Kiwiblog

No politics from me today – I think we are all (or should be) focused on what happens in Pike River. There will be a by-election update after 7 pm of course.

2115: The earlier report of one fatality remains unconfirmed. Gerry Brownlee has just said there are no confirmed or official fatalities at this stage.

1950: Five out, 24 thought to be still in there

1934: TVNZ reports three other miners are making their way up.

1932: Two more fo reund injured, but alive. Injuries are moderate.

Like many I am glued to Twitter waiting for news from the Pike River mine. We are all hoping there are no deaths but sadly there have been some reports that there is one confirmed casualty at this stage.

The number of miners unaccounted for ranges from 27 to 36.

My thoughts are with all those down on the West Coast awaiting news. It must be awful not knowing anything solid yet.

Please keep this thread free of politics.

Hopefully we will have more news shortly.

In contrast to his useful policy focused post, a more recent blog post goes down to the depths from Trevor:

Anne Tolley doesn’t care about sex criminals looking after children

From the Shadow Education Minister, this is disgusting and a reminder as to why Labour should not be in Government – if this is their idea of debate.

The Education Amendment Bill currently before the house removes the obligation to get a Police check for people who look after babies and young children unsupervised at gyms and mall childcare services.

Labour may have over-regulated but this goes too far.

Labour massively over-regulated. They forced creches at gyms to register as early childhood education centres, have qualified teaching staff etc – including the Police check.

The reality is a creche at a gym is not a school, or part of the educational infrastructure. They are a babysitting service. They allow a mum to use the gym and have someone look after their kids for 60 minutes.

One can have a sensible debate about whether or not gym creches should be required by law to do police checks on their creche staff. But to effectively accuse the Minister of being indifferent to paedophilia is again disgusting.

Personally I’m not at all sure there is a need. Labour sounds like they want to go down the route of the UK where you can’t even be an occassional parent helper for sports or scouts without a Police check.

Have any kids ever been molested by a staff member while their mother is exercising at the gym? I mean, what is the problem to be solved here?

Do we only require police checks for babysitters at gyms? How about for all babysitters and nannys? Maybe we need a Department of Babysitters to register and monitor them?

The Scouts have a policy of getting police checks on all new leaders. This is very sensible, as sadly youth groups do attract paedophiles. But Scouts are not required to do this by law. Are gym creche staff a bigger risk than scout leaders?

If there is evidence that not having mandatory police checks on gym creche staff has led to children being molested, then I can be persuaded that it may be a sensible idea. But can’t we hold that debate without Labour MPs asserting that the Minister of Education (herself a parent) doesn’t care if sex criminals look after children.

I have a lot of fun last week at the Open Source Awards. Got to meet in real life a few people I only had met online, and enjoyed some great conversation along with the drink and food.

The winners were:

Winner – Open Source in Government
IRD’s use of Moodle

Winner – Open Source in Education
Albany Senior High School

Winner – Open Source in Business
Ponoko – the hub of a global personal manufacturing eco-system that brings together creators, digital fabricators, materials suppliers and buyers to make almost anything

Winner – Open Source in the Arts
Ghosts in the Form of Gifts – the use of open source technologies and design to recreate some of the lost treasures of the Te Papa collection from photographs and drawings.

Winner – Open Source Project
SilverStripe – a New Zealand-made CMS that has been downloaded more than 325,000 times globally in less than four years

Winner – Open Source Advocate
Linux.conf.au organisers Andrew & Susanne Ruthven

Winner – Open Source Contributor
Tabitha Roder for One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)

Winner – People’s Choice Award
Amie McCarron for the Alcoholics Anonymous New Zealand websites; the public facing site, service/members site and annual convention website.

Very deserving winners, and many great finalists also.

I was one of the judges, and asked to present the Open Source in Government award. The video has been placed on You Tube, so I’ve embedded it below, for anyone interested.

Today’s Dom Post editorial:

It used to be said of safe National electorates that the party could pin blue ribbons on donkeys and still win them. Mana is the Labour equivalent of such a seat – a predominantly working-class electorate that Labour has held since its first incarnation as Porirua in 1963.

And in fact the predecessor seats to Porirua have also been Labour held since at least the 1930s.

