http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT3_UCm1A5I ?

Should National's paltry majority coalition govt fall apart will Labour's new dynamic leadership duo prove up to the task of convincing the electorate that they are up for…

That's quite insightful Isaac.

EQC tries to justify its total spend on contracted staff.

Figures obtained by the Sunday Star-Times show the Earthquake Commission spent $144,528,907 on contracted assessors…

Sorry, I’d amend that to say, “If only Phil Goff had had taken the chance to say anything of substance/had some policy for the previous three years…”

The audience has to be…

Phil Goff, said in the last debate with brainfart, “You and I didn’t need tax cuts, John you know that” followed with “Can you…

To be fair, I don't see that happening here – though media are taught to always focus stories on individuals. If there's…

Whoever is held accountable by the public. We've just had an election, and the message to the government is pretty clear.

I suspect this might be because you want to hold public servants to account and get institutions working for people again, whereas I want to get institutions working for people again and hold public servants to account.

That is, I think we're in…

ECan was most certainly taken away before the quakes, in…

I am so so angry about the way my – very skillled Chchch family- have been treated, cast aside in favour of -outside thingoes

The sky isn't falling in on our heads, but our Transparency Int'l rating…

Fair enough, and thanks. I'm happy to change it to "weren't ready…

I'd hope so too, but I doubt it. It's much easier to slap together an ad-hocracy than it is to take it apart or transform it into a solid institution. And…

I didn't read it as having any particular agenda, just as a piece about an unfolding situation where all the evidence isn't in.…

Pinning the outcome on the judgement of any person who has no relevant trade/assessment experience but who may be good at filling out forms or…

Yes, he did, but it's only valid until 2005. I don't know if things have changed. My statements about how it worked here were based on that document.

Even the Labour Party ones take 2-3…

And in the context of the Earthquake Commission, they are subject to the State Services Commissioner’s Standards of Integrity and Conduct:

It is important we do not give preferential treatment…

Well, it could be that they're paying salaries like that to other people too. It could be that they hired a bunch of people in a rush without checking qualifications properly. It could be that the position was designed for someone highly qualified who'd be travelling all over…

Didn't NBH give us a link which provided a fairly comprehensive discussion of this processs? And it may well take more than a couple of…

I'd say pretty please with sugar on top, but you've already answered my…

That, or it could be just the tip of the iceberg.

I fail to see the connection. This one is a con artist who's already pled guilty. The other one is either a case of nepotism, if evidence can be found for special treatment…

You need the because part. That is, you need evidence that the employee is getting a deal that's different…

Would this EQC story be the seed for a modernised NZ version of the The Borgias?…

Who remembers that Listener photo of Roger Estall surrounded by maybe 100-200 pissed-off firefighters with placards? The way things are going, Minister Tolley could well…

The whole thing seems more like FEMA to me than Watergate.

Rather ironic coming from someone who’s sounding an awful lot like Cameron Slater – the incredibly serious allegations made with no real evidence, but who gives a damn because “the enemy” must be guilty! Right?…

quite

What the actual fuck do you actually need to alter the definition of nepotism than
relation paid heaps without real qualifications- because they are a relation of the employing person?…

That is so on the money – so much for the illusion of equal…

I'm not saying I like it. It…

Yeah, are you saying that the process is secret, but it's ok because you've shared it with the Electoral Commission and they're happy that you're happy? And that it meets s.71 and the poor old electorate have no reason to know…

Initially it said it was unavailable, now it says there is an error with the video. PA computer folk any ideas? It isn't flash or any of the other troubleshooting suggestions.

But from…

So with national standards and charter schools, N-ACT is breaking the system to make sure there's plenty for…

What I'm "being" is otherwise occupied with paid work and a hard deadline that was moved up to close of business today at very short notice, and a second I've got to clear before I go out of…

Well, true. I was perhaps a bit glib to call them entry level. But I don't see that the salary is a problem in itself.

To be fair, we also blame parents, students, the gummint, corporate fatcats and the media.

I've always thought that from the perspective of Wellington it's not so much a question of what's broken as what the government has any control over. There's not a lot a central bureaucracy can do…

All well and good as an argument, provided you completely ignore the salaries being paid for these "entry level" positions.

I dunno. EQC had to hire a lot of people very fast, and it's hardly unusual for people to get entry-level…

And what of the 'personality testing' for prospective teachers? Sounds awfully like some kind of House Un-Aotearoan Activities Committee.

minor minding mining?

