BILL GETS THE BLOG BASH

First Cactus gives Bill English a broadside, then Whale oil takes exception to Fran O'Sullivan's column where Bill dribbles on a bit. Bill and John are shaping up to be the ying and yang of National. Is that a bad thing? We think not. It is clear from Fran' s column that Key leads and English then sets about giving his ideas legs. That's got to be good. So unlike Cactus and Whale we are pleased that Key is okay with English's gentle chiding about his creativity. Every ideas man, every visionary needs a solid bugger in the engine room to do his bidding and that's where English shines.For once we see a team that is so solid that they can gently take the piss out of each other in public. That is very cool.

Hooton in full and a Maori perspective

I posted on Hootons column last night -

because I think it is a must read for every New Zealander before they head to the ballot box. It reveals some of the inner workings of the National party, and some of the ideological crap that went down in the last decade.

Hooton asked me to talk to a few of the media at the time of the Brash Coup. Despite liking Bill English , I was pretty convinced that he wasn't right to lead the party at that time so I was happy to lend the little support I could.

I remember Hooton ringing me distraught when he saw what was in the Orewa speech - I was in Alexandra with my parents at the time and they were bemused at all the phone calls. I told them there was a speech coming that could change the nation but not in a good way.

I remember reading it and crying.

A couple of days later on my return I was in Cuba Street have a quiet beer with some mates and Georgina te Heuheu wandered along. She was still shell shocked and her faith in the party that her families have supported for decades, had been dented.

There had been talk of her resignation and I could see that it was something that she had pondered .

I was glad she toughed it out. Georgina , the roguish Tau Henare , Paula Bennett, Hekia Parata and Paul Quinn have an important part to play in the future National Party .

They are successful , educated but they remain true to their whakapapa. They know that welfarism isn't the way to advance Maori - it will only entrench them in the mire of a government dependency.

And they will be able to work with the Maori party.


They will help National become the party it can be and ensure that the stream of racism that used to run through the National party dries up.They will stand beside John Key and lead this nation so we can get on with being the best country we can be with a shared future.



Here is Hootons column in full - email it to everyone you can.





