Kiwiblog

Colin Espiner blogs on Labour’s woes:

It’s recess here in Parliament. Labour is off on the West Coast “reconnecting with the community”, which is a nice way of saying it’s trying to find out why heartland New Zealand hates them so much.

Maybe that’s a little strong. Dislikes intensely. The West Coast went National for only the second time in 140 years last election, the last time being the rout Labour suffered in 1990.

And other strongholds such as Napier, New Plymouth and Auckland Central have also fallen.

Phil Goff should be an interim leader only, and would be if there was any serious challenger. But at this stage, there simply isn’t.

This is why I have money on iPredict that Goff will stay Leader during 2009. There simply is no alternative. His problems will arise when alernatives have developed.

And after a solid start to the year, it seems that Labour has lost its way somewhat. Its performances in the House have been lacklustre to say the least. Goff hasn’t been able to land a single blow on John Key in weeks.

Last week was particularly embarrassing. On superannuation, Goff seemed completely unable to hit the nub of the issue about National’s plans to cut contributions to the fund – to the point where John Key ended up both asking the question himself and then obligingly answering it.

Goff was a very competent Government Minister answering questions. But asking them is a different skill.

The only ones who can still needle National are Michael Cullen (normally on procedural issues, however, which aren’t much interest to anyone outside the Beltway), who’s off soon anyway, and Trevor Mallard, who’s – well, just annoying, really.

Heh.

It’s going to be a long road back, though, I think. There is talent further down the ranks, such as Jacinda Arden, Darren Hughes, Kelvin Davis, Clare Curran, Stuart Nash, and Maryan Street. But it will take time for them to gain enough experience to be genuine leadership contenders.

Cunliffe and Jones are the likely challengers at some stage, but neither option is seen as viable at this stage. In the not too distant future Little will be an option also.

I would not be surprised if one day Hughes rises to a leadership role – maybe Deputy. Street is a likely Deputy at some stage also. Colin has identified some of the new talent, but has missed out Grant Robertson who is also well thought of.

I’ll start with Colin’s conclusion:

Key might think that we’ve entered a new age of multiracial harmony, and I’d like to think so too. But I’ll say this: National underestimates the depth of public feeling about ownership of the foreshore and seabed at its peril. If Key thinks that the public will be placated simply by being guaranteed access – and no longer having the beaches in public ownership – then I think he is, for the first time in his premiership so far, completely and utterly wrong.

First of all there is a difference between beaches and the foreshore. The foreshore is that part between low and high tide. Beaches tend to be the stuff above high tide.

Colin agrees with me that the outcome doesn’t look hard to guess:

Let’s be clear: the review of the act announced today is a jack-up. It has only one possible conclusion – repeal the Act. Why do I say that? Well, the panellists on the review are all sympathetic, to say the least, to the Maori Party’s cause: Judge Eddie Durie, a former chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal, which has slated the Foreshore and Seabed Act; Richard Boast, an academic specialising in Maori land alienation; and Hana O’Regan, daughter of Tipene O’Regan, a Treaty lawyer.

I think jack up is a harsh word, but make no mistake this is a panel that would regard the current law as the least favoured options. They still have to do the hard work of devising a more acceptable option.

There are a number of options that I can think of, if the law is repealed. First of all, it is worth remembering that the Court of Appeal set a high threshold for any claim to title. Something along the lines of continous customary use.  But what are the options for a Government if title was granted:

1. Do nothing – it is for an area that the public never use anyway
2. Offer to buy the title
3. Negotiate an access agreement
4. Offer a deal – title is exchanged in return for say some Landcorp land.

Now there are pros and cons of all those, and it isn’t quite that simple. But the point is there are several options that can be explored in good faith.

I await the work of the panel with interest.

I am also fascinated by how Labour will handle this. If Goff campaigns against any repeal, then they may lose significant Maori support – and any hope of getting some seats back. But equally it is a nightmare if John Key and Pita Sharples pull off a deal that works – that would just make Labour look so bad for not even trying to reach a deal before kneejerk announcing they will legislate.

John Key will be pleased, I suspect, with the Jobs Summit. It appears to have indeed avoided being just a talkfest, and some actual initiatives have come forward for consideration.

What I also found interesting was the reports of how it engendered a sense of responsibility in participants that they all have a role to play. You had the Reserve Bank Governor and Treasury Secretary not just there to give speeches, but also actively working side by side in the sessions with participants.

The other interesting thing has been the almost unchallenged assumption that saving jobs is the foremost priority, as determined by John Key. So the Govt is willing to take on some more debt. The banks are willing to lend some more money, the unions (here at least) did not just press for pay increases, and the employers backed plans to reduce hours instead of jobs – despite the latter being a lot easier.

So what are the main ideas:

• A nine day working fortnight, with the Government paying (but at leass than full wages) for training on the 10th day. Est to cost $320 million a year which is huge. However if it does keep up to 20,000 people in jobs, then you save a lot by not having to pay unemployment benefits and still collecting tax on their incomes.  Backed by Key, unions and employers
• A $50 million cycleway from Cape Reinga to Bluff, employing 4,000 people (not sure for how long). Supported by Key as a tourism measure and Greens for obvious reasons. Not one of the formal top 20.
• A multi-million or billion equity investment fund, with the Government and banks, designed to let companies access capital to grow.
• A $60 million private-public fund to boost Tourism

Fran O’Sullivan praises the Summit:

Pairing Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe and Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly as co-chairs for the critical employment session proved to be a masterstroke.

Very decent of John, $60 milconsidering the anti-National ads that the CTU ran last year.

Well before the summit, Kelly and Fyfe had nutted out a range of policy ideas that are enticingly pragmatic.

One has to say also kudos to Kelly for her work.

Key’s decision to appoint Mark Weldon as summit chair also proved inspired, giving the talented NZX chief executive officer the opportunity to provoke other business leaders to be more creative in their thinking.

Weldon’s appointment was criticised by more than a few, but at the end of the day he delivered.

Colin Espiner blogs:

It’s been a very long day but I think a productive one.

I have to admit I was a bit of a cynic about the Jobs Summit. I’ve been to enough of these things to know that half the time they are a load of hot air, with competing egos and ideologies crowding out the room. At the time of the day some vague communique gets released and nothing ever happens.

Well, this summit was a little bit like that. But only a little. Whether it was the sense of impending crisis, whether it was the change of government, whether business and the unions are more prepared to listen to each other I don’t know, but I did get the feeling that for once, everyone seemed to be singing from the same page.

It is only a beginning. What will be interesting is how many of the ides get implemented in the Budget, or before.

It is interesting to look at analysis of why National is on 60%. Of course there is a honeymoon factor in there, but let me tell you National in Feb 1991 was not on 60%!

Steve Pierson at The Standard thinks it is because John Key smiles a lot, and it is all because National has such a super smart PR team, that National is at 60%. I mean, hey they even turned his broken arm into a plus.

I think it is because John Key is Labour’s worst nightmare. He is a genuine unpredictable centrist. Now he is a centre-right centrist, but they can’t pigeonhole him as the typical “new right neo-liberal”.

Labour spent over a million dollars on ads last year telling NZers they can not trust John Key. It was the most personally targeted negative campaign we had seen. Why were they so desperate to have people think Key was not a centrist? Because they knew deep down he was, and that that is where elections are won.

Look at what the Gallery are saying. Tracy Watkins blogs:

It’s a new world order. But some people don’t seem to get it yet.

Trying to interpret comments by John Key about Fisher & Paykel in the context of the old arguments about Left and Right is about as useful as comparing a Toyota Camry with an ocean-going liner.

And Colin Espiner also blogs:

John Key just continues to surprise – and I imagine he’s surprising his own party and its backers as much as the public.

Generally when Roger Kerr from the dry-Right Business Roundtable starts writing articles criticising you just a few months into your first term in government, it’s because you’re a centre-Left government.

But in National’s case, it’s because they’ve got a leader and a Prime Minister who has pretty much torn up the rule book governing the political spectrum.

If Helen Clark shifted the paradigm of New Zealand politics during her nine years in power, Key seems to be intent on exploding it altogether.

Espiner also looks at how hands on Key is:

When Key caught wind that banks might be being a little stingy with their credit to businesses, he got on the blower to their chief executives and had a little chat. Imagine Helen Clark or Michael Cullen doing that?

And after Fisher and Paykel Appliances saw its share price plummet 40 percent in a single day yesterday, Key again reached for the telephone and called up chief executive John Bongard.

This is why I semi-jokingly refer to John’s Muldoonist tendencies!

Colin also notes:

Just one other example of Key’s newfound interventionist streak – the impending cricket tour of Zimbabwe by the Black Caps. Remember 2005, when the Labour government refused to intervene to stop NZ Cricket touring? It did stop the return series by declining visas for the Zimbabwe players, and I accept there were few stronger critics of the Mugabwe regime than Clark.

But Labour’s view was that to prevent the cricketers heading to Africa it would have had to revoke their passports, and that was a bridge too far.

Key doesn’t seem to have any such qualms. He pretty much said yesterday, and again on his way into caucus this morning, that the tour wouldn’t be proceeding. Asked if that meant revoking passports, he shrugged and said he was looking at all the options.

