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Radio: 5AA Australia: Across The Ditch on Live Sheep Exports + Sir Peter Williams QC Passes Away

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[caption id="attachment_1205" align="alignleft" width="300"]Peter Godfrey and Selwyn Manning. Peter Godfrey and Selwyn Manning.[/caption]Selwyn Manning and Peter Godfrey deliver their weekly bulletin of Across The Ditch. This week they discuss controversy surrounding NZ’s largest ever live sheep export. Plus, they mark the passing of Sir Peter Williams QC. ITEM ONE (Ref. Stuff.co.nz) Live Sheep Exports: Just when we thought New Zealand had relegated to history live sheep exports, the National-led Government has approved the export of 50,000 sheep and 3000 cattle to Mexico. It is the largest mass export of livestock to ever leave New Zealand on one vessel. Yesterday (Wednesday) workers began loading sheep and cattle onto the carrier ship Nada. Back in 2007, New Zealand banned all live sheep exports, that is where the sheep are being exported for slaughter. Apparently this massive export of sheep is to restock breeding stock in Mexico after thousands of sheep and cattle died due to a severe drought. The government’s Ministry of Primary Industries approved the live export citing that loophole. The decision has angered animal welfare and rights groups. Spokesperson for Save All Animals from Exploitation (SAFE), Hans Kriek said: “In a shipment this large, many animals will die on the journey. Sheep die of inanition, a refusal to eat the dry nuts fed on the ship.” But the government officials insist that during the two-week voyage the exporter must meet requirements around water, food, space and facilities. The sheep must be accompanied by suitably experienced stockmen and at least one veterinarian. The Green Party animal welfare spokesperson, Mojo Mathers “This is a huge number of animals that need to be looked after, fed and watered, properly and humanely, in confined quarters for a long journey. ITEM TWO: (Ref. EveningReport.nz) Sir Peter Williams QC: One of New Zealand’s most respected defence lawyers, Sir Peter Williams QC, passed away on Tuesday evening after a time battling prostate cancer. Sir Peter had defended some of New Zealand’s most notorious criminals, and also defended others who were unjustly accused. He represented Ronald Jorgensen, who was convicted for the Basset Road Machine Gun Murders in Auckland, and defended Terry Clarke aka Alexander Sinclair a leader of the Mr Asia heroin syndicate. And he helped the defence team representing Arthur Allan Thomas who was twice found guilty for the murders of Jeanette and Harvey Crew after Police planted evidence to force a conviction. Arthur Thomas was pardoned of the crimes after serving nine years in maximum security prison. But Sir Peter was also renowned for his work seeking improvements for people held in police custody and also for prisoners serving time in NZ’s penal institutions. He campaigned, often successfully, for authorities to observer the human rights of prisoners. He was able to speak with experience and authority of how locking people up, without hope nor opportunity, without rehabilitative programmes designed to help a person achieve their positive potential, then, we, as a society were failing not only the prisoner, but also ourselves. Sir Peter will be sadly missed. Across The Ditch broadcasts on Thursdays on FiveAA Australia and webcasts on EveningReport.nz, LiveNews.co.nz, and ForeignAffairs.co.nz. –]]>

NewsRoom Digest: Top NZ News Items for June 10, 2015

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Newsroom Digest

This edition of NewsRoom_Digest contains 3 media release snippets and 8 links of the day from Wednesday 10th June.

Top stories in the current news cycle include Fonterra moving to slash hundreds of jobs in a bid to tackle its poor performance, civic leaders in Auckland and Wellington are renewing calls for the Government to allow more tolled roads in a bid to reduce congestion in both cities and Finance Minister Bill English says the Government is already doing much of what the OECD is recommending in its latest country report on New Zealand to deal with risks to the economy and to ensure financial stability.

SNIPPETS OF THE DAY

Green Party: Govt Must Build Affordable Housing: The OECD’s New Zealand report is an urgent wake-up call that shows the level of affordable housing supply is nowhere near enough, particularly in Auckland, and that we need a state-sponsored building programme to catch up, the Green Party said today.

Agricultural Survey Goes Digital: Statistics Minister Craig Foss says the Agricultural Production Survey is going digital for the first time, saving farmers and growers time, while still providing important information on the country’s biggest industry. Never heard of the Agricultural Production Survey? – learn more here: http://www.stats.govt.nz/survey-participants/a-z-of-our-surveys/agricultural-production-survey.aspx

Labour: Drop In Manufacturing Sales: New Zealand’s fall in manufacturing sales is the largest in the past 5 years and that is in spite of volumes of sales increasing, says David Clark Labour’s Economic Development spokesperson.

LINKS OF THE DAY

OECD’S BIENNIAL NZ ECONOMIC SURVEY RELEASED TODAY : In leading news the Herald reports on the OECD’s biennial New Zealand economic survey report released today. Go straight to the report here: http://www.oecd.org/newzealand/economic-survey-new-zealand.htm

KPMG’s LATEST AGRIBUSINESS AGENDA: Read the full report here:

http://www.kpmg.com/NZ/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/agribusiness-agenda/Pages/Agribusiness-Agenda-2015-Growing-Value.aspx

RETAIL CARD SPENDING UP : Retail spending using electronic cards was $4.6 billion in May 2015, up $143 million (3.2 percent) from May 2014, Statistics New Zealand said today.View retail card spending Statistics here:http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/businesses/business_characteristics/ElectronicCardTransactions_HOTPMay15.aspx

CANSTAR TIPS KIWI SAVERS : Kiwi savers are squirreling money away diligently, with the value of our collective bank deposits growing by 20 per cent over the past two years to reach $140 billion*. This is a fantastic achievement, considering the lack-lustre interest rates on offer in a post GFC-world. Click here to read CANSTAR’s detailed report, including customer profile definition and methodology visit :http://www.canstar.co.nz/

DUNEDIN FLOOD APPEAL LAUNCHED : A nationwide appeal has been launched today to help residents badly affected by last week’s flooding. Click here for more information: www.dunedin.govt.nz/floodrecovery

HISTORIC PACIFIC NEWSPAPERS AVAILABLE ONLINE : Nearly ten thousand pages of news history from Pacific newspapers have recently been added to the National Library’s popular Papers Past website. To view these new titles please visit: http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz

NETHUI 2015 FELLOWSHIPS LAUNCHED : InternetNZ is proud to announce that applications are now open for fellowships to attend NetHui 2015 at Sky City, Auckland, July 8-10.Find out more, and how to apply for a NetHui fellowship – http://2015.nethui.nz/nethui-2015-fellowships

UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP LOOKS TO STRENGTHEN BIOSECURITY ACROSS PACIFIC : Victoria University of Wellington scientists are working with Pacific partners in a University-led initiative to prevent, eradicate and manage invasive ant species from parts of the Pacific. For more information about the initiative, go to www.pacificbiosecurity.org

And that’s our sampling of the day that was on Wednesday 10th June 2015.

Brought to EveningReport by Newsroom Digest. –]]>

Jane Kelsey on Wikileaks Reveals US Attack on Pharmac in Transparency Annex

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Source: Professor Jane Kelsey.

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

The Annex on Transparency and Procedural Fairness for Pharmaceutical products and Medical Devices from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations was posted on Wikileaks today (https://wikileaks.org/tpp/healthcare/)

Memoranda by Dr Deborah Gleeson from La Trobe University in Melbourne and Professor Kelsey from the University of Auckland examine the implications for Australia and New Zealand respectively.

‘Trade Minister Tim Groser has repeatedly assured New Zealanders that Pharmac is not up for negotiation in the TPPA and the government will protect its “fundamentals” conveniently without saying what those fundamentals are. Wikileaks has shown us yet again that we can’t trust the government’s word when it comes to the TPPA,’ Professor Kelsey observed.

Pharmac’s regime for identifying which medicines and medical devices are subsidised and for how much has proved highly successful in making medicines affordable in New Zealand, saving District Health Boards more than $5 billion over the past decade according to Pharmac’s own calculations.

Professor Kelsey says the real motivation behind the Annex is to force changes in Pharmac to reduce its attractiveness as a precedent for other countries.

‘New Zealanders’ health and our taxpayer dollars are being held ransom in a much bigger game’.

The Annex sets out a series of principles and procedures by which agencies like Pharmac must operate. They are designed to give the pharmaceutical industry more influence over its decisions and break down the procedures and budgetary cap that makes Pharmac so effective.

According to Professor Kelsey, Pharmac is the most exposed of any programme in a TPPA country, especially since it assumed responsibility for medical devices as well as pharmaceuticals.

While the ‘transparency’ Annex is not enforceable by other states, there are numerous ways the US and the pharmaceutical companies can force New Zealand to make changes that would seriously undermine Pharmac’s effectiveness and workability.

The most immediate is the certification process, where the US can refuse to bring the TPPA into force in relation to New Zealand until Pharmac’s regulations and procedures are changed to meet what the US says the Annex requires. 

‘There is anger within the US Congress that the US Korea FTA was certified without forcing the Koreans make further changes to their pharmaceutical reimbursement scheme and they have sent a clear signal they won’t let that happen again with the TPPA’, Professor Kelsey said. 

Assuming the agreement does come into force a pharmaceutical company could bring an investor-state dispute against the government, claiming New Zealand has breached vague protections such as ‘fair and equitable treatment’. Australia clearly anticipated this risk when it proposed an exclusion for its Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in the leaked TPPA investment chapter, dated January this year. New Zealand did not.

There are numerous other opportunities for the manufacturers and their governments to put pressure on the Pharmac regime.

‘This Annex is the second of the two-pronged assaults on Pharmac under the TPPA’, Professor Kelsey said. ‘Leaked intellectual property chapters have exposed US demands for more extensive patent monopolies to restrict availability of much cheaper generic medicines.’ 

‘We know that the huge issue of new generation biologics remains unresolved, with renewed pressure in the US Congress for twelve years of data exclusivity, whereas New Zealand currently has five. That would put intolerable pressure on Pharmac’s budget.’ 

Professor Kelsey called on the trade, health and finance ministers to ‘reject the so-called ‘transparency’ Annex, as well as the intellectual property and investment rules, and assure New Zealanders they will put our right to decide how we provide affordable health care for the nation before the profits of the big pharmaceutical companies’.

—

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byWADE…the middle class are wimps…

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iammenotyou.com cartoon illustration middle class rioter
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do anything…right More cartoons byWADE on eveningreport.nz you can follow byWADE (from a safe digital distance) at facebook.com/bywade and you can even buy a greeting card of this cartoon (unless the editor picks up this link and deletes it because he doesn’t want me to earn a couple of bucks….)  ]]>

NEW ZEALAND: Economic expansion continuing, but barriers to sustaining growth remain

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MIL OSI – Source: OECD – MIL OSI Alerts – NEW ZEALAND: Economic expansion continuing, but barriers to sustaining growth remain 10/06/2015-The New Zealand economy has performed well in recent years, but bottlenecks in housing and urban infrastructure, inequalities in living standards and rising environmental pressures all pose challenges for sustaining robust growth and high levels of well-being over the long term, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey of New Zealand. Click here for the underlying data The Survey says that New Zealand can expect its strong, broad-based expansion to continue in the near term, with economic growth projected at 3.4% in 2015 and 3% in 2016. The budget deficit has been almost eliminated, general government debt is falling as a share of GDP, and monetary policy remains accommodative, pushing inflation back up to the midpoint of the official 1-3% target range. However, the OECD points out a number of barriers to sustaining strong growth. House prices in Auckland, New Zealand’s economic hub, are high, reducing its attractiveness as a business location and posing financial stability risks. Strong population growth and constrained housing supply have resulted in rapid house price increases, eroding affordability. To address this, New Zealand should reduce the economic costs of environmental and planning regulations and the scope for vested interests to limit development that would otherwise be in the wider public interest. The burden of housing costs has risen substantially for low-income households. Moves to bring the social housing stock more in line with demographic and geographic demand, as well as to reallocate it to those most in need, will help the hardest hit households. The government’s commitment to expanding the social housing stock is welcome, although the Survey recommends providing additional resources, to achieve a more significant increase. As the expansion in social housing will not accommodate all low-income households, the Survey recommends increasing the Accommodation Supplement and re-prioritising it to benefit the poorest households, provided that most of the benefits accrue to tenants rather than landlords. One of the most problematic factors cited for doing business in New Zealand remains an inadequate supply of infrastructure. The Survey recommends that New Zealand facilitate greater urban infrastructure provision by diversifying revenue streams available to local governments. Better management of the demand for and use of urban infrastructure, including congestion charging to reduce urban traffic, should be considered. New Zealand’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are high relative to GDP, and policy measures are doing little to constrain them. While reducing GHG emissions is challenging, due to the large share coming from agriculture and the already large share of renewable electricity, this is not a reason for doing so little to restrain emissions. The Survey recommends termination of transitional arrangements that are undermining the effectiveness of the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme. It also suggests development of a new strategy to cut agricultural emissions through a combination of pricing, regulation and R&D. While New Zealand has generally done well in achieving high levels of well-being for most of its people, a significant minority has experienced poor, and in some cases deteriorating outcomes in terms of incomes, housing quality and affordability, health status and education outcomes. Reforms to help this diverse group are rightly focusing more on long-term progress, without ignoring short-term outcomes, and on improving coordination of social policies (such as welfare, housing, health and education) and of both public and non-government providers of social services. The Survey says that reforms would be more effective through the use of more relevant data. For example, the recent welfare reform would be more effective if the long-term outcomes for beneficiaries going off benefit were more clearly taken into account. An Overview of the Economic Survey, with the main conclusions, is freely accessible on the OECD’s web site at: http://oecd.org/newzealand/economic-survey-new-zealand.htm. You are invited to include this Internet link in reports on the Survey. —  ]]>

Law Society marks Sir Peter Williams QC’s passing

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MIL OSI – Source: New Zealand Law Society – Sir Peter Williams QC, 1934 – 2015 10 June 2015 New Zealanders have lost a powerful and courageous advocate with the death of Sir Peter Williams QC, New Zealand Law Society President Chris Moore has said. Mr Moore says Sir Peter exemplified many of the qualities which people who needed a lawyer looked for. “He wrote a book called A Passion for Justice and this is a fitting description of his life and long career as one of New Zealand’s leading Queens’ Counsel. “Sir Peter was an exceptional advocate. He had the ability to put the defence case for his clients with powerful oratory. His passion shone through in everything he did and said.” Mr Moore says Sir Peter’s lifelong commitment to prison reform was instrumental in ensuring prison conditions and the rights of prisoners were brought to public attention. “I have never forgotten attending meetings of the Howard League when I was a young lawyer and later seeing and hearing Sir Peter – who became heavily involved in the League for a while – in full flight on the issues and problems in our prisons. He was driven and committed but as with everything he was able to speak with humour and compassion. “Sir Peter’s motivation, his ability to communicate on the issues in our justice system and the results he achieved mean we have lost a great lawyer. The New Zealand Law Society extends its condolences to Lady Heeni and his family.” –]]>

Video: Selwyn Manning interviews New Zealand First leader Winston Peters on Illegal Surveillance by GCSB

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by Selwyn Manning

Selwyn Manning interviews New Zealand First leader Winston Peters on the New Zealand spy agency GCSB and New Zealand Police illegal surveillance of a permanent resident of New Zealand, Kim Dotcom.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS:
On August 10, 2012, under questioning by Paul Davison QC, Detective Inspector Grant Wormald informed the High Court that a government agency took park in operational planning at a meeting on Dec 14, 2011.
Paul Davison QC then asked Detective Inspector Wormald to identify that agency, he refused citing the secret status of the agency.
Paul Davison QC then asked whether any other surveillance apart from that of the Police took place – In direct quotes: Paul Davison QC asks: “So apart from the surveillance which might have been going to undertake on your behalf was there any other surveillance being undertaken here in New Zealand to your knowledge?” Detective Inspector Wormald replies: “No there wasn’t.”
Aug 17, 2012: Bill English signs ministerial certificate suppressing details of GCSB involvement.
The Questions:

THE POLICE – AN ATTEMPTED COVER-UP?
Question1: What is your view of the GCSB’s unlawful surveillance of Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom? Question 2: Do you believe the Police officer committed perjury when he replied “No there wasn’t.” when asked was there any other surveillance being undertaken? Question 3: What possible defences may be asserted by the Police? Question 4: What do you think was the GCSB’s motivation to seek and acquire a suppression order by way of a ministerial certificate from the acting Prime Minister Bill English? Question 5: Should the New Zealand Police be the entity that investigates the GCSB’s unlawful surveillance?

