Kiwiblog

Today’s Dispatch from St Johnnsyburg asks “Which eggs will make up the omelette?”

As usual, comments can be left on NBR’s site.

This week’s Dispatch from St Johnnysburg at NBR asks whether John Key is being brave or foolish with his refusal to support the Boscawen bill to amend the anti-smacking law.

As usual, comments and feedback can be made on the NBR site.

My latest Dispatch from St Johhnysburg for NBR is titled “The first wobbles”. An extract:

This week we have seen the first wobbles in the National-led Government’s stability. They are not big wobbles, but they are wobbles. And like all wobbles – they can go only one or two ways – grow into bigger wobbles until something falls off, or subside away. …

The concern is that an e-mail that was between MPs only was leaked to the media. That is a sign of a lack of discipline, and the public (and the polls) have a history of turning on parties than are undisciplined and fight in public.

As always, comments and feedback can be made at NBR.

My NBR column is now online.

I discuss the suggestion by a Maori Party MP that a Maori Flag fly not just on Waitangi Day but on all days of significance.

Mu weekly Dispatch from St Johnnysburg is online at NBR. It is called Spend Baby Spend. Extracts:

Labour activists will be wondering if their party is ever going to do due diligence on the people it puts forwards as victims of the National Government. The choice of Natasha Fuller as battling underdog is looking to be just as flawed as their choice of Bruce Burgess as am impoverished property owner and Neelam Choudary as a timid helpless victim of harassment. …

I point to the recent Populus poll in the United Kingdom on how the UK government should reduce debt and balance its books.

Only 11% of voters said they do not want any cuts in public spending. A further 11% said they want the main emphasis to be on tax increases with fewer cuts in public spending.

So only one in five voters there said that there should be no or minimal spending cuts. If this proportion holds true in New Zealand, Labour is running a campaign that at best will appeal to 22% of New Zealand. And bear in mind that the UK population is generally more left-wing than in New Zealand, so that 22% may be generous. …

Labour do not seem to be able to understand that many Kiwi families are struggling during this recession. They have cut their spending and are making sacrifices and expect the state to do the same. This partly explains the absolutely ferocious reaction to Natasha Fuller’s demands for further welfare, despite earning on the DPB $715 a week – the equivalent of a gross wage of close to $50,000 a year. Hundreds of thousands of low to middle income working class families resented the hell out of the fact she is earning well above the average wage for being a solo mum, and that Labour champion even greater levels of taxpayer assistance to her.

The full column at at NBR, where feedback and comments can be left.

Over at NBR, I write why I think we will never hear those four words.

My weekly Dispatch from St Johnnysburg is online at NBR. It is on the Foreshore & Seabed Act review, and some of the history of it.

I had previously mentioned that Helen Clark announced just four days after the Court of Appeal decision she would legislate. It turned out I was wrong. A search of the NZPA database, when researching my column, found Helen said this the day after the decision:

Helen Clark says decisions on such things are the preserve of Government policy and not the courts. …

Miss Clark says the Government will legislate if necessary to preserve the status quo.

So Helen in fact decided to legislate within 24 hours of the decision. She chose not to appeal it to the Privy Council as it was a matter for “Government policy” and not the courts.

I also detail some of my involvement in National’s Beaches for All campaign:

This placed National in a bind. What do we do? The decision was made that if Labour were promising to legislate, then National’s job was to hold them to account for that promise, and make sure they do. Then was born the “Beaches For All” campaign. I think I was the one who actually came up with the slogan. I recall a debate with an MP that technically the ruling did not apply to beaches, but just the foreshore below high water mark. My response was that at low tide, that is a beach – just a damp one …

I mentioned my involvement in the Beaches For All campaign a couple of months ago to a 2005 MP who is now a Cabinet Minister. He quipped “So you were one of the guilty ones”. I admitted guilt and said that I was of course just doing my job. His response (with a smile) was “Oh, yes just like Nuremberg”.

Feedback and comments, as usual, can be made at NBR.

My weekly column at NBR looks at the Labour and Green opposition to state house tenants being able to buy the homes they live in, and ponders why the left seem to hate the private sector. I conclude:

If the left continue with their kneejerk hostility to the private sector, I am predicting an easy re-election for the Government. I am sure John Key is looking forward to having Phil Goff explain in a Leader’s debate why Labour are against state house tenants being able to buy their own homes.

Comments and feedback can be made at NBR.

The fall and fall of Richard Worth is the title of my latest Dispatch from St Johnnysburg at NBR. Sort of speaks for itself.

Comments can be made at NBR.

My column at NBR is a Q&A on tax cuts. An extract:

Bill English says the 2010 and 2011 tax cuts has been deferred. What does that mean?

It means they have been cancelled.

Are you sure?

Yes

So we won’t get them at some future point?

You may get tax cuts in the future, but when you do it will be a new package, not the package that was planned for 2010 and 2011.

