Kiwiblog

No Right Turn alerted me to this private members bill drawn from the ballot. He supports the intent, but not the details of the bill. I have problems with both.

The bill basically forces every city council, district council and regional council to have one or more Maori wards – reserved for voters of Maori descent.

I think such a move would be appalling, and push us towards a Fiji style country, and set back race relations massively.

I also think it shows how dangerous it can be when the debate keeps shifting down this path.

At a national level, we have had the Maori seats since 1867. They were well intentioned, allowing Maori who owned property communally to vote – a right limited then to property owners.

In an ideal world the seats would have been abolished in 1879 when the property requirement was abolished. It is somewhat shameful that up until 1976, Maori were not even allowed to vote on the general roll.

I regard it as a shame that the Royal Commission’s recommendation to abolish the Maori seats (and in exchange have a lower threshold for Maori parties) was not implemented. Have race based seats is just not something that long-term I think is likely to create a more harmonious New Zealand.

However I do generally accept the proposition that regardless of the lack of a principled rationale for race based seats, that trying to unilaterally abolish them would be an act that would in itself be disharmonious and create a huge backlash. There is a huge difference between not creating something, and taking something away. Hence I don’t think it is wise to try and abolish the Maori parliamentary seats, unless one could get widespread agreement from Maori to it.

But having said that, I think it is important that the Maori parliamentary seats be seen as a historic exception, and not the rule. However we are in some danger of ending up there.

In 1998 Tuariki Delamere sponsored a bill to allow the Bay of Plenty Regional Council to create a Maori ward or wards.The argument was that it was only for that one Council which had special needs, and the parliamentary seats was a precedent. And people thought well, why not allow it.

It was not supported by National, but in 2001 Labour passed it as the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Maori Constituency Empowering) Act 2001.

The exception then became an option for all, and Labour passed the Local Electoral Amendment Act 2002 which allowed any Council to establish Maori wards either on their own initiative or by referendum, which can be  upon petition by 5% of electors.

So a historical anomaly became a one off example in one Council, and then became an option for all Councils.

And it didn’t stop there. The Royal Commission on Auckland recommended that the new Auckland Council have three Maori seats, regardless of whether or not the people of Auckland wanted them. Labour demanded that the Government create Maori seats for Auckland, rather than even leave it to Auckland to decide. So again, the debate shifted from should they even be allowed, to should it be created without consultation.

And then finally we have the Local Electoral (Māori Representation) Amendment Bill by Te Uroroa Flavell, which would impose Maori wards on every council in New Zealand, dividing every single authority up into Maori and non Maori.

Now it is all well intentioned, and supporters will claim the means justify the ends. But again I don’t think we want to end up like Fiji with race dividing voters electorally.

So I fully expect Flavell’s bill to be voted down. No doubt the Greens will vote for it. I suspect Labour would love to vote for it, but they may vote against it on the basis of its flaws (beyond the principled opposition to it). NRT describes these:

Currently councils can establish Māori wards, and if they do, their number is determined by the number of people on the Māori roll in that district. Flavell’s bill would change this to being determined by the number of people of Māori descent. However, voting in those wards would still be limited to the 60% of Māori on the Māori roll. Which means that those wards will be systematically undersized, and those Māori systematically over-represented.

This would be a huge gerrymander. Basically voters in the Maori wards would have twice as much power as those in other wards. NRT also fisks the justification from Flavell:

Flavell’s justification for this change is that

This change is made because 40% of the Māori population is under 18 years and is therefore excluded under the current formula.

But this is simply incorrect. The current formula uses the definitions from the Electoral Act 1993, which specifically includes people under 18. So those people would already be represented (though unable to vote)

Incidentally I believe electorate populations should be based on the adult population, not the total population – but that is a debate for another day.

NRT concludes:

I don’t think this is an attempt at a stitch-up; rather its likely a mistake born of not reading the law closely enough. But the result is a deeply flawed bill. Fortunately, those flaws can be resolved at select committee.

The mistake can be easily resolved. But I don’t think the bill should proceed. Generally I support most bills going to a select committee, but this bill seeks to move in a direction which I so strongly disagree with, that I don’t think it should even get past first reading.

