I don’t check blog stats very often nowadays, as Kiwiblog is a hobby, not a job. But I saw another blog post on their monthly stats so I went to check out the stats at Open Parachute to see what the latest stats and rankings were.

Was pleased to see the monthly visits for Kiwiblog were around 416,000. This is 90,000 more than a year ago and 28% growth. I think the new design may be part of the reason for that so thanks to Rachel Cunliffe and her team.

What was interesting was also to note the changes to the two biggest left blogs.

The Standard has dropped 45,000 monthly visits compared to a year ago, which is a 21% drop.

The Daily Blog has dropped 68,000 monthly visits compared to a year ago, which is a 37% drop.

538 has interesting data on net favourabilities of candidates in late September of election years. They have been (in order):

1. Bush (2000) +24%
2. Gore (2000) +23%
3. Clinton (1996) +19%
4. Obama (2008) +17%
5. Bush (1988) +17%
6. Reagan (1984) +14%
7. McCain (2008) +12%
8. Dukakis (1988) +12%
9. Bush (2004) +11%
10. Clinton (1992) +11%
11. Obama (2012) +7%
12. Reagan (1980) +6%
13. Dole (1996) +3%
14. Kerry (2004) -0%
15. Romney (2012) -5%
16. Mondale (1984) -9%
17. Bush (1992) -9%
18. Carter (1980) -11%
19. Clinton (2016) -14%
20. Trump (2016) -24%

Those in bold went onto win. This will be the first election that both the winner and loser will be unpopular.

Yahoo reports:

The US government on Saturday ended its formal oversight role over the internet, handing over management of the online address system to a global non-profit entity.

The US Commerce Department announced that its contract had expired with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the internet’s so-called “root zone.”

That leaves ICANN as a self-regulating organization that will be operated by the internet’s “stakeholders” — engineers, academics, businesses, non-government and government groups.

The move is part of a decades-old plan by the US to “privatize” the internet, and backers have said it would help maintain its integrity around the world.

US and ICANN officials have said the contract had given Washington a symbolic role as overseer or the internet’s “root zone” where new online domains and addresses are created.

But critics, including some US lawmakers, argued that this was a “giveaway” by Washington that could allow authoritarian regimes to seize control.

A last-ditch effort by critics to block the plan — a lawsuit filed by four US states — failed when a Texas federal judge refused to issue an injunction to stop the transition.

Lawrence Strickling, who heads the Commerce Department unit which has managed these functions, issued a brief statement early Saturday confirming the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

“As of October 1, 2016, the IANA functions contract has expired,” he said.

Stephen Crocker, ICANN’s board chairman and one of the engineers who developed the early internet protocols, welcomed the end of the contract.

“This transition was envisioned 18 years ago, yet it was the tireless work of the global Internet community, which drafted the final proposal, that made this a reality,” he said in a statement.

This is a very welcome step.

Authoritarian Governments around the world have been trying to get more of a say in how the Internet runs. They have tried to have the ITU takeover some functions, which would be a disaster.

ICANN is far from perfect but over 18 years it has managed to expand the number of generic TLDs from seven to over 1,000 and has a multi-stakeholder model that works, albeit slowly. At ICANN Governments do not get to decide anything. At best they can give advice. This is how it should be.

The problem is that having ICANN run the IANA function (the master list of TLDs, IP addresses and protocols) under contract to the US Government meant that other Governments used that to demand if the USG gets a veto (in reality it was an administrative check) over TLDs, they should all have the same power. By freeing ICANN from the US Government, there is no longer a legitimate cause for authoritarian Governments to rally around.

The Internet has been the world changing success it has, because it has not been under Government control. Governments can pass laws that affect ISPs and Internet users in their own countries, but no Government or Governments can pass laws dictating how the Internet as a whole runs. The Internet community does this through technical groups such as the Internet Engineering Taskforce, Internet Architecture Board and more policy focused groups such as the Regional Internet Address Registries, country code managers and ICANN.

Many folks from New Zealand have been engaged in the work required to improve the accountability of ICANN, so that it could transition from US Government stewardship. It is great to see the transition finally occur.

The SST editorial:

The Sunday Star-Times has campaigned for the past two years for all donations to be disclosed on a public register. And not just 55 days after the election, as the law stands.

Voters are entitled to know, when they cast their vote, who is bankrolling the campaign. Parliamentary political parties are required to disclose donations within 10 days; there is no reason why our expectations of mayoral and council candidates should be any different.

