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Jane Kelsey on Fast Track saga moves back to Senate

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Source: Professor Jane Kelsey.

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The latest Obama-Republican Party manoeuvre to secure Fast Track negotiating authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) succeeded with a narrow ten-vote majority in the House of Representatives, but the saga is far from over, according to Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey.

 ‘The Bill now returns to the Senate where its fate is far from certain’, Kelsey said.

To get Fast Track Bill passed in the House today, the companion measure that provides support for workers who lose their jobs through deals like the TPPA was dropped.

Yet the inclusion of the Trade Adjustment Assistance package, as well as promises to vote to reauthorise the Export-Import Bank, were prerequisites for several of the 14 Democrat Senators who voted for the original Fast Track bill in the Senate.

Key Senate Democrats are now demanding that both those measures are passed in both Houses before they vote on Fast Track, because they don’t trust the Republicans. Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives are deeply opposed to both measures. 

Obama himself has said he won’t approve Fast Track without the Trade Assistance package. 

The Senate process requires a 60-vote super-majority for the version of the Fast Track Bill approved by the House before it can bypass a filibuster and move to a formal vote. If just three of the original 14 Democrats withdraw their support from the Fast Track law, the deal will not get to a vote in the Senate.

That next phase of the saga is expected within the next week.

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Lori Wallach: U.S. House Punts Fast Track Problem Back to Senate

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Path to Approval Unclear and Thus TPP’s Fate in Congress Uncertain

By Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

[poll id=”15″] [caption id="attachment_4640" align="alignleft" width="300"]Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.[/caption]

Today, the House employed yet another procedural gimmick to punt the Fast Track problem back to the Senate, where its fate remains at best unclear as Americans’ concerns that more of the same trade policy would kill more jobs and push down our wages remain unaddressed.

That two years of effort by a vast corporate coalition, the White House and Republican leaders – and weeks of procedural gimmicks and deals swapped for yes votes – has resulted in this continuing standoff and no Fast Track enacted spotlights the dim prospects not only for adoption of Fast Track but also for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Because Republican House members would not support the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) part of the Senate-passed Fast Track package last week, the Republican leadership today had to resort to a Fast Track-only vote. But what exactly that achieves is unclear.

Senate Democrats, including those needed to move the stand-alone Fast Track bill, are demanding that the TAA be reinserted into the Fast Track bill or be passed by both chambers before agreeing to support Fast Track.  In addition, key Democratic senators are insisting on the fulfillment by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of a promised vote to reauthorize the Export-Import bank – which was the condition for the deciding bloc of Senate Democrats to support cloture on Fast Track in the first instance in May.

Meanwhile, House Republican lawmakers remain strongly opposed to TAA and Export-Import Bank reauthorization. As House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi stated today, there is no clear path for enactment of TAA. Yet yesterday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that President Obama requires both Fast Track and TAA to come to his desk.

For more, see the New York Times.

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Jane Kelsey: US Desperation on Fast Track Plummets to New Depths

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Source: Professor Jane Kelsey.

[caption id="attachment_1844" align="alignleft" width="200"]Professor Jane Kelsey. Professor Jane Kelsey.[/caption]

‘In the latest desperate attempt to haul Fast Track authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) back from the brink, the Republicans in the US House of Representatives have launched a new vote for tomorrow by tagging it on to an unrelated bill on retirement programmes for firefighters’, according to Professor Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland.

The previous Bill failed after being split into two votes, as a procedural manoeuvre intended to defeat overwhelming opposition of the President’s own Democrats in the House to Fast Track and the TPPA backfired.

The first vote, on assistance for US workers who lose their jobs because of free trade agreements, was resoundingly defeated as Democrats argued it did not go far enough to compensate for the TPPA. The second vote, specifically on Fast Track or Trade Promotion Authority, passed with a narrow margin of seven votes, almost all of them Republicans.

An interim measure by the House allowed the legislation to be brought back any time before 30 July.

‘The latest tactic from the Republicans is to promote Fast Track as a stand alone Bill, in the hope that the original numbers stick’, Kelsey said. 

‘Yesterday, the line was that there would be no vote on a stand-alone bill this week. Today, we hear the vote is scheduled for tomorrow, but on a Bill that links Fast Track to legislation on pensions for fire-fighters and law enforcement officers.’

Even if the latest Bill gets through the House, it would have to go back to the Senate for endorsement because it would be different from the Bill they originally passed. It is very uncertain what the fate of this would be in the Senate where Democrat support was contingent on the trade assistance package.

Professor Kelsey observed that Obama himself would face a quandary. He has vowed not to support a Fast Track Bill that does not contain the trade assistance component. He also faces a deteriorating relationship to his own Party over a deal that is profoundly unpopular with the core Democratic constituency.

For further detail and analysis see: House GOP Eyes Clean Fast-Track Trade Bill Without TAA Funding http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/16/gop-trade-bill_n_7598488.html

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byWADE…new technology gives ISIS advantage…

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bywade, iammenotyou.com, cartoon, illustration. ISIS
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cartoons byWADE on eveningreport.nz You can follow WADE (from a safe digital distance) at www.facebook.com/bywade or look at more stuff and buy things in obscene volumes to show how successful and cool you are at www.iammenotyou.com…]]>

Putting enough land in New Zealand for future housing needs

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NewsroomPlus.com Contributed by Stephen Olsen – part 1 of a series Productivity Commission chair Murray Sherwin is a past taskmaster of presenting reports, and followed a reasonably tight set of talking points at a media briefing earlier today just ahead of the release of the Commission’s latest two-step production – a draft report simply titled Using land for housing. With housing issues almost continually in the headlines since last year’s Election campaigning, and court action looming over the legality of the rights that can be exercised over public land in Auckland, the timing couldn’t have been more apt.

