Stuff reports:

Environment Canterbury (ECan) will be run by a mix of elected councillors and government-appointed commissioners from next year.

A fully-elected council will return in 2019.

Environment Minister Nick Smith on Wednesday announced the new governance model would be a 7-6 split between councillors and commissioners, to be in place after the next local government elections in 2016.

It is a transitional arrangement before a fully elected council takes over in 2019.

The decision to get rid of the elected Council was the right one. They were incompetent and dysfunctional and failing in their statutory requirements.

But an appointed Council was always a temporary solution to get ECan back on track.

The move to a mixed appointed and elected Council is a sensible step on the way to full elections.

However I think the Government should have gone to the mixed model in 2013 and have full elections in 2016.

It’s good the majority of governors will be elected councillors. But personally I’d have it tilted more towards elected – say 9 to 4.

Allison Pearson writes in The Telegraph:

The actual game of rugby wasn’t a flash one, but the reception the All Blacks got in Samoa showed that the test match was long long overdue. Big credit to John Campbell who helped lead the charge on this..

A fair number of our All Blacks have Samoan ancestry, and we have benefited greatly from them. It was nice to have the All Blacks give something back. It meant so much to those in Samoa, and especially the kids who aspire to one day play for Samoa, or the All Blacks.

The demands of the international calendar means that this can’t be an annual event, but I hope it isn’t a one off. At a minimum there should be a match every world cup cycle.

The Taxpayers’ Union has released a very good report on sugar taxes overseas, and why they would not affect obesity rates in NZ.

Their summary:

• Only 1.6 per cent of New Zealanders’ total energy intake comes from the added sugar content of sugar sweetened non-alcoholic beverages
• New Zealanders’ consumption of sugar and sugar sweetened beverages is trending downward
• New Zealanders are still getting fatter despite consuming less calories, suggesting that we’re not burning as many calories
• Sugar taxes hurt the poor and do not result in the decreased consumption tax-supporters claim
• Similar taxes overseas have not worked – Mexico’s tax on soda resulted in no decrease in consumption, despite recent claims to the contrary by New Zealand campaigners

Despite this, the media are full of stories today about another some academics claiming we need a 20% tax on saturated fat. None of these taxes have ever been shown to actually reduce obesity – at best they just change consumption habits from one source of calories to another.

The revelation that only 1.6% of our average calories comes from soda drinks shows how ridiculous the claims are that one can impact obesity with a soda tax.

Some extracts from the report:

Between 1997 and 2009 median daily sugar intake for New Zealand males fell from 62 to 55 grams while females showed a statistically insignificant decrease from 45 to 42 grams. This occurred at the same time obesity rates increased in the country from 17 per cent of the population to 27.7 per cent for males and from 20.6 per cent to 27.8 per cent for females.

Data that the academics who propose such taxes have never mentioned.

The New Zealand Adult Nutrition Survey shows that only 5.0 per cent of New Zealanders’ total energy intake comes from non-alcoholic beverages with 1.6 per cent of the total energy intake from just sucrose (a proxy for the added sugar content) of sugar-sweetened non-alcoholic beverages.

Picking out one source of calories is very unlikely to have any impact on obesity. The key is that overall net intake of calories needs to be approximately no more than 2,000 a day, This happens by eating less, or exercising more.

And as for the Mexican soda tax:

Nielsen sales data shows that there was no significant reduction in litres consumed in the twelve months to May 2013 (before the tax) and the twelve months to May 2015 (the first full year of data since the tax was introduced). Between these years, consumption of SSBs fell by 182 litres. 182 litres in a country that consumes over 11 billion litres of carbonated soft drinks is a flat result.

The difference between what activists claim, and what the sales data shows, results from the study being based on panel data and interviews and not actual accurate sales data. Expressed preferences are often skewed because what people say they do and what they actually do are often quite different. For example, when asked how often they use local libraries, members of the public tend to inflate their actual use. It appears here that participants have told researchers they are reducing their consumption of sugary drinks when the national sales data shows that not to be the case. The lesson here is actions speak louder than words.

And even if the tax did reduce consumption of soda drinks, that does not mean a reduction in calories, as people will often substitute.

