Gerry Brownlee loses the plot

When Gerry Brownlee (Minister of Energy and Resources) refused to answer a question from Green Party MP, Metiria Turei in Parliament today, he demonstrated that he doesn't really understand his job or why he is there.

His excuse was something like: she didn't accept his answers, so why should he give her any answers? Mr. Brownlee reveals how very personally he sees all of this....and what a petty man he must really be.

This isn't about Gerry and Metiria. It's about explaining his government's policies, decisions and actions to the people of New Zealand. Gerry Brownlee shouldn't give a flying rubber toss what Meteria Turei thinks about his answers. Instead he should be telling the people who pay his salary (we taxpayers and voters) why he is doing what he is doing.....even if he has to do it 10 times a day in response to questions.

This isn't first time Gerry Brownlee has demonstrated he doesn't really understand what his job as an MP is. Examples are many, but this one stuck out in my memory: In December last year he thought it more important to score points on Labour's Michael Cullen than table proposed legislation so that it could be available for consideration and debate. There is a recurrent theme of Mr. Brownlee losing sight of his real job and instead focusing on personal point scoring....as though this was the top priority and best use of his time.

It isn't.....but I doubt Mr. Brownlee will ever really understand that. In any case, he is a poor choice as a Minister and indicative of a lack depth in National's caucus.

National: Errors, political capital and democracy

In 2004/5 George W Bush said he had political capital and he was going to spend it. In line with my hypothesis that National is just as blind as Bush was to the serious flaws in both their world view and the policies that extend from it, they appear to be determined to throw away the 3%-4% it would take to see them lose the Beehive in 2011. People who don’t like them should, I suppose, let them get on with that, though the downside is we all have to suffer the consequences of fairly obvious (to anyone but them) error.

Their series of errors in recent weeks (Mt. Albert, Waterview, mishandling of Auckland amalgamation) will take time to bear their bitter electoral fruit, but unless something major happens, that fruit appears to be programmed in.

As for the Auckland 'Super-Colider' being built to merge the existing municipalities into one, the government and the media have tended to characterise opposition as parochial special interests protecting their patch. Thay may well be true in part, but it is far from the whole story. For many people - like me - the problem with the government's plan is the degraded democracy in the intended model for the new city. I'm in favour of amalgamation, but see no reason why the new city can't also be more democratic and more genuinely representative than the the current plan will allow. My own submission to the Royal Commission recommended at least 35 councillors elected from multi-member wards by STV. The overall effect of that would have ensured all significant communities of interest were represented on the one Council.

The intended model offers twenty councillors where there used to be over 100, and 20-30 toothless community boards rendering a democracy gutted of subtance and quarantined. This is a major reduction in democracy - and thus accountability. Even worse, they will be elected by First Past the Post, which hands power to the largest minority. We may - and probably will - see a majority of the Council controlled by people elected by less than 30% of all voters. Hoorah!

I know the National Party is all in favour of a minority having absolute power, but I’m not and nor are many other people. This has nothing to do with parochialism. It’s democracy and representation at its most basic……and National consistently demonstrate they do not like democracy unless it only delivers power to them and their supporters. They are actively hostile to other people being represented. That means, they don’t like us. All of us. Including their own voters.

That the National party collectively have poor judgement is already obvious: Murray McCully, Tony Ryall and Judith Collins are all MPs and cabinet ministers. Little more need be said on that subject. Melissa Lee is just one more in a long series of examples of poor judgement.

At some future date, we may be treated to the bizarre spectacle of National party voters in safe Labour seats like Mana and Mt Albert voting against MMP in National's proposed referendum on the voting system. National's intention in holding the referendum is, again, to strip people they don't like of their votes and deprive them of their representation. National voters in safe labour seats would thus be voting to make their own votes worthless in future.

You have to be a special kind of crazy to hate your own vote. Your view of the world and understanding of democracy with respect to yourself must be seriously dysfunctional. That’s the sort of thing we see from Islamic extremists who vote the Imams into power so there won’t be any more elections. Faith over reason……Kiwi-style. An extreme metaphor, but it captures the sense of it. Yielding up future accountability in an irrational display of faith in those who stand before you today.

It remains to be seem how much political capital the government will have "spent" in the end, but at the rate they are going, doubts will be growing in more minds each day as to whether or not this government deserves any more time on the Treasury Benches than they now have. A government hostile to democracy is, in the end, the enemy of everyone.

(This was originally written as a comment over at the Standard, but I've expanded it and posted it here.)

Science versus folklore and political expediency

Last week, The Listener (March 28th, 2009, p6) published a letter which in a few paragraphs exposed the main failings of the present government's approach to youth crime. It was written by Prof. John Werry, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, and commented on the Government's promotion of boot camps as a solution to youth crime by the worst offenders in the 12-16 age group. The letter deserves a much wider audience and I'm happy to my bit in the public interest.

The significance of this letter to me is that it highlights how, in yet another area of policy, how "folklore and political expediency" are too often in direct conflict with verifiable reality. Somehow, we as a civilisation have to re-discover how to see things as they really are and not as we might prefer to believe them to be. This cartoon sums that tension up reasonably well.

My own experience working in prisons is in accord with what Prof Werry is saying. We, as Corrections Officers, had no training or background in handling the psychological needs of prisoners. As key-bearers in a prison we oversaw the daily routines of life behind bars and coped with whatever came our way as best we could. But it was as obvious as the nose on Stephen Fry's face that we were way out of our depth in dealing with the state of some of the worst minds held behind bars, yet we were tasked with "case management" of these people.

I don't know how long The Listener leaves letters online, so I'm posting the full text of the letter here.

Boot Camps
The current debate about boot camps for hard-core juvenile offenders is much more than that – it is really about whether social/health policy should be driven by science or by folklore and political expediency.

