Kiwiblog

The Herald reports:

Government staff are not yet halfway through the “mammoth task” of compiling the previous Government’s credit card records for release to the media and public, an exercise which is expected to cost about $50,000 and take a further two months.

The Department of Internal Affairs is compiling about 7000 documents detailing spending by Helen Clark’s ministers on their taxpayer-funded credit cards after receiving more than a dozen requests from media for the information under the Official Information Act.

Oh this will be interesting.

Former ministers, including those who are no longer MPs, will get to see the information before it is released to the media, but they have no ability to have content removed. “There’s no get-out clause.”

I suspect we will see some voluntary disclosures once that happens, to try and lessen the impact of the official disclosures.

A spokesman for Labour leader Phil Goff said he “has made it clear that if there are any cases of inappropriate spending he expects it to be repaid”.

Hey, this might even help reduce the $240 million a week we are borrowing

The Herald has a profile on Steven Joyce, including some quotes from me.Some interesting background I didn’t know about:

Joyce was born and grew up in New Plymouth, attending Francis Douglas Memorial College, then Kapiti College.

His father, a Four Square grocer, was from Eltham and his mother came from Kaponga before moving to Stratford. Joyce says his father was a middle-distance runner, who would run from Eltham to Stratford to visit his mother and run back again.

Joyce was raised a Catholic, and went to church every Sunday until he left home. Now he says he is “not really” religious.

I can normally spot the lapsed Catholics!

Two of the six Australian states have elections on Saturday – South Australia and Tasmania.

Most pundits are calling the South Australian election too close to call, and indeed it may be a hung Parliament on the night. The latest Newspoll had the two party preferred vote at 50% each.

There are 47 seats in the House of Assembly, so you need 24 to form a Government. Labor, led by Premier Mike Rann, has 28 seats and it is quite possible they could lose five seats, which need less than a 6% swing.

However the Liberal Party has only 14 seats. IF they pick up five seats that only takes them to 19, plus one National MP is 20. You see there are four independents. So whichever party manages to win a seat off an independent, or do a deal with them may get to form the Government. If Rann loses five seats, he only needs one Independent to govern, so may hold on.

One Independent, Kris Hanna, is a former Labor and Greens member. Another is a former Mayor. A third is retiring and his seat will probably go Liberal. The fourth is a former Liberal who is now Speaker.

The South Australian Senate is less important. Some may be amused that a No Pokies political party actually has a state senator!

The new Opposition Leader, Isobel Redmond is generally regarded as having run a good campaign, despite being the 4th leader in four years. Mike Rann has been state Labor leader for 16 years and Premier since 2002. He is a former Kiwi, and mate of Phil Goff’s.

Tasmania uses STV for their House of Assembly, and have five electorates with five MPs each in them. So 13 out of 25 seats needed to govern. The latest Newspoll has Libs 37%, Green 26% and Labor behind the Libs, suggesting Labor and Liberals will win 10 seats each and the Greens five seats, giving them the balance of power.

Labor, which has been in power for 12 years, is not keen on this and has been running “robocalls” telling voters the Greens will legalise heroin and give violent criminals the right to vote.

What will happen in the Greens do hold the balance of power is interesting. The Labor Premier, David Bartlett, has said he will resign if the Liberals gain more seats, but both major parties have ruled out signing a formal power-sharing deal with the Greens or negotiating away significant policies. It is far from clear whom the Greens would allow to govern.

So both states may end election night without knowing who gets to form the Government. We’ll find out shortly.

Real Clear Politics publish polls of polls, averaging all the different polls out there.

They report today, that for the very first time Obama’s negatives are greater than his positives in their average of the polls.

47.3% say they approve of the job he is doing and 47.8% disapprove.

If healthcare passes, I expect he will get a lift from that, even though it is controversial. Being ineffectual is worse than being unpopular, when you hold the most powerful job in the world.

Three editorials on Waihopai. First the Herald:

Infamously, former Telecom chief executive Theresa Gattung once admitted her company used confusion as a marketing tool. For quite some time, it worked.

A similar strategy employed by three men who broke into the Waihopai spy base near Blenheim in 2008 and slashed an inflatable plastic dome covering a satellite dish has enjoyed equal success. Various wishy-washy defences have proved sufficient to befuddle a jury in the Wellington District Court, leading to the trio’s acquittal. …

The acquittal will not set a legal precedent. That is the domain of judges, not juries. But it will probably encourage others who have attacked public property to mount the same defence.

