A number of Labour MPs were seen enjoying the hospitality of Sky City at Eden Park on Saturday night.

Rather amusing that they rant and rail about how Sky City destroys people lives through addictive pokie machines, and a deal with the Government to allow them some more. But then they are happy to take their hospitality, funded by the very same pokie machines.

Have to at least give the Greens credit for consistency.

Anyway here is my question, and I genuinely don’t know the answer. Was David Shearer one of those Labour MPs in the Sky City corporate box at Eden Park?

Surely no opposition leader would be so foolish as to lead a charge against Sky City’s pokie machines and deal with the Govt – and then turn up to their corporate box a few weeks later? Would they?

As I said, I know of at least two Labour MPs who were there. I don’t know if Shearer was there also. But I do hope someone asks.

The PM has announced:

Prime Minister John Key has today announced Rotorua MP Todd McClay will be appointed as a new Minister outside Cabinet, following the resignation of Peter Dunne.

Mr McClay was elected into Parliament in 2008 and was made the Chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee last year.

“Mr McClay will be the new Revenue Minister and Associate Health Minister,” Mr Key says.

“The role of Associate Conservation Minister will be discontinued and those responsibilities will be assumed by the lead Minister – Dr Nick Smith.”

Congrats to Todd McClay. Well deserved.

The deputy chair of the Finance and Expenditure select committee is Paul Goldsmith, so presumably he will become the new Chair.

Since I blogged on it weekend before last, there has been a lot of comment and criticism on Rachel Smalley of The Nation asking Hekia Parata if she is a bitch to work for, and “How Maori are you?”.  Rachel herself has said she didn’t write the questions, and felt a bit uncomfortable with them. Of course she could have refused and said I’m not going to ask any guest if they are a bitch, unless I can ask male guests if they are a prick.

Anyway Brian Edwards has blogged in defence of Smalley, and Green co-leader Metiria Turei has responded:

I dont believe that the question Rachel Smalley asked of Hekia Parata: “How Maori are you”? was in anyway appropriate. I have a huge amount of respect for Brian Edwards and have read his blog which justifies Rachel’s question on the basis that was relevant to “Parata’s childhood and upbringing in a Maori family and Maori community”; that it produced a revealing and relevant response; that she handled it well and hasn’t complained.

The last three justifications are meaningless. It makes no difference to the appropriateness of the question whether she answered well or not, whether she complained or not. As to whether it was relevant to Parata’s childhood, that issue was canvassed earlier in the interview and could have been discussed more without forcing Hekia to justify her identity.

Thats what I have a problem with: Hekia was required by the question to justify her identity. The criteria Hekia then applied to herself is the criteria Maori have been forced to use to justify ourselves for decades: blood (whakapapa), language and whanau. It is a question based on New Zealand’s assimilationist history, when the degree of a persons “Maoriness” led to more or less entitlement, when being judged as having abandoned our cultural practices and language, we were therefore more like Pakeha and so more acceptable.

It is a grotesque irony that these days Maori are asked that question so that their right to speak on Maori issues can be judged, mostly by Pakeha, as legitimate or not.

I don’t agree with most of the policies Metiria puts forward, but I do respect her for criticising TV3 for the interview, despite the fact the question was to a political rival. It’s nice to put principle ahead of politics.

The NZ Initiative is launching tomorrow a report by Michael Bassett and Luke Malpass called “Priced Out – How New Zealand lost its housing affordability”. Dr Bassett is a historian and former Minister of Local Government. Luke is a Research Fellow at the Initiative.

Their 42 page report looks at what has changed in New Zealand since the 1960s and 1970s, to make housing so unaffordable for many. There will be a further report in a few months, looking at how other countries have achieved more affordable housing.

Major findings from this report are:

• New Zealand is suffering a shortfall of houses caused by anti-development attitudes, tighter building regulations, and artificial restrictions on land supply.  
• New Zealand’s new house building is lagging with a shortfall of at least 10,000 new houses annually – a shortfall that is continuing to grow.
• The number of new houses built dropped from a record 34,400 in 1974 to about 15,000 in 2012.
• New Zealand’s historically high rates of home ownership were due, at least in part, to subsidised house building. This was a key plank of the post-War welfare state.
• Capitalisation of the family benefit and 3% State Advance Corporations loans for new house building were extended to 7,500 applicants annually from the early 1960’s to the mid-1970s.
• Less than 1% of New Zealand is built upon even after including landfill and roads. Fears of ‘using up all our farmland’ are grossly exaggerated.
• This fear of ‘urban sprawl’ has resulted in urban limits and restrictive and prescriptive zoning, which have conferred a virtual monopoly market power on landowners near the city fringes.  
• The experience of Auckland’s Metropolitan Urban Limit (MUL) is similar to that of Portland, Oregon, with land outside the city limits costing nine times less than within city limits.
• As New Zealand has become more prosperous, green agendas of more affluent New Zealanders have trumped traditional egalitarian social aspirations, such as suburban homeownership.
• Although a slim majority of New Zealanders now think rising house prices are undesirable, the current policy quagmire has created a situation where the interests of those who are lucky enough to own property are often opposed to the interests of non-owners.
• Expectations have also changed. Since the 1980s, houses in New Zealand have not only become more expensive but they are also much bigger with a better fit-out. As a result, many first-home buyers now have an unrealistic expectation of what standard of house is available at what price.

The point on expectations is a useful one. We sometimes focus too much on the median house price. The median house price is not where first time buyers should or will be. It would be useful to also get regular data on say the 25th percentile prices, and/or the median price for first time buyers.

I’ve previously blogged on land issues, and the Productivity Commission has also stated that it is the number one cause (but not only cause) of inflated house prices. It isn’t a silver bullet, but no action on land supply will mean any other measures will be ineffective.

The challenge is getting the incentives right. It is unfortunate that the interests of those who already own property are now opposed to those who are yet to buy.

Stuff reports:

Shearer said he had lodged a privileges complaint with the Speaker regarding Dunne’s statement to a select committee that he did not leak the Kitteridge report into the GCSB.

