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The Nation has an interesting article on Hillary Clinton’s floundering nomination campaign, arguing that the mistake she made was not a tactical or strategic one. It wasn’t that she picked the wrong states to focus on, or threw everything into her knock-out punch or fundraised poorly. It was a policy mistake:

The biggest factor that doomed Clinton, from day one, was Iraq. Her vote for the war and subsequent lack of apology cost her the support of a huge segment of the party that flocked to Obama (and, early on, Edwards) and tarnished her brand from the very beginning…

Obama was able to convincingly argue, “When I’m your nominee, my opponent won’t be able to say that I supported this war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran.

The rest of the world’s view of the US election is often skewed by the importance we place on foreign policy compared to Americans’ obvious emphasis on domestic policy. So it is fascinating to read that a principled stand against war could have played a key role in Obama’s seemly unassailable lead in the democratic primary.

I like to think it is an endorsement for politicians taking a stand based on firmly held principles, rather than triangulating their way towards the middle ground. At the time Obama became famous for opposing the war it was still a risky political position, but it was the right one. Others who took the same stand were squashed under the criticism. It will be interesting to see if the same momentum for peace continues when the election become a true presidential election rather than just a democratic primary.

Lyndon Hood’s answers to frequently asked questions about the Emissions Trading Scheme is a beaut:

If New Zealand wants to maintain its edge as a clean, green nation, we urgently need to pretend as hard as we can to take decisive action on climate change.

I suspect he was inspired by John Armstrong on Saturday:

The result is a charade in which governments assuage voters’ guilt about climate change by pretending to set tough-to-meet targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions which they have no intention of meeting because the same voters don’t really want them to do so.

Idiot/Savant has some timely comments on the sort of tax policy a government that was concerned about equity might be trumpeting at next week’s budget announcement:

Rather than cutting taxes (which permanently reduces income and almost always disproportionately benefits the rich) the government should be paying social dividends. While initially these should be aimed at those on low incomes, the ultimate goal should be for equal payments to every taxpayer (or better, every New Zealander), on the basis that we are all equal participants in our society. Beyond that, we should be aiming to build the system towards a universal basic income - a universal payment given to every adult regardless of circumstances.

Don’t hold your breath.

Then there is the ongoing furore in the United Kingdom over Gordon Ramsey’s hyperbolic explosion that ‘British restaurateurs who serve up unseasonal produce flown in from all four corners of the world should be clapped in irons and slapped with a fine’. The resulting blog war is the internet at its most ‘deliciously’ ferocious.  None of them mention this environmentally friendly solution though (not that it would work in New Zealand).

The Greens have just announced their candidate list, as voted on by party members:

1. Jeanette Fitzsimons
2. Russel Norman
3. Sue Bradford
4. Metiria Turei
5. Sue Kedgley
6. Keith Locke
7. Kevin Hague (West Coast, DHB Chief Executive)
8. Catherine Delahunty (East Coast, activist and chairperson of the Tairawhiti Beneficiary Advocacy Trust)
9. Kennedy Graham  (Christchurch, senior diplomat and law lecturer)
10. David Clendon (Auckland, resource management lecturer)
11. Gareth Hughes (Wellington, climate change campaigner)
12. Steffan Browning (Kaikoura, horticulturalist and Soil & Health Association spokesperson)

Unsurprisingly Russel as co-leader has risen up to number 2.  I think that people will find the candidates 7 through 12 bring huge range of skills and experiences into a shadow caucus.  Take for instance Kevin Hague, who can list as joint achievements as being (among many other things) the Chief Executive of the West Coast District Health Board and being on the Hamilton rugby field protesting the Springbok Tour in 1981.

The full list is available here.

Agaisnt the odds manufacturers are doing some great things in New Zealand.  They often get written off as part of a dying industry but the reality is that manufacturing provides jobs for about 250,000 New Zealanders, and is at the core of our ability to self sufficiently provide for ourselves, give us the type of diverse economy that will get us through economic shocks and downturns, cut our imports and thus carbon emissions, and importantly provide jobs in our regions.

But successive governments have not always seen it that way.  The Buy Kiwi Made programme that the Greens initiated is small but successful step in the right direction, but that does, at times, look like it is swimming against other government policy. 

The Herald on Sunday interviewed a range of people involved in manufacturing who are all increasingly worried. It notes that in the last six weeks at least 830 people in manufacturing around New Zealand have learned they’re about to lose their jobs.

The NDU’s Laila Harre says the Government’s apparent belief that the only manufacturing worth nurturing is innovative, high end and technically cutting edge.  Continuing to make things we have always needed and always will need doesn’t seem to warrant attention:

“Labour has lost the plot. Who says New Zealanders are brainier than the rest of the world? In order to keep the brainy jobs going you need the brawny jobs.

“It’s all very well to say high-tech, high-end, high-skill, but New Zealand workers at Fisher & Paykel are among the highest-tech, highest-end, highest-skill in the world. That hasn’t saved their jobs.”

Green MP Sue Bradford calls the knowledge economy line arrogant. For years, Bradford has been exhorting us to preserve and expand our ability to make what we need here.

A significant part of the current problem is the Reserve Bank’s use of the Official Cash Rate to keep inflation down.  While that is an important goal it is being exercised at the expense of our primary industries and it is hurting them badly.  Rampant inflation was the problem a quarter of a century ago but we need to be wary that it is neither the only nor the pre-eminent problem that our economy can face.

