Kiwiblog

Helen Clark is misleading people by saying it is up to the Privileges Committee to work out the conflict between what Owen Glenn says, and what Winston Peters say.

It is not, and I predict the Committee will not. It is because the facts which are in dispute between Glenn and Peters are not material to the issue of privilege. They are very material to issues of lying and hypocrisy, but not material to the specific issue of privilege before the committee.

The issue before the Committee is whether or not the Register of Interests declaration by Peters is correct or not. Peters has asserted it was correct, as the donation was to Brian Henry, not Peters. Owen Glenn agrees with him on this point – the donation went to Henry to pay for legal fees.

The area where they disagree is whether or not Peters knew of the donation and whether or not he solicited the donation. Now these are irelevant to the issue of privilege, if the donation is deemed something which doesn’t constitute a gift or payment of a debt.

So Helen Clark’s insistence that it is for the Privileges Committee to resolve the conflicting evidence, is wrong and misleading. The conflict of evidence relates to whether or not Peters is a liar and hypocrite, not whether his MPs Return was accurate.

Winston Peters has stated that he only knew Owen Glenn had given money to Brian Henry when Henry told him in July 2008. Owen Glenn has said Peters solicited the money in 2005, knew of the donation, and thanked him for the donation in 2006 or 2007. There is no way to resolve those statements. It is impossible. The Privileges Committee can not do so, and it is not their job to do so.

Helen Clark sacked Lianne Dalziel for lying. She sacked David Benson-Pope for lying. It is the PM’s job to sack Ministers if they lie. But in this case she refuses to take any action. She could have resolved this months ago but is playing the same corrupt game she played with Taito Philip Field – trying to pass the buck to a body which is not empowered to discover the truth – because it is not an issue of privilege – it is an issue of lying and hypocrisy.

The EPMU is holding a march in Auckland this afternoon for worker’s rights.

I guess the right to stand for Parliament for the party of your choice is not one of them.

I have managed to obtain from a helpful staffer the full collection of quotes from Helen Clark and Michael Cullen on debt. Now remember they have been saying that going from gross debt being 20% of GDP to 22% of GDP is absolute lunacy and madness. So how does this measure up with their past statements. First Dr Cullen:

“The previous government had established a 30 percent of GDP target when the Fiscal Responsibility Act was passed in 1994, and had reduced it to 25 percent in 1999. When we came into office that year we made the judgement that the Crown finances and the state of the economy could not sustain that lower target, so we restored it to 30 percent of GDP.” – Michael Cullen 18 May, 2004, Speech to Chen Palmer & Partners Business and Government Seminar

So National had a target of 25%, and Labour increased it to 30%. yet now they are saying 22% is lunacy and madness.

And now Miss Clark:

All these quotes are from 1994, when debt was in excess of 50% of GDP!!”

“I am pleased that economic growth has produced enough tax revenue to declare a surplus and repay debt. But I am appalled at the rate at which debt repayment is occurring at the expense of families, and schools and other essential social and public services.” - Helen Clark (July 1994) Speech Auckland Labour Regional Conference

“The Government is putting an undue emphasis on debt repayment at the expense of our failing services and infrastructure in New Zealand,” - Helen Clark (June 1994) Opening address to the Massey University Winter Lecture Series.

“We agree that we should be aiming to ensure that the ratio of debt to GDP in New Zealand is not out of line with other smaller industrialised countries. But Labour does not accept that having the smallest debt to GDP ratio in the OECD is an important goal. Nor do we believe that reducing our debt quickly should take precedence over improving the living standard,” - Helen Clark (July 1994) Speech to Northern South Island Labour Regional Conference.

“At Budget time our net public debt was equivalent to 42 per cent of GDP – down from 48 per cent a year earlier… Given those figures, it is hard to believe that the international credit rating agencies with which the Government is so besotted can have any real concern at our current level of debt,” - Helen Clark (June 1994) Waikato Labour Regional Conference.

“The Government is obsessed with debt reduction over all other needs for spending,” - Helen Clark (July 1994) Speech to Wellington Labour Regional Conference.

So when gross debt was over 50% of GDP, Clark time and time again attacked reducing that level of debt, and specifically advocated investing money into infrastructure instead.

I trust we will hear no more hysteria from Helen or Michael on a gross debt setting of 22% of GDP!

Oh I do love journalists who do research. Fran O’Sullivan has found these quotes:

Where’s the audit trail? Precisely into which account went this cheque?”

“On whose behalf was the cheque to be held and what happened to this money? Is there any significance that … was in serious financial trouble?”

“Why is the Serious Fraud Office taking so long to find the answers to these questions?”

“I say the whole thing stinks.”

Fran tells us that we might expect these to be quotes from Bob Jones or Rodney Hide asking about the investigation of NZ First finances. But in fact they are quotes from the Rt Hon Winston Peters in 2002 demanding the SFO get to the bottom of National’s funding.

Fran notes:

This is the real reason why Peters should be judged guilty by his political peers of the “H” word – hypocrisy.

By failing to publish a clear audit trail showing just how Sir Robert’s $25,000 donation found its way from the Spencer Trust into NZ First’s coffers, or the way in which the amount was disbursed on NZ First’s behalf, Peters invites a tsunami of disbelief which might easily be turned back by a simple disclosure.

As to whether the SFO will investigate:

The SFO, which is now deciding whether it should formally investigate Hide’s complaint, will tread carefully.

But it must be consistent.

It launched a formal investigation into National Party donations in 2002 after a former official – assured of anonymity – revealed the party still had unanswered questions over discrepancies between the amount its fundraiser had expected from Fay Richwhite interests and what arrived in the party’s accounts in 1996. …

The SFO ultimately cleared the National Party of any wrongdoing.

If Peters, his party and his lawyers have nothing to hide they should demand answers to the questions.

Otherwise they lay themselves open to new claims that “the whole thing stinks”.

The SFO decision will be pivotal.

I’ve stolen this image from NZPA. It thought people would like to look at it, while they have recalled for them these quotes:

Hon Bill English: Can the Prime Minister promise the House that tonight at the opening of the Auckland business school she will sit with Owen Glenn and allow herself to be photographed with him?

Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: Yes, but I can assure him she will not be hongi-ing Tame Iti at the same time.

Instead Michael gets to do the hongi.

Trevor Mallard: How can he, when he knows someone is facing very, very serious charges under the Arms Act-and that is a matter of public record-put himself in a position where he is seen to endorse the mana of that individual by greeting him in the way he did? I cannot believe that any responsible politician in New Zealand would endorse Tame Iti in the way that John Key did at Waitangi. It was absolutely wrong, and I think it shows-and I have to be very careful with my words here-that he lacks what is necessary to be a strong leader who is prepared to stand up for his principles and stand up for what is right for New Zealand. That is what he showed us when he put himself in the position where he endorsed Tame Iti in that way.

So Trevor is saying Michael Cullen is not a responsible politician? And that Cullen endorses Iti? ANd that Cullen is not a strong leader and Cullen does not stand up for his principles and Cullen does not stand up for what is right for NZ. Wow Trevor is very harsh on Cullen.

Mallard again: First of all, I ask John Key the same question I asked him last week. It is a question that I will ask him every time I have the opportunity. Why did he not have the courage to turn his back on Tame Iti when Tame Iti approached him? We expect someone of principle, someone who aspires to be the Prime Minister, to say “I will not cuddle up to someone who is charged with serious firearm offences.” We expect someone like him to have the courage to front up in these matters, or, in this case, to not front up-to turn his back, to walk away, and to say it is not appropriate to meet with someone like that, to hongi, to give endorsement, and to give approval. Every single week that we have the opportunity to do so we will ask that question, until John Key gets off his backside, gets into this House, and answers that question

So will Trevor also ask this every week of Michael? Why didn’t Michael Cullen have the courage to turn his back and walk away instead of cuddling him?

