The Herald reports:

The man who murdered Good Samaritan Austin Hemmings in central Auckland spent eight years in an Australian jail for stabbing and killing his estranged girlfriend.

He was also jailed in New Zealand on three separate occasions for knife incidents dating back to 1987.

Under three strikes, his last conviction would have been for the maximum sentence without parole. This happened in 2004, so he would not have been out in 2008 to kill Austin Hemmings.

Instead in 2004 he only got sentenced to two years and four months, despite this being the third time he has actually stabbed someone with a knife. I tend to think stabbing someone with a knife should get attempted murder unless there are strong reasons against.

Sadly Brown may get released again on parole (and I’d love to know if he got parole for his earlier crimes). Under three strikes he would now be facing life without parole which is entirely appropriate for someone who has killed two people, and taken part in a total of five knife attacks. He is is way beyond rehabilitation, and it is a tragedy Austin Hemmings paid the price.

In Australia the Labor smear machine is working at full speed – targeting the Greens as well as the Coalition. The Age reports:

STATE Labor has stepped up its campaign against the surging Greens, targeting the party’s candidate for Melbourne, prominent barrister Brian Walters, and seeking to smear him as anti-Semitic and an unscrupulous lawyer.

Senior Labor figures including former Victorian secretary Stephen Newnham have contacted influential members of the Jewish community seeking to generate a political backlash against the Greens, and Mr Walters in particular.

The Age has obtained a dossier of documents used as part of the dirt campaign that focus on Mr Walters’s representation of alleged Nazi war criminal Konrads Kalejs in the early 2000s.

In a Sunday Herald Sun front page story yesterday the member for Melbourne and Education Minister, Bronwyn Pike, described Mr Walters as a ”hypocrite” for representing a brown-coal mining company while as a Green criticising coal-fired power.

ALP secretary Nick Reece also criticised Mr Walters for seeking ”profit” from a coalmining company.

Having a Nazi as a criminal client, does not make you a Nazi. It makes you a lawyer. Lawyers in criminal practice are obliged to represent clients who seek their services, as explained:

Robert Richter, both Jewish and a high-profile QC, defended Walters as an ”ethical barrister”. ”The attack on him is completely shameful or rather shameless, and discloses not just an ignorance of the working of our legal system but a betrayal of any sense of proper legal ethics.”

Prominent human rights activist Julian Burnside, QC, slammed Labor’s tactics as a ”disgrace”. ”I can only say that I am astonished at the ignorance (or hypocrisy) of the Herald Sun, Bronwyn Pike and Nick Reece.

”The cab-rank rule is fundamental to the independent bar. It exists to protect the community by ensuring that even unpopular clients can get representation in court.

Points well made.

Some criticism over representing a coal mining company could be legitimate, as that is nor criminal representation but again you do not have to approve of a client to do work for them – I do work for plenty of clients I disagree with!

What I found really interesting was this:

Last month The Age revealed that taxpayers are footing the bill for a secretive operation run out of Mr Brumby’s office aimed at discrediting Coalition MPs and Greens candidates in the lead-up to this month’s state election. An informal committee, referred to as ”the dirt unit” among senior Labor figures, has met weekly in the Premier’s private office over the past year, overseeing investigations of the political, business and sometimes personal histories of shadow ministers and, more recently, Greens MPs and candidates.

Maybe Mike Williams could do contract work for them, on the basis of his wonderful H Fee investigation.

G-Man has arranged the Malthouse to host any Wellingtonians who want to watch and debate the US election results as they come in – over some food and drinks. I understand American Hot Dogs will be on the menu!

We’ll be there from midday Wednesday 3 November, and will need to make way for sports coverage around 6 pm.

This means we’ll be there from 4 pm to 10 pm PDT which covers the West Coast and from 7 pm to 1 am EDT which covers the East Coast.

So come along from midday on Wednesday to The Malt House, 48 Courtenay Place.

