3 News reports:

Just days after the 2013 Auckland local elections, eight men are set to stand trial over alleged electoral fraud during the previous vote.

Unsuccessful 2010 Otara-Papatoetoe local board Labour Party candidate Daljit Singh was among eight men charged with using forged documents in connection with the 2010 elections.

The police investigation was launched after more than 300 people were removed from the electoral roll leading up to the election due to irregularities.

It was reported that 48 people were living at one address.

I hope we get good reporting of the trial. It is probably the biggest alleged electoral fraud case in NZ’s recent history. Of course there can be no assumptions at this stage of the verdicts, but the details we do know certainly sound alarming.

The ODT reports:

However, Mr Cunliffe said today he had an “open mind” about whether the OCR should instead be set by a monetary policy committee.

He told TV3’s The Nation there were some good arguments for a monetary committee – including that a range of views would be on the table when decisions were made.

Mr Cunliffe said the matter was being considered by Labour’s shadow finance minister, David Parker, and any decisions would be signalled before next year’s election.

One point of detail to consider was whether the committee should have external members representing the likes of unions and exporters.

“If you had someone like a leader of one of the main business lobbies or a manufacturer or an exporter, then they would have a first-hand understanding of the impact of overvalued exchange rates on exporting, which is a critical issue for New Zealand.”

He denied a monetary committee would be a radical change, saying it would still make independent decisions subject to the objectives of the Reserve Bank legislation.

An internal committee would not be a radical change, and could be beneficial.

A committee where the Government appoints union mates to it, so they can gerrymander interest rates to give economic growth a short-term steroid type fix, is a radical change and absolutely undermines the independence of the Reserve Bank.

Is there anything off the table in terms of pay off for unions? Giving them a vote on setting interest rates is madness. Totally against that. Also against a business lobby having a vote on interest rates.

Saying such a move would leave the bank independent is Orwellian double-speak.

Natalie Akoorie in NZ Herald reports:

Analysis of a healthy eating and activity programme first tested in Waikato primary schools shows the project is saving taxpayer money and improving children’s lives.

The obesity research findings show Project Energize will improve the health and quality of life of the 44,000 children involved.

The data, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, showed the prevalence of obesity among all children involved was 15 per cent less than for Waikato children not in the programme in 2004 and 2006.

Children participating in Project Energize could run 550m 10 per cent faster than children from another region and their body mass index was reduced by 3 per cent.

The project, where a team of 27 “energizers” train school teachers and children in healthy eating and activities across Waikato primary schools, began in 2004. The annual $2 million programme is funded by Waikato District Health Board and implemented by Sport Waikato.

Its success has seen the programme introduced to more schools in Franklin and Northland, and the Ministry of Health has committed $1.1 million to extend it to 100 preschools and 4000 more Waikato children. …

The programme cost around $45 a child, “less than the cost of one visit to a doctor”.

I like this programme for three reasons:

• It is aimed at education, not taking away choice
• It targets both physical activity and eating – not just food as the health n***s do
• It is cost-effective

I’d much rather we focus on programmes like this than trying to ban pies in tuck shops, ban certain food outlets from certain areas, ban advertising, ban packaging etc etc.

Tony Wall at Stuff reports:

Anti-fluoride campaigners  were dealt a triple blow at yesterday’s local body elections, losing three referenda on fluoridation of water supplies by large margins.

Voters in Whakatane (60 per cent) and Hastings (63 per cent) voted for fluoride to be retained in their water supplies, and in Hamilton, 70 per cent voted for fluoride to be put back in the water after the city council removed it earlier this year.

Good victories for science.

“This means that 25 per cent of eligible voters are imposing fluoridation on the rest of society and at least 5461 voters and their families are forced to continue to have fluoride who clearly don’t want it.”

But they’re not.

I would vote against a law that said it is illegal to sell water in New Zealand that doesn’t have fluoride in it. Just as I was against compulsory folic acid additions to bread.

But what people voted for is not compulsion, but convenience.

