I've had feedback on my radio scepticism (Jim Mora's Panel Thursday last) about the "Appeal to Parliament" group promoted by Sir Alan Mark. I said they were wasting their time, that I'd have to be paid to listen to their list of concerns because it sounded like Moaning Report concentrated, and that they were likely to generate the same reaction as 'Citizens for Rowling" – that is anti-elitist resentment.

The are wasting their time because they share the common conceit of intellectuals (left and right) and business people and others who pay lip-service to democracy but essentially despise it. They are sure that politicians and other decision-makers who are not following their advice must be stupid, ignorant or consciously evil and motivated by sinister forces. They believe that for those who are not evil, all that is needed is careful loud and repeated explanation until the decision-makers grasp the wisdom of their advisers. To them the rest is obvious.

They rarely think it is worth debating with those who disagree with their diagnosis, or, to the extent they bother with them, their prescriptions. They are dismissive of cost benefit study, on the basis that their purposes are so pure it is improper to weigh them against grubby matters like cost. Whether or not they are of the left, they become Lenin's useful idiots for the left, because they supply the need of their media kin for events with which to bludgeon the rest of us 'people' who are suspicious of their balance and their clerical zeal.

Nevertheless I should have been more respectful because they are undoubtedly well meaning, and Sir Alan has acheived much. But I was irritated by the smugness of it all. What politicians desperately need, and look for is not another recital of the problems they face. They are invariably all too well aware of them. What they look for are solutions. Solutions that respect the clash of objectives, and the devastating conundrum of modern politics – that is decision-makers being ejected from power for looking not nice if the chosen solution means something has to give, if it means that some desirable cause or outcome must be sacrificed to acheive another.

Because often stupid swing voters decide the course of democratic leadership, and they pay little attention to unavoidable trade-offs. All across the western world we see government paralysed in the face of that dynamic.

To be sure, Sir Alan's crew will add in their tuppence worth to the balance, but far more useful than berating politicians from their numpty thrones, would be practical demands of fellow citizens to reduce the influence of those who want only nice outcomes and no costs falling anywhere.

An acquaintance with a high position in academia was reassuring. He confirmed I was right on the academics involved.

And he noted "an “important and influential” citizen to sign up against climate change is Wayne Smith…. Rugby coach….   Who happens to have flown recently ( with a team of 30 odd) all the way to South Africa for two games of footy. His team may repeat this flight later on in the season ( semi final)  and also several trips back and forth across the Tasman. Doesn’t he see the irony……  ???"

 My friend went on to say

"if these people were doing something constructive about climate change I would not object. In science we have a similar situation… many people are being well funded to just continually show how bad the situation is ( and its  bad) , but the people who really are trying to engineer solutions are quietly chugging away out of the limelight. For example there are  a devoted group of physicists and chemists  ( At Vic, Cambridge, and elsewhere) who are trying to develop cheap solar cells made from organic polymers that can be painted on roofs, car bodies etc . This ,  to me , is the most promising way forward…    If successful, it could reduce carbon emissions everywhere, especially in the developing world."

Marcus Lush recorded an interview at 5-50am this morning with me on the pros and cons of banning foreigner purchases of houses here. I always enjoy RadioLive interviews, because they rarely try to fit me into a stereotyped slot. Both Brigid who last night set up the interview, and Marcus, sought fresh information. That contrasts with the predictable Punch n Judy show statements sought by others. 

As sometimes happens in a genuine conversation, I realised that the issues could be summed up simply. Prices go up when supply can't increase to respond to demand. There is no a shortage of building supplies, or builders. So foreign buyers' money can only affect prices if there is a shortage of land to build on. But New Zealand is not short of land. It is short of consents to use land. And probably more important than the supply of new land, is the cost, delay and risk in trying to intensify the use of land that is already built on, nearer the centre of our cities.

In other words, our housing problem is the inevitable consequence of the political success of selfish middle and upper class families, working with their stupid green children. They enforce their aesthetic preferences for the status quo (labelled as 'heritage') by locking newcomers out of their leafy and quaint inner suburbs. The RMA has frozen the dynamic processes of rebuilding and intensification that have created all great cities (and our own towns and cities up till 3 decades ago). The result is that poorer people must pay for more expensive housing ever further from where the work is.

To blame the resulting prices on foreign money is a nice distraction from their own culpability, for the selfish generations, and the councillors and MPs who pander to them.

