Kiwiblog

I’ll start with Colin Espiner:

On the privileges committee report, I think the committee did an excellent job. It cut through all the Peters verbiage and red herrings and bluster. It simply didn’t believe him and rightly found him guilty of misleading Parliament. It recommended his censure. That is an extremely serious step, and any minister of the Crown would be sacked for such a finding.

Indeed. Someone commented the last Mp to be censured was in 1975. Could the historians amongst us find the last time a Minister of the Crown was censured and lost his job.

Except Winston Peters. Labour’s handling of this crisis has been nothing short of shameful. Every day Prime Minister Helen Clark and her deputy on the committee, Michael Cullen, have found a different excuse for why Peters should not be sacked. There is simply no wiggle room left. So instead they’ve started attacking the committee itself. And this is perhaps the most shameful approach of all. The privileges committee used to be seen as beyond reproach – powerful, elite, Parliament’s highest body. Its decisions were unquestioned.

Labour claims the committee has been politicised and it has – by Labour and NZ First. The only attempt to hijack its findings was made by those members, not those who questioned Peters and found his answers wanting. How Labour can say it is National that has hijacked the committee when its own support parties – the Greens and United Future, and the Maori Party – all sided with National and Act beggars belief.

I think it is the maxim that if you repeat a lie enough time, then some people will believe it.

If, in Parliament today, Labour again attacks the committee and tries to vote down its findings, Parliament will have reached a new low in my opinion. Labour should accept that it lost the fight at the committee and respect its majority verdict. That’s what happens in our justice system when you’re found guilty by a jury of your peers.

I predict Labour will spend most its time attacking John Key and not taking the censure seriously.

Next we have John Armstrong:

Winston Peters’ letter of resignation as a minister ought to be on the Prime Minister’s desk this morning.

It won’t be. However, the damning report of Parliament’s privileges committee demands nothing less, even though its finding that Peters is in contempt was not unanimous.

You really have to wonder sometimes why Helen Clark refusesto take any meaningful action against Peters. Instead she runs attack lines on his behalf against the Privileges Committee and the SFO.

But he cannot get such accusations to stick when it comes to the Greens, United Future and Maori Party representatives who made up the remainder of the majority view. Those parties had no axe to grind with Peters. They simply reached the only conclusion that could be drawn from the evidence – that Peters had “some knowledge” of Glenn’s intention to make a donation.

The next time Clark runs the line that the Privileges Committee finding is politically motivated, ask her why Peter Dunne (one of her Ministers) and Russel Norman support the finding?

The big question is whether she can ever trust him again. With National not wanting a bar of him, it would now seem inconceivable that Peters could again become a minister even if Labour wins the election.

Not at all. If Peters makes it back and can give her a fourth term, of course she’ll have it back. Why else would you go through all the pain now, if not to do a deal later.

Labour’s reluctance to upset Peters with rigorous questioning during his appearances in front of the committee was understandable given Labour’s dependence on him for the past three years and conceivably for the next three as well. But it is to Labour’s eternal shame that it behaved thus.

In the end, the majority verdict is a victory for principle over expediency and for the integrity of the privileges committee.

Eternal shame is a good phrase.

We also have Frog from the Greens:

It does make me wonder weather the Team LPG fanboiz should really be getting so grumpy at Green supporters for not wanting to declare our undying love to Helen Clark and Labour. Because it seems from its recent behaviour that Labour has already found its preferred coalition partner, and it’s Winston Peters, come what may. But then I guess Labour doesn’t have so much to gain from a internet campaign for Team LNZF?

Can one imagine Helen Clark defending a Green MP to the extent she has defended Winston?

You also have comments from two of the MPs on NZPA. First Peter Dunne:

United Future leader Peter Dunne said he had gone into the committee with an opinion: “I entered the committee thinking this was probably a beat up.”

But after hearing evidence he changed his mind.

Mr Dunne said Mr Peters had repeated opportunities to give his side.

“Really I think the committee genuinely tried to get to the bottom of what went on and reached its conclusions accordingly.”

Mr Dunne said crucial for him was contradictory evidence and then “cute” recall of events by Mr Peters’ lawyer Brian Henry after evidence was presented.

So Dunne went from thinking it was a beat up, to deciding on the evidence that Peters knew about the donation and should have declared it.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman disagreed [with Helen Clark]. He said he went into the inquiry with an open mind and based his decision on the evidence put before him.

So is Helen calling Russel tainted or unfair?

Dr Norman said the committee’s chairman, National MP Simon Power, ran a fair process.

In fact even Michael Cullen went out of his way to say that Simon Power was very fair as the Chairman. I think that is a huge credit to Simon for the way he has conducted himself.

As one minor example of his integrity I was talking to him on an unrelated issue a few weeks ago. I had heard on the radio that Owen Glenn would be testifying but not whether or not it would be in person or by video conference. So I just asked Simon whether it was in person or not as I happened to be speaking to him. Simon, just to avoid even the possibility or suggestion of having an inappropriate conversation, just referred me to the press release the Committee had put out. Now I wasn’t asking for anything which wasn’t public, but Simon erred on the side of caution by not even answering my question but just referring me to the press release. He has bent over backwards to be fair and impartial in this matter.