We have community water supplies because it is convenient to do so, compared to each house having a water tank, or buying water from retailers. It is quite legitimate for the majority of a community to decide what they want in their community supply.

Those who don’t want to drink water with fluoride in it, don’t have to.

They can still use the community supply for the vast bulk of their water activities – showers, baths, dishwashers, washing machines, gardening etc.

For their actual drinking water, they can buy bottled water. You can buy that for 70 cents a litre. So that is say $1.40 a day only. Now if you really really think fluoride is a lethal poison, why wouldn’t you spend $1.40 a day on avoiding that?

It would be interesting to know from anti-fluoride people how many of them do refuse to drink from the community water supply?

Some interesting data from Stats NZ on Internet use in NZ:

• Broadband connections up from 93% in 2012 to 95% in 2013
• Fibre connections up from 5,400 to 13,000
• Those with download speed over 8 Mb/s up from 70% to 88%
• Those with data cap of 50 GB or more (or none) up from 21% to 34%
• Average monthly data used up from 16 GB to 23 GB

Stuff reports on the turnouts being as low as 33% in some major cities:

Left-wing commentator Bryce Edwards said while there generally wasn’t a link between turnout at local body and general elections, both had seen participation fall over time.

The weekend’s low turnout was probably a result of it being a “business as usual election” with “really not much on the line and very little to inspire everyone”. …

Right-wing commentator David Farrar said there was a general downward trend in voter participation worldwide.

He agreed a lack of big political issues had contributed to turnout being low.

But postal voting had also been a significant factor. He knew “half a dozen people” who had forgotten to send off their ballot papers and had to race to the council offices to cast a last-minute vote.

“They have no relationship with a post office . . . and I think each year it’s going to get much worse with postal voting because the postal system is becoming less relevant.”

The Government has agreed to trial internet voting at the next election but Mr Farrar said it was not being implemented fast enough or widely enough.

The Government has agreed to a trial for 2016, and I appreciate the efforts of Chris Tremain in getting this agreed to.

I’ve been involved with this issue since after the 2010 elections where I raised it at the select committee review of the election. I’ve met several Ministers over the issue, and various Mayors and people in Local Government NZ. A huge amount of work has gone on behind the scenes to make e-voting an option for future local body elections (just an option, not to replace postal).  In fact all that is really needed from central Government is some regulations to be passed by Cabinet.

However the Department of Internal Affairs has been incredibly resistant to change, from what I have observed. If it were not for them, we could have been trialing e-voting in 2013.

A trial in 2016 is better than no trial at all. However the massively low turnouts should ring a warning bell that the status quo is not acceptable. Postal voting is a dying technology.

What would be good to see is a sense of priority given to a trial. It is almost inevitable that at next year’s general election some local body people will get elected to Parliament and we will probably have some local body by-elections. It would be highly desirable to trial e-voting at those by-elections so that in 2016 (while still a trial) there is wide-spread use of e-voting in a significant number of local body elections.

I see that Chris Tremain is looking at fast-tracking the trial. That will be an excellent thing if he does.

This is hilarious. Watch the full three minutes – especially the ending.

Auckland

Len Brown won 48% of the vote compared to 32% for John Palino. Stephen Berry a libertarian candidate came third with 4.0% and 13,500 votes. Penny Bright was 4th on 3.4% and 11,619 votes ahead of John Minto on 11,436. The fact Minto got less votes than Penny is somewhat telling!

So Brown has a pretty strong mandate. Palino did pretty well for someone with no previous political experience. Would have been interesting if Maurice Williamson had stood.

Len’s biggest challenge will be his Council. The centre-right picked up a seat in Waitakere and Maungakiekie-Tamaki. However that may be compensated by a loss in Whau which has a 48 seat margin for now. Brown generally could get his policies through in his first term. He also managed a pretty good relationship with the Government, and got them to agree to eventually fund the City Rail Loop. But the loss of Northey on Council is a blow, and if Brewer starts to articulate an alternate strategy, he will be the person in watch in 2016.

