Kiwiblog

The flight to Perth was on a 767 so I’ve yet to try out one of the new 777s which do look nice. Three of us were travelling to attend Apricot. Apricot, as I had to explain to Australian Customs, is not a conference about fruit but the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies.

A few hours before we travelled Air NZ staff had just been told a 470 admin staff are going to be made redundant. One of the staff showed us the e-mail from the CEO which was pretty brutal.

Three of us were travelling together to attend it. As the flight was eight hours we tried to use airpoints to upgrade to business class. Unfortunately they upgraded some but not all of us which was unusual as the person not upgraded had been gifted air points from my account. I tried to convince Air NZ staff they were my “companion” and to upgrade her also but alas that didn’t work.

On the flight I watched North Country and Zorro 2. North Country was a gripping film and I didn’t even do my usual trick of reading a book while also watching a movie as I was so engrossed in the movie. Quite a tearjerker finish with the court-room scene. Niki Caro is an amazing director. Oh yeah that Charlize Theron isn’t bad either.

When we landed we pulled up to our gate but they then had an engineering problem with the walkway which wouldn’t extend all the way out to the plane. My helpful suggestion of why don’t we just move the plane eight feet to the left amused the cabin crew who suggested they would be happy for me to try jumping the distance to see if it can be done safely. Eventually we got towed to another gate.

Had a quiet dinner in town last night at 8 pm. This was equal to 1 am back home so all fairly tired. Today have a bit of spare time. On Sunday the AGM of the Asia-Pacific Coalition against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail is on. The good good news is it sounds like China has just passed anti-spam laws – something sought for many years.

Also by coincidence at a Perth courthouse this week is the first prosecution under Australia’s anti-spam laws. May try and pop in to observe it, as the defendant is pleading not guilty and it will come down to the definition of spam in the law.

The NZ Herald has a story about Michelle Boag using a rescue helicopter to fetch her passport after she realised she had left it behind on Waiheke Island.

While an irresistible news story, the key aspect is that the $4,000 cost of the flight was paid for by Michelle personally so the comment by a Waiheke neighbour saying “I wonder how all the people who have contributed money would feel about that?” is pretty stupid.

I didn’t know Michelle had set up and chaired a foundation to to fund-raise for the rescue helicopter but it is no surprise. Michelle has a very very long history of charitable and community service.

Talking of passports I’ve never forgotten my passport but I do specialise in misplacing my one and only locating it a few hours before the flight. This happens almost every time. I’m just about packed and then I wonder where my passport is. A search of cupboards and drawers takes place at a frantic rate until I usually find it in the side pocket of my travel bag or something. I really need to settle on a permanent storage spot for it.

I’m off to Perth for a conference this afternoon so as usual no blogging from the plane!

Despite being ‘just’ to Australia, it’s a surprisignly lengthy almost eight hour flight from Auckland.

I blogged a very detailed post yesterday about the so called black book, which included a full MP profile from the book.

TV3 broadcast more one line extracts from the book last night as reported by NZPA. While it is very amusing to read the one liners they are taken widly out of context as when only four out of 1,000 words are quoted.

I’m also bemused by TV3 reporting that MPs are seeking copies of the book to find out what it says about them. Again this misrepresents the situation by suggesting they have to go to some trouble to find this out. Every MP at anytime has been able to request a copy of their profile.

A fascinating media beat-up considering the book has been published for the last 15 years.

If we have to endure a Race Relations Commissioner who has also self-appointed himself the champion of religious censorship, then could Parliament balance the score by appointing a Free SPeech Commissioner whose job will be to defend our rights of free speech from all the other commissioners.

I’ve never been a fan of a written formal constitution for New Zealand, but if we stick a guarantee of free speech into it I would now support having a constitution. Why? Quite simply I don’t trust politicians and their officials to stand up for my rights to free speech when push comes to shove. If I hear one more person say “We have free speech in NZ, but … ” I’m going to scream. Just stop before the but.

Some things don’t change over the years and students plotting scams to save money is one of them. NZ Herald has the details.

Very surprised to see that Prime TV is not keeping Alison Mau on. She’s one of the very few presenters who isn’t inciredibly irritating.

I used to hate Prime News when it had close to zero local content but in recent months it has been a lot better and I watch it whenever I’m home at 5.30 pm.

I have to say very good job to EPMU who rather than resort to the traditional mindless kneejerk stike and protest when job losses were announced, hired a corporate restructuring expert and have managed to reduce the job losses from 500 to around 200.

The story below was on Xtra’s website earlier:

NZ Journalist Attacked In Bangkok
23/02/2006
NewstalkZB
A New Zealand journalist is in a Bangkok hospital and her boyfriend is dead, after a late-night robbery in a Cambodian bar.

He says Mr Mitchell was stabbed five times in the chest and the two assailants then turned on Ms Nye, cutting her on the face, neck and hands.

I never knew Cambodia had invaded Thailand and made Bangkok part of it.

