A guest post by former ACT MP David Garrett:

Why Maori grievance settlements are not “full and final” –  and how  they could be.

From  the time of  its election in 2008 this government has done one thing consistently – pay out large sums of taxpayers’ money to supposedly achieve “full and final” settlements of a plethora of Maori grievances. Almost every week the galleries of Parliament are filled by one group of Maori or another who proceed to sing beautifully as the Bill settling “their” grievance, supposedly once and for all,   is passed into law. But that won’t in fact  be the end of it, and all the players know it.

First some history.  In the 1940’s the Labour government of the day made real and genuine efforts to settle Maori grievances which had been festering for years – and they had been, despite the claims of some on the right that “grievance” is very recent  phenomenon.  To take just one example, it is quite true that since their land was confiscated after the Land Wars of the 1860’s, Tainui had been bitterly protesting what they claimed was unjust and unlawful  confiscations of land. And they were right.

Back in 1926, the government of the day set up the Sim Commission – chaired by a [then]  Supreme Court Judge –   to investigate   claims of unjust land confiscations in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, and Taranaki. Its report was released in 1927, and recommended  compensation of about $500,000 per annum in today’s money be made. For twenty years, nothing happened, and the grievances festered through another generation.

Then came the Waikato-Maniapoto Maori Claims Settlement Act of 1946, which gave force to an agreement reached personally between Prime Minister Peter Fraser and Princess Te Puea. In his biography “Te Puea”, Michael King describes the settlement negotiations, and in particular the final session, at which Fraser agreed to pay 5000 pounds (a million dollars today) per year for ever, and an additional 1000 pounds per year for 45 years, commencing in 1947. Similar Acts were passed around the same time “settling” the claims by Taranaki iwi and Ngai Tahu. All of those settling Acts were overturned less than 50 years later.

It is now claimed that: 1) the settlements were negotiated with the wrong people; and/or 2) they were for trifling sums; and/or  3) the sums were eroded by inflation. As to the first, it didn’t get any higher than the PM on one side, and the most respected Maori leader of her day on the other. As to the “trifling sums” claim, that is clearly nonsense.  It is certainly true that 6000 pounds in 1946 was not worth anything like the same amount thirty or forty  years later because of inflation. But anyone who retired on a fixed income before inflation became a phenomenon  had that problem. It simply wasn’t considered at the time.

Fast forward into the 90’s, and the Tainui  and other iwi convinced the government of the day  that the “settlements” of 50 years earlier weren’t settlements at all;  the whole issue was revisited, and millions of taxpayer dollars were paid. Again, the new settlements were given force in legislation – the laws passed in the 1940’s simply being repealed because they were no longer convenient.

But we did not learn the lessons of the 1940’s, and we still haven’t. Those prior settlements could simply be written out of existence because the laws which gave force to them were not entrenched; they could be repealed by any government able to muster a simple majority, as any government can.

Now, twenty years on from the settlements of the 90’s, were are still “settling” grievances, and still passing laws which can be repealed when the next generation decides to have a crack.  The Attorney General claimed on National Radio recently that the current settlements will not  be revisted,  yet again, in 40 years time. In making that claim, he is at best being disingenuous.

 Firstly neither he nor anyone else knows what will happen in 40 years – the more honest Maori leaders are now admitting that no generation can bind the next. Secondly, Finlayson is well aware that the legislation he  sponsors now  is no more legally durable than that passed 50 years ago – these most recent laws can also be repealed by any future  government with a simply majority.

 There is at least a possible solution – entrenching  the laws being passed with gay abandon so  they cannot be repealed without a “supermajority” of – say – 75% of MP’s in favour. Or if we really want to be serious,  unless there is a popular referendum with a similar majority.   While legal academic opinion is divided on just how effective such entrenchment attempts  would be, it would at least be a signal that this government was serious; that the settlements of the last 20 years were intended to be full and final, that this was accepted by the grievants, and that any attempt to reopen the can of worms would simply be a venal attempt to get more money.

 Why hasn’t this government entrenched its “settling” Bills? There are various answers, none of them complimentary.  Finlayson and his ilk simply cannot argue, when we go down this path again,   that everything was done at the time to finally close the books. Until that is done – as well as our constitutional arrangements allows – none  of the settlements now being made can be considered “full and final”.  And the Attorney General knows it.

I agree with David Garrett that you can not guarantee what people may try to do in 50 years.  You can’t pass a law banning people from advocating something. However there are a number of reasons why I think the current settlements will be durable, which I’ll do a separate post on at some stage.

Anne Gibson at NZ Herald reports:

Housing Minister Nick Smith wants Auckland to break out of its boundaries, saying that without change, ownership dreams are being killed.

“If you put a straitjacket around the city and say only land for residential development is in that defined line, you’re gifting a massive capital gain to those rural land owners,” he said, citing a Flat Bush property bought in 1995 for $890,000 and now on the market for $112 million – a situation he called “obscene”.

Land bankers had been encouraged to hold their parcels and strangle supply, the minister said.

“Because they have a monopoly, they are able to make those sorts of profits and the best way to stop it is to actually create a greater degree of freedom,” he said, citing the housing accord between the Government and city council intended to improve housing affordability.

“We cannot walk away from the issue that restrictive land supply policies across the world are at the heart of the housing affordability issue,” Dr Smith said.

Land supply is not the only factor, but it is the major factor. Any approach that fails to deal with land supply will be ineffectual.

“They’ve appreciated in value by approximately 20 per cent a year. The cost of capital is going to be about 8 per cent a year. People will stop land-banking when they think we’ve got our regulatory act together between local and central Government and we’re not going to allow that sort of ongoing monopoly of land supply. The land banker had no incentive to do anything,” Dr Smith said.