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Productivity Commission chair Murray Sherwin talks to the Commission’s newly released draft report this morning. The report process is focused on the end goal of better ways to deliver an adequate supply of development capacity for housing. He’s joined at the top of the table by fellow Commissioner Dr Graham Scott, best known perhaps as a former Secretary to The Treasury from 1986–1993.
An economist who came to the New Zealand Productivity Commission after roles as Chief Executive and Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (now MPI) and Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand among others, Mr Sherwin couched the evident “stresses and strains” around land and housing with a comment that in his judgement the issues are “not intractable”. Having said that, and even though he termed current shortfalls as “not invevitable or insoluble”, a readymade soundbite from today’s briefing was that Auckland requires the equivalent of 10 Hobsonvilles (at 3,000 houses apiece) to level out supply and demand, with 3 or 4 more equivalents every year to keep pace with demand. “Business as usual is unlikely to be enough,” said Mr Sherwin, adding that, for want of a better word, a more “aggressive” approach is needed, with, he implied, fewer disconnects between national interest and local interest. He then moved straight to making mention of the potential for urban development agencies – a UDA or Urban Development Authority – to take a leadership and coordination role to achieve residential development at scale in both greenfield and brownfield settings, working in partnership with private sector developers. Questions that followed from Bernard Hickey (Hive News, Interest.co.nz), Brian Fallow of the Herald, Nick Butcher of RNZ, Catherine Harris of the Sunday Star-Times and NewstalkZB pursued angles such as the recommendation that removal of the rating exemption on land owned by the core Crown, including land used for health and education purposes, be investigated. As noted on page 269 of the draft report the rates revenue forgone by councils from all non-rateable land is not insignificant – totting up to about $180 million a year. The report states that “at the margin, this would make agencies think harder about whether maintaining their holdings is in the public interest”. On a question from NewsRoom it was confirmed that such land holdings in the United Kingdom are subject to rates, and in Australia and Canada they are able to be transparently ‘tagged’ (more on that on page 267). How much headroom councils have in terms of the debt they carry in undertaking an increase in supply of land for housing developments, and the standards set for that by the Auditor-General and others, was another question, along with a question about charging for infrastructure growth. The answer from Commission officials present at the media briefing on the latter, was a view that infrastructure charges should more closely reflect the underlying costs, and that flat charges don’t send signals about where development is most efficient. For more on this, see page 221-222. An old chestnut of a question that will no doubt continue to reappear, arose from a recommendation that local authorities should review minimum apartment size rules in their District Plans, with a view to removing them. Aversion or otherwise to the construction of liveable ‘shoebox’ apartments is a problem for markets to solve said Mr Sherwin, with another official adding that the Building Act is the appropriate place to address issues like ventilation and light in apartments. For more on this, see page 120-122. For a process that had as its terms of reference a request to undertake “an inquiry to assess and identify improvements in local and regional authorities’ land use regulation, planning and development systems” there is no getting around that this will be perceived as a report about and for the Auckland ‘crisis’. By dint of a quick, unscientific but indicative keyword search, our dominant urban growth centre of the Auckland isthmus and surrounds features on more than half of the report’s 358 pages, Wellington a quarter of the pages, and Christchurch – surprisingly in many ways – less than 20%, followed by other ‘growth cities’ of Tauranga, Hamilton and Queenstown – in that order. Murray Sherwin is right to say this is a process – following on in an almost linear sequence from the Commissions’ earlier 2012 report on Housing affordability and its 2013 Local government regulation report – that has “plenty of meat”. With all manner of housing issues riding high in the headlines it is also some cause for comfort, as he pointed out, that the level of engagement in the process is high. Getting to the draft report stage alone has attracted more than 70 public consultation submissions – with a wraparound of 94 engagement meetings in New Zealand, 15 in Australia and a UK study tour to boot. The challenge for the next round of submitters is no small one to mount – there’s the density of the report itself, and then 36 questions that beg allied pondering and responses. In terms of timing the countdown for making a submission starts today, and is open till Tuesday 4 August.

A beginner’s guide to the draft report – Using land for housing

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As with all of the Productivity Commission’s professionally produced reports to date – it began operating on 1 April 2011 – this is no ‘once over lightly’ treatment. At 358 pages long you will want to hold off hitting print on this draft report too quickly, and to help you get your head around the overall structure the device of a ‘Cut to the chase’ executive summary is made available – and there is always the media release to refer to as well. Cutting to the numbers, there are 120 findings to digest, accompanied by 38 recommendations that have the potential to keep the following very, very busy:
  • Cabinet
  • Parliamentary law-makers
  • Territorial local authorities (local government)
  • MBIE – Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
  • Statistics New Zealand
  • CCOs: Auckland Transport, Watercare
  • Treasury
Here’s a ‘news you can use’ list of the Recommendations and the chapters they’re attached to: Chapter 3: Integrated Planning R3.1 Urban local authorities that wish to set design infill/intensification targets should ensure that their District Plans provide sufficient commercially viable development capacity.
R3.2 The Ministry for the Environment should explore the potential to develop an Urban Feasibility Model that New Zealand local authorities can use.
R3.3 High-growth territorial authorities should review their zoning rules for rural land, to ensure they provide the right balance of promoting efficient use of land for housing and minimising reverse sensitivity risks.
R3.4 Large land price differentials between different types of zones, such as those observed in Auckland, should be a trigger for local authorities to review the adequacy of their land supplies and zoning decisions.
R3.5 A new legislative avenue should be designed to focus spatial plans on activities that:
  • are of high importance to the functioning of cities and the provision of development capacity for housing (eg, land supply, infrastructure provision, transport services);
  • relate closely to the use of land or space and the management of negative externalities; and
  • are most efficiently dealt with at a local level and through local authorities.
R3.6 The new planning avenue should be voluntary to allow local authorities to choose the statutory planning mechanisms that best suit their circumstances.
R3.7 Future plans prepared under the new legislative avenue should be developed in partnership with the full set of central government actors whose services matter for the functioning of cities. Given the fiscal implications of greater central government involvement in spatial planning, both Cabinet and the relevant local authority should approve such plans.
R3.8 The new legislative planning avenue should include processes to encourage robust regulatory analysis and development, as section 32 of the Resource Management Act is designed to do. Chapter 4: Supplying and releasing land 
R4.1 High-growth local authorities should express their land supply targets in terms of zoned and serviced land and report publicly on their performance. R4.2 Local authorities should monitor and report on dwelling completions and net changes in the dwelling stock, relative to expected and actual population and household growth.
R4.3 The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Statistics New Zealand and territorial local authorities should work together to improve the quality of official statistics available from the building consent form as a priority.
R4.4 The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, in conjunction with relevant local authorities, should inventory public land holdings in all high-growth cities to identify sites that could be used for housing.
R4.5 Local authorities should set policies for the publishing of and consulting on draft plan reviews or plan changes of interest to the wider community ahead of notification, unless compelling reasons exist for not doing so.
R4.6 The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Ministry for the Environment should, once the work of the Auckland and Christchurch Independent Hearings Panels (IHPs) is complete, evaluate the IHP processes, with a view to deciding whether IHPs should become a permanent feature of the planning system. Chapter 5: Regulations and approval processes
R5.1 Urban territorial authorities should remove District Plan balcony / private open space requirements for apartments.
R5.2 Once the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has completed planned work on updating Building Code rules and guidance related to air quality, lighting, acoustics and access in multi-unit dwellings, local authorities should review minimum apartment size rules in their District Plans, with a view to removing them.
R5.3 Urban territorial authorities should remove District Plan minimum parking requirements, and make more use of traffic demand management techniques.
R5.4 Local authorities should undertake robust cost-benefit analyses before considering the introduction of building height limits, and should lift current limits where it cannot be demonstrated that the benefits outweigh the costs.
R5.5 Local authorities should review District Plan controls on the design and construction of buildings or dwellings that exceed standards set under the Building Act, with a view to removing them.
R5.6 The Government should introduce amendments to the RMA to clarify the role and importance of housing and urban environments.
R5.7 In reviewing their District Plans, local authorities should move more residential land-use activities into “permitted” or “restricted discretionary” status. Chapter 6: Planning and delivering infrastructure
R6.1 When councils refer to the supply of land for housing, they should be clear about the readiness of land for building (eg, un-zoned but planned-for future zoning; zoned; zoned and serviced; zoned, serviced and consented).
R6.2 Councils should identify areas where there is existing infrastructure capacity and ensure that planning rules do not prevent intensification from occurring in these areas.
R6.3 Councils should prioritise the development of up-to-date asset management information systems. This should be supported by recruiting and developing staff with the skills and expertise needed to make effective use of these systems, and ensuring that the information from asset management systems is integrated into decision-making processes.
R6.4 Councils should pursue opportunities to make more efficient use of existing infrastructure assets including through greater use of user charges where this can reduce demands on infrastructure.
R6.5 Government should adopt the Local Government Infrastructure Advisory Group’s recommendation to amend the Land Transport Management Act to allow pricing on existing roads where there is a business case that enables effective network optimisation.
R6.6 Councils’ asset management systems should feed into decision making about optimal infrastructure standards. The data used to inform standard-setting should be shared openly with the development community.
R6.7 If councils determine that a good case to change infrastructure standards exists, then developments that already have consent should be exempt from the change. Alternatively, developers should be compensated for any additional costs incurred as a result of the change. Chapter 7: Paying for infrastructure
R7.1 Evaluation of the financial prudence and reporting regulations should monitor how the regulations affect councils’ ability to provide infrastructure to support growth and review whether 15% is the most appropriate debt-servicing ratio for high-growth councils.
R7.2 Councils should include information in their development contributions policy about the relationship between dwelling floor area and the cost of providing infrastructure services. If smaller dwellings impose lower costs on the infrastructure network, this should be reflected in lower charges.
R7.3 The Local Government Act should be amended to make clear that developers may formally request that councils construct growth-enabling infrastructure, to be repaid through targeted rates on the properties that benefit from the infrastructure connections, and obliging Councils to consider such requests. Chapter 8: Governance of transport and water infrastructure
R8.1 Auckland Transport and Watercare should amend their SOIs [Statements of Intent] so that they are aligned with the Auckland Plan and its target for new dwellings. The SOIs should include performance measures relating to the efficient rollout of new infrastructure to support an increased supply of new dwellings. R8.2 Auckland Transport and Watercare should include performance measures in their SOIs that encourage greater coordination between CCOs [Council Controlled Organisations] and with Auckland Council, building on Auckland Council’s current review of CCOs. R8.3 Watercare should change their approach to calculating infrastructure growth charges to better reflect the underlying economic costs of supply in different locations and for different types of dwelling. R8.4 The requirement to consider development agreements that applies to councils should also apply to CCOs. Chapter 9: Shaping local behaviour R9.1 The Treasury, in consultation with the Department of Internal Affairs, should investigate removing the rating exemption on land owned by the core Crown, including on land used for health and education purposes. Chapter 10: Planning and funding our future R10.1 The Treasury should investigate the possibility of providing an exemption from the foreign investment screening regime for developers purchasing land, providing the land is developed into housing and resold within an acceptable timeframe.
R10.2 There is a place for a UDA to lead and coordinate residential development at scale in both greenfield and brownfield settings, working in partnership with private sector developers. Legislation would be required to establish and give powers (such as compulsory acquisition) to one or more UDCs in New Zealand. * Stephen Olsen is an associate member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. This NewsRoom_Plus contribution was prepared with assistance from Olexander Barnes and Sylvester Racule. 
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NewsRoom Digest: Top NZ News Items for June 16, 2015

