Stuff reports:

NZ First has scuppered plans for a panel to provide advice on New Zealand’s fishing industry.

Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash planned to revitalise the technical advisory panel, which was set up by the National Government to give expert advice on making fishing sustainable long-term.

Sounds a good idea – sustainable fishing.

But in the latest of a series of backdowns those plans are now abandoned, a source said – because NZ First doesn’t think the panel is needed, and resisted the appointment of environmental activists.

And what do the Greens have to say about this? Oh, nothing at all. Because they’re busy with the baubles of office or focusing on really important issues such as TERFs.

Earlier, Nash was forced to put plan for cameras on boats to stop illegal dumping of fish “on ice”, thanks to a lack of political consensus.

Greenpeace NZ head Russel Norman, the former co-leader of the Green Party, is furious that the new Government is less aggressive on fishing management than the last one.

Yep Russel Norman saying the National Government was better on fisheries than the Labour/NZ First/Green Government.

Interest.co.nz reports:

The Opportunities Party’s (TOP), Gareth Morgan, is backing a fresh face to lead the party over its former leader and one of its key policy writers, Geoff Simmons.

Morgan says he’s voting for Amy Stevens in the party’s leadership election and is willing to put his money where his mouth is.

Stevens is an Auckland-based lawyer in her mid-20s who works in a team at ASB that focuses on servicing customers who want to buy houses in pairs or groups. She previously worked as a foreign exchange dealer at the bank.

Speaking to interest.co.nz, Morgan says he’ll “totally” alter the amount he donates to the party based on who’s in its leadership team.

He wouldn’t say how much he’d donate if Stevens was elected versus Simmons, but says it comes down to the whole package of people playing key roles in the party.

“The less enthusiastic I am about the prospects of success, then the less I’m going to fund it… If I get excited by it, I’ll put more money in it,” he says.

Asked how much less enthused he’d be if Simmons was elected, Morgan says: “We need to branch out. We need to get those two women [Stevens and another candidate Donna Pokere-Phillips] into that senior team.

So Gareth is saying he’ll donate far more to the party if Stevens is elected Leader. Fair enough, as it is his money. It will be interesting to see if that sways the votes.

What is more interesting is the apparent falling out with Simmons. Simmons was Morgan’s Deputy Leader and was employed by him for eight years. To have Morgan not just endorse another candidate, but to say he’ll donate less if Simmons wins suggests some issues there.

There are five candidates standing for the TOP leadership. They are:

• Jessica Hammond
• Amy Stevens
• Anthony Singh
• Donna Pokere Phillips
• Geoff Simmons

The winner will be announced on the 8th of December.

One News has released the latest Colmar Brunton poll. The results are:

Government

• Labour 43% (-2%)
• Greens 5% (-2%)
• NZ First 4% (-1%)

Total Government 52% (-5%)

Opposition

• National 46% (+3%)
• ACT 1% (+1%)

Total Opposition 47% (+4%)

But on this poll NZ First is out of Parliament and the Greens are hanging on just a fraction of a percent. The Greens usually get fewer votes than in the polls as their younger support base has lower turnout. So in fact this poll indicates both support partners are in trouble. This explains why the Government has suddenly started talking about lowering the threshold from 5% to 4%.

In terms of seats, assuming the Greens are at 5% and not just rounded up, the seats are:

• National 58
• Labour 54
• Greens 7
• ACT 1

So the Government has the smallest possible majority of 61 to 59.

Not a lot of change for Preferred PM with Ardern on 39% (-3%), Bridges on 7% (nc) and Collins 6% (+1%)

One News reported:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern she was still happy the party were “finishing the year stronger than we started it”.

I do wish media would call her out when she gets things wrong.

The first poll of 2018 had Labour on 48%. They have dropped 5% since then.

I also should point out the dangers of commentators quoting polls that are not public. David Cormack earlier this month said:

And all this is hurting National if Labour’s latest internal polling is to be believed. After a terrible week and less than stellar Colmar Brunton result, National has apparently dropped further. Bridges supposedly has a favourability well below negative 20, while the Government plus Greens has a lead of more than 20 points on National, who has dropped below 40.

