Kiwiblog

Q+A interviewed former Labour PM and NZ’s rep to the IWC, Sir Geoffrey Palmer:

GEOFFREY No I’m saying that’s the number of permits that are issued, the number of – they don’t always kill the number that they issue permits for, they’re killing on average over 1600 whales a year right now commercially.

GUYON So how many will be killed after this proposal should it go ahead?

GEOFFREY We don’t know because that hasn’t been negotiated yet, but unless it’s a substantial reduction it won’t be worth countries like New Zealand considering, it has to be a substantial reduction, that’s the whole purpose of this exercise.

And this is what Labour is campaigning against – a substantial reduction in whaling. They are saying best to have futile protests against whaling, rather than actually achieve a reduction.

GUYON You’re saying that the moratorium on commercial whaling won’t actually be lifted, under what grounds then will whales be killed under this proposal?

GEOFFREY They’ll be killed under an interim arrangement that for ten years there will be an ability for the Whaling Commission to function. This is one of the worst international organisations we have, it is completely dysfunctional, it is a place where there are enormous disputes. For the last two years there’s been a complicated international negotiation going on, to try and bring it together so it can work, because if it doesn’t work it will collapse, and if it collapses there’ll be nothing to protect the whales.

People don’t realise that Japan and allies are close to gaining a majority on the IWC, which would allow them to remove all barriers on whaling. That will be great for the protest movement but not so good for the whales.

GUYON This is though with all respect, a major change in New Zealand’s position on whaling. I mean we have had a staunch opposition to any form of commercial whaling and now we’re saying that we are potentially supporting a proposal that would allow that under certain grounds.

GEOFFREY We’re not saying that, we’re saying that we have to do something to fix the position of whales and make it better so fewer are killed. We’re not supporting commercial whaling, I don’t think New Zealand will ever support that. The question is how you achieve your objectives. The only other way of looking at this question is to offer to litigate at the International Court of Justice as Australia is offering to do, we regard that as a very uncertain proposition at all, and if that case were lost the situation would be worse than it is now.

Yet Chris Carter continues to misrepresent even his former Leader, on this issue by claiming NZ is supporting commercial whaling.

The Australian reports:

THE codename chosen for a secret policing operation to protect US President Barack Obama during his visit to Australia sounds innocuous enough.

But calling it Operation Blue Gum, after Australia’s iconic native trees, almost caused an international embarrassment.

US consular officials were aghast when briefed by their counterparts in the NSW Police Force about the title, Blue Gum. In America, a “bluegum” is offensive slang for a lazy African-American who refuses to work. …

Australian officials have been at pains to stress that most NSW Police Force operation names are generated by a computer.

Now that would have been really embarrassing if no one had noticed in time.

The Dom Post reports:

Local government leaders are seeking a law change to allow other councils to follow Whanganui’s lead and ban gang patches.

Whanganui was given the right to pass a bylaw last year banning all gang insignia except tattoos from public places, but other councils wanting to do the same must get their own enabling law through Parliament.

Local Government New Zealand president Lawrence Yule said the organisation was trying to get a blanket law change that would allow any council to pass similar bylaws.

No surprise.

Palmerston North has also floated a ban on patches if the Whanganui law sees an exodus of gang members to the city, though mayor Jono Naylor said there was no problem at present.

So gang members would rather live in Wanganui with a ban on their patches, than move to Palmerston North.

Can’t really blame them!

The Herald puts the minimum wage into context:

New Zealand’s minimum wage is still close to the highest it has been, as a proportion of the average wage, since the late 1970s.

It is also the second-highest of any developed country in relation to the median wage, although well below richer countries such as Australia in dollar terms.

So we have one of the highest minimum wages in the world, and people want to make it even higher.

You can’t make a country richer by just passing a law demanding people get paid more. The key to lifting wages is increased productivity – that is how we will close the gap with Australia.

Internationally, OECD minimum wages are quoted as a ratio of the median weekly income of fulltime employees – a lower figure than the average wage because the average is pulled up by high earners above the median, or mid-point.

On this basis, at last count in 2007, New Zealand’s minimum wage was 57 per cent of our median income – a higher ratio than in Australia (54 per cent) and ahead of all other OECD countries except France (63 per cent).

And an increase to $15 would put us even ahead of France, with a minimum wage at 67% of median fulltime income. Can one of the poorest countries in the OECD afford the highest relative minimum wage? Of course not.

