those who maintain that an infrastructural monopoly as important as the airport should not pass into foreign or private hands at any price. They, presumably, are opposed to Wellington-based Infratil’s control of airports such as Prestwick, near Glasgow, and Luebeck, in Germany. A more logical line of analysis would consider what has been delivered at Mangere and what the Dubai company is offering.

A NZ company owns airports in the UK and Germany. If you start going all protectionist, then many NZ companies are going to be shut out of investing overseas, and generating wealth for NZ shareholders.

The Independent also had a good story on the proposed sale. They find in the bid from Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, that this could lead to Emirates expanding their routes and even possibly having Auckland International Airport a regional hub.  Now this could mean cheaper prices with more competition.  The key is that the proposal should be taken on its merits, not just rejected because the proposed owners are foreign.  They can’t take the airport overseas with them!

After poking fun at Labour’s John Hinchcliff (who now refers to himself on his website as “Dr John”) for his lack of policy of his Auckland Mayoral website, he has now made up for that with pages and pages of policy on every issue you could think of. Yes, seriously. Wonderful gems include:

Investigate and recommend the prohibition of carbon fullerenes (buckyballs) used in some face creams and moisturisers which have been shown to be toxic to human liver cells. [Minimal staff time]

What the fuck are buckyballs and what role does the Mayor of Auckland have in deciding what should or should not be in face creams?

Examine and determine what can be done about the ethical downsides of the new technologies, e.g. nanotechnology and biotechnology on our horizon in association with international experts, concerned academics and alert practitioners. [Some staff time with volunteers]

Good God, and now the Mayor is in charge of ethical practices for nanotehcnology.

Redesign public spaces with edible plants and/or food forests and amenity landscapes.

Edible plants? Yes this is what Auckland needs.  Go Dr John.

“Introduce a linguistic distinction between the “Auckland City Council” and the “Auckland City Administration”. [Lobby]“

Oh yes let us pretend the Administration is not answerable to the Council.

Modernise the mayoral symbolism or demythologise the Mayoral mystique by ending the use of the old fashioned and pretentious designation “Your Worship”. [Mindset change]

If you want to be less pretentions then don’t refer to your self as “Dr John” on the website.

Oh these elections are going to be fun.

Hat Tip: Aaron Bhatnagar

In line with my normal disclosure policy, I should mention that I’m going to be helping out at National Party HQ for a couple of months while they are between staff.

It’s no big thing.  In various ways I’ve been helping out at HQ since 1990 from time to time.  That means that when they are short staffed, I’m a useful person to step in temporarily as I don’t need much time to come up to speed.

Shouldn’t affect blogging too much.  I’ll still agree with 85% of  what National does, and disagree with 15% and say so in both cases.  I just won’t be able to talk about anything re Party HQ while helping out there, but I almost never mention them anyway.

The more likely impact will be having less time for blogging, but I am sure I’ll keep up.

Pamziewamzie from Red Confectionary is standing for Vice-President of AUSA under the wholly admirable slogan of “Putting the Vice back into Vice-President”.

I am looking forward to following her campaign blog.  Only Pam can turn mention long walks on the beach and Italian wine plus environmental sustainability in the same breath.

A former Labour Party Treasurer yesterday claimed some Labour MPs and electorates were treating taxable transactions as non-taxable donations.  It seems she was right, but there is a dispute over whether it was honest mistakes, or deliberate avoidance.  I presume the IRD will not ignore what was a front page Dom Post headline and investigate, even though it is the governing party.

NZPA have compiled a handy timeline of DBP’s changing story:

July 18 – Asked what he knew about the Setchell case: “No, I don’t know anything about the detail of that issue, nor do I think it’s appropriate for me to get involved or actually say anything about employment matters.”

July 20 – Asked whether he expressed his views on Ms Setchell’s appointment to ministry chief executive Hugh Logan: “In respect, nothing. Hugh knew my view was matters of employment were matters for the chief executive.”

