Kiwiblog

The Herald reports:

The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) has welcomed the Government’s decision not to support the reintroduction of youth rates.

So the CTU is happy.

Opposition leader Phil Goff welcomed the decision.

“It’s crazy to suggest that any young person doing the same job exactly as older people should be paid automatically at a lower rate. It didn’t add up,” he told reporters.

As is Phil Goff. This means it must be wrong!

Goff’s own statement shows a total misrepresentation of the situation. Having a lower minimum wage for teenagers is exactly that – a lower floor. How the hell you translate that into “should be paid automatically at a lower rate” I do not know. Once again, for the really stupid people, – this is about a floor – not a ceiling, not an automatic rate that you must apply to teenagers.

In today’s NBR 24/7 column I rip into the Govt’s decision:

It really brings into doubt the seriousness of the Government in terms of job creation, when it persists with a law that has clearly priced many teenagers off the job market. …

Most teenagers are not seeking full-time employment. What they desperately want is to gain some work experience, and to gain some extra money on top of whatever parental or student support they have.

By agreeing to vote down Sir Roger’s bill, the Government is saying we want young people to be unable to gain work, unless an employer thinks they are worth almost $13 an hour. …

Later this year, overall unemployment should start tracking down. If youth unemployment remains persistently high, the Government will have no one to blame but themselves.

There are 45,000 teenagers unemployed. This decision is a very bad one.

The Herald reports:

State Services Minister Tony Ryall yesterday gave an update on the Government’s “cap of core government administration”.

The number of full-time jobs in core administrative roles fell by 1480 or 3.8 per cent last year to 37,379.

At the same time, said Mr Ryall, 540 full-time equivalent jobs had been added in “key frontline agencies outside the cap”, including Child, Youth and Family, Work and Income, and Community Probation.

“National campaigned to cap the size of the core bureaucracy and we’ve done that. This allows us to free up resources for improving frontline services,” Mr Ryall said.

After a 50% increase in the size of the public service under Labour, this is a great achievement.

It is so popular than even Phil Goff was trying to have it both ways. On TV last night he was claiming that Labour would also have capped public sector numbers – just not reduced them. Yeah, Right.

“We would have looked at the quality and the need for the staff, it would have been more about capping and not cutting,” says Labour leader Phil Goff.

I wonder what Grant Robertson thought of his leader’s endorsement of National’s policy of capping the number of staff. Maybe Grant could clarify what Labour’s policy now is? I am sure the PSA have been on the phone to him.

At the last election National campaigned on capping core public service jobs, a policy PSA national secretary Brenda Pilott said was “a farce”.

So is Brenda saying Phil Goff is supporting a farce?

“The Government has been cutting, not capping, jobs at a time when unemployment rose to a 10-year high.”

And the Government is borrowing $240 million a week. Private sector jobs create income for the Government, while public sector ones soak up that money. The fewer jobs we have in the private sector, the fewer we can afford in the public sector. This is why economic growth is rather important.

Brian Edwards blogs on the Prince Charles syndrome:

I assume Phil Goff would like to be Prime Minister of New Zealand. He has every reason to think he deserves the job. He’s served a lengthy apprenticeship, having come into Parliament in 1981, the same year as Helen Clark. And he’s had a distinguished career as an MP and Cabinet Minister. He’s highly intelligent and well-informed on a whole range of portfolios from Justice to Foreign Affairs. And he comes from good Labour stock.

Goff and his party are languishing in the polls at the moment, but their figures are actually better than Helen Clark’s and Labour’s were in early-mid 1996.

Labour in early 1996 dropped as low as 14%. But the overall left vote was pretty strong – with the Alliance and NZ First, they were around 50%.

Labour and Greens have no other potential partners on the left, except the Maori Party, which Labour keeps doing its best to alienate.

But it’s interesting to speculate what might have happened if Clark had not  called the coup leaders’ bluff and stood down. In every conversation I’ve had with Michael Cullen, he’s claimed to have had no interest in leading the Labour Party or being Prime Minister. So Labour’s new leader might well have been Phil Goff: 43, talented, hungry, going places.

Could Goff have won against Bolger in 1996? Quite possibly. A factor in Winston Peter’s decision to go with National in the country’s first MMP election may well have been his reluctance to serve under a woman Prime Minister. So he might just have gone with Labour, and Phil Goff would have achieved his ambition to lead the country.

A big factor in NZF going with National was the sheer arrogance of the Labour negotiators. A Goff leadership might have avoided making that mistake.

I also think Labour would have done quite a bit better in 2008, if Goff had been made Finance Minister in mid 2007.

Popular political wisdom at the moment has it that Labour will not win the next election. If that is right and if Goff’s personal rating as preferred Prime Minister has not significantly improved by then, he’s unlikely to survive long as Opposition leader after the election. In similar circumstances, Clark had 6 months to improve her poll ratings and did so spectacularly. Goff has at least 18 months and National’s social and economic policies will inevitably begin to erode the party’s huge lead in the polls well before then. So Goff is in with a chance, albeit a slender one.

Against him is a less easy, less engaging image than Key’s and a phenomenon which I like to call The Prince Charles Syndrome. Charles, the man who would be king, has simply been around too long. Kept waiting by a mother in excellent health and showing no inclination to abdicate, the once young and attractive prince has lost his appeal to his handsome and exciting son, Prince William.  Kept waiting by the hugely charismatic, if morally flawed Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, the dour Scottish son of a Presbyterian minister, may have suffered the same fate – around too long. And the same may be true of Phil Goff.

At the heart of National’s 2008 election win was the simplistic but potent belief that it was ‘time for a change’. John Key had been in Parliament only 6 years when he became Prime Minister. He was fresh and new and the electorate is giving him a lot of slack. We are still getting to know him.

When the 2011 election rolls around, Phil Goff will have been in Parliament for 30 years, kept waiting for twelve of those years by a woman who in 1996 also refused to abdicate.

So does Phil Goff deserve to be Prime Minister of New Zealand? I believe that he does.

And has he been around too long? Possibly.

I an normally very loath to make predictions about what party will win an election, or even a seat. Partly because of my day job, and partly because I know how quickly things can change.

I was very cautious about the results of the 2008 election, right up to and including election night.

