Audrey Young writes at NZ Herald:

John Key’s reshuffle yesterday promoted Simon Bridges and Chris Tremain and leaves the way open for Nick Smith to come back if the Prime Minister deems he has been punished enough. …

Local Government and the job of shepherding through major reforms in the area designed by Dr Smith has been allocated to Primary Industries Minister David Carter.

But Mr Carter is one of the contenders for the position of Speaker to replace Lockwood Smith, who is earmarked for the role of High Commissioner to London this year.

If Mr Carter becomes Speaker, Dr Smith could be rehabilitated back into the ministry without much fuss.

As I see it, there’s four issues here, around whether Nick Smith might return to the ministry.

1. Will John Key change his previous policy of not having former Ministers return to the ministry. The public get rather cynical if a resignation in fact turns out to be a temporary sin-bin. They know that in the real world if you resign your job, you don’t get it back in six months.
2. David Carter may not become Speaker. As I understand it the three main contenders are David Carter, Anne Tolley and Maurice Williamson.
3. What risk is there that if returned to the ministry, Nick may commit another judgement of error. Because if a PM returns a Minister to the ministry, and there is a further judgement of error – then the media and public will hold the Prime Minister responsible, not the Minister.
4. Against the risks in (1) and (3) you balance the benefits of having an experienced and effective Minister back in the Cabinet.

It will be interesting to see what happens in due course.

The NZ Herald editorial:

The inquiry into fracking being undertaken by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is extremely welcome. The technique, under which high-pressure blasts of water, sand and chemicals are used to fracture rock to release gas and oil, has generated a lot of emotion but far too little light. On one side, the Greens have called for a moratorium on fracking despite the lack of conclusive evidence about its ill-effects. On the other, there has been the usual accusation that those opposed to such new practices are Luddites, and the Energy and Resources Minister’s unhelpful statement that “the Greens want a moratorium on everything”. Both sides of the argument stand to gain much from a science-based investigation.

The statement “the Greens want a moratorium on everything” may be unhelpful but it is not without a degree of truth. I recall compiling the list of things they want banned and stopping once it made 100. That was in 2008. I suspect it has grown since then, and they never take things off the list.

Here’s the challenge for the Greens, if they want to be taken seriously on this issue. If the PCE inquiry finds no reason to ban fracking, will the Greens change their policy of wanting a moratorium?

Further can the Greens point to any data or factors which would ever cause them to change their stance on fracking?

As far as I can tell they would only stop opposing fracking if it is proven to be totally safe. Now of course it is absolutely impossible to prove something is totally safe.

John Hartevelt at Stuff reports:

ACC Minister Judith Collins will continue defamation action against two Labour MPs and Radio NZ – but she will not use taxpayer cash to fund it.

Collins this afternoon said the alleged defamation against her last week had occurred in relation to her carrying out duties as Minister for ACC.

She wrote to Labour MPs Andrew Little and Trevor Mallard threatening legal action, but they had not responded.

“Even though I am fully entitled to do so, I have not asked Cabinet for funding,” Collins said.

“I trust that Mr Mallard and Mr Little are prepared to fund their own defence.”

Both MPs have indicated they would pay for their own defence in any legal proceedings.

Collins said Radio NZ had responded to her letter last week but they too still faced legal action.

“There would be no cost and no case to answer if Mr Mallard, Mr Little and Radio New Zealand told the truth and presented their evidence,” Collins said.

If there was any evidence I suspect we would have seen it by now.

A very smart decision not to obtain crown funding. All the focus would have gone onto that issue, rather than the merits of the case.

Also in such tight fiscal times, the Government would face questions about how it can afford to fund a lawsuit, but not xxxxx.

The 2011 crime states have been released.  The overall crime rate is down 5.6% from 2010, and from 2009 is down 11.9%. Of course the overall crime stat figure is not that meaningful as it counts all crimes as equal, and some crimes can be affected by how active Police are (drug offences for example).

Hence I always like to look at violent crimes, as these can be most devastating, and least likely to be impacted by other factors.

• The homicide  rate is down 15% in 2011, and 36% over two years.
• The total assault rate is down 9% over two years. It had increased by 30% over the last four years before that.
• The Serious assaults resulting in injuries rate dropped 11% over two years. In the previous four years (05 to 09)   the rate increased by 18%,
• There were just 39 murders in 2011 – equal low with 1995
• There were 83 homicides, which is lower than any other year since the current data series began in 1994

Overall very pleasing to see that the previous trend of increasing violent crime has now reduced for two years in a row.

