General Debate 8 September 2009

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kaya

Howard Broad’s driver gets 98k per annum? Why? Wellington is seriously just one big trough with too many piggies. No wonder it sounds like a piggery most days.
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September 8, 2009 7:46am
Brian Smaller

Feel good story of the day
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2842361/Nothing-can-stop-Jacob-playing-rugby

Young Jacob was one of my Hutt valley rep players last year. What a tough, inspirational kid, and you would not believe how supportive his parents were. As manager it was a new one on me to have to carry around a tube and tap so he could rehydrate at half time, when all the other guys had bottles. Brilliant young kid.
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September 8, 2009 7:51am
bearhunter

Bloody hell, it’s foggier than an old folk’s home on the piss up here in Auckland this morning and there are still people driving without their lights on. Are these people suicidal or what?
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September 8, 2009 8:15am
CraigM

Evil people doing evil things.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10595902

I can’t imagine how much hate you would have to have inside you to want to do something like this. The fact that there are possibly hundreds of thousands of others just like them must tell us that our world will never be a peaceful place. Not in my lifetime anyway.

What a sad realisation.
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September 8, 2009 9:14am
MyNameIsJack

I wish to appologise to Peter Burns, aka dad4justice.

Yes Peter, you get my goat sometimes, and yes, you are easy meat and always take the bait. But no more baiting from me.

Read this article http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/2842479/Haka-honours-Tisha-Lowry-as-body-recovered, you’ll need to get about half way down.

Peter, I still think you’re a religious nutbar and we will never agree about god, but I do have a new found respect for the work you do. We are not that dissimilar at all, both working with real people in need to help build a better man.

As MKP say “Changing the world, one man at a time”.

I am sure you will be feeling pain over the way this tragedy has been played out. I feel your pain, too, but never let us give up on trying to improve people’s lives.

david
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September 8, 2009 9:36am
wreck1080

The NZ dollar is almost at a post-float record high against the pound.

Must be sad for all those young kiwis expecting to make some cash on their UK OE.
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September 8, 2009 9:52am
Leg Break

Threadjack:

Did anyone hear Radio NZ’s political reporter talk about the “lost” security notebook today?

He claimed that he’d stumbled on it himself in an un-named Wellington street.

What are the chances of a budding young political reporter for Radio NZ happening to be the first person to stumble across a dropped folder with such volatile information on it miraculously like that??

Of all the people…

And they expect us to take them seriously.
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September 8, 2009 9:59am
MikeNZ

Jack
Thank you for that.
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September 8, 2009 10:17am
thedavincimode

kaya

“Howard Broad’s driver gets 98k per annum …”

Well kaya, he can’t drive a desk, so why would you want him in charge of a car?

Mind you, your comment raises an interesting question. If Broad just stayed at home because we cancelled his driver, would anyone notice?
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September 8, 2009 10:42am
big bruv

Hmmm

Surfers Paradise or……………….Hamilton?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/international/2843192/Springboks-put-boot-into-Hamiltons-image

Hard to disagree really.
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September 8, 2009 11:07am
racer1

Now that Lynn Provost is gone, are the police free to tell us what really happened with the hollow men emails?
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September 8, 2009 11:13am
big bruv

I have a rather interesting story about Commissioner Broad, booze, driving and why him having a chauffeur might not be a silly idea.

I may well tell it one day.
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September 8, 2009 11:23am
racer1

I have a rather interesting story about Larry “ball cock” Baldlock, apparently hes been having homosexuals ram far more than their ideology down his throat.
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September 8, 2009 11:26am
Colonel Masters

racer1, who is Larry Baldlock? Or was this a deliberate typo to avoid your being sued?
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September 8, 2009 11:29am
big bruv

racer

You are scum, nothing more and nothing less.
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September 8, 2009 11:30am
racer1

Bruv, you are a piece of shit.
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September 8, 2009 11:34am
Bok

Now I know why the fundies hate racer1
Not because of what he says or his vile outpourings…
Simply he represents an irrefutable case for the merits of abortion
in some circumstances.
Just think of the resources that could have been saved.
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September 8, 2009 12:02pm
racer1

Ah well, most of you lot provide a good case for compulsory sterilization of dumb people (your parents and in most cases yourselves.)
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September 8, 2009 12:13pm
Hurf Durf

Good God, the Huruld is seriously butthurt today. Reminds me why I don’t take it seriously as a news source, especially when I remember how hard they shilled for him last year.

