Today at the gym made my midpoint goal. I’m under 95 kgs (in fact 93.5), which is halfway to the goal of under 80 kgs, having been 110 kgs a year ago. I blogged just before the election about getting to under 90 kgs, and the combination of food and exercise.

Ironically I put on 3 kgs the week of the election. That wasn’t food, but drinking until 5 am on election night, 2 am the day after and midnight the day after that. Thank goodness we only have elections every three years :-). After that I was in Africa having far too many great meals, so started the year back over 100.

Total weight loss for the last 12 months has been 16.5 kgs, which is as I said is just over half my goal of 30 kgs. I’ve lost the following in terms of measurements:

• Arms 4 cms
• Thighs 9.5 cms
• Chest 10 cms
• Hips 14 cms
• Waist 17 cms

The scary thing was having so much to lose!

Next goal is to get under 90, and to able to do a 10 km run by end of September.

Purpose of the post isn’t to get feedback (hence no comments) but just to share that the right combination of exercise and eating does work, if you make it a priority.

A funny advertisement for beef, featuring well giant balloons that look like Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott.

On BFM, David Shearer said on mining in Northland:

 “I think we would be, you know, behind it.”

“I guess it’s only right to look at that as an option” 

“Everything that comes into New Zealand has to be mined somewhere, so the fact that we’re going to say no mining here but import it from everywhere else seems a bit sort of incongruous to me. 

Now I agree with David Shearer that it is hypocrisy to import things dependent on mining, yet say no to mining in New Zealand.

I do wonder though how his pro-mining stance fits with this photo, of David waving a placard saying “Ours. Not mines” with a placard behind him of John Key as Hitler. Now of course David will say that he is only against mining on Schedule 4 land, but I do wonder if his fellow marchers shared his nuanced views.

As I said, it is good to see the more nuanced view.

The Herald reports:

Talkback host Michael Laws breached good taste and decency standards in an on-air tirade about shooting Herald on Sunday journalists, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has ruled.

In his Radio Live morning slot on November 18, Mr Laws accused the media of going “mad” over the Teapots Tapes scandal engulfing election coverage and said “if I had a gun I’d shoot them, put them out of their misery”.

He called the Herald on Sunday “rabid” and questioned why somebody hadn’t “taken a shotgun there and cleaned out the entire news room”.

In a majority ruling issued this afternoon, a BSA panel found the part of the diatribe referring to shooting Herald on Sunday journalists breached good taste and decency standards as it had the potential to distress or offend.

This is hardly a surprise. The BSA ruling is here. It was a 3-1 majority decision. The majority said:

In our view, some of the words in the statement embraced specificity. They embraced specific people in a specific target area and they referred to the specific weapon of a shotgun being used to kill these people. When these words are heard or read, they do convey an image of a small group of known and specified people in Auckland being shot. We do not think that the use of metaphor or any attempt at humour was sufficient to disconnect the words used from the reality of the image. We think it likely that there was a conscious effort on the part of Mr Laws to create this image to shock and attract attention but in such a way that it could be passed off as something light and frivolous. It is difficult to achieve both of these objectives, that is, to shock and attract attention with imagery, but to have this imagery being seen as humorous or unreal.

In other words it is okay to talk generally about shooting journalists, but not okay to talk abour shooting specific journalists 🙂

They also note:

There is some irony in Mr Laws, under the mantle of freedom of expression, saying that journalists who expressed views with which he did not agree should be closed down (or “shot”). We see that as being a legitimate manifestation of freedom of expression so long as the language does not go too far.

There is a tendency for some broadcasters, out of a desire to shock, to test the boundaries of acceptability. It is our responsibility to endeavour to determine where the boundaries of acceptability lie. On this occasion we judge the totality of the words used by Mr Laws as having gone too far.

