Kiwiblog

The Guardian (note the source) has a report which lays huge blame on biofuels for the current food crisis. In fact they cite biofuels as being responsible for 75% of food price increases. The secret World Bank report says:

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

“Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises,” said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. “It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat.”

Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as “the first real economic crisis of globalisation”.

Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher.

“Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate,” says the report. The basket of food prices examined in the study rose by 140% between 2002 and this February. The report estimates that higher energy and fertiliser prices accounted for an increase of only 15%, while biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump over that period.

It argues that production of biofuels has distorted food markets in three main ways. First, it has diverted grain away from food for fuel, with over a third of US corn now used to produce ethanol and about half of vegetable oils in the EU going towards the production of biodiesel. Second, farmers have been encouraged to set land aside for biofuel production. Third, it has sparked financial speculation in grains, driving prices up higher.

“It is clear that some biofuels have huge impacts on food prices,” said Dr David King, the government’s former chief scientific adviser, last night. “All we are doing by supporting these is subsidising higher food prices, while doing nothing to tackle climate change.”

Of course this doesn’t stop Labour and the Greens with pushing ahead for mandatory biofuel uptake in NZ. Hey what’s an extra hundred million people in poverty so long as we are environmentally pure.

Hat Tip: Paul Walker

Operation Jaque is the operation which freed Colombian presidential candidate Íngrid Betancourt.

When I first heard about this I was mildly interested. Pleased she had been freed, and presumed it was a minor exercise.

As I had time to read the newspapers in more depth yesterday, I was amazed to read how risky the operation was, yet how well done it was.  Plan B was to send 2,000 tropps in, so it is great it was done without the loss of life that would have entailed.

The Scotsman reports:

AS THE unmarked white helicopter descended into the jungle clearing, Ingrid Betancourt had no reason to believe that her six-year-long ordeal was nearly over.

Looking at the crew, some wearing Che Guevara T-shirts, the captive politician reasoned this was just going to be another day as a pawn in the struggle between her tormentors from the Revolutionary Army of Columbia, better known as the Farc guerrilla group, and her country’s government.

Along with 13 other hostages, her hands were bound with white plastic cuffs as she was shepherded towards the waiting aircraft. Angry and upset, she refused a coat they offered as they told her she was going to a colder climate. With the bizarre scene being captured on video an American hostage, Keith Stansell, annoyed at being restrained, leaned toward the camera and shouted an expletive before getting on board.

Behind them was Gerardo Aguila Ramirez, alias Cesar, the Farc local commander who apparently had been ordered by his high command to assemble three groups of hostages at the clearing as part of a prisoner swap. He had been in control of Betancourt’s fate for four years.

Jumping on board the helicopter, which he believed was flying to a rendezvous with his guerrilla boss, he modestly refused to grant the video team an interview. What happened next will go down in annals of hostage rescue operations.

Not long after the group was airborne, Betancourt turned around and saw Cesar blindfolded and stripped naked on the floor. Then came the words she had been waiting so long to hear. “We’re the national army,” said one of the crewmen. “You’re free.”

The helicopter team, posing as a sympathetic rebel group and a TV crew, were Colombian commandos who had pulled off one of the most audacious rescue operations in history.

It was a great example of the importance of information. US spy satellites and other technology let them know where they enemy were, what they were saying and how to fool them.

The Rudd Government has changed the rules around Government advertising campaigns:

But the Government will have to tread carefully to ensure it does not breach its own advertising guidelines, unveiled earlier this week by Cabinet Secretary John Faulkner.

Under the rules, the Auditor-General has to sign off on any advertising campaign with a value of $250,000 or more.

This could be a good policy for NZ. At the moment it is up to Ministers and Departments to decide if their advertising complies with the AG’s guidelines, unless there is a specific complaint or referral.

Requiring the AG to approve any significant campaign in advance seems to me to be a win-win. The Government then has the confidence that any campaign will not be criticised by the AG at a later date, and the public have the confidence that the AG has approved it.

