Kiwiblog

The Dom Post editorial:

The $10 billion deficit for the first nine months of this year confirms, if confirmation was needed, that the last government made bad choices. At a time of plenty it chose to buy popularity rather than to save and invest for the future. Worse still, it created an expectation that the bounty would continue to flow in bad times as well as good.

Yep. Labour thought that the economy would never go into recession, ignoring that the tradeable sector had in fact been in recession since 2004/5.

It cannot – a point Prime Minister John Key and his ministers have been trying to get across in advance of next week’s Budget. New Zealand has to get back to living within its means. There are a number of obvious targets for a government looking for what Finance Minister Bill English has quaintly termed the “nice-to-haves”. They include the extension of welfare to families with incomes far in excess of the average wage, interest free student loans and the 65-year age of entitlement for superannuation.

I support increasing the age of eligibility for superannuation. It will happen one day also. But any increase would have to be signalled a good decade or so in advance, so don’t think any change to the age will help get the books back into surplus in this decade. Lifting the future age of retirement is important for the long-term sustainability of superannuation, but again that is a different issue to the shorter-term fiscal challenge.

Instead, Mr Key’s Government is taking aim at the KiwiSaver scheme introduced by its predecessor to tackle New Zealand’s chronically low savings rate.

Under the scheme, people who agree to set aside a percentage of their income for their retirement receive a one-off Government grant of $1000 and tax credits worth up to $1040 a year. The scheme has proved remarkably attractive. It now has almost 1.7 million members. However, Mr Key has classified it among the “nice-to-haves” and is signalling that the annual Government contribution will be reduced, probably halved.

He and his finance minister appear to believe the public will not be deterred by the change. If so, they are graduates of the same University of Spin and Hope as their Labour predecessors, who believed that scrapping interest on student loans would not increase the take-up rate. New Zealanders are not stupid. The year before loans were made interest free, 53 per cent of eligible students borrowed from the Government. By 2009 – the last year for which figures are available – that figure had increased to 71 per cent.

KiwiSaver membership involves sacrifices. Contributing the amount required to secure the maximum Government contribution means many members have to make choices between other “nice-to-haves” and even some essentials. However, they calculate that, together with employer contributions, the Government top-up makes the sacrifice worthwhile. Reduce the top-up and many will review their participation.

For most employees, they will still be getting a massive subsidy. Someone on $28,000 will still get around $2.50 into their KiwiSaver account for every $1 they put in. That’s a 150% return on investment compared to 10% most funds deliver. I doubt too many people will dump KiwiSaver becuase their return on investment is 150% instead of 200%.

Those who get most hard done by the Government’s changes are self-employed like me. As I pay both my employer and employee contribution, then I’ll personally be quite a bit worse off by the Government’s proposed changes. But I had been saving plenty anyway, prior to KiwiSaver, so to some degree the KiwiSaver subsidies were just a way to maximise my return. And the Government should be focusing its scarce tax dollars on those who most need it, not people like me.

The Government has a choice. It can encourage the current generation of workers to save more, or it can pander to the “grey” vote by maintaining the pretence that superannuation for all at age 65 is affordable when it is patently not. It cannot do both.

It has made the easy choice, not the right one.

The reality is the age does need to increase, but not until around 2025 by my calculations.

The Dom Post editorial:

National MP Tau Henare’s plan for a private member’s bill allowing shops to open on Good Friday and Easter Sunday will be the ninth attempt in 15 years to bring some sense to trading laws long past their sell-by date.

This time, Parliament should seize the opportunity to repeal rules which are archaic and riddled with anomalies to the point of being ridiculous.

However, there is little to indicate the Government will have the courage to lead the way.

If history is anything to go by, Mr Henare’s bill will be considered as a conscience vote and fail at its first hurdle, defeated by the usual – and unusual – alliance of Labour, National and Green MPs. Those who vote against it will do so on the grounds of guarding workers’ rights or protecting the sanctity of the most important festival in the Christian calendar – or, in some cases, both.

The unholy alliance of unions and churches.

The list of anomalies is as laughable as it is long. A person can buy or sell a house on Good Friday or Easter Sunday, when real estate agents are allowed to open, but they cannot buy a bottle of bubbly to celebrate – unless they get it from the vineyard on which it was made.

A garden centre can open on Easter Sunday, but not Good Friday – a rule ignored by many as the huge demand easily brings in more than the $1000 fine. Bookstores at airports, train stations and other transport hubs can open, but those in shopping centres must stay closed. Perhaps most glaringly of all, brothels can open on Good Friday and Easter Sunday to sell sex, but those with bars are breaking the law if they sell alcohol.