Finally, I note that Jim Anderton is going to show a tiny amount of spine and abstain rather than vote against the Privileges Committee recommendations. Don’t give him too much credit though as he repeat the bullshit from the PM that the process has been unfair to Winston. He does at leats ping Peters for his hypocrisy:

“NZ First was clearly accepting donations at a time when it was attacking everyone else for taking money from big business. For that the party has some explaining to do to the voting public,” Mr Anderton said.

Perhaps Mr Anderton could offer an opinion on whether he, as a member of the Cabinet, felt he should have known about the donations from the Velas to Peters, when he voted to go along with Winston’s generous funding for the racing industry?

Labour have learnt nothing from the Electoral Finance Act. It was a partisan attempt to skew the electoral laws in their favour. And they have done it again their announcement of an expert panel to review electoral administration and political party funding.

Electoral law does not belong to Labour. It represents the basic constitution of our country. And once again they are desperately trying to bring in further state funding of political parties.

Labour have announced the expert panel just weeks out from a general election. That is bad enough and a breach of conventions. A panel which reviews electoral law is a bloody significant appointment. But they totally failed to consult the Opposition on its composition. Electoral law issues should be as bi-partisan as possible. Sure at the end of the day, parties may have to agree to disagree, but you do not start off the process by excluding the major Opposition party.

I made this point back in June, when the proposal was announced. I said:

1. The independent experts must be chosen by a super majority of parliamentary parties, not just by the Government of the day. The formula which I like is that any appointments must be agreed to by party leaders representing over 75% of the MPs and over 50% of the parties in Parliament. This means that not only must both major parties agree, but so must at least half of the minor parties.
2. The issues, terms of references and high level process must also be signed off by that super-majority. The most unforgivable crime that Labour and the Greens have done with the EFA is to treat electoral law as a bauble for the winner, rather than a bipartisan constitutional law.
3. Issues referred to a Citizen’s Jury should be in totality, not just a narrow aspect such as taxpayer funding of political parties. It is ridicolous to exclude from consideration all the issues dealt with by the Electoral Finance Act. In fact the EFA should be abolished immediately upon a change of Government, and a citizen’s jury could be used as part of the process of consulting on and determining its replacement.

You see the concept of a panel of exports and a citizen’s jury is not without merit. But as usual Labour’s desperation to skew everything, destroys what should be a worthwhile endeavour. Now that was not just my view back in June, but also Green co-leader Russel Norman agreed partially with me:

David Farrar says some silly National Party things about the citz assembly but he also makes some good points over at Kiwiblog. He says the political party buyin should be as broad as possible – I agree with that but don’t know how to acheive it give the politicisation of the issue.

He also says that the terms of reference should be broad. I agree that they should be broader than simply ’state funding of parties’ but after talking to Jonathan Rose (an expert on citz assemblies) I’m not sure the ToR should be too broad. He says that if they’re too broad the assembly lacks focus. maybe there is a compromise in there somewhere.

So did Russel stand up to Labour and say don’t just appoint a panel without consulting the other parties. We insist you go to National and ask if they have any recommended panelists and what they think of the ones you propose? No they roll over, as usual:

“The Forum will provide much needed independence in the review of election funding”, Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman says.

Independent? When the Government hand picks the panel that will advise them?

“While the Act was needed to close loopholes in the law revealed at the last election, we need a more inclusive and disinterested process to further consider the bigger picture of political party and election funding.

“We hope that all New Zealanders will support this process and that we can find a place to have some non-partisan reasoned discussion about the future of our democracy.”

Non-partisan??? Fuck all hope of that considering there was *zero* consultation with the Opposition.

Now I am not attacking the integrity of any the three panelists. I know two of them, and they have a lot to contribute in this area. However the Government has obviously chosen the panel, based on the known viewpoints of some of them. Associate Professor Geddis has written supportively of state funding on many occassions and in the Press described the issue as:

This failure to really debate the pros and cons of public funding is regrettable. The public was never given the choice of whether it would rather politicians get their money from large, hidden, private donations or taxpayer grants.

Now if the citizens assembly gets the choice described to them in that terms, I can guarantee you what they will say. Just as if you describe it as “Should parties raise their own money from volunteers and supporters or take it from unwilling taxpayers” you would get a quite different result from the assembly.

Now I am not saying Geddis, would put choices in as crude terms as he did in The Press article. He has written some very useful stuff on the issue. I am not even saying I would not have him on the panel. What I am saying is that the process has been tainted from the very beginning by the lack of consultation with the Opposition.

Also ironically Andrew Geddis now is the victim of something he advocated against:

First, the failure to consult with opposition parties before introducing the Bill to the House leaves it vulnerable to allegations of partisanship. Electoral law should not be, nor be seen to be, a vehicle for one party to gain an advantage over others.

