I was fascinated that a former GCSB Director went on Campbell Live (a good scoop for them) and criticised the selection process of Ian Fletcher.

He seemed very miffed that Fletcher had no military background and that someone he had known for 25 years was not interviewed. I wonder if that person was the former Associate Director who has now left the GCSB for his actions in the Kim Dotcom saga?

The review of the GCSB by Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Kitteridge should be released soon, and I suspect it will be very scathing (in a diplomatically worded way) of the CGSB processes, and As Sir Bruce Ferguson was Director from 2006 to 2011, he could feel slighted.  Time will tell.

My view is the same as yesterday that it would have been preferable for the PM not to have called Ian Fletcher to ask him if he was interested in applying. But to be fair to the PM, it has been revealed that he did not solely phone Fletcher, but also another person to see if they were interested. The other person was not available.

The better course of action would have been to pass on the contact details of both people to the State Services Commissioner.

The Dom Post editorial today says:

There is nothing wrong with John Key calling an old mate’s brother and telling him there’s a public service vacancy he might be interested in applying for.

There is everything wrong with the prime minister misleading the public about his involvement in the appointment of that old friend’s brother, Ian Fletcher, as head of the Government Communications Security Bureau.

Mr Key’s fondness for picking up the phone and talking directly to those at the coalface is a trait he shares with other go-getters who have become prime ministers. However, his predecessors all recognised the importance of maintaining public confidence in government.

Mr Key has now failed to do so on at least two occasions – first by advocating on behalf of one of the potential builders of a new convention centre in Auckland and now by being less than candid about his role in Mr Fletcher’s appointment.

Again it would have been better to have had the full details put out there at the beginning.

David Shearer was ridiculed for forgetting his foreign bank account for four years. While it is more believable to forget about a phone call, it means that politically the focus shifts from Shearer’s blunder to Key’s actions.

A fascinating article on Alter Net by Alyssa Goldstein:

In the 1600s, a man named James Mattock was expelled from the First Church of Boston. His crime? It wasn’t using lewd language or smiling on the sabbath or anything else that we might think the Puritans had disapproved of. Rather, James Mattock had refused to have sex with his wife for two years. Though Mattock’s community clearly saw his self-deprivation as improper, it is quite possible that they had his wife’s suffering in mind when they decided to shun him. The Puritans believed that sexual desire was a normal and natural part of human life for both men and women (as long as it was heterosexual and confined to marriage), but that women wanted and needed sex more than men. A man could choose to give up sex with relatively little trouble, but for a woman to be so deprived would be much more difficult for her. …

The idea that men are naturally more interested in sex than women is ubiquitous that it’s difficult to imagine that people ever believed differently. And yet for most of Western history, from ancient Greece to beginning of the nineteenth century, women were assumed to be the sex-crazed porn fiends of their day. In one ancient Greek myth, Zeus and Hera argue about whether men or women enjoy sex more. They ask the prophet Tiresias, whom Hera had once transformed into a woman, to settle the debate. He answers, “if sexual pleasure were divided into ten parts, only one part would go to the man, and and nine parts to the woman.”

Stuff reports:

A Gisborne man was justifiably fired after his boss saw Facebook pictures of him at a waka ama championship when he was meant to be at home sick, a court has found.

Bruce Taiapa has lost an appeal to try and overturn an Employment Relations Authority ruling that his employer, the training institute Turanga Ararau, was within its rights to sack him in July 2011 because he misused his sick leave.

Employment Court chief judge Colgan backed up the authority’s ruling in a decision released yesterday.

In March 2011, Taiapa, 59, asked to take a week’s leave without pay so he could attend the waka ama championships in Rotorua. He was granted only three days off because no-one was available to cover his work.

The next Monday, he called in sick, saying he had a damaged calf muscle.

Two days later, his boss saw on Facebook a picture of him at the championships. Taiapa was smiling and giving the thumbs-up.

That is beyond stupid – both the calling a sick when you are not, but competing in waka champs and being photographed there.

Once he returned to Gisborne, Taiapa got a doctor’s certificate stating that he had been unfit to work for the past week. He returned to work three days later.

This is one of the reasons I am skeptical of the numbers on the sickness benefit. It is all too easy to get a certificate.