However for most of the last year I have been saying that I do not think Labour will win the next election. Not because John Key is popular. Not because National is in its first term. But because, like Brian Edwards, I do not think voters will choose to elect as a “fresh face” someone who has been an MP since 1981.

Of course it can happen, National could implode. Some sort of event could cause the public to want a PM with 30 years experience in Parliament, rather than John Key. But it is a very hard sell, regardless of what Goff does.

The baby boomer generation did place a premium on experience in Parliament. Holyoake served 25 yars before becoming PM. Marshall served 26 years. Nash did 28 years. Kirk did 15 and Muldoon did 15.

Later on it was shorter. Lange did 7. Bolger 18, Shipley 10, Clark 18 and Key 6.

Even in the old days, 30 years was beyond the waiting period for Holyoake, Nash and Marshall.

Today people distrust more people who have spent their entire life in Parliament. It is, well uncool. Look around the world:

Kevin Rudd became Pm after only eight years in Parliament. Tony Blair took 1 years to be Leader and PM in 14. David Cameron may do it in 13. Even Tony Abbott is in only his 16th year. Stephen Harper made PM 13 years after he entered. Angela Merkel took 15 years.

Now this is not a hard and fast rule. But it is a sign of the massive challenge ahead of Goff, to convince voters that he is a Prime Minister to lead NZ into the future.

The Dom Post reports:

Labour leader Phil Goff will cut back his use of chauffeur-driven Crown cars in favour of much cheaper taxis after he ran up a $70,000 bill in three months.

But he is questioning the cost of the ministerial BMW limousines.

Mr Goff, who as Opposition leader has the use of the cars, said he would write to Prime Minister John Key and Internal Affairs, which runs the VIP Transport Service, challenging the service’s fees, which rose significantly last year.

The latest publication of MPs’ expenses shows Mr Goff spent $69,657 for the cars in the last three months of last year, although almost all of it was incurred in July, August and September. It showed up in the returns for the last quarter of 2009 because of a delay in Internal Affairs billing the Parliamentary Service, which pays MPs’ travel and accommodation expenses.

Having access to VIP Transport is a bit of a mixed blessing with these expense disclosures.

Ministers (and others like Phil Goff) get charged a per hour rate of $90 and a  per km rate of $1.25 by VIP Transport, as a book-keeping exercise. The charge covers the capital costs of the fleet of cars and score of drivers.

Now the actual marginal cost of using VIP Transport is very small – almost just petrol. It would cost the taxpayer more if a Minister takes a taxi (which results in an external charge) than using VIP Transport (where the driver is on full salary regardless of whether or not they are driving at that moment in time).

If a Minister (or other person entitled) said they will never ever use VIP Transport, then they would be able to reduce their fleet size and number of drivers. But just using taxis some of the time will reduce the cost apportioned to a Minister internally, but probably not reduce the overall cost to the taxpayer.

It is a bit unfair on Phil Goff that he gets shown to have such a large expense against his name. For the reality is that his use of VIP Transport doesn’t really cost the taxpayer the amount shown. Most of those costs would be incurred regardless of how frequently he uses them, as their costs are mainly fixed, rather than marginal.

One of the anonymous authors at The Standard tried yesterday to smear Murray McCully over, well doing the right thing.

In a post they filed under the “corruption” category, they revealed that Murray McCully has shares in Widespread Portfolios. Except they did not in fact reveal it – McCully did in the MPs Annual Register of Pecuniary Interests. He’s declared every single year since the Register started in 2006.

Then in a piece of detective work worthy of Sherlock Holmes, they went to the homepage of Widespread Portfolios and managed to dig up (I a being sarcastic – it is at the top of their main page) the statement:

Widespread Portfolios Limited (stockmarket code WID) invests primarily in overseas-based mining and mineral exploration companies.

So this so called corrupt behavior from McCully was to declare he had shares in a company that declares it invests in mining companies.

Now not only has McCully behaved entirely appropriately, the value of his shares turns out to be $31.63. McCully has followed the PM’s lead and mooted giving the shares to the young Max Key. Poor Max must be wondering why he is becoming the target of unwanted share parcels. He should suggest to his Dad that he would rather have one of those Ministerial credit cards that Ministers have been disposing of

Phil Goff looks stupid when he says:

Opposition leader Phil Goff said any shares in a mining company working in New Zealand represented a conflict of interest.

“Whenever there was a conflict of interest of any sort in the Cabinet I was part of, a minister was expected to remove him or herself from the room immediately and not participate in those discussions.”

What nonsense. Did half the Labour Cabinet remove themselves when they debated monetary policy, because they were owners of investment properties? Their interest was vastly more than $31.

A conflict of interest is generally about a decision to favour a specific company, not about policies that support a sector of the economy. Do farmers get excluded from decisions about primary production?

Exclusion on a conflict happens only when there is a direct beneficial interest, such as granting a contract to a company you have shares in – and even then, it has to be significant. If your super fund has lots of Telecom shares, that doesn’t mean you can’t ‘t be involved in decision on Telecom – again I suspect most of the Cabinet would have an indirect interest.

The major requirement around conflicts of interests is transparency. And McCully has complied 100%. As it happens, he had not even been present at any discussions on mining, but it is ridicolous of Goff to suggest he can’t be, because of $31 of shares.

But what really annoys me over The Standard’s labelling of this as corruption (the category they assigned to the story) is the immense double standards – and this applies to Phil Goff’s comments also.

Think back 18 months to Winston Peters. Here are the key facts in two cases:

1. Winston knew of a $100,000 donation from Owen Glenn to his lawyer to cover his legal fees.
2. Winston never ever declared this, as he was required to do so.
3. Winston lobbied for Mr Glenn to be given a diplomatic appointment

But the more important case:

1. Racing interests donated money to Winston Peters personally by paying his costs to Bob Clarkson.
2. This personal donation of tens of thousands of dollars was never declared by Peters, and only exposed by the SFO
3. The same racing interests also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to NZ First.
4. Peters was the portfolio minister for racing under Helen Clark, yet never disclosed the personal donations, or the party donations. Arguably no need to disclose the party ones, but he was required to disclose the personal one.
5. Peters advocated for more money for the racing industry, including having the taxpayer pay for bigger prizes for races.
6. Officials strongly advised against doing this, but Cabinet agreed to the extra funding advocated by Peters, unaware that Peters was receiving large donations from racing interests.

