The Belle of St Mark

Another shot in the dark, this time of bare trees outside St Marks church in Opawa.

Sheila E. - The Glamorous Life, 1985

I Wait Around

Comment taken directly from the Stuff website:

Brent and Shirley Cairns   #13   03:44 pm Jul 26 2012The launch of the 100 day CBD plan, is one week away from the 100 week anniversary for TC3 homeowners, thousands living in broken leaking homes, those with uninhabitable homes, pay mortgages, increased insurance, rates, inflated rents, now suffer further, waiting 5-8 years for a repair or rebuild. An Insurance Dispute Resolution service was suggested to cabinet in June 2011 yet ignored. Statutorily the government had to set up a Community Forum providing a citizens perspective to decision makers, meeting virtually every fortnight, no minutes have been published, their input muzzled or ignored. The purposes of the CERA legislation states that Communities must be enabled to participate in the planning of affected communities...yet that has been ignored CERA financial review and a recent Human Rights Commission workshop highlighted the lack of community involvement in decision making. Roger Sutton said because our home was in a red zone it wouldn't be worth much, is that why we are ignored?
Brownlee must meet groups like WeCan to develop Community focused solutions. Families are at breaking point and tired of being ignored.

The government's ideology of leaving problems to be solved by that mythical creature "the market" does not always work, and post-earthquake Christchurch is a prime example.  The government could, undoubtedly, help more.  That's not to say it isn't helping, but that only leads to the idea that they could do better with what they are doing.

So why aren't they helping more and doing better?  It's their ideology again, if they make an exception for Christchurch they bring the rest of their program into question.  The attitude, even if it is subconscious, is appalling.

The Clean - Vehicle, 1990

Nightmares

To be fair to Labour, they did manage to take a patsy question in parliament yesterday and turn it into an embarrassment for the government.  It all started off fairly simple, with Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi asking the Minister of Commerce about legislative changes intended to "protect NZ's reputation".

It occurred to me that this may be a way of keeping Russian gangsters, South American dictators and various terrorists and fraudsters from stuffing up National's plans to steal everything it can, but I couldn't find my tinfoil hat.

It all went wrong pretty quickly, with Trevor Mallard asking about how John Banks helped NZ's reputation, and it ended up here:

Grant Robertson: In light of his desire to maintain New Zealand’s reputation as a trusted place to do business, is he satisfied that the Hon John Banks has the required ethical standards to be his Associate Minister of Commerce?
Hon CRAIG FOSS: I do not appoint Associate Ministers.
Grant Robertson: In light of his desire to maintain New Zealand’s reputation as a trusted place to do business, is it his intention to withdraw the delegations of the Associate Minister of Commerce, John Banks, in light of the revelations that he solicited donations from Skycity, Kim Dotcom, and a third party, and then signed a donation return that could not recall those donations?
Hon CRAIG FOSS: These reflections reflect pretty badly on the questioner. I have no responsibility for the delegations or any of the roles. That is at the will of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You know, and I know, that that Minister signed those delegations—
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Hon Trevor Mallard: —not the Prime Minister. It is just not true.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! No, order! The member is now questioning the answer. The Speaker has to take the Minister’s answer as it stands. I cannot question whether or not Ministers are giving correct answers; I can only assess whether or not they have provided an answer, and the Minister has certainly provided an answer.
Hon Trevor Mallard: Did he sign the delegation for John Banks as an Associate Minister?
Hon CRAIG FOSS: Yes; the member is correct that this Minister does sign those delegations in consultation with the Prime Minister.

Yes, in the end Mr Foss had the choice of lying to parliament or admitting he was wrong.  I was pleased he chose the latter, however in parliamentary terms this was a Minties moment, and almost as good as when Gerry Brownlee forgot to object to a proposal to urgently debate Stephen Joyce's tertiary qualifications.

The Bleeders - As Sweet As Sin, 2006

Is There Something I Should Know?

Question 4 today sounded very interesting.  Many of the answers were in te reo, and as my knowledge of te reo is too poor to have kept up with the comings and goings I was looking forward to reading the transcript. It seemed to me that Ms Turei had Dr Sharples on the rocks for a while, there.  So I was disappointed to find this kind of thing:

Metiria Turei: Does the Minister, then, also agree that the human right of Māori children to decent housing is breached by the Government’s cuts to State and social housing provision, which currently condemns 28 percent of Māori children to living in overcrowded homes?
Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES:

• [Authorised te reo text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

• [Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I just want to clarify with you. It could be an issue to do with translation, but during question time it has been very clear that Ministers are answering on behalf of the Government, not on behalf of their individual political parties, and twice in question time, in the interpretation—I do not speak Te Reo Māori, so I just want to check that I am correct here—the Minister has indicated he is replying on behalf of the Māori Party, not on behalf of the Government.
Mr SPEAKER: The member is quite correct that Ministers are replying in their role as a Minister, as part of the Government. However, they are at liberty to introduce into their answers other material if it helps them answer the question asked. The risk they face in doing that is if they bring into their answer material to do with their party, they can then be asked about that, when normally they cannot be asked about that. The Minister is not normally answerable in this House for matters to do with the Māori Party. However, the Minister has, as the member points out, on a couple of occasions introduced the Māori Party into his answers, and, therefore, the Minister can be asked about those matters that he has covered in his answers.
Te Ururoa Flavell:

• [Authorised te reo text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

• [Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES:

• [Authorised te reo text to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

• [Authorised translation to be inserted by the Hansard Office.]

