0 Where is the outrage?

Clayton Cosgrove has a reputation of being a bit of a brawler in the House. But there are times when he over-steps the mark.

Yesterday was one such time; check out how he began his speech in the Second Reading debate for the West Coast Wind-Blown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill:

Not content with calling Dr Nick Smith "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" once, Cosgrove made sure he hit his target by repeating the slur.

Younger readers may wonder what the fuss is about. This might help:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) is a novel written by Ken Kesey. Set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, the narrative serves as a study of the institutional processes and the human mind as well as a critique of behaviorism and a celebration of humanistic principles. Published in 1962, the novel was adapted into a Broadway play by Dale Wasserman in 1963. Bo Goldman adapted the novel for the 1975 film directed by Miloš Forman, which won five Academy Awards.
Time Magazine included the novel in its "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005" list.^[2]

It's no secret that in the past, Dr Smith has had mental health and stress issues. It's also no secret that in the past, he has been the target of personal attacks from a number of MP's who should know better. Claire Trevett from the Herald reported this in 2007:

Ongoing attacks about MP Nick Smith's mental health - including Winston Peters calling him a "loony tune" and to "take your pills before you come down to the House" - have been criticised by mental health advocates, but Dr Smith's opponents say he gets what he asks for.
The Mental Health Foundation says it is disappointed at the attacks over Dr Smith's mental health in Parliament this week - attacks which have been an ongoing theme since he went on stress leave in 2004 after being deposed as newly appointed deputy leader of the National Party following Don Brash's election as leader.
During the exchanges, Mr Peters described Dr Smith as looking "slightly zany and slightly nutty", and, the next day, saying: "Listen, loony tune, take control of yourself. Take your pills before you come down to the House, not halfway through question time."
The exchanges were initially prompted by Dr Smith telling Mr Peters to "stop living in the past, old man" and later asking if NZ First had paid back the money it overspent at the last election.
Such calls have been a repeated refrain since 2004 - but both parties reined in their members' comments after personal comments went overboard in 2005.
However, lately the comments and snipes from Labour MPs have increased again.

Hansard records reveal references since 2005 include Annette King referring to Dr Smith as "cracked", both Ms King and Trevor Mallard telling him to "take his pills", Phil Goff suggesting he take his "medication", Clayton Cosgrove referring to him as "troppo" and Michael Cullen making references such as "long before Dr Smith needed his pills", and "big, brave Dr Smith will take his pills".
Dr Smith did not rise to Mr Peters' bait in Parliament, but when the Herald approached him yesterday said the statements were "personally derogatory and untrue".

Unsurprisingly, there has been no condemnation of Clayton Cosgrove from anyone within Labour. Nor have the Greens bothered to say anything, which IS a surprise; you'd think that someone from the Greens would have risen to Dr Smith's defence.

Of course Mr Cosgrove is no novice in the art of personal abuse. He was one of those Labour members who referred to Christopher Finlayson as "Tinkerbell". On that occasion, Green MP Kevin Hague did publicly condemn Cosgrove:

Labour's Trevor Mallard says he shouldn't have called Attorney-General Chris Finlayson "Tinkerbell'' but denies there is problem with homophobia in the party.
ACT's Wellington central candidate Stephen Whittington yesterday accused openly gay Labour MPs Grant Robertson and Charles Chauvel of covering up prejudice among their caucus.
Hutt South MP Mr Mallard likened Mr Finlayson to the Peter Pan fairy during a parliamentary debate in October 2009. Waimakariri MP Clayton Cosgrove twice called Mr Finlayson Tinkerbell in the House in July 2009.
Mr Mallard said last night: ``I certainly don't think I'm homophobic. It's a comment that was probably unfortunate and if I'd thought carefully I wouldn't have made it.''
But he wouldn't apologise. ``It was part of a series of two way offensive comments and I got quite a lot more than I received.''
It was "ridiculous'' to suggest Mr Cosgrove was anti-gay, he said. Mr Cosgrove did not respond to a request for comment.
The allegations flew after a Rainbow meeting in Wellington on Wednesday night. Mr Whittington believes both Labour MPs were denying the Tinkerbell remarks were ever made.
"I felt that they had questioned my credibility in a public forum and denied there were aspects of their party who criticised and abused MPs for being homosexual,'' he said. "I didn't think that was acceptable.''
Both Mr Robertson and Mr Mallard believe Mr Whittington was trying to divert attention from homophobic comments made by ACT's Epsom candidate John Banks a number of years ago.
"He was asked a question about John Banks. In his response, he said there are homophobic Labour MPs,'' Mr Robertson said. ``I don't believe there are.''
He added: "Of course I don't think it's a good thing for Labour MPs to call Chris Finlayson Tinkerbell. It's silly statement...With all due respect, [to] Stephen, I suspect I know more about homophobia than he does.''
Green MP Kevin Hague, who was also at the meeting, backed Mr Whittington's version of events. "My sense was that Charles and Grant were denying that Mallard and Cosgrove had abused Chris Finlayson in a homophobic way.
"The impression I had was that they were denying that he said it.''

