The Insider: Big city, big issues

Impatience with the Auckland Council and the lack of progress on national issues is growing. Photo / Brett Phibbs

National MPs and ministers have been debating for some time what to do about the "Auckland Problem". Impatience with the Auckland Council and the lack of progress on issues which create nationwide headaches has been growing, and there is equal frustration at the performance of right-leaning councillors. Labour and National have shied away from direct links with local body politics, but the unified Auckland Council is becoming too big to ignore. Senior National Party members are now leaning towards an informal association with selected candidates, who would get campaign assistance in exchange for working on like-minded policies. There is still some debate about whether this might extend to backing a mayoral candidate. National's Maurice Williamson has been touted as a possible contender, but he might be more of a maverick in dealing with the government than Labour's Phil Goff.

Good luck ...

Tourism bosses have their work cut out for them as they continue knocking on doors around Parliament to oppose the new border levy. The Coalition Against Travel Tax is headed by the Tourism Industry Association, and says it will fight the "proposed" tax on people crossing the border. The problem is, the law has been passed, the regulations are being drafted and the Government is factoring the expected revenue into new border security spending. It would take an awesome lobbying effort to turn things around at this late stage.

McCully's secrets

One surprising thing about the Saudi sheep affair is that any material at all was released under the Official Information Act. Foreign Minister Murray McCully's disdain for this law is widely known, and what has been released shows his disregard for process and keeping the Prime Minister and Cabinet colleagues fully informed. Despite ministers standing by McCully in public, privately there is a great deal of disquiet over events and what they were told about them. Still, McCully is in the perfect role to discover lots of urgent business overseas that needs his attention.

Book online

In a sign that Wellington isn't quite dead yet, Quilters bookshop - an institution whose closure this year was seen as another sign of decline - has reopened, after a fashion. The second-hand bookshop, which survived at the Parliament end of Lambton Quay for more than 20 years, has been missed by many. It has now been reborn online, with a storage facility at the Trades Hall building in Vivian Street. It may not be quite the same for those who craved the smell of musty books amid the bland retail offerings of Lambton Quay, but it's better than nothing.

Time traveller

One of the most precious commodities in politics is time, as Maori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell is rapidly finding out. Work on the reform of Maori land law has been going on for some time. However, it is a fraught issue that has to balance the rights and complications associated with communal ownership and the desire to make better use of thousands of hectares of under-used land. Flavell decided to follow the path of his predecessors and try building a consensus before introducing legislation, with the intention of introducing a bill this year. Now this has been delayed again, and Flavell is aiming to have the bill before the House early next year. It seems some people are not convinced that creating another layer of bureaucracy by establishing the Maori Land Service and the Ture Whenua Network will provide a silver bullet. Others are suspicious about why the new bureaucracy is being set up before the legislation has been passed.

High achievers

Who said there were no jobs? Photo / Getty Images

Thousands of keen drug users are finding a novel form of employment, the Financial Times reports. They are being put to work on clinical trials for some of the world's biggest drug companies, trying to develop "abuse deterrent" painkillers, to reduce America's addiction to prescription drugs. "Participants are given the pills and asked to abuse them. They must then rate how enjoyable the experience is," the FT reports. The goal is to come up with something that dulls pain, but isn't too much fun. The pay isn't bad - about US$250-US$300 a day ($380-$460). Who said there were no jobs?