The Herald on Sunday editorial:

What would John Key have done in David Cunliffe’s position this week? Labour Party members must be asking themselves that question and they probably know the answer. Facing persistent questions on something he had denied, a more cautious leader would have suspected he might be wrong. Cunliffe could have said something such as, “I don’t recall ever assisting a residency application for Donghua Liu but in view of these questions I will check my records”.

That is not Cunliffe’s style, it sounds more like … David Shearer. Less than a year after Shearer relinquished the leadership, Labour’s prospects have gone from bad to worse. This week a Herald-DigiPoll survey found the party on 30 per cent, 20 points behind National. Polls the previous week for One News and 3 Newshad almost exactly the same figures. A fourth poll, published on Thursday, was worse. Labour had dropped to just over 23 per cent.

This is abysmal for a major party just three months out from an election.

Talking of polls, The Political Scientist looks at the Fairfax poll and finds the major trend is Labour voters going undecided. He looks at the support levels if you leave the undecideds in and it is National 44%, Labour 18%, Greens 9% and NZ First 2.5% with around 22% undecided.

The Labour core support is almost half that of November 2012.

Now that they are inside the three months, Labour MPs can change their leader if necessary without reference to the wider membership and affiliated unions whose votes put Cunliffe into the leadership last year. This week, Cunliffe said the Labour movement had a word for any such move against him. The caucus would have recognised that veiled reference to “scabs” as a rallying call to the unions and left-wing members. When its leader has to resort to that sort of talk, Labour is in disarray.

They can’t even release their party list on time, because they’re in crisis.

With no alternative leader coming forward, the party’s only hope is that Cunliffe can be an effective campaigner. There were signs in the leadership contest last year that he might be. His supreme confidence and his theatrical gestures could shine in television debates. But stubborn pride could be his undoing if it prevents him admitting uncertainty or conceding he could be wrong, as it did on the Liu letter this week.

I say he should stand firm, and keep refusing to apologise!

Stuff reports:

Conservative Party leader Colin Craig will contest the East Coast Bays seat at the election, pitting him against Foreign Minister Murray McCully – unless a deal is done.

Today’s announcement came at the party’s campaign launch, which took place at Rangitoto College’s auditorium – on the edge of the East Coast Bays and North Shore electorates.

The decision comes as no surprise after recent rumours.

During the week, Craig said he expected a deal with National to give him a free run at a seat in September’s election but that has not yet been confirmed by Prime Minister John Key.

Craig expected the Conservative Party, currently polling about 1.5 per cent and well below the threshold for seats in Parliament, would be thrown a lifeline: “I think National will stand aside somewhere.”

In 2011, Craig was defeated by National backbencher Mark Mitchell in Rodney by more than 8000 votes.

I think whether National does a deal will come down to two fairly simple things.

1. Do they need to do one? If the answer is no, then they won’t. But you can in theory lose the election eve if you’re on say 48% and Labour is on 25% if the Greens, Winston and Kim Dotcom team up.
2. Are the Consrvatives likely to win enough seats to make it worthwhile to do.

The party also listed four key issues it would push: All referendums to be binding, tougher penalties for criminals, no more separate Maori seats and a flat tax after the first $20,000 would be tax free.

How many of those they would get, will depend on how many votes they get. The more votes you get, the more of your agenda you can get through.

Oliver Hartwich of The NZ Initiative writes:

In today’s society, you would be hard-pressed to find anyone to object to human rights. Even the nastiest dictatorships still try to maintain at least the semblance of a human rights culture, even if they violate these rights constantly.

What is far more difficult to ascertain, especially in Western, liberal democracies, is what human rights mean in practice. They have a certain Alice in Wonderland quality about them. The term ‘human rights’ means just what you choose it to mean – neither more nor less.

Freedom of speech is a good example. Who would be against something as noble and sacred as the freedom to say what you want? But dig just a little bit deeper, and the responses become far more nuanced.

You may be all in favour of free speech, but some people believe allowing tobacco companies to freely advertise their products requires an exception, as might donations to political campaigns, or statements that might impinge upon another person’s reputation. The devil is in the detail.

The problem gets even worse if you are trying to define what a human right is, and what is not. There are two schools of thought and they can be broadly defined as negative/liberal and positive/socialist.

