TVNZ report:
Meridian will be listed on the New Zealand and Australian stock exchanges on October 29, with an offer document set to be lodged with the Financial Markets Authority this Friday.
The offer document will include the price range, the price of the first instalment, the capped price of the second instalment and the expected yield.
It is expected that people will be able to apply for shares from September 30, with the general offer expected to close on October 18.
This will be followed by a book-build process, where institutions will be able to bid for shares.
Excellent to see the Government making progress on implementing its election commitments. I look forward to investing in Meridian as I believe it to be a good solid long-term investment.
Keeping Stock blogged this exchange.
I’d love someone to ask Grey Power how they managed to get a discount from an evil privately owned electricity company, yet failed to get a discount from those nice benevolent state owned power companies!
Alcohol Action is somehow a registered charity. Even worse their key officers are all on the publc payroll, and further get hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers funding for research to back their highly political advocacy.
As an example, I give you some extracts from their latest newsletter. The full newsletter is over the break:
The National-led government was very strongly lobbied by the industry during the time of the Law Commission review and they subsequently delivered exactly what the industry wanted – a limp squib of a response to the Law Commission’s recommendations. They allowed themselves to be so easily influenced because it was consistent with their out-dated neo-liberal economic ideology. This ideology views “busyness” (GDP) as the best measure of a healthy economy. A GDP motivated economy welcomes an ongoing damaging drinking culture in the same way it salivates over a damaged major city (Christchurch), because damage, misery, and need for treatment and repair makes for “busyness” and therefore increases GDP, the neo-liberal economic god.
I don’t mind people having views like this. I do mind them getting huge amounts of taxpayer funding to lobby for their views, and I also mind them masquerading as a charity.
UPDATE: It seems they are not a charity, just an NGO. A friend donated to them a while back and got a tax deductible receipt so on that basis I assumed they had charitable registration.
A useful website with some facts on Fluoride has been out together by some health agencies and groups. It was established by both the Medical and Dental Associations, the Ministry of Health and some DHBs.
Some extracts:
Chris Hipkins is the first casualty of the new Labour leadership, David Cunliffe says he wants new whips
— Chris Bramwell (@rnzgallerychris) September 15, 2013
Will it be one whip or both whips who go? Hipkins is Senior Whip and Fenton Junior Whip.
A fair enough move. A new leader should be able to have whips that they have full confidence in. This does not mean Hipkins will not remain in the Shadow Cabinet, just that he won’t be Senior Whip.
Whale has this video of Kim Dotcom being interviewed by Paul Holmes:
Holmes: Should there be heavy damages?
Dotcom: Well, I’m not interested in damages from the New Zealand Government. I’m interested to resolve this case. I’m interested for people to realise the people who attacked me, they made a mistake and that this needs to be resolved in a diplomatic fashion, and soon, because this is just going to drag on. It’s going to hurt everybody. It’s going to embarrass those who are attacking us. And there’s no point in taking this further.
Holmes: If you got damages, of course, I suppose that could go some way to paying for a new broadband cable across the Pacific.
Dotcom: Yeah, but if I would seek damages, I would not seek them in New Zealand. I would seek them from the US Government, which has acted in bad faith, and I would seek that also from Hollywood Studios who are paying the MPAA and Chris Dodd, you know, to do this kind of thing. And I think they are liable because there has been a lot of bad faith and a lot of misinformation.
And in case you missed it here’s the Herald story about him claiming NZ taxpayers owe him damages of $6 million.
Would be nice if media did more than just print his words as press releases with no scrutiny.
iSentia blog the top news stories for August. They were:
Will be interesting to see for September if the Labour leadership contest was the most reported story.
The Herald reported:
A lawyer has won a three-year battle against ACC, which claimed pain she suffered after a car crash was from degeneration and not a neck injury.
When Madeleine Flannagan appealed against the decision to cut her entitlements – and before the case could be heard in the District Court – ACC accepted her injury was caused by the accident and offered the Orewa woman a settlement.