Spent most of Thursday at a forum on suicide and the media co-chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman (PM’s Chief Science Advisor) and the Chief Coroner. A dozen or so to researchers were there, along with various media people, and also various government people. 37 people in total.

The background to the forum was last year a set of new guidelines for the media in reporting of suicides was formulated. Some of the health professionals felt that they didn’t cover the science adequately, so hence the forum was to allow an exchange of views.

There was at times some fairly heated exchanges, but most of the time it was just interesting presentations and discussions. Some stats on suicide:

• Largest class of death by external causes in NZ – 540 annually
• Male suicide rates three times female rate (however more females attempt suicide)
• Youth suicide peaked in 1995, however the female youth rate is at the  highest since 1999
• In a natural disaster, suicide rates stay fairly constant or decline – the increased stress compensated for by the increased sense of belonging and community. However in the long-term they then increase 3 – 5 years afterwards

Globally there are at least 100,000 suicides a year.

There was a discussion on S71 of the Coroners Act:

No person may, without a coroner’s authority, make public any particular relating to the manner in which a death occurred if the death occurred in New Zealand after the commencement of this section; and there is reasonable cause to believe the death was self-inflicted; and no inquiry into the death has been completed.

It is quite clear that this means one can not report details around a suicide. For example you can not say “xxx killed himself by taking a drug overdose” or  even worse “xxx killed himself by tying a rope around the beam in his bedroom, stepping up on a chair, and kicking the chair away to hang himself”.

There is strong evidence that the reporting of such details can sometimes lead to copycat deaths.

However what is not clear is whether S71 means the media can’t report the fact a death appeared to be suicide, without any details of the suicide. Can you say “xxx killed himself”? Some in the media say you can, some health professionals say even that can be harmful, and the Coroner prefers media indicate suicide by using phrases such as “There are no suspicious circumstances” or “No one is being sought in connection with the death”.

On a couple of occassions I have reported the suicide of a friend, and called it suicide. I think in an interactive medium, being coy is likely to lead to speculation, which can be unhelpful. I also made the point to the forum than now when most young people die, they have a Facebook page and their friends all go there to talk about what happened, how they are feeling etc – and 14 years olds are not too worried about S71 of the Coroners Act.

Having said that, there is some risk around the quite natural tendency to mourn someone who has killed themselves. If their Facebook page becomes a shrine to them, that can encourage other vulnerable youth to think that suicide is a good thing, as it will get people talking about how much they will miss you and what a good guy or girl you were.  So one of the challenges is that when someone kills themselves, to try and encourage comments on their social media sites to not unduly glorify them.

People may be interested in some of the don’ts in the media guidelines. They include:

• Don’t simplify the cause of death. They are normally complex.
• Don’t specify in detail the method or location
• Don’t just focus on the person’s positive characteristics
• Don’t encourage over simplification of the death by contributing it to a single cause
• Don’t blame suicide on texting or Facebook etc.
• Don’t use phrases such as “X successfully killed himself”

Sent in by Paul D who took this photo of a Southern Royal Albatross at Campbell Island.

For those not paying attention to the titles and the tagline – note that this is a guest post from PaulL, long time commenter here, not from DPF.

Obamacare is before the Supreme Court at the moment, with the potential that it could be struck down.  What is the argument, and why does this matter?

Firstly, I don’t claim to be an expert, merely an interested lay person.  I’m sure many who comment on Kiwiblog may have something to contribute, and this thread should give a place to do so.

Obamacare was enacted as an individual mandate.  Americans would be obliged to buy health insurance, if they did not they would attract a penalty, said penalty to be collected by the IRS.  The Democrats could in concept have enacted instead a public health insurance system paid for by taxes, as much of the western world has, but they didn’t have sufficient political support to pass a bill with that structure, so instead they added compulsion on top of an existing insurance-based system.

A number of Republican states have taken exception to this mechanism, and are asking the Supreme Court to strike down aspects of the legislation on the basis that the Federal government doesn’t have the ability under the Constitution to compel citizens to engage in commerce.  This argument hinges around the extent to which the Federal government is permitted to regulate commerce – whilst the Federal government has wide tax powers, it has more limited powers to regulate commerce.

