The Herald reports:

A light rail line from Wynyard Quarter to Dominion Rd costing $1 billion to $1.3b is a top priority for Auckland mayoral candidate Phil Goff.

The Labour MP today announced his transport policy, which includes a plan to bring forward construction of a light rail system on the Auckland isthmus and possibly all the way to the airport.

Which is an extra $1 billion at least so that is $2.5 billion of spending he wants just on light rail.

Yet he says rates will only go up by 2.5%.

The NBR headline:

Helen Clark melts Key’s and Farrar’s hearts, but all wrong for UN Secretary General

In the story:

Mr Farrar says he’s surprised himself by becoming an enthusiastic backer of Ms Clark’s campaign.

He notes that as head of the United Nations Development Programme (the third-highest ranked role in the UN), the former Labour prime minister has achieved what was hitherto thought impossible: she managed to cut staff numbers, a feat that required buy-in from 60 countries as she wrestled with a quota-based staffing system.

But:

The problem is that the selection of the next Secretary-General is controlled by the “P5” or the five permanent members of the Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, all of whom have veto power over candidates.

All will appreciate Ms Clark’s skills as an effective manager in her role, he says.

“But when it comes to the big job, they want a former foreign minister. They want someone who will do what they say. They don’t want a former prime minister like Helen Clark who could be dangerously independent.”

And countries don’t just want a yes-man (or indeed, yes-woman) but their yes-man. Russia wants someone from Eastern Europe. France has traditionally plumped for a candidate who can speak French.

And the US have a preferred candidate.

Mr Farrar says she should throw in the towel.

He says while there is still a theoretical chance she could win – if, say, the US vetoed every other candidate – realistically, the dream is over.

Yep.

The ABC reports:

The Government is waging a personal campaign against Labor senator Sam Dastyari, raising a series of questions about his links to Beijing and pointing to a paper trail in his disclosure log which tracks a history of accepting Chinese money.

Most Government critics have stopped short of accusing Senator Dastyari of breaking any rules or laws, but they are suggesting the senator has been influenced by the payments in his comments on China.

Here’s a brief summary of what’s behind this political stoush.

This month Senator Dastyari altered his declaration of interests to include confirmation that he had secured “support for settlement of electorate staff travel budget overspend”.

The declaration says the payment was made by Top Education Institute, a company with links to China.

The Government says this is not a political donation, but instead shows Senator Dastyari calling on the company to pay off a debt incurred by his office.

In 2014, Senator Dastyari declared that Yuhu Group – a subsidiary of a state-linked operation based in China – helped settle a legal matter for him.

In the declaration filed on November 20, Senator Dastyari wrote “support for settlement of outstanding legal matter”.

It reportedly cost $40,000.

In the same year, Senator Dastyari revealed the Australia China Relations Institute paid to cater an afternoon tea for him.

Flights, accommodation and hospitality for a 15-day trip to China in 2014 were funded by the Australian Fellowship of China Guangdong Associations Incorporated. A nine-day trip in January this year was supported by the China Australian Guangdong Chamber of Commerce Incorporated.

Now the donations by themselves might not be an indication of wrong-doing.

But as also reported:

“The South China Sea is China’s own affairs, Australia should remain neutral and respect for China on this matter”.

This is contrary to the position of both the Australian Government and Opposition and strongly suggests the donations have influenced his position.

Following on from the survey of Mayoral candidates, I thought I’d do a simple summary of how close their policies and views were to my own. That being very low rate increases, no contribution beyond the share of shareholding to the airport, four lanes for the tunnels, keep 4 am closing, keep fluoridation and not require council contractors to pay any particular wage rate beyond the legal minimum.

This is an influential factor in how I will vote. It is not the only factor because I will also look at other factors such as leadership, ability to work with others, approach-ability, voting records etc.

In order the candidates were:

1. Nicola Young 6/6
2. Jo Coughlan 5/6
3. Nick Leggett and Justin Lester 4.5/6
4. Andy Foster 4/6
5. Helene Ritchie 2.5/6

Again this is not the only factor. And the scoring system is very simple, when actual evaluation is more complex. But I have found the responses useful, and hope others have too.