That is rather at odds with this poll. Instead of dropping below 40%, National is the largest party on 46%.

The Herald reports:

Two National MPs are up in arms over New Zealand First MP Clayton Mitchell’s references to fellow National MP Paul Goldsmith as “Goldstein” pushing a bagel franchise.

Wellington National MP Nicola Willis raised a point of order in Parliament this week after Mitchell referred to Goldsmith as Goldstein a number of times during a debate on a bill.

“That was the most befuddled contribution I think I’ve ever heard from the member ‘Goldstein’. He’s been pushing his bagel franchise for some time,” Mitchell said during his speech.

The combination of Goldstein and bagels (the most iconic Jewish food) was clearly designed to try and portray Goldsmith as having Jewish traits, as in he was stingy and not caring. Here’s the Hansard:

That was the most befuddled contribution I think I’ve ever heard from the member “Goldstein“. He’s been pushing his bagel franchise for some time. In fact, the member should be probably more likely referred to as a member from the “Neo-liberal Free-market Trickle-down Party“, as opposed to a National Party, which it was once set up to be.

Mitchel may say he was referring at the ASB “Goldstein” but that is patently untrue. The reference to bagel franchise and neo-liberalism was definitely playing to antisemitism.

And if you think bagel is not a coded reference to being Jewish, I quote this Jewish website:

The crusty ring‑shaped bagel — the word means “bracelet” in German — which was the everyday bread of the Jews in Eastern Europe, has become the most famous Jewish food in America and a standard American bread.

Wikipedia also notes:

Common objects, phrases and traditions used to emphasize or ridicule Jewishness include bagels, playing violin, klezmer, undergoing circumcision, kvetching, haggling and uttering various Yiddish phrases like mazel tov, shalom, and oy vey. 

Now don’t get me wrong. This is definitely at the lower end of the antisemitism scale. But I would hope Members of Parliament could do better than trying to use Jewish traits as a slur against other MPs.

The Herald reports:

National MP Maggie Barry has been twice investigated over bullying claims this year – including accusations she expected staff to do political party work on taxpayer time, which would be unlawful.

The Weekend Herald can reveal two employees in Barry’s four-person office have accused her of bullying since May – one in a personal grievance complaint, and the other during the investigation of that complaint.

Neither staff member now works for Barry, the MP for the North Shore and the former host of Maggie’s Garden Show, a once-beloved staple of New Zealand television.

Barry concedes there were issues raised by former staff, but they were resolved “by mutual agreement” and “there was no finding that bullying or harassment had occurred”.

And she is backed up by a different former staff member who said she never saw any bullying behaviour from Barry, though she added that everyone has different ideas about what constitutes bullying.

So let’s look at the details alleged:

The Weekend Herald has obtained documents which show that during its investigations in August this year, Parliamentary Service heard allegations that Barry:

• swore and yelled at staff;
• called an employee “stupid”;
• used derogatory terms about other elected officials, which made staff uncomfortable;
• referred to people with mental health issues using offensive terms like “nutter”;
• discussed her employees’ sexuality in the workplace;
• expected staff would do work for the National Party during office hours, which they felt unable to refuse while knowing it was wrong, because they were scared.

This is an interesting mix of issues. Having an MP refer to other elected officials in derogatory terms is not bullying at all. I’d say it is not at all uncommon for MPs to offer frank opinions about some of their local body counterparts when in the privacy of their office.

You shouldn’t yell at staff or call them stupid, even if they stuff up. And parliamentary staff shouldn’t be asked to do party work. So there are some issues there that if correct, are not a great reflection. But it may not be totally clear cut.

However, the Weekend Herald has heard recordings which appear to show Barry swearing in a work context, and others where she appears to call a local board member “barking”, one a “waste of space”, and another “a duplicitous piece of shite”.

This suggests that a former staffer was tape recording private conversations with their MP. This is a huge betrayal of their employment role, and I suspect that person would be unemployable if their identity became known.

Todd Barclay attracted huge condemnations for allegedly recording one of his staff. Well it’s no better if it is a staff member recording an MP.

Speaking about the Francis review earlier this week, Act leader David Seymour said MPs, and not Parliamentary Service, should be the boss of their staff, and the current arrangement means MPs can treat their staff with impunity.

