On Friday night I did my part to help pay for a new gymnasium or equipment at Queen Margaret’s College. I got co-opted to one of the teams, purely I think because I live nearby.

The quiz night was lots of fun. Our team did okay, but were behind the students’ team. Of course one round was on youth culture and the music round was all 21st century songs which did help them somewhat. We did quite well on the politics round, and got 10/10 on the anagram round which was a surprise as at first we thought we wouldn’t get any of them.

I was quite interested in how the school did the quiz night as a fund-raiser, as quiz nights are normally not huge fund-raisers. I suspect their PTA has some accountants on it.

First each team table was $200, with up to 10 members is $20 each. That was quite smart as people like larger teams, as more likely someone knows the answer. They held it in their school hall, so had room for 15 tables or 150 people. So that is $3,000.

Then they had raffle tickets on sale, with most doing 6 for $10. So that is another $1,500 or so.

Then they had the silent auctions for everything from john Key signed wine to dinner and a hotel room in various nice Wellington hotels. The principal was doing such a hard sell on people buying these romantic packages that I was tempted to suggest to the pupil’s team that one of them should bid for the hotel room, just to see the principal’s face when they won it 🙂

The auctions probably raised another $1,500 – maybe more.

Then there was the final capitalist triumph. Each team could purchase one answer per round for $10. Of course every team did that, so there is another $1,500. I loved the idea of being able to purchase answers, and think this could be a great policy for NCEA. That way schools could buy their way up the league table 🙂

So all up, I suspect the school managed to bring in $7,000 or so from the quiz night – which is a great tribute to their commercial acumen. And it was a very enjoyable night – good teams, and fun questions.

The only thing that disturbed me was again a reminder of how small Wellington is. Despite having no connection to the school, I actually knew a reasonable proportion of the people at the quiz night!

First quiz night I have taken part in for some time. Normally I am the one who writes the questions for them and/or MCs them. I need to improve my knowledge of Oscar winners and artists (as in painters and sculptors).

I enjoyed the performance of Sunset Road at Circa on Saturday night.

The play is set in Rotorua, about a Cook Island family who moved there 20 years ago. Dad (Rob Ringiao Lloyd) is the foreman at the local mill, and Mum (Tina Cook) works in a local hotel. Cook especially gave an excellent performance as the caring worried wife trying to help her husband and children through what eventuates.

The other two cast members are the twins Luka (Nathan Mudge) and Lucia (Aroha White). Luke has almost ridiculous Grease type hair, and rides a motorcycle to complement it. Some of his best scenes are on the motorcycle. Mudge also performed well, because I found myself wanting to whack his character for being such a whining selfish prat at times. When you actually start to react emotionally to the character, the actor knows they are doing their job well. Luka also has the nickname Captain Cook Islands, and produly has their flag on the back of his jacket.

White’s Lucia is the balance to her temptous brother. She is the beautiful calming influence. In fact she is competing the next day in Miss Geyserland, and hopes to finally win the crown that could propel her forward.  Her and Luka plan to travel away together, rather than go to Law School – which their father has been saving money towards for many years.

The interactions between the twins is very tactile. I actually started to worry if there would be an unwholesome revelation about their actual relationship. There are some startling revelations, but not of the kind I was thinking. These come out in an explosive scene that tears the family apart.

The play, written and directed by Miria George, is a journey back to 1970s New Zealand. You have the Police, the dawn raids, the Highway 61 gang, the culturally influential beauty contests of the era and a more God faring population. A simple set means we focus on the characters and their interactions.

It was overall an enjoyable play, but not one that gripped me to the same degree as some others. It took a while to set the scene at the beginning.  Also I can’t give too much away, but found the ending a bit anti-climatic. But this doesn’t detract from an enjoyable 100 minute performance where you get engaged with the characters, and wanting to know how it all resolves.

John Smythe at Theatreview has also reviewed the play calling it an “insightful, delightful and powerful drama”.

