Kiwiblog

Simon Collins reports in the NZ Herald:

An alternative welfare review group will call today for raising welfare benefits by as much as 50 per cent to meet the basic needs of jobless families.

The alternative group, chaired by Massey University social policy expert Mike O’Brien and including former Green MP Sue Bradford, says current benefits of $194 a week for a single adult or $366 for a sole parent with one child are “simply too low to live on”.

It calls for restoring benefits “as a first step” to the proportion of the average wage that applied before they were cut by up to $27 a week in 1991. That would mean raising the single dole by 53 per cent to about $296 a week and lifting the benefit for a sole parent with one child to about $536 a week.

I have some questions for the alternative welfare working group:

1. Is pepsi more popular than coke where you come from?
2. Is the gravitational field strength also 9.81 m/s^2 on your planet?
3. Is the sun a yellow sun, meaning Kal-El has his full powers or a red sun, meaning he is just a normal human?
4. Does the fertile soil on your world allow you to grow the money on trees, or do you plant seeds in the ground?
5. Is the speed of light 299,792 km/s in your dimension?

Claire Trevett reports:

Turmoil is continuing within the Labour Party as it heads toward Sunday’s contentious candidate selection in Manurewa with current MP George Hawkins threatening to resign and force a byelection if the party selects a candidate he dislikes.

The party will select its new candidate to replace the retiring George Hawkins on Sunday and Mr Hawkins is understood to have told Labour leader Phil Goff he would force a byelection or publicly criticise the party if candidate Jerome Mika was selected.

George should not rule out both!

While the EPMU supports Mr Mika, the Service Workers Union, the Maritime Union and Amalgamated Workers Union support Louisa Wall. If the two sides can not agree on either candidate, they could choose a third person as a compromise rather than take a majority vote.

This is Labour Party democracy in action.

The three unions are also supporting List MP Phil Twyford in Te Atatu, which will have its selection a week later. Mr Twyford’s chances could be hurt if Mr Mika is selected for Manurewa because of calls for more female candidates in Auckland.

I suspect it will be fourth time lucky.

Things must be quite fragile in Labour at the moment, as Phil Goff has yet to announce the further rejuvenation reshuffle that was expected. When he did reshuffle due to perks abuse, the Herald reported:

Labour leader Phil Goff said there would be further changes ahead of next year’s general election.

You generally avoid reshuffles in election year. I wonder if Goff has backed off a reshuffle, as he can’t afford to upset any of his caucus at the moment?

A reader has sent in these photos he took while in Zimbabwe (helping provide a water well to a community).

I can’t quite see the campaign catching on in New Zealand. Having said that it seems it is effective:

The results showed that circumcision reduced vaginal-to-penile transmission of HIV by 60%, 53%, and 51%, respectively. A meta-analysis of the African randomised controlled trials found that the risk in circumcised males was 0.44 times that in uncircumcised males, and reported that 72 circumcisions would need to be performed to prevent one HIV infection.

Another sign unlikely to be seen in New Zealand!

Mark Solomon, the Kaiwhakahaere (Chair) of Ngai Tahu has sent in a response to my blog post of 1 December.

I over-stated things in that blog post when I said the Court of Appeal has determined the test for customary title to be exclusive use and occupation. A number of commenters and bloggers pointed this out, and I was planning to do a clarifying post. Mark Solomon’s response does that for me. His response:

Tēnā koe David

I read with interest your comments on the 1^st December Herald coverage of the Ngāi Tahu submission to the Māori Affairs Select Committee, posted on Kiwiblog on the same day, and would like to offer alternative perspectives on a couple of the points you made.

You suggested “The test required for customary title is not designed by politicians – it is the test that the Court of Appeal said was required under the law”.  This is not my understanding of the 2003 Court of Appeal decision in the Ngāti Apa case.  That decision dealt with a preliminary issue as to whether the Māori Land Court had jurisdiction to hear claims of continuing customary title in respect of foreshore and seabed.  The Court’s deliberations focused on two main issues: whether foreshore and seabed was “land” for the purposes of Te Ture Whenua Māori (the Māori Land Act) and whether any historical Acts of Parliament or other legal principles had effected a blanket extinguishment of customary title to foreshore and seabed.  The Court answered the first of these questions ‘yes’ and the second ‘no’.

While the Court went on to speculate as to the difficulties iwi and hapū might have in establishing customary title, it made it clear that only factual enquiries by the Māori Land Court in relation to specific areas of foreshore and seabed could resolve the matter.  The only statutory test that the Court could apply to such enquiries was whether the land in question was held by iwi/hapū “in accordance with tikanga Māori” (s129(2)(a) Te Ture Whenua Māori).  Had such enquiries been allowed to occur, case law would no doubt have developed in relation to the application of that test, but the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 (and the current Bill, if it becomes law), effectively barred the development of such case law, in favour of tests prescribed by Parliament.