Hon DARREN HUGHES : I seek leave to table a photograph of John Key hongi-ing with Tame Iti, who is currently on bail and facing serious firearm charges.

And Darren jumps in also. I hope Darren will also seek leave to table the photo of Michael Cullen and John Key.

This is a long detailed post. Half of me says I shouldn’t bother doing this, but I think it would be useful for the record to illustrate that the very deceptive practices that Nicky Hager condemns in The Hollow Men, are in fact used by Hager in The Hollow Men.

The material I am going to focus on has been used by Nicky Hager in the Hollow Men, and has featured in the play and in the just-released film.

If you attended the Wellington premiere of the Hollow Men last weekend will have been given a flyer for the film. On the front page it features a quote from what is said to be an email from Peter Keenan to Don Brash. The line is: “Political war is about evoking emotions that favour one’s goals….while mobilizing passions of fear and resentment against your opponents.”

That rather nasty quote, along with others in the book, is used to introduce the alleged malicious intent behind the Orewa speech on Treaty issues. Hager would have you think Keenan was telling Brash that this is how he should operate and in Hager’s book (refer bottom of p85) this line is presented as Keenan “quoting with approval United States Republican strategist David Horowitz”.

But, as with pretty much everything in the Hollow Men, Hager stripped out the context of the quote to distort the meaning. In fact in this case he manages to reverse the meaning entirely.

What Hager failed to mention was that those words were actually from a six page bullet point summary, sent as an attachment in an email, of essays in two books by David Horowitz. The attached document was a straightforward summary of what somebody else had written. Those that want to check what follows can simply get the books: The Art of Political War and other Radical Pursuits, and How to Beat the Democrats, and other Subversive Ideas. They are interesting essays, regardless of what your political views might be.

The so-called quotes from Peter Keenan, are actually direct quotes from the summary he compiled of the Horowitz articles. This was not an instruction or advice from Keenan to Brash on what Brash should do, but part of a six page book summary.

It turns out that, in the articles summarized by Keenan, Horowitz was describing how the political left conduct their political battles, and pointing out how hopeless the political right is by comparison. He is reminding conservative politicians that they need to engage at an emotional level if they want to be as effective politically as the left. The quotes attributed to Keenan are in fact Horowitz describing how those on the left operate.

Here are a few more quotes from that bullet point summary to give you the flavour of what it was about. Hager didn’t use these. To put this in an NZ context, I have substituted “the left/left-wing” for Democrats, and “conservative” for Republican.

“The right often seem to regard political combat as they would a debate at the Oxford Union, as though winning depended on rational arguments. The audience is not made up of academics. You have 30 seconds to make a point. Even if you had time to make an argument, the audience in the middle (the ones you need to reach) are not paying attention or would not get it.”

“The left come to party politics out of socialist organisations, trade unions, and an assortment of social crusades (abortion, racial grievances, and environmental concerns). They are combat-ready before they begin their political careers. Conservatives train in boy scout troops and graduate to chambers of commerce and rotary clubs. Except for the pro-life missionaries in the conservative coalition, Conservatives are innocents abroad when it comes to political war.”

The so-called Keenan “quotes” that have been referenced in the Hollow Men book, play and film, are drawn from a section which summarises what Horowitz calls the Four Principles of Politics: ie. politics is a war of Emotions, of Position, is about Fear, is about Hope. Hager pulls quotes from the summary explanations of these points. I will give you the full quote (which was itself a summary of a fuller treatment by Horowitz in his book), and highlight what Hager used:

Politics is a War of Emotions: For the great mass of the public, casting a vote is not an intellectual choice, but a gut decision, based on impressions that may be superficial and premises that could be misguided. Political war is about evoking emotions that favour one’s goals. It is the ability to manipulate the public’s feelings in support of your agenda, while mobilising passions of fear and resentment against your opponent.

Politics is about Fear: You must not only convince a majority that you are their friend, you must get them to fear your opponent as their enemy. Anger, fear and resentment are the most potent weapons in the Left-wing arsenal. They are powerful emotions that drive voters to the polls, and if they are not countered these emotions will bury your Gold Stars every time.

Horowitz used the term “Gold Star Republican” to describe the typical managerial type of conservative who thinks he can have a calm, rational debate on policy and win the day.

Thus, by stripping all the context from this “quote”, Hager completely misrepresents Keenan.

If you look at the e-mail in context, the obvious and reasonable interpretation of all of this was that Keenan was warning Brash what he was up against, and encouraging him to try and connect emotionally with the audience, use less technocratic language, and so forth. In the fuller treatment in the book, regarding the politics of fear, Horowitz writes:

“No matter how much conservatives may deplore such tactics, no matter how fervently they wish that electoral contests would turn on good policies and good principles, it is not in their power to change the reality of political war”.

Lets finish here with another couple of bullet points from that summary document, quotes that Hager could have used, but for obvious reasons did not.

“The left rely on Bribery and Fear. Much of the electorate has an enthusiasm for big government. Voters look to government for entitlements, looking to the political left to supply them. And the left recruits its supporters through taxpayer-funded programmes that buy their votes. The obstacles to this tendency is the individualism of the culture, the bankruptcy of most of the left’s programmes (poor incentives, no allowance for individual responsibility), and the political right itself which is infused with middle-class energy and entrepreneurial values and collectively represents the politics of reform.”

“Marxism may be dead, but a Marxist morality play provides the ordnance for left-wing political attacks…..In political battle the political left provides the search and destroy teams that accuse the right of racism and sexism, of polluting the environment and of abusing old people, women and children. The passions that motivate the political left are self-righteousness and hate.”

Looking back at the Labour Party’s 2005 campaign, and the way Hager has operated here, this analysis looks rather perceptive.

What is clear from all this, is that the use of that quote in the flyer for the film, and in the book, and in the play, was shamefully dishonest. Hager in his book, Dean Parker in the play, and Alister Barry in the film, all feature this astoundingly dishonest so-called “quote” – deliberately out of context and misapplied – to cast a malicious light on some simple briefing material forwarded to Brash.

Hager and Barry, if they wish to display the integrity they claim to champion, should order the current flyer to be shredded, and the film reworked to be at least marginally more honest.

Although integrity seems to be in short supply here. Some centre left bloggers have noted with disapproval that the film uses some covert filming of Peter Keenan. Grant Robertson said:

The only bum note in the documentary for me was the use of what appeared to be covert filming of Brash’s speech writer Peter Keenan.  Shots of him opening his curtains in the morning, and reading the paper just felt a bit creepy to me.

I am yet to see it, but when I heard about it, creepy is indeed the word for it.

And Danyl at the Dim-Post:

Even more ill-conceived are the other shots of Peter Keenan. One of the most interesting characters in Hager’s book the former economist privately disagreed with his leader’s racial policies even while he was writing the speeches promoting them. Keenan’s emails are quoted extensively in the film over shots of him wandering around inside his home watering his plants and reading the newspaper. The footage is hand-held and appears to have been shot covertly from a distance; Keenan does not seem to know he is being filmed and these sequences all have a queasy, paparazzi-cum-stalker like quality to them. Instead of questioning Kennan’s ethics as a speech-writer I found myself doubting Barry’s ethics as a director.

Danyl also noted:

As with his previous films, Barry makes extensive use of archival footage accompanied by voice-over narration; various experts including political scientist Jon Johansson and Christchurch Press political editor Colin Espiner provide additional commentary (although Espiner agreed to be interviewed by Barry he was not told it was for The Hollow Men).

