Kiwiblog

Some of the jobs initiatives are starting to work, while others are not eventuating. Phil Goff highlights that he banks are not proceeding with their co-funding of credit in partnership with the Government.And the cycleway has been watered down significantly.

However Paula Bennett has announced that two more firms have joined F&P in the nine day fortnight scheme. You can only be in it for six months, so I am surprised even three firms have already gone into it, as I suspect the worst times are still ahead. I would probably want to go in, if needed, around September 09 and out in March 10 when hopefully the recovery is starting.

One of the new firms going is is Summit Wool Spinners, Oamaru’s second largest employer.

Also better news from Phil Heatley who has 935 people working on upgrading state houses.  Housing NZ is building 86 new homes (on top of the 475 scheduled for this year) and is upgrading 18,000 state houses by July 2010.

I thought Q&A yesterday ws pretty good with interviewees being Murray McCully and Don Brash.

Was was glad there were no spouses being interviewed this week. I’m still not sure though about having MPs as panelists. Having said that Keith Locke made some useful contributions. In fact one exchange was remarkable for its agreement:

PAUL So we’ve seen Murray McCully he seemed in command of his portfolio, we have to discuss him, any surprises from Murray McCully people what do you think?

KEITH LOCKE – Green MP. Oh it was a pretty standard response and not much there I could disagree with.

Now just think about this. You’ve just had a National Party Minister of Foreign Affairs on, and Keith Locke has said he didn’t hear much he would disagree with!

Murray’s aim is to remove foreign policy as a partisan issue. Looks like he is achieiving that. Mind you good to see, there are stil disagreements on some issues. McCully today announced we will join the US, Canada and Australia in not attending the World Conference Against Racism Review Conference. The original was a nasty unashamed Israel bashing exercise (by countries with far far worse records on racism I might say), and also tends to turn into an attempt to stifle criticism of religions by portraying this as racism. So well done McCully.

Audrey Young thought McCully did well on the interview, blogging:

The interview with Guyon Espiner showed what a strong command McCully has of his portfolio and that he can articulate the values that underpin the Government’s policies.

Also of interest was Keith Locke’s comments on Mt Albert. It sounds like the Greens are going to go all out and seriously try to win it:

THERESE I think we’re all sort of fascinated to watch what happens with the Mt Albert bi-election, I think that’s gonna be a very interesting bi-election, a safe Labour seat but how safe, how much of it is a personal vote for Helen Clark, I mean there was a sizeable comfortable gap for Helen Clark but…

KEITH That’s right and if the Greens win it that’s an extra seat for us.

THERESE You may cost Labour it if you’re right.

KEITH Yes well it’s not gonna change the government so it’d be great for the Greens to have an extra seat and it’s really set up for us because you’ve got the Labour supporting 2.7 billion dollars on 4.5 kilometres of tunnel motorway, National supporting about the same amount a bit less than an over ground version, it’s gonna wipe out a whole pile of houses in Waterview in the electorate and the Greens saying well look put all that aside for a few years and spend it on public transport, I know which way the Mt Albert voters are gonna go. …

THERESE Another day and National also claims that they have increased party membership in the electorate but I do think in bi-elections it comes down to turnout, who can get the vote out, and vote splitting, the Greens running a strong candidate may well cost Labour.

KEITH Well it’s not vote splitting if we win, if we make it a three way race we could win.

It will be very interesting who the Greens choose as theri candidate.

The Don Brash interview was a goodie also. I think we can all accept future tax cuts are gone, when even Don says so:

PAUL What about tax cuts in the medium term tax cuts next year the next round of tax cuts they’re surely a goner?

DON I expect they are, I don’t think the government wants to say that quite yet, but I suspect they are a goner. …

PAUL What about the Super Fund, might they not pay in this year?

DON I think they probably won’t pay in this year, and I think that makes good sense, I mean the Super Fund was a device to ensure that some of the budget surpluses were set aside for the future. If you’ve got a budget deficit the logic of that doesn’t exist.

While I’m sad about future tax cuts probably off the radar for no, the 2008 and 2009 tax cuts combined come to a lot more than those yet to occur. I’m going to blog on this in more detail once I have had some data confirmed.

Adam Smith has a recording she made in the 1990s – was pretty damn good back then also.

