Kiwiblog

Colin Espiner gives his 10 things he loves about Wellington:

1. Better coffee. Wellington is powered by caffeine. And there’s none finer than in the capital. 

2. The Brooklyn windmill. Don’t scoff. One of the first in the country and now a major tourist attraction. The views from the carpark are stunning. 

3. The Bucket Fountain. You’ve got to love a town that keeps something so hideous and so broken that it’s become a city icon. 

4. The Penthouse cinema. Arthouse cinema at its finest, complete with decent red wine and its own theatre cat. 

5. Westpac Stadium. Sorry Eden Park, but the Cake Tin is better in every respect. 

6. Public transport. Aucklanders haven’t heard of this, but it’s a fast, cheap, convenient and quick way to get to work. 

7. Sunshine and fresh air. OK, sometimes too much fresh air, but Welly clocks up many more sunshine hours than its northern sibling. 

8. Cuba Street. No other city in New Zealand does cool grunge like Wellington’s Cuba Street. Plus it’s home to Midnight Espresso, home of the finest nachos in the country.

9. Wellington’s waterfront. Whereas Auckland and Christchurch have turned their backs on their ports, the capital’s is a living, breathing, human space. And you can’t beat Oriental Parade in the sunshine. 

10. Houses you can actually afford to buy. Not much point in living somewhere if you can’t afford it. Wellington house prices are not cheap, but they’re not stupid either. 

I love the bucket fountain. As a kid I would spend ages sitting in Cuba Mall watching it until the large bucket at the bottom would finally empty.

Colin Espiner writes:

In politics, there are two golden rules all MPs must follow when they have behaved like complete and utter prats.

The first is to apologise. Not a qualified apology – you know, “I apologise if I caused offence,” or a Clayton’s apology, where you attempt to bring others into your circle of shame – “I guess we got a little boisterous” – but a full, no-holds-barred, unreserved, fling yourself-on-the-mercy-of-voters mea culpa. 

I agree. The form of the apology made things worse. I don’t know why some people have such a problem apologising. Hell, I’ve had to apologise many times for my various misdeeds. A statement along the lines of

“I apologise to the staff of the Heritage Hotel for my behaviour on Saturday Night. I regret it, and it will not happen again”.

would have seen the issue die.

There isn’t an awful lot Key can do to Gilmore in the short term, given he has no portfolios to be stripped of and no real responsibility for anything besides his account at Bellamy’s. The Heritage Hotel has said it is unlikely to file a complaint that could trigger disciplinary procedures against him.

But list MPs live or die by the party’s favour, and Gilmore shouldn’t expect a particularly high list ranking next year.

It wasn’t a very high ranking in 2011 either. I would be surprised if Aaron is on the party list in 2014.

Colin Espiner writes at Stuff:

Has Labour actually gone insane? As in stark, raving, Monster Loony Party mad?

I’m assuming the answer is yes, judging by today’s incredulity-creating announcement that, if elected next year, Labour will essentially nationalise the electricity industry.

This is the sort of policy UK Labour would have had under Michael Foot in the 1970s.

At a stroke, Labour is proposing to dismantle the electricity market, ruin Contact Energy and Mighty River Power and decimate the Government’s share float plans for both MRP and Meridian. 

Oh, and sell thousands of mum and dad investors down the Mighty River, since MRP’s share price would almost certainly plummet if the company was forced to retail only through a government department at whatever price it deemed to be fair. 

Not just MRP and Contact. Also TrustPower and Todd Energy. Every single generator of electricity would effectively become nationalised as they would only be allowed to sell electricity to the Government at whatever price the Government unilaterally sets.

I’m no fan of high power prices – and I don’t own any Contact or MRP shares – but what Labour is proposing is essentially nationalisation a la Brazil or Argentina. This is Third World, funny-money stuff. Goodness knows what the fi

nancial markets will make of it. And what message does it send to overseas investors? 

The impacts of this policy will be felt far beyond the electricity sector.

I’m tempted to see this as a last-ditch attempt to derail National’s plans to part-sell its electricity assets, but if that’s the case it’s going to seriously annoy a lot of investors who were poised to put funds into Mighty River Power. 

It’s extremely rare that I agree completely with Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce, but his comment today that the plan was “a return to the 1970s-style monopoly provision of electricity…Only North Korea and Venezuela did not think such ideas are nuts” is pretty much spot on.

I agree with Joyce that Labour is virtually sabotaging the economy. 

As does Business NZ, reported here.

Also the Herald editorial is scathing:

Earlier this week, a Herald editorial suggested people thinking of buying Mighty River Power shares had little to fear from David Shearer’s statement that the Labour Party planned to shake up the electricity market when next in power. That, however, was before it was known how far back in time Labour planned to travel and how errant its policy would be.

We need policies for the future, not attempts to turn the clock back.

This suggests nothing less than a return to central planning. It harks back to the situation that pertained before the electricity industry was transformed from a state monopoly into a market supplied by four main generating companies. Mr Shearer seems to be looking at that time through rose-tinted glasses, ignoring the inefficiencies and, most notably, the blackouts that were a feature.

Security of supply would become a real issue. Why would a generator invest in new generation capacity when the price for any power it produces will be unilaterally decided by a government department?

The most unfortunate aspect of Labour’s new policy is that it has identified the problem. “When markets are not truly competitive, excessive profits are extracted from consumers,” David Parker, the party’s energy spokesman, said yesterday. The most logical response, however, is not to return to a failed approach but to provide the setting for competition to flourish. Despite all the criticism of price rises, the market has succeeded to the extent that there has never been a power failure. It also has the framework that offers the best outcome for consumers.

The telecommunications market confirms as much. But making a market truly competitive generally requires a substantial amount of tinkering. Temporary government intervention may be required to facilitate the development of competition. But that is not Labour’s intention. In cahoots with the Greens, it proposes a move which, if implemented, would be every bit as damaging as some of the latter party’s monetary policy delusions.

More and more of the policies being put forward by Labour and Greens are 1970s policies.

Their monetary policy is to go back to pre 1980s reforms. Their welfare policies are to bring back universal child benefits such as we had in the 1970s also.

Colin Espiner blogs:

I don’t know about you, but I’m forever forgetting about my offshore bank accounts with large amounts of cash in them. It’s a job to remember to tell the IRD about it, let alone to declare them where I might have a conflict of interest. 

But then, I’m not an MP. More particularly, I’m not the leader of the opposition, nor the head of a party that has made something of a habit of calling for the heads of other MPs whose memory has been somewhat imperfect. 

David Shearer claims he “forgot” about his account with Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City when he came to declare his financial interests to Parliament, as is required under the MPs’ Register of Pecuniary Interests.

Well, we all make mistakes, and none of us are getting any younger except policemen. But Shearer didn’t just forget the one time. He forgot four times in a row – 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.

To compound matters, though he forgot to disclose the account to Parliament and therefore to the public, he did remember to tell the IRD about it. He also remembered to tell Parliament about his other bank account with Westpac.

