Martyn Bradbury blogs:

The thing the Maori Party should be talking about won’t appear on the agenda, and that is a strategic relationship with the MANA Party.

The Maori Party had a disastrous election where as MANA doubled their Party vote.

Martyn’s last great advice on strategic relationships was convincing the Mana Party to make itself subservient to Kim Dotcom, and wiping them out of Parliament.

He presents this as a great triumph, doubling the Mana vote. Actually they went from 1.08% to 1.42%. The merger with Dotcom got them an additional 9,926 votes. Dotcom has said in court he poured $5 million into his parties, so this great strategy cost $504 a vote and wiped them out.

He then proposes how the Maori and Mana parties could work together:

Te Tai Tokerau – Hone Harawira runs with no Maori Party candidate standing, but both parties listed in the Party vote section.

Hauraki-Waikato – Maori Party candidate runs with no MANA candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.

Ikaroa-Rāwhiti – MANA Party candidate runs with no Maori Party candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.

Tāmaki Makaurau – Maori Party candidate runs with no MANA Party candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.

Te Tai Hauāuru – Maori Party candidate runs with no MANA Party candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.

Te Tai Tonga – Maori Party candidate runs with no MANA Party candidate, but both parties listed in the party vote section.

Waiariki – Flavell stands aside to allow Annette a run.

This advice is even stupider than normal. It is akin to prescribing cyanide to cure a cold.

The Maori Party only has representation in Parliament because Flavell holds Waiariki. Bradbury’s advice to them is to give up the one seat they hold, gift it to Mana and also help Hone back in also. So the Maori Party gets wiped out, and the Mana Party gets two seats.

I should give out advice like this.

My advice to the Green Party is to stop focusing on the party vote and instead just stand electorate candidates in Helensville and Mangere.  Genius. Who do I send an invoice to?

Stuff reports:

The New Zealand Film and Literature Board has lifted the ban on Ted Dawe’s controversial teen novel Into the River.

In a decision that was far from unanimous, the president of the board expressed the collective felt the actions of the censor were “illegal”. 

Board president Don Mathieson delivered a dissenting minority report but the remainder of the board voted to allow the book to be sold without restriction, saying a previous ban on under-14s was no longer justified.

The ban was always going to temporary, but I thought it likely the Board would reinstate an age restriction on it, as they did three years ago.

However it seems they have either been persuaded by the argument that it is suitable for younger readers, or it was such a hot potato, they just wanted it off their plate.

Personally I’m comfortable that individual families will decide whether they want to have their kids read the book.

Stats NZ has released their latest ISP survey. A lot of change over the last four years.

• Broadband has gone from 87% to 97% of connections
• Fibre connections up to 105,000 now
• Percentage getting over 8 MB/s download gone from 67% to 98%
• Percentage getting over 24 MB/s download gone from 2% to 23%
• Percentage getting over 10 MB/s upload gone from 0% to 19%
• Connections with no data cap gone from 2% to 33%
• Total data use gone from 13 PB to 84 PB
• Number of mobile phone Internet connections gone from 1.9 million to 4.0 million
• IPv6 availability gone from 30% to 48% of ISPs

Stuff reports:

Ewen Macdonald’s life after jail will likely begin in the south as details of his parole conditions show he will be forbidden from entering the North Island.

Macdonald was paroled on Friday at his fourth hearing.

Well that’s a blow to mainlanders.

The 2007 demons are dead, buried, beatified, and resting peacefully in heaven!

A stunning performance from the All Blacks who scored more points against France in a quarter-final than they did against Argentina, Namibia, Georgia or Tonga in the pool play.

Nine tries is an all time record for a RWC quarter-final.

South Africa’s narrow victory over Wales will have them very nervous for their semi-final against the All Blacks. But we’re in sudden death territory now, so one can only hope for another performance like today.

This match, and the recent Eden Park match against Australia have both seen the All Blacks at near their best. Their best is simply hard to beat. The challenge is to keep the intensity up.

Julian Savea was simply amazing. Three great tries.