I plan to repeat the exercise with candidates in each ward.

The Herald reports:

Labour leader Andrew Little says his adviser Matt McCarten’s taxpayer-funded salary is within the rules because McCarten will be doing “outreach” work for Little rather than campaign work.

This is like saying “I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewisnky” as it is about choosing a favourable definition.

That office was on a lease taken out by the Labour Party but Little’s Parliamentary budget was paying for some of it at market rates under a sublease agreement.

Staff would be a mix of party workers and those, including McCarten, whose salaries were paid out of Little’s Parliamentary budget.

So the taxpayer will pay Labour for the office space, and there will be party workers in there also, yet McCarten will not be doing any Labour Party work!

Little said McCarten’s work was not campaigning but “outreach” for Little such as organising events and meetings when Little was in Auckland.

Organizing events and meetings is something normally done by a mid level non political staffer.

He denied he was trying to use taxpayer funds for campaign-related work, saying party work would be done by party workers in the same office rather than McCarten and other Parliamentary-funded staff.

And who will be directing those party workers and staff? I could guess.

The Herald reports:

A domestic violence case against an Auckland doctor has been thrown out of court after it emerged the complainant’s father paid Crown witnesses.

The health professional, in his 40s, came before Auckland District Court yesterday but minutes before his trial was due to start, the Crown told Judge Rob Ronayne about the revelations that had become apparent over the weekend.

Prosecutor Kate Lawson-Bradshaw acknowledged the alleged victim’s father had made payments to people who were going to give evidence for the Crown that day.

Shortly afterwards, the charge of assault was dismissed and the defendant walked away a free man.

With the allegation of violence from his estranged wife hanging over him for nearly two years, the man told the Herald of his relief that the ordeal was finally over.

“It was a trauma, man … I’ve not done anything wrong,” he said.

The doctor said defending the case had left him penniless and he claimed in contrast his father-in-law was a millionaire.

Now the man who allegedly paid the witnesses could be the one who ends up in the dock.

It sounds like he should, unless the payments are entirely innocent.

Despite the claims of domestic violence and the fact his former partner went straight to the Medical Council to tell officials what had happened, the doctor refused to hold a grudge.

“She’s still my wife and I don’t want to harm her,” he said. “Then there would be no difference between me and them.”

A remarkable attitude.

The doctor’s wife said she needed “time to absorb all this”.

Her father could not be reached and she refused to pass on his contact details, saying the case was nothing to do with him.

Not so sure about that!

Andrew Geddis writes:

On today’s RNZ’s Morning Report, John Key poured cold water over Wintson Peters’ confident assertion that NZ would have an election early in 2017 because the National Government was struggling to hold things together. Here’s how stuff.co.nz summarised Mr Key’s comments: 

“The reality is…to have an early election you can’t just say it’s a lovely day in March, let’s have an election,” Key told RNZ.

In order to hold a snap election the Government would have to lose a vote of no confidence or go to the Governor General and say it could no longer command a majority.

New Zealanders didn’t want an early election, he said. Kiwis liked a “strong, stable government” and a three-year cycle was short enough as it was.

Key said he expected to announce the date for next year’s elections early in 2017, like he did last time around.

In 2014, the Government announced the date in March.

I’ve two supportive comments to make on this, before issuing a gentle corrective to the PM.

The first supporting comment is that I think Mr Key is right to say that there’s no public appetite for an early trip to the polls. National’s polling may have slipped a little, but it’s only a little. Those polls also show solid majorities saying that the country is going in the right direction. The Government isn’t losing votes in the House on a regular basis, nor is it unable to progress its legislation through the House. So I don’t see any real reason why we’d be looking at an election before September-November of next year, as the ordinary triennial timetable would dictate.

I agree. The only times we have not been in the 4th quarter of the 3rd year are 2002 when Clark made up an excuse, 1984 and 1951.

