TUMEKE!

Private-public partnerships: kiss goodbye to privacy

2012-02-03T16:03:00.000+13:00

Just as the Labour government did a dirty deal to release personal information of welfare beneficiaries to landlords who claim they are owed money (thus treating the landlords as a special higher class of creditor and thus treating beneficiaries as a lower class of debtor without the normal protections of the law) so the National government is continuing the privatisation of personal data to the private sector. The consequence is a form of extra, additional punishment - a double jeopardy if you like - for the debtor. It's a nasty, cunty and pernicious policy.

"Pay your fines, or pay the price", as the campaign is being called is just like the extension of the NZ IRD into Australia and other jurisdictions - to get that extra dollar returned to the NZ Crown they are prepared to undermine other principles of justice. In doing so they will breed resentment amongst the growing number of people who fall into their clutches for owing one thing or another - no matter how small.

Already there are ads saying if you even owe $50 (I think it is) to the government they will stop you leaving the country! A blatant breach of international covenants on the right to freedom to leave your own country, for sure, but trashing basic human rights is so common now it goes by with no critical analysis at any level.

So now we have this detestable situation:

[...]the first provisions of the Courts and Criminal Matters Bill coming into force on February 13.

“The message in the ad is clear - unpaid fines may stop you from getting the things you want on credit,” Minister Borrows said.

The message refers to a provision in the bill that allows the Ministry of Justice to release the amount of a person’s overdue penalties to approved credit reporting agencies, and for credit reporting agencies to provide contact details of debtors to the Ministry to use to enforce payment.

The government is now dobbing people into the credit ratings agency to screw up their lives. Just plain nasty.

File sharing is fine when the government does it and lands everyone else in jail. Cunty, very, very cunty.

TPK... TPKO

2012-02-03T13:28:00.000+13:00

The Ministry of Maori Development (TPK) will be cut back by National with the Maori Party left standing around handing out the redundancy notices and copping all the flack. As they should - it's their own managerial ineptitude that has led them to a position under the table. Picking through the crumbs, trying to claim what great hospitality the Tories have shown them has now turned to sucking up the pile of smashed eggs the Nats have biffed on the floor and pretending it's an omlette. No-one is buying it.

As Morgan Godfery surmises it will mean less services, not better or more efficient:

If the government decides to go ahead with a demolition job on TPK the quality of advice Ministers and government agencies receive will be poor to pathetic. The DPMC doesn’t have the in-house capabilities to properly and expertly advise Ministers on Maori issues. No other government agency has the in-house capabilities either. The result will be a government that fumbles Maori issues.

Ordinary Maori will also be hit. Many Maori will lose their jobs if, or when, regional offices are closed. Maori trying to access TPK services, like business grants and advice, will have to deal with a decreased service.

This is not to say aspects don't need to change or improvements can't be had with the department. Sometimes it's hard to know what TPK does sometimes because they have such a wide mandate and it may be tempting to think because they are spread so thin across so much that they don't have an impact or an effect.

From what I have observed often they seem to be used by Maori insiders and the elite to get their own way (because TPK staff are related or have an interest in the issues they are dealing with) and also used (and scapegoated) by the Pakeha elite to enable the Crown's agenda

Sometimes I wonder why other agencies or Maori institutions aren't empowered to deal with issues in the scope of TPK and I wonder whether TPK's existence is more to hinder and manipulate than to assist and develop. Is the existence of TPK an excuse not to delegate issues to better suited institutions? Is TPK's existence an excuse not to incorporate or value or bother to understand and recognise the Maori things that should be valued as a matter of course in all government departments? These are the questions I'm asking, but I doubt the Nat's or Treasury can see past the budget bottom line when they run their ruler across it; or run their ruler through it in this case.

Then again the same criticisms of responsiveness, competency and rationale could be said of other Crown agencies nominally working to assist Maori, eg. The Maori Trustee. But will reducing the TPK service do anything to advance Maori wellbeing? Of course not - that's all supposed to be done (through the patronising prism of 'welfare') by the Whanau Ora policy. One step forward must be met with another step back to make sure Maori are held in check - that is the trade off.

But here the Whanau Ora Minister, Tariana Turia, would have expected to have been in alignment with the Minister of TPK, Pita Sharples, on this balancing act - and it has been mishandled badly. The threat to walk over the privatisation policy is a thankful political diversion for the Maori Party, but support is still ebbing away no matter what they do as long as they cling to National.

The Maori Party ought to be in some position of strength because of National's precarious numbers - being one lost by-election away from a hung parliament otherwise - but despite the ammunition, the high ground and the vulnerability of the other party, they are fumbling around like Dad's Army. This is due entirely to the lack of a brains trust and a spine following Hone Harawira's eviction.

If Sharples is Capt. Mainwaring and Turia Sergeant Wilson then Corporal Jones is either (or both given the pair's plotting to topple Sharples) the third MP, Te Ururoa Flavell, or President Pem Bird - running about behind the scenes no doubt emploring Pita not to panic. Hopelessness. As an indication of what little impression the Maori Party make, I note Corporal Flavell can't even get his own backyard sorted out:

Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell said a decision by the Rotorua District Council not to fly the Tino Rangatiratanga flag on Waitangi Day this year was "a blatant disregard" of what had been recommended at a hui on the issue.
[...]
Flavell, who attended the hui, said there had been "a general consensus" that the Tino Rangatiratanga flag should fly this year on Waitangi Day.

"Te Arawa might well ask what's the point in turning up to hui if in the end your decisions are not considered," Flavell said.

... says the guy who conducted a series of hui on the foreshore and seabed bill that was supposed to be consultation, but where he presented the re-confiscation of the foreshore and seabed as a done deal and then proceeded to ignore his own constituents and ram through National's bill! He has no right whatsoever to criticise given he did the same thing over an issue a trillion times more important than choosing flags to fly on one day of the year.

"Te Arawa people give considerable mana to the Te Arawa standing committee so it is important for the district council to honour that mana and work with the people rather than against them."

...says the guy who voted to put up GST and sold out - wholesale. He has no credibility on these issues considering his conduct in the last parliament. The only flag he'll be flying is a white one.

Treasury suggests eating young as way to move forward

2012-02-03T08:51:00.000+13:00

Hilariously Treasury have suggested making class sizes bigger in public schools while private schools are moving to make class sizes smaller. Why we are taking advice from Treasury is a question in itself, once again Treasury have had to recall another one of their bullshit optimistic growth targets...

Treasury cuts 2013 GDP forecast to 3 per cent

The Treasury has lowered its forecast for economic growth for 2013, citing volatile and more expensive global credit markets and the likely impact on commodity prices of a weaker global economy.

...Treasury are confronted by economic conditions created by the neoliberal deregulation they so slavishly worship, meaning Treasury doesn't have the intellectual capacity to look outside their free market paradigm. What we are getting from Treasury is a mish mash of austerity cut backs resting on future growth predictions that make Hoover's constant claim of 'prosperity just around the corner' in the wake of the 1929 stock market collapse, look pessimistic.

Best case scenario we are in for a grueling and grinding decade of low growth, worst case scenario another depression (check out Warren Buffet's apocalypse now scenario's and IMF's latest downgrades), when the founder of World Economic Forum admits that he and his greedy ilk 'have sinned' it sounds like all the chickens are coming home to roost in corporate jets.

We dumped the lessons of managed Keynesian capitalism for this neo-liberal monster. In the 70's the real economy and the financial economy were evenly valued, 40 years of neoliberal deregulation and the real economy is valued at $8 Trillion where as the Financial economy is valued at $300 Trillion - the utter imbalance built by ignoring development for Milton Friedman free market dogma has created not only an unjust system, it also has created acolytes within Government and the business media community whose blinkered attachment to failed free market theology makes them all part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Why we should listen to Treasury on increasing class sizes when they can't comprehend the economic future their free market fetish has unleashed should take a very short time to answer.

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RIP: Mary Yandall

2012-02-02T11:38:00.000+13:00

I lived next door to the Yandalls in Grey Lynn for several years - one of the sisters lived there I believe, as did the old man (I think he may have been a City Councillor at some point). I thought they were Nuiean, but the NZ Herald says Samoan:

NZ Herald: One of the sweet-singing divas of the popular 70s Kiwi group The Yandall Sisters has died.

Mary Yandall died on Monday at Auckland City Hospital after a short illness. She was 62.

Ms Yandall and younger sisters Pauline and Adele made up the singing group that became widely popular in 1970s New Zealand.

Their catchy song Sweet Inspiration was an instant hit and was on the NZ Top 20 singles chart for eight weeks in 1974.
[...]
Raised by Samoan parents in Auckland's Grey Lynn, Ms Yandall grew up singing in Sunday school and in the choir at the nearby Pacific Islanders Presbyterian Church in Newton.
[...]
Ms Yandall will be farewelled at the Pacific Islanders Presbyterian Church in Newton tomorrow at 10am.

It sounds dated (heavily influenced by the WWII big band era) and looks more than a bit cheesy now, but this is a good example of one of their popular medleys that made them famous. From the Tui Teka show, opening with the big man himself:
And their big hit:

National caught out lying about SoE clause

2012-02-02T09:00:00.000+13:00

Oh no they didn't....

Asset sale draft plan blunder

An embarrassing blunder has revealed the Government's original intention to keep a crucial Treaty of Waitangi clause out of legislation required for state asset sales.

The information appeared in the draft of a key document that appeared on the Treasury's website yesterday for a few minutes before it was taken down.

...those lying buggers! They were always going to dump Clause 9! Listening to Key claim Clause 9 had never been used when it clearly has in the past suggests National have been caught flat footed and Key hasn't been briefed in any way shape or form. His smug claim that he would find an elegant way out of this sounds like the sort of posturing Head Prefects from private schools use when threatening to get their Dad's lawyers onto you.

If the Maori Party accept this, they will be signing their own political suicide.

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National to appoint single worst person to head Charter Schools

2012-02-02T08:20:00.001+13:00

An ACT Party advert from the 2011 election - do we really want racist rednecks running education?

Crazy hard right ideologue and ACT Party flunky Catherine Isaac has been rumored to head the far right wet dream of Charter Schools. She is the single worst person to ever be put in charge of anything connected to education because she symbolizes a corporate profit motive utterly at odds with the goals of universal public education.

If they are so good, why doesn't National experiment their new Charter school 6week teachers in rich electorates first? Why try this crap in poor South Auckland schools and Christchurch schools shaken by earthquakes first? Well Charter Schools are easily applied to areas that are shocked by either poverty or natural disaster, Naomi Klein pointed out in the Shock Doctrine that the right rammed these charter schools through in the wake of New Orleans flooding in America.

Charter Schools are set up to run whatever crazy curriculum they like and tend to pick those pupils that english is not a second language for and who don't have any of the hardships that make them weaker students leaving those who don't qualify to quietly rot elsewhere. Charter schools are an illusion and aim only to denigrate public schools so for Isaac to claim her appointment was not political is like claiming an election isn't political.

She's a joke looking for a punchline.

National have tried to destroy public education for decades in favor of a competitive profit driven model, appointing someone as wide eyed for the free market who has no education back ground whatsoever like Isaac is one of the largest steps backwards we've ever taken.

Isaac's appointment is nothing less than educational vandalism, a book burner would do less damage than Catherine.

Sleepy hobbits reap what they sow.

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Government to gut Ministry of Maori Development

2012-02-01T15:50:00.000+13:00

It is a blitzkrieg of crazy right wing policy this week. After announcing they will kill off Section 9 of the SoE Act that forces the principles of Waitangi to be considered in relation to our assets, leaks are that National are about to reveal a massive gutting of Te Puni Kokiri.

Branches will be shut, massive job losses and reducing TPK's role to a mere managerial role over the distribution of services that are about to be hocked off to corporate providers has all been quietly planned. How this has been allowed to happen with no consultation of Maori is another example of the blindsiding of Maoridom with less than a week to Waitangi Day.

This is becoming National's foreshore and seabed moment.

The Maori Party threatened to walk from this Government when they realized the National party wanted to strangle off the hard fought for Section 9, surely in the wake of news that the Ministry of Maori Development is about to be melted down for scrap they will leave the Government this month?

At a time when poverty is grinding a large proportion of Maori into the ground, should we be destroying the only Ministry focused on them?

That sounds like a recipe for economic darwinism, NZ's slide into deeper inequality just picked up speed.

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Privacy settings

2012-02-01T15:45:00.001+13:00

Funny how when you do something against someone you don't like it's OK and right and proper and justified and when someone else you don't like does the same sort of thing it's wrong and bad and rotten and awful and mean and unlawful and illegal... The "Teapot tape" is a wonderful example of this.

Anyone who was listened to it will recognise that it is only the brief few (I think two) moments within the conversation (held in front of clicking press photographers, media and cafe patrons) - in which the two parties break into a whisper - which could even approach the threshold of arguably being a "private" conversation. In that situation I had no problem with publishing parts of that and a link to it. It is of public interest and no sensitive issues of state or otherwise were disclosed so no harm was done. The content was purely political - related to the election and the campaign. So the PM's reaction of setting the cops onto the media in an attempt to suppress it was foolish and heavy-handed. Given the PM is the one who appoints the Police Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners the move was also constitutionally dubious as they were bound to over-react to save their boss.

The police over-reaction was wrong, however it is the reaction of the media in cowering to the threat that is shameful. The big media organisations still haven't published anything. Pathetic.

The National Party's blogger-in-chief is just as bad, he says of the tape:

The recording is on You Tube (uploaded by 2Johns2Cups), plus two other locations. I’m not providing a direct link due to the questionable legality[...] we await the Police decision on the legality of making the recording.

Please do not post a direct link in the comments.

Helping the boss out. Very cautious about breaching John Banks' and John Key's privacy. Very diligent. Very caring.

Now contrast this with the wholesale, wanton way the media dutifully published all the private information that Paula Bennett unlawfully released to the NZ Herald from her department as part of her personal political vendetta. A blatant breach of privacy with no defence available (as Bennett was fully aware the two beneficaries in question would not consent to such a release). What treatment does she get for acting like a latter day J Edgar Hoover? How did Farrar react to that situation?

And apologies in advance for linking to this shit but it's purpose is for verification not to continue the breach or perpetuate the abomination.

28/07/2009: First he quotes the NZ Herald article with all the private details, then lamely says:

I think it is good the Government is disclosing the relevant information, after Labour again put case studies up.

Incidentially Labour Ministers used to do this also sometimes, and I supported them doing the same.

And then he goes on to restate the private information just in case his readers didn't look at the Herald quote!

I don't think Farrar would normally use the 'Labour did it' defence (like for forging paintings and all the other misdemeanors they were accused of), but why not use something that flimsy if the core excuse is as floppy as a slinky?

29/07/2009: Farrar quotes everyone possible who is circulating the private information, then concludes with:

The Commissioner will rule in due course no doubt. If she does rule there was a breach, then Bennett will get considerable stick, and of course have to apologise.

Ah, yeah and he'll have some apologising himself to do too - although that hasn't dawned on him as with most people who align with the establishment and the ruling party they assume the rules don't apply to them when kicking society's lower orders are concerned - they think they are exempt and they know that the elites will cover their own arses and protect people like him (which sadly they do).

This post was follwed up a day later, 30/07/2009, with more personal revelations - this time from other sources that were not private - in order to undermine the two. Purely political. No quarter was given; it was open warfare on the beneficiaries.

But now, when it comes to Banks and Key, those two are somehow deserving of having their privacy upheld!? File under hypocrisy.

Just ask yourself what would happen if Peter Dunne (the Revenue Minister) got sick of Farrar whining about tax and wanted to score a political point by releasing Farrar's IRD returns. It would be a different story then wouldn't it. How far would Farrar's 'but he asked for it/he had it coming' defence get Mr Dunne or the IRD officials responsible for the disclosure? But beneficiares are of a lower, lesser class so they aren't to be compared to normal people... let alone the PM and his chum.

Rallying around the Treaty to save state assets?

2012-02-01T10:04:00.002+13:00

National are either...

a) Private school boy bogans who have accidentally wandered into a treaty minefield due to their thick necked arrogance that defines consultation as 'sign here'

OR

b) Realizing there will be no third term, have decided that now is the time to ram through as many hard right economic policies as possible and if that costs them the political camouflage of the Maori Party, so be it.

The most interesting irony in all of this could be the accidental fusion National seem to have sown the seeds for here because if the Treaty suddenly becomes seen as the sovereignty handbrake to asset sales, Key will have managed to merge Maori nationalism and those espousing economic nationalism in a manner he will find hard to separate.

Treaty rights could make a cross cultural jump as Pakeha's anger at asset sales identify with self determining sovereignty.

Dumping Section 9 of the SoE Act is to National what the Seabed and Foreshore land confiscation was to Labour. National are effectively throwing out one of the hardest won sovereignty victories for Maori which can now act as a rallying point for all NZers demanding no privatization.

'Honour the treaty' means the economic autonomy that guarantees sovereignty by holding on to our assets. Key could have accidentally triggered a response that unifies in a way his strategists haven't considered.

With more damning news about National gutting TPK about to break, this Waitangi Day looks set to be the most important in decades.

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BREAKING NEWS - Maori Party threaten to walk out of Government

2012-01-31T15:03:00.001+13:00

As I broke yesterday on Tumeke, the removing of section 9 from SOE Act had all the potential of a massive shift in the political landscape. In the wake of the unpopular decision to sell productive farm land off to a regime that arrests bloggers, artists and Christians worshipping Easter (and had the audacity to claim resistance to China is racist), National are once again promoting deeply unpopular legislation in the form of asset sales and because they haven't dotted the I's and crossed the T's, they have tripped up.

Removing Section 9 that forces the Government to take into account the principles of the Treaty is simply a compromise too far for the Maori Party, because The Maori Party are no longer the political party for Maori, they are the political party for wealthy Maori. The corporate Iwi who sponsor them can not tolerate their possible slice of any asset sale waltzing off as easily as Crafar farms have to Beijing. Without any possible gain for their corporate Iwi sponsors, the Maori Party can not afford to continue to back policy as deeply unpopular as asset sales.

The problem for the Maori Party is that they are in desperate decline, their percentage of the vote in the Maori electorates has been shattered and the leadership are effectively retired. Flavel had his 7000 majority slashed in Waiariki to 1800 and MANA won 800 fewer party votes than the Maori Party in this once formidable Maori Party electorate. MANA was able to dent the Maori Party with only 3 months organization, give MANA 3 years and a continuing decline in economic performance, and the Maori Party will become a political footnote for 2014.

The damage of tactically deciding to stay at the table taking John Key's crumbs while having to swallow dead rat after dead rat has taken it's toll, and to stay at the table as Key strips Section 9 from the SOE Act is political suicide. The Maori Party have no choice but to walk and end Key's political camouflage. This political relationship was always designed to make National look far less extreme than they really are, with the pretense stripped away (if the Maori Party walk), Key will either be held hostage by the hard right of his Cabinet or actively try to find wider compromise if he wants that third term.

Will the Maori Party walk? iPredict seem to think so.

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Citizen A online now: Keith Locke & Dr Wayne Hope

2012-01-31T08:21:00.001+13:00

Issue 1: Ports of Auckland strike action continues - do the Ports of Auckland actually want to settle or do they just want to break the unions?

Issue 2: John Key's electorate chairman now wants to be NZ on Air chairman while censoring political documentaries that embarrass John Key. How very North Korean of us.

Issue 3: Occupation Auckland get's shut down. Is the occupation movement over?

Citizen A broadcasts 7pm Thursday Triangle TV

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Trouble for National - treaty blocks asset sales

2012-01-30T10:57:00.001+13:00

Even amongst National Party voters, whoring off our assets are ethically seen as akin to molesting your pets. Why John Key thinks implementing more right wing free market bullshit to respond to a global economic crises caused by the exact same free market bullshit is a solution is anyones guess, and seeing as our insipid self censoring mainstream media are too frightened to hold Key to account on the issue, the electorate are none the wiser either.

There is real trouble however brewing for National's desires to whore off our assets, and to the shock of many a redneck who hates asset sales, it's the treaty that is blocking Key.

That's right my Pakeha brethren, that awful Treaty that so many seem to want to erase and forget because it highlights the broken promises made by our forefathers is actually blocking the asset sales National have planned and in response to this, National have sent their Maori Party mouthpieces out for a series of hui to beg Iwi leaders to erase section 9 of the State Owned Enterprises Act 1986.

Most of the mainstream media are still either asleep from holiday or are too frightened of the Key Government in the wake of the Epsom Tea Pot Tape Police bullying (as attested by our sudden drop of 5 places in the worlds media freedom rankings last week), to question anything at the moment so aren't even aware of the significance of section 9. To help them out, here are the hui times that have been hastily arranged once National realized that section 9 could stop their privatization plans...

8 February 10.00am Distinction Hotel Rotorua

8 February 3.00pm Waikato Stadium Hamilton

9 February 3.00pm Wanganui Racecourse Wanganui

10 February 9.30am Toll Stadium Whangarei

10 February 3.30pm Novotel Auckland Airport Auckland

14 February 10.00am Waihopai Runaka Murihiku Marae Invercargill

14 February 4.00pm Chateau on the Park Christchurch

15 February 10.00am Emerald Hotel Gisborne

15 February 3.30pm Te Puni Kokiri Wellington

...why all the fuss over Section 9? Section 9 of the State Owned Enterprises Act 1986 says that the Crown will not act in a manner inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and flogging off assets we all own is utterly inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty.

This is an interesting angle, the idea that the Treaty could be used to actually protect the rights of everyone in NZ is a concept that will startle some Pakeha, but it's also the best chance of stopping our grinning multi-millionaire money trader from committing right wing economic vandalism by flogging off assets which can only be bought by the rich he's borrowed tax cuts for.

Once Close Up stop rehashing story ideas I did 7 years ago, the sleepy mainstream media should realize the significance of Section 9 and the Governments frantic attempt to smother it's importance.

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Crafar farms: racism or economic nationalism?

2012-01-30T00:28:00.004+13:00

The furore over the Crafar farms leaves me sitting in a position that might be called six of one, half a dozen of the other. It is difficult to argue that the reason why this particular sale has provoked such fury is not because it taps into an element of underlying racism, and a quick scroll through the Herald comments is all that is needed to evidence this. Anything that Winston jumps all over with such fervor is generally a clue that we are in the realm of exclusive notions of economic nationalism.

We are only two generations after World War II, and the argument that the Chinese abuse human rights and are quickly becoming a global power is difficult to maintain once one actually delves into the nitty gritty of foreign affairs. We are, after all, stuck in the middle of an escalating political theatre in the Pacific that has to do with the strategic location of minerals and rapidly declining fisheries stocks, not to mention the diplomatic aid in exchange for UN votes of small island nations. On the other side of this theatre sits the US, whom are equally open to allegations of human rights in their preference of war by proxy, or their geopolitical dominance that saw troops in 97 countries in a movement that is sometimes referred to as Obama's "axis of instability". This struggle for dominance at its current rate looks likely to be primarily played out through economic movements and aid, rather than any kind of warfare, despite the cattle calls and the establishment of a US base in Darwin. Posturing is central to foreign affairs, and countries frequently call their opponent's bluff. Unless the US is foolish enough to invade Iran, the current balance looks likely to be maintained with China. That Europe is attempting to look to China for a bailout signals that relations have not really thawed that much, and China has been increasingly keen in recent years to be seen as a responsible superpower within the international arena. If we want to have some degree of independence from US foreign policy in this environment, playing ball with China to a certain extent is inevitable. The ethics around the human rights argument is even trickier - there is some evidence to suggest that cutting trade ends up hurting the people at the bottom most. Beyond that there is also the obvious - there are a large amount of people in New Zealand that benefit from the inequality in wages and labour levels (not to mention those on iPads, iPhones or Macs whose products are made in factories with suicide nets where the workers are paid around 70 cents an hour, or the fact that most of our electronic devices contain Coltan mined by children in the war-torn Congo). I don't support this kind of exploitation, I am merely pointing out the hypocrisy in the Crafar farms being the flashpoint issue.

In this sense, the right are correct in stating that the issues around the Crafar farms tap into notions of racism. There has been a lot of land that has been sold over the last couple of years, and Labour had sold prime South Island farmland to American songstress Shania Twain. John Key estimates 1% of our land has been sold in total, Federated Farmers say 2%. The fact that we as a people have not gotten as upset over land sales to British and America says a lot. Labour and the Greens' argument that share milkers want to save up to buy their own farms is almost farcical given the prohibitive cost of farm ownership. Let's face it, owning a farm is going to be out of the reach of most people. Considering that only around 0.2% of the population are members of Fonterra (representing 13,000 farmers), and in 2009-2010 they collected 89% of milk production, the odds of upward mobility to farm ownership are not particularly high for farm workers, with the median farm sale price sitting at $3.57 million.

This is not to say that everyone opposing the sale is racist, far from it. Anyone in politics will tell you that their arguments depend on the opinion of voters, and National hitting a raw nerve has left Labour the opportunity to attack. Shearer would be stupid to pass up an opportunity like this on a platter. Land is a flashpoint issue in New Zealand, and forms much of our national identity despite around 85% of us living in towns and cities. Key is out of step with voters here, and this allows Labour, the Greens and Mana the opportunity to further entrench the position that this is a government that does not listen to the opinion of their people. The Crafar farms sale also places stress on National's relationship with the Maori Party, who they need for their majority and who see the sale as operating outside the interests of the iwi they represent.

However, the wider debate that needs to take place is on foreign ownership. The public reaction signals that there needs to be a wider debate around the legislation that the Overseas Investment Office operates on, particularly given the now transnational nature of dairying and agriculture. Transnational dairying and agriculture is becoming a flashpoint for economic imperialism that is of immense concern, and can have devastating effects on subsistence farmers. The perpetrators of this movement extend to the Ivy League universities, who have been investing in African land grabs. To me, there is something ironic in the fact that while we sell off our productive land to foreign entities, Fonterra is engaged in Latin American expansion that is also subject to similar criticism. Fonterra has farms in China, Brazil and they are looking to extend this to India. Take the example of Fonterra's rejected bid for a merger with Nestle in Chile, as this article from the National Business Review illustrates:

Fonterra abandons merger with Nestle in Chile

The text, which had not yet been submitted for consideration by the Senate, argued that the merger would cause serious harm to domestic, damage competition among companies in the sector and negatively affect dairy farmers.

