Kiwiblog

The Herald wants some trams to play with:

On a broader canvas, cities such as San Francisco and Melbourne are closely identified with their trams.

Auckland chose another route when it removed trams from its streets.

Now, more than 50 years later, they are being readied for a comeback on the city’s waterfront in time for next year’s Rugby World Cup.

They can be successful here as well, but only if other developments in the Wynyard Quarter provide a suitable underpinning. …

The Press focuses on water:

The granting of final approval this week to the Central Plains Water irrigation scheme should now let the proposal finally get under way.

The process by which the decision was reached has been long and impassioned and has wound up costing about twice what was originally estimated.

But along the way, the scheme has been rigorously scrutinised. About 2000 submissions were considered by the independent planning commissioners.

It has been much modified in the light of criticism that was made of the original proposal, and it is now much less ambitious than first intended.

In the end, though, the potential benefits have now been weighed by the planning commissioners against any adverse effects it will have on some people, and the final assessment is that the scheme will be good for Canterbury.

The Dom Post talks promises:

Mr Key has now been burned twice in a matter of weeks for taking positions he cannot defend.

The first was the Crown’s negotiations with Tuhoe. Whatever the Government is saying publicly, it is obvious Tuhoe was led to believe that ownership of Te Urewera National Park was up for negotiation. As Mr Key belatedly realised, it should not have been. But the fallout from Mr Key abruptly removing the park from the table has soured relations between National and the Maori Party and created a fresh source of grievance for Tuhoe.

Mr Key’s second false step – actually it was his first – was his pre-election promise, given both to this newspaper in response to a question from a reader and during a TV3 leaders’ debate five days before the election, that Kiwibank would never be sold. The promise conflicts with National’s policy on state-owned enterprises – that none will be sold during this term of government but that sales could be considered in future.

Key has now restated that Kiwibank will not be sold – not just during this term. He had little choice once he realised that his pre-election statements about sale were not just about the first term.

Key has gone to great lengths to keep faith with the electorate. What he is finding now though is that he should have been more careful with what he said pre-election. It is my belief that no leader should ever give a permanent guarantee on an issue. They should give commitments for the upcoming term of Parliament, but should always retain the right to campaign on a different policy at a future election.

The ODT asks if Peter Bethune is a hero or a victim. Some might say neither!

It is possible to feel strongly opposed to Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean yet uneasy at some of the actions taken in opposition to it.

That’s me. I joke that the only people I hate more than the whalers are Sea Shepherd.

He continues to blame the captain of the larger vessel for a sudden change in course and a direct attempt to ram Ady Gil, such that a collision became unavoidable.

The exact sequence of events – who did what to whom – remains masked in confusion amid claim and counterclaim, the only certainty being there was a collision and, consequently, the unsalvageable Ady Gil later sank.

It was no surprise. The whalers have never had a collision with Greenpeace or other protest ships. Only Sea Shepherd who have a long history of trying to ram other ships.

It is hard to know at this distance the extent to which his tearful supplication to the Japanese judiciary on Monday was for their benefit – or that of the world at large.

Many activists tread a fine line in their efforts to invoke sympathy for the cause, often teetering but a small mis-step from achieving precisely the opposite.

Nobody, least of all those who believe Japan’s “scientific whaling” in the Southern Ocean to be bogus and unacceptable, would wish a prison sentence on this singular activist; but there might be those prepared to concede he appears, by his actions, to have asked for one.

I hope he does not get a prison sentence, because that is what he wants.

The Herald wants an FTA with Russia given priority:

Last year, New Zealand exports to Russia were worth $187 million, a modest sum even if well up on the $51 million of a decade earlier. As Russia has a population of 142 million, those figures hint at the potential of a free-trade pact.

But more telling still is the fact that not so long ago, New Zealand enjoyed thriving commercial arrangements with the former Soviet Union despite an often strained diplomatic relationship, not least over the invasion of Afghanistan.

But Keith Locke supported that invasion, so maybe we should make Keith the free trade negotiator for Russia

The Press supports the creation of a new bank:

The proposal to merge three finance organisations to create a new locally owned bank is a timely one.

For the finance institutions themselves, it is an opportunity, driven by necessity, to turn themselves into stronger, more robust entities, particularly after the turmoil of the last three years or so.

For investors, looking to diversify their investments away from the great Kiwi stand-by, domestic real estate, it could provide a worthwhile and productive place to put their money.

And for borrowers, particularly small-business owners who have complained of being cold-shouldered by unsympathetic banks during the financial crisis, it could provide a friendlier, more knowledgeable lender to local business. …

The three entities involved – Pyne Gould Corporation’s finance arm Marac Finance, the Canterbury Building Society and the Southern Cross Building Society – are established names in finance.

They have not been unscathed by the upheavals of the financial crisis, but they have survived it with credit ratings still at very respectable levels for non-bank institutions.

Two have BB+ ratings and the other a BB rating, which is at the high end for entities that are not banks.

But still not great. The acceptable grades are:

• AAA : the best quality borrowers, reliable and stable (many of them governments)
• AA : quality borrowers, a bit higher risk than AAA
• A : economic situation can affect finance
• BBB : medium class borrowers, which are satisfactory at the moment
• BB : more prone to changes in the economy
• B : financial situation varies noticeably

Once you start to get into CCC and below, institutions are officially vulnerable.

The Dom Post talks off shore drilling:

But for recent events in the Gulf of Mexico, the Government would be making more of a fuss of Brazilian oil giant Petrobras’ decision to explore for oil and gas off the East Coast of the North Island.

The world’s fourth-biggest energy company, a world leader in offshore drilling, this week won the right to explore about half of the Raukumara Basin, which extends north and east of East Cape. The company will spend up to US$118 million (NZ$174m) over the next five years gathering seismic data and drilling an exploratory well.

The project will create jobs and draw international attention to New Zealand as a potential source of petroleum.

But the big gains will come if Petrobras makes a commercial find. Already the petroleum sector generates about $3 billion a year in export revenue. Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee has estimated that figure could rise to $30b by 2025 if preliminary estimates of New Zealand’s petroleum resources prove to be correct.

Which would make a huge difference to our standard of living, and ability to fund health and education services.

However, celebrations this week have been muted by the ongoing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Six weeks after an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers, the well 1.6 kilometres beneath the sea is continuing to spew between 1.9b and 3b litres of oil a day into the gulf, polluting the fragile Louisiana coastline, threatening fisheries and destroying the livelihoods of fishermen and tourist operators.

For that reason it is essential that the promised overhaul of New Zealand’s health, safety and environmental arrangements for offshore petroleum operations is completed well before any deepwater drilling begins.

Agreed.

The ODT looks at Facebook and privacy:

Facebook, once a small, “free” social networking site for university undergraduates to share personal information, has become a vast subdivision on the information super highway.

It is expected soon to reach a landmark figure of 500 million registered users.

This would make it the third largest country on Earth, bigger than all but India and China.

On Monday this week – “Quit Facebook Day” – Canadian campaigners urged people worldwide to remove themselves from the site.

They, and many others, were riled about the way in which they felt their privacy was being purloined for profit.

Quite why they should have been so surprised is another matter: you do not pay upfront to belong to Facebook, but the company must make ends meet – and a tidy profit – somehow.

That “somehow” is no great secret.

The site sells advertising to companies tailored to the defined demographics of its users.

The “footprint” they create in their Facebook activities is like gold to advertisers and marketers who will pay accordingly.

I was talking last night to someone about Facebook, with the idea being that if a user is aged under 18 then their privacy settings are set by default to not share data with anyone but friends.

All four editorials are on the Israeli action on the high seas. First the Herald:

Israel can hardly claim to be surprised by the universal international condemnation of its commando raid on ships taking humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

There is a sad familiarity about the episode, which left at least nine activists dead.

Here, as in last year’s military offensive against Gaza, Israel has reacted with force completely disproportionate to the situation. …

It should be noted that Israel had suggested that the flotilla should offload its 10,000 tonnes of medical and building supplies at the Israeli port of Ashdod before it was handed over to the United Nations for delivery to Gaza.

That was a reasonable compromise. Indeed, if such moderation were pursued, the people of Gaza might come to recognise an alternative to an extremism that, according to Israel, has led Hamas to place a higher emphasis on the securing of arms than the wellbeing of the Palestinian people.

Hamas has no interest in peace or welfare of its people. Its goal is to destory Israel.

The Press:

Like any nation Israel is entitled to defend itself and protect its citizens.

It regards Gaza, controlled by the hardline Hamas organisation, as a major threat to its security. This view is understandable as there is a history of attacks on Israel from Gaza using rockets and other weaponry undoubtedly smuggled into the territory.

These attacks have prompted incursions into Gaza by Israeli soldiers. They are also the rationale for the three-year Israeli and Egyptian blockade which is designed to prevent weapons being smuggled into Gaza amidst genuine aid.

But as is often the case, sympathy for Israel’s security quickly evaporates when it resorts to excessive force. That was so this week when its soldiers stormed aid vessels in the Free Gaza flotilla.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

The Dom Post:

Israel believes its problems can be solved with bullets. It is wrong, and deserves the condemnation now raining down on its head for attacking a ship bringing aid to Gaza and killing at least 10 of those aboard.

There is no doubt that the actions of the “Gaza Freedom flotilla” were designed to be provocative and turn the world spotlight on the plight of the Palestinians suffering in Gaza as the result of Israeli-imposed sanctions.

However, it was not “an armada of hate and violence”, as Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, has dubbed it.

Israel must explain why it believed there was no other way of reacting to the flotilla than with an assault launched in international waters in the hours of darkness by a highly trained and – by all accounts – lethally efficient commando unit. It must say why other options to deal with what was a policing problem were not used.

The Dom Post is the most condemnatory of the four editorials.

The ODT:

There should be no doubt, now, about the outcome of the most serious waterborne challenge to Israel’s counterproductive blockade of the Gaza, despite the swamp of propaganda and “spin” from all sides.

People died, many were injured, Israel’s global reputation suffered another public relations defeat, and the people of Gaza continued to be pawns in a hostile diplomatic and strategic contest. …

The Government did make the point, however, that the “situation in Gaza is not sustainable”.

Indeed it is not.

It is deeply regrettable that Israel and Hamas refuse to recognise that reality.

A rational description of Israel’s high seas assault is that it was a severe over-reaction to a situation that could – and should – have been managed in a far more moderate, less assertive manner.

The commandos “slid from helicopters into a violent crowd, which attacked them with sticks.

It’s no wonder the troops opened fire in self-defence,” as one Israeli commentator put it, with more than a trace of irony.

By so doing, he added, “Israel walked straight into the trap that the flotilla organisers set . . .”

If this was really a planned effort to meet and contain the flotilla, it must be counted a tactical and military failure; an opportunity for Israel to earn praise ended in fiasco.

This is the reality. The Israeli Defence Forces should have been better prepared for violence and rather than helicopter troops on board would have been better to disable the vessels, user water cannons etc before boarding.

The Herald looks at the BP oil spill:

As oil has become a scarcer resource, the search for it has, out of necessity, moved to more difficult locations. Oil companies have had to take a greater interest in inhospitable regions such as New Zealand’s Great South Basin and the waters off Alaska. They are also drilling in water so deep that any problems are beyond the reach of divers. This increases the potential for severe environmental damage if companies do not have adequate safety back-ups. Clearly, that was the case with BP and its Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, it is now apparent that the company has no real idea how to contain, let alone control, the giant oil spill prompted by an explosion at the rig almost six weeks ago. …

The upshot of this ongoing failure is what the White House now says is the worst environmental catastrophe the United States has faced. The Gulf spill has easily surpassed the Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska in 1989, with estimates of the amount of oil leaking each day ranging from 1.9 to 3 million litres.

And The Press talks tertiary education:

At first glance it does seem to be unfair on New Zealanders who aspire to a tertiary education.