The interesting bit of this to me is the political tradeoffs involved.  It is quite possible to rewrite this legislation as a tax and rebate – citizens could have been subject to a tax to pay for their healthcare, with said tax being refunded as a credit if they purchase private health cover.  The actual fiscal effect on citizens is the same – they need to buy health insurance, if they don’t there is an amount to pay to the government.  And that construct apparently would be very constitutional.  The problem is that Americans (rightly, in my assessment) have a strong aversion to new taxes, and if the law was written that way it would not have passed.

The Democrats are stuck – despite this penalty being collected by the IRS they argued strongly at time of the law being passed that it was not, in fact, a tax.  Now, in front of the Supreme Court, they’d much rather be arguing that it was a tax, as that would make it much more sustainable.  But they’d be accused of speaking with forked tongues if they did so.

This is important politically – if bits of Obamacare are found to be unconstitutional, the headlines that go with that would have negative impacts on Obama irrespective of the details of the political chicanery that got to this point, and irrespective of the value or otherwise of Obamacare.  A decision should come down from the Supreme Court in June/July, which will be in prime campaigning season for the Presidential election.

This is also potentially important for health care in the USA.  I’d personally argue that the bits of the legislation that make health insurance more affordable are the important bits, the bits that force people to buy it seem to me to be unreasonable extensions of government power (in the US context).  I can understand the government taking measures to make health insurance more affordable, but if, even once it is made more affordable, people don’t want to buy it, why would the government be forcing them to do so?  If the penalty is struck down, that doesn’t prevent the remainder of the legislation from continuing to have effect.

Certainly this will be an interesting circus as it moves along, and one that potentially will have the effect of denying oxygen to Obama at a key point in campaigning.

Thanks Paul for the guest post.

The Supreme Court hearings were interesting. Scotusblog has extensive coverage of them.

Congrats to Simon Bridges who has been appointed Consumer Affairs Minister, plus Associate Transport and Climate Change. It was inevitable Simon would become a Minister at some stage – after three years and four months is pretty good time-wise.

Chris Tremain gets promoted to Cabinet, drops Consumer Affairs and gains Internal Affairs.

Amy Adams picks up Environment in exchange for Internal Affairs. A big vote of confidence in her abilities.

Tim Groser gets Climate Change (he already had the international negotiations side of it) and David Carter gets Local Government.

I blogged yesterday about a SST story, which I thought was missing some key facts.

I did note in the post:

So people don’t blame the journalist, it is possible all this information was in the story they submitted, and sub-editors butchered it out. But regardless the end result is a story which doesn’t provide any details to back up the headlines.

Now the author has kindly e-mailed me, and it transpires that the couple of paragraphs which I said were missing support facts, were in fact from another story, and merged into that one online. The other story, was linked to from the main story.

While noting that this is not the responsibility of the author, I still regard it as less than satisfactory that the info from the other story was added in, in a way, which meant the story couldn’t be read by itself. But the author wanted it noted that the info wasn’t “made up” (I do not think I was implying it was incidentally), and that also the print edition had further graphs and data.

That’s fair enough. The point I was aiming to make is that an online story should be a complete story in itself.

The Herald reports:

A new era in film and television-watching is upon us, with Australian streaming service Quickflix available in New Zealand today. …

Quickflix allows customers to stream movies and TV shows on their computer, television and via devices such as PS3 gaming consoles.

The company also offers a pay-per-view service for the latest releases which will be available around the same time as DVD releases.

This is a step in the right direction. Ultimately I want people to be able to buy a movie within days of it hitting the big screens. You might charge more for it during that time, but only by catering to demand, by allowing people to buy content when they want it, to watch when they want to, will you reduce piracy.

* Unlimited movies and TV shows for $9.99 per month (limited time). Normally $16.99 per month.
* Pay-per-view new release films cost $6.99. Available around the same time as DVD release date.
* Around 650 films and “hundreds of hours” of BBC TV content will be available initially. However, it will be adding around 350 to 400 new films and about 400 hours of new television every month for the subscription service.
* Watch on internet-connected devices, including home computers, Sony Bravia TVs, Blu-ray players and PS3. In coming months other devices will stream Quickflix, including Apple iPhones and iPads in May.
* Zero-rated broadband access with Orcon, easing the pressure on the user’s monthly data cap. Other ISPs, including Slingshot, expected to announce their own plans soon.