July 23 – Asked if Ms Setchell lost her job because of a hint from his office: “No. She lost her job because the conflict of interest was identified by Mr Logan.”

July 26 – Under questioning in Parliament about what he said to Mr Logan: “I noted two things — that this was clearly an employment matter and his responsibility alone to manage, and secondly that from the point of view of my office I will likely be less free and frank in meetings with such a person. That was a statement of the obvious.”

It all speaks for itself.

I normally go to the gym at 8 am every Tuesday and Friday.  But I’ve stuffed up and have a board meeting at 8.30 am tomorrow.  Now normally I’d cancel the gym but my trainer, Amanda, is moving to Auckland on Saturday so it was to be our last session together.  She has become a good mate, so didn’t want to can the final session.

So we’ve moved the time to 6 am.  Gasp.  That is way too early to be doing cardio and weights.

I hope to make the farewell party for Amanda tonight, but I also have the AGM for InternetNZ which is sort of mandatory, so I’ll be hoping it doesn’t go on too long (the 2000 one ended at 2 am!) so I can make the party.

Labour’s stolen adopted another policy from National.  Yesterday they announced that all money from petrol taxes would go into the Land Transport Fund instead of the consolidated fund.

This has been National policy since 2005.  This is what Pete Hodgson said at the time in response:

Transport Minister Pete Hodgson says double the $546 million diverted from fuel tax into the Crown Account is spent on the transport system and – as a recent Transport Ministry survey shows – road users are not even paying their way.

“The argument around the diversion of fuel duty into the Crown account is meaningless … shifting it around does not alter the fact that the amount shifted does not cover costs,” he says.

If National wants to spend an extra $4 billion on transport over nine years it must say whether it will be taking the money from education or health.

So should we ask Pete how many hospitals will close due to this move, or does this magically only happen if National does it?

This is a good reminder why National has to be careful not to release all of its policy too early.  Labour are adept at damning it one month and adopting it the next.

 Do you remember how about to be sacked Cabinet Minister David Benson-Pope said he knew no details of the sacking.

Do you also recall how he kept maintaining he expressed no opinion to the Environment Ministry CEO on her job?

Well as Audrey Young blogs, we learnt different today in question time:

“From the point of view of my office, I will likely be less free and frank in meetings with such a person.”

So he knew no details of the issue, and had no opinion about her job, EXCEPT that he would be less likely to be free and frank if she was employed.

So the CEO has a choice of sacking her, or not sacking her with the implicit consequences that the Minister would no longer be free and frank with his Ministry.

Audrey Young notes that not only has he misled the PM and the public, but in her own words:

“He misled me as well.”

Around Parliament the expectation is that he will now be sacked. More than one person has said to me that the only thing worse than misleading the PM is misleading Audrey Young

So if he goes tomorrow, Clark may do a full reshuffle next week as Samuels will be standing down also to make room for Shane Jones.

Of course Clark may not sack him, but surely even she will give up trying to protect him now.

UPDATE: TV3 says they understand Benson-Pope is to be sacked in the very near future.

Listening to Parliament it seems there were at least four phone calls between Benson-Pope’s office and the MFE Chief Executive regarding the Satchell appointment.

Labour are still insisting DBP did not know anything about this. Yeah Right.

Thanks to the Coalition for Open Government for alerting me to the fact that the Electoral Finance Bill has its first reading at 3 pm today.

Up until I saw the bill, I never considered it would be so flawed that one should not support it at first reading. And while there are some positive aspects to it, the bill is so badly done that I think the best thing would be for Parliament to reject it and tell the Government to go away and come back with something more acceptable.

You see this bill is so flawed that the Select Committee (which has only three out of eight parties on it) will have to make massive changes to it, to make it workable. And these changes could then be passed by Parliament in just a couple of weeks before Christmas. The opportunity for public input into the revised bill will be extremely limited.

