Amused to get an e-mail today from DIA telling me that they are releasing some information to Nicky Hager, showing records of any phone, text or e-mails between myself and staff in the PM’s Office over a period of four years.

It’s like someone is trying to resurrect the Dirty Politics zombie.

Anyway what did searching four years of communications find.

Well based on my quick tally, it shows the following number of phone calls to me from the staff OIAd (excluding one minute ones which will be missed calls).

• Jason Ede 20 (one every two months)
• Wayne Eagleson 11 (one every four months)
• Phil de Joux 10 (one every four months)
• Kevin Taylor 3 (one a year)

It also reveals four text messages from Wayne Eagleson over four years. Quick someone impanel a grand jury!

I’d say on an average day I get 10 or more phone calls so over four years that is well over 10,000 phone calls which puts a couple of dozen calls into context.

And a total of five e-mails over four years, being:

1. Me asking Wayne if the PM would be free to meet Tim Berner-Lees, the inventor of the World Wide Web
2. Wayne e-mailing me a press release about staffing changes
3. Me e-mailing Wayne (and several other staff) asking for examples (good and bad) of dealing with ministerial advisors, for use in an IPANZ workshop
4. Me e-mailing Kevin Taylor inviting him to Kiwiblog’s 10th birthday party
5. Me e-mailing Wayne after the 2014 election asking to meet up to discuss the flag change campaign (readers may enjoy the NB at the bottom of my e-mail)

Such an evil conspiracy – trying to get the PM to meet the guy who invented the WWW, and being sent a copy of a press release.

Below is the e-mail from DIA:

Good morning David,

This email is to advise you that the Department of Internal Affairs has received an OIA request from Nicky Hager for:

• correspondence between Jason Ede and Mr Slater and Mr Farrar from January 2008 to December 2011, including texts;
• the same information between Phil de Joux, Kevin Taylor, Wayne Eagleson and Mr Slater or Mr Farrar from January 2011 to 11 March 2015; and
• correspondence between DIA employees [in the Prime Minister’s office] and Jason Ede from January 2011 to 11 March 2015.

 

This request was originally made to Rt Hon Sir John Key’s office in 2015, and was subject of a complaint to the Ombudsman in 2016. The complaint had not been resolved at the time of the change of Government last year, and the Ombudsman accordingly advised Mr Hager that he could renew his request to the Department, which he has.

I have attached for your information the documents that the Department has determined as being in scope of Mr Hager’s request and which contain your name. The Department has made the decision to withhold the names of those staff that are not named in Mr Hager’s request, and the phone numbers of all parties. We do not consider that there are grounds to withhold any other information from these documents.

We will be indicating in our response to Mr Hager in relation to the extracts from Vodafone invoices that the Department does not hold any records that indicate the nature of the communications i.e. if any calls or texts between individuals were made in a private capacity or in an official capacity as an employee in the office of the Prime Minister. We will also be indicating that there are no records of any emails between yourself and Jason Ede or Phil de Joux.

The Department is planning to send the information to Mr Hager tomorrow (Friday 24 August 2018).

And the attachments are here:

• Phones
• E-mails

The NZ Specialty Coffee Association recently e-mailed their members to say:

We have been contacted by the Trading Standards regarding compliance within the coffee industry as per the Weights and Measures Act 1987. 
 

The NZSCA has attempted to assure the Ministry of Business Innovation and Enterprise that this is not standard practice in the New Zealand coffee industry and have suggested that they would receive better traction by contacting these companies directly.  
 

While we believe using ounces is an easy communication between coffee suppliers and the customers, we’ve discovered that identifying a 236ml vessel as “8 ounces” is not legal in New Zealand.  Our recommendation is that you read through the link below and we all look to change our language around the size of beverages.

So MBIE is wasting taxpayers money on telling coffee suppliers that they can’t call an 8 ounce vessel, an 8 ounce vessel and instead it must be called a 236 ml vessel.

What madness.