It’s a pity it took a court case to achieve this.
Madeleine blogs about the case in more detail here.
Stuff reports:
New Labour leader David Cunliffe is expected to make moves today to heal a divided caucus, including sounding out his rivals for key positions.
This is a challenge for Cunliffe as only 11 out of 34 MPs voted for him, with 23 out of 34 giving Robertson or Jones their first preference.
Some decisions are easy, such as keeping Robertson on as Deputy. Not only does it help unify the caucus, there are no obvious deputy contenders from Camp Cunliffe anyway. Remember only three out of 20 members of the Shadow Cabinet supported Cunliffe.
Robertson said Cunliffe had his “100 per cent loyalty as leader”.
“I am absolutely confident that caucus will back him . . . I do not expect that any member of caucus will undermine David Cunliffe . . . I believe it is essential that the Labour caucus draws a line under everything that has happened in the last few years.”
The translation of this is we will be more loyal to David Cunliffe than he was to David Shearer!
Anyway what are some of the challenges for Cunliffe in his reshuffle:
Produced by Stats NZ and the MWA. The 120th anniversary is on the 19th. Proud NZ was the first full country to given women the vote. Sad that some countries still treat women as second class citizens.
In the last 60 years, the stats changes have been:
David Cunliife wins with 51.5% on the first preferences. Huge win.
Robertson narrowly won the caucus vote, Cunliffe got 60% of the members and 70% of the unions.
This means Cunliffe got just 11 out of 34 votes in caucus, Jones got 7 and Robertson 16.
Sadly I was overseas last week and didn’t get to cover at the time the massive blunder by Metiria Turei on The Vote. It was so bad, that even before the episode went to air, she was on Firstline admitting she doesn’t know their own policy.
Extracts from what she said:
Garner: Would you like to see house prices fall in New Zealand, Metiria?
Turei: Well, yes actually. We would like to make sure that they are affordable. Oh – shocked look on your faces , how dare, how terrible if young families could actually afford to buy a home.
There is a big difference between saying prices should stop rising so rapidly, and saying we want to see house prices fall.
Garner: So, if house prices fall as you would like, you’d like the house prices to fall, that means that some families could have negative equity which could be an economic disaster for New Zealand!
Turei: Yes, that’s right that’s right so you have to be extremely careful….would you like to listen to an answer Duncan?
Garner: I think I heard enough!
Turei: So you have to make sure…
Peters: Hang on, hang on, hang on…
Turei: You have to make sure that if you’re going to change any of those, those economic levers you have to do it extremely carefully and over a long period of time and the first priority has to be building affordable homes – now those are homes…
And here Turei says she wants some home owners to have negative equity.
“that means that those holding onto the wealth now will have to be prepared to let some of it go…”
And she went further and advocated that it would be good to have some home owners forced to sell their homes because the prices drop.
Won’t a Labour/Green Government be a lot of fun!
The Atlantic reports:
How effective are Teach for America teachers? It’s a question that the organization’s critics and fans alike have been trying to answer for years. …
A new study by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (a part of the United States Department of Education) will encourage TFA supporters. The first large-scale random assignment study of TFA secondary math teachers, it found that the TFA teachers were more effective than other instructors at their schools.
Teach for America is a great initiative.
The study included 4,573 students at middle and high schools across the country. In the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 school years, researchers randomly assigned the students in each school to similar math courses–some were taught by TFA teachers, and others or by teachers who entered teaching through traditional or other, less selective alternative programs. The students with TFA teachers performed better on end-of-year exams than their peers in similar courses taught by other teachers. The bump in their test scores is equivalent to an additional 2.6 months of school for the average student nationwide.
That’s pretty significant for an average difference.