Some words of wisdom from of all people Jim Anderton on Q+A:

Well, there’s no question climate change is the number-one issue facing the future of the world.  I don’t have any doubt about that, but you’ve also got to have the ‘glass half empty, glass half full’ thing.  I mean, our major emitter, methane gas, for example, is our agricultural community.  50% of all our emissions come from there, and this is a very important exporting-food nation, so we live by exporting food, and yet we’ve got a big problem with the method of doing it.  So we’re putting a lot of research into that.  We’re encouraging farmers, and farmers have stepped up to the plate too.  I get— As a townie, but former Minister of Agriculture, I get a bit tetchy with the green kind of approach to this – that all farmers are dirty farmers and all the rest of it.  They are not.  There are thousands of young farming families in New Zealand that are putting their best endeavours into making their streams on their farms fenced off and planted and making sure that their farms are in better shape environmentally than anything they inherited from their parents and grandparents.  And sometimes we have to celebrate that instead of bashing into them.  And when we get into the clean-energy thing, well, try and dam a river these days.

This is the contradiction the environmental movement has. They want more renewable energy, but they oppose all and any law changes to make it easy to consent renewable energy projects such as dams.

The SST reports:

 Real estate agents are opposing changes to consumer laws that would require them to tell the truth about properties.

The Real Estate Institute of New Zealand is taking issue with changes that would make it illegal for agents to make unsubstantiated claims, saying the changes could open “floodgates of complaints”.

Yes, it probably would. But I am not sure that the solution is making it okay to misrepresent properties. The solution is to umm, not misrepresent properties.

The proposed change does not require absolute truth, but it does require that when a representation is made to a consumer, the seller should have “reasonable grounds” for believing it is true.

How outrageous.

In REINZ’s submission to Parliament, O’Sullivan said the new requirements should be “balanced by the commercial reality that the agent is in the business of selling property”. “Agents are, by their name, acting on behalf of the vendor.”

Actually I have found they are acting for themselves. They often (not all) want a quick sale and commission, so will encourage you to sell quickly, even if the price is inadequate.

Spare a thought for this real estate agent. Under the benign title of “Popular Local Club House” this Waipukurau home, above left, in the central Hawke’s Bay has been listed on Trade Me since Thursday. The “well-known property” has been “set up for family and club gatherings” but the agent insists it could be converted “back to its former glory”. If a magic real estate decoder programme could be run over the listing the unvarnished truth would read: “Mongrel Mob gang headquarters for sale.”

The house on Takapau Rd is described as a “modest home” but “in need of a little `TLC’ however”.

Real estate agent Max Lyver has done a valiant job of presenting the property in a good light. The camouflaged perimeter in black, red, white and grey is “brightly coloured fences” that provide “privacy and security”. “The large section with mature trees provide shelter where friends and family can gather for social occasions.”

Heh.

My last sale and purchase were both done privately. Thank you Trade Me!

Rodney Hide writes in the HoS:

After getting the toss from Parliament last year, I spent six months renovating our house, top to bottom. It was the best therapy after years of politics.

I know now what to do if there is ever a gap to fill in my life: Get an old house and fix it up. It’s a huge challenge and very satisfying. Living in a freshly minted house is the best and it’s even better when it’s your own work you can look at every day with pride. And seeing the delight in former owner Mary’s face, she is now 89, was rather neat.

My plan then had been to put my feet up a bit to enjoy the new house and figure out what to do next. Then Ian the Builder needed a hand at his next job. We put up a new ceiling together.

It was like old times.

And through that job I met Roger the Digger Driver. He needed an extra pair of hands on his next job.

So I have spent the week with Roger and the boys taking down a 3m concrete retaining wall. The wall ran the length of a section and had fallen against the house it was supposed to protect. It was a tricky demolition.

My job involved getting down in the mud with a sledgehammer, a crowbar and a wheelbarrow. After the first day I ached all over. But by the second day I was into the routine.

Roger says that 20 per cent of those who work for him don’t come back after the first morning tea, another 20 per cent disappear after lunch, and another 20 per cent get their mums to ring the following morning to say Johnny won’t be coming to work.

The remaining 40 per cent work with him for the rest of their lives.

It’s good money, too. It’s half what I was getting as an MP but it’s only half the hours. Plus smashing up concrete is pure stress relief and a good workout.

During the week I was taught how to take down a concrete wall. It now looks like I will be learning to put one up. Bill, the Retaining Wall Man, came to have a look at the job, and to tell me he’s a man short.

