Stuff reports:

A member of parliamentary staff has been stood down following an historic allegation of assault.
Speaker Trevor Mallard said he was satisfied Parliamentary Service has moved to make the precinct safe. Mallard wants to thank person who came forward.

Tensions are high at Parliament after Mallard said on Wednesday morning that a rapist was working at Parliament. He said he gained the impression from a review into bullying and harassment by consultant Debbie Francis.
Ardern and other party leaders met with Mallard to discuss his remarks.
She would not be drawn on whether Mallard had taken the correct course of action, and said she was not frustrated by the remarks.

Having the Speaker declare that there is a rapist working at Parliament was very unwise. If charges are laid, his comments could be seen as prejudicial.

A lot of parliamentary staff are upset at the comments.

Newshub reports further:

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters says the alleged serial sexual offender at Parliament is not an MP or Parliamentary staffer.
“It is not a parliamentarian and it is not a parliamentary staffer – that’s number one – all the parties are clear on this matter,” Peters said on Wednesday. 
“You just can’t go out and have an allegation where everybody’s now under scrutiny when none of them should have been.”

So how does Peters know who it is, or who it isn’t?

Stuff reports:

Parliament is a toxic workplace with a systematic bullying and harassment problem, a sweeping new review has confirmed.
Staff have reported a known minority of MPs who engage in “inappropriate behaviours on a regular basis” and were described as “various shades of s….”.
Some had “low people-management experience, poor self awareness and a big sense of entitlement”.

The full report is here. If you read it, you would be tempted to conclude everyone is a bully – MPs, Ministers, managers, colleagues and even the press gallery. Yes MPs or staff complained of being bullied by journalists.

I worked in Parliament for eight years, in three different roles – in a ministerial office, in an opposition office and in the neutral support service of Ministerial Services. Here’s my take.

First of all, most (as in over half) MPs and Ministers are great bosses. Their staff love working for them, and are personally and professionally loyal. Many remain friends after they leave. Some examples of offices where staff were really well treated would be Roger Sowry’s, Annette King’s, Paula Bennett’s, John Key’s, Tau Henare’s, Phil Goff’s.

You also have some MPs and Ministers who are okay bosses. They’re nice people, but they don’t always have experience in managing staff. Being a good boss does often require learning skills.

Then you have some MPs and Ministers who have tense offices.Most of the time it is a cool place to work, but when the pressure is on the MP can be very hard work. They see their career at stake if an issue isn’t managed well, and they freak out etc and it isn’t fun.

Finally you have some MPs or Ministers who are just really bad to work for. Not a lot of them, but there are some. They scream, they yell, they throw things, they belittle.

You also have some MPs who are sleazy – not necessarily to their own staff, but to others. In the 1990s there were quite a few. I have to say I think it is far far less today.

Now the problem is an MP isn’t an employee. They are an elected representative. So what do you do with the ones who are bad bosses?

Well in my experience they tend to have very high staff turnover. So one incentive you could introduce is regular reporting of staff turnover by MPs. A high turnover might be for quite valid reasons, but would signal there may be a problem and incentivise MPs to try and retain staff.

Of course sometimes staff are not up to the job. It is a difficult environment. And MPs should move them on. But you do that by using the irreconcilable difference clause, not by making life terrible for them.

It is also worth noting that many of the stories in the report are also about staff who don’t work directly for an MP,. They work in a support agency. Those issues need to be dealt with by the agency heads.

Another change I would consider is changing the employment structure in Parliament. At present MPs staff are technically employed by Parl Serv or Min Serv, but in reality their MP or Minister is their boss. Why not make each parliamentary party the legal employer of their staff, so they are incentivised to be good employers. Make the PMs Office the employer of all ministerial staff.

ABC now has the Coalition at 76 seats. Labor has 65 and others six.

Of the four undecided the counts are:

• Bass – Libs lead by 467 votes with 88% counted
• Cowan – Labor leads by 757 votes with 79% counted
• Lilley – Labor leads by 1,113 votes with 79% counted
• Macquarie – Libs lead by 151 votes with 87% counted

So likely to end up with 78 seats. If so, this means the Coalition will have won seven seats off Labor, only lost one to Labor and Abbott’s seat. A stunning result.

The state by state swings for Labor were:

• NSW -2.1%
• Victoria +1.7%
• Queensland -3.7%
• WA – 2.0%
• SA +4.3%
• Tasmania -4.0%
• ACT -2.7%
• NT +2.8%

The likely Senate results are:

• Coalition 35
• Labor 26
• Greens 9
• Centre Alliance 2
• One Nation 2
• Conservatives 1
• Lambie 1

You need 39 votes to pass laws so the Coalition can do it with the four CR votes, plus a buffer of the Centre Alliance.