I see that I’ve come under a bit of attack from The Prime Minister’s Office and also from Chris. All good, strong political debate for the most part, but there are a couple of things I would like to respond to.
First, yes, I do believe that Winston Peters is an evil influence on New Zealand politics and the use of the word “axis” was entirely deliberate, chosen as being more appropriate than “allies” or even “bloc” for the regime he sustains.
Peters is a person who has attacked Asian immigrants for being too rich and Somalian refugees for being too poor, and, in both cases, has known that to do so is wrong, with his friend Sir Robert Jones saying that, in private, Peters believes none of it. As Deputy Prime Minister in the late 1990s, Peters was actually a good ambassador for New Zealand to Asian countries because he and they knew that he did not mean the things he had said.
The same is true with economic policy. In 1996, Peters had attacked the Bolger Government, the Reserve Bank and the Reserve Bank Act, saying they were doing untold harm to New Zealand. He had ideas about how the operation of monetary policy could be changed in New Zealand that he took on the campaign trail. I am told that, soon after Peters’ appointment as Treasurer, then Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash met with his new boss and said he had read New Zealand First’s manifesto and speeches and, assuming Peters was serious, wanted to set up a process to review the RBA and the operation of monetary policy in New Zealand. My source (and you can guess who it may be) said that Peters replied: “Don’t worry about all that. The next election is three years away.”
I find that sick. It later had very important implications.
As close followers of politics will know, a National/ACT/United Future/Maori Party/NZ First Government was a mathematical possibility after the last election. The way I understand things, National, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party all agreed on basic terms about how such a government would operate, and the other party leaders told Brash to get in touch with Peters to discuss it. Brash never did, and the other party leaders were perplexed.
The reason, as I understand it, is that Brash had been so sickened by Peters’ cynicism from the time Brash was Governor and Peters was Treasurer that he simply did not want to deal with him directly, despite it being the difference between government and opposition. Instead, letters written by Peter Dunne’s Chief of Staff (and former Bolger Chief of Staff) Rob Eaddy were sent.
I am proud that John Key, who I support for Prime Minister, has now formalised that position.
And, speaking of pride, one of the times I was most proud to work for the Bolger Government in the 1990s, was when, after a particularly vicious attack on immigrants by Peters, Jim Bolger went into Parliament and declared that he had confidence that the New Zealand people knew the similarity between Hitler and the Jews and Peters and the Asians. It was an entirely legitimate comparison to make. It still is.
Both Bolger and Helen Clark should be ashamed that they dealt with him. I know the complexities involved in being leader of National or Labour under MMP, and I can understand why both Bolger and Clark did what they did in 1996 and 2005 respectively, but that does not mean I have to think it is OK to draw support from the closest thing we have ever had to a Nazi Party seriously represented in our Parliament.
It is appalling that a so-called social democrat like Chris is prepared to defend Peters.
All Peters’ themes continue to be Hitleresque. Just read “Conspiracy of Conspiracies“. The imagery is right out of Germany in the 1930s. There is an evil other - “they” - who are trying to harm you. They are foreign. Secretive. And involved in finance. In 1930s Germany terms, he means “the Jews”. Chris is an historian. He knows this better than most. Yet he defends the Nazi.
My Radio New Zealand National colleague Laila Harre spoke about something like this on Monday on our regular slot on Nine to Noon. Laila talked about how she had spoken recently to a group ironically called “Drinking Liberally.” I won’t put the words into her mouth. This is what she said at 3:41:
Laila: The odd thing is in moving as I do in slightly more liberal circles, it’s really surprised me, the patter that’s coming from people sort of the centre left around this and Helen Clark may be listening more carefully to those people than really perhaps is warranted, given the wider kind of public mood it seems to me -
Kathryn Ryan: What do you mean by that?
Laila: - around this issue. Well, I mean I was a couple of weeks in a new organization speaking to them, called Drinking Liberally and I was sort of quite surprised when my wee stab at Peters - thinking I’d be doing a bit of a warm up - went down like a cup of cold sick at the beginning of the discussion and there is actually an awful lot of defence in that sort of milieu of Peters and particularly of, obviously of Clark’s handling of him but a huge distrust of Owen Glenn and you know I would say in those circles on balance people are really are not convinced that Glenn is telling the truth.
So much for drinking “liberally”. So much for “social democracy”.
Clark too is an extremely dangerous individual. Those of you who work at Parliament should go down to the Select Committee Room on the ground floor of old Parliament Buildings which has all the photos of all the female MPs who have ever been elected to our Parliament. You’ll see Marilyn Waring, Fran Wilde, Ruth Richardson, Jenny Shipley, Ruth Dyson, Katherine Rich and so on. All of them look like regular people, happy to be in Parliament. But take a look at the photo of Clark. As an MP I have worked with has told me: “I sit in that Select Committee Room and stare at those eyes. Because I have seen those eyes before. But only in the heads of fellow trade ministers in governments where the leader of those governments is a documented killer.”
Clark has dictatorial tendencies. She has marched through the institutions. She has improperly brought the civil service under her control, including, most outrageously, the police. She has stolen taxpayers’ money for her election campaigns, deliberately broken our election spending limits, run filthy fear campaigns such as the letters to state housing tenants saying they would be evicted under a National Government, told lies about all this, and rammed through retrospective legislation to legalise her own staff’s and party’s crimes.
Constitutionally, she is far worse than Muldoon, whom people like Chris would eagerly have called a fascist in the early 1980s.
The Clark/Peters Axis? You bet.
