Kiwiblog

Not so much blogging today, as flying to Noumea, New Caledonia. I’m a guest speaker at a Pacific Internet Governance Forum there on Saturday and Sunday. One of the relatively few Pacific countries I have not visited, so am looking forward to being there, even if relatively briefly. There are not flights back every day, so don’t return until Tuesday.

Tracy Watkins at the Dom Post reports:

Public broadcasting channel TVNZ 7 is to be wound up after just three years.

The commercial-free channel has cultivated a niche audience since its inception but Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman confirmed yesterday its funding would not be extended beyond next year after it failed to live up to expectations that it would support itself over time.

This is not some spin made up by National. Here is what then Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey said in 2006:

The government will support TVNZ’s proposal to move into the digital era with funding of $79 million over the next six years, Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey announced today.

“The government is backing TVNZ’s plans to strengthen its public broadcast offering as it makes the transition to free-to-air digital,” Steve Maharey said. …

Funding for TVNZ’s digital content proposal will be released to TVNZ over the next six years, with the intention that the services become self-sustaining over time.

So Labour never promised to sustain taxpayer funding of TVNZ7. The funding was for a transitional period, and the sad reality is that the viewing numbers for TVNZ7 were miniscule.

I’m personally a big fan of some of the shows on TVNZ7. I think Media 7 and Court Report are important shows, as they are about scrutinising the actions of powerful institutions. Likewise Backbenchers plays an important role in having MPs actually debate issues of the week with each other. I think NZ will be the poorer, if these shows disappear.

However that doesn’t mean that a dedicated TVNZ7 channel was the best way to have shows like that on TV. I believe that the value associated with channels is rapidly declining in a Tivo and My Sky world. I record programmes I want to watch – I don’t view channels anymore. I record content from One, Two, TV3, C4, Comedy Central, TVNZ7, Stratos, History Channel etc. Half the time I don’t even have any idea what channel something has played on. And the future will be more and more people like me – choosing content not channels.

So for me, the challenge is how to keeps non-commercial shows like Court Report, Media 7 etc on the airwaves, without TVNZ7. In my mind, there are two ways forward:

1. As previously advocated, set up a unified public broadcaster like the BBC or ABC. Sell of TVNZ to generate the capital for the “NZBC” and use the current operational funding for Radio NZ, Maori TV and NZ on Air for ongoing costs.
2. Have TVNZ apply to NZ on Air to fund the shows from their contestable fund. I would hope that the shows would have a reasonable chance of success. In an ideal world it would be nice to be able to increase funding for NZ on Air, but that is unrealistic in the next few years. We just have to get back into surplus first.

New Botany MP Jami-Lee Ross gave an excellent and principled maiden speech to the House yesterday. Some parts I especially liked:

I didn’t have an easy start to life. It is a common misconception that National MPs were all born with a silver spoon in their mouth. That certainly did not occur in my case. My mother was young when she had me, and my father was nothing more than a faceless name that never stepped up to life’s responsibilities. Having just finished raising three girls on her own, my grandmother decided that it was her job to give her young grandson the best up bringing she could possibly provide. She raised me in our small flat in South Auckland, where we lived from week to week as she looked after her own frail mother at the same time. But my grandmother is the reason I didn’t become a statistic. In the most public way I could possibly say this, thank you Nana for the love you showed me, and for giving me the best start to life that I could possibly have asked for. May every child born into difficult circumstances in this country, be as lucky as I have been.

A lovely tribute.

Mr Speaker, I am a staunch believer in limited government. I believe government’s intervention in the lives of New Zealanders must be minimal and only when necessary. I believe the state should provide help to those in need, but on the basis of need, not desire. I believe that government must protect the private and personal security of citizens from foreign or domestic attack. I believe the state should provide access to essential services, like health and education, when the private sector is unable to provide these services profitably. And above all else, we should instil in the nation a culture of personal responsibility and self-sufficiency.

Hear hear.

It has been my observation during my time as a city councillor that as politicians we have a natural tendency to want to legislate, a natural tendency to want to throw funding at an issue, or to regulate, often in a way that limits the freedoms of everyday New Zealanders. I submit to the House that in making decisions, the principles of freedom and liberty must be overriding considerations in everything we do. In my view, one of the greatest observations of the 20th century came from Ronald Reagan during his first inaugural address. Speaking about the problems of decades of bloated bureaucracy, the problems of an over-reaching state, and the economic ills of a government that thought it could spend its way out of many of the troubles it encountered, he commented that government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.

Freedom, liberty and a Reagan quote. It could only get better with a Thatcher quote.

Governments shouldn’t be judged solely on how many laws they pass that, rightly or wrongly, increase the size of the state or further restrict our freedoms. Governments should also be judged on how many unnecessary statues and regulations they remove, further reducing restrictions and compliance regimes, and ridding the country of the shackles of socialism that have been built up over many decades gone past.

Socialism is a failed experiment. The socialist doctrine seeks to close the gap between rich and poor, a reasonable goal. But rather than doing so by incentivising wealth creation, socialism seeks to redistribute the limited resources of wealth creators by using the coercive power of the state. If tax and spend was all we had to do to achieve what we wanted, then every nation on earth would be a glowing utopia of human desire. Clearly, that is not the case.

Jami-Lee is so right, that t is a failed experiment.

If I may paraphrase Baroness Thatcher, the problem with this approach and the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money to spend. The problem with trying to spend your way towards closing the gap between rich and poor is that eventually we all collectively become poorer.

Yes, a Thatcher quote also. Superb.