The main video of her on You Tube now has 30 million views – in just a few days. Paul Potts video has 46 million views, but that was over a year.Also there are many videos on You Tube of her – they total 66 million views to date.

Her personal story couldn’t be better if it was scripted for a movie. The youngest of nine siblings, bullied at school due to he rlearnign difficulties, has been uemployed most of her life, cared for her mother until she died aged 91 in 2007, never had any birthday parties as was too busy caring for her mother, and her performance in BGT was her first time singing since her mother died.

Just wait until she appears on Oprah. Within a week she will be worth $50 million at least. And Simon Cowell will of course get his share!

I blogged earlier today about Clayton Cosgrove’s comments. On Nine to Noon politics Matthew Hooton called them unhelpful. That was restrained to Laila Harre who said:

I think Matthew’s description of Clayton Cosgrove’s comments as unhelpful should be restated as “disgraceful”.

Matthew responded he was being subtle, and Laila said that in relation to Clayton Cosgrove there is no need to be. She continued:

His comments are utterly disgraceful.

Finally Laila said she was ashamed to see Labour behave like this. I suspect many in Labour feel the same.

I like how the Fijian media is protesting military censorship of their stories. They are running totally banal stories, to make a point.

We have this story about a man catching a bus:

IN what is believed to be the first reported incident of its kind, a man got on a bus yesterday.

“It was easy,” he said.

“I just lifted one leg up and then the other and I was on”.

Fiji Daily Post reporters found witnesses willing to confirm the happening.

“Yes”, said one who asked to remain anonymous, “I saw him get on the bus”.

Superb. It’s like The Onion. And this story about watching paint dry:

PAINT has apparently dried on his old couch, Max reports.

Given the job of painting the couch, Max was excited at the prospect of the paint drying.

But when asked how it dried, he was nonplussed.

“It just went on wet, but after about four hours, it started to dry”.

“That was when I realised, paint dries,” the young scholar observed.

Fiji Daily Post asked Max if he intended to do more painting.

“Oh yes,” he replied, “I like watching paint dry.”

And a more recent story:

It’s official: a man went out.

Neighbours reported that they saw him go out last night.

‘I thought he was just mad’, a woman opined while asking to remain anonymous.

Another neighbour said he saw him open his door about ten o’clock.

‘Arreh, he went out’, he added.

It’s a very clever way of reminding readers that they are being censored.

Radio NZ reports:

The trial is scheduled to last three months. Labour MP Ross Robertson has been revealed as a Member of Parliament who will give evidence against Mr Field.

That will be fascinating. Robertson has been MP for nearby Manukau East since 1996 and for Papatoetoe before that since 1987. He is respected by all sides in Parliament as an honest bloke who was a good Deputy Speaker.

What will he reveal about his former colleague in Labour?

Last week there was an interesting article in the Dom Post from Jim Traue, the former chief librarian of the Alexander Turnbull Library. Traue is worried about planned changes:

For the past 40 years the Turnbull Library has been working out its role as the nation’s research library within the National Library.

It has developed a strong research library culture, a  system of ideas, customs and social behaviour which guides the staff’s thinking  and their actions.

A key idea is that the purpose of a research library is to enable researchers to immerse themselves in the documentary evidence and then to make the product of their investment of time, judgment and skill available to the public through a book, article, thesis, film, TV production. website or blog. A research library becomes an active partner with authors and publishers in creating the next generation of public knowledge.

I’m with him on this.

Lending libraries have different roles as front-of-house distributors of public knowledge. Their success is measured by feet through the front door, and the numbers of books borrowed. Research libraries don’t attempt to compete. Their success is measured by the number of additions to public knowledge created by the research community, which then become available through other libraries.

Okay it is about adding to public knowledge, not numbers through the door.

The managers at the National Library want to change the purpose of the National Library and its culture and operation. They have come up with a strategy to raise the public profile and make it more like a local public library in order to get more feet through the front door.

The strategy is “Te Papa-isation” with a twist. The library’s resources will no longer be geared to the needs of researchers but treated as a museum collection presented on-site in digital form.

