Kiwiblog

The International Young Democratic Union is the federation of youth sections of centre-right parties around the world. It has around 80 members and is part of the International Democrat Union founded by Reagan, Thatcher, and Kohl.

They have an annual Council or conference, and this year it is hosted in Wellington by the Young Nationals. I’m a former IYDU Executive member, so still help out a bit from the sidelines.

Anyway the Council started last night (runs until Sunday) and many of us ended up at Hummingbird enjoying the hospitality. I’ll be attending most of the Council so blogging may be sporadic.

If you are a political wonk like myself, you love these sort of meetings because you get to discuss international politics with young MPs and political leaders around the globe. I went from discussing all the nominees Obama has had to withdraw (and now his Treasury nominee is in trouble) with the Federal Chairman of the US College Republicans, to NSW state politics with the Aussies to the timing of the next UK election with the Brits.  Like I said, great fun for those who follow international politics.

The local Young Nats have put together a good agenda for our visitors. Sessions on our economic reform legacy, on free trade, on the Treaty, on the economic crisis etc etc. We also have each country attending do a formal report on their last election or general political situation. You often pick up some great campaign ideas at these sessions.

The Herald has an exclusive, that is great great news if true:

The whole Auckland region will be governed by a new super city council from next year.

It will be headed by a single mayor with executive powers to make independent decisions.

This is excellent, not just the removing of the huge number of individual local authorities, but the fact they have gone with an Executive Mayor. This will actually increase accountability to ratepayers because they will be able to elect and sack a Mayor who can make things happen – not just one vote amongst 20.

It is a bit like parliamentary politics – we have an executive Prime Minister who can govern, and we affectively have a referenedum on whether to keep or sack that PM.

The super city will stretch 140km from Pukekohe in the south to Wellsford in the north.

With 1.4 million people, it will be the largest city under one council in Australasia.

And may provide an incentive for the nine greater Wellington councils to do the same.

It is not known what the commission has in mind for the region’s four city councils, three district councils, one regional council and community boards.

One option is to abolish the existing councils for smaller “community councils” with elected leaders.

There does need to be a tier between the ratepayers and the overall Council and to my mind that should be small community boards – but with enhanced powers of decision making over local issues.

In another bold move, the commission will almost certainly recommend the mayor and new council become more involved in the social needs of the region, such as affordable housing.

I’m not quite so enthused on this aspect. I think Council can play a key role through zoning, land use, consenting etc in helping affordable housing. However I don’t think this should mean Council has to provide such housing.

But overall, if the Herald is correct, the Commissioners are steering in very much the right direction.

I am quite impressed with John Key’s response on the Maori flag issue.

He has correctly pointed out there is no agreement on what flag represents Maoridom. So he has astutely bounced the ball back at them, and said if you guys go away and get all the Iwi to agree on a common flag, then yeah I have no problem flying it once a year on Waitangi Day to mark the fact it was an agreement between Maori and the Crown.

This removes any heat around the issue for 2009, is mana-enhancing for the Maori Party, should ensure a smooth 2009 Waitangi Day, and while some will be upset with the decision, they are hardly going to swing to Labour because of it.

My personal stance is the same as last week. Don’t really care strongly about it. Hell we fly the EU flag once a year (including at Parliament) so the Tino Rangatiratanga one worries me far less – and I much prefer MMP compromises that don’t cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The NZ Herald quotes a visiting scientist who is quoted as saying:

Dr Huber said if greenhouse gas emissions carried on as they were, CO2 levels would be high enough to melt the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets in 100-200 years, making the sea rise about 100m.

Oh no, flee, flee – we’re all doomed. Well not quite all. I’m on the fifth floor so might be okay if I buy a rowboat.

But this 100 metre rise in sea levels is scaremongering of the worst kind. The UN IPCC has a number of scenarios for 2100, and the best case is 19 cm and the worst case is 69 cm.

So Dr Huber is predicting a rise in sea level 150 times greater than the IPCC worst case scenario.

As I have said before, I accept that excessive greenhouse gas emissions lead to an increase in temperatures and a rise in sea levels. I also think the prudent thing to do is look to reduce emissions over time through a price on carbon.

But I am sick of hysterical claims about 10 metre, 20 metre and 100 metre sea level rises in the near future. It’s crap. Would be nice to see a reporter challenge someone the next time they start talking about 100 metre increases and ask them why they are predicting an increase 150 times grater than the IPCC. Is there not a duty to also include the far more modest IPCC prediction in an article, so readers can judge the credibility of the claimed 100 metre increase?

