Policy for sale

Yesterday John Key announced that the government was supporting the development of an international convention centre in Auckland. The centre would bring jobs and money to Auckland, which is a good thing. But there's a price: SkyCity wanted gambling laws relaxed to protect its investment, and Key (a former professional gambler, though in a different sort of casino) has decided to give it to them.

As with the Hobbit, this is a blatant case of policy for sale. Apparently all you have to do to change the law in this country is dangle (or threaten) a large enough amount of money in front of John Key. Which is great for large, exploitative multinational corporations - but not so great for ordinary kiwis, who are effectively financially locked out of our own government.

But there's a dirtier aspect to this as well, namely the possibility of undue influence exerted through political donations. Auckland Mayor Len Brown is right behind the project - possibly because SkyCity gave him $15,000 for his election campaign last year. As for National, SkyCity used to be a regular donor, giving them $60,000 in 2005. They haven't made more recent large donations, and thanks to National's "reform" which raised the disclosure threshold to $30,000, we'll never know if there's a payback for Key's support.

This illustrates perfectly why we need proper electoral disclosure laws in our country: so we can see who is bribing our politicians. With controversial decisions like this, we need to know. Sadly, both our major parties have a strong interest in ensuring that we can't.

Back for more

Two years ago, the mining industry tried to get its hands on our precious natural places, by pushing for amendments to the Crown Minerals Act allowing them to dig up our national parks. After an enormous public outcry, they failed. But now the Herald reports that they're back for more:

Less than a year after being defeated by strong public opposition, the mining industry is planning another bid to gain access to minerals lying beneath the conservation estate, leading industry figures have indicated.

Labour MP David Parker yesterday said "senior" mining industry sources had told him they planned to seek an increase in the size of pockets of Schedule Four land, which may be used for mining related activities.

Their aim is to get the ability to prospect, which if they find anything would then be used to pressure the government to deschedule land and allow them to dig it up.

The good news is there's an election in a coup and so the government is saying they are "not receptive" to such moves. The bad news is that they might change their minds once the election is out of the way, and they don't have to face the people for another three years. The only way to prevent this, and properly protect our national parks, is to turf them out of office.

A failure of regulation

Back in April, Queenstown-based Western Pacific Insurance was placed in liquidation after the Christchurch earthquake. The core problem? It had written out more insurance than it could cover, leaving a multi-million dollar shortfall and innocent people out of pocket. But it gets worse. Much worse. One of their directors had been blacklisted in Australia for misleading clients. And the company had written out $7.8 billion of life-insurance and product liability policies with no reinsurance to cover them.

Reading that, I'm left asking how the hell it could have been allowed to happen. Don't we have laws and regulations against this sort of thing, designed to stop insurance companies from taking people's money without being able to cover the policy if it comes due? If not, we bloody well should have! And if we do, then there's still a serious question of how Western Pacific was able to ignore them.

Either way, this is a serious failure of regulation and the government's duty to protect consumers from fraud and sharks. And I'd like to know what they're going to do to stop it from happening again.

Something to go to in Wellington

Last night three hundred mostly young people marched through Wellington to queer the night and protest against homophobia and transphobia. It was by all accounts a good protest, which has got a lot of people motivated. But the struggle doesn't end there. The Queer the Night campaign is holding a public meeting in Wellington next week to plan where to go next:

When: 19:00 - 22:00, Thursday, June 16
Where: Trades Hall, 126 Vivian St, Wellington
What: "discuss the strategies and tactics of how we can begin to build the movement required to create the social change".

More details on FaceSpy here.

The US isn't leaving Iraq

One of Barack Obama's first acts after being sworn in as US President was to announce that the US would be leaving Iraq. Most of the troops would leave by August 2010, with the remainder departing by the end of 2011.

He lied:

Iraq will ask the US to keep a troop presence in the country beyond an end-of-2011 pullout deadline, the probable next US defence secretary has said.

Outgoing CIA director Leon Panetta said he had "every confidence that a request like that will be forthcoming".

Why will it be forthcoming?

The BBC's Andrew North in Washington says that it seems likely that the US has offered Iraq some inducements to maintain its troop presence.

