Kiwiblog

In a final ballot run-off, Paul Goldsmith pipped Aaron Bhatnagar. Congrats to Paul, and commiserations to Aaron and the other candidates.

Belinda McCammon writes:

Former Auckland City councillor Paul Goldsmith, who has written biographies on John Banks and Don Brash, says he will contest the National Party nomination for Epsom.

Goldsmith said he had decided over the weekend to contest the nomination, which will pit him against former councillor Aaron Bhatnagar.

Both served on the now defunct Auckland City Council after being elected in 2007.

Goldsmith’s declaration comes after he unsuccessfully sought the North Shore nomination this year, with delegates selecting broadcaster Maggie Barry.

Goldsmith also stood unsuccessfully as the National Party candidate in Maungakiekie in 2005.

At least three people are known to be standing for selection in Epsom, with the National Party deputy regional chairman for Auckland, Denise Krum, also confirming she’d seek the nomination.

I know Aaron, Paul and Denise. All would be good MPs.

Aaron is the former City Councillor for the ward which covers most of the electorate and has just stood down as the Epsom Electorate Chair.

Paul is also a former City Councillor, the biographer to Don Brash and John banks and before that Press Secretary to Phil Goff and Simon Upton.

I’ve blogged on Denise before, who is very active in National in Northern Region.

It will be very interesting to see if anyone else stands, and then the selection itself.

Belinda mcCammon writes:

The National Party will open nominations this weekend for the Auckland blue-ribbon seat of Epsom, anticipated to be one of the most-watched contests of the general election.
 
National Party Northern Region chairman Alan Towers told Fairfax nominations would open on Saturday and close on June 24.

”We would expect at least five candidates to put their name forward for Epsom which is a safe blue seat, bearing in mind the party vote is what counts.”
 
While there has been considerable interest in Epsom, only one person – National Party office holder Aaron Bhatnagar – has publicly announced he will seek the nomination so far.

And Aaron would be a very good candidate. It will be interesting to see who else stands.

John Banks has been saying very constructive things about how he is not returning to Parliament to bag people in National, and how he just wants to push National to do more. It’s a message that will go down very well in Epsom, and will make it fairly easy for National voters to vote for him.

It is, in my opinion, a better message that claiming John Key is a traitor who has sold out to Labour and the Greens.

Derek Cheng reports in the NZ Herald:

The Act Party is expected to open nominations for the crucial seat of Epsom today and former Auckland Mayor John Banks is “quietly confident” he has the inside running.

Mr Banks made it clear last night that he wanted to follow a proper process.

“I’m not looking for any easy ride to the line. If a high-quality candidate steps up to the plate, someone of outstanding ability, then I’m happy to step aside and support that person.”

Mr Banks has already had a huge endorsement from the party’s new leader, Don Brash.

If ACT get to even one third of the 15% they claim they can now get, then Epsom doesn’t matter to them. However if they fail to get 5%, then it is crucial to their survival.  There are many interesting questions to be resolved.

1. Will Banks win the nomination uncontested?
2. Whom will National stand as their candidate. If it is local electorate chair Aaron Bhatnagar, then there could be a fascinating Bhatnagar v Banks contest.
3. Who will Labour stand in Epsom?
4. Will Labour supporters be urged to vote for their candidate or to vote strategically for Bhatnagar (or whomever is the National candidate)?
5. Will National aim to win the seat back, on the basis of ACT claiming it will get 15%?
6. Who will win if it is a full-on contest?
7. If ACT do not get 5%, but Banks wins Epsom, will that make Banks more powerful than the Leader?
8. If there is a National-led Government, one can only presume that Banks would be one of the ACT MPs made a Minister, considering his experience. So Boscawen and Roy might miss out.

Epsom is going to remain one of those must follow races.

National has annoucned the five short-listed candidates for Botany. In alphabetical order they are:

• Maggie Barry
• Aaron Bhatnagar
• Darron Gedge
• Jami-lee Ross
• Edward Saafi

I picked four of the five correctly. I thought Denise Krum would make it also. Edward Saafi I had not profiled previously – his local body election profile is here. Dr Saafi has a PhD and MBA, working as a biomedical health research scientist. Seems a very solid candidate. However he appears to have stood for the Destiny Party in 2005 in Mangere, so I think fair to say not my first choice.

Selection is on Thursday 27 January.

Very pleased to read in the Herald:

Liquor law changes which would have closed Auckland suburban bars before midnight will be scrapped after receiving a hostile reception from the hospitality industry.