When I was a politician I was supposed to pretend sympathy for people without a job. The truth is I never had much. I always figured there’s work to be done for anyone prepared to get stuck in. I now know that’s true. I got a job pushing a wheelbarrow and swinging a hammer. Why can’t the so-called unemployed? We all know why. They’re too picky. The jobs don’t suit. It’s a bit cold. It’s a bit wet. It’s a bit hard.

But that’s why they are called jobs. They are not meant to be fun. They’re meant to be a bit tough and a bit of a challenge. That’s where the satisfaction of a good day’s work comes from. There’s no satisfaction if it’s easy.

There would be no unemployed people if everyone took the first job offered and got stuck in. If they got stuck in, they would love the work. They would then be offered a multitude of jobs and could pick and choose what they wanted to do.

So here’s my challenge for anyone wanting a job. Get off the dole. That shows you are serious. Take the first job offered. That shows you are keen. Get stuck in. That proves you’re useful.

Work is satisfying. I got restructured to part-time in one job. I immediately went along to an organisation I was involved in and asked if I could work unpaid for them for two days a week, just so I was doing something five days a week.

The HoS reports:

Prisoners who seized a disused watchtower and broadcast messages of protest at Auckland Prison in Paremoremo seem to have little support from fellow inmates.

Aaron Forden, nicknamed Houdini, and an older, unnamed inmate took control of the prison tower on Friday morning. At noon yesterday, they started scrawling messages on the glass of the tower.

Aware of news media near the prison, they placed a black blanket behind the message to make it visible. It said: “Peaceful protest against department”.

They also wrote “Contact Peter Williams QC”. He said he was available to mediate.

But shouted comments from other inmates, audible from a road nearby, included “jump”, “hang yourself” and “what are you waiting for?”

Heh, not quite the messages of support they were probably hoping for. I imagine they thought they would be seen as heroes fighting the system, but the universal belief seems to be they are just dicks.

The HoS reports:

 A controversial lawyer has contacted police after receiving chilling death and rape threats over her fight to clear the name of a convicted murderer and rapist.

Except the threats are not over the fight to clear his name, it is over the charges laid against her for allegedly smuggling contraband to him.

Regardless it must be stressed any threats of violence are wrong and repugnant. Those who want to express their displeasure can do so without lowering themselves in such a way.

Davina Murray is crusading on behalf of Liam Reid, who is serving a 23-year sentence for brutally raping and slaying deaf woman Emma Agnew in Christchurch in 2007, and the rape, attempted murder and robbery of a 21-year-old student in Dunedin nine days later.

Murray, who is facing two charges of allegedly smuggling Reid an iPhone, cigarettes and a lighter at Mt Eden prison last October, visited Reid 80 times over nine months last year.

I suspect that is what had led to anger, rather than merely campaigning to “clear” his name.

Murray said she first received abuse from the same person in April, the day after she lost a bid for her continued name suppression at Auckland’s High Court over the smuggling allegations.

The first email, dated April 17, said: “You’re no better than he is. When you are sentenced you should get your wish and be chucked in the cell with the creep and you can find out first hand what he did to his victim.”

“I had told the High Court that releasing my name and that of Liam Reid could compromise my personal safety, but that was ignored,” she told the Herald on Sunday.

“Since then I have been used to people shouting things like ‘you smuggler’ at me when I am at work.

That is not a case for name suppression. That is a case for not smuggling things into prison (if the allegations are correct and hold up in court).

The Herald on Sunday has their first post-election poll. The three major things I take from it are:

• National remains high at 48% support
• Only 25% support the partial asset sales
• However 60% would buy shares in the companies if they had the money

The full results and a link to the full tables are at Curiablog. Some interesting aspects from the breakdowns: on

• 88% to 89% of Labour and Green voters are against partial asset sales, but only 32% of National voters
• National strongest amongst under 25s and 65 to 74 year olds
• Labour is at just 19% amongst men!
• 32% of men and only 19% of women support partial asset sales
• Almost 70% of under 35s would buy shares if they had the money
• 52% of Green voters and 54% of Labour voters say they will buy shares if they had the money

Winston has said he will nationalise the companies and confiscate the shares for the value originally purchased. If he forces this policy onto Labour, that is going to be potentially a lot of New Zealanders having their property confiscated.

Got 10/10 in 41 seconds. Quiz here.

