Kiwiblog

A few excitable commentators have been proclaiming that John Key has suddenly shedded his centrist tendencies and turned into a raving right winger.

Now certainly is true that stuff around ACC and prisons are more “right” than “centre”, but both were clearly signalled prior to the election.

But the hypebole got me thinking that it would be interesting to look at all the major Key initiatives since the election, and crudely classify them as “centrist” or “rightist”. Basically I define “centrist” as doing somethign that you would not generally expect from a conservative or right wing administration, or at least something that goes against the stereotype that people try and apply to them.

So first let us look at the major “rightist” things Key has done. This is off memory so I welcome additional ones for either list in the comments.

Rightist

1. Reintroducing Titular Honours*
2. Looking to reduce contributions to NZ Super Fund
3. Delay and review the Emissions Trading Scheme*
4. Canning some minor environmental programmes
5. Likely reduction in some ACC entitlements
6. Allowing privately managed prisons*
7. Public Service expenditure cuts*
8. 90 day probation period law*
9. “Boot Camp” legislation*
10. Dumped some inquiries into women’s pay

An asterix means that it was referred to in pre-election policy or speeches.

Now what are the Centrist initiatives:

Centrist

1. Doing a deal with Maori Party, when it wasn’t necessary*
2. Student loan writeoffs*
3. Agree to review of Foreshore & Seabed law
4. Proposed pay freeze for MPs
5. Increased minimum wage to keep pace with inflation, despite recession
6. Not ruling out cancelling or suspending post 2009 tax cuts
7. Advocate state bailouts of iconic NZ companies
8. Wants 40% of Super Fund invested in NZ*
9. Subsidising employees who go to nine day fortnights
10. Increased accountability for security services
11. Advocating for Maori flag to be flown on Waitangi Day
12. Funding new rolling stock for rail
13. Supports building a national cycleway
14. Responsible for delaying s92A of Copyright Act
15. A transitional relief package for those made redundant*
16. Enthusiastic participation in Big Gay Out (could you imagine a Howard or Bolger doing so?)
17. Has been praised by leading unionist for constructive attitude over Jobs Summit
18. Backing the person he beat for a top UN job
19. Policy to not sell any SOEs*
20. Insulating 10,000 state houses

Now not all of these are of equal value (and there may be some more I missed), but I think it helps puts things in perspective.

Key is a center-right politician. He is not “Labour lite”. But he is centre-right not “right”.

And the public are not stupid. There is a reason he is so popular – it is because he follows his political instincts (which are centrist), not because he has the most cunning smartest dastardly PR team in history who have conned every journalist in NZ into believing he is something he isn’t.

NZPA reports:

Calls to scrap the controversial new internet copyright law are increasing ahead of the Government’s March 27 deadline for a decision on its future.

United Future leader Peter Dunne, the minister of revenue, today compared it with the ill-fated Electoral Finance Act (EFA).

“The EFA arguably started out with good intentions but those became overwhelmed by the impracticalities of the legislation,” he said on Radio New Zealand.

“In the end it became a pariah, it literally brought a government down and Parliament has now repealed it. I would have thought we would have learned a lesson.”

The Government would be wise to listen to Peter Dunne. Peter has decribed his initial support for the EFA as the worst mistake he has made in politics.

With goodwill a scheme can be put in place that helps rights holders and will reduce online infringing. But s92A is not adequate and needs to be amended at a minimum.

I have long advocated roads should be user pays and until we get the technology to monitor and charge actual road usage, petrol tax is the closest we have to it.

People are focusing on the 6c/l extra petrol tax that will be in place in two years time, but overlooking that in many areas petrol prices would be increasing by up to 13c/l. A regional tax of up to 10c/l and an increase in national petrol tax of 3c/l.

Personally I think the level of petrol tax should vary automatically to fund all road projects that pass a certain benefit:cost ratio.

I blogged in October on 85 things the Greens want to ban.

