National has announced:

Hamish Walker has tonight been selected by local party members as National’s 2017 Clutha-Southland candidate.

Mr Walker, 32, lives in the Clutha-Southland electorate with his partner Penny and has a strong family history to the Clutha-Southland area. He currently works as a business advisor, specialising in strategy and governance.

“I’m excited to have this opportunity and am ready to hit the ground running,” Mr Walker says.

Last election Hamish stood for Dunedin South, one of the safest Labour seats in the country. He probably never imagined that just three years later he’d be standing for National in one of the safest National seats.

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister Bill English has ruled out allowing the Reserve Bank to introduce further curbs to home lending, and has signalled it should have a plan to remove a key lending restriction already in place.

​The central bank has come under fire recently from real estate agents saying its loan to value ratio rules (LVRs) are squeezing buyers out of the housing market even as prices flatten and in some case fall.

House prices are now looking stable, which is good. This is why English has ruled out DTIs and said LVRs should eventually go.

Stuff reports:

The Island Bay cycleway fiasco just got stranger after a Wellington city councillor called 111 as protesters staged a traffic cone protest in the main street.

A group from the Island Bay Residents’ Association put the cones out in the southern Wellington suburb on Saturday afternoon to demonstrate against the likely impact of the loss of 17 car parks in the shopping centre  under the latest proposals for the controversial cycleway.

Businesses on The Parade, including Island Bay Butchery, say they fear being forced to close if the 17 car parks go.

Councillor Chris Calvi-Freeman, who witnessed the cone protest, said he was concerned about protesters standing in the road, and  felt “duty bound” to call police via the emergency number.

Councillor Calvi-Freeman was totally wrong to call 111. 111 is for situations such as:

• someone is badly injured or in danger
• a serious risk to life or property
• a crime is being committed and offenders still there
• a tree is blocking a highway

It is not because some car parks have had cones put in them as a protest.

A police spokeswoman that, if the positioning of the cones posed a “serious risk to public safety”, police should be called.

“It doesn’t sound, in this case, there was a serious risk.”

This looks like a Councillor abusing his position to bully protesters and try and get them arrested. Shame.

Councillors must now decide which options to go with: options A to D, which are essentially changes to what is there; option E, favoured by the residents’ association and businesses; or option F.

Neither options E or F are part of the public consultation process.

Councillor Diane Calvert, who has the community planning and engagement portfolio, said under options A, B, and C, 17 car parks would go from the shopping centre. Under option D, two would go.

While options E and F were not put out for consultation, that did not stop councillors from considering them, she said. “We are listening – that is why it is really important that people did have a say.”

At Island Bay Butchery, Don Andrews said that if the parks were removed permanently, his business of 30-odd years could probably not keep going.

Across the road at cafe Floyd’s, owner Dane Hur said losing the parks could be a fatal blow to her cafe and others in the village.

This is a huge issue for Island Bay residents. The initial cycleway enraged them and the so called “fix” options are making it even worse as every single option means less carparks. If the Council gets it wrong again, there will be electoral consequences.

The Herald reports:

Secondary school principals have slammed a Labour proposal for free driving lessons in school hours as “low-level thinking that is not helpful”.

Some things don’t change.

Secondary School Principals Association president Mike Williams, the principal of Pakuranga College, said many secondary schools already provided driver education, which has been available for the National Certificate of Educational Achievement(NCEA) since 2015.

New Labour leader Jacinda Ardern announced today that Labour would spend $50 million a year on a “school leaver toolkit” including five free professional driving lessons, a free defensive driving course and free tests for learner’s and restricted licences.

The “toolkit” would also include compulsory “civics” education in Years 11 to 13 and options for budgeting, financial literacy, work experience and practical certificates such as first aid and heavy machinery licences.

Beware what Labour call civics education. This is basically indoctrination about the importance of unions, voting for Labour etc. I’ll support compulsory civics education in schools if I get to write the syllabus!

Williams said: “If those are the biggest issues there are in education, I’d be very surprised.”

“The reality is that in an awful lot of schools driver education is happening already. Financial literacy is happening in an awful lot of schools already, and civics programmes are happening in an awful lot of schools already,” he said.

Labour are trying to force something on every school, which may not be appropriate. Schools can work out best what their students needs – not Labour. The core compulsory curriculum should be maths, english, science – not budgeting and driving.

Stuff reports:

An Auckland pastor has been called “hateful and shameful” after saying gay people should be shot in the head the moment they marry.

Logan Robertson of Westcity Bible Baptist Church in Avondale shared his strong thoughts on gay marriage during a service, which was filmed and published online in July this year.

Robertson said his view on “homo marriage” was that it was never mentioned in the Bible.

“So I’m not against them getting married as long as a bullet goes through their head the moment they kiss,” Robertson told his congregation. 

What a disgusting human being this man is.

The church is reported to have a membership of about 40 people.

I think he sees himself as our version of Rev Fred Phelps.

Andrew Curtis from Irrigation NZ writes:

Labour’s announcement of a tax water will hit not just the dairy industry but is bad news for all New Zealanders. Labour won’t be drawn on how much the tax would cost. Apparently it may vary by region based on the scarcity and quality of water. And no assessment has been made of how it would affect the average Kiwi.