The classical liberal approach views rights as a defence against the power of the state. Rights are negative in this way because they are negative freedoms, meaning you are free from something, rather than free to do something. It is the human right not to be interfered with, eg not with your views and beliefs, not in the enjoyment of your property, not in who you associate with.

The socialist approach goes beyond this. It sees human rights as a positive right to something. Rather than averting the interference of the state, it requires the state to deliver on these rights. Human rights, rather than being the birth rights of the individual, in this sense, become entitlements granted by government.

That’s a good way to differentiate between the two sorts of human rights.

In a couple of weeks, The New Zealand Initiative will be hosting Australia’s new Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson. He has triggered a debate across the Tasman on what human rights should be, and he strongly advocates a return to a much narrower definition with the focus on freedom of association, religion, expression and property.

This leaves freedom as the fundamental human right. Incidentally, this is also the title of Tim Wilson’s lecture. We hope to see you there and look forward to a robust debate.

Tim Wilson will be speaking to The New Zealand Initiative in:

• Auckland, 30 June – register here.
• Wellington, 1 July – register here.

These should be excellent.

Steve Braunias in fine form:

MONDAY

I want to make it perfectly clear that I have never had any dealings with Donghua Liu.

I wouldn’t know him if I fell over him. If I did fall over him, I’d help him to his feet, and say to him, “How do you do? I’m David Cunliffe, the leader of the New Zealand Labour Party. You look familiar. Are you Chinese?” …

TUESDAY

I want to make it perfectly clear that my dealings with Donghua Liu were a long time ago. It was before email. It was before the fax machine. Remember the fax machine? The paper always ran out, and it made that horrible shrieking noise whenever you dialled a number. I’m passionate about noise pollution and I’ll go on record now and say that a Labour Government won’t tolerate a return to the fax machine.

The letter I wrote to immigration officials on Mr Liu’s behalf in 2003 has nothing in common with the letter Maurice Williamson wrote to police on Mr Liu’s behalf. Maurice Williamson was interfering. I was merely putting in a good word for a guy who always had a friendly, open smile.

He’d wave out whenever I saw him, and I’d say, “How’s it, Mr Liu?” And he’d say, “Mate, call me Dong.”

The Dong I knew had an insatiable appetite for New Zealand literature. He wanted Helen Clark’s biography so badly that he paid $15,000 for it.

So on the mark.

Eric Hanushek in the NY Times writes:

A small percentage of teachers inflicts disproportionate harm on children. Each year a grossly ineffective teacher continues in the classroom reduces the future earnings of the class by thousands of dollars by dramatically lowering the college chances and employment opportunities of students. 

There is also a national impact. The future economic well being of the United States is entirely dependent on the skills of our population. Replacing the poorest performing 5 to 8 percent of teachers with an average teacher would, by my calculations, yield improved productivity and growth that amounts to trillions of dollars. 

Protecting bad teachers has a massive impact on students. and through them the country. we should pay our best teachers more, and move on those teachers who are not skilled in connecting with students/

Tracy Watkins reports:

For 30 missing minutes in Barack Obama’s diary, the United States president and John Key did something unexpected.

They strolled the White House South Lawn, checked out the president’s putting green, had a squiz at Obama’s back office and First Lady Michelle Obama’s famous veggie garden, and part of the White House the family use.

The unscheduled timeout followed a 50-minute working session to discuss issues including trade – and whether a deal can be done on the Trans-Pacific Partnership – the South China Sea dispute, climate change, North Korea and Iraq.

Key’s second meeting with Obama at the Oval Office was supposed to wrap up at the end of that session. But the two leaders went for a walk instead.

“It was cool,” said Key.

Key and Obama have clearly established a rapport. They are roughly the same age, share a passion for golf and both have a bolt-hole in Hawaii where they escape with family. Last Christmas, the pair spent a day on the golf course with Key’s son Max while holidaying in Hawaii. Obama name-checked Max to the world’s media after yesterday’s meeting.

Key expects his relationship with Obama to endure beyond political life

Key has shown an extraordinary ability to forge strong personal relationships with many world leaders.  And relationships do matter, and help.

Incidentally the mention of Max was that he had a longer drive than both Obama and his father, according to Obama!

Prospect Magazine look at what is ISIS:

What is ISIS?

It is a Sunni Muslim militant group operating in Western Iraq and Syria. The name is an acronym, standing for “the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (the Levant).

What does it want?