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Newsroom Digest

This edition of NewsRoom_Digest contains 3 media release snippets and 5 links of the day from Tuesday 16th June.

Top stories in the current news cycle include confusion remains over whether the Government is legally obliged to offer central Auckland iwi right of first refusal over land intended for housing, Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy defends the export of kauri logs says it’s a good way to promote the country and Social Development Minister Anne Tolley says people who apply for successive food grants are being offered budgeting support to help them manage their money.

NEWSROOM_PLUS ‘EXTRAs’  Two articles published by our Wellington team today were:

http://newsroomplus.com/2015/06/16/a-taste-of-great-britain-in-wellington/ http://newsroomplus.com/2015/06/16/campaigns-1/

SNIPPETS OF THE DAY

Share Market For Small Businesses Open: Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Paul Goldsmith today welcomed the first listing on NZX’s new securities market, called NXT.

Drugs Seized On Ship: The New Zealand Defence Force frigate HMNZS TE KAHA has dealt drug smugglers in the Western Indian Ocean a blow, seizing almost 260 kilograms of heroin worth NZ$235 million. The ship has been working with the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), a US-led naval partnership which aims to prevent drug and people trafficking, piracy and terrorism, since May.

Only Two Weeks Left To Get A 50% Return On Your Kiwisaver Top Up: KiwiSaver members have just two weeks left to top up their accounts to qualify for the Government’s Member Tax Credits, says the Financial Services Council CEO Peter Neilson. Last year KiwiSaver members failed to pick up $400 million in member tax credits.

LINKS OF THE DAY

NZ NEEDS CLIMATE PLAN : An International Energy Agency report out today shows the need for New Zealand to develop a clear and practical plan to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions, the Green Party said. Click here for more : http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2015/june/iea-sets-out-pillars-for-success-at-cop21.html

SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETER BACKS NZ SHAKEOUT : More information on New Zealand ShakeOut, including a link to the video, can be found at www.shakeout.govt.nz,https://www.facebook.com/NzGetThru andhttps://twitter.com/nzgetthru

UN GUIDEBOOK TO PREVENT CHILD LABOUR IN AGRICULTURE : A new handbook issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) will seek to establish guidelines intended to prevent the use of child labour across the world’s agricultural communities in an effort to tackle a problem that affects some one hundred million children globally, the United Nations agency announced today. Click here for more : http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/293658/icode/

GRANTS TO BENEFIT NZ WRITERS : Research is a crucial part of the writing process. Copyright Licensing New Zealand (CLNZ) and the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Research Grants support New Zealand writers by providing assistance to writers who wish to undertake research for a fiction or non-fiction writing project. The 2015 application process opens on 19 June. For more infromation, see here: http://www.copyright.co.nz/Awards/CLNZ-NZSA-Research-Grants/

COMMISSION BEGINS INDUSTRY AND CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT ON IMS REVIEW :  The Commerce Commission has released its first paper for industry and consumers as part of the review of input methodologies announced last week. A copy of the problem definition paper can be found here:http://www.comcom.govt.nz/regulated-industries/input-methodologies-2/input-methodologies-review/

And that’s our sampling of the day that was on Tuesday 16th June 2015.

Brought to EveningReport by Newsroom Digest. –]]>

Ten of 10 students get it: fair for teachers, good for us

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NewsroomPlus.com

Contributed by Daniel Haines, Political & Auckland Correspondent

“Our conditions of employment are the conditions of your children’s education”.

These powerful words were the backdrop for the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) campaign launch in Auckland last night, aligned to bargaining on behalf of 17,500 teachers for improvements to teachers’ pay and conditions.

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The PPTA’s position is that over the last five years teachers’ pay has fallen behind inflation, which means that teachers have taken a pay cut. The government says that they want to make teaching a top choice career, and the PPTA,  the union and professional association for secondary teachers, is negotiating with the government  to fix this, and to make sure great teachers are attracted to and kept in our schools.

There is no doubt that Secondary teachers do a massively important job.  They work hard and their students know what they do for them – a key platform for the campaign (see below).

Held at Trades Hall on Great North Road in Grey Lynn this campaign launch opened with a whakataukī, a karakia and a waiata – connecting everyone for the remainder of the evening.

Angela Roberts the PPTA President channeled the vibe of the audience well when she opened with: “It’s good to be in a room that celebrates solidarity and unionism.”

Her passionate speech identified future challenges and provided longitudinal context, particularly highlighting the difficulties the PPTA could face if negotiating with a hostile Government. Roberts called for the union members in the room to go back to their communities and seek support for a campaign founded in reason and logic.

David Cunliffe was the Labour Party’s representative at the meeting; he was the first of the sitting MPs to speak, delivering a pre-prepared speech that was written on the back of the Labour Party policy manifesto, a fact he had to remind the room of. Cunliffe spoke about life-long learning, social mobility, and publicly funded education.