The widespread disbelief that has greeted this decision means any such attempt will surely fall on stony ground. Clearly, that should have been the case this time, as well.

And the Press:

The question now is whether the decision will set a precedent. Legally, a decision by a district court jury does not create a precedent.

But it is likely that others charged with offences related to a cause which they passionately believe in will attempt to use the Waihopai defence.

An example might be an anti-abortionist charged with damaging a hospital where abortions were performed.

Which is what you get when people think their beliefs put them above the law.

And the ODT:

It is plain fact that state borders do not deter terrorists and criminals in the digital age yet citizens continue to rely on the State to protect both themselves and the nation’s borders. The Waihopai station must be considered to be part of that obligation but it seems hardly ever to be considered that its activities may well be saving lives, including within this country’s borders.

However much some sincere objectors may dislike it and what it represents, can they offer a practical and reliable alternative to hold secure the safety of the nation and its citizens?

That’s disapproval all round.

The Dom Post breaks the pattern and talks about former Auckland Museum director Vanda Vitali:

The not unexpected resignation of Auckland War Memorial Museum director Vanda Vitali on Tuesday raises some interesting questions. Though the parting of the ways between board and chief executive was inevitable after Dr Vitali antagonised the family of Sir Edmund Hillary, the manner of her going led one Auckland mayor to suggest the board, rather than its employee, should go.

Implicit in Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey’s criticism was that, having searched worldwide for a museum professional to bring Auckland’s historical treasury into the 21st century, the board could not manage a woman who, once appointed, stood her ground. …

The Dom Post reports:

Entry prices at Karori’s wildlife sanctuary are to almost double to pay for a multimillion-dollar visitor centre.

The trust behind the conservation project says its improvements will see visitor numbers almost triple in the coming years.

But there are fears the price rises will put off people.

On April 2 entry prices at Zealandia: The Karori Sanctuary Experience will jump from $15 to $28 for adults, $7 to $14 for children and $37 to $70 for family passes.

Double the price, and they project visitor numbers will triple?

I suspect not.

I think the sanctuary is great, but at $56 for a couple, that is close to pricing off the market.

NewstalkZB reports:

New Zealand first leader Winston Peters will not contest the Tauranga seat at the next election.

Mr Peters was the MP for Tauranga for 21 years before being ousted by National’s Bob Clarkson in 2005.

Simon Bridges won it again for National at the last election.

No surprise as Winston now lives in Auckland.

Of course the fact that Simon beat Winston by a massive 32% – 57% to 25%, may be a small factor in it also!

The Herald reports:

The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) has welcomed the Government’s decision not to support the reintroduction of youth rates.

So the CTU is happy.

Opposition leader Phil Goff welcomed the decision.

“It’s crazy to suggest that any young person doing the same job exactly as older people should be paid automatically at a lower rate. It didn’t add up,” he told reporters.

As is Phil Goff. This means it must be wrong!

Goff’s own statement shows a total misrepresentation of the situation. Having a lower minimum wage for teenagers is exactly that – a lower floor. How the hell you translate that into “should be paid automatically at a lower rate” I do not know. Once again, for the really stupid people, – this is about a floor – not a ceiling, not an automatic rate that you must apply to teenagers.

In today’s NBR 24/7 column I rip into the Govt’s decision:

It really brings into doubt the seriousness of the Government in terms of job creation, when it persists with a law that has clearly priced many teenagers off the job market. …

Most teenagers are not seeking full-time employment. What they desperately want is to gain some work experience, and to gain some extra money on top of whatever parental or student support they have.

By agreeing to vote down Sir Roger’s bill, the Government is saying we want young people to be unable to gain work, unless an employer thinks they are worth almost $13 an hour. …

Later this year, overall unemployment should start tracking down. If youth unemployment remains persistently high, the Government will have no one to blame but themselves.

There are 45,000 teenagers unemployed. This decision is a very bad one.

The Herald looks at the case of fraudster Stephen Versalko:

If it wasn’t for Bernie Madoff, Stephen Versalko could still be stealing millions.

The largest employee theft in New Zealand history was discovered only after an ASB Bank client saw a television show about Madoff, America’s US$50 billion fraudster.

