We will have Bill English, David Parker, Brian Fallow, Colin James and Pattrick Smellie we will also have the following on the programme:

• Jo Doolan (Ernst and Young) and Chris Money (PwC) on getting growth in the economy.
• And the Sunday media panel (Ralston and Edwards) will talk to Andrew Holden, Editor of The Press on how his newspaper survived an earthquake and won a newspaper award.

The programme will be hosted by Simon Shepherd

Saturday 930 — repeated on Sunday 0800 — TV3

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My Herald column is on National’s Super problem:

One of the reasons National got re-elected is they were seen as more fiscally credible than the alternatives. As European governments crumble under the burden of excessive government spending, deficits and debt, voters at home place great stock on fiscal sanity.

However the stance on superannuation is the chink in National’s armour. Labour will try and use this issue to portray National as going for the easy spending targets but unwilling to target the largest item of spending.

Labour’s pledge to increase the age of entitlement from 65 to 67 is a tactical policy to try and position National as fiscally irresponsible, and National is locked into a five year old policy pledge that leaves it incapable of responding. …

The lesson for both the current Prime Minister, and any future Prime Ministers, is to never ever make any pledge beyond the next term of Parliament. Doing so is both short-sighted and anti-democratic. Elections should be about choices. Policies should change as circumstances change. Our three year electoral cycle allows policies to gain mandates in a fairly timely manner.

The Prime Minister’s pledge to never allow any changes to superannuation during his tenure will continue to grow as a problem for National. They are fortunate that at the last election the fiscal credibility of their opponents was weak, and a debate stumble by Phil Goff fatally crippled them. In 2014 David Shearer may have succeeded in portraying Labour as fiscally credible, and then the superannuation pledge could become a critical issue. It would be ironic is a pledge which helped National win the 2008 election became the reason they lost the 2014 election.

This is probably the last post for today as I’m in meetings the rest of the day. Enjoy the weekend!

I’m start to get seriously annoyed at media who run story after story on how various families have to survive on $x, and hence need a payrise – without detailing their actual total income including government support. They do their readers a gross disservice by hiding relevant facts from them.

Today’s story is:

Solo mother Kelly Belcher is trying to raise her two young children on around $240 a week, a wage she says is not enough to provide her family with a decent quality of life.

Ms Belcher was speaking at the launch of the Living Wage Aotearoa NZ campaign in Auckland today, which aims to combat poverty and inequality by advocating for better wages for low-paid workers.

She works as a cleaner in Auckland and is also studying for a degree.

“I would earn more on the DPB (domestic purposes benefit) but I’m trying to do the right thing and be productive and work, but I get slapped down for it. That’s how it feels. There’s no quality of life. I look at my two little kids and there’s no activities, there’s no soccer, there’s no swimming, there’s no life,” she said.

Now good on Ms Belcher for working and studying. I am not disputing that life is tough for her. What I am saying is that media have a responsibility to provide complete information on income.

At a minimum there is a family tax credit of $157 a week. The weekly no of work hours appears to be 17.  If Belcher increases her number of work hours to 20, then she would gain an extra $279 through the in-work tax credit and minimum family tax credit. So an extra three hours a week of work would see an extra $14,500 a year.

By contrast an increase in pay from $13.50 an hour to $17 an hour would bring in only $60 (gross) a week or around $50 net.

We also do not know if there is any income from student allowance, or accommodation supplement, let alone child support from the father.

There should be a guideline in place for reporters who do stories which include claims about family income. It should tell the reporter to ask the following:

• How many hours of paid work, at what rate
• Do they receive welfare and/or WFF credits
• Do they get the accommodation supplement and/or live in a state house
• If a sole parent, is there any contribution from the other parent
• Do their expenses include anything irregular (such as debt repayment)

I’m not saying that after all that, there will not be a story that shows times are tough for that family. But that the public deserve the have enough information for them to be able to form an independent judgement. Merely repeating claims in a press release is not serving readers.

This recent Australian immigrant is extending its range in NZ.  It is a somewhat aggressive bird with a harsh call.  Locally, we call it the spur-winged plover.  In Australia it’s better known as the masked lapwing.

click for larger, higher res image

Many on the left were expressing outrage yesterday at the 30 month sentence given to two of the Urerewa defendants for their illegal firearms convictions. Their view seemed to be that so long as Iti’s band didn’t actually kill anyone, then it was a minor offence not worthy of jail time.

