Len Brown

On The Nation yesterday I highlighted the exploits of James Bews-Hair – current acting Chief of Staff to the Night Mayor Len Brown and a man who seems to have his fingers in many pies.

Just as I expected it seems Bews-Hair will also have a hand in who will be Sky City’s next Government Relations Manager.

Via the tipline I have heard that Bews-Hair is a prolific punter himself. It seems the sweepstakes he used to run from the Sky City corporate box are more widely known than the architect of them, Bews-Hair.

With the complete hash that Sky City is making of the convention centre deal Bew’s-Hair will need to find someone good to be his next puppet there. While he’s doing his best to install one of his mates in there I thought it’d be a bit of fun to run a book of my own on who could it be. May be i-Predict could follow suit.

Of course Bews-Hair himself could fix Sky City’s mess in his sleep (through his dark methods as highlighted in my previous posts) but then people would actually see him this time. So, I’m not even going to list him as a starter (consider him scratched).

May be he’ll drop his good mate Conor R into the role – let’s put that at 50 to 1 as the likelihood of becoming a Labour MP after a career watching the back of the pokie masters is very unlikely.

When Bews-Hair was at the Tourism Industry Association and Sky City he was thick as thieves with Bruce Robertson. When the two of them weren’t conniving together Bews-Hair was working out ways to shaft Robertson. Bruce is getting on though and is synonymous with the Hospitality Association so I can’t see that happening. Let’s put Bruce at 25 to 1.

We all know by now that Bews-Hair has a Tory bent in him and sure enough he has befriended wannabe National Party power broker Nick Albrecht. Not sure why Vector needs Nick so let’s put him at 15 to 1.

Those are the outsiders. Let’s look at the more likely candidates later today.

Len Brown is swanning his way around China trying to indenture Auckland ratepayers to Chinese banskters.

This is the problem with general competence of Councils. They can borrow money for poet projects and lump the costs onto the ratepayers who will be paying the bills long after the Mayor to borrowed their future has pegged out.

The good news for Auckland ratepayers is that Len Brown may have left his tilt for Chinese cash too late. Having been burned by dodgy lending decisions the rules a whole lot tougher now.

CHINESE authorities are cracking down on foreign investment after a string of troubled projects that have run up tens of billions of dollars in losses, including two big resources deals in Australia.

In a decision that will have implications for Australia’s booming resources sector, China’s State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission has published new rules that will hold state-owned enterprises and their executives accountable for bad overseas investment decisions.

The commission’s move follows two disastrous investments in Australia’s resources sector.

ᔥ NZ Herald

Matt McCarten identifies Labour’s problem as they battle against a surging Green party. Watching the leftwing crow over just a single poll is hilarious. It should however serve as a wake up call to indolents National members who think that steady as she goes is all they need to do.

Labour’s problem is it is too cautious and risk averse because it isn’t sure what it stands for. The Ports of Auckland dispute is an example. The Green and Mana parties from the start attacked the tactics of the port against its workers and strongly supported the wharfies’ fight for decent pay and secure jobs. Even when it seemed unpopular, the Greens held firm on principle.

With the honourable exception of MPs Darien Fenton and Phil Twyford, Labour was all over the place. Labour needs desperately to reconnect to its working-class constituency.

Shearer, I assume, was trying to protect its party’s mayor Len Brown, but saying Labour was essentially neutral was counterproductive.

When the wharfies this week jubilantly marched through the waterfront gates returning to work, they rightly reserved their contempt for the mayor. But those workers and other New Zealand workers won’t forget Labour’s lacklustre support, either.

Labour shouldn’t take its working-class support for granted. Although the Green Party has always presented itself as outside the left-right prism, it’s not naive when it comes to understanding its constituency or its potential constituency.

Therefore the Green Party caucus appointment of Laila Harre to head its presence in Auckland comes at a critical political moment. Harre is a popular former Alliance cabinet minister and a formidable campaigner.

The odds of a change of government at the next election are high. After this week’s polls, Labour’s current wooden performance and the appointment of Harre, the idea of a Green-led government isn’t so difficult to consider.

After all, Labour is barely 30 per cent and the Greens are currently 17.

If Labour doesn’t lift its game, it may have to get used to the novel idea of its leader being “co-prime minister” with a Maori woman or an Aussie redhead.

TV3’s Pedro Gower  last night revealed that Sky City donated $15,000 to Len Brown’s election campaign. Sky City also donated $15,000 to John Banks’ campaign as well. That seems fair until you look at it in the context of previous behaviour by Len Brown’s Acting Chief of Staff (and usual Principal Policy Advisor) James Bews Hair.

This blog was first to reveal Bews-Hair’s chequebook lobbying tactics in the use of seemingly above board donations.

