Kiwiblog

In the debate on the Alcohol Reform Bill, Lianne Dalziel has just said that it is outrageous that you can buy a bottle of wine for less than $2/standard drinks.

So this is a sure sign that Labour, if Government, will legislate to ensure wine costs at least $16 a bottle.

The Herald reports:

Christchurch East MP Lianne Dalziel will not stand on her party’s list this election, saying if the people from Christchurch do not want her to return as their electorate MP she would prefer to leave Parliament altogether.

Ms Dalziel is one of only two MPs who have spurned the safety of the party’s list for the election this November.

Labour’s moderating committee will meet to complete the list rankings tomorrow and most sitting MPs usually secure high enough places to stay in Parliament.

Only Ms Dalziel and Ross Robertson, who has the safe seat of Manukau East and has consistently refused to go on the list, are not going on it this year.

This is a very curious decision. MPs are generally encouraged to be on the list. Generally there are two reasons an MP will refuse to go on the list:

1. They are worried they may get a ranking which will embarrass them
2. They are worried that they may lose their seat, and want to send out a signal that if you don’t vote for them in the electorate, then they won’t be in Parliament at all

Ross Robertson clearly fits into category one. He knows he will be ranked lowly by the party, so why bother – he doesn’t need a list safety net anyway.

Dalziel was ranked No 15 in 2008, on Labour’s list. She is one of the few Labour Chairs of a Select Committee, and is generally fairly well regarded. I can’t imagine she is worried about a low list ranking.

So it is No 2. But her majority in 2008 was 5,765. Why would she feel the need to go off the list, unless she felt there was some risk of losing. So why does she think she may lose to Aaron Gilmore?

At 1 am yesterday, Lianne Dalziel blogged a pretty direct attack on her opponent Aaron Gilmore:

This was why I thought I would look at Aaron’s cv and play with the internet – just to see if the story I had been told was worth investigating further:

• Senior Associate, Australasian Financial Services Association – No such organisation that I could find
• Member, Chartered Financial Analyst Institute   – Website does not show him as a current member
• Member, Associate Chartered Accounting College   - No such organisation that I could find

These anomolies need to be addressed.  The following two are not really examples of inaccuracies in his cv but they gild the lily so to speak.  He says on his cv under qualifications: Postgraduate Diploma (Accounting), Massey University (75% complete) – I don’t know about you, but I don’t think you can include something under the definition of a qualification if it is not completed – but I suppose it proves he is an optimist – “75% done” sounds better than “25% shy of the qualification”.   And under Awards he has included Finalist, 2007 South Island NZIM Young Executive of the Year – there were 7 finalists that year – only one woman, and she was the one who won the award.  But good on him for getting that far.

A commenter responded on the issue of a 75% done degree being on a CV:

Hi Lianne

I saw that Darien Fenton was seeking nomination for the Te Atatu seat and since I don’t know much about her looked at her CV on the parliamentary website.

I noticed that she had a BA from Victoria (incomplete). I immediately thought of you and hopes that the information helps for this latest crusade of yours to bring greater honesty to MP CVs.

Heh.

The Herald has picked up on the story and reports:

National list MP Aaron Gilmore has claimed a high-level finance industry qualification he does not have in a CV published on Parliament’s website.

The Chartered Financial Analyst Institute yesterday told the Herald Mr Gilmore was not a member, although he listed membership as part of his list of educational and professional qualifications on his parliamentary web page. …

A spokeswoman for the international Chartered Financial Analyst Institute said yesterday Mr Gilmore was neither a member of the institute nor of the CFA Society in New Zealand. He was a CFA programme candidate, meaning he is registered as studying towards the CFA qualification which would give him membership.

So he is studying towards a qualification which would give him membership. Now if the Herald is correct, this is an exaggeration, which is not a good look for an MPs – and could even be an offence. Yes many people exaggerate somewhat on their CVs, but if you are in public ife I think it is a wise idea to be very conservative with what you put on your CV.

Because after all, if one day you are exaggerating on your CV, then the next day you may end being a Minister who lies blatantly to the media and gets sacked by the Prime Minister for it.

For those interested, the CV is here.

Labour have announced:

Labour Party organisations in these electorates will hold their confirmation meetings shortly:

• Bay of Plenty Carol Devoy-Heena

Lost in 2008 by 17,604 votes. Ranked 76th (2nd bottom). I think Tony Ryall can relax.

