The Herald reports:

Chris Christie, the early front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, was facing a crisis yesterday after emails appeared to show senior aides conspired to inflict an extraordinary act of revenge against the town of a political foe.

The emails detailed how advisers to the New Jersey Governor brought traffic gridlock to the town of Fort Lee after its Mayor Mark Sokolich had refused to endorse his re-election campaign last year. The revelations left Christie, a Republican star who claims a rare ability to forge bipartisan co-operation, open to charges of political bullying in his leadership of the “Soprano state”.

Christie, 51, had previously denied he or his close aides were behind the mysterious closure of access roads to the George Washington bridge, which links New Jersey with New York, in September. Yesterday an “outraged and deeply saddened” Christie said he was misled by an aide. He denied any involvement. The emails do not directly implicate him.

For Christie to get through this he needs to sack those responsible very quickly, and also have a full independent inquiry into it. Otherwise this will haunt him.

The winner from this is Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee. Christie is the only Republican who polls ahead of her in a match up. Most poll well over 10% behind her.

Clinton has also come out looking good in a recent book by Robert Gates. Gates was Defence Secretary to Obama and Bush (and had a security role in every administration since Nixon except Bill Clinton). Gates lashes Joe Biden, Congress, the Obama White House and many others. But he praises Clinton often, which is significant as Gates in Republican.

UPDATE: Christie has sacked staff and apologised, and did a two hour press conference which most observers said he handled very well. But there will be more hearings and information retrieval, so I doubt the issue is over – yet.

UPDATE2: Love this Onion article”

Following revelations this week that staffers under New Jersey Governor Chris Christie manipulated traffic in a small New Jersey town to punish its mayor, mortified Americans across the nation reported that they were shocked to learn the potential 2016 presidential candidate could possibly fumble such an easy political cover-up. “Man, this guy wants to be President of the United States and he can’t even conceal an act of corruption this rinky-dink and run-of-the-mill from voters? It’s crazy,” Newark resident Carolyn Baum said in agreement with millions of stunned Americans, adding that she holds potential presidential candidates to much higher standards of subterfuge and graft. “I mean, this is a total softball. If he can’t even bully one little small-town mayor into submission by oppressing his constituents and get away with it, how can we reasonably believe he’s politically skilled enough to cover up national scandals like orchestrating a foreign war, illegally colluding with big business, or violating the civil liberties of millions of Americans? It’s a little scary, to be honest.”

Heh.

Stuff reports:

A new beginning with a clean slate is the “best opportunity ACT has had in 17 years”, says David Seymour, who has all but confirmed he will put his hand up to be its candidate for Epsom.

Sole MP John Banks will stand down as the party’s leader in March and leave Parliament at this year’s election.

He is facing trial for allegations of knowingly filing a false electoral return.

Seymour, who has been living in Canada, had previously ruled out running for the position, but has confirmed his circumstances had changed and he was hoping to hand in his nomination by the end of next week.

He will be vying for the position against Jamie Whyte, who has also put his hand up to lead the party. But Seymour said it was his support for Whyte that played a role in him changing his mind.

“What’s changed is I’ve come back, I’ve met Jamie Whyte – I’m very impressed by him and I want to support him – but I’ve still got a few personal things to tidy up obviously.”

Seymour said he was not expecting to be leader, but would like to be the MP for Epsom.

“There’s a number of possible configurations, one is that a single person is the Epsom candidate and a leader of the party. Or those two roles could be split.

“Outside of those two roles, we’re hoping that ACT will actually get a number of MPs in [to Parliament] and so that’s the proposition.”

Whyte has also written to party members asking for their support to be Epsom candidate and leader. His letter reads:

Dear ACT member,

You will have read that I have put my name forward to be the leader of ACT and the candidate for Epsom, positions which need not be held by the same person. I am writing to you to introduce myself and explain why I believe I can be an effective leader of ACT.

ACT is a party of principle, not a lobby group for “rich pricks” or anyone else. It needs a leader who is a credible advocate of our principles and policies. Over the last 10 years I have consistently made the case for individual liberty under the rule of law in opinion columns for the Wall Street Journal and The Times (among other papers), in my recently published book Quack Policy and as a pundit on British radio and TV. On the basis of this work, in 2012 I was made a fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs and a senior fellow of the Adam Smith Institute. To give you an idea of my ideas, I attach to this email a PDF of Free Thoughts, a collection of my columns published last year by the Adam Smith Institute.

