A zombie trade agreement

The US election campaign and election of Donald Trump killed off the TPPA. But now Japan is trying to raise it from the dead:

The ambitious trans-Pacific trade plan scuppered after the United States withdrew under its new president could be salvaged under a deal suggested by Japan.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) could be created with at least five nations on board, including New Zealand, Japan and Australia, instead of 12, sources involved in the negotiations told Kyodo News.

[...]

However, at a meeting of top negotiators from the 11 parties, Tokyo pushed the argument for a TPPA without the US by changing the original agreement, the sources said.

A trade deal without the US - and without US intellectual property and corporate power bullshit - might be worth doing. Or it might not. But if its just the same deal, on the same terms, its not even worth considering. The TPPA was marginal even on MFAT's optimistic assumptions; with all the costs and fewer benefits, its a deal we should refuse.

New Fisk

Egyptian President al-Sisi is employing militia in the Sinai – a sign of how desperate his war against Isis has become

This is why we can't have nice things

Writing in the Herald, Brian Fallow examines National's new net debt target of 10 - 15% of GDP - and specifically, what it will cost us:

We are not talking about trivial amounts of money here. Right now, 1 per cent of GDP is about $2.6 billion.

Say you wanted to keep net debt at 20 per cent of GDP. That is, after all, an extremely low level by international standards.

And let's assume nominal GDP grows by 4.5 per cent a year, which is what it has averaged over the past 12 years. Nominal GDP growth is the combined effect of real growth and inflation and is a rough proxy for growth in the tax base.

In that case, as a matter of arithmetic, a Government would be able to run a (cash) deficit of 0.9 per cent of GDP and still keep the debt ratio at 20 per cent.

Instead, the Government's fiscal priority is to reduce net debt by between 1 and 2 per cent of GDP a year over the next eight years. That will drive the target for the operating balance and limit the scope for capital expenditure.

Now, 0.9 per cent doesn't sound like much. But it is about what the Government spends on defence, or twice the annual cost of the accommodation supplement. That calibrates the scale of the opportunity cost here.

Or, its a massive housebuilding program, paid parental leave, ending child poverty, and stacking money away in the Cullen Fund to ease against the inevitable retirement of the Boomers (and its all of those things because its 0.9% extra GDP every year). And National is sacrificing this in pursuit of a debt target which is entirely arbitrary and self-imposed. Its austerity for the sake of austerity! But when we have enormous social and physical deficits from National's past cost-cutting excesses, it is entirely the wrong policy response.

This is why we as a country can't have nice things: because one of our major parties is committed to a government which simply can not afford them. But its entirely a matter of choice. If we want a government which actually can provide the services we expect, we can vote for one in September.

A shift in power

Last year's annual returns of political party donations are out, and apart from the obvious "coincidences", the big news is that the Greens once again out fund-raised Labour, $860,746 to $563,915. This is the third year in a row they've done this, and it looks to be becoming a trend. Of course, election year may change that - or it may not. Either way, it looks like a significant shift in the balance of power of the two parties, which will flow on to their organisational ability (and maybe into their election results eventually).

Of course, National sucked in more than both parties combined, with a massive $1.9 million. Fortunately, we have election spending limits to counteract this imbalance.

An amazing coincidence!

In 2014 the National government gave Tauranga businessman Paul Adams a gong. And in an amazing coincidence, he features in this year's return of national party donations:


But it gets better - because in addition to donating $20,430 unde rhis own name, he also appears to have donated another $18,000 through his company, Seventh City Finance. So, he gets a gong, and he gives the party that gave it to him nearly $40,000.

I guess that's just what they call "giving back".

Inflation and poverty

The CPI is out today, and it shows that the poor are getting poorer:

A recent jump in the cost of living hit the lowest paid Kiwis much harder than the big spenders, new figures show.

In the first three months of the year, inflation for all households jumped one per cent, bringing annual inflation to 2.2 per cent, the highest since 2011.

On Thursday Statistics New Zealand released the household living-costs price indexes, giving a breakdown of how price increases hit different groups.

The figures showed that the rise hit the lowest earners the hardest. Beneficiaries saw their overall costs rise by 1.4 per cent, almost three times the increase faced by the 20 per cent of households with the highest spending.