• Botany Koro Tawa

Ranked No 65. Lost by 10,872 in 2008. Not a lot of new blood coming through is there!

• Christchurch East Lianne Dalziel

An MP since 1990.

• Coromandel Hugh Kininmonth

Lost by 14,560 in 2008. Ranked 75th (third bottom)

• East Coast Moana Mackey

Lost by 6,413 to Anne Tolley. List MP since 2003.

• East Coast Bays Vivienne Goldsmith

Lost by 13,794 to Prince of Darkness. Ranked No 67 in 2008.

• Hamilton East Sehai Orgad

2007 President of compulsory Waikato Student’s Union. Stood for East ward of Hamilton City Council in 2007 and came 10th.

• Hauraki-Waikato Nanaia Mahuta

MP since 1996

• Helensville Jeremy Greenbrook-Held

Very appropriate Jeremy stands against John Key as he writes so many letters to the editor complaining about the Government.  2005 President of the compulsory VUWSA. Is standing for Henderson-Massey Local Board in 2010 elections.

A little known trivia fact is that a few years ago Jeremy and I co-authored a petition to Subway asking them to reverse their sacking of an employee for sharing a free $2 staff coke with a friend.

• Manukau East Ross Robertson

MP since 1987.

• New Plymouth Andrew Little

Former President of compulsory VUWSA, and NZUSA. Labour Party President.

• Rotorua Steve Chadwick

Lost her seat in 2008 by 5,065 votes. MP since 1999.

• Selwyn David Coates

Lost in 2008 by 11,075 votes.Ranked No 74 (fourth bottom) on list.

• Taranaki-King Country Rick Barker

Now this is weird. Barker presumably can’t get nominated again in Tukituki, so desperate to carry on has headed to the west coast. Has been an MP since 1993.

• Waimakariri Clayton Cosgrove

MP since 1999. Holding on with a 390 vote majority.

• Wellington Central Grant Robertson

Former President of compulsory OUSA and then NZUSA.

• Wigram Megan Woods

2007 Mayoral candidate against Bob Parker.

If the list above, is Labour rejuvenating, then someone has a sick sense of humour. Their only new candidates are from compulsory student associations.

Of their 2008 candidates, the ones standing again were all ranked in the bottom dozen, and lost by huge majorities.  Where are the Kate Suttons, Michael Woods, Conor Roberts, and Louisa Walls  who all actually have some talent?

The Herald reports:

Labour MP David Shearer, who ran against Boscawen in Mt Albert, said he had a reputation for “relentless, single-minded determination”.

“He’s a genuinely straight up guy, a hard worker, and he’s bloody relentless and stays on message.

“He has a slight eccentric side to him, not in a bad way.”

Labour’s Lianne Dalziel, who sits with him on the commerce select committee, said he was a good fit for his new roles as Consumer Affairs Minister and Associate Commerce Minister.

“He will put his heart and soul into it, and doesn’t kowtow to the party line on a lot of issues. He knows we need regulation in financial circles to protect people, so he is not [an Act] purist.

“He’s been a tireless advocate for consumers who has really championed causes around victims of finance company failures.”

Good on David and Lianne for being willing to praise an opponent.

Whale Oil has blogged a summary of a 24 page story in Investigate, with a large number of allegations by a Jevan Goulter against various Labour MPs and others.

These are not anonymous allegations – Goulter is making them himself under his name. However that does not mean they are overly reliable, and are the gospel. In fact Ian Wishart himself concludes the article by saying:

As for the abuse of trust, did Labour abuse its trust in looking after a troubled 14 year old badly, or did Jevan Goulter abuse the trust of a political party who’d taken him under their wing?

At several points through the article, Wishart reveals that Goulter’s story is incorrect or exaggerated, and my personal take is that there is a lot of bragging there. It does not mean everything he has said is false, but I would caution people not to assume everything he has said is true.

Also in one section he says:

As for Phil Goff I probably had more to do with his daughter, who worked for a Government agency when Labour was in. Her name is Samantha. She was just stunning, she was beautiful when I met her, she was really hot. And I was like, ‘Piss off, you’re not his daughter?’ And she was, so we used to go out and have dinner and lunch quite a bit. Phil was a, I think he was a bit of a nobody then.

Now Phil Goff does have a daughter whom, umm could be seen to fit that description. However her name is not Samantha. If Jevan really was going out for meals with someone “quite a bit”, you think he would correctly remember their name. So again, does not help the credibility.

