Kiwiblog

Stuff reports:

A landmark British investigation into fracking has concluded that the controversial practice is safe with little risk to health and the environment.

The review, by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, says fracking can be managed effectively in Britain – as long as operational best practices are implemented and enforced through regulation.

I won’t hold my breath waiting for the Greens to say they no longer want it banned. I bet you than even if the NZ Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment comes out with the same conclusions, the Greens will ignore the science and maintain total opposition to it.

Stuff reports:

The Government’s welfare reforms have become law but the controversial policy will continue to dog National, with a rowdy protest planned for the party’s annual conference at Sky City this weekend.

Teen beneficiaries will have their payments managed as soon as next month and new requirements for solo beneficiary parents to look for work will come into effect in October. Parliament passed the changes by 64 votes to 57 last night.

I honestly don’t think we do teenagers a favour by just handing the benefit over to an 17 year old, and saying here’s the money, now go away.  Likewise while we must have a welfare state that looks after children and parents who are left without enough financial support, we shouldn’t have a welfare state that encourages a sole parent on welfare to have further children.

The changes have been labelled an attack on the poor by beneficiary advocates, but the Government says it will modernise welfare and overhaul the system from a passive approach to an active, work-focused system.

Auckland Action Against Poverty and the Auckland-based student movement Blockade the Budget will picket National’s conference on Sunday in protest to the reforms.

Excellent, not the same without Sue Bradford there. I recall one conference in Dunedin where she charged into the church service, and one of Bolger’s staff did a very nice tackle on her. For years afterwards many delegates thought Todd was DPS, rather than a political advisor!

Auckland Action Against Poverty spokeswoman Sue Bradford said there were no jobs for beneficiaries to move into, especially those who could only work between the hours of 9am and 3pm, or who faced leaving their children at home alone after school.

In which case they will remain on the benefit. The requirement is to seek and be available for work – not to gain a job. Having said that, while there are not jobs for everyone on welfare – there are and will be jobs for some. The jobs market is fluid, not static. There are always vacancies coming up.

The Government failed to realise that parenting was a job in itself, she said.

It is a job, and hence generally no work-testing until the child is five.

Beneficiaries will also been given access to long-term reversible contraception.

How awful. That’s just like Nazi eugenics according to the Dom Post cartoonist Hodgson.

Stephen Franks writes in NZ Herald:

The Auditor-General is unlikely to fix Auckland Council member Cathy Casey’s complaint that the council was kept in the dark on the V8 race subsidy. The law setting up the Super City deliberately created a presidential mayoralty and gave councillors no clear rights to information.

It certainly does not protect council officers who want to provide unbiased information to councillors against the wishes of their bosses, the chief executive and the mayor.

The law may have been drafted out of frustration with years of indecision fuelled by endless reporting and consultation as excuses for inaction. Perhaps the law’s designers chose to give elected dictatorship a go instead.

Not quite an elected dictatorship. The Mayoral powers are quite weak compared to say Boris Johnson’s. They are stronger than other NZ councils, but not that strong.

Amazingly till now there has been little publicised protest at the constitutional barbarity of this structure. Without clear rights to the same information available to the executive they must monitor, councillors become spare wheels.

Councillors have never had a right to all the information management has, as far as I know.

Some have called the Auckland governance structure the corporate model. If so it is a poor copy. The company model is robust about directors’ rights to oversee management. Directors have an almost unrestricted right to information from anywhere in the company. 

I agree that a company director has rights to see pretty much anything from the general ledger to the petty cash reconciliation. But there is a difference between commercial directors and elected officials.

The Auckland mayor holds central power in a hybrid Westminster/presidential system without separation of powers. Unlike all other mayors in New Zealand he is not first among equals. He is the boss.

More like a senior colleague. He can not sack a Councillor, and has the same vote as a Councillor. What the Mayor does get is the ability to appoint Committee Chairs and Committees and to propose the Budget.

Worse, there is no equivalent to central government’s State Services Commission code for state servants, or the parliamentary conventions that oblige officials to provide honest and impartial advice to MPs in a select committee, and protect them from senior wrath when they give it.

Current law requires councils to have a code of conduct for councillors. It should be extended to officers.

Not a bad idea.

Auckland badly needs a constitutional upgrade. Version 2 should enshrine the right of councillors to information. It should protect and constrain council employees along the lines of the State Services Commission code that guides public servants and protects the impartiality of their service.

Auckland Constitution 2 should also require council consultants to certify their work to councillors. They are now a vital part of local government quality control.

With intense competition and Auckland being the major employer of many consultants, the temptation is too great for consultants to tell council officers (who control where the next contract goes) what they want to hear.

All sounds sensible suggestions.

