Kiwiblog

Woo hoo. Paula Tesoriero has just won the gold medal in the 500m time trial at the Beijing Paralympics.

She also set a world record with her time of 43.281 seconds.

This is a huge achievement, especially when you consider where the power has to come from for Paula:

Paula Tesoriero has disabilities in both her legs - an artifical left leg as she is missing part of that leg and no ankle on her right leg. She uses a carbon leg while competing and relies on her thighs to power the bike.

You won’t beleive how many legs she has broken in training!!

Well done Paula (and hubby Chris). Really inspiring. I’ve known Paula since she was 18 and she’s always been amazing, but considering she only took up serious cycling a few years ago, the results are extraordinary.

The Electoral Commission has given NZ First until 30 September 2008 to file new audited returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007 and explain why the ones they filed are incorrect.  Then they will decide what to do. The Police have announced regardless they are investigating the complaint over their 2007 return.

If I was the NZ First Auditor, I would be very very nervous about signing off any new return unless they get a personal undertaking in writing from the Leader and the President that all relevant financial records have been supplied.

NZPA reports:

Parliament is set to have a final session beginning on September 23, Prime Minister Helen Clark said today.

There has been some speculation that this week’s sitting of Parliament could be the last before the election, but Miss Clark said today that was not her plan.

“It is our intention to be back on the 23rd (of September)… we are certainly not intending this to be our last week,” Miss Clark said.

If the House returns on Tuesday 23 September, than I would say it would dissolve at the earliest on Thursday 25 September. It could keep meeting until Thursday 2 October (expires automatically on Monday 6 October). Let us say it is dissolved on Thursday 23 September.

Writ Day would almost certainly be Thursday 2 October. In theory it could immediate, but it never is. Then you have closing of nominations which isn’t specified by statute but normally at least three days after the writs. That means Monday 6 October. Then the polling day is 20 to 27 days after that which would be Saturday 1 November at the earliest.

8 November is still looking good to me.

Labour has launched their 2008 advertising campaign with this poster, photographed in Kilbirnie.

They have to be given full marks for campaign advertisements which get to the heart of what their entire campaign is about.

The ODT slams the EFA:

There can be no doubt now that the Electoral Finance Act is a litigious bomb waiting to go off.

I wonder how many MPs will face electoral petitions?

The reported comment by the Electoral Commission’s chief executive, Dr Helena Catt: “The commission is not confident it will be able to reach informed positions on the interpretation of some provisions within the election period, and notes the situation is exacerbated by the legal reality that it cannot finally determine questions of whether, for instance, an item is an election advertisement”, makes that plain enough. It means post-election litigation of some magnitude.

Yep.

Dr Catt certainly expects it, describing party election and donation returns, including the new line between election expenses and expenses which are precluded because an MP was acting in their “capacity as an MP” rather than electioneering, as likely court disputes. In some electorates where challenges are mounted, this must mean that the courts will decide who is elected.

Not quite. If they found an MP overspent, then there is a by-election. The loser does not gain the seat automatically.

The commission, the Human Rights Commission and the Law Society all criticised the Act as unclear and undemocratic before 63 MPs made it into law. But Labour and its allies are now discovering the folly of forcing this ill-considered law through as quickly as they did.

And they are the ones that keep breaking it!

A local futures or predictions market for Kiwis has been launch - iPredict. From their PR:

Who’s going to be the next Prime Minister - Helen or John? Will the price of petrol be $3 a litre by Christmas? Will Winston be sacked before election day?

These are some of the questions Kiwis may find themselves backing their opinions on with iPredict - www.iPredict.co.nz - New Zealand’s first real money online prediction market, which launches tomorrow (9 September).

The online marketplace enables users to trade on their predictions on a broad range of future political and business events that pay real money if their prediction comes true.

Established as a research tool by Victoria University of Wellington and think tank ISCR, iPredict harnesses the wisdom of crowds via the Internet to predict future outcomes and has a strong focus on helping companies, government agencies and academics with research. …

Mr Burgess says that iPredict is like a simple stock exchange, trading real money.

