The Government Administration Committee has reported back the Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill which was to transfer some expense decisions away from the Speaker to the independent remuneration Authority, which is a good thing.

The Herald reports the major changes:

A committee of MPs has recommended tougher financial penalties for themselves and their colleagues when they are away from Parliament without leave.

But MPs on the Government Administration Committee say decisions about MPs’ travel perks should remain with Parliament’s Speaker while the Remuneration Authority should decide on the level of their accommodation allowances.

The Government’s Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Services) Bill – drafted in response to the regular public anger over MPs’ remuneration – lifted the penalty for MPs absent without leave for more than nine days each year to about $270 a day from the current $10.

However, the committee has recommended that the penalty kicks in after just three days and is effectively increased by setting it at 0.2 per cent of the individual MP’s gross salary.

That works out to $289 a day for a backbench MP, $525 a day for Crown Ministers and the leader of the Opposition and $838 a day for the Prime Minister.

That is much better.

While the Prime Minister, other ministers and MPs are frequently away from Parliament on sitting days, they generally have a leave of absence. New rules setting out the criteria under which MPs are deemed to be absent without leave will be formulated by parties in consultation with the Speaker.

Hone may not end up getting paid much! He’s almost never there.

I’m disappointed however that the committee did not take up (or even mention) my proposal that MPs remuneration should only be reviewed every three years, with any changes to take place after an election. This would have avoided the public backlash around MPs getting pay rises, as no MP would get a pay rise during their term of Parliament. So when they get a backlash at the next pay increase, well they’ll have no one but themselves to blame.

Martin van Beynen at The Press reports:

Get ready to pick up the tab for an $11 million insurance mistake by Christchurch City Council.

The error arose when council staff failed to insure the new $21m composting plant in Bromley when it opened in 2009.

An investigation by The Press into council’s insurance shortcomings has confirmed ratepayers will pick up the tab for the plant’s repair as no government subsidy is available.

The problem comes to light as a raft of insurance difficulties with council assets emerge, including questions over crucial valuations.

General manager corporate services Paul Anderson said the mistake was a “straightforward clerical error in my team so I’m responsible for that”.

The plant was insured while it was built but it was omitted from a schedule of completed assets.

“My team didn’t pick it up; our brokers didn’t pick it up,” Anderson said.

Asked whether disciplinary action was taken against the staff members responsible, he said the “insurance team” was now “not the same as it was at the time”.

So no one will be held accountable. Hey its only $11 million.

NIWA report:

• NIWA has been measuring wave height from a buoy two kilometres off Baring Head, Wellington, since 1995. Last night’s waves are the largest seen in that record.
• Last night, the highest waves measured were typically 15 metres, from peak to trough, for the period around midnight last night.
• Anecdotal information records the wave height at the time of the Wahine disaster at 12 to 14 metres.

Now I understand how the wall at Island Bay was destroyed.

• These measurement show that last night’s storm is in the same category as five other major storms recorded in 1961, 1965, 1967, 1974, 1977 and 1985.
• The maximum 10 minute average, sustained wind reading during the Wahine disaster was measured at 144 km/hour and stand out by far as the strongest in the 50 years of the record.
• So this was an extreme event, but still not as intense as the Wahine storm.

But not as windy as Wahine.

• The largest snow storm on record in the central South Island was registered in 1973.
• Snow depth recorded by NIWA staff at Methven yesterday was 99mm compared with 610mm snow depth measured in 1973.
• At Lake Tekapo, the snow depth of 600mm measured yesterday was similar to the 670mm measured in 1973.
• The snow depth recorded on the inland road near Waiau yesterday was 229mm, slightly more than the 161mm recorded last year.

And still some way to goon the snow front.

Lianne Dalziel has confirmed on Twitter that she will resign as an MP before the results of the Mayoral election are known.

This is the right thing to do, and Lianne deserves credit for that call.

She says she wants to have the by-election as far away as the Council election as possible. She could achieve that by resigning immediately and having a by-election in August. Of course that means no salary and no parliamentary resources (such as phones) while campaigning, so I suspect she is not keen on that option.

The local elections have the votes counted 12 October 2013. So let’s assume Lianne resigns on 11 October 2013.

