Kiwiblog

Yay. The main floor of the National Party conference just voted (around 60% in favour) to support a remit calling for the purchase age of alcohol to remain 18, but to enforce current law more effectively.

That’s a huge victory, and big ups to the Young Nationals who spoke well in favour of it. To win over the majority of delegates who are almost all aged over 40 is a great testament to the power of logical argument.

The vote is not binding on MPs (the only MPs I saw with their hands up were David Bennett and Nikki Kaye, but I couldn’t see them all) but it will be of some influence that their own party conference basically said that raising the purchase age was the wrong response to the right problem. There was good discussion that a better course of action is to target supply of alcohol to those aged under 18.

They also after the remit announced the results of the board election, The three candidates elected (in order) were Peter Goodfellow, Roger Bridge and Malcolm Plimmer.

National has just disclosed two over $20,000 donations, as required by law.

Last month Suzhen Zhou of Bucklands Beach donated $50,000 and Antoines Restaurant donated a whopping $105,000.

The Dom Post reports why:

The gift from Parnell’s Antoine’s Restaurant was made in June and disclosed under rules requiring any donations of more than $20,000 to be publicly disclosed within 10 working days of a party receiving them.

Mr Key lives about three blocks away from the restaurant.

Asked the reason for his largesse, restaurant owner Tony Astle said Mr Key was a customer he had known for several years.

“Well, I just love the prime minister. I’ve never really been a person to give money to parties, but I decided this time I would. We need them back again, we don’t need those other pretenders.”

I hope John tips well the next time he dines there!

Ms Zhou and her parter also donated $200,000 to aid relief after the Sichuan earthquake in 2008.

Julia Gillard has gone to the Australian Governor-General to dissolve Parliament and call the election.

The date is now thought to be 21 August, so it will e a short sharp campaign, trying to pit it as a leadership choice between Gillard and Abbott.

The election will be for all 150 MPs and 38 out of 76 senators.

I rate Gillard as the favourite to win, but campaigns generally can and do matter, and we’ll see what happens. The Coalition needs to win 11 seats.

Her fix to the boat people issues is coming a bit unravelled, and it is also becoming clear the compromise with the miners was in fact a $7.5 billion backdown.

The Independent reports:

The British government faces a second Tory backbench revolt over plans to change the rules to delay a general election if the Liberal-Conservative coalition collapses.

Senior Conservative MPs oppose a plan to give David Cameron or another senior politician 14 days to form a new administration if the Government is defeated in a Commons vote of confidence.

They say the proposed breathing space would weaken the powers of the Queen and they want her to retain the right to decide when to call an election.

Those so called senior Tories are talking nonsense about the Queen’s powers. She does not decide when elections are called, except in the rarest of scenarios.

What is proposed is quite standard, if you have a fixed term Parliament. If a Government loses a confidence vote in the House, you see if an alternate Government can be formed. If not, then you dissolve Parliament.

14 days is a reasonable amount of time to wait to see, and rather than be a hindrance for the Queen, it actually will be a protection. She is less able to be attacked, because the law will have less discretion for her.

If we ever move to a fixed term Parliament here, then we may need to debate how to deal with successful no confidence motions.

Note that when I highlight these, it is generally not the journalist who writes the headline.

The headline:

Brash blows fees budget

The substance:

The controversial 2025 Task Force – which recommended slashing government spending – blew its entire three-year budget for chairman Don Brash’s meeting fees in just one year.

Dr Brash was paid $1200 a day to chair the commission, and the Government expected to pay him for eight full days of meetings and preparation in 2009-10 and four days for the following two years.

But documents made public by Treasury show Dr Brash received $39,450 in the first year – four times the amount earmarked for his first year on the taskforce.

Other members, who were paid $1000 a day, received $34,000 – $2000 above the estimated budget for 10 meetings.

The task force came in under budget, however, because it did not spend as much as anticipated on outside experts – out of a $100,000 budget just $18,913 was spent.

Dr Brash said the cost of his fees reflected the fact that he was working “close to fulltime” on the 2025 report. “I certainly worked a lot more than 10 days … working with the author, working through drafts etc.”

So in fact the taskforce under-spent by around $50,000 but that isn’t as good a headline. Neither is a headline about how Don saved the taxpayer money by doing more of the work himself, rather than engaging external parties.

Incidentally an hourly rate of $150 is massively cheap for a former Reserve Bank Governor. Hell junior lawyers get charged out at more than that.

The Herald reports:

A hit-and-run driver who left a man seriously injured on the road was tracked by police to the Prime Minister’s electoral office, northwest of Auckland. …

Sergeant Stu Kearns, of the Waitemata serious crash unit, said the 30-year-old victim was standing by his Subaru stationwagon about 7.20pm when he was struck by the van.