Mr Speaker, as a new Member of Parliament, I join the ranks of members, past and present, proud to call themselves Maori. But whilst I am an individual of Maori descent, I do consider myself a New Zealander first and foremost. I have Ngati Porou blood running through my veins, but I can assure the House that I am a New Zealander who believes strongly in one standard of citizenship. …

It also means that I do not subscribe to the view that I, or any New Zealander of Maori descent, requires special seats to be elected to Parliament, to Councils, or any other body in this country. It is my hope that the people of New Zealand will be the given the opportunity, in the near future, to examine the role of Maori seats in Parliament by way of referendum.

As I blogged yesterday, Parliament has 21 (arguably 23) MPs of Maori descent now. This is proof that you don’t need the Maori seats to have Maori representation in Parliament.

Mr Speaker, I enter this House with a strong set of beliefs and ideals. I am a centre-right fiscal conservative – someone who believes in individual freedom, equality and the maintenance of law and order. Undoubtedly some of those ideals will be moulded and tempered over time to align with what is achievable. But whilst politics may be the art of the possible, politics without principle is nothing more than a naked power grab.

I want my constituents to have the right to exercise their free will to make the most of the time they have on this earth. I want our nation to be proud. I want our nation to be prosperous. I want every child born in New Zealand to be able to access quality schools and universities. I want every adult to seek to be a productive member of society where they do not have to rely on the state to prop them up. I want our nation to be a centre of brilliance, where achievement is rewarded and innovation and excellence can thrive, where we value and protect our personal freedoms, and where we celebrate every day all that is great about our New Zealand.

Mr Speaker, I am honoured to have been elected to the 49th Parliament. I come here to be what James Dilworth called “a good and useful citizen”. I am honoured to have been elected to serve the people of Botany, as their Member of Parliament. And serve I shall.

National is strengthened with the addition of Jami-Lee to its caucus. He’s off to a very good start.

The NZ Herald reports:

The New Zealand Press Association, which has supplied news to newspapers for more than 130 years, faces closure after one of its owners withdrew its support.

The Wellington-based news agency’s 40 staff heard last night that Fairfax Media had given notice of pulling out of a co-operative ownership agreement with APN, publisher of the Herald, and independent newspaper companies.

NZPA’s board announced a review of the agency’s future, and a final decision is expected in a month.

Fairfax’s decision has one almost inevitable consequence – NZPA will close after 132 years, and New Zealand will jave no national news agency, such as AAP in Australia and AP in the US.

Fairfax seem to have not only killed off NZPA, but also stopped their staff from reporting on it. The one story on the Stuff website, reads like a Fairfax advertorial about why this is a good thing etc. No outside comment at all.

Very different to TVNZ. Often TVNZ is itself the news, and the TVNZ news department reports on that pretty much as they do for any other agency. Where are the Fairfax stories about the criticisms of their decision?

I think the decision is a disaster for parliamentary reporting, and bad for the overall news industry.

NZPA are the one news agency in Parliament that cover every bill before the House. When other media are safely home in bed, there will be a NZPA reporter noting what time the House rose, and what bill was being debated at the time. Likewise on select committees, they are often the only news agency there (apart from the excellent Select Committee News, which is subscription only).

What I also liked about NZPA is they complement the other press gallery agencies. The other agencies naturally focus on stories which sell – which will make for good television, can run on a front page etc. But NZPA are not about “sexy” stories. They just faithfully produce concise factual and relevant stories about what happened – reporters in the old fashioned sense.  And not just about Parliament, also from the courts and elsewhere.

This is partly why NZPA was so liked and respected by MPs and staff. In my 2009 survey of MPs and press secretaries on the press gallery, NZPA was rated the top agency.

NZPA also used to act as a pool, where member newspapers would share content with each other. This ended in 2006 – again due to Fairfax. Karl du Fresne has an excellent blog post from Jan 2010 on this. He noted:

What this all boils down to is that we know a lot less about ourselves.

As Ellis put it in his thesis, the information flows that help New Zealanders build and maintain a collective picture of themselves have been impaired.

NZPA has survived, but only as a shadow of its former self. It’s ironic that this profound change has happened with little public awareness and even less debate, but reporting on itself has never been one of the newspaper industry’s strengths.

The other sad aspect of the announcement is 40 or so NZPA journalists look to lose their jobs. I know a fair few of them, and they are are excellent reporters. NZPA Political Editor Peter Wilson is a national treasure. Peter’s been there for decades, and his weekly column (only carried in provincial papers) is a first class analysis of what is happening.

In the near future, Fairfax and APN won’t have the cost of NZPA anymore. I hope they see that as an opportunity to hire more journalists themselves to cover the gap NZPA will leave, and enhance their ability to cover important stories, even if not front page stories.

Belinda McCammon at Stuff reports:

The husband of former National Party President Judy Kirk has been killed in a hunting accident on his Taupo farm this morning. …

Prime Minister John Key said he was “shocked and saddened” by Mr Kirk’s death.

“I have known Roger as long as I have known Judy, and counted him as a friend.

“Along with Judy, he was a good friend of the National Party. 

“I would like to express my deepest condolences to Roger’s family, friends and colleagues at this time.”

Roger Kirk’s step-daughter, Anna Kirk, is a councillor on the Taupo Council.

Taupo mayor, Rick Cooper, told Stuff he had spoken with Anna about her step-father’s death this afternoon.

”My heart goes out to Anna and Judy, she lost her dad last week as well so this is a double-whammy.

Words can’t express the depth and breadth of the sorrow of this tragic news. Roger was one of life’s wonderful people, and his death is a loss to everyone who knew him, but an absolute tragedy to his family.

There were lots of Nats at Parliament tonight, for Jami-Lee’s maiden speech, and everyone was stunned by Roger’s death.

My thoughts and love go out to Anna and Judy. We mourn their loss.