Denise Roche was the Green Party representative; she applauded the PPTA on their strong, though unsuccessful, resistance against the Education Amendment Bill (No 2); whilst also applauding the PPTA for their ability to minimize the negative effects of the Employment Relations Act. Roche spoke about how the PPTA are seeking reasonable pay increases and made it known that the Green Party would be “with you as much as we can, and when you want us.”

Tracey Martin was the New Zealand First representative, and was introduced by the MC as “a long friend of education and teachers”. Martin spoke strongly about her passion for education, claiming that as a Board of Trustees Chair they had a shared history. Martin expressed her belief that parents trust teachers to raise their kids, and so to win this campaign she advised: “don’t explain the profession, explain your humanity”. Martin said teachers are experts at educating children, and political representatives need to be alongside teachers at the coalface to understand the issues.

Anatomy of a campaign

As part of PPTA’s campaign to raise public awareness of the value of teachers, a film crew was engaged to talk to students about what they think of their teachers.

Creative Campaign Strategist Anna Dean was brought on board to brainstorm ideas on how the campaign could achieve cut-through in today’s media environment with a slightly different approach.

“Video really is a key medium to be operating in these days,” she says, “and as I had worked with director Dean Hewison and producer Bevin Linkhorn recently on a campaign for NZ On Air at Alltracks.co.nz, I felt confident they would be able to create something bold and beautiful.
Anna Dean: “Budgets need to be spent carefully these days with the increasingly prohibitive cost of print, and video is what gets traction in the newsfeed right now. I think this is also such direct and simple messaging.
“It really does show how unfair the lack of a real pay rise for NZ secondary school teachers is. Teenagers see first hand the challenges teachers face so they are the perfect spokespeople.”
In the words of the PPTA’s Tom Haig “The results were off-the-cuff, unscripted and wonderfully articulate”.

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What makes a great teacher?

What do teachers do all day? 

… and the punchline – Can you solve the problem?

Related Issues in the news:

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A Taste of GREAT Britain in Wellington

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NewsroomPlus.com

Contributed by Olexander Barnes

Yesterday was the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta. The British High Commission in Wellington marked the occasion by holding an event to celebrate all things British and to honour her Majesty the Queen with the unveiling of a new portrait, and to reference the Queen’s Birthday the hashtag for the event was #QBP2015

The event was held in Wellington’s Shed 6 and attended by many prominent politicians and dignitaries, including Labour leader Andrew Little, National List MP Kawaljit Singh Bakshi and the Catholic Archbishop of Wellington John Dew among others.

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(Left to Right) British High Commissioner Jonathan Sinclair, Minister for Internal Affiars Peter Dunne and Deputy High Commissioner Patrick Reilly, toast GREAT Britain. © Olexander Barnes

The hall was filled with an abundance of GREAT Britain messages and banners, accompanied by the obligatory Union Jacks. Guests were greeted for instance, by images of actors like Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman from their hit TV show Sherlock.

The formal part of the evening was started with an introduction and greeting by acting MC, the deputy head of the British High Commission Patrick Reilly. This was then followed by a speech by the British High Commissioner Jonathan Sinclair, who talked of the historical significance of the Magna Carta, not just in British Law but also in American and New Zealand law.

There was then a small interlude where a short informative film about the history behind the Magna Carta was played, as narrated by Monty Python star Terry Jones.

At the conclusion of the film, a first round of toasts were had in honour of Britain, the Magna Carta and the Queen. The whiskey that was used for these toasts had been recreated to match that of a couple of bottles of 19th century whiskey that had been found under the floorboards in Ernest Shackleton’s hut in the Antarctic in 2010.

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The unveiled portrait of her Majesty the Queen by David Bailey © Olexander Barnes

When Minister of Internal Affairs Peter Dunne took to the podium his speech highlighted the strong historical and current connection that the United Kingdom and New Zealand share, as well as humourously emphasising our strong sporting rivalry with the upcoming Rugby World Cup to be played in England later this year.

A second round of toasts was had to honour this partnership, and then it was time for the unveiling of a special photographic portrait of the Queen. The portrait is a limited edition print by British photographer David Bailey, which is only being made available to a select number of British High Commissions and Embassies around the world.

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The singing of the national anthems of both countries © Olexander Barnes

Thus with the curtains pulled back and the portrait officially unveiled, a quartet sang the national anthems of both countries and the official portion of the night was brought to a close.

  • See also our report on the Magna Carta and events being held throughout the year to mark its 800th anniversary.

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NewsRoom Digest: Top NZ News Items for June 15, 2015

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Newsroom Digest

This edition of NewsRoom_Digest contains 4 media release snippets and 8  links of the day from Monday 15th June.

Top stories in the current news cycle include the situation swirling around iwi interests in Crown land in Auckland, the way that questions about people smuggling issues are unfolding in Australia and a concerns being raised in Christchurch about the selection of houses for a wider survey of the standard of post-quake repairs.

These was definitely the batting order of Monday post-Cabinet Press Conference this afternoon where Prime Minister John Key expressed confidence the Government’s legal position on land in Auckland is solid and drawing a parallel to “what we did in Christchurch”, and his comments on asylum seekers who may have wanted to make a course for New Zealand were non-committal.

The one substantive line of questioning – introduced by TVNZ’s Corin Dann – was whether the Government would be open to a review of current HASNO laws given officials expressing the likely need for a review at some point in the future.

NEWSROOM_PLUS ‘EXTRAs’

Two articles published by our roving Wellington team today were:

1. RIP Jerry Collins – http://newsroomplus.com/2015/06/15/community-1/

2. Happy Birthday Magna Carta! – http://newsroomplus.com/2015/06/15/history-today/

SNIPPETS OF THE DAY

NZ to join Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: New Zealand has agreed to become a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is being established to invest in new infrastructure across Asia, Finance Minister Bill English and Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully say. The Bank is a China-led initiative aimed at addressing a significant gap in infrastructure investment in the Asian region.

Green Party: Entrenched Pay Inequality: Ten percent pay rises for CEOs are evidence of an economy based on entrenched inequality, the Green Party said today, following the release of The New Zealand Herald’s executive pay survey.

Falling Kiwi Dollar: The New Zealand dollar, which hit a five-year low at the weekend, may fall further this week amid concern prices could remain weak in the latest dairy auction and on expectations improving US data will boost the prospects for the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates.

Stop Elderly Abuse: New Zealanders need to confront the reality of elder abuse to prevent the exploitation and mistreatment of older people, Senior Citizens Minister Maggie Barry says. New research released on World Elder Abuse Awareness Day shows around one in 10 older New Zealanders have suffered some form of abuse or neglect.