The dissenting view:

I find that Mr Laws’ speech on this occasion fell within the same permissible range as the speech considered in these cases. I do not consider that the “specificity” of Mr Laws’ comments in this case took them beyond what was acceptable. In previous complaints which were not upheld, Paul Henry was specific in his comments about Afghan security forces.¹⁸ Paul Holmes was specific in suggesting Noam Chomsky be shot.¹⁹ Indeed the colloquialism invariably involves a specific candidate, or candidates, for shooting. The target of Mr Laws’ speech was specific (but not to the degree of identifying an individual), and legitimately so, as that necessarily follows given the subject being considered was the media, and specifically the Herald on Sunday, and its behaviour over the “tea tapes” incident.

So other specific references to shooting has not been upheld.

The style of talkback hosts may and does vary widely. The context here is Mr Laws. Like South Park, his programme has its own demographic. His programme is long-running. Mr Laws’ usual listeners would not have been surprised or offended. Others who find him distasteful are sufficiently well informed by the well known nature of his programme to make an informed choice about whether or not to listen.

In other words, don’t listen to Michael if you are going to be offended by him. Sage advice.

The Economist:

“EVERYONE’S pencil should be on the apple in the tally-mark chart!” shouts a teacher to a class of pupils at Harvest Preparatory School in Minneapolis. Papers and feet are shuffled; a test is coming. Each class is examined every six or seven weeks. The teachers are monitored too. As a result, Harvest Prep outperformed every city school district in Minnesota in maths last year. It is also a “charter” school; and all the children are black.

Twenty years ago Minnesota became the first American state to pass charter-school laws. (Charter schools are publicly funded but independently managed.) The idea was born of frustration with traditional publicly funded schools and the persistent achievement gap between poor minority pupils and those from middle-income homes. Charters enroll more poor, black and Latino pupils, and more pupils who at first do less well at standardised tests, than their traditional counterparts.

So not like private schools or schools in high decile areas.

Parents like charter schools, and waiting-lists for them are growing faster than new places. Nina Rees, the new head of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, says more than 600,000 children are on waiting lists. Oversubscribed schools choose pupils by lottery, something poignantly illustrated in the documentary film “Waiting for Superman”.

Although charter schools have won support from across the political spectrum, they have always attracted controversy. Much of the unease has been stirred up by teachers’ unions; charter schools do not usually employ unionised teachers.

Sounds like NZ!

Second, charter school performance is not so “mixed” if you look at the data on a state-by-state basis, rather than across the country as a whole. States with reading and maths gains that were significantly higher for charter-school students than in traditional schools included Arkansas, Colorado (Denver), Illinois (Chicago), Louisiana and Missouri.

Credo thinks that the variation in quality can be traced to the governing legislation behind the schools. Margaret Raymond, director of Credo, points to Arizona’s terrible results in 2009, which were the result of lax screening of those who were allowed to set up charter schools, and no serious reviews thereafter. Ohio, where most charters are worse than the traditional schools, gained a reputation as the “Wild West” of charter schools because it exercised almost no oversight.

To me this suggests that the issue is not whether charter schools are good or bad, but how do you do charter schools in a way where they benefits students the most.

Ms Raymond says traditional public schools no longer have the excuse that they cannot be blamed for the poor performance of children because of their background; so competition from charters may improve standards in non-charters, too.

That would be great. A low decile rating is not a guarantee of poor performance.

The charter-school concept has also attracted new institutions into early education, says Tim Knowles, director of the Urban Education Institute, which is part of the University of Chicago. The university operates four charters for (mostly) poor black children up to ninth grade (14-15), and college-acceptance rates for children going through them have been above 98% in each of the past three years. This compares with a city average of 35%.

Superb. Have universities operate schools!

Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney favour charter schools, but at a time of probable cuts in federal education spending their growth may slow. Despite huge demand, and even though the ingredients for success are clear after two decades of experiment, extending charters’ successes to the other 96% will take a long time.

As I said, the challenge isn’t doing charter schools – it is doing it right.

This e-mail speaks for itself:

PureBlack Racing cyclist Michael Torckler was involved in a hit and run accident in California on the 29th June. Such were Michael’s injuries he was taken via helicopter to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital Friday afternoon with major head injuries, facial cuts and unconscious in what the hospital defined as a critical condition.

Michael’s mum and dad flew to be by his side and come Saturday he gained consciousness and is making good progress but has over 20 fractures around the face and skull and will have a long recovery.