I'm blushing! :-)

Your word is fine. But I was asking you about the process by which candidates are currently selected. That's not a sworn secret now,…

Sounds like a business plan. For PR purposes, I'd suggest they…

Well, I've never had a phone call from Party HQ telling me how to vote in any selection I've been party to. You're going to have to take my word on that, because I'm not going to decide to break confidentiality I agreed to respect…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T1pXsJp_go

bloody charter schools for you

It's the very opposite of a succinct explanation, but there's an MA thesis out of VUW specifically on changes to National Party selection processes as a result of MMP: http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10063/302/thesis.pdf?sequence=2

their smiling little faces

What is the process, Craig?

Well now you mention it…

Although I am sure ACToids will claim she was just stealing back what had been stolen as tax in the first place, so she is really a modern Robin Hoodette.

Steve: Considering I'm probably the only person around…

They did once… about 100 years ago as the NZ Reform Party (no connection to the current Peter Tashkoff Party). It later formed one half of what is now the National Party, in 1936.

Pretty sure there have been contenders for this outside of National, but none have done well. National has rewarded that demographic well, or at least they feel it has. More likely is that Labour has simply never appealed -…

Tru dat. They have their own party in Australia, why not New Zealand?

The Conservatives' election materials did seem to put a lot of emphasis on farming being the backbone of the economy, so presumably…

Personally I think Te Mana comes across as somewhat third-worldist.

I expect that will cause a lot of confusion.

There isn't any other sort. Didn't the band break up in 1990?

Lalalalalala can't hear yoouuuuu!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92miS5edOao

Party Vote Early Metallica.

Without having any real personal idea of what the Maori voters really think ... one plausible scenario is Mana as the left Maori…

I haven't spent much time, but the glaring missing constituency there is the rural vote. They may be socially conservative, but I…

It's an interesting scenario, and it's amazing how much more plausible it seems with Mr Election Blob at the top of it.

I'd be very interested to know how whether the Labour Party have any contingency plans…

Well, they'd have to perceive their party as having different but complementary values from National, rather than being just "right".

The modern right is (loosely speaking and waving hands a lot)…

The electoral commission does (see screenshot)

For instance: Greens 28%, Labour 20%, Mana 2% giving 63/121 seats to Grn/Lab/Mana.

With Hone entrenched as an MP and time to organise, I think Mana will pick up more votes in future elections. Maybe…

It might be, but I think to get any traction, the right-little-party would need to be seen as independent of National, and to me at least it…

It happened in Canada with the NDP getting more seats than the Liberals. Then again, they still have FPP.

There's a long way to go…

Labour would do far better to go after the people who didn't vote at all in this election, rather than those who voted for the Greens. To that end, I think David Shearer would be the best choice,…

Maybe so but you are making a lot of sense to me.

And anyway, is their really any such thing as a pure…

Which…

I'd say the biggest danger to your whiskey is a renege. The Greens are on a long slow build. Unless they really do target Labour's…

It does seem like it would be in National's interests to focus on economic liberals, and promote another party for the social conservatives. Under different…

The problem as I see it is that N-ACT (and after…

I think you're talking at cross-purposes. Would it be fair to say that…

Yeah, and once upon a time it was an absurd idea that the Greens weren't going to go down with the Alliance. Just saying.

Yes, the side that it hurt the most this time was the right. National's huge party vote cost the right dearly.

I wouldn't be surprised if National, who do have some canny strategic advisers, don't opt to build…

On election night I was offered and swiftly accepted a bet on this premise. If Labour get a higher party vote than the Greens at the…

Quite a lot would have to change for that to happen. Apart from the obvious change in voting patterns, you'd also need a massive culture change within Labour.…

This from the Herald would seem to confirm that.

The most visible evidence of…

With Labour on 22 electorate seats (roughly 18% of all seats) and the Greens on 13 list seats (roughly 10%) the Greens would have to do extra-ordinarily…

Listening to John Banks this morning on morning report one would believe this is where his heart…

Small but perfectly formed. The venue wasn't ideal, particularly on account of not being very well lit, but that's life in Christchurch. There was the sort of crowd you'd expect: a mix of poets, activists and musos. People didn't…

I stick to my view that the next left-wing government in NZ will be Green led with Labour as a support partner.