It is hilarious that brothels can open, but not bars. I wonder if the brothels can sell alcohol?

The usual suspects defend their decisions to ban employees from earning overtime on those days, on the proposition that employers are so evil and callousthey they will break the law and force employees to work against their wills.

On Twitter the other day I asked a Labour activist if he could name a single employer that has done this. I said I’ve worked for around 20 employers and none forced me to work against my will. He also was unable to name a single employer – saying none of his former employers had. But he insisted that it was widespread all the same. Never mind the lack of emperical evidence.

But this got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be useful if the Government or Dept of Labour did a random scientific survey of employees in retailers, to ascertain how many currently have employers who force them to work on days they don’t want to, and also perhaps to look at annual leave taking – do they get to choose when to take annual leave, or does their employer over-ride their wishes.

It would be a great boon to informed debate to have some good data about how employees and employers currently interact.

The Dominon Post editorial:

Poor old Bill English. All the finance minister wants to do is sell things and all he ends up doing is bailing out failed private businesses.

Poor old taxpayers. They end up paying bills that run into the billions for those failures. …

Ideally, the company would be left to face the consequences of not reinsuring sufficiently and it would be allowed to fail.

However, that is simply not possible. AMI has more than 85,000 policyholders with 225,000 policies in Christchurch – about 35 per cent of the residential market in the city.

Ambiguity over whether claims on those policies would be fully paid out would make decisions on the rebuilding of the city difficult, and cause delay till AMI’s financial situation was clearer.

That, Mr English acknowledged, could have been several months away. Delays of that order would have disastrous consequences for the whole country, which needs to have the city functioning as normally it can again as soon as possible.

Sadly, I don’t think the Government had much choice.

I think there are lessons to be learnt here from both the SCF and the AMI collapses. They both were primarily based in one region, and with AMI especially, this has proven to be very unwise. People like to go with “local” companiees, but that means you are vulnerable to local shocks (literally). If your customer base is spread more evenly nation-wide, then you are better placed to survive.

The Dom Post editorial today:

Mr Goff’s leadership should be over. The party he leads is bereft of energy and bereft of ideas. Instead of looking like a government in waiting it looks like a dysfunctional rabble. What confidence can the public have in its ability to manage the affairs of the country when it cannot manage its own?

Looking at how Goff has managed the last couple of weeks, you do have to wonder how he would have handled a global recession, finance company collapses, two earthquakes and Pike River.

However, speculation about a move to oust Mr Goff is just that – speculation. Labour has no obvious alternative. Shane Jones is still too closely linked to pornography in the public mind, David Cunliffe has had zero impact as finance spokesman, David Parker is unknown to the public, Mr Shearer is too inexperienced politically and so is another well-regarded newbie, Grant Robertson, about whom the party may have to consider another question at some point. Is New Zealand ready for its first gay prime minister?

For my money, I think Grant will become New Zealand’s first (openly) gay Prime Minister, and I don’t think his sexuality will be of relevance to most New Zealanders.

The Dom Post editorial:

Sometimes there are no good options; just choices between uncertain, least bad and bad options. Such is often the case for social workers dealing with the victims of child abuse. …

However, it is appropriate for Ms Bennett to reopen debate on the “whanau first” childcare policy implemented by the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, as she did at the weekend. The central tenet of the act is that children should not be separated from their extended families, cultures and ethnic backgrounds except as a last resort.

It is a noble sentiment but one that sugarcoats a harsh reality. Child abuse is learned behaviour. Children who are abused are more likely to grow up to abuse their own children than children raised in loving homes. If a father or mother has been abused it is likely that their brothers and sisters were also abused. Placing the victims of child abuse in the care of aunts and uncles sometimes perpetuates the abuse. It can also make it easier for abusers to gain access to their children.

I think, sadly, the current approach is not working, in that too many children who get removed from their nuclear family, still suffer abuse with their extended family.

The Dom Post editorial calls on Phil Goff to choose principle over Peters:

As Winston Peters ponders the expense and bother of another tilt at Parliament, he will take heart from Labour leader Phil Goff’s equivocation on the subject of a post-election deal with the NZ First leader. Many voters will take a different view.

Mr Goff said yesterday that he had made no decision about a possible coalition with NZ First, but his other remarks were the verbal equivalent of throwing open the front door, handing Mr Peters the key to his liquor cabinet and inviting him to help himself to the whisky.

Heh, so true. And his line about how he won’t make a call until he knows if Winston makes it back is feeble – he made a call on Hone without knowing if Hone will be re-elected.