He makes allegations of sexual harassment against Tim Barnett. And some time later his partner (Mika) asked Barnett to pay $25,000 as compensation for Javen’s mental health. To my mind that is close to blackmail

Barnett makes the reasonable point that as a prominent gay MP pushing the boundaries of social legislation he was careful, like Caesar’s wife, to be above reproach, and not to be alone with people in situations that could be misconstrued.

There are no witnesses to the allegations so it is a case of he said vs she said. As someone who worked in Parliament for eight years, I got to hear a lot of gossip about a lot of MPs. You get to know which ones screw around and are sleazy. I don’t recall at the time any suggestion of inappropriate behaviour from Tim Barnett, and to the contrary he seemed very committed to his partner, Ramon. Without witnesses, I do not regard the allegations as credible. There are other MPs I would be more sceptical of.

Another allegation I find lacking in credibility is this:

INVESTIGATE: Michael Cullen?

JEVAN: I know he smoked it at the annual – I think it was the Christchurch Labour conference with Annette, but I don’t think Annette had it. I couldn’t be honest and say I saw her smoke it.

INVESTIGATE: But you did see him?

JEVAN: He had it in his hand, yes. I just remember him having it, it was passed to him by one of the young Labours.

This is in reference to cannabis use. It is quite possible Dr Cullen, like many NZers, has used cannabis at some stage. However to think the Deputy Prime Minister would openly smoke cannabis at a labour party conference – and in front of dozens of Young Labour activists is frankly incredible. I just don’t think it happened, and if that did not happen, I doubt some of the other allegations about cannabis use.

Not everything can be dismissed though. It seems very clear that some Labour Party MPs did lie about whether or not they knew Javen. The most blatant fib came from Lianne Dalziel, who confessed it online:

And yet…within five minutes of making the call to Dalziel’s office, Investigate received a phone call from Jevan, “You’ve just rung Lianne? She’s just sending me a Facebook chat apologising for denying that she knew me”.

This is what Dalziel said to Goulter:
“I owe you an apology. Ian Wishart has just contacted me and I’m afraid I said I didn’t remember you. I feel so guilty. All I’ve said, I told him you were a Facebook friend, so I knew ‘about’ you.

I hope this doesn’t affect what he is writing about you.”

Considering Lianne lost her ministerial job for not telling the truth, this doesn’t help her credibility.

The person who comes out of this looking very wise and sensible is Jacinda Ardern:

Young Labour were always very angry towards me, they didn’t like how I got to do what I wanted. Jacinda Ardern, who’s now an MP, she was my biggest hater….

But then I’m getting drunk and Jacinda comes over and rips the glass of wine out of my hand, ‘You can’t drink in here, you’re only 15!’

‘Yeah I can drink in here, it’s a private function, you’re not my mum, piss off’, and I got really verbal with her, I really didn’t like her.

So I walked over to Helen and I said,‘Jacinda’s just said I’m not allowed to drink. Am I allowed to drink or not?’ And Helen’s exact words were, ‘Of course you are, this is my house.’ I said, ‘I’m only 15’. And she said, ‘It’s my house’.

So I got my glass of wine and I started boozing up again. Jacinda just went off her nut. Now, Helen was drunk that night, in my view. Helen was drunk and she gets to the point when she’s drunk where people just take her away.

I think a number of Jacinda’s colleagues may rue that they were not as cautious around Jevan as she was. Jacinda’s actions look very prudent to me.

Incidentally I am also unconvinced of Helen Clark being drunk, and having to have people take her away. It’s not exactly an image that fits the former Prime Minister.

So overall I find the allegations lacking in credibility in significant areas. Having said that though, I think there are some lessons for Labour in the perils of letting a 14 year old run riot through Parliament and the party. He should have been in school in Christchurch.

As I have said before, I am a big fan of encouraging young people to get involved in politics. But I never encourage school age people to get significantly involved. Your school years should be a time of fun and learning, plus one often lacks the maturity to cope with “adult politics”.