There’s a gutsy determination about him at the moment that reminds me very much of Clark in her earlier years, before she became worn down by the endless decision-making and sheer plethora of issues and controversies that enveloped her government.

I think it’s refreshing, as long as it lasts.

And this is why National is at 60%. Not because everyone loves National, but because they do love John Key. Only 4% of NZers thought he was doing a poor or weak job. That is incredibly low.

Labour and its allies need to realise they are dealing with a very different politician with John Key. He is an instinctive rather than ideological politician. Now his instincts are centre-right, but he operates by trusting his instincts and his skills to get good outcomes.

If people think National is at 60% just because John Key smiles a lot, then they are dramatically under-estimating him. Just as they did last year when they all said he would get whipped by Helen in the debates.

Now sure market purists like myself are wincing from time to time, as John does one of his interventions. But the battle for most of the public lies in the centre.

The challenge for Labour is how do they respond?

Colin Espiner seems impressed with Kevin Rudd’s big bang package of NZ$53 billion.

Yesterday Rudd threw the kitchen sink at the Australian economy, spending a whopping NZ$53 billion on everything from schools to home insulation to road repairs to tax breaks for businesses. Hell, he even doled out $12.7 billion in one-off cash bonuses for struggling low-income families.

It should be noted that Kevin Rudd had a healthy surplus. Michael Cullen left Bill English a decade of huge deficits. But also the Rudd approach is not without critics. The Asian Wall Street Journal notes:

From Washington to Tokyo to London, politicians the world over are using the global financial crisis as cover to extend their powers. In Australia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is taking that tack a step further — he’s manufacturing a philosophy to justify his actions.

In an essay published in the February issue of the Monthly magazine, Mr. Rudd lays out his vision for “social capitalism”; a kind of halfway house between what he calls “extreme capitalism” and “an all-providing state.” “Whatever the nomenclature,” he writes, “the concept is clear: a system of open markets, unambiguously regulated by an activist state, and one in which the state intervenes to reduce the greater inequalities that competitive markets will inevitably generate.”

This is just the usual Rudd spin, or another name for Blair’s so called third way.

This is a vision for a greatly expanded state cloaked under the rubric of “free markets,” one in which Canberra would decide what inequalities were worth smoothing out and which ones weren’t. Australia had that model once; it was called the Gough Whitlam government. In the 1970s, Mr. Whitlam nationalized health and higher education, hiked public-sector wages, increased government spending and pandered to labor unions, a key Labor Party constituency. The result was one of the worst recessions in Australia’s modern history.

That’s why the Labor Party — the same Labor Party that Mr. Rudd belongs to — embraced truly free markets, trade liberalization and deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s. Those reforms underpinned 17 consecutive years of economic expansion.

Indeed the Australian Labor Party under Hawke and Keating did many good things. And Rudd’s record to date hasn’t been too bad – but he seems to be panicking.

Mr. Rudd makes only a passing reference to this record, acknowledging the Bob Hawke and Paul Keating Labor governments’ ”ambitious and unapologetic program of economic modernization.” He goes further: “Neo-liberalism, and the free-market fundamentalism it has produced, has been revealed as little more than personal greed dressed up as an economic philosophy,” he writes. This is a far cry from the economic conservatism for which Mr. Rudd was elected in 2007.

Indeed, you never heard that on the campaign trail from him.

In his essay, Mr. Rudd uses the global financial crisis as a cover to attack his political opponents and talk up his own recent record. The opposition Liberal Party, Mr. Rudd writes, is “the political home of neo-liberalism in Australia” and bears blame for the current financial crisis, while Labor “has acted decisively through state action to maintain the stability of the Australian financial system.”

The irony is that Australia was better prepared to deal with the financial crisis because of its long record of liberalization and sound regulatory oversight. Australia wasn’t hit by a slew of subprime mortgage defaults or bank runs. Its problems came courtesy of muddled government interventions on foreign shores. Mr. Rudd’s Labor government reacted by guaranteeing bank deposits at taxpayer expense, banning short selling and proposing huge public spending programs.

The reason Kevin has so much money to spend now, is because unlike in NZ, he inherited a healthy economy. The bank deposit guarantee is not one I agree with the WSJ on, as almost all countries have been forced into that as a least worst option. As for increased spending – it depends on what the spending is for. Bringing forward infrastructure spending is desirable. Borrowing money to give cash handouts is not.

Milton Friedman once wrote: “What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will.” It’s not necessary to read between the lines of Mr. Rudd’s essay to understand that that’s what’s going on here.

Very astute.

Watch Colin Espiner eat his blog. Very funny.

Colin blogs about it here, and Stuff has run a story on it.

Big thumbs up to Colin for being a good guy, and going through with it. I hope he had a good audience watching it live. Thanks to Whale Oil for converting it to You Tube so one can embed it.

There’s so many positive stories I don’t know where to start. Alphabetically maybe with Audrey Young yesterday:

Popular Westie Paula Bennett is the big winner as Minister of Social Development and Employment – one of the biggest jobs overseeing the biggest ministry with the biggest budget.

It has gone to someone with just three years as an MP who has drawn on the DPB herself in the past as a solo mother .

Key said it was not it risk. It is but it one worth taking. She proved herself an able politician quickly in opposition embarrassing plenty more seasoned MPs in Government in early childhood education.

Most people are celebrating Paula’s story of having been a young Maori solo mother, working all sorts of low paid jobs to earn some extra money, educating herself, becoming an MP, winning Waitakere and then becoming Minister of Social Development. It’s a great aspirational story. Alas, the bitterness has not ended with the election campaign, with Clinton Smith labelling her “thick as two short planks”.

Luckily for Labour, Phil Goff is showing his smarts. Goff has resisted the urge to criticise the Cabinet – knowing that doing so may just make him look churlish. He has said he’ll hold them to account, but will give them a fair go in the job.  I am starting to get quite positive about Labour under Goff’s leadership – the mea culpa over the EFA and now this.

Colin Espiner blogged:

John Key’s announced his new Cabinet lineup. It’s not a bad one, either. I think he’s picked through the talent available very well.

Colin also updates us:

On another matter, thanks to everyone who has posted suggestions on helping me eat my words. After much deliberation, I have settled on the suggestion provided by Lizbeth of making a “coalition smoothie” from my blog. I’ll be doing this on video in the press gallery kitchen on Tuesday lunchtime. We hope to have it posted on the Stuff website early afternoon.

Like John Key, I’m keen to try out my kitchen cabinet whiz.

I think Colin should invite the Maori Party MPs to witness it

On the Greens G-blog, Stevedore blogs:

And Key seems to be giving it his best shot. The arrangement he has put together seems to reflect what people voted for. The cabinet he has announced looks a lot more diverse, fresh and representative than it threatened to be a few months ago.  The whole thing looks stable and consultative.  Which is exactly what MMP should provide.

Tim Selwyn at Tumeke provides lots of provocative commentary.

Barnsley Bill invents a new term – a SDMILF. Oh dear. Paula may need to warn the Diplomatic Protection Squad!

John Armstrong writes this morning:

The message is loud and clear: to survive as a minister in John Key’s Cabinet, you’re going to have to perform.

That will make a nice change.

Key has taken a less sentimental approach to Cabinet construction than previous Prime Ministers, with somewhat more emphasis on talent and ability and slightly less stress on loyalty and length of service.

Indeed. Although some appointments could still be seen as sentimental – but overall many fresh new faces.

The Herald has a summary of business and industry reaction, and lobby groups here.

The Herald editorial calls the Ministry solid and safe:

The line-up looks to be a good mixture of fresh faces and experience. …

As Associate Minister of Maori Affairs, Georgina te Heuheu will have a seat at the Cabinet table while the minister, the Maori Party’s Pita Sharples, will not. They will have to be in tune. So will Paula Bennett and Tariana Turia, minister and associate minister respectively of social development and employment. Ms Bennett, who has known life on a benefit, is the most unexpected of Mr Key’s appointment and perhaps the most inspired.

The Dom Post editorial calls it the bold and the new.

John Key has shown wisdom beyond his political years by tempering boldness with caution in naming his new ministers, The Dominion Post writes.

In opting for the promise of a Steven Joyce over the experience of a John Carter, Mr Key is reflecting his own rise to the top after only six years in Parliament. Time served is not an indication of talent.

However, neither has he left out in the cold any of those who would have reasonably expected to make it. There would have been dangers in doing that. Mr Carter, along with Maurice Williamson and Richard Worth, his fellow ministers outside Cabinet, have all been given a clear signal that this is as good as it will get.

But they have not been humiliated. Left to languish on the back benches, they could have devoted their time to sowing discord and undermining the leader who failed to give them anything else to do.

Being a Minister outside Cabinet is still a hell of a lot better than not being a Minister at all.

Mr Key’s decisions in allocating ministerial positions underline that he is seeking to advance his agenda through consensus rather than by bulldozing it through. The naming of his ministers is a good start to his administration.

Yep.

