Kiwiblog

The Principals Federation is doing a so called survey of parents on National Standards. Of course it has no scientific merit as it is not a random sample (they are promoting through some schools), but that is not the worst part of it. Get a grip on these so called questions:

Do you think that people should be concerned about bringing in an untried, untested system into our schools, when similar systems have failed overseas?

This is what the NZPF thinks is a balanced question!

Do you think it is wrong to hold schools totally responsible for students’ learning when it is acknowledged that there are many other circumstances beyond the control of the school?

And no one is saying they do hold schools totally responsible. But the NZPF seems to thinks schools have no responsibility at all.

Do you believe that the money being spent on National Standards would be better spent on world-leading programmes, developed in NZ, that we know work with students who are struggling to learn?

This should win some sort of award for the most biased unprofessional questions ever asked in a survey.

That of course has not stopped some principals using taxpayer resources to send it onto parents.  I’ve had half a dozen parents contact me to complain. My advice to any parent who gets the survey is to complain to the School Board Chair. The Dom Post reports on Karori School:

Karori Normal School has apologised to parents after complaints about it sending home a petition protesting against the Government’s national standards.

The school has also been scolded for sending parents a Principals Federation survey about the standards, which was branded “ridiculous, biased rubbish” by a parent. The survey features 10 questions, including whether parents thought it was wrong that children as young as five or six would be branded as failing, and if they were concerned that boards of trustees had been threatened with the sack if they disagreed about implementing the standards.

Karori Normal principal Diane Leggett, a member of the national executive of primary teachers’ union NZEI, which opposes the standards, said she did not mean to offend anyone by sending out the material.

Mrs Leggett told The Dominion Post that she assumed the Principals Federation survey would be unbiased and sent it out without checking it. “It was an error on my part. I would not have sent it out if I knew it was so obviously biased. I should have checked it first.”

Well if even a member of the NZEI national executive says the NZPF survey is obviously biased, I think we can all agree it has no worth as a survey and is in fact disguised propaganda.

I blogged on a column by Colin Espiner last week on the electoral law changes, and disagreed with aspects of it. One area I critiqued was the assertion that under the new law third parties could spend unlimited money in support of a political party, and not have it count as part of a party’s limit.

Now I was correct, but as Colin writes here the error was not his:

Power said the requirement that lobbyists register with the Electoral Commission if they spent more than $12,000 would ensure the system was open and transparent.

However, after an outcry from Labour and the Greens, Power said he was prepared to revisit the proposal if a select committee could agree on a suitable alternative.

He also announced that lobbyists running supportive campaigns for a party would have to seek the party’s consent, and they would count towards that party’s spending limit.

Earlier, his office had insisted that positive campaigning would not count towards party spending limits.

So it was a stuff up in the Minister’s office (and hey we have all made them), and one can’t criticise Colin for relying on the advice from the Minister’s office.

Trevor Mallard blogged last week:

Quick post coz doing electorate stuff but couldn’t resist sharing the Spotless results. These people are currently offering parliamentary cleaners a 25c wage increase that would take them to $12.80/hour despite employing cleaners (sometimes the same people) at $14.62/hour in hospitals and schools.

Their net profit after tax has increased by 40.8% to over $24 million.  Their earnings per share is up 25%.

Message to CEO Farnik – stop screwing our cleaners. Maybe you should pay $15 not $14.62/ hour. But $12.80/hour for parliamentary cleaners is just not enough.

I’ll fisk this post in more detail in a second, but first want to comment that I think it once again shows that most Labour MPs have no idea about how private businesses work. Profit is always treated as a bad thing, and basically as a margin there to be soaked up by increased wages. The concept of a return on capital seems foreign.

Now we are supplied two figures – a NPAT of $24 million and an hourly rate of $12.80, with a conclusion that one can afford to increase wages to $15 an hour. But business is not so simple.

Now let us take Trevor’s figure of NPAT increasing 40% to $24 million. This is correct, and not surprising as a company comes out of a recession. But Spotless have many divisions to their work, and each one has to be profitable (or you stop doing that type of work). The relevant information is the revenues and expenses for the cleaning division.