Parliament is a robust place, but there is no excuse for abusive comments such as the one Cosgrove made yesterday. Picking on someone because they have had mental health issues is a form of workplace bullying, and there is no place for it in the Parliament.

This is a personal issue for us. As regular readers are probably aware, we have had our own mental health issues over the years. Everything is good at the moment, but we know from experience that things can change very quickly.

Clayton Cosgrove is a senior Labour MP who, if Labour became the Government, would doubtless become a senior Minister. But he is also a serial offender in the abuse stakes, and we are disappointed (but not surprised) that none of his colleagues told him to pull his head in last evening. His abuse did him and his party little credit.

0 What will the Greens oppose next?

We blogged yesterday about the Green Party having voted against the Vulnerable Children Bill. We do note however that not all Green MP's voted, and wonder if there was dissension in the ranks.

Parliament will go into urgency next week, and once again, the Greens will oppose a Government measure. Nick Smith explains the proposed legislation:

Government to allow recovery of West Coast windfall timber

Special legislation is to be passed by Parliament to enable the recovery of high value native timber blown over in Cyclone Ita on West Coast public conservation land, Dr Nick Smith announced today.
“We need to take a pragmatic approach and enable the timber to be recovered where it can be done so safely and with minimal environmental impact. This initiative will provide welcome jobs and economic opportunities for the West Coast at a difficult time, and will provide a financial return to DOC that can be reinvested in conservation work,” Dr Smith says.
Cyclone Ita hit the West Coast on 17 April this year and caused the worst windfall damage in generations, felling an estimated 20,000 hectares of forest and causing significant damage to a further 200,000 hectares.
The West Coast Windblown Timber (Conservation Lands) Bill confines the recovery of useable wood to areas affected by Cyclone Ita and specifically excludes World Heritage Areas, national parks, ecological areas and the white heron sanctuary reserve at Whataroa. Authorisations are only to be issued where the Department’s Director-General is satisfied the proposed method of removing the timber is safe for workers and the public, and minimises environmental impacts. The recovery of timber is limited until 1 July 2019 when the Bill expires. All revenue from royalties will go to the Department of Conservation.
“A law change is needed because the current Conservation Act makes no provision for timber recovery in this sort of extreme event. The Bill will be introduced and passed by Parliament next week under urgency. This is necessary because the large volumes of beech timber will soon deteriorate with sap stain and borer. I am grateful for the common sense support from the United Future and Māori Parties that are enabling Parliament to quickly resolve this issue.
“It is estimated that several million cubic metres of beech, rimu, matai, totara and miro trees have been felled. Stumpage prices for rimu are $250 per cubic metre, and $60 per cubic metre for beech. It is not possible to estimate the volume and value of timber to be extracted because the safety and environmental constraints may require high cost options like the use of helicopters. This law change will enable the detailed work to be done by operators on recovery proposals so as to determine where recovery is viable and safe.
“It may be appropriate to consider a permanent change to the Conservation Act to enable windblown timber in these sorts of situations to be recovered in future, but I am reluctant to do so with urgent legislation of this sort. The Department of Conservation will be commissioning research on the effects on forest regrowth and ecology by comparing similar windblown areas where timber has and has not been recovered to help make a long-term policy decision on this issue.
“It is a tragedy that so much forest has been wrecked by Cyclone Ita but no good purpose is served by leaving it all to rot. The wood will displace some of the $65 million of tropical hardwoods we import each year and give New Zealanders access to our own beautiful native timbers,” Dr Smith concluded.

The TV footage we saw last night showed the level of the cyclone damage on the West Coast. We had no idea how widespread that damage was. Thousands of trees were felled by the storm, and are strewn across thousands of hectares of the West Coast.

Nick Smith already has the support of the Maori Party and United Future to pass this legislation, and we would expect Damien O'Connor to convince his fellow Labour MP's to support the law change. It will, after all, have direct benefits for the people of Mr O'Connor's constituency.

