Which Labour leadership candidate talks about local procurement yet their website is hosted offshore?

Wellington Employers Chamber of Commerce asked local candidates some questions. Most of the answers are generalisations but here’s a few specific commitments”

John Morrison

• Create more user-friendly parking, including off peak hours, so that Wellingtonians can shop in the CBD, go to restaurants and the theatres
• Infrastructure priorities – Basin reserve traffic separation,Second Mt Victoria tunnel, Airport runway extension, Extend the bus priority lanes
• Unblocking pinch points such as the Basin Reserve, extending priority bus lanes and promoting new generation electric buses
• Voted for Living Wage

Celia Wade-Brown

• Online processing for more services such as consents and liquor licenses
• A councillor assigned specific responsibility for retail and SME support
• A one-stop shop for queries about development – building, resource consents and follow-ups to monitor progress on-line
• Infrastructure priorities – airport extension, water reservoirs, progress on our strategic cycle network including central city, South Coast to CBD and Johnsonville to City
• More bus priority lanes
• An independent assessment of the Public Transport Spine Study findings
• Covered transfer points at nodes like Kilbirnie and Johnsonville
• Better crossings and weather protection from the Railway Station to Lambton Quay
• Lower cost fares for “early birds” before 7:30 to make the best use of resources
• Supports living wage

Nicola Young

• City’s buildings and lanes lit up for safety and aesthetic reasons
• Street numbers on buildings
• Resource consent process streamlined
• Review differential rating system which currently penalises owners and tenants
• Infrastructure priorities – Flyover, Airport extension, Transmission Gully
• Correct the skewed funding in favour of trains, which receive far greater subsidies than the more-widely used bus service
• Free WiFi should also be introduced on public transport
• Trial discounted off-peak fares for students during term-time to fill the now-empty buses
• Not support Living Wage for Council staff
• Return parking enforcement to WCC control
• Term limits for councillors (12 years maximum!)

Jack Yan

• An inner city convention centre
• Extend Airport runway
• Extend free wifi network
• Real-time data on public transport for apps
• Support Living Wage

Karuna Muthu

• Build an attractive cruise ship terminal
• Extend airport
• Transmission Gully
• Second tunnel to aiprort
• Reduce parking costs to $2 an hour
• Supports Living Wage

Rob Goulden

• One stop shop for business when dealing with Council
• Improving water capacity and supply
• Improve the Harbour Ferry System to something like the Brisbane Riverboat system
• Supports Living Wage
• Offer incentives in terms of earthquake strengthening

James Weir at Stuff reports:

An upmarket, spacious McMansion in Austin, Texas, or a pokey one-bedroom flat in a Soviet-style apartment block in London.

The homes may cost the same as a median-priced home on the fringes of Wellington at about NZ$390,000, but what you get for your money is worlds apart.

And a report by “think tank” The New Zealand Initiative suggests a lack of supply and difficult planning processes are behind rapidly rising house prices in New Zealand and Britain.

Britain was a “housing quagmire” and a telling study of what not to do in housing policy, the NZ Initiative report says.

More specifically:

Britain suffered from a strong lobby group of Nimbys (not in my back yard) led by the Campaign to Protect Rural England. Its housing market had many of the hallmarks of a Soviet planning system, the report says, with planners deciding where people could live.

The Town and Country Planning Act essentially nationalised the right of the British to develop and vested the right in the state.

That made it difficult to develop in Britain, especially in new “greenfields” sites which, as in New Zealand, meant a lack of housing supply.

“A new housing market scarcely exists in Britain,” with most of the cards left in the hands of people who already own the land and a wall of regulations set up by councils and planners that favour those who control the green spaces.

The British Planning Act was similar to New Zealand’s Resource Management Act, the New Zealand Initiative report says.

But is there a model that works to get affordable housing:

But in other places, such as Texas, houses are cheap and prices steady, which has been a factor in that state’s economic success. …

One of the report’s authors, Luke Malpass, said Texas was a good example for New Zealand to consider, especially in the way it funded infrastructure for new housing.

The state has statutory taxing authorities and the residents are the voters – essentially mini-local governments which could raise debt to pay for new infrastructure, with a maximum tax level for a defined set of services.

“It encourages master planning and mixed use,” Malpass said.

Without such a system Houston, for example, would not have been able to grow as fast as it had, because the city itself would not have had the money to pay for expansion.

That sounds a good model. The city itself should not have to pay for the infrastructure of new subdivisions – that should be borne by the new residents.

Average Texas house prices are typically about three times the average income, about half the relative levels in New Zealand.

And hundreds of thousands of people move to Texas from other states, because they can get a decent affordable family home there.