Big Bruv, looks like racehurr’s going down the road the left in the US had gone down. Sad, so sad.
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September 8, 2009 2:17pm
gravedodger

Brian Smaller 7.51, been out on a mission for her who must be obeyed,so have just caught up with your comment. In a word “inspirational”, what an object lesson in the fact , LIFE IS FOR LIVING. So many of the useless pieces of body waste sit around moaning about the cards they have been delt when this young man just makes the necessary adjustments & changes that are needed to his cards and how he plays them and not only gets on with it but does that at the level he does. Again I will repeat so inspirational.
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September 8, 2009 3:09pm
backster

Why can’t our journalists report on what is so obvious to the WALL STREET JOURNAL (today)

To the annals of global warming lunacy, add this gem from New Zealand: According to a parliamentary committee, Kiwis should accept lower standards of living to protect the national image abroad.

The findings of the “Emissions Trading Review Committee” aren’t binding, but they tell much about how deep today’s green religion runs. New Zealand has a nominally conservative government run by Prime Minister John Key. But even Mr. Key won’t consider completely disavowing environmental taxes in the form of cap-and-trade—he just wants to soften them. He ordered a parliamentary committee last year to figure out how.

Their report, issued last week, doesn’t question disputed United Nations climate-change assumptions, nor explain the cost to the average Kiwi of taxing every corner of the economy—especially agriculture, the country’s biggest export. The authors brush aside the fact that New Zealand only emits 0.2% of global emissions, calling it “small,” but “not insignificant.” Thus Wellington should “act now” to reduce emissions “to protect our international reputation, particularly in the areas of trade and tourism.”

This is green PR gone wild. New Zealand already boasted one of the world’s most pristine environments before it passed cap-and-trade last year. The law, if anything, has made the country less green, not more so. As soon as the former Labour government started talked about global-warming initiatives, foresters started chopping down trees to reduce their carbon footprint—and cost of buying emissions permits in the future. Over the past few years, New Zealand has experienced severe deforestation. Economic activity in the sector has plateaued.

Then there is the broader cost to macroeconomic growth, which isn’t marginal. The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, an independent consultancy, estimated last year that the cap-and-trade scheme could cost as much as 3,000 New Zealand dollars ($2,500) in reduced income annually for the average family. But the truth is that no one really knows what the ultimate impact will be, given that New Zealand, by rendering its industries less competitive, will make it permanently harder for them to compete at home and abroad.
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September 8, 2009 4:58pm
muppet

Master in a tart cart. Paula just better and better.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2845291/Kaitaia-CYF-staff-told-they-are-ministers-servants
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September 8, 2009 5:46pm
Kris K

backster 4:58 pm,

Then there is the broader cost to macroeconomic growth, which isn’t marginal. The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, an independent consultancy, estimated last year that the cap-and-trade scheme could cost as much as 3,000 New Zealand dollars ($2,500) in reduced income annually for the average family. But the truth is that no one really knows what the ultimate impact will be, given that New Zealand, by rendering its industries less competitive, will make it permanently harder for them to compete at home and abroad.

That is the scary thing; “no one really knows what the ultimate impact will be”.
NZ has already lost most of its manufacturing sector; textiles industry, etc either totally or to offshore locations, and now we’re signing up for what will be our further demise as one of our few remaining profitable industries is ‘taxed’ and penalised for no better reason than the fact that animals expel methane and other so-called ‘green house gases’ as they go about growing wool, meat, and dairy products.

Of course, if we add in further costs of transportation purely on the basis that we are about as far away as you can be from northern hemisphere markets, then it is hard to see anything other than a very bleak future for NZ.

What happened to the ‘Knowledge Wave’ that Labour promoted, or National’s talk fests to promote productivity and exports?
If this government doesn’t start targetting and incentivising the exporting of NZ goods, and protecting what industries may still exist within our borders, then it’s hard to see any future for NZ short of selling the whole kit and caboodle to some willing buyer for a lump sum price, and the population throwing themselves on the mercy of their new ‘Monarch’ as his new subjects/serfs.
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September 8, 2009 6:26pm
toad

muppet said: Master in a tart cart. Paula just better and better.

Don’t think this one is actually Paula’s fault. It is a senior staff member who has stuffed up, but the disciplinary responsibility is that of Chief Executive Peter Hughes, rather than Paula’s.

Unless Paula issued instructions, which would put this in completely different perspective, but there is no evidence of that.