This one off task now looks to be an ongoing challenge as they have found more stuff to ban. So I will try and keep updating the list as we go. Today we have

86. Ban cat and dog fur imports

Yes Sue Kedgley wants Customs to DNA test (I am not making this up) any fur at the border. Also going through the last new months we also have:

87. Ban plastic bags

88. Plasma TVs

I could also include banning smoking outdoors in the Auckland CBD as proposed by Green Party member Cr Cathy Casey, but I’m ot sure if it is official Green policy? Same for the admiration of the ban on bottled water by a Green Party member – I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and not include them, even though I am sure it is just a matter of time

I was highly amused to see the headline at the NZ Herald:

Jane Kelsey: Free trade deal may not make sense in these hard times

Why this is so amusing is that Jane Kelsey has spent her life arguing against free trade deals at any time. Kelsey probably protested against CER with Australia.

The Herald’s editorial:

For all the disruption the takeover of train purchases has caused to the regional council’s plans, there was a logic and inevitability about it from the moment Labour bought the rest of the railway system. Fragmentation of public services offers little benefit to a nation of just four million people unless competition is possible and permitted. …

Now that the trains are also back in state ownership it is important that the transparencies of privatisation are not lost. The tracks and trains should remain separate accounting entities even if Ontrack and KiwiRail are merged. If the Auckland commuter units are owned by the national agency they will continue to be operated by the French company Veolia Transport, whose contract with the regional transport authority was recently extended to 2014.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key has asked the Security Intelligence Service to put on ice any active files it has on MPs after a report found they should be treated as a special case. …

Mr Key said he had written to SIS head Warren Tucker “inviting” him to take up the recommendations. He had also asked the Speaker to begin considering it and would ask Justice Neazor to do a follow-up report in about six months.

It is worth remembering that John Key could have done what his predeccesors normally did, and just say “I don’t comment on security issues”. Instead he ordered the Inspector-General to do a review, and is ensuring a change of policy.

Recommendations are:

• “Deactivate” files of any person who becomes an MP.
• Require the SIS to get Speaker’s permission to put any MP under surveillance.
• SIS must show good grounds for believing the MP is involved in activities which endanger security.
• Limit the information the SIS can keep on any other person’s dealings with an MP.

All looks sensible.

A few weeks ago I left my Blackberry on a bus and it was never handed in. So I had to get a new one. When I reported the fact it was gone to the Police, they asked me if I had password protected it, and I had to admit I had not, as it is such a pain to stick in passwords all the time when I use it so much.

But I figured they had a point so a few days ago I stuck a password onto it. And all working okay. If left unattended for half an hour it would prompt for the password, and I enter it and all okay.

But then today I went to synchronise it with my laptop. And both the Blackberry and laptop asked for a password. The Blackberry accepted it, but the laptop did not. I tried it four times and it just would not be accepted.

Knowing bad things happen if you try for a fifth time, I disconnected the Blackberry from the laptop. But then the Blackberry still demanded a password. Not wanting to risk it, I turned it off. Turn back on and it still asks for the password and warns it is on attempt five of five, and will wipe the Blackberry if unsucessful.

Rather than risk that I remove the battery and then stick it back a few minutes later. Damn – again it says it is on go 5 of five and warns the password is needed and if incorrect it will format the Blackberry and delete all data.

So very carefully I enter the password. I am 100% sure it is the password. But somehow it now thinks something else is the password and the neighbours hear my screams of rage as the Blackberry comes up with 5% deleted and happily carries on.

I now have a Blackberry which needs me to reformat everything from scratch. Seriously not happy.

UPDATE: Fuck fuck fuck fuck. The stupid fucking thing has managed to delete my entire Outlook address book. Every phone number and e-mail address has been deleted. This is highly unamusing.I want a gun and someone to aim it at.

If you are someone whom I normally phone, send me a text with your name so I can start the painful job of rebuilding the directory. I do have a backup but it is not that up to date. Also an e-mail could be useful too.

Interesting NZPA article:

A High Court judge today approved the serving of court papers via Facebook, the popular social network web site, in what is thought to be a New Zealand first.

The High Court in Wellington was told that Axe Market Garden is trying to sue Craig Axe who is alleged to have taken $241,000 from the firm account.