Thankfully for the country, the pork fest finishes on Sunday, so no more damage can be promised!

NZ Herald reports:

National last night chose Matthew Doocey to contest the Christchurch East byelection.

The vacancy will be created when Labour MP Lianne Dalziel resigns shortly to stand in the Christchurch mayoralty on October 12.

Mr Doocey, aged 41, is a healthcare manager working at the Canterbury District Health Board.

He returned to Christchurch from Britain this year.

Regional National Party chairman Roger Bridge said there were two nominees.

“While an incumbent Government has never won a byelection in a seat it does not already hold, the National family are united behind Matthew as he accepts the challenge to wrest the seat which Labour has held since 1922.”

Matthew’s brief bio is:

Matthew Doocey (41) is married to Hungarian-born wife Viktoria. They have lived in Redwood since returning to Christchurch from the UK earlier this year. He works at the Canterbury District Health Board as a manager in its surgical division.

He went to St Bedes college, then studied counselling psychology at WelTec (Wellington). He has a Bsc (Hons) in Social Policy, an MA in Healthcare Management from Kingston University in London, and an MSc in Global Politics from Birkbeck University in London.   He is also studying towards a Doctorate in Health by distance at Bath University in the UK.

Matthew Doocey has a long career in healthcare management including in the delivery of community mental health and social care services both in voluntary, and Government settings.  He has worked extensively in the voluntary and community sector, including for Youthline NZ.

Congratulations to Matthew. No real chance of winning the seat, but if he does well it would help him in 2014, with the possibility of a winnable list spot.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

Justice Minister Judith Collins has given the New Zealand news media a vote of support by rejecting proposals for a single, independent media regulator which would have had the power to demand corrections and removal of news content.

Mrs Collins said that unlike the UK and Australia, there was no crisis of confidence in mainstream media in New Zealand and no pressing need for changes.

She said the Government would not establish a “one-stop-shop” media regulator – a merger of the existing Press Council, Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) and Online Media Standards Authority – but said it could be considered again if reform was called for.

My reading of this is that the Government thinks the status quo is working well enough, that a change wasn’t justified.

They are right that the status quo is working, and unlike the UK, there is no crisis or even anything close to it.

However I still thought the Law Commission model was worth pursuing, for two reasons:

• It would get the Government out of media regulation, by moving broadcasters (for news purposes) from the Government appointed BSA to an independent regulator where board members are not appointed by Government
• It would mean one regulator, instead of the three we have at the moment, which would be easier for those with complaints to use

I note the Government has not said the model proposed is unsuitable, so it may happen at some stage. But for now it seems the decision is to not fix it, as it isn’t broken.

According to reports I’ve received, turnout in the members vote has increased and is now over 40%. Camp Cunliffe have implemented a large scale get out the vote operation phoning almost every Auckland member.

This makes it very hard for Robertson to win. One of his routes was through a low turnout, and that has gone. So the only other route would be through picking up extra votes in caucus, and I’m not sure there are enough uncommitted votes left.

In fact with Cunliffe looking much more likely of a win, it is quite possible that some MPs leaning Robertson will now vote Cunliffe. They’d do this for two reasons – one is to be on the winning team, and the other is so Cunliffe is seen to win all three sections, and doesn’t have stories about how he was foisted on the caucus.

NZ Labour do not reveal how each mp votes (unlike UK Labour which does), but as so many MPs are publicly committed to one camp, the overall voting result for the caucus will allow the camps to work out with a high degree of probability how each MP voted.

One wildcard in the members vote is Ikaroa-Rawhiti currently has 750 members due to the by-election contest. Now that is probably around 10% of the total for the country. If they vote in large proportions that will have an impact. However I suspect most joined just to vote for selecting a by-election candidate.

So with two days to go, I think it will be very very hard for Robertson to win. Cunliffe is not just the front runner now, but might win reasonably comfortably. Time will tell.

And finally the weather turns pleasant.

This pic however, is taken in very poor weather and is of 3 sheltering godwits.  And rather than going for the classic ‘bird’ photo, the style here is high-key.

Click for larger, higher res image

And now, it feels like a morning that can only be improved with coffee…enjoy

As always, treat the non-caucus numbers as highly speculative. The caucus numbers are more solid, but MPs have been known to swap sides, or say one thing and do another.

My models have Robertson ahead in the caucus vote, and Cunliffe ahead in the union and members vote. When you weight them together I actually have Robertson narrowly leading. However with Cunliffe picking up more of the Jones caucus second preferences, my model has a narrow victory to Cunliffe on the final ballot – 51.1% to 48.9%.

So if the model is in the ballpark (and it may not be), then either Robertson or Cunliffe can win. And the fact neither camp is claiming they have it in the bag, suggests they also think it is close.