It is 7 years since I was an ACT member, but I have to commend the Freedom to Build solution offered by John Banks and ACT in this area. It is the most plain, simple speaking any politician is offering.

Still, if central government can't summon the political courage to solve that problem, then restrictions on foreign money might mitigate the problem temporarily. If so, any restrictions on investment should be confined to:

a) Auckland (because sellers and builders of houses in most of the country would love to have a deeper market of buyers);

b) Existing houses (so that new money can go into increasing supply); and

c) Houses kept empty (because a house occupied is part of supply, whoever owns it).

It took 30 years of winding up before official New Zealand could tolerate blunt speaking and advertising on drunk driving. We cannot control it by penalties and enforcement alone. Eventually it was accepted that we had to end social toleration of drunk driving. We've had to 'marginalise' drunks who drive. 

I hope it does not take so long to get to effectiveness on the diabetes epidemic. The problem is that lazy greedy people get fat and sick. They may have been genetically unlucky. They get fat more readily than others. Their unlucky children start off with greater risk. Recently reported research in New Zealand says they are often browner than the more active, skinnier ones.

But the health and nanny industry is cranking itself up to blame everyone but the lazy greedy people. They'll waste their time avoiding the most effective social mechanisms for direct change in the vulnerable group attitudes to over-eating and laziness. Most of our effective socialisation uses both positive and negative reinforcements. It can depend on broad and often unfair generalisations, otherwise known as 'stereotyping', and discrimination. 

So we'll spend decades and the lives and health of hundreds of thousands before we get really blunt and effective public leadership in this area.

Otago's Prof Jim Mann was interviewed by Radio NZ on the population blood study report just released. He mentioned the significance of  "ethnicity". It seems that the 'hungry gene' peoples (including Polynesian and Indian) suffer from a genetic propensity for diabetes to result from over-eating and under-exercising. That is bad luck. I  sympathise. My inheritance turns sugar indulgence to high cholesterol and atherosclerosis.

But referring, I think, to the temptations to eat too much fat and sugar, Prof Mann used the wonderful term "dia-obesogenic environment". It seems we will all have to play our part in ending this environment.

Look out Pascals, Whittakers, Coca Cola, Cadbury's, KFC, ….and eventually Fonterra. You will be vilified. They've come after the cigarette manufacturers. You're next.

In my opinion, from experience as an MP, an adviser to bureaucrats, and a staunch binger on various things that are bad for me, there are sensible ways the target industries can prepare. They could help us all and help preserve freedoms. But not if they are as squeamish as their adversaries about ensuring  blunt truths are spoken.

They will not be effective speaking bluntly themselves. But they could ensure that others are able to do so.  Nevertheless I doubt that we will see them acting effectively.

As an idealistic student I cut my legal teeth on the acheivements of the common law judges who invented new liability rules for bosses. We honoured judges who found ways to punish alleged indifference to forseeable employee deaths and injuries. Hitting their pockets gave bosses incentives to protect workers even if they remained (as we thought) incurably callous.

Today prosecution may face even "bosses" remotely unlike the fat cats of our imagination. Passionate caring may mean little (consider the prosecution of the Taranaki Outdoor Pursuits and Education Centre). They may be driven to bankruptcy by prosecutions for accidents that none foresaw.. Bosses must take all practicable steps to protect even those who deliberately disobey safety rules.

But power always attracts the kind of people who impose loss on others to demonstrate their superiority. They invent noble excuses – in the 19th century worker lives were sacrificed to "progress". This generation's callous bosses are in the green movement, and in councils. They get their kicks by showing how willing they are to sacrifice others to their superior aesthetic and cultural values.

The decision to stop Mark Dunaitschik from replacing Harcourts Building (built as the Temperance & General Insurance building) is a case in point.

So I may live to see the day when Iona Pannett and her ilk are ruing their indifference to the safety and prosperity of those who suffer their rule. The DomPost should record and remind us of the names of the planning commissioners involved. We must ensure they are identified when Wellington gets its earthquake. Those whove enjoyed their power to prevent replacement of dangerous masonry, or who've been indifferent to the connection between relative poverty and the inability to strengthen and replace buildings quickly, will be reviled. They'll deserve every insult and every cost that comes their way because they know the trade-off they have ordered.

