A reader e-mailed in asking why are some Ministerial portfolios “of” and some “for”, as in the Minister of Health and the Minister for Economic Development.

Now the short answer is the Prime Minister can call his or her Ministers whatever they like, subject to statutory references. Of course even then, you can change the law such as when we had a Treasurer as well as Minister of Finance.

But I figured there are probably some guidelines for the PM, and that if anyone knew the Cabinet Office would so I asked them and they were kind enough to reply:

You have asked why some ministerial titles use “of” and some use “for” – such as “Minister of Health” and “Minister for Economic Development”.

As you suggest in your email to Rebecca, the current set of portfolio titles is a combination of tradition and the preferences of Prime Ministers at the time the portfolios were created.  Many of the older titles use the “of” style (e.g., Health, Education, Finance, Defence), while a number of newer titles use the “for” style (e.g., Infrastructure, Regulatory Reform, Ethnic Affairs, Climate Change Issues).  Paragraph 2.8 of the Cabinet Manual  states “The Prime Minister determines the title and scope of each portfolio.”

So primarily PM preference, but also a factor of time. As far as I can tell, under Muldoon all portfolios were “of”.

There are a few other factors that guide the use of “of” and “for”:

– it is very much the case that when new appointments are made to established portfolios, the portfolio titles remain the same – whether “of” or “for” – especially if the title is used in legislation;

– “of” is often used where the portfolio relates directly to a ministry or department (e.g., Minister of Health, Minister of Justice, Minister of Corrections);

–  “for” is often used where the portfolio description is more “generic”; that is, where the Minister is responsible for a particular topic or area (e.g., Minister for Infrastructure, Minister for Biosecurity, Minister for Regulatory Reform);

– there are occasions when, for reasons of sense or style, it makes sense to use “of” or “for”.

What interested me was which exceptions there are to this. Key is the Minister of Tourism and you could argue that is a more generic description. However it is an old title, probably dating back to when we had a Tourism Department.

Gerry is Minister for Economic Development and that is the name of the Ministry.

Police is titled Minister of Police, but I recall people would joke that John Banks was better described as the Minister for the Police, as he was such a champion of them.

David Carter is Minister of Forestry and Minister for Biosecurity. But that is probably explained by Forestry being an older title.

Anyway I hope this answers the question, for the inquiring reader. Thanks again to Cabinet Office for the info.

John Armstrong reports:

The President of Russia carries an iPad, and pretty nifty he is at using it – as John Key found out during the Apec leaders’ dinner on Saturday night.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister was seated next to Dmitry Medvedev and spotted the iPad, so Mr Medvedev pulled up the Kremlin’s website.

Up came a photo of Mr Key and Mr Medvedev shaking hands just hours earlier after the pair announced New Zealand and Russia would start negotiating a free trade agreement.

Apple will be pleased. You can’t buy better marketing than the President of Russia showing off an iPad.

I’ve had an iPad for around three months now and I have to say I find it absolutely invaluable. Cunningly, they have invented a device which will not replace either your phone or your laptop, but complements them both.

What do I find so great about the iPad? In no particular order:

1. Web browsing. A phone screen is uncomfortable size and a laptop can take ages to boot up, login, open the browser etc. On the iPad you can have the web browser open and working within three seconds. It’s great for web browsing.
2. Portability. Can travel and use it anywhere – on buses, in taxis, on planes. Great for filling in the moments.
3. Business meetings. Can use it as your note pad. Easy to take notes on, and you can keep them on the iPad or e-mail them to your laptop.
4. Applications Store. This is the best marketing channel in the world. You can buy almost anything, and lots of free stuff also. The future of newspapers is likely to be through special premium versions for the iPad.
5. Battery. 10 hours. Yes.
6. Books. I would never read a book on my laptop. But am reading several on the iPad. The flicking movement to turn a page makes it very close to the real thing, and the ability to set font size is great. What is especially great is all the free books which are out of copyright.
7. Movies. HD movies look awesome. Also does You Tube etc
8. Games. Far far too addictive. The average price is around $2 so how can one resist.
9. E-mail. While one can access it on the phone, it’s great for read.ing attachments, and doing responses.
10. Education. I’d seriously recommend parents consider getting the kid an iPad when they turn around three. There are great interactive learning tools which will make reading and maths lots of fun.

I’ve yet to meet an iPad owner who isn’t a big fan of it.

Audrey Young reports:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown has given an undertaking to the influential Iwi Leadership Group to talk to the new Auckland Council about dedicated Maori seats on the council. But no quick decisions are expected to be taken.

Mr Brown attended the group’s hui at Takapuwahia Marae in Porirua on Saturday as a guest.

Maori Affairs Minister Pita Sharples asked Mr Brown to attend the hui with him.

The request to discuss Maori representation on the council was put by Tainui leader Tukoroirangi Morgan and Ngati Whatua leader Naida Glavish.

