The order paper is here and oral questions here.

Oral Questions 2 pm – 3 pm

1. CHRIS BISHOP to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he received about what progress the Government is making to support more jobs and higher incomes?
2. RICHARD PROSSER to the Minister for Primary Industries:Does he believe the Primary Growth Partnership provides value for money to taxpayers?
3. Hon ANNETTE KING to the Minister of Finance: In light of his comments that a taxpayer bailout is his “least preferred” option, how much is he prepared to spend to save the SkyCity deal?
4. DENISE ROCHE to the Minister for Economic Development:What advice did officials provide about how much more valuable to SkyCity the TVNZ land sold to it for the siting of a convention centre was, once that land was used as the site of a hotel?
5. MATT DOOCEY to the Minister for Sport and Recreation: What benefits does he expect to be delivered by the Government’s support for the Cricket World Cup?
6. Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR to the Minister for Primary Industries:Does he have confidence in his department?
7. ALFRED NGARO to the Minister for Social Housing: What recent commitments has the Government made to improving social housing?
8. Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM to the Minister of Defence: Will he assure the House that no New Zealand troops will be engaged in active military combat in Iraq during the term of this Government?
9. JACINDA ARDERN to the Minister of Internal Affairs: What are the expected savings per year as a result of the changes to the National Library curriculum topic loan service?
10. MELISSA LEE to the Minister for Communications: What is the current status of the rollout of the Government’s Ultra-Fast Broadband and Rural Broadband initiatives?
11. Hon DAVID PARKER to the Minister of Police: On how many occasions, if any, has he alerted the Prime Minister or his Office to a matter of significant public interest which he has been briefed on by his officials since his appointment?
12. JONATHAN YOUNG to the Minister of Transport: What is the Government doing to support the development of urban cycleways across New Zealand?

National: Five patsies on the jobs, Cricket World Cup, social housing, broadband and cycleways

Labour: Four questions on Sky City, MPI, National Library and Mike Sabin

Greens: Two questions on Sky City and Iraq

NZ First: One question on the Primary Growth Partnership

Debate on PM’s Statement 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm

There are over five hours to go and three hours available today for further speeches.

Bills

It is possible the Government will delay the debate on the PM’s statement to advance legislation. The next bill on the order paper is:

Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Bill – second reading

The bill makes a number of changes to the status of parcels of land, land titles, and previous Reserves and Other Lands Disposal Acts.

• Introduced: July 2008
• 1st reading: March 2009, passed 113 to 9 with only Greens opposed
• Select Committee report: September 2009, supported unanimously with amendments

The Herald reports:

The publisher of United States’ rap star Eminem is taking the National Party to court, with a hearing set down for next week.

Last year it was revealed that Eight Mile Style LLC and Martin Affiliated LLC, the Detroit-based publishers of Eminem’s copyrights, intended to sue the The National Party.

They allege the National Party breached copyright by using a song that sounded similar to Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ in its campaign advertisements throughout the 2014 election.

In its earlier statement, the party rejected allegations the library music used in its campaign advertisements was a copyright infringement of any artist’s work.

The party had purchased the music from production music supplier Beatbox, based in Australia and Singapore, the statement said.

“As with all works licensed by the Beatbox library music service, the National Party was assured the music in question did not infringe any copyright and was an original work,” last year’s statement read.

The music license and fee were arranged through the Australasian Performing Rights Association and Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (APRA/AMCOS), who act as agents for Beatbox in Australia and New Zealand, organisations which existed to protect the rights of artists, the party said.

It will be interesting to see how it goes in court. I would have thought the legal action should be between Eminem and Beatbox, as Beatbox is the company that was selling the music National used.

Regardless of whether or not the National Party purchased the music through what they considered a “reputable supplier” such as Beatbox, Eight Mile Style was within its rights to sue as the party had used the song in their campaign advertisement, Mr Hazel said.

“The reason they will be going after the National Party is because they are the ones that actually used the work.”

However, Mr Hazel said if the National Party was found liable it could go after Beatbox with a claim to help pay any remedies, depending on the details of their contract with Beatbox.

When you pay a reputable supplier for rights to a song, it is pretty tough if you are the one in the gun if another artist then alleges it infringes.

From Hansard yesterday:

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) to the Prime Minister : Does he stand by all his statements?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister): Yes, especially that one when I said yesterday that “There’s no dye in these locks, baby.”

Rt Hon Winston Peters : Well, how come the curtains don’t match the carpet? [Interruption]

Mr SPEAKER : Order! If the member managed to hear it, I will—

Rt Hon JOHN KEY : I take offence that the member is telling New Zealand he has seen my carpet.

