Kiwiblog

The NZ Herald laments the missed bipartisan opportunity:

A bipartisan policy on a subject so important for long-term investment decisions would be a rare and splendid thing, giving all sectors confidence that carbon emission costs would survive the next change of government. …

The economic good sense of ensuring emission costs are passed into prices will be obvious to those in industries that may be relieved by National’s transfer of their costs to the taxpayers.

Relief in those industries will be tempered by the knowledge that the next government is quite likely to reinstate economic sense. That likelihood already makes investment decisions difficult. Such is the folly of National’s failure to embrace a bipartisan approach.

My preference also was for a bipartisan deal, but I would not assume there would be changes made to the ETS by a future Government. National only had an opportunity to amend Labour’s ETS because it got passed just weeks before the election. I think, despite the rhetoric, Labour will be very wary of campaigning in 2011 on the platform of increasing prices.

In some respects the scheme National can now enact with Maori Party support is superior to the previous government’s. Permissible emissions will be based on an industry standard rather than an arbitrary base year so that firms that are efficient by their industry’s measure will be allocated free emission rights. The free allocations will be withdrawn much more slowly than Labour’s scheme allowed, sensibly aligning New Zealand’s scheme with Australia’s.

Labour might have agreed with all of these changes for the sake of a bipartisan consensus. It has found that leadership on climate change is not an election winner. The subject is too big for campaign slogans and some of the nominated solutions – dimmer light bulbs, dribbling shower heads – are annoyances that Labour now regrets.

The issue over allocation of permissible emissions being on an intensity basis, to reward efficiency, was one of the crucial aspects, and I suspect was the issue hardest for National and Labour to agree on. However it does seem that negotiations had not concluded with Labour, and it would have been desirable for them to be allowed to consider in private if they could back the changes the Maori Party agreed to.

The Dom-Post says:

Once the emissions trading scheme was about saving the world from global warming. Now it is about who pays and who gets to pass the cost of their emissions on to someone else.

Actually it was never ever about “saving the world”. Our reduction commitments at Kyoto and Copenhagen are about that, so to speak.  The ETS was always about who pays.

The deal cobbled together by National and the Maori Party is a triumph of political pragmatism. It is also an agreement that has ended, at least for the foreseeable future, the prospect of an enduring bipartisan approach by Labour and National. That turns New Zealand’s emissions policy into a political football.

The deal is a political solution that fails to solve an environmental and economic problem. It will not provide long-term certainty to business or to consumers.

The ETS was always a political solution. And as I said previously I would be surprised if in two years times Labour really wants to campaign on changes, as it will meet massive resistance from the losers from any changes.

Other changes will result in some businesses and agriculture being given more time to adjust, with a delay in bringing them into the scheme, while others are given less time.

That is good news for those who benefit, but it rather misses the point. The aim of the exercise is not to raise money to pay for New Zealand’s Kyoto obligations. It is a stick to encourage those responsible for emissions to cut them.

The Dom Post needs to read up on trade exposed industries and how imposing costs on NZ businesses and farmers that their overseas competitors do not have, may actually lead to an increase in global emissions.

Finally the ODT:

Having stitched up a deal with the Maori Party on its revised Emissions Trading Scheme – which has exercised environmentalists and received only lukewarm plaudits from two of the revised scheme’s more notable beneficiaries, industry and agriculture – the Government might venture to suggest that since no-one is entirely happy it must have the numbers about right.

Indeed.

The big question for the Government has been how to be seen – ahead of the Copenhagen climate meetings in December – to be making a meaningful contribution to mitigating the effects of emission-induced climate change as a good global citizen should, but to be so doing in a manner that does not place an undue burden on industry and agriculture, and thus circumscribe economic growth; nor, in the midst of a recession, place too much immediate cost on the individual consumer.

The proposed new scheme, which it will be able to pass into law with the support of Peter Dunne’s United Future vote, and that of the Maori Party, seeks to achieve this by, in the first instance, delaying entry of agriculture into the ETS from 2013 until 2015.

For the purists who decry the delay, it is worth noting this will be the first ETS in the world that includes agriculture, I believe.