That pricing is not too bad.

Brian Edwards blogs:

Just four months after an election then, political commentators are suggesting replacements  for the current Labour Party leader.

My own view is that the strategy, devised by his Chief of Staff Stuart Nash, of having Shearer stump the country making speeches, rather than leading the charge against the Government in the House, has been misguided. The effect has been that Shearer is rarely seen on prime time television, while the Greens, Winston Peters and his own Deputy make the 6 o’clock  running. Out of sight really can mean out of mind.

So let’s just indulge in a little speculation. Between McCarten’s and Hartevelt’s front-runners – Little and Robertson – who might make it to the finishing line? I’m going to plump for Robertson. Yes, Little enjoys the support of the unions and is a forceful debater in the House. But it’s hard to see this rather dour, uncharismatic unionist as the face of a rejuvenated Labour Party. At 41, Robertson, on the other hand, who lists his interests as ‘watching too much sport, playing a bit of indoor netball and squash, cooking, movies, listening to New Zealand music and reading New Zealand literature’, projects a youthful, energetic, upbeat  and thoroughly modern image. And he’s fiercely ambitious.

In talking this issue through with a gallery journalist I suggest the danger time for Shearer was the beginning of 2013. The journo reckoned it will all be over well before then.

So are we ready for a gay Prime Minister? I can only speak for myself. I find the idea invigorating. Other than prejudice, I can’t really think of any objection to it. And we Kiwis are for the most part an open-minded lot. After all, we had no trouble electing the world’s first transsexual MP.  And we didn’t seem to mind a mincing John Key.

It’s true that gay Prime Ministers are thin on the ground. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, elected Prime Minister of Iceland in 2009, was not only the country’s first woman Prime Minister but also Europe’s first openly gay head of state. She was followed in 2011 by Belgium’s Elio Di Rupo. When asked whether he was gay, the new Prime Minister replied, ‘Yes. So What?’ That strikes me as the only sensible answer to the question.

I don’t think it is useful to conflate mincing with being gay, but for the wider point I agree that the sensible answer is “Yes, so what”.

However sexuality can have some bearing, if it impacts politics. There is a difference between a politician who happens to be gay, and a politician that campaigns on gay issues. Chris Finlayson is very much in the former category while Chris Carter and Tim Barnett were in the latter category. I’d place Grant Robertson somewhere in-between.

I agree that at this stage the next leader of the Labour Party is probably a contest between Grant Robertson and Andrew Litttle, and Robertson is heaving favoured to win. The bigger issue is when will the vacancy occur!

NZ Herald reports:

The six month warrant of fitness check may be a thing of the past under reforms being looked at by the government.

Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee’s thrown up a host of ideas around vehicle licensing reform, with the aim of saving millions in unnecessary costs and times for both households, businesses and the government.

In the spotlight is our inspection system, which he says is one of the most frequent in the OECD.

Under the current system a warrant’s required every six months unless your car is less than five years old – then it’s an annual check.

My car has just moved from annual to six monthly checks and it is a pain. The six months fly past so quickly. I can’t think of anytime when a six month check picks anything up which is urgent and wouldn’t wait for the annual check.

Plus many drivers are having regular service inspections as well as WOF checks.

It seems no other country has WOF checks as often as NZ does.

Bernard Orsman at NZ Herald reports:

Auckland Council reports need to target a reading age of 13 and be fewer than five pages long to stop people falling to sleep, a senior council officer says in an email to her underlings.

Very sensible.

“All writing, whether in reports, letters or memos needs to be in plain English. You need to target a reading age of around 13.”

When writing reports, Ms Stokes stressed the need for brevity and context for new councillors and local board members “just in case the rest of your report doesn’t get read … which, to be honest, is quite likely”.

Not true for all, but definitely for some. It reminds me of the stories Nat Ministers would tell of the early 1990s Cabinet when Winston would turn up to Cabinet with his papers still in his sealed bag, unread.

Whau Local Board chairman Derek Battersby said Ms Stokes was right to point out the need for concise and clear reports, but it was derogatory to typecast elected representatives as 13-year-olds.

She didn’t. She said aim for a reading age of 13. There is a difference. I believe some media target a reading age of 10 – 12, so a reading age of 13 for Councillors is actually quite ambitious.