Took them long enough. I indicated on Saturday that a complaint to the Privileges Committee was logical. Much more sensible that the hysterical rushing to the Police to try and get a Police investigation, for something that is not a criminal matter.

Fairfax Group executive editor Paul Thompson said politicians should tread carefully before embarking on a witch hunt. That could have a chilling effect on how journalists covered politicians.

Fairfax would protect the communications between its journalists and any contacts, regardless of whether they were the source of sensitive information or not.

“The protection of our sources is paramount,” Thompson said.

“We will resist any attempt to force us to release that sort of information.

If the issue is referred to the Privileges Committee, I don’t expect they would ask Fairfax to co-operate. And Fairfax should not.

But they can ask or order the Department of Internal Affairs to reveal the e-mails between Dunne and Vance.

Thompson also rejected suggestions there was more to the relationship between Dunne and Vance.

NZ First leader Winston Peters has claimed to see emails that were personally embarrassing but Thompson said Fairfax was “absolutely” backing Vance.

Claims are easy. He should produce them if he has them.

“Andrea is a very talented journalist, she has done some terrific work this year,” he said.

“Her handling of the GCSB report was absolutely faultless and there was nothing improper going on. We are 100 per cent behind her.”

Which is what I said on Saturday.

He also rubbished a claim by former National Party president Michelle Boag that Vance leaked the emails to Peters.

“That’s ludicrous,” Thompson said.

With respect, yes it is.

Opposition parties were likely to lodge a complaint with Parliament’s Speaker that Dunne misled Parliament last week when he told a select committee he did not leak the GCSB report.

Dunne maintained he did not leak the report, although he canvassed the prospect with Vance.

That is the issue of privilege. Whether Dunne lied to the select committee.

Prime Minister John Key said today he did not believe Dunne should quit Parliament, regardless of whether he leaked the report.

If leaking means resignation from Parliament, then the only MP left in Parliament would be Ross Robertson.

Also the PM gets no say on whether an electorate MP from another party resigns or not.

Dunne was not the first MP to leak information and he said Labour MP Lianne Dalziel had remained in Parliament after being sacked as minister for leaking material to the media.

And Winston Peters was found by the Privileges Committee to have misled Parliament (and everyone else) on his knowledge on the donation from Owen Glennto his lawyer to cover his legal expenses. He did not resign in the face of that finding. Ultimately the voters make their judgement, as they did on Peters in 2008 and will on Dunne in 2014.

“An investigation by the Privileges Committee is required to get to the truth of the matter. New Zealanders are still none the wiser as to who leaked the Kitteridge Report. All we have is an MP who has resigned as minister but refuses to co-operate with the inquiry,” Shearer said.

“The matter cannot lie here. This is why we have taken the matter to the Privileges Committee to get to the bottom of who leaked the report,” Shearer said.

That is not the role of the Privileges Committee. However their role can be to investigate if Peter Dunne lied in his select committee testimony. There is a difference.

It will be interesting to see how the Speaker rules. On the face of it, it would seem an appropriate issue to be referred to the Privileges Committee. Misleading a select committee is a serious issue.

John Armstrong woke at the weekend:

Norman appeared to offer further evidence of that later in the week when he rounded on the chairman of the Electricity Authority, Brent Layton.

National Party-aligned bloggers were not the only people asking in the wake of that attack who was being Muldoonist now.

Norman’s curt response to Layton’s detailed critique of the joint Labour-Greens plan to reform the wholesale electricity market was pretty tame stuff, especially when placed alongside Winston Peters’ slow evisceration of Peter Dunne.

However, Norman’s attack struck a discordant note coming as it did only days after the Greens’ co-leader had accused John Key of vilifying and bullying his critics in a manner which was as divisive as that of the late Sir Robert Muldoon.

Norman’s rejection of Layton’s 28-page paper, which sought to demolish the Labour-Greens’ notion of setting up a single institution to set wholesale electricity prices, was also in marked contrast to the rebuttal by Labour’s David Parker. The latter challenged Layton’s arguments one by one in a measured tone.

That was the point. Parker showed how to disagree on policy grounds. Norman made it personal, and nasty. Becoming a habit.

Norman’s statement was far more belligerent with a number of references to Layton as a “National Party appointee” to a “National Party-created” regulator.

Layton is no National Party hack, however. He is a highly-respected economist with extensive knowledge and experience of the electricity generating industry over many years.

Indeed Dr Layton is a highly respected economist. He was the director of the non-profit NZIER economics co-operative for five years. Dr Norman’s PhD was on the history of the Alliance Party. Dr Layton’s was on economic history.

I doubt there is an economist in NZ who has done more work in the electricity sector. Dr Layton looks to have done 20 or so reports in the 2000s, for the Major Electricity Users Group (the ones who benefit the most from reliable supply, cheaper prices and better competition).

Fran O’Sullivan also writes:

Russel Norman exposed himself as a “Muldoonist” when he slammed into highly respected economist Brent Layton this week for daring to raise his head above the parapet and defend the work of the NZ Electricity Authority, which he chairs.

Norman was clearly incensed that Layton had issued a paper on the economics of electricity that laid waste to the arguments of three critics of the current regime, and challenged the proposal by the Greens and Labour to set up a new entity – NZ Power – to effectively control prices.

But by slagging Layton off as “nothing more than a National Party-appointed civil servant who has failed to do his job and is now trying to protect his patch”, Norman was straying well into the territory of personal attacks that Sir Robert Muldoon made an art form, and demonstrating a predisposition to a form of political management the Greens co-leader claims to despise.

Long may Russel keep it up. Once a brand is damaged, it is very hard to repair it.

And there would be few people in the Wellington political firmament who would have missed the underlying message sent by the NZ Institute of Economic Research when it issued a short-form CV yesterday under the simple headline: Background: Dr Brent Layton.

