A bad sign

Egyptians also went to the polls over the weekend to elect a new President. But just after the polls had closed, the military made it clear that regardless of who was elected, they would be running the show:

Egypt's ruling military has issued a declaration apparently granting itself sweeping powers, as the country awaits results of presidential elections.

The document by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (Scaf) reportedly says new general elections can not be held until a permanent constitution is drawn up.

It also allegedly gives the Scaf legislative control.

No new elections means the people cannot overturn last week's judicial coup, which saw Mubarak's judges dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Parliament. Meanwhile, the army has also said that it does not have to obey the President and can arrest people. So what's their source of democratic legitimacy? That's right - they don't have any.

It will be interesting to see how the Egyptian people respond to this, whether they will stand up for the rights they seized in Tahrir Square, or whether they will meekly submit themselves to the gun again.

Why are we training Indonesia's murderers?

Indonesia's Kopassus special forces have an extremely unpleasant reputation, being linked to torture, disappearances and murder in West Papua, in East Timor before independence, and in Indonesia itself. To pick one example, in 2010 a group of them filmed themselves torturing people in West Papua. And we're helping to train them:

Major Edwin Sumanta recently attended New Zealand's premier military educational institution, the Command and Staff College at Trentham, near Wellington.

Kopassus conducts special operations for the Indonesian government and has been widely accused by human rights groups of violating human rights in Papua and Aceh.

Radio New Zealand International was told by a Defence Force spokesperson that the involvement of Major Sumanta in the college's course is too sensitive for public comment.

Meaning "it might look bad", I guess. And so it should. Kopassus are murderers. And we shouldn't be helping them to become better at it, or to further oppress the people of West Papua. The only reason we should ever allow one of these murderous thugs into our country is to put them on trial for the crimes they have committed.

New Fisk

Assad will breathe a sigh of relief at death of Arab Spring
Mubarak's 300,000-strong army of thugs remains in business despite elections

The Greek election

Greeks went to the polls today in their second election in two months, and appear to have finally got themselves a government. The bad news is that it is a right-wing quisling one, dedicated to imposing austerity on ordinary Greeks for the profit of foreign bankers. The good news is that they are going to have a very difficult time doing that.

Current results show the pro-austerity parties with 162 seats between them in the 300-seat Parliament. In Greek terms, this "majority" is wafer thin, and will evaporate through defection and rebellion the moment the government tries to impose any serious pain (exactly as happened last term). And there's no-one else for New Democracy and PASOK to turn to - every other party in the Parliament is opposed to austerity.

In short, its the sort of government Greeks know how to roll - and I expect that to happen within a year or two (and quicker if it tries to impose serious pain).

Looking at the longer term, SYRIZA - the Coalition of the Radical left - has eaten PASOK for breakfast, and has now become the default left-wing party. They're younger and far more radical than PASOK, which means Greece's next left-wing government is going to be very interesting indeed.

Wellington's water

The Greater Wellington Regional Council has released its State of the environment reports. Not all of them are online yet, but they paint a dismal picture of degraded water, polluted rivers, and toxic lakes:

Overuse, pollution and "degradation" of Wellington's water has been exposed in new research evaluating the region's natural resources.

Greater Wellington regional council has documented the health of the region's air, land, freshwater and coastal resources in a series of reports published today.

They identify serious concerns with the quality of waterways and show many streams and aquifers are heavily depleted from the upsurge in dairying.

[...]

Urban streams and rural waterways in intensive farming areas are badly degraded, with high levels of nutrients and faecal bacteria.

Streams in Kapiti, Porirua, Waiwhetu, Upper Hutt, Carterton and Masterton are among the worst affected.

Average levels of nitrogen and phosphorus have increased on dairy pasture since the intensification of Wairarapa dairying, threatening waterways.

There are other problems: poor quality sewage systems contaminating beaches, and residual industrial pollution and stormwater runoff polluting urban streams and Wellington harbour. But the core problem for most waterways is dairy farming. The drive to irrigate more land for cows has drained the rivers, refilling them with piss and shit. As for the lakes, the region's three largest lakes - Lakes Wairarapa, Onoke and Waitawa - are all highly degraded, which is attributed to "the large component of agricultural land use in their catchments" and intensive farming of the lake margins.

These problems can be solved, but it requires local authorities to limit irrigation and stock numbers and crack down on dirty farming practices. And that it turn requires political will and the support (or punishment, depending) of voters. The question is whether GWRC can do that, or whether they will continue letting Wellington's waterways degrade.

