Jo Black writes:

For me, working in the Beehive was a great privilege. But for MPs and ministers, the price of having their work as well as their lives under relentless scrutiny is a high one. A trivial mistake can be a headline. I was always anxious. When I look back on working for English and assisting Key’s office from to time, it is not the satisfaction of getting the share offers completed or even getting back to surplus just after I left that are memorable.

I remember such things as the winter my elder daughter had a lengthy bout of illness and the morning I was at work when Key walked in. I asked what I could do for him. “Nothing,” he said. “I’ve come to see how your daughter is ­getting on.” His neighbour’s daughter had the same ­illness. We talked for 10 minutes until, knowing his schedule was always booked within an inch of his sanity, I said, “You’d better go.” He looked at his watch. “Oh,” he said, “there are people due in my office. They won’t mind waiting,” and we talked on.

When he emerged, his office had been ringing around the Beehive, desperately seeking him. I said, “Sorry, I’ve made you late.” “Well,” he said, “some things are more important than others,” and he scooted off.

There is a reason so many staff have stayed on for so long.

Spiked writes:

It is a testament to their cushioned, detached lives that so many in the political and media classes have described 2016 as the worst year ever. They’ve moaned about 2016. Memed about it. Written books about it. ‘Dark Age’, ‘populism’, ‘fascism’, ‘END TIMES’ – the keywords of the 2016 haters.

I guess none of these people lost their homes in 2008, eh? Or their jobs in the fallout from that crash. Or their feeling of political power over the past three decades of rising technocracy and shrinking democracy. Never mind their historical illiteracy. What does 2016 have on 1347 or 1914 in terms of awfulness? Nothing, of course. If you think 2016 was an unspeakably bad year, then all that tells us is you’ve led a cloistered, lovely life, blind to the economic deprivations and sense of political exclusion experienced by others these past years. Bully for you.

A good point. 2008 saw millions lose jobs, houses and investments. 2016 merely saw some election results people didn’t like.

Sadly, these people’s narrative, their Brexit-bashing, Trump-fearing interpretation of 2016 as a most awful year, is becoming the narrative. Because they have the newspaper columns, the book contracts, the platforms. Everyone who disagrees with them is ‘post-truth’. Every vote that toppled their Third Way worldview was an act of hatred. Every revolt against the EU is racism, every criticism of Hillary misogyny, and every mention of ‘the elite’ evidence that people are beholden to a new fascism, because didn’t the Nazis also bash ‘the elites’? ‘Sixteen reasons why 2016 was the worst year ever’, their mad headlines declare.

Enough. We can’t let their tantrums, their petty fury that their political outlook has taken a pounding, come to define 2016. For this has been the most exciting political year since 1989. Here are five reasons why.

Their five reasons:

1. It’s the year we said ‘We can say that’
2. It’s the year TINA was sent packing
3. It’s the year we said solidarity is better than identity
4. It’s the year the masses returned
5. It’s the year we took a risk

Jenesa Jeram blogs:

So with the spirit of Nigella in mind, I want you to consider an important question: does New Zealand need a sugar tax to protect us from Christmas excesses?

Sugar taxes have, after all, been the flavour of the year it seems. The UK’s decision to get on board the bandwagon gave long-suffering advocates in New Zealand some renewed energy. Christmas also epitomises a range of excesses that can cruelly result in our waistlines expanding just as we reach togs season. But despite the growing chorus of voices in favour of a sugar tax, the evidence that such a tax will work is murky – and the justification for whether it is even needed is murkier.

If Nigella is Christmas personified, is Jamie Oliver the Grinch? Some of you might know celebrity chef Jamie Oliver from his show The Naked Chef (a gross exaggeration: the only skin showing skin was the roast chicken) and Jamie’s 15 Minute Meals (don’t even try, unless you have at least triple the time). Jamie Oliver was also one of the UK’s – and possibly the Western world’s – most vocal advocates in favour of a sugar tax. By the way, it is telling that soon after a sugar tax was introduced in the UK, Jamie Oliver was quick to point out that this was only the first step in a range of initiatives to reduce obesity.

Only later do they say it is only a first step. Not even a step so much as a very very very small shuffle. A sugar tax that reduced soda drink consumption by 10% would see the average NZer consume three fewer calories a day.

This is equivalent to walking an extra 45 seconds a day. Yes seconds not minutes.

Yes, sugar isn’t all that good for you. But if you look at the breakdown of calories, it is not just the sugary foods that are doing people harm. The turkey wrapped in bacon and sage butter, the crispy camembert parcels and meat stuffing have more calories than most of the dessert foods. Clocking in at 965 calories, perhaps there should be a separate toad-in-a-hole tax. For those who want to avoid the excesses of Christmas, it is not just sugar you should be dodging, but fat, salt and alcohol too.