Stephen Stratford at NZBC comments:

Why on earth would Barry not have told Espiner the purpose of the interview? And having interviewed Espiner, why did he not interview Keenan instead of stalking him in this, frankly, creepy way?

If you won’t front up to your subject and talk to him, you shouldn’t pretend that what you do is journalism. And if you don’t tell someone whom you do talk to what the real purpose of the interview is, you are engaged in deception. Isn’t that what The Hollow Men was all about?

The irony is rich isn’t it? A deceptive book and a deceptive film that take the moral high ground to lecture on deception?

Finally let’s finish on a lighter note. The flyer to the film also features a quote from a Keenan email to Brash, this time a genuine one. It is “the secret of success is sincerity and conviction…once you can fake that you’ve got it made”. That quote is so obviously Peter winding Don up, with a joke that reworks a well-known line by Groucho Marx, that it is amazing Nicky Hager didn’t get it. So Hager quotes a Groucho Marx joke as if it was serious political advice.

Hager, Parker and Barry need to get out more. Those on different sides of politics hold different views about which policies will build a better nation. When you start assuming that people who hold different views from you are in some way evil, then what you need is to get counseling – not write a book, play or make a film. But hey when the Government will give you money to do so, one can understand some of the motivations.

Now this all raises a wider question: given the scale of misrepresentation in this instance, it is impossible to take anything else in this book at face value. If you can make something sinister out of material like this, you can do it with anything. Removal of context is the simplest way to deceive.And unlike blogs where you can link through to the full quote, Hager’s works leave you blind as to the context.

Hager subtitled his book, A Study in the Politics of Deception. It was indeed – but maybe not in the way he intended.

Well even though Winston has said it is all lies, Sir Robert went on to Radio NZ this morning to discuss his donations. Extracts from the NZPA story:

Sir Robert today confirmed to Radio New Zealand he made a $25,000 donation to the party for the last election (2005).  He had now written to NZ First president Dail Jones after speculation that money he donated had not got to the party.

I believe a number of donors are now asking where their money went. Owen Glenn thought he donated to NZ First and it went into Winston’s legal expenses. Sir Robert thought he donated to NZ First and it went into The Spencer Trust – the second secret fund we have learnt of this week.

Sir Robert also said he had made large contributions to NZ First in the 1990s when the party was being established.  “I’m not worried about the $25,000, that’s not a lot. I’m worried about the other $150,000 he took off me in the early days,” he said.

And these have never been disclosed. Now before the 1993 Electoral Act was amended in 1995 they might not have to have been. If they were paid into a Trust and the Trust donated to NZ First or paid bills on its behalf, then that should have been disclosed.

Sir Robert said he hated NZ First’s attacks on Asians but the last time he saw Mr Peters “a lot of drinking went on” and Sir Robert begrudgingly gave $25,000.

Note that Sir Robert has said explicitly Winston was directly soliciting the money – something he denies he ever does.

Sir Robert said the cheque was written out by one of his staff members to Spencer Trust — described by The Dominion Post as sometimes being used to pay NZ First bills.

There had been payments of $50,000 “here or there” to other parties, Sir Robert said. He would be concerned if donations to the party never reached the party.

Sir Robert has said he has not voted National since 1981 so unlikely to be National.

“I’ve never been approached by the Greens and Maori Party, I must confess,” Sir Robert said.
He did not like the thesis of the Maori Party and wouldn’t have given them money but asked if he would give to the Greens he said: “I probably would, but I don’t want to say that”.

Frog better get onto this!

Also interesting stuff on the money Brian Henry solicited:

In Parliament yesterday National MP Judith Collins, a lawyer, said Mr Henry could not run a trust account.  “He is a barrister sole, and one of the things about barristers is they don’t have trust accounts,” she said during the general debate.

“They are not audited. They are not subject to Law Society rules about trust accounts and the reason is they don’t hold other people’s money.

“They simply render an account and it gets paid.”  Ms Collins said she had been a lawyer for more than 20 years and had been a member of the Auckland District Law Society and the New Zealand Law Society.

“I have never once come across a situation where a barrister’s job is to ring up people in Monaco and ask them to pay $100,000 into a fees account,” she said.

“I have never once heard of it and I sat for years on the complaints committee of the Auckland District Law Society…not once did we ever hear anything about barristers ringing up trying to solicit money for their clients’ fees.”

It is indeed very unusual for barristers to be involved in the money side of things – that is meant to go all through the solicitor.

Now people may be interested in NZ First’s disclosed donations of over $10,000 since 1996:

1996 Peter McCardle $10,000
1996 Charles Sturt $12,500
2002 WestpacTrust $10,000
2002 Gold Times Sports $15,000
2003 Contact Energy $10,000
2004 Contact Energy $10,000

This is a very low level of disclosed donations. Every minor parties like the Alliance have disclosed far more than this. Now looking at this you would think they have not had any donors of over $10,000 since 2004. And in fact we know there have been significant donations of over $10,000 for the benefit of NZ First and Peters.

There are two issues with The Spencer Trust. The first is NZ First’s of trust funds to hide donor’s identity. This is perfectly legal but something he has railed against in public. So total hypocrisy.

The bigger issue is why there is no record of The Spencer Trust donating to NZ First. Because by not disclosing its relationship to NZ First, it removes the ability of the public to be critical of the use of the trust fund. You see people know National gets large donations from the Waitemata Trust. National then has scrutiny from the media and the public on those donations and their political image gets somewhat tarnished by the use of the Trusts (even though quite legal).

But what NZ First appears to have done is kept the existence of both the “legal fund trust” and the Spencer Trust a total secret, hence removing the ability of the media and the public to pass judgement on their practices. This is of course a lack of transparency that is worse than anything Peters has criticised other parties for.

And if the Spencer Trust has been paying bills on behalf of NZ First, then that could well be seen by electoral authorities as an effective donation which should be disclosed.

How many more secret trusts are out there?

UPDATE: Extracts from the transcript are after the break:

(more…)

Phil Kitchin in the Dominion Post reveals another secret donation to NZ First – $25,000 from SIr Robert Jones in 2005 and $50,000 in 1993.

Neither of these donations has ever been declared.

The 2005 one went into The Spencer Trust, which is administed by Wayne Peters – Winston’s brother.

Now there are three issues here for NZ First – their brand, their hypocrisy and legal issues.

Brand

NZ First has portrayed itself as the party of the underdog fighting wealthy interests. But in the last few days we have learnt that NZ First and/or its leader has received donations from a foreign resident billionaire, a foreign resident family worth around $180 million and a local millionaire worth $400 million or so.

NZ First has purported to be a party funded by lots of $20 and $50 donations but seems to have more mega rich donors than anyone thought. What is the average NZ First supporter or MP thinking?

Hypocrisy

As detailed in this Dom Post story, Peters has railed against secret donations, against the use of trusts funds to collect donations etc.

It is becoming clear that NZ First has been engaging in the exact behaviour it has so criticised over the years. In fact its behaviour has been less transparent it seems than those it criticised.

Legal

Now it is (or was) legal for someone to donate to a trust and for the trust to then donate to a party. However the party has to declare the donation from the trust, and NZ First has never ever disclosed a single donation from the Spencer Trust. People go on about the Waitemata Trust – but at least people know that exists and how much it donates to National. Until today The Spencer Trust was unknown to almost everyone (I actually first heard about it and a link to NZ First last year), so this is a level of transparency which is rock bottom.

Now accounts are audited, so how come there are no donations recorded from the Spencer Trust to NZ First? Well according to the Kitchin article, it simply just pays bills on behalf of NZ First.

Sound a familiar method of operation? And all impossible for an auditor to detect.

However I suspect the legal position is that paying a bill on behalf of a party counts as an donation to the party, and should have been declared.

