Kiwiblog

Johm Armstrong writes in the Herald:

A case of jumping the Budget gun only to shoot yourself in the foot? David Cunliffe, Labour’s finance spokesman, found himself a laughing stock in Parliament yesterday after a poll asking families whether they were better off or worse off as a result of the Budget appeared on his website.

The poll was an embarrassment for Cunliffe for two reasons. First, the Budget has yet to be delivered. Second – and worse from Labour’s point of view – nearly 90 per cent of those responding said they were better off.

Those respondents must have known something about the Budget that the rest of us won’t until this afternoon.

More likely, National supporters organised enough votes to skew the findings in their party’s favour.

Actually it was fairly spontaneous. I blogged yesterday on Cunliffe’s premature poll, and I think blog readers just decided to have some fun.

Having ensured the poll was taken down from Cunliffe’s website, Labour was insisting the survey was one that appeared on the site after last year’s Budget. A computer glitch had resulted in the poll reappearing.

A computer glitch? Sometimes I have things *not* appear due to a glitch, but I’ve never had something appear by itself with no human involvement.

What was amusing in the House was thet the Speaker was at first reluctant to allow the website poll to be tabled, as he discourages tabling of stuff already in the public domain. However when it was pointed out Labour had removed the poll from the website, that meant it was then okay to table it.

Labour Finance Spokesperson David Cunliffe has a poll on his website asking “How did the National-Act Budget affect your family?”. 86% of respondents have already said they will be worse off.

Quite remarkable to do a poll on how the Budget has affected your family prior to the details of the Budget being known.

The Herald reports:

Labour has accused the Prime Minister of being “out of touch” after he used a military helicopter to ferry him between engagements on Sunday. …

Mr Key’s office says it would have been unacceptable for him to be late as the Governor-General was also attending and protocol requires the Prime Minister cannot arrive later than the Queen’s representative. …

Labour’s finance spokesman David Cunliffe said Mr Key’s actions showed he is out of touch.

“Maybe Mr Key’s lavish lifestyle with his $55 million worth of investments tells him that flying around from Auckland to Hamilton and back in a helicopter is just normal business, but to most kiwis in this age of austerity it’s outrageous.”

One can have a debate about whether use of a helicopter is justified on a particular occassion (I suspect all PMs only use them when necessary), but what I find interesting is that Labour are once again attacking John Key for having been successful in business, and for being a “rich prick”.

This just reinforces to me that when Labour talk closing the gaps, their focus is not helping those at the bottom of society, but clawing down those who have done well.

In his speech Phil Goff referred to David Cunliffe as David Caygill – even with Cunliffe sitting literally in front of him when he said it.

I guess after 30 years in politics, it gets hard to connect the right names with the right people, as you’ve worked with so many different people.

A reader pointed out this PQ to me:

Hon David Cunliffe to the Associate Minister of Health (07 Sep 2010): How much was spent by the Waitakere DHB on mental health services, both hospital and community based, in June 2010?

Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman (Associate Minister of Health) replied: There is no Waitakere DHB.

An extraordinary blog post by David Cunliffe on Red Alert. Let’s take it one step at a time:

When this country is in recession and Kiwi families are doing it bloody tough, I cannot bear to stand by and see rich and powerful private interests – whom I will not name at this point

A classic Winston tactic. Refer to dark vile secret forces.

and this post is not about SCF – rorting the rules and using their clubs and networks to finesse processes.

Thank God it is not about SCF. David seems to have become the spokesperson for a small Timaru cult. The latest cult newsletter proclaims:

In the end though, the only way Michelle, Keiran and I can help you is if you help yourself, and help us help you. If we stay out here alone, we are targets.

I have always felt like asking the Chinese Government how they intend to shoot a billion people.  …

David Cunliffe just called me and we have a thing or two planned which will help, watch this space.

David said “tell the investors to speak with one voice, and throw everything you have at John Key and Bill English and Simon Power – full force, don’t hold back……let RIP!

Anyway back to his blog post:

It makes Godzone look like “the coldest banana republic in the world”.

I thought that was when we had a foreign minister who took out ful page ads campaigning against his own Government’s great foreign policy sucess – a FTA with China. Now that was banana republic.

For goodness sake interests associated with the Natural Dairy Crafar farms bid (potentially with Nat links) reportedly gave $200,000 to the National Party while the Natural Dairy application was still before the OIO and while National has a ministerial policy review underway.

I blogged these donations when they were disclosed. In fact I blogged them before the media reported them. The association with Natural Dairy is rather weak – the husband of the wife who made the donation is an advisor to the Chinese Business Roundtable, and the founder of that Roundtable is involved in Natural Dairy NZ.

I suspect most Chinese businesspeople in Auckland are involved in the Chinese business roundtable. It is a fairly tight community.

National should IMMEDIATELY reject that bid – otherwise what is left to separate this from complete corruption?  Brown envelopes?

Here Mr Cunliffe jumps off the deep end. The public will judge any decision by the Government when it is made, and thanks to transparency with donations can judge whether or not they think that was a factor.

But it is bonkers to be screaming that the Government must interfere with the OIO process and destroy the ability of the Crafar recevers to recover maximum value from the assets, because of a donation from a Chinese businesswoman who is not involved in the bid.

I have a much better example of corruption for David Cunliffe.  In fact it is made in the comments section of Red Alert:

Bill Liu gave a donation of $5,000 to the labour party. His citizenship application was supported by Dover Samuels, who was at that time a Minister. His citizenship ceremony was presided over by Labour ministers, who knew that immigration were unhappy with him being in NZ. None of this is news to you, yet you have the temerity to accuse National of awarding corrupt favours to its friends.

Yes Labour ignored the strong advice from officials not to grant Liu citizenship due to his multiple fake identities, yet they did.

