Some things

Does anyone else really not give a fuck about Tiger Woods crashing his car? Or whether or not he was shagging around? I just don't really care, so I'm not sure why so many column inches have been dedicated to it.

Also, in the last week I have learnt that Star Wars Lego is badass and I really, really want a motorised Lego AT-AT. This came up because one of my colleagues found out that her husband has a secret collection at work - including a Death Star.

Some quality in the form of a slightly incendiary opinion piece from Mike Moore on how green politics has become a religion. I do like his style at times.

And finally, I sitting here wondering what I am doing awake and more importantly what the hell I am doing watching English Premier League... of Darts. In what other country would you see 8000 people turn out to watch a game of Darts?

MMP Poll

In an excellent use of the Facebook, UMR research did a preview of a poll that it is releasing tomorrow on MMP.

It is based on the referenda we will undertake at the next election. My feeling is that it will be a tight race and a lot will depend on peoples satisfaction with the Government going into the election.

The poll puts MMP on 48 per cent support with 40 per cent saying they would like a change of system (I assume the remainder don't know).

I think most peoples disatisfaction with MMP arose when a large number of people didn't end up getting the government they wanted after a minor party shifted its support around. Like for example in 1996, when NZ First went with National after saying it would never do that, and NZ First accepting those baubles in 2005 with the relatively popular Greens missing out altogether.

But currently we have a popular government, so not surprisingly, most people are opting to stick with the status quo. So this could change obviously - especially if the Government continues to "do nothing" as Rodney says.

As I've said before, I think we need to keep MMP, but I would like to see a few improvements.

When blue meets gold

Former Vermont Governor and DNC chair, Howard Dean spoke at the Liberal Democrat conference in the UK earlier in the year. He talked about how the Democrats had to actually learn how to communicate their values better and not be afraid to campaign in all states and all areas.

Check it out below - a really good watch and loads of parallels to NZ.

Governor Howard Dean addresses Liberal Democrat conference
Uploaded by libdem. - News videos hot off the press.

Don't judge me

So I've been a bit shit on the blogging front of late. I have actually had stuff to talk about but finding the time and dare I say it, inspiration, to blog has been hard.

But anyway I will attempt to start transmission again this week.

And to kick off - He's Barack Obama - the new vid from Jib Jab. Love the pirate ass kicking and cigarette smoking reference.

If you still don't think it's torture

From MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Friday - Rightwing Radio shock jock, Erich 'mancow' Muller allowed himself to be waterboarded to prove it's not torture. His reaction after lasting only 6 seconds of waterboarding:

"I do not want to say this. It's absolutely torture, absolutely. I mean, that's drowning."

And as Keith says - this was the Rolls Royce version. Muller could stop it at anytime, he didnt have to go through sleep depravation in advance and not know whether they would stop. He also didn't have to go through it 180 times.

Systemic Failure

So there has been a bit of talk around the forthcoming MMP referendum. Labour seems to be leaning towards the idea that we should stick with MMP - people are now largely used to it and we've had stable government for the greatest part of the last 13 years - well aside from the messy break ups of NZ First in 1998 and the Alliance in 2002.

But MMP isn't perfect - if anything it gives minor parties something of an advantage (that's what it was designed to do for post-Nazi Germany so no one party would dominate) and at times they can dominate the landscape. Mind you, that isn't always negative - if it wasn't for the Alliance's influence on Labour, we would not have paid-parental leave to the same extent as families now enjoy and KiwiBank would not exist.

No one at this stage is calling for a return to first past the post - which does show that we have at least matured a little. John Key has said he likes the idea of Supplementary Member (SM) and I must admit I'm reasonably partial to that system in the New Zealand context. SM is similar to MMP in that you have two votes - one for the candidate you prefer in your electorate, and the other for your favourite party, however, under SM the party vote doesn't determine the make up of the whole house, only the list seats. Basically what this does is put more emphasis on winning electorates - which I like.

But what would have happened had we had SM since 96 instead of MMP? Well honestly the actual result wouldn't have been too different. 1996 and 1999 the results would have been similar, 2002, Labour would have easily governed alone and 05 would have been about the same as follows: (the standard has the 2008 example - Nats govern alone)









The way I see it though, is that we could basically achieve the same thing by making a few alterations to MMP instead of changing system entirely. The one seat threshold (where a party gets its party vote allocation if it wins one electorate) could be raised to something more akin to the German system like 3 seats - so parties like ACT can't just leverage off one electorate seat and have disproportionate influence. I would also go back to the Royal Commission's original recommendation of a 4 per cent threshold on the party vote.

