All posts tagged Russel Norman

Explaining MMP to Russel Norman

Yesterday National said that no changes would be made as a result of the MMP review because of party consensus.

Russel Norman complained on Twitter:

There was never going to be unanimity on MMP review as the Act and Dunne turkeys wont vote for an early xmas.

Referendum supported MMP. Electoral Commission inde review recc removing coat-tailing and reducing threshold to 4%. Nats want gerrymander

Legal/political guru Graeme Edgeler responded:

And you want a less representative parliament and a higher wasted vote. All in the Game.

Norman didn’t get that:

How does lowering the threshold produce a less representative parliament? It’s the opposite!

Edgeler explained:

Removing the one seat rule will increase disproportionality by more than lowering threshold to 4% will decrease it.

Norman seemed more interested in getting what suited him and the Greens, not better proportionality:

That was the Electoral Commission recc.Do you think we should oppose it?

Edgeler went on:

I think you should take account of it when reaching your view, based on what the Greens think is important.

If what the Greens think is important is proportionality, you should oppose it.

If the Greens think proportionality is properly sacrificed to gain greater equality between voters that support it.

But if you support removing the one-seat rule, you should say that you are happy for there to be a less proportional system.

No response to that from Norman.

The Greens were no better than any of the other parties – they wanted proportionality that suited them but opposed proportionality that favoured other parties.

That approach is why no consensus could be reached.

Getting political parties to choose the most proportional most representative democratic system is a bit like, using Norman’s metaphor, allowing turkeys to decide on a Christmas menu.

There was never going to be unanimity on MMP review as…

…all parties had selfish interests. I really think that Norman was not aware of this. This is a major flaw in Green thinking, they seem to convince themselves that what they believe is the best option, the most democratic, the best policy. They are blind to their own biases.

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by Pete George on May 15, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on May 15, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/05/15/explaining-mmp-to-russel-norman/

Old Greens good, new Greens bad

Another ‘Goldie’ picture, this time of the changing hue of the Greens.

The hostility and partisanship is a change from what the Greens used to be. Under Rod Donald (a lovely man) and Jeanette Fitzsimmons the Greens were always very careful to be respectful and ‘non partisan’.

I remember how effective Nandor Tanzcos was behind the scenes because of his generally careful and respectful tone – I respected how Nandor understood that lasting change can only be achieved by reaching a consensus and changing the ‘other sides’ thinking.

I also recall how shocked I was when I met Russel Norman (who was then a researcher in parliament) because he was so obviously hard-left (the other Greens were environmentalists rather than marxists) and the real bile he had towards John Key (I think Russel Norman personally despises John Key).

I was surprised when he became MP and leader in 2008, because his tone/attitude was so very different from the other Greens.

So it has proven – the Greens have swung very sharply away from being an environmental party that tried to reach consensus under MMP into a hard-left party in a winner-takes all political system.

An example is asset sales – no Green MP has tried to assess the policy for its impact on the environment – they have instead taken a knee-jerk hard-left ideological position.

Political stunts and hyper-partisanship may make for good short-term politics, but it completely alienates liberal National supporters and independents.

I’m sure it is causing a lot of independents to reconsider their Green sympathies and support.

I’ve changed from a semi supporter and admirer of the environmental pragmatic Greens with integrity, to being concerned about the win at any costs hard left highly politicised new Green machine.

And I know others who have changed their Green view too. Greens will win a few (voters), lose a few. We will find out how this balances out next year.

And I’ve seen a noticeable change in the attitude of some political journalists to the Greens over the last few weeks. They have started to look far more critically at what Green actions and a Green dominated Government may do.

There’s no doubt that the Greens are a very different hue to what they used to be, there’s a lot more socialist red than there is environmental green.

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by Pete George on May 10, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on May 10, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/05/10/old-greens-good-new-greens-bad/

Green reaction to MRP

After the Mighty River Power share price and buyer statistics were announced last night the Greens were active.

The official word from Russel Norman:

Mighty River con revealed

The Mighty River sale has been shown to be a con on New Zealanders with less than 3 percent of Kiwis buying in and most of the shares going to corporates, Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman said today.

“The charade is over: ‘mum and dad’ New Zealanders haven’t bought the shares; the big finance institutions and foreign corporates have,” said Dr Norman.