The release simply noted the many roles Layton has held: chairman of the electricity market rules committee, a director of Transpower and M-Co, former chairman of Trust Bank Canterbury, a director of the Futures Exchange, deputy chairman of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, chairman of Lyttelton Port Company, chairman of Canterbury Health and also AgResearch and its commercial arm Celentis. Currently, He chairs Sastek, a Brisbane-based hardware manufacturing and software development company. And he has also been one of two external monetary policy advisers to the Governor of the Reserve Bank.

In other words: frame that up against a PhD on the Alliance and a working life spent mainly in Parliament? There is no real comparison.

One can disagree with Layton’s analysis and conclusions. But to label him as basically a failed hack was unworthy.

The Herald editorial:

The whole country ought to be celebrating the historic settlement with Tuhoe signed at Parliament last week. Tuhoe marked the occasion by turning up in large numbers, filling Parliament’s Banquet Hall, Grand Hall, Legislative Chamber and lobbies as well as the Pipitea Marae nearby. It puts to rest grievances that have festered for up to 160 years in the Ureweras where Tuhoe resisted the Treaty of Waitangi and asserted their independence.

If there was one Iwi which I thought a settlement may never happen with, it was Tuhoe.

It ought to be noted that the Office of Treaty Settlements does not always contest claimants’ versions of history. Settlements are considered more important than rigorous historical inquiry. But the Tuhoe have ample support for their version from the Waitangi Tribunal and academic research. They stand to receive $170 million in compensation. The agreement has yet to be ratified by the tribe but last week’s turn-out at Parliament gives confidence that it will be. Mr Kruger hopes some of the $170 million will be used for water supply, sewerage and electricity to remote communities.

Sounds good.

The Tuhoe deal is one of 12 done with iwi in the current financial year. The Government’s aim to have all outstanding Waitangi claims wrapped up in two more years is now in sight. Since 1990, 62 settlements have been reached and while 60 remain, the Crown is talking to claimants in every area. Often the first stage, getting agreement between claimants on their representation, is the most difficult.

At times, National has seemed in too much of a hurry to finish the settlements and put history behind us at last. Nothing will be gained if today’s deals do not satisfy more than the present generation of claimants.

The settlements can never match the monetary value today of the resources iwi lost. They will be “full and final” settlements only once they have managed to lift overall Maori levels of education, employment, business and wealth.

I disagree. The settlements are about resolving grievances, not about “closing the gaps”. What Iwi spend their settlements on, and whether they lead to an increase in education, employment and wealth is up to them. Some Iwi have decided to lease their fishing quota to foreign crewed fishing vessels, rather than have local companies create jobs for locals. That is their decision to make – to have an emphasis on wealth over jobs. But in no way does their decisions on how to use their settlements, mean the settlements can not be regarded as full or final.

The Press reports:

Fairfax Media is looking at paywalls for its online publications in New Zealand, plans to cut staff and may close some publications as it faces the strains from falling advertising.

The Fairfax Media business in New Zealand includes newspapers such as The Press, magazines and online news websites, such as Stuff.

In Australia yesterday, parent company Fairfax announced plans to cut total group costs by A$60 million (NZ$72m), above the A$251m already promised to the market following a restructure of its print and digital operations.

As part of the update yesterday, Fairfax released details of digital subscription for its news websites in Australia with packages from A$15 to $44 a month.

In New Zealand, acting managing director Andrew Boyle said just when or how paywalls would be brought in here remained to be seen.

I’m sort of looking forward to the paywalls coming to New Zealand. I’d say it will lead to many more people coming to blogs, as they won’t be able to get their news from the main media websites.

It will be a good opportunity to boost resources at the blog, and try to fill the gap left by the newspaper sites.

The assets sale petition that failed (but can be re-submitted) had the highest number of non valid signatures of any CIR since the 1990s. I was interested in why this was the case so requested documents from the Office of the Clerk, Electoral Commission and Stats NZ under the OIA.

There were 393,778 signatures submitted.  They needed 308,753 to make 10%. Stats NZ found the estimated number of valid signatures was 292,291 with a standard error of 2,579.  That meant 26% of signatures were invalid.  Stats NZ commented:

The probability of there being enough valid signatures in the full petition given the results of our sample is (negligible) less than one in a billion.

So why were so few signatures valid. The sample stats were:

• Signatures checked 28,127
• Unique electors 23,031
• Ineligible signatures 4,909 (not on electoral roll)
• Illegible signers 21
• Duplicate 166

Now that level of duplicates may not sound high, but that is the number of people found as duplicates just in the small sample tested. If you checked the entire sample, you would get far more. Stats NZ estimates that all up, 11% of those who signed the petition signed it at least twice. That is a very high proportion, and significantly higher than any other CIR where the figure has ranged from 5.1% to 8.8%.

The proportion of ineligibles was 17%, and the range in other CIRs has been between 12% and 18%. So the key difference with this CIR was not the proportion of ineligible signing it – but people fraudulently signing it more than once. 11% means one in nine signers signed it twice!

There is a case to be made that if you sign a petition twice, both signatures should be struck out – rather than just one of them. Just like with double voting.

Incidentally I didn’t sign the petition any times. To the best of my memory I’ve never signed any CIR petition except the one for a referendum on the flag.

Maybe when the Greens spent all that taxpayer money on hiring people to (get people to) sign the petition, they should have told them to tell people to sign it once only.

It will be interesting to see how many duplicates are there when they resubmit the petition in two months. If they target the same people and areas as the previous 12 months, then they may end up just getting more duplicates.

My thanks to the agency staff who compiled the info for my request.

6. Briefing Notes for GS 02.05.2013

Matthew Hooton writes in the NBR on why John Key should call a snap election. Despite my commercial self-interest in having elections occur as frequently as possible, I don’t think there is any  probability or reason for an early election. The Government needs 61 votes to govern and has 64.

I don’t believe PMs should do what Helen Clark did and call an early election of a flimsy premise.

What I wanted to focus on though was the reasons Matthew gave for going early, in terms of the economy:

National’s budget was overwhelmingly successful and it now luxuriates in superb economic data.  Just this week, there have been announcements of thelargest increase in residential building activity in 10 years and that wholesale trade continues to grow.