Chile's Agriculture Minister, Jose Antonio Galilea, earlier this year criticised the proposed merger and said that an "excessive concentration of certain industries" would naturally end up affecting producers. Mr Antonio Galilea noted issues related to unfair competition and transparency.

Chile's National Economic Prosecutor, Felipe Irarrazabal, said the merger "in the opinion of this office" was not positive and mitigation measures were not sufficient to offset the risks involved.

The president of the National Federation of Milk Producers in Chile, Dieter Konow, warned that a company such as Soprole, which controlled more than about 60% of the market, was "free to set the prices for both sales and purchases of dairy products [...] it is not good to a social market economy."

Soprole and Nestlé Chile applied in late November to the Court of Free Competition in Chile (TDLC) for a ruling on the merger, which they claimed would increase milk consumption in Chile by promoting and expanding the product categories the two companies sold.

In much of Latin America, Fonterra has been managing its investments through Dairy Partners America (DPA) joint venture with Nestlé, which operates 13 manufacturing sites in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador These are separate to Soprole, in Chile.

Mr Ferrier said Soprole would now focus on continuing to grow its consumer business in Chile.

"Soprole already has a very strong position in the Chile market and has been posting strong growth in recent years. The team is now focused on building on that strong foundation."

Farming is such a huge part of our economy, and we must preserve our resources, which ultimately are our land. While I have little doubt that selling our productive land and investing in developing nations makes economic sense in the short term, it is difficult to predict how the conditions in these countries will change in the longer term. Land is becoming increasingly multinational, and it is time to have a debate around these issues.

Finally an Australia Day I can get behind

2012-01-28T09:43:00.000+13:00

The smug Fosters drenched manner in which Australia celebrates Australia Day has always seemed bizarre when put into context of their near genocidal racist Aboriginal history. It's like a cultural blindspot they ignore with the same fever white apartheid South Africans used to.

This flag burning anger that saw Gillard and Abbott shown the contempt they deserve is a far more appropriate image for Australia Day.

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NZ Media still in Stockholm syndrome with Key Government

2012-01-28T09:26:00.002+13:00

John Key has now forced a Government appointee onto the Christchurch City Council to 'observe' - this after Key stole the South Islands democratic water council to give his greedy farmer mates more water and rammed through legislation to make Gerry Brownlee accountable to no Court in the wake of the earthquake. I love how if Labour had pulled authoritarian shit like this the NZ Herald would be calling for open rebellion - Key does it and there is mainstream media silence - lap it up sleepy hobbits.

The exact same point of how weak the media's criticisms are can be made about National's mythical budget surplus that every single one of us with the most basic grasp of economics knew would NEVER happen by 2014 which surprise, surprise Key now says might not be met now.

Same point can be made about the Crafar farm sale to China when everyone knew that's what Key would do if he won in November.

This Government are increasingly becoming more and more authoritarian and the unchecked powers they are handing themselves should be forcing some in the mainstream media to end their on going honeymoon with John Key, amusingly it hasn't.

The mainstream media seem to have Stockholm syndrome when it comes to Key. Forget my banning from Radio NZ's insipid self censorship for criticizing Key, forget that Key set the cops onto our four largest broadcasters for a tea pot tape in Epsom that was more tedious than terrible, forget TVNZ7 being sold to a shopping channel, forget the killing off of regional TV, forget the fact Sky Tv will make $120million profit due to the near monopoly position they have under National, forget that Key's electorate chairman is on NZ on Air and censoring political docos that embarrass the Government, forget all that - how about the very simple fact that in terms of media freedoms, our country has gone backwards under John Key...

NZ slips out of top 10 for freedom in the media

New Zealand has dropped out of the top 10 countries for media freedom after a year in which police searched newsrooms over the now-infamous "teapot tapes".

In its annual press freedom index, advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranked New Zealand 13th in the world for media freedom last year - down five places from eighth in 2010.

...I personally love Key's justification for appointing his electorate chairman to NZ on Air to censor political docos...

He said Mr McElrea raised objections in response to complaints from members of the public

...oh really, that's all he was doing was it John, if that's the case, how come McElrea was complaining BEFORE the doco even went to air? He's voicing concerns about a doco that no one had seen because it hadn't screened yet? Are we to believe that McElrea is psychic? The fact McElrea is now wanting to be chairman of NZ on Air should send chills.

The much awaited expansion of search and surveillance Police powers are to be debated in the first half of this year, my fears are that these draconian expansions of Police power will be given to all State departments and the sleepy hobbits of NZ will be none the wiser or less apathetic.

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Why we need to sell Crafar farms to China

2012-01-27T14:31:00.000+13:00

So John Key has finally managed to find the guts to tell NZers what he had quietly decided to do some time ago, and that is to sell the first beachhead into NZ Dairy farming by allowing China to buy the Crafar farms. The OIO withheld their decision for 9 months so that it would occur this side of the election so Key didn't have to fight the election on it.

Some on the right in the blogosphere claim attacks on China is racist - what nonsense. We are allowing a country that arrests artists, bloggers and Christians for worshipping Easter to have more power over our economy, having concerns about a totalitarian nation owning our productive land isn't racism, it's legitimate.

Some will point out that China only owns 1% and that we never bitch about Australia or the US owning us, that's a ridiculous misrepresentation because I don't want those buggers owning NZ either!

For Key however, the decision was easy. He is our first true internationalist Prime Minister, he doesn't see issues in terms of sovereign nations, he sees it in terms of currencies, 24 hour global speculative trading and how much total milk powder we sell to China.

Key has no choice but to sell Crafar to the Chinese, the shocking free trade deal he is cutting with the American's where he is effectively signing our economic sovereignty away to US corporations means he has to placate China to some degree.

By making NZ America's pet, Key has to pacify our massive Chinese trading partner whose recent resource grab has so insulated our economy.

By selling us out to America's interests, Key has managed to weaken our ability to resist China's.

That sound you hear is David Lange as he rolls in his grave at what National has down to our independent foreign policy.

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Dirty SkyCity deal shows how to bribe Government for law changes

2012-01-27T09:11:00.002+13:00

Is there any better example of the brutal political thuggery of buying ones own legislation than the dirty deal being quietly cut for Sky City?

The situation is this, the Government have millions to give for the building of a new convention centre in Auckland to attract more conventions and boost economic gains from having those conventions.

Proposal one is that the Edge becomes the convention centre while money goes into rebuilding the St James as an arts venue. This would strengthen Auckland Counsels business model for The Edge while restoring one of Queen streets fading jewels, the St James.

Proposal two however is Sky City taking public space for a 'convention' centre that they will pay for. The quid pro quo Agent Starling is that John Key has to loosen up the rules of the amount of pokie machines Sky City is allowed while also loosening the advertising rules so Sky city can milk more out of problem gamblers.

The reason why Proposal two is a joke is because increasingly professional industries are making it part of their ethical position NOT to hold conventions at Casinos, so the pretense that this Sky City convention centre will gain for Auckland is a nonsense, the only way Sky City will make money out of this is if they can con more locals into spending there, hence Sky City's demand to loosen the advertising regulations.

Buying policy as blatantly as this is becoming a familiar part of this Government's policy platform. Sky City will be joining the mining industry, Farmers and the wealthy as those with enough coin to buy the National Party out right.

Sleepy Hobbits reap what they sow.

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The Standard announce they have terminal cancer

2012-01-27T08:48:00.000+13:00

Terrible news that 'The Standard' has terminal cancer. I don't read 'The Standard' much, so appreciate I am coming to this issue late, but it is terribly sad that they now have the tedious and dreadfully dull Imperator Fish as a regular columnist in their attempt at a broadening humor that will appeal beyond their fetish with Farrar and Slater (for the record Farrar and Slater are supposed to be mocked, not taken seriously).

Why The Standard thinks it needs more of a sanctimonious whiney tone by bringing on Imperator Fish is anyone's guess, next they'll be appointing Tim Watkins as Editor and anyone who wrote for The Listener post Findlay McDonald.

Eeeew.

The Standard will be sadly missed.

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Dear Auckland Council - how stupid can you be over the Occupation?

2012-01-27T08:09:00.001+13:00

There are moments of utter stupidity by people in authority that makes one roll ones eyes and shake ones head. The decision by the Auckland Council to send in the security thugs and NZ Police using dirty filthy tactics to hide their identities to clear out the occupation protestors is one such moment of utter stupidity.

Auckland Council, you've just given these protestors grievance. Well done idiots.

Forget the fact that the Occupation movement is RIGHT when they protest at the despicable way corporate finance has been used to empower the 1% while molesting the remaining 99%, forget that there is an ongoing Court case to settle whether the protestors can leave, let's just focus on the reality that the Occupiers themselves were so close to leaving altogether.

Having been down at the camp myself, talking to many of the protestors and fragmented leadership, it's clearly apparent they accept the movement is losing steam and they wanted to look at new ways of making the occupation movement work. I suggested 'flash occupations' using social media networks, and many there were looking for a way to move on. The manner however in which the the Council roughed up protestors yesterday means that the issue is now personal and protestors don't seem to want to do anything more than dig their heels in.

The Council have made their bed, now they can lie in it.

By the way Len, real leadership would have been to take the costs of the occupation to central Government and demand that they pay them as it is John Key's policies that are increasing poverty and inequality.

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Teapot tape now online

2012-01-26T14:17:00.000+13:00

The notorious recording of the PM and John Banks having a chat is now online.

This recording was deemed so sensitive that the PM went to the NZ Police to have it stopped - and they duly obtained warrants to search news organisations that might have a copy. A Nixonian paranoia and a Nixonian reaction made possible by a weak media and a conflicted police service that is appointed by and responsible to the PM.

So what's on the tape?

It's 10:45 long.

Starts with voices of handlers shooing the media away. Then they talk about what a good media turnout they have - about 30 press. Then Key talks about polling, saying he expects National to ease to 50%: "around 49".

1:54
JB: "the left have been nasty"... "you have no idea how vicious they've been, especially at public meetings [...] we can handle that..."
2:45
JB: "Someone said that you'd be working with... ah, ah..."

---
Now there is no name mentioned but they both know who they mean. There's a lot of nod, nod, wink, wink with that - are they talking about a journo, a consultant? Then Key tells Banks what he will say to the media when they finish their cuppa. You can hear the clinking cups etc. so the "teapot". Then Banks tells Key what he should say:
---

3:30
JB: "You might be inclined to say 'I know John quite well' [...]
JB: Do you think Winston will cross the line?
JK: "Not a dog's show. He's at 2.5 on TV3 [...] He won't poll much over three..."
[...]
5:20
JB: Labour have given up on Epsom. [...] Labour are nasty...
6:10
JK: The reason I don't text is it puts you under pressure to say whether he has or hasn't [...]
JB: I haven't talked to you. [...] Catherine and the 4 of us [...] restructure the party...
---

So Banks thought he could get 4 in. They got only himself in in the end, but he was still confident at this point - just as Key was that Winston wouldn't make it. Act falling and certainly the rise of NZ First was in large part due to the existence of this recording.

---
JB: He's a strange fellow the other fellow, isn't he
JK: Mmm, yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, no, we've been down that road. The reason why when they rang me in the UK I never ever thought that [...] 15% a snap election.
JB: No, no, I didn't know, I didn't know.
---

That odd fellow they refer to is Don Brash. What the hell 15% and snap elections have to do with anything and why Banks is claiming profusely that he didn't know is odd. The tape is a almost inaudible at that point because they go into a whisper. People only whisper like that if it's dodgy. So was Key contemplating a snap election?

--
7:20
JK: So, you want to go? Is that yours? Is that yours? Is that yours? [...] Hey, that's a recording device!
---

No shit.

John Key was prepared to stuff what little we have of a constitution down the shredding machine when he called in the police to heavy the media - all over what? What matter of state security was mentioned that could possibly merit what he did?

Extraditing Dotcom Euro-geeks for Hollywood

2012-01-26T12:49:00.000+13:00

The Megaupload arrests seem to have more to do with America trying to encroach their jurisdiction into cyber space for the benefit of Hollywood's profit margin, while telling China that NZ's aquiesance shows Beijing that we are America's property.

With the Pacific increasingly becoming the proxy that China and the US will wage their new cold war through, NZ will need to work out how to play these two giants off against each other without getting crushed.

As we get closer to signing the free trade deal with America, we need to appreciate the vast level of sovereignty John Key will be signing over to American International Corporates.

The Food Bill, the East Coast oil drilling and the Megaupload arrests are all glaring examples of America's insistence that we are going home with them after the dance, and that America is not taking no for an answer.

That sound you hear is David Lange turning in his grave at the lack of an independent foreign policy.

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Going, going...

2012-01-25T12:58:00.001+13:00

Labour are on to a winner as they sense and follow populist nationalism over the Crafar Farm sell-off. National risk losing that populist advantage if they allow the Chinese to buy it up, but risk damaging the relationship with China if they try to stop it.

The Nats would prefer Fay & co. find an extra few dozen million to satisfy the reciever, but realistically the Chinese are prepared to out-bid anyone for the strategic beachhead into the dairy supply chain, the security of freehold land tenure and an opportunity to safely store and passively increase the value generated by their trade surplus. That's why talk of a "market price" when Chinese (and ultimately the Chinese government) is involved is not an accurate descriptor in these cases.

NZ Herald: Labour leader David Shearer will visit one of the Crafar farms today to highlight his opposition to a bid to buy the farms by a Chinese company
[...]
The Overseas Investment Office is currently considering the bid by Chinese company Shanghai Pengxin to buy the farms, which could then be leased back to Landcorp.

It will then have to be approved by Government ministers.

Mr Shearer said he did not believe the bid added value to New Zealand and would see vast tracts transfer to foreign ownership.

There is no added value - they aren't building anything they are just wanting to take it over and become landlords (if the LandCorp lease-back concept is to be believed). The only "value-adding" there would be is of the purely economic sort where raw numbers matter more than quality and the negative effects on others; probably via the Chinese firm importing lowly-paid Chinese labour and management on the farms to increase their profit margin - they would see this as economic efficiency and productivity and thus "value-adding" but that is not going to actually benefit the local population or this country's interests.

However, the previous Labour government gave preference to Chinese over Canadians in the ability to own strategic assets:

Stuff from 2008: Wellington's electricity network has been sold to a company controlled by Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing, in a deal the Government is expected to approve.

Cheung Kong Infrastructure, an international infrastructure investor listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, will pay Vector $785 million for the network.

Mr Ka-shing has been a director of Chinese state-owned companies and is thought to be close to the government.
[...]
it is unlikely the Government will oppose the sale, though it recently blocked a Canadian pension fund from buying 40 per cent of Auckland International Airport.

The sale is subject to Overseas Investment Office approval and it is likely that Finance Minister Michael Cullen will have the final say. A spokesman from his office said the Wellington network was not on land deemed sensitive, so the test for foreign ownership would be less rigorous than for the airport.

Dr Cullen has said the Government does not consider the network to be as strategic an asset as the airport.

Prime Minister Helen Clark echoed that view, saying last night that because the network was not on sensitive land it would not trigger the same criteria for consideration.

If the Labour government was pro-Chinese there seems little reason the Nats won't be too, and for the same reasons: fear and greed.

The Nat's will most likely continue this policy of selling network and wholesale assets to China as a preferred partner nation that the Free Trade Agreement seems to have established. These precedents - along with the increasingly sychophantic yielding of both parties to the American corporate machine - are being set and they bode ill for this country's economic independence and sovereignty.

It is interesting, perhaps ironic, that China - a victim of European colonialism and the imposition of foreign jurisdictions during most of the last two centuries - and their antithesis, the US - an aggressive colonising, expansionist power with vehemently protectionist articles of faith - should both find their strongest support (and that is to say they have met the weakest defence) in New Zealand. NZ is still a colony - but of whom?

UPDATE | 1:10pm:

The US?

NBR: North Shore district court judge David McNaughton has just released his reserved decision denying bail to Mr Dotcom. His three associates, Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, will have their bail applications considered today.

Mr Dotcom will remain in custody pending an application by the United States government - specifically the FBI – to have him extradited to face indictments involving about $US500 million of alleged internet piracy, money-laundering and racketeering against the copyrighted film, television and music business.

He has been remanded in custody until February 22.

China (and Japan and other Asian countries attempting to be colonised) were forced by a succession of naval threats and battles into giving the foreign occupying powers a right to extend their laws into areas of these countries - including land laws. Japan fought for years to have the leases that resulted terminated as did China. India eventually took over French and Portugese colonies on the Indian coast after the British left. And here is NZ two generations later letting the outside powers do as they please - wilfully abetting the intrusion of their jurisdiction, acting as their agents.

Locking up gregarious Euro-geeks for the supposed crimes of distributing Hollywood videos without permission doesn't seem justified at all for commercial infringements whose remedy can only ever be financial. The criminalisation of copyright breach into a jailable felony is nothing short of piracy - the word the Hollywood lobby has misused to define the offence. If anyone is hijacking a vessel it is Hollywood hijacking the NZ government and the legal system, not someone making a copy of something someone else has copied - that is the opposite of piracy, they are giving not taking. If anything Hollywood is only entitled to a cut of what Megaupload has made - not some fanciful, inflated figure used to spook the naive and intimidate the judiciary into thinking the losses are real. Only a very small fraction of the people copying would have paid the full, bloated Hollywood price for the downloads.

Well done Close Up, only 7 years behind me

2012-01-24T19:43:00.001+13:00

Close Up have gone on line, posed as an underage girl and met with the men and filmed their responses to why they were grooming online children for sex.Well done Close Up, great to see you are catching up. I did the same thing 7 years ago on TV3's Stake Out, except we did it with under age prostitutes, on line grooming, and the ease of buying kiddie porn. Sadly the harassment of children on line and the endless line of men wanting to exploit them hasn't changed at all in 7 years.

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When NZ Police act like this at the Occupation they are pigs

2012-01-24T19:23:00.001+13:00

The alpha male culture of Police is nothing new. The investigation into the sexual provincial culture of sado-masochistic Police orgies where women were gang banged and raped has been investigated and still managed to not dent NZs authority worship culture.

We hand vast spying powers to break into our homes and plant cameras with no more than a sniff warrant that becomes open ended and ongoing and no one in this country blinked when the NZ Police killed George Tipene Harris.

Our blessed boys in blue had spent 7 years defending the beating in the back of a Police car of George Tipene Harris, George of course managed to escape the illegal beating in the back of a Police car that two other Police Officers had turned a blind eye to and while fleeing the illegal beating in the back of the Police Car he ran into the path of a streetsweeper and was killed. Clint has been let off even though the two other cops who turned a blind eye to the illegal beating in the back of the Police car confessed their role in conspiring to defeat the course of justice by covering up the beating.

This has led the NZ Police to claim there is no code of silence for Police cover ups...

Police deny 'code of silence' in coverups

Court action stretching over seven years against police charged with coverups of an alleged assault on a suspect, who later died, ended this week with police denying a "blue code of silence" culture exists.

This week the High Court at Auckland granted an application for proceedings to be stayed against Clinton Lyall Hill, 36, a constable from South Auckland.

He had been through two trials in 2009 and 2010 with juries unable to reach verdicts after being charged with assault on George Tipene Harris, 24, and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

While off duty Mr Hill had arrested an intoxicated Mr Harris in the early hours of October 3, 2004, for trying to steal his mobile phone. He hailed a passing patrol car which he put Mr Harris in, and was later accused of beating him up in the back seat.

Mr Harris got away, ran on to Great South Rd and was hit and killed by a street sweeper truck. Mr Hill was initially charged with manslaughter, but in his first trial the jury threw that charge out.

Two Police Officers confess to covering up the illegal beating of a man that leads to his death, but there are no illegal police cover ups? John Dewar? What about the case of autistic man Cornelius Arie Smith-Voorkamp who was given the bash by Christchurch Cops for supposedly looting?

There are no issues with Police cover ups in NZ, just like there are no issues with Charlie Sheen opening a kindergarten day care centre.

The only way Cops get busted for bashing is when they accidentally bash the son of a detective.

This case of letting basher cops off whose actions kill could be a new recruitment tool I suppose rather than the tasteless and sexist cougar adverts the Police were defending the use of to cut through to a bored younger arsehole demographic.

So does it actually surprise me that Police while heavy handing the Occupation protestors yesterday wore the same Police ID number? Of course it doesn't, by wearing the same Police ID number there was no way anyone roughed up by the police can complain about them.

Sadly our 'Independent' Police Conduct Authority is only funded to investigate 30% of complaints or stories that gain a large amount of embarrassing media attention, if you get bashed make for your facebook asap or there's no way you can gain an independent review of your case.

With vast new surveillance powers to be passed that give Police an incredible level of unchecked power to spy on us, our culture of cop worship seems more Stockholm syndrome than sensible management of police power.

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Food Bill + Megauploads + oil drilling = we are America's bitch: Welcome to the new cold war Sino-US friction point

2012-01-24T18:33:00.000+13:00

New Zealand is the new friction point of the US-China cold war as both battle for influence and world power dominance through their proxies scattered across the Pacific.

How NZ plays America off against China to maximize their new combined focus on us is a test that seems beyond the current John Key Government, because make no mistake, the Food Bill, the Megaupload arrests and the fetid desires of American Oil companies promising to turn the East Coast into the Texas of the South Pacific are all connected to the Free Trade deal with America and they are all clear international signals to China from the US that NZ is their bitch.

China has had a recent fixation with NZ as it has expanded into the Pacific. As Fran O'Sullivan so brilliantly explained in her ground breaking 2010 column, China sees NZ as a testing ground for it's lowest cost capitalism model because its current success with lowest cost capitalism is reliant on it working in 3rd world countries with little first world labour regulations. Testing their model of capitalism in NZ allows China to learn how to use their lowest cost capitalism in the West. China used NZ to test out a Free Trade structure and went so far at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo to make NZ the only other country allowed to share 'China' day at the Expo.

America's response to China encroaching upon their Pacific backyard has been an increase in free trade deals to ensure it's economic hegemonic dominance in the region while backing it up with military muscle. Fiji has been targeted for a new US base, the build up of American naval power in the Pacific continues and the Marines are being sent to Australia.

What the draconian and Monsanto inspired Food Bill, alongside the arrests of Megaupload for threatening Hollywood profit margins and America's sudden interest in East Coast oil all represents are multi-armed manifestations of the secret Free Trade deal America is currently attempting to strong arm us into signing.

As Wikileaks pointed out, the real insult to injury here is that NZ get's nothing out of this secret trade deal. New Zealand's chief trade negotiator Mark Sinclair privately told a visiting US State Department official that New Zealand had little to gain from a free-trade agreement and New Zealand would need to "manage" public expectations about the benefits of a US free-trade agreement, this despite John Key's claim the deal would be worth 'Billions and Billions' to us.

Sadly, John Key's love affair with America rules out us having an independent foreign policy any longer as these three recent examples show:

FOOD BILL:'Monsanto-inspired-regulation-that-allows-for-Genetically-Modified-Organisms-dressed-up-as-food-safety' is a more accurate description of the 'Food Bill' but thanks to no NZPA reporting on bills moving through legislation, Labour and the Greens have been caught with their pants down on this issue.

Shamefully, New Zealand was one of the nations that took the EU to court in 2005/6 for banning the importation of GMOs on biosecurity grounds. The US lead the action arguing that the EU as a member of the WTO had no right to prevent the importation of GMOs by citing ideals within the Cartagena Protocol. NZ, Canada, Australia the US were joined by Monsanto in this legal action. And they won the case. Europe was ordered in 2007 to open its trade lines to GMOs.

The Food Bill is a tidy up job to make sure no future Government can unpick the Free Trade bill that allows for Monsanto to force it's GMO's throughout the food structure.

MEGAUPLOAD:

This joke over reaction for a copyright infringement is jaw dropping. ‎76 police officers to arrest internet geeks who 'cost' Hollywood $500million, South Canterbury Finance 'costs' us $1.7billion and I didn't see armed offenders squads converging on Allan Hubbards' home. Check out what you can be extradited from NZ to America for - it doesn't mention copyright, racketeering or money laundering.

Would we ever prostitute our Police service to a Chinese company demanding this level of compliance for a mere copyright infringement?

It would never happen.

Megaupload had 25 petabytes of storage and 1000 servers leased in US data centres operated by Carpathia Hosting, plus a further 36 servers leased from US-based Cogent Communications. How can this constitute as US territory when Youtube, Google and a host of other companies do what Megaupload does?

The Free Trade deal allows Hollywood to suddenly put their copyright infringement on par with drug dealing and war crimes. This is America marking it's territory on NZ telling the planet that US jurisdiction now stretches all the way into cyberspace.

DRILLING AND MINING:

Despite the Rena highlighting what deregulation of our safety maritime safety infrastructure leaves us with, the Key Government can't cut deals with US companies to mine and drill NZ fast enough. While the profit will be private, any pollution will certainly end up as a public cost and the Free Trade deal could be used by TAG oil to argue that any attempt to legislate environmental safety laws would be against TAG's 'right' to make a profit here.

In a world where oil is peaking and the fear begins to drive up the price and China and America are locked in a Mexican stand off to be the next Super power, how will tiny, insignificant NZ be able to withstand the type of influence we would see if we found as much oil as the Government is hopeful of? Where ever oil has been found in such quantities, the corporate influence of war and political thuggery is not too far behind. Will we end up the slave of America or China and will NZ be tricked as easily as every other small country who has found oil into descending into the internal political chaos that makes extraction so easy by those outside influences?

Let's forget the wisdom of using MORE oil to release pollution into an increasingly fragile bio-sphere that is already struggling with the pollution we are currently pumping into it, surely we should see that every dollar spent on extracting oil is a dollar not spent on researching new green solutions.

Each of these examples can be added to the long list of fish hooks this Free Trade deal will catch us on...