A comment by the Judge got me wondering. The Judge commented that the context of the convictions was that Iti had effectively formed a militia. He also wryly noted that the defence contention that they were training to be security guards in Iraq was somewhat undermined by Iti’s rather portly condition.

Anyway I wondered what the reaction would have been if the activists were not a bunch of radical leftists, but instead was Kyle Chapman and a bunch of white supremacists. Imagine if Kyle and his “right wing resistance” loons had spent months stockpiling military-style weapons and molotov cocktails, and practicing how to use them. Also that Police recordings had them openly talking of killing the Prime Minister and other people in Government if their agenda was not agreed to.

I have a feeling that the very same people expressing outrage at the 30 month sentence for Iti, would be praising it, if the group had been Chapman and the neo-nazis.

Here’s some of the more significant aspects of the 2012 Budget:

• Household savings rate is positive for the first time in a decade, and is forecast to increase to almost 4% by 2016
• Unemployment is forecast to drop below 5 per cent by 2015
• Forecast fiscal surplus in 2014/15 is $197 million
• Core Crown expenses to fall progressively from 33.5 per cent of GDP in 2011/12, to 30.2 per cent of GDP in 2015/16
• $385 million of new investment over four years in research, science, and innovation
• $250m from asset part-sales going towards Kiwirail
• Deferring the auto-enrolment exercise for KiwiSaver, until surplus is locked in
• Goals No 2 and 3 of 10 announced – reducing prisoner reoffending by 25% in five years and increasing the rate of participation in early childhood education to 98%, up from 94.7% currently
• $1.5 billion extra to Vote Health over four years – will include 4,000 more elective ops a year
• Tobacco excise tax to increase 10% (plus inflation) on 1 Jan 2013 and repeat for the next three years (so a real 40% increase in excise tax)
• $512 million towards new frontline education initiatives
• $104m for housing

I’m up in Auckland for the Eurocalypse Now debate tonight with high profile British MEP Daniel Hannan. It is likely to be a very lively debate about the future of Europe, the Euro and the EU. There are still a few places left, and it is free to attend. Starts 5.30 pm at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. You can register to attend at http://eurocalypsenow.eventbrite.co.nz/.

Stuff reports:

The four – Iti, Urs Signer, Kemara and Emily Bailey – were found guilty of unlawful possession of military-style firearms and Molotov cocktails at training camps held in the Urewera Ranges in 2006 and 2007.

They were appearing in the High Court at Auckland for sentencing today.

Iti and Kemara were jailed for two and a half years. …

Justice Hansen was emphatic that despite a “Dad’s Army” aspect to the camps, their intent was serious.

“A private militia was being established. That is a frightening prospect to our society.”

The judge said one of those involved held extreme anarchist views and there was talk among the participants of killing, using explosives to kill, and attempts to “smash the state”.

At the end of the day, if their motives were not malign they could have applied for firearms licenses. They chose not to, and frankly there is no legitimate reason for anyone to have a molotov cocktail – let alone practice how to use them.

This will hopefully deter other like minded idiots in the future.

UPDATE: Related to this, Police Commissioner Peter Marshall explains why the Police took action in this case.

The Herald reports:

A millionaire businessman at the centre of a political scandal has been found not guilty of immigration fraud charges.

William Yan – also known as Yang Liu and Yong Ming Yan – pleaded not guilty to four charges relating to false declarations on immigration papers in 2001 and 2002 and one of using false written statements to get citizenship.

He was found not guilty on all five charges against him in the High Court in Auckland this morning. …

Justice Timothy Brewer said the case had nothing to do with political connections and commentary.

His decision was based on the evidence in court about whether false declarations had been made on documents.

He said he found that the Crown had not reached the level of proof of beyond reasonable doubt which the judge said was a very high standard.

The court case, as I said before, was on whether Liu lied on his immigration forms. The issue with Shane Jones is whether he granted Liu citizenship against official advice because Liu had donated to various parties and MPs. His explanation that Liu faced execution because he was Falun Gong is very dubious when you consider:

• The decision was about being a citizen vs a permanent resident, not about staying in the country
• Falun Gong are strictly banned from gambling, Liu spent over $10m at Sky City
• There is no written record of the advice Jones claims he was given by an official he seems unable to name

I’ll comment tomorrow on the request for the Auditor-General to investigate. The way the request has been worded is incredibly narrow. Any investigation should be full and robust. I’ll try and blog tomorrow what, at a minimum, an inquiry should look at.