The Herald reports:

A High Court bid by Greenpeace and a Maori tribe to quash a permit granted to Brazilian oil giant Petrobras for exploration off the East Coast has been thrown out.

The applicants claimed the Government failed to meet environmental and consultation obligations under the Crown Minerals Act, Treaty of Waitangi obligations and international law.

Justice Warwick Gendall said their claims for judicial review failed on all counts. Not only that, he said that if he had found an error of law in the process he would have taken the rare step of not granting relief.

In effect, he is saying he would not have overturned the permit because of the time delay in the applicants’ issuing proceedings.

The challenge was not made until 15 months after the permit had been granted, by which time Petrobras had spent at least $8 million, and the time between the notification of the relevant block on offer and the challenge was two years nine months.

It is good the court found there were no merits to the claims, but also noted the extreme bad faith in filing so late in the piece.

Some environmental groups was to ban anything that has any environmental risk. Mining, fracking, drilling – ban it all. That is a route to poverty. Have a look at Australia. GDP growth in Western Australia is something like a staggering 16%, while in some of the large states, they are actually in recession. You can’t criticise the Government for the growing gap with Australia, and oppose the industries which are generating the wealth in Australia.

Of course risk to the environment should be mitigated and minimised. But it can never be eliminated.

John Roughan writes in the NZ Herald:

 A small Remuera private school points the way for innovative teaching in low-decile areas too

This week I saw a charter school. Mt Hobson Middle School is in Remuera where plenty of parents can afford its $12,000 annual fee and $900 of sundry charges, but it wants to offer the same education to kids in West Auckland. …

Ten years ago he and wife Karen sold their house to set up this private school for what he calls project-based learning.

As best as I could understand it, they teach all the subjects in New Zealand’s required curriculum through 32 projects, such as plants, animals, architecture, great books, a foreign language …

Under those themes each class has visiting speakers and gets out a great deal to see the knowledge in real life. 

I’m not qualified to judge the merits of this. I can see how geometry might be taught through architecture but maths in plants escapes me.

Then again, it doesn’t sound very different from methods outlined in national curriculum documents these days.

Poole says it is not very different but reckons that under state control he couldn’t do what he is doing. Something to do with “structures” and “inertia”.

Outcomes are more important than structures.

Poole says he does not select the students, “first in, first served”.

He says they have a normal range of ability but almost all do well. He claims a 95 per cent pass rate in Level 1 NCEA when they go on to high schools.

Not too bad.

He had a second school in Parnell for a while and another based on the model has opened at Upper Hutt.

The next, with charter funding, could be in West Auckland. He has approached the Waipareira Trust with a proposal for a joint application under the trial that Act negotiated with National in its coalition agreement.

Poole believes that funding at the level state schools receive ($8500 a child, he thinks) would enable him to do most of what he does for $14,400 in Remuera because overheads in the West would be lower.

So it would be free, not a private school.

The Herald reports:

The proportion of long-term ACC clients moving on to benefits has surged since the corporation adopted a tough new stance, which has fuelled allegations that they are being forced off compensation before they are rehabilitated.

That may be the case, it may not. Let’s look at the numbers.

But yesterday’s figures show that the proportion of long-term claimants leaving ACC and going on to health-related, unemployment or domestic purposes benefits rose sharply from early 2009.

In the five years to 2008, the proportion going on to benefits was 12.1 per cent, but during 2009 that rose to 16.4. In the first five months of 2010, the most recent data held by ACC, the proportion rose to 19.4 per cent.

ACC figures also showed the corporation had reduced the number of long-term claimants on its books by 3644 or 25 per cent to 10773 in the three years since June 2009. That reduction is well ahead of ACC’s targets.

Okay so 3,644 people have gone off ACC, and 19.4% have gone onto welfare. First of all that presumably means 81% or 2,937 are now in employment which is a good thing.

Of the 707 who have gone onto welfare, the data suggests 441 would have been on welfare under the previous trend. That means an extra 266 have gone onto welfare.

At a macro level, an extra 266 on welfare for an extra 2,937 back in work seems pretty reasonable. But this shouldn’t really be about the macro level. In an ideal world no one would be declined ACC support who genuinely is unable to work due to an injury, and no one would remain receiving ACC support who is capable of resuming full-time work after their injury. There will always be some in both categories, and the aim should be to minimise both.

