Kiwiblog

iPredict has announced:

iPredict’s first contracts forecasting Fonterra’s payout will be launched on the online predictions market at 3.30 pm today and will be available to its 5000 registered online traders plus everyone else who chooses to join up at www.ipredict.co.nz

The initial contracts will ask traders whether Fonterra’s final 2010/11 payout, per kilogram of milk solids, to a 100 percent share-backed farmer (before retentions), will be above $7.90, above $8.00, above $8.10, above $8.20 or above $8.30.  Traders can buy as many of each contract as they like.

On 24 May this year, Fonterra announced the 2010/11 payout was likely to be in the $8.00 to $8.10 range.

“This first set of contracts will give an indication of in which 10 cent increment the final payout is likely to fall,” the Chief Executive of iPredict, Matt Burgess said today.  “We will then add 2.5 cent increment contracts within the favoured 10 cent range to provide dairy farmers and the wider dairy community with an even more accurate forecast.  Forecasting this way will give both a real-time point estimate and a margin of error.”

The stocks went live on Wednesday. At present the stock for more than $8.125/kg is at 63c and more than $8.150/kg is 43c, so the market is pointing towards $8.13 to $8.15.

The Onion reports:

According to a study released Wednesday by the California Pain Medicine Center, subjects suffering from male- pattern baldness were found to experience a level of physical pain at least seven times more intense than that experienced by women during childbirth. “Clinical studies show that as hair gradually separates from the scalp, men experience intensifying waves of all-consuming pain equivalent to having their insides ripped out through the thousands of tiny follicles on their head,” said Vincent Kwan, who led the all-male research team that carried out the study. “While strong uterine contractions and tearing of the vaginal walls undoubtedly cause a degree of discomfort among women in labor, balding men would give anything to experience those sensations instead of lying awake and suffering all night as their hair thins.” Kwan stated that men’s remarkable ability to endure years of excruciating agony without the aid of epidurals or other powerful analgesics was a testament to the sex’s unrivaled tolerance for pain.

Adam Bennett in the NZ Herald reports:

Fears police would use Tasers disportionately on Maori and Pacific Islanders have been realised, say the Mana Party and the Greens as police numbers show almost 60 per cent of people tasered in the past year were of those ethnicities.

But police and their minister, Judith Collins, say the figures merely reflect the “sad fact” that Maori are over-represented in crime statistics.

Yet Keith Locke says:

“Certainly they’re being fired disproportionately at Maori. The reasons for that are something we should look into.”

What Keith should be asking, is how many Maori lives were saved by the Police being able to use a taser to disarm an armed offender, without shooting them?

Both Ms Sykes and Mr Locke pointed to the fact that Tasers had been drawn and pointed at people 499 times during the past year and fired 88 times. That, they said, suggested police were using them as “instruments of control” rather than as a last resort to be used to protect the lives of police and the public.

So now they are complaining the tasers are not being fired enough. You can’t win. Surely it is a win-win when the threat of a taser works.

A reader just reminded me by e-mail of this post made a year ago in August 2010:

An interesting speculation has reached me. Andrew Williams will of course not be elected Auckland Mayor. I doubt he’d even make 5%.  He is unlikely to even make Council – his sole chance is that 15 people are standing in his ward so one may be able to get elected off a very small percentage.

So what will he do if he is not on Council? Well he is consumed with a loathing for Rodney Hide, as is Winston Peters. So the whisper I hear is Andrew Williams will be a NZ First candidate in a top six list spot.

We don’t know his list ranking yet, but Williams has been confirmed as a candidate.

Claire Trevett at NZ Herald reports:

Labour MP Shane Jones has indicated he is weighing up his future in politics if he does not get strong endorsement from Maori voters in November’s general election.

Mr Jones said on Te Kaea on Maori Television he wanted to win the Tamaki Makaurau seat – currently held by Maori Party leader Pita Sharples – and if he did not he would “reconsider my options”.