The Ngāi Tahu position – that tests for customary title should be based on tikanga Māori (and not include concepts foreign to that tikanga, such as exclusion) – is therefore consistent with the legal position prior to the 2004 Act.  It is also consistent with the general principle of the common law that the customary rights of indigenous peoples should be determined in accordance with the customs and norms of those peoples.

I was also concerned by your suggestion that Ngāi Tahu’s withdrawal of support for the Bill (unless the tests it contains are substantially amended) is inconsistent with earlier support for the developing Crown Policy that I expressed as Chair of the Iwi Leaders’ Group.   After meeting with the Prime Minister, Attorney-General and other senior Ministers immediately prior to final Cabinet decisions on the Crown policy in mid-June, the Iwi Leaders’ Group was encouraged that the Government was moving in the right direction.  In the wake of that meeting, we issued a media release in which Tukoroirangi Morgan said “We have reached agreements on important matters of principle, that provide a strong foundation for further work,” and I recorded “We still need to see further detail before being able to report back to our people, and make a final determination on the proposal.”

Sadly, when we saw the detail of the Bill (several weeks later), Ngāi Tahu was unable to continue to support the Crown proposal.

I trust that this has clarified matters. I would be happy for you to post this letter in full on Kiwiblog.

Ngā mihi

Mark Solomon
Kaiwhakahaere
Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu

It’s great to get a response focusing on the policy issues around the proposed law, and I stand corrected on the Court of Appeal decision.

At times I wonder whether the easier thing to do would be to simply repeal the Foreshore & Seabed Act, and not replace it with anything – ie let Iwi have their day in court. That would run the risk of Iwi gaining fee simple title, and I also note that the Ministerial Review Group recommended against it stating:

Such a process is likely to be protracted, laborious and expensive and could result in an unmanageable patchwork of litigation. We do not see that having rights in the foreshore and seabed decided by the Common Law rules of Native or Aboriginal or customary Title or by the precedents and approaches of the Maori Land Court would facilitate our overall goal of seeking a reconciliation between competing approaches to the foreshore and seabed.

I do wonder if a reconciliation is possible? The Coastal Coalition claims that the proposed replacement law gives Iwi too much in terms of access to resources. Some Iwi are saying the barrier for proving customary title has been set too high. Is a reconciliation of those positions possible?

As far as I can see, there are four potential outcomes:

1. The Maori Party remain supportive of the new law as an improvement on the old law, and it passes pretty much in its current form.
2. The proposed law is changed to take account of concerns from Coastal Coalition. Impossible to imagine the Maori Party would remain supportive of such a law, which means it won’t pass.
3. The proposed law is changed to make it easier for Iwi to claim customary title. My understanding is that the Government is 1000% immovable on this issue, and has communicated that at every opportunity.
4. The proposed law is dropped, and the Foreshore & Seabed Act remains in force.

No 2 and No 3 are both highly highly unlikely in my opinion. No 2 is a suicide note for the Maori Party and No 3 could be a suicide note for National.

So in reality it may be a binary choice between No 1 and No 4.

Most of the Internet runs on IPv4. IANA dishes out blocks of IP addresses in /8s, and has 255 of them to allocate. Each /8 is around 16.5m addresses.

IANA now has unallocated only 7/255 blocks.

It is projected that IANA will hand out the final /8 in March 2011. IANA allocates them to regional internet registries and it is projected they will run out of addresses to allocate in December 2011. Just one year away.

After that date IPv4 addresses will still be available, but only through conservation measures, recycling space not used etc. There will be a real squeeze on.

This is why you need to start thinking about having your businesses and sites available on IPv6 also. There is a handy IPv6 site here.

Over the next decade or so the whole world will have to migrate to IPv6, and at some stage it will become the default numbering system. The good thing is there are 2^128 IPv6 addresses which is around 1 billion numbers per gram of earth.

The Herald reports:

The head of the police watchdog body is again calling for a rethink on pursuit policy after two more deaths from high-speed smashes.

Justice Lowell Goddard, QC, who chairs the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA), said threats to public safety were important enough to merit an ongoing review of pursuit policy.

Police Commissioner Howard Broad said this year that the policy needed only minor tweaking.

There have been 2057 pursuits so far this year and 18 people have died – including two in less than 24 hours at the weekend.