This is a worthwhile idea.

One of the tensions at the moment is The Parliamentary Service is the employer and hence they pay for any costs of any employment disputes etc. There isn’t a huge financial incentive for MPs to avoid employment disputes.

If you changed the arrangement so the parliamentary party or even the MP was the formal employer, then you could well end up with better incentives as if you have to pay out a dissatisfied staff members say $15,000 that is $15,000 less money you have for newsletters etc.

Sad but not unexpected news that George HW Bush died aged 94.

The two things he will be most remembered for the are the collapse of the Soviet Empire during his presidency, and the first Gulf War which successfully liberated Kuwait from the unlawful invasion by Saddam Hussein.

Bush devoted his life to public service. He became the (then) youngest aviator in the US Navy when he enlisted after Pearl Harbour.

He of course served only one term as President after losing to Bill Clinton (and Ross Perot) in 1992. He later became good friends with Clinton after the two fundraised together to raise money for disaster relief. A real mark of the man, that he could befriend the man who defeated him.

Chris Keall writes at NZ Herald:

US President Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he might slap a 10 per cent tariff on iPhones and other Apple gear imported from China.

Given that earlier GM today announced it was closing four factories in the US, at the cost of 14,800 autoworkers’ jobs – in part because of Trump’s steel tariffs – it’s hard to regard the president as much of an economic guru.

Trump is learning the hard way that tariffs hurt businesses rather than help them.

As with any Trump tariff (or tax, to be blunt), US consumers will pay the price, not China. Specifically, Apple’s top-of-the-line iPhone XS Max would cost Americans US$200 ($295.18) more.

Americans will pay more for iPhones than people in other countries.

Apple does employ a lot of Americans (47,000 directly and around 300,000 including US-based partners). It’s just that they’re in design and marketing and other service-economy roles, as you would expect in 2018.

The US jobs are in high tech areas rather than machine line assembly.

John Roughan writes:

The first thing Little did was set up a new organisation, the Pike River Recovery Agency, to advise him on the safety of various mine entry methods. Last week he chose one. It looks like the same one put to the previous Government. It involves constructing air-tight chambers along the tunnel they call the drift, pumping in nitrogen to displace the methane and making the air progressively breathable.

Just as in 2013, they don’t propose to go further than the point where the tunnel has collapsed about 2km in. The only difference is that five years ago this plan was reportedly estimated to cost $7.2 million. Last week we were told it will cost $36m. This is madness.

We are spending $36m on a project that will not even reach the mine proper, where the 29 men were most likely working when it exploded.

So the budget has increased 500% and it is not for a full mine reentry.

“Safety is paramount,” they all say. If you listened closely last week, they’re not definitely going further than a second chamber, a trifling 170m into the 2km tunnel. Beyond that, they say, it might not be safe. In other words, nothing has changed but the bill.

So it might be $35 million just to go 170 metres. That’s around $200,000 per metre!

Stuff reports:

NZ First MP Shane Jones has attacked Air New Zealand – again – this time over their “cringe culture” new safety video.

The video, titled It’s Kiwi Safety, stars more than 600 people and is presented as a rap from local musicians Kings, Theia, and Randa. The rap itself is adapted from Run-DMC’s It’s Tricky.

Jones, who is the regional economic development minister, said he had been hearing a lot of negative feedback about the “juvenile mishmash” of the video on his travels around the country.

It is a terrible video.

On my last Air NZ flight the person next to me commented the safety video made them want to fly Jetstar. It is that bad.

Most of the Air NZ videos have been great. A couple have missed the mark, This one though is just terrible. How did it ever get through market testing? Was there any?

In a statement Air NZ said: “We are proud of the latest safety video and make no apology for celebrating Kiwi culture or showcasing the talents of people from 30 community groups around New Zealand, including in many regions.

I guess they have to say it, but outside their bubble most people don’t regard rap as celebrating Kiwi culture. It is just try hard.