With the Government freeze on funding for extra enrolments, universities are proposing higher standards for students, including courses that had previously been open entry. Yet at the same time the Government is encouraging more overseas students to study here, provided they pay full course fees.

The more overseas students you have, the more domestic students that can be funded. It is not an either/or.

As far as the domestic students are concerned, higher eligibility standards would be a positive development, despite the move being fiscally-driven. For too long there has been an expectation of an automatic right of entry to tertiary study. This unhealthy sense of entitlement among school-leavers should be eroded as universities call for higher NCEA pass rates.

And there should also be a national entry assessment for students over the age of 20 years; they currently have open entry despite the fact that mature students have a higher failure rate than school-leavers.

Finally, all those at universities should be told that they must now perform academically if they are to be entitled to re-enrol or, as the recent Budget signalled, to receive a student loan.

Slackers like myself will need to improve performance earlier, or get a job.

The Dom Post wades into the Andy Haden row:

It is to be hoped that Murray McCully does not apply the same standards to his role as foreign affairs and trade minister as he does to his role as Rugby World Cup minister. Otherwise New Zealand will become an international laughing stock.

It is no more acceptable for Rugby World Cup ambassador Andy Haden to refer to Polynesians as “darkies” than it would be for New Zealand’s high commissioners to Samoa or Tonga to refer to the locals as “coconuts” – another racial epithet Haden considers appropriate in “the right context”.

I don’t think anyone thinks it is acceptable. It is more a matter of whether he gets sacked for it.

Haden represents an old, and not particularly attractive, face of New Zealand. The image New Zealand wants to show the world at next year’s Rugby World Cup is of a young, confident nation that revels in the racial diversity of its makeup. His time has passed. He should go.

Ageism instead of racism!

The ODT also weighs in:

New Zealand’s premier rugby teams of today look very different to those of yesteryear.

They are now much bigger and much browner. Reflecting recent generations of mass Polynesian immigration to New Zealand, as well as Pacific interest and ability in rugby, Samoans, Tongans and Fijians are commonplace.

The All Blacks of the past 25 years would be a shadow of what they have been without Michael Jones, Jonah Lomu, Olo Brown and a long line of others. The Pacific has provided strength, pace, skill and leadership, capped with the appointment of All Black captain Tana Umaga in 2004. …

Selecting sports teams is, in essence, simple.

Pick those most likely to help the team win, whatever their colour, background or connections.

The jobs of coaches are precarious enough without them cutting their own throats by letting other considerations influence their judgements.

At another level, of course, selecting becomes more complex.

Choosing those most likely to help the team win is not the same as picking the most talented individual players. What will the impact of the person be on team culture, so essential for success? How will the player fit in with the style of the team? What is the playing balance of the team? Will the player thrive or shrivel?It is against this background that the extraordinary comments of former All Black lock and New Zealand Rugby World Cup ambassador Andy Haden should be viewed. …

The Crusaders’ primary interest has been to maintain winning ways, and they have, by the length of a rugby field, been the most successful in New Zealand at that.

It is reasonable to maintain that genetic and cultural characteristics influence how many Polynesians play rugby.

And it is fair enough for a team, like the Crusaders, to have a distinct style and therefore to be cautious about the number of its players, brown or white, who play a particular way.

But the Crusaders are too clever to be sucked into the racism that applies generalisations to particular individuals.

Exactly. Generalisations have their place in discussions, but you don’t apply them to known individuals.

The Herald talks All Blacks:

Yesterday’s announcement of the first All Black team of the season, who will play Ireland at New Plymouth, was the subject of even more fascination than usual. …

Henry had already hinted there would be new faces in the squad. Duly, as a matter of necessity rather than of wish, some with high potential as stars of the future were named.

Of the four, Victor Vito, Israel Dagg and Aaron Cruden are players of excitement and skill – potential matchwinners.

The fourth, Benson Stanley, is unfairly painted as a player whose turn has come only through injuries to others. Yet he is a poised, thinking midfielder with a thunderous tackle and highly rated by those in teams he plays in and often leads.

We’ll find out before too long.

Also on rugby, The Press says Haden must go:

The decision by the Rugby World Cup Minister, Murray McCully, to allow former All Black Andy Haden to continue as an ambassador for the 2011 Rugby World Cup, is a serious blunder.

Announcing yesterday that Haden would be keeping his role, McCully wildly missed the point about Haden’s misconduct and tried to suggest that because of some tepid expressions of regret by Haden about the language he used the matter should now be considered closed.

That is very far from the case. Haden has caused deep offence with a false and damaging accusation. He has not atoned for it, or even come close to apologising. Unless and until he does, he is not fit to remain as an ambassador for the Rugby World Cup programme.

Haden is one of the most connected men in rugby. So long as he doesn’t repeat his offence, I think he will be able to add value to the RWC.

Haden’s appointment as a Rugby World Cup ambassador was a questionable one from the outset. His reputation has long been under scrutiny. His dubious display in the lineout against Wales raised persistent questions about his behaviour on the field

Good God, they are carrying a grudge.

The Dominion Post wants a national school of music:

News that the Government is refusing to stump up with $11 million to help fund a New Zealand School of Music is unsurprising, given the economic climate.

But it is disappointing. Wellington is indisputably the country’s cultural crucible, and such a school – to be a joint operation between Victoria and Massey universities – could only enhance its reputation.

Now, however, the school’s backers face a serious obstacle in the shape of Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce. He has told the universities to consider their options carefully – they had jointly pledged $10m to the school’s establishment – because the Government refuses to fund capital for new tertiary institutions.

The challenge ahead, therefore, cannot be underestimated, especially since what began as a $20m facility is now estimated to cost $60m.

I’m sure they have looked at this, but music often attracts wealthy patrons. There maybe some philanthropists out there willing to help fund the proposed school.

And the ODT talks three strikes:

There is no doubt many New Zealanders will take comfort in the passing into law last week of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill. And if indeed the controversial Act New Zealand three strikes legislation enjoys such a popular mandate, that is understandable.

Crime, especially violent crime, is a slur on society, a source of primal fear and unease and, periodically, the cause of crippling grief, loss and financial hardship for innocent individuals and families. …

National campaigned in 2008 on getting tougher on crime, and Act NZ, more specifically, put forward this law as part of its confidence and supply requirements. …

That is to say, while all agree it is right and proper to be tough on violent crime, that there is a retributive element to any punishment, that there are some recidivist criminals who will never respond to attempts at rehabilitation, the problem is not quite as simple as this law might seem to propose.

Its passage into legislation raises legitimate and fundamental questions: Is it good law? Will it make a difference?

I think it will. Those recidivist criminals often go onto commit scores and scores of crimes, bouncing into and out of jail all their life. Under this law, their third serious violent or sexual offence will see them locked up for a very long time, and the community will be safe from them while they are locked up.

The Herald talks racecourses:

Not so long ago, Avondale and Ellerslie enjoyed virtually equal status in the world of horse-racing. The Avondale Cup was a highly prestigious event. How times have changed. This week, the Avondale Jockey Club suspended racing at its course after its meeting on July 3 because of severe financial problems. …

The same applies to Avondale. Its potential closure is not just a matter for the club and the industry. It is about a community and city resource that would be lost forever. Even now, the course is valuable for more than just racing. It is the venue for a Sunday morning market, and the club leases the infield to the city council for football and cricket. Other events could be held there. If the course were closed and the club raced elsewhere, Auckland, which proclaims so often that it wishes to be known as a vibrant city full of attractions, would lose one of its entertainment options.

Can’t say I care too much.

The Press criticises ACT over its ETS campaign:

The misleading and alarmist figures being propagated by the ACT Party and Federated Farmers about the cost of the carbon emissions trading scheme which will start in July are a last gasp from groups that have had difficulty accepting the idea at all.

In their latest scaremongering, ACT and Federated Farmers have suggested that the financial impact of the scheme in higher fuel and electricity prices has been seriously underplayed by the Government and that consumers, and particularly farmers, are in for an unpleasant shock when the scheme begins.

And the Dom Post reserves judgement on the three strikes law:

Now that the three-strikes legislation is in place, its real trial begins.

Supporters believe it will see a drastic fall in the number of serious offences – ACT MP David Garrett, pressed on Radio New Zealand to give a figure, said he expected a 5 per cent to 10 per cent fall in violent offending in the first five years of the law’s operation.

That will be easy to assess from the crime statistics.

I believe we will see a fall in serious violent offending, but only after a few years as it takes time for people to get a first strike, let alone a second or third strike.

If the new law had been in place when Graeme Burton began his life of offending, he would have been unable to shoot and kill Wainuiomata father Karl Kuchenbecker in Lower Hutt. At the time he killed Mr Kuchenbecker, Burton had more than 100 convictions. He was on parole for an earlier murder.

Exactly.

The ODT focuses on the creation of an artifical organism:

Even in the rational world of biological science, the publication in Science of the findings of an American-based team of researchers caused considerable excitement.

A bacterial cell had been controlled by a chemically synthesised genome.

That meant that the cell began replicating and making a new set of proteins entirely controlled by man.

In the secular world, this was briefly sensational, and described somewhat effusively as the creation of the world’s first “artificial cell”. …

There is no doubt that the team employed at the J. Craig Venter Institute has achieved an important technical step towards the goal of creating artificial or synthetic life.

But we are a very long way indeed from realising some of the speculation: the construction of human limbs or body parts or even a human being in the laboratory.

That remains in the realm of fiction.

For now.

I believe that within two generations, humans will be living to 150 or older as science discovers uses for stem cells, gene therapy etc.

The Herald supports a float of Kiwibank:

The Prime Minister has indicated that any part-sale of the bank would be a public float aimed chiefly at mum-and-dad investors, not a trade sale, and that the Government would want to retain a majority shareholding.

As such, he is extolling the idea of a shareholding democracy, a concept that has flourished in Britain and Australia but which enjoyed a regrettably brief currency here.

Floats of the likes of Vector, Contact Energy and Auckland International Airport proved, however, to be hugely popular with Mr Key’s target shareholders, who recognised the opportunity for steady incomes and long-term returns from such utilities. …

The bank’s success means it needs substantial amounts of capital to grow further.

A cash-strapped Government would be an unwilling source. Nor would it be likely to be able to orchestrate a trade sale because potential buyers have their eyes fixed on the burgeoning Asian market.

Indeed, the Government might even see a rationale for keeping Kiwibank in New Zealand hands, if only to provide consumers with choice in a market dominated by Australian-owned competitors.

Everything, therefore, points to a float. The Government should not hesitate to confirm as much in the most unambiguous of terms. And to state that, finally, the country will have the chance to fully embrace the benefits of a shareholding democracy.

Hear hear.

The Press tuts tuts Fergie:

A British tabloid newspaper reporter, Mazher Mahmood, had revealed a sting operation against the duchess, in which she was filmed demanding, anything but selflessly, NZ$1.074 million from an undercover reporter in return for access to the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, who is her former husband.

The cash-strapped but big-spending duchess has subsequently apologised for what she called her serious lapse in judgment. But no apology can undo the damage this affair has done to her own reputation and possibly to that of the prince.

The duchess has long been renowned for her gaffes but this scandal is far more serious. She was trying to exploit her position as the prince’s former wife and use him to gain financially.

Very tacky.

The Dom Post talks Auckland super city:

The Government’s efforts to assuage concerns about the Auckland super-city by strengthening the transparency and accountability of the organisations that will run much of the city deserve support.

Change was needed in Auckland. Local government there was a fractured mess. Planning on Auckland-wide matters such as transport continually foundered on the egos of local body politicians.

One council, and the move to council-controlled organisations, should help break the jam and start solving Auckland’s massive infrastructure problems. …

Allowing Auckland Council to require them to hold meetings in public will go some way towards that, though those who follow local body politics know that it is all too easy for even elected councils to dodge transparency by going into committee and shutting the doors on the public.