Geddis is right. Maybe he should have made a condition of his participation on the panel, being that the Government consult on its membership.

The panel and assembly should be terminated if there is a change of Government. However I would advocate that a National-led Government look at using a similiar mechanism in reviewing parts of the Electoral Act post-election. And they should consult with and get buy-in from all the parties on the composition and terms of reference of such a panel.

Three minor “leaders”

1. Rodney Hide, ACT
2. Russel Norman, Greens
3. Derek Fox, Maori Party

Russel Norman

Environment movement needs to move beyond treating humans as a virus infecting the planet. Not about just doing less bad, but more good. Business sector is key part of this.

Need to transition to a sustainable economy. I then drifted off as various enviromental and resources issues were outlined. I do find the Q&A sessions much more useful than just plenary speeches.

Rodney Hide

Talked of Sir Roger’s goal to beat Australia by 2020 – and not just in the rugby or the netball. Says he loved it. Much more inspiring than some OECD average.

Said that he wanted Sir Roger around cabinet table as if he could convince a Labour Cabinet the merits of free market policies, sh should be able to do the same with a National Cabinet

Repeated Douglas on holding govt spending to inflation and population will allow a personal and company tax rate of 20%.

Derek Fox

I’ve got bored with the leaders and am working on some further Winston stuff, so no summary of Derek. Generally not a useful content compared to the Q&A which I thought worked very well.

We have five Finance Spokespersons after Winston pulled out. They are:

1. Bill English, National
2. Dr Michael Cullen, Labour
3. Russel Norman, Greens
4. Peter Dunne, United Future
5. Sir Roger Douglas, ACT

Each was asked three questions:

1. Will you cut company and personal tax and by how much and when?
2. Will you have a cap on government spending as a percentage of GDP?
3. Will you include labour and environmental restrictions in free trade agreements

Bill English

1. Yes we will lower tax rates. Details soon. Important to do so to put cash in pockets, but more importantly incentives to work, save and invest. Also want a more efficient tax system.
2. No as GDP goes up and down. Focus on quality of spending not a set target. Expect PREFU will show Crown is in deficit. So period of restraint needed. Govt spending excluding welfare growing at 8% per annum. Can’t carry on at that rate so will slow growth down, but will still grow in absolute terms.
3. Not desired, but US Congress turning protectionist and they may demand them so we may need to be flexible. Generally supportive of Govt work on FTAs.
4. Generally comment: no more cheap credit – growth will come from earning it and need to lift productivity.

Personally I think a target for expenditure as a percentage of GDP would be a very good thing.

Sir Roger Douglas

1. Could reduce personal and corporate tax to under 20%, maybe even 16%. Also could lower GST to 10%.
2. Need to say yes to this, so one can say yes to Q1 (he answered in reverse order). Says Govt expenditure should be held at rate of inflation of 2.5% and population growth of 1%. So an annual 3.6% increase only. Sounds good to me!! Any increase over 3.6% should be met with savings elsewhere. If we hold expenditure to 3.6%, each household will pay $13,000 less in annual taxes in 10 years time. Govt expenditure has increased under Labour by $17 billion, after taking inflation and population growth into account. That is $220 a week per household. What did you get for that $220 a week? Could you have spent it better yourself? No equity or fairness without efficiency in expenditure. Thinks expenditure of 25% of GDP is a good target.
3. Support free trade agreements without these restrictions

I have to say Sir Roger was brillant. He may get some very serious support for ACT if enough people hear him. Very smart to not talk about slashing expenditure but just propose keep spending to inflation and population growth. Families can relate to that.

Peter Dunne

1. Would cut personal taxes on April 2010 to 10% for income to $12K, 20% to $38K, above $38K at 30%. Supports income splitting. And align business and trust rates at 30%. Should do regular tax reviews, rather than wait 12 years between tax cuts (hear hear).
2. No set cap. GDP not sole measure of wealth of economy. Does have concern over current level of spending but more concerned about quality and direction of spending. Proposes merging some DHB functions centrally such as equipment purchasing. A spending cut may lead to a service cut – $50 million into IRD so it can answer phones quicker as an example.
3. Supports FTAs. Don’t need specific standards on environment and labour, as they are dealt with in the wider business environment. We are most trade dependent nation in the world.

Dunne did well also. Some nice specifics.

Dr Russel Norman

1. Wants a transition to a sustainable economy. More ecological taxes and reduce taxes on income. Incentive then to reduce scarce resource use and pollution. Wants incentives to use less water. Supports ring fencing of losses on investment propoerties. Not supporting a decrease in overall tax – just how it is made up.
2. Does not have a policy for a cap on spending. It is about efficiency.
3. Does support standards, but notes usually just involves consultative committees.
4. General comment on need to prepare economy for higher oil prices. No other party has policy around this.

