Kiwiblog

The Press has published its power list for Christchurch. As with all lists, they are just the opinions of the four people who compiled the list (two of whom are constant critics of the Government) but nevertheless an interesting list:

1. PM John Key
2. CERA Minister Gerry Brownlee
3. Ngai Tahu Chairman Mark Solomon
4. EQC CEO Ian Simpson
5. ECan Chair Dame Margaret Bazley
6. CERA CEO Roger Sutton
7. The Press Editor Joanna Norris
8. IAG CEO Jacki Johnson
9. Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce
10. Education Minister Hekia Parata
11. Fonterra CEO Theo Spierings
12. Cant Employers CEO Peter Townsend
13. Chch Central Dev Unit Director Warwick Isaacs
14. Civic Assurance CEO Tim Sole
15. Chch City Council CEO Tony Marryatt
16. Chch Mayor Bob Parker
17. Chch East MP Lianne Dalziel
18. SCIRT Chairman Mark Ford
19. The Gough Family
20. The Carter Family

As the Government is spending $15 billion of taxpayers money on rebuilding Christchurch, it should be little surprise that central Government figures are more influential than usual.

Stuff reports:

A British call centre has shipped staff to New Zealand so its phones can be manned 24/7.

The company, Moneypenny, came up with the idea after managers realised staff would rather leave the country than work night shifts,the Daily Mail reported.
 
Now based in Takapuna, Auckland, four staff members live temporarily in a rented house and work four days on-four days off, so they can travel.

When they are finished their stint in New Zealand, they will be replaced by another set of four employees. …

Moneypenny answers companies’ phones when their own staff can not get to them. When customers asked for a 24-hour service, Moneypenny asked their staff to work nights – but all were reluctant.

Of 280 staff, only four said they would work after hours, but 40 were prepared to relocate abroad.

Being in a distant time zone may be an advantage for once. We could become the official night shift call centre for Europe!

Rod Drury writes at NBR:

The New Zealand Government has recently agreed to spend $1.5 billion to redo the New Zealand tax system.

To anyone in IT this is an obscene amount of money to spend on an software project.

From the outside it seems like a slow moving train crash reminiscent of earlier Big Bang projects that always blow out if they are ever delivered.

It reeks of global consulting firms winning the business and then rapidly hiring a bunch of grads and putting them up in hotels for years.

It’s just not smart.

I’m unconvinced that any computer system should cost that much. I’m hoping that the $1.5b price tag is a worst case budget provision so they can come up well below budget.

We’re a market of 4 million  people and 400,000 businesses, so it’s just not that big. Many SaaS [software as a service] companies are already a good portion of those transaction levels at a fraction of the cost by using commodity, high performance, technologies.

Xero has spent around only $80 million getting to where it is today. Even if IRD was 10x Xero (it’s not) why isn’t $800 million a reasonable number?

And costs are not proportional.

But rather than just criticise here’s some practical suggestions I’d offer to to see if we can save $500 million to $1 billion in spend.

1. Start from the customer and work in, replacing the edges. Identify the key external interactions and publish those as web services.  Get the messages into a commodity systems and then connect these systems to the core FIRST servers. That will take load off, allow quick wins and lots of options.  As the core engine is surrounded it can be gradually replaced. A GST Return WebService would be an ideal place to start.

2. Don’t build the retail tax front end. Just publish the rules and invest in just the very core system. Let the private sector invest in the layer customers interact with. Certify providers that they met the requirements.  Payroll software pretty much works like that now. That offloads the investment to the private sector who are happy to build.

3. Go out to the NZ service companies and get them to stand up a consortium and carve up the opportunity themselves and put in place the appropriate governance structure. Give them the challenge to save $500 million on a fixed-fee basis and transfer project risk to the private consortium.

4. Appoint an independent board of systems experts to review the project and provide ongoing governance over it.

I’d start with recommendation 4 and appoint Rod to chair it!

Mike Watson at Stuff reports:

For 30 years Menzies Hallett thought he had got away with murder. But his talking eventually got him.

To many who knew him, he seemed an affable and outgoing, if not overly successful, real estate agent.

But for three decades Menzies Reginald John Hallett had been nursing a terrible secret – he was also a cold-blooded murderer.

Now many of his friends and associates around Taupo and Rotorua are left wondering how Hallett could have lived with the knowledge that he killed a man he did not know in a fit of rage.