You want another example of corruption – your caucus colleage Taito Field – whom you associate immigration minister did so many favours for,

Or another – how about accepting $100,000 three days before the election, and not declaring it until after the election. From the same source that donated to Winston, whom Labour voted had done nothing wrong and never knew about the Owen Glenn donation despite the telephone logs.

Was it OK for the OIO-overseeing Minister of Finance to lease his (trust’s) house to the govt for a staggering ministerial rent

No, and the money was paid back. But what has that got to do with the OIO.

or accept hours of free TV for his “Plain English” ads?  Isn’t it time we Kiwis stood up and demanded that the tories do sweat the small stuff like the rest of us?  Isn’t it time John key held SOMEONE to account for SOMETHING rather than smile, wave and make excuses?

Now he is in full rant mode.

Beyond political donations, look at the ability of the rich and powerful to get their way while the poor and middle struggle: $2 billion a year of tax avoidance through LAQCs and trusts that National in government has refused to touch.

So the Government is corrupt as it did not abolish LAQCs. So does this mean the last Labour Government was also corrupt. Or that Labour’s policy is now to abolish LAQC’s?

Or it is just more part of a bizarre rant?

And he also rails against trusts. Well now we get to the hypocrisy. He suggests National is corrupt for not somehow stopping the use of trusts to avoid tax. So what does the Register of MPs Pecuniary Interests say for Cunliffe:

The Bozzie Family Trust (discretionary trust)

The hypocrisy is amazing.

Half the top 100 welathiest NZers are still not on the top tax rate!

Yes – and this happened under Labour!This is what happens when teh trust and top personal tax rates are not aligned – something that National has now fixed.

Well what is the point of getting our savings rate up (and asking hard working families to go without consumtion) if the investment vehicles we need to get the money to our struggling firms are being milked and siphoned by fees and sweet deals to the cronies in the markets?  Why would any sane Kiwi sweat 80 hours a week to build a real business here?  Where will our kids choose to live?

So no Kiwis will work 80 hour weeks because of the cronies in the markets? I’m sorry, but even I can’t follow his chain of thought any more. It seems to be just one big primal scream

It will only get worse until we have a Govt with the guts to stand up to it.   The smiling millionaire from Bankers Trust is hardly likely to do that!

Oh I see. It is all John Key’s fault.

Chris Trotter writes:

Is it possible that Chris Carter is right? Would Labour have a better chance of winning the next election under a new leader?

Is Phil Goff really the best, or even, as most political commentators emphatically insist, the only option available? And if, as those same commentators contend, Labour cannot win under Goff’s leadership, does that mean Labour cannot win, full stop?

A few days ago I would have conceded (albeit reluctantly) that those commentators were more likely to be proved right than wrong. And I use the word “reluctant” advisedly, because I count myself among Goff’s long-time supporters. As long ago as February 2008 I was urging the Labour caucus to persuade Helen Clark to step aside in favour of her defence minister.

But now Chris says:

Everything we have seen since the 2008 election points to a deadlocked Labour caucus in which no one faction possesses the numbers – or leadership – to give either the party, or the country, the clear new direction it so desperately needs.

There’s only two ways that Labour’s factions can resolve this impasse: the first is to wage a long and bitter war of attrition and agree to follow the last politician left standing; or to swallow their pride and, ignoring the factions, elect as leader the person best equipped both intellectually and presentationally to lead them to victory in 2008.

Last Saturday morning, on TV3′s The Nation, David Cunliffe demonstrated conclusively that he is that person. Articulate, good- humoured, open to new ideas and smart enough to turn them into credible policy, Cunliffe looked every inch the leader Labour needs to win.

The conventionally wise insist that he lacks sufficient allies to mount a successful challenge. But, from the perspective of Labour’s deadlocked caucus, Cunliffe’s absence of factional baggage may yet prove to be his most telling political advantage.

I blogged a month or two ago that I believe David Cunliffe will be the next leader, because he s acceptable to all factions. One Labour person somewhat unkindly (but perhaps accurately) said he is no one’s first choice, but everyone’s second choice.

However I still stand by my prediction, that Goff will remain leader until after the 2011 election.

I blogged yesterday that I thought David Cunliffe would be the next Leader of the Labour Party.

Today, I wanted to preview how I would go about “selling” DC if he did become Leader.

Some, amongst the beltway, think this is a tough sell, because he is seen to be somewhat lacking in the common touch.

However this overlooks the fact that 95% of New Zealanders will have no firm impression of Cunliffe. Most NZers are not like the blogosphere, where politics is followed on a daily basis.

The first few weeks or months of a new leader, can set a brand which will last for years if done well.

With the benefit of hindsight, Helen Clark did Phil Goff a terrible disservice by resigning on election night, and forcing Goff to become Leader three days after the election. All the media focus was on the new Prime Minister, so Goff never got the benefits of the normal “Who is ….” profiles.

So the first key step for Labour, if they lose the election, is not to allow Goff to resign straight away. He should remain in the job until at least early 2012, which will maximise publicity about the likely new leader, and allow the normal print and broadcast stories on him, introducing him to the public at large.

Then we turn to the substance – how do you sell Cunliffe as different to former Labour leaders, or in other words what would you expect from a Cunliffe-led Labour?

The major brand I would seek to establish for Cunliffe is that he is the first ever Labour Party Leader with a strong business and private sector background. He is not a unionist, an academic or an identity politician. His Labour Party is not an anti-business Labour Party, but a party that understands business.

DC spent four years working for the Boston Consulting Group as an economist and business strategy advisor. BCG is one of the pre-eminent management consulting firms and has appeared for five years in a row as one of Fortune Magazine’s top 15 companies to work for. BCG do not hire low achievers. Other former employees include Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The secondary brand I would seek to establish for Cunliffe is that he is the guy who finally did something about Telecom’s monopolistic behaviour. While it was done on sound public policy grounds (supported by even NBR and Fran O’Sullivan), it was also hugely popular.

