Open mike 20/10/2023

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, October 20th, 2023 - 51 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).

Step up to the mike …

51 comments on “Open mike 20/10/2023 ”

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  1. ianmac 1
    20 October 2023 at 7:36 am

    Fancy that! But but but The Government has created a blown out Debt says Luxon ad nauseum!

    Analysis: Government debt has "blown out" says incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. His fiscal plan promises a $3.4b reduction in debt by 2027/28, compared with the Treasury's existing track.

    But according to the International Monetary Fund, New Zealand has some of the lowest government debt in the developed world – so have campaigning politicians had their eye on the wrong ball?….

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/international-ratings-agency-warns-of-impact-of-repealing-three-waters?utm_source=Newsroom&utm_campaign=13e41439b5-Daily_Briefing+19.10.2023_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71de5c4b35-13e41439b5-95522477&mc_cid=13e41439b5&mc_eid=88a3081e75

    Jonathon Milne has been unbiased for once and tells it the way it is – after the election of course.

    • AB 1.1
      20 October 2023 at 8:19 am

      An imaginary government debt crisis is always cover for shrinking the state and opening up opportunities for business to step in. The cool thing is, you can make government debt worse by handing out tax cuts, then point at that debt in shock and alarm, and cut services and/or sell assets in response. There is a total determination on the right to put the activist, effective and popular state of the Covid response back in its box and shut the lid.

    • Mike the Lefty 1.2
      20 October 2023 at 11:14 am

      Big money buys big lies.

    • Ghostwhowalks 1.3
      20 October 2023 at 12:04 pm

      IMF and official debt – as % of GDP for 2019,2020,2021,2022 and 2023

      Gross debt 26.2 38.5 46.0 48.6 44.6

      https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2023/08/28/pr23293-imf-concludes-2023-article-iv-consultation-with-new-zealand

      Much confusion about "nett debt" , which is deliberate .

      Gross debt is what interest is paid on and must be repaid. Nett debt is what the credit agencies focus on, but its just gross debt minus our various government funds, ACC($47 bill) EQC($0.3bill) and Cullen fund.($65 bill) Thats set aside of different things rather than repaying debt

      • ianmac 1.3.1
        20 October 2023 at 2:45 pm

        Thanks Ghost but it is a bit confusing for me. Is the claim from Luxton correct or is the IMF on a different tangent? I do know that Private debt is above $100 billion but that is not on Goverment books is it?

  2. Adrian Thornton 2
    20 October 2023 at 7:58 am

    Hi XXXX,

    In the interview I had with Jesse on bookmarks,2:30 pm on 18 October 2023 I made the statement "Free Palestine"

    However I see now that my comment "Free Palestine" was censored by RNZ and cut from the archived segment…can you have it reinstated please, or maybe forward me on to someone who can….I also request that while that statement is under RNZ censorship can you please remove my interview from the RNZ achieve until this matter is settled.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018911682/bookmarks-with-adrian-thornton

    Best
    Adrian

  3. Adrian Thornton 3
    20 October 2023 at 8:52 am

    RNZ has been shit on Geo-politics for a long long time…..talk about thumb on the scales…not too much fair and balanced reporting from RNZ in this dept…sadly.

  4. observer 4
    20 October 2023 at 11:51 am

    Two weeks to go. The "get it done quick before specials" line seems to have faded away. It was always wildly optimistic. Forget about the pre-election BS (hit ground running, instant mini-budget, etc). Reality is dawning.

    Two conversations in 5 days, they're not rushing it.

    The latest leaked tidbit from coalition talks: Luxon and Peters have spoken (twice) | Oct 20 2023 | The Spinoff

  5. Patricia Bremner 5
    20 October 2023 at 11:53 am

    Jesse reports on Food /Travel light entertainment. Say no more.

  6. Adrian 6
    20 October 2023 at 11:59 am

    Mulligan could bore for New Zealand.

  7. bwaghorn 7
    20 October 2023 at 12:49 pm

    https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/18/business/arkansas-china-syngenta-sell-farmland/index.html

    Feely small but seems significant kind of move by the Arkansas government

  8. Patricia Bremner 8
    20 October 2023 at 2:17 pm

    Andrew Bayly Family shares???

    Standing in the by-election. How come ????

    One rule for us another for them.

  9. Spa 9
    20 October 2023 at 2:36 pm

    I regularly listen to RNZ and actually enjoy a fair bit of Jesse's show. It's fair to say that it probably has more lifestyle content and little in the way of political or current affairs but that doesn't make it boring.