This means the Governor-General must issue the by-election write by Friday 2 November 2013. the writ must be returned within 50 days which is 22 December 2013.

You need to allow 11 days for special votes, 3 working days for a recount application and estimate 3 days for a recount, so really the election day must be at least 17 days before 22 December, so the latest possible date for the by-election would be Saturday 30 November.

If Dalziel resigns on 11 October, then the earliest day would be Saturday 9 November for the by-election. Every week earlier she resigns then that week could move earlier.

I’m hoping for any date except Saturday 30 November, as I’ll be tramping that weekend, so out of cellphone and Internet coeverage!

I blogged previously on the Green party policy to ban all television advertising of food, unless they deem that food to be part of a balanced nutritious diet.

A reader has sent me a list of the top 50 TV advertisers in 2012. They include the companies below. It is a fair bet that if the Greens get to implement this policy in Government that it won’t just be Mediaworks in receivership, but also TVNZ. It would destroy free to air broadcasting as it is funded by advertising. It would be good for Sky TV though!

The top 50 TV advertisers include:

• Foodstuffs (1)
• Progressive (2)
• McDonalds (11)
• Restaurant Brands (21)
• Antares Restaurant Group (23)
• Coke (28)
• Sanitarium (38)
• Cadbury (39)
• DB (44)
• Lion Nathan (45)
• Fonterra (46)
• Subway (49)

How many of them will meet the Green Party litmus test to allow them to advertise on TV?

Just as pundits are saying Australian Labor needs Kevin Rudd back, Toby Manhire is saying NZ Labour needs to promote David Cunliffe. He writes in the NZ Herald. First he looks at the Sky City issue:

For the decision by a quartet of Labour MPs to accept the invitation from SkyCity to enjoy their generous hospitality and a sweet view of the first France test was staggering in its myopia.

Then the bank account:

David Shearer’s admission in March that he had overlooked and failed to declare several thousand dollars in a New York bank account was a nightmare for Labour, skewering two of the attacks levelled at the prime minister: that his wealth distances him from normal people, and those forgetfulness issues.

And the recent debate:

On its own, the SkyCity box thing does not a Labour party crisis make. But it fits a pattern. The commanding effort by David Shearer at the party conference late last year increasingly looks like an anomaly. In his contribution to the urgent parliamentary debate on the Peter Dunne resignation the other day – a debate Shearer personally demanded – the Labour leader appeared to be reading from a script that had been torn up and sellotaped together at random.

There has been much chatter about Shearer’s performance in that debate.  What makes it really bad is that this was a snap debate demanded by Shearer. It was almost as if he didn’t expect to get it and hadn’t prepared.

It’s true that Labour could end up leading a government if it continues in the current vein, but it would be one of hell of a shaky coalition, with the party outnumbered in Parliament by National by some distance.

They need a shake. An adrenaline shot. A risk, even. It’s now seven months since David Cunliffe was sent to the naughty step – expelled from the front bench for failing to squash talk of an insurrection.

Clearly he continues to be seen as a divisive figure, but he’s also shown, even from the backwater of the tax spokesmanship, that he remains a formidable politician. Confronted with National’s niggly, muscular front-row of Joyce, Brownlee and Collins, Labour can’t afford to leave Cunliffe in the shed.

But how about the ABCs?

As for the – ahem – optics, the promotion of an MP who had served his time would project strength, evidence of the leader’s vaunted experience in conciliation. To those MPs who continue to feel aggrieved on Cunliffe’s part it would send a message that the infighting must end.

A risk, yes. But a necessary one. Shearer’s elevation to and retention of the leadership has been enabled, so we’re told, by the weight of the Anyone-but-Cunliffe sentiment in the Labour caucus.

Less than 18 months out from the election, that ABC needs rethinking. Anything but carry on like this.

I would be surprised if Cunliffe was promoted to the front bench. His supporters are all being weeded out. Chauvel has gone. Dalziel is going. Mahuta has been demoted.

The real battle will be if Shearer loses in 2014. Then we see Cunliffe vs Robertson for the leadership. Cunliffe could win the membership vote by 2:1 so Robertson will need to win the caucus vote by at least 2:1 to balance that out (they get 40% each). Hence they will continue to try and weed pro-Cunliffe MPs out of caucus.