So how can the three candidates win. Here’s what I think

Robertson

The easiest way for Robertson to win is to pick up additional caucus votes. In fact just one MP swapping to him will get him over the line on this model. If the six Jones voters split 3-3 instead of 4-2 to Cunliffe, then he squeaks in.

The other path to victory for Robertson is to do better on the membership vote. I’ve heard that the voting turnout to date is low, just 14% as of yesterday. A low turnout would I think advantage Robertson as I think his caucus supporters will be better at getting their local members to vote.

Cunliffe

Cunliffe has multiple routes to victory. On this model he is more likely to win. If he picks up a couple more caucus votes he is home and hosed.

Another route to victory for Cunliffe is the EPMU. He has the support of the four smaller unions. The SFWU is allowing all members a vote so hard to change their outcome. The EPMU however has around 50 voting delegates only and they carry around 7% of the total vote. My model assumes most EPMU delegates will back Robertson as he has some support from senior officials such as Paul Tolich. However it is quite possible the EPMU may vote the same way as the other unions, and if so Cunliffe gets in easily.

The third route to victory for Cunliffe is winning the members vote not narrowly, but by say over a 10% margin. If after preferences Cunliffe gets over 55% of their vote, it should also clinch it for him. For that his team need to make sure the Auckland based members vote in strength. The fact  600 to 700 members turned up to the Wellington meeting suggests Wellington may have a higher vote turnout per capita/member.

Jones

There is no route to victory for Jones!

So my pick is a victory for Cunliffe. However Robertson can win if get more caucus votes, and there is a relatively low membership vote. But  against that Cunliffe has multiple routes to victory and only needs one of them. The advantage is his.

Stuff reports:

An alliance of internet and consumer groups will today launch a campaign claiming Kiwis are paying $12 a month too much for broadband, through a government subsidy for network company Chorus.

It’s not a government subsidy. It’s a proposed government law change that would see the price Chorus charges for copper broadband not fall as much as the Commerce Commission has said it should.

Rural Woman and Consumer New Zealand will stand alongside the likes of Internet New Zealand and internet service provider Orcon to launch the “axe the copper tax” campaign.

It will argue that Chorus is effectively being given hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies on the amount it charges broadband providers for the old copper-based communications network.

The subsidy is effectively from Internet users on DSL broadband packages.

Sources said last night that some members of the consortium had already been placed under political pressure not to publicly criticise the Government’s position.

However, it is understood that David Farrar, the National Party’s own pollster and the man behind the National-sympathetic Kiwiblog, is still a sponsor of the campaign.

I am, and no one has asked me not to be involved. The reason I’m involved is simple – on this issue I don’t agree with what the Government is proposing. This is not a exceptional thing. I blogged at the end of last year a list of over 50 times in 2012 I disagreed with or criticized the Government.

Like most people, I have a mind of my own. I support the Government overall strongly, and agree with probably 90% of what they do. But no-one ever agrees 100% – even Keith Holyoake once said he only agreed with 80% of what his own Government did. Mind you, I imagine Muldoon agreed 100% with what his Government did 🙂

In the Internet space, I have been and remain a massive fan of the policy to roll out fibre to the home to 75% of New Zealanders. It is world leading. I’m in Shanghai at the moment as a guest of Huawei, and talking to them has made it clear very very few countries are taking fibre all the way to the home as NZ is. It’s a great forward looking policy, and I’m proud National campaigned on it in 2008 (Labour did not commit to it), and have implemented it.

I also think they way the police has been implemented has generally been excellent. The regional tenders worked well, and the requirement for open access by regional fibre providers led to the structural separation of Telecom into Telecom and Chorus, which is a huge boost for competition.

Also I very much admire the negotiating skills of the Government, led by then Minister Steven Joyce who managed to get contracts signed for 75% of NZ’s population for under the $1.5 b funding package. That was a pretty remarkable achievement when you consider a similar policy in Australia was budgeted to cost $43 billion!

So what is this current issue, and why am I against what the Government is proposing. It is important to note that the Government has not actually made any decision in this area of copper pricing. They have a review document out for consultation. I hope that the consultation will lead them to decide not to change the pricing principles for copper. Anyway, here’s the background. It is a fairly complex area, so bear with me.

When Chorus was part of Telecom, The wholesale fee for copper broadband products was determined by the Commerce Commission on a “retail minus” basis. Basically they looked at the charge Telecom had for copper broadband, and deducted off their certain retail costs to determine the fair wholesale price. You can argue that the Commerce Commission shouldn’t be involved at all, but the reality is that monopoly utility charges (especially in telecommunications) are regulated in pretty much every country on Earth. The Commerce Commission is independent of the Government, and makes decisions based on lengthy hearings of law, economics and engineering. Their job is to be the independent regulator under the Acts passed by Parliament.