Frontrunners we’ve spoken to, like Dalziel, Goff and Wellington’s Justin Lester, agree in principle to the Star-Times’calls for disclosure before the election – next time round. None is willing or able to break ranks and disclose their donors’ identities before polls close this week.

Today, we challenge political candidates to go back to their secret funders and advise them they will be publicly naming their donors in the final days before polls close.

I agree that for donation disclosure to be useful, it should occur before an election. For parliamentary elections those over $30,000 get disclosed within 10 days and those between $15,000 and $30,000 get disclosed annually.

For local body elections they only get disclosed after the election.

What I would do is have the following regime:

• All donations over the disclosure limit disclosed monthly (20th of following month)
• In the final two months, disclosed weekly (Monday of following week)
• In the final week disclosed daily (next day)

Advantage at The Standard has produced his or her rankings of NZ Post War PMs. They are:

• RANK: 1 Peter Fraser PM 1940 – 1949
• RANK: 2 Sidney Holland PM 1949-1957
• RANK: 3 Helen Clark PM 1999-2008
• RANK: 4 John Key PM 2008-
• RANK 5: Robert Muldoon PM 1975-1984
• RANK: 6 Jim Bolger 1990-1997
• RANK: 7 David Lange 1984-1989
• RANK: 8 Keith Holyoake PM 1960-1972
• RANK: 9 Norman Kirk PM 1972-1974
• RANK: 10 Jack Marshall PM 1972
• RANK: 11 Geoffrey Palmer 1989-1990
• RANK: 12 Jenny Shipley 1997-1999
• RANK: 13 Walter Nash PM 1957-1960
• RANK: 14 Mike Moore 1990
• RANK: 15 Bill Rowling 1974-1975

Amusing to read the comments as most of them are demanding John Key be placed 14th or 15th.

I thought I would do my own list, in three sections. They are those who won multiple elections, those who won once, and those who never won an election. Won’t include the current PM as his term is still going.

1. Peter Fraser PM 1940 – 1949
2. David Lange 1984-1989
3. Sidney Holland PM 1949-1957
4. Keith Holyoake PM 1960-1972
5. Helen Clark PM 1999-2008
6. Jim Bolger 1990-1997
7. Robert Muldoon PM 1975-1984
8. Norman Kirk PM 1972-1974
9. Walter Nash PM 1957-1960
10. Jenny Shipley 1997-1999
11. Geoffrey Palmer 1989-1990
12. Jack Marshall PM 1972
13. Bill Rowling 1974-1975
14. Mike Moore 1990

So yes I rate two Labour Prime Ministers top. Have been a fan of Peter Fraser for a long time.

What would be your order?

The USA Today editorial:

In the 34-year history of USA TODAY, the Editorial Board has never taken sides in the presidential race. Instead, we’ve expressed opinions about the major issues and haven’t presumed to tell our readers, who have a variety of priorities and values, which choice is best for them. Because every presidential race is different, we revisit our no-endorsement policy every four years. We’ve never seen reason to alter our approach. Until now.

This year, the choice isn’t between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences. This year, one of the candidates — Republican nominee Donald Trump — is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.

Mitt Romney, John McCain, Bob Dole, were all fit to be President. Trump is not.

He is erratic. Trump has been on so many sides of so many issues that attempting to assess his policy positions is like shooting at a moving target. A list prepared byNBC details 124 shifts by Trump on 20 major issues since shortly before he entered the race. He simply spouts slogans and outcomes (he’d replace Obamacare with “something terrific”) without any credible explanations of how he’d achieve them.

Slogans not policy.

Read the full article for the other 10 or so reasons.

Just published the monthly newsletter. The summary is:

Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 101, September 2016

There were two political voting polls in September 2016 – a One News Colmar Brunton and a Roy Morgan. 

The average of the public polls has National 15% ahead of Labour in September, down 2% from August.

 The current seat projection is centre-right 56 seats, centre-left 51 which would see NZ First holding 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.

In the United States the race narrowed between Clinton and Trump with his odds increasing to 44%, but since the first debate he has fallen back to 33% chance to win.

In the UK the Conservatives are currently projected to pick up 34 seats from the last election.

In Australia Labor now has a 4% lead over the Coalition.

In Canada Trudeau has his net approval fall 11% but the Liberals remains 20% ahead of the Conservatives.

We also carry details of polls on immigration, housing, the Auckland and Wellington Mayoral races and republicanism plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

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.

