Elle Hunt writes at The Wireless on the Immigration NZ decision to not allow Odd Future into NZ:

There are two perceived issues at play here: firstly, the band’s violent and explicit lyrics, and secondly, their posing a “potential threat to public order”. Though the band’s appearance at the Big Day Out in 2012 was cancelled after protests about the former, they were permitted to enter the country (and perform a solo show). This time, they weren’t – on character concerns, informed by incidents at past performances in which they’ve incited violence.

Yesterday afternoon, Immigration New Zealand confirmed that six group members had their visas revoked, not because of their lyrics, but because they posed a “potential threat to public order and the public interest”.

I think this is a key distinction. I am against anyone being banned because of their language or lyrics. But direct incitement to violence is a different issue.

The authority’s decision to bar Odd Future was informed by an incident in Boston in 2011, when an autograph signing by Odd Future’s Tyler, the Creator, was cancelled at last minute, resulting in a “riot” in which some witnesses claimedgroup members incited fans to attack police officers. (Whether or not that’s true, matters weren’t helped by Tyler’s subsequent tweet “F… POLICE F… YOU ALL I HOPE YOU DIE”.)

Indeed. And the fact that some of their supporters seem like minded doesn’t help, as the Herald reports:

The organiser of a group which campaigned against a visit to New Zealand by hip-hop group Odd Future says she has fielded death and rape threats after some of its members were refused entry to the country.

The Los Angeles collective was meant to be playing at the Rapture hip-hop festival in Auckland tonight but was refused entry after being determined by Immigration New Zealand as a threat to public order.

Immigration NZ’s decision came days after anti-sexual violence group Stop Demand emailed Auckland councillors, criticising the decision to allow the group to perform at the Western Springs event. The email quoted several lyrics from Odd Future which referred to rape.

Stop Demand founder Denise Ritchie said the organisation had been inundated with hate mail since the decision was made public.

“Our Facebook page, I was told by a volunteer of our organisation not to go into it because it was too vile … It included a rape threat against me, a death threat and a threat to burn my house down.”

Hunt continues:

Odd Future’s lyrics are, to the vast majority ofmen on the Clapham omnibus, completely unpalatable in their sometimes deadpan, sometimes gleeful depiction of violence, in particular sexual violence against women – and, while no member has been charged with or convicted of such crimes, it’s hard to entirely dismiss their words as shock value or ironic posturing, even if that would make them acceptable.

Ringleader Tyler, the Creator is the kind of person who thinks it’s acceptable (or, more likely, funny) to respond to Canadian indie duo Tegan and Sara’s “Call for Change” against the music industry’s enabling of Odd Future and others’ misogyny with the tweet, “If Tegan And Sara Need Some Hard Dick, Hit Me Up!”; the kind of person who abused a 23-year-old student who petitioned against the band’s Sydney show last year, and invited his 1.7 million Twitter followers to do the same.

And Radio NZ interviewed the student who was targeted. It was appalling what he directed towards her.

However having said all that, I don’t think the ban was the right call. I’d have them perform in NZ for those who want to listen to them, but if they say or do anything that does break the law, then you charge them with the appropriate crime.

The Herald reports:

Mr Finlayson and Justice Minister Judith Collins were among several ministers to receive Official Information Act requests from the Labour Party about whether they had a dress code, or had issued dress instructions to their staff.

It is understood Attorney General Chris Finlayson’s office was a target of the OIA after speculation he had banned ‘casual Friday.’ It is well known he frowned upon casual Fridays in his previous life as a lawyer. A spokesman for Mr Finlayson confirmed they did not have an official casual Friday but denied Mr Finlayson had banned it, saying it had never been discussed. He said there was no dress code.

“There is no dress code, but it is a professional environment. Certain clothing choices would be discouraged, such as bare feet or ‘Annette King for Rongotai’ t-shirts.” He pointed out having a casual Friday would technically be a dress code.

“That would be a stipluation of something you wear at work.”

In her reply to Labour, Ms Collins said she did not have a dress code and the request was clearly a “cry for help” from Labour for dress tips.

“You have now sent me two requests for this information which have been processed and answered. Most taxpayers would consider this a gross waste of taxpayer funds. I, however, am willing to believe your repeated request reflects a genuine cry for help and is recognition of the collective good dress sense shown in this office.”