It was reported last week that Lockwood Smith has decided not to include details of how much each MP has used of their “travel” perk, as it is discouraging MPs from using it – which is unfair as the value of the perk is deducted from their remuneration package in setting their salary.

Now Lockwood has identified the problem correctly, but in this rare instance I disagree with his solution.

It is unfair to be deducting the value of the perk from the salary, and to be having witch hunts against those who use it. But the solution is to abolish the travel perk and increase the salary – not to try and keep the details secret.

Lockwood and the PM have opened up the books greatly, and doing so is a one way street effectively. Even if the Parliamentary Service only now publish the total amount of travel perks used, the media will question each individual MP about whether they have used it, and so the end result will be the same.

The Herald quotes Rodney Hide saying much the same:

“Why don’t you just pay the MPs, don’t allow the rebate and cover their legitimate expenses?”

While the Green Party is looking at releasing their rebate details anyway, Hide could not speak on behalf of all his MPs on whether they would follow suit.

“I don’t think the speaker can put the genie back into the bottle, because people quite naturally expect transparency and accountability and it would be impossible to explain, in this day and age, that this rebate is being paid out of an MP’s salary, even though it is.”

I agree with Rodney that this is what should happen. There has been an argument that the travel perk should stay, because it is the only way to recognise more experienced MPs service. But I would say that if we wish to do that, then do it directly through salaries. There is no reason the Remuneration Authority can’t be asked to set a slightly higher salary for MPs who have served a certain number of years. some may argue against this also – my point is one should set the salary to cover all remuneration, and then just have legitimate expenses claimed.

Some MPs do use their travel perk for a mixture of work and play – such as travelling to meet colleagues in other countries. But that can be funded from the Leader’s Budget. If the argument is their budgets are not big enough to cover that, then lets debate that, rather than keep the travel perk which will never be accepted by the public – inevitably it will go the same way as the perk for ex MPs.

Kris Faafoi, the Labour candidate for Mana must have been a child prodigy. On Q+A yesterday he said:

KRIS
Yeah, I was born and raised in Christchurch. My parents are Tokelauan. The biggest percentage of Tokelauans in New Zealand are right in Porirua East. I’ve been kicking around there since I was a youngster. I remember when the McDonald’s came in; I was there when the Mitsubishi factory was going strong.

McDonalds opened up their first NZ store in Porirua in 1976.

Now I understand Kris is 34 years old, which means he was born in 1976. So Kris must have been an exceptional toddler to remember McDonalds coming in, when he was less than a year old.

UPDATE: Whale Oil has photographic evidence of Kris being in attendance at other historical events, such as the Lee Harvey Oswald assassination, the Arafat-Rabin peace accords and storming the beaches of Normandy.

It’s been a while (14 months in fact) since my last blog poll on the Front Bench. These are not scientific, but it is interesting to see how readers regard the various Ministers are performing – and also how things have changed over time.

You can vote in the left hand sidebar – there is a poll for each of the nine Ministers. Go and have your say.

In the NBR (behind the paywall) Matthew Hooton wrote last week:

“Good faith” remains at the centre of New Zealand’s labour laws and, until now, has delivered relatively benign industrial relations.

The problem is that the Employment Relations Act’s authors couldn’t have anticipated a person such as Australian Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance boss Simon Whipp.

Australian unions are overbearingly powerful and notoriously corrupt, with historic links to organised crime. It was to people with that cultural inheritance that New Zealand’s actor unionists turned – implausibly, they claim, simply because they wanted a chat with the New Zealand Screen Production and Development Association.

In fact, Mr Whipp then conspired with other union bosses in Australia, Canada, the US and the UK to arrange a global boycott of The Hobbit, which would have cost more than 2500 highly-skilled, highly-paid jobs and unravelled an industry worth more than New Zealand’s entire exports of beef, butter or cheese.

But the problem has been solved, or has it?