1. The participants in Victoria University’s Friday night Justice Hot Tub debate are with us live — Defence counsel, Greg King; Sensible Sentencing’s Garth McVicar; the father of Sophie — Gil Elliott and former ACT MP Stephen Franks on whether our criminal courts deliver justice and help prevent serious crime.
2. Live from Auckland’s Sky City, Finance Minister Bill English in a q&a sessions with delegates at the National Party conference. Colin James will be commenting through this.
3. Brian Edwards and Bill Ralston will be talking about the Crewe murders and recent TV programmes and books about them.

Broadcast on TV3 Saturday at 9.30 am, repeated on Sunday at 8 am with the media panel

My Herald column is on Labour’s proposal to give their members a vote for leader. I conclude:

So while the proposed changes by the NZ Labour Party to give their members a vote for future leaders is, in my opinion, a good thing, I do think it is regrettable they give the unions a direct vote. It would be far better if unions just encouraged their members to join Labour directly, than give unions voting rights for the leadership.

But overall the proposed reforms for Labour should result in a stronger party for them. It will be interesting to observe the first leadership election under their new rules, whenever that may be.

Idiot/Savant blogs at NRT:

The Māori Party finally met with John Key last night to discuss his stupidity over water rights, and walked away with an assurance that the government will not legislate to overturn any court decision. In some quarters, this is being portrayed as another sell-out. It’s not. Instead, its a pretty useful victory, which resolves one of the primary fears around the Tribunal / court process: that the government will ignore the outcome, and simply confiscate the water on terms favourable to itself and its cronies if they don’t like how things are going. Now, if they keep their word, they won’t be able to do that, and will have to negotiate like a proper Treaty partner should. And that I think is exactly what the Māori Party is there to do.

While I don’t think National would ever have been stupid enough to repeat Labour’s folly of overturning court upheld property rights by legislation, it is indeed a useful thing for the Maori Party to have had it explicitly ruled out.

It doesn’t mean that the Government has to follow the recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal. It does mean though if an actual court makes a finding about property rights in water, then the Government won’t confiscate those property rights legislatively.

Labour have not promoted very much one of the constitutional changes they are seeking to make, namely new rule 146B:

The Policy Platform is binding on all Party members elected to public office and on the Parliamentary Labour Party, the New Zealand Council and the Policy Council.

Previously the policy platform was only binding on members who stood on the Labour ticket. What this means is that Mayors such as Len Brown will be obliged to vote in accordance with the Labour Party policy platform in future. Brown is a member of the Labour Party, but did not stand as a Labour candidate.

I’d say this clause was drafted by the Maritime Union, a Labour Party affiliate member!

This means, if passed, that any Labour Party member who stands for any public office is bound to vote in accordance with the Labour policy platform. I’ve actually voted for some Labour Party members for local body elections – including in 2010. I won’t do so, if this passes as it means they will be servants of the party, not of their constituents.

Stuff reports:

Winston Peters has criticised the anti-smoking lobby and Maori leaders, saying ordinary Maori are being saddled with a massive tax on smoking most of them don’t want.

Translation: Winston’s addiction is costing him money. I’ve got a solution for poor old Winnie though. The Government could add Quitline to the list of Super Gold Card services!

Mr Peters also questioned why the Japanese lived so long and have low rates of heart disease and stroke when they have the world’s highest smoking rate and said obesity was the main health concern for Maori, not smoking.

Oh dear, Winston must be lining up to be Health Minister in a Labour-led Government.

Incidentally Winston is wrong. The smoking rate in Japan is 24%. A Gallup poll found 21 countries with a smoking rate of over 30%.

The Herald editorial:

Elected members of local bodies around the country spent two days this week at a conference in Queenstown where they agreed – unanimously – that they do not need their wings clipped by a bill the Government is putting through Parliament.

How unsurprising.

Neither is inclined to leave it entirely to local voters to decide what their councils can do.

Why not? Councils in this country have a source of revenue independent of the central Government. If they exceed the wishes of their ratepayers those who receive their bill have a vote every three years. Do they need the Government to require their elected council to do more (Labour) or less (National) than they might want?

Their source of revenue is Government granted, not independent. But putting that aside, the trouble with the Herald’s argument is that rates increases are not transparent.

The central Government has to live within its means. To increase tax rates needs a special law of Parliament, and everyone sees that the Government is increasing tax rates. Generally also, any increases in taxes are flagged well before the election so voters can vote on them.

In local Government, they work out all the things they want to spend money on, and then strike the level of rates to match. And while media may report the average increase, the actual amount each property owner pays varies depending on the movement in their house value compared to the average. Plus you have the problem that a minority of voters actually pay rates. In total, there is little incentive for Councils to be fiscally restrained – hence why the average increase has been 7% annually – well beyond the ability of the economy to sustain.

