Kiwiblog

The SST reports on the PR advice to Sanlu (the company part owned by Fonterra) from its PR company in China:

Carried on Chinese weblogs, the memo, purportedly from Sanlu’s PR company, notes growing numbers of damaging references to the company, which is 43% owned by Fonterra, in connection to infant kidney failures, and lays out strategies for addressing the issue. These included silencing victims, and paying off Baidu, China’s largest internet search engine, to remove negative references from its web searches.

Paying Google not to carry negative references on your comapny – now that could be a lucrative income stream.

Except of course once it got known, Google would lose market share massively.

The memo also said a “PR protection” deal had been negotiated with Baidu, in which Sanlu agreed to buy $640,000 of advertising with the search engine, in return for having negative stories blocked from search results.

Hmmn wonder how much they’ll pay Kiwiblog to remove a negative story. Wouldn’t cost $640,000!

Winston – make an offer

Deborah’s column has a few things in it I can’tr resist responding to:

More puzzling than Helen Clark’s refusal to sack Peters is Key’s rush to judgment, ruling out working with NZ First before the committee’s report was tabled.

Key’s no crystal-ball gazer; he can’t know for sure NZ First won’t be back in November.

No. As he has said he would rather remain in Opposition than rely on Peters, as he can’t be trusted. It is called a principled decision. To be fair, it is also probably a recognition that such a Government would only last weeks or months anyway.

Contrast this with the National Party campaigning for convicted paedophile Peter Ellis’ innocence when he’d been found guilty by every court in the land.

How this is even relevant, I don’t know. But it is not National campaigning – it was Katherine Rich and Don Brash. But asking for a Royal Commission into the Ellis case (something I support) is not about campaigning for a paedophile – it is about campaigning for a better justice system.

Several years ago a National insider who quit the leader’s office told me if the party ever dies, trace the DNA back to McCully.

“He’s a trench fighter, and all his decisions are made according to what’s good for him. He was behind Jenny [Shipley] rolling Jim [Bolger], then he pushed Jenny over.”

This is why I responded, because I know this is false. McCully was not supporting Shipley. Far from it – he was a member of the Bolger team trying to defeat her coup. This is a matter of fact – many witnesses would testify to this.

A current National staffer says he overheard MPs discussing what they’d do about Peters if he held the balance of power after the election, and McCully expostulated; “The f***** wants my portfolio.”

This seems unlikely to me. Up until the donations scandal this year, National were actually quite keen to do a deal with NZ First. I know this, because it worried me. It was very well understood that Peters would keep Foreign Affairs and McCully was very relaxed about this state of affairs. This was common knowledge.

Peters has no-one to blame but himself. National were all set to do a deal with him if he made it back. But during the course of the last seven months, he has shown himself to be a man who can not be relied upon.

Matt McCarten writes:

The trillion-dollar, taxpayer-funded handout to criminal and irresponsible corporations in the United States surely puts an end to the nonsense that there is any such thing as a “free” market.

Actually it does no such thing, but we will hear more of this sort of nonsense.

First of all no one has ever claimed markets are perfect, just that they tend to be better than the alternatives.

Secondly what actual market are we talking about? There are dozens – the market in labour?, in trade?, in goods? in services? in currency? in financial services?

Beware anyone who rails against free markets generically. Ask them what markets they mean.

The free marketeers’ ideology goes something like this: there should be no regulation and the market is always self-correcting. If managers of enterprises make mistakes, their businesses would fold and new ones would take their place.

Now Matt takes an extreme view. Very very few fans of free markets are against any regulation at all. For example most peopel accept the central bank having a role in banking supervision, and most people accept a role for a Commerce Commission to stop fraudulant promotions etc.

The intelligent debate is about what level of regulation is needed. And there is no one answer fits all. When it comes to trade I would argue almost no regulations except for safety and labeling. In the labour market I would say you do need a wee bit more regulation such as minimum employment rights.

Our politicians and business leaders need to come clean and admit that free market capitalism doesn’t work and never has.

This is nonsense. Free market capitalism is not the total absence of any regulation at all, just as socialism is not the total absence of any markets at all.

The benefits to the world from a moving towards a more market approach have been massive however. No not perfect, but still massive. Living standards has increased massively. Socialism has been abandoned in all but the odd dictatorships or authoritarian regime. China and India have pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty by introducing more markets.

