Is National working with Colliers?

As you may know, one of the highlights in election year that most political junkies look forward to is the Press leaders debate. Situated in the middle of campaigning when candidates should have hit their stride, the Press leaders debate always brings out the best and worst of those vying for ultimate political power in New Zealand.

Of course the biased mainstream media outlets do their best to only report on events that paint their chosen leader in a good light. The problem for them is that other journalists are still reporting on the actual facts of the matter and the events that really unfolded. This makes the lack of reporting from agencies like the NZ Herald and TVNZ look rather ridiculous!

The void of reporting on anything that makes John Key look bad was nicely highlighted yesterday when Radio NZ published this article:

Questions over election period advert

A political scientist is asking why National Party leader John Key knows so much about a private company's advertising he said was due to appear in a newspaper next week.

At The Press leaders debate last night, Mr Key used the pending advertorial to defend progress on the Christchurch rebuild.

The debate moderator, Press editor Joanna Norris, put it to Mr Key that the Government had managed to complete only one of its main rebuild projects - a boardwalk.

"Actually Joanna you know that's not right," Mr Key said. "Because your newspaper, either this week or probably now next week, is going to deliver in the newspaper a very big supplement, that's going to sell I'm sure extremely well, which points out there are 200 buildings in the CBD alone that are basically completed."

Mr Key later clarified that it was an advertisment by a third party. "No, it's not the government, it's Colliers, one of the big real estate companies. My understanding was that it was going to go in this week - it's actually going in next week."

Ms Norris said she was surprised and puzzled as to why he cited an advertisement that has yet to appear in the newspaper to defend the Government's rebuild efforts in the city.

There are only two possibilities here. Either John Key was bullshitting to try and deflect away from his governments failure to rebuild Christchurch, or the National party is working with Colliers to publish National party propaganda.

The news about Christchurch today couldn't be worse for the National party today. Not only is there an article about people still having to crap in buckets, there's also a comprehensive article by Marta Steeman that shows the Christchurch repairs are only 10% completed.

The 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch exactly four years ago today. I would expect a bit more progress and a bit less propaganda from those that have been in power over the last six years. By all accounts but their own, they have totally failed Christchurch.

Clearly it's time for a government that will stop yapping and get on with the job.

Right click to enlarge

Christchurch people treated like scum

Back in February 2011, when the Christchurch earthquakes devastated the city and John Key was promising people government assistance to rebuild, a number of unscrupulous companies started operating with the intention of making a lot of money from disaster capitalism.

Not only were these businesses intent on paying very low wages, providing the least amount of services they could and generally delaying the rebuild for as long as possible to extract their pound of flesh, these businesses were often assisted in their destructive agenda by government agencies.

That's one of the reasons Christchurch remains largely broken, with a lack of any state housing, astronomical rental costs and substandard accommodation all adding to people's woes. With dilapidated infrastructure leading to severe flooding and people living in tents, garages and caravans being commonplace, it's not hard to see that the National led government and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority have entirely failed the good people of Christchurch.

To make matters worse, the National led government even took away people’s right to decide who represents them, ensured that insurance companies were bailed out while they failed to meet their lawful obligations to their clients and generally took a dysfunctional approach to the Christchurch rebuild. Furthermore, a lack of proper government assistance and investment also means that the council is now looking at selling assets just to pay the bills.

Why is this the case you might ask? After all, the Prime Minister promised to help out and the government had on paper budgeted a considerable amount of money for the rebuild. In fact it makes good economic sense to ensure that the garden city is reconstructed in a timely manner, because a proper rebuild would add considerably to New Zealand's economic recovery.

One of the reasons for a lack of progress is because of the current government's belief in the free market. This invariably means their neoliberal regime doesn’t fund socially beneficial policy and that's why there's been a complete avoidance on issues such as providing enough state housing in the region. However, the other reason for the government's failure is one that the Prime Minister's confidant and National party propagandist, Cameron Slater, communicates in recently released emails.

On Friday, Stuff reported:

Earthquake victims 'scum' says blogger

South Islanders are useless and East Christchurch earthquake victims scum, controversial blogger Cameron Slater allegedly says in emails disclosed by Dirty Politics author Nicky Hager.

Writing to his friend Peter Smith (not his real name) after the February earthquake, Slater says: "The place is f****d,  they should should just board it up and close it down."

Smith: A real tragedy, but it will f***k Labour for the election.

Slater: Yep blessings.

Slater: What i can't believe... is how we have to bail out those useless pricks in the sth island, again.’

Smith: I said to someone today National should let them rot, after all they are useless scum Labour voters especially in the areas where the earthquake hit..well hopefully more scum will labour voters will piss off to Australia (and) at least the uninsured get (f***ing) nothing.’

Slater: Those suburbs are hard core Labour...the owners will be Nat voters though and the voters tenants, so the houses are gone and the scum are gone too, and they should get nothing.

Today, the Prime Minister came out on Breakfast TV and tried to distance himself from the devious and nasty propagandist, Cameron Slater. Suddenly they're no longer best mates, with John Key not wanting his brand to be sullied by such an obviously sick individual. Unfortunately for the National party the association between Key and Slater will be difficult to explain away. The evidence clearly shows that the Prime Minister, John Key, is implicated up to his eyeballs in the scandal.

It wasn't that long ago that Teflon John was saying he was in regular contact with the discredited blogger. We now know that senior staff in the Prime Ministers office, namely Jason Ede, worked closely and extensively with Cameron Slater to anonymously attack their enemies online. In fact the sheer amount of smears Slater has run on behalf of the National party to try and discredit the people they don’t like is a good indication that John Key is involved. When you look at the facts, it's inconceivable that the PM himself wasn't aware of such despicable activity just two doors down from his Beehive office.