THE PUBLIC INTEREST:
Question 6: What is the public to make of this series of events? Question 7: How can the public interest be satisfied over this whole affair? Question 8: What kind of inquiry do you feel needs to be initiated into this affair?

In Honour of Sir Peter Williams QC – A Personal Note of Thanks

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Sir Peter Williams Queens Counsel

In Remembrance, by Selwyn Manning.

It was back in the mid 1990s when I first met Sir Peter Williams QC. There had been a number of young people who had died or had committed suicide while in custody in New Zealand police stations and prison cells. I was reporting on the issue and he was prepared to discuss solutions.

We met at a cafe on Ponsonby Road in Auckland. Sir Peter was fully aware of each case I raised, and was able to provide a complete history of each person whose life had ended while in lock-up.

We narrowed in on how a 15 year old boy had recently taken his own life while in the custody of the police. There were other cases, where hardened gang members had taken their own lives while in seclusion.

Sir Peter spoke of how when people are taken from their world and placed inside a sterile and hostile environment, they can quickly regress to a state of emotional vulnerability, equal to what you would expect from a person many years younger.

It was commonplace, he said, even for hardened gangsters to unravel and become suicidal once they found themselves alone and away from the security of their gang.

He pressed on with how police and prison officers must be vigilant to recognise when a person is at risk.

He spoke of the human being, the person, of people, then spoke of their basic human rights, of their right to dignity, of their right to be protected while in custody, even protected from themselves.

He was aware how many of these people had committed serious crimes. Had chosen violence over reason. And he was aware how some of them were innocent, even after being found guilty.

As the spokesperson for the Howard League for Penal Reform, Sir Peter was able to compel us all to consider alternative ways to rehabilitate prisoners. He was not soft on crime, he seemed to me to be firm and committed to his resolve that there ought to be consequence for those who were guilty.

But he was able to speak with experience and authority of how locking people up, without hope nor opportunity, without rehabilitative programmes designed to help a person achieve their positive potential, then, we, as a society were failing not only the prisoner, but also ourselves. His views were often controversial.

The 1990s and 2000s saw society hardening its attitude toward criminals and crime. It was understandable. It seemed a trend had set in where violence was destroying the lives of the innocent more often, with more severity, it appeared so often the perpetrators were without remorse nor regard for a personal responsibility, nor a will to change.

Politically, our politicians too reflected this move toward zero-tolerance. Sentences became longer, talk of rehabilitation was an anathema, and public observances of prison conditions were of little consequence nor interest. Again it was understandable.

However Sir Peter’s work continued. And it is my view, that any gains that have been made, where we as a country have developed conditions and programmes that assist those imprisoned to make something good of themselves, and where people have exited their incarceration in better shape and less of a risk than when they entered it, in all these cases we as a country owe our thanks to Sir Peter Williams.

And it is also clear, Sir Peter’s work continues on.

The task of penal reform has not concluded. His good reputation and his sound values compel us all to now walk his walk.

My last interview with Sir Peter.

It was in 2012, for Triangle TV/Stratos TV. Information was emerging that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) had placed a permanent resident (Kim Dotcom) under surveillance, apparently breaching its legal parameters.

There was also the question of whether a senior police officer had perjured himself in court over the matter. I sought Sir Peter’s expert view. Legally he remained sharp as a tack. Despite illness, Sir Peter was keen to talk about the issue. Not because he wanted the attention, but because he had something to contribute, something to to say to help us understand the issue of huge public interest that was unravelling before us.

I have republished the interview here so you can all see the man dissecting that complex and fluid case. And I must add, that a week or two after the interview, Sir Peter sent me a copy of his book, inside it was a letter.

In it he thanked me for my work and for taking the time to interview him. He spoke of other things that were touching. And I thought, here was a man of huge public standing, who was a household name well before a time when my preoccupation was whether to go to school or wagg. But he treated me, not as an interviewer, nor as a lousy journalist, but as a human being, someone worth talking to and thanking. And I thought, what a wonderful man.

Sir Peter QC, Haere ki te wa kainga, Haere ki te kainga tuturu, O to tatou Matua i Te Rangi, Haere, haere, haere. Our sympathies to Lady Heeni and family.

*******
IN REMEMBRANCE: Triangle TV Interview: Peter Williams QC Says Police Let Off The Hook But Constructive Inquiry Must Satisfy Public

Interest 

In this Triangle TV interview with Selwyn Manning renowned Queen’s Counsel Peter Williams says the Police were let off the hook in the High Court but that a “constructive independent inquiry” must be held to satisfy the public interest surrounding this Government-GCSB-Police Scandal.

Peter Williams QC said the questions put to Police Detective Inspector Grant Wormald by Kim Dotcom’s defence counsel in the High Court were not specific enough to tie the officer down.

In the High Court in August, Kim Dotcom’s defence counsel Paul Davison asks Detective Inspector Grant Wormald: “So apart from the surveillance which [the police surveillance team] might have been going to undertake on your behalf was there any other surveillance being undertaken here in New Zealand to your knowledge?”

DI Wormald replied: “No there wasn’t.” When it became public knowledge in September that the Government Communications Security Bureau had indeed committed unlawful surveillance during the Police-led Operation Debut, Detective Inspector Wormald told Fairfax media that he was asked in the High Court about “physical surveillance” or bugging and was not referring to the snooping of emails and phone calls – the latter being the GCSB’s contribution to the surveillance.

In the Triangle TV interview, Mr Williams said, during Davison’s questioning in the High Court the Judge should have ordered the officer to reveal the name of the government agency and should have narrowed the questioning so it was delivered with more “specificity” with regard to whether this secret agency was involved with surveillance in the Kim Dotcom – Megaupload operation.

Mr Williams said the lack of “specificity” in the questioning gave the Police officer an avenue within which he could answer in a way without committing perjury.

However, Mr Williams added that it is reasonable for the public to form a view that the Police officer was not responding in a truthful manner – in essence, he said, the Police got off the hook.

Like New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, Mr Williams said for the public and national interest to be satisfied a broad “constructive” independent inquiry must be held. (Click here to see Winston Peters’ interview with Selwyn Manning where this GCSB/Police surveillance scandal is examined.)

TIMELINE OF EVENTS:

  • On August 10, 2012, under questioning by Paul Davison QC, Detective Inspector Grant Wormald informed the High Court that a government agency took park in operational planning at a meeting on Dec 14, 2011.
  • Paul Davison QC then asked Detective Inspector Wormald to identify that agency, he refused citing the secret status of the agency.
  • Paul Davison QC then asked whether any other surveillance apart from that of the Police took place – In direct quotes: Paul Davison QC asks: “So apart from the surveillance which might have been going to undertake on your behalf was there any other surveillance being undertaken here in New Zealand to your knowledge?” Detective Inspector Wormald replies: “No there wasn’t.”
  • Aug 17, 2012: Bill English signs ministerial certificate suppressing details of GCSB involvement.

The Questions:

THE POLICE – AN ATTEMPTED COVER-UP?

Question1: What is your view of the GCSB’s unlawful surveillance of Megaupload boss Kim Dotcom? Question 2: Do you believe the Police officer committed perjury when he replied “No there wasn’t.” when asked was there any other surveillance being undertaken? Question 3: What possible defences may be asserted by the Police? Question 4: What do you think was the GCSB’s motivation to seek and acquire a suppression order by way of a ministerial certificate from the acting Prime Minister Bill English? Question 5: Should the New Zealand Police be the entity that investigates the GCSB’s unlawful surveillance?

THE PUBLIC INTEREST:

Question 6: What is the public to make of this series of events? Question 7: How can the public interest be satisfied over this whole affair? Question 8: What kind of inquiry do you feel needs to be initiated into this affair? –

Relief funding shortfall leaves Iraq on verge of collapse

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MIL OSI – Source: United Nations – Iraq: lack of funding for UN-led relief efforts leaves country on ‘verge of collapse’ 8 June 2015 – Crisis-torn Iraq, one of the world’s most severe emergencies, is on the verge of collapse because of a lack of funding could force the closure of more than half the relief operations in the country over the coming weeks, the top United Nations humanitarian official there has warned. This is according to Lisa Grande, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, after the 2015 Iraq Humanitarian Response Plan was launched late last week mid-way through the year in response to critical funding shortages as the conflict in Iraq escalates, with the number of people in need of life-saving assistance over the past year having increased by some 400 per cent. Today in Baghdad, the new UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Stephen O’Brien, met senior Iraqi Government officials and said that more must be done for all the people in Iraq affected by this devastating conflict. Mr. O’Brien also met with people from Anbar and Salah al-Din Governorates who remain displaced in Baghdad. Tomorrow, he is expected to visit Erbil, to meet with Kurdistan regional officials and families who have fled the violence. In an interview, Ms. Grande explained the latest Iraq appeal for nearly $500 million “includes only the bare, literally the bare, minimum requirements” to respond to the urgent humanitarian needs of the more than eight million people in every “single one of Iraq’s 18 provinces,” including some three million internally displaced people (IDPs), and with estimates that 1.7 million more may need life-saving assistance before the end of 2015. “If funding is not urgently secured, more than half of all humanitarian programmes are likely to close or be curtailed in the coming weeks and months,” Ms. Grande said. “One of the world’s most severe emergencies is on the verge of collapse because of a lack of funding. The implications of this for Iraq, the region, and beyond, are enormous.” The coordinator also outlined the top priorities in Iraq. “Protection,” she said, “Helping to protect the most vulnerable people is one of our highest priorities.” “Iraqis are the victims of some of the most horrible violence anywhere in the world,” she explained, drawing attention to women who are “enslaved and abused. Children are used as human shields and suicide bombers and are crucified. Populations are subjected to mass executions, torture and systematic rape. An estimated 2.3 million people are living in ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant)-controlled areas, subjected to conditions which have been condemned throughout the world.” “We give special attention to the protection needs of the most vulnerable, including women, girls, boys, the elderly, disabled, and survivors of torture and sexual violence in conflict,” she added. Ms. Grande also said “providing life-saving services to millions of people is the second challenge: 6.7 million people in Iraq need access to essential health services.” In addition, she said half of all displaced families need urgent shelter support, food insecurity is a key challenge, with 4.4 million people now requiring food aid, and finally, with almost 3 million children out of school, emergency education is a priority. “A generation of children is at enormous risk, potentially fuelling tensions and violence for decades,” she said. –]]>

Peter Conway Passes Away – CTU Issues Family Statement

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MIL OSI – Source: Council Of Trade Unions – Peter Conway – Family Statement [caption id="attachment_47325" align="alignleft" width="300"]Peter Conway. Peter Conway.[/caption] Peter Conway deeply loved life partner of Liz, father of Maddy, Sean and Rosa, died in Wellington today 9th June after battling a depressive illness for more than 12 months. Peter fought hard in a daily struggle to stay with the family he loved. He carried this terrible illness with the same dignity and kindness that he lived his life, but ultimately it took him. Peter committed his whole working life to improving the lives of working people, both in unions and, more recently, as the Economist and Secretary of the Council of Trade Unions. He was previously Chair of Oxfam New Zealand and was on the Board of NZ Trade and Enterprise. A service will be held to celebrate Peter’s life, and details will be announced. –]]>

Super City Plans for Northland and Wellington Will Not Proceed – Hawkes Bay May Amalgamate

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MIL OSI – Super City Plans for Northland and Wellington Will Not Proceed – Hawkes Bay May Amalgamate

Local Government Commission: Engaging with communities

The Local Government Commission has made decisions on the next steps for three local government reorganisation proposals. The Commission has decided not to proceed with its draft proposals for single councils in Northland and Wellington. Instead the Commission will return to those communities to work with them and seek to develop other options to address the challenges those regions face. The Commission has issued a final proposal for reorganising Hawke’s Bay’s local government. “Different regions have different challenges and may require different responses to those challenges,’’ said Commission Chair Basil Morrison. “All three communities have indicated some change in local government is needed to ensure regions can be more effective and efficient and make decisions about what will be needed in future. “We believe in Hawke’s Bay there is community support for reorganising local government, that the final proposal will promote good local government, and is in the region’s best interests.’’ Local Government Commission chief executive Sandra Preston said there was little support for the major structural option proposed for Wellington but there was a widespread mood for some form of change. In Northland the councils had also made progress in identifying alternative ways to provide good local government since the draft proposal was released and the Commission hopes to work with the community in building on that momentum. The Commission looks forward to collaborating and engaging with councils and communities in Northland and Wellington. “There needs to be more emphasis on the role of communities identifying the challenges they face, the options that can address those challenges, and the development of more consensus on their preferred approach to change,’’ said Ms Preston. “Our goal will be to assist both communities to reach sufficient consensus on the changes required and the best form of local government.’’ As required under the Local Government Act, if this process results in new options for reform with community support the Commission would then prepare new draft proposals for wider consultation in Wellington and Northland. Ms Preston will be meeting shortly with key local government stakeholders in these regions. Background In summary, the process for local government reorganisations under the Local Government Act 2002 is:

  • Individuals, organisations or the Minister of Local Government can apply to the Commission for reorganisation of local government

  • The Commission assesses whether there is evidence of community support for local government reorganisation

  • If accepted, there is public notification of the application, including a call for alternative applications

  • The Commission identifies options for change, chooses a preferred option and develops a draft proposal

  • The draft proposal is subject to consultation including submissions and a series of hearings

  • If the Commission decides to proceed it issues a final proposal. Otherwise it can choose to end the process, or identify a new draft proposal for consultation

  • If requested by the community a poll on the final proposal is held

  • If no poll is requested or the poll shows support for the proposal the reorganisation scheme is implemented

The Local Government Commission has been considering three local government applications under the Local Government Act 2002. In Hawke’s Bay the application was from a local stakeholder group, A Better Hawkes Bay. In Northland, the application was from the Far North District Council and in Wellington the Commission was asked to consider two applications: the first from the three Wairarapa Councils seeking to amalgamate and establish a unitary authority, and the second, wider, application from the Wellington Regional Council seeking a Single Unitary Authority for the whole region. The Commission prepared draft proposals for reorganisation in each region, received submissions on the proposals and held hearings in each region. A Final Proposal has now been issued in Hawke’s Bay. The Commission’s ability to return to communities after submissions and hearings and seek other options for change is provided for in clause 21 in schedule 3 of the Local Government Act 2002. Further information:

  • Questions and answers on Wellington and Northland can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

  • A summary of submissions on the Draft Proposal for Reorganisation of Local Government in Wellington can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

  • A summary of submissions on the Draft Proposal for Reorganisation of Local Government in Northland can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

  • A media release, “Hawke’s Bay amalgamation proposal to proceed’’, can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

  • The Hawke’s Bay reorganisation Final Proposal can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

