Kiwiblog

The Herald reports:

Like it: 73 per cent
Hate it: 14 per cent

This is a Nielsen online poll of Herald readers. Not as reliable as a phone poll, but I doubt the results would change a lot if it was.

The key findings:

Those in favour of national standards:

YES – 73.2%
NO – 13.8%
DON’T KNOW – 13%

Do you understand how the new system works?

FULLY – 11.9%
PARTIALLY – 61.8%
NOT AT ALL – 26.2%

The effect of national standards on your child:

GOOD – 53.9%
BAD – 36.5%
NONE – 9.5%

Will standards create school ‘league tables’ for parents to plan their child’s schooling?

YES – 56.3%
NO – 17.1%
DON’T KNOW – 26.6%

Would that be a bad thing?

YES – 38.8%
NO – 47.9%
DON’T KNOW – 13.4%

John Roughan also writes:

This week the New Zealand Educational Institute, the union that protects these people’s jobs, has put a bus on the road to oppose new national standards of reading, writing and maths that would be tested and the results reported in a way everyone could understand.

It is the last bit the NZEI really hates. Schools already test kids constantly for their own purposes but they are not supposed to share the results with parents. They’ll provide your child’s test scores if you know to ask but they’d rather you didn’t.

Roughan correctly ascertains that this is a battle about reporting, not about testing. Should parents get told how well their kids are doing in clear language? Labour and the unions say no.

All of this is anathema to educational theorists and the teachers’ unions that want us to believe no school is better than any other, no teacher weaker than any other, and no child fails in the system they control.

And they do control it. State education is a law unto itself. Industries are normally answerable either to voluntary paying customers or to elected governments depending on how they are financed.

The NZEI seems to think the only role for the Government is to shut up and pay the salaries of their members.

John Roughan writes:

National public transport officials share their Auckland counterparts’ dislike of the Snapper proposal. This I’d read before the Snapper man came to see me but I didn’t know why.

Nor, he claimed, did he know. But as he outlined the mechanics of his fare-paying system I had an “ah ha” moment, to borrow a mediator’s phrase.

He said his was the only bid offering more than a public transport ticket. Snapper’s card could be loaded to a value of $300 and used for small transactions of any kind in any place that had a card-reader.

It could be used on buses, at train station barriers, coffee kiosks, in taxis, at parking buildings … Ah ha.

Public transport planners do not want their ticket transferable to taxis and, heaven forbid, carparks. Their mission in life is to discourage private travel by any means they can and promote their fixed-route services.

This could explain a lot. Rather than go for a flexible multi-use electronic payment system, they want one you can only use on their buses and trains.

I’m a regular snapper user. Its great on Wellington buses, will be usable in taxis shortly I believe, and can also use it as various retailers.

Those suspicions were reinforced this week at the press conference to announce the terms on which the Auckland ticket can proceed. When the Transport Agency’s chief executive, Geoff Dangerfield, was open to the possibility that a transfer card could be used for other transactions, his officials were quick to step in.

“I think it’s really important that we keep to our business,” said one. “Our business is operating public transport and transit applications [by which he meant park-and-rides and cycle lockers].

“We want to think about our business first and the spin-off retail opportunities second. Fares are what it is all about. We’ve taken a particular interest in how a system will perform in the public transport real environment, not necessarily spin-off applications.”

Blah. Public transport is their business, public service is too wide a brief. For them a transfer ticket is a marketing device, giving their network a distinct image in shops, which would be fine if taxes didn’t have to pay for it.

And as taxpayers are paying for it, the wider public service angle should be taken into account.

The Snapper man said something else that accorded with my limited comprehension of computer programming. The more open a card’s applications can be the less expensive the system becomes. The cost lies, he explained, in setting up the exclusions.

It sounds expensive enough to programme a card for the buses, trains and ferries of Auckland; to make it applicable also to the routes, fare stages, discounts and subsidies of all municipalities nationwide sounds impossibly fraught unless the card has some of the convenience of cash.

I haven’t any shares in Infratil but I’m beginning to wish I did.

Same!

