Kiwiblog

The Herald focuses on the environment in Auckland:

Stormwater pipes and sewers, many of them old and not sufficiently separated, overflowed 2500 times in 2008, fouling beaches and leaving them unsuitable for swimming. Aucklanders have been hearing about this disgrace for a lifetime, and paying for it to be fixed for almost as long. Yet progress seems not to be keeping pace with population growth.

For all that, this ARC report, the council’s third since 1999, suggests coastal water is cleaner than it used to be, beaches are usually safe for swimming and streams, though still polluted, are not as bad as before. While car use is rising, so is patronage of public transport. And though we have become fairly diligent at separating household rubbish for recycling, the amount sent to landfills is growing faster than the population.

The Dominion Post calls for more transparency in spending:

Today The Dominion Post reveals that funding for a $3 million taxpayer-funded project to turn domestic Maori businesses into export earners was abruptly suspended last November by Te Puni Kokiri because of concerns about the way public money was being spent.

Among the issues of specific concern to the Maori Development Ministry were: perceived conflicts of interest, value for money and contract compliance.

Documents obtained by the paper under the Official Information Act show the ministry was right to act as it did. But they do not explain why TPK signed off in the first place on a project that its chief executive Leith Comer now concedes was loose and wishy washy.

She is on the right track. Private organisations in receipt of public money have an obligation to account for the way it is spent. Government organisations dishing out public money have an obligation to put proper controls and benchmarks in place. Auditor-General Lyn Provost should be asked to conduct a thorough inquiry into both Tekau Plus’s use of the money and Te Puni Kokiri’s stewardship of it.

I like what some US states have done – every single payment is published on the Internet.

The Press looks at local transport:

The Christchurch City Council shows welcome determination in sticking to its plans to build the new bus exchange under ground.

Christchurch will benefit in the long and short term, even if the NZ Transport Agency regards the plan as not benefiting the nation.

The agency has to live within tight budgetary margins and contribute to projects throughout New Zealand, so it is bound to take a conservative view of the exchange. That is especially the case when the undergrounding is expensive, costing $212 million more than the above-ground option. Also, the Christchurch bus system could operate with the cheaper facility.

But the city council is right to take a longer-term view, and one that will give the city the safest and most efficient exchange with the maximum potential.

Undergrounding would do that. It would mean passengers would not have to negotiate entering and exiting vehicles and more buses could be accommodated. Also, the area above could be turned into a park – in the meantime.

Underground, overground, wombling free, the Wombles of Wimbledown Common are we.

Sorry that song just stuck in my head as I read the editorial on overground vs underground.

The ODT looks at water pollution:

Some assurance can be taken by the public from the latest survey of the efforts by dairy farmers to comply with both the law and the 2003 Dairying and Clean Streams Accord, but the results also show there is still a great deal to be done.

Indeed, the level of national non-compliance with effluent discharge consents is still a disgrace, although the situation has improved in Otago – and not before time. …

Public anger against dairy farmers who continue to flout the requirements – along with the damage being done to New Zealand’s carefully cultivated, if misleading, “clean, green” publicity – has grown to the stage where now politicians at cabinet level are taking an interest.

Claims by farmers’ organisations that “most [dairy] farmers” care about the impact their businesses have on the environment simply do not stand up to scrutiny if the survey statistics for the 2008-09 season are to be believed.

On a national scale, only 60% of dairy farms are complying with resource consents and regional plans in the discharge of their dairy effluent, although the figures for Otago and Southland farmers, at 75% and 69% respectively, are above average.

Three editorials on Waihopai. First the Herald:

Infamously, former Telecom chief executive Theresa Gattung once admitted her company used confusion as a marketing tool. For quite some time, it worked.

A similar strategy employed by three men who broke into the Waihopai spy base near Blenheim in 2008 and slashed an inflatable plastic dome covering a satellite dish has enjoyed equal success. Various wishy-washy defences have proved sufficient to befuddle a jury in the Wellington District Court, leading to the trio’s acquittal. …

The acquittal will not set a legal precedent. That is the domain of judges, not juries. But it will probably encourage others who have attacked public property to mount the same defence.

The widespread disbelief that has greeted this decision means any such attempt will surely fall on stony ground. Clearly, that should have been the case this time, as well.

And the Press:

The question now is whether the decision will set a precedent. Legally, a decision by a district court jury does not create a precedent.

But it is likely that others charged with offences related to a cause which they passionately believe in will attempt to use the Waihopai defence.

An example might be an anti-abortionist charged with damaging a hospital where abortions were performed.

Which is what you get when people think their beliefs put them above the law.

And the ODT:

It is plain fact that state borders do not deter terrorists and criminals in the digital age yet citizens continue to rely on the State to protect both themselves and the nation’s borders. The Waihopai station must be considered to be part of that obligation but it seems hardly ever to be considered that its activities may well be saving lives, including within this country’s borders.

However much some sincere objectors may dislike it and what it represents, can they offer a practical and reliable alternative to hold secure the safety of the nation and its citizens?

That’s disapproval all round.

The Dom Post breaks the pattern and talks about former Auckland Museum director Vanda Vitali:

The not unexpected resignation of Auckland War Memorial Museum director Vanda Vitali on Tuesday raises some interesting questions. Though the parting of the ways between board and chief executive was inevitable after Dr Vitali antagonised the family of Sir Edmund Hillary, the manner of her going led one Auckland mayor to suggest the board, rather than its employee, should go.

Implicit in Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey’s criticism was that, having searched worldwide for a museum professional to bring Auckland’s historical treasury into the 21st century, the board could not manage a woman who, once appointed, stood her ground. …

The NZ Herald focuses on the departure of Vanda Vitali:

The trust board was also keen to see the museum throw off austerity and become part of an international trend typified by Te Papa. Part of this was a restructuring that left 46 personnel, many of them senior staff, without jobs.

Amid accusations that this meant core museum displays were being downgraded, the board backed Dr Vitali to the hilt for most of her tenure. Its support began to waver late last year, however, after a series of public relations disasters.

It is questionable who should bear the responsibility for these. Did the board, having appointed Dr Vitali and provided a mandate, fail to give sufficient direction and guidance?

Did it not recognise sufficiently that, as a Canadian, she was operating in an unfamiliar cultural context? Or did the director, like many set on instituting change, not see finesse and heedfulness as part of her job description? …

It must not become fusty and tradition-bound. Dr Vitali’s achievement can be measured by comments lamenting her resignation.

One of the more notable came from Naida Glavish, of the Ngati Whatua Runanga, who said she had brought the museum “back to life”. An initial reservation about Dr Vitali was her sensitivity to the Maori and Pacific exhibitions.

Museums are always seeking a balance. In Auckland’s case, that involves using flair and imagination to attract local people, while also catering for overseas tourists’ major interest, the Polynesian treasures.

Dr Vitali wrought major change in a short time. With a little finesse, the correct balance can be struck.

Is Te Papa still looking for a CEO?

The Dominion Post is unhappy with Israel:

The timing of Israel’s announcement of a new 1600-house Jewish development in East Jerusalem was the equivalent of a one-fingered salute to the United States and to the peace process.

It demonstrates a contempt for the Obama Administration so withering that it diminishes the American ability to broker any deal. The administration had last year demanded a freeze on Jewish settlements, but eventually got only a partial, temporary halt – except in Jerusalem.

Why should the Palestinians pay any heed to what Washington wants, when the Israelis clearly don’t? It will also raise questions even among those sympathetic to Israel whether its current leadership has any intention of reaching a negotiated settlement.

I am a friend and supporter of Israel, but on this issue I agree they are wrong. They really should stop building new settlements. It makes the job of achieving a peace agreement a lot lot harder, for little gain.

The Press focuses on bad driving:

It is the common complaint of many New Zealand motorists. Truck drivers hog the road and, being oblivious to other road users, are responsible for accidents and near misses, both in urban areas and on the open road.

Those who subscribe to this jaundiced view should be taking a hard look at the video footage on The Press’s website. This footage, which was taken from cameras mounted in Canterbury Waste Services (CWS) trucks and which has created great public interest, has graphic images of other road users behaving recklessly and illegally.

It includes video images of one car overtaking a truck and forcing oncoming traffic to take evasive action. Other footage shows motorists not stopping at red lights or compulsory stop signs, failing to adhere to the give-way rule at other intersections, adopting some appalling driving techniques at roundabouts, and skidding due to a failure to drive to the conditions.

Luckily Wellington drivers are better than that

The ODT looks at child abuse in the Catholic Church:

It is hard to believe the senior ranks of the Roman Catholic Church, increasingly under siege in Fortress Vatican, have any real appreciation of the extent of the calamity facing them.

For if they did, surely they, and Pope Benedict XVI, would be cutting a radically different course from that now being offered to a confused, disappointed and sometimes angry congregation.

Prominent among the strategies it has adopted in the face of what is beginning to seem like a perfect storm of recent revelations – of sexual abuse cases and “cover-ups” in Brazil, the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Germany and, periodically, in this country and Australia – has been the time-honoured tactic of attacking the messenger. …

It just reminds me of the South Park episode where a priest calls on the gathered Cardinals to stop priests having sex with little boys, and the response back is that as they can’t have sex with women, if they stop having sex with little boys, then they’ll get to have no sex at all!

Abstinence is not natural in my opinion!