However, if there’s one thing you can be certain of, it is that like all taxes, it is not actually a tax on the supplier of goods, because like all taxes it will be passed on to the consumer. In the same way that businesses factor in the costs of paying company tax and GST on goods they use, we will all end up paying.

There is an alarming lack of detail around what has been announced. It can hardly be called a policy, or a plan, because all we have to go on is a one page press release. Calls to the Labour Party headquarters asking for more details were fruitless.

There’s a pattern here. As a backbench MP Jacinda did bills that were not actual serious attempts at law making but were one page press releases masquerading as a bill. Now the same approach is happening with policy.

Debate so far has focused on a water tax for dairy farmers as a way to clean up rivers. But around half of New Zealand’s irrigated land has other uses – sheep, beef, crops, vegetables, fruit and grapes. If a water tax is introduced you can look forward to paying more for bread, vegetables, fruit, cereals and lamb and beef as well as dairy products.

In a time when obesity is creating a mounting public health crisis, why would we want to add to the cost of purchasing healthy food for New Zealand’s poorest families?

No doubt Labour will have the solution – another tax!

Labour says that if you have a water consent you will be charged for water for irrigation but if you take water from a council water supply you won’t.

It’s not that easy. It would mean a lifestyle property owner using a council water supply wouldn’t get charged, but another lifestyle block owner down the road who happened to be connected to an irrigation scheme would.

Some irrigation schemes supply towns, so would town dwellers connected to an irrigation scheme pay, or not? Other irrigation schemes generate hydro-electric power with some of their water – which is to be excluded from the tax.

Some local communities have built water storage using their own money. Can you charge communities a water royalty for a supply of water they’ve created?

This is what happens when you just make up policy on the spot.

The Herald reports:

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has strongly condemned the New Zealand Labour Party – saying should it be in power after the election it would be “very hard” to build trust.

“New Zealand is facing an election. Should there be a change of Government, I would find it very hard to build trust with those involved in allegations designed to undermine the Government of Australia,” Bishop said today.

“I’m referring to Bill Shorten using a foreign political party to raise questions in a foreign parliament deliberately designed to undermine confidence in the Australian Government.”

Bishop made the extraordinary comments after Labour MP Chris Hipkins on August 9 put in two parliamentary written questions to Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne about the legal status of an Australian born to a New Zealand parent.

This is a huge blunder by Hipkins, who used his special position in the NZ Parliament to try and help Australian Labor topple the Australian Government.

It is no big issue that sometimes there will be different parties in power in NZ and Australia. Governments go out of their way to forge a good relationship regardless of the side of the political fence you are in. Two good examples are Helen Clark & John Howard and John Key & Julia Gillard. They worked together for the good of both countries, putting aside the fact that they know NZ National Party would of course prefer their sister Liberal Party to be in Government, and the same for NZ Labour and Australian Labour.

So it is not a big thing that each party may have a few activists who go over and help at an election time, or even share campaign advisers etc.

But what is a big thing is for an MP of one country’s Parliament to use their role to help the parliamentary party of another country’s Parliament. And that is what Chris Hipkins did by asking these two written questions (1, 2)on behalf of Bill Shorten.

It would have been obvious to Hipkins that Australian Labor wanted this information to bring down a Government MP. He may not have known it was the Deputy Prime Minister but he would have known why Australian Labor was asking, and also be aware the Australian Government has a one seat majority in the House of Representatives and so the loss of even one seat could bring down the Government.

That was just days after an Australian journalist asked about Australia’s Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce’s citizenship.

Here’s why Hipkins involvement was important, even though there had been media inquiries also. There is no deadline for DIA to respond to inquiries by foreign journalists. Even if it was a NZ journalist asking, they could take up to four weeks to answer under the OIA.

But by having Hipkins ask a parliamentary question, the Minister is obliged to answer within five working days or one week. So Hipkins was able to get Australian Labor the information as much as three weeks earlier.

Labour leader Jacinda Ardern, apparently responding to Bishop’s comments, tweeted that she knew “absolutely nothing about the Barnaby Joyce case until it broke in the media yesterday”.

“I value our relationship with the Australian Govt highly. I won’t let disappointing & false claims stand in the way of that relationship,” Ardern tweeted.

What false claims? It is established that Hipkins was asking on behalf of Australian Labor. If she doesn’t know what her front benchers are doing, that doesn’t make the claim false.

“I greatly value New Zealand’s relationship with the Australian Government. I will not let false claims stand in the way of that relationship.

“I would happily take a call from Julie Bishop to clarify matters.”

So she is calling Julie Bishop a liar and saying the onus is on the Australian Foreign Minister to call her, not her to call Bishop and apologise for what Hipkins has done.

NZ First leader Winston Peters, a former Foreign Minister, said the Hipkins’ “hit” on Joyce was the equivalent of the underarm delivery.

“It is distasteful to see the New Zealand Labour Party colluding with the Australian Labor Party on what was a political hit job targeting the Australian Deputy Prime Minister.”