And so on to Don Brash …..The Prime Minister’s Office says I “was one of the architects of Don Brash’s deceptive, racist campaign in 2005.” The Prime Minister’s Office has obviously not studied its Holy Scripture (aka “The Hollow Men”) closely enough.
I first met Don Brash in early 1996 when Lockwood Smith was moved from the education to the agriculture portfolio and, after deciding that a good right-winger like me should prefer working with producers like farmers over civil servants like teachers, I decided to move portfolios with Lockwood rather than staying in education and working for Wyatt Creech.
Lockwood arranged for me to spend a day with Don going to farmers’ meetings in the Wairarapa. This was at a time when Don was very unpopular with farmers because he had raised interest rates (and thus the dollar) and so he was “fronting up”. He was brilliant on the stage and won over most of the farmers. Later, I was delighted when he was headhunted by National in 2002. He (and John Key) were the only two good things that happened to National that year.
Diane Foreman is a family friend and, in 2003, when I returned to New Zealand for my father’s funeral which she attended and I spoke at, she suggested to Don that he call me, because (and this is a bit macarbe) she thought I spoke well and she thought he might need a decent speechwriter. A little bit later, in April 2003 I think, I was out on the turps at the Corner Bar in Shortland Street, and heard rumours that Don was challenging Bill English for the National Party leadership and (because I have a, er, “difficult” relationship with Bill English and because I was pissed), I called Don at Parliament to urge him on.
From that call, I began working unpaid for Don to undermine Bill (sorry, Bill) and change the leadership of the party.
Don asked me to write his speech to ACT’s Canterbury conference in mid-2003. I remember this because I was driving over the Crown Range when he called. He asked me what I thought about politics and his political positioning. I told him I had been offended by the racist nature of National’s 2003 conference, when there had been a big slogan “One standard of citizenship for all New Zealanders.”
I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but just as Chris has pointed out in his “Natsy” comments - “Who do you lot think you’re fooling? You do Matthew a severe disservice by attempting to make him look as dimwittedly literal as yourselves” - I know that to use the word “one” in a political slogan has connotations beyond the literal. (Just think, seeing it seems topical, of “ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer”.) I told Don this. He did not appear to disagree.
Anyway, I then wrote his speech for the ACT conference designed to undermine poor old Bill, and Don ran it passed Roger Sowry and Bill and they obviously demanded changes, and I told Don not to return their calls but to deliver it anyway, and then to leak to Tracy Watkins that he had defied Bill, and she put that on the front page of the Dom, with the headline “Brash defies his leader“, and Bill looked weak, and …. maybe The Prime Minister’s Office is right. I do do shitty things from time to time!
Then I pushed Don to do his controversial press conference at the Tamaki Yacht Club a bit later, where we really put the knife into Bill, and then …. the rest is history.
(Unfortunately for me, Don was forced to do the Tamaki thing a week earlier than I had planned, and I had law exams, so I couldn’t go to Wellington for the vote, so Catherine Judd arranged for Byran Sinclair to do the media work instead, so I missed out on being part of all the drama …. )
Anyway, I kept in touch with Don. I couldn’t get a job in his office because Murray McCully and a couple of others weren’t keen. We kept talking and I was a bit surprised when I had a meeting with Brash, Sinclair and Peter Keenan at Brash’s home when they had a copy of a Crosby Texter memo that had been sent to Michael Howard recommending, among other things, picking a fight with an unpopular minority. With the foreshore and seabed issue hot at the time, Keenan was strongly recommending Maori be the target.
I was also surprised when, a bit later, at a private dinner at Don’s place in January, with Don, Je Lan, Lockwood, his girlfriend Alex, me and my wife Cathy, that Don seemed unusually interested in the future of the Maori seats. And then it came to the fateful Orewa speech.
I was sent a draft for comment and I hated it. The truth is, I’m a “sickly white liberal”, as Peters would describe it. I got Diane to pay me to write an alternative that had the same policy ideas (because they had been agreed by caucus) but which wasn’t as nasty in tone.
I got Je Lan Brash on side but Don chose the Peter Keenan draft, and, politically, that was the right call. In a sense, it was fair enough for Keenan to call me, as reported in “The Hollow Men” “an idiot”.
Nevertheless, I caused a bit of a fuss. I had paid for a table for 10 at the Orewa speech. Ironically, I had invited Diane and Bill Foreman to join my table. When it was confirmed to me that Brash was going with the Keenan speech I cancelled my table. Lockwood tells me there was a gap, which he - as local MP - was embarrassed about, but which I am quietly proud of.
I probably should have stuck to my guns, but when Don went up 17 points in the polls, I decided he would be prime minister and I gained nothing from not being his mate. Also, I do admire him, despite all the above. That’s why there were so many emails from me in “The Hollow Men” that I am embarrassed about.
One communication that is not in “The Hollow Men” is when I contacted Lockwood after the first “Iwi/Kiwi” billboard came out and said “fuck you, that’s it, I’m not voting for you”. Lockwood calmed me down and said, perhaps fairly, that I had made a lot of money out of Treaty of Waitangi issues and perhaps that was distorting my judgement and making me more angry than I would otherwise be. Old Lockwood is a bit more astute when dealing with people than he is given credit for.
I have a good relationship with Don now. We do not talk about these matters. He knows that I think the Orewa speech was appalling. I expect he thinks I am a bit wet. I do think the 2005 election was stolen from him by a corrupt Labour Government. But then I also think John Key will make a better leader in the 21st Century than he would have.
So there we go. A very long post.
Clinton Smith, or whatever your name is, call me a liar. That’s just politics.
But I was not involved in Brash’s 2005 campaign.
And the reason I supported Don for leader was, ironically, because I thought, wrongly, that he was a liberal in the Ruth Richardson, Doug Graham, Lockwood Smith, Katherine Rich wing of the party where I am most comfortable.

