Kiwiblog

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs that he believes the Government’s amendments to the Crown Minerals Bills to make it an offence to interfere in drilling operations at sea should be vetted against the Bill of Rights Act.

I agree.

I support the amendments, and believe that the right to protest doesn’t extend to actually interference in a company going about its legal business.

At present Standing Orders requires the Attorney-General to report to Parliament if a bill ins introduced that may not be in compliance with the Bill of Rights Act. That opinion is advisory, but can be influential. The AG did a video on this process which I blogged a while back. SO 262(1) states:

Whenever a bill contains any provision which appears to the Attorney-General to be inconsistent with any of the rights and freedoms contained in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, the Attorney-General must indicate to the House what that provision is and how it appears to be inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

But this only occurs upon introduction in SO 262(2):

An indication by the Attorney-General to the House concerning the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 is made by the presentation of a paper in the case of a Government bill, on the introduction of that bill, or in any other case, as soon as practicable after the introduction of the bill.

The solution here is to amend SO 262(2) so that there is an obligation to report on any inconsistent provisions prior to each reading of a bill. Possible wording would be:

An indication by the Attorney-General to the House concerning the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 is made by the presentation of a paper at least 48 hours prior to each reading of a bill.

The first reading captures the bill as introduced. The second reading captures any amendments made by select committee and the third reading captures any changes made by the Committee of the whole House.

Standing Orders get reviewed towards the end of each term of Parliament. Hopefully one or more parties will support such a change.

No Right Turn blogs that businesses don’t want youth rates as McDonalds, Restaurant Brands, The Warehouse, Farmers, Kmart, Bunnings and Countdown have all said they won’t offer them.

This is the thing – the starting out wage is an option only. It is a minimum, not a maximum.

I employ a large number of young people at Curia. I would never dream of offering youth rates to my staff, because I deliberately pay for quality (in fact a recent industry survey showed our rates were the highest of all research companies that took part).

But what is right for some employers is not right for others. Flexibility is a good thing. For some employers being able to hire a 17 year old (or an 18 year old who has been on a benefit for six months) for a bit less, will mean they’ll offer them that job, rather than someone more experienced.  And getting people into their first job is critically important.

I’ve been meaning to blog on the OIA review but have not had time to re-read the Law Commission report and see what parts the Govt is doing, and what has been kicked to touch. Idiot/Savant has though and blogs:

Back in July, the Law Commission published its review of the Official Information Act [PDF]. While it did suggest a number of important and useful changes to the Act – greater guidance from the Ombudsman, a new Information Commissioner to handle education and reporting, extending the Act to cover parliament and the courts – the overall thrust of the review was towards greater secrecy and less transparency. Given these conclusions, I would be quite happy if the review died quietly in a ditch somewhere and was forgotten.

And that is pretty much what has happened. Yesterday, the government finally published its response to the review, in which they said that tight budgets and existing legislative priorities ruled out the full rewrite the Law Commission wanted, and that they are just going to tinker around the edges a bit. Which given the Law Commission’s recommendations, can only be regarded as rearguard victory.

I/S also notes:

What we will be getting is better guidance from the Ombudsman, and an extension of the Act to cover the courts (both wins), combined with broader “commercial sensitivity” clauses (a loss, though Steven price thinks it won’t cover anything the Act isn’t already stretched to cover). The government will also be advancing changes around privacy in its review of the Privacy Act. So overall a narrow win, especially compared with the alternative.

I wasn’t as negative on the Law Commission review as I/S, so I hope some of their other recommendations do make some progress. But it is fair to say it is not a legislative priority.

There is one major recommendation that has not been responded to, and I would like to see the Government adopt – that some information be pro-actively released. Often you don’t know what information is there to ask for.

I’d like to see an automatic pro-active release requirement for all Cabinet level information. It might be say six months after authorship to allow Government time to make decisions, and of course normal rules would apply for exemptions. but wouldn’t it be great to have all Cabinet  and Cabinet committee information automatically released in due course.

if the Government doesn’t pick this up, there could be an opportunity for Opposition parties to make this a policy, and implement it when they get a turn in Government.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs:

So, it looks like my calling National on its bullshit yeterday has struck a nerve. According to DPF, National’s MP’s aren’t bigots – they just think proper Parliamentary procedure is more important than doing the right thing.

Well, that makes everything alright then (/sarcasm).

But the fact is that there was no infringement of proper Parliamentary procedure. Standing Orders give any member the right to raise issues in the manner Charles Chauvel did. And when they do, I expect the case to be assessed on its merits (which in this case are fairly significant). DPF OTOH seems to think deference and hierarchy and grovelling to the right person are more important and that anyone who doesn’t do this to the satisfaction of those in power should be dismissed out of hand. Which is after all what National and other conservative parties are all about – but its a pretty shitty worldview, and the idea that its more important than doing the right thing is simply ridiculous.

Once upon a time I/S actually could apply intelligent analysis to a situation, but now he seems to have abandoned it.

Standing Orders gives an MP the right to get up and say “I seek leave” for anything at all. But anyone who is not a moron would understand the desirability of actually giving people advance notice of your intention to seek leave. This is nothing to do with hierarchy, and everything to do with whether you wish to grandstand or actually achieve something.

It is entirely unreasonable to expect MPs to decide within two seconds whether or not they agree with a motion being voted on. And it is blatant smear tactics to label people bigots because an MO failed to notify other MPs that he would be seeking leave that afternoon. Idiot/Savant has become the boy who cried wolf. The list of people he has never called a bigot is probably a very small one.

What is disappointing is once upon a time he actually had a fairly good insight of how Parliament actually works, and could do insightful posts. Now he does ill-informed rants.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogged:

At the moment several African governments are progressing virulently homophobic legislation. There’s Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill, which would impose the death penalty for homosexuality and require reporting of homosexuals to the government. And in Nigeria there’s similar, though less brutal, legislation, which would (among other things) outlaw LGBT support groups.

Today Labour’s Charles Chauvel tried to move a motion expressing Parliament’s condemnation of this bigotry:

National vetoed it. 

I think this tells us exactly where National stands on gay rights. They’ll send John Key along to the Big Gay Out, but at their core they’re simply bigots, no different from Family First or the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

Idiot/Savant goes feral and sanctimonious so often, I’m not even surprised anymore. I doubt anyone takes his denunciations too seriously but in case they do, I thought I’d point out how Parliament operates.