Psst – if anyone can find evidence of that, let me know (she is a pretty loose Minsiter) – but for now, this one cannot be blamed on Minister Bennett.
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September 8, 2009 7:59pm
Viking2

Finance department too ‘gentle’ on MP entitlements: auditor

THE auditor-general today criticised the finance department’s “relatively gentle approach” to MP entitlements after finding that parliamentarians were “double dipping” into taxpayer funds to pay for their campaigns.

No not in NZ stupid. Its their Aussie mates sucking the tit.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26044698-601,00.html
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September 8, 2009 8:36pm
muppet

Toad. You are correct. Good headline tho.
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September 8, 2009 8:44pm
nickb

A question if I may DPF.
With the first reading of the VSM bill tommorow, do you have any insider info on which way the Nats are voting?
Havent heard anything in the media so far, seems a bit weird.
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September 8, 2009 9:29pm
racer1

Kris, what happens when the EU starts putting tariffs on our dairy exports because we aren’t doing our bit?
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September 9, 2009 12:29am
expat

“Doing our bit” – oh piss off with your colonial oppressor double speak.

“Doing our bit” ended after WW2.

“Doing our bit” means aligning with Australia.
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September 9, 2009 5:13am
Viking2

So as we suspected and could tell from the body language at the time The Honorable Bill English was telling porkies. Is this a sackable offense I wonder. Would be in my workplace. Telling porkies about money is a very bad look and bad form and dishonest. Isn’t it?

Fresh housing woes for English
By VERNON SMALL and TRACY WATKINS – The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 09/09/2009

Finance Minister Bill English qualified for a $700-a-week rent payment from taxpayers after signing a declaration that he had no financial interest in the trust which owned his family home.

It has been revealed that officials took concerns to the prime minister’s office about whether Mr English qualified for the payment, which is double the amount he was entitled to as an ordinary MP.

But documents issued under the Official Information Act show they were told it would be okay as long as Mr English certified that he had no financial interest in the Endeavour Trust, which owns his $1.2 million Karori property.

After he made the declaration on February 1, rent payments totalling $12,133.33 were backdated to December 1. The declaration refers to a legal opinion, which has not been made public.

The prime minister’s office also advised officials that Mr English needed an independent valuation and the rent had to be the lower of market rent or $700 a week conditions which were met.

The documents show that in March, Ministerial Services started an automatic payment of $3033.33 a month, starting on April 1. They also show Mr English claimed $1411.45 for power and water and $720 for cleaning between July 1 and August 7 this year.

Controversy over his allowances led to a review last month of ministerial housing rules and Prime Minister John Key said on Monday that payments would be capped at $37,500 a year, with no rules on how the money is spent.

He confirmed yesterday that ministers would be free to use the money however they wished including to buy a house. But he defended it as saving money compared with the average $48,000 cost of housing ministers now.

He denied ministers would find cheaper accommodation and pocket the difference. They will not have to provide receipts or account for the spending.

Ministers are entitled to an official residence or a leased property, paid for by Ministerial Services.

Mr English turned down an official residence because it would be disrupting for his family.

The title deed for the Karori property, in which he and his family have lived for several years, shows he and his wife, Mary, were joint owners till March, when it was transferred to her name alone.

Mr English has said the change in ownership to his wife had nothing to do with parliamentary allowances and happened last year but took time to appear on the title. It had always been owned by the Endeavour Trust.

Mr English listed a beneficial interest in the trust in 2008 but it was not listed in the latest register, published in May.

The market rent for the property was independently valued at $850 to $1000 a week.

Rent payments were stopped at the end of July after revelations that Mr English was receiving more than $900 a week for rent and other expenses on the property.
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He has paid back $11,117.19 described in the documents as an “ex gratia” payment after admitting it was “not a good look”. The payment was the difference between what he received and a backbencher’s.

Looks like the National Party is no better than the Labour Party when it comes to ethics.
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September 9, 2009 6:33am
kaya

“Prime Minister John Key said on Monday that payments would be capped at $37,500 a year, with no rules on how the money is spent.

He confirmed yesterday that ministers would be free to use the money however they wished including to buy a house.”

If it looks like a pig then it is a pig. This payment should be called what it is, an extra $37,500 on their income. If they don’t need to provide receipts then it isn’t a housing allowance. Tax free I suppose.
I have no problem people earning a good income for doing a good job, just don’t try and call it something it isn’t.
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September 9, 2009 7:53am

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