Now the earnings before interest and tax for the cleaning division actually fell 9.2% from $7.6 million to $6.9 million. So the 40% NPAT figure is irrelevant when it comes to what one can afford to pay cleaners.

Now the cleaning division had revenues of $133.1 million and implied expenses of $126.2 million. This means expenses are 94.8% of revenue and profit is 5.2% of turnover – hardly massive. We don’t know what proportion of expenses are staff wages, but let us assume it is 50%, or $63 million.

Now Trevor is calling for wages to go up by at least 16%, maybe 20%. Now if that was to happen across the board, then that would be additional costs of $12.6 million, which would send their cleaning division into making a loss of $5.7 million.

Now one can dispute the assumptions, and my motivation is not to defend Spotless per se. It is to highlight that the figures Trevor are using to make his case are meaningless. A net profit means nothing unless one is talking about it as a proportion of revenue or capital or both. A company with a $1 million NPAT may be in a far better position to afford pay increases than a company with a $20 million NPAT, as the second company may have $1 billion of equity and the former company $5 million of equity.

The Dom Post reports:

At least one Government minister has been forced to pay back expenses wrongly billed to his taxpayer-funded credit card and others are scrambling to check their spending.

Housing Minister Phil Heatley will repay Ministerial Services today for the $70 cost of two bottles of wine that he bought for National Party members at AMI Stadium in Christchurch last year and billed to his ministerial credit card.

An embarrassed Mr Heatley admitted, after checking with officials following questions raised by The Dominion Post, that he should never have paid for the wine with his ministerial card.

It suggests officials have been rubberstamping ministerial expenses.

The wine purchase was one of hundreds of transactions by ministers revealed by the release of credit card details in response to an Official Information Act request.

Mr Heatley has also run foul of the rules for running up expenses on his card and later reimbursing Ministerial Services – a practice he acknowledged was against the rules, though he was not aware of that till yesterday.

This is basically unacceptable, no ifs, no buts.

The rules about credit card use are set out in the Ministerial Services handbook. Now yes it is a huge document, but one new Ministers should read upon taking office – and as importantly, one their senior office staff should be aware of.

A Ministerial credit card should be used very sparingly in New Zealand. It is generally on overseas trips that they are needed.

It is a concern that Ministerial Services did not query some of the purchases at time of processing. We’ve seen in the UK what can happen when there is no push back from the authorities on expenses.

I suspect it may have already happened, but the PM needs to remind all Ministers of the need to be like Caesar’s wife when it comes to credit cards and expenses. Otherwise they may share the fate of Pompeia!

I tweeted last night that I felt very sorry for the many Telecom staff, as their XT network suffered another outage. It must be galling to see the company you work for get so damaged by outages that cause so much disruption. It’s probably like working for National in Parliament in 2002, which is why I can empathise!

A friend responded:

sorry David, but this chicken has been waiting to come home to roost for a while…you can’t outsource your maintenance, technology, customer service etc and expect to retain the core that makes a company strong enough not to fall into this sort of morass

And that’s a fair point. I recall one ex Telecom staffer semi-joking to me that I had to understand that Telecom wasn’t an IT company, it was a law firm that had contractors provide telecommunication services

Now Ernie Newman at TUANZ has called for possible Government action:

“Telecom needs to do something drastic to assist the customers it is repeatedly letting down,” said chief executive Ernie Newman in a statement.

“If it doesn’t, then it may be time for the government to step in as a national economic issue. This cannot be allowed to go on”

My first response to the call for Government action is to imagine Steven Joyce in builders shorts and a hard hat on a tall ladder at the top of a mobile phone tower, and he’s whacking something repeatedly with a spanner.

More seriously, I don’t see these outages as critical as if they had occured on the fixed line network, or the DSL network.

Telecom has a near monopoly on the final mile copper loop. If those networks go down, it can affect everyone in NZ, regardless of choice of provider.

