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Posts Tagged ‘gerry brownlee’

Good call Gerry

Posted by Chris Hipkins on March 19th, 2010

Gerry Brownlee has made the right call in deciding to back Rally New Zealand. It’s a great event, providing huge exposure for New Zealand internationally and opening up heaps of tourism opportunities. I hope the govt’s backing of the event will help to secure it a place on the international Rally calendar.

It’s a pity the Nats had to be embarrassed into doing something though. They didn’t hesitate to give $300k to the All Whites, who are already getting $10 million to go to South Africa. Maybe they’ve decided the Rally offers Key a good photo-op too…

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Filed under: sport
10 Comments

Gerry’s dumb decision on smart meters

Posted by Chris Hipkins on March 14th, 2010

Gerry Brownlee has decided not to specify a standard for smart meters, denying householders the opportunity to get a little more control over the cost of their electricity. The technology on offer is quite exciting, and it’s a real shame the new meters electricity companies are fitting won’t make use of it. The meters being installed don’t have a HAN (home area network) chip, so they won’t be able to communicate with other in-home appliances to allow consumers to take advantage of using power when electricity is cheaper.

Brownlee’s decision is good news for the electricity companies, who now have ministerial backing in their quest to deny households the opportunity to save money on their power bills. It’s a shame he didn’t listen to the advice of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who recommended last year that he specify a standard, as many overseas jurisdictions have done. Brownlee is defending his decision by saying that the ripple control system for hot water heaters is an adequate substitute. As my colleague Charles Chauvel has stated “In technology terms, that’s a bit like saying you don’t want an iPod because you still have a perfectly good collection of 78s”.

However, he has got one thing right in that he has agreed to regulate some of the basic data exchange protocols. That will ensure that consumers will be able to make use of new meter technology even if they switch retailers. As an example, I’m currently with Meridian but my meter was installed by Genesis. Meridian read my meter every 2nd month, but if I was with Genesis they would do an electronic reading monthly so I’d never need to worry about ‘estimate’ readings. Hopefully the new rules will ensure that Meridian will be able to use the meters electronic capability, even though they didn’t install it themselves.

It’s a real shame Gerry Brownlee hasn’t used his 3 and a half months deliberating on the issue (the Electricity Commission presented their recommendations to him in early December) to make a more gutsy call. As usual he’s sticking with his head in the sand, stacking up more problems that will have to be dealt with in the future rather than showing leadership today. In the meantime consumers miss out on an opportunity to save money on their power bills. So much for National being the party of choice…

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Filed under: Consumer Affairs, Energy
11 Comments

Brownlee gets details wrong – again!

Posted by Chris Hipkins on March 3rd, 2010

The government’s great details man Gerry Brownlee was reported in the DomPost this morning (article not online) making more claims about the government’s home insulation scheme that just don’t stack up. An Otago University report has argued that the standard of insulation provided isn’t sufficient for homes in colder areas (eg. lower South Island), so Brownlee side-steps the issue by saying there isn’t the capacity to insulate more homes. Actually Gerry, that wasn’t the question! Even then, his claim isn’t true either.

249 businesses applied for approval to deliver home insulation and heating under the government’s scheme but only 60 were approved. I know of a number of businesses that meet the quality standards but were turned away because they weren’t big enough. Gerry ‘bigger is always better’ Brownlee argues there isn’t capacity to insulate more homes but that just isn’t true. If he wasn’t distorting the market by creating monopoly providers there would be plenty of capacity to insulate more homes.

Gerry Brownlee should take the concerns being raised about the scheme seriously. Last month an initial audit by EECA into the scheme said that 63 per cent of the insulation retrofits audited have “problems”, half of which are described in the audit report as “serious”. There have been a string of reports from providers who have had to lay off staff because they were excluded at the last minute. There are suggestions providers who are approved aren’t passing on the full benefit of the subsidy to consumers.

The government needs to look at all of these issues carefully. Brownlee can’t keep bluffing the details. We all want to see more homes properly insulated, but it needs to be done properly. Enough of the cutting corners and PR spin.

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Filed under: Energy
15 Comments

Rally New Zealand

Posted by Chris Hipkins on February 28th, 2010

I was disappointed to learn this week that the draft 2011 world rally calendar doesn’t include the iconic Rally of New Zealand. The official position of RallyNZ appears to be to wait until the draft schedule is confirmed, but it now looks unlikely we’ll make it.