LINKS OF THE DAY

PERFORMANCE OF SERVICES INDEX: New Zealand’s services sector showed further expansion in May as key indices continued to scale the heights, according to the BNZ – BusinessNZ Performance of Services Index (PSI). More details available here:

http://www.businessnz.org.nz/resources/surveys-and-statistics/psi/2015/scaling-the-heights-psi

NEW CIVIL DEFENCE RECOVERY LAW : Civil Defence Minister Nikki Kaye today announced that Cabinet has approved changes to the Civil Defence Emergency Management (CDEM) Act that will improve the way communities recover from emergencies. The new legislation is expected to be introduced into Parliament within the next few months, and is outlined in the Cabinet paper available at: www.civildefence.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/20150615ROLFCabinetPaper.pdf

HELP STOP CHILDREN FROM BEING TRAFFICKED INTO BROTHELS : TEAR Fund is encouraging Kiwi cyclists to use their bikes to stop children from being trafficked into brothels. Every 30 seconds, a child is trafficked around the world. The average age of a victim is only 12 years old. By cycling in the TEAR Fund Poverty Cycle challenge, New Zealanders can help combat this trade in lives. For more information or to register for the challenge, go to www.povertycycle.org.nz

LOCAL AUTHORITY SPENDING INCREASES : Local authorities’ seasonally adjusted operating expenditure increased 4.3 percent in the March 2015 quarter, Statistics New Zealand said today. Purchases of goods and services was the main driver of the $95.0 million increase in total operating expenditure.For more information about these statistics, click here :http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/government_finance/local_government/LocalAuthorityStatistics_HOTPMar15qtr.aspx

NZIER CONSENSUS FORECASTS FOR JUNE 2015 : The latest NZIER Consensus Forecasts shows forecasters have pared back growth expectations slightly since the March quarter survey. Activity indicators over the past quarter have been mixed, with global dairy prices continuing to fall but household spending remaining strong.Click here for more : http://nzier.org.nz/publication/growth-expectations-softening-consensus-forecasts-june-2015

UNION QUESTIONS CEO SALARIES : Far too many workers aren’t able to provide for themselves and their families and are missing out on getting ahead because wealth is being concentrated at the top, the CTU said today. For more information, click here: http://union.org.nz/news/2015/inequality-not-%E2%80%98flat-falling%E2%80%99-minister-0

NEW BIOSECURITY PUPPIES NEED NAMES : Six new home-grown biosecurity beagle puppies could soon be patrolling New Zealand’s borders, and the Ministry for Primary Industries is looking for names for two of them. The puppies can be seen on youtube – 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DejiCaJi5TQ&feature=youtu.be

FRUITS FOR WINTER: Seasonal produce rich in antioxidants and immune-boosting vitamin C can keep you fighting fit, and able to ward off winter infections, says 5+ A Day. Eating well and exercising regularly are two of the best ways to fortify your immune system and keep sickness at bay. For tips and recipes go to : http://www.5aday.co.nz/

And that’s our sampling of the day that was on Monday 15th June 2015

Brought to EveningReport by Newsroom Digest. –]]>

Happy Birthday Magna Carta !

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NewsroomPlus.com

Google_MagnaCarta

If it had passed you by, Google’s history doodle has come to the rescue to herald the fact that 15 June is the official day to celebrate that most historical of documents – the Magna Carta.

As the British Library itself says, before inviting you to explore its 800-year legacy with unique collection items, newly-commissioned articles by leading experts, videos and animations, and a range of teaching resources, the Magna Carta is one of the most famous documents in the world.

As a special activity the British Library invited young people across the world to debate their digital rights and responsibilities and submit a clause to a Magna Carta for the digital age page. The Top 10 clauses are being announced this week. See:

Events in New Zealand

Suitably the 800th celebrations have been embraced by the New Zealand Law Society, with attention drawn to the fact that one section of the Magna Carta is still New Zealand law. The Society also gives a useful pointer to an address from 2008 by former Court of Appeal judge Sir David Baragwanath, who showed how it has been a very important influence on New Zealand’s law.

Events in New Zealand have been coordinated by the Auckland University-based Magna Carta 800 Committee for New Zealand who have posted a helpful array of further pointers (to events, experts et al) on a comprehensive website – with a full list of events.

Already this year there has been an address by Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson on Commonwealth Day on 9 March, and two events this month: a Canterbury Historical Association panel (Magna Carta – Rights and Legacies) and a Service of Commemoration held yesterday at Auckland’s Holy Trinity Cathedral.

Still in Auckland, events for today are a lighting of the exterior of Auckland War Memorial War Museum and pealing of bells at St Matthews in the City and in Wellington there is a Parliamentary Reception and announcement of winners of the Attorney-General’s Essay Competition early this evening.

British High Commission Event

The team at NewsRoom_Plus are especially looking forward to reporting on this evening’s double-whammy event being put on by the British High Commission in Wellington which combines:

  • a Queen’s Birthday Party 2015 at which a limited edition print of David Bailey’s new photographic portrait of The Queen will be unveiled – one of only twelve available to High Commissions and Embassies around the world.
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  • plus, From Magna Carta to Modernity – a celebration of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215, and the influence that document had, and still has, on human rights all over the world. In that connection this website is highly recommended:

MagnaCarta800

But wait there’s more… 

By the end of the week the NZ Law Society‘s magazine LawTalk will be available with a special feature on the Magna Carta, and next Tuesday evening 23 June Victoria University senior law lecturer Dr Carwyn Jones will deliver a talk titled “Magna Carta, Human Rights, and the Treaty of Waitangi” at the National Library in Wellington.

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byWADE…make time to just think about things…

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iammenotyou.com, byWADE, illustrations, cartoons, eveningreport.nz
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TPPA,  $4 quadrillion of derivatives hanging over the banking system, the US going from $1 trillion to $5 trillion cash in circulation since 2009, greece having the books in order…fukushima being totally sorted …aaahhh…breath…that’s better isn’t it? More cartoons byWADE on eveningreport.nz You can follow WADE (from a safe digital distance) at www.facebook.com/bywade or even buy the greeting card of this cartoon (if the editor doesn’t delete this link….)]]>

Keith Rankin on Unpacking Austerity in Europe

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Analysis by Keith Rankin. This article was also published on TheDailyBlog.co.nz.

 A respondent to my last week’s posting said:

How’s the Greek challenge to austerity working out again? I do believe they are being told to pull their heads in and get on with austerity.

Very true. But so far the Greek new new-left Syriza government is holding its nerve. Even if it ends up failing in its mission to end catastrophe politics in Europe, it does represent a beacon of hope for new left‑wing politics. That’s why the European political establishment is fighting so hard to keep Europe on its present slow suicide track by not making concessions to Greece’s government led by Alexis Tsipras.

The Economic Unreality

One of the big ironies is that Europe is behaving so much like it did in the late 1920s, except that then it was Germany playing the role now played by Greece. Germany’s debts then were those imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. These debts could only be paid if Germany’s vengeful post-treaty creditors (the victorious powers after World War 1) allowed Germany to run a trade surplus. Trade was the only way that Germany could earn the ‘gold standard hard currency’ required to pay those debts. Yet Germany’s creditors were themselves trying to run trade surpluses. They were indulging in ‘vendor finance’ which is just a fancy way of saying they were trying their very best to lend to Germany, not to be repaid.

I simplify. The creditor powers were trying to get their private sectors to lend to Germany’s private sector, with the expectation that the German government would tax its private sector heavily, and pay its reparations to the governments of France, United Kingdom and United States. The unintended aim was to make Germany’s private sector the biggest debtor in the global economy, with the private sectors of France, UK and USA becoming the biggest creditors in the global capitalist economy.

It’s the same in Europe today. The southern governments are being required to repay northern-based institutional creditors in ‘hard currency’ (Euros in this case). The only way this can possibly happen, given the determination of northern European and other creditor economies to run trade surpluses, is through huge lending to the southern private sector, enabling a boom in debt-fuelled spending in the south which would in turn enable the southern governments to collect more taxes.

It’s a fantasy of course, like the subprime housing loans of the mid-2000s. The Greek private sector today is in no better shape to acquire gazillions of Euros worth of imports on credit than the German private sector was able to owe gold marks in 1928.