Now one can argue Peters was genuinely motivated to help the racing industry, and the donations did not influence him. That is not the issue today.

The issue is that this was the most serious breach of the conflict of interest regime we have seen. A personal donation which directly benefited a Minister (by paying off his damages to Clarkson) was not declared, and that Minister directly lobbied for money to be given in prizes to the racing industry.

So this puts Phil Goff’s holier than thou statement about practises in the last Government in perspective. And remember Phil Goff voted against the Privileges Committee report, as Labour insisted Winston had not broken the rules.

But back to The Standard, what did they have to say about Winston’s conflicts at the time:

On 22 July:

For my part, I don’t see the big deal in all this Peters donation stuff. Transparency in election funding is important (and it’s something that National and ACT have constantly opposed) but there is no evidence of Peters has been purposely secretive.

So no big deal. And even better:

As for the Dompost’s ‘revelations’ today – various members of the Vela family and companies owned by the family gave amounts that may have totalled $150,000 to New Zealand First over a period of five years. So what? The donations are legal and, as long as NZF didn’t receive more $10,000 from any individual person (legal or natural) in one financial year, they didn’t have to be declared under the law of the time.

However the donation to pay Winston’s legal costs to Clarkson was required to be disclosed, but more importantly back then The Standard had no concern about sums 1,000 times greater than $31 going to parties or politicians, and the party leader directly advocating for policies that will benefit those donors.

And again on 23 September:

So, the committee found what everyone knew: Peters story doesn’t add up. But it also shows that this story isn’t really about anything significant. Oh, no, a politician didn’t make the efforts he should have to find out what benefit he may have gained from a legal donation, his form was wrong as a result, and he made up a story to try to cover himself. Shoddy behaviour to be sure but nothing that actually impacts on the substance of government.

So as Winston supported Labour, there was nothing of substance wrong. Never mind he didn’t declare the personal donations to cover his legal costs to Clarkson, and never mind the Labour Cabinet had no idea when Peters was advocating more money for racing prizes, he was receiving these donations from companies that are likely to benefit.

Peter’s conduct was probably the biggest breach of standards since the marginal loans affair. Yet to Phil Goff and The Standard, it was all okay.

Now let us admit that we all are coloured to some degree and see things more rosy for the side you tend to support. That is natural, and expected. We’re not neutral reporters.

But I find those who blog anonymously stretch that to breaking point – there is almost no misconduct they won’t defend for their own side, and they will label as corrupt basically anything that moves from the other side.

The Standard suggest McCully is corrupt for following the rules and declaring his $31 of shares (yes they did not know the amount, but the issue is McCully has acted entirely appropriately) yet they defended Winston time and time again over horrendous breaches of the conflicts of interest regime.

I regard myself as a mate of Phil Heatley. Have even stayed at his house and he is one of the nicest guys you can meet. But when the Dom Post published their story yesterday, I described the use of the ministerial credit card as totally unacceptable with no ifs and no buts.

Those who blog anonymously tend to use extreme language to smear people. They call them corrupt, crooked or racist or bigoted. They do so, because they don’t have to defend their comments in real life.

So here is my challenge to Eddie. Stop the extreme language against people just because their politics are not your own, or have the guts to blog under your real name.

The Press reports:

Labour plans to launch a nationwide bus-campaign protest against the proposed GST increase.

The Opposition has recorded a slight increase in support in the latest polls, but National is still well in front as it welcomes poll results as support for a GST rise.

Prime Minister John Key says they show “there is support for an increase in GST where it’s accompanied by a reduction in taxes”.

However, Labour leader Phil Goff was yesterday cautiously optimistic about the new polls indicating he was making up some ground on the National Government.

Hmmn. Two polls were out yesterday. TVNZ had the gap at 20% and TV3 at 26.7% which is an average gap of 23.4%. Their previous polls had gaps of 22% and 24.4% which was an average gap of 23.2%.

So in fact the gap between National and Labour increased by an average 0.2% in the only two polls taken post the GST announcement. Not quite making up ground.

Goff said he planned to take MPs on a bus trip from Auckland to Dunedin during the two-week parliamentary recess.

“Nobody voted for an increase in GST,” Goff said.

That is not true. Phil did. He voted to bring GST in at 10% and he voted to increase it to 12.5%.So does anyone think he is being sincere with his opposition to this increase?

The NZ Herald reports that Phil Goff as closed the gap in the latest poll.

He is now only 0.2% behind Helen Clark as Preferred Prime Minister.

Chris Trotter writes:

Labour has become electorally implausible because it no longer projects itself as either psychologically, or morally, convincing.

Mr Goff, in last week’s “State of the Nation” speech, spoke of a Labour Party dedicated to serving the needs of “the many, not the few”.

He lambasted those who avoided paying their fair share of tax and he vowed to cap the salaries of state sector chief executives at the level of the prime minister’s annual income.

A traditional Labour message, and by all accounts powerfully delivered.

But was it real?

No, not really. It took the redoubtable Right-wing blogger, Cactus Kate, less than a day to uncover the fact that a significant number of Labour MPs belonged to one or more family trusts, the very same tax avoidance device that Mr Goff was railing against.

Rhetoric without substance doesn’t do well in the blogosphere.

And what about all those state sector CEOs on excessive salaries? Well, Mr Goff is to be congratulated for wanting to share the “pain” of economic recession more equitably.

But, in order to restore a measure of equity to the pay scales of the public service, surely Mr Goff would have to renounce his own, and Labour’s, continuing support for the State Sector Act?

After all, Mr Goff was a cabinet minister in the fourth Labour government, which introduced the State Sector Act. Its purpose?

To bring the private sector’s market- driven discipline into the public service: to give the heads of government agencies the same powers and responsibilities as corporate chief executives and pay them accordingly.

If Mr Goff is now acknowledging that the ideology underpinning the State Sector Act is flawed, then I, for one, will cheer him to the echo.

But if he still adheres to the neoliberal ethos which gave it birth, then he should let the market in CEO salaries find its own level, and like the original author of the State Sector Act, Stan Rodger, remain steadfastly on the sidelines and keep his mouth firmly shut.

And if Goff does suddenly declare the State Sector Act is wrong, the question will arise why has it taken 30 years to realise it. Longevity in Parliament is not always helpful for an opposition leader.