Good faith is meant to be a mutual obligation, requiring parties to interact constructively. It covers the whole relationship between employer and employee, not just formal bargaining, and includes not only current but intended employers and employees – including those working under commercial contracts who want to become employees. …

Not even in their fevered imaginations could it be considered good faith to conspire with militant union thugs across the English-speaking world to organise a global boycott of a vitally important project which already pays above industry averages – and all without even giving prior warning to the employer of their intention to do so.

Actors aren’t alone in making a mockery of “good faith.” Similar conduct is under way in secondary schools from the PPTA, a union with a history of communist connections. It has no intention of dealing in good faith with the Ministry of Education because its true objective is industrial havoc in election year. The primary teachers’ union will no doubt also find a pretext for havoc in 2011, probably over national standards – a policy which, like few others, has received overwhelming mandates from parents and voters. Other unions plan to sabotage the Rugby World Cup.

So good faith seems to be rather lacking from the unions, Hooton says.

The government may also need to consider whether the law around “good faith” should be reviewed in the light of union antics. The provisions imposing good faith obligations on unions as well as employers could be strengthened. Or perhaps employers could be able to apply to the courts to have organisations like Actors Equity and the teacher unions proscribed and the requirement to deal with them in good faith removed. Or perhaps “good faith” needs to go altogether.

That would be a shame – but it would be Ms Walsh, Ms Ward-Lealand, Ms Malcolm, Ms Kelly and Mr Whipp who would be responsible.

By coincidence (or maybe not) I also had a phone call on Friday, saying that the laws around good faith need to be reviewed as the unions make such a mockery around them. Is it possible Mr Hooton is flying a kite for certain people within National who want to see change in this area? If so, they have certainly been given an opportunity to do so by not just the MEAA, but also PPTA and NZEI.

Like Matthew, I think this would be a shame. I think good faith is important in the employment realm. But it does need to apply both ways, not one way.

On Tuesday I blogged a “fact sheet” by the NZ Greenhouse Policy Coalition which compared the NZ ETS and the European ETS,

On Thursday I blogged a response to it, from the British High Commission, pointing out NZ’s high emissions per capita, and what Europe is doing on top of having an ETS.

Today, I’m happy to present a response to that response, from the Greenhouse Policy Coalition. Personally, I’m finding it a very useful debate as the NZ ETS will have its first formal review next year – and a key issue will be comparing what NZ is doing, to what other countries are doing.

The GPC responds:

NZETS and EUETS

Response to Kiwiblog item “British High Commission on European ETS”

29 October 2010

The British High Commission’s comments on the differences between New Zealand’s and Europe’s emissions trading schemes and wider climate change commitments require a response.  Specifically:

• The focus on per capita emissions is deeply misleading in understanding New Zealand’s situation, especially the role of agriculture;
• New Zealand’s experience with an ETS is much less than Europe’s; and
• New Zealand performs well in its own commitments outside the ETS.

Per capita emissions and agriculture

Focusing on per capita emissions is a standard approach used to make New Zealand and some other developed countries (e.g. Australia) look bad on climate change while making more populous countries (particularly China and India and some EU countries) look relatively good.  It helps avoid the real issue, which is the total amount of carbon going into the atmosphere.  New Zealand accepts its responsibility to do its share, but New Zealand isn’t the problem – action (or inaction) by the major emitters (China, the US, India, Russia and Japan) will determine whether global emissions keep rising or start to fall.  Per capita figures are a red herring.

What if we measured emissions in terms of each country’s consumption of goods, i.e. the amount of carbon embedded in the products used in an economy?  By this measure, New Zealand’s per capita figure would fall significantly, while that of the EU and the UK would rise dramatically.

The central issue to consider is why, with 73% renewable electricity generation (as against the UK’s 2020 target of just 30%), New Zealand rates so high on an emissions per capita basis.  The answer is simple – our super-efficient agricultural sector.  Our relatively small population produces a huge amount of highly-nutritious, high quality food largely for export to feed a booming world population.  We do this so efficiently that the productivity (and hence emissions of agricultural greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide) per person is very high by world standards.  The carbon footprint of our agricultural produce is not bettered by any of our competitors.

