Kiwiblog

Claire Trevett in the NZ Herakld writes:

Labour leader Andrew Little said there was a greater reluctance to donate, which many attributed to the recession.

“We are getting a steady flow but they are more modest by comparison to those which are reported in the election returns [of more than $15,000].”

National Party president Peter Goodfellow was overseas.

Claire is ahead of herself. Andrew Little has not yet rolled Phil Goff.

H/T: Whale

David Choat, an elected member of Capital Coast DHB, blogged on his initial board meeting

While I do not share David’s politics, I found his blog post a very useful way to get a concise summary of issues being considered at board level. David shows his leanings of course by talking about “I’ll be keen to get some perspectives from unions and others with an view about this proposal prior to that.” I hope David includes patients amongst his “others”.

He blogs again last week that he has been asked to not blog:

A few days after posting it, I received an email from the Chair of my Board, saying it had caused distress, and was in breach of Capital & Coast’s media policy, which says that the Chair is the media spokesperson and “Board members will consult the Chair and seek approval prior to making public comment on any policy issue” (my emphasis). The media policy will now be on the agenda for discussion at February’s board meeting (which I welcome).

Personally I don’t think we should have elected DHB members, as they actually lead to reduced accountabilty for the Minister and Government. But given we do have elected DHB members, it is silly to try and have a policy that forbids them from speaking out on any policy issue without approval.

If a board is all appointed, then that is a common convention. But trying to impose it on a DHB is like a Mayor telling Councillors they can’t speak publicly on any policy issue.

Capital Coast Health would be better focused on how to fix that they are the DHB which seems less able to live within its means, and less time on stopping DHB members from blogging.

John Hartevelt at Stuff reports:

Two top-ranking British Cabinet Ministers will visit New Zealand next week to hold talks with the Government.

It was announced today that Foreign Secretary William Hague and Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox will meet their New Zealand counterparts Murray McCully and Wayne Mapp from Thursday.

“The Asia-Pacific region is developing rapidly and this visit indicates Britain’s increased interest in the region,” Dr Mapp said.

“The visit by Defence Secretary Fox will provide an opportunity for us to review our co-operation.”

The two-day visit will be the first to New Zealand by Hague and Fox, who will be joined by UK Chief of Defence Staff General Sir David Richards.

I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know William Hague, through various IDU Young Leaders Forums.

In the UK his parliamentary debating skills are generally held to be without peer. He is a very quick, witty debater.

He became Conservative Party Leader at the worst possible time, and it is no surprise he lost to Blair in 2001. During his time on the backbench he wrote a excellent biography of Pitt the Younger, which is a great read.

On a personal level, he is very down to earth, and easy to chat to. Some politicians will just talk to you for a few minutes and treat it as a duty, but William genuinely engages.

Hague is still only in his 40s, and may still one day become Conservative Party Leader again.

The Republican Presidential Primaries will be held in early 2012, and there is huge jockeying for position already. Obama has relatively low approval ratings but nearly two years out from the presidential election these count for little.

In 1982 Ronald Reagan, now considered one of the most popular politician of all time, faced a tough economy and a democrat controlled congress. As the chart below from USA Today shows, Obama is clearly ahead of where Reagan was at the same time in his presidency.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/presidential-approval-tracker.htm

This is a fascinating tracker poll. You can track any president against any other using the compare chart.

Tracker polls like this are interesting because they point to historical precedent. So when the media start talking about low approval ratings for Obama it pays to be skeptical as to how much influence this has on his reelection campaign.

Also worth noting that Obama’s approval is on the rise.

The Dom Post reports:

Cash-strapped homeowners will see some relief this year, with experts predicting the Reserve Bank will keep official interest rates low until at least September.

However, some experts say even that may be too early.

After two rises of 0.25 percentage points in June and July, the Reserve Bank has held the official cash rate steady at 3 per cent, as economic growth stalled.

Economists still expect a recovery this year, but there is a growing view that Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard will leave rates on hold for another eight months.

Works for me, as from today I am once again burdened with a mortgage. My disposable income has shrunk by around 75%!