A motion by a individual MP is basically never scheduled for debate or voting on. To have an MP’s motion considered, you need to seek permission of the House, and it takes just one individual MP to object to leave being granted. So if you want your motion voted on, then there is a process in place to ascertain in advance that the Government is happy for it to be put (so long as without debate). Basically you discuss it with your party’s whips, they discuss it with the Government whips, and they check with the Leader of the House. This process is widely known and is there precisely so opposition MPs can get non-controversial motions considered. The Government has actually been very accommodating of the rights of the minority through things such as negotiating extended sittings rather than forcing urgency on the House.

Now if we look at the draft Hansard for today, it says:

Su’a WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Māngere): I seek leave of the House to move a motion without notice and without debate about Cyclone Evan.

Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.

Su’a WILLIAM SIO: I move, That this House express its acknowledgment and support to the peoples and Governments of Samoa and Fiji after Cyclone Evan wreaked havoc on these islands just before Christmas last year, and in particular convey its condolences and sympathies to Samoa’s head of State, His Highness Tuiatua Tupua Tamasese Efi, Prime Minister the Hon Tuila’epa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi, members of Samoa’s legislative assembly, and the people of Samoa for the loss of five lives, and to the families of the 10 people still missing when floodwaters drove through settlements in the Apia township, dragging people, homes, vehicles, and personal property out to sea and destroying power, water, and other infrastructure, including food crops, and note that for many families it is the first-time experience of losing literally everything, and acknowledge the resilient response of families, people’s organisations, and Governments in both the islands and in New Zealand to aid families and friends in need.

Motion agreed to.

[Continuation line: Chauvel motion]

POINTS OF ORDER

Motion Without Notice—

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to move members’ motion No. 4 in my name, without debate.

POINTS OF ORDER

Motion Without Notice—

 Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is objection.

So Sio had no one object to his motion, but Chauvel did have an objection. Why? It’s simple. Sio followed the process and did his homework by letting the whips know in advance. Chauvel did not. If Chauvel had done the courtesy of letting the whips know in advance he was going to seek leave, then almost certainly he would have got it I suspect. So I/S should direct his rant towards MPs who grandstand rather than follow the process.

People may not be aware but if an MP seeks leave, the whips have only around two seconds to object. You don’t have time to read the motion and decide after a minute’s contemplation. This is why it is well known amongst MPs that you inform the whips in advance of your desire to put it to a vote, and the whips check with the Leader of the House.

I find it appalling that I/S uses the failure of an Opposition MP to follow the process, to label the Government as bigots. It’s pathetic.

Idiot/Savant blogs at NRT:

The Māori Party finally met with John Key last night to discuss his stupidity over water rights, and walked away with an assurance that the government will not legislate to overturn any court decision. In some quarters, this is being portrayed as another sell-out. It’s not. Instead, its a pretty useful victory, which resolves one of the primary fears around the Tribunal / court process: that the government will ignore the outcome, and simply confiscate the water on terms favourable to itself and its cronies if they don’t like how things are going. Now, if they keep their word, they won’t be able to do that, and will have to negotiate like a proper Treaty partner should. And that I think is exactly what the Māori Party is there to do.

While I don’t think National would ever have been stupid enough to repeat Labour’s folly of overturning court upheld property rights by legislation, it is indeed a useful thing for the Maori Party to have had it explicitly ruled out.

It doesn’t mean that the Government has to follow the recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal. It does mean though if an actual court makes a finding about property rights in water, then the Government won’t confiscate those property rights legislatively.

Idiot/Savant blogs at No Right Turn:

Faced with the prospect of extradition to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault, Julian Assange has done a runner, hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy and applying for political asylum.

Its a very weak case. Assange is not facing persecution in Sweden; he is facing justice for his alleged crimes. There’s no suggestion that he won’t receive a fair trial or that he would face cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. As for the fear that he will be subsequently extradited to the US, he will have the full protection of the ECHR on that. And the ECHR will not allow him to be extradited to face the death penalty or torture. Finally, despite his claims today, Assange has not been “abandoned” by the Australian government; they have made it clear that they will continue to offer consular assistance in the normal manner [PDF].

It is of course up to Ecuador who they grant asylum to and on what terms. But under the normal international law criteria, Assange wouldn’t qualify. He’s not a refugee with a well-founded fear of persecution; he’s just an alleged criminal trying to escape justice.

I can only agree with I/S on this issue.

Incidentally I did not think the case against Assange in Sweden was that strong, and that he would have a reasonable chance of an acquittal if or when trial proceeds. His behaviour, while deceptive, was not necessarily criminal.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs:

Why are we paying for Murray McCully to stay in hotels in Auckland?

According to his latest Ministerial credit card receipts [PDF, p. 12], we paid for McCully to spend two nights at the Heritage Hotel in Auckland. The expense is justified as “accommodation during RWC”. This would be entirely uncontentious, except for one thing: McCully represents an Auckland electorate, and I am informed he is on the electoral roll there. Which means he has a home of his own to go to in Auckland. So again, why the hotel? …

Ministers are given credit cards to cover actual, reasonable and necessary expenses – not because they feel like spending a night of luxury on the taxpayer, or just can’t be arsed driving home.

I’m sorry but this is ridicolous. First of all staying for two nights in the Heritage hotel is not a night of luxury. I’ve stayed there as TVNZ put you up there if you are up for one of their shows. It is a very standard hotel. Nothing wrong with it, but not a luxury hotel.

As for why McCully was staying there for two nights, during the Rugby World Cup. Well he was the Minister in charge of a event which is broadcast to a billion people, and has overall revenues of hundreds of millions. At an event like that you could well have meetings starting very early and finishing late, plus a hotel room allows you to hold meetings in it.

I speak from experience. I was the Chair of the organising committee for the ICANN meeting in Wellington some years ago. This is a fraction of the size of the RCW, but was a fairly major event to host, as you had 500 – 700 Internet policy makers here. Despite living in Wellington, I stayed at the official host hotel of the Duxton (and if anyone calls that a luxury hotel, they have not been there often) as it was decided that the extra cost was fairly minimal in the context of the importance of smooth management, which was having all the key decision makers staying together so that as issues arose, decisions could be made quickly.

In the context of an almost billion dollar events like the RWC, a decision by the Minister to spend two nights in the Auckland CBD rather than what can be an hour away in East Coast Bays, is unremarkable and trivial – and frankly criticism of it is ludicrous, especially painting it a night of luxury.

