Kiwiblog

Good: The Maori Party is using the Internet by using an online calendar to schedule meetings and events.

Bad: They have not put any security on it, so any user at all can not only view it, but also add events on.

Look, but do not touch, people.

UPDATE: Someone couldn’t resist trying it out, and found out that there is actually moderation after all. See comments for details.

Rodney has a photo of the new Tui billboard about Auckland City Deputy Mayor Dick Hubbard. I saw it myself on Saturday up there.

The tagline is “Hasn’t Dick made a difference: Yeah Right”

The Press editorial on United Future’s prized Families Commission pulls no punches.

“It seems almost inevitable that a body almost no-one could see any need for, with an ill-defined make-work agenda of responsibilities, should wind up engaged in a self-damaging internal squabble”

“The commission, with its six commissioners, chief executive (when it can find one it can work with), 24 support staff and $8 million of taxpayers’ money in its first year alone, was entirely Dunne’s brainchild. Its establishment was extorted out of Labour as the price for United Future’s vote on matters of confidence and supply. Dunne, whose sudden rise in popularity in the last election was because he was supposedly the voice of sturdy common sense, has never been able to explain satisfactorily what it is supposed to do, what improvements it can hope to bring to life in New Zealand. The commission itself is perhaps none too sure itself. Its first tangible exercise is to spend nearly $700,000 on an advertising campaign to find out “what makes families tick”, pretty good evidence that it is desperate for something worthwhile to do. “

Is it just me, or are the editorials becoming more strident? Month after month of scandals and waste must be having an effect.

I have just thrown away several hundred dollars, and no-one to blame but myself.

It all started last week when I got an e-mail from an Australian friend, Sonia Stavreff, inviting me to her 23rd birthday on the 30th of April. Sonia and I met a couple of years ago when NSW Young Liberals hosted the participants from the IDU Young Leaders Forum held in Sydney. I was worried that being from NZ, the locals would find me very boring compared to my colleagues from Argentina, Canada, Germany etc so I sort of said I was from Estonia. My friends elaborated on the story and said I was in fact the deposed Prime Minister who had been toppled in a communist coup. Sonia has eastern European ancestry and started talking about the local area, and later that night I finally confessed I was from NZ not Estonia, and for some reason have been friends since

Anyway the invite was very well-timed as I had some air points expiring on 30 April, and loved the idea of having an excuse to spend a few days in Sydney. Quickly checked with Sonia, and booked tickets over. Cost me $400 of airpoints and $150 in taxes and levies.

Only some days after booking the tickets did I recall that on 30 April I have an InternetNZ Council Meeting. And one which I absolutely can not afford to miss, as several key issues I have been strongly involved in such as the business plan and communications plan are being considered. The meeting was in my diary, I knew it was on, but in my excitement I just plain forgot about it. Damn!

So I now have two choices:

a) Write off the $550, and don’t go to Australia at all

b) Pay $150 (by end of Wednesday) to change the tickets to another date. However I have to be certain I can make the other dates as will cost $150 each time to change. Also if I then travel, I will probably have $400 to $500 of hotels, taxis and meals.

So do I write off the $550 and get nothing or spend another $550+ to get a few days in Sydney where I can visit a few people, shop and dine out? What would others do?

Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was often jokingly referred to as New Zealand’s best ever export to Australia. He died over the weekend, aged 94.

He won an amazing seven Queensland elections in a row, admittedly with some help from a gerrymander where there were more rural seats per capita. But that was not the sole reason. In 1974 the coalition won 69 seats compared to 11 for Labor. It is also worth noting that the rural gerrymander used to exist is basically all states as a deliberate step to protect rural populations. To a degree the existing Senate arrangements where all States have the same number of Senators regardless of population can also be seen as a gerrymander.

But great corruption happened under his reign, which is one of the reasons why it is good to change Governments relatively often.

Bjelke-Petersen hated the media (and the feeling was pretty mutual). But that could make for entertaining TV. I will never forget the time when a young female reporter asked him, as he was standing for PM, what his foreign policy was. His reply was “Now, now girlie, don’t you try any of those trick questions on me”. The hilarious part is he was probably being serious.