KPMG report:

Ask your average Kiwi which country is currently dominating foreign investment into New Zealand, and their answer would probably be China.

But the reality shows quite a different picture, according to research undertaken by KPMG NZ.

KPMG has analysed trends in foreign direct investment through a review of the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) approvals over the period July 2010 to December 2012.

This research showed that Asia accounted for only 16% of gross foreign direct investment over the last two years. Australia remains our main single source of capital, at 46%. Combined, North America, Europe and Australia accounted for approximately 70% of investment.

And of the 16% which is Asian:

Among Asian countries, Japan (53%) was a bigger investor in New Zealand than China and Hong Kong (33%). Significant acquisitions made by Japan in the last two years included beverage companies Independent Liquor and Charlie’s.

So China is one third of 18% which is 6%.

The full report states:

The growth of Asia represents a great opportunity for NZ. However, in an economic sense kiwi’s need to realise that Asia is more important to NZ than NZ is to Asia. Given that Asia’s consumer market is about 3.8 billion people and NZ’s is about 4.4million, it is easy to see why.

Joint ventures, partnerships and other innovative arrangements with foreign investors should be considered as ways to commercialise Kiwi innovation and to gain access to overseas markets.

Some parties demonise foreign investment. They seem to view the economy as a closed shop, and promote a view that every dollar of foreign investment is somehow crowding out domestic investment. But it isn’t. Foreign investment helps the economy grow, and creates jobs and more investment opportunities locally.

Simon Collins at NZ Herald reports:

Intensive housing project of 6000 homes and ideas for attracting new businesses and training organisations will help revitalise eastern suburbs around Tamaki estuary.

Auckland’s low-income suburbs of Glen Innes, Pt England and Panmure will roughly double in population under a draft plan for more intensive housing to be unveiled today.

The urban “regeneration” project, which could add up to 6000 new homes to an existing 5050, is expected to be one of the first “special housing areas” with fast-tracked resource consent processes under a housing accord signed last month by Housing Minister Nick Smith and Auckland Mayor Len Brown.

The target of 6000, included in the accord, makes it the biggest housing development scheduled in Auckland and twice as big as the 3000-unit Hobsonville development.

It covers the area between West Tamaki Rd in the north and the Panmure Basin in the south, including 2880 Housing NZ homes, about 1160 owner-occupied houses and just over 1000 private rental properties.

Unlike other developments, the draft Tamaki strategy also includes 11 other social, economic and environmental elements, as well as housing, designed to make the area more liveable despite doubling the population density.

Sounds very worthwhile.

The area is among Auckland’s most deprived, with a 2006 median income of only $20,000 and an employment rate of only 52 per cent, compared with 65 per cent across Auckland. Sole parents make up almost half the area’s families.

But the strategy sees opportunities for more jobs and training by attracting new businesses, redeveloping under-used land along the existing railway and encouraging training agencies such as Manukau Institute of Technology, Unitec and Te Wananga o Aotearoa to take over parts of Auckland University’s Tamaki campus, which the university plans to sell as it develops a new campus in Newmarket.

Houses, and jobs.

But Dr Smith said development was most likely to be done by “public/private partnerships” as at Hobsonville, where a Housing NZ subsidiary contracted with private developers to build houses.

Oh no, a public/private partnership. That means it is evil. It must be opposed by the left!

The NZ Herald reports:

A $760 million Northern Motorway extension to Warkworth has won Auckland Council support as a nationally important project rather than a “holiday highway” for Prime Minister John Key.

“This is not about Auckland and it is not about the holiday highway,” former Rodney district mayor Penny Webster told fellow members of the council’s regional development and operations committee yesterday.

The committee voted 16-4 to refer the project to a Government-appointed board of inquiry rather than deal with it locally under a process open to court appeals.

Excellent news for those living and working north of Auckland.

Kate Shuttleworth at NZ Herald reports:

A pay deal has been signed between the union representing primary and intermediate teachers and the Government to introduce an allowance for 800 expert teachers worth $4 million, the start of performance pay.

Principals will endorse teachers who meet a set of criteria judged against the New Zealand curriculum and they will be assessed by a panel of people who are yet to be decided.