Overnight polls give the first debate to Obama.

McCain faces problems on three fronts:

1. Being the party of the incumbent, especially in light of the financial crisis
2. Palin does not appear to be coming up to speed quickly enough
3. A sub-standard debate performance

I purchased some Obama stock at 58c last week. It is still only 59c and I think under-priced. To some degree I think the election is now Obama’s to lose.

Sean Plunket expounds on why he is looking to leave Radio New Zealand:

Frosty relations between Plunket, 44, and his Radio New Zealand bosses came to a head when they refused to allow the broadcaster to host an election debate on TVNZ7.

An election debate on Internet issues of all things. Hardly a commercial threat to Radio NZ.

He believed appearing on the TVNZ show as a public broadcaster would only enhance the brand of Morning Report and Radio New Zealand.

Exactly. Exposure is good, if done in a complementary way. And this would have been very complementary.

Then in the full interview we get:

It’s not the first time he’s left a job on a matter of principle. In 1995 he quit the Holmes show over stories he was doing on New Zealand First allegedly using parliamentary staffing money to run the party.

Well some things do not change.

Plunket’s favourite fable is The Emperor’s New Clothes. The role of the journalist is to point out that the emperor is naked, he says, not to “weave the cloth that makes someone nude. The worse censorship is self-censorship within an organisation”.

Indeed, and within a country. Read this article in The Australian about losing the battle for free speech.

Wellington City voters have elected to remain with STV, but with a razor thin margin of 524 476.

The voter turnout was a low 33.2%, and the the votes for STV was 50.54% and FPP 49.46%.

Put another way, 16.73% of Wellington City residents voted for STV and 16.37% for FPP.

Readers may recall a massive scarp between Rodney Hide and the Speaker when she refused to allow him to talk about the Wayne Crapper perjury video, because Winston claimed it was the subject of a court case.

Steven Price takes a look at how the Speaker ruled:

In the end, the Speaker ruled in Peters’ favour, saying Hide was in breach. “Nothing said in the House should prejudice, however slightly, the decision of any court,” the Speaker said. “The House applies more rigorous inhibitory standards on itself than apply to the media in reporting judicial proceedings.” This is because the legislature “should take extreme care not to undermine confidence in the judicial resolution of disputes by intruding on individual cases”.

I don’t know what precisely is in issue in the lawsuit. But I think that ruling is wrong. I’m worried about the phrase “however slightly”.  It’s a ridiculously low threshold, far lower than that applicable to the media. The rules applying to them say they can’t create a “real risk of prejudice” to an upcoming trial. That’s nebulous and chilling enough. This “however slightly” nonsense goes much further.Is it required by a sensible reading of the rules? Nope. In fact it flies in the face of the language that demands “a real and substantial danger of prejudice”.

Is it required by the needs of the administration of justice? Nope. If the courts can tolerate the media commenting on cases as long as they don’t create real risks of prejudice, then they can put up with MPs doing the same.

Is it good policy? Nope. There seems even more reason to cut our elected representatives some slack when conducting the business of the nation than there does for the media.

Is is good law? Nope again. The Speaker has forgotten that the Bill of Rights Act, which was passed by Parliament and says explicitly that it applies to Parliament, requires any restrictions on free speech to be demonstrably justified. You’d think that might be a relevant factor when considering how to interpret Standing Order 111. Apparently not.

I also thought it was a bad ruling. It actually allows any MP to gag any other MP by claiming that what they are referring to is the subject of a lawsuit.

Peter packs them in, in Timaru.

But to make up for that Bob Jones says something nice:

Much more of this could induce such voter distaste that the surprise beneficiary could be Peter Dunne, as voters accord him points for staying above the fray. Right now, there’s a market opening for gentlemen politicians.

Taito Phillip Field explains why he voted to censure Peters in the Herald.

Mr Peters has claimed the privileges committee was biased and hit out at the Maori Party for betraying him and at Mr Field, saying theMangere MP “did not understand loyalty”.

This is loyalty, as practised in Siciliy I suspect?

Mr Field acknowledged Mr Peters had supported him. “I have a lot of time for Winston and I am supportive of him. I’ve always considered Winston a friend, but I had to make an honest decision which had respect for the privileges committee process.”