So 99% of those pursued are safely captured, and 1% are not. I’m very hesitant about a policy change that means those 2,000 who are pursued, now get away with their crimes.

My personal suggestion to stop dangerous pursuits, is that fleeing Police in a vehicle carry an automatic prison term. This means that there is a reduced incentive to flee – you go from the possibility of prison to the certainty of prison if you do.

Police Association president Greg O’Connor called for cars to be crushed and the maximum fine available – $10,000 – to be handed out to those who fled police.

That’s the problem – the consequences of fleeing are not serious enough.

The Herald editorial wants a change:

But unfortunately, those few instances have led to 16 deaths this year, almost three times the previous worst annual figure for police chases. This can be no random occurrence. How many fatalities will it take, including, perhaps, those of innocent bystanders, before the minister acknowledges a change of policy is required?

The fault with those deaths lies with the criminals, not the Minister.

That conclusion is supported by figures released to the Herald under the Official Information Act. They show that before last weekend’s two chase fatalities, the pursuits that led to 14 deaths this year were sparked by minor offences, not serious crimes.

What criminal acts are involved are not always known at the time. But also if people are fleeing for minor infringements, then that suggests the penalties are too low again for doing so. We need a simple clear policy – if you flee the police you will go to prison – even if just for a week.

In other instances, the reasons for pursuit was given as the manner of driving, suspected drink-driving and speed. It is reasonable to ask whether pursuits should be mounted only when more serious crimes have been committed.

I disagree. If someone pulls away from a drink driving checkpoint, then they are probably pissed as a newt and a major danger to other drivers. The Police will be damned for not pursuing him or her, if they get away and still kill someone.

We have stats on the number of police pursuits and the number of fatalities.  What I haven’t seen is any stats on what % of pursuits are already being abandoned by the Police, as the offender is driving too dangerously or quickly etc.

InternetNZ announces:

The National Library of New Zealand (NLNZ), Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA) and InternetNZ (Internet New Zealand Inc) are honouring the memory of internet pioneer and commentator Paul Reynolds with a scholarship for international study.

Paul Reynolds, who died suddenly this year at the age of 60, had an extensive public profile as an internet and media commentator. He made significant contributions to the government’s Digital Strategy and Digital Content Strategy and shortly before his death he completed his term as the adjunct director of the NLNZ’s National Digital Library.

“Paul loved libraries and museums and digital access to them was at the heart of how he thought and worked,” said Penny Carnaby, Chief Executive of the National Library.

“Paul saw access to our heritage as a basic human right but he also saw digital as capturing the pulse of the nation in the present. Paul was always a man on a mission and we are fortunate that his mission in life crossed into our world,” Penny Carnaby said.

“The term ‘numpty’ was a popular Scottish word that Paul was fond of using and reflected his playful but non-compromising approach to life. This scholarship is in memory of Paul Séamus Reynolds, inspirational, enthusiastic and a digital world citizen.”

The scholarship, to be awarded every two years over the next decade, is intended to be used to enhance the knowledge and development of those working in the New Zealand Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums (GLAM) sector. Applications will be called for in February 2011 for the first award.

The scholarship, worth a minimum of $5000, will enable the successful applicant to research or develop specialist digital knowledge or experience at an overseas institution and is restricted to those currently working in the digital space of the New Zealand GLAM sector. It will be administered by LIANZA on behalf of the wider sector. …

Friends of Paul Reynolds will have an opportunity to contribute to the fund.

More information can be found on the LIANZA website:
www.lianza.org.nz/Paul_Reynolds_Scholarship

Very pleased to see this award in memory of Paul. He was one of the great thinkers of the digital age.

A reader has pointed out to me the unusual political journey of Curwen Rolinson. Curwen just last year was the Auckland Chairman of RAM – the socialist party to the left of the Alliance. And he stood for them in the 2008 election.

Now in 2010 he is on the board of NZ First, and heads up their Young NZ First section.

Now I think it is good that NZ First has a dedicated section for their members aged under 80.

But I do wonder how one goes from a party that “has a very strong policy of anti-racism and particularly of supporting Muslim migrants to integrate into New Zealand society” to supporting the Winston First party.

Next I guess we’ll see the President of Act on Campus dating the local chair of Young Labour – oh wait a second ….

Bill English and Pita Sharples have announced:

The Government will conduct a wide-ranging review of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English and Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples announced today.

“This is the start of what will be a considered process over the next three years,” Mr English says.

“The review is deliberately wide-ranging and will include matters such as the size of Parliament, the length of the electoral term, Maori representation, the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and whether New Zealand needs a written constitution.

