Laura McQuillan writes at Stuff:

Nothing says “we’re a world-class city” like hosting the Olympic Games – but could New Zealand ever do the honours?

Actually nothing says we are giant suckers more than hosting the Olympic Games.

Pulling off the world’s largest sporting event – whether the Summer or Winter Games – is a lot of hard slog that brings mountains of debt, international criticism, and often not a lot of benefit.

But International Olympic Committee boss Thomas Bach reckons New Zealand has what it takes to play host.

The IOC is always looking for a stupid country with lots of money to benefit them. You pay for all the costs and take all the risks, and the IOC gets most of the revenue risk free.

Andrea Vance writes at TVNZ:

Here’s what Little can learn from Canada’s JFK.

Sunny – not sulky – ways

Trudeau didn’t go negative. He had poise even in the face of ridiculous attacks on his hair – and Stephen Harper’s attack ads.

“You can appeal to the better angels of our nature and you can win while doing it,” Trudeau said.

His campaign focused on a “positive, optimistic, hopeful vision of public life”. He warmly embraced refugees, as opponents fear-mongered.

This “tone-at-the-top” was emulated by the party as a whole – from candidates through to volunteer door-knockers. Post-election polling showed Trudeau was the main attraction for 20 per cent of Liberal voters.

Catriona McLennan writes in the Herald:

Our law is taking up to $28 a week away from some of the poorest women and children in the country for spurious reasons.

The Social Security Act states that women who do not identify in law the fathers of their children will have deductions made from their benefits.

The aim of the law is to force mothers to name fathers so child support can be levied on fathers.

But that is not what is happening. Instead, 13,616 parents are permanently receiving lower incomes than they should be. The main people this punishes are not fathers who fail to support their children, but rather the children themselves.

Actually it is the taxpayer who is worse off, not the children.

If the mother named the father then he would have to pay child support to the IRD. If the father earns $50,000 he would probably pay $450 a month to the IRD.

Instead the father pays say $200 a month to the mother. Here’s how it affects everyone.

• Father $250 a month better off
• Mother/child $80 a month better off ($200 less $120 deductions for non naming father)
• Taxpayer $330 a month worse off by having the $450 a month child support to partially cover cost of benefit, less $120 deductions for no naming

So even under the current system, it is the taxpayer who misses out – not the kids.

What McLennan wants is a system where it would be:

• Father $250 a month better off
• Mother/child $200 a month better off
• Taxpayer $450 a month worse off by having the $450 a month child support to partially cover cost of benefit

And beyond doubt there would be a huge increase in fathers not being named.

Nicolette Logue writes at the Huffington Post:

If you didn’t know anything about Wellington NZ, you might think it was a little like Canberra — national capital, public service town, small in size and a reputation for being a bit dull. But this city has undergone a remarkable transformation, emerging as a creative, cultural and economic success story.

New Zealand’s capital was once a town which relied heavily on government employment, and suffered greatly when there were widespread redundancies in the early 1980s. Reduced tariffs meant nearby car factories, who were major employers, shut down. Swathes of the city was being bulldozed to rebuild in an earthquake-compliant manner. The nightclub scene on Courtenay Place was fledgling, and even these entertainments were wedged amid greasy takeaway joints and people sleeping in alcoves. …

In the years since, it has undergone an economic, and cultural, miracle. This year, it beat the largest city, Auckland, and the nation as a whole, in terms of economic growth. And this year, New Zealand has beaten Australia in the Global Innovation Index, coming in at 17th in the world.

It has more bars, restaurants and cafes per capita than New York City. In 2011, it was named by Lonely Planet as the coolest little capital in the world.

And with a population of 204,000 — about the size of Hobart — it has around 800 start-up businesses.

So what turned a struggling city into one of the most innovative and creative in the world?

Wellington is a rocking little place.

If you were to pinpoint a person and a moment in time for Wellington’s transformation, it would probably be Peter Jackson and the late 1990s.

Everyone says so. And while this isn’t quantifiable or measurable or attributed to three, rock-solid sources, it seems to make sense.

Jackson, a proud Wellington native, had just bought an old film studio in the suburb of Miramar, about 20 minutes’ drive from Wellington proper.