“John Key’s talk of ‘mum and dad’ investors was a con – less than 3 percent of Kiwis have bought shares in Mighty River Power.

“The fact that Kiwi retail investors are having their allotments scaled back so National can sell shares to foreign corporates shows what a farce this has been.

“The multi-million dollar ad campaign has failed to con Kiwis into buying Mighty River, they want lower power prices instead.

“The supposed 440,000 pre-registered investors turned out to be a figment of John Key’s imagination. The number of retail investors is only half the number who bought into Contact and less than half of what Treasury forecast.

“Over two and a half times as many Kiwis have signed the petition calling for a referendum on asset sales as bought Mighty River shares – that tells you what Kiwis think of John Key’s asset sales.

“John Key has wasted as much as $100m on the sale of Mighty River. That’s nearly $1,000 per retail investor. It’s been a disaster. He should cancel the rest of the asset sales and focus on creating jobs for Kiwis, not payouts for financiers,” said Dr Norman.

Comparing the number of share buyers with the number of petition signers is ridiculous. Signing a piece of paper costs nothing and often spur of the moment, purchasing shares is a significant financial decision.

Greens were active on Twitter:

@metiria
@patrickgowernz and so 300,000 ‘fake’ registrations Will you report the MRP disaster like that too? Hmm?

@patrickgowernz
@metiria nope

@metiria
@patrickgowernz really? What a surprise.

It’s not a surprise, there is no indication there were anywhere near that many ‘fake’ registrations – many people who registered simply decided not to buy (like me) -  although there were obviously some:

@metiria
I was registered fraudulently at least twice, another MP 5 times. I complained to treasury & they wouldn’t fix the system

And ditto on fake claims of the scale of fake registrations from Russel Norman:

@RusselNorman
So only 113000 retail investors in MRP. So by Key’s logic there were 330,000 fake MRP registrations. Key the conartist

@RusselNorman
So by your logic, Key had 75% fake registrations @patrickgowernz? Will you run that line?

@patrickgowernz
nope

@RusselNorman
no surprise there Paddy.

And…

@RusselNorman
Nats have spent $1000 of taxpayer money per retail investor in MRP. 100000 investors for $100m. Nats waste public money yet again.

More pertinent is querying whether the cost of promoting the share float would have been returned in increased sales interest and value of the sales. That can’t easily be measured – but it would be relevant to compare the cost of promoting this with the cost of promoting other share floats.

The party line:

@NZGreens

Key’s ‘mum & dad investors’ line revealed as a con. Less than 3% of Kiwis bought Mighty River shares http://www.greens.org.nz/press-releases/mighty-river-con-revealed … stop the sales

@PeteDGeorge@ClintVSmith If that’s why people rejected MRP, it’s only a recognition that NZ Power will bring down prices to fair level

Fair time to announce a policy affecting power prices & excessive profits was before the sale. Not like Key’s secret GST rise

Mighty River sale cost up to $100m: brokers ~$50m, bonus shares ~$40m + ads, fees, etc. What a waste. Stop the asset sales.

No. Key has wasted $100 on a sale that makes no sense & Kiwis oppose. He should be working on jobs, poverty, & sustainability

Plus every single poll has shown a large majority oppose sales.

And the troops – Gareth Hughes:

@GarethMP

First asset sale is a total con. Despite spending millions on ads: less than 3% of Kiwis buying in & most of the shares going to corporates!

@Matt_Green sure, but excessive profits in the past should never be guaranteed into the future.

@Matt_Green yeah, I think many did that too. The Govt did sweeten the deal with taxpayer money.

Have a listen to my short speech on #NZPower today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zjWCjqi7nOk … Greens coming up with solutions while Govt focused on spying laws

@Matt_Green yeah, fair point. I dont think we ever had. We designed #NZPower if assets kept in Kiwis hands or flogged off.

MRP Share price $2.50. Asset sale costs $120m. Free share bribe $400m. Keeping assets Kiwi & delivering cheaper, cleaner power. Priceless.

 

Andrew Campbell:

@Andr3wCampbell

@patrickgowernz disaster for govt. way fewer than valid signatures on asset sales petition. Where are all the mums and dads buying?

@johnkeypm should apologise for the rort. How many fake registrations for MRP shares?