Making the CCOs subject to strategic plans set by the council means setting overall goals is the job of those who must answer directly to voters. That is what is needed in a democracy.

In a few years Aucklanders will wonder what all the fuss was about, and why id they wait so long to rationalise their local government structure.

The ODT looks at the oil spill:

The news from the Gulf of Mexico is not good, and there are lessons to be learnt in New Zealand – and, more specifically, Otago – from the oil disaster and its subsequent handling.

Foremost among these are the very real economic and environmental dangers associated with deep-sea drilling such as that which has been mooted for the Carrack/Caravel site off the coast of Dunedin. …

You have to feel sorry for Louisiana especially.

The Herald applauds changes to per-school budgets:

One of the more contentious decisions hidden in the Budget last Thursday was in the financing of early childhood education. The previous Government gave childcare centres an incentive to employ trained teachers, increasing their grants as they hired a greater proportion of qualified staff.

The Budget has done away with two of the highest bands of subsidy, effectively cutting funds to centres with more than 80 per cent of their staff trained. …

Fewer than half the country’s 4300 centres have more than 80 per cent of their teachers registered yet. The cost blowout over the past five years would have escalated further without the decision National has taken.

While the cut-off will save $295 million, Education Minister Anne Tolley plans to put $107 million back into other early education programmes, $91.8 million of it earmarked for Maori, Pacific and low-income areas. …

Plainly, National does not regard specialist teaching of pre-school children to be quite as important as Labour did. It is probably right. When the previous Government imposed training requirements, there were loud objections from childcare companies that some capable and dedicated staff would be unable to meet these. National does not want to drum them out of the industry.

Nice to see some balance on this issue.

The Press looks at the two Koreas:

Crises between the two Koreas have been so commonly in the headlines for 60 years that it is tempting to dismiss the present tension as a replay of the usual game that will come to nothing. But such is the unpredictability of the North, that would be unwise. …

The South Koreans’ painstaking investigation and the employment of international experts mean the findings are incontrovertible. Thus China, the North’s closest supporter, accepts that the boat went down as a result of a torpedo attack from an armament of the type employed by the North.

The hope must be that the same considered approach will prevail now that the report has been made public, and in this, China’s role is vital.

Its ability to lean on North Korea is the best hope that the hysterical response there to the report will not escalate into another act of military bravado.

North Korea commits an act of war, and then threatens anyone who complains about it. They really are the most thuggish of the various regimes of ill repute.

Seoul wants punishment of the North by way of United Nations sanctions, on the grounds that the incident breached the Korean War armistice and the UN charter.

China’s veto power over a resolution triggering such a response is likely to be used, if only because the North says war will result if sanctions are imposed. Few countries would regret the veto’s use, even if they publicly deplored it.

I would. China’s protection of North Korea emboldens them.

The Dom Post talks finance companies:

Mark Bryers, who is bankrupt in New Zealand but not in Australia, was sentenced last week to 75 hours’ community work and fines of $37,470, plus court costs, after earlier pleading guilty to 34 charges laid by the Economic Development Ministry in relation to the running of Blue Chip. The charges dealt with book-keeping and a failure to attend a creditors’ meeting.

For many of the more than 2000 investors owed a total of $80 million after being caught in the February 2008 collapse of Blue Chip, the sentence is not enough. Some have had their futures destroyed, and their anger was on show at the court, where Bryers was described as scum as he entered. They believe he showed little sign of repentance.

The frustration is at the law’s inability to deliver what the aggrieved would see as justice. Bryers is legally guilty of paperwork failings, but those who lost their money believe they were taken advantage of in a more fundamental way.

That may be true, but the courts and justice system deal, as they should, with legality, not morality.

There is, for example, no suggestion that Mark Hotchin or Eric Watson did anything legally wrong in the collapse of Hanover Finance, which left more than 16,000 investors out of pocket when it froze more than half a billion dollars of assets.

There is morality, and then there is the law.

The ODT also focuses on finance companies:

There were gasps in the court from those investors present, many of whom had lost their houses and savings, when it became evident that Bryers would not serve a custodial sentence.

As he entered the court some had called him “scum”, others “thief” and still more “low life”.

After hearing of his sentence they pronounced their own verdicts outside the court: “he needed to go to jail,” said one; another insisted he should “pay the price”; a third said she felt “absolutely let down by the justice system”. …

Notwithstanding the fact – as pointed out by the ministry lawyer – that the charges were not of fraud, the penalties imposed seem extraordinarily light when set against the loss and suffering of those who invested with Bryers and the Blue Chip group.

Even though they were not of fraud, he still got off lightly.

The Herald wants changes to the Super City:

The committee examining the bill is led by National’s John Carter, a pragmatist steeped in local government. He indicated to Local Government NZ that its concerns would be heard.

The committee should insert more explicit powers for the Auckland Council to direct, change, establish and disestablish, if necessary, CCOs and their functions.

It should make all the CCOs’ decision-making board meetings open to the public, not just Auckland Transport’s meetings when enacting bylaws.

It should reconsider the split of representation on these boards and the lack of influence from the Auckland Council’s executives and elected councillors on issues such as transport.

Support for uniting Auckland, which seemed strong at the time of the royal commission and its extensive public submissions, has weakened. It can be restored, if the committee hears the concerns of the people.

I expect the report to be out before long, so we will see the shape of the Council.

The Press and Dom Post both talk about the leaky homes package. The Press says:

It has taken months of wrangling between central and local government, but finally there is a financial assistance package on offer which should help to provide resolution to some of the New Zealanders with leaky homes.

The scheme will not please all, especially those ineligible for the package or who resent the costs which they still must bear. But in terms of finding a solution which is fair to both tiers of government, leaky-home owners and those who pay rates and taxes, this package is balanced and a distinct improvement on the original proposal.

And the Dom Post:

The leaky buildings fiasco and the Government’s proposed solution need to be put in perspective. If the package unveiled by the Government is accepted, the taxpayer will pick up about $1 billion of the price of fixing leaky homes in New Zealand. That is the same amount of money originally put in the fiscal envelope to spend on settling all Treaty of Waitangi claims. …

The temptation is to focus on who is responsible – and there are many. There are the politicians who loosened up the building code to allow materials and types of building that had already caused problems overseas – and who have dragged their feet on a solution since. There are the architects who designed buildings for the sunny Mediterranean, not a rain-soaked New Zealand. There are the developers who favoured cheapness over durability. There are the builders who did not do their jobs, either because they did not have the skills to work the new materials properly or because they cut corners. There are the local council inspectors who were not diligent enough in ensuring the buildings did not leak. And finally, there are the owners, who, like all buyers, must take ultimate responsibility for their decisions.

The reality is that not all who should be shouldering the blame are. Some developers, contractors and builders have accepted their responsibility. Others have vanished like a will-o’-the-wisp – the companies that carried out the work, and carried the liability, are long gone.

What is needed now is a workable solution that sees repairs carried out quickly. That is what the Government appears to be offering, though details, such as how the cost of repairs is assessed, will be important.

And they conclude:

As the result of a Court of Appeal ruling, the Government has every legal right to walk away from the problem. However, that would be the wrong thing to do.

The local authorities should take the same approach and accept the package, even though it will almost certainly mean rate rises in the most affected areas, including Wellington. They could no doubt wear down many of those in leaky homes through a battle of legal attrition, but that would not be the right thing to do either.

The solution may not be ideal, but it is workable. The alternative is more years of litigation in which the only winners are the lawyers. It’s time to end the nightmare.

The ODT looks at town and gown:

Seven years ago, the University of Otago published some statistics that indicated this dominant economic force would soon be making a $1 billion a year contribution in its broadest sense to the Dunedin economy.

There cannot be doubt today that the city’s cultural, sporting, shopping and culinary landscapes would wither were it not for the university and, to a lesser extent, the polytechnic and college of education. …

It is noteworthy that the city now has a 25-year “vision” for the university as well as a 50-year “vision” for large parts of the reclaimed upper harbour basin.

The “Campus Master Plan” envisages the equivalent transformation of the north end, including the link with the Forsyth Barr Stadium and the university plaza.

Probably most immediately controversial is the consultants’ idea for the university to purchase the more run-down areas of student flats – the so-called “ghetto” – and to take responsibility for an accommodation upgrade.

Student accommodation so close to the campus proper is a major attraction and opportunity for the university and its students.

Long may the university grow I say!

The Herald focuses on leaky homes:

Many homeowners will now see their bill for repairs effectively halved – a quarter paid by taxpayers, a quarter paid by ratepayers – and the rest of the money made available through Government-guaranteed bank loans. That will be a relief to them, and who could argue with the need to help resolve the horror that has afflicted lives and families?

A horror that was dismissed by Helen Clark as a beat up by the Herald.

Some will find the Government contribution overly generous, as a Court of Appeal ruling found the Crown had no liability because its flawed building department did not have sufficient “proximity” to the actual house leaks. We have argued here before that local authorities so poorly regulated and managed the building practices that they should take more responsibility than central government. Yet their exposure has stayed around a quarter of the cost, while the negotiations leading to this package have seen the Crown up its contribution from a proposed 10 to 25 per cent.

It is generous, but sadly necessary.

National inherited this mess from a Labour Government which did not act swiftly or comprehensively to protect the rights of afflicted citizens. Yesterday’s package is the first time the Crown has put serious money on the table and committed councils to do the same. But in truth it addresses just two-thirds of the problem.

Better than zero thirds!

The Press talks community:

Too many residents of New Zealand cities believe that good fences make good neighbours. This fortress mentality might be thought to be inevitable as cities grow and become more impersonal, with neighbours not knowing each other.

But in several Christchurch suburbs there are now promising signs that this trend is being reversed and that a greater sense of community or an urban village approach is developing.

I was lucky. I grew up on Melbourne Road, Island Bay, where there was a great sense of community. All the kids on our section of the road knew each other and on any day we would be at any of the homes.

Only an extreme idealist could believe that New Zealand society could turn back the clock completely and return to those halcyon years when, it was said, everyone in a street knew each other by name and residents did not bother locking their front doors when they went out.

Not sure about the wisdom of not locking the front door, but I see no reason why one shouldn’t know all your neighbours – it is just a matter of knocking on doors and introducing yourself.

The Dom Post deals with the Rugby Union apology:

The Rugby Union apology to Maori players excluded from three All Black tours to South Africa bears the unmistakable stamp of a grudging public relations exercise. As recently as last month, Wayne Peters, the chairman of the union’s Maori Rugby Board, was dismissing calls for an apology as “simplistic”. To say sorry would be to show a lack of respect for past administrators of Maori rugby, he said. …

The exclusion of the likes of George Nepia, considered by some the greatest All Black, and Johnny Smith from All Black touring sides because of their race is a shameful episode in rugby’s history. The union should never have allowed another country to determine who should represent New Zealand.

Absolutely.

The ODT critiques science funding:

By the same token, years of indifference to adequately fund scientific innovation for the longer term – at least 10 or 20 years – has seen New Zealand gradually fall behind its competitors in the intellectual markets in which we compete for skilled thinkers, researchers and inventors.

There was some progress during the Clark government’s term in office, with its research and development tax credit and the $700 million Fast Forward Fund, and Labour has grounds for criticising the National-led Government’s announcement last week as not being sufficient or early enough.

The Government’s Primary Growth Partnership has, Labour says, not paid one dollar to its intended recipients and, further, business has received nothing from the Government for research and development for the 18 months the Government has been in office.

Still, even a few crumbs is better than nothing at all, and of the $321 million earmarked by the Government over the next four years, $225 million is “new” funding.

There are aspects of the arrangements which look promising, including a trial scheme to establish links between private companies and publicly-funded research organisations such as universities and Crown research institutes.

It would always be nice to be more, but again we are still borrowing $240 million a week.