John Roughan’s column on the smacking referendum is one I have to respond to:

There is something very creepy about this smacking referendum now arriving in the mail. What exactly do the citizens behind this initiative, men like Bob McCoskrie, mean by “good parental correction”?

Well for me it is being able to legally give your child a light smack on the hand or behind if they misbehave. Something probably 90% of parents have done – s0 how is that creepy?

Their publicity pretends they mean nothing more than the smack that an anxious or annoyed parent might use to stop or prevent dangerous or offensive behaviour. But that can’t be all they want because the law now expressly permits the use of parental force for exactly those purposes.

To prevent disruptive behaviour yes, but not to correct it. And that distinction is silly personally.

To cite one example. If you have told your child not to touch something, then it is legal to give them a smack on the hand if you are quick enough to do it as they try to touch it. That is preventing disruptive behaviour.

But if they have been fast enough to do it, it is illegal to them smack them on the hand a few second later as correction.

Delayed, systematic parental correction is the old-fashioned hiding. It was often called a “good hiding”.

That is what the recent amendment to the Crimes Act has criminalised. That, I suspect, is the “good parental correction” we are being asked to endorse in this referendum.

This is such a red herring. Almost everyone I know who does not like the current law, says they think the Borrows amendment would be a good outcome, rather than go back to the old law. The Borrows amendment would define “reasonable force” massively below a “good hiding”. It would exclude any use of an implement, anything that causes bruising, in fact anything where the effect is beyond trifling and transitory. And it would allow it for correctional purposes, as well as the other stuff such as preventing disruption etc.

Here is what many people do not know. The current law does not define what is reasonable for the purposes of preventing disruption. It does not rule out a whack in the head. If your child is screaming abuse at you, you could punch them to the ground and potentially claim that was reasonable force to prevent or stop the disruption. You could hit them with an implement and argue reasonable force.

You see the Bradford law did not change the definition of reasonable force from the old law – despite all the horror stories told. All it did was say you can no longer use reasonable force for correction, but can for preventing disruptive behaviour etc.

The Borrows amendment would provide far greater safeguard, as it would set the definition of reasonable force as low as possible and apply it to all situations.

Those who initiated the referendum know what the new law says. They know it permits reasonable force for all the preventive situations they are fond of citing.

They pretend it does not because they could not attract majority support for the restoration of the right to flog children. Don’t be deceived by them. Should a smack, as part of good parental correction, be a criminal offence in New Zealand? Absolutely.

I think it is sad when invents motives for those you disagree with, rather than rationally debate the issue.

My challenge to John R would be to look closely at the Borrows amendment and then explain how this would be inferior to the current law.

John Roughan joins Chris Trotter (and most of the media) in blaming the foreshore & seabed legislation on Don Brash. He writes:

A backlash encouraged by Don Brash revived the National Party and unhinged Helen Clark’s government. Labour’s legislative cancellation of the court decision alienated one of its most loyal constituencies, giving birth to an independent Maori Party that bids to be a permanent force in our future.

The Court of Appeal decision was on the 19th of June 2003. Helen Clark said that she would legislate on the 20th of June – the next day as it was an issue for Government, not for Judges.

Don Brash was not Leader of the National Party until November 2003 – five months later.

So to write that a backlash encouraged by Don Brash unhinged Helen Clark’s Government in relation to the seabed and foreshore is simply false. Clark made the decision months before Brash was leader.

John Roughan on Saturday had an excellent post on the benefits of competition:

Twenty years ago a visit to a wine shop was not much better than a prowl around supermarket shelves today. There was a limited range of popular varieties, some priced to clear.

You made a selection with minimal assistance and knew from bitter experience not to try anything unfamiliar, particularly if it was red.

Twenty years ago, when Parliament passed a law allowing wine to be sold in supermarkets, everybody supposed it would spell the death of the wine shop. So much for supposition.

I have a nearby supplier these days who has noted what I like, knows my modest price preference and, more often than not, has a new vintage to recommend. Invariably, it is superb.

This is key – not all competition is price based. It is service based also.

