Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

A member’s bill which would reduce the amount of alcohol New Zealanders could legally drink before driving has been pulled from the ballot today.

Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway’s Land Transport (Safer Alcohol Limits for Driving) Amendment Bill was one of two bills added to Parliament’s workload.

It would lower the allowable blood alcohol content (BAC) for adults from 0.08g per 100ml to 0.05g per 100ml.

The bill’s policy statement said: “There is demonstrable evidence and research already available which shows enough driver impairment between the proposed 0.05 limit and the 0.08 limit to warrant action. A drug and alcohol expert from the United Kingdom has estimated that this measure could reduce our road toll by two-thirds as it would alter driver behaviour.”

Government was already reviewing New Zealand’s drink-drive limits, which were among the highest in the world.

A study which counted how many injuries and deaths were caused by drivers who had a BAC between 0.05g and 0.08g was expected to come before Cabinet at the end of this year.

Labour have been insisting that the Government should drop the legal blood alcohol limit without getting any research done on how many actual accidents are caused by drivers with a BAC between 0.05 and 0.08, and how many people are driving with a BAC at that level. They have been hysterically demanding a reduction regardless of what the data shows. Even more bizarre is they of course did nothing in nine years around the limit, but the moment they were in opposition demanded the Government drop it.

I am sceptical that a drop would have much impact on our accident rate and road toll as most drink driving accidents have drivers way way over the existing limit. However I am open to persuasion if the data in NZ backs up that the accident and fatality rate from those at 0.05 to 0.08 BAC is greatly elevated. What I am against is a kneejerk decision.

However if the research is almost done, then what would seem sensible to me is to vote for the bill to go to select committee on the basis that it is an issue worthy of consideration, and then once the data is complete have that considered by the select committee. Then MPs could make an informed decision about whether a change will have a significant impact on the road toll.

Hamish Rutherford at Stuff reports:

A bill to legalise voluntary euthanasia has been withdrawn amid fears it would become a political football during election year.

Labour MP Maryan Street withdrew her End of Life Choice Bill before today’s member’s bill ballot.

I’m sad that Maryan has dropped the bill, because not changing the law means far too many people will have to go through unnecessary suffering.

The bill was not just about people with cancer. It would have allowed people like Martin Hames who had Huntington’s disease to live for many more years, as he would not have had to commit suicide if he had known that he could choose an assisted suicide later on in his life when his disease became more critical.

Street said there would probably be only two more days this year in which member’s bills would be considered by the House.

“Anything that is drawn, including the ones drawn today, will be debated in election year, and I don’t want my bill debated in election year,” she said.

“I’m concerned that it would not get the treatment it deserves. It needs sober, considered reflection, and that’s not a hallmark of election years in my experience.”

The move was simply pragmatism, she said, and she “absolutely” planned to put it back in the ballot after the election.

“Can you understand that sometimes MPs’ thought processes take a swerve in election year?”

Street was believed to have been pressured by Labour colleagues to withdraw the bill amid concerns that some would have to campaign against it, distracting from the rest of the campaign.

I don’t think it is about election year. I think it is about pressure from Labour MPs.

What would be good is if a Green Party MP took the bill and submitted it into the ballot under their name!

Transtasman report:

Some strong retorts on the sanctity of a secret ballot came Labour Leader David Cunliffe’s way during one off discussions with his caucus members prior to the announcement of his new rankings list.

Individual caucus members were asked in one-on-one meetings with their new leader who they voted for. According to party sources after responding to the question they were asked to pledge loyalty to the new leader

This is interesting in three ways. The first is that it was thought to be a good idea to ask MPs how they voted as you discuss their job prospects with them. The second is the request to pledge loyalty. The third is that it annoyed MPs enough that at least one of them is telling people about it.

I remain puzzled by what the Government is proposing (or consulting on possibly doing) around the price of copper broadband. I blogged in detail on this issue two weeks ago.

I genuinely don’t know why the Government is proposing to change the law in a way which will deliver a huge amount of extra money to Chorus (note it is more money compared to the draft Commerce Commission determination, but is less money than they currently get), because they seem willing to gift this money to Chorus and not actually get anything in return for it. That is what baffles me.

If you compare the proposed actions here, with other interventions by the Government, the other interventions are easy to understand in terms of benefits (even if one may disagree on them). They are:

• Sky City – in return for some pretty minor regulatory changes, Auckland gets a $400 million convention centre. A great deal for taxpayers.
• Warners – in return for a slightly increased subsidy (for all productions) and some minor employment law changes, we retained not just The Hobbit in NZ, but also a viable film industry, protecting thousands of jobs and also a huge tourism gain.
• Rio Tinto – while I personally did not support this deal, I understood the rationale – if Rio Tinto abandoned Tiwai point it would be a huge loss of jobs in Southland, so the deal was to guarantee they remain operating Tiawi Point for at least the next few years.

But the proposed law change to benefit Chorus is, well bizarre, because neither taxpayers nor consumers will receive any benefit from it. Chorus is already contracted to deliver fibre to their portion of 75% of NZ homes. The proposed law change will not require them to deliver one extra centimetre of fibre to anyone.

I really can not work out why the Government thinks this is a good idea. And if I, a pretty passionate supporter of the Government, can’t work it out – then I think most people can’t.

There have been two major rationales put up for the proposed law change. They are broadly:

1. Chorus may go broke without it
2. We don’t want the price of copper to undermine uptake of fibre

Taking the first rationale, let me say if there is a chance that Chorus could go broke under the draft determination, then of course that would be a concern. I am a shareholder of Chorus. I don’t want them to go broke. But what I am surprised about is that the evidence for Chorus being unable to be profitable under the draft determination is based on no official analysis. If the motivation for this law change is to stop Chorus going broke, then I would expect Treasury to be involved, just as they are with Solid Energy.

But of course the taxpayer owns Solid Energy, and does not own Chorus. I am unsure how you can justify bailing out Chorus, yet not bailing out Solid Energy.