The Herald wants a decisive budget:

Seldom has a Budget been as crucial to the economy as the one that Finance Minister Bill English will deliver this week. It is immediately crucial to the housing market, where activity has been practically frozen while prospective buyers and sellers wait to see what tax will do to property investment.

And it is crucial to the country’s productivity that something is done to divert investment from housing and consumption to industry and exports.

After years and years of complaints about the property boom, and the impact that has had on inflation and interest rates let alone the banking crisis, finally a Government is taking some steps towards fixing this. They don’t go as far as Bernard Hickey would want, but they should be a good start.

The minister has made no secret of this objective. For many months he has been travelling and speaking with charts to illustrate his concern that New Zealand was in an export recession long before the domestic sector’s housing bubble burst in 2007 and it was struck by the recession of 2008.

While household and Government spending had been happily rising year by year, export activity had slumped in 2005 and has not recovered.

Quite incredible that the tradeables sector had in fact been in recession for Labour’s entire last term of office.

The Press looks at how the UK Government may learn from us:

The spectacle of the United Kingdom looking to New Zealand for constitutional guidance, during the formation of its coalition Government, is rare and perhaps unprecedented. …

The recent general election there may well have inaugurated a long-term weakening of the political parties. The increasing social mobility of the population and disenchantment with the behaviour of MPs is lessening the tribal affiliations to Labour and the Conservatives. The result is an increasing willingness among the electorate to switch from party to party according to the prevailing political climate.

This could well be the case. In the past conventional wisdom was National had core support of 35%, Labour had 35% and 30% were swinging.

But we have seen National’s support drop to 21% in an election and Labour drop to 14% in polls in 1996. There are very few core supporters left now.

Whatever the scenario, New Zealand has lessons for the British. We wrote the rule book for coalitions in a Westminster system of government, and it was that which helped the British through their recent experience of putting together a Government from competing parties. That the process was so smooth and rapid can be significantly attributed to the processes formulated in Wellington.

Of course with Winston we learnt the hard way!

The Dominion Post asks Phil Goff to explain:

Labour leader Phil Goff would like the Reserve Bank to aim at more targets. The almost certain result of this is that it will miss them all.

Absolutely. Goff is trying to retreat from every good policy that his party has previously supported.

New Zealand has, by and large, been well served by the Reserve Bank Act, with its single-minded focus on the inflation rate. The tools available to the governor to achieve that may be blunt, and his task made more difficult by New Zealanders’ determination to pump every spare dollar – and every dollar that can possibly be borrowed – into property, but at least he or she has only one goal to chase, and it has been relatively successful in keeping the lid on inflation.

You can achieve one target well, or you can not achieve multiple targets. Plus it is also an attempt for a future Labour Government to blame the Reserve Bank Governor when unemployment is high, rather than the elected Government.

There is also a need for caution on democratic grounds. Economic changes that can drastically affect people’s lives should be made by those whom the people can hold to account at the ballot box, not appointed officials. An expanded role for the bank makes it all too easy to muddy the lines of responsibility, and to use the bank as a scapegoat for economic failure – the same trick has been used to duck responsibility for health, where failures become the property of area health boards while successes are claimed by the minister.

The same point I made above before I carried on reading.

It is still a good while until the next election, but Mr Goff is still a good way away from delivering a coherent economic policy that offers alternatives rather than a parcel of vagaries.

So far the policies are not at all future looking, but attempts to revisit debates from 20 years ago.

The NZ Herald talks Super City:

Who should lead Auckland? By a surprising margin, residents seem to favour the lesser-known of the two declared candidates for the Super City mayoralty. …

It could be that today’s survey reflects a view from across six of the seven territorial-council areas that a vote for Mr Banks represents a central Auckland takeover of their cities. An anyone-but-Auckland-City mentality would make a tough campaign for the Banks team.

He may be copping the backlash over the Government’s poor handling of the Super City reform, which is unfair as he has voiced concerns over several aspects of that process.

And The Press on rugby:

The inclusion of Argentina in what will be, from 2012, a southern hemisphere four-nations rugby tournament is obviously great news for supporters of the Pumas.

For many years the South American nation has been starved of regular top-flight tests due to the club commitments of its leading players in Europe, notably in France, but that will now change, with a rule change agreed by the International Rugby Board (IRB) this week. Finally, it seems, Argentina will be playing in a high-profile annual test rugby competition.

And the Dom Post on Greece:

As Bill English prepares to deliver his second Budget on Thursday a spectre hovers at his shoulder. The spectre is Greece.

The land of retsina, olives and sun-drenched beaches is about to become the land of wage cuts, job losses and higher prices, thanks to the profligacy of successive Greek governments.

Greece’s predicament is a cautionary tale for governments and peoples everywhere. Keep spending more than you earn and one day the debt collector will come calling.

A lesson lost on Labour it seems as they keep calling for the Government to increase spending and borrowing.

New Zealand, fortunately, is far from Greece’s situation. Public debt is at present about 13 per cent of the size of the economy – a fraction of the 120 per cent Greece is tipped to reach this year – but Government spending is forecast to exceed revenue for the next six years and debt levels are rising.

What some may forget though is that fiscal settings inherited from Labour had spending always remaining greater than revenue, and debt indeed increasing over the long-term to Greece type levels. Without the changes made by National in the 2009 budget, net crown debt was forecast to exceed 60% of GDP within around a decade.

And Labour opposed pretty much every one of those changes that reduced the debt track.

So far John Key’s Government has struck a sensible balance. It has borrowed enough to keep the economy ticking over and to insulate New Zealanders from the worst effects of the global financial crisis but reduced the rate at which debt was forecast to grow when it took office.

It should continue to take a long-term view of New Zealand’s interests. Mr English must continue to keep a tight rein on spending, not just in 2010 but next year – election year – as well.

Spending restraint needs to be maintained until, at the earliest, the OBERAC is back in surplus, and large enough to cover NZSF contributions.

The ODT looks at classroom attacks:

Thus it is in the case of the 13-year-old year 9 Te Puke High School boy who attacked his teacher with a 10cm kitchen knife, stabbing him in the neck and shoulders several times.

A centimetre or two either way, it must be supposed, and the injuries could have been fatal.

The attack has been met with anger at the perpetrator, sympathy for the teacher, incredulity that it could have happened at all, and revelations of just how common classroom assaults are becoming.

In 2008, 238 pupils were stood down for assaulting teachers; 442 teachers needed treatment after assaults at school in 2008 and 2009 at a cost of $413,000. …

The question is, why? Why did the boy have a knife at school? Whatever possessed him to make this apparently unprovoked attack? Was he, is he, prone to violent outbursts or physical aggression? If he had an issue or a grievance, why did he not first attempt to resolve them otherwise? Perhaps he did, and perhaps more of the background to this terrible episode will yet emerge, but it will not diminish either the viciousness of the assault, nor the level of accountability to which the assailant must be held – regardless of his age.

All good questions.

The Herald is on the new state sector rules:

One of the important principles of any liberal democracy is the political neutrality of the state service. For our system to function smoothly it is necessary for the public and political parties of all persuasions to have rock-solid confidence that the state service will behave professionally and impartially, no matter who happens to be the government of the day.

This is so basic that it almost goes without saying, and yet the State Services Commission has felt it necessary to take steps to clarify just what public servants’ obligations are under their code of conduct. Much of its 33 pages of guidelines for interpreting the code is good, common sense, but in one respect it seems to have broken new ground.

It now seems public servants need to be careful not just about their own political and pecuniary interests but also those of close family members as well. Not surprisingly, this has caused some raised eyebrows because, in political terms at least, it seems fundamentally unfair to judge a person by someone else’s allegiances.

I agree you should not be judged by a family member’s activities.

To apply such a standard generally would lead to endless and pointless complications, especially in a small country. What, for instance, would it make of a pair of brothers one of whom was the most senior public servant in the land and the other a leader of a political party?

In most cases a public servant will take a common sense approach and tell their boss that they have a family member politically engaged if it is relevant to their job. Not because there is anything wrong with it, but to protect themselves. However there is no need to codify it.

The Press looks at Tuhoe:

Speaking at a National Party conference on Sunday, Prime Minister John Key presented an optimistic scenario of improved race relations and he praised the contribution to his Government of the Maori Party.

Yet within one day Key had outraged the Maori Party and Tuhoe by scuppering a deal to give Te Urewera National Park back to that iwi, as part of its Treaty settlement. The real mystery here is why Key suddenly lost his nerve and intervened at the very last minute after months of negotiations.

This agreement was understood to have been due to go before Cabinet on Monday. It is believed it would have vested ownership of the park in Tuhoe’s ancestors to prevent its sale. …

The Tuhoe settlement would have come after New Zealand signed up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted the Whanau Ora policy of the Maori Party and agreed to replace the foreshore and seabed law.

And in my minds, that is probably what led to the Tuhoe deal having a limit placed on it publicly. It would have been too far too many “wins” within a very tight timeframe.

The question for Tuhoe now is whether they still try to make a settlement with this Government, or whether they hold off and hope they can get a better deal from a future Labour Government.

The Dom Post focuses on alcohol:

Neither an increase in the tax nor lifting the drinking age would have saved James. The vodka bottle from which he was seen drinking as if its contents were water had come from his grandmother’s drinks cabinet.

However, making alcohol more expensive and reducing its availability to teenagers might just prevent another youngster from making the same mistake.

Denying those old enough to vote, to marry and to go to war the right to buy a cold beer at the end of a hot summer’s day would be a draconian measure. So would putting up the price of everyone’s favourite tipple to make alcopops less attractive. But something has to be done. The evidence is incontrovertible that New Zealand’s unhealthy attitude to alcohol is spreading downwards to those least equipped to deal with it.

Again, I think a drinking age is the best option. It would be a clear message to both adults and youth that you should not be drinking when you are at an age (and brain development) unable to handle it.

Sixteen-year-olds are in no position to assess the dangers of binge-drinking. Fifteen, 14 and 13-year-olds even less so. If the industry cannot find a way to keep alcohol out of the hands of children, society must.

The industry did not supply the bottle of vodka. But I agree alcohol should be kept out of the hands of children. Make it an offence for a young person to possess or consume alcohol except in the company of their parents. And make it an offence for anyone but a parent to supply alcohol to young persons.

The Herald looks at the Tuhoe negotiations:

At the best of times, reaching a comprehensive settlement over Waitangi claims is a delicate and tricky matter. But for a number of reasons the Tuhoe negotiations are proving especially difficult, and not just because some people in the National Government are becoming increasingly worried that their party is earning a reputation among voters for conceding too much to the Maori Party. …

But what makes the Tuhoe claim especially difficult is that the tribe is seeking a major concession that departs radically from precedents set in other Waitangi settlements. After two years of negotiations, Tuhoe remains adamant that ownership of Te Urewera National Park is at the top of its agenda.

If the Government were to concede, the resulting settlement would go far beyond any similar previous arrangements in which iwi have obtained significant areas of Department of Conservation land only to return them immediately as part of the deal. For instance, Ngai Tahu gave Aoraki/Mt Cook back to the nation after its settlement.

At a practical level, the Tuhoe claim seems to envisage something similar inasmuch as it promises that public access to some of the country’s most beautiful land would not be compromised in any way. But, importantly, it goes much further in aiming to take over the ownership and financial management of the land from the department after a 10-year transition period.

Given the justice of its claim, there is no question that Tuhoe is in line for major concessions and a payment that will be close to the Tainui and Ngai Tahu settlements of $170 million each. All the most recent historical research suggests the Tuhoe people were treated exceptionally harshly and that they are owed a full apology and generous compensation.

Tuhoe was always going to be the most challenging negotiation.

The Dom Post says Jim Anderton must choose between Mayor and MP:

Progressive Party leader Jim Anderton is a man untrammelled by self-doubt.