Correspondence and feedback is also welcome to the same address.

Stuff reports:

Cut the 150,000 children living in poverty by 10 per cent by the end of next year?

It’s a target the new Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft wants the Government to back but Prime Minister John Key won’t put that number on it.

Key told RNZ on Monday that he wasn’t “rejecting” Becroft – someone the Prime Minister says is doing a good job and was appointed for his skill set – but disputes that a number and a target can be put on child poverty.

“We’re very focused on reducing that number. We don’t have one agreed measure…let’s accept (Becroft’s) measure then my point would simply be that I can’t tell you today exactly what it would take to get a five or 10 per cent reduction,” Key said.

“My point is simply…it’s difficult to just have one measure.”

There are many different measures of poverty. Most of them are in fact measures of income inequality not poverty. They would be very stupid measures to target as you could achieve them by having a recession where poor people have a 10% drop in income and wealthy people at 20% drop.

But Becroft has chosen a sensible measure:

He wants to use the material deprivation index that has 17 indicators and when a child meets at least six they’re considered to be suffering severe hardship.

This is the measure the Government should focus on. Not a measure of envy and jealousy, but a measure of children not actually having some of the basics such as:

• two pairs of shoes in good repair and suitable for everyday use
• meal with meat, fish or chicken (or vegetarian equivalent) at least each 2nd day
• home contents insurance
• put up with feeling cold to save on heating costs
• postponed visits to the doctor
• in arrears on rates, electricity, water
• borrowed money from family or friends more than once in the last 12 months to cover everyday living costs

I think the Government should be focusing on reducing the number of families in these situations. I do not think they should be focusing on reducing income inequality (a much better focus is social mobility).

Now the Government is probably nervous about such a target, as they can’t control many of the variables. Some (not all or even most) of those families who are in deprivation will be there because of decisions they have made – having further children, spending on non-essentials, parents involved in crime etc. Simply (for example) doubling the incomes of lower income families will not necessarily lead to no families in deprivation.

But the Government has been brave with other BPS targets such as reducing the reoffending rate. That is also an outcome which the Government can only influence but not control.

So I think Becroft’s proposal has some merit. It would focus on families in actual deprivation, not just measures of envy.

I’d possibly look at a measure that also takes into account social mobility (the fact that some poorer families become wealthier and some wealthier families become poorer) so would propose maybe a measure along the lines of:

That the number of families with children who have at least six of the 17 deprivation measures for a period of three years reduces by 10%.

If the Government doesn’t adopt such a target, then maybe other political parties will. I’d love to see political parties not just make promises about spending (inputs) but point to actual outcomes or targets they pledge to achieve.

The goals or targets the Government has are:

1. reduce working age benefit numbers by 25% to 220,000 from 295,000 as at June 2014, and an accumulated actuarial release of $13 billion by June 2018
2. In 2016, 98% of children starting school will have participated in quality early childhood education.
3. Increase infant immunisation rates to 98% and reduce the incidence of rheumatic fever by two thirds
4. By 2017, halt the 10-year rise in children experiencing physical abuse and reduce 2011 numbers by five per cent.
5. Increase the proportion of 18-year-olds with NCEA level 2 or equivalent qualification. to 85%
6. Increase the proportion of 25 to 34-year-olds with advanced trade qualifications, diplomas and degrees (at level 4 or above) to 60%
7. reduce the crime rate by 20% by 2018, violent crime rate by 20% and youth crime by 25%
8. Reduce reoffending by 25%
9. Business costs (effort) from dealing with government will reduce by 25% by 2017, through a year-on-year reduction in effort required to work with agencies and Government services to business will have similar key performance ratings as leading private sector firms by July 2017.
10. An average of 70 per cent of New Zealanders’ most common transactions with government will be completed in a digital environment by 2017.

What I hope Labour, Greens and NZ First will all do next year is announce their own set of say 10 targets that they wish to achieve, so if they gain Government they can be judged against them.

Stuff reports:

On Monday Little said Key had an obligation to attend and he wasn’t convinced he would have been banned from speaking if he had turned up.

“The reality is once you’re there I can’t conceive of a situation where they physically prevent him from speaking at the marae.”

That’s a pretty stupid comment, to put it mildly. Little is saying that even if a condition of the invite is you don’t speak, the PM should just ignore that and speak anyway because it is unlikely people would physically tackle the PM to stop him speaking.