But the Greens have already indicated they will fight this tooth and nail. Eugenie Sage put out this presser yesterday:

A storm is no reason to change our conservation law

Friday, 20 June 2014, 3:04 pm
Press Release: Green Party


New Zealand’s wild conservation land should be protected from logging, the Green Party said today.
National has announced plans to allow logging of native forest on public land on the West Coast damaged in Cyclone Ita.
“It was illegal to log these forests, a storm is no reason to change the law,” Green Party conservation spokesperson Eugenie Sage said today.
“New Zealanders fought for years to end native logging and protect the West Coast’s forests. We shouldn’t turn back the clock.
“It’s a bad precedent to change the law on a case by case, storm by storm basis. The public are not even going to get a say, the law will be pushed through under urgency.
“This is more boom and bust short term thinking from this Government for the West Coast. This proposal isn’t going to create sustainable long term jobs.
“Weakening our conservation law sets a dangerous precedent.
“Nowhere is protected from this Government. National is happy to allow our rivers to be too polluted to swim in, let the Maui’s Dolphin go extinct, and wanted to open up our national parks for mining. We can’t let them weaken our conservation law.
“It doesn’t matter how careful you are. By removing these trees we are taking away precious nutrients that will feed the next forest giants.
“We don’t need to restart the battles of the 1990’s, National needs to leave our protected forests alone.
“National is on the wrong path with this proposal, New Zealanders love our native forests and National needs to leave them alone,” said Ms Sage.
“The Department of Conservation shouldn’t have to allow logging of our native forests to pay for pest control, National needs to fund DOC properly,” said Ms Sage.

We wonder what Green MP Kevin Hague makes of all this. He is West Coast-based, and will understand only too well the need for jobs and income for his fellow Coasters. Will he break ranks and vote in favour of legislation that will provide direct economic benefits to his own community? Would the Greens ever allow that to happen?

Once again though, the Greens are showing why they have never been part of a formal coalition government. Opposing everything a government does is easy; just ask Winston Peters who is the consummate opposition politician, but is a three-time failure in government.

Governing is all about compromise. By placing limits on the areas from which fallen trees can and cannot be extracted, Dr Smith has achieved a compromise between protecting a pristine and unique area of New Zealand, and making something good out of the damage wreaked by Cyclone Ita.

Clearly, the Greens would rather let the trees rot and become bug fodder than have anyone go in and extract high-value native timber which will be in high demand. As recently as March, the Greens were proposing to gift $1m to the first person to build a 10-story skyscraper from wood as they tried to out-bribe Labour for the affections of the forestry industry. We doubt today that the forestry industry will be wanting anything to do with the Greens.

It is telling when the ideological purity of the Greens prevents them from supporting legislation that will directly benefit one of New Zealand's poorer regions. After Jan Logie's comments about child poverty on Thursday, you'd think the Greens would be in favour of a law change that was going to provide jobs to West Coasters, put more money into the community, more food on tables and generally benefit the region. But no; they would clearly prefer that the bugs of the forest get a feed as valuable native trees rot away in the wilderness.

0 Still more good news

Labour, the Greens and Winston First have tried to talk up a "housing crisis". Yes; house prices in Auckland have risen, and yes, there are issues of supply in both Auckland and Christchurch, although to be fair, Mother Nature cops much of the blame for the latter.

But a "crisis"? Probably not. Anyway, as tends to happen whenever the opposition parties declare anything to be a "crisis", the problem referred to takes care of itself. Manufacturing has been in positive territory for almost two years now, exports are at record levels, our terms of trade are at a level not seen since 1973, and now the building industry is going gangbusters; check this out:

Auckland and Christchurch's rapid house-building resurgence has surprised and delighted economists as it hit the highest level since 2002.
NZIER principal economist Shamubeel Eaqub said a strong recovery was coming through in the construction sector, in part a rebound from the pause at the end of 2013, mainly due to timing of some large government projects.
"The pace of new house building is picking up strongly, as well as a surge in alterations and additions, which covers quite a bit of the repairs in Canterbury," Eaqub said.
"Non-residential work picked up strong this quarter. The big drivers are the education, accommodation and commercial [sectors].
"Accommodation is mostly in Canterbury. Quite a bit of the work in both education and commercial sectors are likely to be driven by earthquake strengthening."

"Ah yes" you say. "It's all because of the Canterbury rebuild.". Well actually, not it's not; read on:

Regionally, good momentum was building up in Auckland and Canterbury but the recovery is also broadening across regions.