Incidentally under this proposed law, four local authorities would be forced to have the majority of their seats elected from Maori wards. Think about the level of resentment that would cause amongst non-Maori? I don’t mean the resentment would come from having a majority of Maori on a local authority. I, for one, would not care a damn if the majority of Wellington City Council was Maori. I would object though if the majority had been elected from wards which I am banned from being eligible to enrol in, because of my lack of the right genes.

It is a pity that the debate on this bill will now be whether or not Maori seats on Council should be compulsory or voluntary. In fact the debate should be about whether Labour should have ever created them at all in 2001.

I blogged on the 2nd of March the Supreme Court hearing of Siemer v Solicitor-General, after being allowed to sit on the media bench to report on it.

I concluded:

• Siemer will not succeed at being found to have not broken the injunctions
• Siemer will succeed at having contempt charges with no maximum term of imprisonment deemed to be a criminal matter, which could require in future a jury trial
• But I do not think he will succeed in getting a new trial

And as it turns out, I was pretty close to the mark. While Siemer was found to have breached injunctions and committed contempt, the Supreme Court upheld his appeal against the six months sentence from the Court of Appeal, and in fact has ruled that no court in NZ can sentence someone to more than three months jail for contempt.

This is quite a significant decision, and does go to show that even “nuisance” litigants like Vince Siemer can end up in doing good, by having the Supreme Court uphold the right under the BORA for no one to face jail of more than three months without a jury trial. Of course Parliament may change BORA n this regard, but until they do it is good to have the courts uphold the law.

Siemer has to surrender himself to the High Court by 4 pm on the 20th of May for a three month sentence unless he complies with the 2005 injunction and provides a written undertaking not to breach it.

What is interesting is that the Supreme Court divided 3-2 on the appeal, with the Chief Justice and Justice McGrath in the minority who voted to decline the appeal. Some extracts from the judgement:

Two further factors indicate that the use of the summary process is fair and not arbitrary, in its impact on litigants, in a way that a jury trial would not be. First, in most cases of contempt there will be little dispute concerning the underlying facts, determination of which is the primary function of the jury. The main issue will usually be rather whether the facts amount to contempt, on which a direction as to the law would be given to the jury if the procedure of a jury trial were to apply. Secondly, referring to the present context, most contempt cases involving breach of court orders are brought by private litigants. It would add greatly to cost, time, delay, expense and complexity of litigation if litigants had to enforce rights already obtained through court proceedings. This is so whether or not the proceedings were brought by a public official such as the Solicitor-General. For a party to have to go through court proceedings to enforce rights it had already obtained from a judgment of the court would be grossly unfair and seriously undermine public confidence in the rule of law.

This is a pretty key point. It would be very unfair for litigants if after having already had certain rights established, they could only get them enforced by recourse to a jury trial. This is why the Chief Justice concluded:

It is true that the summary process under the common law makes a jury trial for common law contempt impossible …

The common law summary procedure remains the only means yet identified which enables effective protection to be given to the threats to the rule of law that all contempts provide. The unusual nature of the procedure emphasises the gravity of the threat to the administration of justice and in the eyes of the court. The procedure also adequately protects persons who come before the court. For all these reasons we consider the constitutional importance of the objective of the summary process and the impact that accommodating a jury trial would have on the courts’ ability to ensure the effective administration of justice clearly indicate that the procedure is a proportionate response to the needs of the rule of law.

Hence the Court agreed that a jury trial for contempt is just a no go. For what it is worth, I agree.

They then disagreed on how to weigh that decision up against BORA which said you need a jury trial for offences which carry a sentence of more than three months.

The CJ and McGrath J concluded:

It follows that we consider the summary procedure for all contempt of court proceedings is a justified limitation of the right to a jury trial under s 24(e). The summary procedure accordingly is not in breach of the Bill of Rights Act.

But the majority disagreed. They concluded:

We have accordingly been brought to the view that as a necessary consequence of the enactment of s 24(e) the power of a New Zealand court to impose a sentence of imprisonment for contempt has been limited to imprisonment for no more than three months (and/or a fine).

It will be interesting what happens if Parliament changes 24(e) so that jury trials are only needed for possible sentences of greater than two years. If so, I presume that will become the maximum punishment for contempt automatically.

It will be interesting to see if Vince Siemer complies with the injunction before Thursday, or if he chooses to go to jail.

The decision may also be a relief to Whale Oil. He is currently only facing charges for breaches of name suppression (which is a fine only). However if he continues to (allegedly) breach orders, it is possible he may get charged with contempt at some stage. If he is, at least he will have the comfort of knowing his possible stay at Mt Eden is a maximum of three months!

