Stuff reports:

A priest shouted “f… Trump” at a Peace Corps celebration party in Samoa after being rudely “shushed” by United States Ambassador Scott Brown, an attendee claims.

So the Ambassador shushed an a******e priest. The priest is the one who should apologise.

“When he was giving a speech he rudely shushed everyone … [it] was a cocktail party so it was supposed to be a fun event, and there were a lot of heads of state at the party,” she said.

“People were appalled, it felt like he was channelling [US President Donald] Trump.”

Seriously? He shushed everyone? And this requires an investigation.

The source acknowledged there was tension because a lot of the Americans who came over with the Peace Corps were Democrats, and Brown was one of the first ambassadors to be appointed by the Republican president after his inauguration in January.

Yep, I suspect he is guilty of being a Republican.

Brown had not done anything to “release the tension”,  she said.

So his crimes are shushing people and not releasing the tension!

The ABC reports:

The Turnbull Government has lost its one-seat majority after the High Court ruled Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s election invalid because of his New Zealand citizenship.

Mr Joyce will now face a by-election. The court also found former Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters were not validly elected, along with One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts and Senator Fiona Nash.

Hilarious. The Government may fall as the father of the Deputy PM was a Kiwi. Joyce is likely to retain his seat in the by-election but if he doesn’t then the Government may need to call an election.

This should make Barnaby Joyce a favourite to win New Zealander of the Year.

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to high schoolers: Next year’s on me

Typical socialist attitude to taxpayers. It’s not on Jacinda, it is on the millions of taxpayers who are having their modest tax cuts taken away from them next year.

Most taxpayers will end up paying $1,000 more a year in tax (compared to if the legislated tax cuts went through) so that students get an even greater subsidy for their tertiary education. The average lifetime earnings gain from a degree is $1.5 million so Labour is robbing everyone to bribe students.

Andrew Geddis writes:

One of the more surprising matters included in the Labour-NZ First coalition agreement is their joint commitment to pass a ‘Waka Jumping’ Bill”. Such legislation effectively requires any MP who leaves her or his party, whether willingly or not, to also leave Parliament.

And it was a farce last time we had it:

We saw the problem with freezing representation in this way in 2002 when the Alliance Party fractured into two over the issue of supporting the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan.

Because neither grouping wanted to leave Parliament, they were forced to pretend they remained one united party even as Jim Anderton set about creating his own new one outside of it.

The opposition’s reaction to this charade was then cited by Helen Clark as a reason for holding a snap election in 2002. So rather than ensuring parliamentary stability, the anti-party hopping law actually contributed to an early end to its term.

A good reminder of the farce it was.

Second, the one occasion on which the original party-hopping law was applied – against Donna Awatere Huata – it resulted in proceedings that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It concluded that where an MP ceased to be a member of a party, that fact in and of itself justified the party leader having the MP removed from Parliament.

In other words, the Supreme Court collapsed the right of an MP to remain in Parliament into the right of a person to be a member of a particular party. If a party chooses to use its own internal rules to expel an MP from the party, that action thereby enables the party leader to get the MP kicked out of Parliament altogether.

And that is too much power for party leaders. We’ve seen Peters abuse his role as leader before such as when he suspended Brendan Horan from the caucus on the basis of allegations. There was no consultation with caucus or board – just fiat from Winston.

This proposed law change will allow party leaders to expel MPs from Parliament. I’m against it.

The last Standing Orders review stated:

We propose instead that the Business Committee adopt a target of 96 seats across the 12 subject select committees. …

In order to ensure the seats are distributed proportionally, we recommend that at the start of each Parliament the Clerk of the House calculate each party’s proportional allocation of the 96 seats based on its seats in the House and using the Saint-Laguë method of proportionality—as used in our electoral system—and inform parties of their allocations as soon as practicable. The Business Committee can then negotiate and agree upon any changes to the overall number of seats and the associated impact on proportionality.

So what is the proportional allocation of the recommended 96 seats:

• National 45
• Labour 37
• NZ First 7
• Greens 6
• ACT 1

It will be very interesting to see how many select committees the Government gets a majority on.

The Herald reports:

A public health group wants the Southern District Health Board to block Ronald McDonald House from setting up in the new Dunedin Hospital.

Yesterday, Ronald McDonald House Charities said it was keen to set up a house in the rebuilt hospital.

Public Health Association Otago-Southland branch chairwoman Mary-Ann McKibben said Southern should follow Counties Manukau and avoid links with the fast-food giant.

They really are fanatical aren’t they.

Dunedin mother Sheryl Cawte was dismayed by the stance taken by public health advocates.