International recognition as an independent state for the territory it controls, which spans parts of eastern Syria and western Iraq. In this area, it functions as a de facto government, operating schools and courts. It also wants to control more territory. If it can sustain and consolidate its new gains in Iraq, it will control much of the northern part of the country, and reports say it plans to mount an assault on the capital, Baghdad (its advance has been halted just short of the city). It also wants to seize control of rebel-held areas in central Syria and potentially expand into the Lebanon to the West. In both Iraq and Syria, ISIS’s enemies are Shia Muslims.

So it wants to carve a Sunni country of of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

Who are its members?

Reports vary, putting the total number of recruits at anything from 3,000-10,000. According to Gareth Stansfield, professor of Middle East politics at the University of Exeter, the group tends to recruit most heavily among Syrian and Iraqi locals, but it does have some foreign fighters, mostly Chechens, Afghans, and Pakistanis, as well as some Europeans. Michael Stephens, Deputy Director, Qatar for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), says there could be as many as 300 Britons fighting for ISIS, and a further almost 300 other Europeans. 

Any Kiwis I wonder?

How dangerous is it?

The group is well-resourced. Its new adventure in Iraq has seen it seize military bases in Mosul. In Syria, it controls oil fields, and it may yet gain control of Iraq’s largest oil refinery in the town of Baiji. Stephens says that individual Saudi and Kuwaiti donors are giving money to ISIS, either through European financial institutions or, in some cases, by smuggling suitcases of bills across the border. It is also ruthless: the group has been blamed for a string of assassinations in Syria, including two alleged crucifixions. Most importantly, this particular militant operation is very good at recruiting people to its cause. “This idea of fighting Shia seems to be really mobilising young men to fight in a way that fighting Westerners didn’t,” says Stephens. “They [say] they’re saving Islam from itself. 

That’s fascinating that the are more motivated to fight Shia than the West.

The Herald on Sunday reports:

Millionaire businessman Donghua Liu spent more than $150,000 on the previous Labour government, including $100,000 on a bottle of wine signed by former prime minister Helen Clark at a party fundraiser.

So Labour, which was campaigning on financial transparency in 2007, took $150,000 from Mr Liu (after going against official advice to give him residency) and never ever disclosed that he was a donor.  This shows how deeply hypocritical they are, let alone the strong possibility they broke the law with their 2007 donation return.

Millionaire businessman Donghua Liu spent more than $150,000 on the previous Labour government, including $100,000 on a bottle of wine signed by former prime minister Helen Clark at a party fundraiser.

I’ve previously said the Police should investigate. The investigation should not just be under the Electoral Act. There may be theft involved. If Liu was donating to Labour, and Labour say they have no record of the donation, then what happened to the money? Did it go directly to any MPs?

If Labour had a shred of integrity, they would not wait for a Police investigation. They should ask Mr Liu directly who he gave the money to, and in what form was it.

“This is scandalous from the public’s perspective. There has to be some sort of official investigation, whether it’s a police one or a parliamentary one,” said political commentator Bryce Edwards. “There must be some sort of official investigation, whether it’s a police or parliamentary.”

Asked about a potential investigation under electoral finance laws, Liu’s lawyer Todd Simmonds indicated that Liu was comfortable with his financial support and would cooperate with any inquiry.

This is why I believe we should have an Independent Commission against Corruption – a body which can investigate issues like that – even if there are no prosecutions – we need to have someone with the ability to find out what happened.

Liu’s signed statement was dated May 3, two days after Williamson’s resignation. It said:

• Liu paid “close to $100,000” for wine at a 2007 Labour Party fundraiser;

• That he spent $50-60,000 hosting then-labour minister Rick Barker on a cruise on the Yangtze River in China in 2007; and

This is a huge issue for Rick Barker. He was required by Parliament’s Standing Orders to disclose any gift of over $500 in value.

That Liu visited Barker in Hawke’s Bay in 2006, having dinner with him at an exclusive lodge and then meeting for breakfast the next morning. Liu said he made a donation to Hawke’s Bay Rowing, which Barker was associated with.

Yet Barker claims to barely know him.

Barker previously told the Herald that he could barely remember having dinner.

I like Rick Barker, but he has some serious questions to answers. I presume the Parliamentary Privileges Committee can investigate the adequacy of his pecuniary interests return.