Of the 266 extra people on welfare, a key thing might be what benefit have they gone onto. If they have gone onto an invalid’s benefit or even a sickness benefit, then it suggests there could well be a problem. If however they are on the unemployment benefit, then that may just be because the jobs market is still subdued.

So that data is interesting and worth investigating more. But it is not conclusive of itself.

John Hartevelt writes at the Dom Post:

Australia’s Labor Government is weighed down by billions of dollars of debt. It has suffered a credit downgrade.

It cooks up a plan for a historically huge selldown of shares in a key piece of infrastructure, aimed at curbing debt while keeping up capital investment.

As part of the process, it offers a loyalty bonus for local retail investors who hold on to the shares for a year. A cool $5.86billion is raised from the sale.

Two years later – after struggling through the early stages of recovery from the worst natural disaster in living memory – the Government is spectacularly bundled out of office after an election campaign marked by controversy over the asset sales.

The disastrous tale of the Anna Bligh administration in Queensland has not gone unnoticed by the National Party in New Zealand.

This is all true, but a salient detail is missing, which I think is quite important.

In Queensland, the ALP did not announce their privatisation plans until after the election. In New Zealand, National announced their policy ten months before the election.

The 2009 Queensland election was in March 2009. Less than three months later they announced their privatisation plans. Of course, the electorate got angry. In fact the announcement was a mere 73 days after the election.

The article is a good read, and covers some good issues. But if you speak to people in Queensland, what most outraged them was that the Bligh Government was seen as dishonest by not announcing their plans before the election.

The Dom Post reports:

Transmission Gully is go, with opponents conceding defeat in their battle against the $930 million highway.

An independent board of inquiry yesterday granted consent for the new inland highway, which will shave 10 minutes off motorists’ peak-time journeys between Kapiti and Wellington.

It means the project, first mooted almost a century ago, has no more bureaucratic hurdles to cross with opponents confirming they have no plans to lodge appeals.

Only an appeal to the High Court could stop it now, though detractors say funding may yet fall through.

The funding will only fall through if there is a change of Government.

Rational Transport Society spokesman Kent Duston would not appeal because the only avenue was arguing whether due process had been followed.

The changes to the RMA last term have been crucial in this. Previously one could spend years and years tied up in hearings and appeals.

Sediment runoff into Pauatahanui Inlet was a key concern for opponents.

But Forest & Bird North Island conservation manager Mark Bellingham said planned remedial work would actually improve the environmental status of the catchment.

Good on Forest & Bird for saying this.

Greater Wellington regional council chairwoman Fran Wilde said the decision was “great” news and would take pressure off the existing route, which carried 13,000 vehicles each day.

“The new Transmission Gully route – which has higher seismic resilience than the present route – will help to future-proof our region.

I note there is no comment from Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, as she is of course against Transmission Gully.

Wellington Civil Defence regional manager Bruce Pepperell said it would be an “escape route” in an emergency.

“It’s more than that. Anyone who lives down here understands that access is restricted at critical points. It doesn’t take a significant earthquake to do this, it just takes a simple storm and a slip to cut the area off.”

It is important strategically, not just to reduce travel times.

The Herald reports:

 Labour is accusing National of doing a backroom deal with supermarket giants after a new store apparently flouted proposed law changes by placing alcohol at its front door.

Alcohol reforms due to return to Parliament for their final stages this month would prevent supermarkets from putting beer and wine in places where it could not be avoided by customers.

What silly language. The law has not been passed yet, so you can not be flouting it.

Labour associate health spokesman Iain Lees-Galloway said he was surprised to see alcohol at the front entrance of a Countdown supermarket in Palmerston North which opened on Wednesday.

“I queried that … because obviously the Alcohol Reform Bill as it’s drafted at the moment would make that illegal. It seemed an unusual thing to do when the law change is so imminent.”

Also a silly statement to make. Apart from the fact that the Bill still has committee stage (and at ten parts could take well over a week) and third reading to go, the key clause only comes into effect 12 months after royal assent.

So is Iain saying that he thinks that it takes 15 months to move the location of alcohol in a store?

Mr Lees-Galloway said the managing director told him the supermarket expected this placement to be permitted once Justice Minister Judith Collins’ supplementary order paper (SOP) on the bill was passed.