@CactusKate2 it was less than Govt said it would get and less than Treasury predicted. Worse than Contact original offer #epicfail

And Hey Clint doesn’t seem happy about it…

@stevenljoyce onyl 113,000? that’s a disaster. So much for ‘mum and dad’ investors

Only 113,000 ‘mum and dad’ investors in Mighty River. What a disaster. that’s half what Contact got. only a quarter of pre-registrations

@felixmarwick @katieabradford It’s the largest now because 2/3rds of Contact shareholders have sold. 113,000 is half Contact’s float number

@k8chap except that less than 3% of Kiwis have bought shares

@patrickgowernz guess the other 330,000 pre-registrations were fakes and false #Keycons Less than 3% of Kiwis have bought shares. Disaster

@VernonSmall Did the other 330,000 even exist? There were dozens fake Russel Normans. Less than 3% of NZers buy MRP, so much for ‘mum & dad’

@patrickgowernz what % of ownership is ‘mum and dad’? Sounds like most is institutional

@VernonSmall so they’re scaling Kiwis while selling shares to overseas corporates?

So much for ‘mum and dad’ investors. Nats are scaling back their investment to sell shares to overseas corporates

@hardsell @patrickgowernz because that would be a taxpayer subsidy, NZ Power gets rid of electric companies’ superprofits creates fair price

massive fail, 97% of Kiwis don’t buy MRP shares. Mr FixIt, Mr ForgetsIt, and Double Dipton f*ck up again @stevenljoyce

@CactusKate2 less than half what Treasury expected, half what Contact got 14yrs ago. So much for ‘mums and dads’ Most shares to institutions

@CactusKate2 what % of Kiwisaver savings are in MRP? What % of MRP do Kiwisaver funds own?

@patrickgowernz @metiria @GuyonEspiner so people who sign petition then move = fake. but 2 dozen Russel Normans pre-registered = real?

@thekiwicanary ‘mum and dad investors’ is Key’s term to make the asset sales more palatable. Hence my inverted commas. Take it up with him.

@sthnjeff would you have preferred the Greens kept their plan to lower power prices secret until in govt? Like Key did with GST?

@CactusKate2 That’s why I thought I’d ask you. #330000short

@patrickgowernz @RusselNorman mate, $100m spent on MRP sale, 113,000 retail investors that’s failure. Asset sales referendum is gonna happen

Hey, where was Key at the Mighty River sale announcement? This is his one economic policy. Such a disaster he wouldn’t front up. $100m waste

@thekiwicanary john key’s twitter account is @johnkeypm if you want to abuse him for calling you a ‘mum and dad’ investor #patronising

@kht27 @patrickgowernz that’s key lies. nz power means only fossil fuel plants affected by ets. Under nats ets, hydro owners get a windfall

@Garner_Live @liamdann @patrickgowernz treasury thought 250,000 would buy. We never imagined it would be this low. Thought at least 200,000

@duckky007 @kht27 @patrickgowernz why? NZ Power eliminates economic rents to hydrodam owners, they’re making those regardless of yr discount

@thekiwicanary @stevenljoyce shld they have kept their lower power price plan secret past election asJoyce & Key did w their sneak GST rise?

xxx

3 Comments
by Pete George on May 9, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on May 9, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/05/09/green-reaction-to-mrp/

Time to end asset petition farce

As a supposed Citizen Initiated Referendum the asset sales petition was always a politicised farce. It was known from the start that if a referendum was held it would be ignored by Government, as past Governments have done with past referenda.

But the Greens poured considerable resources into using the referendum as a between elections campaign tool. And as seems to be common practice these days Labour followed along.

As far as political PR stunts go Greens and Labour have been majorly embarrassed by failing to get the required number of signatures.

They are initially putting on brave faces, albeit considerably egg covered. Russel Norman and David Shearer are vowing to get back to gathering signatures again to get the additional signatures required.

I wonder how many of the Green and Labour troops are groaning with trepidation. A year long signature gathering campaign was a major slog. Now they are being asked to psych themselves again for another burst of pleading to the public.

For what?

If they get the signatures a referendum will be held, perhaps later this year – well after Mighty River Power shares go on NZX (this Friday), and quite possibly after Meridian as well some time in the next few months. Too toothless, too late.