The danger for the Auditor-General is that things could be a repeat of the Ingram Inquiry into Taito Philip Field. Helen Clark set very narrow terms of reference, related to Field’s ministerial role only. Ingram actually did a superb job with his inquiry, but due to his terms of reference found no breach by Field in terms of his ministerial role. As people know, the Police later charged Field and he was convicted of corruption and bribery. Ingram’s report was unfairly seen as a whitewash, because the terms of reference were so narrow.

The essence of the allegations against Jones is that he was influenced by MPs (principally Dover Samuels) to grant citizenship despite the lack of good character, and that part of the motivation for this was because Liu had donated to various MPs and parties. Now it is difficult to see how one can investigate this, unless you can access the donor records of the various political parties. And I am unsure that the Auditor-General has any power over political parties.

Hence I think a full inquiry with powers to compel witnesses and material would be the best way forward, if Shearer and the PM could agree on terms of reference. In the absence of such an inquiry an investigation by the Auditor-General is better than nothing happening – but the terms of reference need to be as wide as possible to ensure it is not a repeat if the Ingram Inquiry.

The full register is here. Nothing scandalous there, but the media have pointed out that Labour’s campaign on the evils of Sky City’s casino didn’t stop them accepting numerous RWC tickets from Sky City!

Some of the more interesting or unusual entries:

• Jacinda Ardern got free tickets to four RWC games including the semi-final and final – the most impressive collection for a (then) backbencher
• Gerry Brownlee was given a framed All Blacks RWC jersey
• Cam Calder owns a restoration project of a ruin in Gers, France
• David Carter and Peter Dunne scored “only” three RWC games, but they were the quarter-final, semi-final and the final
• Charles Chauvel had three overseas trips partially paid for by the UNDP, relating to the UN Commissioner on HIV
• Clayton Cosgrove is the Patron of the North Canterbury Special Olympics
• Craig Foss got four RWC tickets, including both semi-finals but missed out on the final
• Phil Goff had five RWC games, including a quarter, a semi and the final
• Paul Goldsmith declared income from the Creative NZ Author’s Fund for books he has published in NZ
• Chris Hipkins made the RWC Final courtesy of Sky TV
• John Key got the most impressive gift, being a replica of Frodo’s sword “Sting” from Lord of the Rings (a gift from Obama)
• Trevor Mallard got tickets (he is shadow sports spokesperson) to at least five different RWC games, from the NZRU, IRB, RWC 2011, Rugby World Cup Ltd and Sky City
• Ian McKelvie is the Chairman of Special Olympics New Zealand
• Winston Peters has shares in his own strategic development advisory company and also in a project management company
• Rajen Prasad is an active paid director in the Bank of Baroda (NZ), a subsidiary of the Indian Bank of that name. This might explain why he seems to have so little parliamentary activity!
• Tony Ryall is a shareholder in a textile sales company with his wife, called Maisie and Llew Limited (very cute – the names of their kids)
• Pita Sharples also got tickets to a RWC quarter, semi and the final – plus the opening ceremony
• David Shearer might get the prize for best RWC haul, with six freebie games including the opening, quarter, semi and final
• Metiria Turei has an interest in NZ Biograins Ltd and Comvita NZ Ltd
• Nicky Wagner has the coolest name for a trust – the Timelord Trust
• Louisa Wall was a RWC commentator for TV3
• National MP Jian Yang declared the gift of a Chinese painting from Labour MP Raymond Huo

As it is Budget Day, it is worth celebrating one thing – the quality and openness of the Budget information. This year there is even a smartphone app for the Budget.

The International Budget Partnership collaborates with civil society around the world to analyze and influence public budgets in order to reduce poverty and improve the quality of governance.

They have a league table of how open budgets are and the top ten are:

1. South Africa 92
2. New Zealand 90
3. UK 87
4. France 87
5. Norway 83
6. Sweden 83
7. US 82
8. Chile 72
9. Brazil 71
10. South Korea 71

The bottom five are Chad, Iraq, Equatorial Guinea, Fiji and Sao Tome E Principe all on zero.

This has to be seen to be believed. Only the Germans could do it. It is 1300 square metres in size and has 13 kms of track, 900 trains and 12,000 wagons!

But it also has a 30,000 litre “North Sea” with cruise ships, 250 computer controlled motor vehicles, a fire brigade that responds to fires, Police chasing speed offenders, and get this an airport where with 49 airplanes that land automatically at it and get serviced by ground crews.

They also have 200,000 people populating the model.