So, why don’t we just do something to reduce emissions from stock (methane) and fertilizer (nitrous oxide)?  Many options for this have been suggested but none has yet proved cost-effective (methane) or they have limited regional application and are not yet recognised by the UN (nitrification inhibitors).  New Zealand is doing more than its share in this respect.  We have put $45 million into the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, which we are leading with the UN’s blessing.  The challenge facing this group is to produce more food while reducing the intensity of emissions.  The bottom line is the world needs New Zealand to keep producing food, but at the moment the only way to cut agricultural emissions is to cut stock numbers, which is no solution at all.  If we stop producing, other, less efficient, producers will simply take over.

Efficiency is an important point.  It’s not just about being efficient in terms of emissions per unit of production, which this country’s agriculture sector certainly is.  New Zealand also produces food without subsidies that, in other parts of the world, such as Europe, soak up huge amounts of money.

It’s also worth noting that New Zealand has the only ETS with agriculture in it.  While the agricultural gases methane and nitrous oxide are not due to come into the ETS until 2015, farmers are already paying a price for their emissions through increased fuel and electricity bills.  Our food processing sector is fully in the ETS and gets almost no allocation of free emission credits, which will cost these companies tens of millions of dollars over the next year and more in future years.

New Zealand’s short ETS experience

The High Commission makes much of the EUETS having a cap on emissions, which the NZETS does not have.  This is misleading on two counts.  First, New Zealand does operate within a wider cap – its binding commitment to keep net emissions (total emissions less the carbon taken up by trees) at 1990 levels for the period 2008-2012.  Furthermore, New Zealand’s ETS, like the EU’s, phases out the support of companies via free carbon credits – and at almost the same rate.  Second, emissions trading is a brand new experience for New Zealand companies.  The EU has been doing it for five years and has made some huge mistakes along the way.  Its initial effort crashed the price of carbon because of over-allocation of emission credits.

Yes, it’s true the EU is on track to meet its 2020 target of a 20% reduction on 1990 emissions.  However, this is due to the recession cutting production in emission intensive areas and not the ETS.  Recent publications point to minimal gains from the EUETS.  Michael Jacobs, a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, says analysis shows the EU scheme is projected to cut just 32 million tonnes of carbon emissions in the period 2008-2012, which is tiny alongside annual European emissions of over 3500 million tonnes.  The Climate Spectator (5 October 2010) reported recently that the EUETS had also failed to deliver a move towards renewable energy.  The story reported on a survey of investment managers conducted on behalf of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, called Shifting private capital, suggesting this failure stemmed from the piecemeal nature of EU climate policy.

On balance, the NZETS isn’t looking too bad.

New Zealand’s climate change commitments outside the ETS

The High Commission focuses a lot on what the EU is doing outside its ETS to cut emissions.  As noted above, most of the success here is due to the recession.  The EU’s commitment to renewable energy is much less than New Zealand’s – an overall 2020 target of having 20% of all energy coming from renewables (i.e. including transport).  The figure for the UK is lower – 15%.  This compares with New Zealand’s renewable electricity generation last year reaching 73%, with a national target of 90% by 2025.

New Zealand’s international leadership of agricultural emissions research is also evidence of this country not sticking solely to the ETS in responding to the risk of climate change.

Finally, one contextual point leaps out as we consider New Zealand and the EU on climate change.  The EU is a collection of 27 countries, which largely trade with each other and are all in an emissions trading scheme together.  New Zealand is on its own; its major trading partners do not have a price on carbon.  This is a dangerous spot to be in when your entire economy rests on trading with the outside world.

The things I am also interested in, in this debate, are:

1. What will China do? If China does not sign up to anything meaningful, then by 2020 I estimate their emissions will exceed total global emissions in 2005
2. What will the US do, if it does not do an ETS?
3. Will there be a formal post-Kyoto agreement?
4. Will the next few years of climate data strengthen or weaken the projections with regard to future warming
5. what are the relative costs and benefits of mitigation vs adaptation.