Asked to clarify his comments by the Herald yesterday, he said winning the seat would give him a strong platform for “future developments” in his political career.

This is not particularly subtle code for allow him to become Leader. Jones does not want to hang around, if he is not Leader or at least in a top role. If he wins his seat, he will be in a stronger position to become Leader.

I do believe he has shown interest in the deputy leadership before the election. That would make him the front-runner to then become Leader after the election, unless Goff wins the election.

It is also understood that at a caucus meeting a fortnight ago MPs Mr Jones and Lianne Dalziel criticised Mr Goff’s handling of the SIS issue.

The entire caucus should have criticised Goff over that. It was a self-inflicted own goal.

Speculation is also building that other contenders, including David Cunliffe and David Parker, are building support teams to be ready to replace Mr Goff after the election.

One source said Lianne Dalziel, Charles Chauvel and Moana Mackey were linked to Camp Cunliffe.

Camp Cunliffe has a nice ring to it!

There seem to be three contenders – Cunliffe, Parker and Jones. Cunliffe is the only one with an electorate seat, which is an asset.

The Dom Post editorial:

The three Pomare women fighting state-house eviction have gone to considerable lengths to present themselves as victims.

They are not. The real victims in the sorry saga of Mongrel Mob intimidation in Farmer Cres are those forced to flee and the female Housing NZ worker who still lives in fear of retaliation.

Housing NZ has spent more than $1 million and 2 1/2 years trying to evict Robyn Winther, Huia Tamaka and Billy Taylor after three men associated with them were linked to one of numerous incidents of gang bullying in the troubled Lower Hutt suburb. The expense has been significant, but it is money well used.

Housing NZ has established an important precedent that will in future make it much easier and faster to evict tenants who have people living or staying with them who are a menace. It means the corporation can issue tenants with 90-day notices of termination, which do not require landlords to give a reason, in cases where it needs to get rid of them to end the anti-social behaviour of their associates.

And may they use this power more often. Some areas are no go zones due to the tenants living there.

The Labour Party have found the issue that New Zealanders are most interested in – the fact that press releases announcing new National candidates three months ago used a common template.

John Hartevelt at Stuff reports:

Do National Party candidates have an uncanny knack for having precisely the same thoughts? Or is it a case of words being put in to their mouths?

Since the party started picking new candidates in February, at least eight have issued press statements with exactly the same quotes throughout.

Even veteran broadcaster Maggie Barry and former press secretary Paul Goldsmith have been among those parroting identical party lines.

Labour’s campaign chair Trevor Mallard said any ”fill in the blanks” type press statements were ”subject to ridicule”.

”It’s a sign of both laziness and also disrespects the electorate on the part of the candidate,” Mallard said. 

Oh my God, National uses a template press release to announce a new candidate. Shock, horror.

One should understand the context of these press releases. National holds a democratic selection meeting with a secret ballot determining the winner. Hence, unlike Labour, Head Office does not know the winner in advance.

Once a winner is known, around an hour later the party generally sends out a press release. Now of course this is pre-written by a staffer. The winning candidate’s name is stuck in, and they are asked to approve it. They amend and/or approve it and it goes out – sometimes within half an hour of the decision being known.

Having the candidate write their own release from scratch at 10 pm is a rather unrealistic proposition, especially as most successful candidates at that time are off to a place with alcohol to celebrate them winning the nomination.

But I congratulate Labour on discovering the use of press release templates.

Just had a look at the Electoral Commission Register of Promoters, ie those planning to spend more than $12,000 in the general election or the referendum.

Remember how the left rail against money in politics, and those evil business groups. Well surprise surprise there is not a single business group registered as a promoter. So who is:

Referendum

• Green Party
• CTU
• Vote for Change
• Dairy Workers Union
• Service & Food Workers Union
• NZEI
• NZ Nurses Organisation
• National Distribution Union
• Campaign for MMP

Looks very balanced doesn’t it?