I am so going to visit Hamburg now!

When Michael Cullen wanted his own train set, this is what we should have got him instead of Kiwirail!

Peter Lyons writes in the Herald:

A key rule of economics is that incentives shape human behaviour for better or worse. I am starting to like the idea of performance pay for teachers.

I have taught for more than 20 years. I have authored text books in my subject and been a lecturer for beginning teachers in commerce.

I think a merit-based system of pay would suit me.

I think Mr Lyons would do very well with merit based pay also. While not the most scientific of methods, he gets excellent comments and ratings at Rate my Teachers:

Brilliant mate … the man can not be faulted … Probably the best teacher in NZ … legend … Peter Lyons is a legend. He defines economics.

With such glowing references from his students it is with trepidation I challenge his column, but I will. Peter said:

I teach economics, which is an option students can choose to take. If performance pay was introduced the first thing I would do is restrict those students who could take my subject. There will be no low achievers or slackers taking my subject if it costs me money.

Two issues with this assertion. As far as I know, individual teachers do not determine admission policies for their classes. The principal or board does.

The second issue is that having performance pay means you don’t want someone who has been a low achiever in your class. If the performance pay was based on what improvement you make to that student, then having ones that start from a low base could actually be an advantage over some know it all students who can’t improve on their alreeady high marks.

There is little point in teaching the less able kids if my pay packet depends on exam results. I’ll leave that to the idealistic first-year teachers who believe they can make a difference.

Who says performance pay will depend solely or even mainly on exam results. One could have a system where say the principal and board have 10% of the staffing budget flexible to be allocated to whichever teachers they think have performed best on the criteria that works for that school.

 I will focus exclusively on the exams. There is no point in teaching students about financial literacy and how to manage money if this is not going to improve their marks and my pay. Show me the money! I love incentives.

Here Peter has a stronger argument. A performance pay system could encourage teachers to teach for the exams only. But again performance pay doesn’t have to be about exams only.

Under merit pay I have a great opportunity to be one of the highest paid teachers in New Zealand. I will get my NCEA students to do endless resits of internal assessments until they get it right. I will make them rote learn the answers for the exam until they can repeat them in their sleep. Any student unable to perform this simple cognitive task will be withdrawn from sitting the exam to maintain my excellent pass rates. 

Again I am unsure that individual teachers can withdraw students from exams, or for that matter force resits for higher grades.

What I’d challenge Peter to come up with is what are the attributes that make a great teacher (as he seems to be) and how can they be recognised and even quantified, so that the great teachers are getting paid more than the not so great teachers.

For the first time in many years I won’t be in the Budget lockup today. I was in the Wellington lockup, but then I had to be in Auckland on Thursday afternoon for the debate on Europe starting at 5.30 pm. I tried to swap to one of the two Auckland lockups, but they are both full and selfishly no one from TVNZ or TV3 has died this week freeing up a place for me 🙂

I can’t get to Auckland in time if I do the Wellington lockup as the first flight is at 4 pm after the lockup ends. So I am flying to Auckland in the morning and will be reading furiously come 2 pm.

So any coverage of the Budget won’t be at 2 pm, as normal, but slightly later. I need to write a small article for Fairfax on the budget also which will be my first priority (paid work trumps blogging!), but once that is done hope to have something blogged before 3.30 pm. I’m on the RNZ Panel from 1545 to 1700 also and suspect the Budget may be one of the issues we discuss!

Labour have worked out that the reasons given by Shane Jones for granting Liu citizenship are so weak that no one seriously believes them.

So they have stood Jones down and referred it to the Auditor-General.  About time. Helen Clark should have done this in 2008.

The ODT reports:

A “sighting”of a ghost known as the Grey Lady has terrified residents at Cumberland College, and staff have called in the University of Otago chaplain to calm students at the hall of residence.

Oh Good God. They should have called Ghostbusters instead. Or told people that intelligent students should not believe in ghosts.

The “ghost” has been linked to the story of the Grey Lady, which in one account involves a tragedy at the now closed and nearby Queen Mary maternity hospital.

The story goes that the woman haunted a nurse who stayed at Cumberland College when it was a nurses’ home, after the nurse took her baby for being an unfit mother.

Yeah I used to tell ghost stories also – when I was 12.

College resident Mareck Church said the “ghost sighting” happened on the night of Saturday, May 5, when two female health science students noticed a weird smell and a chill in the air as they walked down the hallway after coming back to the college from studying.