Given that only accounts with more than $50,000 in them must be publicly disclosed, it’s highly surprising that this slipped Shearer’s mind. Either the Labour leader is extremely forgetful, or he has a lot more money stashed away than any of us thought.

We don’t know the actual amount, since Shearer hasn’t disclosed that, because he doesn’t have to, but it could be considerably more than $50,000.

I was on NewstalkZB yesterday with Colin, and this issue came up. While $50,000 is a lot of money to overlook, it looks even worse if it is even more than that.  So how much could be in the account? Well it was used to collect his UN pay.

According to the UN, the salary of a senior manager in a Middle East post would be around US$190,000 a year. Now consider that this is tax free, and that when you are on assignment basically all your living and travel costs are work expenses. So the vast majority of your salary can be saved.

Shearer worked for the UN from 1989 to 2000 and 2002 to 2009, which is a total of 18 years. The total UN salary over that period could have been a bit over US$3 million tax free and expense free. To have an account balance of only US$60,000 means you saved only 2% of it. If you saved 20%, then the account might have over US$500,000 in it.

Note I’ve got absolutely no issue with how much David Shearer earnt at the UN – he did good work there. And good on him for saving a lot of it. That’s prudent.

But if you forgot to disclose an account for four years in a row, then there is a credibility issue around how you forgot that is linked to how much was in it.

On the lighter side, enjoy this satire from The Civilian:

The revelation is the latest in a string of surprising admissions from David Shearer that began yesterday after he was suddenly reminded of an overseas bank account he’d forgotten to disclose on the Parliamentary Register of Pecuniary Interests. Since then, Shearer has also remembered that he hasn’t paid taxes in four years, and last week burgled a small dairy in central Wellington.

When asked what he stole, Mr. Shearer replied “Snickers.”

A number of Labour MPs stood alongside their leader at today’s press conference to offer him their support. Not amongst them was backbench MP David Cunliffe, who had volunteered to phone constituents on Shearer’s behalf to let them know of the affair first-hand.

Heh.

Colin Espiner writes:

I admit I’m no expert, but it looks to me as if taxpayers lose either way under our current SOE model. We either pay through the nose for our power with little or no government regulation on price or we watch poorly performing SOEs bailed out with our money.

I know the sale of SOEs has always been a political hot potato, but let’s look at it rationally rather than emotionally. Why does the public need to own a coal mine? Or a power company? Or an airline? 

Here’s my suggestion: Sell the lot, but only after decent regulation to protect the consumer has been put in place. Here in New Zealand we pay high prices for monopoly services that are effectively government-owned. 

Former energy minister Gerry Brownlee talked tough a few years back about taking on the power companies, but of course nothing came of it. According to a study by Victoria University researcher Geoff Bertram we have some of the highest power prices in the OCED. Is it any wonder, when the government is both poacher and gamekeeper?

There’s no reason I can see why taxpayers should be exposed to risks taken by wannabe venture capitalists or price-gouged by our own companies. Selling them off is the only way to create a level playing field and provide any real competition for the poor old consumer. 

I basically agree. The correct role of Government is regulation, not ownership. When they are both and owner and a regulator, you get a conflict of interest and neither are done as well as they can be.

If people think ownership doesn’t matter, look at Solid Energy. The “collapse” has happened because they had a very ambitious expansion programme led by the then CEO.

Now I’d argue that the basic strategy of expanding away from just coal mining was not a bad one for Solid Energy. With the difficulty of getting a coal mine consented, the new safety focus post Pike, and a target of more renewable energy – the company didn’t have much of a future just as a coal miner.

However where it appears the company went wrong was the scale of the expansion plans were too ambitious, they required too much debt and risk, and not enough focus remained on the core business of coal. Hence projections were done on coal prices that were too high. Now globally all companies have been caught out by the 40% slump in coal prices including giants like BHP.

However Solid Energy has been more exposed, because they had taken on higher risk with more ambitious expansion plans. And this is where ownership does matter.

If the Directors themselves have shares in the company, and they represent shareholders whose actual money is at risk, then they will be more cautious about expansion plans. That is not to say they would not agree to them, but they would probably have been saying let’s do it slower, let’s keep our core focus on our current income stream and not borrow too much on this vision of huge expansion into lignite and other areas.

When it is your money at risk, not someone else’s money, you act differently. The price of failure is catastrophic when it is your own money.

I have absolutely no doubt that if Solid Energy was not state owned, it would not be in as dire a situation as it is now.

That is not to be an absolutist and say that all private sector companies succeed and all state companies fail. That would be ridiculous and obviously not true. But overall there is a reason the private sector does better – it is because you make better decisions when it is your own money at risk.

Going back to Colin’s column, I agree we should sell pretty much all our commercial companies, and not just 49% of them. Taxpayers should not be having to bail out mining companies or risking the expansion plans of the power companies. The best thing the Government can do is be an impartial pro-consumer regulator that ensures we have excellent competition. That is not compatible with ownership

Colin Espiner writes:

 South Africa doesn’t do trial by jury. The republic abolished the system in 1969, over concerns black people would never get a fair trial. South Africa, along with most of continental Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, uses the Inquisitorial judge-only trial system. 

I’m very relieved. Because Oscar Pistorius can play to the courtroom and the media about how he desperately tried to resuscitate his dying girlfriend after “shooting her by accident”, and weep uncontrollably about his “terrible mistake” until the cows come home. There’s no jury of his peers to sympathise with him. 

I’m not saying Pistorius doesn’t deserve a fair trial. Quite the reverse. Rather unfortunately for him, that’s precisely what he’s going to get. 

He’s going to have to explain to a sceptical judge just how he managed to get out of his bed after hearing a noise in the bathroom in the middle of the night, without checking to see if his girlfriend was lying beside him, shoot four rounds into the toilet door without once inquiring who was in there, before bashing the door down with a cricket bat. 

He’ll have to explain why Reeva didn’t scream, the inconsistencies between his account and witness accounts of heated arguments and screams coming from the property leading up to the shooting, and the alleged 17-minute delay between the first shot and the final three. 

And there will be no gullible jury to listen enthralled by their proximity to such a famous man, to be bamboozled by science and DNA evidence, or to take their own prejudices and stereotypes into the deliberation room. 

Colin makes a strong case I have to say.

We’ve had our own fair share of controversial trials of late, and I’m not sure the jury system has been getting it right either. New Zealand, along with Britain and America, is in the minority in persisting with jury trials, and I reckon it’s time for a rethink.

It strikes me as odd that complex fraud and civil cases can be heard by a judge alone but that virtually any criminal trial for an offence punishable by more than three months’ jail has the option of trial by jury.

Off memory that is changing so that only offences punishable by two years or more will have the option.

Colin Espiner does a final blog:

So this is it. The last post, if you like, from On the House.

It’s been more than three years and 378 blog posts since the Stuff editor asked me to write a blog on politics, and it’s been a hell of a ride.

Even though Colin departed from the press gallery some months ago, I still found his blog a must read. As a political blogger he stood out from his colleagues – both with frequency of posts, but also his willingness to stae what he really thinks, and engage with the commenters.