While Mr Goff has no doubts about Mr Peters’ reliability or trustworthiness, voters with longer memories do.

Mr Peters is, after all, the politician who railed against secretive big money donations to political parties then arranged for donations from wealthy backers to be funnelled to his party through a shadowy trust without the knowledge of fellow NZ First MPs or party officials.

He is also the politician who waved a sign saying “NO” in large letters when asked whether his party had received money from expatriate billionaire Owen Glenn, and who was subsequently found by the privileges committee to have “knowingly misled” Parliament over Mr Glenn’s $100,000 contribution towards his legal bills.

A verdict Labour to their shame voted against, despite evidence so strong it was well beyond reasonable doubt. Phone records shows Winston and Glenn on the phone, And around two minuites later Winston’s lawyer e-mailing Glenn asking him for money as discussed with his client a few minutes ago.

Mr Goff is desperate. He can feel the hot breath of ambitious colleagues on the back of his neck. However, it never pays to exhibit one’s desperation.

He would be better advised to put principle ahead of self-interest. Mr Peters’ unsavoury attacks on new immigrants and the politics of envy and fear he practises, are not compatible with Labour’s traditions.

This is what amazes me – Winston has spent his political career attacking Asians and immigrants, yet he is a hero to many on the left purely because he is also anti-National.

Prime Minister John Key has done the right thing by ruling out a deal with Mr Peters. Mr Goff should follow suit. It is not just parliamentary seats that are at stake but his credibility and judgment. There are times when leaders should forget political strategising and do the right thing. This is one of those times.

It won’t happen.

The Dom-Post:

The appointment of former Defence Force chief Jerry Mateparae as the next governor-general is an inspired choice.

As the first Maori to head the Defence Force, Lieutenant General Mateparae made a point of steering clear of tokenism. …

In many respects his appeal is similar to that of John Key. Like the prime minister he is a self-made man.

He joined the army on a whim as a 17-year-old and rose rapidly through the ranks, serving two years in the elite SAS, serving with United Nations monitors in Lebanon, commanding a truce monitoring group in Bougainville and jointly commanding New Zealand’s forces in East Timor, before becoming head of the army and then the Defence Force.

And the NZ Herald:

His appointment makes a refreshing change. Nobody needs to be a lawyer to act on constitutional advice and after three judges in succession, he will bring a different set of life experiences to the role.

It will be particularly encouraging for the armed forces to see one of their own elevated to head of state. It reflects perhaps a revival of public interest in the services. Their recent missions, notably in East Timor and in Afghanistan, have been cause for pride. The open celebration of Corporal Willie Apiata’s Victoria Cross has given a good impression of the SAS and General Mateparae has agreed to make public a little more information on the special force’s activities in our name. …

He will bring a young family to Government House. That should be refreshing too. He will have five years, possibly more, to make the position his own. He could ensure it is seen and heard more often when it matters, such as in Christchurch these past two weeks. We hope he will.

One of the things I like about the appointment, is the potential role model for youth. You can join the army with no qualifications at 17 and end up as the effective head of state of New Zealand.

Yay it is back. 9/10 in 44 seconds. The Japanese question was a guess and I got it wrong.

Just saw this editorial:

Those who read newspapers and magazines during the Christmas break – most of us, surely – will have seen a series of big Post-Primary Teachers Association advertisements. They said: “Around the world, the countries that believe in investing in education understand the central importance of teachers … Attracting great teachers for our children, and keeping them in New Zealand, costs money. How can the government … not make that investment?”

The PPTA is wasting their money. Well, not entirely. If their aim is to get a better pay deal for their members, the money is wasted. If the aim is to help Labour by painting National as anti-education, then they may feel it is a good investment.

PPTA members do not believe that an administration that has supported the Rugby World Cup, South Canterbury Finance, Warner Bros and hated private schools cannot afford to give them a 4 per cent pay rise. That they have had three successive rises of 4 per cent when many parents got nothing or lost their jobs seems to have happened in a parallel universe.

I wonder if they will keep their strike action going for all of 2011.

An irony of the PPTA’s advertising campaign is that, under Helen Clark’s Electoral Finance Act, the union would have had to think twice about mounting it. Third-party advertising was heavily proscribed throughout an entire election year.

That this highly political union can now advertise its distress about pay rates to the full extent of its members’ willingness to fund it until three months before polling day – without falling foul of an anti-free speech law – is thanks only to its enemy, the Key-led Government.

Very true.