What I would do is change the funding of local government from rates to taxes. Each Council can levy an income tax, which means almost all residents will pay it and hence take an interest in its level. It also means that a Council wanting to spend more money than previously, would need to openly propose that (for example) the local income tax increase from say 2.6% to 2.8%. People would be able to compare the level of local income tax between councils.

Now isn’t increasing income tax a bad thing, as the more you tax income, the less incentive people have to work. Yes. So I would balance this by reducing central income taxes significantly, and bringing in a national land tax in a fiscally neutral tax switch.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

Liquor industry executives have met Justice Minister Judith Collins and urged her to quash a law change which will ban the sale of high-strength “alcopops” in bottle stores. …

In May, the minister said there was a growing concern about sweet-tasting drinks that were high in alcohol.

In the Law Commission report the reforms were based on, the commission said the most common drinkers of RTDs were 14 to 24-year-olds, in particular women.

Actually the Law Commission did not recommend any measures specifically against RTDs. They correctly said that if you did this, then substitution is likely to occur. The Government inserted this proposal in the bill – it was not recommended by the Law Commission.

I blogged last year that Curia did some extensive research work for Independent Liquor in this area. The findings (from a phone poll, two point of sale surveys and half a dozen focus groups) were that around half of RTD drinkers but 8% RTDs and around half 5% RTDs. Of those who buy 8% RTDs (and they tend to be older men, not young women), many said that if RTDs are restricted to 5%, they would substitute to other products such as spirits.

We found that the average strength of a self-mix is 13% (and that is at the beginning of the night – it increases during the night), so what the proposed law change will do is move many RTD drinkers from an 8% product to a 13% product. Stupid right? This part of the bill will, in my opinion, significantly increase harm from alcohol.

Australia tried something similiar – what they did was put a special tax on RTDs. Sure enough, RTD sales dropped. But sales of spirits increased.

Stuff reports:

 The Labour Party has appointed former Christchurch Central MP Tim Barnett as its new general secretary. …

Labour president Moira Coatsworth said Flatt had been a very strong leader during challenging times, and left the party in a stronger financial position and in good health.

“Tim comes to this role with considerable experience as a political representative and manager of organisations, at a fascinating and exciting time in our history. He will be driving implementation of our Organisational Review, forging a campaign-ready Labour machine nationwide and spearheading our fundraising. All key tasks towards achieving Labour-led government from 2014,” she said.

This is a smart appointment by Labour. Tim is a very experienced political campaigner, and I suspect will do a good job at focusing the Labour organisation on campaigning.

I worked with him a bit on the civil unions and prostitution law reform bills, and he was a very effective campaigner. He had all 120 MPs categorised by how they might vote, and notes on who is best to approach each of them, and the arguments to use. He successfully got both law changes through, when other MPs might have failed.

It was a real mystery why Helen Clark never made him a Minister – he was obviously more capable than many who were.

Stuff reports:

Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson says having identical homes could bring down the costs of building new houses but he told the social services select committee that New Zealanders might not be ready for such a culture change.

Labour MP Jacinda Ardern said the concept already existed in New Zealand. “It’s called Hamilton.”

Heh. Sort of true.

Stuff reports:

Anti-abortion group ProLife has been allowed to stay as a club within the Auckland University Students’ Association despite complaints the group was harassing vulnerable students on campus.

The association had received two complaints about pamphlets containing “misinformed” health information on abortions being distributed by the group, and of students feeling harassed.

The association held a meeting yesterday to decide whether the group should be disaffiliated.

There was heated debate during the meeting, which attracted about 300 people, and students eventually voted 225 to 117 to allow the club to stay within the association.

ProLife New Zealand spokeswoman Rachel Wong disputed the club had done anything wrong in the first place.

She said the association failed to communicate with the club after receiving an “anonymous” and “unsubstantiated” email complaint.

The Right to Know pamphlet carries the slogan: “Hands up if you’ve heard this before: Abortion is a safe, simple medical procedure.”

Wong said the pamphlets, distributed for two weeks in May, were not confrontational.

“For us, the main issue is freedom of speech. Clubs should be able to voice their opinions at uni and express their ideas.”

I’m very glad AUSA members voted against disaffiliating Prolife. A university campus especially should be tolerant of unpopular speech.

Some advice for Prolife though – having the right to do something, doesn’t mean it is a good idea to do it. Personally I think handing out pamphlets on the health risks of abortions to random female students is not a great idea. You have the right to do so, but I doubt that tactic helps your cause much.

Sir Bob writes:

The role of Minister of Education has always been a nightmare posting. If you’re Minister of Agriculture then you’re subject to intelligent dialogue with Federated Farmers. If Justice Minister, you can wallow in the ego-inflating pleasure of issuing pompous utterances, interspersed with all-night drunken sessions with the Law Society, and so it goes.

