Nothing – absolutely nothing – tested the trust which West Auckland people have placed in me more than the aerial spraying programme in the early 2000s to eliminate the painted apple moth outbreak. It had to be done. The economic destruction of doing nothing would have hurt all my constituents in the end.

But what was necessary was also hugely disruptive for the community in my electorate. And ever since I have worked to improve New Zealand’s biosecurity protections so my constitutents might never have to live through that again.

Unfortunately in 2008 the National Party became the Government. National think they know the price of everything – but they certainly know the value of nothing. And under John Key we have seen cut after cut after cut in our biosecurity protections.

Last year, yet again, West Aucklanders bore the brunt of a biosecurity breach. My constituents were going about their lawful business at the Avondale markets when biosecurity officers turned up apparently in hazmat suits to confiscate their fresh fruit. It was the feared Queensland Fruit Fly – and it got through the border after National cut biosecurity and customs.

So it’s almost beyond comprehension that John Key, Bill English and National have made another $6.2 million of cuts to biosecurity risk management in the Blackjack Budget.

They’ve also cut biosecurity policy advice. If Nathan Guy just doesn’t want to hear about coming threats then he simply shouldn’t be the Minister in charge.

These latest cuts to biosecurity are an attack on the community in my New Lynn electorate. And next year, when Labour returns to power, this irresponsible approach will not stand.

The announcement was astonishingly vague.

Almost immediately we in the Labour Party located an independent review of the computer plan. In a document released to me under the Official Information Act we learned how KPMG reported:

We do not believe the timeline presented… is achievable. A programme of this complexity, where scoping and articulation of long-list options, a robust options assessment (critical for Treasury support) and the programme’s design (i.e. ordering of tranches and projects) have not yet occurred.

Now that John Key and Bill English have bought down their Blackjack Budget we can see KPMG were too diplomatic.

Here’s how the official Budget Economic and Fiscal Update (BEFU) 2013 (p64) defines the project:

Revenue – Transformation and Technology Renewal (Changed)

The Government is exploring options that will fundamentally change the way IRD manages its processes and data. Any changes could have material costs to implement (with capital and operating implications) and/or impact tax revenue collections. The Government is currently considering a programme business case and is yet to finalise the scope of the programme.

Unbelievable.

The National Government have committed $1.5 billion of your dollars to a project which hasn’t been fully considered and which isn’t even properly scoped. For $1.5 billion you could have two thousand experienced nurses providing essential care in our hospitals for 12 whole years!

Ordinary people in New Zealand are doing it hard. Ordinary people are worried about the lack of jobs, and how to put food on the table for their kids.

Too many ordinary people can’t dream of having a new computer in 2013. But Peter Dunne gets $1.5 billion for his, and he doesn’t even know which one he wants.

Or maybe the Minister with the casting vote in the shabby casino deal will blow the lot on ‘scope defining’ exercises. Either way it’s ordinary families who will foot the bill under National.

David Cunliffe is Labour’s Revenue Spokesperson.

I woke today to hear Auckland deputy mayor Penny Hulse declare on Morning Report the housing accord between the Government and Auckland was in danger, and Auckland Council would not ratify the accord until certain matters had been sorted out.

Crikey, it didn’t take long for the centrepiece of the National Government’s Budget to start unravelling.

Was it poor political management? Did Ministers English and Smith really think Auckland Council would not be annoyed by the Goverment sneaking into the Bill extra powers to override the Council in direct contradiction of its agreement announced only a week earlier in a grip and grin session at Hobsonville involving Key, Smith and Brown?

Or was it all about getting a few hairy chested headlines the day after the Budget with the Government getting tough on housing affordability? And tough on Auckland Council as a useful proxy? Bill English told his post-Budget breakfast he wasn’t going to let 20 planners  in the Auckland Council planning department wreck the economy!

In any case, the Government has just bought itself a couple of months of uncertainty and controversy over its flagship housing policy. Auckland Council, with Len Brown’s inexhaustible supply of good will, has shown itself to be remarkably patient and wily when it comes to dealing with the long list of mostly South Island ministers sent to deal with it: Gerry Brownlee, Amy Adams, Nick Smith, and now Bill English. (Except Bill English is from Karori.)

