Stuff reports:

Auckland’s mayor Phil Goff said he knew nothing of bonuses paid to executives in council agencies, now known to total more than $1 million a year.
Four council agencies have now revealed they pay bonuses, with the largest total at the council water company Watercare Services, where $543,000 was shared among 20 senior staff.
Stuff had previously revealed 38 staff at the council property and development arm Panuku, received $451,156 in bonuses, while the event and economic development agency ATEED told Stuff it had paid $121,682 across five staff.

If Goff knew nothing, it is because the Council hasn’t done its job.

The Council could set a remuneration policy that is binding on CCOs, requiring them to take account of it. That is not to say they should set remuneration but it is very common to have a board level remuneration policy that tackles areas such as bonuses.

“I want that policy looked at, I’m not happy with it,” said Goff in an interview.

So who has been the Mayor for the last three years?

Stuff reports:

LGWM was thrown into doubt following the election of new mayor Foster, who has been critical of the proposal, in particular the decision to build public transport ahead of a second Mt Victoria tunnel – a traffic bottleneck between the airport and the CBD.
The Beehive is quietly confident that it still has the upper hand on any move to undo the current plan.

I can’t think of anything better than the Government refusing to budge on the Wellington transport plan. It will allow National to campaign at the election with a clear policy of fixing the Basin Reserve and expanding the Mt Vic tunnels and will be a great opportunity for National to gain party votes.

Labour and Greens will be stuck defending a plan that not only does nothing for roads, but at best is a pipe dream of maybe mass transit in 10 years time.

If National campaigned on a specific pledge such as work to begin within three years on the Mt Vic tunnel expansion, they’d be well positioned to pick up votes when the alternative is basically do nothing for ten years.

Jacinda Ardern said that 2019 would be Labour’s Year of Delivery. October marks two years since Winston chose Labour and Greens to form the Government. So it seems an appropriate time to look at how they have done.

I honestly can’t recall any other Government that has failed so miserably when it comes to actual delivering.

UPDATE: A Minister’s Office has said that there has in fact been 149 million trees planted. The official policy is to include trees planted by the private sector as part of business as normal. They are correct this is the official Government position today but neither the pre-election policy or the coalition agreement stated the billion trees would include other plantings. In fact the coalition agreement says:

A $1b per annum Regional Development (Provincial Growth) Fund, including … Planting 100 million trees per year in a Billion Trees Planting Programme

That very clearly implies they would find 100 million trees a year, and has nothing about including non-funded trees that would occur regardless of the Government.

So I stand by my position that the Government promised to fund one billion trees and has only funded 2.5% of that to date.

Stuff reports:

Newly-elected Greater Wellington regional councillors will choose their new chairperson within the next couple of weeks, with the competition reportedly down to two frontrunners.
It’s understood returning councillors Daran Ponter and Roger Blakeley are in a two-way battle to take over from outgoing chair Chris Laidlaw ahead of the council’s first meeting on October 30.
Ponter and Blakeley both retained their Wellington City seats in Saturday’s election, in which six first-time councillors were voted in.

My preference would be Ponter, even though he is Labour.

Personally I hoped all the incumbents would be dumped, so there would be accountability for the busatrophe but Ponter was arguably the least bad Councillor of those standing again. He was one of the few to constantly front up and listen.

Blakeley said he would also focus on fixing Wellington City’s bus network, with possible initiatives such as ensuring bus drivers were paid a minimum of $25 an hour.

How much would regional rates increase to fund that? Already increases of 15% are rumoured. 20%? 25%? No politician should propose a policy without telling us what the cost would be.

Unlike new Wellington Mayor Andy Foster, he was sure the business case for a mass transit system would stack up.

Few things worse than confidence unsupported by facts.

The Regional Council has already costed a light rail system. The BCR (benefit to cost ratio) was a miniscule 0.05. Not 0.5 but 0.05. So every $1,000 spent would produce $50 of benefits.

Even if you could come up with some magic route that say tripled the benefits, you’d still have a BCR of 0.15 at best.

Richard Harman writes at Politik:

What we have seen in the past is that when NZ First believes its survival is at stake it becomes an unpredictable and potentially destructive force as it seeks to define itself in its traditional role as an anti-establishment party.

The last time they went to an election as part of a Government, they ended up out of Parliament.