Once Chorus was split off from Telecom, a “retail minus” pricing calculation was impossible. So the Government and Parliament changed the law to have the Commerce Commission determine the price another way, a sort of “cost plus” methodology. You look at what the actual costs of the copper network are, the appropriate return on capital and determine the price that way. Part of that involves international benchmarking.

The Commerce Commission did its job and came out with a draft determination that the price of copper broadband should drop by around $12 a month. The draft determination meant, if finalised, that ISPs would pay a lot less for copper broadband service, and with competition you should see fees drop for consumers.

Now Chorus, one can appreciate, didn’t like a draft determination that would see its revenue drop significantly. They, and the Government, have criticized the draft determination. It is important to note that any criticisms of how the Commission has done its job can be made in the consultation on a final determination (which is ongoing), and if people think they have interpreted the law wrongly, then you submit that to them. You can even appeal to the Courts on matters of law. That is how independent price regulation should work – draft determination, final determination, court appeals if necessary.

If people really thought the Commerce Commission had got it wrong, then they’d wait for the final determination, and if necessary take court action. But instead what is being proposed is a law change.

The law change (discussion document is here) basically says that the cost of copper services should be much the same as the cost of fibre services. There are two arguments for this. One is that the cost of a network should be calculated on the cost of the replacement network (fibre) and the other is that you don’t want cheap copper broadband resulting in few people taking up fibre. I’ll deal with those two points in turn.

The Government is quite right that generally the cost of a utility should be priced on the cost of its replacement network. You do this to ensure the utilities have enough money to fund the replacement network. This is how pricing works in electricity generation for example.

However this overlooks the major difference. Chorus have been given a significant Government subsidy through the contract with Crown Fibre Holdings to deliver their portion of the fibre roll-out to 75% of New Zealanders. They now have a contractual obligation to deliver that fibre for the contracted price to so many people. That contract means that the argument you need to price copper at the same price as fibre is not a valid argument, as far as I am concerned.

The contract was signed in the knowledge that the Telecommunications Act was going ot price copper under a different methodology. There was no provision in the contract that Chorus will be guaranteed a certain price for copper.

Now there have been stories of price over-runs at Chorus, and that they basically signed up to deliver the fibre at too cheap a cost, and are struggling to do it. Well, in a nutshell, tough bikkies. And I say that as a shareholder of Chorus.

They bid in a competitive tender for the right to build the fibre network with the Government subsidy (actually a loan). They had competitors such as electricity lines companies also bidding. The lines companies would not have been relying on income from copper to fund their fibre build. They were bidding on income from the fibre services themselves.

If Steven Joyce was such a good negotiator that they bidded too low to win the contract, that is not a good reason to increase the price of copper. If their lawyers were not up to scratch and they failed to get a guarantee of a minimum copper price in the contracts, then again why is that a reason for a law change?

So the existence of the contract means I can’t accept the argument that the price of copper should be based on the price of fibre to fund the fibre network. That argument only holds if they had not signed a piece of paper agreeing to do so, in return for most of the $1.5b subsidy.

That brings us to the second argument, which is should we keep copper prices higher than they would otherwise be, in order to encourage consumers to switch to fibre.

Reasonable people can disagree on this second argument. I’m personally sceptical of it, as I don’t think over-charging people for a product is a good way to encourage migration. I think some people will want fibre and happily pay more for it (like me). Others won’t need it, and having them pay $10 a month more than they have to is unfair. It is important to note that the Government is not looking to put the price of copper up from the status quo. They are looking to change the law so the price of copper broadband doesn’t drop by as much as the Commerce Commission has calculated it should.

But in terms of this second argument, the major problem for me, is that even if you accept there is justification for charging copper users more, to encourage people onto fibre, why would you effectively gift that money to Chorus? Chorus have, again, signed a contract requiring them to establish in most parts of NZ a fibre network. They must build this regardless of the copper price.

If the Government truly thinks it is necessary to have the price of copper much the same as fibre in order to promote fibre uptake, then don’t gift what could be up to $100 million a year to Chorus. Be upfront, and call it a fibre development levy, and have the Government collect it and use it to fund fibre outreach for the 75% of NZ not covered by the current UFB project. It could fund ultra-fast broadband in rural areas, or economically deprived areas.

Note that I am not advocating per se for an Internet development levy. I am saying that if you are determined to have the price of copper and fibre the same, then it is better to have the Government spend that money on actually getting more people onto fibre. If you just allow Chorus to have a higher wholesale price for it than justified under the law, that won’t result in one extra home getting fibre.