Alwyn Poole writes:

If New Zealand is to avoid a genuine crisis in education provision for our young people in the near future, a few things need to happen. As a start, the bar to entry for primary school teaching needs to go much higher in terms of prerequisite qualifications in maths, science and English. Lift the entry requirements and create a genuine bar for aspiring teachers to strive for, thus lifting the intake quality and enhancing the reputation of the profession in the eyes of Kiwi families.

This is what they do in Finland.

Teachers and their unions need to stop whingeing about their jobs. Seriously, nowhere else on the planet does a profession have 12-14 holiday weeks a year. If you have to do some work in those holidays – woolly-boolly – you still have huge choices about how you go about that while in Fiji or Bali.

Yes teachers work during the holidays. But to not have to turn up to an office for 40 hours a week is a huge advantage. I know. I work from home, and it is way superior to being in an office.

13 weeks a year away from the “office” and $76,000 a year isn’t terrible. That’s probably why there is a 94% retention rate.

Schools and principals need far more employment choice to meet their local needs. I was stunned when former PPTA president Angela Roberts stated to the world that “of course South Auckland Middle School is successful, it is bulk-funded” when the unions have made it game priority No 1 to stop schools from having this opportunity. Give teachers the ability to negotiate their own pay and conditions – they are big boys and girls – and let principals and boards make some genuine resourcing decisions.

Bulk funding would see a huge increase in salaries for the best teachers.

The Herald editorial:

Every supporter of the New Zealand First Party ought to be embarrassed by the “waka jumping” bill. No respectable political party in a democracy needs a law to keep its elected legislators loyal to it.

This is a bill to benefit just one person – Winston. His poodles are voting to give him the power to expel MPs he falls out with.

Labour and the Greens are real political parties. That is, they are organisations of like-minded people who can channel their values and views into a coherent political programme to put to a public vote. They choose their candidates for Parliament through internal votes that produce competent and usually reliable MPs.

New Zealand First is different, as it has effectively declared with this bill. It cannot rely on its MPs to remain loyal to the party that put them in Parliament and needs a law that will allow its caucus to expel a member from Parliament who will not go along with something the party intends to do.

I blogged in January on how Peters has fallen out with half the 38 MPs who have been NZ First MPs. Now considering he basically hand picks them all, that suggests he is either an awful judge of character or he is unable to work with others.

Though the party recently celebrated 25 years of existence it remains a one-man band.

It has not developed a body of principles and people larger than allegiance to its founder. It remains difficult to imagine the party existing without Winston Peters.

A party such as this is not good for democracy or stability of government. Allegiance to a person rather than a party is shallow, as we have seen in NZ First over the years. Peters has fallen out with a number of his MPs and his need for this legislation suggests his latest caucus is no more reliable.

A few days ago we learned they have all been obliged to sign an agreement to pay the party $300,000 if they resign from its caucus or are expelled and do not leave Parliament within three days. It is an abject disgrace that Peters can require that of those he brings into Parliament with him but it is their business, it is less of a public concern.

Legislation to impose the same sort of rule on all MPs, minus the fine, is of most serious public concern. It offends our deepest political principles. We elect people to Parliament, not stooges.

Stooges is exactly what Winston wants.

Mathias Corman has announced five Ministers who voted for Turnbull will now vote Dutton, so it is all over.

Peter Dutton will be the 30th Prime Minister of Australia.

And Malcolm Turnbull will be the 4th Prime Minister in a row to get rolled in their first term after winning an election.

Recent tenure of PMs has been:

1. Malcolm Fraser 7.5 years
2. Bob Hawke 8.5 years
3. Paul Keating 4.5 years
4. John Howard 11.5 years
5. Kevin Rudd 2.5 years
6. Julia Gillard 3 years
7. Kevin Rudd 3 months
8. Tony Abbott 2 years
9. Malcolm Turnbull 3 years

Hard to see any outcome but Labor winning the next election, and a long spell in opposition for the Libs.

The Herald reports:

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro carried out one of the greatest currency devaluations in history over the weekend – a 95 per cent plunge that will test the capacity of an already beleaguered population to stomach even more pain.