Mr Morgan said last night that Mr Brown gave an undertaking to discuss the issue with his new council which has only just been sworn in.

He had said it was a serious issue and it would be discussed comprehensively.

I have two objections to Maori seats on the Auckland Council – one principled and one pragmatic.

The principled argument is that race based seats are a bad thing, and over time will lead NZ to a Fiji type situation.

The pragmatic argument is that there is no problem to solve.

In the Auckland region, Maori make up just under 10% of the population (and only 8.3% of the adult population). On the Auckland Council, 3 out of 20 Councillors or 15% have Maori descent.

Mr Morgan and Dr Sharples said there was no support for getting the issue tested through a referendum.

It would be a brave Council that introduced race based seats on its own initiative, without letting the people have a say.

Oh dear. Phil Goff was interviewed by Susan Wood on Friday night at around 6.25 pm, and they were talking about Kris Faafoi’s campaign in Mana.

Susan asserted that no one in Mana knew what the Labour candidate looked like, and Phil responded that he had been in Mana with Kris the day before, and that everyone had recognised Kris, that in fact they were wondering who the other bloke was.

Classic.

Jonathan Marshall in the SST reports:

THE CRIMINAL barrister who took on more legal aid cases than any other – 599 last year, earning him $431,000 – has lost a last-ditch bid to stop changes that will end his ability to take on as many cases as he likes.

After four years in the business, 30-year-old Tudor Clee said he would “most likely” have to quit, with projections his caseload would drop 91%. From November 29, those who want legal fees paid by the taxpayer will be unable to nominate which lawyer represents them. Instead lawyers will be put on a roster and be awarded an equal number of cases.

Not bad to be earning $431,000 from the taxpayer by age 30. And I suspect his expenses only consist of a car boot.

With 250 work days a year, it means he was doing two cases a day. One can only wonder about the quality.

Clee told the Star-Times he currently handled “twice as many legal aid files as any other lawyer in New Zealand” but under the new scheme would be lucky to be given 51 files a year – one a week.

He said the average payment would be $700, but could be as low as $220 for some minor charges.

My advice for Mr Clee is to consider the novel prospect of trying to obtain clients who use their own money. If he is really good at his job (and one would hope so if he had 600 legal aid clients a year) he should have clients beating down his door wanting him to represent him, and willing to pay for it.

Tracy Watkins reports:

EVIDENCE HAS emerged that 72% of all alcohol-related deaths on the roads are caused by drivers who are either blind-drunk or repeat offenders.

The research comes during debate over whether the drink-driving limit should be lowered, and ahead of the release of a report investigating drivers who cause the most mayhem.

And remember to be a repeat offender, you have probably driven drunk 50+ times, as at best you only get checked 1 in 50 times you are driving.

The Transport Ministry research shows that in 2009 88 deaths – 72% of all alcohol-related deaths – were caused by 73 drivers who were either at least 50% over the current limit, or who already had a previous conviction.

Of those 88 deaths, 34 people were killed in crashes where the driver at fault had a previous conviction and 57% – or 50 out of 88 deaths – were caused by drivers with twice the legal alcohol limit.

In 2008, 108 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes and 28 of those – 26% were caused by drivers with a previous drink-driving conviction, while 77 deaths – 62% – were caused by drivers who had consumed more than twice the legal alcohol limit.

This is where the focus should go, and it is. Compulsory alcohol interlocks on vehicles owned by a convicted drunk driver are well overdue.

Kathryn Powley in the HoS reports:

Sir Edmund Hillary’s widow June could face prosecution over the controversial Rolex watch which is being held by a Swiss auction house.

As the increasingly bitter controversy over the six Hillary watches being up for auction intensified yesterday, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage refused to rule out taking action against Lady Hillary.

The ministry wrote to Lady Hillary on Friday asking that a 1953 Rolex be returned by her after it ruled it was covered by the Protected Objects Act 1975.

If MCH thinks it needs protection, why didn’t they do so before it was put up for auction? Personally I think this is a mis-use of a draconian law. Sir Edmund donated many of his artefacts to museums which was generous of him. He did not choose to donate this watch, and the Government should not come along and say hey “we want it also”.

And yesterday, Sir Ed’s son Peter Hillary launched a stinging attack on Lady Hillary, accusing her of giving away many family artefacts that belonged to him and his sister, Sarah.

Now I don’t know who is entitled to the watch, under the will. I imagine a Judge may decide. But here is what puzzles me.

Why was this not sorted out immediately after Sir Edmund’s death by the executor? Surely the stuff left to Lady Hillary should have gone to her, and the stuff left to the kids to them.

Why did Peter and Sarah not gain the watch from the Executor?

There’s more to this story, than we currently know.