The rest of my professional career also supports my credibility on economic and social policy. I began my post-student life as a philosophy lecturer at Cambridge University. I then moved to London to work as a management consultant with Oliver Wyman, a firm specializing in banking strategy.  I ended my third stint with the firm in 2013, having become Head of Research and Publications. My time in consulting means that, unusually for a philosopher, I know a lot about business, both its theory and its practice.

ACT has fallen to less than 1% support nationally. It needs renewal. Among other things, that requires new and younger faces. I am a sprightly 48, with a wife and two daughters, 10 and 6. My profile in New Zealand is now low. But given my experience in the British media, I am confident that I can quickly change that, especially if chosen to lead ACT. Below is a link to a TV3 News item on me.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Philosopher-contemplates-ACT-leadership-role/tabid/1607/articleID/324090/Default.aspx

Finally, there has been some mis-reporting of my nationality. For the record, I am not English. I was born in Auckland to Kiwi parents and lived here until finishing my BA at Auckland University. Since then I have lived in many countries but mainly England. My family and I lived in Auckland from 2004 to 2008 and we are now back for good. 

Regards,
Jamie 

His columns make excellent reading, and they are included below.

Free Thoughts

Labour have said:

“There is something very wrong about any adult thinking that it’s fun, entertaining or appropriate to get a child drunk. This attitude is a wake-up call about the culture of drinking and youth drinking, that is going unchallenged right across New Zealand,” said Sue Moroney.

“The Labour Party challenges this damaging culture – we must change attitudes and support families to do their best for our next generation.

“It will also be a test of the Government’s alcohol law change of December 2013 which made an offence of supplying alcohol to a minor, without parental consent.

It never used to be an offence to supply minors with alcohol, only to sell it to them. The law changes should mean a very easy prosecution if the suppliers can be identified.

“Labour supported the Government’s alcohol law reforms, but criticised them for not going far enough.

“Amongst the amendments proposed by Labour was the outright banning of RTDs such as the one supplied to the Hamilton boy. Unfortunately, it was voted down by the Government, as were Labour’s other amendments to improve the law.

Is Labour really saying or implying that the problem is that the nine year old was drinking 7% RTDs instead of 5% RTDs? I mean, seriously? Isn’t that somewhat desperate. The nine year old shouldn’t be drinking any alcohol full stop.

Or are Labour saying that a 40 year old builder in West Auckland should be banned from drinking a 7% RTD because someone illegally supplied one to a nine year old? On that basis all alcohol in NZ would be banned.

“The Government failed to implement all of the recommendations of the Law Commission on alcohol law reform which Labour said were needed to challenge the damaging drinking culture in New Zealand.

Actually the proposal to restrict RTDs to 5% was not recommended by the Law Commission. One reason the Law Commission cited was substitution, and indeed the likely impact would be those who like 7% RTDs would then swap to self mixing their own drinks which tends to involve a strength of 13% to 20%.

“I am mindful that Fairfield is a community that wants more for its young people. While young people are still on holiday, parents must be vigilant. Greater access to youth programmes will go a long way to getting kids off the streets and finding productive ways to utilise their holiday time,” said Nanaia Mahuta.

So the problem was not enough local youth programmes. yeah, right.

The New Statesman reports:

There is no porn filter, and blocking Childline is not an accident

The idea of an internet porn filter has always been a political fiction, a conveniently inaccurate sound bite used to conjure images of hardcore fisting and anal rape in the feverishly overactive imaginations of middle Britain. What activists actually called for – and ISPs were forced to provide – is an ‘objectionable content’ filter, and there is a vast, damp and aching chasm between the two.

The language of the mythical ‘porn filter’ is so insidious, so pervasive, that even those of us opposed to it have been sucked into its slippery embrace. And so even when it turns out that O2 are blocking the Childline and Refuge websites, or that BT are blocking gay and lesbian content, we tend to regard them as collateral damage – accidental victims of a well-meaning (if misguided) attempt to protect out children from the evils of cock.