In a political career that stretches back 45 years to his days on Manukau City Council, he has been a member of four political parties and fallen out with virtually every high-profile figure he has worked with. Never does it appear to have occurred to him that he could be in the wrong.

So true.

Hence it comes as no surprise that Mr Anderton believes he can perform the roles of MP for Wigram and Christchurch mayor at the same time. He is mistaken.

They are both fulltime positions. One is based in Christchurch; the other is split between Christchurch and Wellington. Both carry fulltime salaries.

Anderton will earn a total of just over $400,000 (including super and allowance) or over $7,500 a week doing both jobs.

Christchurch ratepayers are paying good money to be represented by a mayor who devotes his energies to advancing the city’s interests. He cannot perform that role if he is spending several days a week in Wellington.

Taxpayers are paying good money to Mr Anderton to represent the interests of his electorate in Parliament. He cannot perform that role from the mayoral chambers.

One could clone Saint Jim.

However, it is not Parliament’s role to serve as a safety net for politicians who would like new jobs but are not sure whether they are going to get them.

If Mr Anderton wins the Christchurch mayoralty in the October local body elections, he should resign from Parliament. In fact, he should give thought to resigning ahead of those elections, or at least take unpaid leave for the duration of the campaign, as many other candidates for public office are obliged to do.

Just as he will not be able to represent Wigram’s interests in Parliament if he becomes mayor, so he will not be able to do so on the campaign trail.

Saint Jim has a private members bill that requires an MP to resign from Parliament if they contest a by-election. Yet he thinks he should be able to contest a Mayoral election as an MP.

The Press looks at the UK:

For the Lib Dems, electoral reform is at the top of their wishlist in any deal, whether it be a formal coalition or the sort of support arrangements common in New Zealand, with either Cameron’s party or Labour’s Gordon Brown.

This stance is not surprising given last week’s disproportionate election result. While the Lib Dems got 23 per cent of the votes cast, which was a disappointment following polls showing them at abound 30 per cent at one point, they won about 200 fewer seats than Labour, which gained 29 per cent of the vote. At the other end of the scale, the Tories gained 36 per cent of the vote, but won about 47 per cent of the seats.

These sorts of outcomes are as palpably unfair and undemocratic as was the unreformed voting system in New Zealand, and Nick Clegg should hold firm to his party’s proportional representation policy as he talks to Cameron and Brown.

And the ODT:

The election result has presented Mr Clegg with choices: going into government with the old Conservative foe, risking alienating many in his own party ranks; or throwing in his lot with Mr Brown and a governing coalition otherwise comprising a number of smaller independents, the chief danger of this being the perception of Labour, a distant second in the poll, as tarnished.

This could work against any subsequent referendum on electoral reform, thus defeating the chief purpose of such an alliance.

The markets, already spooked by Greece, have shown their impatience.

Mr Clegg’s role as “king-maker” – one he might have formerly anticipated with some eagerness – has been served up by the voting public along with a generously sized poisoned chalice.

We await the outcome with fascination.

The Herald calls on NZ to back Obama in Afghanistan:

No compliment was more apt than the one that came from the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, US General Stanley McChrystal: “The forces that New Zealand provides are extraordinarily professional, as you know, and they are key members of the coalition.”

He had special praise for the work done in Bamiyan, which he said needed to be reproduced around the country.

“That’s really where we are building the foundation of Afghanistan.”

No doubt such compliments are sincere, but they come with a significant fish hook.

General McChrystal made no bones about the fact that he would like the New Zealanders to stay on and not just because they are doing good work. …

Before he left Afghanistan, Mr Key was giving some pretty broad hints himself. The PRT was likely to stay for another year, he said.

He was less forthcoming about the SAS but said that its role would also be looked at, with the possibility of a smaller contingent staying for longer. Indeed, he said this was the preference of the SAS itself.

It would be no bad thing if its wish was granted. Of course no one would want to see us bogged down. But the Obama strategy needs to be given a chance to work and New Zealand should stay with it for the long haul.

It must be noted that the Labour Government supported the Bush strategy in Afghanistan three times, sending the SAS in. However they oppose the Obama strategy.

The Press looks at airline alliances:

The last time Air New Zealand sought to forge a trans-Tasman strategic alliance it was with the biggest Australian carrier, Qantas.

That proposal was knocked back by the regulators, which was not surprising as the alliance between the two would have cornered about 80 per cent of the trans-Tasman aviation market. …

Ultimately the key question must be whether the benefits for consumers, as claimed by the proposal’s backers in terms of cost and convenience, outweigh the reality that the alliance would lead to a reduction in competition. It is this issue which should determine whether this alliance will fly.

I know I’d be pissed off to book Air New Zealand and end up on Pacific Blue.

The Dom Post calls for reality from teachers:

There has long been a suspicion that reality stops at the door to the teachers’ staffroom.

The Post Primary Teachers Association’s ludicrous claim for a 4 per cent pay rise for secondary school teachers lends credence to the theory.

The world is just emerging from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Government is effectively borrowing $200 million a week to maintain existing levels of services, tens of thousands of New Zealanders have lost their jobs, and hundreds of thousands have received little, if any, pay rise for the past two years.

I think one could do a science experiment on whether there is a connection between the PPTA and reality.

The majority reluctantly accept that is the price they must pay for job security. At a time of crisis, everybody – employers and employees – has to tighten their belts.

For the PPTA to demand a big pay increase at such a time is to show gross insensitivity to those who pay teacher salaries through their taxes. For it to demand the increase after its members received 4 per cent pay increases in each of the past three years is to show secondary teachers, or their union at least, are completely out of touch with the real world.

As the editorial noted, we are borrowing over $200 million a week.

Yet the present pay structure does not allow schools to differentiate between the performance of good, indifferent and bad teachers. They are all paid on the basis of their years of service and the responsibilities they hold.

If teacher unions are as serious as they say they are about wanting to keep good teachers in schools, they should work with the Education Ministry to devise a formula that allows schools to pay great teachers what they are worth and send a message to poor teachers that they should review their career options.

I agree there should be performance pay of course. But not even to a formula. Principals should have the ability to pay teachers as much as they think they are worth, within an overall budget. The top teachers should be on over $100,000 in my opinion. However the lousy teachers should be on $35,000 so they have the incentive to change professions or improve their teaching skills.

The ODT talks about John Key’s visit to Afghanistan:

There really was no choice: Prime Minister John Key’s trip to Afghanistan had to have been a “secret”.

Indeed it is standard operating procedure for all high-profile politicians and personalities who visit the volatile and dangerous region. …

To the many popular faces of Mr Key has been added that of a leader not prepared to send New Zealand troops “to a destination I am not prepared to come [to] myself”.

And further confirmation of a prime minister who likes to “see for himself” – to gather information or insight first-hand to enable better quality decision-making.

He told accompanying reporters that he wanted to make his own assessment of the work of the 70-plus SAS team on active duty in the country, and of the 140 troops in Bamiyan involved in reconstruction activities.

He would also have been wanting to get a feel for how the Nato mission of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is faring. …

But whether the occupation and the work of the ISAF is headed anywhere but towards a stalemate – and thus whether New Zealand should recommit troops towards its mission – is the burning question.

Mr Key is right, at this point, to remain non-committal.

Personally I don’t think the PM’s visit to Afghanistan was anything remarkable. It is inevitable a NZ PM will visit troops serving overseas, as conditions allow.

What has been amusing is the howls of anguish from those media organisations who were not invited along. The reality is of course one can’t travel with a full press corps into war zones.

It could be worth considering some sort of formal roster or random selection system for future trips, so that it doesn’t look like hand picked media. One could have a policy of one rep each from print, radio and television. The trouble is these trips are so infrequent, it might not be worth the bother.

The Herald talks social media:

If anyone doubts how technology is changing the way people communicate with each other they should consult the latest research by the Privacy Commissioner.

Published this week, the survey of Individual Privacy and Personal Information shows that 43 per cent of us now use a social networking site such as Facebook or Twitter.

This is an enormous increase from the 14 per cent recorded three years ago. Clearly these sites provide a welcome service to large numbers of happy customers.

But there is a big difference which Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff highlighted with the release of the survey results. She pointed out that more than half of those who used social networking sites assumed them to be private spaces.

However, this was really an illusion of privacy; personal details or pictures could be easily obtained by third parties, creating the real possibility of unintended, unacceptable and even dangerous consequences.

They are public places, but the sheer amount of info there, makes them semi-private. Unless someone is looking for your info for a reason, then people’s info generally stays with friends and families. But if you apply for a job, come to public notice in some way, it is all there to be seen.

A much better approach was suggested by Ms Shroff this week when she urged people to use internet safety resources available through Hector’s World, Netsafe and the Privacy Commissioner’s website.

As the survey has shown, most people join social networking sites with their eyes wide open and they understand the risks and issues and how to protect themselves.

Rather than bringing in more laws, the challenge should be to open the eyes of the few who fail to see the consequences of what they are doing.

I agree.

The Press wants better  roading infrastructure:

New Zealand has had a habit of under-investing in road infrastructure.

The most obvious example of this has been in Auckland, where decades of myopia has required multi-billion dollar catch-up projects, while in Wellington, the Transmission Gully route was until recently an exercise in dithering.

And in Canterbury it should not have taken a triple fatality crash on Saturday morning to highlight the driving risks on parts of State Highway 1 which require action. …

Steven Joyce has shown commendable speed in identifying roading priorities and pledging the money to them (the harder part).

This roading situation might have been adequate or acceptable a generation ago, when traffic volumes were far lower, but not today. Waimakariri and Selwyn, through which SH1 goes, are two of the fastest growing districts in New Zealand. Increasing numbers of commuters travel from small towns, including new ones such as Pegasus, into Christchurch, sharing the road with significant tourist traffic and with trucks.

The US do it quite well. Motorway and highways do not go through towns but around them.

The Dom Post looks at democracy in Tonga, or the lack of it:

The only good thing that could have come from the tragic sinking of the Princess Ashika off Tonga would have been a new openness and accountability in the Tongan political system.

The resignation of Attorney-General John Cauchi suggests that is a forlorn prospect.

The inquiry gave Tongans a rare glimpse of the inner workings of the elite who run their country – an elite who gain power based on hereditary links and personal contacts rather than talent. But having promised, and delivered, a fully transparent inquiry, it appears Tonga’s rulers are getting cold feet.

The Australian-born Mr Cauchi quit last week over government plans to abolish the judicial services commission which appoints judges. He believes the move is an attempt to interfere with the inquiry. Others say the cabinet is trying to discredit the royal commission.

The Tongan Government says Mr Cauchi was unable to properly exercise the powers he was granted and outsiders should butt out. Political reform is a matter for Tongans alone.

But as Tongans do not have the vote in a meaningful way, that is not true. They do not have the ability to get change internally.

And the ODT looks at ACC:

Unless it is a statistical blip, evidence points to procedures within ACC’s Sensitive Claims Unit having radically altered.

Figures show 32 sexual-abuse claims for counselling were approved in the first two months this year, compared with 472 in January and February 2009.

That is not far off a tenfold decrease.

And, on Monday last week, ACC Minister Nick Smith announced the way the corporation managed the claims of sexual-abuse victims was to be reconsidered.

To this end, he named a panel to undertake a “clinical review to ensure best possible practice in this sensitive area”. …

The conclusion must be that changes to the way in which ACC handles such claims, introduced in October last year by Dr Smith, have been responsible for the drop.

On the one hand, this will undoubtedly be helping to meet the savings of which the minister has made something of a mantra; on the other, it could mean that the changes have been “overcooked”, laying the minister open to charges of callousness and injustice.

Personally I don’t think sexual abuse victims should receive ACC. I do think they should get assistance for counselling etc from the state, but through Vote Health or Vote Justice. One of the problems of ACC is it has expanded too far from its original mandate.