POLITIK understands the party’s leader, Winston Peters, has sounded out friends about whether he should withdraw from a full coalition arrangement to a confidence and supply agreement which would give him more freedom to oppose some Labour policies but which would paint a picture of disunity within the Government.

Harman is well connected so if he says Winston is consulting on pulling out of the coalition, then it is a serious possibility.

One senior National MP, looking at this, speculated that Labour could lock NZ First’s support in by doing a deal over an electorate seat with them which would ensure their return to Parliament.

They can try. But voters often make up their own mind and if voters realise a vote for NZ First is a vote for a Labour/Greens Government then voters in seats such as Northland and Whangarei will be very wary.

MSN reports:

President Trump’s acquiescence to Turkey’s move to send troops deep inside Syrian territory has in only one week’s time turned into a bloody carnage, forced the abandonment of a successful five-year-long American project to keep the peace on a volatile border, and given an unanticipated victory to four American adversaries: Russia, Iran, the Syrian government and the Islamic State.

Really hard to think of a move you can make the benefits both Islamic State and Iran and Syria but Trump managed it.

Rarely has a presidential decision resulted so immediately in what his own party leaders have described as disastrous consequences for American allies and interests. How this decision happened — springing from an “off-script moment” with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, in the words of a senior American diplomat — likely will be debated for years by historians, Middle East experts and conspiracy theorists.
But this much already is clear: Mr. Trump ignored months of warnings from his advisers about what calamities likely would ensue if he followed his instincts to pull back from Syria and abandon America’s longtime allies, the Kurds. He had no Plan B, other than to leave.

The Kurds were one of the few “good guys” around that have been loyal allis to the US, and Trump abandoned them to be slaughtered.

If she was President Trump, the Washington Post would classify her statement as “Four Pinocchios”.

Next the PM will claim she has never met him!

Rather sad that Justin was such a fanboy of the PM and she is now denying he even stood for Labour.

The One News Colmar Brunton poll out tonight has the party vote as:

• National 47% (+2%)
• Labour 40% (-3%)
• Greens 7% (+1%)
• NZ First 4% (+1%)
• ACT 1% (nc)

This poll would see the Government out of office and a National/ACT Government. It is, off memory, the first public poll since the election to show a National-led Government, so this is significant.

This poll is actually quite similiar to the Newshub poll the night before. They both show:

• National ahead of Labour
• National up
• Labour down
• NZ First below 5%
• Greens over 5%

And even on the seat projection they are close. Newshub has CL with 62 seats and CR 58. ONCB has CR 61 and CL 59. This is well within the margin of error.

What both polls say is that an election at the moment would be a very very close result, either way. And they both say that Labour is losing support and National gaining.

Individual polls are not as important as the trend. So the next public poll (probably December) will be fascinating.

This is Shane Jones shooting an AR15, which his Government just banned. Enter your captions below. Best one to date from Twitter suggests his target is the Cabinet Manual!

I predict the PM will express sincere concern that one of her Minister is using a gun her Government has banned, and as usual do nothing more.

Kate MacNamara at Stuff writes:

Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr would like to see the big and very profitable Australian banks, which dominate the New Zealand market, put up more of their own money to safeguard against shocks.
In order to protect the public from financial crisis he’s hit on a large and possibly expensive number. The “systemically” important banks should hold additional shareholder capital against the loans they make, significantly boosting the level currently required of them.
The move has plenty of critics but that debate must be put aside for now. The extraordinary way in which Orr has conducted the process to solicit opinion on his proposal raises this question first: does the end justify the means? …

It would be an open process, the bank said, welcoming all views. But that characterisation was soon at odds with the governor’s behaviour.
Numerous parties involved in the submission process described a pattern of behaviour by Orr of belittling and berating those who disagreed with him.

Orr has penned his critics letters and threatened to broadcast them. He has confronted submitters on the sidelines of industry conferences. Sometimes he called them up at odd hours to tear a strip off them for their views.

If this is correct, this is appalling bullying behaviour. I can’t imagine any previous Reserve Bank Governor acting in such a way.