The proposed redevelopment of the building is a logical manifestation of this new strategy. More of the Turnbull collections will be displayed, but it is envisaged that the major drawcard will be the filling of the entire ground floor with computer screens to give access to the Turnbull’s books, periodicals, newspapers, manuscripts, photographs, paintings and drawings, maps and ephemera, online within the building. The priority for the Turnbull’s staff will now be to provide popular “content” for these digital displays and the increased exhibition of original materials. That “content” is essential to attract the projected 400,000 visitors a year.

I am not sure that you want 400,000 visitors a year to the Library, but I do think digitising as much of the content as possible would be a great thing.  I would love to be able to pop in and scan through digital archives of early newspapers, documents etc.

Chris Szekely, the Turnbull’s chief librarian (who also holds the new position of deputy national librarian), is assuring the public that the building makeover, mass digitisation and the restructuring of the Turnbull’s services will improve access and services for researchers.

Yeah, right. Instead of the Turnbull’s staff concentrating on building and organising comprehensive collections to provide total immersion for researchers creating new publications, their time and expertise will be diverted into preparing material for digitisation in order to feed the visitors clamouring for entertainment on the ground floor Disneyland. …

The staff have been pointing out these consequences but have been ignored. Senior management, convinced that they could not possibly be mistaken, have determined that such “negative” thinking is a result of the “Turnbull culture” and are determined to cauterise it so that a new “positive” culture can be grown in its place. An attitude change expert has been appointed, a “culture survey” compiled and a programme of “people change” is under way to rehabilitate the critics.

Welcome to the new digital museum experience. Pity about the research library experience. Welcome to the new digital museum culture. Pity about the research library culture. Once the barbarians were knocking on the gates. Now they are inside the walls and in charge. Now they are called managers.

Sounds like there are some unhappy staff there. I can relate to what Traue is saying about the need not to lose focus on supporting researchers. But having said that I think it is also a worthy goal making more content available digitially to a wider group of people. Hopefully they can manage both.

The Dom Post reports:

A new online database offers the public free access to sentencing histories of New Zealand’s worst criminals.

So far it has 90 names on three lists: Those serving non-parole periods of more than 18 years, preventive detention sentences for sex offenders of 11 years or more, and young people aged more than 17 given long, fixed sentences.

The database includes double murderer Graeme Burton, his crimes, victims, criminal and gang affiliations, parole and release dates, links to news stories on him, and copies of Parole Board decisions.

Creator Ross Crosby said he set up the database for the Sensible Sentencing Trust, which he joined five years ago as an 18-year-old disillusioned with New Zealand’s justice system.

The former Wellington High School pupil, now living in Adelaide, helped maintain the trust’s databases on violent and sexual offenders, and was now building up the new database to track the sentencing histories of our worst offenders across a range of crimes.

The Trust’s database has been online for some years. I check it out often. What is new, is the listing of the worst offenders by length of sentence.

Bernard Hickey writes in the Herald:

Everyone is kicking the big four Australian-owned banks because, it’s assumed, they’re profiteering on interest rates at the expense of farmers, homeowners, and businesses.

The big four are padding their profits by not passing on rate cuts, the argument goes. The other assumption is that the only “good” bank is Kiwibank, which is sacrificing profits by cutting rates.

The trouble is the free kickers are wrong on both counts. Our analysis of bank general disclosure statements (GDSs) to the end of December shows the net interest margins earned by the big four fell fast in the second half of last year.

Banks actually sacrificed $396 million of profit from interest rates on total assets of $329.5 billion.

Surprisingly, the big fours’ bank fees also fell, in total and as a percentage of assets. The only reason bottom-line profits didn’t fall as much is banks stripped out around $250 million of costs in the second half of last year.

That’s an analysis I’ve not seen elsewhere. Margins are down, but costs also down.

Our analysis also shows Kiwibank had the highest net interest margin in the second half of last year, compared to the only other bank reporting a six-month figure, which was ASB.

It’s hard to compare with the other banks, which reported three-month figures, but Kiwibank was the only bank not to see a contraction in its margin in the second half. The only thing making its net profit look less buoyant than the big four is that its operating costs (salaries, rents, advertising) are more than double those of its big four competitors as a proportion of total assets.

Again fascinating analysis. Bernard explains:

The best way to understand what is happening to interest margins and bank profits is to look at their GDSs, which detail their net interest income, expenses, fee incomes, bad debt charges and, ultimately, net profit.