What do we tell our kids Mr Cullen?

This from Stuff and Tim Donoghue ( he knows how to write a good yarn )



Nats 'engineered public hanging' for Peters
LATEST: Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen has accused the National Party of using the privileges committee to engineer a public hanging for NZ First leader Winston Peters - while National has blamed Prime Minister Helen Clark for 'denigrating' the process.

please Michael, a hanging ???!!! -No the committee is a group of MP's expected to act in the best interests of the institution they are privileged to be part of - rather than acting like, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys..

Parliament has been debating the privileges committee's finding that Mr Peters misled Parliament by not declaring a donation of $100,000 from Monaco-based billionaire Owen Glenn.
The debate began with committee chairman Simon Power moving a resolution that Parliament should order Mr Peters to amend returns for the years ended 31 January 2006, 2007 and 2008 to cover any gifts, debts, or payments in kind he had not previously registered.

He said the committee had recommended unanimously that the Standing Orders Committee review the rules around pecuniary interests to "provide an authoritative source of advice for members".
Dr Cullen said Mr Glenn was a good witness before the committee, providing he stuck to the instructions of his lawyer, but he had not been subjected to tough questioning and contradicted himself at a press conference the following day.
"He did not like it when he was not getting his own way," Dr Cullen said.
Dr Cullen said it was likely Mr Henry had approached Mr Glenn for the donation.
"The majority found it was the first narrative which was correct [That Mr Peters had approached Mr Glenn for the $100,000 donation]. The minority has serious doubts about that narrative," Dr Cullen said.

Yip even Anderton isn't willing to walk along side you on this one - what does that say?

Dr Cullen described the findings of the committee as a public hanging orchestrated by the National Party in the build-up to the election.
"There is no doubt [Gerry] Brownlee as an ex-carpenter will erect the scaffold," Dr Cullen said.

nice turn of phrase - puerile sentiment... Cullen - you are definitely a toss pot.

National's deputy leader Bill English said the issue was a straight forward one.

Wow the boy from Dipton cuts to the chase - Go Bill !

"We have to make sure there is full transparency around donations to politicians," he said.
He said Parliament was eminently forgiving of human weakness if people were open.
"I am very concerned about the way the Prime Minister has gone about denigrating the process... she has had a crack at our public institutions.
"In one day she alleged the Serious Fraud Office and the Crown Law Office were responsible for leaking information to the leader of the Opposition. To attack them out of political convenience is unacceptable."

Mr English said the prime minister had been briefed on the process by her deputy and other MPs the whole way through.
"The prime minister of New Zealand has alleged this process was tainted. I say this was an outrageous statement to make.

Bloody good one Bill, it is outrageous.

"Helen Clark it now appears has no respect for this institution and the MPs in here being judged by their peers."

And this is truly the scary bit.... Up until now MP's seemed to show respect for the institution of parliament - this sad, sorry, sick affair has shown that respect is gone...

Can someone tell me how we explain this to our kids ????

Why the hell would they vote?

ON BILL ENGLISH

Its all about Bill this morning.... Kiwiblog has a analytical take on the English accomodation issue.

Cactus on the other hand has a fascinating take on the deputy Prime Minister.

And Home Paddock thinks Bill has been exonerated.

We think that Labour will still chip away merrily on this issue for some time to come.