Edwards said while it was not clear if Labour had broken any laws, public confidence in the party had been dented.

He said a private prosecution could be possible, and it was the responsibility of the electoral commission to investigate and to decide whether a referral to police should be made.

They may not be able to prosecute, but they could insist the returns are corrected if necessary (as they did with NZ First).

Edwards said the case highlighted the need for a regulatory body separate from the Electoral Commission “to look at questions of corruption and irregularities” around political donations. Donations made at fundraising auctions or dinners are not recorded individually, but the total amount raised is declared.

That may be correct for Labour, but I’m certain that is not current practice for National. Anyone who donates over the disclosure limit is disclosed.

So what do we now know about Labour and this Liu.

1. Chris Carter and David Cunliffe wrote letters on his behalf to immigration officials, despite him not being a constituent of either MP
2. Damien O’Connor granted him residency against official advice
3. He gave a donation to a club Rick Barker was involved in, and spent $50,000 or so on entertaining Barker in China
4. He donated $150,000 or so to Labour, yet they have never ever disclosed he was a donor

The entire reason we have disclosure laws is so the media can scrutinise significant donations, and the public can form views on the appropriateness of the donations. Labour’s credibility on issues of electoral finance is now zero.

The NZ Initiative hits Q:

Those who read the business pages may have come across the term quantitative easing (QE), an apparently magical potent for reviving debt-ridden economies; almost like a shot of adrenaline in the arm of a dying patient.

Prior to QE, the orthodox medicine for monetary authorities to use to stimulate the economy was to lower interest rates on some form of official debt, such as the interest rate the central bank pays on overnight deposits, and/or increase liquidity in the banking system by buying back government term debt. The latter technique is called an open-market operation (OMO). In addition to its liquidity effect it will raise prices of term debt, lowering its yield. By either measure, the authorities can hope to make private credit cheaper, stimulating investment in businesses, housing and consumer durables.

QE’s most striking point of distinction from an OMO arises when it involves buying back privately-issued paper instead of government paper. (But note that some define QE to include buying longer-term government paper than is usually bought in the US in an OMO.)

Why would the authorities buy private paper, particularly paper of dubious value held by injudicious private banks, when there is no shortage of medium- and long-term government debt to buy? Why indeed.

In deciding what private securities to buy, government is favouring some issuers (eg those issuing mortgage-backed bonds) and some holders (eg banks) at the expense of others. It is also shifting private risks to taxpayers. The government could easily pay too much for those assets since its buying power is likely to bid up their prices. An unwanted effect might be to make imprudent banks stronger and taxpayers weaker (via government) through hidden subsidies.

Moreover, what happens when the monetary authorities subsequently decide that the additional liquidity needs to be reduced? Reversing the process by selling the accumulated private paper in large amounts could undesirably disrupt the primary issuance market (eg for mortgage lending).

One argument in the US in favour of QE (focused on buying private mortgage-related debt) is that the US suffered such disruption to this market in the global financial crash that special assistance is desirable to ‘unfreeze’ it. This argument may be more political than economic.

In conclusion, heavy recourse to QE is a sign of desperation – a bit like reaching for unproven fringe medical remedies in the belief that proven mainstream treatments can do no more.

That’s a very good academic summary of the idiocy that is quantitative easing. I prefer the John Clarke version.

Superb.

Wayne Mapp writes at Pundit:

For decades now National and Labour have had a cosy little arrangement when it comes to free trade. Both parties could count on each other to provide a solid bloc of votes in parliament to pass any bill implementing free trade agreements.

So any hyperventialting by the Greens, New Zealand First, the Maori Party or Mana counted for nothing. Jane Kelsey might get to write as many op-eds as she likes, but she has virtually no influence on the actual outcome of the free trade agenda. The solid National–Labour coalition ensures that the relevant legislation will pass.

But will this arrangement prevail after this election?

A very good question. Monetary policy used to have bipartisan support also, but Labour have abandoned that to go along with the Greens and NZ First. Will they do the same with trade?

This election could see Labour down in the low 30s as a percentage of the total vote. If a combination of Labour, the Greens, New Zealand First, the Maori Party and Internet Mana can form a government, Labour is only going to be 60% of the government, at most. All its likely partners have opposed every single free trade agreement over the last two decades. Collectively they could demand that Labour not support the TPP as a price of coalition. And could Labour resist such a demand?