Also, why not remove the safety net of the list? So you either stand as a list or an electorate candidate. This would mean the hacks that get rejected by their electorate are truly gone. It would also serve to rid us of the lazy attitude so many current list MPs who once held electorates took to their local constituencies - they would either lose and be gone, or stand aside and let someone who really wants to represent a particular constituency have a go.

As I said late last year, I think Labour reconnecting at a local level has to be the number 1 priority for this early part of opposition. I think we should stick with MMP for a while yet but there are potentially some real positives that could come from reforming it - both by halting a lot of the wagging of the dog by minor parties, but also by pushing MPs to stay in touch with their constituencies. By just making a few tweaks and balancing things a bit better we could actually come up with a system that satisfies most of us.

Ugandan coup at UN

Great timing by the Onion to take the piss out of the UN right now huh.

Ugandan ambassador carries out a coup on the UN - who knows what he will do with all those powers at his finger tips??

Planet black guy

I got told the other day that I'm a merchant of doom and gloom when it comes to the Labour party. So I thought - maybe I should be positive an put forward yet another idea for what Labour should be doing and offer up RNC Chairman, Michael Steele's approach for the Republicans in opposition.

As he says - it's beyond the cutting edge! It's all about taking their principles into "urban-suburban hip-hop settings." In his latest outing he talks about how he wears his caps backwards - apparently that's how he rolls...



More video below of Rachel Maddow and Melissa Harris Lacewell of Princeton analysing this... and taking the piss obviously.



I think Goff needs to show a little Steele and go beyond the cutting edge to Planet Black guy - it's bound to work, right?

Pretty important

A clip below from Rachel Maddow's show the other night on torture that I think everyone should watch. Water-boarding is considered torture, Nazis were convicted at Nuremberg over it, and the Red Cross have confirmed that the Bush Administration were using that and other methods of torture.

Shouldn't we be angry that Bush and his minions have slunk away without having to confront this? While I'm all for moving on, torture is as serious as it gets when it comes to war crimes. Under the Geneva Convention the Red Cross have the power to judge whether torture has been carried out. So on that basis, surely now that they have confirmed torture took place at Guantanamo, Abu Gharib and other cloaked unconstitutional CIA prisons, someone actually needs to be held accountable.

If this was any African nation, Asian or eastern European country the public would demand justice and demand that those people who ordered it should stand trial for war crimes.

So he's like, there?

Clip below from the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC the other night.

She interviews Thomas Gillespie, a geography professor from UCLA, who has used a geography model used for finding endangered species to work out where Bin Laden is... So if you've been thinking about trying to get in amongst the US25 million bounty, he finds a pretty good place to start.

Stimulating thoughts

As governments of the world are walking around in circles to get some sort of economic stimulus package passed and as we anticipate what John Key will come up with in the next two weeks, I thought I would share some little tid-bits from the Rachel Maddow show the other night and a few thoughts of my own.

Key is reportedly going to announce a $500 million infrastructure package that will target a couple of specific roading projects, school property upgrades and insulating state houses - all good things. But beyond this the largest part of his stimulus package will be tax cuts... and yes they will be the tax cuts he already announced in the campaign that overwhelmingly favoured those on higher incomes. We need to change that balance.

The reason for these stimulus packages seems to have been lost along the way. Basically what has happened is that people aren't buying stuff, which has the flow on of meaning other people will lose their jobs, so the government needs to step in and spend to effectively save those jobs.

Rachel Maddow had a really good piece the other night comparing different types of spending which was based on work by Moody's.
Every $1 spent on tax cuts creates $1.02 of economic activity
Every $1 spent on infrastructure creates $1.59 of economic activity
Every $1 spent on food stamps creates $1.73 of economic activity.
(Source: Moody's Economy.com)

In short people dont necessarily spend the tax cuts they get so it is ineffective as a stimulus measure.

We don't have a lot of cash in New Zealand so frankly we need to be targeting what we have on the most effective measures and that does not include tax cuts.

Why not expand that insulation programme back to what it was and roll out to as many homes as possible? Hell why not look at investing in solar water heating for state houses? These are both worthy investment ideas that would actually have valuable flow on effects by creating healthier households and lower power bills.

Did you know most of our buses are built and designed in Christchurch? Why don't we take this opportunity to invest in public transport by upgrading our fleet nationwide? In doing this we could also do wonders for our green ambitions.