But this was no accident. It is a good lesson of why filtering is best done by individuals.

Working through secretive negotiations with ISPs, the coalition has put in place a set of filters and restrictions as ambitious as anything this side of China, dividing the internet into ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ categories, and cutting people off from huge swathes of it at the stroke of a key.

“As well as pornography, users may automatically be opted in to blocks on “violent material”, “extremist related content”, “anorexia and eating disorder websites” and “suicide related websites”, “alcohol” and “smoking”. But the list doesn’t stop there. It even extends to blocking “web forums” and “esoteric material”, whatever that is. “Web blocking circumvention tools” is also included, of course.”

And the restrictions go further still. Over the weekend, people were appalled to discover that BT filters supported homophobia, with a category blocking, “sites where the main purpose is to provide information on subjects such as respect for a partner, abortion, gay and lesbian lifestyle, contraceptive, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.”

These filters are automatically applied to all ISP accounts, unless you specifically ask to be exempted. It shows the dangers of allowing a filter for one sort of material, and then seeing it gradually get extended elsewhere. I believe you should prosecute those who upload or download illegal material, but you should not force ISPs to filter the Internet.

Morgan Browne at Massive Magazine has blogged the above screenshot. She also has other quotes from him:

Former posts on Andrews’ personal Facebook page also specifically refer to Indians.   “How do Noel Lemmings (sic) advertise for staff? “Wanted, greasy, creepy Indian men with zero knowledge of electronics for exciting retail career” I think the ones that don’t make it automatically get employed at Burger King.”  – A personal Facebook status posted December 24, 2013 by Andrews.

Sad to see such idiocy.

The Herald reports:

Conservation Minister Nick Smith says he aims to establish a record number of marine reserves around the coast this year as protecting the offshore environment becomes his top priority.

Dr Smith said that if he successfully signed off eight reserves within this financial year “it will be an all-time record”.

The minister yesterday released reports which showed the value of two marine reserves in Nelson. Some fish stocks such as blue cod had increased by a factor of 40 in Tonga Island Marine Reserve over 20 years. Crayfish stocks had increased by a factor of seven. …

Historically, most of the Department of Conservation’s focus has been on protecting land.

But because 70 per cent of this country’s native species were found in the ocean, Dr Smith said he was placing more emphasis on offshore projects.

“The marine environment is the new frontier for conservation and it’s an area I do want to make more progress this year,” he said.

The National-led Government has a goal of having 10 per cent of New Zealand’s waters covered by marine reserves.

Marine reserves are actually good for fishing also, as it allows stocks to grow, and then they move into areas where you can fish them 🙂

The addition of the new reserves would mean that 9.56 per cent of its territorial waters – the area out to 12 miles from the coast – was protected.

This figure was considered misleading by some.

Green Party oceans spokesman Gareth Hughes said that if the entire Exclusive Economic Zone was taken into account, just 0.41 per cent of New Zealand waters was a no-take zone.

In comparison, a third of New Zealand’s land was protected by DoC.

Mr Hughes has tabled a bill that would establish a reserve in the Kermadec Islands.

Dr Smith said greater research was required on the economic losses and conservation gains of the proposal, which would be the the world’s largest no-fishing zone.

Personally I’m a supporter of the proposed Kermadec Islands marine reserve.

The Herald reports:

Labour’s target of selecting candidates to ensure women make up at least half of its caucus by 2017 has been given the thumbs down in the latest Herald-DigiPoll survey – and more than half of the women polled said it was too restrictive.

The survey asked respondents whether they believed Labour’s target of achieving 50 per cent by 2017 was a good idea, or too restrictive.

Overall, 54 per cent said it was too restrictive, while just 38 per cent believed it was a good idea. Among the women respondents, 52 per cent said it was too restrictive while 42 per cent believed it was a good idea.

And it’s more than a target, it is basically a quota.

A spokeswoman for Labour leader David Cunliffe said it was a matter for the party. 

Oh how brave. DC campaigned on it in the leadership primary.

