Locking in unemployment

The recession is over, says Bill English, so we can stop stimulus spending. Right?

Wrong. As Paul Krugman pointed out when the US faced similar economic news back in September,

the purpose of stimulus is, first and foremost, to mitigate unemployment. The fact that the economy may be technically in recovery is irrelevant.

Unemployment is still rising. This means that stimulus spending is still necessary. But English would rather pinch pennies now to make the government books look better, even if it means locking in more unemployment, for longer. Another example of how National does not give a damn about the recession's victims - only the rich.

Evicting Hone

So, after a week of bad press, the Maori Party has had enough of Hone Harawira, and want him out. This seems a little disproportionate - Hone is a loose cannon and a dick, but his recent behaviour doesn't seem to justify eviction from the party. So what else is going on? Turia's statement is revealing:

This is not just about a jaunt to Paris or bad language. It's been an ongoing issue and it's reached its end, very sadly

(Emphasis added)

My guess is that Hone has been calling bullshit on the Maori Party's increasingly subservient relationship with National and its support for policies which directly harm his constituents. And the leadership - which does very well out of that relationship, thankyou, with crown limos and a flag and a sense of utu - doesn't want to put up with him rocking the boat anymore. In a sense, he's being sacrificed to preserve Turia's relationship with John Key.

Climate change: The greenwash game is up

Since signing the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, New Zealand's climate change policy has essentially been one of greenwash: portraying ourselves as a leader and talking up the prospect of action, while in reality doing nothing. As a result greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 22% since 1990, or 39% in gross terms. It was only a matter of time before the world noticed this yawning gap between our advertising and the reality. And now it has happened. Writing in the Guardian, Fred Pearce smashes our "clean and green" image:

But my prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community goes to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as "clean and green".

New Zealand secured a generous Kyoto target, which simply required it not to increase its emissions between 1990 and 2010. But the latest UN statistics show its emissions of greenhouse gases up by 22%, or a whopping 39% if you look at emissions from fuel burning alone.

Some countries with big emissions growth started from a low figure in 1990. Arguably, they were playing catchup. There is no such excuse for New Zealand. Its emissions started high and went higher.

They are today 60% higher than those of Britain, per head of population. Among industrialised nations, they are only exceeded by Canada, the US, Australia and Luxembourg.

And he hasn't even heard of National's latest joke of an ETS, which provides no incentive for polluters to reduce emissions, but instead subsidises them...

"So what?" the right asks? Well, in case people have forgotten, a large section of our economy depends on that image. Tourists come here because we are internationally seen as "clean and green" (something Tourism NZ exploits with its 100% Pure campaign). Our high-end farm and wine exports are partly built on our environmental reputation. In other words, our inaction on climate change is going to cost us money.

How much will depend on the extent of consumer backlash against our hypocrisy. But you can be sure that farming and tourism groups in Europe will be deploying this as ammunition in their battle for market share. And at the upper limit we're talking 54% of dairy exports and a 68% drop in international tourist visitor-nights (original MfE report here).

Our government thus has a solid commercial reason - the only sort these bean-counters understand - to take serious action to reduce emissions: because if they don't, our export markets are going to be subjected to increasingly frequent consumer campaigns against them. Having built that reputation, we are going to have to live up to it - or watch it (and the billions of dollars it brings in) be destroyed. And won't the farmers squeal then.

MMP stops the Revolution

Over at the Dim-Post, Danyl assesses National's first year in office, starting with:

We didn’t get ’shock doctrined’. Our last two right-wing governments (National in ‘91, Labour in ‘84) used economic crisis as pretexts to introduce radical reforms that they didn’t campaign on and had no mandate for. It wouldn’t have been that difficult for Key and his party to repeat history and restart the revolution, given the apprehension over the global financial crisis and the general mood of the nation this time last year – but they didn’t. Obviously I don’t agree with everything the Nats have done but they have shown a degree of prudence and responsibility that we haven’t seen from previous right-wing governments.

We have MMP to thank for this. Under a fair electoral system, any repeat of the strategy of deceit seen in 1984 and 1991 would result in a one-term government, and a lengthy spell in opposition. They’d be out on their arses quicker than you could say "unmodified Sainte-Laguë formula". Which is perhaps one of the reasons why National’s right are so keen to ditch it...

