Kiwiblog

Nick Venter has an interesting interview with Rodney Hide.

John Armstrong at NZ Herald reports:

Former Act leader Rodney Hide will not be delivering a farewell speech to Parliament because as far as he is concerned he is not retiring from politics.

He is instead being pushed out of the House by his successor.

Retiring MPs traditionally deliver a valedictory speech before the House rises for an election in which they review the highs and lows of their parliamentary career.

“I am not retiring,” Mr Hide said last night. “I did not choose to be pushed out.”

True, but many MPs leaving Parliament were pushed out.

For my part, I think it is a pity, as I’d like to hear what Rodney would have said in a valedictory.

I’ve said that in principle I support a CGT, if it is part of making NZ a broad base low rate tax system. Former ACT Leader Rodney Hide makes the argument against a CGT, as an effective double tax on business. He writes at interest.co.nz:

A business generates $100 a year. The going discount rate is 10 percent. The value of the business is $1,000. That’s if there’s no tax.

Introduce a tax of, say, 30 percent, and the business now yields only $70 a year. The business is worth only $700. The tax liability is capitalised into the value of the business.

Now let’s say I buy the business and fix it up. I double its income to $200. In the absence of any tax the business is now worth $2,000 and I can sell the business and pocket a $1,000 capital gain. However, if there’s an income tax of 30 percent the increase in the business’s value is from $700 to $1,400. My capital gain is now only $700.

My gain is not tax free even though I appear to pay no tax on my gain.

That’s because the capital value reflects the extra tax the extra income the business generates.

A capital gains tax of 30 percent reduces my gain from $700 to $490. I am doubly taxed.

Capital gains aren’t tax free and a capital gains tax doubly tax savings and investment.

Put like that, it does appear to be a double tax. Any arguments against the logic?

Capital gains tax is brutally unfair

There are plenty of ways a capital gains tax is unfair. Imagine a young widow with children whose husband poured his heart and soul into his business. Following his death the young widow has no choice but to sell the business. She has no income and no other assets.

The business was a start up. It generates $200 a year. After tax, that’s $140. The business sells for $1,400 upon which capital gains tax has to be paid at say 30 percent.

She nets $980. In the absence of any tax she would net $2,000.

The widow is taxed at 51 percent. That’s brutal.

A good case against by Rodney

Rodney Hide resigned as Leader of ACT at midday. Don Brash will be elected Leader at the next Caucus meeting.

I’d like to pay tribute to Rodney at this point in time. It is primarily due to Rodney that ACT survived in 2005 and 2008. Over his 15 years in Parliament Rodney has had a greater and more benficial impact on Parliament than most MPs.

I’m glad he is so happily married to Louise, and has become a Dad again. That will remind him of what is truly important in life – far more so than politics.

It looks like Rodney will remain an ACT MP and Minister until the election.

The immediate issues for ACT are:

1. Does John Boscawen remain Deputy Leader, or does that revert back to Heather Roy.
2. Does John Banks stand in Epsom for ACT.
3. List Ranking

While I have said previously that I’m not sure how good a fit John Banks is to ACT, there is considerable logic to having a candidate in the seat who will clearly win it for ACT. If they look guaranteed to win the seat, then they can campaign that voting for ACT is not a wasted vote, and that the more people who vote for them the more influence they will have on policy.

It is possible a Brash led ACT will also make it harder for Winston Peters to get traction (which is of course a good thing). Winston planned to campaign hard on the foreshore & seabed issue, but a Brash led ACT may be more effective in appealing to the coastal coaltion supporters.

Where NZ First, and Labour and Greens, will attack is on economic policy – especially wages, asset sales and superannuation. Goff is already suggesting that it was a cunning National plot to have Don roll Rodney (which is hysterically untrue).

The reality is that Don and Rodney are near identical minds on economic policy. What will determine their influence on Government is not so much who the leader is, but how many seats they win. At 10 seats you roughly expect twice the influence of 5 seats.

So as I said earlier, the next few polls will be interesting.

UPDATE: An excellent blog post from Cactus Kate on ACT.

Stuff reports:

Don Brash believes he has the numbers to roll Rodney Hide and become the new ACT leader as soon as today after furiously lobbying MPs.

The fates of Brash and Hide rest with the party’s newest MP, Hilary Calvert, who pledged her support for Hide at the weekend – but spent yesterday afternoon in a meeting at Brash’s Auckland apartment with Hide opponent Sir Roger Douglas.

Calvert did not return calls and refused to comment as she left. But after the meeting, Brash said he was “cautiously optimistic” of securing the ACT leadership, suggesting he believes he has her support.

He told National Radio that if she switched votes it would be “logical” for Hide to resign as early as today.