The Herald is not a fan of money for the All Whites:

John Key said the money given to New Zealand Football would help it capitalise on the All Whites’ qualification for the World Cup finals and promote the game domestically.

More specifically, he mentioned the hiring of a temporary media manager, the revamping of the NZF’s website, a series of soccer fun days, and the identification and training of talented 17 and 18-year-olds.

None of this bears a skerrick of analysis, not least because NZF will receive a $10 million windfall payment from Fifa, the game’s governing body because of thanks to the All Whites’ qualification for the finals.

That will be supplemented by the host of sponsorship opportunities opened by New Zealand’s second appearance on football’s biggest stage. It also follows close on the heels of a US$1 million ($1.4 million) payout from Fifa for the All Whites’ participation in last year’s Confederations Cup. In sum, that money has put NZF’s previously shaky finances on an even keel.

Have to say I agree more with the Herald.

The Press looks Trans-Tasman:

Although former deputy prime minister Sir Don McKinnon has said that at some point a merger is inevitable, current Prime Minister John Key says the debate is pointless, as a merger is simply not going to happen.

Clearly, opposition to New Zealand losing its status and identity as an independent sovereign nation would be a formidable barrier to merging with Australia in the short to medium term.

It is more likely that this prospect will be seriously debated when both nations consider whether to move from being constitutional monarchies to republics – and there appears no huge groundswell for this to occur in the near future in either country.

In the meantime, the priority should be continued efforts to harmonise the two economies, including further developments that will bring a common border, a common currency and more consistency in our tax systems. On the latter front, there could, of course, be developments in this year’s New Zealand Budget.

I commented on Radio NZ that I might support NZ joining Australia, if each of our islands could e recognised as a state. This would allow us to gain control of the Australian Senate

The Dom Post opposes funding elderly daytrippers:

By all accounts the SuperGold Card has been a godsend for the elderly. Pensioners who have not ventured far from their homes for years are using the free public transport component of the card to visit family and friends and generally get out and about.

The card has proved particularly attractive to elderly residents of Auckland’s Waiheke Island and their contemporaries in Auckland who fancy a harbour cruise. Pensioners, or rather the Government on their behalf, spent $2 million on Waiheke Island ferry travel in a 12-month period. That’s 11 per cent of the $18m spent on the scheme in total.

Undoubtedly the scheme has been good for the elderly, not to mention Fullers, the ferry company that operates the Waiheke service. It is effectively receiving a $2m subsidy from the Government for services that were already running.

The transport operators have been the real beneficiaries. Because it is for off peak travel only, it means that they have merely soaked up unused capacity, and not led to any extra services.

In other words, the transport operators are getting $18 million a year for providing the same services at much the same cost. The subsidy level of 75% is ridiculously generous, and I can only presume that whomever negotiated it, also negotiated the KiwiRail sale.

However, there is a question to be asked about whether the Government should be subsidising the discretionary travel of elderly daytrippers while it is rationing healthcare, stinting on teacher pay and putting the squeeze on Government departments.

Of course not. It’s obscene we spend $2 million a year on the wealthiest elderly people in Auckland to go to and from Waiheke etc. But once a subsidy is in place, it is politically lethal to remove it.

Quotable Value puts the median value of a three-bedroom house on Waiheke Island at $650,000. Just because the owner of such a home wishes eventually to pass that property on mortgage-free to his or her heirs is not a reason for a Porirua mum, living in rented accommodation and working nights to put food on the table for her children, to subsidise the pensioner’s discretionary travel.

The Government has aptly read the political winds. Working New Zealanders and their children are the losers.

Absolutely.

The ODT looks at youth offending:

While the 156 offences involving shoplifting might be considered nothing out of the ordinary, what should the community think of the nine assaults with a weapon, the single instance of threatening to kill, the five caught in possession of cannabis, the 34 arsonists? These all involved older – but still primary school-aged – children, and there were among them those with severe behavioural problems.

Yet efforts by the police youth services, schools, Child, Youth and Family and parents have led to a decrease in the number of very young offenders.

Ten years ago the numbers were twice those of the past year, which surely reflects the subsequent success of co-ordinated intervention.

Even so, it is a disturbing reflection of modern society that more than 700 young children were considered sufficiently delinquent to justify police apprehension for criminal offences.

The Herald looks at the Iraqi elections:

Iraq’s national elections were some distance removed from the type of poll associated with a smoothly functioning democracy. They were conducted amid an intimidating campaign of violence, and in the aftermath there have been accusations of fraud.

Even now, only partial results are available because of disorderly vote-counting. Yet the pluses of the election far outweigh the negatives, especially in indicating that Iraq may be ready to turn its back on years of sectarian strife.

The results announced so far show the Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, edging ahead. His State of Law coalition leads in seven of the country’s 18 provinces. …

If a coalition is cobbled together relatively quickly, it will clear the way for the smooth pull-out of more American troops by the end of August, and a final exit by the end of next year.

The new government will have its hands full preserving Iraq’s fragile security, continuing to resolve its sectarian tensions and repairing shattered public services.

But, at the very least, this election marks a promising start. Iraq has defied the many doomsayers by moving further along the road to democracy and reconciliation.

It is going to be fascinating to see what Iraq is like in 2020. Will it still have major sectarian violence and terrorism, or will it be a relatively well functioning democratic state?

The Press talks football:

The Wellington Phoenix football team has provided one of the sporting highlights of the past year. For the club to have made the A-League playoffs for the first time, and to have got within one match of the grand final, was an achievement all New Zealanders can be proud of. As Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert has noted, this has been a breakthrough season for the club. It also augurs well for the 2010-11 season.

Although the dream run ended on Saturday night, thanks partly to a handball goal by a Sydney player, the Phoenix’s successful season helped to heighten public interest in football, as shown by the crowds of up to 33,000 that the team attracted.

Maybe the Warriors would do better if they were Wellington based also

The Dominion Post talks league tables:

One thing is for sure in the wake of the publication of Health Ministry statistics comparing the performances of 80 primary health organisations.

Total Healthcare Otara, the PHO with the poorest record of immunising two-year-olds, will be taking immediate steps to improve its performance. Public ignominy is a powerful motivating tool.

So it should be. The release of the data highlights yet again the benefits of comparing the performance of organisations doing essentially the same job, whether they operate in the health sector, the education sector or any other area. Not only is the information useful to decision-makers and the public, it is also useful to the organisations themselves. As Helen Rodenburg, the chairwoman of a clinical quality board that oversees four PHOs in Wellington, told Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report yesterday, before the publication of the data, PHOs did not know how their performance compared with those of similar organisations in other parts of the country.

The primary teachers’ union, the New Zealand Educational Institute, should take note.

This is exactly why the NZEI is so opposed.

Of course there are limitations associated with the way the data is collected. Of course it is important to compare like with like and, of course, it is important to consider the different environments in which schools operate. Just as a PHO in Wellington City could be expected to outperform a PHO in Porirua on many measures, so children at a decile 10 primary school in Khandallah could be expected to perform better in tests than children at a decile 1 school in Cannons Creek. The children in wealthier neighbourhoods are more likely to come from homes in which English is the first language, there is space for a dedicated homework area and the shelves are stacked with books.

But instead of flatly rejecting the introduction of national standards as the NZEI is doing, it should be devoting its energies to ensuring the tests measure something useful.

NZEI be constructive? Sure, and Satan has this nice little ski chalet for sale.

The ODT focuses on investor migrants:

The Government is rightly taking a hard-headed look at the domain – New Zealand is not so wealthy as to be able to offer refuge to thousands of migrants who bring little other than “diversity” to their new country, but neither should it push these policies so far that, in effect, the prize of New Zealand citizenship is being sold to the highest bidder.

There are, after all, many values – honesty, pride, diligence, community-mindedness, intelligence, aspiration, entrepreneurialism among them – besides an already accumulated wealth that will colour the future contribution of any migrant, including those in the new parent and temporary retirement categories, to his or her adopted country.

Dr Coleman and the National-led Government are evidently determined to implement immigration policies that pay.

The ambition is laudable, but wealth is relatively easy to measure, other desirable qualities less so.

The Herald talks about respect for the Police:

Mr O’Connor’s approach is even more problematic. He says a lack of guilty verdicts in the District Court had shown society and criminals that insulting the police is acceptable. It has also made the police reluctant to charge people for low-level offending using the legal provisions. “Cases show that it’s something police are expected to put up with, but it shouldn’t be,” says Mr O’Connor. His response is essentially a zero-tolerance policy that would see people shouting obscenities at the police convicted for insulting behaviour.

This raises several problems. The first is that the courts are merely reflecting societal mores in their approach to such offending. Obscenities do not have the same impact as they did, say, 30 years ago. Nor are the police alone in feeling that respect for their authority has dwindled. The teaching profession, for example, suffers from the same ailment. When it applies a zero tolerance approach, it means large-scale suspensions and expulsions.

That is as misguided as a policy that would burden overloaded courts further with low-level offences against the police for little gain. Zero tolerance does not work because its inflexibility leaves no room to deal with an out-of-character indiscretion or suchlike. Its approach to minor misdeeds is also far more likely to create a climate of fear than engender respect.

I think there is some linkage between the fact that people can now call the Police c**ts to their face, and that some of those people then also go on to assault them.