It was a ballsy call, which could have ended up in a massive war of attrition, such as happened in Australia with Telstra. But DC managed to get a parliamentary select committee to unanimously back operational separation of Telecom.

So there is an opportunity to brand Cunliffe as someone who understands and supports business, but also willing to stand up to big business when their actions hurt every day New Zealanders.

I think that would see a fair number of New Zealanders saying, hey we might give this guy a go.

Of course the challenge will be to actually deliver sensible policies, and a united team, that supports those policies. That is far from guaranteed. But if Labour do elect Cunliffe, and Cunliffe can establish a positive brand, then the 2014 election could be competitive.

As I blogged yesterday, the chances of there being a Labour-led Government after the 2011 election is very remote. Not just because of the gap in the polls, but also because of their failure to rejuvenate, but more importantly their failure to mend bridges with the Maori Party who might hold the balance of power after the election.

So unless there is some big event such as a second recession, or a major scandal, Phil Goff is unlikely to become Prime Minister. So who will replace him, when and why?

When?

Turning to the when, and I still maintain that Goff is safe until the election – even if Labour stay below 30%. There are three reasons for this:

1. Lack of enthusiasm for the alternatives
2. The shared delusion that the public will wake up to its mistake and restore them to power once they prove that John Key really is a nasty nasty man
3. The impact of MMP, sheltering Caucus more than FPP did

The last point is quite important. Under FPP MPs got more panicked by the polls. If the polls showed they were in trouble in their seat, then they were facing the end of their political career, so they would desperately vote to change leaders to try and hold on to their seats – as Labour did in 1990.l

But under MMP, MPs can be protected on the list, so they do not fear bad polling so much. And even though the polls may show Labour losing as many as seven List MPs, the fact is no one knows which seven MPs may be toast until Labour ranks its list, and by then it is too late.

So I am quite confident that Phil Goff will remain Leader until after the 2011 election. But if they lose, I would expect he will retire from the leadership and politics within 6 – 12 months of the 2011 election.

Who?

I believe the next leader of the Labour Party will be David Cunliffe. And yes, of course I have my money where my mouth is and am backing that stock on iPredict.

Why?

It isn’t exactly a closely guarded secret that David Cunliffe isn’t the most popular MP with his colleagues. He probably isn’t the first choice for Leader of more than a handful of MPs. But he will become Leader, because he is basically everyone’s acceptable second choice.

Being the acceptable second choice can be a better position than a faction’s first choice. Similiar politics happened in the Waitakere selection – one faction was backing Twyford strongly and one faction (union) backing McCracken. Carmel Sepuloni came through the middle as the choice acceptable to all sides who could unify the electorate – either Twyford or McCracken would have left a significant minority disgruntled.

It is also worth remembering that Helen was positioning Cunliffe as a future leader, if she got a fourth term. She wanted to keep Goff out, and after Maharey retired and Mallard imploded, Cunliffe was her favoured candidate to succeed her. The 2008 loss, meant that Cunliffe did not have enough experience to be viable at that stage, so she let the leadership temporarily transfer to the man she she had worked so hard to keep away from it.

Why Not?

Cunliffe is basically the only acceptable alternative to the caucus. One can ascertain this by going through the others known to want the job.

Shane Jones – even before the hotel porn saga, Jones was not going to become leader. The women in Labour would rather slit their wrists than elect Jones, and while they are not a majority in caucus, they are a minority too powerful to ignore. Also Jones hasn’t shown the required hard work to become leader – he overly relies on his (quite considerable) natural talent. He is also too right wing economically to become Leader.

Andrew Little – Andrew has made a tactical mistake by combining the three roles of party president, union leader and aspiring MP. There is considerable resentment of this in the caucus, and he is blamed for the lacklustre fundraising to date. One Labour person commented to me that how can you expect the President one week to be getting donations from CEOs, when the next week he is delivering strike notices to them. Add onto that the resentment from List MPs that Andrew will be automatically given a high list ranking, knocking them down the order.

So Andrew will enter caucus with a degree of pre-existing hostility. While he may one day become Leader if he proves himself, he will not be given a Bob Hawke type coronation after just a year in Parliament.

Ruth Dyson – John Key would start going to church (to thank God)  if Labour elected Ruth Dyson as Leader. Nothing against Ruth’s skills, but she is a polarising figure strongly associated with the former Government.

Maryan Street – I rate Street as one of the smartest MPs, and she has the ability to be a strong Minister and maybe even Deputy Leader.  But I don’t see at all the charisma to become leader or prime minister. Maryan being elected as Leader would also see John Key, if not start attending church, at least sending his kids to Sunday School!

Grant Robertson – Grant is a very smart political operator. Too smart to try and become leader after just one term in Parliament. He has what I expect will become a fairly safe seat for him, and time is on his side. I think the bastard might even be younger than me! If Grant stood in 2012, he might do surprisingly well, but I think he knows he is better to wait his time and get more experience before he tries to ascend.

Ashraf Choudhary – just kidding

Then what?

It is dangerous to look too far ahead, but my best pick at this stage is David Cunliffe become Leader in 2012, and he contests the 2014 election.

Labour will have a challenge in replacing him as Finance Spokesperson, with a so few MPs having the necessary skills or background. To my mind, the only credible option would be David Parker. So the leadership team could be Cunliffe as Leader, Street as Deputy and Parker as Finance.

Like Goff, Cunliffe will probably be a one shot leader unless he wins the election. They call this the Mike Moore slot. He doesn’t have (at this stage anyway) the loyalty of enough MPs to keep him in the job if he loses.

If National wins the 2014 election (and no predictions this far out), then Labour will have another leadership change. I believe their post 2014 leader will be their long-term leader – like Clark they will be in the job for 10 – 15 years or so, and they will become Prime Minister.

This could see a Grant Robertson vs Andrew Little battle. That would be very interesting. I’ve been pretty impressed with David Shearer also, and wouldn’t rule him out as a contender also. Kelvin Davis has potential also – but I see him more as a future Education Minister.