Dr Michael Cullen

1. Lowered company rate to 30% and legislated for three rounds of personal tax cuts. Also increased depreciation rates and R&D tax credits.
2. No. Spending at he moment same as 99/00 as percentage of GDP. Goes up and down. A cap is artificial.
3. Yes will try and include these standards as agrees with Bill needed for US Congress
4. General comment on the need to lift exports from 30% of GDP. New tertiary funding policy is essential. Backed Clark up on how our bottom 30% of school leavers are very poor. Middle and top are both very good. More rail needed plus more roads. Also roll-out of broadband is important. Higher savings needed and our capital markets are very weak. Sustainability also important.

All five spoke well and knew their stuff. I do have to say I think Sir Roger was by far the best – both his level of detail, his forceful arguments and the actual policy. I would put Peter Dunne second best.

I don’t think Bill English came across that well. Not due to him (Bill was very much on top of the arguments), but because he could not give any details of the tax policy yet (which I think would have been popular). Would have been good though if National had decided to release some sort of business policy today, so there is something new. Maybe that will come in a later session?

Regulatory Responsibility Act

A question on whether they would support a Regulatory responsibility Act.

English says there is support for defining the principles of good regulation, and using the bureaucracy to fight the bureaucracy so regulations can not proceed without ticking all the boxes which justify the regulation. Also said very keen to reform RMA. Bottom line is would support some sort of RRA.

Douglas supports a Minister of Regulatory Reform and an RRA.

Dunne says ironic to use legislation to fight against legislative regulations. Thinsk local govt sector is more of a problem.

Missed what Norman said.

Cullen says will make process too bureaucratic.

Company Tax Rate

EMA Northern advocated cut company tax rate to 20% as lead to more investment and eventually more tax paid over ten years.  Cullen attacks dodgy modeling of EMA. Says we have had lower company tax rate for most of last 20 years than Australia.  English says 20% rate would be fantastic but priority for now is reducing personal tax rates. If we drop company tax rate to 20% without personl rates going down, many more people will alter their tax affairs to take advantage.

EMA’s Thompson replied that when company tax rate has been cut in the past, the level of company tax has still risen.

Infrastructure

Cullen made good point that not all infrastructure contributes to economic growth – new planes for Air Force for example. But roads do.

Dunne strong support of PPPs and infrastructure bonds.

English – planning debt 2% of GDP higher than Labour but still one of lowest in developed world. Govt is running cash deficits also. National’s infrastructure plan is a prudent investment. Also thinks Govt manages assets badly, and there is room for improvement. PPPs not just about money, but about getting private sector skills around risk and management. Bill much better on this stuff. Lots of people commented at the tea break that they thought not enough detail on the earlier stuff, but very strong on infrastructure.

The NZ Herald reports:

The immediate past president of the Bar Association, Jim Farmer, QC, says the Law Society could be interested in the way Mr Henry is paid. …

Mr Henry told the committee that none of Mr Glenn’s $100,000 was used to pay for the $40,000 paid to Mr Clarkson’s solicitor for the costs settlement in March 2006.

How can he know this? If $100,000 from Glenn went into Henry’s bank account and he paid $40,000 to Clarkson from the same account, then it is all mixed in together. Possibly the $100,000 went into his business account and he paid the $40,000 from his personal account – in which case that conclusion would be more warranted. This would be the correct way of doing it, as the $40,000 Henry paid is not a tax deductible expense. It was not a debt he owed, so he should have paid it out of his after tax income, not his pre-tax income.

And while they are not issues for the Privileges Committee, I have received expert advice that the $40,000 payment was a gift to Peters and should have had gift duty paid on it by Henry. If Henry failed to pay gift duty on it, then Peters is liable for the gift duty.

Dr Norman raised the question of the $40,000 costs and said yesterday he had received a tip-off that it could be an interesting line of questioning. He said the $40,000 payment was more clear-cut than the Owen Glenn donation. “It’s absolutely black and white.”

Mr Peters had a personal debt and Mr Henry paid for it, he said.

“If you have got a debt and someone pays it for you then you should declare that someone had paid it, even if you don’t know who did.

Russel Norman is quite correct that the $40,000 is black and white compared to the other issues.

“There is just some pool in which debits and credits seems to float. It’s incredible – in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars both ways – and it is very hard to prove anything.”

One question is why is it done in this way? Why not set up a legal trust with some trustees to fundraise for the legal bills? Have WInston declare his beneficial interest in the trust. That is how Nick Smith did it, and would seem to be a far more appropriate way to do it.

Dr Farmer described the relationship as “extremely unorthodox”.

Being paid by some third party [Owen Glenn] and the client not knowing was unheard of, he said.

So was the personal payment of $40,000 by Mr Henry.

“I think it might be of concern to the Law Society,” Mr Farmer said.

“Is it right for a barrister to receive $100,000 from a third party where there has never been a fee note rendered to the solicitor instructing him? I would have thought the Law Society would have real concerns about that.”