Questions and Answers

9 June 2015

Background information

Wellington and Northland Local Government Reorganisation

How did this process start in Wellington? In the Wellington region, the Masterton, Carterton and South Wairarapa District Councils applied in May 2013 for a local government reorganisation that would create a stand-alone unitary authority incorporating – in the Wairarapa – the roles of all three district Councils and the Greater Wellington Regional Council. In June that year, the Greater Wellington Regional Council also applied for a local government reorganisation. The proposal was to establish a single council that would combine the roles of all of the district councils in the region and those of the regional council. This Council would be complemented by a number of local boards with responsibility for managing defined local issues. How did this process start for Northland? In Northland, the Far North District Council applied for a local government reorganisation in December 2012 proposing a single unitary authority for the Far North District, with arrangements for the remainder of the region unspecified. Can the Commission initiate a reorganisation process? No. Councils, the Minister for Local Government, or any other individual or organisation have the right to apply to the Commission to alter the constitution, structure or boundaries of a local authority under the reorganisation provisions in the Local Government Act 2002. The Commission cannot apply to itself. What is the decision today? The Local Government Act enables the Commission to explore options for change with the affected local authorities and others in both regions, including whether other draft proposals can be developed. The option of a single council for either Wellington or Northland region is off the table. Why was this decision made? Consultation on the two draft proposals showed there was a lack of community support for single councils across these regions. Why did the Commission not stop the process? Consultation on the two draft proposals showed there is support from councils and the community to improve local government. It was clear the community wanted change but less clear as to what option would be supported by most. The Commission is also of the view that there are opportunities to improve the performance of both Northland and Wellington regions through changes to the way local government is organised. These need to be further explored with the communities. What will be the benefits of the new, more collaborative approach? The new approach will enable the development of options that reflect community feedback. The Commission is looking to develop sufficient consensus on the opportunities and challenges in the regions and how good local government can help to manage them. What will the next options look like? It is too early to tell, but the views of the Northland and Wellington communities will be important in determining what the options for their region look like. The Commission has a role in facilitating this and responsibility under legislation for producing potential new proposals. How and when will individuals get a chance to have their say?  The process has not been designed yet, but for the initial phase of identifying challenges and possible options to address these, the Commission will seek to work with councils to put together a process that will engage communities. If either Wellington or Northland proceeds to a new draft proposal, there will be a public consultation process including written submissions and hearings. What were the main themes from the Wellington consultation?
  • 89% of submitters did not support the draft proposal, with opposition strongest in the Hutt Valley;
  • Most opposed the proposal because of a preference for the status quo, more localised democracy, and concerns about the risks of large scale change;
  • A minority supported the proposal because it would streamline and improve decision-making and set a foundation for future prosperity;
  • There was a mood for change to improve local government services in the region; many submissions favoured either smaller-scale mergers or increased use of shared services; and
  • Most affected Councils recognised the need for change and submitted options for improvements to the current system.
What were the themes of the Northland process?
  • 90% of submitters did not support the draft proposal, with strong opposition in the Whangarei District;
  • Most opposed the proposal because of a preference for the status quo or an enhanced version of it. There was concern that a single unitary authority would not provide for local decision-making, be harder to administer, and potentially trigger an increased rates burden;
  • Some concern was also expressed about the loss of environmental regulatory checks and balances if regional functions were placed in the same organisation that delivered services;
  • A minority supported the proposal because it would streamline decision-making and provide a more effective basis for economic development in the region;
  • Some submitters did indicate support for smaller scale mergers, transferring functions or developing a shared service arrangement between the existing councils;
  • All existing councils in the region recognised the need for improvements in both strategic decision-making and the delivery of services.
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Hawke’s Bay amalgamation proposal to proceed

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MIL OSI – Hawke’s Bay amalgamation proposal to proceed The Local Government Commission has issued a final proposal for reorganising Hawke’s Bay local government. That proposal is to establish a single new council for Hawke’s Bay, called Hawke’s Bay Council, with five local boards sharing decision making and representing the interests of the region’s varied communities. If implemented, it will replace the Napier City, Wairoa District, Hastings District and Central Hawke’s Bay District, and Hawke’s Bay Regional Councils. This final proposal has been issued following an extensive process. “In Hawke’s Bay there is community support for reorganising Hawke’s Bay local government. That is one of the main reasons our decision on this application is different to those we have made in Wellington and Northland,’’ says Commission Chair Basil Morrison. “Different regions have different local government requirements. We believe the final proposal will promote good local government and is in the best interests of Hawke’s Bay. “In the Commission’s view, a single Hawke’s Bay Council will enable local government to be delivered in a more effective and efficient manner to address the issues and opportunities the region faces,’’ Mr Morrison said. “We encourage people in Hawke’s Bay to read the final proposal which sets out the reasons for our decision in detail.’’ The Commission has worked hard and listened carefully before issuing its final proposal, says Commission chief executive Sandra Preston. “It is now up to the people of Hawke’s Bay to have further input into whether or not this final proposal goes ahead. They can ask for a poll to vote on it if they wish.’’ A poll can be requested if 10% of electors in any affected area, such as Napier City or Wairoa District, sign a petition seeking one. “Results of a poll are binding and require a simple majority for or against the final proposal to determine the outcome,’’ said Ms Preston. Background The process for local government reorganisations under the Local Government Act 2002 is:

  • Individuals, organisations or the Minister of Local Government can apply to the Commission for reorganisation of local government

  • The Commission assesses if there is evidence of community support for reorganisation

  • If accepted, there is public notification of the application, including a call for alternative applications

  • The Commission identifies options for change, chooses a preferred option and develops a draft proposal

  • The draft proposal is subject to submissions and a series of hearings

  • If the Commission decides to proceed, it issues a final proposal. Otherwise it can choose to end the process, or identify a new draft proposal for consultation

  • If requested by the community, a poll on the final proposal can be held

  • Electors have 60 working days to sign a petition seeking a poll

  • The number of signatures required to trigger a poll is 10 per cent of registered electors in any affected area – for example, within any of the existing council boundaries

  • A poll would take place around three months after the Commission verifies the petition

  • If no poll is requested or the poll shows support for the proposal, the reorganisation scheme is implemented

The Local Government Commission has been considering three local government applications under the Local Government Act 2002. In Hawke’s Bay the application was from a local stakeholder group, A Better Hawkes Bay. In Northland, the application was from the Far North District Council and in Wellington the Commission was asked to consider two applications: the first from the three Wairarapa Councils seeking to amalgamate and establish a unitary authority, and the second, wider, application from the Wellington Regional Council seeking a Single Unitary Authority for the whole region. The Commission prepared draft proposals for reorganisation in each region, received submissions on the proposals and held hearings in each region. A Final Proposal has now been issued in Hawke’s Bay. The Commission’s ability to return to communities after submissions and hearings and seek other options for change is provided for in clause 21 in schedule 3 of the Local Government Act 2002.

  • Questions and Answers on the Hawke’s Bay reorganisation final proposal can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

  • The Hawke’s Bay reorganisation final proposal can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

  • A one-page summary of the poll and advertising guidelines can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

  • Guidelines on petitioning for a poll on a final proposal can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

  • Advertising guidelines relating to a poll can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

  • A media release, “Engaging with communities’’, on the Northland and Wellington applications can be found here: www.lgc.govt.nz

Questions and Answers

9 June 2015

Background information

Hawke’s Bay Local Government Reorganisation

How did this process start?
  • The process started when Hawke’s Bay people formed a group called A Better Hawke’s Bay and applied to the Local Government Commission in 2013 for a local government reorganization under the Local Government Act 2002.
  • Its application called for the disestablishment of all five current Hawke’s Bay councils, and the establishment of a single Hawke’s Bay Council. The application proposed that the new Hawke’s Bay Council would be a unitary authority, which combines the functions of a regional council with those of a territorial authority (district and city councils).
What were the stages in the process?
  • Feb 2013: A Better Hawke’s Bay makes an application to the Local Government Commission for a single unitary authority (one council). The Commission accepts the application and calls for alternatives.
  • May 2013: Commission receives 19 responses, from which six were identified as alternative proposals, and of these three were subsequently identified as “reasonably practicable options” (along with the status quo).
  • Feb-Oct 2013: Commission meets a wide range of interest groups, subject matter experts and members of the public in the region.
  • Nov 2013: Commission releases a draft proposal in favour of a single council for the region with community boards.
  • Nov 2013-June 2014: Public feedback on draft proposal through submissions and public hearings. More than 700 submissions received.
  • Nov 2014: Commission releases position paper with revisions following consultation and law changes allowing for local boards (rather than community boards).
  • Mar 2015: Commission releases its proposal to ring-fence debt and assets of existing councils for 5 years to 2021; and conducts survey of 2000 Hawke’s Bay residents on their views.
  • June 2015: Commission releases its final decision.
What happens now?
  • Either residents (affected electors) request a poll or the proposal goes ahead.
  • At least 10% of the registered electors of any “affected area’’ in the region must sign a petition for a poll to proceed.

  • A poll needs to be requested within 60 working days of the Commission giving notice of its final proposal. The poll itself will be held between September and December 2015, depending on when a valid petition is received.

  • If 50% or more vote against the proposal, the process ceases and the status quo prevails.

  • If more than 50% of electors support the proposal, or there is no poll, the proposal proceeds and the new council is elected in October 2016.

  • A Transition Board will be appointed by the Commission to work through detailed arrangements for the new council. It will have 11 members – two elected representatives from each of the current councils, and an independent Chair. The transition board will also appoint an interim Chief Executive for the new Council.

What is an “affected area’’?
  • An area impacted by the proposed changes. In this case: Wairoa District, Central Hawkes Bay District, Napier City, Hastings District and affected electors in the small sections of the Rangitikei and Taupo Districts.
Why are sections of the Rangitikei and Taupo Districts considered “affected areas’’?
  • Because small areas of these two districts are included under the current Hawke’s Bay Regional Council jurisdiction. The final proposal is for a unitary authority with one coherent boundary, which excludes these areas. Under the proposal they will move to the Manawatu-Wanganui and Bay of Plenty Regions respectively.
What are the rules and requirements for a poll petition?
  • The requirements for a petition are available at www.lgc.govt
  • People who are 18 or over, resident in the region and and registered on the electoral roll, or registered non-resident ratepayers, are eligible to vote.
  • Because petitions have to be checked by the electoral officer for the district, people signing the petition must give their full name and residential address.
Can people advertise their support or opposition to the final proposal? 
  • Yes. The only requirement is that the person(s) initiating the advertisement have to put their name and address on the advertisement.
  • The only restriction on advertising is on local authorities, which cannot spend money or use their resources on advertising that opposes or promotes the final proposal. They can produce fair and balanced reference material on the proposal.
Why was a survey conducted in March 2015, and what were the results?
  • The Commission decided to conduct a survey on community views following the release of its November 2014 position paper, which outlined a revised reorganisation proposal involving more councillors, and local boards rather than community boards.
  • The survey also aimed to get a wider representation of community views than had been gained through the submissions and hearings on the draft proposal.
  • The telephone survey, conducted by Colmar Brunton, was of 2000 residents across the Hawke’s Bay, with a region-wide margin of error of +/- 2.2%. In order to be representative, it included 400 residents in Wairoa, 601 in Hastings, 600 in Napier and 400 in Central Hawke’s Bay. Face-to-face surveys were also conducted with 18 and 10 residents respectively in the areas of Taupo and Rangitikei Districts currently in Hawke’s Bay Region.
  • The Commission will release the results of the survey when the process reaches a conclusion and there is no chance of the results impacting on the community’s decision on the final proposal.
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Editorial: Evening Report Now Webcasting Top Digital News & Info Channels

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Update by the Editor. News and Info on demandEvening Report (www.EveningReport.nz) is delighted to announce that it is now webcasting a significant line-up of top digital news and information channels. ER’s own webcasts and broadcasts are available via our EveningReport on demand channel, and this offering is complimented by on-site access to top news and info web-streams including: AlJazeera live, AlJazeera English on demand, BBC Four, Democracy Now on demand, NASA TV live, NZ on Screen, NZ Parliament on demand, PBS News Hour (most recent), PBS New House on demand, Russia Today (RT) live, Twit TV (tech news), YouTube Music Awards (2015). We welcome other digital news and info providers, who wish to have their content viewed from Evening Report, to contact us by clicking here. In addition to this listing, Evening Report has a dedicated documentary listing that can be accessed via the ER documentary channel. Our ambition is to increase the number of on-demand documentaries via this channel and we welcome submissions from established and burgeoning documentary and film makers to have their work accessible via this channel. We can be contacted via this link. And, if you like what we are building at EveningReport.nz feel free to register (please do click here) so we can keep you informed and up-to-date with improvements to this community platform of independent interactive debate. Selwyn Manning, founder and editor of EveningReport.nz.]]>

NewsRoom Digest: Top NZ News Items for June 8, 2015

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Newsroom Digest

This edition of NewsRoom_Digest contains 6 media release snippets and 3 links of the day from Monday 8th June.

Top stories in the current news cycle include two public service stories: the time being taken by Immigration New Zealand to consider residency status for a young boy with Williams syndrome, a non-hereditary genetic condition, when the rest of his family are citizens or have residency, and information on the agencies that spend the most on pay TV subscriptions – a story dismissed as sensationalism by the Prime Minister at his press conference this afternoon, with the added comment that access to media is a “function of the world we operate in”.

PM’s PRESS CONFERENCE

The press conference this afternoon ranged across the following issues and topics of the day: Euthanasia and possible scenarios within Parliament for any legislative movement; the situation faced by families in poverty who struggle to heat their homes alongside the topic of warrants of fitness for rentals; delays in the passage of the Health and Safety Reform Bill – with later reference to industrial accidents in the Quarry industry; the issue of usage of medical marijuana; the fate of Relationships Aotearoa; and whether the Prime Minister and the Minister for Maori Affairs have spoken about Maori Television after departures of editorial staff (un-related note: Mr Key is scheduled to appear on Native Affairs tonight) and questions about first refusal fishhooks in the Government’s Auckland housing plan.

SNIPPETS OF THE DAY

Woodhouse in Switzerland: Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Michael Woodhouse has travelled to Geneva, Switzerland to represent the New Zealand Government at this year’s International Labour Conference on 8-9 June 2015.

Fonterra coy (from Businessdesk): Fonterra Cooperative Group won’t confirm consulting firm McKinsey & Co is participating in a review of management performance at the world’s largest dairy exporter, even though its shareholders’ council has praised the appointment.

Call to make grants available: The Green Party is calling on the Government to make non-recoverable grants to families struggling with power bills this winter, to help prevent more children becoming sick from cold, damp homes.

Older Student Numbers Plummet: The national student union NZUSA and Grey Power say a crash in the number of older New Zealanders studying shows the Government’s discriminatory cuts to student support are turning off prospective learners in their droves.

IRD selects preferred software supplier: The Inland Revenue Department has selected Fast Enterprises as the preferred software supplier for its $1 billion-plus ‘business transformation’ which will replace its ageing information technology system as part of a complete overhaul of the tax agency’s operations.

Funding boost to close data gap: An investment of over $1 million a year will close a critical gap in New Zealand’s financial information, Statistics Minister Craig Foss says. Budget 2015 includes $5.75 million over the next four years for Statistics New Zealand’s Financial Flows and Balance Sheets project — a joint initiative with Treasury and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.