Barbara Stewart’s bill to reduce Parliament to 100 MPs has been drawn and will be voted on in a few weeks.

It is worth looking at who would not be in Parliament if there had been 100 MPs only at the last election. This is assuming the reduction comes from the list only.

Labour would lose 8 MPs, National 9 MPs, NZ First 1 and Greens 1. In theory also Maori Party one but as they have overhang so would be Parliament of 102 MPs. Now which MPs would not be there:

Greens – Metira Turei and Nador Tanczos would have missed out on e-day to have Turei come in to replace Rod Donald after his death.

NZ First – Pita Paraone would have missed out. Ironically Stewart herself would just make it in – in spot 96.

National – Paula Bennett, Jackie Blue, Nathan Guy, Kate Wilkinson, Mark Blumsky, Chris Auchinvole, Tau Henare, Nicky Wagner and Chris Finlayson all out.

Labour – Darien Fenton, Sue Moroney, Moana Mackey, Dave Heroera, Russell Fairbrother, David Parker, Maryan Street and Georgina Beyer all out.

Personally I don’t support the reduction to 100 (in fact think 140 is the right number). At 100 MPs overhang will become a more common problem as every five years the number of list MPs will shrink due to new electorate seats being created.

You could reduce the number of electorate seats to say 50 but some already huge seats like West Coast – Tasman would become too large for an MP to easily cover.

No not making this up either. New Scientist has published an article on how sex with a partner is 400% better than without a partner!

So we needed scientists to tell us this!

Hat Tip: Ace of Spades

Well TV3 got very excited last night with juicy quotes from the so called black book from Saunders Unsworth and understandably there are stories today in the NZ Herald and the Dom Post mainly focusing on some of the quotes read out on TV3 last night about various MPs.

Some perspective on the SU publication might be useful. In doing so I should declare that in 2005 I sub-contracted Saunders Unsworth to do a small amount of work for a London based client of mine. The amount involved was very small and has no bearing on my impressions of SU which go back over a decade of parliamentary involvement.

The first thing is that this is not a new publication. It has been published after the last five elections and is very well known to those around Parliament and its target audience.

The second is that what is written about an MP will not generally come as a surprise to that MP because SU has always had a policy of allowing any MP to see their own entry. And much of the material in the book comes from talking to the MPs directly.

The third is that of course some MPs do not always appreciate what their profile says. Every time the book comes out there are always a few unhappy MPs. In fact the staff used to quite enjoy seeing MPs get hold of a copy of their profile and compare it to their colleagues to find out who got the better or worse review.

The fourth is that the profiles are quite lengthy and well researched. Taking one negative comment out of a several page profile gives a misleading impression it is just a ‘bitch’ book. People would not pay $800 for it if it was. SU generally start researching long before the election seeking information on candidates likely to do well and become MPs etc. I’ve seen quite a few profiles over the years and generally they have been pretty accurate with their predictions about an MP’s future career etc. However I do regularly hassle Mr Unsworth over his 1996 prediction that Neil Kirton had a stellar parliamentary and ministerial career ahead of him

Now some time ago SU gave me a copy of one of their profiles with permission to blog it. It is the one on Shane Jones. The profile is below so people can judge the publicity in context rather than judge it on the one line listed in the media of “has a rampant ego”.

Shane Jones

Full Name Shane Jones

MP Since 2005

Electorate Stood unsuccessfully in Northland

Born

Awanui. The eldest of five, father Peter is a dairy farmer and mother Ruth a school teacher. Tribal links Te Aupouri, Ngai Takoto and has Welsh and Dalmatian heritage.

Family

Jones was deeply influenced by his paternal grandmother who taught him Maori oratory, culture and whakapapa. At school he described himself as

Sometimes sub-editors do very well with their headlines and I do like the one on Stuff called Road Rage Over Cuts.

It’s all so convenient that up until the election the Government did nothing but announce roading projects and then after the election it then announces it’s taking some of them back and delaying the others.

We’re all a bit like Charlie Brown with Lucy!

It is a great shame Rodney Hide’s bill defining the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi was only supported by National and ACT and didn’t even make it to select committee.

Sure the definitions in the bill were debatable but we should have had the debate. A select committee could have heard submission on what the principles should be defined as. It would force us to confront this important issue.

We have stuck treaty clauses in legislation for years and years without even knowing what the hell they mean. Almost everyone now agrees this was a bad thing to do. We had the chance to start providing a solution to the problem but Labour, Greens, United Future and NZ First denied NZers the chance of even having the issue considered.

Oh this is funny. A Napier brothel owner is in trouble because some of his clients are drinking without having sex. Yes honestly.

Perhaps if they gave the sex away for free with every tenth drink they would be okay

A few years ago I was primarily responsible for removing the ban of the “seven dirty words” as .nz domain names. There were multiple reasons such as banning some sugggests you approve of others, non english swear words, alternatives one can’t control such as motherfu.cker.co.nz instead of motherfucker.co.nz etc etc.