I won’t comment on the rumour that Cr Brewer has asked for his papers to be done as illustrated comics 🙂

Martin Johnston at NZ Herald reports:

A survey indicates there has been an increase in the number of parents who choose not to smack their children, in line with the controversial “anti-smacking law” implemented in 2007.

The survey was commissioned by conservative lobby group Family First from Curia Market Research, a firm headed by centre-right blogger David Farrar.

It is based on responses from 500 parents of children aged less than 12. It found that 44 per cent reported never smacking their children since the 2007 legislative change to remove the Crimes Act defence of “reasonable … force” for parents who hit their children to correct them.

Twenty-nine per cent told Curia they had smacked rarely since the change, 21 per cent said occasionally, 1 per cent said frequently and 5 per cent were unsure or refused to answer.

The full results are on the Family First website.

The never-smacked figure was higher than found in a 2009 Herald-DigiPoll survey of parents of 4-year-olds.

That poll found that 39 per cent of mothers and 33 per cent of fathers never smacked – and that was more than three-fold higher than the rate during the four decades to 1997.

I’d be a bit careful comparing a poll of parents of four year olds and a poll of parents of children aged from zero to 11 years old. I would suspect that the older the children the less likely parents are to smack.

This is not to say that the “never smacked” figure may not be increasing. It may or may not be. But one would want to compare data of parents of same aged children to be able to say if there is a trend.

Survey findings

66 per centof parents would “smack to correct in future”

44 per centhad not smacked their children since the 2007 law change

49 per cent think law change “caused decline in discipline”

81 per cent would not report someone for smacking

63 per cent think law should be changed to allow hand smacks

75 per cent say 2007 law change has not changed New Zealand’s level of child abuse

One interesting aspect was the views of parents on whether the law change has caused a decline in disciple. Only 42% of parents living in areas in the top three (least deprived) deciles said it had, but 59% of those in the bottom three deciles (most deprived)  said it had caused a decline discipline.

Adam Bennett at NZ Herald reports:

A spokeswoman for Ms Collins was unable to say whether the minister had asked for Crown funding but did say the matter would cost the taxpayer nothing if Mr Mallard apologised or backed up his remarks with evidence.

Wellington lawyer Graeme Edgeler said that while there were instances of the Crown paying legal costs for ministers who were the target of defamation proceedings, he could not recall ministers receiving taxpayer funding when they were the plaintiffs.

Furthermore, “this doesn’t really seem government-related at all”.

“This is an offence to Judith Collins’ personal reputation.”

Even though any damages and costs awarded if the suit was successful would go back to the Crown, the case was “really for her personal benefit”.

My view is that when the Minister is a defendant, then the Crown should pay the legal costs. But I am uneasy with the notion of the Crown paying legal costs for a Minister as a plaintiff to sue other MPs and a media outlet. It may be permissable within the Cabinet Manual rules, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

Apart from anything else it would allow Mallard and Little to portray themselves as martyrs with the resources of the state being used to try and silence them.

If it is privately funded, then it is a very different matter in terms of how the public will view it.

One News have just released their first post-election poll, taken over the last week. National is up 1%.

Full results are at Curiablog.

The Green announced today:

The Green Party has pioneered the co-leadership model which has helped us provide representative and dynamic leadership. We think the time has come for further innovation, said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman.

We will be introducing a more inclusive model of leadership that covers youth and rainbow representatives, said Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei.

The Green Party is launching today a broader leadership model that will include male and female youth and rainbow co-leaders. The additional co-leaders will be Holly Walker, Gareth Hughes, Jan Logie and Kevin Hague.

Green Party Co-leader Jan Logie added, “This is a great opportunity it has happened pretty quickly but I think I’m ready to take up the challenge.”  

I actually fell for the press release reading that far, thinking how ridiculous it was to have six co-leaders and only the Greens would do it.

Green Party Co-leader Kevin Hague added, “I’m looking forward to providing new leadership and representing the rainbow and shiny pate communities.”

Green Party Co-leader Holly Walker, said, “When Metiria and Russel, told me I was like no way, and they were like way, and I was like that’s like awesome.” 

“This is tots gangsta man, I’m gonna tweet this everywhere, said Green Party Co-leader Gareth Hughes.

This then gave it away.

But not a bad effort, the best AF jokes should be initially believable – as this one was.

Great news, reports the Telegraph:

Famed for its masterful lampooning of the inner workings of British government, Yes, Prime Minister captured the obfuscation of Whitehall mandarins to a tee.