A body of systematic scientific knowledge about juvenile delinquency has been garnered over at least the past 100 years, yet it is spurned by media in favour of racy but trivialising stories (for example, the recent Nine to Noon interview with a delinquent and then a boot-camp operator, with nary a reference to the scientific facts about how to deal effectively with juvenile criminals).

Likewise, the Government is proposing “be seen to be doing something at all costs” policies that thumb the nose at senior public officials who are unanimously opposed, at the chief Youth Court judge and at scientific expertise.

So, what are the key failings in the proposed government policy on hard-core juvenile offenders?

The focus is rightly on the worst offenders as though they are less than 10% of offenders, they are responsible for half of juvenile crime, commit the worst crimes, start younger, are recidivist and will grow up to be a huge burden to society ($2-5 million) if not somehow changed. This group has been shown not to respond to most publicly funded programmes in the Western world – for example, to boot camps, scared straight, mentoring, alternative schools and borstals – but only to individualised comprehensive and multisystemic programmes founded on behavioural science and delivered by expert staff. Worse, these programmes cannot be mounted for less than $100,000* per youth per year (* Werry later said "The figure of $100,000 for an individualised comprehensive and multi-systemic programme was based on past costs for Youth Horizons, the leading specialist conduct-disorder non-governmental organisation. It now says it can run evidence-based programmes for $20,000. This would reduce the national costs accordingly by four-fifths" - in other words: cheaper) and must be carried on for years, not the Government’s planned one year maximum.

Currently, these residential youth justice programmes are half the proposed length, are run on a shoestring mostly by enthusiastic and caring but untrained Maori providers who believe love and maoritanga are enough. Not surprisingly, then, these have a high failure rate (11 programmes in 10 years in the eastern Bay of Plenty), mostly because of excessively punitive treatment or false accusations of such by youth. Further aggregating juvenile offenders has been shown to actually make them worse and harder to handle.

Most provincial districts – even high-risk ones such as Gisborne – have no residential programmes and must send their youth to programmes anywhere in the country that has a vacancy. This makes work with the families and the youth’s local social worker impossible. Typically there is no aftercare programme and youth are returned to the same malignant environment that created the problem in the first place.

The Minister of Social Welfare’s response to this criticism merely exposed her naivety when she mumbled about mentoring, which has not shown to be helpful, is overly simplistic and would require mentors trained by the Big Brother organisation, of whom there are very few in New Zealand.

Despite the current system being unscientific, underfunded, amateurish, ineffectual and unable to cope with the current load, the Government is proposing to double the length of time of sentences and to extend the lower age limit from 14 to 12, creating a fourfold increase in demand.

Also, the Government has grossly underestimated the number of hard-core offenders – the scientific evidence shows they will be 1-2% of the population in the 12-16 age band, which is several hundred times the Government’s figures.

Worst of all, the Fresh Start programme proposed by the Government cannot achieve the objectives it says it will. It lacks scientific underpinning, has never been tested for efficacy (most programmes fail this test), lacks trained staff and programme managers who simply cannot be found in the numbers required, is far too short to produce lasting change, lacks comprehensive multi-systemic evidence-based approaches (which are the only ones that do work), is not going to be funded at the level required to do any good (at least $300 million a year is needed) and grossly understates the size and difficulty of doing the job.

It sounds good but is a complete fiasco. The public should not be fooled by spin and outright propaganda.

John Key has an opportunity to move from being a politician to a statesman who is not afraid to say, “I was wrong and we must now do a complete rethink basing our programme on expert scientific knowledge.” Will he do it? I doubt it but I hope I am wrong.
Professor John Werry
Child and adolescent psychiatrist
(Mt Eden, Auckland)

Is criticisizing Israel "anti-semitism"?

The Simon Weisenthal Center in the US is up in arms because a cartoonist there, Pat Oliphant, published a cartoon portraying Israel as a headless jack-booted military figure monstering a small girl named "Gaza". They say the cartoon: "is meant to denigrate and demonise Israel".

That may be true. Decide for yourself, I've included the cartoon here. People will see it differently depending on their own presumptions, beliefs and priorities with respect to modern Israel versus the tragic history of Jews in Europe.

Perhaps Israel has done things recently that deserve recognition as being very bad and very wrong. Does Israel get a free pass from criticism and accountability forever for their own atrocities because of the Nazi horrors? Do any Arab/Palestinian atrocities make anything and everything Israel does justifiable? Tough questions. We're told "Two wrongs don't make a right" and there is a lot of truth in it. Law almost everywhere is based on that simple idea. It's why vigilantism is illegal.

The wave of criticism directed toward Israel now is primarily a consequence of Israel's actions in Gaza a few months ago. Since then, Israeli soldiers have revealed many things were done that - if true - are clearly illegal and contrary to any understanding of good moral or ethical conduct. They do resemble strongly the way Nazis behaved toward Jews and other minorities all those years ago.

Israel's response has been the usual (counter-productive) one: portraying criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. This is a long-standing tactic of Israel and its supporters. A few years ago, our own government ended up apologising to Israel for critical comments made by then-Prime Minister Helen Clarke after two of Israel's Mossad agents were convicted of illegally trying to obtain New Zealand passports in the names of two disabled people. That night, someone kicked over tombstones in a previously unmolested (for 135 years) Jewish cemetery in Wellington. The Prime Minister was all but blamed for it by David Zwartz, at the time (and perhaps still) the local voice for the Israeli government in New Zealand. The implication was very much that anyone who criticises Israel is fanning the flames of anti-semitism. I say it is counter-productive because you start with someone who isn't anti-semitic and who is asking what they think is a legitimate question and end up with someone who has been villified, shouted down and made to look like something they are not - anti-semitic. That isn't how anyone makes friends.

Judging from the behaviour of Israel's most one-eyed supporters, no link can be drawn between the actions of Israel itself and any resulting anti-Jewish feeling some may feel. They want to retain the admiration and respect earned in the era of Meir and Ben Gurion without upholding the values and principles that earned that respect.

