Hamish Rutherford at Stuff reports:

Council development levies are pushing builders towards constructing bigger, less affordable homes because of the one-size-fits-all approach of councils, Housing Minister Nick Smith says. …

Developers were being charged “exactly the same whether you’re building $700,000, six-bedroom homes, or whether you’re trying to build an economic, two-bedroom home for a retired couple”, he said.

“That incentivises the developers to build large, expensive homes, rather than providing houses of the more affordable range.”

A flat development fee will of course incentivise larger houses. But the fee should reflect the cost.

The review would consider whether the Government should force councils to charge levies proportionate to the size of the homes being built, with Dr Smith claiming “logically” a large home would place more strain on sewerage, water and stormwater services than a smaller home.

The sensible thing would be a mixture of a flat fee and a size fee.

“The reason that development levies are interesting is that they have risen [in cost] by more than any other component in the whole picture, 360 per cent in a decade is much too much.”

Outrageous.

Imagine you are David Shearer or John Key and you have just become Prime Minister after an election. NZ First held the balance of power, and you struck a confidence and supply or coalition deal with them.

You have say a two seat majority.

You first six months go pretty well. Then the Sunday Star-Times breaks the story about Brendan Horan. The allegations are he stole tens of thousands of dollars from his dying mother, to fund a gambling addiction.

This is no longer just a matter for New Zealand First. He is a Government MP. He is voting confidence and supply for your Government. If you lose his vote, your majority is halved.  You can’t afford to have NZ First lose an MP so you decide to back Horan’s right to stay as an MP. You say he has not been charged with anything.

For the next six months the Opposition dominate question time with questions of fraud, gambling, vulnerable elderly and the like. You drop 5% in the polls and finally charges are laid, he is expelled and he becomes an Independent MP. Your majority is now one. It will be like what Julia Gillard has just had to endure with Craig Thomson (note I am not saying Horan has broken any laws).

Just as you are coping with that, then the MP for Wogistan shares his thoughts with the nation on how anyone who looks like a Muslim should be banned from flying. Once again this is no longer a matter just for NZ First. It is a matter for the Prime Minister. He is a Government MP. You face questions on whether he should remain an MP. If you say he should go, then you no longer have a majority. If you say he made a mistake but should stay an MP, then you become crippled as a Government with your mandate to govern being based on the MP for Wogistan’s vote. It is like Alamein Kopu but far worse. You drop another 5% in the polls and just one year into the term you are facing either an early election on inevitable defeat at the next election – regardless of how well you are doing with your policies.

This is no far fetched scenario. This is what could well have happened if NZ First had held the balance of power in 2011.

The question that should be keeping David Shearer and John Key awake at night, is the thought that this could be what awaits them after 2014. Winston by himself is capable of destablising the most stable Government. But add in some maverick MPs and it is a nightmare.

This Tom Scott cartoon hits the mark.  How confident can you be that NZ First actually has a robust selection process where they vet, critique and scrutinise their candidates? Does anyone really think Horan and Prosser are aberrations?

That is not to suggest all NZ First MPs are flaky. They are not. To name just three, Barbara Stewart, Tracey Martin and (somewhat surprisingly) Andrew Williams have all been diligent MPs who have not caused any issues and are working hard.

But if you are a minor party in Government, you only need a couple of ones that implode, and the Government itself gets imperiled.

David Shearer and John Key should be be thinking very hard about their options after the next election.  If you are a Labour or Green supporter, you should be thinking about what sort of Government a Labour-Green-NZ First Government would be. If you are a National supporter, you should be thankful that National ruled Peters out in 2008 and 2011, and hoping they do so again.

UPDATE: Stuff has a timely article looking at the NZ First caucus and asking which MP may go next.

Getting there!

Stuff reported:

The Government will announce interim decisions for 31 schools earmarked for possible closure or merger as part of its ”education renewal plans” for the city at noon on Monday.

Schools will have six weeks to respond to those decisions. A final decision on the schools will be made in late May.

The 31 affected schools have a total roll of about 5500 kids, or 7.6 per cent of the school population in greater Christchurch.

The schools will be informed of the interim decisions first on Monday, at their schools as they have requested, before the decisions are publicly announced at noon.

A letter for parents will also be sent home with all children at the affected schools outlining the decisions and what it means for them.

Information about each school will be available on the shapingeducation.govt.nz website.

An 0800 number has been set up, which parents can call if they have any questions. That number is            0800 746 338       and will be active from noon Monday.

I have to say it looks like the Government has learnt from what went wrong last time, with the way they have handled this latest round.

