Kiwiblog

The birthplace of Labour, West Coast-Tasman went to National on the party vote by 11%. In 2005 the had a 3% margin. Damien O’Connor had a 1,500 majority and lost to Chris Auchinvole by 1,000 votes. Auchinvole (who once famously told Parliament you pronounce his name like it was Dock in Cole or a rude version that is easy to work out) wan a strong campaign with 160 hoardings and a large campaign team. O’Connor is first in on the Labour List, so if Michael Cullen retires he will be back as a List MP.

National finally won the party vote in Nelson. Labour won it by 6% in 2005 but National has a 5% lead in 2008. And no one was surprised that Nick retained his seat, although his majority did shrink from 9,500 to 7,900.

Kaikoura was marginal in 2002 and today the party vote was won by 23%, up from 9% in 2005. Colin King doubled his 4,700 mJority to 10,100.

Clayton Cosgrove did well to hold on in Waimakariri with 500 votes against the competent and hard working Kate Wilkinson. National won the party vote by 15%, up from a 0.3% margin in 2005. Cosgrove’s 2005 majority on new boundaries was 5,000.

Christchurch East remains red with 45% party vote Labour to 36% for National. However that 9% gap is a lot less than 24% in 2005. Dalziel’s 11,000 majority halved to 5,500 – still very safe. However National now has a List MP in the seat and will have hopes for when Lianne retires.

Christchurch Central was a great battle. Labour won the party vote by 1.4% and held the seat by 900 votes only. Nicky Wagner ran a very strong campaign but seats ending in Central are very hard to win for National. In 2005 the party vote margin was 22% and the majority for Barnett was 7,800.

Ilam has National 53% to 27% on the party vote. Gerry Brownlee also drives his majority from 5,500 to 10,800. This may finally stop Gerry from referring to his seat as marginal

Wigram saw Labour win the party vote by just 2%. In 2005 it was 12%. And Jim Anderton scored a fairly safe 4,500 majority despite new boundaries.

Finally we have Port Hills. National won the party vote by 16%, yet Ruth Dyson held the seat by 3,100. In 2005 Labour won the party vote by 12% so there was a massive swing there, yet Dyson’s majority shrank from just 3,600 to 3,100.

If you have a massively growing public service, then you need many more HR staff to cope with them all, and boy has Labour delivered. Gerry Brownlee has the figures showing the number of HR staff has shot up under Labour from 266 to 638 last year. And the cost has gone from $16 million to $51 million.

This is even higher than the growth in comms and media staff which has doubled.

So which agencies have had the biggest increases in HR staff:

• Treasury from 7 to 14
• Health from 10 to 25
• Education from 9 to a staggering 31
• SSC from 2 to 8
• MSD from 44 to 76
• Justice from 15 to 37
• Labour from 15 to 30
• The brand new Department of Housing and Building alerady has 10 HR staff!!!
• Corrections from 19 to 47
• IRD from 34 to 68

They only set the Dept of Housing and Building up a couple of years ago, and already they have convinced their Minister they need 10 HR staff. Oh I am looking forward to the Cabinet Expenditure Control Committee if National wins.

One News revealed tonight that Winston Peters aggressively pushed for Owen Glenn to be appointed Consul to Monaco, despite denying he did so. The Government has refused for eight months to release this information, but finally the Ombudsman forced it out of them.

The documents show Peters on multiple occassions asked for progress and was reported to be testy that MFAT were taking so long to do it. Watch the video for the full details. MFAT concluded:

A report prepared in November concluded that the position was marginal and if it did go ahead they recommended another candidate named Franco Repetto, saying he lived in Monaco full time while Glenn was there just three months a year.

Now it has been established that Winston Peters knew about the donation when it was made in 2005. It was also cleared with Mike Williams at the time, and Helen Clark knew about it either also at the time, or at the latest in February 2008.

Clark sat on this info for at least six months, claiming not to know if it was true. This is despite the fact she would have been aware that Peters had been aggressively pushing for Glenn to be appointed Consul.

Did Clark notify the Cabinet Secretary or the MFAT CEO about the (then alleged) donation from Glenn to Peters? Did she tell them that Owen Glenn had confirmed to her he made a donation?