“The van then took off,” he said. …

Mr Kearns said the van was located about 8.45pm in the driveway of John Key’s electorate office on the same stretch of highway in Kumeu.

I am enthusiastically awaiting the press release from Pete Hodgson on how the PM was involved in this, on the basis of his research.

The Herald reports:

The Government is planning to allow all companies to have 90-day trials for new workers and wants to give employers the power to keep unions out of the workplace.

Unions say the proposals are outrageous and an attack on workers’ rights.

The present scheme – restricted to firms with 20 staff or fewer – lets bosses take on workers on trial for up to 90 days.

The unions of course predicted all sorts of massive abuses when the scheme came in for smaller employers. Since then, a total silence. Where are the scores and scores of examples of terrible abuses? Sure the scheme has been used (that is why it was introduced), but have there been any cases of bosses sacking new workers because they wouldn’t sleep with the boss etc – as predicted by the unions?

Grievance free trial periods are common in OECD countries, and they encourage employment – especially of employees whose backgrounds may make it harder to be given a go.

One News reported last night that the Government plans to extend the scheme to all companies. It is also looking to let employers deny unions access to the workplace on reasonable grounds – a plan that appals Labour and the unions.

Union leaders vowed to fight the changes and Labour leader Phil Goff promised to scrap the 90-day scheme altogether if Labour regained power.

What the Herald doesn’t mention regarding the access to workplaces, is it was explicit 2008 election policy for National.

UPDATE: My bad. The Herald did in fact state that in the article. I just didn’t see it.

Many of us are waiting to see if Europe crashes, pushing the world into a second recession. The Business Roundtable tweeted this article, which I thought made some great points:

A SPECTRE is haunting Europe: the spectre of public debt. The debt-to-gross domestic product ratio for the European Union is projected to reach 80 per cent this year. Some recent growth in public indebtedness reflects weak economic conditions, but structural budget deficits have also increased sharply.

That’s not just Greece and Spain, but the entire EU. 80% of GDP is far far too high a debt level. Hell I think even 20% is too high.

First, particularly after the industrial unrest of the late 60s, labour market regulations entrenched union power while shutting young people and older workers out of the labour force. Second, as rigid labour markets undermined productivity and fed excessive wage claims, greater, increasingly opaque subsidies were provided to businesses. Third, as subsidies proved insufficient to maintain private sector jobs, public sector employment and the pension system were expanded, locking in entitlements to future public expenditures. And fourth, governments tolerated erosion of the tax base through tax evasion and the growth of the black economy.

Inevitably, the outcome was a loss of competitiveness.

Lessons we should not forget.

Can the situation be turned around? History shows that durable fiscal consolidation involves cuts to public expenditure, rather than increases in taxation. Such cuts are not impossible. After all, between 1995 and 2006, general government expenditures as a share of GDP declined by 10.8 percentage points in Sweden, 8 percentage points in Denmark and 12.7 percentage points in Finland.

And we should be aiming to get expenditure as a share of GDP down to under 30%.

Am amused by what happened on the plane between Wellington and Auckland.

Normally I do not engage in conversation with my fellow travellers. Call me Mr Grumpy but I am happy to just read my book or play Sudoku. On international flights I’ll do the intro and chat for a few minutes, but not much more than that.

As I boarded the plane, a cupboard door was ajar and I grazed my arm on it. As I sat down on the front row, I noticed that my arm was actually bleeding so had to call the cabin crew for something to soak up the blood.

As part of this got chatting to the person next to me (had to explain that I didn’t want to lift my arm for the call button as it would probably drop blood on me), and what started off as a polite inquiry about where one will be watching the rugby, turned into a non stop conversation for around 70 minutes, which traversed numerous topics from travel, to technology, to careers, to partners, to sharks, to directorships, to Freakonomics, to science etc.

What was the amusing bit was as we got to depart, and we went to swap cards. The person sitting next to us exclaimed that she can’t believe we didn’t actually know each other, on the basis of our non stop conversation during the flight.

As I said was very unusual for me. Definitely normally a non talker on flights. But sometimes a conversation is just too good to stop. I do enjoy people who can talk, and with confidence and knowledge to back it up, on diverse topics.

So it was the only domestic flight in recent times, where I didn’t get through 100 or so pages of a book. Hell, I didn’t even get through one page.

1. Danyl blogs the average poll ratings for National and Labour since 2004
2. Madeleine blogs her negative experience with ACC
3. Jordan Carter blogs a very thoughtful piece on the centre-right, and how things have changed from previous decades
4. Guido Fawkes blogs a calendar of Czech MPs.