After years making ‘splatstick’ horror films, his career took off. Around the same time, other prominent NZ directors Jane Campion and Lee Tamahori also achieved renown, but departed for Hollywood. Jackson stayed at home and with his success improved the fortunes of those on the peninsula. …

This reminds me of the CTU tried to stop The Hobbit and supported an Australian union’s attempt to get a global blacklisting of it. They portrayed Jackson and Taylor as bad employers.

The second is Wellington’s geographic layout. The city is compact, marked on three sides by water and the fourth by the Hutt valley.

This does make a huge difference. The entire city centre is walkable.

Barista John Cole manages The Beanery, one of Mojo Coffee’s outlets in Wellington CBD. The density of this chain is astonishing — in a CBD measuring two square kilometres, there are 20 outlets.

Heh, coffee fuels Wellington.

He estimates there are 7-800 start-ups currently operating in Wellington, and he says networking is the key to success.

“Networking is about bringing people together — it’s how connections are made.

Very proud of the number of start ups we have. Great to see so many people wanting to set up their own business rather than be an employee for someone else. It is the opposite of Canberra.

Stuff reports:

An Afghan immigrant, wanted over bombings in New York and New Jersey over the weekend, has been arrested after a shootout with police in New Jersey.

The law enforcement official said two officers were shot in the gun battle. They were not believed to be seriously injured.

Linden Mayor Derek Armstead said that the owner of a bar reported someone asleep in the doorway of his establishment. A police officer went to investigate and recognised the man as Rahami, police and the mayor said.

Rahami pulled a gun and shot the officer – who was wearing a bulletproof vest – in the torso, and more officers joined the gun battle and brought Rahami down, police Captain James Sarnicki said.

The arrest came just hours after police issued a bulletin and photo of Rahami, who lived in Elizabeth, New Jersey, near where an explosive device detonated on Sunday, a day after the New York explosion.

Authorities said the blasts were looking increasingly like an act of terrorism with a foreign connection.

This comes after the NY Governor said that there was no foreign connection. Yeah, right.

Assuming this is confirmed as an Islamic terror attack it will be 1,700th Islamic terror attack in 2016, killing 14,785 people and injuring a further 17,790.

Stuff reports:

The Wellington Sevens are in for a facelift.

A “revitalised” sevens plan will include a party zone in the stands where “rugby meets rave” to entice people back to the game.

A number of proposed changes including a “fizz and food alley” and match-up of Wellington bars with competing teams were outlined at a recent meeting of Wellington retailers.

Proposals included a “fizz and food alley” that would combine the Beervana and Wellington On a Plate experience with the rugby.

And matching 16 bars in Wellington to host each of the 16 teams.

The plan for a “mix zone” or party zones in the stadium with DJs in each section was also raised.

They all sound good ideas. The recent trend of promoting it as a family outing has failed miserably. It is a two day party. Better food and drink, linking in with bars and party zones all sounds good.

The Spin Off has done a voting guide for Auckland Council. They have mainly focused on whether people agree with their views on transport and housing. Sadly they have totally ignored anything about fiscal discipline and have endorsed several candidates who voted for the 9.9% rates increases (they are shown in italics – do not vote for them). So voting for some of their endorsements will probably see many more years of large rates increases.

While The Spin Off is left leaning, and many of the candidates endorsed are Labour and Greens affiliated, they have shown some free thought and endorsed Bill Ralston and Denise Krum for example. Worth reading their voting guide even if not agreeing to it.

The Auckland Ratepayers Alliance has a list of 25 candidates who have signed their pledge to not vote for any rates increase over 2%. Also Auckland Future candidates have their own policy of not supporting a rates increase over 2%.

I’m not an Aucklander but follow Auckland politics closely. So I’ve also done my own voting guide to whom I would vote for in each ward. The main criteria is fiscal responsibility, but also based on whether they would contribute well to the governance of the city. So if you want an affordable city, this is whom I would vote for.

This graph shows average earnings (from Stats NZ) for those in employment adjusted for tax (and ACC) and inflation. So basically it is net disposable income from work.

The red shows nine years of Labour and blue seven years of National. You can see the difference low inflation makes, plus of course a reduction in tax rates twice.