The ODT editorial:

Labour has always stressed the free fees apply to polytechnics, other tertiary training institutes and industry training, not just universities. One issue, however, is that most university courses for first-year students will be far more expensive than many polytechnic and trade courses. These could well be part-time and limited (short courses costing, say, $500 compared to, say, $6000 for a full first-year university course). Therefore, the bulk of benefits go to university students, the vast majorityfrom better-off and educated backgrounds. Most of the savings in fees go to the middle-classes and wealthy – certainly not to the poor.

The vast bulk of the money is going to the most well off families.

Substantial support for fees is practical and beneficial. Universities, polytechnics and industry training need to be accessible. But, and this is reinforced by the numbers taking advantage of the policy, it would seem free fees are being picked up by students taking part in tertiary education anyway. This is what was predicted.

Surely, with so many deep-seated and widespread needs in our society, there are higher priorities. Surely, $1.5billion could be spend in a more worthwhile way. This is a transfer of taxes to help, largely, the relatively well off.

The most wasteful policy yet.

Stuff reports:

Revelations that the minister gave weight to Sroubek’s claims that the Czech Republic would ‘kill him and make it look like an accident’ were troubling, Woodhouse said.

The Government giving credibility to that statement was ridiculous, he said.

The Czech Republic was a member of NATO and the European Union, and was considered an advanced economy with high living standards.

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book, when you are trying to prevent deportation. You claim your life is at risk, if sent home.

In some countries, this may possibly be true. In fact one can gain asylum if it is true.

But if a convicted criminal is claiming that their life is at risk if they are returned to a country which is a member of the OECD, EU and NATO, well it is almost certainly a lie.

A competent Minister would demand proof of this threat, rather than just take the word of the convicted criminal. He would ask officials to check out the veracity of the claims.

But Lees-Galloway did none of this. He got duped. He was sucker punched.

Newsroom reports on Diane Maxwell who is the Retirement Commissioner:

The numbers tell their own story when it comes to staff turnover under Maxwell.

Figures provided to Parliament’s Commerce select committee by the commission show over half of the organisation’s staff left their roles in the 2017/18 financial year.

That isn’t even the highest mark reached during her tenure: that honour goes to the 2013/14 year, Maxwell’s first in the job when she led a restructuring, when nearly 90 percent of staff left through a combination of resignations and redundancies.

Across her five years in charge, there has been an average turnover rate of nearly 44 percent – far higher than the public sector average of 11 to 12 percent.

The average length of service at the commission has also dropped precipitously.

In the 2012/13 financial year, the year before Maxwell began as commissioner, staff had spent an average of just under three years at the commission – in 2017/18, that figure had dropped to a little over a year.

A 44% average turnover rate indicates a massive problem. You might accept that for one year, but that is an average over five years. If the average length of staff tenure is 12 months, it is obviously a horrible place to work.

Stuff reports:

Several MPs say Parliament is a perfectly safe place to work, but the Speaker and a former staffer disagree.

Speaker Trevor Mallard commissioned an external review of workplace bullying and harassment for all staffers, contractors, and former staffers at Parliament in the last four years – roughly 3000 people.

“Incidents have occurred over many years in this building that are unacceptable,” Mallard said as he launched the review.

“I wouldn’t recommend my kids work there,” he told The AM Show on Wednesday.

Working in Parliament can be stressful, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be a great place to work. I think we need to separate out the issues around the institution as a whole, and how some MPs manage or mismanage staff.

Most MPs are good bosses to work for. Most staff not only like working for their MP, they love it. They find them inspiring, they find the work interesting and they like the fact they are part of doing something politically substantive.

Some MPs are not great to work for. This is not surprising as we have 120 MPs. Out of any sample of 120 bosses, you’d find some who are bad bosses. And many MPs have not had experience managing staff before they become an MP and/or a Minister.

As a former employee I’ve had some great bosses and some awful bosses. Ironically the awful bosses may have made me a better employer myself for I remember so well what I hated about how I was treated by them, and try to avoid ever doing that myself.