As one of them put it: “How has he been able to sleep for the past 30 years?”

Hallett, now 72, shot petrol station attendant Rodney Tahu at close range in Turangi one night in August 1979 because Mr Tahu had closed up and would not serve him.

To kill a man in cold blood because his store had closed is monstrous. All murders are evil, but one can understand murders with a motive such as a failed business or personal relationship or a drug deal gone bad. But who shoots someone for not reopening their store?

Hallett is now 72. He should have gone to jail when he was 38 48 or 39 49. He would have been out by now probably. Instead he will now probably die in prison.

Professor Doug Sellman of Alcohol Action recently met with two representatives of the Brewers Association to discuss initiatives to reduce alcohol related harm. The two reps were executive director Jenny Cameron and the (male) president of the Brewer’s Guild.

Professor Sellman wrote an article for NZ Doctor on their meeting. It is embedded below. Now bear in mind this is an article by a medical professional for NZ Doctor about a health issue. So what does he say:

We met at Christchurch’s Boatsheds Café, just across the Avon River from the National Addiction Centre. Ms Cameron and her colleague had arrived a little early. When they approached me at the entrance, I did a momentary double take. Her strikingly attractive appearance transported me back to the times when I was still agreeing to meet big Pharma drug reps at the clinic

So he focuses on the appearance of Ms Cameron and feels the need to share with the world she is “strikingly attractive”. Her male companion doesn’t even rate a mention.

I felt sad that such a talented and vibrant person, hailing from heartland New Zealand, had been taken in by Big Booze and was gearing up so enthusiastically to repeat all the same hollow and deceptive arguments we have heard for decades. Ms Cameron has the charm and intelligence to be a very effective government relations advisor

Talented, vibrant, charm, intelligence. It is almost as if the Professor had a wee crush. If only he could lure her away from the dark side!

I’m somewhat surprised that NZ Doctor thought an article on the “striking attractiveness” and “talent, vibrancy, charm and intelligence” of Ms Cameron was deemed appropriate for a medical publication. Maybe they hope to become the official journal of Mad Men!

NZ Doctor by David Farrar

Sunset light on ridgelines, Rangitata River Valley Canterbury. New Zealand landscape photography by Todd Sisson.

Welcome to yet another late instalment of Wednesday Wallpaper.  I have fallen foul of the combined tyranny of school holidays and home renovations – last week I didn’t know that it was Wednesday until it was Friday….

This image is another ‘back catalogue’ discovery that turned up on a dusty hard drive last month – it catches my eye, maybe it will stir your tea too

I’m back in the office next week, so I should be on time.

Cheers – Todd

Free Wallpaper Download

You may download the large version of today’s image from this link:  Please note the new, shorter, Password = wwp

This image is available as a greeting card here.

See you next week!

Cheers – Todd [www.sisson.co.nz] [facebook]

Clare Rogers at Stuff reports:

Unionised McDonald’s staff will protest at the Queen St store in Auckland tomorrow before a countrywide strike threatened for next week. Unite union spokesman Joe Carolan said its 1500 members at McDonald’s planned to walk off the job next week over pay rates and working hours. McDonald’s had offered a 25-cent pay rise across the board, which was not enough, given the company had reported an almost $32 million annual profit, he said.

An inane comparison that tells us nothing. Tell us what the unions’ proposed pay increase would cost over the entire company, and then you’re getting a bit closer to useful information. Also tell us what that profit is as a percentage of both capital and revenue.

The proposed pay rise was less than an eighth of the cost of one of the fast-food chain’s cheapest items, a small serving of fries at $2.20.

Also a meaningless comparison, that the media parrot. And actually they have a number of items they sell for $1. But again what the hell does the price of a product have to do with how much staff get paid? By this logic staff at BMW should get paid 100 times as much as those as McDonalds, as their items costs $30,000 each.

Carolan said McDonald’s workers wanted parity with staff at KFC, where pay rates were considerably higher. For example, KFC employees received a $1 pay rise on the minimum wage after about six months in the job, compared with a 25c lift at McDonald’s.

if I worked at McDonalds and could earn more at KFC, I’d move over to KFC. I’m sure they have job vacancies come up all the time and would welcome experienced fast food service staff. Market pressure can be a very good way to get a pay increase.