Brash also made it clear he saw no place for Hide in any party he led, suggesting it would be his advice to Hide “to go, quite frankly”

Most of the speculation has been on whether Boscawen would back Brash, not Calvert.The Herald reports:

On Sunday, she said that she backed Mr Hide and would vote for him over Dr Brash, and on Tuesday she repeated that position.

But yesterday, when the Herald asked if her position was still the same after her meeting with Dr Brash, she said: “I’m not prepared to make any comment.”

There’s been a fair amount of disinformation flying around, so we’ll see how things play out today.

However if the media are correct, then Don has won and will become Leader. I still stand by my comments about the nature of the coup. It is about winning the war, not the battle. And my concern is that Don has damaged his brand which was almost being above politics.

If Don does become leader, all eyes will be on teh next set of public polls. I have no doubt ACT will go up in the polls. The two key questions are how much, and from whom will they pull their extra support. I’d also caution not to take the first set of polls as gospel – there is a honeymoon effect. The second set of polls are likely to be more indicative.

Anyway let’s wait to see if the media have it right, and if Don has won. If he has, I’ll blog some ideas for key policies he can campaign on – apart from closing the gap with Australia.

Tracy Watkins reports:

Don Brash says ACT leader Rodney Hide offered to stand aside for him in the blue-ribbon Epsom seat during a secret meeting over the party leadership.

The revelation comes as the fight for ACT’s leadership turns increasingly personal, with Dr Brash putting aside his 15-year friendship with Mr Hide to challenge for the leadership.

Dr Brash spent the weekend phoning ACT MPs and lobbying for their support, with Dunedin-based MP Hilary Calvert and deputy leader John Boscawen holding the deciding votes in the five-person caucus.

His pitch is likely to include a promise that funders will turn the tap back on if he is leader. …

If his leadership bid is rejected, Dr Brash intends launching a new Right-wing party and says he has the backers and funding to do this.

He rejected suggestions that that would split the Right-wing vote: “If I’m successful, it won’t split the vote on the Right; it will collapse the ACT vote.”

Make me your leader or I will destroy you. I never knew Don came from Chicago!

David Fisher reports:

Act leader Rodney Hide’s brand is “toxic” and “people don’t like him”, says the man who wants his job – his old mate Don Brash. …

Brash also raised the stakes for Act by saying he might launch his own party if he doesn’t get Hide’s job.

Phil Goff must be thanking whichever diety he made a virgin sacrifice to, for answering his prayers.

Stuff reports:

State-owned Solid Energy, if successful with a bid, would probably look to develop the mine in a joint opencast/underground approach. It would need to get part of the surrounding land removed from schedule 4 protected conservation land for opencast mining. Access would be difficult and so would resource conditions.

If Solid Energy do buy Pike River, I hope the Government does make it possible for them to carry on mining there, in the safest way possible. If that means moving a couple of hectares out of Schedule 4, then so be it.

Rodney Hide at the weekend seemed to have ESP with his call:

ACT leader Rodney Hide is calling for open-cast mining at Pike River and on protected conservation land.

State-owned Solid Energy should be allowed to open-cast mine Pike River, to access an estimated $10 billion of resources, he said. “It seems to me it will require a great deal of care and sensitivity. But I can’t see how not continuing their [the miner's] work respects them.” …

Grey District Mayor Tony Kokshoorn backed Mr Hide’s call for open-cast mining at Pike River.

“Yeah, Rodney Hide is correct. We need to get on with it and we need to do it in a way that will safeguard the environment and at the same time get economic development.”

It looks like it might happen, which is good.

Photo from the Sunday Star-Times.

Getting married and having a family puts politics in perspective I reckon. Congrats to a great couple.

This is a non-political thread, so any comments should be in that vein.

Matthew Dearnaley in the NZ Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key says he supports a proposed inquiry into a donation by a Manukau trust to Auckland Mayor Len Brown’s election campaign.

Mr Key yesterday said he supported the view of Local Government Minister Rodney Hide “that it may be appropriate for the Auditor-General to look at the nature of whether the entity that actually gave [Mr Brown] a donation is capable of doing so or whether it’s within their rules to do so”.

He was referring to a donation of billboard space worth $3375 from the Counties Manukau Pacific Trust, which runs the TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre.

One issue for the Auditor-General might be whether the value of the space is correctly recorded. I know of no billboard space in Auckland that goes for $1,000/mth. $2,000/mth is pretty much the minimum for an average billboard, and my understanding is the size and prominence of the trust billboard is such that the commercial value would be at least $3,000 + GST a month.

So if the billboard was up for three months, then the value of the donation and associated expense should be $10,125.

If the billboard was up for more than three months, then the associated expense for the Brown campaign would remain at $10,125 (as only last three months count), but the donation value would be even great – would be $20,250 if it was for six months.