Little really needs to learn to not just automatically criticise everything the PM does.

Classics lecturer Jonathan Tracey writes:

I am deeply troubled by the recent call to rename Massey University, on the ground of racist utterances made by New Zealand Prime Minister William Massey a century ago.

There is not a single historical figure, of any race, nation, culture, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or political creed, who could possibly stand the test of absolute ideological purity by modern standards.

Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi both advocated forms of racial segregation and discrimination.  Should their homelands therefore stop honouring them as national martyrs and liberators?

We have a statue of Gandhi at Wellington Railway Station. Quick, tear down the statue of the racist Gandhi.

As for names of New Zealand places or institutions, Abel Tasman, the Duke of Wellington, the Earl of Auckland, Viscount Palmerston, and Queen Victoria all held opinions that would today get them banished from polite society.

We must rename Wellington. Never mind his victory over France changed Europe for the better and secured peace for decades. He opposed Jewish emancipation so must be condemned.

If we must shun every great man or woman of the past whose views did not precisely match our own, the only solution is to declare a Cultural Revolution, a Year Zero, and simply wipe the slate clean.

But the Greeks and Romans understood the importance of showing respect to our ancestors, without being blind to their shortcomings.

Theseus, the legendary architect of the Athenian city-state, once kidnapped the future Helen of Troy, among other unsavoury exploits.  The first act of Rome’s eponymous founder, Romulus, after erecting the city walls, was to kill his own brother Remus in a fit of rage.

To be fair Remus had it coming. He criticised Romulus’ wall.

Of course, there are limits to our duty of respect.  No sane person today would revere the blood-soaked memory of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot.  The Romans honoured their first king, Romulus, but not the last, Tarquin “the Proud”, whose tyrannical behaviour led to his overthrow and the establishment of the Roman Republic.  Similarly, while Augustus’ merits far outweighed his crimes in Roman eyes, Romans abhorred the names of brutal tyrants like Caligula and Nero.

I see no evidence, however, that Prime Minister Massey was in fact such a monster.  Rather, I see an effective leader of his country in war and peace, who expressed views about race that are now extremely offensive, but that were shared with most of his contemporaries.

Exactly.

There were indeed many aspects of our past that were neither “good” nor “beautiful”; I’m sure that our descendants will find just as many things to condemn in our own age.  But we can never move forward as a nation by spitting on the legacy of the men and women (however imperfect) who helped to build it.

Hear hear.

Suppression was lifted at 5 pm yesterday on the proceedings and decisions of the Human Rights Review Tribunal pertaining to Rachel McGregor and Colin Craig.

They can only be described as absolutely damning for Colin Craig.

It is important to note that these proceedings were not made available to the jury in the defamation trial. They made their decision without even knowing about these. I can only imagine how much worse it would have been for Craig if they had known.

The first decision is here. McGregor filed her claim of sexual harrassment on the day she resigned, 18 September 2014. A settlement was made on 4 May 2015 which was confidential. The terms included no comment to the media other than “the parties have met and resolved their differences”. The settlement included an apology from Craig for any inappropriate conduct on his part to MacGregor.

The ruling reveals that Craig increased the interest rate on the “loan” to MacGregor from 4% to 29% after she lodged the sexual harassment claim.

Craig them undertook various media activities in June and July 2015 which breached this agreement. Craig then on 31 August tried to get the settlement agreement voided on the grounds McGregor had broken confidentiality. They found she had not. She had told a few very close people of what had happened (including Jordan Williams) but this was before the mediation and settlement. Since the settlement she observed the terms entirely. So Craig failed to get the settlement voided.

The Tribunal did find that Craig breached the settlement. Specifically:

the breaches of the 4 May 2015 settlement agreement have been deliberate, systematic, egregious and repeated.

They also note:

We accept the submission for Ms MacGregor that far from turning his mind to how little he could damage Ms MacGregor, Mr Craig was controlling the narrative. He was exercising power and control over what was in the media by carefully releasing what he thought would save himself, what he thought would save his position and save his reputation. The released information was selected not after a careful navigation to avoid breaching the confidentiality as little as possible, but to paint himself as a person who had been falsely accused by a woman who was clearly incapable of managing her money and a fair inference was that what she was seeking through the sexual harassment complaint was money

They further find:

The breaches of the confidentiality obligations have been deliberate, sustained and calculated.