Winston thinks it is all about him, but for many MPs it was about recognising the fact the Privileges Committee heard all the evidence, and reached fair conclusions.

In the same report:

Meanwhile a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about a Tui billboard saying: “When Winston says no, he means no. Yeah right.” has failed.

The complainant, N. Keesing, said it was “defamatory and racially discriminating towards Winston Peters”.

The authority ruled that it would be seen in a humorous light and did not meet the “threshold to effect a breach of the code of ethics”.

How is the Tui billboard racially discriminating??

It may however be an election advertisement. I have asked the Electoral Commission to rule on whether or not it is.

Went to World of Wearable Arts last night with Accident Girl. I’ve been every year for four years now, and it really does get better every year.

This is not just some fashion show. It is a spectacular mixture of dance, music, acrobatics, models, art and fashion. I doubt there are any tickets left, but it really is a must see.

This year we managed to get tickets for the awards night. Managed to guess most of the winners correctly, including the supreme winner above (photo from Dom Post). Was nice to see the designers come up and get their prizes. Helen Clark presented one of the awards and spoke briefly. She is very comfortable at these things and did speak well, with some real passion. I was tempted to try and start a chant of “Sack Winston” in the TSB Events Arenda, but managed to resist the urge. I do wonder how many I may have got to join in though

NZPA Images has a great photo gallery of some of the art works.

This was a crowd favourite. The shadow is in fact another person, but at times you wouldn’t have known.

A walking public health campaign!

This design was also very popular. What I spent some time puzzling over is whether the model inside was crouched over. I suspect they must have been.

The Bizarre Bra section is always colourful!

Fran O’Sullivan notes that while Michael Cullen and Helen Clark have been falling over themselves to keep Winston happy, Phil Goff has been hapily overseas working on the US trade agreement.

Up until the last couple of weeks I would have said that Clark, even if she loses, would manage her own departure and delay it long enough for Cunliffe to have the numbers to beat Goff.

But if Labour loses, there could be a significant internal backlash against Clark and Cullen for their appalling judgement over Peters. Some of those Labour MPs were very unhappy about being forced to vote for Peters.

This gives Goff an opportunity to force a leadership ballot earlier rather than later, and campaign on a ticket of needing to remove those associated with the defence of Peters.

Most people will have seen the sidebar graphic with the Curiablog poll average. I update it everytime there is a new poll by replacing the graphic file at curiablog with a new graphic.

By keeping the file name the same, it means other sites (such as Kiwiblog and Policy Net) can have the graphic automatically updated.

But there is a problem. WordPress seems to cache the old graphic and it takes one to two days for the new graphic to appear.

Anyone know of a way to stop this by clearing the cache? Note that curiablog is run on wordpress.org – it is not my own installation.

Another leftie friend told me last night that she now thought she might hold her nose and vote National. Now a month ago she was absolutely adamant she would vote Labour, but the sticking up for Winston is just a step too far for her.

Simon Collins in the NZ Herald has also been out interviewing a mammoth 600 people on their thoughts, and finds many Labour people deserting:

Shane Wairau is ready to take the plunge into a new era without a Labour Government.

At 34, the former Labour voter is now married with a 1-year-old son and working as business manager for a tourist bungy jump operation in Queenstown.

After years of loyalty, he’s disillusioned.

And

Even lifetime party supporters like 60-year-old tour driver “Hoppy” Hopwood, interviewed at Cape Reinga, are straying from the faith …

“I usually support Labour, but I’ll probably go with National. With a bit of luck we’ll get rid of the Prime Minister.”

I say don’t leave things to luck!

… two Invercargill retailers in their 50s who give their names as Caroline and Heather feel abandoned by their party. …

“My father is 90. He’s been a Labour man all his life. He is lost. He doesn’t know who to give his vote to.”

Heather, whose only child has also gone to Australia, says: “I’ve been a Labour person all my life and I’m absolutely lost. It really hurts me and I almost feel like not voting – and I used to go out and canvass for Labour.”

Both life time Labour voters.

The mood for change sweeps from low-income suburbs such as Manukau’s Clendon, where 18-year-old hairdressing student Ashley Kumeroa is voting National because she resents paying taxes for people who are “fit enough to work but decide to stay home”, to comfortable Half Moon Bay, where 31-year-old mother-of-two Janet Corbett is switching from Labour to National.