Of course a John Key or Don Brash type candidate may enter Parliament for Labour in 2011, and also by 2014 become a potential leader. However the fact almost all their Caucus is standing again, makes it harder for them to parachute any stars in.

Time will tell if my predictions come true.

Tomorrow, I will blog on how I would “sell” David Cunliffe once he is Leader.

This photo was taken the day Phil Goff became Leader.  Normal rules – funny not nasty.

Air New Zealand have got into the fun with this advertisement for their $20 specials. Heh.

More details coming out today. The Press reports:

Progressive leader Jim Anderton racked up a $22,000 bill on his ministerial credit card during a month-long trip to Europe in 2003.

He also spent $324 on a gift from Kirkcaldie & Stains before leaving on the trip.

The cash splash while in Europe  from April 9 to May 3 included $3500 at Hotel Hilton in Frankfurt, $3400 at Hotel Conrad in Dublin, $2600 at the Palace Hotel in Helsinki and $1000 at a restaurant in Vienna. His wife and private secretary went with him on the trip.

At the Frankfurt hotel he spent about $2100 on “room charges”. No details are provided in the documents.

How do you rake up $2,100 in room charges??? That would tire even Shane Jones out.  I sure hope there are some details.

It also wasn’t easy on the tax-payer’s back pocket sending Mr Cosgrove and his wife to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. The accommodation for the nine day-stay in an executive deluxe room at China World Motel alone was $6,388.

A spokesperson for Mr Cosgrove said the hotel was designated by the Chinese government, with the Minister not allowed to choose.

Then Prime Minister Helen Clark agreed Mr Cosgrove had to go but questioned the length of the stay in a hand written note on the proposal for overseas travel.

I have no issue with the Minister of Sport attending the Olympics.But like Helen, I would question whether nine days is excessive.

Stuff also reports:

One night at a top-end London hotel in Mayfair cost the tax-payer $1435.93, Ministerial credit card receipts reveal.

Labour MP David Cunliffe travelled to London in his capacity as the Minister for Communications and Information Technology in March 2007.

The receipt from the staff credit card used to pay for the trip shows Cunliffe and one other person booked two rooms at The Westbury Hotel in Mayfair, London.

The Westbury is a five-star hotel on London’s exclusive Bond Street. The hotel charged $441 per night for each of the two rooms Cunliffe booked. Lunch at the hotel cost $117 and breakfast was $66.

I thought the opening sentence is actually a bit misleading as one could assume the $1,400 is the room rate. Only later on do you see the actual room rate is NZ $441 a night which frankly is pretty damn reasonable for London.I don’t see anything inappropriate there.

In the Herald, Chris Carter defends his spending as “minor mistakes”:

* $607 for some campaign posters and 14 British Labour Party coffee mugs:

“We had visitors [to the office] every hour and we served tea and coffee. While in a bookshop [in London] we bought 14 cups – they’re bright red and say ‘Labour’ on them. We could have bought cups in Briscoes but these had ‘Labour’ designs.

I’m amazed that this one was approved by Ministerial Services. The taxpayer should not be funding campaign posters from the UK and if a ministerial office needs some coffee mugs then one can get some very nice one locally for around $5 each – from Briscoes in fact. It looks like the “Labour” cups cost around $40 each.

A $5507 bill for car travel in Adelaide:

“We were told by Ministerial Services in Wellington that when a Minister goes to Australia you must use cars provided by the Australian Government because of security reasons.

“They’re horrendously expensive but that’s how it was. [We were] a prisoner of the Australian rules and had no choice. I would have been just as happy in the cheapest taxi.”

I am highly highly suspicious of this claim, and hope media ask some more questions on it.

My understanding is that many Ministers use taxis in Australia. I think Anne Tolley recently went there for two days and her taxi bills were around $80 to $100. So this requirement or policy Carter refers to has either lapsed or never existed.

Also remember that Chris Carter had the rental hire in his partner’s name in the Northern Territory. How would that be possible if the Australian Government really insisted that you had to use Government limos if you are a visiting Minister.

I think some calls to the Australian DFAT are in order!

The Herald reports:

If Labour were writing today’s Budget, it would spend more than National to ensure the recovery from recession remained on track, says finance spokesman David Cunliffe.

The Government spending more does not “ensure” the recovery remains on track. It merely ensures that taxes will have to increase in the future to pay back all the debt.

Labour leader Phil Goff has already sparred with Finance Minister Bill English over the tax changes expected today, with Mr English saying last week that Labour’s policies were a recipe for more debt and higher taxes.

How mean of Bill English to say that, just because it is true.

However, Mr Cunliffe told the Herald that his party, as “very prudent managers” of the Crown’s finances, would keep a tight rein on spending at present.

This would have more credibility if Labour had not called for billions of dollars of extra spending and borrowing.

“Right now, the country’s coming out of recession and well into recovery, and with growth rates forecast between 2.5 and 3.5 per cent of GDP this year and higher next year, this would not be the time that we would want to increase the amount of fiscal stimulus in the economy.”

I actually agree with that statement. We’ve just had the biggest fall in unemployment since records began. The economy does not need a fiscal stimulus.

Having said that, Mr Cunliffe believed an argument could be made that the $1.1 billion earmarked for new spending in the Budget “is quite contractionary given that around half of that will be chewed up by the automatic cost increase of health alone”.

It isn’t contractionary – it is disciplined. If one returns to the fiscal settings Labour had, then the deficit was projected to widen and widen, and debt to indefinitely grow until we have Greece like levels of debt.

“Bill English is behaving like an old-fashioned Treasury vote analyst pinching a few pennies here and there. Well that won’t solve the problem,” said Mr Cunliffe.

Increased savings, investment and exports were the keys to improving economic performance and those would be areas of focus for a Labour government.