After a series of discussions, manager Sharon Maynard dismissed Taiapa for misusing his sick leave and misleading his employer. Maynard said she had lost trust and confidence in Taiapa.

Taiapa’s lawyers argued Turanga Ararau should not be able to dictate where Taiapa recuperated from his illness.

I don’t think taking part in a waka championship is recuperation!

Institute of IT Professionals – ICT-Connect from IITP on Vimeo.

The Institute of IT Professionals have done this short video about their ICT-Connect in-school programme which gets passionate IT professionals to talk in schools to get kids excited about a career in IT.

The programme is financially supported by over 40 organisations, including companies like Datacom, Orion Healthcare and Potentia as well as other orgs such as InternetNZ, SoftwareNZ and the Health IT Cluster.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key says it will be “bleak” for Canterbury residents who chose not to take up the Government’s buy-out offer for land in the red zone.

He said the Government would not support red zone infrastructure – water, sewerage, electricity and roading.

“It will be quite a bleak environment to be living in. But in the end you can’t force people to take the offer, it’s voluntary.”

He said 6500 people have either accepted and settled, or are about to settle. Only 213 have not.

So that is a 97% acceptance rate.

Some Christchurch residents with land in the red zone are calling in the Human Rights Commission.

I really don’t think there is a human right to require me (and other taxpayers) to purchase undeveloped or uninsured land that has been damaged in an earthquake.

The SMH reports at Stuff:

Samoa Air has become the world’s first airline to implement “pay as you weigh” flights, meaning overweight passengers pay more for their seats.

“This is the fairest way of travelling,” chief executive of Samoa Air, Chris Langton, told ABC Radio. “There are no extra fees in terms of excess baggage or anything – it is just a kilo is a kilo is a kilo.”

Like many Pacific island nations, Samoa has a serious obesity problem and is often included in the top 10 countries for obesity levels. As such, Mr Langton believes his airline’s new payment policy will also help promote health and obesity awareness.

“When you get into the Pacific, standard weight is substantially higher [than south-east Asia],” he said. “That’s a health issue in some areas. [This payment system] has raised the awareness of weight.”

Under the new system, Samoa Air passengers must type in their weight and the weight of their baggage into the online booking section of the airline’s website. The rates vary depending on the distance flown: from $1 per kilogram on the airline’s shortest domestic route to about $4.16 per kilogram for travel between Samoa and American Samoa. Passengers are then weighed again on scales at the airport, to check that they weren’t fibbing online.

I think flight charges should be user pays, so this is a step in the right direction. However a simple per kg charge may be unfair.

Most costs are per seat, and will be incurred whether or not everyone weighs 70 kgs or 100 kgs. So there should be a per seat cost, but as greater weight means more fuel burnt, you’d have a per kg charge on top of that.

It is unfair that someone who weighs 70 kgs and has a 30 kg bag has to pay more than someone who weighs 100 kgs and has a 20 kg bag.

Mr Langton said he believed it to be a system of the future, and added that “the standard width and pitch of seats are changing as people are getting a bit bigger, wider and taller than they were 40 to 50 years ago”.

Maybe also have different size seats, with higher charges for wider seats? Of course sort of have that already with premium economy.

The Herald reports:

The Geographic Board is publicly consulting on proposals to assign official alternative names to the two main islands – Te Ika a Maui for the North and Te Waipounamu for the South. The first refers to demi-god Maui’s act of fishing up the North Island while the second is a reference to that island’s greenstone.

I’ve got no problem with official alternative names, so long as they are alternatives.

North Island and South Island are very boring, but they are also very easy to remember and use!

Geographic Board suggests:
North Island – Te Ika a Maui
South Island – Te Waipounamu
Maori have known the islands as:
Alternative place names for Te Waipounamu: Te Waka a Maui, for Te Ika a Maui: Aotearoa
Other names the North Island has been known as: 
New Ulster
Other names the South Island has been known as: 
New Munster, Middle Island

I quite like the idea of New Ulster and New Munster 🙂

The Herald reports:

Lawyer and social policy expert Michael Bott said the plan showed the Government’s hatred towards those who were passionate about the environment.

That’s very strong language from Mr Bott, who is described as a social policy expert. I’m not sure how you get such a title, but they have missed out a more relevant title.

Mr Bott was of course the Labour Party candidate for Wairarapa. A fact that should have been disclosed.