To win back the love Labour’s lost, the leader of the Opposition must learn how to channel not only the hopes and aspirations of Labour’s educated middle-class minority, but also the fear and antagonism of its sullen working-class majority.

A genuine political leader will gladly and gloriously reflect the idealistic light of his best followers but, when pressed, he must also be capable of tapping into the darkest impulses of his worst.

True leaders are feared as much as they are loved.

Think of Helen Clark in the midst of the “Corngate” scandal: chilling. Think of Rob Muldoon ordering Tom Scott out of the Beehive theatrette: terrifying.

Watching TVNZ’s Guyon Espiner interviewing Mr Goff on the Q+A programme, I was struck by how keen the leader of the Opposition was to please.

I don’t think it is a bad thing, that Phil Goff does not have a streak of Clark or Muldoon in him. While I disagree with his policies, I think Phil Goff is a pretty decent person, who achieved many good things as a Minister. I don’t think he will become Prime Minister, but if he did I think he would do an okay job (again I probably would disagree with a lot of his policies).

Democracy, it is said, substitutes ballots for bullets. And that’s fine so long as, like the metal projectiles they replace, ballots also have the capacity to inflict real damage.

Labour needs policies that not only help but hurt.

Out there in the electorate, some groups need to understand that they will be paying for Mr Goff’s promises. Sweet reason and bipartisanship, as President Barack

Obama has discovered, make for poor politics. There’s nothing the voter enjoys more than the whiff of fear and panic – especially in high places.

No politician gets elected purely on the strength of being everyone’s friend. At least symbolically, and preferably in reality, a party leader must also be somebody’s enemy.

Actually Obama has not been at all bipartisan. I think problem has been his moving to the left, instead of the centre. And by doing so he seems to have positioned himself as the enemy of fiscal hawks. The trouble is they are winning the war.

One of the best policies the Government has implemented went into force on Friday. A Hastings couple got to purchase their state house from the Government. You can see how happy they are at TV3.

Now these are sold at market rates, and the money from them goes into buying more housing stock, so it is good for everyone. The former tenants become home owners, and more houses are made available for those on the waiting list for a state home.

But of course Labour is against people removing themselves from being reliant on the state, and want to ban such sales. And worse Phil Goff insulted those tenants who aspire to be home owners – this is what he said:

“The only people who benefit from this are the developers, who will no doubt stand behind a number of tenants to fund the purchase so that it can be onsold.”

Isn’t that appalling. Apart from the fact that the houses are sold at market rates, he impugns dozens of Kiwi families who simply aspire to own the home they have lived in for many years (or decades) and accuses them of just being in it to make a quick buck.

Labour don’t seem to like those who aspire to get off welfare and get ahead.

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the full results of a poll of 1,002 Maori respondents. There are 685 from the Maori roll and 317 from the General Roll.

The most news worthy aspect is that that majority of Maori who are voting Labour do not believe Phil Goff is the best person to lead the Labour Party. Only 36% of Maori Labour voters say he is the best person to lead Labour and 48% say he is not. Now again – that is from Labour voters only, not all Maori, so is a pretty damning result.

We see this again, with the poll of all Maori voters on whether or not they think Phil Goff provides good leadership on Maori issues – only 18% (less than one in five) agree and 59% disagree.

Preferred PM is also pretty dismal. Goff is in 5th place at 4.6% (and remember this is amongst a constituency who used to be the strongest Labour had) and amongst Maori on the Maori roll he is even below Hone Harawira as Preferred PM!

Finally in terms of the party vote, there is bad and good news for Labour. Amongst the 68% of Maori on the Maori roll, Labour has fallen from 50% at the last election to 32%. Labour are at 51% amongst Maori on the general roll, which is up from a November Marae Digipoll.

Overall the Maori Party lead Labour by 0.4% on the party vote. On the Maori Roll, they lead by 20%, which compares to the 2008 election when Labour beat the Maori Party by 21% on the party vote.

If the electorate vote follows the party vote (and historically the Maori Party do far better on the electorate vote than the party vote) then Labour is at serious risk of losing their two remaining seats, rather than winning all seven seats as Shane Jones claims he will do.

Some extracts from an interesting interview:

GUYON You spoke in your speech a lot about tax as well, and again you returned to that equity and fairness argument, and I want to quote from that, you said too many people on good incomes avoid and evade paying taxes.  Now I’ve looked through the MP’s Register of Pecuniary Interests, and I see you don’t have a family trust or a trust listed there, so I presume that you personally do and always have paid the top tax rate.

PHIL I’ve the top tax rate, I’ve always paid every dollar in tax that I’ve been required to pay and I’m  proud to pay that tax because that’s how we fun our education our health system.

GUYON Is that the case for your caucus, because when you look through that Register of Interests, there are a lot of your own MPs who have trusts, and can structure their finance and their assets so they do not pay the top tax rate, do you include those people in the people who are being unfair by not paying the top tax rate?

PHIL If you have a system that allows people to avoid paying tax, they would avoid paying taxes, what you have to do is get the system right.  What I guess offends me is that most people, average working New Zealanders, wage and salary earners they don’t evade, they don’t avoid their tax, they can’t, but when you see the list of the top hundred income earners in this country and half of them are paying less tax as a proportion of their income than the people right at the top, you say there’s something wrong with the system.

GUYON Something wrong, a lot of people would agree with that, but can I return to that, have you asked those MPs, I mean is it fair that they’re not paying the top tax rate, all of them are paid over $140,000 at least yet they’re able to structure their finances in that way.  When you gave a speech and said that was unfair had you checked with your own caucus to see whether those people are paying the top tax rate and paying for the roads and hospitals and schools of New Zealand?

PHIL Yeah, I’ve got absolute confidence that every one of my MPs is paying all the tax that they should be paying …

Good to see this question put to Goff. Cactus Kate was the first to raise it – the hypocrisy of railing against wealthy people avoiding the top tax rate, and having a third of your caucus using trusts to minimise their own tax liability.

If you want to reduce tax avoidance in NZ, then the best way to do it is to lower the top tax rate.

If Goff continues to go on about how wealthy people should not avoid the top tax rate, then he should be challenged to ban his caucus members from having family trusts!

GUYON The top 10% of income earners though, they pay 44% of all the tax, is that fair?

PHIL Well they earn probably over 40% of the income, so proportionately yes.