LINKS OF THE DAY

TELECOMMUNICATIONS REPORT: The latest Manawatū Economic Monitor report highlights stable economic growth in the Manawatū region despite a further reduction in the Fonterra milk payout price for the current season. The Commerce Commission has today released its latest annual telecommunications monitoring report analysing the state of New Zealand’s telecommunications markets. Telecommunications Commissioner Dr Stephen Gale said the past 17 months had been particularly eventful for the industry, with mergers, acquisitions, spectrum sales and the arrival of a slew of content streaming services. You can access the report here:

http://www.comcom.govt.nz/regulated-industries/telecommunications/monitoring-reports-and-studies/monitoring-reports/

FIX OUR FUTURE: Youth climate group Generation Zero reeled in more than 4,600 submissions on the Government’s post-2020 climate change target through their ‘Fix Our Future’ campaign. Generation Zero’s full organisational submission, which expands on the themes on the Fix Our Future website, can be downloaded here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ke9nbujegfppyvy/Climate%20Change%20Contribution%20Consultation%20-%20Generation%20Zero%20submission.pdf?dl0

DOORWAY OPEN: Doorway Property Management, a social enterprise initiative of the Housing Call to Action, has opened a service with a difference in west Auckland this week. Doorway Property Management’s services include finding tenants, inspections, flexible tailored packages, collecting rent, resolving arrears and managing day to day property maintenance. The Housing Call to Action is a group of professionals who work in the housing sector and see the implications of Auckland’s housing crisis every day. The group has produced many practical projects which aim to address the issues, such as the Warrent of Fitness for rentals, Spotlight on Housing Week and now the Doorway Property Management service. The initiative’s website is http://www.doorwayproperty.co.nz

And that’s our sampling of the day that was on Monday 8th June 2015.

Brought to EveningReport by Newsroom Digest. –]]>

byWADE…is being a (homeless) cat really a better option…?

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iammenotyou.com byWADE cats are awesome
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prime minister posing with a cat at parliament has to be a first…but spending heaps of resources and money on catching feral cats…hacking their private parts and then setting them off into the wild to look after themselves is an awesome idea eh…a country of bush and birds is just the right place for homeless cats… More cartoons byWADE on eveningreport.nz you can follow byWADE (from a safe digital distance) at facebook.com/bywade and you can even buy a greeting card of this cartoon (unless the editor picks up this link and deletes it because he doesn’t want me to earn a couple of bucks….)]]>

Keith Rankin on Political Economy – Ricardo versus Malthus

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

LAST WEEK (Inflation) I looked at what I think really happened in the global Great Inflation of the 1970s, and noted that at near-deflationary times like now when the inflation rate needs to be raised, it’s probably impossible for advanced capitalist countries to generate inflation by monetary means.

One respondent to my article (O’Shay), approaching the issue from a Marxian perspective, did not really address the global inflation issue specific to the long-1970s (ie c.1968-82). Rather he critiqued me by saying that the capitalist world’s “woes” stem from an endemic falling rate of profit, which itself was a result of an “insufficient cleansing” in the 1930s. I read from this that: the Marxian analysis is a one-trick pony; the Great Depression was not nearly severe enough; and that the woes were essentially the fault of Keynes (and the Keynesians) whose successful mission was to save rather than bury industrial capitalism.

I’m not a scholar of Karl Marx. But I do know a bit about where he fits into the wider story of classical political economy. First I’ll note that political economy represents the art of material life, and that classical political economy gave way in the late nineteenth century to the social science of economics.

At the heart of the political economy that became economics is the dichotomy between the two true founding fathers of classical economics: David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus. Both wrote in England, during and slightly after the era of the Napoleonic Wars; from the late 1790s to the 1820s. While both were heirs of Adam Smith, both also endeavoured to add more rigour to the infant discipline. And they engaged with each other, as intellectual equals.

Malthus is best known for his very important theory of population (1798). In some respects this is unfortunate. While this theory is one of the fulcrums of the classical school, it overshadows in the popular mind his analysis of economic depressions or “general gluts” as he called them. Malthus published his Principles in 1820, three years after Ricardo published his.

The post-Waterloo half-decade was an extremely difficult few years, with clear ‘supply-side’ and ‘demand-side’ problems. (Echoes of the Auckland housing debate?) The industrial revolution was forged in these difficult years. James Belich (Replenishing the Earth) dates the beginning of explosive western migration in the United States to this half decade. 1816 was the year of no summer, the aftermath of the Tambora volcanic eruption, possibly the most severe of the millennium. (Another contender for this honour was the Tarawera eruption about 1315, which is the most plausible cause of the European ‘Great Famine’ of 1315-17.) 1816 was an agricultural disaster. Mary Shelley wiled her time that year writing Frankenstein.

On the demand-side, we now know that it is very common for debt-deflationary events to take place after major wars, as the need for financial disentangling meets the puritan backers of orthodox public finance.

David Ricardo (a notoriously successful speculator) built up his supply-side intellectual edifice from the bases of: Malthus’ population theory; Say’s Law of Markets; and Adam Smith’s recognition of the saving and investing propensities of the relatively new commercial middle class. Say’s Law essentially says, for the economy as a whole, supply creates its own demand. Thus, on the Ricardian orthodox side of classical economics, came the belief that a lack of demand should never be the cause of an economic crisis. The new classical and monetarist economic theories that swept the world in the 1980s are the most important legacy of Ricardian economics. The second most important legacy is Marxism.

In the Ricardian system, the savings of the middle classes would always be invested (for example in new farms or factories), because, by the principle of Say’s Law, all surplus output (not consumed) must be spent on investment goods and must therefore drive a process of economic growth. However this process would be subject to long-run diminishing returns, meaning that the rate of profit would fall (albeit at a slower rate if new machines were being invented). Diminishing returns was an iron law that eventually, despite substantial aggregate growth, would lead to the landowners becoming fabulously wealthy and everyone else subject to grinding poverty. (Ricardo used his dubiously-gained wealth to buy Gatcombe Park; now Princess Anne’s country estate.)

The most important nineteenth-century Ricardian political economist after David Ricardo was Karl Marx. Marx replaced the landlords with monopoly capitalists. And, as in Ricardo, it was the bourgeois compulsion to save and invest that drove the processes of both growth and inequality. Ricardo’s end state was a kind of silent Dickensian hell. Marx’s was an explosive revolution. Many Marxist’s keenly anticipated that revolution in the 1930s. The Marxists were the most frustrated of all when John Maynard Keynes found an alternative exit strategy for the Great Depression.

The Ricardian school bifurcated in the 1870s, with Marxian macroeconomics taking one path, and neoclassical microeconomics (the ‘marginal revolution’) taking the other.

There have been two distinct syntheses that have brought Ricardo into the twentieth century and beyond. In the 1920s Piero Sraffa in Cambridge created the neomarxian ‘Neo-Ricardian’ school. And, under the tutelage of Robert Lucas in the 1970s and 1980s, the ‘rational expectations’ school brought the various conservative strands of classical Ricardian thought together. These neoconservative classical economists gloated that they had vanquished the aberration that, to them, was Keynesian demand-side economics.

There is an interesting New Zealand story. In the 1920s, the Marxist leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, Harry Holland, and the classically right-wing Minister of Finance, Dunedin calvinist William Downie Stewart jnr (the Roger Douglas of their day) became close friends. They had a significantly shared intellectual heritage. Their careers both ended in 1933, at the height of the Great Depression.

Ricardo was the intellect behind the classical supply-side economics that we call neoliberalism today, and that Americans call neoconservatism. What of Malthus then? Malthus saw that economic depressions were generally times of simultaneous plenty and poverty. He argued, in essence, that Says Law was wrong. People might save during these times, but they would not invest as Ricardo believed the middle classes always would. Instead they hoarded their profits as unspent money. Under the Ricardian view, the dour bourgeoisie would always be optimistic that there would be people around in the future able to buy an enlarged economic product (GDP in today’s language). But how could we be confident of that if too few people were buying today’s smaller output. Ricardo believed that all unconsumed output would be invested. Malthus did not.

The important policy question of the nineteenth century was protection versus free trade. Great Britain was one of the most protectionist countries in the eighteenth century. Ricardo favoured free trade as a means of cheapening food (and hence labour) enabling capitalists to make bigger profits that would necessarily invested; ie used to build factories and to improve farms. Malthus favoured protection, which he believed, by making food more expensive, would lead to bigger immediate income gains to landlords vis-à-vis capitalists. The landlords were known as a spending class – they employed lots of servants for example – and other people making luxury velvets and ornate buildings. In other words, Malthus wanted a policy that would increase consumer demand. He saw landlord spending offsetting bourgeois saving, much as in Japan today Government spending offsets middle-class saving.

Ricardo’s disciples won the political debate; the intellectual debate was a tie. Mid-century, Britain adopted the free‑trade policies that Ricardo advocated for.

The modern descendants of Malthus’ heterodox variant of classical economics are of course the Keynesians. The tension between the two classical schools was the riveting economic story of the twentieth century, with the Ricardians in charge at each end of that century, and the Keynesians in the middle part of that century. The Second World ‘communism’ of the middle part of last century was a Ricardian vestige biding its time, as state capitalism, otherwise known as socialism. Under state capitalism, the authoritarian governments appropriated and invested, on grandiose factories and other state capital projects, the surpluses that periodically became unpurchased gluts in the capitalist world.

Many of the architects of the early 1980s’ overthrow of Keynesianism had dabbled in Marxism in their youths. They remained true to their inner Ricardian principles. The economy is like a machine in which one group usurps, saves and invests the economic surplus, creating growth for growth’s sake.

This most recent Ricardian era is probably now coming to an end. It is so apparent that the financial and other middle classes who are appropriating and concentrating the world’s wealth are not investing it at all; they are not building factories and the like. They are speculating with it, and they are hoarding it (I understand that FIFA has a hoard of at least a billion dollars just as its financial ‘reserve’) while spending is substantially reliant on debt.

We are coming to a phase in the world economy where we can no longer be wilfully blind to the systemic shortages of demand in a world that has more than plenty. A new variation of economic pragmatism – one that will almost certainly owe more to Malthus than to Ricardo – is on the cusp of overthrowing the macroeconomics of neoliberalism. Perhaps we are seeing it most clearly in Greece. Central to this new economics will be the rejection of Say’s Law; the belief in which underpins today’s austerity programmes, fiscal consolidations and deficit phobias.

Don’t look to Marxism for inspiration.

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James Shaw on being Green Party Co-Leader – My first week

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James Shaw Greens co-leader and Minister for Statistics.

MIL OSI – Source: Green Party – Co-Leader James Shaw: My first week [caption id="attachment_4457" align="alignleft" width="220"]James Shaw Greens co-leader. Image: Wikipedia. James Shaw Greens co-leader. Image: Wikipedia.[/caption] What a whirlwind week it has been. Today is my seventh as Green Party Co-leader. It’s a good opportunity to pause and reflect. I’ve lost count of the interviews with media I’ve done this week: everything from morning TV shows to student radio to the National Business Review. It’s been really great to have these opportunities to introduce myself to Green supporters and potential supporters who seem excited about what lies ahead for the Greens. Parliament was in session this week. I felt excited and privileged walking in to the Parliamentary Chamber and taking the Co-leader’s seat next to Metiria – but mostly I felt the sense of responsibility to honour the hopes and aspirations of those who put me here and who I represent. On Tuesday in Parliament I challenged John Key to put party politics aside and work with the Green Party to formulate a plan for New Zealand to do our bit to address climate change. He didn’t rise to my challenge, instead trotting out his well-worn lines about how the Greens supposedly want to wreck the economy. So on Wednesday I challenged the Government again, using its own economic analysis that shows that reducing New Zealand’s carbon emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels would cost only one tenth of one percent of GDP growth. The economy would still grow at 2.1% every year. That’s hardly wrecking the economy by anyone’s standards. The Government’s bungled responses to my challenges shows that when it comes to economics, they’re living in the fossilised past. They just don’t get it that green economics is the economics of the future. And they just don’t get it that New Zealanders want their politicians to work together to fix the big issues that we face. That just makes me more determined to keep on challenging the Government to do things differently and do things better. The reality is that transforming to a smart, green economy would be good for New Zealand in the long term. On Wednesday night I had a short opportunity to relax a bit on the TV show BackBenches, before heading back to the office for some late night planning meetings. Parliament is in recess next week, which will give me a chance to get really stuck in to planning my priorities alongside Metiria, the caucus, and the rest of the party’s leadership. Russel has, of course, left some huge shoes to fill and I’ve begun my time as Co-leader as I intend to continue, working hard to live up to Russel’s legacy. Over the coming weeks and months I’ll keep listening and learning. And I’ll begin delivering on the promise of the Greens – that we can change the system, and create a sustainable and inclusive society for all New Zealanders. –]]>

AUT Analysis: NZ welfare model not recommended

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MIL OSI – Source: Auckland University of Technology (AUT) – NZ welfare model not recommended The Australian government is considering social welfare reform but in this opinion piece written for the Australian website The Conversation, AUT social science lecturer Michael Fletcher warns against the adoption of New Zealand’s reform model. The McClure review of Australia’s welfare system, whose final report the federal government recently released, proposed an “investment approach” to welfare. This approach was taken explicitly from reforms in New Zealand that were introduced in 2012 and 2013. The aim of the investment approach is to estimate likely lifetime benefit costs for everyone on welfare – the so-called “future liability” – and then target resources at those groups who represent the highest future liability. The review’s chair, Patrick McClure, enthusiastically promoted the New Zealand approach: We also talk about and recommend an investment approach. This is based on a New Zealand model that’s been very successful – one, in getting people into jobs, but also in making considerable savings over the longer term. However, the claim that the NZ investment approach has been “very successful” is at best unproven. Arguably, it is plain wrong. A flawed approach to welfare reform The concept has two fundamental flaws. The first is that at the heart of the investment approach is actuarial valuation of the “future liability”. Future liability is an estimate of how much a government is likely to pay in future welfare costs for all current welfare recipients, taking into account future periods on benefits that they might have. The problem is that future liability measures the wrong thing. The task of any government is to determine how best to spend the revenue it raises to maximise the population’s well-being. The orthodox means of ranking alternative expenditure options is a cost-benefit analysis. A cost-benefit analysis considers all the costs and benefits, public and private, of any intervention. As the University of Otago’s Simon Chapple has pointed out, actuarial valuation – an accountancy methodology – is concerned with only a narrower subset of concerns: the costs to one vote, or portfolio, in the government’s budget. Even within an accounting framework, it takes no consideration of the assets that match the “liability”. The difference is far more than arcane. For example, a training programme for welfare beneficiaries could easily show a net positive cost-benefit analysis outcome – taking into account future earnings and taxes paid – and yet be deemed too expensive to be worthwhile using actuarial valuation methodologies. In New Zealand, this approach’s consequences are illustrated by the 2013 actuaries’ report and the Ministry of Social Development’s 2013 Benefit System Performance Report. These contain no mention whatsoever of employment or earnings outcomes for ex-welfare beneficiaries. What happens to people when they leave welfare is irrelevant to this sort of analysis – just so long as they leave and don’t come back. The second problem follows from the first. The focus on actuarial valuation creates strong perverse incentives for welfare delivery services. Far from being an “investment” approach, it promotes disinvestment by encouraging the creation of barriers to entering welfare. An applicant turned away is as “valuable” in the annual liability valuation as a similar welfare recipient placed in employment. Administrative barriers to entry – and suspensions and cancellations – are often less time-consuming than the hard graft of matching job seekers to jobs. In New Zealand, this has happened in the development of a less facilitative, more punitive, approach to welfare recipients and applicants. It is formalised in a ministry performance target that 35-40% of “clients who participate in a triage service … do not require a benefit within 28 days”. That “triage service” – the initial assessment of the job seeker – doesn’t necessarily mean people placed into jobs, just that they are not receiving a benefit.| What has happened? So, in practice, what is actually known about the success or otherwise of the government’s investment approach so far? First, let’s look at the latest actuarial valuation. As the McClure review’s report correctly cites, the 2013 valuation showed a reduction in future liability from NZ$86.8 billion to NZ$76.5 billion. Most of this reduction in costs was due to changes in forecasting assumptions, but the valuation attributes NZ$1.8 billion to “more ‘leaves’ and fewer ‘joins’”. It said: It is probable that policy and operational changes contributed to this reduction in liability. In other words, in the best employment growth year since before the global financial crisis, there was only a 2.07% reduction in welfare costs due to lower welfare numbers. This is hardly a resounding endorsement. New Zealanders do have one measure of employment placements. Prior to the country’s 2014 general election, ministers frequently cited a figure that “1,600 beneficiaries were being placed into employment each week” during 2013. It has been removed from the National Party website, but this statement was repeated earlier this year in parliament by the new Social Development Minister Anne Tolley. The number sounds impressive. However, the Welfare Working Group that designed the reforms also reports average placements into work in its issues paper. The data cover June 1999 to June 2005 – a period of similarly good employment growth and with roughly similar total numbers on welfare. Over that period, the average number of people leaving benefits to take employment was 1,690 per week. So, it does not appear that the investment approach has done anything to significantly improve the performance of Work and Income, New Zealand’s welfare agency, in its core function of helping people into jobs. Lastly, despite the strong labour market being reflected in improvements in a number of social indicators, there is growing evidence that some are missing out. For example, the Auckland City Mission recently reported a doubling in the number of homeless people living in inner-city Auckland. The mission cited welfare reforms as one reason for this. Costly actuarial models are not necessary to work out who to target for assistance. The Ministry of Social Development already has the data to do that. Worse, they give the wrong answer and incentivise the wrong behaviours by Work and Income. They are also no help in evaluating employment assistance. That requires more comprehensive evaluation techniques, including cost-benefit analyses as well as assessment of individuals’ needs and outcomes. Australians would be wise to think carefully before importing this particular Kiwi invention. – -]]>

NewsRoom Digest: Top NZ News Items for June 5, 2015

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Newsroom Digest

This edition of NewsRoom_Digest contains 6 media release snippets and 3 links of the day from Friday 5th June.