This is a high stakes tactic for the Government. If they provoke Auckland Council enough the Council could walk away from the Accord. The Government would then have to choose between backing off and losing face, or using its new powers to override Auckland Council and impose its own planning rules.

I suspect that would not go down well with Aucklanders who tend to view central government Wellington as a foreign country which should as much as possible be kept at bay.  Imposing martial law on Auckland Council’s urban planning would be unpopular to say the least.

National are already offside with Aucklanders on transport (the most recent Herald poll had support for the City Rail Link at 63%). Gerry Brownlee’s impersonation of a human roadblock has left the city distinctly unamused. Even National’s traditional allies like the Employers and Manufacturers Association, and the Chamber of Commerce, have deserted it on this issue.

Over-riding Auckland Council’s planning laws would be up there with the suspension of Environment Canterbury and Gerry Brownlee’s post-quake wartime powers in the great pantheon of this National Government’s power hungry dealings with local councils.

National clearly thinks local government is a convenient punching bag. And I have no doubt councils around the country are watching this latest stoush with alarm. The housing accords bill sets up a legal framework that allows these powers to be used anywhere in the country.

It will be really interesting to watch how this slow motion punch up plays out. The super city reforms created something new and different. The Auckland Council, representing one-third of the country’s population and bigger than Fonterra and Telecom combined, is not like a council. It is more like an Australian state government.

And with mayoral and council elections in October, a stoush with the National Government may be just what Len Brown needs to guarantee re-election. (Maurice Williamson by the way has gone very quiet on his mayoral plans. I suspect there is an inverse relation between the amount of time the Government spends fighting Auckland Council and Maurice’s poll numbers.)

Given the constitutional supremacy of Parliament, the National Government could bludgeon Auckland Council into  submission if it wanted to. But is that an outcome, with all the likely consequences, National really wants, given that in relatively short time it is going to need the votes of  Aucklanders?

Labour voted for the Bill at first reading for two reasons: the housing affordability crisis demands a response and while it is inadequate, it is at least something.  The accord cherry picks from the draft Unitary Plan. Opening up greenfields land and fast tracking consenting gives no guarantee that any affordable housing will be built.

We also felt that if the Government and Auckland Council spent six weeks hammering out an agreement on this issue then it at least deserved scrutiny at select committee.  If Auckland Council decide not to ratify the accord that is going to make select committee hearings very interesting.

I think I might put up an amendment to the Bill giving Auckland Council the power to override the National Government if it can’t get what it wants and introduce a Capital Gains Tax in Auckland. Excluding the family home of course.

My tweet about this discovery led Chris Finlayson to respond to me that I was “tragic” because I did not realise that this was “a golden age for the Arts in New Zealand“. The reaction on Twitter soon made clear that not many people shared the Minister’s golden glow.

To be clear, the role of the Minister or the government in the lustre of any particular time for the Arts is only partial. Artists themselves will define that. It is certainly true that there is terrific creative content being produced all over the country. What the Minister has to answer for is the extent to which the government is supporting, promoting and developing that.

If we are looking for a “golden age” in that regard, Helen Clark’s cultural recovery package of the early 2000s stands out. After a decade of declining investment in the arts and culture, an $86 million jolt breathed new life into CNZ, film, music, heritage preservation and more. Michael Volkering has argued that the package was only one part of her cultural legacy that also stretched to our military heritage, pushing creative industries and regional arts.

I am not trying to make out everything was perfect in the time of the Clark government. But it did represent an injection of pride in ourselves as a nation, and of the place of the Arts in New Zealand. The Prime Minister was the Minister for Arts and that status meant something.

Chris Finlayson deserves credit for his personal contribution to various artistic endeavours, and for continuing much of the good work of the Clark government. But where he lets himself down is in his dismissal of Clark’s legacy and his vainglorious attempts to cast himself as the saviour of the Arts.

As we stand today, there are number of significant issues that require urgent attention. One issue that is raised with me often is the difficulty for artists in working with key government cultural agencies. For example, the changes made to Creative New Zealand funding over recent years by the Minister have led to a cumbersome and confused process. In sectors such as theatre there is strain, threats of court action and people simply walking away. Overall, there is an absence of regional and local understanding in funding decisions. Meanwhile legislation to reform Creative New Zealand sits moribund on the Parliamentary Order Paper.