“[Ronald McDonald House] is one of the greatest services that we have in terms of helping families be with loved ones during usually pretty extreme medical situations.

“Our outcomes for our daughter would have been a very different situation for us if we did not have that.”

She stayed at Ronald McDonald House last year when her year-old daughter, Mavis, had open-heart surgery at Auckland’s Starship Hospital.

“It really alleviates that stress of where you would stay in another city.”

She believed the relationship between the fast-food giant and the charity was misunderstood.

“While people think about McDonald’s as this fast-food chain, the Ronald McDonald house is something way beyond that.”

There can be few things harder than having your child in hospital with cancer or other major problems. The Ronald McDonald houses make a huge huge difference to those families but the puritans want them closed down.

One News reports:

A small business owner in Nelson is worried the rise in wages will mean they have to raise prices and possibly let staff go.

“It’ll always go back onto the consumer, so our prices will have to go up, so if we have clients we have clients, if we don’t we don’t,” cleaning company owner Sarah Stewart told 1 NEWS.

The Herald reports:

Reid added that the era of 2 per cent a year wage offers was over and employers would need to be looking at annual increases of about 8 per cent to stay at or ahead of minimum wage rises.

And if employers don’t agree they’ll be forced into national awards!

Newshub reports:

The Green Party may have secured a number of ministerial roles in the new Parliament with Labour and NZ First, but they’re struggling to pay their campaign bills.

It was a heated election campaign, which saw polling numbers rise and plummet over the course of the months, and co-leader Metiria Turei resign in the wake of revealing she had previously defrauded Work and Income NZ.

And while it had a good result in the end, securing eight seats, it came at a high cost.

Party leader James Shaw confirmed the financial struggles in an email sent to all Green Party members, saying despite fundraising, they’re still trying to pay off campaign bills and ongoing administration cots.

“We have already trimmed any excess expenses and with fewer MPs to pay tithes into the Party coffers, we are experiencing a significant shortfall,” he said.

“If each person receiving this email donates $100 we would be in the clear.

Given time it will be the country that can’t pay its bills, not just the Green Party.

Assuming the Greens have at least 10,000 people on their e-mail list, it looks like their debts are quite large.

Stuff reports:

National leader and outgoing Prime Minister Bill English has announced he will stay on as leader through the next election.

English was re-elected unopposed as leader by his caucus on Tuesday.

He committed to staying on as the opposition leader – a position he has held before – for at least the next three years.

This is excellent news for National. Labour’s biggest vulnerability will be on economic management and there is no one else in National who can match the credibility English has in this area.

An executive of 31 is the largest ever in the history of New Zealand.

Almost every Government MP who didn’t enter Parliament at this election has ended up in the Executive.

Four of the six existing Green MPs are in the Executive and the other two are Whips.

I’m not going to comment on all 31 Ministers and PUSes but will cover some of them.

Grant Robertson, Finance, Sports: Grant’s performance will be key to the Government. If he can’t keep spending under control, then Labour will have real problems. He is lucky the economy is so strong at the moment so 2018 Budget should be fine, but 2019 may be harder.

Phil Twyford, Housing, Transport: If Twyford keeps his pledge to get rid of the Auckland urban boundary, he’ll be thanked by everyone.

Chris Hipkins, Education, State Services, Leader of the House: A good move to have Hipkins responsible for the entire education portfolio, rather than have Tertiary separate. Having him Minister of State Services may be challenging as he is a former political advisor.

Andrew Little, Justice, Courts, SIS/GCSB, Treaty Negotiations, Pike River: Huge workload. Should be a sound Minister in these areas. Will strike problems though if he proceeds with policy to make people accused of rape prove they are innocent.

David Clark, Health: Will be a test of him. Cost pressures are every increasing and more money does not always mean better services.

David Parker, Attorney-General, Economic Development, Environment, Trade: Should be a strong performer

Clare Curran, Broadcasting, Communications, Digital: Curran often picks fights with media, so having her in Broadcasting could prove dangerous. But a good background for the new digital portfolio.

Ouch. The High Court has ruled:

• The Court found Eminem Esque was a copy of Lose Yourself for three reasons.
• The Court found the National Party committed three restricted acts amounting to copyright infringement.
• The Court found Eight Mile Style is entitled to damages on a “user principle” basis in the sum of NZ$600,000, with interest, from 28 June 2014.
• Although copyright infringement did occur, the National Party’s actions were taken after receiving professional, commercial and media advice and were not reckless or contumelious of the rights of the copyright owner. No additional damages are awarded.