Climate change: Fiddling the books on the ETS

Who pays for the ETS? The goal of any such system, for both moral and economic reasons, is to ensure that polluters pay. But according to a new report [PDF] from the Sustainability Council, the government's modified ETS does exactly the opposite, dumping most of the immediate burden onto taxpayers and households rather than polluters, and pushing the ultimate cost - the Kyoto liability - onto our children.

On the former point, the Council has analysed the distributional impacts of the ETS - something notably absent from the government's work on the topic - and found that households, responsible for less than 20% of emissions, will bear 52% of the costs over CP1. Small businesses and transport operators, responsible for another 11%, bear 38% of the costs. Meanwhile, large industrial emitters and farmers, responsible for more than two-thirds of our emissions, would pay only 4%. The principle of "polluter pays" has been turned on its head, to subsidize National's donors and cronies.

The Council also attempts to measure subsidies, but here their work is flawed, focusing on apportioning the cost of national excess emissions, rather than gross emissions. Every credit given free to a polluter is a credit that could be sold. Thus, every ton of emissions a polluter does not have to provide credits for is a subsidy, and a real cost to the government. According to the Net Position Report, agricultural sector emissions are expected to be 184.02 million tons over CP1. At a carbon price of $30 per ton, that means an expected subsidy of $5.5 billion dollars - five times the amount estimated by the Sustainability Council. And that money comes straight out of your pocket and goes straight into that of a farmer.

Its the same story with industrial emitters. Stationary energy and industrial sector emissions are expected to be 113 million tons over CP1. At $30 per ton, that's a $3.4 billion subsidy over five years. And the subsidies are even greater after 2012.

These polluters are simply parasites, sucking money from the taxpayer to give a false veneer of profitability and enrich their foreign shareholders. And the National government is enabling this theft.

On the latter point, the Council points out that the use of forestry credits to offset present emissions is an illusory saving. Those credits must be repaid when the trees are harvested, meaning that such offsetting is effectively borrowing from the future. Our "surplus" now is simply a cost to future generations. Combined with the massive subsidies, this effectively means we are leaving 84% of the costs over CP1 to our children.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act was supposed to prevent such shenanigans by requiring the government to run honest accounts. But for some reason it doesn't apply to carbon credits. And so the government is able to get away with hiding the true costs of their morally and financially unsustainable policy.

This is simply not sustainable. The only morally and economically supportable position is for polluters to pay the full costs of their activities. And if this drives some of them to the wall, then so be it. If a business is "profitable" only through massive subsidies from the taxpayer, then we are better off without it.

Good news for MMP

Good news for MMP today, with a UMR Research poll showing 48% of voters wanting to retain it, versus 40% wanting change. But the interesting bits are in the details: only 19% of under 30's wanted change, versus 58% of over 60's (so it really is the dead hand of the old reaching out to strangle the future). As for the most likely opponent, no-one likes John Key's favoured Supplementary Member system - which isn't really surprising as it is the worst of both worlds (all the unfairness of FPP, plus list MPs!) So the likely opponent if there is a vote for change is FPP, with STV (!) a close second.

That's something we can be confident about. MMP can beat FPP. The unfairness of the old electoral system, the way it gave disproportionate power to a tiny clique around the PM while shutting out all other voices, and the way it reduced most elections to a battle for a few key marginal seats is part of our historical record (and seared into the memories of those of us who remember the 80's and 90's). While the grumpy old may be uncomfortable with seeing other faces and hearing other voices (yes, MMP means people other than dead white males get to sit in Parliament), I'm not sure they'd want to go back to that.

A conspiracy of silence

A lot of questions have been asked in recent weeks over MPs travel perks, who is using them, and how much it is costing us. The parties' response? A conspiracy of silence:

Labour and National are refusing to say how much their backbenchers have claimed in taxpayer-funded travel perks for overseas holidays.

Both parties say they will not disclose which MPs used subsidies for international airfares, insisting they have gone far enough to end secrecy surrounding their perks.

The stance comes despite several government ministers willingly disclosing this week how they have used the perks this year.