Wayne Mapp has announced:

The long-running saga of the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s 17 mothballed Skyhawks has come to an end, with nine of the jets being earmarked for museums, Defence Minister Wayne Mapp announced today.

A sad end to the proud strike wing of the RNZAF.

“The Government has made every effort to sell the Skyhawk fleet but no acceptable offers have been received. We will therefore offer eight of them to qualifying public museums in New Zealand and one to Australia, for heritage and display purposes,” he said.

I like John Key’s suggestion that we give Wills and Kate matching his and hers skyhawks. I reckon William would love it!

“Homes for four of the aircraft are already determined. Two aircraft (one single-seat and one two-seat) will go to the Air Force Museum of New Zealand at Wigram. Another will go to the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland. A fourth will go to the Royal Australian Navy Fleet Arm Museum at Nowra, Australia. This fulfils a longstanding agreement that we would give one of the ex-Australian Skyhawks back to them.

“Five more aircraft will be allocated on long-term loan to other qualifying aviation museums in New Zealand. This will ensure that New Zealanders across the country will be able to see the aircraft. Negotiations are under way with qualifying museums that have expressed interest.

I actually quite like the fact they will be in museums. I just don’t like the fact that we’ve paid millions of dollars keeping them in storgae for a decade, while trying to sell them.

Jami-Lee Ross does his maiden speech today, and I expxect Louisa Wall will be sworn in as an MP next week. What hasn’t been on is that this increases the number of Maori MPs by two (and sadly reduces the Ginga MPs by one). The House now has 21 23 MPs of Maori descent (have updated post to include two more MPs of Maori descent):

1. National
   Paula Bennett
2. Simon Bridges
3. Aaron Gilmore
4. Tau Henare
5. Hekia Parata
6. Paul Quinn
7. Jami-Lee Ross
8. Georgina te Heuheu
   Labour
9. Kelvin Davis
10. Darien Fenton
11. Parekura Horomia
12. Shane Jones
13. Moana Mackey
14. Nanaia Mahuta
15. Mita Ririnui
16. Louisa Wall
    Green
17. David Clendon
18. Metiria Turei
    Maori Party
19. Te Ururoa Flavell
20. Rahui Katene
21. Pita Sharples
22. Tariana Turia
    Independent
23. Hone Harawira

So that is 23/122 MPs are of Maori descent, representing 18.9% of Parliament. Now this means that Maori are over-represented in Parliament, relative to their population proportion. Now I don’t think this is at all a bad thing. My belief is that Parliament should be diverse and broadly representative of NZ, but we shouldn’t have quotas trying to match the makeup of Parliament to the exact population.

But what it does show is how well MMP has worked for Maori representation. We now have seven Maori MPs in Maori seats, three Maori MPs in general seats (all National) and 11 13 Maori List MPs.

It also reflects my view that one could do as the Royal Commission recommended, and abolish the Maori seats (in exchange for no 5% threshold on the list for Maori parties). Even without the Maori seats, there would be at least 16 MPs of Maori descent in Parliament (and probably more).

Currently as I said Maori make up 18.9% of the House. This contrasts with being 15.2% of the total population and 12.0% of the adult (18+) population (which I deem as the appropriate comparison).

If there were no Maori seats, then there would be at least 16/120 Maori MPs which is 13.3% of the House – almost exactly proportional to the adult population.

I’m not an advocate of removing the Maori seats, without significant consent of Maori. It would cause significant disharmony to do so. But it would be good to have a sensible debate about whether the time has come to implement the Royal Commission’s recommendations.

What I like about the RC’s recommendations is you wouldn’t have the tensions of the Maori Party trying to represent all Maori – something that is impossible. With no threshold (effectively meaning 0.6 0.4%) for Maori based parties instead, it means you may get say three different Maori parties in Parliament – a radical Hone type party might get three MPs, a more right ring urban Maori party might get one MP, and an Iwi based party might get say two MPs. It would allow for better diversity of Maori opinion (in my opinion). Plus you’d have the Maori MPs in National, Labour and Greens.

Had a nice wee relaxing break over the weekend at Tora. Tora is on the south east coast of the Wairarapa. Basically you drive to Martinborough and then keep driving on for a further 50 kms.

It’s a lovely drive over. The road is sealed for around 35 kms, and unsealed for 15 kms. But even the unsealed section is pretty good to drive on. I always like seeing windmills in scenic areas. I think they actually add to the view, not detract from them.

There were a number of cows just strolling along the roadside, so do be careful if you ever drive down there. If your car hits a cow, the car may come off second best.

As you get close to the coastline, there’s a wide waterway flowing into it.

There’s around 10 kms of coastline, with a few score houses scattered over them. It’s near total isolation – no shops or anything between Tora and Martinborough. It’s a beautiful rugged coast.

This is the house we were at. Gets great sun, and a view to kill for.

This is the sunrise over the ocean, from the house. A great thing to wake up to (not as great as Hayley Holt, but still pretty good!)

We were told there was no Internet or mobile phone access at the house, but that one could get a cellphone signal at the top of the hill. What we didn’t realise was quite how large the hill was! I did actually make an attempt but when I tried to climb over an electric fence, and got thrown a couple of feet backwards, I decided it was a message to give up.

If you’re in Wellington and want a nice weekend away from everyone, then give Tora a go. definitely going to go back again – and next time with gear to catch crayfish and paua!

Chris Hipkins blogs:

I was sad to see TVNZ announce today that the Good Morning TV show will be relocated to Auckland at the end of the year. It’s the only show of any substance to be produced at Avalon at the moment and probably marks the end of an era for New Zealand TV.

