Kiwiblog

NZ is facing a decade of deficits, but relatively small compared to under Obama’s budget. AP reports:

President Barack Obama’s budget would generate deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to the latest congressional estimates, significantly worse than predicted by the White House just last month.

The Congressional Budget Office figures, obtained by The Associated Press Friday, predict Obama’s budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That’s $2.3 trillion worse than the White House predicted in its budget.

I am very worried. I think Obama’s budgets will leave the US Government bankrupt. Bush was a disaster fiscally, but Obama may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back – a $10 trillion straw.

Oh and other another teleprompter stuff up (for God’s sake he uses one for St Patricks Day) Obama’s teleprompter now has its own blog!

Hat Tip: Fairfacts Media

Last week Tane at The Standard said:

But in a capitalist system any benefit from productivity increases goes directly into the pockets of business owners. You need a mechanism to translate that into wages. And that mechanism is decent employment protections and a unionised workforce that has the strength to bargain decent wage increases.

I found that statement interesting. In some ways it is not surprising as Tane is employed by a union – of course he would say or think that. But what is revealing is that this seems to be the only way he thinks wages can increase. He over looks:

• Business owners voluntarily give staff pay rises. This is not uncommon in smaller businesses. I have worked in a small business where the owners hated the fact they could not pay the staff more, but once it was more profitable they increased wages.
• Individual staff who perform well get increased wages in recognition of their good performance.
• Staff are paid more to retain them in a competitive market
• Staff get promoted and get paid more for taking on more responsibility
• Staff are shareholders in a business

And so on. Now of course the above do not apply in every case. I am not saying every employer is a good employer who will pay reasonable wages. Unions make a lot of sense for some staff. But that is very different to generalising that a unionised workforce is how you increase wages. I would actually argue that a focus on collective contracts can sometimes hold wages back as employers have to pay bad staff much the same as good staff. The classic example is teaching – I think the best teachers should be on $100,000+ but there is no way that will happen until you have performance pay so that the bad teachers are not paid the same.

Congratulations to Helen for giving birth to a very cute Elizabeth Haal today. Estonia’s gain!

Labor’s string of victories in Queensland continues. Anna Bligh has won them a fifth consecutive term.

Despite polls showing Labor behind, they have lost only 6 seats so far with 70% of the vote counted. Their electoral system has helped them as they are only 1.6% ahead on the primary vote.

Labor look to have 53 out of 89 seats. They had a majority of 34 and it has dropped to 19 – still pretty comfortable.

Labour have ruled for all bar one period since Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s 19 year resign. The Nationals won all eleven election from 1957 to 1986. Sir Joh was then forced out of office and the recent elections have been:

1986 Nat/Lib 59 to Lab 30
1989 Lab 54 to Nat/Lib 35
1992 Lab 54 to Nat/Lib 35
1995 Lab 45 to Nat/Lib 43 + 1 Ind. A by-election saw power transfer to Nat/Lib
1998 Lab 44 to Nat/Lib 32 and One Nation 11 (plus 2 Inds)
2001 Lab 66 to Nat/Lib 15 (One Nation 3 and 5 Inds)
2004 Lab 63 to Nat/Lib 20 (One Nation 1 and 5 Inds)
2006 Lab 59 to Nat/Lib 25 (One Nation 1 and 4 Inds)
2009 Lab 53 to Nat/Lib 32 (4 Inds)

On the positive side, Pauline Hanson got only 22% of the vote, and has retired from politics.

The final episode of Battlestar Galactica screened last night. I’ll do spoilsers over the break, but will say it is a great ending and pretty much all the plotlines get wrapped up.

CTV has a slideshow of 23 great moments in Battlestar Galactica.

One reason I like the show so much (apart from being sci-fi) is the issues it has portrayed. You’ve had coups and counter-coups. An occupation and rebels. Are the rebels justified in killing collabators? This is one reason the UN had some of the cast fascilitate a discussion at their headquarters on human rights. The show got people thinking about these issues.

The only spoiler I’ll let out before the break is that the final scene is set on modern day Earth. But not as people might expect.

So what happened in the final? Click over the break.

(more…)

Just watched the first Q&A. Overall pretty good.

The Guyon Espiner interview with Key was solid. He probed Key on lots of areas – and Key actually revealed quite a bit of stuff we didn’t know.

The panel was Therese Arseneau (who is permanent) and Phil O’Reilly and Russel Norman. I did find it unusual that you would have the leader of an opposition party as one of the panelists discussing the interview of the Prime Minister. I would have thought MPs should only ever be interview subjects, not panelists discussing other MPs.