Labour has so far selected only about eight candidates, all in electorates held by other parties. So far four are males and three are females – but in the three more marginal seats of Otaki, Napier and Te Tai Hauauru the candidates are all male – Robb McCann, Stuart Nash and Adrian Rurawhe respectively.

What the gender quota means is that if those three men look likely to win their seats, then three men on the party list must be demoted beneath female candidates to compensate.

The Press editorial:

It is a long way from the exploration of a promising-looking gasfield and the development of a productive operation, and the outcome is far from certain. But the news that a well-resourced international consortium has committed $200 million to explore the Great South Basin, off the southeast coast of the South Island, is very welcome. Oil and gas production from wells in the Taranaki basin are already our fourth biggest export and generate hundreds of millions in revenue for the Government. The industry has made Taranaki one of the most prosperous regions in the country and created more than 3000 jobs. Finding another such productive area has long been sought. The areas with the greatest potential at present are in the Great South Basin and off East Cape. A successful result in either would be an enormous boost to our prosperity.

Yet one a Labour/Green Government would be against.

The search did not begin again in earnest until three years ago, when Dutch energy giant Shell along with the Austrian company OMV began to explore. Those two companies, along with the Japanese industrial conglomerate Mitsui, believe the seismic results are good enough to warrant the $200m commitment. Good enough means they believe there is 30 per cent chance of a commercial discovery.

30% is pretty high.

Green groups have predictably objected. Last year a meeting in Dunedin at which Shell was to talk about its plans with business owners was abandoned because of interruptions from anti-oil drilling protesters. Their objections are deeply misguided.

I would have thought Green groups would welcome NZ producing more of its own energy, rather than importing it from other countries.

The Dom Post editorial:

Parents want the best for their children, and parents’ voices must always be taken seriously. It is understandable that parents at Te Horo school wanted to remove wi-fi from the junior classes after the death of a pupil at the school. This was a tragic event and all parents would obviously want to avoid it happening again. So the school decided to be safe rather than sorry.

Still, the decision is rather odd. The evidence suggests that wi-fi is safe. The Ministry of Health does not believe magnetic fields from wi-fi equipment in schools pose a health risk. The school authorities themselves admitted that the decision was not based on safety grounds.

Board of trustees chairman Steve Joss said the school had consulted widely, and the decision to turn off wi-fi in the junior classrooms was not about safety. “We don’t have concerns about safety with the wi-fi,” Mr Joss said. “But we received enough feedback from parents not wanting it in the junior school that we decided to switch it off.”

This seems to mean that the school is bowing to the wishes of parents even though there is no evidence to back them up. This is not a very good precedent to set when making decisions about children’s education. It’s not unlike the situation of Hamilton, which banned fluoride in its drinking water after the concerted action of a lobby group, although there is no evidence that fluoride is unsafe.

It is much the same, ignoring science and giving into a small pressure group.

Stuff reports:

The man who filmed a drunk young boy at a skate park says he would not have released the video if police had acted hard and fast, and communicated that to him.

Bradley Goudie, 18, uploaded a video online which showed a nine-year-old boy at Fairfield Skate Park in Clarkin Rd on Tuesday afternoon with a can of Cody’s Bourbon and Cola – 7 per cent alcohol.

The boy, who struggles to stand and slurs his speech, says “I’ve been drunk before”. He also says he was given alcohol by his aunt.

Goudie, a professional scooter rider, said he was so shocked by the apparent drunkenness of the boy that he turned his camera on him and exposed what he considered one of the biggest issues in New Zealand – underage drinking.

Actually the proportion of people aged under 18 who drink has been dropping massively in the last few years. However this case is shocking and those who supplied him with the alcohol must be prosecuted and his custodial parent should probably lose custody. There is no way she could not know he is getting drunk.

Alcohol and Drug Assessment and Counselling clinical manager Roger Brooking said authorities needed to take action over the incident.

“The police should be called and that kid should be taken off his parents or whoever’s looking after him and be placed in the care of social welfare.”

He said whoever gave the boy alcohol should face criminal charges.

I agree. Sadly it is probably already too late for the kid. If you are getting drunk and possibly stoned at age nine, then it is an uphill battle.

Child Matters founder Anthea Simcock said a crime had been committed and appropriate action should be taken.