Clark’s ethics are amazing. She is aghast at Gerry Brownlee having 1,000 shares in Contact Energy several years ago, yet she has no problem with her Foreign Affairs Minister receiving $100,000 donations from individuals and then aggressively pushing to give them a diplomatic appointment.

This is not an isolated case. Clark knows that the Vela Family have donated around $250,000 to NZ First and indeed $40,000 to Peters personally (paying off the Clarkson debt). And she knows that Peters forced her Government to agree to very generous funding of the racing industry, against advice of officials.

And what is her response to this? Totally unconcerned. She keeps paying Winston a Ministerial salary even though he won’t even front up to a debate on foreign policy. She says she’ll happily work with him after the election, so long as it increases her chances of desperately clinging to power.

The hypocrisy of her suggesting Peter Dunne should relinquish a Ministerial warrant for expressing a post-election coalition preference, while keeping Winston on despite multiple proven lies, false evidence and basically corrupt behaviour.

This is Helen Clark’s world. If you are willing to vote for her to remain Prime Minister, she will turn a blind eye to any amount of misdeeds or worse. Hence in her mind there is nothing wrong with calling for Peter Dunne to resign his warrant, but keeping Winston Peters on.

This reinforces for me why we need an Independent Commission against Corruption. She covered up over Taito Philip Field with an inquiry given no powers. She kept quiet for months about Winston, and the latest stuff with Shane Jones is being dealt with by way of a Departmental inquiry which by definition can not investigate the Ministers involved.

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.

The Infrastructure Forum had six questions:

1. How will you stop the risk of power blackouts?
2. Will you privatise power generation SOEs to get more competition and lower prices?
3. How will you get broadband into more homes and businesses?
4. What changes will you make to the RMA?
5. Do you support more protection for businesses at risk from the ETS?
6. Do you support carbon credit allocation based on carbon intensity

Gerry Brownlee

1. Energy Policy released details improvements to both security and supply. Planning for far more growth than Labour. Major consent decisions to be made within nine months
2. No SOE sales
3. Ran out of time
4. Referred to in 1
5. Not a yes/no answer but said credit allocation should be decided by a select committee process and a National ETS will do that. Gave a great example of how concrete plants in Europe will pay far less for carbon credits so just force industry offshore.
6. Ran out of time

David Parker

1. Record investment in energy under Labour. National did not invest in the 1990s
2. No
3. Broadband essential. $500 million fund next five years. WIll not favour incumbent.
4. Does not accept RMA is a barrier
5. Missed
6. Missed

Jeanette Fitzsimons

1. One can have security by over-building capacity so it is wasted every year but the peak year. Not efficient. Better to have a standby plant. Says we had a 1 in 60 dry year. Third way is make smart adjustments to demand to reduce at times of shortage and that is what is missing.
2. Will not sell SOEs. Rejects that it would lead to lower prices.
3. Supported LLU. Broadband key to reducing transport. But not support large state investment.
4. Most changes Gerry wants to RMA already done. Problem is implementation and no national guidelines.
5. Trade-exposed businesses are already highly protected. Some businesses may end up with surplus credits without reducing emissions.
6. No – an intensity basis will lead to continued emissions.

Rodney Hide

1. Does not think we can rule out all the power generation methods the Greens do. Need to reduce cost of capital by lowering taxes.
2. Yes would sell them. No sense in Govt owing competitive businesses. Ownign them locks up taxpayers money and limits companies ability to raise capital for investment it deems necessary.
3. Broadband important but regulation stopping its rollout. Need a stronger economy to be able to afford it. Against National’s policy in this area. Investment is slowing down due to uncertainity.
4. Private property rights need to be enhanced, The RMA damages these rights.

Peter Dunne

1. Rejects ideology. Needs security of supply. Say question is an alarmist straw man. Currently power is an un-cordinated jigsaw (so why are we paying $90 million a year to the Electricity Commission then). Agrees we have had over supply in past – supports smaller local plants but big hydro plants.
2. I think it was a no.
3. RMA needs national policy guidelines. DO not throw away RMA – streamline it and keep core principles.
4. Missed.
5. Do not support further protection to at risk businesses as we do not know enough about impact.
6. No does not support but is subject to how the Act works out. Reason they oppose bill is because so much is uncertain and is being rushed through purely for political gain. Wants it passed by 1 April 2009.