Michael came back from a serious knee injury to win Octobers K2 cycle race and join PureBlack racing more recently winning the Tour of Borneo.

With the need for Michael’s parents to travel to be with him – Greg Cross of Pure Black Racing has given support for a fund to be set up to provide some assistance for the family.

Michael Torckler is a courageous and dedicated young athlete.

An incident like this is a nightmare for parents and anyone who would like to donate and offer support please email Alwyn Poole at [email protected] He will then send through bank account details as to how to make a donation to help support them and cover some expenses. Every dollar donated will go to the Torckler family.

The man accused of running him down is a four-time felon.

A NZ site which sells all sorts of wallets. Choice Wallet.

An impressive range of wallets. My wallet is an old BNZ give away, so I might give them a go. They have free shipping within NZ.

I caught a bus yesterday down to Allen Street for a yum char. I remarked to the person I was seated next to that it would be great if there was a plugin for smart phones that tells you when the next bus is for your stop, rather than have to go and look up on their website which stop you are at, and then the schedules.

He remarked that in fact Wellington Metlink website has on its mobile site such a service. It can detect your position, and show you nearby bus stops. Click on the one you want and it will tell you the next buses due there. It even highlights the ones with GPS on the bus, so the time shown for those buses is the actual time, not just the scheduled time it will get to you.

So a handy wee site for Wellington bus users. Very useful to be seated next to someone who as it turned out worked for the NZ Transport Agency 🙂

Sent in by a reader.

For those interested in criminal justice issues, this should be a must attend debate.

Greg King is speaking on his recent trip to the USA to study their criminal justice system, and then afterwards a panel discussion with Stephen Franks, Gil Elliott and Garth McVicar. Hadleigh Pedler from Chapman Tripp will chair the debate.

Date: Friday 20 July
Time: 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm
Venue: Lecture Theatre GBLT 2, Victoria University Law School

Sadly I am in Auckland that evening, otherwise I’d be definitely attending – if for no other reason that to get Greg King’s mobile number in case I ever kill someone, so he can get me off clear my name 🙂

More seriously, I am a huge fan of King’s ability as a lawyer, and his commitment to the justice system. Also his previous role hosting the Court Report. I also always enjoy the contributions from Stephen and Garth, and Gil Elliott needs no introduction. I’ve just started reading he book “Sophie’s legacy” by her mum, Lesley and I can’t manage more than a few pages at a time, as it is so upsetting – not just the killing of Sophie, but also the way they were treated by our justice system.   A compelling and incredibly sad read.

If you want to go along, there is a gold coin donation.

The Herald reports:

The New Zealand Herald will undergo the biggest transformation in its 150-year history, with confirmation today that the weekday newspaper is moving to compact format.

The format change in September will coincide with a redesign of the award-winning nzherald.co.nz website and will modernise New Zealand’s biggest newspaper to further meet the needs of readers.

As well as the change in size – making it easier and more convenient for readers – the new-look Monday-Friday paper will have more columnists, new pages and sections and a reinforced focus on investigative journalism.

With an increase in pages, editorial space will not decrease.

It will be interesting to see the impact of this move. With a smaller front page, it means it is more likely fewer issues will make the front page. The focus on investigative journalism is welcome, but of course the proof will lie in the pudding – seeing what this means in reality.

Crikey has managed to lay its hands on a copy of the “bible” for Coalition MPs.

It is 138 pages which sets out inevery policy area the talking points for MPs, the good stuff they did there in the past and the bad stuff the Government is currently doing.

All major parties tend to have these. It is rare though for one to be “leaked” or left behind, as it basically reveals all your talking points.

Bronwyn Torrie at Stuff reports:

Ninety-nine per cent of land in greater Wellington is still owned by Kiwis, according to an analysis of foreign ownership consents.

In the past seven years, overseas applications to buy 7500 hectares of land in the region were approved by the Overseas Investment Office.