Exactly.

Russel Norman has facebooked:

1. The Kitteridge report was going to be released anyway, maybe a week after it was leaked. Whoever leaked it simply gave Vance an exclusive, they weren’t releasing any secret document.

2. We don’t know what Dunne may have leaked other than the K report, including from the Intelligence and Security Cttee (ISC) of the Appendix tot he K report – Henry Report says Dunne didn’t leak the classified Apprendix as he didnt have access to it. If there is a police investigation, and it seems that NZF have complained to the police, then that seems the relevant issue. I don’t think this is the central issue but clearly my comments on it have been a cause of some concern.

This looks like a hasty retreat from his position of a few days ago when Radio NZ reported:

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman says the Prime Minister should ask police to determine who leaked the report, and says a police inquiry would have the power to force Mr Dunne to release his emails.

Glad to see the Greens are acting more sensibly on this now.

5. On Privileges Cttee, I’m pretty dubious about giving a bunch of MPs the right to force another MP to release their emails. If there is something criminal then it’s a matter for the police, but otherwise it is only the Kitterridge report and that isn’t sensitive. Of course if it goes to Privileges Cttee then we’ll do our duty to be fair minded about it.

It is a fair point about the undesirability of MPs voting on whether or not to force another MP to release their e-mail. That could set a nasty precedent.

6. On Dunne leaving parliament. Based on the publicly available evidence he hasnt done anything serious enough to call for him to leave parliament.

Glad to see Norman say this. This affair is a long way off the bar for an MP to resign his seat and force a by-election.

Andrew Geddis blogs at Pundit:

In other words, the first call on this issue is going to be Speaker David Carter’s. And I suspect it’s going to be a pretty tricky one to make. There is the question of whether there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Peter Dunne actually lied when he said he was not the source of the leak. Because while the Henry Report said that it couldn’t rule Dunne out as the leak’s source, it didn’t say he was. So while a number of commentators have joined the dots and concluded he did it (and therefore lied in his response to Peters), there isn’t any official finding that this is the case.  

Furthermore, even if there is some evidence in the Henry Report to support a conclusion that Dunne may have lied when he said he wasn’t the leak’s source, did he “deliberately attempt[] to mislead the House or a committee” by doing so? Recall that he was before the Finance and Expenditure Committee in his role as Revenue Minister, to answer questions relevant to his responsibilities in that portfolio. Winston Peters then began badgering him with questions relating to the Kitteridge Report leak.

Geddis continues:

Given this fact, the question then becomes whether a witness before a select committee misleads it if she or he falsely answers a question that wasn’t relevant to the committee’s proceedings in the first place. Or, instead, did Peter Dunne simply deliberately attempt mislead Winston Peters … in which case, there’s no contempt of Parliament involved. Because contempt relates to the work of the House of Representatives as an institution, not to the individuals within it: it isn’t, for example, a contempt of Parliament for an MP to tell a barefaced lie to another MP during a public debate on the campaign trail … but it is for a Minister to lie to an MP who asks her or him a question in the House.

So there’s an at least tenable argument that even if you think Dunne lied, he didn’t lie to the House (or a committee of the House). I which case, there is no contempt and so no question of privilege to be considered.

I agree it i going to be a tricky call to make. No doubt if Carter declines, he will be attacked by the Opposition as Geddis notes:

Hanging over all this is another issue, however. It isn’t even a week since the Speaker, David Carter, made his decision that United Future could continue to be recognised as a party for parliamentary purposes. As I noted in this post, and as others have noted elsewhere, the reasoning for that decision is  somewhat odd. Furthermore, it caused a (probably overdone) eruption of opposition anger against the Speaker. In the light of this, can David Carter really afford to find that the complaint against Peter Dunne doesn’t involve a question of privilge? What future for his role in the Speaker’s chair if he is seen to make two quick rulings in Peter Dunne’s favour?

I would hope the decision is made on its merits, not on how it will be perceived.

Julie at The Hand Mirror writes:

 I put together a presentation for the women themed session of the Social & Community Development Forum about the topic.  My conclusions were that women’s representation seems to be plateauing at around 35%, and the problem is not with the voters but with the selections.

 

Now I have to eat my words, at least in part.

 

Thirteen.  That’s the number of women me or one of my running mates asked to run on our ticket for the Puketapapa Local Board.   Each one turned us down; immediately (a few), after a bit of a think (most), after being a strong maybe (a few), after saying yes please (one).  I believe every single one of them would have made a great Local Board member.  Maybe, hopefully, some will in future elections.

A number of Labour MPs were seen enjoying the hospitality of Sky City at Eden Park on Saturday night.

Rather amusing that they rant and rail about how Sky City destroys people lives through addictive pokie machines, and a deal with the Government to allow them some more. But then they are happy to take their hospitality, funded by the very same pokie machines.

Have to at least give the Greens credit for consistency.

Anyway here is my question, and I genuinely don’t know the answer. Was David Shearer one of those Labour MPs in the Sky City corporate box at Eden Park?

Surely no opposition leader would be so foolish as to lead a charge against Sky City’s pokie machines and deal with the Govt – and then turn up to their corporate box a few weeks later? Would they?

As I said, I know of at least two Labour MPs who were there. I don’t know if Shearer was there also. But I do hope someone asks.

The PM has announced:

Prime Minister John Key has today announced Rotorua MP Todd McClay will be appointed as a new Minister outside Cabinet, following the resignation of Peter Dunne.

Mr McClay was elected into Parliament in 2008 and was made the Chair of the Finance and Expenditure Committee last year.

“Mr McClay will be the new Revenue Minister and Associate Health Minister,” Mr Key says.