This is a long-term trend. Since National took office, inflation for poor households has been nearly twice that of rich households. Meanwhile, benefits are indexed to the CPI, but since that's lower than the actual inflation rate for people at that income, beneficiaries are legally forced to fall further and further behind.

That's unfair, and its easily fixed. Graeme Edgeler has drafted a bill to fix it, and the sooner an MP takes it and it is drawn from the ballot and passed, the better.

Religion in schools and the BORA

Its finally happened: the secular Education Network is taking the government before the Human Rights Review Tribunal seeking a declaration that religious instruction in schools is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act:

The Secular Education Network has filed a case with the Human Rights Review Tribunal, saying the Education Act allows religious favoritism in state schools, which it says is prohibited under the Bill of Rights.

Its spokesman, David Hines, a retired journalist and lay preacher, said Section 78 of the Education Act allowed a school to hold religious instruction for up to an hour a week or 20 hours a year.

But he believed all religions should be taught in an academic way - the Christian religion should not be given preferential treatment - and the impact could be damaging for other people.

In theory, s78 of the Education Act 1964 is religion neutral - schools can close for any sort of religious instruction. What happens in practice is that school boards of trustees get in a bunch of evangelical christians who teach that their brand of christianity is superior and create a discriminatory atmosphere in the school as a whole. And that's simply not acceptable. Schools should be a welcoming environment regardless of religion. And the best way to ensure that seems to be not to offer religious instruction at all, but instead leave it to parents to do at home.

Tories mean inequality

Brexit and a Tory government means the UK is now facing the biggest rise in inequality since Thatcher:

Pressure on the government to help struggling Britons has intensified after a leading thinktank warned that falling living standards for the poor threatened the biggest rise in inequality since Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

The Resolution Foundation said Theresa May would need to make good on her pledge to support “just about managing” households as it released a report showing that rising inflation and an end to recent strong jobs growth would hit the least well-off hardest.

Its warnings chime with other forecasts for a squeeze on family budgets on the back of sluggish wage growth, welfare cuts, rising global oil prices and the pound’s sharp fall since the Brexit vote. The drop in sterling has made imports more expensive and there are already signs that is being passed on to consumers, with inflation hitting its highest level for more than two years in December.

The Resolution Foundation’s study found that the current parliament would be the worst for living standards for the poorest half of households since comparable records began in the mid-1960s and the worst since the early years of Thatcher’s 1979-90 premiership for inequality.

The graphs in that article are truly horrifying. The rich have made out like bandits in the Tory years, while others have been driven to the wall by austerity. But with an unfair electoral system, there really seems to be nothing peaceful UKanians can do about it other than leave.

Incompetent, trust-abusing muppets II

A little over a year ago, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security exposed the SIS as incompetent, trust-abusing muppets who had failed to safeguard the security and privacy of highly-sensitive vetting information. This wasn't just an abuse of the trust public servants applying for a security clearance placed in them - it was also a fundamental compromise of national security, in that that information could have been stolen and used to blackmail people.

Today, IGIS released the long-awaited second part of that report, which exposes just how bad SIS was. The short version:

• The computer systems SIS used for storing and accessing vetting information were not accredited or certified, in direct contravention of their own Information Security Manual.
  
• The systems had multiple security vulnerabilities.
  
• Most systems had no logging, meaning it was impossible to tell who had accessed what and detect unauthorised or improper access. They still have no idea whether this occurred before the security holes were plugged.
  
• Attempts to investigate why this had happened were thwarted by poor record-keeping (which seems to be a violation of the Public Records Act).
  

Apparently, all of this has been corrected now. But it doesn't exactly inspire confidence. And if you're asked by SIS to provide blackmail on yourself for security vetting purposes, then you should think very carefully about whether you can trust them with it.

Climate change: But why would we want to do that?

Newsroom has a big piece on climate change and coastal property, highlighting the risks that such property could become rapidly uninsurable and turn into a toxic stranded asset:

The report points out that there are nearly 44,000 homes less than 1.5 metres above the current average spring high tide. Over 8,000 of those are less than 50cm above the spring high tide mark. With sea levels predicted to rise 30cm by 2065 and increasing storm surges and king tides expected, many of those homes are at risk of frequent inundation or being completely washed away. By 2100, global average sea levels are predicted to rise 1 metre if current carbon emissions levels continue.