The Press focuses on irrigation:

The selection of two irrigation schemes among the four winners of a competition to find projects with a long-term potential capacity to make a significant contribution to the Canterbury economy demonstrates the significance of the appropriate use of its water resource to the region.

The fact that both schemes are extremely contentious shows also how arguments over the use of the resource are unlikely to be quickly resolved.

But if the judges are right, that these schemes are among a handful in Canterbury with the capacity to generate $100 million of revenue for Canterbury within five years and $1 billion or more in revenue within 10 years, it is obviously very important that the decisions that are reached on these projects are the right ones.

There is precious little else on the economic horizon with such potential.

I should get more excited about water issues in Canterbury as I know they are important, but frankly I don’t.

The Dominion Post looks at science funding:

In short, the Government appears to have heeded OECD criticism in 2007 that the public science system was unduly fragmented, as well as Sir Peter’s advice.

Science might be finally emerging from the shadows, its non-sexy status having long been reinforced by an often scientifically ignorant public, suspicious of the work many scientists do – take, for example, widespread distrust of genetic engineering, despite the public good it might do.

Thus, science is so often in the headlines for the wrong reasons.

Not last week, though. Then, two Wellington scientists were awarded the inaugural Prime Minister’s Science Prize for their research into the multimillion-dollar field of high-temperature superconductivity.

Both work for Industrial Research.Its chief, Shaun Coffey, says public-sector investment in the scientists’ endeavour has not only been repaid in terms of their work’s contribution to the economy, it has also positioned New Zealand “at the forefront of a new industry that is set to revolutionise the way electricity is used and distributed”. He knows the challenges ahead, however.

All eyes will be on the budget, as it has been made clear this is one of the few areas to get extra funding:

The ODT looks at the proposed tertiary education reforms:

Recent Cabinet decisions relating to funding for higher education and research suggest the Government is serious about its objective of raising knowledge standards and building a solid base for public and economic benefits from progress in science.

These are not easy decisions to make from a political perspective, since if they deliver hoped-for benefits they will do so only in the longer term.

There are few votes in such policies and it is to the Government’s credit that it is not afraid to embrace long-term goals for the greater good. …

The Government is in effect offering financial incentives for institutions tied to the improving educational performance of their students, which suggests that institutions with an aspirational goal of excellence, such as Otago university, can only benefit.

The Herald talks government funding cuts:

Predictably enough, Labour has tried to make a mountain out of the Government’s announcement of funding cuts in the Education Ministry. According to its education spokesman, Trevor Mallard, these will harm education quality because there will be less research and less teacher and curriculum development.

In reality, he is talking about a molehill. The ministry has been asked to make just $25 million in savings by 2012-13. That is a surprisingly small amount, which is being sought in the right area, rather than at what used to be called the chalkface.

All government-funded organisations are being told to cut costs because of the tough economic climate. Cue cries of anguish and alarm.

The key to achieving the savings without fulfilling the grim forecasts of these critics lies in targeting areas that will not disrupt a sector’s core responsibilities. Commendably, this is what the Government is seeking to achieve in both education and health, two of the leading recipients of its spending.

Labour has never met a spending cut they didn’t oppose.

The Dominion Post swipes at NZUSA:

The University Students Association is to be applauded for its egalitarian instincts. They accord with the New Zealand ethos.

However, the association, long a training ground for Labour Party apparatchiks, would enhance its credibility if it spent less time bleating about the cost of university studies and more focusing on the quality of the education on offer.

It makes a habit of engaging its mouth before its brain. The most recent instance occurred on Tuesday when co-presidents David Do and Pene Delaney issued a statement condemning new Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce, the Government’s tyre-kicker-in-chief, for saying that from 2012 a percentage of the state funding provided to tertiary institutions will be linked to their academic performance and for adding that he’d also like to restrict student loans to students who pass their courses.

David Do is a former Chair of Princes St Labour.

Here is a newsflash for the association: the quality of the education available to its members, and students at other tertiary institutions, has gradually been eroded over the past couple of decades by underfunding and a bums-on seats-policy that rewards institutions according to the number of students enrolled rather than their performance.

The Government does not have a magic pool of money into which it can dip to make up the shortfall. It is effectively borrowing $200 million a week to maintain existing levels of public services, debt that will eventually have to be made good by the the association’s members and generations yet unborn.

If improvements are to be made to the system, the money has to come from within the existing tertiary education budget. Mr Joyce is doing exactly what the association should be imploring him to do – looking for poor-quality institutions and courses so that money can be redirected from them to institutions and courses that provide value for money.

He is proposing to do the same with students. Good on him. Every student who is not turning up to class, repeatedly failing or using a student allowance or loan to subsidise a lifestyle that has nothing to do with study is wasting money that could otherwise be used to provide a better education for students motivated to make the most of their opportunities.

The association should forget about trying to score political points and focus on advancing its members’ real interests. Students should ask themselves whether they would rather buy a clapped-out jalopy with a wound-back odometer for $25,000 or a modern, reliable warranted vehicle for $35,000.

Mr Joyce knows the answer to that question. It is to buy a quality vehicle that will stand the test of time. The same holds true for education. Forget cheap; think quality.

A wonderful editorial.

The Press talks immigration:

Graven on a tablet within the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York is the poem with the famous words “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses”. The latest immigration policy development in New Zealand is somewhat different to this. The new temporary retirement immigration category is more a case of New Zealand being given and welcoming elderly migrants, provided they have enough money to invest here.

Under this scheme foreigners aged at least 66 years can move to New Zealand on an initial two-year permit if they have good health and character, agree to invest $750,000 here, have an income of $60,000 and $500,000 worth of assets.

By international standards the financial criteria for coming here are not huge, which might encourage a reasonable uptake. But even if this did occur the amount which must be invested is also comparatively modest, which suggests that the scheme might not make the contribution to economic growth which the Government hopes would occur.

Rather than encouraging the wealthy elderly to come to our shores, the focus should be on promoting New Zealand as a migration destination for younger people with skills. This would help address this nation’s serious skills shortage and contribute more meaningfully to economic growth.

I don’t think it is an either-or. One can encourage both.

And the ODT focuses on regional rates:

A rare piece of good news emerged for beleaguered ratepayers this week: the Otago Regional Council draft annual plan shows no increase in the general rate. The ORC chairman points out it is a draft budget only, but nevertheless, how refreshing. Why can’t other councils do the same?

Indeed. Most businesses have had to contain costs, as have most households. Even the central Government is doing so. Local Government should follow.

The Herald approves of mooted KiwiSaver changes:

Commerce Minister Simon Power deserves praise for his decision to fast-track tougher reporting requirements for all KiwiSaver providers.

Not so David Ireland, the chairman of superannuation industry body Workplace Savings, who described the move as a “knee-jerk reaction”.

Like some other near-sighted individuals in the funds management industry, Mr Ireland seems to be struggling to come to terms with the idea that investors’ interests must come first.

When the subject is the integrity of KiwiSaver, which holds the investments of 1.3 million New Zealanders, there is every reason to move quickly to plug any gaps in regulation.

What scares me is the poll showing around half of KiwiSaver investors think their fund is government guaranteed.

The Dominion Post wants the public service reined in further:

The public service is a dollar-devouring behemoth that has thwarted many attempts to rein it in.

Prime Minister John Key will need to do better than he has so far, if he is going to succeed in slipping on the halter. It is vital that he does. …

Now the Government is treading so carefully it risks making no progress. Mr Key, through a spokeswoman, has denied there is any proposal that might be described as “radical reform”. Instead, all indications are of a process that smacks of the ad hoc, and of being driven by fear of public reaction as much as by any coherent strategy.

That is not good enough. Despite improvements in government finances, the Treasury is still forecasting deficits will continue to 2016. Finance Minister Bill English rightly wants the focus to remain on getting out of deficit as quickly as possible.

Once we are out of deficit, then we get far more palatable choices. We get to decide whether surpluses are spent on reducing debt, cutting taxes or increasing spending. But until we get back into surplus, it is all fairly unpalatable.

The Press looks at the progress in Iraq:

With so much attention focused on the violence in Afghanistan, there is a risk of downplaying significant events in Iraq, notably its recent election.

The result of this election, in terms of the shape of the coalition which will govern the nation, is likely to take weeks or even months of deal-making.

But the manner in which the election was conducted is one of the most positive developments in Iraq since the United States and its “coalition of the willing” allies toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. US President Barack Obama could ultimately be proved correct when he declared that the election was an important milestone in Iraq’s history.

The most notable feature of the election was the turnout which defied many observers’ expectations by reaching 62 per cent. This figure might not seem high by New Zealand standards, but it is worth reflecting that it is comparable to the most recent US election.

In a decade or so, Iraq may be doing relatively well.

And the ODT commemorates International Women’s Day:

New Zealand has much to be proud of in its gender equality record, and with the marking on Monday this week of International Women’s Day, there is cause for celebration.

In the most recent Global Gender Gap Report of the Geneva-based non-profit World Economic Forum, New Zealand is ranked fifth out of 134 countries in an index that assesses countries on how well they are dividing their resources and opportunities among their male and female populations – regardless of the overall levels of these resources and opportunities. …

But not so good:

In New Zealand, one in five women will be subjected to violence in their lifetime, compared to one in 20 men.”