“One of the girls saw a black figure beside the fire hydrant, turned to the other girl to point it out and as they both turned round, they felt a cold whoosh of air pass them,” Mr Church said.

A weird smell, a figure in black and a whoosh of cold air. Must be a ghost.

In the week following, a “substantial number” of female students at the college had slept with their lights on and shared rooms with other students.

Ha, the ghost was probably a male student, hoping he’d get to shack up with some terrified girls.

Some of the other students, Mr Church included, took advantage of the situation to play pranks on other residents, including going around the corridors with pillowcases over their heads.

Heh. I would so be doing that. In fact this is a good time to confess a couple of my meaner pranks at my university hostel. One day around 20 of us watched The Exorcist in the TV Lounge. Now this is one of those rare movies which is truly scary. As it ended, one of my mates suggested we play a prank on his girlfriend, so we slipped into her room, and hid under her bed. A few minutes later she crashed, and a few minutes after that we started applying upwards force to the mattress. At first lightly, but then heavily enough so that she was bouncing into the air. Now fans of the Exorcist will know of the bed scene where the bed lifts itself up. Sure enough the poor girl started screaming absolutely terrified that the Devil had possessed her bed. Half the hostel could hear her screaming. They all came running, and it took her around three minutes to calm down enough to explain what happened. Then the two of us popped our heads out from under the bed with huge grins on our faces. Everyone dropped to the ground laughing except the poor girl who spent several minutes quite seriously assaulting (quite deservedly) the two of us. We’re talking serious bruises and we were so convulsed with laughter we couldn’t defend ourselves and I think the fact that we kept laughing while she was punching us, just increased the intensity of the fist smashing. But again, quite deserved.

I should point out I was also very very good friends with her, and wouldn’t have played such a prank on someone who wasn’t such a good mate. She did see the funny side of it – eventually 🙂

There was another time where the day before a group of us went into the bush for a weekend, we watched Friday the 13th on Thursday night. Then out in the bush (and yes it was a Friday the 13th) at the hut we were playing spotlight. I crept back into the hut and put on a black jersey, black balaclava and grabbed the axe that was there. Then rejoining the game I deliberately  rustled the bushes where I was standing so the person with the torch would shine it my way. I stepped out all in black with balaclava and axe raised high and started running towards them. My God, I think you could hear the screams a couple of miles away.

No I wasn’t always the nicest 18 or 19 year old in the world. People can make their own judgement about whether my sense of humour has got better or worse since then! Anyway back to this story:

University chaplain the Rev Greg Hughson said he and a local kaumatua were brought in to calm students after they had been through a “genuinely frightening experience”.

“We reaffirmed God’s presence and God’s love and God’s peace and God’s power in that place and then we said the Lord’s Prayer together.”

Would have been far better to give everyone a paintball gun so they could fire at any “ghost” and quickly determine they are not in fact a ghost.

Today Health at MSNBC reports:

Renate Raymond has encountered her fair share of organic food snobs, but a recent trip to a Seattle market left her feeling like she’d stumbled onto the set of “Portlandia.“

“I stopped at a market to get a fruit platter for a movie night with friends but I couldn’t find one so I asked the produce guy,” says the 40-year-old arts administrator from Seattle. “And he was like, ‘If you want fruit platters, go to Safeway. We’re organic.’ I finally bought a small cake and some strawberries and then at the check stand, the guy was like ‘You didn’t bring your own bag? I need to charge you if you didn’t bring your own bag.’ It was like a ‘Portlandia skit.’ They were so snotty and arrogant.”

Is there a reason for this?

As it turns out, new research has determined that a judgmental attitude may just go hand in hand with exposure to organic foods. In fact, a new study published this week in the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science, has found that organic food may just make people act a bit like jerks.

“There’s a line of research showing that when people can pat themselves on the back for their moral behavior, they can become self-righteous,” says author Kendall Eskine, assistant professor of  the department of psychological sciences at Loyola University in New Orleans. “I’ve noticed a lot of organic foods are marketed with moral terminology, like Honest Tea, and wondered if you exposed people to organic food, if it would make them pat themselves on the back for their moral and environmental choices. I wondered if  they would be more altruistic or not.”

Sounds a reasonable theory.

To find out, Eskine and his team divided 60 people into three groups. One group was shown pictures of clearly labeled organic food, like apples and spinach. Another group was shown comfort foods such as brownies and cookies. And a third group — the controls — were shown non-organic, non-comfort foods like rice, mustard and oatmeal. After viewing the pictures, each person was then asked to read a series of vignettes describing moral transgressions.

