The latest stats from Nielsen are interesting.

The South Island is doing well, with the ODt up 8% and the Press 2%.

The Dom Post is constant, the Waikato Times down 2% and the NZ Herald down 5%.

Both the SST and HoS have small increases, while Sunday News down 8%.

The huge drop is the National Business Review, whose readership dropped 16%.

Got 9/10 in Herald quiz in 44 seconds. Muffed the Andrew Williams one.

Claire Trevett reports at NZ Herald:

Labour’s deputy leader Grant Robertson said Parliament should consider changing the process of dealing with electoral law breaches to speed it up – including giving the Electoral Commission powers to fine or penalise for some breaches.

Mr Robertson said the Electoral Commission was the expert body on electoral law, yet it had to send any breaches to Police to decide whether to act on them.

I’ve been advocating this for years, including in submission to select committees. Sadly, Labour never voted in favour of changing the law.

While their sudden enthusiasm to do so, seems rather opportunistic, it is the right thing to do.

“The bigger issue is the number of complaints they’ve sent to the Police that nothing has happened with. So maybe there is another way. For instance, could you set a threshold under which the Electoral Commission was able to impose some sort of penalty rather than have to have Police prosecute it.”

Time and time again the Police have shown, with all due respect, a total disinterest in enforcing electoral law (the most notorious case being the non charging of Labour over their $400,000 deliberate over-spend in 2005). They would obviously rather be catching muggers  etc.

Even worse, the Police seem to have a deliberate policy to not decide on any complaints until after the election. They see this as not interfering with the election, but it is in fact a worse form of interference. It means parties and candidates and others can breach electoral laws, and not have to worry about the stigma of being charged prior to the election. This encourages rule breaking.

I will once again be submitting to change the law to the 2011 election review later this year. I look forward to Labour voting for removing the Police from any role in electoral law enforcement, and other parties doing the same.

What should happen is that the Electoral Commission itself can levy small fines for relatively minor issues such as late returns and the like, or missing promoter statements on ads that still have a clear author. For more major issues they should be able to lay charges directly with the courts.

Paul Holmes writes in the HoS:

Waitangi Day produced its usual hatred, rudeness, and violence against a clearly elected Prime Minister from a group of hateful, hate-fuelled weirdos who seem to exist in a perfect world of benefit provision. This enables them to blissfully continue to believe that New Zealand is the centre of the world, no one has to have a job and the Treaty is all that matters.

I’m over Waitangi Day. It is repugnant. It’s a ghastly affair. As I lie in bed on Waitangi morning, I know that later that evening, the news will show us irrational Maori ghastliness with spitting, smugness, self-righteousness and the usual neurotic Maori politics, in which some bizarre new wrong we’ve never thought about will be lying on the table. …

Well, it’s a bullshit day, Waitangi. It’s a day of lies. It is loony Maori fringe self-denial day. It’s a day when everything is addressed, except the real stuff.

Never mind the child stats, never mind the national truancy stats, never mind the hopeless failure of Maori to educate their children and stop them bashing their babies. No, it’s all the Pakeha’s fault. It’s all about hating whitey. Believe me, that’s what it looked like the other day.

John Key speaks bravely about going there again. He should not go there again. It’s over. Forget it. It is too awful and nasty and common. It is no more New Zealand day than Halloween.

Our national day is now Anzac Day. Anzac Day is a day of honour, and struggle, bravery and sacrifice. A day on which we celebrate the periods when our country embraced great efforts for international freedom and on which we weep for those who served and for those who died.

Waitangi Day is an important day in terms of the treaty between the Crown (Government) and Maori. But it is not, and should not be, our national day.

John Roughan also writes on Waitangi Day. I’ve observed that Roughan tends to be fairly liberal on Maori and treaty issues generally, so that makes his column quite significant:

Protesters forget that Maori have to act in good faith too.

If you or I imagined we were plugged into the deepest yearnings of the people, raised our flag, stood for election and collected a miserable few votes, we’d probably fold our tent, slip away and revise our view of the world.

But we’re not that special breed of human life known as the protester. Votes don’t count for much in the protesters’ idea of democracy. The Mana Party came to Waitangi last weekend as though the election had never happened, or perhaps to say it didn’t matter.

Good faith is indeed required both ways.

John Roughan writes at NZ Herald:

Then Hone Harawira and Greens co-leader Metiria Turei were called to the platform. Turei, declaring her background to be anarchism, said her concept of life was that we all lived in a cage with wild monsters trying to tear down the walls that protected us.

These monsters were corporate capitalism, she said, and she saw her job as trying to push out the walls of the cage and increase our living space. Weird.