So that is why I’m not supporting the proposed changes in the Telecommunications Act Review. Copper users should not be over-charged or taxed to fund the fibre development.

I have no commercial interest in the outcome. I just want what is best for Internet users in New Zealand, and to my mind that is the status quo. I think the major beneficiary of the proposed changes would be Chorus, and I don’t believe in corporate welfare – for Rio Tinto or Chorus.

Technically I am arguing against my own self-interest as a (very minor) Chorus share-holder. But for me it is about the public interest.

InternetNZ is also involved in the campaign, and I am a former office holder and chair their policy group. But that doesn’t mean I always agree with them. On the GCSB bill for example, I had a much more benign view of the law change.

In my role as Kiwiblog, I am a official sponsor of the Axe the Copper tax campaign. It wasn’t InternetNZ that asked me to join. The campaign co-ordinator did, and after reading the campaign proposal, I decided to do so on the basis I agreed with its aims. I am reluctant to join a campaign which is asking the Government I support to change course but I will do so when I don’t believe they are on the right track.

My hope is that the Government will conclude that the status quo (which was put in place by them!) is working, and allow the price of copper to drop to whatever the Commerce Commission determines it should be under the law passed by Parliament. In the cases where we do have price regulation (a necessary evil as I see it), the prices should be set by independent regulators after hearing all the evidence, not by politicians. They should make the law for setting the price, and not second guess the Commerce Commission. If the Commission gets it wrong, their decisions can be appealed in court on matters of law.

UPDATE: A much more readable opinion piece on this issue is at NBR by Paul Brislen.

Some amusing awards from Claire Trevett:

The Artful Dodger award for picking pockets: 
David Cunliffe. Grant Robertson announced the living wage – five minutes later Cunliffe did too. Shane Jones announced Pasifika TV – five minutes later Cunliffe did too. Robertson made a joke about boy bands. It was Cunliffe’s by the next day. Shane Jones announced regional development measures including a rail link to Marsden Pt. The next day, Cunliffe announced a package suspiciously similar.

Is there any pledge DC hasn’t matched?

The John Banks award for greatest transmogrification: 
David Cunliffe for his leap from the business-friendly face of Labour to waving a bunch of “socialist red” roses around and singing paeans from the Workers’ Songbook.

John Wayne award for straight shooting: 
Grant Robertson for bluntly pointing out Shane Jones could not win, however successful he was in the polls. Shane Jones for saying of the Greens: “I am going to harvest and find my votes in Middle Earth – not flat earth. …

Merry Wives of Windsor award for playing hard to get: 
Andrew Little, Raymond Huo, David Parker. Each camp has tried to claim them, but they have continued to refuse to say whom they are backing.

Woody Allen Zelig award for best human chameleon: 
David Cunliffe. In 2011, he morphed into a character from bro’Town to fit into the audience at the flea markets. The sequel came at the Whangarei hustings meeting when he tried out his Maori styles, complete with the use of “eh” to end sentences.

Joni Mitchell award for best rendition of Both Sides Now: 
Su’a William Sio for signing Shane Jones’ nomination form, but supporting David Cunliffe.

Son of a Preacher Man award for best evangelical performance: 
David Cunliffe, who is the son of a preacher man, for his campaign launch and his vibrato a la Martin Luther King “this little town” soliloquy at Blackball. In fact, for his entire campaign.

I understand Martin Luther Cunliffe is now the term used by his opponents to deride him!

Where’s Wally? pantomime award: 
Robertson, for telling Seven Sharp his partner Alf was too busy to be at the pub for the interview just before the camera caught Alf at another table. He’s behind you, Grant!

I suspect that episode may come back to haunt Grant, unless he is claiming that Alf was there without his knowledge!

Shane Jones award for out Jones-ing Jonesy: 
Patrick Gower, 3News: “It’s gonna be Cunliffe’s butchery in the caucus room next Tuesday if he gets the job.”

The blood bath may not be immediate, but could be awesome.

Hellers’ award for biggest pork barrel: 
All three.

Which makes taxpayers the loser no matter who wins!

Stuff reports:

Two of the Government’s support parties have refused to back proposals to overhaul planning laws.

The Maori Party and UnitedFuture say a revamp of the Resource Management Act goes too far and no longer protects the environment.

The changes were announced by Environment Minister Amy Adams last month at the National Party’s annual conference. The Government wants to cut the cost of building and argues the present consenting processes take too long and are costly, slowing developments.

Adams wants to shake up part two of the RMA, which puts in place environmental safeguards.

Without the minor party support, the Government no longer has the numbers to pass the legislation.