The Dom Post published the political awards from teh Fairfax staff on Saturday. They were:

• Politician of the Year Award – Gerry Brownlee for how he handled the Government’s response to the Canterbury earthquake, the weeks working behind the scenes to negotiate the deal that saw The Hobbit pictures stay in New Zealand and his calm, measured and reassuring presence during the Pike River tragedy
• Backbencher of the Year – Green MP Keith Locke – forever challenging the Government – exactly what an Opposition backbencher should be doing
• Wally of the Year – Chris Carter
• Loser of the Year – ACT leader Rodney Hide
• The Frederick Forsyth ‘Day of the Jackass’ Award for Political Self-Assassination – David Garrett
• The Deep Throat award for all the wrong reasons – Labour MP Shane Jones
• The Johnnie Walker award for services to minibars – Climate Change Negotiations Minister Tim Groser
• The Keep New Zealand Beautiful award for the most manicured lawn – Pansy Wong’s husband Sammy who made 35 trips on the taxpayer to and from Christchurch in a year to mow the lawns and look after their former home.
• The Mule award for stubbornness – Manurewa MP George Hawkins
• The Biggest Twit award for gratuitous use of social media – Tau Henare for philosophical tweets such as “I hate waking up. But I spose if we didn’t wed be dead.” [sic] and “had Peiking [sic] Duck for tea. Yum.”
• The Ghandi award for religious tolerance – Maurice Williamson
• The Emily Post award for etiquette- Paul Quinn
• The not-quite Oscar Wilde award for wit – Kevin Taylor, the prime minister’s chief press secretary, for ill-temperedly branding Labour MP Pete Hodgson a “f . . . . . .” when the Pansy Wong scandal broke.
• The Mogadon award for dull political speechifying – Green MP Kennedy Graham
• The Epic McPhail award- To consultant Hugh McPhail
• The Birdbath award for shallow media analysis – To Labour’s Clare Curran, who spends huge amounts of energy criticising the mainstream media for its lack of depth, resourcing and breadth and then throws her weight behind every social media platform going. Go figure.
• St Jude award for championing hopeless cases- Tariana Turia, who added to her long list of supporting hopeless cases like Donna Awatere Huata by passionately defending Hone Harawira and Pansy Wong.
• The Lord Cardigan award for bravery in the valley of death – Speaker Lockwood Smith who, like the famous Light Brigade, charged into the fray on behalf of MPs travel perks . . . only to find he was alone.
• The Drinks Are On You award for personal generosity – Housing Minister Phil Heatley
• The “That’s All, Folks” Award – Warner Bros, for managing to wring more than $30m out of the cash-strapped Government to keep The Hobbit movies in New Zealand.

The Dominion Post also awards a weekly winner, loser and wally award. I’ve bene noting them down every week, and some interesting stats for 2010:

• Winner of the Week – John Key awarded it the most at 4 times. Next on two each were Kris Faafoi, Phil Goff, The Greens, Steven Joyce, David Parker, Heather Roy and Tariana Turia
• Loser of the Week – Phil Goff awarded it the most at 5 times. Second was Chris Carter at 3 times. On 2 each was Bill English, Rodney Hide and Nick Smith,
• Wally of the Week – John Key a clear “winner” getting it 7 times. Chris Carter 2nd with 4 times, Gerry Brownlee 3 times, Bill English Rodney Hide Matt McCarten and Lockwood Smith all got it twice each.

National MPs won winner of the week 12 times, loser of the week 14 times and wally of the week 22 times.

Labour MPs won winner of the week 8 times, loser of the week 10 times and wally of the week 5 times.

ACT MPs won winner of the week 3 times, loser of the week 3 times and wally of the week 5 times.

Green MPs won winner of the week 2 times, loser of the week 1 time and wally of the week no times.

Maori Party MPs won winner of the week 4 times, loser of the week 1 time and wally of the week 1 time.

Looking at those states, you wonder why on earth National is 24% ahead in the polls!

Quiz is here. 12/15 in around one minute. Sure people can beat that.

Yes – aced it. No guesses, 10/10 and a record 23 seconds. Quiz is here.

Amused to read in the Dom Post that John Key has revealed more of his meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, sitting next to him at the APEC dinner.

Medvedev told the PM it would take 15 minutes for a missile from Moscow to reach Washington DC. The PM couldn’t contain his curiousity and asked how long it would take to reach NZ.

Medvedev consulted the person standing behind him and replied “22 minutes, but I’ll ring you beforehand”

In today’s Dominion Post, Vernon Small and John Hartevelt rate the high achievers and the casualties of the first tow years of the Government.Note the comments below are my extracts of what Vernon and John said – they are not my personal views.