Have to agree with Winston on this one.

Peters said if any of his MPs behaved like Hipkins they would be demoted right down the list.

“You cannot have people behaving in that rogue way, or think it’s a smart idea. The truth is, she [Ardern] must have known.”

Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee said Bishop’s comments were understandable given Hipkin’s actions – which he described as “quite extraordinary.”

“It’s extraordinary that a New Zealand member of Parliament has allowed himself to be used by a party in a different country with an intent to bring another party in that country down.

Make no mistake this has caused huge anger within the Australian Government. Helping the Opposition to try and bring down the Deputy Prime Minister will mean very frosty relations if Labour forms a Government in New Zealand.

Caging Skies is a play that will resonate with many people, but especially resonated with me. It is set in Nazi occupied Vienna during and after WWII, and is based on the novel by Christine Leunens about a member of Hitler Youth who falls for a Jewish girl.

My father’s family was born in Vienna and were refugees from the Nazi regime I was intrigued but also nervous about seeing the play. he set is dominated by a huge portrait of Adolf Hitler, whom young Johannes worships, so is pretty confronting.

The play has four characters. Yohannes, who is a fanatical member of Hitler Youth. He is recovering at home from wounds from a bomb attack.

His mother Roswita and grandmother Oma live with him. His father is missing and his mother is no fan of the Nazis. His grandmother is a source of good advice and humour.

Yohannes discovers the Jewish Elsa hiding in their house. She was a friend of his dead sister. If he turns her in, his family would be executed so he puts his family ahead of his beliefs – for now.

The play is about the relationship that develops between Elsa and Johannes. This is no tale of flawed hero redeemed by a loving woman. Johannes remains an unsympathethic character throughout, even though he becomes two dimensional.

Caging Skies was very powerful and has a satisfying ending. If you can handle the setting, it is a good two hours of drama.

The biggest flaw was that the development of the relationship seemed rushed and artifical. One can’t really see why he starts to develop feelings for her other than he is a teenager and she is beautiful and why she has feelings for him is also unconvincing. I want to now go and buy the book so I can see the greater detail possible there.

Tim Earl was very convincing as Johannes. Claire Waldron excelled as Roswita, and there were also strong performances from Donna Akersten as Oma and Comfrey Sanders as Elsa. Roswita’s plot arc is very moving.

Desiree Gezentsvey has done a very good job with the production. There were many dramatic moments that kept the show at a good pace, and had the 110 minutes fly by. The parts of the play set after the war ended were especially good.

This was the first play at Circa I have managed since Benjamin was born. Was a very good one to start with.

Rating: ****

The Herald reports:

The Anglican Diocese of Christchurch has announced today that it will consider gifting the earthquake-crippled Christ Church Cathedral to the Government “for the people of New Zealand”.

It’s been more than six years since the Gothic-style 136-year-old cathedral was badly damaged in the 6.3-magnitude February 22, 2011 earthquake that devastated the Garden City.

Arguments over whether the building in the heart of Christchurch should be restored to its former glory, partly-reinstated, or demolished and replaced with a modern new building have raged between the church, heritage campaigners, and the wider public over the past six-and-a-half years.

Today, in a shock move, the church has announced that members of its Synod will this week consider three, not two, options regarding the future of the Christ Church Cathedral at a series of area meetings.

“The new option is for the Synod to gift the Cathedral building to the Government for the people of New Zealand,” the church said in a statement.

This is quite a cunning move. Everyone is demanding that the Church agree to restore the Cathedral and have offered money for this. But it is the Church who wears the risks of cost escalation and ongoing maintenance.

So offering to gift it to the Crown is a cunning move.

“By gifting the Cathedral building to the Government, it would be reinstated to its former glory and managed by them on behalf of all New Zealanders for use as a public space. I am not saying that will happen but it is a possibility I think we need to put before the Synod.”

Personally I think if you are going to spend $100 million in Christchurch, I’d rather spend it on new facilities such as a stadium, arts precinct etc rather than restore a church.

As most people will have read, an Australian who is also a dual citizen of NZ is ineligible to be an Australian MP. It seems this applies even if they don’t actively seek citizenship.

So this is a great opportunity for us. We should tell Australia that we are looking to pass a law making anyone elected to the Australian Parliament an automatic citizen of New Zealand. This means the Australian Parliament and Government would cease functioning as the moment someone is elected, they are disqualified.

Two water bottlers have released:

Charging water exporters a per litre levy will penalise a small, struggling New Zealand industry and lead to company closures and job losses, say two Putaruru water bottlers. Aquasplash and NZ Quality Waters are united in their opposition to Labour’s proposed water policy and say it is unfair to cherry pick by industry

“You should charge everyone who uses water for commercial purposes, or no one.  As it stands, this policy would hit small exporters like us but wouldn’t affect the big multi-nationals who are using the same resources. At a time when people are upset about the lack of tax paid by companies such as Google and Apple, is this really a wise position to take?” says Aquasplash chief executive Mark Manson. 