NIWA kindly sent me their 2008 weather report for New Zealand. Some extracts:

• The highest annual mean temperature recorded for the year was 16.5°C at Leigh (not a very high high!)
• The highest recorded extreme temperature of the year occurred in South Canterbury being 34.8 °C recorded at Timaru Airport on 12 January and 19 March and at Waione on 22 January in very hot dry northwesterly conditions.
• The lowest air temperature for the year was -9.5 ºC recorded at Mt. Cook on 20th August.
• The highest recorded wind gust for the year (as archived in the NIWA climate database) was 183 km/h at Mokohinau Island on 11 May in strong easterly conditions, and also 183 km/h at Hicks Bay on 18 June.
• The driest rainfall recording locations were Alexandra in Central Otago with 376mm of rain for the year, followed by Clyde with 378 mm, and then Middlemarch with 386 mm.
• Of the regularly reporting gauges, Cropp River in the Hokitika River catchment recorded the highest rainfall with 10,940 mm, followed by North Egmont 8878 mm for 2008.
• Wellington was by far the wettest main centre with 1662 mm, in contrast Christchurch and Dunedin were the driest of the five main centres with a mere 704 and 705 mm respectively. Auckland received 1226 mm and Hamilton 1220 mm.
• Blenheim was the sunniest centre in 2008, recording 2505 hours, followed by Nelson with 2472 hours, then Lake Tekapo with 2444 hours. Christchurch was the sunniest of the five main centres with 2230 sunshine hours, then Wellington 2205 hours. Auckland recorded 2108 hours, Hamilton 2057 hours and Dunedin 1912 hours.

So Wellington gets more rain and more sun than Auckland!

Freedom House has released its 2009 freedom report. Some extracts:

• Only 46% of 193 countries are free, 32% are partly free and 22% not free
• 2.28 billion people live in not free countries
• 20 years ago 41% of countries were not free
• In the Americas there is only one not free country (Cuba)
• In Asia-Pacific 41% are free, 38% partly free and 21% not free
• In central and eastern Europe, 46% free, 29% partly free and 25% not free
• Middle East/North Africa has only 1 free country (Israel), 6 partly free countries and 11 not free countries
• Sub-Sahara Africa is 21% free, 48% partly free and 31% not free
• Western Europe has 24 free countries and a partly free country
• There are 119 electoral democracies in the world, down from a high of 123

In recent years there has been a small decline in both free and not free countries, with a growth in partly free countries.

A very good op-ed by Pat Pilcher in the Herald on the new copyright law:

What do you get when you combine technology ignorant law makers, a twitchy movie and music industry plus the internet? If you live in New Zealand, you get an unworkable legislative mess that can only be described as a near total lose-lose situation for everyone.

Section 92A of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act, passed last year, takes effect on February 28 and will see copyright infringers (that is anyone downloading music, movies, books, computer software and anything else copyrighted that they haven’t legitimately purchased) punished under a three strike system.

The full op-ed is worth a read. Has some good suggestions also.

The stupidity award goes to the 21 year old alleged burglar in Queenstown who removes his balaclava while trying to break into a safe, giving us his picture on the security camera.

The smartness award goes to the Queenstown Police for putting the photos up on their Facebook page to see if people recognised him. They did and he was arrested.

Pablo at Kiwipolitico makes the case for an increased NZ Defence Force presence in Afghanistan:

The questions are whether NZ should contribute more troops, in what role, and can it afford to do so both politically and economically? Most progressives would say no to all three. I beg to differ.

The answers should be yes, combat and combat support as well as PRT and yes. The reason is that rather than a (neo) imperialist intervention, the mission in Afghanistan is a multinational nation-building effort in the wake of state failure. That state failure was brought about by the medieval theocratic Taliban regime, whose record on human rights and support for external terrorism made it arguably the most oppressive regime of the late 20th century.  Under the “responsibility to protect” doctrine elaborated by the UN in the wake of Rwandan and Serbian ethnic cleansing in the 1990s, the international community has a duty to protect populations from the depredations of their rulers as well as from others. As a supporter of the UN mandate, NZ subscribes to this philosophy. It is thus obligated to be involved in Afghanistan and the NZ progressive community should welcome its involvement.

Yet many do not.