The facts speak for themselves; Christchurch, nearly four years after the earthquakes, remains broken with core services the government is meant to provide dilapidated or non-existent, and John Key's mate, Cameron Slater, was gloating at the time of the earthquakes about thousands of Cantabrian's lives being ruined and how this was a good thing for National. It appears that John Key’s failure to ensure the garden city is rebuilt or that earthquake victims are paid out shows that he agrees with his mate, Cameron Slater, when he says the good people of Christchurch are scum and should get nothing!

Thankfully there are other political parties to choose from that don’t hold such negative and destructive beliefs like the National party and their attack bloggers. I suggest that on September 20 you vote for them to change the government into one that Christchurch and indeed the entire country truly deserves.

Three years on

Three years since the Christchurch earthquakes and horror stories of Christchurch families living in garages and tents continue to surface. Many families are still living in squaller and stranded in sheds or illegally overcrowding houses. Meanwhile, rental housing prices continue to increase astronomically with welfare agencies struggling to keep up with demand.

Much of Christchurch's infrastructure remains broken, not least of all over 400 kilometres of sewage pipes resulting in a huge health hazard from people coming into contact with open raw sewage. As a result of this social dysfunction, suicides in the region have almost doubled since 2008.

Three years after the 7.1 magnitude earthquake decimated Christchurch and we're still waiting for the free market to deliver...we're still waiting for the Christchurch rebuild to actually begin. What a complete failure this National led government is.

Walk away John

Yesterday, Stuff reported:

A threat from Prime Minister John Key to "walk away" from Christchurch red-zoners challenging their buyout offers has been labelled offensive and lacking compassion.

Just when you thought John Key couldn't get any lower he goes and makes a despicable and inexcusable threat to people trying to rebuild their lives after the terrible Christchurch earthquakes.

The 68-strong Quake Outcasts group this week won a judicial review of the offer to buy uninsured properties and empty sections at 50 per cent of the land valuation.

Justice Graham Panckhurst ruled on Monday the offer was unlawful and should be revised.

Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee immediately announced plans to appeal, but would not comment before seeking further legal advice.

Why on earth is the government appealing the decision? They are in effect simply wasting more taxpayers money fighting the people of Christchurch instead of doing the right thing.

Why is dragging this through the courts a bad thing you might ask? Consider Rio Tinto recently receiving $30 million of taxpayers dollars without there being any economic benefit known by the government, the $1.7 billion taxpayer bailout of South Canterbury Finance, the $500 million AMI bailout, the asset sale loyalty incentive that will gift at least $40 million to retail investors, National's Open Bank Resolution (OBR) which means all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund a bank’s bailout, the millions of taxpayer dollars spent bailing out leaky homes victims instead of the real culprits paying as well as the millions of dollars (approximately $115 million and climbing) the government is spending to sell our power companies to their rich investor mates...then tell me these Christchurch red-zoners don't deserve a fair deal?

Key yesterday warned the Crown could simply walk away.

"One option is the Government says: ‘Thanks very much, it's been a lot of fun. If you don't want to take the offer, that's where it's at'."

Key threatening to give the Christchurch red-zoners nothing for their land, land that the government was trying to force them to sell for half its value, is a clear abuse of power. That's not the type of person we should have as Prime Minister of New Zealand. John Key should do the honourable thing and walk away from the well paid job he is failing to do properly.

"What do we do when there is an uninsured landslip later in the year because of a flood somewhere? Those land owners will say, 'But you paid out in Christchurch'," Key said.

What Key obviously fails to understand is that insurance for bare sections wasn't and still isn't available.

"It's not easy for the Government."

Outcasts members spoken to were appalled by Key's comments saying they showed a lack of compassion and that he did not understand how hard the situation was for affected residents.

Key apologised today, saying he was sorry if any offence was caused, but his comments needed to be taken in context.

Taken in the context of John Key being a complete idiot, what he said is acceptable. However he's the Prime Minister for god's sake and shouldn't have made such ludicrous statements in the first place.

Furthermore, the countries so-called leader should know how to make a proper apology, because saying if people were offended when they clearly were offended is offensive in itself. It's a Clayton's apology, which considering the circumstances is simply not good enough.

It's not easy being the government? Then resign!

Mainzeal collapse must be investigated

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

The Mainzeal receivership highlights once again the poor governance of the Richina Pacific group of companies, inadequate corporate disclosure and the vulnerability of unsecured creditors and subcontractors when a construction company goes bust.

It also shows that former politicians continue to make poor decisions when it comes to accepting board seats with former Prime Minister Dame Jenny Shipley now joining that infamous list.

[...] 

Dame Jenny Shipley joins a long list of prominent politicians who have joined the boards of troubled or unsuccessful companies.

These include: Wyatt Creech and John Luxton at Blue Chip; Sir Roger Douglas, Fran Wilde and Philip Burdon at Brierley Investments; Don Brash and John Banks at Huljich Wealth Management; Sir Douglas Graham and Bill Jeffries at Lombard; Sir William Birch at Viking Pacific (now Vetilot) and Ruth Richardson at Dairy Brands and Syft Technologies.

The list goes on and on and the Mainzeal collapse is a timely reminder that retired politicians should be extremely careful about accepting board positions because most of them have little business experience and their appointment can temporarily embellish the reputation of a poorly run company.