So in one paragraph Labour argues they will be “very prudent” managers who will keep a “tight rein” on spending and then they dismiss said tight rein as  mean penny pinching.

I agree increased savings and investment is important – which is why I support increasing GST and reducing personal income taxes. Sadly Labour does not – they ran an axe the tax campaign against GST.

KiwiSaver, “a spectacular success” under the previous government whose growth had levelled off under National, would probably receive a tune-up.

More than $750 million. God no.

“We would say to the public service you need to be innovative, there’s no point in flooding Labour with the Budget bids that National turned down.”

Well at least there is a glimmer of hope.

Clare Curran at Red Alert has blogged that Labour is not supporting the Drop the Rate Mate campaign, about mobile termination rates, and is annoyed at a statement from Matthew Hooton which implies they are.

Matthew commented in response that he has met with many Labour MPs who are supportive but apologises for any misunderstanding if this has been taken as presuming to speak on behalf of Labour formally.

Clare has responded that there is a difference between a public position and “what individuals may say in a meeting about an issue they don’t know much about”.

Amusingly if you go to the Facebook page for Drop the Rate Mate, a prominent friend is David Cunliffe – who was IT and Comms Minister for Labour in the last Government.

I hope Clare is not suggesting David (who did an excellent job in my opinion in the portfolio) was one of those MPs talking about an issue they don’t know much about

The Dom-Post provides a slap-down:

Finance Minister Bill English should listen carefully to his Labour opposite David Cunliffe and then do the exact opposite.

Mr Cunliffe is a clever man who proved a capable minister of health, but he is either out of his depth in the finance role or has completely abandoned principle in pursuit of popularity. There is no other explanation for his absurd criticism of the Government for refusing to loosen the purse strings in the wake of a Treasury report suggesting the recession has ended and New Zealand is in better economic shape than forecast seven months ago.

“Basically what they are saying is our books are $2 billion better off but we the Government are going to keep all of it and you the public will get none of it,” Mr Cunliffe told National Radio on Wednesday.

That is populist nonsense. The improvement in the Government’s books does not translate to money in a bank account. It is money the Government no longer needs to borrow from international financiers. The choice Mr English faces is not whether to spend or save; it is whether to borrow more or borrow less.

We’re borrowing $250 million a week. There is a slight upturn and now we are borrowing only $240 million a week, and Labour says time for a big spend up. They just do not get it.

If he were to act upon Mr Cunliffe’s urgings, he would borrow and pass the debt on to future generations – generations that will already be burdened with servicing the billions of dollars of extra debt the Government has taken on this year and will continue to take on over the next few years to stave off the worst effects of the global economic crisis.

Fiscal restraint is needed not just for a few years. First we have to reduce the deficits and get back into surplus. That may take seven years or so of fiscal restraint. But even after that, we will want to get our debt levels back down to what they were pre-recession (in case we have another one at some stage, which is likely), so we will want several years of surpluses of around 1% of GDP. So fiscal restraint is needed for at least a decade.

If Mr Cunliffe really thinks the Government should be spending more now, he should have taken a greater interest in financial matters during Labour’s last nine years in office. If the government of which he was part had spent less on middle-class welfare, overpriced train sets, hip-hop study tours and shonky tertiary courses, its successor would have more to spend now on health, education and welfare. Seedcorn eaten today cannot be turned into cornflakes tomorrow. …

Money borrowed has to be repaid with interest. Mr English should ignore Mr Cunliffe’s rantings and enforce the strict spending limits detailed in the Budget.

And the limit is a limit, not a target.

Also the ODT:

Government surpluses are expected now to return two years earlier, by 2016, but government debt will still rise to an extraordinary $64.9 billion by 2013 and the burden on the public will continue to grow.

By comparison, it is $17.1 billion this year.

This means tighter conditions are a certainty – unless the Government decides future administrations can worry about the problem of paying the higher debt burden in years to come.

Considering the future cost of superannuation and healthcare, that would be very unwise.

A great fun episode of Backbenches last night. Literally over a quarter of Parliament (we counted 32 MPs) was in attendance as the House has risen before 6 pm due to a lack of private members bills to debate. There was also a lot of people who had been there to see the VSM Bill (which passed yay).

The absolute most hilarious part of the night (in fact of the series) came from Hone Harawira (who was in the audience). Wallace had asked the four panelists about should there be an H in Wanganui. After the panellist had their say (and one funny answer was that the Government should agree to the decision to include the H as it is promoting literacy standards in schools and that includes correct spelling).

Anyway Wallace then asked some of those in the audience, and eventually Hone Harawira, who was standing next to Shane Jones. Hone’s response was:

Well my mate Jonesy just told me that spelling Wanganui without an H is like spelling Cunliffe without a T.

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the place went into hysterics. I’m not sure but I think the Labour MPs may have been laughing even harder than the National MPs. I’d say it took almost a minute before Wallace could carry on with the show.

The quip about poor old David Cunliffe having a silent T is his name is not a new one. It first originated around nine years ago when he became an MP, and legend credits it to one of his colleagues. But what was unique about this situation was:

1. It was the first time someone had used the quip on live nationwide television
2. It was also the first time someone had used it in front of DC himself. Yes he was one of the 32 or so MPs in the pub audience

Wallace of course then went into the audience to ask DC for a comment, and he did take it all in good humour.

The genius of Hone’s comments was saying the Shane Jones had quipped it to him. Because Jones has a robust enough sense of humour that you couldn’t rule out that he might just have quipped that to Hone. As it happens Hone did admit to me that he did make it up and attributed it to Shane Jones as some “whanau love”.

As I said, it was a great fun episode with a packed pub and a quarter of Parliament there. If the Speaker had turned up, they could have probably convened a session and passed some laws! I was one of the last to leave and for my sins have lost my voice this morning!

A future Goff Labour Government’s economic policy is looking to be far more centrist and understanding of business, than the Clark’/Cullen Government was.