Matthew Hooton writes at NBR:

Mr Little has suggested trade negotiators and exporters of dairy and beef products should turn away from the TPP region and instead focus on India and Indonesia.

It appears the pretender to the prime ministership is unaware New Zealand already has an FTA with Indonesia as part of the historic Asean-CER deal, launched by Helen Clark in 2004 and completed by Mr Groser in 2009. As a result, bone-in meat is already tariff free and boneless cuts will become tariff free in 2020.  For dairy, almost all tariffs are now below 5% and falling.  Tariffs on wholemilk powder, butter and cheese are zero.

So one of the two countries Little suggested we focus on getting a trade agreement with, we already have! Not inspiring. But it gets better:

Mr Little’s comments about India were even more stunningly ignorant.  Did he not learn in primary school the role of the cow in Hinduism and in Indian village life?  Is he not aware the current Hindu-nationalist government is affording them further protection, including with the help of the army?

These religious beliefs mean India is the world’s biggest milk producer, with 16% of total production, and it more jealously protects its dairy producers than even the US, Canada or the EU.

The prospects for beef exporters are even worse.

There is not just a taboo around eating beef but the sale or slaughter of cows is actually illegal in 24 of India’s 29 states.  Anyone who has spent even a few days in India knows that, where beef is sold, it is done so surreptitiously in back alleys in Muslim compounds, or out of sight at flash hotels, and is usually buffalo meat anyway.  To avoid violence by Hindu extremists, McDonalds sells only chicken burgers, even dropping its lamb Maharaja Mac in 2002 to avoid confusion.

Claiming India might offer dairy and beef exporters a practical alternative to the TPP region suggests Mr Little was just blabbing about topics he knows absolutely nothing about.

This really shows how much Little is winging it and just saying whatever comes to mind, rather than having any credible position.

Maybe next Little will propose we try and target pork sales to Israel?

Stuff reports:

Why has Judith Collins been bragging so much about her new car?

Well, she’s been crowned brand ambassador for Peugeot, DS and Citroen at an Auckland car dealership.

The former justice minister has been posting promotional updates on social media about driving around in her flash new car.

The partnership, which is free of charge, is for six months. In that time, she gets to drive around with petrol costs paid for, in exchange for raising the profile of Southern Autos Manukau.

MPs need to be careful if they do endorsements, but in this case it looks like a good idea:

But Collins says the Greens should get over themselves.

“I say get on ya bike, don’t worry about it. Someone will no doubt want them to promote a bike somewhere.”

She reasons that she is not getting any benefit from the deal because it saves the taxpayer money.

“The dear-old taxpayer under parliamentary service, they have to pay the costs of MPs’ use of cars for parliamentary business,” she said. “I get to drive around cars for my work, and my work is saving money so it’s saving taxpayer’s money.

“As an MP, not a cabinet minister, I can do that.”

And if Peugeot-buyers mention her name at the time of sale, part of the money would go towards the Papakura Community Crimewatch Patrol, of which she is patron.

“I’m not doing it for myself, I’m doing it to help Papakura Crimewatch Patrol. So actually it’s a win-win.”

So Collins doesn’t benefit personally, the taxpayer saves money and it helps a local charity. Looks fine to me.

The Herald reports:

The Government’s new travel tax is to come in on January 1, adding $21.57 to the price of a round trip air fare to and from this country.

The announcement of the rate of the tax – imposed to cover border clearance costs – drew sharp criticism from the tourism industry who said it would put visitors off and was an unwelcome handbrake on successful efforts to grow the number of overseas visitors. …

“In the past these costs have been met by taxpayers,” said the ministers.

“The Government considers it is fairer for the costs to fall on passengers travelling internationally.”

The ministers said the levy would cover the border clearance costs for volumes of passengers rising at 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent a year.

However, Tourism Industry Association chief executive Chris Roberts said the tax ignored a long-held understanding that border services were a public good and should therefore come from general taxation.