3 News reports:

InternetNZ says it’s not our broadband that sucks – it’s how we’re using it.

The group’s annual NetHui event logs on in Auckland today, hosting key figures from the industry, MPs and others interested in how the internet is changing our lives, and what lies ahead.

InternetNZ work programme director Andrew Cushen says New Zealanders like to complain about the state of our broadband infrastructure, but the reality has left the cliché behind.

“The simple fact of the matter is over the last five years in particular, the Government has put in a great deal of money through the ultra-fast broadband programme and the rural broadband initiative, to make New Zealand’s internet some of the best in the world,” he said on TV3’s Paul Henry programme this morning.

“Yes there are still some issues, yes there are still some people waiting for some rollouts to get there. But the story is really fantastic in terms of the capability of the network… By 2020, 98 percent of New Zealanders are going to have really fantastic connectivity.”

The Government has invested a huge amount in our broadband infrastructure. The fibre roll out especially is great as it is basically future proofed.

Speeds are lifting, and data caps have faded as an issue. The focus as Cushen says is shifting to what we do with it – as businesses, consumers, Government, citizens and families.

I have updated Kiwiblog’s complaints policy to take accounts of the Hamrful Digital Communications Act 2015. The policy is here.

The new section is below:

Harmful Digital Communications

If you believe a comment or post on Kiwiblog is harmful to you as defined by the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, please e-mail [email protected]. You may also text the editor on 021 940 045 to alert me to the complaint, but the complaint must be submitted via e-mail and include the information detailed below.

If the material is in a post written by the editor, then I will consider the complaint and amend or remove the material if I agree it is harmful. If you do not agree with my decision, then from 2017 you will be able to complain to the Approved Agency and/or the District Court.

If the material is in a post written by another author (such as a guest poster or a commenter) then Kiwiblog is an online content host under the HDCA, and safe harbour provisions will apply.

Kiwiblog will refer your complaint within 48 hours to the actual author and notify them that a request has been made for the material to be removed or amended.

The author has a maximum of 48 hours to respond to the complaint. They can do so in three ways:

1. Not respond at all – which will lead to the material being complained about being removed or amended
2. Agree to have the material removed or amended, which will will be done by the Kiwiblog Editor
3. Not consent to having the material being removed or amended, in which case it will remain online unless a takedown order from the court is issued.

In all cases I can decide to remove or amend comments, regardless of the above procedure, if I believe it is in breach of Kiwiblog policies. These HDCA provisions are in addition to existing policies.

The safe harbour provision means that Kiwiblog does not have liability under the HDCA for material authored by others, so long as I follow the procedure summarised below. So any disputes are between the complainant and the author – Kiwiblog is merely the online content host.

The details of notices and counter-notices are in s24 of the HDCA, specifically:

Stuff reports:

The ex-chief executive of Fonterra, Craig Norgate, has died in the UK at the age of 50. …

Fonterra chairman John Wilson said: “It’s deeply upsetting to hear of Craig’s passing and our thoughts go out to his wife Jane, and children Dylan, Alexandria and Jordan.

“Craig played a key role in the formation of Fonterra and made a significant contribution to the Co-operative as our first CEO, helping bring together key players in the New Zealand dairy industry with the strategic vision he was known for. He remained a close and trusted friend and mentor to many of our people. …

“Craig had an outstanding career and, notwithstanding the heights of that career, he still remained firmly of the belief he was a boy from the ‘Naki.”

After Fonterra, Norgate was head of PGG Wrightson for six years.

Born in Hawera in 1965, he focused his career on the dairy industry after leaving school. 

After studying at Massey University he moved to Hastings and took up his first management role at the Department of Maori Affairs at age 21. 

He was there a year before returning to Taranaki with meat company Lowe Walker in 1987. He rose through the ranks quickly and then worked for a subsidiary of the Dairy Board, the Lactose Company, becoming CFO within six months. 

He then took over as general manager of Kiwi Dairy, a role his father had held with the company. He stayed for 10 years, with the company’s turnover growing from $285 million to $4.4 billion before the creation of the dairy giant Fonterra in 2001.