So the Stuff editor and I thought it was probably time to lay On the House to a well-deserved rest.

But the good news is that out of the ashes a new politics blog will rise – keep your eyes peeled for more on that soon. I certainly hope many of you will check it out and continue your arguments – sorry, discussions – in the new forum.

I’m hoping to start up another blog at some point myself, though I’m not sure on what yet. I’ll let y’all know.

I look forward to the new Stuff politics blog, and also any future blog from Colin. I’d be interested to read a blog about life in a newsroom.

Colin Espiner blogs:

I reckon we should have a mini general election later this year.

Just think, why wait for next year? And why should those Aussie have all the fun? With the decision by Winnie Laban to head for a nice safe post in academia, the way is open for Chris Carter and Jim Anderton to call by-elections in their own electorates, too.

We could have a Super Tuesday-style tri-series, with three by-elections all on the same day. That would save the taxpayer money, and spark a lot of interest in politics leading up to the general election. It’d also be a sort of dry run for Phil Goff, too, and would allow his colleagues a better chance to assess his chances of winning – or in the immortal words of Don Brash, to lose less badly – the general election.

There’s other advantages to a Super Saturday. With Carter being an Auckland MP, Laban a Wellingtonian and Anderton from Christchurch, we’ve got the majority of the country covered, so there’d be interest from national media across the board.

Add on George Hawkins also, for four by-elections in one day.

I think Labour should go for it.

Colin Espiner blogs:

What a disaster for Labour. Any faint chance it had of winning the 2011 election has been buried in the rubble of the gluttony, greed, and wanton extravagance of its foolhardy MPs.

The ministerial credit card spending of Labour’s former stars makes National’s odd indulgences look like paragons of fiscal rectitude.

Even Tim the Groser’s bar bill pales into insignificance beside the flagrant disregard for taxpayers’ money shown by the likes of Chris Carter, Parekura Horomia, Shane Jones, Mita Ririnui and Judith Tizard.

At least Shane Jones admits he was wrong. I can’t believe the sense of entitlement from some of his colleagues.

Flowers for each other, $160 bottles of Bolly, 16 beers during a dinner for two, massages and spa treatments, health clubs, whiskey, cigarettes, helicopter rides, plane charters, fancy luggage, and all the other trappings of the high life.

To call a spade a spade, Labour’s MPs were taking the piss. They were taking the taxpayers of New Zealand for a ride.

It’s such a pity, too. Because the revelations contained in the thousands of pages of credit card statements released to the media reinforce every stereotype and prejudice the public has always had of MPs: that they were on the pig’s back at our expense.

And that’s something I’ve always argued against. Most MPs aren’t like that. Most are hard-working, have a conscience, and are careful with public money. But their colleagues have totally stuffed it up for them all.

It is worth noting that it is not a majority of Ministers who spent up large. In fact it will be interesting to see how the various Ministers and ex Ministers look once all the papers have been gone through.

Colin Espiner blogs:

New Zealand is, according to Key, happy to lend its anti-nuclear credentials in support of Obama’s bid to stop nuclear arms from falling into the hands of terrorists.

It’s possibly a bit late for that, and possibly a little hypocritical, given that the US is the only country in the world ever to have used nuclear weapons against other people.

Ummm. Is Colin really equating the US use of nuclear weapons to force a Japanese surrender in WWII, to terrorists using nukes?

If not, then what is the hypocrisy?

Which brings me to my question. What was Sir Geoffrey Palmer doing at the weekend, calling for US navy ships to be allowed back into New Zealand ports? Can we really have our anti-nuclear cake and eat it, too?

The part of me that always felt proud at our nuclear-free stance and the speech David Lange delivered so beautifully all those years ago to the Oxford Union (you remember, the one about “uranium on the breath”) blanched at Sir G’s suggestion.

I don’t see why. Sir Geoffrey was not advocating a change in the law.

So was Sir Geoffrey right after all? As one of the architects of the legislation, it was a big call for him to say it’s time to let bygones be bygones.

But I suspect that such a policy change would be difficult to implement without changing the nuclear free law. For us to accept ship visits we would need to ascertain that they were nuclear-free and to do that they would need to tell us – and I’m pretty sure they never will.

No they do not need to tell us. Section 9(2) of the Act states:

The Prime Minister may only grant approval for the entry into the internal waters of New Zealand by foreign warships if the Prime Minister is satisfied that the warships will not be carrying any nuclear explosive device upon their entry into the internal waters of New Zealand.

That does not mean the PM has to ask about a specific ship. General statements that no surface ships currently carry nuclear weapons can be deemed sufficient to satisfy the PM.

Colin Espiner is moving back to the mothership, so to speak, and leaving the press gallery to take up a senior role (can’t recall exact details) in the Press’ head office.

Colin was very popular, not just for his print columns, but also his blog which attracted hundreds of comments every post. He was a must read, to get his call on who he thought was doing well and not so well.

A highlight of his online activities was his literally eating his words, and printing out a statement he had made and blending it into a milkshake, capturing it on You Tube.

He wraps up his eights years on the political beat, with this column. He starts with what he got wrong:

One of the luxuries of hindsight is seeing what you wrote that turned out to be right – and what you got wrong. I dismissed ACT leader Rodney Hide’s chances in Epsom, and he’s never let me forget it. I anointed former ACT MP Deborah Coddington as the party’s next leader, and he’s never let me forget that, either.

Heh. I always enjoy hassling a prominent Wellington lobbyist about his prediction in 1996 that Neil Kirton was going to be a star. So Colin is not alone in his hindsight.

When I started writing about politics I thought all politicians were venal and self-serving. Now I believe only some of them are.

Most of the 122 MPs who sit in Wellington each week at your expense genuinely want to make the country a better place. They may be misguided, sometimes silly, occasionally foolish. But very few are genuinely bad.

And they are mainly gone now!

The silliest of the lot, for my money, was the independent MP Gordon Copeland, of UnitedFuture. He once argued in favour of a form of what could only be described as perpetual motion by suggesting surplus water from hydro power stations be pumped uphill again to make additional electricity.

Heh.

Picking a loser from my years of watching politics isn’t as easy. There have been countless embarrassments, numerous ministerial resignations and several MPs who ended up in jail. But the one who stands out for me is Dr Brash. He left a lucrative and well-respected post at the Reserve Bank to walk the plank of politics; a life for which he was eminently unsuited.

I disagree (no surprise), After 2002, National should not have even been in contention in 2005 and under Don National lifted its party vote a massive 18% – a feat unlikely to be beaten by any future leader. He also came within 2% of becoming Prime Minister and when he resigned as Leader, National was actually ahead in the polls.

My winner? It’s such a cliche to say Miss Clark, but who else can such an accolade be awarded to? She dominated politics during my time at Parliament, alongside probably only Mr Peters and Dr Brash, and she was more successful than either.