This continual non disclosure on the part of media really annoys me, because it happens so consistently and in just one direction.

I honestly can not recall the last time I saw a National Party candidate, office holder or even activist quoted in the media without reference to their party involvement. While Labour Party people pop up in various guises so often, I have lost count.

Either the Herald were unaware Mr Bott was a Labour Party candidate, or they thought the public don’t need to know that this “social policy expert” who says the Government hates people who are passionate about the environment stood for Labour at the last election.

I’m not sure what answer is worse – that they didn’t know, or that they did no and decided not to say.

The Greens have been circulating this image. There are a number of issues with it.

First of all, it is not a photo of a Kiwi student. It is a generic photo you can find here, here, here and here. I suspect is comes from a photo library, and someone should ask the Greens if they paid for the photo, or just swiped  it off the Internet?

But even worse for the Greens, is that almost every single fact is wrong.

The minimum wage last week was $13.50 (not $13.75). For a 40 hour week that is $540 a week, which is $28,080 for 52 weeks. That makes them tax code ME SL.

The IRD calculator states that last week their PAYE was $74.83, student loan deduction $17.30 and KiwiSaver $10.80. That is a net pay of $437.07 – not $455.

So they are already out by $17 a week.

Now also be aware that they are lying when they state Sandy has her wage cut from $13.75 to $11.00. It is illegal for the new starting off wage to be applied to an existing job.

If they are claiming she was unemployed last week, then she was on $153 a week, not $445 or $437. And she might not have her job if it were not for the ability of an employer to offer her a starting off wage.

But even if we put this to one side, their sums are still further wrong. If her gross wage did drop from $540 to $440 a week, then her student loan repayments also drop – from $17.30 a week to $8.76 a week (even at the 12% rate). So rather than have repayments increase by $5, they drop by around $9.

Also they have not taken into account the wage difference with KiwiSaver. The deduction at 2% was $10.80 and at 3% on a lower wage is $13.20 – a change of $2.40, not $4.00.

So in summary, the Greens:

1. Misrepresented the minimum wage change
2. Inaccurately stated the minimum wage last week was $13.75
3. Miscalculated the take home pay last week (they were wrong at $13.50 and $13.75)
4. Miscalculated the change in student loan repayments
5. Miscalculated the change in Kiwisaver deductions

This is pretty gross incompetence for a political party with you know staff and MPs. There is nothing difficult about going to the IRD website and using their calculator. Their advertisement is false and misleading and they should withdraw it until corrected.

UPDATE: It gets even worse for the Greens. A commenter has pointed out the starting out wage only comes in as an option on 1 May 2013. So it is a total fail. A fake 18 year old girl, fake calculations and fake dates.

A better rival graphic from Act on Campus:

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

Spy boss Ian Fletcher was not short-listed for the top job at the Government’s foreign spy agency – but applied after a phone call from Prime Minister John Key.

The short list – drawn up by a recruitment company – was rejected by State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie. …

Mr Rennie confirmed yesterday that he had rejected the short list. Mr Key said that after he and Mr Rennie “agreed to look elsewhere,” Mr Key phoned Mr Fletcher, who was working in Australia.

“[Mr Key] said that if he was interested in the position of director, GCSB, he would need to go through a process and should call Maarten Wevers in the first instance,” the statement from Mr Key said. Sir Maarten was head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet at the time.

Mr Fletcher was the only candidate interviewed by a panel made up of Sir Maarten, defence secretary John McKinnon and deputy state services commissioner Helene Quilter.

Mr Rennie said the “panel was unanimous . . . that Mr Fletcher was suitable for appointment”.

I think it is unfortunate the Prime Minister phoned Ian Fletcher to suggest he applies. While he would not have got the job if he wasn’t qualified, a phone call from the PM soliciting the application would carry weight with the State Services Commission.

I think Ministers should generally be very wary of suggesting people for state sector roles. David Parker, as Environment Minister,  endorsed Clare Curran for a role with the Environment Ministry, which was heavily scrutinised.

Now Fletcher has no political connections, but I think the same principle applies. Ministers are best to avoid involvement outside their formal roles.

A former diplomat, Mr Fletcher was chief executive officer of Queensland’s Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation when he was appointed. A high-flier in the British civil service, he had also worked for the European Commission and the United Nations.