“New Zealand has a long history of incremental constitutional change and we are keen to stimulate debate on these matters, hear the public’s views and consider whether any aspects require change.

I’m delighted these issues are being examined together, rather than piece-meal. It is long over-due.

“Of course, we will keep in mind that enduring constitutional changes generally require a broad base of support. Significant change will not be undertaken lightly and will require either broad cross-party agreement or the majority support of voters at a referendum,” Mr English says.

This is vitally important. Decisions on the constitution should not be made by narrow partisan majority in Parliament.

Mr English and Dr Sharples will lead the review in consultation with a cross-party reference group of MPs. They will write to all party leaders in the next few days and ask them to nominate a representative for the cross party reference group.

It will be very interesting to see whom the parties choose. My guess for the Greens is Metiria or Kennedy Graham. Labour is probably Parker or Dalziel.

An advisory panel will support the ministers, who will make a final report to Cabinet by the end of 2013. The Government will respond within six months.

As well as an advisory panel, there should be plenty of public seminars and workshops. Also formal consultation issues and options papers.

The ministers’ first report to Cabinet – expected by June 2011 – will seek agreement on the makeup of the advisory panel, a plan for public engagement and how the review will interact with other government projects with a constitutional dimension – such as the referendum on MMP.

Sounds good.

Electoral matters including:

• The size of Parliament.
• The length of terms of Parliament and whether or not the term should be fixed.
• The size and number of electorates, including the method for calculating size.
• Electoral integrity legislation.

Crown-Maori relationship matters including:

• Maori representation including the Maori Electoral Option, Maori electoral participation and Maori seats in Parliament and local government.
• The role of the Treaty of Waitangi within New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements.

Other constitutional matters

• Whether New Zealand should have a written constitution.
• Bill of Rights issues

Very pleased to see the size and term of Parliament included. I support a fixed four year term. The electorate size variation is also an issue. Not sure what electoral integrity legislation means though – presumably giving parties the ability to sack MPs from Parliament (which I do not support).

The role of Treaty has to be part of any discussion. My view is that it is a very important aspirational document such as the US Declaration of Independence and it can not be incorporated into a written constitution because there is no process to democratically update or amend it. Constitutions have to be amendable.

The issue of the Maori seats will be interesting also. I actually think that Maori would be better served by adopting the Royal Commission’s recommendations on the Maori seats and threshold for list votes – it would make it more likely you would have multiple Maori parties in Parliament.

Also very keen to engage on the issue of a written constitution.

Somewhat ridiculously the issue of the head of state is not included explicitly but the cabinet paper notes this “may” arise as an issue. It will inevitably arise during discussions of a written constitution as powers of the head of state will form part of that.

The full cabinet paper is here.

I don’t think the teacher unions realise how easy they have it in NZ. The very modest policy of national standards they are trying to beat up into something big.

Compare that to this story from the Daily Mail:

Under-performing teachers will no longer be guaranteed a job for life in Coalition plans to overhaul the education system.

The Education Secretary has promised to make it easier to weed out weak teachers who see the career as an easy option, as he looks to restore the status of the profession.

And mediocre candidates will be prevented from even entering the classroom under Michael Gove’s radical reforms.

Mr Gove said applicants would no longer be funded by the Government to train as teachers unless their degrees were graded 2:2 or better. He also planned to introduce tests of ‘aptitude, personality and resilience’ to assess the suitability of applicants before they embarked on teaching courses.

Tests in the three Rs that all teacher trainees must pass will also be toughened up. They will be taken at the start, rather than the end, of their courses and trainees will not be allowed multiple resits. …

To ensure schools retain the best teachers, heads will be given powers to reward top-performing staff with higher salaries.

But the sweeping proposals provoked a furious response from teaching unions. The NASUWT said Mr Gove’s proposals amounted to a ‘vicious assault’ on teachers and a ‘disgraceful denigration’ of their performance.

Wouldn’t they make good policies for a second term?

Kate Chapman in the Dom Post reports:

A family whose company was making more than $700,000 a year used loopholes in the Working for Families tax credit system to claim $12,000 in government payouts.

Revenue Minister Peter Dunne revealed details yesterday of the lengths some well-off people went to to get the tax credits after he announced the Government was looking to tighten up access to the entitlement.

Mr Dunne said one family, whose trust-owned company made more than $700,000 a year in taxable income, were able to claim $12,000 a year in Working for Families tax credits.

In another case, investments were listed under children’s names. While the parents were shown to earn $36,000 annually, and therefore qualified for $13,000 in tax credits, their children had a combined investment income of nearly $90,000 a year.