The Press reports:

Lance Bradford says he was so determined to get Metallica tickets that he quit his job before camping overnight at a Ticketek outlet.

His employer would not give him the afternoon off to set up camp outside Canterbury University’s student union, so the driller quit.

Bradford, 23, said he was “ripped and angry” when Metallica said they were coming to New Zealand, but not to Christchurch.

This month, his favourite band announced a surprise Christchurch date, with tickets going on sale at 9am today.

“When I found out they were coming, I thought if they are willing to come down here, then I’m willing to quit my job and come down here to line up,” Bradford said.

While admiring of his tenacity and determination to get Metallica tickets, I do hope he finds another job and doesn’t plan to go onto welfare anytme soon.

If he does, he may get a nasty surprise, discovering WINZ staff do read newspapers.

Another solution may have been to keep the job and pay a friend to queue up for you.

Incidentally if I was his employer, I’d definitely give him leave to queue up for music tickets so long as the absence was not going to critically affect things.

The Herald reports:

Employers are being offered a carrot and stick to improve workplace safety under a Government scheme which gives discounts and penalties of up to 50 per cent on their ACC levies.

But the Government acknowledged Opposition concerns that the proposal carries the risk of bosses pressuring workers not to report injuries.

ACC Minister Nick Smith yesterday said the Government planned to apply “experience rating” – essentially a no- or low-claims discount on employers’ ACC levies – from April next year.

On the other side of the ledger, employers with poor safety records will pay higher levies.

The two-tier system will see larger employers receive up to a 50 per cent discount or a 50 per cent penalty according to their record over the preceding three years. Smaller employers including farmers will receive a 10 per cent discount or a 10 per cent increase on their levies depending on their record of employee injuries.

Excellent. Rewarding safe workplaces and penalising unsafe workplaces makes sense. Also on a personal front, will be nice to have a reduction in levies considering in six years of operations, we’ve not had one workplace accident or claim.

The proposal was welcomed by Business NZ and Federated Farmers. However, while Labour’s ACC spokesman, David Parker, said it seemed appropriate to reward employers who acted to prevent workplace accidents, some might not report accidents in order to protect their discounted levies.

“It is also a possibility that some employers will encourage employees hurt in workplace accidents to report their injuries as being non-workplace.”

Greens leader Russel Norman said it would not work for the same reasons.

Smith acknowledged those concerns but did not believe they were valid.

” I accept you might be able to fudge whether the sprained ankle was at work or tennis, it’s a lot more difficult to fudge where there was a serious accident.”

Norman is speaking nonsense. This is not some new thing – it has been used extensively in the past, and worked very well. The left always try to promote the scenario of the evil employer who will break the law and lie and cover up to save a few hundred dollars here and there – and then use that as the rationale for a lowest common denominator approach that all employers must be punished.

There are some bad employers out there. Yes. But don’t penalise all employers for a few. To 98% of employers, they would never not report an accident, just because it may slightly affect a future premium,

And as Nick Smith pointed out, a sprained ankle is not going to change your premium much – it will be the serious injuries that really affects levies or premiums, and they can’t be hidden away.

The Dom Post reported:

Poorer New Zealanders are ending up in hospital because they cannot afford to pay for medicines prescribed to them, a study has found.

Maori and Pacific people are especially hard-hit and the study’s author says the only way to ensure equality is for the Government to lower co-payments – the amount patients have to pay for each prescription.

I’m not so sure. We’ll look at details in a minute, but first I’ll make the general point that even when certain health services are free, such as immunisations, they are not fully taken up.

The research, published in the international Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, found more than six per cent of the 18,000 people surveyed had put off filling a prescription for financial reasons at least once a year.

So 94% do manage to pay the $3 charge. To me that suggests that rather than scrap the fee for everyone, you look at targeting assistance to those on the lowest incomes or greatest health needs.

Who should someone like me not pay the $3?

The other query I have, is were those 6% facing purely the $3 charge, or was there an additional part-charge for some of them as the medicine was not fully subsidised?

That figure jumped to 15 per cent for Pacific people and 14 per cent for Maori.

The results were alarming, lead researcher Santosh Jatrana said.

“We were not expecting that much difference between ethnicities.”

Maori and Pacific people not only tended to be more deprived but were also more likely to have greater health needs, Dr Jatrana said.

But they also have the lowest immunisation rates, and they are free. There may be cultural factors at play, beyond price.

It was worrying that people who had two or more illnesses – and often needed multiple prescriptions – were also avoiding picking up prescriptions, she said.