This is simply not the case. The definition of a public good is:

a good that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous in that individuals cannot be effectively excluded from use and where use by one individual does not reduce availability to others.

Individuals can be excluded from use (ie they don’t travel) and people using border services do reduce the availability to others as they have finite resources.

I don’t see why non-travelers should pay for border processing for travelers.

Imperator Fish blogs:

People have been telling me that they don’t really understand Labour’s position on the Trans Pacific Partnership. …

Our opposition to the TPP is principled and based on what we think is best for New Zealand. We don’t want New Zealand to sign up to the TPP, but nor would we pull New Zealand out of the deal.

While this is satire, it appears to also be Labour’s actual position,

Labour is not opposed to free trade. We recognise that as an exporting nation we need to honour our international commitments. What kind of example would we be setting as a developed nation if we looked to back out of our international obligations? That’s why a Labour government won’t pull New Zealand out of the TPP. We’ll instead just ignore the bits we don’t like.

Again this appears to be Labour’s actual position.

New Zealand is not a banana republic, and we can’t just tear up the treaties we sign with other countries. That’s why a Labour government will honour all of the international commitments entered into by this government on behalf of New Zealand, even if we don’t like them, unless we change our minds and decide we won’t honour those commitment because we don’t like them.

See, that wasn’t difficult to grasp, was it?

Not at all.

John Armstrong has written his final regular parliamentary column for the NZ Herald.

This is sad for two reasons. It is sad because coverage of Parliament will be the worse for John’s absence, and sad because it is ill health that has forced his retirement.

I do not recall a time when John Armstrong wasn’t in the press gallery. He’s been there basically my entire adult life. For around a decade he headed up a very strong NZ Herald press gallery team as the political editor, and then since his Parkinson’s he has been the Herald’s chief political commentator.

While the move from political editor to chief political commentator was done for health reasons, the silver lining was it freed John up to be our most regular and astute analyser of Parliament and politics. I’ve always regarded his columns as a must read, and I’d be surprised if there has been one in the last 15 years I have not read. The same goes for many around Parliament – the anxious  wait to see how Armstrong views the events of the day or the week.

John has seen seven Prime Ministers 12 opposition leaders. His institutional knowledge will be missed.

But it won’t just be his analysis that will be missed. He has been a friend and mentor to scores of journalists who have come through the gallery. His retirement is a sad event for them.

While John never holds back in saying what he thinks, his pen is without bias or malice. There are some journalists who do get cursed by the MPs they write about, but John is not one of them.

I first got to know John as a Young National, and then as a parliamentary staffer and since then as a blogger and commentator. He’s always been one of my favourite people to talk to on politics, as I often go away with some new thoughts that had not occurred to me previously.

There is a silver lining to his retirement from regular commentary:

As for me, there may be a lot more tweeting and even, God forbid, a blog, and maybe even the occasional contribution to the Herald.

I look forward to blogs and tweets from John.

The Herald reports:

The man arrested in connection with the disappearance of Alex Fisher is his older brother Eric McIsaac.

McIsaac, 25, appeared in the Levin District Court today. He entered no pleas to a charge laid last week, of unlawful possession of a knife in a public place on October 6, or two other charges laid today.

How tragic for the family. Bad enough to lose one son, but worse to have another implicated.

Stuff reports:

The Government is preparing to make a major announcement in the fight against obesity, as it looks to reverse a trend of expanding waistlines and the burden of disease that goes with it.

In the next few weeks it’s expected the Government will announce a major package of reform, that could include changes in schools, primary health and a major public campaign targeted at children and parents.

It’s believed this could include changes to how physical education is run in schools, with both Health Minister Jonathan Coleman and Education Minister Hekia Parata understood to be in discussions. …

It’s expected the national package to be announced will not involve any regulatory changes around sugar content and advertising, or taxes on unhealthy foods or drinks.

Good. There is a role in education and information, but it is not the role of Government to decide which foods can and can not be advertised.

Official documents show the Ministry of Health has completed a major stocktake of programmes under both portfolios.

More than $82 million is currently spent across 76 projects. 