“The role of Associate Conservation Minister will be discontinued and those responsibilities will be assumed by the lead Minister – Dr Nick Smith.”

Congrats to Todd McClay. Well deserved.

The deputy chair of the Finance and Expenditure select committee is Paul Goldsmith, so presumably he will become the new Chair.

Since I blogged on it weekend before last, there has been a lot of comment and criticism on Rachel Smalley of The Nation asking Hekia Parata if she is a bitch to work for, and “How Maori are you?”.  Rachel herself has said she didn’t write the questions, and felt a bit uncomfortable with them. Of course she could have refused and said I’m not going to ask any guest if they are a bitch, unless I can ask male guests if they are a prick.

Anyway Brian Edwards has blogged in defence of Smalley, and Green co-leader Metiria Turei has responded:

I dont believe that the question Rachel Smalley asked of Hekia Parata: “How Maori are you”? was in anyway appropriate. I have a huge amount of respect for Brian Edwards and have read his blog which justifies Rachel’s question on the basis that was relevant to “Parata’s childhood and upbringing in a Maori family and Maori community”; that it produced a revealing and relevant response; that she handled it well and hasn’t complained.

The last three justifications are meaningless. It makes no difference to the appropriateness of the question whether she answered well or not, whether she complained or not. As to whether it was relevant to Parata’s childhood, that issue was canvassed earlier in the interview and could have been discussed more without forcing Hekia to justify her identity.

Thats what I have a problem with: Hekia was required by the question to justify her identity. The criteria Hekia then applied to herself is the criteria Maori have been forced to use to justify ourselves for decades: blood (whakapapa), language and whanau. It is a question based on New Zealand’s assimilationist history, when the degree of a persons “Maoriness” led to more or less entitlement, when being judged as having abandoned our cultural practices and language, we were therefore more like Pakeha and so more acceptable.

It is a grotesque irony that these days Maori are asked that question so that their right to speak on Maori issues can be judged, mostly by Pakeha, as legitimate or not.

I don’t agree with most of the policies Metiria puts forward, but I do respect her for criticising TV3 for the interview, despite the fact the question was to a political rival. It’s nice to put principle ahead of politics.

The NZ Initiative is launching tomorrow a report by Michael Bassett and Luke Malpass called “Priced Out – How New Zealand lost its housing affordability”. Dr Bassett is a historian and former Minister of Local Government. Luke is a Research Fellow at the Initiative.

Their 42 page report looks at what has changed in New Zealand since the 1960s and 1970s, to make housing so unaffordable for many. There will be a further report in a few months, looking at how other countries have achieved more affordable housing.

Major findings from this report are:

• New Zealand is suffering a shortfall of houses caused by anti-development attitudes, tighter building regulations, and artificial restrictions on land supply.  
• New Zealand’s new house building is lagging with a shortfall of at least 10,000 new houses annually – a shortfall that is continuing to grow.
• The number of new houses built dropped from a record 34,400 in 1974 to about 15,000 in 2012.
• New Zealand’s historically high rates of home ownership were due, at least in part, to subsidised house building. This was a key plank of the post-War welfare state.
• Capitalisation of the family benefit and 3% State Advance Corporations loans for new house building were extended to 7,500 applicants annually from the early 1960’s to the mid-1970s.
• Less than 1% of New Zealand is built upon even after including landfill and roads. Fears of ‘using up all our farmland’ are grossly exaggerated.
• This fear of ‘urban sprawl’ has resulted in urban limits and restrictive and prescriptive zoning, which have conferred a virtual monopoly market power on landowners near the city fringes.  
• The experience of Auckland’s Metropolitan Urban Limit (MUL) is similar to that of Portland, Oregon, with land outside the city limits costing nine times less than within city limits.
• As New Zealand has become more prosperous, green agendas of more affluent New Zealanders have trumped traditional egalitarian social aspirations, such as suburban homeownership.
• Although a slim majority of New Zealanders now think rising house prices are undesirable, the current policy quagmire has created a situation where the interests of those who are lucky enough to own property are often opposed to the interests of non-owners.
• Expectations have also changed. Since the 1980s, houses in New Zealand have not only become more expensive but they are also much bigger with a better fit-out. As a result, many first-home buyers now have an unrealistic expectation of what standard of house is available at what price.

The point on expectations is a useful one. We sometimes focus too much on the median house price. The median house price is not where first time buyers should or will be. It would be useful to also get regular data on say the 25th percentile prices, and/or the median price for first time buyers.

I’ve previously blogged on land issues, and the Productivity Commission has also stated that it is the number one cause (but not only cause) of inflated house prices. It isn’t a silver bullet, but no action on land supply will mean any other measures will be ineffective.

The challenge is getting the incentives right. It is unfortunate that the interests of those who already own property are now opposed to those who are yet to buy.

Stuff reports:

Shearer said he had lodged a privileges complaint with the Speaker regarding Dunne’s statement to a select committee that he did not leak the Kitteridge report into the GCSB.

Took them long enough. I indicated on Saturday that a complaint to the Privileges Committee was logical. Much more sensible that the hysterical rushing to the Police to try and get a Police investigation, for something that is not a criminal matter.

Fairfax Group executive editor Paul Thompson said politicians should tread carefully before embarking on a witch hunt. That could have a chilling effect on how journalists covered politicians.

Fairfax would protect the communications between its journalists and any contacts, regardless of whether they were the source of sensitive information or not.

“The protection of our sources is paramount,” Thompson said.

“We will resist any attempt to force us to release that sort of information.

If the issue is referred to the Privileges Committee, I don’t expect they would ask Fairfax to co-operate. And Fairfax should not.