Families tend to spend more as they have higher costs, so instead of tax cuts - why not expand Working for Families again? As Moody's said, food stamps are the best kind of stimulus and expanding WFF is probably the most politically palatable idea along these lines in the New Zealand context.

Our skills and training gap remains and we still have so many people with poor literacy and numeracy skills - so if businesses with low skill workers are about to crumble or lay off staff, then how about considering a 4 day week for workers at some workplaces and on the fifth day have the worker undertake skills training being paid for by the government. Under this the worker would keep their job and undertake training in an area of need. This could offset the need to lay off staff as wage bills would be decreased and it would provide a much needed investment in skills.

There are tons of other ideas floating around as well, but my point is that the old argument of tax cuts is not suited to this particular situation and right now we need to be making smart investments in our people and economy.

Walk the Line... the Johnsonville Line

Ahhh infrastructure investment...mmmmmm. You will remember that two years ago Labour invested a carriage load of cash into rail which included upgrading the crappy Johnsonville Line in Wellington.

Well now its almost done and OnTrack are having an open day (well open afternoon) this Wednesday (4 Feb) from 3pm to 7pm allowing Wellingtonians to literally walk-the-line between the Crofton Downs Station and the Wadestown crossing loop.

Should be a good opportunity to walk through rail tunnels like a madman and avoid the hefty fines and being mashed into tracks all at the same time!

Check out all the details on the OnTrack site.

Twit tweets

Agriculture Minister David Carter has a twitter and it's really, really... uh insightful?!

It's filled with gems including my favourite:

Hon David Carter is in the Christchurch electorate office today having important meetings.

I'm sure you were David... I'm sure you were.

Four years

I went looking for a video yesterday and after not being able to find anything new, I came across Spike Lee's When the Levee's Broke - which I thought would serve as a suitable reminder of how shocking the Bush administration was and how good it was to be rid of them. Turns out I was on the money.

Katrina/Rita is right up there with state sanctioned torture and unnecessary wars as the blackest marks against Bush.

It's imperative that Obama puts this right - and rebuilds the levees to the same standard as those in the Netherlands. Rachel Maddow was talking about this a few weeks back - in Holland they build them to withstand a 1 in 1000 year storm - the New Orleans levees are being rebuilt to withstand a 1 in 100 year storm. By way of example, both Katrina and Rita were 1 in 300 year storms - put simply the new levees will fail again in the face of another Katrina.

Surely as a good start a decent part of the stimulus package could go down there?

Anyway, with the wonders of Google street view you can actually take a look around the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans - see below.


View Larger Map

Now I'm not 100% sure when the street view was done - but for fuck sake its been four years! If you scroll out you realise how close it is to the middle of New Orleans. So disgusting.

Voltaire and Dauth

A recent article on current blog du jour, Kiwipolitico, talking about how the fifth Labour Government shouldn't be mourned by the true left because it didn't go far enough on several issues and condoned other 'evils' such as the anti-terror raids in 2007, the Foreshore and Seabed Act and not clarifying the legislation around abortion (the latter which I hadnt picked up as an issue at all btw???) has got a few tongues wagging.

This afternoon I was listening to a podcast of Air America radio which had a talkback piece on whether President-elect Obama was smart to be so inclusive of the right. One of the callers basically said because of some of Obama's appointments of republican figures - he was bad and his presidency will be a wasted opportunity. Essentially the same premise as the criticism that Kiwipolitico was making.

One of my previous bosses would often pull out his favourite Voltaire quote - The perfect is the enemy of the good. Like the host on Air America (who attributed it to his mother!?) who used it in the Obama context - I feel that it fits this argument around the fifth Labour Government.

What I think Voltaire was getting at was that attaining perfection becomes infinitely more difficult the further you go along. There are always going to be the unseen fish-hooks, pot-holes etc etc that trip you, so at some point, you have to cut your losses, and realise that doing tangible 'good things' is actually better than continually traversing a seemingly neverending road towards some sort of utopian perfection. If it's 'good enough' (so to speak) - then get on with it.

Was Labour perfect? Absolutely not. But it's simplistic to say that it was a government of missed opportunities just because Clark sometimes took a pragmatic approach rather than seeking leftist-perfection. The reality is, we now have the savings scheme that we should have had for over 30 years, we have an infinitely fairer tertiary student loans system, the lowest unemployment rates for nigh on a generation - especially amongst Maori and Pacific Islanders, cheaper and more accessible primary healthcare, a new pride in what it means to be a New Zealander, probably the most significant investment in infrastructure for 50 years and so on.