Nice if you can do it. Problem is you can't. The Israeli government is in effect holding Jews everywhere hostage to its policies and their fallout, whether they support those policies or not. Adopting policies that would reflect well on Jews everywhere and see Israel a country only to be admired doesn't appear to be an option. Yet it is the only way to go in the long run.

As for myself, I have been a long time admirer of the Israel of Golda Meir and David Ben- Gurion. I strongly admire the ethics and philosophy of the Israeli kibbutz movement and the Jewish community as I came to know it personally in places like Toronto and Montreal. Trite as it sounds, many of my best friends and work mates over the years have been Jews and I think none the less of them because of anything Israel has done. I rarely even gave it thought. I am about as far away from being anti-semitic as it is possible to be.

To me, it is obvious all Jews are not Israel and Israel is not all Jews just as George W Bush isn't every American and every American isn't George W Bush. For example, in the US and Canada, Jewish people have been among the front ranks of those leading many campaigns for justice (social or more general) and seeking to advance liberal, progressive values I also share and support. In 2007, I worked in the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto (CSI), a monument to the best, most admirable values anywhere and made possible by a Jewish person who owned the building and supported the creation of the Centre. At the same time, I have no time for the Israeli religious zealots, the imperialists and the one-eyed militants who think more violence and oppression will solve all their problems. Clearly they do not. After 42 years (since the 1967 war) of such an approach, things are worse than ever.

Some of Israel's most powerful critics are jews. Israel's alleged crimes in Palestine generally and Gaza in particular aren't ethnic or religious issues. They are human rights issues. I certainly don't excuse any crimes committed by terrorists against Israel, but Israel is being dishonest in not looking at why this problem wasn't resolved - or at least reduced - many years ago. Recent revelations by Israeli soldiers make it clear that at least some parts of the Israeli military are in the grip of a sort of "manifest destiny" that ultimately allows no land whatever for Palestinians. That this is government policy is more obvious than ever as any talk of peace talks is inevitably drowned out by some emergency or other. That pattern is now very clear.

Israel needs to stop using the Holocaust as a smoke screen for its apparent war crimes in Gaza (and earlier dubious military actions) which have accumulated attention over time and attracted strong criticism now. They dishonour the memory of those who were slaughtered by the Nazis by using them over and over to justify their own summary killings, assasinations and alleged war crimes. A child in front an Israeli target is too often a dead child and this is supposed to be acceptable.

As for Pat Oliphant's cartoon, all that matters is whether or not there is truth in it. Today, after the recent revelations of Israeli soldiers linked to above, it would appear there is truth there and it is a truth that reflects badly on the government of the state of Israel, separate and distinct from the talented, intelligent and in many ways amazing group of people I know as Jews, when I give their ethnicity a thought at all.

Airborne minimum wage

Air New Zealand staff working mainly trans-Tasman routes have said they plan to strike for 4 days from April 8th, into the front end of the usually very busy Easter weekend. The strike will finish on the Saturday night.

"The crew are employed by an airline subsidiary, Zeal 320, and are paid at different rates to Air NZ domestic and long-haul cabin crew."

"The union said Zeal 320 staff were being paid "poverty wages" and those working directly for the parent company received thousands of dollars more."

So what are Zeal 320 staff being paid? Not much. (pdf). The starting wage is NZ$25,625 (US$14,606 today at NZ$1 = US$0.57). There is no overtime and virtually no allowances. That's barely more than the minimum wage now if we assume a 40 hour week and less than the $26,000 / annum a worker on the new $12.50 / hour rate would earn from April 1st, 2009.

The EPMU's claim these are "povery wages" would appear to be true considering virtually all these staff will live in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch. To put hat into perspective, buying an average house ($332,000 as of this week nationally - more in the big cities) on those wages would take 14 years at NO interest and not a single penny spent on anything else. In reality, it would be completely impossible. More and more people are earning this kind of money.

As the government is the owner of Air New Zealand, this moves the present government's promises to raise Kiwi wages well into the laughable zone. Almost every policy they have brought in or plan to bring in makes it easier for employers to pay people less.

If we want evidence of deflationary pressures, Zeal 320 is a perfect example. There will be no economic "recovery" if this is the trend workers face in New Zealand and there is precious little to suggest this isn't the case.

If things pick up overseas, Kiwis - especially the young - will be off in a heartbeat....and who could blame them? Their own government certainly isn't interested in keeping them here.

NZ Herald misleads on climate change - again

A glance at the front page of this morning's NZ Herald drew my eyes to this headline:

Survey: NZ cooler on global warming

The headline implies that Kiwis are losing interest in the subject of climate change. The content of the story demonstrates this is very much not the case:

• 87% want action on climate "very soon" or "in coming years"
• 42% (down 21- want to lead the world in taking action and 39% (up 12 - want to keep up with the rest of the world)
  
• Sustainable Business Council chief executive Peter Neilson ... said other nations had "lapped" New Zealand when it came to policies, such as the Emissions Trading Scheme, that were being discussed here in 2007. That had made it easier to follow and harder to lead. "There's a lot more competition now."
• Sixty-five per cent believed the effects of global warming had already begun and 44 per cent believed it would threaten lifestyles within their lifetime.
• Asked if they agreed with a statement by the UN Secretary General that the case for human-driven  climate change was proven and the time for action was past, 65% agreed and 14% disagreed.   
  

Clearly, Kiwis are convinced that climate change is real and something needs to be done. The shift from "leading the world" to merely keeping up is most likely caused by people recognising the present government doesn't actually want to do anything at all about climate change. Meanwhile the United States now has leadership committed to action while New Zealand hasmoved from a leadership position to becoming a backwater of denial. People may simply be being realistic about what they may expect from a willfully ignorant government that has done worse than nothing and cut funding for programs that would have begun to address the problem of climate change. At this point, just keeping up would be a big step forward. 