Few party leaders can claim three straight election victories and, love her or loathe her, she altered the paradigm of New Zealand politics. She forced National to the political centre, introduced most of the social policies this government now promises to keep, and elevated political management to an art form.

She got the relatively rare opportunity to leave politics on her own terms, rather than those of her party’s executioners, and fooled us all with her denials that she was interested in a job at the United Nations. Turns out there was a plan B after all.

While I don’t disagree with Colin saying Clark is the winner (hard to pick anyone else over the last eight years), I disagree she left politics on her own terms. She got thrown out of office, and she would give anything to have her old job back, I am sure.

Mr Peters was the most mercurial politician I came across. He could be very rude. He once called me a moron. He could also be incredibly charming. He would argue till death that black was white, and vice versa, usually after a drink or two. He was easily the most talented politician I saw, but also the laziest. The results were therefore never dull.

Imagine what a hard working Winston might have achieved, let alone an honest one.

I blogged on a column by Colin Espiner last week on the electoral law changes, and disagreed with aspects of it. One area I critiqued was the assertion that under the new law third parties could spend unlimited money in support of a political party, and not have it count as part of a party’s limit.

Now I was correct, but as Colin writes here the error was not his:

Power said the requirement that lobbyists register with the Electoral Commission if they spent more than $12,000 would ensure the system was open and transparent.

However, after an outcry from Labour and the Greens, Power said he was prepared to revisit the proposal if a select committee could agree on a suitable alternative.

He also announced that lobbyists running supportive campaigns for a party would have to seek the party’s consent, and they would count towards that party’s spending limit.

Earlier, his office had insisted that positive campaigning would not count towards party spending limits.

So it was a stuff up in the Minister’s office (and hey we have all made them), and one can’t criticise Colin for relying on the advice from the Minister’s office.

Colin Espiner writes:

Voters are set to be bombarded by record levels of advertising during the next election, after Government moves to relax some campaign spending rules.

Bzzzt. I really wish one would not treat an opinion as a fact. As no third party came close to spending the $120,000 limit last time, it does not follow that having no limit will lead to record levels of advertising.

In a big change to the former Electoral Finance Act, National is proposing to allow lobbyists, such as unions or special interest groups, to spend any amount during election campaigns – provided they register with the Electoral Commission and identify themselves in their advertisements.

I will make a prediction now. The vast majority of third party spending will be unions advertising against National. In Australia the unions spends ten times as much as any other groups.

The move could see a return to the sort of high-spending negative campaign run against the Greens by the Exclusive Brethren during the 2005 election. In addition, lobby groups will be able to advertise for as well as against political parties – raising the possibility of “back door” donations that get around the limits on what politicians can spend.

This is just plain incorrect. A third party can not advertise in support of a political party unless the party agrees, in which case the spending counts as part of the party’s spending under their limit.

You can not get around the spending limit for advertising in favour of a party, by having a third party do it.

But the advertising can only take place in non-broadcast media, after the Government decided to keep current limits on broadcasting during campaigns in place.

They are not limits. They are a ban. The ban incidentally is almost certain to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act.

The EU had a reception at the Backbencher last night, so lots of MPs and journalists there to chat to.  The typical opening line from a National MP was “So about that B grade” while from Labour MPs it was “Unlike Annette we won’t use Farrar and respect in the same sentence unless there are some other words in between”

Phil Goff was there also, so I said I looked forward to him quoting me more often in future . Actually had an interesting chat generally on economic stuff, such as land tax. If Labour are bold they could consider proposing a land tax (tied to income tax reductions) for 2011. That could attract some support from economic reformers.

General consensus I got from pundits there was that there was definitely some good stuff in the Government’s work plan – in fact more detailed plans that most Governments announce in the PMs statement.

But what may trip the Government up is they misplayed the expectations game. Building the statement up as the “most important” one ever was a mistake, as was talking about it being a “step change”. Again, there is some good stuff there that certainly will help lift economic growth. But will the announcements alone close the gap with Australia? Of course not. But the rhetoric leading up to it, got expectations artificially high.

With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better to have positioned the statement as a typical PMs statement – a general overview of the Government’s achievements and workplan, and then surprise the media and opposition when it turns out to have close to 30 specific initiatives in it.

As I said yesterday, I welcome the focus on growing the economic cake, not just how to split it up, and look forward to more details in the budget.

Reaction from others:

• John Armstrong – 4/10 for economic boldness
• Fran O’Sullivan – John Key deserves an A- for intent. But a mere D for the dreadful prime ministerial statement that buried a coherent economic agenda in a mass of confusion.
• Tax Working Group members seem happy
• NZ Herald editorial calls it a stutter not a step-change
• Bernard Hickey hits new levels of hyperbole
• Canterbury Employers call the package welcome but light
• Solid Energy is excited
• Colin Espiner gives it a pass, but with much more to do
• Tracy Watkins looks at the risks
• The Press editorial says it was lacking boldness
• The Dom Post editorial says it was a welcome focus on growth, not slogans

I blogged yesterday on Maria English’s world beating achievement of topping the world two years in a row in the Cambridge International English exams. She was marked higher than 90,000 students from 100 countries.

What was really nice in the comments is that almost everyone put politics aside, and was genuinely pleased and admiring of such a wonderful achievement for a New Zealand student.

Now you would think the PPTA would also be pleased that a New Zealand secondary school student has done so well. But, instead this is what they twittered:

Government ministers show support for private businesses involved in education

with a link to the TV3 story on Maria and another story.

Isn’t that just such an appalling and small minded sneer. They don’t care at all about a student being top of the world. They just hate the fact she is at a private school, or took part in a private exam.

I think it is useful that the PPTA reminds us of what matters to teacher unions, because Colin Espiner has written a blog where he basically calls for the NZEI to have a veto over education policy on NZ.

But you can’t bulldoze your way through a sector as highly unionised as teaching without taking the unions with you. …

I’d be happy for the Government to explore the idea further, but only in conjunction with the actual practitioners in the classrooms. Ramming policy through in spite of their strenuous objections makes me uneasy. After all, this isn’t a fight over wages and conditions. Teachers’ objections are based on educational reasons, and while there may be some vested self-interest involved, I’m prepared to accept the NZEI has some valid concerns.

I don’t even know where to start. How about with an analogy. Would Colin advocate that the Government should not make any changes to economic policy unless Treasury agrees?

Should there be no change to telecommunications policy unless Telecom agrees?

As the PPTA shows, they are not concerned about educational outcomes. They are concerned about their members. Their objections are not based on education reasons. The NZEI President has said that if the Government removed school achievement data from the Official Information Act, their opposition to national standards would disappear. This is a battle about league tables, or in other words freedom of information.

I would have thought if the Government was really serious about improving the quality of primary schools, it might be pumping money into cutting class sizes. Curiously, however, it’s done the opposite, and teacher/pupil ratios are increasing.

Colin must have missed the Hattle report which concluded that class size is not a major factor – it is the quality of the teacher.

Even putting the educational arguments aside, however, buying a fight with the teacher unions is bad politics. Key seems to think he can turn public opinion against the NZEI on this one but I think this is unlikely. Far better to take the union with him than try to bash it into submission.