Top stories in the current news cycle included news throughout the day about the case of Lecretia Seales – firstly the overnight news she had passed away, succumbing to brain cancer, and secondly the judgement delivered this afternoon in her case v the Attorney-General – with a key sentence being “I cannot declare that Ms Seales’ doctor would be acting lawfully if she administered a fatal drug to Ms Seales within the terms sought”.

The judgement and a media statement are located here: https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/front-page/cases/seales-v-attorney-general

A Coroner’s finding yesterday about the contributory effect of a cold, damp Housing New Zealand house to the state of illness from which two-year-old Emma-Lita Bourne died has been another top story, with various groups calling it a “wake-up call”.

SNIPPETS OF THE DAY

Six Million Registered Births: The number of births registered in New Zealand hit the six million mark on 29 May 2015. The six millionth birth to be registered in New Zealand is that of a little girl from Auckland called Ava.

Maui Consent Welcomed By Minister: Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges has welcomed a marine consent that will allow continued activity on the Maui gas field.

Support For Local Infrastructure: Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) announced it has formed a relationship with the Crown to investigate options for a local government risk management agency. The parties today confirmed the appointment of the establishment board chaired by experienced director and businessman, Craig Stobo

Reserve Bank Funding: A new five-year Funding Agreement for the Reserve Bank was ratified by Parliament yesterday. “The Funding Agreement ensures that the Bank has sufficient resources to meet its expanded role and obligations while maintaining tight control of costs,” Governor Graeme Wheeler said.

Private Education Corp Exposed: The latest Wikileak on the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) shows that New Zealand and other countries are continuing to push for private education corporation to be included in the deal, and NZEI Te Riu Roa is imploring the Government to come clean about the details.

$1million For Research Project: A Victoria University of Wellington biology researcher has been awarded over $1 million dollars in funding for a revolutionary research project that will “rewrite the textbooks” and could change the way we treat cellular diseases such as brain cancer and Alzheimer’s.

LINKS OF THE DAY

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PLAN: The government has approved, through an Order in Council, a revised plan to ensure New Zealand is well prepared to manage emergencies, Civil Defence Minister Nikki Kaye announced today. View the revised National Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan here: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2015/0140/latest/DLM6486453.html

PARENT IN PRISON: CPAG welcomes the latest report from the Families Commission “Improving outcomes for children with a parent in prison” Read more HERE: http://www.superu.govt.nz/news/2015/improving-outcomes-for-children-with-a-parent-in-prison-multi-agency-approach-needed

BUSINESS SURVEY SHOWS CONFIDENCE: ACC’s National Business Survey indicates a marked trend of improvement in interactions with the business sector over the last 12 months. The National Business Survey is available at: www.acc.co.nz/news/businesssurvey

And that’s our sampling of the day that was on Friday 5th June 2015.

Brought to EveningReport by Newsroom Digest. –]]>

byWADE…”radicals” are everywhere we are told…so be watchful & live in fear – because that is sensible

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radicals at iammenotyou.com
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facebook.com/bywade or see more at iammenotyou.com)  ]]>

Radio: NZ Report to Australia’s FiveAA – Dodgy Sheep Farm Deals To Saudi Arabia + PM Cuddles The Cat

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NZ Report to Australia’s FiveAA.com.au – Dodgy Sheep Farm Deals To Saudi Arabia + PM Cuddles The Cat – This week Selwyn Manning talks to Dave Penberthy, Jane Reilly and Mark Aiston about the weird NZ Govt/Saudi Arabia Demo-Farm Deal + The PM delivers a ‘stuff the native birds let’s cuddle the cat’ styled message. Recorded live on 5/06/15. ITEM ONE: New Zealand’s Foreign Minister is under political pressure after failing to explain the mystery of why the Government paid millions of dollars to a well-connected Saudi businessman. Foreign Minister Murray McCully sought approval and was granted $11.5 million from Cabinet to set up a NZ-styled sheep farm in Saudi Arabia. The weird farm package included the export of 1000 sheep, machinery, animal management plans, basically everything you could expect to see on a high-tech and efficient New Zealand sheep station. Details of the Cabinet decision came to light after media investigations suggested the Saudi sheep farm was set up to shut up a rich and well-connected Saudi businessman called Al Ali Al Khalaf. According to the Foreign Minister McCully the Saudi businessman had lost money in a sheep meat venture after New Zealand cut back and ceased live exports of sheep to the Middle East. McCully said the Saudi sheep farm deal was to appease the Saudi businessman so he would ditch plans to sue New Zealand of between $20 to $30 million. But that excuse lost credibility after media discovered the Saudi businessman’s legal action had been withdrawn one year earlier. Now the Government suggests the Saudi sheep farm deal was money well spent, as it would improve New Zealand’s chances of striking a Free Trade deal with the Saudi Government. McCully’s political opponents say the Saudi Sheep Farm deal was simply some sort of bribe. The Government doesn’t actually deny this but suggests enticements are helpful especially if they assist our diplomats to strike up trade deals. ITEM TWO: When your Government’s credibility is under threat, who do you call? Well if you are the Prime Minister, it’s the SPCA. (Ref. NZHerald.) Former broadcaster and current Conservation Minister, Maggie Barry, this week criticised the SPCA for spaying feral cats and releasing them back into the wild. As she pointed out, feral cats are responsible for killing thousands of protected native birds every year. Maggie Barry suggested the SPCA should euthanise feral cats and that a one cat per household rule should be applied. But the Prime Minister said his Government would not support his minister’s view. Rather, in one of his typical cheesy moments, John Key said he would advise his own cat Moonbeam not to go near the SPCA in case it went ahead with her instructions. These are odd and dodgy times indeed. New Zealand Report is broadcast live on Fridays on FiveAA.com.au and webcasts on EveningReport.nz, LiveNews.co.nz and ForeignAffairs.co.nz.]]>

NewsRoom Digest: Top NZ News Items for June 4, 2015

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Newsroom Digest

This edition of NewsRoom_Digest contains 4 media release snippets and 6 links of the day from Thursday 4th June.

Top stories in the current news cycle include coverage of the impact of record rainfall in Dunedin, two education sector stories – results from the first year at four charters schools and a report from the NZ Initiative think-tank about poor mathematics achievement – and concerns about whether the prospect of a housing construction ‘boom’ in Auckland Could be undermined by a lack of quality builders. SNIPPETS OF THE DAY

Green Party: Warrant of Fitness For Houses Needed: The Government must introduce a Warrant of Fitness for all houses in New Zealand, starting with state houses, following the release of a coroner’s report which linked the death of an Auckland toddler to the living conditions in her family’s Housing New Zealand home, the Green Party said today.

Auckland House Sales And Prices On the Rise: Auckland house sales and prices continued to rise in May as the property market in the country’s biggest city soaked up an increased number of new listings, according to real estate agency Barfoot & Thompson.

School Decile Review Announcement: Schools that have applied for a review of their decile recalculation will be advised of the outcome over the next ten days. Deputy Secretary for Student Achievement, Dr Graham Stoop, says 160 schools asked for a review following last year’s recalculation.

Green Party: Inaction On Climate Change: Local governments throughout New Zealand will have to pick up the ongoing cost of National’s inaction on climate change, the Green Party said today. “The flooding in Dunedin highlights that the National Government needs to stop being the problem and start being part of the solution on climate change,” Green Party local government spokesperson Eugenie Sage said.

LINKS OF THE DAY

LACK OF MATH UNDERSTANDING AT PRIMARY SCHOOL: A new report about primary school maths achievement highlights concerns about professional training and development that teachers have been flagging the need for, for a long time. Download the report here: http://nzinitiative.org.nz/site/nzinitiative/files/Unaccountable%20Web.pdf

A HOUSING WIN: The University of Otago’s He Kainga Oranga/Housing and Health Research Programme in Wellington has received a $4,943,710 five-year grant in the latest round of funding from the Health Research Council. Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman and her team of 28 researchers will use the money to run six trials aimed at lifting housing standards to improve children’s health. Read more about the work of the programme here:http://www.healthyhousing.org.nz/

AUCKLAND HOUSING ACCORD REPORT: Building and Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith and Mayor Len Brown have today welcomed the release of the latest Auckland Housing Accord monitoring report, which marks the halfway point of the three-year agreement between the Government and the council to address the city’s housing supply and affordability challenge. Further information on the Auckland Housing Accord is available from:www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/ratesbuildingproperty/housingsupply/ Pages/aucklandhousingaccord.aspx.

BUILDING UP: Building activity was worth almost $3.9 billion in the March 2015 quarter, up nearly 10 percent on the March 2014 quarter, Statistics New Zealand said today. For more information about these statistics: http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/Construction/ValueOfBuildingWork_HOTPMar15qtr.aspx

DIGITAL DISRUPTION: In a new report out today Pricewaterhouse Coopers is forecasting “ups and downs in the New Zealand media and entertainment sector over the next four years punctuated by disruptive digital technology”. You can straight to PwC’s Outlook here: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/global-entertainment-media-outlook/index.jhtml

TEENS TO BENEFIT FROM DOCUMENTARY: As the Documentary Edge Film Festival opens in the Capital, Human Rights Commissioner Jackie Blue says New Zealand teenagers would benefit from watching ‘Waiting for August’. Film details: http://documentaryedge.org.nz/2015-programme/film/waiting-for-august

And that’s our sampling of the day that was on Thursday 4th June 2015.

Brought to EveningReport by Newsroom Digest. –]]>

Review: New Zealand Opera’s performance of Cinderella is the real deal

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Review by Selwyn Manning. Forget pumpkins, glass slippers and fairy God mothers, New Zealand Opera’s performance of Cinderella is the real deal. It’s comedy. It is tragedy. It is a tale of how good can triumph over adversity. New Zealand Opera describes La Cenerentola as: “an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. Libretto by Jacopo Ferretti based on the fairy tale Cendrillon by Charles Perrault. La cenerentola was first performed on 25 January 1817 at Teatro Valle in Rome. The performance lasts approximately 2 hours and 50 minutes, including an interval of 20 minutes. Sung in Italian with English subtitles. A co-production between New Zealand Opera and Opera Queensland.” [caption id="attachment_4406" align="aligncenter" width="640"]Ashraf Sewailam as Alidoro. Photo by Stephanie Do Rozario. Ashraf Sewailam as Alidoro. Photo by Stephanie Do Rozario.[/caption]New Zealand Opera presents for this performance an impressive cast. Among them is Ashraf Sewailam, Egypt’s bass baritone operatic superstar who spends much of his time performing around the world and who has a home-base in Colorado, in the United States. Ashraf Sewailam will be familiar to New Zealand opera fans. Back in 2012 he performed the role of the assassin, Sparafucile in New Zealand Opera’s Rigoletto. (Ref. LiveNews.co.nz) He was brilliant then, as he is now in La Cenerentola. The cast includes: Angelina [Cinderella] performed by Sarah Castle; Don Ramiro performed by John Tessier; Dandini performed by Marcin Bronikowski; Alidoro performed by Ashraf Sewailam; Don Magnifico performed by Andrew Collis; and the marvellous ugly sisters: Clorinda performed by Amelia Berry and Tisbe performed by Rachelle Pike. Like Ashraf Sewailam, Sarah Castle is renowned, and she shines wonderfully in this starring role. She was born in New Zealand. Studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, and made her début at Covent Garden in the United Kingdom as Tisbe in La cenerentola. Arts writer Susan Buckland summed up the story nicely:

La cenerentola is a realistic take on the fairytale in a comic opera setting. Rossini’s opera is enlivened with daft characters who strut, flounce and scene-steal. Notably the buffoon-like Magnifico, stepfather to Angelina (Cinderella) who dreams of becoming rich, and his sniping, stroppy daughters who pot shot their stepsister at every turn. But Rossini’s La cenerentola blends frivolity and poignant tenderness. It is underpinned by believable actions and heartfelt human emotions.
La Cenerentola, Cinderella is a wonderful opera. It’s dark elements are real. They are timeless, unfortunately. Cinderella’s situation brings to mind people from our own world whose real life stories did not end well. But Rossini’s Cinderella is a story of hope. And it delivers. [caption id="attachment_4409" align="alignleft" width="300"]Dandini (Marcin Bronikowsi) and Don Ramiro (John Tessier) befriend Cinderella. Photo by Neil Mackenzie. Dandini (Marcin Bronikowsi) and Don Ramiro (John Tessier) befriend Cinderella. Photo by Neil Mackenzie.[/caption] Cinderella’s backstory suggests an early life surrounded by the love of two parents. But due to complex circumstance she soon found herself estranged from nurture and security. As a young woman she became controlled by ugliness. An abusive alcoholic father measured her worth only in terms of servitude. Her two stepsisters considered her weak, lowly, a focus of derision. They were all victims. Cinderella was a victim of external circumstance, her sisters were twisted by the grotesqueness that swelled from within them. It is true, the characters are strong and deliver relevance and parallels to our contemporary times. New Zealand Opera balanced the elements perfectly. Tragedy was interwoven with comedy to produce a marvellous tapestry that could so easily have all unravelled. But like Cinderella’s lot, this performance builds toward a wonderfully anticipated conclusion. And there were little not-so-subtle gems, like the references to local wines in a comedy exchange between an inebriated Magnifico and the Prince’s courtiers that particularly delighted the Auckland audience on opening night. With this cast, the creative and productive team, La Cenerentola, Cinderella was in very good hands. And it was a delight to witness the inner beauty of Cinderella’s character, of how she was able to breach introspection, to express her gentleness, her goodness, and to prevail. Let it always be so. [caption id="attachment_4410" align="alignleft" width="640"]Cinderella - Angelina (Sarah Castle) is guided on her journey to happiness and honour by the marvellous Alidoro (Ashraf Sewailam). Photo by Neil Mackenzie. Cinderella – Angelina (Sarah Castle) is guided on her journey to happiness and honour by the marvellous Alidoro (Ashraf Sewailam). Photo by Neil Mackenzie.[/caption] Also, it’s a pleasure to note, this performance was brought to life by the guiding brilliance of New Zealand Opera’s creative team: conductor Wyn Davies (Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra); director Lindy Hume; assistant director Jacqueline Coats; choreographer Taiaroa Royal; production designer Dan Potra; and lighting designer Matthew Marshall. Bravo. There’s still time to see La Cenerentola, Cinderella. It is on at Auckland’s ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre with two performances scheduled for Friday 5 June 7.30pm and Sunday 7 June 2.30pm. Click here to book your tickets (be quick they are selling fast). FLASHBACK: Selwyn Manning interviews Ashraf Sewailam in 2012. –]]>

Special Feature: Burning Down The House – Climate Change Consultation

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Special Feature by Sven Solen, Rapporteur – Courtesy of NewsroomPlus.com.

