The Herald reports:

National MPs Paul Hutchison and Cam Calder will not seek re-election in next year’s election.

Dr Hutchison is the MP for Port Waikato and was first elected in 1999.

Dr Calder is a list MP who has stood in Manurewa. He was first elected in 2008.

Their announcement today means four National MPs have decided to bow out of politics.

Internal Affairs Minister and Napier MP Chris Tremain and West Coast based list MP Chris Auchinvole have said they will not seek re-election.

Sad to see Cam and Hutch retire on a personal level – two genuinely nice people, who I doubt have any enemies in politics. Cam is 61 and Hutch 66, so their retirements are not huge surprises.

I worked with Hutch in opposition a bit. He was an obstetrician and gynecologist before he became an MP, and as a health spokesperson he had an affinity for the portfolio. I would help him put his powerpoint presentations together and he would always find some reason to need two or three photos of sperm, ovaries, fertilisation etc. I would get worried that Parliamentary Service would get worried about the nature of some of the images I was putting through the scanner!

While sad to see them both retire on the personal level, renewal is a constant need for political parties. National needs to keep rejuvenating both Cabinet and Caucus to maximise its chances of further terms.

Stuff reports:

Customers of pay TV giant Sky should be able to watch their favourite shows on their iPhone or iPads before Christmas, with other platforms to follow. …

At the company’s annual general meeting in Auckland this afternoon, Fellet announced that customers should have Sky content on their small screens by mid-December.

Fellet said he believed the “big screen in the living room will continue to dominate”, but recognised that few people these days left the house without a video-capable device. …

It had previously weighed up the option of launching a digital television service that would have broadcast Sky directly to mobile devices.

Fellet said the company had instead concluded that satellite technology and Ultra Fast Broadband would meet its future transmission needs.

Being able to watch Sky programmes on my iPad will be very useful. I prefer the big screen of course, but will be great when travelling to still be able to see my normal programmes easily.

The Herald reports:

Police officers who chased and shot dead an armed teenager broke a number of police policies, but were justified in the shooting, a report into the incident concluded today.

Lachan Kelly-Tumarae, 19, died after being shot numerous times in a stand-off with officers in Hawkes Bay in March 2011.

The details are:

Mr Kelly-Tumarae had left his grandmother’s home in Flaxmere, in the early hours of the morning of Sunday, March 28, with his late-grandfather’s shotgun. He had both alcohol and cannabis in his system from the night before.

The teenager was spotted by a routine patrol crouching beside a car, and when they stopped, he approached and pointed the weapon at them.

The officers sped off and reported the incident to their communications centre.

An 18km pursuit through suburban Napier began after Mr Kelly-Tumarae drove away in his grandmother’s car and ended up outside the main entrance to the Omahu Marae Cemetery, west of Hastings, where his grandfather was buried.

The teen got out of the car with the shotgun and pointed it at an officer parked close by. A policeman in a second vehicle got out of his patrol car and aimed his Glock pistol at Mr Kelly-Tumarae, shouting “armed police”.

The 19-year-old ran towards the cemetery, then stopped and turned around, aiming his gun at the armed officer.

In that situation the Police had no option but to shoot him. If you have armed police telling you to surrender, you don’t point a gun at them. Mr Kelly-Tumarae is entirely responsible for his own death.

“Fearing that Mr Kelly-Tumarae was going to shoot him, the officer discharged a volley of shots. Mr Kelly-Tumarae remained standing, and believing he had missed, the officer fired another volley of shots,” the report says.

A total of 14 bullets were fired from the police officer’s weapon, with four wounding the teen. Another bullet appeared to have passed through his clothing, the report said.

This is the issue of concern. A 4/14 strike rate is pretty bad. The officer obviously needs more firearms training. If you don’t hit the person with your first shot or two, then they may get to shoot you.

It is sad whenever it is necessary for the Police to shoot someone, as was this case. But when they do have to shoot, you want them to be accurate.

One of our feathered friends from across the ditch.  With a generous splash of colour.

Click for larger, higher res image

Stuff reports:

Australian miner Bathurst Resources has hopes of gaining access to the Escarpment coal mining site by Christmas after receiving final Environment Court approval for the controversial project on West Coast conservation land.

The court’s final approval was granted yesterday. It had said on August 8 that it intended to grant consent to the Escarpment mine on the Denniston Plateau, near Westport. However, the approval may be appealed. An appeal must be lodged within 15 days. …

The Government welcomed the court’s decision, labelling it exactly the type of investment the country needed to create jobs and higher incomes.