The NZ Herald talks charity:

At the heart of John Key’s approach are the concepts that the Government should not be providing everything in social welfare, that, indeed, it may not be the best judge of what is needed, and that charity is a good thing. He has sought to further these ideas by building on work done by the previous Government, most notably in abolishing the $1890 cap on rebates for charitable donations.

Most recently, legislation has provided for that rebate to be received automatically by wage and salary earners who donate directly to an approved charity from their pay cheque.

Yet such measures amount only to tinkering when compared with the extremely enticing tax breaks that underpin the strong tradition of private charity in the US.

The Dominion Post weighs in to the sterilisation debate:

ACT list MP David Garrett should know by now that, when he thinks aloud, he will almost certainly find himself in trouble.

Like Maori Party bad boy Hone Harawira, he shoots from the lip, and his homespun philosophy is rarely politically correct.

But despite both MPs’ comments ritually provoking outrage, a kernel of truth is often found therein.

Last week, Mr Garrett was in hot water again, this time for daring to suggest that parents who have abused their children be offered $5000 to get themselves sterilised. …

Predictably, Mr Garrett’s comments were compared with the excesses of Nazi Germany. Mr Kahui’s lawyer, Lorraine Smith, called them “outrageous and a disgrace”.

Karl du Fresne blogs on how hysterical some of the reaction was, with the Nazi comparisons.

Back to the Dom Post:

But those who lambast Mr Garrett for initiating an idea that at least attempts to confront the issue need to face an unpalatable fact: programmes in place now to protect vulnerable children are failing. Sixteen children died last year as a result of family violence.

Delcelia Witika, Lillybing, James Whakaruru, Nia Glassie, Chris and Cru Kahui comprise just a handful of the names on New Zealand’s roll of shame, each one killed by people whose responsibility it was to care for them.

And people who knew these little ones were being abused did not intervene. It is not good enough.

There is no doubt that the Garrett proposal is a step too far. However, even his most vehement critics should find an initiative instigated by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett more acceptable.

Last week, an Experts Forum on Child Abuse recommended that state agencies be able to keep track of parents whose children had died, or been taken off them.

The problem is that, at present, files are closed when a child dies, and social workers don’t know another child has been born to the same mother until that child, too, comes to their notice through abuse or, worse, because he or she has died.

I’m amazed we do not already do this.

It is no wonder Mr Garrett is casting around for new ideas. The old ones aren’t working.

And that is why his comments, on this blog, sparked a national conversation.

And the ODT looks at government spending restraint:

It makes sense for governments to regularly review the costs of administration and services and, especially, to look for efficiencies in operating and technology costs.

Some $2 billion is required to be found in the next two years for the latter, which in turn it is hoped should lead to less duplication of office support functions and services.

It is telling that Mr Key has cited last year’s health sector reforms, which pooled district health board payroll and procurement, with estimated savings over five years of $700 million – and the loss of 500 jobs.

The Government does not consider what is planned to be on the scale of the radical reforms of the Rogernomics era, yet it has declined to make public estimates of potential job losses, which rather implies that the reforms will be sufficiently substantial to be job-costly, and the public service unions have not been slow to express their anguish.

The recession knocked $50 billion out of the economy – the public sector can’t be immune from that.

The Herald says student loans should be linked to success:

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce had barely opened the portfolio passed to him at the end of January before he floated a significant change. He proposes to make student loans conditional on the student’s success. Living allowances available to students on age, income and residential criteria are not available to those who failed more than half their course the previous year. But loans are subject to no such test. From next year they could be.

And should be. The loan scheme attracts loud criticism from students’ associations because unlike grants and allowances, loans must be paid back. They call the debt a burden when it is, in fact, a considerable benefit from the taxpayer. The loans carry no interest during the borrower’s years of full-time study and repayments are not required until the recipient is earning an income.

And now the loans carry no interest, ever.

Since National promised at the last election to keep the loans interest-free, he needs to find another way to rein in their cost. Making them conditional on pass rates is an obvious and reasonable step. …

Higher education is expensive for the country and it would be reasonable to restrict it to school leavers who can pass an entrance test.

Mr Joyce should look beyond loan conditions and consider entry restrictions as he searches for the savings that all ministers are expected to produce from their portfolios for this year’s telling Budget.

I would also get rid of the stupid fees maxima policy.

The Dominion Post wants the whaling slaughter stopped any way possible:

The messy dispute now taking place between opponents of whaling is about tactics, not aims. That is what the critics of New Zealand’s willingness to explore a diplomatic solution that allows for some limited commercial whaling are refusing to acknowledge.

Labour foreign affairs spokesman Chris Carter – whose own government had no success in nine years stopping the Japanese – lambasted the Government yesterday as “an active advocate for the resumption of commercial whaling” adding it “simply doesn’t care about marine mammal conservation”. That owes more to rhetoric than realism, and fails to acknowledge the need for practicality as well as principles.

I suspect some opponents of whaling would be horrified if it stopped, as they would then have one less thing to protest about.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully has been suitably cautious over any arrangement. He is quite clear that the Government’s aim is to stop whaling in the Southern Ocean. He told Radio New Zealand those seeking a diplomatic solution had no mandate to do any deal, but were to see if they could come up with a solution “that the New Zealand Government and then the New Zealand people can consider”.

The Government is right to be cautious, but it is also right to allow Sir Geoffrey to explore all options.

In any negotiation, there has to be concessions from both sides. Otherwise there is nothing to negotiate.

The Herald says the Law Commission is on the right track re surveillance:

In a world of fast-paced technological change, it is not surprising that the Law Commission has found significant gaps in the laws designed to protect privacy. At the moment, it may be an offence to record a private conversation, but it is not to secretly film someone or use a device to track them. So there can be few quibbles over the commission’s recommendations to plug these gaps with a new law covering installation and use of surveillance, interception and tracking devices. The danger was that, in traversing other issues relating to privacy, it would suggest measures that promoted this but at the expense of other crucial personal and public interests, notably freedom of information. Happily, the commission has, by and large, resisted that.

I also think the Law Commission report is well done.

The Dominion Post welcomes the merger of the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Employers and Manufacturers Association central division:

By merging their back office operations the two business organisations will reduce their costs (by up to 40 per cent for businesses that are members of both organisations) and give business a stronger voice in the region. That is to the benefit of the region as well as individual members.

If the fees drop, I may even join!

And The Press talks CRIs:

When Crown Research Institutes (CRIs) were set up in 1992 it was an acknowledgement of the important contribution that science can make to the economy.

But, 18 years later, the CRI Taskforce report makes it clear that significant reforms are required, in the funding, ownership and governance of the eight institutes. It is essential that the Government now acts on the taskforce’s recommendations, which have the potential to help boost economic growth and thereby lift New Zealand from the bottom of the OECD in terms of research.

The report says that the CRIs should be working for the nation’s benefit, not their own. This might sound like a statement of the obvious but it is not always occurring now, as there is too much emphasis on research which produces results that CRIs can capture in their balance sheets.

A lack of a strategic direction is linked by the taskforce to the multiple lines of accountability for CRIs. They must be accountable to their shareholding ministers through the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, the Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit in Treasury and the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, each of which has its own perspective and requirements.

The taskforce sensibly recommends that there should be just one agency to handle the Government’s investments in CRIs, as well as ownership and policy responsibilities.

The apparent merger of MORST and FORST on Wednesday may help with that.

The Herald calls for PPPs to hasten infrastructure projects:

Finance Minister Bill English calls his National Infrastructure Plan an important step towards better infrastructure management. “Even a small improvement in this area could reap gains worth billions – making our infrastructure dollars go further and ensuring a better return for taxpayers,” he says.

The multibillion-dollar sums sprinkled throughout the plan leave no doubt about the size of the commitment. Equally, the OECD’s view that investment in infrastructure, especially transport and communications, boosts long-term economic output more than other kinds of physical investment emphasises this is a road that must be travelled.

The Government, like its predecessor, does not seem sold on fixing this by adopting the bold option of build, own, operate, transfer (Boot) schemes, even though they have been widely used in Australia. The plan is not specific, talking only of PPPs expanding “the scope for innovation in design, construction and management of new assets”.

But it also pays attention to their potential downsides. These include the “reduced flexibility due to the long-term nature of the contract, and the cost that arises from unanticipated contract variations”. The latter can, of course, be mitigated by precise framing, so the private partner is in no doubt about the risk to itself.

Far more emphasis should have been placed on the advantages of PPPs at a time when, despite the squeeze on its finances, the Government is eyeing spending $8 billion to $9.6 billion on designated roads of national significance over the next decade. These pluses include not only the reduced cost to the Crown but the economic value of private investment decisions if they have to carry a fair share of the risk.

Transmission Gully would be a fine candidate for a PPP.

The Dom Post looks at waterfront democracy:

Democracy can be a messy, expensive and lengthy business, as Wellington City Council is finding as it tries to push ahead with its plans for the waterfront. It also provides the best chance of the public ending up with with something it finds acceptable.

Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast’s sense of frustration at the appeals against Variation 11 is palpable. In broad terms, Waterfront Watch and the Historic Places Trust believe the variation, which allows buildings under certain heights to go ahead on part of the waterfront without any public consultation, is not stringent enough, and will mean the loss of transparency in the process. Queens Wharf Holdings, on the other hand, believes the proposed restrictions are too stringent. …

Ms Prendergast hopes a solution can be found through mediation. That, based on past experience, is unlikely. The dispute over the proper role for the waterfront has dragged on too long and the positions are too entrenched to hope with any sense of realism for a negotiated settlement. Instead, it seems inevitable that both sides will remain in their trenches, lobbing legal grenades at each other. That is not ideal, but it is the price paid for having a democracy where everyone can have their say and test their case.