Second, Mr Key is to be congratulated for his plan to tell us the precise 2017 election date early next year. As I wrote here, there is scope for a Prime Minister to play around with the announcement of an election date in order to try and obtain a political advantage. I think Helen Clark did so back in 2002, when she called the election early in an attempt to capitalise on Labour’s commanding opinion poll lead.

To his credit, Mr Key has made a habit of giving everyone a lead-in of several months. In 2011, the election date was announced some 9 months out. In 2014, six months notice was given. Everyone was on the same page as to when voting would take place, meaning all the parties were on a level playing field when it came to planning their campaigns. This is A Good Thing, which I think should be made a concrete part of our law.

My preference is a fixed four year term.

In terms of if Key can go early, Geddis quotes Geddis:

However, the core constitutional convention that the Governor-General must act on the advice of his or her principal advisor, the Prime Minister, means that choosing an election date really is the privilege of the Prime Minister.

So he notes:

In the end, Mr Key’s mistake probably doesn’t matter all that much. As he has no intention of advising the Governor General to hold an early election, the only way there will be one is if his Government loses the confidence of the House. But let it be noted that not holding an early election is his decision – and if he wanted to change it and hold an election at an earlier point in time (as, for instance, the NBR’s Rob Hosking advocates), there is nothing to stop him from doing so.  

So yes the PM could call an election early just because it is a sunny day in March, but he is saying he doesn’t believe that is a good reason to do so – he would only go early if unable to govern.

Rob Hosking writes:

Perhaps Labour Party leader Andrew Little is one of those employers who can’t get locals to do the hard work for him.

They won’t do the difficult jobs, they want too much money, and they take drugs.

How else to explain the Labour Party’s inability to attract good staff?

I suggested in Twitter Labour could ask for Labour press secretaries to be eligible for work visas!

@dpfdpf Essential Skills visa usually 12 months. Immigration might have a hard time believing the applicant would last that long!

— Michael Woodhouse MP (@WoodhouseMP) September 6, 2016

Hosking continued:

The most important point of all is not that people are leaving. That does happen a year or so out from an election in most political parties as people decide that – often for their own reasons – they don’t want to be part of the intense chaos of another election.

The most telling thing is the inability to fill these positions when they become vacant. The empty chief press secretary desk is like a tolling bell of disaster for the Labour Party.

Ambitious and bright people would be falling over themselves to fill that position if they believed there was a chance of being chief press secretary to a prime minister in a year’s time.

It is well-nigh incredible that this has not happened.

What makes their inability to find someone to do the job even more incredible is that half the press gallery staff in the print media teams face redundancy in the near future once the Fairfax/NZME merger is approved. You’d think there would be hoards of applicants just from the gallery, but it seems a 50/50 chance of redundancy is a better bet than a 100% chance of working for Labour.

Stuff reports:

The Auditor General has found there was nothing unusual about the selection of Scenic Hotel Group as the operator of a Niue tourism resort at the centre of a political row over a six figure donation to National.

Auditor General Lyn Provost said from the available information her office had found there was a standard procurement process with reasoned and documented analysis for the selection of Scenic Hotel Group to operate the resort, and for the subsequent investment of New Zealand international development assistance funds in expanding the resort.

The contract was referred to Provost by Labour leader Andrew Little after he questioned the company’s links to National.

Scenic Hotel Group founder Earl Hagaman, and wife Lani, made a donation to the National Party during the 2014 election of $101,000. Scenic Hotel Group. A month later the company won a tender to manage the Matavai resort in Niue, which receives funding from the New Zealand Government.

Little is now being sued for defamation by the Hagaman’s after refusing to apologise and retract a statement that the deal “stunk to high heaven”.

Little was fine in asking the AG to investigate. But rather than wait for the outcome of that, he jumped to a conclusion and stated the deal “stunk to high heaven”.

The defamation case will be interesting, although possible slightly less so than the Colin Craig one currently on!