Auckland City mayor John Banks and Aaron Bhatnagar, the councillor steering the changes through the council, decided at the weekend to abandon the changes. …

Realising something isn’t going to fly is one of the skills of politics. Of course some still want it:

City Vision leader Richard Northey said that rather than panic, Mr Banks and Mr Bhatnagar should have continued the process, listened to all sides of the argument and addressed issues with widespread support, such as the opening hours and location of off-licence alcohol outlets.

Alcohol Advisory Council chief executive Gerard Vaughan was surprised the policy was being dumped in the middle of public consultation, which was to run until October 7.

“We know that reducing hours is an effective means of reducing harm from alcohol,” he said.

Yes indeed. So let’s go back to the six pm closing shall we? But why stop there? If we force bars to only open between 2 pm and 4 pm that will reduce harm even further!

Mr Banks, who wants to be the first mayor of the Super City next year, said he had no doubt the liquor issue would have damaged a key constituency – the hospitality industry – with which he had a long association.

He said yesterday that the first lesson of politics was to bail out when caught out.

The Mayor, who last month voted for the draft liquor law changes, said he had never seen such a violent reaction to a policy issue “and I have put an end to it”.

Listening to the people!

As I blogged a few days ago, I think it is an issue best left to the new local boards anyway.

Yet to buy it, but love this extract from Aaron Bhatnagar:

There was also an amusing set of late night emails from William to Metro Magazine staffers, which goes like this

1:00am – 2 paragraph email attacking the journalist, Donna Chisholm, for a hidden agenda and demanding a meeting with her

1:30 am – 4 paragraph (abridged!) email complaining to another journalist called Jenny who left Metro two years ago, CC’ed to Chisholm, where, among other things, he accuses Chisholm of being in the secret pay of John Banks

5:56am – One line email to Metro “recalling” the emails above.

Andrew Williams and his late night e-mails just get better and better.

His ipredict stock for becoming Mayor of Auckland has only one buyer at the moment. Someone is bidding $0.0001 per share.

I blogged on Monday about how Whale Oil was seeking donations so he could win a charity auction (for Westpac Rescue Helicopter) for the prize of 90 minutes in a flight simulator with North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams. Cameron is a relentless critic of Williams, for those who don’t know.

Now this was great for the charity. It pushes up the value of the auction. Cameron was willing to go up to US$1,000 or NZ$1,500 – all of which would go to charity. He said if he was outbid he would donate the money regardless which meant if someone outbid him, the Westpac Rescue Helicopter could end up with more than NZ$3,000.

But in a fit of cowardice, Andrew Williams conspired with Trade Me to disallow bids from Cameron (and it seems from several other bidders), and the auction closed for just $150.

I’m disgusted at Trade Me that they remove valid bids, just because Andrew Williams did not like the bidder. That undermines their integrity greatly. And they helped rip the charity off also.

Williams looks ridiculous also. If Slater had won, Williams could have turned it into great PR – look at what I’m prepared to do for charity. Or if he really could not face the possibility, he should have got somone to outbid Cameron.

Now as it happens the Mayor’s daughter won the auction it seems at $150. And this was after several bids for higher than that were removed. So it looks even worse that they appear to have fixed who would win.

Aaron Bhatnagar blogs:

Slater would be a legitimate bidder, though clearly not one Williams would have appreciated. However, it was for a charity, so there ought to have been an element of goodwill about this. It’s not at all uncommon charity auctions have elements of prank or comical outcomes, but because it’s for charity, you tend to take it all in good humour. After all, Rodney Hide allowed himself to get his head shaved by Williams for charity not long ago.

Which makes the actions hypocritical also.

UPDATE: A reader has commented that the person listing an auction can blacklist or remove bids themselves, without any input from Trade Me. If this is correct, then Trade Me are not to blame. The villain then is Worldflight who acted with Williams to lower the amount donated to charity. There goes the brand.

I almost can’t believe this one – from Aaron Bhatnagar:

The City Vision Councillors are focused on the big issues that matter to Aucklanders – the Tamil Tigers:

City Vision Councillor Graham Easte has proposed a notice of motion about supporting the Tamil cause and the conflict in Sri Lanka. There’s even going to be a deputation from some Tamil supporters group to come and speak to us. …

Aaron correctly notes:

Firstly, I don’t know what this has to do with Auckland City. Yes, the conflict that has raged in Sri Lanka is very sad, but it’s not council business. And even if it was somehow Auckland City’s role to leap into the dispute, why would we be taking sides? The cause is lost – the Tamil Tigers got defeated last week. There may be 4000 Tamils in Auckland, but there are probably more Sinhalese Sri Lankans living in Auckland.

I want my City Councillors to spend their time on libraries, parks, facilities, keeping rates down. Not pretending to be the UN.