On the contrary, Orr appears to be unrivalled among central bankers in the developed world for the tempestuous and personally directed venting of his views.
Annelise Riles of Northwestern University’s Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, who’s studied the behaviour of central bankers and has even written a book about them, couldn’t think of a single comparator in contemporary times.
Central banks certainly use many channels to communicate with banks, she said. And it’s not uncommon for central bankers to let banks know how they feel.
“But berating them publicly is just not seen very much,” she said. And though private exchanges are less visible, she couldn’t think of any examples of bald incivility or hostility.

I can’t think of a position where it is more important the holder is restrained, considering how powerful they are.

Orr’s chequered behaviour is not something on which the Reserve Bank chairman, Neil Quigley, is prepared to act.
“I have not received a formal complaint from any party about the governor’s interaction with them,” he said. “The Board has full confidence in Adrian Orr’s leadership.”

Of course no one has done a formal complaint. It would be professional suicide for them. But a good Board should be in touch with stakeholders enough to know if the reported allegations are true.

Some in Wellington are saying that Andy Foster only won because of the backing of Peter Jackson. Now while it is true Jackson’s backing helped Foster, it overlooks that Lester had gone from a position of strength to weakness.

In 2017, Lester’s first year of office, he had a net favourability of +28% (Curia polls once a year on major city mayors). He was a popular new Mayor. In 2018 it had declined to +12% and in 2019 had gone negative to -11%. So in two years his net favourability declined a massive 39%.

What matters isn’t so much the level, but the trend. Lester was more popular than Goff but had an equally bad trend.

This is why Foster was able to win. Lester failed to deliver on major projects and with the transport package looked more like the Government’s representative to Wellington rather than Wellington’s representative to the Government. He blew it.

Jackson’s backing of Foster provided a clear and acceptable alternative to Lester, which is why Lester lost.

Auckland had a similar issue, but a different outcome. Goff in 2017 had a net favourability of +13% – quite respectable. But then as his Council rebelled against his divisive management style his net favourability fell to -27% in 2018 and slightly lower to -29% in 2019. A massive 42% decline in two years.

Goff won re-election not because he is at all popular, but because Tamihere was not seen as a better alternative. A different candidate could very well have won. Goff is very lucky.

So both cities had unpopular Mayors. The difference in Wellington is Foster was seen as a safe alternative.

The latest Newshub Reid Research poll is:

• National 43.9% (+6.5%)
• Labour 41.6% (-9.2%)
• Greens 6.3% (+0.1%)
• NZ First 4.0% (+1.2%)
• ACT 1.4% (+0.6%)

Seats on this poll has CL 62 and CR 58 so a 2% further swing would see this being a one term Government.

By contrast the same poll in October 2010 (National’s 1st term) had National at 54% and Labour at 33%.

Also Key in October 2010 was at 51% Preferred PM. Ardern has dropped 11% to 38% Preferred PM, well below Key at the same period.

With the Mayor and three of his loyal Councillors dumped by voters, it is clear Wellington City voters have voted for change – even if Lester squeaks back in ahead of Foster.

It’s good to see some new blood on the Council, and I hope the Council as a whole understands this was a vote for change, and they really need to make progress on key issues, especially transport. The Lets Get Wellington Moving package is a do nothing package that angered people who see both public transport and roads as under-performing.

The provisional results are worth looking at:

• Mayor – Of the five main candidates Hill dropped out first, then Condie, then Calvert. Condie’s votes went more to Lester than Foster but Calvert’s very strongly favoured Foster. Seems like voters worked out the importance of their rankings.
• In Northern Ward Jenny Condie had more first preferences than Labour’s Peter Gilberd. John Apanowicz was close to Gilberd also. Condie ended up beating Gilberd quite easily
• With Foster provisionally being elected Mayor, he was excluded in Western Ward and Rebecca Matthews was a clear third in first perferences. New entrant Rohan Biggs was a very creditable 4th with first preferences. Matthews did well to claim the third spot with a good margin
• Lambton Ward. No surprise that Pannett and Young were elected on 1st preferences. VUWSA President Tamatha Paul had 50% more 1st preferences than incumbent Labour Councillor Brian Dawson and easily beat him
• Eastern Ward also saw an incumbent dumped. Chris Calvi-Freeman was in 4th place on 1st preferences and never recovered. As there was a vacancy in the ward, that is a huge upset. Well done to Sean Rush and Teri O’Neill for winning
• Southern Ward saw Green candidate Laurie Foon replace Green Cr David Lee so no big change

So overall a definite vote for change. If Foster holds on as Mayor, it will be interesting to see how he does. Unlike Lester he won’t be beholden to a political party, so hopefully will be a stronger advocate to Government on transport issues.

