David Seymour announced:

Britain’s revision of immigration settings is a chance to propose a free movement zone, says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“We can’t stand by and let the traditional Kiwi OE be put at risk,” says Mr Seymour.

“Successful nations like Britain and New Zealand shouldn’t be putting up walls and shutting off from each other when it’s the exchange of ideas that has made our nations so prosperous.

“Brexit provides new options as Britain pivots away from European immigration. Let’s approach Britain with a proposal for a two-way free movement agreement, similar to what we have with Australia.

“In the long term, we could even negotiate a broader free movement zone for citizens of Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada – all English-speaking, industrialised Commonwealth nations. ‘CANZUK’.

“We already have strong connections with these nations through family, friendship, and business. Let’s break down the walls and make the great OE even greater.”

This is a great idea, and one that would be very popular in all countries. The level of support in each country is:

• UK 58%
• Australia 70%
• Canada 75%
• NZ 82%

Very little opposition also – only 20% in the UK, 10% in Australia, 15% in Canada and 10% in New Zealand.

The Telegraph reports:

In an embarrassing u-turn, the International Monetary Fund has said the UK will be the fastest growing major economy this year. It follows earlier predictions that a vote to leave the EU could plunge the country into recession and trigger a stock market crash. 

The scare mongering was a major recession with huge spending cuts would be necessary.

A focus on the benefits of the sharp depreciation in the pound catapulted the domestically-focused FTSE 250 to a fresh intraday record high. The mid-cap index climbed by as much as 2.3pc to 18,607.13 in intraday trade.

Meanwhile, the internationally-focused FTSE 100 charged into bull-market territory, surging more than 20pc from its February nadir to 7,121.93 in intraday trading – a whisker away from its all-time record high of 7,122.74. However, it finished at 7,074.34 – up 90.82 points, or 1.3pc.

Not quite a stock market crash!

Liam Hehir writes:

There has been talk of a possible Cabinet reshuffle lately. There’s no certainty of this, of course, but the Government does at least have the luxury of having some very good backbenchers who look ready for promotion. Foremost among them is Alfred Ngaro, a list MP from Auckland, who is widely tipped by National MPs and activists as a certainty for higher things.

I have only met Ngaro once – and very briefly at that. But I have also heard him speak twice. On each occasion, I was impressed with his ability to take and answer questions from the floor. In particular, he was good at acknowledging the concern of the asker, distilling the theory behind the Government’s policy and then illustrating his point with an anecdote or two – which is essentially what you are looking for in a political communicator. Maybe it has something to do with his background as a minister (of religion, that is).

If Ngaro is promoted, then you can bet that the buzz from the media will focus on the demographic “first” of his appointment. As the first Cook Islander to be elected to Parliament, he would also be the first person of that heritage to receive a ministerial warrant. And as the National Party is keen to make further inroads into the Pacific community, the Government would not be displeased about that.

However, there is another thing about him that makes him a bit of an outlier in Parliament. Something that probably won’t get the attention it deserves. You see, before he became a pastor and community leader, Alfred Ngaro was self-employed as an electrician.  

We have far too few skilled tradesmen in Parliament – and probably too many who have spent their entire adult lives in and around politics. There will always be a place for career politicians in Government since, if nothing else, a lifetime in politics can be assumed to impart knowledge about how the system actually works. But an effective Government should also include people who have experience with how things are in the real economy.

I agree that experience with the real economy is important.

I like the fact that Ria Bond (NZ First) is a former hairdresser. That means she has run a small business, employed people, and dealt with a wife wide variety of people.

That’s why I think government could do with more people like Alfred Ngaro. In addition to the skills he will have picked up in his as a pastor and a backbench MP, the five years he spent as a self-employed tradesman will give him an insight into the world so many of us live in. This is the world of GST returns, uneven cash-flows, customer complaints, hard to manage work-flows, provisional tax payments, accounting and legal fees, red tape, health, bad debtors and health and safety compliance costs. It is world with which fewer and fewer lawmakers have much, if any, familiarity.

I spent some time working for a small business on the finance side. You learn first hand the huge difference between profitability and cashflow. You might be profitable on paper, but you are constantly juggling debtors, creditors and the bank.

But if there is a reshuffle, then it looks like Alfred Ngaro will get his opportunity. Chances are he will be assigned to a “social” portfolio – though it would be good if he could also be entrusted with something in the economic or business spheres. Whatever the role, the elevation to high office of somebody who knows his way around a live circuit and a pair of pliers will be very much a good thing.

