“Congress can raise taxes because it can persuade a sizable fraction of the populace that somebody else will pay.”
– Milton Friedman
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Audrey Young writes:
This past week, without doubt, has been Little’s worst week as leader.
It began with uncertainty over Labour’s TPP position and ended in disunity.
I wrote last week that this will be the year we see whether Little has merely papered over the cracks in Labour or if he has plastered over them to make them watertight.
I didn’t realise we’d get the answer so quickly. It’s definitely a paper job so far.
When Labour staffers or MPs start leaking e-mails to Matthew Hooton, you know there is serious dissent.
It means his party has ended the bipartisan approach to free trade that has effectively operated since the fourth Labour Government started removing tariffs.
Labour has taken a gamble in dispensing with the prevailing orthodoxy.
With four of the last six Labour leaders supporting TPP, it makes Little’s sales job to the public all the harder.
Yes tell us Andrew why Helen Clark is so wrong when she said it would be unthinkable to not be part of such a huge trade agreement?
The Herald reports:
Luxon spent 16 years living overseas and several years in Canada during the Canadian flag referendum.
In 1965 when they changed their flag, there was a lot of the same debate that was now happening in New Zealand.
“One of the things was, is the maple leaf and in our case, the silver fern, an overused logo or emblem. The reality is it has become a singular identifier of Canada and all Canadians and I think in many ways the silver fern will work like that for us here as well.”
Luxon said Canada’s transition was quite messy but that was the nature of such debates.
Countries like Canada with its maple leaf and Japan with its rising sun were easily identified by their iconic flags and Luxon said the fern was on par with those global icons.
“We’re in a world of 196 countries, 7.3 billion people. As a person who has spent 16 years living overseas and leads a company that does a lot of export business, I just think it helps us stand out a little bit better,” he said.
I doubt 1% of the world could recognise the NZ flag as representing New Zealand. However I’d say the maple leaf flag and rising sun flags have massive recognition globally as the flags of Canada and Japan. We have a chance to have our national symbol of the silver fern fly on our flag around the world. Or we can stick with a flag that like 30 others has a union jack on it.
Duncan Garner writes:
How on earth can Labour beat John Key?
This thorny question must have totally consumed Labour’s MPs at their recent caucus retreat.
I can’t imagine any back-slapping took place. More back-stabbing. After all, what is there for them to celebrate?
A sunny January?
Whether you like Key or not you have to concede that he’s one smart, pragmatic holder of the vast but crucial Centre ground.
And Labour’s only helping him by looking divided and hopelessly confused over the controversial trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
No less than four former Labour Party leaders support the TPPA: Phil Goff, Mike Moore, Helen Clark and David Shearer.
They’re in the prime minister’s camp as leader Andrew Little takes his caucus towards the Greens.
Yep Labour once again shifts left.
The truth is, if John Key is a rabid Right-winger he’s disguised it well. He just wants to stay in power.
And Labour’s doing its best to help him by looking shabby, confused and divided.
This belated anti-TPPA posturing – too feeble and too late in the game – feels contrived and lacking in conviction.
I don’t know what Labour really stands for these days, and I’m sure, Goff, Moore, Shearer and Clark are struggling to answer that question too.
Labour is the gift that keeps on giving. Especially for Key.
Helen Clark must shake her head and wonder.
Both Charles Finny and Stephen Jacobi dispel some TPP myths.
Finny in the Herald looks at the false information abut TPP and the Treaty:
Former MP Hone Harawira has stated some complete falsehoods about Trans Pacific Partnership, Maori and the Treaty of Waitangi.
This coincided with publication of a paper by “experts” Dr Carwyn Jones, Associate Professor Claire Charters, Andrew Eruti and Professor Jane Kelsey on “Maori rights, Te Tiriti O Waitangi and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement”.
Days later several Maori elders spoke negatively about the TPP at Ratana and were joined by a bevy of political leaders.
This criticism of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) forced me to reread a big chunk of the TPP and previous free trade agreements and to study every element of the criticisms being levelled against the TPP and Maori.
My conclusions are radically different from the critics’. I believe that rather than being inadequate in its protections for Maori, TPP is if anything a taonga in the way it protects the rights of the New Zealand Government to discriminate in favour of Maori.
This in turn, I think, adds enormous mana to Maori.