“How it works is that contracts pay $1 if an event comes true - nothing otherwise - and the price these contracts trade for is the prediction. For example, you could have a contract that pays $1 if Helen Clark is the next Prime Minister, and pays nothing otherwise. If that contract trades for 60 cents, then the market’s prediction is a 60% probability that Helen Clark will stay on as Prime Minister.”

Mr Burgess says that prediction markets are the gold standard for forecasting.

“Traders on prediction markets combine information from polls, expert commentary and any other source to produce a prediction that is more accurate than any available alternative,” Mr Burgess says.

“Prediction markets work because they ask traders to put their money where their mouths are, so it pays to be honest, objective, and even do a little homework.” …

Anybody can browse iPredict and see the predictions for free by going to www.iPredict.co.nz but traders have to be 18 years and older to set up an account. Accounts are free to set up and people can start trading with as little as $5.

I think this will be a load of fun, and also the chance to make some useful money. The current prices are:

1. A Labour PM after the election - 29.59c
2. A National PM after the election - 67.55c
3. National’s vote share (pays 1c per %) - 48.33c
4. Labour’s vote share - 36.00c
5. NZ to go into recession in 2008 - 88.76c

I have a minor commercial relationship with iPredict - I will be writing a weekly analysis for them of political events to tie into ups and downs in the market prices. This will go out weekly to iPredict customers and/or be on their site.

A very useful editorial from the Dominion Post on the ETS:

There is one certainty in the global warming debate: the problem of climate change is not one that will be solved by an overnight fix, writes The Dominion Post. That’s why it is absurd that Labour believed it needed to stitch together a series of backroom deals and then pull out all the stops to rush through an emissions trading scheme in the final few days of Parliament before the election.

Especially as Labour had delayed the entrance into the scheme of major sectors anyway.

That comes at a cost. Labour is proposing 785 amendments to the scheme - which will not begin to be implemented till 2010 - as it completes its gallop through Parliament. Those amendments are a symptom of the complexity of the scheme. It is ridiculous to believe that they will receive the careful consideration they should before they are written into law, and in a scheme where the devil will be in the detail, that is dangerous.

Fonterra have already identified one mistake that will cost it $13 million a year. The Government has agreed they are mistakes, but those clauses of the ETS Bill have already been agreed to and can not now be amended without special leave.

There is no question that Labour is well-intentioned. Despite that, the legislation is part of a strategy that remains deeply flawed. It risks concentrating on the accountancy of who ends up picking up the bill for carbon emissions, rather than on reducing those emissions.

Guess how much emissions will be reduced by 2012 under the ETS? Anyone care to guess?

The reality is that the scheme, designed to meet New Zealand’s Kyoto protocol commitment, will end up increasing the prices that consumers pay for all manner of things, and damage the economy, without necessarily doing anything about reducing the amount of carbon emitted in New Zealand.

The impact on emissions by the end of the Kyoto 1st commitment period will be minimal.

The New Zealand scheme needs to be seen in that context. New Zealand is responsible for about 0.2 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile Chinese emissions are growing at a prodigious rate - according to some projections, by 2.3 billion tonnes in the next five years, far in excess of what the West is supposed to save under the Kyoto protocol.

The world will gain little fron New Zealand’s rush, but New Zealand risks losing a lot through a flawed scheme.

Unless China and India join in, the impact of the rest of the world reducing emissions will be nil.

Matthew Hooton asks if a re-elected Clark Government will abolish the free press. Now of course they will not abolish it, but as we have seen with the EFA one can generate a “chilling effect. And the Government is already consulting on whether the press council’s functions should be tranferred over to the Government appointed Broadcasting Standards Authority. Hooton make the following points:

• Helen Clark, of course, viciously attacked the media in her speech to the Journalism Education Association last year.
  