Yes wild monsters are trying to eat our young and destroy us. They’re called businesses and are evil.

Adam Bennett at NZ Herald reports:

Technology allowing police and other authorities to identify the location of callers may become mandatory for all cellphones in New Zealand in a move to improve the 111 emergency calling system.

But although the proposal could save lives, Telecom and the Privacy Commissioner have rung alarm bells.

The mandatory global positioning system (GPS) idea was raised in a discussion paper reviewing the 111 system issued yesterday by Communications Minister Amy Adams.

Umm, no.

I’ve chosen to have GPS on my cellphone. Personally I like the idea of the authorities being able to trace me in case of emergency. Hell, I’m even on Foursquare, so I boroadcast my location to several hundred people.

But that is my choice. Equally I should have the choice of being able to use a cellphone that does not indicate my location.

Once the Government has the ability to detect your location via your cellphone for one purpose (a noble one), there is a slippery slope that they will want to use it for other purposes.

In my Herald column I look at the first week of question time. I praise Winston first:

Winston is back in Parliament, and had a good first week in the House. His chosen issue of wasteful spending under the whanau ora programme is a good one for him (and one I approve of). Labour and Greens are reluctant to go there, as they worry that they may be seen as being against the aims of whanau ora, which is seeking to improve the lives of whanau.

But also note:

There has been a fascinating series of exchanges between the Speaker and Peters. Peters complains that the PM has not answered his question, and the Speaker points out it is totally unreasonable to expect the PM to be able to answer a supplementary question on details of a small grant, when the primary question did not refer to the grant in question. Despite being told this on Tuesday and Wednesday, Peters persisted with this approach, and again on Thursday got the same reply from the PM. If he is smart, he will take the advice of Mr Speaker, and start providing details of the alleged wasteful spending in the primary question. But maybe secrecy is so ingrained with him, he can’t bear to reveal his target in advance.

I also look at the Greens and Labour.

Shabham Dastgheib at Stuff reports:

The mandatory bicycle helmet law has cut the number of cyclists in half and contributed to 53 premature deaths per year, new research says.

The research, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal today, found a 51 per cent drop in the average hours cycled per person from the 1989-90 period when compared to 2006-09.

Colin Clarke, the honorary secretary of the Yorkshire Region’s Cyclists Touring Club in England who produced the research, has worked as a safety instructor and cycled in more than 20 countries including about 8000 kms in New Zealand.

Clarke estimates the 1994 law has translated to about 53 premature deaths per year (through adverse health effects from not cycling) and promotes discrimination in accident compensation.

He said safety should be improved through policies supporting health, the environment, and without the legal requirement to wear a helmet.

I actually think people have the right to risk themselves. Hence they can bungy jump, climb mountains, swim, work as salvors etc. That right should extend to wearing no helmet while cycling, and no seatbelt while driving.

With cycling, people should be able to judge for themselves whether the extra enjoyment they get from cycling without a helmet outweighs the probability of more severe damage if they crash. If you cycle 10 hours a week, and you have say only a 5% chance of a serious crash over your cycling life, then it is may be a reasonable decision to not wear a helmet.

Now some may argue that the decision is not one of people’s rights to take risks, but an economic one. That as we have a socialised health system, we should force people to minimise their chances of disease and injury, as otherwise we end up having to pay for their bad choices.

I have some sympathy for that argument, but it can be slippery end of the slope. You could use economics to justify making condoms compulsory for sex to reduce the prevalence of STDs.

But this story above, is a nice reminder that even if you do accept the economic argument to reduce risk by say banning cycling without a helmet, you run the risk of unintended consequences. In this case, the unintended consequence is alleged to be fewer people are cycling, and hence unhealthier, which has actually led to more premature deaths and a greater cost to the economy.

This is another reason why we should be extremely reluctant to interfere with people’s personal choices. You may have the best of motivations, but you don’t know what the impact will be.

The December 2011 Household Labour Force Survey found the following:

• Seasonally adjusted employment up 4,000 for the quarter and 35,000 for the year
• Seasonally adjusted unemployment down 7,000 for the quarter and 6,000 for the year
• Seasonally adjusted labour force down 3,000 for the quarter but up 28,000 for the year
• Seasonally adjusted unemployment rate down to 6.3%. Was 6.7% a year ago.
• Under 20s unemployment rate up from 23.4% to 24.2%
• Of 34 OECD countries, NZ unemployment rate is 12th lowest

The Electoral Commission has also announced:

TVNZ OneNews coverage before 7pm on 26 November 2011.  It is the Electoral Commission’s view that the broadcast breached section 197(1)(g)(i) of the Electoral Act 1993 because it included statements that were likely to influence any elector as to the party for whom the elector should or should not vote.