Norgate was a former director of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union, from 2000 to 2002, and was co-opted onto the Taranaki Rugby Football Union in 2004, serving for 10 years until Taranaki shifted allegiance to the Chiefs in late 2013.

There was so much more he could have done. A very premature and sad death.

Tim Groser announced:

New Zealand will commit to a new, more ambitious climate change target,Climate Change Issues Minister Tim Groser announced today.

“This target is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030,” Mr Groser said. “This is a significant increase on our current target of five per cent below 1990 emission levels by 2020.”

Is it?

“New Zealand’s target is equivalent to a reduction of 11 per cent below our 1990 emission levels by 2030. Our target is expressed against 2005 emission levels similar to the approach of other significant players including the United States and Canada,” Mr Groser said.

So in fact it is saying a drop from -5% to -11% over an extra decade. That’s not particularly huge.

What does this mean in terms of actual numbers. Here is our actual (gross) emissions and targets in kilotonnes of CO2 equivalent

• 1990 – 66,720
• 2005 – 84,638
• 2013 – 80,962
• 2020 – 5% below 1990 – 63,384
• 2030 – 30% below 2005 – 59,247
• 2050 – 50% below 1990 – 33,360

So what is the reduction needed for each year between the dates above

• 2013 – 2020 – 17,578/7 = 2,511 kt per year
• 2020 – 2030 – 4,137/10 = 414 kt per year
• 2030 – 2050 – 25,987/10 = 1299 kt per year

I don’t see any way we will meet the 2020 target. To compare let’s see what happened under the last three governments:

• 1990 – 1999 – grew by 946 kt per year
• 1999 – 2008 – grew by 732 kt per year
• 2008 – 2013 – shrunk by 95 kt per year

Of course these are gross emissions. I think net emissions are more useful, but it seems targets are meant to be gross emissions.

From Curia’s monthly newsletter:

Curia’s Polling Newsletter – Issue 86, June 2015

There was one political voting poll in June – a Roy Morgan.

The average of the public polls has National 24% ahead of Labour in June, up 3% from May. The current seat projection is centre-right 63 seats, centre-left 48 which would see a National-led Government.

In the United States Donald Trump has shot to 2^nd place in the Republican field. Clinton’s approval rating continues to decline, and Obama’s foreign policy approval is also declining.

In the UK David Cameron has positive approval at the start of his second term. Current views on the EU are 51% want the UK to remain, 31% leave and 17% undecided.

In Australia a large fall in approval ratings for Bill Shorten, so he now lags behind Tony Abbott.

In Canada with less than four months to go until the federal election, the NDP have taken a dramatic lead in the polls, and could end up forming the government for the first time since they formed in 1961.

The normal three tables are provided comparing the country direction sentiment, head of government approval and opposition leader approval sentiment for the five countries.

We also carry details of polls on trust in occupations 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.

 

The poll average for the last three years is below.

Bit of a trend for Labour.

The Herald editorial:

New Zealand campaigned long and hard for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Now that our turn has come to chair the council for a month, Foreign Minister Murray McCully says we will put at the top of our agenda an attempt to revive peace talks between Israel and Palestine. Nobody can accuse him of picking the easy ones.

Indeed. It will be amazing if we can make a breakthrough – but worth trying.

But our diplomats will be under no illusions of how difficult it will be to interest Israel in a UN initiative. The UN is regarded with resentment and contempt among conservative Israelis who seem to be the majority these days.

Not just conservative Israelis. The UN is incredibly biased against Israel.

As things stand in the Middle East, Israel has the upper hand and is enjoying relative calm while Islamist terror wracks the surrounding states. Attention is off the West Bank settlements and conditions in Gaza. Israelis who now believe permanent siege is their only possible security are content with the status quo. It will be hard to convince them to try yet again for genuine peace.

It’s not the Israelis you need to convince of peace. They’d like nothing more. It is the Palestinians that have rejected pretty much every peace proposal over 40 years. They’ve been offered territory equal to the 1967 boundaries, and even part of Jerusalem. They’ve been offered their own state.  But they insist on a “right of return” to Israel which would mean the effective destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

The Herald headline:

Drinking during pregnancy occuring at ‘alarmingly high rate’

So what is this alarmingly high rate?