I think those that glamorise hotels have never stayed in one themselves. In the main they are just places they supply a bed you can sleep in and a bathroom you can shower and freshen up in. Sure there are some luxury hotels with stunning views and the like, but 95% of staying in hotels is just about a well located bed.

When I go up to Auckland, I much prefer crashing at a friend’s place than staying in sterile hotels. However sometimes I will reluctantly go into a hotel, because the location in the CBD allows you to do business more efficiently.

Why did McCully stay in a hotel for two nights in Auckland? The exact same reason – it allowed him to do his job as RWC Minister more efficiently.

UPDATE: Looking closer at the actual DIA documents, the title page is headed up “Credit Card Statements and Reconciliations – Staff of the Office of Hon Murray McCully”. This means it is not McCully’s credit card, but his staff’s ones. And when they are paying for something on behalf of the Minister, they always note that. So when there is no such notation, then the expense is presumably for them, not the Minister.

Having made inquiries, it turns out that in fact the two nights at the Heritage was for a Wellington based staff member who was in Auckland for RWC duties. So I look forward to NRT doing a retraction.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs:

Save the Children has released its annual State of the World’s Mothers report [PDF], showing that New Zealand is the 4th best country in the world to be a mother. This is an improvement from last year, when we ranked 6th. Its a legacy of the Clark government, and its policies around paid parental leave and early childhood education that we do so well on these sorts of indices. But as the Scandinavian countries above us show, we can do better; sadly, the present government just doesn’t seem to regard it as a priority.

So we improve in 2011 over 2010, and this is nothing to do with the present Government, and all to do with the Government that got chucked out in 2008. Sure.

As it happens, if you actually read about the report, most of the factors have little to do with Government. They are:

• Lifetime risk of maternal death (NZ is 32nd)
• % of women using modern contraception (NZ 9th)
• Female life expectancy at birth (NZ 10th)
• Expected years of formal female schooling (NZ 1st)
• Maternity leave length (NZ 38th)
• Maternity leave wages (NZ 1st)
• Ratio of female to male earnings (NZ 8th)
• Participation of women in govt (NZ 9th)
• Under 5 mortality rate (NZ 23rd)
• Pre-primary enrolment ratio (NZ 18th)
• Secondary enrolment ratio (NZ 3rd)

It seems why we are 4th overall is because we are not very low down in any factor.

The worst place to be a mother incidentally is the Niger. Among more developed countries is it Alaania.

The Government today announced:

• Housing New Zealand has today closed a tender to speed up repair of over 600 of its quake damaged properties
• The Earthquake Commission (EQC) has just agreed to pay $21 million to Christchurch City Council, its largest individual claimant, allowing the council to begin repairs to around 280 quake damaged properties in its social housing portfolio
• The Department of Building and Housing (DBH) is making good progress toward establishment of a new temporary accommodation village at Rawhiti Domain in New Brighton, with 20 two bedroom units due to be on site by mid-July and the ability to provide further units as required
• The Government has already built 63 houses in two temporary accommodation villages at Linwood Park in Christchurch City and Kaiapoi Domain in the Waimakariri District

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn says the package is too little too late (which is a legitimate point of view) but goes on to say:

Brownlee’s inaction and denial means we are going to see a spike in cold-related deaths in Christchurch this winter. People will die needlessly, largely of flu and respiratory diseases, because he did nothing. And that makes him nothing more than a murderer.

This is jumping the shark in a massive way. Its pathetic, and erodes his credibility. I really wonder what happened to I/S so that his hatred of the right makes him so irrational at times.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs:

On March 8, British teenager Azhar Ahmed posted the following to his Facebook account:

People gassin about the deaths of soldiers! What about the innocent familys who have been brutally killed.. The women who have been raped.. The children who have been sliced up..! Your enemy’s were the Taliban not innocent harmless familys. All soldiers should DIE & go to HELL! THE LOWLIFE FOKKIN SCUM! gotta problem go cry at your soliders grave & wish him hell because that where he is going..

For posting this, he was arrested and charged with a “racially aggravated public order offence”. That charge was dropped when he appeared in court – perhaps because even the Yorkshire police could understand that “British soldiers” are not a racial group – and instead substituted with one of using a telecommunications network to send a grossly offensive message. He will face trial in July, and it is unclear what sentence he may face.

Now I agree that one should not face court charges for saying offensive things on the Internet. The threshold should be if you are promoting actual violence or crimes. So for example saying “I hate Jews” should not get you in court (it should get you on the front page of the newspaper though) but saying “We should kill the Jews” should get you in court. Saying “I wish all Jews were dead” doesn’t meet the criminal threshold though (in my opinion).

However it is a pity that Idiot/Savant did not also mention this story, which I blogged on. Also in the UK, a 21 year old student was actually jailed (not just charged) for 56 days for gloating when a black footballer collapsed on the field, saying he hoped he was dead, and also using racial abuse when people challenged him.

Now both these cases had defendents say pretty offensive stuff. I don’t think either should be in court. But does Idiot/Savant think it is okay to send people to jail for saying something racist, but wrong to charge people for saying all British soliders should die and go to hell?

My suspicion is that I/S is more a defender of offensive speech he politically agrees with, than of all offensive speech. If not, I welcome his views on the above case.

UPDATE: A few people have said I am being unfair to say that I suspect I/S is more a defender of speech he agrees with.  He has often defended the right of people like David Irving to be heard, so my comment was unfair and I retract it with apologies.

However I do think that considering how often he posts on this issue, his lack of comment on the UK jail sentence for a racist offensive tweet was unusual. As he did not condemn the jailing, I thought he might actually support “hate speech” laws as many on the left do (which motivated the post – to challenge him on this issue), but having checked he blogged in 2004 that he did not, so really the post was un-necessary.

Idiot/Savant blogs at NRT:

National is actually doing something positive for ordinary people for once, with plans to extend flexible working hours provisions – which currently apply only to caregivers – to all workers. Its a good move. The Department of Labour’s review of the provisions found that there had been no problems with their implementation (contrary to the wailing from employers when the law was passed), and that it produced significant benefits for employers (such as reduced turnover and improved productivity).

I’m all in favour of flexible working hours. If only MUNZ were also!