The second interview (done by Holmes) was with Andrew Little. I was amused to see footage of Andrew in the mid 80s (when I first met him) and even more amused that they dug out a televised exchange between Andrew as NZUSA President telling Tertiary Education Minister Phil Goff that he is talking nonsense and Goff asking Andrew to stop talking over him. The moderator was a very dapper Lindsay Perigo!

I thought it was revealing when Andrew said “Labour has Phil Goff as its Leader – it only has one leader – it’s Phil Goff”. I was waiting for the “for now”

Andrew did say that he had criticised Labour in the past as EPMU National Secretary. I think he misses the point that yes he did in the past, but now he is Labour Party President he could never criticise Labour publicly.

More revealing I thought was that he appeared to be saying he would be a President more in the style of Judy Kirk – behind the scenes, than Mike Williams who was very high profile.

Andrew finished by saying his record shows that he is very professional (and to be fair to Andrew few would dispute that) when dealing with workers issues, and already has been working with a number of Ministers.

Holmes asked if he would stand for Rongotai if Annette King stands for Mayor and vacates her seat before 2011, and Andrew kept his options open saying he has not considered that scenario. I read that as a “yes”.

I was surprised Holmes was relatively tough on Little. In my mind I saw Guyon as doing the tougher interviews, and Holmes doing the slightly less pointed ones. But Holmes pushed Andrew quite hard and asked some very good questions.

Therese made a very interesting point about Andrew’s two hats that he may build up a bigger media profile than Goff, because he is so often in the news as EPMU National Secretary.

Russel Norman made the point that while it is good to see Labour promoting insulating homes now, that getting them to agree to the package before the election was like pulling teeth.  Normal also acknolwedged that National is wrong footing Labour by doing things both on the right and the left.

Overall the panel discussion moderated by Holmes went very smoothly I thought.

I think that TVNZ will be pretty pleased with their first episode.

This photo from the Sunday Star-Times of Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye and a Kiwi being released on Motuihe Island – a wildlife sanctuary.

Suggested captions welcome below, so long as they are funny.

The HoS reports:

Top constitutional lawyer Alison Quentin-Baxter and Dundee University law professor Janet McLean will spend three years examining strengths, uncertainties and inadequacies in the country’s constitutional arrangements that will be published as a book.

The Cabinet Office is recruiting a legal researcher who will be based in the office and have access to its files.

This is an excellent thing to do. Events of recent years such as the shattering of the bipartisan convention to major changes to the Electoral Act have shown how uncertain our unwritten constitutional conventions are.

Even minor conventions such as Cabinet collective responsibility have been watered down that they no longer really exist. In fact some say they never did – it was always just a pragmatic practice, not a convention – so where is the line?

For me the most outraegous behaviour, in constitutional terms, was when a narrow majority in Parliament retrospectively amended the Electoral Act to keep Harry Duynhoven in Parliament despite the fact he was no longer eligible to remain an MP, and should have had to contest a by-election to be re-elected. When MPs can amend the Electoral Act by narrow majority to stop an election, we don’t have a lot of protection – just the Governor-General and they can be effectively sacked by the Prime Minister at whim.

Hence one reason I support having a Head of State who can not be sacked by the PM at whim, and a written constitution.

The research was hailed as “very positive” by former Governor-General Dame Cath Tizard, who for six years was the Queen’s representative in New Zealand.

The project would help New Zealand avoid getting into a muddle in the future, she said.

“My instincts are towards becoming a republic but I would want to ensure the change went smoothly. The Australians just barged into it and stuffed the whole thing up. Nobody had thought through the consequences.”

The research is not linked to NZ becoming a republic, but I agree it will be very useful to have had it done so that any future change can be well informed.

Yesterday, Prime Minister John Key emphasised that the book was an independent project. “I’ve made it clear that I think New Zealand will eventually become a republic but I have no plans to push that forward and it won’t happen on my watch.”

I think the logical time to have a vote on change is when the Queen dies. Hopefully that is many years off.

Quentin-Baxter said the book would spell out the constitutional law and conventions regarding the power and influence of the Queen and her New Zealand representative, the governor-general. The authors would note any areas of confusion or controversy, but would not propose law changes.

One “shadowy” area, for example, was what power the governor-general has in forming a government if an MMP election produces a stalemate. …

The book would be neutral on the question of whether New Zealand becomes a republic, she said.

However, if New Zealanders voted in a referendum to have their own president to succeed the Queen, it would be an “indispensable guide” in working out where changes to our constitutional arrangements were needed.