One likely outcome is that inflation, which already was forecast to reach 1 million per cent this year, will get fresh fuel from the measures.

Prices are currently rising at an annualised rate of 108,000 per cent, according to Bloomberg’s Café con Leche index.

A massive exodus of Venezuelans fleeing the crisis to neighbouring countries will likely increase and with it, tensions and restrictions like the ones seen over the past few days.

The official rate for the currency will go from about 285,000 per dollar to 6 million, a shock that officials tried to partly offset by raising the minimum wage 3500 per cent to the equivalent of just US$30 a month.

A 3500% increase in the minimum wage. So wonderful. This will mean no one in Venezuela will be living in poverty.

The Herald reports:

Little said he had heard commentary that victims were not being adequately heard and wanted further opportunities to engage.

He said victims were an important part of the justice summit and work was needed to provide better support for those affected by crime.

Little later signalled a special victims’ conference would be held after hearing from those who felt the summit did not address those worst affected by crime.

The event in Wellington was always intended to be the government’s first step towards reforming the criminal justice system.

Feedback has extended the pathway to reform, paying heed to those who spoke during the summit.

The Labour Maori caucus has also pushed for a summit which would focus on Maori issues with the criminal justice system, a reflection of Maori over-representation in prison and among those who are victims of crime.

Further regional summits are also planned.

This news story sums up the Government almost perfectly.

They spend what is probably millions of dollars on a huge summit with 700 people. And what is the outcome:

• A further Maori issues summit
• A further victim’s summit
• Regional summits

This is almost beyond parody.

Stuff reports:

The Government may be getting more in dividends from its 51 per cent holding in three major power companies than when it owned the companies outright, a new report claims.

This is no surprise. The discipline of being a listed company with shareholders is significant.

Throughout the sales process, National claimed the partial privatisation would improve the performance of the listed companies, and the report shows the returns to shareholders since the sales have been extremely strong.

TDB estimated that total annual shareholder returns for the companies from the day the companies’ respective shares began trading on the NZX was 26 per cent for Meridian, 22 per cent for Genesis and 12 per cent for Mercury, well ahead of the 7 per cent seen by Contact and Trustpower, two private electricity companies.

Excellent.

However, TDB acknowledged that part of the exceptional returns for Meridian and Genesis was not due to improved performance, but instead the risk of New Zealand Power, an electricity policy announced by Labour and the Green Party days before Mercury was due to go to market.

The policy, which amounted to a major overhaul of New Zealand’s wholesale power market designed to cut prices for consumers, depressed the sales prices of both Meridian and Genesis, largely because shares in Mercury sank after listing, as investors fretted about the risk of the policy.

Labour tried to sabotage the policy. They tried to scare off investors. To some degree it worked. Taxpayers got less for the shares than would have been the case. But people like me who still invested have done really well. So thanks Labour and Greens for the attempted sabotage.

And in case anyone claims the partial privatisations in 2011 led to higher power prices, here is the annual level of electricity inflation since 2007:

• 2007: 6.5%
• 2008: 7.6%
• 2009: 2.1%
• 2010: 5.8% (GST increase)
• 2011: 2.5%
• 2012: 5.3%
• 2013: 3.0%
• 2014: 3.7%
• 2015: 0.3%
• 2016: 2.3%
• 2017: 2.0%

So electricity prices have gone up only 11.7% in the last five years. In the five years before the partial privatisations they went up 26.9%.

So overall:

• Consumers have faced smaller power prices increases
• Taxpayers are getting the same level of dividends
• Taxpayers are paying less interest on the $5 billion of proceeds from the partial sales
• Investors are benefiting from their investments

It’s been a win-win-win.

The Herald reports:

Critics of the policy change say the Government has misunderstood the importance of gas as an industrial fuel and for dry-year generation in New Zealand’s increasingly renewable generation system. The International Energy Agency also forecasts global demand for gas will rise by 45 per cent by 2040 as nations use more of it to replace coal and reduce emissions from power generation, steel-making and petrochemicals production.