From a progressive perspective, the fight against the Taliban is just. Their retrograde perspective condemns those who live under their rule to primitive lives of limited opportunity and fear. Needless to say, the Taleban oppress wimin, but so do they ethnic minorities, non-Muslims, and males who exhibit “softness” of character (who are often the subjects of sexual predation). In sum: the Taliban are a human scourge. Allowing them to restore their presence in any part of Afghanistan will encourage them to do the same in the tribal homelands in Pakistan (as indeed is occurring at the moment). Destabilisation of Pakistan, now ongoing, will lead to larger regional conflict, not just with respect to India, but in a number of other Central Asian republics grappling with Islamicist irredentism. That can not be allowed to happen because the implications of a wider conflict are perilous for international stability. Thus, contrary to those who see the ISAF mission is an imperialist venture that suppresses the will of the Afghan people, it can better be seen as a make-or-break nation-building and international stabilisation effort against a formidable adversary hell-bent on returning those who live under its rule to the 15th century whether they want to or not. Thus even the pacifist Left needs to support the ISAF effort on “lesser evil” grounds. It may be uncomfortable for them and other elements of the anti-imperialist Left to do so, but it is the morally correct thing to do given the alternative.

A superb argument.

In light of this, New Zealand has to start walking the walk. It can no longer simply engage in reconstruction roles while the bulk of combat duties are carried out by troops from other countries. It needs to complement the Bamyan PRT with a restored combat contingent able and willing to help take the fight back to the Taliban. It has the capability to do so. Failure to act makes NZ appear unwilling to fully commit to its international obligations in this UN-mandated, NATO mission, which raises questions about its political character and fighting spirit.

It will be interesting to see what the Government does.

Anita at Kiwipolitico says that as a leftie, she does not mourn the passing of the 5th Labour Government, because they:

• put a refugee in solitary confinement for 10 months, despite never telling him what he was accused of
• employed a senior police officer for nearly four years despite him admitting to the sexual exploitation of vulnerable teenagers and publicly supporting convicted rapists
• put in place financial support for the children of workers, but ignored the plight of our poorest and most vulnerable children
• drove a 50% increase in the prison population
• failed to bring stability to our abortion rules; leaving our bodies to the whim of the next government
• did not give workers back the right to strike
• drafted and passed amendments to the Immigration Act removing rights of appeal and allowing the use of secret evidence
• drafted and passed the Terrorism Suppression Act, a piece of legislation which cuts deeply into our fundamental rights
• condoned and supported the October 15 raids in which the Police invaded and harassed innocent communities
• passed legislation preventing courts deciding who should own the seabed and foreshore
• put NZ troops into Afghanistan and Iraq
• released an wonderful disability strategy, and completely failed to implement it
• failed to address climate change in any meaningful way

I am a bit surprised she doesn’t mention the tolerating Peters and/or the EFA, but anyway this is her list. So what do I agree with her on:

• Zaoui – I actually think the law rather than the Govt is to balem for this shambles. I do think there were legitimate security concerns based on his convictions in France and Belgium, but it should never have led to him being kept in jail for as long as he did.
• Clint Rickards – well to be fair to Helen Clark she personally vetoed him becoming Deputy Commissioner. I’m not sure if employment laws would allow any other outcome than keeping him employed uring the trials.
• WFF being more generous towards those in work than on benefits. I disagree this is a bad thing – those on benefits with children did get heaps more assistance, but you do want incentives for work.
• increased prison population – yep violent crime and hence prisonesr increased.
• abortion laws – yep this could have been addressed as the laws do not reflect practice.
• did not give workers back the right to strike – I disagree with the wording here. Anita is advocating the right for a worker to not turn up to work for whatever reseason they decide (unhappy over climate change) and the employer being unable to do anything about it. Why should employers be held hostage like that?
• drafted and passed amendments to the Immigration Act removing rights of appeal and allowing the use of secret evidence – partly agree. Some parts of new Act went far too far, but other parts will help solve the massive delays we see in the system.
• drafted and passed the Terrorism Suppression Act, a piece of legislation which cuts deeply into our fundamental rights – I support the Act in principle (we live in a post 9/11 world) but the way it was used in the Urerewas has left me unconvinced.
• condoned and supported the October 15 raids in which the Police invaded and harassed innocent communities – let’s just wait for the trials before we determine innocence.
• passed legislation preventing courts deciding who should own the seabed and foreshore – agree there – a massive blunder.
• put NZ troops into Afghanistan and Iraq – Afghanistan was 100% the right thing to do. Iraq is ironic considering how often Clark tries and have people forget she sent troops in.
• released an wonderful disability strategy, and completely failed to implement it – don’t know enough on this area to comment. I should.
• failed to address climate change in any meaningful way – basically correct – larger percentage growth in emissions than the USA and Australia.

