Kiwiblog

Was reported last week that the Australian Government is looking to delay its ETS from implementation in 2010, due to an select inquiry into its effectiveness.

So the small delay in NZ has us on much the same path as Rudd’s Government in NZ.

In hindsight supporters of an ETS should be very pleased that Labour and National delayed it coming into effect on 1 January 2009 as originally planned. Having power and petrol prices jump up just as we are heading into the worst recession for 70 years would have engineered a huge backlash against the ETS.

Matt McCarten writes:

Unless the left gets itself together, it’s pretty evident the National-Act aligned Citizens and Ratepayers Now (C&RN) party will take control of Auckland’s new super city next year.

That would be excellent. Lower rates.

C&RN strategists have been plotting the takeover of regional governance for years and are well advanced in their planning for October’s local body elections. The super city idea has been around for a long time, but local parochialism and fears in Wellington of a powerful Auckland state-let kept it off the agenda.

The scale of our region’s problems has finally forced everyone to accept it’s the only logical solution.

Good that Matt supports one Auckland. Almost everyone south of the North Shore does it seems.

When the previous government set up a three-person committee to produce a proposal, I assumed they’d come back with mere tinkering of our regional structures. But it seems they plan to go the whole hog and merge the region into a single super city.

Great – a Royal Commission that leads to real change.

Predictably, the centre-right is coalescing around Auckland City Mayor, John Banks, as their standard bearer. It seems the new mayoral role will be a powerful executive role with wide-sweeping authority. Insiders are already saying it will be the most powerful elected role in the country, next to the Prime Minister.

It’s clearly a prize worth having, and Banks will be hard to beat. He isn’t the Banks of old who was intolerant, bigoted and a right-wing street brawler. Since he won back his mayoralty in 2007 he’s a changed man. Even ardent detractors say Banks goes out of his way to be inclusive and non-sectarian. That’s because he knows that to win a majority of votes across the region he needs to appeal to unaligned voters as well as carve off a chunk of centre-left voters.

Indeed Banks 2.0 is a much harder target for the left to attack.

I’ve no doubt the real agenda by the pro-business lobby in Auckland is the privatisation of our public assets if they get control.

The old privatisation bogey. We don’t even have parties and policies yet, so Matt is ahead of himself. I would point out that the current climate isn’t exactly a good time to be selling companies.

I was dismayed when the best the Labour Party could come up with to stop this juggernaut was to run Judith Tizard for mayor and form a joint ticket with the Greens. They obviously didn’t look at the recent general election in which Tizard lost her safe seat and only one in three Aucklanders voted for that combo.

No, no ignore Matt. Tizard vs Banks would be a great competition.

A centre-left coalition would need to include the Labour, Green and Maori Parties and pull in NZ First as well as other leftist organisations, trade unions and social movement groups.

I assume there will be fewer than 20 super city council positions, so managing the egos of potential candidates will be challenging. But this is where we can take a leaf out of the American elections. If, as expected, the new councillors will be elected from parliamentary boundaries, then we could run a series of “primary” candidate selections. All members and supporters of the coalition groups should attend pre-selection meetings to vote on a candidate. The winner of this primary would be officially endorsed by all these groups for the contest against the C&RN candidate.

A region-wide primary contest to select a single candidate to run against John Banks would bring a lot of strong nominees and drum up publicity to enthuse and invigorate voters before the October election. You only have to look at the US Democratic Party primary process to see how successful that was in mobilising support for the eventual winner, Barack Obama.

The centre-left cannot allow itself to be marginalised and hand over governance to C&R Now. They can only avoid this if they form a unity ticket now. Tick tock. Time’s awasting.

That’s quite a smart suggestion.

Both Sunday papers have stories on Viliami Halaholo, the father of Paula Bennett’s granddaughter.

The Herald on Sunday cite the most recent parole decision saying he still posed an “undue risk” if released, his drug use in prison (but not recently it seems as last three tests have been clean), and his previous offending. All not a pretty picture.