More expensive medicines

No local content in broadcasting

Weaker controls on overseas investment in NZ

Foreign investors suing the Government for millions in offshore tribunals

Weaker regulation of the financial services

Undermining action on climate change

Delays and restrictions on agricultural market access to the US

...effectively this is a debate about national sovereignty vs codex alimentarius style legal structures, our ability to write our own law against allowing cut and paste legislation written by American corporate interests to trump domestic legislation.

'Free' trade with America is like 'good' cancer. It doesn't exist.

Sleepy Hobbits who trust grinning multi-millionaire money traders reap what they sow.

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NZ On Air censorship must be addressed

2012-01-24T10:59:00.002+13:00

National Man eyes New Zealand On Air Chair

New Zealand On Air chairman Neil Walter is expected to stand down soon with National Party official Stephen McElrea a contender to replace him, television industry sources say.

The two men have been at the centre of a controversy over the timing of Bryan Bruce's documentary on child poverty screened four days before the election, claiming it opened the funding quango to accusations of bias.

McElrea complained to NZ On Air which sent TV3 a terse letter of complaint but TV3 went ahead anyway.

Critics have complained that NZ On Air, far from ensuring its reputation for independence, overreacted.

Walter is due to retire soon and it is understood McElrea has indicated interest to the Government in the role or in being appointed as deputy chairman, two production industry sources said.

In the past the funding agency has been headed by a senior public servant such as Mr Walter.

It is understood the Ministry for Culture and Heritage is recommending a former staffer from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade.

It is of significant worry that Stephen McElrea may be appointed Chairman of NZ On Air given the controversy that surrounds the Board's actions over the Bryan Bruce Inside Child Poverty documentary and his role in attempting to place pressure on broadcasters over their scheduling. NZ On Air is supposed to be independent and encourage quality programming, a mandate that is threatened by their political interference and paranoia before the previous election. As child poverty is an issue that belongs to all parties, and indeed was something that Key campaigned on in the 2008 election with his visit to McGehan Close, there is everything wrong with NZ On Air's attempt to strong-arm TV3 over its scheduling. This must be resolved before a new Chair is appointed, and McElrea's role in starting the emails should mean that he is out of the running due to his conduct.

The Screen Directors Guild have expressed their concerns over the potential appointment, with some producers stating that it is already influencing their approach to funding. This is an organization that I used to work for, and in my role teaching film at university I have many industry connections and understand the funding process well. To some extent, the damage has already been done. Directors and producers are already acutely aware of the political demands that influence funding decisions. The documentary environment is incredibly tough in New Zealand, and people are dependent on funding and the nod from a broadcaster to get funding. As their application for funding sheet notes, you need a written statement of interest from a broadcaster and also to list the broadcaster's financial contribution. New Zealand has a hybrid or mixed model of broadcasting, where despite the influence of the public service broadcasting model from Britain during the establishment of television in our country, the tough terrain and small population has meant that our television has always had to incorporate a commercial influence. In recent decades TVNZ has come under increasing political pressure to operate under a business model and return dividends, placing our sole public broadcaster in the precarious position of having to fulfill both commercial and cultural imperatives. This means that broadcasters already function as gatekeepers in a system that favors a ratings-driven model. When an hour of quality drama costs the same amount as hours of reality TV brought in from overseas, you can see the quandary that the industry finds itself in. The difficulty of balancing ratings and informative, quality works that promote the same kind of debate that is essential to a functioning democracy and society can be seen in the history of the TVNZ Charter in bizarre incidents such as Rick Ellis' 2007 claim that Police Ten-7 was Maori representation.

Some of the right wing bloggers such as David Farrar have positioned this kind of censorship as fine. With all due respect, they have little understanding of the industry. I anecdotally know of many people who have altered their applications to this and other funding bodies due to the politics of the time. There is certainly a perception among those in the industry that certain topics are sensitive and less likely to get funding already. This does not need to be entrenched further.

Farrar and the Libertarianz have argued that the documentary is factually incorrect. For the Libertarianz, this revolves around the use of the word 'free market economy'. Technically we don't have a free market, although this is tapping into debates around the moves to deregulate the market under the 1984 Labour Government. However, one would have to have been hiding under a rock since 1984 to not hear debates that have couched their argument using this turn of phrase, and semantic correctness in some senses is always at peril to a phrase's use in popular culture. It is difficult to argue that the documentary has not promoted debate and also given the right a platform to circulate their ideas, as I have seen in the numerous criticisms between the comparison of the documentary's use of Norway as a model for child development. It seems while Norway is fine to mention in the Welfare Working Group's report, it is not okay in a documentary surrounding our children. Critics have argued that Norway can only afford to do this because of their mining, for example, or that Norway has suffered economically for its reforms. The notion that the documentary only promoted one-sided debate is quite frankly a fallacy; it did what all good documentaries should do in providing a vehicle for the issue to be raised and debated. I have no idea why some on the right find this so threatening and the only conclusion that I can come to is that this is a debate that they do not want to have, even if they are capable of developing arguments over the issue. If there's one dictum that should always ring true, you shouldn't be in politics if you can't handle a debate and when it comes to the distinction between mice and men, perhaps we have mice.

The truth is that there is no one answer to this problem and the debate deserves to be raised otherwise we wouldn't be debating it. The world according to McElrea or Farrar is not a democracy, a democracy is made up of all of our perspectives, and rightly so as no matter how smart one individual is, there is always a perspective or insight that someone has not thought of yet. It is precisely during an election that I would hope that this debate can come to the forefront, rather than being swept under the carpet. This is our children, our future, and there is something quite worrying about limiting the debate to crime rather than discussing the societal factors that might be implicit in creating these conditions.

This is censorship, make no mistake, and this will have an impact on the industry. McElrea needs to apologize or step down from the Board as it is clear that his appointment, whether it be from concerns emanating from the National Party or his own gung-ho attitude to public broadcasting, is limiting his ability to perform his duties as a public appointee.

Mr Dotcom's bondage

2012-01-23T15:57:00.000+13:00

The cops have a lot to prove in order to outski Mr Dotcom. He's got a QC in the fight and could probably afford a small army of them if things get rough - appealing every step of the way:

Kim Dotcom, 37, and three others have been accused by the FBI of money laundering, racketeering and copyright piracy in relation to their file sharing website Megauploads. The Megaupload company was indicted in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, USA, on Thursday.

The four accused are appearing at North Shore District Court to defend the charges and fight extradition to the United States.

Anne Toohey for the Crown, representing the United States, argued that Mr Dotcom poses an extreme flight risk and may reoffend if he is allowed bail and asked the judge to turn down the request.

For the Crown... for the United States? Like one was the other. The way the NZ governments behave it is the same. And the US = America Inc. Warner Bros clicks their fingers there, the government jumps on cue over here. Wellington is not difficult to direct.

There are many questions needing an answer, but one of them I'm wanting to know is what happens to these immigrant-investor's $10m NZ government bond holdings? The investment was a good one, but surely that money must be returned to the NZ Crown - not the Americans.

Inbox(503)

2012-01-23T11:13:00.000+13:00

From 1 January to last Monday there were 503 emails awaiting my attention in the main inbox. Not a lot for two and a bit weeks because of the holidays, but approaching the point of overload. Everyone with a desk job faces the same experience on return to the office. The same daunting task.

The cull.

There were only 19 I wanted to look at. That's 3.8% of 503. The other 96.2% of those emails were not worth opening for one reason or another - mostly inconsequential facebook-generated messages - about 100 alone from New Year's well-wishers.

Then I notice one email I was curious enough to want to open has an earlier message inviting me to some Dub Step thing. They may be friends on facebook but if they knew me well enough to know what I think of Dub Step's older and equally zoned-out wigger/hippy brother, Drum & Base, they wouldn't have bothered to invite me to some Dub Step thing. Move to trash, delete. So now there's only 18 out of 503.

In order of importance:

1. Email from MB. Don't really need to open this one, I can guess it will be what Mr Bradbury sends every year about this time: What the fuck are you doing about the blog? What the fuck are we doing? When are you going to get your shit together? He'll ask it in a much cooler way than that, but that's what it will be. I will ponder this for whatever period is probably too long and bordering on rude, then I'll be forced to over-promise in order to rectify and placate and because I feel bad about potentially having been rude. Always difficult conversations when there is naturally a New Year's expectation of planning having been done... and little evidence of it from anyone. I have about a dozen ideas that could make a difference, but they involve considerable effort and commitment, financial and human, that are beyond me just at the moment. Many of the scenarios are a matter of knowing how to indecently whore oneself out at a decent price. It's icky, but it's a necessity. Everyone driving content and pulling in substantial traffic faces the same questions of decency and whoredom. My co-bloggers are the best at what they do; we'll take it to the next level together. This year?/!

2. Automated bill. One of those have-to-pays. Do it online.

3-5. Facebook: The 336 friends awaiting approval is a keeper. A specific friend awaiting approval I'm interested in will be kept to remind me. An invite that may be relevant.

6,7. Linked In: The last update and one of a specific person linking in I want to keep.

8-15. NZPD, Bryce Edwards daily politics summary of on and offline commentary is a must-read even if it is history at this point.

16-17. A sales rep wanting to sell me something - still stuck on their database, but worth a look.

18. A link request. 99.9% certain to be spam, but vague enough at the start to make me want to open it anyway even though I know I shouldn't bother.

Lack of anything personal in the inbox, a lot of that seems to be txt or via facebook.

All in all a lot of communication going on and so little of it valuable.

Citizen A online now: Selwyn Manning & Phoebe Fletcher

2012-01-22T19:19:00.002+13:00

Issue 1: Trouble at Port - the Union busting actions of the Ports of Auckland are sound economics or political maneuvering to privatize?

Issue 2: Public Broadcasting - is NZ on Air more concerned with keeping NZ off Air in light of their criticism of TV3 to broadcast a doco on poverty in the week of the election

Issue 3: The Crown Minerals Act is being replaced to make it easier to mine, are we ready for more exploration and in a recession can we afford not to?

Citizen A broadcasts 7pm Thursday Triangle TV

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Another Black day for internet freedom

2012-01-20T12:27:00.000+13:00

If piracy is the seizure of things in transit that belong to someone else then the American government and the corporations for which they work are more piratical than some geeks making money from the internet without giving enough of a cut to the big boys. The State proxies of the Hollywood system seizing people for crimes against their commercial model they are attempting to impose on the world is the true conspiracy here.

A day after the SOPA/PIPA black-outs in protest at the US law restricting and making liable search engines who host copyrighted content the long arm of the American corporates reaches out into our domain and the NZ authorities, like the UK in the Richard O'Dwyer case are rolling over.

NZ Herald: An internet millionaire with New Zealand residency who founded one of the world's largest internet file-sharing sites has been arrested in Auckland.

Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and three others were arrested in New Zealand at the request of US officials.

A US indictment accuses Mr Dotcom's Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Craigslist shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to thwart online piracy.
[...]
New Zealand police said the four people were arrested at addresses in Coatsville and Orakei this morning. A total of 10 search warrants were executed at residential and business addresses across Auckland.

All will appear in the North Shore District Court this afternoon.

The arrests were carried out by Organised & Financial Crime Agency New Zealand (OFCANZ) and police, following a mutual legal assistance request from the United States to arrest of individuals for the purpose of extradition.

Detective Inspector Grant Wormald of OFCANZ said the arrests were the result of several months coordination with the FBI and US Department of Justice.

Hand in glove with the FBI.

The Labour government gave Hollywood what they wanted when they passed copyright laws restricting parallel imports and criminalising what is essentially civil, commercial infringements - then the National government gave Hollywood the labour laws they wanted after Warner Bros sent some suits around to John Key's house and demanded it. Is it any wonder they will extradite at their behest? This is a culmination of these types of laws and a strong indication of where they are heading. It will not be long - at this rate - before a NZ citizen is extradited for a copyright offence. The O'Dwyer case is instructive of what to expect:

A judge ruled on Friday that a 23-year-old student can be extradited to the United States for running a website posting links to pirated TV shows and films, despite significant doubts over whether such sites break any UK laws.
[...]
Richard O'Dwyer, a computing student at Sheffield Hallam University, faces a potential 10-year term in a US jail despite never having been to America or using web servers based in the country. When still a teenager O'Dwyer set up a website, TVShack, which posted links to pirated material. It did not directly host any files, which meant, according to the student's lawyers, that it acted as little more than a Google-type search engine and did not breach copyright.

As for the details of the crimes in the "Mega Conspiracy", ironically they are most easily accessable via the type of file sharing site they are trying to thwart: "Mega Conspiracy". It's a very clear document and after reading the start of it I can understand why the corporates moved - Megaupload was one of the most popular websites of all time and they have definitely lost potential revenue even if the majority of people using it would not have otherwise paid for the content. Now it is returning a blank.

The most offensive part of the NZ on off Air poverty doco stoush

2012-01-19T07:27:00.000+13:00

Beyond the farce that is having John Key's electorate chairman appointed to NZ on off Air and complaining about the poverty doco,

(beyond the farce that is having John Key's electorate chairman appointed to NZ on off Air in the first place);

beyond how North Korean their solution to censor political docos that might embarrass the Government;

beyond the dire state of public broadcasting that never brings serious social issues into the forefront, NZ on off Air's bewilderingly sycophantic self censorship galls most by what they chose and what the media now chooses to be offended over. Note it isn't the abomination of wide spread poverty and the social impacts of that poverty that has offended the sensibilities of the chirping pundits and culture managers at NZ on off Air, it is the supposed embarrassment the poverty doco has caused their political masters that most concerns.

NZ on off Air's only concern should be that the doco was journalistically correct, not whether it would embarrass the Government. A critical media asks questions and provokes debates over issues we should all feel embarrassed over, and the staggering impact of preventable poverty is a subject that as a society we should all feel intensely ashamed of.

It is an obscenity to the egalitarian dream of our country that 200 000 NZ children live in poverty while 150 of the richest families increased their wealth in one year alone by $7billion. Research released yesterday highlights the negative effects of childhood income on later educational and career achievement, yet we live in a media landscape that does all it can to minimize the real level of poverty so as not to depress consumers.

NZ on off Air's desire to censor political docos at the behest of the Prime Minister's electorate chairman so as not to embarrass the Government is a story but it avoids the devastating reality of what the doco actually revealed and by focusing on when it was revealed as opposed to what was revealed, we have managed to create public broadcasting that breeds denial.

How convenient for all concerned, why not have a full blown regression and follow this up by ignoring youth suicide, domestic violence and the true social cost of our alcoholism while we are at it?

We don't want a media to ask hard questions because we don't want to hear the hard talk-back- radio-lazy-stereotype-shattering answers.

Let's all watch MasterChef food porn instead of being confronted by hunger and poverty.

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Public broadcasting under threat in New Zealand

2012-01-18T12:57:00.002+13:00

Tom Frewen: NZ on Air Spooked by Political Interference

A move to censor television programmes likely to embarrass the government during election campaigns is being considered by the broadcasting funding agency, NZ on Air.

The minutes of the NZ on Air board’s December meeting reveals a decision "to seek legal advice on whether NZ on Air could require an additional clause in the broadcast covenant requiring broadcasters not to screen programmes likely to be an election issue within the Election Period as defined in the Broadcasting Act".

A reaction to TV3’s screening of Bryan Bruce’s documentary on child poverty four days before the general election on Saturday 26 November, the proposed ban on television programmes "discussing topics likely to be an election issue" during an election campaign would be an extraordinary first for a western democracy, giving total control over television current affairs to a government agency run by political appointees and bureaucrats.

The emails released under the Official Information Act in regards to allegations of political interference at New Zealand On Air over Bryan Bruce's documentary Inside Child Poverty should be seen as a warning signal that our fourth estate is not working well in New Zealand, and we are witnessing a climate of fear that is threatening the independence of our government departments. That New Zealand On Air feels that it cannot do is job without pandering to politicians during the election shows that the Board members feel that they do not have the mandate of independence that the legislation grants them.

There are several points that are of interest here. The first and most obvious one is that while Inside Child Poverty mentioned past policies, it was certainly not structured as a political attack. Sure, the documentary was aired four days before a general election, but the issue of child poverty in New Zealand is much broader. The claim that the issue of child poverty was not one in the election before this documentary are blatantly untrue: child poverty had been the launch pad for at least three political parties - the Maori Party, the Greens and Mana. Labour had also launched policy around the establishment of a children's commissioner. The issue had been a recurring one in the media due to the UN Report on children and reports of food banks running out of food. In fact, one could argue that the issue of child poverty went back at least three years, with Key's speech on McGehan Close and the 'underclass' for the previous election. With 25% of our children living in poverty, the notion that a documentary such as this could not be screened because it was seen internally as an issue that would annoy National signals that National are interested in controlling the agenda for debate, and despite their election platform of welfare reform to supposedly reduce long term benefit dependency, they are not interested in talking about poverty.

New Zealand On Air is, as Neil Walters states before he goes into his bizarre explanation of how being paranoid is political independence, bound by legislation to be independent. That the emails then evidence New Zealand On Air attempting to strong-arm TV3 into influencing its programming decisions demonstrates that something is deeply wrong at New Zealand On Air. As Tom Frewen reports for Scoop, New Zealand On Air Board member National Party Northern region Deputy Chairman Stephen McElrea complained that a quality documentary that actually does advance public service broadcasting principles replaced reality television programmes, evidencing the sad state that we may find our public broadcasting in if we leave National in too long.

These board members have a conflict of interest and have demonstrated an inability to make sound decisions. It is clear that from incidents such as John Key's claim to be able to shift Coronation Street last year or his accusations that the Human Rights Commission had violated Paula Bennett's human rights through their need to have a judicial enquiry that this government is quite keen to blur the boundaries of its influence through little respect for the independence of the institutions it is supposed to protect. However, it is also clear that as guardians of the public service mandate of our mixed model system of television that we need people on the Board of New Zealand On Air that can actually stick up to Government and are able to fight when politicians cross the line.

Citizen A 2012 predictions with David Cunliffe and Wallace Chapman

2012-01-18T08:53:00.000+13:00

Wallace Chapman and David Cunliffe join me to predict the political horizons of 2012.

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Key's electorate chairman attempts to censor political docos at NZ on Air

2012-01-18T07:47:00.000+13:00

There's a level of self censorship currently on display at NZ on Air that makes Radio NZ's banning of me for criticizing John Key look like time out on the naughty step.

NZ on Air seems to have become NZ off Air.

How many sleepy hobbits are even aware that John Key's electorate chairman is actually on the NZ on Air board and that he is actively attempting to censor political documentaries, because that's exactly what Tom Frewan over at Scoop has uncovered...

The alarm at TV3’s decision to screen the documentary on Tuesday 22 November at 7.30pm, a slot normally occupied by "reality" genre programmes such as "Drug Bust" and "Kalgoorlie Cops", was first raised by a board member, Stephen McElrea, who also happens to be John Key’s electorate chairman and the National Party’s northern region deputy chairman.

There are two distinct issues here, the first is the role of NZ on Air, the second is the issue of political appointees.

This ridiculous situation has come about because the brilliant child poverty documentary by Bryan Bruce was aired in the week of the election and has sparked NZ on Air to look at censoring any doco that might cause the Government embarrassment in an election period.

How very North Korean of NZ on Air.

Surely critical media that questions what the Government does is EXACTLY the role of NZ on Air, sadly however the board is far more interested in pacifying the Government of the day and the emails released by the Official Information Act that Frewen has unearthed paint a cluster of Yes Minister clones anxious to cover their own butts.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that NZ on Air is part of the problem in terms of the brain deading of our nations public broadcasting and gutless self censorship like this has no place in a progressive democracy. The issue regarding the poverty documentary should have been whether it was factually correct or not, it certainly never should have been whether it embarrassed the Government.

TV3 should be celebrated for screening the poverty doco, not bullied by NZ on Air because it raised difficult questions for the Government.

The second issue is the appointment of John Key's electorate chairman sitting on the board of NZ on Air in the first place, because allowing him on there to censor political docos is an outcome that would sicken anyone with basic comprehension skills.

This isn't the first dodgy appointment by National that borders on the absurd, well known National Party homophobe Brian Neeson was appointed on to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. Why a bigot who has done more than any other NZer has to legally hate homosexuals was appointed to a tribunal over seeing human rights has never been examined by the mainstream media. His appointment would be as unacceptable as Paul Henry becoming the next Race Relations Commissioner. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the process to appoint Brian was a farce. Idiot/Savant with the 2010 scoop on how Neeson was appointed...

Exclusive: An appropriate process?Firstly, it confirms that the cronies were appointed without any interview or formal process. They were "well known to Ministers" who were "satisfied as to their suitability for appointment". And that, apparently, was the end of the matter. There was no examination of qualifications beyond a standardised curriculum vitae form, and certainly no formal test of their ability to contribute meaningfully to the work of the Tribunal as recommended by its chair. They were "well known to Ministers", and so they were in. Whether this is a suitable appointments process for a quasi-constitutional body with power to overturn legislation such as the HRRT is left as an exercise for the reader. The nomination of these cronies displaced more qualified candidates. Power had initially proposed the reappointment of eight existing, experienced members of the HRRT. Four of them were dumped to make room for these cronies. These included all three legal practitioners, who the chair had specifically requested be retained to provide a core of legal capability "to ensure continuity in the decision-making process of the Tribunal". Faced with a choice between an effective human rights body, and jobs for their mates, National chose the latter.

...I accept political appointments as part of our system, either side stack the decks with their people when they win, but within that appointment system there must be some level meritocracy and believable objectivity - I'd consider appointing the Prime Minister's electorate chairman onto the public broadcasting funding body and a homophobe onto the HRRT is an audacity too far.

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Earth to the Labour Party - where are you Labour Party?

2012-01-17T22:54:00.000+13:00

Put in perspective, the equivalence of Labour's spectacular silence on the Ports of Auckland privatization and Union crushing agenda would be National having nothing to say about implementing every single word of Karl Marx's, 'Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844', 'Wage Labour and Capital' and 'A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy' all within a one month policy roll out codenamed kill-the-filthy-farmer-swine.

There was a fear that when the right wing faction of the Labour Party gave David Shearer the numbers to beat Cunliffe for the leadership (as described by Fran O'Sullivan) that Shearer would not be his own man with that political faction chip on his shoulder.

That fear may be well founded. With welfare reform reading lists that makes Tony Blair's 3rd way look principled, it seems that perhaps David's political advisors want to grow his pie, not by exciting the passions of the nearly one million enrolled voters who didn't bother to vote, but by simply fighting National for their voters.

That's a pretty stupid way to grow a pie.

By sinking into a party that merely manages redneck NZ rather than challenge it, why would anyone bother voting for Labour?

As the mighty Chris Trotter points out...

You are fond of telling us, Mr Shearer, about that transformative moment in the Sudan when you looked over the side of the truck you were travelling in and witnessed half-starved children scrabbling in the dust for the scraps of food you had casually tossed away. It’s an arresting image: redolent with all the sub-texts of injustice, wealth and poverty, and the inevitable conflicts to which scarcity gives rise. And the clear implication of your story is that not only did you perceive the intrinsic moral squalor of the scene being enacted in the fly-blown Sudan dust, but that you decided then and there to do something about it.

...Shearer was picked as leader because his none political back story could disarm Key's none political back story, yet the sense of morality that made Shearer leadership material is utterly lacking as the Ports of Auckland set up an unethical attack on unionized workers.

What David's advisors seem to fear is Brand Shearer being linked to 'old labour' by having him rush to the defense of the Union, that shallow expediency avoids the fact that what is being proposed by Ports of Auckland has all the ethics of burning puppies alive.

What the Ports of Auckland attempt to crush unionized workers actually represents is the low wage economy National have managed to degrade NZ down to, PoA CEO Tony Gibson takes home over $750 000 yet wants to chop 320 workers pay by $20 000 to save $6 million? As the ever brilliant Rod Oram reading deeper into the Productivity Report points out, the real reason our exports are being hurt via our ports is the much higher freight costs the shipping lines themselves charge. A shipping container from Auckland to Singapore costs $1553 while it cost only $486 from Sydney, as Oram concludes, "shipping costs dwarf whatever productivity gains the ports can achieve so the government must investigate them. If it refuses to do so, yet it heaps pressure on council-owned port companies and their unions to eke out efficiency gains, the government, quite simply would be acting uneconomically and, worse, immorally."

That Labour are so silent on an issue of social justice as clear cut as this dispute suggests that Team Shearer are simply hoping for National to just lose 2014 by John Key accidentally choking to death on a pretzel, or it suggests Labour's strategists aren't bothering to excite apathetic voters and are moving to the right to try and win National Party voters.

Either answer is depressing for educated NZers.

Shearer needs a strategy and needs one fast otherwise David Cunliffe will be starting up BBQ sessions this summer.

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An Open letter to the Occupation Movement on tactics

2012-01-17T07:35:00.000+13:00

Dear Occupiers

Hi, how's it all going then? Before I get all critical here, let me say how terribly fond of activism and over throwing elite structures of unethical commerce I am, and that you have all been a great balm to my cynical heart in terms of showing a generation of apathy that there are some amongst us who won't simply be led into the mental abattoir of uncritical modern living and who are prepared to make a stand.

For that alone, I and many other thinkers around the globe are very much grateful.

However, I hate to be a bit of a wet blanket here, but the immoral structure of vested commercial interest masquerading as the neoliberal Washington Consensus (that none of us consented to) hasn't budged an inch from your occupations.

This is dreadfully annoying.

It's dreadfully annoying because after the immoral corporate values on display after the 2008 stock market meltdown the global hegemonic economic structure is as weak and prepared for collapse as it was post 1929 when it unravelled into a depression.

It's dreadfully annoying because as former World Bank Overlord, Joseph E. Stiglitz points out in his paradigm shifting Vanity Fair article, Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%, inequality caused by a gutting of Keynesian regulation and a culture of me first and the gimmie, gimmies is still creating a world where venal 1% greed is rewarded at terrible cost to the remaining 99%.

It's dreadfully annoying because as Philosopher Thomas Pogge points out in his Priorities of Global Justice...

