GAP (now called Rainbow) election forum dinners  in 2002 and 2005 were enjoyable affairs.  So I expected good table conversation and crisp questioning to make last Thursday’s affair equally worth attending.

It was worthwhile, though it was much smaller than previously. The opinion at our table was that falling attendance reflects a fall-off in "embattled community" solidarity among GLITB people. Community acceptance apparently reduces younger peoples’ need to look for mutual support to others for whom sexual orientation is a primary identity.

If so Labour may derive increasingly uncertain dividends from wedge politicking with gay* interests and concerns.

As before the dinner was dominated by the old left, despite a smattering across the political spectrum.

Wellington Central’s Labour candidate clearly thought it was his home crowd.  I’ll post separately on his answer to a typical question – whether the law should regulate blood service caution about about gay donors. I had not realised what an issue he thought it is.

National’s Katherine Rich, attending for what may be one of her last Parliamentary social duties, mentioned to me that despite her votes for causes dear to gay activists (sometimes without many allies in National) she had never in her years in Parliament been lobbied personally by any of them.

She was sad that they had never asked for advice on persuading colleagues, or supporting those in her caucus who were on the progressive liberal end of the issues.

It was consistent with my experience starting with the Relationships (Property) Bill in my first year in Parliament. That bill was bad for all couples who deliberately choose not to commit, but some gay activists were persuaded that it was a touch-stone of gay-friendliness leading up to the future civil union debate. 

I was lobbied. Gay friends and supporters were helpful, and supported my eventual opposition to that bill. Then and later I took heartfelt pleas at face value,  but much of the email traffic was of the "punch em enough and they’ll come round" school of persuasion. Sneers and threats are no doubt satisfying for those who offer them.

Sophisticated lobbyists try to understand the concerns of those they would persuade, and the alliances that might be created. I can not recall ever being asked what changes would enable me to support the legislation, or what might move colleagues, and how they could be brought in to support.

Perhaps they felt they did not need to bother, with Labour using the whip on so-called "conscience votes". And the measures went through so they’ll feel the  lack of facilitative lobbying did not matter in the end.

Trouble is, measures that are planned and cynically used to divide and identify "friend from foe", instead of  building on the common consensus, can feel fragile. "We won, you lost, eat that" just invites the losers to plan changes to the recipe.

Several among last week’s forum diners seemed terribly over-anxious about that possibility. 

I’ve heard of no plans to revisit any of the touchstone issues yet the questioning seemed determined to construct a continuing threat. 

Perhaps it is related to the need to have a uniting external enemy. Some perhaps are nostalgic for  the warmth inside circled wagons where all outside were classified as inveterate hostiles, or unwitting allies of them.

I understand that, but it is one of New Zealand’s strengths that our politics has not been dominated by it. On the theory that it is harder to demonise those you’ve met I usually accept invitations to tough events, because I want to preserve a politics where most of us know we share more than may divide us.

I’ve never been at risk of being the forum’s favoured candidate but I ‘ve always thought I should be there – (one commentator delivers the sorry news that I did not make the grade this time either). Fortunately the duty has not been onerous.

*When the word "queer" has unequivocally captured the generic territory once covered by "gay" I’ll use that term to cover GLITB, but I’ll wait until invited by less political gay friends. I remember when it was a hurtful school-yard insult, so until they’re comfortable I’ll let others make it generic..

Wellington College has been given $1.5 million by the 92 year old fiance of a young man killed during World War 11. It’s the largest single gift the College has ever received.

The story of this remarkable tribute is about to be published in the school’s magazine, the Lampstand, and was announced this week to the school’s donors.  The gift is from 92 year old Aucklander, Violet Elizabeth Dunn, whose fiance, Tom Paul, was at the school from 1931 to 1935.  He was killed  in England in 1944 when his damaged bomber crashed while attempting to return to base.

I met Principal Roger Moses in Auckland just after he’d  met Violet nearly two years ago. He was deeply moved by her story and was hoping she would  visit the College.

After Tom’s death Violet never married and carried his memory through her life. 

She met Wellingtonian Tom Paul on Takapuna Beach in 1934 and they fell in love and were planning to marry.  Tom enlisted in the Territorials and then the RNZAF as a trainee pilot.  By late 1941 he was in England, flying Wellington and Lancaster bombers on night raids over Europe.

He was injured in May 1942 after flying numerous bombing raids.  On his recovery he served as a combat and flying instructor to young pilots, including many from New Zealand.  He was 26 when he died on 4 January 1944 when his damaged bomber crashed into a forest.  He is buried in England.