The study also seemed to disprove the common criticism that, because TFA teachers only sign on for two years of teaching, they do not gain the experience necessary to become effective teachers. The study found that TFA teachers were more effective than both novice and experienced teachers from other certification programs. Students of TFA teachers in their first three years of teaching scored 0.08 standard deviations higher than students of other teachers in their first three years of teaching and 0.07 standard deviations higher than students of other teachers with more than three years of experience teaching.
Experience does not necessarily equal effectiveness.
This tower is around Ngaio Gorge. Been there for a while, but recently more visible with some clearing nearby. Anyone know what it is?
Stuff reports:
A plan by Nelson mayor Aldo Miccio and councillor Pete Rainey to unveil how Nelson’s waterfront might be upgraded has upset others around the council table who claim to have known nothing about it being ready for public launch. …
Mr Miccio and Mr Rainey are planning to showcase the concept plans for the waterfront upgrade at an event at the Theatre Royal this Friday. All councillors and the public are invited.
Mr Miccio said the final presentation, completed just last week, had been seen only by himself and Mr Rainey, who co-chairs the community services portfolio.
Mr Rainey, who has been driving the project, said today it was not a council function but a private one being held by himself and the mayor. He questioned why colleagues were objecting.
Mr Davy said the basis of the complaint was that Mr Miccio and Mr Rainey were election candidates who had used a person involved in handling private campaign advertising, to invite the public to a presentation of what was a council project.
Incumbent Mayors should not use the Council resources as part of their private campaigning.
Councillor Paul Matheson said it was inappropriate to hold a public function before the council had made a decision on it.
“To publicly advertise it beforehand is just plain rude, but it’s not the first time something like this has happened,” he said.
Mr Miccio was in the news a few weeks ago for spamming people who were in the Council database.
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A reader’s two year old son colouring in the Contractual Remedies Act. A future lawyer!
A guest post by Michael Lu:
Winner and Loser
By Michael Lu .
Whatever the final outcome of the Labour leadership’s contest, it is hard to say who is the loser amongst the three contestants – David Cunliffe,Grant Robertson and Shane Jones. If I have to determine whose the loser in this contest is, then it is probably the Labour Party itself.
The three contestants are now pulling out all the stops to try to woo the supporters, unions and caucus to support them in this leadership contest. All of them have released their policies in their leadership roadshow. Shane Jones has not specified the financial commitments in his policy to woo the voters, whereas the other two candidates are more specific in what they can offer.
Amongst the three contestants, Shane Jones has little chance in winning the leadership contest. His participation is to assist him to increase his profile. He wants to seize this opportunity to address voters’ concerns and show his political astuteness. The recent roadshow has shown his ability to attract the supporters and raising his profile. In my opinion, Shane Jones is a winner. His increased popularity and his future political career are more likely to attract media and voter’s attention. The once ranked fifth minister in former Labour government with great leadership potential will struggle to be elected to be the leader due to his indiscretion and actions in the past.
Many people have commended that both Grant Robertson and David Cunliffe are the front runners in this leadership contest. The policies released by both of them have shown that they have put up sweeteners like living wage in order to attract more votes. Whoever the elected leader is, he will face pressure to honour these commitments and increase the popularity of Labour party amongst the voters.
In the leadership contest, I believe David Cunliffe has the upper hand in winning the leadership. He has been ranked third in the Labor Party heavyweights, highly educated at Harvard University and has been in politics for a number of years . His political view is more leaning towards left-wing voters which will appeal to the blue collar support. This will be a risk for David Cunliffe to unite the faction of party and supporters which has a more centre political view. It is important to note that in the last election, one of the contributing factors that Labour lost the election is the voters has lost confidence in the leader and hence has decided not to vote.
David Cunliffe, although popular at the grassroots level, seems to be unpopular and left out from the Labour caucus. His personality has made it difficult for colleagues to support him. It is crucial for him to change his leadership style and make it conducive for his colleagues to vote and support him in order to win this contest.