Colin makes the mistake of thinking there is a choice. Unless the Government amends the OIA to restrict access to school achievement data, then the union will never ever back national standards. The call for trials is a red herring designed to delay.  I would bet several billion dollars that at the end of any trials the NZEI would declare that the standards can not be implemented.

It’s almost as if Key is tired of playing Mr Nice Guy and wants to show the steel behind the “relaxed” Prime Minister.

That’s his call, but I think he’s picked the wrong issue and the wrong target. The NZEI is a formidable foe.

Colin has it the wrong way around. It is not the Government picking a fight. A group of taxpayer funded staff are refusing to implement the legal requirements of the Government. They are the ones picking the fight.

Colin thinks the standards are abotu assessment, but for most schools there will be no change in assessment. They are about plain English reporting. Colin said:

Are national standards a good idea? I admit I’m not sure. As a parent, I would like more information about how my child’s doing. But I don’t need to see primary schools ranked in league tables. I accept that a school in Khandallah or Fendalton or Parnell is going to do better in such rankings than those in Naenae, or Aranui, or Penrose.

That says more about simple demography and socioeconomic status than it does about the quality of its teachers.

But I’ve yet to be convinced that introducing more assessment is going to somehow magically improve the quality of our school system, or make us better at maths.

Colin confuses league tables (that the Government has no intention of publishing – it is Colin’s fellow journalists who produce league tables) with national standards and reporting. And it is not about more assessment, it is about clear data.

There are two major benefits from the national standards – individual data and group data. Let me explain.

Parents will benefit from individual data. They will have a clear report card that informs them if their child is achieving at the minimum level necessary to be on track to leave school able to read and write and do maths. If their child is not performing to that level, it means they and the school can discuss what steps can be taken to try and lift the performance.

The Government’s election policy also made it clear that there will be additional resources dedicated to students not making the standards, so that they chances of improving are enhanced.

From 2012, the Government will also start collecting group data – by that I mean data on each school, and maybe even teacher. Not to publish league tables with, but to analyse. Now you may wonder what is the use of this data.

Well the Dim Post had a link to this article in The Atlantic about research into what makes a great teacher. They have collected masses of data on teachers and achievement to try and isolate the major factors. I highly recommend people read the entire article.

At present, there is no useful comparable data at primary school level. National standards will provide information which will allow comparisons to be done. I don’t mean comparisons between schools, but dozens or hundreds of variables can be analysed.

That is how you then raise educational standards. Not by giving a policy veto to unions that see it as a bad thing that a New Zealand student tops the world!

Colin Espiner blogs:

So, it seems, is Phil Goff. Labour’s leader has issued a ringing endorsement of his own abilities today at Labour’s caucus meeting in Auckland.

“You’ll have to put up with me for a couple more years,” he told reporters this morning before Labour’s traditional vote on the leadership, which has returned both himself and deputy Annette King.  ”I think it’s a recognition that the leadership team they’ve got is the best team they could hope for.”

Bloody hell. Talk about damning with faint praise. I can almost see Labour’s next election slogan now: “Phil Goff: The best Labour has to offer.” Or maybe “Goff – there’s really no one else.” It’s almost as bad as Dunedin’s ”It’s all right here” or Hastings’ “Take a fresh look”.

Heh. Who is going to be first with the photoshop?

Mind you, it’s probably not Goff who has to worry much this year. As he says himself, there really isn’t any alternative. As long as he can keep the Government honest and score a few points during 2010, he’ll still be there at the end of the year.

Yep, as the alternatives are worse.

No, I’m starting to think it’s our prime minister who has his work cut out this year. When even the Right-leaning business publication the National Business Review starts telling National to get on with the job, you know that the tolerance of National’s natural constituency for its steady-as-she-goes approach is coming to an end.

To be fair to Key and National, it does have some major plans this year, ranging from tax reform to the Whanau Ora policy of allowing private providers (mostly Maori) into the provision of welfare. It’s got national standards to implement in education, energy sector changes to complete, the legal aid system to overhaul, and the Foreshore and Seabed Act to repeal and replace.

But there’s a difference between planning things and actually implementing them, and that’s going to be the litmus test of this administration this year. In 2009 Key proved himself to be a political manager almost of Helen Clark’s calibre. In 2010, we’ll get to see whether he can match her in getting things done as well.

A fair call. People do want to see progress, and a sense of direction.

Colin hands out his awards:

• Politician of the Year: John Key. Highly commendeds go to Simon Power, Tony Ryall, and Tariana Turia
• Idiot of the Year: Rodney Hide. Highly commended to Hone Harawira.
• Worst Performance by an MP: Melissa Lee. Highly commended to Ashraf Choudhary
• Loser of the Year: Richard Worth.
• Backbencher of the Year: Jacinda Ardern. Highly commended: National’s Nikki Kaye.
• Most Improved MP: Gerry Brownlee. Highly commended: Steven Joyce.
• Least Improved MP: Bill English.
• Begrudging MP Who’s Annoying But You Have To Respect Them MP: John Boscawen.
• Simply Most Annoying MP Without Redeeming Qualities:  Chris Carter.
• The I-Told-You-So Award for proving the media wrong: John Key

Colin’s rationales are quite amusing.

The Herald reports:

The decision to allow the spelling of Wanganui with or without the “h” has been welcomed by both sides in what has, at times, been an acrimonious debate.

Mayor Michael Laws hailed the move by Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson to overturn the Geographic Board’s decision to go with the “h” as an “early Christmas present for the city and district”.

Ken Mair, a Maori activist and one of the driving forces in seeking a change in the spelling of the city’s name, said after conveying the decision to local Maori at a city marae: “We recognise it was a difficult and courageous decision to make, but the correct one.

Maurice will be pretty happy with those headlines, even if Colin Espiner calls him a whimp.

The moment there is a small upturn in the economy, Labour is already pushing for a splurge o Government spending. This is reckless, and fiscal restraint is needed for not just a year or two, but probably a decade. Brian Fallow explains:

The net effect of a reduced tax take and much higher public spending will have given a boost roughly equivalent to 6 per cent of gross domestic product over the two years to June next year.

That was entirely appropriate.

But the recession’s legacy of a shrunken tax base, a string of deficits and mounting debt servicing costs will cast a dark and cold shadow over next year’s Budget. …

It will be 2016, if we are lucky, before surpluses return, and every year in the red adds to the public debt burden.

It is a recipe for interest costs to eat up more and more of the future tax dollar, well before the echo of the baby boom sends health and superannuation costs through the roof. It is not sustainable.

Spending needs to be restrained, and to shrink as a proportion of the economy.

Fran O’Sullivan writes:

It doesn’t want to “rip the guts” out of the Government’s expenditure line. But if the Government holds new Budget spending to a constant $1.1 billion increase each year, over time this will have the effect of pulling Government spending back down towards 30 per cent of GDP and, in Key’s words, “force change through the system”.