The Green Party decried the sacrificing of the Denniston Plateau and its unique landscape and threatened species for an open cast coal mine.

Have you seen photos of the Plateau? It’s pretty ugly to be blunt.

The company was still confident of producing about 180,000 tonnes of coal from Escarpment by the end of June next year, Bohannan said. It would be taken by rail to Lyttelton and shipped from there, and also shipped from Westport to Taranaki for export.

Bohannan said the coal would end up in steel mills and other production facilities in Japan and China mainly. Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce and Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges welcomed the decision.

“The Escarpment Mine and associated works are expected to create 225 direct jobs and approximately $85 million each year will go to employees, suppliers, contractors and transport providers,” Bridges said.

“This is great news for the West Coast. The mine will inject almost $1 billion into the New Zealand economy over six years, and provide $30 million each year in royalties and taxes,” Joyce said.

West Coasters need jobs. This will provide them.

On a sort of related issue Stuff reports:

Raglan residents are fuming after learning that a United States oil company is a month away from drilling off their coastline the deepest exploratory well in New Zealand’s history.

Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation plans to begin drilling the well in 1500 metres of water before December.

Anadarko was held liable, with BP by a US judge for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill of 2010. The company paid BP US$4 billion to settle claims.

Raglan Fishing Charters’ Brian Hooker is worried about the environmental impact on marine life and is threatening to lead a fleet of boats to picket the Anadarko vessel the Noble Bob Douglas when it arrives at the end of next month.

Drilling will be carried out in water 1500m deep at the Romney Prospect in the Taranaki Basin about 100 nautical miles (204km) west of Raglan after the Government granted a licence in 2006.

So the exploration will be 204 km offshore. That is akin to the distance between Wellington and Wanganui.

I also note he licence was granted in 2006. Will Labour condemn the exploration?

The well will be New Zealand’s deepest and comparable to the Macondo well, which spilled an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico during 87 days in 2010 after an explosion that killed 11.

Don’t you love it when media report advocacy as fact. Who says it is comparable to the Macondo well? Is it also comparable to the 39,999 wells that didn’t have a spill?

Mr Hooker is angry no-one consulted the people of Raglan and asked his opinion before the licence was granted.

“People are going to get riled up. They [Anadarko] are going to get a lot of obstruction to that job.”

Anadarko would be in the neighbourhood for a short time but its activities would have a permanent effect, he said.

“It’s going to ruin the seabed and the sealife. It’s going to f…… change the ecosystem on that coast and for what reason? For gold.”

You would think the exploration is happening 2 kms off-shore, not 204 kms out to sea.

The Dom Post editorial is a good read also:

Instead it has been left to industry spokesman David Robinson to point out that Greenpeace’s worst-case scenarios take no account of the differences between the Gulf of Mexico and New Zealand’s waters or the technological developments since the Deepwater disaster. Here, unlike the Gulf, the most likely finds are gas and light condensate, not heavy black oil. Here, the pressure in underwater fields is typically so low gas and condensate have to be pumped out. At Deepwater Horizon oil spewed out. Then, a cap for the well had to be designed and built before it could be deployed. Now so-called “stacking caps” are kept at strategic locations around the world, available to be deployed at a couple of weeks’ notice.

None of that is an excuse for complacency. Immense damage could be done even by a seeping well in a couple of weeks. But nor is it reason to turn the country’s back on an industry that could provide a massive boost to the economy, generate a swag of high-paying jobs and swell stocks of a scarce resource.

Details most would be unaware of.

Stats NZ reported:

Exports rose 9.4 percent in the September 2013 quarter, after adjusting for seasonal effects, and imports rose 8.4 percent, Statistics New Zealand said today. 

The Herald reported:

The deficit was $199 million in September, down from a revised gap of $1.23 billion in August, according to Statistics New Zealand. The annual deficit was $1.54 billion, from $2.1 billion the previous month. A monthly deficit of $750 million was expected for an annual gap of $2.12 billion, based on a Reuters forecast.

Another area that has started improving as Labour starts complaining about it!

Captions below. As always, funny not nasty.

Chorus has announced new fibre products and/or prices. The details are:

• Entry level going from 30 Mb/s down and 10 Mb/s up to 50/20 – price remains $37.50/month
• Mid level of 100/50 dropping in price from $55/mth to $45/mth
• Business package of 100/100 going to 200/200 – price remains $175/moth
• A new top end package residential package of 200/200 for $65/mth
• A 100/100 package for $50/month

This is a great move by Chorus, and very welcome.  I’d probably go for 100/50.