“Another family’s children earned over $150,000 a year in investment income, yet that family was still able to claim more than $4000 in Working for Families tax credits,” Mr Dunne told Parliament.

Thank goodness that Labour’s loopholes are being plugged.

Under proposed new rules the definition of income for Working for Families, student allowances and Community Services Cards would be broadened and loopholes around loss-attributing qualifying companies, or LAQCs, closed to prevent people claiming losses against their personal income.

The changes were expected to save $32 million a year in Working for Families payouts alone.

That’s a lot of rorting.

Labour leader Phil Goff said he supported any changes that would prevent people rorting the Working for Families scheme, but he wanted to see more detail. “It’s important to clamp down on those who may be abusing the system.”

If it was important to clamp down, why didn’t Labour do it? Very easy to talk the talk in opposition, but did they walk the walk in Government?

Julian Assange has been arrested in the UK and being held without bail awaiting extradition to Sweden.

My take on Assange and Wikileaks:

1. The rape and molestation charges are quite clearly bogus. There is significant proof that his sexual relations with the complainants was completely consensual. They are just angry that he was sleeping around. That is pretty scummy behaviour on his part but far from illegal.
2. Like most, my initial instinct was to wonder how the NSA had managed to get rape charges laid against Assange. But I don’t think one can point the finger at the US Govt. At least one of the complainants is a left-wing politician, who is a most unlikely front for the US military-industrial complex. Her motivations seem personal, not political. She has actually written before about getting revenge on people etc.
3. Wikileaks in its early days exposed significant wrong doing in multiple countries and was a force for good.
4. It seems to have become obsessed with the United States, and has somewhat lost the plot.
5. Exposing the footage of civilian killings in Iraq is arguably justifiable, but publishing tens of thousands of diplomatic cables is not. Revealing what Kevin Rudd said to Hillary Clinton on China could have a disastrous impact on stability in the region.
6. The nature of the Internet means that Wikileaks will not be closed down. It has hundreds of mirrors.
7. However it is entirely predictable that companies such as Amazon, Paypal will choose not to provides services to Wikileaks. They have every right to decide not to do so based on their disapproval of what Wikileaks does. Actions have consequences and Wikileaks is no different.

The Herald reports:

The retirement eligibility age should be increased from 65 to 67 by 2033, a review recommended yesterday – but Prime Minister John Key said there would be no change on his watch.

Retirement Commissioner Diana Crossan believes the age should start to increase from 2020 by two months a year until 2033, when it would reach 67.

I agree entirely. One could also do it starting in 2024 and increasing by three months a year.

Mrs Crossan also proposed changing the formula used to calculate the annual increase in superannuation.

It is now set as a percentage of the average annual wage.

But Mrs Crossan said that from 2020, the rate adjustment should be based on the mid-point between the increase in the consumer price index and the average weekly earnings.

She said the changes were essential to preserve New Zealand Superannuation for the next generation.

The Commissioner is very brave, and correct, in recommending this. National Super is unaffordable in the long-term indexed to the average wage.

All other benefits are CPI adjusted only.

The compromise of having the increase be halfway between the CPI increase and the average wage increase is excellent. It means that in real terms national super will still grow pretty much every year, but that it will become more sustainable.

NZ has the most generous public superannuation scheme in the world. Those currently retired and soon to retire should continue to get it. But those retiring after 2025 (my preferred date) should be on a new scheme along the lines outlined by the Commissioner.

No Right Turn has breathlessly labeled as corruption the Government’s announcement of the first ultra-fast broadband contracts.

Why? He blogged:

So, what does this look like by electorates? UFB will be rolled out to:

• Whangarei, held by National’s Phil Heatley, with a majority of 14,663;
• Hamilton East, held by National’s David Bennett with a majority of 8,820;
• Hamilton West, held by National’s Tim Macindoe, with a majority of 1,618;
• Taupo, held by National’s Louise Upston, with a majority of 6,445;
• Taranaki-King Country, held by National’s Shane Ardern, with a majority of 15,618;
• Tauranga, held by National’s Simon Bridges, with a majority of 11,742;
• New Plymouth, held by National’s Jonathan Young, with a majority of 105;
• Whanganui, held by National’s Chester Borrows, with a majority of 6,333.

So, the first thing to note is that only National-held electorates get broadband; those with Labour MPs need not apply (sorry, you voted for the wrong person and so must be punished). The second thing to note is the targeting of marginal seats New Plymouth and Hamilton West. It’d be interesting if someone who knew about IT policy used the OIA to delve into National’s rollout decision, but from here it looks like pure pork-barrel politics. And I don’t like it one bit.