The Economic Theory (it’s quite simple really)

Because the Eurozone is a fixed currency zone (as was greater Europe under the gold standard). It means that trade imbalances need to be reconciled through a process of internal devaluation and revaluation. This is another way of saying that northern European countries must, through higher inflation, run substantial trade deficits so that southern European countries can run the trade surpluses that enable them as countries (public and private sectors) to service their debts to the north.

The Euro problem results from a one-way flow of goods from the north to the south in the 2000s’ decade. The solution is a decade-long rebalancing one-way flow of goods from the south to the north. If interest is to be paid, the latter south to north flow must exceed the former north to south flow.

The basic theory of internal devaluations and revaluations says that the creditor bloc should have higher than normal inflation and the debtor bloc should have lower than normal inflation. That is understood (and has been understood ever since David Hume enunciated the ‘price-specie-flow-mechanism’ in the 1750s) as the normal means to achieve a one-way trade flow. Hume (and Ricardian economists subsequently) believed that this process was self-regulating. The drain of money from debtor countries like Greece would automatically create deflation. And the flow of money into creditor countries like Germany would automatically induce the required inflation. For this to work in Europe today we would probably need the inflation rate in Germany to be 10 percentage points higher than in Greece; eg 7% inflation in Germany and 3% deflation in Greece. Pigs will fly before the Germans will accept 7% annual inflation as part of the cure.

An Alternative Mechanism

Policymakers in dominant economies cannot create inflation when inflation is needed and is known to be needed. So an alternative to Hume’s mechanism is needed. Japan has tried valiantly to create inflation, but cannot.

In Germany’s case the authorities wouldn’t create inflation, even if they could. Germany is at core a mercantilist nation – a mercantilism aggravated by a semi-mythological national trauma over inflation – that understands economic success as the indefinite accumulation of trade surpluses. To be good world economic citizen, Germany needs to become like modern Japan, only more so. Japan today does run trade deficits, and does have the highest public debt to GDP ratio in the world, and has had zero interest rates for two decades.

There are other ways the objective of trade rebalancing could be achieved. One would involve protectionism, which, by the way, was not the cause of the Great Depression and was part of its cure.

A better approach would be to adopt Social Credit style national dividends in the northern European creditor nations, funded by quantitative easing rather than by taxes, combined with the introduction in those northern countries of a 25 hour work week. That would turn the northerners into net consumers rather than net producers. (The word ‘net’ is important here; this is a green solution.) The already highly indebted northern governments would be taking on the deficits that the northern private sectors would not consider taking on. Northern Europe needs public debt at Japanese levels in order to balance the huge private surpluses endemic in the rich world.

The Politics

The real austerity agenda is one of privatisation. In a superficial sense, Greece’s government can pay a chunk of its debt if it sells all its assets to northern private interests. But, in making Greek resources plunder for foreign capitalists, the underlying trade imbalances would be accentuated by even greater imbalances in financial income – interest and profit outflows – that would add to the unspent private cash reserves in the north and have to be recycled as even more debt.

The other part of the political agenda is that the northern financial interests want compliant governments in the other southern countries. Compliant left-wing governments – the one’s that prioritise the reduction of government debt while confining their leftishness to identity politics – are just fine to these interests. They are desperate that Syriza-style anti-austerity live-with-debt politics does not spread to the likes of Spain and Italy and France. That kind of effective political economy would reveal the nakedness of the austerity Empress.

New Zealand’s Labour Party is still, in the main, of the compliant deficit-phobic left rather than of the brave and intellectually edgy new new-Left. New Zealand has one of the most indebted private sectors and one of the less indebted government sectors. Yet so much of what Labour is about is that we cannot afford this and we cannot afford that. Even the Governor of the Reserve Bank knows that we need more debt, not less. That’s why interest rates were cut on Thursday and will be cut again; to reduce the price of debt so that we get money moving again.

The Economic Reality

Your debt represents my employment. My spending represents your income. Your austerity represents my unemployment. My forced austerity represents your insolvency.

Greek government deficits (the additions to the debt) averaged over 10% of GDP since austerity was imposed. In the 10 years before the financial crisis they averaged 5% of GDP. Spain had public debt of only 36% in 2008, much less than Germany’s 64%. Since austerity Spain has reached 98%. Austerity, supposedly about compromising living standards in order to repay debt, has both shattered living standards and substantially increased the rate of accumulation of public debt. Counter-austerity, on the other hand, can raise Greek living standards making it possible for Greeks to pay more taxes, and can raise the GDP denominator, making the debt more serviceable.

The economic argument about European debt is simple, when looked at in a systemic way. Syriza addresses the systemic issues, and wins the argument. In a significant act of defiance, Greece reopened its public television network this week, two years after it was shut down as a failed public economy measure. Let public enterprise blossom.

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NewsRoom Digest: Top NZ News Items for June 12, 2015

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Newsroom Digest

This edition of NewsRoom_Digest contains 4 media release snippets and 5 links of the day from Friday 12th June.

Top stories in the current news cycle include coverage of the falling New Zealand dollar which is expected to ease the pressure on manufacturers and farmers but could mean a rise in the cost of living including higher fuel prices, further reverberations from and commentary about the drop in the Official Cash Rate, comments from Minister of Social Housing Paula Bennett acknowledging that some state houses are not up to standard, and items about a string of ‘health scares’: Scarlet fever, Legionnaires Disease and (in Korea) Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

SNIPPETS OF THE DAY

Dairy Industry Reviewed Through Consultation: The Commerce Commission today released a consultation paper outlining its proposed approach, timeframes and scope for its review of the state of competition in the New Zealand dairy industry. The consultation paper and terms of reference are available on the Commission’s website. See:http://www.comcom.govt.nz/regulated-industries/dairy-industry/report-on-the-state-of-competition-in-the-new-zealand-dairy-industry/

NZ Dollar Drops Below 70 US cents: The New Zealand dollar fell below 70 US cents for the first time in almost five years after the Reserve Bank began cutting interest rates earlier than some had expected yesterday.

Legal Highs Policy Adopted: After an intense and at times emotional two hour debate the Kāpiti District Council has adopted a policy to restrict the sale of psychoactive substances (legal highs) in Kāpiti. The policy will ensure that 99.9% of the district will be protected from any future retail sales of legal highs.

Wool Price Ease Up: New Zealand wool prices eased from recent highs at auction this week as shorter wool failed to attract the same premium as longer wool on offer the previous week.

LINKS OF THE DAY

PRIVACY COMMISSIONER LAUNCHES $75,000 RESEARCH FUND : The Privacy Commissioner is calling for applicants for a new privacy-related research funding programme worth up to $75,000 in total. For more information visit: https://privacy.org.nz/further-resources/privacy-research/

FOOD PRICES INCREASE FOR THE MONTH OF MAY : In May 2015, food prices rose 0.4 percent, Statistics New Zealand said today. This follows a 0.3 percent fall in April and a 0.1 percent rise in March. Click here for statistics:http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/economic_indicators/prices_indexes/FoodPriceIndex_HOTPMay15.aspx

AXING OF TEACHERS GRANTS : The scrapping of grants aimed at solving teacher shortages will only add to the looming teacher crisis the Government refuses to address, Labour’s Education spokesperson Chris Hipkins says. Read more here: http://www.edgazette.govt.nz/Notices/Notice.aspx?NoticeId=616690

LOGISTICS GUIDELINE PUBLISHED : The Ministry of Civil Defence & Emergency Management today published Logistics in CDEM: Director’s Guidelines for Civil Defence Emergency Management Groups. This will complete another recommendation from the Review of the CDEM Response to the 22 February 2011 Christchurch Earthquake. The guidelines ave available to download from the Ministry’s website at www.civildefence.govt.nz/cdem-sector/cdem-framework/guidelines

VERBAL ABUSE CONSIDERED BIGGEST BULLY IN SCHOOLS : School students think verbal mistreatment is the biggest bullying issue in schools – higher than cyberbullying, social or relational bullying such as social exclusion and spreading gossip, or physical bullying. For more information visit http://www.censusatschool.org.nz.