Salient points are:

1. Government will contribute 25% to costs of repairs/upgrade (up from 10% previously)
2. TLAs who take part will put in 25%
3. Home owners 50% contribution will be Government guaranteed to solve problem of home owners not being able to borrow against homes to fox them, due to decreased equity value
4. Estimated cost to taxpayers is $1 billion over five years

Congrats to Maurice Williamson for a package that actually should lead to homes getting fixed, not litigated.

Also well done to Kerry Prendergast and John Banks for their advocacy on behalf of Mayors to get a fair package. It shows what can be achieved when you don’t have to deal with ranting idiots.

This is a great event. You can run it or mountain bike it, but either way to to experience some amazing scenery.

It’s not a normal marathon. You don’t run or cycle around the island, you run or bike over it. There are two bloody big hills and quite a few smaller ones. And half is on road, but around half on bush tracks and trails.

I’ll be going across for it – as support crew of course! It’s a great excuse to spend a weekend on Great Barrier Island, and enjoy the hospitality on the island. The after match parties are a good way to recover. I blogged about the 2009 event.

If you are interested in participating, you can register your interest here. You can also run it as a team, splitting up the three legs.

The Herald wants a decisive budget:

Seldom has a Budget been as crucial to the economy as the one that Finance Minister Bill English will deliver this week. It is immediately crucial to the housing market, where activity has been practically frozen while prospective buyers and sellers wait to see what tax will do to property investment.

And it is crucial to the country’s productivity that something is done to divert investment from housing and consumption to industry and exports.

After years and years of complaints about the property boom, and the impact that has had on inflation and interest rates let alone the banking crisis, finally a Government is taking some steps towards fixing this. They don’t go as far as Bernard Hickey would want, but they should be a good start.

The minister has made no secret of this objective. For many months he has been travelling and speaking with charts to illustrate his concern that New Zealand was in an export recession long before the domestic sector’s housing bubble burst in 2007 and it was struck by the recession of 2008.

While household and Government spending had been happily rising year by year, export activity had slumped in 2005 and has not recovered.

Quite incredible that the tradeables sector had in fact been in recession for Labour’s entire last term of office.

The Press looks at how the UK Government may learn from us:

The spectacle of the United Kingdom looking to New Zealand for constitutional guidance, during the formation of its coalition Government, is rare and perhaps unprecedented. …

The recent general election there may well have inaugurated a long-term weakening of the political parties. The increasing social mobility of the population and disenchantment with the behaviour of MPs is lessening the tribal affiliations to Labour and the Conservatives. The result is an increasing willingness among the electorate to switch from party to party according to the prevailing political climate.

This could well be the case. In the past conventional wisdom was National had core support of 35%, Labour had 35% and 30% were swinging.

But we have seen National’s support drop to 21% in an election and Labour drop to 14% in polls in 1996. There are very few core supporters left now.

Whatever the scenario, New Zealand has lessons for the British. We wrote the rule book for coalitions in a Westminster system of government, and it was that which helped the British through their recent experience of putting together a Government from competing parties. That the process was so smooth and rapid can be significantly attributed to the processes formulated in Wellington.

Of course with Winston we learnt the hard way!

The Dominion Post asks Phil Goff to explain:

Labour leader Phil Goff would like the Reserve Bank to aim at more targets. The almost certain result of this is that it will miss them all.

Absolutely. Goff is trying to retreat from every good policy that his party has previously supported.

New Zealand has, by and large, been well served by the Reserve Bank Act, with its single-minded focus on the inflation rate. The tools available to the governor to achieve that may be blunt, and his task made more difficult by New Zealanders’ determination to pump every spare dollar – and every dollar that can possibly be borrowed – into property, but at least he or she has only one goal to chase, and it has been relatively successful in keeping the lid on inflation.

You can achieve one target well, or you can not achieve multiple targets. Plus it is also an attempt for a future Labour Government to blame the Reserve Bank Governor when unemployment is high, rather than the elected Government.

There is also a need for caution on democratic grounds. Economic changes that can drastically affect people’s lives should be made by those whom the people can hold to account at the ballot box, not appointed officials. An expanded role for the bank makes it all too easy to muddy the lines of responsibility, and to use the bank as a scapegoat for economic failure – the same trick has been used to duck responsibility for health, where failures become the property of area health boards while successes are claimed by the minister.