However, a combination of circumstances has given Labour leader Phil Goff and his handpicked candidate, Kris Faafoi, cause for a restless sleep tonight.

They include the strong local profile of National candidate Hekia Parata, the independent candidacy of unionist Matt McCarten, the increasing prosperity of the northern half of the electorate and Mr Faafoi’s lack of campaign experience.

The restless sleep won’t be over whether Kris will be elected to Parliament. Few are not expecting that. It will be over whether there is a significant swing to the Government’s candidate – a very rare thing in a by-election.

He and his supporters have erected so many billboards on Mungavin Avenue, the main road in Cannons Creek, that locals have taken to calling it Faafoi Avenue but, despite the attempts of the Christchurch-raised candidate to suggest he grew up in the electorate, he is not as well known as Ms Parata, who has continued to build links in the area, despite losing to Labour’s Winnie Laban at the last election.

Hekia has done what good List MPs should do – to get out there and be active in the local community.

For those reasons, and because Labour has not managed to turn the spotlight on National, the by-election is reversing the usual trend. Instead of serving as a referendum on the performance of the Government, it has become a referendum on the performance of the Labour Opposition.

I disagree to some extent on that. I do not think it is a referendum on National or Labour. I think it is more a referendum on the candidates. If National cuts the majority significantly it will be because of Hekia. Likewise if Labour has its majority take a tumble, it will mainly be because of resentment over the selection of an inexperienced non local. By this I don’t mean that Kris has done anything wrong – he has run a good campaign and if elected will be a diligent MP. But the nathie of his selection, with his successor being offered his job as Goff’s press secretary before he was selected etc is what has gone down badly with some locals.

A majority of 3000 plus would represent a solid victory for Labour, which will have MPs, activists and union supporters ferrying voters to the polls tomorrow. Fewer than 2000 would represent a triumph for National and trigger a fresh round of speculation about Mr Goff’s leadership.

I think it is too simplistic to look at the result for the entire electorate. My view is there are too “halves” of the electorate.

One half is what I call tribal Labour. And it is tribal. They may like John Key. They may think Hekia is great, but they vote Labour – always have and always will. There may be some vote loss to Matt McCarten, but in these areas I would not expect Hekia to necessarily get any movement at all compared to 2008.

Also in these “tribal Labour” areas you will have scores and scores of salaried union employees getting out the vote. They have been campaigning fulltime for Labour for weeks – and of course their salaries do not count as part of the $40,000 cap. With that extra GOTV, Faafoi might even get more vote share than Laban did in that area.

In the other half, there could be a different story. In the other half, there could well be a swing to Hekia and away from Labour. Don’t think this is just the Whitby areas. Areas like Pukerua Bay and Raumati South are what I call “trendy lefty” and voted for Laban quite strongly last time – however they are not “tribal Labour” and they may vote Hekia on the basis of her work since the last election.

So do not assume there will be a uniform swing. What I will be looking at on the night is what happens in Porirua, what happens in the northern suburbs, and what happens in the Kapiti areas. They might all do the same thing, but I suspect not.

Trevor Mallard blogs:

Media – mainly on Sundays – and bloggers especially Cam Slater have been frustrated with Teachers’ Council rules that make it very hard to hear cases in public. I share their concerns. There is almost no way to have suppression orders because the maximum fine for a breach is $1k which deters no one.

The Council is understandably reluctant to risk identifying victims especially of sexual abuse but their rules don’t let them identify accused and not the victim – and won’t change with the current fine level.

This breeds rumours and false conclusions.

I’ve got two SoPs one very simple which increases the fine to $100k and would leave the Teachers’ Council to rewrite the rules. The second, below, is more comprehensive and adopts the position that Simon Power is promoting for the Courts. It has a presumption of an open hearing.

I agree with a presumption of open hearings. I also agree that if you have name supression, you need a larger maximum fine than $1,000 to be effective. However $100,000 is too much considering this is just for a professional disciplinary board – not an actual court.

You can read the proposed SOP in full at Red Alert, and comment either there or here on what you think.

It’s a good example of MPs using blogging to get feedback on proposed law changes.