But Minister of Education; God help the poor buggers, confronted as they always have been with embittered, self-important nobodies, as teacher union representatives invariably are.

Sir Bob continues:

Readers may consider I’m being too charitable with that description. Well, I can’t help it, temperance having been my life-long practice. But I’d be a great deal more if instead of endless moaning, the teachers’ union focused on promoting English, science and history and abandoned film studies, Maori wonderfulness, gender studies, et al bogus subjects, now so prevalent.

I’ve speculated why teacher unions are so ghastly when compared with other lobbying bodies. My conclusion is that they have never left the school-room or grown up and that if we resurrected corporal punishment and delivered a daily flogging to these unionists, it might produce a general amelioration.

Bob may need t be careful. If the PPTA affiliates to Labour, they’ll get a vote in the next Labour Leader, and in exchange for their votes may insist the next Leader brings in a hate crime law, so Sir Bob is jailed for hate speech against them

In 1991, I popped over to Georgia to have a look at proceedings when the civil war broke out. One night in Tbilisi, my wife and I were guests of some university academics in an outdoor restaurant near the river. Abruptly the night erupted with explosions and for half an hour, mortars rocketed over our heads from across the river. Our Georgian friends took a nonchalant approach to this. “Relax,” they said, “it’s just the school teachers’ union bombing Parliament,” this over some trivia they were whining about.

Heh. Probably a protest against league tables.

Anyway, after two weeks here and there, we arrived at our Blantyre hotel. At 6pm I turned on the television news. The lead item was the president of the Malawian Women’s Institute carrying on about school teachers having it off with schoolgirls.

She was followed by the Malawian school teachers’ association president.

Never have I witnessed such explosive anger. He was livid and I would describe him as being white with rage, but in the circumstances that would be pushing it.

“Do you realise how little my members are paid?” he shouted at the Women’s Institute president, who began to look remorseful.

“Are you demanding my members risk their lives with you Aids-ridden lot? This is the sole perk of the job,” he exploded

Well that is a novel rationale for a pay rise.

Union bosses are now going to be more powerful than MPs, in selecting future Labour leaders. Labour are proposing that their union affiliates will get 20% of the say in future leadership contests. They have five affiliated unions and this means all future leadership contenders will be beholden to them.

Union leaders will endorse a candidate and the vast bulk of votes from that union will go towards that candidate – if the five unions collectively endorse one candidate, then their 20% is likely to be decisive – especially if the members and caucus are split in their support.

Could you imagine the outrage if the NZ National Party said that it was going to give (for example) Business NZ, Telecom, Contact Energy, Carter Holt Harvey etc the right to vote in National Party leadership elections.

Organisations should not be eligible to join political parties (let alone vote in them). Political parties should be comprised of individuals who have individually decided to join and support a party and pay a membership fee to that party.

Stuff reports:

ACC Minister Judith Collins begins court action against Labour MPs Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little for defamation today.

The High Court list for Auckland yesterday named Judith Anne Collins v Trevor Colin Mallard and Another for first call before Justice Geoffrey Venning.

Collins has accused the two MPs of defaming her in relation to a leaked email from former National Party president Michelle Boag.

Boag had emailed Collins about a case involving ACC claimant Bronwyn Pullar, who blew the whistle on ACC inadvertently releasing her details about thousands of ACC claimants.

Defamation cases often take some time to come to court with both sides jockeying to set the terms of the case.

Today’s hearing is a face-to-face conference for lawyers to plot out the case’s timetable and sort out how it is going to be run.

Both sides have retained senior and experienced counsel with Collins being represented by Queen’s Counsel Julian Myles and Mallard and Little represented by Wellington lawyer John Tizard.

Collins is not seeking damages – just a declaration that the statements made were untrue and defamed her, and of course her costs.

UPDATE: The application by Mallard and Little for a stay of proceedings until the report of the Privacy Commissioner is done was declined by the Judge. The settlement hearing is in November (the report is due in September anyway, but could of course be delayed) and the trial in February 2013.

Photo from here. Captions should be funny, not nasty. Enjoy.

Prolife NZ has said:

Prolife New Zealand (PLNZ) is alarmed at the fact that Auckland student club, Prolife Auckland, is this week facing the possibility of disaffiliation simply for engaging in an act of freedom of expression at the Auckland University campus. …

In May this year Auckland University student club ProLife Auckland, in a peaceful and non-confrontational manner, distributed a one-page leaflet titled ‘Right to Know’.

The pamphlet advocated for the right of women to know the common health risks associated with abortion and the alternatives available to them, so that they can make truly informed decisions when faced with an unplanned or crisis pregnancy. The campaign pamphlet was distributed by PLNZ clubs at universities across New Zealand and contained a link to a webpage with further information and resources.