The three key economic Ministers are PM, Finance and Economic Development. You can arguably add Commerce onto that also.

Cunliffe is no academic socialist. He has worked in business and has a Harvard MBA. His work with Boston Consulting Group would place him as a high achiever, who understands business. This does not mean business will like everything Cunliffe would do, but I doubt you will find an ideological opposition to tax cuts here.

Jones is also no socialist. Quite the contrary. He has spoken to many business audiences, and generally leaves them impressed with his ideas and analysis. He also has a successful business background.

Goff is harder to pin down. He started off as a staunch socialist and then became a disciple of SIr Roger in the 1980s. He towed the line under Clark. His picks of Cunliffe and Jones for senior economic roles suggests he does deliberately want to move the party more to the centre, with a more balanced economic policy.

Dalziel continues on with Commerce. Despite her background as a union lawyer, she actually picked up a reasonable amount of praise for her work as Commerce Minister and I doubt she would fight a more moderate economic policy.

So it will be very interesting to see what alternative budgets and economic policies Labour comes up with in the next two and a half years.

Labour MPs hosted a roundtable on Tuesday evening to discus copyright issues – not just S92A, but longer term issues over how copyright law intersects with modern technology.

I’ll touch on the politics of it more in my NBR column, but this is smart opposition politics, and a good move for Labour. And I’m not just saying that because I was one of those invited – I’ve spent enough time in the Opposition meeting room to not feel a need to visit it often!

The turnout from Labour was impressive for what is not a top tier issue. Comms/IT spokesperson Clare Curran moderated. Arts/Culture spokesperson Grant Robertson was also there as was Lianne Dalziel who chairs the Commerce Committee that will presumably consider the Government’s law change. Maryan Street also there for a bit (Maryan was on the original Commerce Committee and was a key player in getting some good changes made at the select committee – which sadly were later overturned) as was Trevor Mallard and also David Cunliffe. So four former Ministers and six MPs in total.

There were a couple of dozen stakeholders there, and the discussion was useful. The first half probably saw more heat than light, but as time went on there were quite a few areas of agreement. Lynn Prnetice from The Standard and myself even agreed several times

Pretty much everyone agreed the current law is hopelessly inadequate for modern day copyright infringement issues. The law is only really set up to deal with situations where people make money infringing copyright, and is based around economic remedies. But a major problem today is infringement for personal use.

Everyone in the room said that there should be some cheap and quick (but fair) process where personal infringement offences can be adjudicated and dealt with. No one at all said one should be able to avoid paying for works by downloading. The Internet people all thought fines would be appropriate penalties – maybe tied to the value of the work they have infringed plus a penalty. It was thought maybe it could be like the IRD – if you download 100 songs that cost $1 each you’d be fined the $100 value plus maybe 50% penalty so $150. I did joke that people could just disclose their volume of ilegal downloads to the IRD on their tax returns

The rights holders rep said he would prefer Internet disconnection than fines as a sanction, as they think it is a bigger deterrent. I did get the impression though that any sort of meaningful sanction would be a step forward for them.

Quite a lot of discussion over future business models. The point was made that no one has a right to make money from their “art” – they have the right to have the “opportunity” to make money, but technology does disrupt traditional business models, and no industry is exempt – ie the media are just as disrupted by the Internet as the music industry.

I suggested the long term future is something along the lines of you pay $40 a month to your ISP for Internet access, and if you want it goes to $55 a month for Internet access and all the songs you can download legally, and say $65 a month to also subscribe to legal TV downloads and say $80 a month to also get movie downloads. And if ISPs are keeping a share of the license fee, they gain an incentive to crack down on those doing free copyright infringing downloads. A fair few people agreed this would be a desirable future.

I also advocated that rights holders and ISPs should try and get a voluntary agreement, regardless of any law, that allows right holders to have education notices to alleged infringers sent through ISPs. Even without sanctions involved, it is likely this would see a significant drop in infringing downloads. But right holders can’t expect ISPs to act as their mailmen for free s that is a key issue. Ant Healey from ARPA indicated they had been discussing just that with the TCF, which is good.

Without beating up on Healey (who made many constructive contributions), I was a wee bit disappointed that he did repeatedly go on about how the room was unbalanced with so many”Internet people” there and so few artists. This was the one issue that got people a bit worked up as many of the Internet people somewhat angrily proclaimed they were also artists.

S92A was discussed, but the focus was on wider issues around the law. Many people (including myself) advocated for a full first principles review of the law which would take account of today’s world where digital copying is instant and cost free, the fact the nature of infringing is now for personal use not economic gain, and most importantly to look at having a broad fair use doctrine that covers stuff such as parody, satire, fair quoting etc etc. Copyright is not just about music. Healey made the point that you have international treaty obligations so a first principles review may be pointless as you can’t avoid those. Personally I don’t think the two are incompatible.

Overall it was a good initiative by Labour. The MPs engaged well, and were not defensive about their role in originally supporting s92A. In fact a couple of former Ministers said they had been going back through old Cabinet papers to find out why they supported it at the time. The MPs participated but mainly were there t listen and consider possible ways forward for their positioning based on contributions.

No magic solution engaged, but I think most people found it quite worthwhile, and you know the Government would gain some kudos if it did the same and had an open dialogue with relevant Ministers and stakeholders. I think it would help them in progressing a law change.

Finally we have the mainstream media publishing on the Yang Liu citizenship scandal. Well done to the NZ Herald who have a long story by Phil Taylor:

Jones granted Liu citizenship against the advice of Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) officials who informed the minister that Liu was suspected of identity fraud, including entering New Zealand and applying for permanent residency and citizenship under a false name, and was subject to an Interpol red notice indicating he was wanted for arrest in China on charges relating to alleged large-scale misappropriation and embezzlement and of stealing another person’s identity and using it to obtain two false passports.