Newsroom new logo-300IN DECEMBER 2015, countries will meet in Paris to establish a new international climate change agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 

Specifically, all countries have been asked to put forward a target to reduce emissions after 2020 ahead of the negotiations in Paris. These are known as ‘intended’ nationally determined contributions (“INDCs”).

As of this week, the Government’s rushed consultation on public views on New Zealand’s post-2020 climate change contribution has 10 days left to go, and counting down. Submissions – including use of the option of an online form – close at 5.00pm on Wednesday 3rd June.

The consultation was opened by Climate Change Issues (and Trade) Minister Tim Groser on 7th of May with these tone-setting words: “New Zealand wants to set a target which is environmentally credible and reflects our particular circumstances. But we also need to consider the possible impacts and costs to our economy.”

Mr Groser announced there would be a series of countrywide public meetings – none of which he has fronted at, and according to officials purposively never intended to.

Initially limited to 11 meetings an additional twelfth meeting was organised for Wellington to be held tonight 25 May, prompted by the high level of interest – and palpable discontent – evident at the packed out first meeting in the capital city on Tuesday 19 May – shifted from a Thorndon hotel to a much larger hall at Wellington Girls’ College to handle the numbers.  

Also in Wellington this week, Victoria University’s Institute for Governance and Policy Studies (IGPS) is holding an evening public forum on Tuesday 26 May with the title ‘A Fair Share? Constructing New Zealand’s post-2020 climate change target‘. It promises to help those who want to make a submission “be better placed to do so”, and brings together a panel consisting of: 

  • Paul Young, Generation Zero.
  • Adolf Stroombergen, an economist at Infometrics.
  • Dr James Renwick, a Professor with Victoria’s School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences.
  • Suzi Kerr, a senior fellow at Motu, New Zealand’s leading non-profit economic and public policy research institute.
  • John Carnegie, a regulatory economist who oversees Energy, Environment and Infractructure issues at Business New Zealand.
 

Burning Questions

[caption id="attachment_4371" align="alignleft" width="300"]The stage ‘managed’ consultation meeting held for the Climate Change Contribution Consultation in Wellington, on 19 May – officials are pictured on the stage with an image of a burning forest behind them, and hundreds of concerned citizens demanding answers to questions about New Zealand’s stance on climate change in the audience. The stage ‘managed’ consultation meeting held for the Climate Change Contribution Consultation in Wellington, on 19 May – officials are pictured on the stage with an image of a burning forest behind them, and hundreds of concerned citizens demanding answers to questions about New Zealand’s stance on climate change in the audience.[/caption]

The stage ‘managed’ consultation meeting held for the Climate Change Contribution Consultation in Wellington, on 19 May – officials are pictured on the stage with an image of a burning forest behind them, and hundreds of concerned citizens demanding answers to questions about New Zealand’s stance on climate change in the audience.

Running a poorly-resourced public consultation process, to which hundreds of concerned citizens turn up, within days of a multi-million dollar Flag Consideration Panel ‘campaign’ that struggled to attract half a dozen people to its first meeting in Christchurch, was never going to be a good look – a pointed comparison that was clearly and loudly made at the Wellington Climate Change Contribution Consultation (“the Con Con”) on 19 May.

In that atypical, almost-theatrical way that such meetings pan out, the grouping of cross-agency public servants who were there to set the scene for the consultation – referred to as officials throughout – were inevitably put through a reasonably bruising encounter, illustrative of an obvious disjunct between the behind-closed-doors limitations of official policy formation and the urgency of New Zealanders’ voices needing to be heard.

At the end of the meeting, public official Kay Harrison spoke on behalf of the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) as lead agency, to tell the audience what “strong reminders” she had heard, and about the importance of these words in direct relation to climate change issues: stewardship, leadership, equity and justice, the place of education, and the co-benefits of acting on climate change – that is, not just the costs.

Harrison also did her best to echo the values and emotions exhibited by members of the audience during an often intense two-hour-plus airing of public views, choosing the words courage, anger and dread to describe what she had heard, tempered with some expression of … hope.

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Affirming, or not, here’s what I heard expressed:

  • that officials in the public sector were displaying a “real lack of stewardship”, are simply “afraid to give free and frank advice”, and that the Ministry for the Environment has become (in the words of economist Geoff Bertram) “dispirited and lost”
  • “New Zealand should take leadership”
  • that with no Ministers “fronting” there was no real political accountability in play – Simon Terry of the Sustainability Council sympathised with officials being put forward instead as “punchbags”
  • “equity issues are not coming through … KiwiSaver is not going to help us!”
  • consternation that “we have so much research and I feel like we’re not using it… and are still thinking in silos”
  • an official answer from MfE’s Guy Beatson that modelling runs were done for agriculture but were factored out because they didn’t produce “conclusive results” and didn’t align with current government policy
  • a general challenge to what one speaker called “faulty assumptions” in macroeconomic modelling by Infometrics (in a report titled A general equilibrium analysis of options for New Zealand’s post-2020 climate change contribution).
  • frustration at the perceived persistence of “20th century thinking” and a business as usual approach rather than embarking on transformative change
  • a deep concern at a “lack of a plan to fix our future” from Generation Zero, with Paul Young commenting “we get distracted by the agriculture (arguments) and end up with (an unambitious focus on) making our future only slightly less bad”
  • strong views that retaining a 5% target as a contribution would be “pathetic and embarrassing”

Notable comments during the evening came from a concerned parent who travelled from the Kapiti Coast to Wellington to object to what she called a stubbornly prevailing “psychology of denial” surrounding climate change issues, a young man who simply said “you guys (officials) all seem to be very short-term”, and Dr Anne MacLennan of OraTaiao: New Zealand Climate and Health Council who made this telling statement: “Designing non-farting cows is like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic”.

In addition RNZ had sent a reporter, and seated at the back row of the hall were elder Press Gallery journalists Colin James, who contributes to the Otago Daily Times, and the Herald’s economics editor Brian Fallow.

Why The Discontent?

If there was an over-riding demonstration of discontent it was focused on the MfE’s 18-page, jumbled but carefully layered 6000 word discussion document.

The one word used repeatedly to describe the document was “disappointing”. Disappointment that it:

  • was an extended “lining up of excuses”
  • “ignores the potential benefits of taking actions”
  • “treats me with contempt (by) hiding behind a concept of fairness … and an emphasis on uncertainty”
  • “ignores sub-optimal outcomes”
  • took a line where the theme was “we can’t be seen to be doing too much” or, worse still, portraying “New Zealand as a victim”

Underlying specific disappointments was a disappointment that the Government had left consulting with the public “to the last minute” – compounding the neglect by a consultation timeframe of just 18 working days and next to no publicity.

A standout, standup response came from Pala Molisa, currently a lecturer at Victoria University’s School of Accounting and Commercial Law.

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While admitting he had only managed time for a cursory read of MfE’s consultative discussion document, Molisa was wary of any language that might euphemise or sanitise the looming “(moral) atrocities” of climate change, and cautioned against a reliance on cost-benefit frameworks which he said are “broken in this context”. Speaking directly to the cadre of half-a-dozen officials he urged them to “struggle for better language that doesn’t push out or marginalise intrinsic values”.

On the substance of challenges being faced, Molisa mused on the consequences of economic thinking based on unlimited growth, and made a call for more structural analysis of underlying systems, without which, he said, “we won’t be able to meet the test that these realities demand”.

Climate Change – One Redaction At A Time

Referring to a proactively released, if heavily redacted, Treasury briefing report of October 2014 – seven months earlier – New Zealanders should, it seems, be grateful that public consultation is taking place at all.

The report (ref T2014/1674) reveals Treasury advice that while there is “no legal expectation to consult the public on New Zealand’s post-2020 emissions target”, Ministers had consulted in similar circumstances in the past “and so domestic stakeholders are likely to expect consultation”. To its credit Treasury commended having an “an open consultation process”.

The thinking, in part, was that the international negotiations happening in 2015 present different issues from previous negotiations and give New Zealand different options. This most likely refers to the assessment that the agreement being driven towards for Paris in December will constitute a bottom-up approach – because countries will be determining for themselves the form and level of their targets, and the rules they intend to apply when measuring and reporting progress towards meeting them.

There are strong pointers from this briefing process to the language used by the Ministry for the Environment in its consultative discussion document published at the start of May.

Explicitly Treasury argued for taking a “fair share” target. The word “fair” as highlighted by a speaker at the 19 May Wellington meeting, occurs 15 times in the discussion document.

Likewise a move to tailor a target around New Zealand’s “national circumstances” – to manage the expense of stringent targets after 2020 – was framed as a driving ‘opportunity’ by Treasury back in October, so not surprisingly is a term that is threaded throughout MfE’s discussion document.

An Afterthought: So What About The MfE Discussion Document?

Click on the image above to watch a 4 minute long, tightly scripted video produced in support of the consultation on setting New Zealand’s post-2020 climate change target.

When people at the 19 May meeting weren’t calling out “farcical” aspects of the way the consultation process itself was being conducted, there was loud and clear feedback that the scaffolding of the discussion document was constructed in such a way that an overwhelming number felt they were being shoe-horned into a discussion they overwhelmingly felt doesn’t do justice to the issues, or in some way misrepresents them.

Many were struggling with paragraphs like this: “Reducing transport emissions will require a range of measures including changes in vehicle use. This might include increased use of public transport, walking and biking, and emerging technologies”. Might!?  

The sophistry of the document was directed in a friendly enough manner – “us” used 6 times, “you” used 13 times, “we” 73 times. But as already noted above much of the language followed a set of predetermined key-words that dominated the discussion document – “technology/ technological” for instance appearing 29 times within its 18 pages, because we’re ‘betting the farm’ on technology coming to our planetary rescue.

Great for the policy wonks and in keeping with Ministerial directions no doubt, but great for the public?

To close off this overview of the Climate Change Contribution Consultation, here’s a content breakdown of the discussion document – available to read here – followed by a randomised précis and gentle critique of the document.

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CONTENT BREAKDOWN

NEW ZEALAND’S CLIMATE CHANGE TARGET – DISCUSSION DOCUMENT – May 2015

  • Minister’s Foreword & Introduction – c. 870 words 

1. Why is New Zealand setting a climate change target?

  • Human impact on the climate – 247 words 
  • What does climate change mean for New Zealand? – 108 words
  • Global response – 259 words
  • A new opportunity – 307 words
  • Objectives for the contribution – 237 words
  • What is an ‘intended nationally determined contribution’? – 133 words
  • Q1: (a)  Do you agree with the above objectives for our contribution? (b) What is most important to you? p.8 . 2. What would be a fair contribution for New Zealand?
  • (Opening) – 52 words
  • New Zealand’s circumstances – 319 words
  • What is the effect of different gases on climate change? – 147 words
  • New Zealand’s emissions and targets – 227 words
  • What are we doing to decrease agricultural emissions? – 472 words
  • Use of carbon offsets and forestry sinks to meet targets – 278 words
  • Comparison with others – 411 words
  • Q2: What do you think the nature of New Zealand’s emissions and economy means for the level of target that we set? p.12

3. How will our contribution affect New Zealanders?

  • Cost of the target – 116 words
  • Using international carbon markets – 67 words
  • The price of carbon – 37 words
  • How will our target affect the economy? – 175 words
  • How will our target affect households? – 229 words
  • Why is there a cost for maintaining current target levels (5 per cent below 1990)? – 46 words
  • Why do costs increase more rapidly as targets become more ambitious? – 49 words Q3: What level of cost is appropriate for New Zealand to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions? For example, what would be a reasonable reduction in annual household consumption? p.14 .
  • New opportunities – 274 words
  • Emerging technologies to reduce transport emissions – 196 words Q4: Of these opportunities which do you think are the most likely to occur, or be most important for New Zealand  p.15 .
  • Domestic policies to meet our target – 221 words
  • Summary – 457 words Q5: How should New Zealand take into account the future uncertainties of technologies and costs when setting its target p.17

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CONTENT POINTS & CRITIQUE

Foreword & Introduction 

  • To date action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the world has not been strong enough.
  • Setting a target, to apply 10 to 15 years from now, is challenging given the uncertainties in the new agreement and what might be economically and technologically possible over the coming decade.

1. Why is New Zealand setting a climate change target?

  • New Zealand’s temperature is expected to rise by about 3.5°C by the end of the century… the key risks that have been identified for New Zealand are sea level rise, flooding and wildfires. Drought is also expected to increase.
  • (Substantial reduction of emissions will involve) large scale changes in the way the world produces energy and uses land.
  • It is a challenge to determine what our contribution will be before the agreement is concluded, rules are finalised, and without knowing what technological developments will occur in the future.

2. What would be a fair contribution for New Zealand?

  • In the next 15 years much of (the forest planted since 1990) is expected to be harvested as part of normal forest management practice, meaning that these forests will no longer provide a significant carbon sink over this period.
  • Since 1990, New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions have grown by about 21 per cent, along with our population and economic growth. The sources that contributed most to this increase were carbon dioxide emissions from road transport, as well as nitrous oxide and methane emissions from agriculture.
  • New Zealand farmers have been successful in reducing the emissions intensity of our agriculture – that is, the emissions generated per unit of meat or milk – by about 1 per cent per year since 1990. This has been achieved through better feed and animal management practices, improved genetics and soil fertility. [… and agricultural intensification since 1990 equates to ??]
  • Making headway in both these critical areas is proving difficult and it is not clear when they will be resolved.

3. How will our contribution affect New Zealanders?

  • Our target is likely to be met through a mix of reducing domestic emissions, establishing new forests and through using international carbon markets.
  • More ambitious targets will have a higher cost. For example, if New Zealand took a target of 10 per cent below 1990, then the cost of New Zealand’s target could increase by an additional $200 million per annum. For a target of 20 per cent below 1990, then the increase in cost could be an additional $500 million or more.

CRITIQUE 1: How is this not perverse scaremongering (without a full context)?

screenshot-2015-05-25-05-33-12

  • (Our target will affect households) in two ways. wages will grow more slowly, in line with the overall economy. Secondly, the price of some goods and services will be higher (eg, electricity and vehicle fuel). These effects decrease the amount of ‘household consumption’ possible, ie, the average household will be less ‘well-off’ than what would be expected without a target…  For example, continuing with the current target of 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030 means that in 2027, an average New Zealand household would be around $1,270 per annum worse off in terms of household consumption than if no target were taken.
 