Sure it wasn't perfect - but it was pretty bloody good.

Taking over the asylum

I was planning on avoiding politics as a topic for the remainder of the year, but the happenings of the last week have meant I just can't bite my tongue any longer. Almost unbelievably our brand spanking new tory government has seemingly used its first week in the house to shoot itself in the foot and try to bring an end to its own honeymoon period.

They had widely flagged that tax legislation and changes to KiwiSaver would be introduced under urgency, but had not even hinted that the 90 Day probation period bill would be introduced - let alone passed. Personally I don't have a problem with probationary periods - and they were actually allowed for under the Employment Relations Act. Of course as most people know, my previous employer used the probation period mechanism under the ERA and they had actually used it to remove a previous employee, but only after they had gone through a process which identified what was wrong and provided a chance for the worker to get it together. But what this bill does is actually remove any avenue for recourse or mediation - basically if you're sacked at the end of the 90 day period and you feel you have been unfairly treated or that you received insufficient training to be able to do the job or no warning etc - there is nothing you can do, you're gone. There is no independent complaints authority - you're out of luck, sunshine.

Worse still, watching the debates it was abundantly clear that the government backbenchers actually had no idea about the implications of their tax changes for low income earners (naturally the cuts favour the rich and actually disadvantage workers earning under $45k). Is there anything more dangerous in a democracy than a government passing legislation that they haven't read and refuse to release until the debate begins under urgency, with minimal debate and no consultation?

This willingness to force through legislation under urgency - when there is no real need - does beg the question whether we need another check or balance on the Parliament. The Select Committee process was supposed to alleviate the need for an upper house by providing another check on the government. Given this government's perceived eagerness to avoid Select Committee's and the historic unwillingness of the Governor General to reject laws, I wonder if we do need to look again at the idea of re-establishing an upper house as a final check.

On top of all this big Gerry Brownlee's cringeworthy, shambolic performance as Leader of the House has been like watching some sort of David Brent/Manuel The Office/Fawlty Towers hybrid. It makes you really want Labour to pick up the Yellow Fever chant from Phoenix matches - "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING".

Meanwhile Brownlee has been the talk of the town for other reasons - with leaks flowing from all angles suggesting that because of his personal dislike for Nick Smith he has instructed officials in the Energy and Resources area that they are not to talk to or give any information to Environment ministry officials for fear that it will end up in Nick Smith's hands. That's right kids, if true - Brownlee has basically ordered by decree that officials working on things like, I dunno, Biofuels and electricity generation are not allowed to talk to the lead agency on climate change. I know right - WTF? how does that work?

And this is week one.

The knife also continues to hover over the public service with redundancies seeming almost inevitable. I only hope that National look at how ineffective the Rudd Labor government's cuts to the public sector have been in Australia. The public service over there is stupidly overworked and I know of people being expected to work 12-13 hour days, 6 days a week as a norm. Foreign Affairs has supposedly been a top priority of the new government with Rudd keen to be seen as a leader on issues like climate change, yet the budget cuts at DFAT has seen a 10 per cent staff turnover already in the first 12 months of KRudd.

I know this is what the people wanted and that this is the government the people chose. But I'm not sure anyone really thought it would be this messy quite so soon.

Are you local?

One of the most notable outcomes of the recent election was how Labour lost every single provincial seat that it held, despite many of the areas being characteristically 'Labour' areas. For example previously safe regional seats like East Coast, Otaki, Tukituki, West Coast-Tasman, Invercargill, and Whanganui have all been lost over the last two terms. In Palmerston North and Rimutaka Labour also struggled even though they had both had long solid service from popular retiring local MPs.

Five-minute PM, Mike Moore recently suggested that one of the reasons for this was MMP. He said that the safety net created by the party list meant MPs were preoccupied with impressing their leader and party hierarchy to gain promotion and to secure a decent list spot rather than putting in the hard yards in their electorates. Moore suggested this was why MPs had lost touch with their electorates and why so many of Labour's caucus seemed non-plussed at the thought of life on the list.

I think he is almost right on the money. We are told that there are huge numbers of people signing up to the party - that the membership is growing and is the strongest it has been. But take all those electorates listed above - not one of them has what you would call a strong local committee with active members and supporters. The membership in these areas has stagnated and aged to the point that basic activities such as door-knocking could not happen and deliveries in many had to be contracted out.