Another example is the freeze on funding for public broadcasting is taking its toll. (This Budget funding actually drops by $3 million). New Zealand On Air has managed to fund some terrific programmes in the last few years, but budgets simply can not keep pace. Radio New Zealand in particular is struggling, and seems set to be commercialised in some way by a new Chief Executive. Public television is all but non-existent. Overall the government does not seem to see the importance of public broadcasting nor realise its significance to our cultural identity.

Despite the undoubted success of film and music, both sectors struggle to sustain artists beyond an elite few. New strategies are required for the new world of technology and distribution, but leadership and inspiration are lacking.

Now is the time for Minister Finlayson to show that leadership and inspiration. That is how a Minister can contribute to a golden age, otherwise it’s simply fool’s gold.

Last Thursday such a moment occurred. It was a David and Goliath moment for New Zealand and it’s worth celebrating.

In the hub-bub of the week’s emotional tributes to (our) Pakekura Horomia, the blinding spotlight on (their) Aaron Gilmore, David Shearer’s framing of the Budget as being one “for the boardroom, not the smoko room” and the introduction under urgency of two draconian and frightening pieces of spy legislation which will reverberate on our justice system and our telco industry, there was a relatively under-reported but likely momentous outcome to a three year battle to protect New Zealand’s burgeoning software industry. An outcome which will protect an important export industry for New Zealand’s economic future.

This is no small victory. It is, in effect, a signal to the world that New Zealand is a good place to grow a software business. And in time it may stimulate our tertiary education and training sector to wake up and realise what potential we have for significant growth in the weightless economy and in weightless exports.

But what a journey it has been. One which has pitted the might of the multinational software companies led by Microsoft and IBM  and the bloated patent attorney sector against New Zealand’s innovators who united (90% +) to oppose what they saw as one of the biggest threats to their future.

The National Government, blind to the local economic potential, and despite a unanimous select committee recommendation, sided with the multinationals and the out-dated advice from MFAT.

Thankfully they were over-ruled. Thanks must go firstly to the plucky ICT sector, led by Paul Matthews at the NZ Institute of IT Professionals and the software  innovators who formed an industry group called NZ Rise to push the case for software innovation in New Zealand. Internet NZ, and the NZ Open Source Society too.

Thanks should also go to Peter Dunne, who, under our MMP system essentially had the casting vote which forced the government into revising its position.

And to the Greens, who consistently backed the local industry and Labour position, NZ First, the Māori Party and Hone Harawera and Brendon Horan. This was a moment when every vote counted.

Dunne’s vote forced Craig Foss into the embarrassing position of having to re-write and re submit an amendment unravelling the position he had in-advisedly and belatedly pushed due to pressure from the multinationals.

His back down last Thursday now allows the Bill to pass with likely support from most parties and giving our local Kiwi innovators the opportunity to innovate, build new software without the threat of patent suits from big companies which could stifle them or threaten them and pay them off.

If New Zealand is to build an economic future based on our thinking power, then our creativity must be allowed to flourish.

I knew that. The industry knew that. Labour backed me for three years on this issue. Finally it has paid off.

There is a real story to tell about this Bill. One that has seen very big foreign companies place sustained pressure on New Zealand to influence its domestic laws. And lose. This is good news.

Three years ago, the Commerce Select Committee undertook a much needed review of New Zealand’s patent laws which hadn’t been looked at since 1953. A substantial review which considered and recommended modernisation to an important plank of our intellectual property regime ranging from inventions to medicines, traditional knowledge and indigenous plants and animals to software programs.

The Bill sought to modernise and simplify the procedures for obtaining a patent and that our patent regime would not inhibit innovation or discourage technology growth and exports.

The Commerce Select Committee, strongly led by former Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel (with my keen input) considered these issues carefully and heard numerous submissions. We sent officials back several times to reconsider particular issues and provide international comparisons.