Audrey Young writes in NZ Herald:

The electoral gods could well be shining on Conservative Party leader Colin Craig.

One of the two biggest areas of growth in Auckland has been in his own backyard on the North Shore and that means a new electorate seat could be created virtually around him.

If National stood a low-profile candidate rather than a heavyweight like List MP Steven Joyce, and Prime Minister John Key gave voters a steer in the right directions, Craig could be well-placed to take a new seat.

That would provide National with a new potential support partner to replace or supplement the ones that have been self-destructing since the last election: Act whose leader John Banks resigned as a minister last week, United Future whose leader Peter Dunne was forced to resign in June, and the Maori Party.

As I have said before National have five potential support partners – ACT,, United Future, Maori Party, Conservatives and NZ First. What we don’t know is how many of them will make it, how many can actually work with National, and how many will National need to be in the running to form a third term Government.

Key this week dismissed New Zealand First leader Winston Peters as someone who talked in more riddles than the Mad Hatter. Hardly the behaviour of a Prime Minister who expects to be propped up by Peters after next year’s election.

Key called it straight. It is far from certain that National will change its stance on NZ First. I’m not saying they won’t change – just that it is dangerous to make that assumption at this stage. I expect a decision would be made around the middle of 2014.

There will definitely be one new electorate created in Auckland after the census figures were announced last month and Craig told the Herald yesterday that he would most likely stand in the seat if it is in his patch – he lives on the border of East Coast Bays and Rodney.

“It would be very, very nice for us. We know it’s a good area for us. It would be very nice if the seat ended up here,” he said.

“If it works out that they go for the electorate that has grown the largest, which is Upper Harbour, and put a new electorate in there, I’m going to be living in it so it’s going to be all very convenient.”

If the Conservatives are polling enough to get four or more MPs, then centre-right voters in a new seat could well vote tactically.

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, too, is known to be considering standing in an Auckland seat – and the new seat would have to be a possibility or a vacancy if Murray McCully were to shift to the list from East Coast Bays – a repeated rumour.

When asked to comment on the Conservatives and the new seat Peters said: “Elephants don’t run round the forest stomping on ants.”

Peters was too chicken to stand in a seat in 2011, so I don’t expect he will risk failure.

National pollster and Kiwiblog commentator David Farrar says things are looking good for the Conservatives.

“Even before you get into any political deals, the way the census has happened, actually, is very happy for the Conservatives, assuming that’s where the new seat is.”

Farrar also believes there is no need for the “cup of tea” photo opportunity to send signals to voters.

“Generally voters, if they want a centre-right or centre-left Government, can work out what’s the smart thing to do. So if there was a seat and Colin Craig was standing for it and they are polling 3 per cent in the polls and the candidate for National is a worthy but low-profile person, you could well see Conservatives do very well there without needing any sort of arrangement.”

Centre-right voters tend to be pretty intelligent. They don’t want a Government that will tax and spend, borrow more, nationalise companies etc. They will vote for minor party candidates if that helps stop a Labour/Green/Mana Government.

Farrar believes that if Banks lost his judicial review against going to trial and then lost the trial as well, he would not only be kicked out of Parliament as required under the law, it would finally destroy Act as well.

“I think the brand would be too damaged.”

A party can not survive its leader and sole MP losing his seat due to a conviction over electoral matters. Note I am not saying I think Banks will lose. Andrew Geddis has a very useful blog post on this issue which is worth reading. The key para for me:

I can’t for the life of me see why Banks would have sat down and thought something along the lines of “Dotcom and Sky City have given me all this money, but I don’t want anyone to know that they did and so I’ll deliberately lie about where it came from in my return even though I know that it is completely illegal to do so.” He was, after all, the losing candidate  in the mayoral race. Why would anyone have cared who gave him money, and why would he feel the need to make a decision to hide its source after the campaign was over? So any sort of claim that Banks deliberately or maliciously sought to evade the requirements of the Local Electoral Act strikes me as deeply implausible.

This is key – Banks had lost. There was little, if any gain, in not declaring the donations.

The Dom Post editorial:

Things are simple on Planet Winston Peters. There, all that is necessary for something to happen is for Mr Peters to declare it to be so.

Hence, delivering inhabitants of Planet Peters a higher rate of return on their retirement savings is simply a matter of him promising a “world class model unsurpassed by anything in the world”. Protecting those savings from sudden market drops is an equally simple matter of guaranteeing the capital invested in the scheme. No downside, no need for individuals to monitor the performance of their investments. Just leave it all to Mr Peters. In fact, vote for Mr Peters and you can have your cake and eat it too.