"One-third of all human deaths are due to poverty-related causes, to malnutrition and to diseases that can be prevented or cured cheaply. Yet our politicians, academics, and mass media show little concern for how such poverty might be reduced. They are more interested in possible military interventions to stop human rights violations in developing countries, even though such interventions - at best - produce smaller benefits at greater cost. This Western priority may be rooted in self-interest. But it engenders, and is sustained by, a deeply flawed moral presentation of global economic cooperation. The new global economic order we impose aggravates global inequality and reproduces severe poverty on a massive scale. On any plausible understanding of our moral values, the prevention of such poverty is our foremost responsibility."

...in short brothers and sisters, while the Occupation fights the good fight, it ain't winning.

Why not? It's not like you aren't right, the despicable manner in which commerce is structured to harvest wealth for the 1% at the cost to the remaining 99% is as evil a creation as any humankind has made and the only ethical response is to attack it in every form where ever it is found, yet the Occupations have mostly been killed off, may I suggest a slight tactical change?

The problem I think is that occupations by their nature are tactically static. You turn up at a venue and occupy it which is followed up by the Police arriving and beating everyone up with the sort of passion they tend to reserve for minorities when the cameras aren't rolling. I think the Occupation movement needs to evolve and become mobile. I say the Occupation create leadership teams who quietly strategize out who should be targeted next and send out the message via social networking sites to flash occupy.

Flash Occupations should become the new weapon, it would attract massive media attention as you are always occupying new targets, the occupation should last as long as the occupiers can stay (days, weeks, months - how ever long you can occupy for) while demanding direct dialogue with the target that has been selected for occupation to change whatever their practices are that have caused attention to fall upon them.

This tactic would breath life back into the Occupations, it would create a transient activist base who could move from protest to protest and become a real social movement that has purpose and direction. Sitting outside your local City Hall playing hacky sack and debating the finer points of a Tobin Tax in an anarchist styled no leaders consensus model is all fine and good, but it isn't going to force change.

When the current system of capitalism is as evil and corrupt as the one we currently are yoked to, there can be no excuses for not exploring new tactics to continue the struggle.

In the words of the great Kate Shepard, the woman who led the struggle for universal suffrage in NZ over a century ago, 'All that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome'. Flash Occupations are the solution and manner in which her words should be fought with.

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NZ Herald puts down family labrador

2012-01-16T15:00:00.001+13:00

George Garth has finally been put down by the NZ Herald editorial team. Garth was the old family labrador that messed on the carpet while biting children, but whom was loved so dearly by the NZ Herald editorial team, that they kept him alive well past his used by date.

He will be as sadly missed as gonorrhea.

I heard the news that Garth was leaving the Herald while fishing, so forgive my lateness in posting, but I really didn't care enough to break my holiday because who wants to kick a dog when it's down?

Well, not on holiday anyway.

There were times when Garth wrote with genuine soul and passion against free market social policy that devastated the poor under National in the 90s, but that was a long time ago and became partly eclipsed by his moralistic fundamentalist Christian hard core literal biblical interpretation type columns, his most infamous being his unblinking column on the Earth being flooded by global warming.

Garth argued that there was no way global warming would flood the earth because God had promised Noah with a rainbow that he would never flood the earth again. That any Newspaper would allow an adult to put out a column like that is deeply distressing for all concerned.

I don't blame Garth, he was old, but the Herald should have known better, their closeness ultimately betrayed him into making us forget his better arguments.

Now all the NZ Herald has to do is dump David Farrar, Jim Hopkins and Paul Holmes and they might make a stab at being a balanced nationwide newspaper to the 68% of the enrolled electorate who didn't vote for this Government.

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Filthy dairy can't hide environmental damage

2012-01-16T13:17:00.000+13:00

If flogging off our assets to subsidize $400 million into more irrigation wasn't bad enough, the pollution our Dairy monopoly creates demands some answers. Why does a product we produce here cost us the domestic consumer as much as it does for everyone else on the planet? Mr Farmer Man (who as we found out last year only pays $1500 in tax) will argue, 'why should we 'cost' ourselves money by selling cheaply to NZers when the foreign market produces so much demand'?

The answer of course is that we the domestic consumer already pay a pollution cost in the production of that dairy product and this cost should be acknowledged by making the end product cheaper while also offsetting the environmental damage. The environmental cost of dairy is massive and no amount of free milk can hide this fact.

Tasman Dairy farmers were caught out this month cheating the pollution figures...

Under the latest accord figures, 69 per cent of Fonterra farmers told the company their stock was excluded from permanent waterways on their properties deeper than a Red Band gumboot and wider than a stride.However, a representative audit by the Ministry of Agriculture of 35 of those farms found that the actual figure was just 17 per cent, the second-worst result behind Marlborough with 8 per cent.Nationally, MAF found 42 per cent of 587 farms inspected excluded stock from waterways, just half of what Fonterra's survey of farmers suggested.

...while the punishment handed out for those farmers actively destroying the environment is so pitiful, this $20 000 fine against one farmer actually amounted to a measly 45 cents per litre of effluent he discharged into Lake Ellesmere.

Agriculture is our economic back bone, that won't ever change, but the amount of power the dairy monopoly have been able to gain warps our political values and damages our environment while price gouging those who have to live with that water pollution.

Our investment in tomorrow must focus itself with investment into the technology that makes farming far more sustainable as opposed to intensification. Sadly the National Party is the political expression of the Farmers and the Rich, and will not temper their friends greed in any way shape or form.

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Winning hearts and minds by pissing on corpses

2012-01-16T12:10:00.000+13:00

Another disgraceful example of the West behaving offensively, another propaganda home goal to justify resistance to this immoral occupation that we will never win.

How terribly depressing.

Jon Stephenson (who again won the Bayeux-Calvados award for war correspondents despite the attempt by John Key to smear and defame him) and Nicky Hagar (who continues to call the NZ military on their lies in Afghanistan despite their attempts to smear and defame him) have done more work than any other NZ journalists to point out the spin in us being in Afghanistan.

We now know our military disregarded the orders of the Helen Clark Government, we now know that the CIA have covertly used our forward bases, we now know that the supposed rebuilding our forces have conducted are worthless, we now know we handed civilians over to known torture units, we now know that our forces have been actively killing rather than 'mentoring' and we now know that the mainstream media have been led like fools by the NZ Military propaganda department.

Let's not pretend we don't know these things, and images of Soldiers urinating on dead corpses is really the shit icing on a very obvious shit cake.

The obvious problem of desecrating the bodies of our enemies, (no matter how offensive 'their' actions or unjustifiable 'their' killings of civilians) is that it utterly destroys our pretense of winning hearts and minds.

There is no military solution in Afghanistan, ask anyone of the Empires wrecked on those jagged mountains. Our farce 'fighting terrorism' justifications for occupying Afghanistan are as empty as our promises of freedom and democracy by propping up a corrupt narco state.

By desecrating these bodies, the West simply erodes any moral high ground the West once had in this idiotic war.

It cost $40 million last year for us to occupy Afghanistan, it would only cost $30 million to feed every child in decile 1, 2 and 3 schools. Don't tell me we are fighting for freedom and democracy, we are fighting to prop up a corrupt regime while starving our own kids at home so John Key can cuddle with America.

Our involvement in this occupation dishonors our soldiers.

It's as simple as that.

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Ronald McDonald becomes guest editor at the NZ Herald

2012-01-16T11:23:00.000+13:00

What the hell is going on at the NZ Herald? Have all the editors along with Steven Joyce gone on holiday leaving an advertising manager to write the editorials? Fresh on the heels of calling for the death of regional TV (that editorial was so unbalanced I was seriously waiting for the NZ Herald to suggest the cash instead goes to their own struggling regional newspaper division), it seems Ronald McDonald was given a guest editorial post with a piece of ill researched crap claiming that it isn't fast food's continual advertising and sponsorship aimed at children which is at fault for obesity rates, but really lazy stupid parents and lazy stupid kids.Glad the NZ Herald could help us out with that stunning assessment, it's always amused me in this fast food and child obesity debate that 'responsibility' always lies with the parent and child but NEVER with the corporate pusher who is selling the product. Isn't that an interesting correlation? Corporate media never blame the corporate products being advertised in their corporate newspapers, which is fine if you are a venal self interested corporate clique, but not so great from the only daily newspaper in the country.What the NZ Herald fails to appreciate is that Fast Food Inc. is very good at manipulating content for their sponsorship purposes and the vast body of academic research clearly points out the Machevillian measures Fast Food Inc. use to ram their brand of drug down kids throats.Pester Power is not mentioned once in the editorial that Ronald wrote, but it's a well known tactic employed by marketers to Children...Today's kids have more autonomy and decision-making power within the family than in previous generations, so it follows that kids are vocal about what they want their parents to buy. "Pester power" refers to children's ability to nag their parents into purchasing items they may not otherwise buy. Marketing to children is all about creating pester power, because advertisers know what a powerful force it can be.According to the 2001 marketing industry book Kidfluence, pestering or nagging can be divided into two categories—"persistence" and "importance." Persistence nagging (a plea, that is repeated over and over again) is not as effective as the more sophisticated "importance nagging." This latter method appeals to parents' desire to provide the best for their children, and plays on any guilt they may have about not having enough time for their kids....or as Advertising Executive, Barbara A. Martino so lovingly puts it, ""We're relying on the kid to pester the mom to buy the product, rather than going straight to the mom."The NZ Herald utterly avoids the tactics employed by Fast Food Inc. to gain marketing leverage. Beyond the psychological, Fast Food Inc. build parks and use toys to lure kids in, tactics that if employed by tobacco would cause outrage, but as far as the NZ Herald is concerned, it's just lazy parents and kids, not the corporate pushers who are to blame.An Australian research paper from 2010 on Marketing obesity? Junk food, advertising and kids by Dr Rhonda Jolly makes an interesting conclusion...A diverse group, comprising parents, health economists, politicians and other policy analysts argue that there is incontrovertible evidence that much of the blame for obesity epidemic lies with the producers of foods that are high in fats, sugar and salt—the junk food industry. According to this group, further blame lies with the advertising industry, which uses what are seen as unscrupulous marketing tactics to manipulate children’s food preferences and consumption and to encourage children to pester their parents to purchase these unhealthy products. This group considers that radical steps need to be taken to deal with the marketing of junk foods. Australian advocates argue that in the case of children at least the current self regulatory regime does not work; children are continually, and in a variety of ways, exposed to junk food advertising. One commentator maintains with reference to television, that the narrow restriction of what constitutes children’s television makes it relatively easy for industry to claim that self regulation is effective. However, what is not taken into consideration is that ‘prime-time shows such as The Simpsons and Home and Away… are popular with children’. There is, in fact, a fine line of distinction between children’s programs and programs watched by children, and the junk food industry counts on regulators to overlook that line. ...as far as the NZ Herald and Fast Food Inc. are concerned however, it's the responsibility of the Child and Parent to know that their product is bad for them and as long as they include that information in tiny incomprehensible type on the back of the product their corporate liability and social responsibility ends.It's almost absurd isn't it? The billions spent on marketing to children apparently has NO IMPACT whatsoever. Fast Food Inc. just loves pissing that money away for no financial gain at all, the sponsorship, the pester power, the toys, the play parks - according to the Herald, NONE of that has any effect and as such it's lazy stupid kids and lazy stupid parents who are to blame for the direct health costs of the products Fast Food Inc. sell.It is astounding something so ill researched could pass muster as a NZ Herald editorial - what am I saying, of course something this ill researched would pass muster as a NZ Herald editorial.FACEBOOK TWITTER

NZ Herald celebrates the death of regional TV

2012-01-13T09:01:00.001+13:00

The NZ Herald have posted a a celebration death dance for regional TV while pretending to be objective, it's like David Farrar crying crocodile tears for Labour's 27%

The show I host and write, Citizen A, is funded by NZ on Air and appears on Triangle TV as part of the regional tv budget, so I think I have some ideas on the topic.

The NZ Herald of course misused their position as the only daily newspaper to promote their flawed landline polls to claim their de facto editor, John Key would gain over 50%, 3 years of that propaganda saw the lowest voter turn out in 120 years, that iPredict on Stratos TV called it minus any of the Heralds news room budget must have grated as this editorial celebrating the death of Stratos and regional TV is so counter to their own philosophical free market pretensions it seems like the editorial team are still on holiday and this was written by a jealous intern.

What the NZ Herald misses is that extra NZ on Air funding won't extend to regional TV if they are unable to gain a certain percentage of country wide reception coverage, that leaves the usual monoliths of TVNZ and Mediaworks to battle it out for what is left in the budgets. If public private partnerships and lowering the costs of TV production via competition are the way forward, denying regional TV from accessing those NZ on Air budgets EVEN AFTER they gain the same reception coverage by being on Freeview, then the PPP mix for broadcasting will be nothing more than a joke used to strangle off the last vestiges of public broadcasting.

Effectively, Kordia - a Government department - will charge regional TV to get onto freeview, but NZ on Air won't consider those regional TV stations to compete against TVNZ and Mediaworks for public broadcasting money even when they are off the analogue signal and all on the same digital platform of freeview.

As for the bitching of audience numbers, STRATOS was rating over a million viewers a month, to pretend as the Herald does that the numbers are not there to justify public support simply shows they didn't do their research when writing the editorial.

The dumber the media, the sleepier the Hobbits. That the NZ Herald smugly cheers this demise speaks volumes of their own role as corporate media in the brain deading of the nation.

The petition to support STRATOS is here.

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The Manufactured Crisis at Ports of Auckland and why did Len Brown walk into it?

2012-01-09T07:36:00.000+13:00

There are 3 things the National Party Government of John Key do better than anyone else in the game;

1: They understand that the working poor hate the beneficiary poor with the same vitriol of racists and play to the demons of the working poor's worst nature by bennie bashing for votes.

2: They play a tactic of suggesting policy to the right of Genghis Khan then 'pull back' to make the policy look like they've listened to give it the gloss of 'moderation'. If our mainstream media weren't still on honeymoon with John Key, this tactic would be shown up for what it is, sadly it's been used time and time again (suggesting Great Barrier for mining when Key never had any intention of mining Great Barrier, suggesting sending solo mothers back to work weeks after the birth of their beneficiary spawn and ending jury trials for 2 years imprisonment rather than 3 years).

3: And the third thing that the National Party Government of John Key do better than anyone else in the game is manufacture a crises for political gain, and that is exactly what we are seeing in this latest attempt to privatize the Ports of Auckland.

ACC was privatised by a manufactured crises against the advice of Pricewaterhouse Coopers for the Australian Insurance shark industry who stand to make a $200 million killing, and let's not forget how embarrassed the mainstream media were left feeling after being played so terribly by John Key over the manufactured crises of the Hobbit once the emails were released showing it was never the Actor's Union who were the reason for that extra corporate welfare for Warners Brothers, Emails undermine studio's claims aboutHobbit

strikes.

We are now seeing the same manufactured crises tactics blaming the Unions to justify the selling off of Ports of Auckland, the story sung so far and dutifully carried by the mainstream media is that greedy warfies are once again threatening the economic viability of the country with their unrealistic wage demands blah blah blah.

As Matt McCarten brilliantly pointed out in the Herald on Sunday yesterday, the truth of what the Union are asking for is far from the manufactured crises spin...

First, a wharfie on 40 hours a week gets $56,000. The hourly rate is $27. With overtime, some can earn up to $71,000. The union says that to earn $91,000, a worker would have to work additional overtime equal to 32 weeks fulltime in a year.

Second, a statement from Gibson to his employees in September said the rate of cargo unloaded off ships is "the best ever recorded at the Ports of Auckland". The union says the port is the second most time-efficient in Australasia, next to Tauranga. The advantage Tauranga has is not its workforce, but the system it uses. The union has offered to assist implementing that system in Auckland.

Third, what hasn't been spelled out is that Gibson from the start demanded fulltime employees become on-call casuals and agree to daily shifts between two and 12 hours.

When the union negotiators pointed out that half of the workforce were part-timers and casuals so he already had enough flexibility, Gibson responded by saying this was his "best and final offer". He followed up by offering existing casual employees permanent jobs paid at 10 per cent more than the union rate, provided they resigned from the union.

Chris Trotter tears at the heart of the issue in the Dom Post by pointing out what the bosses are actually calling for...

It is in defence of their self-determined pace and rhythm of work and its critical importance to the health and safety of workers on and off the job that the members of MUNZ employed by POA have struck. The bitter experience of other workers across New Zealand has taught them that the moment the union's central role in determining the working conditions of its members is surrendered, then it ceases to be a union. It may still collect dues and celebrate May Day, but by facilitating the full restoration of managerial prerogatives on the "shop floor" it isthe employer's creature - not the workers'.

The unimpeded exercise of managerial prerogative is what lies at the heart of all great industrial disputes. "Flexibility" is the watchword - meaning the ability of the employer to call workers in and send them home, as required, without incurring penalty rates of pay. "Flexibility" empowers the employer to hire and fire at will; to raise or lower employees' wages according to the dictates of the market and without reference to the actual living expenses of individual workers and their families. "Flexibility" imposes on every worker an inescapable obligation to "give", while conferring upon every employer an unchallengeable right to "take".

...what the POA are calling for is the slashing of the Maritime Union throats, and they are calling for it in the knowledge that it will provoke a response from MUNZ which will lead to the justification to start discussing the selling off of the Ports as the only economically viable way to recoup the industrial action costs which POA have provoked.

That Len Brown has been so easily manipulated into getting sucked into this debate on the side of the bosses suggests his political advisors are either morons or Len has already glimpsed the sale of the Ports and is on board with the sale for whatever politically expedient reason has popped up this month.

The Supercity was rammed through Parliament under a misuse of urgency by Rodney Hide and the National Party for one reason, and one reason only, to flog off the assets of Auckland City with as much haste as humanly possible. The election of Len Brown rather than John Banks has put a fly in that ointment, but the privatization agenda has reset as a manufactured crises and the slow drip justification we will start to see over Summer will be every inch as manipulated as the Hobbit fiasco.

The only question is will the mainstream media be as ashamed of their handling of this latest union bashing hysteria as they were when the Hobbit emails were released.

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2011

2012-01-04T15:56:00.000+13:00

What happened? Some nightmare about a National government being re-elected. What day of the week is this?

The Tumeke 2011 War on News Awards

2011-12-27T09:42:00.005+13:00

Here at the Tumeke, we revel in a year of media banality and political apathy as the country slowly faces the collapse of the entire neo liberal Washington consensus hegemonic structure with all the awareness of a brain dead coma patient. When I wasn't outing neo-nazi founding members of the anti-mmp group and being banned from Radio NZ for criticizing the Prime Minister this year, I was also hosting the only political show that called the election result for National and Labour, which as a commentator, gives me bragging rights until the next election.

In a year that saw the political end to Bin Laden, Ghaddafi, Kim Jong-il, yet allowed John Banks back, we were reminded that there is no justice in the world, so without further ado, let's hand out this years contempt masquerading as awards.

'The-lidless-eye-of-Mordor-focused-on-the-vacuous' mainstream media award for hate crimes against public broadcasting goes to Close Up:
It was a close run thing this year folks, the other contender was the decision to close down TVNZ7 and whore it off to a shopping network, which is akin to using a cathedral as a brothel fronting for a meth lab. But beyond that hate crime against public broadcasting, Close Up's fetish with the banal while the global economy heralds a second depression and inequality explodes in our country is so jaw dropping it demands the sort of special recognition only napalm can justify.

Mark Sainsbury, the walrus of news, spent more time on the personal well being of Happy Feet the fucking penguin than Close Up did on child poverty. The dumbing down of the news by fluffy animal story's is nothing new, but with a steep recession people cant afford to be consumers and remember they are citizens, the media should be echoing that zeitgeist change rather than molesting it with infotainment the way our public broadcaster does.

'The-media-are-so-biased-John-Key-could-eat-a-kitten-live-on-Close-Up-and-the-NZ-Herald-editorial-would-blame-the-kitten-for-being-delicious-award of the year for propaganda goes to David Farrar.
The National Party hard right, pretending to be lite right propagandist and pollster, David Farrar, the bore of Babylon, the fallen one, he of the hoofed feet, has to be this years propagandist of choice for all occasions from bar mitzvah to military coups. That the NZ Herald allows a mouthpiece for the Government to have unchallenged space on their website speaks volumes of the Heralds continual decline into Fox News esk fair and balanced territory.

Farrar peddles soft massaged message points handed to him by the National Party death star and tepidly articulates them the way a drunk child would. Poorly and without charm. That Farrar is the source of most political stories in the mainstream media, is an indictment on our mainstream media, it's like asking Colonel Sanders how delicious his KFC is against any other deep fried chicken competitor.

How a hard right clown with all the social skills of a naked agoraphobic in an open field has managed to become the 'go to guy' on blogging suggests those going to him haven't learnt how to use google yet.

'The-George-Orwell-big-brother-is-watching-you-award for enacting a Police State surely has to go to Simon Power for ramming through the largest erosion of civil liberties with almost no debate whatsofucking ever.
We have lost the right to a jury trial for punishment between 3 months and 2 years in prison, Police can take DNA from you on mere suspicion, and retrospective law legalizing illegal loopholes used by the Police to break into private property and spy on us, caused because of their phenomenal cock up over the Urewera terror raids.

How the Police and state have been handed so much unchecked power without a whimper from the media must be this years entry for 'you are fucking joking right' - why does the Pork board need the power to spy on us in our homes? Who is a threat to the pork board? Vegetarians?

The state should never award itself these powers, and to do so as a means to pardon a police force caught out using an illegal interpretation of search warrants to mean open ended surveillance is something America would try and pull off. That our media would allow such a massive erosion of civil liberties pass without comment should forever remain a deep blot on their collective reputations, may history show them and Simon Power the disgust and justified hatred they so richly deserve for this assault on our collective rights.

The-don't-worry-be-happy-award for most amount of Prozac injected in a 12 month Calender year has to go to the Treasury.
The economy may well be burning, but no one seems to have told Treasury,their ludicrously optimistic forecasts for growth in this country would be hysterical if they weren't so woefully out. Always look on the bright side of life can't be an economic policy, yet Treasury seem to have made it so.

When they are out by as much as 3% of GDP, Ken Ring has more luck predicting earthquakes with the moon than bloody Treasury has of looking beyond their optimistic rose tinted glasses to see the current free market meltdown for what it is.

I have more chance of becoming the President of the National Party with the campaign slogan, 'higher taxes and compulsory unionism for all' than Treasury have of getting the fucking budget balanced by 2014.

'The-Shove-it-under-the-carpet-and-don't-look-at-it-award' has to go to Child Poverty. Under National 150 of the richest families in NZ gained $7billion in wealth while 200 000 children lived in poverty, our inequality rates have sky rocketed and the simple fact is we don't really give a toss because most of them are beneficiary kids. Bennie bashing is NZs favorite hobby next to rugby, alcoholism and domestic violence, we love to bash the dirty filthy Bennie, it's what separates us from educated folk.

It costs $40million per year fighting in an immoral war like Afghanistan, yet it would only cost $30million per year to feed every poor kid in every poor school throughout the country.

We live in a consumer culture where everyone thinks of themselves as a future millionaire meaning we all side with rich people arguments about not taxing the rich because we imagine ourselves rich one day and don't want the Government taxing our mythical millions we haven't created yet.

Under John Key, social justice in NZ is just another relic of the past like universal suffrage or habeas corpus.

The-swimming-against-the-tide-award' for counter productive futility has to go to the Privatization agenda launched upon by National where the only people who will afford to buy shares in assets we already own will be the top 10% John Key has already handed tax cuts out to.

It won't be mum and dad investors in NZ who buy these shares, it will be mum and dad investors from overseas who will be buying up our shares. At a time when free market ideology has died a terrible horrific death caused by its own venal greed, we are adopting even more free maker dogma? It's like being the Captain of the Titanic ordering it to swing around and hit the iceberg again.

Privatizing the NZ continental shelf is bad enough, but privatizing prisons? It's no surprise that the only ones benefiting from our incarceration rate are the newly privatized prisons who make more money when prisoners are kept in longer, despite the CEO of GEO telling the select committee into privatization of prisons that the private model will not save any money!

Crusher Collins gave an incredible answer to the question as to why we have the second highest incarceration rate in the world, her answer was, ‘because of Maori’. Note, it’s not the medieval raw meat law and order policy that Crusher Collins and the National Party have championed, it’s not the private prisons Crusher Collins was claiming would generate $1.2Billion (while costing $1.3billion), our second highest incarceration rate is not because of the right wing political manipulation of anger generated by a crime myopic media - oh no, the Prison Nation National built is all because of dem dere maoris.

The utter denial by National that they have anything to do with the punitive prison nation they have created which will now employ more people than any another department is breathtaking in it’s bare faced lie and is insulting beyond capacity that Crusher Collins would try and duck the responsibility of her Prison nation by blaming Maoris.

Judith Collins is to wise social policy what BP boss Tony Hayward is to corporate responsibility.

'The-Japanese-nuclear-reactor-award-for-melting-down' goes to ACT.
Oh God wasn't it hideous? David Garret forging dead baby certificates, Rodney Hide and Rodger Douglas using perks they once attacked, and then the corporate coup to take over ACT with Don Brash, a man so past his used by date he makes month old milk look tasty. The eventual meltdown with the Epsom Tea Party Tapes produced a homophobic dinosaur like John Banks coming back from the political graveyard to feast on the fresh brains of Epsom voters, but it is in their death spasms we see a party so divided and spent they make used toilet paper preferable.

That MANA managed to gain more votes than ACT was just joyful.

'As-relevant-as-Bill-Ralston-Award for irrelevancy has to go this year to the NZ Herald columnist, Shelley Bridgeman. Since when did being rich, white, and utterly disconnected from reality make for an interesting opinion? Reading Shelley Bridgeman is as intellectually beneficial as drinking from an open sewer, Shelley is a mother and free lance writer for the NZ Herald who puts out a weekly column on their website about her banal experiences in the middle class suburban pumpkin patch wasteland she likes to refer to as her life.

While the NZ Herald defines balance as appointing National Party masochists like David Farrar as their online political columnists, they've truly managed to outdo even their limited standards with Shelley Bridgeman's inclusion to their online squawking menagerie.