I didn’t see the news that night (mainly because I was actually at TVNZ getting ready for the election broadcast) so can’t recall what they broadcast, which has triggered this referral.

It will be interesting to see the details of the material complained about, once it is made public.

Lloyd Morrison has died following a prolonged battle against leukaemia. He was aged only 54.

He was one of Wellington’s finest. At the age of 30 he set up Infratil, and it has become a major infrastructure company.

He also led the campaign to change the NZ flag, and helped bail out the Phoenix.

Lloyd was also a big supporter of the arts – setting up a musical trust and has served as a director of the NZSO and trustee of Chamber Music NZ Foundation.

He has been given so many awards for business leadership, I won’t even name them. Suffice to say he was a brilliant businessman, and a passionate New Zealander and Wellingtonian who did much for his country and city.

My condolences to his family, and closest friends.

Matt Stewart at Stuff reports:

He battled for seven years to win compensation – and now a Paraparaumu man has admitted he also spent seven years cheating the state insurer of nearly $86,000.

Simon John Kruidenier, 58, pleaded guilty in Porirua District Court last month to claiming seven years’ worth of weekly compensation payments from ACC while he continued to work as a repossession agent for 11 finance companies.

Kruidenier began receiving compensation in September 2005, paid on the basis that he was unfit to work because of occupational neurotoxicity – a result of his former job as a printer’s assistant.

He said he had developed bad headaches and migraines after working for three years at Porirua plastics and packaging manufacturer Cryovac.

He lodged a complaint with ACC in 1998 – and payments were event-ually backdated to that year – but he failed to tell ACC that he had started working again in 2002.

He kept working while claiming compensation until October 2009, receiving $85,878.99.

So he spent seven years battling to get ACC, and won his case, getting it backdated. And he was a fraud, as he was in fact not just capable of work – but actually working.

In 2005 he told The Dominion Post he had been assessed by six doctors and had been round and round the system since lodging the claim in 1998.

“I have been prodded and poked. They keep contradicting each other – one says yes, the other says no.”

Kruidenier said at the time that his condition was “a hell of a thing to live with”.

He could not work because his health was so unreliable that even petrol fumes or perfume triggered migraines.

“I think ACC is going to be bloody-minded about it. But I can’t quit now.”

So he actually went to the media, trying to build public sympathy for his right to steal money off us.

• Coach of the Year – Sir Graham Henry
• Sportsman of the Year – Richie McCaw
• Team of the Year – the All Blacks
• Sportswoman of the Year – Valerie Adams
• Emerging Athlete – Jacko Gill
• Favourite Sporting Moment – the All Blacks
• Disabled Sportsperson – Sophie Pascoe
• Supreme Award – the All Blacks

It was the Al Blacks’ year. No arguments from me.

Also of note:

• Sports Hall of Fame – John Kirwan, Philippa Baker, Brenda Lawson
• Lifetime achievement award: Bruce Cameron
• Leadership award: Sir Murray Halberg

Halberg is now aged 78. He set up the Halberg Trust to help children with disabilities almost 50 years ago.

New Northland MP Mike Sabin has just given his maiden speech. Some extracts:

One of this nation’s finest leaders once said of leadership “having a vision is not enough.  Change comes through turning a vision into a reality.  It is easy to espouse worthy goals, value and policies, the hard part is the implementation.

Tragically, 10 years ago the architect of those words, Sir Peter Blake lost his life in the pursuit of turning his vision into a reality. 

The essence of the Blake ethos centred around the notion that it is your actions that define you, not your words, something that can be easily forgotten by the well intentioned in their pursuit of public service.

Simon Power said something similar in his valedictory. That the honour comes from doing things as an MP, not just being an MP.

At this stage Mr Speaker I would also like to pay tribute to my predecessor Hon John Carter for the massive contribution he has made to the Party, to Northland and NZ. 

Of course “massive contribution” could also now describe his tab at Trader Jacks, but I’m sure the Cooks will be well served with him as High Commissioner, not only for his passion to make a difference, but for the range of new jokes he will be unleashing on an unsuspecting population.

Heh, so true. John had an endless supply of jokes. Some were even printable.

I am the eldest son of Lew and Merlene Sabin, with one brother and sister.  I’m the proud father of three amazing children; Brook, Darryl and Brenna. I am of mixed genealogy, like most; and am proudly of Tainui Whakapapa on my mother’s side.  It gives me a uniqueness in this world which I celebrate, but more so I celebrate that NZ is my home and that I am a New Zealander.