The president of the Auckland District Law Society, Keith Berman, said it was also very unusual.

“The issue which is uncertain is whether Brian is handling money on behalf of a client or just receiving money in payment of a bill. But as I understand it, he doesn’t issue a bill.”

Interesting issues indeed.

Tracy Watkins writes in the Dom Post:

But Mr Henry’s disclosure that he personally paid the $40,000 in court-ordered legal costs against Mr Peters means it could be considered a gift.

Mr Peters and Mr Henry were at odds over who made the payment, with Mr Peters suggesting he had paid it himself.

How can you not know whether or not you paid $40,000 to Bob Clarkson? If it was $400 maybe, but $40,000?

For that long Sunday afternoon:

The NZ Book Council have a very cool website to encourage reading. They’ve done it as a Windows operating system.

Scrubone does a fisking of No Right Turn’s outrage at National over citizen juries. Also on that issue, Russel Norman at Frog Blog agrees with some of my suggestions around Citizen’s Juries – specifically the need for multi-partisan agreement not narrow agreement.

Paul Walker responds to Matt McCarten’s hysteria over the Business Roundtable.

Whale Oil likes his stats comparison with Kiwiblog. Obviously girls and guns work

Craig Foss looks at how Dr Cullen is financing his tax cuts – he is borrowing $6.4 billion and also selling $6.4 billion of financial assets breaking one of his four tests. This last one is particularly cunning as it allows him to claim gross debt remains on track. This si why net debt is the better indicator.

Colin Espiner reviews the Reserve Bank MPS and the polls.

Bernard Hickey believes Alan Bollard has gone soft on inflation, as does the Westpac Chief Economist.

Just go read the column.

The Dominion Post is also not impressed with the Greens putting aisde their party list they were elected on in 2005, to leapfrog Russel Norman into Parliament.

Those pondering whether to cast a Green Party vote can pore over the details and the rankings, weighing the merits of those at the top of the list against what other, smaller list-based parties have to offer.

They should be aware they are wasting their time.

The appointment of Green Party co-leader Russel Norman as an MP shows that, when push comes to shove, the Greens will put party needs above voter preference and shuffle the deck to deliver the MPs the party wants rather than delivering the ones on the list the public voted for.

This is the key issue. It is nothing personal about Russel who I am sure will become an MP anyway later this year. It is about whether or not you respect the list put up at an election.

Those who argue that what the Greens are doing is not wrong, should consider the logical ultimate outcome of that argument. If List MPs are there purely as creatures of the party – to be elected and retired at whim, then why even have a public list before the election? Just tell the party they have X MPs, and they can appoint whomever they want as MPs at any time.

Putting Dr Norman into Parliament this late in the electoral cycle will not see him contribute hugely to the work of Parliament. What it will do is give him a platform from which to expound his views, and access to the resources, such as taxpayer-funded air travel, that give MPs a massive advantage in campaigning nationwide.

Indeed. This is being done not to further the work of Parliament, but to allow greater use of taxpayer resources for their election campaign.

The Herald reports on how the Greens want to get a Citizen’s Jury on the issue of state funding of political parties underway as soon as possible, so National can’t abolish it after the election.

Now if done the right way, I am quite a fan of citizen’s juries. But everything about this is being done the wrong way.

The outcome has been predetermined. Instead of being set up in bipartisan fashion on matters such as the type of electoral system, it has been set up to deliver just one result – increased taxpayer funding of political parties. Labour and the Greens both want that as the outcome, tried to do it through the EFA, and having somewhat failed are now trying to do it again.

Labour are quite simply corrupt when it comes to electoral law issues, and any process which involves them as Government choosing the expert panel which advises the Citizen’s Jury should be treated as naked self interest. Hell Mike Williams will probably end up as the Chair.

The Greens are little better than Labour in this area. They have absolutely no comitment to a fair process unless it achieves the outcome they want. Look at the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering? That had it all – independent commissioners, scientific evidence, hearings etc. And the moment it didn’t recommend what the Greens wanted – they attacked it.

So this process is a total sham. It is designed for one purpose only – to let Labour and the Greens use more taxpayer money on their election campaigns. After what Labour and Greens did with the EFA, they should frankly be seen as incompetent to have a say on these issues.

Now this is not to say the concept of Citizen’s Juries do not have a place in electoral law making. I think they do. They can provide some very useful input if done the right way. But the way I would use such Juries are as follows:

1. The independent experts must be chosen by a super majority of parliamentary parties, not just by the Government of the day. The formula which I like is that any appointments must be agreed to by party leaders representing over 75% of the MPs and over 50% of the parties in Parliament. This means that not only must both major parties agree, but so must at least half of the minor parties.
2. The issues, terms of references and high level process must also be signed off by that super-majority. The most unforgivable crime that Labour and the Greens have done with the EFA is to treat electoral law as a bauble for the winner, rather than a bipartisan constitutional law.
3. Issues referred to a Citizen’s Jury should be in totality, not just a narrow aspect such as taxpayer funding of political parties. It is ridicolous to exclude from consideration all the issues dealt with by the Electoral Finance Act. In fact the EFA should be abolished immediately upon a change of Government, and a citizen’s jury could be used as part of the process of consulting on and determining its replacement.