“One vignette was about second cousins having sex,” says Eskine. “Another was about a lawyer on the prowl in an ER trying to get people to sue for their injuries. Then the groups made moral judgments on a scale from one to seven.”

In another phase of the study, the three groups were asked to volunteer for a (fictitious) study, with each person writing down the amount of time — from zero to 30 minutes — that they would be willing to volunteer.

The results did not bode well for the organic folks.

“We found that the organic people judged much harder compared to the control or comfort food groups,” says Eskine. “On a scale of 1 to 7, the organic people were like 5.5 while the controls were about a 5 and the comfort food people were like a 4.89.”

When it came to helping out a needy stranger, the organic people also proved to be more selfish, volunteering only 13 minutes as compared to 19 minutes (for controls) and 24 minutes (for comfort food folks).

“There’s something about being exposed to organic food that made them feel better about themselves,” says Eskine. “And that made them kind of jerks a little bit, I guess.”

So scientifically proven – eating organic food makes you more of a jerk 🙂

A reader e-mails me these observations:

Sometimes you see something and it is so absurd that you think you must be missing something. You then look closer and realise the reality is really that true. I must thank Mayor Len Brown and his media team for providing exactly that sort of farce – it is still making me laugh.

I understand that Len has as many media staff as the PM, and also keeps an ex-prime ministerial chief press sec on retainer to provide more advice. With this sort of support you would think they could get the basics right.  It turns out the opposite may be true. 

On Friday afternoon Brown called a press conference to boast how prudent he has been with his budget, how tough he has been on projects, and how much money he has saved the ratepayers of Auckland. I am unsure why he’d wait until Friday afternoon to do this, but he deserves points for trying to get his positive messaging out, setting the agenda, and being available to the media.

That though is when it all becomes undone. For some reason (that I can’t begin to understand) everything that happened at the Brown presser plus all the material associated with it is placed under embargo until 5am Monday morning. I have watched politics for a very long time, but have never seen anything as curious as this.  So Len tells selected media what he wants to say on Monday on Friday, swears them to secrecy, in a bid to set the agenda take any opposition by surprise?  The only thing that was surprising was that Len and his media boffins thought this would work.

To make matters worse though they also released (also under embargo) a letter that they had sent out the day before to Auckland’s elderly. The letter was about a problem with rates rebates for old people homes, the fact that Government was ignoring it, and that Brown was going to fix it. This letter may have been embargoed as part of the press material until today, but was circulated widely on Thursday. Effectively, Len and his team tried to score points against David Carter… but figured they’d give him two days grace to work out how to respond.  Madness. 

Of course the Government and C&R had well and truly got its act together as early as Sunday morning. This meant instead of the good news stories for Len, the the focus of Monday’s reporting was on Brown’s extravagant budget, the unaffordable rail link (Carter and Key), the stupidity of spending on a V8 event (Carter on Q&A), Brown’s Greek-style spending habits, and a story about the massive storm water infrastructure deficit facing Auckland. The latter story found its way to TVNZ in the way of Council papers during Browns two-day meditation and self-imposed silence.  Gee, that embargo really paid off.

The result of this farce…come Monday any good news Brown had planned is lost and he looks massively under-pressure and defensive. In case anyone missed this case-study in inept media management, three hours after the embargo is lifted someone in Browns office gets around to sending around the media material to all media (not just the selected few who turned up to the Friiday press conference).  What’s the point?  By then the material had been copied and distributed to media that cared and certainly all of Len’s opponents. 

Auckland Council meet again on Wednesday.  I understand that the focus for the Right will be to see how many of Brown’s pet projects (that he so confidently announced) can be voted down. Might be worth the trip to Auckland just to watch.

No wonder Auckland is fast losing patience with Brown. He is ripe for the picking next year if Auckland’s right can get itself organised – or if Trotter can organise a replacement.

I’m not sure if the reader is correct about the number of media staff Len has (does anyone have the number?), but their observations on the attempt to have a secret embargoed press conference as spot on.

First an easy rebuttal of Jones claim that he was told Liu would be executed if he went to China. The ODT reported:

The department’s case officer, Johannes Gambo, told the court Yan boasted that he had politician friends who would ensure he was granted citizenship.

When told he would not receive citizenship, Yan said he was 99 per cent sure he would, according to Mr Gambo.

“He said he had a lot of support from members of Parliament … he was going to take them to China.”