My early years were spent in Auckland before my family moved to Whangarei.  A product of WBHS, I followed my father’s footsteps in the Navy as a Seaman Officer, but before too long I found myself back in Northland dairy farming.  As a young father I was keen to join the Police, essentially to contribute to making the community a better place to bring up my children.

Navy farming and the Police. I like MPs who have had some real life experience.

My career in the police shadowed the introduction of Pure Methamphetamine (or P) into NZ, an area I developed and expertise in, but while working on squads running undercover and electronic surveillance operations I literally saw NZ explode from virtually no P problem to the worst in the world within 5 years.   

Our well-developed drug culture saw us primed for the only hard drug in the world that can be made on your kitchen bench from readily available retail chemicals.

Those 5 years have changed NZ forever and led me to the conclusion that the fight needed to go back to the top of the cliff.  Quite simply Mr Speaker I knew we wouldn’t win the war trying to heal the wounded.

This desire to find a better way gave rise to MethCon Group, a drug education and policy company I founded and operated from 2006.  The mission was simple; empower employers, students and community with education while looking for policy solutions to help provide government with better tools. …

Mr Speaker, while there are some who would say I am a one-trick-pony, here to further the anti-drug cause, far from it, my journey into politics has come about as an evolution of many professional experiences leading me to the conclusion that if one wants to support their community and nation to reach its real potential there is a need to be around the tables where the decisions that most affect our communities are being made.

The reality is Mr Speaker, my efforts with the P issue demonstrate more my on-going willingness to try to make a difference than my focus on that particular issue alone.  Much like my son, I just wanted to try and find solutions, while many others were finding ways to tolerate the problem.

And then more generally:

Personal responsibility, the very source from which self-respect springs is intrinsically related to the individual’s willingness to accept responsibility over one’s own life.  To do so is to give value, purpose and freedom to the soul.  To refuse it leaves a hole from which the spirit of the individual will slowly but surely drain.

Yet years of socialist ideology, welfarism which has evolved to provide perverse incentives to opt out and the insidious encroachment of government on the minds and lives of citizens has seen the notion of personal responsibility pilloried like it were the ramblings of capitalist zealots.

This country is Gods own yet we condemn many innocent children to abuse, neglect and homicide.  For a generation we have vainly sought solutions, largely ignoring the fact that we have created a culture which too easily traps parents in welfare, who often through no fault of their own, lack even the most basic of life skills and for whom personal responsibility is an unnecessary and irrelevant commodity surpassed by a sea of social agencies that seek to provide what they will now never have to.

Mr Speaker too often we have become consumed with addressing the symptoms of these very problems  while failing to challenge the cause of them, something that often requires courage and honesty in uncomfortable amounts, but nonetheless something in my view New Zealanders expect of its leaders.  To that end, I’d like to commend the work being done by the Minister of Social Development in this particular area.

Hear hear.

The full speech is after the break.

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Hayden Donnell at NZ Herald reports:

Ports of Auckland workers are set to strike for a full week in a new escalation of their long running employment dispute.

The just-announced strike action is set to start at 7am on February 24.

It is in addition to a partial strike set to take place from February 15 to 22.

So basically, they will be on strike for two weeks continuously.

How long until all the customers have gone to Tauranga?

Stuff reports:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says John Key should also be referred to police over his hosting of a radio show, not just RadioLive. …

I’m staggered that Stuff have not reported on the hypocrisy of that statement by Peters.

You see in 2008, the Electoral Commission referred NewstalkZB to the Police, for a prohibited election programme. And what was that election programme? It was an talkback programme hosted by Winston Peters (and another one by Shane Jones).

So Winston in 2008, did exactly what the PM did in 2011.

Unless Winston is being a total hypocrite (which of course he is), one can only conclude that he thinks he should have been referred to the Police in 2008, not just NewstalkZB.

Unlike Key, who did not talk about politics, Peters said during his talkback hosting:

We don’t mind who you vote for in your first vote, but buy yourself some insurance and give New Zealand First your party vote, your second vote

The Electoral Commission concluded in 2008:

the talkback programmes hosted by Winston Peters MP and Shane Jones MP, and broadcast on NewsTalk ZB, were broadcast in circumstances amounting to the commission of offences for the purposes of section 80 of the Broadcasting Act 1989

So let’s not hold our breath waiting for Winston to demand that he also be referred to the Police. Hopefully though the media will at least mention the gross hypocrisy.

Former ACT MP Heather Roy used to include in her weekly newsletter a list of upcoming bills likely to be voted on.