I thought of trying to cover question time from Parliament (you can apply for a one day pass) but wasn’t sure if they have a power supply handy there, so decided to watch it on TV and blog it from home.

Wilson is speaking now, defending her decision yesterday to take Peters’ word that Hide’s question was covered by a case before the courts. She is saying she had no choice but to take the word of an MP, as it is extremely serious if an MP misleads the Speaker.

Annette King has chosen today, of all days, to make a Ministerial statement that tazers are being introduced. This is a good decision, but MPs are suspicious of the timing. By making the statement today, it leads to a debate which delays question time and general debate. She could easily have delayed the decision until tomorrow.

Brownlee is laughing at the ploy saying King just announced a decision that isn’t even final, but just in principle. He is pointing out that many more major decisions never get Ministerial statements, and there was no need for it to be made today

Brownlee is right – it is a ploy to give Clark and Peters more time to work out their stories. The decision is being made by the Commissioner, not the Minister.

Gerry finished by suggesting the tazers may be used on Winston later in the week.

You know it is a setup to delay, when Dail Jones then gets up and says he agrees this is a serious issue which should be debated by the House.

… Fuck I am bored with tazers. Bring on the main show.

Rodney is now using the tazer debate, to attack Peters. Cullen is running interference for Peters which gives you some idea of how desperate they are to cling on.

… Now onto question one. Question Two is the big one.

Clark has said she does have confidence in the Minister of Foreign Affairs!!!! She is clinging to him.

She is not even suspending him. She says she will just wait for the Privileges Committee to report.

Clark keeps saying there is a conflict of evidence. But that does not mean she can not act. She knows Glenn is telling the truth, and is just trying to cling on to power.

Dail Jones is desperate. He is suggesting the Owen Glenn letter is a forgery. Fuck the man is a moron or does a good job of impersonating one.

Key has pointed out that if she is implying Owen Glenn paid to the Privileges Committee.

Peters is clinging to the fact that Glenn donated to his legal fees not NZ First. But that is a red herring for the issue of his denial that he did now know of the donation until July 2008.

Peters is basically calling Glenn a liar. He may regret that.

God Clark is desperate. She is saying that as the letter is to the Privileges Committee, not from it, there is nothing for her to do.

Clark keeps talking about waiting for teh trial. But this is not about whether or not Peters broke standing orders. It is about whether or not he is a liar. And she sacked Lianne Dalziel for lying and David Benson-Pope for lying, without needing a “trial”. She is using the Privileges Committee inquiry as an excuse for inaction.

Someone shoot Dail Jones. He is now asking for all the National MPs on the Privileges Committee to be thrown off it. Clark is almost agreeing. No-one can say National is going soft – that is for sure!

Wilson is doing better today I have to say.

Okay onto the next question. Who cares. General Debate will be fun.

Gerry Brownlee was winding up Michael Cullen for his hongi with Tame Iti after he and Mallard had attacked Key for a hongi on Waitangi Day with Iti.

Gerry made the point that Cullen had done three hongis with Iti, as opposed to just one for Key. Cullen’s reply was priceless though:

I’m sure the member will find out sooner or later in his life that after the first time, it is much easier.

Heh.

The Infrastructure Forum has just started. I’m only half taking it in, as was a pretty late night out with the Young Nationals celebrating the All Blacks massive victory.

Got absolutely soaked to the bone getting home – it was thundering down, and taxis were scarce with a 30 minute delay if you phoned for one.

Anyway back to infrastructure. First up was Maurice Williamson on transport and he summed it up himself with a one liner – National will build more roads – lots of them! He gave some staggering figures on the massive increase in costs that some roading projects have incurred due to consent delays. He stressed this wasn’t about even getiing enough roads for future volume, but just getting us enough for our current needs.

Then Gerry Brownlee on energy. Gerry said that if we found Maui field today, it would be worth around $50 billion. Said that concern over carbon emissions doesn’t change the fact that replacements for current fuel sources are not extensively available, so demand will stay high. NZ second only to Canada in our mineral endowment.

Third up was Nick Smith on RMA reform.  Round up of how multiple business organisations, government advisory groups and surveys all rate this as the highest priority. Will be enacted within months not years of the election.

