The master of the container ship Rena celebrated his birthday on Wednesday last week, the day the ship ran aground on the Astrolabe reef. Will he, we wonder, be celebrating his next birthday at sea?

And on the subject of the stricken container ship, why were Ministers so slow in showing up at Tauranga? Too many appointments at the Rugby stadiums?

Simon Power, who is retiring from politics after 12 years in Parliament, is to become a banking executive, heading Westpac’s private banking arm for wealthy clients. Once tipped as a potential future National leader, Power took his colleagues by surprise when he announced his pending retirement in March. It seems at the time he had no idea what he would do once he left politics, but started receiving offers soon afterwards, and settled on the Westpac job only in recent weeks. Labour’s finance spokesman David Cunliffe commented (rather sourly, we thought), Power had been serving the interests of the wealthy in the National Govt anyway.

Speaker Lockwood Smith, who has been staunch in his efforts to raise parliamentary standards, antagonised many of those who had been praising him when he imposed sanctions on all five of the NZ Herald’s press gallery staff. The stiff penalty, which would have restricted the paper’s capacity to cover politics was then softened, possibly when someone pointed out it wouldn’t be a great help to National if journos went feral just weeks before the election campaign begins. The Speaker put the ban on the Herald after one of the Herald’s reporters had broken the rule on taking and publishing a photograph taken in the House. There has been speculation Dr Smith would be in line to become NZ’s High Commissioner in London next year. His action against the Herald staff suggests he has some way to go in honing his diplomatic skills. He’s having a go at it in Washington
where will talk with Congressional leaders on the need to accelerate negotiations on the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal.

ACT has confirmed the vacant spot on its list is to be filled by Catherine Isaac. She’s a highly respected figure in the capital. But even her presence on the list may not be enough to save ACT, whose candidate in Epsom John Banks is said to be well behind National’s Paul Goldsmith.

Labour’s Charles Chauvel didn’t react well when blogger David Farrar exposed what we thought to be a rather blatant attempt at selfpromotion. He accused National allies of hacking his email and trying to paint him as a gay “rich prick.” Farrar’s Kiwiblog had published a copy of an email which urged lawyers to put their names to a letter for publication in the Dominion-Post praising the work of Chauvel on a Bill before Parliament. Farrar says the email was sent just before 2am on September 25 from a Gmail account in Chauvel’s name. Strangely, Chauvel refused to say whether he wrote the email.

One of India’s biggest banks, Bank of India, has through a wholly owned subsidiary, opened for business in NZ. Bank of Baroda gained a local banking licence earlier. So
can a FTA with India be far behind?

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