Counsel for the company Daniel Vincent said the plaintiff was effectively Axe’s father John and there were difficulties in serving papers on his son.

Craig Axe was known to be living in Britain but his exact whereabouts were not known.

Mr Vincent said Axe had corresponded via email and was also known to have a Facebook site.

He asked associate justice David Gendall if he would take the unusual step of approving a secondary service order on Axe via Facebook and email to avoid him frustrating his client’s court action.

Justice Gendall did not bat an eyelid in the court room when approving the order after being assured that newspaper adverts could not be effectively targeted.

Good to see the Judge being flexible. Will be rather funny when someone checks their Facebook messages to find legal papers!

Have just watched Part I of the series finale for the amazing show that is Battlestar Galactica. Part II which ends it all shows next weekend.

For those who are not watching the latest episodes, I’ll carry on after the break as there are major spoilers.

(more…)

1. No Right Turn labels the TV3 story on extra staff for larger electorates a “total beat-up” and says “While some might quibble at them spending – gasp! – $400,000 a year on it, people in large rural seats have an equal right to participate in our democracy, and it is money well spent. Unfortunately, it seems TV3 would rather engage in shallow hatemongering against politicians rather than recognise this.”
2. Whale Oil quotes from Matthew Hooton’s NBR column on Labour. He points out the left are polling lower currently than the centre-right achieved in the disastrous 2002 election.
3. Gonzo blogs on how the Obama administration is refusing to release documents about the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a super-maximal copyright treaty, as disclosing the details of this secret copyright law would endanger “national security.”
4. MacDoctor blogs some facts on ACC.
5. Adam Smith asks if Jim Anderton is our own Denny Crane after a bizarre press release from him?
6. Keith Ng fisks the Herald over school violence
7. Whale Oil examines Kordia’s books and discovers it paid almost $25m goodwill for Orcon, despite Orcon losing money.
8. Bernard Hickey cautions about the Government investing $500 million in trains for Auckland, and plugs for buses.

That Auckland City Council contributes $400,000 to the Pasifika Festival at Western Springs Park, while Manukau City Council contributes $0.

Incidentally 13% of Auckland City residents are Pacific, while in Manukau it is 28%.

To some degree it shows the problem with funding for such events happening at the territorial authority level, rather than the regional level. It is obviously a regional event, and it seems bizarre that it is funded by the residents of just one TLA.

Today’s ODT editorial:

There is no doubt the Accident Compensation Corporation faces considerable funding challenges, but such is the intemperate tenor of ACC Minister Dr Nick Smith’s pronouncements and actions – the latest being his unheralded and reportedly overbearing appearance at the transport and industrial relations select committee last Thursday – the suspicion arises he is unduly trying to “soften up” the public for as yet unannounced and radical changes to the scheme.

I doubt there will be radical change. For the most part the Government is doing what Labour would do – increasing levies and delaying the date we move to full funding. But there may be some pruning of the scheme – but this would merely take it back to where it was a few years ago – hardly a radical change.

Even the possible competition in workplace insurance cover is far from radical, and was explicitly mentioned in the pre-election policy.

Dr Smith and, to a lesser extent, Treasurer Bill English, have been right to draw attention to the problems at ACC.

Former finance minister Michael Cullen and ACC minister Maryann Street were technically exonerated in a report released last week of obscuring the corporation’s true financial position for the pre-election financial update, but National may have genuine cause for alarm at the “hospital pass” it has received over the state of ACC’s finances.

However, Dr Smith is almost certainly incorrect when he says ACC is “technically insolvent” and with his more extravagant pronouncements appears to be gilding the lily.

With a new chairman and board appointed, he needs to tone down the rhetoric and get on with sorting out the problems – in a calmer and more confidence-inspiring manner than he has done to date.

The status quo of $47 a week levy increases for the average household is clearly unacceptable.

I saw in the Herald that a Tim Dare has responded to the excellent op ed by Dr Shaun Holt on the bureaucratic PC ethics approval system for the most basic of health experiments (the example was honey on a rash).

