The polls in the UK haven’t had a great track record in recent elections so it will be interesting to see if they have learnt from mistakes and get it right this time.

The focus of the last 48 hours has been on the NHS which might help Labour, so while most polls predict a conservative majority, it could well end up a hung parliament again.

The four projection models are:

• FocalData Cons majority 24
• YouGov Cons majority 28
• Electoral Calculus Cons majority 46
• Savanta Cons majority 30

The seat projections are:

• Conservative 337 to 349
• Labour 226 to 235
• SNP 41 to 45
• Lib Dems 11 to 15

Stuff reports:

The South Pacific region of Bougainville voted overwhelmingly to become the world’s newest nation by gaining independence from Papua New Guinea, results showed Wednesday.

Bougainville Referendum Commission Chairman Bertie Ahern was cheered when he announced that more than 98 per cent of valid ballots favoured independence.

It will take some years to negotiate and implement but I look forward to Bougainville becoming the 207th nation state.

Overall the report from the Justice Committee on the 2017 general election and 2016 local elections is a paranoid screed of problems, with some terrible “solutions”. There are also some worthwhile recommendations also. I suspect the Government will do all the terrible stuff, and leave alone the worthwhile stuff. I hope I’m wrong.

I’ll comment on some of the recommendations.

We recommend that the Government ask the Electoral Commission, in its report on the 2020 General Election, specifically to address the issue of astroturfing and ways that New Zealand can deal with it.

They ask for a report on how to stop astroturfing yet note they did not receive any evidence of astroturfing in the 2017 election. Not content with actual problems, they decided to go after imaginary ones.

We recommend that the Government give the Electoral Commission investigatory, enforcement, and sanction powers commensurate with our proposed changes. We recommend providing the Electoral Commission with powers to: • investigate electoral offences • obtain documents and other evidence • impose fines • impose other remedies for minor breaches of electoral law

This is well overdue. I have been pushing for this for years. I’d go further and also remove the Police as the agency for major electoral breaches and give it to an agency that understands electoral law – maybe Crown Law.

We recommend that the Government consider giving responsibility for running all aspects of local elections to the Electoral Commission

Again I have supported this for many years. Makes total sense, but the recommendation is merely to consider it, not to do it. Which is very tokenistic.

As part of centralising the management of local elections, we recommend that the Government consider encouraging or requiring the same voting system to be used in all local elections.

It is confusing that some elections are FPP and some STV but having them all STV could make things worse unless they have more wards with fewer candidates. People simply won’t take time to rank 25 candidates.

We recommend that the Government introduce legislation to require that, when a nonmayoral vacancy occurs within 12 months after a triennial local body election, the position be filled by the next highest polling candidate (or STV equivalent) at that election.

That seems a good idea. I’d extend it to 18 months.

We recommend that the Government consider one over-arching anti-collusion mechanism, including penalties, to replace those in the Electoral Act.

This is potentially an excellent idea as it would greatly increase the risk for NZ First MPs when they launder donations through their foundation. Current law puts all the risk on the muggins who is the party secretary. Having an anti-collusion mechanism would mean anyone who takes part in a scheme to get around donation law could be held liable.

We recommend that the Government: • make it unlawful for third parties to use funds from a foreign entity for electoral activities • require registered third parties to declare where they get their donations from.

This is outrageous. It means if an organisation express es a view on who to vote for during an election campaign, they may end up having to disclose every single donor to them. I’m no fan of Greenpeace but they should be able to advocate against parties they oppose without disclosing everyu single donor to them.

We recommend that the Government consider requiring all media organisations to have a majority of board members who live in New Zealand.

So if three out of five directors of Stuff are Australian, Stuff has to close down?

We recommend that, as part of its review of media content regulation, the Government consider requiring all media companies to belong to an industry self-regulating body.

It’s not self-regulating if it is made compulsory by the Government. What is the problem being solved here? Every significant media organisation is a member of the BSA and/or the Media Council.

Publishing false statements to influence voters Section 199A of the Electoral Act 1993 (publishing false statements to influence voters) provides that a person is guilty of a corrupt practice if they deliberately publish a false statement with the intention of influencing an elector, on election day or the two days prior. Government members believe that this rule should also apply during advance voting. Government members of the committee recommend extending the offence in section 199A so that it applies from two days before advance voting begins until the close of polling on election day.