Unfortunately, Planet Earth orbits a different sun from Planet Peters. In this universe, the value of investments is determined not by political decree but by events beyond the control of individuals and governments. The price someone is prepared to pay for a hectare of land in Dannevirke, 500 grams of butter in Paris or a shareholding in Air New Zealand is influenced by the weather in southern Europe six months ago, the progress of negotiations over the debt ceiling in the United States, the political situation in China and a thousand and one other imponderables.

Mr Peters, for all his claims to omniscience, does not control those things. Markets go up and markets go down. What was a solid investment last week is a poor investment this week and vice versa.

The only way Mr Peters can guarantee the capital invested in any particular fund is to require those who have not invested in it to foot the bill if its managers misjudge the market. The only way he can guarantee a superior return for his “KiwiFund”, especially when he proposes to handicap its performance by directing where it invest its funds – “substantially in New Zealand” – is by pumping public moneys into it when the inevitable happens and other funds outperform it.

The editorial is spot on. Peters is proposing that taxpayers underwrite $20 billion dollars or more of investments.

As I said earlier this week, Peters should set up his own KiwiSaver Fund and lets see how many people actually trust him enough to invest in it.

Questions for Oral Answer

Questions to Ministers 2.ooPM -3.00PM

1. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN to the Minister of Finance: Does he consider that the Government’s Meridian Energy sale was a failure, given that it attracted only 62,000 retail buyers, which is only a quarter of the 250,000 forecast?
2. Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all his statements?
3. PAUL GOLDSMITH to the Minister of Finance: What recent progress has the Government made in its share offer programme – and particularly in generating money for investing in new public assets without having to borrow from overseas lenders?
4. PHIL TWYFORD to the Minister of Finance: What reports, if any, has the Reserve Bank had from trading banks on the effect of loan-to-value ratio lending limits on housing construction?
5. MELISSA LEE to the Minister for Social Development: What recent initiatives has the Government supported to provide better support to those affected by sexual violence?
6. Hon PHIL GOFF to the Minister of Defence: Have attrition rates in the last year, which reached 23 percent in the Navy and 24 percent in the Army, reduced the capability of the New Zealand Defence Force?
7. Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA to the Minister of Housing: What progress is the Government making in increasing housing supply, improving the quality of the Government’s housing stock and growing the community social housing sector?
8. DARIEN FENTON to the Minister of Labour: Does he stand by all his statements on health and safety?
9. SHANE ARDERN to the Associate Minister of Health: What is the Government doing to support rural general practice?
10. GARETH HUGHES to the Minister of Energy and Resources: Does he stand by his statement about oil and gas, “As minister, my job is to support the development of these resources in a sensible, safe and environmentally responsible way”?
11. Dr CAM CALDER to the Associate Minister of Transport: What progress is being made in bringing down New Zealand’s road toll?
12. Le’aufa’amulia ASENATI LOLE-TAYLOR to the Minister of Energy and Resources: Does he stand by all his statements?

Today Labour are asking four questions. These are about whether the Minister of Finance stands by all his statements, lending limits for mortgages, attrition in the New Zealand Defence Force,  and health and safety. The Greens are asking about the Meridian Energy share float, and the development of natural resources. New Zealand First are asking whether the Minister for Energy and resources stands by all his statements.

Patsy question of the day goes to Shane Ardern for Quetion 9: What is the Government doing to support rural general practice?

Government Bill 3.00PM – 6.00PM and 7.30PM – 10.00PM.

A bill is being introduced at 3.00PM of which the content is not known. A deal has been made with Labour and The Greens to ensure it passes through all three stages of debate under urgency today, and will become law shortly afterwards. You can read what is known about this secret bill here.

Hamish Rutherford at Stuff reports:

The head of New Zealand Post admits hundreds of postie jobs will be cut after striking a new agreement which could see urban delivery days halved.

Today the state owned enterprise released its new Deed of Understanding, an agreement with the Government which will dictate the minimum standards from mid-2015.

Changes will see urban delivery fall to as little as three days a week, with rural services largely protected, falling only to at least five days a week.

Post is a dying business. I clear my PO Box once a week at best. Anything that is timely gets sent by e-mail or courier.

I understand the more frequent delivery minimum for rural areas is because they do not have good Internet access in many places, so are more reliant on the postal service.

Chief executive Brian Roche said the changes were required by a fundamental decline in the amount of post in New Zealand.

While parcel volumes have climbed since 2006, letter volumes have dropped by around 30 per cent over the same period.