The Sunday Star-Times has Paul Holmes advising Paula Bennett to basically stop supporting Halaholo, or risk losing her daughter.

There is no doubt Paula and her daughter Ana have some tough decisions, either way. Cutting a father out of a child’s life is not some trivial decision. It means a child that grows up without a father, a mother without a partner, possible legal action, possible conflict within your own family.

Likewise it is a tough and risky decision to give a young man a chance to turn his life around when he is out of prison. If he offends again, then questions of judgement arise.

So it is all a complex measure of risk. If you abandon Halaholo, it is probably almost certain he will return to a life of crime. But if you continue to support him once released, well the risk is still there.

But what do I personally think? Well I think it is a decision for Paula and Ana to be made in private, not on the front page of the Sunday papers, and while well intentioned I am sure – not with the public advice of Paul Holmes. If Paul wanted to really help, then write them a private letter.

The HoS report that Tony Veitch will be back on TV shortly – on Murray Deaker’s show on Sky.

If the trial was in the near future, I would disapprove. In an ideal world it would be better for the assault allegations to have been resolved, before decisions are made on appropriateness of broadcasting roles.

But with the trial unlikely until the end of 2010, that is far too long a period to expect someone to be out of work. So I can understand the decision. It is of course not without risks, especially if Veitch is convicted. But that is for a jury to decide.

This is amazing. Someone took hundreds of photos of the crowd at Obama’s Inauguration, and has stuck them all together on a site where you can peer in from any angle, and also zoom in to see individual faces and people. The VIP section is especially interesting.

This arm cast won’t go for $18,000, but it is also for a good cause – Rotorua Hospice, and signed by the local MP.

NZPA reports:

One of Winston Peters’ most loyal and long serving political partners has thrown in the towel. New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown has broken the news at talks on the future structure of the party in Auckland.

Mr Brown says he has lost some of the passion he once had, and is giving up his role because it is time for fresh blood.

It isn’t a huge surprise. Brown is even older than Peters, and would have been 72 at the next election.

But the timing is interesting, as it means they will need to elect a Deputy Leader in the near future, and that person may be Winston’s successor (if there is one).

Audrey Young blogs three mea culpas:

• Gerry Brownlee’s stuff up over urgency for the Electoral Finance Act repeal
• David Parker’s mea culpa over inflicting us with the the Electoral Finance Act
• Audrey’s own mea culpa over her doubts about how Lockwood would go as Speaker

Gerry’s stuff up is also covered in this article.

NZPA compares Ministerial staff numbers between National and Labour:

• 15% reduction in number of staff in Ministerial offices from 176 to 150
• 29% reduction in number of staff in the PM’s Office from 34 to 24
• 30% reduction in number of press secretaries from 47 to 33

That’s a big reduction considering there are just as many Ministers. It is unclear how much the total cost of offices has declined, because the staff are getting paid more than previously:

• Seven staff paid more than $150,000 (two previously)
• 28 staff paid under $50,000 (41 previously)

The hours are bloody long in the Beehive, which gets reflected in the salaries. Very few of the senior staff would ever get home in time to see the news – sometimes not even home in time to see the late news!

Fran O’Sullivan again calls for the Government to cancel tax cuts:

The upshot is the construction industry got a $500 million boost this week to build roads and schools that are not even needed yet.

Not needed yet? I’m sorry Fran but you think the 18 year wait for the Kopu Bridge is not long enough? What actual roads and schools are not actually needed by the time they are completed?

As for the wider populace, all that has been on offer so far is a tax cuts programme that takes so much money out of the Government’s kitty that there is little left to spread to others desperately in need of a boost, such as pensioners, students and beneficiaries.

Good God, where do I start. First of all, National’s tax cuts have not taken any money out of the kitty, as they were almost totally funded by the changes to KiwiSaver. In fact they are a major part of increasing the fiscal stimulus because they took money that was going to be mainly locked up for decades, and instead is giving it to people now, when it is most needed.

Secondly pensioners have got a boost from the tax cuts, as their pensions are linked to after tax income.