Violet was a dental nurse, who has fond memories of Wellington where she trained, and after the war visited England.  She found shards of metal from the plane buried in the soil.  She has given these jagged shards to Wellington College, along with his medals and school uniform.

After deciding to give these memoirs to the college, Violet was invited to the school’s 2007 ANZAC service, to be held in honour of Tom Paul.  It was a very poignant visit, seeing the same buildings, honours boards and brass plaques that her fiance would have seen 70 years before.  Seeing his name etched in brass at the back of the hall with the other Old Boys who lost their lives in both World Wars was particularly sad for her.

She decided to make her generous gift in his name, with $1 million towards the building of the new memorial hall and $500,000 as an endowment to promote education at the college.  She wants the income to go to help "strugglers" and is keen to help more boys take up challenges such as Outward Bound.

Wellington College has always honoured its Old Boys and those who lost their lives fighting for their country.  A group of current students visits the World War battlefields of Europe every year in a tour which brings alive the names on the honours boards at school.

The gift is also a tribute to Roger Moses, who has worked hard to maintain these traditions at the College, introducing the history tour to Europe during his time at the school.  When he heard Violet’s story two years ago, he made that special effort to visit her in Auckland and listen to her memories.  He then invited her down to the ANZAC assembly with some of her close family.

The College hopes she will return later this year, for the second time, to be thanked.

Well worth a look is this  "manifesto" as a model of its kind. The purposes are clear:

"We hope that political parties will adopt [the recommendations]  as much as possible." and

"The chambers of commerce throughout New Zealand intend to scrutinise parties’ policies and compare them with this set of policies, which we think provide the best platform for the New Zealand economy to grow."

The recomendations are substantive. But there is enough explanation, reasoning, quailification and blandness to make it hard for ideological critics to get traction, unless they misrepresent it. 

It will have a small and earnest market though it deserves serious consideration. Our fearless media will no doubt find it far too worthy. Only a few items should scare the horses though they’ll feel sure there are weevils in the oats.

There are plenty of revealing graphs. For example, the graph on NZ interest rates (highest in the developed world) is followed by:

The National War Memorial  rises on the forward shoulder of Wellington’s Mt Cook. 

Elevation should give it the authority of sacred sites all over the world. We step up to them to induce deference. They should loom over those approaching, to encourage humility. And they should offer calmness and peace, a sense of sanctuary from any mundane city roar.

Our memorial should do all of that but it does not.

IMHO it fails for three reasons:

– the traffic is close behind as one goes up to the memorial. That proximity suggests irelevance to the memorial, the indifferent traffic flows past irrespective of what is happening at the memorial. The road is too close to allow traffic to be screen out and muffled.

– busy roadways around the memorial lead up to what is now Massey University. They strip out any sense of awe. Instead it seems a relic, caught in the middle of someone else’s driveways.

– the view back from the memorial is dreary. The low rise buildings running down Tory and Taranaki Streets offer nothing inspiring.

Labour has put a lot of effort into reverence to dead and retired servicepeople (despite regarding their views on what they fought for as out-dated ). So there is a plan to put a wiggle in Buckle Street, to take the traffic further away from  the memorial.

Mercifully a service station has gone in preparation for that,  But the traffic flow will now be close to an already constrained school playground, and it will still flow past without regard to anything happening before the memorial. A new road semi-circle around the memorial entrance could just increase the desolation of the area.

The site cries out for a pedestrian plaza with the road going underneath. That would create serenity and perspective that the memorial needs.

It would also be a better road. It could have gone into a trench or tunnel years ago if the "no changes" mob had not batterred the Council into our botched innercity bypass.

I am sick of my country always compromising with meagre and half baked public works. For our national war memorial, we should have a wide open space for people to gather. It should reduce the city noise to backdrop levels.

Or the memorial should be moved to sit among trees, genuinely looking down on the city. 

There is already such a site. The Grand Hall of the Massey building (the former Dominion Museum before it moved to Te Papa) has a dramatic entrance at the top of a serene hill where everything is conducive to respect.

If the road is not going to go out of sight of the memorial, then before millions are spent, we should consider shifting the 1964 memorial and the 2004 tomb of the unknown soldier to the top of the hill, so that student cars are not driving ‘above’ them.

The 1932 carillion need not be moved.

Karen Scherer in the Herald does a great backgrounder for the debate and votes coming up this week on the Bill to absorb the SFO into the Police.

Simon Power correctly makes the point that this is another move with a constitutional impact.

"You are dealing with a fundamental constitutional change to the way we deal with fraud in New Zealand. At a time when finance companies are falling over at an alarming rate, it’s just irresponsible of the Government to try to force legislation like this through the House right before an election."