Actually the top 10% of income earners pay 76% of net taxation (taking into account working for families etc). And what people shouold be worried about is not how to tax them even more, but what it will mean if those 10% leave NZ in significant numbers!

GUYON Shane Jones said this week that it was his mission to drive the Maori Party out of parliament.  Now how smart is it for the Labour Party under MMP to actually annihilate a potential coalition partner, leaving them only with the Greens and leaving you with almost no chance of forming the next government.

PHIL Well if the electorate will make that decision but Shane was speaking from heart and he was saying this.

GUYON Is he speaking with your authority?

PHIL I’m comfortable with his comments.

GUYON You want the Maori Party out of parliament?

PHIL No no.

Yet Shane Jones does. Goff them tries to have it both ways.

GUYON No no hang on hang on, that’s what he said, sorry Mr Goff, do you want the Maori Party out of parliament?

PHIL Look if there is a question of whether there are seven Maori seats that are Labour Party or Maori Party held I want them all to be Labour Party held.

GUYON So you don’t want to work with the Maori Party potentially?

PHIL No, no, that’s a different question.

GUYON But if you’re trying to extinguish them, there’s no chance at all is there?

PHIL In a democratic competition of course every one of our Labour candidates in the Maori electorates will be seeking to win those seats and I’ll be right behind them, and I’d like 100%.  The second question you ask is a slightly different one.  Will we work with the Maori Party while they’re in parliament, of course we will, if we think that’s in the interests of the country, as would any other party.

GUYON So let’s get this straight.  You want to drive the Maori Party out of parliament, but should they actually remain so you’ll work with them?

Would have been interesting at this point to have asked Goff if he wants Winston back in Parliament, and does he want the Greens there?

GUYON Will you resign on election night should Labour lose as Helen Clark did?

PHIL I don’t have a plan B for election night, and it’s not about losing.

GUYON I think I heard a similar phrase before, but thanks very much for coming and joining us this morning.

A very similar phrase indeed.

To be fair, I don’t think Phil Goff does have a Plan B for election night. He said that Plan B is not about losing. That must mean Plan A is about Labour losing!

First the hypocrisy exposed by Keeping Stock:

Mr Rennie said the pay rises flowed through from a decision in 2005 to increase the overall funding for chief executives by 5 per cent a year for five years. …

Yes that is right. Labour signed off on a formal policy to increase CEO salaries by 5% a year for five years. A policy cancelled by National in 2009.

Then we have both the hypocrisy and a lie, from Grant Robertson.

I actually find it hilarious that Grant, the self appointed defender of the public service is promoting Goff’s idiocy.  Grant has oppossed every cost savings National has made in the public service, demanding more public servants and higher wages, and then suddenly he is for a pay cap!

But the lie is this:

A raw nerve has been struck very quickly with David Farrar over the commitment in Phil Goff’s speech to cap Public Sector Chief Executive pay at the level of the Prime Minister. He describes the policy as “idiocy”.

I wonder how DPF’s friends in the UK Conservative Party would feel about him calling David Cameron an idiot. Because, as Phil Goff said in the speech today, this is something that the UK Tories are also talking about.

Grant is wrong. Maybe he did not read his own link and just trusted that Phil Goff was correct, He’s a smart guy so won’t make that mistake again.

What does the article say David Cameron wants to do:

• speculation that public sector salaries may be frozen if the Conservatives are elected – something Labour and the PSA no doubt would condemn
• named several public-sector employees who he indicated are overpaid – and I could name some here also.
• said a Conservative Government will “out” quangocrats and mandarins who have been “getting rich at the taxpayer’s expense” by publishing details of all public sector salaries over £150,000 – well we already publish salaries over $100,000
• Mr Cameron said that means-tested tax credits for people earning over £50,000 would be scrapped to save taxpayers’ money – scrapping their equivalent of WFF – again not sure Grant is endorsing this.
• seek to reintroduce Gordon Brown’s “golden rule” – to keep Government borrowing below 40 percent of national economic output – wish Labour would tell us their debt target – seems to be the higher the better
• The Conservative leader also indicated that the Conservatives may freeze public spending in future – wow a spending freeze

Nowhere at all does David Cameron talk about having a policy that no public servant can be paid more than the Prime Minister who gets 197,000 pounds.

His Shadow Chancellor did in one speech suggest that the Chancellor’s permission be necessary for any pay above the PM. His exact words were:

In the current climate, anyone who wishes to pay a public servant more than the Prime Minister will have to put it before the Chancellor.

There is a huge difference between needing to make a case, and a blanket ban which Goff announced, as the House of Commons itself resolved.

Osborne also incidentally proposed a 5% pay cut for Ministers, cutting the number of MPs by 10% and closing off the parliamentary pension scheme and most of all cutting the cost of Whitehall by one third!

Now the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee happens to have just published a report on top pay in the public sector. Let us see what they think of Phil Goff’s idea:

Public servants who earn more than the Prime Minister are very well paid indeed. Reward at this level deserves a clear and public justification, and close and sceptical scrutiny. But any proposal to use the Prime Minister’s salary as an absolute cap on public sector pay would be little more than a political stunt.

Little more than a political stunt. That’s NZ Labour.

NZPA report:

Public service chief executives should never be paid more than the prime minister, Labour Party leader Phil Goff said today, announcing the new policy in a speech in Hamilton.

I’m not sure if he is trying to get John Key a pay rise, or what he intends, but this is simplistic drivel.

You pay the salary necessary to get someone who can do the job well. For small agencies this may mean $150,000 or so, but for the Governor of the Reserve Bank it may well mean more than the PM. The Governor’s competence has a huge impact on the economy, and frankly the consequences on the economy make the $50,000 or so Goff wants to save pail into insignificance.

The PM is of course underpaid for the complexity and importance of the role. But people don’t seek it for the money. Hence it is appropriate the role is not paid at full market rates. If you applied that to political jobs,then the US President should be on around $50 million a year!

If Goff’s idiocy ever did become law, the inevitable consequence would be massive pay increases for the PM, if his or her salary becomes the top permissible in the public sector.

Personally I do think pay rates in the public sector senior ranks are generally too high – they actually exceed the private sector, without the risk that top execs face. But a blanket maximum is a stupid way to go.

Take the Solicitor-General. That’s a pretty important constitutional job. Now many partners in law firms can earn over $500,000 a year. The Solictor-General is paid $510,000 or so a year.