Calories come in many forms.

The same argument applies for those concerned about children suffering dental issues because of sugar and soda consumption. While it is deplorable that children are requiring serious and completely avoidable dental procedures, will a sugar tax really help change parents’ behaviour? Will an increase in price of sugary products really be more compelling for parents than the wellbeing of their own children? If it has come down to that, there are surely more serious issues going on.

If a parent allows their kids to rot their teeth, a 10% price increase for Coke will not be the answer.

The Herald reports:

Many politicians struggle to find enough time to spend with their other halves – but David Bennett has taken long-distance love to the extreme, dating an Australian senator.

In a boost for transtasman relations, romance between the fourth-term Hamilton East MP and The Nationals Senator for Victoria, Bridget McKenzie, blossomed after the pair met at a parliamentary sports weekend.

Bennett, elevated by Prime Minister Bill English to a ministerial role outside Cabinet last week, confirmed the relationship when contacted by the New Zealand Herald today, but said both were private people who did not want publicity over the romance.

“We are trying to keep it quite private.”

However, he confirmed the pair met when a group of Australian politicians travelled to Auckland early last year for a sporting exchange.

That’s pretty cool.

The Herald reports:

The World Trade Organisation has upheld New Zealand’s challenge to barriers that have cost the beef sector up to $1 billion.

Trade Minister Todd McClay hailed the WTO decision against the Indonesian non-tariff barriers as important for New Zealand farmers and exporters, and also trade fairness.

This is the great thing about trade agreements – they have a system for arbitrating disputes. And in almost every case they have worked in NZ’s favour.

Stuff reports:

The last election didn’t go so well for the Internet Party but they could be preparing another bid for a seat in Parliament.

Controversial internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom has suggested on social media that the Internet Party could be making a comeback. …

Following the election, Dotcom said his brand “poisoned” the party.

But on Wednesday afternoon, he tweeted the party could be reborn to make a run in next year’s elections.

“Independent and with bright young minds who can create a prosperous digital economy for NZ,” he posted.

It would be great if the Internet Party stands again. Can’t think of anything more likely to life the party vote for National.

Stuff reports:

Adopting an Australian blueprint to reform copyrights laws could grow the economy, and increase the chance of the next Google being founded on these shores.

The Australian Government Productivity Commission says the country should adopt the “fair use” copyright culture of the US, Israel and Singapore, all noted innovation and technology hubs.

The blueprint has a growing band of fans in New Zealand who believe it would legalise many of the roughly 80 unwitting copyright breaches Australians and New Zealanders commit every day.

These include casual breaches such as forwarding an email containing copyright material, uploading copyright material to the cloud, or watching a clip on Youtube.

But there’s something more profound at stake than legalising accepted common everyday uses, they say.

Supporters of “fair use” rules say they are the foundation of US technological innovation.

It was a common mantra among colleagues that what the New Zealand economy needed was to create the next Google, said Alex Sims from the University of Auckland’s faculty of business and economics.

“The thing is, under our laws, we can’t. Google exists because of fair use,” she says.

It’s not that a company here couldn’t do it, but innovation and investment are chilled by the fear of being sued under New Zealand’s restrictive copyright laws by a powerful company which took exception to something that would be considered fair use in the US.

The commission found that Australia’s copyright laws were frustrating efforts of online businesses seeking to provide cloud computing solutions, preventing medical and scientific researchers from taking full advantage of text and data mining, and limiting universities from offering flexible Massive Open Online Courses. 

The commission concludes that Australian copyright protection is “skewed too far in favour of copyright owners to the detriment of consumers and intermediate users.”

Ernst and Young produced a cost-benefit analysis suggesting “fair use” would produce a net economic benefit to Australia, though just how big is hard to assess.

The Australian report is excellent and it should form the template for reform of NZ copyright laws.

Sims says the practice of copying sound recording, which goes back to people making compilation tapes for personal use in the 1970s and 80s, was only legalised here with an exemption created in 2008.

The commission gives the similar Australian example of the legalisation of video recordings of TV shows for personal use in 2006, by which time “VCRs were household relics”.

Did you know even now in NZ you can only keep a recording of a TV show for as long as is practical to have viewed it.

Do you remember that awful singing of The Gambler by some Labour MPs a few years back, that was designed to attack John Key. I reckon Labour dropped 1% in the polls everytime TV showed it.

Well UK Labour are trying to match it with this:

Just terrible.