But we have two and a half mobile phone networks in NZ, which are not dependent on the same infrastructure, and one can establish a presence on a competitor within a few hours, plus have number portability to keep numbers.

I’m not advocating that XT customers mass migrate – individual customers will make those decisions based on how many more outages there are, and what guarantees and/or compensation they get in future. But the presence of Vodafone and 2 Degrees means that customers do have options, if the frustration gets too much for them. And that knowledge that they may lose current and future customers will be providing the best incentive to Telecom (and its contractors) to get things right.

So I’d rather the Government doesn’t jump in at this stage. I’d have a different view if the outages were in one of the areas where they are a virtual monopoly, but this is not the case with the XT mobile network.

9 pm on Wednesday on TVNZ7 or live at the Backbencher.

• Sue Kedgley, Greens
• Damien O’Connor, Labour
• Louise Upston, National

Topics are police powers and mining.

Steven Price blogs:

Brady Errol Chadwick has suffered a setback in his defamation claim against the Dominion Post. He has been ordered to pay $10,000 security for costs, which means that it’s unlikely his case will progress.

This will be a relief to Fairfax since it’s not at all clear the media organisation would have been able to afford the relief Mr Chadwick is seeking:

collateral/commodities to the value of three billion New Zealand dollars payable as uranium for use in Atomic Power Stations.

Now it seems Mr Chadwick has been before the courts before, as a plaintiff. He sued the Attorney-General last year, as reported in this decision. Some extracts:

Mr Chadwick, in five proceedings against the Attorney-General
alleges he has been repeatedly poisoned with the sap of the euphobia plant and estrogen.

I thought the sap of the euphorbia plant was a wound healer, and that would certainly be preferable to poisoning with estrogen.

He also complains chemicals have been supplied to him in the hope that he will blow himself up and the Police have attempted to run him over with a Police car.

Now this has a double meaning. Does he mean that the chemicals will cause him to explode, or that taking the chemicals will cause him to get some explosives and blow himself up.

The claim the Police have tried to run him over, would be stronger without the other claims!

Arising broadly from these events Mr Chadwick has filed civil proceedings against the Attorney-General for what he describes as attempted murder, criminal harassment, defamation, corrupt use of official information, false statements, fabricating evidence, conspiring to bring false accusations, conspiring to defeat the course of justice, blackmail, demanding with intent to steal, torture, common assault and theft.

Goodness, Chris Finlayson has been a busy boy. And Chris would never do common assault – he would be far more sophisticated with his assault.

The remedies sought are mostly, either or both a claim for three or four billion dollars worth of “uranium” for use in power stations, or economic sanctions against New Zealand for a number of years. The economic sanctions prayer appears to seek orders that this Court prohibit New Zealand selling goods overseas and importing goods other than essentials.

He seems to have an unhealthy fixation with uranium. Maybe the PM should sell him his shares

This Court could not make such orders even if liability could be established.

Good to see such self-restraint from the court. Hopefully it won’t be appealed to the Supreme Court, just in case Dame Sian decides they could make such orders

In CIV 2008-485-2705 the plaintiff alleges he has been tortured by the New Zealand Government. The allegations of torture seem to arise from complaints by Mr Chadwick that a number of people around the streets have tried to trip him up as he has walked

Shit, I didn’t know that counts as torture. I think that would make me a torturer.

I note portions of the statements of claim are incoherent and thus impossible to follow. Some of the claims involve incredible allegations, for example, that the Government is able to manipulate time and the integrity of the physical world.

Now that is an incredible allegation, but can you rule it out? It might explain how the Government stays so popular!

I’m still not clear whether or not Iran is paying for the Radio NZ staff to attend, or the Asia-Pacific Broadcasters Union is. But the issue of paying, is for me, the lesser issue.

Radio NZ is a public broadcaster. While at times I may have issues over the diversity of views on Radio NZ, they are one of the “good guys” in that their role is to speak truth to power, as the old saying goes. They act as a critic and check on Government.