Is Phil Goff saying that the top lawyer for the NZ Government should be someone who isn’t even up to partner level in a top law firm? Does he want the Government to get beaten in court all the time?

Colin Espiner blogs:

So, it seems, is Phil Goff. Labour’s leader has issued a ringing endorsement of his own abilities today at Labour’s caucus meeting in Auckland.

“You’ll have to put up with me for a couple more years,” he told reporters this morning before Labour’s traditional vote on the leadership, which has returned both himself and deputy Annette King.  ”I think it’s a recognition that the leadership team they’ve got is the best team they could hope for.”

Bloody hell. Talk about damning with faint praise. I can almost see Labour’s next election slogan now: “Phil Goff: The best Labour has to offer.” Or maybe “Goff – there’s really no one else.” It’s almost as bad as Dunedin’s ”It’s all right here” or Hastings’ “Take a fresh look”.

Heh. Who is going to be first with the photoshop?

Mind you, it’s probably not Goff who has to worry much this year. As he says himself, there really isn’t any alternative. As long as he can keep the Government honest and score a few points during 2010, he’ll still be there at the end of the year.

Yep, as the alternatives are worse.

No, I’m starting to think it’s our prime minister who has his work cut out this year. When even the Right-leaning business publication the National Business Review starts telling National to get on with the job, you know that the tolerance of National’s natural constituency for its steady-as-she-goes approach is coming to an end.

To be fair to Key and National, it does have some major plans this year, ranging from tax reform to the Whanau Ora policy of allowing private providers (mostly Maori) into the provision of welfare. It’s got national standards to implement in education, energy sector changes to complete, the legal aid system to overhaul, and the Foreshore and Seabed Act to repeal and replace.

But there’s a difference between planning things and actually implementing them, and that’s going to be the litmus test of this administration this year. In 2009 Key proved himself to be a political manager almost of Helen Clark’s calibre. In 2010, we’ll get to see whether he can match her in getting things done as well.

A fair call. People do want to see progress, and a sense of direction.

TV news showed Phil Goff, after being re-elected Leader, saying “I’m afraid you’ll just have to put up with me for another couple of years”.

Did he just concede the election? If he wins, he would be around for another fve to eight years. It is only if he loses that he is only around for another couple of years!

Phil also managed to get his “ordinary New Zealanders” phrase off again. I make his count up to four so far. Will he get to double figures?

First Audrey:

At Tuesday’s caucus meeting in Manukau, Goff will be confirmed resolutely as leader. Under the party’s rules the leadership must be addressed in the first caucus of the year before election year.

Before inviting the caucus back to his Clevedon farm for dinner, he will deliver a short message to his MPs – do better than you did last year.

The implication must be that if they don’t shape up, they will be shipped out.

That is a fair message, as some in Labour have not performed and are missing in action, such as Parekura. Goff should seriously consider a front bench reshuffle and sticking up some of the 2008 intake. He also needs to think about signals to former Ministers – ie does he see a place for them as a Minister, if Labour should win. Then they can make decisions about retiring, and allow further new blood in next election.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Chris Carter had a shocking year, due in no small part to his reaction to media stories about about high travel costs. He will miss the first caucus meeting because he is in the Caribbean monitoring elections for the Commonwealth.

Parekura Horomia made no impact against the Maori Party but is seen as untouchable because he held his seat against it, and is the senior Maori.

Shane Jones, whose leadership ambitions are a frequent source of teasing by National, made no impact in his areas of environment and economic development, but was de facto Maori Affairs spokesman.

And David Cunliffe, whose leadership ambitions are a regular source of teasing within Labour, will be expected to do better against Finance Minister Bill English.

One could suggest Shane and DC need to concentrate on their portfolios, and not Phil Goff’s

Goff is expected to lead a concerted effort this year to make Cunliffe and other MPs put ordinary working people uppermost in their minds as they develop their portfolios and policies.

Is it just me, or the way many Labour MPs talk about “ordinary working people”, they sound like a curator at a museum who is enthused about studying them!

Vernon Small writes:

Labour leader Phil Goff’s job will be on the line at the party’s first caucus meeting of the year on Tuesday, but he is confident no challenger will emerge.

The party’s leadership is always on the agenda at the first caucus meeting of the middle year of each parliamentary term, but despite’s National’s jibes that he is “fill-in Phil” – an interim leader while Labour regroups – Mr Goff is so confident he has invited his team to a barbecue at his Clevedon home … bringing with it the inevitable jokes.

I agree that Goff will not face a challenge this January, and I doubt he will next January either. The odds are that he will remain Leader until the 2011 election (and I have money on iPredict that his job is safe this year).

There will be a bit of a danger period for him – it is the second half of 2010. If National is still 20 points ahead in the polls a couple of months after the 2010 budget (which is the most likely game changer between now and the election), then some in Labour may start to get nervous.

However two things should keep Goff in the job even if Labour remain 20 points behind. The first is the lack of confidence in the alternatives. The second is MMP. Under FPP, MPs would panic at bad poll ratings as them losing their seat meant the end of their political career. But with MMP those on good list positions are insulated from all but the most disastrous election results. So the propensity to panic for self survival is lessened.

NZPA reports:

Closing the gap with Australia and stemming the trans-Tasman brain drain is one of the Government’s main long-term aims but Labour leader Phil Goff said the reverse was happening.

“Australian employment figures have soared for the fourth straight month and the jobless rate has fallen to 5.5 percent, a full percentage below New Zealand’s unemployment,” he said.

“For the first time in more than a decade, Australian unemployment levels over the past six months are lower than New Zealand, with Treasury forecasts that New Zealand’s unemployment will continue to grow.”

Now it is true that unemployment is now higher in New Zealand than Australia, and this is not good. Unemployment is a lose-lose. Having able bodied people not working means we don’t achieve as high economic growth as we could, and it is bad fiscally as it means less tax paid, and higher welfare payments.

But unemployment tends to rise when economic growth falls away. Not straight away but normally with a lag of six to 12 months or so. So let us look at economic growth between NZ and Australia.

So why does Australia now have lower unemployment? Because New Zealand went into recession, and Australia did not. And no this was not a post credit crisis recession. New Zealand’s economy started shrinking in the first quarter of 2008, and kept shrinking until the second quarter of 2009.