I don't think that's the case with Jenny Shipley's appointment as chairwoman of Mainzeal... Because of her business associations, the former National Prime Minister obviously took an active roll in promoting investments into Chinese companies that were going down the gurgler, and that's one of the main reasons Mainzeal collapsed.

It's also interesting to note that Mainzeal has collapsed at about the exact same time the building industry they specialize in is meant to be booming. With the widespread destruction of Christchurch's infrastructure, you would think Mainzeal would have an overabundance of work and therefore revenue. The investments made under Jenny Shipley's watch must have been seriously bad indeed for them to negate that increased investment.

There was also an obvious conflict of interest with Shipley being a Mainzeal director and on the board of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA). That in my opinion is a serious conflict of interest that should be investigated, especially considering Mainzeal was a significant player seeking Christchurch rebuild CERA contracts.

The other point that should be made is that National ministers and particularly Gerry Brownlee have frequently claimed that the economy will improve when the Christchurch rebuild gets underway... However this doesn't appear to be the case and one can only assume (because the MSM is not reporting on it) that the rebuild, nearly two years after the first earthquake took place, is floundering.

Mainzeal's collapse is a clear indication that all is not well within the New Zealand construction industry and in my opinion that's a clear result of government incompetency. Without any proper governance our economy will continue to stagnate, and more companies are likely to go out of business as a result... Sometimes the end results of the right wings neoliberal agenda speak louder than words.

National fails Christchurch

Today, Stuff reported:

Horror stories of Christchurch families living in garages and tents continue to surface almost two years on from the February 2011 earthquake.

Some families are still stranded in sheds or illegally overcrowding friends' and relatives' houses.

Meanwhile, rental housing prices show no sign of abating and welfare agencies believe this year could be worse than the last.

Demand on Christchurch's social services continues to increase: people who have never needed help before are queuing up at food banks and many families still face impoverished living conditions.

National has clearly failed to meet the basic needs of those impacted by the devastating Christchurch earthquakes. Instead of mobilizing government resources to help, National appears to be happy to sit back and let people fend for themselves.

Such a hands off approach might be OK if there wasn't such widespread damage, but with another winter soon approaching it's clearly not good enough to leave families living in tents almost two years after the disaster.

One of his social workers had a week-long waiting list of families needing assistance with school uniform grants. Another had recently been supporting a young family living in a tent, and a couple renting a washhouse.

A desperate woman with a newborn baby emailed Gorman last week asking for any free food because she said she was "paying so much rent, I can't afford to live".

"We are seeing many, many new people. Some who may actually own property but are so stretched by having to be out of their houses and pay horrific rents," he said.

So things are getting worse not better in what is a shameful display of government incompetence! If National can't get their act together within two years to rehouse and ensure people's basic needs are being met in Christchurch, they obviously don't have what it takes to run the country.

Pacific Island Evaluation social worker To'alepai Louella Thomsen-Inder said:

"Some homes have no curtains, babies are crawling around on rotting carpet, it's damp and the children are running around with no shoes on and with visible skin conditions."

Tenants Protection Association manager Helen Gatonyi believes this year is "shaping up to be the worst".

"When winter strikes this year, we predict it's going to be very difficult for a large number of people."

Completely unacceptable! National is in fact failing to adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which New Zealand ratified in 1973. The right to housing is considered a right to an adequate standard of living, with Article 25 stating:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Therefore National is in breach of its international obligations as well as its social obligation to the inhabitants of Christchurch. So what is John Key's government doing about the problem?

The Government's investigation into overcrowding, homelessness and unsuitable living conditions in Christchurch was kick-started in June last year, but the results are yet to be released.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment had hoped to have the report finalised by the end of last year.

A spokeswoman said the release had been pushed back to ensure the information was correct and the report "robust".

The delay is likely to be caused by a request from Gerry Brownlee to heavily redact the reports. The Canterbury Earthquake "Recovery" Minister wouldn't want the serious nature of his callous indifference to become publicly known.

National can only hope to downplay the issue, because if the truth fully came out their complete failure would cause a huge public backlash. Such needless suffering is something most New Zealanders wouldn't accept.

Clearly Nationals neoliberal agenda and every man for himself ideology is not up to the task of rebuilding Christchurch, and one can only assume that a Labour led government would have done a lot better.

The EQC Song

Everything Hekia Parata touches turns to shit

I watched some of the last sitting of the house of representatives yesterday, and was disappointing to see Hekia Parata dismissing concerns about her unlawful attempt to close an all girls' special needs school.

What really got my blood boiling though was that the Minister of Education didn't acknowledge any wrongdoing on her part whatsoever.

In fact Parata said the advice and reports that showed there would be an increased likelihood of sexual abuse of the 22 girls with special needs if she closed their school could simply be ignored because other advice said it wasn't an issue.

Where that ghost advice originated from or what exactly it was the Minister doesn't divulge, which makes me think that it doesn't exist other than as an excuse for Parata's incompetence.

That incompetence was grossly exhibited when she blatantly ignored clear advice that her decision would cause students harm, so it's no wonder Justice Robert Dobson has ruled against her moronic decision.

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

In a reserved judgment in the High Court at Wellington, Justice Robert Dobson said Ms Parata's order to close Salisbury School, a residential establishment in Nelson, was unlawful because it relied on the possibility of sending some girls to live at Halswell School in Christchurch - a boys' special needs school.

Ms Parata had argued there was no evidence to suggest handicapped adolescent girls would be more vulnerable if moved together with boys. The plan was to have separate living quarters.

But Justice Dobson said that seeing the risks took "no great leap in logic".

The school had raised the issue during a meeting with Ms Parata, and a report about the vulnerability of girls at special needs schools had been earlier published for the Education Ministry and police.