Comments and feedback can be made at NBR.

My column at NBR is called Mt Albert Mayhem, so it speaks for itself!

As usual comments can be made at NBR.

My weekly Dispatch from St Johnnysburg is up at NBR, and I look in more depth at Labour’s lineup in the economic portfolios. Some extracts:

Labour’s lineup with regard to economic policies is showing some promise. No they are not going to be reformers in the Douglas/Caygill mode (but neither is National), but Phil Goff is assembling a team that has business experience and may not treat reform as a dirty word.

Policy in the 5th Labour Government was driven by four university lecturers – Helen Clark, Michael Cullen, Heather Simpson and Steve Maharey. They had no serious agenda to increase productivity – their job was working out how to spend the money.

This is different to other Labour Governments around the world. In Australia Labor PM Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan have both attended the Consilium conference put on by the Centre for Independent Studies. In NZ, Michael Cullen would simply attack their report on the basis that one of their researchers once worked for Bill English.

Feedback and comments can be made at NBR.

This week’s Dispatch from St Johnnysburg is online at NBR. Some extracts:

Bill English all but confirmed this week that the tax cuts planned (and legislated) for 2010 and 2011 will be cancelled.

They are a casualty of not just the global recession, but a victim of Michael Cullen’s “Scorched Earth” policy, otherwise known as his 2008 Budget.

Dr Cullen was gleeful in the hours after his final budget. He smirked and gloated that he had left no money for National. In fact he agreed in an interview with Gordon Campbell that his budget was a “booby trap” for National. …

You can reduce taxes if you keep spending under control, but Dr Cullen increased spending in his final budget by a massive $4.5 billion, at the same time as he also delivered (finally) tax cuts which when fully implemented would reduce revenue by around $3 to $4 billion a year.

Comments and feedback can be done over at NBR.

Over at NBR, I look at the winners and losers from the National-Green MOU, with that scoring Best Play of the Fortnight.

Worst Play goes to Clayton Cosgrove for his scare mongering over an initiative to reduce Maori reoffending.

And Richard Worth manages to keep the title for Scandal of the Week, and I comment on how Labour’s allies in calling for Worth to go, are some of the right wing blogs (not Kiwiblog), not so much the left wing ones.

Comments and feedback can be made at NBR.

I call it a mixed week for National in my NBR online column. My calls:

• Best Play of the Week: Steven Joyce gets an A for the fibre to the home policy
• Worst Play of the Week: Nick Smith get a D for the PM reading about a possible plastic bag tax in the newspaper
• Scandal of the Week: Labour get a B for the Richard Worth Indian trip scandal.

Feedback and comments can be made at NBR.

Over at NBR, I give Labour a B+ for Best Play of the Week, the media a D for Worst Play of the Week and Phil Goff an E- for Scandal of the Week.

My weekly column is online, titled “Much ado about Little”.

I cover the Government’s spending cuts, Phil Goff on charity and Colin Espiner’s comments on Andrew Little’s dual role.

As usual, comments and feedback can be made over at NBR.

Matthew Hooton’s column (not online you have to buy the paper) is also on the Government’s spending cuts. Matthew does a fascinating case study of the bureaucracy in the tourism portfolio (Labour set up a new Ministry of Tourism that now costs 10% of the budget of Tourism NZ that does the actual marketing) and concludes entire agencies need to be cut, not just programmes. His conclusion I’ve typed up:

The Ministry of Tourism is far from being the worst case. Take the masakari to the corporate welfare programmes of the Ministry for Economic Development and NZ Trade and Enterprise; abolish the pointless Tertiary Education, Families and Electricity commissions; simplify the Emissions Trading Scheme so it won’t cost tens of millions to administer; slash the “policy advice streams” of TPK, Youth Development, Women’s Affairs and so forth, and you’ve saved a billion dollars before breakfast.

I like the word masakari. It’s an ancient Japanese battle axe used by warrior monks.

My column at NBR is now online.

I look at the $2.5 billion increase in ACC liabilities and $1.5 billion extra needed for Kiwirail. The ratings thsi week are:

• Best Play: Maori Party A+ for Foreshore & Seabed repeal
• Worst Play: Govt D- for bailing out Mascot Finance
• Patsy of the Week: Goes to Chris Finlayson with a B+ for his question to Pita Sharples that allowed Sharples to have fun with Labour leadership speculation
• EFA Breach of the Week: NZ First with an A- of course!
• Blog Analysis of the Week goes to Rob Hosking with an A for his excelletn Q&A on ACC.

As usual, feedback and comments can be made at NBR.

Over at NBR in my weekly Dispatch from St Johnnysburg, I look at how NZ has a net positive +45% rating in the polls for country direction, while the United States (despite Obama being elected) still has a net negative -26% rating for country direction. Also the traditional best and worst play of the week.

Comments and feedback can be made over at NBR.