This is what we concluded:

Under the Patents Act 1953 computer programs can be patented in New Zealand provided they produce a commercially useful effect.³ Open source, or free, software has grown in popularity since the 1980s. Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no “inventive step” in software development, as “new” software invariably builds on existing software. They felt that computer software should be excluded from patent protection as software patents can stifle innovation and competition, and can be granted for trivial or existing techniques. In general we accept this position.

While the bill would provide adequate incentives for innovation, however, we are aware of New Zealand companies who have invested in a significant number of software-related inventions, involving embedded software.⁴ We sought advice on the approach taken in other jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and the United States, and whether legislation that would enable “embedded software” to be patentable might be practicable. After careful consideration we concluded that developing a clear and definitive distinction between embedded and other types of software is not a simple matter; and that, for the sake of clarity, a simple approach would be best. We received advice that our recommendation to include computer programs among the inventions that may not be patented would be unlikely to prevent the granting of patents for inventions involving embedded software.

We recommend that the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand develop guidelines for inventions containing embedded software.

We knew that this recommendation was ground-breaking, but the select committee felt assured that we had looked carefully at the issues and reached the right conclusions.

There are varying views on what happened next. No doubt some will disagree but here’s my view, most of which is backed by evidence.

When the Select Committee reported back to the House in 2010, the big software multinationals (via the patent attorney companies which submitted on the Bill) either under-estimated the grasp that the committee would have of these issues, or were caught napping.

There was an immediate and sustained round of lobbying of government Ministers. As I understand it, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade became involved.

The Commerce Minister at the time was Simon Power. When the legislation sat on the table and wasn’t moved to the next reading for months (and then more than a year) Labour began to ask questions in select committee hearings and even in the House about the reason for the delay. Power publicly confirmed on two occasions that the select committee’s position would stand. This gave hope to the local industry that the legislation proceeding as was intended but still it sat in parliament. But I wasn’t convinced and repeatedly warned that the industry should remain vigilant.

Simon Power announced his resignation in March 2011 and left parliament that October. The Bill went into abeyance. The new Minister Craig Foss had no grasp on the underlying issues and was ripe for the capture of the foreign software lobby and the influence of MFAT.

Sure enough, in August last year, as the Bill finally returned to the House, Foss introduced a last minute amendment which contradicted the will of the select committee and allowed software patents under the guise of this phrase:

“… prevents anything from being an invention for the purposes of this Act only to the extent that a patent or an application relates to a computer program as such“

The two words “as such” tacked on at the end are precisely the same as those that are found in Article 52 of the European Patent Convention that also excludes software patents, BUT which has allowed lawyers to obtain thousands of software patents in the EU on the grounds that they weren’t software patents “as such“. In other words, legal speak for allowing something to occur which doesn’t appear to be allowed.

Craig Foss had given in to patent lawyers and multinational software players and sought to impose a software patents system on our IT sector. He over-rode the advice of the Commerce Select Committee that patenting software would smother innovation.

It caused an uproar in our innovative IT industry, that knew it would be stifled by constant threats of law suits from multinationals. My personal view is that he didn’t understand what he’d done. Fortunately, we have a local industry with legal minds and guts which recognised the critical importance that this seemingly small law change could make to our local industry.

Interestingly, I spent a month in the US in October last year where the debate about excluding software from being patented is growing. People should be aware that a huge legal industry has grown around patent software wars and that banning software patents would significantly affect the litigious community. I’d rather back growth in weightless exports and jobs for our kids vs an industry based on litigation any day!

Why should lawyers profit from running cases which ultimately stifle new innovators inventing the next software programme?

The clamour in New Zealand opposing the Craig Foss amendment grew late last year. I put up a counter amendment which was backed by the industry A petition by the local Kiwi software industry gathered more than 1200 signatures from software developers in just a few weeks.

Again the legislation stalled. Some media began to take an interest the wider backdrop of the influence of foreign companies on New Zealand’s domestic law and economic interests began to gain some traction.

It has taken more than 8 months, but finally a compromise has been reached. I understand that more than one Government Minister was required to sign off on SOP 237. Importantly, it is backed by the Kiwi software industry and to my mind that is what counts.

