Kiwiblog

Okay the final round was not too bad. I got 31 points in a low scoring round and with thatI cracked the 400 mark, specifically 405. My global ranking is 9,223 (up 6,112) of 155,708 which has me in the 6th percentile.

I picked 5/7 games correctly, but only two margins correctly. I did not pick the Hurricanes losing (sigh) or the Chiefs beating the Crusaders.

Of the 91 people on the NZ bloggers challenge, I am in 6th place. Those above me in order are Mark Montgomerie (431), Graeme T (414), Brian Burgess (410), Graeme Edgeler (406) and Whale Oil (406).

The global champion at this stage is on 474 points.

Semis next weekend. I suppose I have to support the Blues and Crusaders.

Adolf at Sir H highlights the story of how blogger Phil U got expelled from the Greens on the basis of secret dossiers. What happened to making decisions openly by consensus

And Red Rasputin has details of a complaint to Labour’s governing body signed by 18 Princes Street Labour members.

NZ First is also having tensions between the parliamentary and organisational wing. United Future, I hear, is having the Christians depart unhappy with Dunne on smacking. ACT always has tensions and National no doubt has some robust debate on the smacking compromise.

Times like this Jim Anderton must like being sole dictator of his own party – I mean it is even named after him

It was hilarious watching the US live cable coverage of Paris Hilton being sentenced to 45 days jail for a parole violation relating to a drink driving case.

I’ve never seen so many news anchors and journalists with huge grins on their faces. I mean one could have boiled an egg on the heat of the joy radiating from their bodies. None of them actually came out and said “There is karma after all” but they were thinking it.

A Federal Labor MP, Kelly Hoare, is undergoing counselling after allegedly asked a government car driver whilst being chauffeured to her Sydney home, “Why don’t you come in and fuck me”.

Ms Hoare, 43, has been an MP for almost nine years.

I hope the driver has had counselling for the hassles he will get from his colleagues for the next ten years.

James Papali’i has just been appointed to be the Labour Party campaign manager for the Mangere campaign in Manukau City.

James Papali’i is a convicted criminal. And not decades ago but just nine months ago! He was found guilty on 29 charges of forgery, theft and dishonesty. He stole $40,000 from a trust set up to help at-risk youth.

Now I am not saying that a conviction should be a bar for ever for political involvement. But for Labour to have him as their local campaign manager within months of his conviction for theft, is highly inappropriate.

Hat Tip: Sir H

Fred Thompson is a former US Senator and a potential candidate for the Republican 2008 Presidential nomination. He is also an actor and most well known for his portrayal of Arthur Branch on the series Law & Order.

The Branch character is a former Yale Law Professor who becomes a popular tough as nails conservative New York District Attorney. The popularity of the character benefits Thompson as some people see his character as him (cf the Governorator).

With that in mind, I enjoyed receiving today this e-mail:

AWESOME FACTS ABOUT FRED THOMPSON

* Every night before going to sleep, Osama bin Laden checks under his bed for Fred Thompson.
Read the rest of this entry »

The SST has a review of a book by Palmerston North detective Liz Williams called Does This Make My Gun Look Big?

Williams was liasion to the Lundy family after Christine and Amber were found dead. She talks of how she didn’t assume Lundy was guilty at first, but after observing his behaviour at the funeral parlour and crime scene, she thought he definitely was. She labels his behaviour as a B grade movie performance.

She also reveals that one in three rape complaints she has investigated are false or unsubstantiated, and how angry she is for the real victims, whose life is made more difficult by the false complaints.

Matthew Hooton backgrounds the smacking compromise, and what it means politically.

Panicked, the government spent March prancing about, trying to make it go away. It attacked parents who were concerned about the bill – the prime minister smeared them as thrashers and beaters, reminiscent of her vilifying the hikoi marchers as “haters and wreckers”. She considered adopting the bill as a government measure, or forcing it through under urgency, but she couldn’t get the support.

Faced with the inevitability that Clark would move, Key had two options. He could make the most of it, and position himself as the equal of the nation’s leader, or he could risk being associated with the bill’s more rabid opponents, who were advancing towards the steps of parliament. The latter was never a real option for National’s cosmopolitan new leader.