SOUTHERN HONOUR

We concurred yesterday with Rob Hosking that Bill English is an honest bugger. Today we saw just how honourable he is. He is paying back half of the $24k accommodation allowance he claimed.

Now we are aghast that Whale Oil called for Bill to step down - there would be no need for him to do that unless he has misled his boss.

And we there is no way an honourable Southland bred bugger like Bill would mislead his boss.

OUR HUMBLE APOLOGIES BILL

Ok we fess up - the red wine fairy hovered above us last night as a result of a big win on the Melbourne cup. We had another look at what Bill English said about Obama and well quite frankly its not all that bad. So we kneel at the feet of the Dipton dynamo and ask for forgiveness for calling him a dork. Beers on me Bill.

AROUND THE BLOGS

MacDoctor and Whale vie for top honours today.

Macdoctor has a very interesting take on what the problems are with child cancer treatment. His view may surprise you.

Whale Oil is calling for the axe to fall on the neck of Richard Worth and he hint darkly there is more to come. He is also outraged at the performance of Bill English on Q and A this morning. He is convinced that Bill did not do a very good job of backing up his boss. MWT also agrees

As does No Minister

So we reckon they will be right - he will have to go. And then the spotlight turns to who will pick up the protfolios... Hekia Parata? Paul Hutchinson? Tau Henare?



and if you are looking for a good place to go to look at interesting blogs try condron.us

BILL PLAYS SANTA

NBR says Bill English has outlined his economic stimulus package ( does anyone else think that sounds mildly sexual???!!) And its a pretty big stimulus -$ 7 billion. Noice.

HUBBARDS CUPBOARD - PART DEUX

Well we hoped this wouldnt be the case but the more we read the less we like.

We reckoned that Hubbards cupboard might be bareand there might be couple of nice boxes of chockies in there but the rest of the shelves have cheap crap well past their use by date.

We are well aware of the impact that the collapse of this empire could have but we do not want to see the government bail it out.

and now NBR is reporting that Bill English is staying in NZ to keep abreast of Hubbard developments.. Well done Bill.

HOOTON'S A WIMP

We love the NBR website - its is a must read for breaking business stories written in a snappy informative style. And they have good columnists too. David Farrar and Matthew Hooton. Trouble is David's column appears on line . Hooton's doesnt - so we went out and bought a inky one and have painstakingly typed it out . Today he is calling for a Masakari in the public service.



We couldn't agree more and have blogged on the issue many many times - In fact that blog waas one of our most popular ever.



Anyway back to Hooton.







Here is his column

The government has begun its long-awaited cuts to the central bureaucracy.

Finance Minister Bill English is reviewing departments’ lowest-priority spending, 86 jobs have gone at the Ministry for the Environment and 70 at the Tertiary Education Commission, and Labour’s Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson – the country’s leading apologist for the public service – is already fretting about policy advisors at Justice, Social Development and the National Library.

The cuts are long overdue.

So indulgently did Labour fatten the public service that Mr Robertson’s electorate notoriously has the highest average income in the country and office space in the capital costs more than in Auckland.

Worryingly, though, National is talking of a mere razor gang when wholesale butchery is required. It should put away its Gillette Mach 3 and wield a masakari. Whole departments should be abolished.

Case Study: Tourism

Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) is the government agency that promotes New Zealand globally. Compared with its competitors in Australia and elsewhere, it operates on a lean budget of just $69 million annually.

In the ten years since then Tourism Minister Lockwood Smith, TNZ chairman Peter Allport and chief executive George Hickton launched their “100% Pure” marketing strategy, annual tourist numbers have leapt 52% to 2.4 million, average length of stay is up 24% and earnings are now $5.9 billion, up a massive 53%.

Taxpayers might think that a junior Treasury analyst could work out that TNZ does a good job, and that a clerk at the Office of the Auditor General could check no one’s hand was in the till, but you would be wrong.

In fact, TNZ is monitored and evaluated by its board, its auditors and minister; by the Treasury, the State Services Commission and the Auditor-General; by the ministries of Women’s Affairs, Maori Development (TPK), Pacific Island Affairs and Ethnic Affairs; by a select committee of Parliament; and of course by the industry itself, including the Tourism Industry Association, the airlines, the Inbound Tour Operators Council, the Hospitality Association, the Motel Association, Regional Tourism Organisations and by dozens of tourism reporters and publications around the country.

