Extraordinary urgency

As I write the House has almost gone through the speeches for the Excise and Excise-Equivalent Duties Tables (Tobacco Products) Amendment Bill, which will be passed under extraordinary urgency tonight to stop people rushing off and buying smokes in the morning after reading the newspapers. As David Farrar notes, this type of urgency is so rare, it needs the permission of the Speaker under Standing Order 56(3) . He must be convinced “that the business to be taken justifies it”.

Tax on cigarettes will go up 10 percent at midnight tonight with a further 10% increase next January and a third increase of 10% in January 2012. All but four Act MP support this bill. Well done to Tariana Turia for putting the bill before the House and to Hone Harawira for pushing the issue. Well done to Tau Henare for giving up smoking. And I thought Hekia Parata gave a good speech. You can see that here.

What role will the Maori Party have?

As many will know, unlike these amateurs, I have picked all along that the Maori Party will side with National outside of a formal coalition. And it will.

John Key is to meet the Maori Party tomorrow to discuss what role it will have in the next government. The Maori Party has already prepared a policy paper. I'm hoping the Maori Party won’t seek a coalition agreement - there would be too many “agree to disagree” clauses – particularly with Dunne in there. In 2005 Labour already had the numbers to form a government and was not prepared to meet enough of the party's bottom lines to win its support, so I’m hoping this doesn’t happen this year.

Key should get a good agreement with the Maori Party and give it some responsibility if he doesn’t want his new government to be a one term government. I’d like to see the Maori Party with ministerial roles in Education and Health and I recon they will - with Georgina Te Heu heu to have Maori Affairs. But I don't think the latter will happen. Yet education is an important portfolio for the Maori Party to have some influence over as 46% of Maori are under 20.

National is not abolishing the Maori seats in this parliamentary term and so the seats should not be an issue – therefore a bill from the Maori Party to entrench the seats should not be too much of a dead rat to swallow if push comes to shove.

But I don’t think it will. Perhaps in return for some good budgetary roles National will convince the Maori Party to delay introducing its bill on the Maori seats. After all, getting a good education and securing employment is more important than having a choice of electoral rolls. Mana motuhake and Whanau ora is more important than entrenching seats that aren’t going to be removed any time soon.

Wellington DHB Head quits

Margot Mains resigned a few months ago but she announced that she has quit today.

Bet Mains wouldn`t have quit had the Dominion Post not published a series of stories that Capital Coast Health has been trying to hide from the media for the past two years.Perhaps the whole board may now get fired after the report revealed 23 serious or fatal incidents at the hosptal between 2003 and 2005. That's one patient every single month

The Dominion Post first requested copies of the health board's reports, known as serious and sentinel events, in August 2005. Capital and Coast refused to release them. The newspaper made an appeal to the Office of the Ombudsmen, which consulted the Privacy Commissioner.
Ombudsman Beverley Wakem found there was a public interest in maintaining patient privacy and confidentiality in the reporting process, but she found this was outweighed by the public interest in promoting accountability. She ordered Capital and Coast to issue versions of the reports without the names of patients or health staff.

When the reports were made public this year, some contained so many deletions they were unintelligible. The Dominion Post then asked the Ombudsmen to review four cases. In one case, the health board was told to provide more information and summarise the case.

Hers the statement from Mains:

Recent events have led to a deterioration of confidence in the organization, and its quality of care delivery. It is my duty to take accountability. It is inappropriate for me to continue in the role.

Interpretation: The Dominion Post has done what I have been trying so hard for two years to prevent. Now everyone knows what a mess this place is in I may as well go now as to be effectively sacked won`t look good on my CV.