Dene Mackensie has a go this morning at speculating on the election date in the Otago Daily Times [off line].  He suggests that there will be a 1 October introduction of tax cuts from the government.  This means it will want an election at least four weeks after that to ensure everybody has had a couple of tax cuts in their pay packets before they head off to the polling booth.  Which means a probable election on November 1 or 8.    He also says though that National is picking October 18 at the moment.  I assume this is based on talking with National Party representatives at their Southern Regional Conference over the weekend. The reality is that Prime Minister and her campaign strategists will be looking not for a date that aids democracy but one that maximises the chances for Labour’s vote and minimises the vote for her opponents. 

It seems a bizarre system that allows one of the political parties to unilaterally decide when the election should be and then hold off from telling anybody else as long as possible.  Theoretically they can plan for it years in advance but nobody else can. 

Many conservationists feel there is something viscerally wrong with animal circuses.  Why do they call all their elephants ‘Jumbo’ for instance?  On the other hand people also allege that parliament is like a circus - with question time akin to a public viewing of feeding time.  There are certainly the occasional politicians a bit like old Jumbo here who has been performing in such an institutionalized manner that she’s not sure what to do any more out in the rest of the world.

So, it is nice to see that Jumbo has found a new home to go to even if it is another zoo to replace her recently closed down one.  It’s an alternative parliament to perform in -  a sort of House of Lords for elephants.  Animal welfare is a funny sort of thing.  As the Sunday Star Times notes:

Which left Ratcliffe [Jumbo’s owner] with a dilemma. As his longtime critic, SPCA chief executive Robyn Kippenberger, put it: “There isn’t an old people’s home for elephants in New Zealand, and you can’t just let them off down the Southern Motorway.” (The organisation, which opposes animals working in circuses, says Ratcliffe now owes Jumbo a comfortable retirement.) Jumbo was a serious undertaking; she eats five bales of hay and at least $100 of vegetables a day.

Jumbo’s apparent yearnings to remain in the circus rather than slip into comfortable retirement somehow make an easier animal welfare discussion point for us lay critics than the millions of broiler chickens whose [admittedly beady] eyes we never need look into.

The NBR reports that the Nats are doing a deal with Labour to scrap the moratorium on new thermal generation in exchange for supporting the ETS through the House. In truth, only a grand coalition could possibly get an ETS through the House. However, I still think that the moratorium, (it’s not a ban, just a pause), is the right way to go.

I don’t often make predictions here on frog, but I feel inclined to do so today. I predict that if the Nats succeed in killing the moratorium in any meaningful way, we will end up with the Contact/Genesis LNG plant in New Plymouth and all kiwi consumers will be screwed by exposure to the international price of gas. Most kiwis will not be aware that natural gas prices are as out of control as oil prices are. We are not exposed to that because our own gas market is insulated from the world market.

Genesis will build their Rodney gas fired plant, (480 MW), while the gas is still cheap and local. This will displace the geothermal baseload plant that is scheduled to come online during the same time frame but which takes longer to build. Then Genesis will demand that the LNG terminal gets built in order to feed the Rodney plant, calling it security of supply for both Rodney and e3p. Once that happens, the huge volume of LNG available will swamp the market, enable the Motonui methanol plant to reopen, (not that this is bad, just unnecessary), and we poor homeowners will pay the full international retail price for our gas. Oh, and of course our electricity costs will skyrocket because our marginal electricity generation will be tied to the international gas price.

The moratorium, (not a ban, remember?), will allow geothermal baseload generation to be developed which is as cost effective in the short term as gas fired plant, but in the long term is much, much cheaper. No one can argue that geothermal will not be the cheaper and more secure baseload generation in the medium to long term. It is only greed and short-sightedness that is driving the current frenzy surrounding the ETS. The Nats are making a move because they sense that the Minister is on the back foot.

I beg the Minister to stand strong and keep the thermal moratorium intact within the legislation.

Here are two quick videos.  First up every Neo-Con’s favourite documentary maker, Michael Moore, suggestis to Larry King that the real danger from peak oil is not its impact on energy but its impact on food production.

Then this one on both food miles and the oil that goes into into growing food. Both videos are American but sadly entirely relevant here too.

Hat tip: Global Public Media and Oil Release

Yesterday Jeanette came out in support of Walk Auckland’s call for walking and cycle lanes across the Auckland Harbour Bridge.  I hope she succeeds because I have entrepreneurial plans to open up a juice bar at the midway point.

Photo Credit: Walk Auckland

The news this morning is reporting that deaths in Burma could be as high as 100,000 people.  Figures like that are incomprehensible. Some how it is easier to internalise the tragedy with images like this one of a Burmese child cleaning up twigs after Cyclone Nargis:

From here in New Zealand there is not much we can do in the short term except support the international aid effort.

While slightly tangential it’s also probably a timely point to consider again our collective failure as a country to meet our 2002 commitment to give 0.7% of our national income as international aid. As you can see from this chart, New Zealand is one of several countries letting down the international communities efforts to end poverty.  Looking at the chart, it seems part of our problem is that we are English speaking – 4 of the six remaining countries without a schedule to lift their aid contribution are English speaking, and we are one of them. Currently New Zealand pays 0.27% of its income as aid and only has a goal to increase that to 0.35% by 2010 – that’s half of the commitment we made in 2002. 

Overseas poverty won’t be an election issue this year but hopefully that doesn’t mean we will ignore it.

Photo Credit: Azmil77 at Flickr