Other challenges will be around implementing the Housing Accord, keeping future rates increases down, the unitary plan and political management of issues such as berms which can crop up.

Hamilton

Julia Hardaker is the first Mayor to win re-election in around 20 years. She got 42% of the vote, ahead of Ewen Wilson on 34% – so a healthy 8% margin.

There are no big policy issues for Hamilton (now that the public have settled the fluoride debate) and Hardaker has been competent as improving the performance of the Council, and showing fiscal responsibility.

Her Council has changed a bit and a couple of sensible people got elected to it. The two hard core lefties of Gallagher and Macpherson will continue to undermine, as will Ewan Wilson who has already declared that he is standing again against Hardaker in 2016. It says something that he has said he is standing regardless of how well she performs in the next three years.

Hardaker needs to not worry too much about the troublemakers and continue to focus on improving the Council’s performance. However good sound management only gets you so far in politics, so she also needs to consider whether there are a couple of initiatives that she can champion to get people behind.

Wellington

Celia Wade-Brown got 38% of first preferences and won by 4.4% against John Morrison. She is rather fortunate to get re-elected considering the high level of discontent over the Council’s performance. A lack-lustre campaign by Morrison helped her considerably.

The Council composition (including her) is now Green 4, Labour 2, Centrists 5, Leftists 1, Righties 3. The left has seven clear votes out of 15 and others like Justin Lester who often vote left. If her political management improves she should be able to actually get some policy wins through Council. The Green caucus of four Councillors could prove quite potent – but they may provoke a backlash if they turn the Council into a roadblock for development.

Losing Morrison and Pepperell off the Council is a boon for her (for quite different reasons). Her first challenge is to appoint a Deputy Mayor and allocate Council committee chairs. Can she get Council working relatively cohesively?

Christchurch

As expected Lianne Dalziel won easily, with 72% to 23% for Paul Lonsdale. She has a huge mandate, but not an unconditional one in that she had no major opponent.

Dalziel also has a supportive Council with Labour winning six out of 13 Council seats. Vicki Buck is former Labour so Dalziel should be able to get almost everything she wants through her Council unless she stuffs up badly.

Her major challenges are related. They are to restore confidence in the competence of the Council so that the thought of it taking over full governance of the city after 2015 doesn’t cause resident to wake up screaming with nightmares. The consenting fiasco shows there is a long way to go. The other challenge is her relationship with the Government, especially Gerry Brownlee. If she drives the Council towards competence, then it should be relatively easy for the Government to start to transfer functions back to it in a year or two. If however Dalziel doesn’t sort out her own backyard and just attacks the Government (as many of her Councillors will want her to do), then the relationship is likely to be hugely abrasive.

Stats NZ had the latest food inflation figures on Friday.

In the last three years food prices have gone up by 5.6%. In the period 2005 – 2008 food inflation was 18.1%.

Bill Shorten has been elected Leader of the ALP. He got 64% of the caucus vote and 40% of the members’ vote which have a 50/50 weighting.

30,500 members voted out of around 40,000 members (which is a very small number for their population).

This is a victory for the unions and the Labor Right who were backing Shorten. Will be interesting to see his Shadow Cabinet.

This is how the vote went for the WCC Mayoral election, on the provisional results.

1. Celia Wade-Brown won 38% of the first preferences to 34% for John Morrison
2. Jack Yan picked up the biggest slice of Karuna Muthu’s first preferences
3. John Morrison picked up the biggest slice of Rob Goulden’s preferences
4. Nicola Young’s support split three ways – 30% to Wade-Brown and Yan and 40% to Morrison.
5. At this point there is only 3% in it and Yan has 18%.
6. But Yan’s votes go 55% Wade-Brown and 45% Morrison giving her a 4.4% margin

Of interest 4,363 voters did not fully rank all preferences and hence did not get a say in the final decision between Morrison and Wade-Brown. This is a larger number that the margin of 2,284. Now they presumably made a conscious decision that they thought both candidates were equally undesirable (which is a perfectly appropriate view to have), but it does show the importance of ranking all preferences if you do want as full a say as possible.