In the face of climate change with its dire predicted consequences, all countries are having to grapple with striking a similar balance, nuanced according to the demands of their individual economies and political sensitivities.

This is new territory. There is an element of guesswork and gamble in reaching all such accords. National has, for better or for worse, both spurned Labour’s hand and taken a conservative approach. In the short term this is likely to pay handsome political dividends; in the longer term, it may prove to be less advantageous – electorally and environmentally.

Again, it would have been desirable to continue negotiations with Labour.

NZ Herald:

Coyote takes Jessica Simpson’s lesbian pooch

Sub-editors must love stories that supply their own headlines.

As reported on M&M, I’m up in Auckland Thursday and Friday, and conveniently understand there will be blogger drinks (all welcome) starting 5.30 pm on Thursday at Galbraiths in Mt Eden.

Regulars PC and Annie will be there, and many more I am sure.

A guest post from Internet entrepreneur Rod Drury.

Almost weekly I hear “… but that’s not a silver bullet”. Broadband and connecting New Zealand digitally to the rest of the planet IS the biggest silver bullet for turning New Zealand around that I’ve seen in my business career. Let me explain why.

New Zealand is the farthest country from anywhere in the world. Any business that wants to talk to a market size of more than four million needs to send the founder away on planes (often), learn to export, as well as have the funding and governance to be a sophisticated international entity. That’s a tall order. So in general we don’t do it. Instead we build great little businesses that allow us to fund the ‘three B’s’ lifestyle. We do services rather than manufacturing. We invest in property, not business.

Adding digital channels to business reduces international trade barriers. You can have a web site in many languages. You can show video of your product. You can do seminars to thousands of people all over the world from your home office. You can video conference local phone numbers in your markets.

International broadband levels the playing field for the 400,000 New Zealand small businesses, to get amongst it, with minimal upfront costs. Already thousands of New Zealanders are doing this from all over the country. They’ve worked out how to get around the technical obstacles and constraints and are building little export businesses. Ultrafast international broadband mainstreams this opportunity. Any one of our two million working people can participate. While there will be a few high profile businesses that will be successful, getting mainstream small businesses sending invoices every month to the US and beyond, is the productivity step-change that world class international broadband can create.

It’s not just about pushing New Zealand services out. It’s also about attracting investment in. If New Zealand is connected super fast to the US West Coast there are countless opportunities to attract very connected knowledge workers and investment down here. Silicon Valley is an overnight sleep from most places in New Zealand. The same marketing person at $US150k might work in NZ for $NZ120k and be able to go mountain biking after work. Affordable, high performance, international broadband gives us the opportunity to attract substantial inward investment.

How do we pay for all this? Well it’s actually free. International broadband can fund itself – we just have to get organized.

Traditional telco models rely on a big upfront costs and customer fragmentation. There are minimal margin costs for services, so pricing is for revenue maximisation not public benefits. Logically the market has woken up and various schemes are now aggregating demand so that the pool of money for broadband can be used to provide broader benefits to New Zealand. This allows the expensive infrastructure to be funded and paid for on a cost plus, open access model.

Older New Zealand investors got used to augmenting their income with high interest rates in recent years. Where they used to get 8+% on their money they now get 3%. Consquently there’s plenty of demand for higher coupon bonds. Income for those investors is the cost of capital required to connect New Zealand internationally. A billion dollars of investment may only require $80m per annum to fund. This is quite reasonable as Telecom received about that same last year as a dividend from it’s 50% share of Southern Cross – the monopoly international cable provider.

As a rough back of the envelope calculation, that $80m, divided by 2 million users who access the internet via their phone, home account and at work, is about the cost of a cup of coffee a month. So, connecting New Zealand to the rest of the world, and the resulting step-change in opportunity only requires coordination – not cash.

Everyone, even the incumbent telco’s, can win with this model. There has never been such an opportunity to step-change New Zealand’s productivity and connect our many small businesses directly into global markets. Here is a real silver bullet. They don’t come along often. Let’s not waste the opportunity.

Dom Post has a new politics quiz. Only had to guess one answer this time – the first one.

Clayton Weatherston has been given a life sentence, with a non-parole period of 18 years. The Crown asked for 19 and the defence 12, so that seems reasonable, even though I would of course want even longer.