In other words, its a jackup, to give the appearance of consent to an ongoing foreign occupation which Obama had promised both the occupied and the occupiers he would end. There's an obvious lesson here about not trusting politicians, but also one about the weakness of US democracy and the undemocratic nature of that country's foreign policy. If Obama feared the voters, then he would not be able to break this promise, but the US's broken electoral system and low voter turnout insulate him from voter backlash and democratic control. Meanwhile, its another illustration that the US's foreign policy is of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%, a foreign policy for autocrats and dictators, not a democracy.

National just can't help themselves

Last year, National got into trouble for giving public money to its cronies without proper processes or oversight. Last week, we learned they were doing it again, dishing out $2.4 million to Christian group Parents Inc without a proper tender. And now the plot thickens - John Key is on the record as promising to give them money before the last election. I guess he felt he had to keep his word.

Worse, when challenged about this in Parliament yesterday, Bill English resorted to the usual hair-splitting: the Prime Minister had not given Parents Inc. an undertaking to give them money; "those comments were made by the Prime Minister in his capacity as the then Leader of the Opposition". Which sounds a lot like Bill Clinton quibbling over the meaning of "sexual relations"...

The facts are these: John Key promised to give parents Inc money. And they got it, without a tender, without an evaluation, without even a proper sample of their parenting kit being provided. That's not how our government is supposed to do business. Its not the way we get value for money for taxpayers (supposedly important to National), and its not the way we ensure that taxpayer's money is not used for political favours and cronyism. But it is so very, very National, isn't it? Their economic policy - asset sales, PPPs and tax cuts for the rich - is all about cronyism and looting the state. This is just taking it further down the chain.

Why am I not surprised?

Last month, the Budget promised that 170,000 jobs would be created over the next four years. But it turns out that the Ministry of Economic Development has done absolutely no analysis on where those jobs will come from. When pressed about it, the Minister - a farmer - said they would come from farming and our "booming primary sector" (which employs all of 12,000 people, according to the latest Quarterly Employment Survey). As for food processing, manufacturing (which includes food and beverage manufacturing and processing, according to the ANSIC classifications) employs just under 200,000 people. Not all of them are going to be working with food, but even with a generous assumption that >80% of them are, the Minister still seems to be expecting this workforce to double in just four years.

The State Planning Committee of the Soviet Union would have been proud of such heroic assumptions. As for the rest of us, I think we'd prefer something more grounded in reality.

Sideshow Bob's autocratic stupidity

It's a little over six months since Bob Parker was re-elected Mayor of Christchurch. And now, he's threatening to resign unless the council backs his choice of Chief Executive.

This is typical of Parker's autocratic style as Mayor. He makes the decisions, and everyone else is excluded; the Council is reduced to a rubber-stamp. At the same time, its also made the current selection process untenable. If Parker's candidate is selected, any unsuccessful applicants could quite credibly challenge the appointment on the grounds of bias. And they'd probably win. Parker's autocracy has just put the council on the hook for millions in legal fees and compensation. The only way to avoid it is to cancel the appointment process and restart it again from scratch - something which will also cost a considerable amount of money. Either way, the ratepayers of Christchurch get to pay for their autocratic Mayor's stupidity.

Perhaps the best thing that could happen would be for the council to take Parker up on his offer. That way at least people would be spared from his next expensive diktat.

Time for transparency on lobbying

Over the weekend, the Dominion Post's Tracy Watkins posted a piece about the lack of transparency around lobbying in this country. It is apparently easier to find out what New Zealand companies are demanding from overseas governments than from our own, because those governments have proper laws in place. Here, we don't - and so who is lobbying who, for what, and how much they get in return, is kept completely secret from voters.

It shouldn't be. Lobbying can affect policy. It can lead to poor government decision-making, favours for friends, laws stacked in favour of deep-pocketed special interests willing to spend up large to bend the ears of politicians to obtain legislative benefits. And that is something we should be able to hold politicians accountable for. But we can't, unless there is transparency.