I was particularly disappointed to learn that the government had turned down backing for the event. This week Gerry Brownlee was trumpeting the fact that the government was sponsoring the World Paralympics Athletic Championships, so I asked him why he wasn’t backing Rally New Zealand. In response he questioned the economic benefit of the event.

The world rally championships is a huge international event, bringing huge TV audiences and offering considerable tourism potential. Media reports suggest those involved in the motorsport industry feel other governments give better backing to the event, no doubt that played a part in our being excluded from the 2011 schedule.

Major sporting events bring huge economic benefits to New Zealand. While we’re all focused on the Rugby World Cup, we’d be mad to overlook events like the Rally of New Zealand, which appeals to a very different (and possibly bigger) international audience.

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Filed under: sport
18 Comments

So was the urgency worth it Gerry

Posted by Trevor Mallard on February 26th, 2010

Sometimes you can get too smart for your own good. Gerry Brownlee did this week. He put far too much in an urgency motion. He was offered a deal that included questions. He has now revealed that he wanted at least one Select Committee to sit at Parliament by leave at the the time the house was sitting.

Labour said no. Gerry lost his cool rejected the deal and ended up getting much much less through than he would have otherwise.

He found out that if the opposition decides to go into a no co-operation phase hours can be spent with no progress whatsoever.

He also found out that Christopher Finlayson (no QC) notwithstanding his FIGJAM approach doesn’t have the brains to stand and take a call even when he has his instructions wrtitten down for him.

Hope that Brownlee enjoys explaining to the next Cabinet and caucus what happened and that Hone Carter can give advice as what to do next time.

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Filed under: national, parliament
15 Comments

What I would have asked Tolley

Posted by Trevor Mallard on February 25th, 2010

Because it looks like the Nats have decided they don’t want to expose their Ministers to questions today I thought I would share with Red Alert readers and in particular Anne Tolley (because I know that her office and several of her Cabinet colleagues read Red Alert on a daily basis) the question I would have asked. Looks like I will now have to wait three weeks but thought that giving notice will allow her to swot.

Does she understand the asTTle reporting system and the process leading to it?

Btw – one point of order yesterday took 75 minutes – Gerry would have been better off having questions and co-operation over times of debates.

Update  Gerry Brownlee has folded – has now woken up and there will be a question time today.

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Filed under: education, parliament
13 Comments

Brownlee’s shambles cuts jobs

Posted by Chris Hipkins on February 24th, 2010

One of the first things the new National government did when coming into office was scrap the $1b home insulation fund that the previous Labour government had planned. Later in the year they finally woke up to the huge value better home insulation can bring and announced their own scheme, albeit smaller. Personally I was pleased they’d seen the value in warming up kiwi homes, but as the weeks and months have rolled on, more and more of the rushed schemes weaknesses have been revealled.

One of the most concerning is the impact it has had on small specialist businesses. It would be natural to assume that a small specialist home insulation business delivering a quality product would stand to benefit from a significant expansion of the market and increase in the number of government subsidies available. Not so, in fact the opposite has happened. The government has arbitarily capped the number of providers, favouring big players like The Warehouse or Hire a Hubby, rather than small specialists. Of the 249 businesses that sought approval, only 60 got it.

I think this is totally unfair. Many of these businesses were previously able to access government subsidies and some had, in good faith, scaled up their operations, taking on new staff (many off the dole) in anticipation of the increased demand. I’ve had many firms tell me about how they’ve had to lay off staff because they can’t compete with the big providers who are getting government subsidies.

I’m very keen to see more homes insulated, and I’m pleased the government is putting some money into it. It’s a real shame that they aren’t doing it fairly and properly. It’s kind of ironic that the ‘pro-competition’ National Party seems to be going out of their way to distort the market and choke off any competition when it comes to home heating and insulation.

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Filed under: Energy, jobs
18 Comments

Brownlee’s Bungled Bill

Posted by Chris Hipkins on February 4th, 2010

Opposition to the National government’s plans to carve up the electricity ‘market’ even further continues to grow. Gerry Brownlee, meanwhile, continues to think he can just bluster his way through without dealing with the many substantive and valid concerns being raised.