The union, New Zealand Educational Institute, say they took the idea of an allowance to reward experienced teaching staff to the Education Ministry in its pay negotiation round, asking for as many allowances as possible.

Its Primary Teachers Collective Agreement was fully ratified with the ministry on June 7, after long negotiations.

The “advanced classroom expertise teacher allowance” was agreed to by the ministry, but was capped at 800 eligible teachers.

By 2015, 800 teachers across 2000 primary and intermediate schools will be paid an allowance of $5000 a year – worth $4 million.

A good step in the right direction.

Better teachers should be paid more.

A staff member at NZEI said its members would not see it as performance pay because teachers’ achievement wouldn’t be based on raw National Standards data.

That’s not what performance pay should be about. It should be about flexibility so that top teachers are paid significantly more than other teachers. How one assesses who is a top teacher is something I’d leave to each principal or board.

We hear a lot about income inequality. I find this to be a fairly unsophisticated measure, as it assumes people stay at the same income level thoughout their life. Of course people at age 18 earn a lot less than someone at age 50 with 30 years experience.

What I think is much more important is that people born into a poor household, have the opportunity to earn more than their parents did, and that wealth is earnt not just inherited.

A CIS publication has this graph from Australia.

So only a quarter of those born to a father in the bottom quintile end up in that quintile themselves. 74% move into a higher quintile including 54% who move into the middle or top two quintiles. That’s a good thing. It is not a perfect distribution (which would be 20% in each quintile) but it is far far from static.

Also 17% of those born to the wealthiest quintile, end up in the bottom quintile. So wealthy parents do not guarantee that you are wealthy. In fact 72% end up outside the top quintile.

This is what policy makers should focus on. Social and income mobility and equality of opportunity. Not on insisting an 18 year old should be paid the same as a 50 year old, or that an intern should be paid comparable wages to a group general manager.

And from Siberia, proof that some animals don’t actually mind the cold…

Amur Tiger

The Siberian (or Amur) subspecies population is reasonably stable at the moment, albeit the genetic makeup is creating some concern.

Kate Chapman at Stuff reports:

Mana Party leader Hone Harawira wants to offer Maori first-time homebuyers no-deposit, low-interest loans but admits he doesn’t know how much the programme would cost.

So do I have this right?

If you have a Maori great great grand parent you can get a no deposit, low-interest loan, but if you don’t you are not eligible?

Appalling.

And of course it is not costed. That would require someone to actually do some work, rather than just open the mouth.

Housing Minister Nick Smith said the Mana policy would cost more than $3 billion a year and put New Zealand “seriously in the red”.

The Mana policy is outlined here:

• Only Maori first home owners would be able to apply
• There would be no deposit
• Interest rates would be no higher than the rates government pays on money it borrows
• Applicants can either build new or buy an existing property
• Applicants will be able to negotiate mortgage arrangements that suit their circumstances

The Greens have proposed that the Reserve Bank Board should set the official cash rate, not just the Governor. It’s a reasonable debate to have, but one that seemed familiar. I was sure the issue had been canvassed in the past as part of an independent review. I asked Don Brash if my recollection was correct and he responded:

David, you are almost correct. Cullen asked Lars Svensson to conduct a comprehensive review of the whole monetary policy framework. At the time, in 2000, Svensson was a leading monetary policy academic, at Yale from memory. Being Swedish, he had the advantage of being from a country regarded as “moderate” in political terms and, like New Zealand, a country very dependent on trade, with a floating exchange rate. He has since become one of the Deputy Governors of the Swedish central bank. 

He gave the New Zealand framework top marks, describing it as “world’s best practice”, but he did say that he thought that having all monetary policy decisions vested in the single person of the Governor was risky. (Fortunately for me, he said I had done a good job!) He suggested that instead monetary policy decisions should be taken by a small internal committee of senior RB staff – not by the board of (outside) directors because of the potential for conflicts of interest. Both the Treasury and the non-executive directors of the Reserve Bank recommended that New Zealand stick with the single decision-maker model because that makes it easier to pin the blame if monetary policy doesn’t deliver what the Policy Targets Agreement (the agreement between Minister of Finance and Governor) requires to be delivered.

It is a fair point, that if you make the decision a joint one by the Board, it makes it harder for there to be accountability for any failure in monetary policy.