Aaron Bhatnagar blogs that a City Vision Councillor voted to ban smoking outside in the Auckland CBD.

Why not just cut out all the in between steps, and just start shooting smokers?

Idiot/Savant looks at what would happen if the Foreshore and Seabed Act was repealed. I tend to favour repeal of the Act, but also would like the Court of Appeal ruling to have been tested by appeal to the Privy Council or the Supreme Court. Maybe one can repeal the Act, legislate to allow the Supreme Court to hear an appeal from the Court of Appeal ruling, and then whatever the Supreme Court decides, forms the basis of negotiations between Crown and Iwi.

Adam Smith at The Inquiring Mind links to an article in The Times on the huge number of subtitling mashups done of the bunker scene from Downfall. Over 150 mashups have been done, including three by Whale Oil. They are Winston’s Downfall, Helen’s Downfall and Judith’s Downfall.

Aaron Bhatnagar blogs on how Waiheke Island and Great Barrier Island residents will be polled on whetehr they want to remain part of Auckland City, or transfer to the Thames-Coromandel District Council. I don’t think many do want to change but as 10% o residents signed a petition, the Local Government Commission is obliged to run a poll.

Paul Walker retires from blogging. A real pity – I enjoy all the economist blogs, even though they are not high traffic. Maybe if they all combined together?

Bryce Edwards has done a series of posts on the party that shall not be named. They are a fascinating background read. One day he should publish them as children’s horror stories

Finally Adam Smith scans in and blogs every day a good Letter to the Editor. Have a look at this one from the Co-vice-president of the Maori Party responding to Chris Trotter.

The NZ Herald has a story on edits done to Wikipedia by Aaron Bhatnagar, highlighted a few days ago by Russell Brown.

Auckland City councillor Aaron Bhatnagar has been caught doctoring the online encyclopedia Wikipedia to paint his opponents in a bad light at last year’s local body elections.

Using the alias of Barzini _ a power-hungry psychopath from Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather _ Mr Bhatnagar created entries for his Action Hobson opponents in the Hobson ward and made unflattering changes to the entry for Mayor Dick Hubbard.

After winning a council seat and watching Action Hobson councillors Christine Caughey and Richard Simpson go down to a C&R rout in Hobson, Mr Bhatnagar tried to remove the Wikipedia entries for his opponents at 3am the following morning.

An unrepentant Mr Bhatnagar yesterday admitted setting up and editing entries against his opponents on Wikipedia, but claimed everything he said was true, such as broken promises on rates. He said Wikipedia was self-regulating and a community where everyone could have a say. There were mechanisms to delete or rewrite entries. …

Mr Brown yesterday said anyone could edit an entry in Wikipedia, but the main barrier was ethical. There was a Wikipedia rule that stated it should not be used as a soapbox. “I think his behaviour is incredibly inappropriate. It was really the wrong thing to do,” Mr Brown said.

I agree that the editing was inappropriate. It wasn’t vandalism (this is vandalism), but it is inadvisable to make questionable changes to topics you have a vested interest in.

This isn’t an absolute. I’ve made some changes to articles on National and the 2005 funding controversy. But when they are political topics, I try and be extra careful that the edits are neutral point of view. Also I try to avoid edit wars by sometimes using the Talk page on a topic to propose a change. For example the debate over whether Adam Hamilton or George Forbes was the first Leader of the National Party (I say Hamilton, not Forbes).

UPDATE: A commenter has pointed to some Wiki vandalism done by IP address 122.57.62.181 and 125.239.124.113, where the author signed a comment on a talk page as philu. The Phil U who posts here has told me it was not him, he has never edited Wikipedia. He has also never commented here from those IP address which are on the Telecom network, and Phil is on Woosh. So I take his word it was not him, and the person who did the edits either signed his name falsely or maybe has the same first name and initial.

Aaron Bhatnagar has written a book, which political junkies would find fascinating – the inside story of how John Banks came back from his thrashing in 2004 to win by a massive majority in 2007.

Aaron has not yet chosen how he will publish it, but he is blogging some of the chapters. Up so far are Chapter 1 (Well dressed for the collapse), Chapter 4 (The city starts to turn), and Chapter 6 (Polling starts). I had some involvement with the campaign, and it was one of the most fascinating ones I have experienced.

Most campaigns are like most wars – the plan changes the moment the first bullet is fired. The Banks campaign had a strategy and plan that was basically never deviated from. The early polling (which was my role) showed the extent of Hubbard’s unpopularity and that Aucklanders were willing to give John a second go. This meant that a campaign could be developed that pushed a positive message from Banks, and almost ignored Hubbard. There was no need to remind people of how bad Hubbard had been – they already knew it.