This is adjusted to June 2015 dollars.

The latest data is for June 2016.  Nominal average earnings are $51,062, tax is $8,340 and GST $710.

Here is what is interesting. That average worker on $51,000 is paying as much income tax today as the average worker was in first quarter 2009 when they earned only $42,000.

But also of interest is that someone earning the average wage is now $9,000 a year better off than they were 15 years ago – even after adjusting for inflation.

Stuff reports:

Deadly food riots have exploded in several Venezuelan cities this year, and Maduro in recent weeks has faced rowdy pot-banging protests. In July, he gave Venezuela’s defense minister extraordinary powers to oversee the government’s elaborate system of price controls and consumer regulations, including the fingerprint scanners used to ensure that Venezuelan shoppers don’t exceed their purchase limits.

That’s a great idea to achieve a more equal society. Have limits on how much food someone can purchase so everyone is equal.

In a country with one of the world’s highest homicide rates, and where carjackings, muggings and kidnappings often go unpunished, the Venezuelan government has arrested or detained at least 9,400 people this year for allegedly breaking laws against hoarding, reselling goods or attempting to stand in line outside normal store hours, according to the Venezuelan human rights organisation Movimiento Vinotinto. Many were taken into custody by the Venezuelan troops assigned to police the checkout aisles and the long lines snaking from supermarkets.

Ismary Quiros, a deputy director at Movimiento Vinotinto, said the law doesn’t define exactly what constitutes illegal hoarding, smuggling, or reselling goods. She said the government’s real goal is to find scapegoats for the scarcities.

Yes arrest those scabs who try and purchase food beyond their government allocated quota. How dare they.

Clara Ramírez, an attorney in the state of Táchira along the border with Colombia, said since the beginning of the year she has represented six clients arrested after allegedly buying goods for resale on the black market. “All of them were normal people, men and women with families who were just looking for food to feed their children,” she said.

How dare they put their selfish needs ahead of those of the community.

Raymar Tona, 34, was arrested on a Friday in May while waiting to buy diapers for her baby.

A national guardsman pulled her out of the supermarket line, burrowed into her purse and found 10,000 Venezuelan bolivares, she said. In the past, it would have been a lot of cash, but in today’s Venezuela, which has the world’s highest inflation rate, her bank notes added up to about US$10.

“It was my salary for two weeks,” said Tona, a receptionist at a medical clinic. She was accused of selling spots in line, a common practice.

The scum – line jumping.

Isaura Pérez, 66, said she travelled three hours to Barquisimeto in July to deliver hard-to-find drugs for her 38-year-old diabetic cousin, Georgina Delgado, who was in intensive care. National guard troops arrested Pérez at the hospital entrance for allegedly trafficking medical supplies, she said.

The drugs were confiscated by the soldiers, Pérez said. Her cousin Delgado died three days later.

But he died equal!

It is fascinating to see a country respond to their policy failures by doubling down and bringing in more and more policies that just make the situation worse. Venezuela is going to be a case study for the text books for generations.

The sad thing is so many people will starve and die, in providing this lesson.

Rodney Hide writes:

There was a time, not so long ago, when the unions could grind the country to a halt and drop a government to its knees. Not now. Their latest industrial action is to tweet a boycott of My Food Bag.

That you didn’t know demonstrates their puniness. That you don’t care, their patheticness.

And why My Food Bag? Well, it’s complicated.

My Food Bag gets its peas from Talley’s. And Talley’s own Affco. And Affco is in dispute with the Meatworkers’ Union.

So the Public Service Association that represents government workers wants you to ditch My Food Bag, so pressuring them to ditch Talley’s peas, so making Affco play nice with the Meatworkers’. That’s quite a few steps.

Yep they wanted all the incredibly happy customers of My Food Bag to stop using them, because they didn’t like one of their suppliers.

But still the boycott fizzled.

We live in a truly marvellous world. We can order our dinners nicely packaged and delivered to our door with all the ingredients and recipes.

We can do so from our phones in our pocket.

Our holidays are no longer destroyed by the Cook Strait ferry workers. Farmers are no longer held to ransom by union goons. We are more productive and more prosperous.