Maori party co-leader Tariana Turia and UnitedFuture leader Peter Dunne wrote to Adams to outline their concerns.

It seems a bit strange that it has taken four weeks for them to decide their stance.

The proposed law changes need either one of those two parties on board, or NZ First.  If they can’t get any of them, well that is how minority Government works – you don’t always get your way.

The Herald reports:

An Indian court convicted four men of the gang rape and “cold-blooded” murder of a student on a New Delhi bus in a crime that sickened the nation and led to new laws to tackle endemic sex crime.

Judge Yogesh Khanna said the men, who could now face the death penalty, were guilty of murdering a “helpless victim” last December, as he announced that arguments for sentencing of the four would be held tomorrow.

“I convict all of the accused,” Khanna told a packed court room. “They have been found guilty of gang rape, unnatural offences, destruction of evidence … and for committing the murder of the helpless victim.”

The four – Mukesh Singh, Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma, aged between 19 and 29 at the time of the crime – had all pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The men, whose faces were shown by the media for the first time, were economic migrants living in or around a south Delhi slum who were drawn to the city to escape grinding rural poverty.

The victim’s parents, who wept in court as the verdict was announced, have led the calls for them to be hanged, saying that they would only find closure if the four are executed.

It was a horrific crime, and the horror of it has (hopefully) led to a change in both the tolerance and prevalence of sexual assaults in India.

The attack sparked weeks of sometimes violent street protests across India with seething public anger about sex crimes against women.

It also led to tougher laws being passed by parliament in March for sex offenders, including the death penalty for rapists whose victims die or are left in a vegetative state.

But savage attacks against women are still reported daily in India’s newspapers and the gang rape of a photographer last month near an upmarket area of Mumbai rekindled public disgust.

I presume there is some sort for global report that ranks countries from best to worst for women to live in? Would be interesting to see where India is placed.

Quite remarkable in hindsight that Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister, especially in an era where female leaders anywhere was very rare. She became PM in 1966!

Of course the violence against women in India is done by a very small minority. But it does seem until recently it has been swept under the carpet rather than confronted and all efforts made to minimise it.

Okay, I’ve now done a very speculative model of how the Labour membership vote may go. Please do not take this as a prediction. What I’m trying to do is identify the factors that could influence the vote and see what that might look like. There are so many assumptions involved, that it can not be regarded as any sort of prediction.

The first thing one has to do is work out the relative membership in each electorate. Sadly (but understandably) Labour won’t tell me, so what I have done is make assumptions based on the total party and electorate vote each electorate got at the 2011 election, and proportion them out on the basis of total votes over 9,000 (which is basically your weakest electorate). If someone wants to supply me with actual membership numbers happy to update the assumptions!

I’ve assumed 7,000 members (so average per electorate is 100), but that doesn’t matter, what matters is the relative size of each electorate (assuming they all have same voting turnout).

Next one has to assume how they will vote. Now this is like reading tea leaves, and not much more scientific. But can make some assumptions. Here is what I did:

So for most electorates, I assumed Cunliffe 45%, Robertson 33% and Jones 22%, based on general acknowledgement that Cunliffe has more support from members.

But in Auckland I give Cunliffe a 20% boost, in Wellington Robertson a 30% boost and a 20% boost for Robertson in Christchurch and Dunedin. And Jones gets a 30% boost in the Maori electorates.

Then there is one further adjustment. If the electorate has an MP who is a supporter of one candidate, that gives that candidate an additional 30% boost. That is based on the reality that the local MP will have significant influence on their members. This is not like the UK where the number of voters was hundreds of thousands. In each electorate it may be a few dozen only and the MP will have influence. Some MPs such as Goff and Mallard probably have more influence over their electorates than a new MP, but I’m assuming a 30% endorsement factor for each.

So what that does give us as a model for each electorate.

Now what do you get when you multiply each vote by their assumed strength.

• Cunliffe 45.4%
• Jones 13.1%
• Robertson 41.5%

And if you assumes Jones second preferences flow the same as other’s first preferences:

• Cunliffe 53.0%
• Robertson 47.0%

I’ll reveal tomorrow the updated model for each section (caucus, unions and members) and what the overall model is projecting for the total vote.

The Dom Post editorial:

Log on to the website of the Auckland Council, or its Palmerston North counterpart for that matter, and you can find a hygiene rating for every eatery in the city, plus the date it was last inspected.

Log on to the Wellington City Council website and you will see all sorts of information for restaurant and cafe owners but nothing for the public.

The Auckland and Palmerston North councils have decided that their first obligation is to the public, not business operators.