Stuff reports:

People unhappy with digital stories run by the country’s six most biggest broadcasters will soon be able to take their complaints to the New Zealand Press Council.

The broadcast members of the Online Media Standards Authority (OMSA) have signed a deal with the Press Council for complaints against their digital content to come under its jurisdiction.

The broadcasters are TVNZ, MediaWorks, Sky Network Television, Maori Television, NZME Radio and Radio New Zealand.

This is very sensible. I have long advocated a unified media (self) regulator. Was silly having separate bodies judging complaints.

There is a flow on effect to Kiwiblog. Kiwiblog has been a member of OMSA, which will cease on 31 December 2016. However we are joining the Press Council and will come under its jurisdiction from 1 January 2017. I will update links and policies in the next week or so.

A reader writes in:

It has largely escaped national media attention – and perhaps that is a good thing – but here in ChCh, Ngai Tahu politics is the talk of the town. 

Ngai Tahu has always done very well by staying focused, disciplined and unified under the leadership of Sir Mark Solomon (and Tipene O’Reagan at the figurehead level).

Right now, that unity is under massive pressure and behind the scenes is fractured. You kind of have to give them credit for keeping a lid on the worst of it.

There has been plenty reported about Lisa Tumahai and Arihia Bennett in the media. Among most Runanga attention is now being focused on potential candidates that would unify the iwi and transcend the recent unpleasantness. NgaiTahu probably have a bit to learn from the National Party about the transition of leadership, to be honest.

I know of two candidates that have been approached: Quintin Hix (Arowhenua Runanga) and Nuk Korako (from both the Rapaki and Tuahuriri Runanga).

Hix  is a long-serving Runanga reo and respected lawyer from Timaru and would likely jump at the chance to serve as Kaiwhakahaere. His appointment would get the Iwi past a lot of bitterness and innuendo flying around. He is widely admired and trusted. Youngish, too. He could serve for many years.

Korako has earned a lot of respect as a previous board member of Ngai Tahu Investment Ltd and his current role as Chair of the Maori Affairs Select Committee. Coming from two Runanga helps on the unity front, especially because Tuahuriri is really ground-zero for Ngai Tahu. He has less to gain from the appointment, though, as he has stepped away from Iwi affairs in recent years and is doing pretty well in National politics. His appointment would be interesting, because resigning his seat in parliament would have a spillover effect on cabinet and select committee appointments. He must be weighing up his future in each avenue. Either in parliament or in Ngai Tahu, his next role would surely be his last before retirement?

The Iwi has an acting Kaiwhakahaere and they hoped to have a replacement before xmas, but the in-fighting looks to carry on over the summer – almost as bad as Labour factionalism and summer BBQs!!

Ngai Tahu is now one of the largest commercial presences in the South Island. They have shown what you can do with a settlement, by moving past grievance mode. It will be interesting to see who becomes their new leader, and what impact there is from this.

I feared the worst after her heart attack on a flight, and her daughter has now confirmed Carrie Fisher has died aged 60.

May the force be with her.

The SSC has released its senior pay report. I find it interesting to look at who gets paid more than the PM whose base salary is $460,000 and total remuneration $527,000.

The public sector CEs who got more than the PM were:

1. NZ Super Fund $950,000
2. ACC $810,000
3. SSC $760,000
4. Auckland University $710,000
5. NZ Transport Agency $710,000
6. Police $670,000
7. Canterbury University $650,000
8. NZ Defence Force $650,000
9. Treasury $640,000
10. NZ Trade & Enterprise $640,000
11. Education $630,000
12. MBIE $620,000
13. MSD $620,000
14. Internal Affairs $610,000
15. Auckland DHB $610,000
16. IRD $610,000
17. Massey University $600,000
18. DPMC $590,000
19. Otago University $590,000
20. Waitemata DHB $590,000
21. Auditor-General $570,000
22. Counties Manukau DHB $570,000
23. Callaghan Innovation $570,000
24. Waikato DHB $560,000
25. BOP DHB $550,000
26. Justice $540,000
27. VUW $540,000
28. Financial Markets Authority $540,000
29. MPI $530,000

Also of interest is 57 non CEOS received more than a Cabinet Minister (total rem $351,000).

Fairfax hand out their annual awards. Most are tongue in cheek but the two serious ones are John Key as Politician of the Year and Mark Mitchell as Backbencher of the Year.

Sir Patrick Lynch, former President of the Secondary Principals Association writes:

I have had the honour to have worked quite closely with 15 ministers of education since 1976. All were good people whose mission was to improve the lot of New Zealand’s young people.

However, Hekia Parata has been a stand-out performer and in my view, has been quite extraordinary in the way she has handled her portfolio.

