Paula Bennett launched the first green paper in 14 years at Aotea Square this afternoon. By coincidence I was up in Auckland (for the Blair lunch tomorrow) so I popped along. Excellent speeches by Sir Peter Gluckman and Paula, plus some amazing singing and performances from various young musicians.

The only protesters were Penny Bright and the Men’s Rights brigade – five in total.

The Government poses solutions to complex issues facing children and then asks the public to consider the questions that are raised by those issues, including:

• When should adults who care for vulnerable children be prioritised for services over others?
• How can the Government encourage communities to take more responsibility for the wellbeing of their children?
• How much monitoring of vulnerable children should the Government allow?

“What it doesn’t do is tell people what to think. It is intentionally written in a way that lets people make up their own mind,” say Ms Bennett.

“This is a genuinely open consultation process, giving New Zealanders a chance to have a real say in how we protect our children,” says Ms Bennett.

There are many policy issues I care deeply about – tax rates, performance pay for teachers, youth minimum wage etc etc. But let me tell you that I’d trade them all for some measures which would reduce the level of child abuse in New Zealand. There is nothing worse than a young person not having a happy and productive childhood.

If it would make a difference, I’d happily have those caring for vulnerable children prioritised for services.

The Green Paper for Vulnerable Children can be found online at:

www.childrensactionplan.govt.nz

www.facebook.com/greenpaperonchildren

The actual green paper is directly here. It’s only 40 pages, and an easy read. For me one of the key questions is:

When should government agencies step in and intervene with families and whanau?

I think one there has been one major adverse incident, then the threshold for intervention should be relatively low.

Reuters reports:

Norwegians have hit back at former Fox News presenter and Tea Party darling Glenn Beck, after he compared the country’s shooting victims to the Hitler Youth in a radio show overnight.

In a monologue on the syndicated radio show The Glenn Beck Program, the conservative commentator said: “There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever. I mean, who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics? Disturbing.”

That really is an incredibly offensive and stupid thing to say. The poor participants at the Young Labour camp got butchered over 90 minutes, and Beck thinks they are the ones to be compared to Hitler Youth. Their killer is in fact a much better fix.

Thanks goodness he is no longer on Fox News.

Fairfax have started polling again, with Research International. Stories are:

• Main results by Tracy Watkins
• Voters taken vow with Key by Tracy Watkins
• Goff steering Labour to knacker’s yards by Vernon Small
• National supporters stay loyal by Vernon Small
• Voters undeterred by PM’s stumbles by Andrea Vance

Paul McBeth reports:

Inland Revenue is chasing unionist Matt McCarten’s Unite Support Services for $150,750 in unpaid taxes after the department forced the company into liquidation last month.

McCarten’s vehicle, which supplied administrative support services to the youth-orientated union Unite, was put into liquidation by a High Court order last month after the IRD pursued it for “failure to provide for taxation,” according to the first liquidator’s report.

As far as I now this is not just unpaid income tax and/or GST. But it includes unpaid PAYE, which is quite horrific as the employer acts in a trustee capacity for the employee who actually pays the tax. An employer that spent the employees’ PAYE on other activities would be lashed by unions as a bad employer.

You also have the hypocrisy of a union (and its spin off the Mana Party) advocating that people should pay more taxes, when they don’t even pay their own taxes, and effectively stole the PAYE tax from their employees.

The 3rd of July seemed like any other Sunday for a collection of social league football players.  That was the case right up to the end of half-time when, while walking back to his position in defence, ‘Big Dave’ (otherwise known as Fabio) collapsed to the ground.  He had a massive heart attack right there on the field.

He was lucky.  He had his own teammates and opposition players who had some idea of how to do CPR and mouth-to-mouth (or the big “man-kiss” as Dave likes to call it).  He also had a nurse on the sideline, a Dr walking his dog, and St John ambulance who responded in time to shock Dave’s heart back into some semblance of a rhythm.  He has since had a quadruple by-pass… not quite what you expect at 39.