With the exception of Chris Hipkins, who in typical Labour fashion seemed to think the real problem was the media, the article has met with a deafening silence from politicians. That's not really surprising, as the opposition of MPs to transparency is well-known (two obvious cases in point: their collective opposition to the register of pecuniary interests, and their continuing refusal to make Parliament subject to the Official Information Act). But as the concerns raised about Westpac's corporate bribery, and low-value gifts in general show, we desperately need rules in this area.

The Greens, to their credit, are interested in this issue, and include lobbyists in their open government policy. The other parties are of course silent. Almost as if they've got something to hide...

We deserve more progress in this area. Lowering the gift disclosure threshold for the register of pecuniary interests to $100 would be a good start, but we also need legislation. The best way of advancing it is to bring a member's bill. This will put transparency squarely on the political agenda, and while the old parties will want to vote against it, they will face a severe public backlash if they do so. That is exactly what I want to see. MPs will not open themselves to scrutiny out of the goodness of their hearts; we must threaten them democratically into doing it.

Destiny, "discrimination", and greed

Earlier in the week, Destiny Church (most famous for organising the "Nuremberg rally" against the Civil Union Act in 2004) complained about being "discriminated against" due to not receiving more government funding. Today, the Herald reveals the true problem: they didn't meet the criteria, because they couldn't find other agencies to partner with to deliver services. And the reason they couldn't find other agencies to partner with? Because no-one wants to work with bigots.

Cry me a river. This isn't "discrimination", its just desserts. It is also, I should add, those other agencies ensuring that their service delivery complies with the Human Rights Act - something that simply can't be guaranteed if Destiny is involved.

Meanwhile, the Herald also has the truth on why Destiny is dissatisfied with merely receiving $860,000 of taxpayer's money: because they didn't make enough money:

He said Destiny's Community Max scheme, in which young people developed good work habits and assisted older and younger members of the community, was about to finish.

While the $850,000 his organisation received for its Community Max programmes was a lot of money, he said, all but about $10,000 went on wages, ACC and KiwiSaver payments for those on the schemes.

His organisation had spent about $6000 more in running costs.

"We made $4000."

Again, my heart bleeds. The government tender process is supposed to secure the best value for money, which, if the government are doing their job right, means low profits for providers. If you think you're going to get rich by providing social services under contract, then you're probably the sort of fool who thinks that you can secure the blessings of the invisible sky faerie by giving all your money to Brian Tamaki.

As with everything about Destiny, this is about greed. They're not sucking enough out of their churchmembers to provide motorbikes and bling and luxury cruises for everyone at the top, so they're trying to suck money out of taxpayers instead. Fortunately, the public servants who assess tenders aren't credulous fools. Unfortunately, Destiny is hoping that Ministers are, and that by sucking up to them, they can bypass the usual process. After all, it worked for Parents Inc and PEDA...

Fire at will is a failure

Back in 2008, just after being elected, the government rammed the Employment Relations Amendment Act through under all-stages urgency. The bill introduced a 90-day trial period for workers in small businesses, ostensibly as a measure to reduce youth unemployment by lowering the risks of taking on young workers and others without experience. The rhetoric of the bill was all about "giving people a chance", and the people being talked about were primarily young people.

By any measure, this law has failed:

Despite Mr Key's claims, since the 90-day probationary period began youth employment [sic] had risen from 17.9 per cent to 27.5 per cent.

(That's an unfortunate error from the Herald there, and one which gives an impression which is the opposite of the truth)

The Standard has the graph here.

Faced with policy failure like this, you'd think a government would reverse its position. Hardly. Not only have they extended the trial period to cover all employers, they're now talking about restoring discriminatory youth rates as well. Which shows that this was never about youth unemployment and "giving young people a chance"; rather it was always about upwards wealth transfer by reducing wages, working conditions, and job security for the vast majority of New Zealanders. It was about making the rich richer by making us poorer. And we should not let them do it again.

Update: Noted the Herald's typo.

Accountability, Icelandic style III

Back in 2008, Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde was driven from office over his mishandling of the Icelandic banking crisis. Today, he went on trial for it:

Haarde is the first world leader to face criminal charges in relation to the global financial crisis, which caused the collapse of banks across the world and helped plunge the UK into recession. He is also the first person to be hauled before Iceland's Landsdomur, a criminal court created in 1905 to hear charges brought against ministers.