Knowing some of the staff in that office, I can testify that they do have an excellent collective dress sense. Paula Bennett’s office and Amy Adams’ office also score very highly 🙂

A spokesman for Labour said the request was sent to several ministerial offices because it had been told some staff were spoken to about their clothing. “We were looking into some issues concerning staff treatment in ministerial offices and wanted to see if it was isolated or reasonably wide spread.”

I encourage Labour to keep focusing on the big issues!

Stuff reports:

Rio Tinto will not reimburse the $30 million Government subsidy it received to keep Tiwai Point open, in spite of posting a $3.7 billion 2013 profit.

Opposition parties have slammed the payment as “corporate welfare at its worst” in light of the profit announced today.

However, Prime Minister John Key said the payment had been necessary to save hundreds of jobs.

The Government announced in August last year it would pay $30m to the New Zealand subsidiary of corporate giant Rio Tinto to persuade it not to close the Tiwai Pt Aluminium smelter. In return, the company gave the Government a commitment to keep the smelter until January 2017.

Rio Tinto yesterday surprised investors with a better-than-expected profit and dividend in its full-year results presentation.

The diversified miner announced a dividend of US$1.92 (NZ$2.30) after reporting underlying earnings of US$10.2b for 2013.

First of all let me say I opposed the subsidy to Rio Tinto to keep Tiwai Point open. I don’t think the Government should have paid it. I think Rio Tinto bluffed them. So I am not in any way defending the Government’s decision.

But the suggestion that because Rio Tinto globally made a huge profit, means that the subsidy was not needed is erroneous and a red herring. What matters is whether Tiwai Point is profitable, not the rest of the company. If you own ten stores and nine of them are highly profitable and one makes a big loss, then you will close the loss making store unless you can make it profitable.

Now as I said I disagreed with the decision to pay the subsidy, but I understand the reason the Government did it. They did not want to risk that Tiwai point would close, and 800 jobs or so would be lost. Ironically Labour keeps insisting that National is a hands off Government that doesn’t intervene to protect jobs. Yet when they do, they complain.

Fairfax have their latest poll done last weekend.

It has National 17% ahead of Labour and 7% ahead of Labour/Greens combined. Those saying NZ is heading in the right direction are 64% compared to 36% wrong track.

Very pleasing is that 67% are opposed to raising taxes to fund new initiatives, with only 27% in favour. Parties should be offering tax cuts, as NZ heads back into surplus, not tax increases.

Labour have dropped 2% in this poll and under Cunliffe not making more of an impact than David Shearer did. This poll result comes out in the same week when one Labour MP showed his colleagues how to run an issue well, and get most of NZ onside – as Shane Jones did with Countdown. More than a few of his colleagues will be wondering if the party made the wrong choice.

Chris Finlayson announced:

All Ngāpuhi members will be entitled to vote in elections for representatives to the independent mandated authority that will negotiate the iwi’s historical Treaty settlement with the Crown, Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Christopher Finlayson and Minister of Māori Affairs Dr Pita Sharples announced today.

The Ministers today said they have recognized the mandate of Tūhoronuku to negotiate as an independent mandated authority for the settlement of the claims of the country’s largest iwi, Ngāpuhi. Tūhoronuku will become a separate legal entity from Te Rūnanga a Iwi o Ngāpuhi, and new elections will be held for its governance board.

This is a very significant step forward. Ngāpuhi are the last of major Iwi to settle, and it has been a hugely complex and lengthy process to get a mandate recognised.

“Ngāpuhi has been going through a lengthy and robust mandating process since 2009, the longest and largest in the settlement process to date,” Mr Finlayson said. “Around 60 hui were held, including 20 hui in the lead up to the formal mandate ballot in August and September of 2011 throughout NZ and in Australia. 76% of those who participated in the ballot were strongly in favour of granting a mandate to negotiate to Tūhoronuku.”

There are a minority opposed to the proposed structure for negotiations, but a 76% vote in favour is clearly a mandate.

What this mandate recognition means is that the actual negotiations can now start, and hopefully we’ll get a settlement in the next couple of years. This makes it very possible that by say end of 2016, all the major historical claims will be settled. That will hopefully focus attention on whether one needs to retain the Waitangi Tribunal going forward – or should so called contemporary claims just be dealt with through the court system?

Anyway congratulations to the very hard working Ngāpuhi negotiators for finally achieving recognition of their mandate.