So when Len says he really has no idea what is going on at Sky City he really is stretching it just a little. Len knows that thanks to some wheeling and dealing behind the scenes he has got New Zealand’s best convention centre, a theatre that he thought he’d have to fund from rate payers, use of the Sky City corporate box at Eden Park and various other “wins”. The question will be when do we find out what Len needs to do in return. I am guessing he just needs to be quiet, stay on the fence and not attack the Government or Sky City for the increase in the number of pokies in Auckland City. All stuff that a good Labour Mayor would attack.

I can also reveal that Bews-Hair has had a hand in Sky City’s appointment of all subsequent Government Relations Managers – thus the techniques and tactics are handed from lobbyist to lobbyist.

Interestingly, the Government Relations role has just been vacated and Sky City (no doubt with Bews-Hair’s assistance) will be looking for a new appointee. Whoever could it be?

ᔥ The Telegraph

Let’s hope Len Brown isn’t reading the Aussie papers about Sydney dismantling their monorail:

SYDNEY monorail will be torn down after the State Government bought it for $19.8 million.

It’s been slammed as ugly, intrusive and revealed to be one of the most expensive public transport systems in the world.

The NSW Government has purchased the company that owns it, Metro Transport Sydney, announcing this morning it will remove the monorail to fit a new convention centre at Darling Harbour.

It will be torn down “as soon as feasible” .

Premier Barry O’Farrell said today that the monorail had never been “truly embraced by the community”.

“This is good news for Sydney it delivers certainty for business wanting to invest in the Darling Harbour precinct and allows the efficient development of the light rail network,” Premier Barry O’Farrell said.

“The monorail is not integrated with Sydney’s wider public transport network and has never been truly embraced by the community.

“While it has been a controversial part of Sydney’s history for more than 20 years, the monorail is reaching the end of its economic life and the NSW Government cannot justify costly upgrades like the purchase of new vehicles required to keep it running.

I can see Conor Roberts now warming up his vocal cords for a few resounding renditions of the Monorail Song.

ᔥ NZ Herald

Paul Holmes calls time on Garry Parsloe and his band of thugs, bullies and racists masquerading as negotiators:

Anyway, I formed the view that the ports company have not been ungenerous in their offers to the union. In fact, even Auckland Mayor Len Brown himself agreed that the company’s first offer made early last September should have been accepted.

The offer would have rolled over the collective agreement and given the workers a 2.5 per cent pay increase each year for three years. There were several offers but early on the company decided it could no longer tolerate its workers getting paid for sitting around doing nothing.

I do not believe the union when it says that it’s a lie that the workers earn in excess of $90,000 for an average 26 hours work. Ports of Auckland had Ernst and Young audit the figures. And that’s something you notice about the ports’ conduct throughout the dispute. They’ve done things very thoroughly.

The union’s argument that its people ceasing to be permanent staff would mean that their families couldn’t plan things was obliterated by the company’s offer to roster the men for 160 hours a month, and the roster delivered a month ahead. For the life of me, I can’t see what’s wrong with that.

I think the union was dyed in the wool. I think they didn’t read the signs. Before they knew it, it was all over. Nearly 300 men were made redundant, just like that. End of story. I think there were some hardliners who’ve buggered things up for everyone. Hysteria is never a good thing.

Garry Parsloe needs to call a meeting Monday morning and hold a secret ballot and then call the Ports of Auckland management and negotiate a return to work or facilitate placing the strikers in the new contracting companies. He and his “biker” gang of union leaders should resign themselves to unemployment.

Case study four in our series on James Bews-Hair, current Principal Policy Advisor to Mayor Len Brown and ‘mate’ to Conor Roberts.  Still nothing from Conor…

During his time apologising for ruining families at Sky City, Bews-Hair also became a very accomplished practitioner in the, only ever very dodgy ,realm of chequebook lobbying. I am told that he came up with, and got board agreement to, a donations policy for Sky City that made the related transactions seem open and transparent, but at the same time created the framework where he could skulk around dingy political corridors in both New Zealand and Australia with a cash-flow supercharged chequebook tucked away in his crumpled cheap suits.

The thinking was that if you made all donations above the disclosure threshold, and made sure they were fully disclosed, you could never be accused of buying anything you shouldn’t. To compliment this, Bews-Hair and others within Sky City went out of their way to tell people how there was actually nothing to buy when it came to donations.

Then he set about buying things (covered by the policy that he made sure everyone knew about) through small multiple untraceable donations. Reports are murky but apparently Peter Dunne, and whatever he called the party he was pretending to lead at the time, benefited greatly for all its help. Curiously, Anderton’s make believe party also benefited healthily. As did a number of bits and pieces MPs, all at a cost and all in total contradiction of the policy he pretended to be so proud of developing.

As a result of the cash flowing into Labour’s bank account, Mike Williams was apparently summoned to talk to managing director Evan Davies and Bews-Hair on almost a weekly basis during Labour’s (largely failed) attempt to review gambling. No wonder Sky City was granted an eye-stingingly profitable monopoly through Labour’s ban on new casinos. True to form, Sky City was outraged about this ‘gift’.