It’s ridicolous that after almost two decades we still have no agreed upon plan implemented for the waterfront.

The Press looks at the proposed driving changes:

Despite clear evidence that younger drivers are over-represented in crash statistics, successive governments had for too long placed the controversial issue of the driving age in the too-hard basket.

Finally the present administration has decided to act by accepting the recommendation in the Safer Journeys discussion document to raise the age to 16. And, in another welcome move, the Government has announced that there will be a zero-alcohol limit for drivers under 20. …

And the ODT also looks at the driving changes:

Fifteen is too young to be out and about on the road in cars.

Once, of course, cars in this country were a relatively expensive commodity, owned only after years of hard work and saving.

It might be surmised that a degree of maturity and good sense would have been inculcated in the individual in that time.

There were no cheap Japanese imports, the banks operated under much stricter lending criteria, and there were no such entities as finance companies as might be recognised today; certainly none especially designed to propel young men and women, barely past puberty, into the ownership of fast cars.

The NZ Herald wants the driving age raised even further:

This is a very conservative Government. If there was any doubt about the caution of John Key’s Cabinet it has been dispelled by its decision on the driving age.

Last year its transport officials floated the possibility of raising the age from 15 to 16 or 17 with restrictions until age 18. In January the Herald canvassed its readers on the subject.

The vast majority, 80 per cent of a Nielsen survey of 2300 people, thought the age should be at least 18. A few, 6.5 per cent, thought it should be 20. The Government’s decision: 16.

Personally I am glad the Government did not raise the age to 18 because of responses to an online survey.

I’ve always said tying it to the school leaving age is sensible,

The Dom Post says welfare is a safety net not a right

First it was Christchurch’s Harris family. Theirs is one of the homes into which the taxpayer deposits about $1000 a week in welfare benefits, and who have gained $30,000 extra in “special” benefits since 2000, because they persuaded Work and Income that they “needed” new tyres for their 2007 Chrysler saloon, and to fence a swimming pool at a property they own in the city.

Now it is Benjamin Easton, a man who cheerfully admitted last week that he was quite capable of earning, but who has chosen instead to live on the dole and rent a council flat. He was doing so, he said, so he could bring “the people’s challenge to the courts”

Benjamin will be having his say at Backbenches tonight, and of course he is also commenter here.

The Press examines South Canterbury Finance:

Since the company known today as South Canterbury Finance (SCF) made its first loan in 1926, it has grown to become one the largest finance companies in New Zealand.

Over this period it has played an important role in providing capital to businesses and individuals, especially in the South Island. Like so many other finance companies, however, SCF has struggled during the recent recession, and made a loss of $154.9 million in the second half of last year. But unlike many of these other companies, it is controlled by a millionaire in Allan Hubbard, who has the confidence and the means to produce a rescue package for SCF.

The deal announced this week is consistent with the commitment given by Hubbard last year when he said he would be prepared to use his personal wealth, which the National Business Review “rich list” put at $550m last year, to back his company. …

Hubbard is renowned not for high-living but for being a generous philanthropist and a businessman with integrity. And that integrity was visible this week in the rescue package for SCF and its 40,000 investors.

Give that man a knighthood!

The ODT is not impressed with Airways Corp:

Dunedin International Airport chief executive John McCall has every reason to be outraged after jet flights last Thursday night were diverted to Invercargill because no traffic controller was available.

Here is an essential service, supplied by the government-owned Airways Corporation, that did not deliver.

That failure not only inconvenienced 237 passengers and many of their friends and relatives, but also trashed the reputation of the airport and the city.

Diverting the passengers to Invercargill is surely cruel and inhumane punishment!

The NZ Herald reviews the tsunami alerts:

Civil Defence has done better this time. On Sunday morning, the organisation did not seem asleep on the job, as it did on the morning of the Samoan earthquake last year.

This time, the organisation could have been quicker to issue a tsunami alert on Saturday night. An hour after Chile was shaken by the magnitude 8.8 earthquake, Civil Defence was discounting the risk of tidal waves, but by midnight it was warning otherwise.

From sensors in the sea we learn the magnitude of a wave and the projected direction and distance it will travel. These are low and long volumes of water and their modest height is no indication of their destructive potential. Doubtless their coastal impact, or lack of it, depends partly on the contours of the seabed and shore that they strike, but surely more could be predicted from mid-ocean.

Why, for example, did the Chilean tsunami arrive with more force on the coast of Japan, twice as far from the epicentre as New Zealand? Plainly nowhere around the vast Pacific is immune to the wash from offshore earthquakes on its fiery perimeter.

A lot of people mistake the size of a tsunami for not being destructive. Anything that travels at 800 km/hr can be lethal – even if only 50 cm tall.

The Dom Post discusses respect for the law:

However, the growth in the number of attacks on police must be checked. In 2000, some 216 officers were attacked in the line of duty. Last year the number was 412.

When officers such as Mr Connolly attend a domestic dispute, respond to an emergency call, or step in to break up a fight, they are acting on behalf of the community. If the job becomes too dangerous, honourable, conscientious individuals will decide it is not worth the risk.

The community has to find some way to instil in the young a greater respect for the law and those who enforce it. Otherwise we will all be worse off. As Mr O’Connor has said: “An assault on police officers is more than an assault on the individual, it’s an assault on the security of society.” Parents of the lawless should bear that in mind.

And The Press also talks tsunamis:

After a powerful earthquake struck near Samoa in late September last year, and raised fears that a tsunami might hit coastal regions of New Zealand, the response of Civil Defence authorities was roundly criticised. A subsequent report found that the Ministry of Civil Defence had underperformed, especially with respect to its public information management responsibilities.

This report, and the public criticism, appear to have had a salutary effect, as shown by the far more efficient Civil Defence response during the weekend to the threat of a tsunami after the devastating Chilean earthquake. But this improved performance does not mean that there are no lessons to be learned from the latest tsunami scare.

I agree Civil Defence had much better communications this time.

And the ODT also talks tsunamis:

National civil defence alerted media, and by 7am Radio New Zealand National, as one example, was broadcasting nationwide alerts and warnings, and newspapers, such as the Otago Daily Times, had posted information on their websites.

The coordination between authorities and media outlets was much improved on that of a mere five months ago in the aftermath of the Samoan earthquake and the subsequent devastating tsunami.

So all around the consensus is an improved response.

First the Herald on Heatley:

There is absolutely no question that Phil Heatley had to resign from his ministerial posts. The Prime Minister’s suggestion that the Whangarei MP was being too hard on himself was wide of the mark.

The Dom Post is not so harsh:

The shock at Parliament was palpable yesterday following Phil Heatley’s resignation as minister of housing and fisheries.

Not that a minister had resigned, but that a minister had given up his ministerial home, car and $243,700 salary over such a trifling matter as two bottles of wine. …

Only the stonehearted would not feel a measure of sympathy. There are few who could lay their hands on their hearts and honestly say they have not, at some point, titivated their expenses – which may explain why Labour, despite its blustering, passed up the opportunity to grill Mr Heatley during question time on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, Mr Heatley has done the right thing. …

Mr Heatley is not the first minister to confuse personal and public expenditure. He is just the first to be caught for a while.

He has belatedly shown himself to be an honourable member. Fellow politicians thinking “there but for a paper trail go I” would be wise to open the system to public scrutiny before another of their number falls victim to it.

And the Press says Heatley had to go:

Key discovered that the expenses claim for the wine listed the purchase as “dinner” and that the credit card receipt was notated as “food and beverage”. These were incorrect as there was no food involved.

This inconsistency might seem like a technicality or an inadvertent error, rather than a reason for resigning. But whenever ministers spend public money they must be scrupulous about how they account for it and Heatley had little choice but to tender his resignation.

The ODT focuses on the Euro:

Greece entered the EU in the early 1980s and joined the euro in 2000.

Riding on a wave of national pride and new-found prosperity, capped by the ambitious and hugely expensive 2004 Olympic Games, the Greek people and their government alike went on credit-based spending sprees – living beyond their means. …

For now, the euro-honeymoon for Greece is well and truly over – and other European leaders will be regarding with anxiety the potential for a domino effect in the similarly indebted and stalled economies of Portugal, Italy and Spain.

For observers on this side of the world, the lessons are clear: reduce budget deficits (New Zealand’s tends to run at a high 8-9% of GDP), close tax loopholes, and keep a lid on public sector spending now – or face the prospect of more radical action further down the track.

Labour and the unions should take note.

The Herald editorial is on mobile termination rates:

New Zealand’s “light-handed” regulation of markets is sometimes astonishingly tolerant. Never more so than in the long-awaited final report of the Commerce Commission on the amount telephone companies charge for admission to their mobile networks. …

But the commission’s majority view is probably the right one. Regulators have to be fair to suppliers as well as customers and potential competitors. Networks are costly to build and maintain and newcomers that want to sell services into them must expect to pay a fair price. The price must maintain the network owner’s incentive to invest in it.