Stuff reports:

Outgoing Federated Farmers chief executive Conor English has not ruled out standing for the Clutha-Southland electorate seat, currently occupied by his brother Bill, in this year’s general election.

Conor English announced his resignation from the nationwide organisation, effective from July 23, last week, stating there were “many opportunities” he would like to pursue.

There has been speculation these opportunities might include putting his name forward for Clutha-Southland, to be vacated by his brother, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English.

Yesterday, Conor English said the chances of him standing for the seat were very low, but, when asked if he would consider putting his name forward, he would not rule it out.

Off memory Conor sought the nomination for Awarua in 1993, but was beaten by Eric Roy. If he had won it, then Bill and Conor would have been neighbouring MPs. Conor also worked in the Beehive in the 1990s for John Luxton.

It will be interesting to see who seeks the nomination. It is basically a seat for life, so I hope a lot of talented people contest the selection.

I went along to The 7 person chair pyramid high wire act at Puppies Bar on Tory Street on Wednesday Night. The blurb is:

In the wilds of Siberia, Charles Darwin goes off in search of the Yeti. The Yeti (if she exists) enters a radio station’s dance contest, hoping to win an all-expenses-paid vacation to a place that doesn’t exist yet. Darwin’s research companion—a little brown bat—falls in love with the radio station’s electromagnetic emissions—but how could that ever end happily? Meanwhile, Siberia’s caves are home to a secretive tribe of ropemakers—but their disintegrating family structure may cause their ancient craft to be lost forever. Through the lens of the real life allegory of the Flying Wallendas’ famous high-wire act, two performers on a tiny stage unfold Darwin’s laboratory, unfurl anatomic diagrams of the yeti, and try to tease out the difference between miracles and non-miracles.

The fringe festival show was at Puppies Bar, which is a very small and intimate bar on the corner of Tory and Vivian Street. Quite nice to be able to watch it from comfortable couches.

The show is performed from a sort of Punch and Judy style box. Both the actor and actress are clad in wonderfully garish lycra, which makes her claim to be the electromagnetic spectrum quite plausible.

The show was amusing and ridiculous in equal parts. I enjoyed it, but the overall message it was trying to send was somewhat laboured and it never really got me engaged.  It was a bit too abstract for me, but will appeal to those who are into more symbolic productions. The acting was good, and both leads had a quirky charisma about them. I enjoyed the ending about the The Flying Wallendas, but overall wasn’t quite my cup of tea.

Andrew Little has proclaimed:

The Easy-Vote card which has been used in the last couple of elections should be reinstated says Labour’s  Justice spokesperson Andrew Little .

This is a lie. The implication is that the card has been removed. The Easy-Vote card will be used in the 2014 election in the same way as it was in 2011.

The Electoral Amendment Bill which had its second reading today removed clauses in the original Bill that would have seen the use of the Easy-Vote card confirmed for all future general elections.

No, this is deceptive. The Electoral Commission proposed *extending* the use of the card so that one would not need to check a name off the electoral roll at the time of voting, if they had a card. The Justice and Electoral Select Committee *unanimously* declined to do this as it would have meant that scrutineers would have no chance to effectively object to a vote card being issued, as they would not know who the voter is purporting to be.

The key thing is these changes do not in any way remove the Easy Vote card and they were unanimously agreed to by the Select Committee – which includes several Labour MPs on it. There was no minority report.

Andrew Little is outright lying when he says he wants the card reinstated. He knows it has not been removed. It will be used in the 2014 election in the same way as in 2011. It is a very useful device as it gives the returning officer the page and line number of the voter so they can be quickly located on the electoral roll.

Darien Fenton wrote in the HoS about her addiction to heroin in the 1970s. Good on her for talking openly about her experience and struggle. It can be painful talking about areas of our past where we have struggled with things, but I think it is good when people do so, as it sends a signal to others in the same position that can can get better.

Stuff reports:

A tax on sugary drinks could save lives and reduce New Zealand’s obesity burden, new research shows.

Research published today in the New Zealand Medical Journal shows a 20 per cent tax on sugary soft drinks would prevent 67 deaths from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and diet-related cancers per year.

Its author, Professor Tony Blakely, of the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, said a tax on sugary drinks would be a simple and smart move to fight obesity and related illnesses.

“If you’re thinking of one tax or subsidy on food, then this is [it],” Blakely said.

No it isn’t. The fax tax introduced in Denmark was a disaster and was scrapped.