Questions were fairly as expected. A patsy on why broadband is a better infrastructure investment than trains. Some discussion on coal and carbon emissions and whether one can sequester the co2 from coal. Also focus on consenting for roads – the desirability of having one consent application for an entire motorway, rather than breaking it down into lots of small packages – each of which has its own process.

Well the NZ Herald has finished the second part of what was in total around 15 pages on John Key’s family, history and background. This comes on top of a Sunday Star-Times in depth investigation in Europe and the US of Key’s history as a currenct trader and manager at Merrill Lynch.

None of them turned up anything remotely dubious, which is quite atonishing. Let me tell you that if three journalists spent six months researching my past, there will be much galore. God – just Otago University alone could fill up a chapter or two. Most of us have done really stupid stuff that we later regret and would not have done in hindsight.

One of the NZ Herald stories was on the fight for Helensville. It is all history now but there are one or two aspects to it, I had some knowledge of and can comment on.

Simpson says he briefly considered looking outside of Auckland but for family reasons decided against that. Among the seats Key looked at was Tamaki, held by sitting MP Clem Simich. Party officials convinced him it wasn’t a wise move because Simich had a strong electorate network.

Otherwise known as the Tamaki Mafia

In May 2001, Key made his first speech on the political stage, addressing a regional conference at Auckland’s Waipuna Lodge before a crowd of about 250 people. Slater liked the content (Key spoke about New Zealand’s place in the international scene), but felt the delivery was unpolished. “His really true character didn’t come through,” says Slater.

John also spoke to a Young National conference around then also, and had an engaging policy proposal – that one should have a literacy test for the dole. The idea being instead of getting the dole, you get paid to undertake tuition so that someone who is unemployed gets taught enough so they can at least have basic numeracy and literacy – to open up job opportunities.

On the day of the candidate selection meeting on March 17, 2002, it is alleged that the start of the meeting was delayed by more than 20 minutes so that a delegate known to be supportive of Key could make it for the vote; normally, the doors to the meeting were locked after 10 minutes.

The delayed delegate was a friend of mine, and he was a bit late to the meeting. His vote wouldn’t have affected the outcome in the end, but if he had not made it there he would not have been popular.

Regarding the door being left open, he said: “I recall that there was one delegate who had phoned 10 or 15 minutes before arrival and said they had been delayed and would be late and was that a problem. We got around that by delaying the meeting’s start by five minutes, then I did an introduction, then I saw the delegate arrive and then proceeded in the normal way.”

The delegate was delayed – the dopey bastard had slept in! And then he proceeded to make up for this by driving along the western motorway at around 200 km/hr and made it just in time!

John Key did so well, he even ended up with Brian Neeson’s electorate chair offering to help him. I like this story:

After winning the candidacy, Key asked Milich to stay on as chairman, an invitation he turned down because he and his wife were heading off overseas for an extended holiday. But before Milich left, he told Key he would help him out any way he could.

“You don’t know where to get billboards from, do you?” Key asked.

“Yeah, we’ll make them. Come around,” said Milich.

For a man who, by his own admission, doesn’t have a handyman bone in his body, it was a galling proposition for Key.

Nevertheless, Key turned up with his son Max and spent the day with Milich, hammering and nailing together billboard frames.

“I had a lot of respect for him after that day,” says Milich.

The other online story is the main 18 page one. I’m interested in the three “swift acts” he took as Leader,as the Herald deccribes them:

First, Key did a deal with chief rival English in which someone else had to lose. In this case it was Gerry Brownlee, the man who had been deputy under Brash and who clearly wanted to hold on to that job. Key cut the deal over a weekend, operating out of his Parnell home, on the phone for hours and occasionally opening his big metal gate to welcome senior party figures in for talks. English was one of them.

By Sunday night Key had managed all the egos to a point where Brownlee was convinced to step aside with English coming into a position of considerable power as deputy leader and finance spokesman. Brownlee retained an important strategic role under Key, who in doing the deal with English for an uncontested vote united the bickering factions of the party.

It is hard to over-state how important this decision was in hindsight. The caucus has never been more unified. It was pretty tough on Gerry Brownlee who had been an effective Deputy to Don Brash. But it also showed Key’s ability to be pragmactic and judge the best course ahead. John would have won a ballot against Bill, but he also needed him to be Finance Spokesperson. And to get him to agree to do that, needed make him Deputy also.