Keith Lynch in The Press reports:

A “marked improvement” in the atmosphere in the Pike River mine does not mean it is safe to re-enter, an Australian expert says.

Yesterday, the families of the 29 mine workers released a statement saying the decision to seal the Pike River Coal mine was wrong and needed to be revisited.

“There is a stable atmospheric environment now achieved which is likely to be sustained,” the statement said.

Mine safety expert Dr David Cliff, of the University of Queensland, said that while the atmosphere in the West Coast mine had improved, to say it was safe to enter was a “quantum leap”.

Personally I’d love it if the mine could be entered, but I am not an expert, and you really have to rely on expert advice on these things.

“The atmosphere is now inert without the use of the GAG [Gorniczy Agregat Gasniczy],” Cliff said.

“It’s not capable of supporting combustion. It’s full of methane, as far as we can detect.

“But then to say everything is OK, we can go enter the mine, that’s another quantum leap beyond that.”

The mine’s atmosphere was close to 100 per cent methane, with oxygen excluded, he said.

“Therefore it’s a dramatic improvement. There’s no active ignition sources in the mine, most probably, but we still don’t know for sure.”

If conditions were maintained, there would be “no more explosions”, Cliff said.

“The atmosphere is one part of the equation – there’s the mining conditions, it is the logistics of re-entering up a single tunnel that is 2.5-kilometres long into unknown conditions – these are the sort of factors bearing on people’s minds.”

Bore holes would be required to stabilise the mine, at a cost of $250,000 each.

If, and I stress if, that is all that is required to make the mine safe, then the price is well worth paying. However it is not at all clear that is all that is required.

I do have to say that the reasons the mine can’t be re-entered according to the experts has not been clearly communicated. Hopefully when the receivers submit their plans tonight, there might be more light on this.

I blogged on Tuesday about discovering Mudd Hut in the Mangaone Valley, and asked if people knew anything about it.

A reader e-mailed me:

Mudd Hutt was built by boys, parents, friends and leaders of the 34th Wellington Boy Brigade company – i’d guess in the 60′/o70′s from recycled building materials, – on land owned by the Carter family of Waikanae.  Did you find the flying fox and our famed long drop?  The Hutt was a proud asset of our company, greatly cared for and respected.  While staying at the hutt us boys would learn tramping skills, we marked tracks around the hills, including one up to Kapakapanui herself, camping and cooking skills, we invented and played fantastic games – variations on spotlight, hogans heroes, and late night card games.  I spent many weekends around the hutt mostly on organised trips with Boys Brigade and other times when we aged and became more ‘responsible – yeah right’ we were allowed to make our own trips up there and we hunted and played up.  It’s a personal piece of paradise and I have many warm memories of great times up there.  A dear friend of mine’s ashes are spread around Mudd Hutt.  Mudd was the name of the leaders of the 34th Wgtn boys Brigade company – a Mr Albert Mudd. He was a lovely gentle modest man, an ex soldier and he would tell us ripping yarns about some of his experiences in desert warfare, durign BB religious instruction.  During an enduring moment of deep nostalgia this time last year I called the land owners and asked if we could go up for a look and maybe stay a night but since seeing the hutt has been so neglected and used as a base for the loggers and the logging operations the magic has gone from the place. 

Mmmm, might be due for another trip up there to exorcise a few more ghosts…

I’m grateful for the piece of history. It brough back memories of my own youth, with many great times spent out in the bush at various huts. The location of Mudd Hut is superb – I envy those who got to use it.

If I was ever super rich, I think I would build and donate 100 or so huts for use of youth groups campign and tramping.

Unlike the normal caption contest, this is one has no rules

Sadly today is the last day of summer holidays for me, so posts will be more regular from tomorrow.

Newstalk ZB reports:

EPMU secretary Andrew Little thinks sealing the mine would be wrong on at least two fronts.

“Making a decision to seal the mine now is not just a decision to leave the men down there, but a decision to say we’re not going to get the evidence to find out what really happened.”

Mr Little said the Government has let the families down and the union will continue to work with them to get justice.