Went to the opening night of Harry Potter 7.1 last night. The movie did not disappoint. It was pretty faithful to the book (some stuff left out of course, but no additions) and it captured the dark tone well.

The way they did the tale of the three brothers was very good.

The big question I had been wondering about was at what point would they do the cut between this film and Part II next July. I thought it would be probably be just after they escaped from Malfoy Manor, and it was – but the literal last scene was Voldemort breaking open Dumbledore’s tomb to retrieve the Elder Wand.

I am looking forward to Part II. They got through enough in Part I, that the Battle for Hogwarts will be the bulk of Part II.

A pity we have to wait until July next year for it. But at least have Voyage of the Dawn Treader in a couple of weeks!

Adam Bennett reports in the Herald:

However, loudest of all was Rima Taraia who loudly harangued the Prime Minister, asking him “are you scared of me?” and “don’t you want to talk to a Maori?”.

Attempting to shove her way through to Mr Key, she was pushed away several times by police and the Diplomatic Protection Squad.

“I’ve seen it before and they’ll go away when the cameras go away,” Mr Key said.

“The reality is that we’re the Government and we’re getting out there and talking about policies. These people are activists for a small group. That’s okay, they’re entitled to do that and we treat them with respect even if they don’t treat us with respect.”

I like that quote. And this is why the TV news last night was so good.

What I find interesting is that out of the combined group of UNITE activists and Young Labour members who were screaming and shouting, I don’t think a single one of them actually lives in Mana. Some were from Dunedin and some from Auckland, with perhaps a few from Wellington. But are any of them actually voters in the by-election?

It was interesting to observe how Taraia tries to use her ethnicity as a weapon, loudly proclaiming that the PM won’t talk to her because she is Maori and accusing the Police of targeting her because she is Maori. Such antics probably do more to stir up racial tension, than the morons at the National Front ever manage to achieve deliberately.

Well, having indulged in the feathery creatures for a bit, I thought a bit of variety would be nice. Here’s an estuarine  crocodile finding a shady spot to rest. I liked it for the reflection in the water, and the colouring of the scales. It is of course, taken up in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Click for larger, higher-resolution image

Going to be another busy day here. I predict much espressos in my near future. Hope everyone else has a good day.

Brian Fallow reports:

The Treasury is calling for a swifter return to fiscal surpluses than last May’s Budget envisaged, even as the Finance Minister warns of higher deficits in the short term.

Treasury Secretary John Whitehead, in a speech to Victoria University’s Institute of Policy Studies yesterday, spoke of the need to reduce the Government’s net debt.

It would provide a buffer against future economic shocks, prepare for challenges such as the ageing of the population and free up resources for growth in exports.

Whitehead is correct. I don’t think people realise how finely balanced things are.

On average we have a recession every ten years or so. By the time of the next one, we need to have started repaying debt significantly.

The higher costs of an ageing population will also start to hit in around ten years time.

Throw into the mix, the likely inability of Labour to keep spending under control when they return to Government at some stage this decade.

An interesting interview with Bjorn Lomborg at the Daily Beast. First his profile:

Bjorn Lomborg is one of the best-known (and most controversial) participants in the global debate on climate change. A professor at the Copenhagen Business School, he founded the Copenhagen Consensus Center, an organization that brings together many of the world’s leading economists to ponder the great environmental and material questions of our time—in particular, the question of whether we are getting our priorities wrong in focusing as obsessively (and expensively) as we do on manmade global warming, instead of on other problems such as clean drinking water, or malaria.

Lomborg is well known as the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist. But note he is not sceptical on climate change itself – just the response to it.

Gore got our attention and pointed out that global warming is real, but he also scared the pants off people, and hysteria makes for pretty poor political judgment. So, this film acknowledges Gore’s fundamental point: Global warming is real, manmade and important. But it does two important things: It rolls back the fear by pointing out that global warming is not the end of the world, and it shows us lots of ways in which we can start tackling climate change smartly and efficiently.

The reason there is a backlash against whether climate change is even real is because of all those who exaggerated its impact and painted Armageddon as imminent.