Election

• CTU
• PSA
• Dairy Workers Union
• Service & Food Workers Union
• NZEI
• NZ Nurses Organisation
• National Distribution Union

So seven unions are registered, and no-one else.

Well done to Dave at Big News who blogs:

The Wellington City Council is to waive and refund thousands of dollars of parking tickets to motorists after wardens and council contractors blatantly ignored Council policy in issuing parking infringements. …

According to the Council’s parking manual [not online], infringement notices are “not issued…until six minutes after a (clearway) restriction begins, or within six minutes of when the restriction ends”. Yet in the past two years, 181 were – including people parked for a matter of seconds, still in their vehicles. The Council’s manual also states that “when the person in charge of the vehicle is present, then he or she in the first instance should be moved on”.

So basically the Council had a camera that was photographing cars on a clearway and ticketing them – even if the driver was remaining in the car and just dropping someone off etc.

Ally Mullord at 3 News reports:

John Key’s announcement that Government is likely to provide financial aid to Libya “feels a bit like ‘me-too-ism’”, Green Party co-leader Russel Norman says. …

He says the Government should wait to see how the situation in Libya develops before making a decision to send aid to the country, and while he isn’t opposed to supporting the country there are other places “which in terms of absolute need are higher priorities”.

Tell me you are kidding?

At the end of a civil war where a dictatorship has just been abolished, is exactly the right time to be lending support and aid. It is at this point one has the greatest ability to help encourage Libya to go down a benign path.

So why on earth would the Greens be criticising aid to Libya?

“It feels a bit like ‘me-too-ism’ following the United States, which this government does kind of suffer from… and we need to see what’s going to happen at least in the next few days and the next week,” he says.

Came across this by chance. It’s the cast of Hogan’s Heroes in a Xmas show with Bing Crosby. Schulz and Klink singing in German is superb.

Ignore the ad for the first minute.

Brings back great memories.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

Posting racist or xenophobic messages on the internet and Holocaust denial could be illegal if New Zealand signs up to a international cyber-crime agreement.

Justice Minister Simon Power and Police Minister Judith Collins yesterday announced a three-year plan to crack down on international organised crime. One proposal involves the Government signing the Council of Europe Cyber Crime Convention, also known as the Budapest Convention.

A protocol of the convention requires nations to make “the dissemination of racist and xenophobic material through computer systems” a crime. It also makes denial or justification of the Holocaust and other verified genocides illegal.

Almost 30 nations have ratified the convention. However, a number – including US, Ireland and Britain – have refused to sign the protocol.

And we should not sign either.

I detest Holocaust deniers. They are inevitably racists and liars. However the response to their lies should be the truth, not censorship.

I can understand that in countries like Austria and Germany, they have unique factors for why they need to criminalise holocaust denial. But in New Zealand, we should should not ban any speech unless it rises to the level of actually inciting violence.

And the same goes for the proposed requirement to make “the dissemination of racist and xenophobic material through computer systems” a crime. As tempting as it would be to get the NZ First website banned, that is wrong. NZ First have the right to promote racist policies, and Labour have the right to promote xenophobic policies on foreign investment. Neither should have to worry about doing so being a crime.

I hope the Government makes clear that any signing of the convention, will not include agreeing to the additional protocol.

This week saw the death of the Jack Layton, the Leader of the Opposition in Canada. He died from cancer after taking leave on 28 July from his duties.

Layton was Leader of the left wing New Democratic Party since 2003. In 2000 they won just 13 seats out of 301 with 9% of the popular vote. Layton in 2004 lifted the vote to 16% and 19 seats. In 2006 the vote went up marginally to 17% but the seats to 29 as the Liberals got thrown out.

The 2008 election saw further gains with the popular vote at 18% and seats to 37. Then just over three months ago a landmark election saw the Liberals (the natural party of Government for most of the last 100 years) fall to third place and the NDP soar to 31% of the vote and 103 out of 308 seats.