The Iran state broadcaster is almost the polar opposite of Radio NZ. It does not speak truth to power. It speaks lies on behalf of the power. Rather than be a critic and check on the Government, they are a propaganda arm of the regime.

Having Radio NZ staff at a broadcasting conference hosted by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Alliance, lends legitimacy to the IRIBA.

I’d like to see Radio NZ staff attend conferences dedicated to media freedom, and the need for a free press. Not give legitimacy to a broadcaster which stands opposed to everything good about Radio NZ.

The Chief Executive of Radio NZ must have approved the attendance of the staff, under RNZ’s conflict of interests policy. Does he not think supporting a broadcaster whose practices reflect everything Radio NZ professes to be against, is a conflict?

While Kiwiblog is primarily for my views, I have from time to time run guest posts from people with a different point of view.

My good mate Mike Moore (no not the famous one) is mates with Bryan Law, and asked me if I would consider allowing a couple of guest posts from Bryan while he is over here for the Waihopia trial in early March.

My stance to the protesters was rather unsympathetic, but I am a big believer of freedom of speech, and am happy to have Bryan put a different point of view.

The trial of the ANZAC Ploughshares – 3 Catholic Worker “activists” who deflated a Kevlar dome at the Waihopai intelligence base in April 2008 – is due to commence in the Wellington District Court on Monday 8 March.  The trio, Fr Peter Murnane, Sam Land and Adrian Leason are charged with wilful damage to the value of $880,000.  http://www.cairnspeacebypeace.org/?p=32

A broader collection of peaceniks and greens are supporting the three during their trial, and some will use the occasion to promote fairly extreme views around how to end war and develop democracy.  A look at their program http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/pltrial.pdf reveals that Murray Horton (anti-bases campaign), Moana Cole (Ploughshares), Keith Locke (Greens MP) and Bryan Law (Christians Against ALL Terrorism, Australia) will speak about the issues at a public meeting on Wednesday 10 March, at St John’s Church Hall.

Bryan Law is completely unknown here, but enjoys a certain notoriety in Australia. In recent years he’s stood trial with others for breaking into the Pine Gap intelligence base in central Australia, trespassing into the Shoalwater Bay military training area in central Queensland, and swimming out in front of US warships in his home town of Cairns.  Bryan is particularly proud of the Christian activists’ efforts at Shoalwater bay, where he claims the live-firing component of Exercise Talisman Sabre had to be stopped because of the trespass actions.  He claims this article explains pretty clearly the tactics and methods that allow ordinary citizens to intervene into and stop war.  http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/story/2009/07/01/notorious-protester-hits-shoalwater/

As I said, Bryan’s been in contact with KiwiBlog, courtesy of my old colleague in crime, Mike Moore from CairnsBlog.  He says that KiwiBlog looks “pretty cool”, but a lot of the commenters appear to him as hostile and uninformed.  He says that:

“If these people had any idea about the traditions and actions of the Catholic Workers, they’d understand just how close to the original Boston Tea Party, the American revolution, and the ANZAC spirit these ploughshares activists stand.  I hope the present Tea Party hopefuls in the US and elsewhere get serious about a resurgence of democracy.  The world sure could use it”.

I predict we will have some lively debates between Bryan, and others. As always, passionate exchange of views is fine, but deeply personal abuse will get sanctions.

Busted Blonde has a great scoop. She has found out two Radio NZ staff members are being sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting agency to attend some sort of broadcasting event in Iran.

So taking money from evil capitalist businesses in New Zealand is wrong, but from the Iranian Government (a known bastion of free speech) is fine.

The head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting agency is the man who told the world press last July that videos of Neda Agha-Soltan’s death were fakes manufactured by the BBC and CNN.

UPDATE: In a comment below, Radio NZ says the staff are not representing Radio NZ, and that they would not attend if the IRIBA had invited them directly but somehow it is okay because it is through the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union. What is not yet clear is who is paying for the travel – IRIBA or the APBU, and also whether the staff are being paid to attend, or taking unpaid or annual leave]

Over at Curiablog, I have blogged the results of a poll done last week of 1,200 Aucklanders on the Auckland Mayoralty.

