The Insider: Hands on the levers

The composition of Cabinet committees has been decided, including - importantly - who chairs what. These committees have a huge influence on policy and what gets priority. They are also testing areas for officials, as they are one forum where they interact with many ministers at the same time. The committees' makeup confirms the rise of Paula Bennett, who will chair the social policy committee. John Key is to chair the strategy committee, and Bill English the economic growth and infrastructure committee. English also retains control of public sector policy, chairing the state sector reform and expenditure control committee. As usual, many ministers - and even David Seymour - are on the appointments and honours committee. No one underestimates the power of being able to advance those who share similar views or interests, and block those they disagree with.

Quick bucks
Many investors don't suffer from any lack of confidence, suggests a survey out this week. Asked how long it would take to decide how to invest $10,000, half of those questioned replied a day or less. When the stakes were raised to $100,000, 17 per cent still believed 24 hours or less was time enough - and 2 per reckoned half an hour would do. The survey was done for the Financial Markets Authority, by Colmar Brunton.

Confident speaker
It is a sign of John Key's confidence that he has agreed to be the first incumbent Prime Minister to take part in Victoria University's post-election analysis conference. These post-mortems have been held since 1987. Winston Peters will also be there and perhaps they can agree that this year's campaign was one of, if not the most, crazy of all time. The conferences have resulted in several books, including The Baubles of Office in 2005, Key to Victory in 2008 and Kicking the Tyres in 2011. Organisers will probably welcome suggestions for the next edition - When the Going Gets Weird, perhaps, Dirty Little Secrets, or ...?

Par for the course
Housing developers appear intent on chasing Auckland golfers off their greens. At the Property Council's residential development summit on Wednesday, two influential Aucklanders chatted over morning tea about forcing the Remuera Golf Club off its Abbotts Way site, owned by the Auckland Council, so they could buy and build on the land. "Those golfers should be made to either stump up the money for the land or leave," one influencer told the other. It's already happened at the Manukau Golf Course and there are proposals to sell other courses, or parts thereof, for housing.

Out of place
Who was the highly placed - and paid - executive at an Auckland Council-controlled organisation, who dropped in at one of its branch offices recently, apparently unaware that it had moved to another location months earlier?

Pressure of work
It's only an Australian study, but findings from Roy Morgan may also apply to Kiwi workers. The polling company found sales support workers are the most stressed occupation, 48 per cent experiencing stress in the past 12 months. Hospitality workers (38 per cent) legal, social and welfare professionals (35 per cent) and carers and aides (35 per cent) also reported above-average stress levels.

Subsidy-power
Critics of "corporate welfare" may have a good point, but a little international perspective doesn't hurt. For instance, some point the finger at subsidies for research, particularly for the primary sector, but this is peanuts in the global scheme. Recent data shows OECD members spent US$258 billion in agriculture subsidies last year. The lowest levels of support were in New Zealand, Australia and Chile, where less than 3 per cent of gross farm receipts came from "policy transfers". In Norway, Switzerland, Japan, Korea and Iceland, between a half and two-thirds of gross farm receipts came from policy transfers.

Rules? What rules?
The State Services Commission is considering creating a variation to the public sector's 'Standards of Integrity and Conduct' for ministerial advisers working directly for ministers on event-based contracts. These people are generally political appointees who work in ways that are mysterious to most civil servants. What will be most surprising to current and past ministerial advisers is the idea that these standards ever applied to them. Most would be unaware such a document existed.