Mr Key says he and Mr Fletcher met a “couple of times” when Mr Fletcher was in Queensland and no more than a “handful” of occasions between the mid-2000s and his GCSB appointment.

Mr Key disclosed the links to Mr Rennie during the appointment process.

The Economist looks at the history and pitfalls of an FTT:

A group of 11 European Union member states, among them France, Germany and Italy, wants to impose a 0.1% tax on equity and debt transactions, and a 0.01% charge on derivatives transactions. These countries are pressing ahead on their own because other EU members, including financial hubs like Britain and Luxembourg, are opposed. …

The rates proposed sound negligible, but the tax would be imposed at each point in the transaction chain. A 0.1% rate therefore translates into something much bigger as securities move from seller to buyer via financial intermediaries. Even the headline rates are less innocuous than they look. A 0.1% charge on repo transactions, a way for banks to finance themselves overnight, turns into a 25% charge over the course of a working year. A 0.01% tax on a derivative trade sounds small, but is a hefty increase in costs given the large notional amounts involved—up to 18 times more than current costs in the most liquid markets, according to one calculation.

And how have they worked in practice?

After Sweden levied an FTT in the 1980s, 60% of trading volume in the most actively traded share classes moved to London; the tax was repealed in 1991.

It will send capital fleeing offshore.

Some interesting comments were made yesterday on the Tiwai Point thread, with people disagreeing with me that the Government should not be involved:

Jack5 said:

In a detailed post by “Tempest” in Kiwiblog yesterday, is was spelled out that the new infrastructure required to put Manpouri’s electricity on the NZ market would cost $2 billion and would take eight to ten years to complete.

DPF thinks the SOE board should negotiate this contract. This is about more than some electricity price subsidy. How would Meridian raise $2 billion to bring Manapouri electricity north with a wait of six to eight years before it received any revenue from this spending?

There’s a better case for the Government negotiating here than there was for its role in helping the film industry. And there were film-industry tax subsidies (yes, special industry tax breaks are subsidies), as well as labour rules involved.

The aluminium industry is in upheaval round the world thanks to a dive in demand and prices, and rising competition from China. Australia and New Zealand have a special difficulty because of the two countries well overvalued currencies.

In France the French Government is working with Rio Tinto and local community representatives and unions to try to find a buyer for Rio Tinto’s aluminium smelter at Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.

Finding a buyer for Bluff, might be harder, however. In Australia, Norsk Hydro announced 12 months ago it was closing its aluminium smelter at Kurri Kurri. Alcoa’s smelter in Victoria is staying open for two years, thanks to a state-federal subsidy.

If Australia is bailing out its smelters, NZ will have to follow or lose a billion a year in foreign currency earnings. It would also have to raise $2 billion for new infrastructure, and spend heaps on social support in Southland (just as it props up farmers in droughts and kiwifruit farmers in disease outbreaks).

Too much is at stake with the smelter to leave it to a State-appointed board.

However, that is where it is. Stuff reports:

Mining giant Rio Tinto has walked away from talks with the Government over the future of Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, Prime Minister John Key has confirmed this morning.

Key said Rio had withdrawn after nine months of negotiations over possible taxpayer subsidies and had now resumed discussions with state-owned power company Meridian.

It was revealed last week the Government had been negotiating with Rio Tinto over the smelter after contract negotiations between subsidiary Pacific Aluminium and Meridian effectively stalled.

The Government had made it clear there would be no long-term support, but agreed to look at short term bridging assistance because of the thousands of jobs at stake, and to facilitate a smoother transition should Tiwai Point close, Key told TV3’s Firstline.

“We made the call that we would look to help bridge a small amount of that gap for a short period of time.

“They came back over the weekend and said ‘no, we are rejecting the Government’s intervention; we will go back and talk to Meridian’. So that’s what they are doing now.”

He acknowledged ultimately that might mean Tiwai Point closed.

Just as Solid Energy suffered due to low global coal prices, Tiwai Point suffers from low global aluminum prices. There is a limited amount one can do locally in the face of global price changes.

This reinforces to me why the state shouldn’t be in commercially risky enterprises. Why should I as a taxpayer be carrying some of the risk around global aluminium prices? If Tiwai Point closes, it will reduce the value of the energy SOEs.

Rio Tinto apparently decided to walk away after the Government made it clear it would not subsidise the deal long-term.