I just love the fact the we are going to be first in the world to have free trade agreements with both China and Russia – the two former communist economies. The world has changed, and for the better.

John Armstrong reports:

New Zealand has scored a major trade coup, becoming the first country in the world to start negotiating a free trade deal with Russia.

The decision to officially begin negotiations was announced last night by Prime Minister John Key and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev following a one-on-one meeting between the pair during this weekend’s Apec summit in Japan.

It will be wonderfully ironic is we conclude the Russian FTA before we get an agreement with the US.

Meanwhile, the Apec “silly shirt” tradition for leaders was to be extended to spouses this year.

Bronagh Key was measured for a kimono designed by Japanese fashion maestro Hiroko Koshino. John Key was not sure how his wife would look.

“If they have Bronagh versus Michelle Obama, she [Bronagh] will look like the Hobbit,” he said, referring to the difference in height between the two first ladies.

Good God, that comment may cost him 🙂

Deborah Coddington writes in the HoS:

And what this census doesn’t reveal is how many women turn down requests to sit on boards as company directors.

Maybe they are smarter than men, and don’t wish to expose themselves, under the Companies Act 1993, to the legal and reputation risks when a corporate curdles from the heat and shareholders cast around for someone to blame.

Feminism, to a liberal, is not equality of numbers just to please the Human Rights Commission.

Equality is about freedom of choice. So long as women can choose to be directors of public companies, or run their own successful companies – such as Trilogy – or even eschew the red-tape hassles, Inland Revenue nightmares, staffing problems and opt to be an employee, then we shouldn’t fret.

I partially agree with Deborah, but not totally.

First of all I should state that I’ve served under four different board chairs on two different boards which I am or was a non-executive director or. All four Chairs were female, and I’ve actually learnt a lot about governance from them.

Directorships are not quite like other jobs. While some companies do undertake a public recruitment process for directors, other do operate very much on an invitation basis, and it comes down to whom the existing directors know.

So I don’t think the lack of women on commercial boards is just because women want to avoid the liability that comes with directorships. I think the “old boys” network is an issue. But I also note that more and more women are undertaking IOD company director courses.

And is there anything to suggest women on their boards would improve things? Might just as well put blow-up dolls around the board table.

I’m adamantly against any quotas, but boards work well if they have a diversity of experience and knowledge. And it is a fact of life that overall women and men respond differently to various stuff. You often have different marketing strategies for female and male customers. So having no women on your board, may mean a valuable perspective is lost.

But I do agree with Deborah that often part of the problem is women not putting themselves forward. In the political realm, some groups complain that women only make up around 35% of Parliament.

But I don’t think that this is because NZers are reluctant to vote for women. I think it is because relatively fewer women seek political office.

It would be interesting to see some stats on what percentage of nominees (those seeking candidacy) in the major parties are women, what percentage of candidates are women, and compare that to the percentage of MPs that are women. This would help ascertain whether the under-representation is because women do not seek nomination, or because they do not gain a candidacy or whether they do not get elected.

I’ve done a quick analysis of the 2008 election. In the 70 electorate contests, I’ve looked at the genders of the winner and runner up. In 34 seats they were both male. In just five they were both female. Of the 31 seats where they were of different genders, 17 had the male candidate win and 14 the female candidate.

The Herald on Sunday reports:

The political future of Pansy Wong was looking dire last night as it emerged that her husband Sammy may have got taxpayer discounts for business travel after booking his trips through her office.

To be blunt, there is no political future. The only issue is a matter of timing. I can’t imagine Pansy will want to continue on as an MP after this, as her chances of returning to the Ministry are pretty non existent.

So really it is just a matter of whether she will retire at the next election as MP for Botany, or if she will resign before 27 May (triggering a by-election). Botany has an almost 11,000 vote majority, so there is likely to be considerable interest in the National nomination.

On The Nation this morning they reported that there is a real split in the Pacific Island vote in Mana, which has traditionally been very strong Labour. They interviewed Liz Tanielu the head of the Teaaomanino Trust which is the biggest pacific island service provider in the region. She says she traditionally votes Labour but that Faafoi is an outsider, and she is angry they could not find a single local to stand, while Hekia has been active for some years in the electorate and “walks the talk”, and that the by-election should not be a party vote but a vote on who will be the best MP.

Then they had on Api Malu, who was representing 40 pacific island church ministers. He says they are looking for people who have worked with them, and that Hekia Parata has impressed a lot of people, and the leadership with what she has done.

Also on the show, Tariana Turia endorsed both Hekia Parata and Matt McCarten as candidates who would make effective MP for Mana.

By coincidence in the Dom Post this morning, Porirua Deputy Mayor Liz Kelly also endorsed Hekia:

Porirua Deputy Mayor Liz Kelly has backed National Party candidate Hekia Parata to win the Mana by-election.