Last year Iceland's parliament, the Althingi, voted to indict Haarde for "economic negligence" in failing to prevent the 2008 financial crisis, which brought the country to its knees.

Haarde was charged with "violations committed from February 2008 through the beginning of October of the same year, by intent or gross neglect, mostly violations against the laws of ministerial responsibility".

If convicted, he could face two years imprisonment. And it would be deserved. This man's decisions still threaten to reduce Icelanders to permanent debt-slavery to pay off the foreign creditors of the banks he bailed out.

Meanwhile, I can't help but think that if our leaders could be held criminally liable for their conduct in office, they would be a lot more careful. And if it was a possibility during the 90's, then we wouldn't be suffering from a multi-billion dollar leaky homes crisis today.

A reminder

John Key, to the Kerikeri District Business Asociation, December 2008:

Another point raised by Ms Brookes-Quan concerned the exodus to Australia by New Zealanders, lured by attractive wage compensation, and the recent call for employers to pay more.

Mr Key would like to see the opposite occur.

"We would love to see wages drop," he says.

When Key couldn't spin and obfuscate his way out of this admission, he pulled the strings of his tame Herald editor to have a "correction" printed (for another paper, for giving an incorrect "impression"). But in light of National's policies in office (which have seen mass unemployment and sub-inflation wage rises), and today's announcement of a further attack on worker's rights which will further reduce the wages and living standards of ordinary Kiwis, maybe we should be taking Key at his word.

As I've pointed out before, extracting higher profits through lower wages is a core policy of the National Party. When they talk about "raising living standards", they're not talking about raising them for us, but for the top 0.1%. Its about transferring wealth upwards, by making ordinary kiwis actively worse off. And I can think of no better definition of "evil" than that.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

National is planning a further attack on workers rights if they are re-elected, according to Radio New Zealand:

Mr Key has told the Seafood Industry Council conference in Wellington a more flexible labour market is better for both employers and workers.

He was reluctant to spell out what other changes National might make to employment law, refusing to say whether they include further restrictions on collective bargaining.

But he says that while the changes will be good for both employers and workers, trade unions won't be happy.

Cutting through the spin and bullshit, this means tilting the field even further in favour of employers. And the result will be lower wages and poorer working conditions for Kiwi workers. National thinks this is an "advantage", but its not. Instead, it is the reason why our living standards are lower than those of Australia, why our businesses are less productive, why our managers are crap - because they're insulated from their own stupidity by a favourable regulatory regime.

National, in typical fashion, is refusing to say exactly what changes it will make. This is downright deceitful. We have a right to know, so we can judge them at the election on those policies. But no doubt that's exactly what National is trying to avoid.

New Fisk

The people vs The President

John Key relaxed about Westpac bribery

Yesterday in the House, Green co-leader Russel Norman asked John Key some rather pointed questions about Westpac's corporate bribery. In particular, he was concerned that Treasury staff seconded to Bill English's office may have accepted hospitality from Westpac in contravention of Public Service guidelines. Key's response? He's not concerned, and he won't even bother to ask English to look into it to ensure that it has not happened:

Dr Russel Norman: Does he consider that public servants, such as staff from Treasury, should be able to enjoy the corporate hospitality of Westpac?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: That is a matter for the State Services Commissioner.

Dr Russel Norman: Can he guarantee that no ministerial staff seconded from Treasury have enjoyed the corporate hospitality of Westpac?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No.

Dr Russel Norman: Will he, then, follow up with the Minister of Finance as to whether any of his ministerial staff seconded from Treasury have been enjoying Westpac’s corporate boxes given that public servants are not supposed to accept such gifts?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No; I think the edict was over the Rugby World Cup, not prior to that—in the same way that I will not be delving into that member’s mind to see whether he changed it on his views to America when he accepted free travel from the US State Department.

Contrary to Key's claim, public servants have always been prohibited from accepting gifts. Key is taking a very relaxed attitude to what could be a serious breach of public service ethics. But then, he has to - because otherwise it would make the double standard over Ministerial bribes even more obvious.