On the basis of one single anonymous, unsubstantiated email allegation, claiming that the pamphlets contained ‘misleading health information’ and ‘lies about health procedures’, the AUSA called a Special General Meeting (SGM) to disaffiliate student club Prolife Auckland.

Not only was this allegation never properly investigated by the AUSA, and the AUSA deliberations regarding this matter conducted in secrecy, but Prolife Auckland were never even informed that an SGM had been called to disaffiliate them – they found this out by sheer chance a week after the decision had been made by the AUSA.

More importantly, the claims of ‘misleading health information’ still remain completely unproven, in fact the medical statements in the pamphlet are supported by reference footnotes to a number of reputable medical journals.

Since Prolife Auckland’s inception it has come up against unwarranted resistance and intimidation at the University of Auckland. This is in contrast to PLNZ’s other branches at Victoria, Canterbury and Massey University in Palmerston North, which have been permitted to peaceably contribute to the free exchange of ideas on campus without fear of reprisal – the cornerstone of academic freedom.

This attempt to ban ProLife Auckland and the complete disregard for natural justice in this case, only serves to further highlight the prejudice of an intolerant minority against the affiliation of pro-life clubs at the University of Auckland. Most alarmingly, it shows that certain members of the AUSA Executive are willing to deny students their human right to freedom of expression simply for peacefully expressing themselves on campus.

I am pro-choice, not pro-life (to use their term). If I was on campus and someone handed me a flyer informing me of the health risks of abortion, I would probably politely suggest they should procreate with themselves.

However I absolutely defend their right to not just hold their views, but to promote them. On a university campus especially, freedom of speech should be the paramount value.

AUSA should not be deciding if the pamphlets have “misleading health information” any more than they should decide if political party pamphlets are misleading. Would they disaffiliate (for example) Princes Street Labour if someone complained about one of their pamphlets. If material is misleading, there are a number of regulatory bodies that can be complained to. It is not a decision for a small group of student politicians.

I would comment to all AUSA members the words of Noam Chomsky:

“with regard to freedom of speech there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it and prefer Stalinist/fascist standards”

I hope that all those who disagree with the views of ProlifeNZ still defend their right to express their views and be able to operate on campus as an affiliated club.

Professor Jeff Bennett has published “Little Green Lies: An exposé of twelve environmental myths“.  The very very very abbreviated summary of them is:

Proposition 1: ‘Peak Oil’ has been reached.
The annual production of oil, while rising over the last century, is about to fall because of growing scarcity. Such is our dependence on oil and the fast rate at which we are using it that we now need to take active policy measures to save what we have left.
BUT
No-one knows for sure what petroleum reserves are available. As known reserves are depleted, price rises stimulate more exploration and technological advances that will expand the available supply of petroleum as well as substitute energy sources.

Proposition 2: Renewable energy production should be stimulated.
Non-renewable energy supplies are being depleted so quickly that we will soon experience power shortages. Non-renewables are also ‘dirty’ sources of energy. Renewables must be stimulated to ensure the on-going supply of clean energy.
BUT
Renewable energy sources are limited in their short to medium term potential to meet demand. Picking ‘winners’ to be stimulated is likely to be mistaken given rapidly evolving technological change. Renewables have their own environmental downsides.

Proposition 3: Consumption choices need to be informed by products’ ‘food miles’/’ecological footprint’/’embodied energy’/’virtual water’/’carbon footprint’.
People need to be aware of the impacts they have on energy/the ecology/water/climate etc. when they buy goods and services so that they can reduce their impact on that resource. Each of these resources is scarce and we need to conserve them, especially for future generations.
BUT
By focusing on just one scarce resource (water, energy etc.) in their consumption decisions, people can ignore their impacts on other scarce resources and result in a ‘false economy’. What happens when the ‘virtual water’ index goes against the ‘embodied energy’ index? Which index is ‘trumps’?

Proposition 4: World population should be capped.
More people mean more pressure on the world’s scarce resources, including the environment. The only way to protect the environment, stop starvation and ensure that there are enough resources for future generations is to stop population growth.
BUT
People are a resource. They have the capability to develop innovative technologies and institutions to deal with growing scarcity in specific resources. New ways to satisfy peoples’ wants and new sources of scarce resources can be discovered.

Proposition 5: Economic growth and trade are bad for the environment.
Economic growth, fuelled by international trade, means more pressure on scarce resources including the environment. To protect the environment and to save resources for the future, trade should be restricted to cut growth.
BUT
Trade and growth bring wealth to people. Wealth increases peoples’ demands for environmental protection and the ability of society to provide environmental protection, especially through technological development.