Thirdly students have had a huge amount of largesse in recent years. And really, the thought that we’ll get through this okay by borrowing money to give to everyone not in work, to be funded by those who are in work is bizarre.

Finally why would National start their first 100 days by breaking their election promises?

Two articles on Stuff regarding possible enforcement changes:

In the first they have many ideas from the Police:

1. publicly shaming repeat offenders
2. crushing cars
3. drying out accused drink-drivers in cells
4. automatically fingerprinting drivers who fail breath tests
5. banning alcopop drinks
6. hiring more frontline officers
7. introducing random roadside drug testing.
8. lower the drink-driving limit
9. raise the driving age
10. increase sentences for drink-drivers.

Some of these sound good to me, others less so.

No 1 already happens to some degree if the person is high profile. But yeah one could have a website featuring repeat offenders.

Crushing the cars would be an extreme measure, but worth considering for the worst offenders.

Drying out alleged drink drivers in cells is hard to justify, as they are not yet found guilty. If someone is so drunk they can’t walk etc, then it might be workable.

Banning alcopop drinks is just stupid. That punishes everyone who likes those drinks. Focus on punishing those who break the law, not into turning more people into law breakers.

More frontline officers is a good idea, and is happening.

Random drug testing is also very laudable – but hard to do in practice as drugs like cannabis remain in the body for so long.

Lowering the drink driving limit is canvassed in this second article here. As I have said previously, only a very small minority of crashes invovlve drivers who are just below the legal limit. Most who have been drinking are well over the limit. It is a pity the story runs the claims of those who want the limit lowered, without actually doing any independent research, such as the actual crash statiistics.

Raising the driving age has some merit. I used to support it remaining at 15 as that was the school leaving age and if people are in the workforce, they need to be able to drive. But now the leaving age has gone up, the driving age can also.

Increasing sentences for drink drivers is also laudable. Some of the repeat drink drivers have driven drunk on hundreds or thousands of occassions. Once you get to your third conviction or so, the penalties should be very severe.

NZPA reports:

After being bumped out of Parliament in the last election NZ First has acknowledged it ran a “awful campaign”.

Last month it was confirmed Winston Peters would continue to lead NZ First in the near future, but was yet to commit to fighting the 2011 election.

“We ran an awful (election) campaign. There’s no two ways about it. We didn’t get our message out,”deputy leader Peter Brown told Radio New Zealand today.

“We got bogged down, and when I say we, Winston in particular, with defending all these issues that really amounted to not very much at the end of the day but it all became very tense.”

The problem with NZ First wasn’t their election campaign. Considering what had happened, it was quite good.

The problem was their conduct during the term of Parliament. The problem was vowing not to go into Government, and going into Government. The problem was having your hypocrisy exposed on funding issues. The problem was the Leader thought he was not accountable to anyone. The problem is the NZ First MPs defended the indefensible. The problem is not paying back the taxpayer their money.

If NZ First think they got booted out of Parliament because of a poor campaign, then they have not learnt.

Party president George Groombridge said the meeting would discuss restructuring the party and a possible co-leadership model.

Why does the co-leadership model of Zimbabwe come to mind

“We want to do it in such a way that electorates feel that they have more of a part in the running of the party and also we will be working right through to the top, to leadership.”

By more of a part of running the party, he means “a part”. Up until now it has obviously all been run out of the Leader’s Office.

Mr Groombridge said he hoped Mr Peters would be at the meeting.

So the Party President doesn’t even know if the Party Leader will be attending. How does that song go – EMM EYE CEE KAY E WHY, EMM OH YOU S E.

John Armstrong writes:

Ruling parties dumped on the Opposition benches usually spend some time pondering what went wrong and whether they need to redraw the map and reset the compass as a consequence.

But Labour seems bereft of self-doubt. It is as if last November’s election result was some inexplicable mix-up which placed Labour on the wrong side of the chamber; a horrible mistake which will be rectified when everyone comes to their senses.

Of course the election result was a terrible mistake by the voters. Nohing to do with Labour.