The Press reports that Meridian Energy have written to SOE Minister Simon Power and Finance ministers Bill English and Steven Joyce informing them that the cost to the taxpayer of Brownlee’s proposed transfer of assets from Meridian to Genesis could be $80 million plus. Brownlee’s pitiful response was to say that the issue had been ‘extensively canvassed’. He then resorted to attacking the messenger, in much the same way he attacked PowerShop when they also raised concerns.

The Press also quotes Institute of Professional Engineers chief executive Andrew Cleland who argues forcing Meridian to hand over the Tekapo A and B power stations to Genesis would compromise the Waitaki system, making it less efficient resulting in a “lose-lose” for the consumer. Labour raised this very point during the First Reading of Brownlee’s Bill.

Gerry Brownlee seems to be playing with the energy SOEs as if they are toys. He has no real plan to deal with the flaws in the existing electricity market, he doesn’t seem to have grasped the detail of the portfolio and seems totally unwilling to engage with any reasoned argument. Unfortunately, it’s the consumer/taxpayer that will suffer the consequences.

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Filed under: Energy, public services
16 Comments

Brownlee muzzles power co boss

Posted by Chris Hipkins on January 13th, 2010

Late last year in the pre-Christmas rush Gerry Brownlee unveiled some pretty dramatic changes to the electricity market. They were contained in the Electricity Industry Bill which received its first reading in Parliament.

At the time, the CEO of Powershop, a subsidiary of Meridian Energy, was very critical of the reforms proposed in the Bill. Brownlee complained to Meridian and it now looks like the CEO has been gagged.

It’s a shame that the National Party only seems to be in favour of freedom of speech when it likes the message being delivered.

Update: Hat tip to The Standard who first posted on this yesterday.

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Filed under: Energy
22 Comments

Question watch #2

Posted by Chris Hipkins on December 22nd, 2009

My post yesterday on John Key’s non-answer to some of my written parliamentary questions certainly got the Key apologists worked up. When Key does finally front up with the answers I’ll post the info here and people can then judge whether they were fair questions to ask.

The Key apologists seem to have forgotten that National MPs used to routinely ask tricky questions of the then Labour government. One of their favourites was to ask about staff Christmas parties and presents. Most government departments do some sort of end of year function for their staff, so National’s questions were basically intended to find examples of where they’d gone a bit over the top so that they could shout from the rooftops about “waste”.

Interestingly, they aren’t so keen to answer now that the shoe is on the other foot. I asked a written question of each Minister that’s almost identical to one Brownlee, McCully etc used to ask and they have all come back with the same answer: “The question the member asks relates to an operational matter which is the responsibility of the Chief Executive.”

Interesting to note that when Labour was the government and National was the opposition the questions were OK, but now that National is in government they seem to think a lower standard of accountability should apply. In 2005 Annette King even went so far as to compile all of the answers into a handy little table for the Nats, so why are they suddenly ducking for cover?

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Filed under: democracy, national, parliament
34 Comments

No relief from rising power prices

Posted by Chris Hipkins on December 9th, 2009

Gerry Brownlee has announced changes to the electricity sector. National are returning to their ‘market knows best’ ideological roots. They’re gutting the Electricity Commission, forcing asset swaps on the SOE generators that will do little to promote effective competition in the electricity market, and doing a bit of window dressing about customer switching beween retailers.

Before the election Brownlee and Key were blustering about electricity prices being too high. Now they seem content to talk about limiting price increases. After their year long review they have done nothing that will help to cut power bills for hard working Kiwi families. In fact their demand that the SOEs return even bigger dividends to the government could send power prices up even further.

I’m still working my way through the reports and will blog more on the detail in due course. Suffice to say I’m disappointed the government have once again ducked taking the tough decisions.

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Filed under: Energy, privatisation
31 Comments

Key & English break the law

Posted by Chris Hipkins on December 8th, 2009

Once again the National-led government have been caught out changing the rules so that they can live the high life while they ask everyone else to stomach cuts. John Key has changed the rules so that Ministers are allowed to have a self-drive car in Wellington instead of at their primary place of residence.

The big issue though is that Bill English had a self-drive car in Wellington before the rules were changed, thus placing both him and John Key (who is the Minister responsible) in breach of the law. All year John Key has refused to take action against English on the basis that he hadn’t broken any laws. Now they both have. They have both breached the Civil List Act 1979.

When my colleague Pete Hodgson questioned Key about this in the House today he ducked out, leaving Gerry Brownlee to answer on his behalf. They must know they’ve really stuffed up on this one.