Bjorn Lomborg writes at the Huffington Post:

British Prime Minister David Cameron has rightly put free trade on the top of the G8 agenda. It is possibly one of the best ways we could help the world foster economic prosperity and development.

Cameron writes that comprehensive free trade “could boost the income of the whole world by more than $1 trillion.” As it turns out, this is likely a serious understatement.

The classic argument for free trade points out that specialization and exchange benefits everyone, because goods are produced by the countries that specialize in those goods and produce them most efficiently. The standard World Bank models show that realistic free trade, even just by the end of this decade would increase global GDP by several hundred billion dollars per year, with perhaps $50 billion accruing to the developing countries. Towards the end of the century, the annual benefit will likely exceed Cameron’s $1 trillion annually, with half going to the developing world.

But a growing number of academic studies now show that the free trade story goes much further than simple specialization. History shows that open economies grow faster. Good examples include Korea from 1965, Chile from 1974 and India from 1991, which all saw their growth rates increase significantly after liberalization. Even modestly freer trade helps domestic markets become more efficient and get supply chains better integrated. At the same time trade transfers knowledge, which spurs innovation. Free trade means we don’t all have to reinvent the wheel over and over again.

This is perhaps best captured in a recent state-of-the-art literature review by Professor Kym Anderson for the Copenhagen Consensus think tank. Anderson, one of the World Bank’s lead modelers, shows that the long-run benefits from even a modestly successful Doha free trade round would be vast. The annual GDP compared to no extra free trade would in 2020 be about $5 trillion larger, with $3 trillion going to the developing world. Towards the end of the century, slightly higher growth rates will have accumulated to benefits exceeding $100 trillion annually, with most going to the developing world. By then, benefits would add about 20 percent annually to developing world GDP.

The benefits of free trade to both the world, and especially developing countries are enormous.

In New Zealand we would have far higher unemployment and lower wages if it were not for our free trade agreements, especially the recent one with China which has seen exports treble.

Bear in mind that NZ First and the Greens both bitterly opposed the free trade agreement with China. The latter party has voted against every trade deal ever, as far as I know. If they had been around in 1983 they would have opposed CER with Australia.

While the benefits of global free trade seem so starkly obvious to the world, it is also clear that vested interests, especially in agriculture, fight for their privileges. About 40 percent of government expenditure on global subsidies goes to agriculture. Despite farmers comprising a very small proportion of the population in developed countries, agricultural interests seem to have a stranglehold over OECD governments to keep their $252 billion in annual support.

An obscene amount of money.

Yet, there are many reasons we need to get farmers and others off subsidies. Even with austerity, the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy makes up the biggest share of the EU budget, costing 363 billion euro between 2014 and 2020. The upcoming U.S. farm bill might waste $950 billion over the next decade.[viii] Here, the G8 should take the creative and courageous steps necessary. For example, it could compensate entrenched interests for their losses over the next decade or two, while it phases out subsidies and other trade distortions. This cost would run to another $50 billion per year globally, but would be a miniscule price to pay for the benefits yielded by free trade — for every dollar spent, the world would see much more than a hundred dollars of long-term growth benefits.

That would be a great step.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key was adamant yesterday the Reserve Bank and retail banks could find a way to exempt first-home buyers from proposed restrictions on low-deposit home loans.

At his post-Cabinet press conference, Mr Key said he supported the move by the Reserve Bank that would see banks limit how much of its new mortgage lending could be made on high loan-to-value ratios (LVRs).

He indicated any measures negotiated would be unacceptable if they penalised first-home buyers at the expense of speculators and property investors.

“Yes I accept absolutely and endorse the view that the banks should be forced to use this as a legitimate tool.

“I don’t think it should be a tool that is used to write high LVR ratios for a bunch of rich people, and lock out a whole lot of first-home buyers.”

I’m not so sure it is as easy as the Reserve Bank or the PM thinks. First let’s look at how big the “problem” is.

This data is from the five major NZ banks.

So the top three lines are all mortgages with LVRs below 80%.  They comprise four fifths of the total mortgages, and this was much the same in 2008.

There has been virtually zero growth in high LVR loans (over 90%) since 2008 despite there being solid growth in the housing mortgage market.