And just to remind us how marvellous things are the PSA demonstrates union puniness and patheticness by failing to tweet up a storm against My Food Bag.

There is a reason union membership continues to decline – they are too focused on wider politics, and not enough on getting a better deal for their members.

UPDATE: The PSA media adviser says the Hide column is wrong as there was no PSA boycott against My Food Bag – just a tweet from her in a personal capacity. I’m also informed PSA membership is not declining.

She also says that My Food Bag has taken action by widening the audit of suppliers such as Talleys.

The Brisbane Times reports:

Wells Fargo will pay $US185 million ($240 million) to resolve claims that bank employees opened deposit and credit-card accounts without customers’ approval to satisfy sales goals and earn financial rewards, US regulators said.

The lender opened more than 2 million accounts that consumers may not have known about, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in a statement on Thursday. Wells Fargo, which fired 5300 employees over the improper sales practices, agreed to pay a $US100 million fine to the CFPB, $US35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and $US50 million to the Los Angeles city attorney to settle the matter. The San Francisco-based bank also will compensate customers who incurred fees or charges, the agencies said.

5,300 employees were sacked for doing this! Did they have any honest employees? They set upo two million accounts for customers that were not requested!

“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorised accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” CFPB director Richard Cordray said in his agency’s statement. “Because of the severity of these violations, Wells Fargo is paying the largest penalty the CFPB has ever imposed.”

The bank agreed to resolve the allegations without admitting or denying the agencies’ accusations, and said in a statement that it had set aside $US5 million for customer remediation.

“We regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request,” Wells Fargo said in its statement.

If I was in the US, that would be one bank I would never bank with.

A reader writes in:

Wanted to encourage you to run a story on the latest from sky sports nz. I purchased a sub to Sky and BeIn sports expecting to get a feast of football. But with Sky NZ you don’t get the full BeIn experience – old matches, talk programs and some selected PL matches are screened.

I wanted to watch the CL matches and now find that Sky take the BeIn feed (eg Spurs – Monaco match) and put it on Sky Sports 3.

This is really taking the piss and I am about to cancel my contract within the 28 day grace period because of it.

In addition the Sky service for normal TV is worse than Freeview due to weak signals and frequent rain fade outages.

@dpfdpf Read this and tell me why I shouldn’t break his little legs. https://t.co/nhP49si9wF

— Rachel Stewart (@RFStew) September 17, 2016

So (now former – see update below) Fairfax columnist Rachel Stewart is openly boasting that she wants to break my legs and meet me in a dark alley. She emphasizes she isn’t kidding.

My crime was to critique her views that we should reduce the dairy herd by 80% and that no one would be eating meat in 10 years time. I never attacked her personally in any way – I just criticized her policies and predictions.

She seems to object to some of the comments on Kiwiblog and thinks this justifies her violent outbursts. Never mind that I of course do not see or read the vast majority of the 1.8 million comments on Kiwiblog and there is a well utilised procedure for people to complain about comments they think should be removed. Every week and sometimes every day I deal with complaints about comments from people who bother to use the process.

The real irony is that Rachel Stewart got a lot of publicity when she had threats of violence against her (which I condemned at the time). However she thinks that it is fine for her to be the one making the threats. Is this irony or hypocrisy?

Stuff reported at the time:

Stewart said she accepted people would disagree with her or criticise her work, and she welcomed robust debate. However, responses of an overtly sexual or derogatory nature abusing individuals were offensive and unnecessary.

And all I did was critique her policy proposal and prediction. And her response was to abuse me and threaten violence against me.

Stewart said she was appalled that several prominent members of Federated Farmers and Dairy NZ “favourited” or retweeted crude comments. Dairy NZ did not respond to questions.

And 14 people have favourited her threats of violence against me. Again the hypocrisy is rather over whelming.

Does Fairfax endorse the actions of their columnist in making threats of violence? Will they take action? Will her threats against me be reported on as the threats against her?

Note that I have not enabled comments for this post in case this becomes a Police matter.

UPDATE: The Taranaki Daily News informs me that by coincidence (or possibly not) that Rachel Stewart’s last column for them was the 14th of September and she was no longer a columnist for them when she tweeted her threats of violence. This may explain why she thinks she can now make such threats without consequences.