Finny has actually read the TPP, and he makes the point NZ is unique in getting protection for the indigenous people in there:
TPP is an agreement between 12 countries. Pretty much all the 12 jurisdictions are home to indigenous minorities – for example, the First Peoples of the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, the Aboriginal people in Australia, the Malays in Singapore and Malaysia, and the Ainu in Japan.
Yet none of these peoples is mentioned in the main text of the deal and none of their Governments has secured agreement from the other members that they should be allowed to discriminate in favour of them.
And further:
TPP’s protection of the Treaty goes even further than earlier FTAs. It states “the parties agree that the interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, including as to the nature of the rights and obligations arising under it, shall not be subject to the dispute settlement provisions of this agreement.” This means it is entirely up to New Zealand to determine if any discrimination has occurred because of the treaty (so long as this is not a disguised restriction on trade).
I am frankly amazed the US and others have agreed to this provision. Our ministers and officials have done a great job achieving this. All Maori should be saying: “Well done!”
This image shows the China FTA Treaty clauses and the TPP Treaty clauses. Again the difference is Labour are just sulking because they didn’t conclude the TPP.
And on the wider TPP issues, Stephen Jacobi responds to Andrew Little’s letter on the TPP:
I agree that the dairy aspects of TPP are not as good as they could have been and as we had hoped. But they are in the view of the negotiators and the dairy industry the best that could have been achieved in the circumstances. Dairy still benefits more than any other sector from tariff cuts in key markets and the establishment of new tariff quotas. The meat deal – specifically beef to Japan – is a significant market opening about which the industry has welcomed. Without this we will not be able to compete with Australia which already has an FTA with Japan. To call the rest “not much” is a serious underestimation – tariff reductions and/or elimination for horticultural products including kiwifruit, wine, wood products and seafood cannot so easily be dismissed. Addressing tariff and non-tariff barriers for manufactured products such as health technologies and agricultural equipment is also significant.
And he deals with Little’s claim one of their bottom lines was not met:
Labour’s clearly signalled “bottom-line” for TPP was it should provide for restrictions on land sales to non-resident foreigners. This is possible under TPP: a future Government could if it wished apply a stamp duty or other tax to restrict these sales. Opinion is divided on whether an outright ban could be introduced, but there is a ready alternative to meet Labour’s policy position.
Labour could set 100% stamp duty of sales to foreigners. They could set it at 10000%. It’s a different method to achieve the same result.
TPP does provide for our partners to make their views known on any measure which may be introduced that could have an impact on trade. But these provisions are far from “unheard of”. They are already enshrined in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and other FTAs concluded by Labour including the China FTA. They are what make it possible for New Zealand to be consulted on changes affecting our exports to other markets such as subsidies under the Farm Bill or a discriminatory labelling or levy system. Importantly these provisions retain the right of the Government to continue to regulate: the Government may have to listen to the views of trading partners but not necessarily heed them. Bottom line is we do this already and have been doing so for years now.
Almost every international agreement has a provision about consultation, such as the Antarctic Treaty.
Little- “For instance we would have to let Carlos Slim, the wealthy Mexican telecom company owner, vet any regulation of our telecommunications industry.”
Not quite. The Government is required to publish notice of its proposed changes as it does in the Official Gazette, but not advise everyone personally. Mr Slim may offer comment if he wishes. The Government still decides.
So basically the requirement is to publish things in the Official Gazette. This is so trivial, I can’t believe Labour are seriously citing this as a major issue.
The reality is Labour are only against TPP because National concluded the negotiations. If they had been Government they would have got the same deal (or worse) and would be proclaiming it as a great success, as they did with the China FTA (which they did and was). They’re just sore losers because they’re in opposition.
Stats NZ reports:
Annual net gains from Australia continued to increase, with 800 migrants in the December 2015 year. This was the highest net gain since the October 1991 year, and the third month in a row to show an annual net gain of migrants from Australia.
That’s net migration inwards of 27 people a day from Australia. It used to be net migration outwards to Australia of 110 a day.
As you can see we have both twice as many people migrating from Australia, but also only half as many migrating to Australia.
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The January Curia newsletter is out. The summary is:
Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 93, January 2016
There was one political voting poll in January – a Roy Morgan.
The average of the public polls has National 19% ahead of Labour in January, down 1% from December. The current seat projection is centre-right 59 seats, centre-left 51 which would see the Maori Party hold the balance of power.
We show the current New Zealand poll averages for party vote, country direction and preferred PM compared to three months ago, a year ago, three years ago and nine years ago. This allows easy comparisons between terms and Governments.
