Transtasman Political Letter – 19 October Digest
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19th October 2006
PM seeks to “move on,” but the Brady report’s impact won’t go away just yet
... Parliament shows it’s still makes “the fastest law in the West”
... We have a question for Brady. Will he root out “electioneering” miss-spending in other areas of Govt?
... Peters and Dunne jostle each other in claiming credit for tax cuts
... Trouble looms at the Pacific Forum
... And is there a new aristocracy in state houses?
Polls To Assess Brady Damage
Polling this week will be closely watched by politicians of all stripes to determine the extent of damage they have
suffered from the Brady report.
Back To “Fastest Law In The West”
The speed with which the Govt rushed through legislation validating unlawful election spending recalled Sir Geoffrey
Palmer’s cherished phrase “the fastest law in the west” which he stigmatised as the constitutional deficiency of regimes
in the first-past-the-post era.
Brady To Be Canonised? Not By Govt
Kevin Brady got rave reviews for his report into advertising expenditure incurred by the Parliamentary Service in the
three months before the 2005 election. The NZ Herald virtually canonised him in an editorial.
Jostling For Tax Cut Credit
Both NZ First’s Winston Peters and United Future’s Peter Dunne are jostling to claim the credit for personal tax cuts
they say are coming, despite the reluctance shown by Michael Cullen.
CAPITAL TALK
Three key figures are missing from Parliament this week: National’s John Carter, Labour’s Lynne Pillay and Green’s Nandor Tanczos. They are all in Geneva, attending the 107-years-old, 140-member Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly.
Play Of The Week: Warnings >From The ‘Real’ World
Parliament went into urgency to validate its election spending, producing a display of massed butt-covering and finger
pointing you can normally see in the monkeys’ enclosure at the zoo.
Transtasman is a subscriber newsletter published weekly and read widely in New Zealand and abroad. The above is a
summary of this week's edition. To subscribe and read the full newsletter see.. http://Transtasman.co.nz