According to records filed with the Companies Office, McDonald’s Restaurants made a net profit of $31.8m in New Zealand last year – flat on the previous year – as revenue edged up 2.7 per cent to $204.7m. The results are understood to include fees paid by franchisees to the company and sales at company-owned restaurants, not sales for all 160-odd McDonald’s stores in New Zealand.

Good to have some data at the end. But we’re still not told what the cost of an extra $1 an hour would be overall. Also if those figures exclude franchises, thet are of little value.

UPDATE: A reader does some calculations:

There are 160 McDonalds in NZ. A McDonald’s site for all the restaurants in Michigan says they employee an average of 61 people restaurant in Michigan. I assume this would be similar in NZ, or not far off. I can’t see why NZ restaurants would be more, or less labor intensive. That would be 9,760 employees approximately. In the US wages and benefits take up 31.9% of all revenue for the corporation and 25+% for the individually owned franchise.

I don’t know how many hours the average employee works, some are part time and some a full time, but some restaurants are open 24 hours as well. 

If you assume an average of 30 hours per employee you have added wage costs of $292,800 per week, or $15,225,600 per year. Those are approximates, but I think based on reasonable assumptions. This would effectively, based on the article you cited, mean a reduction in profits by more than 50%, all things being equal. If you assume that prices will have to rise to pay for additional wages then you can assume consumption will decline. Depending on the demand curve, which I think is somewhat flexible, sales would decline below what they would be otherwise. Given that sales in NZ McDonald’s have barely increased over the last year it could well mean a reduction in total sales and income, making the wage increase even more expensive. Both are likely to reduce the demand for workers, thus giving the increase to one class of workers at the expense of those who lost their jobs. 

I wish we got analysis like this in the media. It shows how importance context is.

The Herald reports:

In the same poll 48 per cent of voters said internet magnate Kim Dotcom should be allowed to stay in New Zealand – 42 per cent say Dotcom should be sent back to the US, and 10 per cent didn’t know.

This was a poll by 3 News.

I think it was a very bad decision to do a poll on this issue. It is tantamount to doing a poll on whether someone charged of a crime is guilty – before it has even gone to trial!

The decision on extradition is effectively one for the courts. Their role is to determine whether the offences he has been charged with in the US qualify under our extradition treaty and laws.

The decision on extradition is one for the courts, not one for public opinion. Of course Mr Dotcom is trying to make it into a cause celebre, but I am unsure as to why TV3 would play along.

If the courts find Dotcom should not be extradited, then he is very welcome here. If he is extradited and is found not guilty in a trial, then again he is welcome here. But the court processes should be allowed to reach a conclusion.

Massive Mag reports:

The Vice-President of the Extramural Students’ Society (EXMSS) and the executive Extramural and International Students representative say they have been “unlawfully dumped” from their positions.

President Jeanette Chapman announced the removals of Vice-President Dave Crampton and International Students’ executive Linda O’Dea in an April 12 message on the EXMSS website and Facebook page.

It says the pair were removed from the association because they “failed to…ensure [theirs and others’] membership of EXMSS”.

Membership costs $15, and according to the EXMSS 2012 constitution from the website, is to be paid within 60 days of the issue of an invoice, but both Crampton and O’Dea claim they did not receive an invoice.

And even if they did, you follow it up and do a reminder.

According to the Incorporated Societies Act, the most recent registered constitution from EXMSS is from 1997. Media Advisor from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Britton Broun states “Under the Incorporated Societies Act, any alteration to the rules of an incorporated society will only take effect once it has been registered.  Accordingly, it would appear that the rules that are legally in effect for the Massey University Extra-Mural Students’ Society Incorporated are the 1997 rules which appear on the register – the 2012 rules will only come into effect once they have been signed by at least three members of the society, delivered to the Registrar for registration, and registered.”

If this version is to be taken as the valid one, a member shall cease to be a member if he/she (iii) “Fails to pay the society’s annual subscription by the date of the Annual General Meeting.”

Crampton says that no AGM has occurred this year and a date for such has not been set.

The law is clear, that the 1997 constitution is the one legally in force.

It says something about the competence of EXMSS they no one has registered any constitutional changes in the last 15 years.

UPDATE: For avoidance of doubt, my criticism of the lack of registration of constitutional changes is not directed at the current Exec, but previous ones.