The boy had been returned to his mother, who police said was “extremely distraught” to find her son in such a state.

But the boy’s father, who the Times has chosen not to name, said he wants his son to live with him.

The man had been going through a custody battle with his former partner and hadn’t seen the boy in six months.

He said it was “heart-wrenching” to see the video of his son online yesterday. “What I want to do is get my kids and pick them up.”

Either the mother knew what was happening, or she has picked the wrong people to look after her son.

The latest polling update, for November and December 2013. National has had a good three months.

The summary of the newsletter is:

There were three polls in November and two in December.

The average of the public polls has National 13% ahead of Labour in November (was 10% in October) and also 13% in December. The current seat projection is centre-right 61 seats, centre-left 59.

Tony Abbott has the shortest honeymoon in recent history, with the Coalition already behind Labor and with a net negative approval rating in Australia.

In the United States President Obama’s approval rating is drops to an even further all-time low of 41%. The Republicans are now ahead of the Democrats on the generic House ballot as the Obamacare fiasco damages the President and his party.

In the UK Labour’ leads the Conservatives by just 5%.

In Canada the ongoing scandal in the Senate sees the Conservatives drop to 28%.

The normal two tables are provided comparing the country direction sentiment and head of government approval sentiment for the five countries. The mood in NZ is a net 27% higher than Australia and 69% higher than in the US. Key is the only leader with a positive approval rating (+30%).

We also carry details of polls in New Zealand on cannabis, CIRS, electoral threshold, asset sales, KiwiAssure, Te Tai Tokerau, Pike River, GST, Fireworks, the speed limit, fishing, mining, land sales and drink driving plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail.  If you would like to receive future issues, please go to http://listserver.actrix.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/polling-newsletter to subscribe yourself.

The Press editorial:

The annual antics of the anti-whaling activists Sea Shepherd in the Southern Ocean are under way again.

The routine seems the same every year and is familiar. Japanese whaling ships arrive in the Southern Ocean to begin hunting whales. The pretext for the hunting is that it is for “scientific research” although that is almost universally disputed.

Most impartial observers believe the real reason for the hunting is to keep what remains of the Japanese whaling industry going.

Each year Sea Shepherd vessels track the whalers and aggressively attempt to disrupt the hunting.

Sea Shepherd and the whalers feed off each other. There is almost no commercial market for the whales anymore in Japan. The whalers carry on, because they don’t want to be seen to be buckling to pressure. I suspect if one ignored them, they’d stop within a decade.

This year the Green Party has taken up Sea Shepherd’s cry and called on the Government to send a naval vessel to the area to demonstrate New Zealand’s disapproval of the Japanese behaviour.

It may strike some as strange to hear the Greens promoting a show of military force but in any case the idea is foolish.

Even if the Japanese were breaching some law, New Zealand has no jurisdiction in the area and could do nothing about it.

Normally the Greens insist that military have no role in international disputes, but when it comes to whaling they want to send in a frigate!

Governments, both Labour and National, have said repeatedly that they do not accept Japan’s cover story used to justify its whaling and have called for the Japanese to end the practice.

That is the line taken consistently in international forums such as the International Whaling Commission for many years.

Last year, the present National Government went further and joined an action brought by the Australian Government in the International Court of Justice to have Japan’s whaling declared illegal. New Zealand’s case was strongly argued by Attorney-General Chris Finlayson.

The court’s decision is expected about within two or three months.

That will be eagerly awaited. Hopefully NZ and Australia win.

As Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said yesterday the whaling is being carried out “substantially for the purposes of pride and we’ve got to try and negotiate a way to get past what is a pointless activity . . .”

New Zealand is fully involved in that diplomatic activity.

Sea Shepherd’s Southern Ocean publicity stunt does nothing useful to advance it.

I think Sea Shepherd know that the practice would probably stop, if they were not there highlighting it. But then they would have no reason to exist. They and the whalers have a symbiotic relationship with each other – both needs the other to stay relevant.

Stuff reports:

Thirty five people were fined for breaching liquor laws and dozens of others warned on New Year’s Eve alone, but police and Wellington City Council say the new rules are working well.