Our politics give off a Berlusconi odour if Winston Peters votes on this Bill at this time. If he wanted to set an example of integrity he would announce now that he will abstain from voting on this Bill. He is under investigation. He should not take part in dissolving the institution that could tell the truth about him, in favour of a body that, sadly, now commands less confidence when confronting political wrongdoing.

In September last year I said:

"There are grounds to suspect a culture of political cowardice at very senior Police levels. If there is not cowardice there is certainly political correctness that is a soft form of corruption or favouritism. Ask the woman whose court order was ignored by the Police who watched her husband’s stolen body being buried in breach of the order.

 Among other more sinister examples is the never explained Police failure to pursue Labour’s electoral frauds. I do not trust Police HQ. They unapologetically gave recklessly or deliberately untrue written answers to some of my Parliamentary questions.  

Parliament will find it much harder in future [after subordination of the SFO to the Police] to demand accountability for pursuing white collar crime. Police are rarely called upon to report to the Opposition in Parliament on the conduct of individual cases, the way the SFO has had to account. Statutory independence allows the NZ Police immunity from pursuit of decisions to prosecute or not to prosecute, even if there is widespread anxiety about corruption.

 We should not be concentrating all the nation’s investigative resources and expertise in one organisation. It would be insurance to keep an alternative centre that could be beefed up if a septic element in the Police culture can not be eradicated.

 There is a constitutional problem too. The SFO has been given extraordinary powers, and exemptions from normal rules that protect liberties from abuse of police powers (e.g. search and seizure, the power to compel evidence from people with no culpability). Some more offensive powers are in the Criminal Proceeds Bill. When the SFO is rolled into the Police it will be impossible to sequester those exceptions. No one will want to vote to remove them. Anti-fraud laws have been misused overseas. The US RICO (Racketeering and Corrupt Organisations) law has been used now in areas remote from what the legislators would have expected."

Scherer’s article makes the point that some of the powers have been blunted, while others are being spread across the Police. My fears were well-founded.

I’m off canvassing.  Here is a copy of the message I sent to my campaign team this morning

"This morning Judy Kirk will announce the party list rankings.

We were informed of our own positions yesterday evening, but not those of anyone else.

I am in slot 60. Though current polling would put me in off the list, that is not expected to be the election day position.   Wellington Central will have me representing it only if I am elected by Wellingtonians.

When I was 16 I was not accredited with UE. I got it of course the old-fashioned way, by sitting. I feel the same now.

60 is around where I thought I would be, given that the senior party attitude has been consistently “ we are glad to have you on board, but there are no inducements, and no guarantees”.

The party list is a shop-window. It is reported as a symbol of the kind of people who will be looked after by a party. Accordingly, though I believe strongly in appointments by merit, not quota, it is imperative for the party to show  that it is not composed only of people like me. There are plenty of people my age, colour and sex, so the shop window needs to emphasize those who are not.

It is also proper for a party to tell people who come across from other parties that they need to prove themselves, to earn trust and influence. I’m backing myself to do that.

I understand that most of the list has the sitting MPs in their current ranks. It is not likely to be the blueprint for  appointments after the election.

I would have phoned you all individually, but in case you’ve been watching the rugby till 3 am, please excuse learning this way.

Please feel free to let others know who you think should.

I want Wellington to know that if it wants the extra representation it will get from me, Wellington will have to put me there.

Scots College and Marsden senior students pulled no punches yesterday in an election forum held in Marsden’s auditorium. Several hundred students listened to answers politely, but they were fully alive to the sharp points in the questions their house captains asked.

The questions were more penetrating than in most adult meetings. Admittedly they had a warm-up from parent Richard Harman, and the lunch break to prepare, but the questions were nevertheless well directed to the soft points of each party’s public persona.  My ten years on the Management Board of Marsden and daughters’ names on the honours boards did not translate to any quarter. Nor did Sue Kedgley’s old girl status.

A short question to Labour finished with the kicker "and how will you save whales?". The Marsden auditorium rocked. What a relief, that after all their education they  can still joke about our marine mammal worship. 

There was laughter again as Sue Kedgely was questioned about nuclear power, and roars when Ron Mark for NZ First was asked about corporate donations and the Spencer Trust ("we have always complied with the law").

Probably the greatest surprise to candidates was Ron Mark’s rapport with at least the vocal part of the audience. He mocked the Green favour for polluting the body (with drugs) but not the landscape. He strongly asserted NZ First’s immigation policy and shamelessly adopted National’s policy for bonding and accelerated write-offs of student loans for students who serve in New Zealand. So did the Hon Peter Dunne.