And that’s our sampling of the day that was on Friday 12th June 2015.

Brought to EveningReport by Newsroom Digest. –]]>

Lori Wallach: Defeat of Fast Track Package Highlights Americans’ Concerns About the Trans-Pacific Partnership – Senate-Passed Bill NOT Adopted

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Source: Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

[poll id=”15″]

THE FAST TRACK PACKAGE sent over from the Senate was rejected today by the House because two years of effort by a vast corporate coalition, the White House and Republican leaders – and weeks of procedural gimmicks and deals swapped for yes votes –could not assuage Americans’ concerns that more of the same trade policy would kill more jobs and push down wages.  Even as President Barack Obama, in a highly unusual move, came to the Capitol at the last moment to appeal directly to Democrats, the House rejected the Senate-passed bill enacting Fast Track, creating an even more uncertain future for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

To try to save face, the Republican congressional leadership called a vote on just the Fast Track portion of the trade bill after the initial staggering defeat of the broader measure. However, legally that vote has no meaning because the rule of House consideration of the Fast Track package required that all aspects of the bill be approved or the Senate-passed bill was deemed rejected by the House. And, the Fast Track portion of the package cannot pass the Senate free-standing without the portion that was voted down in the House. Although these procedural matters may seem arcane, the bottom line is that the legislation enacting Fast Track was not passed by the House despite a massive effort by the White House, Republican congressional leaders and a might corporate coalition.

What became clear in the contentious debate about Fast Track in recent weeks is the growing discontent in Congress about the contents of the TPP.  The lack of enforceable currency manipulation standards; the potential exposure of U.S. health and environmental protections to investor-state challenges; concerns about food safety, medicine prices and internet freedom; and insufficient assurances that labor, human rights, and environmental protections will be meaningful or enforceable have all become major flashpoints in the U.S. congressional debate. 

After years of deadline-missing negotiations and mounting TPP opposition among prominent economists and thousands of civil society organizations across the political spectrum, the TPP was already hanging by a thread.  While the White House and Republican leaders may try to regroup and slice and dice the controversial provisions some other way, the House’s refusal today to adopt the Fast Track legislation sent over from the Senate leaves an uncertain path for both the TPP and Fast Track.

Passing trade bills opposed by a majority of Americans does not get easier with delay because the more time people have to understand what’s at stake, the angrier they get and the more they demand that their congressional representatives represent their will.

The crazy gimmicks employed to try to overcome what polls show is broad opposition to Fast Track actually backfired. Yesterday, the House Republican leadership put most Republican representatives on record in favor of cutting Medicare by $700 million with a vote on a procedural gimmick. Today, it was Democrats’ ire about a gutted version of a program to assist workers who will be hurt by the trade agreements Fast Track would enable that was the proximate cause of the meltdown. That program was included only to try to provide cover for the two dozen Democrats who would even consider supporting Fast Track at all.

Today’s outcome is a testament to the strength and diversity of the remarkable coalition of thousands of organizations that overcame a money-soaked lobbying campaign by multinational corporations and intense arm-twisting by the Republican House leadership and the Obama administration. The movement now demanding a new American trade policy is larger and more diverse than in any preceding trade policy fight. It includes everyone from small business leaders and labor unions to Internet freedom advocates and faith groups to family farmers and environmentalists to consumer advocates and LGBT groups to retirees and civil rights groups to law professors and economists.

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Prof Jane Kelsey: The US Congress fails to pass both the Fast Track Bill and Trade Promotion Bill

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Source: Professor Jane Kelsey. [poll id=”15″] [caption id="attachment_1844" align="alignleft" width="200"]Professor Jane Kelsey. Professor Jane Kelsey.[/caption]

CONTRARY TO SOME LOCAL NEWS REPORTS, the US Congress did not pass the Fast track or Trade Promotion Bill last night. 

‘The procedures are complicated, hence the confusion’, says Professor Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland.

The single Bill previously passed by the Senate was split procedurally into two votes, both of which had to pass.

The first vote on the package was on Trade Adjustment Assistance, which provides assistance for workers who lose their jobs as a result of US free trade agreements, and was massively defeated by 302 to 126, with Democrats saying it did not go far enough. 

In order to save face when the overall measure was defeated, the Republican leadership held a symbolic vote on the Fast Track authority portion, which narrowly passed by 219 to 211 votes.  

That means the Fast Track bill did not pass in the House.

This is a serious defeat for President Obama who personally went to Congress to lobby Democrats just hours before the vote. House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi was among those who voted no.

There may be moves to seek a revote on the workers’ assistance bill next week to try to revive the package, but given the level of opposition in today’s vote, that seems unlikely to be successful. 

‘So the Fast Track saga continues, and a proposed ministerial meeting remains on hold’, Kelsey said.

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Radio: NZ Report to Australia – PM is Spy-Phobic + NZ Superstar Racehorse Bonecrusher Passes Away

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New Zealand Report: Selwyn Manning joins Dave Penberthy and Mark Aiston to deliver his weekly New Zealand Report. This week, New Zealand’s Prime Minister is Spy-Phobic + NZ’s Superstar Racehorse Bonecrusher Passes Away – Recorded LIVE on 12/06/15. ITEM ONE Prime Minister John Key Spy-Phobic: Only one month after revelations that New Zealand’s signals intelligence agency had hacked and spied on the governments of friendly Asian countries, our Prime Minister John Key has admitted he expects he is also being spied on. On Thursday, Key said he suspects his cellphone could be used by overseas spies to listen in to meetings he attends. “I kind of work on the principle that I will be [listened to] at some point. So I have, without being stupid about it, more security on my phone than most people have, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t break into it.” Key said he replaces his cellphone every few months for security reasons. ITEM TWO Bonecrusher Passes Away: (Ref. NZHerald.co.nz) The wonderful New Zealand champion racehorse Bonecrusher died this week at the age of 33 years. Bonecrusher will be remembered by Australian racing fans for winning the 1986 Cox Plate, dubbed the race of the century. Bonecrusher came from humble bloodlines, and was purchased for just $3000. He became a superstar here in New Zealand, a household name, and amassed more than $3 million in winnings. As a 3-year-old Bonecrusher won the New Zealand Derby, Air New Zealand Stakes, Tancred Stakes and the AJC Derby. And as a 4-year-old he won five races including four Australian group ones, the Underwood Stakes, Caulfield Stakes, Cox Plate and Australian Cup. One of his best races was when he beat the Melbourne Cup winner At Talaq in the Australian Cup at Flemington. I met Bonecrusher when he was retired. He was driven around New Zealand by an old school mate of mine, Gregory Pope. He would attend shows and gala events. Children would hug him and he always wore his champion cover. He was a wonderful horse, tall and strong, with a lovely nature, who is regarded by top jockeys here in New Zealand as being the equal of the other Big Red horse, Phar Lap. Bonecrusher has been buried at Elllerslie Racecourse here in Auckland. A monument will be erected there in his honour. New Zealand Report is broadcast live on FiveAA.com.au and webcasts on EveningReport.nz, LiveNews.co.nz, and ForeignAffairs.co.nz. –]]>

NewsRoom Digest: Top NZ News Items for June 11, 2015

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Newsroom Digest

This edition of NewsRoom_Digest contains 5 media release snippets and 6 links of the day from Thursday 11th June.