Proposition 6:No waste should go to landfill.
Waste should not be wasted. It is a resource that can be re-used and re-cycled. Sending waste to landfill means that more ‘virgin’ resources must be harvested/mined. Waste in landfill can also be a source of air and water pollution.
BUT
Recycling and re-using ‘waste’ is a process that uses scarce resources. Policies that prevent landfill disposal can cause more resources to be used than they save and do not necessarily reduce virgin resource use. Landfills need not be pollution sources.

Proposition 7:Water and energy should be used ‘efficiently’, whatever it costs.
Water and energy are scarce resources. Their use needs to be minimised so that future generations will have enough. Governments should invest in technologies that ensure the least amounts of energy and water are used in producing goods and services.
BUT
Investing in ‘efficiency’ measures means using other scarce resources as substitutes for energy and water. A ‘false economy’ results because the other resources including labour and capital may well be scarcer than energy and water.

Proposition 8: The environment is of infinite value and must not be harmed.
The environment provides us with our ‘life-support-system’. Without it we cannot survive and so we should protect it at all costs. We should make absolutely sure that rare and endangered species are cared for so that their numbers increase.
BUT
Without the environment we could not exist and so its absolute value is infinite. However, that is not the relevant question for policy. Changes to the state of the environment yield finite benefits and costs that need to be traded off.

Proposition 9: We must reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to avoid global climate change.
Human induced global climate change is a serious threat to the continued ability of the planet to support humanity and current ecosystems. The damage caused by climate change will be so large that GHG emissions must be reduced now.
BUT
Reducing GHG emissions would be costly. The decision to bear those costs should be made with reference to the expected benefits reduced GHG emissions would yield. Reducing GHG emissions will not eliminate the risk of climate change.

Proposition 10: The care of the environment cannot be entrusted to the private sector.
The environment provides ‘public goods’ that should be available to all for free. That means the government has to be responsible for caring for the environment. The private sector will either destroy it or try to profit from it.
BUT
The public sector will face problems in managing the environment. Information for decision making is costly. Incentives for politicians and bureaucrats can conflict with public best interest. Private solutions can be lower cost and better aligned with society’s well-being.

Proposition 11: Agriculture and mining are always in conflict with the environment.
Agriculture and mining are extractive industries which deplete our stock of natural resources, often irreversibly. They also cause environmental degradation including soil erosion, biodiversity loss and chemical contamination of water and air.
BUT
While there are some trade-offs between agriculture, mining and the environment these can be reduced through the use of management techniques and technologies. Offsets and remediation work on farms and mines can improve the environment.

Proposition 12: Decisions regarding the future of the environment should be made using the ‘precautionary principle’.
If there is a risk that a proposed action will harm the environment, the precautionary principle requires policy makers to place the burden of proof on those proposing an action that it will not cause environmental damage.
BUT
There is always some risk of environmental harm resulting from human action. Demonstrating that there is no risk of harm is impossible. There are also uncertainties associated with not taking action which the precautionary principle ignores.

On proposition 1, George Monbiot has conceded that the peak oil claims were wrong, and that supply is increasing and has not peaked.

The book is only $30. Professor Bennett is speaking at the CIS in Sydney on the 1st of August.

Stuff reports:

Lees-Galloway had drafted a series of amendments to the Bill that he would put up when it came back to the debating chamber for a clause by clause debate, which was expected this month.

They included restricting alcohol advertising around schools, early childhood centres and at all but R18 films, and prohibiting advertising discounts.

Labour acknowledged many organisations relied on alcohol sponsorship, just as many once relied on tobacco sponsorship, he said.

“That is why I want to take this moderate approach to consider the viability of this option and to plan a smooth implementation should it go ahead.”

Lees-Galloway also wanted alcohol sponsorship phased out the same way tobacco sponsorship was phased out.

I’ll come to the amendments in a second, but I think banning alcohol sponsorship would be a draconian move, and unjustified.

THE PROPOSED CHANGES:

- Remove alcohol advertising on posters or billboards within 300m of schools and early childhood centres.

I don’t have a problem of removing within a fair distance of schools. ECEs is a bit over-board – I don’t think three year olds look at billboards much – and more practically an ECE can move about anywhere – unlike schools which tend to be in a fairly fixed location.

Remove alcohol advertising in cinemas unless the film screening is R18

This is an effective ban in all movies. When is the last time an R18 showed? I have some sympathy for the notion thought that one shouldn’t advertise in films targeted for kids. Maybe a lower threshold though?

Prohibit television advertising of alcohol before 9pm.

Sounds reasonable.

Prohibit using price in alcohol advertisements except in catalogues. Prohibit advertising discounts on alcohol, including in catalogues.

This one has some merit. Brand advertising I do not have a problem with, but advertising that promoted very cheap alcohol does cause issues. But one has to be careful how far you go. Making happy hour illegal can be taking things too far.