The same point I made above before I carried on reading.

It is still a good while until the next election, but Mr Goff is still a good way away from delivering a coherent economic policy that offers alternatives rather than a parcel of vagaries.

So far the policies are not at all future looking, but attempts to revisit debates from 20 years ago.

NZPA report:

Labour leader Phil Goff today confirmed some of his MPs would step down before the next election and signalled a reshuffle.

Speaking on TVNZ’s Question and Answer programme Mr Goff said he had discussions with some sitting MPs about their future.

However he would not give details: “I’m not going to pre-announce how many Labour MPs might stand down at this time.”

A reshuffle later this year would be a smart move for Labour. The front bench stills looks like the last Labour Government – because it is!

So who might be on the Labour front bench after a reshuffle?

There can be no doubt Cunliffe will be there, as well as Goff and King of course.

Dyson has not been a great performer in Health, but she one of the power players in the Caucus. If Goff tried to shift her off the front bench, his own job could be at risk.

It should be time up for Parekura. A possible retirement at the next election also. The problem is Labour has to have a Maori on the front bench. He could arguably be replaced by Nanaia Mahuta, but a really bold move would be to put Kelvin Davis up there. Shane Jones is a possibility (he is currently on the front row of the cross benches, but not core front bench) but I think Shane is too unsubtle about his aspirations for Goff to want to encourage them. Plus some of his colleagues thinks he doesn’t do the hard yards.

Moving Chris Carter off the front bench would have to be the easiest decision for Goff. No Caucus backlash on that one!

Clayton Cosgrove might not win a lot of popularity polls in his caucus, but his portfolios pretty much require him to remain front bench.

Maryan Street is a capable performer, and even a future deputy leader. She will remain.

Trevor Mallard remains a strong symbol of the last Labour Govt, and could well move off the front bench also. But like Dyson he is too powerful to demote. Trevor will only go, if he offers.

The popular Darren Hughes could well be moved to the front benches, but he might prefer his current seat just behind the Leader where he can advise him.

David Parker is on the cross-benches, and has performed strongly this term. Even though he is not much of a fresh face, he could well move to the front bench on merit.

But a couple of others would also be contenders on merit for the front bench, or at least the front row of the cross-benches. Charles Chauvel and Grant Robertson would be the two strongest contenders. Clare Curran won’t make front bench in this term, but is also likely to at least move up to the second row in my opinion.

There has effectively been two aspects of the Government’s decision to not hand over the Urewera National Park to Tuhoe as part of the treaty settlements – the actual decision, and the way it was made public at a press conference before negotiations were concluded.

I doubt many people have an issue with the actual decision. No other treaty settlement has had a national park as part of it – unless it is gifted back. According to reports the Government has offered co-management of the park, which is not insignificant.

But what had puzzled me was why the decision was made public by the Government, rather than just communicated privately to Tuhoe. This is what a lot of media had focused on – the fact the decision was made public.

As it happened on Saturday night, I was at a social function with the PM. Normally it is not my habit to use these opportunities to ask the PM questions, but this one had puzzled me, so I put aside my normal rule and did ask him why he made the decision over the Urewera National Park public.

His answer was simple – because Tuhoe asked him to!

He communicated the decision by phone to the Tuhoe Chief Negotiator on Monday morning. The Chief Negotiator said that as Iwi members were planning to gather on Friday in anticipation of an agreement, they needed to be told and asked the Prime Minister to make the Government’s decision public. The Prime Minister said he could announce it at the post Cabinet press conference that afternoon, and that was deemed satisfactory.

And so he did.

So it was not part of any public slap down – something which I never thought was the PM’s style – hence why I asked the question.

My hope is that a settlement can still be reached. The wrongs done to Tuhoe were massive. They will be disappointed with the Government’s decision, but listening to Phil Goff on Q+A made it pretty clear they have little chance of getting a different decision from a different Government in the future.

Had lots of fun last night running a quiz night at the Central North Island National Party conference. Was quite a challenge with 26 teams competing.

For those who like to show off their knowledge, here are the ten questions that I used for the National Party round. We also had a photos round, a New Zealand round, a sports round and a Parliament round.