But the reality is that Chorus would not go bust under the draft determination. They do not say they will. The market analysts do not say they will. Yes the draft determination will adversely impact their profitability and dividends, and that is bad for Chorus shareholders like myself. But that is one of the risks of investing in regulated monopolies.

My concern is that if No 1 reason is the rationale for the Government, then they will set a precedent that will come back to haunt them. If all you have to do is tell the Government that a (draft) decision by the Commerce Commission will affect your profits, and you get a law change, well the queue to the Beehive door will be long. Think Vector, Auckland Airport and others.

So let us look at the second rationale, which is we do not want the price of copper undermining the price of fibre. I personally am unconvinced the relative prices will be a major factor, but for the sake of debate am happy to concede the point that this could be undesirable. However what I can’t get is why you would just gift the extra money (being the gap between the proposed price and the price the Commerce Commission says should be charged in its final determination) to Chorus in return for, well nothing.

Chorus has signed a legally binding contract with the NZ Government to roll out fibre to their portion of the 75% of NZ target. Steven Joyce and his team did a great job negotiating that contract. There was no requirement in that contract for copper to be at a particular price. It was well understood that the price of copper would be set by the Commerce Commission (as it has been for decades) under a cost plus calculation (instead of retail minus).

So again I honestly do not understand why the Government is proposing what it is proposing. If someone from the Government can explain it to me, and others, that would be good. While there are some commercial players involved in this debate who of course have financial motivations – most of the people I talk to on this say they are genuinely baffled. They support the fibre rollout, but don’t see how the proposals advanced will be beneficial to anyone but Chorus.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the Government appears to be contradicting itself with its own arguments. We have been told the major rationale for this law change is to stop the price of copper dropping (in line with the Commerce Commission determination) as this will undermine fibre uptake. Yet the Government has also argued that if the wholesale price of copper drops, then the retail ISPs will not pass the savings on, and hence consumers will not benefit.

Well I’m sorry, but pick one of those arguments, but you can’t pick both. You can’t argue this proposed law change is to stop the price of copper dropping significantly, and then also argue that the price of copper won’t in fact drop as the ISPs will not pass on the savings.

So you see why I am confused.

I don’t think the Government has any bad motivations around this. I just don’t understand what benefits this will bring, as opposed to all the other deals where the benefits (a convention centre, jobs, tourism) have been well understood.

I was chatting to someone on this yesterday, and he had what I thought to be a good suggestion as a compromise.

1. Wait for the final Commerce Commission determination
2. If the price recommended is at a level that the Government thinks could undermine fibre uptake, then proceed to set a minimum price for copper
3. However have the difference between the Commerce Commission price and the Government price go to Crown Fibre Holdings rather than Chorus.
4. Have Crown Fibre Holdings use the extra revenue to extend their fibre programme to more New Zealanders – go beyond 75% to 80%, boost rural broadband, help with access in more deprived areas etc.

While this compromise still has elements that I regard as undesirable, it would at least have the advantage of there being benefits in return for keeping the copper price higher than recommended. And while Chorus would of course rather get the extra money directly, they would still benefit by no doubt winning additional tenders by Crown Fibre Holding to extend fibre even further than the current 75%.

But as I said at the beginning, I just can’t understand why a law change is being promoted that simply would deliver more money to Chorus (compared to the Commerce Commission determination) that doesn’t deliver any benefits to consumers, taxpayers and Internet users. The proposals are just a consultation, so I hope that the Government takes the feedback as constructive and seriously looks at if there is a better way to achieve what they want – which is a fibre connected country.

A broker has sent through a research note on Contact Energy and Mighty River which I found interesting. The notes look at what the base price of the two companies should be, and the effect in their prices of Tiwai Point and the Labour/Green nationalisation policy.

They say:

1. Base case scenario – MRP a target price of $2.60, 17% higher than current market price of $2.22, and Contact a target price of $6.00, 12% higher than current market price of $5.37
2.  Should Tiwai Point be fully exited, our analyst sees this applying an 8.5% hit to his Contact valuation, but only 6.6% to MRP
3. The Labour / Green proposal, if implemented, is far more damaging, resulting in a 23.3% drop in his Contact valuation but a far larger 31% hit to MRP (dropping the valuation to $1.78)

That’s an (un)impressive amount of sabotage. So not only would we end up destroying the market for power generation, and increasing the risk of black outs, we’d also wipe out a quarter to a third of the value of investors in those two companies.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

MPs may soon no longer have access to an inhouse pub or room service if proposals to cut costs within Parliament go ahead.

Parliamentary Service, which manages the Beehive and Parliament Buildings, is reviewing its food and drink services and has put many options including a 140-year-old restaurant on the chopping block.

In an email sent to Parliamentary staff, it proposed closing Pickwicks bar on the third floor of the Beehive, the ministerial dining room and the members only dining room. It also suggested closing Bellamy’s, a fine dining restaurant which MPs and their families have used since 1867.

Pickwicks (almost always referred to internally as 3.2 after its room number) used to be a hub of activity every night, and could really go off on urgency nights with midnight sittings. Sadly it is now sparsely attended and I am not surprised it may become unfinancial.

The Bellamy’s dining restaurant is divided up into two sections – members and guests (open to MPs, staff and guests) and members (open to MPs and families only). However they are the same restaurant and just have a dividing wall between them. Not sure you save much by removing the separation.

Wine and beer would still be available at Copperfields Cafe in Parliament Buildings. However, the breakfast buffet could be cut.

National staff had a tradition for well over a decade of a breakfast gathering at Copperfields on a Friday morning. It was a great team builder, and made working there so much more bearable. Would be sad to see an end to breakfasts there.

However I have long submitted that Copperfields should be replaced with a mini food court. Allow three or four operators to set up there and compete on price and variety and quality. Have a sushi bar, a sandwich bar, a grill and even a McDs if they think they’d get enough business.

Salient reports:

VUWSA Presidential candidate Thomas Maharaj has been falsely implying that his connections to Snapper would make him better placed to achieve fare discounts for tertiary students.