Wellington City Council is conflicted about where its loyalties lie. The council does inspect premises and does issue cleaning, repair and closure notices, but it does not maintain a public register of hygiene ratings, does not require eateries to display their ratings, as Auckland and Palmerston North do, and only reluctantly surrendered to The Dominion Post records showing which eateries had failed to meet minimum hygiene standards in the last financial year.

Absolutely this info should be on public display. You should not have to use LGOIMA to prise it out of the Council.

Most people would think that is information that should be provided to the public as a matter of course, but not Wellington City Council operations and business development leader Raaj Govinda. In a letter to the affected businesses last week, he said the council was “extremely reluctant” to provide the list and “has not done so willingly”.

The council was not in the business of “trying to close people”, he later explained. Fair enough.

No-one wants businesses to close, dining options to be reduced or staff to be put out of work. But no-one wants food poisoning either.

The best guarantor of business viability and patrons’ health is the publication of hygiene ratings. That way everyone knows what the rules of the game are and who is, and is not, playing by them.

It is surely no coincidence that in Auckland and Palmerston North, where ratings are public, the vast majority of eateries meet the highest “A” standard. They cannot afford not to when their customers know their competitors two doors down the road are also getting a top rating.

Absolutely. And maybe sites like Trip Advisor could link to the hygiene rating!

Stuff reports:

The second phone, the 5S, is “the most forward-looking phone we have ever created,” said Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple. It will come in silver, gold and “space gray” and run a new chip, the A7 that is up to twice as fast as the A6.

Schiller said the new phone can run more health and fitness applications. These apps have become increasingly popular as more people use them to track exercise routines, calorie intake and even sleep patterns.

I know so many people who use My Fitness Pal. It makes a huge difference being able to track your calories.

The camera in the 5S received some major upgrades, including several automatic features designed to produce better photos.

It has larger pixels, which helps capture more light. The phone also has a two-tone flash feature that is designed not to clash with the colours in the room or a person’s skin colour – something Schiller said has not been done on a phone before.

The camera, called iSight, has “auto image stabilisation,” which helps avoid blurry pictures, and a slow-motion camera for video.

The 4s photos are okay, but still quite inferior to a proper camera.

The 5S also includes “Touch ID,” which reads fingerprints at a “detailed level,” Schiller said.

He said it is “fun and easy” to teach the 5S about your fingerprint and once you do, you can just touch the home button to unlock the phone. The company said fingerprints will not be stored on its servers.

Tying the fingerprint scanner to payments could also open new revenue channels for Apple.

That’s a smart idea.

However none of the new features would cause me to upgrade until my current phone dies. On an iPhone 4s and an iPad 1 and both working fine.

Colin Espiner writes at Stuff:

In the past eight years alone police pursuit policy has been reviewed five times, including a major overhaul in 2007 that led to stricter controls being placed around chasing offenders, including overall responsibility for a pursuit handed over to police comms rather than officers in the pursuing vehicle.

Yet the carnage has continued unabated, chiefly because the police bottom line has always been there is “insufficient evidence” to support banning pursuits and that the public itself would not support police allowing offenders to flee without giving chase.

The rationale seems to be that if police did not chase suspects they would get away, and therefore the end – catching the bad guys – justifies the means, even if that leads to the deaths of either the offenders or worse, an innocent member of the public.’

The problem is incentives do matter, and if bad guys know they an get away simply by speeding up, then you’d be an idiot to actually stop when the Police ask you to!

Not everyone agrees with this. Both Tasmania and Queensland have banned police pursuits in all but the most serious of circumstances after suffering a spate of deaths from crashes during pursuits.

It’s too soon to say if crime is up or accidents are down in those states. But as Queensland Police Commissioner Ross Barrett put it recently, “the key question is whether the death of an innocent motorist is a price the community is prepared to pay for the unfettered right of the police to pursue.”

Who is arguing for an unfettered right? The NZ Police don’t have such a right. There is a policy on when they pursue, and for how long. But remember that if you don’t catch the drunk driver, he may end up killing anyway.

Around half of pursuits in NZ are abandoned by the Police because they are too dangerous. So that is far from unfettered.

In 2013 there are more ways for police to apprehend suspects than a high-speed chase; helicopters, state-of-the-art communications, information sharing, computer and mobile phone tracking, electronic facial recognition software, and much more. It’s less dramatic, and it might take a little longer but I suspect most times the police would still get their man.

I’m not so sure. You can identify a vehicle and even who was in the vehicle, but you need to prove who the actual driver was for most offences.

What I’d back is far stronger penalties for those who fail to stop and flee, such as automatic destruction of their car.

There are some stats about what has happened in Victoria with limited pursuits:

In 2006 when pursuit guidelines were tightened, there were 186 reports of drivers evading police. Seventy-seven drivers or 41 per cent weren’t caught.