Her prediction will cause ripples as Labour’s Kris Faafoi has been favoured to take the seat, which is viewed as one of Labour’s safest. The party has always polled strongly in the Pacific Island and Maori communities.

Local leaders suggested yesterday that Mr Faafoi’s lack of experience is seen as a drawback.

Ms Kelly, an independent councillor, said Ms Parata’s work in the electorate had not gone unnoticed. “The feedback I’m getting is that Hekia is very popular … There is a lot of support because she’s been working the whole time.”

Mr Faafoi was a “nice guy” but “there’s no history” with the electorate and some voters resented that.

And a local community leader:

Samoan community leader Paula Masoe said Ms Parata had won over a lot of Pasifika supporters. “She’s a hard worker and we respect people who work hard for our community. I’m really happy that someone like Kris put their hand up. But it’s not time for him yet. I don’t want the sweat of our people to be put on someone who’s not ready yet.” …

Experience was valued in the Pacific Island community, she said. “It’s not about having someone who is Pacific Island there, you’ve got to have somebody who is able to carry the huge responsibility and he probably will. But not yet.”

There was a “strong feeling” among local voters that Mr Faafoi was imposed on the community by the parliamentary Labour Party.

“Labour needs to look at themselves because we don’t want to be treated like the poor relations. When they look at putting someone in to speak up for us I’d like to think that they’ve considered a whole lot of other people of our community that have been involved in Labour.

And also in the Dom Post, Chris Trotter effectively endorses Matt McCarten in his weekly column:

I asked Matt if he’d heard of Slavoj Zizek – the Slovenian socialist currently setting the cat of principle among the fat, pragmatic pigeons of the European Left.

“I’m busy, Chris,” he chuckled, “of course I haven’t.” “Well, Matt”, I replied, “Zizek is challenging Europe’s social democrats to stop looking over their shoulder at the European Central Bank; to govern “as if they were free”.

“Maybe that’s what you should ask the Mana electors, Matt. To stop looking over their shoulder at Labour. Could be your slogan: ‘Vote – as if you were free’.”

And in the NZ Herald, Audrey Young says Parata should be promoted to the Ministry:

Pansy Wong’s resignation from the Cabinet a week before the Mana byelection presents Prime Minister John Key with a golden opportunity.

He has the chance to add fresh blood to his ministry without the usual resentments around reshuffles and a chance to show Mana the calibre of National’s Hekia Parata. …

promoting Parata before a byelection – even to a minister outside Cabinet – would tell the Mana electorate something of the calibre of the National candidate.

It is clear that some traditional Pacific Island Labour voters are saying they people should vote for the best MP, not for the party. They are right – this is how MMP works.

The Dom Post reports:

The plum Wellington City Council appointment to the Wellington International Airport board has gone to deputy mayor Ian McKinnon – but not before a colleague suggested he was unqualified for the job.

The role, worth at least $37,500 a year, was previously held by former mayor Kerry Prendergast.

Councillor appointments to council-controlled organisations, committees, boards and portfolios were voted on yesterday at a meeting of the full council.

Mr McKinnon said councillors appointed to eight CCOs, as well as Wellington Airport, were there on merit.

But councillor Helene Ritchie said she would be best suited for the airport role as she is a former chairwoman of both the city’s airport authority and the airport company’s interim board.

“I don’t understand what knowledge and experience he has other than flying in an aeroplane.”

Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, who showed great backroom diplomacy in getting almost unanimous support for scores of councillor appointments, backed Mr McKinnon.

“It’s not totally based on the knowledge of the subject matter. It’s also knowledge about governance, finance and relationships.”

Good to see near-unanimous agreement on the roles.If the only dissent is from someone saying they wanted that role instead (rather than someone else saying that person should get that role), then you’ve done a good job.

The Dom Post reports:

A jilted lover has made legal history by being jailed for posting a photograph of his ex-girlfriend naked for millions of Facebook users to see.

After 12 hours, police and Facebook authorities shut down the woman’s account but not before it was available to all 500 million active users of the social network.

Joshua Simon Ashby, 20, held a piece of paper over his face yesterday in an attempt to prevent The Dominion Post photographing him as he was being sentenced.

Judge Andrew Becroft, in Wellington District Court, allowed Ashby’s photo to be taken, saying “there was a certain symmetry to it”, then stepped in to tell Ashby not to hide his face.

Yeah if you post naked photos of your ex for revenge, you can’t expect to have the media unable to take your photo.

Ashby posted the photo in an “irresponsible drunken jealous rage” after the breakup of their five-month relationship, the judge said.

It is believed to be the first time someone has been sentenced for a crime committed using social media under the seldom-used morality and decency section of the Crimes Act.

At first I thought jail might be over the top, but then I see he was not sentenced only for the photo.

The Island Bay painter was jailed for four months after pleading guilty to a charge of distributing indecent matter and six others of threatening to kill, wilful damage, theft of the woman’s clothes, and assault.