Idiot/Savant is like the boy who cries wolf. He slanders so many people as corrupt, that it becomes a meaningless label. Basically it just all comes over as hysterical rants.

His idiocy was picked up and blogged by Clare Curran, but even Clare worked out what weak ground he and she were on, and later did updates backing away “before David Farrar at Kiwiblog has a go”.

I will indeed have a go at such gross stupidity, and even worse effectively slander. Where do I start.

1. National holds every single seat outside the four main cities (which due to their size are more complex decisions) except for Palmerston North. So I guess the first contracts should have gone to Tasmania, to stop them including National held seats.
2. Six of the eight seats listed are very safe seats with majorities over 5,000
3. This is not a case of some areas getting funding, and some not getting funding. All medium to large urban areas will be getting fibre to the home. This is purely an announcement of the first two contracts. Other contracts will be announced in the near future – the difference between being announced first and second is absolutely minimal.
4. Ever heard of MMP?

Clare initially blogged:

Steven Joyce is a crafty fellow. But even he will overplay his hand one of these days.

Then later as she realised every non metro seat bar Palmie is national held:

Oh and before David Farrar at Kiwiblog has a go and points out that Labour holds only Palmerston North of the general electorates outside the metropolitan centres, that’s true. But it would have been smart for the government to think about this. Instead it doesn’t look so good.

So Steven in the one blog post goes from the too crafty manipulator of funding to National seats to being not very smart for not thinking about the look. He can’t win can he!

Frankly I am sure Steven didn’t spend one second thinking about electorate boundaries with the contracts, and am personally very pleased with that.

Oh and here’s one for the conspiracy nutters. 25% of NZers will not be covered by the UFB initiative. And pretty much 100% of them live in National held seats. So 100% of people in Labour seats will get UFB and only around 65% of people in National sears. Yes, obviously pork barrel politics.

Oxfam have a way to give a great present this Xmas – a piglet, a duck, a lamb, a goat, coffee beans etc for someone living in poverty overseas. They explain:

Oxfam Unwrapped: This Christmas, change the present and change a future

The holiday season is approaching and it’s looking suspiciously similar to last year…and the year before that. You’re wondering again what to get for that special someone, but coming up empty.

Fear not. Oxfam Unwrapped is here, ready to help you change the present and change a future.

Here’s how it works: you choose a present from the Oxfam Unwrapped catalogue, you get a card to give to your friend, and the gift goes to people in the developing world who need it most.

In the past five years, Oxfam Unwrapped has raised nearly $3.5 million to help people achieve their fundamental human rights and work their way out of poverty. The impact is massive. Toilets have been built, gardens have been planted, clean water systems have put an end to hours of walking to collect dirty water, livestock has multiplied, farmers have gained organic certification, trees have been planted and small businesses have started up.

There is a great mix of new gifts and old favourites this year. Feeling that animal attraction? A Piglet for $40 is a very sty-lish present! Plus there are Ducks for $18, Lambs for $40 and the perennial favourite, the Oxfam Goat for $47. These furred and feathered creatures not only make cute gifts, they provide food, fertiliser and income for a family.

For foodies there are several gifts you can really get your teeth into like Organic Bananas for $10, Chillies for $15 and an environmentally-friendly Cooking Stove for $30. Or for a veggie-patch enthusiast, it’s easy to go green with Honey Bees for $35 or a gift to Feed a Family with a Nutritional Garden for just $20. Along with training in gardening techniques, these gifts help families create a reliable food source and become more self-sufficient.

If your friends and family like to get back to basics, how about giving Safe Water for 100 People, 20 Bars of Hand Soap, or a Toilet? It’s the season of giving, and what better thing to do than help a community take those first vital steps out of poverty?

There are nearly 50 future-changing gifts to choose from. Prices start from just $9 so there are no more excuses for giving novelty socks or bubble bath!
Oxfam Unwrapped gifts can be purchased online or by free phone 0800 600 700. Simply check out the website www.oxfamunwrapped.org.nz to find out more.
With an Oxfam Unwrapped gift you really can change the world, one present at a time.

A nice way to get into the true spirit of Christmas.

Steven Joyce has announced:

The cities of Hamilton, Tauranga, Whangarei, New Plymouth and Wanganui will be among the first to benefit from the government’s rollout of ultra-fast broadband (UFB), says the Minister for Communications and Information Technology Steven Joyce.

Crown Fibre Holdings has concluded negotiations with two partner companies, following shareholding ministers’ approval of the deals over the weekend.

The partners are:

• Northpower Limited
• and Ultra Fast Fibre Limited, owned by WEL Networks,

The new companies will rollout fibre in Whangarei, Hamilton, Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Tauranga, New Plymouth, Wanganui, Hawera and Tokoroa.