The only quibble is that he convinced himself he was unable to trim his ministry from a bloated 28. Maintaining an executive of that size means that his plans to reduce the Wellington bureaucracy will be greeted with a measure of justified cynicism.

I also wanted it less than 28. But as one can see, there were enough upset MPs anyway. Technically his promise is to keep the Wellington bureaucracy from growing further, so keeping the Executive the same size is consistent.

Martin Kay in the Dom Post provides useful commentary on each Minister.

An odd report in the ODT, with Dene Mackenzie bizarrely labelling the Cabinet a move to the right. Dropping Lockwood Smith and Maurice Williamson from Cabinet is as far from a move to the right as you can get. Replacing Judith Collins with Paula Bennett is Welfare is not a move to the right. Giving Bill English infrastructure is not a move to the right.

So when Dene says:

His new Cabinet, which will be sworn in tomorrow, shows a bias to the Right despite moves during the election campaign to position National as a centrist party.

could someone ask him for an example?

The ODT editorial is better:

The immediate response is that Mr Key has continued in his briskly positive mode and got the balance about right.

Now comes the difficult part: moulding this executive into an effective and harmonious team able to put longstanding differences aside and address the many issues facing the country – not least the recession and the international financial crisis.

If anyone inspires confidence with his experience and economic competence it is Mr English, on whom much of the burden will fall.

Overall, very positive responses.

Colin Espiner is blogging regarding his words just before the election:

I’ll go further. I’ll say this: the Maori Party will not go into a coalition government with National. If I’m proved wrong after the election, I’ll print out this blog and eat it, live on webcam.

Note that I’m not saying the Maori Party won’t offer confidence and supply to National (although I think this, too, is highly unlikely) or that it wouldn’t consider abstaining to allow National to govern. But I believe a coalition is out of the question.

So will Colin be eating his words literally?

His first defence:

One, it’s extremely unlikely there will be a coalition between National and the Maori Party. If anything, it will be a confidence and supply arrangement with ministerial seats outside Cabinet. That, by the definition of the last Labour-led government, was not a coalition arrangement.

On that defence, I am not convinced. People can play around with the words you use to describe an arranagement, but if you get to have Ministers in the Government, that is an effective coalition. If ti looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck it is a duck.

His next defence:

Two, the context of the blog was that if the Maori Party was in a position to hold the balance of power, it would not go with National. This, of course, hasn’t happened; National doesn’t need the Maori Party but is seeking to do a deal anyway. That takes a great deal of the pressure off the Maori Party to make a choice that could alienate its supporters.

Colin is on stronger ground here. Certainly I understood his earlier blog piece to be talking about the scenario where the Maori Party get to choose. That was indeed the context for it. However, Colin did make a mistake by not making that context explicit.

So what is the outcome?

The point is, I have sufficient wriggle room to avoid having to eat my blog.

But this would make me no better than the MPs I criticise daily for the same flip-flops.

Therefore, in the interests of fair play and because I’m not afraid to admit I don’t get everything quite right, I will, if the Maori Party signs on the dotted line on Sunday, eat my blog as promised.

Here’s where you come in. Send me some suggestions about suitable accoutrements, sauces, recipes, etc, to make the experience a little more palatable for me.

I’m leaning towards shredding it and mixing it into an omelette, but I’m open to suggestions.

Give me your ideas, and if the deal is done I’ll whip something up in the press gallery kitchen early next week. I will, of course, video it and post it right here on my blog so you can all watch me eating my media lunch.

I presume Colin will only be eating the one offending page. He’ll get sick if he does much more than that. I think chocolate sauce would help – everything goes down better with chocolate sauce!

Colin Espiner blogs his final thoughts:

It’s all over bar the shouting. As the parties wind up campaigning with a final flurry of handshakes and campaign rallies in Auckland tomorrow, the final polls have come in and the verdict is unanimous: National should win on Saturday.

I say “should” because National has the polling in its favour, it has the momentum, and it is riding the “time for a change” mood that still exists, despite Labour leader Helen Clark’s claims that it has evaporated in the wake of the financial crisis.

Even TV3’s usually Left-leaning TNS poll puts National in the box seat, and actually has Labour’s support down rather than up. It appears as if Mike Williams’s trip to Australia last week to dig dirt on John Key might end up being more costly than Labour had budgeted for.

You know how damaging it is when Helen is on TV saying people should realise they are voting for her, not Mike Williams. Wow that is crapping on him from a big height. They should also realise that Williams is one of her closest friends, her personal choice for party president, the Labour Campaign Manager, in touch with Helen several times a day and she knew all about his attempted smear tactics.

But in Key she met her match on the campaign trail. He was relaxed, friendly, polished, and did not make the sort of blunders Labour was counting on. He surprised Clark by bettering her in the first television leaders’ debate and confidently held his own in the next two as well, blunting Labour’s major advantage in the campaign – Clark’s debating skills.

That first TV debate was a defining moment. It made a huge difference.

In the last few days we’ve had another secret tape, but I have to say that the outing of the taper’s identity as Kees Keizer, a Left-leaning man with links to the Green Party, has done Labour more harm than good. Even though the party was not directly involved, it looks a little desperate. I understand there was another tape – of John Key himself – but either TV3 has chosen not to air it, or Mr Keizer is concerned about a potential backlash from handing it over.

There is immense anger about the vile little tactics of Keizer. Not just from the political right, but those who are not political. And I think Colin is right – this little campaign has backfired on the left.

To give credit to the Greens co-leaders, they did do a press release yesterday explicitly stating they do not condone the use of secret tapings such as Keizer did. Labour has refused to condemn the tactis, and indeed they seem to have set their campaign strategy on the knowledge of what was on some of the tapes.

The balance of probabilities suggests that Key will be our next prime minister, and that we will know this on Saturday evening, without having to wait for the Maori Party to decide for us.

It would be good to have a clean result, so at this time of financial crisis, a Government can be formed quickly. I actually think National will have a better relationship with the Maori Party if they do not have to rely on their abstentions – because then any policy agreements will be based on genuine agreement that they are good policies to pursue.

Colin Espiner has been talking to Pita Sharples and on the basis of that conversation says there is no chance of a Maori-National coalition – a gutsy call:

Sharples wants to improve the lot of Maori. He wants to do this from a position of power, believing, unlike the Greens, that the best way to do this is from government.

But Sharples is a man possessed. He’s possessed by the knowledge that no matter what the Maori says or does during its current courtship dance with the National Party, his followers know only one party – Labour. He’s frank about this, and when you push him, he admits that the chances of the Maori Party entering into any sort of coalition arrangement with National is extremely unlikely.

I’ll go further. I’ll say this: the Maori Party will not go into a coalition government with National. If I’m proved wrong after the election, I’ll print out this blog and eat it, live on webcam.

That in itself should be incentive enough for such a coalition

Note that I’m not saying the Maori Party won’t offer confidence and supply to National (although I think this, too, is highly unlikely) or that it wouldn’t consider abstaining to allow National to govern. But I believe a coalition is out of the question.

If Colin is right, then Helen Clark is going to be very happy.

At the end of our conversation today, Sharples conceded that it would be much easier for the Maori Party if Labour won the most votes on election day. He’d rather deal with Labour, too, I suspect. Even if Labour isn’t the major party, Sharples would look to a deal that included New Zealand First and the Greens first.

As a last resort, if the “other door” was completely shut, the Maori Party would talk with National, Sharples told me, but even then he was doubtful about whether the Maori Party’s supporters would back such a deal.

I am just imagining a Labour/Greens/Maori/NZ First Government trying to cope with the financial crisis and live within its means. More likely are huge tax increases.

So with two and half weeks of the campaign to go, it’s Labour, NZ First, the Greens, and almost certainly the Maori Party on one side. And National, ACT, and United Future on the other. ACT is probably good for four or even five seats, but United Future will be lucky to get more than one.

That means National needs to get very close to 50% of the party vote to have any hope of forming a government.

Or National has to agree to something that the Maori Party want – and that Labour won’t or can’t agree to. I’m thinking seabed and foreshore legislation here.

The maths is cruel, but there you have it. The polls mean very little against the reality of MMP. The only message National should be pushing now is this: If you want to change the government, you must party vote National. Virtually anything else (except ACT) will see Clark reinstalled in Premier House for a fourth term.

I agree that is the desired message.

In no particular order.

The Herald Editorial compares the parties:

There has been a striking contrast in the response of the two main parties to the disturbing news that after 14 years of budget surpluses the Treasury now calculates the public accounts are set for a decade of deficits. …

Finance Minister Michael Cullen merely congratulated himself again on having saved previous surpluses for a “rainy day” and looked forward to the problems it would cause for National’s intended tax cuts.

There was evidently nothing he thought necessary to change, either in his own programme of reluctant tax cuts that started this month or in the Government’s spending programmes that might have seemed affordable in better times. If Labour’s “rainy day” could last 10 years, as the Treasury forecasts, Dr Cullen and his colleagues seemed strangely relaxed about it.

In other words Labour has no plan at all.

The fiscal crisis is indeed the first real test of the mettle of leader John Key and his team and it is rare that voters get such a measure before an election.