“Deferral of necessary drugs is only going to make their conditions worse.

“People who put off buying prescription drugs because of cost are more likely to be admitted to hospital with serious acute conditions as they haven’t purchased medication or gone to their GP.”

Overseas studies had shown that people who could not afford all their medication resorted to giving themselves half-doses, skipping doses or spending less on basic needs such as electricity or food.

There was a clear message from the study, Dr Jatrana said. “We need to reduce the co-payments. It’s very simple and straightforward.”

Not at all. Someone has to pay for all these drugs. If 94% of people are paying without problem, why would you stop charging them?

Target the people most in need I say.

The National Party Conference is on this weekend. I am looking forward to it, and will be up in Auckland from this afternoon.

As well as the main conference, the Young Nationals also have their annual conference, including their elections – and they have three candidates standing for the presidency. So the board elections won’t be the only election of interest.

The Young Nats are doing something very laudable – actually having a debate and question and answer session with the three candidates. This will allow YN delegates to hear them in action, before voting. The main party could consider the merits of doing something similar for board elections in future – maybe have a forum on the Friday evening.

The Young Nats debate starts at 10.15 am on Saturday, and I have the job of moderator, as a neutral party. I’ve been having fun working on some of the questions.

The three candidates are campaigning hard also. One has a campaign website, another a Facebook page, and a third has a campaign ad on You Tube which I predict will be used to embarrass him for many years to come.

Great to see a healthy contest for the job, and am looking forward to the debate on Saturday. Any conference attendee can attend the debate, but questions will be restricted to Young Nationals.

The headline in the Herald is:

Brewer’s stance dubbed ‘betrayal’

No, this is not a fall out between brewing companies, but in Auckland politics.

Newmarket Business Association chief executive and National Party member Cameron Brewer is taking on the Citizens & Ratepayers establishment for the Orakei seat at the Super City elections.

Mr Brewer confirmed yesterday that he was stepping down as the self-styled Mayor of Newmarket to stand as an independent candidate for the single-member Orakei ward against C&R’s Doug Armstrong.

A split between centre-right candidates could result in the seat going to Labour/City Vision. If that happens, those responsible won’t be popular. On the other hand, it is such a blue area, that even with a split, the prospect isn’t highly likely.

“This is a decapitation strike,” a senior C&R member said of the decision by Mr Brewer to challenge the right-leaning ticket.

“He is making enemies out of some of his closest friends. I’m pretty angry. John Slater feels betrayed,” the member said.

Mr Slater, C&R president, Newmarket Business Association chairman and former National Party president, said approaches were made to Mr Brewer last year about standing as a C&R candidate but he indicated he was past politics.

Mr Slater did not think Mr Brewer would win Orakei against Mr Armstrong, whom he credited with doing a “stirling job as chairman of the finance committee”.

From Fiji, where he is holidaying, the 67-year-old Mr Armstrong said Mr Brewer lived 17km away in Pt Chevalier and was “not one of us”.

“He is a worthy opponent, but a relative novice. I stand on my record on rates and delivering amenities, such as resanding of Kohimarama beach,” Mr Armstrong said.

Mr Brewer, a former press secretary to Auckland City Mayor John Banks and National Party Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley, said he respected Mr Armstrong but the public were calling for new faces to bring a fresh and energetic approach to local body politics for the next six, nine or 12 years.

“I’m that person,” Mr Brewer said.

Time will tell. It will be one of many interesting races to follow.

The Herald reports:

The Government will change the “claim of right” defence so it cannot be used as it was by three activists who escaped conviction despite wilfully damaging a communications base at Waihopai. …

The New Zealand Law Society agreed the law needed to be changed.

“Everybody, including most lawyers, were surprised it was a successful defence in that case,” said Jonathan Krebs, the society’s convener of the criminal law subcommittee.

“It’s quite astounding that the defence could be successful when these vandals decided they were going to go and destroy this thing. That needs to be corrected.”

If the law was not changed, it would be a licence to vandalise.

But he said it should not be repealed because it was a legitimate defence in some cases, such as when buying stolen goods that the buyer thought was a legitimate sale.

I agree. The Government has put up five options. They are:

1. Shifting the burden of proof
2. Adding a reasonableness element
3. Amending the offences that have ‘claim of right’ as an element
4. Adding a property interest criterion
5. Repealing the defence

A briefing paper is here.

A further paper in September will outline preferred options. Nos 1, 2 an 4 all looks pretty reasonable to me.

The Herald reports:

Manukau City chief executive Leigh Auton has charged ratepayers $244 for two combined birthday celebrations with Mayor Len Brown and Deputy Mayor Gary Troup.