He and NZ Quality Waters General Manager Bruce Sherman agree, if the policy became law, many of the 27 water bottlers around the country could close. “It would hit the livelihood of the 370 people who work directly in the industry, plus a similar number indirectly. The majority of those 750 people work and live in rural economically depressed parts of the country. A lot of those jobs could disappear,” says Manson.

It is a tax on rural New Zealand.

Sherman adds: “Of the 213 billion litres of water consented for bottling, only 0.5% of that is used. A mere 26 million litres were exported in 2016, equivalent to just two minutes’ flow over the Huka Falls or one and a half hours’ consumption of water in Auckland. And why is so little water exported? Because there’s virtually no money in it. It’s a hugely competitive global industry and the offshore markets are swamped by the giants like Evian and Perrier. Our margins are already extremely low so an additional levy would see companies shut down.”

Think about that. The amount of bottled water actually exported in 120 seconsd worth of water at the Huka Falls! This is the massive problem that Jacinda says must be stopped and taxed.

Manson adds: “Given a 10c per litre levy, and assuming everyone managed to stay in business, we’re talking about an extra $2.6 million a year into Government coffers. Is that worth it for a potential loss of 750 jobs and the extra WINZ benefits those people would then require?” He says Aquasplash’s contract with the South Waikato District Council allows it to take up to 200,000 litres per day from the Blue Spring. Currently it uses 35,000 litres per day. That equates to 0.4 litres per second, compared to the minimum flow through the Blue Spring of 700 litres per second. “Clearly, this is a very sustainable, well-monitored and well-controlled water supply.”

So they are taking 0.1% of the flow. How terrible.

Part Three of the guest post by David Garrett:

In parts one and two I compared and contrasted  the media treatment of a disgraced  MP from the supposedly far right – myself – and one from the fuzzy centre left, one Darren Hughes. Let’s now consider the most recent disgraced MP under  the same criteria – seriousness of crime/misconduct, and the treatment of that person by the media. My thesis is that the degree of intensive and hostile media scrutiny has little to do with the seriousness of the crime, and when it was committed, but on  the PARTY that person comes from, or at least their position on the political spectrum.

On Sunday 16 July, at the Green Party’s 2017 AGM, Metiria Turei made a revelation about her past which was to lead to her resignation – eventually – as Green Party co-leader. In solemn tones, she told the audience that when she was on the DPB in the early 1990’s she was “forced to lie” to the  then Social Welfare Department about income she was receiving but not declaring “because I did not dare”. The “meme” was that beneficiaries are kept in penury, barely able – or if Turei was to be believed UNABLE – to put food on the table for themselves and their children. Her revelation went down well with the hard left faction of her party, and led to a brief lift in the polls.

As others have noted, it wasn’t so much the admitted fraud – although as the story developed  and the sum defrauded grew  that changed somewhat – it was the fact that far from being in any way ashamed or remorseful for what she had done, Turei was “loud and proud” about it. For her, her actions were those of a brave social justice warrior ignoring the constraints of a draconian and wholly unjust law, rather like a conscientious objector willing to suffer imprisonment rather than be subjected to conscription.

While the media reported her speech, and her revelation, it was not a major story; a mention half way through the News at best.  There was some half hearted questioning of her by a largely uninterested media; there was no chasing after her when she royally decided she had answered sufficient questions. The clips available online make that quite clear.

I was puzzled and frankly pissed off that there had been little or no media attention on a person who: 1) while a law student had committed fraud on the taxpayer, and was wholly unremorseful about it; and 2) who continued to run a narrative that far from having committed a crime, she was in fact a victim; a noble mother doing whatever had to be done to feed her poor baby; and 3) actively encouraging others who were currently in her supposedly benighted position, to continue ripping off the taxpayer if that’s what they were doing.

On 21 July I sent a text to Jane Patterson of Radio New Zealand, who I had hitherto regarded as one of the best and fairest political journos in New Zealand. Readers of this series will recall that it was Jane I entrusted with my one and only interview after the shit hit the fan in September 2010. My text reads:

“…I was wondering when I was going to hear you rip into Ms Turei for historical dishonesty involving 50 grand of taxpayers’ money…or did I miss it?”

There was no reply, then or since. Shortly thereafter, the story began to grow very tentative legs when Turei revealed that during the period in question, not only had she  ripped off the taxpayer, but she had committed electoral fraud, by registering to vote in the 1993 election at an address she didn’t live at. It soon became known that the person who DID live there was  – surprise surprise – the father of her child, the poor underfed Piupiu, for whom the brave Ms Turei had lied.

It is important to remember that at the time,  Turei was a law student. When I became one in 1988 I was acutely aware that I had a terrible  and shameful secret that could do me great harm – a false passport obtained four years earlier, but never used. I took legal advice on what to do – my preference was to confess, but the advice was that to do so was unnecessary, and would almost certainly lead to my being prosecuted. I was advised to destroy the damn thing and hope for the best, which I  duly did.

Turei took a very different path. Not only did she fail to “put right” her dodgy benefit claims after beginning law studies,  but she committed an entirely new offence, that of electoral fraud. As a law student, one of the compulsory papers – Public Law – covers our constitutional arrangements. One is made very aware that the Electoral Act is  one  of the few statutory foundations of our largely unwritten constitution.