They probably comfort themselves that the building will be strengthened and the cost does not matter because it is a landlord who will have to find the money. They may even understand that money wasted without a return is resource lost to Wellington and New Zealand. $15m on preservation adds no usable offices. It probably delays rebuilding and may take investment that should have gone on new capacity elsewhere. It could be saved with a lightweight facade of identical appearance, so this is not about the look and feel of Wellington.

To such people the deadweight cost just confirms how sacred are their objectives. The religious have always measured their piety by how much suffering it causes. That is why all religions ask for sacrifice (preferably not by the leadership).

These modern priests put their sentimental satisfaction that others are still using an old building ahead of the lives that will be lost. They've put it ahead of their duty to protect Wellington's economic interests. We learned today that government wants to take office workers away for cheaper space. So imposing an extra $15m cost on Wellington space that must be recouped from rents  fits perfectly with the government intention.

The ultimate blame rests, however, with the central government politicians who handed such powers to confiscate private property without compensation, to the bosses in local government.

Great to see the Department of Internal Affairs is moving again on pokie trust corruption.

I was dismayed to find when I accepted the Chairmanship of Wellington Rugby League a resigned expectation of corruption from the old hands. They were almost all decent people, repaying their sport for what it had given them by putting their time into administration.  They'd been worn down by the survival of corrupt bosses in the sport, mainly operating out of Auckland. Seemingly  limitless access to pokie money with which to buy elections and suborn local clubs and local officers had left them cynical.

We turned that expectation around in Wellington, but not before running into some blatant trust rorting, reported to SPARC (to no apparent effect) and to Sir John Anderson (with great effect). It seemed to lead toward some politicians, which left me wondering whether the then Minister of Sport had played any part in discouraging SPARC from responding to my Board's offer to set up a sting.

The subject was top of mind when I saw today's report, because of media enquiries over the last week about the appointment and subsequent withdrawal of Kerry Hoggard from the Racing Integrity Unit.

I have no reason to think that Kerry Hoggard is in any way connected to pokie trust mismanagement or corruption. Nor do I have any reason to consider him to be unsuitable for that role, other than his historic conduct and the need for an integrity enforcement body to comprise people of impeccable reputation.

But I did think it was sadly typical of the racing industry, not to be sensitive to the likelihood that such an appointment would be seen as a joke, given the name of the disciplinary body.  From what I heard when I was learning about the problems in cleaning up the pokie trusts, League was the poor relation. Some of the horse racing codes were far more closely tapped into the trusts.

Time to end horse racing's special status. Whey should they have a Minister of their own? Or are they keeping the position to again buy the support of  a potential swing party notoriously susceptible to baubles.

Many ask for predictions of the Supreme Court's decision on the Waitangi Tribunal/Maori Council's case to hold up hydro generator share sales. 

If iPredict had a contract on the outcome I'd buy a judicial spanner in the government's works at under 0.20.  I'd have paid only up to 0.15 until the Court announced it would take longer for the decision than earlier expected. I wonder why iPredict doesn't have a contract on just the kind of puzzle that prediction markets are good at. 

Many have put significance on the Chief Justice's enquiry about selling only 25% of the hydro generators. Andrew Geddes on that correctly warns that judges often ask about hypotheticals to draw out counsel's reasoning. He makes the call that they will not overturn the robust decision of the High Court. Obviously I think Geddes is more likely to be right than not, but we should prepare for the unexpected. A hold-up decision would be a classic Taleb 'black swan'. It could cost enough to make that risk a matter for careful preparation.

Given the opposition's cynical exploitation of anti-sale sentiment, a decision against the government will pitch the Court into politics. Though unfair it could precipitate a new low in public (and government) respect for the Supreme Court.  Matthew Hooten's NBR satire works because of its references to past unwise judicial inventions. 

But if the Court adopts certain arguments to trash the governmet's timetable I 'd be obliged to defend its intellectual integrity and courage, despite my view that the government should prevail. The government does not deserve to win. That is no reflection on the quality of its counsel. The Crown case has been undermined by years of its own illogic and disrespect for legal principle and property rights. The Crown has been acknowledging Maori property interests in fresh water for generations but never moved to define or recognise or protect them. This weekend's Insight by Lois Williams' superbly surveys the evidence in support of that part of the Maori Council's argument. 

And the Crown has never put the only real counter-arguments I can see.