But they can ask or order the Department of Internal Affairs to reveal the e-mails between Dunne and Vance.

Thompson also rejected suggestions there was more to the relationship between Dunne and Vance.

NZ First leader Winston Peters has claimed to see emails that were personally embarrassing but Thompson said Fairfax was “absolutely” backing Vance.

Claims are easy. He should produce them if he has them.

“Andrea is a very talented journalist, she has done some terrific work this year,” he said.

“Her handling of the GCSB report was absolutely faultless and there was nothing improper going on. We are 100 per cent behind her.”

Which is what I said on Saturday.

He also rubbished a claim by former National Party president Michelle Boag that Vance leaked the emails to Peters.

“That’s ludicrous,” Thompson said.

With respect, yes it is.

Opposition parties were likely to lodge a complaint with Parliament’s Speaker that Dunne misled Parliament last week when he told a select committee he did not leak the GCSB report.

Dunne maintained he did not leak the report, although he canvassed the prospect with Vance.

That is the issue of privilege. Whether Dunne lied to the select committee.

Prime Minister John Key said today he did not believe Dunne should quit Parliament, regardless of whether he leaked the report.

If leaking means resignation from Parliament, then the only MP left in Parliament would be Ross Robertson.

Also the PM gets no say on whether an electorate MP from another party resigns or not.

Dunne was not the first MP to leak information and he said Labour MP Lianne Dalziel had remained in Parliament after being sacked as minister for leaking material to the media.

And Winston Peters was found by the Privileges Committee to have misled Parliament (and everyone else) on his knowledge on the donation from Owen Glennto his lawyer to cover his legal expenses. He did not resign in the face of that finding. Ultimately the voters make their judgement, as they did on Peters in 2008 and will on Dunne in 2014.

“An investigation by the Privileges Committee is required to get to the truth of the matter. New Zealanders are still none the wiser as to who leaked the Kitteridge Report. All we have is an MP who has resigned as minister but refuses to co-operate with the inquiry,” Shearer said.

“The matter cannot lie here. This is why we have taken the matter to the Privileges Committee to get to the bottom of who leaked the report,” Shearer said.

That is not the role of the Privileges Committee. However their role can be to investigate if Peter Dunne lied in his select committee testimony. There is a difference.

It will be interesting to see how the Speaker rules. On the face of it, it would seem an appropriate issue to be referred to the Privileges Committee. Misleading a select committee is a serious issue.

John Armstrong woke at the weekend:

Norman appeared to offer further evidence of that later in the week when he rounded on the chairman of the Electricity Authority, Brent Layton.

National Party-aligned bloggers were not the only people asking in the wake of that attack who was being Muldoonist now.

Norman’s curt response to Layton’s detailed critique of the joint Labour-Greens plan to reform the wholesale electricity market was pretty tame stuff, especially when placed alongside Winston Peters’ slow evisceration of Peter Dunne.

However, Norman’s attack struck a discordant note coming as it did only days after the Greens’ co-leader had accused John Key of vilifying and bullying his critics in a manner which was as divisive as that of the late Sir Robert Muldoon.

Norman’s rejection of Layton’s 28-page paper, which sought to demolish the Labour-Greens’ notion of setting up a single institution to set wholesale electricity prices, was also in marked contrast to the rebuttal by Labour’s David Parker. The latter challenged Layton’s arguments one by one in a measured tone.

That was the point. Parker showed how to disagree on policy grounds. Norman made it personal, and nasty. Becoming a habit.

Norman’s statement was far more belligerent with a number of references to Layton as a “National Party appointee” to a “National Party-created” regulator.

Layton is no National Party hack, however. He is a highly-respected economist with extensive knowledge and experience of the electricity generating industry over many years.

Indeed Dr Layton is a highly respected economist. He was the director of the non-profit NZIER economics co-operative for five years. Dr Norman’s PhD was on the history of the Alliance Party. Dr Layton’s was on economic history.

I doubt there is an economist in NZ who has done more work in the electricity sector. Dr Layton looks to have done 20 or so reports in the 2000s, for the Major Electricity Users Group (the ones who benefit the most from reliable supply, cheaper prices and better competition).

Fran O’Sullivan also writes:

Russel Norman exposed himself as a “Muldoonist” when he slammed into highly respected economist Brent Layton this week for daring to raise his head above the parapet and defend the work of the NZ Electricity Authority, which he chairs.

Norman was clearly incensed that Layton had issued a paper on the economics of electricity that laid waste to the arguments of three critics of the current regime, and challenged the proposal by the Greens and Labour to set up a new entity – NZ Power – to effectively control prices.

But by slagging Layton off as “nothing more than a National Party-appointed civil servant who has failed to do his job and is now trying to protect his patch”, Norman was straying well into the territory of personal attacks that Sir Robert Muldoon made an art form, and demonstrating a predisposition to a form of political management the Greens co-leader claims to despise.

Long may Russel keep it up. Once a brand is damaged, it is very hard to repair it.

And there would be few people in the Wellington political firmament who would have missed the underlying message sent by the NZ Institute of Economic Research when it issued a short-form CV yesterday under the simple headline: Background: Dr Brent Layton.

The release simply noted the many roles Layton has held: chairman of the electricity market rules committee, a director of Transpower and M-Co, former chairman of Trust Bank Canterbury, a director of the Futures Exchange, deputy chairman of the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, chairman of Lyttelton Port Company, chairman of Canterbury Health and also AgResearch and its commercial arm Celentis. Currently, He chairs Sastek, a Brisbane-based hardware manufacturing and software development company. And he has also been one of two external monetary policy advisers to the Governor of the Reserve Bank.