I knew someone would mis-represent what I said on Christchurch City Council, I just wasn’t sure who it would be. No Right Turn claims the prize. he says:

What is it with the right and democracy? In response to tensions in the Christchurch City Council, which have seen councillors criticise the Chief Executive’s lavish pay increase and autocratic style, DPF demands that “some or all” of them “must go”. Because obviously, the last thing you can possibly have in an elected body is disagreement. No, we should shut it down, sack them all, appoint a dictator.

Now unless Idiot/Savant neglected to read past the first paragraph of my post, he has deliberately over-looked the part where I say:

I am not an advocate of the view that on every issue, the minority on a Council must accept the view of the majority if it goes against them. It is quite legitimate to (for example) continue to fight against say an alcohol ban policy, if you as a Councillor thought it was a bad policy and a bad decision.

So I explicitly said disagreement in not the problem.

The fact of the matter is that these councillors are elected. They are there to represent their constituents, some of whom are not exactly happy with their council or its CEO. In other words, they are doing exactly the job we expect elected representatives in a democracy to do.

And again he has missed the key point. I never said Councillors can not criticise the Council, the Mayor or even the CEO.

But what they can not do is publicly state that the CEO should be sacked. Why? It’s simple – they are his employer. The Councillors who have done so have exposed ratepayers to a massive personal grievance and also made sure that if the majority on Council did want to sack the CEO, that they could only do so via a huge payout.

A Councillor can criticise the CEO when their performance warrants it (mind you it is the height of hypocrisy to attack the CEO for accepting a pay rise that the Council itself signed off on), but they can not publicly call for them to be sacked, as they are their employer.

What next? DPF will advocate the unseating of MPs who disagree with the government and criticise the public service?

No. What I would advocate is that a Minister who publicly called for their Departmental CEO to be fired, should be sacked. As their (effective) employer, that would also create an untenable situation. You can’t have employers publicly call for someone they employ to be sacked. I would have thought Idiot/Savant would have some regard for employment laws.

It doesn’t take a lot for true colours and foaming hatred to come out, and we see it with No Right Turn, in discussing whether Lady Thatcher should receive a state funeral. He blogs:

Unmentioned: selling the right to spit on the corpse or piss on her grave (because its going to happen, so they might as well get money for it). Hell, they could even provide the service, so that those unable to attend in person could have someone do it for them. Morality? Taste? The market does not know of such things. And if you’re happy with the mass unemployment, poverty and degradation which were the inevitable result of Thatcher’s policies, you can hardly get prissy about a little matter of degrading a corpse.

Worth remembering this the next time he goes on about how liberal he is – you know the stuff about how he’ll defend your right to have views different to his – except of course if you do he thinks your corpse should be spat on and pissed on.

When I saw that the Electoral Commission had referred Jim Anderton to the Police, I remarked to a couple of people that I was sure he would have a fit and attack the Electoral Commission. I was right. The Herald reports:

Progressive leader Jim Anderton has launched an extraordinary attack on the Electoral Commission for referring him to police for a possible breach of the Electoral Act. …

But Mr Anderton, who was referred to police over election advertising before the 2008 election, said he had done nothing wrong.

Jim thinks he has never done anything wrong in his life. His valedictory was full of how he was right and everyone else had been wrong. If you ask him hig biggest mistake, he will be stumped for an answer.

“I’m authorised to send my constituents any message I damn well like. This is my electorate.

First of all don’t you like how he refers to them as possessions.

Secondly he was not writing to them in his capacity as an MP for parliamentary purposes. He was writing to them to tell them to vote for Megan Woods. Even the thickest of MPs should have learnt by now that telling people who to vote for is not a parliamentary purpose.

Thirdly, MPs are not above the law. He is not a King or a God. He is merely an MP. That doesn’t mean he can do anything he damn well likes.

His arrogance is the same as that which destroyed the Alliance. He demanded the party members surrender total control of the organisation to him, and effectively make him dictator. They refused, so he left.

“And if the Commission wants to start stopping electorate MPs from communicating with their electorate, they’d better get prepared for a breach of privilege complaint, because that’s what it amounts to.

Oh I so hope he tries that – it would be most amusing. In reality all he is trying to do is bully neutral public servants and have them exempt him from the law.

They are interfering with the regular work of an MP.”

It is not the regular work of an MP to write to voters and tell them who to vote for. That is the role of parties and candidates.

“They have a few things like rape and pillage going on around the country, and this is simply ridiculous to tie up senior members of the police force with this kind of garbage.”

In Jim’s world, electoral law breaches are not an offence. I suspect Labour agrees with him.

Mr Anderton said the letter was sent outside the regulated period under the Electoral Act, but the commission referred it to police on the basis that the letter was not properly authorised.

The regulated period has nothing to do with this. In fact, the law for around 20 years has been the same in terms of requiring authorisation.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn comments:

Yesterday, I was willing to attribute Anderton’s crime to (unforgivable) ignorance. Today, its clear that its one of arrogance. And he needs to be held to account for it.

Dead right.

I’ve noticed that this election that the Greens have billboards and slogans along the lines of “Vote Green to grow the economy”. This is radically different slogan from their rhetoric of a few years ago when the Greens would denounce economic growth as evil and actually argue against growing the economy.

I’m not convinced that their policies have changed, just that they have a better advertising agency. The so called policy to create 100,000 jobs  in fact has less substance than an anorexic Leptotyphlops carlae. Take their claim of 47,000 to 65,000 new jobs from renewable energy. They said:

The global market for renewable energy technology is forecast to reach an annual value of $590–$800 billion by 2015.6 If we can secure just 1% of this market, we can build a new $6–8 billion export industry here at home, creating 47,000–65,000 new cleantech, high-value jobs

Translation provided by a financial analyst:

So if the global market for green tech gets to an incredibly high number and if we could secure 1% of this incredibly high number and if those were highly-paid jobs and if they didn’t replace any other jobs in the economy then hurrah – we would have 65,000 jobs!

If the Greens were promoting a prospectus, you could get them jailed for securities fraud. But it doesn’t stop there. ACT candidate Stephen Whittington points out their massive mistake, which would have them fail NCEA Level 1 Maths. He explains:

I honestly cannot believe that the Greens have made such a simple mistake, in a document which is intended to set out how they will finance their plans to significantly increase Government expenditure.  

The Greens predict that increasing minimum wages will increase tax revenue by $519 million.  Even assuming that people don’t lose their jobs, which they will, increasing the minimum wage will reduce tax revenue.