These follow other official Statistics New Zealand announcements in recent weeks of improving trade data, the best ever April visitor numbers, building consents hitting a five-year high and of course the big fall in both unemployment and youth unemployment.

For its part, the Treasury reported on Tuesday that the tax take continued to track above forecast in April, with gross company tax revenue up over 40% ahead of forecast.

After the extraordinarily strong GDP growth in the December quarter – the fourth highest in the world among OECD-monitored countries, behind only China, Russia and Luxembourg – all the recent data suggests the government can expect highly positive news when March quarter GDP data is released on June 20.

There’s still a long way to go, but the indicators are generally looking to be improving.

ABC reports:

The ABC understands Prime Minister Julia Gillard has lost significant support in the Labor caucus.

It comes after a week in which Labor disunity was on full display in Canberra and former prime minister Kevin Rudd re-emerged very publicly.

ABC Insiders presenter Barrie Cassidy says Mr Rudd is the only figure being considered as an alternative prime minister.

Rudd is like rust. No matter how many times he says he is not seeking the leadership, he continues to do everything he can to get it back.

He spoke about the tensions within the party on Insiders this morning.

“I am now very strongly of the view that Julia Gillard will not lead Labor into the next election,” he said.

“I think there will be a change either by her own hand or the actions of others. And I’m not relying entirely on guesswork here.”

That sounds definite.

The week of turmoil for Labor began with disastrous polling showing the party could be left with as few as 40 seats in the Federal Parliament.

It was revealed two long-serving MPs had already packed up their Canberra offices in preparation for the electoral wipe-out.

That is rather unsporting of them, as the election is still three months away. They could start packing up a week before and still have time.

Labour, Greens and NZ First are all somewhat hysterically saying that the report leaked (presumably) by Peter Dunne is a criminal matter, and have all rushed off to the Police to try and get him investigated.

I’ll come back to the hypocrisy of opposition parties demanding a Police investigation into a leak, but let us first deal with two recent leaks. The first is the Kitteridge report.

This was a report that was due to be released to the public. The leak changed the timing of that (and was politically very very unhelpful to the Government), but again it was a report written for public release and its classification was sensitive. What is a sensitive classification. There are six types of classifications in two categories. The two categories are:

• National security classifications where compromise would damage NZ’s security, defence or international relations
• Policy and privacy classifications where compromise would damage government functions or be detrimental to an individual

There are four national security classifications, They are:

1. Top secret
2. Secret
3. Confidential
4. Restricted

The Kitteridge report had NO national security classification.

The two policy and privacy classifications  are sensitive and in-confidence, and it was classified sensitive.

While the report was about the GCSB, it doesn’t mean the report was classified for national security reasons. In fact the report was due to be released publicly anyway. This makes the leaking of it a government issue, not a criminal issue. Don’t get me wrong – the leak was appalling, and a resignation is the appropriate  outcome. But talking of Police complaints is hysteria.

Now let us compare this leak to the leak of a Cabinet paper on MFAt restructuring. Unlike the Kitteridge report, the Cabinet paper was not a paper about to be released to the public. Cabinet papers are for Cabinet, and that paper was leaked even before it got to Cabinet (off memory). That leak is clearly just as “bad” a leak as the Kitteridge report, and arguably worse.

Yet in this case Labour have spent months arguing the leak should not be pursued, and that a leak inquiry is a waste of money. Flagrant hypocrisy. And I hope one day, we will be publicly able to publish why Labour is so frightened about the leaker’s identity being revealed, and any links back to them.

Several on the left are critical of opposition parties demanding a criminal investigation into a leak. No Right Turn blogs:

Firstly, the idea that this leak breached the Crimes Act is utterly ridiculous. Both the offences of espionage (which peters accused Dunne of in Parliament on Thursday) and wrongful communication of official information require that the information in question “be likely to prejudice seriously the security or defence of New Zealand”. John Key was quite clear in his press conference that that was not the case, and there is no possible way in which the leak of material exposing GCSB wrongdoing could be seen in that light. So, the idea that an offence has been commited is pure bullshit, and the Greens should not be trading in it. …

A party like the Greens, committed to democracy and freedom, should be encouraging such leaks, not calling for them to be punished – especially given the shit we’re learning about what the GCSB’s foreign masters have been getting up to.

Russel Norman has sought to justify his position on the grounds that such leaks undermine the idea of Parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies. Firstly, this wasn’t an ISC document, so that’s just a non-sequitur. But more importantly, Parliament pays the bills, so it has an absolute right to scrutinise what is done with our money, no matter how secret and sensitive. And I regard it as not just a right, but a duty of politicians on the ISC to inform the public of wrongdoing. If Norman seriously believes what he’s said, then he is not doing his job properly, and should resign immediately so that his place can be taken by someone less credulous and authoritarian.

The authoritarian Dr Norman!

NBR also reports:

Labour and the Greens are illiberal in pushing for a police inquiry into the Peter Dunne affair, and have revealed themselves as anti leaks to the media, says Bryce Edwards.

“It’s incredibly surprising to see Labour and the Greens have called on the police to intervene over the leak of the GCSB,” the Otago University lecturer and commentator tells NBR Online.

“There’s always problems when the police get involved in the political and media realm. It can have a very chilling affect on politics and journalism,” Dr Edwards says.

And the next time there is a leak to say an opposition MP, how could Labour or Greens complain if there is a criminal Police investigation into it? They are so kneejerk desperate to get a media headline that day, they rarely think about the consistency of their long-term position.

Generally those that regard themselves as politically liberal will not want the police involved unless utterly necessary, says the Politics Daily compiler.

“Therefore the threshold for calling the cops into Parliament and newsrooms should be very high. It’s hard to see that this threshold has been reached in this case,” Dr Edwards says.

“Normally those that call the police in on their political opponents are from an authoritarian political philosophy. By contrast, liberals generally regard those that leak government department reports as heroic whistleblowers that are enabling the freedom of information and the right of the public to know what those in authority are doing.”