The Greens and ACT are still considering requests, while the Maori Party has provided only partial information. But overall its not a good look. This is public money we're talking about, and the public has the right to see how it is spent. That's certainly the stance any of these politicians would take if we were talking about public sector managers or a government department. But for some reason the rules are different for themselves. It is hypocrisy, pure and simple - and yet another example of how MPs earn their poor reputation.

There's a chance here for voluntary action from a minor party such as the Greens to be a circuit breaker and force disclosure from everyone else. We should start hassling them about it.

Another go at equality in Canberra

The ACT Legislative Assembly has just passed a civil union law, amending its existing civil partnerships legislation to permit public ceremonies. There's some history here - in 2006 and 2007 civil union laws were repeatedly vetoed by the Howard Government on the basis that allowing public ceremonies (rather than filling out a form and making a declaration in a registry office) would "mimic marriage". The message was clear: gay couples should stay in the legislative closet, and keep out of sight (and out of mind) of decent straight folk.

The new law gives the finger to that idea, reinstating public ceremonies and establishing a separate system of civil partnership notaries. Oddly, however, the ceremonies are limited solely to same-sex couples - ensuring same- and opposite-sex couples use different laws apparently being a cornerstone of Australian bigot politics. Even this may not be enough to avoid a federal veto - the Australian Labour Party voted just three months ago to uphold Howard's ban on gay marriage, and Kevin Rudd personally opposes equality. its unclear yet whether there will be a veto - but given the hostility of the ALP to gay rights, I would not be surprised.

Their silence is deafening

Given all the media attention being paid to MP's travel perks, you'd expect some MPs to be coming forward to defend this spending. But as I noted this morning, their silence is deafening. The closest we have is Trevor Mallard's confession that he will be taking a taxpayer-subsidised rugby-junket to London, with a side-order of networking and "fact-finding".

The first is private travel, and we should not be paying for it in any way. If MPs want to fly to Europe to watch sport, then that is something they can pay for out of their very generous salary. As for the latter, to the extent it is Parliamentary rather than party business, it should be treated as an expense, and funded transparently through the leader's budget, rather than through a blanket subsidy on all travel which might be used for such purposes. That way we have clear accountability for the way the money is spent - and someone with a clear political interest in making sure it is not misspent.

Climate change: A good first step

While rich nations refuse to act on climate change, Brazil has promised to cut its 2020 emissions by 38 - 42% from business-as-usual. This doesn't sound like much, and its not a binding target - but it is the "substantial deviation from baseline" the IPCC says that major developing countries need to make.

So, once again the developing world, the people who can least afford to, is acting where we are not. Feel ashamed yet? You should.

New Fisk

The Great War and the words we mustn't forget
The lost art of reportage [Audio]

Time to break up the banks

The multiparty inquiry into the banking sector has reported back [PDF], finding that the New Zealand banking sector is not competitive, and that this lack of competition has allowed the four major Aussie banks to not pass on cuts to the OCR. The cost of this is staggering - an estimated $2 billion in increased interest costs, effectively as oligopoly rent to a foreign-owned cartel. The Australians really are looting us.

In the face of this finding, the recommendations of the inquiry are rather tepid: the government should "consider" increasing the capital available to Kiwibank to allow it to bring competition to the market, the Reserve bank should gather more information on overseas borrowing by banks, and the government should hold inquiries into bank-sector competition and monetary policy. Yeah, that'll scare them into behaving.

I have a better solution: forcibly beak up the Aussie banks into smaller units to restore competition to the market, and regulate the crap out of them to ensure they behave. This was once the perfectly orthodox solution to monopoly and oligopoly abuse (see Standard Oil and Bell for examples). But if such a solution is too radical for Labour, then we can hardly expect National - run by an ex-banker with close ties to the very Aussie banks who are abusing us - to go for it.

My heart bleeds

Speaker Lockwood Smith is concerned that public outrage over MP's perks is stressing them and their families. My heart bleeds for them, really. Why, it must be so stressful having the public demanding accountability for how our money as spent. But if its stressful for MPs, you have to wonder how the public service, who are subject to far pettier levels of scrutiny (down to whether the biscuits are plain or chocolate) copes.