For around the fifth day in a row, Clark has a go at John Key. Her latest tactic is laughable - about how she basically respected all those previous National Party leaders - but not John Key as he is lightweight. Let us quote Miss Desperate:

Prime Minister Helen Clark says Don Brash had presence and authority. She also speaks warmly of former National leaders Bill English (”never take him lightly, he’s a clever man”), Jenny Shipley and Jim Bolger.

How soon we forget. She despised Brash and called him corrosive and cancerous. Remember that. She also exuded contempt for Jenny Shipley.

National has two Caucus parties a year - Christmas and mid year. I commented at last year’s Xmas party that it was a sign of the tide turning that several former 9th floor staffers were at the Nat’s Party.

Well I missed the late June mid-year  one (as I was overseas) but when I got back I heard proof positive that the tide has gone out for the Government. What was it? The fact that Mai Chen had turned up to the Nat’s party. Can there be any stronger sign of sniffing a change of Government?

One Nat staffer joked to me that they checked the mail the next day to see if Mai Chen had invoiced them for turning up!

Deborah Coddington writes in the HoS about how popular the party was:

It was standing room-only last week at the National Party’s caucus party. People love the winning side. High-class canapes, bubbly, scantily clad young women looking for socially acceptable partners, and not a karaoke machine within cooee (at least when I left to go to a drunken dinner with some Auckland legal reprobates).

I hear the dreaded karaoke machine did make an appearance later!

Deborah looks at all the money the Government is throwing away of trains and the like:

And if Sparc is planning to spend $5.5 million on a website, how much do other Government-funded bodies spend on their sites?

In fact, it’s hard to imagine how to spend this much on a website. I should know, I’ve just spent the past week using WordPress to set up a free one (check it out www.redbankjames.co.nz - I’ve even started a blog. After slagging bloggers for so long I’ve admitted defeat and joined them.)

Welcome to the blogosphere Deborah. And using blog technology to set up a web presence is a very smart idea. A blog is really just a form of content management system - and a CMS which is a lot cheaper and a lot mroe robust than many out there.

At least we’ve got Nicky Hager to amuse us. I’ve always misjudged Hager as someone who took himself too seriously but his latest “expose” is hilarious. If John Key had gone around the press gallery with releases headlined “National Uses Boris Johnson’s Spin Doctors” the hacks would have yawned and asked for real news, like what colour hair dye National’s backbench women use.

Breathless Hager, however, has found the sniff of a conspiracy. I look forward to more revelations, such as Boris’ sister being named Rachel - isn’t that a Biblical name? And wasn’t John Key’s mother a Holocaust survivor? Jewish conspiracy? I think we should be told.

Indeed.

The Sunday Star-Times does its own focus group in Newlands, Wellington.

LYNNE WARREN was so annoyed at the government’s plan to ban incandescent light bulbs that she went out and bought up a sackful. She is tired of Labour telling her what to do.

She doesn’t like the new, green, fluorescent compact bulbs. As a hairdresser she needs lots of light, fast. She doesn’t want to hang around waiting for the bulbs to shine properly.

But the light bulbs were just part of the problem. “The way things are going,” she says, pausing above her client’s rollers, “we don’t get much of a say any more.

I have been surprised by how much the light bulb ban has become a hot issue.

And wait until Lynne finds out that the Government is going to force all hairdressers to draw up a public health management plan, and have to submit it to the Government for approval.

The thing that annoyed her most the turning point in her thinking, it seems was the anti-smacking law. She and her husband have two sons, both now grown-up, and she didn’t think it was the government’s job to tell them how the kids should be raised.

“I have been lucky with my children. They didn’t get into any bad trouble,” she says. She and her husband didn’t mistreat the boys, of whom she is clearly proud. So what business has the prime minister interfering?

The fact that the law change has become so associated with Helen Clark instead of Sue Bradford has been one of a number of strategic blunders by Labour.