Now when Dr Holt did his original op ed I noted he provided an actual example of how the system was nonsense, and that he spoke from first hand knowledge, being a Doctor.

So before I even read Tim Dare’s response, I crolled down to the end to find out whether he was someone with a vested interest in defending the status quo. And indeed:

Dr Tim Dare is head of the department of philosophy at the University of Auckland and chairman of the Health Research Council ethics committee.

Interesting. Dr Dare is chairman of the HRC ethics committee (which makes him the ultimate vested interest) but he is also (to quote Rob Muldoon) one of those doctors who makes you sick, not well

But what does he say:

Dr Holt is moved in part by his experience as a former ethics committee member and researcher. He recently sought approval for a study looking at whether honey helped treat a common childhood skin condition.

“Only 15 children were required,” he reports, “and all the caregivers had to do was to apply the honey, cover with a dressing and see if it seemed to help.”

The ethics committee refused permission, he says, raising more than 40 objections. He gives as an example of its obstructive approach a requirement for Maori consultation.

This is misleading. I was a member and chair of New Zealand’s busiest health research ethics committee for seven years. Some very difficult applications, such as those requiring the development of new policy, took a long time. But the vast majority were dealt with at the meeting following their receipt (within two or three weeks), as required by national guidelines. Even allowing time for letters following that meeting, few were still open six to eight weeks after receipt.

He says this is misleading, but nowhere does he dispute that Dr Holt was refused permission and had over 40 objections to overcome to what appears to be the most simple of experiments.

And rather than quote actual statistics on turn-around, we only get told ” the vast majority” and “few”. I prefer hard numbers. But the issue is not just about time to make a decision, but the hurdles that applicants have to jump through prior to application.

Delays beyond that were often because researchers took time responding to committee requests for clarification or amendment.

So it is their fault. Again no statistics on this.

Dr Dare turns to Dr Holt’s proposal and comments:

Dr Holt’s account of the treatment of his own proposal is also less than complete. Ethics committee minutes are publicly available. The minutes for Dr Holt’s study before the Auckland committee (to see them, run NTX/08/09/085 through Google) indicate that the committee deferred a decision on Dr Holt’s honey project because they were concerned about its validity.

They seem concerned the study did not have enough participants and that parents were required to change dressings and wash the affected area during the study without an indication how Dr Holt would know whether it was the honey or the washing that made the difference. There is mention of Maori consultation, but it is not given as the primary reason for deferral.

These are very ordinary concerns about research validity: one of the legitimate roles of an ethics committee is to ensure that health therapies cannot claim to have been shown effective unless the research is rigorous and sound.

Note that the committee did not decline approval: they deferred a decision. Dr Holt chose to not clarify or amend his study.

It was good of Dr Dare to provide the Google reference as it does provide the minutes of the meeting. But I think the minutes prove Dr Holt’s point. Look at the changes that were demanded for such a simple study:

• Study, as it stands, is a pilot and this needs to be stated in the title, and then reflected in the design, the research question(s) and the PIS and consent form. Alternatively, the researcher may choose to power the study, after consulting a statistician
• Guidelines NAFG to be consulted.
• Part 1: Provide positions/qualifications/organisations of co-investigators
• A3.1: Insert information regarding washing the MC lesion every 2 days (same as PIS).
• A1.2: Explain what type of honey will be used and the justification for using this.
• A3: Study Design: It is planned to dress 1 MC with honey, cover it then, for the next four weeks, wash it every 2 days wash it, dress it with honey and cover it while the other MC is left untouched. Clarify how the researcher will determine which of these interventions is causing any effect seen.
• A3: Randomize over two chosen sites, and include an osmolarity control.
• A3: Explain how participant compliance with study design will be monitored between visits
• A4.1: Explain how the 15 child participants will be assigned in respect of each locality
• B10: Grounds for exclusion to be ‘factual’ not left to doctor.
• B11: Provide worksheet. What information is being collected and why?
• B12: Explain why a dressing known to cause allergic reactions will be used, rather than a non-adhesive dressing, and explain how the cause of any adverse reaction will be ascertained.
• B12: If removed from the study what treatment will be offered to the child?
• B16: Clarify ‘safety reasons’.
• D5/6/7: Data to be kept until age of majority plus 10 years (Health Act – Children)
• E: Researcher to explain how interpreters are accessed, if used
• Section F: Consultation needed from Tauranga Maori Health Providers. Honey is food – are there cultural implications?
• Locality Assessment Cannot be signed by PI. To be redone.
• Pt 4 Declaration: 2: Cannot be signed by PI. To be redone.
• B11: Provide worksheet?
• Provide an information sheet/consent form for children under 15.
• A8.1: Provide itemised budget that justifies the $900 payment to doctors. Without such detail we are unable to assess whether the payment to doctors might act as inappropriate inducement to recruit and retain.
• D4: The committee is concerned that having the initial approach made by the GP increases the potential for conflict of interest and coercion of the participant, given the payment per participant that is proposed.