Stuff reports:

A United Nations staff poll has named Helen Clark as the preferred person to take on the role of Secretary General.

Clark said on LinkedIn that she was pleased with this result but that there’s still a long way to go. 

“I said at the outset that this campaign would be a marathon, not a sprint, and so it has proved to be.”

It is interesting that UN staff see Clark as the best candidate. Many of them would be in a good position to have an informed judgement.

Sadly they don’t get a vote. The next straw poll is 9 September and then 19 September. After that starting 26 September the polls will include a different colour for P5 members so one can see if any candidate has the support of all of the P5.

The results from the UN staff poll were:

When asked to name their top 3 candidates, UN staff — identified by an email address belonging to a UN programme or organisation — were clear. Clark received 439 mentions, Guterres 381, and Figueres 340. Irina Bokova with 269 and Susanna Malcorra with 201 votes were far behind these top 3. Among the other candidates, only Danilo Turk, with 130 votes, reached triple digits.

However also reported:

Dozens of top experts consulted by the Avaaz team agreed with the strongest three candidates as selected by UN staff, though in general spoke most highly of Guterres, and saw Clark’s candidacy as the weakest of the three.

A good piece at Public Address by Russell Brown on how the Herald website has changed:

Tim talks about the past 18 months, but my feeling is that there has been an additional lurch in the past month or two. The website has become more crowded than ever with lifts of heavily-contrived Daily Mail stories, what Tim describes as “foreign stories … paraded with a geographic anonymity that dupes and frustrates readers who bother with that click”, things pillaged from social media and the kind of trivia your stupid friend insists on sharing in their Facebook feed.

There are various problems with this. It degrades the paper’s reputation. (I’m often found explaining that the printed version of the Herald is still actually pretty sound, that the Herald employs some of the most badass investigative reporters in the country, is doing great things with data journalism, etc). Actually obscuring the origin of a story to deceive the reader is an act of contempt for that reader. And, perhaps most of all, it’s really demoralising for the journalists.

The foreign stories trick is one that really annoys me. You think it is a story about someone in NZ so click to read it, but then after a few lines realise that this didn’t happen in NZ, and close the story. It is designed to trick you.

This of course happens on both the main media websites. As someone who reads half a dozen international news sites a day, you often see the same stories repeated here.

Even when the content does have a local bite, it can be meaningless. Take the Stuff story on NZers who share a name with US presidential hopefuls.

Now if it was about Kiwis named Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton there would be some small interest in how they are coping with famous counterparts.

But they interview a Heather Clinton and a Elizabeth Von Trump. Why, I have no idea.

Oliver Hartwich writes:

Why do companies have to pay taxes at all?
Before anyone hurls abuse at me, let me clarify where I am coming from.

Companies are not real persons but legal fictions. Companies do not enjoy the fruits of their operations: their shareholders do. And therefore companies never actually pay taxes, either.

Of course, companies have to make tax payments. In a technical sense, it is them writing cheques to Inland Revenue. But that does not mean that companies really shoulder the economic burden.

In reality, there is always some natural person that pays. That person can be a customer, a supplier, an employee or a shareholder.

In economics, we call this phenomenon ‘tax incidence’. Put simply, there is a difference between those nominally paying a tax and those effectively bearing the tax burden.

Most economists would agree that for this reason companies never really pay tax at all. So my question is why do we keep pretending that they do?

To apply this logic to Apple’s case, what if we got rid of corporate taxes altogether and only levied income tax on the dividends shareholders received?

Such a practice would make it harder to avoid taxes since shareholders would have to physically move to tax havens to escape income tax. It would also allow companies to reinvest profits not paid out as dividends, thus creating an incentive to grow.

I know the devil is in the detail. For a start, we would need to ensure that individuals do not avoid tax by channeling their incomes through company structures.

However, Apple’s case demonstrates why it might be desirable to move beyond corporate taxes as they exist today. This could well simplify tax compliance and lead to stronger investment.

It would also eliminate the need to use countries like Ireland for tax avoidance schemes. And it would leave some tax lawyers unemployed.