Kiwipolitico is fast becoming a must read blog, even though I disagree with much of it.

The Wellington City Council has set up a facebook group, where Wellingtonians can discuss what they want for Wellington, to feed into consideration of the ten year Long Term Council Community Plan.

So you can read the full plan if you are a policy wonk like me, or you can just go to the Facebook group and make a couple of comments. This is a good example of easy community outreach, so make use of it.

My high level principles would be:

1. Rates should not increase faster than inflation, plus population growth.
2. Library services should be the last area to reduce services, as access to information is vital in a free society
3. Parks & Recreation also score highly as a priority
4. Leave the Town Belt alone or perish
5. Non public good activities should be user pays as much as possible.
6. WCC should not provide services that are the role of central Government, unless they receive funding for them. This includes housing, welfare, education and health.
7. Do everything you can to make it easy for companies to lay fibre in the city, and to connect it to people’s homes.
8. Some modest funding is okay to areas important to Wellington’s brand – culture, Wellywood etc. We don’t want to be a Canberra.
9. Smarter public transport services – Snapper is good start but too few buses accept it. GPS updates at bus stops would be good. Realise mainly WRC issue.
10. Please do not give any more of our money to the Stock Exchange (NZX) for their external display ticker.

The NZ Superannuation Fund, known as the Cullen Fund, has lost 25% of its value in just a few months.

This $2.8 billion loss is more than $1,000 per household.

Of course all investment funds have done badly, but the Cullen Fund is compulsorily funded by taxpayers, which means you lose your choice of putting money in a bank instead of the Cullen Fund.

The Cullen Fund had some merit when NZ was producing large surpluses. Not a lot, but some.

Now that we are having to borrow billions of dollars, just so we can invest it into the Cullen Fund, it has almost no merit. Think about it – borrowing billions to invest in global sharemarkets.

We should wind up the Cullen Fund, and use it to give $6,000 to every household. That is the sort of fiscal stimulus that will help the economy.

I am not surprised Anna Paquin won a Golden Globe for her lead role as Sookie Stackhouse in True Blood.

I commented in October:

A new series in the US called True Blood has Anna in the lead role as Sookie Stackhouse and I’ve watched the first couple of episodes. You almost do not recognise Paquin at first as she has long blond hair, and has that Southern US accent down so well. It’s a great TV show, which will get a cult following I predict.

Paquin has gone from being a talented child actress, to one of the most skilled adult actresses I have seen. I’m no expert, but she just subsumes herself into a role so well, that you can’t help but get caught up with the character.

The Line reports that Telecom has killed Ferrit:

Three years ago, Telecom threw its money into the online retail venture Ferrit, today, Telecom has decided to throw it out. …

Telecom retail CEO Alan Gourdie … in a press release, saying that the company is focused on mobile, broadband and ICT and that Ferrit falls outside the company’s core service focus.

I can’t say I am terribly surprised. It didn’t provide people with enough of an incentive to shop there, rather than elsewhere.

The Herald profiles Labour MPs Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins plus National’s Jonathan Young.

Jacinda notes her Morrinsville roots:

She calls Morrinsville home – “a place that keeps me grounded”.

When she was asked if she was “a radical” because of her post as president of the International Union of Socialist Youth, she would reply: “I am from Morrinsville. Where I come from, a radical is someone who chooses to drive a Toyota over a Ford or Holden.”

Instead, she was a “social democrat. I believe what I believe, strongly – human rights, equality, social justice, the importance of community – and I do believe New Zealand has a role to play in promoting and defending these principles abroad.”

Chris is noted as:

Grew up in the Hutt Valley. The 80s economic reforms and stockmarket crash were pivotal in shaping his politics.

As Chris was nine years old when the stockmarket crashed, he must have been quite the economic prodigy.

Jonathan Young first visited Parliament at age seven:

Son of Venn Young, National MP for Egmont/Waitotara 1966-1990. Can remember coming to Parliament as a 7-year-old and meeting Prime Minister Keith Holyoake, and seeing the shoeshine stools in the men’s toilets (they are still there today) today, and the silver butter knives, bread rolls and fish in Bellamy’s.

I hope teh Herald keep up the profiles.

Watched last night the Jackass No 2 movie. The funniest (or stupidest) part to me was when they were in ring with a very aggressive bull, on a see-saw.

As the bull would charge one of them, the other would drop down to raise the target just above the bull. The bull would then charge the other person, and so they kept going up and down to avoid it.

Eventually though the bull got one of them, of course.