As UK Labour Councillor, Phillip Glanville, succinctly put it in his recent piece on the Blairite site Progress Online talking about the UK party - local campaigns are vital or no seat is safe. The parallels to our local party are stunning -

"Campaigning in Crewe, I was struck by the lack of long-term organisation. The late, great Gwyneth Dunwoody was a formidable parliamentarian and much-respected MP, but the local party in Crewe seemed moribund at best. Sadly, it was clear that canvassing and campaigning had not taken place for a generation. No historic data, no personal relationships, no record of local campaigning.

In estate after estate, there was no sense that Labour had been talking to local people. We hadn't fostered a sense that the party was on their side - campaigning for better schools, safer streets and new homes."

Just swap out the MP and place names and you pretty much have NZ Labour.

"... Crewe and Glasgow are better after 11 years of Labour Government. Yet, for years it seems nobody has talked to local people about what we are doing and why.

Our supporters don't need Facebook, they want us to talk face to face: in their local pub, at the church fete, at a residents' meeting or on the doorstep. It may be old-fashioned or unsexy, but it works. You can't just turn up every four years (or, even worse, mid-term) and expect people to vote for you.

Clearly being in power is vital. We should never lose sight of that aim or hold the deluded view that we need to be in opposition to renew. Yet being in government can hold the party. Leaders inevitably start to listen to civil servants over party members and citizens. We get caught up in the idea that a good policy and a slick soundbite is all it takes to succeed."

Indeed.

However, what parts of the recent campaign also reinforced was that with real effort and a priority given to connecting directly - I firmly believe that most of the seats above can and should be won back in three years.

Agenda gets struck off the uh... agenda

Ok so I wasn't the biggest fan of TV One's Agenda - but I'm pretty pissed that it has been canned.

One of my worries about our new tory government is that there will be very little critical analysis of what is actually happening as we are almost heading towards a perfect storm with minimal coverage from the media other than scripted set pieces. We have an ever decreasing media in New Zealand - our major dailies are continually downsizing, most actual journalists are either now in PR or working for government departments - if not running them! On top of that we have a new prime minister who, chances are, will adopt the Shipley approach of only holding fortnightly Cabinet meetings and no press conferences (he isn't great when put on the spot - so he's not going to chuck himself in the lions den like Clark did each week, is he?).

For all its faults it was the very show that tripped up several players in the last 12 months - Mike Williams on Owen Glenn etc and Maurice Williamson on tolls for example - and it was our only actual political show with in-depth interviews. It's also ironic that Agenda's Australian namesake on Sky News has made it's host David Speers one of the leading commentators in the country and the show has become central to political coverage.

I only hope that either Sky News or even TV3 look to fill the void (and ideally chuck it in a better time slot). What I would love to see is something intelligent and insightful without boring everyone to tears - much like MSNBC's fantastic Rachel Maddow Show. If you haven't seen it - check out some of the clips on her site - we have nothing like it here (probably the closest would be Media 7 on TVNZ7). Also it's quite funny how I came across the show too since we don't get MSNBC - the Palin Vlog #13 where Sarah Palin trys to pray away the gay from Dina after her sapphic desires of Rachel Maddow are exposed - so very funny - watch it here .

Who let that happen?? The Sequel

Well the campaign might be over, but the Palin shambles rumbles on and they continue to provide examples for why you need to do a thorough advance.

Video below of Sarah Palin doing an interview in front of turkeys being slaughtered - the camera man asked if she would prefer to do it with a different backdrop -she said it was fine... So in answer to my question - she let that happen!

The Alaska Palin Massacre

History

Well I was actually on the money with my call for the US elections - with Obama gaining 364 electoral college votes to McCain's 174 - and while Im talking myself up I will note that I did pick Obama as an outsider to watch over two years ago - mind you at the time I was hoping for a Gore/Obama ticket - but still!

I watched the results come in at the US embassy's event and I have to say I hadn't anticipated just how euphoric and emotional the occasion would be. The result was historic for so many reasons - not only has his election smashed through the 'bradley effect', but it has also quashed the notion of blue and red states with Obama winning states like North Carolina, Indiana and Virginia, its shown that the Democrats aren't only strong on the coasts and proven that the Democrats can be elected during an economic crisis not mention a war.

Anyway - fingers crossed im not too far off tomorrow.