"The minister's decision failed to have regard to available warning signals raised by and on behalf of the [school] trustees about greater levels of risk of abuse in a co-educational setting," Justice Dobson said.

Today, Tumeke reported:

Normally education policy is designed to have a positive effect on the lives of children. To specifically design a situation where special needs female students are sent to another special needs male school to face sexual and physical abuse 7 times greater in risk however seems to be more akin to building a children's playground out of depleted heavy uranium.

This is just the latest episode in a long series of Ministerial stuff-ups and only came to media attention when concerned citizens had to go to the high court in order to get another one of National's unbelievably stupid decisions overturned.

The cost to the tax-payer for yet another court case against the Crown have of course not been divulged... Costs that really should be paid for by the idiotic Minister who's ignored extensive advice, her own ministry's reports and overwhelming opposition to such an incomprehensibly dumb decision.

Parata's stupidity appears to be based on nothing more than saving a few bucks, money that can then be used to pay for the tax-cuts for the rich. National's ideological drive to save a few dollars with complete disregard for the consequences is actually costing the country dearly. We have increased costs of people having to fight the government in court and there are increased costs when things fail because decisions aren't being made in the best interests of the country and all its people.

As the clear frontrunner at ignoring advice, flip-flopping and generally stuffing up her portfolio, Parata has displayed a level of incompetence any Minister in all of New Zealand's political history would have trouble besting. There's no question that she should resign, and currently the only thing that's protecting her is arrogance and a completely deluded Prime Minister.

Today, the Nelson Mail reported:

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei has called for Parata to be sacked after the judge's ruling.

Ms Turei said this was Ms Parata's "latest and most dangerous failure" and left her position untenable. She called on Prime Minister John Key to sack her.

National had also faced a public backlash over plans to close schools in Canterbury following the earthquakes.

"Hekia Parata's blatant disregard for the safety of girls at Salisbury College in Nelson must be the final straw,'' Ms Turei said.

Ms Parata was unwilling to listen and her refusal to heed warnings about pupil safety was "dangerous and extraordinarily arrogant."

"What kind of minister would put school girls in harm's way? You simply can' t have someone in the job who does that," she said.

Labour's answer to the housing crisis

Today, the Labour party leader, David Shearer, gave a speech:

Today I’m announcing that we will put 100,000 Kiwi families into their first home.

That’s the sort of big change we need to make a big difference to people’s lives.

We’ll oversee and invest in a large scale 10 year building programme of entry-level houses that Kiwis are crying out for.

Yes, it’s a big commitment and it’ll take a couple of years to ramp up, but we can do it.

I won’t stand by while the dream of home ownership slips away from future generations.

At the peak of last decade, about 30,000 new homes were built a year. Now it’s less than half that.

These are the missing rungs on the housing ladder. And it shows what an active and responsible government can do to help.

The start-up cost of the building programme will be financed through issuing government stock called Home Ownership Bonds.

The money we make from selling the houses will go back into the pot for building more.

The houses will be compact in size. Some will be stand-alone dwellings and others apartments. All of them will be good quality and energy efficient.

The homes will be sold to first home buyers who’ve saved their own deposit, like with KiwiSaver.

We estimate that the maximum needed to be raised for a kick-start will be $1.5 billion.

It will quickly become self-funding though. And because it’s a capital investment, it won’t affect our commitment to balance the books and return to surplus.

I can already hear our opponents complaining that this is too bold. That the problem’s too big and there’s nothing we can do.

I won’t accept that. I won’t give up on the Kiwi dream of an affordable home.

I have spoken to Auckland Mayor Len Brown to take up his offer of a partnership with Auckland council to make land available.

In addition, we will introduce a National Policy Statement under the RMA to ensure that planning rules and consenting decisions support affordable housing.

This is most excellent news and acknowledges the huge and growing need for more affordable housing in New Zealand. It also acknowledges the success of other state housing initiatives in New Zealand that ensured many Kiwis, including the current Prime Minister John Key, had security through affordable housing.

David Shearer might understate the effectiveness of such a policy, but like the state housing policy after WW2, there's a distinct possibility of a financial return on the governments initial investment.

The opportunities inherent in such a large scale plan to save costs by buying in bulk should ensure it's cost effectiveness. Being that the government can match the housing required with the people who require it through better technology should also ensure savings and efficiency. This policy will also boost the economy, which has been limping along under Nationals stupid neo-liberal agenda.

There is the political angle to consider, in that some property investments might not increase in value as fast as they are now once the state houses come on line. But I don't think there's any other choice and something must be done to address the overheated market in New Zealand and the fact that we're not building enough houses to meet demand.

Clearly one of the biggest positive to Labours housing policy (PDF) is that it will give those who've lost all hope of ever owning their own home a chance to get onto that all important property ladder. The social benefits to this are huge and shouldn't be underestimated.

So well done David Shearer... That's exactly the type of thing I would do if I were Prime Minister.

Failing to address unaffordable housing

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

The Government is to place a six-month time limit on councils processing consents for medium-size projects including housing developments as part of its push to make homes affordable.

It is also looking to councils to free up more land for building and has announced an inquiry into the building industry to identify barriers to improving housing affordability.

The measures announced this afternoon by Finance Minister Bill English are the Government's response to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into housing affordability.

Typical National ploy... Announce policy that has the appearance of being advantageous but will in reality make the problem worse. Giving housing property investors and developers even more ways of cutting corners to maximize their profits while claiming this will help make housing more affordable is pretty damn conceited if you ask me.