Now, nearly a quarter of a century on, the much-lauded satirical sitcom is set to return to our screens for a new series seemingly based on the current Coalition government.

This time around the Rt. Hon Jim Hacker, previously played by the late Paul Eddington, will be confronting “the greatest economic crisis in a generation”.

John Hartevelt at Stuff reports:

Thousands of struggling Kiwi households, already unable to pay their bills, are having their power cut off.

Never mind that in fact the number cut off is 22% less than in 2007.

Power price increases from today are tipped to push bills up to 10 per cent higher, but more increases could be on the way as state-owned grid operator Transpower works on a massive network upgrade.

This is the key fact that is missing from the story. I’ve looked everywhere and have been unable to find it. Which actual power companies are putting their prices up today? Is is Transpower? If so, by how much? Is it one or more generator companies? Is it lines companies? Is it retail companies?

So we do not know who is putting the prices up, how much they are being put up, and who is “tipping” that they will push prices up by 10% or higher.

I’m not saying power prices are not going to go up 10%. But this story doesn’t give me any info on which to know if what the story says is accurate or not.  It would be good if the story said (for example) “Transpower’s prices have gone up 5% today, and xxx of yyy says they believe this will cause retail prices to increase by over 10%”.

Incidentally I looked up the CPI figures for the latest available quarter. For household energy, the price movement is from 1272 to 1302 from Dec 2010 to Dec 2011 which is a 2.4% annual increase only.

In National’s first term in office, household energy costs as measured by the CPI went up 10.3%. That includes the GST increase and the impact of the Emissions Trading Scheme.

The increases in Labour’s last term was 23.5% and the term before was 23.9%.

Back to the story, I also note the caption with the story is:

Power prices are set to go up 10 percent, with more increases likely on the way, leaving battling consumers “sick to the stomach”.

So again this claim of increases of up to 10% is made, without us knowing on what basis it is made, or even who predicted it. And the caption also has a quote that this is leaving battling consumers “sick to the stomach”, and this quote does not actually appear in the main story, so we again have no idea who this is a quote from.

So people don’t blame the journalist, it is possible all this information was in the story they submitted, and sub-editors butchered it out. But regardless the end result is a story which doesn’t provide any details to back up the headlines.

UDATE: Just seen the print edition and amazed this is the front page lead. If a story is on the front page I do expect that someone would have checked that basic facts were not missing from it.

UPDATE2: Have done a further post here. Seems the online story used info from two different stories, which is why some stuff was missing.

Bernard Hickey writes in the HoS:

The charts reveal the results of the cut in the income tax rate from 39 to 33 cents, which was in theory partly paid for by an increase in the GST rate from 12.5 to 15 per cent. They also reveal a massive reversal in a decade-long trend of improvement in New Zealand’s public debt position.

Our tax-to-GDP ratio has crashed from almost 34 per cent in late 2008 to 29 per cent last year, which means yet more borrowing on the horizon.

This is almost directly taken from David Parker’s talking points, as they make the same mistake.

There were three sets of tax changes. Tax cuts on  1 October 2008 with no spending cuts to compensate, Tax cuts on 1 April 2009 (with some spending cuts to compensate) and a tax package on 1 October 2010 which was meant to be broadly fiscally neutral (income tax down, GST up, no tax benefit from depreciation on investment properties).

Bernard, like David Parker, is using the change in tax from 2008 to cast judgement on the 2010 package. It is absolutely misleading to do. I can understand why David Parker does it, but am disappointed Bernard is repeating his tactics.

The 2008 and 2009 tax cuts saw tax rates reduce for everyone. It is again dishonest to suggest that fall from 34% to 28% (tax as % of GDP) was just related to dropping the top tax rate from 38% to 33% in 2010.

Stuff reports:

Former Alliance Party leader and Cabinet minister Laila Harre has joined the Green Party’s staff.

Harre will take up the newly created position of issues director and will be based in Auckland.

Heh, issues director. My interpretation of that is she will be effectively the Auckland Campaign Director.

“Laila’s experience in central and local government, coupled with her strong campaigning background, makes her ideally suited to this job.”

The Greens know that keeping their vote high in Auckland is key to retaining over 10% support. Only 3 out of their 14 MPs are Auckland based. I will not be surprised if Harre turns up on their party list.