The following year the crime rate more than tripled with 589 drivers refusing to stop. 39 per cent were never found.

By 2010, 972 attempted to evade police with 45 per cent of those succeeding for good.

Last year evade police reports exploded to 1508 reported offences, 989 drivers or almost 60 per cent, are still on the run.

Totally predictable, if you make it effectively voluntary to stop for the Police.

Those of us who have been around for a while recall the disaster that was Aotearoa Television. It may have done some worthwhile things, but it was remembered only for the scandals – Tuku’s underpants and many more things like that.

For many years Maori Television has done an excellent job of not being like its predecessor. They’ve been almost controversy free and they’ve done really well on the programming side. Native Affairs is a top class current affairs programme. They do ANZAC Day proud, they shared broadcasting for the Rugby World Cup, and many of their documentaries are also excellent.

So this has created a climate where there isn’t wide-spread opposition or resentment to their funding, which is considerable – tens of millions of dollars a year from the taxpayer. But it don’t take a lot to poison the well, and the appointment of the new CEO appears to be on the way to doing that.

Stuff reports:

One of the pioneers of New Zealand’s animation industry has quit the board of Maori Television over his concerns about the recruitment process for a chief executive.

Ian Taylor, founder of Dunedin-based Animation Research – famous for the 3D graphics it develops for sports such as the America’s Cup and Formula One – said he felt he had no choice but to resign in protest.

Losing a board member is a bad sign. Having half your staff sign a petition against one of the applicants is also a bad sign.

Maori TV announced yesterday that it was suspending the process of recruiting a new chief executive, because its board could not decide on a replacement for Jim Mather.

That is also a concern, because boards should be able to agree. Even if different directors have different preferences, the job of the board is to have a process and a discussion that can lead to a decision all directors can agree to.

The remaining board members need to focus strongly on how to proceed, and do it in a way that is suitable for a taxpayer funded organisation.

One News reported:

MP Shane Jones has opened fire on one of his caucus colleagues as the Labour leadership roadshow is about to wrap up in Christchurch.

Mr Jones, one of three contenders for the leadership, has told ONE News that in a Labour Party he leads, Dunedin South Labour MP Clare Curran would be so far on the outer she would be sitting with independent MP Brendan Horan.

That’s a massively harsh statement to make in public, and it gives you some idea how toxic some relationships are within the Labour caucus.

“Either the moon in Dunedin was in the wrong phase or she’s casting around for a new job,” he told ONE News.

They had been doing a fairly good of pretending to be civil for the first week, but it is all unwinding now.

“What happens in David Cunliffe’s camp or Grant Robertson’s camp ought not to be fed via the Twitter, then exponentially spread up and down New Zealand, only to confirm that the Labour caucus is unfit to govern,” Mr Jones said.

So Shane thinks Labour is unfit to govern! Oh the next question time will be fun!

But the quotes are even more damning in this Stuff article about why Cunliffe stood down Jenny Michie:

“I’ve looked closely at that issue, I’ve made a decision to stand a person down from my campaign team just because I think maintaining the appropriate perceptions that we are a united party and a united caucus is really important,” he said.

Can you believe this. Cunliffe has said that it is only a perception that Labour is united, and that his actions are just about maintaining that perception!

The actual comments Michie made were, in my view, not in any way inappropriate. The question and answer was:

Rachel Okay, Grant Robertson Jennie says that he wants to be judged on his ability, not his sexuality. How do you think the socially conservatives might view Grant Robertson you know in the year 2013?

Jennie That’s right, I think it’s not a big a deal as it used to be. You know we now have gay marriage, and it actually went through without that much of a fuss, and the sky hasn’t fallen. Having said that I think we’d be naïve to imagine that there would be no resistance to a gay Prime Minister at this point. I think some people might have a problem with it, but I certainly wouldn’t.

Michie was asked a direct question. She did not bring the issue up. She was sacked for just telling the obvious truth – that of course some people would have a problem with a gay PM. Should she have lied and said that no-one would? She made clear she didn’t think it would be a big deal, but while same sex marriage passed with strong support, it did not have anywhere near unanimous support, and you’d have no credibility as a commentator if you denied that some people may have an issue.

Stuff reports:

Team New Zealand’s mastery upwind played a huge role again today as they crushed Oracle in the fifth race of the America’s Cup final to take a commanding 4-1 lead.

Dean Barker’s crew thrashed the defenders by 1m 5s in another come-from-behind victory.

The win leaves New Zealand needing five wins to claim the Cup while Oracle still have to claim 10 to hold on to the Auld Mug.

Team NZ is looking good to win, but however Oracle were leading this race until they made an error. It’s great the races so far have actually been exciting.