How many work?

UPDATE: The Greens of course are demanding the Government regulates food more:

Government plans to tackle the obesity crisis will not make any headway unless there is a crackdown on junk food, the Green Party says.

The Government is preparing to make a major announcement in the fight against obesity, as it looks to reverse a trend of expanding waistlines and the burden of disease that goes with it.

However, it’s expected the national package to be announced will not involve any regulatory changes around sugar content and advertising, or taxes on unhealthy foods or drinks.

Green Party health spokesperson Kevin Hague said reports that there would be no extra regulations on junk food within the reforms meant they were unlikely to make any impact.

Actually regulatory responses like sugar taxes have failed around the world. Not one has reduced obesity. At best they reduce sales of one particular product.

No food or drink is unhealthy in moderation. A can of coke once a month is fine. A bottle a day is not.

It’s about portion size and quantity of food people eat far more than the mix. Again a quarter pounder is fine occasionally, but not fine as your daily breakfast.

These demands for regulations are nanny statists wanting to tell us what we can and can not eat.

I’ve blogged the latest Roy Morgan poll at Curia. As usual, quite variable.

Stuff reports:

Now I’ve seen everything.

Winston Peters wants talks for a free trade agreement with Russia urgently kick-started, warning that we need to be on both sides of any new cold war that starts in Syria and not just cuddling  up to “Uncle Sam”.

Surely this is tongue in cheek. But no. The former Foreign Minister seriously suggests New Zealand should replace European food in Russian markets, following a Russian ban on imports from the European Union.

The EU’s sanctions date back to March last year and Russian president Vladimir Putin’s adventure in Crimea and Ukraine. Russia responded by refusing to buy EU imports. That’s one reason for global dairy market over-supply and the collapse in dairy prices.   

Technically, there’s nothing to stop New Zealand selling to Russia, but simple trade and diplomatic calculus suggests it would be an own-goal. That’s why Trade Minister Tim Groser cut short Russian free trade talks in March last year at the time of Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. It’s why Fonterra hasn’t embraced Russia as a golden opportunity. Doing so would have almost certain trade and diplomatic consequences among traditional friends, Europe and the US.

We’d become an international pariah.

To think Peters was once Foreign Minister.

The Herald reports:

John Key says he does wees in the shower and admits he has stolen stuff. However, he won’t say whether or not he’s “fed the chickens”.

The Prime Minister appeared on morning radio show Hauraki Breakfast this morning, playing a round of a game called, ‘Thank You For Your Honesty’.

In the regular segment, hosts Matt Heath, Jeremy Wells and Laura McGoldrick grill participants with a series of 10 silly, often rude, questions, which they then have to answer truthfully.

“Was the Virgin Mary really a virgin?” Wells asked Key. “No,” Key replied decisively.

In other questions, Key said he had never pashed a man, did not “trim his downstairs” and had never sent a “dick pic”. But he said had “done wees in the shower” and admitted he found Wendy Petrie attractive.

However Key refused to answer the rather rude question Wells put to him of whether he had “fed the chickens” in the last month.

“Jesus Christ, I’ve got to take the fifth,” he protested, saying he didn’t want to answer in case his wife sued him.

Only in New Zealand would the Prime Minister be asked a question like that on radio by Jeremy Wells!

I’ms somewhat surprised that the PM knew what the term means!

Stuff reports:

The Green Party will ensure half of its Cabinet ministers are women if it becomes part of the next Government, co-leader James Shaw says.

What if they have an odd number of Ministers? Do they cut one in half?

And what if they have more qualified women than men? Are they saying men will be promoted into Cabinet ahead of women?

Their current rankings are:

1. Metiria Turei
2. James Shaw
3. Kevin Hague
4. Eugenie Sage
5. Gareth Hughes
6. Catherine Delahunty
7. Kennedy Graham
8. Julie-Anne Genter
9. Mojo Mathers
10. Jan Logie
11. David Clendon
12. Denise Roche
13. Steffan Browning
14. Marama Davidson

So if the Greens got eight positions, then Mojo Mathers and Jan Logie would have to miss out to Kennedy Graham, even if they were seen as stronger contenders. So quotas can work against those they seek to help.