In other words: frame that up against a PhD on the Alliance and a working life spent mainly in Parliament? There is no real comparison.

One can disagree with Layton’s analysis and conclusions. But to label him as basically a failed hack was unworthy.

The Herald editorial:

The whole country ought to be celebrating the historic settlement with Tuhoe signed at Parliament last week. Tuhoe marked the occasion by turning up in large numbers, filling Parliament’s Banquet Hall, Grand Hall, Legislative Chamber and lobbies as well as the Pipitea Marae nearby. It puts to rest grievances that have festered for up to 160 years in the Ureweras where Tuhoe resisted the Treaty of Waitangi and asserted their independence.

If there was one Iwi which I thought a settlement may never happen with, it was Tuhoe.

It ought to be noted that the Office of Treaty Settlements does not always contest claimants’ versions of history. Settlements are considered more important than rigorous historical inquiry. But the Tuhoe have ample support for their version from the Waitangi Tribunal and academic research. They stand to receive $170 million in compensation. The agreement has yet to be ratified by the tribe but last week’s turn-out at Parliament gives confidence that it will be. Mr Kruger hopes some of the $170 million will be used for water supply, sewerage and electricity to remote communities.

Sounds good.

The Tuhoe deal is one of 12 done with iwi in the current financial year. The Government’s aim to have all outstanding Waitangi claims wrapped up in two more years is now in sight. Since 1990, 62 settlements have been reached and while 60 remain, the Crown is talking to claimants in every area. Often the first stage, getting agreement between claimants on their representation, is the most difficult.

At times, National has seemed in too much of a hurry to finish the settlements and put history behind us at last. Nothing will be gained if today’s deals do not satisfy more than the present generation of claimants.

The settlements can never match the monetary value today of the resources iwi lost. They will be “full and final” settlements only once they have managed to lift overall Maori levels of education, employment, business and wealth.

I disagree. The settlements are about resolving grievances, not about “closing the gaps”. What Iwi spend their settlements on, and whether they lead to an increase in education, employment and wealth is up to them. Some Iwi have decided to lease their fishing quota to foreign crewed fishing vessels, rather than have local companies create jobs for locals. That is their decision to make – to have an emphasis on wealth over jobs. But in no way does their decisions on how to use their settlements, mean the settlements can not be regarded as full or final.

The Press reports:

Fairfax Media is looking at paywalls for its online publications in New Zealand, plans to cut staff and may close some publications as it faces the strains from falling advertising.

The Fairfax Media business in New Zealand includes newspapers such as The Press, magazines and online news websites, such as Stuff.

In Australia yesterday, parent company Fairfax announced plans to cut total group costs by A$60 million (NZ$72m), above the A$251m already promised to the market following a restructure of its print and digital operations.

As part of the update yesterday, Fairfax released details of digital subscription for its news websites in Australia with packages from A$15 to $44 a month.

In New Zealand, acting managing director Andrew Boyle said just when or how paywalls would be brought in here remained to be seen.

I’m sort of looking forward to the paywalls coming to New Zealand. I’d say it will lead to many more people coming to blogs, as they won’t be able to get their news from the main media websites.

It will be a good opportunity to boost resources at the blog, and try to fill the gap left by the newspaper sites.

The assets sale petition that failed (but can be re-submitted) had the highest number of non valid signatures of any CIR since the 1990s. I was interested in why this was the case so requested documents from the Office of the Clerk, Electoral Commission and Stats NZ under the OIA.

There were 393,778 signatures submitted.  They needed 308,753 to make 10%. Stats NZ found the estimated number of valid signatures was 292,291 with a standard error of 2,579.  That meant 26% of signatures were invalid.  Stats NZ commented:

The probability of there being enough valid signatures in the full petition given the results of our sample is (negligible) less than one in a billion.

So why were so few signatures valid. The sample stats were:

• Signatures checked 28,127
• Unique electors 23,031
• Ineligible signatures 4,909 (not on electoral roll)
• Illegible signers 21
• Duplicate 166

Now that level of duplicates may not sound high, but that is the number of people found as duplicates just in the small sample tested. If you checked the entire sample, you would get far more. Stats NZ estimates that all up, 11% of those who signed the petition signed it at least twice. That is a very high proportion, and significantly higher than any other CIR where the figure has ranged from 5.1% to 8.8%.

The proportion of ineligibles was 17%, and the range in other CIRs has been between 12% and 18%. So the key difference with this CIR was not the proportion of ineligible signing it – but people fraudulently signing it more than once. 11% means one in nine signers signed it twice!

There is a case to be made that if you sign a petition twice, both signatures should be struck out – rather than just one of them. Just like with double voting.

Incidentally I didn’t sign the petition any times. To the best of my memory I’ve never signed any CIR petition except the one for a referendum on the flag.

Maybe when the Greens spent all that taxpayer money on hiring people to (get people to) sign the petition, they should have told them to tell people to sign it once only.

It will be interesting to see how many duplicates are there when they resubmit the petition in two months. If they target the same people and areas as the previous 12 months, then they may end up just getting more duplicates.

My thanks to the agency staff who compiled the info for my request.

6. Briefing Notes for GS 02.05.2013

Matthew Hooton writes in the NBR on why John Key should call a snap election. Despite my commercial self-interest in having elections occur as frequently as possible, I don’t think there is any  probability or reason for an early election. The Government needs 61 votes to govern and has 64.

I don’t believe PMs should do what Helen Clark did and call an early election of a flimsy premise.

What I wanted to focus on though was the reasons Matthew gave for going early, in terms of the economy:

National’s budget was overwhelmingly successful and it now luxuriates in superb economic data.  Just this week, there have been announcements of thelargest increase in residential building activity in 10 years and that wholesale trade continues to grow.