And in his filings he said:

Mr Craig’s claimed consideration for Ms MacGregor must be seen against the fact that his brief of evidence, as filed and read into evidence, was correctly described by Ms MacGregor as nothing short of a vilification of her. He referred to her as unreliable, as dishonest, as of wanting a sexual relationship with him, being obsessed with him and referring to her supposed mental health issues.

Nasty stuff.

Mr Craig is wealthy, well-connected and well advised. At all times he has been in a more powerful position than Ms MacGregor. He has used his power and his wealth to conduct a calculated campaign of breaches for the sole purpose of bolstering, or attempting to bolster, his own reputation. He has disregarded his obligations under the Human Rights Act and the settlement agreement.

Each utterance has had the effect of diminishing the reputation of Ms MacGregor by portraying her as variously a mistress, a trouble-maker, a woman who cannot manage her own life, a woman with no financial management skills, who is mentally unwell and, in evidence before the Tribunal, a liar and a blackmailer.

They then awarded damages of $128,780 – the highest amount ever awarded in New Zealand by the Tribunal for emotional harm

This is on top of the $36,000 of the original settlement and around $100,000 of MacGregor’s costs.

Matthew Hooton writes in NBR:

With backgrounds in political science and commerce, Ms Clark and Mr Key have almost certainly done this maths while Mr Little, a lawyer, clearly never has. It shows: between them, Ms Clark and Mr Key have won six general elections and 15 electorate contests while Mr Little has won none of either. His public rejection on Sunday of Ms Clark’s advice that he should target the centre – dismissing it as “hollow” – will surely not endear him to Labour supporters. Neither was this just another off-the-cuff Little blunder.

He repeated his rejection of the centre on radio on Tuesday and in an email to Labour’s remaining members.  National’s strategists rejoiced.

If you think centre is a dirty word well …

The reason Mr Little has so boldly rejected century-old mainstream political theory is because the Wellington unionists and far-left activists who advise him are convinced a major sea change is under way in global politics, rendering the old left-right spectrum obsolete. Evidence for this, they believe, is Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the US, the Brexit vote and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and polling upswings by neo-fascists in France and Germany.

The revolution is coming!

What Little and his advisers miss is that in the US the majority of the population has said the US is heading in the wrong direction in every poll since 2004.

By contrast in NZ the majority of the population has said NZ is heading in the right direction in every poll since 2008.

There is nothing happening in global politics right now that we haven’t seen before.  Mr Little may think he can make progress by mimicking the “coalition of constituencies” tactics of Mr Sanders, Mr Trump, Mr Corbyn, Ms Petry or Ms Le Pen but all he is doing is giving up more of the centre ground to Winston Peters or even the Greens’ James Shaw. 

d

The Waikato Times rates the Hamilton City Councillors. Their ratings are:

1. A: Julie Hardaker
2. A-: Gordon Chesterman, Rob Pascoe, Martin Gallagher
3. B+: Andrew King, Angela O’Leary
4. B: Garry Mallett
5. B-: Margaret Forsyth, Philip Yeung, Lee Tooman, Ewan Wilson
6. C+: Dave Macpherson
7. E: Karina Green

Rather surprised there is only one Cr below an C+.

The Herald reports:

An Iraqi woman says she chops and cooks the heads of Islamic State fighters in retaliation for the deaths of her family.

Can’t imagine they taste very good.

Wahida Mohamed Al-Jumaily, 39, who describes herself as a “housewife” heads a group of 70 tribal militia in the recently liberated town of Shirqat, about 80km south of Mosul.

She claims to be one of the most feared by IS, having survived six assassination attempts, and has received death threats from the group’s top leaders.

“I fought them, I beheaded them, I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies,” she told CNN.
Al-Jumaily, better known as Um Hanadi, has every reason to seek out revenge.

IS killed her second husband earlier this year and has previously killed her father and three brothers.

She told Al Sabah that her son-in-law was also executed by IS – but not before his hands and feet were cut off – in 2014 when IS took control of Shirqat.

Al-Jumaily posts graphic photos of her work on Facebook. Among them, a picture of what appears to be her carrying a severed head; another showing two heads in a cooking pot; and another showing her standing over headless, burnt-out bodies.

Last week she led a group of 50 fighters into the Shirqat city centre and took control from IS, Iraqi media reports.

Shows she has got the balance right between her domestic duties (cooking) and her day job (killing). In fact managed to combine the two.

She told newspaper Al Sabah that she has killed 18 terrorists herself, and added: “We are fighting like a family”.