“That’s less than 1 per cent of the region’s land area, so it dispels the myth Wellingtonians are becoming tenants in their own land,” said Mike Donald, managing director of land and property specialist Terralink International. …

LAND SALES

Wellington land sold to overseas buyers:

Dairying, 100 hectares – 0.28 per cent of total dairying land

So what is all the panic about?

I’m starting to get the impression that Chris Trotter is not hugely confident in Labour’s ability to win. He blogs:

For a while, it looked as though Labour had found just such an emblem. David Shearer’s story, like John Key’s, begins with an ordinary bloke setting forth on a journey, during which he encounters all manner of monsters – from Somali warlords to murderous Israeli settlers – learning in the process the magic spells for opening the human heart to compassion, justice and reconciliation. He, too, returns to his people and, at the crucial moment, steps forward from the shadows to declare that he is the one destined to lay low the National Party usurper.

Except he hadn’t learned the spells, or, if he had, he could no longer remember them.

It’s as if Arthur stepped up to the sword in the stone, gave it a confident tug – and nothing happened. Instead of a sword flashing in the sunlight above his head, proof positive that he was “rightwise King born of all England”, the weapon stays exactly where it is, and the hero, with an embarrassed shrug, picks up a guitar instead.

Tracy Watkins at Stuff reports:

Last night, Labour was standing by Mr Cosgrove, and said the only thing he was guilty of was helping his constituents.

Deputy leader Grant Robertson said Mr Cosgrove had done what Labour expected of its MPs by trying to help “hundreds of constituents”.

“He did what Clayton does as a straight-up MP – worked hard on their behalf, tried to find a solution for them … he was motivated by finding the best outcome for one of his constituents.”

That is a very unfortunate choice of words to defend Clayton Cosgrove. I doubt I need to remind readers about the last Labour MP who was defended for months on end using the same words.

I hasten to say I don’t think the two cases are the same. But if those words did come straight from Labour, and are not paraphrases, then either they are being incredibly clumsy or they are knifing Cosgrove.

The issue isn’t that Cosgrove was helping his constituents. The issue is whether one should accept a $17,500 donation from a constituent who would have gained a massive financial advantage from legislation you were promoting. Yes Independent Fisheries have donated previously – but in 2008 it was just $3,000 to Cosgrove, while in 2011 it was $17,500. Why the massive increase?

The size is what has attracted attention. $17,500 is not a large donation to a party.  It represents about 0.35% of what a party spends on an election campaign. However for an individual candidate it represents around 70% of their election campaign spending.

Hat Tip: Keeping Stock

Last week was the 4th of July, or US Independence Day.

The IT Countrey Justice has done an extensive blog on the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson. Students of history should read the whole thing. Some of my favourites include this Thomas Jefferson quote:

Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.

And about why it is 4th July:

The resolution of independence had been adopted with twelve affirmative votes and one abstention. With this, the colonies had officially severed political ties with Great Britain. In a now-famous letter written to his wife on the following day, John Adams predicted that July 2 would become a great American holiday. Adams thought that the vote for independence would be commemorated; he did not foresee that Americans—including himself—would instead celebrate Independence Day on the date that the announcement of that act was finalized.

I find it funny that even back then, the day of the official PR announcement was more important than the actual day of the decision to vote for independence.

To be fair of course back then communications were so different, than it is in hindsight quite normal, it would have been the day people heard of the decision that became the important one. Then we have the best part of the declaration:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

The Countrey Justice states:

The form is almost poetical, and it seems that the preamble was designed to be read aloud, its ringing phraseology building to an emotional yet reasonable crescendo

It is a masterpiece of oratory. I see the John Adams mini-series has started again on Sky. I highly recommend it for people who want to capture a sense of the revolution that changed the world.

Andrew Geddis blogs on the Clayton Cosgrove issue at Pundit:

First of all, no-one is accusing Cosgrove of accepting a bribe from Independent Fisheries – at least, they are not doing so out loud. Both Cosgrove and the company adamently deny there was any connection between his introduction of a members bill that would financially help the company (as well as a number of other constituents) and its later decision to donate money to his campaign. Not only is this most probably true in fact, the dual denial means that there is no way of proving it to be false.