Essentially, of the approximate $185 billion of housing lending in NZ currently around $150 billion worth of it has an LVR of under 80%.

I think both the RBNZ are the Government somewhat over egging the problem and the need for LVRs.

We also have to be careful of the possibilities of unforeseen consequences. Restrictions on how much a bank can loan to home buyer may mean that they seek unsecured funding, rather than secured funding. This actually happened in Sweden, and actually works to decrease financial stability.

The proposed policies work fairly well in housing markets when there is an over-supply. But in NZ the problem is more an under-supply.

Jo Nova blogs on the costs of Green jobs. Parties around the world love to talk about creating Green jobs, because who can be against jobs and against being good for the environment? A win-win right?

The trouble is that their Green jobs are almost always reliant on huge subsidies that actually destroy jobs.

She gives five examples:

• Each green job in Britain costs £100,000 (and 3.7 other jobs)
  
• In Spain each Green job cost $770,000 and nine jobs were lost for every four created
• In Italy each Green job costs 5 jobs from the rest of the economy
• In Germany the subsidy per Green job is 175,000 Euros
• Green jobs in Denmark are estimated to have reduced Danish GDP by $270 million

We already have tens of thousands of “Green jobs” in New Zealand. They are the ones that get created when an employer is doing well enough to hire more people in the area they work in (such as tourism). The Green jobs that you hear certain political parties promote are the ones that require huge subsidies and destroy jobs elsewhere in the economy.

Always amusing to read the list of most trusted people. Some of the interesting inclusions:

1. John Kirwan, former All Black, depression awareness spokesperson
2. Willie Apiata VC, soldier
3. Richie McCaw, All Blacks’ captain
4. Alison Holst, food writer
5. Judy Bailey, TV presenter, charity worker
6. Peter Leitch, businessman, charity worker
7. Peter Snell, former athlete, scientist
8. Jerry Mateparae, Governor-General
9. Kevin Milne, former TV host. consumer advocate
10. Sarah Ulmer, cyclist
    

The top 10 professions:

1. Paramedics
2. Firefighters
3. Rescue volunteers
4. Nurses
5. Pilots
6. Doctors
7. Pharmacists
8. Veterinarians
9. Police
10. Armed Forces personnel

The bottom ten:

• 41. Call centre staff
• 42. Airport baggage handlers
• 43. Journalists
• 44. Real estate agents
• 45. Insurance salespeople
• 46. Politicians
• 47. Sex workers
• 48. Car salespeople
• 49. Door-to-door salespeople
• 50. Telemarketers

It’s nice the journalists and the politicians managed to beat out the prostitutes this year!

The Press Deputy Editor writes:

Lianne Dalziel is good for Bob Parker, and vice versa. It seems an odd argument, but each needs the other to validate whatever comes of the Christchurch mayoral election.

The point was made eloquently by city councillor Peter Beck when he announced in March that he would soon retire, and expressed a wish that the coming contest should be a “two-horse race”.

“My hope is that there is one, and only one, seriously credible alternative [to Mayor Parker] so that the city has a clear choice,” Beck said then. “That is good for democracy. It is good for both candidates. Whoever is elected will then hopefully carry a real mandate of the people.”

With respect, Cr Beck said that because he didn’t want Parker winning against a split vote. Nothing to do with mandate.

Voters should not pay too much attention to the party politics in this election.

Good God. Just ignore the fact she has spent two years demanding the Minister resign.

Both Parker and Dalziel have considerable strengths. The real danger here is that a credible third candidate will declare and deny ratepayers the chance to make a proper decision between the two. It would not help the city if a mayor was elected at this important time who did not command a clear majority of votes cast.

Such a credible third candidate would be perfectly entitled to stand, but should carefully consider his or her motives for doing so before declaring.

This is the bizarre part. I’m not sure I can recall a NZ newspaper before imploring people not to stand for office, let alone almost threatening them that they will be seen as having bad motives if they do stand.

How incredibly arrogant to declare that Parker and Dalziel must be the only choices and that a credible third candidate is a “danger” who will hinder a “proper” decision. I’d suggest many people in Christchurch would love to have a credible third candidate as they are so thoroughly depressed by the prospects of either Parker or Dalziel.