I too hope Alfred will become a Minister.

The Herald reported:

An Auckland man whose discharge without conviction for beating his wife with a hammer has been overturned says he fears the consequences for his family.

Yasir Mohib denies a hammer was involved but admits assaulting his wife. The facts of the case are that the assault occurred after she complained they weren’t holding hands while watching a movie together.

So he bashes her for that – charming.

He told the Herald today he was “disappointed” the decision to discharge him had been overruled by the High Court but was prepared to accept his punishment.

But he fears his family will be punished too if it means he is deported to Pakistan. His family do not want to be split up and deportation would mean his two New Zealand-born wives and their five Kiwi children would go with him.

All they could choose to stay with someone who doesn’t bash them.

“If I did wrong I should be punished for it but not my whole family,” Mohib told theHerald.

That’s called consequences.

He said he had pleaded guilty to the charge of assault with a weapon because he was desperate to be reunited with his family from whom he was separated after the assault.

“I wanted to go back to my family and they wanted me to come back but there was no way until I pleaded guilty.

“No, there was no hammer involved. There was an argument. There were bruises. I punched her with my empty hand.”

The victim, his wife Fatimah, also told the Herald that no weapon was involved. She said the hammer came to be part of the statement of facts put before the court because of pressure from members of the wider family.

They have since had a fourth child. Mohib has one child with his second wife.

Yes – he has two wives.

Judge Wylie said he had seen photographs of the bruises. “The bruises are significant and they appear to have an inner round ring which I suspect is consistent with a blow from an object such as a hammer.”

He had doubts about Mohib’s insight into the offending and said the victim’s retraction of her initial statement to police was a “rather disturbing factor in the domestic violence context”.

“The assault was vicious and premeditated. Mr Mohib has denied full responsibility and he has sought to shift the blame to the victim and her family,” said Justice Wylie.

It’s so sad to see them now covering up for him.

The Herald reports:

Labour will be relying on former television presenter Tamati Coffey to take out the Maori Party’s sole remaining electorate seat, Waiariki, but the Maori Party has been on its own drive to recruit some big names.

Coffey was the only person entered when nominations for the Waiariki seat closed on Wednesday night, making him a certainty for selection. He stood unsuccessfully for Labour in Rotorua in 2014.

Waiariki is held by Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell with a healthy majority of 9700 votes but Labour is hopeful Coffey will be able to turn that around.

Actually his majority is 3,889. The votes for him were 9,726. But he outpolled the Labour candidate by 18% so not marginal.

Coffey didn’t make much of an impact in Rotorua. Todd McClay won by 7,357 votes in 2011 against Chadwick and by 7.418 in 2014 against Coffey.

It comes as the Maori Party prepares its counter-offensive. President Tukoroirangi Morgan has shoulder-tapped some big names as potential candidates, including long-standing Ngai Tahu head Sir Mark Solomon.

It is understood the Maori Party is in talks with Solomon about standing in the South Island electorate of Te Tai Tonga, held by Labour’s Rino Tirikatene.

That would turn the seat into a real battle.

The selection for Tamaki Makaurau could also be hotly contested. Broadcaster Willie Jackson confirmed he had been approached and was considering it.

“That crazy Tuku Morgan has talked to a lot of people. Tuku will have a talk and then you have a think about it, I suppose. We’ll let you know.”

Former TVNZ presenter Shane Taurima, a former Labour member, is also interested in standing in the seat.

Other names in the mix are singer Moana Maniopoto and Ngati Whatua leader Ngarimu Blair.

It looks like the Maori seats will be ones to watch next year.

This is page 1 of 4 of the ballot paper for Colorado. A lot of candidates for President!

They are voting for President, Senator and Representative but also none state referenda questions. They include:

• Amendment T to ban involuntary servitude (slavery) for criminals. This would remove the exception in the state constitution. (unopposed)
• Amendment 69 to have an extra 10% income tax to fund universal healthcare (polls 2:1 against)
• Amendment 70 to increase minimum wage from $8.31 an hour to $12.00 an hour (polls 55% in favour)
• Proposition 106 to allow euthanasia if prognosis less than six months (polls 70% in favour)

Stuff reports:

Kristin Lajeunesse, a vegan travel blogger, was left in tears at the sight of sheep on an Interislander ferry. She uploaded her reaction in a video on Facebook.

Farming groups, the trucking firm and Kiwi Rail had no problem with the practice.

“I came to the back of the boat because I thought it would be, you know, beautiful” Lajeunesse said at the beginning of the video.