New liquor laws that came into effect on December 18 include a 4am closing time for bars, 11pm cutoff for supermarkets selling alcohol, and fines of between $250 and $2000 for breaches of the liquor ban.

The council has drafted a local alcohol policy which extends opening hours to 5am, but the policy has still to go through an approval process – and police are planning to appeal against it.

Inspector Terry van Dillen said the police view was that a 3am closing time for bars and a 9pm cutoff for off-licence liquor sales would be ideal.

“We believe 3am is a good figure – if people want to party, they can party from 9pm to 3am, they’ve just got to change their views from partying from midnight till 7am.”

I wish the Police would stick to their jobs and not try to become like the Mutaween. It is not their job to decide people must stop dancing in town by 3 am.

I’ve often been in town after 3 am. You may be at a function until around 11 pm, and then want to head out with a few friends to carry on talking and drinking. We’re not being rowdy, not drunk, not causing problems – just enjoying some drinks and conversation. On other occasions we may mix that in with some dancing, which you know is legal and okay to do after 3 am.

An interesting article in the Dom Post about the genesis of the Absolutely Positively slogan for Wellington.

It is the stand out success of city or town slogans. Almost everyone knows it, and it is not widely mocked like most slogans are.  God forbid if any future Council ever tries to change it,

Here’s a challenge for readers. What are the city slogans for the following cities:

1. Auckland
2. Christchurch
3. Dunedin
4. Hamilton
5. New Plymouth
6. Wanganui
7. Invercargill
8. Napier
9. Palmerston North
10. Nelson

The Herald reports:

Labour says it will tackle “aggressive tax avoidance” by multinationals such as Facebook and Google which it says is costing the taxman hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

How? A magic wand?

Local concerns were fuelled last year when iPhone and iPad maker and iTunes owner Apple reported paying just $2.5 million on $571 million worth of New Zealand sales in 2012. Google and Amazon’s tax bills were also tiny in comparison with their reported sales here.

Economic illiteracy continues. Company tax is based on net profit, not on gross sales. Any comparison of tax to sales is misleading.

Labour revenue spokesman David Clark yesterday said: “We certainly think there’s a lot of aggressive avoidance going on.”

He said the party was continuing a major research project on the issue and would be more proactive than the Government in addressing it through policies likely to be released before the election.

Again how? Are you going to ban them from selling to NZers unless they pay more tax here?

If Labour want to be credible on this they need to specify what actual changes they would make to tax laws, so we can assess whether or not it would result in one extra cent of revenue.

The Press reports:

The convicted killer known as the “Black Widow” had a “no strings attached” relationship with a man who went on to bash and strangle a woman to death.

Police say Helen Milner asked them to phone a mystery friend called Keith the morning her husband was found dead in bed at their Christchurch home in 2009.

The Press can reveal he was Keith Donald Bonner, who three years later killed Tracey Lee Morris and left her body in a car.

In a formal witness statement to police, Bonner said he met Milner through a dating agency more than 15 years ago. He described their sexual relationship as “no strings attached” and “friends with benefits” before it ended in either 2000 or 2001.

You have to give credit to the dating agency for doing a good job. They managed to match two killers up together. I presume there isn’t a box you ticked to indicate you have homicidal tendencies and are seeking others the same, so they must have matched them up on more subtle qualities.

CNBC reports:

New Zealand will be the “rock star” economy of 2014, with growth set to outpace most of its developed markets peers, according to HSBC, a stark contrast with neighboring Australia, which is struggling to maintain economic momentum.

“We think New Zealand will be the rock star economy of 2014. Growth is going to pick up pretty solidly this year,” Paul Bloxham, chief economist for Australia and New Zealand at HSBC, told CNBC Asia’s “Squawk Box” on Monday.

The question is whether one thinks it would do better with policies of tax more, borrow more and spend more. I don’t.

David Shearer writes at Stuff:

I recently travelled to New York to help with our bid for a seat on the UN Security Council in 2015 and 2016. I met with close to 30 ambassadors as well as people I knew from my international work before entering Parliament. I did so at the request of Foreign Minister Murray McCully because our bid is a bipartisan one.

National and Labour are working together because winning a council seat is in New Zealand’s best interests.