In her column, 'Not all families are equal', Shelley proclaims with the type of joy reserved for recently freed slaves or trapped miners that she gleefully defied World Health Organisation guidelines and bottle fed her daughter as the guidelines didn't take into account mothers in Remuera and Herne Bay because breast feeding led those mothers to seeking breast implants.

Open mouthed shock.

I'm sorry, too posh to push and too vain to lactate? Shelley goes onto proclaim that she feared advice to lay her daughter on her back would result in a flat head, so she would have her nanny turn the sleeping baby using a notebook to record how long the baby had slept on which side of her head. There are fully automatic weapons less precise than Shelley Bridgeman.

This intellectually flabby jowl of middle class pretension masquerading as parental advice is made offensive due to the rejoicing Shelley seems to revel in by willfully flying in the face of public health campaigns.

Why not just blow cigarette smoke into your kids face while jamming KFC double down burgers down their throat while we're at it? Justifying bottle feeding because you don't want to ruin your figure is honest in a bad way Shelley and rejecting advice on Sudden Unexpected Death of an Infant syndrome by having your nanny turn your sleeping babies head on the hour isn't a solution most people outside the NZ rich list could afford.

After this astounding voyage of self delusion, the NZ Herald had to turn the comments feature off Shelley's blog due to, and I quote, "the number of inappropriate posts". Yeah, people let Shelley know what they thought about her concerns.

She's so the 'daddy I want a golden goose now' type of writer. I suspect she votes the way hubby tells her to.

The-throwing-a-tantrum-like-Cameron-Slater-did-by-leaving-Citizen-A-award-for-childish-behavior has to go to Cactus Kate.
I have to be honest, I'm not sure what I loved most, hauling up Kate's hate mongering words aimed at the poor and their 'breeding' habits which eventually killed off her chances at becoming an ACT list candidate or watching her squirm by my presence at Matthew Hooten's post election party.

Cathy Odgers never thought her venom towards the poor would ever have to be justified and watching her pathetically back pedal after her candidacy was announced was almost as much fun as watching her inability to socialize beyond a keyboard at Hooton's party. Her, Farrar and Slater refused to turn up as a protest against my attendance until Fran O'Sullivan texted her and told her to stop being such a child. She eventually turned up but sat outside and pulled the kind of sour face I make from strenuous bowel movements.

Cathy in person is what drinking is to driving, like Slater and Farrar, she exhibits the same social awkwardness of self conscious teenagers which helps forgive their feral online right wing gibberish because ultimately they are just terribly lonely people (ever notice how Farrar's holiday photos never have anyone else in them)?

That said Cathy continues to be one of the best voices for the right on the blogosphere, which in turn shows you how low that threshold actually is.

And finally ladies and gentlemen, the 'Sleepy-Hobbits-have-spoken-award-for-political-sadomasochism goes to the election of John Key.

How a money trader peddling vacant aspiration has managed to make it so far in NZ politics is perhaps a signal that no one is paying attention anymore because invoking policy that only benefits those already wealthy to the detriment of the majority and getting away with it is surely this years greatest scam. The election was one of the lowest turn outs in 120 years, which isn't surprising as almost everyone has left for Australia.

John Keys love affair with the media was only ruined when he attacked the media during the election and had the police heavy them so with that much uncritical coverage, I'm surprised John Key didn't win by 80%.

If I have to put up with anymore 'I grew up in a State House' bullshit, I think I'm going to vomit. Welfare in the 1960s was gold plated, these days it is shit encrusted. Key walks around in a bubble world disconnected from the reality facing those he rules, his empty optimism is fine for a teenage girl hosting the Breakfast show on The Edge, but not for the leader of a country. Hey, if I had $50million and a Hawaiian mansion, I'd be pretty fucking optimistic as well, but the utter shallow depth of Key is what staggers the most. When he wasn't camp mincing on catwalk runways, mocking detractors of the RWC party central an hour before it almost became a public safety hazard and making cannibalism jokes about Maori, he was telling those needing food parcels that their need was their own fault and explaining to Church leaders that if he cut the benefit to everyone, that 'bugger all would die'. The callous disregard for those Key can't relate to is chilling as is the blind faith so many have put into him to run the country.

In the cold 3 years ahead, all those who oppose the implementation of hard right economic policy as social policy should remind themselves that National only gained 32% of the enrolled electorate, that means 68% DID NO VOTE for this right wing bullshit.

We are the majority, they are not.

'List-of-shit-I-hate-but-didn't-bother-writing-anything-for-because-the-beach-at-Patau-is-way-more-compelling-Award
- Radio NZs self censorship (their ridiculous justifications for banning me changed daily)
- NZ Listener pretending to be a current affairs magazine (for a Magazine that spends so much time sucking the arsehole of the National Party, you have zero credibility)
- Baby boomers (this venal and greedy generation sold out any idealism they once had when challenging the status quo and now feed like a blood sucking leech on the State while denying Gen Xers any leadership role to clean up the mess they have now created. This bloated locust plague who got their education for free and property speculated Gen Xers out of home ownership must be culled.)
- Simon Bridges not getting into Cabinet (he is ridiculously talented for a National Party MP)
- Grant Robertson becoming deputy leader of the Labour Party - if the answer is Grant Robertson, the question must have been, how can Wellington be unhelpful.
- The demotion of David Cunliffe

'List-of-shit-I-loved
- The rebirth of Metro being relevant.
- iPredict beating every other news organization and bullshit landline telephone polls by predicting National and Labour right.
- Jon Stephenson and Nikky Hager for showing everyone how real journalism is done.
- Patrick Gower and Duncan Garner for taking it to politicians the way meth addicts take it to the glass pipe
- The Arab Spring
- The Occupy movement
- Running Israeli blockades to get aid into Gaza
- protests in Russia
- TV3s coverage of the earthquake, John Campbell was amazing
- The Court Report
- Backbenchers
- Coco Solids 'Pacific Rims' mix tape
- Everything Ladi 6 did this year.
- Jacinda Ardern and David Shearer advancing to the dizzy heights of the Labour Party Coven.

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Citizen A review of the year with Phoebe Fletcher & Selwyn Manning

2011-12-24T08:39:00.001+13:00

Tune in to join Bomber and his revolving panel of bloggers and Auckland opinion shapers as they offer an up-to-date half hour review of the political media issues of the current week from a very Auckland perspective.

THIS WEEK - THE END OF YEAR REVIEW

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Bomber's Blog - The War on News - ONLINE NOW!

2011-12-23T08:18:00.002+13:00

Paula Bennett winning Waitakere back is like being given a wrapped empty ipad2 box for Christmas

Government rush to flog off state assets with all the idealogical zeal of Karl Marx on meth

Kim Jong-il is dead, good riddance to a crazy little psychopathic muppet

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Getting with the programme

2011-12-21T14:08:00.000+13:00

Labour's new team. Shearer announces portfolios.

Exciting, but dangerous. Jacinda so high up - the only way is down. They want bold they got bold.

Looking forward to Shearer speaking in parliament against the Nat's woeful plan to privatise everything.

NZ Herald:

The 50th Parliament has opened with the Government committing to build a more competitive economy in spite of the testing times New Zealand has recently faced.

The speech from the throne, written by the Government, was delivered by Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae, and outlined the Government's programme for the next term, delivering no surprises.

No surprises with the fall-back, reactive Tory policies of, corporate welfare/privatisation, screwing over young and vulnerable workers, welfare beneficiary bashing, obsession with crime and order, starting out with a delusion that there is no depression:

"The economy is recovering, having grown in eight of the past nine quarters, and 63,000 more people are employed now compared to two years ago.

"This recovery is forecast to continue.''

The European debt crisis was the biggest risk now facing the country, but the Government was in a relatively good position to deal with the fall-out, Sir Jerry said.

The Government's plans to sell shares in state assets to pay for new projects, to reform the welfare system, and to introduce a "starting-out-wage'' for young people.

Sir Jerry also spoke about new legislation that would be brought in to strengthen sentencing, parole and bail laws, saying it would be harder for those charged with serious offences to get bail.

Shearer and Robertson are so new to the front bench that I don't rate their chances of making much of an impression in this first week of the parliament. They have three years till the next election and that is a very long run in, so they shouldn't get too worried with polling and the media etc. for the first year and just focus on getting stuck into National and convincing people they are the government in waiting.

Paula Bennett winning Waitakere back is like being given a wrapped empty ipad2 box for Christmas

2011-12-20T13:07:00.002+13:00

As the ever clever Graeme Edgler points out, in the wacky world of laws that deal with politics, the focus is on a result rather than picking who wins, and in the bowel ends of such law is something called an election petition. It costs $50 000 but it would allow Carmel Sepuloni to challenge Paula's majority in a way a simple recount can't and if Paula loses that, then she loses the seat legally, not proportionately, that means Labour would gain an electorate seat and hold onto a list seat with National losing one without gaining from the list, meaning National would not have a majority to pass legislation without the help of the Maori Party, meaning NO state asset sales.

The hilarity that would cause. It's enough to keep me giggling throughout the Summer if it were to happen.

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Government rush to flog off state assets with all the idealogical zeal of Karl Marx on meth

2011-12-20T08:14:00.001+13:00

Hilariously the only NZers who can afford to buy the shares in the assets John Key is about to sell are the same top 10% he gave $2billion in tax cuts to for the last 3 years.

Adding insult to that injury is the fact the tax cut John Key gave the top 10% was borrowed and subsidized for by the rest of us through increasing GST.

Effectively we just paid and borrowed for rich people to buy assets we already owned!

How desperate as a nation are we for a vision when we accept aspiration this vacant?

Sleepy hobbits reap what they sow.

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Citizen A this week with Phoebe Fletcher & Selwyn Manning

2011-12-19T07:54:00.001+13:00

Citizen A - 8pm Friday Stratos Freeview 21 & Sky 89

Tune in to join Bomber and his revolving panel of bloggers and Auckland opinion shapers as they offer an up-to-date half hour review of the political media issues of the current week from a very Auckland perspective.

Issue 1 - All hail the new leader of Labour - David Shearer. Is his selection by the labour Party coven Genius decision or massive gamble?

Issue 2 - John Key reshuffles his cabinet - what are the challenges confronting the second Key Government?

Issue 3 - Why isn't the South Canterbury Finance investigation by the Serious Fraud Office a bigger story?

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Kiribas should be Jim Hopkins' new home

2011-12-16T10:57:00.005+13:00

Don't fret, global warming's a goner

About a year ago, almost to the day, in this column, you may recall a bold prediction, fearlessly made. But lest you don't, which is highly likely, since most of us wouldn't remember a Higgs bison if we saw one in a game park, here it is again, much as it appeared 12 months ago:

If you're worried about all the things you have to worry about, cheer up. Here's one thing you won't have to worry about any more. Global warming (remember, this was a prediction) will be the Great Disappearing Act of 2011. It will sink like a stone, exit stage left and generally melt away. Whoopee!

Inspired by the sneaky leaking of all those dodgy East Anglian emails - proof positive of scientific fraud, collusion and deceit - the prediction relied on one basic assumption.

Journalists never admit they're wrong (see phone hacking). They just stop being wrong. When caught with their sceptical pants down and the spotty globes of their credulity exposed, they simply drop the story and move to something else.

Which is precisely what's happened. Global warming has left the building.

Sometimes you open the newspaper and wonder if people wrote their column in a vacuum. Today is one of those days. Jim Hopkins has, without any research, managed to dismiss a wide body of science. Of course in an opinion piece he's allowed to demonstrate his own ignorance, but the only climate deniers I respect are ones that try, in spite of the overwhelming evidence, to research and prove their claims. Like pro-Gaddafi white loyalists (of which there are a surprising amount), they garner together fragments of information to try and create master conspiracy narratives. Yet Hopkins does not even do this, he just pulls together things out of thin air.

However, his opinion piece is worthy of note because he demonstrates some of the most common misconceptions of climate change in that it is simply global warming and we can verify it on temperatures in their own nations year to year. The fact is that the weather patterns it causes are very complex and it is associated with extreme weather events. Regardless of whether you believe it is man made or not (the latter I have strong difficulty with their beliefs), the fact is that there is enough evidence that it has not dropped out of the picture, quite the reverse. While the latest round of climate negotiations were a mess due to the split between industrializing and developed nations, and the pressure from polluting lobbyists on the latter internally to negotiate a difficult economic climate, the fact is that climate change is very high on the international agenda. Many countries, including Australia, have prepared defense reports into the effects that climate change is likely to have on migration. I myself have worked across the Pacific with people that are affected by these changes, and a rise in temperature of 3.5 degrees as predicted from scientists is not something to be celebrated at all. This particularly affects Pacific nations and threatens their sovereignty, such as the people of Tuvalu who are currently looking for a new nation to live in due to the salination of soil in which they grow their crops, the people of Tokelau who are running out of water, the people of Papua New Guinea who are losing their beaches, the people of the Cooks and Tonga who are facing more frequent tropical cyclones as the belt moves westward, or the people of Kiribas who are building seawalls as much of their land is only 3 meters above sea level. This is only the beginning of the list of things it affects - when I was in Vanuatu last year people had noticed massive changes in the behavior of their crops, listing about 100 crops that had changed in the last few years alone. Across the Pacific it means the poisoning of ground water, more coral bleaching which leads to increased outbreaks of ciguatera, an algae that affects the nervous system and can be lethal to humans, leaving people scared to eat the reef fish that was once a large component of their diet. Increased instances and severity of tropical cyclones means that crops are affected, as in the one to hit Tonga last year which left them without a third of their breadfruit crops and severely impacts on the ability of nation states to grow agriculture for trade.

There is a reason why international bodies are discussing it, and it is not because of the alarmism of a select group of scientists. Hopkins refers to the so-called 'Climategate incident' where skeptics hacked into servers and stole e-mails, alleging that it demonstrated scientists manipulating evidence. Well, six separate committees investigating this found no evidence of fraud, merely an honest exchange of ideas.

It is really imperative that we get some good information circulated through our mainstream newspapers on this. The skeptics are few and receive far too much attention. But most scientists agree it is occurring. Regardless of whether you believe it is manmade or not, the first step is to have at least a little respect for the peoples for whom this will have dire consequences. We live in the largest Polynesian city in the world, so you would expect that this respect would come from here first.

Save Auckland's only 24/7 Rape Crisis Helpline

2011-12-16T09:59:00.003+13:00

UPDATE: Tonight's rally is cancelled as the Government has come through with 6 months of emergency funding.

Auckland's only 24/7 Rape Crisis Helpline is in danger of going from 9 to 5pm, or not at all due to a lack of funding. As LudditeJourno highlights, this is the only crisis line that caters 24/7 for women that have been raped and need help going to the police. It is worth reposting LudditeJourno here at length, as this is an excellent piece detailing the issues at stake:

The Report for the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence started life under the last Labour Government and revealed decades of under-funding of services for survivors, family/whanau, and those with sexually harmful behaviour.

The 2009 comprehensive roadmap called for "urgent and immediate" funding to ensure services in the community could continue, let alone develop. Did you know most crisis line services in Aotearoa are run by volunteers? And that many services have wait lists to see clients, just because there are not enough paid staff?

Most survivors cannot contain their needs to nine to five. Firstly because that's not when most rapes happen. And secondly because it's not when many survivors need to talk about flashbacks and terror, receive help to cope - that's at night, or on the weekend, or when something reminds them of what happened to them, or when they feel unsafe.

At the moment one of the many marvellous helplines open 24 hours a day, seven days a week for survivors to call is Auckland Sexual Abuse Help. They run the only helpline in Auckland (there are others in South Auckland) which can respond if someone is raped and needs help going to the Police or medical services.

While Refuge services in Auckland are cutting back their hours because they are too poorly funded, it's even worse at ASAH, which has been working with survivors for
29 years. In January 2012, unless some "urgent and immediate" funding materialises, ASAH will no longer be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Such services are absolutely essential, particularly given the backdrop of cuts in government funding that mean that there are few other avenues for women to pursue help. The National government in its last term tightened the rules around receiving counseling following rape through ACC, meaning that nearly 90% of claims were rejected. Rape crisis counsellors have said that some people have committed suicide as a result of not being able to get access to these services. It is therefore imperative that in New Zealand's largest city, we do have a helpline that is available for people who go through this traumatic experience to be able to access. Saving the helpline saves lives.

The Handmirror has organized the following events, please alert people as this is very short notice.

>Crisis Cake Stall
WHEN: 11am, Friday 16th December
WHERE: Outside Nikki Kaye's electorate office, 82 College Hill, Freemans Bay.
WHO: Anyone really who wants to show support for the service, and the organisation in general.

Public Rally
WHEN: 6.30pm, Friday 16th December
WHERE: QE2 Square, opposite the Britomart Train Station
WHO: All welcome, bring your ranty voices!
Facebook event with more info is here.

If you can only make one and are trying to pick then I recommend the evening event, as that's where numbers will be most important. Although, if the funding from Government is pledged before 6.30pm then it may be cancelled (in which case I'll try my best to put an update on the blog).

Art exhibition tracks trace of deadly spill

2011-12-16T09:26:00.002+13:00

This is the last day of an exhibition put together by Greenpeace activists that traces the deadly effects on wildlife of the Rena oil spill. A dead penguin was dipped in oil and then placed on canvas to commemorate the environmental devastation caused by the Rena spilling 350 tonnes of oil into the ocean off the coast of Tauranga. More than 20,000 birds died after drowning in the oil and the exhibition provides a reminder of an ephemeral life.

The exhibition also aims to draw attention to National's plans to open our waters to more deep oil sea drilling. The Brazilian company Petrobras is seeking a permit to drill oil off the East Coast, a move that has been challenged by Te Whanau-a-Apanui and Greenpeace through the High Court next year. While Petrobras is seeking to explore outside the 12 mile Exclusive Economic Zone, Te Whanau-a-Apanui are contesting this through the Waitangi Tribunal, arguing that it does not adequately address Treaty of Waitangi obligations, iwi concerns or environmental concerns.

Gisborne District Councillor Manu Caddie has challenged Petrobras' claims of a squeaky clean environmental record after an explosion at one of their Argentinian refineries earlier this year:

Mr Caddie says the death of this Petrobras employee and disfigurement of his colleague follow a similar explosion at a Petrobras refinery in Argentina three years ago, a major incident in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year as the company prepared to start the first new extraction since the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the assassination two years ago of a fisherman and ongoing intimidation of his colleagues who have been protesting against a Petrobras pipeline in Guanabara Bay, Brazil.

The exhibition can be seen at number 2 Queen Street today, directly opposite the Ferry Building and is well worth checking out. It is a potent reminder that while oil might bring money into the country, it also carries high environmental risks that affect a large number of people and our wildlife.

Bomber's Blog - The War on News - ONLINE NOW!

2011-12-16T06:11:00.000+13:00

Labour Party Coven select David Shearer as their Messiah in political X Factor game show

South Canterbury Finances magical golden money pyramid of eternal providence

What's the difference between John Key's reshuffled cabinet and a cactus

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The Ministry

2011-12-15T12:32:00.001+13:00

Brian Fallow asks, in the NZ Herald: Does a country of 4.4 million people really need 28 ministers - 20 in Cabinet and a further eight outside?

The Westminster system demands it. The fact of MMP coalition deals - which put individual MPs and their one-man-band parties into government - only add slightly to the way the system operates. It's all based on a bare majority. The government needs that bare majority to work at each level. That begins with a need to command a majority of parliament - in this NZ parliament of 121 total that means they need 61. Then they need a majority of that majority to be sure they can exercise control in their caucus (respective caucuses) so that is 31. The offices of Speaker, Deputy Speaker and Chief Whip may be considered part of the executive as this is baubleage tied to the PM. Those three plus the 28 = 31.

While Fallow may be complaining about an executive of 28 in similar systems with larger parliaments the rule is the same so the numbers are significantly more: in Canada the Cabinet alone is 27, in the UK with a 650 member House of Commons (and an Upper House) it means there are over 100 ministers plus a multitude of other offices. In Australia there is a Cabinet of 20, 10 ministers outside and 12 parliamentary secretaries.

Considering all the various ministries, departments and agencies that NZ has 28 is about the right number of people to administer it all at the top, although Cabinet could be reduced a bit if they wanted, but as long as I have known it Cabinet has always been 20.

First item on Cabinet's agenda after being sworn in this week was to sell the state assets off:

Mighty River Power has been confirmed as the first state company that will have shares sold off under the Government's partial asset sales programme.

Having been sworn in just yesterday, Cabinet has moved fast to get the Government's "mixed-ownership model" going, with the issue a focus for Cabinet in its first meeting's agenda yesterday afternoon.

Wasting no time with their myopic, ideological (non) economic policy of privatisation. On the Beehive website it is the fourth item:

Next steps in mixed ownership programme
The Government has confirmed the next steps in its mixed ownership programme to offer New Zealanders minority shareholdings in four state-owned energy companies and Air New Zealand.

Read full release >> .Prime Minister welcomes Royal visit
Prime Minister John Key has welcomed the news of a planned visit to New Zealand by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall next year.

Read full release >> .Minister visits Nelson in wake of floods
Civil Defence Minister, Chris Tremain, together with Nelson MP, Nick Smith, is this morning visiting Nelson in response to the floods that hit the region over the last 24 hours.

Read full release >> .New National-led Administration announced
Prime Minister John Key today announced the incoming National-led Government’s new Ministry.

So: government announced, civil defence emergency, Royal visit scheduled, sell off state assets - in that order.

"Next steps in mixed ownership programme", or to unpick the euphemisms: 'How quick can we sell off the most profitable asset the government has? Answer:

Cabinet has agreed that Mighty River Power should be the first company prepared for an initial public offering (IPO), most likely in the third quarter of 2012, subject to market conditions, Finance Minister Bill English and State Owned Enterprises Minister Tony Ryall said today.
[...]
“Our advice is that Mighty River Power is ready to go to the market."

An immediate start then.

This time next year those wealthy enough to be in the top tax bracket will have used the tax cuts they got from National last term to buy Mighty River shares and will be banking the dividends - and looking forward to pressuring power prices ever higher to maintain those dividends - and they will claim this is 'productivity' and 'adding value'. The few who benefit - National's perennial supporters - will be well pleased. The other 99% paying the power bills with no shareholding in the electricity infrastructure to compensate them for rising prices will be unpleased; some who have not grasped the ramifications of 'mixed-ownership' and voted National anyway, may turn resentful.

The ministers reiterated the Government has made three clear promises to New Zealanders about mixed ownership companies:

•The Government will retain at least 51 per cent control.
•New Zealanders will be at the front of the queue for shares and ministers expect New Zealand ownership will be around 85-90 per cent.
•No shareholder other than the Government will be able to own more than about 10 per cent.

So the likes of Beijing-controlled Chinese front companies, Canadian pension funds and Ausralian infrastructure corporates who will buy-in are limited to one-tenth each. So five of these may end up controlling the 49% in the end instead of just one. Hmmm, yeah. Not much of a guarantee, especially given the cross-shareholdings many have. The Nats, as I understand it, have let Peter Dunne claim credit for supposedly establishing this limit, such as it is.

How much do you expect from the Mighty River Power share sale?
We’ve said we expect between $5 billion and $7 billion over three to five years across the whole mixed ownership programme. In terms of Mighty River Power, we want to get a good deal for New Zealand investors – and for New Zealand taxpayers – and that depends on advisors completing work in the New Year, once they are appointed.

Raising $5-7b isn't that much when the government's annual spending is about $75b.

As for other agenda items for Cabinet, I note the Gnome of Thorndon is pushing his Tory mates to stack the Supreme Court with right wing conservatives. Poor arguments all round for criticising the Chief Justice.

A tale of two Prime Ministers

2011-12-14T14:49:00.000+13:00

NZ Herald: John Key has been sworn in as Prime Minister in a ceremony at Government House in Wellington this morning.

Mr Key, along with 24 National ministers and four support party ministers were sworn in by Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae.

So orderly I've heard people refer to this new administration as being merely a "reshuffle". Compare this transition to another Pacific country of the Westminster type.

SMH: AUSTRALIAN diplomats were caught up in Papua New Guinea's latest political meltdown as angry police threatened them with machine guns during a tense night of fighting between supporters of the country's two would-be prime ministers.

Both Sir Michael Somare and Peter O'Neill claim to be the legitimate leader of the country. Mr O'Neill has the numbers to lead the Parliament but the country's Supreme Court on Monday ordered Sir Michael to be reinstated as prime minister.

Two Prime Ministers. Tahiti had the same issue a few years ago and one side occupied the presidential palace for many months until it was resolved - that case went to Paris for their colonial master to sort out.

Unlike PNG and most other nations in the NZ system there are few constitutional rules that the Supreme Court would be likely to intercede to reverse. Parliament is deemed to be master of its own House in most, if not all, of their activities and changing the PM is acknowledged as a political issue for the caucus of the ruling party. Country's with formal written constitutions however bring the judiciary into the scene and things can get dicey. The last coup in Fiji that established the current "new legal order", for example, came about as the regime's reaction to a court ruling invalidating the appointment of the interim government and ordering elections be held.

The PM's website doesn't exist. Maybe there are two - at different addresses? At least the civil service or whoever is in charge of government IT is neutral. So neutral, just to be sure, they've also taken down the government portal.

Later, at about 10pm, bursts of automatic fire were heard as rival groups tried to enter Government House. No one has been reported injured but security across the city was being increased as the crisis deepened.

''It got a bit hairy but we're generally OK,'' one Australian official told the Herald. Mr O'Neill, who unsuccessfully tried to have one of the judges removed from the Supreme Court bench, maintains he is the country's leader and wants the Governor-General, Sir Michael Ogio, to swear him in.

Late yesterday, Mr O'Neill and 60 supporters arrived to speak to the Governor-General at Government House, forcing their way through a police line surrounding the residence..

A spokesman for the Governor-General then reportedly told the O'Neill group Sir Michael Ogio would not be swearing in either of the men because he could not understand the court judgment.

He preferred that the two leaders get together and resolve the issue between themselves.

That is an incredibly naive suggestion. If it has got to this point having a wee chat about it and a gentleman's handshake isn't going to happen. Although claiming you can't understand the ruling is probably the best course for someone stuck in the middle and playing for time; but ultimately it will be the G-G that must make a call, they are at the top of the constitutional apex and in charge of the armed forces when it comes to the crunch.

