Kiwiblog

Colin James writes:

The Maori Party’s Mr Harawira also spent taxpayers’ money on personal fun, in Paris. Confronted, he reverted to Hone, the abusive teenage protester. For that he earned a grandmother’s fierce disapproval.

That gutsy, determined kuia five years ago held off Labour’s heavy hitters and earned their fury for what they saw – and see in exchanges as late as last week – as duplicity. She went solo and now has four MPs alongside her. The party’s future is far from secure and many National policies are anathema to its voters. But it is in the game and winning points.

In that game it is Tariana Turia who anchors the party. Whacking Mr Harawira quarantined a threat to its important third constituency (after two sorts of Maori): an intrigued and respectful white middle-class that ungrudgingly (so far) concedes the points the party wins.

Mrs Turia is my politician of the year.

Kiwiblog readers also voted Tariana the Minor Party MP of the Year. I can recall the days when she was seen as electoral poison. She has achieved something quite remarkable with her establishment of the Maori Party, as I suspect it will be one of the four parties still existing in 2030.

The Australasian Study of Parliament Group had a seminar in the Beehive on Wednesday on the issue of Parliament and the Courts.

The first speaker was Professor Philip Joseph, who is widely considered the leading constitutional scholar in New Zealand.

Professor Joseph discussed the issue of parliamentary sovereignty and whether or not it exists or is absolute.  There were references to musings from Lord Cooke and Chief Justice Elias that such sovereignty is not absolute.

This does not mean that the judiciary is sovereign either. In fact the theme pushed was neither institution was sovereign, and there is mutual respect for the roles of each, with boundaries between them.

There was a suggestion you could call this co-sovereignty, looking at it being the Crown through her Parliament and the Crown through her Courts being co-sovereign, but sovereignty tends not to be shared (the Roman Republic did effectively share it through having two Consuls but that didn’t work too well eventually).

The example by CJ Elias was whether the judiciary would uphold a law that (for example) said all blue eyed babies must be killed.  Of course that would never be passed (and if it was, the Governor-General might not assent to it) so it is an academic argument.

Professor Joseph said that the rule of law does exist outside of legislation and that it pre-dates the concept of parliament sovereignty by many hundreds of years.

An example would be in countries that have had a coup. Often the judiciary will adopt or refer to the doctrine of necessity to maintain the rule of law – even without legislative backing.

The second speaker was Labour MP Charles Chauvel, in his role as Chairman of the Privileges Committee. He had some interesting historical facts such as how Magistrates were not seen as Independent Judges until just a few decades ago, and how the Minister of Justice used to actually be accountable in the House for their decisions.

His main theme was respecting the boundaries between Parliament and the Judiciary, and how the Privileges Committee decision to recommend limitations on an MPs ability to breach a court suppression order, helps respect those boundaries – especially as it was initiated by Parliament voluntarily.

He took a swipe at both Justice Minister Simon Power and his colleague Trevor Mallard for their recent comments, plus also at Attorney-General Chris Finlayson for not publicly defending the Judges concerned. Power criticised CJ Elias’ call for prisoners to be released early and Mallard criticised the lack of jail in the Moses exorcism manslaughter case, saying they would have got jail time if they were not Maori.

Chauvel said he thought both Power’s and Mallard’s comments pushed against the boundary of mutual respect, or comity.

In fact he revealed the Opposition was concerned enough about Mallard’s comments they their Justice Spokesperson wrote officially to the Chief Justice disassociating themselves from the comments, and saying he was speaking as a local MP only and not on behalf of Labour. The letter and response from the CJ was shown briefly on the screen.

The seminar was well attended and ably chaired by Colin James, with extra chairs having to be found for everyone. Definitely only a topic for constitutional geeks, but it is a fascinating area for New Zealand as one of the few countries with no written constitution.

Colin James writes:

Three interlocking principles underlie the group’s approach: tax should be fair, efficient and sustainable. Taxpayers should feel they are paying a fair share and everyone else is, too. The tax system should cost no more to run than necessary and should contribute to productivity growth. And it should survive over time with limited need of repair.