The comments from the sentencing were heart-breaking:

Sophie Elliott’s father told the court today his life stopped on the day his daughter was brutally stabbed to death.

Gil Elliott said he was still struggling to come to terms with her murder.

“Everything I had existed for stopped that day,” he said of the day of her murder.

“Can you imagine what it feels like? She was so badly mutilated they were advising us not to see her,” he said of organising his daughter’s funeral.

He spoke directly to Weatherston several times, closing his statement by looking at Weatherston and saying: “Clayton you are the epitome of evil”.

He really is.

Lesley Elliott said her family’s life had fallen apart and would never be the same. She talked of the day of her daughter’s death and seeing her daughter being stabbed even after she was dead.

“My beautiful daughter had been butchered. I saw her bloodied body lying there that only minutes before had been warm and given me a hug.”

Mrs Elliott was then locked out by Weatherston, who continued stabbing her daughter’s lifeless body.

“I will never forget the terror. …

Mrs Elliott said she cried herself to sleep every night, took medication to keep her functioning on a daily basis, had taken all her leave and reduced her hours of work.

“Clayton Weatherston this is what you have done to us… I hope her screams of agony ring in your ears as they do in mine.

I suspect they don’t ring at all for him. I hope that one day they do.

This will hopefully be the last post I will make on Weathertson and Elliott for sometime – maybe for 19 years! With the sentencing it is all over for those of us who just followed the news in the media, and we can move on. Sadly those who were close to Sophie will have to carry this with them for the rest of their lives, as the sentencing makes clear.

I’ve felt unusually captivated by this case, since it was first reported, for several reasons.

The first is that Sophie had what appeared to be have a wonderful life ahead of her. I don’t mean to at all suggest that any murder victims are more or less valuable, but on a human level you identify with someone who was academically brilliant, and was set to have an outstanding career. I read somewhere her ambition was to be the first female Reserve Bank Governor, and thought that was a superb ambition for a 22 year old to have.  The remarks by her lecturers accompanying her paper for the Oxford Journal of Economics are a wonderful tribute to her ability.

The second reason was when it was revealed that her killer was Weatherston, an economic tutor. It is human nature that you are not very surprised when a gang member kills someone, or the killer is someone who has been in trouble all their life. An university staff member is not at all your typical killer, especially when they kill in such a way that they know they will be charged and punished for it. Weatherston also throw away what had been a pretty good life for him up until then.

Weatherston had also previously worked for Treasury, and so some of my friends knew him, and I heard about their reactions to the news (which included deleting him from their friends on Faacebook).

(more…)

I’ve just published the August 2009 polling newsletter, which summarises the polls in New Zealand, Australia, US, UK and Canada. You can subscribe to it here.

August saw the gap between National and Labour increase from 22% to 26%. The increase for National is interesting when you look at the Roy Morgan poll.

That’s a pretty nice trend line since the election for National. Of course it will have to flatten off, or even reverse at some stage.

Stuff reports:

Men tell twice as many lies as women, according to a survey.

Researchers found they tell six fibs a day on average to their partner, boss and work colleagues, but women come out with just three, the Daily Mail reported.

Or women lie about how many lies they tell

Anyway the so called top ten lies:

Top ten lies men tell:

1. Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine
2. This will be my last pint
3. No, your bum doesn’t look big in that
4. I had no signal
5. My battery died
6. Sorry, I missed your call
7. I didn’t have that much to drink
8. I’m on my way
9. It wasn’t that expensive
10. I’m stuck in traffic

Top ten lies women tell:

1. Nothing’s wrong, I’m fine
2. Oh, this isn’t new, I’ve had it ages
3. It wasn’t that expensive
4. It was in the sale
5. I’m on my way
6. I don’t know where it is, I haven’t touched it
7. I didn’t have that much to drink
8. I’ve got a headache
9. No, I didn’t throw it away
10. Sorry, I missed your call

No 3 for men isn’t really a lie, as much as a survival necessity.

The Dom Post reports:

More than six months after complaining about the Remuneration Authority not paying enough regard to the recession when setting pay for MPs, judges, the governor-general, mayors, councillors and others, the Government has written a law to make it comply.