Avalon is an iconic landmark in my electorate, towering over the neighboring suburbs since the late 1970s. It used to be the home of TVNZ, and heaps of legendary kiwi TV was made there (at one stage almost all Kiwi drama was made in the Hutt). Then TVNZ abandoned any pretense of public service TV, moved to Auckland chasing the almighty dollar, and Avalon has been on a downward slide ever since.

Like Chris, I am sad to see Avalon go. It’s been the traditional home for leader’s debates and many other shows. And in the deep past, it was the centre of TVNZ news.

Or perhaps it’s time to start afresh? Let TVNZ go off and be a commercial broadcaster and setup a new public service channel? Avalon wouldn’t be a bad place to start…

I broadly agree with Chris. Trying to have TVNZ as a commercial and a public service broadcaster is an impossible task. Just ask Ian Fraser, who tried.

I’d sell off TVNZ (the state doesn’t need to own commercial broadcasters) and use the capital from the sale to set up a unified public service broadcaster which does television, radio and web.

Bernard Hickey writes:

Imarda Chief Executive and Endace co-founder Selwyn Pellett has called on Labour leader Phil Goff to stand down to allow Labour to strengthen its opposition to the policies of the National-led Government.

Pellett is an economic policy activist with links to the Labour movement, having spoken at the last two Labour Party conferences about the need for economic and monetary policy reform.

Pellett said voters had stopped listening to Labour under Goff and it was time for the opposition to renew itself cleanly before an election wipeout.

“Labour is likely to lose the election no matter who is leading it, but with Phil Goff at the helm it could be a devastating result. People have simply stopped listening,” Pellett said.

“It’s sad as Phil is a very nice and sincere man, but now it’s time for him to go,” he said.

Pellett made the comments in a comment thread under a blog post on Productive Economic Council (PEC) , a business lobby group co-founded by Pellett.

Pellett is very aligned with Labour. He’s been quoted eight times on Red Alert alone. This is arguably their most high profile business backer, since they lost Owen Glenn.

Pellett said the Labour caucus already knew who the contenders were to replace Goff.

“I personally hope Phil will just stand down and avoid splitting the caucus and the party. People’s instincts are that greed and lack of appropriate market regulation caused the global financial crises and lost them their jobs and savings,” he said.

“They may not understand the intricacies of what happened but they understand it was wrong and now they need credible political advocates to champion their corner. Phil Goff hasn’t delivered that for our country and we need it.”

Those are damning words by one of Labour’s biggest supporters.

George Monbiot is an internationally known environmentalist. He is a hard left activist ontopics from climate change to the Iraq War. So it is in that context you should read what he has just blogged:

Over the past fortnight I’ve made a deeply troubling discovery. The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health. The claims we have made are ungrounded in science, unsupportable when challenged and wildly wrong. We have done other people, and ourselves, a terrible disservice. …

But it gets worse; much worse. For the past 25 years, anti-nuclear campaigners have been racking up the figures for deaths and diseases caused by the Chernobyl disaster, and parading deformed babies like a mediaevel circus. They now claim that 985,000 people have been killed by Chernobyl, and that it will continue to slaughter people for generations to come. These claims are false.

The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (Unscear) is the equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Like the IPCC, it calls on the world’s leading scientists to assess thousands of papers and produce an overview. Here is what it says about the impacts of Chernobyl.

Of the workers who tried to contain the emergency at Chernobyl, 134 suffered acute radiation syndrome; 28 died soon afterwards. Nineteen others died later, but generally not from diseases associated with radiation(6). The remaining 87 have suffered other complications, included four cases of solid cancer and two of leukaemia. In the rest of the population, there have been 6,848 cases of thyroid cancer among young children, arising “almost entirely” from the Soviet Union’s failure to prevent people from drinking milk contaminated with iodine 131(7). Otherwise, “there has been no persuasive evidence of any other health effect in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure.”(8) People living in the countries affected today “need not live in fear of serious health consequences from the Chernobyl accident.”(9) …

Failing to provide sources, refuting data with anecdote, cherry-picking studies, scorning the scientific consensus, invoking a cover-up to explain it: all this is horribly familiar. These are the habits of climate change deniers, against which the green movement has struggled valiantly, calling science to its aid. It is distressing to discover that when the facts don’t suit them, members of this movement resort to the follies they have denounced.

We have a duty to base our judgements on the best available information. This is not just because we owe it to other people to represent the issues fairly, but also because we owe it to ourselves not to squander our lives on fairytales. A great wrong has been done by this movement. We must put it right.

It will be interesting to see the response to Monbiot’s column. And it should be recalled when we debate nuclear power (which has near zero greenhouse gas emissions) use in the future.

David Cunliffe called yesterday for Bill English to resign, so to trump that Phil Goff called on the entire Government to resign. I’m not sure why – I think he blames the Government for the earthquakes.

Anyway, it would have been hilarious if John key called their bluff, and had got up and said “Okay, we’ll go to the polls on the 7th of May”.

And best of all, we’d have the election all over befiore the Rugby World Cup – which i suspect many more people are interested in.

Stuff reports:

Reports of a starving boy eating cockroaches, pensioners eating cat food and a soaring increase in demand for food parcels were raised in Parliament today as Labour accused the Government of turning its back on New Zealand’s most vulnerable citizens.

Labour’s deputy leader, Annette King, asked Prime Minister John Key what he intended doing to help people who couldn’t afford to buy food because of the rapid rise in the cost of living.

”Many low-income families can’t afford even a basic nutritious diet for their children…the Salvation Army in Whangarei has seen an increase of 90 percent in food parcels since the New Year and is now having to ration them to one per family,” she said.

Mr Key said he understood the cockroach case could be an issue of neglect rather than income support.

