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Saturday, June 28, 2008

STUFF.CO.NZ: PM forces disabled man to walk

A partially sighted Christchurch man with Parkinson's disease was forced to struggle down the street to his car after Prime Minister Helen Clark's security commandeered parking spaces.

Clark was "very shocked" by the incident, and police have apologised.

Clark's security meant Elizabeth Winkworth was unable to park outside the Christchurch Town Hall to pick up her husband, Marshall Leaf, 81, after a performance by the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra on Friday night last week. more

Political Animal comment In the wake of finger wagging and rib poking over the Maori History gaff by Labour this week and the scandal over Ms Clark removing the democratic right for 10% of the population to have a referendum over the anti smacking legislation, we have an arrogant Mugabe-like convoy of $200,000.00 BMW limos inconveniencing an individual with Parkinson's disease.

Of course there is a track record for Clark and transport related slip ups. She is well known for endagering the proletariat when her comfy limo sped at 170km through a 50km zone on the way to watch a rugby game.

NZ HERALD: Latest Digipoll political poll

5:00AM Saturday June 28, 2008
By Claire Trevett

Political Animal comment: Will Ms Clark call this latest poll in a trend since October 2007 another "rouge poll"?

The Herald DigiPoll does not include reactions to Clark's attempt to stiffle democractic freedoms again by delaying the anti smacking referendum until after the 2008 election and the gaff by Labour over Maori History this week.

Labour's support in Auckland has dropped dramatically in the Herald's latest DigiPoll survey after a month in which violence in South Auckland and soaring petrol prices dominated the public's attention.

The June Herald-DigiPoll shows Labour's support in Auckland has dropped to 28.2 per cent - 10 points down from last month when it was sitting on 38 per cent support.It is also well behind National, which 58 per cent of decided voters in Auckland supported.National also increased its nationwide support to 54.9 per cent - its highest level since the Herald-DigiPoll survey began - and widened the gap between the two parties from 15 points in May to 22.5 points this month.

Labour's nationwide support has dropped four points since last month to 32.4 per cent, but the drubbing in Auckland - often described as the place elections are won and lost - will be of major concern for the party.However, Helen Clark's standing in the preferred Prime Minister stakes has not been hurt - she rose to 45 per cent, while John Key dropped one point to 46 per cent.

The polling period took in a month dominated by crime following a spate of homicides and violence in South Auckland. Yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister said this had clearly impacted on the polls.However, she said Helen Clark's leadership on the matter was reflected in the preferred Prime Minister rankings.National Party leader John Key said Labour's lack of action on violent crime had lost it support."This confirms the trend in other polls that people are rejecting Labour's economic management and are frustrated by the increasingly violent society for which it has no answers."The economy continued to rate as the top issue likely to affect respondents' vote (23.8 per cent).But public concern about crime saw law and order selected as the next issue most likely to affect voting, rising to nearly a quarter of respondents (23.4 per cent) - up from just 11 per cent in May. It overtook tax cuts (19 per cent) as the second biggest issue.

Among the minor parties, NZ First received a boost to 3.3 per cent - tantalisingly close to the 5 per cent threshold for automatically qualifying for seats in Parliament - after the month's emphasis on crime and the Super Gold Card gains leader Winston Peters secured in the Budget.The Green Party (5.9 per cent) remained the only smaller party polling over 5 per cent.This is also the first full DigiPoll survey since the Budget and shows Labour has not reaped any dividends from targeting low- and middle-income earners with its tax cuts package and help under Working for Families.National has made inroads into one of Labour's strongest support bases - those on low incomes. Among households with incomes under $30,000, 38.6 per cent supported National to Labour's 40 per cent. National was strongly dominant among the middle-income earners, with 54 per cent of those earning $30,000-60,000 and 57 per cent of those earning $60,000-80,000.However, National has yet to release its policies on key issues including Working for Families, as well as its tax cut package.

The widening gap between the two main parties reflects the results of three other polls released last week by Fairfax, Roy Morgan and One News-Colmar Brunton, which the Prime Minister said were "extreme".The poll of 1210 respondents was taken between June 6 and 25 and has a margin of error of 2.8 per cent.

The results are of decided voters only.

Related Political Animal Reading

Helen Clark kicks democracy below the belt

Friday, June 27, 2008

Accountability: It's such a lonely word

Accountability, a simple word, meaning basically taking responsibility for your actions or lack of or in this case having responsibility forced on you by means of law or by a third party.

The meaning of accountability though seems to have gone over the heads of those at the Institute of Chartered Accountants, when Bruce Arnold Mincham and Michael Derek Wood, directors at Queen St accountants O'Halloran HMT, were censured and ordered to pay costs of $133,347.18 over their involvement in the collapse of National Finance 2000.

Mincham and Wood breached some basic accountancy rules. They failed to report in writing to the Covenant Trustee Company of breaches to the trust deed and neglected to ascertain sufficiently, National Finance's claim that advances made to motor vehicle dealers were secured over the trading assets of the companies and by personal guarantees.

At the very least these two accountants should have been struck off as Chartered Accountants, for life.

At the upper end of the scale, striking off and a much larger fine would probably have been more appropriate. In this way the pair may have been able to have more sympathy for some of those small investors that lost their life savings with National Finance 2000, losses that were aided and abetted by the slackness and lack of care for their profession.

Small investors placed their faith in these accountants that the company they were doing the accounts for was operating in a safe and professional way and it was partially their responsibly to let the appropriate powers that be know that something was going wrong.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants, like the Real Estate Institute, Registered Master Builders Federation and others have always been backward when coming forward when it comes to censuring their members and the IOCA should be ashamed of their slap on the hand with a wet bus ticket attitude to their two highly tarnished members.

These two will only be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the last two years and the 24 finance company collapses that have so far occurred. The IOCA decision could have been the start of something positive-responsibility for actions taken and a promise of more to come. Instead, with so far over 2 billion dollars at risk, zero people have been held to account, be they accountants, financial advisers or finance company directors.

This area of investing, like much of the investing and finance industry in New Zealand seems highly protected, incestuous and highly cosseted by those on the inside. Not on this blog though.

There appears to be at least one other finance company ready to do a belly flop next week, according to Leighton Smith this week on Newstalk ZB, and risks to even some of the bigger more respected ones also look to be growing.