Adding to the confusing and potentially explosive situation, both Sir Michael and Mr O'Neill have support bases tied to senior police, so that as well as two would-be prime ministers, there are two would-be police commissioners each claiming the top job.

The Government House flashpoint was the same venue where on August 2 Mr O'Neill was sworn in as the country's prime minister after a dramatic internal coup, which came as Sir Michael recuperated in a Singapore hospital for three months.

Sir Michael, known as PNG's father of the nation, does not appear to have the numbers to maintain a parliamentary majority.

The O'Neill camp yesterday sat in government parliament benches and ignored any suggestion they were anything other than the government.

The Speaker, Jeffrey Nape, who in the past has been instrumental in keeping Sir Michael in power, decreed that retrospective legislation passed on Monday meant Sir Michael was not even an MP, let alone prime minister.

The Labour Party gamble on Shearer

2011-12-14T12:21:00.004+13:00

The Labour Party coven have selected David Shearer as their Messiah in their version of political X Factor. Now he's won, he'll be healing sick children on a tour of provincial Shopping Malls between the hours of 10am, 11am, and 1pm with a matinee session on Saturday's.

In yet another example of intergenerational theft, a baby boomer has stiffed a Gen Xer for a job. The younger cusp Gen-X Cunliffe has been denied leadership for another bloody baby boomer. Yay, their bloated locust generation hangs on yet again, denying Gen Xers their rightful generational leadership.

When will these damned boomers die? Oh that's right, they won't, they'll keep pouring our taxes into the preservation of their life spans while we work longer with a higher retirement age.

I expect to retire under these rules when I reach 90.

Don't mention Grant Robertson to me, if he's the answer the question must have been, 'how can Wellington be unhelpful'.

Fresh from washing the tear gas out of his UN designated suit, David Shearer as the new leader of the Labour Party must first decide what embassy to banish David Cunliffe to while keeping as far away from John Key for the first 2 years as humanly possible.

The strategy used by the Labour Party Coven is simple, pick someone NZ will like more than John Key and hope the electorate have tired of National in 3 years. It doesn't sound like much of a strategy, and that's because it's not much of a strategy.

When the John Key dingo picks up the David Shearer baby in his jaws on the first day of Parliament and violently rips the David Shearer baby limb from limb and slinks off licking it's bloodied maw, leaving the David Shearer baby shredded on the floor of the debating chamber, the 'but David Shearer is likable' mantra chanted by far right bloggers like David Farrar, will suddenly sound very hollow and slightly disingenuous.

Shearer needs to be a hell of a lot more than likable for this gamble to work (his TV performances during the debate were terrible) and one wonders if the rest of the lazy caucus who sat on their hands while Goff roasted are being a twee bit audacious to place all the responsibility for Labour's fortunes on Shearer's green shoulders.

Time will tell.

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Tuning out, turning off

2011-12-14T12:19:00.000+13:00

The government's closing down of the nation's entire analogue TV signal transmissions (so the frequencies can be flicked off) has been sold on the basis of "better". Freeview - the government-backed system of digital transmission - has more channels than analogue (but not many more) and a higher quality reception (but prone to 'rain fade' and cutting out entirely). But viewers are facing losses with this transition.

The first loss is the money cost of having to abandon old sets and having to buy new sets or boxes (more on this below), the other main loss is of convenience: taking a set anywhere and plugging in the 'rabbit ears' will no longer be possible. The gains of programme data from the remote control and the better picture are an offset, but we are still losing something here that cannot be regained. For example, imagine if they tried this with radio - making every radio set defunct and forcing people to buy a box for it? Unacceptable, pointless, expensive? And yet this is what has been done to TV without any protest.

How much better, exactly?

When Freeview came out TVNZ - under the National government - put its archive material, its heritage funded by years of the TV licence fee - into a channel only available on Sky. Privatised - behind someone else's pay wall. This is a disgrace, but we are in for more of the same. Drinnan in the NZ Herald:

The Government is looking at taxpayer subsidies for some late-adopters to get Sky's Igloo set-top boxes after old analogue TV signals are switched off.

The move is aimed at easing the transition to digital transmission, but would fit with Government policies that promote pay TV and undermine Freeview and the free-to-air TV sector.
[...]
From September next year to December 2013, analogue TV signals will be switched off region by region, the West Coast first and Auckland last.

After switch-off, viewers will need tuners inside TV sets, a set-top box or a personal video recorder to pick up free-to-air channels.
[...]
The plan comes as TVNZ moves to close public service channel TVNZ 7 and lease it out as a shopping channel.

Igloo is 51 per cent owned by Sky and 49 per cent by TVNZ and has been launched to coincide with the digital switchover and pick up lower spending customers.
[...]
A shroud of secrecy makes some sense as news of a subsidy might encourage people to delay buying a digital tuner under their own steam.

But it has wider implications if the Government selects Igloo - and access to pay TV - over Freeview, which offers solely free-to-air content.

The tender for the Targeted Assistance Plan invited expression of interest in providing 50,000 to 60,000 tuners.

Details of the Igloo scheme were released last week. It will provide 11 pay channels for $25 a month on a set-top box costing less than $200.

A half-pie, half-way house for people with only half the money for Sky. It makes perfect sense for Sky, as it will drag some over after the half-strength taste of this platform to the basic Sky package and pre-empts other rivals, but what is TVNZ playing at? Grabbing any form of government funding for itself is always high on their agenda; public broadcasting seems to have fallen off the bottom of the page.

Also on the horizon, next year, will be the regulatory framework to keep up with the merging of technology.

When someone with a remote sitting in their living room can flick seemlessly between internet, TV and radio (and anyone with a modern mobile phone can do the same anywhere) it seems less and less tenable that the different modes of communication have their own bodies and rules. While an argument exists that government's allocating frequencies has given them responsibilities over what is broadcast the same argument can be turned to the internet where the government is now subsidising the ultra-fast broadband roll-out.

Some amalgamation is coming, but the fear is that in trying to align everything the internet and (to a lesser extent) the press will have their censorship and enforcement increased to the more restrictive levels of the BSA (rather than broadcasters having reduced restrictions).

Stephen Price:

That’s the way I look at the recommendation - not as a statutory super-regulator, but as a slightly refined self-regulatory initiative, in which the industry is given a first chance to see whether they can do this themselves.

Complaints would still go in the first instance to the publisher or broadcaster, and would only be referred to the regulator in the event they can’t be resolved.

The Commission doesn’t discuss fast-track resolution, or interim take-down powers, or a possible Ombudsman/mediator to faciliate resolution before complaints are elevated, but all are on the table for the regulator.

MANA beating ACT

2011-12-14T12:17:00.001+13:00

The final count is in and despite being financed by some of the richest political donors in the game, the ACT Party was beaten by the MANA Party in total number of votes.

That's like Russia beating the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup final or a Whale sinking a Japanese scientific whaling ship, or david Shearer beating John Key in 2014, for a tiny party like MANA to beat the Party Don Brash predicted would gain 15% party vote share in this years election, that's a hilarious result.

ACT's demise is a political reminder that no matter how much glitter you roll a turd in, it's still a turd in glitter.

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South Canterbury Finances magical golden money pyramid of eternal providence

2011-12-14T11:35:00.000+13:00

So let's get this straight, South Canterbury Finance's Mr Magoo, Allan Hubbard, who didn't bother with silly old paper work embarked on risky deals once South Canterbury Finance was readmitted into the guarantee scheme because once it was readmitted, everyone knew their money was guaranteed by us, the tax payer.

Now I don't wish to be critical, who am I kidding, I love being critical, but how is a $1.7 billion bail out to the late Mr Magoo anything other than politically connected crony capitalism?

Wasn't the readmission of South Canterbury Finance prudent arse kissing for the wealthy and well connected who jumped in to greedily milk this guarantee for as much as they could?

We had to bail out National's well connected money mates for the 'National Interest', because Lord knows if well connected National Party chums are out of pocket, it's the most pressing issue that needs to be passed with as little scrutiny as possible.

Isn't it hilarious, $30 million is all we would have to pay per year to feed every child in poverty stricken schools, compared to the $1.7billion we will pay greedy investors.

The one question NZers should be asking Bill English now this Serious Fraud Office investigation is under way is 'Dude, where's my economy'?

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Changing of the guard [BREAKING: Shearer leader, Robertson deputy]

2011-12-13T10:11:00.005+13:00

No sooner than the National ministerial line up is released and barely before people can start pondering the new names and the changes the Labour leadership vote is upon us.

10:01AM and Twitter trending words for NZ:

Doug Bracewell
#ThankYouUncleSimon
#BlackCaps
Hekia Parata
Cabinet
#1YearSince1DGotSigned
Law Commission
Amy Adams
Warner

The newbie minister in Cabinet, Amy Adams is in the top ten - as is the rising star, Hekia Parata.

One of the Davids will be trending heavily, probably both in a few hours.

Twitter:

MutchJessica Jessica Mutch TVNZ
David Shearer and David Cunliffe have gone into the Labour caucus room to vote on who will be the next Labour leader.
19 minutes ago Favorite Undo Retweet Reply
[...]
CraigFossMP Craig Foss
Thanks so much for your many messages of Congrats. I am looking forward to the challenges as we continue Building a Brighter Future.
20 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
patrickgowernz Patrick Gower
Camp shearer loyalist mp just told me this will be a 'slam dunk'
29 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
tauhenare West Side Tory
#LabourLeader wonder if it's a secret ballot. Show of hands? Red smoke from the parliament?
37 minutes ago Favorite Undo Retweet Reply

UPDATE 10:55AM

Still nothing confirmed yet even if the dodgy insider-trading Mecca that is iPredict is leaning heavily for Shearer:

From Twitter:

keith_ng keith_ng
Hmm. At 13c, perhaps I should buy some #TeamCunliffe stock. #jokesbro
39 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
patrickgowernz Patrick Gower
Press sec just raced out of the labour caucus . Decision has been made
29 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
JakeQuinn Jake Quinn
"David Shearer to be next Labour Party leader "on iPredict is running close to 90% and increasing in recent trading
8 minutes ago Favorite Reply

JakeQuinn Jake Quinn
"Grant Robertson to be next Labour Party deputy leader" on iPredict running close to 85% and increasing in recent trading
7 minutes ago Favorite Reply

dpfdpf David Farrar
@ @JakeQuinn Someone had 1,000 sell orders at 0.79 and they all got gobbled up.
8 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

JakeQuinn Jake Quinn
@ @dpfdpf Trevor's on his laptop? ;)
8 minutes ago Favorite Reply

dpfdpf David Farrar
@ @JakeQuinn I think I made a lot off Trevor on Auckland Central. I thank him!
7 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

They are sort of joking about it - treating iPredict "markets" as a game, but because of the insider knowledge these market participants have and the fact real money is on the line it makes iPredict highly suspect in my opinion. Rather than collective wisdom and all that guff it is a system that thrives on imperfect information - peddled by insiders themselves. The people influencing the "markets" (esp. via blogs) have a conflict of interest when they are participants in that market - and whether or not they disclose all their trades doesn't make that much difference to that criticism.

UPDATE 11:07AM

dpfdpf David Farrar
What's taking so long - are they running a focus group to decide what colour tie the new leader should wear?
9 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »

patrickgowernz Patrick Gower
How long does a secret ballot take
9 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Probably the deputy leadership is what is taking the time. Supposedly Grant Robertson ahead, but either him or the other mooted deputy, Nanaia Mahuta - from camp Cunliffe - will not make particularly impressive leadership material.

TinaWickliffe Tina Wickliffe
It's David Shearer and Grant Robertson. #LabourLeaders
6 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

patrickgowernz Patrick Gower
Its shearer and Robertson
8 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
patrickgowernz Patrick Gower
Shearer and Robertson just walked into the leaders office
8 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
TheNBR The Authority
Shearer wins Labour party leadership battle http://tinyurl.com/82yy4ww
6 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
ScoopNZ Scoop News
RT: @lyndonhood Shearer and Robertson seen outside caucus room. Apparently this is proof.
6 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
danyalevy Danya Levy
Shearer for Labour leader, Robertson deputy. Hipkins and Fenton for whips.
2 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Unofficial still at this point, but the news reporters at parliament are reporting David Shearer as Leader, deputy is Grant Robertson.

Congratulations to David Shearer. Lange-like rise to power within Labour - only faster! Leader and deputy haven't been Ministers, so I guess that "fresh" look John Key has been thumping repeatedly in the media about his new Cabinet has been trumped by today's decision of the Labour caucus. It is a new look - will the policy substance follow? Will Cunliffe be happy to stay as Finance spokesperson and not undermine the leader the way he did to Phil Goff? My pick is that Cunliffe will play out a Paul Keating/Gordon Brown scenario (the long-serving Finance Minister who covets and finally takes the leadership).

UPDATE: 11:43AM

nzlabour New Zealand Labour
David Shearer announcing that he is the new Leader of the Labour Party. http://twitter.com/nzlabour/status/146358146368151552/photo/1
7 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
nzlabour New Zealand Labour
David Shearer has been elected as the Leader of the Labour Party. Grant Robertson is the Deputy Leader.
7 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
NEWS_UPDATES TUMEKE! news updates
Aotearoa: As centre-right govt. formed, opposition Labour Party picks former UN man, David Shearer, as leader. [TVNZ] http://bit.ly/uB2Be5
7 minutes ago Favorite Undo Retweet Reply
[...]
patrickgowernz Patrick Gower
Annette King's office already being moved out already. That's politics http://twitpic.com/7si2hl
9 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

UPDATE 11:50AM

chrishipkins Chris Hipkins
Congratulations David Shearer and Grant Robertson, our new Leader and Deputy Leader. I look forward to serving as their Chief Whip!
3 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »

redalertblog Red Alert
New post, "Leadership results" - http://ow.ly/1BW5Yv
3 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »

JakeQuinn Jake Quinn
Shearer and Robertson a breath of fresh air http://wp.me/pvdv6-I5
3 minutes ago Favorite Reply »

jordantcarter Jordan Carter
Labour's new team: #teamShearer #teamRobertson http://bit.ly/sVKvnX
5 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
nzlabour New Zealand Labour
Spokesperson roles will be decided before Parliament sits next week.
5 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »

nzlabour New Zealand Labour
A united caucus, going forward together - David Shearer.
6 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

nzlabour New Zealand Labour
I'd like the party to become a party of ideas. We must grow our relevance. - David Shearer.
8 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
patrickgowernz Patrick Gower
Shearer says he is going to go out and meet kiwis at 'pubs, clubs and marae'
10 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »

caffeine_addict dave
@ @norightturnnz heh at lease they didnt say "smart green economy " #greenrhetoric
11 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
[...]
norightturnnz Idiot/Savant
First Labour steals the Green's policies, now they're stealing their rhetoric #success
11 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »

caffeine_addict dave
RT @jhartevelt: Shearer calls on Key to extend poverty committee to cross party group: "I want to be on that committee".
11 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply »

norightturnnz Idiot/Savant
"Clean, green, and clever" - where have we heard that before?
11 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply

UPDATE 11:57AM

And David Shearer enters in the top 10 tweeted names in NZ before lunchtime:

Doug Bracewell #ThankYouUncleSimon #BlackCaps Hekia Parata Cabinet #1YearSince1DGotSigned Law Commission Warner David Shearer

Specials: Mana more popular than Act

2011-12-12T15:15:00.000+13:00

The PM has just announced the Cabinet and ministerial positions. I'll blog on those later, but firstly here's the NZ General Election official results with specials counted:

MMP referendum:

KEEP 1,267,955 (57.77%)
CHANGE 926,819 (42.23%)

I picked it could get to 60% for MMP, but that was always going to be on the high side. 58% is quite a strong mandate however - can't see it being revisited in a referendum for at least another two decades. The changes and the review process will see people far more engaged than the referendum non-debate.

Party Vote:

Party : total votes : (% of party vote) : electorates+list=total seats

National Party 1,058,638 (47.31%) 41+18=59
Labour Party 614,936 (27.48%) 23+11=34
Green Party 247,370 (11.06%) 0+14=14
New Zealand First Party 147,544 (6.59%) 0+8=8
Māori Party 31,982 (1.43%) 3+0=3
Mana 24,168 (1.08%) 1+0=1
ACT New Zealand 23,889 (1.07%) 1+0=1
United Future 13,443 (0.60%) 1+0=1
Conservative Party 59,236 (2.65%) 0+0=0
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party 11,738 (0.52%) 0+0=0
Democrats for Social Credit 1,714 (0.08%) 0+0=0
Libertarianz 1,595 (0.07%) 0+0=0
Alliance 1,209 (0.05%) 0+0=0
TOTAL seats 70+51=121

I had hoped Mana could get to 3%, but no, I'll just have to be satisfied that - after specials - Mana has more party votes than Act. When Peter Dunne and John Banks criticise Hone during this term of parliament just keep in mind his party got more votes than either of their parties did. Not much solace, but something.

As expected the National vote dropped on specials - now 47.3% and less spectacular than all the pre-election crowing and false indications from the opinion polls. My prediction a month before the election that National would get 46% (+/- 1%) was not too far wide of the mark.

Greens cracked 11%! And now a caucus of 14. Got my Mojo workin' ! (I prefer the Jimmy Smith version but there's no video for it)

The constituencies had some dramatic changes. Duncan Garner's embarrassing call on TV3 election night coverage that he projected that Paula Bennett would lose her seat are now vindicated, Sepuloni having reversed a 300+ in favour of Bennett. 11 votes, phew - judicial recount will be underway this week. And in CHristchurch Central although the Labour candidate will have many excuses it seems to me that being an upper-middle class carpet-bagger
would have more to do with losing a safe Labour seat than anything to do with the earthquake.
Status of electorates:

Waitakere 100.0%: SEPULONI, Carmel (LAB) BENNETT, Paula (NAT) 11

Christchurch Central 100.0% WAGNER, Nicky (NAT) BURNS, Brendon (LAB) 45

And in Waiariki Te Ururoa hung on with about the same margin as on the night, his majority over Annette Sykes 1,883. Slashed!

Government resting on soft Maori Party cushion

2011-12-12T10:09:00.002+13:00

NZ Herald::

Mr Key signed the deal yesterday afternoon with Mrs Turia and Dr Sharples in the old Maori Affairs committee room at Parliament.
[...]
The agreement followed 40 Maori Party hui last week, which Dr Sharples said had been attended by 1000 people and had unanimously backed a second support deal with National.

The post-election consultation process with meetings of the branch membership is one of the most novel aspects of the Maori Party (in comparison with the other Pakeha-based parties) and is probably one of the best - most idealistic - systems for grass-roots participation in the NZ political system. I attended one of Pita Sharples' hui last time in 2008 (chaired by John Tamihere who had lost the Tamaki Makaurau seat to Sharples in 2005) and there was a positive atmosphere of optimism and potential at what joining a government would bring. There was a tacit acknowledgment that National having invited the Maori Party in ought to reciprocate with an affirmative response - that would both align with tikanga and provide opportunities to advance the Maori Party policies. The hui - and I'm sure all of them - strongly backed a move into government.

This time around the same mechanics of consultation are there and the same dynamic - a National+Act+United Future government - is still there, but things have changed radically (or rather conservatively) within the Maori Party that renders their consensus decision to join the government problematic. Maybe irreconcilably so.

The PM may be displaying a business-as-usual attitude, but the situation has changed. The PM himself signalled it had changed when he came out immediately after specials had been declared and said he already had Banks and Dunne in the bag and didn't need anyone else to go to the Governor-General - that the Maori Party would join later. This was a bit of hard ball from Key. His margin is only one and someone (probably one of his own rather than Banks or Dunne) packing a sad and crossing the floor would bring the show to a close, so although he doesn't need them, he really, really, really, wants them in to give the Nats a cushion.

The Maori Party members consulted with are the rump left over from when Hone Harawira was forced out; those members are more elderly and more conservative than the many who had joined the Mana movement. The feedback the Maori Party got from this group of people - devoid of radical elements and youth voices - would prefer to stay with National despite their pushing through policies that disadvantage the Maori constituency. And yet the Party's top brass at least have enough remaining grasp of reality to address the issues to which people rallied to Hone and which saw Mana cut the Maori Party's vote in half. As a way of under-cutting Mana and promoting the Maori Party as the champions of the poor, I doubt many will be fooled, but having an out (as Tariana was explaining on the radio this morning) so they won't vote for the SOE privatisation legislation is a visible distancing they see as necessary to remain viable at the next election. The focus on poverty, housing and employment were all central to Mana's policies and they feature in the deal:

* Develop a stand-alone commissioning agency for whanau ora in the next 12 months.
* Ministerial committee on poverty chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Bill English, and deputy-chaired by Tariana Turia.
* Doubling of the rheumatic fever programme from $12m to $24m.
* Insulate 20,000 low-income homes.
* Progress iwi as housing providers through the Social Housing Unit.
* Provide places to reflect Maori youth unemployment rate (about 25 per cent) in new jobs and training programmes.
* Refocus Te Puni Kokiri on Maori employment, training, housing and education outcomes.
* Work on plain packaging for cigarettes.

What the article doesn't mention is the ructions Te Ururoa's ambition for co-leadership has caused. He gave some evasive answers yesterday and ended with "no comment" on how compatible his being a co-leader is if Pita remains a minister. Something's got to give here, 3 into 2 doesn't go:

Mrs Turia said it was "highly likely" she and Dr Sharples would remain in Parliament for the full term. "I'm starting to think after doing all of the hui that I might stay here 'til I'm 80 actually. I have had such a huge amount of people begging me to stay."

The deal: Relationship Accord and Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Māori Party at National.org.nz

While the great achievement - the silent victory - of the Maori Party (and also of the National Party) has been the diffusing of Maori-Pakeha racial angst by virtue of just being in a government with National, the cruch points that Hone brought to the table at the election: poverty, employment, housing and the tax mix will remain unachievable goals for the Maori Party.

The Nats, although outwardly moderated with Maori and United Future window-dressing, are just too right wing to put any emphasis on what Tariana or Pita want to do. How much will Whanau Ora recieve and what will the outcomes be? Will the poverty committee of ministers demonstrate anything more than a poverty of thinking?

The Committee will publicly release update reports no later than every six months, with the first update report being released mid-2012.

Six months to report? Does that sound urgent? How will a multi-agency approach work when Welfare cut-backs and punitive beneficiary-bashing is set to increase. They limit the "urgent" matters to a few points:

3. Initial initiatives to urgently address the effects of poverty
To support efforts to urgently address the effects of poverty in Aotearoa/New Zealand, the Government and the Māori Party agree to implement the following initiatives:
Health
 Double the funding of the Government’s rheumatic fever programme to $24m, to be spread over four years.
Healthy Homes
 Within the Warm Up NZ: Heat Smart programme, and together with other government grants, target 20,000 low-income homes for home insulation.
 Ensure every State house built before 1978 which can be practically insulated, will be insulated.

Of course, better than nothing, but one wonders whether National (possibly letting the Greens in for some tangible wins) would have made these commitments anyway.

There are two items in the deal which may provide concrete and meaningful social dividends, especially to Maori:

 The Government agrees to consider recognising the unique status of kōhanga reo, kura kaupapa Māori, kura-a-iwi, wānanga and Māori medium initiatives through their own statutory legislation.
[...]
 The Government will work with the Māori Party to progress establishment of skills- and trades-based academies.

Raising Te Reo Maori to the same status as the English language in schools is a long-term mission that will probably have an incremental progression this term and a trades type academies idea will probably mean the continuing survival of some marginal outfits facing WINZ/TEC cuts introduced with the reduced funding/availability Paula Bennett has inflicted last year. There will be some good news stories here, but is that enough to get into bed with National?

How will Assoc. Education Ministers John Banks and Pita Sharples work out? There is plenty of room for conflict.

I note that Te Ururoa has got his languishing private members bill to regulate pokies into the light of day:

14. Private Members Bills and Government Bills
The National Party agrees to support the following Māori Party-sponsored Private Members Bills through to select committee:
 The Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill,
 A cultural heritage bill to recognise Matariki/Puanga, and to honour the peace-making heritage established at Parihaka.

But that is to select committee only - not all the way through. Paul East, former National Attorney-General is the chief lobbyist for the pokies industry so that may explain the blind eye turned to their rorting and outright corruption - made possible by the fundamental conflicts of interest in the dodgy relationships between private charities, the owners of the machines and the owners of the venue. I'm not sure the Nats will want to overturn the ripp-offs that put a lot of money into their mates' pockets.

As for the cultural heritage bill, that looks interesting. Rahui Katene in the last parliament (she was voted out at this election) put up the Matariki Day bill to have the Maori New Year made a public holiday, but National shot it down. It was actually Hone who read out the remainder of Katene's speech on the bill after she faultered and sounded as though she would pass out! Once again I'm not confident that the Nats will want to give people a day off work, but a non-statutory holiday may make it through (although it is a half measure that may disappoint and a compromise they won't make).

An Opposition Speaker - the goal of the next Labour Party Leader

2011-12-12T08:30:00.002+13:00

No matter who the Labour Party Coven selects to fight Key in 2014 - Mr Likable or Mr Ready Now, the first act of leadership would be for the new Labour Party leader to turn down the convention that see's the Opposition stand down an MP to allow the Government to elect it's Speaker.

They could argue that the controversial legislation that National wish to ram through should be scrutinized to the highest level and only an Opposition Speaker could ensure that level of scrutiny.

If Labour refused to pull out an MP, National would be forced to lose their majority if they selected Lockwood meaning the Maori Party would be kingmaker in any legislation meaning Asset Sales couldn't pass.

Instead of that outcome, National agree to an Opposition Speaker, either Trevor Mallard or Dr Pita Sharples.

So the question to ask to evaluate if this idea would be worthwhile is, how much does Labour oppose State Assets?

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Citizen A this week with David Slack & Matthew Hooton

2011-12-11T07:10:00.002+13:00

Citizen A - 8pm Friday Stratos Freeview 21 & Sky 89

Tune in to join Bomber and his revolving panel of bloggers and Auckland opinion shapers as they offer an up-to-date half hour review of the political media issues of the current week from a very Auckland perspective.