    • Ad 9.1
      20 October 2023 at 4:01 pm

      Yes agree the mix of magazine-style short pieces and the vox-pop "I thinks" is lively enough.

      For the straight political radio in the car, you can always go to Bomber Bradbury's podcasts. since he gets great guests. He did a really good one recently on the downfalls of the campaign.

    • newsense 9.2
      21 October 2023 at 12:58 am

      I also enjoy Jesse Mulligan. I get that some of us are political tragics 24-7, but to live that way is very bad for the health!

  10. Ffloyd 10
    20 October 2023 at 3:34 pm

    At Patricia Brenner. ..According to NoRightTurn blog Andrew Bayly has five trusts that he hasn’t declared and says he doesn’t have to declare shares because they are held in trusts.

    zHe was on of the loudest of the NP calling for Michael Wood to resign for not declaring shares that were held in a family trust.

    He sounds crooked as anything but he will get away with it. Not challenged at all by our bought and paid for media.
    The rules around this have been played with and fudged a bit so he seems to think he’s untouchable. Very disheartening.

    I did read his bio on National page and it’s hilarious. Written in the style of Boys Own about his brave adventures and derring do. Crashing around in jungles and suchlike. Sort of like Harrison zFord in all those movies he used to make.

    • Kat 10.1
      20 October 2023 at 4:51 pm

      Just for clarity there is no problem in politicians having shares. The problem arises when said politician is a minister in govt decision making that could potentially be seen as influencing a commercial sector that they hold the shares in……

      • Patricia Bremner 10.1.1
        20 October 2023 at 4:58 pm

        Even if his wife inherited them.???

        • Kat 10.1.1.1
          20 October 2023 at 5:33 pm

          Could have done a Key and said……… the shareholdings were managed on my behalf by my broker who had the authority to act on individual share parcels without referring back to the trust……….yeah sorry….

        • Belladonna 10.1.1.2
          20 October 2023 at 8:21 pm

          Whose wife?

          The rules are the same for all politicians.

          • Shares you own, personally, need to be declared by all MPs.
          • Shares owned by a trust of which you are a beneficiary and/or trustee, currently do not *necessarily* need to be declared (decided by the Privileges Committee in 2020 IIRC)
          • However, following the Wood outcome, many MPs are choosing to pre-emptively declare these holdings-in-trust (cf Bayley) – partly because of the uncertainty over ‘necessarily’
          • If you are a Minister – especially if you are a Minister with responsibility in the area that you own shares, either personally or through a trust – you *must* declare the shares to the Cabinet Office – and follow directions over managing the conflict of interest. The simplest method is to sell the shares, but there are alternatives.
          • MPs can also transfer holdings to a blind trust – which means they have no visibility over which shares are owned (the trustee may have bought or sold shares in X company – but the MP would never know).
          • Patricia Bremner 10.1.1.2.1
            20 October 2023 at 8:32 pm

            Thanks Belladonna.

          • Michael P 10.1.1.2.2
            20 October 2023 at 9:58 pm

            I'm guessing 'necessarily' would be if the MP knows what the industry and or company the shares are in. I would imagine that a blind trust would be ok legally and would supposedly negate the conflict of interest. (But that would mean you would need to believe that all the actors involved don't talk to each other about what investments the trust has…..yea right…)

          • Muttonbird 10.1.1.2.3
            20 October 2023 at 11:12 pm
            • MPs can also transfer holdings to a blind trust – which means they have no visibility over which shares are owned (the trustee may have bought or sold shares in X company – but the MP would never know).

            This is the kind of deliberate naivety which allows tens of thousands of rich pricks to exploit ordinary people every single minute of every single day, every year, and every generation.

            • Belladonna 10.1.1.2.3.1
              21 October 2023 at 10:03 am

              There are 120 (or so) MPs in Parliament at any one time – not tens of thousands.

              Most people accept that MPs have a life before and after their time in Parliament – and there needs to be some mechanism for them to retain their assets – while being seen to be able to make impartial decisions while they are in government. That is what a blind trust is designed to do.

    • Belladonna 10.2
      20 October 2023 at 8:46 pm

      The NRT blog post quotes the data from the Register of Pecuniary Interests – making it clear that Bayley has declared the trusts -that's how we know they exist.

      "According to his entry in the Register of Pecuniary Interests, he has not one, but five trusts."

      https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2023/10/we-cant-trust-mps-with-trusts.html

      For 'ordinary' MPs the Privileges Committee decided in 2020 that shares held in trusts did not necessarily have to be declared.