Al-Jumaily, who is also a grandmother, said she had received death threats from the IS leadership – “including from (Abu Bakr) al-Baghdadi himself”.

I vote al-Baghdadi is handed over to Ms Al-Jumaily if he is captured. Nothing would demoralise Islamic State fighters more than having their Supreme Leader cooked by a woman.

Stuff reports:

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Sunday she would trigger the process to leave the EU by the end of March, offering the first glimpse of a timetable for a divorce that will redefine Britain’s ties with its biggest trading partner.

Britain’s shock vote to leave the European Union in June propelled May to power and the former interior minister has been under pressure to offer more details on her plan for departure, beyond an often-repeated catchphrase that “Brexit means Brexit”.

In a move to ease fears among her ruling Conservatives that she may delay the divorce, May told the party’s annual conference in Birmingham, central England, that she was determined to move on with the process and win the “right deal”.

Using Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty will give Britain a two-year period to clinch one of the most complex deals in Europe since World War Two.

So March 2019 is the likely month the UK will exit the EU – 46 years after it joined.

The World Economic Forum has NZ ranked 13th for overall global competitiveness. Our individual rankings are:

1. Financial market development 1st
2. Institutions 3rd
3. Health and primary education 6th
4. Labour market efficiency 6th
5. Higher education and training 10th
6. Goods market efficiency 10th
7. Technological readiness 13th
8. Overall 13th
9. Macroeconomic environment 17th
10. Innovation 23rd
11. Business sophisication 26th
12. Infrastructure 27th
13. Market size 64th

Can’t do a lot about our size, but can with the others. Overall pretty good.

Dean Knight writes:

It’s then very odd that the government of the day has the unfettered right to choose who should be governor-general. Appointments are made by the Queen on the advice of the prime minister. Our constitutional referee is chosen solely by the home team. No say for the people. No say for Parliament. In the old days, the government felt duty-bound to meaningfully consult the Opposition to ensure the person chosen had widespread support and was above politics. But nowadays other parties merely get told who is going to be appointed.

This just isn’t good enough. It has the potential to undermine the legitimacy of the appointee and makes it harder for them to act as the apolitical kaitiaki of our democratic system.

How to fix it? Easy. Give Parliament a role in signing off the government’s proposed governor-general. Before being recommended to the Queen and formally sworn in, Dame Reddy’s appointment should have been endorsed through a super-majority vote in Parliament. Or, as Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Andrew Butler suggest in their proposed constitution, a free (unwhipped) vote in Parliament.

This would probably operate as a mere formality, if the government has done its work behind the scenes to ensure their appointee is palatable and has widespread support. But such a vote would be an important signal – a symbol of the governor-general’s legitimacy and mana.

I agree with Dean that the Governor-General should not be appointed at the sole discretion of the Prime Minister. The PM should nominate to Parliament and if a super-majority endorse, then get recommended to the Queen.

I’ve been told that The Labour Party has leaned heavily on it’s members to not run in Lower Hutt, except for the anointed candidates in each ward. But they are all (bar one) running as Independents, even though they caucus together and Councillors have been instructed on how to vote by the Labour Party.

It seems their plan is to raise the number of Labour/Green affiliated councillors from their current 5 to 8 so that they have a majority on Council and then use the Council to undermine Chris Bishop. They are desperate to stop him winning Hutt South, and see the Council as a pawn in that.

The sensible centre and centre right candidates in Lower Hutt are:

• Northern – Gwen McDonald and Leigh Sutton
• Central – David Bassett and Simon Edwards
• Harbour – Brady Dyer and Mike Fisher
• Wainuiomata – Margaret Willard
• Western – Chris Milne, Max Shierlaw

So if you want to stop Labour turning the Hutt Council into a pawn, vote for truly independent candidates above. The above are not the only good ones, but are safe ones.

This is the fourth set of six monthly data.