This bureaucracy was not enough for Labour. In 2002, it set up a new Ministry of Tourism to advise the minister on “board appointments, roles and functions” and oversee TNZ’s “overall contribution to the government's policy objectives.” The ministry has 24 full-time staff and an annual budget of $7 million, more than 10% of all the money TNZ has to do the real work of getting tourists to New Zealand.

As a result, the levels of accountability from the person who places advertisements in the People’s Daily now run through TNZ’s Shanghai office, to the general manager consumer marketing, to the chief executive, to the board, and now to the ministry, and on to the minister, currently none other than the prime minister himself – all overseen by at least seven other government agencies. Everyone in this process, except perhaps the person who places the ads, earns over $100,000 a year.

Were the Ministry of Tourism simply abolished, and TNZ left to get on with the job, overseen by “just” seven other government agencies, the taxpayer would save $21 million over the next three years, and no one would notice any difference.

The Ministry of Tourism is far from being the worst case. Take the masakari to the corporate welfare programmes of the Ministry for Economic Development and NZ Trade and Enterprise; abolish the pointless Tertiary Education, Families and Electricity commissions; simplify the Emissions Trading Scheme so it won’t cost tens of millions to administer; slash the “policy advice streams” of TPK, Youth Development, Women’s Affairs and so forth, and you’ve saved a billion dollars before breakfast.

Not a single doctor, nurse, teacher, police officer, solider or overseas marketing clerk would be affected. There could even be money left over for pay rises.

Yip Hooton is on the money but we think he is being wimpy though which is unusual. He needs to harden up.



We reckon that a big shiny sharp edged Masakari is not the right tool for the job.

This is really whats needed ...

WIRED

We have been having a crap day. Age is a bitch that rides in on a menopausal wave and knocks you flat on your soft spreading saggy arse.



The day started badly. The weather was crap.
It did get better this afternoon though.

Now we always said that Bill English is an honourable man and we were delighted but not surprised to see he is paying all his allowance back. It was legally his but he was having difficulty climbing the moral high ground. So three cheers for the boy from Dipton. He might spend a fair bit of time in Wellington but his proud bones , like ours, are from the deep south and down there honour is everything.

When we heard that news - we cracked a smile.

However the day ended on a bad note. We have pleaded in the past for Consumer Magazine or Fair Go to examine the woeful state of the Bra industry. Simply the bra wires do not last like they used to. Today our lefty wire snapped as we were getting into a taxi ( we paid for it not the tax payer).

Went off like a .22 rifle. And it poked a hole in our booby. Ouch...

So we want Bra wires to meet certain standards. We want bra manufacturers to be forced to use wire for Bra's that are tested to meet certain bounce tests.
Pleeease ...
Menopause, which means being constantly at the mercy of the 7 menopause dwarfs is bad enough without having to put up with faulty engineering.

So today was mainly crap and then we got home to find we had oversold 20kgs of whitebait and have none left for us.... sob....

We are in for a shit fight today -

Hooton says that Labour are intent on muddying the waters over the Peters corruption scandal and will attempt to run the line that glen funded National.

here is an excerpt

Clark/Peters Axis to accuse Glenn of funding National
Stand by for more insane spin out of the Beehive today, following up Michael Cullen’s ridiculous claim that John Key was in some way responsible for the world financial meltdown and Helen Clark’s disgusting performance yesterday trying to link Key to 60 body bags.
Today, I’m told by people with close links to the Beehive spin machine, the Clark/Peters, Labour First Axis will claim that Owen Glenn has been secretly funding that National Party and that National has then “hidden” these “donations” by failing to declare them to the Electoral Commission. Peters wants to appear before the Privileges Committee in public to make this claim. Clark hopes it will generate sufficient doubt to smear National and avoid her having to fire Peters, who it now seems clear has something on her or her government, preventing her from acting, as Bill English has alleged.
The basis of this latest lunatic spin, according to those I have spoken with, is that $40,000 of the $100,000, that Owen Glenn paid on Peters’ request to his lawyer Brian Henry, was then paid to the National Party or a trust associated with the National Party to pay the $40,000 court-costs ordered against Peters as a result of the court finding there was no merit in Peters’ case in Peters v Clarkson


and for more go here

PUBLIC SERVICE SHAKE UP - NEEDS MORE THAN THE WILL OF THE BOSSES

We are home with the snuffles after a 12 day break in Oz( party up with about 30 under fives and you are bound to get a bug!) so we were all ears and snuffles as we listened to the Treasury boss John Whitehead on RNZ this morning give the Public service a prod about productivity.