Northpower will commence its roll out in Whangarei before Christmas with Ultra Fast Fibre expected to begin laying fibre early in 2011.  Both companies will have completed their rollouts by 2015.

These joint ventures represent nearly 16 per cent of UFB premises and a combined value of more than $200 million.

This is excellent news. It shows the regional approach has worked, in preference to one nation-wide contract.good to see there will be some fibre laid before the end of the year.

There was some suspicion that Northpower and WEL would not end up with the contracts, despite being announced as preferred bidders. People speculated that Telecom might grab it away from them in a negotiation for a nation-wide contract.

So good to see there will be some fibre laid by the end of the year.

CFH will shortly announce a list of parties with whom it will next elect to negotiate with in the remaining 25 UFB regions.

All eyes are on this.

My view is that Telecom/Chorus will be successful if their price is the same or close to the Regional Fibre Group – say within a couple of hundred million. There are long-term benefits to getting Telecom to structurally separate, and having Chorus as a stand alone infrastructure company.

But it is possible the Regional Fibre Group will have undercut Telecom. They have certain cost advantages such as current ducts and poles and resource consents. Over 70% of the cost of fibre is digging up the road, and the less of that you have to do, the cheaper you do it.

In an ideal world I’d have Telecom sell Chorus to the Regional Fibre Group – then you’d have an integrated infrastructure provider. However I’m not sure Vector and co could afford to buy it!

We have our own version of the Iran/Iraq war occurring in New Zealand. The PPTA has launched a jihad against the NZEI for the terrible sin of settling their pay negotiations.

In the Dom Post this morning, secondary school teacher Jo Mells says it is time for the NZEI to stop free-loading and attacks their pay settlement.

But even more extraordinary is this video of the PPTA President, Kate Gainsford. At 6:40 she talks of betrayal by the NZEI Executive and at 7:05 calls on primary teachers to reject the settlement their Executive has recommended.

The Law Commission has published its review of the Civil List Act 1979, which sets out MPs salaries and expenses. They recommend:

• Travel, accommodation, attendance and communications services for members of Parliament and members of the Executive should be determined by an independent body – an enhanced Remuneration Authority which includes a former MP and a person with appropriate skills and
  experience in the administration of Parliament
• The RA should also determine entitlements to funding and services to support parties’ and members’ parliamentary operations
• The Official Information Act 1982 should be extended to cover information held
  by the Speaker in his role with ministerial responsibilities for Parliamentary
  Service and the Office of the Clerk; the Parliamentary Service; the Parliamentary
  Service Commission; and the Office of the Clerk in its departmental holdings
• The OIA should not apply to information held by members in their capacity as members of Parliament, information relating to the development of parliamentary party policies,  and party organisational material, including media advice and polling information.
• Unauthorised absences of greater than nine days should result in 0.2% of annual salary being deducted a day. That is around $250 a day, up from $10.

Overall this looks very good. I’ve long supported the OIA applying to the financial aspects of Parliamentary Service, but have not supported full inclusion, where someone like me (for example) could send in an OIA asking for all e-mails between Phil Goff and his press secretaries. No parliamentary party could operate with its internal e-mails being made available to the media and other parties.

So I think the Law Commission have done a good job on the OIA side, as their proposals hopefully stand a good chance of being adopted.

The handing over of perks, expenses and parliamentary party funding to an independent body is also an idea whose time has come. Having a former MP and someone with parliamentary administration experience on the Remuneration Authority should mean that its decisions will be made on practical experience, not textbook theory.

I hope the Government, and indeed all parties, support the report. There may be some fine-tuning to be done, but the principles look good to me.

UPDATE: Yay the PM has just announced that the Government has accepted in principle the recommendation to have MPs and Ministers expenses set by an independent body. By the end of this term of Parliament, things will be hugely more transparent and accountable compared to 2008 and before.

Phil Gaffe was on Breakfast this morning. In relation to him calling David Cunliffe,David Caygill he said:

I didn’t do what John Key did and say I’m going to be the leader of a Labour Government.

Priceless.

Indeed Phil Goff doesn’t say he is going to be the leader of a Labour Government. That will probably be Grant Robertson or Andrew Little.

Putting aside the gaffe at calling Cunliffe, Caygill, what did Goff actually say in his speech:

Labour introduced Working for Families but held off other tax cuts until they were needed in 2008 to counteract the impact of the global financial and economic downturn.

A wonderful rewriting of history. When Labour announced them, the global financial crisis had not hit. In fact Labour announced them on the basis of strong projections of economic growth which failed to transpire.