Does Andrew have some magic way to enter the mine we do not know of?

Is Andrew speaking as Labour Party President or EPMU Secretary when he alleges any decision to seal the mine is part of a plot by the Government to conceal evidence?

The local Mayor is more rational:

Despite the union’s concerns, the Grey District Mayor said he is confident there will be enough evidence for the Pike River mine inquiry, even if the mine is sealed.

“They’re going to interview 400 (people) all up. They’ve got every single hard drive and computer from day one of Pike River coal. Even though they can’t get evidence from the mine, I feel there’s enough evidence out there to get to the bottom of this”, Tony Kokshoorn told Newstalk ZB.

Maybe Andrew could explain exactly what evidence he thinks still exists after weeks of thousand degree fires.

Like some other bloggers, I received a copy of the e-mail below by Wellingtom Mayor Celia-Wade Brown to her Council colleagues:

Dear colleagues,

I’d like to discuss training, conferences and personal development when we’re back. I hope some courses on chairing, speed-reading, engagement and participatory democracy, new media or the RMA will appeal. We do need to reduce our expenditure but not to zero. Instead of waiting for conferences to be put up at SPC and then trying to decide who should go, what clashes etc, there are other ways – on-line webinars, local tertiary institutions e.g. Otago’s Sustainable Cities or Victoria’s Policy Institute – or LGNZ’s courses.

Or we can take new lessons in te reo, Mandarin or ballroom dancing – all exercise neural pathways and keep us mentally fit. http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/03/can-you-build-a-better-brain.html
That might explain why skills we’re already good at don’t make us much smarter: we don’t pay much attention to them. In contrast, taking up a new, cognitively demanding activity ­ballroom dancing, a foreign language ­is more likely to boost processing speed, strengthen synapses, and expand or create functional networks.

For those who consider that mental and physical fitness might be unrelated, have a look at this link… http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100826141327.htm

A study published this year in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience provided evidence that aerobic fitness can keep aging brains healthy. “Even modest amounts of walking, 40 minutes three times a week, can engender substantial improvements in memory, decision making, and other cognitive processes,” said the study’s lead author, University of Illinois psychology professor Art Kramer.

and if you didn’t think it was relevant to your role … “Those with more connectivity … also tend to be better at planning, prioritizing, strategizing and multi-tasking. “- that’s what we have to do – and preferably enjoy doing it!

and for Leonie in particular – Nicotine, they found, has “significant positive effects” on fine motor skills, the accuracy of short-term memory, some forms of attention, and working memory, among other basic cognitive skills. The improvements “likely represent true performance enhancement” and “beneficial cognitive effects.” The reason is that nicotine binds to the brain receptors for the neurotransmitter acetylcholine that are central players in cortical circuits. (Caveat: smoking also increases your risk of dementia, so while cigarettes may boost your memory and attention now, you could pay for it later. ) but I’m not taking it up again – shortness of breath, coughing, lung or throat cancer and most of all, the smell…

Meanwhile, I look forward to us finding efficiencies and shared ways of working so we don’t have to increase prices at Toi Poneke – nor drastically cut library hours ( some may be ok if there really is low use – well said, Stephanie). However we can’t say no to all savings , efficiencies and accept 8% rates!

Warm regards
Celia
Celia Wade-Brown
Mayor of Wellington

Perhaps it would be easier to avoid an 8% rates rise if Council did not spend its Councillor training budget on ballroom dancing lessons for Councillors.

WCC Watch and Phil Quin also blog on this topic. Quin has a response from Celia also.

Did the Mangaone Track yesterday and doing it again tomorrow. It’s a pleasant 6 km walk, but with a huge variety of scenery. I was amazed there was only one other group of people on the track the day we did it.

You can start at Mangaone North Road (Te Horo) or Mangaone South Road (Reikorangi). We started at Mangaone North Road, and I think this was the best way to do it.

The first km or two is basically a 4WD path, so fairly easy going. Mainly uphill but a modest slope.

There are a few stream crossings. You can do them without getting wet if you aim well. But be prepared to have the shoes a bit wet.