Anyway Yahoo bans certain words in their e-mail addresses. As a Kallahar found out she could not have her name in her email address because it contains the letters a l l a h. Now do they ban all names for God. Well no they allow God, Jesus and Satan etc etc.

Overly sensitive I think.

Hat Tip: NZ Pundit

UPDATE: My lobbying power is now so great that merely the thought of me posting on this issue forced a backdown by Yahoo

Well I was wrong when I predicted the Soutpark ratings would be double their normal 30,000. In fact they grew over 600% to 220,000 households.

I feel a bit sorry for the Catholic Church in that I think they knew a big public protest would be the worst thing they could do. Their initial reaction was to just say we don’t find it funny and would rather it is not shown but that’s a decision for C4.

Then a few weeks went by and the cartoon protests became a huge issue and this increased the profile of the episode because it was compared to the cartoons. And this seemed to then cause the Church to try a more high profile campaign and boycott – something guaranteed to increase ratings.

Anyway on behalf of the NZ Southpark fans thanks you to the Church for introducing Southpark to so many more people.

UPDATE: Good editorial from the Timaru Herald of all places. God do they have their own newspaper. I thought the printing press was a recent invention down there!

Hamas has a website showing Israel being nuked as an animated graphic [Google Cache].

Meanwhile the idiots in the Anglician Church are preparing to boycott Israel which has been unilaterally withdrawing from occupied territories and supporting Hamas which vows to destroy Israel. So much for blessed are the peacemakers.

Hat Tip: Whale Oil

Heh Boing Boing has a lego model of Brokeback Mountain

Okay back home now. Overwhelming consenus of the group of eight who watched the Southpark episode was that it couldn’t be seen as particularly more (or less) offensive than other episodes.

In fact most agreed the real target was Alcoholics Anonymous who are the ones who really should be complaining.

Will be very interesting to see what the ratings were. I understand they normally get 30,000. I suspect will be at least double that.

After several weeks of consultation, both domestically and with international experts, InternetNZ has published its submission to Hon David Cunliffe on Reforming the Telecommunications Regulatory Framework. There is also a pdf version available.

The issues raised in the submission are likely to form part of the debate on Campbell Live (TV3) at 7 pm tonight where John Campbell will be interviewing Telecom’s Theresa Gattung for half an hour. Campbell’s show is ironically sponsored by Telecom (which I have no problems with) but I am sure they will have a good debate on the issues.

There is a lot of stuff appearing about how the prices recently announced by Telecom are now quite good. But these comparisons rarely take into account all the important factors such as data limits and contention ratios.

Russell Brown has done a great job explaining the importance of contention ratios. Go read it – even if it hurts your brain.

And as I said a few days ago one offering by a major telco has a monthly data cap which would last 400 seconds at top speed.

The gap between us and most of the world is huge – not just in broadband. There is something wrong when it is cheaper for me to call a NZ phone number from a UK cellphone than it is from a NZ cellphone. Think about it.

In NZ we recently saw business broadband retail prices of $2,400 a month for a service with a wholesale value of around $27. In a proper free market one would not have this occur, and hence that’s why I support not just local loop unbundling but more importantly splitting Telecom into a wholesale and retail company so one has a level playing field amongst competitors which will deliver cheaper prices and better services to consumers than the current near-monopoly.

UPDATE: TV3 has video of the Campbell Live show online. I like the way they portrayed NZ broadband as a garden hose and used as a comparison for overseas countries a full-power fire hose

Now this is funny. Winston Peters gets up to do his normal poodle act and get this – he complains about the “posturing and posing” of certain members of National’s frontbench.

One could hear sustained laughter at the ridiculousness of Peters complaining about someone posturing and posing.

Even the Speaker then commented on the irony.

There is a big political storm in the US over the fact that Dubai Ports World is taking over P&O and hence operations at six major US ports. The former owners were British not the United Arab Emirates.

Now who is leading the charge against the deal and has vowed to introduce legislation to block the sale? Hillary Clinton!!!

And who is standing firm, who is saying the UAE are a valued ally, who is deploring discrimination against them simply because they are a Middle Eastern country and who has threatened to veto any legislation to block the sale. George W Bush.

On this issue I’m firmly with Bush and deplore the ‘dog whistle’ politics of Clinton and the other members of the legislative branch. Which sadly is not confined to one side of the Houses.

Whale Oil blogs that National’s Auckland (technically Northern) Chairman Scott Simpson is retiring at this year’s conference. So far two contenders to replace him.

The traditional job for the Auckland Chairman is to advocate for the Head Office to move from Wellington to Auckland and the traditional job of the other four Regional Chairs is of course to stop this happening.

Actually the job of a Regional Chair is very important with massive hours for no pay. Good luck to those mad enough who want to be one!

No Right Turn has also done his list of the ten worst New Zealanders. Again I don’t think I agree with a single entry!

Eleanor Tolland has also done a list and I am highly amused by the inclusion of Emily Braunstein as No 10 for “killing the Salient letters page”