It’s extraordinary that it’s taken so long and is a strong indication that the National Government has not understood the importance of:

1.      The growing importance of software to development of the NZ economy

2.      How intellectual property laws can be used as a tool to stifle innovation (and shouldn’t be)

For those who watch intellectual property issues and their impact on our economy, pay attention. The law excluding software from patentability can apply to other sectors such as pharmaceuticals and other types of IP such as copyright.

Perhaps the penny may drop as we move along the path towards an outcome on the Trade Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) and the absolute importance of the intellectual property regime being negotiated in New Zealand’s interests.

Our software industry now has a future. Let’s keep our eye on the ball.

For the last month or two, residents of the new Wigram Skies suburb in Christchurch have been suffering from toxic smoke blowing across them. It has been coming from a fire in the nearby recycling pit caused by the spontaneous combustion of some medium-density fibreboard. You can see what they have been putting up with in this picture. No wonder 150 of them came to a public meeting called by MP Megan Woods, in whose electorate that new suburb has developed.

The toxicity comes from burning formaldehyde. The Medical Officer of Health says that there is no long term health risk posed by the smoke and fumes. That is a good thing. But it is still unpleasant, irritates the nose and eyes, stinks and is an air pollution issue. I visited it with Megan recently and even on a still day I could smell it in the air the moment I got out of the car. Now it seems the fire has collapsed and is able to be put out. It has been too hot for firefighters to get near until recently.

The question shifts now to what to do about it and how do we prevent something like this happening again. The site needs to be cleaned up and taken over by the Ministry for the Environment. Residents have legitimate questions about the environmental impact on the local area and the pollution threat to water resources given the fact that the Owaka pit is right on top of an aquifer. If we still had a democratically elected Environment Canterbury body, something might have been done or planned by now. But we don’t. This is a major pollutant and the Minister for the Environment, Amy Adams, should take it over as a pressing concern for these people.

Oh, and by the way – the pit is in Amy Adams’ electorate……

The fundamental role of the news media is simply to report fair and balanced information to citizens. In doing so the news media acts as a ‘watchdog’ or power check, protecting the rights and interests of citizens. While factors such as entertainment undeniably hold some importance to the news media, it is the watchdog function of the news media that is fundamental to the workings of a democracy.

The democratic functions of the media to educate and inform citizens, and to act as a power check to the state has been overridden by content that is focussed on producing profit.

Democratic functions have therefore fallen on the shoulders of public service broadcasters.

In New Zealand, a shrinking media environment, under-resourced watchdogs such as the Ombudsman, the Office of the Auditor General and the Privacy Commission and an unrelenting move away from the notion of public media to commercial media in the broadcasting environment has eroded our ability to uphold these fundamental principles.

The ability of the print media to withstand the pressure of the online environment shows the power of disruptive technology on a business model which is rapidly becoming stressed and replaced with news being gathered online. The big question for our print media is how to make that pay. A discussion on this would require another whole piece, but contributes to an environment in which instability and restructuring are the norm and the craft of “good journalism” is under high stress.

A 2010 report by the UK media academic Chris Hanretty ranked New Zealand’s TVNZ as 19/36 for perceived independence. Australia’s ABC was ranked 5^th and the BBC 6^th.

Since then the situation has significantly deteriorated. Our only (small) public television broadcaster TVNZ7 was axed by the conservative National Government in 2012. The state owned broadcaster TVNZ  had its public service charter removed in 2011 and has been forced to become fully commercial.

New Zealand is now the only country in the OECD (bar Mexico) which does not fund a public television broadcaster.

Our public service radio broadcaster Radio NZ has had its funding frozen for more than three years. It has become lonely and increasingly isolated as the beacon of media freedom in a commercialised and cynical media environment.

The past four years has seen the steady decline in the news media’s effectiveness to report fair and balanced information on news and current events. Government policy has created a media environment in which the news media cannot function efficiently, increasingly leaving citizens in the dark about decisions that affect their everyday lives.

Market pressures force the news media to focus on ‘infotainment’ or the sensational in order to keep costs low and profits high. This has led to an environment where reporting standards continue to slip leaving significant events and decisions with little or no coverage.

Government policies have also included a deal between TVNZ and Sky TV (Igloo) which essentially maintained Sky TV’s monopoly of the pay TV market, and the failure to reserve spectrum for public service broadcasting after the digital switch over.