Stuff reports:

Political skulduggery has again rocked the council chamber in Marlborough as lawyers are called in to investigate a secret recording of a committee meeting leaked to a right-wing blog. 

The leak to Whale Oil could see heads roll at the council, as councillors who attended the meeting are made to front up on Monday.

A recording of a tense behind closed doors discussion about the cash-strapped ASB Theatre was published on the blog site on Friday. …

Marlborough Mayor Alistair Sowman said the post was a clear attack on mayoral frontrunner Leggett, after a “very successful” attack on Sowman himself. 

A petition and poll about the theatre project appeared on social media in June, which Sowman believed were intended to discredit him. 

Sowman also came under attack from Whale Oil in July, with the blog running a photograph of him with a superimposed pig’s snout. 

Friday’s leak discredited both the council and the community, he said. 

“There’s been nothing like this in Marlborough politics in my memory.” 

Someone was working to derail Leggett’s mayoralty bid, Sowman said. 

Leggett would not speculate as to who was behind the leak, but said he was disappointed. 

“We have a situation now where councillors can’t wholeheartedly trust their colleagues,” he said. 

On the leaked recording, Leggett was highly critical of the financial management of the theatre.

Whale Oil said Leggett’s public support for the theatre contrasted with his private opinions. 

Not a good idea for Councillors to say one thing in private and another thing in public. Possibly not surprising someone decided to expose the hypocrisy.

Public-excluded meetings were usually held for genuine reasons of commercial sensitivity. 

When the issue is the huge amount of ratepayers money wasted on a project that is political sensitivity not commercial sensitivity.

A recording of a heated committee meeting leaked to Whale Oil saw mayoral candidate John Leggett describing Marlborough’s $23 million theatre project as “a disaster”.

Leggett’s comments were made earlier this year after community and finance committee members realised the trust was in financial difficulty. 

The meeting took place a month after the theatre opened and two months before it was formally announced the theatre trust could not repay their $5m debt.

“If we don’t crank up our convention economy in Marlborough it is screwed, it’s going to be an absolute white elephant,” Leggett said in the secret recording. 

“I’m talking in financial terms, look, I like the theatre too, I like going there and sitting there and seeing everything and doing all those sort of things but you can’t just have that as being one side of the ledger. It’s got to be financially able to nearly support itself.

“I don’t mind us throwing in a bit of money but it’s going to be bloody millions.” 

He told councillors finding ways of “cranking up some income” was essential. 

“A brand spanking new theatre that’s losing money as fast as it is, do the maths, it’s only going to get worse. It’s a disaster,” Leggett said. 

Leggett’s views in the meeting sound very sensible. The problem is he only would say them in private, and publicly say another. Here he is reported as backing an increased grant for the theatre with no mention of it being a disaster.

The voters of Marlborough should vote for Councillors who are fiscally responsible.

I blogged a few weeks ago on the proposed deal between Greens and Labour, being:

1. Green Party formally endorses Labour candidate Justin Lester for Mayor
2. Labour stands down its candidate in one of the three Wellington seats and endorses the Green candidate to give them a parliamentary seat
3. Annette King goes list only, freeing up Rongotai
4. If Labour-Greens win, Annette is made High Commission to Canberra
5. The Labour Deputy Leader would normally be Deputy PM, but if King takes a diplomatioc posting this means they can offer Winston Deputy Prime Minister

A friend has forwarded me this:

So the Greens have delivered on Part One. So which seat is Labour going to try and give them in return? Rongotai, Ohariu or even Wellington Central?