These follow other official Statistics New Zealand announcements in recent weeks of improving trade data, the best ever April visitor numbers, building consents hitting a five-year high and of course the big fall in both unemployment and youth unemployment.

For its part, the Treasury reported on Tuesday that the tax take continued to track above forecast in April, with gross company tax revenue up over 40% ahead of forecast.

After the extraordinarily strong GDP growth in the December quarter – the fourth highest in the world among OECD-monitored countries, behind only China, Russia and Luxembourg – all the recent data suggests the government can expect highly positive news when March quarter GDP data is released on June 20.

There’s still a long way to go, but the indicators are generally looking to be improving.

ABC reports:

The ABC understands Prime Minister Julia Gillard has lost significant support in the Labor caucus.

It comes after a week in which Labor disunity was on full display in Canberra and former prime minister Kevin Rudd re-emerged very publicly.

ABC Insiders presenter Barrie Cassidy says Mr Rudd is the only figure being considered as an alternative prime minister.

Rudd is like rust. No matter how many times he says he is not seeking the leadership, he continues to do everything he can to get it back.

He spoke about the tensions within the party on Insiders this morning.

“I am now very strongly of the view that Julia Gillard will not lead Labor into the next election,” he said.

“I think there will be a change either by her own hand or the actions of others. And I’m not relying entirely on guesswork here.”

That sounds definite.

The week of turmoil for Labor began with disastrous polling showing the party could be left with as few as 40 seats in the Federal Parliament.

It was revealed two long-serving MPs had already packed up their Canberra offices in preparation for the electoral wipe-out.

That is rather unsporting of them, as the election is still three months away. They could start packing up a week before and still have time.

Labour, Greens and NZ First are all somewhat hysterically saying that the report leaked (presumably) by Peter Dunne is a criminal matter, and have all rushed off to the Police to try and get him investigated.

I’ll come back to the hypocrisy of opposition parties demanding a Police investigation into a leak, but let us first deal with two recent leaks. The first is the Kitteridge report.

This was a report that was due to be released to the public. The leak changed the timing of that (and was politically very very unhelpful to the Government), but again it was a report written for public release and its classification was sensitive. What is a sensitive classification. There are six types of classifications in two categories. The two categories are:

• National security classifications where compromise would damage NZ’s security, defence or international relations
• Policy and privacy classifications where compromise would damage government functions or be detrimental to an individual

There are four national security classifications, They are:

1. Top secret
2. Secret
3. Confidential
4. Restricted

The Kitteridge report had NO national security classification.

The two policy and privacy classifications  are sensitive and in-confidence, and it was classified sensitive.

While the report was about the GCSB, it doesn’t mean the report was classified for national security reasons. In fact the report was due to be released publicly anyway. This makes the leaking of it a government issue, not a criminal issue. Don’t get me wrong – the leak was appalling, and a resignation is the appropriate  outcome. But talking of Police complaints is hysteria.

Now let us compare this leak to the leak of a Cabinet paper on MFAt restructuring. Unlike the Kitteridge report, the Cabinet paper was not a paper about to be released to the public. Cabinet papers are for Cabinet, and that paper was leaked even before it got to Cabinet (off memory). That leak is clearly just as “bad” a leak as the Kitteridge report, and arguably worse.

Yet in this case Labour have spent months arguing the leak should not be pursued, and that a leak inquiry is a waste of money. Flagrant hypocrisy. And I hope one day, we will be publicly able to publish why Labour is so frightened about the leaker’s identity being revealed, and any links back to them.

Several on the left are critical of opposition parties demanding a criminal investigation into a leak. No Right Turn blogs:

Firstly, the idea that this leak breached the Crimes Act is utterly ridiculous. Both the offences of espionage (which peters accused Dunne of in Parliament on Thursday) and wrongful communication of official information require that the information in question “be likely to prejudice seriously the security or defence of New Zealand”. John Key was quite clear in his press conference that that was not the case, and there is no possible way in which the leak of material exposing GCSB wrongdoing could be seen in that light. So, the idea that an offence has been commited is pure bullshit, and the Greens should not be trading in it. …

A party like the Greens, committed to democracy and freedom, should be encouraging such leaks, not calling for them to be punished – especially given the shit we’re learning about what the GCSB’s foreign masters have been getting up to.

Russel Norman has sought to justify his position on the grounds that such leaks undermine the idea of Parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies. Firstly, this wasn’t an ISC document, so that’s just a non-sequitur. But more importantly, Parliament pays the bills, so it has an absolute right to scrutinise what is done with our money, no matter how secret and sensitive. And I regard it as not just a right, but a duty of politicians on the ISC to inform the public of wrongdoing. If Norman seriously believes what he’s said, then he is not doing his job properly, and should resign immediately so that his place can be taken by someone less credulous and authoritarian.

The authoritarian Dr Norman!

NBR also reports:

Labour and the Greens are illiberal in pushing for a police inquiry into the Peter Dunne affair, and have revealed themselves as anti leaks to the media, says Bryce Edwards.

“It’s incredibly surprising to see Labour and the Greens have called on the police to intervene over the leak of the GCSB,” the Otago University lecturer and commentator tells NBR Online.

“There’s always problems when the police get involved in the political and media realm. It can have a very chilling affect on politics and journalism,” Dr Edwards says.

And the next time there is a leak to say an opposition MP, how could Labour or Greens complain if there is a criminal Police investigation into it? They are so kneejerk desperate to get a media headline that day, they rarely think about the consistency of their long-term position.

Generally those that regard themselves as politically liberal will not want the police involved unless utterly necessary, says the Politics Daily compiler.