Hell I would have given up at this point also.

John Armstrong looks at ACT:

As one longstanding party insider attending Act’s weekend conference put it, the party is no longer in need of life support. It is no longer even in intensive care. It is somewhere short of full recovery, however.

Though the two-day conference justifiably celebrated the party’s resurrection from near oblivion in 2005 to holding ministerial portfolios in 2009, there was no smugness.

Instead, the conference exhibited a healthy realism, knowing Act’s condition could easily slip backwards again just as quickly.

Sadly the track record of support parties is not good.

The sternest warning came from the party’s deputy leader, Heather Roy, who said as gratifying as it was to have made such progress, the party’s biggest challenges had just begun.

“We must re-establish our political relevance every single day,” she told Saturday’s session, referring to the party’s need to constantly lift its profile and maintain its separate identity and not be suffocated by National in the present governing arrangement.

Indeed. And John Key’s tilts to the centre give ACT lots of room on the right. Rodney’s portfolios also give ACT a real opportunity to score some wins.

Act’s entry into what Hide describes as the “death zone” consequently saw the conference focus heavily on political marketing and branding, with an analysis of post-election candidate interviews and voter focus-group research presented by Auckland University academic Jennifer Lees-Marshment.

Hmmn I’d like to see that presentation.

She emphasised the party needed to switch to “permanent campaign mode” now rather than waiting until election year.

Act needed a strategy that included effective communication of what it was delivering policy-wise and emphasising those achievements had been gained only because Act was part of the governing arrangement.

She said the party should revisit its pre-election 20-point plan and possibly launch an updated version. The party needed to be open and honest when it was unable to deliver on expectations.

Sensible.

There was talk of Act softening its image to broaden its appeal to women and younger voters, and appealing to voters’ hearts as much as their heads.

In short, Act needed to display “emotional appeal”, rather than just cold hard logic, to win over voters.

In essence, it was suggested Act should be somewhat akin to the Greens, such that people could empathise with the sentiment expressed through the party’s brand even if they did not agree with all of its policies.

Yeah the Greens do this well – most support is for their brand, not their policies. I mean after all surely 7% of NZers don’t really want to ban 86 different things on the Greens ban list.

Big ups to Nicolas Sarkozy who has announced that France will fully rejoin NATO ahead of the 60th anniversary of its creation next month.

Charles de Gaulle may be turning angrily in his grave in the village of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises but his spiritual heir, Nicolas Sarkozy, shows no qualms or regret for his deed.

It was de Gaulle who, 43 years ago, slapped America by pulling France out of Nato’s military command, asserting that his country would follow its own strategy of deterrence.

And it was Sarkozy who, in a near-Oedipal act, overturned the time-honoured policy of his doctrinal father and national hero.

In doing so, Sarkozy is reshaping Franco-American ties in a way unimaginable a year ago and boosting his claim to being Europe’s big player with Washington, say analysts.

It is a brave bold move.

Last week Sarkozy declared: “A state alone, a solitary nation, is a nation without influence, and if we count for something, we have to know how to bind ourselves to allies and friendships.