That is a very good question. I think part of it is due to the nature of the debate: It is easier for the people who predict the worst-case outcomes to be heard, and similarly it is easier for the people who entirely reject those propositions to be printed in response. However, it is entirely crucial for our ability to tackle global warming that we enable ourselves to have a more nuanced debate, a place where we can find a middle, or third road, where we can recognize the reality of global warming while not having to subscribe to the poor, ineffective Kyoto-style policies.

The Armageddon extremists on one side of the debate have given rise to the outright denialists and sceptics on the other. And really the debate should be on what is the most effective response.

I hope that the film will make a connection with the vast majority of Americans who indeed are in the middle of this conversation, tentatively subscribing to global warming, but unwilling to commit vast resources to amazingly poor policies.

Allow me just to give you one example: The European Union’s “20-20” policy, which will reduce emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels in 2020, will cost $250 billion per year for the rest of the century. Yet after spending $20 trillion, it will only have reduced temperatures by a minuscule 0.1°F. This simply is not smart.

Mitigation can be very expensive. There can be costs to not mitigating also of course.

The overwhelming evidence points to the reality of anthropogenic global warming. Even very skeptical scientists such as Richard Lindzen at MIT and Patrick Michaels point out that more CO₂ in the atmosphere means higher temperatures. This is really rather simple physics.

Again, the debate is over the extent of the indirect effects of greater CO2.

Fundamentally, we should be asking for governments to spend 0.2 percent of GDP on research and development into green energy. This is 50 times as much as we spend today, yet it is much less than what is typically being proposed to spend on inefficient Kyoto-style policies. Since it is so comparatively cheap, it is much more likely that we could get every nation on board (and developing countries would be paying proportionally less). But even if not everyone were on board, it would still make sense to move forward. In that sense, some countries could move ahead, fund the R&D and take us much closer to tackling global warming, without everyone participating.

NZ is spending a fair bit on R&D on reducing agricultural emissions, and in fact created a global alliance of other countries working towards this goal.

But 0.2% would be around $300 million a year. Sounds a lot. But it’s less than the subsidies in the ETS!

NZPA report at NBR:

Prime Minister John Key was mobbed in Porirua today as he campaigned for National in the Mana by-election.

A group of about 10 supporters of independent unionist candidate Matt McCarten crowded around Mr Key when he arrived at North City Plaza, and they were joined by Labour Party activists backing Kris Faafoi.

Mr Key couldn’t hear the people he was trying to talk to over screams and chants, and one determined woman activist repeatedly got in his face as he tried to meet voters.

Excellent. I can’t wait to see the news tonight. Nothing gets more votes than a group of idiots screaming at the PM.

This week‘s quite challenging. 8/10 in 40 seconds.

Derek Cheng at the Herald reports:

The mood was jovial until an argument broke out between Mr McCarten and Labour supporter Shane Cheriton.

“I’m an individual who thinks you’re just full of crap,” Mr Cheriton told Mr McCarten.

“Here’s a bunch of trendy liberals who think they can get out with a bunch of slogans and things will happen. No one will vote for you mate, because everyone knows that you’re going to split the vote.”

Mr Cheriton, who said he would vote for Labour on Saturday, traded verbal blows with McCarten’s supporters, while Mr McCarten shot back that Mr Cheriton was doing the Labour Party’s dirty work.

Nice to see Matt getting heckled – he has done enough of it over the years.

But I do wonder if Mr Shane Cheriton, is the same Shane Cheriton mentioned in this Tenancy Tribunal order.

Adam Bennett in the Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key has met with the Auckland-based Save the Farms group to discuss their concerns around farm sales to foreigners and says their proposed controls are “pretty hardcore” and more suited to North Korea than New Zealand. …

Later Mr Key told the meeting he had met with the Save The Farms group at their request and he believed it was not well understood what they were proposing.

The group wanted a ban on all sales and leases of farmland, orchards and vineyards to foreigners and constraints on forest ownership.

“It is pretty hardcore. Putting it bluntly I don’t think any country has that level of prohibition – maybe North Korea.”

While John McKearney who was backing Save Our Farms was “probably well intentioned” Mr Key noted he was a a property developer who had prospered by selling buildings to foreigners.

Hilarious.