This is by far the most stupid and terrible idea, because it would have the Police deciding for three weeks of an election campaign whether or not to charge party leaders, MPs, candidates etc for any statement which someone else claims is false and complains about.

Take an example. Labour falsely claimed on scores of occasions that the last National Government cut health funding. This was clearly false and intended to influence electors. Health funding increased under National in nominal terms, real terms and real per capita terms.

Under Labour’s proposal, Jacinda Ardern would go to jail if she repeated this false claim within 23 days of the election.

The consequences for politicians saying false things should be exposure, not jail.

In fact this law should be scrapped entirely, not expanded from two days to 23 days. It comes from an era when people only read or heard the news once a day and was designed for a situation such as a nationwide pamphlet drop the day before the election which has something totally false in it (Politician X is a convicted criminal). Back then there would be no way to rebut such a claim in time, hence the provision in the law to sanction it.

Today such a pamphlet would be exposed on social media within minutes and have millions aware within a few hours it is false through media websites.

Whether a political claim is true or false should not be a matter for criminal courts. The reality is that many claims are shades of grey, not black or white.

Could you imagine a leaders debate, with such a law in place for the last 23 days. Before the debate was over supporters of each side would have laid a dozen complaints with the Police alleging their opponent had published a false statement and should be prosecuted.

So as I said many terrible idea in this report, but some worthwhile ones also.

The Taxpayers Union has published the first of what will be an annual rich list – a rich list of public sector CEO salaries.

There are 140 public sector CEOs on it. Here’s some stats:

• 53 earn more money than the Prime Minister
• 113 earn more money than the Deputy Prime Minister
• 122 of 140 earn more than a Cabinet Minister
• Four earn more than $750,000
• 50 earn more than $500,000
• 79 earn more than $400,000

Stuff reports:

A man has asked the prime minister for permission to personally recover the body of his brother who was killed on Whakaari/White Island.

Mark Inman met Jacinda Ardern after his brother Hayden Marshall-Inman, a tour guide from Whakatāne, died in Monday’s eruption.

On Wednesday he emailed Ardern’s office saying he would like her to pardon his actions if he staged a personal recovery.

“With the current conditions of sunshine baking and decomposing his body, he’s going from a situation where we could have an open casket to now more likely not having a body at all – due to your government’s red tape and slow decision making,” Inman said in the email.

If he decides to recover his brother’s body, and ends up being prosecuted for doing so, I suspect thousands would donate to his legal fees.

National inherited a projected decade of deficits from Labour in 2008 and despite the Global Financial Crisis and two earthquakes managed to get the books back into surplus.

Labour in 2017 inherited a growing economy and large surpluses. In less than one term Labour have turned that into a projected billion dollar deficit for the current year.

Labour’s strategy is to tax families more, spend more and borrow more, leaving us all with the debt.

Duncan Garner writes:

We have a big decision to make as a country: What do we want our first responders to do when it comes to national emergencies.

Blink, delay, wait, and let people die perhaps, or charge in.

Think about the New York firefighters at 9/11 where many ran towards their death in the pursuit of saving lives. Dumb or brave national heroes?

I say we must let calculated courage be our test – and sometimes locals know best, not transplanted police officers from Wellington who take charge because a 50-year-old piece of law says that must be the case. 

Although, I accept in many ways police are damned if they do and totally damned if they don’t.

But I applaud the spontaneous, spur of the moment first responders who bravely touched down on White Island on Monday looking for signs of life.

They didn’t wait for the cops, they just went in and put their own lives at risk – what a remarkable rescue.

That so many got off. They are now fighting for their lives and will in time receive the attention it deserves. Those local heroes, the chopper pilots, skippers and the like.

This sounds harsh, but all those people got rescued because the locals acted before the police arrived and banned rescue activity. If the Police had got there earlier and taken charge earlier, the death toll may have been much larger.

The locals are heroes of the highest order. They risked their own lives to save lives.

But twice now in the past decade, our police have stopped, blinked, waited and waited and waited.

Their refusal to enter Pike River immediately after the first explosion has been widely criticised by families. Now their refusal to land on White Island is being questioned and likened to the Pike debacle.

It is deja vu.

Our Police are not experts in everything.

Hell, they mistakenly said a criminal investigation had been launched into this White Island tragedy. Wrong. They meant coronial. That’s a howler. 