Now we have the issues around the institution as a whole. They do combine to make some parliamentary offices challenging, or worse. They are:

1. MPs are not managers who can be demoted by a superior manager if they turn out be a bad people manager. They are elected representatives who can only be sacked at an election. So in any employment dispute, it can never ever be resolved by the MP being sacked or moved sideways. MPs have a constitutional right to have staff who work for them. So there is a limit to what can be done if an MP is a bad manager of staff. If they hold a role of responsibility, their party leader can demote them doing the ranks, but not change their status as an MP.
2. MPs future careers depend partly on how well they in areas such as oral questions, media interviews, policy development etc. In most jobs if you have a shocker of a day, no one really knows about it and doesn’t impact you too much in future. But an MPs future can be crippled if they get humiliated in the House because they had the wrong facts etc. So if staff stuff up, the consequences for their MP can be huge.
3. There are bouts of high pressure. Between 11.30 am and 2.00 pm it can be a bit of a mad house as you have two and a half hours only to prepare for question time.

Now this doesn’t excuse that some MPs treat staff badly. And I am sure there are improvements that can be made. But one has to be realistic about how much change can be made due to the nature of Parliament.

And it is probably fair to note that Mr Speaker himself has had a fair share of controversy himself in the past. There is a danger in trying to move to the moral high ground too quickly.

The Herald reports:

Changes have been made to the controversial Workplace Relations Bill which gives small business a “fair go”, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters says. …

One change is around the multi-employer collective agreement (Meca) provisions. Employers have a responsibility to enter into bargaining but are not compelled to settle an agreement, based on reasonable grounds.

The other major change is that while unions have the right to enter work sites where union members are covered by, or bargaining for, a collective agreement, they need consent from employers in all other circumstances.

Peters said New Zealand First’s changes gave small and regional businesses a fair go.
“We have looked out for small and medium sized business to ensure that the law reflects their reality.

“We heard that changes needed to be made to ensure small businesses weren’t unfairly treated under the legislation. This is consistent with the bill’s exemption for small business from the 90-day trial rules,” Peters said.

These are significant changes that the union paymasters of Labour badly badly wanted. On this issue, NZ First has done well in tempering down this bill from a very bad bill to only a moderately bad one.

Stuff reports:

The Green Party is calling on the Government to give voting rights to prisoners, but has not won approval from its coalition partners. …

She believed all prisoners should be able to vote – not just those with short sentences.

So the Greens think Clayton Weatherston should be allowed to vote, and this will help rehabilitate him.

The Greens insistence that all prisoners should vote is out of line with NZ history. The Supreme Court had some interesting data on the history of prisoner voting in NZ.

• 1852 Constitution Act banned prisoners from voting if convicted for any treason, felony or infamous offence.
• In 1879 the prisoner ban was extended to last for 12 months after release
• In 1905 eligibility extended to any prisoner sentenced to 12 months or more, nut only while in prison
• In 1956 ban extended to all prisoners
• Ban removed from 1975 to 1977
• Ban reinstated from 1977 to 1993
• In 1993 ban restricted to those sentenced to three years or more
• In 2010 ban expanded to all prisoners

So what the Greens are demanding is something that has only been the case in New Zealand for two years out of the last 170. It is not just a return to the 1993 law, but allowing every serial killer and gang rapist to vote.

No surprise I am against it.

Stats NZ released:

Work on the first release of 2018 Census data is taking longer than expected due to the complex nature of the task, Stats NZ said today.

Stats NZ had previously reported that they had full or partial information for around 90 percent of individuals and indicated further analysis would be required that would delay the first release.

“We now know this is going to take us a bit longer, but by April 2019 we will be able to announce when census data will be available,” Government Statistician Liz MacPherson said.

This is such a huge fail by Stats NZ, an agency that normally is a top performing one. The census is the most important data collection object they do, and they missed out on 450,000 New Zealanders.

Normally we get census data no later than six months after the census. What Stats NZ has said is that we have to wait 12 months to even be told a date on which they will start releasing data. That date might be another six or nine months down the track from there.

This may have constitutional implications.

The electoral boundaries are meant to be reviewed every five years and should be reviewed before the 2020 election. Final boundaries get determined within six months of Stats NZ providing current electoral populations based on the census data.

This would normally have been September 2018, so we’d have new boundaries by March 2019 – well before the election.

If Stats NZ can’t release census data before say December 2019, then we’d have final boundaries in June 2020. That would be a disaster. Selections would have occurred by then. You can’t change boundaries just three months before an election. Parliament would probably have to legislate to delay the new boundaries until after the 2020 election.