The Electoral Act is so important that it contains a number of important provisions which can only be repealed or amended by a super majority of parliament – 75% of members must vote to change  those sections. So Ms Turei had, not years before while living an entirely different life, but while a law student, knowingly breached one of the cornerstones of our electoral law.

Still there was little media interest. As Mr Google will attest, the media allowed any questioning of her on this fundamental breach to be spun into a “conversation” about the plight of the poor, and the supposed unavoidable need for solo parents to lie in order to feed their children.

The media also allowed her to  spin what later came to be accepted as a lie – that she and only she had supported her daughter financially. Still there was little media interest, and a media conference Turei held was restrained and respectful – no yelling of questions; no shoving of microphones up her nose, no preventing her getting on a plane to fly back to her castle in Dunedin, leaving the hapless and clearly out of his depth James Shaw to deal with the growing  mess.

The media only really became interested in  the story when Kennedy Graham and David Clendon announced, on 7 August, that they could no longer remain on the Green list while Turei was leader. This was in effect an entirely different story; a purely political story rather than one involving not one but two  crimes, one against the Electoral Act. It was all about “betrayal”, not by Turei, but by Messrs Graham and Clendon

From that that point, the wheels quickly  began to fall off the “Saintly Metiria” wagon, and on 9 August, after having  written questions put to her by John Campbell regarding the substantial financial contributions her child’s grandmother had made during the time Turei was on the benefit, she resigned rather than answer those questions.  Have a look at the unctuous Campbell “interview” with her on Checkpoint: Campbell adopted a mournful tone, at one point saying “O God this is such a difficult question to ask”…somewhat reminiscent of his respectful and fawning “So, how are you coping?” put to former mayor Len Brown after his sexual misconduct was revealed.

Can one possibly imagine Campbell would have adopted such a tone with me, with Aaron Gilmore, or Todd Barclay? No, it would have been  increasingly insistent and aggressive  demands to “answer the question!”. But Radio New Zealand wasn’t finished there.

The next day, Lyn Freeman, subbing for Kathryn Ryan, undertook the softest of interviews with James Shaw on the events of the previous few weeks.  Rather than refer to Ms Turei, it was all “Metiria” this and “Metiria” that. Freeman allowed Shaw to continue the spin, and keep portraying the story as one of a poor desperate solo mum, forced to lie to feed her child – and about the “traitors” Graham and Clendon who had abandoned their lying and deceitful leader in her time of need.

Regular readers will know of my former respect for RNZ. I never subscribed to the “red radio” label; as I have said many times I always got a very fair shake from them during and especially at the explosive end of my career. But I am supportive of taxpayers’ money funding this radio station no more. We have come to almost expect Katie Bradford breathlessly telling us that “whatever we say and whatever we do the polls just won’t shift”. We have come to roll our eyes when we see bug eyed pieces to camera by Gower, or once over lightly pieces in the former Journal of Record. And that’s exactly  what we got with this story. I expected much better from Radio New Zealand. The voting public were very poorly served by ALL our media – but most especially the state funded one.

UPDATE: A response from Guyon Espiner:

David Garrett suggests I am compromised in my coverage of MPs.

If there are people who are interested in testing his views then they can go back and listen to, watch and read my interviews, analysis and reporting of politics over the last two decades and make up their own minds.

He’s also critical of RNZ coverage of the recent woes afflicting the Green Party.

Interestingly though just last week it was David Garrett who admitted his bias while congratulating me on a Morning Report interview with the Green Party co-leader James Shaw!

His unsolicited email, which I haven’t responded to, is released here:

 

From: David Garrett
Sent: Tuesday, 8 August 2017 8:57 p.m.
To: Guyon Espiner
Subject: Shaw interview

Bugger me, I never thought I ‘d see the day when I would be coming to YOUR defence Espiner!

If Shaw thought that interview was worthy of complaint, he should get a new job…and yes, of course I am biased, but I thought you pressing him for a yes or no answer was perfectly legitimate…and the bullshit about the choice being “to lie or to put food in a child’s mouth” was utter crap! Is the Frog seriously suggesting that the father, and the grandmother, were both letting poor little Piupiu go hungry? I hope you give her the same sort of grilling if she ventures onto Morning Report.

If anything you were too lenient on Shaw…Well done.

Here’s the new party list for the Greens with the three MPs having departed. I’ve included an estimate as to what party vote percentage is needed for them to be elected.

1. James Shaw 5.0%
2. Marama Davidson 5.0%
3. Julie Anne Genter 5.0%
4. Eugenie Sage 5.0%
5. Gareth Hughes 5.0%
6. Jan Logie 5.0%
7. Chloe Swarbrick 5.2%
8. Golriz Ghahraman 6.0%
9. Mojo Mathers 6.8%
10. Barry Coates 7.6%
11. Jack McDonald 8.4%
12. John Hart 9.2%
13. Denise Roche 10.0%
14. Hayley Holt 10.8%
15. Teall Crossen 11.6%
16. Teanau Tuiono 12.4%
17. Leilani Tamu 13.2%

Not very gender balanced with only two blokes in their top nine. They need a man quota! 🙂

News.com.au reports:

It puts increased pressure on the Nationals leader to step aside, as the matter of his apparent dual citizenship is examined by the High Court.