A referendum would be a multi million dollar exercise in futility.

Greens thought they were onto a winning strategy where they could use taxpayer money to fund a long running party campaign leading in to the next election.

They have now lost face, big time.

And if they continue on with the petition they stand to gain little if anything more, and could lose more egg covered face.

If Greens and Labour can’t organise a successful petition together, how would the look organising a government coalition?

A referendum will have zero effect on the asset share sale programme. It will keep reminding voters of the ongoing CIR farce.

If Greens and Labour had any sense they would cut their losses and move on to something more positive.

But by the sound of Russel Norman’s response to the news yesterday the Green petition machine is likely to continue.

And Labour sound like they will continue – Anti-asset sales campaign not over yet – Labour

Talk about flogging long dead horses. I think it’s time to end the farce.
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by Pete George on May 8, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on May 8, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/05/08/time-to-end-asset-petition-farce/

Did David Farrar sabotage the asset petition?

Russel Norman’s last tweet yesterday:

So if the National Party activist David Farrar signed the asset sale petition 13 times, did Nats organise this nationally?

Funny to see Norman referring to Farrar as a “National Party activist”.

Farrar has responded on Facebook:

Seeing the response to today’s joke tweet, I am thinking of becoming a professional troll. The waves of outrage are quite addictive!

Farra’s “joke tweet” was amongst an exchange on the number of disallowed signatures on the asset sale petition. On a Kiwiblog post Massive fail for Labour and Greens Farrar claims:

This is incredible. They spent around $400,000 gathering signatures for their asset sales petition, and they failed to get enough valid signatures.

They needed 308,753 valid signatures but fell short by 16,500.

That is a massive fail and gross political incompetence. They didn’t have to submit the petition when they did. They could have carried on getting more signatures to make sure.

I’m still staggered for now that despite spending $400,000 and having the entire memberships of the Labour and Green parties, and most unions, they proved unable to get enough valid signatures.  You could understand it if they were close to the deadline to submit – but they were not. They made a tactical decision to submit early for political posturing, and have ended up with egg on their face.

UPDATE: They claimed to have 400,000 signatures but got 292,250 valid ones. That means 107,750 were invalid which is a massive 26.9%. Maybe they should have put their paid petition gatherers on performance pay!

Here’s the offending tweet:

 ‏@dpfdpf
So was it wrong of me to sign the #assetsales petition 13 times? I used a different name each time, so figured that was fine :-)

I saw that tweet at the time, 8.37 pm last night. I can only see minor response to that tweet, Farrar then went out fot the evening (according to another tweet) and Norman was not very active, a few tweets defending the petition and then the one accusing Farrar.

Farrar was obviously joking. Norman must know this but is trying to score some political mileage by trying to portray it as an organised National sabotage of the petition.

Over the last year when the petition was gathering signatures I saw many quips and claims in social media that people had signed the petition using fake names – eg Mickey Mouse. It’s impossible to know if these commenters were saying what they had actually done or were trying to encourage others to do it.

I don’t agree with deliberately spoiling a petition but I’m not surprised, the Greens used what is supposed to be a Citizen Initiated Referendum into a party campaign tool, using it to promote themselves and to harvest contact email addresses, phone numbers and postal addresses (as did Labour).

So it shouldn’t be surprising that political game playing may have occurred with the petition. Norman played down a country wide 2011 campaign stunt by Green activists defacing National election hoardings.

Defacing petition forms is probably a degree worse but as a Citizen’s referendum it was farcical and futile, so making it more farcical doesn’t seem to be a big deal.

Not that I think Farrar signed 13 times, I highly doubt that he did, he was joking on Twitter. Some will have deliberately the spoiled petition, but there will be many reasons for invalid signatures.

Someone I know told me that a signature gatherer was so pushy they found it easier to just sign (again) than say no.

And a couple of examples from a petition supporting blog, The Standard, in Asset sales petition has more work to do.

tamati 9

I remember seeing a petition at an op shop on Dominion road. Was just sitting on the counter, with nobody actually supervising. Saw a bunch of girls in school uniform sign up, and nobody seemed to know this was wrong!

shorts 13

I wonder how many are disallowed due to them not being on the electoral role – given over a million eligible voters didn’t vote last election, one could surmise there’s a lot of young people whom may have signed simply not on the roll?