For constitutional pundits the proposed constitution by Sir Geoffrey Palmer is an interesting read. Some key aspects are:

• Constitution is supreme law
• Head of State elected by free vote in House of Representatives for a single five year term
• The PM is elected by the House of Representatives from within its members
• The PM can not be Minister of Finance or Attorney-General (or Deputy PM)
• The Attorney-General must be an admitted barrister and solicitor (which would have ruled Cullen out)
• Cabinet limited to 20 members and five Ministers outside Cabinet
• A fixed four year parliamentary term unless 75% of the House votes for an early election or the Governments falls and no new Government is formed within 14 days
• Speaker does not vote in Parliament and the party he or she represents gets an additional List MP to maintain proportionality
• The House must have a Business Committee, a Privileges Committee, a Standing Orders Committee, a Regulations Review Committee, a Human Rights Committee and subject matter select committees
• Ministers can not serve on subject matter select committees, the Regulations Review Committee or the Human Rights Committee
• Elections are by MMP
• All bills must have an analysis which includes the detailed nature of the bill, policy papers relating to the changes, the fiscal costs of the new measures, an analysis of Treaty of Waitangi issues, if any and an analysis whether the proposals comply with this Constitution.
• An urgency motion in the House needs 75% support
• Judicial Appointments to be short-listed by a Judicial Appointments Commission
• Courts can strike down laws inconsistent with the constitution but only takes effect if confirmed by Supreme Court
• Parliament can over-ride the Supreme Court with a 75% majority
• All future international agreements mist be confirmed by the House of Representatives
• The heads of the Armed Forces appointed by Parliament on the recommendation of a select committee
• The House is required to vote on any overseas deployment of the Armed Forces
• The Treaty of Waitangi is incorporated in the Constitution
• A Bill of Rights is incorporated in the Constitution (meaning laws inconsistent can be struck down)
• Constitution must be approved by a majority in a referendum
• Constitution can only be amended by an Act that passed in Parliament by either 75% majority or that then goes to and passes a referendum

I have to say that if we were to ever have a written constitution, this one would be a very good template for it. There are parts I would change, but overall it is very thorough yet not overly long. It is also quite simple.

A lot of useful data in the latest household incomes reports from MSD. Some extracts:

• Since the GFC median household income has gown around 3% in real terms a year
• Median disposable household income after taxes and transfers is $73,500, 12% higher than before the GFC
• Bu comparison UK, US, Italy, Spain, France, Germany household incomes have not increased much if at all
• There is no evidence of any sustained rise or fall in BHC household income inequality in the last 20 years using the Gini and top 1% share, or the last 10-15 years using the 90:10 percentile ratio.
• The share of income received by the top 1% of tax payers has been reasonably steady in a 7-9% range since the early 1990s
• Single-earner two-child families with less than $60,000 from wages pay no net income tax
• total income tax paid by each of the bottom four deciles is less than the total transfers received
• Housing costs now take a much greater proportion of household income especially for low-income households
• On all four measures the proportion of children in households in poverty is lower or the same as 2007/08
• For children in workless households, the AHC 60% anchored line poverty rate is around 65%, compared with 10% for those with at least one parent in full-time employment.

So the child poverty rate drops from 65% to 10% in households where at least one adult is working. So the best way to reduce child poverty is by far making sure children do not grow up in households where no one works. That doesn’t eliminate child poverty, but it would reduce it massively.

Also of interest is that median living standards have increased significantly in NZ since the GFC, unlike many other countries.

Also that child poverty rates are lower or at least no higher than under Labour.

A post on Facebook alleges:

IS NZTA FUNDING AND USING CYCLE ACTION NETWORK (CAN) TO INFLUENCE LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS RESULTS

According to publicly available information it is indeed. You can make up your mind by reading information in the selected images attached.

Cycling Action Network is effectively run by Patrick Morgan and a few other activists around the country.

Dougal List is NZTA’s cycling czar. He has decided that a good way to spend some of your $333M Urban Cycleways Programme (UCP) gifted by the National Government is by having cycling friendly and compliant councils in key cities after the upcoming elections. He is in a hurry for CAN to get its act together quickly.

Dougal List has agreed to fund the cycling lobby CAN to achieve his ends according to discussions on the CAN website. We are sure National wont be happy with NZTA’s use of UCP funds for this unintended outcome. Perversely certain large councils are going to be infested by National’s opponents if this NZTA strategy bears fruit.

I have no first hand knowledge of this, but would be alarmed if CAN is receiving taxpayer funding. It isn’t that I disagree with them. I often agree with them. But lobby groups should be funded by members and supporters, not taxpayers.

Hopefully someone can clarify whether or not CAN has received taxpayer funding, or is seeking to do so.