"The evidence to date is of a solid recovery, which is gaining in momentum," Eaqub said.

As we mentioned last week, we have a friend in Wanganui who operates a business supplying the building trade. Their business has been run of its feet all year as the local construction sector has ramped up. And people they talk to around the country report similar stories.

Even Statistics NZ is noticing the upturn:

Statistics New Zealand said residential building work grew a seasonally adjusted 15 per cent in the three months to March 31, the biggest quarterly increase since September 2002, accelerating from a 2.3 per cent rise in the December quarter. The value of residential building work grew 17 per cent to $2.36 billion in the period, its eighth quarterly gain.
The volume of non-residential work grew 17 per cent in the first three months of the year, from a fall of 2 per cent in the December quarter, and the value climbed 18 per cent to $1.4 billion.
The rise in building activity coincides with growing issuance of new consents with the country's two biggest cities, Auckland and Christchurch.
Local authorities issued residential building consents worth $2.29 billion and non-residential permits worth $1.19 billion in the March quarter.

It's especially pleasing to see Christchurch getting back on track with building consents after the Government appointed Doug Martin as Crown manager last year. 

The Christchurch City Council has reapplied for IANZ accreditation, and Nick Smith is not ruling out keeping Mr Martin in place until the Council is 100% compliant in meetings its consenting targets. But this is one bottleneck that has been sorted out.

Are there any more crises that the opposition parties want sorted?

0 More good news

Labour and the other opposition parties continue to bang on about a "housing crisis". It's true that housing supply is tighter and more expensive in places such as Auckland and Christchurch, but to call it a "crisis" smacks of election-year desperation.

Then again, every time that Labour and the GIMPs have declared something to be a crisis, it's been proven not to be, and already there are some very good signs with regard to housing supply. Housing Minister Nick Smith put out this presser yesterday:

Nick Smith

30 May, 2014

Building consent figures continue to rise

Housing Minister Dr Nick Smith has welcomed today’s release of the latest building consent figures from Statistics New Zealand which show the upward trend in the number of consents issued is continuing nationwide.
“There were 22,705 building consents issued across New Zealand in the year to April 2014 – the highest number of consents issued nationally in any 12-month period since the year to June 2008, and a 27 per cent increase on the same period the year before. This continues the trend of growth with the number of consents continuously rising since March 2011,” Dr Smith says.
“We are seeing this trend also reflected in Auckland and Christchurch. In Auckland, more building consents were issued in the year to April 2014 than in any other 12-month period since the year to February 2007, and a 41 per cent increase on the same period the year before.
“Meanwhile, Christchurch saw the highest number of consents in the year to April 2014 than in any other 12-month period on record, and a 103 per cent increase on the previous year.

The record number of consents in Christchurch is especially good news, given the Government had to intervene last year to eliminate blockages in the consenting system at Christchurch City Council. More than double the number of consents were issued in the year to April 2014 compared to the previous year as the rebuild gathers momentum.

But it's not just Christchurch. Nick Smith singles out the accord between the Auckland Council and the Government for special mention:

“I hope to see this positive trend continue. Earlier this month I announced the third tranche of Special Housing Areas under the Auckland Housing Accord agreed to between the Government and the council. This has brought the total number of Special Housing Areas established to 63 with a potential yield of 33,500 homes across Auckland. We have also agreed to an Accord in Christchurch to help restore the city’s housing stock to pre-earthquake levels and ease the pressure on its rental and temporary accommodation markets.
“We recognise however that the housing challenge is not just limited to Auckland and Christchurch, and we have negotiations underway for further Housing Accords in Wellington, the Bay of Plenty and Queenstown.
“We also have a complementary programme of work underway which includes reducing building material costs, reining in development contributions, cutting compliance costs, investing in skills and productivity in the construction sector, and supporting first home buyers through our Welcome Home Loan and KiwiSaver First Home Deposit Subsidy schemes.
“Today’s figures confirm the Government is making good progress in addressing New Zealand’s housing challenge. There is no magic bullet to solving the housing challenge but we are on the right track and delivering real results.”

Nick Smith is right; there's no one single magic bullet to solve housing supply issues, which is why the Government has introduced a range of initiatives as outlined. The good news today is that there are signs those measures are working, whereas Labour's solution is to slash immigrant numbers, even though the issue is far more complex than just that.

We talked with a friend during the week who owns a business here allied to the building trade. The business has been run off its feet this year, as housing booms, even in the provinces. A recovering economy, and a surge in business and consumer confidence has breathed life into the construction sector. That's good news for everyone.