But would that be such a bad thing?

It’s a nice idea but I can’t see it as practical.

One problem is overseas shareholders who don’t pay tax in NZ. If the company is based in NZ we can tax them, but we can’t tax the shareholders. You could do a with-holding tax but at what rate do you apply it? Would a with-holding tax be that different to a company tax?

Another major problem is that with no capital gains tax, many company would never pay dividends. People would invest in companies to get untaxed capital gains and would always want profits to remain with the company (which is good for the company but not so good for tax revenues).

And a third is sole shareholder businesses. You would have a huge incentive to pay yourself as low a salary as possible to live on, and have the company make larger profits. Then when you get to retirement you have the company pay you dividends, which will be taxed at a much lower rate.

An example of this might be that instead of paying yourself $200,000 a year for 20 years you pay yourself $100,000 a year for 20 years. Then you stop working, and pay $100,000 dividend a year for say 20 years in retirement.

Paying yourself $100,000 a year for 40 years means you pay $24,000 of tax a year or $960,000 in total.

Paying yourself $200,000 a year for 20 years means you pay $57,000 of tax a year or $1,140,000 in total.

To some degree you already get this as the company rate is 5% lower than the top personal tax rate. But the level of arbitrage would grow if there was no company tax rate at all.

Having no company tax would work if we had a flat personal tax rate and a capital gains tax. Both would be good things to have. But until such a day, I think it would mean more tax lawyers, not less!

A useful guide from 538:

1. Beware of polls tagged “bombshells” or “stunners.”
2. Instead, take an average.
3. Look for polls that use live interviewers; they have a better track record.
4. Know the polling firm – some are waaay better than others.
5. Beware the unskewers.
6. Check what the pollster said previously. Some pollsters’ results lean more towards one party or the other.
7. Consider the motives of the media reporting on the polls.
8. Check to see if the poll includes third-party candidates.
9. Margin of error and sample size matter less than who’s in the sample, though be wary if the sample size is smaller than 400.
10. Don’t get crazy about the Electoral College.
11. Still, aggregating the state polls usually provides a better idea of who is going to win than the national polls.
12. If the polls shift after the debates … wait. Short-term shifts in polls often reverse themselves.
13. Even at the end of the campaign, the polls probably won’t perfectly predict the results.

Polling Digest looks at the favourability ratings for Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn:

• Theresa May is 64 points more popular than Jeremy Corbyn. Yes, you read that correctly.  The Prime Minister’s net favourability amongst the country is +33.6, while the Labour leader’s is -30.7.
• Jeremy Corbyn is more popular than Theresa May with 2015 Labour voters…just.  The Labour leader has a +8.6 net favourability rating among people who voted Labour at the last election, while May’s number is less, at 4.2.  Nevertheless, it is abnormal that a Conservative Prime Minister polls net positively with Labour voters; even more abnormal is that this Conservative Prime Minister polls within 5 points of the Labour leader among this group.
• Jeremy Corbyn is less popular in Scotland than in England.  And while his unpopularity is fairly even across the country, he is substantially more popular (or less unpopular) in London than elsewhere.  His rating in Scotland is -40.9 compared with -28.6 in England

I also note that in the lowest socioeconomic groups (DE) May has a +21% rating and Corbyn -18%.

It is going to be glorious when Labour re-elect him.

The overall net approval ratings for various politicians were:

1. Theresa May +34%
2. Philip Hammond +4%
3. Boris Johnson +3%
4. Amber Rudd -6%
5. Owen Smith -11%
6. Nicola Sturgeon -11%
7. Tim Farron -12%
8. Nigel Farage -23%
9. Jeremy Corbyn -31%

Stuff reports:

Teachers will mount the first in a series of big walkouts on Monday to protest the government getting rid of funding based on maximum classroom sizes.

They’re not. It is one option, and at the very first stage of consultation. Any decisions are probably a year or two off.