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Filed under: national
56 Comments

Gerry’s biofuels shambles

Posted by Chris Hipkins on November 28th, 2009

Continuing with the theme set this morning by Colin James (see Grant’s post) I’ve found another example of how governments get things wrong when they rush things through. Late last year the newly elected National government rushed through a repeal of Labour’s biofuels obligation under Urgency. The obligation would have meant that the fuel you purchased at the pump would have had to have a certain percentage of biofuels within it. It would have been a useful step in reducing our carbon emissions.

National decided to rush through a repeal, thus pulling the rug out from under the biofuel industry that had been scaling up to take advantage of the new obligation. Labour MPs presented examples during the debate of businesses that would suffer, we presented the cost to NZ in terms of higher carbon emissions, and we argued, as we have with the ETS, that ultimately it should be the polluter that pays.

Gerry Brownlee argued, as National have done with the ETS, that the taxpayer should pay. In this year’s Budget National introduced a Biodiesel Grants Scheme as a partial replacement for the sales obligation. It set aside $36 million in taxpayer subsidies to encourage the production of Biodiesel. So how has it panned out? Well so far they have spent less than $44,000 of that money. In other words, it’s been a total flop. Another example of a bad law rushed through. Another example of National not looking at the evidence of what actually works.

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Filed under: climate change, legislation, transport, urgency
10 Comments

The shoddy home insulation scheme

Posted by Chris Hipkins on October 17th, 2009

In recent weeks I’ve been getting a constant stream of complaints about how shoddy the government’s Warm Up NZ home insulation scheme is becoming. To be clear from the outset, the Labour Party has been campaigning for better home insulation all year and we’d committed to a $1b investment before the last election. But it has to be done properly and all evidence suggests the National government are cutting corners.

One of the most common complaints I’ve been getting has centred on changes the Nat govt have made to the standards insulation providers have to meet to get the subsidy. For example, before October homes that had been previously fitted with foil insulation under the floor were having it replaced with cavity insulation (eg. polystyrene). The Nats have changed that so that now the foil will just be repaired, despite the fact that studies have shown foil to be a lot less effective.

Seems a waste to put heat pumps into homes that will lose a lot of that extra heat because they are poorly insulated (not to mention the huge power bills that could be racked up).

I’ve also had a lot of complaints from insulation and heating providers who have had their contracts abruptly ended. In some cases these firms had scaled up their business to meet increased demand, investing in capital and more staff, only to find the funding tap suddenly turned off. If they were getting the subsidy before the govt’s big push to warm up kiwi homes, why are they left out in the cold now?

I challenged Gerry Brownlee on some of this in the House this week. His response, as usual, was to attack me and deny everything. Gerry ‘Details Man’ Brownlee clearly has no idea what is going on in his own portfolio. It’s such a shame. What a waste to be insulating all these houses poorly rather than doing it right the first time.

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Filed under: Energy, environment
9 Comments

House tactics – Wiremu Pakeha missing

Posted by Trevor Mallard on September 24th, 2009

So we have had urgency for each week of the current session.

Last night the house finished four hours early because the government had run out of business.

And now we are back in urgency doing the ETS.

But we are also doing the Remuneration Authority legislation, the policy for which was announced months ago, and the Money Laundering legislation which as been around forever. Both these could have been done on Tuesday if Brownlee got his act together.

Trying to work out why they are doing these two. Maybe it is because Bill English is away. Possibly trying to see if he remembers the way back to Dipton.

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Filed under: Budget, Pay Equity, economic, environment, ets, national, parliament, poverty
4 Comments

Gerry’s Energy Spot Campaign

Posted by Chris Hipkins on September 24th, 2009

I just attended the launch of a high profile campaign to help New Zealanders increase the energy efficiency of their homes and businesses. The new prime time campaign, called The Energy Spot, will screen three nights a week on four TV channels as well as at 13 random times throughout the week. The campaign is costing $4million to run over the next 12 months.

Here are a few details from Gerry Brownlee’s media release:

“The Energy Spot will cover a range of topics of interest to households and businesses, from insulating houses to efficient driving choices, renewable energy options, building design and more.

“This new campaign will give large numbers of people clear, practical information to help them make the most of the energy they use both at home and at work.