The last summary of blog polls was in June. These are fun, not scientific. results since then have been:

1. 62% think Phil Goff will remain Labour Leader until the election
2. 24% said Brazil would win the FIFA World Cup, 20% Germany, 19% Argentina and only 11% correctly picked Spain
3. 59% (in June) said they thought the Coalition would win the Australian election
4. 70% support a ban on smoking in prisons
5. 75% said Pete Bethune pisses them off more than the Japanese Whalers
6. 77% support extending the 90 day trial provisions from small employers to all employers
7. 25% think Carter wrote the letter to the gallery as malicious payback vs Goff for demoting him, 6% think because he genuinely does not think Labour can win under Goff and 69% say both
8. 54% thought Labour would expel Chris Carter
9. 51% think KiwiSaver should be made compulsory
10. 64% blame Allan Hubbard for the collapse of SCF, and 12% each blame the global recession, the cirrent Government and the former Government
11. 52% approve of the Canterbury Earthquake legislation
12. 76% oppose Labour’s policy to remove GST off fresh fruit and vegetables
13. Only 43% think TVNZ did the right thing in accepting Paul Henry’s resignation

The Wellington Chamber of Commerce have announced:

The naming of Wellington as one of the world’s top ten cities will provide a wonderful boost to the city’s reputation and tourism industry according to the Wellington Employers’ Chamber of Commerce.

Lonely Planet has just named Wellington the ‘coolest little capital in the world’ and ranked it the 4^th top city in the world to visit in 2011.

“This is a huge tribute coming from such a respected publication.  It is well deserved.  It is also great news in that it will attract significant international interest in Wellington,” said Chamber President Richard Stone.

“Tourism is an increasingly important part of the Wellington economy and this accolade will provide a welcome lift.

20 years ago Wellington was the last place in NZ that most people would want to visit – let alone overseas tourists. The transformation over time has been great, and the Lonely Planet top ten rating is a great tribute. Lonely Planet is a bible for many travellers, and we should see a pick up in tourism on the back of this.

Whale has a copy of a story in today’s SST about how North Shore Mayor (for another 12 hours) Andrew Williams failed a roadside alcohol test while driving his Council car on Friday night. The Police won’t say what the result of the evidential breath test was, but presumably he passed that one.

I wonder if Mayor Williams was one of those who signed up the HoS two drinks max campaign?

TVNZ report:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says his party is building a support base with university students.

The Young Nats, Young Labour, Young Greens and ACT on Campus are looking forward to welcoming NZ First on Campus I am sure.

A reader has sent me a photo taken of NZ First on campus members gathering for a rally.

So it is good to see Winston has set up a youth section, for those members younger than the average. But it got me thinking, how about a section for NZ First party members older than the average – like National has its Super Blues.

As it happens I have also been sent a photo of a meeting of Winston’s old age section.

I understand Winston claims membership is increasing every day!

In the story the HOS report:

The horror smash that injured two picnickers yesterday horrified local MP Darren Hughes.

It came just months after he called on Parliament to decrease the legal blood alcohol limit.

Hughes’ bill mirrors the change the Herald on Sunday calls for in its Two Drinks Max campaign, to lower the limit from 80mg per 100ml of blood to 50mg.

“There is a problem in that people lose their judgment when they’ve had too much alcohol,” he said.

“It’s no surprise they keep on drinking – because they can’t judge how much they’ve had.”

Hughes said changing attitudes to ensure people had no more than two standard drinks before driving would make a difference.

So presumably the driver who smashed into the picnickers had a BAC between 50 and 80 mg per 100 ml?

Nope – not even close. A separate story reveals:

A 37-year-old man Lower Hutt man tested three times over the legal drink-drive limit.

So that is around five times greater that what the HoS is demanding. I think it is utterly misleading to use this as an example in their campaign to change the law.