In South Australia, the rattle of coins into the trays of political parties was just as effective. Insulating the family wrecking machine from savage attacks was only part of it.  In Australia they have real unions with real balls, who know how to set a strategy and stick to it.

Presumably, Bews-Hair tried to find someone as dumb as Darien Fenton in Adelaide (a futile search).  Instead, Bews-Hair worked out that the biggest political beneficiary of any political success for Labor in the State wasn’t actually his good mate Mike Rann but the head of the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous union – Mark Butler (now a federal Cabinet Minister). Having become very (very ) good friends with the Labor state secretary (Tim Hunter), Bews-Hair ensured that Butler was involved in every discussion about potential donations. Surprise, surprise all the predicted Union trouble Sky City would face taking over the Adelaide casino magically disappeared. All open, all above board, all disclosed.

You have to wonder what else this sneaky, attention hating  Bews-Hair is prepared to pay for.

Case study three in our series on James Bews-Hair, current Principal Policy Advisor to Mayor Len Brown and ‘mate’ to Conor Roberts.  Still nothing from Conor…

During Bews-Hair’s time developing the Far North as the new destination for the mining industry, Bews-Hair also seemed determined to make the place one big GE-laboratory.

His initial problem was the Far North was a founding member and driving force behind a whacky scheme to use Councils RMA responsibilities to impose much tighter controls on Genetic Engineering trials than the national framework provided for.

The Far North had not only come up with the kooky plan and formed a regional group with like minded hippies from other Councils, but they went further and signed a memorandum of understanding with GE Free Northland.  The MOU basically said the Council had to find a way to ban all GE experimentation. The agreement was packaged up as a compromise to get the District’s problematic District Plan operable.

True to form Bews-Hair started a plan that was designed to simultaneously dismantle and construct.

Through Bews-Hair’s Economic Development Strategy, he set up a unique regional relationship with the Crown Research Institutes (who were involved in GE research).  The relationship was so unique that the Association of Crown Research Institutes (ACRI) had its first ever meeting outside of Wellington in little old KeriKeri.

All good for the Far North, but the workings of a true “Waitakere Man”.  Unlikely.  We certainly need more of his ilk on the Right.

Case study two in our series on James Bews-Hair, current Principal Policy Advisor to Mayor Len Brown and ‘mate’ to Conor Roberts.  Still nothing from Conor…

Under the obsessive, pathological leadership of Ralph Gerdelan, coupled with a heavily anti-casino Labour/Alliance government, the Problem Gambling Foundation (PGF) was causing Sky City all sorts trouble and damage.

Bews-Hair, as Sky City’s Government Relations manager, had his work cut out for him.

He set about cultivating moderate members of the PGF.  He followed this action by setting up an apparently do-gooder Asian Advisory Group to build strong loyalties within PGF and the wider problem gambling community.  Bews-Hair then used a series of problem gambling research contracts to further extend his reach into the problem gambling community – a strategy that he had also put in place in South Australia.  He appeared as a “good guy” interested in the issue of problem gambling but was really manipulating people and resources to assist Sky City.

Now here’s the bit I’m told that very few people know.  Gerdelan, as head of PGF, was still causing Sky City a bit of grief.   Bews-Hair responded by using his wonderful network that he’d cultivated to gather all the dirt he could, including Gerdelan’s alleged penchant for using problem gambling funds to feed his horse racing habit.

To ensure that maximum damage was done to Gerdelan and the Problem Gambling Foundation, Bews-Hair quietly and facelessly made sure that the information was spread everywhere it needed to be.  The outcome being that Gerdelan was destroyed [resignation letter here], Sky City’s problem was solved and all Bews-Hair’s new do-gooder friends none the wiser and still believing that Bews-Hair was one of the “good guys”, in case he needed their help again one day.

You’ve got to admire his abilities, as I said, with this investigation I am starting to really like this guy.

The Auckland Council voted down Richard Northey’s strikers support motion:

Auckland Council has voted down a motion supporting wharfies involved a long-running industrial dispute with the Ports of Auckland.

Today’s motion was put forward by councillor Richard Northey, chair of the council’s Accountability and Performance Committee. He wanted the council to say it would be ”appropriate and desirable” to call for a resumption of collective bargaining, and that the port’s proposal to make 292 staff redundant by contracting out their jobs was ”either undesirable or premature”.

But the mayor, several councillors and the council’s legal team said the council could not intervene. The port is run by a limited company, Auckland Council Investments, at arm’s length from the politicians.

Council lawyers made it clear the council could not intervene and thus was unable to support the resolutions. The port company was legally able to operate with independence.

”It’s not a CCO (council controlled organisation) – it’s expressly excluded under the Local Government Act from being a CCO. It is a wholly owned subsidiary ultimately owned by council,” a lawyer said.

”CCO-type obligations and frameworks do not apply to the port company itself. Business decisions therefore are made by the port company board and not by Auckland Council Investments (which owns the ports) or council as ultimate shareholder.”