Personally I don’t think that there was a pre-condition on the donation.

Second, Cosgrove quite rightly declared the $17,500 in donations to the Electoral Commission – from which we all then were able to find out about the relationship a couple of months ago. True, this action tells against any corrupt relationship existing in fact; you’d have to be a pretty silly (or incredibly brazen) person to openly tell the world that you’ve accepted a chunk of money which was paid to you in exchange for trying to get a change in the law. But the point of declaring donations is to let us make those sorts of judgments about what may or may not have been the motives on each side – if we were to say that simply declaring a donation automatically means that, ipso facto, there cannot be a corrupt intent behind it, then that would have a rather perverting effect on the disclosure regime!

Exactly – this is why we have transparency – so people can judge for themselves if they think there is a connection between donations and (for example) specific policies or acts.

Which brings us once again to the third level of protection. What does the decision to accept a considerable donation from a long-term friend whom you have, in your official capacity as an MP, taken steps to help in a quite significant fashion say about Cosgrove’s internal sense of political morality? By this I mean, what does it say about his ability to scrutinise not only his own motives for taking the money, but also understand how taking that money would look to others? And here I mean not those political enemies who would like to see him taken down, but rather the “average voter” who is assessing the behaviour of her or his political masters? Is it a “good look” to them for an MP to be in this sort of relationship, even if all involve protest the purist of motives?

This is the point I made yesterday. Wise MPs do not lobby on behalf of mates, do not push private legislation that provides significant financial benefits to their mates, and do not then accept large donations from a mate whose financial interests would have benefited from your advocacy.

One last point. I note that Cosgrove is alleging that this story has been “shopped around” by Gerry Brownlee in an effort to distract from a court case being brought by Independent Fisheries against his use of CERA powers to rezone their land. That may well be true. And that case also may well reveal what some of us said from the outset – giving Brownlee or any other Minister extensive powers to override existing property rights and legal processes in order to “help Canterbury” carries considerable risks of their misuse.

However, the motives for drawing attention to Cosgrove’s relationship with Independent Fisheries do not touch on its basic rightness or wrongness. Or, to put it another way, the problem isn’t so much that people are noticing the donation to Cosgrove, but rather that the donation was given and accepted in the first place.

It shows how defensive Cosgrove is on this issue, that he is trying to shift attention by alleging that the story has been shopped around by National. The Nation have confirmed that they have had no contact with Gerry Brownlee’s office on this, and the first I know what the story was about was watching The Nation.

The ironic thing is there is an MP who is known to do smear campaigns about donations – even when there haven’t been any. That MP may be behind this “smear campaign” also. It is a Mr Clayton Cosgrove. Back in June 2008 he said:

On June 3, Mr Cosgrove received a letter from a member of the Institute which indicates that deals have been done between some senior industry members and the National Party to wind back this consumer protection legislation. “The letter said the REINZ president Murray Cleland recently told members at a regional AGM that if the National Party won the election it is likely to change the legislation to suit the Institute,” he said.

Mr Cosgrove said this raises serious questions over what deals have been done. “The National Party has confirmed it has met with REINZ representatives so now it needs to come clean on when this happened, who was present and what promises were made. National should tell us if any election campaign funds have been solicited or received by the Party, its MPs and/or its candidate, and whether any contributions have been made by REINZ and/or its member companies,” he said.

So when National advocated something, Clayton went out there and effectively alleged they were doing it due to donations from REINZ or its members (something that in fact was not true – he just made it up, and posed it as a question), while in this case the donation is a matter of record.

But to get this clear, the media asking Clayton questions about a donation from a property company which would have received huge financial benefits from legislation he proposed is a smear campaign, but him alleging National is in the pocket of the real estate industry (whom did not donate to National) is not a smear campaign. It is only wrong if it is not Labour doing it.

The HoS editorial:

The question of whether the double-amputee runner Oscar Pistorius should be eligible to run in the Olympic Games has been needlessly turned into a technical and ethical conundrum.