So these two facts need to be established – the commercial value of the billboard space, and the length of time the billboard was up.

“We are a community charitable trust,” he said. Trust chairman Sir Noel Robinson said no costs were incurred or revenue lost by providing Mr Brown’s campaign with billboard space, which his board had made a decision to provide free to any mayoral candidate who approached it.

This is spin of the highest order. The trust CEO is on the Len Brown campaign team, along with two trustees and possibly a senior trust employee. And you expect us to believe that they would have stuck up John Banks billboards if asked.

The Auditor-General should ask for a copy of the board minutes where this decision was allegedly made.

Even if they made such a decision, it was obviously to give the illusion of political neutrality. Unless they actually wrote to all the other mayoral candidates advising them of the availability of the billboard space, how could they possibly expect another candidate to know that they could ask to use their space.

Mr Brown said yesterday that he was unconcerned about Mr Hide’s intention to ask Ms Provost to look into the trust’s donation.

Excellent. Let the facts be discovered.

The Herald reports:

An increase to MPs’ salaries is almost inevitable if the Prime Minister’s bid to get rid of their foreign-travel perks is successful.

It is. As people now all know (and something I was the first to highlight over a year ago as it was obscurely buried in the Remuneration Authority’s 2003 determination, and had not been explicitly listed since) the value of the perk (as calculated by IRD) is deducted from their salary effectively.

If the Speaker just abolished it unilaterally, then MPs would have their base salary increase by $9,500 by the Remuneration Authority.

Although the demise of the perk seems certain, the taxpayer is likely to have to make up for it by an increase in MPs’ salaries.

Mr Key said he expected any rise to be “very modest” and putting salaries up by the full $9800 value of the perk was “unacceptable to me”. A significant increase would only expose MPs to more criticism, even though they had no say in their pay, he said.

Mr Key has urged the Speaker to ask the Remuneration Authority to decide how to abolish the perk and whether changes should be made to salaries as a result.

This is where the PM has been quite cunning. He is basically asking the Remuneration Authority to say in advance how much they would increase salaries, if the perk is abolished – with a rather unsubtle note that an increase to the full value is “unacceptable”.

So the Remuneration Authority now has to decide what to do, which is challenging as the most logical would just be to stop deducting the $9,800 from the base salary.

Annual totals for international travel perks for existing MPs:

1992-93 – $263,567
1995-96 – $387,950
2008-09 – $600,000
2009-10 – $432,989

Here’s what I would do. Divide $433,000 by 120 MPs and that is $3,500 per MP. Add that to the base salary and you can claim the exercise is revenue neutral. It’s not the principled way to do it (that would be the $9,800 option) but it is a pragmatic solution.

Labour leader Phil Goff agreed with Mr Key’s request for the perk to be reviewed independently, but said it was essential to retain some entitlement to international travel to allow MPs to go overseas on parliamentary business.

He had used his rebate for his recent trip to Australia to meet Prime Minister Julia Gillard and senior Cabinet ministers. “That enables me to do my job properly and is a legitimate use. Trying to justify the use of it for holidays will never be regarded by the public as a legitimate use.” …

Act leader Rodney Hide said he agreed with the Prime Minister that the perk should go and although it was for the Remuneration Authority to decide on salary increases in lieu of the perk, “you’d hope they’d be a wee bit judicious”.

He disputed Mr Goff’s call for some provision for work travel, saying there was already enough discretionary funding for it in party leaders’ budgets – a bulk sum they get to run their offices.

I’m actually more in agreement with Phil Goff on this point. I do think MPs should be able to travel internationally when it is work related. Many of the best policy ideas come from initiatives in other countries etc.

Now Rodney is right that such travel can be funded from the leader’s office budget. And that is where it should be funded from – rather than a separate dedicated fund. If you have a fund for travel – then people will make sure it gets fully used. If it comes from the bulk fund, then the leader (or their COS) has to decide whether the value of that travel is greater than the value they would get from spending it on more staff, or policy research, or a pamphlet etc etc.

But what I think Goff wants, and I agree with him, is a review of the level of funding for the Leader’s Office to ensure it is adequate to be able to fund legitimate work related international travel by MPs, now they can not use the perk to fund it.

It was reported last week that Lockwood Smith has decided not to include details of how much each MP has used of their “travel” perk, as it is discouraging MPs from using it – which is unfair as the value of the perk is deducted from their remuneration package in setting their salary.

Now Lockwood has identified the problem correctly, but in this rare instance I disagree with his solution.

It is unfair to be deducting the value of the perk from the salary, and to be having witch hunts against those who use it. But the solution is to abolish the travel perk and increase the salary – not to try and keep the details secret.