Good to see Winston focusing again on the big issues.

Stuff reports:

Former Greens MP Sue Kedgley last year switched power companies to avoid a new smart meter. She said she was concerned about privacy and electromagnetic radiation.

More sad than funny. First they were worried about radiation from cellphone towers, then it was radiation from wifi, and now it is radiation from smart meters!!

Sue may need to find a concrete bunker with no electronics, to make sure she is properly safe.

Enter your captions below. As always, funny not nasty. Especially this time 🙂

The Herald reports:

Mr Dunne also launched a stinging attack on comments made in New Zealand last week by British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond when he said: “Frankly we’ve got used to New Zealand being there alongside us, alongside the US, the UK, Australia, as part of the family.”

Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said the training was made at the request of the Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant General Tim Keating.

Prime Minister John Key has already made it clear he wants to deploy up to 100 NZDF staff in a training mission with Australia which has 600 people in Iraq.

Mr Dunne, a minister and the leader of United Future, described Mr Hammond as a “patronising figure from abroad loftily telling us we are in the club, we are part of the family and it would be lovely to have you along for the next round of unmitigated slaughter”.

He said the debating chamber had plaques on the wall of other times “the family” had acted together.

“Gallipoli, the mindless slaughter of Australian and New Zealand troops in the pursuit of a British objective, Passchendaele and the Somme, so to come here and say to New Zealanders today ‘we love having you on board, you are part of the family but you’ve still got to queue up at the aliens gate at Heathrow’ is unacceptable in the extreme.”

I agree that any action should not be justified on the basis of being part of any family, or club.

It should be justified if it meets the criteria that it is morally the right thing to do, the risk are not too great, and the action will help improve the situation.

Mr Little, the Labour leader, said everybody felt the urge to do something but: “After 10 years of training of the Iraqi Army by the … best-resourced army in the world, what is it that we can do now that is going to make a difference?”

It’s a fair question, but the situation is not fluid. A number of things have changed.

1. A new Iraqi Government is less divisive and more able to command army loyalty
2. The rise of the Islamic State and their barbaric actions against native Iraqis being so much worse than the previous insurgency. This has changed the dynamic there, and greatly increased the motivations of the rest of Iraq to join together to defeat them.

It is rather more complicated that that, but the point is the situation is not static. Justifying doing nothing on the basis of a previous failure, only works if no variables have changed. And they have.

The Independent reports:

Have heard from reliable sources that 11 people are seeking National’s nomination for Northland. There are several great candidates and the pre-selection committee will have a tough job reducing them to a final five to go forward to the full selection.

The pre-selection is Saturday, so the names of the final five will be released after that.

The Taxpayers’ Union has a petition against any taxpayer funds going towards the Sky City convention centre, on top of the regulatory concessions that were agreed to.

The petition says:

The Herald report:

At least two Government ministers were told an unnamed MP was being investigated before last year’s election, but police did not tell Government ministers it was Mike Sabin until November when a media outlet started asking about an investigation into the former MP.

The Herald has learned that before the election Police Minister Anne Tolley and another minister with a related portfolio were told police were looking into an MP.

However, officials did not reveal which MP it was. Current Police Minister Michael Woodhouse was not told it was Mr Sabin until after One News started asking about Mr Sabin on November 25. That was the same day the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Wayne Eagleson, was told and the Prime Minister was told on December 1. …

It is understood police told ministers they withheld the name of the MP because inquiries were still at an early stage and there was concern about the impact on Mr Sabin’s career and reputation if it amounted to nothing. Ministers were eventually told his name under the “no surprises” policy because media had started asking about the case.

The conspiracy theorists will be disappointed.

It’s pretty simple. If the Prime Minister had known Sabin was under Police investigation in October when select committee chairs were decided, then there is no way you would have appointed him Chair of Law & Order. You’d have to be a moron to do so. Sabin was just one of many backbenchers who could have chaired it. There is no advantage to the Government in having him particularly as the chair, and a huge disadvantage in light of the Police investigation.

And the fact the Police were not sure if the investigation would amount to anything (and for legal reasons one can’t get into why that might have been the case), then it is not surprising that no action was taken until the Police were at a stage where they had decided there was substance to the complaint.

The Herald reports:

Child poverty is dwindling, more people are in jobs and people are drinking and gambling less, the Salvation Army says.

The army’s eighth annual “state of the nation” report says life is getting better on 14 out of 22 indicators of our social wellbeing. Only four indicators are getting worse and four others are inconclusive.