“Therefore the threshold for calling the cops into Parliament and newsrooms should be very high. It’s hard to see that this threshold has been reached in this case,” Dr Edwards says.

“Normally those that call the police in on their political opponents are from an authoritarian political philosophy. By contrast, liberals generally regard those that leak government department reports as heroic whistleblowers that are enabling the freedom of information and the right of the public to know what those in authority are doing.”

The Greens, Labour and New Zealand First have now shown that they stand opposed to leaks to the media, says the lecturer.

That’s the second commentator to use the term authoritarian. And I am unsure of the media will like the opposition (presumably) demanding that a reporter’s phone records, e-mails and other communications be seized because she received a leak.

Dr Norman says a key issue is whether the appendix to the inquiry was leaked. Unlike the body of the report, which was always scheduled to be shared with the public, the appendix is secret – and breaching it could constitute a breach of the Crimes Act.

Peter Dunne did not have the appendix. No information from the appendix has been published, so nice try inventing a make believe crime.

Labour leader David Shearer has called on police to seize Mr Dunne’s emails. His deputy, Grant Robertson, says Mr Dunne should be compelled to give evidence under oath. 

On that basis, they must also be demanding that Phil Goff have his emails seized by the Police and Goff should be compelled to give evidence under oath.

The Waikato Times reports:

Hamilton residents overwhelmingly want their drinking water fluoridated – by a margin of more than two to one, a new Waikato Times poll shows.

The poll gives the most robust insight into public opinion on fluoride since a 2006 referendum had almost the exact same margin, and confirms Mayor Julie Hardaker and six city councillors are out of step with the public.

Conducted on Thursday night – one day after a special tribunal of eight council members voted 7-1 to remove fluoride from the city’s water – the Versus Research poll shows 59 per cent of those polled want their drinking water fluoridated, compared to 24 per cent against.

As I said, it is one thing for local residents to vote not to flouridate the common water supply, but for a Council to vote to remove it despite both a referendum in favour of keeping it, and continued public support is arrogant. If a Councillor got elected on a mandate of saying they will vote to remove fluoride, fair enough. But as far as I know, none did.

“The process gave people an opportunity to give their view if they felt that strongly about it. Based on that, we were reflecting the views of the people.”

No you were not. The views if those who feel strongly are not the views of the people.

Senior councillor Dave Macpherson said he stood by his vote even if it cost him his seat.

“If people saw and heard the same stuff as we did over four days at the tribunal, they might not be so pro-fluoridation,” said Mr Macpherson.

How much of what they heard was peer reviewed science, and how much was opinion?

Meanwhile Wellington is the next key battle for anti-fluoridation advocates after their controversial Hamilton victory. Anti-fluoride campaigner Mark Atkin has told the Dominion Post that Wellington might not be the next city to go fluoride-free, but it was a critical target.

This could be an interesting issue for Celia Wade-Brown. The Greens have long campaigned against fluoride and just six weeks ago adopted a specific policy supporting opt-out campaigns for local authorities – healthpolicyratified23.4.13. Their new policy is not on their website yet, but a source leaked it to me.

A Hamilton councillor and district health board member has fired back at a broadside from senior minister Judith Collins labelling him “gutless”.

While most criticism has been levelled at the seven elected members who voted to remove fluoride from Hamilton’s drinking water, those who refused to take part have also come under fire.

Justice Minister Judith Collins told the Waikato Times three district health board members who are on the city council were not elected to sit on the fence, but to make reasonable and sensible decisions. She has described the decision to dump fluoride as “absolutely gutless”.

Councillors Martin Gallagher, Ewan Wilson and Pippa Mahood removed themselves after declaring a conflict with their district health board roles.

But a frustrated Mr Wilson said he had voted for fluoridation as a district health board member and had received clear legal advice he should not take part in the city council fluoride tribunal.

I’d love to see that legal advice, because on the face of it, it sounds ridiculous. I have extensive first hand knowledge of dealing with conflicts of interests, and which ones rise to the level where you should not vote because of one. Being a board member of a DHB that advocates for fluoride in no way is a conflict with making a decision on the Council drinking supply.

Former MP and city councillor Martin Gallagher, who also removed himself after legal advice, said he had no choice.

“In normal circumstances I’d agree, but I’d assume a minister of justice would expect that when elected members get legal advice from the city solicitor that they have an actual conflict and should withdraw, they do.”

Very few conflicts require a non-vote. This is a great misnomer.  Most conflicts just require a disclosure – unless you stand to make personal gain.

UPDATE: Green Health spokesperson Kevin Hague has commented below. He is personally in favour of fluoridation, which is great. The overall stance of the party is unclear.

Rodney Hide writes in the HoS:

Norman was safe and secure in launching a personal attack on Key. It is Key’s style and strategy not to fire back. But Muldoon would not have sat quietly by. Muldoon would have eaten him up and spat him out.

Muldoon also would never have shared his leadership as Norman does. He wasn’t a touchy-feely, let’s-sit-around-the-table-holding-hands sort of guy. He was leader and that was that. Muldoon would never have tolerated a co-leader.

And then there was Norman crying, “Give me back my flag. Give me back my flag.” That was when he was attempting to stick the Tibetan flag in the face of Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping. Muldoon would never have done that. He was polite and respectful to our guests, whatever he thought of their domestic politics.

And if Muldoon did get into a scuffle, he would not have come out second. Once a rowdy group of young protesters shouting “Heil Hitler” attacked Muldoon as he was leaving a meeting. They hit him in the face, kicked his leg and shoved him against his car.

The then Leader of the Opposition decked one and chased the others down the street shouting, “One at a time and you’re welcome”.