Lockwood and the PM have opened up the books greatly, and doing so is a one way street effectively. Even if the Parliamentary Service only now publish the total amount of travel perks used, the media will question each individual MP about whether they have used it, and so the end result will be the same.

The Herald quotes Rodney Hide saying much the same:

“Why don’t you just pay the MPs, don’t allow the rebate and cover their legitimate expenses?”

While the Green Party is looking at releasing their rebate details anyway, Hide could not speak on behalf of all his MPs on whether they would follow suit.

“I don’t think the speaker can put the genie back into the bottle, because people quite naturally expect transparency and accountability and it would be impossible to explain, in this day and age, that this rebate is being paid out of an MP’s salary, even though it is.”

I agree with Rodney that this is what should happen. There has been an argument that the travel perk should stay, because it is the only way to recognise more experienced MPs service. But I would say that if we wish to do that, then do it directly through salaries. There is no reason the Remuneration Authority can’t be asked to set a slightly higher salary for MPs who have served a certain number of years. some may argue against this also – my point is one should set the salary to cover all remuneration, and then just have legitimate expenses claimed.

Some MPs do use their travel perk for a mixture of work and play – such as travelling to meet colleagues in other countries. But that can be funded from the Leader’s Budget. If the argument is their budgets are not big enough to cover that, then lets debate that, rather than keep the travel perk which will never be accepted by the public – inevitably it will go the same way as the perk for ex MPs.

Readers may recall that Hone Harawira called Rodney various things, including fat, a week or so ago.

A reader alerted me to this video. Is this the same Rodney? I suspect Hone would struggle to bench press 110 kgs.

And here’s another – 180 kgs in a deadlift.

Claire Trevett at the Herald reports:

Asked about the issue on his way into Parliament yesterday, Mr Harawira refused to answer any questions asked in English and spoke only in te reo before walking away.

He earlier told Radio Waatea that if the Government agreed to Act’s request then the Maori Party should walk away from the coalition.

“I don’t see why we should sit back and let a little fat redneck like Rodney Hide put in an amendment at the last minute.”

Two ironies here.

The first is that Rodney is fitter than Hone I would say, and would probably kick his arse in a swimming race.

The second is that I am pretty sure that Rodney doesn’t care what the skin colour is of any girls who want to date his son. So Hone calling someone else a redneck is ironic.

But as Michael Laws had to apologise for calling the GG fat, will Hone be made to apologise for his comments?

If the Maori Party does pull support, it could mean the current 2004 act would stay in place. Mr Key has previously said he would not make any changes if there was not a reasonable level of consensus and the Labour Party has not yet decided whether to support it further.

Would be rather embarrassing for the Maori Party if the status quo ends up remaining.

Mr Harawira has urged Maori to make submissions opposing the bill, saying it stops short of ownership for Maori and the threshold for customary title is too high, meaning most hapu would get nothing.

Most hapu will not get customary title indeed – because that is what the Court of Appeal found. The test was for uninterrupted exclusive use. The Court of Appeal never said the foreshore belongs to all Maori.

The SST headline is:

Plot to grab Epsom as Hide’s Act falls apart

Except there is no plot. The story doesn’t talk about any plot. This is not the fault of the journalists who wrote the story – sub-editors pick headlines. So what does the story say:

NATIONAL is deciding whether to stand a credible candidate and grab back the Epsom seat from Act’s Rodney Hide.

National is not deciding, in the sense of making a decision. Of course many in National are discussing Epsom, but decisions on whether to vigorously contest Epsom will not be made in the next few days or even weeks. You never decide strategically important things in the middle of a media storm.

Around the middle of 2011 is when National will make decisions about what sort of campaign to run in Epsom. You don’t decide these things 14 months before the election.

With Act’s credibility in tatters over the David Garrett fiasco, National is worried endorsing Hide next year would upset Epsom voters, particularly women. That has put pressure on National to stand a strong candidate or risk voters ignoring any tactical voting option.

National has in fact never endorsed Rodney. National has always stood a candidate. The issue is whether the candidate primarily pursues the party vote (which most candidates are expected to do), or also campaigns aggressively for the electorate vote (which only happens in a few seats not held by National).

My expectation is that National will have a strong candidate, regardless of what sort of campaign is run.

Some party insiders believe the anti-Act mood is so strong that Epsom voters could decide “stuff this, I’m voting for National anyway”. The Act brand is so discredited that there is already talk in National about a new far-Right party.

Unless Fairfax is going to start talking about the Greens as a “far -left” party, could they please not use that term about ACT.

It is quite possible that voters in Epsom will vote for a National candidate, even if not explicitly seeking their votes. I actually don’t think the decision rests with National – it rests with the voters in Epsom. And I think they will make their decision quite rationally. If voting for Rodney looks like it will significantly increase the chances of National retaining Government, then they will – as they did in 2005 and 2008. If however it looks like voting for Rodney will not help the centre-right greatly (if if ACT is polling at below 1%), then his chances are not so good.