As a way to say ‘thank you’ to all those people who played a part Dave’s team is putting together a fundraiser to coincide with the re-match of the game that was never completed (despite Dave believing it really should have been).  The team has a lot of community support so it will be a family fun day (bouncy castles, face painting etc) and the opportunity to watch some decidedly average football – from a covered stand.

• From 10.30am, Sunday 31 July at Porritt Stadium and Wanderers Clubrooms, Hamilton. Kickoff at 11am

‘Big Dave’ is not the sort of guy you’d expect to have a heart attack.  He is called ‘Big Dave’ because of his height, not his weight.  He is a fit specimen of a man – thus the secondary nickname of ‘Fabio’. Dave and the team want this Sunday to be an opportunity to raise a bit of money for St John and to also highlight the importance of us all having some knowledge of CPR and first aid skills.

The game is in Hamilton.  If you can’t make it I am sure that St John’s would be happy to receive a donation from you.  St John provide a huge range of services to the New Zealand community and they have recently been recognised as being New Zealand’s most trusted brand.  If you don’t know CPR or your skills are a little rusty then look up the location for a training course on their site.

Just checked out the Electoral Commission page for donations above $30,000 (which must be declared within 10 days) and there have been three this year:

• ACT – John Boscawen $52,335
• National – Susan Chou $100,000
• ACT – Louis Crimp $100,520

Boscawen is of course the parliamentary leader of ACT. Chou has donated previously to both National (2010) and Labour (2008) plus to humanitarian causes.

Louis Crimp is an Invercargill businessman, whom I’ve blogged on previously. He stood for ACT in 1996. He also recently donated $1m to St Johns, and other causes:

When Invercargill businessman Louis Crimp had a car crash he was so touched that the St John staff treating him were volunteers he later decided to give the Southland branch $1 million.

He will hand over the cheque today. The massive donation follows a string of monetary and land gifts the philanthropist has made to the community.

In 2007 Mr Crimp paid more than $1m for a city bungalow which had been renovated as a fundraising project for Hospice House in Invercargill, with almost $800,000 of that going to the hospice.

Mr Crimp has given $200,000 to the Southland SPCA since 2008 while, in May, he gifted a residential section formerly owned by the Mongrel Mob to the Habitat for Humanity organisation.

I applaud people willing to donate their money to support policies or parties they believe will be good for New Zealand.

iPredict says:

Stuff reports:

Wellington International Airport’s chief executive Steve Fitzgerald is taking up a new position with the airport’s majority shareholder, Infratil.

Fitzgerald fronted the airport’s controversial and subsequently overturned decision to erect a Wellywood sign on hillside land it owns near the Miramar Cutting.

He will take up a role in Sydney with HRL Morrison & Co, which manages Infratil, and will be responsible for airport investment.

This is no surprise. The airport company will take some time to recover from the Wellywood fiasco.

Rob Salmond at Pundit has a useful blog on polling, dispelling some of the conspiracy theories others have out out:

On Friday, Chris Trotter opined in the Dominion Post about recent poll results. He was not happy about the estimate in the latest Colmar Brunton poll of 27% support for Labour, and asked this question:

“Are opinion polls being used, quite deliberately, to demoralise the Government’s opponents?”

The answer to this question is, of course, “No.”

Polls are regularly scheduled, and adhere to strict, unchanging guidelines about how to collect their information. There are times when the political left does not like the results, and there are times the political right does not like them, too (see 2002). There is no evidence that New Zealand political polls have been tampered with for partisan gain.

Trotter’s rationale for asking the question is that the revelations about Rupert Murdoch’s influence in British politics might clue us in to similar shenanigans over here, in particular that the recent poll might be some manner of trick by shadowy right-leaning forces. He then quickly says that normally this kind of question would only occur to conspiracy theorist nuts, but says these times are different.