And in another story:

The Warehouse human resources manager Paul Walsh says under-18-year-olds fluctuated between 30 and 33 per cent of his company’s 7500 staff in the four years up to June 2008, then plunged to 25.2 per cent in the year to last June and 24.1 per cent from July to this week.

“It’s dangerous to draw a conclusion that it’s purely the minimum wage rate that has affected that, but you would have to say it must have had some impact,” he says.

I predict youth unemployment will remain relatively high, even after adult unemployment starts dropping.

In any case, Pacheco argues that the minimum wage is an inefficient way of tackling poverty because many minimum-wage earners are actually teenagers or second earners in wealthy households.

She says 16.6 per cent of all those earning within 50c an hour of the minimum wage between 2006 and 2008 lived in the richest three-tenths of all households.

A point I have made. The focus should be on family or household income, not individual income.

I saw this headline – “Watermelons block motorway” and my first thought was a bunch of Green Party MPs and activists were protesting about some motorway.

It seems it was more literal:

Two tons of watermelons blocked Auckland’s southern motorway after a truck rolled south of the Newmarket viaduct this morning.

I wonder how many watermelons that is?

The HoS reports:

A Destiny Church pastor working for a child-fostering organisation that gets $10 million a year of taxpayer money is placing vulnerable children with Destiny members of the congregation.

New Plymouth Destiny pastor Robyn Edmonds oversees foster placements as the Taranaki branch manager of the Open Home Foundation, which helps “disadvantaged and hurt” children.

The foster kids are expected to attend Destiny’s controversial services each Sunday. …

He said it was part of the group’s ethos to have foster children attend church on a Sunday unless their natural parents specifically objected.

Former Destiny members from Taranaki said the congregation was encouraged to open its homes to foster children.

“They were encouraging people to go into social work,” said one.

The object was to have members make their homes suitable as potential foster homes, from which children could be taken to church services.

Another member said the extra children meant a greater income and higher tithes. However, he said the appeal was fresh membership.

In a statement, Child, Youth and Family national operations manager John Henderson said the foundation received $8.9m in funding last year, mainly for foster-family work. The group’s own records put total taxpayer funding at $10.7m.

“There have been no concerns raised with the Ministry of Social Development or Child, Youth and Family in relation to Open Home Foundation or Destiny Church,” he said.

My views on Tamaki are well known, and I suspect the motivation for the fostering is about more membership.

However if CYF has no issues with the quality of care given by Destiny members, then good on them for offering foster homes. NZ has a shortage of good quality foster parents, and kids do better in an actual family home than they do in an institution.

Some of the work done by Destiny Church is laudable, and this is an example.

However that does not make Arch Bishop Brian the physical manifestation of God, and does not excuse the extortion tithing racket which nets him a million dollars a year.

As widely expected, Tasmania is looking to be a hung parliament, with the Greens having the balance of power. A couple of seats are very close but at this stage it looks like Liberals and Labor gets 10 seats each and Greens five seats.

Tasmania Labor have lost four seats, three to the Libs and one to the Greens. The swing from Labor was 12.9% with Libs up 7% and Greens 6%.

In South Australia though, Labor looks like it has defied the polls predicting they would lose their majority. There were some big swings (7.7% on average to date) against them, but not evenly.

At this stage Labor look to have 25 seats, one more than what they need to have a majority. Mike Rann will be a very happy man.

Russel Norman blogs on the MOU with National:

The Green Party’s agreement with the Government took a step forward today – a small, practical and principled step.

The latest news is that we’ve agreed with National on a draft proposal for the regulation of natural health products.  Natural health products includes many vitamin and herbal supplements as well as lotions, gels and shampoos.

New Zealanders have a right to know these types of products are safe and it is government’s job to set up and monitor rules to ensure safety.  That’s a fairly straightforward idea, but it got complicated under the previous Labour government that wanted to regulate natural health products jointly with Australia.

Our Sue Kedgley has worked persistently on this issue for many years and now we’re that much closer to rules that are better for local businesses and protect consumer.  Good stuff.

I think it is a sign of maturity for both the Greens and National, that they can agree to disagree on so many areas, yet agree to work together constructively in a few areas where they do agree.

Labour’s selection meeting for Waitakere started at 10.30 am, and is still going.