The Herald reports:

Police have laid further charges against alleged Christchurch gunman Brenton Tarrant this afternoon.
Commissioner of Police Mike Bush said a charge of engaging in a terrorist act under section 6A of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 has been filed.
“The charge will allege that a terrorist act was carried out in Christchurch on 15 March 2019 and follows consultation between Police, Crown Law and the Christchurch Crown Solicitors Office,” he said.

I think this decision is regrettable, and a mistake. Not because Tarrant isn’t a terrorist and isn’t guilty. But because laying this additional charge will fundamentally change the trial.

The 51 murder charges could be dealt with relatively simply. Are they dead, and did he kill them? The video evidence, some eyewitnesses and the pathology reports should be all you need.

But the terrorism charge will allow Tarrant to hijack the trial and turn it into propaganda for his beliefs. And he is already facing 51 life sentences, so a 52nd makes no practical difference.

The TSA defines a terrorist act as:

intended to cause, in any 1 or more countries, 1 or more of the outcomes specified in subsection (3), and is carried out for the purpose of advancing an ideological, political, or religious cause, and with the following intention:
(a) to induce terror in a civilian population; or
(b) to unduly compel or to force a government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act.

So you must prove beyond reasonable doubt that his actions were carried out for the purpose of an ideological cause and that it was intended to cause terror or force the Government to do something. I am sure they can make the case, but it will allow Tarrant to drone on about why he did it, in his defence.

by John Stringer.

There has always been a strong party vote in NZ amongst conservatives within the ‘christian’ ‘family values’ voting block. It was the first non-party grouping off the block to organise and contest the first MMP election. It traverses quite a diverse group of New Zealanders, all ages, multiple cultures (Maoris, Pacific Islanders, Chinese, etc) and transcends several religions, the non-religious, and ‘middle nz’ concerned about values and heritage or the intrusion of Nanny State into areas of private life (family discipline, sexuality, marriage etc).

Simon Bridges’ reticence on Botany and Alfred Ngaro today, is difficult to reconcile with the existing accommodation with David Seymour in Epsom, that delivers little, and the past arrangements with Peter Dunne, to cabinet level, over many election cycles. The average party list vote 1996-2014 is 3.918%. Given the trends in the USA, with an overtly Christian president and an Australian government returned with a pentecostal PM, how long can NZ dismiss the conservative vote in this country ?

1996 

Christian Coalition 4.33 

Conservatives 0.07

United 0.88. ) 5.28

1999 

Christian Heritage 2.38

United 0.54  ) 2.92

2002 

UFuture -‘the worm’  6.69 

2005 

United Future 2.67

Destiny 0.62  ) 3.29

2008 

United Future 0.87

Kiwi Party 0.54

Family Party 0.35  ) 1.76

2012 

United Future 0.65

Conservative Party 2.65 )  3.30

2014 

United Future 0.22

Conservative Party 3.97 ). 4.19

Average          3.918%

2017 

United Future 0.10

Conservative Party.     0.20 ) 0.30

Stuff reports:

A senior female teacher suspended from Marlborough Boys’ College is under investigation over alleged sexual relationships with multiple students over several years.
The woman, whose husband is a police officer, was suspended last week, apparently after explicit footage did the rounds at the Blenheim school.

She no doubt will be struck off as a teacher, as she should be. If any are under 16, I expect criminal charges also.

At the school gates on Monday, a mother said she “felt ill” after learning of the allegations against the teacher, saying the teacher was “great with kids” and helped her son thrive.
She said her son had been in the teacher’s form class for several years and had been “wonderful”. “All the kids loved her.”

In light of the story, somewhat unfortunate phrasing from the parent!

Very sad for the family of the teacher, as well as the kids and their families.

Newshub reports:

Shane Jones, fresh off rescuing a woman from an alleged brutal domestic assault, has called on Māori to stop blaming colonialism for their woes. …

“I say to our Maori people – this sort of carry-on, don’t go blaming colonialism; don’t join the chorus of idiocy I’m seeing on the East Coast where the artists don’t want Captain Cook celebrated because they’re responsible for family violence on the East Coast. That’s pathetic. I hate that soup of excuses.” 

This is where Shane can do very well. If he wasn’t Maori and said this, he’d be howled down as a racist. But a lot of people can relate to his call for blaming everything on colonialism and ignoring individual responsibility.