It is very rare to have a dead tie between two candidates, but that is what we got – of the 85% of respondents who had a preference between John Banks and Len Brown, they got 50.0% each.

Banks, who is the client who commissioned the poll, has a small 4.4% lead when we ask Aucklanders unprompted who their preference for Mayor is. He gets 42.5% to 38.1% for Brown. Bob Harvey is at 7.2% and Stephen Tindall at 4.8%.

But in the second question, when asked if it is a choice between John Banks and Len Brown, they are dead even. This is a change from the previous poll in September when Brown was almost 10% ahead of Banks.

It looks like it will be a very interesting contest!

The Commerce Commission has decided (by a rare 2:1 split) not to recommend regulation of mobile termination rates, as the undertakings by telcos is deemed satisfactory.

The Government is consulting on the recommendation. Regardless of whether it goes with commercial undertakings or regulation, it means prices should drop. The mobile termination rate is the rate charged to receive and terminate a call to a mobile phone, so it acts as a floor on charges.

The mobile termination rate is 17.53c a minute for Telecom and 17.90c for Vodafone. Under the final undertakings these will drop to 10c in 2011, 9c in 2012, 8c in 2013 and 6c in 2014.

That is good for consumers, but not so good for competition as it means it is not until 2014 we get them to 6c. If they recommended regulation then one might get to that level in 2011.

As for text message termination rates, the final undertakings are to move to bill and keep (ie no termination rate) so long as traffic is balanced within 7%.

Reading the executive summary, I was interested to find out that 80% of all voice calls and 90% of all SMS traffic is on the same network. This is much higher than in other OECD countries, and is a result of the high MTRs we have had.

The Press reports:

Labour plans to launch a nationwide bus-campaign protest against the proposed GST increase.

The Opposition has recorded a slight increase in support in the latest polls, but National is still well in front as it welcomes poll results as support for a GST rise.

Prime Minister John Key says they show “there is support for an increase in GST where it’s accompanied by a reduction in taxes”.

However, Labour leader Phil Goff was yesterday cautiously optimistic about the new polls indicating he was making up some ground on the National Government.

Hmmn. Two polls were out yesterday. TVNZ had the gap at 20% and TV3 at 26.7% which is an average gap of 23.4%. Their previous polls had gaps of 22% and 24.4% which was an average gap of 23.2%.

So in fact the gap between National and Labour increased by an average 0.2% in the only two polls taken post the GST announcement. Not quite making up ground.

Goff said he planned to take MPs on a bus trip from Auckland to Dunedin during the two-week parliamentary recess.

“Nobody voted for an increase in GST,” Goff said.

That is not true. Phil did. He voted to bring GST in at 10% and he voted to increase it to 12.5%.So does anyone think he is being sincere with his opposition to this increase?

Vernon Small writes in the Dom Post:

The Government is considering a revamp of personal grievance laws.

The moves include a crackdown on frivolous claims and new rules to control “no win, no fee” advocates who have been seen as ramping up claims against employers.

But unions are concerned that the Government is using the review to reduce employees’ rights when they are sacked, including claims based on unfair process.

Getting the process largely right is important, but it is very difficult for small businesses to get it perfect. They do not have inhouse lawyers. They do not have HR departments. And they are the ones who can least afford losing a claim.

Prime Minister John Key has said the Government “shares concern from many quarters about the fairness and consistency of personal grievance claims”.

Ms Wilkinson said she wanted to ensure the regime was fair to both sides. “You hear stories anecdotally from employers who say, `Oh well, it’s just too hard we will just pay some money to make it go away.’ And that’s not justice.”

She had also heard that some of the “no win, no fee” industrial law advocates “know their way around the procedures so well that, whatever the merits of the case, the employer might pay out”.

In the public sector, three months salary is quite normal to settle claims, regardless of their merits.

CTU president Helen Kelly said “no win, no fee” advocates tended to operate among non-unionised workers and moves to regulate them would not concern the CTU.