I'm a consistently Green voter, and I'd just like to say that comments like the…

Fair call. At 3am, the "Labour led coalition with formal and informal (yet mostly loyal) support from the Greens, and a sometimes backed by various other groups with similarly complex terms of agreement" blurred into "Greens supported and influenced Labour in Government, even to the point…

And if both Labour and National can't grok that voters are not…

That's not my problem with that strategy. I don't care if it's fair. What care about is that it's a failed strategy that is only more and more likely to fail again as folks become more familiar with…

This will only be true if you reclassify a Labour-led government as being "not left-wing", which I see a lot of people doing, here and elsewhere.

L

Well, they got a 50% vote increase so more and more people think they are. And they are one party that is actually about issues not personalities.

I stick to my view that the…

Th Greens were not part of the 2005 Coalition – which was Labour, Progressives, United Future and NZ First.

Th Greens had an agreement…

Yeah, well I don't see the point of arguing statements like that because they're basically impossible to falsify. Ask your average Tea Bagger in the United States, and every center-right government in the Anglophone world with any…

It’s true [Cunliffe] isn’t overly endowed with humility but this seems to me more in the order of a precocious teenager who hasn’t learned to dissemble than an egomaniac. Like someone with Asperger’s, he seems to lack the kind of filter that would…

Um, no they haven't.

I'm curious why you think anyone would think comparing the tribulations of being Labour with the tribulations…

and may I remind readers that there is an excellent exhibition of 8 new Kathryn Madill paintings on at City Art in Disraeli st, Christchurch until December 22.

Cunliffe has the sense of humour – His observation when interveiwed by Paul Henry on Radio live along the lines that – "If…

Food, drinking water and oxygen? I... erm... would grant that it is perhaps a drearily conventional position, but unless I'm very much mistaken the consensus position does seem to be that a significant role in their provision…

Laughed my face off to that.

But competing producers are likely to use it to block or constrain market access. Imagine the UK meat "food miles" palaver magnified.

And 'conscious consumers' are exactly the type of…

I lived for many years in a customer country. The concept that I should buy NZ product because it was "100% clean and green" didn't impinge on my consciousness. (Nor did the contra-idea that I should avoid such product because NZ was being (earlier)…

I'm sure that daughter of yours could have steered you right :)

And that's a big problem – the govt-backed notion that doubling dairy herds is good for this country. And the accompanying nonsense about subsidising famers for their carbon pollution until technology comes to the rescue. Heaven forbid they should have to cut their expansionary ambition to…

When you get down to it, building a brand is nothing more than communicating clearly what you're about. The only reason it gets waffly is that lots of people…

I think it depends how deep you go. People within the party, especially if it's been in…

Which is why the proposed South Island irrigation is so frustrating. We have plenty of water in most of the country (well, most of the time – if climate change keeps producing droughts in…

That and the announcement of a pro-mining assoc. minister of conservation today suggests more than one finger.

Not being a neolib or anything, but I don't believe it's in the gift of government to build "a national brand".

What they should be doing is ensuring we have a decent environment because…

And the proposed $400m South Island irrigation plan being underwritten by the taxpayer – and asset sales to boot – pulls the middle finger at that. I thought that farm subsidies were so 1986.

Yup, that's it. You're right Chris the thing that is different about NZ is the water. NZ soils are pretty good, certainly not significantly worse or better than anywhere else in the world. But we have water and lots of it.…

My hunch as well. But it is a risk that more clearly defining the principles alienates some at the same time as it makes it easier for others to…

IANAF either, but what they're doing right is mostly not eating meat. Plant calories are a lot more efficient to produce. Their food situation will get more difficult as more affluent Chinese consumers eat more…

It's been tried at least once.

That is a reflection of our frustration with the difference between the party we have now and the green political…

That was the last Labour government's position – though…

IANAF, but nor does NZ, right? That's why we need the topdressing planes?

Also IANC, but China is a bloody huge place. I'm sure some of it must have decent soil (and if a country is sufficently determined, it can make farmland out…

@Russell: No, because I think even Trevor…

Yes, I guess I should be specific about the parts…

This is simply not true. There is no conflict between clean rivers and high yield dairy production. The conflict comes from being willing to change practices, different not less productive.

Dr Joy…

China does not have extremely rich soil. It suffers from being part of a huge continent and much of its land is nutrient poor and particularly water poor. That said it still has vastly more arable land than New Zealand.

Ah fair enough. On that we agree. My friends at work have long argued we should just form our own political party and call it "The real Greens" or something similar. That is a reflection of our frustration with the difference between the party we have…

Hard to…

On come on. smart jobs is a slogan from a party that knows it'll never be in a position to have…

Dealing with the flood of migration from Australia…