Clearly, the termination rates in this country were much higher than they needed to be to maintain the investment. Telecom and Vodafone have been using them to subsidise their subscribers and protect their equal market shares.

But their latest undertakings will more than halve their charges by 2014 and give a newcomer a fighting chance. Their undertakings can be policed by keeping the regulatory alternative in reserve.

Heavy-handed regulation usually has unintended consequences that are not in the interests of competition or consumers. Persistent shepherding and constant monitoring are best.

So the Herald favours giving the benefit of the doubt to the telcos. As I said previously, a tough decision for Steven Joyce.

The Press focuses on what it calls the XT debacle:

When members of the public dial 111 they have the legitimate expectation that their call will be answered promptly and emergency services quickly dispatched.

But on Monday, when a Christchurch man attempted to alert the police to an attack on a Japanese man outside a suburban mall by four skinhead thugs, who were accompanied by two pitbull dogs, the failure of Telecom’s troubled XT cellphone network prevented him from doing so. …

It is utterly unacceptable that its much-vaunted $574 million XT network, which lured customers to join with claims that it was state-of-the-art technology, could have failed four times in recent months. On one occasion some customers were cut off from XT for three days. …

But it is even more serious that in parts of the country, including Christchurch, a switching process which is supposed to have allowed XT phones to use other networks did not work and, as a result, 111 calls could not be made.

The unavailability of the 111 number could create dangerous situations. It means that crimes, accidents and fires could not be reported to emergency services, unless a landline was within immediate access, and conceivably lives could be put at risk by the problem.

If the faults with the XT network cannot be swiftly resolved, and there is no guarantee that this will occur, the Government will have little choice but to regulate to ensure that 111 calls can get through when networks become unstable.

The failure of 111 calls is the most serious aspect.

The Dom Post also focuses on XT:

If you believe the ads, Telecom’s new XT network provides unmatchable cellphone service in the Mt Victoria Tunnel, on remote farm tracks and in shipping containers floating off the coast of the North Island.

Sadly, its record is not so good in living rooms and city streets. The technical fault that prevented 220,000 Telecom customers from making calls on Monday was the fourth major outage in the past 10 weeks. It is not often that an advertising campaign blows up so spectacularly. …

In the wake of the latest outage, there have been calls for the Government to further regulate the industry.

That isn’t necessary, although ministers would be wise to bear in mind the gap between Telecom’s rhetoric and performance when they consider the phone company’s offer to host the Government’s proposed $1.5 billion ultra-fast broadband network. This is an occasion on which the market is actually working. There are two other mobile network providers in New Zealand – Vodafone and 2degrees – and mobile phone users have options.

The fibre to the home network build is significant. I have never thought Telecom would get to win the tender in all 33 regions, but if they failed to win any region, it might lead to a perception of unfairness. However it is a political reality, that these XT outages makes it less of an issue if Telecom do not get any major aspects of the FTTH rollout.

The ODT editorial is on ministerial credit cards:

Credit cards and politicians go together like oil and water: which is why there will be much gnashing of teeth at the latest folly concerning our Parliamentarians and their inability to follow the most simple of rules relating to expenditure.

The present matter involves ministerial credit cards, a facility granted to MPs of such rank, to give them access to money should they be required to spend it in the course of their official duties. …

In this context, Housing Minister Phil Heatley must have used up about as much rope as Mr Key will lay out to him. …

For his part, Mr Key may need, sooner rather than later, to put away his smiling Mr Reasonable personage and show at least a glimmer of the inner steel that all successful leaders must possess.

Anyone who thinks the PM doesn’t have inner steel, will not enjoy finding out that they are wrong.

The NZ Herald wants a diplomatic end to whaling:

The diplomacy has been described by his Government as “unprecedented”, and hopes have been high that a breakthrough would be made within a few months.

Most logically, this would involve Japan abandoning or drastically scaling back its annual whaling in the Southern Ocean in exchange for a few carrots, including, perhaps, the resumption of commercial whaling in its own waters.

The diplomatic endeavours are clearly finely balanced. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key indicated as much when he suggested this week that the outcome of the diplomacy would be either a stunning success or a stunning failure.

But if the whaling ends, then Sea Shepherd will have to find new ships to ram!

Not surprisingly the Dom Post talks ministerial credit cards:

More importantly, Mr Key must now explain how the payments were approved by officials who are supposed to act as the watchdogs in the system, but have instead assumed the role of rubber stamp.

If ministers should be aware of the rules – and they should – then so should the officials whose job it is to administer them. Either they were not, or they felt unable to reject a ministerial claim. Whichever was the case, those bureaucrats have seriously failed the public by being incompetent or meek to the point of surrender.

It is up to Mr Key, as the minister in charge of Ministerial Services, to investigate what happened, and to make the staff involved answerable for their decisions. Then he needs to make it crystal clear that nothing outside the rules should ever be agreed to, no matter who’s asking.

I agree the rules must be applied without fear or favour.

The Press weighs in on the same theme:

Cabinet ministers should by now be well aware how damaging the perception is that they have used their position to claim unjustified perks. It is therefore incumbent upon them to familiarise themselves with the rules pertaining to their various allowances and, if they have one, their ministerial credit card.

The rules regarding credit cards emphasise that they cannot be used for personal spending, regardless of whether they do so with the intention of making a reimbursement. In other words, the cards must be used for spending associated with their ministerial work. …

Ministers must always remember that when using their credit cards they are spending public money. It is not like a private-sector operation where the money spent is that of the company rather than the taxpayer.

And in the private sector the norm is for credit card receipts to be rigorously inspected, which has clearly not always occurred when officials approved illegitimate ministerial credit card use, or allowed Heatley to reimburse Ministerial Services.

To their credit, neither Heatley nor Brownlee has attempted to argue the toss. They have immediately apologised and repaid their spending which was outside the rules.

Unlike the saga in the UK.

And the ODT talks protecting police:

Whenever a police officer is bashed or abused, we all take a hit.

That is because the police are community proxies.

They are our protectors and law enforcers.

They are an integral and essential part of what makes a peaceful and effectively functioning society.

As such, we all have a fundamental interest in them, their work and their safety.

Hear hear.

The Herald says RNZ savings are not worth it:

Radio NZ’s budget last year was just $38.2 million, of which $34.2 million was public money. That points to the swingeing nature of the Government’s programme. While it is reasonable that all state-funded bodies should tighten their belts, it seems excessive to be waving a big stick at organisations where the potential savings are trifling.

The same penchant was, however, evident in last year’s Budget. Most controversially, cuts were made to adult night school programmes.

Again, the savings seemed hardly worth the trouble. Community education takes just 0.6 per cent of the tertiary education allocation, and the canned programmes provided value for money, if only because they gave hands-on instruction at schools that would, otherwise, not have been in use.

The Herald may be right that politically it might not be smart to take a lot of political heat, for relatively small fiscal savings. However I think it is more complex than that. If the Govt goes soft on one or two state agencies, then it is harder to keep fiscal discipline with the rest of them. State sector CEOs will find ways to live within means if they think everyone is doing so. But if you start giving into media campaigns for more funding, it incentivises other agencies to do the same. And then you end up having to borrow even more than $240 million a week.

The Press talks protecting police:

In response to the weekend violence the Government is considering introducing extra penalties for offenders who assault police officers, as is the case in Western Australia. Such a move might not deter drugged or drunken offenders from attacking officers, however.

Yet, it is still worth considering, as it would reinforce the special position the police have in our society to uphold the rule of law. It would also acknowledge the real, every-day risks faced by officers as they perform their duties.

If the Government did move to strengthen penalties it would have to be determined whether the new law would apply to off-duty officers who intervened in an incident. But because the public expects off-duty officers to respond to crimes they come across, and they would not be wearing anti-stab vests, they too should have the protection of such a law.

I favour increased penalties for assaults on Police. The Police get assaulted, basically on our behalf. They deal with the criminals and risk their lives often doing so.

The Dom Post flicks at Wellington parking wardens:

Of all the low-down, mean, sneaky tricks … While football fans were cheering the Wellington Phoenix to a nail-biting victory at Westpac Stadium on Sunday evening, parking wardens were ticketing the vehicles of 61 fans who had exceeded the maximum parking time outside the ground – because the match went into extra time, then a penalty shootout.

To its credit, Wellington City Council has waived the tickets, which threatened to turn the Phoenix’s triumph into a public relations disaster. But coming on top of other recent instances of over-zealous ticketing, the incident suggests something is amiss with parking operations. Proposals to install Big Brother-style parking surveillance cameras in Courtenay Place add weight to the theory.

The purpose of parking restrictions should be to ensure that as many people as possible can park in city and suburban streets, do their business and be on their way. It should not be to fatten the coffers of Tenix, the private company which manages Wellington parking, Parkwise, the Armourguard subsidiary to which Tenix contracts ticketing, or the council itself.

Hear hear. The incentives are all about revenue maximization, not giving parkers a fair go.

And the ODT looks at water woes in Canterbury:

Seldom has a local authority received such a slating as that just given to Canterbury’s regional council, Environment Canterbury (ECan), by a Government review panel.

The panel says the gap between what ECan does and what it should do is enormous and unprecedented. …

Yet some argue no change is needed.

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

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

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

The Dominion Post argues against a city wide liquor ban:

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

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

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

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

The Press talks about the future of their regional council:

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

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

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

I predict it will be gone.