That is not a universal rule. One friend of mine got involved at age 15 or 16 and went on to become a highly valued parliamentary and ministerial staffer. [UPDATE: Said staffer has e-mailed to say they are not highly valued but in fact under paid and over worked ]

But I also recall the 1993 election night when I allowed a 14 year old Young National to attend the election night HQ function, as a “results chalkie”. There was of course an open and free bar and I failed to supervise properly with the end result being the poor girl vomiting up in the boardroom, and then collapsing unconscious on the floor as she had never drunk alcohol before. I had to decide whether or not to take her to A&E or home, and had to deliver her still unconscious to her parents, who quite rightly were less than impressed. I visited the next day to check she was fine, and the parents were blaming her more than they were holding me responsible, but in the end I was the one responsible as the adult and still feel some remorse about it to this day.  Similarly, I suspect some Labour MPs are regretting allowing Jevan to spend so much time at Parliament, at functions at Premier House and the like.

Stuff reports:

Lax company laws expose New Zealand to money laundering and terrorist financing and may need to be tightened, says Parliament’s commerce select committee chairwoman, Lianne Dalziel.

Her comments follow revelations that Auckland-registered SP Trading Ltd, of 369 Queen St, was used in an attempt to ship arms from North Korea to Iran.

An international enforcement source warned yesterday the reputation of “New Zealand Inc” was now at risk.

SP director Lu Zhang cannot be found but inquiries now reveal that a woman called Lulu Zhang lived at an Auckland address linked to SP. SP is owned, through several layers of companies, by accountant Geoffrey Taylor’s GT Holdings of Vanuatu.

New Zealand’s company registration system was exposed when Thai authorities seized a plane from North Korea last month carrying 35 tonnes of explosives and anti-aircraft missiles bound for Iran. The Georgia-registered plane was hired by SP.

New Zealand agencies, the US Justice Department and US Treasury Department are investigating. The controversy comes at an embarrassing time, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton due to visit on Friday.

Ms Dalziel said the select committee examined company registration and directorships in the wake of recent finance company collapses. The SP case raised questions about how to verify directors’ names and company registration without imposing compliance costs on normal businesses.

“The question is have we got the balance right, does it expose New Zealand to a greater degree of risk than we ought to be?”

She said New Zealand was proud to be at the top of World Bank “ease of doing business” tables, and would not want to be disadvantaged if it adopted extra verification measures to address money-laundering fears.

Singapore and Hong Kong also rate highly. but they both require photo identification for company registration. New Zealand requires only a signature.

I would be very reluctant to add complexity to our company registration system. Our system does rank amongst the best in the world for ease of settign up a business as a company. You can basically do it all online – with the exception of the signatures which you can fax in (but are automatically scanned and added to your electronic file).

People do good things and bad things with companies. Making it more difficult to set up a company will probably not change that. Takin the specific issue of requiring a photo ID, I don’t think that would have changed anything about this set of companies – they were not using false identities as far as I know.

I have to give lots of kudos to Red Alert for their coverage of the Labour Conference. Overall I think it has been a positive event for them. Here’s how I see the good and the bad.

Good

1. Goff’s Speech. Very well crafted, and got the tone right. If Goff makes more speeches like this, he will start to go up in the polls.
2. Mike Rann’s speech. The fact the SA Premier went to uni with Goff makes his endorsement more meaningful. Incidentally please note no-one in National complaining about Rann speaking at a Labour conference – quite unlike Clark’s conduct over Downer speaking to a Nats conference.
3. Anderton’s presence. It was a symbolic healing of past wounds.
4. Having Federated Farmers address the conference. Very smart and bold.

Not Good

1. Goff on the motorcycle. Yes I know he used to have one 20 years ago, but it looks just a bit try hard.
2. The condoms story. For all their words about focused on the issues that matter to most people, this story will leave people wondering if anything is changing.
3. Lianne Dalziel’s mooting of a (get this) Commissioner for Social Inclusion. No I am not making this up. The only comment on Red Alert is a trackback ping from the Dim-Post where Danyl can’t believe his luck at being given such material. No else has managed to find the strength to comment on the idea, because there is probably no way to do so politely. Danyl comments that “Dalziel is like a convicted killer who shows up to her parole board hearing with a hockey mask and chainsaw”.

Overall a good performance from Goff, but he needs to get a tighter rein on some of his colleagues. He should have stopped Dyson from sounding so eager about the free condoms idea, and there should be a general ban on any Labour MP promoting anything that sounds even more useless than the Families Commission.

A future Goff Labour Government’s economic policy is looking to be far more centrist and understanding of business, than the Clark’/Cullen Government was.