“France wants peace. France wants freedom and France also knows who our friends are and who our enemies are. I’m not afraid to say it, our friends and allies are first and foremost the Western family.” De Gaulle’s move in 1966 enabled France to remain a political member of Nato and thus benefit from its pledge of mutual defence in the event of attack.

To be fair to Obama, it no doubt helps that he is now the President, rather than Bush. I can’t imagine this having been possible while Bush was President. But he credit goes to Sarkozy, and the challenge lies with Obama to capitalise on this extremely useful step.

This is the photo that greeted most of Australia  over breakfast. Yes that is a 19 year old Pauline Hanson.

The Sunday Telegraph reports:

PAULINE Hanson’s political comeback has been derailed with the emergence of nude photographs taken 30 years ago by a boyfriend she met in a Brisbane shop.

The photographs were taken in the mid-1970s and show Hanson, who was roughly 19 at the time, posing seductively in various states of undress.

Hanson is a politician I have only contempt for. However no-one deserves to have their 30 year old intimate photos published publicly.

The boyfriend who took the shots is a former army commando now living in Sydney on a supplementary disability pension and struggling to repay debts incurred from bone cancer treatment.

Jack Johnson, 52, spent 18 years in the army and met the young Hanson when she worked in a Brisbane grocery shop.

Presumably this was before the famous fish and chips shop?

Hanson is currently campaigning in a Queensland by-election and her former campaign manager has warned she may even be behind the release herself as a publicity stunt.

Have a look at this dance and music video. And see how long it takes you to realise it is a marketing video for Rafael, an Israeli arms company, for use a a trade show in India. Hilarious.

The Herald reports:

Act’s MPs will be allowed to vote according to their consciences on all pieces of legislation rather than being obliged to stick to the agreed position of their five-member caucus.

The only parliamentary votes where an Act MP will be obliged to follow the party line is on confidence and supply measures where National is guaranteed Act’s total backing by virtue of the support agreement between the two parties.

Less party whipping is a good thing in my opinion.

The decision to allow a free vote could potentially block some pieces of Government legislation if the Act caucus is split.

National has 58 seats in the 122-seat Parliament and needs four votes from other parties to pass measures.

Assuming a “no” vote from Opposition parties, Government legislation would fail if two Act MPs were opposed, along with the Government’s other support partners, the Maori Party and United Future MP Peter Dunne.

It may pose some problems, but it can also work the other way. There could be issues where most ACT MPs are oppossed, but this will allow some ACT MPs to vote in favour.

In a reference to Winston Peters and NZ First, and Jim Anderton and the Alliance, he said: “We do it that way because we have seen what happens to third parties with leaders who just dictate their party’s vote. Those leaders end up thinking they are the party, and those parties don’t last.”

Indeed they don’t. Some people probably don’t recall that outraegous day when Jim Anderton declared the Alliance must hand him absolute power or he will leave. And well in NZ First, they don’t even get to know abotu the bank accounts.

I like many were wondering what the likely cancelling of the regional fuel tax would mean for projects like the electrification of Auckland’s suburban rail network.

Transport Minister Steven Joyce has not been idle. The regional petrol tax funding method was set up when Toll was in private hands. He is now proposing that rather than have central Govt hand over petrol tax money to the Regional Council for them to buy the trains, they do it directly through KiwiRail.

This means Auckland gets electric trains, yet no hike in petrol tax. It means the cost is funded by taxpayers rather than motorists.

As I said at the weekend, I think public transport should not be funded from petrol tax – but directly by the Crown as a competing public good. So this looks good to me.

In theory the left should love this, as it is increasing the fiscal stimulus they care so much about.

Michael Laws writes on the reason we have so few organ donations in NZ:

So it was last week as I contemplated my driver’s licence. And tried to understand why, if most of us have “donor” typed on it, only 31 people in 2008 actually donated their organs to others.

Sure, you have to be dead. But a lot of us die every year. We fall off things, crash into other things or the wife catches us with the bimbo. That sum must equal more than 31. And given that we’ve committed our mortal remains to assist the mortality of others, then what gives?