It is a shame that what is a perfectly fine concept is being damaged by its use by the Greens and Labour in such a partisan fashion. I mean Russel Norman is already calling for its timelines to be determined so that National can be attacked over it, rather than any sense of what a proper time-frame would be.

Mike Ward has succumbed to the pressure and has agreed to refuse his place in Parliament so Russel Norman can use taxpayer funded resources to campaign.

I blogged a couple of weeks ago that the Greens were trying to do two things – both of which work sit badly with me. The first is having MPs resign before for their term in Parliament is up, purely for tactical partisan reasons. You rejuvenate a party at elections, not between them.

The second is changing the order of the list post election. The Greens put a lot of stress on the fact their members rank the list, yet they have ignored the will of their members who ranked the 2005 party list – the only one which the public have had a chance to vote on with their party vote.

There is no way one can stop an MP resigning early, but one could have a simple law change to remove the ability for a list candidate to refuse to become an MP. They could still be elected and then resign, but that extra step might stop them from doing private deals to change the effective order of a list post-election.

Let ti be noted that Phil U was right when he blogged in January that there was a plan to put Russel Norman into Parliament before the election by having Nandor fall on his sword. I linked to his story and it then became a major news story – sadly with no crediting Phil as the original author.

There would be significant advantages to the Greens to having Russel, who was only No 10 last time, be in Parliament this year so he could campaign around the country funded by the taxpayer, as other MPs are.

For this to happen, they needed three things. Nandor to agree to resign. Catherine Delahunty to agree to refuse to be an MP, and for Mike Ward to refuse to be an MP.

Mike has refused, as he should. Incidentially Ward was ranked dismally low by the party hierarchy in their initial list ranking for 2008 and massively promoted by rank and file members. But his 2008 list ranking is not important – his 2005 one is.

There were two things which the Greens were trying to do, which sit badly with me. I’ll take them one by one.

1 – MPs resigning before the election

Labour is more guilty than the Greens here, but the idea of a party list is not to shuffle MPs off half way through a parliamentary term at whim. MPs are elected by the NZ public to serve three years and in all but exceptional cases they should. Steve Maharey becoming a VC is a worthy exception (yes I know he was not List but same principle). And Bolger becoming Ambassador is another. And few would fault a Party Leader from departing the scene once they are no longer leader. But these are rare exceptional circumstances.

Generally the public have the right to expect that the MPs they elect by voting for a Party and that party’s list, are going to represent the public throughout the term of Parliament. No wonder there is resentment against MMP when List MPs are treated purely as creatures of the party.

Labour since the election has dispatched Jim Sutton (No 11 on list, No 4 on effective list), Di Yates, Ann Hartley, and Georgina Beyer.

2 – Changing the order of the list post-election

Pressuring candidates to stand aside for someone more lowly ranked to become an MP is also anti-democratic and flys in the face of the public making an informed choice by voting for a party with an expectation of who will be MPs.

The Green Party members ranked Mike Ward No 8  and Russel Norman No 10 last election. People voted for the Green Party on the basis. Yes I know very few voters would now the exact details of the list, but that is not a reason to ignore its importance. If you argue who is on the list does not matter, then why not allow parties to have blank lists and let them appoint who they want at any time to be an MP for them.

For that is what the Greens, and to a degree Labour, have tried to do.  Have the party rather than the public determine who becomes an MP.

I am enjoying the series of party leaders being interviewed by Gordon Campbell for Scoop. Last week it was Russel Norman. Campbell used to work for the Greens in Parliament, but he was very fair in my opinion:

Campbell: So what do the Greens think is a realistic price per ton for carbon?

Norman: I think $30 per ton is realistic for the moment. But its highly likely it will go up. Its an international market, and there are no guarantees around it.

$30 a tonne is higher (off memory – Treasury website is down) that what the NZ Govt is using. I suspect it will go much much higher.

Campbell: At the moment the cost of the first part of Kyoto 1 is either half a billion or double that. By paying whichever it is, by how much will we reduce global warming?

Norman: Our emissions are obviously a small part of the emissions, so we’re a small player. The true role for New Zsdaland is in contributing to a global system. And even the entire Kyoto system if everyone meets their targets, it won’t make a massive contribution at all. It’s the first step. What makes Kyoto important is establishing a system. And that’s the danger. If Kyoto goes down, we can’t make it better.

In fact even if every single country makes it Kyoto targets, the impact on world temperatures by 2050 will be just 0.07 of a degree.

Campbell: Given the contribution New Zealand taxpayers will in all likelihood be making, you’re saying it won’t affect the rate of global warming…would it say, make a 1 per cent difference ?