If he had lived, Layton may have become Prime Minister one day. He has always been a popular politician, beyond the support for the NDP.

The political ramifications of his death will take some time to become apparent. Canadian parties take months to elect a new leader, sometimes over a year. So the Liberal Party has no permanent leader yet and now neither does the NDP. The interim leader is 68 years old and is unlikely to become the permanent leader.

This means that PM Steven Harper will have no strong opposition until at least 2012. It also means that the Liberals may have a chance to regain support from the NDP, if the new leader doesn’t fire.

Ruth Laugesen at The Listener writes:

Publicly listed companies will come under new pressure to promote women to boards and management under proposed new stock exchange rules. NZX chief executive Mark Weldon told the Listener that the stock exchange will be proposing new rules that will require all publicly listed companies to declare how many women and minorities they have in senior roles and as directors.

“What we would intend to consult on and would seek feedback on is a proposal that would see companies required to report on or disclose on the gender and other diversity makeup of board and management.” The change is to be part of NZX’s biannual rules review process, and could take force from June 2012.

I’m firmly against any sort of quota system for publicly listed companies. A quota would demand existing female directors, who might then be seen as token appointments.

However transparency in reporting is another issue.

NZX’s moves follow a rule change by the Australian Stock Exchange  has led to a 50% jump in representation of women on boards in the space of just 18 months. By the beginning of August, 12.7% of Australia’s top 200 listed companies had women directors, compared to 9.3% for the top 100 listed companies here. The Australian policy recommends publicly listed companies have a gender diversity policy, and that they report progress on meeting its goals on it regularly.

The wording Weldon is proposing goes further in several ways: it is mandatory rather than voluntary; it demands direct reporting of diversity numbers; and it goes beyond gender to include diversity generally, which includes ethnic diversity.

I’ve spent around a decade on a couple of company boards. By coincidence all four board chairs I have worked with have been women, and all have been excellent directors and chairs. There are many female directors who would add value to a top 100 listed company, and there is a bit of an old boys network because directors are inevitably always recommended by existing directors, so a lot of it is down to who knows who.

So I do not have a huge problem with reporting gender diversity, but I do get concerned over the wider diversity requirement. Will boards have to report Maori, PI, and Asians? And maybe how many of a particular religion or sexuality?

Diversity is good, but boards tend to be quite small – 10 or so directors. So while one can usefully look at gender diversity, I think it should not extend beyond that. Otherwise you may end up with boards seeking a stereotypical gay catholic asian for directorships!

UPDATE: The Institute of Directors announced last week:

The Institute of Directors (IoD) has given the go ahead to a new mentoring scheme aimed at increasing the number of women on NZX-listed boards. The IoD’s Chairmen Mentoring Programme will enlist up to 30 chairmen and senior directors of major companies to work with experienced and qualified women in a year-long programme.

That’s a really good idea.

A few will have seen this story in Stuff:

Prime Minister John Key’s signing of Emily Beaumont’s bulging belly in Nelson yesterday was symbolic on a day it was announced the country is now in a “man drought”.

Mr Key made a flying visit to Tahunanui Beach to help launch the election campaign of his sixth-ranked Cabinet minister, Nelson MP Nick Smith.

In response to yesterday’s story in the Sunday Star Times, which said there were now 50,000 “excess” 25- to 49-year-old females living in New Zealand , Mr Key assured that “we’re doing everything we can to keep people in New Zealand and we’ll now have a specific focus on men”.

Along with his signature on Ms Beaumont’s belly, Mr Key left what he termed a marketing message.

“If it’s a boy, John’s a good name,” Mr Key wrote on the most radical thing he had ever signed.

Ms Beaumont, of Motueka, who was “due to give birth any minute”, said she would probably name her baby John if it was a boy.

Now what interested me was that the belly already had a couple of marks on it. I got a copy of the higher res version and it is below.