Establish a “Alcohol Advertising Reform Committee” with the health and justice ministries which would include the Health Promotion Agency.

Not sure we need a committee, but an issue with alcohol advertising is that the only penalty for breach of an ASA code on alcohol advertising is you have to pull the advertisement. This I think encourages some advertising which does breach the code. It is worth looking at having some sanctions for code breaches.

The Herald reports:

The Productivity Commission has renewed its call for more land to be freed up for lower-cost housing.

The commission in April released a report into housing affordability which found house prices doubled in the last decade.

Among its recommendations was for more land to made available to ease housing affordability pressures, particularly in Auckland where the pressure was most acute.

Productivity Commission chairman Murray Sherwin today renewed his call for lower-cost land to be made available.

Even if you ignore the extra million people that will live in Auckland in the next 40 years, there’s already an estimated shortfall of 15,000 houses. The Government can not build 15,000 houses (unless you know of $6 billion it has spare), so the private sector needs to. But people will only buy (and in turn rent) these houses if they are affordable – and it is the land rather than the house which is pushing prices up.

Mr Sherwin said councils and developers needed to work together to bring section prices down.

“In Auckland now the analysis we did suggested that around 60 per cent of the value of the property is represented by the land alone, and the rest of the country it’s around 40 per cent. We need to get that back down.”

If you get Auckland in line with the rest of NZ, then that is a 20% reduction in price.

He said that could come about through more green fields development or more intensification within existing urban limits.

We need both. Just as only idiots argue that it is a choice of roads or public transport (they are complementary not substitutes), only an idiot would say all new development should be just brown fields or just green fields – we need both.

Yvonne Tahana at NZ Herald reports:

The contested burial of Christchurch father and Tuhoe man James Takamore goes to the Supreme Court tomorrow but an academic says a decision overriding customary Maori law is akin to “cultural genocide”.

Mr Takamore died in 2007 in the South Island, where he lived with his partner Denise Clarke and children.

In a move described as “body snatching”, his wider whanau took him from Christchurch for burial according to Tuhoe custom at Kutarere in the Bay of Plenty.

Ms Clarke’s fight to disinter the remains was upheld by the High Court and Court of Appeal based on her rights as executor and spouse. However, Mr Takamore’s sister Josephine has appealed to the Supreme Court.

Ms Clarke told the Herald she expected to succeed in the latest round of litigation. “They’re not willing to compromise, they’ve made that clear.”

Associate Professor Nin Tomas of the Auckland University law school has researched customary and common law: the first emphasises rights held by whanau, the second holds that executors or spouses have the final say in burial matters.

Neither should have the final say. The clearly expressed wishes of the deceased should have force in law, and if necessary it should be a criminal offence to act against them (so long as they are legal and practical).

In the absence of clear directions in a will, then the order of precedence should be:

1. Executor
2. Spouse or partner
3. Children
4. Parents
5. Siblings

Miss Takamore’s wishes should be well down the chain.

Professor Tomas said the Takamore case “is a conflict-of-laws situation and the court needs to look at the overall custom and its importance to the society it supports”.

“To dismember [tikanga], or to outlaw it as a system, as the [courts] have done, is cultural genocide.”

The law needed to change to better accommodate customary law.

There may be a clash of laws. I have no problem at all with saying a law which respect the wishes of the individual deceased and then the person that individual chose to marry should trump a customary law which robs the deceased and their chosen family of their rights to decide place of burial. Of course in a cross-cultural situation, individuals should try and compromise to agree on something palatable to all – but if agreement is not achieved, then the law should be followed and there should be penalties for body stealing.

The NZ Herald editorial:

Sometimes the Government must think it simply cannot win. Take the action plan outlined in the Green Paper for Vulnerable Children. If Social Development Minister Paula Bennett failed to pay particular attention to this group, she would be accused of being negligent and uncaring. But her formulation of proposals to overcome shortcomings in the identification and tackling of child abuse has led only to criticism on another count. According to a joint statement issued by 72 non-government agencies, the funding of services for better-off children must be sacrosanct in this drive to help the neediest.

I bet you all 72 of those agencies get most of their funding from the taxpayer.

The agencies’ statement is, in effect, a plea for the retention of universal social spending, no matter the fact that many parents could afford to pay more if they had to. …

In an ideal world, such universal benefits would be retained. But the present situation is far from that.

Actually in an ideal world, there would be no universal benefits outside schools and hospitals. There are significant economic deadweight costs in taking money off people in taxation and giving it back to them in subsidies. We should provide subsidised services to those who can not afford them for themselves – not to everyone.

It is imperative that any fiscally responsible Government adjusts both its spending and its priorities. Those most in need of temporary help should be targeted.

In the context of children, that means concentrating funding where it is most needed and most cost-effective. It makes no sense to provide welfare for the comfortably off as well as the most vulnerable if the burden on the budget cripples the economy on which all New Zealanders depend.