The Herald reports:

New measures to crack down on beneficiaries who have previously cheated the system will begin tomorrow.

The ‘low trust client’ rules are aimed at preventing those with a history of benefit fraud from repeated the abuse.

It will apply to people who have been convicted of welfare fraud in the past or had overpayments established following a fraud investigation.

The new law will apply to an estimated 1500 per year, the Government says.

“These people have proven, through their own actions, that they are willing to be dishonest with the welfare system and take money they are not entitled to,” said associate social development minister Chester Borrows.

“With these new measures we will have sensible steps to prevent them repeating this behaviour, such as requiring them to deal face-to-face with a single case manager.”

As with many of the changes in this area, it sounds very sensible and somewhat overdue.

An open thread for people to post results of the local body elections as they come in, and comment on them. I’ll try and update the main post as significant results are known.

UPDATE1: Len Brown re-elected in Auckland. Julia Hardaker re-elected in Hamilton. John Carter beats Wayne Brown in Far North. Lianne Dalziel elected in Christchurch.

UPDATE2: Hamilton has voted 68% to 32% in favour of retaining fluoride in their water supply. A good victory for science. Christchurch City Council leaning left. Hamilton City Council has had some sensible moderates get elected. Auckland Council has seen Denise Krum beat Richard Northey but not yet clear how overall balance of Council looks.

UPDATE3: A huge margin for John Carter. He got 8,500 votes compared to 2,500 for incumbent Wayne Brown.

UPDATE4: Annette Main beats Michael Laws in Wanganui. Nick Leggett in Porirua doubles his majority and challenger (and Deputy Mayor) Liz Kelly loses her seat.

UPDATE 5: Celia Wade-Brown has retained the Wellington Mayoralty.

Audrey Young interviews John Key:

How many leaders have you met withduring the Pacific Islands Forum in the Marshall Islands, Britain and France and the United Nations last month and Apec in Bali and and the East Asia Summit in Brunei this week?

[Calculates aloud] Seventy. In my time as Prime Minister, this has been the most intense.

That’s a busy month!

Who made the strongest impression on you this week and why?

Xi Jinping [China’s President] has a lot of presence about him. He has a very different style to Hu Jintao. Hu Jintao was less communicative – he stuck to the script whereas Xi Jinping, you feel like you are developing a relationship with him. It’s actually very true of Li Keqiang as well [China’s Premier]. They [have] quite a different style to the previous Chinese leadership and they interact with you. You get feedback on how things are going.

Xi Jinping is relatively young (just turned 60). He has been a consistent advocate of attracting investment and boost a free market economy.

Which of the leaders you’ve seen this week are you text buddies with?

Aquino in the Philippines, definitely. Najib in Malaysia, obviously Tony Abbott in Australia.

I think people would be surprised how often various national leaders text each other.

You’re an elder statesman at Apec now.

If I was to reflect back to the first Apec in Peru in 2008, in a sense it shows you how much you learn in five years in the job. There’s always things you don’t know and always things that change but you get so much more comfortable and familiar. Five years ago, Kevin Rudd was the Australian Prime Minister and he went around and introduced me to a lot of the leaders because I really didn’t know anybody. This time I introduced Tony Abbott to people. Funnily when I was chairing the TPP meeting I didn’t feel at all nervous. We took it really seriously but I wasn’t nervous. It was a fun part of the job.

I’m not sure being introduced by Kevin Rudd to people would be an advantage!

Perhaps you’d like an international job like Helen Clark after politics.

I’m touched, but no thanks.

I’d be picking after politics, Bronagh gets to pick what they do next! 🙂

The ODT reports:

Michael Swann allegedly paid $160,000 for a Rolls Royce found stashed in a container, but following its discovery told detectives ”it wasn’t anything to do with me”, court documents show.

Justice Graham Panckhurst this week released to theOtago Daily Times documents relating to an outstanding pecuniary penalty order against Mr Swann.