Norman: No, it won’t make anything like 1 per cent. We’re only O.2 percent of all emissions globally. The two things that are difficult about this is one, the time lags involved and two, that it requires global co-operation – and the Kyoto system is the first step towards global co-operation.

That means that us making our Kyoto target will by 2050 lead to the average world temperature being 0.00014 of a degree lower than otherwise would be the case. So if the average temperature was going to be 19C, it would instead by 18.99986C. The good people of Naaru will thank us.

This is not a reason to do nothing, but a useful reminder that a scheme without China and India in it will have limited effect.

Campbell: Politically, do you see the difficulty in asking New Zealand families and households to pay half a billion at best into this, or three or four times that figure at worst? For something that will make precious little difference if any to the fate of the planet and whose main effect will be to foster global co-operation?

Norman: Well, I don’t accept your premises. I don’t think New Zealand households should pay. I think the polluters should pay. And the prime polluter that is getting off is the agriculture sector. Dairy should pay its share.

Is there not just a small possibility that those costs might end up being passed on to households? You know with higher petrol prices etc? It is a nice slogan, but not the reality. In some areas like dairy extra costs may not affect prices as there is a global market at play, but in many it will be passed onto households.

Campbell: So from what you’re saying, if the Greens are in government after the next election, it will be asking farmers to pay the full costs of its emissions much sooner ?

Norman: : Yeah…and its actually in a good position to reduce its emissions. The technology already exists. Its just nuts. They’re half of our emissions, and we’re saying the sector doesn’t have to do anything.

Campbell: Excuse me, but the technology to reduce methane emissions doesn’t exist at the moment.

Norman: The technology to reduce nitrous oxide emissions exists at the moment, with nitrification inhibitors.

Campbell: But they don’t work so well on hill country terrain. You can’t extrapolate from the success of nitrification inhibitors in low country farming and say the technology to reduce agricultural emnissions currently exists. It doesn’t deal at all with the methane.

Norman: Yeah. That’s right. What we’re trying to do here is reduce emissions back to 1990 levels. We’re not trying to reduce them to zero. Different components when put together, produce a reduction in greenhouse emissions. Organic farming for instance, produces a lot less greenhouse emissions. A price signal to agriculture will help people to adopt them.

One advantage of being a former Green staffer is Campbell clearly knows his facts in this area, and was able to challenge Russel’s assertions on technology. All too rare in the media.

Campbell: What do you think the main priority for centre left voters will be – to get Labour back, or to ensure the Greens are there to keep them honest?

Norman: I think there’s 10% per cent of the population who are very sympathetic to the Greens, and want to make sure the Greens are there. There’s a significant proportion who will make sure the Greens get back. I think we’ll do better, actually.

This is what amazed me – they are so unambitious in terms of the vote. They have actually been up to 10% in some opinion polls, so should be setting a far bigger target. If they don’t want to be a perpetual doormat for Labour they should be aiming to gain enough votes so that it is impossible to form a centre-left Government without them.

But they seem not to want this. They just want their 6% – 10%, which will mean they can be marginalised again.

1. Why has Steve Maharey not resigned as MP for Palmerston North, now he can do so without triggering a by-election? Does anyone think you can be Vice-Chancellor and an MP?
2. Has NZ First paid back its $158,000 yet?
3. Have United Future finished paying back the money it owes to Parliamentary Service?
4. Why have NZ First and ACT not yet filed their 2007 donations return, 16 days after the deadline?
5. Would Rod Donald have approved of manipulating MMP rules so that Russel Norman becomes an MP (scheduled for end of the month) with less than 30 house sitting days before the election? Is this not just an outrageous rort to allow Russel to use taxpayer funds to travel around the country for the campaign?
6. Why would Labour’s website not list a single candidate who has been selected of the election? Is it because that is the only way they can get the taxpayer to fund 100% of it. Should Labour pay me for listing their candidates for them?
7. If Winston is back in NZ now, why hasn’t any journalist asked him why they have broken the law by refusing to file their donations return, and why does it need the party leader to file a donations return?
8. Has the Crown Law Office yet decided whether a balloon is an election advertisement?
9. How big a mistake was it for Dr Cullen to cancel in last year’s budget the tax cuts he promised in 2005?
10. How much damage did that conference song on John Key do to Labour? Was it more or less than the global economic slowdown?

UPDATE: For (4) The Electoral Commission has now received and published the ACT and NZ First returns.

After missing it last week, popped in again to the Backbencher last night for the usual live filing of Back Benches. The MPs were Rodney Hide, Jacqui Dean, Te Ururoa Flavell and Russel Norman (not quite an MP yet).

Rodney joined our table before the show and loudly proclaimed the he figured the Nats were pushing fibre to the home for broadband just so I could get better quality porn. I jokingly corrected him that it was so I could get faster porn, not better porn. Rodney then started practising his parliamentary speech about how any Bill for fibre to the home should be called the Faster Farrar Porn Bill. Others started joining in until I pointed out to them all that only Rodney gets parliamentary privilege

The show went well. The funniest moment for me was when Wallace asked Russel about biofuels, and a few seconds into what appeared to be the start of a very long explanation, Rodney rang the bell to cut him off.