National could have taken the easy option of confirming its previously indicated tax cuts, offering no specific savings in public expenditure and pretending that tax cuts would actually cure the deficit in quick time. Conservative parties are prone to that belief.

Instead, National has faced the need to balance its tax cuts with specified savings, notably the removal of business tax breaks on research and development and employer contributions to KiwiSaver. The wisdom of reducing the incentives to save is questionable but the courage is not.

And National is willing to take the hard decisions, and not pretend that the decade of deficits is acceptable.

Paula Oliver in NZ Herald:

National has risked alienating people who have embraced KiwiSaver, as the party goes into the election with a tax-cut package that would leave more money in the pockets of most earners – but takes away two business tax breaks to pay for it.

Mary Holm says the changes improve KiwiSaver:

The National Party’s proposed changes to KiwiSaver would considerably reduce two of the biggest gripes about the scheme – that some people can’t afford it and that it ties up savings. …

The contributions of anyone earning less than $52,150 would be tripled by employer and government input. And that means three times bigger retirement savings. …

The reduction of the minimum employee contribution from 4 per cent to 2 per cent of pay means it would be easier to afford KiwiSaver, especially after taking tax cuts into account.

John Armstrong says it is a bit of a fizzer:

The door banged shut in Labour’s face following Monday’s mind-numbingly pessimistic economic forecasts. Labour can thank National’s underwhelming tax package for reopening it at least slightly.

Colin Espiner reports on a snap poll:

A snap poll for The Press yesterday showed National may have pitched the package about right.

The poll of 212 people by Futurescape Global found 43% felt the tax cuts matched their expectations, with 34% feeling it fell short. A slim majority of those polled felt the country could afford National’s package, but people were split over whether they were confident in National’s ability to manage the economic crisis, while 55% said the tax package had not altered their vote. The poll has a margin of error of 6.7%.

Brian Fallow sees a shortage of growth:

National claims its tax package will stimulate the economy in the short term and improve incentives and drive growth in the longer term.

The first claim is plausible, the second not so much.

Reducing the top tax rate faster will be better for growth long term, but quite simply the money was no longer there.

James Weir in the Dom Post surveys business opinion:

Business New Zealand also disagreed “pretty seriously” with the decision to drop R&D tax credits but said the planned tax cuts and target to cut personal tax rates to 33 per cent over time rated a “seven out of 10″ score overall.

The Press editorial is positive:

Even if tax cuts were not on the agenda, there is a case to argue that the levels set for KiwiSaver were too ambitious from the start. As it stands, some young people entering the scheme and earning the average wage throughout their working lives could end up earning more in retirement, when their National Super entitlements were added to their KiwiSaver earnings, than they did in their lifetime.

Yep, and that is daft. The 4%/4% KiwiSaver forced people on the average wage to save too much, taking money they need during their working life.

Clark has said this election will be one of trust. If this is so, then the question for voters will be who do you trust in the turbulent world we now face? With these tax cuts, and with some detail of its longer-term economic plans, National has placed its cards on the table. It has produced figures to show that its plans are fiscally responsible. Voters must decide whether Key and his colleagues can be trusted to deliver on them, or whether Labour can be trusted to manage difficult times as well as good ones.

Will Labour produce a plan? Or is Labour saying it will run a decade of deficits and not make any changes to tax rates or spending?

Tracy Watkins blogs:

A year ago, Key might have risked over promising and under delivering on those amounts.

But that was a vastly different world..

The failure to deliver more may peel off some soft support among those who were leaning toward National but, because of Working for Families, will not be a whole lot better off.

But the rest will probably agree with Key that it’s a package that’s right for the times.

So is it enough? You’d have to say yes.

And finally NZPA reports that least surprising news of all – that unions and political rivals don’t like it. Some get their facts wrong:

United Future leader Peter Dunne, who is minister of revenue, said it was complicated and would be difficult to administer.

“Superannuitants and low income earners are the big losers,” he said.

Bzzt. Wrong. By 2011 superannuitant couples will get $15 a fortnight more.

Voting is now open in the 2008 Kiwiblog Awards. They close at 3 pm Friday 3 October. You can vote in the sidebar.

The most popular nominations in each category are:

MP of the Year

• Rodney Hide – not even a finalist last year but a popular nominee for his campaign to expose Peters, amongst other things
• Bill English – a repeat nominee – his year of picking apart the EFA was often cited
• Pita Sharples – has become the Maori MP, Pakeha love to love, and helped position the Maori Party as Kingmakers.
• Phil Goff – a China FTA plus a possible United States FTA endears Goff to many readers

Labour MP of the Year

• Phil Goff was nominated by many but disqualified as the 2007 winner
• Michael Cullen cited by many for his mastery of the House
• David Cunliffe also impressed several with his determination to improve the Health sector
• Winston Peters was nominated multiple times in this category, so who are we to stand in the way of the public!

National MP of the Year

• Simon Power had the most nominations, having impressed with his constant highlighting of law & order problems, and also superb Chairmanship of the Privileges Committee.
• John Key is still the country’s Preferred PM
• Bill English was disqualified having won this category last year
• Gerry Brownlee also often nominated for his take no prisoners methods in the House

Minor Party MP of the Year

• Rodney Hide a popular nominee for many
• Pita Sharples had 12 nominations in this category – will it be Minister Sharples in a few weeks?
• Sue Bradford has had a quieter year than 2007 when she was runner up, but still gained some nominations
• Hone Harawira also gained multiple nominations – the once reviled radical has been impressing a few people

Press Gallery of the Journalist

• Audrey Young – Winston still has not apologised to her, but she was a favourite nominee amongst Kiwiblog readers
• Duncan Garner – his “straight talking” doesn’t always win friends in Parliament, but has proven popular with some readers
• Guyon Espiner – cool, clam and collected – the most viewed gallery reporter has some fans
• Colin Espiner – the blogging journalist has many online fans

Public Servant of the Year

• Grant Liddell – the SFO Director was a multiple nominee for doing what was right, regardless of what the Government wanted.
• Owen Glenn – okay not technically a public servant, but many nominated him for having performed a public service.
• Helena Catt – the Electoral Commission CEO wins the sympathy and nominations of many for having to try and work out what the Electoral Finance Act actually means, and for her willingness to criticise the law she has to enforce.

Enjoy voting.

Last week I set up an online survey for MPs, asking them to rate various media organisations and senior gallery journalists on a scale of 0 to 10. Just under one quarter of MPs responded, and the results are shown below.

As the media often rate how well MPs are doing, I thought it appropriate to reverse this and ask the questions in reverse. The media are a hugely powerful filter, and it is appropriate (in my opinion) to have some focus on how well they are perceived to be performing.

The questions were:

1. For each media organisation please give them a rating from 0 to 10 for how well you think they do in their parliamentary reporting. This should take account of all relevant factors – accuracy, fairness, thoroughness, relevance, substance etc.
2. Now for some individual senior members of the press gallery, please rate from 0 to 10 how well you think they perform at proving fair, accurate, unbiased and informative reporting on Parliament. You can skip any that you do not feel able to rate.
3. Finally can you indicate your party grouping as National, Labour or Other. Your individual identity is not sought by us, and we have no way or interest in identifying individual respondents. However we would like to summarise results for all MPs and by the three groupings to see if they vary by party grouping.

It is important that these be read in context, so make the following points:

1. This is the opinion of MPs only. It does not set out to be an objective rating, and should not be seen as such.
2. MPs get reported on by the gallery. While this makes them the group of NZers potentially best able to have an informed opinion on the media (which is why I surveyed them), it also gives them a conflict of interest. MPs may score journalists lowly due to personal run ins with them, or the fact they are too good at their job! This should be borne in mind.
3. I only e-mailed the survey to the 121 MPs, but it is possible that one or more responses was filled in by a staff member who has access to the MPs mailbox. I think this is unlikely, as most staff are very professional. However MPs were not required to prove their identity to vote, as confidentiality of individual responses was important. You need to know the Survey URL to be able to vote.
4. National MPs made up 43% of responses, slightly above their numbers in Parliament. Minor Party MPs were also slightly over-represented, Labour MPs under-represented and some MPs did not give a party identification.

NZ Press Association tops the rankings with a mean or average 6.1 rating – and received no very low ratings from anyone. The two Internet agencies were in the top five, indicating MPs like the fact their releases are carried in full. Trans-Tasman also does well.

Television generally gets ranked lowly with all four stations in the bottom half. Sky News actually ranks highest.

Radio is middle of the field with NewstalkZB being the highest ranked radio broadcaster.

The newspapers range the spectrum. The NZ Herald is up at 5.3, Press at 4.2 and Dom Post at 4.1. I would have them all higher, but this is a survey of MPs, not of my views.

Now the sample sizes are of course very small (but of a limited population) but let us look at how National MPs ranked media compared to all the other MPs:

National MPs ranked the four TV channels much higher than other MPs did. Maybe this is minor parties upset that they do not get on TV much?

Despite the generally accepted lean to the left of Radio NZ, National MPs ranked Radio NZ higher than other MPs did. And while some on the left attack the NZ Herald at favouring National, National MPs actually ranked them lower than other MPs did. The Listener and NBR also get accused of leaning right, but again get ranked lower by National MPs.