What’s more, if the Left (apologies to Winston who is not really left) do not have enough votes to form a government, would Labour still continue the cosy arrangement of supporting free trade agreements? Increasingly Labour activists, including their left leaning MP’s, oppose TPP. David Cunliffe, supported by Phil Goff and others, has positioned the party to be able to vote for TPP. But that is before the election. An election loss could well weaken the free trade faction in Labour.

I’m not sure there is a free trade faction left in Labour. Goff, and O’Connor maybe. Who else?

Stuff reports:

A businessman has given $175,000 to the Conservative Party, and intends to donate more – partly because he is infuriated by Kim Dotcom’s attempt to buy political influence.

Laurence Day, a former National Party supporter and donor, is the only substantial donor to the Conservatives apart from party leader Colin Craig. Craig has donated nearly $2.5m to the party since 2011.

Kim Dotcom’s political activities “really got up my nose,” Day told The Dominion Post this week.

“There’s a guy who has a single axe to grind because he tried to, I feel, bribe his way into New Zealand by buying politicians and that didn’t work, they went doggo on him.

“And now he’s all-out to get rid of [John] Banks and [John] Key and he’s prepared to throw $3 million at it . . .”

A very perceptive man.

Internet leader Laila Harre has, however, defended Dotcom’s $3.25m donation to the Internet Party, saying the German tycoon was giving a gift to progressive politics.

I can’t work out if Laila actually believes what she says. He’s a former donor to John Banks, is a convicted criminal, a multi-millionairre who faced claims from staff he didn’t even pay minimum wage – and she really thinks that the reasons he is donating so much money is because he believes in progressive politics and taxing the rich more???

No one can be that naive, can they?

No Internet Party MP would take part in a future government’s decision on Dotcom’s extradition to the United States, she said.

Yet the party disappears if he is extradited, and they’ll be propping up a Labour-led Government. Pretty obvious that the consequences of extradition will be to remove a support party for Labour, so of course that will place pressure on the Government.

Can one really imagine the Internet Party MPs sitting their in Parliament, doing nothing, as their funder is extradited?

Most of all, does anyone thing Dotcom would be donating all this money, if he wasn’t facing extradition?

Peter Dunne blogs:

I have always followed two firm rules for immigration – and actually all constituency – cases, aside from the obvious point of keeping clear and full records. Any letters of advocacy I write on behalf of a constituent have been drafted personally by me, rather than a member of my staff, as I am more likely to remember something I have written myself, rather than just affixed a signature to. Second and more important, I have never accepted a donation or gift in return for pursuing an immigration case. Where there have been occasions – usually after the event – where someone offered to make a donation, I have always referred them directly to the Party Treasurer. So I actually never know whether any of these offers have ever been followed up, which is as it should be.

I say this not to be sanctimonious, but because it strikes me that David Cunliffe has done neither. I do not think he had full oversight of Mr Liu’s approach to him regarding his immigration status, but I do think he – and his colleagues it would appear – had way too much involvement, more than they are letting on now, in respect of Mr Liu’s financial support. It is that ambiguity and shadiness that is doing the damage now.

Add to that Mr Cunliffe’s strident flaying of Maurice Williamson over his dealings with Donghua Liu and the firestorm of hypocrisy now engulfing him is both obvious and utterly predictable.

Good points made by Peter Dunne.

John Banks has just been found guilty of signing an incorrect donation return, and there is now evidence that Labour’s 2007 donation return was incomplete.

The Herald reports:

Millionaire businessman Donghua Liu has confirmed for the first time that he donated to the Labour Party.

The 53-year-old has been at the centre of political scandals involving National and Labour for months but yesterday broke his silence to say he had given “equally to Governments of both colours”.

National declared a $22,000 donation in 2012, but Labour found no records of Liu donations after the Herald revealed that he paid $15,000 for a book at an auction fundraiser in 2007.

Unless the donations were under $10,000 (and no one is seriously suggesting that) they had to be declared – either under his name, or bundled up as part of someone else’s donation (a practive illegal today, but allowed in 2007).

However Labour say they have no record at all of any donation. That suggests a serious issue. Who was the money paid to? Was it in cash or cheque? Why was it not passed to Labour Head Office? Where did it end up.

The Police need to investigate and have those questions answered.

But Liu said he would not make any further comments about political donations or swear an affidavit outlining dollar amounts.