Therein lies the problem. If they can’t get the little stuff right, how on earth are we meant to have continued confidence in their calls?

Especially when other heroes have landed on the volcano, saved lives and put the chopper in the hanger.

While for the Police, the clock continues to tick tock tick tock.

I actually think the law should be changed so the Police are not in charge of major disasters. I think Fire and Emergency New Zealand should be in charge. Their culture and training is all about judging acceptable risk to save lives.

The Police are excellent at solving crimes and front line police duties. That is not the same skill set as risk assessment for rescue operations.

I hope the inevitable Commission of Inquiry into White Island includes a scrutiny of the response.

So which country is pledging to spend $5 trillion to become carbon neutral, so that the world’s temperature doesn’t increase by an extra 0.004 degree? Is it China? The US? The EU?

No it’s New Zealand.

Bjorn Lomborg writes:

Climate change is a real problem. It is man-made, and it will have negative consequences. But trying to stop emitting CO₂ by 2050 or sooner is a very expensive way to do almost no good.

We just have to look to New Zealand, the only country to have actually made an estimate of the cost of achieving carbon neutrality.

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, received plaudits this year for passing legislation designed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. To her credit, her government asked a respected economics institute to estimate the cost. …

Across the century, the cost for the small island nation of 5 million souls would add up to at least $5 trillion. And this assumes New Zealand implements climate policies efficiently, with a single carbon tax across all sectors of the economy over 80 years.

Yep a $5 trillion cost over 80 years. But it will be worth it eh, because it will save the world right?

What will this achieve? Let’s ­assume that in every one of New Zealand’s elections between now and 2100, governments are chosen that continue to fulfill the promise of going to zero by 2050 and staying there. Imagine, too, that New Zealanders don’t rebel against the inevitably large tax hikes on energy — no “yellow-vest” protests.

In these artificial conditions, if New Zealand meets its promise of zero emissions in 2050 and stays at zero for five decades, then the greenhouse-gas reduction, according to the standard estimate from the United Nations’ climate panel, will deliver a temperature cut by 2100 of 0.004 degrees.

We’re saved, we’re saved!

The climate challenge will not be solved by asking people to use less and more expensive energy. A sensible middle ground must be found that could include policies like a low and rising carbon tax. But we must ultimately focus on the reality that the best way to fix climate change is innovation that lowers the price of clean energy below that of fossil fuels.

In Paris in 2015, world leaders promised to double spending on research and development into green energy. They are on track to miss that target. The Madrid conference should focus its energy on innovation — rather than wild-goose chases.

Indeed the focus should be on innovation, yet the Government refuses to change the law to allow such innovation.

Yahoo reports:

The World Anti-Doping Agency on Monday banned Russia for four years from major global sporting events including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar over manipulated doping data, prompting an angry response from President Vladimir Putin.

WADA’s executive committee, meeting in Lausanne, handed Russia the “robust” four-year suspension after accusing Moscow of falsifying data from a doping testing laboratory that was handed over to investigators earlier this year.

The toughest ever sanctions imposed on Russian state authorities will see government officials barred from attending any major events, while the country will lose the right to host or bid for tournaments.

“For too long, Russian doping has detracted from clean sport,” WADA president Craig Reedie said.

“Russia was afforded every opportunity to get its house in order and rejoin the global anti-doping community for the good of its athletes and of the integrity of sport, but it chose instead to continue in its stance of deception and denial.”

Under the sanctions, Russian sportsmen and women will still be allowed to compete at the Olympics next year and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, but only as neutrals and if they can demonstrate that they were not part of what WADA believes was a state-sponsored system of doping.

It is right that Russia be formally banned from the Olympics. It is beyond doubt that they have a state sanctioned and organised doping programme, and that even when caught out, the state forges documents to try and cover up.

But I do wonder if merely banning the country from formal participation is enough. Many Russian athletes will still get to compete, and we won’t know if they are clean. And the Russian Government will still be quite capable of adding up the medals won by those athletes and claiming victory for the country if they win.

The only way to get Russia to stop is to make the consequences of their cheating so painful that Russians, and especially Russian athletes, demand the Government halt its state doping programme.

And that means a total ban on all competitors from Russia. Unfair to the few clean ones, but how else do you get the incentives right?

The latest health stats shows that since the Labour Government ditched health targets, outcomes have worsened for patients.