The Herald's headline  is deliberately misrepresenting the findings of a survey showing people are concerned about climate change and want action to be taken. Given their representations of climate change almost always tend to the denialist side, the use of the word "deliberate" is appropriate. 

The real story here is just how far out of touch the present government is with the public on the issue of climate change. Good on the Herald for recognising this is a front page story. Boos and jeers for trying to make it look like something other than what it is. 

The productivity scam

Tane, over at The Standard, posted today on Prime Minister John Key's reported comments on wages and productivity. The Herald carries an NZPA report that quotes Key as saying,

"In reality, lifting the minimum wage will only take workers so far," he said. "In the end, it's productivity that drives wages.

How does that work exactly, John?

In his post, Tane made one point that stuck in my mind:

"...in a capitalist system any benefit from productivity increases goes directly into the pockets of business owners. You need a mechanism to translate that into wages. And that mechanism is decent employment protections and a unionised workforce that has the strength to bargain decent wage increases."

It's obvious when you say it. Anyone who has been working for wages knows it's true. What amazes me is how rarely we hear that said. Instead, the vast majority of politicians, media and business people, almost to a man (or a woman), have for decades been telling us all the same thing John Key said: Increased productivity is the key to higher wages.

Oh..and they have also told us unions are bad. To be fair, some unions have been bad (just as some businesses have been bad - Blue Chip anyone?). No one could argue the union that used to regularly hold the inter island Cook Strait ferry service to ransom did themselves or anyone else any favours in the long run. In the US, unions were too often the target for infiltration by organised crime. But as we can clearly see today, the boardrooms and trading rooms of the banking world have been similarly infested by either idiots or criminals (or both) and to much worse effect. The failures are mainly human failures and don't necessarily invalidate the original purpose of the organisations they pervert - be they unions or banks.

The question Tane answers is HOW productivity can be turned into higher wages. When we consider his answer and look at how the labour market has been changing in recent decades, we see organised labour getting weaker, not stronger. As a consequence, whatever the productivity gains might be, there is absolutely no guaranttee whatever that those gains will flow through to employees as higher wages.

My own anecdotal observations suggest strongly the supply of labour more than outweighs any effect productivity might have. If labour is scarce, wages will go up almost without reference to productivity improvements. If labour is abundant, employers can and do bid wages down, again without regard to productivity. They may even move the whole business from a place where labour is tight to another where it's abundant and therefore cheaper. Productivity is very much an also-ran. 

If labour is abundant in a given sector, or in the economy as a whole, I'm betting you could improve productivity all you like and wages won't budge. Wages may even fall if too many people are competing for the same jobs.

I know of a company in Auckland where the workers have been told they won't be getting any wage rises this year. Word came down from HQ in the US. Some of the conglomerate's other units in other regions are struggling in the downturn. We're all supposed to pull together and share the pain. It's an admirable sentiment. We're all in it together. The motivation hardly matters. The point is: productivity is irrelevant.

But the local company (originally a Kiwi company until bought in 2007) in NZ and Australia has just had its best year ever and is in the middle of a strong first quarter. Still no wage rises. Clearly, performance here means nothing to the people making the decisions.

If you don't like it, your only option is to seek employment elsewhere. 

The productivity mantra would suggest to us that the more you increase productivity, the more money you will earn. But that money must first be filtered through the balance sheet of the company you might work for. That company's head office might be in New York, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo or wherever. History, even anecdotal as in my anonymised example above, shows very clearly the money tends to get stuck there and what money does go to employees tends to be huge bonuses for those at the top. The folks down the bottom get.....not so much. Maybe they get to keep their jobs. Maybe not. They may even be outsourced entirely as management looks for the next "productivity increase". Many is the worker who was sacked from the place they work and offered what is essentially the same job - at lower wages - with a contractor who will now perform the same service for the company they used to provide. I could bore you with the sad tail of the Polish cleaning ladies at a bank.....but I won't. It's too typical. 

Tane cites experience in the US:

"The American experience has been even more stark - since the mid 1970s productivity has increased by 70 percent but wages have remained static. Between 2001 and 2004, when productivity rose 11.7 percent, median household income grew by a mere 1.6 percent."

"That’s what happens when you remove employment protections and make it harder for workers to organise through their unions - wages stagnate and the benefits of economic growth go exclusively to those at the top."

The more you think about it, the more obvious it becomes this has been a scam all along...and it's not the only one.

We already know "trickle down" is essentially a lie. The wealthiest told us if they get all the money, we will get some of it as they spend it.Then they bought a lot of expensive imported stuff and at the same time millions of jobs got outsourced to India and China or Mexico or wherever. Trickle that.

Then there was the automation scam. This was a great uncle to the later productivity scam. I remember back in the 60s and early 70s, automation was going to lead to shorter working hours and more prosperity and free time for everyone. We might not have to work at all as one day robots might do all the work for us. That was a scam, too. You know that if robots could do it all, there would also be police robots used to suppress the unrest among the burgeoning hungry unemployed.

Poor dumb beasts that most people are, many have been convinced that what is best for them is actually bad and what is worst for them is actually good. One might think of it as a form of the Stockholm Syndrome: trapped inside a corporate-owned and driven propaganda bubble, where they are told endlessly policies that reduce their own wages, conditions and job security are "good", they come to think of their captors interests as being their own and fight hard to stop anyone from improving their situation.

The evidence is accumulating that rampant capitalism must be offset by transparent and effectively political institutions and strong organisations of workers collectively representing their own interests as effectively as those at the top have done for the past 30 years.

This brings me back to our Prime Minister, John Key. Yes, broadly speaking, at macro-economic level, if one economy is more productive than another (and what they make is sought after), that economy will do well.

But militating against that are all of the factors above which render completely invalid any presumption that IF productivity rises in Workplace A, THEN wages will certainly rise.

They may and they may not....as other, more significant factors allow or require.