Labour is exhibiting a self-righteousness which grates when placed against the backdrop of its rejection by voters.

Bill English had it right when Labour complained over the timing of the release of the Treasury briefing – he said having Labour complaing about the OIA was like Jack the Ripper complaing about community violence.

Phil Goff may have been the only viable candidate for the job of leader after Helen Clark’s resignation – at least for the time being. But the smooth change of leadership was too seamless to display any sense of transition.

As it is, by installing Goff and Annette King as leader and deputy, Labour is failing to undertake the generational shift which Key’s leadership has done for National.

National dismisses Goff, believing he does not have the X factor needed to wow the electorate.

We have yet to be presented with any picture of how a Goff-led Labour Party will be different from Clark’s model – if at all.

I think Goff will be different – he is more centrist. I doubt he would have ever let the anti-smacking law turn into such a disaster – he would have gone for the compromise put forward by Chester Borrows.

But Armstrong is right Goff is no generational shift. He may be only a decade older than John Key, but he entered Parliament under Muldoon, 21 years before John Key did.

In marked contrast to Key’s reaching out across political divides, Labour cannot decide whether to destroy the Maori Party or work with it.

I think Labour’s attacks on the Maori Party are a strategic blunder. They should look at the massive majorities most of the Maori Party MPs got, and realise they are here for a while.

But Labour cannot help itself. In its eagerness to score points, it only scored a succession of own goals this week ranging from state house numbers to the Kopu bridge.

In responding to National’s infrastructure initiatives by claiming it had already announced the same when in Government or had been planning to do so, it simply allowed Bill English to point out that Labour had allocated no real money to pay for those projects.

The Kopu bridge is the prime example. Labour announced the go-ahead, but the go-ahead only went as far as another Transit New Zealand waiting list.

Yes it was glorious fun to see National Ministers get opportunity time and time again to remind people Labour made promises that it couldn’t and didn’t pay for.

Very pleaed to see Peter Dunne come out and call on the Government to discard the new copyright law – or at least S92A. The Herald reports:

The section will see people’s internet connections “cut on unproven accusations of piracy”, Mr Dunne said today.

“All of us who brought in this Act last year believed we were protecting artists from piracy and illegal downloads.

“However, it is now clear that we have a situation where internet users are vulnerable to the mere accusation of piracy, and that is simply neither fair nor just.”

The Government should defer the section’s implementation for three to six months with a view to discarding it, Mr Dunne said.

They should indeeed do this. The TCF is trying to get conensus on a code of practice to try and make a pretty unworkable law workable. But some of the rights holders groups are insisting that they want the power to be prosecutor, judge and jury and decide who has infringed and have the power to instruct an ISP to terminate a customer.

Congrats to Peter for speaking out on this law. As I joked yesterday, you know a law is in trouble when Peter condemns it, after having earlier voted for it

Off memory every party but the Green Party voted for this law. The Greens do get some things right!

For the seventh year in a row, we have the annual cork count of the wine consumption of a group of Wellington layabouts.

The middle jar is the collection for the last 12 months. The aim is to guess the total number of closures (corks and stelvins) in there. For bonus points you can also guess the breakdown between corks and stelvins.

The jar on the left is Feb 07 to Feb 08. It had 512 closures in total,of which 240 are stelvins and 272 are corks.

The jar on the right is from Feb 06 to Feb 07. It had 496 closures in total of which 108 are stelvins and 388 are corks..

This year is hard to guess. The total volume of space is obviously less, but the proportion that are stelvins looks to be a fair bit higher and they take up less space.

The count will be on Wednesday, so make your guess before then. The history for the last few years is:

The Dom Post Editorial praises the new Government’s actions:

As Parliament resumed for 2009 on Tuesday, it was obvious the new Government wants voters to believe it plans to be busy, The Dominion Post writes. Within days, the House was debating just some of the raft of law and order bills it campaigned on, and yesterday began the process of almost wholly repealing the pernicious Electoral Finance Act.