It started with a contested election for the meeting’s rep on the selection panel. The panel effectively has seven members.

• Three members appointed by Head Office
• Two members appointed by the Waitakere electorate committee
• One member appointed by and at the beginning of the selection meeting
• One vote reflecting the secret ballot after the speeches

The secret ballot vote, as I understand it, is a simple first past the post vote and counts as a vote on the panel for the candidate who gets a plurality. If that candidate falls out of contention (ie it is between two other candidates), then the vote doesn’t count.

The order of speaking was Phil Twyford, Hamish McCracken, Carmel Sepuloni and Ann Pala.

Voting after the speeches concluded around three hours ago, so there is obviously some sort of deadlock on the panel, which is taking a while to resolve.

As I understand it McCracken has EPMU support, as he works for them or did work for them. So some of the head office vote may be with him. Pillay, the retiring MP, was EMPU so they probably see the seat as theirs.

Sepuloni is probably the candidate with the best chance to take the fight to Paula Bennett. I don’t think she’ll beat Paula, but she’ll do better than a white middle aged guy would, to be blunt.

Twyford was proclaimed as one of the new high flyers. However if he loses tonight, it will shoot his credibility to shreds, considering it will be his third effective rejection in a row, having been scared off Mt Albert and Auckland Central. Some in Labour will not want to embarrass Twyford like that, even if they think Sepuloni has a better chance.

Eventually the panel will need to eliminate one of the three favourites and then it is a simple two way race, where one candidate needs four out of seven votes.

I’ll blog the result once I hear it.

UPDATE: And it is Carmel Sepuloni. Congratulations to her. As I said above, this is hugely embarassing to Phil Twyford whose nickname already was “Opposition Spokesperson for the Homeless”. He may have to end up Labour candidate in Helensville, or some other unwinnable seat. Or he could move to Mt Roskill and wait until after the next election!

The National had it première episode today, interviewing Steven Joyce. They don’t have TV3 on Bintan Island, but I have got a copy of the transcript, which is interesting:

DUNCAN I mean Phil Goff and the Labour Party attacked you this week and they quoted Groucho Marx saying ‘of you these are my principles and if you don’t like them I have others’. I mean that’s the argument about you that you don’t stand for anything except the popularity in the polls.

STEVEN Oh I don’t think that’s fair, I mean I’ve got some pretty – you know some views of my own which are built from my background and from my family background, my father was a small businessman and I started out as a small businessman, and we grew it a bit, but those things have always been in my background but at the same time politics is about actually what people want you to do, and what people are prepared to accept.

I like the “started out as a small businessman”, which is correct, and rather modest.

STEVEN Well currently the polytech sector next year will lose about 70 million dollars across the sector from what it’s had previously, so that was announced in Budget 2009, the polytechs are aware of that, they’re working through that, we’ve don’t a lot of work on polytech governance, the next couple of weeks I’ll be announcing 80 new government appointments to polytech councils, and what I’m seeing is somebody new in the portfolio, is that the people in polytechs are being very reasonable, they understand what the challenges are and certainly in this last 12 month period, 2009, they’ve responded by improving the performance of those polytechs.

Normally appointments are staggered, but of course under the new governance model, there are 80 initial appointments to be made. It will be interesting to see who gets appointed.

DUNCAN Just on to your portfolio, another portfolio KiwiRail is it true that they want about a billion dollars or perhaps more over ten years from the government?

STEVEN I think they’d take as much as we could give them.

Heh. So true.

DUNCAN Do you want KiwiRail, do you want to hang on to it?

STEVEN Oh look I think the price that was paid by the previous government, and I’ve said it before, it was nuts, it was over the top, and what we have said we’d make the best of it, it’s an asset that is a sunk economic asset for New Zealand, the options are not do something with it and watch it run down and fall to bits over time, the other option given we’ve got a lot of freight growth coming over the next 20 years, is to put some investment in, but we’ve gotta be very careful about the way we do it.

We can’t sell it, as no one would buy it!

DUNCAN We understand that Jim Bolger won’t be rolled over as the Chairman of KiwiRail from June, is that correct?

STEVEN The governance of KiwiRail is the responsibility for my good friend Mr Power, but we are looking at refreshing the governance.

DUNCAN So Jim Bolger will be removed as Chairman?

STEVEN My understanding is that we’re looking at renewing the governance but that’s for Simon to announce.