Documents relating to the order were filed by the Crown on July 17, just days before Mr Swann was released from prison to live and work in Christchurch.

The convicted fraudster spent four years and eight months in jail for his part in defrauding the former Otago District Health Board of $16.9 million.

Just days after his release, police received a tip-off about an item stored in a container at Port Otago’s container yard in Strathallan St, Dunedin.

The documents released this week show that on August 7, police visited the container with the permission of its owner, Kenneth Logan, who told them he believed furniture belonging to Mr Swann was stored in it.

Opening the container to reveal a 1922 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, Mr Logan told police ”****, I’m gob-smacked”, the documents say.

He told police he recognised the vehicle as one previously stored in his workshop for a year before Mr Swann drove it to an unknown location.

Mr Swann revisited the workshop a month later, asking if he could use his shipping container to store furniture.

The vehicle’s former owner, Christchurch’s John Chamberlain, told police it had never been registered or warranted and he had owned it for several years, the documents show.

Mr Swann wanted to look at it about eight years ago and paid him between $150,000 and $160,000 for the vehicle, before it was transported to Dunedin. …

The payment from Checketts McKay Trust Account originated from Mr Swann’s company Sonnford Solutions Ltd and, therefore, were funds from the former health board.

Mr Swann remains subject to a $6 million pecuniary order, which effectively means any property recovered up to that amount can be used to satisfy the order made under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Police visited Mr Swann on August 22 in relation to the vehicle, which is subject to the pecuniary penalty order.

Two detectives approached Mr Swann at his work address, the documents show.

”As we approach the office, a male dressed in overalls walks outside and greets us”, the police job sheet notes.

”I recognise this male from media reports as being Michael Swann. Swann states: ‘You two look like cops’.”

The detectives told Mr Swann they wanted to discuss the vehicle found in the container.

”Swann immediately states he has nothing to say and does not want to co-operate”.

It’s a pity they can’t lock him up again for having lied about his assets.

Sean Plunket writes in the Dom Post:

I’ve never been held in a jail cell but it is, I imagine, not a very pleasant experience. I also imagine Russia would be one of the worst places to find yourself incarcerated, along with North Korea, Myanmar, El Salvador and China.

Certainly the 30 Greenpeace activists from 18 different nations currently held at the pleasure of Vladimir Putin’s government are finding the going pretty rugged.

Among their various complaints is the fact that it is cold, there are some nasty people in jail with them and the guards do not speak English. Well what did they expect – Sky and a sauna?

One cannot imagine that the crew of the Arctic Sunrise headed to the Arctic circle to illegally board an oil drilling rig with the expectation that a country with a long history of state repression and brutality was going to welcome them with open arms, put up its hands and cease drilling for black gold because a bunch of well-intentioned foreigners are worried about global warming, polar bears and whales.

The outcome was rather predictable.

It would have been the height of naivety for the world’s largest multinational protest group to think it could out run or out-manoeuvre a nuclear-armed ex-superpower with one of the largest navies in the world. So we can logically conclude that the Arctic Circle 30, including two Kiwis, set off on their protest with the expectation and indeed the intention of being arrested, quite legally, for breaching the laws of Russia.

In those circumstances the faux outrage Greenpeace is now expressing around the globe can be seen only as part of a carefully planned and executed campaign in which the 30 jailbirds were either willing participants or unwitting pawns.

They would probably have been disappointed if they were not arrested!

The Guardian has an interview with Ella Yelich-O’Connor who performs as Lorde. The parts I found most interesting are:

Perhaps her calmness has something to do with New Zealand, a country that, by her account, doesn’t really go in for excitable celebrity culture: “I’ve had two of the biggest songs in the country and I can do exactly what I’ve always done. I can walk around, go to parties with my friends, it’s still relatively casual.” Or perhaps it’s the result of what, by anyone’s standards, seems a pretty unique musical apprenticeship. The daughter of a civil engineer (dad) and a writer (mum), she was signed aged 12 – “so young I didn’t really feel like it was that much of a big deal” – after a record label talent scout saw a video of her singing in a school concert, “doing Warwick Avenue by Duffy. Not cool. Sorry.”