He had included in text messages to her on July 23: “I’m going to kill you” and “Dead bitch”. He then posted a photograph he had of her naked in front of a mirror to her Facebook page. Initially, 218 of her friends had access to it, but Ashby then made it publicly available and changed her password. Her friends saw the photo and texted her to tell her.

A very nasty piece of work.

At the same time as the Facebook incident, Ashby stole two of the woman’s dresses, soaked them in water and cut them up. She forgave him and they reunited briefly before a drunken argument in October led to Ashby pushing her to the ground and snapping her cellphone in half.

Oh, why did she go back to him. The moment anyone texts their ex to say “I’m going to kill you”, the Police should be breaking down his front door and arresting him.

I think he is lucky to only have four months jail.

Jared Savage in the Herald reports:

A 65-year-old man on the dole also owned a nightclub, drove luxury cars and laundered millions of dollars as the New Zealand kingpin of an international drug syndicate.

Now Ronald Terrence Brown faces spending the rest of his life behind bars after admitting drug and money laundering charges on the eve of a High Court trial. …

All up, he laundered more than $4.4 million over a period of two years. Total money transactions topped $7.2 million. Not bad for someone claiming the unemployment benefit for 20 years.

While on the dole, the 65-year-old Brown owned a nightclub called the K’Rd Ballroom, and paid cash for six expensive cars, including a $250,000 Porsche 911.

He was on the dole for 20 years?? While benefit fraud is probably the most minor of his crimes, it reminds me why we should have time limited benefits (except Invalids)

Dita De Boni writes in the Herald:

Act’s David Garrett is long gone from the headlines but his idea about sterilising child abusers was echoed in an interview on Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report this week.

Barbara Harris runs a US charity called Project Prevention, in which drug and alcohol abusers receive payments to put themselves on long term contraception or offer themselves up for sterilisation.

Barbara began this charity at her home in North Carolina after giving birth to six of her own boys and longing for a little girl.

She ended up adopting the little girl of a crack addict, and then, when that addict gave birth to a child each year for the next three years, Barbara took all the siblings.

She and her family lived through the nightmare of caring for children born to addicts and having to watch as the tiny babies struggled to free themselves of their mother’s narcotic of choice.

So someone who walked the walk when it came to helping families.

Project Prevention has paid some 3500 women and men to stop having children, with IUDs the most common contraceptive option for these addicts.

The charity has just moved into the UK, and is looking to extend its reach to Africa and the Caribbean.

It was hard to see any kind of downside to this excellent work, although RNZ’s excellent Katherine Ryan did her best in offering a countering view that down-and-outers should not be bribed to stop breeding.

Needless to say, it wasn’t a convincing counter argument.

Each woman that comes to Project Prevention in the US has already a huge number of pregnancies behind her – some aborted or miscarried, some ‘successful’.

Each has left a trail of destruction in her wake, for herself and her child.

Some, according to Barbara, have no idea they are pregnant until they go into labour. What a disaster.

Perhaps New Zealand doesn’t quite have the narcotics problem that the US has but we do have hopeless cases creating and having children all the time.

By implementing this system, for the small cost of a couple of hundred dollars a year, we can potentially curtail the much larger cost to society down the track.

Please come to New Zealand Barbara. We can offer you plenty of work – and the help of a like-minded, ex-politician who was ridiculed for holding a similar common sense view to your own.

I’d donate to it. Prevention is better than cure.

My God the CTU campaign against the 90 day law is wonderful. One of their early examples won a court case (proving that the law does not leave most workers without protections), and they have now released another video which totally undermines their argument:

In this video the aggrieved ex-employee says he was never told of an employment contract or a 90 day trial. He goes onto say he has never had an employment contract in any hospitality job.

This where the CTU campaign backfires. He did not sign an employment contract in which he agrees to a 90 day probation period. Therefore it does not apply. He is going to win damages in court.

You have to wonder how desperate the CTU is for “examples” when the best they can come up with are ones that don’t even apply.

Now you may wonder, what if he had signed an employment contract with a probation period. did they really sack him at the end of 90 days merely for putting “too much sauce and aioli” on servings?

I’m suspicious, because why would an employer sack someone who is otherwise a great employee just for that? That will just cost the employer money and experience getting a replacement.

Sure enough the employer has a different story – one the CTU and Labour forgot to mention:

Mr Collins had said Mr Greave was not sacked because he used too much sauce and aioli.

“On the last day, my mum, the owner of the cafe, said to him, cut the use out, it’s too much wastage.

“[He was sacked] because he would change menus, wouldn’t listen to me as a superior.

“He wouldn’t listen to any instructions either from the owners of the cafe or myself as manager. [He] wouldn’t do his job the way we required it.

“He just wasn’t what we were looking for in a chef and basically I believe he just wasn’t willing to have a younger … member in charge.”