I can’t believe what a wasted opportunity this has been. Every single aspect of how Labour have gone about this has been flawed. They should have released a green or white paper on options for reform, and allowed public input into this. They should have then published a specific proposal, and consulted the public and other parties on it. Then they should have drafted legislation on the basis of the public and parliamentary consensus.

But instead it has been the ultimate in grubby self serving politics. They unilaterally kill off any clampdown on anonymous and trust donations, because Labour is so reliant on them. And they come up with the most bizarre, bureaucratic and draconian third party advertising restrictions you could think of.

Sadly the bill will pass its first reading. Labour, Greens and NZ First will vote for it and that is 61 votes as a minimum.

The select committee process will be shortened also, restricting the public’s ability to have their say on it. The normal report back date to Parliament would be in six months, but I suspect they are going to impose a report back date of just four months so they can ram it through before Christmas.

I’ve had to remove the embedded survey as it seems it crashed the server of the hosting company. Sorry about that guys!  Too many people on at the same time it seems.

But you can still take the survey through this link.

I have used the very nifty tool at Survey Net (provided by Catalyst IT) to put together a very quick and simple demographic survey of Kiwiblog Readers.

It takes literally less than 30 seconds. If you enjoy reading Kiwiblog, please go to the Kiwiblog Survey and answer four simple questions.

I plan to do some further surveys, such as finding out how many people read the posts only, how many people read comments, how many make comments etc etc.

Finally if anyone knows the HTML type code I would need to be able to have the survey appear embedded within this actual post so people don’t even have to follow the link but can complete it here, do let me know.

As expected by most, Dr Bollard has put the official cash rate up to 8.25%.  I think this was the right decision – a failure to do so would have impacted inflation expectations.  Hopefully this can and will be the last increase.  However I wouldn’t expect any falls until late 2007 or more likely early 2008.

This graph shows the official cash rate since it started.  From 1999 to 2003 a mixture of up and down, but for the last four years it has been a one way direction.

The Parliamentary Service has confirmed that no further payments have been received by it since 30 June, the end of the previous financial year. Two parties still owe us money.

United Future $20,997
NZ First $157,934

The amount of time it is taking is ridiculous. UFNZ get some credit for the $50,870 paid to date but it has been almost a year. This is why interest is a good thing – discourages late payment.

The other parties have all done the right thing and paid.

Does anyone know wordpress well enough that they could arrange for there to be a little widget at the top of my sidebar not just showing how much each party owes, but updating every minute with accumulated interest at say 10% compounding? Then everytime people visit the site they would be reminded of the money owed the taxpayer?

Stephen Franks blogs about a heretical article which suggests a low voter turnout is not a problem. The article cites as reasons that people are too dumb:

In polls taken since 1945, a majority of Americans have been unable to name a single branch of government, define the terms “liberal” and “conservative,” and explain what the Bill of Rights is. More than two-thirds have reported that they do not know the substance of Roe v. Wade and what the Food and Drug Administration does. Nearly half do not know that states have two senators and three-quarters do not know the length of a Senate term. More than fifty per cent of Americans cannot name their congressman; forty per cent cannot name either of their senators. Voters’ notions of government spending are wildly distorted: the public believes that foreign aid consumes twenty-four per cent of the federal budget, for example, though it actually consumes about one per cent.

Aaron Bhatnagar reviews Mayoral candidate John Hinchcliff’s website:

 Total number of words dedicated to Dr John Hinchcliff describing his curriculum vitae, listing his life achievements, and his list of many, many, many writings: 5205

Total words dedicated to what he will do to improve Auckland: 31

Aaron also helpfully fisks a Dick Hubbard letter.

The visible hand in economics links to a marginal revolution post on a flaw in OECD broadband stats. Sadly correcting the flaw means we fall from 21st to 23rd place while Australia goes from 16th to 13th.

Mike Earley has problems with getting freeview.

Taito Phillip Field voted for the minimum wage youth rates bill.  There must be an exemption for Thais!