I love how the CTU doesn’t mind the Government clamping down on their competitors

But it had major concerns about other elements of the document. She said the Government saw procedural fairness and natural justice as an impediment when an employee was dismissed.

The remedies won through personal grievances were too low, she said. Surveys had found the average cost to employers was $5000, of which compensation paid to workers averaged $2800.

I wonder if that takes into account the cases settled out of court?

Thousands of employment relationships ended unfairly and employees did nothing about it, so a lot of employers got off lightly. The number of grievance cases was low, considering that about 600,000 people left their jobs each year.

Most people go from one job to another better job, so obviously no grievances tend to occur there. What I would like to know is how many employees get dismissed each year, and what proportion of those result in a settlement or a court case.

Sideswipe reports:

How does Air New Zealand communicate what is, and more importantly what is not, appropriate behaviour on its new Skycouch, aka Cuddle Class? Well, the national carrier is suggesting this ad might do the trick … Get it?

Heh that is very funny.

The HoS reports:

Auckland Museum’s head of public relations has written a glowing Wikipedia entry for his under-fire boss during business hours.

Russell Briggs omitted the controversy that has plagued Dr Vanda Vitali’s tenure as director of Auckland Museum.

His entry appears to breach Wikipedia’s guidelines, which state that entries should be unbiased and balanced.

I’m quoted in the article, and said to the reporter that Wikipedia is meant to be a neutral point of view, and it is hard to achieve that if you are writing about your boss!

Having said that, creating a page without criticism for your boss, is not as big a “sin” as editing a page to remove such criticism, and I predicted that one the article appeared, other Wikipedians would edit it, so it is a more balanced article.

And indeed, if you go to her article now, it has been edited several times, and is now much more balanced.

The HoS reports:

Manukau Mayor Len Brown has come under fire for spending thousands of dollars of ratepayer cash to take his wife on a sister-city trip to Japan.

Supermayor candidate Brown was also criticised for opting to fly premium economy on the junket while other members of the delegation flew economy.

Flights for the mayor and his wife Shan cost $7900, and a further $8700 was spent flying three council staff to Utsunomiya, 120km north of Tokyo.

Council chief executive Leigh Auton also brought his wife, Jenny, on the trip but paid for her costs personally.

I’m not against Mayoral travel, but there are three reasons why this travel stands out as a rather stupid thing to do:

1. Len Brown travelled a higher class of travel, than the other delegation members. There should be a clear policy on travel which has everyone travel in the same class.
2. He had the ratepayers pay for his wife to attend, while the CEO personally paid for his wife. Again, consistency is key.
3. The Manukau City Council is disappearing in a few months, and there is no way the new Auckland Council will maintain all existing super city relationships, so the travel was ill-timed as there may be no sister city relationship going forward.

The eight Councils between them have a huge number of sister cities. If the new Auckland Council doesn’t prune some of them, the new Mayor would end up spending more time overseas than in Auckland!

The HoS reports:

Broadcaster Tony Veitch is under fire after he accused disgraced golfer Tiger Woods of trying to stage-manage his way out of trouble.

During an interview with agent and former All Black Andy Hayden on Radio Sport, Veitch criticised Woods for avoiding direct questions from the media. …

Speaking about Woods before the golfer’s public apology, Veitch said: “The world wants answers. “He’s going to be surrounded by good friends and family for this announcement tomorrow morning. This is simply going to be a pre-orchestrated, pre-read statement and he is not going to front up to the questions.”

Veitch was forced to resign high-profile radio and television roles after reports surfaced that he had assaulted his former partner Kristin Dunne-Powell.

His first public response to these charges was a press conference at Auckland’s Hyatt hotel where he delivered a prepared statement and apology but answered no questions.

Tony, Tony, Tony. You were doing so well back on air. But really – what is that old saying about stones and glasshouses.

The Herald reports:

Death threats for Libby killer

The teenager who was yesterday unmasked as Liberty Templeman’s murderer has received death threats on the internet.