This story in Hawke’s Bay Today almost speaks for itself.

Small Business Minister Rick Barker managed to offend in 35 minutes basically every single person who attended a meeting with him. Apart from texting during the meeting, he also left the perception that “He appeared to have nothing but contempt for how small business ticked. He thought we were all fat cats”.

I have to say that in my opinion appointing former union officials as business ministers is somewhat akin to appointing Dr Jack Kevorkian as Minister of Health

Krimsonlake at Celebrating Mediocrity has done the 100 things meme. I really like her one as she is so open about everything which makes up her.

I’ve been meaning to do the 100 things meme for ages, but never had the time as I reckon it takes at least half a day to do properly. I also doubt I would be able to be so open about everything that makes up the seething mass of contradictions that passes for my personality

There’s been a lot of good blog posts on ANZAC Day, but the one I like most is at Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour. I think it gives a good insight into why more and more young people are attending ANZAC Day, and appreciating what previous generations did.

Graham Watson posted this in the thread on What it is like to be a woman, and I decided it was worth its own entry.

1. We keep our last name.
2. The garage is all ours.
3. Wedding plans take care of themselves.
4. Chocolate is just another snack.
5. We can be president.
6. We can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
7. Car mechanics tell us the truth.
8. The world is our urinal.
9. We never have to drive to another gas station because this one’s just too icky.
10. Same work, more pay.
11. Wrinkles add character.
12. Wedding dress – $5000; tux rental – $100.
13. People never stare at our chest when we’re talking to them.
14. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
15. New shoes don’t cut, blister, or mangle our feet.
16. One mood, ALL the time.
17. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
18. We know stuff about tanks.
19. A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
20. We can open all our own jars.
21. We get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
22. If someone forgets to invite us, he or she can still be our friend.
23. Our underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
24. Everything on our face stays its original color.
25. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
26. We don’t have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
27. We almost never have strap problems in public
28. We are unable to see wrinkles in our clothes.
29. The same hair style lasts for years, maybe decades.
30. We don’t have to shave below our neck.
31. Our belly usually hides our big hips.
32. One wallet and one pair of shoes, one color, all seasons.
33. We can “do” our nails with a pocketknife.
34. We have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
35. We can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives, on December 24, in 45 minutes.

Now we need a list of 35 reasons why women are happier than men. Post your contributions below!

Significant numbers of Police are coming forward to say they think the Police Commissioner is over-reacting and that some of the e-mails were ones policewomen forwarded onto their mothers, and hence unlikely to be significantly offensive.

Thinking about the situation it occurs to me there are basically three levels of material which is being investigated, and if it was my call, my response to each situation would be:

Objectionable (as in illegal) material

Anyone who forwarded on illegal material to be prosecuted. Anyone who received it and did not delete it to be given a formal warning.

Highly offensive but not illegal material

Anyone forwarding it on to be disciplined, anyone receiving it who did not delete it to be given an informal warning.

Smutty or humourous material

Anyone forwarding it on to be given informal warnings. No action against people who merely received a smutty joke and did not forward it on.

One would have thought after the BBC got slammed by Lord Hutton for its earlier fake stories, it would have learnt to try and restrict itself to reporting news, instead of inventing it.

But no they have not. All around the world it is being reported that the BBC actually orchestrated and equipped three people to heckle Conservative Party Leader Michael Howard.

If the BBC was private sector, people could punish it by not tuning in, and hence affecting their funding.

Many NZ bloggers have pointed out and derided the fact that in some areas of the US, christian lobby groups are trying to block evolution being taught in schools. Incidentally I share the disdain for these anti-science lobbyists.

But perhaps we should look closer to home. Some Maori groups are opposing a project to trace the origins and movements of the human race saying:

“Indigenous people will be saying we already have our stories about our origins, so we don’t need a scientific rationale to justify our origins.”

Is this not just as bad? It is saying we have our origin or creation myths and we want to block any scientific research which could contradict this?

Many here sneer at the US for being dominated by religious fundamentalists. How much better are we with the legislative credence given to Maori spiritual beliefs?

Jacqueline Passey has what I think is a thought provoking piece on what it is like to be a woman, especially when it comes to dating.