Yep global demand for gas is going to go up 45%, and we’re closing up shop. It has lower emissions than coal so the net impact of our ban will be increased greenhouse gas emissions, and lower economic growth.

538 has launched their forecast for the House for the 2018 elections. Key data is:

• 75% chance Democrats take the House
• Average gain for Democrats is projected to be 35 seats
• Current result projection is 230 seats for Democrats and 205 for GOP

The breakdown of seats by probability is:

• Definite Dem 190
• Likely Dem 11 (=201)
• Lean Dem 14 (=215)
• Toss Up 15 (=230)
• Lean GOP 17
• Likely GOP 55
• Definite GOP 133

If the Democrats do take the House, will they try and impeach Trump?

A guest post by David Garrett:

Gangs are changing alright – for the worst

One of the “experts” at Andrew Little’s justice talkfest is Dr Jarrod Gilbert of Canterbury University. Gilbert has pretty much supplanted Greg Newbold as the media’s “go to” guy on gangs and crime. Gilbert is the author of “Patched: the history of gangs in New Zealand”. In it, Gilbert manages for the most part to disguise the fact that he is essentially an apologist for gangs. His recent message – and no doubt the message  he will  preach  at the Justice Summit – is that gangs are changing for the better, and so must our attitude to them. The subtext is that gangs are becoming more like the “alternative form of whanau” that Tariana Turia has claimed for years that they are. Nothing could be further from  the truth.

This morning, 21 August,  Stuff reports a gang shooting in Wanganui in which a gang member died  when a rival gang invaded his house. Two months ago there was a similar incident in which a young gang associate died and his girlfriend, who he apparently died trying to protect, was seriously injured. Wanganui was also the scene of a drive by gang shooting in which a young baby was killed in 2007.

And it’s not just  gang members shooting at  each other. In January 2017 the Black Power took a funeral procession through Mongrel Mob “territory” in Whakatane. It was an organized confrontation in  which numerous shots were fired at police in the streets of Whakatane. The members of the two gangs involved  were obviously totally unconcerned about the safety of innocent bystanders. By pure chance, no-one was killed.

This sort of behaviour has been going on for at least twenty years, and contrary to Gilbert’s claims,  gang violence involving firearms is becoming more not less common.  This morning’s murder is just the latest such incident. And for any reader of Gilbert’s book, none of this can be a surprise. The Mongrel Mob for example idolize  and aspire to ever more “mongrelish behaviour”. “Mongrelish behaviour” is anything which is contrary to and grossly affronts the norms of ordinary civilized behaviour: raping and sometimes killing women to get a patch (Mallory Manning); bashing and even  killing anyone who gets in their way; bashing raping and intimidating the “bitches” who serve their material and sexual needs.

The gang problem is of course not new: in 1972 Norman Kirk pledged to “take the bikes off the bikies”. Once in office, nothing was done. In the 80’s various gang outrages occurred resulting in supposedly strict  non association laws being passed. They were never enforced, and gang members congregate pretty much where they like. At least the police have woken up, and no long appoint “gang liaison officers” whose function was to facilitate gang “runs” and other group activities –  so long as the boys didn’t do anything too obvious or too extreme.

And let’s remember that politicians’ naivety about the true nature of gangs is not confined to Andrew Little and his colleagues in the Labour and Green parties. In 2009 then National Justice Minister Simon Power organized a “Drivers of Crime” summit at parliament. I quickly discovered that while several gang leaders were on the guest list – and had their expenses paid to attend – leading criminologist Greg Newbold was not.

When I tackled Power about this omission, I was told that it was deliberate, and was because Newbold was “too negative.” The reality of course is that Newbold is the only criminologist in the country who “tells it like it is” – for example that Maori are grossly over-represented in prisons while Pacific Islanders are not because, as he puts it, while PI’s have strong family structures and value success in education and particularly in sport, “..Maoris (sic.) are too busy drinking piss and partying”.

Newbold has not been invited to Little’s talkfest, but Jarrod Gilbert has. He, along with Professor John Pratt – the latter’s  speciality is trying against all the evidence to “prove” crime is no more prevalent than it ever was – will be telling the audience what it wants to hear: that all Maori problems, including gangs, are down to colonization, systemic racism in the justice system, and a lack of understanding of Maori.