The Electoral Commission needs to decide if it has a role here. The time limit for prosecutions over the 2005 election return has passed, but the 2007 return might now be questioned if this behaviour is not a one off. If the allegations are correct and the Spencer Trust is paying bills on behalf of the party, then that is an issue to be investigated.

Finally in the interest of balance, we quote the denials given to the Dominion Post:

Mr Peters, who is in Singapore, would not comment yesterday. Responding later to written questions about Sir Robert’s donation going to the Spencer Trust, he would say only that the information was “not factual”.

Is he saying Sir Robert is mistaken?

Early this week The Dominion Post asked a spokesman for Mr Peters if a trust run by his brother had sometimes paid NZ First bills.

Through the spokesman, Mr Peters said: “That is a lie.”

And that is a clear cuit denial. So what does Sir Robert say:

When contacted yesterday, Sir Robert said he was making his own inquiries with NZ First officials and would not comment further at this stage.

Sir Robert is a straight shooter. I look forward to hearing his comments once he has made his inquiries.

Winston says that donations by wealthy racing industry families did not affect NZ First’s racing policy.

I actually believe him on this.

I generally have a firm view that money follows policies, not policies follow money. Unions donate money to Labour because they like their policies, Labour doesn’t design policies just to attract donations from unions.

But here is Winston’s problem. He has spent over 15 years alleging that policies do follow money. That MPs are venal and corrupt and will sell favours to donors.

So if people see something wrong with the Velas donating to NZ First, it is because of the climate that Winston and others have created.

Take National’s ACC policy. Now National introduced private competition to ACC in 1998, and had it as policy in 2002 and 2005 and again in 2008. National is a party which for 50 years has generally favoured more private sector involvement.

So I see nothing sinister in National’s ACC policy. But Winston and his mates allege (without foundation) that the policy was purchased by the insurance industry through alleged donations to National.

The mythical $1 million donation would seem an incredible waste of money to “buy” a policy considering National has had the same policy for over a decade.

So Winston is a victim of his own scandal-mongering. He can’t get away with a stance that other parties sell their policies to large secret donors, but he does not.

Winston says the donations are all legal. Yes indeed they appear to be. However it is apparent that arrangements were made to allow one family to donate in excess of the disclosure limit through (legally) routing it through different people and companies. Just as National has legally routed donations through its former Trusts. Perfectly legal, but designed to avoid disclosure of large donors.

So I do believe Winston in relation to the Velas. He has not (from evidence to date) broken any law and I don’t think he exchanged policies for donations.

But the reason people think that the donations may have influenced his policy, is beacuse Winston keeps insisting that is what parties and politicians do – sell their policies to donors. It is a classic case of tainted by your own rhetoric.

Yay at long last TV3 Political Editor Duncan Garner is blogging, and he says what he thinks on it:

To believe Winston requires you to believe the unbelievable.

Like;

When Winston Peters held up the big NO sign in February in response to questions about whether Glenn had donated money, Winston’s lawyer Brian Henry didn’t pick up the phone either before and after – and say arrrrhhhh, Winston, he flicked us 100k 18 months ago.

And remember this so called policy of Henry’s is not required by any outside force. It is in fact just a decision made between him and Peters that allegedly he would not tell Peters who donated. Now the reason you would do this is to protect Peters, but when it becomes clear that more damage is being done by not telling him, it is almost unthinkable he would not have told him earlier.

Peters credibility has been damaged. He’s turning defence into attack. It’s all he’s got left. Helen Clark’s silence is remarkable but not surprising. She needs him if her Government is to make it through to the election.

Remember when Phillip Field’s discretions were only “judgement issues” according to Helen Clark. Lets see what the judge says about those “judgement issues.”

Yes Clark has a fine track record here.

Auditor General Kevin Brady should investigate Peters. He’s nailed Labour before. He’s got the guts to nail Peters. The IRD should look at the tax status of the donation. The Privileges Committee should start its kangaroo court – at least it would provide some theatre.

Agreed.

Peters may have used up his nine lives. He voted to end secret and covert funding – yet took it on the side. Indeed, it was so secret, we’re meant to believe he didn’t even know.

He should resign. The saga is a disgrace. And on his way out he should apologise to the NZ Herald Political Editor Audrey Young who broke the story.

That is a big call, but a correct one. If after the revelation he had admitted the public has (as John Key puts it) been misled by him, then maybe it is survivable. But his outrageous continuing attacks on the NZ Herald for exposing his secret donation are the worse form of bully boy politics.

Imagine if the Exclusive Brethren loving Nats had denied getting 100k then coughed up under pressure.

Would Peters go easy on John Key? Would Helen Clark stay silent, muttering, “it’s a party matter”? You know the answer.

And imagine Phil Goff? I think his head would actually explode as he shouted himself hoarse on it!

Claire Trevett in the NZ Herald does a first class job of skewering Peters with his own hypocrisy:

If Winston Peters had succeeded in getting a bill for tough disclosure laws through Parliament in 1995, he could now have found himself jailed by his own law.

Ouch.

Mr Peters has spent his career railing against secret donations, including presenting a bill to Parliament in 1995 which required disclosure of all gifts and donations above $500 from individuals and companies.

The Disclosure of Political Donations and Gifts Bill covered all kinds of donations to MPs, candidates or parties and any who failed to declare them faced jail for up to 12 months or fines of up to $20,000.

Wait, wait – let’s just make the law retrospective!

The bill was part of a campaign against links between big business and political parties that Mr Peters openly admitted was to “seriously damage the ability of the National Party to raise funds from corporate supporters without that fact becoming public knowledge”. In its first reading, he said “comprehensive and timely disclosure” of gifts and donations was essential to bring “undue influence … out of the shadows”.

So let us make sure we have this right. Peters proposed a law to bring donations out of the shadows, and then when the NZ Herald sucessfully exposes a $100,000 donation to his legal expenses, he calls on them to resign in disgrace?

“It seeks to reassure the public that influence cannot be bought when policy is formed before an election, that the voting intentions of those they elected cannot be subverted by powerful interests and that governments, once in power, cannot be improperly influenced by money pledged towards their re-election.”

Hmmn, improper influence. You mean such as having someone lobby to be given a diplomatic appointment who has publicly donated the PM’s party $500,000, secretly loaned them $100,000 interest free and secretly paid off $100,000 from the Foreign Minister’s legal expenses?

Or do you mean offering a small party $250,000 to support the Government after the election?

However, it is not the first time money from unknown sources has appeared to pay Mr Peters’ legal funds. In 1997 a mystery donor paid Mr Peters’ $125,000 bill in the Selwyn Cushing defamation case after Mr Peters was fined $75,000 in costs and $50,000 in damages for comments he made about Mr Cushing.

Seeing Brian Henry has revealed who donated the $100,000 in 2006, maybe he could reveal who paid the $125,000 in 1997?

Mr Peters has also criticised parties for appointing donors to Government-selected positions.

He said giving jobs in return for political donations was “the way it goes, unfortunately, in this country”.

He said a separate commission should be established to appoint people to such positions.

And Mr Peters would like to nominate Mr Owen Glenn and Mr Brian Henry to sit on that commission

It has now been over two and a half days since the explosive news that Owen Glenn did donate $100,000 – to Winston Peters’ legal expenses. Regardless of the legal issues over technicalities this is a major political issue regarding transparency – especially as Glenn was lobbying Peters (and Clark via Williams) for a diplomatic appointment.

So how have the major left wing blogs covered the issue?

The Greens’ Frog Blog has not said a word (except for a humourous reference in passing) yet has managed almost a dozen posts on other issues . And what of the Greens MPs? Russel Norman spoke volumes on National’s secret trusts. Has he not been motivated to even say a single word of concern?