To meet these principles the structure should be coherent, should have integrity – there should not be incentives to avoid or minimise tax, for instance, by channelling income through trusts, as large numbers have done this decade – and should be simple to administer and comply with.

During the past 10 years tax changes have chipped away at coherence, integrity and simplicity. The top income tax rate was raised, Working for Families added complexity and high marginal tax rates for some, special rates were set for some long-term saving and KiwiSaver added more complexity.

In addition, aggressive bracket creep lifted the proportion of income ordinary folk paid in income tax. Add that many other countries, including those we most compare ourselves with, have cut some tax rates, notably on personal and company income.

Australia cut tax rates every year for the last eight or so.

Next, note the global movement of people, capital and finance. There is a strong argument for taxing immobile factors, such as land and spending, and not internationally mobile ones, such as company and personal income and investment.

Yep. The challenge is how you do that, without significantly disadvantaging people who have made decisions based on the status quo.

There was a chorus of complaints last week that raising GST would disproportionately hurt the less-well-off. And it would. But over their lifetimes, many less-well-off people increase their incomes. And in any case, the group argues, it is better to compensate the less- well-off through spending measures than by manipulating the tax system. But is the group exploring all options for broadening the tax base?

This is key. The tax system should be as simple and efficient as possible. If that creates problems for those on low incomes, then the welfare system is the better option to use, than having an inefficient tax system.

The Herald has dropped Colin James after ten years, so today is his final column. If you want to receive his weekly column by e-mail, contact him directly.

In his final column, Colin looks at all the reasons why NZ can still prosper, despite the credit crisis and its aftermath.

One sentence worth extracting:

Helen Clark has resurrected a goal of getting into the top half of the OECD in wealth but is promising more of the policies that have taken us down, not up, that ladder.

Indeed.

Colin James touches on some of National’s new candidates in his column yesterday:

… the parliamentary party’s future looks brighter now than for a very long time. That is not because National is streets ahead in the polls and odds-on to lead the next government. It is because there is an impressive crop of late-20s to early-40s new candidates: Nikki Kaye, 28, in Auckland Central, part-Maori Simon Bridges, 31, in Tauranga, Amy Adams in Selwyn, Sam Lotu-Iiga of Maungakiekie and Louise Upston in Taupo, all 37, Todd McClay, 39, in Rotorua, and Michael Woodhouse in Dunedin North and Melissa Lee, both 42, on the list.

Most of these hold multi-degrees, some with first-class honours, and have useful life experience. In intellectual potential they look more like a Labour intake than a traditional National one. Add Harvard- and Oxford-alumna Hekia Parata, 49, and media mogul and campaign chair Steven Joyce, 45.

The class of 2008 looks to be indeed a good one. I just hope as many of them make it in as possible.

So when National ranks its list on Saturday it has rich pickings. A Prime Minister Key reshuffling cabinets would have quality replacements for old lags he could not avoid initially appointing.

Indeed. If National wins in 2008, I would not expect initial Ministers to serve a full nine years (if re-elected). Rejuvenation is key and I would not be surprised if by 2011 the majority of Cabinet is taken from the classes of 2005 and 2008.

The message to Labour when it does its list on August 30 is that to stay competitive it will not be able to afford passengers. That is a crunch test for Clark.

Labour have a real challenge. Will they protect incumbent MPs as they usually do, or put enough new blood higher up the list, so that they will come in even if they get a poor result.

Colin James has beaten me to the punch, on the issue of National’s one page policy papers:

So in behind the bland one-pagers lies quite a lot of study, consultation with outsiders and internal shadow cabinet debate. A 34-page paper backed the workplace relations one-pager. Law and order policy was well footnoted.

That applies in all major policy areas. In some, such as education, welfare and the environment, the background papers have been reworked over some years. Immigration and local government papers have been honed down. In some, as in housing, science and in a complex set of policies on infrastructure, some work remains to be done. In some, the background is essentially a statement of principles.