As she ventured outside, she was caught off guard by a truck filled with live sheep.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the sheep. “I just feel so helpless.”

The blogger came to New Zealand on a junket paid for by Vegan Travel. Her videos, photographs and articles would be shared by the company.

Stuff reports:

Southern Hemisphere supremacy sealed, as if there were any doubts, the All Blacks moved one step closer to knocking off the world record for test wins in Durban. Oh, and while they were at it, also recorded their biggest ever win against the Boks, eclipsing the 36-point margin at Loftus, Pretoria, back in 2003.

This 57-15 victory was truly remarkable. A proud rugby nation in South Africa was left decimated. So much for the Aaron Smith saga impacting this team.

NZ has played South Africa 93 times. South Africa used to bear New Zealand more often than not. But in the professional era NZ wins around two out of every three.

Since 2010 they have played 15 times and NZ has won 13 out of 15 matches.

The Washington Post reports:

Donald Trump bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone, saying that “when you’re a star, they let you do it,” according to a video obtained by The Washington Post.

“I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it,” Trump is heard saying. It was unclear when the events he was describing took place. The tape was recorded several months after he married his third wife, Melania.

 

“Whoa,” another voice said.

“I did try and f— her. She was married,” Trump says.

Trump continues: “And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’”

“I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married,” Trump says. “Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.” …

At that point in the audio, Trump and Bush appear to notice Arianne Zucker, the actress who is waiting to escort them into the soap-opera set.

“Your girl’s hot as s—, in the purple,” says Bush, who’s now a co-host of NBC’s “Today” show.

“Whoa!” Trump says. “Whoa!”

 

“I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her,” Trump says. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s.

“Grab them by the p—y,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”

So a Bush may be Trump’s downfall!

Responses so far include:

• Paul Ryan cancelling an invitation for Trump to speak in Wisconsin
• The Governor of Utah rescinding his support
• Senator Kirk of Illinois calling on Trump to pull out
• Mitt Romney saying “Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world,”
• Marco Rubio saying “Donald’s comments were vulgar, egregious & impossible to justify.
  No one should ever talk about any woman in those terms, even in private.”

The damage isn’t so much to Trump himself (though there may be some) but everyone else standing on the Republican ticket who has to either unendorse him or risk being tarred.

Clare Curran released:

Just weeks after TVNZ opened its refurbished Auckland head office costing more than $60 million, RNZ (Radio New Zealand) has been forced to put its Auckland office on the market to keep itself afloat, says Labour’s Broadcasting spokesperson Clare Curran.

I do media quite a lot in Auckland. It has always struck me that the two state owned broadcasters have offices in the middle of the CBD, in the most expensive part of Auckland.

Their private sector rivals are in much cheaper areas such as Grafton where rents are $220 or so per square metre. In the CBD they can exceed $1,000 per square metre.

“The Government is trying to starve RNZ out of existence, which has forced it to put its Auckland asset on the market. Yet, the Prime Minister continues to support TVNZ by recently opening the new state broadcaster’s Auckland building despite a cost blowout of $60.3 million.

TVNZ isn’t funded by taxpayers. To the contrary it pays dividends to taxpayers.

If Radio NZ is saving money on its office costs, so there is more money for radio – that is a good thing.

Casey Costello has made a fair point:

Hobson’s Pledge has, in only two days, achieved an astounding level of interest resulting in mainstream media rallying to vilify Don Brash and hiding behind racist taunts to avoid having a real conversation, spokesperson Casey Costello said today.

Despite all media releases sent by Hobson’s Pledge naming Casey Costello, a driving force behind Hobson’s Pledge, as the authorised spokesperson, not one media representative has directly contacted her.

“I have no appreciation as to why my voice is not considered worthy of providing opinion,” Ms Costello said.

“The Maori Issues correspondent for Radio New Zealand, Mihi Forbes, directly approached as many members of the Hobson’s Pledge Trust as could be located and despite being directed to me, I was never contacted,” she said.

“The resulting article made specific reference to males of clearly European descent within the trust and quoted their comments. I am unclear whether it is my ethnicity or gender that made me irrelevant to her article,” Ms Costello said.

Hobson’s Pledge appointed Ms Costello as a spokesperson based on her experience, empathy, and ability to promote awareness on these issues.

“I have no doubt that my ancestry will be placed under scrutiny – whether I am Maori enough to claim authority to speak or even have empathy” Ms Costello said, “will no doubt be subject for debate.”
For the record Casey Costello is very specific on the point that she represents Hobson’s Pledge as a New Zealander with, as she reiterates, a proud Ngapuhi and Anglo-Irish heritage.