In the United States as voting in primaries is about to start Donald Trump leads by 7% in Iowa, 215 in New Hampshire, 16% in South Carolina and 14% in Nevada.
On the Democratic side Clinton leads by 4% in Iowa, Sanders by 13% in New Hampshire and Clinton by 30% in South Carolina.
In the UK there is only a 6% chance of a Labour-led Government.
In Australia since the accession of Malcolm Turnbull, the Coalition has maintained a strong lead over Labor, with an election due within the year.
In Canada despite gloomy economic news, a plurality of Canadians think Canada is heading in the right direction.
We also carry details of polls on US ship visits plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.
This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail. If you would like to receive future issues, please go to http://curia.us10.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=e9168e04adbaaaf75e062779e&id=8507431512 to subscribe yourself.
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The Herald reports:
New Zealand exporters say they are concerned that a political consensus on trade has been lost after the Labour Party came out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
ExportNZ executive director Catherine Beard said in the past exporters had been able to rely on the support of both main political parties on trade.
“This has helped our exporters succeed in new markets and earn valuable revenue for New Zealand,” she said.
“Exporters are now feeling some dismay at the thought that our future trade prospects could be limited by political disagreement.”
Ms Beard said it was difficult to understand why Labour supported the China free trade agreement but not the TPP, “when they are similar in all major respects”. She described Labour’s position on the TPP as a step backwards for the country’s export competitiveness.
It is sad to see Labour abandon decades of bipartisan support on trade policy. They keep getting dragged more and more to the left.
The Herald reports:
The executor of Jonah Lomu’s will is raising questions after discovering the All Black’s widow made multiple changes to Companies Office documents, inserting herself as a part-owner of a company which owns a Wellington property and his trademarks.
Companies Office records show Nadene Lomu was an “authorised person” but had no stake in the ownership of Stylez Ltd before January 4 this year – almost two months after Lomu died.
But on that date and the day after, the public record shows she made multiple changes to the ownership of the company.
The Companies Office lists “Nadene Quirk” – her maiden name – as inserting “Nadene Lomu” as a 20 per cent shareholder at 1.07pm on January 4.
At 4.12pm, another change was made – this time increasing her shareholding to 98 per cent. Five minutes later, she increased the shareholding again – it was now 99 per cent.
The following day, January 5, a final change to the ownership of the company was made, again by “Nadene Quirk”. It was reduced back to 50 per cent, the records show.
On Wednesday last week, “Nadene Quirk” made a final change to the Companies Office record. On this occasion, she inserted Nadene Lomu as a director in Stylez Ltd.
Previous Companies Office filings have been made for Stylez Ltd by “Nadene Quirk”. She first emerged in 2014, taking over from accountants Grant Thornton. The 2014 annual return lists “Nadene Lomu” as an “authorised person” to submit documents.
I know a bit about this as a company director and shareholder.
The authorised person does not have authority to make changes on their own initiative. Their role is to implement the decisions of the shareholders or directors.
However, the changes to the company records have prompted questions from the executor of Lomu’s will, lawyer Chris Darlow.
Darlow said his role as executor – recently confirmed by the court – meant he acted “as the deceased’s personal representative” and was charged with carrying out the instructions in the will.
Among the instructions will be what happens to Stylez Ltd, which Intellectual Property Office of NZ records show has first rights to trademarks in Lomu’s name.
As Lomu had 100 per cent ownership of the company, its future will be described in the will and for the executor to effect. It also owns a Wellington apartment, which is mortgaged.
It is quite improper and in fact illegal for someone to make changes to the companies office records without authorisation, which has occurred here.
If it eventuates that the instructions in the will are to transfer ownership to Mrs Lomu, then I doubt a prosecution is warranted. But if the instructions are different, then this becomes a matter of fraud.
I hope this is just a case of ignorance of the process to be followed.
Labour’s announcement of three years “free” tertiary education is a remarkable lunge to the left. They’ve adopted what was a fringe Alliance Party policy.
Its what you get from a party whose leader, finance spokesperson and education spokesperson are all former student presidents. They’re spent so many years chanting “free” education on protest marches, they’re never outgrown it.
This is a very very bad policy. Not a moderately bad policy, but a really really bad policy. This is for numerous reasons.