Each bill would have a large tick or a cross next to it, to indicate how ACT planned to vote on it, along with a sentence or two explaining why.

It strikes me that this would be a good feature on Red Alert. The Whips could do it after caucus every Tuesday, and it would let people know which bills are non-controversial and which ones are contentious. It would also let Labour indicate briefly why they are voting for or against, and maybe even highlight the aspects they want changed (if appropriate).

Ideally all parties in Parliament should do this – to be open and transparent on which bills they plan to support or oppose, and why. Maybe Frog Blog could do it also?

Stuff reports:

Energy specialist and renewable energy advocate Barrie Leay will be sorely missed says Windflow Technology chief executive Geoff Henderson. …

Henderson said Leay brought a wealth of New Zealand energy experience and international contacts to the company through his prior roles as executive director of the Electricity Supply Association of New Zealand and chairman of the APEC Energy Business Network in the Asia Pacific.

Barrie Leay was also the National Party’s General Secretary for much of the 1970s and 1980s. His nickname was Buddha, I recall.

Barrie’s tenure was in the golden years of Sir George Chapman, and also Sue Wood. He was a powerful figure. His successors have tended to be fairly apolitical, but Barrie was very political, and hence somewhat controversial.

I joined the party around the time he retired, However I had a wee bit to do with him through the National Political Centre, which was a  internal policy thinktank. He was indeed an expert on energy policy and issues.

Barrie devoted a large part of his life to the National Party. May he rest in peace.

The quarterly disclosures are out for MPs and Ministers.

Top Ministers in terms of internal costs were:

1. PM $121,884
2. Judith Collins $74,138
3. Pita Sharples $72,473
4. Steven Joyce $62,223
5. Tariana Turia $57,260

Worth remembering that expenses are to some degree a reflection of activity and location. Also affected by whether their ministerial home is owned or rented.

Total ministerial expenses for Q4 2011 were $1.16m plus $0.32m overseas travel for $1.48m. The year before in Q4 2010 it was $1.13m plus $0.86m overseas travel for $1.99m total. Obviously with the election, less travel.

Top MPs were:

1. Hone Harawira $54,961
2. Phil Goff $32,566
3. Rahui Katene $29,436
4. Kevin Hague $28,763
5. David Cunliffe $28,040

The total MPs expenses for the quarter were $3.15m. For Q4 2010, it was $1.80m. I guess the election saw a lot of taxpayer funded travel.

First some family history:

My waka is Tainui of which Hoturoa was the captain

My iwi is Ngati Maniapoto

My hapu,  Ngati Hikairoa

 On my European side I am descended from Orm, the Viking. 

Orm lived around 750 AD. He was reputed to have killed a large bear with one blow of his fist. I think Sonny Bill Williams should have fought Orm instead.

Because amenities were affordable we regularly visited the local swimming pool and developed civic pride, 20 cents entry fee.

 Compare that to my local council swimming pool Baywave in Tauranga where entry and  hydroslides costs 8 dollars for local children.

 It’s no wonder children struggle to swim and one of my goals is to have gold coin entry to all swimming pools for all NZ school children.

Brendan was born in 1961 so presumably the 20c was around 1968 – once decimal currency came in. The CPI was 70 in 1968 and today is 1158, so in today’s dollars that 20c would be $3.30. So $8 is over double what it used to be, in real terms.

“Evil thrives when good men and women stand by and do nothing”

 So I ask now – how can NZ have the highest child brutality and murder rate   in the OECD , how can this possibly be NZ when we start the year with a baby being murdered in a small town, a 16 year old boy assaulting and raping a 5 year old girl and a young father being stabbed to death while sitting in his car waiting for a medical prescription.

The foul stench of these crimes lingers over our entire nation, but in particular those of us in the house today – as it has happened on OUR watch.

And further …

The protection and safety of all NZ children must be paramount.

We are all aware of the need – and decisive action must be taken.

If we have to step on a few toes and offend the politically correct – then so be it.

I’d be interested to hear what he has in mind.

This NZ First economic plan will operate in the absence of secrecy.

Cough, cough Spencer Trust.

To be fair, that was Winston’s baby. No one else in NZ First even knew of it – not even the Party President!

Our people are some of the most creative, innovative and forward thinking to be found anywhere.

But currently we are marking time and quite frankly we need to embrace, support and speed up the rollout of ultra fast broadband.

The mobile digital revolution is accelerating at an exponential rate.

Countries with established broadband are rapidly going mobile and that is going to have massive implications for business, education and the health sector.

The digital revolution is still in its infancy, I agree.

The full speech is after the break.

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