In August, a woman who had invested more than $3 million with ASB adviser Versalko became uneasy about the fact he was the only staff member she had dealt with.

If something happened to her, she reasoned, 52-year-old Versalko would be the only person who knew anything about the funds into which her money had gone.

At about the same time, she watched a documentary about Ponzi fraudster Madoff that rang alarm bells. Madoff’s technique of fobbing off his victims reminded her of Versalko.

A phone call to ASB confirmed the investor’s worst fears – her multimillion-dollar investment portfolio was fictitious.

Madoff finally does some good.

Then a Serious Fraud Office inquiry found nearly 30 wealthy clients had been defrauded of nearly $18 million over nine years.

Criminal charges were laid in the week before Christmas, and Versalko pleaded guilty in February.

Yesterday, he was sentenced in the Auckland District Court to six years in prison, with a minimum-non parole period of four years.

I don’t think that is enough, for the scale of his offending. He had ten years of the good life living off his victim’s money.

But one of the more sordid details of the case is that Versalko paid $3.4 million to two prostitutes with whom he had long-term arrangements.

Good God. That is a lot of money for sex!

If one assumes the cost of a normal sexual encounter is $200, then that is 17,000 bonks. Now over 10 years that is 1,700 bonks a year or around five bonks a day.

Now there were two of them, so he may have had threesomes, but that would still be two threesomes a day with change left over.

The Herald understands Versalko took one of the women – instead of his wife – on a business trip to Dubai to stay in the Burj Al Arab Hotel, where the cheapest room costs US$2000 a night.

He was married? Oh yuck. Poor woman.

1. Paul Buchanan blogs on the acquittal of the Waihopai Three.
2. No Right Turn supports my suggestion of having all Cabinet papers automatically placed on the Internet, and further suggests model publication schemes and disclosure registers for government agencies. Sounds good to me.
3. Keeping Stock reveals that the Whanganui Chronicle did know “parent” Stephanie Mills was the NZEI Communications Director but did not think it was important to tell readers this!
4. ACT analyser Geoffrey Miller blogs at Liberation on the tensions within ACT.
5. Claire Browning blogs at Pundit on the Greens and Environment Canterbury, and their conspiracy theories.
6. Iain Dale blogs on how the UK UNITE union actually pays the salary of a 10 Downing Street staff member. Will the EPMU demand the same when Labour get back into office in NZ?
7. Not PC welcomes the jury nullification in the Waihopai trial as a just check on Government.

The SMH reports:

The Australian Human Rights Commission has threatened legal action against a widely read but controversial US-based website over an article that it says encourages racial hatred against Aborigines.

But online rights group Electronic Frontiers Australia said trying to stamp out the deplorable content would only create the “Streisand” effect, whereby an attempt to censor online content only brings more attention to it.

In a letter to Joseph Evers, the owner of Encyclopedia Dramatica (ED) – a more shocking version of Wikipedia that contains racist and other offensive articles dubbed as “satire” – the Commission said it had received 20 complaints from Aborigines over the “Aboriginal” page on the site. …

On the Australian Communication and Media Authority’s blacklist of “refused classification” websites, which was leaked in March last year, encyclopediadramatica.com was included. This means the entire site will likely be blocked under the government’s forthcoming internet filtering plan.

This is why I don’t like filters.  It is outrageous that the Australian Government will block such a site.

Don’t get me wrong – the site is highly highly offensive to many people. It is a rather puerile site (rather than a smart satire site) that just abuses everybody and everyone in the most insulting way it can. But being offensive is not a reason to be banned or blocked.

I cite again the words of Noam Chomsky, who said there is little virtue in defending popular speech – it is defending unpopular and even offensive speech that is courageous.

When we allow the state to start deciding what parts of the Internet we are allowed to see, that is a bad thing.

The NZ Herald focuses on the departure of Vanda Vitali:

The trust board was also keen to see the museum throw off austerity and become part of an international trend typified by Te Papa. Part of this was a restructuring that left 46 personnel, many of them senior staff, without jobs.

Amid accusations that this meant core museum displays were being downgraded, the board backed Dr Vitali to the hilt for most of her tenure. Its support began to waver late last year, however, after a series of public relations disasters.

It is questionable who should bear the responsibility for these. Did the board, having appointed Dr Vitali and provided a mandate, fail to give sufficient direction and guidance?