He is right and now Bill English has followed up saying the govt has given the public servants a year to get their shit together and deliver some efficiencies and productivity.

Anyway, we have been talking to others in the civil service and we are all of the same opinion. The boys at the top have been making some interesting decisions but its apparent some of them have lost touch with their departments and Ministries and its time they got out of their offices , walked the floor and had a bit of a chat with some of the staff who would be able to give them some pointers of how to improve things.

Most of the staff in the public service are well aware how well lubed the machinery of state has become and it is time that they be given the chance to add their two cents worth as to how savings and efficiencies can be made. Have a little faith guys and listen to people who work for you. They will give you answers you are looking for.

JOYCE - THE DE FACTO DEPUTY???

We have spent the afternoon lounging about in the provinces, checking on the lamb chops, and the river, as you do in the provinces. And we got to thinking.

We think that while Bill English is doing okay as Finance Minister, it is clear that Joyce is the De Facto Deputy Prime Minister. We haven't seen a bad word written about him or his policy decisions and strategies for some time. He is setting the economic transformation agenda. Patrick Gower says he is Keys right hand man but we think that he is more than that. He is a leader. He is inspiring many business leaders by his pragmatic approach and easy manner. He is not just a politicians politician , he is a businessman's politician. And he is not a gloaty noter. Just a very smart, slightly nerdy good bugger. He, like Key know all about the real world and business and it has created a very strong bond between them , on an intellectual, social and political level. And they like each other. Partnerships like that are rare.

We reckon odds on, he will one day lead the country..

NGAI TAHU SKITE FEST

Chris Finlayson
Bill English
and Pita Sharples will all be in attendance at Ngai Tahu's skite fest at Parliament of March 3rd .

RESOLUTE IN THE NEW YEAR

A few NY resolutions we would like to to hear

Mark Solomon - " It is now time to move on and let someone else take over. "

Michael Laws "I will stop thinking about kinky sex and get a girlfriend who only likes the missionary position and of course me"

Maori leaders " We resolve to start setting some standards. No gang patches on the Marae, and at any tangi. Our mantra will be ' gang tikanga is not Maori tikanga',"

John Key "I promise to be big and ballsy and make the hard calls to grow the economy"

Bill English " The public service will feel the pain of a thousand cuts."

Judith Collins " I will do what I did last year."

Winston Peters " I will stand in Helensville for the good of the nation."

Phil Goff " I will attend every BBQ that 17 members of my caucus are planning to hold over the summer for the sake of party unity."

Cunliffe " I will roll Phil Goff because I know that I have the superior intellect and I am better at being a shifty bastard than he is."

Trevor Mallard " I will work harder at being the most obnoxious Labour blogger because its so much fucking fun."

Clare Curran " I resolve to give the world peace and love and text Helen clark every night to tell her what a wonderful job I am doing and how popular I am especially with my own caucus."

Paul Henry " I will be a bigger star than I was - take that all you dick shits"

The Brunette " We will continue to take the piss and be obnoxious, talk about sex and country living and generally make lots of noise and swear a lot.

Cactus Kate " Shag more, Drink more, and write good shit, and make squillions while travelling the world in style. "

I LOVE NEW ZEALAND

A friend of Lambcut's was in the National Bank branch that is nearest the Parliament end of Lambton Quay, today. Bill English happened to be there too. Apparently, our Deputy Prime Minister fronted up to the teller, as one does, regarding whatever transaction he had in mind. The teller asked him for ID. I love New Zealand.

BROADBAND - 101 - WHAT ARE THE POSSIBILITIES

This article was published by David Ware the Managing Director of Teamtalk - a listed Telco that also owns CityLink and Araneo. It sets out the possibilities of Broadband and the pitfalls of some of the options and gives a glimpse of the future.