He moved to head off criticism of the policy on the grounds that hiring should be based on merit, calling it “a virtuous aspiration that usually causes more harm than good” and led to men being chosen over equally or more talented women.

Actually female MPs in National are more likely to make Cabinet than National ones. Only 27% of the caucus are female yet 30% of the cabinet.

Now you could argue for a female quota for caucus, but if Labour had properly implemented its gender quota last election, then Andrew Little would have got a lower list place and not even be an MP, let alone leader. Quotas remove flexibility.

Stats NZ reports:

From the September 2014 quarter to the September 2015 quarter:

• The CPI increased 0.4 percent (0.4 percent in the year to the June 2015 quarter).
• Cigarettes and tobacco (up 13 percent), newly-built houses excluding land (up 5.5 percent), rentals for housing (up 2.3 percent), and local authority rates (up 5.9 percent) all increased.  
• Lower petrol prices (down 6.8 percent) were the main downward contributor.
• Prices for non-tradable goods and services increased 1.5 percent, which was the smallest annual increase since the December 2001 quarter. 
• Prices of tradable goods and services decreased 1.2 percent.

This is good as it means families get to keep more of their income, rather than have it soaked up in higher costs.

In the last three years overall prices have gone up only 2.8%.

The tradable sector has actually had prices dropped 2.6% over the last three years while non-tradable has gone up 7.0%.

Labour often go on about power prices. Guess how much electricity has gone up in the last year? 0.07%. Another crisis solved!

Stuff reports:

Senior Labour MP Phil Goff says it is unlikely the party would have to breach parts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPPA) free trade deal if it came to power, with “more than one way to skin the cat” regarding its concerns.

What Goff is saying that while TPP wil not let you ban foreigners from buying houses, it would allow you to impose 100% stamp duty on them, which is effectively the same.

This is very different to the ramblings from Little who has said they’ll just ignore the parts they don’t like!

Goff, a former Labour leader and the trade minister who signed a free trade agreement with China in 2008, told TV3’s Paul Henry he had encouraged his party colleagues to consider the costs of opting out of the deal, which was “not the monster” that opponents were afraid of.

Goff is right. The problem is his colleagues have spent two years claiming it is a monster and Little campaigned for the leadership on the basis of opposing it.

Goff say he “maybe [knew] a little bit more about the trade than some of the others” in Labour due to his involvement in initial negotiations, and said he had asked his colleagues to consider the costs of not being in the TPPA.

“This is a deal that’s going to get bigger: It’s 12 countries now, but I can conceive that China will come in, South Korea will come in.

There would be significant costs to not being in the TPPA. As Clark said your biggest fear is a trade bloc forming you are not part of.

Well done to Phil Goff for being the first sane voice from Labour so far on TPP.

The bills drawn from the ballot were:

Education (Restoration of Democracy to University Councils) Amendment Bill – Hon David Cunliffe

This Bill repeals the changes makes by Parliament earlier this year to reduce the size of university councils and sets minimum quotas for different sector groups to be on the Councils.

As it seeks to reverse a change made by Parliament just a few months ago it is a waste of time and should be defeated.

Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration (Preventing Name Change by Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill – Dr Jian Yang

This Bill seeks to protect vulnerable members of society from child sex offenders by preventing those individuals convicted of a child
sex offence(s) from changing their name. This will ensure that the appropriate agencies can properly manage these offenders to assist
in their rehabilitation and to maintain public safety.

I’m unsure how much of a problem this is, but it certainly is worth supporting at least to select committee.

Electricity Transparency Bill – David Shearer

This Bill amends the Electricity Industry Act 2010 to require that every electricity bill sent to domestic consumers includes a list
itemising the amount and percentage for each of the different components comprising the bill. At present, consumers have no way of knowing what part of their power bill goes to the generator, transmitter, distributer, and retailer, and what part is accounted for by GST and other Government levies. This state of affairs allows different parts of the sector to blame price increases on other industry participants.