Yep it sounds very useful. Not useful in the sense of something you can eat or drive, but useful for policy wonks!

The Herald on Sunday says that tickets for the final of the 2011 Rgby World Cup will average $750. Semi-finals will average $600 while some pool matches will be as low as $10.

I have to say they are what I expected pretty much. Of course would be nice to be cheaper but this is a major global sporting event.

I’m going to try and buy a couple of tickets for at least a semi-final. Normally would not pay that much for a sporting event, but this is probably the last time New Zealand will host a Rugby World Cup so I see it almost as a once in a lifetime experience. Future cups will be overseas and costs a lot more to attend.

John Armstrong looks at John Key:

John Key may have portrayed himself as a moderate pragmatist in Opposition – indeed he is still doing exactly that as Prime Minister – but he is still the leader of a party, the fundamental ethos of which is firmly centre-right.

Yep John Key is a centrist, but he is a centre-right centrist.

Those who argue National was a wolf in sheep’s clothing before last November’s election point to what has occurred subsequently – public service spending cuts, the overhaul of ACC, the privatisation of prisons, the unsympathetic treatment of TVNZ, the review of the Overseas Investment Act, the stop on contributions to the Cullen superannuation fund and the hard line on the financial performance of state-owned enterprises – to name but a few things.

The spending cuts, ACC changes, and private prisons were all well known before the election. Labour never told TVNZ to stop paying a dividend so I don’t regard the fact they just because they practise hypocrisy in Opposition, that National should fall into line.

The other policy which highlighted National’s real intentions was its manifesto commitment to revamp the public service. Key may have made reassuring noises that National was going to freeze existing staff numbers overall rather than cutting them. But National’s intention to put more resources into the “front-line” necessarily meant cutbacks in the Wellington bureaucracy. It also meant that if some departments needed more staff, others would have to cut their staffing levels. The policy was transparent on where these should come from by highlighting the explosion in policy analysts and public relations, communication and media staff.

Yep. If there is an overall freeze on staff numbers, it was always inevitable that some agencies would have reductions as others needed to grow.

Internal factors may be forcing the pace. Key is results-driven. He does not stand still. He has written to all his ministers asking them to spell out their priorities. He intends to talk to them about their portfolio work and actual or potential problems. This performance review style of management increases the pressure on ministers not only to deliver, but to look tough and in control.

The real interesting thing will be what will Key do, when a Minister doesn’t perform (and inevitably there will be at least one or two). Now Ministers won’t get moved in and out every few months, but I suspect a second term Key Government (if there is one) would have quite significant changes from a first term. And we may even see a few significant changes during the first term.

But all this ignores the other half of the right-left ledger. Such things as increasing the minimum wage, financial help for the unemployed and those on a nine-day fortnight, stopping the SIS monitoring MPs without good cause, fixing up state houses, continuing with the electrification of Auckland rail, being relaxed about flying a Maori flag on Waitangi Day …

On those scores, the Key Government not only echoes its Labour predecessor, it surpasses it in some instances. It is a world away in ideological terms from National during Ruth Richardson’s heyday.

Yep. And some of its opponents don’t get that yet.

It is highly interventionist, in part because of the recession. But nowhere as much as Sir Robert Muldoon was.

Thank the Lord!

Today’s NZ Herald editorial is a timely reminder of why the RMA needed reform:

When the supermarket chain Foodstuffs made the decision to establish a Pak ‘n Save on North Shore’s Wairau Rd, the internet had just been invented, cellphones were the size of bricks, Auckland’s boroughs were being amalgamated into four cities and the Resource Management Act had arrived.

Actually it was the Web that had just been invented, not the Internet.

So began a 20 year saga in the councils, courts and tribunals of environmental appeal that ended quietly on Wednesday’s deadline for an appeal against Foodstuffs’ latest consent. Finally its rival, Progressive Enterprises, appears to have given up.

Under the new proposed law, competitors can not use the Act to try and stop competition.

Whatever its commercial success, the supermarket will stand as a stark symbol of the follies of planning law that invites objections too widely and permits too many appeals. Applicants and objectors needs only a fair hearing and a decisive ruling. This case has been a disgrace.

It has been. Yet the Greens and Labour are against the new law.

Roger Shepherd of Flying Nun writes in the Dom Post in favour of S92A. I think he has lots of things wrong:

In the current argument over Section 92 of the Copyright Act, several issues have been ignored or distorted. It seems to have been forgotten that downloading music or film without paying for it is stealing.