Last time people were summoned to a room, and found out the proposed fate of their school from the colour of their name tag.

This time, the process looks much much better. The schools have been asked how they want to be told. Each school has someone coming in to them – to tell them first. The Government has made clear any decisions are interim, and that there is six weeks to submit before final decisions. There is a letter to each parent, a dedicated website and an 0800 number.

Now this doesn’t mean everyone will like the decisions. Inevitably any decisions on mergers and closures will be upsetting for those affected. But the population loss and damaged buildings and land has made change inevitable. Also 92% of pupils in Canterbury will be unaffected by any decisions.

Also important to recall that the education unions have called a strike for tomorrow – regardless of what is announced. The unions have decided in advance to oppose whatever is announced. [It seems the strike may have quietly been called off according to one report.]

I, for one, am going to wait to see the details.

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the details of the One News Colmar Brunton poll that was released this evening.

Along with around 14,000 others I took part in the AMI Round the Bays fun run this morning. Normally I like Wellington to be hot and sunny but was glad it was overcast today.

I took part last year, but could only walk it. That was still a lot of fun. Also great to help raise money for the Malaghan Institute for cancer research.

My aim this year was to run all 7 kms of it, without needing any walking breaks. I was semi-confident I could do it because I had run more than 7 kms on the treadmill in the gym. But there were four difference which meant I was only feeling 60/40 about being able to run it.

• The treadmill runs had 1 minute walk intervals every 12 minutes, and I had never actually done 7 kms without a break before. The longest previously with no break was 25 minutes.
• I jog on the treadmill at 9 km/hr but tend to jog slightly faster than that outdoors, which isn’t always a good thing as it means the heart rate can get too high too quick.
• Roads are tougher to run on than treadmills
• There is no sun or wind inside

My official goal was to do it in under 60 minutes. I was hoping secretly to do it in under 50 minutes. I was more than happy to get to the finish line in 38 minutes 55 seconds (according to my iPhone app). The pace was just over 10 km/hr which I honestly did not think I could do. Somewhat surprisingly also, each half km my pace was slightly faster than the previous.

Also of interest or  amusement is that a bit of a meme going around Wellington in the last few weeks has been that David Shearer no longer has to worry when David Cunliffe shaves his beard off, but instead when Grant Robertson shaves off a few kilos!

By coincidence I saw Grant taking part in the Round the Bays today 🙂

Radio Live tweeted:

There are calls from Fight the Obesity Epidemic for the Government to act over the price of fruit and vegetables, which continue to soar.

These bunch of taxpayer funded lobbyists have been very vocal in the last few years. Whenever there is a monthly spike in food prices, they cry that it is the end of the world. They really seem to think we have obesity because of the price of spinach.

Anyway yes fruit and vege prices jumped 3.5% in January 2013. But there is this thing known as seasons. So what you should do is compare the price of fruit and veges to other Januaries.

Now the current fruit and vege price index is at 1223, and four years ago in January 2009 it was at 1128. This means that over four years it has increased 8.4% which is equal to annual increased of 2.04% compounding.

The increase in fruit and vegetables prices over the last four years is almost identical to the overall increase in food prices (8.2% v 8.1%) and smaller than the overall level of inflation which was 9.0% over four years.

So what causes fruit and vegetable prices to go up? Inflation. Policies such as printing money and looser monetary policy settings. Will the anti obesity lobbyists target policies that are inflationary?

This is of course the last four years only. If we went back a bit further, they might have cause for complaint. In the four years from January 2005 to January 2009 fruit and vegetable prices increased a staggering 26.2%.

Jack Tame writes in the HoS:

There’s more to health than just his fat, Christie retorted this week. He appeared on late night TV smashing a doughnut. Unless the doctor gives him a physical or examines his family history, Christie says Mariano should “shut up”.

But surely the doctor has a point.

It’s true Obama continues to struggle with cigarettes, and that his nicotine addiction could one day spell his end. But one need only look at Christie to know he probably risks a much more sudden departure.

If tax returns, birth certificates and religious leanings are considered fair fodder for Presidential nominees, I don’t think it entirely unreasonable for a pulse to be a prerequisite, too. Being obese might not stop a person doing the job, but being dead would be a hindrance.

David Letterman makes Chris Christie fat jokes almost non-stop, so it was hilarious when Christie went on the show and after a few minutes pulled out a donut and ate it, saying he didn’t realise how long the interview would be. People love someone who can mock themselves.

Christie’s weight and health will be issues if he stands for President. However the chance of Christie departing from office prematurely is hugely overblown by commentators such as Tame.