Now people may be wondering who was responsible for the economy in the first quarter of 2008. Well a Phil Goff was an Associate Minister of Finance. So when Phil wonders why Australia now has lower unemployment than NZ, he doesn’t have to go far to ask how come.

The Herald reports:

United Future leader Peter Dunne has given up on his annual list of worst-behaved MPs, saying Speaker Lockwood Smith’s reign has ushered in a new era of dignity and propriety.

To be fair, I think the absence of Winston helps also. But the House has been a far less toxic place this year.

Mr Dunne did honour Labour’s Trevor Mallard with a lifetime achievement award in bad behaviour “for services to melodrama, fisticuffs, and generally aberrant behaviour”.

When Lockwood orders him to apologise, you can actually see the supressed rage in his eyes!!

The Herald does find a few insults though:

Labour’s Moana Mackey apologised for referring to Hekia Parata as “Lady Parata” and “her royal highness”. National’s Paul Quinn was pulled up for calling Labour’s backbench “monkeys”.

I’d rather be called Lady Parata than a monkey I have to say – well if I was a female Parata that is!

Some apologies:

SHANE JONES
For saying of Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee, “the notion of him and energy is a mathematical impossibility”.

PHIL HEATLEY
For claiming another “fiddled the books” in ACC and Housing; for wishing the Speaker would use a 90-day eviction order on Trevor Mallard.

Heh.

RODNEY HIDE
For North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams’ “madness”, for calling Trevor Mallard “the angry one”.

Isn’t truth a defence?

JOHN KEY
For claiming Green MP Metiria Turei thought Phil Goff was “racist”. She had said his speech was “the worst kind of politics”.

So worse than racism?

John Armstrong writes:

Phil Goff emerged from Labour’s caucus meeting yesterday claiming his MPs were unanimous in their backing of both the tone and content of his now-infamous “nationhood” speech. There is no reason to doubt him. Short of doing what is currently the unthinkable – toppling him – the caucus had little option but to weigh in behind their leader – in public at least.

I’m reminded of the old adage that anytime a Caucus feels the need to pledge unanimous support for a leader, the coup is not far off. Not as Armstrong says, this is not the case at the moment – but unanimous pledges of support are things best avoided.

There could be no halfway house. The priority was to present a united front to the world outside. That was evident in Goff and party president Andrew Little, who has acknowledged party members’ worries with aspects of the speech, entering the meeting shoulder-to-shoulder.

Given Labour is rating around 30 per cent support in the polls – 20 percentage points behind National – the party could not afford go into the summer recess amidst internal dissent and with questions over the leader’s actions unresolved.

Goff insists he was not playing the race card when he gave the speech. If he was not overtly playing the race card, however, he knew perfectly well that he was producing enough evidence – be it the use of loaded language like “porkbone politics” or the choice of a provincial city audience for the speech – to lay himself open to that charge.

Yeah I’d love him to make that speech at Ratana, on even in Wellington Central, rather than Palmerston North Greypower. Instead Goff says he is not going to talk about the topic again. Dr Brash had the sincerity of his convictions and was happy to defend his views from one end of the country to another.

The PM put it this way yesterday: the tragedy of Phil Goff was that he had made a speech he did not believe in and as a result the Labour Party no longer believed in him. Not quite. The party has to believe in Goff because for the time being it has no one else it can believe in.

What Goff’s advisors do not realise is that the speech did not have credibility coming from someone who has been an MP for around 30 years and a Cabinet Minister in the last Government.

Colin Espiner blogs:

What I found interesting was that neither Goff nor Little tried to deny that there had been discontent within the party over the speech – they simply used the usual political euphemisms such as “robust debate” and the intriguing comment that “the Labour Party is not a Stalinist organisation”.

Heh the missing words are “no longer”

Ironically while Goff claims Labour is not “Stalinist” and has always vigorously debated issues, that actually isn’t true. It didn’t debate very much at all when Helen Clark was in charge, and that’s why Labour was so successful.

I’ve no doubt the party is probably a more relaxed and even pleasant place to be now that Clark and her iron-fisted rule have gone, but the free flow of debate and opinion can always be interpreted the wrong way if one isn’t careful.

That’s all I think has happened with Goff’s speech – at least, so far. No one is going to use this to challenge the leader, partly because no one else wants the job right now and partly because there are so many people in that caucus who think they are next in line that they’d never get any agreement on a candidate to replace him.

I’ve always said it is likely Goff will survive until the election, but it will be fascinating to see who stands after the election. At a minimum you could expect Jones, Cunliffe and Little.

NZPA report:

ACC’s higher than forcecast investment return has exposed the Government’s “scaremongering” about the corporation’s financial situation, Labour leader Phil Goff says.

Levies are going to be raised and some entitlements cut because the Government says ACC isn’t in a viable state to continue the way it is.

But Mr Goff, citing the latest Treasury figures, said today ACC’s investment funds had returned $500 million in the four months to October 31, which was higher than forecast.

I swear Labour oppose national standards for numeracy and literacy, because their election chances seem to be based on a hope residents can’t do basic maths.

I’m not sure what is scarier – taking (on paper) high returns for four months as some sort of guarantee of high returns over the long-term, or thinking that a $500 million return over four months will cover the $4.8 billion loss in the last year.

This is of course the same Labour that knew ACC lost $2.4 billion in 2007/08 and continued to increase benefits and entitlements. And then the Government broke the Public Finance Act, by not revealing the problem before the election.

Anyway let’s look again at Phil’s mathematics. Now the unfunded liabilities have increased from $9B to $24b in just four years. Part of the reasons is that the ACC Board and Minister assumed investment rates of returns that were grossly unrealistic – and Goff wants to do it all over again, on the basis on one four month period of good results.Does he really think that level of returns will persist for the next decade? If so, then I suggest he set up his own investment company.

Goff’’s desperate speech and u-turn may turn out to be a nail in his coffin. The Herald reports:

Labour’s president, Andrew Little, revealed yesterday that he has “personal concerns” about the speech.

It is no small thing for a party president to criticise the leader in public.

Mr Little said the speech had been discussed with Mr Goff at length at Labour’s national council meeting.

The president relayed his concerns, which he said were both his personally and those of people in the party.

“The extent to which I’ve got concerns is an issue for me and Phil, and no doubt the party and Phil and I wouldn’t air those publicly.”