I don’t know of a single person who is against s92A who has argued that downloading music without paying for it should be legal. The argument is over whether s92A is appropriate and workable.

I cannot see anyone investing in digital music developments in New Zealand while illegal downloading goes unregulated and unpunished.

Here Shepherd is just flat out wrong. Illegal downloading is already punishable, and has always been punishable.

Copyright laws are a sign of a civilised society. We appreciate those in the creative industries who generate ideas, music and art and protect their work and their ability to make a living from it by giving them copyright protection.

Another red herring. No one is arguing there should be no copyright laws.

I think Section 92 is not a strong enough deterrent and should be tougher.

Losing one’s internet connection seems to me like a wimpy punishment for persistent theft. Perhaps we should be also looking at hefty fines that feed into a recording fund for our musicians.

Again Shepherd seems to be ignorant of the law. The Copyright Act allows a performer to go to Court and seek damages from an infringer. The issue for most people against S92A is that people can suffer consequences based on accusation without proof.

And remember the facts supplied by Google, as reported here.

Google says 57 percent of the takedown notices it has received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act were sent by businesses trying to undermine a competitor.

About 37 percent of the notices weren’t valid copyright claims, Google wrote.

So there is an absolute need for there to be some independent decision maker on claims of infringement.

Still, Section 92 is a belated, moderate step in the right direction and fulfils the need to educate the public regarding copyright issues.

S92 goes well beyond education.

Let’s get on and implement it and remove the doubt and confusion that currently exist. If there are faults or problems with the process, they can be ironed out as it develops.

I prefer to listen to the Auckland District Law Society who say it is a confusing crap law. The law needs to be workable before it can be implemented.

Without Section 92, the wheels will fall off our local music industry and there will be no more homegrown successes

And blatant scare mongering. No one would dispute that illegal downloads do not pose a commercial threat to soem artists. But really claiming that without S92, there will never ever again by a sucessful homegrown musician is pathethic scare mongering.

It should be given the same respect as when the Head of the MPAA told the US Congress that video recorders would destroy the movie industry.

Barrons (proud provider of the Blogmobile) are expressing concern that some trailer caravans being produced are illegal and don’t meet safety standards.

If you have a trailer caravan, you may wish to check!

The Herald profiles Kevin Abdulrahman. I was amused by this line:

The website invites readers to order a copy of Mr Abdulrahman’s book Winning the Game of Life or schedule him as a life coach or group speaker, for $5000 an hour. He has also authored Learning The Secrets Of The Rich.

I think I can reveal the secret of becoming rich. CHarge your time out at $5,000 an hour!

Incidentially he now seems to be distinctly unrich:

Attempts to contact Mr Abdulrahman for comment were unsuccessful. His cellphone, 021 BILLION ,has been disconnected and the North Shore home he shared with brother Rami has been sold in a mortgagee sale.

The cars have been sold also.

My first reaction upon hearing that the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre had been fined $480,000 for its role in the death of seven students and staff from Elim College was that it was over the top.

My reasoning was that while big fines make sense if it was a commercial workplace (as would provide incentive to make things safer), a $480,000 fine on a not for profit centre could actually rob them of the money they need to make things safer.

But then upon reading the story, I found in fact they have only been fined $40,000 and the other $440,000 is reparations to the families of the deceased (and a small amont to the survivors). That changes the nature of it, and makes it seem far more reasonable. Not that $60,000 is any compensation for losing a family member, but its a lot more than you would probably get if they were murdured!

My weekly column is online, titled “Much ado about Little”.

I cover the Government’s spending cuts, Phil Goff on charity and Colin Espiner’s comments on Andrew Little’s dual role.

As usual, comments and feedback can be made over at NBR.

Matthew Hooton’s column (not online you have to buy the paper) is also on the Government’s spending cuts. Matthew does a fascinating case study of the bureaucracy in the tourism portfolio (Labour set up a new Ministry of Tourism that now costs 10% of the budget of Tourism NZ that does the actual marketing) and concludes entire agencies need to be cut, not just programmes. His conclusion I’ve typed up:

The Ministry of Tourism is far from being the worst case. Take the masakari to the corporate welfare programmes of the Ministry for Economic Development and NZ Trade and Enterprise; abolish the pointless Tertiary Education, Families and Electricity commissions; simplify the Emissions Trading Scheme so it won’t cost tens of millions to administer; slash the “policy advice streams” of TPK, Youth Development, Women’s Affairs and so forth, and you’ve saved a billion dollars before breakfast.

I like the word masakari. It’s an ancient Japanese battle axe used by warrior monks.