The 25-year-old South African sprinter, born without fibula bones, had both legs amputated at mid-shin as a baby because he would never have been able to walk on them. Now he runs – on J-shaped carbon-fibre prosthetics. He holds the world records for his disabled-athlete class in the 100m, 200m and 400m.

He is an amazing athlete, who could have spent his life in a wheel chair but instead has pushed himself to his limit.

Those who argue for his inclusion suggest that it might help erase the lines between people with physical disabilities and those without. But such reasoning is specious and, worse, supports him by patronising him. There is no erasing the line between Pistorius and the other runners against whom he will line up in London: he does not have the legs that birth gave him. It may make able-bodied people feel warm and fuzzy to say he’s just like the rest of us. He is not. His legs were made in Iceland. …

The nature of athletic competition is that like contends with like. Sports’ governing bodies come up with divisions – by weight and age, for example – all the time, in order to ensure that undue differences are erased. The essence of the Olympics’ purest form, track and field events, is that – gender apart – competition is open to all-comers.

The corollary is that competitors show up with nothing other than what their genes and training regimes have equipped them with. The now-sophisticated drug-testing regime – and the ignominy that attends on those exposed as drug cheats – attest to our desire that competitors are not advantaged by science.

The question of whether Pistorius is advantaged or disadvantaged does not require answering. The fact that it even needs to be asked renders it redundant. One look at him is enough to tell you that he has no more a place in those races than somebody with a jet pack strapped to his back.

I’m tempted to agree. I have the greatest respect for disabled athletes, but in the Olympics any use of technology shouldn’t be allowed.

Rodney Hide writes in the HoS:

The state-owned enterprise Mixed Ownership Model that’s causing such a fuss was pioneered by Helen Clark and Michael Cullen over a decade ago.

John Key and Bill English are simply extending it. The fuss over privatisation is a fuss about nothing much.

In 2001, the Labour Government spent $885 million bailing out Air New Zealand. Instead of taking over the company lock, stock and barrel, the Government took an 82 per cent stake and left the remaining share in private hands trading on the share market.

Hence was born the Mixed Ownership Model.

Mixed Ownership proved itself with Air New Zealand. The trading of the company’s shares on the share market means its performance is continually and publicly assessed. That continual public feedback on performance is lacking with state-owned enterprises. Mixed Ownership provides a desperately needed market discipline on SOE directors and executives. That’s a good thing.

Labour pioneered the model and fully expected to be selling down shares as National is doing.

Why did Labour never buy 100% of Air NZ, if it thinks a mixed ownership model is so bad?

Sir Michael Cullen told Cabinet, in setting up the model, that, “It may, however, be desirable to divest some or all of our shares at a future date.” The Labour Government readily accepted that a future sell-down may well prove desirable. And not just some shares, but all of them.

Sir Michael also knew that the Super Fund was set up to be funded out of surpluses, not to be funded from borrowing.

The greater discipline that the trading of shares applies to these businesses will enhance their performance. There’s no way Air NZ would have done as well if it were an SOE.

For Kiwis, it’s the companies’ better performance that will enhance the country’s economy, not whether the Government makes a profit or loss on sale.

Yep. In my view the Government should not own a company, just because it wants the dividends from it. It should only own companies that are strategically necessary – such as arguably Transpower and Kordia – national infrastructure operators.

The Nation had Clayton Cosgrove on this morning, with the news summary being:

Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove says he is a long standing friend of a property developer who donated $17,500 to his campaign at the last election.

The donation came after Mr Cosgrove drafted a private members’ bill which would have allowed the developer, Mike Dormer, to go ahead with a development stopped by the Christchurch District Plan.

Speaking today on TV3’s “The Nation”, Mr Cosgrove said, he was a longstanding friend of Mr Dormer.

“We go back about 12 years,” he said. 

“He’s a friend of my family, I know his family well. 

“He’s a respected person, I’m proud to say I’m a mate of his.”

In 2008 Mr Dormer’s company, Independent Fisheries, bought 22ha of land at Styx Mill, north of Christchurch Airport and in Mr Cosgrove’s then electorate of Waimakiriri with the intention of developing it for houses.

But the company became frustrated at restrictions on the development imposed at the behest of Christchurch Airport.