Key confirmed this morning the Government had no interest in that.

Good.

The NZ Centre for Public Law at Vic Uni has a series of debates on constitutional issues. They run for the next five Mondays at 6.30 pm. The details are:

1. 8 April, Hunter Council Chamber – “What’s the problem?”. Professor Bruce Harris, Moana Jackson, Dame Claudia Orange, Dr Matthew Palmer – about the Constitutional Review, its process, its political genesis.
2. 15 April, Hunter Council Chamber – “Reforming our democratic institutions”. Dr Maria Bargh, Colin James, Professor Elizabeth McLeay, Sir Geoffrey Palmer QC – term and size of Parliament, size and number of electorates, Maori electoral representation.
3. 22 April, Te Herenga Waka Marae – “Maori aspirations for constitutional change”. Tai Ahu, Dr Rawinia Higgins, Veronica Tawhai, Valmaine Toki – status of the Treaty, alternative models of Māori-Crown relationships, development of a kaupapa Māori or tikanga-based constitution.
4. 29 April, Hunter Council Chamber – “Human rights in the constitution”. Professor Andrew Geddis, Jack Hodder QC, Stephen Whittington, Professor Margaret Wilson – Should the Bill of Rights be supreme law in a written constitution? If so, what rights should be included or excluded?
5. 6 May, Hunter Council Chamber – “Time to be a Republic?. Jim Bolger, Professor Janet McLean, Michael Mabbitt. Is it time to become a republic? If not, will it ever be? What would that involve, and what will be the major issues confronting us if and when we do so?

I plan to attend at least three of the debates. I assume they will allow interactions from the floor? They will be broadcast of Radio NZ also.

Radio NZ reports:

Budgeting services and opposition parties say struggling workers will be hit hard by increased costs that came into effect on 1 April.

Minimum KiwiSaver contributions rose from 2% to 3% …

The Labour and Green parties say some workers already struggling financially may choose to opt out of KiwiSaver rather than make the higher payments.

Again, such hypocrisy. Labour not only bitterly complained about National dropping the minimum contribution from 4% to 2%, they also have a policy of making KiwiSaver compulsory so struggling workers get no choice about contributing!

Would be nice if the media reported their policies, not just their releases!

Pretty good news in the 2012 crime stats, just released:

• Homicides down 18.1%
• Assaults rate down 3.4%
• Sexual assaults up 1.3%
• Robberies down 10.1%
• Burglaries down 11.1%
• Theft down 11.8%

The overall number of crimes is down 7.4% and the crime rate is down 8.0%. Note however the overall rate is a fairly un-useful figure as it treats all crimes as equal magnitude.

I’ve done some quick graphs showing the level of recorded offences and the crime rates for the major categories, since 1996. A variety of stories.

Thankfully not a large number of homicides, so changes may not be significant. But a nice trend down in the last three years.

Assaults and violent offences were definitely trending up until 2009, and have been reducing over the last three years.

Sadly sexual assaults is the one area that has not reduced. This may be due to greater reporting levels.

Thefts have been going down pretty constantly for the last 16 years.

Burglaries were pretty constant, but have also started to trend down.

Robberies really shot up around a decade ago, then started to reduce from 2006 and decrease more rapidly since 2008.

Again the overall rate is not that useful a number but still psychologically important to some. The overall crime rate dropped from 1996 to 2004, and then increased from 2004 to 2009. Since 2009 it has dropped pretty significantly. It is 18.9% lower than three years ago.

Audrey Young reports:

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday has paid tribute to Warren Freer for his pioneering work in contact with China.

Mr Freer died on Thursday last week, aged 92.

He was a former journalist and was first elected to Parliament in 1947. He remained there for 43 years until his retirement in 1981, when Helen Clark succeeded him.

Helen Clark said last night that Mr Freer had a place not only in Labour Party history but in New Zealand history.

“When you look back at the 50s and Warren’s determination to open a window on China for New Zealand, this was pioneering and quite brave work and led to him being smeared quite a lot all his life as being pro-communist.”

I think it was his enthusiasm for North Korea that may have got him labelled that.

The NZ – North Korean friendship society writes:

Freer also visited North Korea on a number of occasions. During late 1979 an NZ-DPRK  Society delegation to the North was received by the DPRK Deputy Prime Minister. In an article published after the visit the delegation said that the country’s industrial development was “remarkable”, and the degree of equality “most impressive”. North Korea was “very delighted” with such coverage.