The Dom Post has a headline about how the SSC is having its budget cut 45%. Now before my friends in ACT have wet dreams about this being the start of the revolution, you need to look beyond the headline.

First of all, the IT delivery function of Government is merely being shifted from SSC to DIA. So there is not a cut of 45%, just a transfer of functions.

Also a large segment of the 45% “cut” appears to be the $28 million saved from terminating the loss making Government Shared Network. It seems almost no Govt Department wanted to use it. So no service is being cut, as Govt Depts will be getting high speed Internet access direct from ISPs – but for a much much cheaper cost.

There are some genuine “cuts” but it is impossible to know from the story how big or small they are.

Over at Curiablog I have blogged on the apparent differences between polls on the Section 59 law and how in fact the two polls can be reconciled to each other.

For example while the UMR poll did find only 28% opposed to the new law, they also found 58% agreed that “There are certain circumstances when it is alright for parents to use physical punishment with children” .

In fact only 20% of UMR respondents disagreed with that statement.

I’ve also covered in some detail, how different polls can be focusing on different elements of a law, and differently worded questions can produce different results. This does not mean either one is biased – it means they are focused on different things.

Labour have been arguing that TVNZ should not be run on commercial terms, and should not pay a dividend to the Crown. They argue this of course afte nine years of pocketing big dividends from TVNZ.

Anyway I found this Dom Post story on TVNZ cost cutting interesting:

Staff taking Corporate Cabs must, in future, get receipts and TVNZ must be reimbursed for non-work-related trips. Story-related mobile phone bills will be limited to $105 a month (including $25 for call-plan costs). Koru Club memberships will be “reviewed”. Magazine subscriptions will be cancelled or centralised in the news library.

Journalists wanting to entertain people must in future get permission first. Friday night staff drinks will be cut to once a month and non-story-related travel must be approved by Mr Flannery. Allowances, including those for clothing and grooming, will be audited.

So Labour is arguing there should be less money for hospitals and schools (which the dividend funds) so that TVNZ can continue with weekly staff drinks, unlimited mobile phone calls, non work related taxi trips, unlimited entertaiment budgets and no auditing of allowances?

Very pleased to see:

Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman would like to see the Freeview channels TVNZ 6 and TVNZ 7 broadcast on Sky Television in the next couple of years.

Same. I am helping pay $78 million to TVNZ for those channels, and I ant to be able to watch them on my My Sky box. I do not want to have to buy a Freeview box also. It’s party a point of principle over the cost, but more a matter of convenience – I want one box which records the programmes I want.  When looking at what is on in an evening, you don’t want to have to check two seperate sets of listings.

When you see a headline that refers to a witch hunt, it is normally not a literal hunt for witches, but a more general crusade to find someone to blame for something.

But in the case of this headline in the Herald – African leader embarks on bizarre witch-hunt- it is literally true:

A state-sponsored witch-hunt has begun in Gambia where as many as 1000 people have been kidnapped from their villages and taken to “secret detention centres” then stripped, beaten and poisoned.

The campaign in the tiny West African nation is the latest manifestation of the increasingly brutal and bizarre rule of President Yahya Jammeh, who has claimed he can cure people of Aids. Now the President is thought to believe he is under attack from witches.

Witnesses and victims of the abductions told Amnesty International that the President’s personal guard, with armed police and intelligence agents, accompanied witch doctors to round up suspects.

Many of those taken from their homes were elderly people who were held for up to five days in appalling conditions, made to drink hallucinogenic concoctions and forced to confess to black magic powers.

It’s like an episode of Black Adder, but sadly not fiction. Other activities of the President:

Jammeh caused an international stir two years ago when he tried curing Aids.

Dressed in a white West African garb and plastic surgical gloves, he rubbed a green paste into patients’ bodies before making them swallow a “bitter yellow drink”.

He insisted the cure could only work on Thursdays and required that patients immediately stop taking anti-retroviral drugs. A UN official who dared to question his Aids “cure” was thrown out of the country.

Last year, the President said homosexuals should be beheaded.

It it at this stage I laugh at the piousness of the MFAT advice to the Government that having a policy of life with no parole for the very worst killers, will diminish our ability to influence other countries – such as Gambia no doubt.

Incidentally the President hasbeen  inaugurated as 3rd Vice President of the International Parliament for Safety and Peace.

Nice to see a rare case of accountability in the government sector, with resignations of the two executives at the Auckland Regional Council who proposed the ARC promote and underwrite the David Beckham concert which lost $1.179 million.