A bill from Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson will require it to take account of prevailing economic circumstances when setting pay, drawing on independent advice such as Treasury forecasts. The authority would retain discretion to award no rise or reduce increases that would otherwise have been awarded.

That is sensible as far as it goes, but assuming it goes to a select committee (as it should) I will put in a submission advocating a further change.

I strongly believe we should do what they do in the US, and make it illegal for MPs to get a pay rise during their term of Parliament. Instead the Remuneration Authority should revise the pay levels for MPs every three years, with them to take effect after each election.

It would massively reduce cynicism against annual increases for MPs, for which the MPs always get blamed. It would mean you stand for, and get elected to Parliament, knowing exactly what the salary will be for the next three years.

In previous decades with high inflation, you couldn’t do this so easily. But with relatively low inflation, a salary adjustment every three years is fine. It means perhaps a 10% adjustment every three years instead of 3% annually. Some might say what is the difference. They key thing is you have to get re-elected by the people to get the new salary level. It removes the perception (however incorrect) of voting oneself pay rises on the job.

The Dom Post reports:

Internal Affairs has given businesses until Wednesday week to come up with proposals on how they could use and help support its $122 million online identity verification and log-on service. …

Several banks have expressed interest in using igovt to authenticate the identity of new customers, so that they can open bank accounts online.

Internal Affairs suggested that the system could also be used by online auction sites to verify traders’ identities.

Trade Me head of trust and safety Chris Budge says that could appeal, but it has questions over the use of a single ID and the risk of fraud.

A secure identity verification service could really open up both the public and private sectors online. I love the idea of being able to go to a bank online and say “I am David Farrar born on this date, and living at this address and here is the Government’s verification that I am whom I claim”. This then allows the bank to take you as a customer without you having to go to a branch.

With secure online verification, you should over time be able to access your credit history, your police file, your tax details online. You might even be able to use it for blog commenting, trade me auctions etc.

Some may say, how is this different from current systems such as Open ID. It will come down to the verification. For example it is possible one might actually have to turn up to an office with your passport to get verified as being that person, and given a login and password/s to verify who you are. And they could, once they have confirmed who you are, check your latest address with NZ Post for example.

I’ve not closely followed the exact details of the scheme being implemented, but the concept is something I am very supportive of.

The Herald reports:

The transport and stationary energy sectors will now come into the scheme on July 1 next year, six months earlier and later respectively than under the existing law.

That will provide a local market in which owners of post-1990 forests can sell carbon credits should they wish.

But for the first 2 years, oil and power companies will now have to surrender only a one-tonne carbon unit for two tonnes of emissions. The taxpayer would pay the cost of the other one. Alternatively they could pay the Government a cash price of $25 a tonne.

Agriculture, which is responsible for half the country’s emissions, will still come into the scheme, but two years later, in 2015.

It will also get a more generous allocation of free units.

So will the smokestack industries – large industrial emitters like the Glenbrook steel mill, the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter and the Marsden Point oil refinery – whose international competitiveness would be jeopardised if they had to pay the full cost of their emissions.

I find what the Government has done is interesting. They have moved some sectors into the ETS faster than under Labour’s EST, while they have delayed other sectors. Why the difference?

Basically carbon leakage for trade exposed industries.

Moving the transport sector into the scheme earlier is relatively safe, as we’re not about to start filling our cars up in Australia with petrol.

But certain sectors, such as agriculture, are trade exposed and if one forced them to start paying the full cost of carbon too soon, they may lose market share to overseas producers who are not paying a price for carbon. And this can turn into a lose/lose for the environment and the economy. The environment suffers if we lose agricultural production to China (as per unit we are lower emitting), and our economy suffers also.

So when you read stories about how “polluters” are being subsidised, the reason is because we do not want our trade exposed industries to be losing market share to countries not charging for carbon. Now if you get a global agreement that brings in China, India etc then you get a different scenario.

I would have thought that having seen the massive increase in unemployment when our economic growth drops away, some groups would be less keen to advocate a scheme that would damage economic growth, and not actually benefit the environment.