Successive governments have thrown their hands up and put gangs and membership of them in the too hard basket. Any suggestion that they be banned is met with nonsense about the supposedly consequential   unavoidable infringement of the rights of members of peaceful organizations like the Rotary Club to assemble wearing their insignia. I say this is nonsense because at least two western democracies – Eire and Germany – have managed to ban “gangs” without members of the Rotary Club having their human rights infringed.

I refer of course to the Nazis and the IRA respectively. Throughout the years of “the troubles”, the IRA was a banned organization on both sides of the Irish border. It continued to exist of course, but its activities were severely curtailed. Germany is probably a better example: appear on the streets there waving a swastika flag or carrying images of Adolf, and you will quickly find yourself in jail.

Across the Tasman, various gangs have been banned, most recently the Mongrel Mob in Queensland. The success of those laws has been patchy, at least in part because in Australia, as here, there are legions of “human rights” lawyers just dying to defend the human rights of the sort of scum they would never dream of inviting to their dinner parties.

Gangs are a scourge and a cancer on our society, and they have been for at least two generations. If Andrew Little was really serious about reducing the prison population by 30% – a totally ludicrous goal – he would start by making hard decisions about gangs, and rather than inviting their leaders and  apologists for them to talkfests like the present one, set up one of their currently much favoured “working groups” with a brief to come up with ways of eliminating this scourge from our society. Without unintended consequences for the Rotary Club.

The Herald reports:

TVNZ news presenter and journalist Greg Boyed had been battling “depression”, his grieving family say as they pay tribute to an “adored” son, brother, husband and father.

Boyed died on Monday while on a family holiday in Switzerland with his wife and young son.

The family said in a statement that Boyed, 48, had been “battling depression”.

“Greg was the kindest and most caring man, a devoted father who cherished and loved his two children.

“We are all struggling to comes to terms with this,” the family said.

“He was absolutely loved and adored. A treasured son, brother, husband and father, he will be deeply missed.

This is so very very sad. He was a lovely lovely guy and I doubt had an enemy in the world. A very good broadcaster and interviewer.

My thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues. They will be devastated.

A great speech by Hutt South MP Chris Bishop at Massey. Some extracts:

As a few of you may know, I did a lot of debating at both high school and university. I had the privilege of debating for Vic all around the world; including in the famous Oxford and Cambridge Unions. I said in my maiden speech that one of the proudest moments in my life was competing in the Grand Final at Oxford, actually standing at the same dispatch box that David Lange used in the famous 1985 Oxford Union debate about the moral indefensibility of nuclear weapons.

Debating is all about free speech, reason; and argument. Ideas are proposed and challenged; supported and critiqued. There is virtually no topic that university debating won’t touch; everything from abortion to euthanasia to the death penalty to female genital mutilation to USA foreign policy, the Israel/Palestine conflict, free trade, human rights, everything.

As a debater, as a Parliamentarian, and as someone who loves freedom, I worry about where free speech is heading, particularly on university campuses. We must not let the illiberal contagion currently affecting the United States spread to New Zealand.

The third justification for free speech being a fundamental right is the classical liberal conception of the marketplace of ideas. Unrestricted public debate allows the truth to prevail and the best ideas to win out over bad ones.

Fourth and finally, free speech is often regarded as a societal safety valve. Speech that is suppressed does not cease to exist; it is merely driven underground where it is difficult to subject to criticism in the “marketplace of ideas”, and where conspiracy rather than truth is likely to triumph. On this rationale it is better to have bad, even offensive ideas, out there in the public domain where they can be defeated.

Essentially what your Vice-Chancellor chose to do was appoint herself as the arbiter of what speech qualifies as “hate speech” and what speech does not; replacing a careful objective judgment by a court with a subjective judgment by herself. That is deeply worrying. Her claim she supports free speech is wrong.