The key number is net interest income, which nets off all interest receipts and all interest payments. This effectively calculates the profit from interest on mortgages, credit cards, business loans and consumer loans, minus the cost of everything in the funding melting pot, including term deposits, long bonds, interbank funding locally and foreign short-term funding.

Simply looking at the bottom-line net profit numbers is misleading because they include all sorts of factors, including non-interest fee income, trading gains, cost reductions, bad debt charges and tax changes. It’s also best to compare apples with apples by measuring everything as a percentage of assets to make sure the numbers aren’t skewed by size.

It is nice to see business journalism that goes beyond someone reading a net profit amount and declaring it to be too high or too low!

The Herald reports that H2, Heather Simpson, is also off to New York – on a short term basis initially.

This is a smart move by Clark. The UN bureaucracy is notoriously unresponsive, and Simpson is a very accomplished chief of staff. Probably fair to say she was more feared than loved in the Beehive, but a dose of fear into the UN bureaucracy is just what it needs!

The Herald reports that before working for Clark, Simpson was an economic lecturer at Otago University. Indeed, she was – she taught me first year economics.

I’m not a fan of his economic policies. but I do admire the rebuilding of relationships that Obama is overseeing. The Herald reports on his sucess in Latin America.

The US can not be effective by force or economic power alone.

I suspect there will come a time when Obama will have to make some hard decisions, which will end the international honeymoon. But until that occurs, it is sensible to utilise the goodwill that exists while you can.

Back to Latin America, Chavez is a nasty piece of work who wants to rule Venezuela for ever. So one might say, why worry about relations with him. Well, if he is unable to cast the US President as the great enemy, it means his re-election may have to rely on actual achievements for his people, rather than a tide of anti-US nationalism.

The first ever trial of a (now former) MP for bribery and corruption – relating to their office – starts today.

The former Labour MP faces 12 charges of corruption and bribery and 23 of wilfully perverting the course of justice.

The trial is expected to last 12 weeks, partly because so many witnesses will need interpreters.

As usual with trials, it is best if commenters leave the verdict to the jury.

The HoS Editorial attacks critics of the proposed Maori prison unit:

It is dispiriting to hear the word “apartheid” bandied about in such circumstances. That word applied to a particularly loathsome kind of institutionalised racial oppression written into law in a specific time and place. Under the guise of separate development, it deliberately maintained one racial group as an underclass. Tackling the appalling Maori imprisonment rate cannot reasonably be seen as oppressive towards non-Maori.

Those who seek to depict it as an easy ride for which an inmate qualifies simply by virtue of his skin colour are being at least mischievous, if not reactionary.

So who is this reactionary critic, the HoS refers to? It can only be Clayton Cosgrove, whose PR said:

“Punishments for violent offenders who commit crimes against ordinary New Zealanders should not be based on an accident of birth and that is exactly what the Government is proposing.

“Targeted rehabilitative programmes delivered within the mainstream prison system are appropriate and their benefits should continue to be explored.

“Unfortunately the Government is not proposing to do this; it is proposing to develop an entirely separate set of punishments and of privileges based solely on race.

“Minister of Maori Affairs Pita Sharples stance is an insult to victims of crimes.

“A rape victim or victim of any violent offence should know that their offender will be punished equally no matter what their race.

“Dr Sharples seems to care little for victims of crime if he believes that allowing violent offenders to go flatting or be given special privileges based on race is an appropriate punishment.

As others have noted this was a total misrepresentation of how these units would work – no one would be sentenced to them. Towards the end of their sentence they may qualify to go there to increase their chance of rehabilitation.

Some commentators have compared Cosgrove’s outburst to Don Brash;s Orewa speech. Now personally I feel such a comparison is very unfair to Dr Brash (Brash never used such inflammatory language) but let us accept it is in the same vein . Now my spies have dug out a SST newspaper story from February 2004, in response to Orewa. Quotes include:

[MP] yesterday compared Brash’s rhetoric to that of Australian ultra-nationalist Pauline Hanson, who also used the “one people” line to argue against special treatment for Aborigines. …

“If Dr Brash continues with these coded messages of division, then you’re going to see that behaviour coming to a pub or a street near you. And that would be a tragedy.”