Cost
Labour say once fully implemented it will cost $1.2 billion a year. It will in fact cost far more than this. Labour never ever properly take into account growth in demand if you make something “free”. If you make houses free, everyone will buy a house. Make alcohol free almost everyone will buy alcohol. Make tertiary education “free”, and of course you will get a huge explosion in people enrolling. They may not complete a course, but they will enrol.
Quality
Labour’s policy will be great for tertiary providers. All they have to do is get you to sign a piece of paper and the Government will give them $15,000 or so. Even under the current funding system we’ve seen a reasonable number of rorts where providers hire people to go around hamburger bars and sign people up for a low quality (but zero fee) course, so they get the funding for it.
Providers respond to incentives. They will spend a huge amount of money on signing people up, and people will sign up with little regard for quality or usefulness – as they are not paying anything themselves. When someone offers you something for free you care far less about the quality than if you have to partially pay for it yourself.
Helps the most wealthy
People who get a degree will on average over their life-time earn at least $500,000 more income. This policy will see people who don’t go to university paying higher taxes to fund those who do go to university. Truck drivers will pay more in tax so that lawyers get $15,000 free money from the Government.
It is not unreasonable that in exchange for extra income of $500,000+, students contribute towards the cost of tertiary courses they undertake.
Not targeted
If there is an issue with wanting more people to do tertiary student, who are put off by having to get a loan, then you could target assistance based on income. This doesn’t. This is just a huge bribe.
Opportunity Cost
Almost every study in education shows that the most critical period is early childhood. If you went to 100 experts in education and said we have $1.5 billion a year to spend – where should we spend it to make the most difference to educational outcomes, no one would say spend it all on tertiary – let alone on a policy that will lower quality of education, not improve it.
So in summary it will:
David Wasserman at 538 blogs:
This is the story of Barack Obama, but it could also be the story of Marco Rubio. The striking parallels between the two, beyond the obvious ethnic barrier-breaking nature of their candidacies, make Democratic strategists terrified to face Rubio in the fall. Yet the notion that Rubio is the “Republican Obama” also makes some GOP voters hesitant to support him.
There are a lot of complex analyses of the 2016 election floating around. My own theory is quite straightforward: If Hillary Clinton is the nominee — and she remains a heavy favorite over Bernie Sanders — her fate largely rests with Republican voters’ decisions over the next few months.
If Republicans nominate Rubio, they would have an excellent chance to beat Clinton by broadening their party’s appeal with moderates, millennials and Latinos. The GOP would also have an excellent chance to keep the Senate, hold onto a wide margin in the House and enjoy more control of federal government than they have in over a decade.
I agree. I think Rubio can win and win fairly easily. I think voters will choose a fresh face over an old one, especially one so associated with the current President. Only 30% of Americans think the country is heading in the right direction and want something better.
If they nominate Ted Cruz, Clinton would probably win, the GOP Senate majority would also be in peril and GOP House losses could climb well into the double digits. A Donald Trump nomination would not only make Clinton’s election very likely and raise the odds of a Democratic Senate; it could force down-ballot Republicans to repudiate Trump to survive, increase pressure on a center-right candidate to mount an independent bid and split the GOP asunder.
There is a lot at stake.
Select Rubio and you have the chance of a Republican President, Senate and House. But arguably even more importantly it may fix the make up of the Supreme Court for the next generation.
By the end of the next presidential term, the four oldest Supreme Court justices could retire. Their ages by the end of 2020 would be:
If either Ginsburg or Breyer retire (or die) then the ability to pick and ratify the replacement will give conservative justices a majority that could last a generation or more.
Likewise if Kennedy retired, then the swing vote would become a conservative vote.
But if they pick Cruz or Trump and Clinton becomes President, not only won;t this happen, but for the first time in decades you could get a liberal majority. If Scalia retires or dies, the liberal Justices will gain a 5th member and the majority. The same applies if Kennedy retires.
In other words, if you’re a member of the Republican Party who wants to win in November, it’s basically Rubio or bust. The “Rubio or bust” theory relies on a process of elimination rather than an assessment of his biography, skills or ground game.
Polling shows Rubio can beat Clinton with white women, independents and seniors.
It’s hard to imagine Clinton matching the share of Latino voters that Obama won in 2012, 71 percent, against a Spanish-speaking son of immigrants who supported a bipartisan immigration reform bill. It’s also hard to imagine Clinton matching Obama’s 60 percent among 18-to-29-year-olds against a candidate two decades younger than she is. Finally, unlike in 2012, Democrats wouldn’t have the luxury of portraying the GOP nominee as a corporate robber baron who has never walked in voters’ shoes.