So the official spokesperson is a female with Maori ancestry, yet the media ignore here so they can paint the group as white old men.

Voting has now closed so results will start to trickle in this afternoon and evening. Use this thread to discuss them. I’ll try to do some updates on a few races as I get them.

1302 – Dalziel has crushed Minto by 73,001 to 12,533. That makes it around 85% to 15%.

1331 – Lower Hutt is here. Looks like Labour and friends only got five out of 13 so have failed to gain control. Mallard will be disappointed.  Told Mark Leicester (Labour’s Electorate Secretary) spent over $30,000 and failed to get in.

1340 – Goff has won in Auckland. No surprise. Results here. Well done Chloe Swarbrick who came third!

1. Goff 48.8%
2. Chrome 29.7%
3. Swarbrick 7.2%
4. Palino 5.8%
5. Thomas 2.5%
6. Bright 1.8%

There have been some upsets on the Auckland Council. Greg Sayers has beaten Penny Webster in Rodney and Daniel Newman has beaten Calum Penrose in Manurewa-Papakura.

1443 – Greg Brownless elected Mayor of Tauranga.

1520 – Andrew King ahead in Hamilton.

1620 – And Justin Lester wins easily in Wellington.

The Guardian reports:

A controversial proposal to ban abortion in Poland appears to have collapsed after senior politicians from the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) backed away from it after a parliamentary committee urged MPs to vote it down following mass protests.

The justice and human rights committee, which reviews proposed legislation, recommended that parliament reject the bill following a wave of protests earlier in the week that appear to have caught the rightwing government off guard.

In a humiliating climbdown, PiS members who had referred the legislation to the committee less than two weeks ago threw it out.

The Liberal MP and former prime minister Ewa Kopacz told reporters the PiS had “backtracked because it was scared by all the women who hit the streets in protest”.

Tens of thousands of people boycotted work and classes on Monday to protest against the proposals, which if enacted would impose a blanket ban on abortion, including in instances of pregnancy as a result of rape or incest.

About 30,000 people, many dressed in black, gathered in wretched weather in Warsaw’s Castle Square, chanting “We want doctors, not missionaries!” and carrying placards bearing messages such as “My Uterus, My Opinion” and “Women Just Want to Have FUN-damental Rights.”

Jarosław Gowin, the minister of science and higher education, said on Wednesday that the protests had “caused us to think and taught us humility”.

“The protest was bigger than anyone expected. People were astonished,” said Agnieszka Graff, a commentator and activist. “Warsaw was swarming with women in black. It was amazing to feel the energy and the anger, the emotional intensity was incredible.”

The proposed law which is a ban with no exceptions for rape or pregnancy incest is at the extreme end of abortion laws – only Vatican City and Malta have the same.

A recent poll found only 14% supported the proposed law of a total ban.

The law would have seen women who had an abortion eligible for a five year jail term!

Raybon Kan writes:

I’m no fan of the burqa. It’s subjugation. A woman whose face is covered, is like a document with all the words blacked out.

A woman in a burqa has been redacted from society. A burqa says, don’t look. Nothing to see here. Her identity is unimportant.

Her smile, her frown, all her expressions, are on the cutting-room floor. (God knows how she’s meant to eat, or drink.)

And don’t get me started on other forms of cutting.

And when this burqa silhouette is out and about, at the mall, on the street, what message do her children receive, unable to see her face?

The message is power and identity – and she has none of it. A woman in a burqa likely isn’t voting, and damn sure isn’t running for office.

She is generic. No wonder her husband can have more than one wife. How to tell the wives apart anyway, their faces covered? Do burqas have a licence plate?

Faces are incredibly important. People who work in CGI have an expression: the uncanny valley. That’s when they try to make a photo-real face, but it’s unconvincing.

Because we know faces. We know faces so well, a huge amount of the time, we feel bad we can’t remember names.

The burqa is medieval. And like medieval plumbing and medieval medicine, it’s out of date. Like women not owning property, not going to school, or not leaving home without male guardians, the burqa contradicts basic human rights.

Of course, basic human rights, is a recent concept. But air travel and YouTube have given us time travel. Medieval people are time-travelling into the 21st century, leap-frogging centuries of liberal progress, and they find our ways shocking.

The burqa isn’t some post-feminist freedom from a bad hair day. It’s a mistake we made to get here.