High praise from a 40 year veteran.

She did this by setting up a regular consultation with education sector leaders which led to communication systems being strengthened and trust enhanced.

The minister put a lot of energy into the organisation, which she actively led in conjunction with all the chief executives of government departments and agencies in the education sector.

This approach enabled all senior education personnel to rub shoulders with one another every six weeks. It was a master stroke.

Groups who sometimes publicly criticised one another, quickly began to realise they all had the same goals for the education of the nation’s young people, and that they could, in fact, cooperate with one another.

A good thing.

The minister is driven by a fierce commitment to ensuring 85 per cent of students achieve at least NCEA level one.

She made it clear from the outset that Maori and Pacific students did not deserve to be destined to a life of under-achievement and this view spread to become very contagious with the leaders and practitioners in the sector, as well as most teachers.

Seldom has a minister of education been so overtly committed to student achievement in such an active and enthusiastic manner.

Fortunately, Hekia Parata was ably supported by the extraordinary leadership of a chief executive of the Ministry of Education who was appointed in the minister’s second year in the job.

Peter Hughes was a stand-out chief executive who worked very closely with her. They were a formidable duo, and changed the culture of the education sector.

An important outcome of this leadership was a demonstrable increase in NCEA results for Maori and Pacific youngsters, in particular.

Another outcome was that numbers of children in early childhood education rose quite strongly.

Close monitoring of individual student progress was done by the ministry in conjunction with particular schools and was instrumental in achieving these outcomes.

The long-term structural change initiated by the minister was the concept of communities of learning, which have been set up in many parts of the country. This change has led to a much-needed collaborative approach to learning and achievement among schools, in various locations.

The sharing of information, leadership and expertise is the focus of communities of learning and over a period of time this structural change will deliver higher levels of student achievement.

Seldom has New Zealand had a minister of education who has brought such conviction and commitment to her role, and who has been effective in doing so.

A great accolade indeed.

The Daily Mirror reports on tales of George Michael’s generosity, often without publicity. A tribute to the man.

1. Anonymously donated £15,000 to a woman who couldn’t afford IVF
2. Donated £25,000 to a crying stranger struggling with debt in a cafe
3. Anonymously volunteering at a homeless shelter
4. Anonymously donated millions to Childline
5. A children’s charity said they were “only afloat” because of George Michael.
6. In 2006, George held a special free concert for NHS nurses to attend in north London
7. Tipped a student nurse barmaid £5,000
8. Donated all the royalties from his 1996 number one single Jesus To a Child to charity.
9. Bought John Lennon’s piano for £1.45million from a private collector and donated it to the Beatles Story museum in Liverpool so that it could be kept in Lennon’s hometown forever.

Karl du Fresne writes:

A couple of weeks ago, I took part in a flagrant act of cultural appropriation. So did several thousand other people.

We watched a Christmas parade. Santa Claus was in it, complete with mock reindeer. 

Most of the floats were decorated with Christmas symbols: fake snow, tinsel, stuff like that. A brass band played traditional English carols.

How did we get away with it? It could only be because the simple provincial folk in the town where I live are ignorant of, or callously indifferent to, sensitivities surrounding cultural ownership. 

Santa Claus is a figure derived from northern European folklore. What right do we in the remote Southwest Pacific have to place him at the centre of our Christmas celebrations?

This is true. Just as kids can no longer play cowboys and indians as it is culturally insensitive, Christmas must also fail by the same standard.

Sleighs? Ditto. Christmas trees and holly too. 

These are the cultural property of people from distant lands. Those ridiculous fake antlers that shop assistants are made to wear – did we spare a thought for the people of Lapland, for whom reindeer are a taonga? No, we didn’t. 

And carols! How dare we sing about Good King Wenceslas or the Holly and the Ivy? What inflated sense of entitlement makes us think we can endlessly plagiarise Silent Night (Austrian) or O Holy Night (French)?

We should be ashamed.

Cultural appropriation must be rooted out in all its forms.

All those New Zealand reggae bands, for a start. There’s cultural appropriation right there, big time. Maori object when the haka or the tiki is ripped off, but doesn’t the same principle apply when Maori bands appropriate Jamaican music? 

Banning NZ reggae bands can only be a good thing!

And on that subject, who ever said it was culturally acceptable for white musicians to play the blues? Innumerable middle-class Brits (stand up, Eric Clapton) have grown rich ripping off black men’s music. Jazz? The same.

St Patrick’s Day, which New Zealanders use as an excuse to get drunk and pretend to be Irish, is a cultural outrage. Guy Fawkes? English. Halloween? Celtic. They should be abandoned, all of them. 