UPDATE: Foster is all but confirmed as Mayor. His majority is 503 with all ordinary votes counted and only 1,700 special votes to go. This makes Lester the first Wellington Mayor in 33 years to be defeated after one term only.

Voting has now closed so results will get released this afternoon for all the local body elections. Feel free to post updates in the comments.

I’ll try to cover any significant results but I’m parenting today so may not be until quite late.

Turnout has been low, which normally favours incumbents so I don’t expect any big upsets in the major cities, but probably a couple of changes in the smaller cities.

UPDATES:

• Goff re-elected in Auckland with twice the votes of Tamihere
• Neil Brown beats incumbent Donna Favel in Ashburton
• Sandra Hazlehurst re-elected in Hastings
• Tim Shadbolt re-elected for the 37th time
• Labour’s Campbell Berry beats Ray Wallace to become Hutt Mayor
• Rachel Reese re-elected in Nelson
• Kirsten Wise beats Chris Tremain in Napier
• Dalziel easily re-elected in Christchurch
• Lyn Patterson holds off Tina Nixon to get re-elected in Masterton
• Horowhenua Mayor Michael Feyen defeated by Bernie Wanden, which might result in the Council becoming more cohesive
• Potential huge upset in Wellington with Andy Foster 700 votes ahead of Justin Lester. Still 5,000 votes to be counted so final result mid week but a massive upset if the margin holds up.

Stuff reports:

Former Reserve Bank chairman Rod Carr will lead the Government’s Climate Change Commission.
This will make him one of the most powerful people in the country, responsible for setting carbon budgets and other plans for future governments to follow – although they can ignore his recommendations.
Carr will serve a five-year term once the Government finally passes it’s Zero Carbon Act, which it has promised to do my Christmas, about a year and a half behind schedule.

Rod Carr seems a very good choice.

The issue of reducing greenhouse has emissions is primarily an economic issue. How do you reduce emissions in a way which minimises damage to economic growth and hence household incomes.

So having a highly skilled and respected economist as chair is a good sign. It indicates that what is proposed is likely to be economically rational, even if still unpalatable for some.

Stuff reports:

Wednesday’s attack appeared to be the first successfully streamed shooting since then, and the first real test for the Christchurch Call — an initiative set up by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at eliminating terrorist and violent extremist content online.
Eight technology companies — including Amazon — and 50 countries have so far signed the three-page, non-binding pledge.

As part of the Call, companies, governments, and civil society representatives were in the process of creating a new crisis response protocol to help prevent the sharing of extremist content in the wake of a terrorist attack. 
“The shared protocol is operationally ready and could be used immediately in the event of a terrorist attack like Christchurch, where an online response is required,” Ardern said at the United Nations General Assembly in September. 
On Thursday, she told reporters the protocol kicked in “straight away” after the Halle shooting. “Companies are talking to each other to try and stop the spread.”
But Stuff was easily able to find the video on instant messaging app Telegram, on messaging board 4chan, and on Mega.nz — a cloud storage site founded but no longer owned by controversial internet mogul Kim Dotcom.

Of course you can’t stop a video being on the Internet. It’s impossible. You can get it off some platforms, you can make it harder to upload and share etc. But the sensible test isn’t total eradication as you will never get that. Child porn is illegal in every country yet that is on the Internet.

This is not to argue against the Christchurch Call. It is a worthwhile initiative that has shown benefits. But perfect is the enemy of good. The Christchurch Call is not intended to and can’t stop a video being somewhere on the Internet.

Following the attack, Twitch confirmed about five people watched the livestream in real time, and thousands of others saw it before it was flagged and removed. 

So five people saw it in real time. That’s about as low as you can get in a network with over two billion on it.

Twitch in a statement said: “Once the video was removed, we shared the hash with an industry consortium to help prevent the proliferation of this content.”

That’s what you can sensibly do – share info with others to make it harder (not impossible) to share and upload.

Carter couldn’t say whether Amazon would be held accountable for its breach of the Call commitments — the first of which is to take transparent, specific measures seeking to prevent the upload of terrorist and violent extremist content. 
This isn’t the first time Amazon has violated the pledge with its livestreaming services. 