After one goes through a couple of fields, and past a house with five very loud agressive pig dogs (in kennels thankfully) you then hit the more traditional NZ bushwalk.

The trail is well signposted but there are one or two spots where you have to think about it.

A nice rest stop.

By this bridge is a rather nice swimming hole, and picnic area.

And the view below from the big swingbridge.

As I said, a very pleasant walkable track. Well worth doing if you have half a day. You just need to have two cars so you have one at the exit and entry. Of course it helps when you are staying next to one of the entrances.

The Herald reports:

A new political party linked to the businessman behind a failed Chinese bid for the Crafar dairy farms says it will contest the Botany byelection.

Jack Chen, who claims to be the force behind Natural Dairy NZ’s bid for the farms, met key leaders of the fledgling New Citizen Party in Beijing last week to discuss plans for its future.

The byelection, which follows the resignation of former Cabinet minister Pansy Wong from Parliament, has been set for March 5.

A party supporter, who did not want to be named, said that at the meeting, Mr Chen outlined a “two-step plan” to win parliamentary seats.

“First, there’s a plan to win Botany by winning the support of the migrants, who make up more than half of the voters there,” he said, speaking in Mandarin.

“Our party leaders will then be talking with Maori tribes to also get their party votes for us to get at least six candidates as MPs at this year’s election.”

It is possible that the New Citizen Party could get more votes in Botany than Labour. This might be one reason Labour is talking of not standing a candidate – they don’t want to risk coming third.

However I can’t see the NCP winning Botany. A party which holds its meeting in Beijing may not get that many votes from Taiwanese and Hong Kong Chinese, let alone Koreans, Indians and Japanese.

And as for the plan to get Iwi to endorse them and get party votes – yeah good luck with that.

Sandra Goudie has just announced that she retire at the next election.

We all owe Sandra a huge debt of gratitude for winning Coromandel off Jeanette Fitzsimons in 2002. Otherwise that may have become their permament lifeline.

Sandra has been a very effective MP for her electorate. One issue I have first hand experience of was a scam operator posing as a eco-tourism operator. Sandra helped get Fair Go to expose how many young well-meaning people from overseas had got scammed, and she also wanted to get the Fair Go story up the Google pagerank, so asked if I and others could blog on it. This isn’t the stuff that makes headlines, but often fills up the day of a constituent MP.

Sandra’s local popularity shows with the fact she got 63% of the electorate vote – a massive 14,560 majority. The party vote majority was around 9,500 so whomever wins the National nomination is likely to have a pretty good tenure as MP for Coromandel.

As I commented with the announcement of Wayne Mapp’s retirement at the election, it is good to see National rejuvenating itself early on. rejuvenation is not something you do at the last minute to stave off defeat. A sucessful party needs to be doing it constantly – rejuvenating both Caucus and Cabinet.

The Dom Post reports:

The Wellington diver who resurfaced almost 300 kilometres from where he disappeared is being investigated by police for an unrelated incident.

Colin Smithies, 49, who is now in medical care, is being charged with wasting police time after a 40-person search, estimated to cost about $50,000, was launched when he was reported missing on Monday night.

Police could not explain his disappearance yesterday, but it is understood the Commerce Commission economist is the subject of another, separate police investigation. Police refused to comment on this yesterday.

As a large-scale search began in Wellington on Tuesday, Mr Smithies is thought to have been hitch-hiking his way up the North Island. At 4pm on Wednesday, “disoriented and quite distressed”, he walked into the Clive police station in inland Hawke’s Bay.

This is one of those truth is stranger than fiction stories. A commerce commission economist is not the type of person that you tend to think will be involved with almost faking his own disappearance, and then hitch-hiking away.

Will be fascinating to see what the second investigation is about.

After a couple of months of failure to make Pike River safe to enter, the Police announcement that the recovery operation will cease is no surprise.

It is deeply disappointing for the families. It will make it far harder to get closure.

From what I have read of conditions in the mine, there may not have been much in the way to recover – perhaps some bones and teeth. If the temperatures have been over 1000 degrees as some reports suggest, then it could be just teeth.