Tall (1.9m) Hermanus Theodorus Kriel, known as Theo, posted a webpage in July 2008, four months before he killed 15-year-old Liberty.

Within hours of a judge lifting his name suppression yesterday, dozens of angry messages appeared about the boy.

One person wrote: “You are going to find out what HELL is like you sad little selfish disrespectful murdering lying prick.”

Another comment said: “I hope he rots in hell.”

A third person said: “Hope you get a cell with a big smelly gangster who makes you his ass bitch.”

The media like labelling things as death threats, but to my mind, these are not death threats. They are, shall we say, strong expressions of (understandable) anger.

In my mind, you need two elements for something to be a death threat:

1. It should actually make a threat of death. There is a difference between saying I hope you die, and saying I will kill you.
2. It should be communicated to the individual by phone, post or e-mail etc. A rant on a Trade Me forum is not a threat, for example.

• Guyon Espiner interviews Bill English on the recovery, taxes and investments
• Paul Holmes interviews Helen Clark on Haiti, climate change and the UNDP
• Panel is Matt Robson, Fran O’Sullivan and Jon Johanson

On TV One from 9 am to 10 am.

As much of a competition rub by Asia-Pacific Breweries, I organised a Drink Savvy party, and blogged about it here and here and here.

The competition for drink savvy ideas is still open until 31 March, but I am pleased to announce that I won the parallel competition between bloggers for hosting the best drink savvy party in January. I am obviously very pleased about this, as the prize is a S$3,000 holiday for two to Australia.

Yet to get exact details, but it looks like it includes Sydney and the Whitsunday Islands.

Yay!

The NZ Herald slams the latest stunt by the anti-whaling activists:

Peter Bethune knew precisely what he was doing, and the consequences, when he boarded the whaling vessel Shonan Maru 2 to make what fellow-protesters described as a citizen’s arrest of its captain. …

Mr Bethune was intent simply on grabbing publicity. He, and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, wanted to prompt a diplomatic incident, thereby putting further pressure on the Japanese to end whaling. …

The Dominion Post argues against a city wide liquor ban:

On one of Wellington’s rare balmy nights there is little to compare to a quiet picnic on the south coast, watching the sun go down and the kids paddle in the surf as you enjoy some cold roast chicken, a nice green salad , and a glass of Martinborough’s best sauvignon blanc.

Soon that pleasure may come with the dubious frisson of being a law-breaker, and the prospect of a visit from police to tell you you are breaching a Wellington City Council bylaw. Under the proposed liquor ban, the wine has to be tipped out on the sand, or the picnic packed up and moved to a non-public place. If you refuse, you will be arrested. If you wait till police go away and then carry on enjoying your picnic, you will be arrested should they return.

That is the future that could face Wellingtonians should the city council go ahead and pass its city-wide booze ban.

It’s a daft idea that should be shot down. Have outdoors liquor bans in areas where there is a problem.

The Press talks about the future of their regional council:

Environment Canterbury chairman Alec Neill managed to put on a brave face after the damning report into his institution’s performance and governance yesterday. The reality is that if the Government adopts the recommendations in the report, ECan as we know it today will be gone. …

The report will provide vindication for the region’s mayors, business figures and farmers, who have been queuing up to slate ECan for some years.

They would also agree with the comment of review leader Wyatt Creech that ECan had a “fortress” and “we know best” culture. …

I predict it will be gone.

The ODT talks about electoral issues:

It will be recalled that, in 2005, the Exclusive Brethren attempted to influence the outcome of the poll by mounting a covert and costly campaign against the Greens and Labour.

Labour had also been concerned about the extent to which campaign finance was both anonymous and uncapped, raising the spectre, it claimed, of “big money” interests tilting the odds against a fair contest: the even playing field argument.

In an attempt to close loopholes in the campaign finance rules, and to prevent parties “jumping the gun” and subverting the spending caps, it also created a controversial regulated campaign period of three months prior to polling day.

Ummn, no. That was the old regulated period. Labour extended the period to be all of election year.