The Tower reports:

The BBC has come under fire for censoring virulent anti-Jewish sentiments in a documentary about violent Hamas-orchestrated border riots, which aired Monday evening on BBC Two.
In the English subtitles of the 60-minute film, One Day in Gaza, the BBC translated the Arabic word for “Jew” (Yahud) to “Israeli” in an apparent attempt to play down expressions of anti-Semitism in the documentary.
One of the Palestinian rioters remarked in Arabic: “The revolutionary songs, they excite you, they encourage you to rip a Jew’s head off.” But the English translation of Bader Saleh’s remarks offered by the BBC referred to an “Israeli,” not a “Jew.”

So the BBC deliberately put wrong translations into the documentary to hide the anti-Semitism of the rioters.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand’s economy could miss out on up to $50 billion worth of economic growth because of the Zero Carbon Bill, according to official analysis.
But Climate Minister James Shaw tells the Herald the figure does not worry him and says the cost of doing nothing could be much higher.

Personally I would hope a Minister would have a better argument than “it could be higher” when talking about destroying $50 billion of economic growth.

The RIS, written by officials at the Ministry for the Environment, reveals that New Zealand’s economy will grow to $522 billion by 2050 if the zero carbon legislation is not adopted and the status quo is maintained.
However, if the legislation does come into force – as it is expected to later this year – the RIS showed New Zealand’s GDP in 2050 will be between $472 billion and $476 billion.
That is a difference of $45 billion to $49 billion.

Which means each NZ household would be around $20,000 worse off.

Plus, the figure does not take into account the economic impacts he said climate change would have on New Zealand.
For example, the estimate does not factor in the cost of droughts, floods, storms and rising sea level – all of which would cost the economy billions of dollars, Shaw said.

None of which will be impacted one iota by us cutting our emissions as we are 0.1% of global emissions. Only if you believe China and India will plunge their middle classes back into poverty to also become zero emissions, will these impacts be avoided.

After 73 episodes it is all over.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand’s banks are calling for the Reserve Bank to rethink its plan to require them to hold more capital to help withstand financial shocks, claiming it risks putting “a handbrake” on the economy.
As well as setting the official cash rate (OCR), the Reserve Bank is tasked with maintaining a healthy banking sector. In December it proposed that retail banks should be required to hold enough capital to withstand a one in 200 year financial crisis in December.
Banks were expecting the Reserve Bank to propose some increase in capital levels, but not on the scale governor Adrian Orr proposed.

Such a move would require New Zealand’s banks to raise more than $20 billion to sit in reserve, a move which would make the banks safer, but also more expensive to run, which could ultimately impact customers.

Of course it will impact customers.

The NZBA has published a report by research organisation Sapere led by Scott which dismisses the Reserve Bank’s claims that the impact of the plan would be “minimal”.
Sapere warns the cost of the plan to the economy outweigh the benefits by $1.8 billion a year.

It will be interesting to see if the Reserve Bank modifies it plans.

The Herald reports:

Hospitals are falling behind last year’s performance with doctors likely to perform 10,000 fewer surgeries, claims Simon Bridges.
Ministry of Health figures showed district health boards were not on track to meet their planned annual elective surgery target — 200,895 according to the ministry — the Opposition leader said.
Just over 105,000 patients had been discharged from hospital after undergoing elective surgery in the first nine months of this financial year. For all of the previous year, there were 149,000 patients.
By that logic, Bridges argues the number of discharges by the end of March should have been just under 112,000.

It takes special genius to spend more on health, but have fewer operations as a result.

Stuff reports:

In public, Shane Jones plays the role of a populist, repeatedly railing against the use of migrant labour.
But it has emerged that in 2018, Jones privately lobbied a Cabinet colleague on behalf of an associate who was seeking accredited employer status from Immigration New Zealand.
The high profile NZ First MP appears to have done so after he had been briefed that the company, owned by former Whangārei Mayor Stan Semenoff, faced investigation by the safety regulator which could see it ordered off the road. Jones has also become involved in that case, raising accusations of interfering with a government prosecution.

Conferred by Immigration New Zealand, accredited employer statuswould have streamlined the process of hiring migrants for Stan Semenoff Logging, a large Northland log truck company, such as bypassing the need to check if Kiwi workers are available when hiring.

So Shane was not content with trying to interfere in the court action involving Semenoff, but he was also lobbying colleagues to allow them to import employees from overseas, even if locals were available.

Is anyone surprised?