"But that's different!" say MPs. No, its not. Travel perks are paid for with public money. We have a right then to know whether that money is well spent, or whether it should be spent at all. If a government department was providing these sorts of perks to its staff, we would rightly be outraged at the total waste of money (and Rodney Hide would be first to weigh in). The same principles surely applies to MPs. And if they think the money is not wasted, that the taxpayer somehow derives some benefit by subsidising Hide's $10,000 holiday in Hawaii, then the onus is on them to speak up and explain how. But their silence is deafening - and very, very telling.

Smith also argues that the average benefit of travel has been factored into (and effectively deducted from) MP's salaries by the Remuneration Commission. Maybe back in 2003 - but they've been silent on the issue for the last six years. And given that the perk-for-pay deal was effectively cut in the 70's, and no only one MP from that era is still sitting in the House, I think that that argument is effectively dead.

Finally, Smith says he feels responsible for the stress caused over this issue, as he made the decision to release details on MPs expenses. The subtext: he should have maintained the cosy conspiracy of silence around perks and expenses instead. Way to go with earning that reputation, Dr Smith.

Correction: Roger Douglas was first elected in 1969, and is accurately described as a relic of that era. He may also be a zombie.

Not just Cabinet

Media attention on Parliamentary travel perks has so far focused on Cabinet - primarily because of their hypocritical behaviour in using Parliamentary discounts for their partners while publicly adopting a face of financial probity. Half of Cabinet is feeding from this trough, and while public attention has caused some embarrassment, there seems to be no way of stopping them. But they're not the only ones. The travel perks they are abusing are those for ordinary MPs. And a kindly reader has sent me a table of exactly who gets what [XLS].

At first glance, it seems I'm being a little harsh in my suggestion that self-interested MPs won't vote to end their own perks - after all, there are 40 with no entitlement whatsoever, and another 26 who only get 25%, so a majority of the House has nothing much to lose by doing so. Except of course that every one of those MPs has the expectation that with time, they too can enjoy 90% taxpayer-subsidised holidays. If that expectation triumphs over decency, then it will just be another example of MPs earning that reputation.

Its worth pointing out too that this perk is unlimited; former MPs are capped at 12 domestic return trips plus the equivalent of a business-class trip to London every year. Sitting MPs are subject to no such limits. They could theoretically piss off to Paris every parliamentary recess - and if a senior MP like Bill English did it, we'd be left footing the bill for $200,000 a year.

There is absolutely no justification for this perk. It serves no parliamentary purpose, and MPs are well-remunerated enough to be able to afford to pay for their own holidays. It should be abolished immediately.

Correction: Clarified the international travel entitlement for former MPs; it's the equivalent of a business-class return trip to London.

Homophobia isn't cool

What's Trevor Mallard's latest taunt across the House to National's Chris Finlayson?

"Tinkerbell".

As The Hand Mirror points out, this sort of homophobia and misogyny isn't cool. And it is appalling to see a senior member of a supposedly "progressive" party engaging in it. Particularly when as a teacher he should know the social cost of this sort of public homophobia.

What next from Trevor? Calling Hone Harawira "nigger"?

Better work stories

Cop forced prostitute into sex - court

A former-Christchurch policeman is in on trial for extorting free sex from a prostitute - on several occasions in the back of his patrol car.

Justice French lifted suppression on the name and former occupation of Nathan Thorose Connolly at the start of his High Court trial in Christchurch today.

He is charged with one count of corruptly obtaining a bribe and two charges of compelling sexual conduct knowing consent had been obtained through a threat.

Looks like the Rickards culture of sexual exploitation is still alive and well in the New Zealand police force...

And while I'm at it, the second charge is a bit of a contortion, a Prostitution Reform Act offence designed to prevent pimps forcing people to work for them. There is a word for using threats to compel sex. That word is "rape". And Connolly should be being charged with it.

Tonga: Emasculating the monarchy

A year ago, the Tongan Parliament passed a bill establishing a Constitutional and Electoral Commission to consider constitutional reform. The Commission presented its final report on Friday, and recommended significant and progressive change. While Tonga will remain a constitutional monarchy, the monarch will be removed from government, his powers reduced to rubberstamping decisions made by the elected government and withholding assent or dissolving Parliament "as a safeguard". His executive body, the Privy Council, will be reduced to a costume drama, stripped of all powers. Actual decisions will be made by the Cabinet, drawn from and responsible to the elected legislature, led by a Prime Minister appointed on the advice of Parliament. In other words, responsible government, much as we have here.