The three key economic Ministers are PM, Finance and Economic Development. You can arguably add Commerce onto that also.

Cunliffe is no academic socialist. He has worked in business and has a Harvard MBA. His work with Boston Consulting Group would place him as a high achiever, who understands business. This does not mean business will like everything Cunliffe would do, but I doubt you will find an ideological opposition to tax cuts here.

Jones is also no socialist. Quite the contrary. He has spoken to many business audiences, and generally leaves them impressed with his ideas and analysis. He also has a successful business background.

Goff is harder to pin down. He started off as a staunch socialist and then became a disciple of SIr Roger in the 1980s. He towed the line under Clark. His picks of Cunliffe and Jones for senior economic roles suggests he does deliberately want to move the party more to the centre, with a more balanced economic policy.

Dalziel continues on with Commerce. Despite her background as a union lawyer, she actually picked up a reasonable amount of praise for her work as Commerce Minister and I doubt she would fight a more moderate economic policy.

So it will be very interesting to see what alternative budgets and economic policies Labour comes up with in the next two and a half years.

Look at what fun we have to look forward to if Labour gets back into office. This is what Lianne Dalziel wants:

1. Increased tax on alcohol
2. Ban supermarkets and grocery stores from selling alcohol
3. Increase purchase age to 20 for off licenses
4. Most bars and nightclubs to be forced to close at 1 am
5. Bottle stores to close at 8 pm

Lianne forgot the one about needing your parent’s permission to be out after 9 pm if you are aged under 30.

The ODT reports:

Labour MP Lianne Dalziel has called for supermarkets to “lose the right” to sell alcohol because the practice of making a loss on alcohol products in order to entice people into their stores was behind a “significant number” of alcohol-related issues, she said.

“These people are pouring alcohol into our streets,” she said.

Ms Dalziel said the 1989 decision to allow wine into supermarkets was the “most dangerous, low-reaching, appalling decision that Parliament has ever made”.

Really? Wine is our problem? I’m sorry, but I think beer and spirits play a far far bigger role in alcohol abuse and related violence and crime, than being able to buy a bottle of wine with your groceries.

I buy most of my wine direct from vineyards, but it is nice to sometimes be able to grab a bottle when at the supermarket. And Lianne want to make this illegal?

Labour MPs hosted a roundtable on Tuesday evening to discus copyright issues – not just S92A, but longer term issues over how copyright law intersects with modern technology.

I’ll touch on the politics of it more in my NBR column, but this is smart opposition politics, and a good move for Labour. And I’m not just saying that because I was one of those invited – I’ve spent enough time in the Opposition meeting room to not feel a need to visit it often!

The turnout from Labour was impressive for what is not a top tier issue. Comms/IT spokesperson Clare Curran moderated. Arts/Culture spokesperson Grant Robertson was also there as was Lianne Dalziel who chairs the Commerce Committee that will presumably consider the Government’s law change. Maryan Street also there for a bit (Maryan was on the original Commerce Committee and was a key player in getting some good changes made at the select committee – which sadly were later overturned) as was Trevor Mallard and also David Cunliffe. So four former Ministers and six MPs in total.

There were a couple of dozen stakeholders there, and the discussion was useful. The first half probably saw more heat than light, but as time went on there were quite a few areas of agreement. Lynn Prnetice from The Standard and myself even agreed several times

Pretty much everyone agreed the current law is hopelessly inadequate for modern day copyright infringement issues. The law is only really set up to deal with situations where people make money infringing copyright, and is based around economic remedies. But a major problem today is infringement for personal use.

Everyone in the room said that there should be some cheap and quick (but fair) process where personal infringement offences can be adjudicated and dealt with. No one at all said one should be able to avoid paying for works by downloading. The Internet people all thought fines would be appropriate penalties – maybe tied to the value of the work they have infringed plus a penalty. It was thought maybe it could be like the IRD – if you download 100 songs that cost $1 each you’d be fined the $100 value plus maybe 50% penalty so $150. I did joke that people could just disclose their volume of ilegal downloads to the IRD on their tax returns

The rights holders rep said he would prefer Internet disconnection than fines as a sanction, as they think it is a bigger deterrent. I did get the impression though that any sort of meaningful sanction would be a step forward for them.

Quite a lot of discussion over future business models. The point was made that no one has a right to make money from their “art” – they have the right to have the “opportunity” to make money, but technology does disrupt traditional business models, and no industry is exempt – ie the media are just as disrupted by the Internet as the music industry.