“He was convinced that there wouldn’t be any need for him to move it once the legislation had been passed with the minister’s SOP.”

I’ve had no discussions with anyone in Government on this issue, but know a bit about it having been briefed on it by some supermarket people. If (and this is a big if) Mr Lees-Galloway is reporting the managing director correctly, then I suspect he is quite wrong.

There is an issue around the definition of thoroughfare in the bill, but not with the principle that alcohol not be displayed in prominent areas such as the entrance. It is simply about having it practical, especially for smaller operators.

So basically the entire story is a beat-up. There is no flouting of the law. The new requirement will not take force for at least 12 – 15 months and if there are any changes they are likely to be small technical ones in terms of this clause.

1.  Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove; NZ First Leader, Winston Peters and Green MP Gareth Hughes on why they want to hang on to the SOEs and what they would do with them if they were in Government. (Rachel Smalley will chair this discussion)
2.  Jenee Tibshraeny reports on a private sector initiative to improve performance at low decile schools – and Rachel Smalley talks to millionaire-entrepeneur Scott Gilmour about his “I have a Dream” initiative.
3. Jeremy Wells and Freemans Bay lawyer, Bill Somerville debate Jeremey’s propsoal which has become a storm in a trendy Auckland latte cup — a new international cricket ground right in the heart of Freeman’s Bay.
4. Bill Ralston will be focussing on the future of newspapers in our Sunday media edition. (As reader’s of Brian Edward’s blog will know, the good doctor is in the Cook Islands on holiday.

Broadcast on Saturday at 9.30 am, repeated on Sunday at 8 am on TV3

The Press reports:

There is a tinge of alarmism, even something slightly hysterical, in the opposition of the education establishment to the publication of the performance of primary schools as measured by national standards.

Unions, teachers and principals have been united for some time in trying to have such information withheld from public scrutiny. …

The answer to all the argument over national standards information is not to try to suppress it, but rather to release it along with as much other information as possible to try to give an accurate assessment of schools’ performance on which parents can safely rely.

Information about secondary schools’ National Certificate of Educational Achievement performance has been made public and the media have made league tables of them for several years now without any serious adverse consequences.

There is no reason why statistics on national standards should be treated any differently.

The response to “bad data” should be “good data” not censorship. Ideally we should have an online schools database like in Australia, where parents can look up and compare schools over a range of data.

Gerry Brownlee announced:

Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee has welcomed today’s green-lighting of the Transmission Gully project, saying the project is an exciting and important milestone not only for the Wellington region but also for New Zealand’s national state highway network.

“An alternative state highway route into the capital through Transmission Gully has been talked about for decades, and the Board of Inquiry’s final decision to approve the regulatory consent applications will allow the NZ Transport Agency to take the project to the next stage,” Mr Brownlee says.

“The Wellington region has been waiting for this day since early last century when the project was first floated, so I’m thrilled to hear a route through Transmission Gully is now set to become a reality.”

Wellington is currently reliant on a two-lane highway that has trouble coping in peak times, and is vulnerable to closure in the event of crashes and natural disasters.

“Our capital city deserves better if it’s to reach its full economic potential, and the Transmission Gully route will help to unlock that potential.

“The new highway will not only provide a safer, more secure strategic route into and out of Wellington, it will also dramatically improve travel times between the Kapiti Coast and Wellington as well as providing a more direct link to State Highway 58, the Hutt Valley and Porirua.”

Mr Brownlee noted that Wellington’s population was expected to increase by around 65,000 between 2010 and 2030, largely on the Kapiti Coast and Wellington City.

This is great news. After decades of talk and no action, it is finally going to become a reality. Construction is scheduled to start in 2015, so the only thing that may stop it is a change of Government.

The Board of Inquiry report is here. There are 127 pages of conditions, to mitigate environmental and other impacts.

In my Herald column, I look at the mixed ownership debate. Some extracts:

The first partial sale is schedule for the third quarter of 2012, so before 30 September. Labour and the Greens will hope the petition is certified before that sale occurs, as it will allow them to call for the sale to be suspended until after the referendum is held.

They will of course be ignoring their own very recent history, when in August 2009 a referendum saw 87% of those who voted, vote that a smack by a parent for correctional purposes should not be a criminal offence. By coincidence a bill was drawn from the ballot the following week which would have amended the law to do exactly that. Labour and the Greens joined all the other parliamentary parties (except ACT) in voting the bill down.