Unlikely groups have been protesting this week. First it was the Truckies, and now the Asians who got a staggering 15,000 on an anti-crime march yesterday.

Don’t they understand it is all the fault of the sun and the full moon?

The battle for Dunedin South gets more bitter, reports the ODT:

The bitter battle between two factions of Labour Party supporters in Dunedin South worsened this week with the resignation of a branch official as allegations of mismanagement came to light.

Julie Morton, a supporter of Dunedin South MP David Benson-Pope, resigned on Wednesday as secretary-treasurer of the South Dunedin branch….

The issues of concern raised by the current office-holders were in relation to the previous executive’s operations, including the transparency with correspondence, financial reporting and other concerns with respect to constitutional decision-making and destruction of electronic data. …

The Otago Daily Times has learned that in March this year, Mr Benson-Pope wrote to the incoming branch chairman Richard Page.

His letter questioned a $10,000 donation which was included in the 2006 financial accounts.

Records show the donation was made to the Montecillo Veterans Home and Hospital.

You know you have problems when the local MP is writing letters like that to branch committees. And I must say I am surprised any branch of a party would donate money to any cause apart from the party or the candidate.

At the April meeting, Mr Benson-Pope asked for a report clarifying who made the decision and when it was reported to, or discussed with, the branch.

However, the auditor had noted in his report on the 2006 accounts, some 11 months later, that there was no authorisation in any minutes made available to him.

“The hard drive of the branch computer was formatted prior to the recent handover, so the actual date of the creation of that document was impossible to assess,”
Mr Rackley said.

Destroyed documents etc. All very murky.

Does Benson-Pope sound like someone planning to fade quietly from the scene?

Paul Thomas casts a sad eye on Africa:

If the reception granted Robert Mugabe at this week’s meeting of the African Union wasn’t obscene, then we might as well retire the word.

There wasn’t a hint of censure for the old fraud who stole an election from under the world’s nose, the thug dispatching goons to whip voters into line, the lunatic ideologue who turned the breadbasket of Africa into a barren land, the psychopath who preens and struts in tailor-made suits while the currency collapses and his people starve.

Yes, it is not just South Africa who are implictly supporting Mugabe.

Instead there was the silence of collusion and hugs all round. Instead President Omar Bongo of Gabon called Mugabe a “hero”.

To understand where Bongo’s coming from, it’s necessary to grasp that for many African leaders the object of the exercise is to cling to power by whatever means for as long as possible, in the process making yourself obscenely rich at the expense of your compatriots.

The continent does sadly suffer from a deficit of leaders who truly beleive in public service.

Africa often seems trapped in a post-colonial mindset in which self-determination is seen as its own reward, even when it delivers misery. Black pride has eclipsed good government, tribalism has eclipsed democracy, power has eclipsed legitimacy and greed has eclipsed public service.

The tribalism is especially a problem. Few leaders can get power without tribal support, and then they govern in the interests of their tribe instead of the nation.

Do you remember how NZ First said the illegal election advertisements in Tauranga were put up by an over-enthusiastic supporter? Well it seems the property they were put up on, is one of Winston’s closest friends and a parliamentary staffer of his.

Phil Kitchin investigates:

A NZ First staffer likely to face police scrutiny in a test of new electoral laws has received hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for a job many in his party know almost nothing about.

Tommy Gear, a close friend of party leader Winston Peters, is expected to be questioned by police following an alleged breach of the Electoral Finance Act.

The case is the first under the controversial new law governing political party advertising to have been referred to police by the Electoral Commission.

Mr Gear is likely to be questioned about NZ First banners that were strung from the remains of his property in Maxwells Rd, Tauranga, in April.

Mr Gear has been employed by the Parliamentary Service, which administers Parliament, from as early as 1998.

I’ve never heard of Mr Gear before I have to say.

He has occasionally used his black Mercedes to chauffeur Mr Peters and carry his bags - but what else Mr Gear has done for a salary in some years of up to $50,000 is a mystery to many party officials.