I wonder if she read about Mr Mohan ysterday who has been unemployed for five years and voting Labour for their generous welfare policies?

“Everything’s going up. No one’s getting any wage increases,” says Onehunga mechanic Graeme Wedding, 54, who is voting National for the first time since the Muldoon era in the 1970s.

“I always thought Labour was supposed to look after the working people, but they’re not. I think they could have given us some relief on our fuel instead of taking a percentage of the increase.”

Or some bigger tax cuts!

Michael Cullen has admitted that the opening of the books the week after next will reveal he has broken his own gross debt target of 20% of GDP. And this is after all the hysteria about the end of civilisation if this happened under National.

Dr Cullen said there was room for only “very modest” new spending commitments from Labour during the campaign.

I suspect Dr Cullen’s idea of very modest may not be what anyone else calls modest!

There will be two head to head debates with Clark and Key, but no debates with all eight party leaders.

Can’t say I blame either of them – would you want to appear with Winston?

I presume they will also have a debate or two with the leaders of the six minor parties in Parliament

Stats NZ confirmed today the New Zealand is in recession for the first time since the Asian crisis in 1998.

The economy in the last two quarters is around $300 million smaller than the last quarter of 2007.

But the worst may yet be to come. The second quarter drop was 0.2%. And expectations for the third quarter are now as bad as a 0.5% drop. That would be a 1% drop over nine months.

We are going mobile for the 2008 election campaign, with the donation of a Winnebago Motorhome for six weeks to serve as a mobile office for the campaign. The motorhome is being dubbed the “Winnebago Blogmobile”.

Barrons Recreational Vehicles in Taupo has donated the use of a Winnebago Motorhome to myself and Whale Oil for the election campaign.

I think this is going to elevate blog coverage of the election to new levels. Thanks to the blogmobile we will be able to follow some of the party leaders about, and also travel to provincial cities and towns to interview people about local candidates and issues. Our aim is to provide election coverage from anywhere in NZ, and have a lot of fun doing it.

Now this is not an exclusive thing. We want to make the blogmobile available to any bloggers, or even media, who wish to travel on board for a day or two. It has heaps of room and comes fully equipped with tables for working at, a TV for following the news broadcasts, a full kitchen and mobile and wireless Internet for the vehicle”.

I’ve already had some expressions of interest, and we are working on an itinerary for the blogmobile. What would be useful is if people e-mailed me (or commented below) if they know of any local events (a high profile debate etc) that could be worth covering and/or if you are interested in spending some time on board. We can’t guarantee specific dates and places at this stage but should be able to within a week or so.

The Police have confirmed the Solictor-General is under Police investigation.

This is obviously not a good look.

I suspect it pertains to a long standing dispute with a former client, Anne Hunt, which is detailed here, in a pro-Hunt way. However the allegation of a false declaration took place after he was appointed Solictor-General.

A reader helpfully left a message on my cellphone telling me to read the story on Page A8 of the Herald carefully, about someone voting Labour because they have allowed him to be on welfare for five years.

I thought he had it wrong, but sure enough we go to this article on how some immigrants are voting and get:

Indian immigrant B. Mohan said his support for Labour stemmed from the party’s “number-one welfare policies” which had helped him to “survive five years of unemployment”.

“The National Party and its millionaire leader, John Key, will never be able to understand the poor, and we cannot trust the rich politicians who listen to consultants rather than their hearts,” said Mr Mohan, who has been without a job since moving to New Zealand in 2003.

I skim read the article early this morning and missed the significance of this. He has been without a job for five years, since he moved here in 2003. What an indictment on our welfare system.

With the lowest unemployment in the world almost, Mr Mohan has not managed to find any work at all in 250 weeks. How preposterous. And no wonder he is supporting Labour – he knows he won’t have five years on the dole under National.

The Hive covers the jailing of Malaysian anti-Government blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin for two years.

Presumably MFAT will once again courageously monitor the situation, but not actually apply any pressure.

From Stuff:

1. Paul Swain
2. Tim Barnett
3. Margaret Wilson
4. Marian Hobbs
5. David Benson-Pope
6. Steve Maharey

Paul Swain’s was very funny. MPs who have served as Minister of Corrections always get some good stories to tell. Benson-Pope’s was ugly and partisan, as one expects from him.