The indicators are:

• Crime – better
• Serious crime – unclear
• Imprisonment rate – better
• Reoffending – better
• Employment – better
• Unemployment – better
• Real incomes – better
• Benefit numbers – better
• Food parcels – better
• Drug crime – better
• Alcohol – better
• Gambling – better
• Housing shortage – worse
• Housing affordability – worse
• Household debt – no change
• Child poverty – better
• Children at risk – better
• Children & violence – worse
• Infant mortality – worse
• Teenage pregnancy – better
• Living costs and food poverty – better

As always there is room for improvement, but it is good to see most of the indicators heading in the right direction.

The order paper is here and oral questions here.

Oral Questions 2 pm – 3 pm

1. ANDREW LITTLE to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his promise to New Zealanders that “the construction of the new convention centre will not cost taxpayers or ratepayers a cent”; if not, why not?
2. JAMI-LEE ROSS to the Minister of Finance: What are the main priorities for the Government’s economic programme in 2015?
3. METIRIA TUREI to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?
4. ANDREW BAYLY to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment: What reports has he received on employment growth in New Zealand in the last year?
5. Dr DAVID CLARK to the Minister for Economic Development:How much extra money, if any, is the Government prepared to give SkyCity as part of the convention centre deal?
6. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all his statements?
7. CATHERINE DELAHUNTY to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement “we’re actually going to stand up for human rights…”?
8. KELVIN DAVIS to the Minister of Police: On what date, if any, was the first of any briefings given by the Commissioner of Police or his staff, to him, his predecessor, the Prime Minister or any of their offices in relation to the reported investigation into Mike Sabin?
9. SARAH DOWIE to the Minister for Building and Housing: What progress is the Government making in increasing the pace of new house construction and expanding Government support for first home buyers?
10. PHIL TWYFORD to the Minister for Building and Housing: Does he stand by his statement that the Massey University home affordability index is the “comprehensive” and “neutral” measure?
11. Dr SHANE RETI to the Minister of Transport: What progress has been made on delivering the Government’s Accelerated Regional Roading Programme?
12. Hon PHIL GOFF to the Minister of Defence: Does he stand by his statement this morning that comments about sending troops to Iraq being the price of being part of the club were “unfortunate”?

National: Four patsies on the economy, jobs, housing and roads

Labour: Five questions on Sky City, Mike Sabin, housing and Iraq

Greens: Two questions on PM standing by all his statements (yawn) and human rights

NZ First: One question on PM standing by all his statements (yawn again)

Debate on PM’s Statement 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm and 7.30 pm to 10.00 pm

There are just over seven hours to go and five and a half of time available today for further speeches.

Bills

It is possible the Government will delay the debate on the PM’s statement to advance legislation. The next bill on the order paper is:

Energy (Fuels, Levies, and References) Amendment Bill – committee stage

The bill amends the Energy (Fuels, Levies and, and References) Act 1989 (the Act) to provide for the costs of meeting New Zealand’s oil stockholding treaty obligation under the Agreement on an International Energy Program (the Agreement) to be met through a levy on fuel.

• Introduced: November 2013
• 1st reading: March 2014, passed 77 to 41 with Labour and NZ First opposed, Greens, Maori, ACT, United in favour
• Select Committee report: July 2014, supported unanimously with amendments
• 2nd reading: December 2014, passed 110-11 with NZ First opposed and all other parties in favour

Stuff reports:

The Prime Minister has dismissed accusations from Winston Peters that he dyes his hair.

During his first speech to Parliament today, Peters quipped that on his side of the House, MPs didn’t dye their hair.

Asked about the statement later, Peters signalled the barb was directed at Key.

“Mr Key’s been taken to telling some of your colleagues about the question of age. Well, frankly, if I was him and having to dye my hair, whilst I’m losing it, I’d leave out the question of age,” said Peters, who first entered Parliament in 1978.

“You know he does [dye his hair],” Peters said. “We all know that. I’m just telling the Prime Minister, for God’s sake, don’t get personal because you’ll get that sort of thing back.”

A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said he did not dye his hair or colour it in any way.

Once again truth is a foreign concept to Peters. Sometimes on a trivial issue, but often on important issues. I think it is pathological – he has got away with it for so many decades, it doesn’t even bother him now.

Stuff reports:

Tax increases on cigarettes are necessary, but more could be done to make South Cantabrians consider kicking the smoking habit, according to Community and Public Health. …

“I’d love to see the government push for smokefree cars. So we’ve ticked off smokefree playgrounds and parks. Our Smokefree South Canterbury Committee have done two years of research around that [smokefree cars],” she said.