Up to 80 per cent of women in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and Ireland have admitted drinking alcohol during the early stages of pregnancy, according to a new report.

Well if 80% of women were drinking during pregnancy that would be alarmingly high. But not the weasel word of up to.

The prevalence of drinking ranged from 20 per cent to 80 per cent of women in Ireland and between 40 per cent and 80 per cent in New Zealand, Australia and the UK.

Now it is from 40% to 80%. There is just one prevalence rate for NZ, so why not just give it?

Professor Lesley McCowan, the head of Auckland University’s department of obstetrics and gynaecology, who contributed to the study, said 23 per cent of participants reported being alcohol-free when they became pregnant.

“Of the 53 per cent (1063) women who reported that they drank any alcohol in the first trimester, 917 (86 per cent) stopped drinking by six weeks of pregnancy. Stopping drinking is likely to have corresponded with having a positive pregnancy test. So the large majority of these Auckland women are likely to have stopped drinking as soon as pregnancy was diagnosed.

Now we get to the actual data. It is that once a woman knew she was pregnant only 14% of the 53% still drank. That is a 7.4% rate – not alarmingly high I’d say.

“12 per cent of women reported that they were still drinking alcohol when seen by the SCOPE research team at 20 weeks of pregnancy and 95 per cent of these women were only having 1 to 2 units of alcohol weekly at this time.

So 0.6% were drinking in an excessive way.

Obviously the ideal rates are 0%, but the actual data is very different to the sensationalist headlines and claims.

The accounts for the first 11 months of the last financial year show that Treasury projections are about as accurate as Eddie the Eagle in ski jumping.

To be fair to Treasury many businesses fail to project their own income correctly, and forecasting how much tax you will collect from hundreds of thousands of businesses is always going to variable.

But after forecasting in May there would be no surplus this year, the accounts with one month to go show a $1.176 billion surplus!

If this does not reverse in the final month, it will be hilarious considering Andrew Little said that a projected failure to reach surplus was the biggest deception of his lifetime.

Incidentally the OBEGAL (underlying) surplus is $1.176 billion, the overall surplus is $4.6 billion!

It is hard to see the surplus disappearing entirely in the last month, but these things are variable.

Chris Trotter writes:

If everyone who voted for their Labour candidate in last year’s election had also given Labour their party vote, National would have lost.

No. Labour would have done better, but that does not mean Labour would have won.

The discrepancy between the two vote tallies is startling. Everybody’s heard about Labour’s woeful 2014 party vote. At just 25 per cent, it was Labour’s worst electoral performance since 1922.

Nowhere near as well known, however, is the number of votes cast for Labour Party candidates across the country’s 71 electorates. That number, at 801,287, is 196,752 larger than the 604,535 party votes Labour received.

If every electorate vote for Labour had been matched by a party vote, the percentage figure alongside Labour’s name on election night would not have been a derisory 25, but a much more respectable 34 – almost certainly enough to have changed the government.

Let’s have a look at what the result would have been if based on electorate votes only. National got 46.1%, Labour 34.1%, Greens 7.1%, Conservatives 3.5%, NZ First 3.1%, Maori Party 1.8% Mana 1.6%, ACT 1.2% and United Future 0.6%.

The CR electorate vote was 51.4%. The CL electorate vote was 42.8% and the centre parties had 4.9%.

So if the election has been decided on electorate, not party vote, National would still have won.

Of course it is a silly comparison, because some people make a conscious decision to split their vote. They may never vote for a particular party, but like their local MP.

Stuff reports:

The call from New Zealand researchers for all teen girls to be fitted with long-term contraceptive devices is not as radical as many think. In fact, a similar free birth control scheme has been a huge success in the US state of Colorado.

The state saw its teen pregnancy birthrate plunge by 40 per cent from 2009 to 2013, abortion rates also saw a 42 per cent drop.

Colorado health officials started the experiment six years ago. The scheme offered free intrauterine devices (IUDs) to teenagers and women in financial hardship. The implants can prevent pregnancy for up to 10 years.

I think it is a very worthy idea. It means that the chance of accidental pregnancy is close to zero, and you simply remove the implant when you want to start having children.