Yep as someone who spent a lot of time collecting signatures the number of people who had changed addresses were significant. And without a date of birth date the chances of identifying them on the roll would have been very poor.

I am actually not surprised at this problem. It is just what happens when you have volunteers talking to ordinary people and collecting signatures without the benefit of electoral rolls being on hand.

The Al1en 16

I signed the petition in the Labour party Hamilton office in Te Rapa.
I was told to only sign my name and date of birth.
And they want to run the country when they can’t even get a form filled out properly.
Good work, front desk nobody.

With consideration, I remember I queried it at the time and did put my name down, but I do recall seeing a lot of just names and birth dates. Hope that page wan’t pulled out for a scan by the clerk.

karol 23.3

I’m still concerned about the fact that I moved since I signed the petition – wonder if that makes my signature invalid.

So obviously it’s very difficult ensuring that only valid signatures are collected, and a high failure rate isn’t surprising.

Greens and Labour will have known there was a high error rate, as they were harvesting data off the petition forms, Duplicates and obvious bogus names would have been known about.

They delayed presentation of the petition. This was probably due to known error rates. But they miscalculated – and were under pressure to present the petition before Mighty River Power shares were floated.

Russel Norman could look at any number of reasons why the operation failed to make the required threshold.

Blaming David Farrar and a National spoiling campaign looks a bit desperate.

But I guess a highly party politicised “citizen’s” petition/referendum campaign is going to remain highly politicised.

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by Pete George on May 8, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on May 8, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/05/08/did-david-farrar-sabotage-the-asset-petition/

Shane Jones “swallowing dead rats”

Shane Jones looked like he was uncomfortably swallowing dead rats when he was interviewed on Q + A yesterday.

Labour continue to pass the parcel (or hot potato) in their promotion of their “big Kahuna” power policy.

  • David Shearer did a joint launch with Russel Norman.
  • David Parker was interviewed on The Nation a week ago.
  • Grant Robertson had interviews and issued press releases through the week (Shearer was out of the country).
  • It was Shane Jones’ turn to front up on Sunday’s Q + A.

Jessica Mutch asked Jones if he thought Shearer’s joint press conference with Norman launching similar-ish power policies was a good idea.

JESSICA Do you or do you not think it was a good idea?

SHANE Yeah, no, no, the fact that the Greens and Labour sat together and talked about moderating power prices for the benefit of industry and the households is good optics.

JESSICA Steven Joyce put out a press release last night saying that the Greens are having a lot of influence and saying “more middle-of-road MPs like Shane Jones are now isolated and forced to recite the anti-growth agenda”. What’s your response to that?

SHANE No, well, anyone who’s got a sliver of knowledge about me knows that I’m a firm believer in growth. There will be occasions where we continue to have a different position with the Greens, but, look, Steven Joyce-

JESSICA But does Steven Joyce have a point?

SHANE He’s just being hysterical. It’s pretty sad that he’s having to recite my name at a National Party-

JESSICA So you’re not having to swallow dead rats here?

SHANE No, it’s not how politics works. You have your say. You may be a bit frustrated, etc. I mean, I’m a Maori politician. I live with frustration. And then once having arrived at a position, then you go out, you robustly sell it, and then you convince the public that this is good for the economy, this is good for households and the people who are against it are tainted because they’re paid by the government to oppose our policy.

JESSICA So what you’re basically saying is you have to suck it up and go out and sell Labour’s policy.

SHANE Without a doubt. You don’t-

JESSICA Even if you don’t believe in it?

SHANE No, no, no, no, no. What you do is you have your debate and you’ll never ever completely agree with everything behind the scenes, but you show loyalty, and unless the voters believe that you’re a united team, then why would they ever support you?

Labour have tried to look united with Greens to promote a credible  image of Government-in-waiting, but they don’t even look united amongst themselves.

Jones waffled around the topic but looked far from convincing. Neither Shearer nor Parker had looked comfortable when it was their turn.

The Labour “team” has looked like a procession of reluctant individuals – are they all swallowing dead rats in climbing on board the Green machine?