They suggested she put out an album of soul covers: she refused, telling them she wanted to write her own material, even though she had never written a song in her life, only short stories (albeit short stories influenced by Raymond Carver, her favourite author “when I was a kid”) and had no idea what she wanted her music to sound like. “They were pretty open-minded about it,” she shrugs, as if a major record label taking orders from a 12-year-old who doesn’t seem to have a clue what she’s doing is the kind of thing that happens all the time.

Described like that, it is sort of funny that you had a 12 year old laying down the rules to a recording studio. I suspect they are glad they let her do things her way.

“They got straight away that I was a bit weird, that I would not be doing anything I didn’t want to do, and they completely went with that. I dunno,” she says, noticing my faintly incredulous expression, “maybe it was because the record company was in New Zealand. Anyway, it’s cool that they were cool with that, because if they hadn’t been,” she laughs, “it wouldn’t have been a very good outcome.”

Self-describing yourself as a bit weird is pretty healthy also, suggesting the fame is not going to the head – like it has tragically for many other young artists.

The Herald Diary notes:

Last week’s radio survey results yielded little groundbreaking news with both networks spinning their own positive picture about their commercial and talkback stations.

MediaWorks announced RadioLive increased its listeners by 14 per cent nationwide and golden boy Duncan Garner had a 141 per cent increase on his drive show.

That’s a huge coup. However, Willie Jackson and John Tamihere, whose show precedes Garner’s, made few gains.

Sources in radio circles say their afternoon talkback show is likely to be rejigged now Tamihere is plotting a political comeback.

RadioLive bosses told The Diary there are no immediate changes afoot, but “it’s no secret John has never got politics out of his system and who knows what could happen down the track”.

So, who could fill the void alongside Willie? Here are our picks:

1. Cameron Slater – He’s polarising and partisan, but can cross-pollinate via his widely viewed website.

2. Linda Clark – Her school ma’am whip-cracking is TV gold, but she’s unlikely to forgo Chapman Tripp responsibilities.

3. Paul Henry – If he actually liked talkback he’d be a welcome return. He’s in the MediaWorks stable and his TV show is yet to have a start date, so maybe he can be persuaded.

4. Mark Sainsbury – He wants a job in media and is already a contributor to the station.

5. Grant Dalton – Does he have a job? He’s certainly got plenty of opinions, mostly sporting, unfortunately.

6. Anna Guy – She’s desperate to be a media star, but with a fifth kid on the way and limited views beyond motherhood and Feilding farming she’s an unlikely contender.

7. Rachel Hunter – She’s a bona fide media star with a big TV following. But can she make the transition to radio?

 Cameron Slater and Paul Henry would be a great combination. They’d also keep the BSA in full-time employment 🙂

Russel Norman has blogged at Frog Blog:

The Treasury released papers last week recommending that the Reserve Bank move towards a committee structure for making future decisions on the Official Cash Rate (OCR). New Zealand is now alone in relying on a single person – the Reserve Bank Governor – to set the OCR. No other country in the developed world leaves such an important decision to one person.

Treasury gave the following reasons for why it supports the move to a board/committee governance structure:

Note the use of the term board/committee. The difference may seem unimportant, but it is not.

There are two seperate but related issues.

1. Should the RB Governor solely determine the OCR
2. If a group should determine it, is the group appointed by the Reserve Bank or appointed by Ministers of the Crown?

There are pros and cons for the 1st issue. You may lose the ability to hold the Governor accountable if he (or she) is not the decision maker, but as Treasury has pointed out there is greater security in shared decision making.

But even if you accept (1), the details of (2) are vital.

To re-ignite this important debate publicly, I’ve drafted new law in the form of a member’s bill to make this simple, uncontroversial change to the Reserve Bank’s governance structure along with the timely publishing of board minutes – another standard practice elsewhere in the OECD that improves the transparency of the Reserve Bank’s decisions.