The Dom Post editorial:

The time has come for teacher unions to accept that national standards in reading, writing and mathematics are here to stay.

Parents clearly want plain-English reports about how their children are progressing in the three most important building blocks for a sound education, and the policy has been overwhelmingly endorsed at the last two elections.

It is therefore in teachers’ interests to work with the Ministry of Education to ensure a sound system of assessment and data collection. Sadly, the signs this week are that teacher unions and representatives will continue cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

One of the strongest arguments teachers have advanced against the standards is that there is a lack of consistency in the way they are applied and insufficient moderation at a national level. It is therefore difficult to judge, on the raw data, how well one school, or even pupils within the same school but with different teachers, are performing compared to others.

That is a valid concern, and one that the ministry has always acknowledged would need to be addressed as national standards were bedded in. Its solution is an online tool designed to assist teachers to make more reliable and consistent assessments, thereby giving more confidence in the integrity of results. Known as the Progress and Consistency Tool, or PaCT, it is being trialled this year and will be compulsory from 2015.

Given the fears teachers hold about the inconsistency of national standards results and the lack of moderation, the public could be forgiven for thinking they would fully support the introduction of the tool. Instead, the primary teachers union NZEI, the Principals’ Federation, the Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools and the Catholic Principals’ Association have called on school boards and teachers to boycott PaCT.

It’s the solution to the very thing they have been complaining about – and their response is to boycott it. It’s appalling.

They say because the system requires them to judge national standards by working through tick boxes of achievements to generate a result, it will undermine their professionalism and reduce quality teaching.

The claims are ridiculous. Ensuring consistent assessment in reading, writing and mathematics across schools will have no impact on how individual teachers seek to inspire, guide and educate their charges. All it will mean is that when an 8-year-old boy at a decile 1 Auckland school and an 8-year-old girl at a decile 10 Wellington school are assessed as being above the standard for reading, there is a much greater degree of confidence that the results are accurate.

If I was a primary school teacher I’d be embarrassed by having a union that is so hostile to consistent assessment.

Maybe the Government should play the same game as the NZEI, and remove it from every working group on educational policy in the country? They’ll get to represent their members on pay negotiations, but why should they be treated as a professional body on other issues when they so clearly are not?

If teachers fear the information being released is inaccurate, then the answer is to work with the Government to make sure the system in place is as robust, reliable and fair as possible

Most teachers are doing that. But the union activists are doing everything possible to stop this.

The Sun reports:

A LABOUR politician has revealed his marriage is on the ropes – because he’s cheating on his wife with an ALIEN.

Simon Parkes, who sits on Whitby Town Council, claims he meets his extra-terrestrial lover four times a year for sex sessions on a spaceship that’s orbiting the Earth.

The 53-year-old driving instructor even alleges he has fathered a love-child called Zarka with his mistresses – who he calls the Cat Queen.

Simon, a married father-of-three (human kids) from North Yorkshire, described his encounters with his other-worldly other woman in Channel 4 documentary Confessions Of An Alien Abductee.

He revealed: “What will happen is that we will hold hands and I will say ‘I’m ready’ and then the technology I don’t understand will take us up to a craft orbiting the Earth.”

The councillor claims his wife was furious when she found out about the affair – but he insists he’s doing wrong, because his lover is from another planet.

He explained: “My wife found out about it and was very unhappy, clearly. That caused a few problems, but it is not on a human level, so I don’t see it as wrong.”

Simon told the documentary team extra-terrestrials have been reaching out to him since he was a baby, because his “real mother” is a 9ft tall green alien with eight fingers.

I don’t think I need to comment.

Deborah Hill-Cone wrote in the Herald on Monday:

As a young female journalist I was probably sadly before my time in shamelessly trying to schmooze my way to notoriety of any kind like an overpainted attention-seeking goose. Back then, how I would have loved to have been in Andrea Vance’s position, the famous Fairfax journalist who brought down a Cabinet minister. How glorious to be feted for your special powers of turning a powerful man to mush, leading him to say he “made errors of judgment” while in your thrall.

Whether their relationship was romantic or not scarcely seems to matter. Although it does seem disingenuous for Vance to now play the victim. Whatever the background, Vance still exhibited a degree of influence – for that week anyway she was more powerful than any politician – that made her the envy of her colleagues.