Parcel volumes may be due to Trade Me!

We should have sold NZ Post years ago. It may not be worth very much in 10 years time. Same goes for TVNZ.

NZIER have done a discussion paper on NZ’s fiscal sustainability.

Their key findings include:

• Without significant changes in fiscal policy, government debt is projected to head towards 200% of GDP by 2060.  
• We cannot afford the same spending patterns and tax settings as in the past. Something has to give, and we have to start thinking about the trade-offs sooner rather than later.
• Recent efforts to get the books back in black after the Global Financial Crisis and the Christchurch earthquakes have been commendable. 
• The evidence shows that overly high taxes can be harmful to economic growth. 
• In reality, we would expect fiscal adjustments to come about through a combination of lower government spending, broadening the tax base as well as lifting existing taxes.    

I’m against any lifting of existing tax rates, but not against broadening the tax base. Basically the level of tax burden as a percentage of GDP should drop over time, as that helps economic growth. This means most focus, in my opinion, should be on spending restraint.

They recommend:

• Seeking a bipartisan agreement on meeting the costs of superannuation 
• Focusing the social safety net on those who need it most, rather than the middle class 
• Broadening the tax base to include a tax on land or a tax on capital gains
• Better highlighting the choices of taxes and spending that are feasible for any given level of debt level over the next few decades so that Kiwis’ expectations can be better managed, and so that they start preparing themselves for a tighter fiscal future.   

I support all those. I think a land tax has significant economic value, and a capital gains tax is also useful, so long as it is comprehensive. But again, there should be reductions in company and income tax rates to compensate so it doesn’t just become a greater tax burden overall.

The paper is 26 pages long only, so very readable and a good contribution to the debate.

You can click on the image for a larger copy. From here.

The list of top ranks for each country range from the amusing to the fascinating.

The House debated last night Jacinda Ardern’s Care of Children Law Reform Bill. Despite the fact that most parties and MPs agree adoption laws need to be reformed, the House voted down the bill because it was so lightweight. As I blogged last May, it was basically a press release pretending to be a bill. It did nothing except ask the Law Commission to write a bill, and require the Minister of Justice to introduce it.

One Minister has said that the bill basically meant handing over most of the powers of Parliament and the Cabinet/Executive to Wayne Mapp! (Dr Mapp is a Law Commissioner).

The debate is in the draft Hansard transcript:

JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):  It makes sense that as Parliament we make use of the expertise of the Law Commission and the work that has already been done. Doing so would be an unusual practice, though, and I do acknowledge that. Embedding this process into a member’s bill is, however, a very, very unique approach, but, as I have said, given that this work is so overdue, anything that can help us speed up reform in this area surely must be welcomed.

The problem is that the bill doesn’t speed up reform. It would mean an actual law reform bill would not be considered by Parliament for two to three years.

SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): The sponsor of this Care of Children Law Reform Bill, Jacinda Ardern, has nominated the Justice and Electoral Committee to scrutinise the bill should it pass this first reading. Therefore, as chairman of the committee, it falls to me to have a first go at what can only really be described as a very sloppy and lazy member’s bill by this member. …

But I am very aware that in contrast to this once-over-lightly bill that is being presented by Ms Ardern, the Green MP Kevin Hague has actually done a very significant and substantial piece of work and has a bill in the ballot on this very matter. His bill remains in the ballot. It is a hugely complex area. It is emotional and it has huge impacts on people’s lives. Just identifying the key policy issues is itself quite a task, but if Jacinda Ardern genuinely wants to make a real contribution to serious and meaningful law reform in this area, then she needs to put in a bit of serious work. This bill that she has put forward is basically little more than a legislative request for the Government to do something. It is not a solution; it is not even an attempt at a solution. 

Hague’s bill is 18,000 words of legislation which covers around a dozen different policy areas. It is a very serious piece of law reform, which if drawn from the ballot could see a new law in less than a year.

The first major flaw with this very sloppily drafted piece of legislation is that if passed, under this bill there would probably be no law change for at least 4 years or more. And let us just have a look at the likely timings. A select committee would take about 6 months or more to give this member’s bill consideration, given the looming summer break ahead of us. Then there would need to be a second and third reading—that would easily take a further 3 months or more. Then the Law Commission itself would need to draft its report, and that would take at least a year—probably longer. Then, of course, once it came back from the Law Commission under instruction, the Government bill would have to be first read and scheduled, and that could take up to another 12 months. Then there would be a select committee process; that would be another 6 months or more. Then there would be a second and a third reading, and at least another 3 months after that. So the problem is that the member sponsoring this bill is essentially trying to use her member’s bill to get the Law Commission to write her bill for her. That is sloppy. That is lazy. It is a lazy approach. It is politically lazy—it is politically lazy—and it is intellectually lazy.