This is around half the new spending that Labour had, and keeping spending increases to this level for more than a couple of years will be pretty bloody difficult. But we do need to get Government spending down to under 30% of GDP.

And Colin Espiner reports:

The Government remained committed to a new spending limit of $1.1b and was investigating a total spending cap, English said.

Total Crown spending is expected to reach $65b this year and rise by about $3b each year.

“Demand-driven” expenditure such as health and education, benefits, superannuation and KiwiSaver payments are not currently included in the Government’s sinking lid on public spending.

Under a total cap, any increases in expenditure would have to be offset by cuts in other areas or approved by the Cabinet. English said he was looking at “better and more coherent methods of knowing where spending is occurring and what the alternatives are”.

The Netherlands and Sweden had spending caps, he said. “We’ll be talking more about that in Budget 2010.”

I think the Fiscal Responsibility Act should be amended so that the Government has to set a target (like it does for CPI for the Reserve Bank) for spending as a percentage of GDP and for what level of surplus is desired. This would require political parties to be more transparent about what they propose. If Labour wants to spend an extra $6 billion a year, then they’ll have to be open about it, and let people see the consequences.

John Armstrong writes:

Phil Goff emerged from Labour’s caucus meeting yesterday claiming his MPs were unanimous in their backing of both the tone and content of his now-infamous “nationhood” speech. There is no reason to doubt him. Short of doing what is currently the unthinkable – toppling him – the caucus had little option but to weigh in behind their leader – in public at least.

I’m reminded of the old adage that anytime a Caucus feels the need to pledge unanimous support for a leader, the coup is not far off. Not as Armstrong says, this is not the case at the moment – but unanimous pledges of support are things best avoided.

There could be no halfway house. The priority was to present a united front to the world outside. That was evident in Goff and party president Andrew Little, who has acknowledged party members’ worries with aspects of the speech, entering the meeting shoulder-to-shoulder.

Given Labour is rating around 30 per cent support in the polls – 20 percentage points behind National – the party could not afford go into the summer recess amidst internal dissent and with questions over the leader’s actions unresolved.

Goff insists he was not playing the race card when he gave the speech. If he was not overtly playing the race card, however, he knew perfectly well that he was producing enough evidence – be it the use of loaded language like “porkbone politics” or the choice of a provincial city audience for the speech – to lay himself open to that charge.

Yeah I’d love him to make that speech at Ratana, on even in Wellington Central, rather than Palmerston North Greypower. Instead Goff says he is not going to talk about the topic again. Dr Brash had the sincerity of his convictions and was happy to defend his views from one end of the country to another.

The PM put it this way yesterday: the tragedy of Phil Goff was that he had made a speech he did not believe in and as a result the Labour Party no longer believed in him. Not quite. The party has to believe in Goff because for the time being it has no one else it can believe in.

What Goff’s advisors do not realise is that the speech did not have credibility coming from someone who has been an MP for around 30 years and a Cabinet Minister in the last Government.

Colin Espiner blogs:

What I found interesting was that neither Goff nor Little tried to deny that there had been discontent within the party over the speech – they simply used the usual political euphemisms such as “robust debate” and the intriguing comment that “the Labour Party is not a Stalinist organisation”.

Heh the missing words are “no longer”

Ironically while Goff claims Labour is not “Stalinist” and has always vigorously debated issues, that actually isn’t true. It didn’t debate very much at all when Helen Clark was in charge, and that’s why Labour was so successful.

I’ve no doubt the party is probably a more relaxed and even pleasant place to be now that Clark and her iron-fisted rule have gone, but the free flow of debate and opinion can always be interpreted the wrong way if one isn’t careful.

That’s all I think has happened with Goff’s speech – at least, so far. No one is going to use this to challenge the leader, partly because no one else wants the job right now and partly because there are so many people in that caucus who think they are next in line that they’d never get any agreement on a candidate to replace him.

I’ve always said it is likely Goff will survive until the election, but it will be fascinating to see who stands after the election. At a minimum you could expect Jones, Cunliffe and Little.

Colin Espiner blogs:

Twice in the past week, Goff has played the race card, albeit carefully, by suggesting first that there was one rule for Harawira over his comments about white mo-fos and another rule for other MPs, and then raising the prospect that National’s proposed settlement with iwi over the ETS was based on ethnicity. …

Goff told Parliament he had never indulged “the politics of race” although I think he protested a bit much. He is clearly trying to send a soft dog whistle to Labour supporters who abandoned his party at the last election because they were fed up with precisely the sort of “pandering to Maori” that National could now be accused of.

It will interesting how far Goff is willing to go. I suspect it is considerably more. The irony is it may help them tactically short-term, but it is almost impossible for them to win the next election unless the Maori Party were to support them – they and the Greens would need to win 62, maybe 63 seats.

Colin Espiner blogs on ACC:

I said I’d post something on ACC, so here goes. Oh dear, what a mess.

It’s hard to know where to start really. Is it all Labour’s fault for increasing entitlements but not premiums? Or the people at ACC, who seem keen to pay themselves large salaries but can’t apparently count? Or the recession? Or the fully funded model? Or all of the above?

When news first broke earlier this year of a hole in the ACC accounts, many of us – and I include myself – were a bit sceptical of National’s motivation, particularly given that excitable boy Nick Smith was in charge, and he is known for, well, exaggerating from time to time.

But the conspiracy theory peddled by Labour and the EPMU (i.e. Labour) that somehow this is all just a VRWC to derail the ACC, lower public confidence in it, and then sell it to the highest (or any) bidder just doesn’t ring true for me.

I can never work out if Labour is the political arm of the EPMU or if the EPMU is the industrial arm of Labour.

For starters, I can’t believe someone with chairman John Judge’s commercial background is going to put his reputation on the line just to help the Government push a particular political ideology. Judge is not going to claim that the very existence of the ACC is under threat if it’s not.

Second,  there have now been three relatively independent reviews of ACC’s financial position, and all of them have come up with the conclusion that it is in the poo.

I actually laugh everytime David Parker insists you can’t trust the Government’s figures, considering the last Government’s failure to mention the ACC blowout broke the Public Finance Act. This is not an area of credibility for them.

Third, there’s little doubt that the additions made to the scheme by Labour a couple of years ago – including things like lump-sum payouts for the families of suicide victims, and physiotherapy, simply aren’t affordable any more.

An employee on the average wage is now paying over $1,000 a year to ACC. That is a huge amount of money.

Having said all that, I do think Nick Smith has over-egged the pudding a little bit. At least some of the need for the big increases is because of the move towards fully funding the ACC.

Fully funding means that like a commercial insurer, ACC is required to hold enough in reserve to meet the claims it expects to have to pay out on over a given time. It has never operated like this before, but is now required to.

Originally this was to happen by 2014. The Government – and in fact Labour too – wants to push this out to 2019. You could question whether ACC should in fact ever be fully funded, but that’s another argument.

I want to cover this argument in detail one day. Michael Littlewood has written at length that a Government backed insurer does not need to depart from the old model of collecting enough every year to cover payments for that year.