The Herald is on judicial transparency:

The legal profession, at least in its upper echelons, is so small that there are bound to be close and long-standing relationships between senior lawyers and judges which may create the appearance of conflicts of interest.

The possibilities have been amply demonstrated by the case of Supreme Court Justice Bill Wilson, who finds himself facing the Judicial Complaints Commissioner because, when he was a Court of Appeal judge, he failed to fully disclose the extent of his indebtedness to a lawyer appearing before him.

And that is the problem – the lack of disclosure. The debt, by itself, does not mean the Judge could not sit on the case, and be impartial. In fact Justice Wilson ruled against the lawyer’s clients in a number of cases.

But the matter does not end there because now the Judicial Complaints Commissioner must decide whether the judge’s conduct in failing to promptly and fully disclose the nature of the relationship needs to be referred to either the Chief Justice or the Attorney-General. Unfortunately, either course of action may also raise questions of the kind mentioned by the Supreme Court because Justice Wilson has had close associations with both office holders.

He and Mr Galbraith have been in a racehorse-owning partnership with Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias. On the other side of the equation, Justice Wilson and Attorney-General Chris Finlayson were partners at the law firm Bell Gully and Mr Finlayson is on record as calling him a friend. So whichever way this case may turn, it gives rise to the very kinds of doubts that the courts, quite rightly, are at pains to avoid.

The Attorney-General is friends, I am sure, with a large number of Judges. I think we have to be careful about not having unrealistic expectations that Judges and lawyers have no dealings with each other at all, except in court.

But whatever the outcome of this particular case, the courts should reconsider the old policy of secrecy and remoteness as a means of preserving confidence in the system generally. More openness in the form of a public register of judges’ pecuniary interests – much like that which applies to MPs – would be much more effective.

Compulsory listing of such things as business interests, partnerships, trusts and, importantly, debts would make any possible appearance of conflicts of interest immediately apparent and therefore defuse any controversy such as the one engulfing Justice Wilson before it had a chance to arise.

The idea of a register is worth considering.

The Press suggests the winner of the UK elections will inherit a poisoned chalice:

When the British deliver their electoral verdict on Thursday, the winning party will be presented with a poisoned chalice. The huge cuts the new government will have to make to spending ensure it will be hounded into deep unpopularity and be long branded as the Scrooge that ended a decade of prosperity.

The reality that the golden economy has been dead for two years and has been sustained by massive borrowing will not ease the predicament of the incoming administration. In the cause of weathering the economic storm, spending and borrowing was maintained; only now do the bills have to be paid.

Yet the Lib Dems and Labour keep insisting one should go on borrowing and spending more for a wee bit longer.

The Dominion Post marks World Press Freedom Day:

For most New Zealanders, today is just another working day to be endured before the next long weekend heaves into view. To journalists, however, it means more than that. May 3 is the annual date that Unesco has set aside as World Press Freedom Day, an occasion to celebrate the value of a free media.

It is a prize worth winning, but comes at a price. New Zealand journalists don’t get killed for doing their jobs in this country, but that is not true elsewhere. In 1975, Kiwi Gary Cunningham was one of five journalists murdered by Indonesian forces in East Timor wanting to prevent the world knowing of their invasion. And already this year, at least 12 journalists have been slain for following a vocation with attendant dangers.

Here, the risk normally involves being called a “little creep” by an angry prime minister, being ejected from the team bus by an irate sports coach, or being sued for defamation for – perhaps – wrongly criticising someone with a reputation to defend.

True.

Thus it is harder in a modern democracy to persuade a cynical populace that to do away with a free press is to do enormous damage to the body politic and civic discourse. In the West, it is more common for the public to dismiss the work of reporters as sensationalism, trivia, and “lies”. Sometimes, they are right.

More usually, they are wrong. People often forget that everyone errs and that their errors are rarely exposed for others to judge. Chefs’ mistakes are buried in the rubbish; doctors’ mistakes are in a graveyard.

In the media business, mistakes can be of fact, emphasis or omission – and are usually inadvertent. Unlike the mistakes of others, however, journalists’ errors are published or broadcast for everyone to see, and – in the best of the breed – corrected publicly.

Alas the public correction is all too rare.

The ODT calls for no delay to the ETS:

Having once claimed to be a “follower” of our trading partners in such legislation, New Zealand, the critics claim, now looks likely to be an international leader – out on a limb with a feigned carbon tax that may in time come to be regarded as either innovative or foolish.

Businesses, for one, have not been slow to remind the Government of this risk, arguing that the policy will make it even more difficult to trade successfully with other countries which have yet to implement climate-change responses, or plan to defer them.

They have asked for New Zealand’s policies to be “aligned” with those of our major trading partners – a request that on the surface appears reasonable but is realistically impracticable. …

Yet, if the world has so much to lose from climate change, then it behoves countries to take whatever steps they can to minimise the effects – as a matter of urgency.

A global solution is obviously required and Western nations, including New Zealand, must lead it, since they are in the best possible position to afford the costs and provide the technology and innovation to achieve it.

Here the ODT is wrong. If China is not part of a deal to reduce emissions, then the efforts of the rest of the world will be futile. China by 2020, will be producing more greenhouse gas emissions than the rest of the world does today – even if they live up to their Copenhagen pledge.

For New Zealand to now delay further what has already been a slow, step-by-step procedure, would deny pragmatism in favour of the changing winds of political fortune.

I don’t support a change to the ETS legislation being done under urgency. If however there is no post Kyoto agreement, which includes commitments from China, then the rationale for an ETS is greatly reduced.

All four are on the proposed alcohol law reform. First up the Herald:

Against earlier indications and its better judgment perhaps, the Law Commission has recommended a drastic reversal of 20 years of liberal liquor regulation. …

f Parliament takes the commission’s advice, the minimum purchasing age will be restored to 20 without previous exceptions. A reasonable suggestion that 18 might remain the minimum for licensed premises, with 20 for off-licence purchases, has come to nothing.

Students and other 18 and 19-year-olds will lose the right to drink in bars and clubs unless MPs take a more realistic view. …

Communities ought to be able to decide the character and scale of their liquor supply.

That goes for inner city nightlife districts too. The commission’s proposed prohibition on all-night bars is needless. While a 4am closure would be late enough for anybody most of the time, there is self-evidently a demand for all night services in the central city and they should not be prohibited without good cause and proven benefit.

The past 20 years might not have made us more civilised but previous experience suggests the proposed regime would be a retrograde step, destined for regret.

I like the comment one journalist made to me about the proposed regime. They said they tried to thing of a single thing short on outright prohibition that Sir Geoffrey did not recommend, and they couldn’t think of any.

Next The Press:

There will be support for raising the purchase age to 20 years at all venues selling alcohol, because the experiment of lowering the age a decade ago has been a costly failure.

As critics feared, the age when teenagers begin drinking has percolated down, with many as young as 14 years heavily imbibing, and there is growing evidence of the harm alcohol does to developing brains.

Raising the age should make it harder for under-age drinkers to buy alcohol and less likely for older friends or relatives to purchase it for those as young as 14. The medical evidence also outweighs complaints from older teenagers that it is unfair to raise the liquor purchase age when they can drive or marry at a younger age.

I hate such fuzzy logic. Advocating that the solution to stopping 14 year olds getting alcohol is to make it illegal for 19 year olds to go to a bar or have wine in a restaurant. They also ignore the evidence most under age alcohol supply comes from parents.

While much attention will centre on the purchase age and the proposed increase in the alcohol excise tax, even though the latter is unlikely to be implemented, the commission’s recommendations should be regarded as a coherent package, with the focus on moderation and responsibility.

It’s a coherent package alright. Prohibition was coherent also.

The Dom Post:

The problem the commission faces is that, in seeking to deal with problem drinkers, it has also affected the majority, who believe they drink responsibly.

No-one wants drunks running amok in the capital’s party zone, but nor do they want to be told that they cannot buy a bottle of wine to take home from a supermarket after 10pm.

There are similar reservations over the proposed rise in the drinking age to 20. Whatever the science – and recent research indicates that the effects of alcohol on young brains have been underestimated – convincing the public that people old enough to vote, join the armed forces and marry are not mature enough to buy a cold beer at the end of a hot summer’s day will not be easy.

More particularly, politicians who want the age to rise will have to tell a sizeable chunk of their voters – the 18 to 20-year-olds – that a right they previously had would be taken from them. In the face of a promised organised campaign by young people, including the youth wings of major parties, to keep the age at 18, that is asking for a lot of political courage.

The talk of political courage reminds of of the Yes Minister episode when teh sure fire way to scare a Minister off doing something is to tell them doing so would be brave or courageous

And the ODT:

Our most recent experiment with liberalisation has proved to be a fatally attractive combination for our youth in the sale of wine and beer in supermarkets and the reduction of the minimum age of purchase to 18 years.

No doubt mature and sensible drinkers have welcomed both innovations – supermarket sales statistics would seem to bear out that presumption – and the State has certainly benefited from taxes on alcohol, for excise tax alone produced more than $900 million in 2008. …

To some extent, the additional recommendations of the commission – restrictions on who can supply alcohol to minors and in what circumstances; increasing the ability of local people to influence how and where alcohol is sold in their communities; a civil cost recovery regime for those taken into custody when grossly intoxicated – may have a greater long-term impact than simply increasing the purchase age. …

The way I count it is one editorial pretty hostile to the thrust of the Law Commission’s recommendations, one very supportive and two somewhat cautiously in the middle – pro doing something, but not everything.

The Herald editorial does not appear to be online.

The Press looks at the Melbourne Storm controversy:

Seldom, if ever, has an Australasian sporting team suffered such a resounding fall from grace as the Melbourne Storm.

From being regarded as a glamour side with one of the best records in the National Rugby League (NRL), the club is now mired in disgrace and ignominy.

The Storm’s deliberate breaches of the player salary cap have cost the club the premierships it “won” in 2007 and 2009, it must repay A$1.1 million (NZ$1.42m) in prizemoney, the franchise has been fined A$500,000 and must play out the season without being eligible for competition points. …

Over the past two decades a variety of Australasian rugby league clubs have been punished for exceeding salary caps, but the scale of the Storm’s breaches and the way it ran two sets of books was remarkable. Faced with evidence of the practice the NRL acted with commendable speed in publicly handing down its penalties. …

The Storm saga emphasises the wisdom of leading New Zealand rugby players being contracted to the New Zealand Rugby Union rather than having rugby league-style salary caps, which are open to abuse. And although provinces in the Air New Zealand Cup do have salary caps, it is unlikely that many local unions would reach the maximum salary limits.

I think NZ Rugby avoids most of the problems with its setups, but I am sure some provincial players end up getting jobs and cars etc as a way around the salary cap.

The Dom Post reflects on the loss of the RNZAF crew:

The deaths of two air force pilots and a crewman in a helicopter crash on Sunday is the cruellest of ironies. Flight Lieutenant Hayden Madsen, Flying Officer Dan Gregory and helicopter crewman Corporal Ben Carson were flying from Ohakea airbase to Wellington for Anzac Day commemorations when their Iroquois helicopter crashed into a steep, scrubby gully above State Highway 1 near Pukerua Bay. …

The crash is a reminder that those who serve in the armed forces do so at considerable personal risk. Since the Boer War more than 30,000 servicemen and women have lost their lives in the service of New Zealand. Many, many more have been injured. …

The funerals will be held this week. Mourners will include not just family and friends but probably the prime minister, who has cancelled a visit to Bahrain and Kuwait to attend. That is appropriate.

As Defence chief Lieutenant General Jerry Mateparae said “We’re a small defence force and we know those people. The prime minister knows them. I know them. We fly with them all of the time. They’re part of our family.”

They’re part of a wider family too. All New Zealanders have reason to be grateful to those who carry on the proud Anzac tradition.