“If Dr Brash is not careful, his legacy to this country will be the politics of divisions, the Hansonite politics,” he said.

“Brash has gone too far. He’s Xeroxed off Pauline Hanson’s words and Pauline Hanson’s campaign strategy. Those words are a code for division, a code for unrest, a code that tore Australia down the middle.”

So who was this MP viciously attacking Don Brash for his Orewa speech, and comparing him to Pauline Hanson?

It was a Clayton Cosgrove MP.

So will Clayton Cosgrove MP compare Clayton Cosgrove MP to Pauline Hanson?

Is this new strategy approved by Phil Goff and Parekura Horomia?

Sandra Dickson has done a very good article on blogging in NZ, covering the full range of views from “trite and trivial” to “influential”. It interviews a dozen or so people and does a really good job of covering the issues.

A four year old son found this in the garden. Thanks to Trade Me, you can now bid to own this grapefruit, which looks remarkably like a turnip from Blackadder!

The Q&A is already off to a good start with questions over size!

Helen Clark resigned as a Member of Parliament on Friday, and flew out to New York late last night.

Audrey Young blogs Haere ra. She notes it is a dignified exit:

If you think back to how recent Prime Ministers have departed, there is virtually no comparison: an embittered Rob Muldoon stayed and wrecked Jim McLay’s leadership of National; David Lange stayed in Parliament for another seven years, not undermining his successors, but not happy; Mike Moore’s presence on the backbench for three years was a monkey on Clark’s back; and Jenny Shipley made the awful transition from Prime Minister to Leader of the Opposition, which just didn’t work.

Jim Bolger managed his exit once the numbers were against him but negotiating your own appointment as US ambassador – competent as he was – was a tad undignified. Better though than staying on.

Palmer did bail out gracefully. He resigned as Pm a few weeks before the 1990 election and retired from Parliament also. Muldoon and Lange were both sad figures who stayed on too long.

Audrey also refers to my list of strengths and weaknesses, and says:

Achieving and maintaining unity was the most important, in my view, because all other achievements flowed from that, but how long the unity lasts after her departure remains to be seen. It won’t revert to anything like the bad old days.

I agree – unity is hugely important. And while Goff will face some challenges if the polls don’t improve, they won’t be factional driven challenges, more ambitious wannabe leaders.

But Clark’s departure today and Cullen’s in a couple of weeks will mean Labour can start the rows they are destined to have over the past, the future policy direction, and how to rebuild, though they will probably be delayed until after the Mt Albert by-election.

How Goff manages the debate will be a crucial test of his leadership.

Well at least with Helen going, Phil should now be able to make at least second place in the Preferred PM stakes!

No I have not made this up.

Steve Chadwick has put out a PR:

Steve Chadwick leaves this weekend for a Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction conference in Beijing, China. Ms Chadwick had been invited for her former roles as both Minister of Women’s Affairs and Chair of NZPPD. …

“The purpose of this conference will be to address and review progress and existing challenges in mainstreaming gender issues in disaster risk reduction. At present there is an unequal balance in how disasters affect men and women” said Ms Chadwick.

Hell I never realised earthquakes were sexist and discriminated. Mind you those bushfires have always been a bit old fashioned so I’m not surprised they are imbalanced as to how they affect women.

Here’s some decisions from their last conference:

Refrain from funding of extractive industries, such as mining, logging and oil and natural gas extractions that exacerbate climate change, poverty and gender inequality.

We should stop logging because it causes gender inequality.

Anyway I’m not complaining about Steve attending the conference. Like Alf Grumble, I’m wondering who she pissed off to be forced to attend as punishment. Alf says:

Good grief. If two days exposure to thoughts on gender issues in disaster risk reduction is the price to be paid, you can not regard this as a junket. It’s obviously a stiff punishment, but for what?

Probably for using the word “wellness”.

Actually, talking about “wellness” should be a capital offence, but two days in Beijing banging on about genders and disasters with like-minded drones comes close to next best (or worst) on the severity scale.

I would have thought it constitutes inhumane punishment!

The HoS report that Veitch has tried to take his life for the third time.

Another HoS story reports on the latest exchanges between the camps. And a third covers the debate on the altered references, and whether they have broken the law.