Issue 1: Shearer vs Cunliffe - what does Labour need? Mr ready now or Mr likable?

Issue 2: Charter schools - what's wrong with The McDonald's Creationist College buying public schools and running them for profit?

Issue 3: What's more believable? Treasury predictions on GDP growth or NZ First's Richard Prosser's call to ban the burqa?

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Russian elections

2011-12-09T11:59:00.000+13:00

Is it a problem with Lieberman - as a thug? Is it a problem with Israel's coalition dynamics that throws up these unpalatable, extremist politicians? Is it a problem with Russia's relationship with Israel? Jerusalem Post:

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a Thursday meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow that Russia's elections were free and democratic, Israel Radio reported. He based his assessment on determinations by Israeli observers participating in the election monitoring, he said.

Lieberman's position is opposed to the views of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the White House and former Russian leaders, which expressed concern over irregularities in the recent parliamentary election.
[...]
The campaign for Sunday's election was marked by "limited political competition and a lack of fairness," observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly said.

The vote count "was characterized by frequent procedural violations and instances of apparent manipulation, including several serious indications of ballot box stuffing," the monitors said in their preliminary report.

Probably only Belarus who would agree with Israel that the elections were OK - everyone else can see the Russians are still up to their old games.

There are many video clips of alleged vote-rigging on Youtube:

Euro crisis

2011-12-09T11:31:00.001+13:00

Economist chart:

Despite the budget deficit blow-outs needed in order for European governments to retain their nations' standards of living in the wake of the credit pop three years ago I still consider the Euro more stable and with better long term prospects of stability than the US dollar. The graph shows the wide difference in fiscal constraint exercised by Germany and the outlying basket cases of Ireland and Greece who now face (a basically)imposed austerity to remain in the Euro-zone.

As our own Reserve Bank Governor described this week when he left the RBNZ's OCR at a record low 2.5%, the situation for the foreseeable future is a slow "grind". The external stimulus needed for economic expansion - and the repayment of that large debt overhang most Western countries face - depends on the emerging economies, themselves vulnerable to weak European and American consumption, steaming ahead. How long will this take - and is it possible to have the major Western economies in a slump and have the rest of the world maintaining high growth rates?

Major reconstruction of the Euro system - especially an agreement to link tax/revenue and spending into the equation (more stringently than at present with greater penalties that the big guys can't just wriggle out of as they have) seems necessary to many, but the issue of sovereignty may be insurmountable. An individual government's ability to operate internally an independent policy will be sacrificed, further sacrificed, to the centre (ie. to the politians in Berlin and the bankers of Frankfurt) and as the rejection of previous incremental Treaties has shown the European citizens of their respective states are loath to give up their self-determination.

Banning the burqa

2011-12-09T06:39:00.002+13:00

When Mohammed was asked how people should dress and he replied, 'tell the believing women to lower their gaze and to be mindful of their chastity' , do I think he meant wearing a glorified bedsheet with a slit in them for eyes? No, no I don't personally think he meant that at all. But it sure as hell isn't up to me to dictate to another religion how they should or shouldn't interpret their faith.

I live in NZ because it's a liberal progressive democracy that enshrines personal freedoms. If I want to wear a chicken suit and waltz down Queen street, I can.

The redneck, knuckle-dragging ignorance of NZ Firsts Richard Prosser's demand to tell Muslim Women what they can wear by banning the burqa is as totalitarian as the Islamic fanatics who force women to wear it in the first place.

How a person chooses to dress is not for the bloody State to determine, do we really want Richard Prosser in the closets of NZ policing what we choose to wear day to day?

I say, Richard Prosser, get out of our closets, and go back to yours.

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Bomber's Blog - The War on News - ONLINE NOW!

2011-12-09T06:34:00.003+13:00

The McDonald's Creationist Charter College says one fake dinosaur bone + three hamburglers + one John Key smirk = better public schools?

John Banks as Associate Minister of Education? Since when did Education become a hate crime?

I don't write the rules, as a straight white male, I just benefit from them. NZ levels of inequality soar under the National Party.

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SFO v SCF

2011-12-08T15:01:00.000+13:00

The SFO may be about to tip over the ant farm if their charges against Mr Magoo's magic money triangle of eternal return makes it to trial. The defence will ensnare the Treasury in its incompetence in order to establish it was above board. How could it be dodgy if the Treasury readmitted South Canterbury Finance into the retail deposit scheme? The Treasury is a party to the fraud isn't it? Everyone knew it was as short sighted as old Mr Magoo himself.

NZ Herald:

The Serious Fraud Office has laid 21 charges against five people involved with the collapsed South Canterbury Finance company.
[...]
SFO chief executive Adam Feeley said South Canterbury Finance was "one of the most significant of all the failed finance companies".

"The value of the fraud alleged to have been committed exceeds anything in the history of white-collar crime in New Zealand, and the time we have taken to complete this matter is a reflection of that scale," Mr Feeley said.
[...]
South Canterbury Finance was placed into receivership on August 31 last year, owing about $1.8 billion.

But because of the company's participation in the Crown retail deposits scheme, 35,000 SCF investors were bailed out by the taxpayer to the tune of $1.7 billion

This has the potential to make Treasury and Bill English look like fools.

Al Shabaab on twitter

2011-12-08T10:09:00.003+13:00

Some people tweet about how busy they are and how much work they have to do - made worse by constantly stopping what they are doing to tweet about it. Some people tweet about how bored they are and have nothing to do. These inane and irrelevant telegrams to the universe are of absolutely no moment or value. And then, just when you think how inconsequential it all is, at the other end of the spectrum, others tweet about how many people they've blown up that day in their terrorist war.

No way?

Twitter used to be a cool place to share your succinct thoughts. Now al-Shabab, the vicious Somali allies of al-Qaida, is using it as a propaganda venue.

al-Shabab began tweeting in English on Wednesday...

Yes way.

HSMPress HSM Press
With the rising economic burden of operation Linda Nchi, the much-hyped #Kenyan invasion has faltered quite prematurely http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16077642
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
HSMPress HSM Press
Sheikh Abu Mus'ab (Military Spokesman): "The Jihad being waged here in Somali shall continue untill the country is purified of all invaders"
3 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
HSMPress HSM
7 Uganda-trained TFG soldiers surrender themselves to Mujahidin in #Mogadishu. They are welcomed after proclaiming repentance from apostasy

And we were led to believe fundamentalist Islamists were anti-technology.

UPDATE: 10:45AM
Now 221 following, was only 148 when I first posted on this at 10:05AM.

UPDATE: 11:20AM
230 following.

Just did a Whois check on the image

used on the twitter site and it resolves to Akamaihd.net which doesn't appear to be open. Whois details:

Registrant:
Akamai Technologies
8 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142
US

Domain name: AKAMAIHD.NET

Administrative Contact:
Hostmaster, Akamai
8 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142
US
+1.6174443000 Fax: +1.6174443001

Just a hosting company by the looks of it. So when they say, "Meet the demands of the hyperconnected world and accelerate innovation" and "helping companies provide secure, high-performing user experiences to any device, anywhere" they also must mean to groups who their own government has listed as terrorist organisations! Great global uptake, just expect a friendly knock at the door from Homeland Security at some point.

UPDATE: Friday 10:20AM
Talk about going guns... now 739 following on Twitter.

They are reporting Kenyan air strikes and other battles this morning:

Gedo governor, Sh. Abbas Abdullahi, reassured the residents of Baardheere and visited the family of the deceased man in hospital
7 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
HSMPress HSM Press
bombs dropped from #Kenyan aircraft pulverized the home of poor 67-year old man &his family. He died &his only daughter is severely injured
7 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
HSMPress HSM Press
#Kenyan fighter jets bomb city of Baardheere, #Gedo region. 1 civilian casualty so far and a young girl seriously wounded. More news soon...
9 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
HSMPress HSM Press
4 #Ugandan soldiers killed in a raid on #Amisom base in Huriwaa District, #Mogadishu, early morning; #Ugandan soldiers desert their posts!
13 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply » HSMPress HSM Press
#KDF: Despite the tragedy and loss of life & wealth, a Mujahid does not desert the dignity to defend what he holds dearest: His Faith!
13 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply »
HSMPress HSM Press
#KDF: An army without experience, clear strategy & objective is fragile to winds of resistance & slightest confrontation precipitates defeat

KDF must be Kenyan Defence Force.

John Banks as Associate Minister of Education? Since when did Education become a hate crime?

2011-12-08T09:06:00.003+13:00

More depressing than this inane idea to allow companies to buy and run schools for profit, is the fact that John Fucking Banks is the new Associate Minister of Education.

If I may directly, word for word, quote our new associate Minister of Education,

"If we continue the bankrupt response of just paying young Polynesian, young Maori men in south Auckland the dole to sit in front of TV, smoke marijuana, watch pornography and plan more drug offending and more burglaries, then we’re going to have them coming through our windows".

That's our new associate Minister of Education

Since when was book burning a prerequisite for becoming an associate Minister of the Crown?

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Does the Maori Party understand what the word 'negotiation' actually means?

2011-12-08T09:00:00.002+13:00

When they're President wasn't accidentally dumping Pita Sharples as co-leader at airport interviews, the Maori Party's style of negotiation came under scrutiny this week. Before the specials have even been counted, the Maori Party are cutting a deal with John Key, even though, if they waited and with a downgrading of National's vote, they could have a stronger hand by holding the majority.

Normally negotiation is aimed at getting the best deal one can, the Maori Party however like to negotiate from a position of weakness. They must have decided that after 3 years, why change that strategy now?

Incidentally Ken Mair not knocking Michael Laws out is just more proof that if you want he job done, don't trust the Maori Party to do it

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RIP Waitakere Man

2011-12-07T15:04:00.000+13:00

With the Labour Party leadership contest getting bitchy and the issue coming down to who can sway the middle voters to decamp from National and back to the traditional party of the workers, I'll make only a few observations:

When Grant Robertson (who covets the deputy post) was asked why he was backing Shearer he didn't say anything about philosophy or ideology or policy or principle - he simply said it was because that is who he thought could win against John Key at the next election. Hmmm. And he said he had "political experience" that Shearer lacked. Like being at the NZ University students association forever and being a total careerist product of the Labour machine flitting from one government job to the next - as if that was a qualification for leadership? Hmmm.

And Labour's philosopher-at-large, Chris Trotter's definition of the Labour Party's problem as connecting with a mythical "Waitakere Man" has taken a blow after he died. NZ Herald:

Waitakere man [...] died instantly after the spinning propeller of his homemade hovercraft struck his head during a test run on Muriwai Beach, west of Auckland, on July 31 this year.

Coroner JP Ryan said an inspection by a marine engineer and ship surveyor who has experience with hovercraft found the hovercraft was "structural on the light side, and that structural failures were inevitable".

The engineer's report found the "overall condition of the craft creates an impression of urgency by the owner to make the hovercraft functional, well before it was viable or safe to do so", Coroner Ryan wrote.

"This is indicated by a significant number of aspects of the construction which had not been completed prior to the test run, such as a mechanism for steering the craft, a seat and seatbelt for the pilot, and a safety grill for the lift fan."

What a way to go. Using this tragedy as an analogy is tempting: No steering, no seat and a big rush, structural failure - sounds like the way to lose an election.

Book ends

2011-12-07T10:01:00.000+13:00

Just when you thought John Banks - he's going to be an Associate Education Minister in the new National government if you didn't already know - was suffering from an embarrassing and massive cultural deficit that will never be overcome...

3News: John Banks has only seen three movies in his 60 years. They are the Sound of Music, The Man from Laramie and Spice World.

“Someone told me they last longer than an hour and I can't sit still for that long,” says Mr Banks.

... along comes the Mexican presidential candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto.

Guardian: Asked when launching his book, 'Mexico: The Great Hope', at a literary festival, which were the three other books he'd say had changed his life, the presidential candidate was suddenly at a loss for words.

After four minutes, Enrique Peña Nieto managed to name the Bible, The Eagle's Throne, and, oh, a couple of best sellers by Jeffrey Archer. Except he mistakenly attributed the second book, a classic satire on Mexico's politics, to a historian and not novelist Carlos Fuentes
[...]
These faux pas by the Institutional Revolutionary party candidate, famous for his good looks and telenovela star wife, at the international literary festival in Guadalajara, left Mexico's social and mainstream media buzzing with mockery.
[...]
Peña Nieto tried contrition, thanking the "critical and even funny" responses. Then his daughter kept things ticking over by retweeting a comment on his critics: "Hello to the bunch of wankers that come from the proletariat and only criticize those they envy". More damage limitation. Peña Nieto had, he tweeted, "had a talk with my children about respect and tolerance".

All class.

Mr Ready vs Mr Likable for Labour Party Coven Leadership

2011-12-07T06:41:00.003+13:00

It's David Shearer vs David Cunliffe for the Leader of the Labour Party but more important than who will win is the fact that it's two Aucklanders, so either way Auckland wins and loses. The grueling selection process is like a masturbation race using a cheesegrater, sure there's a winner at the end of it, but who would want you afterwards?

In one corner we have the hunger of David Cunliffe with all the ambition of a middle class family trying to move into a Grammar zone, he is as ready as an AK-47 to take it to John Key from day one.

In the other corner is Labour's answer to Fozzy bear, David Shearer who is loved because he isn't David Cunliffe. Shearer's main attraction is he's likable, meaning Labour should look at putting up a kitten, a baby monkey hugging a toy and an otter doing some cutsy thing with it's hands to fill out the Deputy, Finance and Education portfolios.

As a political purist, I find that we would select the leader of our country on likability as inane as demanding your pilot is likable. I don't care how often my pilot smiles, I care he can fly me and land me in one piece, that said, perhaps David Shearer is onto something, NZ just handed absolute power to John Key to sell the entire continental shelf of NZ off and NZers did that because they 'like' John Key.

If our election has been degraded down to the like button on Facebook, perhaps we should apologize to David Cunliffe right now. Sorry Mr Cunliffe, you are simply too intelligent and talented for NZ.

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Random act

2011-12-06T14:03:00.000+13:00

NZ Herald:

A woman has been taken by ambulance after an abseiling mishap during an entertainment show in Aotea Square.

The show was part of a series of street acts, put on by The Edge and The Big Little City called "Random Acts" which started today and is set to run through to Christmas.

Witnesses said the woman had been playing the part of 'Seaweed' along with two other acrobats who were dressed as a mermaid and a crab.

She fell from the top of the cinema building in front of an audience of ten people.

She was said to have been conscious after her fall, but left a pool of blood at the scene after she was carried away.

Terrible and shocking... an audience of ten!? People are risking their lives to entertain the public and only ten people show up. What's the point?

Schools run by corporations, open pit mining on conservation land and privatization of welfare: Welcome to Key's NZ

2011-12-06T10:19:00.004+13:00

The National Party are running around with the sort of glee children with attention Deficit Disorder do in a sweet shop. National simply can't believe the sleepy hobbits have really granted them the vast mandate to restructure the entire country in the interests of the rich. The breathtaking audacity announced since their two seat majority Government scrape through with a mere 32% of the electorate gives a clear indication that we can expect National to once again misuse urgency to ram through their hard right economic policy as social policy agenda minus any of the usual democratic safeguards before the mainstream media come home from their Bali holidays in March.

In the short time since their historic 48% win, National have announced a massive new open pit mine on conservation land, the privatization of welfare, and allowing religious freaks and corporate freaks to buy schools and run them.

Welcome to John Key's NZ.

Announcing an open pit mine on conservation land days after victory was astounding enough, but to have Kate Wilkinson claim she didn't have to open the process to the public after specifically telling conservation groups that if the open pit mine went ahead that they would be allowed to is breathtaking arrogance.

Well done NZ.

The privatization of Welfare is joyful madness. The powers Paula has given her department mean that if someone on Welfare turns own a job NO MATTER WHAT THE REASON, they have the benefit cut. What the privatization of this process means is private 'employment agencies' will be given bonuses when they cut people off welfare after offering beneficiaries work they turn down. The counter productive results this process creates show that it is ideology not measurable outcomes on poverty that is dictating social policy.

Why should a private 'employment agency' get the bonus when that money should go to an employer risking the employment?

Round of applause NZ.

And now we have a little discussed ACT policy to allow religious freaks and corporate freaks to buy public schools and run them for profit. Sure, the Ronald McDonald Creationist High School might look better on paper, but the abortion of allowing corporate profit driven influences and fundamentalists to run our public education system might be a hard right wing fantasy too far.

In light of the OECD report today showing we have one of the best public education systems in the world, surely we wouldn't allow National and John Key to deface our very own public education service?

Surely?

The icing on the top of this shit cake is the report out today by the OECD showing inequality has sky rocketed in NZ. The income of the richest 10 per cent of Kiwis is now more than 10 times that of the poorest 10 per cent. What's hilarious is that the elites are borrowing for their tax cuts while forcing the rest of us to subsidize it through higher GST.

Welcome to John Key's NZ right as the vacant optimism starts to fade to the black swan nesting holiday home reality our economy is becoming with the latest growth trim from Treasury.

But to the victor go the spoils of war, if sleepy hobbits are really so thick to trust a multi-millionaire money trader peddling vacant aspiration to provide a more socially just society, then those sleepy hobbits get the Government they deserve, and as for the vast number so disenfranchised by the media's constant claim that Key was 60% ahead and who made 2011 the worst voter turn out in over a century, a concerted effort must be made to bring those back into the democratic fold.

Lowering the voter age to 16 alongside a civics course in the curriculum, making half the day of the election a public holiday, throwing out the legislation banning prisoners from voting, cultural immersion classes for new citizens explaining how the political structure works and making these classes freely available through adult education courses at schools are idea that need exploring.

Relaxing the process to have your details kept private would allow those keeping debt collectors and abusive ex partners away to enroll.

If we do not make immediate moves to re-enfranchise those million who enrolled but didn't vote, it will be to the detriment of our democracy as a whole.

That said, sleepy hobbits reap what they sow, and the harvest looks terribly bitter.

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The deals

2011-12-06T10:04:00.000+13:00

National's parasitic micro-parties have been allowed to suck a tiny amount out of the body - in proportion to their insignificant size their policy gains have also been insignificant. The NZ Herald summarising what has been divied up so far (with the Maori Party yet to have their turn):

ACT

* John Banks ministerial portfolios: Regulatory Reform, Small Business, Associate Education, Associate Commerce.
* Establish Charter Schools (free, state-funded, independently run) to take over under-performing schools or set up new ones.
* Pass law to set cap on government spending limits but with no penalty if breached.
* Annual reporting by Treasury on the income gap with Australia.
* Pass law to require better explanations of regulation-making powers in new legislation.

UNITED FUTURE

* Peter Dunne ministerial portfolios: Revenue, Associate Health, Associate Conservation.
* Law to prevent any sell-down of SOEs beyond 49 per cent.
* Cease helicopter hunting of game on conservation estates.
* Cut Families Commission commissioners to one and fund parenting courses and relationship education in schools with the savings.
* Discussion paper on "flexi-super" - different rates depending on age of uptake.

It is all quite insignificant and closely aligns with National's policies anyway.

Act's capping of government expenditure (with no consequences for a breech in the proposed statute) is effectively already in place, the obsession with comparing economic penis size with Australia is pointless and and has no effect, and the regulatory bill will never overcome the irony that it is more regulation interfering with more regulation.

However the "Charter Schools" policy is of significance and despite being Act rhetoric for many years it appears it is probably more of a National brain-wave than an Act one. It is a back-door privatisation of the state school system and a back-door to attempt to erode the powerful teacher unions - as such it will meet fierce resistance. The philosophical basis and the practical consequences will be debated hotly and because the unions will fight it is no surprise that Key was on the radio this morning wanting to plough ahead with it as quickly as possible.

When I recall the sorts of failure in some poorer schools and the type of failed leadership that entrenches poor performance and low expectations - like the head of a school in Tamaki (since closed I understand) who I can remember quoted as saying his school was only good for producing cleaners and low paid workers - there is evidence that the system at the bottom end of the decile ratings could do with a kick in the pants. But how companies and the private sector are supposed to achieve this radical transformation by way of destroying accountability to parents and giving free reign to the government's appointed managers to break teacher unions reeks of hidden agendas rather than quality education as the outcome. As with the bulk-funding scenario that National introduced in the 90's the pilot schemes will be little more than favouratism to the government's (ie. National's) preferred institutions. The first ones will be resourced and supported over and above what the future roll-out will be so it will appear that the scheme is working well - they will not be allowed to fail. The problem will be when they attempt to put it upon the reluctant mass of schools without the same funding.

From the agreement:

With respect to education, the parties have, in particular, agreed to implement a system, enabled under either sections 155 (Kura Kaupapa Maori) or 156 (Designated character schools), or another section if appropriate, of the Education Act, whereby school charters can be allocated in areas where educational underachievement is most entrenched. A series of charters would initially be allocated in areas such as South Auckland and Christchurch. Iwi, private and community (including Pacific Island) groups and existing educational providers would compete to operate a local school or start up a new one. Schools would be externally accountable and have a clearly-defined, ambitious mission. Public funding would continue to be on a per-child basis.

This may be one of the biggest battles ahead for the new government. The idea of competition in the document is purely ideological and is itself "ambitious", ie. a risk. The fact the Nats have got Act to carry the can for it is a wise tactic - any failure will be down to John Banks getting off-side with a profession he once said was full of "sloppy jersey wearing" louts. He's an Associate Education Minister now!

Welfare privatisation is also on the agenda and is another battle in the same war.

The full text of the Act-Nat deal is on National's website.

By comparison Peter Dunne's deal is very much under the radar and non-controversial: National said it wouldn't sell more than 51% of the state assets anyway, and the early retirement possibilities under consideration sound vague.

Maori Party: personal politics

2011-12-05T11:10:00.001+13:00

While National's irrelevant pair of lap dogs will be formally spooned out their little ration of pet food into their bowls later today by their master, the Maori Party is scrapping for the bones under the table:

The Maori Party hui over a proposed confidence and supply agreement with National began last night but ministerial positions would not be discussed, Maori Party president Pem Bird told the Herald.
[...]
It is understood that National has told Mr Bird and his fellow negotiator, vice-president Ken Mair, that the Maori Party can decide whether to put up co-leader Pita Sharples or Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell for a ministerial post alongside co-leader Tariana Turia.

National would not be concerned if Dr Sharples kept his Maori Affairs portfolio but lost the leadership to Mr Flavell. It would also be comfortable if Mr Flavell were made co-leader and held a ministerial position.

But not both - National won't put up with all three Maori Party MPs as Ministers as that is far too much baubleage to justify.

I blogged on the leadership a few times at the beginning of the year when the foreshore and seabed deal was going through and Hone Harawira was being shunted out. I could see the writing on the wall and asked Te Ururoa directly what his leadership intentions were and why he was trying to oust Hone. Firstly he stated that the reason he was trying to discipline Hone was personal. This I actually believe - it was personal.

Secondly he rejected the claim I put to him that he was getting rid of Hone because he wanted the co-leadership. I asked him who the next male leader would be if they got rid of Hone? He said that "you never know." It was quite clear to me what was going on and what his agenda was back then. It seems he has wasted no time in putting the knife into Pita to achieve his personal goal.

He got rid of Hone because that was his challenger to the leadership - and he knew he couldn't take it against such a personality and so he took offence and outrage of a personal nature and when Hone started to organise at a flax roots level against his expulsion he (and the others in the party) realised he would win and so they acted to cut him off at the pass.

I expected Pita to stand down with maybe a year to go and for Te Ururoa to take over at that point; but rolling Pita before the specials have even been counted - that's ruthless. No wonder there is talk that a by-election may take place if Pita loses his portfolios. I know that the Nats greatly admire Te Ururoa based on his willingness to completely and utterly sell-out to them, so they will be encouraging this behind the scenes having already established in his own mind his competence and suitability for ministerial rank.

I was at a gathering yesterday and it was announced there that a Maori Party hui would be held this week in town to discuss a deal with National. My sounding is that the older, conservative, more corporately-inclined members still left in the Maori Party will go with National again. The younger and "radical" ones had left to help Hone form the Mana movement so resistance to supporting the Tories and their right-wing policies will not be evident at these Maori Party hui. They have few qualms about privatising state assets as long as Iwi get a look in - however small.

Dr Sharples, who is in his 70s, won the seat by just 746 votes from Labour's Shane Jones on November 26 and it is unlikely he would have stood if he knew he would be on the backbenches.

Mr Bird is from Mr Flavell's Waiariki electorate and last week said he would expect Mr Flavell to have a ministerial post if he were co-leader as well.
[...]
It is not clear whether a leadership coup against Dr Sharples is under way with the possible support of co-leader Tariana Turia.

Mr Bird and Mr Mair have suggested that the endorsement of the co-leadership by the party executive - as required under the constitution - may be more than rubber stamping the status quo.

Ken Mair is perhaps still punch drunk from his biffo at the charity boxing match the other day if he thinks ditching Sharples is the way to go. Pem Bird is based in Murupara and would be expected to back his local MP, so it does all come down to whether Tariana thinks now is the right time for Te Ururoa to succeed to the leadership.

Looking at how Annette Sykes from Mana managed in the course of less than six months of organisation to slash his majority from 6,000+ to under 2,000 (with specials still to come in), Te Ururoa and Pem perhaps see that they cannot survive another term with National (especially not in full privatisation mode and moves to the right, further and further away from the traditional interests of Maori voters) so it is best to grab what they can now rather than wait till near the end when they will face defeat.

The gambit of a Te Ururoa coup has hallmarks of desperation and all the potential for instability if Sharples refuses to go along with an undignified political exit. However there will be little sympathy from Maori voters for what happens, and Hone and the Mana movement will appear more coherent and their kaupapa more authentic in comparison with a Maori Party with obvious divisions.

Shearer vs Cunliffe: The Nation and Q+A current affairs review

2011-12-04T09:46:00.002+13:00

The Nation
Any pretense by the right wing blogs that Shearer is the man to fight Key have been shattered in the last 24 hours by The Nation interview.

While some on the left seem to happy to allow David Farrar to select the next leader of the Labour Party, their breathless endorsement of Shearer looks pretty high and dry in the wake of his performance against Cunliffe in the debate.