What interests me about the Save Our Farms group, is whether any of them actually own farms? You see generally those who actually own the farms don’t want the state telling them they can not sell to the highest bidder. They are the ones who lose out – the current farm owners.

Mr Key yesterday addressed Federated Farmers National Council meeting in Wellington where president Don Nicolson had earlier given a speech railing against Save The Farms.

Mr Nicolson said the group’s stance “reeks of hypocrisy” given the residential sector carried $192 billion in debt, whereas the agriculture sector’s debt was just $47 billion.

“So I ask why just save our farms and not save our homes too?”
“When I see a Remuera property developer part of this group, I have my doubts about the purity of their motives.”

You go Don. Too right.

Of course Labour have joined Save Our Farms in advocating North Korean policies. Labour are effectively going from having approved 600,000 heactares of land sales to saying they will not approve any sales at all. Have those guys never heard of a happy medium rather than bouncing from one extreme to another?

James Ihaka in the Herald reports:

A man who allegedly mistook a woman for a deer before shooting her dead at a campsite is to reappear in court today, this time charged with manslaughter.

Andrew Mears, a 25-year-old motor trimmer from Hamilton, originally pleaded guilty to a charge of carelessly using a firearm causing death when he appeared in the Taupo District Court on November 3.

But police sought a remand without plea on the charge pending the recommendations of the Crown Solicitor at Rotorua. Yesterday the officer leading the investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant Todd Pearce, said Mears would now also face a charge of manslaughter.

As I blogged previously, I think this is appropriate.

Mr Mears seems very remorseful, and one can only feel sympathy for his family.

But at the end of the day, this was not an accident. A young woman was shot to death by Mr Mears. True he did not know he was aiming at her, but when using a gun the test can not be that you did not know what you were aiming at – it has to be you are certain what you are aiming at.

Add onto that the recklessness (and illegality) of shooting at night, and shooting from a moving car, and manslaughter is the necessary charge. There has to be a very clear message to gun users about such behaviour.

Having said that, this is one case where people won’t be calling for the maximum sentence. Manslaughter is the correct charge, and a jail term is inevitable, but I don’t think having Mears spend many years in prison will be of great benefit to anyone.

Claire Trevett in the Herald reports:

When an invitation is issued to a remote place, it is polite to also provide directions – especially if the route involves the Highway to Hell.

A land protest group’s invitation to Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson to travel to Taipa to visit them came with a driver to ensure he did not get lost – the Maori Party’s Sat Nav, Hone Harawira.

However, Mr Finlayson’s counter-invite to those protesters to “go to hell” had Labour MP Shane Jones baffled.

Most people would agree with the Minister’s strong disapproval of an illegal occupation of private land.

Curious about this invitation, Mr Jones stood in Parliament yesterday to find out more. He put to Mr Finlayson that when he told the protesters to go to hell, “what directions did he have in mind and whom did he think they might meet there?”

The minister declined to provide the GPS co-ordinates or the current hosts.

However, he had some inkling of the likely future inhabitants, observing, “Well, Trevor Mallard isn’t dead yet.”

Heh.

As expected:

The Speaker has finally sounded the death knell on travel perks after almost 40 years of MPs enjoying taxpayer-subsidised flights for their private international trips and holidays.

Lockwood Smith announced last night that the perks giving MPs discounted international travel would no longer be available for them. …

However, he intended to set up a scheme to allow backbench and Opposition MPs to travel on parliamentary-related trips of their own initiative, rather than the limited opportunities for official travel.

He said the new scheme would have tight rules and was likely to require some personal contribution from MPs towards costs.

I still think the appropriate way to do this, is to increase the bulk funding each parliamentary party gets. Nothing will ensure only high quality trips are funded, like the fact they would be competing for funds with staff, research, policy and comms.

Any sort of dedicated fund or entitlement will end up with controversy.

The Remuneration Authority will decide if MPs will get an increase on their base salary to compensate.

They will – it is basically required by law. The real question is how much.

The Education Review Office reports on how implementation is going:

• Of the 80 schools reviewed, 93 percent (74 schools) were either well prepared or had preparation under way to work with the National Standards.
• This data shows an increase in the percentage of schools that were well prepared to work with the National Standards, up from 19 percent (as reported in August 2010), to 34 percent. The data also showed a decrease in the percentage of schools not yet prepared to work with the standards, from 20 percent in August 2010 to 7 percent.