It is an NCEA not achieved.

The second flaw with this bill is that it does not actually specify a single policy principle—not one. It does not identify a single policy principle. It actually gives no direction at all to the Law Commission as to what should be in the bill or what its scope should be. The bill does not even indicate whether it should discriminate against same-sex relationships. Every single detail is left to the Law Commission. It would effectively give the Law Commission a blank piece of paper. It is a constitutional affront to this House and to the members who sit in this House.

The lack of detail is also a killer.

It is very easy to write a nine-clause bill and trumpet that as some kind of solution, claiming that it would address a wide range of concerns about the outdated Adoption Act. But, sadly for the member sponsoring this bill, lawmaking is not that simple; nor is it that easy, and it absolutely should not be. If she wants to do some serious work, then she should put in the hard work. She should put some intellectual grunt into it and actually apply her not insubstantial brain to the matter at hand and actually proffer a solution—she should actually proffer a solution. So simply drafting this bill and asking someone else to do the job for you is a lazy way of ensuring that a prospective glittering political career falls in the dustbin. The National Government MPs will be opposing this bill. It is a sloppy, lazy piece of legislation, and it deserves to be consigned to the legislative rubbish bin.

A somewhat harsh speech, but not inaccurate. And it wasn’t just National voting against. The Greens did also:

METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): The member Jacinda Ardern announced her intention to place this bill in the members’ ballot back in 2010. On that same day the Greens indicated that we did not support the approach that she proposed. We reiterated that position again when the bill was drawn from the ballot, and as a result we will be voting against the bill today.

Kevin Hague has blogged on why the Greens said they would vote against:

This Bill is very big and complex. I believe that the cross-Party approach that I set up was the best way of proceeding, and have been very pleased that work in the last Parliament led me to be able to continue work with Nikki Kaye (and many others outside Parliament) to produce this Bill. Along the way we are certain to have made some mistakes or policy decisions that others disagree with. That is why I have indicated that while the Bill sits in the ballot waiting to be drawn I am very keen to get feedback, so that we can refine it and advance important law reform that has the broadest possible support.

“But your Bill and Jacinda’s are very similar. Why are you voting against hers?” To understand that you need to look at the Bills – they’re not similar at all. Jacinda’s Bill does not change adoption law in any way. While my Bill is a substantive reform of adoption and surrogacy law, Jacinda’s instead gets the Minister of Justice to ask the Law Commission to update the advice they have already given on adoption reform and turn that into a bill. With the best will in the world, that process will take at least two or three years to arrive at the point we have already reached, and will use valuable Law Commission money and time to bring us to where we already stand! Even then the notional Bill would require a well-disposed government to do something with it. Well if we had one of those, it would pick up my Bill and advance it as a Government one. And hers doesn’t deal with surrogacy.

Labour withdrew from the cross-Party process on adoption in order to advance Jacinda’s approach – a choice of unilateralism over multilateralism. In my opinion it is a history of unilateralism from successive governments that has led to the situation we have now, where everyone agrees the existing law is obsolete and harmful, but nobody has done anything about it. I told Jacinda at the time, and then said publicly, repeatedly, that we opposed her move, because what we really need is an approach that will actually takes us forward, not a bill that won’t pass and is instead a distraction from the goal of having adoption law that actually works for families. It should be no surprise to anyone that our position hasn’t changed. Supporting Jacinda’s Bill would undermine the cross-Party work we have been doing for the last 3 years.

You can imagine Kevin’s annoyance. He’s been spending over a year working cross-party to do a serious piece of law reform, and Labour chooses to draft up a press release, call it a bill, and try and claim credit for doing something.

TUREI: We believe batting the issue back to the Law Commission is an abdication of the responsibility to act now. One of the reasons that this is important is that drafting a bill to give effect to the Law Commission’s recommendations requires political judgment calls to be made on many policy issues, not just legal or technical ones. It is Parliament that has the mandate to do this, not the Law Commission. Secondly, this bill incorporates another form of abdication of responsibility to a future Parliament. A future Parliament cannot be bound, of course—we know that well enough—by what we decide today, so there is no greater likelihood that the process will advance the cause of adoption reform any further than the Law Commission’s 2000 report did. More to the point, although it is inevitable that issues first raised by a particular Parliament will not be completed until a future one sometimes, this bill would effectively defer any action to a future Parliament. We need to take action now. Thirdly, the Law Commission already has a busy programme, and even under the very best of circumstances this bill will not result in an actual bill on adoption for us to debate for at least another 2 to 3 years. In other words this bill delays law reform further.