Surely it is possible to get a translation and transcript out in an hour or two, or is te reo not really an equal language?

The Green Party have shown that they are very good questioners.  I've also noted that they rarely resort to points of order, relying instead on the strength of their questions.  Sadly, Winston and Labour are being shown up, day after day, by the (rela

Duran Duran - Arena, 1984

On A Plain

I'd like to write about what a disaster Gerry Brownlee is, and the overturning of his decision on land rezoning to the west of Christchurch could be an opportunity.  Certainly it indicates that he went about things the wrong way, though it doesn't say what he did was wrong.  And since I don't know enough about it, I'll not go there.  Yet.

What caught my eye was the companies involved in the court action around zoning.  One of them was Christchurch Airport, who opposed the development approved by Minister Brownlee.  You would expect that the board of the airport kept the shareholders informed of their opposition to the approval, and that the shareholders would support the board's opposition, or they would sack the board.

The shareholders, there are three, are Christchurch City Holdings (the investment vehicle of Christchurch City Council), the Minister of Finance and The Minister for SOEs.

It seems wrong that they would let the matter go to court.

Nirvana - Unplugged in New York, 1993

UPDATE - sorry, I had a bit of a case of thoughts in the middle of the night there.  It seems wrong to let it go to court because the ministers involved are all part of the cabinet, and at least two are what is known as the kitchen cabinet, i.e. the select group of ministers that actually make the decisions.  Avoiding this kind of dumb stuff ending up in court seems much more productive than increasing class sizes, selling off control of our energy supply or ruining ACC.  And let's not forget ECan, who are appealing the decision, are run by government appointed commissioners.

I Stare Out

As if it wasn't bad enough, on principles, to be selling assets.

We have the dubious financial benefits, the fees to Regular John's mates to sell the assets and the uncertainty around iwi claims around water.

And finally, the loyalty scheme.  Treasury are reported to have estimated the cost of the loyalty scheme at $500 million, or $112 per person.  That's a subsidy from the 90% or more of citizens who won't buy shares, or can't afford to, to those who have both the means and the lack of morals desire to buy the shares.  A wealth transfer from poor to rich.  Trickle up.

Regular John doesn't know how much it will cost.

David Shearer: Did he announce the loyalty scheme to the National Party conference without being aware of the cost?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: I announced the intention to have a loyalty scheme. I do not know the exact cost at this point, but what I do know is that there may be no cost. I was taking this morning to listen to Morning Report. On Morning Report this morning, if I can quote from a stockbroker heavily involved in the Queensland Rail float, which had the loyalty bonus, he said that the amount the Government receives for its 49 percent may actually increase, and that the incentive increase for the float from locals and paid by itself is driving up the price institutions may pay—

It was only last week National were avoiding answering hypothetical questions, on the grounds they are hypothetical, and yet today we get this tripe about "...I was talking to a stockbroker and he said there were fairies at the bottom of the garden that magically make money appear..."

Opportunity lost with the Queensland Rail reference, too.  If only Mr Shearer had had quick enough wits to ask "Has the Prime Minister seen any reports on what happened to the government that sold Queensland Rail at the next elections?"  Hint - they were annihilated.  Annihilated.  Partially because people don't like asset sales.

Rod Oram talked about loyalty schemes on the radio today.  Evidently buyers who are not eligible, and share offers that do not have a loyalty scheme have about 40% selling within a few months, and for those that are eligible that rate drops to below 10%.  After the bonus shares are issued and there is no incentive for retaining the shares, the selling rate for those who participated in the loyalty scheme is 38%.  And this shows that loyalty schemes work.  Really?  40% for the ineligible and without loyalty schemes versus 38% once the loyalty scheme expires is pretty much the same rate, in my book, and is an indicator of the same self-interested behaviour.  The best it can be said to achieve is a delay in the time taken to sell 49% of our electricity generation capacity to overseas interests.

And let's not beat about the bush - this is not really about asset sales, or paying back debt, or building new infrastructure, or mum and dad investors.  Nor are arguments about the timing of it.  This is about selling the control of our electricity generation capacity.

"Hail the dauntless pursuit of the pointless."

Verlaines - Way Out Where, 1993

Saint Nick's Last Kick (part two)

Questions in the House today, on the issue of Nick Smith and the chance of there being smoke without fire.

Like Gerry Brownlee last week, Regular John seemed to have a disconnect with reality when questioned, but he did have the decency not to be too churlish.

He did completely miss the point of the questioning, which related to probity, rather than the nature of the work.  Another indication of mental prowess, perhaps.

The Hasselhoff Experiment - Christmas on the Rocks, 2001