Rodney Hide

Well it’s been a while, but once again out of the shadows the BSC’s El Presidente Patrick Lee-Lo has emerged.

I’ve called out the BSC for being some dodgy union rort that does little for its membership and breaks its own Society rules. So did Rodney Hide.

Now we have a picture of the BSC Fish Gang in all their glory.

These are the people that oversee the tucking of $20k membership fees,  who allow the extravagant junkets by Lee-Ho and his side-kick Marja Verkerk, while conveniently forgetting about the blatant breach of Rule #19.

A bit of sunlight is a good detergent, so some of these BSC Council members will be getting some exposure.

Lee-Lo claims “the BSC has lobbied strongly on Part 6A”. Mmm lets see about that. What’s the bet there’s a record of the correspondence received by Ministers from Lee-Lo and the BSC over the past few years. I wonder what it shows.

Put it this way, there’s more action from the tumbleweeds below than from the BSC. All will be revealed.

Bernard Orsman normally acts as the Albert Street branch of the Mayor’s office. However it appears that his patience has worn thin. It appears that there is now a deliberate and orchestrated attempt by Len Brown to cover things up, and the policy is now affecting the Herald as well.

Just as they have done with requests from Rodney Hide and others they are playing fast and loose with the LGOIMA regulations.

The Auckland Council is sitting on secret documents used to draw up a new planning rulebook for the city and instructed its top lawyer to keep them hidden from the public.

Mayor Len Brown and chief executive Doug McKay have rejected requests from the Herald to release background papers used by a political working party to develop the most important planning document in the history of Auckland.

The new rulebook – or Unitary Plan – sets out a new way of life for Auckland’s 1.5 million residents that includes high-rise apartments and infill housing to cope with squeezing another 1 million people into the city.  Read more »

via showbus.com

Rodney Hide has another blinder.

In an attempt to look into the research done on Auckland’s transport options, he finds he’s being stonewalled at every turn.  But he discovers Tony Randle, who managed to extract the actual spreadsheet from Auckland Transport only to discover what appears to be systematic “errors” somehow all magically in favour of proving light rail is the best option.

My research led me to Wellingtonian Tony Randle, who spent months trying to get the analysis underpinning the 2010 Rail Business Case, succeeding only after a complaint to the Ombudsman.

Read more »

Rodney Hide reprises his article of last week about auctioning the unemployed on Trade Me:

Last week’s column to auction the unemployed on Trade Me generated great discussion across the internet. Some thought it a good idea, many opposed it, there were many good suggestions and there were some sharp criticism.

Let’s consider the major criticisms.

The first was one of the scheme’s political practicality. “Which government or political party in power would have the balls to introduce the scheme?” The key aspect is how accepted the reform is at the next election and how much pain is endured getting there.

There’s no doubt the opposition parties would have a field day on the Warstler scheme’s introduction. There would be the usual allegations of “slave labour” and the sale of body parts, but then what?

By and large his suggestion passed un-noticed as the media focussed on important things like John Key’s mother’s best friend’s kid, studiously ignoring this and David Shearer’s dodgy offshore bank account.

The 50,000 get work and get paid. How do you campaign against that? Within two years we would struggle to recall that we ever did things differently.

The second identified problem was the impact on the already employed. Certainly, there would be a short-run effect in shifting 50,000 people into work. How much I do not know. But I suspect it would be hardly noticeable.

I can’t imagine a mass layoff of workers on the minimum wage so that employers can bid each week for someone on the dole. Employers prefer the staff they have to people they don’t know and the 50,000 will undoubtedly be mostly employed doing jobs that now aren’t being done.

Besides, a significant black market already exists in jobs being done by people claiming the dole. That would cease.

Not a single person has shown how it couldn’t work. Mostly those opposed just hurl personal abuse as is often the way with the left.

There were a number of comments with the following general theme: “Less focus on dole bashing and more on upskilling, you right-wing tool.”

But for the unemployed, especially the young and unemployed, there is no greater upskilling than being in the paid workforce, being productive, and learning to do a good job.

For most, it’s less about upskilling and more about getting into work and learning to work.

Jchaa336 declared, “there is no way in hell, ever, that I am going to work 40 hours for 40 extra bucks. Come on!” I don’t think Jchaa336 understands the scheme. If the unemployed refuse too many jobs their dole is cut. That’s the point.

The unemployment benefit is not without obligations and the real issue is not Jchaa336 refusing to work but taxpayers refusing to support him or her to do nothing.

One commenter opposed the scheme “because it might work. Creating a functioning market for peasants is not a good idea”.

I don’t think the unemployed are peasants. And the entire point is to create a functioning market for the unemployed. It’s the lack of a “functioning market” that has people unemployed and shut of contributing to society.

Sadly there is an element in society who think that it is the government’s responsibility to up-skill the indolent. Name me one thing the government does efficiently. If the government is the answer it must have been a bloody stupid question.

One persistent and understandable concern is the potential for fraud. I could employ my sister, for example, and she could employ me. We could agree that we each do nothing. Or employers could pay workers under the table and thereby keep the full government subsidy.

Of course, there is considerable fraud now. And many on the unemployment benefit are already doing jobs under the table. The question is whether the Warstler scheme would increase the fraud or decrease it.

It would seem to me that the scheme would dramatically reduce fraud.

First, the numbers of unemployed not working would diminish to close to zero. Second, the transactions would be transparent and public on the internet. Third, bad and dodgy employers would be exposed on the internet.

The Warstler scheme has survived its first test: there’s been no knock-down criticism from the commentators.

Exactly…not a peep of any well thought out (peer-reviewed even) opposition to Rodney’s idea.