UPDATE: Labour shows there is no depth to which they won’t let Trevor descend to. And they wonder why they are so low in the polls. Everyone knows it is not about the money – but about the inability to safely enter the mine. This really is a new low in disgusting and crassness. One could almost see them celebrating the news the mine could not be entered safely, thinking “yay we can try and slime John Key with this”.

Emma Bailey at the Timaru Herald reports

“I am a New Zealand hero, nobody in the history of New Zealand has done what I have done. I have turned down two knighthoods but it is just not in my nature to go around crowing about it.”

Actually I am pretty sure some other people have done what Hubbard has done, and cost the taxpayer up to $1.7b in a bailout – around $1,000 per family.

This is Heidi the cross-eyed possum. Photo from Stuff.

Enter captions below. Funny, not nasty.

 NZ First 2003

A reader jolted my memory by sending me this flyer from 2003. Deja vu anyone?

NZPA report:

McDonald’s will make a decision today about its internet filtering system after complaints of gay websites being blocked through the restaurants’ new free Wi-Fi service.

People trying to access the lifestyle website GayNZ.com discovered they could not find the site, among others, and the website challenged the fast-food giant – which offers free WiFi access in 132 of its restaurants nationwide – to review its access policy.

Rainbow Youth, a support website for gay young people, is also one of the blocked sites.

“Obviously there is a flaw in their approach, websites like Rainbow Youth are not of any danger to young people, it is for young people to make informed decisions for themselves and the culture they are involved in,” executive director Todd Hamilton told Radio New Zealand.

There appeared to be no consistency in the company’s policy, GayNZ.com said.

A NZ Aids Foundation site was not blocked but Family Planning, Rainbow Youth, Agender and others were.

McDonald’s said it was a family restaurant chain, and as part of offering the Wi-Fi service, its policy was that content must be of a family friendly nature, or suitable for a child to view.

McDonald’s managing director Mark Hawthorn said standard filtering software was used and there was no discrimination against any communities.

“There are millions and millions of websites from around the world and some sites with the word gay have got through and some haven’t which shows it’s nothing to do with the gay community,” he said.

I can comment on this issue a bit as I have actually used the McDonalds service, and also know a bit about filtering.

First of all, I have to say I appreciate the free service. When I was staying in Waikanae the mobile service was GPRS only (ie crap) so I would go most days to Coastlands in Paraparaumu to find some wifi. Telecom had a hotspot there but they no longer provide free access to it, as part of your existing Xtra account.

So would have been paying a massive amount if it were not for the fact the McDs there had their free wifi. Used it most days, and it was quick and reliable. Did not personally noticce any blocked sites.

It is no surprise they have a filter running on it. If you are providing public access in a public place, you generally do. Just like Air NZ does in Koru Clubs.

Now filters are clumsy things. Almost every filter on the planet produces “false positives”, ie it blocks sites that shouldn’t be. This is because you don’t employ humans to check out 10 billion pages individually. A filter decides to block a site based on various criteria – may be keywords, may be domain name etc. The more sophisticated filters will use dozens of different factors.

So there is not some McDonalds manager sitting in an office somewhere saying “Hey I think I will block gaynz.com as I don’t think it is appropriate.

What you will have is the ability of an IT manager to over-ride the default decision of the filter. They can manually whitelist or blacklist certain sites if asked to.

So all the gaynz.com people had to do is ask McDonalds for a manual review. Personally I think they should allow gaynz.com to be seen (I read the site often, as it has many good news stories), but the fact it has been blocked in not some anti-gay conspiracy.

The Press has done an ill-informed editorial on this issue:

McDonald’s has erred badly in its definition of what is “family friendly”. Had the company confined itself to blocking pornographic sites, regardless of the sexual orientation of the content, this would have been acceptable, as such material would be offensive to many patrons and should not be viewed where children are nearby. There might just also be grounds for blocking gambling and tobacco websites, as McDonald’s has done, on the basis that they are not “family friendly”.