A number of students reported to Salient Thomas Maharaj had told them that “just between you and me” he had connections at Snapper which would help him to introduce student fares. On his campaign Facebook page, one comment suggests Maharaj’s father owns Snapper.

The companies register reveals Maharaj’s father, Noel Maharaj, is CEO and owns 25 per cent of HTS Group Limited (HTS). HTS are contracted by Snapper to provide services and maintenance. Maharaj has admitted he worked for his father’s company in the past—most recently in January this year—providing installation services for electronics on buses.

A representative of HTS told Salient the company did not have any influence on fares for any group, including for tertiary students.

“It has to do with the equipment, the installation, the maintenance of the card… it’s not to do with fares and stuff,” they said.

Oh dear, he is telling students that if they vote for him, they’ll get cheaper bus fares because he is “connected”. He must be a member of the Labour Party! (to be fair to Young Labour, I understand he is not endorsed by them)

When asked by Salient on his plans to achieve fairer fares given the absence of influence HTS has on fare structures, Maharaj stated the importance of connections with councillors and central government. Maharaj has worked with Labour MP Trevor Mallard as a community organiser, and also with Greater Wellington Regional Councillor (GWRC) Paul Bruce.

So he thinks having worked for Trevor Mallard (and was his Youth MP), this will somehow result in the Government next year lowering bus fares just for Vic Uni students!

The Herald editorial:

Labour’s new leader appears to think he can manage New Zealand’s financial system better than the Reserve Bank. If he was in power now, he says, he would not allow the bank to include first-home buyers in its mortgage lending restriction to take effect from next week.

The bank is about to limit the amount of lending that retail banks can do on deposits of less than 20 per cent of the price of the house. It is acting out of concern that banks are becoming too exposed to the risk that another house price bubble will burst, causing prices to fall. If that were to happen, the consequences for banks might be costly but for low-equity first-home owners it could be catastrophic.

The little equity they have amassed could be wiped out, leaving them owing the bank more than their house is worth.

If that sounds bad enough, other policies espoused by David Cunliffe would make their position even worse. If elected, he says, Labour would exempt first-home buyers from the new lending limits until its capital gains tax took hold and its low-cost house building programme took effect.

Nothing would be more likely to bring about a fall in house prices than a capital gains tax and an increase in state housing. If Mr Cunliffe had the interest of first-home owners at heart he would not only limit their access to low equity loans, he would do so well in advance of his other proposals.

So Labour is joining the Greens in promoting policies to leave home owners with negative equity!

When it announced the proposed restriction the Prime Minister made it known the Government wanted an exemption for first-home seekers. The bank was unmoved, pointing out that first-home buyers were about 30 per cent of low-deposit borrowers and they had to be included if the measure was to be effective.

John Key gave way, deferring to the bank’s expertise in its statutory jurisdiction. The bank’s so-called independence in these matters has been in the bedrock of New Zealand’s economy for nearly 30 years. In that time its independence has been respected by both major parties in government and when they were in opposition.

Labour’s finance spokesman, David Parker, believes the party could exempt first-home seekers without removing the Reserve Bank’s independence; his new leader appears not to care whether the bank’s role is compromised or not.

The independence of the Reserve Bank has been a critical element of our economy. We should be very worried about promises to over-ride its decisions by politicians.

Mr Cunliffe needs to be very careful in this area. As the leader of one of the main parties, his utterances could be damaging to long-term confidence in the economy well before he threatens to be in any position to act.

It is hard to believe he would carry out the promise to over-ride the Reserve Bank’s independence to exempt first-home seekers, if only because of the obvious risk to their equity. He was looking to score an easy political point.

Anything that makes it harder for first-home seekers to get finance is bound to be superficially unpopular, as proven by a poll at the weekend. Political leaders who withstand this pressure and respect the Reserve Bank’s independence deserve more credit for it than Mr Key has received.

Governments are all-powerful in this country, it would be easy to weaken the bank’s legislated jurisdiction and do untold damage to our economy.

Mr Cunliffe’s stance is a worry.

Basically Labour are campaigning on cheap and easy credit – the very thing that caused the global financial crisis. We should be very wary.

Sam Johnson has blogged his picks for Christchurch City Council:

• Christchurch City Mayor: Lianne Daziel 
• Shirley-Papanui: Ali Jones
• Fendalton-Waimairi: Raf Manji (I would like three votes here as Jamie + Claudia are both good. It is important to me to have someone like Raf on CCC though, so he is my first vote). 
• Burwood-Pegasus: Glenn Livingstone, Robyn Nuthall 
• Riccarton-Wigram: Vicki Buck, Peter Laloli
• Hagley-Ferrymead:Paul Lonsdale, Yani Johanson (updated)
• Spreydon-Heathcote: Erin Jackson, Tim Scandrett
• Banks Peninsula: Paula Smith

Now I don’t agree with Sam on all his choices. I think Paul Lonsdale would make a very good Mayor, who has already done a lot for the city. I’d also endorse John Stringer for Shirley-Papanui.

But Sam has spent three years on a community board and through his SVA work knows many of the candidates, so I think his picks will be of interest to many. He also names people worth supporting for local boards.

Stuff has this image and a story. As one can see the route doesn’t go into Fiordland National Park itself. I think this shows that the opposition is motivated mainly by the fact it bypasses Te Anau. But just as I don’t think one should not build Clifford Bay to protect Picton, neither should you decline consent for this project to protect Te Anau.

I think many tourists would love to travel via catmaran, ATVs and monorail through the farm and conservation land there. Competition is good, providing a choice of routes.

Patrick Smellie writes on the proposal:

To recap: for $179, the Fiordland Experience would ferry 160-plus passengers 40 minutes from Queenstown up Lake Wakatipu to Mt Taylor station. There, they’d board a bus for a 40-minute jaunt up a farmed valley flanked by bare or beech-covered ranges. There are some farm buildings, the occasional car, and some prized angling spots up here, and a sense of the back country emptiness that lies just beyond the bustle of Queenstown. This is all either on public roads or involves concessions from private landowners.

