Royters
News and views from inside and outside Parliament.
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Are some 'More Equal' than others? 15/11/2008 - 10:47 Comments 6 Fortunately we are about to get a new government. Today's revelations that Canterbury District Health Board retiring Chief Executive Gordon Davies was treated to a $7,000 farewell from his $450,000 per annum job earlier this month courtesy of the taxpayer show that largesse was alive and well and totally acceptable under the previous Labour government. On top of that Mr Davies was sent on a $10,000 trip to a conference in Paris earlier this year despite making it clear that he was intending to stand down from his position. Board Chair Alister James has defended the spending, but it is not clear who approved it. Some board members have been quoted saying they were not aware that it had been approved but did so after the event. Some may recall that Alister James was defeated by public vote for the Canterbury DHB at the time of the last local body elections but was subsequently appointed as chair by then Health Minister David Cunliffe. The board currently carries a $15 million deficit - one might have thought that spending of such a frivolous nature was unacceptable under these circumstances. Why do government agencies have such difficulty in remembering where the money allocated to them has come from? It is taxpayers' money - taken from workers' earnings to provide the services people are unable to provide for themselves. $17,000 would have provided eight children with grommets for better hearing to improve their educational outcomes. Perhaps Mr James should consider the patients he is supposed to support before splashing out on the finer things of life for those already able to cater for themselves. Lets hope a National government takes a different approach to the public sector. Comment |
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Election Night Reflections 11/11/2008 - 07:13 Comments 2 I wrote this on election night but have only now had a chance to post it: *A fantastic result for ACT - increasing from two MPs to five is huge and a great reflection on all the hard work done by so many throughout the country. Comment |
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As the Campaign Ends ... 07/11/2008 - 10:02 Comments 0 As campaigning winds up today it's interesting to reflect on how things have gone on the hustings. David Garrett (ACT's No. 5) and I visited Kilbirne School in Wellington yesterday and talked to a group of 7 and 8 year old's. Their questions were at least as searching and tricky as any that I've been asked by adults at our many politicla forums. One was "Will your party keep its promises to people?" and another, after a discussion about crime as "Why do people commit crimes?" Why indeed. I've visited many businesses throughout the country and Wellington Central and had some pretty interesting conversations, and a few conversions to party vote ACT! Not all however are convinced and there is still a lot of confusion about whose policies are whose and how to vote tactically. The most confused was a woman in an antiques shop who was adamant ACT would sell the family silver - that she was surrounded by family silver and was selling it seemed to be lost on her. One law for all ACT says. My Wellington based team has worked tirelessly delivering letters, waving signs, visiting businesses with me, doorknocking, putting up billboards and repairing the damage and much, much more. Their huge efforts deserve to be rewarded and I thank them all.
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Congratulations President Obama 06/11/2008 - 08:16 Comments 0 New Zealand's election hardly rated a mention in today's political news as Barack Obama became President-elect of the USA. Along with his running mate vice President-elect Joseph Biden they won by a landslide 5 million votes victory at the time of writing (three States as yet too close to call). Senator McCain was very gracious in defeat and I anticipate that we will be hearing more of Sarah Palin in the future. She is now a national figure in the US and may well run for national office. A number of senate seats were up for election at the same time and again there has been a swing to the Democrats. Alaska continued with its maverik streak by appearing to re-elect a Senator recently convicted of a felony. The striking thing about Senator Obama was that he spent almost $US400 million on his campaign, most of it given in amounts of $100-$200 via the internet. New Zealand politicians have a lot to learn from the thoroughness of US campaigning. Senator Obama's teams identified Democratic voters who had not cast a vote in the last election (4 years ago) and called on them personally to implore them to vote this time. Senator Obama will be sworn in as President on 20 January 2009. Comment |
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SPEECH TO THE AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE COLLEGE 05/11/2008 - 16:53 Comments 0 Yesterday I spoke to the Australian Defence College students currently visiting New Zealand as part of their year long course. Amongst the group will be some of the future Generals in their countries. They come to hear policies from the various political parties. Defence Minister Phil Goff usually participates but declined his invitation this year. National's Wayne Mapp presented his party's defence credentials and Ron Mark (NZ First), Keith Locke (Green's) and I formed a political panel of minor party Defence spokespeople. The questions are always searching and as a sapper with the Royal New Zealand Engineers in the NZ army I'm always a little overwhelmed by the audiences collective seniority compared with my junior status! As I said in my speech I was pleased to be wearing my politicians hat. The speech can be viewed at (http://roy.org.nz/content/speech-australian-defence-college-centre-defen...). Comment |
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Young Labour share campaigning tips 04/11/2008 - 09:07 Comments 1 This is grass roots democracy at it's best. Josh, my deputy Campaign co-ordinator, and I were out delivering letters in central Wellington today. It's full of gated apartment buildings that are a bit tricky to get into and we came across Aaron, Andy and their cellphone photographer friend from Young Labour trying unsuccessfully to get into the same building we were. They shared some of their (more sophisticated than ours) campaign tips but it would be uncool to reveal these to any but hard-core campaigners. We marked the occasion with a photograph for prosterity.