Mr Collins, who is 22 years old, said his age was a problem for Mr Greave, who called Mr Collins “very inexperienced” in the video.

I have to say the employer’s version has the ring of truth about it. You listen to the video of the ex-employee and you get the impression he thought he was better than the owners and he was indispensable.

At the end of the day, why would they have sacked him if it was only using too much sauce?

Pansy Wong has resigned as a Cabinet Minister:

“It is beyond my wildest dreams that a baby girl born in Shanghai, China, grew up in a Hong Kong apartment where eight families shared a single kitchen and bathroom to be New Zealand’s first List M.P., first constituent M.P. of Botany and first Cabinet Minister of Chinese and Asian ethnicity,” says Pansy Wong.

“That dream is not mine alone and it comes with expectation, responsibility and hope. I have tried every single day to keep that dream alive and nothing should happen to dash that dream.

“That dream can only be kept alive by living up to the high standard set by the Prime Minister and myself.  Therefore I have given my resignation as a Cabinet Minister to the Prime Minister.

Those of us who live in the country were were born in, probably can’t appreciate what an incredible feeling it must be to not just move to another country to live, but to be able to be elected to that country’s Parliament, let alone become a Minister of the Crown.

It is a sad ending to a career which give inspiration and aspiration to many “new” New Zealanders.

But resignation and paying it back may not be the end of the matter. In 1999 former Labour MP David Butcher was convicted of fraud for claiming trips off the ex MPs travel perk, when the travel was for work purposes.

Now the situations may not be identical. Until the facts are known, one can’t conclude whether or not there may be issues of criminality involved. The Parliamentary Service is doing a full investigation of all previous uses of the travel subsidy by Pansy, and once that investigation is done, they will presumably make a decision as to whether to refer it to the Police or not.

Labour’s initial focus on what title Pansy used while witnessing a document was misguided, but sometimes you get lucky and raising the issue got the media asking about who paid for the travel. Labour will be pleased with the outcome – a scalp is a scalp.

Most Nats will be pleased that, as usual, John Key has acted quickly and shown he is holding Ministers to far higher levels than ever before. Hell previously one wouldn’t even know what a Minister’s expenses were.

The focus will also go on who will replace Pansy as a Minister.  This assumes that the PM won’t use the opportunity to reduce the size of the Executive.

Either Nathan Guy will be promoted from outside Cabinet to inside Cabinet or a new Minister will be appointed direct to Cabinet.

Chris Tremain and Craig Foss must remain the front runners to become the new Minister. However if the PM wanted to shake up the Mana by-election, he could appoint Hekia Parata. That would not go down too well with the class of 2005, but would allow National to say to the voters of Mana they have a chance to get a Cabinet Minister advocating for them. It would be a gamble..

The other issue is what happens to Pansy’s portfolios of Ethnic Affairs and Women’s Affairs. If Hekia was the new Minister they could go to her, but not sure either Craig or Chris would be wanting those portfolios. Georgina te Heuheu could well pick up Ethnic Affairs. Women’s Affairs could go to Judith Collins, Georgina or Kate Wilkinson. I doubt they’ll want to distract Anne Tolley or Paula Bennett from their major portfolios.

The Associate portfolios of ACC, Disability Issues and Energy could well go to the new Minister. They would also need a primary portfolio, so one of the Ministers outside Cabinet could end up handing over Stats or Senior Citizens perhaps.

I await the iPredict stocks on the issue!

Matthew Hooton writes (offline) in the NBR:

According to their own rhetoric, and that of the foreign environmental lobbyists who dictate it, the Green Party believes that the next century, and perhaps even the next decade, will be characterised by severe global turmoil.

Climate change, they say, will cause mass migration unprecedented in human history, as hundreds of millions leave equatorial regions for the north and south.

The seas will rise, creating refugees not just from small island states like the Maldives and Kiribati but causing havoc in China and India, with their vast coastal populations.

According to the UN, Indonesia, with its 80,000km coastline, 17,000 islands and 240 million inhabitants, will be the country worst affected by rising sea levels, threatening regional security.

Everyone will suffer unpredictable and extreme weather.

And worse, it seems:

“Peak food” will be upon us, with Sue Kedgley foreseeing “a new era of tightening food supplies, rising food prices, food scarcity, panic buying, long food queues and political instability.”

Food rationing, she said in 2008, was already underway in US, as was rationing of rice in Auckland.

Now I have to apologise to Matthew Hooton. I can’t believe even Sue Kedgley said such things. So I resorted to Google. And it turns out Matthew was right – read here.

Pressure on other natural resources also risks global catastrophe.  When China runs out of energy resources, it’s likely to march.

In an effort to help, the Greens’ population policy welcomes “climate change refugees” but also demands that any effects on New Zealand’s environment, society and culture be limited.