Russell Brown devotes oh one paragraph to it today, and expresses no view at all on the rights or wrongs. He merely finds it funny that it involves a stolen e-mail. On that issue Russell might note that Owen Glenn has not in any way claimed the e-mail was stolen or that he is upset it was. He may like to reflect on why that is!

No Right Turn has, as expected, condemned it. While sometimes I get very upset with his posts (and I am sure vice verssa) he does consistently show the difference between a principled left blog and one which doesn’t want to upset mates in Government.

Tim Selwyn at Tumeke puts himself in the same category as No Right Turn, with his post.

The Standard has managed five posts since then, and of course none at all on the issue. When they do blog, it will be to say that it is all nothing to do with Helen.

The self-proclaimed funny and cool 08wire (run by a recent former staffer for Clark) hasn’t managed to find anything funny to say on the issue.

It would be too much to expect Labour candidates Grant and Jordan to have commented, but how about Tony Milne?

The Progressive’s unofficial Prog Blog has said nothing on the issue.

Some of the smaller blogs have commented I am sure – I’ve only had time to check the larger ones out.

Stephen Franks blogs on the battle to save Crossways in Mt Victoria. I will be blogging on this myself during the week. It will be a tragedy if Mt Victoria loses what has been a focal point for the community. The City Council is justifying its lack of support by saying residents have lots of cafes nearby unlike suburbs further away from the city centre. A very very weak argument.

Keeping Stock blogs on an alarming suggestion by Auckland lawyer Catriona McLennan on Nine to Noon. She suggests that in rape trials, the burden of proof should be on the accused to prove there was consent. And this is not just a throw-away remark – she actually argues in favour of it against Kathryn Ryan for some time.

Whale Oil has been threatened with defamation by a lawyer acting for Pearl Going, who objects to comments he had made on her. The material has been removed from his blog after the blog hosting company was also threatened, but copies have sprung up on a dedicated blog hosted overseas.

I don’t intend to comment of the substance of the allegedly defamatory material, but would note that pressuring hosting companies to remove material, even after the blog author has asserted it is not defamatory and is willing to defend it in court, is not a particularly sensible tactic as it is so easy for the material to appear elsewhere – as has happened. Also of interest is that the lawyer for Pearl Going is Steven Price, who was very critical of the Listener for threatening the Hot Topic blogger with defamation.

This should not be taken as a suggestion that defamation laws do not or should not apply to the Internet. Of course they do. But more the appropriateness of targetting blog hosts if the blog author is willing to stand by their words and accept legal consequences for them.

The Dim Post has more satire, this one on how Winston is handling the Owen Gelnn scandal:

• Monday 2:00 PM: Hires two identical twins as press secretaries, one of whom always tells the truth while the other always lies.

• Wednesday 11:30 AM: Announces to press conference that he will explain everything but in doing so will be forced to reveal the secret surprise ending to Battlestar Galactica. Political media beg him to remain silent.

• Thursday 6:35 PM: Notifies Speaker Margaret Wilson that he is officially changing his alignment to Neutral Evil.

• Friday 10:30 AM: Recieves report back from Department of Statistics confirming that proportion of New Zealanders with IQ below 90 is still greater than 5%. Laughs heartily. Tells rest of country to go fuck themselves.

Heh.

Liberty Scott pings Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn for his comments on Gordon Brown approving a state funeral for Margaret Thatcher when she dies. The offending quote:

“On the plus side, it will at least give her victims a final chance to throw excrement and rotten fruit at her as she goes past“

As I/S goes on about how some on the right are often poisonous, spiteful and bitter, this quote brings to mind stones and glasshouses.

David Cohen looks at a case for Nicky Hager:

A column containing acidic opinions about a powerful political media personality mysteriously fails to show up on the author’s regular spot on her newspaper’s website. Another major news outlet, after allowing criticisms to be made of the same public figure on one of its shows, hurriedly issues a grovelling clarification. Does this sound like a case Nicky Hager ought to be investigating?

It would indeed if it weren’t the slightly inconvenient fact that the media power broker in question also happens to be the same gent.

“It has everything to do with it. I say to Dr Mapp that is why we want to know who is backing National, because we are not going to have the kind of covert money that is destroying democracy in some countries in the Pacific today.”

- Rt Hon Winston Peters during the third reading of the Electoral Finance Bill, railing against “covert money”

Some related facts about Owen Glenn:

1. He was not born in New Zealand.
2. He has not lived in New Zealand for over 40 years.
3. He is not eligible to vote in New Zealand.
4. He is estimated to have a fortune of around NZ$1.1 billion.
5. He donated $500,000 to Labour for the 2005 election.
6. This is the largest known donor ever in New Zealand politics.
7. The Labour Party amended the Electoral Finance Bill to specifically allow him to keep donating money, while restricting other foreign donations to $1,000 (by defining a foreign donation as being okay from overseas residents who are NZ citizens even though they are ineligible to enrol or vote)
8. He gave Labour a further $100,000 interest free loan in 2007.
9. Labour gave him a gong – Officer of the NZ Order of Merit in 2007.
10. Labour President Mike Williams lied when he said they had not received a donation from Owen Glenn since the 2005 election, as the interest free loan counts as a donation.
11. Mike Williams has said he will be asking Owen Glenn for money for the 2008 election.
12. Owen Glenn says Bill Lloyd of Sovereign Yachts had been “badly dealt by” over getting cheap Government land for his business “…but it’s all been resolved through the good services of Mike Williams, the President of the Labour Party, who’s done a mammoth job.”
13. Owen Glenn wants to be Honorary Consul for NZ to Monaco.
14. Before Owen wanted this post, the Government had repeatedly ruled out having a Consul in Monaco.
15. Mike Williams lobbied Helen Clark on behalf of Owen Glenn to get him made Consul.
16. Owen Glenn lobbed Winston Peters to be made Consul and said he will be confirmed as Consul “when Peters gets off his arse”.
17. Owen Glenn was never given any negative signals about being made Consul even though a previous expression of interest by an individual was comprehensively ruled out by the Government.
18. Owen Glenn says he has donated money to NZ First.
19. The then NZ First President says a five figure donation closer to $100,000 than $10,000 appeared anonymously in their bank account in December 2007.
20. Winston Peters says NZ First has never received any money from Owen Glenn or his associates.
21. NZ First filed a donations return claiming no-one gave then more than $10,000 in 2007.
22. Owen Glenn’s PR firm advised Owen Glenn not to contradict Winston’s denials even though he did make a donation.
23. The Maori Party say someone offered them $250,000 as a campaign donation before the 2005 election if it agreed to support Labour. The offer was made twice.
24. The Maori Party say it was made on behalf of someone who “lived outside New Zealand, and had donated money to the Labour Party” and the intermediary met with him on a yacht or a boat.
25. Owen Glenn’s PR firm says he was right to deny he made the offer.
26. Labour and NZ First forced through the Electoral Finance Act whose purpose is “to strengthen the law governing electoral financing and broadcasting, in order to … prevent the undue influence of wealth on electoral outcomes and … provide greater transparency and accountability on the part of candidates, parties, and other persons engaged in election activities in order to minimise the perception of corruption”

Labour’s hypocrisy over transparency was reinforced this week with another anonymous attack site launched. It is a sad fact of life that the party which claims the Electoral Finance Act was needed to bring transparency to campaigning has a long history of establishing anonymous attack sites against its opponents.

First of all in the 2005 election there was the KeepLeftNZ site. This site launched attack after attack on Don Brash and other opponents of Labour. They kept their identities a closely guarded secret but after the election a member of the PM’s Office revealed at the NZUSA Christmas Party that the site was organized out of the PM’s Office.

Then in 2007 The Standard burst into life. They would have you believe it is a totally independent collection of activists who just happen to not like National. The reality is somewhat different.