The line where she says “When women go on dates, we have to worry about getting raped. When we agree to dance with a man at a bar or party we have to worry that he’s going to take that as an invitation to then molest us …. In comparison, guys, what’s *your* biggest realistic fear about dating? That a woman might reject you and hurt your feelings?”

Never thought of it quite like that. Be interested in views of others.

Jonathan Milne in the Sunday Herald writes that it is time for George Hawkins to perf, and leave the job. He notes that Hawkins dumps on the police time after time, and refuses to take any responsibility himself.

On Saturday the NZ Herald editorial called for Commissioner Rob Robinson to clean up, and then leave.

I feel somewhat sorry for the Commissioner. He was highly regarded in his previous roles, and handled the investigation into then Commissioner Doone with great integrity. I think under a different Minister he might have been judged less harshly, as this Minister has left him to front up on every issue, rather than share responsibility on issues such as resourcing and policy.

This is the billboard which has gone up in Auckland. I think it is great – people will see it every day as they are stuck in traffic.

I didn’t think it would take long for the story to be garbled:

The Register reports:

Randy coppers in New Zealand waste so much time surfing for porn while on the job that fully 20 per cent of police computer system capacity is devoted to storing the images, an official audit has revealed.

There is a difference between “surfing for porn” and receiving and/or passing on a smutty e-mail.

The jokes about Wendy’s doing finger food flowed last month after Anna Ayala reported she found a finger in her Wendy’s chilli. The claim got world wide publicity and has seen a 20% drop in local sales for Wendy’s.

A couple of hours ago Ms Ayala was arrested and charged with larceny.

Reminds me of the urban legend of the person who would have a jar of flies and go to a different restaurant every night and place a fly in his soup, this getting his meal for free. The story goes that he was arrested and his jar of flies found, after a restaurant owners convention, and at the bar someone told the horror story of the fly in the soup, and everyone else had the same story.

It is very sad, but not toally surprising, that public confidence in the police has fallen under Labour from 71% to 53%. This is not a minor decline but a cataclysmic drop. The have dropped from top place (where police should be) to behing small businesses and primary schools.

What is very sad with this drop, is that fundamentally we still have one of the best police forces in the world. Our level of corruption is minimal compared to almost all overseas forces. Most officers are totally honest and dedicated.

I have no doubt that the change George Hawkins introduced, where police were made to change their road safety enforcement from targetting high risk drivers to targetting all drivers, has been a major factor in the decline. Turning the Police into revenue collectors has been a disaster for public confidence in the police. It says the Government has no confidence in the ability of the Police to use discretion, so why should the public?

The incompetence of the Minister is surely a factor also. Helen Clark has had numerous opportunities to replace George Hawkins but has not done so. The message that sends out to the public, is not one of confidence.

Always quite moving when MPs talk from the heart about personal issues. I recall Deborah Morris, if I recall correctly, talking about battling depression; Georgine Beyer on her life etc etc. A good post on frogblog about Sue Bradford revealing how she was raped at 16. Very sobering stuff.

I am wondering if the Police have not slightly over-reacted with the news of 330 police officers being investigated for having inappropriate images in their e-mail.

Don’t get me wrong. I agree with the Police Association that the officers involved are bloody stupid and should know better. However lets remember this is not a case of police having gone to a site and downloaded images, but having received, presumably unsolicited, ‘humourous’ e-mails with adult content. Yes they should delete them after reading them, but I would have thought a memo firing a rocket up their behinds would be all that is needed.

Those who forwarded it on, may be in a bit more trouble. It is pretty stupid to do that on police e-mail accounts. At Parliament a few years ago, quite a few of us used to circulate very funny, yet potentially offensive to some, e-mails but we tended to do it through a private mailing list with our home e-mail addresses so it was not through the Parliament network. It is a judgement call for what is hilarious to 95% of people can still offend some others.

I used to apply a judgement test of could I send this e-mail onto my female friends, but unfortunately most of the worst stuff came from said female friends, so that was no help

The only time I recall I did misjudge was when a journalist sent me a website link which comes up with a cute rabbit bouncing through the woods and some very quiet dialogue. Naturally I, like everyone else, turned the volume up so I could hear what was being said and then 15 seconds into it the computer then shouts at full very loud volume “Hey, hey this person is looking at porn” repeatedly and the rabbit in woods image is replaced with some flashing adult content. A very naughty practical joke.