It will be a very sad funeral.

The ODT looks at the UK elections:

There have now been two such debates involving the leaders of the three main British parties involving Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Gordon Brown, Conservative Party leader David Cameron and leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg.

And, while there has been some disquiet about subsequent superficial predictions – and the dangers of facile “worm”-like performance indicators familiar to the New Zealand public – most pundits agree Mr Clegg emerged from the first debate as the outright winner, and from the second as at least holding his own in a three-way tie.

This has been mirrored in the opinion polls, which show the Conservatives to be leading at around 34%, the Lib Dems at about 29% and Labour at 27%.

Yet ironically Gordon Brown may remain Prime Minister, despite coming third.

The Herald looks at Pharmac:

The drawing up of free-trade agreements is always an exercise in compromise. Sometimes, unpalatable concessions have to be made with an eye on the bigger picture. …

At the forefront of American concerns will be two issues – the strength of our dairying industry and the role played by Pharmac, the Government’s drug-buying agency.

The US farming lobby will want little conceded, while American pharmaceutical companies want Pharmac’s role drastically reduced.

The drug companies say an end to New Zealand’s anti-competitive drug-funding system would give its people quicker access to new and expensive medicines.

US drug companies can introduce these new and expensive medicines at any time. Whether or not they gain a subsidy from the state is another issue.

Trade Minister Tim Groser has described Pharmac as “an outstandingly successful public institution”, which has saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The estimated savings in a five-year period are enough to have built the Starship hospital.

Mr Groser has also said that, as the principal economic adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, he had negotiated with the US on Pharmac 10 years ago and had seen no need to make concessions.

That is reassuring. But the issue will doubtless be raised again, as New Zealand covets a free-trade agreement with the US. Hard choices will have to be made.

The Government has already bowed to pressure and allowed some slippage in Pharmac’s integrity. With the taxpayer uppermost in its mind, it should hesitate before venturing further down that path.

I agree Pharmac is of great value to New Zealand. The gains from a free trade deal would have to be significant for us to agree to changes to Pharmac.

The Press remembers ANZAC Day:

The history of Anzac Day remembrance has been shaped by memory and ideals – memories and ideals that have changed over the decades since the landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915.

The commemoration therefore has reflected the great alterations that New Zealand has undergone in those 95 years.

Yesterday’s services saw the men and women of World War II and will continue to see many of them in future years. But their number is dwindling and thoughts thus turn to the Anzac Days of the future. …

Voices last week were raised, predicting a decline in turnout over the coming decades, but that is unlikely to eventuate. The respect for what our fighting men and women achieved and the honour they brought us is now deeply and uncontroversially embedded in the nation’s psyche.

The Press pages on New Zealand’s military history, which we printed in the lead-up to Anzac Day, are but one example of this. They were prized by readers, and schools have taken them in large numbers. A hunger exists for hearing again the old tales of valour and service.

The men and women who performed those deeds will not be forgotten and Anzac Day will live on in their honour.

While on TV, once again I found Maori TV did best.

The Dominion Post looks at Fiji’s proposed media restrictions:

The primary function of Fiji’s proposed new media regulator is “to encourage, promote and facilitate the development of media organisations and services”. It sounds reasonable.

There is just one problem. In order to perform its duties the Media Industry Development Authority is being given the power to fine and lock up journalists, editors and publishers, censor news reports, search premises, seize documents, and shut down news organisations.

Coating a dictator’s iron fist with a veneer of legality does not soften the blow.

The commodore is labouring under a misapprehension. The misapprehension is that he is the big man in the Pacific.

He is not. He is a tinpot dictator who has gained power at the point of a gun and is destroying his country’s economy and prospects and the institutions, already weakened by three previous coups, that underpin good government.

The news media is one of them. Journalists, editors and publishers will bear the immediate brunt of the latest restrictions, but the real losers are the Fijian people, who have already lost the right to learn what is happening because of “emergency” regulations put in place last year.

Free speech is a fundamental pillar of democracy. “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,” said Thomas Jefferson, the author of the American Declaration of Independence.

Another great Jefferson quote.

The Herald supports discounts for late consents:

The Government has now provided details of the stick intended to “incentivise prompt processing” of consents. If the process exceeds statutory timeframes, a council must apply a discount of 1 per cent per working day, up to a maximum of 50 per cent.

The initiative is highly welcome. Figures released by the Environment Minister, Nick Smith, illustrate how the problem has become progressively worse over the past decade.

During that period, late consents increased from 18 to 31 per cent, despite a ninefold increase from 3 to 28 per cent in consents where councils allowed themselves a 20-day extension. …

Before these regulations, councils had no incentive to process resource consents on time. Given that, it is probably unsurprising that almost a third of applications are being dealt with outside the statutory time limits.

Discounts may not deliver total satisfaction to ratepayers but, at the very least, they are a substantial step in the right direction.

I am confident the incentives to process on time will have an impact.

The Press talks volcanic gloom:

The nightmare the international aviation industry has feared for years has come to pass with the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull.

Iceland’s apparent isolation from the busiest air corridors in the world counted for little once upper-level winds conspired to blow the volcano’s massive plume of potentially damaging ash directly across much of the British Isles and on to parts of mainland Europe.

It seems preposterous for the whole world to be held to ransom by what, in geological terms, is a pipsqueak volcano.

The Dom Post looks at the UK election:

On May 6, they must decide if they want another five years under Labour, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, or to throw in their lot with his rivals, the Tories’ David Cameron or the Liberal Democrats’ Nick Clegg. Until last week, opinion polls showed the Conservatives at or about 38 per cent, Labour about 31 per cent and the Lib Dems on about 20 per cent. Things changed markedly, however, last Friday.

That was when party leaders engaged in the first of three live TV debates, a first in Britain. Opinion polls since show a remarkable shift. This week, a Populus poll for The Times, for example, showed Mr Clegg’s party had risen 10 points in a week to 31 per cent, Labour down five on 28 per cent, and the Tories down four on 32 per cent.

The latest daily YouGov poll has Conservative 34%, Lab 29%, Lib Dems 28%. This would give Labour the most seats.

Even if the Lib Dems do not do major damage to the Tories on May 6, Mr Cameron’s party reportedly needs a national swing greater than any modern leader has achieved, in order to win even a single-seat majority.

It will be tough for them to get a majority, rather than just a plurality.

The ODT fights for Dunedin Hospital:

The threats to Dunedin Hospital and consequently to Dunedin itself, the Dunedin School of Medicine and the people of the South keep recurring.

Dunedin regularly has to staff the ramparts and fight for its hospital’s advanced status and that battle might soon begin again. Neurosurgery services, so often threatened in the past, are under fire with proposals that all six South Island neurosurgeons be based in Christchurch. …

As Dunedin School of Medicine dean Dr John Adams said this month, the loss of neurology has the potential to affect the whole teaching environment.

The service deals with about 350 patients a year, including scheduled surgery and, most significantly, emergency treatment. In accident situations, for example, it is a very long way from Te Anau or Invercargill to Christchurch, even by helicopter, when half an hour can be crucial to survival.

Three editorials on the UN Declaration. First the Herald:

When the previous Labour Government was confronted with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, it quailed.

The potential political backlash, rather than the practical outcome of signing a non-binding document, was uppermost in its mind.

At its behest, New Zealand joined a group of only four UN members opposed to the declaration. It was a nonsensical state of affairs for a country whose record on indigenous rights is far superior to the vast majority of those who had signed up. …

If New Zealand does certain things differently to the ideal scenario alluded to by the declaration, that is of no great practical consequence. The focus should be on its record on indigenous relations, which places it in the international vanguard.

The work of the Waitangi Tribunal, which since 1975 has served as an effective sounding board for iwi to relate their stories of land loss, has been an integral part of that.

New Zealand has always spoken from a position of strength on matters of indigenous rights because it comes closer than most to meeting the aspirations espoused in the UN declaration.

Signing that document was, as Dr Sharples suggests, a small step but one that has symbolic value domestically and internationally.

There may, indeed, be no practical impact. That does not mean, however, that grasping this nettle was not worthwhile.

So Herald very supportive.

The Press:

The Maori Party chalked up another victory this week with the announcement that the Government will support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Although this decision is largely symbolic, support for the declaration had been a long-standing goal of the party and a source of friction between it and the previous Labour-led administration.

From a political perspective, support for the declaration makes sense for both the Maori Party and National. The Maori Party can add this to a growing list of policy concessions by National, including retaining the Maori seats and flying the Maori flag on Waitangi Day. In addition, the hated foreshore and seabed law will be repealed and the Maori Party’s flagship Whanau Ora policy will be introduced.

For National, these concessions have the effect of tying the Maori Party closer to it and creating the prospect that a support relationship between the two could endure past this term. In particular, it creates a point of difference with Labour, which justified its position as one of just four nations to oppose the declaration in 2007 by saying that it was at odds with New Zealand’s constitutional and legal framework. …

There is a risk that the declaration could be the basis of future attacks on this nation’s human rights record. But New Zealand governments have shown themselves capable of shrugging off previous criticism from bodies such as the UN Commission on Human Rights.

It might be argued, as Labour has done, that there was little point in endorsing the declaration if it would have no practical effect. It is, however, a symbol of New Zealand’s support for indigenous peoples across the globe.

And it was always incongruous that the vast majority of nations, many of which have appalling human rights records compared with New Zealand, voted for the bill, and that this nation did not.

Two in favour.

The Dom Post:

Recognising blah blah blah, affirming waffle waffle waffle. As a contribution to the human rights canon, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples leaves something to be desired.

It reads like a 48-page wish list assembled by a committee, which is exactly what it is – a committee which debated the merits of additional clauses, full stops and commas for 22 years. Drafting began in 1985, but the final wording was not approved by the United Nations General Assembly until 2007.

Heh sounds typical.

However, its drawn-out conception is not a reason to oppose it. Nor is its verbosity. The declaration is a flawed document – an assemblage of truisms and platitudes that imposes no obligations on signatories but contains fishhooks for nations that try to honour it.

It is actually to the last government’s credit that it declined to endorse a document it knew it could not implement. Amid the verbiage are a handful of articles that confer rights on indigenous peoples that are denied to other citizens. They include the right to veto government decisions and reclaim ownership of traditional lands – a right that, in New Zealand’s case, could be interpreted as covering the entire country.

New Zealand does not need to pay lip service to unworkable statements to demonstrate its good intent. …

However, there is value in restating the special status of Maori as New Zealand’s indigenous people, acknowledging the importance of Maori culture, affirming the Treaty of Waitangi’s place as New Zealand’s founding document and acknowledging the historic injustices suffered by Maori.

The negotiations between the Maori Party and National have enabled the Government to do so in a way which does not expose it to accusations of bad faith.

New Zealand’s declaration of support explicitly reaffirms the legal and constitutional frameworks that underpin the legal system and notes that those frameworks define the bounds of New Zealand’s engagement with the UN declaration. In other words, New Zealand law takes precedence over the declaration.

A momentous occasion as the Maori Party has suggested? Perhaps not, but a welcome opportunity to remove a source of friction between Maori and the Government and to put New Zealand back in the international mainstream. Of the four countries that initially opposed the declaration – New Zealand, the United States, Australia and Canada – only the US now stands outside the declaration. Australia changed its position last year and Canada has said it will do so.

Luke warm, but broadly supportive.

The ODT focuses on volcanic fallout:

If there is a lesson to be learned – again – from the billowing clouds of volcanic ash in the skies over Europe, it is the latent power of nature.

In 1783, the eruption of the volcano Laki in Iceland lasted for about eight months.

The effects of the layers of dust it threw into the atmosphere have been linked, among other things, to the failure of crops in France, and subsequent famine.