But what is the game plan, that you will publicly air that you have concerns, just not what they are? There is no way this does not weaken Goff’s leadership.

A spokesman for Mr Goff said last night that he “absolutely stands by everything he said in the speech”.

It had raised important issues such as National’s “shabby” deal with the Maori Party to get the Emissions Trading Scheme through. Mr Goff also had grave concerns about National “playing politics” with the foreshore and seabed legislation.

So now the leader responds through the media to his own president.

Mr Little told the party conference in September that Labour had been wrong to deprive Maori of the right to test their claims in court when passing the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

The legislation will now be repealed as part of the governing agreement between National and the Maori Party, and Labour offered earlier in the year to work with National to achieve an “enduring consensus”.

But Mr Goff’s speech effectively changed Labour’s position on the law, saying it was working well the way it was now and repeal would make “wounds fester”.

Yep a u-turn in just two months.

I don’t think anyone thinks there is anything wrong with Labour opposing National’s ETS changes and associated deal with the Maori Party.

Likewise there is nothing wrong with Labour saying it supports the retention of the Foreshore & Seabed legislation. Of course they look a bit mickey mouse when they say they back change, that they are sorry for it, and then do a u-turn.

But where Goff went wrong is bringing together those two separate issues, along with Hone Harawira’s comments, into one overall theme of those Maori are getting away with too much.

John Tamihere writes:

LABOUR Party leader Phil Goff did an absolute somersault on his party’s position in regard to Foreshore and Seabed matters and Maori matters generally. …

Goff and his attack this week reflects not just a desperate man leading a desperate Party but shows the lack of integrity, credibility and leadership.

It is easy to divide a country, it is tough to unite it. Goff has embarked on a cheap, nasty direction for the Labour Party and I’m glad I’m not a member of it anymore.

You have to wonder why Parekura Horomia, Mita Ririnui and Nanaia Mahuta still remain in a Party that they know took the stick to us whenever a poll came out showing there was a difficulty to matters Maori.

The Foreshore and Seabed Legislation that we voted for is unworkable and unfair. It needs to be repealed and Goff knows that.

Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia are pro-Maori but not anti-Pakeha. Goff and his mates have taken the Maori vote for granted and whilst they can be pro-Pakeha, they are definitely now anti-Maori.

That is harsh criticism, considering it is from no Maori radical, but John Tamihere.

The Dom Post reports:

The Dalai Lama met with opposition leader Phil Goff after arriving in New Zealand with a flurry of diplomatic protocol hanging over him.

It is disappointing that John Key would not meet with the Dalai Llama, just to keep China happy. I think we should trade with China but not let them decide who we allow into New Zealand and meet with.

Mr Goff said that, if he was prime minister, he would still meet the Dalai Lama.

“I met with him when I was foreign minister, I don’t see any difference whether I’m a member of the executive or a leader of the Opposition. I’m meeting with him in his capacity as a spiritual and cultural leader and as a very nice person.”

Full credit to Goff for doing the right thing, and may it continue if he does ever achieve the top job.

The Herald reports:

The 2025 Taskforce set up to find ways to catch up with Australia’s economic growth should be scrapped, Labour Leader Phil Goff says.

Mr Goff said today it had a budget of $447,000 over three years and had so far cost $150,000.

“The taskforce’s first report was a complete and utter waste of money,” he said.

“Why give your mates $447,000 to cook up something you say you’re not going to do … dump this soapbox for ACT and Dr Brash and save the taxpayer the unspent $330,000.”

This is a classic case of thinking tactically, not strategically. The last thing Labour should want is the taskforce wound up. Why?

It will exist for three years, issuing further reports and monitoring the Government’s progress.

If the Government does not act on any of the taskforce’s recommendations, then you are going to have this taskforce, headed up by National’s former leader, issuing damning reports about how the Government is failing to close the gap with Australia.

Goff shouldn’t be demanding the taskforce be closed down. If he was smart, he’d be offering to pay its bills himself.  He really needs to start thinking strategically.

This has the potential to get interesting. Firstly Goff does a further u-turn on the foreshore and seabed:

Opposition leader Phil Goff has indicated Labour is backing away from its stance of allowing customary title of the foreshore and seabed to be awarded to iwi that meet the criteria involved.

Labour’s submission to the review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act earlier this year recommended the legislation be amended to allow customary title, rather than simple redress and protection of customary rights. …

Asked to clarify whether that meant its position on customary title had changed, Mr Goff told the Herald he remained open to considering it but would first have to be convinced it was necessary.

So Phil Goff is advocating a position different to Labour’s own submission on the law. As expected, this is causing some tensions within Labour, according to Vernon Small:

Labour leader Phil Goff will be asked to explain his controversial “nationhood” speech at next week’s party caucus meeting.

Discontent, especially on the Left of the party, has centred around Mr Goff’s comments on the foreshore and seabed policy.

A Leader who has to “explain” a speech to Caucus has some problems.

Labour sources said Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson questioned the speech at last week’s caucus meeting. He was again expected to be prominent among those expressing concerns at next Tuesday’s caucus meeting.

It is significant that Grant is leading the charge, for several reasons.

The first is that Grant will just be doing his job as a local MP. Wellington Central is a very liberal seat, and Labour activists there are very liberal. I have no doubt Grant will have been bombarded by supporters asking what the fuck is going on.

The second is that Grant is often (correctly) described as a future Labour Party Leader. Despite being first term, he is a heavyweight in caucus. Having Grant criticise a speech by the Leader, is not the same as having George Hawkins criticise it.

The third is that Grant is clearly from the leftish faction in Caucus. Now under Helen Clark factional warfare almost ended, and the factions were informal and flexible. But Goff’s speech and the reaction to it, may be the start of the factions becoming a bit more significant.

Sources said the party’s ruling council had already asked Mr Goff to explain the speech on Saturday .

“There will be questions at caucus on Tuesday,” one senior MP said.

The party’s council is almost exclusively from the liberal left side, so this is no surprise.

But another discounted a move against Mr Goff’s leadership, saying the concern should not be read as a sign of “deep divisions” in the party.

Oh absolutely it is premature to start talking of moves against the leadership. Such a possibility would not be considered until late 2010 at the earliest, and even then only if the polls remain dire after the 2010 budget.