No, these times are not different. Chris Trotter is peddling a quite ridiculous line that relies on grand, lengthy conspiracies, and has absolutely no evidence to support it. His thinking amounts to: “one right-winger is a crook about something, so they all must be crooks about everything.”

His delusional thinking, published in an influential venue, may also cloud some people’s perceptions of the left’s intellect in general. As a person who, like Trotter, prefers policies of the left and hopes they will win, that makes me upset.

I’ve generally found those who attack the credibility of polls the most, almost inevitably are doing badly in them, or don’t like the results.

People will think this is whack Phil Goff day. I’d rather blog on something else, but he keeps digging. His arrogance and refusal to admit black is black is beyond belief. Let us look at the transcript of Goff with Larry Williams:

LARRY WILLIAMS:         All right. Prime Minister, I think, says if it is an act of global terrorism but anyway, let’s go on to other things. The Israelis, the Prime Minister said his understanding from director SIS, Warren Tucker, that you were briefed and it seems that you were.

PHIL GOFF: No, I wasn’t briefed. He said that I’d received the same document that he had received. I saw no document. There were three documents. I have seen none of them. Briefed is not a description that I would give.

He is effectively calling the SIS Director a liar. Just because one may or may not have received written reports, is not the same as denying you have been briefed. An oral briefing is a briefing. Warren Tucker has said he orally briefed Phil Goff, and Goff’s only response is he doesn’t remember it. That does not mean he was not briefed.

Goff said he was unaware of the issue. He was wrong. The SIS Director had at a minimum orally briefed him. What is Phil Goff incapable of acknowledging he was wrong? Does he think it will make voters like him more?

LARRY WILLIAMS:         Tucker’s an honourable guy, isn’t he? Were you given the papers or not?

 PHIL GOFF: No, I wasn’t given the papers and nor – nor will Warren Tucker say that I definitely received those papers. I would have recalled reading the paper had I been given it. I was not given it.

From my recollection of working in both a Prime Minister’s Office and an Opposition Leader’s Office, the SIS don’t tend to leave copies of their papers behind. Generally you are given it to read, and then sign it, and give it back.

But regardless of whether Goff was given a copy of a paper to read, he was orally briefed on the Israelis. He simply forgot or didn’t pay attention.

Bad enough that Phil Goff can not recall being briefed by the SIS, but now he can’t even recall the gender of his own candidates.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

Mr Goff denied Labour had used the same tactics to ensure Progressive leader Jim Anderton was elected in Wigram. “We always ran a candidate in Wigram and as I recall he ran quite hard but got thrashed by Jim.”

Labour’s candidate in Wigram in 2008 was Erin Ebborn-Gillespie, whom I am informed is female.

Gareth Hughes blogs:

The Green Party does not have a deal with the Labour candidate, Charles Chauvel, nor does it intend to ask its supporters to vote for him in an attempt to defeat Peter Dunne in the Ōhariu seat. …

In Ōhariu, just like in every other electorate, we are only campaigning for Kiwis’ party vote.

I’m not telling people who to vote for as their electorate MP in Ōhariu but I am upfront with them – I like Charles and I think Dunne is done: he’s out-dated and voters are tiring of his brand of bland ‘any way the wind blows’ politics. This is evidenced by his falling popularity in the electorate over the last three elections, as well as his dismal party vote throughout the country.

Our position is very different from National’s deals in Epsom and Ōhariu where they are telling their supporters to vote for the Act and United Future Party’s candidates.

This is double talk, or less politely crap. Gareth is trying to say he is not telling people to vote Chauvel, except that he also says he is telling people he likes Chauvel and thinks Dunne is done.

Gareth also mis-represents National’s position. It is in fact identical to what the Greens are doing. National is campaigning for the party vote only in Epsom and Ohariu. It is not telling supporters whom to vote for.

I can guarantee you that Gareth will tell far far more people to support Chauvel, than Katrina Shanks will tell people to vote Peter Dunne. Katrina will be loyal and campaign for the party vote only I am sure, but I suspect it will be a warm day in hell before she tells someone to vote for Peter Dunne.