One of the reasons I love polling is it does give you a glimpse of what is happening with the public, and the detailed breakdowns by ward showed some amazing turn-arounds with both Banks and C&R being competitive in areas that were traditionally hostile.

Anyway I’ll let Aaron carry on telling the story, but link through from time to time. As I said, most students of politics will find it an interesting read, regardless of whether or not they are a Banks fan or not.

Christine Caughey has just been appointed by Labour to their new Transport Board. She got thrown off the Auckland City Council last year, after serving one term. It seems she is not too happy about this, judging by her submission to the Justuce & Electoral Committee.

Advertising by way of blogging, use of Wikipedia or similar, are two examples where abuse may occur. Wikipedia does not appear to have adequate structures in place to monitor and control abuse of the system.

Regulation to control the type of use of the internet for political/campaigning purposes should be put in place …

Caughey also supports extending the EFA to local bodies, so there are restrictions on paid advocacy for all of local body election year.

Not content with regulating blogs, Wikipedia and spending, she also advocates regulating monitoring and assessing the media.

Aaron Bhatnagar has fun dissecting her points one at a time.

How did such a person get elected in the first place, and why in God’s name has Labour appointed someone who wants to regulate Wikipedia to a powerful transport funding board?

Aaron Bhatnagar blogs on the results of the Local Government NZ elections which saw Hastings District Mayor Lawrence Yule elected President and Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast Vice-President. I expected Lawrence to win the top job as the smaller councils do tend to be a bit wary of the larger Councils dominating.

One can understand they are so wary, when you see what Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey said:

Yesterday, Mr Harvey wished Mr Yule well – but then launched a fresh attack, saying urban centres were the powerhouse of the economy but would continue to be denied a voice in local government.

“The country survives on the strength of the cities and what we bring to the economy. Local government believes it is based around a bunch of cow cockies,” he said.

“I’d rather have cities than cows. It’s always anti-Auckland, it pulls down the competitiveness of New Zealand. It holds New Zealand back. It’s a bizarre sort of thinking that the cities need to be punished. “The rural sector has always dominated local government. This is the sector with their roads that no one drives on, and places no one goes to.

“They think a farmer from Hawke’s Bay can spend that amount of time profiling local government. That’s what they voted for.”

And people wonder why the term JAFA is so popular. Harvey is arrogant and ungracious.

Aaron Bhatnagar has an amusing story of how a fellow Councillor resigned in protest from a Council role, and it turns out that role no longer actually exists!

Aaron Bhatnagar had Judith Tizard bail him up and tell him he was a disgusting individual. What did he do? Speculated ten years ago (yes ten years ago) to her niece about Judith and Mat Rata. Good God – that is holding a grudge.

Conservator Occidentalis notes that Grant Robertson may be breaching the Electoral Finance Act. How? His website is authorised by him, not by his financial agent. Now a candidate is his or her own financial agent until he or she appoints one, but Grant appears to now have one, as their details have appeared on other material.

Guido Fawkes has the wonderful screen shot of senior Labour Minister Harriet Harman appearing to back Boris Johnson for Mayor of London.

So how did this happen?

username : harriet
password : harman

Yes that was the username and password for her blog. Someone should be shot. Guido notes the Government is looking to make it a criminal offence to be reckless resulting in loss of data!

Newzblog shows that some on the left do not think it is a mortal sin to post photos of attractive people – they have a photo spread of Eliot Spitzer’s hooker.

Aaron Bhatnagar exposes hypocrisy from City Vision on water charges.

Steven Price criticises a judgement where an “insulting language” conviction was upheld against a man who taunted two police officers.

The Hive notices how Dr Cullen tells the Speaker how to rule, and how she always does.

Aaron Bhatnagar is having fun,

Cathy Casey from City Vision accused C&R of making diversity a dirty word at the Auckland City Council.

Aaron reveals that what she is complaining about is the decision not to fund a $12,000 cocktail party to celebrate diversity. And just to really have fun, he points out that C&R have five Crs and Community Board members who are ethnically diverse – two Chinese, one Samoan, Aaron (half Indian) and one Maori, while City Vision he labels monochromatic as they don’t have any non Europeans.

And for good measure he posts photos also.

Personally I think City Vision have a political death watch.  They’ve spent three months whining about C&R cutting funding to various politically correct causes.  C&R will just slaughter them in 2011 (if all other things stay even) by publishing the list of all the things they have saved the ratepayer from funding and how City Vision would have rates skyrocketing for their pet projects.