I caught a ride back to town with Ron. As his car worked through the Scots College boys he got the rap-style endorsements.

  Michael Kirby J, in Osland [2008] HCA 37 (7 August), warns State sector lawyers, and private advisers to the State, of limits on the scope of legal professional privilege  for state communication, saying at [89]

"It would be a mistake to assume that all communications with government lawyers, no matter what their origins, purpose and subject matter, fall within the ambit of the State’s legal professional privilege.  Advice taken from lawyers on issues of law reform and public policy does not necessarily attract the privilege.  Especially in the context of the [OIA], and legal advice to government, courts need to be on their guard [as they evidently had not been in the instant case, concentrating instead on issues of waiver of privilege] against any inclination of lawyers to expand the ambit of legal professional privilege beyond what is necessary and justifiable to fulfil its legal purposes."

A Maori friend once told me that we all have a lizard near our hearts that can flash out to bite others, and sometimes yourself. Some keep their lizard under tight control, others are ruled by it.

Russel Norman’s lizard must live half-way up his throat.

My Saturday post was deliberately circumspect about the extraordinary appearance of the lizard in St Andrews Church Hall on Saturday afternoon. That was partly because we all say and do things we regret in the course of election campaigns. I did not know whether his display   was his usual self, or an aberration.

From his comments in today’s DomPost he deserved no forbearance.

My  comment that triggered his lizard was not an interjection. It was a genuine reflection to Murray Smith beside me, who’d also worked with Rod Donald, on how I thought Rod Donald would have handled the situation. Still, I should not have made it then, however sincere it was.

I said so when I apologised to the audience (at least 40 people – not the 20 Norman seems to have suggested, presumably to minimise the offensiveness of his outburst). People I did not know came up to me afterwards to thank me, though most had not heard my comment. Russel did not attempt to apologise to them (and of course not to me).

I’d previously wound Norman up by describing as "fake protections" the Green amendments to our Bio-fuels bill to require that the fuels come from sustainable sources. They must know that in a global market, what we take from dubiously "sustainable" sources will just increase the price for similar ehanol from other (grain) sources. Their amendments do not sanitise the bill. They should ask that it be deferred until the science has caught up. I’ve been concerned about this law for some time.

I’ve heard Green spokespeople excusing eco-terrorism (against GM food research) because of the terrible risks they’re opposing. But Russell Norman seems to consider the fate of the millions whose rice price has doubled to be trivial, compared to his desire not to hear harsh words in an election debate.

To me the the continued Green demand for this law is a deplorable instance of political embarassment triumphing over genuine concern for the environment, not to mention the 300 million starving as grain is turned into fuel.

Rod Donald  was a genuine role model for the Greens. He was a hard political fighter. But he had a debating integrity I trusted. My first Select Committee minority report was signed by us both. When he and I served on the MMP review committee, we both thought the issues were worth debating seriously. Sure he brought his party’s preconceptions to the table, but he wanted to argue the substance.

Nor would he have wasted the Forum’s time point-scoring with false descriptions of the Building Act before the knee-jerk and expensive "leaky buildings changes.

This post is from NCPA’s website, specifically to wind up Jordan, who has commented on my earlier posts on the debate about the stereotypical characteristics of the left and the right.

In his new book, "Makers and Takers,"  Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University,  explores why conservatives work harder, feel happier, have closer families, take fewer drugs, give more generously, value honesty more, are less materialistic and envious, whine less and even hug their children more than liberals.

Using the latest data and research, Schweizer shows that the claims that conservatives are mean-spirited, greedy, selfish malcontents with authoritarian tendencies are a myth.  Instead, he finds that many of these claims actually apply more to liberals than to conservatives. 

For example:

• Some 71 percent of conservatives say you have an obligation to care for a seriously injured spouse or parent versus less than half (46 percent) of liberals.
• Conservatives have a better work ethic and are much less likely to call in sick than their liberal counterparts.
• Liberals are two and a half times more likely to be resentful of others’ success and 50 percent more likely to be jealous of other people’s good luck.
• Liberals are two times more likely to say it is okay to cheat the government out of welfare money you don’t deserve.
• Some 55 percent of conservatives say they get satisfaction from putting someone else’s happiness ahead of their own, versus only 20 percent of liberals.
• Those who are "very liberal" are three times more likely than conservatives to throw things when they get angry.

Schweizer argues that the failure lies in modern liberal ideas, which foster a self-centered, "if it feels good do it" attitude that leads liberals to outsource their responsibilities to the government and focus instead on themselves and their own desires. 

Source: Peter Schweizer, "Makers and Takers," Doubleday, June 3, 2008.