More wind

Last year, Meridian Energy's proposed Mill Creek wind farm was granted resource consent by the Environment Court. Meridian has just confirmed that they will be beginning construction by August, with the project scheduled for completion in 2014.

It's a small wind farm - only 60MW - but every bit helps. And as long as we keep pushing new investment into wind and geothermal, we have a good chance of making that 90% renewables target by 2030.

Spamming the ballot for marriage equality

Two weeks ago, Labour MP Louisa Wall released her Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill [PDF]. Today, the Greens' Kevin Hague has got in on the act, with his Marriage (Equality) Amendment Bill [PDF]. While the two bills have the same goal, they achieve it by slightly different means, and Hague's bill additionally does some consequential legislative tidy-up. Which should be enough to avoid SO 277(2), meaning double the chances for a marriage equality bill being drawn.

If anyone else wants to spam the ballot, and make it three bills out of sixty, there's another version here which ought to slip through (on the basis that it changes the law in a different way from either Hague or Wall's version).

No freedom of religion in Indonesia

Alexander Aan is an Indonesian civil servant. In January, he created a page on Facebook on which he declared himself an atheist and said that he did not believe in angels, devils, heaven and hell or other myths. As a result, he was arrested for "blasphemy", and has just been sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment and a US$10,000 fine.

Freedom of religion? Freedom of speech? There's no such thing in theocratic Indonesia.

No surplus

Its official: the government will not achieve its entirely political target of surplus by 2014/15 - and John Key has admitted as much:

Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard has dealt a blow to the Government's hopes of returning to surplus by 2014/15, with a new forecast tipping the books will not be back in the black until two years later.

Prime Minister John Key yesterday conceded the bank was using "slightly more up-to-date data" than the Treasury used in the May 24 Budget.

These were "volatile and uncertain" times but the Government believed it was on the right track.

"It is an extremely difficult time to be forecasting," he said.

So what will National do now? Will it tighten the austerity screw harder in an attempt to meet its self-imposed target (and thus crash the economy even harder), or will it accept the reality that its just not going to happen? Either way, it doesn't look like they have any good ideas to get us out of this hole. According to Key "[t]here is nothing different we would want to do at this time".

Time for some better economic thinking. Time for a new government.

The Assange decision II

As predicted, the UK Supreme Court has rejected Julian Assange's appeal of his appeal, dismissing it as "without merit". Which effectively ends his journey through the UK courts. He now either appeals to the ECHR (though I'm not sure what grounds he could have), or faces extradition to Sweden to face questioning on sexual assault allegations.

Meanwhile, I think its quite disturbing how Assange has morphed from an internationalist into the worst sort of "Little Britain" Eurosceptic over this. Yes, Sweden (like most of Europe) allocates the responsibilities in its justice system differently from the UK. But that doesn’t mean its an unfair system (that would have to be judged on its merits), and its not a reason to refuse extradition.

No privatisation without a public vote

Parliament has just started the second reading of the government's asset sales bill. Meanwhile, there is an active referendum petition campaign, which looks almost certain to meet its target. This raises the prospect of the government passing a bill, while there is a referendum in train to stop it.

This would be deeply undemocratic, and would further undermine public faith in Parliament and the legitimacy of our democratic institutions. The Greens have proposed a solution: delay the commencement of the bill until after the referendum is resolved (either by a vote or the petition lapsing) (SOP here [PDF]. Note that this doesn't make the outcome contingent on the referendum; it simply requires the government to stop and listen before proceeding. Parliament should not pass the bill without this clause. Sadly, I expect National will ram it through anyway.

Meanwhile, for those wondering about the point of a referendum when the government is going to press on anyway, firstly, this government has shown that they will back down if there is enough public opposition. 50,000 people marching along Queen Street convinced them to give up their plans to dig up the Conservation estate; the anger of every parent in the country convinced them to give up on their education cuts. If we get enough signatures on the petition, then they will rightly fear for their political futures. Secondly, even if it doesn't convince this government, it will convince the next one, providing a moral mandate for any thefts to be reversed at a loss to the thieves and for our remaining assets to be protected by a built-in referendum requirement. That's the real benefit: ending this policy forever. And its precisely why National is in such a hurry: because this is their last chance to steal these assets for their donors and cronies.

What superannuation crisis?