1. How many seats does National currently have in Parliament?
2. Which current and former National MP have both been married to the same person?
3. In what year was National founded?
4. Which National MP’s religion is Muslim?
5. Which two National MPs were voted sexiest in a poll by Durex?
6. What year was it when National ran the Dancing Cossacks advertisement against Labour?
7. How many National Party Presidents are still alive?
8. In ten words or less, explain how Whanau Ora works.
   
9. CNI is the only Region which has National every single seat. Has this ever happened before, and if so when?
10. Who is the Minister of Women’s Affairs?

Half of them are pretty easy, That is deliberate. Quiz nights are about having fun, so my policy is each team should always be able to get at least half right easily. A few are more challenging.

Post your answers in comments if you want. Using Wikipedia or Google is cheating!

The interview is here. Some extracts:

GUYON Thank you Phil for joining us this morning, we really appreciate your time.  Thursday’s Budget we’re almost certain to see a rise in GST to 15%.  Now I know you’re looking possibly at some exemptions to GST, but can you say that Labour would restore the general level of GST back to 12ý%, should you be elected in 2011?

PHIL GOFF - Opposition Leader
No I can’t make that promise because I don’t know whether it’ll be financially viable, or whether the situation can be reversed in that way.

Yet that didn’t stop Phil doing a taxpayer funded nationwide bus tour called “Axe the tax”. He doesn’t even believe in his own slogan.

GUYON The Sunday Star Times this morning, asks 50 prominent New Zealanders to ask questions of John Key. One of them’s from Colin Meads, and he asks whether the government is doing too much for the Maori people.  Can I ask his question to you?  Is the government doing too much for Maori people?

PHIL I think it’s doing the wrong thing, it’s entirely about symbolism, you know a flag over the Harbour Bridge – what we should be looking at is the 37% of Maori boys aged 15 to 19 who are currently not in work, not in education and not in training.  Are we doing too much there?  No, we’re not doing enough, and that spells out economic and social disaster for this country if we tolerate that situation.

Again, part of the problem here is Labour abolishing the lower minimum wage rate for teenagers. An unskilled 16 year old seeking their first job is simply often not going to get hired at $12.75 an hour. Labour have priced young workers off the market.

If a 17 year old can get a part-time job at say $10/hr, then in a couple of years they will have the skills and experience to get a higher paid paid.

The HoS reports:

A former mayoral candidate accused of secretly filming a woman living in a house he owned says he was only doing what any other “red-blooded male” would have done.

Umm, on behalf of other red0blooded males can I say, no yuck.

Pat Norris, 53, is believed to be the first person charged with publishing material under anti-covert-filming laws brought in about five years ago.

He faces four charges of publishing an intimate visual recording and one of intentionally making an intimate visual recording.

The woman, who describes herself as an average Kiwi single mum, said she had no idea she had been filmed until she was confronted with stills, including images of her in bed with a man.

She said numerous people had viewed the stills and she was not looking forward to reliving the ordeal through court.

Norris told the Herald On Sunday he printed them because the woman was sleeping with a married man whose wife had a right to see the images, and any other “red-blooded male” would have done the same.

Who appointed Norris Guardian of Morals?

The woman alleges Norris told her he fitted motion sensors but did not mention cameras.

She claimed he fitted one in the lounge, one in the kitchen, one in the dining room and one in her bedroom.

Police told her they were set up in a way that allowed Norris to view the inside of the house in “real time” at “any time”.

She said it had taken a long time for her to stop feeling like she was being “watched”.

“What he did was like physical abuse or worse,” she said. “It’s a violation.”

Norris said he did not make it plain to the woman he had put cameras in the home, but they were there to protect his investment in case it was broken into, not to spy on her.

I call bullshit. There is only one reason you put a hidden camera into a bedroom.

The SST got 50 New Zealanders to ask questions to John Key. An interesting selection of questions and answers.

The one I found most amusing was:

Valerie Vili, sportswoman: Can I be your bodyguard for a day in exchange for teaching you how to throw the shot put?

Val, I would love it if you were my bodyguard but I reckon my usual guys would worry you’d show them up. I’d be happy to take a shot-putting lesson any time but I don’t think I’ve got quite the throwing arm you have.

You have to say that if anyone approached the PM with hostile intent, it would oly take one whack from Vili and they would be down for the count!

Regardless of all the fuss over whether it is an official record or not, Jessica Watson’s achievement is extraordinary.