But these are decisions that people reach in the election campaign, not 14 months before.

So Rodney’s challenge is to use the next 12 months to get ACT polling well enough, so that Epsom voters will tactically vote. But this will need a blemish free performance from ACT and Rodney. And there seems little doubt that a couple of the “scorpions” within ACT are determined to destroy the party, so long as they can have “utu” on Rodney. This was made clear in the e-mails Whale oil blogged. And they may succeed – time will tell.

The Herald reports:

The Act Party has been “thoroughly” discredited and its ministerial positions should be removed, Labour leader Phil Goff says.

Now I have been critical, both on this blog and on radio, of Rodney’s decision not to force Garrett to make his offending known before the election. It was an error of judgement, and ACT have been damaged by it.

But I’m sorry, it is just too much to have Labour get sanctimonious on this, and declare that because of this, Rodney is unfit to be a Minister.

Need I remind people of Taito Philip Field – the MP found to have committed numerous corrupt practices while a Labour Minister and MP.

Field’s offending was not 26 years before he became an MP. It was while he was an MP. Field’s offending was not incidental to him being an MP – it was corruption in the course of his MP duties. And it was corruption aided by his Ministerial colleague who rubber stamped almost every immigration application made by Field.

And what happened when allegations were made. The Labour leadership defended Field. They said he was only guilty of working too hard.

And even after the full scale of his offending was made clear by the Ingram Report, the Labour leadership still defended him. If Rodney Hide is unfit to be a Minister, then Helen Clark and Michael Cullen were equally unfit to be Ministers.

Even worse, Labour never booted Field out for his criminal offending. He only got booted out when he talked of not standing for Labour.

And the final indignity came after he was found guilty of 11 charges of bribery and corruption (and 11 of perverting or obstructing the course of justice). Labour not only refused to apologise for the huge shame Field was, but they refused to even accept he was guilty. I’m not making this up – go check the records. The only comment they would make is they “acknowledge” the verdict.

So yes Rodney made a mistake, and yes ACT is damaged. But for fucks sake the last thing we need is a lecture in ethics from the party that gave protection and defence to a corrupt MP. If Labour ever get around to actually apologising for their defence of Field, then maybe they get to be taken seriously on ethical issues.

Go to Whale Oil, and read his revelations about who has been leaking stuff to him, and e-mailing him incredibly defamatory stuff about MPs and staff in ACT.

Maybe the media will reconsider their editorial stance of blaming Rodney.

Re-reading the Roy dossier, I noticed that her staff referred to her as HHR – Hon Heather Roy.

What amused me was if this including the Hon in the abbreviation caught on in the ACT office, this would mean that Rodney gets referred to as HRH

Have read through in detail the so called Roy Dossier, of 82 pages.

While it is designed to hurt Rodney Hide, I actually think that it reflects more poorly on its author. Incidentally the author is not necessarily Heather Roy, but more likely a former staff member of hers.

The first thing that strikes me is the massive sense of entitlement, as if ACT being in Parliament was all due to Heather. An extract:

In the 2005 -2008 Parliament, I maintained what I could of respectability for the Party through Rodney’s journey of reinvention.

News flash. Rodney won Epsom with a massive majority. He also increased the party vote from 2 MPs to 5 MPs. That was not due to the Deputy Leader’s so called maintenance of respectability.

The whole way through, it has this tone. Heather’s advisers have obviously convinced that she is ACT’s salvation.

I must, as an Associate Minister, have the ability to discuss issues freely and frankly with my primary Minister. The contents of the paper are entirely consistent with the ACT National Security Policy from the 2008 election which had sign-off from the policy committee.

But who decides it is consistent? That is the job of caucus, not the Minister or her aides solely.

Rodney sent me a text message asking for a copy of the Defence Document. I contacted Wayne Mapp to discuss this with him. I explained that the document was wanted because Rodney wanted to use it against me and that the ‘need to know’ provision in the security manual did not apply to him. I reminded him it was a draft intended for him only. He said it was my document and it was up to me. I said I was not going to give Rodney a copy

At this point I would have sacked Heather on the spot. This document was not sort sort of highly classified document, using top secret information. It was in fact authored by Heather (or her advisor), and her refusal to give her leader a copy is the most politically stupid thing I’ve seen since, well Chris Carter’s anonymous letters to the press gallery.

I then sent Rodney a text message in reply to his claim that he had discussed this with the Minister of Defence, informing him that it was a classified document and that I wouldn’t be giving it to him.