We should offer it to everyone when they turn 16. For now I guess that means girls only, as there is not a simple implant that works on guys, but one day there may be one for guys also.

“If we want to reduce poverty, one of the simplest, fastest and cheapest things we could do would be to make sure that as few people as possible become parents before they actually want to,” Brookings Institution economist Isabel Sawhill told the New York Times

She has argued that single parenthood is a principal driver of inequality.

Yep, I’d say that could do more for income inequality than almost any other measure.

It must be a choice of course, but it can become a normalised choice – by routinely offering it for free at age 16.

3 News reports:

The former president of New Zealand First’s youth wing has been charged with possession of cannabis for supply.

Curwen Rolinson’s always been a troublemaker for New Zealand First and now it seems he’s a law-breaker as well.

Police arrested the aspiring politician on April 15, and he since appeared in court charged with possession of cannabis for supply.

Winston Peters in a huge show of loyalty to one of his most dedicated followers put out this statement:

A remit proposing to formalise a youth wing is coming before the New Zealand First Convention in August.

Mr Curwen Rolinson was told countless times never to call himself the president or leader of a youth wing. New Zealand First does not have a youth wing in its Constitution, and therefore does not have a former or present president of such an organisation.

This is such a rewriting of history, it ranks up there “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia” from George Orwell’s 1984 novel.

Here’s a few of the numerous mentions in the media over the years of Curwen as leader of the NZ First Youth. He’s also been on Backbenches many times representing the party.

Most delegates were aged over 60 but the party known for attracting the older voter could also be fielding one of this year’s youngest candidates if 21-year-old Curwen Rolinson, leader of the party’s youth section, gets the nod.

– Herald on Sunday July 2011

NZ First President Kevin Gardener has confirmed the party has shut down its social media pages but is downplaying reports the move is linked to the leader of the party’s youth wing, Curwen Rolinson.

– NZ Herald October 2013

The president of NZ First’s youth wing has signed a pledge in favour of same-sex marriage.

It is a move that goes against the party’s opposition to the marriage equality bill, which is due for its second reading in Parliament on Thursday.

NZ First Youth president Curwen Rolinson was one of eight youth party representatives who signed a marriage equality certificate outside Parliament this morning.

– 3 News March 2013

They’re young and politically minded, with plenty to say on the issues that affect New Zealanders. Karyn & Andrew talk to Curwen Rolinson of NZ first youth and Taylor Warwood of Act on Campus./

– Radio Live March 2013

The Facebook page Letcher was referring to belongs to NZ First Youth leader Curwen Rolinson, who posted

– Waikato Times December 2014

Everyone in politics knows that Curwen was the leader of their youth wing for several years. For Peters to claim he never was, is just appalling.

Stuff reports:

A controversial slip and slide event that originated in New Zealand could face a hefty financial penalty as it comes under scrutiny from an Australian consumer watchdog.

The Queensland Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said it had received three complaints from Monster Slide customers seeking refunds for an event scheduled for May in Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast. 

Monster Slide organisers postponed it until September because ticket “sales were not high enough to make the event viable”.

They did the same scam in Wellington. And they have not come back with a new date, and as far as I know not a single person has been refunded who paid in advance for the Wellington event.

So shouldn’t the Commerce Commission here be acting, like the OFT is in Queensland?

The spokesman said OFT had contacted Templeton, who indicated Monster Slide would refund customers.

The spokesman said OFT was also aware that Monster Slide did not have approval of the Sunshine Coast Regional Council to hold the September event.

A Monster Slide Australia Pty Ltd spokesman said all customers who requested had been “promptly refunded” but the company was made aware of two customers who were “delayed”, which it was resolving.

You shouldn’t have to request a refund. The event people purchased tickets for never happened. Everyone should get a refund automatically.

Stuff reports:

James Cote, an expert on grade inflation at the University of Western Ontario, said the NCEA data “clearly indicates grade inflation has taken place”.

But Hamilton’s St John’s College principal Shane Tong said it was a big leap to make. 

“I think we’re always trying to raise the kids’ grades and NCEA’s about what the kids can do as opposed to what they can’t,” he said.