To some degree, it is all a fuss about nothing anyway. So long as candidates are on the ballot paper, people have a choice to vote for them. And most party supporters do not give a toss what the party hierarchy wants them to do. In 2005 the party hierarchy wrote letters to all Epsom voters asking them to vote for Richard Worth, but the National voters made up their own mind and voted Hide.

Likewise in Ohariu Katrina got around 7,000 votes, despite United Future having pledged it would support a National-led Government, and had John Key welcome it.

Now I am not the only one less than impressed with the Greens double-talk. John Hartevelt blogs:

If it looks like a deal, sounds like a deal and smells like a deal, it’s probably a deal.

The Green Party has taken great offence at the suggestion they are tied up in some kind of agreement with Labour in the Ohariu electorate.

Co-leader Metiria Turei told off the media via Twitter for not getting their side of the story before pushing what the party is now calling “rumours” of a deal in Ohariu. The party insists there is no deal with Labour. Rather, there is some convoluted position whereby Greens candidate Gareth Hughes doesn’t tell people to vote for him or for Labour’s Charles Chauvel … but he does say that incumbent Peter Dunne is a dinosaur and ought to go; that the Greens are concentrating on the party vote; AND that, by the way, they reckon Mr Chauvel is really rather great. Ahem, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Well frankly, I call BS on the Greens’ position. …

Labour have played this game also. For example, Helen Clark told people in 2005 to vote for Richard Worth, to try and keep Rodney out. Parties will always advocate people vote in a way which maximises their chance of being in Government. This is why we might see Phil Goff encourage people to vote for Winston Peters, to help Labour’s chances of forming a Government.

NZPA report:

An Auckland man has avoided a jail term after hatching a plan to detonate a van full of explosives and nails outside an ACC branch office.

Alan Thomas was so angry with ACC that he planned to set off a fire alarm at the Takapuna Branch and as staff gathered outside he would set off the bomb, The New Zealand Herald reported today.

The 55-year-old was sentenced in North Shore District Court yesterday to 10 months’ home detention and ordered to pay $5000 after earlier being found guilty of threatening to kill or do grievous bodily harm to ACC staff.

When police raided Thomas’s North Shore home they found bomb-making manuals on his home computer. …

Thomas had a “deep-seated hostility to ACC”.

“It is clear Mr Thomas has a compulsive obsession with ACC which he seems evidently quite proud of.”

I think the sentence was too light. When we look at what happened in Norway, we see the tragedy which can occur such propensity to violence is not taken seriously.

I blogged yesterday how Phil Goff was wrong with his claims he had not been briefed by the SIS on the Israeli backbenchers.

Looking back at the chain of events, I am staggered by the degree of either incompetence or arrogance that Goff has showed. Let’s go back to the Q+A interview with John Key.

GUYON Did you brief Phil Goff?

JOHN  Phil Goff was briefed, yeah, that’s right.  I personally didn’t brief him, but my understanding from the director of SIS, Warren Tucker, is that he was briefed and he was shown the same note and report that I saw.

Now let us imagine you are Phil Goff, and you hear the PM saying that. And also let us be generous and presume that Goff honestly doesn’t recall being told about it by the SIS Director in March.

Wouldn’t your first thought be, on what basis would the PM say you have been briefed. Well John Key actually said the magic words “my understanding from the director”.

So at this stage, your options are:

1. The PM has lied about what the SIS Director said to him
2. The SIS Director has lied to the PM
3. The SIS Director believes he has briefed you

Now wouldn’t anyone with a shred of intelligence, decide to check with the SIS Director before mouthing off in the media how upset he is at the PM and the SIS?

I can’t imagine how his staff didn’t stop Goff from insisting he had not been briefed, without checking with the SIS first. Maybe they tried to, and Goff would not listen.

But he didn’t. In fact he boasted how he had told off the SIS Director by text message. And then the SIS Director came and met Goff, and pointed out he had briefed him in March. And I bet your bottom dollar there is a file note recording this, taken at the time. which is why Goff them acknowledged he had been briefed.