If the Ardern bill did proceed, it would mean that Parliament would have the perfect excuse to do nothing until the Law Commission reported back in three years or so.

There is no reason why a bill cannot be drafted now, and, indeed, one already has been, saving us those years. Back when the member first announced this bill colleagues from Labour and National had joined Green members in a cross-party approach addressing adoption reform. We still believe that this is the best way of pursuing the change, and, indeed, have continued to work with National and other parties in the House and community organisations to develop a bill.

Labour and Jacinda had a choice – continue with the cross-party work with adoption reform groups, or seek to do some cheap grandstanding. Sadly they chose the latter. You may not get headlines from the behind the scenes work – but you do get progress.

Hopefully Hague’s bill will be drawn out of the ballot in the near future, allowing real progress to be made on this issue. The Adoption Act is woefully out of date. Note also that this isn’t about same sex adoption. Louisa Wall’s Marriage bill has already changed the law to allow same sex married couples to adopt. Adoption law reform is about recognising that almost all adoptions today are open, not closed etc.

The fate of this bill is a good lesson to other MPs. Do the hard work up front. Parliament will not vote for a bill that contains no policy principles, no details and just asks someone else to write the actual bill that is needed.

A restructure of Len Brown’s Mayoral office was announced internally yesterday. The key change is the redundancy of a long-term political adviser to Brown.

The timing is very interesting. Could they be worried about where the trail of the text messages may lead? Is this another scalp for Whale Oil?

Otherwise why else would you be dropping the guy who is generally regarded as one of the best political operators out there? And why would you make that decision in the middle of managing a crisis?

The Government is keen to reduce housing costs. Eric Crampton has a way they can do this:

Donal Curtin pointed to some less-than-helpful government action that helps increase construction costs. New Zealand initiated anti-dumping action against Chinese wire nails, Malaysian galvanised wire, and Thai plasterboard, among other things. And so we have a specific tariff helping to keep prices up for plasterboard. While we’re trying to rebuild after an earthquake.

So one part of central government is all mad about excessive construction costs. Another part of central government penalises foreigners for selling us construction materials cheaply.

It’s a fair point. If foreigners want to dump cheap materials on us, let’s take advantage of it!

Audrey Young at NZ Herald reports:

Korean-born National MP Melissa Lee broke down in Parliament last night night when she was speaking about the Korean War.

“My grandfather was shot dead by the North Koreans because he was educated at university,” she said through tears.

This is the same regime that Gareth Morgan seems so fond of.

She recalled her mother having talked about not having enough food for the family to eat “and yet they took in 10 other refugees so they had a roof over their head.”

“I get a little emotional about this because it does affect my family,” she said in the first reading debate of the Veterans’ Support Bill.

She said owed a great debt to the Korean veterans, 3974 soldiers and 1300 naval
personnel who fought in the war, with 33 deaths.

She said if it had not been for the veterans who had answered the call of the United Nations, “I may not be standing here proudly as a Member of Parliament in this great country of ours, New Zealand.”

She said she refers to the K-Force as her “dads.”

“They gave up their youth to fight for something that they didn’t even have anything to do with in a foreign country.”

Thank goodness the North Koreans didn’t manage to take over the entire country. This was a war started by North Korea who invaded in 1950. One day hopefully North Koreans will enjoy the freedoms that South Koreans do.

Brendan Horan has announced:

MPs pay will be fixed for each term of Parliament, if an amendment proposed by the independent MP Brendan Horan is adopted.

“Back in December I promised that I would put forward an amendment in a bid to get Parliament to agree that salaries would be set by the Remuneration Authority before the next General Election. The salaries would apply for the three year term of each Parliament.

“Now that the Government has given the bill its second reading, I have formally introduced the Supplementary Order Paper

“I have written to all parties in Parliament seeking their support,” said Brendan Horan.

If adopted, the new law would still require the Remuneration Authority to independently set the salaries of MPs. The difference is that the determination would be published about three months before the election.

“That way, every candidate running for Parliament and all voters will know the remuneration of MPs for the next three years. Voters will choose their MPs, and we’ll have an end to the spectacle of Christmas pay rises,” said Brendan Horan.

All parties in Parliament should seriously look at supporting this amendment. They will do themselves a huge favour if they back it, and avoid the annual ritual of self-flagellation of getting payrises that the public hate.