3 News reports:

Should fizzy drinks be banned? And should there be a fizzy drink tax? Next week a conference of public health specialists in Auckland will meet to discuss these questions.

They claim it will save lives, curb obesity, diabetes, risk of stroke, cancers, and several other health issues.

The American Heart Association say that the upper limit of sugar we should get each day is three teaspoons for children, six for women and nine for men, but New Zealand data suggests we get three times that amount, ingesting 30 teaspoons a day.

Public health specialist Simon Thornley recently took a visit to Rangitoto College to see what was on the menu at the school canteen these days.

To Mr Thornley, this love affair with sugar is a full blown addiction, complete with binges, requiring increasing doses for satisfaction and finally withdrawal when we kick the habit.

He wants a sugar tax and restrictions on sale, just like tobacco, starting with a ban on sugary drinks and food in schools.

There is no end to the ambitions of these campaigners. It starts with tobacco, then it’s alcohol, then it is fast food, then it is soft drinks then it is probably chocolate – they want it taxed, restricted, not advertised and then banned. They do not think we should be allowed to make choices.

There is nothing wrong with having a coke, occassionally. Personally I almost exclusively drink the diet or zero versions because of the calories in the full versions – but that is my choice. Almost every food and drink has some calories in it. Apple juice does. No food is universally good or bad. It is all about frequency and portion size. Taxes and bans punish everyone.

Stuff reports:

Hollywood mogul James Cameron is keeping silent on whether he will keep up a tradition of letting the public have access to a “very special” lake he owns.

Keeping silent! Is he refusing to answer? Has he denied a request?

He called on Cameron to allow anyone to enjoy the lake. “James Cameron . . . has a very strong environmental ethic and we need to experience these special places to have a better relationship with that natural world.”

He had not contacted him directly, because his main interest had been whether Cameron was under any legal access obligation, but he was now considering doing so.

What a non story. Ask Cameron if you can have access, and then maybe it’s a story if he says no (which is his right). But a story based on someone wondering aloud over whether or not he would say no is silly.

I tweeted last night:

Isn’t it nice that Winston Peters has finally found an immigrant he wants to help stay in New Zealand!

It seemed to strike a chord with 32 retweets and 36 favourites. And that’s because it is all very curious. Peters was basically condemning the Government for letting Dotcom into New Zealand in the first place. He then met Dotcom at his mansion, and came away a defender of Dotcom. Winston – the great defender of immigrants’ rights.

Also of interest are the two dates that Russel Norman flew (at taxpayer expense, like Winston) to meet Dotcom. Again, how interesting that they go to him, almost like supplicants. He met Dotcom on the 1st and 29th of November 2013.

On the very same day he met him on the 1st, he attacked the Police on Radio NZ over Dotcom’s case. Shouldn’t the leader of a party that believes in transparency have revealed “Oh by the way I just met with my buddy Kim this morning, and tried to persuade him not to set up his own political party, and instead endorse the Greens”.

And then again on the 29th, when he again met Dotcom, he was again in the media talking about his case – again with no mention of his meetings, and attempt to get Dotcom to endorse the Greens instead of set up his own party.

Of course we now know that the plan Dotcom came up with is to set up his political party, spend up massively and then at the last minute self-destruct the party and endorse parties he approves of. Now Parliament has laws restricting how much a political party can spend during the regulated period. Wouldn’t it be a nice way to get around that pesky law by having a second political party able to spend a couple of million dollars running your attack lines, and then pulling out and endorsing you. I’m sure that isn’t the intent, but it could well be the outcome – and the sort of outcome the Greens would condemn with their most lofty rhetoric if it involved other parties.

Vernon Small writes on the issue:

But Norman went badly wrong by confirming in public that in government he would push for Dotcom’s extradition to be overturned.

On the political level it threw the door open to accusations of secret trade-offs – despite Norman’s denials. 

For a party that has made hay over ‘‘private’’ meetings and implied conflicts of interest between National ministers and corporate interests, it was a naive own-goal. Deny it all he likes, he has loaded a gun for National to fire at him every time he mutters ‘‘SkyCity convention centre dirty deal’’. 

But he also erred badly in apparently pre-judging the outcome of the ministerial consideration that must follow the court’s extradition ruling – especially if he is serious about being a senior minister or potentially the deputy prime minister in the next government.

Norman says the extradition is a two stage process – the court case and then the justice minister’s final call. 