Its over-investment because of tax-breaks that's the main factor in driving up house prices, not a lack of places to build. National and their Productivity Commission have entirely failed to address this issue. The problem has got so bad that New Zealand's housing estate is now being used as a tax-haven by foreigners. Still the government shows absolutely no concern or willingness to remedy the problem.

Home Affordability: The Government's Four Key Aims:

* Increasing land supply - this will include more greenfields and brownfields developments and allow further densification of cities, where appropriate.

* Reducing delays and costs of RMA processes associated with housing - this includes introducing a six-month time limit on council processing of medium-sized consents.

* Improving the timely provision of infrastructure to support new housing - this will include considering new ways to co-ordinate and manage infrastructure for subdivisions.

* Improving productivity in the construction sector.

Did the rightwing not learn anything from the leaky building debacle that resulted from widespread deregulation? The main player who benefitted from that was Fletcher Building because they supplied most of the defective materials. I guess their lobbyists have been working overtime again to ensure more deregulation... And once again, when the problems surface, they will likely not be held to account.

In my opinion, affordable housing should be a human right for everybody, and in a country like New Zealand there should be an overabundance of healthy homes for people to live in. The fact that over half of the countries houses are not maintained properly and are grossly overpriced is perhaps the governments biggest failure.

Without the current lot of diplomatic scoundrels showing any gumption to address the real issues concerning unaffordable housing, we should expect the amount of Kiwi families who own the house they live in to continue to decline. I guess that brighter future John Key talked about doesn't apply to the New Zealanders who are forced to indefinitely rent the house they live in.

Farrar's advice won't save National

Today, Kiwiblog reports:

I think the Govt needs to do a number of things to regain momentum. They include:

A commission of inquiry into the GCSB. The fact three other cases have been disclosed as being of uncertain legality gives the Govt grounds for this. Without an inquiry, the issue will drag on for the next six months or longer. The GCSB, with all respect, has displayed signs of incompetence. It is almost unforgiveable that they took two weeks to recall that Kim Dotcom had been mentioned to the PM at a general briefing. They should have located that within hours, not weeks. I personally don’t believe there has been any ill intent, but there has been enough errors made, that it is difficult to see public confidence being restored without a more rigorous inquiry – not just into Dotcom. Such an inquiry could also review the legal framework around the GCSB, so it is future looking also.

The GCSB should have reminded the Prime Minister that they had given him a briefing on Dotcom? Ah no! John Key should have remembered he had been briefed and not mislead the public. In my opinion, trying to distance himself from the controversy with disinformation is a sign of gross incompetence. The prime ministers department can only go so far in trying to protect John Key from his own shortcomings, and that's where an inquiry really needs to be focused.

Significant change to the Christchurch schools debacle. It could well be that all the changes are justified, and sensible in the long-term. But the way it was done has resulted in such ill feeling, that the Government needs to go for less change there. People know some stuff has to change, but go for the essential, not the “ideal” in terms of efficiency.

Most of the damage to National over this debacle has already occurred. Clearly the manipulation of making a policy announcement that is harsh and then backpedaling to only implement half of those measures has back fired in this instance. National look to be incompetent in their management of the Christchurch rebuild because they are in fact incompetent. The only way to ensure similar policy announcements are not badly managed is to remove the minister in charge.

Amend the ECan legislation to make it a hybrid body as the Commissioners recommended. When not even the Commissioners are wanting to stay on as a purely appointed body, you have to ask why would the Govt do this?

Actually we need to get rid of ECan altogether... It presently gives the minister in charge the power to bypass any and all environmental laws whenever he choses. He can ignore the Resource Management Act, water conservation orders and suspend the jurisdiction of the Environment Court without asking or even informing Parliament, which means there's no effective oversight.

Such archaic legislation to implement what can correctly be described as Gerry Brownlee's dictatorship opens Canterbury up to the potential of an abuse of power. Private interests will lobby the minister directly to make decision in their favour, which might not be in the best interest of Cantabrians. Get rid of ECan and reappoint a democratically elected council to oversee the Christchurch rebuild.

Deal with the child poverty campaign (which is in fact a campaign for higher taxes and more welfare). National’s policies around welfare reform, national standards, reducing child abuse, better domestic violence laws are in fact all about reducing real child poverty, and giving more kids a better start in life. The left’s only answer to these issues is tax and spend. They won’t confront the much tougher issues of welfare dependency, the bottom 20% of students etc. National will. But National is not making the case well enough, and allowing the left to define child poverty as being just about “relative poverty” which in fact is just another name for income inequality.

Punishing the poor for being poor isn't historically the Kiwi way and we used to be a lot more caring about our fellow New Zealanders. Now we have the right-wing screaming blue murder that to feed, clothe, educate and house children properly will mean an increase in taxes. The thing they seem to ignore is that the long-term cost of not looking after children properly through adequate welfare far outstrips any short term financial gains.

What is needed is a more equitable distribution of wealth and a system that allows the poor to generate their own incomes through work that they're properly reimbursed for. So far the left is providing a plan and showing they give a damn, while the right is caught up in an agenda that has already failed and trying to justify this by peddling the same old propaganda that anybody with a couple of braincells to rub together can see right through.

The claim that there's no real poverty in New Zealand and it's all relative is a terrible case of the emperors new clothes... All they really need to do is get out and about and open their eyes.

When internationally recognized research shows that poverty in New Zealand is worsening, they either ignore or rubbish the result. This ultimately leads to negative politicking where the victims of a failing system are told it's all their fault and nothing changes. As far as I can tell, only a change in government will rectify the issue of growing inequality in New Zealand.