I suggested the long term future is something along the lines of you pay $40 a month to your ISP for Internet access, and if you want it goes to $55 a month for Internet access and all the songs you can download legally, and say $65 a month to also subscribe to legal TV downloads and say $80 a month to also get movie downloads. And if ISPs are keeping a share of the license fee, they gain an incentive to crack down on those doing free copyright infringing downloads. A fair few people agreed this would be a desirable future.

I also advocated that rights holders and ISPs should try and get a voluntary agreement, regardless of any law, that allows right holders to have education notices to alleged infringers sent through ISPs. Even without sanctions involved, it is likely this would see a significant drop in infringing downloads. But right holders can’t expect ISPs to act as their mailmen for free s that is a key issue. Ant Healey from ARPA indicated they had been discussing just that with the TCF, which is good.

Without beating up on Healey (who made many constructive contributions), I was a wee bit disappointed that he did repeatedly go on about how the room was unbalanced with so many”Internet people” there and so few artists. This was the one issue that got people a bit worked up as many of the Internet people somewhat angrily proclaimed they were also artists.

S92A was discussed, but the focus was on wider issues around the law. Many people (including myself) advocated for a full first principles review of the law which would take account of today’s world where digital copying is instant and cost free, the fact the nature of infringing is now for personal use not economic gain, and most importantly to look at having a broad fair use doctrine that covers stuff such as parody, satire, fair quoting etc etc. Copyright is not just about music. Healey made the point that you have international treaty obligations so a first principles review may be pointless as you can’t avoid those. Personally I don’t think the two are incompatible.

Overall it was a good initiative by Labour. The MPs engaged well, and were not defensive about their role in originally supporting s92A. In fact a couple of former Ministers said they had been going back through old Cabinet papers to find out why they supported it at the time. The MPs participated but mainly were there t listen and consider possible ways forward for their positioning based on contributions.

No magic solution engaged, but I think most people found it quite worthwhile, and you know the Government would gain some kudos if it did the same and had an open dialogue with relevant Ministers and stakeholders. I think it would help them in progressing a law change.

From Hansard today:

Hon Phil Goff: Can the Prime Minister—or the country—have any confidence in the transparency and honesty of the Minister of Finance, who, while ramming through legislation before Christmas without subjecting it to the scrutiny of a select committee, deliberately suppressed and withheld from the public and parliamentarians the advice he received from his own ministry that the fundamental parts of that legislation were deeply flawed?

Hon JOHN KEY: Yes. I have complete confidence in the Minister of Finance. If we want to have concerns about Ministers of Finance, maybe we should have concern for a former Minister of Finance, who may well find himself in breach of the Public Finance Act.

Ouch. Does JK know something or was it just a general reminder? Remember you can be prosecuted for breaching the Public Finance Act.

Hon Phil Goff: Can the Prime Minister categorically assure the House that National is not concealing Treasury advice or other departmental advice against any of the legislation now being introduced in the House today under urgency?

Hon JOHN KEY: Yes, I can confirm that the Government is not concealing any briefings or hiding anything from the House. If the member wants to talk about concealing things, maybe he should go and ask people in his own research unit about that, because the last time I saw them they were concealing the booze from the parliamentary Christmas party.

There were gasps to that one. Talking of which what has happened to the thieves?

David Garrett: Can the Minister confirm that the prefab prison—when it is built—will not have underfloor heating, plasma televisions in every cell, and expensive gymnasium facilities, and that criminals in those facilities will be required to work?

Hon SIMON POWER: I can advise that there will be no underfloor heating or plasma televisions in a new prison. Inmates will have appropriate exercise facilities, rather than the type of gymnasium I saw at one of the new prisons built by the previous Government. It seemed flash enough to charge a joining fee and for yearly membership.

Heh annual gym membership fee indeed.

Sandra Goudie: Has the Minister received any other feedback on the cost savings from building prefabricated modular units?

Hon SIMON POWER: Yes. The Leader of the Opposition has criticised the Government’s plan to save taxpayer dollars, stating that “If you are short-sighted enough to build something cheap and nasty you will be rebuilding before very long.”, and “When you are building a public institution, you build it to make it last.” That is a surprising claim, when the four prisons built under Labour, where costs blew out by half a billion dollars, have already racked up $9 million in repair bills.