Marty Sharpe at Stuff reports:

A Mongrel Mob leader with a long list of convictions for violence has been freed on parole after vowing to change his ways.

Sonny Charlton Kaori Smith, 48, was freed in January, two years after he was sentenced to eight years’ jail for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

One of our lawyers may be able to help, but I thought you had to serve at least a third of your sentence before you were eligible for parole. I’ve not previously heard of parole two years into an eight year sentence.

I’m not commenting per se on the decision of the Parole Board, as I don’t have enough info to comment on why they though such early release would lead to rehabilitation. But I am surprised that someone can gain parole at such an early stage.

The Governnment has just published a very readable regional economic activity report. It is full of data and graphs such as this one.

It’s a great resource for people wanting to understand our economy at a regional level.

The Commerce Commission has published its sixth annual telecommunications market monitoring report.

Some interesting facts:

• Investment $1.26b
• Revenues $5.22b. Voice revenues falling, data revenues growing.
• 78% of households with a fixed line, have a broadband connection. We have the fastest growth rate in the OECD.
• The number of voice call minutes dropped from 6.1 billion to 5.7 billion
• Telecom’s fixed line market share dropped from 65% to 61%
• We have 111 mobile phones per 100 people
• 13.9 billion text messages sent, which is around 3,000 per person, the highest by far in OECD. Love to see a breakdown by age!
• Increase in Naked DSL connections from 30,000 two years ago to over 100,000 in the last year.
• Average data use per DSL line increased from 10 GB to 19 GB
• Average download speed of 3.9 Mbps – pretty crap
• Overall the telco market becoming significantly more competitive, while UK and Australia are static
• Text or SMS revenues of $376m greater than Mobile broadband revenue of $354m, but next year broadband revenue should be larger
• Mobile data doubled to around 4 petabytes or 4 million MBs.
• 66% of NZers own a laptop, 48% a smartphone and 29% a tablet

Telecommunications is such a dynamic industry as people move from voice to data, and from fixed to mobile.

Stuff reports:

A police plea for the name of the writer of a letter threatening to unload an automatic assault rifle in Canterbury University’s library has been turned down by the institution’s students association.

The letter, written anonymously and published in the students association’s magazine Canta on March 20, lists a series of gripes the author has about university life, including people who ride bikes on the footpath and students who wear camouflage. It then reads: “The above things are slowly transforming me from a Gandhi-like character to the kind of guy who is going to walk into James Hight [the library] one day with a fully loaded automatic assault rifle and unload my anger into you.”

The letter has also featured on the magazine’s website since March 20, but only came to the university’s attention when a student’s mother complained about it on Friday.

University Vice-Chancellor Rod Carr said he only became aware of it yesterday and referred the matter to police.

“This is a person who needs help,” he said. …

Despite police asking for the individual’s name, Carter said, the University of Canterbury Students Association (UCSA) had declined to release it on privacy grounds. Since no offence had been committed, police were unable to seek a warrant to force the release of the name.

“We are looking at other options for getting in touch with this person,” Carter said. “We would like to speak with them, and hopefully satisfy ourselves that there is no need for concern. If they would like to come forward and contact us, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss the letter and the concerns it raises.”

Canta editor Hannah Herchenbach would not comment and forwarded all queries to UCSA president Erin Jackson.

Jackson did not respond to questions about why UCSA would not release the name to police. But she did say the last paragraph contained content that “could be interpreted to look like a non-specific threat”, but the “tone of the letter was largely hyperbolic”.

She said given the tenor of the letter, and UCSA’s previous dealings with and knowledge of the author, it was assessed there was no serious threat.

I’m with UCSA on this one. Those who are serious threats, don’t tend to write letters to Canta about it. The letter maybe somewhat bad taste, but so are the vast majority of letters to student newspapers. They range from the hilarious to the defamatory. The letter was an obvious rant, not a threat. There is a difference, and we don’t want to end up like the UK where a guy got arrested for tweeting how he’d blow up an airport because they made him miss a date with his girlfriend. You obviously don’t say such things while in the queue for security scanning or on an aircraft – but that is different from saying one can never ever ever joke about such stuff.

In the attached picture – will a 110kg breaking strain rope be sufficient to support these two 100kg loads, or do they combine to become 200kg of strain total ?