Goff’s decision was, like Professor Thomas’, basically discrimination on the grounds of political opinion. Goff seems proud of it. He should wear it as a badge of dishonour, not pride. I well remember the hideous demonstration in the Auckland Town Hall two days out from the 2014 election, with Kim Dotcom and a parade of people telling everyone how to vote. There didn’t seem to be any issues with booking a Council venue for that grotesque event. If Kim Dotcom can book a ratepayer funded venue for a controversial political event; why can’t two Canadian right-wing provocateurs?

The Herald reports:

New Zealand’s first offender, a Whanganui stabber, to be given the maximum sentence available under the controversial three-strikes rule is the law working as it was intended, says Act Party leader David Seymour. …

The three-strikes law requires a person convicted of a third serious violent, sexual or drugs offence to be sentenced to the maximum available sentence without parole, unless it would be “manifestly unjust”.

Justice Collins, a former Solicitor-General of New Zealand from 2006 to 2012, sentenced Hayze Neihana Waitokia to seven years’ imprisonment for wounding with intent to injure after stabbing a man in the leg while on bail.

So he was on bail and he stabbed someone. What else is in his record.

Waitokia has 14 previous convictions, including six for violent offending.

In 2012, the 26-year-old was sentenced to five months’ home detention and was given his first-strike warning for a vicious assault using a piece of wood.

In 2014, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and given his second-strike warning for stalking and sexually assaulting a 17 year-old girl.

Waitokia was also sentenced to four months’ imprisonment for domestic violence assaults in March this year.

A perfect example of why we need Three Strikes. He is a violent recidivist who has bashed, sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple victims. He was on the bail and parole merry-go-round and it has now come to an end.

At sentencing today, Justice Collins said he was “not convinced that it would be grossly disproportionate” to sentence Waitokia the the maximum term.

“I acknowledge that your sentence will be much harsher than I would otherwise
have imposed, however, that will invariably be the case for a third-strike offence,” the judge said.

“Parliament deliberately designed a harsh response to offenders who persistently
commit serious offences despite clear warnings.

Justice Collins continued: “I have reached the conclusion that this is not a clear and convincing case to depart from the full effects of the three strikes regime. This conclusion is based in part because I consider that you are at a high-risk of reoffending and there is a need for community protection. Your previous three strike offences, and the pattern of behaviour they demonstrate, are very telling.”

Justice Collins has it right.

Here’s what we know about Waitokia from the sentencing notes:

• 14 convictions by age 26
• Six convictions for violent offending
• Wounding with intent in 2012
• Sexual violation in 2014
• Domestic violence assaults in 2018
• Rated high risk of reoffending
• Involved in violence against prison guards

Now if we did not have the three strikes law, his sentence would have been two years and three months. And he would have been eligible for parole after just nine months in prison.

Labour wants to repeal the law which means he could be out back on the streets after just nine months to stab, bash or sexually assault further victims.

It would be nice if someone can find a way to rehabilitate him, and stop him offending. I’m all for that. But until we can, I want the community safe from him. Here’s what the Judge said about his second strike:

Your second-strike offence, while for a different kind of offending, was more serious than your first-strike offence. You followed a 17-year-old girl as she was walking home. She either tripped or was pushed to the ground. You indecently assaulted her and forcibly pulled down her underwear while telling her to calm down. You then forcefully penetrated her genitalia with your finger. She screamed and yelled for help, begging you not to hurt her further. You also threw her cell phone away during the attack. You attempted to remove your pants with one hand while holding her with the other. At this stage, the victim managed to bite your forearm and fortunately, she managed to escape.

Your offending had major negative emotional impacts on the victim.
The pre-sentence report for this offence described you as reluctant to
even discuss the incident. It also concluded there was no evidence of remorse and that you displayed no emotion

And the Judge also noted:

All three of these offences occurred within a period of approximately six and half years. You continued to offend on each occasion shortly after the end of your previous sentence.

Basically the moment he is out, he creates a new victim. So if he is out in two years, there is a new victim in two years. Have him in for seven years, and that is a further five years without a new victim.