Video – Shane Jones on Labour’s power plan (10:06)

Full Transcript – Q+A: Transcript of Shane Jones interview

 

 

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by Pete George on April 29, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 29, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/29/shane-jones-swallowing-dead-rats/

Green power bid pushes lamentable Labour

Now that Labour’s NZ Power pushing is turning to custard attention is turning to how they got into this hapless situation, facing a crisis of confidence while their leader David Shearer is out of the country.

And the claims are growing that the Greens forced Labour’s hand and rushed them in to launching their poorly thought through power policy.

A Chris Trotter post lamenting Grant Robertson’s capitulation to market realities also suggests that Labour were pushed by the Greens.

Grant’s willingness to rule out any further anti-market forays by Labour shows how peripheral Energising New Zealand always was to the key power-brokers within Labour’s caucus. According to the National Business Review, the party’s self-denying ordinance had been tucked away in the detail of Labour’s policy announcement from Day One.

David Shearer’s refusal to postpone his trip to London so that he could be on the spot to defend Energising New Zealand is now explained. The policy wasn’t his initiative, he had no personal stake in its success or failure, and he was happy to leave the explanations to the actual man-with-the-plan, Labour’s Finance Spokesperson, David Parker.

Parker, himself, would probably have preferred to wait, but the imminent release of the Greens’ almost identical energy policy forced Labour’s hand. Rather than see their Green rivals steal yet another march on them, Labour’s strategists acquiesced to a joint announcement.

‘MARC’ adds to this:

Well, I thought all along that it was really the Greens setting the pace and leading the agenda on the electricity regulation policies. Having seen the announcement by Norman and Shearer on the TV news it was so clear, that it was Norman, who pushed for this to be announced. I saw Shearer stand there, turn left and right, glance over to Norman, and otherwise display a composure that betrayed a degree of half halfheartedness.

Yes, Labour were forced to join with the Greens, so they would not lose face yet again, standing there with the undies down below their knees, while the Greens were announcing another, somehow smart-sounding, new policy.

This fits with David Shearer’s late Sunday night press release, his waiting until the BERL report on Tuesday and then standing between Russel Norman and David Parker on Thursday at the big announcement.

It’s been a mess for Labour, and it may keep getting worse.

And it’s interesting in the context of Shearer claiming that Labour wouldn’t dance in time to National’s agenda – he said…

“We are working…according to our own timetable.”

But it’s now being claimed they were dancing to a Green tune.

And it goes some way to explaining the Labour muckiness:

  • Shearer looking like and sounding like moulded cheese in the Norman and Parker sandwich
  • Parker on The Nation looking like he didn’t own the policy nor conviction that it was sensible
  • Robertson pushing the party lines for a while, then switching to damage control

So what about Greens? Since the joint announcement it was suspected that it was Green policy that Labour had belatedly tacked a few of their own bits onto.

If the timing was dicated by the Greens that put’s more responsibility on the Greens for the MRP share float sabotage claims. Gareth Hughes failed to contain his elation at the news that the MRP had been (temporarily) suspended – see Clint too.

If this was all planned by the Greens why would they time an announcment for after the start of the share float, just before Russel Norman was due to go on two weeks leave overseas?

That probably wasn’t the original intent. It’s likely the Greens wanted to make their Empowering the people announcement prior to the share float, but when Labour got involved at the last minute they had to delay.

That led to the Greens having to rely on Gareth Hughes to fly the Green flag. That resulted in embarrassment with the Clint incident.

What now for the Greens? Will they just keep congratulating themselves on losing the country money – Mighty River Power $100m down under proposal – and wait for Russel to return from holiday?

But maybe the Greens should be worrying – worrying about their already dubious financial credibility taking a hit.

Worrying about how to present their MPs as credible independent thinkers and not just puppets in a media machine.

And worrying that their sole hope of being a part of Government, the Labour Party, looks more and more like a lamentable leaderless lost cause.

http://yournz.org/2013/04/23/clint-too/

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by Pete George on April 26, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 26, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/26/green-power-bid-pushes-lamentable-labour/

Where’s Norman and Shearer?

A week ago David Shearer and Russel Norman announced a policy on power that was promoted as a game changer in both  the electricity industry and in next year’s election stakes.

Shearer referred to Labour’s NZ Power policy as “the big Kahuna”. He also said that timing his announcement with the MRP float was coincidental, and he has said several times “We are working…according to our own timetable.”