”The Government obviously supports not only a benefit-based system for those who find themselves in need but also significant hardship grants,” he said.

The Government spends $21.2 billion on social security and welfare. Yes, that is $21.2 billion. That is aI lot of money for a country of 4 million.

So if I was media, and I heard claims about a family so starving, that a six year old boy is forced to eat cockroaches for food, I would ask two questions before breathlessly reporting the claims.

1. What is the family’s current income, and are they getting all the Government support they should
2. What has that income been spent on, so there is no food for their six year old child?

The level of welfare that a “poor” family gets is exactly the same today, as it was under nine years of Helen Clark. No benefits have been cut, and they are adjusted for inflation. In fact National passed a law making the inflation adjustment mandatory.

NZ has a very generous welfare state at $21.2b. That is not to say that life isn’t very tough for families dependent on welfare – of course it is. But I would be amazed if it turns out that the reason that six year old was eating cockroaches was because WINZ had refused them assistance.

UPDATE: The BOP Times makes clear this is a case of neglect, not insufficient support. So shame on Labour for trying to blame the cost of living on this.

A Western Bay mother’s appalling neglect of her family reduced her 6-year-old son to eating cockroaches to survive.

This admission was made to Homes of Hope director Hilary Price.

The boy told how hungry he used to get before he and his siblings were removed from their mother by Child Youth and Family (CYF) and put into the care of Homes of Hope.

One day they got so hungry they went to look for food and found cockroaches. He then described eating the cockroaches: “Yeah, they were crunchy and juicy.”

Mrs Price did not doubt the boy was telling the truth because of his age and the manner in which he confided to her.

“I was appalled to hear that. There is no excuse when the person was receiving enough support to access the basics for her children.“

Yet this is what Annette King asked the PM in Parliament:

What is he prepared to do to assist New Zealanders who are most in need, in light of reports over the weekend that a boy a was found eating cockroaches because he was starving and that the budgeting services are receiving reports of pensioners eating cat food as the cost of living keeps going up at a rapid rate?

So Labour knew this was a case of extreme parental neglect, and that the local welfare group had said the mother was receiving enough support for the basics – yet they still tried to portray this case as tied to the cost of living. Shame.

Martin Kay at the Dom Post reports:

Labour MP Shane Jones has hit out at plans for a giant $2 million taxpayer-funded plastic waka to promote Maori during the Rugby World Cup.

Ngati Whatua o Orakei is getting $1.8m of Government funding to create the giant waka as part of Auckland’s world cup celebrations.

The canoe will be 60 metres long and almost 15 metres high.

The hapu will contribute $100,000 for the project, which was estimated to cost $1,988,000, and will then own it after it is built. The waka would be used to promote “brand Maori” during the Rugby World Cup and other international events, hapu trustee Ngarimu Blair said.

Jones said the ”blow-up waka” risked exposing Maori to ridicule and smacked of last-minute desperation to get Maori involved in the tournament’s celebrations.

Jones, who is contesting Maori Party co-leader and Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples’ Tamaki Makaurau seat this year, said the only thing Maori wanted to see from the world cup was All Blacks Piri Weepu and Hosea Gear holding the trophy aloft.

I have to say I’m with Shane Jones on this one.

The BSA has rejected complaints from Pat Bolster and Anne Latimer over Paul Holmes interview of Helen Kelly over the Hobbit debacle.

I saw the interview, and Holmes was merely doing his job – applying the acid to a politician (and the CTU President is most definitely a politician). And the reality is, that Helen Kelly had shown appalling judgement around this issue with her comments over Peter Jackson etc.

But anyway I always wonder who actually complains to the BSA – is it just a concerned citizen, or a repeat complainer or political activists?

A quick bit of Google and it turns out Anne Latimer likes to campaign for Labour on the North Shore.

But even more interesting Pat Bolster is actually employed by the CTU!

I don’t know why Helen Kelly didn’t just complain herself, if she thought the interview was unfair – rather than have one of her staff do it, apparently as a member of the public.

Chris Trotter writes at Stuff:

Nature abhors a vacuum – and so does politics. With Labour’s front bench and the party’s ruling council both declining to deal decisively with Phil Goff’s inadequate political leadership, Left-leaning voters have been given a powerful incentive to look elsewhere for progressive representation this November.

Not since the early 1990s has Labour provided its competitors with such a huge opportunity to enlarge their electoral support base. …

So long as Labour demonstrates both an appetite for power and the means to attain it, a solid majority of Left-leaning voters will remain in its camp. In such circumstances, Labour’s potential allies, the Greens and NZ First, must be content to trawl for votes at the political margins – scrabbling for the 10-15 per cent of the electorate whose electoral needs Labour cannot, or will not, meet.

But the events of the past fortnight suggest that Labour possesses neither the appetite nor the means for winning power. On the contrary, its caucus and council appear quite blind to their party’s growing leadership deficit. With electoral defeat now regarded as inevitable, the No 1 priority of Labour’s front bench is how to emerge from the post-election bloodletting at the head of the pack.

Trotter is right, that this is a great opportunity for the Greens especially.

The Herald editorial fails the most basic economics test. They say:

In these circumstances, the Government ought to be considering a tax levy for a limited term. The Greens suggest 1.5 per cent on annual income above $48,000 and 3 per cent above $70,000. All middle and higher income earners would feel they were contributing effectively. It is money they might otherwise be saving in the present climate. Put to the rebuilding of Christchurch, a levy could strengthen the faltering recovery of the whole economy over the next year or two.

A responsible government would not turn it down.

First of all, any so called temporary levy will inevitably be about as temporary as the Maori seats, or Muldoon’s temporary surcharge.