It is understood that the Standard was conceived of by the PM’s Office, specifically by Rob Salmond, who was working there after the 2005 election. Salmond wrote a chapter “The Battle of the Blog” for the Victoria University publication on the 2005 election and is a long time Labour activist. He was known to work in the Beehive after the 2005 election, even though he did not appear on staff lists and he has confirmed he did work for the PM’s Office.

He is credited as having come up with the concept for The Standard, to counter centre right blogs. He also proposed the creation of a special role in the PMs Office for online communications – a role subsequently filled by Chris Elder. The source for this information is Elder himself who has told several people of Salmond’s role in setting up his job and creating or proposing The Standard. This does not mean the PM’s Office personally registered the site, but that it wasn’t just the idea of some independent activists.

The Standard says they are all independent bloggers. However the following e-mail has been forwarded onto me:

From: xxxxxxx xxxxxxx
Date: 11 June 2008 12:24:42 PM
To: labourmembersofparliament@parliament.govt.nz
Cc: pm@ministers.govt.nz, mike.williams@labour.org.nz
Subject: The Standard Blog

Dear all

I have a serious issue to raise with you all. It has come to my attention that two Ministerial staffers – Chris Elder and Andrew Kirton, both political employees – are blogging anonymously at the Labour-hosted, anti-John Key blog the Standard, www.thestandard.org.nz.

Given that a large number of these posts (most notably those by Chris Elder or all_your_base, a communications staffer on the ninth floor) occur during office hours, do you all believe it is appropriate that political employees are spending their time blogging anonymously? Is this approved behaviour?

Kind regards

xxxxxxx xxxxxx

After I was forwarded a copy of the e-mail by a parliamentary staffer, I asked the e-mailer the basis of the information, the e-mailer replied “A young Labour person I know who is also a blogger”

It has in fact long been speculated that Elder blogged as All-your-base as this was allegedly a favourite saying of his (referring to the tag line of a famous hacking group). He has denied being involved with The Standard, and it is of course impossible to prove or disprove without computer logs.

But it is likely that two of the bloggers are Beehive communications employees, and a third is the Labour Party Head Office Communications Manager. A fourth and maybe a fifth are employed by the EPMU – Labour’s largest affiliated union. This would be seen very differently by most members of the public than the official line of “a collective who saw a gap in the New Zealand political blogosphere and decided that we should have a go at filling it. We write here in our personal capacities and the opinions that are expressed on the blog are individual.”

If they were public over their identities, then people could judge for themselves how much of a personal capacity they are in.

The issue is not that they blog, but the total lack of transparency over what they do. The Green Party has some of its parliamentary employees (and MPs) blog at Frog Blog. But they are open about this, and accept responsibility for what they publish. The Greens deserve praise for their commitment to transparency, which is at total contrast to Labour.

It is certainly true that there are other bloggers at The Standard who do not work for Labour. But nevertheless how can one argue for transparency in campaigning yet argue that the PM can have a Communications Advisor blogging anonymously on a site proposed by her office as part of a communications strategy?

Some of the material on The Standard, such as a pdf document, reveals in its properties that it was created on a Ministerial Services computer. Other material links it to the EPMU.

The final link is the new No8wire website launched this week. The Standard reported this is the same team which did the KeepLeftNZ site in 2005 – in other words it is probably also run out of the PM’s Office. The site even makes it clear that the material appearing on the site is contributed by multiple persons – it is not an individual effort.

In an ultimate fit of hypocrisy they have registered the site in the .org top level domain as this allows anonymous domain name registrants. They also claim to be exempt from the Electoral Finance Act as it is hosted overseas and managed by a NZers who lives overseas.

Their lack of transparency clearly breaches the spirit of the Electoral Finance Act, and quite possibly also the statute itself. I will be lodging official complaints over the site and asking electoral authorities to fully investigate it.

As leftwing blogger Idiot/Savant notes at No Right Turn:

The problem is that both of the exemptions they cite look decidedly dodgy – it all looks a bit slick and well funded to be “non-commercial”, while their declaration that they are “ready to ensure the election of an LPG Government” blows their appeal to the media exemption out of the water. Many people, I think, will be concerned whether those videos are really being produced outside New Zealand – and National will no doubt seek to counter them by claiming they are really being hatched in the Beehive. By allowing that, they’re undermining their cause, and the credibility of fair controls to prevent the rich from buying elections.

Even having the official editor and hosting overseas may not put them beyond the reach of the law. If material for the site is produced by people in NZ, then they are arguably promoting election advertisements, and risk being in breach of the law.

The overseas NZer is widely believed to be the same Rob Salmond who set up The Standard, previously a staffer or contractor in the Beehive. A quick look at the site shows it to have professionally edited graphics and obviously considerable resource behind it. They have already ripped off an anti David Cameron video from 2006 and used it as an anti John Key video.

This is not a personal blog. It is beyond doubt supported by and resourced by the parliamentary Labour Party and/or their affiliated unions. The fact they have one anonymous ex staffer or contractor on the other side of the world uploading the material for them, doesn’t change that reality. It is a “hollow” attempt to avoid the most basic requirements of transparency, let alone their own Electoral Finance Act.

The Internet is a medium where people should be able to express their opinions, and have a whack at parties they don’t agree with. But political parties should stand behind their own work. Why doesn’t Labour do as the Greens do, and take responsibility for their work?

One suspects it is because they want to be able to attack their opponents without taking responsibility for such attacks. The exact thing they claim to be against.

These anonymous attacks are not an isolated incident, such as a parliamentary staffer submitting a one off idea to a blog. Labour’s entire involvement since 2005 has been lacking in the transparency they claim to champion. It is a hypocrisy that rankles with those who do stand behind their own names.

The purpose of this post is not to challenge the right of The Standard and/or 08wire to run material attacking John Key. I happen to think it is mostly counter-productive anyway as it is so lacking in subtlety. But the purpose is to ask for Labour to stop hiding behind anonymous proxies and to take responsibility for their own work.

Again, this is not an isolated incident. Their entire online history of the last three years has been to hide behind anonymous attack sites.They do it time and time again.

I know something about the challenges of online advocacy from Parliament. I was a parliamentary staffer for eight years. From 1996 to 2004 I posted tens of thousands of times to the Usenet Internet newsgroups on political issues. Every single time I did so under my own name. The first nine months of my blogging was as a parliamentary staffer, and again that was always under my own name. I have no issue with parliamentary staffers blogging – I welcome it – they can offer more to the debate than most people with their access to information. But they should be open about who they are.

As a final note, some will ask for the proof that Labour has been involved with these three sites. Well obviously direct proof is near impossible unless one does a Nicky Hager and gets hold of e-mails or has video recordings of people at work.

However the information about the identities of the people involved in these sites come from multiple people in multiple settings, collected over time. I have no reason to doubt its veracity. It would also be very simple for the facts to be established – for example Helen Clark could state in Parliament that no Ministerial staff members do blog or has blogged at The Standard and that no Beehive (or Labour Research Unit) staffer is producing material for 08wire or The Standard. Her word, if given in Parliament, would be accepted. Somehow I doubt she will.

UPDATE: Rob Salmond has posted a comment admitting he worked last year for the PMs Office and is behind 08wire and that he does not produce all the material himself but receives it from others. He of course refutes some of my assertions – specifically any involvement setting up The Standard, and I have responded to his comments. What is not denied is that material for all three anonymous sites is produced by parliamentary staffers.

Whale Oil also posts on the issue.