That sounds like curtains for Jim, to me.

DUNCAN Do you want to be the Prime Minister?

STEVEN No.

DUNCAN Do you want to be a Finance Minister?

STEVEN No.

Well that is pretty concise.

Then there was the panel with Stephen Parker, Deborah Hill-Cone and Vernon Small. I am glad to see that the panel on The Nation is not just talking heads like on Q+A, but actually get to interview the guest.

I also like the fact that the panelists are basically journalists or political commentators, rather than other politicians. It annoys me when I see the PM get interview on Q+A, and the co-leader of the Green Party is a panelist reviewing what he said.

I am a fan of Q+A, but have always said I don’t like the way they have done the panel.

STEVEN Well I worry about some of the level 1 to 3 courses, which are the lower level courses where perhaps as many as 100 people are enrolled at the start of the year and yet somehow at the end of the year or the end of the course there’s only 30 left, and you pay 100% up front and some institutions are brilliant with pastoral care, others see it not really as their role, i.e. you know our job is to teach them and if they don’t turn up that’s their problem, and I think we’d like to see them take a bit more interest in the pastoral care, those that aren’t doing so.

I never realised the non completion rate was so high for so many courses.

The Herald reports:

Government staff are not yet halfway through the “mammoth task” of compiling the previous Government’s credit card records for release to the media and public, an exercise which is expected to cost about $50,000 and take a further two months.

The Department of Internal Affairs is compiling about 7000 documents detailing spending by Helen Clark’s ministers on their taxpayer-funded credit cards after receiving more than a dozen requests from media for the information under the Official Information Act.

Oh this will be interesting.

Former ministers, including those who are no longer MPs, will get to see the information before it is released to the media, but they have no ability to have content removed. “There’s no get-out clause.”

I suspect we will see some voluntary disclosures once that happens, to try and lessen the impact of the official disclosures.

A spokesman for Labour leader Phil Goff said he “has made it clear that if there are any cases of inappropriate spending he expects it to be repaid”.

Hey, this might even help reduce the $240 million a week we are borrowing

The Herald has a profile on Steven Joyce, including some quotes from me.Some interesting background I didn’t know about:

Joyce was born and grew up in New Plymouth, attending Francis Douglas Memorial College, then Kapiti College.

His father, a Four Square grocer, was from Eltham and his mother came from Kaponga before moving to Stratford. Joyce says his father was a middle-distance runner, who would run from Eltham to Stratford to visit his mother and run back again.

Joyce was raised a Catholic, and went to church every Sunday until he left home. Now he says he is “not really” religious.

I can normally spot the lapsed Catholics!

Two of the six Australian states have elections on Saturday – South Australia and Tasmania.

Most pundits are calling the South Australian election too close to call, and indeed it may be a hung Parliament on the night. The latest Newspoll had the two party preferred vote at 50% each.

There are 47 seats in the House of Assembly, so you need 24 to form a Government. Labor, led by Premier Mike Rann, has 28 seats and it is quite possible they could lose five seats, which need less than a 6% swing.

However the Liberal Party has only 14 seats. IF they pick up five seats that only takes them to 19, plus one National MP is 20. You see there are four independents. So whichever party manages to win a seat off an independent, or do a deal with them may get to form the Government. If Rann loses five seats, he only needs one Independent to govern, so may hold on.

One Independent, Kris Hanna, is a former Labor and Greens member. Another is a former Mayor. A third is retiring and his seat will probably go Liberal. The fourth is a former Liberal who is now Speaker.

The South Australian Senate is less important. Some may be amused that a No Pokies political party actually has a state senator!

The new Opposition Leader, Isobel Redmond is generally regarded as having run a good campaign, despite being the 4th leader in four years. Mike Rann has been state Labor leader for 16 years and Premier since 2002. He is a former Kiwi, and mate of Phil Goff’s.

Tasmania uses STV for their House of Assembly, and have five electorates with five MPs each in them. So 13 out of 25 seats needed to govern. The latest Newspoll has Libs 37%, Green 26% and Labor behind the Libs, suggesting Labor and Liberals will win 10 seats each and the Greens five seats, giving them the balance of power.

Labor, which has been in power for 12 years, is not keen on this and has been running “robocalls” telling voters the Greens will legalise heroin and give violent criminals the right to vote.