The other marks are actually advertisements. One even has a URL!

I wonder if this method of advertising will catch on!

Radio NZ now has an embed link next to all of its audio content.

This is the politics segment on Monday morning. Well done to Radio NZ for making its content more easily available.

Hamish Rutherford at Stuff reports:

State-owned Meridian Energy has taken a $90 million writedown on some of its niche businesses as part of a “tidy-up” as it prepares for life as a private company.

The National Government has said if it wins the November election it may sell up to 50 per cent of several large state-owned companies.

Announcing a 13 per cent fall in underlying profits at group level, the accounts of the parent company of New Zealand’s largest electricity generator showed tens of millions in writeoffs on loans and investments in subsidiary businesses which the company acknowledges it is unlikely to recover.

This is one of the significant advantages of allowing minority share-holding in SOEs. Being listed on the NZX means the companies have to be more transparent with their finances, and have obligations such as continuous disclosure.

As an SOE it looks like Meridian has been carrying these impaired assets for some years at an unrealistic valuation.  You can’t do that so much when you are a publicly listed company.

Vote for Change has announced:

Vote for Change today announced the winner of its recent competition that asked New Zealanders to design advertisements for the upcoming referendum on our voting system.

The overall winner was Nick Cross, a Wellington student for his poster entry.  Mr Cross will receive $2,500 for attracting the most votes from Vote for Change’s members and supporters, in addition Mr Cross won campaign team’s award of $5,000 for the best entry.

The winning entry and finalists can viewed at www.VoteforChange.org.nz/competitions .

Well done Nick. His winning entry is below.

A guest post by Craig Watson:

My wife and I moved to Canberra, Australia from New Zealand a month ago for work. Always the political geek, I decided to make the most of my rostered day off (yay for the nine day fortnight!) and attend todays sitting of the Federal Parliament.

For those of you not up to date all is interesting in the land of the Labor led 43^rd Australian Parliament. I guess it has been this way since the independents and greens played off Tony and Julia after the election. I am sure most of you will remember that Tony Abbot’s Coalition had the better numbers but Julia and the Labor team were happy to offer more sweeteners and after many many days, nights and special news bulletins the Welsh-Australian playmaker wrangled in the Independents (ironically ‘country’ and possibly more right than central left) to pull together a majority that holds the balance of power by….one.

So for three main reasons (though there are many more) Julia faces her biggest challenge, not leadership like Phil back home, but in the balance of power. I would like to elaborate my view on these three points. I should say I am no political insider, nor do I hold a political degree, I am just an observer with a right leaning tendency.

(1)  The Union Sex scandal. Possibly the biggest threat in actual terms in this majority of one seat is an MP from NSW. I will not elaborate on Craig Thomson’s misgivings, here is a link http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/10082592/alp-fears-poll-outweighs-scandal/ , it seems the biggest factor is not what Craig has done (I think Union’s taking the financial piss is less that shocking, aye Matt McCarten??) but that Julia is sticking by her man. The reality is that if she does not then the marginal seat may well swing right and cause a snap election with the dissolution of the majority to hold parliament together. So really Osama Bin Laden as a Labor MP would have her support right now if it kept her in the thrones of power.

(2)  The Convoy of No Confidence. Okay so this one lacked the balls the opposition was hoping for (far less trucks and supporters), but the reality is that there is a real undercurrent of disillusionment with the current administration and the general public is well and truly over it. The fact the a non-political group hailing from all over the country felt the need to drive for over a week to make their feelings heard is a pretty credible sign of discontent. http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/convoys-mixed-reactions/2265581.aspx

(3)  K-Rudd…… need I say more?

So back to my original statement of ‘Labor gone by November’. The rumour going around is that Craig Thomson will be forced to stand down. This will force a by-election in his seat and early polls suggest that it will not remain a Labor seat. Labor will lose it’s mandate to govern and hence….. gone by November?