A fourth HoS story (yes four!) covers the end of the relationship and some e-mails showing friendly relations after the attack. A fifth HoS story has the text of an e-mail. And Kerre Woodham wants people to move on.  And finally in their seveneth online story, the HoS Editorial says Veitch should remove himself from the public spotlight. The editorial is right, but I note the newspaper is very happy to devote half the newspaper to him, if he doesn’t!

The SST is slightly more restrained. They report a psychologist saying both Veitch and Dunne-Powell need to move on and stop the pot shots. A second SST story looks at how Veitch courted the press. Michael Laws has his say. A fifth SST story covers the latest suicide attempt. And their sixth story has Rosemary McLeod telling Veitch to shut up now.

So 13 stories in our two main Sunday papers on Veitch. Please let it be zero next weekend.

I almost didn’t blog these, because they are so positive, but it is probably worth doing so, as Key is new to Foreign Affairs. First we have Fran O’Sullivan:

The Prime Minister’s diplomatic team skilfully orchestrated the visit so that New Zealand’s vital business interests in China were enhanced.

Wen made clear that China has drawn a line under the tainted milk affair at Fonterra’s now bankrupt Sanlu joint venture and welcomed increased participation in its fledgling agriculture industry.

Air New Zealand has also won a departure slot at Beijing International Airport that will help it encourage more Chinese visitors to come to Auckland, arriving at around 6am rather than just before 3am.

Key’s meetings with the prime Chinese customers of some of New Zealand’s major firms will also help in easing some barriers to doing business.

Clark’s own high-level political skills and feel for international affairs enabled New Zealand to secure last year’s historic free trade deal with China. But now the FTA is into the “implementation phase”, Key’s business skill-set is proving valuable.

It is good Key is continuing Clark’s fine work with China.

And the NZ Herald Editorial:

John Key’s state visit to China was a potentially tricky one. The 12 months after the signing of a momentous free trade deal have not been plain sailing. Most notably, New Zealand was implicated in the contaminated milk scandal that swept through China, thanks to Fonterra’s involvement in the now-bankrupt Sanlu joint venture. It is a feather in the cap of the Prime Minister and this country’s diplomats that the Chinese say they see no reason to allow this issue to undermine relations. …

Premier Wen Jiabao told Mr Key he regarded China’s relationship with New Zealand as the “very, very best” it had been. It is reassuring that a tie skilfully built by the previous government continues to flourish despite some unforeseen hiccups.

As the US buckles under the weight of Obama’s spending, the Chinese economy will become much more important to us.

Arrgh. I thought the trial would be the end of the Veitch affair. But no all the headlines again today.

First of all very stupid that Veitch used character references in support of him getting his passport back, in sentencing mitigation to the Judge. The Herald quotes an angry Dame Susan Devoy:

“To take those letters of support and use them for a different purpose is, in my opinion, a disgrace,” said Dame Susan.

“I was happy to write to get his passport back, I thought the trial would be in 2010 or later. It’s totally totally different to writing a character reference for someone who’s pleaded guilty to beating up their girlfriend. We’ve been used and manipulated.

Veitch has only himself to blame for the negative headlines in this case.

The Herald also has a Q&A with Kristin Dunne-Powell. Hopefully this will be the end of it, now that they both have “told their stories” but somehow I suspect the Sunday papers will be all over it.

I’ve been warning for sometime that the Super Goldcard is fatally flawed as it provides for free off peak travel rather than merely discounted. The moment you make something free you fuck up any incentive for rational outcomes.

The Herald reports that taxpayers have paid $750,000 to Fullers in just five months, in return for providing free off peak travel to Waiheke Island.

Now while once upon a time Waiheke was a place where only hippies lived, but it is now home to many of the richest families in Auckland. The 2006 census found only 294 families on Waiheke receiving NZ Super. So the taxpayer is going to end up paying Fullers around $1.8 million to pay ferry costs for 294 families.

Think how much good that money could do funding some hip replacement operations?

The full OECD report is here. One key aspect:

The country appeared to be on the right policy track with its earlier market-oriented reforms. But the policy focus on productivity and growth eroded during the years of economic buoyancy, while other countries advanced.

The 2000s were the wasted years. Complacency ruled, and the rest of the world left us behind.