What will happen in the Greens do hold the balance of power is interesting. The Labor Premier, David Bartlett, has said he will resign if the Liberals gain more seats, but both major parties have ruled out signing a formal power-sharing deal with the Greens or negotiating away significant policies. It is far from clear whom the Greens would allow to govern.

So both states may end election night without knowing who gets to form the Government. We’ll find out shortly.

Real Clear Politics publish polls of polls, averaging all the different polls out there.

They report today, that for the very first time Obama’s negatives are greater than his positives in their average of the polls.

47.3% say they approve of the job he is doing and 47.8% disapprove.

If healthcare passes, I expect he will get a lift from that, even though it is controversial. Being ineffectual is worse than being unpopular, when you hold the most powerful job in the world.

Three editorials on Waihopai. First the Herald:

Infamously, former Telecom chief executive Theresa Gattung once admitted her company used confusion as a marketing tool. For quite some time, it worked.

A similar strategy employed by three men who broke into the Waihopai spy base near Blenheim in 2008 and slashed an inflatable plastic dome covering a satellite dish has enjoyed equal success. Various wishy-washy defences have proved sufficient to befuddle a jury in the Wellington District Court, leading to the trio’s acquittal. …

The acquittal will not set a legal precedent. That is the domain of judges, not juries. But it will probably encourage others who have attacked public property to mount the same defence.

The widespread disbelief that has greeted this decision means any such attempt will surely fall on stony ground. Clearly, that should have been the case this time, as well.

And the Press:

The question now is whether the decision will set a precedent. Legally, a decision by a district court jury does not create a precedent.

But it is likely that others charged with offences related to a cause which they passionately believe in will attempt to use the Waihopai defence.

An example might be an anti-abortionist charged with damaging a hospital where abortions were performed.

Which is what you get when people think their beliefs put them above the law.

And the ODT:

It is plain fact that state borders do not deter terrorists and criminals in the digital age yet citizens continue to rely on the State to protect both themselves and the nation’s borders. The Waihopai station must be considered to be part of that obligation but it seems hardly ever to be considered that its activities may well be saving lives, including within this country’s borders.

However much some sincere objectors may dislike it and what it represents, can they offer a practical and reliable alternative to hold secure the safety of the nation and its citizens?

That’s disapproval all round.

The Dom Post breaks the pattern and talks about former Auckland Museum director Vanda Vitali:

The not unexpected resignation of Auckland War Memorial Museum director Vanda Vitali on Tuesday raises some interesting questions. Though the parting of the ways between board and chief executive was inevitable after Dr Vitali antagonised the family of Sir Edmund Hillary, the manner of her going led one Auckland mayor to suggest the board, rather than its employee, should go.

Implicit in Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey’s criticism was that, having searched worldwide for a museum professional to bring Auckland’s historical treasury into the 21st century, the board could not manage a woman who, once appointed, stood her ground. …

The Dom Post reports:

Entry prices at Karori’s wildlife sanctuary are to almost double to pay for a multimillion-dollar visitor centre.

The trust behind the conservation project says its improvements will see visitor numbers almost triple in the coming years.

But there are fears the price rises will put off people.

On April 2 entry prices at Zealandia: The Karori Sanctuary Experience will jump from $15 to $28 for adults, $7 to $14 for children and $37 to $70 for family passes.

Double the price, and they project visitor numbers will triple?

I suspect not.

I think the sanctuary is great, but at $56 for a couple, that is close to pricing off the market.

NewstalkZB reports:

New Zealand first leader Winston Peters will not contest the Tauranga seat at the next election.

Mr Peters was the MP for Tauranga for 21 years before being ousted by National’s Bob Clarkson in 2005.

Simon Bridges won it again for National at the last election.

No surprise as Winston now lives in Auckland.

Of course the fact that Simon beat Winston by a massive 32% – 57% to 25%, may be a small factor in it also!

The Herald reports:

The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) has welcomed the Government’s decision not to support the reintroduction of youth rates.

So the CTU is happy.

Opposition leader Phil Goff welcomed the decision.

“It’s crazy to suggest that any young person doing the same job exactly as older people should be paid automatically at a lower rate. It didn’t add up,” he told reporters.

As is Phil Goff. This means it must be wrong!

Goff’s own statement shows a total misrepresentation of the situation. Having a lower minimum wage for teenagers is exactly that – a lower floor. How the hell you translate that into “should be paid automatically at a lower rate” I do not know. Once again, for the really stupid people, – this is about a floor – not a ceiling, not an automatic rate that you must apply to teenagers.