• She accused the New Zealand Herald of running a “full-blooded attack” on her Government and lamented that complaining to the Press Council “just doesn’t get you anywhere”, suggesting she wants other remedies available to her.
  
• Earlier, in 2006, Clark attacked the Sunday Star-Times for daring to run my fortnightly column, and Radio New Zealand National for my half hour a week politics slot with Laila Harre.
• Frighteningly, as part of her attack, she used a Maoist-sounding description - “the peoples’ radio” - to describe Radio New Zealand National, suggesting what she thinks the role of the public broadcaster should be and that providing a range of contestable opinions for listeners to consider is not part of it.
• Finance Minister Michael Cullen has threatened the New Zealand Herald with changes to its tax status if it didn’t change its position on taxation, and accused press gallery journalists of self interest in asking him questions about tax relief.
• Former Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey broke the law in trying to influence Radio New Zealand’s editorial content but, when challenged, said he would do it again.
• If it hadn’t been for the “chilling” Electoral Finance Act, it would be possible to dismiss speculation about a secret Labour agenda to control the press. But they did it for paid media. Why wouldn’t they extend that principle to unpaid media?

As I said above, there is already a consultation document on replacing the industry self-regulating Press Council with the Government appointed Broadcasting Standards Authority which could be given legislative control over broadcasters, print media and Internet media. I attended one of the meetings held to discuss this (I volunteered to be on the body of this new media overlord!).

And as Matthew says, who would have thought in 2005 that Labour would pass a law making it illegal for the EMA to run newspaper advertisements against changes to KiwiSaver by Trevor Mallard!

A Charlie Martin has set up a page listing and confirming or debunking all the rumours about Sarah Palin. I suggest anyone writing about her in the media check with this page, before repeating something that is false.

Here are some of the debunked rumours:

1. No she wasn’t a member of the (wild-eyed libertarian) Alaska independence Party, although her husband once was
2. No, she was never a Pat Buchanan supporter; even when Buchanan claims she was, she was on the board of Steve Forbes’a campaign in Alaska.
3. No, she’s not anti-semitic. In fact, she has an Israeli flag in her office. (Contrary to popular belief, the usual Evangelical thinks Israel has a right to exist, granted by God.)
4. No, she’s doesn’t believe that the Iraq War was directed by God. Yes, she did pray that proceeding with the war was God’s will. (Ever hear the phrase “Not my will, but Thine, be done”?)
5. No, Buchanan doesn’t support her now; in fact he’s supporting Obama. (Buchanan did think her speech was amazing, but then so do 80 percent of the people who saw it.)
6. yes, she was pregnant when she got married
7. Yes, barring immaculate conception, Bristol appears to have had sex with her fiancee. No, Bristol didn’t receive only “abstinence-only” sex ed.
8. yes, she did fire the public safety guy — but he said in the Anchorage paper that, for the record, she never, and no one else in her administration ever, tried to make him fire her ex-brother-in-law
9. and yes, the state trooper (her sister’s ex-husband) she was worried about did: tase her 10 year old nephew; drive his state patrol car while drinking or drunk; did threaten to “bring her down”; and did threaten to murder her father and sister if they dared to get an attorney to help with the divorce.
10. No, she didn’t cut funding for unwed mothers; yes, she did increase it by “only” 354 percent instead of 454 percent, as part of a multi-year capital expenditures program. No, the Washington Post doesn’t appear to have corrected their story. Even after this was pointed out in the comments on the story.
11. No, she didn’t cut special needs student funding; yes, she did raise it by “only” 175 percent.
12. yes, she did ask the librarian if some books could be withdrawn because of being offensive; no, they couldn’t; yes she did threaten to fire the librarian a month later; no, that wasn’t over the books thing but instead over administrative issues; no, the librarian wasn’t fired either; yes, the librarian was a big supporter of one of her political opponents; yes, the librarian was also the girlfriend of the Chief of police mentioned above; no, this is not the first time in the history of civilization that someone has been threatened with being fired over a political dispute
13. yes, she’s an was an Assembly of God Holy Roller. No, she doesn’t attend an AoG church now. Yes, she did leave the AoG because they were getting too weird for her.
14. yes, she apparently believes in some variant of Intelligent Design
15. no, she didn’t try to force the schools to teach it; she said if someone brought it up, it was an appropriate subject for debate.
16. No, she doesn’t believe in “abstinence only” education. Yes, she thinks abstinence is an effective way of preventing pregnancy. Duh. Yes, she believes kids should learn about condom use in schools.
17. yes, she kills animals and eats them, and wears their skins
18. yes, she has on occasion tried to get money from the federal government.
19. yes, she did finally turn down the money for the bridge. Yes, that meant changing her mind about it.
20. yes, she was vetted extensively, not just in three days — I’ve got links to press reports about people coming to Wassila on 29 May, and we had her on our Veepstakes at PJM from the first day we ran it.
21. Yes, Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech was written by a speechwriter. Duh. No, none of Obama’s, McCain’s, nor Biden’s speeches were impromptu off the cuff things either.