      Which is not a very helpful piece of wording.

      MPs are required to disclose their shareholdings to Parliament as part of the annual register of pecuniary interests, however MPs decided at the end of the last parliamentary term that shares held in a trust did not necessarily need to be declared, taking a different view to a top official.

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-national-mp-did-not-declare-shareholding-to-parliament-in-wake-of-michael-wood-scandal/FR5FFQ73GJES3LS63CZRLCXE7U/

      This was outlined following the Wood investigation, where the PC recommended that this be clarified

      They recommended the Standing Orders Committee consider "clarifying how interests in trusts should be dealt with".

      "Rules and forms are clear but both need change if Parliament intends that shares held by trusts should be covered," the report said.

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/496413/michael-wood-ordered-to-apologise-to-parliament-over-shareholdings

      A number of MPs (perhaps, especially those with Ministerial ambitions), have been pre-emptively declaring shares held by trusts (which is how NRT knows about the Bayley shareholdings-in-trusts)

      Wood was censured by the PC, not for the holdings in the family trust, but for shares in Auckland Airport, which he owned personally – and did not declare.

      He was fired as a Minister, for repeatedly lying to the Cabinet Office and the PMs office about having sold the shares, while making no attempt to do so.

      As is so often the case in politics, the cover-up is worse than the crime.

  11. Mike the Lefty 11
    20 October 2023 at 5:04 pm

    I'm waiting for some enterprising journalist/writer to publish a book in the next year or so titled something like:

    The 2023 General Election – How Big Money Bought an Election.

  12. Ffloyd 12
    21 October 2023 at 9:15 am

    According to Thomas Coughlin of the NZ Herald, Bayly had NOT declared shares in a Software Company called Site Soft that he owns with his brother. It is a site that contracts to Govt Agencies as well as others. At the time he attacked Wood he still had not declared these shares apparently. So Herald was calling hypocrisy.

    • Belladonna 12.1
      21 October 2023 at 10:27 am

      Bayley had no requirement to declare the shares – under the rules established by the government of the day (a Labour one, BTW). He had declared the trust which owned the shares (as he is required to do) to the Register of Pecuniary interests.

      Bayley was in opposition, *not* a Minister in the Government (something you seem to have difficulty grasping). The 'rules' for disclosure of shareholdings (and other conflicts of interest) for Ministers are much more exacting, than for ordinary MPs – as they should be.

      Subsequent to Wood's hearing by the Priviliges Committee – it seems likely that the rules may change to require a declaration of shares held by trusts. Many MPs (especially those with Ministerial ambitions) are pre-emptively declaring their shareholdings (which is why journalists now have this information, in order to write articles).

      None of this is at all relevant to Wood's failure:

      • He personally owned shares in Auckland airport (not through a trust) – and did not declare them in any year, prior to becoming a Minister.
      • When he became Minister, he 'remembered' the shares and declared them to the Cabinet Office – but did not retrospectively update the Register of Pecuniary Interests (as he is required to do)
      • As Minister for Transport, he had a direct conflict of interest between his Ministerial role and his Auckland Airport shares (i.e. he had the ability to make decisions which could have a positive or negative effect on the value of the shares).
      • The Cabinet Office recommended the sale of the shares (a relatively small amount) as the best way of removing the potential conflict of interest (note, there are other ways, and Wood could have explored these). Wood agreed to sell the shares, but, despite regular reminders, failed to initiate or carry out the sale.
      • Wood lied to both the Cabinet Office and the PM's office about the sale being completed.

      Bayley

      • Is the beneficiary of several trusts – which have been properly declared in the Register – as is required.
      • Was not at the time (and is still not – under the rules established in 2020) required to declare individual shareholdings within those trusts.
      • Has chosen to pre-emptively declare those shareholdings-in-trust (presumably because he has Cabinet ambitions – and wants to get any potential conflicts of interest on the table early).
      • Bayley was at the time, in Opposition – so had zero ability to influence the awarding of contracts to the company.

      I'm assuming that the Thomas Coughlin article you refer to is this one:

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-national-mp-did-not-declare-shareholding-to-parliament-in-wake-of-michael-wood-scandal/FR5FFQ73GJES3LS63CZRLCXE7U/

      Note, Coughlin comments that Bayley is "risking allegations of hypocrisy" – presumably from Lefties who are unable to distinguish between the two cases. The Herald does not (at least in this article) call it hypocrisy.

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