The ODT talks about electoral issues:

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

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

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

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

The NZ Herald thinks the Government is timid:

We need to build opportunities for people to invest and to invest safely, said Justice Minister Simon Power in his response to the Capital Market Development Taskforce report. That was a statement of the obvious, given the shortage of high-quality investment opportunities, which, among other things, has promoted an unhealthy zeal for the housing market. The Government should, therefore, be seizing every chance to ensure such investments are available. Regrettably, it has chosen, instead, to replicate the timidity evident in its recent tax reform proposals.

A core taskforce recommendation was that the Government should sell off minority stakes in state-owned enterprises. This would provide mum-and-dad investors with the sort of investment that proved hugely popular when the likes of Vector, Contact Energy and Auckland International Airport were fully or partly floated. It would also provide a major boost to the New Zealand stock exchange, which has suffered from a large number of delistings over the past few years.

I am a big fan of selling off minority stakes. National’s 2008 election policy prohibits this for their first term, but I will be disappointed if they do not have a more flexible policy for their second term.

The Dominion Post wants an end to taxpayer funded electioneering:

Mr Power, or the select committee considering his proposals, should insert in the new law a clause banning the use of public funds for implicit as well as explicit political purposes. Politicians are entitled to research policy and to communicate with constituents, but they should not be allowed to use public money for electioneering.

I think the Dominion Post is being impractical here. I am all for banning taxpayer funded publications during an election campaign, but the Dominion Post’s proposal would make almost all parliamentary communications illegal. If the Opposition proposes an alternative budget to the Government, that has an implicit political purpose. 99% of what Parliament does has an implicit political purpose. Minority reports of Select Committees for example.

The Press considers the safety of attending the Commonwealth Games:

Our Government is considering what security it would provide in New Delhi in October but ultimately this is India’s responsibility and therein lies a problem. Despite reassurances about athlete safety, there remain major doubts about security services there.

They could not prevent the Mumbai attacks, even though the two opulent hotels targeted should have had tight security, given previous attacks in the city.

And the delays in gaining accreditation to our New Delhi high commission of a police liaison officer, as revealed by government papers which showed top-level concerns over safety, do not inspire confidence that security is an absolute priority.

Besides, even if security has been tightened it is difficult to provide protection against determined suicide bombers.

Indian authorities do not like to be embarrassed by foreign criticism of their security services. But it would be far more embarrassing if nations or individual athletes refused to compete there or, even more humiliating, if a prestigious event such as the Commonwealth Games were shifted elsewhere.

I have visions of athletes running the 1500m in bullet proof vests!

The ODT talks wildlife smuggling:

Hopefully, the incident where Manfred Bachmann was caught in Christchurch this week with 16 rare jewelled geckos inside plastic pipes in his backpack is itself a rare case of wildlife smuggling.

Hopefully, the New Zealand leg of the several-billion-dollars-a-year trade in protected and endangered species is minuscule.

And hopefully New Zealand authorities can stamp out any incipient trafficking.

It will be interesting to see what sentence he gets.

The NZ Herald wants the MMP referenda held earlier:

There appears to be no reason the final referendum could not have been held a year or so after the 2011 general election if the first found a majority wanting change. A new system, if favoured in the decisive vote, could then be used in the 2014 election, rather than waiting as long as 2017.

I disagree. The first referendum is likely to have a low turnout, if not held in conjunction with an election. We found this out in 1992.

I do think there is an argument for the second referendum (if needed) to be held before 2014.  As that will be a simple referendum that will change the electoral system if change is voted for (the earlier referendum is only about if there is a second referendum, and what that is), I think that would achieve a very high turnout even if held separate to an election.

Also, without an election at the same time, the public would be more turned into the pros and cons of the two choices. A change of electoral system si so important, that it almost deserves to have its own debate, not cluttered up with a general election.

So my growing preference is the first referendum in 2011, with the election (to maximise turnout), but have the second referendum in 2012.

If the 2012 referendum votes for change, I am not sure one could implement it in time for the 2014 election, due to boundary changes. But one way you could deal with that is to have the Boundaries Commission (which should start work in late 2011) to prepare boundaries for both options, which would allow them to be finalised in 2013.

The Dominion Post compares Kiwirail to Fawlty Towers:

Kiwirail is to the transport industry what Basil Fawlty is to the hospitality trade.

It treats its customers as impediments to the smooth running of its business.

Current management can be excused responsibility for the creaking trains and dilapidated tracks in the Wellington region.

They are the consequence of 40 years of neglect by public and private owners of the rail system. But KiwiRail bosses cannot escape responsibility for the way customers are treated.

If they are not left waiting on the platform for services that have been cancelled, they are shut in trains that have mysteriously stopped part way into their journeys. Either way, they are kept in the dark.

Who would have thought a subsidised monopoly would give bad service?

The Press examines the electoral finance reforms:

The Government’s proposed new electoral finance system is a mixed bag.

Compared to the Labour’s now repealed Electoral Finance Act, which was a knee-jerk reaction to the covert 2005 Exclusive Brethren advertising, it gives greater freedom for lobby groups to conduct parallel campaigns.

But the new regime has swung too far towards a laissez-faire approach and does create the danger that money could play too great a role in New Zealand politics.

The most unwelcome feature of the new regime would be the absence of advertising spending limits for lobbyists, who are technically but confusingly known as third parties. The preceding legislation imposed a cap of $120,000.

Although few lobbyists came close to this limit in the 2008 election, the lack of a cap might tempt interest groups from across the political spectrum to spend up large in an effort to influence future campaigns. It is also inconsistent with the position of political parties which do have a spending limit. …

But it is also important for voters to know how much lobbyists have spent. In this respect the registration requirement provides only partial transparency, as lobby groups will not have to submit returns on their advertising expenditure.

I don’t have a problem with those who register, disclosing their total spend. That can be something the Select Committee looks at. I prefer transparency to restrictions.

But the Government decided not to amend the taxpayer funded broadcasting allocation system for political parties. Worth further thought is allowing parties to spend their allocations on advertising in newspapers, not just in the broadcast media.

Sadly Labour and the Greens opposed reform of the broadcasting allocation.

The ODT reflects on Michael Swann:

Last week, the people of Otago were served a timely reminder of white collar crime with the sentencing on additional charges of convicted fraud Michael Swann in the High Court at Dunedin.

It will be recalled that Swann was sentenced last year to a nine-and-a-half-year prison term for defrauding the Otago District Health Board of almost $17 million between 2000 and 2006.

On Friday, he was sentenced to 20 months’ imprisonment – concurrent with his present term, meaning that he will in fact serve no extra time behind bars – for accepting $755,000 in bribes from long-time friend and business associate Robin Sew Hoy.

Makes you wonder the point of the additional prosecution!

The Herald says electoral law reform is on the right track:

The government has gone the right way about electoral finance reform, consulting all other parties as the previous Government did not.

Inevitably, therefore, the decisions announced yesterday contain some comfort for parties such as Labour that fear private money in politics, and some disappointment for those who welcome all contributions to public life.

My concern is that a future Labour Government will not be as restrained as National has been, and will force through changes that benefit them, even if other parties are opposed. What would be welcome is for Labour to make a clear declaration that they will not in future push through electoral law changes without a political consensus behind them.

There will be no relaxation of the restrictions on election broadcasts, which can be made only by political parties that have to make them with public money and must be kept within the amounts allocated.

It would be better to let, in fact insist, parties use their own money for television and radio commercials, or let them use public funding for any form of advertising they prefer. But Labour and the Green Party were strongly opposed to any change.

I agree. It is very disappointing that no change is recommended. I hope the Select Committee will be open to persuasion.

The decisions announced yesterday do not appear to go far towards resolving the misuse of parliamentary funds for election purposes. The usual rule is that parliamentary information money can be used to push party barrows as long as the material does not expressly urge a vote, a donation or membership of a party.

It is well past time a tougher test was imposed, and not just within three months of an election, which is the best we can expect from this exercise.

I think the likely tougher test during the regulated period would be a huge improvement. I do not think it is practical to have this tougher test during the entire electoral cycle as almost every publication put out by parliamentary parties has an element of seeking to influence voters towards them.

The Press attacks the Sea Shepherd publicity stunts:

Most New Zealanders recognise for the self-serving farce which it is the Japanese notion of scientific whaling and are appalled by the view that in order to conduct research into whales it is necessary to kill them.

But most people also believe that international pressure and setting, as New Zealand is doing, an example of non-lethal research are more likely to end whaling than the confrontational antics of the radical Sea Shepherd conservation group.

I hate the hypocrisy of the Japanese claiming the whaling is scientific research, but I hate the lunatics of Sea Shepherd even more.

The Dominion Post does not want the taxpayer funding an America’s Cup bid:

Prime Minister John Key says the Government might back a bid as its Labour predecessors did in 2003 and 2007. Labour put $30 million into the underfunded 2003 defence, $34m into the unsuccessful 2007 challenge in Valencia, and, immediately after that loss, pledged another $10m to Team NZ to stop crew members being poached.

Mr Key should think again. It is not the role of government to fund the sporting pursuits or obsessions of millionaire yachtsmen.

The time to put money into the cup was when there was a realistic prospect it would generate a financial dividend. That time has passed.