Gordon Campbell looks at National policies and has many legitimate questions about them. He may or should regret this line though:

In Ryall’s opinion, money isn’t the main issue anymore in health care – its more about the cultivation of fruitful and personally fulfilling caring, on current rations. “Money talks, but it is not the only, or even the prime, motivator.” Lean thinking, Ryall concludes, is bringing nurses at Middlemore hospital back to the bedside, and lean thinking is allowing them to do what they had trained to do. “They’re happier, enjoying work and doing more.” Truly, as the sign used to say over the gateway to Dachau concentration camp, work will make you free.

That goes beyond tacky.

Frog blogs (?in support) of a James Hansen who is trying to prosecute CEOs of large oil companies for “crimes against humanity and nature”. And their crimes:

Undermining public understanding about global warming

Is that not the most scary thing you have read? This mad bastard wants to lock up or execute people (normal punishment for crimes against humanity) because they disagree with him on global warming. There are fanatics and there are eco-fascists.

Frog doesn’t offer a view as to whether the Greens support jailing and execution of climate change sceptics.

Whale Oil is detecting some photoshopping amongst Labour.

No Minister notes the irony hypocrisy in the following sentence:

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Winston Peters, said it was of “grave concern” that Shameem and the military were using what appeared to be hacked private emails.

Truly no shame.

Paul Walker looks at some research on campaign finance reform, and how mostly it benefits incumbents.

The Herald on Sunday reports on paedophile Graham Capill:

Before being sentenced, Capill emailed friends arguing that sex with one victim was “consensual” and he hoped to be released a third of the way into his sentence.

But supporter and Richmond New Life Church elder Chris Baigent told the Herald on Sunday that was no longer Capill’s view.

It never is as parole hearings loom.

There had been some talk his offending could be categorised as “adultery” but that was more people twisting the situation rather than any view Capill held himself, Baigent said.

I think words fail me.

Capill kept in regular touch with his wife and she and some of his children were regular visitors to the prison.

“She is standing alongside him all the way. She has kept the family going and he will be welcome back into the marriage relationship when he gets out,” he said.

“The younger children miss him terribly. They are really neat kids – you couldn’t wish for a better family of kids.”

Words fail me even more.

Baigent said that two of Capill’s older children had got married while he was in prison, which had been “really tough” for the former Christian leader who wasn’t able to attend the weddings.

And am now in stunned silence.

The Green Party are once again showing their commitment to principles are incredibly expendable when it comes to political gain. They are now trying to engineer an election result which would result in a Government which had more votes cast against it, than for it.

Now to appreciate the hypocrisy of this, one has to look at MMP and the major principle or virtue of MMP. It is a proportional voting system where a party gets representation in Parliament in proportion to party votes cast for it. The Greens have strongly supported MMP, and one of the reasons so many supported it was because of the 1978 and 1981 situation when National formed a Government despite having less votes than Labour.

Now the Greens are trying to engineer a deliberate over-hang situation, which would result in a non proportional result. This is their suggestion that Maori roll voters should give their party vote to Greens and electorate vote to Maori Party in order to create an over-hang.

First we need to look at how over-hang happens. It happens when a party wins more electorate seats than its share of the party vote would entitle it to.  It is hard to eliminate entirely unless you abolish electorate seats. We currently have an over-hang of one seat as the Maori Party won four electorate seats and their party vote only entitled them to three seats.

It is also possible that this election could see ACT, United Future or Progressive with over-hang if their leaders retain their seats but their party vote is around 0.7% or less.

So we already have over-hang, but it is what I call accidental over-hang. The Maori Party, ACT, United Future and Progressive all want to increase their party vote.

But what the Greens are calling for, is for Maori roll voters to vote in such a way to ensure over-hang, to gain parties of the left more seats in Parliament than their party vote entitles them to. Here is how it works. Let us say the Maori Party wins all seven Maori seats. Now if they get 6% party vote, then the Maori Party will have eight MPs – one list MP and seven electorate MPs.

The Greens are saying, those Maori Party voters should give their party vote to the Greens. Now in an extreme example if those 6% all gave the Greens their party vote, then the Greens would gain an extra eight List MPs, while the Maori Party would still have seven MPs – all overhang seats. That means a Parliament of 127.

And this could change who gets to form the Government. Let’s say National gets 51% of the vote and 62 MPs. They should get to be the Government under MMP – this is exactly what MMP is meant to guarantee.

But by this strategy of deliberate vote splitting to ensure over-hang, then Labour, Greens and Maori Party could gain 65 MPs instead of the 58 they would have on the party vote only, and get to form a Government which only a minority of NZers voted for.

So whenever the Greens talk about any sort of principle when it comes to MMP or electoral law, you should remember that they are proposing a plan which is without principle and designed to secure power for the left, even if that goes against what the majority of NZers want.

Now some people could say, hey this is a loophole in MMP, and one should exploit any loophole you can find. The fact is though this loophole is more a design issue (can’t really easily fix it), and one which no party up until now has tried to really exploit. For the last 12 years various people have tried to convince National to try and do what the Greens are talking about. How it would be done is National splits into two parties – one contests the party vote and no electorates, and one contests electorates only. They would be seperate parties but co-operate together like the Libs and Nats in Australia. This would result in National getting 30 seat overhangs. Labour would then probably do the same and you’d basically have a meltdown of the MMP system (or a 190 seat Parliament!).

So the consequences of what the Greens are trying to do are severe. They are not only trying to frustrate the will of the voters, but they endanger MMP. For let me tell you that if they actually succeeded with their plan, and engineered a deliberate over-hang which changed the election result, the backlash would be nasty and massive. MMP would go, as the main rationale of MMP would have been discredited. Now FPP supporters might like that, but for the Greens as supporters of MMP to act in such a way is unprincipled and shameless.

The Greens, like all parties, are entitled to ask voters on teh Maori roll to vote for them with their party vote. But that should be on the basis of wanting Green party policies implemented and/or to get more Green MPs into Parliament. But they are not doing that. Instead they are arguing on the basis of overhang, that people should vote Green:

The question that Maori voters are asking though is that if the Maori party wins 6 electorate seats (it thinks it can win seven) is it worth also giving a party vote to the Maori Party? Last election each seat in Parliament was worth about 20,000 votes. So the answer is yes, a party vote for the Maori Party can deliver another parliamentary seat but only if there are about another 140,000 votes to go with it and help it climb above the seat overhang the Maori Party is expected to have. In other words, Maori voters who are leaning towards the Maori Party would need to give 7 times as many votes to the Maori Party to get one seat in parliament as they would to the Green Party.

They should abandon such arguments and retain a shred of principle. An MMP election should be decided by which parties get the most party votes. If they want to use overhang to gain power, then they should support the SM electoral system which effectively does precisely that.

Labour Minister Trevor Mallard has joined the Labour Party in being found by electoral authorities to have breached the Electoral Finance Act.

Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden has ruled that Trevor’s van is an election advertisement and needs authorisation.

This means it is also arguable that the cost of the van as an advertisement is also an election expense and should be included in his $20,000 spending cap. One can be sure there will be scrutiny of his election return.

Those who forced this law on New Zealand, are the ones who keep breaking it. Now what is the word for that again?

It is good to see the media focusing on the hypocrisy in the Government over Auckland Airport and Wellington’s electricity network. In the former example they moved heaven and earth to stop the private owners selling a minority stake to a Canadian pension fund. And for the latter they say there is no issue at all, despite it being 100% sale of a crucial monopoly.

So the NZ Herald editorial is welcome.

It is hard to find in these decisions any consistent policy that might guide foreign investors. The sensitivity of Auckland Airport had nothing do with its land, abutting Manukau Harbour, and it is hard to believe the Government’s comfort with the Vector sale has anything whatsoever to do with the land under the power lines.

It’s ridicolous. Is Dr Cullen really saying that all the hysteria he whipped up about asset sales (overlooking Winston sold it in 1998) was about the land under the airport, and not the airport itself? Yeah, right.