The Greens, Labour and New Zealand First have now shown that they stand opposed to leaks to the media, says the lecturer.

That’s the second commentator to use the term authoritarian. And I am unsure of the media will like the opposition (presumably) demanding that a reporter’s phone records, e-mails and other communications be seized because she received a leak.

Dr Norman says a key issue is whether the appendix to the inquiry was leaked. Unlike the body of the report, which was always scheduled to be shared with the public, the appendix is secret – and breaching it could constitute a breach of the Crimes Act.

Peter Dunne did not have the appendix. No information from the appendix has been published, so nice try inventing a make believe crime.

Labour leader David Shearer has called on police to seize Mr Dunne’s emails. His deputy, Grant Robertson, says Mr Dunne should be compelled to give evidence under oath. 

On that basis, they must also be demanding that Phil Goff have his emails seized by the Police and Goff should be compelled to give evidence under oath.

The Waikato Times reports:

Hamilton residents overwhelmingly want their drinking water fluoridated – by a margin of more than two to one, a new Waikato Times poll shows.

The poll gives the most robust insight into public opinion on fluoride since a 2006 referendum had almost the exact same margin, and confirms Mayor Julie Hardaker and six city councillors are out of step with the public.

Conducted on Thursday night – one day after a special tribunal of eight council members voted 7-1 to remove fluoride from the city’s water – the Versus Research poll shows 59 per cent of those polled want their drinking water fluoridated, compared to 24 per cent against.

As I said, it is one thing for local residents to vote not to flouridate the common water supply, but for a Council to vote to remove it despite both a referendum in favour of keeping it, and continued public support is arrogant. If a Councillor got elected on a mandate of saying they will vote to remove fluoride, fair enough. But as far as I know, none did.

“The process gave people an opportunity to give their view if they felt that strongly about it. Based on that, we were reflecting the views of the people.”

No you were not. The views if those who feel strongly are not the views of the people.

Senior councillor Dave Macpherson said he stood by his vote even if it cost him his seat.

“If people saw and heard the same stuff as we did over four days at the tribunal, they might not be so pro-fluoridation,” said Mr Macpherson.

How much of what they heard was peer reviewed science, and how much was opinion?

Meanwhile Wellington is the next key battle for anti-fluoridation advocates after their controversial Hamilton victory. Anti-fluoride campaigner Mark Atkin has told the Dominion Post that Wellington might not be the next city to go fluoride-free, but it was a critical target.

This could be an interesting issue for Celia Wade-Brown. The Greens have long campaigned against fluoride and just six weeks ago adopted a specific policy supporting opt-out campaigns for local authorities – healthpolicyratified23.4.13. Their new policy is not on their website yet, but a source leaked it to me.

A Hamilton councillor and district health board member has fired back at a broadside from senior minister Judith Collins labelling him “gutless”.

While most criticism has been levelled at the seven elected members who voted to remove fluoride from Hamilton’s drinking water, those who refused to take part have also come under fire.

Justice Minister Judith Collins told the Waikato Times three district health board members who are on the city council were not elected to sit on the fence, but to make reasonable and sensible decisions. She has described the decision to dump fluoride as “absolutely gutless”.

Councillors Martin Gallagher, Ewan Wilson and Pippa Mahood removed themselves after declaring a conflict with their district health board roles.

But a frustrated Mr Wilson said he had voted for fluoridation as a district health board member and had received clear legal advice he should not take part in the city council fluoride tribunal.

I’d love to see that legal advice, because on the face of it, it sounds ridiculous. I have extensive first hand knowledge of dealing with conflicts of interests, and which ones rise to the level where you should not vote because of one. Being a board member of a DHB that advocates for fluoride in no way is a conflict with making a decision on the Council drinking supply.

Former MP and city councillor Martin Gallagher, who also removed himself after legal advice, said he had no choice.

“In normal circumstances I’d agree, but I’d assume a minister of justice would expect that when elected members get legal advice from the city solicitor that they have an actual conflict and should withdraw, they do.”

Very few conflicts require a non-vote. This is a great misnomer.  Most conflicts just require a disclosure – unless you stand to make personal gain.

UPDATE: Green Health spokesperson Kevin Hague has commented below. He is personally in favour of fluoridation, which is great. The overall stance of the party is unclear.

Rodney Hide writes in the HoS:

Norman was safe and secure in launching a personal attack on Key. It is Key’s style and strategy not to fire back. But Muldoon would not have sat quietly by. Muldoon would have eaten him up and spat him out.

Muldoon also would never have shared his leadership as Norman does. He wasn’t a touchy-feely, let’s-sit-around-the-table-holding-hands sort of guy. He was leader and that was that. Muldoon would never have tolerated a co-leader.

And then there was Norman crying, “Give me back my flag. Give me back my flag.” That was when he was attempting to stick the Tibetan flag in the face of Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping. Muldoon would never have done that. He was polite and respectful to our guests, whatever he thought of their domestic politics.

And if Muldoon did get into a scuffle, he would not have come out second. Once a rowdy group of young protesters shouting “Heil Hitler” attacked Muldoon as he was leaving a meeting. They hit him in the face, kicked his leg and shoved him against his car.

The then Leader of the Opposition decked one and chased the others down the street shouting, “One at a time and you’re welcome”.

Heh. An iconic moment.

Norman is Australian. Muldoon was a New Zealander through and through. In comparing Key to Muldoon, Norman gave us a very sharp reminder that he’s a very recent arrival. No one who lived in New Zealand would ever think Key was in any way a Muldoon. The comparison is bizarre.

Russel has been whining that it is wrong to say he can’t write about Muldoon as he wasn’t in NZ then, saying that means no one could write about Peter Fraser who wasn’t alive in the 1940s.

He misses the point that no one who actually lived in NZ when Muldoon was PM, would compare him to John Key without bursting into a fit of laughter at the ridiculousness of the comparison.

Norman has a PhD in political science. For Muldoon there were two types of doctors: the ones who made you well, and the ones who made you sick. He would have had a very clear view of what sort of doctor Norman was.