Great to see.

It’s in our interests because we have a responsibility to contribute to the peace of mankind. And when it comes to preventing or resolving conflict, no more important body exists.

It’s in our interests to ensure regional security exists so that we can safely engage with the rest of the world. A seat on the council gives us ongoing contact with the world’s most powerful actors and economies.

And it’s a stage upon which New Zealand can showcase that we’re not just clean and green, but clean, green, honest and influential.

I believe having New Zealand on the council is also important to the UN.

New Zealand’s connection with the UN goes back to its very beginning when the first Labour Government signed us up as a founding member in 1945.

The views of the five powerful permanent members must be balanced by other members of the world community.

The Pacific is increasingly important in the Asian century. Our geography sees us as an important bridge between the US and China and so our views carry significant weight.

We’re not the puppet of any master: we are independent and honest.

And we have experience in resolving conflict, including leading from the front in brokering the end to civil war in Bougainville.

Which was primarily done by Wairarapa MP John Hayes, when he worked at MFAT.

I remember very clearly last time New Zealand was on the UN Security Council. It was 1993-1994 and I was working in Rwanda as head of Save the Children, reuniting 3000 children with surviving family members after the genocide.

In the Security Council, New Zealand took the most forceful stand against the unfolding genocide than any other country.

This time around, we are competing with Turkey and Spain for two available spots. They have large followings in the Muslim and Spanish speaking worlds respectively.

Our greatest asset is our reputation.

I think Turkey is probably a slam dunk for one of the spots. So effectively it is between us and Spain at the moment. They do start with a significant pool of support but their economy is in the crap which weakens them.

The Dom Post reports:

Electricity prices are at a three-year low, at the very time people are using less power.

But, despite the low prices – which have reached 48 times lower than the peak last year – residential customers will notice little change as contracts buffer them from the highs and lows of the volatile wholesale market.

NZX Energy figures show wholesale electricity prices on Boxing Day dropped to $7.70 per megawatt-hour – one million watts of energy used continuously in a single hour.

The last time it was that low was on January 30, 2011.

This is of course conclusive proof that we need to destroy the wholesale market in electricity and have the Government become the sole monopoly purchaser and wholesaler seller of electricity.

News.com.au reports:

A man from Mooroopna in country Victoria, aiming to surprise his girlfriend with his clever choice of hiding spot, had climbed naked into a top-loader washing machine, where he became firmly wedged, reports the Shepparton News.

Shepparton police Sergeant Michelle De Araugo said the man had attempted to climb into the washing machine on Saturday afternoon.

Emergency services were called, and after 20 minutes, freed the naked man by greasing him up with olive oil.

What would have been funnier is if she turned it on, thinking there was a load of laundry in there!

Fred Kaplan writes at Slate:

I regard Daniel Ellsberg as an American patriot. I was one of the first columnists to write that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be firedfor lying to Congress. On June 7, two days after the first news stories based on Edward Snowden’s leaks, I wrote a column airing (and endorsing) the concerns of Brian Jenkins, a leading counterterrorism expert, that the government’s massive surveillance program had created “the foundation of a very oppressive state.”

And yet I firmly disagree with the New York Times’ Jan. 1 editorial (“Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower”), calling on President Obama to grant Snowden “some form of clemency” for the “great service” he has done for his country.

Kaplan is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who specialises in military and foreign policy.

If that were all that Snowden had done, if his stolen trove of beyond-top-secret documents had dealt only with the NSA’s domestic surveillance, then some form of leniency might be worth discussing.

But Snowden did much more than that. The documents that he gave the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman and the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald have, so far, furnished stories about the NSA’s interception of email traffic, mobile phone calls, and radio transmissions of Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s northwest territories; about an operation to gauge the loyalties of CIA recruits in Pakistan; about NSA email intercepts to assist intelligence assessments of what’s going on inside Iran; about NSA surveillance of cellphone calls “worldwide,” an effort that (in the Post’s words) “allows it to look for unknown associates of known intelligence targets by tracking people whose movements intersect.” In his first interview with the South China Morning Post, Snowden revealed that the NSA routinely hacks into hundreds of computers in China and Hong Kong.