The shocking revelation, which Mr Joyce made in Parliament this morning, puts Malcolm Turnbull’s majority government under threat.

New Zealand’s Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne has confirmed Mr Joyce is a New Zealand citizen under the Citizenship Act of 1948.

Mr Dunne told local reporters that Crown Law had checked the circumstances and confirmed Mr Joyce was a citizen.

Labor has responded angrily to My Joyce’s declaration that on the basis of legal advice, he would carry on as Deputy PM and continue to vote on legislation in Parliament.

Tony Burke, the Manager for Opposition Business, told Parliament Mr Joyce must step aside and not vote on legislation until the High Court had ruled on his eligibility to be elected.

The call comes as an overwhelming response to a News Corp Australia poll, participated in by several thousand people, shows Australians are split down the middle on the issue.

In an extraordinary admission today, Mr Joyce told the lower house he learnt last week that he could be a citizen of New Zealand by descent via his father.

“Last Thursday afternoon the New Zealand High Commission contacted me to advise that on the basis of preliminary advice from their department of internal affairs, which had received inquiries from the New Zealand Labor Party, they considered that I may be a citizen by descent of New Zealand,” Mr Joyce told Parliament.

So why is NZ Labour trying to depose the Deputy PM of Australia?

Seems bizarre that when someone was born in Australia and has never applied for citizenship elsewhere, they could be ineligible to be an Australian MP.

National announced:

A re-elected National Government will continue its focus on keeping New Zealanders safe by cracking down on the most serious young offenders and holding negligent parents to account.

“Our youth justice system works well for the vast majority of young offenders and our relentless focus on reducing crime has seen the youth crime rate drop 31 per cent. However there remains a small group of around 150 young people who continue to commit large numbers of serious offences,” National’s Justice Spokesperson Amy Adams says.

A small number of persistent offenders can be responsible for a large proportion of the crime rate.

“We want New Zealanders to be safe in their homes, at work, and on the streets, so we will introduce a $60 million package over four years that will deal with the most violent and recidivist young offenders more seriously, to reduce reoffending.

“We will introduce a Young Serious Offender (YSO) classification which will see this very small group of the most hardened young offenders dealt with in ways that better reflect the seriousness of their crimes and help ensure fewer people are victimised.

So this isn’t for most youth offenders, for whom the current system is relatively sucessful. It is for the hard core recividist.

“As a part of this, we will establish a defence-led Junior Training Academy based at the Waiouru Training Camp. Judges will be able to order YSOs who commit serious subsequent offences to attend the Academy for one year. The Academy will support YSOs to address problems like addiction or a lack of literacy and numeracy skills, helping them lead better lives while keeping the public safe.

“Those who fail to complete their time at the Academy will serve a commensurate adult sentence of imprisonment instead.”

It is estimated that approximately 50 YSOs per year will be sent to the Junior Training Academy. $30 million over four years has been allocated to fund the YSO scheme.

Not guaranteed to work, but better than just having them in prison or at large committing more crimes.

A new National Government will also take further steps to help prevent less serious young offenders moving along the pathway to more serious crime.

“In many cases, young people who offend have few good role models or are given the freedom to commit crimes. We will make changes to hold their parents to account, including by allowing Police to issue instant infringement notices to parents of children under 14 walking the streets without supervision between 12am and 5am,” Ms Adams says.

Parental responsibility!

The full policy is here.

Greg could be talking about most of the Labour front bench. How’s this for a career politician CV:

1. Young Labour
2. staffer to Phil Goff
3. staffer to Helen Clark
4. staffer to Tony Blair
5. Labour Party candidate
6. Labour Party MP

Sounds like a career politician to me! So was that who Greg O’Connor was talking about?

The Herald reports:

Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson is warning that Labour’s water taxes could force existing full-and-final Treaty of Waitangi settlements to be opened for renegotiation with iwi.

He said the policy overturned accepted policy of successive Labour and National Governments of the past 25 years that no one owned the water.

Governments applying a tax on water was an assertion of Crown ownership “and then that gives rise to the counter assertion that Maori own water”.

“They are dicing with death, quite frankly,” he told the Herald.

 “It opens a complete Pandora’s Box. I’d like to know [if] it is Labour Party policy that, after all the work we’ve done, both political parties over 25 years, are they proposing to re-open treaty settlements so that this matter can be looked at?

“That totally goes against the fundamental principle that has been bought into by 99 per cent of the New Zealand population,” he said.

If you tax something you are asserting ownership of it, and so Labour’s policy will inevitably lead to court action over who owns water.

Finlayson, who is also the Attorney General, said the Government recognised in settlement a very strong personal connection that people have with various rivers.

“Our Whanganui River settlement is a ground-breaking piece of legislation.