Increased wages will increase the amount of PAYE collected by the Government.  But wages are also a deductible expense to businesses.  Given that the marginal personal income tax rate is lower than the corporate tax rate, increased minimum wages will decrease revenue from corporate income tax more than will be increased from PAYE, even assuming no increase in unemployment.

In the Green fantasy world, increasing the cost of Labour doesn’t decrease profits and hence taxes on profits. I am amazed they are not lobbying for the minimum wage to be immediately raised to $50/hour as this will cause employers to become more productive to be able to afford to pay the wages. No I am not kidding – this is what they actually argue.

Now in case you think it is only nasty right wingers using evil weapons such as mathematics and logic to attack the Greens policy, let’s look at the comments by Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn. He supports their policies but slams their advertising:

I’ve spent the morning reading through the Greens’ “Green jobs initiative” [PDF]. The short version is that the Greens are promising to “create 100,000 new green jobs through business incentives and government leadership”, specifically through increased investment, building a clean energy sector, and increased support for a green economy. But when you look at it, its not really about jobs at all; rather its about greening our economy, with jobs as a byproduct. Political marketing means that that byproduct is being highlighted, in a way which is at times outright deceitful.

He continues:

 The “big idea” in the policy is government support, through our energy SOEs, for a major new renewable energy industry:

“The clean energy sector is booming internationally. Currently, renewables supply only 15% of the world’s primary energy demands but its share is growing rapidly. The global renewable energy market grew by 6.8% in 2010 alone to reach a value of $389 billion. It is forecast to reach an annual value of $590–$800 billion by 2015. By securing just 1% of this market, we’d create a $6–8 billion new export industry here at home, creating 59,000–81,000 new jobs.”Which is a nice dream, and something we should aim for. Our economy is not very diverse (basically, we export butter and bungee jumping), and if it is to grow we need to start doing other things. Exporting wind turbines, geothermal technology, and smartmeters, and the technology, services and IP related to these is a good idea, and something that potentially fits well with what we already do. But a $6 – 8 billion export sector is enormous – bigger than meat; it would be our third-largest export industry after tourism and dairy. And that’s not something that’s going to happen overnight. Its a good idea, its something we need to do, and its something government needs to help with (after all, pretty obviously the market isn’t going to do it if left to itself), it will benefit New Zealand in the long run. But pitching it as an immediate job-creation plan, and implicitly suggesting we’ll have those jobs by 2015 (rather than in 20 years time) is deceitful and misleading.

I/S concludes:

This isn’t just wrong, it is a mistake. Quite apart from raising questions of the Greens’ honesty and integrity, one of their chief selling points, it undermines the policy itself. This is a perfectly good policy, and it can stand on its merits (hell, even MED agrees that we need active government intervention to build new export industries, up to and including direct investment in growth areas). Fudging things like this hands a gift to detractors, allowing them to dismiss it out of hand: “100,000 new jobs? Yeah, right”.

So, a good policy, but very disappointing marketing around it. Deceit is not the green way, and if you use it to sell your policies, then people will start treating you as liars, just like all the rest.

At the end of the day, the Greens are politicians seeking power. They’re just like all the other politicians – neither saints nor sinners. Just politicians.But politicians who can’t even do simple maths.

The Herald reports:

Entrepreneur and philanthropist Owen Glenn says his commitment to donate $100 million to New Zealand youth is not contingent on National and Act winning the November 26 general election.

Glenn said on TV3′s The Nation over the weekend that he would make a donation but said today that his commitment was not contingent on the two parties winning the election, as was suggested by the programme.

“My commitment to this country is not politically motivated, so regardless of who governs New Zealand after November’s election, once my business is sold, which I anticipate will be during October, I will look to announce more on my plans,” Mr Glenn said.

He said he was not trying to influence the outcome of the election through the announcement.

“I happen to believe that currently a government involving both National and Act is best situated to move New Zealand forward and to leverage the opportunity I intend to create through this donation,” he said.

His earlier linking of it to the election outcome excited a couple of people. Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn called it attempted bribery and demanded Owen Glenn be prosecuted and jailed if convicted.

Personally I think the bribery laws are about directly paying people to vote a certain way, not about what is effectively a charitable donation. But I guess one for the lawyers to decide.

But what struck me is the contrast.

If a businessman gets up and announces he will spend $100 million of his own money on helping disadvantaged youth if a political party he has no connection to wins the election, then some on the left call that bribery.

However if a politician gets up and announces he will take an extra $100 million forcibly off rich pricks, and spend it on disadvantaged youth, if his party wins the election (which happens to make that person prime minister, and get a big pay rise) – then that is commendable and noble.

So it is illegal to pledge your own money contingent on an election result, but it is legal to pledge other people’s money.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs:

At the beginning of the month I commented on preliminary results from my annual OIA performance survey, which has seen Ministerial performance jump significantly since last year. I’m still waiting on a few Ministers (new Ministers had to be sent a two-stage request, and I failed to notice that Tariana Turia refuses to answer her Ministerial email), but here’s another improvement. Last year, Gerry Brownlee was the worst Minister, answering only 39.7% of requests within the statutory 20-day limit. This year, he’s boosted that to 54.8%.

Credit is due to I/S for collating and publishing the stats. It is a valuable public service, and is part of the reason I am sure there has been an improvement.

Gerry has of course had a lot on his plate of late, but in a reply to I/S he notes:

Notwithstanding this, dealing with requests for information under the Official Information Act is a matter that I take seriously and I have instructed my office to instigate a thorough review of the systems and processes used to manage and track requests made under the Official Information Act.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs:

Parliament unanimously passed the Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill (No 2) today, making some minor but necessary changes to our electoral administration. During the debate, Labour MP Chris Hipkins argued that we should be looking at introducing electronic voting. On Twitter, he asks for people’s thoughts on the issue.

I have just one: is he fucking mad?

The evidence from overseas is overwhelming: electronic voting can’t be trusted. The machines are black boxes. The software is proprietary. They may be run by people with partisan interests. And they’re hackable (not just in theory – in practice). There’s no way for the count to be audited, and no way to tell if the votes entered by voters are actually being recorded, or just sent to the bit bucket.

Electronic voting means putting elections, a vital part of our democratic infrastructure, in the hands of unaccountable, private entities, with poor security and no transparency. We’ll basically be relying on their goodwill that they won’t fix elections. Oh, and blind faith that they won’t leave a yawning security flaw allowing someone else to. As someone who takes democracy seriously, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.