Do you really think he would be planning to take his MP mates to China, if he was at risk of being executed and organ harvested?

Also an amazing concession by Shane Jones, as reported by Stuff:

Labour MP Shane Jones knew there were serious questions over the true identity of Chinese millionaire Yong Ming Yan when he gave him a New Zealand passport. …

Mr Jones admitted he knew there were questions about Yan’s identity. “I certainly know that there was a live issue as to whether or not this man is who he says he was … there was always a mystery … Those were allegations.”

So Jones has said that he was not sure that Liu or Yan was who he claimed he was, yet he still gave him citizenship!!

I can’t think of another non third world country where the Minister grants citizenship to someone on the urging of his mates, despite not even knowing if that is the person’s real identity.

The papers about this case are on the Investigate site and worth a read. Some salient points:

• Nowhere at all in the papers is there any mention at all of fearing of going back to China. It is all about how much he has invested in NZ. So the reasons Jones says he made his decision on are not even in the official papers. It is all this mystery official’s verbal briefing!
• The fraud charges in China are for NZ$2.7m
• The papers clearly state he is entitled to reside indefinitely in NZ in terms of the Immigration Act, so this was NOT an issue about whether or not he might be deported to China. That is a total red herring.
• According to the Chinese Government he stole another person’s identity in 1999 by falsely registering their birth, and used this to obtain two false passports. He stole the identity of Yang Liu.
• The papers refer to Liu claiming he has worked to develop trade and good relations between China and NZ, including involvement in formalising agricultural agreements. Does this sound like someone terrified of China, and who fled because he was facing persecution?
• The papers also refer specifically to humanitarian considerations and does not detail any applicable in this case.
• The letter from Dover Samuels fails to disclose Liu donated to him.
• Strangely the Samuels letter says Liu deeply respects NZ’s anti nuclear policy. God knows what that has to do with anything, unless it is code for being a Labour Party donor.
• The papers make it clear that Rick Barker was the Minister initially dealing with this issue.  He must have recused himself only after a very late stage. Recall that Labour fundraiser Shane Te Pou took Liu down to meet Barker.
• A follow up letter from Samuels borders on the hysterical and accuses the officials of subjecting Liu to “mental torture”, and that his treatment is not the mark of a civilised country. Samuels seems to think citizenship for migrants is a right, not a privilege.
• Pansy Wong’s letter of support refers to the Immigration Minister not revoking Liu’s residency, and citing this as grounds for citizenship. So Cunliffe’s decision not to follow the advice of his officials, is then used to advocate for Liu to get special treatment from Jones, against official advice again.
• Wong’s letter was just addressed to DIA, and did not in fact advocate what the decision should be, just that they should commence consideration and take account of his community contributions. I find that quite different to Samuels who directly advocated the outcome to the Minister in the strongest possible terms.
• Chris Carter’s letter, like Pansy Wong’s, cites Liu’s contributions but does not call for a particular decision and is a general reference, not an advocacy letter direct to the Minister. I find no fault with Carter or Wong, except that they would both have been wise to have declared Liu had donated to them campaigns.

I suggest people read the full file. There are parts redacted but hopefully after the court case they will become public also.

A great cartoon by Hubbard Emmerson.

The Herald reports:

A campaign has been launched for a “living wage” in New Zealand, inspired by policies in United States cities and London.

In New Zealand, Labour Department research shows that 103,800 workers under 25, and 161,000 aged 25 to 64, earned less than $15 an hour in the year to last June.

I have no issue with the campaign. But I caution that not all employees and not all employers are the same. I don’t think a 16 year old earning $14 an hour in an after school job is an issue. I think it is more of an issue if someone is earning that 10 years later. But also wages can only be paid if a company is earning enough income to employ people. An increase in costs can make a company unprofitable. This is why in the main individual employers negotiate agreements with individual employees – because that reflects the position of both of them.

Low wages for the Kaufisis mean the children don’t go to school when there is no money for lunch.

Leo Kaufisi, of New Lynn, earns $14 an hour as a dispatcher for Pacific Inks in Avondale. His wife Lopaini earns the legal minimum of $13.50 an hour as a cleaner.

Four adults and eight children live in the three-bedroom house which they rent for $350 a week – Mr and Mrs Kaufisi, their six children aged between four and 12 , Mrs Kaufisi’s unemployed mother, her mother’s partner, her 12-year-old sister and 10-year-old brother.

Six children sleep in one cramped bedroom.- The other children sleep with their parents.