“But there is a great step from saying people have an interest, an historical, a cultural interest in water to saying they potentially own it. That is where, in principle, I could never go.”

Using the Waikato River as an example, he asked: “Is it the proposition that Tuwharetoa own from [Lake Taupo] down to beyond Huka Falls and then Te Arawa owns the water thereafter and then Ngati Raukawa and then you get further down the river and it’s Waikato Tainui? Of its very nature, you can’t own water.”

Jacinda’s water tax is a very bad policy. Make sure you tell everyone about it.

Part Two from David Garrett:

Part one of this series covered the blazing end of my political career, and my resignation as an MP in September 2010. I am reliably informed that in the TVNZ section of the Press Gallery, Guyon Espiner  made a dartboard out of a picture of my face, and gleefully celebrated the taking of  my scalp. Six months later, the MP in  the bulls-eye was Darren Hughes – but the extent and nature of media coverage of him was somewhat different.

I should make clear that most of what follows is either public information, or information from reliable sources. Where I venture into conjecture,  or where I don’t know something for a fact, I will make that quite clear.

On  the night of 1  March 2011 Darren Hughes and others were out on the drink in Wellington after a debate at Victoria university. I am informed that he was at the centre  of a group of young Labour activists drinking with him and other  university students. While it later became clear that Hughes is homosexual, it is important to record that this was not widely known at the time. Parliament is a hot bed of gossip, most especially about MP’s personal peccadilloes and problems – it quickly becomes known who is a heavy drinker; who smokes dope or takes other drugs; and who plays musical beds.

No-one in ACT knew Hughes was gay, and I never recall any Nat mentioning it. I actually liked Hughes – it was hard not to – he was and I am sure still is  extremely witty and articulate, and  he was definitely not one of the  “nasty bastards” – like little Plughead – who are mercifully few in parliament. I have no way of knowing how widely known it was among the Labour members – or more particularly Labour Youth – that Hughes preferred young men to comely young women.

At some point on the night of 1  March 2011, Hughes took an  18 year old  youth – later spun both by media and Labour as “a grown man” – back to the flat in Haitaitai, Wellington, which Hughes shared with Annette King MP. Both Hughes and the object of his sexual interest were apparently drunk – the young man  reported to be far more drunk than Hughes.

No-one on our side of the fence knows exactly  what transpired at the flat, but what is clear is that in the early hours of the following morning, the young man was found running naked down the streets of Haitaitai. He was picked up by the police, and the following day a complaint of a sexual nature was made against Hughes. At that point, the Labour spin machine – and to a lesser extent the left leaning media – went into overdrive.

Firstly, the 18 year old youth became “a grown man” who had gone willingly with Hughes, who was well  known to be homosexual. In other words, “two consenting adults went off to have sex, so what?” The age framing was a  significant part of the spin. In my case, a boy aged two and a half at the time of my offence became “a dead baby”, and he has always remained so in the media. My shameful offence was the same whether the dead person was two days or two years old, but doesn’t “a dead baby” sound so much worse? For Hughes though, I don’t recall the words “youth” or “teenager” ever being used – he was always “ a man”, or at worst, “a young man.”

The police began investigating the complaint,  which by their statements indicated that the allegation was one of either unlawful sexual connection, or sexual violation of some kind. This was certainly no low level indecent assault – what Graeme Edgeler has referred to in the 3S context as “a drunken grope”.

Phil Goff, Labour’s then leader, immediately went on the offensive, accusing ”the Beehive” of leaking the details of the incident.  I know of no evidence that that was how the matter became public knowledge, but I am certainly aware that the Prime Minister’s office knows a great deal more than they are lawfully entitled to – including information of a highly confidential nature that the police provide to the inhabitant for the time being of the ninth floor, regardless of their party.

Hughes first went on leave from parliament – nothing remarkable about that,  I  did the same thing; that’s what MP’s do when a shit storm is erupting about them.

Hughes then effectively disappeared from the public eye for more than three weeks. Readers of part one of this series will recall that TV vans were camped outside my house even AFTER I had resigned; the former Journal of Record sent reporters to Australia to interview someone I had been to school with, and advertised on its front page for “those who know something about David Garrett” to come forward. But what about Darren Hughes’ doings, between the 3^rd of March 2011, and when he resigned on 25 March?

It later transpired that Hughes had gone to ground at Paul Henry’s beach house in Hawkes Bay. Since Henry was what would loosely be described as a journalist, it would surely have been common knowledge among his colleagues that that is where Hughes was? It would certainly not have been at all difficult to find out – New Zealand is a very small place, and Paul Henry was then a leading media figure.

But no TV vans outside Henry’s hideaway; no door stopping Hughes, just media reports  from Labour sources which suggested that the “grown man” must have known exactly what Hughes had in mind when he went back with him  to the flat in Haitatai.

From that point until the police announced Hughes would not face charges, the media virtually shut down the story. It was yesterday’s news. Perhaps not surprising when it became known that Hughes had acted at MC at Guyon Espiner’s wedding – the same Guyon Espiner who had gleefully led the hounds after me, and placed my image over the dartboard in the TVNZ office.