Did it not recognise sufficiently that, as a Canadian, she was operating in an unfamiliar cultural context? Or did the director, like many set on instituting change, not see finesse and heedfulness as part of her job description? …

It must not become fusty and tradition-bound. Dr Vitali’s achievement can be measured by comments lamenting her resignation.

One of the more notable came from Naida Glavish, of the Ngati Whatua Runanga, who said she had brought the museum “back to life”. An initial reservation about Dr Vitali was her sensitivity to the Maori and Pacific exhibitions.

Museums are always seeking a balance. In Auckland’s case, that involves using flair and imagination to attract local people, while also catering for overseas tourists’ major interest, the Polynesian treasures.

Dr Vitali wrought major change in a short time. With a little finesse, the correct balance can be struck.

Is Te Papa still looking for a CEO?

The Dominion Post is unhappy with Israel:

The timing of Israel’s announcement of a new 1600-house Jewish development in East Jerusalem was the equivalent of a one-fingered salute to the United States and to the peace process.

It demonstrates a contempt for the Obama Administration so withering that it diminishes the American ability to broker any deal. The administration had last year demanded a freeze on Jewish settlements, but eventually got only a partial, temporary halt – except in Jerusalem.

Why should the Palestinians pay any heed to what Washington wants, when the Israelis clearly don’t? It will also raise questions even among those sympathetic to Israel whether its current leadership has any intention of reaching a negotiated settlement.

I am a friend and supporter of Israel, but on this issue I agree they are wrong. They really should stop building new settlements. It makes the job of achieving a peace agreement a lot lot harder, for little gain.

The Press focuses on bad driving:

It is the common complaint of many New Zealand motorists. Truck drivers hog the road and, being oblivious to other road users, are responsible for accidents and near misses, both in urban areas and on the open road.

Those who subscribe to this jaundiced view should be taking a hard look at the video footage on The Press’s website. This footage, which was taken from cameras mounted in Canterbury Waste Services (CWS) trucks and which has created great public interest, has graphic images of other road users behaving recklessly and illegally.

It includes video images of one car overtaking a truck and forcing oncoming traffic to take evasive action. Other footage shows motorists not stopping at red lights or compulsory stop signs, failing to adhere to the give-way rule at other intersections, adopting some appalling driving techniques at roundabouts, and skidding due to a failure to drive to the conditions.

Luckily Wellington drivers are better than that

The ODT looks at child abuse in the Catholic Church:

It is hard to believe the senior ranks of the Roman Catholic Church, increasingly under siege in Fortress Vatican, have any real appreciation of the extent of the calamity facing them.

For if they did, surely they, and Pope Benedict XVI, would be cutting a radically different course from that now being offered to a confused, disappointed and sometimes angry congregation.

Prominent among the strategies it has adopted in the face of what is beginning to seem like a perfect storm of recent revelations – of sexual abuse cases and “cover-ups” in Brazil, the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Germany and, periodically, in this country and Australia – has been the time-honoured tactic of attacking the messenger. …

It just reminds me of the South Park episode where a priest calls on the gathered Cardinals to stop priests having sex with little boys, and the response back is that as they can’t have sex with women, if they stop having sex with little boys, then they’ll get to have no sex at all!

Abstinence is not natural in my opinion!

The Herald reports:

As New Zealand anti-whaling activist Peter Bethune sat confined in Japanese custody yesterday his eldest daughter turned 15, unsure of when she will next see her father.

How is this a story? It is not as if the Japanese Government sent a squad of ninjas to kidnap Bethune from his family home.

Bethune trespassed on board a Japanese ship, knowing he was breaking the law in doing so. He has in fact been looked after well on the ship, fed and given a room. And when back in Japan, he is of course facing charges for his trespass.

The sole reason he is not at home for his daughter’s birthday is because he chose not to be there – he chose to board the Japanese ship.

Danielle’s mother, Sharyn, was showing “remarkable resilience” through the tough time, which had been a struggle for the family emotionally and financially, he said. The pair have another daughter Alycia, who is 13.

It is a shame Bethune has abandoned his family. But that was his choice. Bethune wanted to be arrested, and wants to have a trial in Japan.

Personally if I was the Japanese Government I’d avoid a trial and just kick him out. But have no doubt that is the last thing Bethune wants – to be home with his family. He wants a high profile trial.