I/S is thinking that the way the US did electronic voting is the only way. I have been pushing for some time that we should trial e-voting for one or more local body elections. Have the option to vote over the Internet, as well as a postal ballot. So no e-voting use of stand-alone voting machines – just use the Internet.

We do banking and tax over the Internet securely, and I am sure can do voting also. We even have a secure government login service which you can use to register companies etc.

And e-voting can be audit-able. Each person who votes can get an e-mail confirmation of how they voted. You could even audit a random sample of voters to ensure their record of voting matches the central record.

And one could have the code for the e-voting software released publicly, so that experts can verify that it is does what it is meant to do.

So I’m with Chris Hipkins. The time has come to at least be trialling e-voting. The logical opportunity is the 2013 local body elections.

UPDATE: The Government has responded to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee review of the 2010 local body elections. They have said:

1. The Government will look at amending the Local Electoral Regulations 2001 to enable e-voting, with DIA to look into the merits and practicalities
2. The Government will explore the option of making the Electoral Commission responsible for the oversight of local authority elections

Idiot/Savant by his own words hates the SIS and hate Whale Oil. So when he concludes the SIS have acted entirely appropriately, it is worth quoting:

There’s a lot of shit going round the blogosphere this morning about the SIS’s release of a document which made Phil Goff look bad to a sewerblogger “in preference” to the media. … But it turns out that its nothing of the sort, and there is a very good reason for the difference in timeframes. From Stuff today:

Mr Slater was given the documents five working days after he made the request. Fairfax Media, who made a similar request, received the document last night along with a letter from Dr Tucker which said: “Your request differs from Mr Slater’s in that you have also requested reports prepared for the prime minister”.

Which seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation.

If you want to see some hysterical rants, check out John Pagani who has blogged six times in a row on the same issue, each time claiming the SIS have committed treason, by obeying the Official Information Act. How desperate can you get to distract people from the substantive issue, that Goff lied.

Matthew Hooton blogs:

I find it difficult to believe he is not lying about the meeting with SIS Director Warren Tucker on Monday 14 March.  If he is not lying then his memory faculties and/or his ability to multitask must be seriously in doubt. …

Mr Goff would have it that these documents are fakes.  Mr Tucker wrote things down, and prepared agendas and minutes, that were untrue. He then gave these false documents to the Prime Minister’s Office and to Whaleoil in order to discredit Mr Goff. 

This is an extraordinary allegation for Mr Goff to be making, even implicitly.  How credible is it that Mr Tucker would behave that way?  My intelligence sources tell me he has always been the ultimate straight-shooter and has done more than any of his predecessors to bring openness and transparency to the intelligence community.  Any personal political views he may have are, I’m told, completely unreadable and, as outlined above, he has maintained the confidence of every New Zealand prime minister from Muldoon, to Lange, to Bolger, to Clark to Key. It is impossible to believe he has now risked his reputation to take a cheap shot at Mr Goff, who he served loyally when he was Foreign Minister, Defence Minister and Trade Minister through the 2000s.

Isn’t it far more likely that Mr Goff, having previously said the matter had not even been mentioned to him at all, has been caught lying and is now forced, Nixon-like, to maintain the lie – even if it requires implicitly attacking Mr Tucker’s integrity to the extent of suggesting he has behaved illegally?

The sad thing for Goff is this is totally self-inflicted. It was of little political consequence whether or not he had been briefed or not. But because Goff was so stupid as to attack the SIS, rather than check with them, he has now been forced into a position when he is seen as dishonest rather than merely forgetful.

Idiot/Savant again notes:

As for the actual issue, Ministers and MPs receive a lot of information, and I would not be surprised at all if they forgot something mentioned in passing. And I’d expect them to be aware of that problem, rather than arrogantly assuming they have total recall of every document which has ever passed their desk

Unless you believe the paranoid conspiracy theory that the SIS has fabricated the briefing notes from March, it is obvious that Goff was briefed, and at a minimum had a quick read of the report.

He was distracted by the Darren Hughes scandal, and it is not a big thing that he doesn’t recall the briefing. but his arrogance is proving his downfall. In a measure of his credibility vs Warren Tucker, he doesn’t come out of it at all well.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn has responded to my blog post where I agreed with him on keeping the one electorate seat threshold, but advocated the party vote threshold should be 4%, rather than abolished.

He notes my position is the same as the Royal Commission which said:

the Commission considers that the [4%] threshold is a justifiable and desirable means of preventing the proliferation of minor parties in the House. Such a proliferation could threaten the stability and effectiveness of government.

I/S says:

Which probably sounded good back in the safe, conformist, 2-party world of 1986, where we hadn’t had a coalition government for over fifty years, and political difference and dispute was seen as threatening. But to modern eyes, it seems quaint – not to mention sniffily undemocratic. To point out the obvious, we currently have 8 parties represented in our Parliament, and in the past have had as many as 9. And it hasn’t threatened the stability or effectiveness of government one bit

First of all I would disagree that there hasn’t been an impact on stability and effectiveness. Clark went early in 2002 due to the collapse of the Alliance as one example.

But the measure is not how many parties get into Parliament, but how many do you need to *all* agree to be able to pass a law. Here’s what the situation would be under 5%, and no threshold since 1996:

1996 – Nat/NZF would not have been a majority and would have needed either ACT or Christian Coalition or both United and Legalise Cannabis to govern. Was hard enough to be stable with Winston, let alone needing either Graham Capill or the Legalise Cannabis Party to agree to the budget.

1999 – Labour/Alliance needed Greens to pass laws, and no change at 0% threshold

2002 – Labour/Progressive/UF had 62/120 seats. With no threshold they would be 59 seats. UF had ruled Greens out so they would need either Christian Heritage, Outdoor Recreation, or Alliance to support.

2005 – The only change would be Destiny would have one MP

2008 – National would not be able to choose to pass laws either with ACT or Maori, but only if both agreed. That to me would not be stable or effective.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that our political culture doesn’t support destabilising, winner-take-all, toys-out-of-the-cot tantrum politics. Winston Peters tried that in 1996, the electorate punished him for it in 1999, and our parties have learned their lesson:

Actually with no threshold, there is no chance of a party being wiped out, so I think they would be more likely to have tantrums. Falling under the threshold would no longer be oblivion.