But the company has gone too far by blocking websites such as GayNZ, Rainbow Youth and Agender, which are aimed at and provide support for gays or transgender people. Banning these websites can only have the effect of marginalising the gay community when, ironically, this is something which these sites are attempting to overcome.

Again, McDonalds has not made a conscious decision to block these sites. The filtering software used has blocked them. And yes there is a difference. There is no proof that any sites have been blocked just because they talk about gay issues.

Why McDonald’s made its censorship decisions is unclear.

That is because they did not make a censorship decision. They just used a filter which is over-reaching (as many filters are).

Sometimes the filters used by Air NZ block Kiwiblog. I don’t accuse them of deciding to censor Kiwiblog, or discriminating against short people. I just figure their filtering software doesn’t always like some of my language.

The contrast can be made with McDonald’s in France, which last year ran an advertisement with a gay theme to encourage patronage from the gay community.

McDonald’s in New Zealand, however, chose to impose the sort of judgmental morality prevalent among many conservative Americans. This should have no place in this nation and the company must review its internet policy.

Oh how pompous. Now McDonalds NZ are part of the US religious right. Please.

Two far more sensible post on the issue come from Phil Quin and Chaz Harris. They botth happen, incidentially, to be gay.

First Chaz:

It may surprise you to hear that I don’t think McDonald’s did anything wrong in its censorship of certain websites with sexuality-related content. …

A Stuff article yesterday said members of the gay community had been “outraged” by the decision to block some websites featuring LGBT-related content. But more vital information such as sexual health and a website for gay youth was readily available through McDonald’s free wi-fi service. Some of the blocked websites contain links to explicit or sexually provocative material and the reasons for some being blocked are perhaps a little more confusing.

GayNZ.com might contain a lot of valuable and innocent content on the site, but the advertisements on the web pages are more explicit than the content and feature links to gay saunas and some even have pictures of half-naked men. Personally, I consider reading the website “not suitable for work” and when I want to read it I wait until I’m at home. It doesn’t seem unreasonable that McDonald’s would think the same way when there are ads on their site that read things like “Nude/nearly nude super safe sex Sunday afternoons”.

A fair point

I’m all for calling people or companies out when they have seriously and unfairly excluded or discriminated against people for their sexuality or something else, but this feels like a case of Air NZ/Kahui deja vu. They haven’t only put this block in place for gay websites and nothing else, it’s all adult/mature content. First it was Air New Zealand’s turn, now McDonald’s – who’s going to be next, Starbucks? You know that mermaid in the new Starbucks logo is female, right? Well, I think that is just SO sexist, let’s start a protest! *please note the thick layers of sarcasm*

I agree with Chaz that people are being too precious.

And now Phil Quin:

It’s a known fact that only vegans and North Koreans eat less McDonald’s than gay people.  Indeed, I have long taken it for granted that if I was found eating a Big Mac, I would lose my license to practice as a homosexual. I may not have forfeited my right to happiness as a gay man, but I sure gave up my right to Happy Meals.

Heh. He notes:

• Web filters are notoriously hit and miss.
• They are not inherently judgmental about alternative lifestyles.
• There may be the odd person who wants to access non-sexual gay news and information websites while eating a Quarter-pounder, but there are almost certainly more people who have other motives including, I imagine, bullying and teasing — given the customer-base we are talking about.
• I imagine the words “penis” and “vagina” are also blocked, but this does not make McDonald’s anti-genitalia.

Quin asks:

Yet again, I find myself stunned by the propensity of people to fabricate umbrage in the pursuit of media profile.  Is Julz the “Wellington lesbian” really, really upset about this, or is she playing the part of aggrieved victim for the camera?  Ditto the gaynz.com guy? I seriously suspect that this is bullshit from start to finish.

As I said, I think their filter probably is over-reaching with the sites it blocks. But all one needs is for McDonalds to have a process where people can ask for a site to be manually reviewed for whitelisting in the filter. No need to turn it into a media issue.

The Press reports that this flyer has been distributed in Christchurch. I didn’t know NZ First had changed their name. The logo is an improvement though.