The Insider: Ship ahoy!

KiwiRail under fire from National's Annabel Young. Photo / Rebecca Ryan

Annabel Young, a former National MP and author of The Good Lobbyist's Guide, has been getting in ministers' ears, urging them to stop subsidising the loss-making operations of KiwiRail, where unsubsidised private operators provide an alternative service. There is some sympathy in the Beehive, where many feel they are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars down a black hole, with very little positive effect. But it is also noted that Young is now the executive director of the New Zealand Shipping Federation, so no vested interest at work there then.

Block-buster
The legal challenge to Global Mode, the system designed to bypass geo-blocking of overseas TV services, has set the cat among the pigeons. Many see it as a grave threat to internet freedom and a futile attempt to hold back the global tide, as opposed to those who feel they are protecting expensive digital property rights. The Insider overheard one well-known industry commentator agreeing that technology has well and truly outpaced legislation, but also pointing out comments by Slingshot on nzherald.co.nz last year. As Slingshot said at the time, "No beating around the bush. This is to watch Netflix, this is to watch BBC iPlayer, this is to watch Hulu, this is to watch Amazon Prime". That should give the other side's lawyers a good target to fire at.

Cash quest...
News that the Government is likely to miss its self-imposed timetable for returning the books to surplus is hardly a shock to economists, but the political symbolism is not lost on ministers. National set the target, and has emphasised its economic management credentials, so it has made a rod for its own back. Despite the improving fiscal outlook, this year's Budget is probably Finance Minister Bill English's most difficult to write. Most of it is now set in stone, but with numbers bouncing around and the margin of surplus/deficit so narrow, the final Budget document will be a last minute job by usual standards. English may even consider new revenue streams and there is some chatter that he might look to Australia, which is introducing a "Netflix tax" to force online service providers to collect GST, or the UK, which has slapped multinational tech companies with a "Google Tax" to stop them shifting untaxed profits out of the country.

... Ideas quest

Labour leader Andrew Little.

Labour leader Andrew Little is attending Anzac commemorations at Gallipoli, where, coincidentally, his predecessor Helen Clark will also be present. Perhaps he can get some advice on caucus control and influencing the polls. Little is also off to Britain, where Labour is in a dogfight with the Conservatives and a host of other parties to win power in next month's election. As well, he will be meeting the French economist Thomas Piketty, whose work on wealth and inequality has become a touchstone for many on the left. Perhaps Little will return with some fresh ideas.

Say it again

Prime Minister Norman Kirk, November 1969.

Not much is new in politics, and parties in New Zealand and overseas are all keen to grab ideas from others. John Ansell's infamous "Iwi/Kiwi" billboards for National's 2005 campaign have popped up in various forms around the world. Now, a gentler slogan from an older New Zealand politician is being used in the British elections, most notably by Labour in Scotland. It's Norman Kirk's line - "Someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work and something to hope for" - which has become a common refrain. Some say Kirk's catchy line wasn't entirely original, and was an adaptation of a slogan from US politics in the 1840s. Yet another reminder to politicians and political commentators that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Off-camera
Many governments bend over backwards to attract big Hollywood studios to work in their countries. But the Welsh Assembly has turned down a request for a scene in a forthcoming James Bond film to be filmed in the Assembly's chamber. It said the probable scale of what was proposed, the risk to the chamber and potential disruption to business was too great. Perhaps the the movie-makers should have tried New Zealand, where the Government has proven more than accommodating to the studios.