If insurers pull out from providing cover for homes deemed high risk, homeowners will no longer have any protection from the risk that they may lose their major financial asset – which will, in any case, be slashed in value and potentially unmarketable.

They may look to the government to provide alternative cover (as has happened in some places overseas), or expect the government to step in should their home be destroyed or rendered uninhabitable.

But why would we want to do that? It's one thing to help people after a disaster, an unforseeable natural event. But this is both long foreseen and certain. Government insurance - effectively a bailout for wealthy property-owners who have engaged in dangerous behaviour - is not an appropriate response to such circumstances. Especially when those property owners have organised to deny the problem in order to protect their property values.

27,000 unemployed under National

The Labour Market Statistics were released today, showing that unemployment has dropped below 5% for only the third time in National's nine long years in office. But there are still 132,000 unemployed - 27,000 more than when they took office.

This is the core failure of the National government: they simply don't consider unemployment a policy priority, but instead leave it to the market. And even at their most successful, they're still far worse than Labour ever was. Clearly, if we want better policy, we need to elect a better government.

Fiji: Going backwards

When Fiji was openly a military dictatorship, they banned criticism of the regime through formal censorship. Now they're supposedly a democracy, they're planning to ban criticism of parliament:

Under clause 24 of the [Parliamentary Powers and Privileges] Bill, any person whose words or actions defames, demean or undermine the sanctity of Parliament, the Speaker or a committee commits an offence and is liable upon conviction to a fine not exceeding $30,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to both, and in the case of a body corporate, to a fine not exceeding $100,000 or to imprisonment for each director and manager for a term not exceeding five years, or to both.

The purported power to prevent criticism of parliament is inconsistent with democracy. The penalties are simply draconian. The entire bill is an affront to the right of free expression affirmed in Fiji's constitution. But since when has Frank Bainamarama ever cared about that?

Return of the Orcs

Since being elected in 2008, National has been eager to dig up our conservation estate for private (and foreign) profit. In 2010 they wanted to allow mining in national parks. When the public made it clear we wouldn't tolerate that, they resorted to conducting mineral surveys of World Heritage Areas and issuing exploration permits for schedule 4 protected land. And now they're back again, with plans to turn some of the most valuable parts of the conservation estate into open-cast coal mines:

A secret coal mining plan will carve up "unique and outstanding landscapes", Forest & Bird says.

The affected areas included crucially important biodiversity hotspots in the South Island's Buller Plateau, near Westport, the organisation said on Monday.

The plans were developed for multiple ministers to identify areas for coal mining and areas for protection, Forest & Bird chief executive Kevin Hague said.

"The problem is, they're planning to take the highest value conservation land for coal mining."

An area known as Whareatea West, on the Denniston Plateau, was proposed for open cast coal mining, he said.

"This is public conservation land, and the most ecologically valuable area on the plateau – without Whareatea West the integrity of the whole plateau is lost."

The "spectacular" Deep Creek area was proposed for protection from open cast mining, but not necessarily from underground mining.

The plans were developed for the Ministers of Conservation, Energy and Resources, and Economic Development, he said.

As with their previous plans, this is unacceptable. Firstly, because the conservation estate is for conservation, not mining. The government needs to protect it, not destroy it. And secondly, because climate change means we can not and should not dig up more coal (well, not unless we want to drown Petone and South Dunedin).

Once again we've been reminded that the National Party are Orcs, whose only interest in the environment is in destroying it. The good news is that we can fix that: there's an election in less than six months. If we want to change this policy, then the best way of doing it is to change the government...

Labour's list

After yesterday's clusterfuck, the Labour Party has finally released its list. The most obvious feature is the generational shift within Labour - the old guard time servers are out, retired or shoved down, while MPs elected at the end of the Clark years are firmly in charge. There's also a greater emphasis on new blood rather than incumbent protection, which should help overcome the stale feeling of the party. And with more women in winnable slots, Labour should make real progress towards the balanced caucus required by its constitution. At the same time, some of the decisions are truly boggling - its hard to see what Stuart Nash has done to warrant his high ranking, given that he has undermined the party at every turn. But it's their circus and their monkeys, and its not like people have to vote for them...