Mr Peters often stayed with Mr Gear and his wife at their former million-dollar Maxwells Rd property. Mr Gear occasionally stays with Mr Peters in Wellington.

Sources say many NZ First officials have little or no idea of what Mr Gear has done for a salary that has fluctuated between $19,000 and $50,000. Mr Gear was seen in Parliament only a few times a year, a source said.

“He’s a mystery man.”

Parties are free to hire whomever they want from their parliamentary funding, but normally they are listed in the parliamentary directory.

The National Party complained to the Electoral Commission about the NZ First banners because they had no promoter’s name or address.

One banner said: “Keeping them honest.”

When NZ First failed to respond to a “please explain” from the Electoral Commission police were asked to investigate.

A breach of the Electoral Finance Act, a law NZ First strongly supported, can incur a fine of up to $40,000.

Mr Peters said this week that the banners were the work of an “over-enthusiastic supporter”. NZ First would cooperate with the police inquiry even though the party was “not certain” the law had been breached.

If the over-enthusiastic supporter is on the NZ First parliamentary payroll, that puts a very different light on it.

Contacted yesterday, Mr Peters would not answer repeated questions about whether Mr Gear worked for NZ First.

“Print one thing wrong, sunshine, and I will sue you,” Mr Peters said before hanging up.

Phil Kitchin has been threatened with lawsuits more often that most people have had hot dinners I suspect, so I doubt he was worried by this threat.

In Mr Gear’s early years working for Mr Peters, his job was to maintain relationships with local authority leaders and to deputise for Mr Peters when he was away from his electorate.

But former Tauranga mayor Noel Pope said he never met or spoke to Mr Gear about briefings. Mr Pope met Mr Peters each month. “Tom is a mate of [Mr Peters] … He is his minder.”

Current mayor Stuart Crosby said he had only ever seen Mr Gear acting as a driver for Mr Peters.

In February 2000 Mr Gear was fined $500 after being clocked at 168kmh driving Mr Peters to Auckland airport.

How intriguing.

The Herald reports:

The outspoken MP also claims in a newsletter to his constituents that Labour is the “thieving bunch” who stole the foreshore and seabed off Maori.

“They took Manaaki Tauira [tertiary education grants] away from our kids, took Maori out of schools, took the Treaty out of the curriculum and voted to take the Treaty out of all legislation,” the newsletter says.

“They stand between us and a clean sweep of the other three Maori seats. In electoral terms, they are our declared enemy. I mean these guys suck.”

That newsletter sounds like an election advertisement to me!

As I have blogged previously, New Zealand is campaigning for a spot on the UN Human Rights Council - an institution rapidly becoming as discredited as its predecessor. We should be running a mile from it, rather than cosying up to the dictators and abusers who make up a significant proportion of its membership.

Fran O’Sullivan notes that we appear to be refusing to condemn Iran’s nuclear programme, so that we do not get offside with the Islamic states whose support is needed to get elected.

The unfortunate upshot is a perception that neither politician wants to speak frankly about Iran in case New Zealand’s UN campaign is jeopardised by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference which is one of the dominant forces on the rights council.

The council - which includes a number of serial rights abusers - has been criticised by the Economist for making a fetish out of one-sided Israel bashing. Its Islamic members have succeeded in passing a resolution saying free speech could be limited out of respect for religions and beliefs.

There is an unfortunate pattern emerging. If New Zealand puts its trade interests centre-stage, but only plays a strong bat on democratic infringements when they involve small basket-cases like Fiji, what do we stand for?

If National gets elected, they should drop our bid to be on the Human Rights Council, and concentrate on UN institutions which are not as discredited.

John Armstrong sees Labour’s smears as hurting Labour:

So obsessed is Labour with destroying John Key that the party seems blinkered to the damage this is doing to Labour’s already-slight chances of winning the coming election. …

Clark herself launched an attack on her rival in Parliament on Wednesday.