Mr and Mrs Kaufisi are both working hard to care for their family. I have no problem with taxpayers helping them make ends meet. Sadly the article doesn’t detail what this support is.

I presume the two other adults receive the unemployment benefit. So my estimate of the weekly net income is:

• Mr Kaufisi $471
• Mrs Kaufisi $455
• Family Tax Credit $598
• UEB (couple) $342
• Accom Supplement $32

This is a total net income of $1,898. The equivalent gross before tax income (if it was a single earner) is $2,627 a week. That is a gross annual equivalent of $136,604. Now that is for a large family, but it gives a more complete picture than just talking about $13.50 an hour.

Even with family tax credits, Mr and Mrs Kaufisi say almost all their income goes on the rent and on payments to finance companies. These total about $500 a week for furniture and other items including two cars, which were both repossessed recently when Mr Kaufisi’s work permit expired.

Actually the rent is under 20% of the net income, according to my calculations. The problem is the finance company payments.

Having 12 people in a three bedroom house is massively over-crowded. It is not clear if they are in a state house, but it seems to me they would easily qualify.

Mrs Kaufisi said their combined wages now were not enough to live on and she supported the call for a “living wage”.

“With a living wage, maybe we can afford to rent our own place or buy healthy food for my kids,” she said.

I’m not sure higher wages will make a huge difference to their household. I think the biggest issue is only two out of 12 people are earning. Let’s assume that both the Kaufisi’s get paid $17.50 an hour, or $35,000 a year. What would this do to their income:

• Mr Kaufisi $584
• Mrs Kaufisi $584
• Family Tax Credit $524
• UEB (couple) $342
• Accom Supplement $0

This is a total of $2,034 a week. That is an extra $136 a week, but only a 7% increase in net income despite it being a 30% increase in wages for Mrs Kaufisi and 25% for Mr Kaufifi.

David Carter and Kate Wilkinson have announced:

The Government today announced it is to require reflagging of foreign-owned fishing vessels operating in New Zealand waters to address labour, safety and fisheries practice concerns.

Primary Industries Minister David Carter and Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson say foreign-flagged fishing vessels will no longer be able to legally operate in New Zealand waters after a four-year transition period.

“The Government’s decision sends a clear message that New Zealand is serious about the fair treatment of fishing crews, the safety of vessels and its international reputation for ethical and sustainable fishing practices,” say the Ministers.

After years of abuses onboard ships operating in our EEZ, it is great to see this Government take such a strong step to stamp it out. As I have blogged about on many previous occasions, the conditions on board some ships were tantamount to slavery and sexual abuse.

This will have some economic impact on New Zealand. But if the Government did not act, the economic impact may have been greater in the long term as I think we could have faced boycotts of NZ fisheries from stores and chains in the US. But this was not just an economic issue. We can’t control how workers are paid and treated around the world. But we can and should take responsibility for what happens in our EEZ on board ships fishing NZ quota. Slavery in NZ waters is repugnant to Kiwis.

Not all foreign-flagged vessels were acting in such a barbaric way. I understand the Ukranian ships used by Sealord had no significant problems. It was mainly the Korean ships with Indonesian sailors, used by other companies. But also worth noting that such vessels can still fish here with a foreign crew. However they must be NZ flagged. The significance of this is that NZ law then applies on board them.

Under the current regime, the FCVs were contractually bound to apply NZ minimum wage laws, but some vessels got around this by having a fake set of books.  And any complaints of rape or sexual abuse could not be investigated by NZ law enforcement.

Radio NZ reports:

Labour MP Andrew Little is critical of the way he was served papers on behalf of ACC Minister Judith Collins who is suing him and fellow MP Trevor Mallard.

Mr Little says a man emerged from the darkness on Monday night, shone a torch in his eyes and served him the papers as he got out of a taxi at his house.

Mr Little says the way the papers were served is typical of Judith Collins’ approach.

It is very hard to have sympathy for Andrew when he of course could have done what 99% of people do when a lawyer asks for an address for service – supply one. But if you’re going to go all macho and boast about how you will not co-operate, then don’t think you can take the moral high ground that you get served getting out of a taxi.

Incidentally the server rather than being a thug, had a nice sense of humour as it seems his words were “You’re served Mr Little, but no fries with that I’m afraid”.

He now has 25 days to file a statement of defence, but says he does not believe Ms Collins intends the matter to go to trial.

I’m pretty sure Andrew also said he never expects Judith to file in court.