Here we go again – divide and rule tactics that reek of the National Party…’let’s turn one New Zealander against another so they forget to hold us accountable for anything’.

I’m referring to the article in the Dom Post this morning – ‘Leader threatens Hikoi if Pacific funds cut’.  The title is ok and the proposed course of action is fine but the article and statements left me concerned.

JR Pereira and former All Black Michael Jones say the Govt needs to focus more resources on the PI community, not fewer.  Apparently JR said that MPIA’s buding of 7.6 million was not fair compared with Te Puni Kokiri’s $173m budget for Maori.  The issue should not be about how much less Pacific are getting than Maori -  If Pacific people were polled tomorrow, I doubt very much that they would advocate for cutting the budget to TPK in order to lift the funding to MPIA. 

The Government needs to find the money from other places - here’s two ideas:

1.  Take the $35 million that they directed to PRIVATE SCHOOLS and redirect that to MPIA and/ or education initiatives that are actually proven to work

2.  Take the $62 million that they plan to spend on the ‘doomed to fail’  National Party Standards in schools and redirect that to MPIA and/ or initiatives in education that are actually proven to work

The other thing National needs to do, is put someone in the role of Minister of Pacific Island Affairs who actually geninuely cares about the plight of Pacific people – this person doesn’t necessarily have to be Pacific (Phil Goff did a great job when Minister of Pacific Island Affairs as did Mark Gosche and Winnie Laban) – but it does need to be someone who is experienced, has influence in their caucus and takes the portfolio SERIOUSLY.  The Ministry has the people, expertise and passion to serve Pacific People and NZ effectively but it is lacking in funding and also political nous.

The National Government have largely ignored Pacific peoples over the course of their 18 months in power – meanwhile our levels of underemployment have gone through the roof; our thriving Creative Arts industry is being threatened; our access to quality and affordable health and education are being undermined and our voice at decision making tables is being minimalised. 

It has taken so much work for our Pacific communities to make the strides that we have made (we have by no means reached nirvana but we were at least moving forward under Labour) and now National is guiding us backwards incrementally step by step by step…..

Michael Jones is quoted as saying - “The brown tail must be shortened, not be lengthened.  It must be removed.  We need to be more involved with decision-making.  We must be part of the head and not the tail,”  As a sportsperson and a human being I do hold respect for Michael but for goodness sakes – can he not see that it is the very Government that he continues to tout as being good for us Pacific people – that are ones leading us down a track that will place us back where we were at least 15 years ago?

Thank you very much to those of you who have signed my anti-whaling petition today!

John Key seems to have joined New Zealand up to the group of pro-commercial whaling nations. In a little over a year the National-Act Government has turned our country from being a world leader in marine mammal conservation into an advocate for the resumption of commercial whaling.

The Labour Party opposes whaling. For more information click here.

If you haven’t signed the petition then please help send a strong message to John Key and Foreign Minister Murray McCully that New Zealanders expect our Government to stand up for endangered species. Sign the petition now:

Number of people who have already signed the petition:

Almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right, says a BBC World Service poll.

The survey – of more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries – found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide.

Countries such as Finland and Estonia have already ruled that access is a human right for their citizens.

International bodies such as the UN are also pushing for universal net access.

Dr Hamadoun Toure, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), told BBC News that governments must “regard the internet as basic infrastructure – just like roads, waste and water”.

This is what I’ve been saying for a while. I first wrote about it last July.

There’s been a lot of discussion about this issue in recent times in countries right around the world. Not much in New Zealand, though, other than via this blog and no doubt a few other forums, such as Internet NZ and other web communities.

The National Government don’t seem interested. I’ve been writing about it for a while and believe that we there must be a public discussion soon about these issues.

As a government, you can’t be introducing a new piece of major infrastructure (ultrafast broadband) without seriously considering what it can and should be used for and who should have access. But this one is.

Note that this government is quiet on all these issues, as well as the issues of universal access. People who live in rural areas will receive a lesser broadband service than those who live in cities. And there’s no plan yet on when and how they’ll receive that service, in either urban or rural New Zealand.

Once again New Zealand is lagging in the important debates being had around the world. What sort of a message are we sending to our citizens?

Instead we get this sort of commentary. Where it’s being argued in one of our major newspapers that the internet isn’t a right, it’s a privilege! Well that attitude is certainly going to close the digital divide isn’t it! What does  Steven Joyce have to say about it?

The much-awaited deal on Rugby World Cup free-to-air rights sees $3.2m of taxpayer money handed across to ensure multiple channel coverage next year - Maori Television, TVNZ, TV3 +  Sky channels, this will be wall to wall rugby.