You would think the timing would reflect the supposed importance of the policy to Greens and Labour. How did Shearer and Norman promote their big new policy from there?

They had David Parker and Gareth Hughes front up for interviews about it on The Nation on Saturday. Parker and Hughes, and Grant Robertson, have since been interviewed on it.

In the meantime the party leaders have been conspicuous in their absence from promoting their great new policy.

David Shearer left for England on Monday. He is on a world tour which will also take him to New York and the UN.

It was announced on Russel Norman’s Facebook on Monday:

Russel is on leave from now until Monday 6 May. I (Izzy, Russel’s Executive Assistant) will be checking his messages and posting the occasional update, but Russel’s profile won’t be as active as usual for the next couple of weeks. Cheers, and happy recess!
-Izzy

Izzy has shared a few political posts on Facebook for Norman. Norman has posted once, apparently on holiday in Los Angeles.

Norman and Shearer chose a time to announce their power policies knowing that they would both soon be leaving the country.

In the meantime Gareth Hughes has botched an interview on Green media management and Green glee at sabotaging the MRP float.

And Grant Robertson is trying to repair the damage Labour has inflicted on itself by spooking and threatening the financial markets due to Labour’s lack of thought about the likely wider effects of their proposed socialisation of the power market.

And the Labour and Green party leaders have other things to do overseas.

The timing of the NZ Power policy has turned out to be terrible as far as ongoing party promotion and damage control is concerned.

This adds weight to the probability that the timing of the announcement last week was for one purpose, to try and upset the MRP float – something neither Labour nor Greens have credibly denied, they have avoided answering questions about this honestly, and Hughes inadvertently made it obvious what they wanted their announcement to do, inflict damage on National’s asset sale programme.

And Greens and Labour will be left floundering without their leaders.

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by Pete George on April 26, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 26, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/26/wheres-norman-and-shearer/

Labour and Greens on “coincidental” power policies and timings

Where there three remarkable coincidences of Labour and Greens:

  • working on very similar power pricing policy independently of each other,
  • they were both planning to announce their policy at about the same time, and
  • the timing had nothing to do with the Mighty River Power share float?

Or are Labour’s David Parker and Green’s Gareth Hughes not being truthful?

They were both interviewed on The Nation yesterday and were both asked about the coincidence of Labour and Greens working on similar power pricing policy.

Rachel Smalley interviewing David Parker…

Rachel: How long have you been working on this policy?

David: Me personally off and on over the years I’ve been working on this since 2006, 2007 to be honest.

Rachel: This specific policy?

David: Well the options that we have to improve our electricity system yes.  This specific system pushing it forward to this the last month.

Rachel: Pretty much a month.  Was it a Greens’ policy that Labour jumped on?

David:  No, it’s an absolute coincidence that we put out a press release last week saying we were announcing this week.  They then phoned us and said they had a plan for this week.  We got together and we found our plans were very similar.

Rachel: You weren’t comfortable appearing with the Greens though alongside us here on the programme?

David: We didn’t want it to be thought that this is Greens’ policy.  This is actually independent Labour policy.  The Greens I think have a similar view in respect of theirs, they’ve arrived at a similar conclusion independently of us.

Rachel Smalley interviewing Gareth Hughes:

Rachel: So let’s talk about this new power policy and what you’re going to be doing with the electricity market, whose policy was this.  Who thought of it first this joint plan if you like?

Gareth: Well we’ve been working on it independently.  We started talking to Labour after their press release on Sunday, realised we had very similar proposals, so we decided to work together on launching them together.  I think it shows the solutions we’re both proposing are commonsense, they’re smart, they’re going to be effective, we both independently reached them.

Well I’ve been thinking about how do we make a fairer more affordable electricity system for some while.  We have been working on this mostly this year.  

The conclusions we’ve both reached independently are broadly similar. 

Putting these two responses together we have:

  • Hughes has been “been working on this mostly this year”.
  • Parker claims “this specific system pushing it forward to this the last month”.
  • Labour “put out a press release last week saying we were announcing this week”.
  • Hughes: “We started talking to Labour after their press release on Sunday”.
  • Parker “Greens phoned us and said they had a plan for this week”.
  • Parker “We got together and we found our plans were very similar”.
  • Hughes “realised we had very similar proposals, so we decided to work together on launching them together”.
  • Parker “it’s an absolute coincidence “.