That it miscued badly suggests Labour’s fixation with persuading voters Key has feet of clay is clouding its judgment. …

But Labour’s constant chipping away at Key does not seem to be making any headway.

That is because Labour has failed to display any sense of proportion. It has seized on anything that might put Key in a bad light no matter how small or trivial and brandished it as evidence Key is not up to it.

Yep, next we will hear that he once jaywalked as proof positive Helen should be able to reign forever.

This has proved counter-productive. Voters _ especially crucial female “swing” voters _ have a profound distaste for politicians launching personal attacks on one another’s character. The Prime Minister’s attack on Key may have done more damage to her credibility than his.

I’m not the most dispassionate observer but Clark comes across very badly on TV when she is fronting one of those attacks. It makes her most unattractive, and I don’t mean physically.

Clark’s gaffe echoed the previous week’s similar backfire by Labour over Key’s supposed ignorance of the New Zealand wars of the 19th century.

That was another case of Labour picking up and running with something that was shot full of holes. Key had been quoted out of context and the radio station that first ran the story backed off hurriedly as the story began to fall over.

It is a moot point whether the public gave a toss anyway about what Key was supposed to have said. These kind of arguments are the stuff of the Wellington Beltway.

I think it is worse than that. The public are hurting with food and petrol prices, and a shrinking economy. They are looking to the Government for some leadership. And what they see is a Government more focused on trivial smears than on the issues which matter to New Zealanders.

It isn’t going to happen because Labour has cried wolf too often. It has jumped on any mistake Key has made, no matter how trivial, and highlighted it as incontrovertible evidence of his unsuitability to be Prime Minister.

Labour sees the mistakes as compounding on one another. It lays the message that Key is a lightweight on thick with a trowel. But the highlighting of minor errors only makes Labour look ever more desperate. So what if Key said “condone” this week when he meant “condemn”.

He holds the high ground when it comes to attacks on political personalities. He has now cleverly boxed Labour in by labelling its tactics as “smear and fear” politics.

Quite simply, Labour needs to stop playing the man and start playing the ball.

I can safely predict there is really no chance of this. Simply put, Labour is desperate and dateless and has nothing else to offer.

A very welcome announcement by Vodafone that it will extend its 3G network from 63% of NZ to 97%.

3G gives people broadband speeds of up to 7.6Mb/s.

The next technology step up is HSPA (which I am trialling) which goes up to 28.8Mb/s.

Of interest is the next step after that, and that Vodafone is looking to go with LTE instead of WiMax which has been much hyped. LTE will give speeds of over 100 Mb/s. But note these are connection speeds - very different to actual speeds.

Last night’s Roy Morgan poll was the 5th public poll conducted in June 2008, and as the graph above shows the gap between National and Labour continues to grow. In April 2008 it was 15% and it is now 23%. This is the average of all five polls - they ranged from 21% to 26% gap which is remarkably consistent.

The full newsletter is out over the weekend.  If you would like to receive future issues go to http://listserver.actrix.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/polling-newsletter to subscribe yourself.

Well the Herald reports 8 million downloads in one day of Firefox 3.0 which is cool.

I quite like it. Not a huge change from the old Firefox, but like the new look and feel. How are others finding it?

Kiwiblog wishes America a very happy 233rd birthday, and dedicates this Independence Day to John Adams, 2nd President of the United States - a founding father whose contribution has been overshadowed by Washington and Jefferson - but was still incredibly significant.

Another huge move to the centre by Obama. He has just come out against late term abortions unless there is a serious physical threat to the mother. He has specifically rejected mental distress as grounds for late term abortions.

A late-term abortion is generally regarded as being after 20 weeks, but this does vary.

It is a sign of the desperation in Labour’s ranks that both Mallard and Cullen are now hinting at abandoning the 20 year consensus on monetary policy being used to keep inflation low.

Using the cash rate to keep inflation low is not perfect. People accept that. In fact one of the best criticisms I have seen of the model came at the Business Roundtable Retreat of all place.