Labour chose this week to resume the attack on its toxic superannuation policy, promising its younger supporters to fuck them over in exchange for their vote (and then they wonder why people give up voting or switch to the Greens). Meanwhile, an analysis from the University of Auckland's Retirement Policy and Research Centre shows that we don't actually face a crisis [PDF]. Sure, the cost of superannuation will double in the long-term, from 4.7% at present to roughly 8% in 2050 (pretax; taxation reduces that by about 1%). But we might want to look at that in historical perspective:

So, in 2050, we're projected to be paying only 1% of GDP more in superannuation than we were paying in 1990. Quelle horreur! This is not a difference to be terrified of, and it is easily manageable with a modest increase in taxation, either now or in the future (though that perhaps is exactly what those pushing for change are frightened of: higher taxes).

The international comparison is equally non-terrifying:

Yes, that's right: in 2050, we will be spending as much on superannuation (as a proportion of GDP) as most European countries - you know, the ones Labour supposedly aspires to make us like - spend now. Again, this is nothing to be afraid of, and nothing that can't be dealt with by having a slightly larger state. The fact that Labour is afraid of that prospect is a telling indicator of what sort of a party it is at the moment.

Catholic homophobia hits a new low

The Ugandan Parliament is currently debating a bill which would allow the death penalty for homosexuality.

The Catholic Church normally opposes the death penalty. But not, apparently, when the victims are gay:

In the rest of the world, the Catholic Church has always maintained that they are not against homosexuals, just homosexual acts, and that they are for human rights. Of course, the Church once supported the move by the Mussolini government to inter gays on concentration camps and kill as many as possible. So, it is not surprising that the Church, while saying one thing in, say, the United States is saying something else in, say, Uganda.

There, at the Uganda Joint Christian Council, Catholic Archbishop Cyprian Kizito Lwanga was joined by Anglican Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi and Orthodox Metropolitan Jonah Lwanga in backing the “Kill The Gays” bill.

The Catholic Church has marked itself as a deeply bigoted and homophobic organisation over the years, but this really is a new low, even for them.

National lies to us over the TPPA

Back in 2010, when criticisms first emerged of the possibility of an "investment clause" allowing foreign companies to sue governments in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, John Key was unequivocal. Such a possibility was "far-fetched", and New Zealand would not sign up to any such clause.

He lied. The latest leaked draft [PDF] shows exactly such a clause, with the full support of New Zealand. As for what it will mean in practice, we have only to look across the Tasman, where tobacco companies are suing the Australian government under their investment treaty with Hong Kong to prevent the implementation of that country's plain-packaging law.

This is an obscenity. It is also an explicitly anti-democratic move, allowing foreign corporations to overturn the decisions of democratically elected governments simply because they potentially cost them money. But beyond that, the mere existence of such a clause and threat of such lawsuits will have a chilling effect on public interest regulation. Want to raise environmental standards? Increase the minimum wage? Protect public health? Some bunch of greedy, psychopathic Americans might sue.

The New Zealand government should not sign up to this treaty if it includes this clause. If National does, the opposition should make it clear that they will withdraw from it. It is that simple.

Meanwhile, its worth remembering that the only reason National can get away with this two-faced duplicity of telling us one thing while telling foreigners another is because the negotiations are conducted in secret. We need more transparency in our foreign policy, so that our government can be properly held to account for it.

Another crony appointment

Back in April, Pita Sharples and Bill English jointly appointer former National MP Georgina te Heuheu to the Board of Māori Television, with the explicit expectation that she would become chair. This seemed like a fairly blatant case of cronyism, so I submitted the usual OIA request seeking background details of the appointment.

After a lengthy delay, I received the response today. Sadly, in this case, there isn't much of a paper trail - no briefing to the Minister of the need to make an appointment to fill an upcoming vacancy, and no paper requesting the Minister to choose between several nominated and interviewed candidates. The only formal documentation is a paper to the Cabinet Appointments and Honours Committee [PDF], seeking approval for te Heuheu's nomination, and a subsequent appointment letter. The Minister does give an outline of the process in their response letter [PDF], but it is deeply unsatisfactory:

In response to your request, I can advise you that this position was not advertised. While there is scope for it to happen, state sector board positions are not usually publicly advertised. various state sector agencies manage registers of qualified candidates who are interested in being nominated for boards, and departments usually seek nominations from these registers...

In line with the usual appointment process as outlined above, I requested a list of candidates from Te Puni Kokiri for consideration for this position. Candidates for this position were nominated from the registers held by the treasury's Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit, the Ministry of Women's Affairs, and Te Puni Kokiri. Te Puni Kokiri provided a list of five nominees. the successful candidate was nominated for the position by me and the Minister of Finance, as jointly responsible Ministers for the Maori Television Service.

From this, and the lack of supporting documentation, it appears the Ministers simply imposed their shoulder-tapped candidate on the Maori Television Service, without even considering those other candidates. And again, that's simply not how things are supposed to happen. Appointments should be made on merit, not on political connections.