Amazing what you learn once you are n Government.

Hon Annette King: Can she confirm that rather than sitting on its hands, as she claimed, Labour in Government reduced the unemployment rate from 7.5 percent to 3.8 percent through active labour market policies that saw 140,000 fewer people on the unemployment benefit, and if the previous Government’s policies did nothing, which programmes has she cancelled since she became Minister?

Here Annette tells a big porkie. Labour did not reduce the unemployment rate from 7.5%. It was 6.2% at the end of 1999 and at the end of 2008 it was 4.6% – a 1.6% reduction that averaged 0.18% a year reduction. Incidentially the unemployment rate under National declined by 2.5%, which was an average 0.28% a year reduction. And if you discount the nine months of 1991 before National’s policies such as the ECA kicked in, then the reduction was 4.7%, or an annual 0.57%.

Bottom line is Annette lied, and that the unemployment rate declined far more under National in the 1990s, than Labour during their nine years.

Hon Darren Hughes: Why did the Minister reopen the debate on Transmission Gully when it was the preferred route of the previous Government, and continues to be the preferred route of the Wellington region; and is it not a little hollow to claim, as he tried to yesterday, that the Crown contribution was unfunded, when it has been earmarked in the Crown accounts since 2005 when the Wellington regional transport package was first announced?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: I raised it because the previous Labour Government, which was in office for some 9 years, raised expectations regarding this route that were unfunded at the time that it left office. It suggested that $400 million would be allocated to complete the $1 billion project, but left the remaining $600 million to be funded by local bodies in the region. A regional fuel tax was talked of as a means by which that might happen; I am informed by the ministry that a Wellington regional fuel tax in the order of 13.5c per litre would be needed to fund the $600 million that the Government of the time left unfunded, so it could be described as more of a wish than a plan.

Nice line – more of a wish than a plan.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: Does the Minister agree in principle with the proposal for the Government to provide alternative funding for community law centres to ensure they do not need to drastically cut services at a time when demand for those services will inevitably increase; if not, why not?

Hon SIMON POWER: I can assure the member that I am taking this matter extremely seriously. This Government is committed to access to justice for all, not just for those privileged few who can afford to access such redress as that offered by, for example, the Supreme Court. Coincidentally, the drop in community law centres’ funding is roughly equivalent to the $4.3 million that was committed by the previous Government to the bronze plating of the new Supreme Court.

And that’s a home run!!

What I found most interesting is that Lockie is taking a strong line with Ministers about answering the question, if it is the primary question. He basically said that if the primary question is asking for some fact or figure, the Minister must provide that as they have hours to prepare for it.  I think it is excellent that he is raising the bar in this way.

I repeat what I said earlier: where primary questions are laid down clearly, members of the public expect an answer. When Ministers are answering questions, they can expect that the answers they give may be further questioned by members of the Opposition.

I was worried about how Lockwood may go as Speaker as he was not a lawyer or a standing orders expert. But he seems to have turned a potential weakness into a strength, noting today:

Mr SPEAKER: I do not need any further assistance on this matter. I do not want to take up further time of the House. Had the Prime Minister not wished to answer the question, he could have made it very clear that he believed the question was out of order. The Prime Minister seemed to answer it with some enthusiasm. That entitled the Leader of the Opposition to ask a further supplementary question, and I believe that is the way the House should flow, in good order. We do not need to get too precious and pedantic about these things.

This is like a good rugby referee – making sure the “game” keeps flowing. Of course one has to follow the rules, but a but of latitude is a good thing.

Of course not having Winston there does make it a lot easier!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Colin Espiner blogs on how Ruth Dyson is always seeing the bright side:

Everyone loves an optimist, so Labour’s Ruth Dyson must be amongst the most-loved MPs.

Her press statements on rising unemployment are always full of good cheer, and Dyson somehow seems blithely unaware of the gloomy economic conditions.

Back in May she caused something of a stir by putting out a press release headed “Labour Force Survey Reflects Stability In The Face Of Economic Challenges”. You’d have thought the unemployment rate had defied the economic downturn and things remained sunny. In fact, the survey reported the biggest jump in jobless in nearly 20 years.

Likewise, today’s next quarterly report on the unemployment rate, which finds an additional 7000 people have lost their jobs in the past three months and the unemployment rate now up another 0.2% to 3.9%, is welcomed by Dyson in a release entitled “New Zealand Economy in Good Hands”.