In today’s NBR 24/7 column I rip into the Govt’s decision:

It really brings into doubt the seriousness of the Government in terms of job creation, when it persists with a law that has clearly priced many teenagers off the job market. …

Most teenagers are not seeking full-time employment. What they desperately want is to gain some work experience, and to gain some extra money on top of whatever parental or student support they have.

By agreeing to vote down Sir Roger’s bill, the Government is saying we want young people to be unable to gain work, unless an employer thinks they are worth almost $13 an hour. …

Later this year, overall unemployment should start tracking down. If youth unemployment remains persistently high, the Government will have no one to blame but themselves.

There are 45,000 teenagers unemployed. This decision is a very bad one.

The Herald looks at the case of fraudster Stephen Versalko:

If it wasn’t for Bernie Madoff, Stephen Versalko could still be stealing millions.

The largest employee theft in New Zealand history was discovered only after an ASB Bank client saw a television show about Madoff, America’s US$50 billion fraudster.

In August, a woman who had invested more than $3 million with ASB adviser Versalko became uneasy about the fact he was the only staff member she had dealt with.

If something happened to her, she reasoned, 52-year-old Versalko would be the only person who knew anything about the funds into which her money had gone.

At about the same time, she watched a documentary about Ponzi fraudster Madoff that rang alarm bells. Madoff’s technique of fobbing off his victims reminded her of Versalko.

A phone call to ASB confirmed the investor’s worst fears – her multimillion-dollar investment portfolio was fictitious.

Madoff finally does some good.

Then a Serious Fraud Office inquiry found nearly 30 wealthy clients had been defrauded of nearly $18 million over nine years.

Criminal charges were laid in the week before Christmas, and Versalko pleaded guilty in February.

Yesterday, he was sentenced in the Auckland District Court to six years in prison, with a minimum-non parole period of four years.

I don’t think that is enough, for the scale of his offending. He had ten years of the good life living off his victim’s money.

But one of the more sordid details of the case is that Versalko paid $3.4 million to two prostitutes with whom he had long-term arrangements.

Good God. That is a lot of money for sex!

If one assumes the cost of a normal sexual encounter is $200, then that is 17,000 bonks. Now over 10 years that is 1,700 bonks a year or around five bonks a day.

Now there were two of them, so he may have had threesomes, but that would still be two threesomes a day with change left over.

The Herald understands Versalko took one of the women – instead of his wife – on a business trip to Dubai to stay in the Burj Al Arab Hotel, where the cheapest room costs US$2000 a night.

He was married? Oh yuck. Poor woman.

1. Paul Buchanan blogs on the acquittal of the Waihopai Three.
2. No Right Turn supports my suggestion of having all Cabinet papers automatically placed on the Internet, and further suggests model publication schemes and disclosure registers for government agencies. Sounds good to me.
3. Keeping Stock reveals that the Whanganui Chronicle did know “parent” Stephanie Mills was the NZEI Communications Director but did not think it was important to tell readers this!
4. ACT analyser Geoffrey Miller blogs at Liberation on the tensions within ACT.
5. Claire Browning blogs at Pundit on the Greens and Environment Canterbury, and their conspiracy theories.
6. Iain Dale blogs on how the UK UNITE union actually pays the salary of a 10 Downing Street staff member. Will the EPMU demand the same when Labour get back into office in NZ?
7. Not PC welcomes the jury nullification in the Waihopai trial as a just check on Government.

The SMH reports:

The Australian Human Rights Commission has threatened legal action against a widely read but controversial US-based website over an article that it says encourages racial hatred against Aborigines.

But online rights group Electronic Frontiers Australia said trying to stamp out the deplorable content would only create the “Streisand” effect, whereby an attempt to censor online content only brings more attention to it.

In a letter to Joseph Evers, the owner of Encyclopedia Dramatica (ED) – a more shocking version of Wikipedia that contains racist and other offensive articles dubbed as “satire” – the Commission said it had received 20 complaints from Aborigines over the “Aboriginal” page on the site. …

On the Australian Communication and Media Authority’s blacklist of “refused classification” websites, which was leaked in March last year, encyclopediadramatica.com was included. This means the entire site will likely be blocked under the government’s forthcoming internet filtering plan.