Here's the usual table, for those who are interested in the rises and falls:

2017 Rank	Name	2014 Rank	Difference
1	Andrew Little	11	+10
2	Jacinda Ardern	5	+3
3	Grant Robertson	3	--
4	Phil Twyford	7	+3
5	Megan Woods	20	+15
6	Chris Hipkins	9	+3
7	Carmel Sepuloni	29	+22
8	David Clark	26	+18
9	David Parker	2	-7
10	Stuart Nash	--	--
11	Priyanca Radhakrishnan	23	+12
12	Raymond Huo	21	+9
13	Iain Lees-Galloway	24	+11
14	Jan Tinetti	--	--
15	Aupito William Sio	14	-1
16	Willow-Jean Prime	34	+18
17	Damien O'Connor	22	+5
18	Jenny Salesa	31	+13
19	Kris Faafoi	--	--
20	Kiri Allan	--	--
21	Willie Jackson	--	--
22	Clare Curran	--	--
23	Ruth Dyson	--	--
24	Poto Williams	28	+4
25	Louisa Wall	12	-13
26	Michael Wood	39	+13
27	Ginny Andersen	--	--
28	Jo Luxton	--	--
29	Deborah Russell	33	+4
30	Liz Craig	32	+2
31	Marja Lubeck	--	--
32	Trevor Mallard	--	--
33	Paul Eagle	--	--
34	Tamati Coffey	30	-4
35	Jamie Strange	54	+19
36	Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki	49	+13
37	Kieran McAnulty	--	--
38	Angie Warren-Clark	--	--
39	Helen White	--	--
40	Greg O'Connor	--	--
41	Steph Lewis	--	--
42	Duncan Webb	--	--
43	Lemauga Lydia Sosene	--	--
44	Janette Walker	46	+2
45	Anna Lorck	--	--
46	Romy Udanga	--	--
47	Rachel Boyack	--	--
48	Sarb Johal	--	--
49	Naisi Chen	--	--
50	Shanan Halbert	48	-2

Muppets

Everyone was expecting the Labour party to release its party list today. Instead, its been delayed, so one of Andrew Little's handpicked cronies can whine about it:

A "crisis meeting" is being held by Labour's list ranking committee and it's likely prospective Labour candidate Willie Jackson will be given a higher place.

It's understood he was given the 21st slot on Labour's original list and wasn't happy about it.

Jackson, a high profile broadcaster and former Alliance MP, is said to have flown down to Wellington on Monday morning to take his frustrations to the party first-hand.

The party was expected to announce its list around mid-morning but has now pushed it out to Tuesday morning while the party works through the ranking issues. A Labour Party source said a "crisis meeting" would be held on Monday night and it was expected Jackson would get a higher list ranking as a result.

Labour uses an involved process of nominations, regional list committees, and a central moderating committee to select its list. Throughout the process the decison makers are required to consider the diversity of candidates, and there's an overall requirement for a gender-balanced caucus on likely electoral outcomes. But apparently all of that is going to be thrown out the window because an egotistical showpony feels his list ranking doesn't reflect his (self-)importance.

And Labour wonders why people think they're a bunch of useless, feuding muppets...

The problem with data retention laws

Metadata retention laws, requiring telecom providers and ISPs to retain records of all their customers' activities and rat them out to the government, have been catching on amongst the Five Eyes surveillance states. The obvious problem is that they are prone to abuse, and particularly political abuse by intelligence and security agencies. In an effort to stop this, in 2015 the Australian government amended its metadata retention law to make it much harder to spy on journalists. But that didn't stop the Australian Federal Police. Faced with an inquiry into a journalist who had received a leak from AFP, they simply didn't bother to get a warrant at all and spied on them anyway:

An investigator with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) sought and acquired the call records of a journalist without a warrant, Commissioner Andrew Colvin says.