Around halfway through the show Wallace announced they are giving away a luxury item in a quiz, and he held up a 1kg block of tasty cheese which he said was now a luxury item at $15. And the question was what sort of car has replaced the Ford Fairlaines as Ministerial cars.

I couldn’t resist and stuck my hand up and shouted out “BMW 720is”. Wallace was so impressed (or appalled by my nerdiness) he awarded me the cheese. At this stage someone sitting with the Green supporters yelled out loudly “Who is that bald cunt”, Now I have been called a cunt several times before, but never on live television on a news show. I joked afterwards to Guyon Espiner that being called a cunt on live television had never happened to me before, and he replied that it had to him! I forgot to ask whether it was an MP

Being serious for a second, I do think it is grossly inappropriate to use the cunt word on a live television news show. Not at all worried that it was directed at me, but it was boorish in the extreme. “Who is that bald bastard” would have worked just as well without actually exposing TVNZ to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (which I jokingly threatened them with).

Anyway my cheese victory was short lived. Barry and Heather Soper (I can’t be bothered trying to spell her actual surname) popped in after the show and I boasted of my victory in winning the cheese. Barry immediately says I got the make wrong and they are BMW 730Lds. I don’t think I am wrong, so I fire up the Blackberry and search on my blog site as I know I blogged the model when they were announced.

Sadly I did get the make slightly wrong (hey 730 is close to 720) and they are BMW 730Lds. So what does Barry do, he reaches across the table and takes my cheese claiming he is the real winner of it, despite not even being there for the show.

I then drown my sorrows at my lost cheese in another Speights.

NZPA through Stuff report that Sue Kedgley will again be the Green Party candidate for Wellington Central.

WC is the highest party vote in NZ for The Greens. I thought they might stand Russel Norman there this time as he is a co-leader, and would attract even more attention.

National makes it selection tonight. I’ll blog it when known. I think it will be very close.

By coincidence, Jordan Carter was seated next to me on the flight up to Auckland on Saturday morning. I was heading on holiday, while Jordan was off to his selection meeting for Hunua for Labour, where he was selected unopposed. Congratulations Jordan.

I offered to help Jordan write his acceptance speech, but he declined!

On the way back on Monday night, Russel Norman and Jeanette Fitzsimons were on the flight (which was delayed 50 minutes).  Russel chatted to me for a bit and I told him that I had actually praised the Greens online communications, and his blogging specifically, at the Chamber of Commerce meeting on Friday. I’m not sure if he believed me but Adam Smith has blogged that I did speak well of those, who are less charitable towards me.

Phil Goff makes short shift of Russel Norman’s scare mongering over the free trade agreement with China:

Comments by Greens co-leader Russel Norman that: “Parliament has no say over this (China Trade) agreement”, is absolutely incorrect, says Trade Minister Phil Goff.

“The China trade agreement cannot come into effect without parliamentary scrutiny and support. Dr Norman should acquaint himself better with New Zealand’s parliamentary system,” Mr Goff said.

“The full agreement and a National Impact Analysis will be tabled in Parliament at the time the Agreement is signed, and will be posted on the Web.

“This process will allow parliamentary and public scrutiny of the agreement, with the Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence Committee likely to call for public submissions on it.

“Legislation then has to be introduced for the agreement to be given effect in domestic law, and must be passed by Parliament for that to happen.

That’s a great serving by Goff. Especially where he suggests that Norman, not yet an MP, doesn’t even know how Parliament works.

“It is likely that this legislation will receive overwhelming support in the House, though of course this remains to be tested.

I’d be appalled if National doesn’t support it. The Greens will of course be against – as they seem to be against all trade agreements. What will be very interesting is how NZ First votes. Their previous voting record and rhetoric means they should vote against. But Winston will be aware of how bad it will look for the Foreign Minister to vote against a trade agreement. As his party has no decision making capability excluding him, I suspect he will make them vote for it.

“While I cannot comment on the detail of the agreement while it is still going through final technical discussions and has yet to be submitted to Cabinet for final approval, I can say that the sort of suggestions made by Dr Norman are nonsense.

“Free movement of labour, for example, has never been considered by anyone as part of the negotiation. To even make that suggestion is absurd.

Sounds like a scare-mongering tactic worthy of Winston – beware the hoards moving here to take your job!

“The Greens appear to have already made up their minds to oppose a trade agreement with China, New Zealand’s third largest trading partner and fastest growing export market.

“However, it would be more sensible for them to first examine what the agreement actually involved, which all parties in parliament will soon have the opportunity to do,” Mr Goff said.

I’m going to take a punt and predict that no matter what the details are of it, the Greens will be against it.

This is one area where I am very supportive of the Government – depending of course on the final details.

Russel Norman has responded on Frog Blog.