The Horan amendment will not see MPs paid less. It will see one rate fixed for a three year term, based on what is deemed to be the fair level over the three year term.

The public will more willingly accept something that is not a pay rise part-way through a term – but is an increase in remuneration for the next term of Parliament. It means certainty for candidates, MPs and the public.

Some MPs may be reluctant to support this amendment, because it is from Horan. That would be very short-sighted and cutting off their nose to spite their face. Unless MPs enjoy the annual self-flagellation they go through, they should vote for Horan’s SOP.

I covered the case for setting salaries once for each term of Parliament in my submission.

Claire Trevett at NZ Herald reports:

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei has been criticised by fellow MPs for breaking ranks over the sensitive issue of MPs’ travel entitlements.

A bill to hand over the setting of many of the MPs’ perks and entitlement to the independent Remuneration Authority was back in Parliament for the first time yesterday after being changed by the select committee so the Speaker would retain control over domestic travel entitlements for MPs.

Ms Turei was on the select committee which agreed to the change unanimously, but yesterday put up an amendment to change it back so the Remuneration Authority did take over control – apparently ambushing the other parties who had been expecting a united front on the issue.

That is grandstanding. If you don’t agree with it, you do a minority report at select committee. But to vote for it at select committee, and then oppose it at the next stage is playing politics.

Speaking in Parliament, Labour’s Trevor Mallard criticised her for grandstanding, saying she voted in favour of the decision to keep domestic travel with the Speaker in the select committee.

“Having not given a peep in opposition, she was a lamb in the committee. For her to come to this House now with amendments attempting to reverse that is an indication of someone who is either not on top of their job, or is a political grandstander.”

Trevor is right on this one.

Mr Mallard’s colleague Ruth Dyson also voiced disappointment at Ms Turei’s decision to lodge the amendment, saying there had been unanimous agreement on it in the committee after extensive consideration.

Ms Turei said the Greens had made it clear they did not agree with the decision to allow the Speaker to keep control of travel, but supported the bill as a whole as it made progress toward ensuring MPs’ entitlements were decided more independently.

Bull. If that is the case, you do a minority report saying exactly that. They didn’t.

The Herald reports:

New oil spill models have depicted the dramatic impact deep-sea blowouts would have on New Zealand, spreading across our most important fishing ground and hitting Auckland’s iconic west coast beaches.

The report, commissioned by Greenpeace and produced by data science agency Dumpark, sought to gauge the blow-out effects of two planned deep-sea drilling locations off the North Island’s west coast and the South Island’s east coast.

But an industry spokesperson last night slammed the study as inaccurate, “fear-mongering” and “science fiction”, while Government officials also described such a large-scale spill as unlikely.

This got me thinking. How likely is a large spill? Is it 5%? 1%? Less than 1%?

The Deepwater spill of course is the worst case example. But how likely is such a major spill. I found out that there are in fact over 4,000 rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. And Greenpeace is freaking out over one proposed exploration by Andarko.

One site gives some stats:

 Improvements in technology and better government oversight have made drilling inherently safe. In fact, since 1975, offshore drilling has had a 99.999 percent safety record [source: EIA]. The amount spilled has decreased from 3.6 million barrels in the 1970s to less than 500,000 in the ’90s. Believe it or not, more oil actually spills into U.S. waters from natural sources and municipal and industrial waste than it does than from offshore oil and gas drilling. As far as the toxic chemicals are concerned, specialists say most of them are at insignificant levels since discharges are regulated by state and federal laws. The mercury released, for example, isn’t enough to be absorbed by fish [source: Jervis].

So if I recall $2.2 billion is being spent in NZ on exploration. Do we want to turn that down for worry about the 0.001%?

Surely the debate should be about do we have the right risk management framework in place, not about trying to ban an entire industry.

The Herald reports:

Almost 13,000 parents with dependent children have had their benefits cut for failing work tests in the first 2 years after sole parents first had to look for work.

Data released to the Child Poverty Action Group under the Official Information Act shows 1310 parents had benefits cut for failing work tests in the first three months after sole parents with children aged 6 and over were required to look for part-time work from September 2010. A further 5,074 parents’ benefits were suspended or cancelled for failing work tests in 2011 and 6,418 last year.

Most parents then met their obligations quickly enough to have their benefits restored, but 157 had benefits formally suspended or cancelled in the first three months of the new regime.

So 13,000 initially were sanctioned for not being available for work etc, but only 157 of them didn’t end up being work ready and seeking work. I call that a huge success.