The drowning stats actually are:

• 2011: 132
• 2012: 98
• 2013: 107
• 2014: 90
• 2015: 113
• 2016: 53 to date (vs 75 year to date in 2015)

So the toll did not increase by 90 in 2015, it increased by 23 from 90 to 113.

But there is no long-term trend. The toll fluctuates up and down every year and thankfully looks to be a lot lower in 2016.

Steven Joyce and David Seymour announced:

Regulatory Reform Minister Steven Joyce and Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister for Regulatory Reform, David Seymour have today introduced a bill which will get rid of 124 redundant laws from New Zealand’s legislation.

The Statutes Repeal Bill will remove 124 pieces of legislation, and parts of eight other Acts.

“Originally we had 120 laws slated for removal. That number has now increased to 124. Overall, through this bill the number of public Acts on the New Zealand law books will reduce by more than 10 per cent,” Mr Joyce says.

A 10% reduction isn’t bad.

“An Exposure Draft was released for an eight week public consultation period, during that time 16 submissions were received proposing that various pieces of legislation were added or removed from the Bill.”

The four additional Acts found suitable for repeal include Finance Act 1991, New Zealand Stock Exchange Restructuring Act 2002, Statutes Amendment Act 1943, and Statutes Amendment Act 1944.

So 124 gone, leaving 900 more to go 🙂

Rodney Hide first lays out the problems with local government:

First, local government is controlled and directed by central government. The Auckland Council inherited 109 statutory functions. It’s no longer the mayor and the town clerk looking after the parks and collecting the rubbish. There’s been no rationalisation of function.

Second, the all-important spend on infrastructure is controlled by central government. It decides everything that matters. It sets the rules, issues the directives and dollops out the cash.

Third, local government is used as an instrument of national policy. For example, council governance is increasingly set by Treaty of Waitangi settlements and policy directives are delivered from on high on matters as diverse as aquaculture and land supply. There’s a continuous stream overwhelming local government.

Fourth, councils lack party structure and discipline. The mayor can only ever count on one vote. They are leaders in name only. They can’t campaign on clear policy. They can only do what their council decides.

Fifth, the power and flow of information resides with the chief executive. There is little competing advice as with, say, the cabinet with multiple departments having input as well as oversight departments such as the Treasury and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Sixth, the CEO is all-powerful but councils have poor information on which to judge performance and little incentive to hold CEOs to account. My observation is that successful mayors back the CEO no matter what – and vice versa. It’s not healthy.

Seventh, there is no constitutional limit on local government and no constitutional protection of local government from central government. Local government is government in name only.

He proposes some solutions, in decreasing order of radicalness:

One, stop the pretence and make a department of state responsible for all local government functions. The country would be divided up into regions with commissioners appointed to run the 109 functions. Central government would be held to account, as it should be.

Not a fan of this for local government, but am for DHBs. They are funded by central government and shouldk be run by them.

Two, carve the country up into five local council jurisdictions, have elected councils and have regular cabinet committee meetings with councils to develop and implement joint infrastructure plans.

Has some merit.

Three, limit the activities of local government to core tasks.

Big fan of this.

Four, establish clear constitutional understanding of the respective roles and responsibilities of central and local government.

Easier said than done but worthwhile

Five, have the State Services Commissioner appoint and fire council CEOs with councillors having the same input ministers provide for departmental heads. That would provide a big boost in performance and accountability.

 

Not a bad option.

The Civilian writes:

Despite falling into eighth place in the latest straw poll, former Prime Minister Helen Clark may still be in with a chance to be the next United Nations Secretary General, say knowledgeable UN watchers, if she’s able to steady the ship and walk the narrow tight-rope of all the other candidates dying horrifically.

Interviewed on Radio New Zealand this morning about whether Clark should drop out of the race, UN expert Stephen Lewis said there was really “no need,” and “kiwis shouldn’t panic” about her prospects.

“I think the important message to those who are really hoping she gets the job is, don’t lose hope yet. She’s still got a chance, and there are a lot of paths to victory.

“One is that all the other candidates die horrifically at one time in a fire or something like that.

“Another is that maybe all the candidates ahead of her had a massive seven-way orgy, and the press has picture, or maybe even she has the pictures.”

Heh.