Labour MP Kelvin Davis has said a lot of things on education, and Maori issues, I agree with. Labour will inevitably become Government again at some stage, and he looks to be potentially a better Education Minister than Maharey and Mallard were.

But I do take issue with his blog post on truancy:

So thirty thousand students a day are not at school. Sounds worrying. I guess 100% attendance is the aultimate goal.

But let’s look at that 30,000 figure. It represents 4% of the total number of students in compulsory education.

So far, so good. His maths is better than Trevor’s.

If a child is away for 4% of the school year that means they are absent an average of less than two days a term.

Now yes on average that is around two days a term, but expressed as eight days a year, and that is a lot – in fact it is around one day a month, excluding the four months of holidays.

I don’t think having a child truant one day a month is anywhere near acceptable.

But even if it was, I think with respect Kelvin misses the bigger issue. This will not be all 750,000 students equalling wagging one day a month. It is probably 50% of students never wagging, 40% wagging one day a month and 10% wagging nine days a month, or around half the year.

I don’t recall when Anne Tolley said she got the figures she’s quoting, but if it was last year we need to remember there was a swine flu scare and the Ministry of Health was asking parents to keep kids home if they had a sniffle.

When I was a Principal, teachers had to mark in the attendance register whether a student’s absence was justified or unjustified.

Justified meant the child was usually sick or at a bereavement. Unjustified meant they were truant.

I’d be interested in whether she’s done any analysis of justified vs unjustified absences. She needs to realise kids do get sick at times and some non-attendance is expected.

I think this is a red herring. Tolley’s press release clearly talks about kids being truant – not just absent.

Now the release links to the actual study, and the study is clear that the 4.2% absentee rate is for unjustified absences. The total absentee rate is in fact 11.6%.

And they even look in the study at the swine flu issue:

Therefore it is likely that the differences observed in the 2009 survey, compared to previous surveys in 2006 and 2004, are not likely to be due to the increased absence rates caused by the influenza (H1N1) 09 Swine Flu pandemic alert.

So Mr Davis really hasn’t done his homework here. He made wrong assumptions, and suggested the Minister did not know the difference between justified and unjustified.

One hundred percent attendance is desirable, but it appears Anne Tolley is trying to over-egg the situation, and my guess is she’s doing it to divert attention from her National Standards shambles.

Quite the opposite. Labour have under-egged the problem. The overall non attendance rate is in fact 11% – that means on average a kid is absent every fortnight!

I do hope Labour have a more inspiring truancy policy than saying it’s not a big issue.

Had 120 comments yesterday on the Waihopai verdict. Best comment was from Dime:

My net worth on iPredict is now up to $5,900, and I currently am invested in 28 stocks, and have 11 active buy or sell orders.

Some of my current stocks are:

• PM.2011.NATIONAL – this has climbed from 66c to almost 77c. As it does not pay out until end of 2011, this is a very high price.
• TOPTAX.33-35 – I have purchased this stock in the hope that the top tax rate in the budget will be restored back to 33%, where it used to be before Cullen. Is at 88c.
• UK2010.CON.ABS is at 50c and pays out if the UK Tories gain an absolute majority. Recent polls had shown this was unlikely, but in the last few days their lead seems to be growing again.
• AKL.RUN.TAMIHERE is at 45c. I am selling this as I do not think he will stand for Mayor (more likely for Council).
• AU.USD.2020.1 pays out if the Aussie dollar matches the US dollar in 2010. I have sold this stock and it is at 34c.
• I have sold all four leadership stocks, paying out if they lose their jobs, so I think Key, English, Goff and King will all be there at years ends. Prices are Key 5c, English 10c, Goff 15c and King 15c.
• MIN.DEP2.2010 pays out if there is a second Ministerial resignation this year. I sold this at 58c and it is currently at 63c. So I am hoping no one else stuffs up!
• MIN.HEATLEY pays out if he returns to the Ministry. Is at 15c, and I sold it at 17c.
• MINWAGE.1STREAD pays out if Sir Roger’s bill passes first reading. I short sold this 52c and it is now at 1c as National have said they will not vote for it.
• Have short sold the two stocks for the ACT and Maori Party agreements with National terminating. The ACT one is at 6c and Maori Party 9c.
• By just 0.1% Obama had a positive approval rating on the 1st of March. I was nervous as I had $600 on him not being negative. His current net rating is 2.8% positive so I have short sold the OBAMA.DISAP.1JUN which is at 27c.
• I have short sold both the OCR increase stocks, getting 31c for the increase by 1 April and 82c for the increase by 1 Jul. I am confident on the 1 April one and think 1 July will be a close call.
• PRES2012.PALIN pays out if she announces she is standing by the end of 2011. I short sold this at 51c, which is where it still is.