It is an amateur theatre question, one of the 100kgs will be a witch, and the other end someone who lifts and lowers her…

Vernon Small at Stuff reports:

The Government has taken another $2 billion hit to its books as the estimated cost of the Christchurch rebuild continues to escalate amid signs the bill could grow even more.

Yesterday, Prime Minister John Key revealed the forecast cost to the Government had risen from $13b to $15b since the Treasury’s December update was issued.

The new figures, to be included in the May 16 Budget, would also show the overall capital cost of the rebuild would soar by a third to reach $40b against December’s $30b estimate.

Speaking at the National Party’s Mainland Region conference in Hanmer Springs, Mr Key said the new figures showed the extent of the challenge of rebuilding the earthquake-damaged city.

“This is the largest and most complex, single economic project in New Zealand’s history. The scale of the rebuild is unprecedented,” he told delegates, who had earlier negotiated a mock “toll booth” placed by anti-privatisation protesters at a bridge on the way to the conference venue.

Even the Crown’s spend of $15 billion must be several times bigger than any other project in NZ? What would be the biggest to date before the earthquake?

UPDATE: I’m informed that the only “project” that has been a larger spend for New Zealand was WWII. Puts it in perspective.

Tony Alexander from BNZ writes:

Against the Australian currency the NZD has risen firmly in recent weeks and now sits at its highest level since October 2009. This movement upward from 80 cents a month ago is based upon a number of things. …

Third, the fiscal track in NZ is surprising on the positive side with revenue inflows running ahead of expectations this year. In contrast in Australia the Treasurer Wayne Swan has had to make a very embarrassing climb-down from his position that fiscal surplus would be achieved in 2013/14 no matter what. Now he speaks in terms of a surplus not appearing for many years. Commentators are noting that a Federal Labour government in Australia has not produced a surplus since 1989, there is growing criticism of the never-ending spending promises being made, and this week Standard and Poors warned that they could cut Australia’s rating in five years’ time.

That is a fascinating statistic. No surplus since 1989.

Fourth, Australia’s currency is more strongly assessed as being tied to growth prospects in China than the NZD.

Fifth, as China grows the expectation is that NZ will benefit more than Australia from here on out because of strong food demand compared with past strong demand for coal and iron ore.

Hopefully the demand will hold up. As unemployment in Spain hits 27%, Europe is going to remain a basket case for some time.

Duncan Stuart blogs:

Yesterday the manufacturer of the skincare brand Nivea, managed to show their facebook fans just how venal a corporate can get. What they did was publish a photo of an ANZAC Day poppy, in the foreground of a New Zealand flag, and insert their Nivea Creme logo into the middle of the poppy.

What the hell were they thinking? For a start, let’s overlook the complete lack of connection between skin creme and the disastrous Allied WW1 campaign that saw nearly 70,000 allies and 60,000 Turks lose their lives. It was a military fiasco of dreadful proportions: a combination of appalling strategic thinking from the British High Command, enmeshed with sheer guts and courage at the troop level.  The courage and heroism of those poor soldiers, damned to die by poor planning is rightly remembered on ANZAC day in my country and in Australia.  But what has this got to do with skin care? Nothing whatsoever – so what was Nivea trying to say?

We’ll ignore the fact that they commandeered a trademarked logo of the RSA (the Poppy) or that they they used a national flag to herald their brand.

What really stinks is that here is a corporate who think that nationalism, remembrance and other important values that have helped define our national culture are somehow up for grabs by the corporate sector.  Their Facebook stunt showed utterly no respect for the individual feelings of families who lost grandfathers at Gallipoli. Nivea showed a shameless, venal motivation simply to appropriate our community of feelings, and hijack these for the purposes of branding. They found a parade and stuck their big banner in front of it.  I can almost hear the PR and marketing team right now. “JB, sir…we can own this event.”

Well they can’t. Brands are mighty powerful things, but the moment they start trying to own deeper and sacred national values – and by sacred I do not mean sporting – then they cross the line which all brands must respect. Authenticity.

Well said.

Stuff reports:

Sir Peter Jackson might not have been a New Zealander if not for the courage and tenacity of Kiwi soldiers in World War I.

The Lord of the Rings director said his British grandfather, William John Jackson, developed a respect for the Kiwi character while fighting alongside the Anzacs at Gallipoli.

When Sir Peter’s father emigrated to New Zealand years later, his decision was influenced by the stories he had been told about the country’s inhabitants.