The cup is of sporting interest to only a small number of New Zealanders. The rules are obscure – and endlessly up for interpretation in court – the competitors are remote and the action is incomprehensible without a television set, computer graphics and the services of commentator Peter Montgomery.

The event’s primary attraction is as a magnet for the world’s wealthy. Hosting the 2003 regatta was reputedly worth $529m to Auckland businesses. The New Zealand team performed commendably in 2007, winning the challenger series and winning two races in the best of nine contest with Alinghi for the cup itself.

But with many of New Zealand’s best sailors now sailing for foreign syndicates and foreign billionaires lining up to bankroll challenges, the prospect of Team NZ again winning the cup is so slight that the Government should forget it.

I agree. Kiwis keep winning the Cup – but not for NZ syndicates.  Leave it to the billionaires to fund.

The ODT examines colonoscopies:

The report on the 33 colonoscopy patients and the Otago District Health Board is a mixed bag. It gives all sorts of detail about the board service, or lack of service, but it fails to spell out answers to basic questions about these patients.

Did the board provide timely and adequate colonoscopies? And was the treatment of these patients according to board and national criteria? What the report does say is that those audited did have “prolonged journeys” through the public system.

In “report speak” that seems to be saying that the answer to the first question is no.

Check early and check often!

The Herald praises the Tamaki deal:

The Auckland agreement is a credit to all leaders of the tribes concerned, particularly those of Ngati Whatua who have had to endure challenges to their long cherished tangata whenua status on the isthmus. It is also a credit to the Government’s appointed interlocutor, Sir Douglas Graham, that the vexed issues appear to have been resolved fairly rapidly and amicably.

The Press looks at cycle trails:

With 54 regions across the country bidding for a slice of $50 million earmarked for the New Zealand Cycle Trail project, there were always going to be winners and losers.

Unfortunately, when the Ministry of Tourism released the list last week of which 13 proposals got the nod, and the money, to proceed to the feasibility study stage, Environment Canterbury’s Mountains to Sea trail from Arthur’s Pass to the Waimakariri River mouth was not among them. There will still be a cycleway from the mountains to the sea, but this Alps to Ocean scheme will be located further south, between Aoraki/Mt Cook and Oamaru.

When the cycle trail proposal was unveiled by its architect, Prime Minister John Key, as one of the few concrete projects to emerge from his overhyped Job Summit, there were plenty of sceptics. Certainly his idea of a national cycle trail running the length of the country has been pared back to a more affordable series of individual rides showcasing natural attractions.

But the number of bids for funding suggests that Key’s idea has defied its initial critics and captured the imagination of many New Zealanders and local councils.

The Dominion Post talks homework:

There is an important qualification in Professor Hattie’s dismissal of homework. He says “it’s far more important to have interaction with parents rather than spending some hours on some project”. The key is the interaction with parents. Nothing will be gained by the Karori pupils, or those of other schools that abandon homework, if interaction with parents turns instead into more time in front of the television or computer screen.

Just as parents ultimately take responsibility for ensuring homework is done, in the end it will be up to them to make the no-homework strategy work.

I’m just glad I don’t have homework anymore!

The ODT discusses campervans:

It would not be unfair to say members of the Otago Conservation Board are a group of somewhat “unhappy campers”.

Their call for a national ban on the use of campervans smacks of a cause in search of publicity.

If their initiative in voting unanimously to draft a letter to their Department of Conservation seniors, calling on the Government to create legislation towards such a ban, has raised a fair old stink, they would say it is nothing compared to what the tourists in their four-wheeled portable tents are doing to the countryside.

Such a ban is, of course, a far-fetched proposal and is highly unlikely to gain serious traction, but it might be argued that the board, in promoting it, has done the country, the rental vehicle and tourism industries, and regional and district authorities a favour.

It might be argued. It might also be argued that have made the Board look like unbalanced zealots.

The NZ Herald talks city transport:

Unlike the present agency, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, the new body will not be responsible for public transport alone, it will also take charge of roading from local councils. Thus it will oversee everything from the big picture to the small details of where to put footpaths and bus stops.

On the face of it, the idea of having one body co-ordinating the approach to all forms of transport in the city looks like a good thing. Unfortunately, there is a significant downside. As a council controlled organisation, Auckland Transport will not be obliged to hold public meetings or issue agendas and minutes except when making bylaws. Effectively, therefore, many of the decisions about things that directly affect ratepayers at a local level will be made in secrecy by remote officials. …

The best thing that can be said about the lack of transparency envisaged by the bill is that it is not yet set in stone. Mr Joyce acknowledged as much when he said the balance struck between administrative burden and transparency was a decision made by officials and further thought would be given to these aspects after submissions on the bill were heard.

This sounds very much like preparing the ground for some important changes. They will be most welcome if they favour more openness.

I expect the Select Committee will make changes.

The Dominion Post supports drug law reform:

The Government’s quick dismissal of the bulk of the Law Commission’s work on drug use in New Zealand is regrettable.

Its unpalatability for the Government – and, no doubt, for many others – comes in its recommendation for flexibility when dealing with small-scale dealing and personal possession for use, and for less emphasis on conviction and punishment. The flip side of that is a recommendation for a greater focus on treatment, prevention and education.

The current laws are hardly working. We have the highest use of cannabis in pretty much the western world.

The Press is enthused over electric vehicles:

The notion that petrol-driven vehicles are nearing the end of their domination of the road seems doubtful to many. They have become used to stories of geniuses with plans for water-propelled engines being done down by Big Oil, and with expectations from reputable scientists that alternative sources of unlimited energy were close to being harnessed. Scepticism about electric vehicles becoming a practical option is, therefore, understandable.

It is time for the end of those doubts. The world’s major car manufacturers are investing hugely in electric-motor research and development and have based their plans for survival on using the technology.

How about nuclear powered cars

The ODT welcomes back the scarfies:

In the wake of cruise-ship passengers crowding Dunedin streets comes the hubbub and display of an entirely different species of wild life: the university year is about to restart.

The influx of students is already evident in shops, bars and restaurants, and the second-hand furniture traders from which yet another year’s batch of scarfie flats is furnished.

Once again the streets are alive with the sound of youthful excitement, bubbling with optimism, hungry for adventure.

The city is an altogether more vibrant place when, like the godwits, these scholars migrate south to continue their studies or begin a new chapter in their lives.

Having spent a summer in Dunedin, it is a lovely place when it is more tranquil, but there is nothing like the bustle of term time.

The NZ Herald looks at the TVNZ decision to bump John Key for Robin Brooke:

It is reassuring, in its way, that the Prime Minister could not commandeer the airwaves on state television on Tuesday to tell the nation about income tax cuts and a rise in GST. It speaks of TVNZ independence and editorial freedoms that should be valued, however questionable the actual judgment of those exercising them.

The Herald also looks at the drug law reform paper:

Mr Power’s problem with the Law Commission recommendations seems to stem from from the Prime Minister’s declared war on methamphetamine and drugs. Any relaxation would be perceived as contrary to that. It could also be argued, as John Key did yesterday, that softening the law on the possession of drugs for personal use would send the wrong message to youngsters. …

Given such political reality, there was a strong whiff of naivety in the commission’s suggestions. There was also, however, a solid strain of reason and rationality.

The commission, for example, is right to note that “while the harms and costs associated with alcohol are understated and misunderstood, those associated with illegal drugs are often generalised and overblown”. There is also much to say that drug policy should focus on dealing with problematic drug-users, rather than the many people whose drug use poses no serious threat to their own well-being or others.

I agree. that the focus should be on those drug use creates problems, rather than those who do not.

The Dominion Post talks about PHOs:

On paper, the last government’s decision to establish primary health organisations had a lot going for it. Bringing together doctors, nurses, midwives and other health professionals under one roof was a way to improve access to services and reduce overall health costs by reducing the need for hospital admissions.

In practice, as invariably happens when a government opens its cheque book, the results have been mixed.

A study by Capital and Coast District Health Board last year showed avoidable hospital admissions in the district have increased since 2003, but have fallen among people enrolled with PHOs. PHOs are also credited with increasing immunisation rates in some parts of the country and making visits to doctors more affordable for people in poor areas, although the latter is more likely to be a consequence of increased subsidies than the way the sector is organised.

However, some PHOs barely exist except on paper (their purpose is to channel money from district health boards to individual clinics) and their creation has contributed to a rise in administration costs.

Not exactly a stunning success.

The Press talks about Environment Canterbury:

For the second year in a row Environment Canterbury (ECan) is heading towards an overall rate increase well in excess of inflation.

Last year it approved a rise of 6 per cent, including a 10.6 per cent general rate rise, but if that decision prompted disquiet in the region, the questioning of ECan could well be even stronger this year. …

With the local body elections looming later this year, ECan ratepayers will be closely watching over coming months to see which councillors are prepared to identify areas where savings could be found, especially in the regional council’s bureaucracy.

We should have candidates sign pledges that they will not increase rates beyond inflation without voter approval.

The ODT looks at the merger of the Otago and Southland District Health Boards:

The way is cleared for the merger between the Southland and Otago District Health Boards with the Southland board’s 7 to 3 vote in favour.

Because Health Minister Tony Ryall is likely to back the proposal, the only remaining major issue is the speed of approval and whether the Southern Board will be in place early enough for this year’s local body elections in October. …

I suspect it will be.