This is where the blogosphere can come into its own. It is the ability to specialise, to be the reference point on one small topic very well, and everyone then links to you. Martin has had huge traffic since the big US blogs started linking to his Palin Rumours page.

Talking of debunking rumours, Snopes is worth subscribing to. Also excellent.

From Labour’s Wellington Central candidate’s (Grant Robertson) latest newsletter:

Hoarding sites
Do you have a house, fence or garage that is visible and gets plenty of people or traffic passing by? Please consider putting up one of my signs. There are various sizes available. – contact Ross: ross.xxxxxxx@epmu.org.nz.

Ross is employed in the Wellington Office of the EPMU. It is of course wrong for EPMU staff to take unpaid leave to be a candidate for ACT but fine to help run a Labour campaign from work.

The EPMU has 103 staff according to its website. Far too much attention is paid to just how much money they spend. Their real value in in allowing staff pretty much as much time as they want to help Labour’s campaign and candidates out during the campaign.

Let’s say the average staffer earns $48,000. If they spent around 160 hours each (that is around 12 hours a week over three months) helping Labour campaign, then the total value of that contribution is over $400,000. That is on top of the $120,000 they are planning to formally donate and/or spend.

Now that’s all legal. But a useful reminder of the role big union money and resources can play in an election.

Audrey Young has details of the $80,000 from the Spencer Trust to NZ First in 2007, that was never declared.

The Spencer Trust in turn had, it seems, eight $10,000 cheques from eight different Vela companies.

Now the irony is that if the eight Vela companies had donated directly to NZ First, then (as they had done in the past) they may legally not have to be disclosed.

But by having the donations go through the Spencer Trust, the donation from the Spencer Trust does have to be disclosed, in my opinion. I don’t think you can look at who donated to the Spencer Trust.

Even if they had donated directly, there may still be issues. Generally a seperate company is a seperate donor as they have their own legal personality. However if each company has identical shareholders and directors, then a Judge could possibly find an issue with that - especially if they were sole shareholder and director companies.

What is interesting is that the NZ First Auditor had access to the books of the Spencer Trust. This indicates how close the two entities were. Also of interest is the fact they paid almost $90,000 of invoices on behalf of NZ First in 2006. The Party President says he had never heard of the Spencer Trust. So who handed over the invoices for payment?

My guess is the Leader. The same Leader who was making speeches railing against secret trusts.

Rex Widerstrom has had the Speaker approve this response from Rex Widerstrom to comments from NZ First MP Ron Mark.

RESPONSE PRESENTED UNDER STANDING ORDERS 160-463

ON APPLICATION OF MR REX WIDERSTROM

RELATING TO A REFERENCE MADE BY RON MARK ON 30 JULY 2008

In the general debate on Wednesday, 30 July 2008, Ron Mark made an interjection during part of a speech in which Rt Hon Winston Peters referred to me in such a way as to be readily identifiable. In the context of Mr Peters’ remarks, Mr Mark interjected with the word “paedophile”.