The Herald reports:

Paul Manafort, the longtime political operative who for months led Donald Trump’s winning presidential campaign, was found guilty of eight financial crimes today.

It is the first trial victory of the Special Counsel investigation into the President’s associates. A judge declared a mistrial on 10 other counts the jury could not agree on.

The verdict was part a stunning one-two punch of bad news for the White House, coming as the President’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was pleading guilty in New York as part of a separate deal with prosecutors.

The Cohen plea is the more significant one. Manafort’s corruption was pre-Trump, and at this stage there is no link to Trump. Of course will he now do a plea bargain or is he hoping for a pardon from Trump?

The Cohen plea is far more dangerous for Trump. The WP reports:

President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday in a Manhattan courthouse to eight violations of banking, tax and campaign finance laws in a federal investigation that scrutinized his business dealings and efforts to silence women with negative stories about Trump.

Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a bank and two campaign finance violations: making an unlawful corporate campaign contribution and making an excessive campaign contribution.

The campaign finance violations are the dangerous ones as Trump may be named as a co-conspirator on them.

Politico further reports:

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, stated Tuesday that Trump directed him to pay women to stay silent about damaging stories during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The statement came as part of a plea deal that Cohen struck Tuesday afternoon with federal prosecutors in New York.

Not a good day for Trump.

The Government announced:

The Government will pay former residential red zone owners 100% of the 2007/08 rateable value for uninsured homes, Minister Megan Woods has announced today.

What a kick in the teeth for the tens of thousands of home owners who did pay for insurance. The Government has just told us all we’re muggins. Don’t bother insuring your property because if you don’t, Labour will bail you out using taxpayers money.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced plans to freeze the salaries of MPs while a review of the pay-setting system is carried out.

A smart move politically.

The Taxpayers’ Union has welcomed the MP pay freeze announcement.

“This is a very welcome and wise decision from the Prime Minister, and acknowledges the problems we flagged last year,” Taxpayers’ Union executive director Jordan Williams said.

“When the previous government decided to tie MP salaries to public sector wage growth, we pointed out that it would create perverse incentives for politicians to boost public sector wages. We’re glad to see Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern listening.”

“We will be engaging with the Government and publishing a report in the coming weeks, proposing more taxpayer-friendly ways to set MPs’ pay.”

I have said for some years that the simple solution is to set a rate of pay for an entire Term of Parliament. I’ve submitted to Parliament on this, yet the MPs keep up the masochism of payrises that always attract derision no matter what their size.

So if the Government is sensible they’ll look at a law change which states the salary and perks for an MP remain fixed during the term of Parliament. A few months before the term expires the Remuneration Authority sets the salary and perks for the upcoming term.

Mike Hosking writes:

Almost as practical as Paul Goldsmith’s bill to let restricted drivers – including 17-year-olds – get work exemptions to drive home after hours, is Melissa Lee’s NZ On Air bill.

Lee’s bill has been pulled from the ballot, and it aims to make New Zealand On Air and its Maori equivalent be made accountable in terms of ratings, as to what it actually funds and whether it’s been successful.

NZ On Air is in charge of millions of our dollars. It funds programmes which look to be getting increasingly eclectic, and watched by fewer and fewer people.

If a show is targeted at a minority audience (ie a Pasifika focused show), then it is no surprise that it has a smaller viewing audience. Ratings are not the only metric of success. But if absolutely no-one is watching a show, then the public should know this.

Regarding releasing figures about the success of their choices, an NZ On Air spokeswoman said: “I don’t know there would be a great deal of appetite for it, because you are sort of inviting the court of public opinion to make decisions about things.”

Oh my god. Public money for public consumption of product?! Heaven forbid those who pay and consume have a say! What on earth would we know about what we want to watch?

If the public funds the programmes, then the public have the right to have an opinion.

Melissa Lee’s bill potentially opens the door into a cloistered world of elitism, and very little accountability. If she can change that, all power to her.

The Minister of Broadcasting is also the Minister for Open Government. This is a chance to prove the commitment to open government is not just lip service.