Paul Campos at Time writes:

In January 2017, Christie will be 54, while the current Democratic front runner for her party’s presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, will be 69. It is true that with all other things being equal, compared with normal-weight people like Clinton, very obese people like Christie have an elevated mortality risk. Specifically, the most recent, detailed and sophisticated study of the question, published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that people as heavy as Christie have a 29% increase in mortality risk vs. otherwise similar people of normal weight.

Now, 29% may sound like a significant elevation in risk, but let’s compare it with another factor, one that has a vastly more powerful effect than body weight: age.

Government actuarial tables reveal that with all other things being equal, the odds that a 69-year-old woman will die between January 2017 and January 2021 are 115% higher than the odds that a 54-year-old man will die during that four-year period. In other words, age poses almost exactly four times the mortality risk to Hillary Clinton as weight does to Chris Christie, in regard to the chances that either would die during a first presidential term.

So Clinton’s age is four times greater a mortality factor than Christie’s weight. How many pundits will write on the possibility that Clinton would die in office?

Joanne Carroll at NZ Herald reports:

One rogue 19-year-old is a liable father to 13 kids to different mums.

A source has confirmed the man is named on the birth certificates of 13 children, and is liable to pay child support for them.

Figures released by the Inland Revenue Department show 943 teenage fathers were liable to pay child support at the end of last year. Some were just 15 years old, and already liable for two children.

A study for Inland Revenue estimates the “average” cost of raising a child to the age of 18 as $250,000. It does not count stay-at-home parents’ loss of incomes or childcare costs. The weekly cost for a low-income parent raising a child is $150 – or $140,000 by the time the child reaches 18.

Sadly he knows that he won’t have to pay for any of them, as I predict he is almost inevitably not working himself. Even if he is, you pay the same for 13 kids as you do for one kid, in terms of child support.

What would be karma is forcing him to live in a home with all the mothers and kids and spend 40+ hours a day changing nappies, feeding etc.

The BBC report:

“I am the bullet in the chamber” ran the strapline for the Nike advert featuring Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius.

As the South African athlete faced charges of “premeditated murder” in a Pretoria courtroom following the shooting dead of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, his sponsors went into crisis-management mode.

Nike swiftly pulled the unfortunately-worded ads, as the perils of celebrity brand endorsement were brought sharply into focus once again.

Oh dear. If there is a competition for most inappropriate ad straplines with the benefit of hindsight this must win.

Hat Tip: Mandy on FB

Len Brown has just hired his sixth spin doctor. That’s six spin doctors, all funded by the ratepayer, working in Len’s private office. That isn’t six spin doctors for the entire Auckland Council. That is six spin doctors just for Len.

Started this month is Dan Lambert as Len’s propaganda manager. He comes from the United Kingdom.

Dan joins Glyn Jones who was the chief spin doctor, and who is now called Media Communications Manager.

Len also has a senior press secretary, a communications advisor, former Clark spin doctor David Lewis as a media consultant and a speech writer on top of that.

Len has more spin doctors than the entire Parliamentary Labour Party (they have five). The previous Mayor of Auckland had just one – Cameron Brewer.

Should Auckland ratepayers be funding Len’s reelection campaign?

Talking of the election, isn’t it time also for C&R and their friends in Auckland to get their shit together and select a Mayoral candidate. Otherwise Len and his six spin doctors will have too easy a time of it.

Claire Browning blogs on trees:

I want you – the 87 percent of you who live in a city or town in New Zealand – to have a think about trees. What do trees mean to you?

Shade on a baking day like today; pretty light on your lawn in the mornings? Nesting and perching space for the morning chorus and their babies? Some light entertainment? – drunk tui, chattery fantail, those solemn kereru clowns? Your kids and kittens climbing, swinging; kids playing cricket underneath? Privacy from noisy or nosy neighbours; a shield from next door’s ugly house, or the road? Shelter from blustering winds? Ringing the changes from autumn, through winter, to spring?

I agree. Trees are great. That is so many of us like to have trees on our properties. And I love public areas with lots of trees.

All of that under threat, and you’re being misled about it: the government’s latest proposal to take an axe to urban trees is described in the explanatory note to the Resource Management Reform Bill 2012 as a “technical change”, to “clarify and improve the workability of the RMA”.

In the Bill (clause 12), the RMA would be changed so that a tree protection rule in a council plan can only apply to a particular tree, or a group (cluster, line or grove) of trees on the same or adjacent properties, listed in the plan.