Top stories in the current news cycle include the Reserve Bank cutting interest rates in response to weakening demand and low inflation and signalled further cuts may be needed, the Labour party saying the Reserve Bank has been forced to cut the OCR to stimulate the economy and the Real Estate Institute saying the national median price of residential properties rose 7% in May, driven by a 20% increase in Auckland prices.

SNIPPETS OF THE DAY

OCR Reduced To 3.25 percent: The Reserve Bank cut the benchmark rate a quarter-point and signalled more may be on the way as the dairy sector’s weak outlook weighed on the nation’s terms of trade and threatened to delay an increase in inflation from its near-zero level. The New Zealand dollar tumbled.

Green Party: Govt Must Fix Auckland Housing Crisis: The decision to cut the Official Cash Rate (OCR) today is the right one but will add fuel to Auckland’s rapidly rising house prices unless central government acts swiftly and smartly, the Green Party said today.

New Lending Codes Applies To Banks Too : The Banking Ombudsman Scheme has published a Quick Guide explaining how new responsible lending requirements and changes to hardship applications affect banking. See the Quick Guide on Concerns about lending decisions: https://bankomb.org.nz/news-and-publications/quick-guides/item/concerns-about-lending-decisions

Labour: Overpriced Power Rates: Contact Energy is charging the poorest New Zealanders the highest electricity rates, ripping off those who can least afford it, Labour’s Consumer Affairs spokesperson David Shearer says.

Nelson Housing Accord: A Nelson Housing Accord aimed at improving the supply and affordability of housing in the district has been signed today by Building and Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith and Mayor Rachel Reese. Download a copy of the accord: http://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/Nelson-Housing-Accord.pdf

LINKS OF THE DAY

RBNZ CUTS INTEREST RATES TO 3.25% : The Reserve Bank today reduced the Official Cash Rate (OCR) by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent. Click here to see the Official Cash Rate (OCR) decisions and current rate:http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary_policy/ocr/

7,989 DWELLINGS SOLD IN NZ FOR MAY ALONE : REINZ, the most up to date source of real estate data in New Zealand, announced today that there were 7,989 dwelling sales in May 2015, up 21.6% on May 2014 and up 10.4% compared to April. View housing prices in the region here:https://www.reinz.co.nz/shadomx/apps/fms/fmsdownload.cfm?file_uuid=7FAC0A60-E9E3-45DC-B700-E3F3F92B72B2&siteName=reinz

NZ DEFENCE JOIN IN “TALISMAN SABER” : More than 600 NZ Defence Force personnel will take part for the first time in a biennial joint Australia-United States military exercise known as Talisman Saber. See also :http://www.defence.gov.au/Exercises/TS15/

UNION QUESTIONS GOVERNMENT’S DECISION: The Taxpayers’ Union is questioning the Government’s decision to give $485,000 of taxpayer money to local Councils to run youth councils and workshops. Read more:http://beehive.govt.nz/release/485k-funding-councils-support-youth

GUEST NIGHTS HIGHER IN APRIL : National guest nights for April 2015 were 3.6 percent higher than in April 2014, Statistics New Zealand said today. See statistics here:http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/accommodation/AccommodationSurvey_HOTPApr15.aspx

MORE THAN 250,000 REGISTERED FOR NZ SHAKEOUT : More than 250,000 people have already registered to take part in New Zealand ShakeOut, our national earthquake drill. For further information go here:www.shakeout.govt.nz.

And that’s our sampling of the day that was on Thursday 11th June 2015.

Brought to EveningReport by Newsroom Digest. –]]>

Keith Rankin on Housing Supply: Investment versus Rental Properties

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Analysis by Keith Rankin. This article was also published on Scoop.co.nz.

Housing marketTHE HOUSING DEBATE in New Zealand is befuddled by the language used, and by people with propertied interests who are happy to maintain such confusion.

Every now and again, however, we see unwitting exposure of the multiple meanings given to popular words. In one NZ Herald article (Rising numbers of Aucklanders heading for regions, 4 June 2015), ‘Auckland timber sales representative Mike Towns invested in nine properties in Hawkes Bay. Returns “are not so strong from an investment point of view, but they’re good from a rental return point of view”.’

The media uses the word ‘invest’ very loosely. Mr Towns was buying properties with the intent of gaining returns in the form of yield; namely rent from tenants. The Herald reporter says he “invested”. Yet Mr Towns himself said that his transaction was not undertaken from “an investment” point of view. He clearly understands property investment as the pursuit of capital gain. This concept of investment reflects the reality that an investment house need not be occupied; it’s a financial security rather than a dwelling. A tenanted house, on the other hand, clearly is a dwelling; it’s somebody’s home.

Shamubeel Eaqub, on Sunday Mornings on Radio NZ (Renters: society’s second-class citizens) reaffirmed this point by noting that letting properties is an ‘incidental’ component of housing investment. (From the point of view of an economist such as Eaqub, housing investment is building new houses. There are three distinct meanings out there for the word ‘investment’.)

Government spokespeople have also inadvertently noted that investment houses may or may not be tenanted. When discussing the proposed ‘warrant of fitness’ for rented houses, they note that if landlords’ costs are raised it will mean that some houses may be withdrawn from the rental market, to the detriment of the tenant community. They don’t say what will happen to these houses if they are withdrawn, but we are left to presume that they will be untenanted – essentially empty. (See my comments in Running on Empty, North and South, 16 April 2015.)

The neglected issue of housing supply is what I will call the ‘housing stock participation rate’. I use this expression as a deliberate analogue of the well-known ‘labour force participation rate’. Housing is employed fulltime when it is occupied by a family (or other) group appropriate to the size of the house. Housing is employed part-time when it is underoccupied; eg one person living in a large house. Housing is unemployed when it is between occupiers, maybe undergoing refurbishment (analogous to retraining). And houses are ‘not in the housing force’ if they are not available to be lived in.

We need to know whether the housing stock participation rate is falling, and housing supply is therefore shrinking. From a policy or analysis point of view, it is incidental whether the dwellers of a house are owner-occupiers, paying tenants or house-sitters. What matters is the size of the housing force, a subset of the total housing stock. Further, we know that building more houses will increase the housing stock. But this alone will not necessarily increase the number of houses that are available to be lived in.

We need a proper ‘Housing Force Survey’ that is analogous to Statistics NZ’s Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS). We may be surprised at the extent of multiple house ownership by non-landlords.

Housing policy should have four components: (1) seeking to maximise the ‘housing stock participation rate’; (2) ensuring that all dwellings meet minimum standards (with a possible exemption for owner-occupied properties without children); (3) ensuring that the housing stock increases with population growth; and (4) ensuring that housing density is greatest closest to places of employment and to transport hubs. We have a toolkit of taxes and subsidies that can provide the appropriate incentives.

Many ‘investment’ properties appear not to be in the housing force, just as ‘discouraged workers’ are not in the labour force. Our policy priority is to ensure that every investment house is also a healthy home.

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