Clinton will not excite the left. She will play one the 1st women president card, but I don’t think that is enough against Rubio.
The Herald reports:
An author-on-author scrap has broken out over the Marlborough Sounds murders with Ian Wishart’s new book being pulled from bookshelves under threat of legal action.
Author Keith Hunter, who has also written on the case, told Whitcoulls he would sue Wishart and anyone connected to selling Elementary if it contained criticisms of his professional conduct.
Hunter produced the documentary Murder on the Blade? in 2003 and then published Trial By Trickery in 2007.
He said he had heard Wishart made claims this morning that the book was critical about Hunter’s research on the case.
“I told Whitcoulls that if that is true that he did say that in the book that I would sue him and anyone else who helps him distribute his book. If he has defamed me — lowered my reputation — I will undoubtedly sue him.”
Hunter was in the process of reading Elementary when called by the Herald, having bought a copy at a Ponsonby bookshop chain which was among those he had contacted this morning. He said the other chain should also pull the book from shelves. As for Whitcoulls, he said: “Good on them.”
Not a good look to threaten a book chain with defamation over a book you have not even read yet. It comes across more as trying to prevent an alternative argument be read.
What I find interesting is that Wishart had previously wrote he thought Watson was innocent, but the evidence he gained has now convinced him the other way around. Stuff reports:
Wishart says the sheer amount of new material he had access to led him to conclude Scott Watson was guilty – a complete turnaround from the findings of his first book on the case.
Ben and Olivia: What really happened?, published in 1999, supported the theory Watson was innocent.
Wishart said he had access to 7000 extra documents for Elementary, including evidence the police had possessed and discarded, and that had led him to a different conclusion.
“I’ve had to retract what I’ve previously said and say ‘I was wrong’.”
This must be a rare event – to publish one book supporting innocence and 16 years later publish another concluding guilt.
A very informative Facebook post by former trade negotiator Charles Finny on the TPP:
My old University chum Timothy O’Brien asked me yesterday to defend TPP’s dispute settlement provisions.
TPP contains two types of dispute settlement. In the media and political criticism the two are often confused. There is the standard (in WTO and all our FTAs apart from CER – the reason why apples took so long to resolve)provisions which allow parties to the agreement to challenge breaches of the agreement. This is a purely government to government process and applies to the full agreement unless specified (e.g. interpretation of the Treaty of Waitingi the dispute settlement provisions do not apply). Then, in the investment chapter only, there is the investor state dispute settlement mechanism. This allows a company to challenge a government if it believes that government has breached its commitments in the investment chapter only. Many of the critics (who should know better) suggest that governments can be sued for breaches of outside of the investment provisions. This is not possible.
Useful clarification.
It is important to stress that TPP is worded differently to NAFTA and the Australian investment treaties that were used to challenge plain packaging of cigarettes. The critics often cite these agreements as examples of why we should fear ISDS without noting the fact that TPP has been drafted with the sloppy drafting in earlier agreements in mind.
New Zealand has been agreeing (indeed advocating for ) ISDS provisions in investment treaties and FTAs since the late 1980s (see for example the original China NZ Investment protection agreement). To date the NZ Government has yet to face a challenge.
Put simply I believe these provisions provide useful security for NZ investors offshore. Some of the governments we trade with and have FTAs or investment treaties are far more likely to breach these agreements than we are.
Not one challenge in 30 years, yet alone a successful one. Over 3,000 international agreements have provisions for dispute resolution and the number of actual disputes is very small – around one per agreement on average.
There are multiple exclusions (e.g. our Overseas Investment laws) and multiple acceptances of our right to regulate to protect the environment, to protect human health and safety, to discriminate for Maori under the Treaty of Waitangi etc to ensure that TPP will not have the type of chilling effect on policy making that the critics maintain. And, on top of the above protections, tobacco is completely carved out of the agreement so no worries there.
Our negotiators did a very good job getting numerous exemptions.
But is you want to nationalise huge hunks of the economy without compensation – you do have a problem. As you would if you tried to use human health as a justification for a policy if there was no science to justify the policy. Until recently I did not think that future NZ Governments would act in this way. This is why I think we have nothing to fear and that these provisions can only benefit NZ.