It’s a hard life living in these politically correct times.

Phil Quin writes:

In the unlikely event I get a say over Laila Harré’s likely bid for Labour’s nomination in New Lynn, I would enthusiastically vote for her opponent. Among the many questions today’s Labour has to ask itself, Laila Harré is the answer to precisely none of them.

Not a fan obviously, but …

But I do not dispute Harré’s right to rejoin the Labour Party; nor do I think she should be prevented from standing because of her nominal ineligibility (party rules require at least one year’s continuous membership).

Technicalities aside, Harré is well within her rights to present her credentials to New Lynn party members, and ask them to determine whether her re-entry to Parliament is in Labour’s, or the nation’s, best interests.

It’s no secret that my answer to that question is a resounding, lectern-thumping “no”. But I also concede there are many others within the Labour movement who support Harré for various reasons. If they prevail, and nominate Harré for New Lynn, so be it. Them’s the rules.

As an advocate for a broad church Labour Party, it would be churlish and hypocritical for me to issue some kind of fatwa against Harré or any other potential nominee whose politics offend me.

So Quin is saying that the whole idea of a broad church is you have people within your party that you don’t agree with on issues.

Harré hates free-trade and opposed the TPPA. She regards the recently deceased Fidel Castro as a hero worthy of formal parliamentary recognition.

Would be more at home in the Greens but left them after she didn’t get a good enough list promise. To date her parties have been Labour, New Labour, Alliance, Greens, Internet and now Labour again.

Labour needs to be broad enough to encompass the views of Lila Harré and people like me if it is to form a viable alternative government.

And yet the party’s culture and rules explicitly prohibit that kind of ideological pluralism. Its organs of power — the NZ Council and the list moderating committee, most critically — are elected on a first past the post basis, meaning that the dominant clique is able to shut out any and all dissenting voices. That New Zealand Labour has no factions is an enduring but preposterous myth. The truth is, it is a monofactional party, controlled by a handful of elites and apparatchiks determined to shape Labour in their own image. Anyone who refuses to play along is deemed, often by Little himself, as a right-wing troublemaker. But if the party provides no room for dissent, what other path do we have available to us but to express our frustrations in the public arena?

By contrast, the Australian Labour Party, of which I was a member and activist for 12 years, actively encourages a diversity of views via an overtly factional system built on proportional representation. In an ALP context, both Laila Harré and David Shearer would enjoy institutional backing commensurate with their respective support among members. If, for argument’s sake, Shearer and his allies were able to command 20 percent support, they could expect this to be reflected on the NZ Council and in the list selection process. This could allow them to operate freely, expressing their sincerely held views on public policy matters without fear of being ostracized or expelled by a single dominant clique who regard the mere presence of moderates like Shearer in caucus as anathema.

It’s the difference between power-sharing and power hogging. To my mind, it is Labour’s embrace of the latter, more than any other single factor, that has led to its diminution as a political force in New Zealand.

So maybe the answer in NZ is to have formal factions within Labour, to ensure the minority get representation?

The latest Roy Morgan poll is at Curia. As usual it has bounced around. Note that despite what the commentary says, most of the poll was done before John Key resigned.

+Max Roser writes:

Unfortunately the media is overly obsessed with reporting single events and with things that go wrong and does not nearly pay enough attention to the slow developments that reshape our world. With this empirical data on the reduction of poverty we can make it more concrete what a media that would report global development would look like. The headline could be “The number of people in extreme poverty fell by 130,000 since yesterday” and they wouldn’t have this headline once, but since – on average – there were 130,000 people fewer in extreme poverty every single day they should have had this headline every single day since 1990.

An amazing achievement. See the graph below:

As Rosen says we see few stories about this.

The Herald reports:

Australia’s forecast budget deficit is soaring as New Zealand continues to outperform its neighbour on the fiscal front – putting pressure on the Lucky Country’s coveted credit rating.

In its fiscal update, the Australian Government said its projected Budget deficit for the current fiscal year had increased by A$4.4 billion to A$41.5b as the economy continued to slow after a China-driven mining boom.

Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s said the fiscal update had no immediate effect on the credit rating but that the worsening position had put pressure on it.

“We remain pessimistic about the Government’s ability to close existing Budget deficits and return a balanced Budget by the year ending June 30, 2021,” the agency said.

We got back into surplus last year and Australia is unlikely to get back by even 2021.

New Zealand had outperformed Australia on the fiscal front, he said. “New Zealand’s policy makers have been more diligent. You are well and truly back in surplus. Australia is still struggling,” Bloxham said.

Bill English’s fiscal discipline paid off.