No reasonable person listening to proceedings at that time could fail to have understood that Mr Mark’s reference was to me. This was presumably a reference to my arrest in 2002 on several charges in Australia that were later subject to a nolle pro sequi with prejudice when the complainant-much to her credit-admitted that the entire thing was a fabrication.

Such is the opprobrium in which child sex offenders are held within the community, there can be no worse slur to offer against someone’s character. To do so against someone who has suffered the horror of being falsely accused of such an offence, only makes Mr Mark’s behaviour more offensive. A false accusation of the nature of that made by Mr Mark has a major effect on the life of an individual and his or her family.

I have always had a good relationship with Ron Mark and a lot of time for him. But there is no excusing his use of parliamentary privilege to label a critic a paedophile. It would be a good look for him to apologise for the remark, otherwise I suspect he will face questions at Rimutaka meet the candidate meetings about why he behaved in such a way.

Poneke has voted for STV in the Wellington referendum, despite earlier calling it a failure.

I blogged my views in March:

Now I actually support STV in many types of elections. In fact I introduced constitutional changes to InternetNZ so that candidates are elected by what is effectively STV, not FPP. National uses a form of STV for its internal elections for candidates and the board. I like and support STV in situations where it works well.

STV works well when the voter has a relatively small number of candidates to choose from, and they know most or all of the candidates. When you know the candidates you can quite easily make an intelligent choice about ranking X No 1, Y No 2 etc.

However STV is an unmitigated disaster for DHBs and a partial disaster for Councils. …

With regard to Councils, it is not quite as bad.  I actually like STV for voting for the Mayor. There is only one position to fill and it is possible to fairly sensibly rank say half a dozen candidates for Mayor. I like being able to express a second and third preference should my first preference fail to be elected.

But then when you come to wards, it becomes near useless again because again not even the political geeks can sensibly rank say 15 people competing for three Council positions. And so we have a 10% fall in turnout over two elections.  If you want to keep STV then you need small one person wards.

I could advocate STV for the Mayor, and FPP for Council but that may be too confusing.  So if WCC is to have one electoral system only, then FPP is best.

My position has not changed. Sadly I am going to vote for FPP.

However my preference would be to have smaller single Councillor wards, as if that happened then I think STV would work fine for both Mayor and Council.

I hope the scampi is nice!

One of the little projects I have had a bit to do with is helping arrange a partnership between TVNZ7 and InternetNZ for the 2008 Internet Election Debate.

InternetNZ ran an online debate on ICT issues in 2005 between some of the party spokespersons (including Labour and National). It was webcast, and allowed remote participation through an IRC channel, e-mailed questions etc. It worked well, with both the politicians and the audience enjoying the somewhat unconventional format which allowed more time for actual debate and detail.

As ICT issues such as broadband, fibre rollout, wireless, digital copyright have become far more prominent in the last year ro two, we thought there would be enough interest in the debate to look at having it televised also. And TVNZ7 were the natural partner with their focus on news and current affairs. So we were delighted when they showed not just interest but enthusiasm.

We’ve also got a great range of journalists for the debate. Sean Plunkett has agreed to be the overall moderator. Fran O’Sullivan and Russell Brown will fire questions from the media bench and we will also have an online moderator who will filter questions through from the online and viewing audience.

The debate is on Tuesday 23 September starting at 9.10 pm. The first hour is live on TVNZ7. The second hour will be webcast (as will be the first hour) live and also available through TVNZ On Demand.

The four MPs are Labour’s Minister of Communications Hon David Cunliffe, National ICT Spokesperson Hon Maurice Williamson, ACT Leader Rodney Hide and Greens ICT Spokesperson Metiria Turei.

The whole idea of the debate is it will be a two way communication, not just one way. So if you are interested in faster broadband, digital copyright, Internet Safety etc etc tune in on the night. You can also ask questions in advance on Geekzone.