 Instead the PM has been parroting the nonsense that water is 'common property'. That is all the evidence the Supreme Court might need that the government cannot be trusted to uphold the classical property rights promised by Article 2, without a gun to the head. The Supreme Court judges could also (but will not) point to the legal drivel embodied in the Marine and Coastal Area Act and reflected in signing the UN's Draft Declaration of Indigenous Rights. Both show a Crown willingness to sacrifice our legal inheritance ( law that pursues certainty, so that people can know what it means without relying on rulers to tell them) for temporary political expediency. Worse, their well meant favouring of the Iwi Leaders can also be seen as collusion with arisocratic Maori who will profit from the confusion and muddy claims that accompany uncertain and temporary claims in property. The Treaty tried to protect against that kiind of elite sell out of the ordinary people, with the now ignored Crown rights of pre-emption.

It is proper for the courts to protect the citizen from the Crowns depredations on property rights. There is evidence that the Crown intends murky deals on water with our equivalent of Fiji's Great Council of Chiefs. So the Supreme Court could do us all a favour in the long term by pointing out that the Treaty conferred property rights, not use licences for the politically well connected. If calling a halt restores respect for principled consistency in government on property rights, equality before the law, certainty and other elements of our rule of law inheritance, the budget impact of an asset sale failure could be a reasonable cost to pay.

On the other hand, if Supreme Court meanders half baked into the NZMC's 'stakeholder' reconstructions of  company law, it will deserve the odium it will get.

And would calling taiho on the sales be that bad? It is probably a bad time to sell anyway. Who knows how to price these assets, with fracked gas transforming world energy markets, and the possibility of scaled back aluminium smelting. If uncertainty means the sale price is too cheap in hindsight it will taint privatisation for another generation. If they sell too high, in hindsight, there will be endless recrimination from the greedies who will claim to have been mislead.

So now 400,000 Yahoo/xtra passwords should be changed!

We've looked at this debacle for a worried client.

His business depends on customer disclosure of personal confidences. Many customers have now had odd emails purporting to be from him. But that is merely embarrassing. What about the growing view that the hackers may have accessed sent emails. Should he be preparing his clients for the possibility that their personal confidences might be known to the world?

He must adhere to the principles in section 6 of the Privacy Act.  Should he warn customers that Principle 5 may have been breached, and that they should take steps to minimise any damage.

Telecom should be telling us:

(a)           What is known about what was accessed by hackers? If they still don't know now, when do they expect to know? How likely is it that email content has been accessed?

(b)          Are accounts now secure?

(d)           What should our client say to customers worried that his correspondence may have been copied?

(e)           Should  Yahoo!/Xtra account holders change passwords for third party services?

Liability? It is too early to calculate costs, and whether Telecom/Yahoo might be liable for more than fixing the system. But the potential scale of the losses highlights the importance of the liability limitation and exclusion clauses in standard contracts.

Slogan thinking would say "of course they should compensate".

But case-law and carefully considered old legislation have dealt with similar issues for centuries. Common carriers are usually allowed to shelter behind limitation clauses.

Limitation clauses justified? The reasoning is simple, and common sense. The consequential losses could be astronomical from damage or theft of goods in carriage. Carriers' liability would in effect force them to be the insurers for people who have property and transactions that are critically dependent on being carried securely, or delivered on time. The cost of such insurance could be very high. ISPs are like physical carriers in this regard given what can be lost when messages are too late, or corrupted, or get into the wrong hands.

That cost would have to be spread across the service. But most messages are routine. Losing them would will not hurt anyone. So the huge majority of us, who want our carrier to carry most of our messages for next to nothing, would be mulcted to subsidise the few.

In addition, the law tries to leave liability with the person who is in the best practical position to minimise loss. Only the originator knows whether the next message is trivial, or vastly important. We do not want the ISP to have to know what is in our messages, so they can take care with the valuable ones, just as we do not want carriers to have to know what is in our parcels.

So the law (and most standard terms)  therefore say 'user beware'.. If your business is exceptionally vital, or fragile, then insure it yourself, or send it by a special service that guarantees security, and presumably charges accordingly. Don't ask the rest of us to subsidise your sensitivity.

Another reason for uholding limitation clauses, is that without them the provision of such services might be confined to maga companies. Start-ups could be too risky. And in fast developing sectors we rely on start-ups, often small and under-capitalised,  to protect us from exploitation by the early entrants and the majors. Respect by courts and governments for standard form contracts can be a major factor in new entrant ease of entry.