This is like calling for the age limit for driving to be increased from 16 to 18 because an 11 year old was caught driving and injured someone.

I don’t agree with Matt McCarten much but normally his columns are honest opinion. I really can’t say that about today’s HOS column:

The NZ Actors’ Equity has been trying forever to reach agreement on basic conditions for actors from New Zealand film producers. Jackson point blank has refused to even meet.

As that is the role of SPADA, not Peter Jackson. Even the media understand this now.

Also NZAE do not represent most actors. Despite that SPADA had been trying to meet with them for the last 18 months.

To get Jackson’s attention, the union wrote to their counterparts around the world asking for support, up to and including a possible boycott of Jackson’s next film.

Not a “possible” boycott”. There was a boycott. It was voted on in June and remained in place until mid October.

But here’s some good news. NZ screen producers have agreed to meet Equity to negotiate standard terms and conditions for actors.

In the meantime, they will use the internationally union-approved Pink Book as the minimum basis for performers’ contracts.

This is a huge victory for Equity.

A huge victory? Jesus Matt – you are in another dimension on this one. This “huge victory” is what SPADA tried to get them to do 18 months ago. Equity has been refusing. Claiming this as a victory is like Germany claiming the Treaty of Versailles as a victory.

Is Andrew Little the only union leader honest enough to admit that Equity screwed up massively? It seems so.

A Dim-Post reader asked:

When was the last time a prime minister directly negotiated with a multinational?

In the comments, Matthew Hooton made an interesting point:

All prime ministers meet often with executives from multinationals who tell them what their intentions are in NZ and what policy changes if any might encourage them to increase (or decrease) their investments here.

Prime ministers might then comment on that, or get their ministers to, and a letter might be sent back, and there might be a further letter … or the ideas raised in the meetings might just get integrated into future policy development without acknowledgment.

This is not only to be expected but essential given NZ’s low savings rate and dependence on foreign capital.

However, as far as I can remember, the idea of a prime minister being in the room, looking them in the eye, negotiating backwards and forwards, over a short period of time … well, as far as I know, that is extremely unusual, mostly because of the sheer political recklessness of it. If it goes wrong, you as prime minister are in the room when it goes wrong and are therefore accountable.

The situation we’ve seen this week relies on:
1. The prime minister believing themselves capable of carrying out the negotiations
2. Their staff believing their prime minister to be capable of carrying out the negotiations, so not scheduling things to prevent it
3. The prime minister in fact being capable of carrying out the negotiations when they began
4. The prime minister being prepared to carry out the negotiations (ie, not being so haughty as to think such negotiations were below his or her station.)

In my view, only Key, of recent PMs, gets four yesses to these questions.
Clark would have been yes, yes, yes and no.
Shipley would have been yes, yes, no and no.
Bolger would have been yes, no, yes and no.
Moore would have been yes, no, yes and yes.
Palmer would have been yes, yes, no and no.
Lange would have been yes, yes, no and no.
Muldoon would have been “The SIS has got pictures of you and I’ll change the law to make you make the movies here.”

Heh that Muldoon theory is on the money.

Anyway let us look at those suggested qualities one by one, according to Matthew:

The prime minister believing themselves capable of carrying out the negotiations – all of them

Their staff believing their prime minister to be capable of carrying out the negotiations, so not scheduling things to prevent it – Key, Clark, Shipley, Palmer and Lange but not Bolger & Moore

The prime minister in fact being capable of carrying out the negotiations when they began – Key, Clark, Bolger and Moore but not Shipley, Palmer and Lange

The prime minister being prepared to carry out the negotiations (ie, not being so haughty as to think such negotiations were below his or her station – Key and Moore but not Clark, Shipley, Bolger, Palmer and Lange

It’s an interesting analysis.

This video nicely shows how attack ads are nothing new. They use quotes that Jefferson and Adams used against each other in the 1800 presidential election – they are far far worse than anything said today.