But now let’s dissect the Herald’s economci argument. They say a tax increase will strengthen the faltering economy. It will not. In fact it will do the opposite by sucking money out of taxpayers, meaning it can’t be spent.

The Herald suggests the tax increase would go to the rebuilding of Christchurch but it doesn’t work like that. Christchurch is going to be rebuilt regardless of any extra tax.

We’ve just avoided a double dip recession. Over time the rebuilding of Christchurch will boost economic growth – but this will not start for probably a year and stretch on for many years. In the meantime the loss of production from the earthquake will probably push economic growth negative, just as we narrowly avoided a double dip recession. We will never fully recover that loss of economic output, so I expect the economy to remain pretty weak until 2012/13. So again, it would be economic stupidity to increase taxes as we recover from the earthquake.

An interesting update from iPredict:

John Key would remain Prime Minister and be able to govern alone even if both the Act and UnitedFuture parties failed to be returned to Parliament at the next General Election, this week’s snapshot from New Zealand’s prediction market, iPredict, and associated analysis suggests.  If Act and UnitedFuture were returned to Parliament, as the market continues to forecast they will be, Mr Key would be able to govern with the support of Act or the Maori Party.

This is an unusual scenario, for normally the wisdom is National does better with allies. It all depends on how much vote National gets. This week the market is at 46.5% for National (up 1%), 3.6% for ACT and 1.7% for United Future.

On those results National gets 59 seats, ACT 5 and United Future 2. You need 62 seats to govern, so National could govern with ACT.

However if Rodney does not win Epsom, then that is wasted vote and National goes to 62 seats, meaning it can govern alone. And if Peter Dunne does not win Ohariu, National would go to 63 seats.

In order, there are five levels of vote National can achieve:

1. Enough to govern alone regardless of what other parties makes it. This would generally need at least 49% of the vote.
2. Enough to govern alone if there is significant wasted vote – ie parties such as NZF, ACT and UFNZ don’t qualify, and their vote is effectively redistributed. This is what happens if National gets around 46% to 49%.
3. Can only govern with support of ACT and/or United Future. Based on iPredict, this is around the 43% to 46% range if both parties win seats.
4. Will be reliant on a deal with Maori Party to govern. This comes into play between 40% and 43% if ACT and United make it, and between 43% to 46% if those two parties don’t make it.
5. Unable to form a CR Government under any circumstance – if National gets below 40% and ACT/UFNZ make it or if National gets below around 43% and no ACT/UFNZ

So if National gets over 49% or below 40% then the presence of ACT and UFNZ make no difference. Between 40% and 46% the presence of UFNZ makes it more likely that National can form a Government. But between around 46% and 49%, National is better able to govern alone if ACT and UFNZ don’t make it.

This is one reason why I don’t think people should judge what may happen in a seat until the final weeks of the campaign. Only at that stage can you look at the party vote, and make decisions on how useful a particular outocme in a seat might be.

Claire Trevett in the NZ Herald reports:

Sue Moroney has been awarded the front bench slot left empty by the resignation of Darren Hughes and has taken on his education portfolio.

Labour leader Phil Goff announced the mini-shuffle this morning, giving Sue Moroney responsibility for the primary and secondary schooling areas as well as the early childhood portofilio she already held.

That’s a big promotion for Moroney. She’s been fairly low profile since she entered in 2005, so this is her oportunity to make her name. She’s only 46, so if she does well, could be a front bench Minister in a future Labour Government.

Old hand Rick Barker was elected uncontested by caucus to the position of senior whip, a nod to his experience in the role and the desire for stability in the eight months before the election. He was previously a senior Government whip. He will stand down from his role as assistant Speaker to fulfil the whip’s role.

This is quite significant. Barker is turning 60 this year and has been an MP for 18 years. I would have judged him at risk of not having a winnable list place. But now he is their chief whip, they have to give him a winnable spot on the list. So it means one less spot for new candidates.

Barker is a former senior whip, so will beable to do the role easily. But not the best sign for Labour that they had to appoint an MP whom many considered was due to retire, as he lost his Tukituki seat in 2005.

Mr Goff said he would nominate Ross Robertson to take on the Speaker position in his lieu.

Which Ross is very good at. When Labour nominated Barker for the role, instead of Robertson, in late 2008 it was taken as a hint that he should retire. But he is also again standing in 2011, which again makes rejuvenation that much harder. Robertson is 62 and been an MP for 24 years.

Yvonne Tahana in the NZ Herald reports:

Human Rights Commission adviser Marama Davidson has withdrawn an apology she made to David Rankin over swearing at him in te reo. …

On Friday, Ms Davidson apologised in writing to Mr Rankin. At that point the commission said its investigation was complete and that appropriate disciplinary action had been taken, although it declined to say what that amounted too.

A day after Ms Davidson’s apology, she allegedly rescinded it in a private email to Mr Rankin, who claims leadership of the Matarahurahu subtribe.

The email stated the issue between them was “confidential” and no media should be involved. It was from a “home computer in my own time and involving no one else except you and I”, she wrote.

“In my personal capacity, I completely withdraw in full the apology that i have made to you in public.”

I think Mr Rankin is right on this issue (I am not a fan of most of what he says). The private e-mail saying you withdraw the public apology, does totally undermine the public apology. What Davidson doesn’t seem to understand is that the sincerity of an apology matters. No one says she has to change her private opinion of anyone – but she should be genuinely sorry that she doesn’t regret the impact on the Human Rights Commission by her behaviour.

I don’t know Ms Davidson, but she seems to be rather stupid. What did she think would happen if she sent that e-mail retracting her public apology. That he wouldn’t complain again? If she ends up getting sacked over this, she’ll only have herself to blame.