Dr Norman’s bill would see the Reserve Bank Board set the OCR. The Board are appointed by Cabinet, and his proposal would allow Ministers to appoint people to the Board with a view to lower the OCR, even if it is inflationary, to help the Government out with a short-term growth issue. It would weaken the independence that we currently have.

The Reserve Bank itself noted in a review that in most countries with decisions by committee, the members are mainly internal. Dr Norman’s bill would see the decision made by external people only.

Treasury in their advice say:

There are several ways to construct a Committee; we are focussing on just using senior RBNZ staff to form the Committee to deal with concerns about conflicts of interest and difficulties in finding many experts to serve on the Committee.

An internal bank committee is a very different beast to the RBNZ Board which is appointed by Ministers. The Greens have tried to gloss over this key difference and make it look like Treasury are in support of their bill – which isn’t quite the case.

Having said that if Dr Norman’s bill is drawn, I would support it going to select committee. The issues are worth a parliamentary debate. I can be persuaded in favour of change – but not if the committee responsible for the decisions is the RBNZ Board, as that would be inappropriate and reduce the independence of the Reserve Bank.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

The Green Party says low-earning contractors at Parliament, not core public sector workers, should be first in line for a living wage.

In a speech at the Council of Trade Unions conference this morning, Greens’ co-leader Metiria Turei said her party would have a different priority to Labour in distributing a minimum wage of $18.40 an hour – known as a “living wage”. …

At present, Parliament’s cleaners earned $14.10 an hour.

Later this month, Opposition MPs will spend a night working alongside the cleaners in Parliament to draw attention to what they feet is unequal employment conditions and wages.

Will Labour and Greens walk the walk and pay their own cleaners $18.40 an hour? Will TV3 whose Campbell Live programme has been campaigning on this also. I mean surely they are not so hypocritical as to demand everyone else must pay $18.40 an hour yet not do so themselves?

Labour and Greens can go to the cleaning company that cleans their offices through the Parliamentary Service and give them some extra money from their budgets, to be given to the cleaners who work in their offices. It would mean they have slightly less money to spend on press secretaries and the like – but surely they are doing so?

It’s easy to do a photo op stunt for one night. It’s harder to do something meaningful and actually pay the higher wages yourself that you demand others do.

A must read op ed by Grant Corleison in the Dom Post:

The next step in the fracas that the future of the Harcourts building in Lambton Quay has become is likely to result in Wellington’s own version of the Marie Celeste, that abandoned ghost ship of the Atlantic.

After all the to-ings and fro-ings to get the only commercially viable option of demolition and rebuilding approved, the owner has pulled the plug and intends to cordon off and abandon the building for safety reasons because its heritage value is apparently unique but unaffordable to retain.

Well done Wellington City Council. You have turned a major building into an abandoned wreck.

Since then, the building has spawned an industry of Wellington property professionals, economists, architects, commercial real estate agents and lawyers dedicated to advising on the future of the building.

Almost all, except the city council and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, say the only solution from safety, heritage and economic aspects, is demolition and redevelopment.

The building is currently uninsurable, and if restored to an acceptable quake standard of 80 per cent of building code the premium per year is quoted as $455,000 plus GST.

Based on my experience, that cost will keep increasing.

The building’s owner, Mark Dunajtschik, has spent more than $500,000 getting professional opinions on its future. It would cost $10.8m to bring the building up to 80 per cent of the standard, with the option of demolition of the building and retaining the facade estimated at $6.5m.

Due diligence has been done by outside parties on renovating the building into apartments, converting it to a hotel and student accommodation. All declined to progress their options and all said the two strengthening and refurbishment options were not commercially viable.

Among this fracas Mark Dunajtschik offered the building for $1 to the council, the Government and the Historic Place Trust. As a further incentive to address their strident views on the heritage value of the building, he also offered the Historic Places Trust an additional $5m towards strengthening and refurbishment.

Despite media comments, they all declined the offer. They were not prepared to spend their own money on the building.

So the building sits empty was an abandoned wreck. What a triumph for heritage.