Of course even this amended ETS will see some reduction in economic growth. But I’ve never regarded it as realistic to think we could be the only country in the OECD that doesn’t set a price for carbon and participate in an international agreement to reduce emissions.  We are far far too small to be able to get away with that, without facing some nasty consequences for trade access.

The Herald reports:

Big earners are lining up for the Government’s home insulation subsidy, a survey suggests, prompting fears middle income earners will miss out unless the scheme gets more Government money.

An online survey of 1578 homeowners found high earners were twice as likely to want to take advantage of floor and ceiling insulation subsidies under which home owners must pay up to $3500 themselves.

That sounds about right to me. Must untargeted schemes have higher income earners take more advantage of them. This is why I tend to support targeting over universal provision, and why stuff like tax incentives for health insurance tends not to increase the number of people who have health insurance.

The $323 million scheme gives grants of up to $1300 to insulate floors and ceilings in homes built before 2000, and $500 towards a heat pump or other energy-efficient home heating.

The poll suggests about 280,000 home owners may apply – pushing demand well above the four-year target of insulating and improving heating in 180,000 homes.

This is quite possible, but I would be cautious about that figure. The poll is done by the NZ Business Council for Sustainable Development and I suspect those who respond to their polls (done through an online sample, not random phone polling) are far more environmentally aware than the average home owner, and hence more likely to say they are interested in such a scheme.

Homeowners making more than $200,000 a year made up only 1 per cent of respondents, but 45 per cent of them planned to get help with home insulation costs, as did 35 per cent of those making $70,000 to $100,000 and 29 per cent of those on $100,000 and $150,000.

I can not believe they are quoting results for homeowners making more than $200k a year. By their own admission that is 1% of respondents or 16 people. So that figure of 45% has a margin of error of 25.8%.

Those other figures quoted may have very high margin of errors also. Normally I would check the source report but it doesn’t appear to be online yet.

I’ve just blogged at curiablog, on a morality poll by UMR. Respondents were asked how morally acceptable (or unacceptable certain activities were. Below is the morally acceptable score for each activity and the net acceptable score (acceptable less unacceptable)

From most to least acceptable, they were:

1. Divorce 81%, +68%
2. Sex outside marriage 77%, +59%
3. Having baby outside marriage 71%, +48%
4. Stem cell research 63%, +38%
5. Homosexual relations 61%, +29%
6. Euthanasia 55%, +18%
7. Abortion 55%, +21%
8. Gambling 52%, +10%
9. Animal medical testing 52%, +12%
10. Wearing or buying fur 48%, +4%
11. Death Penalty 43%, -7%
12. Animal Cloning 27%, -40%
13. Suicide 20%, -48%
14. Married people having affairs 13%, -70%
15. Polygamy 11%, -74%
16. Human cloning 7%, -81%

Now this was asking about moral acceptability, not legality. So while only 55% think abortion is morally acceptable, that doesn’t mean only 55% think it should be legal.

Now what would my answers have been. None of the first ten I would regard as morally unacceptable. I do regard the death penalty as unacceptable – not keen on states being able to kill it citizens. Tend to regard suicide as morally unacceptable in most circumstances but not all (ie terminally ill). While generally I think it is not a good idea for married people to have affairs (and if married I would not), I’m wouldn’t label it as morally unacceptable as it is between those two people. I don’t think polygamy should be legal but nor do I regard it as morally unacceptable. And finally I don’t believe human cloning is automatically morally unacceptable.  I favour very very tight restrictions on it, but think there are potential benefits.

So bottom line is there is very little I believe is always morally unacceptable. Mainly just the death penalty really.

I’m sure very few here will agree with me!

I now have some more info on Labour’s reaping of profits from energy SOEs, and contrasting that to Phil Goff now decrying a $236 million dividend.

I blogged earlier that over the last five years, the SOEs made $3.27b after tax. Going back for their full nine years, the figure is $4.47 billion.

I also have the dividend figures. So this is the money actually paid out to the Government, and excludes profit that was retained for investment purposes etc in new generation.

1. 2000: $255m
2. 2001: $236m
3. 2002: $290m
4. 2003: $148m
5. 2004: $154m
6. 2005: $250m
7. 2006: $949m
8. 2007: $428m
9. 2008: $383m
10. Total: $3.09b

So its okay to take a $949million dividend payout in 2006 but wrong to take dividends a quarter that amount in 2009.