Is Mr. Key knowingly perpetrating the productivity scam? Or has he simply embraced it as an article of faith, part of the catechism of the Business Religion.......and not actually looked at what happens in real life and seen it for what it is?

Finally, please note that almost all people, if properly managed, trained and motivated, do work at their jobs diligently and do the things they are expected to do. Many perform at a higher level still. Any worker - unionised or not - must be productive and do the job that needs doing. NO arguments there. The point of this post is to highlight that most often this is taken for granted and is irrelevant to their wages and conditions. For example, people working in a busy restaurant for the minimum wage are paid the same amount as people working in a less busy restaurant who don't need to work as hard. They are often spectacularly productive and conscientious. But as far as wages are concerned, it doesn't matter. They still get paid the same. Productivity doesn't matter enough to see them paid any more.

If you got this far and you're finding this hard to accept, that's OK. Like all of us, you've been conditioned for years to think otherwise and seeing things as they really are can give one a headache.

Take an aspirin/disprin and keep your eyes open. 

Shifty energy games - not in my name, thanks.

Wednesday, the business section of the NZ Herald reported "Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee has said that improved productivity, rather than continual price rises, was expected from the generators". Today, the Herald informs us "The Government has summoned the heads of State-owned enterprises to an April 9 meeting, where they will be told to improve their performance."

The "E" word from the 90's - efficiency - re-emerged, too. Back then it was by-word for a governmental process that essentially crippled public enterprises in order to run them down and thus justify eventually sell them off.

"We are keen to talk to them to make sure they are contributing to the economy in an efficient way," State-Owned Enterprises Minister Simon Power told NZPA.

"In the six months to the end of December 2008 we have seen the net profit after tax across those portfolios reduce by 50 per cent.

"That is a matter that a shareholder of any commercial enterprise would be concerned to discuss."

What does he mean by "contribute to the economy in an efficient way"? Lower prices? How then can they earn higher returns? Lower costs? They are already under fire for old and / or inadequate infrastructure. Given Energy Minister Brownlee has said they shouldn't increase prices, it looks very much like National is setting the SOE boards an impossible set of conditions: increase profits - presumably by the 50% referred to - without increasing price.

The Herald reports Minister Power summoned the SOE heads to a meeting to discuss measures to improve their financial performance.

Labour's Charles Chauvel says, "This is code for SOEs charging higher prices to the public. ... There is fundamentally one way that energy SOEs can contribute higher dividends to the Government - by charging higher prices."

History says he is right. Power's reference to taxpayers having a $24 billion dollar investment in the power companies makes it clear he expects a commercial rate of return - no matter what the economic circumstances at the time may be. That rate of return could be - say - 10%. That would be annual profits on the order of $2.4 billion dollars. Maybe more. Maybe less.

In my opinion, National's setting up a Kangaroo Court for the SOE boards. If they do make the money he demands from them, he'll call them robbers and sack them for putting prices up. If they don't make the money, he'll sack them for non-performance. There's no way these organisations can meet these conflicting requirements and any one of these pretexts can be used to sack the boards. It would seem the Minister doesn't want them to succeed. No other conclusion fits the situation National is creating.

Once again National confirms for me they aren't a party I could ever vote for. Ideology aside, they way they operate is simply shifty. That makes them bad employees. Our employees.

Not in my name, thanks.

Another National light weight: Nick Smith

Nick Smith's reported performance at a Select Committee hearing was bizarre and inappropriate. My understanding of these things is that ACC is an independent body, not any Minister's play thing. Smith is more than free to state his own position, but he demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the rules around independent state bodies when he presumes to turn up at a hearing and speak for - and over the top of - the responsible person from that body. Even if it is "legal" to interfere as he did, it was a very bad look.

In turning up at the meeting and talking over top of ACC's Jan White when she was being asked questions, he demonstrated he isn't a competent Minister. The issue the Committee was trying to investigate was whether or not Dr. Smith's claims ACC was insolvent were true. Smith couldn't let the facts speak for themselves, which is in itself revealing.

Smith has had trouble in the past controlling his hot-headed approach when under pressure. He crashed and burned in a few weeks after being made deputy leader of national a few years back. I think drinking too much "V" was the excuse back then.

The list National party second-raters in important jobs is growing: Tony Ryall in Heath, Judith Collins in Corrections, Murray McCully is converting foreign aid into cash for cronies, Lockwood Smith was moved to Speaker to keep hiim out of harm's way, Gerry Brownlee as Energy minister has show little regard for the facts where coal buring is concerned...and now Nick Smith.

Either John Key is a poor judge of his people or the National team is very light indeed where talent is concerned.

The nine day fortnight vs interest rates

The government is prepared to put up $60 each fortnight for each employee in a company with over 100 employees or more in a bid to save jobs. That would amount to a subsidy to a business taking it up of at least $3,000 / week. This is projected to cost up to NZ$20million.

Let's do some math - at risk of embarrasing myself. Give me credit for trying here.

The RBNZ says there is over NZ$90 billion ("BB1" in RBNZ-speak) in term deposits as of January '09. The terms will vary in length. If I've read the numbers right, there is another $84billion or so (BB2.4 and BB4.4) made up of deposits that aren't term deposits. Presumably they attract some interest. I think the latter pair exclude household chequing and transaction accounts.

Assuming just $100 billion in deposits attracting interest (very conservative, given the number appears to actually be $170 Billion), how much money goes up in smoke for every drop in interest rates of 1%?

$1,000,000,000 per annum.

Every 0.1% drop in interest rates is like losing $100 million / annum from the pockets of savers / people with capital.

If that number is remotely accurate (probably too low), the savers and people with 'capital' (money in the bank in huge gobs) are paying a high price, as a group, to provide cheaper credit to everyone else. It makes the $20 million the government is putting up look like.....well....very little.

The cost of the nine-day fortnight offer is further limited by the required size of the company - at least 100 employees. It would also make the number of applications easier to handle. After all, if you made it so every company with more then two employees eligible, the crash would be over before all the applications were cleared and 10,000 civil servants would need to be hired to ensure compliance.