Muldoon fought fascism and totalitarianism in World War II. Norman was for several years active in the Marxist-Leninist Democratic Socialist Party.

They are two very different men. Muldoon was popular. His majority in his electorate was unassailable. The best Norman has done is come third.

They are men of different eras. Muldoon was minister of finance the year Norman was born.

But in other ways they aren’t so different.

Muldoon’s policies were to control the economy, fix prices, set the exchange rate, invest in hare-brained schemes, and print money to pay for it all.

He all but bankrupted the country.

In this regard, Muldoon and Norman are peas in a pod.

Matthew Hooton goes down this road also in the NBR:

Sir Robert left office in 1984, roughly when Dr Norman left high school.  At that time, he tells us, he was busy opposing Australia’s “new right” Hawke/Keating government, elected in March 1983, and “peace rallies, anti-nuclear demonstrations and animal rights activism soon became a large part of extra-curricular high school life.”

It is fantastic that the adolescent Dr Norman had time left over to follow developments across the Tasman, including Sir Robert publicly issuing enemies’ lists, banning unfriendly journalists from his press conferences, personally directing monetary policy, ramming through the Clutha Development (Clyde Dam) Empowering Act 1982, abusing young backbenchers in drunken rages, lying about the country’s fiscal position, provoking a foreign exchange crisis, refusing to follow the instructions of the incoming government and having to be bullied into doing so by his outgoing cabinet.

And on the policy front:

The irony of Dr Norman’s preposterous comparison of Mr Key to Sir Robert is that the party in today’s parliament with an economic programme most similar to Muldoon’s is the Greens.

It is the Greens who advocate greater control of the currency, extra monetary tools and more aggressive interventions by the Reserve Bank.  They are the only main party comfortable with Muldoon-style import substitution and against free trade.  How green were Muldoon’s carless days, designed to reduce reliance on oil?  How stimulatory were his deficits? 

More topically, Sir Robert exercised direct state control of the electricity sector including the state directing what new electricity generation would be built and where.  What else is Labour/Green’s NZ Power?

Instead of an across-the-board GST, Sir Robert favoured lower sales taxes on things he considered good and higher taxes on things he considered bad.

With their promised new “suite of ecological taxes,” the Greens promise the same.

This could be a good question for the Greens. How many of Sir Robert’s economic policies do they disagree with today? Any?

Rob Kidd at Stuff reports:

A woman conned $125,000 out of ACC by claiming she was the distraught widow of a man crushed to death in a building accident.

In reality Auckland woman Brunetta Hemi had dumped the man, walking out on their de-facto relationship five years before his death.

But when she heard that Waepeke Ruihana Tupaea had died, she contacted the undertaker and told him she was still Tupaea’s partner, then filled out a claim with ACC.

It saw her paid an immediate survivor’s grant of $5653 and she qualified for weekly compensation for the next five years. She drew the payments for nine months, then opted for a lump sum payout that saw ACC deposit $125,341 into her bank account.

Tupaea, 61, died in June 2009 when he was part of a crew moving a house on to a marae in the Auckland suburb of Manurewa.

A bulldozer hit the house, causing it to fall, killing Tupaea and 24-year-old workmate Marsh Terahi Wiri Peihopa.

The fraud is one issue. What interests me more, is the policy rationale for a relatively large payout for death by accident.

I’m all for ACC which covers income while people recover from an accident.

But should ACC be a form of life insurance?

Certainly I say it is appropriate to have some payout to family as it takes some time to adjust to the loss of an income earner. But five years of payments?

If your partner dies of a heart attack, you get nothing beyond any insurance policy they had, and general welfare insurance.

If they die of an accident, you get five years of survivor’s grants.

I’m really not sure how you rationalise the difference.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

The Green Party has been accused of silencing its grassroots members by making it more difficult for local branches to have a say at the party’s annual meeting.

Members voted at the Greens’ annual conference in Christchurch last weekend to limit which remits or issues would be able to reach the floor at annual meetings.

Under previous rules, any proposal could be debated at a meeting if it had 12 signatures from financial members.

Local branches must now get approval from two other branches, one of them from another region, if it wants to debate issues relating to the party or its executive.

One party source said the effect of the rule change would be to wipe out any debate on grassroots-sponsored remits at the Greens’ conferences

The requirement that the backers of any remit would have to get the endorsement of a branch in another region would require driving hundreds of kilometres around the country to lobby other members.

My observation is that over time, the Greens are going the way of the other political parties.

Green Party Mt Eden branch convener Jeremy Hall said in the party newsletter Te Awa that there was irony to Greens’ holding a conference on democracy because its rule changes would make it near-impossible for branches to raise issues and participate in the internal democracy of the party.

He added: “It will turn branches simply into volunteer units to just do fundraising, leafletting and campaigning, where their input into how the party is run will no longer be welcome.”

And vandalising billboards!

Rachel Young at Stuff reports:

Environment Canterbury boss Dame Margaret Bazley has launched a blistering attack on the Christchurch City Council, slamming “staff who tell lies and… a totally incompetent organisation”.

The stinging rebuke prompted a handwritten apology from Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker for the “unacceptable delays” on public transport upgrades.

The city council-ECan relationship has been strained of late, but the criticism is an unprecedented attack from one of New Zealand’s most respected public servants.

It is almost unprecedented. So what lead to it?

Documents obtained by The Press under the Official Information Act show the tension between the two councils over the delivery of transport infrastructure, particularly the city council’s delay in building a bus “superstop” at Northlands mall.

ECan chief executive Bill Bayfield wrote to his city council counterpart Tony Marryatt on December 10 last year saying it was “extremely disappointing” the superstop was not ready for a December 3 deadline.

The city council’s “inadequate provision of infrastructure” was undoing his staff’s work, Bayfield said.

A council staff member replied, accepting responsibility for the Northlands problems, saying: “Rather than offer excuses, I can confirm that the new infrastructure will be in place in Northlands by the end of February 2013.”