Lees-Galloway checked with Immigration New Zealand and was told the application had been turned down four days before Jones met him.
“This decision was an operational one …[which] is not subject to Ministerial Discretion or other override.”

Just as well.

The Coalition has 74 confirmed seats, and needs 76 for a majority. There are five seats “in doubt”. Let’s look at those to see how they may go:

• Boothby – Libs ahead by 1,311 votes with 74.6% counted
• Chisholm – Labor ahead by 325 votes with 71.1% counted
• Lilley – Labor ahead by 1,323 votes with 74.3% counted
• Macquarie – Labor ahead by 620 votes with 82.1% counted
• Wentworth- Libs ahead by 1,053 votes with 73.0% counted

The two seats the Libs lead on look pretty good. They could even take Chisholm.

Bill Shorten may be regretting the letter he wrote on February asking for a smooth transition of power.

Newshub reports:

The Ministry of Transport business case examined the cost of upgrading the rail line between Auckland and Whangārei, reopening the mothballed tracks north to Moerewa and west to Dargaville, and constructing a new spur east to Northport.
It estimates the total cost at $1.3b over 40 years. Including $730m in the first four years during the construction phase and $3m for improvements and maintenance in the years after.

That’s a huge amount of money. So what would the benefits be?

However, the economics tread a fine line. In the best-case scenario, the report gives the investment a benefit-cost-ratio (BCR) of 1.19, meaning for every $1 spent there would be a $1.19 return.

So what assumptions are based on that best-case?

This would require a major expansion of Northport which would see it handling 400,000 containers, 100,000 from within Northland and 300,000 from Auckland. In the year to June 2019 Northport expects to handle 12,500 containers, up from 8000 last year.

So Northport would have to increase its volume of freight by a factor of 50, yes by 5000%, in order for the investment in rail to be positive.

That is a delusional assumption, rather than an optimistic one.

The Australian Federal election is bringing us very different results in different states. The final state of Western Australia may determine if there is a majority or minority Government.

At 10.20 pm, the state swings are:

• NSW: Labor down 2.3%
• Victoria: Coalition down 4.4%
• Queensland: Labor down 3.0%
• South Australia: Coalition up 5.5% and Labor up 3.1%
• Tasmania: Labor down 4.4%

So far the Coalition has gained five seats and Labor gained two seats and Tony Abbott lost his seat to an independent. Abbott became so destructive after he lost the leadership, few in the Liberal Party will mourn his sacking at the hand of the voters.

The only thing certain at this stage is the results are better for the Coalition than the exit polls, and worse for Labor. But a long way still to go.

UPDATE: Anthony Green has just said that Labor basically can’t form a Government. It is now simply a question of whether the Coalition will get a majority of at least 76 of 151 seats or need to do a deal with Independents to govern.

Bill Shorten has managed to lose the unloseable election. Pleased for Scott Morrison who is a good bloke. Hopefully the Libs can now unite behind him.

From news.com.au:

The pair were in Melbourne for the Australian American Leadership Dialogue, which brings together leaders from different sectors from both countries to improve the Australian-American bilateral relationship.
“We took the Americans along to the MCG. There were Congressmen there, a whole bunch of senior Americans,” Mr Cassidy said.
“On the way out, we’re walking through the car park and they had the buses lined up to take everybody back to the Hyatt Hotel.

“And (Mr Hawke) said to me, ‘Oh I hate these buses, you know? You sit there and you’ve got to wait for the last person to turn up and it takes forever’.”
As they were waiting with the American officials to board the bus, a group of young men in a car pulled up and yelled out to the former prime minister.
“(They) yelled out ‘Hey Hawkey! You’re a legend’,” the Insiders host said.
“And he said, ‘If I’m such a freakin’ legend give me a lift back to the pub’.”
The young men agreed and Mr Hawke got into their car and they drove off, leaving the American officials in shock.

“They said ‘This cannot be happening’,” Mr Cassidy said.
“They couldn’t believe that a former prime minister would do that.”
When Mr Cassidy spoke to him the following day, Mr Hawke told him they were “great blokes”.
He even spoke to their mums on the phone while they drove to the pub.

And this was when he was in his 80s! A true character.

I suspect Hawke’s death will have people recall the good times of his Labor Government, and help Labor in today’s poll.

My pick is Labor to have over 80 seats in the 150 seat House.

Stuff reports:

Mike Greer Homes has so far built seven KiwiBuild houses in Canterbury. None of have yet sold, while five have been on the market for more than 80 days.

So zero out of seven sold. Wow that Kiwibuild is transformative.