The next part is trickier. From the buses, tourists would be decanted into the carriages of a rubber-wheeled, electric-powered monorail for a 41-kilometre trip terminating at the ageing Fiordland Lodge.

With a 6-metre-wide corridor and up to 2m off the ground, the monorail will be narrower than a roadway, its promoters claim, and won’t affect forest canopy during the 29km of this trip that crosses government-owned conservation land in the Snowdon Forest Park.

The Department of Conservation and the Fiordland Experience have spent years working out a low-impact route, which does – let’s face it – put a monorail through a forest. DoC will charge for the privilege.

A forest park is not a national park. Its legal and conservation status is much lower and, therefore, potentially more acceptable – at least on paper.

While the monorail also cuts across a corner of the Unesco-designated Fiordland World Heritage Area, that designation has no legal standing and also covers a vast swath of the West Coast, including townships and other existing tourist hotspots.

If anything, the area lacks the grandeur in less reachable parts of the region and the only encroachment on the highly protected Fiordland National Park is the lodge site itself.

So the monorail will be in the Snowdon Forest Park, not the Fiordland National Park. How many people had even heard of Snowdon Forest Park before today?

Smellie (who had his trip down there paid for by the promoters) has a useful suggestion:

Assuming Smith can get himself over the environmental, commercial and political hurdles – and that’s a big “if” – he should only contemplate permission subject to cast-iron commitments on both project funding and the removal of infrastructure in the Snowdon Forest Park in the event of its disuse. 

I think that is fair enough. No one wants a dis-used monorail sitting somewhere. But I think the proposed route would attract many tourists domestically and internationally, and if investors are prepared to spend $200 million of their own money making it happen they should be given the chance.

Sandysview has penned an open letter to Emirates Team New Zealand from Team New Zealand:

G’day Deano and the crew.

This is from us back home. You’ll be having some strategy meeting. Knocking around a few ideas. Hell, you might even be asleep. Us at home? We’re doing that too. You’ll have your eye on the big picture, the San Francisco bay weather, the clouds, the rules, what the Americans (or is it Aussies?) are doing to their boat over night. Probably giving the big outboard motor a polish, if the last few days are anything to go by.

We don’t know about any of that stuff. We know bugger all about sailing. I don’t mean that lot by the sea up North with their flash boats sitting around the yacht club yelling at the television in some nautical language we don’t speak, they know about sailing. I mean us. The rest of us out in New Zealand.

We are getting up every morning to watch you and the boys taking on the Billionaire at a sport none of us know about. We want you to win it for us. You’ve got Team New Zealand written on the boat. That’s our boat. We are Team New Zealand.

We should be going to work or school, some of us are and taking a radio or even a TV along. Most of us though, are at home or by a TV somewhere, anywhere, watching you and the boys racing up and down San Francisco bay after a little yachting cup with someone else’s name on it. We don’t know what a jibe or a tack is. Well we didn’t but we do now. We don’t know what a lay line is or why some of you keep running back and forth across the boat. We have no idea how it goes so fast into the wind or why it looks like a space ship on water. How it doesn’t even seem to float in the water, but skims on those ‘foils’. We just know it has Team New Zealand written on it and that’s who we are.

We are out there in places often nowhere near the water watching every race. We aren’t sailors, most of us have never been on a yacht. We run coffee shops in Tirau. We drive trucks in Te Kuiti. We are sitting on a quad bike on the side of a hill near Hunterville with the commentary on an old transistor radio. We teach kids in Palmerston North, or we would if they weren’t at home watching the America’s Cup. We are talking about the days races (or not) with people we don’t know in the pub after work in Westport. We compare our new expert opinions on yacht racing with strangers on a commuter train from Tawa. Outside New Zealand we are in Edinburgh, Munich, London, LA, and Lima. Doha, Goondiwindi, Cairo and Helsinki, wherever we are, we’ve found a way of watching. We are even on the waterfront in San Francisco. We made a special trip. We are Team New Zealand and our name is on the boat.

This is what we do you see. We get behind our people in black taking on the world. All of us. We become experts in things we knew nothing about. OK, we need the television to put graphics all over the screen so we know what’s going on. We listen to the commentators telling us things as though we were all sailors. We aren’t though so we don’t know what they are talking about. What we know now is that you have to win the start and you have to win the finish. The stuff in between? No idea mate. But we are Team New Zealand and our name is on the boat. You do the sailing, we’ll be willing you to win, that’s our job, all of us. No other country does this like we do. This is who we are. This is why we win. When you take on Team New Zealand, you take on the whole country. We’re watching Deano, all of us.

We are Team New Zealand and our name is on the boat. Let’s write it on our cup and stick it on the mantelpiece.

Just one more to win Deano, see you soon mate. Bring the cup home.

Very well crafted.

UPDATE: And Oracle Team USA have won the race and won the America’s Cup 9-8, and 11-8 in terms of on the water races. They deserve their victory, and coming back from 8-1 down is incredible endurance under pressure.

Team NZ can feel a bit unlucky. They would have won the cup if not for the maximum 40 minute race rule. However they were advantaged by the two point penalty to Team USA.

In the end Oracle had the faster boat and tactics can only do so much against speed. It is a good reminder that money does play a huge role. But it would be churlish to put their victory down to technology alone. Off memory Oracle won more starts than Team NZ did, and I have to say generally sailed better. Again they deserve their victory.

We no longer have to debate how much taxpayer money to contribute to a defence of the America’s Cup, which is a sort of silver lining. At some stage there will be a debate on whether we should contribute to a future challenge. I think the lesson from this regatta is we should not. We will never be able to match the funding and budget of the US and European syndicates, so the chances of future victory is somewhat remote. I’ll be delighted if a NZ syndicate challenges again, but any taxpayer contribution should be minimal, if at all.

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister John Key says he wanted to vomit on the press – literally – but managed to keep his stomach down.