Again I’m not saying that the level of dividends is right at the moment, but when you raked them in during times of massive surpluses, it is a bit rich to do a sudden mea culpa and say that they should be much lower during a time of huge deficits.

Myself and Auckland Girl got to see the opening night at Downstage of Jo Randerson‘s “Good Night – The End” play, as I got two tickets for review purposes.

It was a quirky little play, based on the interactions between three Grim Reapers during their off duty time between shifts.

The first thing I noticed was the wonderful set, with the stage as a 1970s style house with garish colours, and skulls wallpaper. And the opening is nice and dramatic with one of the grim reapers appearing suddenly and pronouncing doom in a mega-amplified voice.

The play is essentially about the interactions between the three Grim Reapers, with some comic interludes with their Italian supervisor.

There isn’t a lot of a plot to the play (there is some, which I won’t give away) – it is very much based on the character interactions. It struck me at times as a cross between Seinfeld and Kath & Kim. Lots of random, funny conversations that don’t lead anyway, but are still amusing.

Randerson herself plays the grumpy uptight Harvester of Sorrow. You also have the slightly dim and overweight Unavoidable Destiny and the geeky (and male) Transitional Friend. They abuse each other, play pranks on each other, and live a very mundane life for Grim Reapers. Randerson’s character is also dodging the affections of her Italian boss.

Overall it was an amusing evening. I thought the play did go on a bit too long though, especially as it was hard to tell if one was getting near the end. A few patrons actually ducked out before it ended. A pity for them, as the last couple of minutes of the play were wonderful, and worth waiting for.

The best parts for me was the finale, the set, the basic concept of three grim reapers in their spare time and the ability of the actors who played their characters so well. I did however find the script a bit lacking, but that might just be my fairly literal approach to drama where I like clear beginnings, middles and ends.

The play continues on at Downstage until the 3rd of October and started on the 11th of September. It was an enjoyable way to celebrate my birthday.

Frog Blog has this photo from Glenn Murdoch and has used it to twitter on about coal or mining or something.

I think a far better use for it, is a caption contest. As always go for funny, not nasty.

I was one of the judges for the Best Website section of the Aotearoa Student Press Association Awards, so went along to the awards ceremony on Thursday night.

Barry Soper (left) was the Awards MC and Guest Speaker. Laura McQuillan was the Awards organiser.

I knew a few of the other Judges, and got to meet some I hadn’t already met, such as the Dom’s Post Greer McDonald, and Nicky Hager. No doubt Whale and Cactus will expel me again from the VWRC for fraternising with Nicky. I did ask Nicky to consider revealing one day in the future (as in many decades time after the people involved are dead) who or how he got the National Party e-mails,for the sake of accurate history.

The Salient team accepting the Publication of the Year award, with editor Jackson Wood next to Barry.

The full list of awards was:

1. Best Website – Craccum
2. Best Headline – Critic for “Students spitroasted at CoC fight”
3. Best Cartoonist – Robyn Kenealy of Salient and Maria Brett of Critic
4. Best Original Photography – Clinton Cardozo of Debate
5. Best Sports Writer – Brad Kreft of Critic
6. Best Education Series – Joshua Drummond of Nexus
7. Best Humour Content – Joseph Harper of In Unison
8. Best Reviewer – Joseph Harper of In Unison
9. Best Columnist – Dr Love of Magneto and Liz Willoughby-Martin of Critic
10. Best Cover – Salient
11. Best Editorial Writer – Ryan Boyd of Debate
12. Best Feature Writer – Sarah Robson of Salient
13. Best News Writer (unpaid) – Jessy Edwards of Salient
14. Best News Writer – (paid) – Stacey Knott of In Unison
15. Best Feature Content – Nina Fowler of Salient
16. Best Design – Chaff
17. Best Small Publication – Magneto
    
18. Best Publication – Salient

Was a fun night. It wound down a bit before midnight when some headed into town. Thanks to Fairfax for sponsoring it, and well done to the winners and finalists.

Back Benches is in Auckland, filming live from the Northern Steamship bar (122 Quay Street) tonight, debating the Super City.