Liu had not resolved the matter, either by contacting the Chinese authorities or through the Chinese court system, Jones was told, and “had not fulfilled the onus of satisfying … that he meets the good character requirement” of the Citizenship Act.

Jones has not publicly explained why he overrode advice to decline Liu’s citizenship application and earlier this month declined the Herald’s request to do so.

And that is not good enough. MPs and Ministers need to be accountable for their decisions. You can refuse to comment if it is some issue of private business. But you can’t hand out cizienship to alleged wanted criminals and refuse to explain.

And then we have:

By 2007 Immigration officials recommended Liu’s permanent residency be revoked on grounds that he had allegedly provided false information.

The Immigration Minister of the time, David Cunliffe, did not act on the advice, instead recommending further investigation and noting that he did not “discount the possibility of reconsidering it in the future”.

As part of those further investigations, Immigration last April obtained a search warrant to seize from the DIA identity documents Liu had provided as part of his citizenship application.

Two weeks later Samuels wrote to Barker again, condemning the delay and urging Liu’s citizenship application be given urgent attention.

Delegating for Barker, Jones granted citizenship to Liu on August 6, 2008.

Five days later, Liu had a citizenship ceremony at Parliament, in the Maori Affairs select committee room. Samuels officiated.

So DIA are saying this guy is so bad you should revoke his residency, while Labour Ministers not only refused to do that, but did the opposite by making him a citizen and giving him a private VIP ceremony at Parliament.

A second story by Taylor focuses on David Cunliffe:

The Weekend Herald can reveal that Mr Liu was given citizenship nine months after officials advised the Immigration Minister at the time, David Cunliffe, that dual identities allegedly used by Mr Liu were grounds to revoke his permanent residency. They provided a legal opinion in support.

So you have multiple people in the gun:

• Shane Jones for giving him citizenship, against advice
• David Cunliffe for refusing to revoke his permanent residency, against advice
• Dover Samuels for advocating on behalf of Liu, despite knowing about the allegations from China

As I said, it is excellent to see the Herald cover this story. A pity though they did not credit the original investigation by TGIF.

Starting at the top, the three northern seats of East Coast Bays, North Shore and Northcote were solid blue. Their party votes went up 9%, 4% and 11% respectively.  In East Coast Bays almost three times as many people voted National as Labour. These seats now are counters to the South Auckland seats.

The personal majorities were 12,800, 13,200 and 8,500 respectively. Northcote was held by Labour up until 2005 and Jonathan Coleman this tme incraesed his majority by around 6,000.

Out west we saw the near impossible – National won the party vote in all three West Auckland seats. Tim Groser worked hard on New Lynn to lift the party vote by 10% to 41%, with Labour dropping 12%. Te Atatu went from 32% to 42% and Waitakere from 33% to 42%. Listing the vote 10% in Westieville was great work.

Paula Bennett’s win in Waitakere is all the more remarkable because of the new boundaries. They had her 6,000 votes behind in 2005 and she won by 900. Groser reduced Cunliffe to 3,500 from a paper majority of 12,000 – also one of the biggest swings! Finally Chris Carter dropped to 4,500 from 7,500.

In central Auckland we have Auckland Central. National lost the party vote by 12% in 2005 and won it by 5% this time. This seat has been held by Labour since 1919 (apart from once going further left to the Alliance), making Nikki Kaye’s 1,100 vote victory all the more remarkable.

Mt Roskill also just went to National on the party vote, and Goff’s majority went from 9,400 to 5,500 – still very safe. His leadership predecessor in Mt Albert won the party vote by 6%, and had a slight dent in the electorate majority from 11,400 to 8,700.

Epsom went from 58% to 63% for National on the party vote, with Labour falling to under 20%. Rodney Hide drives his majority from 2,000 to a staggering near 12,000. They liked his dancing. Tamaki also remains solid blue with another 60:20 split on the party vote. Allan Peachey saw his majority go from 10,300 to over 15,000.

Maungakiekie was another big mover. The party vote went from a 13% deficit to 45 lead. And Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga scored an 1,800 majority from an close to 7,000 majority to Labour previously. Sam is one of the most well liked guys in the National Party, and had one of the biggest teams in recent memory on the hustings. He had between 10 and 25 people door knocking both days every weekend.

Out East we have Pakuranga which was no surprise. It is another close to 60:20 seat. Maurice is very popular locally and scored a 13,000 majority.

Botany. This brand new seat got the second highest party vote in Auckland for National – 62%. Pansy Wong also got a 10,000 majority. ACT’s Kenneth Wang was in third place but got a respectable 4,500 votes.

Papakura. The party vote went 52% to 28% for National, and Judith Collins took a 6,800 paper majority and turned it into a 9,700 real one.

Finally we have the three M seats in South Auckland. Mangere, Manurewa and Manukau East. Mangere saw Labour’s party vote go from 73% to 61%. In Manurewa it was from 61% to 50% and Manukau East from 65% to 57%. But turnout was down also and in absolute terms, Labour went from 55,000 votes to 38,000 over the three seats.

Thankfully Labour’s Sio beat Taito Phillip Field by 11,300 to 4,700

Note the above comparisons are all to 2005 results adjusted to new boundaries. Also a more formal analysis will be done when we have final results.

• Leader: Phil Goff
• Deputy Leader: Annette King
• Finance: David Cunliffe
• Foreign Affairs: Helen Clark
• Shadow Leader: Michael Cullen
• Senior Whip: Darren Hughes
• Junior Whip: Steve Chadwick

Congratulations to Phil Goff for achieving his long held ambition, and without even a ballot. He will be a very happy chap tonight. Annette is probably taking up the Deputy more through a sense of duty than ambition. She will be a key person in keeping people happy.

Overall looks pretty sensible to me.

We also have the unusual situation where Clark remains as Prime Minister for another week or so, despite no longer being party leader. I don’t thik there has ever before been a leadership change before the new Government has even been sworn in.