But here is where there is such a key difference between Goff and Key. Key didn’t handle the initial response to the Israeli story that well. And when asked about it, he acknowledged:

So, look, at the end of the day, I mean, I realised by the morning, you know, the impression that I had left wasn’t sustainable.  If I replayed the video and did it all again I’d probably start where I ended six hours later, but it comes with the territory.   Sometimes you don’t get it perfectly right in the first moment.

So Key is willing to acknowledge he could have handled something better. Note that unlike Goff he didn’t actually say anything untrue. He didn’t claim others were wrong, when in fact only his memory was wrong. But still Key is willing to concede he could have handled things better.

While Goff is the absolute opposite. He has been caught out clearly wrong. He said was not aware of the allegations, and he was. He said he was not briefed, and he was. He said the PM was mouthing off without checking the facts, and in fact it was Goff who mouthed off and was wrong.

But will Goff admit in anyway he is wrong or stuffed up? Nope, not one bit. And it is this arrogance which is why Goff is massively unpopular, and the converse is why Key is popular.

Damien O’Connor blogs at Red Alert:

I thought we lived in a free democracy. Since when did a sign become illegal when expressing an opinion or encouraging people to act? Does this ban all signs at marches that may in any way be linked to a movement or political party. The EC needs to pull their heads in. This is not the 1930s in Europe.

And Clare Curran chips in:

Hope the Electoral Commission is reading this. Is this what our democracy has come to?

I agree with you Damien

So Labour equate being forced to obey the electoral laws, as akin to Nazi Germany.  The sad thing is that they have got so used to being above the law, that they really do think it appalling that an independent agency will not kowtow to them. In fact the post is a barely veiled threat against the Electoral Commission.

What is especially ironic is that Damien voted for the Electoral Finance Act which would had far more restrictive laws, than the current Electoral Act.

Also in case people think Labour is right, and you can no longer wave a sign at a march – this is not the case. The only requirement is that the sign have an authorisation statement on it, if it can be considered an election advertisment. And this has in fact been the law for the last 15 years or so.

So what Damien is really complaining about is transparency. Transparency is what he compares to Nazi Germany.

As if one needed another reason why Labour is unfit for office, this is it.

Phil Goff claimed this week he was not briefed by the SIS on the Israelis backpackers. He said the PM had lied about it.

Now Goff has admitted, after meeting the SIS Director this morning, that he was briefed in March. He says it must have been insubstantial as he doesn’t recollect it. More likely is he was distracted by the Darren Hughes scandal at the time.

This is incompetence of the highest level. Sure we can all forget things, but forgetting an SIS briefing?? Worse though, Goff could have checked his diary or checked with the SIS. Instead he accused the Prime Minister of lying, and impeached the integrity of the SIS.

Let us look at his words. First Danya Levy in the Dom Post reports:

I was not aware of the allegations.

And then today TVNZ reported:

Goff is furious over the Prime Minister’s entire handling of the affair, including claims yesterday that the Labour leader was kept in the loop.

Goff insists he was not briefed before, during or after the investigation and says he has texted the head of the SIS to complain about John Key’s comments.

And further he said:

He said the prime minister has to understand the responsibilities of his office and cannot “mouth off” without checking his facts first.

This is especially ironic. Goff now stands as the one who mouthed off, can’t even recall an SIS briefing and was too lazy or too incompetent to even check his diary or with the SIS, before he repeated his claims.

Goff incidentally did not just falsely attack the PM, but also attacked the integrity and independence of the SIS. Section 4AA of the NZSIS Act says:

(3) The Director must consult regularly with the Leader of the Opposition for the purpose of keeping him or her informed about matters relating to security.

So Goff effectively accused the Director of breaching his statutory duty. A very serious charge. Again someone with an ounce of competence would double and triple check before claiming he “was not aware of the allegations” and that he was “not briefed before, during or after the investigation”.