The second reason is mathematical: a “proliferation of minor parties” actually increases stability and effectiveness, by increasing the number of possible majority coalitions, thus reducing the bargaining power of any one party.

You have more combinations, but you need more parties to agree to form a Government. I do not think a six party Government is more stable than a two party Government. Israel has shown us this many times. This is not some crazy theory – they have the empirical evidence – which is why they have raised their threshold.

We have a good example of this in the current Parliament: ACT can’t “hold the government to ransom” and demand big policy concessions because National has an alternative majority with the Maori Party. Meanwhile, the Maori Party can’t “hold the government to ransom” because the National has an alternative majority with ACT. The two parties effectively act as a check on each other’s demands.

And here I/S is just wrong, because the very thing he lauds (the ability to choose ACT or Maori) would not happen under no threshold. National would have had 55 seats, ACT 4, Maori 5 and United 1. You need 62 to govern.

Having an extra 3 or 4 kibble parties at the bottom end simply increases the balance; if one of them doesn’t like your policy, then you go to another. You’re only in trouble if they all don’t like your policy, in which case its probably well-deserved

Nope under a no threshold scenario, if even one of the kibble parties disagrees, then you’re stuck.

The other argument I have against no threshold, is it will encourage extremism. Again not just a theory – look at Israel. With no threshold you can gain a list seat with 0.4% of the vote or 10,000 supporters. Now the way you get your 10,000 votes is to come out with crazy extreme policies (for example a law change so husbands can not be charged with raping their wives) that may repeal 98% of the country but appeals to 0.4%.

And no threshold will encourage extremist parties, and reward them with a seat. And if that seat is needed to form a Government, they will then get some sort of policy win.

As I said I think one can debate a 3% v 4% v 5% threshold, but I believe a threshold is desirable and necessary.

Meanwhile, this illusion costs us in democratic terms, by effectively disenfranchising (at the last election) 6.5% of the population. DPF would probably counter that those people and their views and votes aren’t important. I disagree.

Well they always have the choice of voting for a party likely to be in Parliament. No party perfectly represents my policy views. I choose to vote for the party that I deem most able to fulfil my policy desires.

If you take the view that every person must be able to get their preferred party into Parliament, then why stop at a 120 MP house where the effective threshold is 0.4% if there is no statutory threshold. You could argue for a 500 MP House, so that even parties with 0.1% of the vote get to be represented.

Idiot/Savant at NRT blogs:

With ACT cutting a deal in Epsom, and Peter Dunne cutting one in Ohariu, MMP’s “electorate lifeboat”, which sees parties gain list seats in parliament if they gain a single electorate, has come in for a fair amount of flack. And today, Labour leader Phil Goff has reminded us all that he opposes it, and that he wishes MMP to have a strict 5% threshold, with no exception for electorates. I think this is exactly the wrong position to take. Why? Because the “electorate lifeboat” improves proportionality.

Phil Goff’s stance is pretty naked self interest. He only opposes it, so ACT will lose representation in Parliament. Goff’s view of a good electoral system is one which gets rid of Labour’s opponents.

My concern is that a future Labour Government will make unilateral partisan changes to the Electoral Act, as they did with the Electoral Finance Act. Simon Power set the model for bipartisan co-operation on electoral issues, but will Labour return his generosity? My concern again is that they will think National were suckers for giving them a say on electoral law, and that they will revert to type as we saw with the Electoral Finance Act and the retrospective legislation to retain Harry Duynhoven as an MP.

Proportionality, remember, was the entire point of MMP. We wanted parties to be represented in direct proportion to the votes cast. The 5% threshold undermines this, but the “electorate lifeboat” provides a way around it. Without it, the Parliaments of 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2008 would have been less proportional, and less representative, thanks to the exclusion of (respectively) of NZFirst, the Progressives, United Future and ACT. That would have been bad for our democracy.

Sometimes the lifeboat gives perverse results, as in 2008 when ACT gained 5 MPs while NZ First gained none despite receiving more party votes (4.07% vs 3.65%). This is obviously unfair. But you don’t remove unfairness by increasing it. The appropriate response to this situation is to give parties in NZ First’s situation representation, not deny it to both.

Even though personally I do not want NZ First in Parliament, I agree (somewhat) with Idiot/Savant. I support the threshold being lowered to 4%, as the Royal Commission recommended, even though this would have led to NZ First staying in Parliament.

I don’t support eliminating the threshold entirely, which would lead to a party on 0.4% gaining representation. I think this would lead to an Israel type situation where miniscule extremist parties have massive say in who forms the Government. Israel has learnt from their mistakes and has been increasing the threshold.

So in my opinion 5% is too high a threshold and no threshold is too “low”. I could possibly be convinced of say 3%, but in the end I think one should stick with the Royal Commission’s model as closely as possible, in the absence of strong reasons not to.

Goff’s – and Labour’s – position is not founded on democratic principles. Instead, it is driven by naked self-interest – most obviously, by a desire to remove ACT from the political equation …

Indeed.

Lockwood refuses to allow Harawira to swear an oath which is illegal under the Constitution Act 1986. It was nothing to do with language – he is able to swear the oath in te reo. But he wanted to use words not allowed. he wanted to use the oath as a speech where he talks about reducing inequalities etc. That is what we have parliamentary speeches for.

Anyway, because Lockwood upheld the law, Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn has compared him to a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

That’s a pretty disgusting smear. It’s the extremism in politics that John Ansell was referring to. I didn’t agree with John’s ad, but I do agree you should be able to have a view that the Maori seats should be abolished, and not be called a racist.

Likewise you should be able to insist someone follows the official oath, without being compared to the KKK.

Stuff reports:

The National Distribution Union says it is outraged at proposed contract changes for staff at Whitcoulls and Borders, which were sold last week by administrators.

The contracts, given to staff on Friday to review over the weekend, scrap any previous redundancy payments and force workers to sign away any claims or grievances from their previous employer.

Employees have been given until the end of today to sign up to the new agreements. The union is calling for the contracts to be withdrawn and is seeking legal advice.

NDU general secretary Robert Reid said last week’s ”cautious optimism” about the deal has turned to outrage.

”Never in my 30 years of working as a trade unionist have I ever seen such a blatant ruse to force workers to sign out of their rights and entitlements in a business transfer situation,” Reid said.