Rodney Hide has hit on a brilliant idea, auction the unemployed on Trademe.

To be fair it wasn’t his idea, but he is certainly looking into it.

We have 50,000 people on the unemployment benefit and plenty of work that needs doing. The 50,000 represent 1000 years of work that doesn’t get done each and every week. The waste is horrific.

The waste follows from the failure to match the unemployed to the jobs that need doing at a price potential employers are willing to pay.

The matching part of the problem is a perfect job for the internet. And, sure enough, US techno whizz Morgan Warstler has the fix: match the jobs and the unemployed on eBay and pay them through Paypal.

In New Zealand our equivalent, Trade Me, is the perfect set-up linking Kiwis wanting to sell with those wanting to buy. It’s similarly perfect for matching those looking for work with those with jobs that need doing. Trade Me should be used to match jobseekers to jobs.

Under the Warstler scheme the unemployed would register on Trade Me to receive their benefit payment each Friday night.  At present, an unemployed 20-year-old receives a benefit payment of $190.84 gross a week.  Let’s make that $200.

Once an unemployed person is registered on Trade Me anyone wanting work done can bid for them to do it.  It’s the perfect way to match the jobs that need doing to those who can do them.   Read more »

The Herald Editorial is scathing of David Shearer, but first they have a flick at Banksie:

Act leader John Banks did himself few favours this week by pouncing on David Shearer’s failure to include details of a New York bank account when he declared his financial interests to Parliament, as required under the MPs’ Register of Pecuniary Interests. In calling for the Labour leader to stand down, Mr Banks refocused attention on his own memory lapse over a political donation from Kim Dotcom. Equally, the difference between the two cases was instantly recognisable. Mr Shearer corrected the record off his own bat when he realised his mistake. There was no such candour from Mr Banks.

What rubbish. In politics you give as good as you get and when the person who was poking the borax at you is caught pants down then you hit back hard. Good on Banksie for ignoring the more squeamish Nats who were telling him to shut up. If they weren;t going to call out Shearer’s hypocrisy because they lacked balls then good on Banksie for doing it.  Read more »

Rodney Hide takes the NZEI and PPTA to task:

The teacher unions are the most cantankerous in the country. The seamen, the watersiders and the miners are pussycats.

Gone are the days of the ferries going on strike at the start of the school holidays. The freezing workers no longer hold farmers to ransom. The picket that left Mangere Bridge unfinished for two-and-a-half years is now unthinkable.

But the teacher unions? They’re the baddest and the maddest. They dictate education policy, destabilise duly elected ministers of education and present themselves as the arbiters of right and proper schooling.

They’re rich, powerful and unassailable. The New Zealand Educational Institute has 50,000 members and $18 million a year. The Post Primary Teachers’ Association has 17,000 members and $9 million a year. That’s a lot of money. And the teacher unions use it. They think nothing of taking out full-page newspaper ads and hiring commercial billboards to attack the Government.

I’m certain he means mad as in crazy.  Read more »

One teenage tomcat has sprayed his seed around plenty plus, knocking up women 13 times.

One rogue 19-year-old is a liable father to 13 kids to different mums.

A source has confirmed the man is named on the birth certificates of 13 children, and is liable to pay child support for them.

Figures released by the Inland Revenue Department show 943 teenage fathers were liable to pay child support at the end of last year. Some were just 15 years old, and already liable for two children.

A study for Inland Revenue estimates the “average” cost of raising a child to the age of 18 as $250,000. It does not count stay-at-home parents’ loss of incomes or childcare costs. The weekly cost for a low-income parent raising a child is $150 – or $140,000 by the time the child reaches 18.

The circumstances of the mothers of the 13 children are unknown, but any of them who are on the domestic purpose benefit are entitled to upward of $293 a week, as well as an accommodation supplement and other top-ups. So benefits to support those 13 babies could be costing the taxpayer more than $200,000 a year.

Family First should be more concerned about this behaviour than whether or not two blokes can marry.  Read more »

The BSC cartel that El Presidente Patrick Lee-Lo runs can only be described as a union.

Rodney Hide had a crack at them exposing the dodgy rort that the BSC entered into with Labour strategist Trevor Mallard, the Property Council and the SFWU.

Here’s the front people for this union rort.

There’s nasty National Secretary of the SFWU John Ryall, BSC’s El Presidente Patrick Lee-Lo, Former Labour Minister Trevor Mallard and surprisingly the strange bed-fellow of Connal Townsend from the Property Council of NZ.

It seems the Department of Labour is involved in this little cartel as well.  Read more »

The last couple of weeks the Herald on Sunday left and right columnists have had a pretty poor showing. Instead of the cut and thrust of world political events they have both done middle aged, blouse columns on diets and other such panty-waist activities.

They seem to be mimicking David Farrar’s style, such as it is. Next thing they will be wearing TEVA sandals.

This week Rodney goes on about bananas…and although I get his point, especially the sledge about GM bananas but really!

We’ve been genetically modifying bananas for 7000 years. We have bred a banana we like. And a banana that depends upon us. Our bananas haven’t had sex since the start of recorded time. They have no seeds and bats no longer pollinate them. They depend on us to propagate them.

Vegans stuff themselves with the sugary, seedless, artificially-propagated bananas believing them natural. They really have no idea. They would choke on the original banana.

The bananas the vegans chew aren’t what nature gave us. They’re heavily genetically-modified. Not in a controlled way with scientists in a laboratory. But out in the field for thousands of years with farmers choosing the bananas that were good to grow and to eat.

Matt McCarten is worse, he is bleating on about diet and it is written by a bloke who clearly telling fibs especially about fat loss.  Read more »