The fallout, Dr Stephen Edwards of the Department of Earth Sciences at University College London told the London Observer at the weekend, may have been one of a number of factors that led to the French Revolution. …

The interruption to normal service is costing the airline industry alone almost $NZ500 million a day, according to a conservative estimate by the International Air Transport Association.

The knock-on effects to a world economy just beginning to witness the signs of a fragile recovery from the recent recession, could be considerably amplified beyond the immediate consequences of cancelled flights.

The Herald chomps into the apple debate:

Apple-growers from China, the United States and Chile are queuing to sell their fruit in Australia.

They, especially, will be interested in New Zealand’s reported success in persuading the World Trade Organisation to overturn Australia’s long-running ban on the importing of apples from this country.

But they, too, are the reason Australia is bound to use every conceivable delaying tactic to deny the benefits of that verdict to New Zealand orchardists.

Protection of struggling Australian producers has become the only rationale for the ban in the latter years of its 90 years’ existence.

Hypocrisy for a nation which has championed free trade in agriculture.

In the process, however, Australia is besmirching its reputation as a promoter of free trade. At the moment, its trade practices are the subject of 10 complaints from other countries.

New Zealand has no such cases against it.

Yay.

The Press also takes up the cudgels on apples:

The reported World Trade Organisation decision which would allow New Zealand to export apples across the Tasman is not just a victory for our pipfruit industry. It is also a big win for New Zealand trade officials and for the cause of free trade itself. For Australia to have used spurious science to block for so long New Zealand apples was nonsensical and a complete contradiction of its otherwise strong free-trade credentials.

If Australia do not accept the ruling, once final, then NZ can apply for and get trade sanctions against Australia. That would be very damaging to the relationship, but may be necessary if Australia refuses to comply with the rules it signed up to.

The Dominion Post focuses on the Waihopai Three:

Father Murnane believes it unlikely that the Government will pursue a lawsuit against them because, he says, they don’t have much money and civil action would cost taxpayers too much.

He is right that yet more court proceedings would not be cheap. But sometimes protesters need to accept that principles can come at a cost.

Messrs Murnane, Leason and Land would surely be prepared to pay that price? If principles are worth standing up for – and they almost always are – those who hold them dear must be willing to go down to the wire to uphold them. If that means having an attachment order assigned to their income, or a lien placed against their property, to meet the cost of paying for damage to public property, so be it. And if the jury verdict was as popular as the triumvirate believes, their supporters will obviously be willing to help fund any damages awarded against them.

The solicitor-general should proceed. Taxpayers should not have to stump up the cash to fund this pointless protest.

The news their claimed poverty didn’t include half a million dollars of land, does make a civil case more appealing.

The ODT looks at competitive education

Comparisons can help human beings, a competitive species, strive to do better – whether in NCEA pass rates or scholarship numbers or in provincial education correlations.

They give schools and communities the chance for pride, often well earned, or for motivation to do better next time.

Sometimes, too, they provide opportunities for finding reasons, often valid, why performances are down the scale. Even if bald results taken at face value can be misleading, they are a part of the information mix.

Except for those who want to ban them.

The Herald warms up on nukes:

Who would have thought even a few short years ago that the New Zealand Prime Minister would be on the guest list for the nuclear security summit hosted by the President of the United States in Washington? John Key’s presence offers further evidence that the anti-nuclear rift of the 1980s is all but mended. It may be too soon for a resumption of visits to New Zealand ports by American warships, but there is an undoubted resonance between this country’s anti-nuclear law and President Barack Obama’s long-time commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons.

Indeed. And while I doubt we will ever rid the world of nuclear weapons, I will be glad to see a lot less of them.

A constant grievance of non-nuclear nations has been that, while the non-proliferation treaty denied them the right to acquire nuclear arms, those countries with such weaponry seemed to regard its retention as their right. The importance of President Obama’s initiatives, and those of Russia, is that they illustrate a change of attitude by the pair, which possess more than 90 per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons between them. Their move towards disarmament provides, in turn, a greater moral authority to address examples of proliferation, real and potential, whether the likes of Iran’s nuclear programme or nuclear weaponry becoming part of the arsenal of terrorists.

In this area, I think Obama’s policies have been sound, It is hard to preach restraint to the rest of the world, while not doing anything to reduce your own arsenal.

President Obama said last week that nuclear terrorism posed a graver threat than the risk of war between nuclear nations. He is undoubtedly right, and the crafting of a pact to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of groups like al Qaeda will be a focus in Washington.

Stopping Iran from developing them would be a good start to that.

The Press also talks nuclear, but ore on ships:

Passage of the nuclear-free legislation in 1987 marked New Zealand as a nation prepared to take an independent stance on the world stage.

This stand did win friends, especially in Europe, but it also came at a cost. It led to a defence freeze with the United States, including an end to US navy ship visits. But with Prime Minister John Key now attending a nuclear summit in Washington, it is inevitable that a resumption of visits should be mooted, in this case by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, an architect of the nuclear-free law.

Renewed visits by US navy vessels would be a logical step in the thawing of the defence freeze with our former ally and would not require a change to the present anti-nuclear law.

Yep. No law change needed. Of course the Greens will still protest it, but they protest almost everything about the US.

It is possible that the nuclear propulsion issue will be revisited in the future. But this is likely to be in the context of nuclear power generation, especially if other electricity sources, such as hydro and wind turbines, continue to be beset by opposition to their location, and the security of power supply is seriously threatened.

Actually nuclear power is not particularly practical for New Zealand, but I agree it should be an option. Much better than coal!

The Dominion Post focuses on Justice Wilson:

Justice,” a former lord chief justice of England said, “should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.”

Manifestly that has not been the case in the long-running, and convoluted, dispute between the former Wool Board and a group of woolgrowers that found its way to the Court of Appeal in 2007.

One of the judges who considered the case, Bill Wilson, was a close friend and business partner of Wool Board counsel Alan Galbraith, QC. Justice Wilson disclosed their shared ownership of a racehorse or racehorses to counsel for the woolgrowers and, if his recollections are accurate, their shared ownership of a horse stud. But for reasons that are now presumably costing him a great deal of sleep, he did not disclose that he owed Mr Galbraith almost $250,000. Nor did he disclose the debt to colleagues in the Supreme Court when they considered an appeal from the growers in March last year. In fact, he led the court to believe he was not beholden to Mr Galbraith in any way. …

Justice Wilson is a well-liked and well-regarded legal practitioner who has added a dose of common sense to the bench. However, in this instance his judgment has failed him completely.

By neglecting to fully inform the growers’ counsel of his links with Mr Galbraith, he has not only damaged his own reputation, but that of the highest court in the land.

The operation of the justice system relies upon public confidence in those who administer it. New Zealand is a small country. Inevitably, there will be friendships between judges and lawyers, and lawyers and lawyers. The public knows that lawyers who one day are verbally brawling in court may the next be arguing in support of each other and that, on other occasions, they may be observed enjoying each other’s company in social settings.

That is reasonable. Members of the legal profession are not expected to carry professional enmities over to private life and judges are not expected to sever all personal ties on being elevated to the bench. However, for public trust in the system to be maintained, all conflicts and potential conflicts of interest have to be properly disclosed.

And that lack of disclosure, especially to his Supreme Court colleagues, may extract a heavy price.

But such processes take time. In the meantime, the reputation of the judiciary is being compromised.

At the very least Justice Wilson should have stepped aside from his duties, when the case was referred to the judicial commissioner. When he did not do so, Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias should have stood him down.

I disagree. A mere investigation by the JCC should not require a Judge to stand down. However if the JCC recommends a complaints panel be established, then a stand down would be appropriate.

And the ODT also talks nuclear:

A year ago, President Obama announced his plans for a world without nuclear weapons, expressing a hope rather than any rational expectation, but nevertheless a plea for disarmament that was widely welcomed.

This week he signed the “New Start” treaty with Russia, under which both powers will reduce their nuclear arsenals, while still deploying 1550 warheads each. …

Perhaps the true significance of these measures is to compare the situation with that which existed before 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed: at that time each side deployed more than 20,000 strategic warheads.

I remember those days well. At school we saw films about nuclear war, and around half of my generation though a global nuclear war was likely in our life time.

The collapse of the Soviet Empire was a wonderful thing.

The Herald welcomes the legal aid changes:

Criminal defence lawyers have escaped remarkably unscathed by the damning report they received from a ministerial inquiry into legal aid last year. Decisions announced by the Justice Minister, Simon Power, this week will impose requirements on publicly financed lawyers that are no more than reasonable and long overdue. …

It will be interesting to see how well a full-fledged Public Defender Service competes with the car-boot brigade. Mr Power has been advised that the costs of setting up the service can be recovered in lower operating costs. It is hard to believe lawyers working in public service conditions can match the efficiencies of those who work with low overheads and greater mobility, but we may see.

The difference may be in the remuneration lawyers at the PDS get, compared to the income a car boot lawyer can make from legal aid.

The Press is concerned over the proposed Fijian media controls:

The freedom of the media clearly remains a totally alien and undesirable concept for Fiji’s self-appointed leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama. …

The decree, to be enforced by a media authority appointed by the regime, would provide for fines of NZ$344,000 for news organisations that failed to comply with it.

Individual journalists whose work was deemed to be critical of Bainimarama’s regime would face fines of up to NZ$69,000, which would be crippling in Fiji, and a possible five-year prison term. To ensure the authorities knew who had written a story, it would also be an offence not to identify the journalist concerned.

And

The regime claims its decree is intended to encourage responsible journalism, but nothing could be further from the truth. Rather, it aims to ensure the news media cannot perform its democratic role of holding Bainimarama’s unsavoury government to account and promoting free and frank debate on issues of public interest.

Absolutely. I want to believe that the Commodore has a plan to put in place a non race based constitution, and return to democratic elections in 2014. But his actions point towards an ongoing dictatorship.

The Dom Post focuses on the Princess Ashika ferry tragedy:

The report of the Tongan royal commission of inquiry into the sinking of the ferry Princess Ashika has laid bare a system of government as riddled with flaws as the ship was with rust – and just as dangerous. …

However, it is up to the king to deal with the systemic ones that allowed people such as Lord Dalgety QC (the title is Tongan), now resigned transport minister Paul Karalus and Prime Minister Feleti Sevele into pivotal roles in his kingdom. The report notes that Lord Dalgety, the Shipping Corporation of Polynesia company secretary, “clearly lacks integrity and honesty, even when giving evidence before a royal commission” and that “he was not a fit and proper person to be a company secretary of any company in Tonga”.

I have some friends who have lived in Tonga. They alerted me to the vileness of Lord Dalgety some time ago, and what I have seen of him on television reinforces their view that he is a deeply corrupt and racist individual. His arrest was a very good thing. While I don’t condone Wikipedia vandalism, I did have to laugh at the edit done to his Wikipedia profile which said:

On February 26 Lord Dalgety, the Secretary of the Shipping Corporation of Polynesia Ltd, gained an entry in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s lowest form of life

Back to the editorial:

What must not be forgotten in all this is that 74 people drowned. No women or children survived. The impact in a country the size of Tonga is, as commentator Josephine Latu has pointed out, the equivalent of 3200 New Zealanders dying. The Princess Ashika tragedy was a scandal that cannot be repeated.

Absolutely. And may the tragedy bring about some democratic reform.

The ODT talks foreshore & seabed:

Just let us pause for a moment: if the legal status of the foreshore and seabed is to be “public domain”, then who owns it, and therefore can claim the rights and benefits of ownership?

Will Maori?

Will Mr and Mrs Joe Bloggs?

Will the Crown – the obvious choice?

On the basis of the options paper published by the Government last week, in which “public domain” is the Government’s preferred choice, the issue of ownership most likely will be determined in the long term by the courts, piece by piece, over time.

Well yes courts do determine rights. The ODT editorial writer (whom I suspect is the former Labour Government Press Secretary) presumably prefers the status quo where the right to test your rights in court was extinguished.