The Herald reports:

State Services Minister Tony Ryall yesterday gave an update on the Government’s “cap of core government administration”.

The number of full-time jobs in core administrative roles fell by 1480 or 3.8 per cent last year to 37,379.

At the same time, said Mr Ryall, 540 full-time equivalent jobs had been added in “key frontline agencies outside the cap”, including Child, Youth and Family, Work and Income, and Community Probation.

“National campaigned to cap the size of the core bureaucracy and we’ve done that. This allows us to free up resources for improving frontline services,” Mr Ryall said.

After a 50% increase in the size of the public service under Labour, this is a great achievement.

It is so popular than even Phil Goff was trying to have it both ways. On TV last night he was claiming that Labour would also have capped public sector numbers – just not reduced them. Yeah, Right.

“We would have looked at the quality and the need for the staff, it would have been more about capping and not cutting,” says Labour leader Phil Goff.

I wonder what Grant Robertson thought of his leader’s endorsement of National’s policy of capping the number of staff. Maybe Grant could clarify what Labour’s policy now is? I am sure the PSA have been on the phone to him.

At the last election National campaigned on capping core public service jobs, a policy PSA national secretary Brenda Pilott said was “a farce”.

So is Brenda saying Phil Goff is supporting a farce?

“The Government has been cutting, not capping, jobs at a time when unemployment rose to a 10-year high.”

And the Government is borrowing $240 million a week. Private sector jobs create income for the Government, while public sector ones soak up that money. The fewer jobs we have in the private sector, the fewer we can afford in the public sector. This is why economic growth is rather important.

The Herald reports:

Whale Oil blogs:

The unthink­able has hap­pened, I have made a mis­take. Being a firm believer in own­ing your own shit I have apol­o­gised to Chris Carter and to his sis­ter. A short time after I sent my apol­ogy email (below) Chris rang me and we had a pleas­ant chat about the whole inci­dent. I thank Chris for tak­ing the time to ring me, he cer­tainly didn’t have to, the fact that he did and con­ducted him­self in such a polite man­ner shows the mea­sure of him.

And part of the e-mailed apology is:

Chris,

I would like to unre­servedly apol­o­gise to you for the last cou­ple of days. I was mis­led about the exact details of the sit­u­a­tion and have now clar­i­fied that the Mrs Carter in ques­tion is not in any­way related to you.

Fur­ther the whole issue was a hor­ri­ble mis­take from begin­ning to end start­ing with the Telco and the CEO of that telco con­cerned and end­ing with me. The phone issue is in fact legit­i­mate use of par­lia­men­tary resources.

Once again I sin­cerely apol­o­gise and will remove the posts about your­self and your sis­ter. I will also post this apol­ogy on my blog.

Please also pass on my sin­cere apolo­gies to your sister.

Sincere kudos to Chris, and his sister, for accepting the apology and in fact thanking Cameron for it – very classy. And also to Cam for such a unreserved apology.

The Electoral Commission has announced:

The Electoral Commission is considering an application made under Part 4 of the Electoral Act 1993 to cancel the registration of the following political party and logo:

Party: The Bill and Ben Party

Goodness, I wonder what caused them to decide to deregister?

If there was no (5%) threshold for Parliament, they would have got one MP at the last election.

TVNZ reports:

Three men accused of breaking in to the Waihopai spy case near Blenheim and damaging a protective dome have been found not guily.

The jury returned the verdict on Wednesday night. They were found not guilty on all three charges.

Adrian Leason, a teacher, Dominican friar Peter Murnane and farmer Sam Land pleaded not guilty in Wellington District Court to one count of burglary and two of wilful damage at the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) facility. …

In his closing arguments, Leason’s lawyer Michael Knowles said the men were driven by a belief that the satellite caused human suffering and their actions to shut it down, if only temporarily, were lawful.

“That belief doesn’t have to be correct,” he said.

“They had a belief in a higher law, a law for protecting people.”