Again – I would have sacked her at that stage. What the hell was she thinking, or was she being advised. The sole reason Heather was Associate Minister of Defence is because Rodney Hide won Epsom, and is the party leader of ACT. Ministers are expected to consult their parties on what they do. I’ve never heard of a Minister refusing to share a document (that they authored) with a party leader.

There is a covering email that this document was sent with as an attachment (Enclosure 12). It is from my Advisor to his counterpart in the Mapp Office and the Deputy Secretary of Defence – the latter to whom feedback was asked to be directed. It states that in the event of having little time to scrutinise the paper he has made suggested changes but has not had time to run them past his Minister and, given the timeline for submission, he felt that he had no other choice and takes responsibility for this.

Rodney Hide states that my Advisor should not be making statements on ACT party positions. The comments made are all consistent with the ACT National Security policy for the 2008 election signed off by the policy committee and the email cover sheet covers off responsibility for comments.

So an unelected staff member is determining positions, and the party leader is not even able to see a copy. You get to see why there was a problem. The references to consistency with party election policy are a red herring as election policy tends to be very wide, and that doesn’t remove the need for approval for more specific positions.

After two very confrontational meetings with Rodney Hide in his office (both were called at very short notice with no indication of what they were about) and after discussion at a meeting with the Party President, I decided that I would not meet with the Leader alone.

I’m almost lost for words. The arrogance in that statement.

I was concerned he would take the paper away and copy it, which is why I said he could read it in my office, but not take it away. It is a classified document and he does not meet the security regulation ‘need to know’ criterion. His purpose for wanting the document was to use it in a witchhunt
against me.

Again the sense of importance and entitlement is staggering. Can you imagine a junior Minister telling her party leader he does not meet “need to know” because she unilaterally has decided she disapproves of his purposes for wanting it. And again this was not a secret or top secret document. It was merely restricted, and in fact authored by Heather or her advisor.

Makes it appear as though Rodney is afraid of Heather’s ability and ambition regarding leadership and so feels the need to remove her before she becomes too powerful.

Again, what were they smoking? The entire document reeks of this conceit.

Raises ser ious doubt s about John’ s judgement in challenging for Deputy role before Natural justice had occurred. Unlikely he would be taken as a serious future leader or ministerial option after that.

This part is hilarious. She thought she would stay on as a Minister if not Deputy, and is trying to scare Boscawen off.

Some Board members and highly placed list candidates may
publicly resign.

The only board member who resigned (later withdrawn) was in response to the lies in this dossier, not due to Heather’s sacking.

A Special General Meeting could be called by 20% of the membership causing further unhelpful media scrutiny.

You think you’re so highly reHgarded that 20% of the members will call an SGM to protest your sacking? After reading this dossier, they won’t manage 2%.

The Greens will likely offer a ‘make-up’ deal with National in an attempt to step into ACT’s support party space.

Ha ha ha ha ha. What fine political analysis.

I write this post again with sadness. But the “dossier” is so awful, I just can’t not point out that it in facts proves that Heather had to be sacked.

The only good thing about the leak of the 80 page “note” by Heather Roy is it has made people in the party realise how dire their situation is, and has prompted Heather to pledge to remain an ACT MP, and work towards rebuilding a relationship with Rodney Hide – and vice-versa.

I doubt I am the only person who is saddened by the considerable enmity that has built up between two MPs I have liked and respected.

The release of the “note” is very damaging to ACT, and at a time when they should be well above 5% due to National’s centrist agenda, they will remain down in the polls, as voters won’t support a party that is so caught up in infighting. Voters rightly think why should we trust a party to run the country, when they can’t even run their own party.

The number of people who had access to Heather’s “note” must be incredibly limited, and Heather may wish to consider the motivations of the person who leaked it. At a minimum it is someone who puts their own interests about that of their party’s.

There is also the issue of the defence report, as covered by NZPA:

In Parliament, Labour MP Trevor Mallard said Mr Hide gave the report to Mr Kearney, possibly through a staff member.

“Nick Kearney, who until last night was a member of the ACT board, has now resigned from the ACT board because he has been caught trying to give New Zealand defence assessment papers to a blogger,” he said. …

Mr Kearney told NZPA he was not given a copy of the report, had never seen it and did not know what it contained.

The allegation he was given the report was made by a fellow board member who was a supporter of Mrs Roy, he said.

The allegation was made during a confidential board meeting discussion, he said.

“It staggered me, it was jaw-dropping, and I said ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about’,” Mr Kearney said.

I don’t have first hand knowledge on this allegation, but I will say this – I trust the word of Nick Kearney, and would be amazed if he has had a copy of the report, when he says he has never seen it.

While on the other hand, if Trevor told me about gravity, I’d still want to throw a ball up in the air to verify what he said.