In allowing the compromise, Key threw away an opportunity for his backbenchers to have a field day against Labour and he’s given Cullen an opening to promote whatever inspiring initiatives are in his Budget – but it is doubtful he gave away much more. For all the heat they generate in the short run, conscience issues don’t dominate election campaigns.

What Clark has given up is much more important – the ability to ever again demonise Key as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the son of Ruth Richardson, the pawn of the religious right.

Such charges – however dishonest, even ludicrous – were to have been the central theme of her re-election strategy next year. Smearing Key was essential to Clark to allow her to use the same crude fear tactics and “Don’t Put It All Risk” slogan with which she so successfully slayed Don Brash in the final week of the 2005 campaign.

Key has acted on his own conscience and judgement. He has done the right thing, and he has been politically smart at the same time, leaving Labour’s planned 2008 election strategy in tatters. He is on his way to the prime ministership. Those who can’t stomach the new, modern National Party he is building can always go and vote for Act.

The SST has done a story on the excesses by some members of the VUWSA Exec, which have been reported in Salient and here.

AUSA used to have such excesses. I note they seem to have dramatically reduced under voluntary membership.

The full report of what the exec members did is meant to be on the VUWSA site but I can’t find it.

The SST has an interview with Ian Fraser. Some of it is expected justifying his record, but what I found interesting was:

His belief that the “hybrid” model of public service and commercial television cannot work and should be abandoned.

Fraser also calls on the government to sell off TV2 and turn TV One into a non-commercial public service channel combined with Maori Television and Radio New Zealand.

Fraser has a lifetime of dedication to public broadcasting, so when he says the TVNZ model is fatally flawed as a hybrid, people should listen.

I have long advocated selling off a fully commercial TV2 and having TV One as a public service broadcaster. The idea of merging it with Radio NZ and Maori TV also has some merit – more so for Radio NZ than Maori TV.

The Herald on Sunday editorial rightly lambasts NZ Post for hiding behind the Privacy Act to justify heir refusal to reveal the surname of a sacked staff member who harrassed a customer. By refusing to reveal his surname, she is unable to apply for a protection order against the man.

As the Privacy Commissioner herself states, NZ Post is placing the privacy of a former staff member who broke the law, over the customer whose privacy was appallingly breached by said staffer. Madness.

For some reason when one has been out all night, and you finally get home, then doing a meme seems more of a good idea than normal. Anyway stolen from Andrew Falloon.

1. How old will you be in 12 months? 40 years, 7 months, 23 days.

2. Do you think you’ll be married by then? No, unless I get drunk at Vegas again.

3. What do you look forward to most in the next 3 months? Consilium

4. Who was the last person you called? Tim Grafton

5. Who was the last person to call you? Nicola Shepheard, Herald on Sunday at 7.11pm.

6. Do you prefer to call or text? Call, but I text heaps to save money.

7. Do you have any pets? No but am fond of my niece’s two kittens and Accident Girl’s two Griffons.

8. What were you doing at 12am last night? Dancing badly

9. Parents seperated/divorced/married? Married.

10. When is the last time you saw your mom? Last Sunday

11. What happened at 11:00a.m? I was blogging!

12. How many states have you lived in? Have stayed in California, Nevada, Arizona, Florida, DC, Virginia, New York

13. How many cities/towns have you lived in? In NZ I have lived in Dunedin and Wellington.

14. Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet? bare feet at home

15. Are you a social person? Yeah

16. What was the last thing you ate? Lasagne

17. Favorite ice cream? Naepolitian

18. What is your favorite dessert? Pavlova

19. What is your favorite TV show? Southpark then Grey’s Anatomy. Was West Wing.

20. What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich? Oh yuck.

21. Do you like coffee? Not much. I never drink it by myself but end up having half a dozen flat whites a week through meeting people.

22. How many glasses of water a day do you drink on average? Half a dozen, plus heaps of milk and diet coke.

23. What do you drink in the morning? Water

24. Would you rather kiss someone with or without a tongue ring? Prefer without. Is fun when someone does have one but novelty wears out.

25. Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed? The right side is mine – of course!

26. Do you know how to play poker? Yes, but not a regular player. Prefer Blackjack.

27. Do you like to cuddle? Generally yes.

28. Any plans for this weekend? This weekend went with five girls to Downstage (had free tickets for The Graduate).

29. Do you eat out or at home more often? At home but I do eat out a lot.

32. Would you ever get your nipples pierced? Never.

33. Have you ever been in an ambulance? No.

34. Do you prefer an ocean or a pool? Pool. The ocean – I love the surf.

35. Do you prefer a window seat or an aisle seat? Aisle. Hate being cramped in.

36. Do you know how to drive a stick shift? I do. Once, but no longer I would say. Cactus Kate can testify to that.

37. What is your favorite thing to spend money on? Books.

38. Do you wear any jewellery 24/7? Not even a watch.

39. Do you speak any other language? A but of Latin but that isn’t meant to be spoken anyway.

40. Can you roll your tongue? Nah.

41. Who is the funniest person you know? Chris S.

42. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? No but I still have the ones I used to sleep with.

43. Would you rather make out with a one armed Slovakian midget or run without a bra on? Depends how hot the midget is.

44. What is the main ring tone on your phone? The Simpsons!

45. Do you still have clothes from when you were little? No.

46. What is the color of your bedroom walls? Vanilla.

47. Do you shut off the water when you brush your teeth? No.

48. Have you been kissed by anyone this week? Yes.

49. Do you like overly sensitive people? Yes but they may not like my insensitivity

50. Do you talk to the person who posted this before you? Only if we are at the same pub, which has been once!

I’ve been quite disappointed with Segolene Royal in the last two weeks. She seems to have abandoned campaigning on her policies and strengths to a launch a series of character attacks and alarmist statements against her opponent. She really deserves to lose. She took a bold initiative early on with announcing 100 policies in one day (not that I agreed with them, but it was a good thing to do), but in desperation has gone down the usual leftish track of warning of of riots and violence if her opponent wins.

France bans polls in the last two days, but there were nine polls done in May. Sarokozy in April averaged a 53 to 37 lead. In May it has averaged 53.7% to 46.3% so Sarokozy seems to be fairly secure. I think he will win by a 5% to 8% margin.

The local elections in the UK are over and most results known. In Scotland and Wales they were electing their regional Parliaments while in England (and Scotland) they were electing local authorities.

In Scotland, the SNP have gained 20 seats to have 47 seats to 46 for Labour. The Lib Dems have 16 and Tories 17 with three held by minors. You need 65 seats to govern so an SNP/Lib Dem coalition gets them 63, so they need to pick up two of three minors – probably the Greens. Despite their narrow win, I doubt Scotland will go Independent – polls show less than 30% support, but a referendum is likely and as campaigns start, they can change.

Wales saw Labour lose only three seats to have 26 out of 60 seats. Tories have 12, Lib Dems 6 and Plaid Cymru 15. Probably Labour/Lib Dem Government.

In the local Councils, Labour lost control of a further eight and now control only 33, compared to 157 for the Tories and 22 for the Lib Dems.

Scotland also had a major fuck up with their ballot papers and up to 100,000 were spoiled. Everyone who laughed at the inability of the US to have clear voting papers should now laugh at Scotland louder.

NZ’s greenhouse gas emissions increased 2.8% in 2005, and since 1999 has increased by 12%. And Labour’s broken promise was to reduce them by 20% by 2010.

People like to rip the US and Australia for not ratifying Kyoto, yet our percentage increase was larger than Australia, the US, Japan and the EU!! The Government has had seven years of platitudes and no workable policies.

As I have said many times, the stats on benefit numbers are easily manipulated by having people hived off into pointless training schemes, on other benefits etc etc. This is why the HLFS is the official record of unemployment levels.

We see this by Rick Barker’s claim that no-one in Flaxmere is on the unemployment benefit. Now it defies belief that no one in Flaxmere is unemployed – it just means they are not recorded as receiving the dole..