In 2006 Key, freshly leader, backed an English programme to publish discussion papers, to be refined into policy after feedback (much as Kevin Rudd did in Australia). But only a handful emerged before the health paper’s bungled release last September abruptly ended the process. Now some policy is being released without the supporting papers. Outsiders have to take on trust that the policy is based on solid thinking. Key read out to me the workplace relations paper’s headings but I have not seen it.

Having previously worked in Parliament, I was pretty certain that there was a lot of work and detail behind the one page policy summaries, and Colin has confirmed this is the case – which is good.

99% of NZers are not interested in the details. In fact they won’t even remember too much from the one pagers – the average voter will have a vague idea of half a dozen key policy pledges probably.

But the 1% do not want the detail behind them. The 34 page backgrounder on workplace relations for example probably has some great details on how the 90 day trial period works overseas, the issues around the Holidays Act etc. Releasing the background paper doesn’t detract from the one page summary – it complements it. It demonstrates the work done by Spokespersons and staff over the last two years.

Yes, Mallard will jump up and down over a minor detail on page 27 and scare monger about it. But Trevor will scare monger on the smell of an oily rag. Don’t let the fear of scare mongering detract from showing to pundits and the public that the policies National is campaigning on are based on extensive research.

So can we have the full policy background papers please. If you don’t want to release them on the day of the main policy that is fine, but can we have them at some stage.

Karl du Fresne calls the Media 7 show on the Pacific immigration debate a gang-up on Dom Post Editor Tim Pankhurst.

Steven Price points out to the Ministry of Justice that their site for court decisions of public interest, is missing all the interesting ones. To be fair I think it is up to the Judge to tick the box on whether it should go there, but regardless someone in the Ministry should use their common sense and make sure the EFA judgements and the abortion law one go up asap. The latest EFA is here for those who want it.

JafaPete asks whether people are just voting for change for change’s sake. He agrees with Chris Trotter that the anti-smacking bill may have been a turning point. He also says the EFA may have had an impact on the Government’s unpopularity.

No Right Turn covers the abortion debate and High Court decision. I am not surprised with the High Court ruling – it has been apparent for some decades that we have a de facto abortion on demand regime, despite a legislative framework that reserves it for serious danger to physical or mental health. Now I support abortion (up to a certain date) on demand and even though it would probably be a very heated debate, the proper way to change laws is through public vote or the legislature – not through the back door. The issues were covered on this blog back in March, and in a sign of hope it was a reasonably rational debate with analysis, not just name calling.

Graeme Edgeler covers issues in the Criminal Procedures Bill, and does a summary of each of the dozen or so changed. Excellent.

Colin James is not a blogger (in fact I would call him an anti-blogger!) but his op ed on inflation is worth reading.

A typically thoughtful column from Colin James:

So Key wants voters, especially those under 45, to contrast big plans for broadband against buying back the trains. There is a century-and-a-half between the two inventions. …

But that misses the electoral purpose. That is, as one party notable put it, “to establish the character” of Key as bold and imaginative – investing in infrastructure for an unimaginable future – and to contrast that with a business-as-usual Clark. …

Over time, however, National’s general policy thrust presumes Labour has reached a high tide with its redistribution of the fruits of strong economic growth – that there is not much more to do – and that from here on, once the economy gets back to 3 per cent growth after the current slowdown, the fruits should go to tax cuts and investment in innovation and education to lift productivity.

So Key’s tax focus will not just be on cuts but on a bold restructuring of the system. …

This week Key stole a march, and he will now bang away on that drum for the next six months, counting on hard times generating eager and hopeful buyers for his promise – and for the meat in the policy.

Clark and Co will try to get the electoral contest down from Key’s atmospherics to the earthbound realities of experience and knowledge where they claim the advantage as dusk draws in on the economic boom.

For now, however, the window shoppers are quite taken with Key. This week he started the hard sell: come and feel the goods, was the invitation in his big bang.