Other landowners in the same area were also concerned at the tight noise boundaries around the airport which prohibited residential development.

In June 2009 Mr Cosgrove convened a public meeting about the boundaries and announced that he was preparing a private members’ bill to counter them.

His Bill would have required landowners within the noise boundaries to forfeit any right to object to airport noise. In return residential development would get a go ahead.

Mr Dormer described the bill as “win win” and “outstanding”.

And five months later, in November 2009, Independent Fisheries donated $2500 to

 I had discussion with all landowners.  We set up a group of landowners across the board who had legal support, some who didn’t.  I was leading negotiations on behalf of over a 100 constituents with the International Airport and others, for years on this.

After the Christchurch earthquake in September 2010, Mr Cosgrove withdrew his bill from the private members’ list of bills in Parliament.

In June 2011, Mr Cosgrove got another donation from Independent Fisheries. This time it was for $15,000, making a total of $17,500, one of the highest sums given to any individual MP at the last election.

And in August 2011, Mr Cosgrove issued a press release advocating passage of his Bill as a way of freeing up land for desperately needed sections in Christchurch.

But he vigorously denied that there was any connection between the Bill and its obvious benefits for Independent Fisheries Ltd and the donations.

“I’ve never accepted a donation with any preconditions and I have never been offered a donation with any   preconditions,” he said.

Mr Cosgrove rejected the suggestion that it could appear that he had a conflict of interest.

There would have been a conflict of interest from any person, and I have people donate money to me in support from all political persuasions.” he said.

“There would be a conflict of interest if it came with preconditions, and by the way every MP receives donations. 

“There would be a very bad look and a lack of judgement if those donations were hidden and not declared. 

“There is transparency here, and the reason you can question me is because I declared them.”

Mr Cosgrove claimed the report on “The Nation” had been “shopped around” by Earthquake Recovery Minister, Gerry Brownlee, in an attempt to smear him.

But Nation presenter, Rachel Smalley, said that no one from Front Page, the production company which produces “The Nation” had spoken to Mr Brownlee or anyone from his office.

Independent Fisheries is one a number of parties who have a legal action against Mr Brownlee on this issue currently before the High Court in Christchurch. 

I have included the transcript of the show after the break, so people can see it in context.

I would make four observations.

1. I accept absolutely that there were no conditions attached to the $17,500 donation (in two parts). I also accept that Cosgrove genuinely sees the change he advocated as desirable. Just to be absolutely clear I do not believe this was a case of “purchasing policy”.
2. I do think it is somewhat inappropriate for an MP to promote legislation via the member’ ballot which would allow developments, not allowed under a local authority plan.
3. I think it is unwise of any MP, including Cosgrove, to lobby for something that is of huge financial benefit to someone he describes as a long-standing friend.
4. Accepting such a large donation from someone whose interests you have promoted legislation for, is also unwise. $17,500 is ten times the disclosure level for candidates and represents over half the $25,000 you can spend on a campaign during the regulated period.  Donations should be based on general support for a party’s policies, or belief that a candidate is the best local representative. When the MP has advocated a law change that your company is the biggest beneficiary of, then I don’t think it is a great idea to donate.

The full transcript is below.

Continue reading »

The Herald reports:

Seven government agencies wanted to join a raid on Metropolis tower apartments owned by a wealthy Chinese businessman later granted citizenship in controversial circumstances.

A search warrant was executed on the apartments owned by Bill Liu – also known as Yang Liu, Yong Ming Yan and now William Yan – on the 35th floor of the tower in Auckland in June 2007.

Officers took more than an hour to search individual rooms, such were their size.

He was under investigation by the Department of Labour for immigration fraud at the time and documents released under the Official Information Act show that other law enforcement agencies wanted to be part of any raid at the property.

The police were going to execute the warrant with Immigration officers alone – until approached by the Ministry of Fisheries, the Department of Internal Affairs, Customs, the Serious Fraud Office and the Inland Revenue Department.

Seven different agencies wanted in on the raid! Sure let’s make the guy a citizen as quickly as possible.