But ministerial discretion to over-ride an extradition order should be something other than a purely political act and must be seen to be divorced from party political interests. 

To avoid bringing the process into disrepute, and to keep faith with partner countries, it has to be grounded – and the law contains specific grounds for rejecting extradition. Some are obvious, such as an assurance that the country seeking the extradition order will not execute an extradited New Zealander.

The minister’s decision should be exercised in light of all the facts at the time. Some of those may be illuminated by the court. None ought to be assumed months in advance.

Small points out that Norman has now accepted he can not be involved in any decision making around the case if he is a Minister. I suspect no Green MP could be.

I yesterday blogged on MPs who had met Dotcom and asked questions about his case. Trevor Mallard was one of those. I’m told his meeting was around 30 seconds in the gallery of Parliament, so fair to say that doesn’t count as a real meeting. Also fair to say that Trevor doesn’t need anyone to encourage him to ask parliamentary questions – he asks thousands.

Winston however is a much more curious case He flipped 180 degrees from wanting Dotcom never allowed into New Zealand, to championing his cause. Is it merely a mutual enemy, or something more? Could Dotcom endorse NZ First as well as Labour and the Greens at the election after he spends two million dollars on a fictitious party, which gets him around third party spending limits?

UPDATE: A good ODT editorial:

There are suspicions of a link between the number of questions being asked around Mr Dotcom and the conclusion the Opposition is seeking political favours from the man who has promised to start the Internet Party – but then added that he would not run in the election if the polling is less than the 5% MMP threshold (followed up by stating the party would be a contender in the election).

Parliamentary records show Labour MP Trevor Mallard has asked 132 questions regarding Mr Dotcom, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters 82, Labour MP David Shearer 36, deputy Labour leader Grant Robertson 17 and Green co-leader Russel Norman 13.

Actually Grant is no longer Deputy Labour Leader.

And it emerged that Dr Norman has suffered what is commonly called a ”brain fade” about his visits with Mr Dotcom. He cannot remember if he phoned Mr Dotcom first, or if it was the other way around, when setting up a meeting to ask Mr Dotcom not to

launch the Internet Party because it would take voters away from the Greens target.

Dr Norman, who has often attacked Prime Minister John Key about his apparent lack of recall on meetings with senior government officials, dismissed a regulation question of who contacted whom as of no material value.

Dr Norman, when pushed in an interview, also indicated he would be prepared to overturn any extradition ruling that ordered Mr Dotcom back to face charges of internet piracy in the United States if he was in a position to do so.

Given that admission, and the fact the visits to Mr Dotcom appear an attempt to stop him from launching the Internet Party, Dr Norman has effectively ruled out any hope the Green MP could have at becoming associated with the justice portfolio in a Labour-led government.

That is a good thing!

Dr Norman and Messrs Peters, Mallard, Robertson and Shearer need to make public statements declaring whether they have met Mr Dotcom and, if they have, in what capacity.

If they are offering political deals, then their outrage at Mr Key saying who he is prepared to work with after the election later this year can be seen in its true light.

If taxpayer-funded transport was used to travel to the mansion, that information should also be released.

As I said above, Trevor Mallard has clarified it was a 30 second meeting at Parliament.

Stuff reports:

Auckland-based marketeer Image Marketing Group has been fined a record $120,000 after it admitted sending spam emails and text messages in 2009 and 2010.

The Department of Internal Affairs, which took action against the two-person company after receiving 500 complaints, said the fine approved by the High Court in Auckland was the largest imposed under the Unsolicited Electronic Communications Act, which came into force in 2007.

IMG sent more than 500,000 emails and 45,000 texts in 2009, admitting some were spam. They invited people to buy its database products and mobile phone antennas.

Justice Mary Peters said IMG sent more spam emails in 2010, but the volumes were not known.

Internal Affairs dropped its action against IMG’s sole director, Brendan Battles, as part of the court-approved negotiated settlement.

Battles is a recidivist spammer. Great to see such a large fine. Hopefully he now desist.

Stuff reports:

Work to earthquake strengthen Wellington Town Hall has been halted in the face of a $17 million budget blowout.

Investigations into the 110-year-old building’s foundations have resulted in the cost soaring from $43.7m to somewhere in the region of $60m – prompting one councillor to suggest abandoning it in favour of a new building.