At present, schools are funded for teachers according to a strict teacher-pupil ratio: one teacher for every 15 pupils at year 1,  ranging up to 29 pupils in years 4 to 6.  The minister proposes to replace those ratios with flat funding per pupil. But she insists the Government is spending more than $11 billion on education and it’s principals, not her, who decide class sizes. …

The global budget would cover teaching and learning – including credits for teacher salaries – so teachers’ pay would come out of the same pot the other bills.

“It starts putting teachers in competition with the power bill,” said NZEI’s campaigns advisor Andrew Campbell.

The former Green Chief of Staff!

Anyway I wanted to focus on whether it is such a horrible idea that principals would have just one overall budget and spending on staff would “compete” with spending on operational costs.

You see, isn’t this how pretty much every other area of Government works?

DHBs don’t get separate funding for staff and operational costs. They decide how much to spend on extra doctors and nurses and how much to spend on say technology.

It is the same in tertiary education. Every tertiary institute balances spending on staff vs spending on operations.

So why are public schools different?

The Herald reports:

The New Zealand woman who was arrested in Bali after allegedly bringing meth into the country yelled for hours and was inconsolable, said an onlooker.

Indonesian media have named her as Myra Williams from Taupo.

Williams reportedly flew to Denpasar from Melbourne and was questioned by Indonesian authorities over allegations she brought the drug into the country with her. Officials found 0.82g of methamphetamine.

Auckland woman Holly Potton was waiting for her bags at Ngurah Rai International Airport for over an hour when Williams was detained on August 31. She said Williams was extremely upset and uncooperative. At one stage she had 22 Indonesian officials surrounding her.

“She kept yelling that she didn’t feel safe.

“She was yelling that she had been ‘in that little room all f***ing day’.”

Potton, 26, said at one stage an official physically tried to take her back to the room

“At which point she resisted further and sat on the ground. She sat on the [ground] there abusing female staff and she yelled several times…”

Two people from Potton’s flight tried to get involved, she said. One yelled at Williams to shut up and another woman tried to talk to her and the officials but was told to go away. Potton said another passenger recorded Williams on his cellphone but a customs officer made him delete it.

Potton thinks the Indonesian officials were waiting for her flight to get their bags and leave before dealing with her “because it was causing such a scene”.

A Bali airport policeman told NZME Williams had appeared confused while lining up for her passport. He said she took a rest on the sofa for around 30 minutes.

The policeman said they’d found 0.82g of methamphetamine on the sofa next to her where she was taking a rest.

Flying high anywhere is a bad idea. Flying high to Indonesia is an even worse idea.

Stuff reports:

Wellington’s outgoing mayor has backed her deputy for the top job – and delivered a withering appraisal of the seven other candidates in the process.

Celia Wade-Brown revealed she would rank Justin Lester No 1 on her voting paper for October’s election.

She also took something of a parting shot at the other contenders for her job, labelling them a mix of disruptive, dishonest and lacking the breadth of knowledge required to be mayor of the capital city.

This is no surprise. It was widely speculated at the beginning of the year that Celia’s candidacy was fake, and she was always going to pull out and then endorse Justin. They obviously had some sort of agreement as she started giving him many of the photo ops the Mayor normally does. But for some reason they kept up the pretence she was standing again, and not supporting him.

In her eyes, Lester was the most capable of the eight mayoral candidates on offer to promote consensus.

“It’s just his way of working … although he’s a member of the Labour Party, he doesn’t just work with Labour councillors or Greens. He works with everyone.”

Even if this is correct, alas it can no longer be true. By standing as the official Labour candidate for Mayor (he used to be an independent) he is constitutionally bound to vote in accordance with how the Labour Councillors instruct him.

Stuff reports:

Christchurch’s former central city rebuild boss has attended a taxpayer-funded management course in France, more than a year after leaving the Government’s recovery organisation.

Warwick Isaacs recently returned from overseas where he completed a four-week Advanced Management Programme at the INSEAD Business School.

It’s understood the course was at the school’s European campus in Fontainebleau, about 70 kilometres south of Paris.