The Government’s support of commercial media and continual disregard for public service content can also be seen in the recent funding decisions of NZ on Air (NZoA) which acts as the Government’s broadcasting funding mechanism, supporting locally produced free to air content across all broadcasting mediums. NZoA’s annual statement of intent must be approved by the broadcasting Minister and Government, which means the Government of the day has a direct influence on it.

Recent NZoA funding decisions certainly reflect the Government’s priorities and ethos regarding the media. TVNZ 2’s reality television show NZ’s Got Talent recently received $1.6 million, and while the show arguably does show young New Zealand talent it is certainly questionable whether the commercially-attractive formulaic programme should have been considered for arts and culture funding.

Despite public concern, NZoA recently announced that it would spend another $1.6 million to fund TV3’s The X Factor NZ, another talent show based on a similar format. Rather than producing cultural content that genuinely would not be produced without funding, NZoA has continued to support major broadcasters through the funding of commercially viable content.

NZoA has based its funding decisions on dividing funds equally between major broadcasters rather than in the interests of the public. Whilst these foreign formatted reality television shows have received $3.2 million out of the tax payer’s pocket running on prime television at peak times attracting advertising dollars, local current affairs shows and unique locally conceived drama and factual shows are nearly at the brink of extinction.

These decisions made by NZoA reflect the Government’s stance on a free, fair, and balanced media. NZoA funding is only one example among many in the Government’s support of commercial broadcasters at the cost of citizens.

TVNZ has recently replaced its log running current affairs nightly programme Close Up with 7 Sharp which can at best be described as infotainment rather than investigative journalism, and fair and balanced information.

Perhaps the most bizarre event recently in the New Zealand media is pay-TV provider Sky TV announcement that it will air a public service channel. Beginning in February Sky TV is airing Face TV, a public service channel dedicated to screening local and international news and current affairs.

Whilst some could argue that this is an instance of the market filling a gap, this argument is deeply flawed as the channel is behind Sky TV’s pay TV wall and therefore is not accessible to all New Zealanders. This move by Sky TV reflects that New Zealanders not only need but also but want public service content, and signals the Government’s blatant disregard of non-commercial broadcasting in New Zealand.

The New Zealand media truly is in dire straits. Government policy and direction has created a media and political environment that is simply unable to provide the information that citizens need to make informed decisions leaving dominant powers unquestioned and unchecked. The rights and interests of the citizen are no longer protected. This boils down to whether democratic processes can work without an effective and efficient news media. Perhaps ironically, if the news media had been functioning properly these issues may have already been addressed.

Half a billion is almost a third of Police’s annual budget. It’s more than DOC’s entire funding.

It’s a year’s wages for 4,150 experienced nurses and 4,150 experienced secondary school teachers as well.

It’s $113 for every man, woman and child in New Zealand.

And it’s the amount National promised Peter Dunne last week for potential overruns in his “upgrade” of IRD’s computer system.

Yes, you read that correctly. I’m not talking about the known project costs – National has committed $1 billion for those.

The extra half a billion is just in case Mr Dunne blows through the first billion without getting the job done. It’s a shadowy “slush fund” equal to half the basic worked-out cost of the project.

And let’s be frank – the Revenue Minister’s reputation for basic maths hasn’t been strong of late. This year Dunne’s had to back down on reckless new taxes on car parks and iPads and laptops and cellphones, because Labour proved he hadn’t done his sums.

But what do the experts think? Well accountants KPMG reviewed Mr Dunne’s project at the end of last year and there appear to be real issues with the way it has been set up.

Here’s what KPMG said:

“We do not believe the timeline presented… is achievable. A programme of this complexity, where scoping and articulation of long-list options, a robust options assessment (critical for Treasury support) and the programme’s design (i.e. ordering of tranches and projects) have not yet occurred.”

Now Labour does agree the IRD’s FIRST mainframe is not fit for the internet age. IRD started as a revenue collecting department, but now it has responsibilities in KiwiSaver, child support and student loans.

But surely a project of this magnitude needs to be planned better than “give or take half a billion”? Especially after this Government’s total botch-up with Novopay.

It all beggars belief really, just as National and Peter Dunne will beggar New Zealand until they’re given the boot at the next election.