Aaron and Andy were out delivering letters for Grant Robertson, Labour's Wellington Central candidate. Grant was nowhere to be seen and Josh and I thought this was outrageous - leading by example is important. As I commented on Aaron and Andy's blog (http://www.aaronandandy.com/) I hope Grant wasn't too busy measuring up his new office .... 4 days to go yet and anything can happen. Comment |
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Bring Our Children Home 03/11/2008 - 11:14 Comments 0 A theme of the ACT 2008 Election Campaign is 'Bring Our Children Home'. We need to prepare a place for our children (and their children) so that they see and choose New Zealand as a place they want to work, live and play in the future. Almost 25 percent of our young people leave New Zealand and don't return, compared to around 3 percent of young Australians who don't return to live there permanently. While wages and salaries, working conditions and 'extra curricula activities' are better and more exciting overseas our young people will continue to be attracted to greener pastures. ACT's policies are looking to provide the economic and social conditions in the New Zealand of the future to make this an attractive country for them. A country that is loosing its children is loosing it's future. Music is often the best way to get messages across. Michael Laws apparently commented recently about campaign songs of various political parties on his radio show, saying that ACT, of course, wouldn't have a campaign song. Well - he's wrong. Here's ours - it's called 'Bring Our Children Home' and was written and performed by Tim Ewing-Jarvie. Comment |
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Achievements in Opposition - Longbeach School gets new Classrooms. 03/11/2008 - 08:54 Comments 0 A question I'm often frequently asked at meetings is "What is the achievement you are proudest of in your time in parliament?" It's much harder in oppostiion obviously to positively influence policy but there are the odd 'wins' that make it all worthwhile. One such win for me was helping a small mid-Canterbury school get extra classroom space to solve it's overcrowding problem. Longbeach School (20 minutes south of Ashburton) had struggeld for two years to get the Ministry of Education to address the fact that four classrooms were just not enough to house 120 children and six teachers, or that permanently teaching in the Library and special needs classes being run out of a large cupboard were acceptable.The Ministry was more interested in putting in place an enrolment zone to cap and control the number of students the school could take. Out of frustration the Board contacted me as ACT's Education spokesman to ask for assitance. Being an advocate of school choice I wasn't particularly pleased with the zoning emphasis. The Longbeach School board contacted me late in 2007 and we worked together to try and address the issues over the next few months.The school board talked repeatedly with the Ministry and contacted the nearby schools to attempt to resolve the zone boundaries. Unfortuantely nothing satisfactory resulted from these discussions. We decided that action was needed so the school arranged for a shipping container to be delivered and earlier this year I went down to Longbeach School to open the 'new Container classroom' which had eight students in it. TV3 came with me and the nation heard of the ridiculous situation. As a result the Minstry fiinally acknowledged that the overcrowding was unacceptable and when a more reasonable zone was negotiated a new classroom was pledged. While campaigning in Timaru and Ashburton on Tuesday last week I was delighted to visit Longbeach School to view the new classroom which will be in use next week. It is a temporary classroom, but as you can see from the photo's is much more substantial and permanent than a shipping container! The school was doubly pleased to tell me that they had, the previous week, been informed that they had just been allocated enough money to obtain another classroom. This is exactly what the board had been lobbying for over a two year period, but I guess enough time had lapsed so that it didn't appear that the Ministry had been forced to do the right thing by a back bench opposition MP and a bolshy Board of Trustees. We shouldn't have had to resort to such tactics but I'm pleased to say that the effort was worth it and stories like this make my job worthwhile. Next time I'm asked the question Longbeach School will be my answer.
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ACT launches National Security Policy 03/11/2008 - 08:11 Comments 7 I today launched ACT's National Security policy. I've had many requests for our Defence policy but over the last three years ACT has decided to take (rather than just talk about) a Whole-of-Government approach to the area of security - both internal and external - for the core role of government in providing for the safety and security of its citizens. You can view the policy here. This is a substantial and comprehensive piece of work which is the culmination of the efforts of dozens of people over three years - groups I visited, discussions with a variety of people in security based organisations, the Defence Force, academics and my own National Security advisor. I'd like to thank them all for their time and enthusiasm for improving the co-ordination and delivery of security services to kiwis. My own experiences as a territorial soldier in the NZ Army have also been invaluable when comtemplating the effect of policy at the grass-roots level. Your comments are encouraged and welcomed. Comment |
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Kiwi Voters Overseas 31/10/2008 - 12:32 Comments 1 Two new websites are now available for kiwi voters, living or holidaying overseas, who will not be in New Zealand on election day. The sites are www.kiwivoter.co.uk and www.kiwivoter.org They are pretty much mirror images of each other with some extra info for London based Kiwis on the .co.uk site. All the info needed to check eligibility, enroll, find electorates, check out candidates and vote is available from both sites. Plus there is a liberal (excuse the pun) sprinkling of ACT messages, policies etc. I invite all overseas readers to check them out and I welcome feedback. comments, suggestions, and donations! Comment |