That is a good argument – that a burqa is used to remove identity from women.

I don’t support banning it, but I don’t think we should see the burqa as empowering for anyone.

#Colombia has just delivered one of the biggest polling fails of all time. Actual result:

SI 49.76
NO 50.23#ColombiaDecide#ColombiaVota pic.twitter.com/EwX1OGjWzt

— Matt Singh (@MattSingh_) October 2, 2016

That is a big failure. The 10 polls in September predicted on average the referendum on the peace treaty would pass by 29%. It failed by 0.4%.

Information on what it means for Colombia is here. Hopefully a revised peace deal can be agreed on and ratified.

The Herald reports:

Hundreds of driverless cars are predicted to be seen on New Zealand’s roads, and at one of our biggest airports, by the end of next year.

NZTech head Graeme Muller said the Government was doing well at opening up opportunities for testing the new technology, but said we needed to set higher goals if New Zealand wanted to be world leaders.

“I would predict that by the end of 2017 there will actually be hundreds of driverless vehicles in New Zealand at various stages of trail and commercial operation,” Muller said.

A driverless transport shuttle will soon be zipping around the grounds of Christchurch Airport – with future plans to have autonomous vehicles transport passengers.

The two-year research trial of a French-built Navya shuttle will largely take place at Christchurch International Airport from next year.

Muller called this announcement “great news” for New Zealand.

“Driverless vehicle technology is developing at such a rapid pace that many cities around the world are already piloting the technology.”

The driverless 15-seat passenger transport shuttle will at first be driven on private roads with no public present, and have a long-term aim of moving to public roads.

Great to see the trial happening.

A public transport analyst commented to me this week that we underestimate the potential impact of driverless cars on congestion. We have the two second rule between vehicles to allow for reaction time. Driverless cars do not need this reaction time, so you may potentially have three to four times as many driverless cars in a section of road, as existing cars.

An interesting site by Straterra about coal.

The burning of fossil fuels is driving climate change. All of us – collectively, globally, including the coal industry – face the challenge of reducing CO₂ emissions to stabilise average surface temperatures, as agreed by 195 countries (including New Zealand) in Paris in late 2015.

That’s the problem definition. How to do this is the hard part.

Fossil fuels currently provide 78% of global primary energy. Fossil fuels, including coal, remain the fuel of choice for many developed countries, and for developing countries where priorities are clearly aimed at raising standards of living rather than environmental cost.

Straterra, the industry association representing New Zealand’s minerals and mining sector, has created Let’s Talk About Coal to contribute to an informed debate on how we respond to climate change by reducing the effects of fossil fuel use in New Zealand, and globally.

This is the problem. Coal use does have to decline over time, but you can’t just turn off 78% of the world’s primary energy overnight.

Over the past 30 years, at least 650 million people have been lifted out of energy poverty, mostly in China where most are now connected to a largely coal-generated grid.

In the words of World Bank Vice President Rachel Kyte: “Access to energy is absolutely fundamental in the struggle against poverty. It is energy that lights the lamp that lets you do your homework, that keeps the heat on in a hospital, that lights the small businesses where most people work. Without energy, there is no economic growth, there is no dynamism.”

The developed world can transition to renewables reasonably easily, as NZ has. But the developing world has a far tougher challenge.

Also of interest is how much coal is needed to make everyday products:

• 1100 kgs of coal to make one tonne of steel
• 1800 kgs of coal to make one tonne of tomatoes
• 1.5 kgs of coal to make one leg of beer
• 310 kgs of coal to make one tonne of salt
• 160 kgs of coal to make one tonne of cement

Stats NZ reports:

Median weekly earnings from paid employment rose $44, to reach $924, between the June 2015 and June 2016 quarters, Statistics New Zealand said today. This increase of 5.0 percent was the largest annual increase since the June 2007 quarter. Paid employment includes both wage and salary earners and self-employed people.

So we have inflation of just 0.4% and the average worker is earning 5% more than a year ago. Great.

We also have close to the strongest economic growth in the OECD, falling unemployment and the government accounts in surplus (again rare in the OECD).

Sure there are challenges, especially around housing, but my God New Zealand is looking so much better than almost everywhere else.

Green MP Marama Davidson has some great peaceful shipmates on board her feminist peace flotilla (of one ship!). Tablet Mag has details.

First we have Ola Abed who is a video game inventor. How cool. What does the game do? Encourage kids to shoot Israelis. You even get extra points for headshots!

We also have Norsham Abu Bakr who has said Israel is actually behind the Islamic terrorist attacks in Munich and Nice.