But for reasons that remain unexplained, Labour does not regard an urban electricity network as “strategic infrastructure”.

If that phrase has any meaning it must apply to power lines. A line network cannot be practically duplicated for the sake of competition. It is the classic natural monopoly. If line networks are not kept in public ownership they require careful regulation, as Telecom has shown, to prevent them gouging consumers or denying access to competing traffic.

Now again, so there is no confusion, I have no problem with the sale of the power lines. They will be subject to price regulation as most monopoly assets are. My problem is the hypocrisy.

Vector, as it happens, is a quasi-public entity, owned by a trust elected by Auckland consumers, whom it rewards at the expense of its consumers elsewhere. Wellington’s network has not been sold from this form of ownership wholly into the hands of a private company. It is a privatisation in anyone’s language. Yet the Government was more concerned about the partial sale of an airport in which two Auckland councils would have retained significant stakes. It will defy investors’ understanding.

This is a good point. This sale is far more of a privatisation than Auckland Airport was which was private fund managers selling to other fund managers. Vector is a public trust selling to a private entity.

The Government has steadfastly declined to publish a list of assets it regards as “strategic” because it has no consistent definition in mind. The public and potential investors are left to conclude that a property becomes “strategic” simply when it suits politicians to regard it so. At least that means that assets as vital as power lines can attract foreign investment when their luck is in. But this country’s process of approval should be better than a lottery.

Even Labour Party President Mike WIlliams has agreed that here should be a list of these so called strategic assets.

What this means is that each time Labour in the campaign tries to whip up populist sentiment on the basis of its actions in “protecting” Auckland Airport, their bubble will get pricked by reminders of the Wellington power lines, and Helen Clark’s lofty pronouncement that “asset sales will be a defining issue” looks as hollow as “carbon neutrality”, “closing the gaps” and “top half of the OECD”.

The Herald reports Helen Clark saying:

“Frankly swamping the shares of ownership in a SOE is exactly privatising it. So I think some hard questions need to be asked.”

The Government has also issued infrastructure bonds, most recently to help fund major roading projects, but Miss Clark said that did not qualify as privatisation.

I mean the Government should seriously get its own George Orwell TV show. First you have the special magical tax cuts which are non inflationary but all other tax cuts are inflationary.

Then you have the PM claim infrastructure bonds in an SOE are “exactly privatising it” but that roading infrastructure bonds are not privatisation.

They really are trying to fool all of the people all of the time.

Imagine if the last National Government had used infrastructure bonds for roading – Helen Clark would have been screaming in the 1990s that National was privatising the roads. Oh wait, she was!

Colin Espiner has a blog post and an article on the breaches of the Electoral Act by Labour.

I was interviewed on ZB late yesterday afternoon about this. I seem to be the only person defending the decision of the Electoral Commission to warn rather than refer to the Police, in regard to Labour’s breach of the Act.

Colin in his blog says:

There’s a certain poetic justice to the news that Labour breached its own Electoral Finance Act with the distribution of a pamphlet boasting the Government’s achievements that did not carry the correct authorisation.

This draconian and extremely complex new law was rammed through Parliament by Labour late last year, and we all suffered through many lectures from Justice Minister Annette King about the “common sense” new regulations and how the Electoral Commission wouldn’t prosecute where offences were “so inconsequential there is no public interest in doing so.”

So who’s the first party to break the new law? National, which railed against it? Nope, Labour. It might be only a minor breach – not putting an authorising agent’s name on the brochure. But hey, a breach is a breach and there’s plenty of egg on Labour faces today. …

Cullen talks of the good advice the commission has handed down to all parties, a timely warning about being careful to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, but the simple fact remains that Labour broke the law and it’s not going to be prosecuted. Again.

Any of this sound familiar? There are a couple of precedents. Such as, ooooh, off the top of my head, the $400,000 pledge card illegal expenditure, which the police decided was illegal but decided not to prosecute because it wasn’t in the public interest.

Then there’s the police decision not to prosecute Trevor Mallard for punching Tau Henare, not to prosecute the Prime Minister over the speeding motorcade, not to prosecute David Benson-Pope for bullying, and not to prosecute the Prime Minister over Paintergate.

Meanwhile, National MP Shane Adern gets prosecuted for driving a tractor up the steps of Parliament and Nick Smith for contempt of court.

The commission decided in its ruling to let Labour off with a warning and to refer any future breaches (most likely by other parties) to the police. That’s certainly very lucky for Labour, and the problem is the commission risks looking like a Government toady for not having a little more backbone.

Certainly National can be frustrated that once again, Labour appears to have got off scot free. “Do as I say, not as I do” seems a fairly apt expression here.

Indeed, it is the hypocrisy rather than the lack of referral to the Police which is the issue for me.

Then in Colin’s article:

The Government has been left red-faced by an Electoral Commission ruling that it breached its own controversial Electoral Finance Act by distributing pamphlets without the correct authorisation on them.

Labour got off with a warning, however, after the commission decided not to refer the matter to the police.

Cullen said the Electoral Finance Act provides a very broad definition of what election advertising was.

The pamphlet contained “simple statements of fact” about what the Government had done.

What I love is Dr Cullen almost complaining that the Act provides a very broad definition of what election advertising is, as if that had nothing to do with him or the Government.

Meanwhile Audrey Young Mike Houlahan works on what may be the bigger issue. Does the taxpayer funded booklet have to be included in the party’s expense return?

Yesterday Dr Cullen indicated that he believed such literature was exempt from the expenses returns set out under the Electoral Finance Act. He told Parliament two different forms of legislation governed whether taxpayer’s money could be spend on election adverts. “The Parliamentary Service Act governs what members of Parliament can spend money on. The Electoral Commission determines what is election advertising.

“Matters that are properly authorised as being for parliamentary purposes do not count as election advertising for the returns of expenses.”

However, Electoral Commission spokesman Peter Northcote said unless a booklet such as We Are Making A Difference was being handed out by a Member of Parliament in their capacity as an MP, it would count towards election expenses.

“Just because something is funded by Parliamentary Services does not automatically mean that exemption applies,” Mr Northcote said.

If Labour’s financial agent does not include the cost of that booklet in their election return, then they should expect to be defending that decision in court.

Newstalk ZB reports:

New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown has attacked immigration policies due to the estimated increase in the Asian population. …
The Asian population here is set to rise to 790,000 by 2026.

Mr Brown says he is particularly concerned that Asians will outnumber Maori.

He says “it is a bit rich when the original inhabitants get shoved further down the pile because successive governments keep throwing open the doors to this country.”

At this point I should point out Mr Brown is an immigrant.

If he is worried about the original inhabitants getting outnumbered and shoved further down the pile, then he could do his bit to help and return to the UK.

Or is he saying it is a bad thing only when the yellow immigrants are outnumbering Maori, and the white immigrants are okay?

As NZ First rails against the evil Canadian pension fund, wanting to buy a minority stake in Auckland International Airport, it is useful to recall that the Airport has been in private ownership for around a decade – it is not Government owned.

And who sold it in July 1998? Well the Treasurer did. And who was the Treasurer? It was the Rt Hon Winston Peters. So let us enjoy some of his statements at the time:

“I’m pleased that high-profile New Zealanders like former All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick are involved in promoting the float, which shows it is a float for the people.

“With the recent criticism of MMP in the past week, it is good to see such a positive event that would probably not have occurred under the old electoral system,” Mr Peters said.

and

Reports that phones were running hot with people seeking copies of the Auckland International Airport Investment Statement were pleasing, Treasurer Winston Peters said today.

“We have heard reports of some Post Offices running out of copies and of telephone operators being besieged by over 14,000 calls.