Here’s to him, here’s to all the customers that keep him solvent, here’s to supermarkets that force him to compete on service, here’s to the Sale of Liquor Act, 1989.

Bravo.

I mention this because the liberal liquor laws of the late 20th Century are in imminent danger of reversal. The sale of alcohol from supermarkets, the proliferation of suburban liquor stores and the lowering of the minimum purchasing age to 18 are blamed for under-age and binge drinking, domestic violence, even armed robberies.

And much more no doubt.

I don’t know if higher prices will deter binge drinking and other sins. The researchers assure us it will. Nor do I know whether wine shops will continue to offer an assiduous service if supermarkets can no longer advertise today’s price differentials.

What I do know is that the benefit competition has brought for consumers like me is unlikely to figure in the decision. The benefits of competition seldom attract social research.

Eric Crampton has already analysed some of this research and found that it only looks at costs, not benefits. Any decisions on alcohol should be made on a rational basis.

John Roughan writes:

If your income is down in the recession and you are taking on debt to maintain the family’s living standard, would you borrow a bit more to put into a superannuation fund?

Nor would I. Nor would John Key, Bill English, Phil Goff, Jim Anderton or Peter Dunne, I suspect.

Exactly.

Goff, smelling fear, declared Labour opposed to suspension and called on the Government to make its position clear. Anderton called it “raiding the piggy bank”. Dunne, minister of tax collecting, declared it “a very bad idea”.

All of them know it would be sensible.

Yes I refuse to believe Phil Goff is that stupid. He knows it is the sensible thing to do, and why Cullen designed the scheme to allow a contributions suspension. But he is getting a bit desperate with his ratings, so punted for stupidity, even though he knows better.

Deficit adds to the debt loaded on future taxpayers, unless inflation erodes its value in the meantime. Either way, its a thankless legacy.

To increase public debt by a billion dollars and put that money in a superannuation fund risks presenting our tax-paying children with costs that could exceed the fund’s earnings on that sum.

And to date the Fund has generated less money, than if it had been in risk free Government bonds.

Roughan also has a go at tax cuts, saying it is unfair to cut taxes in a deficit. He forgets (or omits) that you can also cut spending to reduce the deficit, and longer term a low tax eonomy will have better economic growth than a higher tax one.

The problem is not the rate of tax. It is that NZ is not producing enough income to generate that tax. And you won’t generate more income by increasing tax rates. You’ll destroy it.

John Roughan looks at Helen Clark:

Through the latter half of the 20th century it became evident that National was this country’s “natural” government. Labour would be given an occasional turn but National was the default setting.

This was the state of politics Helen Clark set out to change when she came to power at the Century’s end.

And she did. There is absolutely no way the National is the natural party of Government. Of course MMP is a factor in this also.

For six years she would take no political risks. She followed the political studies textbook, doing no more or less than she had promised at the election, suspending ministers at the first whiff of embarrassment, returning media calls, making sure her decisions were understood.

Those decisions, if not exactly courageous, were usually in accord with common sense and her answers to interviewers were invariably concise, informative and fairly convincing.

I note that Roughan talks about her first six years as different to her last three. I have often said the third term Helen was very different to the first two terms.

But she fell short of greatness for me. She lacked a largeness of spirit that truly great leadership requires. At one level that deficiency could be seen in her response to the suggestion that Sir Roger Douglas could be “our greatest living New Zealander”.

He is not that either, for different reasons, but now that she has rescued Labour from his legacy her comment could have been more generous – as generous as John Key was to her nomination.

Indeed, and when was the last time you heard John Key denigrate an opponent?

Waitangi asks a lot of political leaders. They will not be feted there until they have had the courage to front up to whatever might happen. Helen Clark would not, could not.

She claimed she would not risk the dignity of her office but that was not the real reason.

Well there were so many reasons. Such as not being a morning person as a reason not to attend the dawn service.

John Roughan in the Herald:

A week ago, when the votes were in and National didn’t need the Maori Party, a deal didn’t seem to me to be worth doing. How wrong I was.

If this deal can be done it will be the better because neither side needs to do it.

Exactly. It is more durable and genuine when it is unforced.