At the end of 2017 93.1% of ED patients were seen within six hours – just 1.9% short of the 95% target.

In the quarter ending September 2019 this had plummeted to 84.8%, which is 10.2% short the of previous 95% target.

Once again Labour is spending more money to deliver worse outcomes for patients.

Stuff reports:

Two police officers called heroes after arresting the Christchurch terror attack suspect have finally been named. 

They were Senior Constable Jim Manning and Senior Constable Scott Carmody of the Canterbury police. 

The country cops rammed the suspect’s car off the road and arrested him as he allegedly sped to his third target on March 15. 

They not only potentially saved many more lives, but they made sure the killer was apprehended to face trial.

National announced:

Local party members have today selected Jake Bezzant as National’s candidate in Upper Harbour for the 2020 Election.

Mr Bezzant is replacing Paula Bennett, National’s Campaign Chair, who isn’t seeking re-election in Upper Harbour but will stand as a List only candidate.

Paula holds Upper Harbour by 9,556 votes so it is highly likely Jake Bezzant will be an MP next year.

Jake Bezzant, 31, degree in Law and Politics/International Relations. Following his graduation, he worked for Smart Parking Limited as a Commercial Manager and Legal Officer.

Jake was formerly the Chief Executive Officer of Parking Sense, a New Zealand high-tech company that offers a suite of intelligent parking solutions for industries like healthcare, smart cities and airports. He has helped to grow the company from five staff to the world’s largest transport parking technology company.

Jake has a keen interest in cricket participating in the Waikato Valley Cricket – Kiwi Cricket Coaching in Schools, England and Wales Cricket Board Coaching and has been the President and Board Member of the Hamilton Old Boys Cricket Club.

Jake and his partner Tarryn have a seven year old son.

Pretty impressive record for someone just 31. Parking Sense now has office in 10 countries.

These are the five party leaders who now make up Finland’s Government. Great to see them succeed, even if I disagree with some of their politics.

The current Finnish Government was elected in June and won 117 of the 200 seats. The PM was forced out after just six months due to a postal strike.

The SDP is centre left but supports nuclear power plants being constructed and also for Finland to become oil independent (ie produce its own).

Stuff reports:

One of New Zealand’s most-notorious killers has died while serving a life sentence for the death of 6-year-old Teresa Cormack.

Jules Mikus abducted, raped and murdered the Napier girl in 1987. DNA evidence was used to finally catch and jail him 15 years later, in 2002.

A Corrections spokesman confirmed to Stuff Mikus had died in custody at Rimutaka Prison on December 6.

He had been reported as having a brain tumour.

• At age 14 he raped a girl aged under 12
• At age 15 he sexually assaulted an adolescent girl
• At age 18 he indecently assaulted an adolescent girl
• At age 19 he indecently assaulted an adolescent girl
• At age 20 he got his 15 year old partner pregnant
• At age 24 he tried to rape a 14 year old girl
• At age 29 he raped and killed six year old Teresa
• At age 61 he died

May this bring some closure to Teresa’s family.

Time for a monthly update!

There are now 239 Kiwibuild houses. built.

The Government promised 2,667 by October 2019 so they are at less than 10% of that.

They also promised 100,000 within ten years. Pro-rata that would be 18,333 by October 2019, so they are at 1.3% of the pro-rata rate.

This is important to remind people of, because next year Labour will promise all sorts of things. But the question is do you have confidence they can deliver them?

Like most of the country, I’m waiting for more news about White Island. As at 7.30 pm there’s one dead and 27 missing. One just hopes the 27 missing is an inaccurate estimate and/or they are found alive.

A sad reminder that active volcanoes can and do erupt without much warning.

Thoughts are with those who were on the island, and the rescuers who are bringing them out.

UPDATE: Now five confirmed dead.

UPDATE2: Of 47 on White Island, 34 are injured, eight are missing presumed dead and five are confirmed dead.

Stuff has two articles on the resignation of Martin Matthews as Auditor-General, due to the fraud that happened in the MOT while he was CE there.

The first is here and second here.