Agreed.

The United Nations children’s fund Unicef, which drafted the agencies’ statement, also said that Ms Bennett’s proposals risk “stigmatising” the 15 per cent of children defined as vulnerable. That, again, is a skew-whiff view of the Government’s intent.

Oh, get out of here. This is like the PPTA saying it is racism to try and improve educational outcomes in South Auckland and Porirua. Helpng vulnerable families is not stigmatising them.

Marika Hill at Stuff reports:

Auckland’s Catholic schools ruled in Metro magazine’s annual school league tables, but an education expert has warned parents the rankings are too “crude” to take seriously.

Each year Metro rates the best and worst schools in Auckland based on academic results, adjusted according to a school’s decile rating.

McAuley High School, a Catholic school for girls in the lower socio-economic area of Otahuhu, topped the rankings based on the past three years’ NCEA results.

So league tables do not necessairly discriminate against schools in lower socio-economic areas.

Catholic schools took eight of the top 10 positions in a table comparing year 11 NCEA results earlier this month.

Metro editor Simon Wilson suggested Catholic school principals should be giving a hand-up to principals of low-decile schools.

“If this country is really going to get serious about eliminating the long tail of failure in our schools, it’s possible the single most valuable thing we could do is shoulder-tap the key Catholic educators and gives them a free hand in low-decile schools that are not doing well.”

Not a bad idea. Or allow them to set up more schools.

Waikato University education professor Martin Thrupp said it was misleading to assume Catholic schools are better.

State-integrated religious schools have more flexible enrolment schemes compared to state schools.

While state schools must give priority to local students, a state-integrated school can give preference to Catholic students from a wider catchment area.

Thrupp said this effectively means Catholic school principals can be more selective when accepting students.

That’s a fair point, but it would be useful to know to what extent principals do accept from outside their area. I’m doubtful it would be enough to invalidate the fact Catholic schools took up eight out of the top 10 spots.

“Just because the school is top of the pops in the league tables doesn’t necessarily mean it will be right for your child. They might not fit the culture of the school,” he said.

“I wouldn’t pay it too much attention myself, there’s other more rounded forms of information like ERO reports.”

Absolutely one should not decide on a school just because it is top of a league table. And yes one should read ERO reports, talk to current students, former students, staff etc at a school. But comparative data on academic achievements can be a useful part of the mix.

Metro magazine looked at the last three years’ worth of NCEA results to create the tables.

The writers attempted to create a level-playing field by taking into account decile rating, which denote the socio-economic area the school is situated in.

Schools are compared against other schools in their deciles, and they determine what schools added the most value to the student intake.

It would be interesting to know their exact formula.

John Hartevelt at Stuff reports:

Labour is urging a “hard look” at the accommodation supplement, amid claims landlords are pocketing a $1.2b “subsidy” despite providing substandard housing.

Housing spokeswoman Annette King said the Salvation Army had warned in the 1990s that the supplement to support low-income people would turn in to a subsidy for landlords – and that had happened.

Where is the proof for this claim that it has turned into a subsidy for landlords? Is Annette King saying that landlords are charging more to someone who is eligible for the accommodation supplement?

“It is a major subsidy for landlords but it hasn’t produced better housing or more access to housing or an ability for people to buy housing,” Ms King said.

It is not a subsidy for landlords. It is a subsidy for low income tenants who are renting.

“If we just let it keep growing year after year as more and more people struggle to pay rent, then we are doing nothing in terms of changing the ability to house people and it’s time that we had a highly focused look at how do you turn that into something that is a whole lot better.”

The supplement is paid in addition to other welfare payments at varying rates, depending on circumstances. It is meant to help cover rent, board or home ownership costs.

In 2007, the Government paid $877m through the supplement, but it is expected to top $1.2b this year.

If Labour is proposing abolishing the accommodation supplement, then they should say so. You could divert the $1.2b a year into new state homes through Housing NZ, which are then provided at 25% of people’s incomes. I suspect this is what they want to do.

The problem with this though is those low income families who get into a Housing NZ home get massive state support, while those low income families who do not get into a Housing NZ home would get zero, nil, nothing.

Ms King said the supplement supported people in rental accommodation but a lot of the houses were “incredibly poor quality”.

“Some of it is absolutely appalling housing and landlords take whatever the accommodation supplement is and add it to their rent,” she said.

Again, proof? Labour are smearing tens of thousands of landlords with this allegation.

“I think we need to take a hard look at how we could turn some of that accommodation supplement into providing affordable, decent, warm housing and how we could turn some of it into people being able to own their own housing.”

She did not know exactly how that might work but said it should be discussed.

So Labour actually has no alternative. They just wanted to smear evil landlords.