If it proceeds, many fewer trees will be protected, because of the bureaucratic difficulty and cost of individually assessing and adding every tree to the plan, in a schedule.

Claire, like so many others, fails to mention the salient point.

There are no plans for anyone to axe urban trees in public places.  If anything, I am sure Councils will have more trees, not fewer trees.

The law change is about the rights of property owners to trim or cut trees THAT THEY OWN on THEIR LAND.

It can cost a property owner hundreds of dollars to get bureaucratic permission to trim their own trees. It’s ridiculous and in fact will discourage people from planting trees.

The law change still allows Council to protect individual trees that have significant heritage or conservation value. But what it will stop is Council bureaucrats declaring all trees of a certain type belong to them, rather than their owners, and the owners must pay large fees to the Council for the right to trim their own trees.

The weekly quiz is here. I got 8/10 in 45 seconds.

Al Williams at Stuff reports:

The beer belly getting you down? Still parked on the couch and wanting to shed some kilos?

Stop for a minute and forget about it – new research suggests it’s healthy.

While it is widely believed that beer is fattening, new scientific evidence from the United Kingdom suggests it has “nutritional and wellbeing benefits” which are at least similar to wine.

A report was commissioned by the British Beer and Pub Association to see whether beer was responsible for more weight gain than other alcoholic drinks, including wine.

It found that there was growing scientific support that moderate consumption of beer could be associated with health benefits.

It also found that 100ml of a 5 per cent lager contained 43 calories, compared to the 84 calories of the same quantity of a 12 per cent white wine. The rule of thumb was, the higher the alcohol content, the higher the calories.

Moderation, as with most things, is the key. Few things (except poisons) are totally bad for you.

But I would point out one flaw in the advocacy that beer is less fattening than wine. It is true on a per ml measure – but this ignores the nature of both drinks. You inevitably drink more beer and faster, than you do wine (although I may have disproved that theory last night!). If you drink more than a litre of wine you will be highly unlikely to carry on drinking. But one can drink a litre of beer fairly easily without too many noticeable effects.

A standard beer glass tends to be 330 mls or more and wine up to 150 mls only. So yes beer per ml is less fattening  but a glass of beer is more fattening than a glass of wine I’d say.

Having said that, I generally drink a lot less wine than I used to – mainly because of the calories in it.

Jason Krupp at Stuff reports:

Mighty River Power says years investing in overseas geothermal projects have given it the confidence to go it alone internationally at a time when Kiwi development opportunities are drying up.

The state-owned energy company yesterday announced it had reached a deal with GeoGlobal Energy (GGE) to withdraw from the GGE Fund after five years.

Mighty River is taking two Chilean development projects and a minority stake in US firm EnergySource with it, currently held by the GGE fund. In exchange, GeoGlobal will take control of the fund’s interest in Germany, and other non-EnergySource related assets in the US.

Mighty River has been a big investor in the GGE Fund for more than five years, with the bulk of the US$250m committed to the venture already invested. It will also pay GGE US$24.8 million (NZ$29.1m) to exit the fund.

“The fund was a way to learn about the international market, and we learned about what works and doesn’t work, and it is timely for us to move on,” said MRP chief executive Doug Heffernan.

NZ taxpayers should not be having their money at risk in a company that is investing in risky projects overseas. I don’t think there is anything wrong with MRP investing as they have. Business always has a degree or risk. Only those with no business experience fail to understand this. They think business is a licence to print money.

The only companies the Government should own are those that provide some sort public service (Radio NZ but not TVNZ) or maybe monopoly infrastructure providers (Transpower – but once could actually have that as a club-type membershp).

Take Solid Energy. That used to be a profitable company. But it has been hit by two major external factors. A drop in the price of coal due to China over-supply and a global move away from coal as fracking has opened up shale gas as an alternative energy source.

If Solid Energy had been sold some years ago, then private owners would bear the risk of the business downturn. There is no strategic reason for the Government to own a mining and energy company.

But now the taxpayer is going to be left having to finance a likely bailout of Solid Energy. Rather than spend money on hospitals or schools, the taxpayer is going to have to bail out a mining and energy company that it shouldn’t even own. I doubt it will ever be sold now – the global market has changed fundamentally. So we will be left with a dog that will cost taxpayers money.

I want a Government that invests in schools and hospitals – not coal mines and hydro-dams. It’s a great pity they were not all sold many years ago.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples has defended his connection to the head of collapsed construction company Mainzeal after their relationship was criticised in Parliament. …

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has repeatedly questioned the relationship between the Government and Mainzeal since the company went into receivership last week, threatening 200 jobs.