Where I work, the $60 amount to 2 or 3 hours pay - at the very most and usually less, making this offer a 9 day, 6 hour fortnight. That would translate into maybe two long lunches each fortnight.

It looks like more of a gesture than a move of real substance.

The RBNZ's OCR cuts in recent months will have seen at least several billion dollars in interest income removed from savers over the coming two years. On the face of it, these rates cuts look contractionary.....not stimulatory.

The $20 million for the nine-day fortnight is less than 2% of the money that would be put into the hands of savers by NOT reducing interest rates by just 1%. The tax money the government would earn in tax (even if just 20%, more likely 30%) on the lost $1 billion or so in interest income would dwarf this amount.

I'm new to these stats. If I've mis-understood BB1, BB2.4 and BB4.4, I hope someone will put me right.

Arrogant government, Crash dumbness, Smart Phones, Java on Windows and Linux

There are so many things I could write about.

Arrogant government

I'm not surpised that the new National-lead government is behaving about as undemocratically as any New Zealand government ever has. Check out No Right Turn and The Standard for the sad, sorry list on that subject. Rich is the irony in that party having accused the previous government of arrogance.

Crash Dumbness

Businesses all over the western world appear to rushing to the aid of......China, India and other sources of cheap labour, based on the numbers of jobs being hurriedly exported there. Yesterday, Australia's pacific Brands, makers of the Rio, Berlei and Holeproof labels, among others, announced it was shutting down all manufacturing in New Zealand and moving it to China. They announced the same thing just over a week ago in Australia.

Generally, I'm wondering why those who managed their money badly, even disastrously, have had their debts discounted and the really BIG screwups and failures have received billions of taxpayer dollars, while people who responsibly assesed risk and controlled their debt are being penalised by having their interest incomes on savings cut in half - or worse.

Smart phones

On the tech front, I want something like a iPhone that has a video camera, and doesn't need to have an iTunes choker on it. Not sure the anroid-based phones will be any better. Private businesses have a poor track record of offering open platforms that put the customer first. They tend to want to lock you in and rape your wallet.

Java on Win Vista and Linux

I'm also amazed anyone bothers using Windows. Ubuntu Linux has been so much better this year. Just this evening, my daughter and I installed the Java SDK on both Linux and Windows Vista.

Linux was "apt-get install "....maybe 3 minutes in all, including download......and then just use it. First (simple) prgram written in 10 more minutes.

Vista was easy to install Java, though it seemed to take quite a while. Then we had to manually add the path to the Java install to the Vista system PATH environment variable, logout and back in. Far from smooth.

I suspect she will be using the Linux environment most. For one thing, it only take Ubuntu about 2 minutes to boot, while Vista easily takes 7 minutes, or more, (on the same system) before it gets to the point where it will make a WiFi network connection.

US government system flaw?

The budget impasse in California appears to be another example of a flaw in the US system of government. The inability of California legislators to agree on a new budget (66% approval required) will soon see over 20,000 state employees sacked and more to follow. Ultimately, if no agreement can be reached, the state government would shut down entirely. A few years ago, this happened at the Federal level.

Insanity in a can.

By comparison, the government in a country or jurisdiction running a parliamentary system, like Canada or New Zealand, faced with a similar deadlock, would at least have the option of calling an election and letting the voters sort it out. That seems a much better "circuit-breaker" than playing political Russian Roulette with the jobs of state employees and the government services of everyone who lives there.

Otago DHB: Did Tony Ryall get it right?

Heath Minister, Tony Ryall, today sacked the Chair (Stuff) of the Otago District Health Board, Richard Thomson. Thomson isn't going quietly. An online report from NewstalkZB reports:

"Mr Thomson says he has expected to be fired ever since he offered to give Mr Ryall a private briefing on the fraud. "He turned that into a three-ring political circus that he was intent on removing me from my position, and so certainly none of this has come as a surprise."

Mr Thomson says the fraud was set up well before he took on the position and the board acted on the first piece of information available.

Thomson then goes on to make a very good point about the message Mr. Ryall's action is sending to senior executives in public organisations:

"My real concern here is that the message is that if you are unfortunate enough to inherit something illegal going on, and you subsequently discover that, then you'd be better to sweep it under the carpet - because otherwise you'll be held as guilty as the criminals."

The Stuff report quotes Thomson as saying Ryall sacked him because Thomson is a member of the Labour Party:

"He thought he could get rid of someone who batted for the other side and make some political capital out of it," he told NZPA.

This sounds more like the Tony Ryall I've been watching for almost 20 years. In my humble opinion, he's been on the wrong side of many issues and appears to be able to remain there comfortably by taking little heed of any evidence he may be wrong about anything. Ryall's a True Believer.

Does Mr. Ryall really intend to provide incentive for senior public servants to hide such things as this fraud lest their own careers be destroyed by the malfeasance of others? Based on his record to date, I'm sure he didn't give it a moment's thought, so keen was he, as Thomson says, to score political points. That's the Tony Ryall I've come to know since first hearing of him in 1990.

Having said that, if he is aware of any evidence that proves Thomson did anything more than discover and report a fraud (as he rightly should have done), I'd like to know what it is. Yes, $17M is a lot of money, but we are talking about a DHB's IT budget over most of a decade. The Otago DHB as a whole has annual revenues approaching NZ$500 million. I've worked in IT for over 20 years. In an IT context, $17M across many years in an organisaion spending $5 billion in a decade is small beer and would not hard to conceal if it had the right words and paper wrapped around it by the executives. In this case, they were contracting out services and paying invoices....though little or no actual services were being provided.

Good on Thomson and the Board for doing the right thing and blowing the whistle immediately they knew. Shame it wasn't discovered sooner. Boo Hiss to Ryall for punishing a senior exec for coming clean and doing the right thing as soon as he was aware of the crime. Clearly, the precedent is set: Mr Ryall should resign as Minister if further such frauds are discovered on his watch. He should have known, right?