The Maori’s choice this week was National or nothing, which are both serious options. If National is offering next to nothing Maori might do better to wait. What’s another three years after 168? I bet that was said at all the hui held these past few days.

And I’ll bet something else: if National’s offer is accepted , the reasons that persuaded the hui will have little to do with the positions and portfolios agreed with John Key. The decisive reason will be the Maori leaders’ reading of National’s new attitude.

And more specifically John Key’s attitude. He has spent a long time building up a constructive relationship with the Maori Party, supported by his MPs.

It will have to be a radically new attitude for the National Party.

Roughan may be surprised by how keen rank and file activists are for a deal also.

My guess is they will have made it very clear they are not content with a relationship in which they are given a couple of self-contained responsibilities in Maori Affairs and Social Welfare and left alone with them.

They are more likely to want an assurance of being treated as an equal partner in all major decisions the Government will make.

That does not mean a right of veto but it does mean they are brought into the discussion, their viewpoints are taken seriously, disagreements respected, and each side makes genuine and strenuous efforts to reach decisions that satisfy both.

I guess the combined Maori Caucus of 11 MPs could play a role also.

No agreed formula of words is sufficient to make that sort of arrangement secure. Its success will depend completely on the heart of the more powerful partner. Key and his Cabinet will have to genuinely want this partnership and even be excited by it.

They should be excited. They have on their table a historical opportunity such as no incoming government has been given. They could be the authors of a constitutional precedent that will do more for the social wellbeing and national identity of New Zealand than they can yet imagine.

Okay, now John’s getting a bit too excited.

But indeed it is a future with some promise.

NZ Herald Assistant Editor John Roughan interviews the next MP for Tauranga – SImon Bridges. Well worth a read.

And the Dom Post reports on Bob Clarkson’s two second valedictory speech.

A column from John Roughan I can only agree with:

One of the blessings of a change of government is that it changes the prevailing ethic. Should National win this year we might not see another headline like this week’s: “Rugby cards promo breaks anti-fat rules”. …

Freedom in fact was the default principle after 1984; if it was to be compromised the reason had to be watertight.

No regulator would have dared argue, as the Health Ministry has, that a child might buy 50 packets of chips and consume more than a kilogram of fat to get a complete collection of All Black cards.

Even five years ago somebody would have pointed out that children don’t collect things alone. They trade. Those who don’t want a collectable item give it to one who does, usually for something in return. …

The darkest hour in a phase of unbalanced ethics comes just before the dawn. Right now the promoters of health above all else seem blithely unaware that a change of government will probably soon restore some weight for individual rights and personal responsibility.

When John Key declared the other day that National would tackle obesity mainly with sport and recreation programmes to get children more active, he was quickly rubbished on National Radio by a woman who wants to ban unhealthy advertisements.

What’s the point, she said, of her putting out healthy eating messages when children saw contradictory enticements on television.

Food nazis is not a term I want to use but there is something very chilling in the attitude that the expression of conflicting interests is not permissible.

Helen Clark, who tackled tobacco advertising when Health Minister in the late 1980s, has resisted most of the excesses suggested during her premiership but at times it has seemed a close call.

Deliberately or not, she brought a wowser culture to power which prefers to address problems like obesity and binge drinking by restrictions on liberties that her outlook doesn’t value as high as health and safety.

A change of government will not put an end to public health campaigns and nor should it. We are better off for being aware of the fat in fast food, for ridicule of uncivilised drinking and the expulsion of smokers from confined places.

But it is time to for some balance. Credit us with the intelligence to make choices, especially children, before we create a community of fools.

It is about balance, and most of all not punishing all New Zealanders for the weaknesses of a few.

Very good analysis from John Roughan:

Winston Peters says every Chinese leader understands his position. I believe him. Winston personifies everything they fear in elective democracy.

China’s leaders see free elections as an invitation to egocentric individuals to play politics for personal gratification rather than social improvement. They genuinely think that where multi-party competition is permitted it will only produce politicians like Winston.

Bingo. Dead on the money.