He denied allegations from former Labour Party minister Rick Barker that he was “drip feeding” information about his links to Labour.

Mr Barker, who was a guest of Liu at a lavish dinner on a Yangtze River cruise, had challenged the wealthy businessman to go public about allegations of donations to the party.

“It’s important to remember that over the years I’ve given equally to Governments of both colours,” said Liu. “As a private citizen it’s not for me to make declarations about donations and political relationships.”

That’s not good enough, when the donations have not been disclosed. The Police should interview Mr Liu and ask him how much he donated, and who he gave the money to. Then that person or persons need to explain where the money went.

I believe Labour Head Office when they say they have no record of the donation. But it must have gone to someone. Who?

The Dom Post reports:

Wellington City Council is refusing to be dictated to on its commitment to a living wage policy.

By July 1, all fulltime Wellington City Council staff will be paid a minimum wage of $18.40 an hour.

That is 40c an hour less than the figure the Aotearoa Living Wage movement has defined.

Actually the living wage level should be almost $23 an hour if you use their original methodology. They basially just make up whatever figure they think they can now get away with.

Furthermore, the council’s living wage will not apply to any of the city’s cleaners, construction crews, museum guides or venue ushers.

Hilarious – looks like i will only apply to people paid above it anyway,

Moving those contracted and council controlled organisation staff to the $18.40 base would cost another $2.5 million a year.

Good to see Celia and the Council abandon their policy. The Council should pay what the market rate is, and not a cent more.

The Dom Post editorial:

Labour ditched former leader David Shearer because he struggled to string two sentences together on a good day. So surely it couldn’t have got any worse, right? Wrong.

It’s a train wreck under David Cunliffe and Labour’s MPs are grumpy, nervous and wondering what they may be doing for a crust after September 20. The prospect of losing your job and the $150,000 salary always focuses the mind.

And by bad timing, the Labour Party list gets released this weekend. On the latest Fairfax poll, Labour would get only six List MPs. So anyone outside the top six of the effective list, may be toast.

Cunliffe has taken the party backwards when he promised to take it forward. Could Labour be on track to record its worst-ever election defeat? Yes.

When Cunliffe utters a word or two these days the collective intake of breath among his MPs is simply frightening.

He’s had a host of gaffes this year – and the best he’s looked was when he shut up and stood in the background while his wife, Karen Price, talked about the birds (chickens) and the bees in an interview at their home.

That was the high point.

Cunliffe was parachuted into the job of leader, not because his MPs really wanted him – most dislike him – but because Labour Party members and union affiliates were desperate for someone to articulate their values.

To say he’s been a disappointment is an understatement. After this week’s horrors he looks unelectable as the next prime minister. He’s genuinely gone from bad to worse.

My God, that is a harsh editorial.

Look at these basic mistakes. He started the year not knowing the crucial details of his baby bonus speech, he then foolishly accused Prime Minister John Key of living in a flash pad while he slummed it in a downmarket $2.5 million mansion in Herne Bay.

He set up a secret trust for his leadership bid and was caught out. He claimed his grandfather won a war medal when it was his great uncle. His CV had mistakes in it. He used Grant Robertson’s leadership statement as his own and this week – the howler – denied he knew Donghua Liu or had ever advocated for him – before a letter emerged to prove otherwise.

It isn’t the one or two mistakes. It is that they are so regular.

Former Labour Party president Mike Williams admitted to me this week that Labour’s MPs will all be discussing the possibility of replacing Cunliffe. They now have 48 hours to prepare to roll him.

They can ditch him on Tuesday – but they won’t.

I expect Robertson has the numbers if he wanted to press the issue. But he doesn’t want the job – just yet. Hence his support for Cunliffe this week and his rather cheeky throwaway line that Cunliffe will serve three of four terms as prime minister, before he takes his chance. You just know he didn’t mean that.

There is no doubt Grant has the numbers. It isn’t even close. But he doesn’t want to be Mike Moore. so he will sit back.

UPDATE: According to people who have read the print edition this is not an editorial but a column by Duncan Garner. No wonder it was quite blunt!

Stuff reports:

Seven years after the body of James Takamore was snatched from a funeral parlour, it finally looks set to return home.

Takamore, a father of two, died of an aneurism in 2007 and was about to be buried in Christchurch, where he had lived with partner Denise Clarke and their two children for nearly 20 years.