The Nat MPs also rated the online media very lowly.

Now the journalists. I decided not to list all members of the press gallery, but only those who are relatively senior, and are more likely to have a reasonable number of MPs have formed opinions about them. Looking back I could have included more.

If any journalist is unhappy about being missed out, happy to include you next year. Now again it is worth remembering these are only the opinions of those MPs who responded to my survey – it is not an objective rating.

John Armstrong tops the ratings, followed by the NZPA Political Editor Peter Wilson. Generally MPs ranked journalists slightly higher than media organisations. As can be seen by the minimum ratings showing, some MPs were very harsh handing out zeroes. Did WInston multiple vote? (Note I have no idea if Winston did vote)

And once again we compare responses between National MPs and other MPs.

Again very interesting. The SST is generally seen as hostile to National, but Ruth Laugeson is ranked much higher by National MPs, than by other MPs. Likewise the Gordon Campbell and Brent Edwards (both left leaning) are ranked higher by National MPs than other MPs.

Also for some reasons National MPs ranked Ian Templeton very lowly. Maybe they don’t like his weekly chats with Clark and Key, ignoring the lesser MPs?

I missed an update Colin Espiner did on the vote yesterday. It is worth repeating in full:

Labour and NZ First voted against the privileges committee motion to censure, but every other party in Parliament – including independents Philip Field and Gordon Copeland – voted in favour, so the motion passed comfortably.

This was a relief, as it meant Labour and Winston Peters failed to pervert the cause of justice and will of the majority despite the most underhand of tactics. As I’ve said below in this post, Labour’s attempt to politicise the committee and discredit its findings was shameful – amongst the worst things the party has done in the past nine years, in my opinion.

That is really strong language, but justified. This is why lifelong Labour voters are saying they can stomach no more. You had the Attorney-General of New Zealand repeating Winston’s conspiracy theories about how Owen Glenn was coached by his Fay Richwhite supplied lawyer. Yes, seriously. I will blog the Hansard when it is available.

As for Peters, his utter lack of contrition, humility, and failure to show even the slightest respect for the judgment of his peers was nauseous. He has become a parody – a caricature of belligerence, contempt, hubris, and narcissism. His address to Parliament last night was ugly, brutal, and sad. The shame of it all is that if just 5% of New Zealanders either believe him or feel sorry enough to vote for him he will be back triumphant.

It was ugly. There was not even a small fraction of contrition from Winston. Quite the opposite. As MPs such as Russel Norman were making dignified serious to the point speeches, Peters was barracking them almost non stop. It was an insight into how truly ugly this man is. Muldoon was benign by comparison.

Labour have chosen to put all their eggs in with Winston. There is no less deserving person. It wasn’t even that Peters has no respect for the judgment of his peers. He has no respect for anyone but himself. He does not accept in any way he is bound by rules or accountability or obligations. Sadly this is partly because Helen Clark has freed him from all the normal Ministerial obligations such as telling the truth, disclosing interests, following the Cabinet Manual.

I’ll start with Colin Espiner:

On the privileges committee report, I think the committee did an excellent job. It cut through all the Peters verbiage and red herrings and bluster. It simply didn’t believe him and rightly found him guilty of misleading Parliament. It recommended his censure. That is an extremely serious step, and any minister of the Crown would be sacked for such a finding.

Indeed. Someone commented the last Mp to be censured was in 1975. Could the historians amongst us find the last time a Minister of the Crown was censured and lost his job.

Except Winston Peters. Labour’s handling of this crisis has been nothing short of shameful. Every day Prime Minister Helen Clark and her deputy on the committee, Michael Cullen, have found a different excuse for why Peters should not be sacked. There is simply no wiggle room left. So instead they’ve started attacking the committee itself. And this is perhaps the most shameful approach of all. The privileges committee used to be seen as beyond reproach – powerful, elite, Parliament’s highest body. Its decisions were unquestioned.

Labour claims the committee has been politicised and it has – by Labour and NZ First. The only attempt to hijack its findings was made by those members, not those who questioned Peters and found his answers wanting. How Labour can say it is National that has hijacked the committee when its own support parties – the Greens and United Future, and the Maori Party – all sided with National and Act beggars belief.

I think it is the maxim that if you repeat a lie enough time, then some people will believe it.

If, in Parliament today, Labour again attacks the committee and tries to vote down its findings, Parliament will have reached a new low in my opinion. Labour should accept that it lost the fight at the committee and respect its majority verdict. That’s what happens in our justice system when you’re found guilty by a jury of your peers.

I predict Labour will spend most its time attacking John Key and not taking the censure seriously.

Next we have John Armstrong:

Winston Peters’ letter of resignation as a minister ought to be on the Prime Minister’s desk this morning.

It won’t be. However, the damning report of Parliament’s privileges committee demands nothing less, even though its finding that Peters is in contempt was not unanimous.

You really have to wonder sometimes why Helen Clark refusesto take any meaningful action against Peters. Instead she runs attack lines on his behalf against the Privileges Committee and the SFO.

But he cannot get such accusations to stick when it comes to the Greens, United Future and Maori Party representatives who made up the remainder of the majority view. Those parties had no axe to grind with Peters. They simply reached the only conclusion that could be drawn from the evidence – that Peters had “some knowledge” of Glenn’s intention to make a donation.

The next time Clark runs the line that the Privileges Committee finding is politically motivated, ask her why Peter Dunne (one of her Ministers) and Russel Norman support the finding?

The big question is whether she can ever trust him again. With National not wanting a bar of him, it would now seem inconceivable that Peters could again become a minister even if Labour wins the election.

Not at all. If Peters makes it back and can give her a fourth term, of course she’ll have it back. Why else would you go through all the pain now, if not to do a deal later.

Labour’s reluctance to upset Peters with rigorous questioning during his appearances in front of the committee was understandable given Labour’s dependence on him for the past three years and conceivably for the next three as well. But it is to Labour’s eternal shame that it behaved thus.

In the end, the majority verdict is a victory for principle over expediency and for the integrity of the privileges committee.

Eternal shame is a good phrase.

We also have Frog from the Greens:

It does make me wonder weather the Team LPG fanboiz should really be getting so grumpy at Green supporters for not wanting to declare our undying love to Helen Clark and Labour. Because it seems from its recent behaviour that Labour has already found its preferred coalition partner, and it’s Winston Peters, come what may. But then I guess Labour doesn’t have so much to gain from a internet campaign for Team LNZF?

Can one imagine Helen Clark defending a Green MP to the extent she has defended Winston?

You also have comments from two of the MPs on NZPA. First Peter Dunne:

United Future leader Peter Dunne said he had gone into the committee with an opinion: “I entered the committee thinking this was probably a beat up.”

But after hearing evidence he changed his mind.

Mr Dunne said Mr Peters had repeated opportunities to give his side.

“Really I think the committee genuinely tried to get to the bottom of what went on and reached its conclusions accordingly.”

Mr Dunne said crucial for him was contradictory evidence and then “cute” recall of events by Mr Peters’ lawyer Brian Henry after evidence was presented.

So Dunne went from thinking it was a beat up, to deciding on the evidence that Peters knew about the donation and should have declared it.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman disagreed [with Helen Clark]. He said he went into the inquiry with an open mind and based his decision on the evidence put before him.

So is Helen calling Russel tainted or unfair?

Dr Norman said the committee’s chairman, National MP Simon Power, ran a fair process.

In fact even Michael Cullen went out of his way to say that Simon Power was very fair as the Chairman. I think that is a huge credit to Simon for the way he has conducted himself.

As one minor example of his integrity I was talking to him on an unrelated issue a few weeks ago. I had heard on the radio that Owen Glenn would be testifying but not whether or not it would be in person or by video conference. So I just asked Simon whether it was in person or not as I happened to be speaking to him. Simon, just to avoid even the possibility or suggestion of having an inappropriate conversation, just referred me to the press release the Committee had put out. Now I wasn’t asking for anything which wasn’t public, but Simon erred on the side of caution by not even answering my question but just referring me to the press release. He has bent over backwards to be fair and impartial in this matter.

Finally, I note that Jim Anderton is going to show a tiny amount of spine and abstain rather than vote against the Privileges Committee recommendations. Don’t give him too much credit though as he repeat the bullshit from the PM that the process has been unfair to Winston. He does at leats ping Peters for his hypocrisy:

“NZ First was clearly accepting donations at a time when it was attacking everyone else for taking money from big business. For that the party has some explaining to do to the voting public,” Mr Anderton said.

Perhaps Mr Anderton could offer an opinion on whether he, as a member of the Cabinet, felt he should have known about the donations from the Velas to Peters, when he voted to go along with Winston’s generous funding for the racing industry?

Colin Espiner sums things up nicely:

So not only is John Key responsible for the global meltdown of the world’s finance markets, the man is a would-be murderer who, if he’d had the chance, would have sent 60 young Kiwis to their deaths in the war in Iraq.

OK, I’m exaggerating Labour’s position slightly. But not by much.