What many right-wingers seem to forget is that financial problems cause domestic violence. Therefore the government needs to ensure poor peoples incomes increase and less children will be abused... It's a simple as that.

Position the left as the party of higher costs for struggling households. People forget they want to ramp up the ETS so petrol and electricity prices increase. They want more inflation, which will hit struggling families. They want more taxes.

What a load of rubbish! The current ETS has been used by National to give subsidies to polluting industries. The Government is facing a significant carbon account deficit because of those subsidies, which will be met by increasing taxes or borrowing more from overseas.

Meanwhile emissions are projected to far exceed targets in the future because of the subsidies National put in place, which actually gives an incentive for many industries to pollute more. We will need to purchase offshore carbon credits to offset industry subsidies, another cost that will be passed onto the taxpayer.

What we need to do is remove the subsidies currently given to polluting industries and then the government can potentially lower taxes. People will pay the true cost to manufacture products, but they will have more money and there will be a proper free market where products manufactured with non-polluting methods can properly compete.

The better management of government accounts will lead to less taxes, and so far only the left-wing show signs of making the changes required to ensure financial, environmental and social security for all New Zealanders. The alternative is more of the same from National, who have proven themselves to be totally incompetent! Their mismanagement is being reflected in the latest poll results, for which they have nobody to blame but themselves.

CTV engineers at fault

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

Under-fire CTV Building designer Dr Alan Reay is the victim of an "agenda'' by royal commission lawyers out to personally lampoon him, an inquiry was told today.

Lawyer Hugh Rennie QC said his client has been unfairly treated during the eight-week hearing into the Christchurch office block's catastrophic collapse during last February's earthquake, which claimed 115 lives.

Stephen Mills QC, counsel assisting the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission, claimed yesterday that design errors by Dr Reay's firm, Alan Reay Consultants Ltd stood out as the "primary cause'' for the disaster.

And today he went further, saying Dr Reay had turned a "Nelsonian blind eye'' to critical structural weaknesses identified in his office block 20 years before it collapsed.

Unfortunately it's not only in Nelson where people are turning a blind eye to badly designed and constructed buildings. New Zealand has a major problem of unenforced building codes whereby councils, designers and construction companies are all in cahoots to build as cheaply and as fast as possible. The end result is inferior buildings that endanger people's lives.

Alan Reay Consultants are obviously at fault here. Not only should they have declined to undertake the job using such inexperienced engineers, they allowed a design with numerous defects to go ahead knowing that it would be unsafe. This in my opinion is tantamount to manslaughter.

Police protect one of their own

Yesterday, the Police reported:

Police have confirmed that an officer resigned late last year after being investigated for theft in the aftermath of the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

It was alleged that three sets of sunglasses were taken from a cordoned-off suburban shop by an officer from the North Island.

Assistant Commissioner South, Dave Cliff, says the matter was investigated as soon as it was brought to Police notice.

"We are very clear that any allegations against Police must be investigated thoroughly and promptly," says Assistant Commissioner Cliff. "We demand the highest ethical standards from all police officers and police employees."

An inquiry was initiated immediately and was conducted by senior Police investigators. The constable was suspended once evidence of his involvement emerged. He did not admit the theft of the sunglasses.

Assistant Commissioner Cliff says an assessment was made about evidential sufficiency to support an open court charge. Legal advice was received that there was not enough evidence that could lawfully be put before a court to prove a charge of theft.

"Fingerprint evidence was not able to be put to the court. Officers' fingerprints are recorded for elimination purposes, but it is not lawful for these to be used for any other purpose. As a result the decision was made, reluctantly, that charges could not be brought against the constable.

Unbelievable! Here we have a police screening system that records fingerprints to ensure new recruits are not connected to any previous crimes not being used appropriately.

If the police had on file the fingerprints of somebody from the general public, and they were connected to a crime through that fingerprinting but it was inadmissible*, the police would simply use that evidence to require another fingerprint test that would be admissible.

In fact the police should have simply fingerprinted the officer in question again when he was connected to the crime. He/she should have been arrested. The fact that they didn't smacks of police corruption and the same old usual boys in blue protecting one of their own.

What this shows is that there's one law for the police and another for the general public... and the contrast couldn't be greater:

Criminal A stole got away with $6000 dollars worth of clothing, had his name and face all over the news and was sentenced to two years imprisonment.

Criminal B stole an undisclosed amount, had his name suppressed, wasn't put before a judiciary to see if evidence was admissible or not and got off scott free.

Criminal A is Maori and comes from the general public while criminal B was a police officer and likely to be Pakeha. The Police's "ethical standards" in this matter are a complete joke!

* It was established that the fingerprints were impressed at the time the crime was committed. These fingerprints were admissible and should have been enough to ensure the matter was put before a judge. It is for a court of law to decide whether that evidence is beyond a reasonable doubt and warrants a conviction, not the Police.

Something to go to in Christchurch

Housing protest.

Where: Gerry Brownlee’s Ilam Office, 283 Greers Rd, Christchurch

When: Saturday 26th May 2.00pm ~ Bring Your Concerns!

There is a great need for affordable and safe housing for many people in Otautahi/Christchurch at this time, meanwhile rental prices have increased, many people are struggling to make ends meet, and the rebuild is being monopolised by corporate interests before addressing the needs and concerns of local communities.

* More decent social housing for Christchurch
* Sustainable rebuild
* Housing organised according to need not profit
* Acknowledgement of the real levels of homelessness and displacement in our city
* Rent freeze for private and social housing
* A living wage and affordable housing for all
* No shock doctrine housing policy
* Democratic process for peoples’ housing concerns to be heard

Blowing the budget

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

The Government has defended its rising payments to consultants, saying unexpected events such as earthquakes and finance company collapses required experts that the public sector could not provide.