I’m sure they were!

Freer wrote a history of his time in Parliament. I haven’t read it, but I understand it has fascinating details of the internal caucus battles of Labour in the 1950s to 1970s.

Adam Bennett reports:

The latest attempt at giving farmers a presence in Parliament and a potential rival to Act on the political right is getting close to attracting enough members to register for next year’s election.

Looking at its policies, I’d say it is competing with NZ First.

The Focus NZ party, headed by Kerikeri farmer and businessman Ken Rintoul, was formed last year around a group of farmers opposed to big rate increases proposed by the Far North District Council.

Initially called the Rural Party when it formed in August, Mr Rintoul said the name was changed in November to reflect the large proportion of urban businesspeople among the 180 members it had at that point.

Now the party has over 400 members, not far off the 500 required to register with the Electoral Commission.

You need around 100,000 votes to get into Parliament. Getting 500 members is a very low threshold to register. Some parties end up with fewer votes than members.

Like Act, Focus NZ wants to cut taxes, but not in all areas: it wants to introduce a new tax on international financial transactions.

Also unlike Act, it is opposed to asset sales.

Oh God, they support an FTT. A cross between NZ First and Social Credit.

I predict they will fail to make even 1%. Here’s the history under MMP of new parties that don’t have an existing MP already in Parliament, with their best results:

• 99 MPs 0.03%
• ACT 7.14%
• Advance NZ 0.05%
• Animals First 0.17%
• Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis 1.66%
• Asia Pacific United 0.02%
• Bill & Ben 0.56%
• Christian Heritage 2.38%
• Christian Coalition 4.33%
• Conservative 2.65%
• Democrats for Social Credit 0.08%
• Destiny 0.62%
• Direct Democracy 0.03%
• Ethnic Minority 0.12%
• Family Party 0.35%
• Family Rights 0.05%
• Freedom 0.02%
• Future NZ 1.12%
• Green Society 0.11%
• Kiwi Party 0.54%
• Libertarianz 0.29%
• Mana Maori 0.25%
• Mauri Pacific 0.19%
• McGillycuddy Serious 0.29%
• Natural Law 0.15%
• NMP 0.05%
• NZ Conservative 0.07%
• NZ Super & Youth 0.06%
• One NZ 0.09%
• Outdoor Recreation 1.28%
• Pacific Party 0.37%
• People’s Choice 0.02%
• Progressive Greens 0.26%
• RAM 0.02%
• Republic of NZ Party 0.02%
• South Island 0.14%
• Te Tawharau 0.02%
• Workers Party 0.04%

So of those 38 parties, only ACT have made it in. 31 parties have failed to make even 1% and six parties made 1%. Of those six, four were effectively Christian parties, plus ALCP and Outdoor Recreation.

The Herald reports:

The policeman found to have planted evidence that led to the wrongful conviction of Arthur Allan Thomas for the murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe has died.

The Herald has learned that former Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton, 83, died in Middlemore Hospital late on Sunday night after a short illness. …

The commission report said: “Mr Hutton and Mr [Len] Johnston planted the shell case … and they did so to manufacture evidence that Mr Thomas’ rifle had been used for the killings.”

Neither Mr Hutton nor Detective Sergeant Johnston, who died in 1978, were investigated by police over the allegations of wrongdoing or held to account.

The Solicitor-General at the time said there was not enough information to lay charges against them.

It is a pity they were never charged. Their alleged actions were toxic to the Police, and should not be tolerated.

Karl du Fresne writes in the Manawatu Standard:

I have some advice – unsolicited – for whoever takes over from Peter Cavanagh, the chief executive of Radio New Zealand, who steps down toward the end of this year.

RNZ is a national treasure, but it’s a flawed treasure, and that makes it vulnerable. By correcting the most obvious of those flaws, whoever takes over from Mr Cavanagh could help protect the organisation against political interference.

So what is this flaw?

So what might the new RNZ chief executive do to enhance the organisation’s standing in a political climate that is less than favourable? One obvious step is to take a tougher line against the editorial bias that still permeates some RNZ programmes.

