There is a tactical reason and a strategic reason why Labour will keep hope alive at its conference this coming weekend. The tactical reason is John Key. The strategic reason is its backroom work.
Now and then Key miscues. There are gaps in his knowledge of politics, of this nation and of what being Prime Minister entails.
Saturday’s big deal is not who will get to be mayors and councillors. It is the possible cascade into a wider reorganisation which Auckland’s remake might trigger.
Put together the big Auckland region, a rival collective of main-city mayors, the Environmental Protection Authority, the mooted “national land and water commission”, growing collaboration among councils and Rodney Hide’s first-principles review next year. You have the makings of a potential local government reorganisation to match that of 1989 when the number of subnational government bodies fell from more than 600 to 88, now 85.
Random thought
Is Paul Henry (presenter on state-owned Television New Zealand’s Breakfast “news” programme) a real New Zealander, that is, in his definition, one who looks and sounds like a real New Zealander?
If Henry is a real New Zealander, then a real New Zealander doesn’t speak with Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand’s very broad, that is, genuine, Kiwi accent. If Henry is a real New Zealander, then a real New Zealander is a “shock jock”, which was the Prime Minister’s description of Henry in his post-cabinet press conference (4 October 2010), thereby implying it is OK that the state-owned mainstream purveyor of “news” thinks a “shock jock” is exactly the right person to front a main “news” programme.
While Bill English was busy telling you last week how, thanks to him, you are much better off this month, Simon Power was busy honing a bit of the constitution and busybody lawyers were busy telling us English, Power and Co are constitutional truants.
Cutting corners on constitutional niceties is an occasional characteristic of John Key’s cabinet. Example: Associate Minister of Local Government John Carter chaired the parliamentary committee on Auckland legislation in breach of a convention that backbenchers must chair committees.
This month, if he sticks to plan, Environment Minister Nick Smith will announce a working group on clean-tech, modelled loosely on the tax working group. He started talking about it in February.
Back in June Singapore, roughly New Zealand’s economic and population size, announced a $US700 million (around $NZ1 billion) programme of research into clean technologies. New Zealand’s commitments so far are at most a fiftieth of that.
So the “recovery” stalled in the June quarter, the figures said. Or did they? And does it matter, given the half-billion-dollar stimulus coming on Friday via the first part of the tax switch?
First, the figures are not gospel. The underlying economic performance might be a bit higher or lower than Statistics New Zealand’s 0.2 per cent. There are often special factors: Canterbury’s earthquake and Southland’s big freeze will weigh on this quarter’s figure. Drought aftermath hung over the June quarter.
On Friday prices go up. Well, they go up all the time. But this time the government is raising them — with your best interests at heart. Maybe.
You will find that, all other things being equal, the price of something in this country will be 4.5 per cent more than in Australia, where GST is 10 per cent. Add this to the 30 per cent or more difference in the gross wage or salary you could get in Australia and ask yourself why you haven’t skipped westward.
Here’s how Labour could in theory win next year. It’s mostly to do with ACT and in particular Rodney Hide.
First, the spectre of 2002: Labour looked a shoo-in, so some who were National-leaning but not heavily committed and wanted to put a brake on Helen Clark went to New Zealand First and United Future; National’s vote fell.
Three strikes and you’re in. That was how Rodney Hide billed ACT’s three strikes prison policy. We now know the “in” referred to Parliament and the “you” was David Garrett. It worked a treat.
Hide recruited Garrett’s hard law and order line to build ACT’s vote. Two seats became five. But Garrett did not act out ACT’s open, transparent politician line and neither did Hide. Add Hide’s gallivanting last year and Heather Roy’s dumping last month and is that three strikes?
What’s wrong with burning the Koran? It’s only a book. What’s wrong with what Maurice Williamson said about getting stoned and adultery and Christians and Muslims? It was only a joke. Actually, it’s not so simple.
One argument against burning the Koran is fear. United States President Barack Obama’s fear was that Pastor Terry Jones’s stunt to burn the Koran on the ninth anniversary of Muslim anarchists’ September 11 attacks would boost Taleban and Al Qaeda recruitment and put Americans more at risk.