I’d say it is more likely a NZ company could use the ISDS against a fellow TPP country, than a US company could use it against New Zealand.
Whale Oil blogs:
So how much money has Gameloft received from the NZ Government and Steve Joyce’s piggy bank?
Well it appears to be $15 million, which is funding at $5 million per annum for three years starting 1 January 2014. That means their funding goes until 31 December 2016…this year.
Which is problematic because this morning the news is that Gameloft is closing down, with all developers being sacked.
That’s sad for the staff involved and the investors.
Also sad for the taxpayer who pumped $15 million into a failed company.
I’m not against the Government having some role in supporting business, but we seem to be giving away a lot of money and I am unsure they produce a positive return.
Reports are done on grant recipients, but they tend to be done in the short term when of course the companies are doing well.
What I’d like to see is an audit done of all companies that received government money say five and ten years after they received the funding. Is that company still going? Do they have more or less staff than before they got the grant? Have they increased revenue and/or exports?
UPDATE: The correct figure is $2.8 million, not $15 million. $15 million is the company’s total spend on R&D, and the government grant was for 20% of that. Also Stuff reports the money will have to be repaid, which is good to see.
The Dom Post editorial:
Wellington City Council is full of big ideas and grand announcements at the moment. Plenty of them are worth supporting.
But confusion and secrecy too often seem to follow in their wake – especially when it comes to the money involved.
First this week came word from three councillors that the costs of the Island Bay cycleway – already political dynamite in the south coast suburb – had blown out to more than double its projected $1.7 million budget. Yet council chief executive Kevin Lavery said that was completely wrong, and the cycleway was on track to meet its budget.
This yawning difference is amateur stuff – all four were in the same meeting. One side is barking wrong, and ratepayers need to know which it is.
Yes, we do.
I’m generally supportive of cycleways but the Island Bay one appears to be a clusterf**k. It has made the area more dangerous.
Meanwhile, the council’s triumphant announcement that Singapore Airlines will fly a new route from Wellington to Canberra from September also turns out to have strings attached for ratepayers.
The council, it emerges, is set to pay as much as $800,000 a year in subsidies to the airline for the next decade. The money will come from its Destination Wellington fund, which aims to “attract business, talent and investment” to the region.
Like the council’s Economic Initiatives Development Fund, which sank $300,000 of ratepayer money into the recently-failed call centre business CallActive, it also seems wreathed in secrecy.
But why should Wellington City Council applaud the arrival of an airline without revealing that it will help bankroll the new route? That isn’t commercial sensitivity; it is a sort of deception on the ratepayers.
It is deception and it also shows the Council a soft touch with ratepayers money. Other businesses will be lining up to try and get some dosh.
The Herald reports:
Whether or not Aucklanders pay motorway tolls is a key factor in the city’s negotiations with the government over funding the City Rail Link (CRL). …
But while the government has confirmed it will fund half of the project and bring the business plan forward to allow work to start in 2018, it has not given Auckland a cast iron guarantee.
It still needed to work through some complex issues with the council, Key said.
“These include how the project costs will be finally shared… and how the Rail Link will be owned and managed,” he said.
Auckland Council wants to help fund its share of the new rail link which will run through the city’s CBD by introducing tolls on the region’s motorways.
But Key said the council had plenty of other options, including paying for it with rates or raising debt.
“We are lukewarm on (tolls), because in the end it reduces the available disposable income of Aucklanders and makes Auckland as a place to do business a little more expensive.” the Prime Minister said.
“We haven’t ruled those things out but we have said they absolutely need to justify them.”
I support tolls and congestion charges as a form of user pays. Those who get benefits from the roads should pay for them.
But they should generally be applied only to new roads. The toll or charge should fund the road that is being used.
Placing a toll on roads long ago paid for is a form of double taxation and unfair.
The Veteran writes at No Minister:
The story so far … Selwyn Clarke, 88 yo ratbag Maori activist and ‘war’ veteran had his War Disability Pension cut off after a warrant was issued for his arrest following his failure to attend Court on charges relating to the illegal occupation by Ngati Kahu of the Kaitaia Airport in September last year. The occupation saw the abandonment of scheduled passenger service flights as well as medical flights into and out of the Far North.
Clarke claimed his ‘kaupapa’ did not allow him to recognise the authority of the Courts. He received backing from Winston Peters who called for the reinstatement of his pension saying that the law under which he was arrested was highly questionable.