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.

I blogged last week on the new copyright law, and how the provision about ISPs having to terminate Internet access for repeat infringers was causing huge problems.

The good news is the Government seems to be listening. IT Brief reports:

The government has bowed to unprecedented ICT industry pressure, announcing a four-month moratorium on Section 92A of its new Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act.

Communications minister David Cunliffe revealed the back-down during the InternetNZ TVNZ7 Internet Debate held on Tuesday night, saying the delay would give the industry and content providers time to come up with an alternative approach to controlling copyright on the internet.

The debate incidentially went really well I thought. Possibly could have been a bit shorter, but we had a good mixture of politics and policy. There was some generally good natured sparring that kept it interesting, but also some useful and interesting policy discussions around broadband, copyright, filtering etc.

From a technical point of view it was pretty seamless as we took questions from journalists, from the studio audience, from the online chat channel and also video questions through Skype. The InternetNZ staff and TVNZ staff and contractors did very well making it happen. Several people said they would like to see more debates with that interactive format.

Damien, Russell and Fran were all good at challenging the MPs, quite aggressively at times.

The funninest part for me was Maurice WIlliamson saying he had no idea why he voted for the new copyright law, as it is such a stupid law. I thought Maurice did very well, but in fact all four MPs did well with strengths in different areas.

You can view the video of the whole thing at debate.net.nz.

Anyway back to copyright. The Dominion Post also reports:

Paul Moreno, a spokesman for Justice Minister Judith Tizard, said a delay to regulations required to put the cut-off clause into force was being considered, and that the delay might be “endless”.

“Judith is of the mind that Internet access is almost a human right now, similar to water and electricity.”

But Ms Tizard then appeared to toughen her stance, stressing that the Government was concerned to protect copyright holders.

And it is important to protect copyright holders. But look at the gap between the possible interpretations:

Ms Tizard would not say whether the intention was that the cut-off threat should apply only to people who had been repeatedly convicted of copyright offences, or to those who had been accused of infringements by bodies such as the Recording Industry Association – indicating it had been left deliberately unclear.

“The intention of this provision is to provide a framework for the ISP industry and rights holders to develop an efficient and effective mechanism that is workable for both parties.”

Telecommunications Carriers Forum chief executive Ralph Chivers said if the former definition was used, that might be one solution.

But Recording Industry Association chief executive Campbell Smith said that would not be acceptable as it would require copyright holders to sue infringers to prove their guilt. “That is just impractical and ridiculous. I don’t think that is what was intended.”

Instead, ISPs should cut off customers who infringed copyright after notifications from rights holders, he said.

Losing your Internet access on the basis of unproven accusations is not a goer for me.

Bill Ralston blogs on an exchange on radio with Helen:

On Friday on my Radio Live Drive show I asked her, if she did win an historic fourth term, would she serve the entire term of three years as Prime Minister?

There was a lot of waffling from Helen about her being physically fit and not thinking about retiring.

I pressed the PM, saying “not contemplating or thinking about retiring” was not the same as assuring voters she would stay the course in any fourth term.

She did not give a categorical answer.

Now despite the current polls, it is possible that Helen will be able to put together a Labour/Anderton/Winston/Greens/Maori Party coalition and remain Prime Minister.

But would she stay for a full term, if she won? Or would she hand over to David Cunliffe halfway through? Should the public know they may be voting for Prime Minister Cunliffe as well as Prime Minister Clark, if they vote Labour?

One of the little projects I have had a bit to do with is helping arrange a partnership between TVNZ7 and InternetNZ for the 2008 Internet Election Debate.

InternetNZ ran an online debate on ICT issues in 2005 between some of the party spokespersons (including Labour and National). It was webcast, and allowed remote participation through an IRC channel, e-mailed questions etc. It worked well, with both the politicians and the audience enjoying the somewhat unconventional format which allowed more time for actual debate and detail.

As ICT issues such as broadband, fibre rollout, wireless, digital copyright have become far more prominent in the last year ro two, we thought there would be enough interest in the debate to look at having it televised also. And TVNZ7 were the natural partner with their focus on news and current affairs. So we were delighted when they showed not just interest but enthusiasm.

We’ve also got a great range of journalists for the debate. Sean Plunkett has agreed to be the overall moderator. Fran O’Sullivan and Russell Brown will fire questions from the media bench and we will also have an online moderator who will filter questions through from the online and viewing audience.

The debate is on Tuesday 23 September starting at 9.10 pm. The first hour is live on TVNZ7. The second hour will be webcast (as will be the first hour) live and also available through TVNZ On Demand.

The four MPs are Labour’s Minister of Communications Hon David Cunliffe, National ICT Spokesperson Hon Maurice Williamson, ACT Leader Rodney Hide and Greens ICT Spokesperson Metiria Turei.

The whole idea of the debate is it will be a two way communication, not just one way. So if you are interested in faster broadband, digital copyright, Internet Safety etc etc tune in on the night. You can also ask questions in advance on Geekzone.

Ben Thomas at NBR points something out about the Labour Party List:

Of those, five have worked directly as staffers for Prime Minister Helen Clark: Chris Hipkins (47), Grant Robertson (46) and Ms Ardern (20) are present or former advisors in the PM’s office; Brendon Burns (49) is the former head of the beehive’s communications unit established by Clark; Phil Twyford (26) worked in the Prime Minister’s electorate office in Mt Albert in 2005.

Now I don’t think working for a PM should rule you out of selection. In fact those candidates, if they become MPs, will be relatively experienced in parliamentary processes (although some of them somewhat lacking in life experience).

But the real significance, is what will happen if Labour loses. The leadership is likely to be a fight between Phil Goff and David Cunliffe. And five former Clark staffers will all vote with Helen to support Cunliffe over Goff. In no way does Clark want Goff as her sucessor.

So David Cunliffe should be very happy with the list, and Phil Goff less so.