When this deadline was also missed, Dame Margaret weighed into the debate: “I have monitored the performance of the Christchurch City Council on the provision of these facilities… and have built up a picture of staff who tell lies, and of a totally incompetent organisation,” she wrote to Parker on April 16.

“Our staff have at all times worked collaboratively with your officers and have been given assurances that everything was in order, and progress was on track, when this was obviously not true.”

It was a “sad reflection on our supposed partnership” that even building a bus stop on time seemed beyond the city council, she said, and asked Parker to intervene.

There is a pattern here. Recall also the abysmal failure on the Council in regards to fixing its own housing stock.

What should scare people is that one particular party has spent several years claiming that the major problem in Christchurch is that the Council doesn’t have authority, and they should be in charge of more stuff, and CERA less stuff.

Can you imagine how bad things would be, if they had their way.

To be fair to the Council, they just simply are not resourced to cope with a crisis of this magnitude. But the fact they seem to be struggling with even basic stuff such as infrastructure for a bus stop is damning.

Parker told The Press a staff member in charge of the superstop project had led them to believe everything was on track. However, when the employee left the council, their replacement discovered the problems.

Yep, but there should be systems to check.

Wow, what a day. Who would have picked that Kim Dotcom would indirectly claim Peter Dunne as a victim. Of course in this case Dunne really victimised himself.

I thought I would look at the winners and losers in this affair. As part of that I should say that I am assuming that Peter Dunne did in fact leak the GCSB report to Andrea Vance, despite his denials. Sure he may not have given her a copy, but it seems clear he was the source for her story.

The probability that Dunne and Vance e-mailed 80 odd times in two weeks, mainly re the GCSB, that they were due to meet up the day before she published her story, that he admits he contemplated leaking it but changed his minds – well it would be an incredible coincidence that she happened to have a second source who also had a copy. I sadly have to conclude Peter Dunne is not telling the truth when he says he did not leak the report – or he is using a Clintonian definition of leak.

The leak inquiry report has resulted in much speculation as to why Peter Dunne did it. Not only did he destroy his career, the actual leak was hugely inconvenient for the Government he was a member of. It over-shadowed the PM’s trip to China, and the unauthorised leak was quite destructive.

There is speculation that the relationship between Dunne and Vance may be more than professional. Normally this stuff would not be something I’d blog about – but when the result is a ministerial resignation due to a leak inquiry, it does become the elephant in the room.

Patrick Gower asked during the Dunne press conference if Dunne was besotted with Vance. He denied this, and said their relationship was professional.

The Herald editorial wonders aloud:

If it was Mr Dunne, which is the only conclusion available from his withholding an 86-email exchange with the Dominion Post reporter, what did he or his party have to gain? Was it the thrill of beating the Prime Minister to the punch, or the desire to stop the GCSB spinning its activities in a more favourable light? Or something not political at all?

John Armstrong also asks:

Why did he tell Vance he was about to be briefed on the contents of the report?

And why were he and Vance exchanging as many as 23 emails a day while Dunne was on holiday in the United States? Was it infatuation? The ex-minister says it wasn’t.

The public may never know exactly what happened. But Henry’s short report is long enough for people to be able to draw their own conclusions.

Another Herald story draws attention to their 300 tweets in the last six months.

There is a bit of a connection of all this to the MPs vs Media debate last month, which both Andrea and I took part in.

The debate two years ago had Darren Hughes in it, debating that politics was a grubby business. Weeks later it emerged he was under investigation by the Police over a sexual assault complaint.

In this debate there was much ribbing of Andrea over the tweets between her and Dunne. It was all in good humour, but again a few weeks later there is a revelation that there was more to it than just tweeting. That Dunne was, at a minimum, a frequent communication with her by e-mail also.

Some people think, or have assumed, there was an affair. I personally think this is not the case at all. Not because there are never affairs between MPs and journalists. There are. But because of the people involved. I know Andrea and her fiancée, whom Andrea moved to NZ to be with. Having observed them together, I would be absolutely amazed if there was any inappropriate behaviour on her part.  Even if she wasn’t engaged, I don’t think she is the sort of person into older married men – to be blunt.

Of course only two people can know for sure. And I have been wrong, as I was on Dunne not being the leaker. But I don’t think their relationship was anything beyond a journalist and a source.

Gower and Armstrong have speculated that Dunne was infatuated with her. I don’t think it was infatuation, but I do think there was probably an element that he found Vance very charming (which she is) and middle aged men will often do stupid things to please young charming women. I’m certainly proof positive of that!

It doesn’t mean you’re infatuated or besotted or even wanting anything beyond friendship, but that you just enjoy the friendship and will do things to help the other person out – and in this case to a degree that you throw common sense out the window.

Of course MPs and journalists do develop relationships for purely professional reasons also. It can be handy to an MP to have a journalist whom they can talk to off the record, and get things into the media they think deserve attention. And it is useful for journalists to have sources who will give them information. This happens all the time. Helen Clark was in fact a serial leaker (she once defended this by saying that by definition the PM can not leak). The key thing with MPs leaking to journalists is you don’t leak things that damage your own party or the Government – if you are part of it. And some things you never leak – and a GCSB report is definitely one of those.

The quantity of the e-mails between Vance and Dunne is certainly well in excess of most MP journalist professional relationships. In fact what surprised me is that they were e-mailing at all. Wasn’t Dunne aware all his e-mails are archived? That some e-mails are subject to the Official Information Act. Also often staff have access to a Minister’s e-mail account.

In one sense the fact they were e-mailing so much, lends me to conclude that Dunne is not a long-time leaker, and there was no affair. An experienced leaker would never be doing it by e-mail. And if you were having an affair, you wouldn’t be tweeting each other so much!

At the end of the day I think Vance just cultivated Dunne as a source. This is what journalists do. It’s actually called good journalism.