Shutting down the little people (again)

No Right Turn, continuing daily to make NZ's collective media look like lightweights where looking into the detail is concerned, writes today on the government's recommendations for amending the Resource Management Act.

NRT's summary is to the point:

"Combined, these changes will mean less democratic control and less accountability. Decisions will be made by faceless bureaucrats in Wellington rather than by people working for local communities according to local concerns. It will mean that you will have less say in what happens in your local community - less say over whether a large developer gets to destroy a local river, pollute the air, erect a building which ruins the landscape, or bury toxic waste in the ground. And when any of those things happen, we will know who to blame for it: the National-led government and Nick Smith."

The National Party has spent most of the last 27 years convincing me they don't really like democracy very much and find it all a bit of a bore. They want to dump MMP and will be making moves soon to take away your and my vote. The party vote: the only one that actually counts. Whenever they get the chance, they remove our rights and place the power to make decisions in the hands of the people they like and trust. Bill Birch ditched the elected hospital boards and replaced them with appointed bodies. That was to be a prelude to more privatisation of that public service.

National always claim they are doing this for our own good while at the same time making it very clear they aren't prepared to listen to anything to the contrary. That, for me, is the very essence of the National party approach to politics and democracy: Gut the power of the weak (for their own good, of course) and never, ever listen to anyone who objects. Looking at the evidence and admitting you've got it wrong is a sign of weakness in their book. One might think that to them, believing you are correct is much better than actually being correct. The evidence of my own experience certainly supports such a view.

It's the same ethos that gave us the failed power reforms - despite many warnings they would not work - and a badly run down education system and a health system that was at the point of collapse in 1999...and much more. They were deaf to it all and went down in a hail of bullets.

The new National government is giving every sign of being no different to any other. The sole exception in my lifetime was the government lead by Jim Bolger between 1990 and when they dumped him for Jenny Shipley. We got a treaty settlements process and MMP out of that government. Rare exceptions in a long history of undermining the democratic power of the individual while reserving real power for their cronies and sponsors. National can't see it (they never do) but the seeds of their own electoral destruction are already being sewn.

Channeling Reality

Freshly minted President Obama's main contribution this week to global politics, society and well-being would, in my opinion, be the re-implementation of reality and evidence in developing and executing public policy.

The Chinese didn't think much of it, but it was long overdue and the lack of a frank and balanced appraisal of reality in US policy, in particular, has been a major contributing factor to many of the difficulties we face today in finance, economics and security.

Would undisciplined and poorly regulated finance markets deliver endless prosperity? The claim was made that it would. The reality, as 'The Economist' observes in a special report, is that it doesn't.

Obama: "Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."

Economic policy for much of the past 30 years has been dominated by the faith-based ideology that apparently no longer fits the real world, if it ever did. For the past 10 years, real investment has lagged well behind speculative, short investment thanks to mountains of money from oil-rich countries, China and a few others, looking for what they thought was a safe haven in, mainly, US financial markets. It wasn't sustainable.

Obama: "...But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. [...] The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age." [...]

"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government."

Well......Yeah! Surely the bottom line for any initiative must be whether or not something - large or small - actually works! It's a matter of some considerable head scratching that something so obvious hasn't been the status quo for the past 30 years (at least) - through both Democratic and Republican administrations. But it wasn't. All manner of irrational, faith-based (whether in markets, deities, libertarian theorising or ignorant prejudice) misapprehensions have been allowed to creep into and define public policy in America.

But what about the mis-named "War on Terror"? It would be more correct to call it a "War against Blowback", terrorsm against the US being, in large part, the consequence of 60 years or more of flawed foreign policy in the Middle East. Is America able - finally - to frankly appreciate the role it has played in contributing to - and exacerbating - its own security and foreign policy difficulties in recent years?

Obama: "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today [...] : Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

"Recall that earlier generations [...] understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint."

It sounds like America - at least in euphemism - can be honest with itself once again. Obama gives voice to simple, obvious social principles that govern human relations from homes, wokrplaces and school yards to the United Nations. Bullies can't win. The arrogant and callous will ultimately not only be defeated, but risk being punished, too, by those who have suffered at their hands. The rewards go those who are liked and admired and emulated.

Bush and his people thought themselves exempt from these rules of human behaviour. In almost every area, their view of the world was flawed to the point where it simply wasn't a valid view any longer. They thought they could dictate reality. Clearly, they failed.

Obama's election is a sign that, at least for now, America is prepared to embrace the real again. That could change. Reality can be unpleasant. But I hope it doesn't. As we have seen, over time, denying reality tends to extend, enhance and compound the consequences of doing so.

Obama is channelling reality for many in the US for whom it had become a strange and unfamiliar place. Policies based on invalid assumptions wren't working. But were supposed to anyway. Obama will have to be careful untangling the myth from reality, the consequences of past propaganda from plans for the future. People (anywhere) tend to react angrily when faced with things they would prefer not to face or something that contradicts a strongly held belief......valid or not.

Climate ignores denialists and keeps changing

Despite claims climate change is a myth, the ice keeps melting and the climate is generally showing little regard for assertions climate change is a myth.

Here are some new stories you probably won't be reading in the NZ Herald.

Switzerland's glaciers are melting and the pace is accelerating. Estimated at having lost 13% of their total mass of ice in the past 9 years, it's estimated that in about 100 years even the largest of them will be gone with the smaller ones disappearing long before then.
 
As our own government appears to be seeking ways to let the coal burn free, scientists are warning if we are to have any hope of reducing carbon emissions, we can't start using coal to make liquid fuels to replace oil. 

The classic stages of resistance to change, as summarised by Mahatma Ghandi, appear to be happening: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

We are well past the ignoring phase. That stopped in the 1990s.  The laughing is still heard in some quarters, like the National Party caucus room and the editorial offices of the NZ Herald, but most others appear to be losing their smirks as the ice keeps melting.

