The Insider: Serious fun

Tricky stuff, satire. After PM John Key noted how many Aucklanders were benefiting from higher house prices, the New Zealand Initiative think tank suggested we'd all be better off if other assets also rose in value. For example, suggested executive director Oliver Hartwich, if the law banned importing cars or making them locally, car prices would soon rise, and - voila - we'd all feel richer. After getting inquiries from people who apparently took him seriously, Hartwich last week felt obliged to issue a clarification, pointing out that he was joking.

Firm hand

One of the revelations of this Parliament has been the performance of Trevor Mallard as assistant Speaker. While some Labour MPs think he picks on them a bit much with pedantic rulings, his love of the institution and knowledge of standing orders has forced many MPs to lift their game. Other MPs noticeably avoid speaking when he is in the chair. It would be fascinating to see how he performed if he ever got the chance to be Speaker.

Expensive deaf ears

All may not be going well with the Government's attempt to rein in some of its departments' IT spending. The chief information officer at the Department of Internal Affairs was meant to lead the state sector's handling of these issues. But some departments' IT staff and contractors are essentially ignoring attempts to co-ordinate their work. Internal Affairs says the "challenge is to establish new ways of engaging and communicating with chief executives and ICT leaders to further strengthen support and commitment for this work". Translated, this means "they aren't listening to us and we can't really think of a way to make them".

Blow by blow tally

Joseph Parker's fight was worth $3550 per second. Photo / Getty Images

The Insider has always had doubts about the precision of economic impact studies, but there's no holding back a keen economist. Research organisation Infometrics this week issued a press release trumpeting the value to Invercargill of the recent Joseph Parker/Bowie Tupou boxing match. Not content with a round figure, it crunched the attendance numbers and spending patterns and estimated it right down to the value per second - $3550. As the fight was over in only 63 seconds, that means the grand tally was $223,636 for the southern city. Precisely.

Stepping out in style

Politicians like to wear their colours on their sleeves - or in Louise Upston's case, on her leg. The Taupo MP is sporting a cast in National Party blue after being injured at the Parliamentary Netball World Cup.

Dead-cert bet

Former National MP and United Future candidate Graeme Reeves has been reappointed once again as the chief gambling commissioner. He was appointed for the first time in December 2010, reappointed in 2012 and has just been reappointed for a third term by Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne.

League of sexists

Jacinda Ardern

There has been a bit of fuss over what a former rugby league coach thinks about Jacinda Ardern's appeal as a potential Prime Minister, though why his views matter is a bit of a puzzle. More tellingly, some in Labour have privately been catty about Ardern scoring so well in the Herald Mood of the Boardroom survey, where she outrated party leader Andrew Little and finance spokesman Grant Robertson. Some maintain that it's not Ardern's brain that appeals to the mainly male and middle-aged CEOs. Good old-fashioned sexism, it seems, is alive and well in boardrooms, league clubs and political parties.

The write stuff ...

In this age of instant reporting, it is easy to make mistakes in the rush to get the news out first. One media outlet with a better reputation than many for accuracy got a bit carried away and posted a Tweet headed: "Police shoot dead cow as it rampages through Whanganui". A zombie cow terrorising the public would indeed have been a great story.

The rush to get the news also led to numerous journalists becoming overexcited when Peter Dunne issued a press release headed "Dunne to stand aside in Ohariu". Some were already speculating about a by-election, but just a few paragraphs into the statement it became clear that Dunne was teasing about selecting a youth MP to represent his electorate at the upcoming youth parliament.