This seems a reasonable bill worth supporting to select committee. However it may be impractical as the ratio of costs may vary from month to month, or even day to day with spot prices.

It also requires bills to state the percentage of electicity used which is renewable and again I am not sure how practical that is, as this could change constantly

Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill (No 2) – Andrew Little

This Bill amends the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 with the purpose of ensuring that every rental home in New Zealand meets minimum standards of heating and insulation. The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment is to set the standards and landlords are to meet the standards.

The Speaker has ruled this bill is in beach of standing orders as it is near identical to a bill already defeated in Parliament this year. It is unlikely to pass first reading (as happened to the previous one) but if it does so this calendar year, it will be ruled out or order.

Former Labour staffer Phil Quin writes:

In the unlikely event it ever came to pass, Labour’s proposed course of action on the Trans-Pacific Partnership – flout the bits it doesn’t like – would constitute the most reckless act by any New Zealand government of the post-Muldoon era.

For those of us who want to see Labour re-emerge as a plausible alternative government, it was dispiriting enough to witness finance spokesman Grant Robertson first float the idea Labour might ban foreigners from buying New Zealand property even if it contravened the TPP. But not only has Andrew Little’s repeated doubling down on this reckless notion raised the stakes sharply, it has called into question Labour’s capacity to govern responsibly.

Andrew Little echoes Robertson’s contention that a government he leads can simply legislate around irksome elements of the TPP – an unconscionable policy position for a serious political party. No trade deal, nor international treaty of any kind, would be worth the paper it’s written on if signatories opted out of unfavourable clauses on the grounds of national interest.

If Labour’s policy of selective implementation were adopted by the 11 other signatories, the TPP would dissolve overnight.

Not just the TPP. Labour claims it wants countries to enter into a binding agreement on reducing carbon emissions. You can’t credibly wish for that, and also claim you will ignore provisions of binding agreements you don’t like.

Helen Clark’s comments in support of the TPP made crystal clear how the case for New Zealand staying out of the deal, however flawed, is an impossibly hard political lift. After all, we’re talking about 11 of our most important export markets that, between them, comprise 40 per cent of global GDP.

In any case, unlike the Greens or protectionist elements of the former Alliance (several of whose most prominent activists populate Andrew Little’s office), Labour is a pro-free trade party, specifically endorsing the TPP process as recently as 2013.

In trying to placate opponents of the TPP without further trashing the party’s tenuous economic credentials, Labour has half baked a policy that nobody in their right mind could take seriously.

Little claiming Labour will just ignore the parts of TPP it doesn’t like is his worst blunder as leader. It will haunt him with long-term damage.

The day after the Budget, I started recording down spending demands made by various lobby groups, individuals and MPs. I then estimated what would be the ongoing annual cost of funding their demands.

As far as I know, no-one has done this before. I was expecting to find that the extra spending demanded would be maybe a billion or so.

But no it is far far more than this.

In just five months, the various lobby groups and parties have demanded a total of $8.4 billion in extra spending.

Now consider we made surplus by just $400 million.

Labour go on about making surplus, yet they happily complain about or demand huge amounts of extra spending which would cripple the economy, if the Government agreed.

Again this is $8.4 billion of spending demands in just five months.

So what would the Government have to do, to fund this spending wishlist? They would either have to:

• Increase the top tax rate to 72%; or
• Increase the company tax rate to 65%; or
• Increase the rate of GST to 23%

I’ve embedded below my estimates of costs. They are ballpark, but this is why I helped set up the Taxpayers Union – one of the few groups advocating for spending restraint.  My hope is that the NZTU will take on this exercise as an ongoing project and regularly update us on the total level of spending demands being made by MPs and lobby groups. This would fit in well with their work last election rigorously costing explicit election promises.

A Government that gave in to every complaint and spending demand would bankrupt New Zealand, and send us down the path of Greece. I want to avoid that.

Spending Costs