TV3′s Patrick’s Gower blog on Judith Tizard, Labour and the blogs has attracted a fair bit of attention. Gower states:

Labour and Phil Goff got scared into defusing the Tizard bomb because of two right-wing bloggers.

That means Goff is scared of the blogs.

Yes, you heard me right: Goff’s office (aka the ‘Goffice’) and the Labour Party hierarchy decided their Judith Tizard strategy because of what they read on Kiwiblog and Whaleoil.

That means Labour is scared of the blogs.

I don’t really attribute it as Patrick does, but I do think Labour have handled the whole Tizard issue incompetently. I’ll explain why later on.

Judith herself also seems to credit or blame Whale and me. The Herald on Sunday reported her as saying:

Those reasons … and to “stick it up them”.

Stick it up who? Phil Goff?

“I was actually thinking of David Farrar and Cameron Slater, et al. I wasn’t thinking about my former colleagues,” she says. “I don’t think it’s a particularly worthy thing to say, but I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t.”

I’ll also come back to exactly what I have and have not said about Judith. I’ve checked through all my posts about Judith, and as far as I can tell I’ve never called her nasty names, denigrated her performance etc. Here’s my first post on 16 December 2008 about the Tizard issue for the Mt Albert selection.

But here is the problem, Twyford is already an MP. So what happens if he wins the Mt Albert by-election? Well he would then resign his seat as a List MP, and that would bring in the next person on the Labour list. And who is No 38? It’s Judith Tizard!

Now Helen has won Mt Albert with some big majorities, but a lot of that has been personal. The party vote has been much closer. And if Mt Albert voters works out that voting for Twyford means Tizard returns to Parliament, then the seat could fall to a good National candidate.

I actually had a Labour MP tell me that my analysis was correct, and mirrored conversations that Labour had already started having about Mt Albert – prior to my blog post.

I blogged again on the issue on 16 February, 25 March and 26 March. So three posts over three months. Not exactly over the top.

On the 1st of April, the NZ Herald used the phrase “Tizard time-bomb” in a headline (note reporters do not write the headlines – sub-editors do).  They reported that:

Ms Tizard said Labour would be silly to buy into the “Tizard dilemma” and try and keep her out.

“If there is not a place for a 53-year-old woman who has been in elected positions for 26 of her 31 years, I guess I would want to know what the problem was.”

Ms Tizard said she had not yet been approached to stand aside, nor had she gone to the party to ask if there was a problem.

So four months after I first blogged about it, Labour had not even talked to Judith Tizard. How incompetent is that? The very first thing Labour should have done is make sure someone was regularly talking to Judith, and working out a joint strategy with her for dealing with the issue.

Labour leader Phil Goff said the Tizard dilemma was a “red herring”, but refused to openly back her return.

So again, no strategy on how to respond, and no agreed lines. But it gets worse.

On the 13th of April, it is reported that Labour ran focus groups asking Mt Albert residents what they thought of Judith Tizard.  How pissed off and insuting is that to their next on the list? For they did it without even talking to her.

The moment we started blogging on this issue, Labour should have had someone in constant dialogue with Judith. They should have been working out agreed lines that both Goff and Tizard would use until Judith made a decision about whether or not she would want to return if Twyford did win Mt Albert.

In National the person next on the list is treated as an MP in waiting. Someone senior (the President or Chief Whip off memory) is meant to chat to them every couple of months to see how they are doing, and to ascertain what their preference would be if a vacancy came up. It’s simple person management.

Instead they spent tens of thousands of dollars on focus groups behind Tizard’s back.

Then on 22 April, Labour made Twyford withdraw. And I bet you that Judith Tizard found out about this from the media – not directly from Labour. from what I can tell, neither the Party Leader or President spoke to her in the last two years.

Even after Hughes resigned, Andrew Little went to the media saying he wanted Louisa Wall in – before he spoke to Tizard.

So if people are angry about the treatment of Judith Tizard, they should direct their anger at Labour. Even a small degree of competence could have averted this all two years ago. They just had to talk to her and meet with her, and work out a position that didn’t involve them crapping on her from a huge height.

There has been comments on a number of blogs that Tizard was unfairly maligned, as she was not the worst MP in Parliament. I agree with that. In fact I blogged on her in May 2008:

Judith is somewhat controversial, but I have to say that my professional dealings with her on Internet issues have always been cordial and constructive, and she has been a very regular attendee of the Parliamentary Internet Caucus.

And I stand by what I said. On the issues I had direct engagement with her on, she was constructive and supportive. The worst name I think I have called her on the blog was a “plonker” and in fact that was referring to the next five candidates collectively.

The blog that has probably lampooned her the most viciously (but with humour) has been the Dim-Post.

I didn’t create the perception that Judith was not the most popular or hard working MP in Parliament – I just reported a pre-existing perception (Patrick Gower suggests Matt mcCarten first popularised it). If you wanted to ask me why this perception existed, I’d state two factors:

1. Tizard spent the entire nine years of the 5th Labour Government as a Minister outside Cabinet. Ministers outside Cabinet are meant to be for up and coming Ministers or for about to retire Ministers, not as a permament halfway house for Ministers who can’t get elected to Cabinet. She was seen as protected by Helen.
2. Tizard got given Auckland Issues, but never given any power, budget or authority in that role, so it became a joke, and the portfolio eventually abolished.

It is certainly true that there were other MPs in Parliament whose parliamentary careers were no more stellar than Judith’s. Most of the next four on the Labour List fall into that category. The Mt Albert dilemma may have come into play for Martin Gallagher, just as it did for Judith, if Gallagher had been next on the list.