The answer is simple. Stupidity. In specific, a fatal combination of medical mindlessness and cultural ignorance. All wrapped into one piece of PC legislation called the Human Tissue Act (2008). The act was supposed to make organ donation simpler and numerous. It has had the opposite effect because it allows relatives to overrule the intent and wishes of the dead. It also elevates superstitious gibberish and cultural gobbledegook to the same pantheon as reason and logic.

I think it is appalling that your explicit wishes about donating organs can be over-riden by your relatives. It dishonours the dead to have their wishes ignored.

Add a failure of leadership at Organ Donation New Zealand Dr Stephen Streat making Corrections’ Barry Matthews look like some kind of Harvard genius and you have what you have. Hundreds of desperate Kiwis awaiting the chance for life, and tens of thousands of New Zealanders going to the grave, intact and entire.

Streat’s performance is central to the failure of organ donation in this country. He opposed the sensible suggestions contained in National MP Jacqui Blue’s 2006 private member’s bill that would have created a central register for organ donations. He was instrumental in the construction of the Human Tissue Act and remains a resolute defender of the relative veto. Despite it being his job to find new donors, the total number dropped to just 31 last year. All he now needs is the imprimatur of State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie to be wholly condemned.

Ouch. Harsh words, but not without some merit. The body that should be doign everything possible to increase donation rates, consistently argues against such measures on the grounds they do not wish to upset family members.

Never mind the family members of the person who dies needlessly because they could not get an organ they needed.

Bill Ralston writes in the HoS:

National has found an unerring ability to plug into public sentiment.

Even when there has been an apparent reverse, such as minister Judith “Crusher” Collins’ frustrated attempt to rid herself of Corrections boss Barry Matthews, most people seemed to sympathise with her, such is the public’s scepticism of the corrections system. …

Even when it comes to doing nothing some ministers do that very well. Health Minister Tony Ryall wisely ducked the row over the Auckland laboratory testing contract, preferring to let the city’s DHB’s stew in their own juice. It was their call to award the contract to another Australian-owned company and the Court of Appeal backed it.

ACC minister Nick Smith’s public flogging of the commission will have won him more friends than enemies, apart from a few sacked board members.

Most people are aghast at the thought that current projections would see the average household paying $47 a week more in ACC levies.

As a journalist, over the course of my career, I have had more people come to me with complaints about ACC than any other state agency, even the Family Court, which attracts grumpily aggrieved folk like a magnet.

Actually, I’m one of those who currently view ACC with a jaundiced eye. As I run a tiny company writing columns like this one, I have just paid, under duress, an ACC bill the size of the price of a small second-hand car. The greatest risk of injury I face in this job is electrocution when I plug in my laptop or being bitten by a rabid politician. I suspect many self-employed people look at their ACC demands with similar loathing.

I know what Bill is on about. I have paid both employer and employee ACC levies since 2003 and the total paid in that time is a staggering amount when you consider that none of the 200 or so staff who have worked for me have had a workplace injury, or in fact (as far as I know) any sort of injury that has led to an ACC claim.

Smith’s attendance at the transport and industrial select committee hearing with ACC chief executive Jan White provoked hysteria from Labour.

Opposition spokesman David Parker claimed Smith was a “gatecrasher” who was “bullying” and “gagging” ACC.

Frankly I think it was a great thing for democracy that a minister showed up at a select committee hearing of his department. They should all the time.

Too often in the past ministers in charge of controversial parts of the state sector have dived for cover, cowering in their Beehive offices, while select committees ripped apart the chairman of the board and senior public servants.

The minister should be just as accountable to a select committee as his minions.

And finally a warning:

Most Aucklanders don’t believe they get value for money from their rates. Most suspect the local body structure of several warring city states is clumsy, inefficient and prevents effective regional infrastructural development.

The ARC’s claim to be the answer that they are skilled regional managers is met with one word. Beckham.

If the Royal Commission and the Government get the new city proposal right, National can breathe easy.

Get it wrong and the Nats can expect a speedy return to opposition.

The reform of Auckland is indeed critical.