Public broadcasting organisations, by their very nature, tend to be Left-leaning. It’s not hard to understand how this comes about. Journalists distrustful of capitalism naturally gravitate toward state-owned media organisations, seeing them as untainted by the profit motive. This becomes self-perpetuating, since the more Left-leaning an organisation becomes, the more it attracts other people of the same persuasion. The result is often an ideological mindset that permeates the entire organisation.

I think that is a nice summary of the problems that inhabit most state funded broadcasters. There is no “master conspiracy” that a broadcaster such as Radio NZ tries to be politically left-leaning. It is just that they tend to attract left-leaning staff, and sometimes have a workplace culture that is hostile to non-conforming views.

To be fair to Radio NZ, they are nowhere near as bad as the BBC. And certainly some shows try very hard to have a diversity of views.

But publicly funded broadcasters have an obligation to make programmes that reflect the views and interests of the entire community – not just those the broadcasters happen to favour.

This is explicitly stated in RNZ’s charter, which commits the organisation to impartial and balanced coverage of news and current affairs.

It’s the duty of the chief executive, who also has the title of editor-in-chief, to ensure this happens. But in this respect, Mr Cavanagh, an Australian who was recruited from the ABC in 2003, has been missing in action.

The ABC is arguably a worse offender.

Overall, RNZ presents a more balanced range of perspectives than it used to. But on some programmes, a stubborn Left-wing bias persists.

Kim Hill is the worst offender. This is a problem for whoever runs RNZ, because she’s also its biggest name.

Chris Laidlaw lists to the Left too, as does Jeremy Rose, a journalist who frequently crops up on Laidlaw’s Sunday morning show. Rose appears to be on a lifelong mission to convince people that there are humane alternatives to nasty, heartless capitalism.

Heh I have to admit that Mediawatch seems to have at least one segment every week complaining about the evils of advertising. They even spent two weeks talking about that some food company sent some free samples to some journalists who tweeted about their launch. Shock, horror.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that RNZ should become a tame government puppet. That would be far worse than the status quo.

But we all have an interest in Radio New Zealand surviving, and a genuinely independent, non-partisan RNZ will be in a far stronger position to defend itself than one that consistently leaves itself exposed to allegations of bias.

It is a fair point.

The Herald editorial:

Rio Tinto is doubtless more than happy that the Government has stepped in to try to broker a deal over the electricity supply contract for the Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter. The global company’s bargaining position has always been strong. Now, the concerns that have brought the Government to the negotiating table make it even stronger. Nonetheless, there remains no reason to bow to the mining giant’s every demand.

I am unconvinced they should be given any special treatment, beyond a commercial volume based discount for electricity which is up to Meridian to negotiate.

As much was confirmed by Contact Energy’s share price dropping 3 per cent in early trading after Meridian announced the negotiation deadlock.

A 3% drop is not the end of the world.

There are other factors for the Government to consider, not least the threat to 750 jobs at the smelter and a further 3000 indirectly in the Southland region.

But will those jobs endure just because the Government comes to the party? I am doubtful. If the smelter is not a going concern, then its closure is inevitable. If the smelter is a going concern, I’m not too keen to subsidise it.

Some people will make comparisons to Sky City and The Hobbit. But I view those two as quite different. Sky City is not threatening anyone. It is not saying that it will pack up shop, if it does not get its way. That negotiation is about Auckland needing a world class convention centre and negotiating some regulatory changes that would allow Sky City to  build it.

And The Hobbit stuff happened because of the malign interference of the Australian union. They instigated a global boycott that led to a possible shift overseas. Their influence had to be negated.

Rio Tinto are just trying to use the asset sales to renegotiate a contract they had already agreed to. Now that is fine for them to try – but the negotiation should be with Meridian.

Rio Tinto’s position is the stronger in that it has made it clear that it wants to sell the smelter. If that is not possible, closure is an alternative response to the sagging world price for aluminium. Even so, there is no reason for the Government to start genuflecting. This country has already given successive Tiwai Pt operators very good deals since it built the Manapouri hydro station to power the smelter more than 40 years ago. The Government’s approach to these negotiations should, therefore, not be markedly different from that of Meridian. If a deal that makes commercial sense cannot be struck, it will not be fatal to the asset-sales programme, the country’s electricity framework, or, in the long term, the Southland economy. On no account should the Government throw in the towel.

I agree. Any concessions should be minor, if at all.