I laughed my head off at being taken in by such a simple trick, and naturally forwarded it on to a few friends. I discovered that not all of them liked having their computer shout out at full volume embarrasing things

Anyway I digress. The police officers involved have been stupid, but unless the material was illegal rather than just inappropriate, I would have thought that a series of verbal reamings would have been the way to handle most of it. The more serious images, and it sounds like there are a few, would need formal disciplinary action though.

As a side-bar to all this, the Government is referring this to the stalled Commission of Inquiry into how the police dealt with complaints involving police and sexual allegations. What they have tried to hide is that the original commission was set up in a knee-jerk fashion, spent millions and then had to stop work as it interfered with the criminal investigation, and so now has been restructured to hide that it was a total waste of time.

The Government needs to stop reacting in such a knee-jerk fashion, and think through consequences. All the mess about the Foreshore is because they panicked and did a knee-jerk press conference announcing they would legislate, rather than let the judicial process take its course. The same happened here where they should have awaited for the final criminal investigations to be done, before looking at a wider ranging commission.

Risawn has joined in the fun and done her own Southpark self-portrait.

She has Eric Cartman like eyes!

Over at Boing Boing is the story of a Berkeley Professor who has his laptop stolen, and links to the webcast of his lecture, where at the end of it he tells the class what the consequences are for the person who stole it. I’m amazed the person responsible didn’t have to leave the room to go to the toilet.

I’ve linked below an audio of the webcast. If you have the bandwidth there is also a link on BB to a torrent of the 5MB video file which lets you see the Professor’s very serious demeanour.

Download file

The NZ Herald has another 111 incident. The Police rang up a farmer at just before midnight to ask him if he could travel 12 kms on their behalf to check out a 111 call made from another farm.

The Greens have released their list, and the big change is that Nandor Tanczos has been dropped from fourth to seventh.

If the Greens get only 5%, then they may only get six MPs (depends on how much wasted vote) so both Tanczos and Mike Ward could fail to be re-elected.

Incidentially I am surprised the media have not commented more on the number of polls which have shown the Greens at below 5%. We hear every day that ACT is fighting for surivival (and they are), but so are the Greens.

I read in the latest Molesworth and Featherston that Maree McNicholas has been elected chair of the parliamentary press gallery. Maree works for Newsroom, which is a 100% Internet only publisher.

This could be a first in the world, to have an Internet journalist chairing a parliamentary press gallery.

I was working as the media services advisor for Ministerial Services when Peter Fowler met with me in 1996 or 1997, to talk about his idea to have an Internet clearing house where people could read press releases as they came out etc. Something we take for granted today, but back then was novel. Peter said that his plan was to provide a free service for a while, and then look at charging. The key was getting Ministerial press releases sent out by e-mail, as they are the ones most people are interested in.

I was unsure as to whether it would ever make money for Peter and co, but thought it a great idea and over a period of time managed to get most of the press secretaries to agree to start sending out copies of their PRs by e-mail. This was a significant departure from procedure to date.

Newsroom grew and prospered. There was a brief, and fairly nasty, civil war as some of the staff set up their own service at Scoop, but both Newsroom and Scoop survived and prospered. And both seem to have their own niche now.

I then recall Newsroom asking for press gallery membership. Some journalists were not keen. There was a shortage of space, and what if any group with a website wants to become members, they said. However the quality of the product won the day and despite some scepticism Newsroom was granted associate, and then in time full, membership.

This was only a few short years ago, so to now have a Newsroom journalist as chair of the press gallery, indicates to me how quickly the barriers between traditional and Internet journalism have fallen. Maree’s election is of course in a personal capacity, reflecting her skills and personality, but the fact that she works for an Internet only publisher was obviously not an issue.

Incidentally at some stage I would like to see some sort of blog collective (sounds like Star Trek) apply for associate press gallery membership, so important debates can be live-blogged from the House. Not enough time before the election, but would be a nice project for afterwards.