I actually support the idea that the government has a role to play in providing New Zealanders with information and practical advice on ways to reduce their energy use. However I can’t help but think that if this campaign had been launched 12 months ago it would have been greeted with howls of ‘nanny state’ and ‘telling us how to live our lives’ by the then National opposition. I can just hear Allan Peachy rallying against this ‘socialism by stealth’.

In the past few months I’ve come to the realisation that the National Party is actually a bit of a fan of the nanny state. They want to tell people what they are and aren’t allowed to do in their own cars, they’re telling everyone to stomach cuts they aren’t willing to make for themselves, and now we have this. Seems it’s not the idea of the nanny state that National was opposed to, just the idea that they weren’t doing the nannying.

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Filed under: Energy, national
12 Comments

Money laundering hypocrite

Posted by Trevor Mallard on September 16th, 2009

Paying the cleaner’s bill from taxpayers funds (and grumbling that there is not enough cash cause your house is so big) for the family home that is transfered out of your name for the purpose of collecting even more cash than previously - especially when there is real doubt that you were ever eligible for any of that cash.

Must be using Persil – the tory faces look whiter than white when Key/Brownlee/English try and defend the indefensible. And the heads sure go down.

And the same guy tells people who are paid a few cents over the minimum wage for working with kids with disabilities that they can’t have a wage rise for two or three years.

Hypocrite.

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Filed under: Budget, Pay Equity, business, democracy, economic, finance, inequality, national
27 Comments

Govt has total contempt for parliamentary process

Posted by Chris Hipkins on September 16th, 2009

Gerry Brownlee just refused to answer a question in the House put to him by Metiria Turei. The question was about his ‘stocktake’ of minerals in New Zealand’s conservation estate. It was a politically loaded question, although that’s certainly not unusual, and nor is it unusual to get politically loaded answers.

Rather than rise and respond to Turei’s question, Brownlee just remained in his seat smirking. Technically he is perfectly entitled to do so. Ministers are allowed to refuse to answer and are not obliged to give a reason, but it is a very rarely used privilege.

As for the question being politically loaded, perhaps Mr Brownlee should consider the incredibly politically loaded answers John Key is in the process of giving right now to the very straight forward questions put to him by Phil Goff.

It shows just how arrogant this government has become in the 10 short months it has been in office. It also shows once again how little respect they have for our parliamentary processes (as if their continual use of urgency hadn’t already proved that beyond doubt).

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Filed under: democracy, parliament
35 Comments

Urgency again…

Posted by Chris Hipkins on September 15th, 2009

The House has just gone into urgency for the second week in a row so that the government can ram through more of Rodney Hide’s Super City agenda. Once again the government is proving how incompetent it is at managing the flow of work through the House. There is a pattern here. For weeks on end we debate legislation introduced by the last Labour government until a National/ACT bill comes up and then Brownlee hits the nuclear button.

Whenever we go into urgency select committee meetings get cancelled. As a result, bills that are currently before select committees are likely to be delayed, meaning that we’ll end up with another gap in the House programme. Then when they are all reported back, no doubt the government will go back into another frantic round of urgency. It’s just plain incompetence.

Brownlee’s justification for urgency this time around sounded pretty pathetic too. He tried to argue that the Student Loan (Repayment Bonus) Amendment Bill was urgent because students would soon be enrolling for 2010. He obviously missed the fact that it is the graduates, not the prospective students, who will benefit from it. Time Brownlee handed over the reigns to someone competent. John Carter would do the trick.

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Filed under: Auckland, democracy, local government, parliament
21 Comments

Hone Rehabilitated

Posted by Trevor Mallard on May 20th, 2009

John Carter is emerging as the new Mr Fixit for the National Party. Fresh from saving Gerry Brownlee’s bacon he has now been assigned to mind Melissa Lee. An even bigger task.

As someone whose career has had some ups and downs myself it is great to see.

John was nearly dropped as a candidate in 1996 after his Hone phone call with John Banks in 1995. Last year he was, along with Williamson and Worth told that it was likely that he would be pushed to make way for the younger talent in Key’s reshuffle later this year.

Now it is likely that not only will he make Cabinet but he will lead the House from the front bench. Just goes to show there is room for a battler even in the Nats. Street savvey is just as important as the ability to flit from cloud to cloud.

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Filed under: Auckland, by-election, mt albert, national, parliament
17 Comments

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