Finally, where does this go from here. My predictions:

• The Police complaint will go nowhere. It is not a criminal matter. The report was not classified with a national security classification.
• Peters or Labour may try file a privilege complaint alleging Dunne has misled Parliament with his answers at select committee.
• Dunne’s belief that e-mails between MPs and others are private and should not be released may be tested under the Official Information Act. E-mails to an MP do not come under the OIA, but e-mails to a Minister in their ministerial capacity do. Was Dunne’s access to the GCSB report in his ministerial capacity or his party leader capacity. If the former, then e-mails to and from him may be discoverable under the OIA.
• Labour and Winston may demand that Dunne resigns as an MP for (presumably) not telling the truth. The problem with this is the hypocrisy. Lianne Dalziel was found to have lied, and she got sacked as a Minister, not an MP. Also Peters himself was conclusively found by the Privileges Committee to have lied, and he did not resign as an MP – and in fact Labour backed him. The voters of Ohariu are the ones who will decide if Dunne remains an MP – should he choose to stand again.
• Key is more likely to promote an MP to the vacancy, then just reallocate the portfolios.  I’d say Lotu-Iiga and McClay are most likely to step up if he does, but a dark horse could be Paul Goldsmith. Goldsmith has actually written a book on the history of taxation in New Zealand – pretty useful background for a Revenue Minister!

MSN reports:

Maori could lose a seat in parliament if more voters don’t switch from the general roll, the Maori Party says.

The number of Maori seats – there are seven at present – depends on census figures and how many voters are on the Maori roll.

The latest Maori electoral option is under way, running from March 25 to July 24, and results so far show Maori voters are switching both ways.

The difference isn’t much – up to May 24, 6727 had switched from the Maori roll to the general roll, while 6774 had switched from the general roll to the Maori roll.

Results for April showed the reverse, with slightly more switching from the Maori roll to the general roll.

This is unusual. As far as I know every other option has seen significantly more Maori go onto the Maori roll.

In 2006 the numbers on the Maori roll increased by 14,914. In 2001 up by 24,144 and in 1997 up by 17,948.

Halfway through the 2013 option numbers on the Maori roll are up by around 5,000 – but all through new enrolments. In terms of transfers 12,162 have transferred to the general roll and 12,087 have transferred to the Maori roll – so a net loss of 75.

Why?

It might be party tactical. That the Maori seats are seen as less competitive, and a vote there less likely to have an impact. But I don’t that is right. I think four of the seven Maori seats are in play.

The other might be that in the past more Maori have seen the Maori seats as the main way to increase the number of Maori in Parliament. But this is no longer the case. Maori are no longer under-represented, but over-represented. There are 23 MPs of Maori descent in Parliament, which is higher than the Maori proposition of the population.

Of the 23 MPs, only seven represent Maori electorates. The breakdown is:

• 11 List MPs (Greens 3, Labour 2, National 4, NZ First 2 (inc Horan))
• 7 Maori seats MPs (Maori 3, Labour 3 (assume retain IR), Mana 1)
• 5 General seats MPs (National 4, Labour 1)

Based on the numbers to date, the likely outcome is the number of Maori seats remains at seven. I see no real possibility that it would reduce.

BREAKING: Peter Dunne has resigned as a Minister of the Crown. Press conference at 1530 from PM and Dunne at 1600. He is remaining an MP and still voting for the Government.

On this occasion, it seems like Peters was on the money. Have to credit he got this one right.

There were 86 e-mails between Dunne and the Fairfax reporter, Andrea Vance, who had the story. He was only willing to release 44 of them, so hence he resigned.

Key says Henry unable to rule out Dunne leaked the report.

Dunne offered resignation, which was accepted by Key.

Claire Trevett at NZ Herald writes:

When Prime Minister John Key was asked about the Tuhoe settlement this week, he referred first to Sir Douglas and his critical role in the Treaty settlement process in the 1990s. In the very next question, he had to answer questions about whether Sir Douglas should lose the knighthood he earned for that work as a result of his conviction as a director of the failed Lombard Finance.

His answer to the first question was an indication of how reluctant Key must be to take that step. There are many things to take into account. Although Sir Douglas and his co-directors were convicted for failing to disclose relevant information in Lombard’s statements, the court emphasised that there was no apparent deliberate dishonesty or attempt to profit from it. Thanks to subsequent law changes, now the same issue would be dealt with as a civil case.

I wasn’t aware of that.

Stripping honours for reasons other than traditional crimes, such as sexual offences or murder, or the sanction by a professional body is a relatively new phenomenon sparked by the global financial crisis. The United Kingdom is now going through the process of exacting revenge on those who contributed to that crisis. Bank of Scotland head Fred Goodwin was the first to be stripped of his knighthood. Last month, James Crosby, former head of HBOS, asked for his knighthood to be removed. The Forfeiture Committee is scanning through others to decide whether to take similar action. But even those at the heart of the banking crisis are only having their honours stripped if the honour was relevant to their banking work.

A key point.

Sir Douglas’ knighthood was for his work as a minister of the Crown, most notably on Treaty settlements. His knighthood was for the work he did for New Zealand as a whole. It was as much an acknowledgment of the iwi he worked with as himself. It was Sir Douglas’ careful handling of those initial settlements that gave other iwi the trust to start along the road themselves, a legacy from which Chris Finlayson is now reaping the benefits.

Because it was handled well from the beginning, the settlement process is now one of the most important developments in New Zealand’s growth as a nation.

The risk is that the still-raw anger over the collapse of finance companies will prompt Key, or Sir Douglas himself, into making a decision on political grounds.

On balance, the good Sir Douglas did for New Zealand and its people by far outweighs the wrong he did to those investors.

And he is paying the price for those wrongs – a criminal conviction, and a sentence of home detention and community work.

The trouble is that the wrongdoing and images of Sir Douglas standing in the dock are fresher in people’s minds. The good, and the image of Maori packing out the public gallery and singing a waiata in tribute to Sir Douglas’ work at his valedictory, has become hazy through the passage of time. Tuhoe was a timely reminder of that good.

Sir Douglas managed to resist caving in on politically unpopular issues in favour of doing what was right when he was Treaty Minister. Key should now do him the favour of doing the same.

A hard decision for the PM.