Ideally new boundaries should be finalised before election year. That means Stats NZ really needs to get the data out by June 2019. Any later than that and it will create a real headache for the boundaries review.

Stuff reports:

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei has been blocked from providing 5G equipment to Spark, because of “a significant network security risk”.

A spokeswoman for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) said the decision was the start of a process rather the end of one, and was its call.

But the Minister responsible for the GCSB Andrew Little said he had been briefed and had accepted the assessment.

The GCSB on Wednesday rejected a proposal by Spark to use equipment from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to build a 5G mobile network.

I’ve blogged on this before, and the reality is that no one anywhere has ever been able to point to an actual security problem with Huawei. It is basically scaremongering that as they are a Chinese company, then maybe one day if they fell like committing economic suicide, they might do something bad.

I have no relationship with Huawei beyond I was their guest (as a blogger) a few years ago to visit their operations in China. They have done a great job in New Zealand and they are already used by all three telcos in their existing networks. How you can be trusted to be used for a 4G network but not a 5G one is beyond me.

Basically New Zealand has succumbed to peer pressure from our five eyes partners, primarily the US. Their motivations are protecting US companies from competition. They have never ever been able to say what exactly is it that Huawei has done wrong or could do wrong. They’ve been banned purely because of the country they are based in.

This will increase the costs of telecommunications in New Zealand, by removing a preferred supplier. It will also be seen as a deeply offensive move by the Chinese Government and our exporters will probably end up paying the cost.

If China or a Chinese company actually does something wrong, they should be held to account for it. If for example China has been behind the burglaries of Anne-Marie Brady, this should be exposed, even if it damages our relationship with them. But when Huawei has done nothing at all wrong except be Chinese, then China will have every right to retaliate.

Stuff reports:

The Tax Working Group has reached a consensus on a capital gains tax, but it is not supported by all members of the working group, chairman Sir Michael Cullen has revealed.

That is not a consensus then. That is simply a majority vote. The media should not allow it to be described as a consensus without challenge.

Cullen said the working group had discussed an alternative option of an inheritance tax, despite an instruction from Finance Minister Grant Robertson that should be off the table.

“We are not supposed to be looking at inheritance taxes but a majority of my colleagues on the Tax Working Group appear to have a found a partial way around that,” he said. 

Staggering. He is boasting that they have managed to find a way to bring in an inheritance or death tax despite being told not to.

Of course the Capital Gains Tax is likely to be a death tax and a tax on the family home. The family home isn’t taxed, until you die. Then it does get taxed. So your parents family home will get taxed on any capital gain it has had (even if that gain is merely keeping pace with inflation) when they die (unless you move into it).

Stuff reports:

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway already had much of the “new” Interpol information he used to reverse his decision to grant Karel Sroubek residency.

A fresh Immigration New Zealand (INZ) probe into the drug smuggler found he was liable for deportation on grounds not previously considered.

However, documents released under the Official Information Act show the minister would already have had access to that information. 

I don’t imagine the courts will be impressed with an argument that the Minister didn’t read the entire file and failed to notice Sroubek had criminal convictions in the Czech Republic also.

On page five of the 12 page case file summary, it was indicated that Sroubek was an excluded person because of his convictions in the Czech Republic. But Lees-Galloway claims he was not asked to consider convictions outside New Zealand.

I guess it is good that Lees-Galloway now realised he made a terrible decision but legally his reversal looks suspect and the legal action is likely to take years and cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. If he had done the right thing the first time, none of this would have happened.

However, when a reporter pointed out that this information was in the file he received and asked why he did not include in his decision, he said: “I don’t know every single detail of the Immigration Act. I had been asked to consider his liability for false identification and for the conviction in New Zealand. Whilst it was material to the overall decision, I didn’t look at that and say, ‘aha, he should be an excluded person’. That wasn’t something I was considering at that time.”

He said he knew what is in the file, and that Sroubek had been convicted, but at the time that information that was not relevant to making the overall decision.

When asked if he did not understand the Immigration Act act, he said that was not the case.

That appears exactly to be the case.