He believed the Government knew of the firm’s difficulties but continued to give it lucrative contracts in rebuilding Christchurch. Yesterday, he highlighted Dr Sharples’ relationship with Richina Pacific chief Richard Yan, whose company owned Mainzeal.

Dr Sharples took a $10,000 donation from Mr Yan before the 2011 election, and has been a strong supporter of the Chinese-born businessman’s proposal to build New Zealand House in Shanghai.

Mr Peters said these actions raised serious questions about the integrity of government negotiations. “This is another example of big business influencing government decisions behind closed doors.”

Excuse me while I vomit. How can anyone seriously report anything Peters says about integrity and donations. Sharples reported the donation from Mainzeal, and as far as I know the Minister of Maori Affairs has no role in allocating construction contracts in Christchurch.

Compare that to Winston Peters who took hundreds of thousands of dollars from racing companies, never declared them despite being legally required to, and pushed policy highly favourable to them through Cabinet – again never having disclosed the donations both NZ First receive and he himself personally (they paid for his damages to Bob Clarkson).

And of course the Owen Glenn case where he arranged for a $100,000 donation to his lawyer to cover his legal fees, lied dozens of times over many months about the existence of the donation, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs tried constantly to gain a diplomatic appointment for Sir Owen.

The conduct of Winston Peters is the classic example of big business influencing government decisions behind closed doors. He and his party failed to disclose donations, he lied about them, and he actually advocated policies and decisions beneficial to his donors without ever disclosing the donations.

This is in stark contrast to Sharples who both disclosed the donation, and as far as I know has had no role at all in decisions affecting them.

The hypocrisy is monumental. This is like Richard Prosser calling for religious tolerance.

This is old, but I hadn’t seen it before. A very good parody of the ALAC TV ad.

Hat Tip: Sideswipe

The Electoral Commission has announced:

The Electoral Commission has declared Aaron Gilmore from Wellington to be elected to Parliament from the New Zealand National Party list.

The vacancy arises from the resignation from Parliament of Dr Lockwood Smith.

Lockwood was Auckland (or Rodney) based, and Aaron stood in Christchurch East last election. List vacancies can change the geographic distribution of Parliament slightly.

The next two candidates on National’s list are Paul Quinn and Paul Foster-Ball – both Wellington based.

Adam Bennett at the NZ Herald reports:

But he [Prosser] hit out at leaders of other political parties who said he shouldn’t be in Parliament.

“Anyone can throw that mud and frankly many of the people throwing it shouldn’t be. You look at the likes of Peter Dunne. He’s a man who campaigned on the basis of not supporting asset sales and now he’s supporting them and he’s not only in his own mind fit to be an MP but fit to be a Cabinet minister.

This is a lie. Peter Dunne explicitly said before the 2011 election:

In principle, UnitedFuture does not advocate selling state assets, but in the event National puts up its mixed ownership model for the electricity companies and Air New Zealand we would be prepared to support that, provided the maximum was 49%, with a cap of 15% on any indivudual’s holdings. We would never support the sale of Kiwibank, Radio New Zealand or control of water assets.

The unions and Labour campaigned against Peter Dunne on the basis that he was going to vote for asset sales. Everyone knew this. People just like to repeat a lie, to try and make it stick.

A desperate attempt to deflect.

I

I saw this photo on Jackson Wood’s blog. I’m not sure if it is legitimate, or a prank.

If it is legitimate, I hope all the Wogistanis (or are they Wogistanians?) of Aro Valley turn up in good numbers!

Simon Collins reports:

A senior Auckland unionist says the proposed “living wage” of $18.40 an hour is not enough in Auckland.

Service and Food Workers Union lead organiser Len Richards told a conference launching the living wage at AUT University yesterday that Aucklanders needed $24 an hour to pay higher rents and other costs.

Why stop there? How about $40 an hour? What nasty filthy Tory would argue against paying someone at McDonalds leess than $40 an hour?

However, Auckland’s $24.11 is not only 30 per cent higher than the proposed $18.40 national living wage, but is higher too than the national median wage of $20.86 an hour, so it would mean seeking higher wages for the lowest-paid Aucklanders than for more than half of all workers.

Details details.

It’s all so simple. All we need to do to close the wage gap with Australia is to have a minimum living wage of $40 an hour. This will cost the Government some more money, but then all we have to do is print more money to cover the wages.

Those two simple acts, will have closed the wage gap with Australia and eliminated the budget deficit. Our economy will be healthy – hoo rah, and NZ will be a paradise that people will flock to to be paid $40 an hour.