Ruth should have been a Minister when we had the Erebus crash. She may have done a press release highlighting the decline in carbon emissions due to no return trip!

I think Dyson’s skills are being wasted as Minister of Social Development – she could do wonders in the Treasury or the Reserve Bank. Under this minister, Treasury’s report this week warning of recession could have been headed up: “More good news likely on economy” and the bank’s gloomy predictions of 5%-plus unemployment could have been rewritten as “It’s all good here, too”.

Colin does go a bit fuzzy later on with petrol prices though:

Labour will be extremely grateful to whoever bugged the National Party conference for taking bad economic news off the front page. It’s even possible that today’s whitewash from Dyson’s Christchurch colleague Lianne Dalziel on petrol prices will equally disappear with nary a trace, given the media’s perchant for a decent whodunit.

It’s hard to swallow the minister’s recommendation that nothing needs to be done about regulating an industry making $11 billion profits a quarter because it is “fundamentally competitive” and that, essentially, the idea that petrol prices are fast to rise and slow to fall is simply a myth perpetrated by the media.

A more cynical journalist than myself might suggest that the government has several interests in not forcing down the price of petrol; for one thing, the GST take is much higher when prices are high, and for another, the high petrol prices are forcing some vehicles from the road, which is helping with emissions targets.

I think Colin is being a bit hard on Dalziel here. First of all the NZ oil companies do not make $11 billion profit a quarter. The NZ Govt has no power to regulate the global oil companies, which I presume that $11 billion refers to. It is a red herring figure. And a profit figure is meaningless anyway unless one knows what the turnover or capital was. An $11 billion profit on a $1 billion equity company is a universe different to an $11 billion profit on a $100 billion equity company.

Secondly it is a “myth perpetrated by the media” that higher petrol prices leads to much higher GST. Because the money spent on petrol is not spent on other goods and services, reducing GST collected there. Hence overall GST does not rise greatly, if at all, with higher petrol prices.

Colin is right though that the higher petrol prices may help with reducing carbon emissions.

Now this sounds like a fun junket:

Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel is learning first hand how a country with a reputation for heavy drinking is handling its alcohol problems.

I think this problem may require a lot more study!

Lianne Dalziel has appointed former Labour List MP Dianne Yates to the Food Standards Australia New Zealand Board. Yates stood for election last October to the Hamilton City Council and filed to even get elected as a City Councillor despite being an MP at the time.

So why did Lianne appoint Yates:

Dianne is ideally suited to this role on all levels. She’s from the Waikato, arguably the food bowl of New Zealand …

Yes, her qualification is she lives in Hamilton, and Hamilton is in the Waikato and Waikato grows a lot of food, so hence she is qualified to sit on the Food Standards Board of Australia and New Zealand.

You really know they are stretched for justification, when they have to rely on “She’s from the Waikato”.

And what do we pay Ms Yates for her hard work:

According to the Australian Remuneration Tribunal, Ms Yates will be paid $A30,000 ($NZ38,440) a year and reimbursed for first and business class travel as well as accommodation and other expenses.

FSANZ’s last annual report said most board members attended about five meetings last year.

Wow first class travel just to cross the Tasman. And $8,000 per meeting. Not bad.

If there is a change of Government, I would like to be considered for appointment to the FSANZ. My qualifications are I live near Boudeaux Bakery in Thorndon and they sell food. We also have a Subway down the road.

To celebrate May Day, we have another reader video, showing how hard it is to be Labour.

The Hive has been running a series of posts suggesting Cullen will roll Clark.  I offer no opinion on that probability of that scenario, but they have asked me for my thoughts on who would be the best Deputy to a PM Cullen.

It would have to be a woman, to keep the gender balance happy.  Labour’s rules are full of gender balance requirements. If an electorate turns up to their national conference with more men than women, they get hauled before some sort of Spanish inquisition where they have to justify their lack of gender balance, and if they can’t do so thhey lose most of their voting rights.

Annette King has always been the logical choice, but recent events are damaging her star. And the rumour is that she plans to resign in late 2009 or eary 2010 to bring Andrew Little in through a by-election.

Lianne Dalziel has been a very solid performer, but Deputy would be a stretch. Maryan Street is a possibility one day, but has not been in Cabinet long enough. However if one wanted a dark horse to bet on, it would be Street. Dyson is too polarising, even though she is on top of her portfolios.