The extent of additional foundation work required was unearthed after staff were moved out and the town hall closed in November for the three-year strengthening programme. Work was halted after just three months as the council tried to figure out what to do about the additional costs of up to $17m. The delay is likely to push back the completion date of the project.

It was a marginal call at $43 million and a wasteful one at $60 million. And I suspect the costs would keep escalating.

To put this into perspective, there are 68,901 households in Wellington, so the Council is forcing each ratepayer to pay $871 (and growing) to strengthen the building. That’s a huge amount of money.

This native bird again, needs no introduction.  It’s the only mainland native pigeon species we have in NZ (the Chatham Islands has a related species).    One of the important roles it plays in native forests is seed dispersal.  Which does make the gradual decline of many populations of kereru a concern.

The basic challenge to photographing this bird in the wild is that it likes being up in the tree canopies.  This means it’s very easy to get photographs of the birds backside, but being on the same level is correspondingly harder.  It also means you’re typically shooting in low light conditions.  That means a slow shutter speed with a big telephoto.

So these shot has been a while in the making.  The kereru is feeding on a cabbage tree and I’ve got a vantage point that is both at the same level, and close to the bird.  No need to do any aggressive cropping of the shot.

click for larger, higher res image

Hope everybody enjoys the end of their week.  I’m going to be on a high-volume espresso diet I think, to make it to the end of the day…

Stuff reports:

The Military Women in the New Zealand Defence Force report said one in 10 women (10.4 per cent) reported they had been harassed, down from 19 per cent four years ago.

“However, women in all services also report higher rates of bullying than men (13.4 per cent v 6.6 per cent), and there has been no improvement over the past six years.”

It’s good the harassment rate has halved, but still of course too high.

Labour defence spokesman Phil Goff said the report confirmed women were “going backwards” in the NZDF

Sigh! A halving of the harrassment rate from what it was when Labour was Government is described by Labour as going backwards.

Of course the opposition should criticise and scrutinise, but there is such a pattern of factual inaccuracy that they just continue to lose credibility.

I’m enjoying the belief some have expressed that because John Key repeats something (that Winston had visited the Dotcom mansion three times) five days after the Herald printed it, that he must have found this out via the GCSB.

That is completely and totally rubbish.

He got told by Barack Obama over golf, and Obama found out from the NSA satellite permanently focused on following Kim Dotcom about.

That is far far more likely that the possibility that the Prime Minister actually reads the NZ Herald!

Sunday was the final day. The day started off cloudy with a few showers but the jackets didn’t stay on for long.

A lot of walking through scrub for the first few kms. As my leg was somewhat grazed, this resulted in a small amount of pain as you get through the scrub.

The path varies from a well formed track to open plains.

Then the sun came out and we got a rainbow which followed us along for a couple of hours.

With the sun out, lots of nice walking over the plains.

Ruapehu looming in the background.

Then a quick detour to the lower Tama lake. A lot of people do a day walk in, just to see the lake.

Slightly more hilly towards the end, but nothing difficult.

Another quick detour to see the Taranaki Falls. At this stage less than an hour to go.

A view from the top of the falls.

A rabbit that was crossed our path.

The final km or so was a nice bush walk.

And around 15 kms later, we’re out. We had quite a good pace for the final day, and took only around three and a half hours. Lunch at the Chateau Tongariro Cafe followed, and then a long drive home. As we got stuck in traffic for around 90 minutes at Otaki and Waikanae, I cursed all those opposing the Northern Corridor expansion.

A very enjoyable four day tramp. Very different to the Heaphy. Only around half as long, but much more rugged and hilly. The volcanic plateaus are quite spectacular, and it is was a great way to spend the long Waitangi weekend.

The plan is to pop back next summer and try to do some or all of the other peaks.

The controversial new safety video from Air New Zealand. I predict around 60% of passengers will pay close attention to the safety video!

The Herald editorial:

The Salvation Army has earned high credibility in social work for the practical, non-political way that it goes about its mission. It deserves the same credit for social research on the strength of its annual state of the nation report. The latest, featured in the Herald yesterday, offers a more balanced snapshot of our society than we get from research that sets out to find something going wrong.

The Sallies’ report suggests a great deal is going right. Educational disparities are narrowing. Gaps between passing rates from rich and poor schools, and Maori and non-Maori, are not as wide as they used to be. A higher proportion of Maori and Pacific children are enrolled in pre-school education. More school leavers are working or getting a qualification.