Top of the Class

1. John Key 8.5/10
2. Simon Power 8.0/10 – they suggest he moves to Education
3. Steven Joyce 7.5/10 – possible Finance Minister in the future
4. Gerry Brownlee – has risen from defeat to become one of Govt’s best assets – they say he may be in line for deputy PM
5. Tim Groser – 6.5/10 – a good example of why you have List MPs, doing an excellent job in trade

Casualties

• Richard Worth
• Bill English over his housing allowance
• Melissa Lee over Mt Albert
• Aaron Gilmore over his CV
• Pansy Wong over her travel

Struggling

• Anne Tolley 4.5/10 – valiantly trying against the powerful education unions
• Rodney Hide – 4.0/10 – his imploding caucus
• Georgina te Hehheu – 2.5/10 – what does she do?
• Pansy Wong – 2.0/10 – even before she quit, they say she had sunk without trace

Rising Backbenchers

• Craig Foss – favoured to narrowly beat his Hawke’s Bay colleague into Cabinet
• Hekia Parata – a strong showing in Mana, and in her previous career
• Chester Borrows – a solid Chairman of Justice & Electoral Committee
• Amy Adams – has shone in the House

The Success Stories

• The tax switch
• A stable Government
• Law & Order

Disasters and Pressure Points

• The economy
• The environment
• Natural disasters

Feel free to comment on whether you agree or disagree, any additions you would make, and where?

The most obvious omission to me is Tony Ryall in the top of the class. I doubt a single MP would say he is not up there.

The Dom Post editorial:

Four year after being caught with their fingers in the parliamentary cookie jar, politicians are finally putting their affairs in order.

A parliamentary select committee has agreed to redefine the legal meaning of electioneering to make it clear that public funds cannot be used for pledge cards and other campaign material.

This is the good bit. The rules about what can be funded out of parliamentary budgets will be tighter than ever before, during the regulated period.

The change is contained in the bill that replaces the odious Electoral Finance Act – Labour’s attempt to tilt the electoral playing field in its favour by restricting the rights of its critics to express themselves in election year.

The new bill loosens the restrictions but, regrettably, does not remove them. Justice Minister Simon Power has put broad parliamentary consensus ahead of his National colleagues’ views, who loudly opposed any restriction on free speech when Labour and its allies pushed the Electoral Finance Bill through in 2007.

Labour have basically got the law they wanted.

Labour and the Greens argue that the cap is necessary to prevent wealthy interests “buying” elections. However, that could have been achieved without compromising free speech simply by requiring those who want to spend large amounts of money broadcasting their views to disclose their identities – something the new bill already requires them to do.

Voters are not stupid. If they know who is paying for advertising campaigns, they know whose interests are being served.

Indeed, and the 2010 US elections clearly showed you can not buy an election. Meg Whitman spent almost $200m on her bid to be Governor of California and she lost by a massive 14%.

Mr Power has also balked at reforming the broadcasting regime that unfairly advantages incumbent parties and politicians for the same reason.

He could not gain widespread parliamentary support for changes to the system, which gives the major parties the lion’s share of broadcasting funds and prohibits their opponents from buying TV and radio time with their own money.

Here is what annoys me. That Labour were both allowed to veto changes to the broadcasting regime, and were also allowed to get third party spending restrictions put in place, despite National opposition. What did National get in return – a miserly $5,000 extra per electorate spending.

The principle underlying the new legislation should have been transparency. Sunlight is the best protection against the buying and selling of influence.

Mr Power’s bill falls well short of the ideal, but it is still a quantum improvement on its Labour predecessor.

I agree.

Been so busy this week only got around to the quiz today.

The good news is I got 10/10 in 31 seconds.

The bad news is their Q1 is wrong.

They asked how much can lobbyists give to political parties. The answer to that question is unlimited.

The question they meant to ask (based on what they say is the right answer) is how much money could a lobbyist spend on advertising during an election campaign.

The Dom Post editorial:

However much Labour nabobs may try to spin the Mana by-election result, they cannot disguise that it was a walloping for their party which shows it in danger of again being the wallflower next year. …

The bald reality for Labour is that it, in what is according to many politicians the only poll that counts, came uncomfortably close to losing the seat. Its majority of more than 6000 has been turned into one of a smidgin over 1000.

The National Party achieved a 6.6 per cent swing against Labour on a straight two-party comparison – something that just does not happen in by-elections where the disgruntled usually take the chance to give the party in power a kick, even if just to show they can.