The Government is also going to get some heat over the decisions it’s made, and so it should. The massive increases in levies for motorcycles seems grossly unfair to me, and smacks of National hitting a group of voters it doesn’t think are likely to be National supporters.

Sure, motorcycles are involved in more accidents, but how many of those were caused by car drivers? As a former motorcyclist myself, it was being knocked off my bike by some idiot in a car that prompted me to hang up my helmet.

Even under the changes, motorcyclists are being subsidised by other drivers. A motorcyclist is 16 times more likely to be involved in an accident. Not even if half are caused by motorists, that is still eight times more likely.

Ramping up motorcycle levies also flies completely in the face of all the rhetoric from the Government about reducing congestion, cutting carbon emissions, using less petrol, etc etc. Not to mention parking.

The purpose of ACC is not to incentivise people to cut carbon emissions, reduce congestion etc. You have other taxes and policies for that. The purpose of ACC is to cover the costs of accidents.

I hear National doesn’t have the votes to get the changes through Parliament yet, either, although it probably will manage it eventually because it’s cleverly set up a straw man in the form of even higher increases proposed by ACC that don’t require a law change.

Therefore if parties don’t vote for National’s bill, the Government can accuse them of agreeing to even higher imposts on the public. That is quite clever.

I don’t think it is clever. I think one should get 61 votes in favour before you announce the changes.

Also Whale Oil has a post on a payout to children of someone killed in an accident. I think there should be some initial support, but when did it happen that  ACC funds you until you are 18, if your parent dies in an accident. If your parent drops dead from a heart attack you get nothing, but if it is an “accident” you get ACC. The original scheme was about looking after people temporarily until they could work again – not social welfare.

A very good blog by Colin Espiner:

Why is Steven Joyce banning handheld cellphones in cars?

I remember his predecessor, transport safety minister Harry Duynhoven, agonising over this one. First he was for the idea, then he wasn’t, then he was again. In the end he never got around to it.

Joyce has picked this one up, however, and appears ready to push it through into law. The only debate seems to be over the size of the penalty. A $50 fine or $100? Demerit points as well? That could lead to loss of licence.

And the question I have is whether the banning of handheld cellphones in car has ever been proven to reduce the number of crashes? Does it actually lead to less use of cellphones or does it just criminalise hundreds of thousands of people and results in lots of fines? Or does everyone just swap to hands free cellphones which are reputed to be as distracting?

I hope the Government has some good research to back up their decision. I remain far from convinced.

But the fact remains that handheld phones are no more dangerous than talking on a hands-free. And, according to the research, less dangerous than turning to talk to passengers in the back seat, fiddling with the stereo, or eating in the car – all of which cause more accidents.

Surely some common sense is required here. You don’t (or at least you shouldn’t) reach for a cup of coffee while overtaking on the open road. You don’t turn to yell at the kids while turning at an intersection. And you wouldn’t pick up the phone while completing a bit of tricky driving or trying to park.

On the other hand, on a straight piece of road with little traffic or while chugging along in rush hour, it might be safe to make a quick call. It’s all a matter of judgment, which is surely what driving – and many other things – is all about.

Exactly. Even with a hands free phone I will often stop talking to someone while reversing. Or if the weather is really bad. Or the traffic difficult. But sometimes it is quite safe to talk on the phone. Encourage safer use of phones rather than try to ban handheld phones.

My fear is that by banning handheld cellphones the Government is treating the public like idiots who can’t be trusted to know when it is reasonable to use one. Speed limits and alcohol bans are one thing. Handheld phones are quite another.

If you are pissed, you are pissed for the entire trip. Most people only use the phone for a few minutes on a trip, and do judge when it is safe to do so. For example a quick call at the lights to say you are running late. That will now be illegal if done on a hand held.

I guess National must have polled on this issue, and maybe there isn’t much public outrage. Certainly I think most agree that texting while driving is pretty silly. But I would have thought Joyce would have bigger issues to deal with in his portfolio than banning something for marginal, and probably debatable, safety gains.

Given National was once lukewarm on this idea, I can only conclude a bit of official capture has gone on here, a bit like Kate Wilkinson over the folic acid in bread debate.

In the wake of any skillful public relations campaign, however, I guess it will be pushed through. I wonder, though, whether public resentment might start building once the fines start rolling in.

Public polls have (sadly) shown strong support for such a measure. But I think the Government should be careful here. No-one will vote for a party because they banned handheld cellphones in cars . But if tens of thousands of NZers get fined for receiving a phone call, let alone lose their license then they could well vote against the party that did it.

I had to laugh at Labour List MP Carmel Sepuloni trying to insist on Breakfast TV that it had been a great week for Phil Goff.  It was like a finance company spokesperson trying to insist they were sound.

Where do I start. First the Herald reveals that Phil Goff did not tell them the sob story he fed to them, owned a total of three properties, and it was not the case of someone with no assets being forced out of their family home. It was just a case of someone being unwilling to sell their property investments for a loss. I hope this story appears in as prominent place in the print edition as yesterday’s story.

Now even before this episode was exposed, Guyon Espiner blogged:

Labour’s ill-judged foray into the benefit policy debate – offering the dole to anyone who losses their job regardless of their spouse’s income – is a strategic blunder which ignores these basic facts of political life….

Labour now claims it isn’t going to allow the dole to be paid to anyone, regardless of income. But that’s a back down because that is exactly what they were saying on Monday.

You could sense the desperation on Monday after the story was broken in the Herald. Goff had clearly blurted out the story too early because Labour party officials and MPs were scrambling to fill in the details as other media worked to follow up the story.

On Tuesday Goff was desperately trying to claim that he was talking about the principle of middle income people not missing out on welfare and not the details. All the more reason then for not announcing the plan until the details are worked through.

Guyon makes it fairly clear Goff personally blundered by making policy up on the hoof. Guyon also covers their banking inquiry:

I see Labour is having another go. Having failed to win a proper select committee inquiry into whether the banks’ interest rates are too high, they are teaming up with the Greens and Jim Anderton to hold their own “inquiry” – one with no standing, no authority and no power.

Essentially they’ll be sitting in a room, preaching to the converted. Looks like a gimmick to me. Looks like Labour hasn’t fully realised it was turfed out of power.

Indeed.Hat Tip: Keeping Stock

John Armstrong writes this morning:

This has been an especially awful week for Phil Goff. It is not just that the Labour leader has made two blunders – the first being a policy mishap and the second being caught out by failing to reveal pertinent information. It is that a pattern of bad judgment calls is starting to emerge. That will be causing his colleagues some serious concern.

The problem for his colleagues is the lack of options. After 2011 there will be options, but there are not yet.

Twice within the past two months, Goff has sought to cause National discomfort only to end up pinging himself by failing to disclose facts which ended up being revealed by his opponents to his embarrassment.

The first example was Neelam Choudary, the Indian woman who alleged former minister Richard Worth sexually harassed her. She turned out to be a Labour Party activist.