His Tuhoe relatives had other plans, however, and spirited his body away to his birthplace in Bay of Plenty, where they buried him next to his father at Kutarere Marae, near Opotiki.

Clarke, who is the executor of Takamore’s estate, obtained a High Court judgment confirming her right to decide his burial place and ordering an exhumation.

The decision was upheld in the Court of Appeal, but Takamore’s sister, Josephine Takamore, lodged an appeal in the Supreme Court on the grounds that Tuhoe tikanga, or customary protocol, should decide the location of burial.

After years of legal wrangling, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in December 2012, and upheld the exhumation order. Despite this, Takamore’s body remains at the marae after 18 months of negotiation. But a breakthrough agreement was reached this week after the family agreed to allow the marae committee to carry out the disinterment, with a final hui scheduled for July 1 to discuss the process.

It’s insane it has taken so long. I’d change the law in two ways:

• Make the wishes of the deceased binding on the executor (so long as legal) in terms of burial
• Make it a criminal offence to steal a body

If you ever wanted an example of how extreme and nutty the Greens are on conservation this is it.

Nick Smith announced:

Special legislation is to be passed by Parliament to enable the recovery of high value native timber blown over in Cyclone Ita on West Coast public conservation land, Dr Nick Smith announced today.

“We need to take a pragmatic approach and enable the timber to be recovered where it can be done so safely and with minimal environmental impact. This initiative will provide welcome jobs and economic opportunities for the West Coast at a difficult time, and will provide a financial return to DOC that can be reinvested in conservation work,” Dr Smith says.

Cyclone Ita hit the West Coast on 17 April this year and caused the worst windfall damage in generations, felling an estimated 20,000 hectares of forest and causing significant damage to a further 200,000 hectares.

The West Coast Windblown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill confines the recovery of useable wood to areas affected by Cyclone Ita and specifically excludes World Heritage Areas, national parks, ecological areas and the white heron sanctuary reserve at Whataroa. Authorisations are only to be issued where the Department’s Director-General is satisfied the proposed method of removing the timber is safe for workers and the public, and minimises environmental impacts. The recovery of timber is limited until 1 July 2019 when the Bill expires. All revenue from royalties will go to the Department of Conservation.

So who could be against that? These are trees that have been blown down, and will rot. It clears them away to allow new plantings, creates jobs, and generates revenue for DOC. I mean sure a few fallen trees are good for regrowth, but this is 20,000 hectares of fallen trees.

Eugenie Sage says:

“It is illegal to log these forests, a storm is no reason to change the law,” Green Party conservation spokesperson Eugenie Sage said today.

This is why Whale calls them the Green Taliban – that is beyond extreme. They are against removing trees that have been blown down. I guess their view is Gaia decided to destroy the forest, so they must be left there to rot.

Chris Finlayson announced:

The Honourable Sir Mark O’Regan has been appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court and the Honourable Justice Ellen France will replace him as President of the Court of Appeal, Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson announced today.

This means New Zealand now has women as head of benches for all four principal courts:

• Chief District Court Judge Jan-Marie Doogue
• Chief High Court Judge Justice Helen Winkelmann
• Court of Appeal President Justice Ellen France
• Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias

I suspect we may be the only country in the world to have women head up every level of the judiciary. Pretty significant when you consider that it was only a few decades ago that women became lawyers in significant numbers, let alone judges. Our first female judge was in 1975 (Dame Augusta Wallace). The first female high court judge was Dame Silvia Cartwright in 1993.

Metro is running a compilation of thoughts on the Football World Cup. Day 7 includes me:

I’m backing Germany to win the World Cup. It’s only fair as they get so grumpy having to work hard, paying tax, to fund the lazy Greeks and Spanish, so winning the World Cup would cheer them up a lot.

Of course a cheerful German is still much more grumpy than a pissed-off Kiwi, but just like poverty, it’s all relative.

I’m hoping Sami Khedira will score the winning goal for Germany in the final, as it will lead to celebrations throughout the Muslim world, and stop the civil war in Iraq.

Also it would means lots of close-ups of Lena Gercke, who is one of the smarter wags.

Also Martyn Bradbury:

Who d’you think will win the World Cup?

My brain says Brazil, my heart screams Tyrion Lannister.

Seen any heroes or villains so far?