Especially those who are a little too dangerously in love with the romantic image of their profession – they are the noble crusader, the Katharine Hepburn wisecracker, the reincarnation of Martha Gellhorn. Even if these days being a female reporter is more like being an “It” girl than a hack.

You have to be good at putting on the different personas that are expected of you, whether that be vampish, coquettish or as “enchantingly nasty” as Rita Skeeter. Most often young female journalists still seem to be cast in these starring roles by older tweedy men. It is in the classic tradition of Pygmalion – anyone remember Maddie in House of Cards?

I wonder how many female reporters in the parliamentary Press Gallery have unresolved “daddy issues”. (Oh I know they will all deny this strenuously, they are tough, independent and staunch. I’d have said the same, too.) I just can’t help thinking it would be progress if female journalists were writing their own parts rather than continuing to play the role of temptress to male politicians.

It is no surprise that this outraged a huge number of female journalists, and rightly so. It’s offensive to both Andrea and her colleagues. Katie Bradford-Crozier wrote a great response:

I’m angry. I’m not sure what’s come over New Zealand in recent weeks. It’s like we’ve decided to take out the prize for holding the most sexist and misogynist views towards women in the media.

As a FEMALE (I’m also blonde and quite small, but don’t hold that against me) reporter with just ten years experience working in a variety of media in New Zealand, Australia and London, I’m gobsmacked. Yes, I’m over 30. So in the words of some commentators, my career is over.

The reality is by the time you get to my age and you’re still in the media, it’s easy to feel positively ancient. Many of my colleagues last just a few years before the bright lights of PR, marketing or pretty much anything else beckons. Despite what so many seem to think about journalism, it’s not easy. Every man, dog and blogger out there is ready to criticise our every move and it’s even worse for those of us in the press gallery.

We work hard, have spent years studying, many of us still have huge student loans, we work late night and weekend shifts for low pay. In the end many of us sacrifice family, friends and an ordinary life to do it. You don’t do this job unless you love it.

I’m not complaining – ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you I am proud to say I am lucky enough to have the best job in the world and I absolutely love it.

But the treatment dished out to female reporters is frankly disgusting. The vitriol thrown at the very talented Andrea Vance in recent weeks has been abhorrent. She is a very, very good journalist. I’m not afraid to say that I’m jealous of just how good she is. The comments and insinuation following her stories on the GCSB leak have left me, and many others, infuriated.

For some, it seems the idea a female reporter would (shock horror) manage to get a story purely by working hard and being tenacious, is impossible. Surely some sort of seduction or honey trap was involved? How else could this possibly have happened?

It’s not just the treatment of Andrea that has shocked me. It feels like it’s become open slather on female journalists, particularly those of us in the press gallery. Apparently we all have “daddy issues” and we flirt and flutter our eyelashes to get stories. We’re all temptresses. If only it was that easy.  I myself have been belittled and had my abilities questioned because I’m young, blonde and female – that clearly means I can’t get a job based on my any merits other than how I look. The four years at university and experience at numerous media outlets count for nothing.

I’ve bolded what I think is the key thing.

Katie’s excellent column got retweeted by a large number of journalists, especially the female ones. This led to to ask what was the collective term for a group of angry female journalists. The replies included:

• A swarm
• Lovely people who we all admire and love. And respect.
• I don’t know but I can’t wait for Alasdair Thompson to blog on the subject.
• a sisterhood?
• a group of really pissed off journalists
•  I’d like to declare a moratorium on the use of the word “posse” as any part of a description of a group of female journalists.
• can we just give DHC a term instead?
• I’m still holding onto hope a NZ female journalists collective is created. So “collective” is nice.
• A court. A giggle. A pert.
•  The term for a group of goldfinches is a “charm”. But bird references.
• a valkyrie?
• The press gallery?
• This was discussed among the Gallery tweeps a few weeks ago, upon discovering a group of male journos is a Pride.
•  A bulletin? A column?
•  An umbrage? A vexation?
•  i like “a glaring”. it’s also a word for a group of angry cats
• A fury? A vengeance? A wrath? or maybe best described as a Gallery?
• an agency?
• a group of pissed off female journalists is a “poutrage”

My favourites were “a valkyrie” and “a poutrage”.