The council’s senior leadership have birthdays on consecutive days between October 1 and October 3 and use their birthdays to get together and take stock of what is happening in the community, Mr Auton says.

Oh I see. A birthday party becomes a Council expense when you use it to talk about the community.

Mr Auton, who was given a $35,313 pay rise last year, despite restrictions on other council staff and the pressures of the recession, said the lunches were a “legitimate business expense” and he would not repay ratepayers out of his $412,079 salary.

Mr Brown, who is paid $157,096 as mayor, refused to comment on the ratepayer-funded birthday celebrations. His Super City mayoral campaign spokesman, David Lewis, pointed the Herald to Mr Auton’s “clear explanation of the work lunches”.

What really grates with people is that two men on a combined salary of $600,000 would try and find a way to justify the ratepayer paying for their birthday muffins, rather than one of them just shouting.

It is what people refer to as nickel and diming.

Whether or not one was “entitled” to do so is only part of the issue.

It’s like when Phil Heatley had his expenses problems. What many talked about what a Minister of the Crown on $250,000 bothering to charge a $7 burger at Burger King to the taxpayer. It didn’t matter so much that it was a legitimate expense.

The Herald reports:

One in 10 licensed premises sold alcohol to 15-year-olds in a sting in the Auckland City police district.

Three boys and three girls were instructed not to dress to look older or wear make-up when they entered 162 businesses armed with $20 cash and no ID.

Seventeen outlets were busted breaking the law and will be referred to the Liquor Licensing Authority for suspension or cancellation of their licences.

Excellent – there is no excuse for serving 15 year olds. You are meant to ask for ID if they look under 25 (in some outlets under 30).

Before one even considers changes to the purchase age, the current purchase age should be enforced.

Mr Loye said police ran stings such as last week’s throughout the country every few months.

That’s the problem. Why only every few months? I’d have a dedicated team that does this pretty much every week. If you did that, I reckon within six months you’d have 100% compliance.

If the Police can find the time to lobby almost every individual MP on their desired alcohol law changes, then they should find the time to enforce the current laws properly.

Likewise in another story:

Teenage forgers have sold dozens of fake driver’s licences for up to $60 each in a sophisticated operation that has astounded police.

Two 17-year-olds in Hamilton face charges over their part in a forged licence ring.

Their arrests on Friday and Monday follow a similar Hamilton bust two years ago when 10 teenagers appeared in court over altering or using forged documents to enter bars or buy cigarettes.

City tactical co-ordinator Senior Sergeant Greg Dunn said the operation was “of a degree not encountered in the Waikato before” and an array of computers, laminators, scanners and printers had been seized.

Again congrats to Police for taking action. But why only one bust? A huge number of under 18 year olds have fake IDs. If you don’t crack down on them, then the purchase age becomes meaningless.

Now that everyone is noticing the drop in food prices again, one journalist takes at look at why they jumped so damn high in the first place.

The Nation this weekend on TV3  – Saturday 11am, Sunday 8am

Major interview is: We’re out of recession – so can the government now realise its ambition for a world class economy? Finance Minister Bill English live from the National Party Conference.

Also, six Young Nats on the direction they think National should be taking.

And a musical about assassinating the President of the United States .

Panel: Tracey Watkins, Patrick Smellie

I should stop giving him publicity, but I couldn’t believe his assertion that he was surprised he ended up in Japan, so I made some inquiries. Below is a copy of the demand letter he gave to the skipper of the Japanese boat.

Bethune Demand

First of all you have to love the lunacy of a man who makes a demand for arrest on the basis of un-named “maritime experts”.

Could you imagine what would happen if you boarded a plane and demanded the pilot arrest himself, citing un-named aviation experts.

Now his primary demand was that the Japanese boat transport him to Wellington. As the other captain does not suffer from clinical insanity, obviously that was never going to happen. So look closely at what he then said:

I will refuse to be handed over to any Sea Shepherd vessel. I will also refuse to be handed over to any New Zealand or Australian Coastguard, Customs or Naval vessel.

So this so called “prisoner” was in fact refusing to leave the whaling ship. What a farce. Even if the NZ Government had sent a naval vessel to pick him up, Mad Pete proclaimed he would refuse to leave the whaling ship.

He also gave the Japanese an invoice for his boat, demanding they buy him a new one. An extract from that invoice is:

If we have not received payment by April 1, 2010, we will be proceedingwith a civil action in Japan against your company. We will be seeking punitive damages, in addition to the full replacement cost of the Ady Gil.

Now this is exactly what he should have done. As far as I know, he lied, and there has been no civil suit. If there is a dispute about who was at fault, it should be resolved in court.