Look, I love David Shearer, think he'll make an incredible Education Minister, but sweet Jesus, his performance on this debate was shockingly woeful, that performance makes it crystal clear that he is not ready to take Key on from day one and that the Labour Party Coven are about to make a terrible mistake in his selection.

If they fuck this up, they'll spend the next 3 years staring down another defeat and everyone will know it once the leadership starts.

Cunliffe as a cusp Gen Xer represents a generational change for the Labour Party, the age difference between Shearer and Cunliffe is the generational difference between an iPod and a new model iPad.

And we don't live in an ipod world any longer.

The Labour Party Coven must look at who can beat Key in 2014, based on this performance on the Nation, that answer is Cunliffe.

Q+A
After helping National get elected, Q+A are now looking at the Labour Party leadership. When will Q+A be hosted by David Farrar? Thank God it's the last one for the year, I haven't seen anyone from Q+A admit their bullshit mainstream media political polls were wrong.

Wasn't baby boomer wannabe and Q+A producer Tim Watkins awful on Pundit blog this week?

Just awful.

Cunliffe vs Shearer debate is on, Cunliffe is far quicker on his feet, and as a cusp Gen Xer, Cunliffe has the generational edge.

Gen Xers are the generation that will have to clean up the mess the baby boomers have created, and Gen Xers are sick of listening to a generation who gained their education for free and used their wealth to property speculate Gen Xers out of owning their first home. It's time for the bloated locust generation of the baby boomers to move out of the way for the next generation of leaders to start making the changes.

Q+A have admitted that the global economic situation is in meltdown, congrats, that's a point Tumeke was making 3 years ago.

YAWN.

How is this current affairs? I bet NZ on Air shovels more taxpayer money into this.

WestPac is on when it was Westpac who were claiming this year would be amazing for the NZ economy.

Oh the laughter, I love watching rich people squirm as the realization that this is a genuine crises of capitalism becomes more and more apparent. The Washington neo liberal consensus is in collapse, it's as simple as that.

Nice to see Q+A finally understanding that.

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Bomber's Blog - The War on News - ONLINE NOW!

2011-12-04T08:53:00.001+13:00

Phil Goff decides to leave the elevator after farting in it

Which Political Circus Freak from NZ First will meltdown before Christmas?

And Greedy Farmers set to get more from our Asset sales

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Citizen A this week with Phoebe Fletcher & Geoff Houtman

2011-12-04T08:31:00.002+13:00

Citizen A - 8pm Friday Stratos Freeview 21 & Sky 89

Tune in to join Bomber and his revolving panel of bloggers and Auckland opinion shapers as they offer an up-to-date half hour review of the political media issues of the current week from a very Auckland perspective.

Issue 1 - Election results - what now for National, do they have the mandate? Will the Maori Party cut a deal with the Nats? How was the media coverage?

Issue 2 - Labour Party leadership - what do they need, what will they get?

Issue 3 - The occupation in Aotea Square - won't somebody think of the children? Is it time to evict these peace nick hoodlums before they spark independent thought?

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Gen X Cunliffe vs Baby Boomer Shearer

2011-12-02T06:42:00.007+13:00

So Phil Goff decides to leave the elevator after farting in it. The nicest Prime Minister NZ never had fell onto his sword this week after leading the Labour Party through 40 days and 40 nights of the desert only to find the GPS system was on the blink, leaving them somewhere south of Invercargill.

Phil steps down and the next leader of the Labour Party fights for the approval of the Labour Party Coven who will open goats livers to peer into the future to see which one of their anointed will they select to lose against John Key in 2014.

The workers Party of NZ will select between a Harvard educated Gen Xer, a Wellingtonian, a Maori Princess and the Labour Party's answer to fozzy bear, David Shearer.

Now Parker has decided to step down and support Shearer the contest is between Cunliffe and Shearer, what is a progressive to do?

As a Gen Xer, Cunliffe represents a generational change of leadership for the Labour Party, where as Shearer is a member of the bloated locust generation of Baby Boomer. Seeing as NZ has been gutted of any Gen X talent (as they have mostly fled overseas), watching a Baby Boomer mug a Gen Xer of a career advancement in this country is as NZ as alcohol damage to the liver.

Cunliffe has a generational difference in world view but even South Island farmers would vote for a candidate called Shearer.

Either candidate would be a great step forward from Goff, but seeing another Gen Xer deprived once again of leadership is almost enough to consider tickets to Australia.

As for Hard Right wing propagandist David Farrar supporting David Shearer as leader of Labour, that's a bit like taking recommendations from Darth Vader on human rights legislation

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Act: Hiding to nothing and MMP deals

2011-12-01T11:56:00.001+13:00

Cactus Kate's post-mortem in the NBR points to a deep disrespect from former Act voters with what the party has dissolved into:

Dr Brash [...] led ACT to a record thumping. A 1% list vote and barely scraping through in Epsom in a tactically contrived win where Don and John managed to almost grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
[...]
There are all manner of faux excuses for ACT’s performance; poor media coverage being just one of those rolled out.

I will make it a whole lot simpler – the voters mocked Don Brash and with it ignored ACT.
[...]
Having your own core voters think the Leader is a dithering fool and with it ignore the Party as relevant is terminal.

ACT has ground itself down with obsessive branding labels such as libertarian, classical liberal and conservatives.

The over-indulgence has caused me confusion such that right now even I have no idea what faction I belong to.
[...]
John Banks remains as the last man standing after one of the most disasterous coups in New Zealand politics.

A poorly executed coup without an army.

A coup where short-sighted ACT MP’s Douglas, Roy and Calvert anointed Dr Brash but in turn the only reinforcements he dragged with him to run the Party were Lindsay Perigo and John Banks.

Dr Brash turned out to be the old duffer most of us all feared.

Rodney Hide not mentioned - not even once! Brutal. She has been with the party since university days before their first election, alongside Rodney stuffing enevelopes no doubt, so his exclusion from the narrative is just mean.

I know from talking to insiders that their internal polling had Rodney's chances of keeping Epsom as doomed after being caught perking with his girlfriend. I said it wasn't as bad as all that and the electorate would forgive him, especially since the election (at that stage) was about two years away. But no, they freaked out, dropped their balls (that is to say Sir Roger couldn't help himself organising a coup against the man that had become akin to a nemesis), adopted the old duffer as their champion and paved the way for John bloody Banks (of all people) to take over the show. A disaster of some making, but to obliterate Hide from the history is
wrong - Kate is not the sentimental type.

She looks forward in hope, if from a point of disarray:

A John Banks link-up with the Conservative Party would be terminal for ACT and with it ruin the Conservative Party.

ACT must remain separate so John Key and National can do a seat deal with them similar to Epsom encompassing the religious right and social conservatives.

This is smart politics for the centre-right.

Under MMP, even the most popular prime minister could only barely scrape a majority, which proves how hard it will be for the centre-right next time if we don’t work intelligently as a collective to structure coalition partners for National on a more coherent and friendly basis.

This is why the MMP review is crucial to the future make-up of parliament and whether in the long-term the right can remain competitive against a left bloc that is fractured, but probably always in a majority if the turn-out is high.

I argued before that Boscawen alone was the one Act MP that deserved to be returned - and if he had run a strong campaign in Tamaki (with the 'we are only seeking the party vote' sort of soft collusion we have come to expect from National in these Epsom/Ohariu scenarios) it would have been a better outcome all round for Act. But that opportunity was lost, as was that of doing the same deal for Colin Craig in Rodney.

The problem is that the local National members - and indeed the head office - is loath to concede any electorate that naturally aligns to them. Fair enough. That creates its own problems of forming government when these anomolies of gaming the system are not utilised. If the Nats had let Craig and his Conservative chequebook party in the gate in Rodney they would now have a comfortable cushion to their right on which to recline.

The MMP review will determine which way these chips stack up and how the cards will be dealt. The system we get after the review will be with us for maybe a couple of decades.

At the moment, because of the overhang provisions, encouraging - or installing - a conservative rural party to take the true blue provincial electorates and letting Act into the true blue urban seats is the smart move for National. Although Kate didn't mention it specifically it also means that the party vote must be uncontested by these smaller parties if they want to really help National. It means attempting to distort the proportionality at the heart of the MMP system and I'm sure the likes of Murray McCully have already run the numbers and have formed an agenda on how to get the best out of the review for National.

The fear has always been that gaming it like this will cause a backlash from voters who not only resent the "deals" aspect of which they have no control and see as a subversion of their democratic choices, but also of the enlarged parliament it would create - blowing out to 150 or more depending on whether Labour tried the same fix. This fear - combined with a reluctance to share power with other parties - has kept the major parties from scamming it, however with a clear few decades ahead and with the knowledge and experience of how close the right/left blocs are these deals may well come about and be evident at the next general election.

The question then is to what extent will MMP change? My pick is that if the overhang provisions remain then the temptation will be there to do the deals mentioned above and the creation of electorate-only feeder parties - the so-called "parallel parties" scenario that was spoken of as options when MMP was first introduced (by Maurice Williamson wasn't it?). The "coat-tailing"/"hitch-hiker" provision of winning an electorate to limbo under the 5% bar won't matter either with these potential electorate-only parties from what I can work out.

UPDATE: And speaking of large unweildy and unresponsive duopolies engaging in phony divisions to game the system I must note that Telecom has just split formally into two parts to get around the constraints of their particular market regulation:

The demerger sees Chorus become a public company to take part in the Government's ultra-fast broadband scheme and roll out high-speed fibre internet cables in 24 towns and cities over the next eight years.

Since the split, Chorus is now a wholesaler and own 130,000km of copper lines, more than 27,000km of fibre cables and more than 500 telephone exchanges.

Telecom is a standalone retail business but keeps hold of its mobile network.

It's all bullshit of course. The shareholding will be similar and ditto the awful corporate culture of disservice and ditto everything else. And as for that government-funded ultra-fast broadband that everyone thinks is so wonderful and will somehow miraculously "step-change" the nation's productivity, that is merely a gross subsidy for Telecom and Vodafone's private networks - more corporate welfare.

Post election redux

2011-12-01T09:19:00.004+13:00

The National Party's win on Saturday night was not unexpected. They had been floating high in the opinion polls following Christchurch, the Rena and the Rugby World Cup, which gave Key unprecedented coverage. This did not give the media much time to absorb the policies, given that they were keeping up with the releases of eight parties considered to be significant enough to get into government. They dropped slightly on the 50% plus that they were polling in the lead up to the election, which was widely predicted. However, their result was not as strong as has been interpreted - certainly a solid benchmark for MMP, but one that if they lose an MP on the special votes may still mean that they need the Maori Party as kingmaker.

John Key was not wrong in the days before the election in saying that elections are close. Apart from the strongholds, there were many seats in the 2008 election that were considered marginal: Auckland Central, Rimutaka, Waimakiriri, Waitakere, Harauki-Waikato, Christchurch Central and West Coast Tasman - and those are just those that had under 1,000 votes determining the outcome. Of those that had less than a 2,500 majority, you had seats like Tukituki, Wellington Central, Ohariu, Otaki, Hamilton West and Maungakiekie. There are seats that are traditionally the strongholds of one party - such as Dunedin North, which Labour has held since 1928. Then you have seats like Taupo that tend to swing between Labour and National. While I have only mentioned 13 electorates of 60, these are potentially enough to have a significant outcome on the vote. The electoral votes tend to go to National or Labour, with the relatively rare exceptions of Peter Dunne's Ohariu seat (responsible for the overhang this time), Winston Peters' botchy history with the Tauranga seat (which he did not run with this time) and Jeanette Fitzsimmons' brief run in the Coromandel. Since MMP, there has been more fluctuation with the Maori seats, which are traditionally dominated to Labour but saw NZ First dominating in 1996, then the rise of the Maori Party, and Mana as a new contender this election. So while we have seen National dominate this election and Labour suffering reduced minorities in some seats, the swing seats usually have such low majorities that is difficult to overstate the effect of National cleaning up this election.

We will need to wait for the special votes to come in to see if they hold their seats or drop down one on the specials as they did with Cam Calder in the 2008 election where they gained another Green MP. It is quite possible also that it could be NZ First that gains this time, being very close to the quotient for getting in.

In light of this, the comparison between Labour's collapse this election to its beginnings as a party in the 1920s has been perhaps overstated slightly, partially because there were still three major parties which led to the vote being split three ways. We are no longer in First Past the Post, and it would work better contextualized within a growing awareness of MMP, which has seen the Left splitting their votes more this election than the right. NZ First's entry into parliament this time, if one were to take the polls as an indicator, seems to have taken votes from Labour more than National, and Labour also shed a lot of votes to the Greens this term.

Labour certainly has problems, and in my opinion this is due to a few factors. First, you have people on the left that seem to be voting more strategically than the right. Their constituency also includes people who are far less likely to vote because of their socioeconomic background, which is a problem that Mana also picked up heavily this election. This bleed to the Greens has made Labour look as if they are weak, when really there is still a large proportion of left votes which had National biting their nails to the very last minute, or as Stephen Joyce remarked, he was like a cat on a hot tin roof. Second, you had the dominance of the economy as a key issue this election, rather than issues like Health or Education which tend to favor Labour. The Herald surveys leading up to the election showed that for 50% of voters this was their biggest issue, and this favored the incumbent. Communicating budgets to a population is in some ways a hard sell, particularly if you are the opposition. This was made even harder due to the highly publicized moments where Cunliffe and Goff struggled to remember their numbers on television - never a good look going into an election. The battle that Labour faced was exemplified in the Mood of the Boardroom debate for those who saw it - Cunliffe flicking through power points at the speed of light with figures and graphs, while English managed to write his whole argument off in a sentence by saying that for Labour, overspending is habit.

This focus on external economic movements led to some of the most painful debates I have ever seen on the economy as people struggled to explain what is going on in the Eurozone. Usually this was accompanied by an overload of simplification that distended Europe from the domino effect of the US that began the problems and their historical engagement in warfare that to a large extent has led to the current countries being at the top, or the globalization of labour that since the 1970s has hollowed out the manufacturing industry in so-called 'first world nations' so that they can be undercut by the race to the bottom for cheap labour in developing countries. It is really no surprise what is happening now: the writing has been on the wall for so long. As early as 1898, US Senator Albert Beveridge was boasting that America was creating more than it could ever consume, and this got worse during the post-war boom of the 1950s, which saw the beginnings and development of a globalized production of labour that would then create the conditions for the last three decades of overconsumption in the west. The idea that things can be simply ideologically divided between what is best for the economy simply does not make sense to me - one only has to look at the effect that David X Li's faulty equation of the Gaussian Copula function for risk and its impact on the sub-prime market in the US to see that there are ideas on both sides that fail. As far back as 2009 economists like Robert Wade from the London School of Economics were signaling problems in the over concentration of wealth in the top 10%, creating figures that correlated to those preceding the Great Depression. While it doesn't necessarily make sense to draw lines in the sand, it does make good election politics in an environment where both parties are trying to differentiate themselves from each other, and in this case it clearly favored National.

So National might be the winners on the day, but they are entering tough times and this may not benefit them in 2014 in the same way as other concerns for voters begin to be exacerbated by the economy over the next few years. We are riding on the Asian markets at the moment, but China has a drop in manufacturing caused by their export markets and has rising insecurity problems due to social unrest. At the same time, however, they have announced a $1 trillion investment into green tech even though they appear to be a little ahead of the wave with Buffett not doing as well on his green tech cars just yet. The Eurozone is looking increasingly fragile, potentially only having days, with the British government warning their citizens in places such as Italy and Spain to prepare for riots. Just a couple of weeks ago we had the US Fed issue more than a 50% chance of a double dip. The US is currently extending its huge military budget towards looking increasingly at securing regional dominance against China. While we are protected from this somewhat in New Zealand, if we have a drop in commodities or our property prices things are not going to be so easy, and at the very least we will be looking at slow growth. It is definitely not an easy time to be riding the giant elastic band, and could give Labour a chance to rebuild and take the election in 2014. That is, if they manage to recover from losing some of their good MPs this time around who were placed too far down the list.

Greedy Farmers set to get more from our Asset sales

2011-12-01T07:26:00.002+13:00

Now National have won with such a resounding victory, there can't really be any claim that they don't have a mandate to flog off anything not nailed down to the overseas investment clique. Key has spent 3 years promising to privatize assets, you can't suggest he has a hidden agenda, he's been really open about his hidden agenda.

So we will now sell assets we already own to subsidize South Island farmers for irrigation infrastructure that steals and pollutes more water at a time when their product is returning them more money than ever before so they can really pay for their own bloody $400 million dollar irrigation infrastructure can't they?

Just think about that - $400 million subsidy funded by selling our assets for the richest industry in NZ, when it would cost 10% of that to feed every child in NZ in every one of the poorest schools of our country.

Bravo National, managing to con the electorate into that is Machiavellian genius on a Fox News level.

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TVNZ7 shut up, shop.

2011-11-30T11:58:00.000+13:00

Drinnan in the NZ Herald says the rumours are that TVNZ7 - the subsidised, cosetted, digital geek channel - will be handed over to an infomercial outfit when the funding runs out in the middle of next year. That's the first effective privatisation of National's glorious second term.

Guess Russell Brown and the gang better get used to expounding the wonders of discounted cosmetics and magnetised mattresses. And all anchored, perhaps, by the Briscoes lady - really:

Meanwhile, TVNZ is closing public service channel TVNZ7 next June and looking at proposals from ad agency Ogilvy to lease the frequency for a shopping channel.

TVNZ7 has government funding until June next year, but Ogilvy has talked to TVNZ about taking it over.

Ogilvy has a base of retailer clients and its own professional TV studios where it films the Briscoes TV commercials.

Classy.

Time for Auckland City Council to show real leadership over Occupation protestors

2011-11-30T10:06:00.003+13:00

The Auckland City Council have tried to evict the occupation movement out of Aotea Square. apparently the occupation protestors are bringing far too much life, culture and existential questioning of the current injustice of the mega wealthy into the public square, and the last thing we want in our public spaces are citizens questioning the issues confronting us that the mainstream media utterly ignore in favor of stories about lost penguins.

If the Auckland City Council wanted to show real leadership on this issue, they would take the bill for the costs of the Occupation directly to Wellington and demand the Government pay for these costs due to their policies contributing to the reason why the protestors are protesting in the first place.

It's the Government's policies that have seen 200 000 children in poverty while 150 of the richest families gained $7 billion in one year. Until the Government end endorsing policy that enriches the already wealthy, they can pay the costs of the occupation.

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The People of NZ have spoken but didn't seem to have heard a word

2011-11-30T10:00:00.006+13:00

NZers went to the polls and they have spoken! They said 'We'll keep the vacant aspiration multi-millionaire money trader over the automatron Phil Goff 1980's android thank you very much, and for reasons that defy political gravity, we'd also like to resurrect Winston Peters and his cavalcade of deformed personalities masquerading as a party list."

The Political result in the end was as one sided as the All Blacks facing a kindergarten first 15 made up of children in the late stages of cancer. John Key will take his scrape through one seat majority as a mandate to unleash the 4 horsemen of the Treasury and implement right wing economic policy as social policy where as Labour seem to have bent space and time itself by vanishing from this dimension altogether.

Sadly John fucking Banks is back and he has been tipped as Minister for Corrections? Just what our prison system needs, a law and order sadist.

I feel like I've woken up at a Ku Klux Clan rally wearing a Lady GaGa t-shirt.

If John Banks gets corrections he'll appoint Garth McVicars to run the prison chain gang and book burning programs.

What was more appalling than this homophobic dinosaur gerrymandering Epsom and returning to Parliament was the fact that John Banks revealed during the election that in his entire life, he had only ever watched 4 movies.

That's like only ever eating one type of vegetable, or sticking to just vaginal sex. How does one move through a multi-media age in an affluent Western Culture by the age of 60 having only watched 4 movies? The urban people of Epsom must be spluttering into their Starbucks.

The real question from the election however is which Political Circus Freak from NZ First will meltdown before Christmas?

The entertainment value of having Winston back will be eclipsed by the possible meltdowns of anyone one of the collection of political misfits he's brought in with him.

There's Andrew Williams, the singing weather man Brendan Horan, Andrew Williams, the South Island independence militia man, Andrew Williams, a faceless time server and Andrew Williams.

The NZ First caucus sounds like it will have all the credibility of a panel of lepers judging a beauty competition.

MEANWHILE the entire neo liberal Washington consensus economic hegemonic structure teetered on the brink of an event horizon black hole of financial debt, while we rearranged the deck chairs on the HMRNZ Titanic.

According to National and Labour, NZ would be back in surplus by 2014, GDP would climb, unemployment would dip, bread and honey would rain from the sky and sick pets would be healed.

However, Germany couldn't sell all it's debt for the first time, Chinese manufacturing output plummeted and the Italians had to pay 6.5% yield's on their 6 month loans. That's twice the rate they paid last month and in January they need to sell a further $30 billion Euros in bonds.

What does any of this have to do with us? Well if Italy melts down, that starts the entire Euro meltdown and global economic hegemonic collapse isn't the kinda thing you just ignore with optimism.

John Key's 'we don't know how lucky we are' economic plan is like taking prozac to deal with a gunshot wound to the head.

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The polls v the poll: performance credibility [UPDATED: +iPredict]

2011-11-29T15:01:00.002+13:00

Uber-blogger and National's polling guru, David Farrar, has made a table of how close the pre-election polling was compared to the figures on the night. The table shows the final polls in the last week. The red indicates the forecast was off by 1.5% or more.

The most obvious observation is how far off the polling organisations were with National's vote - they kept them above 50% when they were never going to get that outright majority - and how they didn't pick up the extent of NZ First's late surge. This was largely due to the polls not taking into consideration the undecideds - a major fault that tends to exaggerate National's actual level of support. The other stand-out is how askew the Horizon polling is - due, I understand - to the methodology of using an online audience that participate as if it were a game.

I made my predictions on 31st October, just before the lists were officially announced - a month before the election - so they cannot be expected to be as accurate as the other polling done in the last week, but they still measure up quite well given the time lapse and mean a lot more than Farrar's bragging over predictions made only a day before the election. Here is what I forecast (with the difference between actual in brackets):

[UPDATE: I've got an email from iPredict on how their dodgy insider trading gambling/market did so I've added in their data (also from one month before the election) after my own and prefaced it with "i"]

Because I'm not perfect and still want to claim I got it right I've allowed a 1% margin for the big parties and a half a percent for the minor ones.

(+/- 1%)
46% National (-1.99%) i-0.89%
32% Labour (+4.87%) i+1.47%
8% Greens (-2.62%) i+0.48%

(+/- 0.5%)
5.0% NZ First (-1.81%) i-2.11%
3.0% Mana (+2.00%) i+1.00%
2.5% Act (-1.43%) i+1.93%
1.0% Maori (-0.35%) i-0.15%
1.0% United Future (+0.39%) i+0.29%

1.5% All others (approx. -1.5%) i n/a

The only ones within my own margins of tolerance to claim I got them right were Maori and United Future - much the same as that reflected in Farrar's table.

National:
Only the Roy Morgan poll was closer than me - not too bad. The specials tend not to favour National either so when the official results are released in a week that should come down a bit closer to where I am, but not much, maybe a quarter of a percent. I said I couldn't see the Nats pulling higher than 47%, so I was wrong on that, but by less than a percent.

Labour:
Well I was way off. I concluded that Labour's vote would hold up and that a collapse, which I defined as a sub-30%, would be averted. Indeed I thought that all the way through and was confident about a good Labour showing when Goff performed well in the head-to-head debates. However I acknowledged that a meltdown was always on the cards and it would end up favouring mainly the Greens and then NZ First as well as Mana. The polls consistently showed Labour weaker than I thought they were - I should have listened to the polls in this case. I think a lot of Labour voters did turn Green and even more stayed at home, perhaps believing the dire predictions and thinking it was a wasted trip to the polling station. Perhaps a severe erosion is a better description of happened than a catastrophic collapse - it wasn't as if they were ever polling that high to start with.

Greens:
With Labour eroding away the Greens rose significantly and for once their soft, youth, stoner vote held up and deserting middle class Labourites pumped them well beyond what I thought they were capable of. Doubter. Mr Bradbury actually made a call about a week or two out on this blog that they would get 10.5% - so he nailed that one. They tend to do well on specials so the magnitude of my error will grow once they are counted. The polling organisation captured their vote strength quite well (although Roy Morgan and TV3 were out further than I was).

NZ First:
Apart from Roy Morgan they were all well out - I had picked their rise well in advance. If it weren't for that infamous cuppa between Banks and Key he wouldn't have lifted above the 5 - 5.5% I was picking.

Mana:
It doesn't help being a partisan trying to pick your party's own success. 3% was always on the high side - the logistics of turning out a vote that high with a new organisation with no dough was always pushing it up hill. The pollsters however under-rated Mana significantly.

Act:
They went from troubled to tragic to implosion during the four weeks of the campaign and if I could have revisited the prediction they would have been marked well down. Out of the road-kill was a bleed to National and maybe a quarter percent to Conservative. They mostly scuttled to National, but that just re-jigs things on the right without moving the total bloc vote: on my prediction Nat+Act=48.5%, on the night they got 49%.

Conservative:
Surprised everyone. I thought they could get to 1%, but 2.76% is amazing for a party that no-one knows about, except they are conservative. At least for most people; but the Christian vote knows who to follow and that good showing is mainly due to them.

Maori Party & United Future:
We all got this about right, but I thought Maori Party would dip just under 1%.

Also see Morgan Godfery's data on polling of the Maori seats to see how wild some of those figures are - albeit most were taken in September. I note that Mana only bet the Maori Party in the party vote in a handful of general seats and only one Maori seat, Hone's.

The low turnout was the decider really. The elderly keep turning out reliably while the young, the flaky youth flitter and didn't make it on the day, this leaves the oldies with a disproportionate inflation of their impact and so Winston and the Conservatives and National all did well at the expense of the others. In future things look bad for the left because of these trends. There will be more elderly as a proportion of the population and the turnout continues to drop, so more conservative elements will dominate if things don't change.