Again some notes on the data:

• It covers six months – from 1 October 2015 to 31 March 2016.
• It only covers “opinion” columns and editorials. It does not cover news stories. It is designed to shed light on what the newspaper or journalist/columnist thinks – rather than what the story is. Of course it is influenced by the stories of the moment.
• Data is collated from the NZ Herald and Stuff websites every morning, checking the main pages, news pages, politics pages and opinion pages. It is possible some columns and editorials have been missed if they were not on the websites until later in a day. However if seen on subsequent days they are added to the table.
• Where a journalist or columnist has done fewer than three columns that reference the Government or political parties, they are not personally included in the six month summary below, but they may be included in summaries over longer time periods.
• An editorial or column is assessed against whether someone reading it will feel more positive or more negative about the Government/National, Labour, Greens or NZ First.
• If an editorial or column is not on a political issue, or just talks about an issue in a way that is neither supportive nor critical of a party, then they are not included. This is just an analysis of columns and editorials that are positive or negative for a political party or the Government. This is deliberate, it is about seeing the balance between positive and negative for those that do take a stance.
• This is not an analysis of media bias. This is an analysis of opinion. It is quite legitimate for columnists and editorials to have views that are not split 50/50 between the parties. And it is fair to say one would generally expect an incumbent Government to be criticised more often than it is supported.

National

Turning first to the editorials of the three metro newspapers (only they were included), the Dominion Post remains the most relentlessly critical of National. Of 30 editorials referencing the Government or National, 25 are critical and only 5 supportive, so 83% negative.

The Press is 80% negative and the Herald is 77% negative in its editorials.

Turning to the columnists, the one who has written the most critical of National remains Brian Rudman with 9 negative and no positives. He is joined by new columnist Raybon Kan with a 0 to 8 record and Jane Bowron also has it 0 to 8. Next in line is Bryan Gould, then Paul Little, Bernard Hickey, Jane Kelsey, Claire Trevett and Chris Trotter.

The media have a large number of columnists who do nothing but rage against National. By contrast there are no columnists who go the other way.

Of those with a mixture of positive and negative, Duncan Garner is 88% negative, Fran O’Sullivan 86%, Vernon Small 83%, Barry Soper 83%, Stacey Kirk 80%, Rodney Hide 80%, Audrey Young 80%, Tracy Watkins 67% and Lizzie Marvelly 67%.

Combining columns and editorials, the Herald website is 85% negative and 15% positive in its opinion, while Stuff is 84% negative and 16% positive.

The overall proportion negative on National for each six month period has been:

• Mar 15: 83%
• Sep 15: 79%
• Mar 16: 67%
• Sep 16: 84%

So the last six months has been profoundly negative in the opinion columns and editorial lines.

Labour

Turning to coverage of Labour they have received much better coverage in the last six months, with 45% of columns and editorials positive compared to 33% the previous six months.

The most negative columnists are Tracy Watkins and Rodney Hide.

The overall proportion negative on Labour for each six month period has been:

• Mar 15: 42%
• Sep 15: 77%
• Mar 16: 67%
• Sep 16: 55%

Greens

Turning to the Greens, they have five positive and four negative. So 56% positive.

NZ First

NZ First have had six positive and three negative. So 67% positive.

A guest post by Rob Harris, standing for the Albert-Eden-Roskill Ward in Auckland:

Can we get some satisfaction?

Only 15% of Aucklanders are satisfied with the performance of their council. If the council was a company working in a competitive environment it would have lost all its customers to a smarter alternative. As a monopoly, Aucklanders’ only choices are to put up with the dissatisfaction, or to vote to change it.

The dissatisfaction stems from 3 sources: (1) lack of value for money (paying more for the same services); (2) failure to make headway on the big issues of transport and housing; and (3) difficulty battling bureaucracy if you are trying get anything done. I’ll add a fourth: a deep frustration that if only Auckland got its act together it could become a truly great global city.

Our current councillors have failed to take responsibility for the failure to deliver value for money and wash their hands of every cost blowout and rates increase. And because they don’t caucus or co-ordinate, they have difficulty acting with urgency or holding the bureaucracy to account in any consistent direction.

We do not have to put up with this. Certainly, other cities don’t (for example, Brisbane’s council has a satisfaction rating above 80%). To improve, the council must do two things: one, it must commit to delivering value for money; and two: it must stay relentless focussed on the issues that matter to Auckland’s long term success (housing, transport and infrastructure) rather than spending hours debating minutia. In practise this means:

On value for money

a. Reducing the layers of bureaucracy by implementing a head count cap on total staff numbers. Aucklanders were promised cost efficiencies from the super city merger that have not been delivered, it’s time they were.

b. Funding infrastructure through PPPs and user charges (i.e. stuff that is not debt or rates). This allows projects to be accelerated and shifts the project cost risk to private providers.

c. Working with the government (rather than campaigning against it) by having proper costed plans and benefit analysis.

d. Measuring the quality and quantity of council services delivered against the costs.