The Herald reports:

Relations between former Act deputy Heather Roy and leader Rodney Hide had become so bad that she complained to Ministerial Services that he breached security when he took a piece of paper relating to her defence portfolio from her office.

What the hell was Heather thinking, if this story is true. If you have an issue with something your party leader has done, you talk to them about it – you have to be mad to complain to Ministerial Services about your leader and think you can possibly maintain a working relationship.

Also worth reading is John Armstrong’s column, where to put it mildly John is unimpressed that ACT won’t say why Roy got sacked. An extract:

The press conference held at Parliament early this afternoon featuring Act leader Rodney Hide, the party’s new deputy leader, John Boscawen, and party president Michael Crozier was little short of a disgrace. …

Act is the one party which bases its sales pitch on the notion of accountability. Not a skerrick of that concept was apparent during the 20 minutes or so that Rodney Hide and then Boscawen repeatedly refused to utter one word which might have added up to an explanation as to why Heather Roy had been dumped as the party’s deputy.

If the reasons is simply that the relationship with the Leader was too strained to be effective, then they should be upfront on that.

Rodney Hide has a press conference scheduled for 1.15 pm. Will update as news is known.

UPDATE: John Boscawen has replaced Heather Roy as Deputy Leader. John Key yet to make an announcement on portfolios.

UPDATE2: The Hon John Boscawen has been appointed Minister of Consumer Affairs and Associate Minister of Commerce. Rodney Hide loses Associate Commerce and picks up Associate Education, and the role of Associate Defence Minister lapses.

Commerce is a natural fit for Boscawen. Rodney taking Associate Education could be interesting – I suspect he will push for a more aggressive policy programme there.

Somewhat sad to see Heather’s career end this abruptly, but that is the nature of politics, and it was somewhat inevitable after what happened last year.

The Herald reports:

Act minister Heather Roy is facing the axe from John Key’s Administration today, after she is dumped by her parliamentary colleagues as deputy leader of Act.

First-term Act MP John Boscawen is expected to take her jobs as deputy leader and a minister.

Mrs Roy is said to again have been trying to rally party opinion against Rodney Hide.

It was sadly inevitable that this would happen at some stage, after the relationship between Rodney and Heather deteriorated last year. ACT would not be in Parliament without Rodney Hide, and they need a team going forward that can work together. This is the first stage of a rejuvenation.

In the past I hoped that one day Heather might be a natural successor to Rodney. She has always voted classically liberal, and on a personal level I have found her very engaging. The fallout between her and Rodney meant that this scenario became impossible, and I reached the conclusion that if Heather can’t be a loyal deputy to Rodney, then at some stage change would be inevitable. It looks like that change is today.

If Heather does lose her roles as Deputy Leader, and a Minister, then it is possible she will not choose to remain in Parliament, which would see Hilary Calvert of Dunedin become an MP.

John Boscawen should be a solid Minister. He has taken very well to parliamentary life, and has earned some respect on all sides for his work on finance company failures etc. What remains to be seen is if he will automatically take Heather’s portfolios, or if the PM may do a mini-reshuffle.

Rodney Hide has provided a guest op ed, responding to this NZ Herald editorial:

The Editorial is inaccurate in a number of respects.

“A third and final Super City bill, now before a Select Committee, would do two critical things: Establish the 21 local boards beneath the main Auckland Council and set up the so-called council-controlled organisations to run 80 per cent of the city’s activities.”

Wrong. Local boards were established by the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act 2009.  The relevant Bill went through a Select Committee process last year, and was passed into law in September 2009.  The local boards are not “beneath the main Auckland Council”, they are a governance tier of the main Auckland Council, responsible and democratically accountable for decision making of the Auckland Council as it affects their local board areas.

The third Bill establishes (or directs the establishment of) two council-controlled organisations – Auckland Transport and the Waterfront Development Agency.  The only other council-controlled or council-owned organisation that has been approved by the Government to date is Watercare Services Ltd, which was established under last year’s Local Government (Auckland Council) Act as the provider of integrated water supply and wastewater services to Auckland, in line with a recommendation of the Royal Commission.  That provision went through the Select Committee process, was subject to submissions from the public and the consequent Parliamentary process.

“[The Bill] fails to list the powers for the boards, leaving that to the Auckland transition Agency, which has remained vague about their purpose and responsibilities. No one can be sure, with six months until the election, just what the boards will be expected and allowed to do.  If the boards are to be sounding boards only for the community, a major plank for local-decision-making will have been abandoned.  If their powers are left for the Auckland Council to decide, it would be doubtful that real, tangible authority is delegated voluntarily.”