As the Dom Post points out, there are 20 people just appearing in Court who are from Flaxmere and unemployed. A local resident jokes half the neighbourhood is unemployed, including three members of her family.

John Roughan writes about John Key, and how people should be paying more attention to the message he is sending out on changing the economy.

As National’s finance spokesman at the last election it was evident in Key’s speeches that he wants to make quite a distinct change of economic speed. He is fond of saying that if New Zealand was a stock he would buy it, but he would change its gearing.

He thinks the country is past the stage when it needs to continue with cautious, thrifty, balanced budgets and that it is time to invest in greater expansion. Besides returning revenue to the private sector in tax cuts and targeting welfare better, as indicated this week on family tax credits, he would, I think, borrow happily.

Borrowing to fund an operating deficit is basically always a bad thing. Borrowing to fund infrastructure and capital investment can be good or bad – it depends on the quality of the investment.

Dick Hubbard was the de facto candidate of the left last local body elections. But his performance has been so abysmal, that people have realisedthat almost anyone who challenged Hubbard would beat him, and if there is no leftwing candidate, the city would have a centre-right Mayor again.

So it is no surprise that Labour Councillor John Hinchcliff has announced he is standing for Mayor.

What will be interesting is who else stands. Hinchcliff would probably beat Hubbard one on one but he is tainted by being on the Council which has angered so many Aucklanders with massive rate rises, backing the unwanted stadium, not sorting our Transport, and the billboard ban. Plus as Hubbard points out, Hinchcliff is the Chair of the dysfunctional Selwyn College which will be used against him.

Steve Crow is standing also, which will make it an even more interesting campaign than normal.

So Shortland Street is 15 years old. For anyone born after 1980, they probably can’t remember a time when there was no Shortland Street.

It seems almost every NZ actor has been on the show at some stage. So to celebrate 15 years vote below in the comments for your hottest male and hottest female cast member. You can vote for anyone, but my suggested shortlists for both are:

Men

Hone Ropata (Temuera Morrison)
Chris Warner (Michael Galvin)
Dominic Thompson (Shane Cortese)
Victor Kahu (Calvin Tuteao)
Stuart Neilson (Martin Henderson)
Mark Weston (Tim Foley)
TK Samuels (Benjamin Mitchell)
Rangi Heiramaia (Blair Strang)

Women

Alison Raynor (Danielle Cormack)
Angela Dotchin (Kirsty Knight)
Waverly Wilson (Claire Chitham)
Tiffany Pratt (Alison James)
Rachel McKenna (Angela Bloomfield)
Toni Warner (Laura Hill)
Alice Piper (Toni Potter)
Caroline Buxton (Tandi Wright)
Rebecca Frost (Luisa Burgess)
Anne Greenlaw (Emmeline Hawthorne)
Jo Jordan (Greer Robson)

My personal picks. Well hell of a hard call but the long standing crush on Rachel McKenna/Angela Bloomfield has her win for me. Amongst the men I think the original Dr Ropata would take honours!

I’m not the only one saying both Clark and Key come out of this winners. The Press Editorial concludes:

Reaching consensus on the bill is a political achievement for leaders on both sides. The pragmatism and flexibility of the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, are well known and this is a striking example of her leadership qualities. The deal with National shields her party from public fury about the bill but also takes most of the heat out of the issue. For the leader of the National Party, John Key, it is an even more impressive accomplishment. He has not only distanced his party from an out-of-touch religious faction, but he has shown himself willing to negotiate and make sensible compromises in order to bring about a result. He has also shown immense skill in bringing a reluctant caucus with him. His performance has, more than anything hitherto in his career, demonstrated his leadership qualities.

So who can guess who this person is? The answer is at this link.

The favourite game at the moment is trying to pick who are the winners and the losers from the smacking compromise. And later in this post I’ll play that game, by saying both Key and Clark are winners, but in very different ways.