Political expediency a threat: These common carrier principles are almost universal. Sadly consumer zealotry and weak political judgment have combined in a law going through the New Zealand Parliament now that undermines the simplicity of the principles. Carriers of goods and carriers of electricity are affected by the Consumer Law Reform Bill. It could enable owners of home theatres and computer gadgetry to collect for power spike damage they could prevent with their own protectors. Ordinary familes, many of whom could never afford such high end gear, will face higher line charges to cover avoidable losses for richer people, or to gold plate the network.

I've been asked what I think of extending the Parliamentary term.

4 years would be better for many reasons. It would enable politicians to do necessary things that need more than three years to prove themselves. But what would they actually use it for? In a campaign for lengthening the term they should be asked what they could do in four years that they can't do in three. But who will have the courage to float examples? The examples will be contentious, and recycled as a threat to floating voters at the next election. 

 If we did get an extra year on the term I’m not sure we have enough courageous types (outside the Maori and Green ranks –  religiously opposed to most things modern) to use the extra period for useful reform.

Still, a four year term could have dynamics that would allow major parties to be less concerned about the floating middle. They might drop some knee jerk (deceitful) opposition to policies they know are best at least during  the first couple of years of a term.

 But I do not want to see anything much in play constitutionally while the dominant driver is centrifugal racial appeasement without any countervailing centripetal force.

I’ve written a number of times (including as a member of the last Constitutional Select Committee) about the dangers of constitutional change when people are free of external threat, or internal exhaustion from strife. Both lead to a focus on the common values and interests of people who share a land. The people at such times know why we must cooperate and live by rules that are fair, and not just designed to advantage those who get their hands on the levers of power.

 Constitutional change when a country is fat and complacent becomes an elite contest for provisions to place pet policies and prejudices above political debate by the rude masses, entrenching them so that future democratic majorities are snookered by lawyers and courts. The vast EU wishlist of provisions provides an awful example.

 While our dominant constitutional discourse comes from historically ignorant racialists, and people whose experience has encouraged them to make ultimatum their main tactic, we’d be nuts to throw balls in the air for constitutional change. As the Islamists are showing around the world, the feckless majority often capitulate to Harawira  style determination (and guts).

Yet I’d probably be supporting 4 years if we’d gone back to something like FPP where it was easier to dump the buggers who ignore constituent opinion. MMP has entrenched the power of the unrepresentative holders of the balance of power, and the power of party bosses.

 I’ll wait to see if there are aspects I've not considered. It may be that this is a well-considered ploy to highlight the necessity to put anything serious that comes out of the constitutional review, to a referendum. If so, well done.

On current indications however I predict that people will not have enough trust in current leadership to make the change, with good reason.

The Waitangi demonstrations of capitulation in all parties to people who are unprincipled but tougher than them, and more determined,  warns us all subconsciously that we may need to change our leaders more often than they want, or is even good for us.

Any linking of the term question with other constitutional proposals connected with the Treaty will remind people that our leaders and our constitutional debate cannot avoid placating racialists. They'll wonder whether the people who would get the increased power of longer in office may not really be the champions we subconsciously look for, to stand up for us.

I posted on vulnerablity to anaphylactic shock from bee stings a few days ago.

From what can be found on the web about sensitisation of beekeepers' children, if I were the Duchess of Cambridge, I'd lay off my simply super bee-venom facial, at least until the baby is born, and perhaps even for the first couple of years of infancy.

I'm sure the stuff is fantastic, and like honey, naturally good for most of us, and particularly manuka honey. 

But so is champagne, and many other things that it is better to sacrifice if you are carrying your precious baby (or a king or queen).

Karl Du Fresne feeds the archetypal Listener reader's anti-Americanism in the Listener of 2 February. With prolonged dedication to duty  he has hunted through city after city for the most gross cuisine our American friends can offer. The 72 oz (2kg) steak segues to V8 pick-up trucks to satisfy Listener man's craving to shudder, and to be glad at what we do not have.

But his descriptions are just too succulent. Perhaps he searches out gluttony for reasons that could be misunderstood, like those which had a great reforming 19th century British Prime Minister prowling the streets of London at night. Among William Gladstone's passions was rescuing "fallen women" (prostitutes). There is contention whether it was as weird then as it seems to our jaded judgment today.

Whatever Mr Du Fresne's motives, all power to his arm and jaw muscles.