Next they will allege John Key will lower wages. Oh wait already done that one. Hmm, how about that John Key will sell all the schools. Nah done that one also. How about John Key will close down the hospitals? Yeah that must be next.

This Tremain cartoon, taken from Homepaddock, sums it all up.

The TVNZ midday news saw political reporter Jessica Mutch try to explain what the Peters/Henry story now was, and you could see the palpable disbelief.

Colin Espiner blogs a line he stole from brother Guyon:

My dear brother Guyon has pinched a few lines off me over the years, so I’m going to nick one of his: The only testimony Brian Henry could have delivered before the privileges committee today that was less credible is if Winston Peters’ lawyer had simply said: “My dog ate it.”

Well the dog ate the phone bill from the mystery motel he claims to have ring Owen Glenn from!

New Zealand First insiders and Peters himself had talked tough over Henry’s recall to the committee this morning, claiming to some journalists that the lawyer would provide evidence this morning that refuted Owen Glenn’s version of events. He did nothing of the sort.

Indeed, everything Henry said and offered this morning in the way of evidence simply corroborated Glenn’s version of events.

You have to wonder what sort of morons talk up in advance evidence that actually proves their Leader lied, and corroborates what Owen Glenn said. Either they didn’t know what Brian Henry was going to say (which means they have blind faith) or they didn’t understand how damning it would be for Peters and Henry.

In my opinion, Henry offered doubt today but it was not reasonable.

Indeed. Reasonable doubt means exactly that – is it reasonable. No reasonable person can really doubt that Peters has lied. And as it so happens the Privileges Committee does not even need to satisfy the criminal standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”. They merely need to satisfy “on the balance of probabilities”.

Will this finally be enough for Clark to sack Peters? I doubt it.

I doubt it also. She needs Peters after the election, so that means minor stuff like lying the public, lying to the media, false declarations, and lying to the Privileges Committee are all forgiveable by Clark.

UPDATE: NZPA quotes the Laboru Party MPs trying to defend Winston:

Labour MPs said the way Mr Glenn and Mr Henry referred to each other by first names in emails showed familiarity.

So these MPs have no shame? no standards at all? They are so desperate to protect Winston (and incidentially declare their largest ever donor to be a liar) that their defence is that first names were used in emails.

This is so pitiful, I won’t even bother pointing out the gaping flaws in their argument. I’ll let readers do that for me.

As amazingly it looks like Helen may not sack Peters at all now, three journalists have their say. First Audrey Young compares the testimonies:

There is one piece of evidence that could possibly salvage Peters and Henry and that is a record of a phone call, if one existed, from Henry to Glenn in the last three months of 2005.

It would not be hard for Henry to authorise his phone company to release that to the committee in order to save his “blood brother” and himself.

Any half decent lawyer would have produced this weeks ago. Actual evidence, as oppossed to conspiracy theories, are what is needed. If such evidence is produced, I suggest the Privileges Committee should ask the phone company in question to authenticate the evidence.

Doubtless there are some holes in the testimony of both Glenn and Peters but on the whole, you could drive a Tonka toy through Glenn’s and a Mack through Peters’.

Nicely put.

Peters suggested that just because some people at a lunch at the Karaka sales did not hear Peters thank Glenn for his donation, then he couldn’t have thanked him.

Or that because Peters has good manners (well, especially where wealthy folk are concerned) if he had known about the donation he would have thanked Glenn for it.

Yep, that was his serious argument. That he would have thanked Owen earlier than Karaka if he knew of the donation. This is why I compared it to a five year old.

Once Clark reads the transcript of the hearing, she will see that Peters does not really have a defence.

Or just read the NZPA story on how he gave three different explanations during the one session.

Colin Espiner blogs:

The difference between his testimony before the committee and that of Owen Glenn was stark. Glenn relied on facts – emails, phone logs, sworn statements from witnesses. He went through his evidence carefully and methodically. He answered questions directly, without embellishment. There was no exaggeration. He stuck to his story. He was a very credible witness.

Peters, on the other hand, led the committee a merry dance. He disputed virtually every point of Glenn’s evidence, but with nothing besides his own self-described faulty memory to back up his evidence. There were no phone logs, no emails, and only a statement from his own lawyer in his defence – and even that appeared to contradict Peters’ evidence to the committee.

On television later that night, Peters looked half-way believable in the short clips that were shown. But to sit there and watch him desperately try to explain why his lawyer Brian Henry had emailed Glenn with his bank account details just minutes after Peters had finished speaking to the billionaire was to witness a drowning man gasping for air.

He floundered, he splashed, he spluttered. But in the end Peters simply couldn’t find any credible explanation for Glenn’s hard evidence. The best he could come up with was that he might have told Henry to email Glenn, at Glenn’s request, but he had no idea why or what for and didn’t think it proper to ask.

Frankly, if the committee members believe that then they also believe in the tooth fairy.

Yet Helen still clings on to Winston.

And Bill Ralston:

He admits having a phone conversation with Glenn but cannot recall if money was discussed. In fact he thinks they didn’t discuss money. What then did they talk about? He cannot recall.

Within minutes of that phone call Brian Henry, on the advice of his “client”, emailed Glenn with bank account details for the money to be paid. Peters has no idea whom the “client” might be that Henry refers to and no idea why Henry might be sending bank account details to Glenn.

This is just nuts. Compared with the clear concise testimony given by Glenn to the committee, backed by physical evidence, Winston Peters’ statements lack any credibility and he produced no physical evidence to rebut Glenn.

Nuts indeed.

It makes Richard Nixon look like the model of integrity and truth.

Both Audrey Young and Colin Espiner blogged yesterday on Winston Peters. I’ll start with Audrey:

It has become a lot clearer now as to why the Labour spin machine has been in overdrive for months over Owen Glenn’s character – and it has been awful.

Note how Audrey says Labour has been denigrating Glenn, their largest donor, for months.

They were worried about what he would say about them, not just Winston Peters.

And he has said it – that he consulted Mike Williams before ringing Peters on December 14 to agree to give him $100,000 for the Tauranga electoral petition.

And more importantly that he told Helen Clark back in February that he had given Peters $100,000 for Peters’ legal fees. He reiterated that point at a press conference this morning at the Hilton Hotel in Auckland.

And the records back Glenn. He had brunch with Mike Williams and phoned Winston at 11.30 am Sydney time. It would have been mere minutes after Williams had left, if he had left. Glenn says there is no way he would have donated without Labour’s okay, which he got from Mike Williams.

Williams’ reputation has already suffered badly from the Labour Party conference episode – he denied having endorsed the distribution of Government literature when a tape recording proved he had actually said it was “a damned good idea”.

He lied about something he said in front of 500 people, so indeed his denials in this case have to be judged in that context.

Labour has been saying for ages it would be terrific if Owen Glenn appeared in person before the privileges committee because people could assess for themselves his credibility – or lack of it; how easily confused he gets.

Having heard him at privileges, seen him on Campbell Live, heard him being interview by Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon and heard parts of the press conference at the Hilton today, it is hard to fault his credibility.

Michael Cullen tripped him up over one of the paragraphs of his testimony – the matter of whether he had called Winston or Winston had called him in early December.

But Glenn has been cogent, coherent, sane, sharp, in command of his senses and memory and very colourful.

Indeed. And he has factual evidence that supports his version of events – a version that has never significantly altered.

It is hard to imagine how Peters and Brian Henry can counter the damning phone records and email testimony.

And they failed to do so yesterday.

If Glenn is telling the truth, then how can Peters and Henry account for the “third person” – the alleged client they told the privileges committee existed.

I would bet money that the alleged third person is Roger McClay, whose taxpayer funded job appeared to be raising money for NZ First and Winston.

And how they account for the press statement issued on July 18 a few hours after Peters’ mother died saying Henry had just told him about the Glenn donation.

I feel sickened at the thought of it.

That’s an honest raw emotion. And it is sickening when you think of it. Owen Glenn has proven beyond reasonable doubt Peters solicited the money and knew of it. So if you believe Owen Glenn (and Peters has failed to cast serious doubt on it), then Peters knew all along, and hence the announcement of his “having just found out from Brian Henry” on 18 July was a deliberate decision to release the information a few hours after the news of his mother’s death filtered out.

I also feel sick even typing the above, but that is the only conclusion one can draw, if you accept Owen Glenn’s version of events. I know that is ultra harsh, but again unless Owen Glenn is a pathological liar, then the decision to release the truth about the donation was deliberately timed.

Colin Espiner looks at Labour’s role:

I thought Clark suffered a rare pasting in Parliament this afternoon, with National leader John Key finally getting on a roll and managing to land a few punches on the Prime Minister: “The reason she has never sacked Winston Peters is  because she is up to her eyeballs in this and what happened yesterday was that the truth jetted into town.”

It was a great line – so good he repeated it at least three more times. It’s a pity National didn’t follow this up with a more sustained assault rather than reverting to business-as-usual questions. But Key was right, however; Clark is up to her neck in this fiasco and it’s plain she’s had enough.