Now, one can have anyone one likes as MC at their wedding, and I’m sure Hughes did a fantastic job – as I have said he is witty, clever, and highly articulate. I’m sure it was a wonderful occasion. But while an MC is not quite the best man, one does not chose just “some joker you know” to fill that role; you choose as MC a person who is a close,  if not one’s closest friend, and someone you have spent considerable time with.

DPF: Just to add some context here, Guyon’s wife used to work for Darren Hughes. So it wasn’t Darren being MC as he was best mates with Guyon, but rather that he was a very close friend and former boss of Emma.

So was Mr Espiner an impartial commentator on the Hughes affair? I suggest that he cannot have been. Was it proper that he led the charge against me, a person at the opposite end of the political spectrum to his good mate? You decide.

Eventually the police investigation into Hughes was concluded, with the announcement that he would face no charges over the incident some months before. Hughes immediately  foolishly burst into print claiming he was the victim of a false complaint. The police then took the highly unusual step of making a second public statement, making it clear that there was no question of a false complaint having been made, it was simply that “the evidence did not meet the evidential threshold required to bring charges”, in other words, in police speak, “we are sure an offence occurred, but we don’t think we can prove it”. Readers may argue about my paraphrasing, but it is certainly most unusual for the police to specify that there was no question of a false complaint.

So, what happened on the night of1/2 March 2011 at Darren Hughes’ flat in Wellington? Did the young man in question know he was going home with someone sexually interested in him? What did Hughes actually do  which resulted in a young man  running down the road naked and in a distressed state some hours later? Who knows? Well, some people know, but I am not one of them.

What is clear is that the jackals of the media gave Hughes a very easy ride over the whole business. Hughes left the country for a sinecure in London arranged by his mates in the Labour party. To the best of my knowledge, he hasn’t featured in political commentary since – until he was well down the list of “disgraced politicians” featured in the article last week to which I referred at the beginning of this piece.

Was the media coverage of Hughes commensurate with  whatever had occurred late at night at his flat? While he never faced charges, it is abundantly clear that SOMETHING of a serious sexual nature happened there – the lengthy police investigation, and their comments thereon, are clear evidence of that.

Next and last, Metiria Turei…or “Metiria” as she is known to New Zealand’s political journalists.

A lot has happened since July, but for this is how things stood at the end of July with Labour’s low polling leading to the demise of Andrew Little, and then in early August the Greens’ poll drop leading to the demise of Metiria Turei. Never let it be said polls don’t have a real impact!

The Curia newsletter summary for July is:

Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 111, July 2017

There were four political voting polls in July – a Roy Morgan a Newshub Reid Research and two One New Colmar Bruntons.  The July polling led to the demise of Labour Leader Andrew Little.

The average of the public polls saw National 19% ahead of Labour in July, down 2% from June.

 The seat projection for July was centre-right 60 seats, centre-left 46 which would see the Maori Party hold the balance of power.

We show the current New Zealand poll averages for party vote, country direction and preferred PM compared to three months ago, a year ago, three years ago and nine years ago. This allows easy comparisons between terms and Governments.

National’s party vote is around the same as a year ago but down from three years ago.

Labour’s party vote in July was below a year ago, and three years ago,

In the United States Trump’s net approval rating has fallen 5% to -18%.

In the UK, the country direction is massively pessimistic with a net 24% decline over two months.

In Australia, both Turnbull and Shorten have -20% approval ratings.

In Canada, the Liberals increase slightly to an 8% lead over the Conservatives.

We also carry details of polls on Todd Barclay, Metiria Turei, euthanasia, tourist tax, immigration, America’s Cup, plastic bag levy, and cannabis as well as business and consumer confidence.

This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail.  If you would like to receive future issues, please go to http://curia.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e9168e04adbaaaf75e062779e&id=8507431512 to subscribe yourself.

 

Stuff reports:

The Green Party has rejected Kennedy Graham’s request to be put back on the party’s list following Metiria Turei’s resignation.

Graham and fellow MP David Clendon earlier this week resigned at short notice from the party’s 14-member caucus over the former Greens co-leader’s benefit fraud admission. The men had threatened to quit if the co-leader didn’t resign. 

But their colleagues rallied around Turei, voting on Tuesday to block the pair from future caucus and strategy meetings and to remove them from the party list ahead of the election. 

On Wednesday, Turei did step down, saying the “unbearable” scrutiny of her family was too much. 

The scrutiny she made a deliberate decision to expose them to. And the scrutiny being that she implied the father’s side of the family never supported her, and she resigned when they contacted media with the truth.

In a statement on Saturday morning, the party said it had declined Graham’s request to return as a list candidate for next month’s election. 

“After careful consideration of the facts and Kennedy’s submission, the Executive concluded that he had breached the Party’s Candidate Code of Conduct in a serious manner, and therefore decided to exclude Mr Graham from the Party’s pool,” the statement said. 

He’s being punished for being honest enough to say thet Metiria’s leadership was no longer tenable. The rest of the caucus (bar Clendon) had their ideological blinkers on and couldn’t accept the reality.