This is a key point. Governments generally do not get swings towards them in by-elections.

However, their biggest concern must be the inability to convince voters they should have a problem with the Government, much less that Labour has the solution to that problem.

Labour had set much store in its campaign to scrap GST on fresh fruit and vegetables, and hammered the rise in the cost of living during the campaign. It did not translate into votes, particularly in the middle-class areas of the electorate. Nor did its heartland supporters get out and vote in sufficient numbers to send a message. …

One of Mr Goff’s predecessors, David Lange, was fond of saying that elections were usually won or lost nine or 10 months before polling day. That is around now.

Mr Goff’s problem is not that he has not yet overtaken National. It is that he is standing still, or even going backwards.

Voters hung up the phone on Labour long before the last election. The Mana result confirms they are not yet showing any sign of being willing to pick it up again, much less agree to a date.

Part of Labour’s problem is the domination of the parliamentary wing with figures from the 5th and even the 4th Labour Government.

The core front bench is 100% former Ministers, and only Charles Chauvel is on the extended front bench.

Phil Goff has talked about a reshuffle. He should do one before the year ends, and promote some of the Class of 2008.

Today’s Dom Post editorial:

It used to be said of safe National electorates that the party could pin blue ribbons on donkeys and still win them. Mana is the Labour equivalent of such a seat – a predominantly working-class electorate that Labour has held since its first incarnation as Porirua in 1963.

And in fact the predecessor seats to Porirua have also been Labour held since at least the 1930s.

However, a combination of circumstances has given Labour leader Phil Goff and his handpicked candidate, Kris Faafoi, cause for a restless sleep tonight.

They include the strong local profile of National candidate Hekia Parata, the independent candidacy of unionist Matt McCarten, the increasing prosperity of the northern half of the electorate and Mr Faafoi’s lack of campaign experience.

The restless sleep won’t be over whether Kris will be elected to Parliament. Few are not expecting that. It will be over whether there is a significant swing to the Government’s candidate – a very rare thing in a by-election.

He and his supporters have erected so many billboards on Mungavin Avenue, the main road in Cannons Creek, that locals have taken to calling it Faafoi Avenue but, despite the attempts of the Christchurch-raised candidate to suggest he grew up in the electorate, he is not as well known as Ms Parata, who has continued to build links in the area, despite losing to Labour’s Winnie Laban at the last election.

Hekia has done what good List MPs should do – to get out there and be active in the local community.

For those reasons, and because Labour has not managed to turn the spotlight on National, the by-election is reversing the usual trend. Instead of serving as a referendum on the performance of the Government, it has become a referendum on the performance of the Labour Opposition.

I disagree to some extent on that. I do not think it is a referendum on National or Labour. I think it is more a referendum on the candidates. If National cuts the majority significantly it will be because of Hekia. Likewise if Labour has its majority take a tumble, it will mainly be because of resentment over the selection of an inexperienced non local. By this I don’t mean that Kris has done anything wrong – he has run a good campaign and if elected will be a diligent MP. But the nathie of his selection, with his successor being offered his job as Goff’s press secretary before he was selected etc is what has gone down badly with some locals.

A majority of 3000 plus would represent a solid victory for Labour, which will have MPs, activists and union supporters ferrying voters to the polls tomorrow. Fewer than 2000 would represent a triumph for National and trigger a fresh round of speculation about Mr Goff’s leadership.

I think it is too simplistic to look at the result for the entire electorate. My view is there are too “halves” of the electorate.

One half is what I call tribal Labour. And it is tribal. They may like John Key. They may think Hekia is great, but they vote Labour – always have and always will. There may be some vote loss to Matt McCarten, but in these areas I would not expect Hekia to necessarily get any movement at all compared to 2008.

Also in these “tribal Labour” areas you will have scores and scores of salaried union employees getting out the vote. They have been campaigning fulltime for Labour for weeks – and of course their salaries do not count as part of the $40,000 cap. With that extra GOTV, Faafoi might even get more vote share than Laban did in that area.

In the other half, there could be a different story. In the other half, there could well be a swing to Hekia and away from Labour. Don’t think this is just the Whitby areas. Areas like Pukerua Bay and Raumati South are what I call “trendy lefty” and voted for Laban quite strongly last time – however they are not “tribal Labour” and they may vote Hekia on the basis of her work since the last election.

So do not assume there will be a uniform swing. What I will be looking at on the night is what happens in Porirua, what happens in the northern suburbs, and what happens in the Kapiti areas. They might all do the same thing, but I suspect not.