Let’s deal with that claim first of all. Peters is supposed to be a lawyer. He should know the place to test the law is in the Courts and just why he would choose to go into bat for a serial protester who by his own admission has no respect for the law quite beggars belief.
But, as they say, there’s more. Clarke claims to have served with 28 Maori Battalion. There are five Clarke’s listed on the Battalion nominal roll … none of them Selwyn Clarke and all dead. Further, there are seven Karaka’s (Maori for Clarke) listed … none of them with the forenames Haki Herewini (Clarke’s Maori forenames) and again, all dead.
There is however evidence that he enlisted late in the war sailing to the Middle-East with the 15th Reinforcements. That would have seen him on-board a ship when VE Day was announced. The 15th Reinforcements landed in Egypt, were processed through to Italy to join the Division in time for them to be sent home. The only ‘action’ they saw would have been in Cairo or in some Italian Taverna.
The water gets muddier. Clarke also claims he served as a Military Policeman and that would have seen him a member of the Divisional Provost Company and not 28 Battalion. I am inclined to believe this as my sources from within Maoridom tell me that Clarke was shunned by members of 28 Battalion when he tried to gatecrash on their gatherings.
But it gets better. Clarke would have it that he first enlisted (at age 13 or 15 … changing story) under an assumed name (not revealed) where he served with 28 Battalion in the western desert in the 1941-43 campaign. He claims one of his tasks was to escort prisoners through minefields and further, that his platoon commander (unnamed) shot prisoners and that this continually haunts him. Now clearly Clarke is not the sharpest knife in the drawer or else he would have realized that he was admitting to being an accessory to a war crime as defined in the London Charter (the Nuremburg Laws) of 1945.
If the story is correct then Clarke may get to know more about arrest warrants. There is no statute of limitations for war crimes.
If the story is incorrect then Clarke has bought dishonor to 28 Battalion and to an unnamed officer, now dead, with false allegations of war crimes.
I don’t think Mr Clarke has a lot of credibility.
So, there it is, Selwyn Clarke, either and by his own admission an accessory to a war crime (the murder of POWs) or a liar about his service with 28 Battalion.
Whatever, he has no credibility at all and Winston Peters has made a huge mistake in aligning himself with him.
More may come out on this.
Stuff reports:
New Zealand shouldn’t rush to sign the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement given its “extremely remote” chances of passing into law in the United States, according to an American trade analyst and critic of the deal.
However, Prime Minister John Key has dismissed the concerns, saying he is confident American politicians will ultimately support the free trade deal.
Trade analyst Lori Wallach, who is in New Zealand to speak at a series of anti-TPPA public meetings, said the deal was “in a certain amount of political trouble” in the United States.
“One of the big questions in political Washington is why New Zealand is rushing towards both the signing right now but also the notion of passing implementation, given the prospects that the US Congress passes the TPP as it is – ever – is extremely remote.”
Wallach said the TPPA was “dozens of votes short” in the House of Representatives, with Democrats concerned about the changes to environmental standards and drug patent changes and Republicans opposed to the “carve-out” excluding tobacco control measures from the investor state disputes mechanism.
It is true that Republicans complain Australia and NZ negotiators were too tough and got too good a deal in the TPP. But this does not mean they will let TPP die.
First of all the likely vote is in the lame duck Congress, which will mean there will be some retiring Democratic Representatives and Senators who will be able to vote for it as they don’t need to worry about the Labor unions trying to get them thrown out if they support it.
But you also have to look at the history of major trade agreements in the US. NAFTA was way more controversial than the TPPA, yet it got ratified by the Congress with a 234-200 vote in the House and 61 to 38 in the Senate.
Rob Hosking writes in NBR:
What a week.
The Greens embraced the Treasury.
National embraced public transport in Auckland.
And Labour embraced Jane Kelsey.
A great summary.
In sharp contrast, the Labour Party is jackknifing confusingly and messily all over the road over the TPP agreement.
The week closed with Andrew Little looking as though he had lost control of the issue, with two former leaders Phil Goff and David Shearer opposing his opposition to the TPP deal, and with Grant Robertson – Labour’s choice as Finance Minister in any future government – appearing on a platform with tenured university radical and free-trade opponent Professor Jane Kelsey.
Jane also opposed every FTA Labour negotiated.
But it has to be said that this week the Green party looked like the senior, rather than the junior party of New Zealand’s political left wing.
Not for the first time.