Community Public and Health were “certainly pushing” for the government to consider legislation around smokefree cars.

Why not just arrest anyone who is a smoker and send them to jail?

Cars are private property of the owner. Parks and playgrounds are owned by local government. If you think it is the role of the state to ban smoking in cars, then why not ban smoking in private homes also? I can just imagine the squads of officials raiding people sitting at home having a cigarette, and hauling them off to jail.

An MP suggested to me yesterday that the National Government should knight Nicky Hager for services to journalism and the nation. Their reasoning:

• His Seeds of Distrust book in 2002 stopped Helen Clark getting a majority
• The Hollow Men in 2006 effectively propelled John Key to the National Party leadership and victory in 2008
• Dirty Politics in 2014 helped National increase their seats in Parliament and gave National and ACT a majority

Surely that is enough to offer him a knighthood?

If Winston does stand for Northland, National should beat home a very clear message. If you vote for Winston Peters, Northland will not gain a new MP, Invercargill will.

Winston is already an MP. His office is in Whangarei (which isn’t actually in the Northland electorate, but is close). If he contested and won the by-election his status would change from List to Electorate MP, which means NZ First would gain a new List MP.

That MP would be No 12 on their party list – Ria Bond.

Ms Bond is their candidate for Invercargill. Invercargill would gain an additional List MP, and Northland would have one less MP than they had before Sabin resigned.

This is a crucial piece of information, and I can’t imagine the people of Northland will want to reduce the representation of Northland in Parliament, so Invercargill gains an extra MP. The challenge will be to make sure they know this. So if Peters does stand, National should (in my opinion) make sure every household knows a vote for Peters is a vote for Invercargill to gain an extra MP at Northland’s expense.

Eric Crampton blogs:

This weekend brings GMO-sceptics to Wellington. Presentations include “Pesticides: scilencing the ecosystem and silencing our children” and “Overweight, undernourished, sterile and dying of cancer. Our food is it sealing the fate of humanity?”

And look who is hosting them, at Parliament:

Crampton has details of the two speakers, such as how Gilles-Eric Seralini’s paper on GM food and mice was retracted.

89% of scientists think GM food is safe, a slightly higher percentage (88%) who think humans are mostly responsible for climate change. So it is fair to say there is a strong scientific consensus on this issue. Yet the Greens are hosting a conference or seminar of GM deniers and sceptics – at Parliament.

Now they have the right to peddle their pseudo-science. But let’s imagine if this wasn’t the Greens, but ACT. And ACT hosted a conference at Parliament of half a dozen climate change sceptics preaching against the scientific consensus. They would be denounced by a dozen lobby groups as being anti-science and abusing their position as a parliamentary party by allowing parliamentary facilities to be used in such a way. The Greens would be the ones most loudly decrying ACT.

So it is a useful reminder that the Greens devotion to scientific consensus is cherry picked to only apply when it backs their world view.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key won’t rule out using taxpayer money to stop SkyCity’s convention centre becoming an “eyesore”.

Mr Key expressed doubts over the wisdom of insisting the casino operator sticks to the initial $402 million spending plan for the building of the convention centre.

“I’m keen to see the best convention centre I can for Auckland, because this is a very long-term asset, so I would hate to see some sort of eyesore constructed down town.

I’d hate to see my taxes spent on subsidising Sky City’s convention centre.

“There are issues around the construction of it. Obviously you can spend more and get something that looks a lot better, or spend a bit less and get something that looks worse.”

If the extra money will improve the construction so that more groups will want to use the convention centre, then that is a commercial decision for Sky City. It is not an issue for the taxpayer.

SkyCity and the Government agreed a deal in July 2013 for the casino operator to spend $402 million to build and operate the New Zealand International Convention Centre in exchange for legislation allowing the company to operate additional gambling tables and machines and extending its gambling licence to 2040.

The law was changed in late 2013, but in December last year, SkyCity managing director Nigel Morrison said cost over-runs and “design improvements” had seen the bill blow out to between $470 million and $530 million.

There are two acceptable choices for me.

1. Sky City builds it with no taxpayer subsidy
2. Sky City doesn’t build it

I’d prefer (1) but can live with (2). It would be great to have an convention centre in Auckland that can attract global conferences. But not at any price.

Stuff reports:

NZ First leader Winston Peters continues to hint at a stand in the Northland by-election, declaring the vacant seat “winnable”.

Today Labour announced that Willow-Jean Prime, a Far North District councillor who contested the 2014 election for the party, would be its candidate in the March 28 vote.