”Whitcoulls workers are being asked to sign away any entitlement to redundancy compensation, notice of termination of employment and any claims or grievances from their previous employer. If the administrator made workers redundant today, it would have to make a lieu-of-notice payment and redundancy payment, up to a cap of $18,600 per person.”

And No Right Turn comments:

Businesses who treat their employees this way don’t deserve my money, and they don’t deserve yours. So, I suggest not shopping there if you have the option.

Let’s look at this one step at a time. First of all I saw a tweet which said that less than 5% of the staff belong to a union, and the vast majority have signed the new contract. So let’s not assume the NDU is speaking on behalf of majority of employees.

Secondly it is regretable that any employees are asked to take on a contract with less generous provisions than previously. I’ve been there in the past and it is never something you are happy about.

But thirdly you have to look at why there is a new owner for Whitcoulls – the old owners went into receivership. This means they were unable to run it profitably, and have lost some or most of their inveestment. Now bearing in mind that the stores were unable to be run profitably, it is no surprise that new owners are offering less generous conditions. If they offered the same terms and conditions, then it is highly likely they would also be unable to make a profit, and they’d fold and then there would be no jobs for anyone.

Only in Fantasy Land does the cost of labour not affect profitability and the ability to create jobs.

Fourthly, the existing staff have a choice. They could decline a job with the new owners, which would trigger the redundancy provisions in their existing contracts. Even though the old owners are in receivership they are not bankrupt, and staff entitlements are ranked near the top of the priority queue.

So for some staff, it might make sense to take the redundancy and look for a new job. For others, they would obviously have the security of carrying on.

Then we turn to Idiot/Savant’s advice to boycott Whitcoulls. This will mean that all those staff who did take up the new contract with no redundancy provisions, will then lose their jobs as Whitcoulls closes for good, and they will be left with nothing. I  love someone who hates employers so much, he’ll put 1,000 people out of work to make his point.

No Right Turn has had a double fisking in the last couple of days. Cactus Kate, a tax expert, has fisked him over his claims of tax dodging by corporates (he failed to even read the notes to the accounts).

And on the other side of the spectrum constitutional law professor Andrew Geddis has politely rubbished his posts about the national state of emergency. We’ll start with that.

NRT blogged here and here that the calling of a national state of emergency is:

National states of emergency are intended for disasters affecting the entire country – wars, epidemics, that sort of thing. Instead, we’re seeing one cynically used for political purposes, essentially for spin. That is a gross abuse of power, and one we should not accept.

and

Make no mistake: this is a cynical political exercise, all about who gets the limelight (and hence the credit) in an election year. Again, it is a gross abuse of power. But entirely par for the course for National.

Now Professor Geddis has himself been very willing to criticise the Government when he feels they are acting inappropriately with regard to their powers. He criticised the Act responding to the last earthquake and the sacking of ECan. But in this instance he says:

To use a phrase much beloved of I/S himself, I call bullshit.

First up, the declaration of a national state of emergency does not mean that there is now a power to do all the horribly draconian things that he claims can be done in places like Invercargill, Whangarei or other places far from Christchurch. All the powers given under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 (CDEMA) can only be exercised for the specific purpose of things like “saving life, preventing injury, or rescuing and removing injured or endangered persons”, or “prevent[ing] or limit[ing] the extent of the emergency”.

There is no way that these purposes can be said to exist outside of the immediate environs of Christchurch, so the specter of the police “clos[ing] public spaces in Invercargill” or the like in the wake of this declaration is a complete red herring.

So that puts paid to the so called gross abuse of power.  And as for why make it a national state of emergency:

But what about emergency situations where the resources of a single Group are inadequate to respond? There, help from other Groups may be needed. But getting that help requires those in charge of the affected Group to coordinate with those in charge of others, which is yet another task on top of the many they will have already. Furthermore, all they can do is ask for help – which other Groups may or may not be able to give, depending on availability.

However, now that there is a state of national emergency, two things can happen. First, the Director of Civil Defence Emergency Management can take over the coordinating role between different Groups and centralise that process. Second, the Director can instruct other Groups to initiate their own emergency management plans and thus release resources to help Canterbury.

These powers may not be as earth shattering as empowering the police to shut down central Invercargill, but neither are they insignificant. Indeed, it isn’t going overboard to say that the fate of people’s lives may depend on the bureaucratic niceties involved in the declaration of national emergency.

Geddis concludes:

So, like I say – I/S’s posts regrettably are bullshit. I rather fear that he’s fallen victim to exactly the disease he accuses John Key and National of … being so partisan in outlook that everything must have a motive other than the obvious one.

Sometimes even politicians just want to do the right thing.

Cactus Kate is equally blunt when it comes to I/S’s financial literacy. He blogged:

Infratil [PDF] reported a pretax profit of $106 million, but paid only $11 million in tax – an effective rate of 10.4%

This was part of a series to make everyone think that all these evil corporate are evading tax and not paying their fair share. He even got Trevor Mallard blogging in agreement, which tells us much about Trevor’s financial literacy. The difference is NRT is just a blogger, and Trevor was once an Associate Finance Minister.

Cactus Kate explains:

If you click on Infratil’s accounts for example (they are the only one I could find with a comprehensive explanation of their tax balances) on page 53 you will see that here they take the net profit before tax and show a line-by-line adjustment on the tax numbers. The explanation of deferred and current tax is even made by the company in its accounts at page 45 in relatively simple terms.

The explanation for Infratil not paying the full company tax rate is a massive $30.4 million write-back in the “Net investment realisations/impairment”.

It had absolutely nothing to do with tax avoidance, evasion, shirking of their duty or offshore structuring. No cheating. All accounts are audited and signed off by professionals using NZ accounting standards.

And the killer blow is:

If NRT looked at pg 53 he will see that for the 2009 year Infratil made a net loss of $93.8 million before tax, yet had a tax expense of $34.6 million? How can a company making a loss NRT and pay all that tax? Based on the raw presentation of his data this makes no sense at all does it? Why? Because you have to read the data contained in the tax reconciliation and interpreted what has happened in the company.

Perhaps before No Right Thought engaged his fingers defaming a very wide range of directors in New Zealand as “cheating” on company taxes, he may just like to learn how to read and engage his brain and find out just why each corporate hasn’t paid the full tax rate for that particular year.

When you get fisked by both Cactus Kate and Andrew Geddis/Pundit in the same week, you’re not having a good one.