Under the MMP electoral system, both the Labour and the National need to find allies in order to form coalition government. It is important for any leaders to have good political relations with potential partners. In the past, Helen Clark was reluctant to form a coalition government with the Greens in order to avoid being overly containment policies. Helen Clark rarely ruled out any coalition deals in the public. David Cunliffe’s recent speech of ruling out giving the finance minister post to the Greens did not make much sense. If the Greens performs well in the next election and the Labour needs to surrender the post of finance minister for them to form the coalition government, the opponents will accuse David Cunliffe to be untrustworthy. If and when David Cunliffe becomes the leader, his focus is not only on uniting the party and also building the good relationship with political parties for Labour to form coalition government.
On the other hand, Grant Robertson is more likely to gain support from the caucus. His centre-left policy and good performance throughout his career is well known. However, it is difficult to predict his gay identity is seen to be favourable or disadvantage to lead the Labour in the upcoming election in 2014. New Zealanders considered themselves always open, egalitarian. An openly gay prime minister perhaps would make New Zealanders proud.
From another perspective, whoever loses this contest, this might not be a bad situation. Firstly, the new Labour leader will face lots of challenges from Russell Norman and Winston Peters whose outspoken style is always the focus of media. Secondly, the winner of this leader contest won’t make everybody happy. The losers will challenge the leadership again once there is an opportunity. Finally, the John Key led National Party has been in the government for two terms now and still leading in the latest polling. It is not an easy job for the Labour new leader to lead the party to take over the power from National in the upcoming election in 2014. Once the Labour loses the election, the new leader may be forced to step down. Therefore, whoever loses this Labour leadership contest; he is not to be a loser yet. If the Labour loses the upcoming election, he still has a chance to become the next Labour leader and has a better chance to defeat National in 2017.
In the end, who is the real winner from the leadership contest, I am afraid that only time will tell.
NZ Herald politics quiz is here.
Andrea Vance writes:
In the fallout of the 2011 election defeat, Cunliffe, 50, rubbed salt further into the wounds by appearing to criticise Goff. And his position as the most unpopular member of caucus was cemented when he decided to run for leader when Goff stood down.
“I think it is fair to say that before ’08 people didn’t like him, but after ’08 he gave them reasons,” one former staffer said this week.
Cunliffe undermined Goff after the 2008 election loss but never challenged him outright. “With hindsight, he did a lot of it by omission rather than commission. He never said, ‘I want your job’, it was death by 1000 cuts.”
I know some former Labour staffers from that period, and they certainly are strongly of the view that Cunliffe was constantly undermining Goff. Of course he was far from the only one – so was Chris Carter.
A concerted smear campaign orchestrated by senior MPs Mr Goff, Annette King, Trevor Mallard and Clayton Cosgrove – known as the ABC (Anyone But Cunliffe) faction – ensured that relatively inexperienced Mt Albert MP David Shearer was elevated to the leadership.
Cunliffe’s reputation, as untrustworthy and conniving, stuck in the minds of media commentators and the wider public
But he has played the long hand.
Former Labour MP Judith Tizard, an early political mentor, says Cunliffe is “straightforward” and was not organising against Shearer. “People misunderstand David . . . He takes the view that if he gives his word then his word is given. And it would just stun and amaze him if somebody didn’t accept his word.
Judith Tizard was Cunliffe’s political mentor? Really?
A confidant puts the ostracising of Cunliffe, who graduated in the top 10 per cent of his Harvard class, down to jealousy.
“He has a brain the size of 50 planets, he must be the brightest guy I’ve ever met . . . there was a degree of the Kiwi knocking machine. It can be quite intimidating for some people to be around that. He never really learned to dumb it down for a New Zealand context.”
And if he wins, as expected, he will be formidable.
Yes, he has an unfortunate habit of coming across as smug, or smarmy, when captured on camera. An infamous video clip shows him addressing an Avondale market crowd in a fake Polynesian accent.