Few people could sail around the world solo, let alone at the age of 16. While modern technology such as the Internet has allowed Jessica to remain in touch electronically, it must still be very tough to spend seven months on a pretty small yacht, with no human contact.

And good on her parents for allowing Jessica the chance to prove herself.

Treasury have just sent the conditions of the budget lockup. I loved this one:

In the unlikely event that the building has to be evacuated because of a fire alarm or some other emergency prior to 2.00pm, the embargo will be lifted immediately.  However please note that in such a situation it would be expected that you evacuate without delay for your own safety, rather than attempting to file from within the building.

I’ve got a wonderful visual image of media and analysts fleeing a burning Beehive while trying to file their stories.

Most MPs blogs are so boring they make me want to move to Palmerston North so in the words of the great John Cleese, I will finally have the inspiration to kill myself.

However I have enjoyed the blog posts by Amy Adams about her week “Amy in the Navy”.  An extract:

I do have do mention though that even in gently rocking open seas, showering was a bit of a skill. Washing shampoo from my hair without falling over involved deploying a three point bracing system of two feet and a shoulder in various parts of the stall, ungainly certainly but managed to complete the mission.

and

When I nervously asked what the gun was for I got the simple response “sharks”. Not sure if that was good or bad news for the poor man overboard.

Highlight of the drills for me though was when, unexpectedly, up went the shout “man overboard!” I was on the bridge at the time and of course I rushed outside to watch what would happen next. What I wasn’t expecting was to see one of the crew immediately grab and load a semi automatic rifle and point it towards where the dummy was floating. Hell, I thought, that’s a little harsh as a way to deal with the situation; clearly there are few second chances in this Navy.

Heh I love the culture clash.

The Herald reports:

The cuts are likely to reduce personal tax rates from 38c, 33c, 21c and 12.5c in the dollar to 33c, 19c and 10c.

That would be good.

Mr English said at the weekend that he expected the focus on Budget day to be on people’s cash positions.

“But that is not the purpose of it – to make them a bit better or worse off in cash terms, although of course that is important,” he said.

“The point of the tax package is whether four or five years down the track we can influence the choices that people make.

“What we want to do is tilt the economy. It’s not shock treatment. It’s changing the choices that peoplehave and changing the way theythink about those choices.”

This is what Labour never wants to talk about. To them tax is only about redistribution. And of course that is part of it.

But tax is also about incentives and encouraging people to work and save.

In response to the Listener’s editorial on the proposed alliance between Air New Zealand and Virgin Blue, Rob Fyfe has done this video response above, which is at Dear Listener.

I’m not convinced by the alliance proposal, but I do love the response by Air NZ. It really is first class.

The NZ Herald talks Super City:

Who should lead Auckland? By a surprising margin, residents seem to favour the lesser-known of the two declared candidates for the Super City mayoralty. …

It could be that today’s survey reflects a view from across six of the seven territorial-council areas that a vote for Mr Banks represents a central Auckland takeover of their cities. An anyone-but-Auckland-City mentality would make a tough campaign for the Banks team.

He may be copping the backlash over the Government’s poor handling of the Super City reform, which is unfair as he has voiced concerns over several aspects of that process.

And The Press on rugby:

The inclusion of Argentina in what will be, from 2012, a southern hemisphere four-nations rugby tournament is obviously great news for supporters of the Pumas.

For many years the South American nation has been starved of regular top-flight tests due to the club commitments of its leading players in Europe, notably in France, but that will now change, with a rule change agreed by the International Rugby Board (IRB) this week. Finally, it seems, Argentina will be playing in a high-profile annual test rugby competition.

And the Dom Post on Greece:

As Bill English prepares to deliver his second Budget on Thursday a spectre hovers at his shoulder. The spectre is Greece.

The land of retsina, olives and sun-drenched beaches is about to become the land of wage cuts, job losses and higher prices, thanks to the profligacy of successive Greek governments.

Greece’s predicament is a cautionary tale for governments and peoples everywhere. Keep spending more than you earn and one day the debt collector will come calling.

A lesson lost on Labour it seems as they keep calling for the Government to increase spending and borrowing.

New Zealand, fortunately, is far from Greece’s situation. Public debt is at present about 13 per cent of the size of the economy – a fraction of the 120 per cent Greece is tipped to reach this year – but Government spending is forecast to exceed revenue for the next six years and debt levels are rising.