John Key is probably not the only Prime Minister who has wanted to do that! 🙂

Tubby Hansen is standing for Mayor of Christchurch, the local City Council and the local DHB. His statement reads:

At the start of the 3rd Labour government, I urged people not to vote for a pro-Labour union delegate. My house that I rented was bugged with a two-way bug and I was nagged by an American woman.

Must have been the GCSB  and NSA working for Labour!

I turn on my tape recorder when I go out, on one day tape recorded them nagging me.

The police refused to listen to the tape and insisted I was hearing voices. I asked the Hereford St Duty Sergeant if I could speak to the Commander. I was refused. We now bug the bugs onto the police car frequency, so they can ask on TV2 Police 10/7 programme, for people to identify the voices. There is no such thing as Schizophrenia or aural dysfunction it is a left wing political racket.

All schizophrenics should be released from hospital, and paid $4000 in compensation, and given some sort of pardon. Cheers.

His 2013 statement is only exceeded by his 2010 one:

There’s no such thing as “schizophrenia”. It’s all done with two way transmitting bugs to talk to mainly young people with potential. If the “talking” is ignored, they are stung with an electronic cruelty machine. 

An ECM!

Major heart surgery may be a thing of the past if experiments I have done by flushing veins through with sulfaric (not sulphuric) acid with the registered CLR (Calcium, Lime, Rust) chemical, to get rid of lime, waterstone and cholesterol by making an insertion at a wrist vein. I can’t go any further, and need 2 medical students to continue this. 

A perfect candidate for the DHB!

We spend money on wars, football stadiums grand projects, while women with breast cancer only get 9 months “Herceptin”. I will speak on this, even if we have to fund “generic Herceptin” from India. 

Genetically modified fat tomatoes etc, result in genetically modified fat people. Exercise is not much help. Watch what you eat. 

Sage advice!

Mr Hansen got 1,108 votes in 2010!

In Parliament yesterday:

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Minister for Whānau Ora: Does she have confidence in the Whānau Ora scheme?

Hon TARIANA TURIA (Minister for Whānau Ora) : Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Yes.

Rt Hon Winston Peters : Has she ever offered resources and staff, such as report writers, to prepare Whānau Ora commissioning agency bid documentation; if so, why?

Hon TARIANA TURIA : No.

Rt Hon Winston Peters : Did she give $500,000 plus expert help to the National Hauora Coalition to prepare its bid for Whānau Ora money; if so, why?

Hon TARIANA TURIA : No.

Rt Hon Winston Peters : You will not be laughing shortly, gentlemen. Did she give $3 million to the Iwi Leaders Forum to prepare its Whānau Ora commissioning agency bid; if so, why?

Hon TARIANA TURIA : No.

Rt Hon Winston Peters : So is she saying that a document that came to her at Parliament on 8 August at 3.26 p.m., setting out these matters and detailing the matters I am talking about, was just made up?

Hon TARIANA TURIA : I have no idea what the member is talking about.

The Herald has details:

Emails produced by Mr Peters showed Mr Tau had some discussion with Whanau Ora Minister Tariana Turia about funding the forum’s application but yesterday she showed media her response, making it clear such funding was unavailable.

So Peters got hold of a request for funding, just assumed that meant it had been successful, didn’t try to verify anything, and made wild allegations in the House that blew up in his face.

John Armstrong highlights it:

When Peters finally got the call, he asked Turia, as Minister responsible for Whanau Ora, whether she had ever offered resources and staff, such as report writers, to prepare Whanau Ora commissioning agency bid documentation. “No,” Turia replied.

Had she given $500,000-plus expert help to the National Hauora Coalition to prepare its bid for Whanau Ora money? Again, the reply was an emphatic “no”.

It was beginning to look like this was not going to be a winebox moment for Peters. Government MPs were enjoying the extremely rare sight of him firing what seemed to be blanks.

“You will not be laughing shortly, gentlemen,” he warned. He tried again. Did Turia give $3 million to the Iwi Leaders Forum to prepare its Whanau Ora commissioning agency bid? Again, “no”.

Peters’ voice by now carried more of a hint of disbelief coupled with bewilderment. “So is she saying that a document that came to her at Parliament on August 8 at 3.26pm, setting out these matters and detailing the matters I am talking about, was just made up?”

This time the answer was longer – but no less dismissive. “I have no idea what the member is talking about.”

That statement brought the House down. Peters had to sit down, having seemingly run out of ammunition, blank or otherwise. …

Turia later called a press conference at which she once again vigorously denied Peters’ claims and released an email from her staff last month to various Maori identities saying it would not be appropriate for the minister to divert resources to help any group prepare its bid to administer and allocate funding of Whanau Ora contracts.

An allegation from Winston is like a stopped clock – he hits the mark by accident twice a day, but generally it is all crap.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

Questions have also surfaced about Cunliffe’s time at Harvard in the 1990s.

Cunliffe left the foreign service to pursue his studies after winning a coveted Fulbright Scholarship.

Cunliffe said this morning that he spent some time studying at both departments.

“I hold a Masters in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School,” he explained.

“It’s a flexible course, almost half of which was studied at the Harvard Business School, some at Harvard Law School, and some at the Kennedy School.

“To my knowledge, no CV that I’ve put out has claimed that I hold an MBA [Masters of Business Administration] from Harvard Business School. I’ve always said I hold an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, sometimes called the John F Kennedy School.”

A biography posted on the Labour party website until recently said: “He was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School, where he graduated with a Master of Public Administration.”

That clearly implies the MPA is from both the School of Government and the Harvard Business School. If you do a couple of law papers as part of your commerce degree you don’t claim to have a degree from the faculty of commerce and faculty of law.

His CV has been widely interpreted as meaning he was as the Harvard Business School. Just a few days ago Stuff reported:

His first posting was Canberra. Washington DC followed. He left the foreign service after eight years, winning a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard’s School of Business.

So the number of exaggerated or padded claims is now around half a dozen. Three or four around community and union activities, one around Fonterra and this one around Harvard Business School.