This week‘s quite challenging. 8/10 in 40 seconds.

Pretty tough this week. I made four guesses and got two right and two wrong.

The Dom Post editorial:

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the head teachers’ trade union, the Principals Federation, desperately hopes the Government will make martyrs of 225 school boards of trustees by sacking them in response to their withdrawal this week of co-operation over national standards.

If the Government is contemplating such a reaction, it must reconsider.

Far better to point out that this small group is simply philosophically opposed to the National-led Government, comprises just 10 per cent of primary and intermediate schools, and is driven by only a handful of people, including two who hope to become Labour MPs.

That should be at least two.

Inspired by education academic John Hattie, the Government, from the prime minister down, is anxious to change the fortunes of those who reach secondary school with poor literacy and numeracy skills.

It was in an effort to fix that disgraceful situation that National vowed during the 2008 election campaign to introduce benchmarks in reading, writing and maths.

But because it did not consult the unions in devising the standards, teachers have long threatened to frustrate their implementation. Now some schools have acted on those threats.

Actually the standards themselves are a red herring. The unions have made very clear to the Minister that if she amended the OIA to exempt school assessment data from public access, then all their opposition would drop – as in they would work within the system to improve national standards.

The calls for trials, for reconsideration etc are pure delaying tactics. I would wager millions of dollars that they would at the end of any trial have exactly the same position as before – unless the OIA is changed to exclude assessment data.

Yet principals are public servants, obliged to follow the law. Further, their anti-national-standards campaign has a whiff of sexism about it. Anne Tolley is the first female education minister, and the federation campaign to denigrate her every move has not been pretty.

Thuggish is the term I would use.

Critics try to denigrate national standards by dismissing them as merely aspirational. But that is precisely what they should be. And in assisting their offspring to aim for them, parents must know what their children are good at, where they need help, and what they as parents can do. It is not too much to ask that those standing in the front of the class get with the programme. They fail those they profess to care about when they do not.

The unions do not accept that anyone but them has the right to set education policy.

Actually it says I got 7/10 but I accidentally hit the wrong answer in one question. Quiz here. 27 seconds.

The Dom Post has an editorial and a story on MPs perks today, and both rather over-state their case in my opinion.

The editorial is on transparency over the MPs travel perks. Now my position is actually the same as the Dom Post’s – that the perk should be abolished. But the editorial goes too far when it says:

Dr Smith argues that the subsidy, which cost $432,989 last year, is actually paid for by MPs collectively forgoing part of their salary entitlement.

It is an argument that bears a passing acquaintance with the facts. The Remuneration Authority takes account of the cost of the subsidy when setting MPs’ pay.

That is not a passing acquaintance with the facts. It is 100% correct, even if the Dom Post does not like it.

The travel subsidy, like many other MPs’ perks, was initially introduced in lieu of a pay rise. However, when responsibility for setting MPs’ pay was transferred from Parliament to the Remuneration Authority’s predecessor, the Higher Salaries Commission, it ignored many of the entitlements MPs had voted themselves.

It did – up until 2003. In 2003 the Remuneration Authority moved to a total remuneration calculation where it calculates what should be the total remuneration for an MP, and deducts off the super subsidy and the travel perks.

Hence MPs receive what an independent body thinks their jobs are worth plus the value of the extras they have voted themselves over the years

No this is absolutely wrong. The independent body works out what their jobs are worth and deducts the value of the extras off the remuneration to calculate a base salary.

extras that inflate the base salary of today’s MPs from $131,000 to more than $180,000.

Not quite. The Herald calculates it as:

• Salary $131,000
• Super Subsidy $26,200
• Domestic Travel $1,176
• Partner Travel $3,449
• International Travel $9,646

That is around $170,000 as the value of an MPs remuneration package.

That gives even the meanest MP an income higher than 99 per cent of his fellow citizens. Whether it is too much is a matter of judgment, but it is not a matter of judgment that should be exercised by those who stand to benefit from it.

Eight years ago Parliament was advised to set up an independent body to determine MPs’ pay and entitlements, but when the legislation reached Parliament’s standing orders committee – a body every bit as powerful and self-interested as any trade union – it was gutted.

The ongoing furore over MPs’ travel expenses is the price MPs pay for refusing to surrender control of their pay and perks. It is a price successive Speakers have been happy to pay, but it is not one the public should tolerate.

MPs’ pay and perks should be set by an independent body that takes account of comparable pay rates here and overseas, the state of the economy and workloads.

I agree they should all be set by the Remuneration Authority, but I don’t think it would reduce the “furore” over pay and perks.