Not a lot of money when you stack up the national investment in RWC. But a helluva lot if you were, say, Radio NZ.

Ends the bizarre saga of state-owned television broadcasters vying against each other - and Government intevening simply because it did not want Maori Television covering the Rugby World Cup, especially with some Maori language commentary, in the weeks before the next scheduled election.

And, if it’s good enough for Govt to intervene to give 100 percent free-to-air coverage for RWC, why the deafening silence on the loss of such coverage of the Commonwealth  Games. Or Olympics?

English can’t help himself digging deeper in his hole.

Caught out in Question 4 today at Question Time contradicting himself on whether the economy was growing or shrinking, he fell back on challenging the truth of the quotes.

Here they are, both sourced from Hansard:

“Because we did not think either policy was appropriate in the circumstances of what, under his party’s management, was a very poorly performing New Zealand economy, which was then hit by the global financial crisis”(Question 2, 23 February 2010)

‘Yes we could make substantial gains in the integrity of the tax system. Under the previous Government the number of people paying tax on $4 million did not change in 10 years even though the economy grew significantly” (Question3, 23 February 2010)

His main thrust, however was to repeat old lines that “the tradeable sector had been in recession for five years”, because the economy was “unbalanced” – ie NZ does not export or save enough and consumes and borrows too much.

Leaving aside his use of language – let’s be clear that Labour agrees that the economy is currently unbalanced (I blogged as much last week)

The key issue is what the government is doing about it, or not doing. On this commentators are scathing:

• Bernard Hickey said the PM’s opening speech to Parliament “did nothing….worse than nothing. He shut down the debate… saying ‘tough. My backers own property….I’m not brave enough to challenge them’…”
• The Manufacturers and Exporters Association said the government “would do no more than tinker” and noted “How the PM expects a broken tax system to be fixed without any changes is beyond me”.
• John Armstrong said “Yesterday’s programme is a tax cut package masquerading as an economic growth package….Those expecting something special will be disappointed”.

So, has Mr English deliberately set out to embarrass his leader by reminding everyone how weak, shoddy and indecisive his government is perceived to be  right across the political spectrum?

Or is it just another “accident” in what was a slow motion train wreck of a week for National in the House.

There is something very odd going on with the Heatley resignation. It seems John Key has said in his media conference that he did not think he should have resigned. I was beginning to question my view that he was pushed. From Mr Key’s own words this would seem to be so.

More to come I am sure, but it is clear this is not decisive leadership from Key.

We have been in urgency this week.  When the week is over, we’ll update our urgency counter.  But between 8 December 2008 (the first day the House sat after the 2008 election) and 31 December 2009, the House had sat for 644 hours and 1 minute.  254.53 of those hours had been in urgency.  That’s 39.52% of all legislative time.  It’s an abuse of the urgency procedure.

We made a small protest agains that abuse this morning during debate on the Judicial Matters Bill.  Chris Finlayson wanted to add 3 important constitutional changes by Supplementary Order Paper to that Bill.  In consequence, they would not go to a select committee.  There were several changes, but the main ones were were to increase the maximum number of District Court Judges by 16, increase the number of Court of Appeal Judges by 1, and make statutory provision for High Court Judges sitting in the Court of Appeal to receive a higher duties allowance.

David Parker, our spokesperson on these matters, was consulted by Chris Finlayson last year, and agreed that the main changes could be done by SOP.  But he never agreed to consider these issues under urgency.  As Trevor Mallard said, they are important changes, but not urgent ones.

So we decided to deny  the leave necessary to allow them to go forward today.  They’ll have to be considered another time.

Details still coming through, but hard to know if he jumped or was pushed. My money on the latter.

The Canterbury Mayoral Forum – all the regions’ mayors – has just issued a media release saying it believes that a “collaborative, community driven approach is the way to go” in managing water resources (not yet on Ecan website.)

Sorry but how does that square with a Government appointed board as suggested by the Creech report?

THIS WEEK ON BACK BENCHES:  Wallace Chapman, Damian Christie, the Back Benches Panel and special guests go head to head over the week’s hottest topics!

POLICE POWERS: Is it time for harsher penalties for crims that bash cops? But are we too focused on punishment rather than prevention?

MINING: Helen Clark says when it comes to mining: “some things are more important than money.” Do we need to be concerned about mining on DOC land? Or is this much ado about nothing?

Backbencher Pub: Wednesday, 24^th of February. Our Panel: Green MP Sue Kedgley, Labour MP Damien O’Connor, and National MP Louise Upston.