On the issues that matter

e. Solving housing and transport issues at the same time. For example, if Auckland is to ask the government for funding assistance for say, Dominion Road light rail, the council should be prepared to embark on Unitary Plan changes as part of the proposal (yes, from the one just passed) to allow more intensification of that corridor to justify an accelerated investment (and improve the CBA). So, the council’s interaction with government must change from the linear: will you pay for X? To the dynamic: what up-zoning would be required along this route to justify this proposed transport investment?

f. Focussing on increasing housing supply by cutting consent times and funding enabling infrastructure.

g. Reviewing the Unitary Plan at an early stage to ensure that we have enough homes to provide for Auckland’s long term needs.

h. Seeking constant improvements in the convenience of public transport services as well as pursuing large scale projects.

So, who do you trust to deliver on this: those that have promised it all before, reneged, and now cynically promise it again? Or a fresh team?

The Auckland Future team will caucus together and will stand up for Aucklanders and ratepayers by holding the mayor and the bureaucracy to account. With a majority around the council table formed with like-minded colleagues we will focus on the issues that matter and deliver the meaningful change Auckland needs. And if we do all that, we can not only give some satisfaction to Aucklanders but help them to build a well-functioning and great global city.

A video from Rob is below:

A guest post by Sue Kedgley:

For the last few decades wages for low paid workers have been stagnating to the point where many low wage employees live in poverty and can’t afford decent housing, healthcare or food or other basic necessities of life. 

At the same time the salaries of staff in senior management positions have been skyrocketing.

So we have a situation in New Zealand now where the salaries of central government chief executives are among the highest in the world, and chief executives of some of our large institutions earn in excess of $4 million a year. But at the other end of the scale many workers earn so little they cant even afford the basic necessities of life, and have to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet.

This extreme gap in the incomes of people working at the top and the bottom of the workforce has been fueling inequality and the growing gap between the rich and the poor in New Zealand.

The Auckland Council exemplifies this growing wage gap. Around 1800 staff earn more than $100.000 a year, while the Chief Executive earns around a million dollars a year. But 1800 workers earn less than the Living Wage.

The Living Wage movement to pay workers a minimum of a Living Wage of $19.80c an hour is part of a campaign to redress this growing gap.

It’s interesting that have never heard the government, or councils for that matter, object to paying wage increases for staff at the top of an organization. But many object to paying meagre wage increases to low income staff.

My argument is that if we can afford to give wage increases to people at the top of an organization, we must also be able to afford to wage increases to staff at the bottom of an organization, so that they can afford the basic necessities of life.

So I’m delighted that the Wellington Regional Council agreed unanimously to my resolution to become a Living Wage employer last week, and pay our directly employed and contract staff a Living Wage.

All of our directly employed permanent staff are already paid more than the living wage, so it will only cost around $5000 to pay the remaining part time staff a living wage.

But it will be more challenging to pay our contract staff —cleaners and security staff for example —a living wage.

But that’s the beauty of the Living Wage process. It is a process, and a journey, and no one expects us to do it overnight. And that’s why the resolution asks officers to develop a framework for implementing it, and a timeline for its phased implementation. 

I would note that most of the other Councils in the Wellington region are also at different stages of the Living wage journey, including the Wellington city council, Porirua Council and the Hutt City Council. I think it’s great that Wellington is leading the way in the living wage campaign, and that the Wellington Regional Council is the first regional council to do so.

Employers should see becoming a living wage employer as an investment, however, not as a cost, because the evidence is overwhelming that staff who are paid a decent wage are more productive, and there is less turnover, less absenteeism and higher morale. So paying staff a decent wage should be a normal requirement of a modern, progressive workforce, and I hope that employer organisations such as the Chamber of Commerce will come to see it that way.

I recall the extreme opposition that my Flexible Working hours private members bill attracted when it was first introduced into parliament. The Chamber of Commerce and most employer organizations said it would be an unmitigated disaster if they had to allow their staff to work flexible working hours, and some threatened to move their businesses off-shore if the bill was passed. Yet a few years after my bill became law, most employers began to embrace it, and see it  as part of a modern organization, which not only helped them to attract staff but increased productivity and staff morale. And now the National government (which was implacably opposed to my bill) has extended its provisions to cover all employees in the workforce.

I hope that the same thing will happen with the living wage, and that paying staff decent wages to all staff, at the bottom as well as the top, will be simply seen as an investment in a modern, productive workforce.