But first it is important to note that what matters to the 10% or so of the population who study politics furiously, is not the same as the other 90% for whom the rather cynical “perception not reality counts” is somewhat true. People like me can say it’s still a pretty damn stupid bill, but to most of the public they will just be very pleased that Helen and John put aside politics to do a compromise which makes it sound less likely parents will be prosecuted for light smacking. And the fact the Police have welcomed the amendment lends to that perception. Again I can point to the concern I have about how CYFS will use this law, but it is not a concern of your average parent.

Now one should also give kudos to both Clark and Key for their trust in each other. As the Dom Post says, Clark risked a fair bit in making the approach to Key. He could have rushed out a PR accusing the Govt of panicking and coming up with a half hearted meaningless compromise. Likewise Key risked the backlash to any deal. It’s not a bad thing the PM and the Opposition Leader could trust each other to work in good faith. And I suspect neither will suffer electorally for it.

But back to winners and losers. People need to remember the difference between a tactical victory and a strategic victory.

If I have to pick a tactical winner, I would say Helen Clark. She was facing somewhat of a nightmare. Low opinion polls, some very unhappy MPs on this issue (see Mitchell on how unhappy Duynhoven was), and the very real fear that next week’s budget would only remain in the headlines until the next smacking debate day in the House.

The Government has not been driving the political agenda for the last year, and if their budget had sunk, they might have gone into election year very weak. This move gives them an opportunity to use the budget to regain political initiative. And Clark managed to find an amendment which she can claim isn’t inconsistent with what she wanted.

But as a strategic winner, I point to John Key, and so do most of the columns I have seen, Transtasman, and the TV reports. Why? Because Labour’s 2008 election strategy just took a beating. When you are going for your fourth term, it is hard to win it on new policy ideas (as Jordan has blogged about). You win it by scaring the crap out of the public about the Opposition. And you won’t be able to demonise John Key now as cancerous and divisive and corrosive.

Add to that John Key gets credit for calling for the compromise in the first place, he got to look absolutely Prime Ministerial, and a growing list of achievements one has managed despite not even being in Government (in case no one has noticed the minor parties with a supportive National have started to influence the legislative agenda significantly). There is no better place to be in election year wanting to be PM, than already looking the part.

Clark needed the tactical win badly and she got it. But Key’s strategic win will I suspect be of more lasting value.

Dr Cullen is already admitting that once again there will be another huge surplus. This is not a surprise. I have been blogging for some years that Treasury systemically underestimates the surplus by several billion. Yet these projections are held up as a reason not to have tax cuts.

Now people will say ha we have an inflation problem, and tax cuts can contribute to inflation, so we should not have tax cuts.

Not at all. The inflation issue means one should spread any tax cuts over time, rather than do them all in one year while inflation pressures are high.

The tragedy is that Cullen could have delivered gradual tax cuts over the last four or five years – say a cumulative billion a year, and this would have minimised any overheating the economy. But by refusing any and all tax relief to date, he has built up huge surpluses.

And while not minimising the importance of low inflation, tax cuts are forever, while a spike in interest rates may only last a year or two. So it is not a choice of one or the other. It is a matter of timing and quantum.

It is also worth remembering that tax cuts are less inflationary than extra government spending, as a proportion of tax cuts will be saved.

So is it likely National can propose a huge tax cut in one year? No. But can National commit to a series of moderate reductions in the tax burden, over time? Yes. Can National commit to an overarching principle of “If we take in more money then we need, we’ll give it back to taxpayers”? Yes.

I’m on Face Off on Newstalk ZB (Wellington) from 11 am to midday today. The other panelists are Lindsay Mitchell and Ken Laban (Lower Hutt Mayoral Candidate).

We’ll probably be discussing smacking, dogs and waste.

The Government really seems to be unable to present a coherent message. Just last week we sar Trevor Mallard seek multiparty talks on monetary policy and then Helen Clark contradicting that.

Also last week Helen Clark was talking up export tax credits, and this week Michael Cullen says they have been dropped from the budget.

I keen waiting for the Government to regain its former competence. I keep saying they are only having a bad spell, as all parties do. But as simple mistakes continue such as Ministers not pushing the same message, I wonder if they are going to recover.