Now in this article we read:

Members of Parliament are secretly planning to change the rules around their $24,000-a-year accommodation allowance to make it easier for those who make Wellington their home to still be counted as out-of-towners.

Under the new rules, MPs will be able to nominate a “home base” where they normally live when not doing parliamentary business in Wellington. If that is outside Wellington, they will qualify for the accommodation allowance.

I have not got a copy of the new rules, but from what I can glean the change is around wording, not substance. The old rules referred to primary residence and the new rules refer to a “home base”. The Auditor-general herself said the term “primary residence” was not a useful one as the test has never been where an MP spends most of their time. If that was the test, then no Minister would ever be found to live outside Wellington.

One has to approach this from a principled approach, in relation to the fact the job of an MP requires them to live in Wellington some of the time, and when in Wellington they need to be have a place to live. The principle is that an MP should not be out of pocket for what is a work related expense, but neither should they gain from it.

If an MP, before they became an MP, resided outside of Wellington then their Wellington accommodation expenses get met (up to a limit) by the taxpayer. The exception to this is if the MP abandons their out of Wellington residence – either by selling it or renting it out. If they do that, then they are gaining at taxpayer expense.

The Auditor-General ruled (as did Speakers Hunt and Wilson) that Bill English was entitled to a Wellington accommodation allowance because he still maintained his Dipton property. If he had sold it or was leasing it out, then they would have found differently.

The one change I would make is I would bar MPs from having a direct or indirect interest in the Wellington accommodation they claim the allowance for. The Greens had their super scheme own several as a way to maximise income for themselves – and in fact were even claiming twice for the same property. Other MPs have owned the places they rented.

So the change in the rules is fine – the only potential for abuse is:

But one MP agreed yesterday that under the new definition it might be possible for an MP to maintain a small empty apartment out of Wellington and nominate it as a “home base”, when it would not have fitted within the definition of a primary residence as most people understood it.

In theory yes it is possible an Minister could move their family to Wellington, and sell their five bedroom house in the electorate and designate a small apartment as their home base. But there is always a way for venal people to rort the rules – and if any tried to do that, I would hope the media will expose that.

You could try and have a rule that an MP does not downgrade their home residence while they are an MP, but frankly it is unworkable – what if their kids move out of home etc.

So no problems with the change, but I do think it would be desirable to do a further change – to ban MPs from claiming the allowance for a property they have a direct or indirect interest in.

Quiz is here. 33 seconds.

The Dom Post editorial:

For every state-house tenant who stays put despite having the means to move on, there is another person living in a caravan, a camping ground, substandard housing or a boarding house.

It is a simple equation, but one those who subscribe to the notion of a “state house for life” appear unable to grasp.

The consequence of indulging those who can provide for themselves is to shut out those who cannot. Housing New Zealand does not have enough homes to accommodate both groups. It should not try.

The only alternative would be to increase from 70,000 to 360,000 the number of houses owned by the state. And if anyone finds a spare $87 billion in capital for the Government, could they let Bill English know as I think he would be keen to have it.

An expectation has arisen that securing a state house is equivalent to being granted a house for life.

It is not an expectation that is contained in law, but a de facto understanding that is adhered to by Housing NZ staff. Tenants in good standing are allowed to stay for as long as they desire.

The policy applies equally to those who need state houses – the disabled, the mentally ill and the poor – and those who do not – the 5000 Housing NZ tenants who earn enough to pay full market rents and could just as easily rent privately.

That is foolish and unaffordable, and Housing Minister Phil Heatley is right to signal change, starting with reviewable, limited-term tenancies.

In the private sector, your tenancy can be terminated with 90 days notice. A five year fixed term is still a huge amount more stability, than you would get privately.

No-one wants to see the elderly shifted out of the neighbourhoods in which they have spent their lives, but it makes perfectly good sense to shift an elderly person or couple from the three or four-bedroom home in which they raised their children to a one or two-bedroom home down the street.

Especially as there is a family in need, waiting for that larger bedroom house.

The state housing provider should be judged on how adequately the most vulnerable are housed, not on how many homes it owns.

I agree, but sadly I am not sure Labour does.

If that means funding the building of new homes in Auckland and Wellington by selling homes in provincial areas, so be it. If that means reducing the oversupply of three-bedroom homes so it can build more one, two and five-bedroom properties, so be it.

And if it means transferring parts of its property portfolio to community organisations, as recommended by the advisory group, so be it.

Effectiveness, not ideology, should be the Government’s watchword.

Effectiveness not ideology? Now I am sure Labour won’t agree!