So most schools are indeed getting on with it. I found this quote interesting:

Strong, professional leadership in the well prepared schools meant that leaders and teachers were positive about working with the National Standards as part of their schoolo curriculum and assessment practices. …

Many of these schools had developed a school culture that was conducive to working with the National Standards. Teachers were encouraged to engage in discussion about student achievement data, inquire into and reflect on their practice and share effective teaching strategies. Such a culture helped teachers to make overall teacher judgements and moderate their judgements about student achievement.

Strong professional leadership sounds good to me.

Stuff reports:

Former Cabinet minister Pansy Wong will be entitled to a 90 per cent international travel rebate for the rest of her life if she quits Parliament.

This isn’t quite right. The entitlements were frozen. I actually got it wrong on Twitter yesterday as I assumed they were frozen at the end of 1999, when the perk was abolished  for new MPs, but in fact it is 2008. Here is the Speakers Direction:

6.14 A person who was a member before the 1999 general election has his or her travel entitlements frozen at the level for which he or she qualified at the end of the 2005–2008 term of Parliament.

At the end of the 2008 term of Parliament, Pansy has completed four terms. And 6.15(1)(g) defines what you get:

• Less than 2 terms – 0 %
• 2 full terms and was in the Executive – 50%
• 2 full terms and not in Executive – 0%
• 3 full terms – 60%
• 4 full terms – 75%
• 5 full terms – 90%

What does this mean, then for those who are still MPs and who entered at each election. When they retire it will be:

1. 2008 – 0%
2. 2005 – 0%
3. 2002 – 0%
4. 1999 – 0%
5. 1996 – 75%
6. 1993 or before – 90%

Now who can be first to say how many MPs will get 75% when they retire, and how many will get 90%, and how many 0%?

A friend of mine, Emma Mellow, has just headed off to the UK and USA where she is going to geek out with politics and study for a few months. Yes, she is an even bigger political geek than me.

On her way over to London, she had a day in Hong Kong catching up with friends, and they headed out to a local bar at the Mandarin Hotel.

When there a group of people enter, and several of them look like bodyguards. A closer stare reveals that the visitor is in fact the 5th President of France – Jacques Chirac.

Nothing at that stage could have stopped Emma, and after she convinced his security team she was not a menace, she got to meet Chirac. Her rusty French skills were put to the test as Chirac talked to her about politics, encouraged her to stand one day (not that she needs much encouragement!) and told her good places to visit in Paris and Lyon. Chirac was charming as only the French can be!

So a very nice photo of her with Chirac. My challenge to her is to get Sarkozy and Cameron also

TV3 have put on their website their full interview with Litea Ah Hoi about her calling someone who endorsed Hekia a “dumb-ass coconut”.

If I tried to summarise it, I wouldn’t do it justice. Go view it for some laughs.

The Herald reports:

More than 1500 Facebook users, most of whom appear to be students, say they plan to attend the “Castor Bay Beach Party 2!” on Auckland’s North Shore in December.

At a similar gathering last Saturday night some 130 drunken youths refused to leave Castor Bay about 10pm. Police were pelted with bottles after they were called by residents when property was damaged. One man was arrested for jumping on a vehicle.

The mayhem mirrored a similar party at Cheltenham Beach the previous weekend.

More than 1500 people have signalled their intention to attend the December Castor Bay event, organised by student Ash Hilton, with another 440 “maybe attending”.

On the Facebook page, posters do not appear to care about the residents of the area, the police, the illegality of their actions, or grammar. …

Laura Petrova Isaac also intends on going.

“ha ha went to the first one… and the next day it was all over the news and i was watching it with mum and she goes ‘some children these days! im glad u dont do stupid things like this’ lol… uuhhmmm…. [sic]” she wrote.

Oh dear. Laura should know Facebook is public. Her mum probably doesn’t read Facebook, but I am sure Laura is hoping her Mum (or Mum’s friends) don’t read the Herald (or Kiwiblog)!

I can just imagine the thought process of the reporter as they read those comments, thinking I am going to teach that little miss a lesson.