Documents released under the Official Information Act showed that Treasury and the Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture had tripled their payments to contractors in National's time in government.

Some departments were spending close to a third of their budget on consultants.

More private consultants are required because there is now a shortfall from reducing the amount of public sector workers. In some instances, government departments are having to hire at a premium the very same staff they have just laid off.

This is where National excels, by not properly understanding the effect of their idiotic decisions. They are in fact ideologically blinded by neoliberalism that ends up costing us more with less to show for it.

Despite the obvious incompetency, Bill English does his best to dismiss National's budget blowout:

Finance Minister Bill English said this did not represent a blowout because it was lower than the rate of inflation and similar to the total wage increases for the public sector.

He said the big-spending departments such as Treasury had dealt with earthquake recovery, the collapse of finance companies, and guarantees for large IT projects.

"Those require specialist skills that you wouldn't expect the public service to have. While the public sector has a wide range of skills it doesn't have every skill you need in a pretty volatile world."

Treasury's budget on consultants has increased by 450 per cent since Labour's time in charge.

Mr English said he did not know what the Government had spent in total on consultants, and it was up to individual ministries to provide these figures.

Excuses excuses! Of course they failed to project the increased spending on consultants in the 2011 PREFU. National also sacked thousands of public sector workers to apparently save money, and here is Bill bloody English saying employment costs have increased... what an idiot!

National will just continue to bang on about excessive costs under the last Labour government, while under National, New Zealand has to borrow billions to cover their tax cuts for the wealthy, which will ensure our indebtedness for the foreseeable future.

The financial incompetency of National couldn't be greater.

How many people attended?

There was a protest in Christchurch yesterday, with people voicing their concerns about the pay rise of council CEO Tony Marryatt.

On the day, TV3 reported:

Around 1000 protesters are gathering outside the Christchurch City Council building, angry over council chief executive Tony Marryatt's $68,000 pay rise and calling for him to be sacked.

Today, The Otago Daily Times reported:

Thousands of people gathered in Christchurch yesterday to demand "urgent change to restore democracy" over continued concerns about the Christchurch City Council and its controversial chief executive Tony Marryatt.

[...]

About 3000 people showed up to protest and the Rev Mike Coleman said the large turnout was due to ordinary citizens who knew something was wrong with their city.

Using Jacob’s method shows 750 people attended the protest. Clearly the mainstream media plucked their estimate out of thin air... over-exaggerating by a whopping 300%. I wonder why?

The problem is that the media also underestimates the numbers attending protests their masters don’t like… so much so you’d think they couldn’t count at all.

These days there are lasers, satellites, aerial photography, 3-D grid systems and recorded video footage to assist with an estimated crowd count… yet the mainstream media still don't get it right.

In this case it's looking like CERA and the government will be trying to use the Christchurch City Council as a scapegoat for their own failings... helped along with a complacent media all to ready to promote National's propaganda.

John Key... a history of lying

In the wake off one of New Zealands biggest disasters, that has been estimated to potentially cost the country around 30 billion, was it OK to buy a fleet of fancy new luxury cars?

And was it OK to lie to the public about the process used to get them?

On February 16, TVNZ reported:

Key says it's too late to send them back at any rate. 

"Those cars are going to turn up in New Zealand," he said, adding that to stop that now would incur high costs. 

Internal Affairs, however, has confirmed to ONE News that replacing the fleet was actually "optional", with no penalty for ending the contract.

Sure, if the economy was doing well, we had lots of money to spare and there wasn't a huge redevelopment of Christchurch needed, one might consider buying a brand spanking new fleet of BMW's with all the trimmings.

But our economy wasn't looking too great was it and we'd just had one of New Zealand's biggest ever disasters.

Wouldn't it have been better to break the contract? Being that there were no penalties. It's really all about priorities.

Fracking Earthquakes

It’s good to see the fracking issue being debated in the mainstream media. Being that a poll recently showed the environment is people’s number one concern, it’s important that a proper debate consisting of the facts is presented.

It's paramount to keep focused on the reality of the situation as disinformation can damage proper debate. That’s why it’s disappointing to see the oil and gas industry continue with their propaganda concerning their destructive practices.

Here is Straterra's fracking advocate, Bernie Napp being preposterous with his argument that there's only 98% water and 2% sand mix used in fracking:



Between 2% to 4% of the fluids used in any given frack job are chemicals. With up to 20 million litres of water used for each frack, there is huge potential to contaminate the environment.

Just to answer another part of the disinformation within the debate... New Zealand's fracker's use exactly the same technology and procedures as their overseas counterparts. Their procedures are therefore just as environmentally unsafe.

The fracking industry in New Zealand is mainly self-regulated with consents often broken with impunity. The Taranaki Regional Council for instance lets frackers self monitor levels of chemicals released onto the land and into nearby waterways. This has led to numerous breaches of consents, damaging not just the environment but also our clean green image.  

Such environmental disregard should concern industries like farming as the many thousands of highly toxic chemicals used in the process can irreversibly pollute water sources, something many New Zealand industries rely heavily upon. However I digress... what of the possibility that fracking causes earthquakes?

On Sunday, Radio NZ reported:

A study in Britain has found it is highly probable that fracking triggered minor earth tremors near the seaside resort of Blackpool.

Chief executive of industry body Straterra Chris Baker says fracking is a proven engineering technology and there is legislation to manage the risks.

It wasn't that long ago that the Fracking industry in New Zealand was categorically saying that the technology did not cause earthquakes.