In summary, Labour could have saved itself a huge amount of bad headlines and acrimoney, if they had picked up the phone two years and just talked to Judith Tizard, rather than run focus groups on how unpopular she might be.

Went to the opening night of The Spy Who Wouldn’t Die Again at Downstage. It’s a first class production that gets everything right, and was hugely enjoyable. The plot, the cast, the set and the gadgets were all superb.

It’s a wonderful parody of James Bond, with a Kiwi setting.  If you’re a James Bond fan, you’ll love this play – and even if you’re not watched any James Bond movies, you’ll still find it a hoot (Auckland Girl who went with me has never seen James Bond but loved the play).

The play is set in 1985 and Agent 009 (Stephen St Clair) is dispatched to New Zealand to gain a perpetual motion device, which threatens the world’s energy industries. Hence the French, Russsians and Australians are also hunting for it.

The play starts with a wonderful combat scene, that was almost more Kill Bill than James Bond, followed by several minutes of some very naughty and untraditional James Bond credits, using shadow figures. Their use of shadow figures at various stages of the play, is very well done.

It’s a very Kiwi play, with Rotorua motels and geysers, the Silver Fern train, and even a guest appearance from David Lange. Lange, hilariously, wants the perpetual motion device destroyed as if it survives there will be no need for nuclear power, and then New Zealand will no longer be special as the world’s only nuclear free country.

The play has a number of Bond like gadgets which are a delight. By far the best is the tent with a “spare man” in it. Just trust me, that you’ll be almost crying with laughter as he is activated.

Nick Dunbar plays Stephen St Clair. The other three actors play a variety of roles each but primarily Darlene Mohokey is the beautiful and sexy Dominique Le Fleur, Bryon Coll is inventor Gerald Boke and the spare man, and Tim Spite is the rogue agent 008. They performed their main roles with ease, and were comic genius in some of their minor roles.

The set design was also excellent. I loved the Rotorua motel, and the car was so cute, Auckland Girl wanted one for herself.

As with many of the plays from Tim Spite and SEEyD, there are some political messages and themes in the show. The nice things about his productions is they are done with subtle grace, so the play remains enjoyable, even if you are not in political alignment with the message.

After tonight’s performance of the play, I’m moderating the “Meet the Artists” session on stage at 8.30 pm. This is where the audience can ask the cast and crew all those things you’ve wanted to know, or discuss some of the themes that ran through the play. Not sure if there are any tickets left for tonight, but whether tonight or any time before 24 April, I recommend you see the play if you want a good night out,.

Brian Fallow writes in the Herald:

ACC has reintroduced experience rating to the calculation of levies for employers and the self-employed.

ACC Minister Nick Smith says it will make ACC levies fairer and provide better incentives for business to improve workplace safety.

The Council of Trade Unions, Labour and the Greens argue that it will encourage employers to pressure workers to lie about whether an accident occurred in the workplace or somewhere else.

I really wonder why the professional politicians of the left hate business so much. They smear and defame basically the entire business community with their claims that employers are criminals who will break the law in return for a small cash incentive. They do the same with their opposition to allowing employees to choose whether or not to trade in one week of leave for cash. They claim employers will break the law and coerce employees into taking the money instead of the leave.

Experience rating ACC premiums provides an incentive to employers. For “good” employers the incentive is to have a safer workplace, to reduce their ACC premiums. For “bad” employers the incentive is not to make their workplace safer but to break the law and “bully” staff into lying about where their accidents happened.

Now if one had to divide all employers into one of those two categories, how many would actually break the law and bully their staff into lying? 5% perhaps, if even that? Yet Labour and the unions want all employers punished and treated as if they are all criminals.

For smaller firms – with an annual ACC bill below $10,000 – there will be a no-claims discount of 10 per cent if they generate no compensation claims. If they generate more than 70 days’ compensation claims they will incur a 10 per cent loading on their levies. For those in between there is no change.

The vast majority of employers will have ACC bills of below $10,000 – this is a wage bill of under around $5 million.

Your ACC premium is around 2% of your wage bill. A 10% reduction means that a company will save 0.2% of its wage bill, if it gets the no claim bonus. Does Labour really think scores of businesses will break the law just to save $2 on every $1,000 of wages.

For firms with an ACC bill larger than $10,000 the system is more complex and could mean adjustments of up to 50 per cent, up or down, in their levies. There are two layers to the adjustment.

The more important, the experience rating modification, compares the firm’s performance with the other firms in its levy risk group, with a 75 per cent weighting for rehabilitation costs, including income compensation, and 25 per cent for medical costs.

That could result in adjustments of up to 35 per cent either way in a firm’s levies, depending on their relative performance.

Now consider you are a larger employer, and you have ACC experience rating. Here the incentives are larger to keep claims down. However it would be near impossible to “fiddle” the system with a larger number of employees making claims.

In a small business, it is conceivable that you might get one employee to claim an accidient happened outside the workplace, and get away with it.

But in a large workplace, you’d need to have many injured employees agreeing to break the law and file false details on their claim (remember the employee files, not the employer). And it takes just one employee to blow the whistle and say their employer asked them to lie.

Also the employer needs to have a corrupt safety officer on staff, who will falsify the accident log, and not record workplace accidents if the employees agrees to lie about where it happened.

Now sure there may be a handful of venal and corrupt employers who will risk criminal penalties by engaging their staff in a conspiracy to defraud ACC. But that is no reason to not provide incentives to the vast majority of employers, which rewards them for having safer workplaces.

The average employer reacts rationally to incentives. Oh if we have fewer accidents, we pay less to ACC. So what can we do to minimise accidents. Labour and the unions are defneding a system where an employer with no workplace accidents at all pays the same premium as a company (same size and industry) that has multiple workplace accidents.