He said "human error" was responsible for the breach, which occurred during an investigation into a leak from inside the AFP.

[...]

The journalist whose metadata was accessed has not been informed, Commissioner Colvin added.

"Human error" being AFP for "ignored the law". Naturally, the officer hasn't been subjected to any disciplinary proceedings (let alone criminal charges) for this.

And this is a perfect example of the danger of such laws: the police and spies simply can not be trusted with them. If the data exists, they will obtain it, legally or illegally. We already have serious problems around this with the New Zealand police - but think of how much more intrusive they could be if ISPs were forced to retain years of data on you.

New Fisk

Sisi apparently believes that the Pope's visit to Cairo will prove Egypt is safe for Christians – Isis has other ideas
Problems faced by Egypt’s Coptic Christians run far deeper than Isis attacks

Why did the police hide evidence?

Last night, Newshub released explosive footage showing people working in the Pike River Mine with breathing masks after the explosion. The video was apparently taken by police, who controlled the mine at the time, but has been kept secret, even from the post-explosion inquiry. Obviously, it raises questions about whether the mine is safe to enter for a retrieval mission, and the government will have to answer those questions to the families of the victims. But it also raises real questions about the actions of the police - and specifically where they get off thinking they get to decide what a commission of inquiry gets to see and not see. The police appear to have deliberately withheld evidence and willfully obstructed the commission of inquiry in its investigation. And that's a crime. Those responsible need to be held accountable for it.

Fuck Jenny Shipley

The latest episode of The 9th Floor is out, in which Jenny Shipley opposes "middle class welfare":

During the day we spent with Shipley she said New Zealand needs to take the "blowtorch" to middle class welfare, with student allowances and healthcare areas where middle and higher income earners should pay more.

She finds it "morally bankrupt" that the country doesn't have an honest discussion about this and that she personally feels "sick" that on her income she can't opt out of subsidised health care.

Firstly, I think many people would disagree with her contention that subsidised healthcare (and universal superannuation, and free education and so on) is "welfare" rather than the basics of a decent society. And they'd be appalled to hear her belief (in the Radio New Zealand version) that "the middle class has assets and they should be using those first before they put their hand in the pocket of someone else, such as the state." Or, in English, if you get sick you should sell your house. There's a name for that country, and it's not "New Zealand", but "the USA" - and kiwis are very clear that we don't want to live in that shithole.

But secondly, even if we restrict the idea of "middle class welfare" to things like Working For Families, the reason we have it is because the NeoLiberal "reforms" which Shipley championed - and still champions - drove down incomes and made it impossible for the middle class to earn a decent living, while demanding that they pay more. And that simply was not politically sustainable (and this was before the housing bubble really began to bite). If Shipley wanted to eliminate it, she'd be advocating for higher wages, more secure employment, better conditions - but she's not. Which tells us that what she really stands for is driving the middle class into poverty and reducing us to a tenuous, insecure existence. Fortunately, that idea is as politically acceptable now as it was in 1999 when we de-elected her. But it is nice of her to remind us in an election year of what National really stands for.

High country tenure review is a corrupt privatisation

Last week, in a decision on irrigation in the Mackenzie Country, the Environment Court said there were strong ecological reasons to end the process of high country tenure review. But there's another reason to end it: the process is corrupt:

In 25 years, the Crown has purchased leasehold rights to more than 330,000 hectares for about $117 million; and leaseholders have purchased freehold rights to more than 370,000 hectares with higher production potential for about $62 million.

On average, the Crown price to purchase leasehold rights is about 3.5 times the runholders' price to purchase freehold. This translates to large payouts to runholders at the end of tenure review – more than $50 million so far.

This is a classic case of a corrupt privatisation: government assets sold at hugely undervalued prices. To see how undervalued they are, simply look at what the same land goes for when the former leaseholders inevitably subdivide and onsell it: the median price multiplier is 992. In other words, they buy something (or, more likely, are effectively paid to take it) from the government, and sell it for a thousand times more money.

If this happened in Africa or Russia we would call it what it is: corruption. And we would want those responsible for this criminal undervaluing, and those who profited from it, to be put in jail and their corruptly obtained profits repaid to the state. And that is what should happen here.