Their new MP, Kennedy Graham, tells us that, with a population of 4.1 million, New Zealand is already part of the global population problem.  The global population, he says, must be “drastically reduced.”

Now again, surely Matthew is having us on. Did the Green Party really say the global population must be drastically reduced? Well Matthew may be prone to occassional hyperbole, but it seems he employees excellent staff to do his research, as he is in fact quoting their official policy.

If the Green Party really believes all this, then it must surely also believe that New Zealand’s territorial integrity is at risk, not some time later in the century, but imminently.

New Zealand is already capable of producing at least 20 times our own food needs.

Our exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is 15 times our land mass and the world’s fifth largest, while the quota management system means New Zealand can expect to maintain our fisheries stocks long after others have devastated theirs.

Back on land, New Zealand’s coal reserves are greater per capita, in terms of their energy potential, than Saudi Arabia’s oil.

Total mineral reserves may exceed $10 trillion, which we’ve largely decided to leave in the ground.

How splendid that when everyone else has dug up and burned their coal, New Zealand’s reserves will still be in the ground, waiting. …

It’s true that New Zealand is protected by a 2000km-wide moat but that’s unlikely to be sufficient under the Greens’ prognosis.  You’d think they’d argue that New Zealand needs the strongest possible defence forces, up to and including an independent nuclear deterrent.

At the very least, New Zealand surely requires the capability to credibly threaten to sink a fishing or other vessel or to shoot down aircraft.

Surprisingly enough, this is not their defence policy.  The focus is on the UN, as if that organisation would operate effectively in the apocalyptic future they fear.

The Greens argue there should be no Anzac frigates or other warships, no anti-submarine capability and no air strike force.  All equipment not designed for peacekeeping, search and rescue, disaster relief, fisheries and border control tasks should be phased out.

And remember according to iPredict, Labour and Greens at the next election will only have 3% fewer votes than National, and might be able to form a Government. Dr Graham might be Minister of Defence.

Instead, New Zealand should lead the world in finding new ways of looking at and dealing with conflict.

Yep, that’ll do the trick – in a world, we’re told, where hundreds of millions of people are becoming homeless, hundreds of millions more are starving, the equatorial regions are uninhabitable, oil, coal and fish have run out everywhere but New Zealand and we’re all being bombarded with Hurricane Katrinas.

Could it be that, deep down, the Greens don’t really believe their own predictions of imminent environmental armageddon?

Or maybe they just think the UN will save us.

Four recent Telecom issues, so will talk about them all in the one post.

First they have a new data roaming deal.

The new pricing gives customers 100 megabytes (MB) of mobile data for $100 while roaming overseas in these locations that’s the equivalent of $1/MB.

Customers will be charged $8.00/MB for the first 12.5MB and a remaining 87.5MB worth of data for the rest of their billing month will be free.

A year ago we were all paying $30/MB for roaming data, so this is a good step in the right direction.

If you are on a big trip and will use close to 100 MB this is a damn good deal. If you will only use 10 MB or so, then not so great.

Vodafone charge $5/MB in Australia and $10/MB elsewhere (off memory). So if you plan to use more than 20 MB in Australia Telecom are better. And for US and UK they are cheaper at any rate.

My personal price point is around $1 – $2/MB. I will grudgingly pay that for international data for my mobile devices.

Secondly Stuff reports on the UFB tender:

Telecom will today step up its campaign to become the Government’s broadband partner, releasing a poll on its website that says more Kiwis would prefer its network arm Chorus got the job of building the ultrafast broadband network than electricity lines companies headed by Vector. …

UMR said 48 per cent of those polled would prefer to see Telecom broken up and have “an independent, stand-alone Chorus extend the existing fibre network”, while 28 per cent favoured the Government investing in a new network rolled out by electricity lines companies led by Vector.

Vector spokeswoman Philippa White responded: “Essentially the decision as to who will partner with the Government for the UFB build sits with Crown Fibre Holdings”.

The poll is interesting but to some degree irrelevant. Because it ignores the most important factor – cost.

If the Regional Fibre Group/Vector and Telecom/Chorus both say “Yes we can do fibre to the home to 75% of NZ if the Crown invests $1.5b”, then my view is you would absolutely go with Telecom/Chorus due to their existing infrastructure.

If the two bidders are even “close” to each other – ie Chorus says we can do it for $1.7b and Vector/RFG for $1.5b, then you’d probably still go with Telecom/Chorus – just to avoid the possibility of Telecom using the copper network to make the fibre network unprofitable by undercutting them.

But what the poll ignores, is that there may be a large difference between the two bids. If Vector/RFG are saying we can do 75% in 10 years for $1.5b and Telecom/Chorus are saying we can do 75% but need $2.4b to do it within 10 years, then one goes with Vector (in my opinion). And this scenario is not impossible. The lines companies already have infrastructure assets and resource consents which may allow them to do the job far cheaper than even a structurally separated Chorus.