The silly thing is Cunliffe doesn’t need to exaggerate. He has a CV that is superior to probably every single one of his colleagues.  Working for Boston Consulting Group is a huge achievement, regardless of whether or not to claim to have helped form Fonterra. Likewise a Fulbright Scholarship to Harvard’s JF School of Government is a huge achievement without implying you also graduated from Harvard Business School.

But there is a clear pattern of padding or exaggeration. This is not uncommon with job seekers, but politicians need to be much more careful. I know one MP who would e-mail a newspaper when they claimed he or she had a qualification they didn’t yet have. They did this even though the mistake was 100% the newspapers and not in any way based on what their CV stated, or anything they had said. This is a degree of prudence that would be wise for David Cunliffe to have followed.

The article also deals more with the Fonterra claims:

This morning he provided documents to Fairfax Media which show he carried out work for the Dairy Board in the late-1990s. It appears on the electronic records under the new client name Fonterra Co-operative Group.

His timesheets, from BCG, show he worked on a number of projects including “industry structure” from October 1997 to January 1999.

Hooton refused to apologise.

He doesn’t want to get into a prolonged argument with Cunliffe, but said: “I just don’t think that doing a paper on research and development in the dairy industry can be described as helping with the formation of Fonterra.

“He obviously thinks that the paper he wrote … was in some way crucial to the creation of the company but I don’t think it would be a view shared by the industry leaders who lead the creation of Fonterra in 2000/2001.”

There is no doubt Cunliffe did work for BCG on the dairy industry structure. As I understand it there was eight hours of work in 1999 and around a month’s work in 1997 on industry structure. Whether or not it is fair to claim that was helping with the formation of a company some years later is more than debatable. My views is that it is not false, but again a pattern of padding or exaggeration. Just like claiming to have worked for a City Mission on a CV, when you did a couple of small things for someone who did something for them 20 years ago.

Aaron Gilmore had similiar issues with his CV a couple of years ago. That generated not just a couple of stories with Fairfax, but a total of 26 stories in different mediums, and Gilmore was just an obscure backbencher – not an aspirant Prime Minister. In both cases I don’t think there was any deliberate attempt to mislead, just a desire to sound more impressive.

As I said at the beginning, David Cunliffe’s record in business and academia is impressive enough on its own. It doesn’t need padding.

On Monday the website was refreshed. The biography now reads: “He held a Fulbright Scholarship at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government in 1994-1995, earning a Master of Public Administration.”

In hindsight I think David Cunliffe would agree that would have been the better wording to use all along. Harvard Business School is more globally impressive and known that the JFK School of Government, but the JFK School of Government degree is impressive in its own right.

UPDATE: There has been a huge amount of reporting (never corrected) over the claim to have studied or graduated from Harvard Business School:

• “Mr Cunliffe could only boast a Harvard MBA” http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/opinion/8337819/Charge-of-the-limp-brigade
• Cunliffe is a former diplomat and health minister who has a master’s degree from Harvard Business School. http://www.newser.com/article/da8rbbfo3/new-zealands-new-political-opposition-leader-david-cunliffe-criticizes-pm-in-first-briefing.html
• He went to Harvard Business School http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/analysis-labour-leadership-candidates-5544323
• He has tertiary qualifications in social science and a Masters of Public Administration from Harvard Business School. http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/31/printer_13876.php
• Cunliffe has studied at Harvard Business School, http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/nz-politics-daily-26-august-2013-ts-144931
• Coming from Harvard Business School http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11120832
• Cunliffe is a former diplomat and health minister who has a master’s degree from Harvard Business Schooll http://www.vancouversun.com/news/world/Zealands+political+opposition+leader+David+Cunliffe+criticizes/8915727/story.html#ixzz2fr3ggcpg

And this cache of his Facebook page:

I was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School, where I graduated with a Master of Public Administration.

UPDATE2: Whale has some questions about how the BCG timesheets in 1997 were using the name Fonterra, when the name was only devised and used in 2001.

Questions to Ministers – 2pm to 3pm 

1. JAMI-LEE ROSS to the Minister of Finance: How is the Government supporting New Zealand families through the economic recovery?
2. Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE to the Prime Minister: Has he or his Office sought an assurance from the Minister of Conservation that he did not know about the existence of the draft submission prepared by the Department of Conservation in early July relating to the Ruataniwha Dam, before 17 September 2013; if not, why not?
3. ALFRED NGARO to the Minister of Justice: What recent Better Public Services results for the Justice Sector has she announced?
4. Hon ANNETTE KING to the Minister of Health: Has the increase in health funding for 2013/14 been sufficient to stop cuts in health services and staffing?
5. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN to the Minister of Conservation: What did he say in his meeting with officials on 29 July that led Department of Conservation Deputy Director-General Doris Johnston to write in an email later that day that he is “… likely to query whether we leave it all to the EPA to consider”?
6. Hon SHANE JONES to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with the Productivity Commission that the “growing gap in labour productivity has been the main driver of an increasing disparity in GDP per capita between the two trans-Tasman economies,” and given double-digit house price inflation in Auckland, doesn’t this show the Government’s efforts to rebalance the economy towards productive exports and jobs has failed?
7. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS to the Minister for Whānau Ora: Does she stand by her answers to Oral Question No. 4 yesterday?
8. PHIL TWYFORD to the Minister of Housing: What does he say to the almost 80 percent of people looking to buy their first homes who say they cannot afford the 20 percent deposit or will need family help because of LVR lending limits?
9. Dr PAUL HUTCHISON to the Minister of Health: What progress is the Government making on its rheumatic fever programme?
10. Hon RUTH DYSON to the Minister of Conservation: Did he receive the draft submission on the Ruataniwha Dam proposal, which was requested by Doris Johnston, Deputy Director-General at the Department of Conservation, to be delivered on Tuesday 30 July 2013; if so, on what date?
11. Hon TAU HENARE to the Minister of Customs: What is Customs doing to stem the tide of illegal psychoactive substances?
12. DENISE ROCHE to the Minister of Finance: What is the expected value of the dividends from TVNZ that the Crown will forego as a result of the dividend relief agreement related to the SkyCity deal?