Panellists are Rodney Hide (ACT), Pita Sharples (Maori Party), Sue Bradford (Green Party), John Carter (National) and Phil Twyford (Labour).

Topics up for discussion are the Maori seats, what the city is going to look like under the proposed changes, the submissions, and the power of the Super Mayor.

Most of the Mayors are also confirmed to attend on the evening so should be a fun debate.

One can also watch it live on TVNZ7 at 9.10 pm. There will be no BB on Wednesday in Wellington and the Auckland show will replay that evening.

Heather Roy makes a good point in her newsletter, talking about the trees issue in Auckland:

Opponents, however, believe there will now be open slather on trees – with property owners and developers engaging in the wholesale destruction of trees to make way for construction and other land alterations.

At the heart of this issue, however, is the matter of property rights. ACT believes that property owners, having worked hard to purchase their land, should be able to do with their property as they see fit – whether that is landscaping, grass-seeding, or cutting down a tree.

We Kiwis pride ourselves on having a fair, democratic and free society. Property rights are a cornerstone of any such society – yet successive governments have passed legislation that impinge on these rights.

A perfect example of this occurring was in 2004, when the then Labour-led Government rushed through the controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act – vesting the foreshore and seabed with the Crown, and taking away from iwi the right to have their claims considered in court. …

Property rights – not democracy – actually protect the weak against the strong in our society. While democracy puts power in the hands of the majority, it is property rights – individual property rights or private property rights – that are fundamental to the liberty of the individual.

Heather has put it nicely – property rights do protect the weak against the strong. And while property rights are not an absolute, they are vitally important.

Trevor Loudon’s blog research on now resigned Obama official Van Jones has been quoted in the US House of Representatives.

That is impressive work. Few bloggers get quoted in their own country’s legislature, let alone an overseas one.

Labour MP Darien Fenton blogs on the fringe programme at Labour’s conference:

An innovation that has appeared at Labour conferences in the last couple of years are the fringe meetings. Fringe topics this year included – Is New Zealand ready to become Republic?”; Young Labour and their campaigning in Mt Albert; A discussion on Open Source; Animal Welfare regulations in New Zealand; UnionAid and workers helping Burmese workers; and Union campaigns.

The UK party conferences also have fringe programmes, and they have almost become more important and enjoyable than the main conference. Over five days there can be as many as 100 fringe events with numerous lobby and interest groups doing talks and discussions on the things that interest them. Your main challenge is to get to all the ones you want as there are so many good ones.

It would be great if National looked at having a fringe element to their annual conference – maybe on the Friday, with the main conference being on Saturday and Sunday. And don’t set the agenda centrally – let people propose their own fringe events.

I’ve found the National conferences over the years have become rather sterile and overly stage managed. Remits have almost been killed off, and too much time is spent hearing from MPs, than engaging with them.

I’m very cynical of Labour’s new stance on state owned power company dividends. The reality is that during a period when the Government enjoyed massive and record surpluses, Labour took in hundreds of millions of dollar in dividends.

And then suddenly within a few months of losing office, they now say it is wrong to do so – at a time when the Government is now running massive and record deficits and any reduction in dividends would be far more difficult.

I’m not arguing for the energy SOEs to price gouge – far from it. The sector needs reform. But there does need to be a return on capital that at least matches the cost of financing crown debt.

Labour also seems to be confused about the difference between dividends and retained earnings:

“Labour can and will stop price gouging. We will not demand excessive dividends coming back into state coffers above what is needed for investment in new generation.”

The dividends do not fund investment in new generation. It is almost the opposite. It is the amount of profit that you do not pay out in dividends that is used to fund new generation.

I’ve just added up the total net profit after tax for the six state owned energy companies for the last five years, and they were:

1. 2004 – $406m
2. 2005 – $561m
3. 2006 – $1,230m
4. 2007 – $622m
5. 2008 – $451m
6. Total – $3.27b

So under the last five years of Labour, the state made a profit of $3.27 billion (after tax) from the energy sector. And again, this was at a time of record crown surpluses. I don’t have handy how much was paid as dividends, but people should remember the $3.27b when Labour go on about excessive profits. Over their total nine years, it might be as high as $5b.