As for the Ministers themselves, Key retreated into faux outrage and obfuscation of the sort seen above. Though he did make the remarkable claim that the public would not be concerned about Ministers receiving hospitality from the recipient of a major government contract. Just another example of his corrupt corporate values, and how utterly divorced they are from those of ordinary New Zealanders.

A question for politicians

Would you appear at a function of an anti-Maori or anti-Chinese hate group? No? Then why the fuck are you sitting down with Destiny Church?

Destiny Church is a virulently homophobic organisation. Homophobia is morally no different from racism. And like racism, it doesn't suddenly become acceptable if shrouded in religion.

By sitting down with bigots, you are tacitly endorsing their bigotry. If that's not a message you want to send, then you need to start apologising right now. Otherwise, you have only yourselves to blame if voters conclude that you too are a bigot.

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

Queer the Night in Wellington this Thursday

Apparently a couple of members of the queer community were assaulted in central Wellington recently. So they're responding with a "Queer the Night" march against Homophobia and Transphobia:

When: 19:00, Thursday 9 June
Where: Waitangi Park
Bring: Glow sticks and torches

[Hat-tip: The Hand Mirror]

The Greens and National

The Greens held their AGM over the weekend, in which the membership endorsed a pre-election negotiating statement which potentially opened the door to supporting a future National government. This has caused some predictable wailing and gnashing of teeth from lefter members and commentators, who accuse the Greens of betraying their values and shifting to the right. Really? The Greens have always been a party of policy, not tribalism. They've always made it clear that they will work with anyone they can find common ground with to advance their goals, and they've come up with several innovative ways of doing so outside of the traditional Winston Peters-style coalition agreement. And this is what they're continuing to do. Right at the beginning of that negotiating statement, they say:

(i) The Green Party is an independent and distinct party, which in order to urgently advance Green Party policy goals, will attempt to work constructively with, and challenge, whichever party leads the government after an election;

(ii) To enable any party or parties to form a government, we would need significant progress on Green Party environmental, economic and social policies and initiatives that would give effect to the Green Party Charter.

What follows is an assessment of the major parties' chances of providing that progress: Labour, maybe. National, not bloody likely. So cooperation with them would be limited to the sort of deal that they have at present: working together on specific identified goals. Now, you can argue about whether the Greens have got a good deal from National this term (I'm inclined to think they have on insulation, and they haven't on other issues). But to argue that they should refuse to work with a party to advance Green values because there are (large and important) areas where you disagree is simply Labour-style tribalism.

What makes the opposition even more tribal is that that "not bloody likely" is predicated on National's current positions and track record. So, the Greens are specifically challenging National to change, and holding out the offer of support if it does. I don't think that is likely - not just because they're the party of farmers, but also because anti-environmentalism is a right-wing shibboleth - but in the unlikely event that it did happen, I cannot see what would be wrong with it. The Greens are happy to cooperate with Labour; why shouldn't they cooperate with a hypothetical Labour-like National Party if it offers similar gains? The only reason to oppose it is tribalism. The Greens are supposed to be better than that, and I certainly thought Sue Bradford was.

Climate change: The deniers' new tactic

Over the Tasman, the Australian government looks like it is finally going to introduce a price on carbon. Meanwhile, Australia's deniers have hit upon a new tactic: death threats:

Australia's leading climate change scientists are being targeted by a vicious, unrelenting email campaign that has resulted in police investigations of death threats.

The Australian National University has confirmed it moved several high-profile climate scientists, economists and policy researchers into more secure buildings, following explicit threats to their personal safety.

Scientists at universities in NSW and Queensland have told of being moved to high security buildings, where their names do not appear on staff directory lists or on their office door.

[...]

More than 30 researchers across Australia ranging from ecologists and environmental policy experts to meteorologists and atmospheric physicists told The Canberra Times they are receiving a stream of abusive emails threatening violence, sexual assault, public smear campaigns and attacks on family members.

So, this is what its come down to: the deniers have conclusively lost the argument, they can't defeat the science, so they resort to intimidation and thuggery in an attempt to silence their opposition. That's not a scientific argument; in fact, its the exact opposite of science. But so, I guess, is climate change denial...