Quite apart from pissing on our reputation for clean government, Sharples and English have done te Heuheu a disservice. She's not Wayne Mapp, and its not inconceivable that she would have won a competitive appointments process. By not running one, English and Sharples have forever tainted her as a crony, who gained her position by favourtism rather than merit. And she deserves better than that.

When is a subsidy not a subsidy?

When its handed out by National to its cronies, of course!

Today in Question Time, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce attacked the whole idea of green growth as being all about subsidies (which is simply wrong). Then he turned around and denied that the $1.2 billion a year the government hands to polluters under the ETS, the billions it spends on unnecessary roads, or the undercharging of heavy transport were subsidies. Finally, to add insult to injury, the next question was a patsy so the government could spout about its recent seismic survey of Northland - a direct subsidy to the mining industry.

(As for green growth, one of the most effect ways of kickstarting it is to make industry pay the true costs of polluting activities, thus forcing innovation. This is not a subsidy, but the direct elimination of one. It is telling that National is simply unable to tell the difference).

A necessary inquiry

The Auditor-General will investigate John Key's corrupt SkyCity deal. Good. What we know of the bid "process" is appalling, and John Key's dirty fingerprints are all over it. According to his own official paper trail, Key "directed officials to stop work on the business case development for the ICEC and to wait for the proposal from Sky City" [PDF]. He then approached Sky City directly, offering to prostitute New Zealand law if they built the thing. And once he'd sealed the deal, he restarted the bid process [PDF] to provide an illusion of process and fairness - despite the fact that he'd already picked a winner.

Stopping this sort of cronyism is exactly why we have an Auditor-General. I look forward to the eventual report and finding of malfeasance. Meanwhile, I'm also looking forward to some journalists asking Key the obvious question: will he resign if the Auditor-General finds he behaved inappropriately?

A bloodbath

That's the only way to describe the "resignations" at ACC in the wake of the Bronwyn Pullar saga. Chairman John Judge, board members John McCliskie and Rob Campbell, and now the CEO. It looks like the entire sewer is having a thorough cleanout.

But will it be enough? ACC's core problem is a toxic institutional culture which sees clients as cheats and fraudsters and claims as something to be reflexively denied. While some of that comes from the top and its relentless focus on cost-saving, it has seeped in throughout the organisation over decades. And as we saw with WINZ, it takes more than just a change of leadership to correct that sort of cultural dysfunction and change the mindset from seeing clients as the enemy back to ensuring people receive their full entitlements. Assuming of course the new leadership is even interested in making such a change - and given that its Paula Rebstock, I think that is very much in doubt.

Member's Day

Today is a Member's Day, though it is unlikely to be an exciting one. The top of the Order paper is dominated by three local bills, which are unlikely to be controversial. After that, there's the third reading of Michael Woodhouse's entirely uncontroversial and widely supported Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill. If the House manages to whizz through all of those speedily, it might get to discuss Kennedy Graham's Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill - which likewise has broad support.

And if they manage all that, we will finally have a ballot tomorrow. It will be a biggie - almost 60 bills - and include some controversial legislation (e.g. marriage equality) that I'd love to see drawn. Otherwise, I guess we'll just have to hang on for two more sitting weeks before giving the fun stuff a chance to come out.

Inconsistent

The Attorney-General has issued a section 7 report on the Lobbying Disclosure Bill, on the basis that it is inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression [PDF]. The core problem is poor drafting: the bill currently captures employees of crown entities and non-public-service departments (e.g. the Police and NZDF) communicating with Ministers in the course of their duties, as well as "people who send a one-off email to their Member of Parliament on behalf of their incorporated farm or small business". The former point is obviously a problem, but equally obviously easy to fix. The latter point is more troublesome. The clause is targeted at lobbyists who are partners or directors of a firm rather than mere employees, and it is vital to capture them. But how to do it without going too broad? Finlayson implicitly suggests using the Canadian formulation of requiring lobbying to be a significant part of someone's duties before requiring registration - but the Canadian Lobbying Act has just been reviewed, and its registrar found that requirement was too narrow and allowed lobbyists to evade oversight (she also had problems getting people prosecuted, because the RCMP just didn't care about the law. Kindof like our police and the Electoral Act...)

Hopefully National won't use this as an excuse to vote for secrecy. This is not a problem with the core aim of the bill, but with its details. Those can be fixed, and the place to do it is in select committee.

(Meanwhile, I'm curious: did anyone lobby Finlayson on this? I'd love to know...)