CRITIQUE 2: Stating the glaringly obvious

screenshot-2015-05-25-05-34-58

  • Our population has grown by 31 per cent since 1990, compared with the OECD average of 18 per cent. Continued growth may place upward pressure on our emissions.
  • New Zealand’s gross emissions are currently around 21 per cent above 1990 levels and will be around 36 per cent above 1990 under ‘business as usual’ projections. This means the bulk of effort required for a given target is to bring emissions back to 1990 levels.
  • Reducing our emissions can also contribute to immediate and longer- term benefits.
  • Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing forest sinks can lead to improved health, environmental and social well-being, and improved erosion control and water quality.

CRITIQUE 3: Ironic call for Help* – What does that even mean?

  • We need to be ready for a world where the emissions intensity of our products and services becomes increasingly important to markets here and abroad.
  • Our low population density has contributed to a high per capita use of road transport.
  • Given that around 65 per cent of New Zealand’s emissions come from transport and agriculture, reducing our total emissions is a significant challenge.
  • When addressing agricultural emissions, the key is to … (ensure) that efficient production in New Zealand is not replaced by inefficient production offshore.
  • For the same level of cost as the United States’ target, New Zealand’s target would be between 15 per cent above 1990 levels to 10 per cent below 1990 levels.
  • For the same cost it is possible to reduce more emissions by purchasing international units from overseas, or by planting new forests, than by reducing domestic emissions. In addition, it can help to support countries with less financial capacity to invest in new clean technologies.
  • Given this uncertainty, setting a target will require careful consideration about the extent of action we can take to reduce emissions while managing affordability of the target for future governments.
  • Setting an international target means the economy will grow more slowly than it otherwise would.
  • Our modelling suggests that meeting targets solely through domestic emissions reductions will increase the cost.

* To ensure your point of view is clearly understood, you should explain your rationale and provide supporting evidence where appropriate. (From the notes to Submitters). 

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Keith Rankin on Effective Citizenship and Property Ownership

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

IN PRINCIPLE, CITIZENSHIP IS UNIVERSAL, inclusive and binary. A person is either a citizen or a non-citizen; no half measures. In a formal sense, Citizenship (big ‘C’) of a nation is linked to birth or having gained Citizenship as a consequence of having previously gained permanent residence. Effective citizenship – or social citizenship – is a broader fuzzier concept that represents a mixture of membership rights and obligations. Yet it is still a binary concept; a tax-resident is an effective citizen, and a visiting tourist is not.

In practice however, certain groups of people are second-class citizens. On National Radio recently I heard about how immigrants especially value paid work that reflects the skills and experiences they bring with them to New Zealand. And that, where there are systematic barriers to gaining such employment, their ability to identify as New Zealanders is severely compromised.

Another divide is that of property ownership. And in New Zealand, property ownership that confers effective citizenship is assumed, narrowly, to mean ‘ownership (outright or by mortgage) of the house that you live in’. Thus, to be a grade-one effective citizen of New Zealand you need to belong to a household that draws an income from paid employment, and you need to live in a house that you own.

A more inclusive definition of effective citizenship would require the following: tax residency, making a contribution (eg through present or past work, paid or unpaid, or participation in education), and property ownership.

Property Ownership

I agree with Margaret Thatcher that property ownership is a desirable thing. She wanted to build in the United Kingdom ‘a property-owning democracy’ (see her 1975 leader’s speech). But it’s what we mean by property ownership that matters. To Thatcher it meant ‘private property’. In the long-cultivated mythology of New Zealand, it means home-owner-occupation. Both of these concepts of property are too narrow.

To me, to be an effective citizen, you need access to income derived from two sources: one relating to your present or past contribution, and one relating to your equity in property. I have written elsewhere that all tax‑residents do have a share in public equity, and almost every tax-resident in New Zealand does in fact draw an income from that equity (albeit income disguised by present norms of public sector accounting). This means that property ownership is implicit within the concept of tax-residency, and therefore all tax-residents who participate constructively in their communities are therefore effective citizens.

However, some will still feel more worthy as citizens if they own (and draw income from) private assets. Money in the bank – or Kiwi saver for that matter – is a form of private asset. However, our sense of worthiness really relates to ‘real assets’ rather than financial assets. For most that essentially means ‘real estate’ – land, a house, an apartment – though I would add ownership of commercial buildings and company shares as real assets.

Public policy to facilitate private ownership of real property is I think a good thing. But such policy should not accentuate home-owner-occupation over ownership of properties that someone else lives (or works) in, or over business equity.

Every owner of land or buildings is a landlord

There is government help available for first home buyers. For example, money can be withdrawn from Kiwi Saver to use for a deposit. But the condition is that the buyer must then live in that house. It is in fact more responsible to your family and your society to buy a property that you can afford, and to live near to where you work. Increasingly, and especially in Auckland, you cannot afford to buy the property that would be best for you to live in. Society is not well served if young families are forced to live on the outskirts of big cities, and parents have to undertake long expensive commutes to work. It is far more sensible to buy a rental house that you can afford (maybe in a different city), and to live (and create a home) in a rental house conveniently located to your work and/or the community you have roots in.

We need to look at housing the way our System of National Accounts does. It treats all owners of residential property as landlords. And all occupiers as tenants. Thus, it is incidental whether you are your own tenant or someone else’s tenant. And, it is incidental whether you are your own landlord or someone else’s landlord. There will be only two types of real estate: tenanted (including owner‑occupied) or untenanted (meaning empty). The condition of government assistance to first home buyers would be that the property becomes somebody’s home; not necessarily the owner’s home.

Tax rules would need to be reformed.

There’s a widespread myth that ‘investment’ properties are subject to more favourable tax consideration. The problem is that tax rules differentiate between ‘owner-occupied’ and ‘investment’ properties (each having some advantages) when they should differentiate between tenanted and untenanted properties.

At present landlords who receive rent from themselves – rent that is included in a country’s GDP – do not have to pay tax on that rental income. However, they cannot claim mortgage interest and repairs as a deductible cost, which ‘investors’ can. There are arbitrary advantages and disadvantages at present, according to whether a property is ‘investor’ or ‘owner-occupied’. 

If we treat all occupied houses as ‘tenanted’, then all rental income received would be subject to tax; albeit with two offsets. The first offset would be costs such as mortgage interest and repairs. The second offset would be rent paid. Thus a person receiving less rent for their house than what they pay for their (rented) home would not be subject to any tax on their rental income. 

We might note here that retired mortgage-free owner-occupiers would not like this change to tax rules. Here it is helpful to have a universal pension scheme as we do. New Zealand Superannuation payments need to be set on the basis that every recipient pays rent, even if it’s to themselves. Thus for retired people with mortgage-free homes, New Zealand Superannuation can be understood in part as a means through which they pay tax on their (implicit) rental incomes.

Effective citizenship and housing

While effective citizenship is a broad and inclusive concept, we often feel more like true citizens (and feel accepted as true citizens) if we possess equity in private property. We can do much to make it easier for younger people to gain private property equity by recognising that all property owners are landlords and that all property dwellers are tenants. Thus we should make it as easy for first-time property buyers to buy properties that will be tenanted by someone else as to buy properties they themselves will live in.

The dream would be that not only can we all aspire to be landlords, but that all landlords can be good landlords providing good quality housing for whoever lives in our houses, be it our own family or another. Further, all rules around taxation of housing income should discriminate only against owners of untenanted (ie empty) properties.

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iPredict: Goff V Williamson Battle Expected for Auckland Mayoralty

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www.ipredict.co.nz New Zealand Weekly Economic and Political Update

iPredict: Goff V Williamson Battle Expected for Auckland Mayoralty

There will be by-elections in both the Mt Roskill and Pakuranga electorates before the next general election, with their MPs, Labour’s Phil Goff and National’s Maurice Williamson, expected to face off for the Auckland mayoralty, according to the combined wisdom of the 8000+ registered traders on New Zealand’s predictions market, iPredict.  Stocks on who will be the next mayor of Auckland will be launched over the next week.  In national politics, both National’s John Key and Labour’s Andrew Little have become more secure as leaders of their parties over the next week, but National has made a small gain in terms of who will win the next election.  There has been a further rise in expectations for Auckland house prices but the Official Cash Rate is expected to remain at 3.5% next week.  Despite the so-called “sheepgate” scandal, foreign minister Murray McCully appears safe in his job through to the end of the year. 

New Zealand Politics:

·       John Key is expected to remain National leader until the end of 2016 (89% probability, up from 82% last week) but still has just a 48% probability of being National leader on Nomination Day (steady compared with last week).  Mr Key has just a 19% probability of remaining National leader until the end of 2017 (up from 15% last week)

·       Paula Bennett remains the favourite to become National Party leader if a vacancy arises (38%, up from 37% last week), followed by Judith Collins on 20% (down from 21%)

·       Andrew Little is expected to remain Labour leader until at least the end of 2016 (75% probability, up from 66% last week) and has a 79% probability of being Labour leader on Nomination Day (up from 60% last week).  Mr Little has a 56% probability of remaining Labour leader until the end of 2017 (up from 49% last week)

·       Stocks on who would replace Mr Little has leader of the Labour Party should a vacancy arise will be launched this week

·       Judith Collins has a 48% probability of being appointed to Cabinet this year (down from 50% last week) and a 62% probability of being appointed before the next election (down from 65%)

·       Tim Groser is expected to be New Zealand’s next Ambassador to the United States (93% probability, steady compared with last week) and Maureen Pugh is expected to become eligible to be a list MP before the next election (95% probability, steady)

·       Murray McCully is expected to remain Minister of Foreign Affairs through to the end of 2015 (only 48% probability of a departure)

·       Phil Goff is expected to stand for the Auckland mayoralty (93% probability, up from 86% last week) as is Maurice Williamson (71% probability, steady).  There is an 86% probability of a by-election in Mt Roskill before the next general election and a 53% probability of a by-election in Pakuranga (up from 25% last week)

·       Stocks on who will be elected the next Mayor of Auckland will be launched this week

·       Next general election expected in 2017 (95% probability, up from 94% last week) with a turnout of 75% (steady)

·       Forecast party vote shares at next election:

o   National                             44.4% (up from 44.0% last week)

o   Labour                               34.5% (up from 33.8%)

o   Greens                               11.1% (up from 10.8%)

o   NZ First                                7.9% (steady)

o   Others                                  2.2% (down from 3.5%)

·       NZ First has a 76% probability of holding the balance of power after the next election (down from 83% last week).  If NZ First does hold the balance of power, there is a 50% probability it will back Labour on confidence and supply (down from 51% last week), a 50% probability it will back National on confidence and supply (up from 45% last week), and a 0% probability it would sit on the crossbenches (down from 2%)

·       National prime minister expected after 2017 General Election (62% probability, up from 61% last week)

·       David Carter is expected to be New Zealand’s next High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (83% probability, steady compared last week) and Gerry Brownlee has a 71% probability of being the next New Zealand Speaker (down from 85% last week), ahead of Anne Tolley on 27% (new stock) 

New Zealand Business & Economics:

·       Average Auckland house price expected to rise from $809,200 in April to:

o   $818,000 in May (up from $815,356 last week)

o   $831,273 in June (up from $822,540)

o   $834,990 in July (up from $830,430)

o   $840,440 in August (new stocks)

·       The average Auckland house price is expected to reach $1,000,000 in 2018 (62% probability, steady compared with last week)

·       Fonterra’s final payout (before retentions) expected to be:

o   $4.65 in 2014/15 (down from $4.72 last week)

o   $5.41 in 2015/16 (down from $5.47)

o   $6.05 in 2016/17 (up from $6.04)

o   $6.15 in 2017/18 (new stocks)

·       Quarterly GDP growth expected to be:

o   0.84% in the March quarter (up from 0.81% last week)

o   0.66% in the June quarter (down from 0.67%)

o   0.90% in the September quarter (steady)

o   0.98% in the December quarter (steady)

·       Annual growth expected to be 3.41% in the 2015 calendar year (up from 3.39% last week)

·       Unemployment expected to be:

o   5.51% in the June quarter (up from 5.46% last week)

o   5.30% in the September quarter (steady)

o   5.37% in the December quarter (steady)

o   5.45% in the March quarter (up from 5.44%)

·       New Zealand pay gaps in 2014/15 expected to be:

o   Gender                                9.95% (steady compared with last week)

o   Maori                                   12.28% (steady)

o   Pacific                                 23.12% (steady)

o   Asian                                   20.43% (steady)

·       Current account deficit expected to be:

o   3.51% of GDP in the March quarter (down from 3.61% last week)

o   3.57% in the June quarter (steady)

o   3.39% in the September quarter (steady)

o   3.49% in the December quarter (steady)

·       Annual inflation expected to be:

o   0.45% to end of June 2015 quarter (up from 0.39% last week)

o   0.50% to end of September 2015 quarter (down from 0.55%)

o   0.82% to end of December 2015 quarter (up from 0.80%)

o   1.56% to end of March 2016 quarter (steady)

o   1.47% to end of June 2016 quarter (steady)

o   1.50% to end of September 2016 quarter (new stocks)

o   1.52% to end of December 2016 quarter (new stocks)

·       Official Cash Rate priced to be:

o   3.387% on 11 June (up from 3.370% last week)

o   3.270% on 23 July (up from 3.225%)

o   3.194% on 10 September (up from 3.147%)

o   3.157% on 29 October (up from 3.101%)

o   3.111% on 10 December (up from 3.056%)

o   3.102% on 28 January 2016 (up from 3.046%)

o   3.081% on 10 March 2016 (up from 3.025%)

o   3.071% on 28 April 2016 (up from 3.015%)

o   3.058% on 9 June 2016 (up from 3.003%)

·       This implies the OCR is more likely than not to be cut on 23 July 2015 to 3.25% (compared with 11 June last week) and to be cut again on 10 December 2015 (compared with 29 October 2015 last week) and then to be held at 3.00% until after 9 June 2016

·       5% probability of a fiscal surplus in 2014/15 (steady compared with last week)

·       Fiscal balance expected to be:

o   -0.32% of GDP in 2014/15 (down from -0.31% last week)

o   0.20% of GDP in 2015/16 (down from 0.31%)

o   1.26% of GDP in 2016/17 (down from 1.41%)

o   1.96% of GDP in 2017/18 (steady)

·       New Zealand dollar not expected to reach parity with Australian dollar by the end of 2015 (only 13% probability it will achieve parity, up from 12% last week)

·       Stocks on tourism arrivals are now available for trading 

Foreign Affairs/Constitution:

·       Andy Burnham is favourite to be the next leader of the UK Labour Party (52% probability, down from 56% last week), ahead of Liz Kendall (32%, up from 29%) and Yvette Cooper (15%, up from 6%)

·       Boris Johnson has a 35% probability of being prime minister before 2020 (down from 38% last week)

·       UK expected to vote to stay in EU by end of 2018 (75% probability, steady compared with last week)

·       Socialist Workers’ Party expected to defeat People’s Party in next Spanish election (67% probability, steady compared with last week)

·       All Eurozone countries, including Greece, expected to remain in Euro in 2015 (21% probability of an announcement of a departure this year, down from 23% last week).  There is only a 38% probability of a departure by the end of 2017 (steady compared with last week)

·       Tony Abbott is expected to be leader of the Australian Liberal Party on nomination day (63% probability, down from 65% last week) and Bill Shorten is expected to be Labor leader (90% probability, up from 89%)

·       Liberals ahead of Labor for next Australian Federal election in 2016 (63% probability of Liberal win, up from 57% last week)

·       Hillary Clinton is favoured to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for US president in 2016 and to be elected to that office (49% probability, steady compared with last week).  Jeb Bush has a 33% probability of being the Republican nominee (down from 35% last week) followed by Marco Rubio (23%, steady) and Scott Walker (20%, steady)

·       There is only a 9% probability New Zealand will sign the Trans-Pacific Partnership this year (down from 13% last week), and the Trans-Pacific Partnership is not expected to be ratified by the US Congress before 1 July 2017 (only 43% probability it will be, steady compared with last week)

·       Helen Clark’s chances of being the next UN Secretary General are 25% (up from 23% last week)

·       There is a 10% probability New Zealand will become a republic by 2020 (steady compared with last week)

Notes:

·       iPredict Ltd is owned by Victoria University of Wellington.  Details on the company and its stocks can be found at www.ipredict.co.nz.