New Zealand has dropped its opposition to a US-India nuclear deal after a phone call between George W Bush and Helen Clark.

India is delighted:

This followed tough negotiations in which several small NSG states agreed under heavy U.S. pressure to weaker language than they had sought to ensure India does not test atom bombs again.

“I thank the United States and other member countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group for the role they have played in ensuring this outcome,” Singh said.

The NY Times says:

Its critics warned that such a sweeping exemption for India, which has developed an atomic weapons program but steadfastly refused to sign the global nonproliferation treaty, sets a dangerous precedent.

The NZ Government is said to have wanted three concessions:

1. Action to be taken should India resume nuclear testing;
2. For India to sign up to an International Atomic Energy Agency protocol extending its monitoring powers;
3. A review of the exemption.

Could someone advise how many of these were formally agreed to? Is India signing up to such a protocol?

Personally I have no issues with the deal. I am just highlighting how the lofty rhetoric of the Clark administration fades way under a phone call from Duyba.

Do the Greens have anything to say?

Such a good policy it was released twice - by Trevor Mallard and then John Key!

The major points are:

1. Set 20 long-term environmental goals after stakeholder consultation.
2. Transfer to the Independent Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment the responsibility for a five-yearly State of the Environment report.
3. Change Ministry for the Environment into a small politically neutral policy ministry only.
4. Expand the Environmental Risk Management Authority into a full blown Environmental Protection Agency.
5. Confirm a target of 50% reduction (from 1990) of carbon emissions by 2050 through an Emissions Trading Scheme.
6. Dump the Biofuels bill but provide a tax incentive for sustainable biofuels.
7. $1,000 grants for households to install solar water systems.
8. Exempt electric cars from road user charges.
9. Establish a new national park in Northland’s Waipoua and surrounding Kauri forests.
10. Initiate a formal investigation under the National Parks Act of a new national park on the public lands of the Waitakere Ranges.

There’s also additional details around air and noise standards etc.

The Dominion Post suggests phone records could turn up the heat on Winston Peters. And indeed they could, but not Owen’s.

Owen as the recepient of the call from Peters would not have the call turn up on his phone records. It is possible he phoned Peters, but the more likely scenario is that Peters phoned Glenn.

The phone records of Peters or his staff are going to be more productive to search, but sadly for Winston they can only confirm if a call was made, they can not prove a call was not made - as it may have been from an unknown phone.

Ministerial Services pay the bills for Minister’s cell phones, landlines and staff cellphones also. As a parliamentary agency they will of course co-operate with the Privileges Committee. So I suggest they be asked to supply the call statements for the dates in questions.

Some interesting answers to a series of parliamentary questions asked by Rodney Hide. Staff who work directly for an MP have a near unique clause in the employment contract which allows them to be dismissed for “irreconcilable differences” or a “breakdown in relationship” regardless of who is at fault. This recognises that an MP’s Office could not function with a a staffer an MP does not have total confidence in.  The staff tends to get three months salary if they lose their job under that provision.

The Speaker has confirmed that during this term of Parliament, 12 staff have lost their jobs under this clause. Now this applies to the 93 MPs who are not Ministers, so that that means around one in eight MPs have had a fall out with a staffer resulting in a job loss.

The total cost of payouts has been $117,561. This is on top of any personal grievance settlements.

Also of interest, one MP has been careless enough to have two staff terminated under this process.

And over the last three years, there have been three formal complaints of bullying from an MP against a staff member.

Incidentially the upcoming election means that hundreds of staff will lose their jobs, approx:

1. 300 Ministerial staff
2. 100 Parliamentary party staff (leaders office, research units, whips office)
3. 90 Executive Secretaries
4. 190 Electorate Agents

Many will get rehired, but there are no guarantees. Even if the MP you work for keeps their job, they are under no obligation to rehire you, and you only get a months payout.

UPDATE: Dom Post has a story also.