By Bernard Hickey
With 10 days to go until the September 20 election, here's my daily round-up of political news on Wednesday September 9, including Kim Dotcom giving a teaser to his September 15 revelation about John Key.
Dotcom said the event in Auckland, which will include appearances from Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange would "present vital information to voters about Prime Minister John Key, the National Government and the sordid workings of Hollywood."
However, Dotcom told the NZ Herald he did not think it would hurt Key, given the Prime Minister's poll ratings have emerged virtually unscathed from 'Dirty Politics':
"If he survived that, he could probably survive shooting little kittens in his garden with a shotgun, even if there is picture evidence of that. It's a mystery. I can't understand it," Dotcom said.
Coalition terms?
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters gave a speech in Porirua about "Forming Coalitions" that appeared to spell out the main areas for post-election negotiations.
He said New Zealand First was against Labour 's plan for a Capital Gains Tax, unless it also extended to allowing capital losses on assets to be offset against gains elsewhere. He also reiterated New Zealand First's policy of reducing tax rates for exporters to 20%.
Peters also detailed what he thought a majority of New Zealanders were concerned about achieving in any coalition negotiations, including limiting foreign buying of houses and land, reducing record high net migration and reducing poverty and high unemployment.
"Having regard to what has just been said, anyone going into coalition negotiations without a total commitment to address the public concerns is not there to negotiate for the people but for their own political preferment and office," Peters said in his most detailed comments yet on what he wants out of any coalition, given opinion polls suggest New Zealand First is likely to receive more than 5% and he may be the 'Kingmaker'.
Capital Gains windfalls over
Meanwhile, I interviewed National Finance Minister Bill English. He said first home buyers were unlikely to experience the big capital gains seen by Baby Boomers because interest rates were unlikely to fall sharply again and leverage could not go any higher.
He also previewed Government moves to do more to improve housing supply after the election and to extend the investment-led approach in Welfare into Education and Health. Watch out for an announcement later today on improving land supply.
I also interviewed Winston Peters . He talked about the need for monetary policy reform and limits on foreign buyers.
Protection for subbies
National Housing Minister Nick Smith announced National would change the Construction Contracts Act so contractors and developers could not inappropriately use money retained as guarantees of good work. Retentions are payments withheld by the developer and main contractor from subcontractors to ensure any faults can be repaired. The issue arose when Mainzealcollapsed and took with it NZ$18 million of retentions.
"We are going to change the law and require retentions to be held in trust to help ensure contractors and their subcontractors get paid for the work they do," Smith said, adding he had asked for a supplementary order paper to be drafted for the existing Construction Contracts Amendment Bill currently before Parliament.
Clayton Cosgrove said Smith's plan was a copy of Labour's February 2013 call for improved security for subbies and Labour had proposed a SOP in April.
"Nick Smith should stop playing politics, pick up my amendment and run with it. If he really wanted to help subbies he wouldn’t be doing this in the middle of an election campaign," Cosgrove said.
New rifles and helicopters
Jonathan Coleman announced National's Defence policy, including a commitment to keep all bases and camps open if re-elected.
He reiterated the Budget 2014 plan to spend NZ$535.5 million on operating costs over the next four years and NZ$1 billion on new equipment, including new naval helicopters, a frigate combat systems upgrade, new army vehicles, an SAS battle training facility and a new pilot training package. National would would also replace the Army's 8,000 Steyr rifles.
Special education
Metiria Turei announced a Green Government would spend an extra NZ$115 million per year on improving special education, including doubling the number of children receiving the Ongoing Resource Scheme at a cost of NZ$95 million per year. It would also increase funding for the Early Intervention service by NZ$15 million and spend an extra NZ$5 million on school holiday and after school programmes.
Jo Goodhew announced National's Senior Citizens Policy , including a reiteration National would maintain the link between New Zealand Superannuation payments and 66% of the average wage, which meant superannuation rates would continue to increase "far ahead of inflation."
She pointed out the married rate of Superannuation had risen by NZ$249 per fortnight since 2008.
Goodhew said National also planned to keep expanding the SuperGoldcard scheme to include more businesses offering more discounts.
See all my previous election diaries here.
See the index for Interest.co.nz's special election policy comparison pages here.
9 Comments
With John Key is on record about the dates he knew of Kim Dotcom, this sounds like KD might have a memo from Hollywood that documents them discussing KD with JK when JK claims to have not known of KDs existance.
If this is the case, I think Kim Dotcom may be overestimating the concern of the public that John Key has been directly lying about using NZ law enforement to help American companies. So the event will be a Fizzer in terms of anyone caring.
Most Polls pretend the people who are not committed do not exist (and there is pretty good evidence that a lot of the "collapse" of Labour is from Labour to Undecided in the polls, as the raw number of National supporters hasn't changed in about 2 years, even when there support seems to have been increasing (it is an artifact of stable support with the decreasing number of decided voters)). The big question is will the undecided turn out to vote, and are the undecided between labour and national (not likely since 53% of the country (including undecides) want a labour led government) or undecided between Labour/Greens/InternetMana.
It is all about turnout at this stage.
In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot.
And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com.
And she said unto Abraham, her husband: "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?"
And Abraham did look at her - as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said: "How, dear?"
And Dot replied: "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price.
And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."
Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent.
To prevent neighbouring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying,
Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew.
It was called Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures - Hebrew To The People (HTTP)
But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secrete himself inside Abraham's drum and began to siphon off some of Abraham's business. But he was soon discovered, arrested and prosecuted - for insider trading.
And the young men did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung.
They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS.
And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land.
And indeed did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates' drumheads and drumsticks.
And Dot did say: "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others."
And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it came to be known. He said: "We need a name that reflects what we are."
And Dot replied: "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."
"YAHOO," said Abraham. And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com.
Abraham's cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot's drums to locate things around the countryside.
It soon became known as God's Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE)
And that is how it all began.
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