“[Increasing results] is exactly what the ministry is asking us to do. They’re wanting an 85 per cent pass rate at level two.” 

James Cote, an expert on grade inflation at the University of Western Ontario, says New Zealand’s NCEA data “clearly indicates grade inflation has taken place”.

 The flexibility of NCEA also meant schools could make programmes which better suited their students.

Ngaruawahia High School’s acting principal Chris Jarnet agreed that the wider range of subjects available was probably helping students pass.

“I know in our case we’ve got a wider curriculum to enable kids to do all sorts of things now, like Maori performing arts. That’s enabling kids to get through and get passes.”

He didn’t think there was anything untoward behind the increased pass rates.

“None of the principals I know would have a bar of that. There are too many checks and crosses now that are on the go,” he said.

A key thing here is that NCEA is about more than the basic curriculum. It is about being able to get a certain level of proficiency in varied areas. It is designed so that more students will be able to leave school with a certificate of proficiency in at least some areas. It is not like School Certificate that was designed to have half the people sit it fail.

Having said that it would not be surprising if there is an element of grade inflation. By its nature with mainly internal assessment, it will never be as rigorous as external examinations.

Both Johnston and Cote raised concern about the impact of a Government target, set in 2012, for 85 per cent of 18-year-olds to be passing NCEA level two by 2016.

“In my opinion that was a ridiculous thing to say,” Johnston said.

“It puts stupid political pressure on the sector to improve pass rates, irrespective of whether it improves learning and it undermines the integrity of standards-based assessment.”

Let’s look at the data on this. Did NCEA Level 2 rates increase significantly after the target was set in 2012?

At Level 2 the large increases were around 2010, not 2012 on.

Former NZQA deputy chief executive Bali Haque, who was responsible for overseeing changes to NCEA from 2006 to 2012, said the increase in pass rates was a sign the system was working as it should be.

“I wouldn’t call it grade inflation. I would say the system is picking up people who are being successful, whereas the system used to drop those people out,” he said.

“We have a situation where more people are being more successful under NCEA because that’s precisely what it was designed to do. You’re entitling people to use vocational standards, you’re encouraging a bit more internal assessment, you’re expanding the range of things that people get credits for.”

Yeah, NCEA was designed so that more people leave with a certificate of what they can do, rather than a transcript of what they couldn’t do.

Lindsay Mitchell blogs:

It is interesting then, that our government – for the first time –  has been exploring multi-benefit household statistics. If a benefit cap was on the cards here the first thing needed would be data. And there it was in the last Benefit System Performance Report.

126,126 main benefit clients (or 40% of main benefit clients) live in a household with two or more people receiving main benefits. 30% of the 126,126 are partners on related benefits. While some correlation between employment prospects or health status of people in the same household is expected, the extent to which there are multi-beneficiary households seems high. 35,150 main benefit clients (or 11%) live in a household with three or more people receiving benefits.

And what have they done in the UK:

The government introduced a cap on the total amount of benefit that working-age households can get so that, broadly, households on out-of-work benefits will no longer get more in welfare payments than the average weekly wage for working households.

That sounds like a good policy – capping the total benefits you can pay in welfare to a family to that of the average weekly wage for the average working household.

I wonder how many families get more in welfare that this level currently?

The Dom Post editorial:

US President Barack Obama has thrown the last of his political capital behind the deal, to the consternation of his own party. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has suggested he’s willing to kick against the agricultural interests that have long kept in place big farming subsidies in his country.

And trade ministers from all the other countries are delighted; “it’s show time”, our own Tim Groser said.

He should hold the razzle-dazzle and make it clear that New Zealand will only sign up to the deal if it’s plainly a good one. That means meaningful access to new markets where New Zealand exports are likely to succeed. It means serious wins like those that came with the free-trade deal with China, or, much further back, the one with Australia.

I agree. We don’t want a deal like the Australian-US FTA which had little actual trade access benefits.

I don’t mind if there are long or even very long transition times for the lifting of tariffs and quotas. What is important is the end goal – which must be far far fewer tariffs and quotas.