The rocket powered shopping trolleys looked much more fun!

Karl du Fresne raises an issue of media ethics:

There was TVNZ’s Europe correspondent Mark Crysell reporting on the 6 o’clock news from the Israeli town of Sderot, near the border with Gaza. Journalists congregate in this town because Israel won’t allow them into Gaza and I presume it’s the closest they can get to the Israeli bombardment.

Crysell, looking every inch the foreign correspondent in his flak jacket, talked about hearing Israeli bombs exploding. He may have mentioned taking shelter from Hamas rockets, which are occasionally fired at Sderot. Then he said something like: “Here’s my report”.

What followed was a report from inside Gaza, showing the usual scenes: wrecked buildings, grieving Palestinians, bloody hospital wards. Sure enough, it was Crysell’s voice we were hearing over the news footage; but “my” report? How could it be Crysell’s report when he was on the Israeli side of the border, well away from the carnage?

Surely even TVNZ wouldn’t stoop to anything so blatantly dishonest as dubbing its own correspondent’s voice over footage compiled by someone else (I suspect the BBC, which has people inside Gaza) and then claiming it as Crysell’s own?

I think it is all part of the trend to make TV news seem immediate and unqiue.

The TV bulletins are full of “live crosses” now, even though they are reporting on issues that finished hours earier and don’t need a live cross.

The Greens are upset that NZ will not ban energy inefficient plasma TVs, as the UK is planning to do.

Gerry Brownlee says:

But Mr Brownlee yesterday told the Herald the Government did not favour banning energy-hungry TVs.

“Our view is the information about appliances should be given to consumers and consumers should then make their choice.

“Consumers should be given as much information as they possibly can about the energy efficiency of appliances … but at the final point of purchase it’s the consumer’s decision.”

Can you imagine the backlog of things to be banned under a future Labour/Green Government?

Oh this is almost priceless hypocrisy. John Key is being criticised for daring to have a holiday from Xmas Eve until middle of this week. How dare he spend time with his wife and children. But even better is look at who is making the criticism:

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark, on holiday in Europe, criticised the Government for taking a “laissez-faire” approach to the economic crisis.

“The rest of the world is aware there’s an economic crisis on, they are aware there’s a huge international crisis in Gaza, and the New Zealand government is on holiday,” she said.

“At the end of the day, when you’re elected, you don’t have a 100 per cent holiday.”

Okay, get this. They quote Helen Clark, from her holiday in Europe, criticising John Key for being on holiday. Seriously – how pathetic is that.

Even worse, is to have Clark talk about how when you are elected, you can’t have a 100% holiday. Is this the same Helen Clark who when PM had her holiday arrangements in such secrecy that not only did the media not know where she was, neither did her own staff, with one exception?

Towns in America are flooding the Government with requests for projects to be included in the economic stimulus package being assembled by President-Elect Obama and Congress.

USA News reports on how the town of Edwardsville, Alabama has put forward proposals for $375 million of spending. Edwardsville has a population of 194m so that is around $2 million per resident.

Their proposed projects include:

• a renewable energy museum (cost: $32.1 million)
• scenic railroad (cost: $37.0 million)
• vineyards (cost: $9.0 million)
• replace streetlights with solar-powered lights (cost: $3,479,200),
• build solar-powered recharging stations for electric golf carts and vehicles (cost: $620,000)
• installing water pipelines beneath roads to soak up the sun’s rays, transferring heat (cost $50.4 million) that will halve the amont of energy required

So far the towns have a combined wishlist of $96.6 billion!

TVNZ report that 20 year old Emma Daken has finished her walk from Cape Reinga to Bluff, to raise funds for cystic fibrosis research.

Emma is now the youngest person to ever walk the length of New Zealand.

Emma Daken is the youngest person to have walked the length of New Zealand after finishing her marathon effort in Bluff.

Daken has worn through four pairs of shoes in her epic journey.

“You can feel the gravel with every step,” the 20-year-old says.

“Shin splints, I’ve had a quadricep strain, blisters, black toenails, but overall I’ve held up pretty well.”

Nothing could distract Daken from her focus – raising awareness of cystic fibrosis.

“I’ve got a very good friend with CF so I suppose she was the catalyst for embarking on something like this, but in saying that, throughout the trip I’ve met so many wonderful people who have CF so it’s no longer solely for my friend. It’s for everyone I’ve met along the way as well.”

Bluff is 1,475 kms away from Cape Reinga. Walking it would have been even further. It’s a great achievement for a great cause.