Questions today are 5 Labour, 4 National, 2 Greens and 1 New Zealand First.

Labour will be asking about Nick Smith’s handling of the DOC submission on the Ruataniwha Dam, health funding, productivity, LVR limits for housing and a further question from Ruth Dyson on the Ruataniwha Dam. National will be asking questions on issues such as the economy, justice sector targets, rheumatic fever and customs handing of drugs. Green’s will be asking about the DOC submission and TVNZ dividends, with New Zealand First asking a question about their favorite topic, Whānau Ora.

Pasty Question of the Day 

Question 9 from Dr Paul Huntchison to the Minster of Health on the rheumatic fever programme is today’s winner of pasty question of the day.

General Debate – 3pm to 4pm 

12 rounds of 5 minute open speeches from Members of Parliament.

Private and Local Orders of the Day – 4pm to 5pm

1) New Zealand Mission Trust Board (Otamataha) Empowering Bill – Te Ururoa Flavell  – First Reading

This bill is designed to allow for the transfer of land in Tauranga from the ownership of the New Zealand Mission Trust to the Otamataha Trust. The land was acquired in 1896 by the Church Mission Society and handed over to the New Zealand Mission Trust for the spiritual benefit and spiritual instruction of Maori people in the North Island. The original owners of the land where Ngati Tapu and Ngaitamarawaho and the trustees of the New Zealand Mission Trust have created the Otamataha Trust in order to help the iwi members of Ngati Tapu and Ngaitamarawaho in the future.

Members Orders of the Day – 5pm to 6pm and 7.30pm to 10pm

1) Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection Bill) – Jacqui Dean – Committee Stage

This bill is designed to encourage compliance with enactments administered by the Department of Conservation by increasing penalties to better protect natural and historic resources and protected wildlife. The main changes the Bill makes to the existing law are to both increase the penalties, and implement a consistent approach to penalties across the main enactments administered by the Department of Conservation.

At the last reading of this bill it passed without objection.

2) Summary Offences (Possession of Hand-held Lasers) Amendment Bill – Dr Cam Calder – First Reading

This bill is designed to ban the possession of a Hand – held Laser in public areas without a reasonable excuse. In addition, the bill gives additional powers to the police to be able to confiscate lasers from people if they are found in a public place. Currently section 270 of the Crimes Act gives the police some powers to stop people from using a Hand-Held Laser on objects such as moving cars and airplanes but this goes one step further.

3) Sentencing (Protection of Children from Criminal Offending) Amendment Bill – Le’aufa’amulia Asenati Lole-Taylor – First Reading

This bill is designed to amend the Sentencing Act 2002 so that if a offence is committed in the presence of a minor, then it should be considered as a aggravating factor at the sentencing of the offender. In addition, the bill expresses the view that if any offense committed in front of a minor has any potential adverse effect on them, then the sentence should reflect that at the time.

The Herald reports:

Nicola Stables says a move that would require holiday homeowners like herself to obtain a resource consent to rent their properties out to six or more people could result in visitors going elsewhere for their holidays.

Resource consents for holiday homes! What next.

Ms Stables said she was perplexed by the Thames Coromandel District Council draft district plan, which recommends that visitor accommodation, such as hers, that caters for more than six paying guests obtain resource consent.

I would have thought Coromandel is the last district that wants to make it harder to have people have holiday homes available for hire.

What problem is the Council trying to solve by requiring resource consent?

It seems this move is being driven by the Motel Association. How very sad they are trying to impose extra costs on holiday homes. There is a world of difference between staying in commercial accommodation and renting a holiday home.  A holiday home is just a home. It should be of no matter to anyone but the owner whether they stay in it, lease it out long-term, or rent it out short-term.

Mr Baines said private accommodation was undercutting moteliers during the high season from mid-December to the end of March.

So it is economic protectionism.

I would never ever stay in a motel in a location like Coromandel. It is not price that determines I go to holiday homes instead of motels. It is that I want to relax in a house. I stay in motels when travelling on business, or attending conferences etc.

UPDATE: I understand the situation is slightly different to that reported. The current plan already says a resource consent may be needed for properties that can take six or more people. I don’t think it is widely enforced. The Council looked to increase the limit to 12, but has now said it will stay at six. So not a change at this stage. I do have to say though that I think six is too low a number.

Photo from Stuff.

This is the new cheeseburger pizza from Pizza Hut. Around 50% more calories than a normal pizza! Only available in the UK and Middle East for now.

I reckon it will be like the KFC Double Down. When it gets released everyone will want to buy one to try one, especially as public health zealots will go overboard condemning it. However most people will then discover it doesn’t really taste that good, and only order it once.

I do recall the queues for the Double Down though. They were massive with 20+ cars lined up at drive thrus. I reckon fast food chains hope their latest products will get condemned by the health zealots, just as movie producers hope a film will be condemned by religious groups – a surefire way to get free publicity and noost sales.

The Herald reports:

A slowdown in warming that has provided fuel for climate sceptics is one of the thorniest issues in a report to be issued by United Nations experts on Friday.

Over the past 15 years, the world’s average surface temperature rose far slower than many climate models have predicted.

According to projections, global warming should go in lockstep with the ever-rising curve of heat-trapping carbon emissions. But in recent years, warming has lagged. So, where has the missing heat gone?

For climate sceptics, the answer is clear. Either the computer models used to project temperature rise are flawed, or man-made global warming is just a green scam, they say.

I don’t buy into any nonsense that there is some global conspiracy involving thousands of scientists. But I think it is clear that the models to project future temperature increases are imperfect. This is no surprise. The global ecosystem is hugely complex and there are many factors which will take decades or even longer to fully comprehend. We may never fully understand how all the different aspects interact.