The now-defunct Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) covered the $54,936 course cost. Isaacs left the Christchurch Central Development Unit (CCDU) to head up the embattled Stonewood Homes in early 2015. 

That’s an outrageous amount for a four week course for a public servant. It should never have been agreed to.

Information released by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) said Cera paid for the programme in 2014. 

It is not known if Cera covered Isaacs’ flights and other travel expenses. 

Isaacs declined to comment. 

Director of DPMC’s Greater Christchurch Group Kelvan Smith said funding the course was intended to support Isaacs’ career development after Cera was disestablished.

“The development was especially important for an organisation with a short lifespan like Cera,” he said. 

“It was recognised that due to the intense workload for staff, such as Mr Isaacs, and the need to maintain recovery momentum, that development opportunities might have been postponed until a more suitable time.” 

Isaacs had not completed the course when he resigned from the CCDU but the “contractual commitment for the development opportunity remained”, Smith said. 

Employers may fund courses to help employees become better employees. But it is not their job to fund courses to help their career development for their next job. You can only justify paying for a course if it will benefit the company paying. In this case the company is the taxpayers and they got no benefit.

I’m outraged that this was agreed to.

NBR reports:

Mr Goff provided the surprise of the evening by answering a question with two contradictory but correct answers. Let me explain.

He was asked why he is criticising the National government in Parliament when it cuts spending or jobs but is now attacking Auckland Council for not doing the same.

Mr Goff effectively says – “in Wellington I am in opposition and you criticise the government no matter what. Now, I am standing for mayor and this is what voters want to hear – an end to waste and a reduced budget for the council.”

This is true of the opposition. But it need not be true. You are a stronger opposition if you don’t oppose everything.

Labour’s opposition to every spending cut or piece of fiscal discipline in the last eight years is part of the reason they are now seen as having no credibility on economic issues. People do not trust them to be able to manage the books.

He went on to say he hated being in opposition because after being in power politicians know exactly why the government is doing this or that but in opposition they have to ignore that.

In running for mayor, Mr Goff is effectively saying Labour has little chance of beating John Key and won’t be hanging around for another term in opposition.

Goff has spent 18 years in opposition (and 15 in Government).

Stuff reports:

The killing of Benton Parata in jail was likely carried out by three men jealous of his “mana” in prison, a judge says.

Akuhatua Tihi, 23, was jailed for life with a non-parole term of 13 years for Parata’s murder, while Levi Hohepa Reuben, 21, was jailed for seven years eight months, and Steven Betham, 38, for six years, both for manslaughter.

They were all found guilty by a jury at a two-week trial before Justice Gerald Nation in the High Court at Christchurch in June.

Tihi seems very sorry:

Barking like dogs, Mongrel Mob-style, the three began their jail terms.

His original offending was in 2010 when he got six years jail for stomping on a hairdresser, giving him serious brain injuries. As he was 17 at the time, he was not eligible for a first strike.

If he had been, then this murder would be a second strike and would be life without parole (unless manifestly unjust).

He also assaulted someone in custody in 2011. And it seems he even started assaulting people when he was five years old as authorities have a record of him attacking a sibling.

The parents will no doubt be responsible. His father has a history of violence also.

But the question for the community is whether Tihi will ever be safe to have out of prison. I doubt it.

The Herald reports:

Sexually explicit messages allegedly sent by former Conservative Party leader Colin Craig to his then-press secretary have been revealed during a defamation trial in the High Court.

One message Craig allegedly sent Rachel MacGregor before her sudden resignation before the 2014 general election read: “I slept well because I dreamed that I was between your naked legs”.

The message and others were read in court today by Jordan Williams, a friend of MacGregor who supported her after she left her job.

Assuming the message is correct, that is an incredibly bad e-mail for any employer to send to a staffer, an even worse one for a politician and even worse for a politician who leads a party which is seen as a family values party.

Note that this is a trial, and evidence may be contested. Please do not speculate on any legal issues, but discussion of the political impact is okay.