“My dad always told me that the principal reason he chose New Zealand to emigrate to after World War II was the high regard his father had for the Kiwis he encountered at Gallipoli,” Sir Peter told the Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

William Jackson, the grandfather Sir Peter never met, won a Distinguished Conduct Medal at Gallipoli, and fought in most major battles of World War I. He died in 1940, aged 51.

He was lucky to survive. The death toll was horrific.

The Press reports:

The Canterbury recovery will cost almost $1 billion more than the value of Cyprus’ gross domestic product, almost twice Iceland’s and more than double New Zealand’s annual health spend.

And while Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee says the recovery’s price tag is still on the rise, looking set to surpass the latest $30b estimate, Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce chief executive Peter Townsend has now gone further, saying the recovery will cost $40b.

Bill English must sometimes gaze enviously at Michael Cullen’s photo, assuming he has a dart board in his office.

The last Finance Minister had a booming global economy, and his biggest problem was inventing new spending schemes to stop the surplus getting too large.

English has had not only the worst global recession since the Great Depression, but also the fiscal shock of the Christchurch Earthquake which as a percentage of the economy is one of the greatest to hit a developed economy in modern times.

The fact we are on track to achieve surplus the financial year after next is a minor miracle, after inheriting a structural deficit projection.

The Herald reports:

A white supremacist Christchurch group is planning to distribute anti-Chinese flyers around Auckland, a city council ethnic panel member says.

Chinese woman Bevan Chuang said she had received information that the Right Wing Resistance was planning to distribute leaflets in Titirangi, Manurewa and Onehunga attacking Chinese immigration.

“Safety is the most important thing, so please don’t confront the white power people with your bare hands,” Miss Chuang said in an email circulated to leading members of Auckland’s Chinese.

The Hong Kong-born panel member has also alerted the police Asian liaison officer to the matter.

Two years ago, the same group distributed “Stop the Asian Invasion” flyers in areas with high Asian population, such as Howick, Northcote and Pakuranga, sparking police concerns that the action would lead to racially motivated violence.

The far-right group also tried then to recruit non-Asian immigrants to join its campaign against the Chinese. …

Miss Chuang said she had been receiving “crazy neo-Nazi posts” on her Facebook page, attacking her ethnicity.

An unsolicited post received by Miss Chuang described Chinese people as “the cancer of New Zealand”, bringing mass pollution and “over-breeding”.

It added, “Go back there, we don’t want your rubbish communist politics in our free country”.

Another described Asian people as “fish faced” and said they moved to New Zealand only after poisoning the water and rivers at home.

“You … claim to be Kiwi when you are not born here, so you are not,” one post said.

“Tell your Asian mates they ain’t welcome, spread it around like Chinese whispers we don’t want you here.”

 I’m pretty sure that Miss Chuang’s politics are not communist!

Almost all the communists in New Zealand are Europeans, and are current or former Green Party MPs

If we didn’t have Chinese New Zealanders, we wouldn’t have hilarious shows such as Flat 3. There are six web-episodes, and its a pretty funny show about three young Kiwis.

Grant Jacobs at Sci Blogs blogs:

The Ministry of Health has released it’s 2013 Immunisation Health Report.^[1] As you would expect overall we’re a nation of vaccinators. Looked at more closely, though, we could do better.

The report, done in partnership with The Meningitis Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand and Pfizer New Zealand^[2] surveyed 1500 people, most of who were parents. Here are some of the results:

• Overall, 87% fully vaccinated their children.

• 96% at least partly vaccinated their children. (“4% of parents surveyed told us they do not immunise their children at all.”)

• 78% vaccinated their children on time. (Furthermore, “Of those parents who do fully vaccinate their children, 19% do not adhere, or were unsure they adhered, to the age appropriate schedule and this rises to 50% among parents who only partially vaccinate.”)

• Younger parents were slightly less likely to fully vaccinate their children. 80% of parents aged 18 to 24 fully vaccinated their children compared to 89% of older parents, aged 25 to 44.

• 90% of those surveyed believed vaccines are safe.

On a minor note, the report was done by Pfizer and The Meningitis Foundation, not the Ministry of Health. Curia did much of the research for the report.

The Ministry of Health has set targets for vaccination of under 8-month olds. They aim to have 85% of these children vaccinated by July 2013, 90% by July 2014 and 95% by December 2014. (This will tie in with levels needed for effective herd immunity.)