National will now seek to recover these damages from their advisers and/or the studio they purchased Eminem Esque from. That will be a further court battle.

The Executive has 31 members – the largest ever in New Zealand’s history. Everyone gets a job!

The Cabinet

1. Jacinda Ardern, PM, Arts, Security & Intelligence, Child Poverty Reduction
2. Winston Peters, Deputy PM, Foreign, SOEs, Racing
3. Kelvin Davis, Crown/Maori Relations, Corrections, Tourism
4. Grant Robertson, Finance, Sports
5. Phil Twyford, Housing, Transport
6. Megan Woods, Energy, Christchurch, Research, EQC
7. Chris Hipkins, Education, State Services, Leader of the House
8. Andrew Little, Justice, Courts, SIS/GCSB, Treaty Negotiations, Pike River
9. Carmel Sepuloni, Social Development, Disability Issues
10. David Clark, Health
11. David Parker, Attorney-General, Economic Development, Environment, Trade
12. Nanaia Mahuta, Maori Development, Local Government
13. Stuart Nash, Police, Fisheries, Revenue, Small Business
14. Iain Lees-Galloway, Workplace Safety, Immigration, ACC
15. Jenny Salesa, Building, Ethnic
16. Damian O’Connor, Agriculture, Biosecurity, Food Safety, Rural
17. Clare Curran, Broadcasting, Communications, Digital
18. Ron Mark, Defence, Veterans
19. Tracey Martin, Children, Internal Affairs, Seniors
20. Shane Jones, Forestry, Infrastructure, Regional Economic Development
    Outside Cabinet
21. Kris Faafoi, Civil Defence
22. Peeni Henare, Voluntary Sector, Whanua Ora, Youth
23. Willie Jackson, Employment
24. Aupito William Sio, Pacific
25. Meka Whaitiri, Customs
26. James Shaw, Climate Change, Statistics
27. Julie-Anne Genter, Women
28. Eugenie Sage, Conservation, Land Information
    Under-Secretaries
29. Michael Wood, PUS for Ethnic Communities
30. Fletcher Tabuteau, PUS for Foreign Affairs and Regional Development
31. Jan Logie, PUS for Domestic and Sexual Violence Issues

My normal analysis of the election results is finally done, and embedded below. 45 pages of tables showing how each party did in each electorate, with comparisons to last time.

2017 Final Election Results by David Farrar on Scribd

The full agreement is here. Most reviews are ignored as meaningless. Main items are:

• Introduce a Zero Carbon Act and establish an independent Climate Commission. These are actually meaningless virtue signals. What matters is the actual policies to reduce emissions. It is easy to set a target.
• National Land Transport Fund spending will be reprioritised to increase the investment in rail infrastructure in cities and regions, and cycling and walking. So decisions will not be based on the best return.
• Auckland’s East-West motorway link will not proceed as currently proposed.
• Work will begin on light rail from the city to the airport in Auckland.
• Stimulate up to $1 billion of new investment in low carbon industries by 2020, kick-started by a Government-backed Green Investment Fund of $100 million.
• Budget provision will be made for significantly increasing the Department of Conservation’s funding.
• Improve water quality and prioritise achieving healthy rivers, lakes and aquifers with stronger regulatory instruments, funding for freshwater enhancement and winding down Government support for irrigation.
• Overhaul the welfare system, ensure access to entitlements, remove excessive sanctions and review Working For Families. Basically this means legalise welfare fraud by having no meaningful sanctions.
• Budget provision will be made to substantially increase the number of homes insulated.
• A Rent to Own scheme or similar progressive ownership models will be developed as part of Labour’s Kiwibuild programme.
• Ensure everyone has access to timely and high quality mental health services, including free counselling for those under 25 years.
• Have a referendum on legalising the personal use of cannabis at, or by, the 2020 general election. A referendum I’ll be glad to support.

The full agreement is here. For the most part all the reviews are not covered here as they may lead to nothing. So what are the big items:

• $1 billion regional development fund
• 100 million trees a year to be planted
• A feasibility study for moving Ports of Auckland. This means it won’t happen.
• Re-establish the NZ Forestry Service
• Reform the Reserve Bank Act – likely to mean higher inflation
• Increase minimum wage to $20 by April 2021. Is currently $15.75 so this is $4.25 over four years or around $1.20 cents a year. Has currently been going up 50 cents a year so this will have an impact on jobs.
• Re-establish the Mental Health Commission.
• Annual Free Health Check for Seniors including an eye check as part of the SuperGold Card.
• Progressively increase the age for free breast screening to 74.
• Pilot counsellors in primary schools.
• Restore funding for Computers in Homes.
• Establish a Housing Commission
• Strive towards adding 1800 new Police officers over three years
• Increase Community Law Centre funding.
• Establish a Criminal Cases Review Commission. This is a rare good policy.
• National Superannuation eligibility to remain at 65.
• If the Climate Commission determines that agriculture is to be included in the ETS, then upon entry, the free allocation to agriculture will be 95%.
• Increase support for National Science Challenges, including for piloting alternatives to 1080 and countering myrtle rust and kauri dieback.
• No resource rentals for water in this term of Parliament
• Introduce a royalty on exports of bottled water
• Work with Māori and other quota holders to resolve outstanding issues in the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill in a way that is satisfactory to both Labour and New Zealand First.  This means the sanctuary is dead unless corporate fisheries owners get paid money. That would set a precedent for all future marine reserves.
• Independent review of the integrity of electoral processes and enrolments. I doubt the review will be at all independent. They will have an outcome in mind. Be very scared.
• Introduce and pass a ‘Waka Jumping’ Bill. This law allows party leaders to expel MPs from Parliament who disagree with them. Awful.
• Allow a conscience vote for MPs on New Zealand First’s Supplementary Order Paper to the End of Life Choice Bill, which provides for a referendum.  Weird, as it is a conscience vote anyway.
• Support New Zealand First’s Racing policy. NZ First donors once again get a win!
• Work towards a Free Trade Agreement with the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan Customs Union and initiate Closer Commonwealth Economic Relations. Double weird. Against an FTA with the US and against an FTA with China but Winston wants an FTA with Russia and Belarus!

I’ll analyse the policy agreements tomorrow. But for now look at all the pretty baubles NZ First got with just 7% of the vote. They have:

1. Deputy Prime Minister
2. Foreign Affairs
3. Defence
4. Infrastructure
5. Regional Economic Development
6. SOEs
7. Children
8. Internal Affairs
9. Seniors
10. Veterans’ Affairs
11. Forestry
12. Racing
13. Associate Finance
14. Associate Education

14 portfolios for 7% is a lot. The combination of regional development, infrastructure and SOEs is a huge influence economically and they have both major external portfolios (except trade which they’re against except with Russia).

Labour really were desperate to get them on board if they agreed to give up all those portfolios.

Richard Harman writes at Politik:

On September 26, three days after the election, the National party’s pollster, David Farrar, on his Kiwblog said: “Twenty-two of the best 23 seats for NZ First are National held seats.

“This will also make it very interesting for them if they decide to support a Labour-led Government.

“I’m not sure all those provincial and rural voters that voted NZ First will be keen on the inevitable political correctness and anti-agriculture policies that will eventuate from such a Government.

“I’d say there would be a huge backlash.

“This is why I’m quite keen to have Winston go with Labour and Greens.

“ It will be sad for the country, but good for National in the long term as they’d ride a wave of discontent in 2020 and only need to pick up two more seats to govern. “

These comments from Farrar were frequently quoted by National Party sources spoken to by POLITIK over the past few weeks as a reason for the negotiators not to do a deal with NZ First.

I don’t actually think a blog post from me had any influence on the negotiations. But in case they did, Jacinda is welcome to send me a bottle of Pinot Noir as thanks!

More seriously I am glad that National didn’t abandon all its policies just to get a deal with Winston. NZ First got only 7% of the vote but wanted massive changes to economic policies that would have damaged New Zealand. Good on National for holding firm and standing up for the 45% of New Zealanders who did vote for them.

Stuff reports:

Vandals have damaged machinery on at least three Canterbury dairy farms.

Dougal King said someone had drilled holes in 30 irrigator tyres at his Hororata farm, about 60 kilometres west of Christchurch, on Friday night.

“We went out on Saturday morning to move them and they wouldn’t move.”

It had put three of his six centre-pivot irrigators out of action until they could be repaired, he said. …

Derek Crombie, chief executive of the Central Plains Water irrigation scheme, said he knew of one other Hororata farm and a Leeston farm that had milk emptied out of their vats over the weekend.

“It’s pretty mindless vandalism, really.”

He said contractors would check Central Plains Water’s own infrastructure for damage after the weekend, but there was “nothing obvious”.

A police spokeswoman said there had been a report of a burglary at a farm on Harmans Rd, Leeston, on Friday night or Saturday morning.

“The complainants report that the offender has opened the external tap to a milk vat and allowed 50,000 litres of milk to drain out.”

Could this be an organised campaign? When politicians wrongfully blame poor water quality on farming and irrigation (the worst quality is in fact in urban areas), then you encourage anti-farmer sentiment that leads to this.