It must be hard for people with no experience of free elections to believe that in educated democracies such as ours the vast majority of voters in fact are not seduced by politicians like Winston. It is hard enough to convince some in this that all politicians are not like him.

This is important. The vast majority of MPs, from all parties, are sincerely dedicated to improving NZ, and believe their policies will do so.

A tiresome popular misconception, assiduously cultivated by himself over the years, holds that all politicians except him are unprincipled and self-serving. The truth is exactly the reverse. Winston is unique but not for the reasons his admirers think. Just about everybody else in our Parliament is there with a sense of the social good.

Again, Peters is near unique in his populism without conviction or belief in anything but that he should be in power.

That is what we all thought. But the reason he gave this week was quite different. The agreement was too soft, he said, the tariff reductions too slow. He was hoping for better.

Bullshit. Phil Goff’s word is the only apt description for Winston’s politics. Our tariff phase-downs might be faster than China’s in this deal but those China has agreed to are rapid by comparison with New Zealand’s voluntary reductions over the past 20 years, which Winston of course opposed. He has opposed every important economic step the country has taken during his time in Parliament. If he operates by a principle beyond personal survival it is simple conservatism: do nothing drastic, nothing much is wrong, leave us alone.

Peters reasons for not voting for the FTA are bizarre. The Greens have a sincere opposition to the FTA- to be blunt they don’t like trade as it is bad for the environment.

But Peters says the tariffs in China are not coming down fast enough. So his solution is to do nothing, as if that will be better for our exporters!! He complains that we reduced tariffs unilaterally in the 80s and 90s.  Well yes we did, and now have the lowest unemployment in the developed world because we have a modern competitive economy. But can no one see through the faulty logic of complaining we have already lowered our tariffs, yet refusing to vote for something which will lower barriers for our exporters?

Yet both major parties now plainly hope he will return. Since they have to deal with minor parties to govern under MMP, they both would sooner deal with personal egos than principled parties. It is easier to satisfy a Peters or a Dunne than Act or Maori or the Greens.

Oh I would not say they “hope” he will return. Personally I would take a principled party you can trust over a politician you can never trust, any day of the week. But parties don’t get much of a say in who they get to deal with – the voters do, and then you see how a Government can be formed.

Each side at different times has been able to finesse Winston with a sinecure. National made him Treasurer, a position that didn’t exist before or since. In that role he was an impeccable presenter of the monetarist principles he had damned up and down the country for the previous 10 years.

And he sold Auckland Aiport!!!

Now he is Foreign Minister for everything but trade, which seems rather like being admiral of everything except the ships.

Superb analogy.

But to give him his due, his flexible ego has made him a force for stability in our new system. He was genuinely upset when Jenny Shipley could not maintain a coalition with him, and timed his decision on Labour’s China deal this week to ensure he did not undermine it.

Here I disagree. People have short memories. Peters killed the Coalition by staging a walkout from Cabinet, six hours *after* the dispute over Wellington Airport had been solved. And running newspaper ads attacking the agreement the day after the PM has signed it looks like undermining it to me.

Nevertheless, our politics would be better without him. He has been a misleading voice in national debates, a negative influence on public confidence in the country and those who genuinely serve it, a mischievous, evasive, obnoxious muck-raker with the charm of an attention-seeking child.

Poetry, sheer poetry.

He has fooled his admirers for too long. May this be the year that voters wash him out of our public life.

Hear hear.

John Roughan in the Weekend Herald looked more closely at Tibet. He notes:

It has been strategically important to China for centuries. The economy is dirt poor, the people tribal and deeply loyal to a Buddhist theocracy which was actually installed from Beijing by the Mongol empire 800 years ago.

Thereafter the Dalai Lamas held absolute power except for periods when Tibet was ruled by monk regents or by agents sent by the Chinese government.

Early last century, after the fall of China’s last imperial dynasty, Tibet enjoyed de facto independence for 37 years. In 1950, with the advent of communism, it was incorporated in the Chinese state.