The vacancy was created by the resignation of National MP Mike Sabin for personal reasons.

Sabin defeated Prime by 9300 votes at the last election, a fall of more than 2000 votes compared with the 2011 election, where he was standing for the first time.

NZ First did not stand an MP in the seat, but gained 4546 party votes.

Labour leader Andrew Little has admitted the party’s chances of winning the seat are “slim” but Peters, who hails from the region, believes National can be defeated.

“It’s winnable. The economic social circumstances up in the north are seriously one of being neglected and ignored,” Peters said.

“The question is whether [Northland voters] they say, in one voice, we need to have a clear voice in Parliament, distinct from the rest,” Peters said.

He denied the seat was a safe seat for National, pointing out that it had lost there in 1963.

That is a new definition of not being safe – the fact someone else won it 52 years ago!!

Also Winston has his facts wrong. It was 1966 not 1963. Vern Crackwell won the the Hobson seat off National’s Logan Sloane by 3% in 1966.

Tonight the NZ First board is scheduled to hold a teleconference where Peters said the matter would be discussed, but Peters denied that a decision would be made this evening.

The NZ First caucus would “of course” discuss the matter at its first meeting of the year in Parliament tomorrow, but Peters said it would ultimately be up to the board to make the decision.

Anyone who knows anything about NZ First knows that the board of course will not make any such decision. Winston will solely decide.

I think it is likely he will run.

Eva Moskowitz writes in the WSJ:

There is a concept called the big lie, which holds that if you repeat a falsehood long enough and loudly enough, people will begin to believe it. Sadly, fearing the success of charter schools in New York City, the United Federation of Teachers and other education-reform opponents have been telling a big lie for years.

The UFT and its backers have kept up a steady drumbeat of false claims against charter schools in New York City: Charters cherry-pick their students, push out those who need extra support, and generally falsify their impressive results.

We hear this here also, even though charter schools in NZ can not pick their students – if there are a surplus of applicants, they must choose by random ballot.

Well, a recent report from New York City’s Independent Budget Office, a publicly funded, nonpartisan agency, proves that these accusations are false.

So what does it say?

The IBO report, released in January, found that—contrary to what some people have come to believe—“students at charter schools stay at their schools at a higher rate than students at nearby traditional public schools.” The IBO reported that charter schools in the city retain 64% of their students, compared with 56% of students retained by district schools. Among special-education students, the IBO found that 53% stay at their charter schools, versus 49% at district schools.

And:

The vast majority of Success Academy students are children of color from low-income families. On last year’s state exam, our schools ranked in the top 1% of all New York state schools in math and the top 3% in English, outperforming schools in affluent areas of the city and wealthy suburbs. On the science exam, 100% of our fourth- and eighth-grade scholars passed, with more than 90% scoring at the highest level.

Success Academy schools have reversed the achievement gap: 94% of African-American students and 96% of Hispanic students passed the math exam, compared with 56% of white students citywide.

Imagine if we could replicate that in South Auckland!

Vernon Small lists 10 things politicians and pundits are watching:

1. Key’s speech
2. Little Progress
3. The Sabin Saga
4. Iraq and IS
5. Andrew’s Helpers
6. The Majority
7. The Green Shoots
8. The Crusher
9. The Numbers
10. The Look

The sad thing is that eight out of 10 of those things are process issues rather than substantive policy issues. The two two substantive ones are Islamic State and the Budget (numbers).

Hannifin de Joux is the Public Affairs and Campaign company of Kiri Kannifin and Jo de Joux. Kiri is a former political advisor in the 5th Labour Government and Jo has been the very successful campaign manager for National for four elections and three by-elections.

They’re just announced:

Kiri Hannifin and Jo de Joux today announced the formation of Hannifin de Joux, an integrated public affairs and campaign consultancy that will form a strategic partnership with CrosbyITextor Group in New Zealand. …

CrosbyITextor is the world’s leading market research, strategic communications and campaign management agency. The company has offices in Australia, the UK, Italy and the UAE.  

“Our collaboration with CrosbyITextor enables us to share their global best practice with local clients. It means we can provide our clients with sophisticated and targeted strategies based on the solid foundation of market research and insights,” says Ms de Joux.

The creation of political strategists Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor, the CrosbyITextor Group draws from an unrivalled bank of campaign experience and expertise to advise corporate clients, investors, industry associations and governments worldwide.

The partnership with Crosby Textor is significant. They are in demand around the globe. I know both Mark Textor and Lynton Crosby, and their experience, insights and effectiveness are almost unmatched. They’re so successful that their very name causes some on the left to enter fits of rage!