The Insider: Owen Glenn's inside stories

Owen Glenn (above) and Alan Gibbs are both wealthy, colourful, outspoken - and about to burst into print.

Opinion

Stand by for books on two of the business world's more colourful characters. In July, Random House is bringing out Making a Difference, the autobiography of multi-millionaire, political patron and philanthropist Owen Glenn. The month after that, the same publisher is promising Serious Fun, the bio of economic reformer, art-lover and car fan Alan Gibbs. The Gibbs bio is penned by business writer - and now National list MP - Paul Goldsmith.

INTERESTING INTERESTS
Much of the media coverage of the latest register of MPs' pecuniary interests has focused on how many benefited from corporate largesse to attend Rugby World Cup matches. Most embarrassingly for some Labour MPs, this came from SkyCity, though to be fair, in the Orwellian world of politics they were not to know that Labour would later declare its lifelong enmity towards SkyCity and its evil pokie machines. What has outraged some National MPs even more is the behaviour of their Auckland Central colleague Nikki Kaye, whose declaration lists no assets apart from her own super scheme - no trusts, no rental properties, no companies ... This is very poor form for a capitalist.

BAD NEWS
Many National ministers have long been privately contemptuous of Radio New Zealand, believing is biased against them. But Gerry Brownlee has now gone public with his views on RNZ, accusing Labour in Parliament of wanting to give money to "dopey" organisations like "Radio New Zealand" - which rather suggests that the financial lid on the state broadcaster is likely to go on sinking for a while yet.

NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Never mind those Grey Lynn villas selling for a mere million-plus - Britain's costliest private residence has had a bit of a do-up and is now reckoned to be worth at least £200 million ($413 million), reports the Daily Mail. Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, bought 185-year-old Dudley House in London's Park Lane for £37.4 million in 2006 and has since spent £75 million renovating the property, which now covers 4000sq m and includes 17 bedrooms and 14 reception rooms.

HOLY ORDERS
There has been plenty of opposition to the Government's move to put the Charities Commission into the Department of Internal Affairs. Opponents are worried that it will lead to a loss of independence, and open the way to ministerial interference on crucial decisions about organisations' charitable status. But even the staunchest defenders of the commission have acknowledged it could take an overly bureaucratic approach at times: one MP recalled that it denied the Anglican Church charitable status because of the lack of a wind-up clause in its documentation. The MP mused that perhaps the church should have inserted a "second coming clause" to satisfy the commission.

SEX AND THE CITY
The link between streetwalkers and bank fundraising may not be immediately apparent, but there is a connection, Labour's David Cunliffe told Parliament this week. Speaking about a bill proposing regulation of "covered bonds" - an instrument banks use to raise money, which may prejudice the interests of deposit-holders - Cunliffe said he wrestled with his conscience over the issue in the same way he did over the vote to make prostitution legal. The similarity? Something unsavoury was happening in the marketplace and the question was whether it was better to ignore it or regulate it? As for prostitution, so for bonds, decided Cunliffe: regulation is the way to go.

DRIP, DRIP, DRIP
Parliament's reputation for leaks keeps getting worse. Leaks of information are so common that they are ho-hum, but it is the other kind of leak that is starting to cause some real damage. First the Beehive roof needed large amounts of money spent on it to deal with leaks. Now Bowen House - the home of many MPs across the road in Lambton Quay - has had a water valve blow, cutting off the computers on 12 floors of the building.

FUEL FAILURE
Clean, green New Zealand may be an overstatement, suggests a report out this week. The Grant Thornton International Business Report asked companies in 40 countries whether they were using alternative transport fuels, or considering doing so. And where did we rate? Dead last, with only 7 per cent of Kiwi firms answering yes. In Japan, the figure was 48 per cent, the US scored 27 per cent and Australia 15 per cent. The report's sponsors charitably note that ours is a nation of small businesses, which don't have the size to consider such actions, and which are currently more concerned with their own survival, than with saving the planet.