The legislation that established local boards last year set out a range of powers and responsibilities for local boards.  The most important of these is responsibility for the decision-making of Auckland Council in relation to the non-regulatory activities of the Council that are allocated to local boards in accordance with the principles set out in the Act.  The Act requires that the decision-making responsibility for a non-regulatory activity of the Council should be exercised by its local boards unless the nature of the activity is such that decision making on an Auckland-wide basis will better promote the well-being of Auckland’s communities, for reasons specified in the Act.  Real and tangible authority for local decisions is therefore given to local boards by virtue of the strong principles in the Act, and is not dependent on delegation. Other provisions in the Act allow local boards to exercise delegations from the governing body, but these are separate to the local decision-making powers the boards have in their own right under the legislation.

The Auckland Transition Agency has prepared a detailed initial listing of the local activities for which local boards will have responsibility, applying the principles in the Act.  This is so local boards can be operational from 1 November 2010.  Auckland Council will prepare its own listing, in consultation with its local boards, for inclusion in its first long-term council community plan in 2012.

The ATA’s initial listing was put out for consultation in February this year.  It is a very detailed and specific document that would give any reader a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of local boards.

“While local boards may not pass a bylaw, the bill says unelected members of CCOs will be able to do so –and at arms length from public scrutiny.”

The Bill provides that Auckland Transport has the powers of a local authority to make and enforce bylaws in relation to the Auckland Transport system.  No other CCO is being given the power to make bylaws. The process by which Auckland Transport can make bylaws is not at arms length from public scrutiny – it follows standard local authority procedure.  The Bill requires that any meeting at which Auckland Transport intends to make a bylaw must be a public meeting under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.

“Even the mayor and councillors…cannot require CCOs to act according to Statements of Intent that the Council would have to write for them”.

The governing body (mayor and councillors collectively) are responsible for governance of the Council’s CCOs.  Statements of Intent are required by existing law, and CCOs are required to account to the Council for meeting the objectives set out in their SOI.

“Three CCOs will be set up in such a way that the Auckland Council will not be able to disband them.”

Only Auckland Transport is being set up as a statutory CCO, requiring an Act of Parliament to disband it.  Watercare Services Ltd could be disbanded by  Auckland Council after 2015, and there is no statutory impediment to disestablishing any other CCO that may be created (subject to following a process through the Council’s long-term council community plan in 2012).

“They will not hold public meetings or be obliged to reveal meeting minutes or decisions in a timely manner.”

Under the Local Government Act 2002, all CCOs are subject to Parts 1 to 6 of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987. That means all CCOs in New Zealand, including in Auckland, are required to comply with the LGOIM Act in respect of requests for information held by the CCO, including requests for meeting minutes or decisions.  Auckland’s CCOs are the same as any other Council’s CCOs in relation to both information requests and not being required to hold their meetings in public (except for Auckland Transport, which would have to hold a meeting in public if bylaws were being proposed).

A very nice fisking.

NewstalkZB at 8 am reported Len Brown saying supportive things about Andrew William’s bid to be on the new Auckland Council. The item said:

Len Brown is showing his support for Andrew Williams intention to stand for election onto the new Council.  …

Manukau City Mayor Len Brown says he has worked well with Mr Williams in the past through the Mayoral Forum, and knows he has his community’s concerns at heart.

They also reported John Banks refused to comment – a much wiser strategy.

So far then, Len Brown has endorsed or said supportive things about both Sue Bradford and Andrew Williams being on Council.Is there anyone he won’t endorse?

I mean this is just after Williams puts up on his Facebook page a photo of Rodney Hide as Hitler (H/T: Whale).

Yes this image really is on the Mayor of North Shore City’s Facebook page – placed there by him.

Do I really need to even mention how offensive this is to actual survivors of the Holocaust. You might expect this behaviour from an anonymous troll on the Internet, but not from the Mayor of a major city.

And this is who Len Brown is supporting for Council – because he didn’t want to risk having Williams attack him, if he refused to say nice things about him.

This is one of the criticisms I hear about Brown. From all accounts he is a very nice guy, and quite personable. Someone you would find hard to dislike. Many people I know, from both National and Labour, say Len is a really nice guy.

But the criticism is whether he is tough enough to handle the job of being the inaugural Mayor of the Auckland Super City. You have to be able to sometimes call a spade a spade.

The job will involved both standing for 1.3 million Aucklanders to the national Government, but also being able to run a Council focused on regional issues and not be captured by the parochialism of the past.

And this is why Andrew Williams is unsuitable, in my opinion, for the Auckland Council. Even if you put aside his abusive and ranting style, he is also unsuitable because he seems only concerned with his local area – not Auckland as a whole. Of course you want ward Councillors to represent their communities, but you most of all want them focused on decisions that are good for Auckland as a whole.

It is almost impossible to see how anyone can think Williams would be a constructive member of the Auckland Council, and it does call into question Len Brown’s judgement, that he is effectively endorsing Andrew Williams.