But that is not to say it is in the too hard basket. First of all there clearly is still warming over the medium term. The direct impact of increased levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is relatively simple to calculate, and there is no real scientific dispute over the direct impact.

Where we have uncertainty is how the rest of the climate ecosystem responds to the warming caused by greenhouse gases. The models in the past have projected a multiplying impact, where temperatures increase quite rapidly. It may turn out to be that in fact the rest of the ecosystem will actually mitigate the impact of greenhouse gases. Note mitigate does not mean reverse.

Over the past 50 years, the mean global temperature rise was 0.12C per decade, slowing to an average 0.05C per decade over the past 15 years.

Half of the slowdown could be attributed to volcanic eruptions, whose particles reflect sunlight, and a bigger-than-expected drop in heat from the sun’s changing activity cycle, said a summary of the report.

The other half is attributed to a “cooling contribution from internal variability”.

Laurent Terray with the French computer modelling agency Cerfacs said the term is used to explain a shift in the way heat is distributed between land, sea and air.

Still unclear is what causes the variation or determines its duration.

“We know that this kind of episode, of a decadal length or thereabouts, can occur once or twice a century,” said Terray. “If it continues for two more decades, we may start to think that the computer models are underestimating internal variability.”

New research by Britain’s Met Office suggests the “missing” heat, or some of it, is being transferred from the ocean surface to the deeps.

Temperatures at depths below 3000m have been rising since the 1990s, implying a source of heat-trapping today will contribute to warming tomorrow.

As one can see the ecosystem is very complex, and there are multiple ways different parts can interact.

I am looking forward to seeing the IPCC update when it is released.

The Atlantic reports:

In early August, 33-year-old Phoenix Feeley began a 16-day jail sentence in New Jersey for refusing to pay fines from 2008 when she was arrested for sunbathing topless at a Spring Lake beach. She spent nine days on a hunger strike before being released early from Monmouth County Jail on August 14. 

Feeley is part of Go Topless, an organization that advocates for women’s right to go topless on the basis of gender equality. The group says its objective is not to push for a world where everyone goes sans shirt, but rather to push back against what they see as an infringement of women’s constitutional right not to be discriminated against on the basis of gender. The question is: Why should women be barred from going topless where men are not? It’s a question that quickly takes its debaters from an analysis of legality to the subtleties of how men and women are treated by the law and society.

The incident in New Jersey wasn’t Feeley’s first legal squabble over the issue of public toplessness. In 2005, the activist successfully sued the NYPD after being arrested for walking shirtless down a New York City street, where it is officially legal for women to do so. She was awarded a settlement of $29,000, in addition to bringing attention to the often vague or inconsistently enforced toplessness laws in the US.

As I understand it, NZ laws are non-specific as to what has to be worn in public. We’ve had topless women in parades, and I think the naked jogger even escaped conviction.

The idea that female toplessness is somehow different from male toplessness is clearly deeply embedded in our collective social psyche.

This argument, in fact, came up in a landmark case in 1986, when nine women were arrested in Rochester, New York, for being topless in an isolated park, at a time when the state had a law forbidding female toplessness.

Judge Herman Walz, one of the first to hear the case, which took six years before being settled finally by the New York State Court of Appeals, wrote in his decision that “the statute’s objective is to protect the public from invasions of its sensibilities, and merely reflects current community standards as to what constitutes nudity. The objective itself is not based on stereotyped notions, therefore it is not illegitimate.” He also wrote that “community standards do not deem the exposure of males’ breasts offensive, therefore the state does not have an interest in preventing exposure of the males’ breasts.”

I don’t really consider any nudity offensive (except my own!) but fair to say you tend to be more surprised if a woman is topless than a guy.

One of the curiosities of the debate, then, is that both sides argue that they are combatting objectification. Those opposed to public female toplessness say it is the exposure of breasts that will sexualize the women baring them. The question, finally, has much to do with how you think laws should relate to society: Is it more advisable to use laws to protect women (and the public) in a society that already views their bodies as sexual? Or should laws challenge preconceptions and foster an evolution in the perception of female bodies? Given that in the US, there are over 200,000 occurrences of sexual assault annually, with 9 out of 10 victims being women, both sides understandably feel that the sexualization of the female body is a high-stakes issue.

Advocates like Phoenix Feeley and Go Topless, though, would argue in favor of the more progressive second approach: using law as a tool for change. Pro-topless equality supporters claim that if state and local governments facilitate the normalizing of female bodies, people will begin to see women less as sex objects for the taking, a mental shift which could feed a decline in, among other problems, assault. They claim they are pushing for equal laws in an effort not only to gain legal fairness, but to change the overall view of women in American society. Legal thought in the U.S. seems to be shifting, slowly, in their favor. Only time will tell whether their social predictions, too, will be borne out.

I really can’t see a change of social acceptability, regardless of the legal situation.

Oracle have now beaten Team NZ 9 to 8 on the water.  The official score is 7-8 because of the penalty for cheating. But you know what, I don’t want Team NZ to win the America’s Cup based on a legal penalty (for stuff that occurred before the finals).

An amazing come back by Oracle, and full credit to them.

I so want Team NZ to win, but my fear is now that any win is tainted and may also end up in court. So maybe it is better for Oracle to win the next two races? I have such mixed feelings.

Michael Fox at Stuff reports:

Threats to sanction beneficiaries on the run from the law are leading to the clearance of more outstanding arrest warrants, the Government says.

One change revealed in the Government’s welfare reforms this year was the ability to stop payments to beneficiaries if they were subject to an arrest warrant.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said it had resulted in 161 arrest warrants being cleared within six weeks of operation. …

Bennett said the police were notifying Work and Income after their own efforts to track down those beneficiaries had failed.

Work and Income staff were then contacting the beneficiaries to tell them they needed to contact police or have their benefits slashed.

 The new rule affects those who have had an outstanding criminal arrest warrant for 28 days or longer.

Those people get another 10 days to clear the warrant. If they don’t their benefit is stopped if they have no children or halved if they do.

Not bad for just the first six weeks.