This is an understandable position being that it would be unacceptable to most people that any industry could make earthquakes more likely... especially in light of recent events. The article continues:

Petroleum geosciences expert Rosemary Quinn says more than 15,000 earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or larger are recorded in New Zealand each year and that induced seismic activity associated with fracking is usually measured at a much lower level, of about 1.5 or two.

"That's not to say that fracking doesn't cause seismic activity, it does and that's understood in the scientific community. But the level of seismic activity induced is generally not significant enough to either injure people or to cause damage to property."

The interesting thing here is that earthquakes have been increasing with magnitude 7 or above earthquakes more than doubling since hydraulic fracturing became widely used.

I'm not saying this categorically points towards fracking causing large earthquakes, just that there could be a correlation between increased earthquake activity and the advent of slick water fracturing on a large scale.

Despite there being scientific agreement that fracking causes small earthquakes, the industry would have us dismiss this fact as irrelevant because those quakes in themselves do not cause damage.

The question is whether triggering small earthquakes limits the possibility of a larger earthquake in the future or whether fracking triggering smaller earthquakes could destabilize the earth enough to cause a major earthquake?

There seems to be no scientific consensus concerning this issue, mainly because there have been no proper studies undertaken. The jury is simply out on whether fracking causes large earthquakes, although some authoritative voices have postulated that hydraulic fracturing is not safe.

William Ellsworth, chief scientist of the U.S. Geological Survey's earthquake hazard team believes:

"There is no guarantee that you could prevent a ‘4’ from growing into a ‘6’ or even an ‘8’, particularly at the start of the process.  So, your good intentions would have a fair chance of inducing the event you hope to avoid".

Thomas J. Ahrens, a geophysics professor at the California Institute of Technology, agreed with Ellsworth’s warning "such earthquakes may easily get out of control.”

Believing that triggering small earthquakes does not cause larger earthquakes implies knowledge of the stressed faults, when this is currently technically unachievable. Tectonic instability is something even geologists often struggle to determine, so how can we expect the hydraulic fracturing industry to know?

Perhaps the best reason to not continue the dangerous practice of fracking is that it's not proven safe. Until it is there should be a moratorium on further fracking developments.

National's Election Hoarding's 5

Click image to enlarge

Back in July this year it was revealed that National creates jobs for their mates and pays them three times the going rate. When attempting to side step the issue, Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee started telling lies:

When Earthquake Minister Gerry Brownlee appointed ex National MP Jenny Shipley to the CERA, he decided to ignore the Cabinet Fees Framework and pay her triple the normal rate. He claimed that it was because she and her fellow board members "would not work for less." he said. 

However Sir John Hansen told ONE News that so far he had worked "hours" rather than days and had not put in an invoice. When he was asked to be on the panel he didn't ask what the remuneration was as he believed the job was "an important public service."

Contradictions and Lies

John Key says that we need to risk our environment to create jobs on deep sea oil rigs while National have sacked 3000 public servants and cut funding to TVNZ7, presumably because the Natz don't agree with its content.

The New Zealand Press Association (NZPA) is also set to close while National promise to bail out the privately owned insurance company AMI to the tune of a billion dollars.

John Key states that “New Zealand has proven it can manage those risks” from deep sea oil exploration when this is clearly incorrect, we have very little infrastructure to rectify a large oil spill.

With New Zealand wages now 30% behind Australia, Bill English says: “it is a good thing if we can attract the capital” contradicting Nationals 2008 election campaign. Unemployment has increased by around 200,000 while National has been in power.

Bill English says that the deal with Mediaworks is not a loan but documents reveal that it is a loan and he signed off on that loan. Steven Joyce the former head of Mediaworks says that other media outlets had the same deal while it is revealed that 99% of the money spent went to Mediaworks. John Key says he never met with Mediaworks when he spoke directly with the company’s management and consequently went against Ministry of Economic Development advice in granting the deal. Idiot Savant @ No Right Turn says this.

John Key says he knew nothing about the BMW deal when he had signed off on it himself. He states that there was no option but to buy the BMW’s when later documents show this to not be true. Mr Key then jokes about the situation.

John Key lies in an attempt to explain away hard evidence that he had a major, undisclosed conflict of interest in his Tranz Rail shares:

National are convinced state power companies will perform better after partial privatisation, despite contrary Treasury advice. Key promises to proceed with privatization if elected despite a huge percentage of the population being against the plan.

John Key states that 10,000 Christchurch homes will need to be demolished when he had no intelligence to base this figure on. Key posses for photo opportunities while many in Christchurch go without basic necessities.

Gerry Brownlee says that the government is doing a good job while it is revealed that EQC assessments are being done in a time frame of as little as 44 seconds. Gerry Brownlee opens the tender to build temporary accommodation for those affected by the Christchurch Earthquake to international interests while Japan’s first temporary accommodation becomes available for those effected by their Magnitude 9 Earthquake and tsunami.

After much controversy concerning the Governments plans for heritage buildings affected by the Earthquakes, Gerry Brownlee says:

“I understand conservation architecture very well and I do have an appreciation of heritage buildings."

Mr Brownlee then follows this up with:

“It's going to ruin communities because people have not been able to get on with things due to that very expensive heritage process," and "We cannot put the city into paralysis while we go about considering the heritage values of such a large number of buildings."

John Key changes his position on the Iraq war initially stating that National should send troops because "blood was thicker than water." He later said that we should not send troops to be more in line with public awareness. Phil Goff says that Key either has a defective memory or simply he is not telling the truth to disguise his poor judgement and yet another flip-flop. Etc.