So at the end of the day it is not a popularity contest between Telecom and Vector. The actual commercial details of their bids are vital.

Thirdly, Telecom have put together a one stop shop website about UFB and their bid. I’ve already read most of the site – lots of useful info there.

Finally, we have an announcement from Telecom and Vodafone about a joint bid for rural broadband:

Telecom and Vodafone have announced they have made a joint bid for the Government’s $300 million rural broadband initiative, bids for which are due in today.

Telecom chief executive Paul Reynolds said the solution would New Zealand’s two largest telecommunications providers “combining their extensive resources and skills to bring the benefits of high speed broadband to rural communities as quickly as possible”.

One goal of the rural broadband initiative is to ensure 93 per cent of New Zealand’s 900 rural schools have access to 100 megabit per second broadband, with the rest getting a 10Mbps service.

The other goal is that 80 per cent of rural New Zealanders get a 5Mbps service to their homes, with the rest able to access broadband with a speed of at least 1Mbps.

Telecom said the joint solution would involve extending Telecom’s existing fibre infrastructure to key rural points of presence, including schools and hospitals, and expanding Vodafone’s wireless infrastructure “that harnesses the power of this fibre to deliver high speed broadband services wirelessly”.

Telecom said any service provider would be able toretail services over the new infrastructure. “This means that rural customers will have not only faster data services but also a much wider choice of technologies and suppliers for these services.”

Telecom would be responsible for building fibre to schools and hospitals, cellsites and rural exchanges and cabinets.

Vodafone would be responsible for the design and build of “open access tower infrastructure” that Vodafone and Telecom XT would share, “as indeed could any other wireless service provider who wishes to do so”.

I’m very supportive of this. I think open access cellphone towers are where the future is. It makes a lot of sense economically, and from a resource consent point of view, to share this infrastructure.

Once we do have announcements on who will be the local (or national) fibre companies, there could well be a role for them in providing future cellphone towers, which Telecom, Vodafone, 2 degrees etc could all put gear on. The fibre company of course would provide high capacity backhaul. There are some technical challenges around size of towers and having all the gear high enough to get a good signal, but these are workable.

So good to see Telecom and Vodafone moving in this direction.

The Dom Post reports:

A National minister used her taxpayer-funded travel perk for a trip to China with her husband where he did a business deal that later turned sour.

Ethnic Affairs Minister Pansy Wong has been under fire since it was revealed she signed herself “Minister of NZ Govt”, and her address as “Parliament Buildings, Wellington NZ”, when she witnessed a contract between Pacific Hovercraft NZ and China-based Lianyungang Supreme Hovercraft during her trip to China in January last year.

A spokesman for Prime Minister John Key confirmed last night that his office was looking into the use of Mrs Wong’s travel subsidy.

Parliament’s rules expressly forbid MPs from using their private travel perk to pursue their own or their spouse’s private business interests.

But Mrs Wong’s office insisted last night that the purpose of the trip to China was a holiday. …

There was no issue with either of them using the perk as they were on holiday, she said. While business documents were signed during the trip, “that wasn’t the aim of their holiday”.

I think the Minister may be on shaky ground here. The aim of a trip is subjective. Whether or not business was done on a trip is objective, and it seems clear there was.

Now one can argue about whether or not one business deal as part of a trip that is mainly holiday, turns it into a business trip. What if the business only took up 5% of the holiday? Or 10%?

But in reality I think that doing any business on a trip (unless utterly trivial such as signing some documents faxed to your hotel) will render the trip ineligible for use of the travel perk.

I don’t know the precise details on this issue, but my gut reaction is that the cost of the travel should be repaid if business was done on the trip. The intent is not what counts – it is what happened on the trip.

UPDATE: The above was written at 9 am and set to appear at 1 pm. The media are now reporting she has been stood down.

AP report:

Amazon.com is selling a self-published guide that offers advice to paedophiles, and that has generated outrage on the internet and threats to boycott the retailer.

The availability of “The Paedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover’s Code of Conduct” calls into question whether Amazon has any procedures – or even an obligation – to vet books before they are sold in its online stores. Amazon did not respond to multiple email and phone messages.

The title is an electronic book available for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader and the company’s software for reading Kindle books on mobile phones and computers. Amazon allows authors to submit their own works and shares revenue with them.

Amazon have not now removed the book from sale, and that is a prudent move. But people go too far in demanding that Amazon should somehow vet books before they sell them. This would destroy the economics of online selling. Amazon has millions of titles. They would have to hire around 1,000 staff to do nothing but read books if they were to be held liable for them.

Certainly once a complaint is received, they should act swiftly to verify it is breaks any laws, or policies. But don’t start demanding they vet material in advance from authors.