The latest example is a Helensville man, Bruce Burgess, who seemed the perfect example of the kind of middle-class distress Goff had been talking about when he floated a shift in Labour policy so the dole would be paid to redundant workers for up to a year regardless of the income of their partners.

There is a warning in Armstrong’s writing. Having twice sat on highly relevant information, the gallery is going to be far more suspicious of any information from Goff in future. His effectiveness will be reduced due to this.

Goff is kidding only himself if he thinks this new information would not change people’s perceptions of Mr Burgess’s predicament.

Labour knew Mr Burgess owned the properties. It should have dropped his case immediately it knew that. However, presumably Goff was blinded by Mr Burgess being one of John Key’s constituents. The Prime Minister had done nothing to help him. Goff could see the headlines before they appeared. Through his own fault, they have ended up being the wrong ones.

The information totally changed people’s perceptions. Just as Choudary’s identity did also. I actually felt a bit guilty, at the time, for blogging yesterday on the Burgesses as I felt sorry for them being on the verge of losing their only home. While still sympathetic they are in tough times, the fact they have two other properties means they do have options – far better options than most families.

If he fails to win in 2011, Goff knows his party will look for someone else to lead them into the next election. If he keeps performing in the fashion displayed this week his colleagues might start asking themselves whether they should not look elsewhere before then.

I think Goff is safe until 2011, again due to the lack of alternatives.

Duncan Garner also blogs:

Labour sat on the fact he owned three homes. To Labour it was irrelevant to its case – that hardworking Kiwis are missing out under National.

How many Kiwis can cry poor with three homes? It’s a bad look Labour – and I suspect you know it.

Can you imagine how Helen Clark, as Prime Minister, presented with this sort of information – would have acted?

She, and/or Michael Cullen would have not only crucified Burgess – but she or he would have damn well made sure John Key was cut into three pieces,

So Labour needs to go away and look at what it’s doing.

It needs to take a breather. Goff has been too damn keen this week. He’s cocked up. He’s acted like a cut snake.

And finally we have Colin Espiner:

Labour’s also attacking the appointment of former National leader Don Brash to the new productivity taskforce, calling him a stalking horse for privatisation. Goff says it will lead to a renewal of ideas soundly rejected at the 2005 election.

Actually, as Key pointed out in the House yesterday, National wasn’t “soundly rejected” at the 05 election – it only lost by the narrowest of margins. And it was probably the Exclusive Brethren that spooked voters more than National’s privatisation agenda.

Indeed. Mps who call Don “Lord Voldemort” may want to reflect on the fact he got only 2% less than Helen Clark in 2005, and that their references to him as such actually alienate a large segment of the population. Anyway back to Goff:

Goff had another terrible day in Parliament today after the case of poor old Bruce Burgess, a constituent in John Key’s electorate no less, who having worked hard all his life now couldn’t get any assistance from the state after losing his job.

Labour shopped the story to the Herald this morning, which ran it without question. Trouble was, poor old Bruce owns two rental properties besides his lifestyle block in a leafy part of Helensville – in other words, he has assets of at least a million dollars. Now, that doesn’t mean he isn’t suffering, but that wasn’t the picture presented to the public by Goff or the Herald this morning.

Also, according to the Government, Bruce is eligible for $92 a week state assistance – something that wasn’t pointed out earlier either.

Once again, an issue that should have run in Labour’s favour ended up backfiring badly.

So this is what Carmel Sepuloni calls a great week for Phil Goff. I’d love to see what she calls a bad week.

John Armstrong writes:

It is still early days and things could yet unravel over the detail.

But if politics is the art of the possible, then Finlayson’s and Sharples’ independent panel’s revisiting of the vexed question of ownership of the foreshore and seabed lays the foundations for achieving the seemingly impossible – an enduring cure for a longstanding political headache.

The panel’s review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act – required under National’s confidence and supply agreement with the Maori Party – has set solid benchmarks within which the two parties can negotiate the provisions of legislation to replace the law.

Good faith negotiations is preferable to unilateral retrospective legislation.

The NZ Herald editorial:

Six years does not seem a long time in the sweep of history yet it is time enough for a change in the political climate. The recommendation the Government received yesterday to repeal the Foreshore and Seabed Act seems unlikely to arouse the heat and fear that greeted the Court of Appeal’s 2003 ruling on Maori customary claims. Public opinion is probably no less committed now than it was then to the principle that public access to coastal attractions must not be compromised. But the constant assurances of claimants that access is not at risk appear to have become generally accepted.

And it is helpful the panel has stressed that at length.

Vernon Small writes in the Dom Post:

Politically, the report is a triumph for Tariana Turia and the Maori Party, and the involvement of National in any deal should help limit any Pakeha backlash.

(It is often easier for a party to make radical changes outside its traditional ideological envelope. Labour was able to go much further with privatisation and free-market reforms in the 1980s, before the public rebelled, than National ever could. National was able to get the Treaty settlement process steaming ahead under Sir Douglas Graham in a way that might have raised suspicion if Labour had been in the driving seat.)

Time – and other more pressing issues, such as the economic crisis – have helped put the debate into context.

It is just such a shame for us as a nation that a court ruling which found that, in some rare cases, iwi and hapu could have a set of residual customary rights amounting to freehold title could ever have been allowed to generate so much angst – and racial and political heat – as this one did. The two basic principles – that legal rights should not be unfairly seized and that access to the beaches and freedom of navigation would remain a general right – should have been indisputable.

Colin Espiner blogs:

I’ve just had a very quick read through the Ministerial Review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004, which has been released under embargo until 3pm.

It’s three volumes long and runs to hundreds of pages, but in a nutshell what is says is this: the Foreshore and Seabed Act is discriminatory to Maori and should be repealed.

Hardly a surprise, given the panel was hand-picked to provide just such a judgment by the Maori Party – indeed, Pita Sharples threatened to sack it if it didn’t come back with such a finding.

The panel is savage about the Foreshore and Seabed Act, calling it “simply wrong in principle and approach”, discriminatory, and indeed so unfair to Maori that it considers that a Crown apology is necessary.

I have a smile on my face as I think of the look on all the Labour MPs faces as John Key gets up and apologises on behalf of the Crown to Maori – not for something done 150 years ago, but for the actions of Helen Clark’s Government earlier this decade.

The panel recommends a national settlement that gives Maori customary title to the foreshore and seabed, alongside specific usage and access rights to local iwi depending on their claim. It says some form of public right to access and navigation also needs to be written in.

It says that in the meantime, an interim act of Parliament should be passed repealing the legislation, setting up the process for the new system, recognising both Maori title and public access issues, and allowing the Crown to hold legal title until the whole thing is settled.

It’s not a bad compromise, I have to say, and I’m actually pleasantly surprised. I’ve said before that a return to court could be a nightmare for all sides, and the whole thing would drag on for years.

The Government’s response in August will be interesting. Also interesting will be Labour’s response. Phil Goff has, to his credit, been supportive. However I hear one of his senior colleagues has been around the gallery trying to whip up reaction against the report. I wonder if Goff knows of this?