·       The weekly economic and political update is prepared by Exceltium Ltd on a pro bono basis and is based on a snapshot taken at a random time each week.  This week’s was taken at 12.00 pm today. 

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Rave reviews and standing ovations for RNZB’s Salute

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Rave reviews and standing ovations for RNZB’s Salute The Royal New Zealand Ballet mixed programme Salute has been stunning audiences with its soul-stirring performances of four dance works marking the centenary of World War 1. [caption id="attachment_47019" align="aligncenter" width="565"]RNZB SALUTE dancers in Neil Ieremia's Passchendaele credit Ellie Richards. RNZB SALUTE dancers in Neil Ieremia’s Passchendaele credit Ellie Richards.[/caption]   Following the World premiere in Wellington reviewers said : “In the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Salute, four works (Dear Horizon, Soldier’s Mass, Salute and Passchendaele) combine in a triumph of the human spirit – and the company’s artistry.” … “Haunting melodies and percussive volleys of brass, performed superbly by the New Zealand Army Band, erupt from the pit…” Francesca Horsley, New Zealand Listener “From the powerful fevered opening with bodies hurtling across the stage, to the final image of dead soldiers and grieving lovers, and the final, ominous knock on the door, all the dancers perform intensely and with great skill.” Ann Hunt, Dominion Post “Salute, the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s commemorative programme marking the World War One centennial is choreographically diverse and emotionally charged.” Ian Lochhead, The Press Praise for Soldier’s Mass and Passchendaele : “The strength of unison is immense in this work but the strength of each individual dancer is electrifying and terrifying as we reflect on war without boundaries and war still in our world today.” … “This is Ieremia at his best and it is engrossing on every level.” … “Passchendale is a work that brings each artistic element together brilliantly and it is impossible to disconnect them.“ From Deirdre Tarrant, www.theatreview.co.nz “Passionately and stunningly choreographed and performed, Passchendaele is brilliant!” From Sheree Bright, www.theatreview.org.nz The RNZB heads to Hamilton (Wed 10 June) followed by dates in Takapuna, Auckland and Napier. Hamilton (10 June), Takapuna (13 – 14 June), Auckland (17 – 20 June), Napier (24 June). For venues see www.rnzb.org.nz NOTES: Salute: 22 May – 25 June

  • Dear Horizon (World Premiere): Choreography: Andrew Simmons, Music: Gareth Farr, performed by NZAB and Cellist Rolf Gjelsten, Design: Tracy Grant Lord
  • Salute: Choreography: Johan Kobborg, Music: Hans Christian Lumbye performed by the NZAB, Design: Natalia Stewart
  • Soldier’s Mass: Choreography & Design: Jiří Kylián, Music: Bohuslav Martinů
  • Passchendaele (World Premiere): Choreography & Design: Neil Ieremia, Music: Dwayne Bloomfield performed by the NZAB
Hamilton Founders Theatre: Wed 10 June 7.30pm: (Warm Up, Curtain Up 6.20pm) Takapuna Bruce Mason Centre: Sat 13 June 7.30pm, Sun 14 June 1.30pm (Sat 13 June: Warm Up, Curtain Up 6.20pm) Auckland ASB Theatre: Wed 17 – Sat 20 June 7.30pm, (Fri 19 June 6.20pm: Warm Up, Curtain Up) Napier Napier Municipal Theatre: Wed 24 June 7.30pm & Thur 25 June 6.30pm. [caption id="attachment_47020" align="aligncenter" width="565"]RNZB dancers in Dear Horizon credit Evan Boli. RNZB dancers in Dear Horizon credit Evan Boli.[/caption] Next season: The Vodafone Season of A Midsummer Night’s Dream: 20 August – 20 September In an unprecedented artistic coup, the Royal New Zealand Ballet is thrilled that Liam Scarlett, one of the most sought-after choreographers working today, will create A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for the company. Mendelssohn’s wonderful incidental music, Scarlett’s musical, witty choreography, displayed in designs by Tracy Grant Lord (Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet) and lighting by Kendall Smith (Giselle) will bring Shakespeare’s enchanted wood and vivid characters to fresh new life when it makes its world premiere in Wellington. The Royal New Zealand Ballet – www.rnzb.org.nz]]>

REGION: Secret state, human rights and post-coup Fiji freedoms feature in new Pacific media book

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MIL OSI Analysis – Item: 9296 AUCKLAND (Pacific Journalism Review/Pacific Media Watch): Pacific Journalism Review has celebrated 20 years of publishing with a new book this week on political reportage in the Asia-Pacific region, with chapters focusing on Australia’s growing “secret state”, climate change coverage, human rights in Pakistan and West Papua, and post-coup Fiji media freedoms. Edited by David Robie, Barry King, Philip Cass and Wendy Bacon, the book also features investigative journalism with inquiries in mining n New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand international reporting. It has been published in association with the Asian Media Communication and Information Centre (AMIC) in Singapore as part of the “Asian Communication Series”. It will be launched in Dubai next week at the annual AMIC conference. The introduction has been written by AUT University’s Head of Pacific Advancement, Walter Fraser, and his OPA will be sending 100 copies to embassies, consulates and strategic offices in the region. The book also features a research article on the contribution of the journal itself to Pacific journalism research and education over the past 20 years by Dr Lee Duffield of Queensland University of Technology. Founding editor Professor David Robie said: “Our first issue dealt with threats of secession from the state of Papua New Guinea by the Islands Region provinces – and censorship. “Over the years, PJR authors and researchers have tackled the Sandline mercenary crisis and the Bougainville War in Papua New Guinea, four coups in Fiji, West Papuan repression, mining and resource extraction, environmental degradation, media history and now climate change.” He said the journal, which celebrated its birthday at a special conference in Auckland last November, was a “critical conscience” of Asia-Pacific socio-political and development dilemmas. www.pjreview.info PJR book page PJR2014 conference video

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.

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Smith n Brown Announce Housing Accord on target at midpoint

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MIL OSI – Source: New Zealand Government – Housing Accord on target at midpoint Building and Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith and Mayor Len Brown have today welcomed the release of the latest Auckland Housing Accord monitoring report, which marks the halfway point of the three-year agreement between the Government and the council to address the city’s housing supply and affordability challenge. “This report shows we are 1234 homes and sections ahead of our targets at the halfway mark of the Housing Accord. In Year One we achieved 11,060, as compared to a target of 9000. In the first half of Year Two, we are at 5674, as compared to a full-year target of 13,000,” Dr Smith says. “The period covered in the report includes the traditionally slower months of January and February, as demonstrated by the steep pick-up seen in the consent figures for March. We remain committed to the Accord targets, and the focus of both the Government and the council remains on keeping our foot on the accelerator.” “The 84 Special Housing Areas (SHAs) created so far as part of the Accord are accelerating the release of land in Auckland and that will continue,” Mr Brown says. “The council will later this month consider more locations for suitability as SHAs, and that programme will continue throughout the year. “Other council initiatives include the creation of the council-controlled organisation Development Auckland to drive large urban development projects, and the provision of financial tools to enable community housing providers to build more affordable homes.” The Auckland Housing Accord, agreed on 1 October 2013, set a target of 39,000 new sections and dwelling consented over three years – with 9000 in Year One, 13,000 in Year Two and 17,000 in Year Three. The latest report shows that at 31 March 2015, 16,734 sections and dwellings had been consented. The Auckland Housing Accord monitoring report, produced jointly by Auckland Council and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), covers the six months from October 2014 to March 2015. The Accord, agreed between the Government and Auckland Council, provides for the creation of Special Housing Areas (SHAs) by the council with the approval of Government. Qualifying developments in the areas are able to be streamlined and fast-tracked. “We are succeeding in growing Auckland’s housing supply, with the rate of the city’s new house build doubling over the past three years. Our most recent initiative announced as part of last month’s Budget will see further collaboration between the Government and Auckland Council, as we proceed to facilitate housing development on vacant Crown-owned land,” Dr Smith says. “Our Accord with Auckland Council is one of seven we have agreed to date with local councils to address issues of housing supply and affordability across the country. We are also constraining new section development contributions, removing tariffs on building materials, and making record investments in building apprenticeships. Our KiwiSaver HomeStart scheme, which came into effect on 1 April 2015, provides financial assistance to 90,000 first-home buyers. “The next key measure is our planned second phase of the Resource Management Act reforms to tackle the long-term issues affecting housing affordability and supply,” Dr Smith says.

Further information on the Auckland Housing Accord is available from: www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/EN/ratesbuildingproperty/housingsupply/Pages/aucklandhousingaccord.aspx

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More secret trade talks focus on what’s good for business – CTU

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MIL OSI – Source: Council Of Trade Unions – More secret trade talks focus on what’s good for business Workers are concerned about what is being negotiated in the Trade In Services Agreement (TISA) as revealed in the largest ever leak from such negotiations by Wikileaks. Even less is known about the TISA negotiations than the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations. “New Zealand workers are increasingly concerned about what these secret deals mean for them,” CTU Secretary, Sam Huggard said. The New Zealand government is one of a small minority of WTO members pushing the negotiations. “The powers that these negotiations are giving to private corporations severely undermines the ability of governments to protect workers, the environment, and the stability of our financial system. The interests of corporations appear paramount.” “More and more Kiwis are concerned about what these backroom secret negotiations are about. Workers in this country deserve to know what is being agreed to as these negotiations will directly impact on peoples lives.” –]]>

Jane Kelsey: Wikileaks TISA dump makes a mockery of secrecy, exposes NZ’s extreme position

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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 LARGEST EVER LEAK of documents from a ‘trade’ negotiation, Wikileaks has posted a raft of texts and documents tabled in the Trade in Services Agreement negotiations. The topics range from finance, post and transport to professional services and domestic regulation.

‘This leak sends a resounding message to countries that are determined to negotiate TISA in the shadows of the World Trade Organisation’, said trade in services expert Professor Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland.

‘The 24 parties, including New Zealand, have tried to shroud this deal in even more secrecy than the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). Documents are to remain secret until 5 years after the agreement comes into force or negotiations are formally terminated. That’s clearly not going to happen.’

There is a stocktaking meeting in Geneva early July. Professor Kelsey urged the parties to revoke their secrecy pact and resolve to release all the documents, as some TISA countries have begun to do unilaterally.

Among the leaks are updates on financial services and e-commerce texts that were first posted last year. According to Professor Kelsey, they confirm that the world’s most powerful services exporters, acting on behalf of their corporations, refuse to learn any lessons from the global financial crisis and want instead to intensify the risks from barely regulated cross border finance.

‘The e-commerce chapter remains equally worrying’, Professor Kelsey said. ‘They could limit or even prevent governments from requiring firms to hold data locally, and allow them to choose to store it offshore in countries with minimal privacy protection and intrusive spying laws’.

New Zealand’s role stands starkly exposed, most notably by the domestic regulation text. Having failed to get WTO members to agree to extreme neoliberal ‘disciplines’ that require them to adopt light-handed and risk-tolerant approaches to regulation, it is pushing this aggressively through TISA.

‘That failed model brought us finance company collapses, leaky buildings, the Pike River mining disaster, elder-abuse in our rest homes’, Kelsey said. 

‘The National government recklessly locked New Zealand governments into this model through the free trade deal with South Korea. Now it wants to bind all the other TISA governments to do the same. If the government has its way, this extreme position will ultimately end up being imposed on the entire 160 members of the WTO, including some of the world’s most vulnerable countries.’

‘Just as growing numbers of New Zealanders have challenged the back door dealings in the TPPA, they need to send the same message over TISA and any other secret negotiation over which we have no say.’

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NewsRoom Digest: Top NZ News Items for June 3, 2015

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Newsroom Digest

This edition of NewsRoom_Digest contains 6 media release snippets and 4 links of the day from Wednesday 3rd June.

Top stories in the current news cycle include a meeting between Prime Minister John Key and Amnesty International’s global Secretary-General Salil Shetty today – with the topic of refugee quotas being raised, the latest results from the NZCER National Monitoring Study of National Achievement showing just 41 percent of Year 8 children were performing at or above level 4 of the maths curriculum and comments from the Privacy Commissioner after the Ministry of Social Development received a complaint from an abuse claimant who was sent someone else’s information that such breaches are simply sloppy.

SNIPPETS OF THE DAY

More Funding Will Help NZ Exports : Extra Budget funding will help exporters take full advantage of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and avoid the risk of costly delays at overseas borders, Customs Minister Nicky Wagner says. “Exports to China and ASEAN countries have increased significantly in the past four years. This is good for exporters and good for our economy, but as the volume of exports has increased, so too has the number of administrative issues arising at the border,” Ms Wagner says.

Commodity Price Drop As Dairy Prices Sink:New Zealand commodity prices fell for a second month in May on continued weakness in dairy products and a decline in prices of meat. The ANZ Commodity Price Index for May declined by 4.7 percent, following April’s 7.4 percent decline. The index is now about 18 percent lower than in May 2014.

Labour Party: Treasury Forecast Off Track: National’s rosy predictions of a global dairy price rise to lift the Government books out of the red are off the mark again with the latest fall showing how wrong Treasury’s forecasts were, says Labour’s Finance spokesperson Grant Robertson.

New Consumer Credit Laws: Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Paul Goldsmith welcomes new rules that will better protect borrowers taking effect from Saturday 6 June. “A new era in consumer lending begins this Saturday where all lenders must meet responsible lending obligations and consumers have access to better information to help them make better borrowing choices,” Mr Goldsmith says.

Social Worker To Help New Mums: Health Minister Jonathan Coleman welcomes a new domestic violence social worker role which will be based at Auckland DHB’s National Women’s Hospital. “We’re committed to giving new mums and their babies the best possible care,” says Dr Coleman. “Starting or expanding a family can be a stressful time and we want to ensure that mums and babies are safe and supported.”

Green Party : Are Our Spy Agencies Stopping Asylum Seekers: Prime Minister John Key needs to confirm if our spy agencies were involved in snooping on asylum seekers and potentially breaching our international human rights obligations, Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said today.

LINKS OF THE DAY

DISABILITY SUPPORT CHANGES: Information on progress in implementing the recommendations of a major review of disability support services is available at: www.health.govt.nz/our-work/disability-services/putting-people-first-quality-review

AA NEW ZEALAND’S PETROL WATCH: Fuel prices in many parts of the country rose a total of 2 cents per litre during May, but in other areas the price rise was much higher as the long-running price discount war suddenly came to an end. For more information, go to: www.aa.co.nz/petrolwatch

EXPORT EARNINGS HIGHER THAN IMPORT SPENDING: New analysis released by Statistics New Zealand today shows that New Zealand earned $2.8 billion more from exports than we spent on imports during the year ended March 2015. For more information about these statistics, click here: http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/imports_and_exports/GoodsServicesTradeCountry_HOTPYeMar15.aspx

GOVERNMENT FORESTRY GRANTS: Northland farmers and landowners are being encouraged to take full advantage of a Government forestry grant scheme, with the Northland Regional Council advising it also has options to help. For more information on the Government’s Afforestation Grant Scheme, go to: www.mpi.govt.nz/funding-and-programmes/forestry/afforestation-grant-scheme

And that’s our sampling of the day that was on Wednesday 3rd June 2015.

Brought to EveningReport by Newsroom Digest. –]]>

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