I’m not totally surprised at this, even though I disagree. Bryan Law’s updates on Scoop and other blogs, had indicated that the jury seemed quite sympathetic to the defendents.

I think the verdict reflects that many NZers do not like spy stations, regardless of the actual applicable law.

What will be interesting is if this sets out a spate of attacks on properties by protesters, who will hope for a similar outcome.

As for Waihopai, they may need to invest in some extra guards with tasers!

I am of the view that the current superannuation scheme is not sustainable. In fact almost everyone who has studied the long-term demographics is of this view. Treasury, especially, has done some excellent work in this area.

The Government has ruled out changes while the PM is PM. I understand the politics of why that decision was made (to reduce the scare mongering from Labour) but regret it was made. However just because the Government is not going to change anything in the next few years, is no reasons why we can’t start a discussion on what sort of public superannuation system we want in our future. We know a future Government will confront this issue, so let’s start the discussion now.

Rather than focus on tinkering changes to the current system, I’m hoping over many posts we can have a first principles discussion on what our public (or first tier) superannuation should look like to be fair and sustainable. Second tier superannuation incidentally is workplace scheme such as KiwiSaver and third tier are other private superannuation schemes.

However the reasons changes to superannuation has been so politically lethal in NZ, is because the changes have been to the current scheme, and affecting those already retired. I understand the upset this can cause when changes are made that affect someone already retired. How would you like it if overnight your pension is means tested?

Therefore what I want to propose as a first principle is that the current superannuation scheme be preserved and locked off for the currently and soon to be retired. No more changes of any sort – including both upwards and downwards changes. This would give absolute certainty to those retired, and also prevent politicians such as he who must not be named as trying to make the current scheme even ore expensive for taxpayers.

The current scheme is:

1. eligibility age 65
2. NZ citizens and permanent residents who have spent both at least 10 years since aged of 20 and five years since age of 50 in NZ.
3. A floor so that the pension for a couple after tax is no less than 66% (and a ceiling of 72.5%) of the average ordinary time earnings after tax.
4. The single living alone rate is 65% of the couple rate
5. Inflation adjusted annually
6. No income test
7. No asset test

The above scheme is incidentally thought to be the most generous in the world, with no asset or income testing and a link to the average wage.

So to allow us to design a sustainable scheme for the future, I propose the current scheme be locked off, as per a certain date. The key question, is what date.

I would propose around 2025. In other words, those aged 50 or over in 2010 would still get the current scheme. The costs of the current scheme would remain high through the 2020s and 2030s, but from 2040 to 2050 fall significantly so by 2050 less than 10% of retired people would still be on it.

The population projections are:

• 2010 – 586,000 over 65s
• 2015 – 698,000 over 65s
• 2020 – 811,000 over 65s
• 2025 – 944,000 over 65s
• 2030 – 779,000 over 70s
• 2035 – 606,000 over 75s
• 2040 – 431,000 over 80s
• 2045 – 264,000 over 85s
• 2050- 130,000 over 90s

So a 2025 cut off date, would give those aged 50 or over at present certainty, but by 2050 only a small number of people would still be on the scheme.

I am specifically interested in feedback on two things:

1. The principle of preserving and locking the current scheme for the currently retired and near retired.
2. The desired date to cut off the current scheme, and have a new scheme come into force.

People may be interested in what the numbers would be like if one had a 2020 or a 2030 cut off. For 2020 they would be:

• 2010 – 586,000 over 65s
• 2015 – 698,000 over 65s
• 2020 – 811,000 over 65s
• 2025 – 667,000 over 70s
• 2030 – 517,000 over 75s
• 2035 – 366,000 over 80s
• 2040 – 224,000 over 85s
• 2045 – 107,000 over 90s

For 2030 they would be:

• 2010 – 586,000 over 65s
• 2015 – 698,000 over 65s
• 2020 – 811,000 over 65s
• 2025 – 944,000 over 65s
• 2030 – 1,071,000 over 65s
• 2035 – 884,000 over 70s
• 2040 – 686,000 over 75s
• 2045 – 489,000 over 80s
• 2050- 301,000 over 85s

The problem of waiting until 2030, is you will still have 300,000 people on the “old scheme” in 2050, plus the cost of one million on the “new scheme”.

Incidentally it is likely one might have some sort of transition between the two schemes, but until one has designed the new scheme, you can’t detail a transition.