The articles are very sympathetic to Matthews. Personally I think they miss that key point, which is the Auditor-General has to be seen as beyond reproach. And while Matthews was a victim of Joanne Harrison, he also was responsible for the conduct of the overall Ministry. I blogged in May 2017 the following:

Here’s the stuff I’m concerned about:

Harrison was able to authorise payments to entities and no internal checks made about services provided

Concerns about the contracts were raised two years earlier but not acted on

Staff concerns over her recommending her husband for a role were not followed up properly

She hired a friend as a staffer who got paid for 10 months and it seems never turned up to the office

She had been investigated for fraud in Australia and the Australian Federal Police contacted the Ministry in 2014 about her and Matthews just accepted her word that the matter did not directly relate to her

In 2013 staff raised concerns that she gave out work without contracts

In total there were, off memory, eight specific complaints or warnongs about Harrison that were not acted on.

Now Stuff reports:

The report that forced former Auditor-General Martin Matthews to resign can finally be revealed by Stuff.

MPs intended it to be kept secret, but today Stuff can disclose its full contents after discovering Parliament never formally suppressed it. 

But Stuff has not disclosed the full contents. They have merely quoted from it.

Surely Stuff should publish the full report, and Matthews’ response to it, so we can judge for ourselves how the claims stack up.

As I have said before many times, I think Matthews’ would be suitable for any other CE role in the public sector. But not Auditor-General, after what happened on his watch.

If he is determined to relitigate the past (as is his right) then we should demand to see the reports he has given to the media.

Mike Hosking writes:

Kris Faafoi did what you would expect a Labour Minister to do, and the Prime Minister did what you would expect a Prime Minister of her experience and standards to do, nothing.

And that is this Government for you. If standards are important, if decency, honesty, openness, or transparency are important to you, this is not the government for you.

The only thing you can’t get away with it seems is assaulting your press secretary. Everything else goes.

As I said last week, I know Faafoi from TV days, and like everyone else who knows him, I know he is liked. He is unquestionably talented, and he’s been the sole shining light in that Labour Cabinet, having been justifiably promoted earlier this year.

Maybe that’s the bit that saved him? Maybe the Prime Minister looked around the room, saw the old stalwarts such as Grant Robertson and David Parker, solid professionals quietly keeping their noses clean and getting on with the job, and then looked at the rest of them, and breathed out a sigh of knowing despair. They’re a bunch of amateurs, so Faafoi gets saved because he’s good in a room full of numpties.

If Faafoi went, who would replace him? Aupito William Sio?

Maybe if Jacinda Ardern had never promised to be the most open, honest, and transparent government ever, this wouldn’t be as bad. Maybe if Meka Whaitiri, Clare Curran, Iain Lees-Galloway, Shane Jones, or Phil Twyford had never happened it wouldn’t seem so bad.

Don’t forget Winston!

HDPA writes:

In just one week we’ve had a poll showing the PM’s popularity down again, questions about NZ First’s integrity again, criticism of Andrew Little’s rushed law to ban foreign donations that won’t actually ban foreign donations, a data breach in the gun buy-back scheme, and revelations Kris Faafoi helped a friend with an immigration problem. Those are just the same old problems the Government’s been dealing with its entire term: bad polls, a rogue coalition partner, bad laws, key policy failures, ministerial integrity. We witnessed a whole term’s problems all in one week. It would be considered a bad run if that list was spread across a month, but in a week it’s just head-shaking stuff.

A good summary – bad laws, policy failures and lock of ministerial integrity.

An excellent story at Stuff:

A Stuff Circuit documentary, The Fraudster, has revealed the life and crimes of Joanne Harrison, aka Joanne Sharp, aka Joanne Sidebottom. Her Transport Ministry fraud became front page news in 2017, but what couldn’t be reported at the time because of a suppression order was the extent of her crimes.

But after having the suppression order lifted, Stuff Circuit can finally reveal her criminal history, and how she charmed her way through corporate and government jobs in New Zealand and Australia, leaving a trail of carnage and duped senior executives, shaking their heads at the fact they’d been taken in.

She is a serial con artist. Here’s the timeline from what I can see:

• Fake references to gain residency into NZ
• Mid 2000s Tower Corp – falsified her employment contract
• Fake references in court over the Tower fraud
• Changed name to get job with Far North District Council
• Fake references to get job with Victorian state water company
• 2017 – MOT fraud revealed

And how did she manage to keep on offending:

The judge in the Tower case sentenced her to 300 hours’ community service, and gave her permanent name suppression, convinced “the possibility of reoffending is in no way on any kind of cards“.

Well the Judge got that one horribly wrong. Because she got name suppression, she was able to carry on ripping people and organisations off.