On Wednesday the Government is releasing their Green Paper on Children, which is about improving the outcomes for vulnerable children.

I understand there will be an open invite launch/rally in aotea square, so interested people can go along.

You can also get updates on the Green Paper on Facebook or Twitter.

facebook is – www.facebook.com/greenpaperonchildren

twitter is – www.twitter/greenpapernz

Got sent this graph by a reader in the alcohol industry. As people will know liquor advertising is blamed for a lot of things. In fact the Law Commission recommended banning all alcohol advertising and sponsorship – even Tui billboards.

While I do think breaches of the advertising standards for alcohol should carry penalties (at present you just get told to withdraw the ad), I am not convinced there is any case for an overall ban on alcohol advertising and sponsorship.

Having said that, I think there are some issues around price advertising (as opposed to brand advertising) and loss leading that are worth considering changes to.

AFP report:

The fact that Norway’s maximum penalty for any crime is 21 years in prison is facing rising criticism in the wake of the twin attacks that killed 93 people, with many deeming the penalty too lax.

Ever since Norwegian media named 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik as the prime suspect, calls have been growing for the maximum penalty under the Norwegian penal code to be extended.

If found guilty, Behring Breivik’s 21 years in prison would equal a penalty of 82 days per killing.

That would be an insult to those dead. Especially when you consider the news that he used “dum-dum” bullets which cause massive internal injuries.

I blog at Stuff on why I think we need a four year term, and look at what the length of term is in other developed countries. Only one country has a two year term. NZ and Australia are the only ones on a three year term. 29 countries are on a four year term and nine on a five year term.

Yesterday Bomber Bradbury blogged at Tumeke:

Take Auckland as an example, 35% of households in Mangere and other south Auckland electorate’s have landlines, 50% in Mt Albert and other isthmus electorates have landlines, close to 80% in most North Shore electorates have landlines. A decade ago those differences were less than 10% and all electorates had the majority of people on listed landlines, now they don’t and you can easily see by that breakdown in Auckland alone how biased these cheap brainfart telephone polls can be.

There is no reference for these figures. Whale Oil responded quoting the latest census statistics:

But if you look at some real facts, not just the one pulled out of his rec­tum you find:

Man­gere: 76% of house­holds have landlines

Mt Albert: 89% of house­holds have landlines

North Shore: 94% of house­holds have landlines

If you go through all of the Auck­land seats, you can’t find a sin­gle one that even remotely matches Bombers fig­ures. So Bomber is say­ing (I sus­pect he invented the fig­ures from his rather large and expand­ing arse) than since the 2006 cen­sus, 40% of House­holds in Man­gere have given up their land­line and 39% of those in Mt Albert have also given up their phone lines.

Bomber doesn’t do his ten­u­ous grip on real­ity any good by spout­ing totally made up fig­ures. He should retract his lies and apologise.

Bomber then posted again, just repeating his numbers, without any reference on which they are based.

So Whale has responded with this challenge:

I issue a chal­lenge to Bomber then, that if he can prove his num­bers, cat­e­gor­i­cally, then I will donate the equiv­a­lent of a 5 year mem­ber­ship to the NRA to the Mana Party. But if he can’t pro­duce any proof of his asser­tions then he has to join the NRA for 5 years.

I bet he isn’t man enough to accept this challenge.

Sounds fair to me.

The NZ Herald reports:

Australia is the world’s “dumbest continent” where people “drink constantly” and are “quite racist”, according to training at Indian call centres.

Staff are taught “how to act Australian” and are told to “speak slowly” because Australians tend to be technologically “backwards”.

They are also warned that Australians are “touchy” about their pets and their preferred term for Indians is “brown bastards”.

The revelations appeared in an article in the US news magazine motherjones.com, which also refers to the British as sarcastic and Americans as shouty and “free with their anger”.

Perhaps mercifully, there is no reference to New Zealanders.

The drinking constantly line is beyond debate anyway 🙂