A leaked TPP chapter from May shows the US pushing as hard as ever for new rights for pharmaceutical companies. Pharmac, New Zealand’s economical drug-buying agency, is a special target. Doctors without Borders calls the TPP “the worst-ever agreement in terms of access to medicines”.

The Government says it won’t let Pharmac be gutted. It must hold to that – or drop the TPP. No plausible tariff cuts that would make up for it.

The US pushes for a lot. They, like everyone, has to compromise. I would be very surprised if TPP has a significant impact on Pharmac.

Equally worrying are the TPP’s “investor-state dispute settlement” mechanisms. These give big companies an opaque new forum to sue governments that pass laws they don’t like. They were invented to protect companies operating in countries with dodgy records on the rule of law, but they are spreading all over the world. They have no place in New Zealand – and deserve to be dropped from the TPP.

This is where I disagree. ISDS mechanisms are extremely common in trade agreements, and protect NZ companies also. More to the point half a dozen trade agreements signed by Labour had them in. This is not some new mechanism – they have been included on trade agreements for decades. The devil is in the detail. Our negotiators have been very skilled at getting wording that allows us to pass laws and regulations on public policy grounds, without triggering claims under such clauses.

Trade is a positive force that has helped raise living standards and lift millions out of poverty around the world. Many trade deals have been huge positives for New Zealand, even if painful for particular sectors.

Good to see recognition of this.

Yet the TPP seems to be as much about stomping on valid local regulations as it does about stripping away trade protections. New Zealand has to be clear about the difference.

My ideal trade agreement is one which says:

Country A can sell whichever goods and services it likes to the citizens and companies of Country B, and Country B can sell whichever goods and services it likes to the citizens and companies of Country B.

Sadly we’ll never get that. But hopefully TPP will have significant trade access. Without it, it won’t be worth it.

Rob Hosking writes:

It appears Mr Mark’s move is aimed at forestalling any bid to recruit former Labour MP Shane Jones in to the party and to be installed as Mr Peters’ successor.

This has long been rumoured and on the surface it makes sense. Mr Jones and Mr Peters are known to be close: both are Northlanders by origin, and now Mr Peters holds the Northland seat Mr Jones is in a good position to take it if and when Mr Peters stands down.

Mr Peters himself is 70 and visibly flags at times in Parliament. The blokey, big personality of Mr Jones fits the New Zealand First brand rather well, and having left Labour because he no longer fitted within that rather shrunken, politically correct organisation, will be looking for a new vehicle.

So the received wisdom goes.

The trouble is, this could only work if New Zealand First MPs were prepared to behave like dumb cattle.

They might be known as “hillbillies” around Parliament but New Zealand First MPs are not beasts of burden at the beck and call of Winston Peters. They are, after all, politicians. They have politicians’ egos.

The ‘received wisdom’ that the whole thing would be neatly done by shipping Mr Jones in over the heads of the caucus always looked like the kind of idea cooked up in some room in Wellington and which involved the human beings involved behaving, well, not like human beings.

It was never going to work – at least, not without a major and highly destructive fight.

All this assumes, of course, Mr Jones actually wants the job.

But does he? 

Leading a small political party is a huge job. Taking over someone else’s small political party, when most of the caucus members of that party do not want you there?

It doesn’t sounds like a job with a future. 

Rob is right, and wrong.

He is right that Shane Jones can not just be foisted on a caucus that doesn’t want him.

He is also right that Jones may not want the job – especially if pushed onto colleagues who don’t want him. He had enough of that in Labour!

But where Rob may be wrong is the assumption that the caucus would not want him. Sure half of them probably think they could be leader, but deep down they will be worried that without Winston they won’t make 5% or hold Northland, and then all of them are unemployed.

I also understand that Mark and Jones get on quite well.

So I wouldn’t write off yet the possibility of Jones.

Jason Krupp writes:

Rapid technological change is more often than not a painful thing, littered with the bodies of those firms and industries that failed to adapt – just ask Kodak, Betamax and former mobile phone giant Nokia.

That painful change is brewing again, this time in the form of next generation of transport technologies, such as the Uber. For those unfamiliar with the firm, it effectively lets anyone become a taxi driver using their own car through a proprietary mobile payment and passenger matching system.