When National took office, they introduced further tax cuts – and 42 per cent of them went to the top 10% of income earners.

In other words, lower and middle income earners are paying a greater share of the total tax paid, and top earners are paying less.

Those who pay the most tax tend to get more when tax rates reduce. However on a percentage basis, the tax cuts have been pretty even.

The 2008 budget projected the top 5% of taxpayers (those earning $100,000+) would pay 29% of all income tax. And hey in the 2010 budget that same 5% earning over $100,000 are still paying 29% of all income tax.

Middle income earners need someone on their side.

They don’t want grand plans and they’re not interested in entitlement.

So is Labour going to scrap working for families?

Labour’s finance spokesperson, David Cunliffe gave an important speech about this two weeks ago.

He announced Labour will pay down net debt including crown financial assets over the business cycle.

This is a strong contrast to National. They have squandered billions on the very top earners, and haven’t cracked down on tax avoidance.

Umm it was Labour that let the property market bust over with the tax incentives around residential property, and National that closed the depreciation loophole.

Treasury has costed their spending on subsidising polluters under the Emissions Trading Scheme at $110 billion.

A 50 year projection is about as useful as a compass at the north pole.

And they are cutting high priority areas like early childhood education that damages the future education and employment success of disadvantaged Kiwi kids.

Actually ECE expenditure is up by hundreds of millions.

Overall, our fiscal stance is more responsible.

Therefore it comes with strict limits on new spending.

Any major new social spending will have to create jobs, help to ease the cost of living for families or ensure that children are getting off to a great start in life.

I’d love to believe that Labour is committed to fiscal discipline, but consider that they have opposed basically 100% of spending freezes and cuts done by National. I just don’t believe it for a second.

And the three criteria above could be used to justify anything.

That’s why the wage gap with Australia has widened – the average wage earner in New Zealand is $50 a week worse off than the average wage earner in Australia since National was elected.

Actually NZ wage earners are now better off – Goff is comparing before tax earnings, rather than the actual money workers get after tax. It is a typical Labour approach – on paper you are worse off, even though in the real world you have more money.

We won’t be using power company dividends as a surrogate for taxation.

Bullshit. You took in massive dividends from them at a time when you had massively high surpluses. To claim that at a time of now massively high deficits you would refuse dividends is not credible.

But we won’t be going into the next election promising to tax and spend.

That is exactly what they will be doing. They will target the 5% who are already paying 29% of all tax, to pay more, so they can spend more.

The book “Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand”, by former Clerk of the House David McGee is now available for free on the parliament website.

I recall purchasing the first edition of it in 1983 when I was in Form 5/Year 11!

The PM has introduced an SIS Amendment Bill to the House. I’ll turn to the substance in a second, but first a matter of process. Some of the usual idiots are complaining that any submissions on the bill will be heard in private.

It is actually against the law to hear the submissions publicly – unless there s unanimous consent by members of the committee. I quote s12(2) of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act 1996:

The proceedings of the Committee shall be held in private unless the Committee by unanimous resolution resolves otherwise.

The substance of the changes are:

• clarify that the warrant framework does cover the use of electronic tracking devices:
• provide a clear framework for facilities to be the subject of surveillance (such as telephone numbers or IP addresses).
• authorities provided to the NZSIS also require clarification in the area of computer-based
• clarify protections in the Act for persons acting in accordance with a warrant:

They have also published a regulatory impact statement.

The Pigeon blogs:

John Key returned to New Zealand from a diplomatic conference last night, to find the country was a complete shambles. Sources claim the Prime Minister was extremely disappointed and very angry at the nation for not cleaning up the mess we made while he was away, because even though we don’t mind living in a pigsty, he doesn’t expect to come home from a hard day at work to find the country in utter chaos.

“I work and I work and I work so that we can live in a nice country and have good food everyday and when I come home, I just want to put my feet up and watch my programme for once,” Key said, clearly frustrated, “but I guess that’s just too much to fucking ask.” …

The Prime Minister’s emotions reached boiling point however, after spotting Hamilton out of the corner of his eye.

“OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!” he bellowed suddenly, adding “Who did this?” while pointing at the city. “I want to know NOW, who did this?”

“I’m not kidding around here, who is responsible for this atrocious pile of crap?” the Prime Minister raged on as he grabbed the nearest Air New Zealand shares and dashed them to pieces on the floor.

“Now look what you made me do. Are you happy now?”

At press time John Key had reportedly locked himself in his room, leaving the clearly shaken remainder of the country to sombrely reflect what a disappointment we all were to him.

Not bad.