And there’s a third coincidence.

Rachel: Okay, your timing is at best coincidental.  At worst it’s pretty cynical it has to be said.  You’re toying with Mighty River Power here, it’s an asset that’s valued at around one and a half billion dollars.

Gareth: It is coincidental.

Smalley asked Parker:

Rachel: Is this a genuine economic policy Mr Parker or is this a stunt to derail asset sales?

Parker avoiding answering that, and Hughes claimed MRP float timing “is coincidental”, but that’s at odds with both of their leaders.

Norman was interviewed on Firstline on Friday:

The timing of the policy announcement has been questioned, coming four days into the three-week sale of Mighty River Power shares. Dr Norman says they chose to release the details now, rather than later, so Kiwis considering buying in know what the future might bring.

“We think it’s important that people know, so if you’re thinking about buying Mighty River Power shares it’s only fair enough you know.”

David Shearer said…

…it was not an attempt to derail the Government’s Mighty River share offer which began this week or the wider asset sales plan.

But…

He said it was likely to have an impact on share prices so he had written to the board of Mighty River Power, 49 per cent of which is about to be floated on the stock exchange by the Government, and to shareholding ministers asking them to issue a supplementary disclosure.

“This will allow Kiwis who have applied for shares since Monday to reconsider”

That’s contradictory.

Should we believe the similarity in policies, both parties independently planning an announcement at the same time, and the timing of the announcements in relation to the Mighty River Power share float, were all “an absolute coincidence”?

—

Source The Nation:

Labour confused on power policy

Labour Leader David Shearer and Finance Spokesman David Parker still appear to differ on whether power generator SOEs will pay a dividend under the party’s new electricity policy.Mr Shearer issued a media statement yesterday saying the party would forgo dividends.But today,…

Greens deny political games

Green Party energy spokesperson Gareth Hughes echoed David Parker’s statement by denying the two parties co-ordinated their announcement as a political…

by Pete George on April 21, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 21, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/21/labour-and-greens-on-coincidental-power-policies-and-timings/

Split vote on Intelligence and Security Committee

Unusually a vote of the Intelligence and Security Committee public has been made public.

@RusselNorman

historic moment. I can tell you something that happened on the Intelligence and Security Cttee tonite: I moved a motion for an inquiry into appt process for Fletcher. Key recused himself. Vote was tied 2 each so motion lost. That’s it.

It was agreed by the committee’s chair (the Prime Minister) that the vote could be disclosed.

It’s not hard to work out how the vote was split (between Dunne, Banks, Shearer, Norman).

Shearer and Norman could be painting themselves into a corner on this, putting petty party politics before serious security matters.

The Auditor General has already ruled that an inquiry into Fletcher’s appointment is unnecessary – see Auditor-General will not investigate GCSB appointment:

 The Auditor General has turned down Labour’s request to investigate the appointment of Ian Fletcher as head of the Government Communications Security Bureau, saying the Prime Minister was entitled to have “considerable discretion” over how the appointment was made.

Labour had asked the Auditor General to investigate it after Mr Key confirmed he had sounded out Ian Fletcher – a childhood family friend – for the post himself before directing him to speak to the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

However, the Auditor General said that the Prime Minister had responsibility for the appointment and, unlike chief executives of other government departments, there was no specific process set out in making that appointment.

“The person appointed serves at the Prime Minister’s pleasure. As with many other ministerial appointments, the responsible Minister therefore has considerable discretion about how appointments are made. He or she is accountable to Parliament and the public in the usual way for those decisions.”

Last week State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie said Mr Key had done nothing wrong.

The Intelligence and Security Committee and the security services of the country require a high degree of secrecy which in turn requires a high degree of bipartisan responsibility from the MPs on the committee.

Shearer and Norman seem to put more effort into attempting political point scoring on things they have already failed at.

Today Winston Peters agreed to back Government changes to GCSB law and oversight, leaving Labour and Greens out on a limb on this issue.

by Pete George on April 16, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Pete George on April 16, 2013

http://yournz.org/2013/04/16/split-vote-on-intelligence-and-security-committee/

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