What some may forget though is that fiscal settings inherited from Labour had spending always remaining greater than revenue, and debt indeed increasing over the long-term to Greece type levels. Without the changes made by National in the 2009 budget, net crown debt was forecast to exceed 60% of GDP within around a decade.

And Labour opposed pretty much every one of those changes that reduced the debt track.

So far John Key’s Government has struck a sensible balance. It has borrowed enough to keep the economy ticking over and to insulate New Zealanders from the worst effects of the global financial crisis but reduced the rate at which debt was forecast to grow when it took office.

It should continue to take a long-term view of New Zealand’s interests. Mr English must continue to keep a tight rein on spending, not just in 2010 but next year – election year – as well.

Spending restraint needs to be maintained until, at the earliest, the OBERAC is back in surplus, and large enough to cover NZSF contributions.

The ODT looks at classroom attacks:

Thus it is in the case of the 13-year-old year 9 Te Puke High School boy who attacked his teacher with a 10cm kitchen knife, stabbing him in the neck and shoulders several times.

A centimetre or two either way, it must be supposed, and the injuries could have been fatal.

The attack has been met with anger at the perpetrator, sympathy for the teacher, incredulity that it could have happened at all, and revelations of just how common classroom assaults are becoming.

In 2008, 238 pupils were stood down for assaulting teachers; 442 teachers needed treatment after assaults at school in 2008 and 2009 at a cost of $413,000. …

The question is, why? Why did the boy have a knife at school? Whatever possessed him to make this apparently unprovoked attack? Was he, is he, prone to violent outbursts or physical aggression? If he had an issue or a grievance, why did he not first attempt to resolve them otherwise? Perhaps he did, and perhaps more of the background to this terrible episode will yet emerge, but it will not diminish either the viciousness of the assault, nor the level of accountability to which the assailant must be held – regardless of his age.

All good questions.

The Herald proclaims:

Agony after spider bites trouser snake

Who isn’t going to read that story?

A tourist suffered heart inflammation after being bitten on the penis apparently by a katipo spider, following a skinny-dip in Northland.

The 22-year-old Canadian left his clothes in the sand dunes while he went for a nude swim and slept on his return, according to a report on the case in today’s online NZ Medical Journal. “He woke to find his penis swollen and painful with a red mark on the shaft suggestive of a bite.

As it was in Northland, I wouldn’t assume it was necessarily a spider

Bernard Hickey writes in the Herald:

Floating an idea that you don’t really believe in is never a good idea.

Goff has suggested this lame GST exemption idea, knowing it will be knocked back by any tax policy adviser worth his spreadsheet. It opens loopholes to drive trucks through and would destroy one the last great things left in New Zealand’s tax system – a clean, broad and simple GST.

Goff’s economic ideas are all about veering to the left. They are

1. Tax rich pricks more
2. Spend more and borrow more
3. Destroy the simplicity of GST
4. Abandon consensus on monetary policy

I disagree with Goff’s plan to reverse the income tax cuts and simply increase the thresholds. I think he is focusing too much of slicing up the pie than expanding the pie.

Exactly. The tax changes in the budget are about growing the pie. Labour’s sole focus seems to be making sure rich pricks get less of the pie.

Allowing politicians to dictate to central bankers that they should release the inflation lever to inflate away the debts they’d like to run up would be a big mistake in this day and age. Just ask the Americans and the Germans.

Goff’s rhetoric is painfully conflicted. At one moment he is lamenting the government’s various moves to increase taxes and inflation. In the next sentence he wants to relax the Reserve Bank’s focus on controlling inflation and reverse income tax cuts.

Goff appears lost in voteless wilderness, throwing out policies and words that he thinks might be popular, but not really knowing what to believe or having any overarching strategy or new thinking.

I look for any changes to what Labour did last time in Government. All the changes seem to be swings to the left.

Not sure how many people have seen our native tomtit in the wild (miromiro), but it’s taken me a while to get a photo I like. Getting close to small birds in th low-light of our bush, is a bit of a challenge.

This is a male- you might spot part of the white bar just above his beak. The bird is also an insectivore- there are spider web-threads clinging to the side of the head also.

The species is related to the NZ & Black Robin.

When TVNZ ran their story tonight on Victoria University closing off enrolments, did they not know the student they interviewed (Caleb Tutty) talking about his anger was the International Secretary of Young Labour, and Judith Tizard’s former electorate agent?

Or did they just decide it wasn’t relevant?