Then came the difficult task of dealing with Brash, who was making noises that he would stay on as an MP if Key gave him an attractive portfolio. For Key, a clean break was better. Having Brash sitting on his front bench was going to detract from the fresh start Key wanted, where he quickly moved to embrace New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policy and soften Brash’s Maori and welfare policies.

But Brash was handing over the leadership in the way that prevented a bloody battle and he could have been forgiven for thinking Key owed him something in return.

Brash waited for a job offer from Key that never came. Just a week after stepping down as leader Brash quit politics altogether. Key had ignored Brash’s repeated statements that he would be willing to stay and in the end the pair met to talk and it was unceremoniously over.

In the eyes of those in the caucus who had been Brash supporters till the end, it was a harsh exit.

I was one of those who at the time wanted Don to be given a senior portfolio so his talents were not wasted. In hindsight it was an emotional response, and Key did exactly the right thing by not making an offer. In hindsight I think it was better for Don also to be out of the place. Don leaving Parliament took all the sting out of the Hollow Men, apart from a few fanatical MPs who still quote it every week.

The third thing Key did was a no-brainer but it still required an element of toughness. The party’s problem child, Rakaia MP Brian Connell, began talking of returning to caucus after Key took over. Connell had been out in the cold after clashing with Brash about an alleged affair and he told media that he was ready to come back. While the decision rested finally with caucus, Key demonstrated no appetite for bringing Connell back. To this day Connell remains a suspended outsider.

A third tough call. This was one I agreed with at the time, as I thought Brian had caused trouble for not just Don Brash but also Bill English before him, and there was no reason to think it would be different for John.

Having said that, I actually think it is time for the suspension to be lifted. He is retiring from Parliament in a few months, is supportive of the new National candidate for Selwyn and has not been outspoken in the last year. It would be nice for Brian to be able to finish his time in Parliament back in the National caucus.

I’m a big fan of John Armstrong but he should not fall for Clark’s spin:

It didn’t help Key that his colleague Nick Smith made the mistake of responding to Clark’s taunts about the “Freedom of Speech” Trust set up to help pay Smith’s legal bills. Smith replied that he had sought advice from the registrar of pecuniary interest as to what disclosure requirements he should follow. He was told he only needed to declare a pecuniary interest in a trust.

Quick as a flash, Helen Clark retorted that if Smith did not have to declare either debts or gifts, “then nor does Mr Peters”.

She is wrong. The Freedom of Speech Trust is a legal entity and Nick Smith has declared in his register he is a beneficiary of it.

The so called legal fund that Peters has is not a legally constituted trust with Trustees and its own legal personality. It is either a solictor’s trust account (not the same as a trust) or the money went straight to debtors. In both cases it is paying off debts directly on behalf of Peters. And this is not my assertion – this is what Brian Henry said.

Clark’s statement is wrong – simple as that. Smith has declared the beneficial interest in the Trust.

John Armstrong does note some welcome strong language from Gerry Brownlee:

Brownlee accused Peters of touting himself as “one of the great parliamentarians of our age” when his failure to disclose the $100,000 donation from wealthy expatriate Owen Glenn actually displayed Peters’ “utter and complete contempt” for Parliament.

Peters’ claims about what he knew or rather did not know about the donation were “unbelievable”, “irresponsible” and were “destroying the credibility of Parliament” as an institution.

I was on National Radio’s “The Panel” briefly yesterday along with Michelle Boag and David Slack. Jim Mora asked us why National and Labour did not simply get together and agree neither party would do a deal with Winston after the election, hence excluding them from weilding all the power on their 5% (if they make it).

I responded, noting that Michelle and I had both worked for National PMs, and David S for a Labour PM – and that on behalf of the three of us I was sure we would all be willing to represent National and Labour in negotiating such an agreement

Sadly it isn’t quite that simple, as if a party gets seats in Parliament they are a reality to deal with as they get to vote on every proposed law and budget etc. But I would observer enthusiasm in both Labour and National is waning for dealing with Peters – not just on the actual allegations – but more so on his response to them – his absolute inability to apologise or admit any wrong doing – such as continuing to insist the NZ Herald Editor and Political Editor should apologise to him and resign.