Fewer teenage girls are getting pregnant. While the number giving birth has been falling for many years, more recently the number having abortions has been falling too.

That is good news, as is the decline in infant mortality, especially for Maori. We were even drinking and gambling a little less.

Employment is increasing, not only among the young (up 9.4 per cent for those aged 15-24 last year), but the proportion of the over-65 population who are working has leaped from 15 per cent to 21 per cent in the past five years. That means more than a fifth of national superannuitants with super gold cards have not retired. Most of them will be in the 65-70 age bracket and could support themselves if the qualifying age for superannuation was raised.

All but a few hard core opponents have to concede that overall most things are heading in the right direction. And yes of course the age of eligibility should increase.

Incomes rose 2.6 per cent on average last year while the cost of living rose 1.6 per cent. Employees, with an average rise of 3.1 per cent, did better than the self-employed. 

All good.

The report shows that affording a house in Auckland and Christchurch has become even harder than it was at the height of the last boom. The median Auckland house price now exceeds 10 years of the average gross weekly wage. Household debt is rising again as economic growth gathers pace. The average household owes $121,200, giving a ratio of debt to earnings not quite as bad as five years ago but still nearly 150 per cent of the average household’s annual income.

Housing costs and some other adverse trends leave plenty of problems for social policy but it is important to acknowledge progress too.

Yep, overall a pretty fair and balanced report.

Stuff reports:

Countdown faces a mounting consumer backlash after Labour MP Shane Jones accused the supermarket company of using ‘‘Mafioso’’ tactics demanding cash payments from Kiwi suppliers.

For the second time in as many days the Australian-owned company issued a statement defending its actions, yesterday ‘‘categorically’’ rejecting Jones’ claims.

Using parliamentary privilege, Jones said Countdown management was demanding cash payments from Kiwi businesses on the grounds that its Australian shareholders were not happy with prior profitability.

‘‘They are demanding of Kiwi businesses payments, backdated cheques, and recompense, sir, for the losses the supermarkets assert they suffered last year,’’ Jones told Speaker David Carter in Parliament.

‘‘If they don’t pay these cheques, they are being told, ‘no shelf space into the future’. In any other country, sir, that’s blackmail. That is extortion.’’

Jones said suppliers had sworn him to secrecy and were living in fear, having been told by Countdown ‘‘if you breathe one word of this, we will blacklist you’’.

Describing the tactics as ‘‘Mafioso’’, Jones said they were the type of behaviour that fictional gangster Tony Soprano would be ‘‘very proud of’’’.

Following the claims Jones delivered a letter to the Commerce Commission asking for an investigation into New Zealand’s supermarkets, something Labour has promised if it wins the election.

When this was first reported I was sceptical of the claims. However:

Minutes after Jones made the statement, Katherine Rich, chief executive of the Food and Grocery Council, issued a release saying that the organisation was aware of ‘‘a number of incidents’’ where members had been asked for retrospective payments.

‘‘We have raised our general concerns about this practice with the supermarket chain involved. This is a serious issue that is new to the New Zealand grocery sector and we view it as an unwelcome development.’’

This suggests to me there is a very real issue here, and Shane Jones *may* have done a public service by highlighting it.

While I guess you can argue any company can ask any other company for more money, having a customer demand suppliers hand over money based on some sort of retrospective discount is very dubious. Now Countdown have denied the allegations and the manner in which they have asked may not be as Jones says, But the statement by Rich lends credence to the allegations that what is happening is undesirable – it may or may not be legal – but it stinks.

Stuff reports:

Who’s to say Prime Minister John Key isn’t a reptilian overlord in disguise?

Key’s own office certainly can’t; its response to an official information request was that it had no data to disprove the theory.

The response came after Shane Warbrooke requested “any evidence to disprove the theory that Mr John Key is in fact a David Icke-style shape reptilian shifting alien ushering humanity towards enslavement”.

Key’s chief of staff responded this month, saying “no such information existed” to probable cries of “they would say that” from conspiracy theorists.

David Icke is a former British footballer and broadcaster who descended into ridicule after claiming he was the “Son of the Godhead” and promoting conspiracy theories, which he has since turned into books.

At the heart of his theories lies the idea that a secret group of reptilian humanoids called the Babylonian Brotherhood controls humanity, and that many prominent figures are in fact reptilian.

It was a silly OIA request.

Everyone knows it is Joyce who is the true reptilian overlord.