So far, so good. But then Roughan makes what I think is an unfortunate comparison:

It is curious that we unquestioningly support secession movements everywhere but at home. Independence seekers have only to raise their flag in Kosovo, Kurdistan, Chechnya, Darfur, Taiwan or Timor, and our sympathies are with them. Part of this reflects our dislike of the state they would escape.

We are not quite as sympathetic to rebels in Kashmir, Quebec or Catalonia. But even there we find it hard to understand the determination of nations to keep a disaffected region.

Catalonia is a province of Spain.  Spain is a democracy, and doesn’t shoot protesters. And Catalonia has significant autonomy from Spain. Plus the Catalonian independence party got only 14% of the vote in the last elections. And polls show only 32% of Catalonians favour independence
Likewise Quebec is a province of a democratic Canada. Canada doesn’t oppress Quebec, which has very significant autonomy. And the Quebec independence parties have not won a vote on secession. If they do, then they will

Kashmir is basically a territorial dispute with Pakistan, than a real secessionist movement.  It can’t be solved by secession – it needs more than one country to agree. Interestingly the only poll done in Kashmir shows 61% wanting to stay Indian citizens.

Now when was the last time there was a vote or even a poll in Tibet? Tibet is ruled by a repressive regime, that gives no opportunity at all for self determination. That is why so many support them – Roughan to be fair does refer the dislike of the state they seek to escape as a factor.

Roughan then asks how we would feel about a Tuhoe nation in the Ureweras:

We might never have been to the Ureweras, have no plans ever to go and not much idea of what the nation might lose, but we would fight for its integrity. Why then is it so hard to credit China’s attitude to Tibet, Sudan’s to Darfur or, closer to home, Indonesia’s to East Timor?

Again, China, Sudan and Indonesia (to a lesser degree) are repressive undemocratic regimes that enslave or kill in their conquered territories.

As for Tuhoe, I’ve never seen any evidence that a majority or even a significant minority of Tuhoe want independence. Tame Iti is not all of Tuhoe.

I’d also point out that sensitivities over borders are somewhat different in small islands, compared to large continents. In Europe and Asia most countries already have multiple neighbours. In NZ we have none – we have no land borders to worry about. So a new country would be a massive change for us.

But what if the Chatham Islands wanted independence? Would any of us give a damn? I doubt it.

NZ Herald Assistant Editor John Roughan discusses the US elections:

This is more than a fascinating election, it’s a joy to observe because all the serious candidates left in the race seem admirable in their own way. That may change now that Hillary has survived and will play rough to win. But the politics of mutual respect has been a rare treat.

I wonder if we could do it this year. We have two very respectable candidates for Prime Minister.

This is the one part when I think Roughan is in fantasyland. There is not even a small sliver of probability that Labour and Clark will not try and demonise Key.  I mean when Clark was asked on TV if she could name one positive thing about John Key, she couldn’t even manage that.

I watched John McCain on television when he clinched the nomination in Texas this week and it struck me that he offers something Clinton and Obama do not.

They promise “change”, by which they mean more than a change of party in power but possibly not much more than a change of the race or gender of the President.

Ignore their faces, listen to their rhetoric, and you hear fairly standard policy speak from Clinton and great oratory – but only oratory – from Obama.

Listen to McCain and you might wonder whether he is a politician at all. Open your eyes and the impression is confirmed. He fails all the superficial tests of US politics. He looks old, sounds soft, dresses badly, grins like a chump. And his speeches are modest, reasonable, almost self-effacing but firm and clear in commitments that are not necessarily popular.

Indeed McCain avoids the populist route.

In Michigan where the depressed car industry has left high unemployment, McCain alone had the courage to tell audiences, “the old jobs are not coming back”.

He believes in free trade which is reason alone to pray for his victory, especially when Clinton and Obama are playing up fears and suspicion of foreign competition and corporate behaviour.

They don’t mean it; trade fear is standard feed for the Democrat Party base who vote in primaries. Obama and Clinton have shown themselves to be conventional politicians in that sense, while McCain has stood up to a pounding from his party’s conservative core.

I think the pundits who claim McCain have no chance at all in the general election will be surprised.  I am not predicting a winner, but I think it will be a very competitive race.