1800 was the first time a sitting President lost an election, and showed how power can be transferred peacefully. It was also the first and only Vice-President to win an election against the President they served with.

Have now read the full report. What staggers me is not that Wilce got the job, but that NZDF ignored multiple warnings and complaints about him. Such as:

• The SIS were warned about Wilce in 2005, yet did nothing – do not even have a record of the concerns expressed to them. The PM should be concerned by this.
• The chair of the recruitment panel was also told of concerns over Wilce’s integrity and there is no record of him sharing these with other panel members or doing anything about it
• A DTA staffer complained under the Protected Disclosures Act 2000
• A major and a civilian raised concerns in 2009, and nothing was done
• Even more amazingly a DTA staffer went to a seminar in 2007 where they talked about the need to verify CVs and the example was given of someone who had claimed to be on UK bobsleigh team and won a DSO in the Falklands. He confirmed with the lecturer that he was referring to Wilce, and reported this back to his superiors at Defence. Nothing was done!!!

Derek Cheng has an excellent summary of The Hobbit saga.

Michelle Hewitson has interviewed Andrew Little. Quite amusing, as normal for Hewitson. One extract to highlight:

I’m not sure who (as in which hat he was wearing) he was being the day I saw him. He is, I think, practising for his campaign. I was initially surprised that he slagged off (he would not, of course, put it quite that way) another union: Actors’ Equity. I’d said that it had been a bad week for the unions, thus, to pinch a bit of union lingo, collectively lumping all unions in together. He said, “It’s been a shockingly bad couple of months for Actors’ Equity. It’s been a difficult week for unions … And I’m not going to defend the Actors’ Equity because the handling of it has been an absolute disaster.” Is it helpful of him to say that? “I’ve spoken to people in Actors’ Equity. They know my view.”

Andrew has spoken the truth, as no other unionist has been willing to do so – he is smart enough to know you do not defend the indefensible.

He has been what I call interfering and what he calls trying to help, behind the scenes. He spoke to John Barnett, and to Robyn Malcolm, whom he flatted with years ago when they were both at Victoria University.

Trying to help behind the scenes is what Helen Kelly should have restricted herself to doing, rather than calling Peter Jackson a spoilt brat. It is a pity Andrew is standing for Parliament – he could do more good arguably as the CTU President.

He has long been seen as not Left enough by some factions of the Left; as too friendly with big business. An indication of where he sits is that he is equally scathing about Fran O’Sullivan and Chris Trotter. In other words: he is firmly in the centre.

Andrew is not centrist, but he is not extreme – he is mainstream centre-left.

TUANZ announced:

TUANZ is pleased to announce that Paul Brislen has accepted the role of Chief Executive, starting in the new year.

Paul has been both an observer and participant in the telco sector for the past decade, first as a journalist and commentator and lately as the corporate communications manager at Vodafone New Zealand.

“We’re delighted to welcome Paul in as the new Chief Executive. He’s got a wealth of experience in the telecommunications sector and has long been a champion of the user. He’s got a long history with TUANZ, having contributed a chapter to the ‘Survival of the Fastest’ and the ‘Broadband Reloaded’ blueprint for the digital era,” says TUANZ Chair, Pat O’Connell.

Paul says he’s looking forward to the challenge.

“Telecommunications is vitally important to New Zealand’s economic development and I’m relishing the opportunity to do what I can to help the industry along. It’s a vibrant, dynamic, exciting industry and I’m looking forward to jumping in with both feet.”

This is a superb appointment. Paul as a former Computerworld editor was a great champion of the consumer, and a polished performer on TV etc.

Paul is also of the nicest guys around, and will be able to advocate for TUANZ very effectively, and be able to work with those whose views may diverge from his.

The TUANZ Board have done well to lure Paul away from Vodafone, and I think TUANZ will proper under Paul’s leadership.

On a private note, I am looking forward to hearing Paul submit on the merits of mobile termination rate regulation 🙂