I’m not sure I heard correctly but I think Tony Ryall at the report launch said that in the last few years the vaccination rate has increased from 68% to 93% for very young infants.

Jacobs quotes another report on parents who delay immunisations:

• The Compromised – support immunisation but face significant individual, family/whānau and/or environmental barriers to immunising their infant(s) on time.
• The Considered – support immunisation but are concerned with the timeliness of the schedule. They therefore immunise at times that they feel are more appropriate for their child.
• The Conflicted – have concerns about immunisation and immunise their infants when they feel there is a heightened risk of disease, or through a sense of pressure from their partner, family/whānau and/or health provider.

The full report is here.

The impact of meningococcal and pneumococcal meningitis is very nasty. It can vary from death to brain damage to limb amputation. They are preventable diseases.

Opinions on a couple of policy issues around vaccinations were canvassed:

We asked whether families should lose some of their family tax benefit (as part of Working for Families) if they do not have their children immunised. Opinion was divided – 49% of respondents did not agree with financial penalties; 40% were in favour, and 11% did not know.

We also asked whether children who have not been vaccinated should be accepted into early childhood centres such as day care. Opinion was again divided. While 45% of respondents would not exclude non-vaccinated children, 42% were in favour of exclusion, and a further 13% were unable to answer or did not respond.

The exclusion issue is a difficult one. You don’t want to exclude anyone from ECE, but an unvaccinated child can be a health risk to the other kids.

The SST reports:

Extremists “inspired by millionaire Gareth Morgan” are accused of deliberately killing cats in Northland, sparking a bitter fight between conservationists and cat-lovers.

Images of cats caught in traps – described by cat supporters as “horrifying” – have been posted on a Far North conservation group’s Facebook page.

But cat-lovers are accused of extremism too – sending abusive and threatening emails to community board members considering the fate of a controversial cat colony, sparking complaints to police.

The ugly spat centres on a colony of about 10 strays being fed on a council reserve in Paihia in the Bay of Islands.

Morgan labels the colony “vile” and a threat to wildlife. But its supporters describe themselves on Facebook as “soldiers” in the “Battle of Paihia”. Their “war” is against conservation group Bay Bush which seemed to revel in posting photos of dead cats on Facebook, and a community board that last week voted to remove the stray cats permanently.

Their hate figure is Morgan, the businessman and philanthropist turned anti-cat crusader. Auckland Cat Coalition member Anne Batley-Burton squarely blames him for the trouble.

“Gareth Morgan is inciting the conservationists and getting them all worked up about the cats going out and killing all the birds. It’s causing so much trouble between people in communities.”

Another Cat Coalition member, Diane O’Connor, believed Morgan’s crusade had encouraged “radicals” to harm cats. “There are extreme people who now think, ‘yay, we’ve got the green light to hurt, maim and make animals suffer’.”

She said some of the cats were caught in possum traps that had been converted especially to lure them.

The Bay Bush Action Facebook page featured images of trapped cats, including one graphic picture of a black tom hanging by its mouth.

Several people commented on the page that the pictures were like something

from a horror movie and were inappropriate, but others cheered on the killers. “Well done . . . I wonder how many baby kiwi that evil cat killed,” one post said. The images have since been removed, the group conceding they were inflammatory.

Sticking up photos of cats killed in traps is pretty sick.

Meanwhile, two members of the Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community Board have complained to police after a Facebook group called Cats to Stay – set up in opposition to Morgan’s website Cats to Go – encouraged cat lovers from around the world to email councillors and Far North Mayor Wayne Brown ahead of a meeting last Wednesday to decide the fate of the Paihia strays.

“It was severe harassment,” said deputy chair Belinda Ward. “I’m a ‘terminator’, a ‘murderer’, a ‘cat killer’. I had three days of bombardment. It educated me that cyber bullying by extremists is alive and well.”

Extremism on the other side is equally unhelpful.

The HoS reports:

The Herald on Sunday has obtained emails from the investigating officer in the case, Constable Paul Sharples, sent to witnesses working for NZTC. We showed the emails to Auckland district commander Mike Clement and he confirmed a review of the case was under way.

In an email from Sharples dated October 11, 2011, to an NZTC staff witness, he explains how his brief would be presented: “I will get this laminated on A3. Judges are like children, they like bright colours.”