Why are the commentary team on TVNZ so obvious and dull in their commentary?

Is football a socialist paradigm, a worker’s collective, or a capitalist model, which rewards individual excellence?

It’s an opiate for the masses that distracts them from solidarity against hegemonic power structures ruled over by a corrupt sports bureaucracy who make drug cartels look civic-minded.

For once I agree with Martyn.

And the Ruminator:

Who d’you think will win the World Cup?

Germany is looking pretty good.

Have you seen any heroes or villains ?

Wayne Rooney is an ugly bloke, isn’t he.

Is football a socialist paradigm, a worker’s collective, or a capitalist model, which rewards individual excellence?

Football is the perfect capitalist model. In theory, every team could win it, couldn’t they? Oh my god! Costa Rica beat Uruguay! Goodness! Costa Rica could go all the way!

That’s football giving false hope to the proletariat. Give them a slice of glory and watch them gobble it up and be satisfied.

But then by the end of the tournament, the elites (Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Argentina) will rise to the top and take it away. Because screw the poor. Screw them. It’s as if Milton Friedman designed the tournament.

It would be far better if Milton had designed it.

And Whale:

Is there a World Cup on? Football? I’m too busy playing a combination of House of Cards and Game of Thrones in the truly best game there is on this planet…politics.

Politics is a fun blood sport!

The Press editorial:

The Labour Party yesterday announced that if it were to win the next election it would seek to change that. It would make KiwiSaver compulsory for all employees aged between 18 and 65. …

It is more likely that those who are not part of the scheme at this point are those who have decided, for good reasons of their own, not to participate in it. Some may, for instance, have decided it makes more sense for them to pay off debt – student loans, mortgages and the like – than to save through a super scheme. Others may not be able to afford to enter it. Forcing them to do so will require them either to borrow or forgo other spending. The spending is likely, at this point in their lives when they are younger, to be more valuable to them than a larger payout would be in old age.

Whatever the situation, it is their own choice not to enter a superannuation scheme. Compulsorily enrolling them is almost certainly going to make them worse off than if they were left to decide for themselves.

It’s patronising big government. Labour is telling people they are incompetent and can’t decide for themselves how best to save for their retirement.

Labour’s proposal is designed to increase what are said to be “chronically low savings rates”. Whether KiwiSaver does that is open to debate. It appears more likely it simply redirects saving rather than increasing it.

The evidence to date suggests exactly that.

Stuff reports:

The Malaghan Institute of Medical Research won the supreme The Dominion Post Gold Award at last night’s 2014 Wellington Gold Awards.

The institute also won the Cyber Gold category for research into cancer immunology. Awards director John Dow said the institute was “New Zealand’s leading independent medical research institute with a 30-year history of finding better treatments for cancer, asthma and allergies.

“Their world-class technology underpinned advances in cancer immunology research that led to the prestigious Science [magazine] naming their work the worldwide scientific breakthrough for 2013.

“If they can commercialise their cancer research, and that is the key for them, then you could find that we’ve got [something like] another film industry on our hands in Wellington.”

The Malaghan Institute are very worth winners. They are world class.

The science theme was evident in other category winners, notably Matakina Technology, which won Global Gold for its hi-tech suite of tools revolutionising breast cancer screening, and Honevo by HoneyLab, which picked up the Discovering Gold for creating a treatment for acne, nappy rash and rosacea from Kanuka superhoney.

The company plans to capitalise on the new market of “Pharmanaturals”.

Also honoured last night in The Dominion Post’s 2014 Tribute to a Wellington Icon was Sir Peter Jackson, the movie titan behind the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.

In presenting Jackson’s award to his representative, Matt Dravitzki, Fairfax central region general manager Gerard Watt outlined the producer’s humble beginnings as one of the last apprentice photo engravers at The Evening Post. Jackson’s early splatter movies – Bad Taste, Braindead, and Meet the Feebles – also had a link with The Evening Post , whose staff were often roped in as extras.

The Dominion Post-sponsored Gold Awards were held in front of an audience of more than 850 at the TSB Bank Arena.

I was a guest of the organisers at the awards last night. Was amused to be at the Chow Brothers table 🙂

But it was great to see so many superb Wellington companies and organisations competing and winning. Wellington may indeed be losing some corporate head offices to Auckland, but the variety of small to medium sized innovative entities we have is amazing.