Sick of hearing about the government’s broadband strategy yet? Well you had better brace yourself because there is a lot more to come. Given that there is one and a half billion dollars of our money up for grabs and the possibility that the Telecommunications industry is going to be stood on its head we shouldn’t be surprised that every lobbyist, every so-called industry expert and every economist worth their salt is coming up with an opinion. It’s a feeding frenzy out there with the telecommunications companies throwing money at these bottom feeders like drunken sailors on shore leave.

The problem is that this stuff really matters. If the government gets its right it will do far more for our economy than all the investments in roads and other infrastructure put together. If they screw up, well they might as well have flushed the $1.5 billion down the toilet.

The broadband zealots will have us believe that putting broadband everywhere will transform our economy, we’ll fly back up the OECD league table and we will all live happily ever after. They tell us we’ll be working in a weightless economy producing software and ‘content’ (to you and me that means making movies, video games and the like). And we will all be video conferencing al the time They quite correctly point to countries like Korea where this transformation has happened.

In the opposing corner you’ll hear luddites shouting that the only thing that this investment will do is make it easier for folks to download pornography.

If the government gets it right then the reality will be somewhere in between. If we screw up the luddites will have the last laugh and will be saying “I told you so”.

So lets take a look at some of the benefits that we can reasonably expect from this investment..

Peter Jackson spent a small fortune getting super high speed Broadband out to his Miramar campus. Its how he links Miramar with Hollywood and it makes it that much easier for him to make his make movies here. Now just imagine if everyone involved in the video production businesses could have access to similar services? The dream that our ad agencies have of producing television commercials for Singapore for example would become a reality. There’s no question that this industry, and web design etc would get a massive boost. The benefits will extend to all sorts of business that use the internet – and unless your are involved you’d be amazed at how much business is dependent on the internet these days.

But what’s in it for the rest of us other than faster access to Trade me?

In the US President Obama wants to make US healthcare more efficient by computerising all health records – we can’t even begin to think about getting these benefits until we’ve got this broadband stuff sorted.

Properly implemented this broadband investment will drive down all telecommunications costs. It’s not just your internet charges that will go down. Cell phone networks for example are built on top of broadband so lower cost broadband will lead to lower cost mobile calls.

The impact on how we educate our kids could be massive. Get it wrong and we could be consigning our economy to a rural backwater.

So this is a big challenge for our government and one they’ve got to get right. Unfortunately its not just a question of deciding where to invest the money. There is a whole bunch of regulatory stuff that needs to sorted at the same time.

The first decision the government will be making is should they invest with the incumbent telecommunications companies or do they look elsewhere. An investment in Telecom for example is the fastest way to get broadband out there but it would do little for price and nothing for innovation. Its simply locking in the status quo and would probably harm us all in the long term.

But if you’re not going with the major operators where do you turn? This stuff isn’t simple, its not like running a bit of water pipe or power cable? Can the small broadband operators be trusted with such a big investment?

The previous government was keen for local government to take a big role in all of this. But not all councils are renowned for their commercial acumen and their ability to innovate and move fast; traits that are essential in broadband operators.

Getting the regulatory scene correct is absolutely vital. Everyone agrees that just tossing in $1.5 billion isn’t enough to make this happen by itself, so the government also needs to clean up the regulatory environment. For example its simply to expensive to dig up every street in the country so accommodations may need to be made with the existing utilities so that operators can run their cables through the pipes that are already in the ground. To date the incumbent telco’s have done a pretty good job of ensuring that the myriad of little regulations that make the telecommunications industry tick are firmly weighted in their favour. Making changes in this area isn’t going to be easy.

So how is the government going so far? Well the good new is that they haven’t tried to shoot from the hip and rush this one. They’ve given the role to Steven Joyce - one of the most commercially savvy ministers we’ve got - and Bill English who is as pragmatic as you can get, and they’ve been doing a lot of listening and little talking. So far so good.

At $1.5 billion, you’ll have to agree its one hell of a role of the dice. And given the importance of this stuff it really is something that everyone needs to get to grips with. This stuff is way to important to be left to the geeks and the spin doctors.