Personally if I was a Judge I’d be amused, not offended. I’m sure after wading through thousands of pages of documents, a Judge does appreciate a nice colourful A3 statement!

The reference to being like children is in the context of the case being forged qualifications for a childcare worker, so it probably seemed a witty analogy.

An interesting documentary on Prime TV this Sunday at 8.35 pm:

THE FORGOTTEN GENERAL is a documentary which charts the life and career of Major-General Sir Andrew Hamilton Russell, Commander of the NZ Mounted Rifles at Gallipoli and overall Commander of the 20,000 strong NZ Division on the Western Front in World War I (a division which at any one time comprised 20,000 New Zealanders, and over the course of the war was responsible for over 70,000 soldiers). Russell is regarded by some as New Zealand’s one true military genius of the 20^th century, and one of the very best commanders on the Western Front, from any nation. Russell is the one leader who emerged from Gallipoli with his reputation enhanced – not in tatters.

 Once a household name, Russell’s life has been lost in the sands of time. Until now.

Based on the best selling book by Jock Vennell,  The Forgotten General (New Zealand’s WWI Commander Major-General Sir Andrew Russell) the television documentary takes the viewer into the life and world of Russell as he found himself at the head table of some of most successful and devastating campaigns for New Zealand in WWI.

Using a mixture of interviews with internationally regarded military historians, carefully staged dramatic reconstructions, rarely compiled WWI newsreel footage from archives here in NZ and  around the globe, and an amazing array of still photographs, the production brings to life the journey of Russell and his New Zealanders through the First World War.

Starring Colin Moy (Go Girls, Spartacus, In My Father’s Den, (and Peter Webber’s upcoming Emperor ) the dramatic reconstructions take the viewer into Russell’s life in the front line and his journey through the war.  Filmed in Auckland, with a talented and award-winning creative crew including Production and Costume Designer Tracey Collins (Bliss – The Katherine Mansfield Story, What Really Happened: The Treaty of Waitangi, This is Not My Life)   and Cinematographer Simon Raby (District 9, The Lord of the Rings, Predicament) , reconstructions dramatise some of the key moments faced by Russell and his men.   These moments include the brilliant taking of the Gallipoli foothills of Chunuk Bair; the New Zealanders’ spectacular but costly success at the Third Battle of the Somme, the brilliantly executed Battle of Messines; the controversial build up to the horrific Battle of Passchendaele (New Zealand’s worst ever military disaster);  and the leading role of Russell and his New Zealanders in the liberation of France. By this stage of the war the New Zealanders were regarded as the crack troops of the Allied Forces, a position many attribute to Russell’s leadership.  

Given Russell’s role in all of these battles, his journey is New Zealand’s journey and for the first time this journey is being told through through one hour of television.

The reconstructions also examine Russell’s personal life: his childhood on the family farm in Hawkes Bay, his education at boarding schools in England and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (where he won the Sword of Honour for being top of his class), and too the effects of war on his family life, including his son John  who fought in WWII.

This production has had incredible support from local institutions. Commissioned by Prime TV and the NZ On Air Platinum Fund, key support and rare newsreel film has been provided by the The New Zealand Film Archive Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua, the Kippenberger Research Library – National Army Museum, Alexander Turnbull Library and Archives New Zealand. International archives have been sought from the Imperial War Museum, Australian War Memorial and Getty Images. Interviews include key world-class military historians including Dr Christopher Pugsley, Ian McGibbon, Dr Andrew Macdonald and Lt. Col (Ret) Terry Kinloch.  Historical Consultant is John Crawford. The documentary is produced and directed  by Karl Zohrab for Kingfisher Films 

I must confess I had never heard of General Russell. I am looking forward to the documentary.

Te Ara has a page on him, that details his achievements.

Rainbow at dawn, over the Ben Ohau Range, Mckenzie Country. New Zealand landscape photography by Sarah Sisson.

This stunning rainbow was captured by Sarah near the turnoff to Mount Cook Village several years ago. Such moments of natural beauty are all too rare (and fleeting).

Free Wallpaper Download

You may download the large version of today’s image from this link:  Please note the new, shorter, Password = wwp

This image is available as a greeting card here.

See you next week!

Cheers – Todd [www.sisson.co.nz] [facebook]