We now appear to be on to the fighting part, as vested interests have mislead the public to win office to secure a denialist agenda - as exemplified by Gerry Brownlee, Rodney Hide and more arrogant, ignorant others. 

I don't really enjoy using these 'terms of endearment' for people who can't see the evidence for what it is. But restating the evidence doesn't help. That has been done over and over and over. Brownlee and Hide don't give a rat's arse what the evidence is.

Meanwhile, the climate doesn't give a rat's arse what they think...and the ice keeps melting.

I keep referring to the ice because it looks more and more like this mass of 'stored coolness' is the only thing blurring the edges on a shift in climate that could be dramatic and swift  were it not for the moderating effects of water - frozen and not.

The fight will in the end be an unfair one. The climate will win. There is no doubt about that. The sad thing about it is that when it does, the denialist fools who doomed our children (not just theirs) to that fate will probably have died fat and happy.

Our short life spans keep large numbers of us from understanding many cycles or things that last longer than we do....and we are too often like May flies, living our glorious, self-centred, metaphorical 'day' amidst centenarian Galapagos tortoises - long, slow processes - thinking them to be rocks if we are aware of them at all. 

Spying on who?

Did the NZ police spy on the Transport Forum?

Earlier this year, this group of "terrorists" organised a national truck blockade that disrupted traffic in all our major cities for hours. Many thousands of people had their lawful activities disrupted or prevented completely by this action.

By comparison, a few greenies ripping up GE plants in a paddock somewhere pales into insignificance.

Are the police spying on former National party MP and Minister, Tony Friedlander, who leads the forum?

Why not?

His group has already done this country more REAL harm than any group of environmentalists I've ever heard of.

Do they spy on the farmers? A few years ago, the farmer-lead tractor blockade caused a great deal of disruption.

Or do the conservative police only spy on "lefties" while the Right does much more - and greater - harm? 

NACTional: Our very own Flat Earth Society

At last week's climate change conference in Poznan, Poland, one wag was heard to say

"This climate conference will go down in history as the retirement party for the Flat Earth Society of the United States of America,"

Last year, in Bali, the US delegation was told to "lead or get out of the way" by a delegate from Papua New Guinea, who received a round of applause.

Here in Key-wee-land, where evidence doesn't matter as long as you BELIEVE, all forward motion on climate change has apparently ceased. The government is Hide-ing its head in the sand, awaiting the outcome of a "review" of the evidence. The "review" itself is based on the verifiably mistaken presumption (emphasis on the "pre") that there is doubt that human activity is a contributor to climate change.

Just because the NZ Herald and others refuse to print items reporting the latest science on the subject (anyone recall the last time they saw one?) doesn't mean the ice at the poles has stopped melting. 

On November 8th, New Zealand became quite a bit flatter than it had been. If NACTional refuse to lead on this, then we owe it to ourselves and the planet to get them out of the way. Working on it.

Arrogance redux

The new government appears to have forgotten all that it said about arrogance with respect to the previous government.

How else can we explain the rush of legislation, under urgency, with no opportunity for public input or expert scrutiny?

The usual hyopcrisy. I expected nothing else from National and they are living down to my low expectations of them.

"Democracy" isn't a word they understand.

The funding of Herceptin is a dubious thing, too. This is Tony Ryall screwing the process in the arse...and never mind the evidence.

We don't even know if that VERY expensive drug even works. Never mind. We'll spend millions on it anyway and disregard expert advice for political reasons.

National.....just what I thought they would be and not a bit more.

ACTing up.....

ACT Party leader, Rodney Hides' performance on TVNZ's "Sunday" last evening was informative. He claimed to represent the policies of the "real" National Party and taunted National leader John Key, also present, by describing his party as "to the left of Helen Clark". Most interesting is that he said this publicly, obviously talking over John Key's head to John Key's own voters.

Clearly Hide is signaling hardball....and appears at the same time to be positioning his party to capture more of National's vote....and maybe not in 2011, either. Hide sounds impatient....and would be more impatient if he doesn't get what he wants.

It may be ACT's game plan to have a bust-up at some stage if their policy aims are frustrated, and claim to be the "real" National Party in an election campaign. Grabbing a bigger chunk of the centre-right would certainly give them more leverage in any government....though any such government would be very unlikely.  It would have to happen sooner rather than  later in order to avoid scaring voters with policies they don't like. Go for the populist stuff first.

It has that feel about it. Maybe it is supposed to....to aid ACT's bargaining position. Roger Douglas has a history of blitzkrieg. Maybe John Key is in for more than he realises.

If there were to be an early election as a consequence of some power play by ACT, that would get around the issue of a referendum on MMP....which ACT has said it would support but would be crazy to actually follow through on (based on what Hide said in that interview).

Key needs as many allies as he can get accross the spectrum. He may find ACT to be something of a poisoned chalice if he drinks too deeply from it. The Maori Party...and even the Greens and Labour should not be afraid to marginalise ACT in policy areas where National wants to do things ACT won't support or National can't stomach ACT's terms.

For the moment, I'm putting ACT's public boorishness down to post-election jockeying for influence.

Key also have to be careful about what he does and who he does it to. many of the new voters he won over on Saturday were most likely loyal Labour voters through 3 elections who had grown tired of Helen Clark. A new Labour leader by itself may not be enough to win many of them back, but worse lower wages and conditions combined with reduced services could do it.

Also be alert for the "Shock Doctrine" approach to the global financial crisis. I am already hearing business leaders attempting to co-opt this event to justify their own pet policy changes.......

Combined, this could all quite easily make this National-lead government a one-termer....and it may not be the whole term at that.

Hide needs to keep in mind that their new government has actually won by a whisker....and it took former Labour voters to do it. They won't make that mistake twice if what they end up getting is ACT.