Articles shouldn’t state opinions as facts. I don’t agree Amazon has breached or violated the commitments.

Stuff reports:

Former prime minister John Key says outgoing Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon will be a “world class candidate” for the National Party nomination in Botany.
Luxon announced on Tuesday night that he was seeking the National nomination in the Auckland seat of Botany, currently held by former National MP Jami-Lee Ross.
He will have to go through the formal selection process but is very likely to become the National nominee – and win the seat in the next election, which is strongly supportive of the  party.
Key told Stuff Luxon was a “world class candidate” and “direct proof that a strong and effective opposition like National is a magnet for talent”

It is certainly great for National that they can attract someone of Luxon’s calibre. The fact his replacement as Air NZ CEO is the former US Chief Executive of the world’s largest company (Walmart) speaks volumes.

Luxon is a strong contender to get National’s nomination, but it is by no means certain. Unlike Labour, National’s selections are determined by grass-roots delegates. And sometimes they go for the local stalwart, rather than the “star”. The classic example is choosing Clem Simich over former All Black captain David Kirk in 1991.

Also while Luxon has an excellent set of business skills that should serve him well if he becomes an MP, they don’t always translate well. In the case of John Key they did, but it isn’t guaranteed.

So it is good news for National, but any talk of Luxon being the next John Key is very premature. First he has to win selection, then win an election and them actually perform as an MP.

Stuff reports:

A lawyer for the man accused of the Christchurch mosque terror attacks has denied reports his client is on any kind of hunger strike.
Jonathan Hudson told Stuff media reports claiming his client was on an “extreme minimal eating regime” were incorrect.

What a pity.

Food isn’t cheap. Bad enough we’ll be paying to feed him for the next 50 years or so. Least he can do is save us some money by eating less.

Ngatama James Kaienua is a Third Striker.

He is New Zealand’s 10^th person to be sentenced as a Third Strike offender since Three Strikes came into force in June 2010.

At the age of 28, Kaienua has almost 20 criminal convictions as an adult, and an unknown number of convictions as a Youth.

He has today been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment (with no minimum non-parole period) for his part in the violent robbery of a suburban Auckland dairy, in which a hardworking, completely innocent family were tending to their business.  Kaienua stood nearby as lookout while the mother and son of the family were attacked by Kaienua’s teenage accomplice with a large knife, suffering multiple stab wounds.  Kaienua unsuccessfully tried to convince the trial Judge that he had no idea his accomplice was carrying a knife. He was arguably the mastermind behind the whole plan and used his teenage accomplice to do his dirty work.

His first strike was committed aged 20, when Kaienua had sex with a 13 year old girl, in the process passing on to her a sexually transmitted infection, and was convicted of unlawful sexual connection with a young person.  He was sentenced to 2 years and 1 month imprisonment for that offending.

He was released from prison, early, on parole for his first strike offence. While on parole he, and two accomplices robbed a suburban Rotorua dairy armed with a weapon in the form of a solid wooden kitchen table leg.  He repeatedly bashed the shop keeper over the head with the wooden leg.  For that offending Kaienua was sentenced to 3 years, 9 months imprisonment and received his second strike.

Kaienua is also a convicted burglar.

Kaienua has an unwillingness or inability to control himself, seeks to take what he wants from vulnerable people – whether teenage girls, suburban dairy owners or home owners via burglaries.

Kaienua is a public menace, and a clear and present danger to the public.  He has been assessed by Corrections as a high risk of reoffending and a high risk of causing harm to others.  He has not been deterred by the repeated ‘strike’ warnings he has received.  He shows little to no prospect of changing his ways until he “ages out” of criminal offending, as most young offenders do when they finally grow up and gain some respect for others.  Three strikes now kicks in to incapacitate him from reoffending against the public by imprisoning him for an extended period – up to 14 years. 

Without three strikes he would have got a sentence of just over six years with parole eligibility after just two years.

I’m surprise the Judge didn’t impose a minimum non-parole period, considering his history of offending on parole.

He thoroughly deserves to be in jail for an extended period, and the New Zealand public thoroughly deserves protection from him.  That’s what prison – via Three Strikes – achieves.

The only question now is whether the Parole Board will get it wrong like they did previously, releasing him early from his first strike sentence, and release him early from the 14 years handed down by the Judge.