The act, to which the former prime minister was wedded, brought only grief to Labour in the runup to last November’s election. Now, it turns out, new Labour leader Phil Goff, who believes it was a mistake, his No2, Annette King, whose job it was to defend it in Parliament, and their colleagues will vote for its repeal.

Ministerial loyalty to a party leader is one thing; cravenness is another thing entirely.

Seeing the Herald ran photos every month of those who voted for the EFA, maybe they should do a final run of those who voted to repeal it!

Outside the chamber, Prime Minister John Key and his deputy, Finance Minister Bill English, give every impression, too, of being focused, releasing in drip-feed fashion how they plan to tackle the recessionary freight train bearing down on New Zealand. In addition to last week’s so-called Small Business Relief Package, Labour’s tax cuts and the proposed rewrite of the Resource Management Act, they outlined on Wednesday $500 million of building projects to be funded by the taxpayer and, presumably, debt that the Government plans to accelerate. The projects, which cover the housing, transport and education sectors countrywide, will, they say, be fast-tracked to contribute quickly to “the Government’s economic stimulus plan”.

Yesterday, they announced a $100 million upgrade of the electricity grid.

Aucklanders will be supportive!

A degree of smoke and mirrors is evident here. Some of the ideas were already in play under the last government, but that is not to diminish their worth, particularly since their start dates are to be advanced. New Zealanders must be kept in paid work if employment here is not to emulate the train wreck already apparent in Britain and the United States, and threatening Australia.

That would be good. Sadly our recession started a year or so before their ones.

Whale Oil continues his relentless stalking of Winston, and has found he has broken the law by not registering his Baublemobile within the required seven days.

My column at NBR covers the first week of the resumed battle in Parliament.

Find out who gets best play of the week, worst play of the week and patsy question of the week!

Comments can be left at NBR,

Have an accident free Black Friday!

Somewhat annoyingly, the EFA Repeal Bill is not yet online. But Parliament started the first reading debate on it yesterday, and the Herald reports that it was encouraging:

When Labour’s electoral spokesman David Parker stood to speak in last night’s first reading of the bill to repeal the EFA, he was quick to follow his leader Phil Goff and get Labour’s backdown on record.

“So we do concede that there are imperfections with the existing law, that it did produce an overly complicated regime, that it can be improved.”

It prompted MP Jonathan Coleman to yell “so you’re admitting you got it wrong” . Mr Parker – to his credit – refused to rise to the bait and just agreed, in triplicate.

“I have already admitted that. I’m happy to do mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa again. There were imperfections.”

I thought Parker handled himself well, and with dignity.

Yesterday, Labour and Progressives leader Jim Anderton said they would support its repeal after getting assurances National was genuine about working with them on a more enduring replacement.

Only the Green Party is refusing to support the repeal, saying while it was flawed it remained better than the previous law.

And this tells us more about the Green Party, than anything else.

Mr Anderton put in a plea for National not to take vengeance, saying he accepted it was “aggrieved” by what had happened and believed the EFA needed to be replaced.

“Just as we on this side of the House have come to this view, I ask those on that side to be constructive.”

And sadly Jim Anderton is right. I know there are times when I want “utu”, but at the end of the day the Electoral Act is too important to become a plaything for the Government of the Day.

Mr Parker, Mr Anderton and Greens co-leader Russel Norman all stressed that they stuck by the principles of the EFA – and any replacement had to address the transparency of funding of political parties, as well as limits on how far other people and groups could go in campaigning for a party in an election campaign.

I don’t think there is any serious opposition to transparency around party funding.

The issue of restrictions on third parties is more divisive. Ironically the way it is worded about “limits on how far other people and groups could go in campaigning for a party in an election campaign.”, well the limit is $0. It is illegal under both the old and the new law to publish any advertisement campaigning for a party, without the party’s permission – and the cost comes out of the party’s limit.

What Parker and Anderton really mean is they want limits on how much third parties can spend attacking political parties.

I think the bigger issue is around transparency of third party advertising, rather than limiting it. I also think one needs to look at carrots, not just sticks, when it comes to third party activities. I’ll blog in ore detail some ideas at some stage.