But just as Winston Churchill said democracy is the worst way to choose a Government, except all the other way - the same tends to apply to monetary policy.

Despite what WInson Peters says, there is no evidence at all that having higher inflation will lead to lower unemployment. We have emperical evidence for this in NZ, where we have had one of the lowest unemployment rates and low inflation.

If you go easy on inflation, you may get a short-term economic boost, but in the medium to long-term you are worse off. This is why almost evert OECD country has a similiar monetary policy to New Zealand. Only fringe dwellers seriously disagree with the basics.

Now as I said the status quo is not perfect. The question is whether one can find a better solution. The Visible Hand in Economics is canvassing that issue.

The most appealing proposal I have seen is from Don Brash who has an unorthdox solution that the Reserve Bank be given an additional weapon or lever - the rate of petrol tax. Brash advocates that as petrol consumption is fairly price inelastic, an increase or decrease in petrol tax could warm up or dampen the economy in a similiar way to changing the cash rate. But with the benefit that exporters are not so badly affected by the exchange rate going up due to higher interest rates.

There are constitutional issues around such a move (Brash suggests over the long term it would have to be revenue neutral so the RBNZ is not making profits from it).

I certainly think it is an idea worthy of study. My initial question (and I would love it if an economist could crunch some numbers) is how much would one have to increase or decrease the rate of petrol tax to be equal to say a 25 point change in the cash rate?

A commenter on this blog suggested today’s truckie protest may come to be seen in hindsight as Labour’s Hikoi of Hope - one of those landmark days which cripples a Government.

Certainly it is extraordinary that despite causing massive congestion, public support seems to be massively on the side of the truckies. Quoting nzherald.co.nz:

However, nzherald.co.nz has received reports of bystanders around New Zealand clapping, cheering and encouraging drivers to toot their horns.

In Hamilton, residents came out onto the streets in their nightwear, waving, clapping and asking truck drivers to toot their horns. Road workers have been blasting out music for the drivers and some bakery workers have given them pies. …

Two convoys with about 10 trucks in each have arrived on Tauranga’s harbour bridge, one from the city side and the other from Mount Maunganui.

In the city itself a convoy of about 50 trucks, most of them big-rigs, has arrived on Cameron Road. Members of the public have been waving at the convoy and showing their support. …

In Dunedin, many supporters have gathered in the Octagon which is being treated as a turning area for the trucks to go back along Princess St and onto the one way system.

In looking for a parallel, though I would compare it to National’s fight with Plunket in 1999. To recap National in 1999 refused to fund Plunket Line on the very good grounds it had never agreed to. Plunket had funded it from its own reserves as a trial. However the public perception was that National was cutting funding to Plunket.

So it was one of those cases where technically the Government was doing the right thing by refusing to give in, but it overlooked the political dimension of being seen to shit on Plunket a few months before an election. So National took a big hit for a “lousy $500,000″ as Kevin Roberts chided Caucus in 1999.

This is somewhat similiar. It is arguable that road user charges should be increased. But that is not the issue. Why on Earth would you do it three months before an election unless you are terminally stupid? After waiting 19 years, why not wait a few more months?

And if you have promised to introduce a law allowing you to give a month’s notice of an increase, how suicidal is it to to then not wait for that law to be passed and do a fee increase with 0 days notice?

Annette King spent eight years getting a reutation as a very solid and competent Minister - one of the safest pair of hands. But my God this last 12 months has seen her demolish her hard won reputation. She has turned into a disaster zone, and how she lost her political instincts on this I don’t know. Did she think there would be no backlash? Did she not realise that at a time where every motorist is paying massively more to use the roads, that any additional Government increase (even if just on truckies) would be seen as the Government being out of touch for how tough it it.

It does not matter that the money from the road user charges is spend on the roads. Just as it did not matter that Plunket never had been funded for Plunket Line. It is the symbolism that is so powerful, and the symbolism is that Labour is unsympathetic to road users - who happen to be the majority of voters.