It is a disruptive change that threatens taxi industries across the globe, and has been greeted by protests and anger from the incumbents. French taxi unions and drivers, for example, recently brought Paris and much of France to a standstill to demonstrate against Uber by blocking roads, tipping cars and burning tires.

To some degree, the rage is understandable when you consider that the protestors have made significant investments in taxi medallions, vehicles and businesses in the belief that the revenue model is stable and they could earn a profit. Readers might also feel inclined to topple cars in the streets of Paris if they had paid NZ$385,000 for a taxi licence only to have their lunch stolen by some uppity tech firm from California.

But equally understandable is the rage of customers, who have had to bear the brunt of ever rising taxi fares. New Zealand is not exception, and has the unenviable distinction of being the most expensive place in the world to catch a taxi, despite being deregulated in 1989. Indeed, Christchurch, Queenstown, Wellington and Auckland all rank in the top 10 for least affordable fares. These fares compare poorly with ridesharing according to an admittedly limited comparative test by Consumer NZ, which showed Uber rides in Wellington were significantly cheaper than taxis.

I’d say 25% or more cheaper.

The price differential is explained to some degree by over-regulation, such as the one introduced by then-Transport Minister Steven Joyce that taxis must have a camera installed to prevent crime. Another is the requirement that metered taxi operators have 24-hours dispatches. The effect of both these rule and others has been to limit competition by tipping the market in favour of large well-capitalised taxi operators, and against smaller incumbents to the detriment of passengers.

This safety issue is an important one, because the industry is likely to argue it vociferously as the New Zealand Taxi Federation has done with the use of smart phones as a metering device. (Under New Zealand law, Uber has to offer a fixed price for a trip). Industry groups are likely to push the case that if taxis need to install cameras by law, then Uber drivers must do so too.

Remember these cameras were not put in to protect passengers, but to protect drivers. Now if taxi companies thought they needed to protect their drivers better, they could have just done so by choosing to install them. But they lobbied the Government to make it compulsory, and now are using it to argue Uber drivers should be forced to have cameras also.

Yet this line of attack fails to consider the nature of the Uber service. Passengers have to pre-register to make use of the service, as do drivers since Uber is the financial intermediary between the two.

Yet this line of attack fails to consider the nature of the Uber service. Passengers have to pre-register to make use of the service, as do drivers since Uber is the financial intermediary between the two.

Exactly. Uber does not do casual pick ups. You can not hail an Uber down in town. You have to pre-register and order one through the app. So it is ridiculous to claim Uber drivers should be forced to install cameras.

The Cato Institute recently published a paper that looked into whether ridesharing apps like Uber and competitor Lyft are safe in the US. The paper found that while there were legitimate safety concerns for passengers, they applied to the industry as a whole, and the vetting procedures used by Uber and Lyft were superior to those of the taxi firms. Likewise, Uber and Lyft drivers enjoyed significant advantages over their taxi compatriots as far as crime was concerned because they operated on a cashless-basis.

In NZ, all drivers get rated on a one to five star scale. A driver who averages below 4.5 stars will get dropped. And if you give a rating of just three stars (or less), they will personally contact you to investigate. That makes me feel incredibly safe – 10 times more than a camera in a car.

The Herald reports:

An estimated 2500 people showed up to protest proposed funding cuts to Oamaru hospital today.

Waitaki mayor Gary Kircher said he was very pleased at the community’s support.

Marchers ranged from families to the elderly, which Mr Kircher said sent a message about the community’s attitude to the local health service.He said they were very passionate about the primary level hospital, and even though it was a basic service, the community did not want any further cuts.

Mr Kircher said expecting residents to go to Dunedin for specialist care due to funding cuts was unacceptable.

The article is not clear about what is regarded as specialist care, but as a general point I’d note that it is unrealistic to expect a town of 14,000 to have much in the way of specialist care. They should have a hospital, but you are just never going to be able to have the same quality and breath of service as in a city such as Dunedin.

Oamaru has around the same population as Tokoroa and Feilding.

Now it seems the march is specifically about the SDHB proposing a 5% funding cut,  and it is legitimate to have concerns about that. But a sweeping statement that one shouldn’t have to go to Dunedin for specialist care is silly.