Then on timing on the referendum:

The Government will then decide on the timing of the referendum, so long as it is within the next 12 months. They will want the turn out to be as low as possible, so that it has a reduced political impact. Hence they could decide to schedule the postal referendum very quickly, say in December. Most people in December are busy doing other things, plus that would get the referendum (which would no doubt vote against the partial sales) out of the way.

The other option for the referendum is that the Government sets it as late as possible, so mid to late 2013. By then it is likely three of the four sales would have occurred, and the referendum would look even more pointless than it is.

If the referendum is held after say three of the sales have proceeded, it may get interesting. It may put pressure on Labour and Greens to say if they will vote with NZ First to buy the shares back if re-elected.

Grant Robertson blogs:

I am very annoyed at Kennedy Graham’s misleading blog about Labour’s non-attendance at Rio+20. It is pure politics and just plain wrong. I presume I am the person he is referring to when he says he spoke to a ’senior Labour person’ about this last week. It is simply not true to say as Ken does that the reason I was not in Rio was because “I could not get away”. What I actually said was that I could not afford the cost of going. There is a big difference between the two. (In fairness to Kennedy he has now apologised for any personal offence, though the blog remains unchanged)

I would love to be there. I was at Rio+10 in Johannesburg as a member of the New Zealand delegation. I had spent the previous two and half years at the UN working on the preparations for the event. It was a big deal to me. On that delegation Nick Smith was there as the opposition representative. Just as ten years before at the original Rio Summit there had been an opposition representative on the delegation. This year the government decided not to issue such an invitation. I did raise with Amy Adams the funding for other MPs going to Rio and she said it was not happening citing “budgetary constraints”.

Grant is correct to point out he said that the reason he couldn’t attend was financial, rather than not being a priority to take the time to attend.

However it is worth pointing out that just because the Ministry for the Environment won’t pay for him to attend,  doesn’t mean he could not have still chosen to attend. Labour’s parliamentary budget is a total of $5.1 million. Labour could well have decided to fund Grant or another MP to travel to Rio out of that budget. However they obviously decided that was not a priority for them. So it was still a matter of priorities for Labour in deciding not to attend.

Personally I think it was the right decision. If I was an MP, I’d rather spend my parliamentary funding on some good policy research, rather than flying the Deputy Leader to Rio. But it was a decision open to Labour.

Stuff reports:

Scores are feared dead as rescuers race to save 200 asylum seekers who were on a boat that capsized en route to Australia.

Indonesian authorities were leading the rescue effort for the boat that went down in their jurisdiction about 200km north of Christmas Island.

The stricken vessel was spotted by an Australian Customs and Border Protection surveillance plane about 5pm (NZ time).

“It is believed up to 200 people could be on board, although this detail has not yet been confirmed,” Customs said in a statement.

West Australian Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan said about 40 people were spotted on the upturned hull, others were in the water and up to 75 others may be dead.

“We have grave fears for the remainder,” he told reporters.

What an awful way to die, drowning in the Indian Ocean scores of miles from land.

In December 2010, more than 50 asylum seekers, including women and children, died when a boat known as SIEV 221 crashed into rocks off Christmas Island.

The disaster was the largest loss of life in Australian waters in peacetime in 115 years.

And as many as 200 people drowned last December when an overloaded boat sank off the coast of East Java on its way to Australia.

Only 49 people survived the tragedy, which occurred in rough monsoonal seas on December 17.

So far this year, 57 boats carrying a total of 4006 passengers and 82 crew have arrived in Australia.

For the month of June, there have been 18 boats carrying a total of 1108 people.

The latest arrived arrived on Thursday and had 117 people on board.

I wonder how many were genuine refugees who gained asylum.

Not PC blogs:

Happy with her own lot, our former Aunty Helen thinks “we,” i.e., everyone else, could do with less.

Attending the eco-gathering in Rio in her new guise as United Nations Development Programme head, Aunty Helen told media

frankly human development in the West — we don’t need more cars, more TVs, more whatever. Our needs are by and large satisfied, although the recession has put a lot of strains on that.

What a pity Helen never told us this, when she was PM. That she thought we all had enough.