Fiasco 1: Broadcasting Rights for the Rugby World Cup
One of Labour's achievements was to secure the hosting here in 2011 of the Rugby World Cup. It will be a huge event, the biggest in our sporting history.
But the Government's management of it will have to improve dramatically or we will become a laughing stock.
Seven Ministers were involved in securing free-to-air broadcasting rights to the Cup in New Zealand. But they seemed not to be talking, listening or cooperating with each other.
Instead we had the unseemly sight of Ministers slagging off each other, Departmental heads and broadcasting agencies.
And worst, we have two taxpayer-funded agencies using public money to bid against each other and increase the price we would be paying to the International Rugby Board.
The deal for free-to-air viewing rights should not have required additional taxpayer funding in the first place. That only increases the price demanded for the rights. It should have been a commercial deal hammered out by the TV companies.
And to have Ministers leak confidential and commercially-sensitive information to help one side against the other will make anyone nervous about giving such information to the Government in future.
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Fiasco 2: ACC
Last week the Government moved urgency in the House and released a draft Bill dealing with climate change that it wants to rush in.
Only trouble was Nick Smith had failed to check whether anyone else was prepared to support it – and no Party was.
There are good reasons for that.
National, having tried to exaggerate the problems facing ACC, had a prescription which involves pushing up costs to Kiwis and cutting the protection available to them.
And now to attract ACT support, they are proposing privatising the Employers' Account which covers workplace injuries.
As Merrill Lynch pointed out last year, the big beneficiary of this would be the large Australian insurance companies who stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profits each year from New Zealand.
The losers would be ordinary New Zealanders who will have to pay more to get less, because the profit factor would siphon money away from injury prevention, income support and rehabilitation.
Even many of the employers are speaking out against it, and Treasury is unenthusiastic.
Sadly, the Maori Party, which last week condemned privatisation and cuts, are now supporting introduction of the legislation.
Labour has clear ideas on how to improve ACC but they do not involve slashing core assistance to Kiwis with genuine injuries and trauma, nor privatising the service.
Fiasco 3: The Emissions Trading Scheme
The release of Treasury papers now reveals the dishonesty of Nick Smith's claims and the economic cost of the changes National wants to make.
The taxpayer will be subsidising heavy emitters, the polluters, by around $30 billion by 2050.
This from a Government that says scarce resources demands cutting community education, ACC and funding of superannuation!
What's more, it removes the incentive for polluters to reduce their emissions.
Treasury papers also challenged the adequacy of the Government's analysis of the costs the scheme imposes and the lack of analysis of the regulatory impact.
National is embarrassed by this and tried to rush through the hearing of submissions in one day, when over 300 submissions have been made.
People were given less that 12 or 24 hours' notice of the need for them to turn up at the Select Committee. Thankfully, Labour intervened and the period has now been extended – although it is still woefully short for an issue of such importance.
No wonder the media has branded these situations as a shambles.
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