Heh. An iconic moment.

Norman is Australian. Muldoon was a New Zealander through and through. In comparing Key to Muldoon, Norman gave us a very sharp reminder that he’s a very recent arrival. No one who lived in New Zealand would ever think Key was in any way a Muldoon. The comparison is bizarre.

Russel has been whining that it is wrong to say he can’t write about Muldoon as he wasn’t in NZ then, saying that means no one could write about Peter Fraser who wasn’t alive in the 1940s.

He misses the point that no one who actually lived in NZ when Muldoon was PM, would compare him to John Key without bursting into a fit of laughter at the ridiculousness of the comparison.

Norman has a PhD in political science. For Muldoon there were two types of doctors: the ones who made you well, and the ones who made you sick. He would have had a very clear view of what sort of doctor Norman was.

Muldoon fought fascism and totalitarianism in World War II. Norman was for several years active in the Marxist-Leninist Democratic Socialist Party.

They are two very different men. Muldoon was popular. His majority in his electorate was unassailable. The best Norman has done is come third.

They are men of different eras. Muldoon was minister of finance the year Norman was born.

But in other ways they aren’t so different.

Muldoon’s policies were to control the economy, fix prices, set the exchange rate, invest in hare-brained schemes, and print money to pay for it all.

He all but bankrupted the country.

In this regard, Muldoon and Norman are peas in a pod.

Matthew Hooton goes down this road also in the NBR:

Sir Robert left office in 1984, roughly when Dr Norman left high school.  At that time, he tells us, he was busy opposing Australia’s “new right” Hawke/Keating government, elected in March 1983, and “peace rallies, anti-nuclear demonstrations and animal rights activism soon became a large part of extra-curricular high school life.”

It is fantastic that the adolescent Dr Norman had time left over to follow developments across the Tasman, including Sir Robert publicly issuing enemies’ lists, banning unfriendly journalists from his press conferences, personally directing monetary policy, ramming through the Clutha Development (Clyde Dam) Empowering Act 1982, abusing young backbenchers in drunken rages, lying about the country’s fiscal position, provoking a foreign exchange crisis, refusing to follow the instructions of the incoming government and having to be bullied into doing so by his outgoing cabinet.

And on the policy front:

The irony of Dr Norman’s preposterous comparison of Mr Key to Sir Robert is that the party in today’s parliament with an economic programme most similar to Muldoon’s is the Greens.

It is the Greens who advocate greater control of the currency, extra monetary tools and more aggressive interventions by the Reserve Bank.  They are the only main party comfortable with Muldoon-style import substitution and against free trade.  How green were Muldoon’s carless days, designed to reduce reliance on oil?  How stimulatory were his deficits? 

More topically, Sir Robert exercised direct state control of the electricity sector including the state directing what new electricity generation would be built and where.  What else is Labour/Green’s NZ Power?

Instead of an across-the-board GST, Sir Robert favoured lower sales taxes on things he considered good and higher taxes on things he considered bad.

With their promised new “suite of ecological taxes,” the Greens promise the same.

This could be a good question for the Greens. How many of Sir Robert’s economic policies do they disagree with today? Any?

Rob Kidd at Stuff reports:

A woman conned $125,000 out of ACC by claiming she was the distraught widow of a man crushed to death in a building accident.

In reality Auckland woman Brunetta Hemi had dumped the man, walking out on their de-facto relationship five years before his death.

But when she heard that Waepeke Ruihana Tupaea had died, she contacted the undertaker and told him she was still Tupaea’s partner, then filled out a claim with ACC.

It saw her paid an immediate survivor’s grant of $5653 and she qualified for weekly compensation for the next five years. She drew the payments for nine months, then opted for a lump sum payout that saw ACC deposit $125,341 into her bank account.

Tupaea, 61, died in June 2009 when he was part of a crew moving a house on to a marae in the Auckland suburb of Manurewa.

A bulldozer hit the house, causing it to fall, killing Tupaea and 24-year-old workmate Marsh Terahi Wiri Peihopa.

The fraud is one issue. What interests me more, is the policy rationale for a relatively large payout for death by accident.

I’m all for ACC which covers income while people recover from an accident.

But should ACC be a form of life insurance?

Certainly I say it is appropriate to have some payout to family as it takes some time to adjust to the loss of an income earner. But five years of payments?

If your partner dies of a heart attack, you get nothing beyond any insurance policy they had, and general welfare insurance.

If they die of an accident, you get five years of survivor’s grants.

I’m really not sure how you rationalise the difference.

Isaac Davidson at NZ Herald reports:

The Green Party has been accused of silencing its grassroots members by making it more difficult for local branches to have a say at the party’s annual meeting.

Members voted at the Greens’ annual conference in Christchurch last weekend to limit which remits or issues would be able to reach the floor at annual meetings.

Under previous rules, any proposal could be debated at a meeting if it had 12 signatures from financial members.

Local branches must now get approval from two other branches, one of them from another region, if it wants to debate issues relating to the party or its executive.

One party source said the effect of the rule change would be to wipe out any debate on grassroots-sponsored remits at the Greens’ conferences

The requirement that the backers of any remit would have to get the endorsement of a branch in another region would require driving hundreds of kilometres around the country to lobby other members.

My observation is that over time, the Greens are going the way of the other political parties.

Green Party Mt Eden branch convener Jeremy Hall said in the party newsletter Te Awa that there was irony to Greens’ holding a conference on democracy because its rule changes would make it near-impossible for branches to raise issues and participate in the internal democracy of the party.

He added: “It will turn branches simply into volunteer units to just do fundraising, leafletting and campaigning, where their input into how the party is run will no longer be welcome.”

And vandalising billboards!