The Herald reports:

Malcolm Turnbull’s support in the Liberal party room has collapsed and he is facing the prospect of a leadership challenge as early as this morning.

Mr Turnbull has gutted two of his own signature policies in the last 24 hours in an effort to save himself, removing the carbon emissions target from the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) and depriving the big four banks of his company tax cuts.

A senior source has told The Daily Telegraph Mr Turnbull is “in panic mode” and “clearly rattled” amid reports Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton is considering launching a leadership challenge at today’s Liberal party room meeting, which starts at 9am.

The Australian says nine of Mr Turnbull’s 18 Liberal cabinet colleagues have lost confidence in him, and the Prime Minister spent last night ringing MPs to shore up support.

The only question appears to be whether Mr Dutton will strike immediately or wait until parliament returns on September 10. That would potentially coincide with Mr Turnbull’s 40th consecutive Newspoll loss.

The Coalition has generally been 4% to 6% behind Labor for the last few years. But the latest poll has them 10% behind and in a (sort of) FPP environment that is a huge margin.

But he beat Dutton in a vote today by 48 to 35. However still very likely he will be topped at some stage.

If Dutton becomes Prime Minister, that will be interesting for the Government here as he was absolutely ropeable about Andrew Little interfering in their domestic politics by taking part in an Australian TV show and labelling the Australian Government as venal.

If Turnbull is eventually rolled, then no Prime Minister who has won an election since 2004 has lasted until the next election. That’s extraordinary. The record is:

1. Rudd won 2007 election, rolled in 2010
2. Gillard won 2010 election, rolled in 2013
3. Abbott won 2013 election, rolled in 2015
4. Turnbull won 2016 election, rolled in 2018?

When was the last time a NZ Prime Minister was rolled in their first term? As far as I can tell this has never happened.

The Herald reports:

Ministry for Primary Industry officers will be able to go on to farmers’ properties unannounced and without warrants and seize items without cause, says National Party agriculture spokesman Nathan Guy.

The Government introduced the NAIT Amendment Bill last Thursday, and passed it under urgency yesterday. The Bill makes changes to the Act which will allow for warrantless inspections of farms, clarifies animal movement requirements, and makes it an offence not to record animal movements.

While some industry groups have been quick to welcome changes to the National Animal Identification and Tracking Act (NAIT), the Government has come under fire for rushing through legislation to help tackle cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis.

Guy said that while some changes to NAIT were needed, Parliament had been “denied the opportunity to properly scrutinise Government amendments which may not be in the best interests of farmers”.

“Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has had months to introduce this Bill into Parliament, but instead he expanded wide-ranging search powers under urgency.

“Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) will be able to turn up to farmers’ properties without getting a warrant and seize anything they want, unannounced and without cause.

Guy said National asked O’Connor to send the Bill to select committee during the two-week recess to allow public input and ensure there were no unintended consequences for farmers, but the Minister refused.

A two week hearing during recess seems reasonable and better than not giving the public any say at all.

“National proposed amendments during the debate that an officer needs reasonable cause to suspect non-compliance with NAIT before entering the property.

That also sounds very, well, reasonable.

Stuff reports:

When a Muslim couple sat down for a meeting with a municipal commission in the Swiss city of Lausanne, their interviewers found that they “showed great difficulty in answering questions asked by people of the opposite sex,” the city’s mayor said.

So they were both denied Swiss citizenship.

Mayor Gregoire Junod told Agence France-Presse on Friday that the man and woman declined to shake hands with people of the opposite sex and that their behaviour during the interview signalled to the three-person commission interviewing them that they had not adequately integrated into Switzerland.

Quite sensible. If you can’t bare to even shake hands with someone, you are highly unlikely to integrate. Far better to live in a country where shaking hands with the opposite sex is not a cultural norm.

Swiss teachers often expect their students to shake their hands in a move that is considered to signal respect for their authority. But in 2016, two male students from Syria refused to greet their female teacher in that way. The teenagers’ parents then faced fines of around US$5,000 (NZ$7535), after the region’s educational authorities said “a teacher has a right to demand a handshake.”

Again highly unlikely to integrate.