Wendy Goldsmith seems to thinks Israel was behind 9/11

And we also have Fauzia Hasan who has openly advocated banning Sisters in Islam, a Muslim women’s movement working for gender equality within the religion.

Surprised the Herald left this up on their Facebook page from several days ago:

Saying that the Jews deserved the Holocaust is close to as bad as you can get.

John Milford of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce writes:

World of Wearable Arts, Wellington on a Plate, Festival of the Arts, Rugby Sevens… they’re just some of heavyweights of the Wellington events scene that bring in hundreds of thousands of people and tens of millions of dollars.

They help make us the events capital of New Zealand. 

Not only do they each attract people in their own right, but together they encourage other events: the touring shows, the bands, and the one-offs that wouldn’t come here if we didn’t have a record of putting on a good night and selling-out a good show.

It’s hard to imagine Wellington without them. Year after year we enjoy them while acknowledging the huge spend they bring in.

There’s one ingredient they have in common – they all receive, in some form, ratepayer assistance, from either the city growth fund, the events development fund or Positively Wellington Tourism’s budget.

They’re all great things to have. And I’m not opposed to potential ratepayer assistance where there is a clear benefit to Wellington, but that is not enough by itself.

The first question has to be whether these events would occur without ratepayer assistance. Some like WOW could well go elsewhere while the Rugby Sevens probably would not. The Sevens location is more about the ability to get great crowds. Would we really have no Wellington on a Plate without ratepayer assistance?

We need people who will do a hard headed analysis of the business case for each, and the probability they would not occur without ratepayer assistance.

Exact payments aren’t disclosed.

Mostly this is because the council doesn’t want to give away even the slightest commercial advantage by letting competitors know what it’s prepared to pay to secure an event.

Oh sorry but crap. Is there another Sevens event that might negotiate? Plus publishing the amount paid could be great for attracting other events. They could say “Hey you were willing to pay $x for this event, we can do another event for $x-10”

At the end of the day ratepayers deserve to know. When central Government does similar deals, the amounts are published.

Anyway, most of us don’t care what is paid – we don’t ask because we know the benefits far outweigh the likely costs.

This attitude is why my business is not a member of the Chamber. Appalling to have a business leader argue businesses don’t care how much money is paid on their behalf.

Has the Chamber ever surveyed its members and ask them if they support secrecy around the corporate welfare?

For example, WoW drags in $20 million-plus for  two weeks’ work, while the Sevens once earned a little less than that in just three days.

So how can we judge that when we don’t know the level of subsidy? Also all these economic benefit cases assume the money spent on an activity would not have been spent otherwise. When in reality if you didn’t go to the Sevens, you might have gone out to dinner or a movie and spent money also.

Now when events get people from outside the region, you are creating a benefit for the region, but it is not as simple as calculating the total spent on an event and assuming it is all “benefit”.

So if we’re happy with spending undisclosed amounts on these events, why make a big thing about not disclosing the size of a marketing package to encourage a Singapore Airlines service between us, Canberra and Singapore?

Particularly when all events have the exactly the same aims and all have to meet an acceptable return on investment.

BECAUSE IT IS SECRET AND WE DON’T KNOW THE RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency is in no doubt as to the benefits of the air service, saying it “will boost visitor numbers…opens doors for more investment, international student attraction, a faster route to market for local fresh food producers and increased connectivity for business travellers.” 

Actually according to the Council no external advice was sought on the benefits. They just took whatever the Airport said as gospel.

If it is such a good deal, then publish the numbers. Tell us how much is being subsidised, and publish the report calculating the benefits so it can be independently scrutinised.

The chamber is always first to speak up when there’s an issue around transparency of spending ratepayer money.

Really? You seem to a a cheerleader for secrecy at the moment.

We’ve made it our mission to keep a close eye on this, and the council will get no change from us if something smells.

How do you know if it smells when you don’t know the amount being spent, don’t know the estimate of the value, and the Council itself says there is no documentation at all.

And the Singapore Airlines deal, which connects us directly to the world and is worth an estimated $95 million a year, may never have got off the ground.

How do you know it is worth $95 million a year? A lobbyist has told you so. Have you seen any independent verification of this? Has there been a public report that could be scrutinised for its assumptions?

There’s an old saying – if it is too good to be true, then it is. The notion than you can get a $95 million a year benefit for $800,000 falls into that.

Wellington needs a business lobby that is a watchdog, not a cheerleader, for secret Council spending.