This photo from the Australian is becoming iconic. It isn’t just the human act of giving “a mate” your water, but the holding of the hand which puts it into the all too cute category.

Meanwhile, Sam became the most famous koala in the world when firefighter David Tree stopped to give him a drink amid the devastation of the Victoria fires.

Pictures of Sam, who turned out to be female, travelled around the globe and featured in major newspapers including The New York Times, London’s The Sun and on CNN.

The image provided a much-needed picture of hope in a week filled with news of despair. Yesterday Sam was recovering in Mountain Ash Wildlife Shelter.

Carer Jenny Shaw said she suffered burns on her paws and was in a lot of pain, but was on the road to recovery.

She was put on an IV drip and is on antibiotics and pain relief treatment.

“She is lovely – very docile – and she has already got an admirer. A male koala keeps putting his arms around her,” Ms Shaw said. …

Mr Tree said he was surprised by the reaction to the photograph, which was snapped by a fellow CFA volunteer on a mobile phone.

He said he was in the middle of backburning at Mirboo North when he saw the stricken koala.

“I could see she had sore feet and was in trouble, so I pulled over the fire truck. She just plonked herself down, as if to say ‘I’m beat’,” he said.

“I offered her a drink and she drank three bottles.

“The most amazing part was when she grabbed my hand. I will never forget that.”

That is quite amazing, because Koalas are not normally as friendly as their cuddly stuffed toys would have you think.

The NZ Herald is concerned with the swing to the right in the Israeli election. It may surprise some, that I am also.

Generally I am fairly tribal, and support the centre-right party in most countries. In fact have enjoyed close relations with many in the Australian Libs, US Republicans, UK Conservatives, French UMP, Canadian Conservatives, Taiwanese KMT etc etc.

If I was a voter in Israel though, I would vote for Kadima, not Likud. The Likud policy of actually building more settlements on disputed territory is provocative, and unhelpful in my opinion. And the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu wants to have a loyalty oath, or you lose your citizenship. Yuck.

The result is not totally surprising though. In previous elections Israelis voted for parties that promoted sacrificing land for peace. And when they unilaterally give up land, and it results in not peace, but thousands of rocket attacks from the very land they unilaterally gave up. Well it explains why they have flocked to those promising a harder line. I think it is the wrong call they have made, but I understand why they have made it.

It is not quite certain what sort of Government will be formed, but as the Herald says, it will be a test for President Obama to keep the peace process moving forward.

Both National and Labour MPs are concerned that some lawyers are milking the legal aid system:

National MP Simon Bridges, until recently a Crown prosecutor, said there was a growing perception that some of the $54 million the Legal Services Agency spent in the past financial year on criminal legal aid was funding cases where there was no prospect of success.

Mr Bridges said he had received reports of milking the system, such as “a fourth bail application when it is clear that he or she failed the first three times and the fourth one is simply unnecessary”.

Mr Bridges said another example could be the funding of cases to a preparation time of 50 hours, when that amount of time was not needed. Legal aid rates range from $105 to $182 an hour.

Mr Bridges also had reports of “rather too cosy relationships between [agency] staff and particular counsel”.

The cost of criminal legal aid alone is now over $50 million and has blown out by 42% over the last five years.

Labour MP David Parker, also a lawyer, said senior criminal lawyers, particularly in Auckland, had told him there were “considerable numbers of counsel milking the system, particularly inferior counsel”.

Mr Parker cited trials with many accused where six or seven defendants had individual lawyers, “because someone else [legal aid] was paying”, rather than the compromise of having fewer lawyers to represent them as would be likely if they were paying themselves.

Good to see David Parker also raising concerns.  Maybe Nats and Labour can do an inquiry?

But some good news from the agency chair, Carole Durbin:

She said its in-house public defence service, a pilot scheme made permanent last year, was one of its “bright lights”.

I think there is considerable merit in having a public defenders office.

Helping out a good cause. After all we just had the Kiwi Fisherman on there. There is also a facebook group.