There are still some relics of the ancien regime. While the number of People's Representatives will be almost doubled, to seventeen, the 33 nobles will still retain their 9 representatives - and thus vastly disproportionate power. The office of Speaker will be limited to a noble - it being apparently too elevated to be entrusted to a mere "dirt eater", regardless of merit. The Parliament will still be able to impeach its members - effectively allowing the government to overturn the results of any election it does not like. This unfinished constitutional business will eventually be dealt with, but the important battle has been won. And with a majority of People's Representatives and control of the finances, everything else can be gradually leveraged by financial blackmail, just as happened in the UK.

The big concern is whether there is enough time to pass all of this by the promised election date of November 2010. Its ambitious, but they should be able to do it. And if not, the plan is to focus on the electoral law (including a change to STV), and leave the final emasculation to the new, more democratic Parliament.

The full report can be accessed here. For some reason the single-file version doesn't work, but the individual sections are readable.

The end of the affair?

Pundit has a major scoop this morning: the Greens' dalliance with National seems to be in trouble. After months of being given the run-around over the development of a new Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy - something agreed in the National - Green support agreement [PDF] - only to find out from the media that their key ideas had been rejected and that National was planning to gut or repeal the Act, they have had enough. As a result,

Green Party co-leaders Metiria Turei and Russel Norman have now written formally to Key, withdrawing from that part of the MOU.

Fitzsimons points out that other areas of cooperation, such as the cycleway and home insulation, have worked well, so its not entirely over. But the slice of common ground has got narrower, and the Greens are certainly going to be much more cautious about cooperation in future. In this deal, they were treated as doormats rather than partners, a PR prop to greenwash whatever policy National came up with on its own. And they are right to walk away from that.

Update: And Jeanette gives her own thoughts here.

Privatisation on the agenda

When the government voted down Phil Twyford's Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Amendment Bill in September, they argued that the bill was unnecessary as there was no plan to privatise Auckland's assets.

They lied.

Just two months after making those speeches, Cabinet has agreed to make a "minor amendment" removing the requirement for local authorities to consult the public before privatising council services. Currently the law requires councils to use a "special consultative procedure" - public notification and a long period for submissions - for any proposal which involves:

(a) a change from delivery of the activity by the local authority itself to delivery of the activity by a council-controlled organisation in which the local authority is a shareholder; or

(b) a change from delivery of the activity by the local authority itself to delivery of the activity by another organisation or person; or

(c) a change from delivery of the activity by a council-controlled organisation in which the local authority is a shareholder to delivery of the activity by another organisation or person.

But Rodney Hide thinks this is "biased against the use of the private sector to deliver council services". And National agrees with him (though, to be fair, they could have all been asleep, or "too busy with their own stuff" to be bothered). Given that Cabinet decisions don't just appear out of thin air, but are the result of a long process of policy development and consultation, this means someone has been deeply dishonest about their plans.

But I forget: National and ACT's NeoLiberal ideologues don't think they have to be honest with the public, any more than they feel a need to consult us or expose their plans to proper democratic scrutiny. Deceit and urgency is simply their preferred modus operandi, to better ram through unpopular changes beneficial to their wealthy backers. As for the rest of us, we apparently don't count.

Next election, we should remind them that we do.

New Zealand hates women

Another day, another story of an international student facing deportation for being pregnant. This is the most basic form of discrimination against women there is. And the government has made it a central plank of immigration policy.

As usual, there's no question of cost - the woman in question has health insurance, and her care is fully funded. And there's no question of citizenship, because Labour robbed her child of that right years ago. There is no reason for the state to care about her health at all.

What's the natural conclusion to draw from this? That New Zealand hates women. At the same time as we're touting for tourists and international students, we're telling half of them "don't fall in love, don't behave like a human being, and don't expect to be treated like an adult capable of making your own choices". According to the New Zealand government, you can be a tourist or a mother, a student or a mother - but never both (the ordinary struggles of hundreds of thousands of women notwithstanding).

This is simply a vile, discriminatory, misogynistic and fundamentally immoral policy. And its long past time we ended it.