At a minimum Helen Clark knew the truth in February 2008. However she may have known as far back as December 2005. She was never asked in the House yesterday whether or not she had any discussions at all, of any sort, with Mike Williams over Owen Glenn helping out with the Tauranga electoral petition. She was asked some questions on her knowledge, but said (off memory) that she had not had a conversation of that nature – it was a denial of a specific allegation, not a denial of any conversations at all with Williams in 2005 over Glenn.

I reckon if she does sack Peters she will call the election date as well. It would be a good way of brushing the ongoing fiasco off the front pages and cutting Peters and his party loose. Not that she’ll need to do that – NZ First will be furious if she sacks Peters before the privileges committee reports back and its agreement with Labour will be toast.

That won’t bother Clark – the last time she needs NZ First’s votes is later today, when the Emissions Trading Scheme has its third and final reading.

But NZ First will have a point. Clark has long championed Peters’ right to due process and natural justice. Sacking him half-way through the hearing would be a bit like the judge at a murder trial telling the defence that she’s heard enough – just take him out the back and hang him.

But politics doesn’t really operate like a court – even at the privileges committee, supposedly one of the highest courts in the land. Politics is neither as orderly as a court nor as fair.  And it’s becoming obvious that Peters’ right to natural justice exists only as long as it is politically expedient for Clark to allow it.

There’s no question she is running out of time. Peters is an albatross around her neck and if she doesn’t cut the strings soon she will sink along with him.

I hope she delays the decision as long as possible then!

As I blogged yesterday, the key issue is not so much whether Clark sacks Peters, but whether she rules out a post-election deal with NZ First.

John Key has said he will not strike a deal with NZ First, even if it means staying in Opposition rather than becoming Prime Minister. Will Clark rule out a deal if she sacks Peters, but somehow NZ First gets back in?

UPDATE: My wish is granted. Clark is delaying a decision until next week, after Brian Henry’s next appearance.

Colin Espiner also has some good insights:

I am going to criticise the Prime Minister for something else, however. Her decision yesterday to launch into the Serious Fraud Office and claim the agency tipped off the National Party about its pending inquiry into donations to the New Zealand First Party was extraordinary. I don’t think a prime minister in this country has made such an accusation against a law enforcement agency before. …

It’s difficult to see Clark’s outburst as anything other than a deliberate attempt to undermine the credibility of the agency investigating one of her ministers, whom she clearly wishes to be cleared of wrongdoing as soon as possible. She has gone out on a limb on this one. The attack looks desperate, unwarranted, and unfair.

As Colin says, one can’t even recall Muldoon at his worst attacking law enforcement like Clark has.

Asked whether any of his MPs had met Lord Ashcroft, Key said: “I think so, yes.”

Here’s what Key should have said to Duncan Garner’s first question: “Sure I met Lord Ashcroft. Why wouldn’t I? He’s close to a friend of mine, David Cameron, and I always take the opportunity to meet my counterparts from like-minded parties overseas, as does the Prime Minister.”

It’s this automatic first instinct to avoid an issue that has got National into trouble before. Why wasn’t Key’s meeting with Lord Ashcroft in his diary released to the media? Why not offer journalists the opportunity to talk to the pair? I’m sure he’s an interesting fellow. If the meeting had been released, I could almost guarantee the media would have ignored it.

I agree strongly here. I guess it is easier with hindsight, but the meeting should have been in the diary. It would have prevented any suspicion, by front footing it. Clin provided the perfect response to any questions.

Finally a word on the billboards. So far: Lame. National is missing John Ansell, the man behind the party’s wickedly clever 2005 billboards terribly. Apparently National isn’t Right-wing enough for Ansell these days, and he’s gone off to support ACT – so look out for some clever billboards from them.

Colin must have missed the news that John parted ways with ACT.

There does seem to be a consensus that the first National billboard isn’t particularly good. The most common complaints is it has too many design elements, and is not clearly a National billboard.

The gallery seem united in their view that Helen Clark will suspend or stand down Winston Peters today. She would be silly not to. In fact the SFO investigation has been fortunate timing for her – it lessened some of the focus on her personal lnowledge of the Owen Glenn donation.

Paula Oliver in the Herald says:

The Serious Fraud Office probe into New Zealand First’s finances announced late yesterday makes Winston Peters’ suspension as a minister unavoidable.

Claire Trevett reports that most of the party leaders are calling for Peters to be stood down.

John Armstrong writes:

Facing mounting pressure to deal with Peters to stop his multiplying crises tainting Labour by association, Helen Clark now has the perfect excuse to stand him down from his ministerial portfolios without his having any valid reason to complain.

Tracy Watkins in the Dom Post:

Phone calls between the Clark and Peters camps late yesterday ahead of a meeting today point to mounting pressure on Miss Clark to stand her foreign affairs minister down.

NZ First insiders insisted yesterday there was no prospect of him standing aside voluntarily.

Colin Espiner in the Press:

His position appears virtually untenable after the SFO yesterday started an investigation into claims that donations allegedly solicited by Peters from Sir Robert Jones and Vela family interests did not reach New Zealand First.

I expect it will be announced before midday.

Colin Espiner blogs on National’s energy policy:

I don’t know whether the party takes any notice of blogs or media commentary, but they have certainly concurred with advice dished out by many of us in the commentariat: forget about the secret tapes, roll out the policy, and release background papers – not just a one-page summary.

It was good to see the fuller papers. Blogs are well read in National (in fact in all of Parliament) but I would hesitate before going from a correlation to a causative effect. The fact Labour in the House tried to make the non-release of the background papers sound sinister was probably a big influence. Why make it easy for your opponents to run their secret agenda line.

Likewise, Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen yesterday accused John Key of “gambling your children’s future” on gas and coal in spite of an abundance of renewable energy and said National stood for “no action on climate change, no hope and no vision”.

Strong stuff. But does the rhetoric match the reality? You’d think from this level of hyperbole that the Nats had announced plans to build a large nuclear power plant on the North Shore (not a bad idea, some might say) or that Gerry “sexy coal” Brownlee had vowed to overturn the ban on coal fires in Christchurch homes.

Governments will always attack policies from the Opposition (inless they are going to adopt them themselves) but the hyperbole on this one was over the top.

It’s true National has pledged to overturn the ten-year ban on the building of new thermal power stations and promised to take a more “realistic” approach to calculating the future growth in the nation’s energy requirements.

It’s difficult to see how this equates to embracing a lump of coal or a petajoule of gas, however, particularly since Labour’s so-called moratorium was rapidly developing a distinctly “Clayton’s” feel to it. The ban, in practice, was always more hot air than reality, since the Government slipped so many caveats into it (only applies to baseload, above a certain megawattage, can be overruled in the interests of the nation’s energy security or in a crisis) that it was largely meaningless.

Key called it “damaging political symbolism” yesterday – I’d call it ineffectual political grandstanding. Industry sources have been saying Labour would have been forced to abandon the ban if it won the election anyway, given the current pressure on the national grid.

Indeed. You just have to look at the history of the last decade to know it was unrealistic to go into a total ban.

Greenpeace won’t like it, but I think National has got the mix about right. As we continue to shiver through the nastiest winter in many a year, I reckon the vast majority of people would far rather the lights stayed on and heaters warm than risk the country blowing a fuse because renewable energy sources let us down.

And God forbid if there is not enough power to keep computers connected to the Internet

It’s all very well talking the talk, as Key said yesterday – it’s another thing walking it. And while Labour’s fine ambitions are all well and good, the reality is that nothing the Government has yet done has made a blind bit of difference to our emissions levels or is likely to in the near future. In fact the only thing that has reduced our emissions profile recently has been the soaring price of petrol and diesel.

There is an irony in Labour attacking National for being pro-thermal, too, because the Nats are also promising to streamline the consents process under the RMA to get more renewable projects such as wind and hydro through the planning stages more quickly.

This is what puzzles me with the status quo. The Government has made it difficult for almost any power plant to get consented quickly. These things should not take five years.

I’m not trying to sound anti-green technology here. I’d like a clean, green environment as much as the next person. But I do believe the Government is on the wrong side of public opinion with its stance on energy and climate change. I think the public care about security of supply far more than they do about pollution. The simple fact is the cold, damp homes are going to kill people than climate change for many years to come.

And think about the lessons to be learnt from biofuels.

Having said that, National’s energy policy is conservative and lacking in new ideas. There’s nothing about energy efficiency, for example, or suggestions about how we are going to meet the estimated 2% a year increase in demand for electricity. What it has delivered is a short-term, pragmatic policy lacking in vision. But unlike Labour, it is probably a policy in step with current public opinion.

A damn with faint praise at the end.

Colin Espiner reports that Social Development Minister Rith Dyson is denying any secret polygamy agenda, despite a speech on the Beehive website saying the Government was moving to recognise triples.

Dyson says she never even delivered the speech, and doesn’t even know what triples refers to.

To assist Minister Ruth, we provuide the following from Wikipedia:

1. polygamy: the practice of multiple marriage (a Greek word)
2. polygyny: a man who has more than one wife (poor bastard
3. polyandry: a woman who has more than one husband
4. polyamory: having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the consent of all involved
5. polyfidelity: multiple romantic relationships with sexual contact restricted to specific partners in a group

Of course with same sex relationships, it gets even more complicated. What is the term for a trio of lesbians all joined in a civil union? No it isn’t pay per view

Asked what the Government’s policy on polygamous relationships was, Dyson said: “The social security legislation is very clear about what a relationship is you’re either single or a couple. A couple is in the nature of marriage, which includes civil union and de facto.