Critics point out he lives in a $2m mansion in one of Auckland’s most exclusive streets, while railing against “money trader” Key.
At times he has wrestled with his ego, and seemed slightly obsessed with his public image, although his demotion appears to have taught him to project humility.
What’s that old saying – once you can fake sincerity you have it made in politics 🙂
Williams, who came out in support of Cunliffe earlier this week, says he can’t fathom the antipathy. “The people up close to him like him . . . He’s a normal family man. I have never been exposed to these character shortcomings that I keep hearing about.”
To be fair, neither have I. I worked a bit with Cunliffe when he was ICT/Comms Minister and found him excellent to work with, and he achieved a lot of good stuff. However the sheer number of other people who have said they have different experiences suggests there can’t be that much smoke without some fire.
Most agree Cunliffe would face an uphill struggle trying to win the trust and genuine support of many openly hostile MPs. It would be unwise to root out strong performers who are not yet on his side, the ex-adviser cautions. “I don’t think he can afford to do utu with anybody. His supporters are hardly the stellar operators.
This is a key point. Of the top 10 Labour MPs, none are backing Cunliffe. In the next 10, only three are backing him. So Cunliffe has the backing of just three out of 20 in the Shadow Cabinet. Almost all his support is from those outside the Shadow Cabinet. If he wins, some of them will have to be promoted.
The Dom Post reports:
John Morrison is leading incumbent Celia Wade-Brown in the race for the Wellington mayoralty, according to a poll of Dominion Post readers.
Note this is a poll of readers, not of adults. It is both unrepresentative and probably fairly self-selecting, so this means that any results are not necessarily representative of how Wellingtonians will vote. That is not to say Morrison may not be ahead, just that this “poll” is not a very useful indicator.
Mr Morrison, who has been a city councillor for the past 15 years, had support from 27 per cent of the 635 readers surveyed last week – while Ms Wade-Brown trails on 17 per cent.
Putting aside that it is not a representative sample, the sampling error would be 3.8%, if it really was a poll of 635 readers in Wellington City.
Of those surveyed, 275 were eligible to vote in the Wellington City Council elections.
This is the number that counts and should have been highlighted earlier in the story. That is a 5.9% margin of error.
In terms of raw numbers, 75 readers said they are voting Morrison, 47 readers Wade-Brown and 118 readers are undecided.
Duncan Garner writes:
Cunliffe’s nose may just be ahead – but it’s not over: Robertson’s people won’t give up; they seriously dislike Cunliffe, they really do.
They really really do.
I have spoken to a number of Labour MPs in recent days who openly despise Cunliffe. The hatred and bile towards him has not subsided. It actually seems to have got stronger and louder in the final stretch of this race.
One senior MP in the Robertson camp described him to me over the weekend as “an insincere prat” who is “a fake that would be shown up bloody quickly”. Others have described him in similar terms. You get the point.
If Cunliffe wins, it will be fascinating to see what happens. There won’t be anything for several months as they get a poll bounce, but if things drop back then it could turn caustic.
The ABC is now forecasting that the Coalition will win 92 seats, up from 89 on election night. Labor is down to 54. That is barely above the worst predictions under Gillard.
Shorten and Labo are standing for the Labor leadership. There is a rumour that Rudd thinks the next election is unwinnable, and he will stay on so he can try for the leadership again after 2016! It is ironic that Shorten, the former ACTU boss, is placed in the right faction of Labor. Could you imagine a trade union boss in NZ being seen to be on teh right of a Labour caucus? 🙂
The Herald reports:
Christchurch City Council chief executive Tony Marryatt has resigned, with a $270,000 payout.
The council accepted his resignation today, effective from November 30.
But he will not return to work in the meantime and will remain on full pay until then.
The payout will grate with many, myself included. But the reality of our employment laws is that sacking someone for just cause is extremely difficult and can lead to years of court action. One ex RNZ manager is into year 10 of her lawsuit!