This is why I don’t like filters.  It is outrageous that the Australian Government will block such a site.

Don’t get me wrong – the site is highly highly offensive to many people. It is a rather puerile site (rather than a smart satire site) that just abuses everybody and everyone in the most insulting way it can. But being offensive is not a reason to be banned or blocked.

I cite again the words of Noam Chomsky, who said there is little virtue in defending popular speech – it is defending unpopular and even offensive speech that is courageous.

When we allow the state to start deciding what parts of the Internet we are allowed to see, that is a bad thing.

The NZ Herald focuses on the departure of Vanda Vitali:

The trust board was also keen to see the museum throw off austerity and become part of an international trend typified by Te Papa. Part of this was a restructuring that left 46 personnel, many of them senior staff, without jobs.

Amid accusations that this meant core museum displays were being downgraded, the board backed Dr Vitali to the hilt for most of her tenure. Its support began to waver late last year, however, after a series of public relations disasters.

It is questionable who should bear the responsibility for these. Did the board, having appointed Dr Vitali and provided a mandate, fail to give sufficient direction and guidance?

Did it not recognise sufficiently that, as a Canadian, she was operating in an unfamiliar cultural context? Or did the director, like many set on instituting change, not see finesse and heedfulness as part of her job description? …

It must not become fusty and tradition-bound. Dr Vitali’s achievement can be measured by comments lamenting her resignation.

One of the more notable came from Naida Glavish, of the Ngati Whatua Runanga, who said she had brought the museum “back to life”. An initial reservation about Dr Vitali was her sensitivity to the Maori and Pacific exhibitions.

Museums are always seeking a balance. In Auckland’s case, that involves using flair and imagination to attract local people, while also catering for overseas tourists’ major interest, the Polynesian treasures.

Dr Vitali wrought major change in a short time. With a little finesse, the correct balance can be struck.

Is Te Papa still looking for a CEO?

The Dominion Post is unhappy with Israel:

The timing of Israel’s announcement of a new 1600-house Jewish development in East Jerusalem was the equivalent of a one-fingered salute to the United States and to the peace process.

It demonstrates a contempt for the Obama Administration so withering that it diminishes the American ability to broker any deal. The administration had last year demanded a freeze on Jewish settlements, but eventually got only a partial, temporary halt – except in Jerusalem.

Why should the Palestinians pay any heed to what Washington wants, when the Israelis clearly don’t? It will also raise questions even among those sympathetic to Israel whether its current leadership has any intention of reaching a negotiated settlement.

I am a friend and supporter of Israel, but on this issue I agree they are wrong. They really should stop building new settlements. It makes the job of achieving a peace agreement a lot lot harder, for little gain.

The Press focuses on bad driving:

It is the common complaint of many New Zealand motorists. Truck drivers hog the road and, being oblivious to other road users, are responsible for accidents and near misses, both in urban areas and on the open road.

Those who subscribe to this jaundiced view should be taking a hard look at the video footage on The Press’s website. This footage, which was taken from cameras mounted in Canterbury Waste Services (CWS) trucks and which has created great public interest, has graphic images of other road users behaving recklessly and illegally.

It includes video images of one car overtaking a truck and forcing oncoming traffic to take evasive action. Other footage shows motorists not stopping at red lights or compulsory stop signs, failing to adhere to the give-way rule at other intersections, adopting some appalling driving techniques at roundabouts, and skidding due to a failure to drive to the conditions.

Luckily Wellington drivers are better than that

The ODT looks at child abuse in the Catholic Church:

It is hard to believe the senior ranks of the Roman Catholic Church, increasingly under siege in Fortress Vatican, have any real appreciation of the extent of the calamity facing them.

For if they did, surely they, and Pope Benedict XVI, would be cutting a radically different course from that now being offered to a confused, disappointed and sometimes angry congregation.

Prominent among the strategies it has adopted in the face of what is beginning to seem like a perfect storm of recent revelations – of sexual abuse cases and “cover-ups” in Brazil, the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Germany and, periodically, in this country and Australia – has been the time-honoured tactic of attacking the messenger. …

It just reminds me of the South Park episode where a priest calls on the gathered Cardinals to stop priests having sex with little boys, and the response back is that as they can’t have sex with women, if they stop having sex with little boys, then they’ll get to have no sex at all!

Abstinence is not natural in my opinion!