“It’s been the same for years. It’s been tested in court. There’s no interest in changing it.”

An interesting response. The first part is stating what the law is, and the second part is merely saying there is no interest in changing it. That avoids the question of whether the Minister thinks polygamy should be legal? I mean did this speech just appear out of a vacuum?

Finally they ask Judith Collins for comment:

Collins said she was “intrigued” that the Government’s new social development model “now includes something called triples, and my mind just boggles”.

Asked for her view on Government recognition of polygamy, Collins said: “I don’t worry about what consenting adults get up to. I just don’t expect the taxpayer to pay for it.”

Absolutely.

A wide range of reactions to National’s Benefits Policy. Taking them in no particular order.

Bll Ralston displys his outraged liberal roots and agrees with Helen Clark that it is beating up on single parents:

Frankly, less than 4000 adhering to the government breast on a more or less permanent basis is extremely few. In an effort to eradicate these last few bludgers, as it sees them, National will spend many millions of dollars in bureaucratic terms policing its new “back to work” system, counselling the DPB recipients and ensuring they really are making a buck for themselves.

Colin Espiner blogged yesterday and calls it Don-lite – watered down from Don Brash, but still different from Labour. He concludes:

There will be the usual objections from beneficiary advocates but National’s welfare policy won’t lose it any votes and may even pick up a few. It will be interesting to see how Labour responds. My pick is it won’t have too much to say.

Simon Collins has a useful look at the party differences:

It [Labour] believes the welfare state exists to empower those who would be powerless without it. For sole parents, the domestic purposes benefit gives them the power to leave unhappy or abusive relationships, and to balance paid work and unpaid parenting in the ratio that suits them and their children.

In contrast National, as John Key put it yesterday, believes in “a genuine safety net in times of need”. It thinks people should be moved on as quickly as possible.

I don’t think National in beliefs or policy encourages people to stay in abusive relationships. The DPB still exists. The difference is, having once moved out, whether or not one is forced to seek work at some stage, or can you stay on it for a decade without ever seeking a part-time job? But Collins is right the views are seen as “empowerment” vs “safety net”.

As his [Key's] policy pointed out, New Zealand’s refusal to work-test sole parents is now out of line with all Western countries except Australia, Britain and Ireland, all of which have signalled moves to start work-testing.

Yes, as with the 90 day trial period policy, this is standard practice in the developed world.

Collins also has quotes from various advocacy groups:

Family First director Bob McCoskrie, an invited guest at the policy launch, said making parents work part-time made sense, but only if implemented with discretion.

“We’d want to make sure that the work requirements are within school hours and not within the school holidays. Otherwise we are going to have a lot of unsupervised kids.”

Case Managers will need some discretion.

Another guest, Mercy Mission founder Barbara Stone, said she agreed with the work requirement “as long as it’s in school time and there is someone at home for the children for the rest of the time”. She said it was hard to get jobs for sole parents, who often had low self-esteem.

The focus should be on work during school hours only. But a part-time initial job may boost the self-esteem and confidence so that a full or near full-time job is easier to obtain once the kid or kids are older. Having a total break from the workforce for 10 years makes it much harder.

Housing Lobby spokeswoman Sue Henry said she was upset that John Key had “regurgitated” the work requirement policy that National implemented in the 1990s. “Quite frankly, latch-key kids and youth gangs and transience are a direct byproduct of taking the stick to beneficiary families [in the 1990s],” she said.

Yes there were no gangs before the 1990s. What a sensible contribution.

But Parenting Council chairwoman Lesley Max said the requirement for sole parents to work 15 hours a week was “consistent with the norm that exists across society as a whole”.

And who would argue with Lesley?

John Armstrong looks at the policy also:

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – a much paler blue in the case of National’s bits-and-pieces patchwork welfare policy.

Heh that could apply to many National policies!

The latest policy is archetypal John Key. It promises things Labour would happily do itself – such as making the annual inflation-related adjustment of benefit rates a legal obligation on governments, rather than just convention.

Yet in forcing part-time work obligations on some sickness beneficiaries the policy has enough to be identifiably National in origin. But not so much that it frightens centre-ground voters.

Labour and the Greens ritually slammed the policy as an attack on beneficiaries. Some in National’s ranks must think “if only”.

As I said, a sensible combination of carrot and stick.

The Herald editorial is reasonably negative on the policy:

It [solo mothers breeding to get the DPB] is probably as much a myth as the Labour Party’s idea of the average employer. That is to say, there are instances of benefit abuse just as there are rogue employers, but to treat the whole beneficiary class as though they are avoiding paid work would be as foolish as legislating labour arrangements for all. Nevertheless, that is what National proposes to do with sole parents, invalids and sickness beneficiaries.

It is an interesting analogy, but somewhat flawed. Not all sole parents, invalids or sickness beneficiaries are being work tested. Only those DPB recipients whose children are aged over six, and only that small minority of invalids or sickness beneficiaries who have been medically assessed as capable of part-time work. The editorial concedes this later down, so the rhetoric of “treat the whole beneficiary class as though they are avoiding paid work” is somewhat hyperbolic.

For sickness beneficiaries the policy seems fair enough. As the economy has strengthened and the unemployed have faced more stringent job-seeking requirements, the numbers on sickness and invalids benefits have risen suspiciously high. They have needed only a doctor’s note, and even if the doctor assesses them to be capable of part-time work, they have been under no obligation to seek it. National intends to change that.

Some praise amongst the grumpiness.

But there will be cases where the time and cost of taking a low-paid job put added stress on a sole-parent family for little if any financial gain. It is doubtful that society gains from that stress, or that it is worth the trouble the ministry might take to enforce it.

Single mothers with good earning capacity are normally anxious to return to paid work as soon as child care allows. National’s efforts will be felt mainly by those with few skills and poor earning capacity and, frankly, Mr Key ought to have more important things to do. This policy does more to stroke the shibboleths of party supporters than meet any pressing social need. He should return to topics that count.

The policy is pretty standard in the developed world. And having an extra 30,000 or so people in the workforce will help close the gap with Australia.

Colin Espiner blogs on how Ruth Dyson is always seeing the bright side:

Everyone loves an optimist, so Labour’s Ruth Dyson must be amongst the most-loved MPs.

Her press statements on rising unemployment are always full of good cheer, and Dyson somehow seems blithely unaware of the gloomy economic conditions.

Back in May she caused something of a stir by putting out a press release headed “Labour Force Survey Reflects Stability In The Face Of Economic Challenges”. You’d have thought the unemployment rate had defied the economic downturn and things remained sunny. In fact, the survey reported the biggest jump in jobless in nearly 20 years.

Likewise, today’s next quarterly report on the unemployment rate, which finds an additional 7000 people have lost their jobs in the past three months and the unemployment rate now up another 0.2% to 3.9%, is welcomed by Dyson in a release entitled “New Zealand Economy in Good Hands”.

Ruth should have been a Minister when we had the Erebus crash. She may have done a press release highlighting the decline in carbon emissions due to no return trip!

I think Dyson’s skills are being wasted as Minister of Social Development – she could do wonders in the Treasury or the Reserve Bank. Under this minister, Treasury’s report this week warning of recession could have been headed up: “More good news likely on economy” and the bank’s gloomy predictions of 5%-plus unemployment could have been rewritten as “It’s all good here, too”.

Colin does go a bit fuzzy later on with petrol prices though:

Labour will be extremely grateful to whoever bugged the National Party conference for taking bad economic news off the front page. It’s even possible that today’s whitewash from Dyson’s Christchurch colleague Lianne Dalziel on petrol prices will equally disappear with nary a trace, given the media’s perchant for a decent whodunit.

It’s hard to swallow the minister’s recommendation that nothing needs to be done about regulating an industry making $11 billion profits a quarter because it is “fundamentally competitive” and that, essentially, the idea that petrol prices are fast to rise and slow to fall is simply a myth perpetrated by the media.

A more cynical journalist than myself might suggest that the government has several interests in not forcing down the price of petrol; for one thing, the GST take is much higher when prices are high, and for another, the high petrol prices are forcing some vehicles from the road, which is helping with emissions targets.

I think Colin is being a bit hard on Dalziel here. First of all the NZ oil companies do not make $11 billion profit a quarter. The NZ Govt has no power to regulate the global oil companies, which I presume that $11 billion refers to. It is a red herring figure. And a profit figure is meaningless anyway unless one knows what the turnover or capital was. An $11 billion profit on a $1 billion equity company is a universe different to an $11 billion profit on a $100 billion equity company.

Secondly it is a “myth perpetrated by the media” that higher petrol prices leads to much higher GST. Because the money spent on petrol is not spent on other goods and services, reducing GST collected there. Hence overall GST does not rise greatly, if at all, with higher petrol prices.

Colin is right though that the higher petrol prices may help with reducing carbon emissions.