Stats Chat does a gentle fisk of the Herald’s article on income inequality. They note:

Firstly, any comparison of money in 2006 to money in 2013 that’s not inflation-adjusted in some way is pretty pointless. The CPI went up 19% over that period.

Secondly, minimum wages are pretty obviously relevant. At the last Census, the minimum wage was $9.50; at this Census it was $13.50, a nominal increase of 42% and a real increase of  19%.

Their summary:

So, inequality in NZ is substantially higher than it used to be, and there are a lot of reasons to think this is bad, but the increase was in the 1980s and 1990s, not since 2006.  And this information is not hard to find.

I believe social mobility is the more important thing to measure than income inequality. Of course a 16 year old school leaver earns a lot less than a 45 year old executive. What is more important is whether those in the lower income deciles stay in them all their lives unable to break out and improve their income, or do you have social mobility.

The data for NZ is that we have a reasonable degree of social mobility, which I blogged on here. 74% of families in the bottom decile were not there seven years later.

Domain Incite reports:

DotKiwi has put NZD 8.5 milion ($7 million) of “premium” domain names on the market in advance of the delegation of .kiwi, which it expects to happen this week.

There are 4,668 names on sale right now, ranging in price from NZD 501.50 ($410) to NZD 124,626.71 ($102,000).

The ten most expensive names are:

My view is a domain name is of course worth what someone is willing to pay for it. But I do reflect that I doubt anyone in the world tries to buy books by going to books.com or books.co.nz.  In fact who knows what those sites even are (turns out the former redirects to Barnes & Noble and the latter doesn’t exist). One can turn an obscure name like Amazon or Fishpond into a well known brand.

ICANN is doing the final approvals for new gTLDs at about the rate of ten a week since the first batch on 23 October.  some of the new gTLDs that are operative are:

• .today
• .plumbing
• .sexy
• .tattoo
• .land
• .bike
• .singles
• .guru

It will be interesting to see which ones do well, and which ones stagnate or even fail.

Stuff reports:

On election in 2008, the National Government scrapped Labour’s plans to merge the SFO into the Organised Financial Crime Agency (OFCANZ) and boosted funding to deal with cases stemming from the GFC. Labour MP Jacinda Ardern says the Government has now ”cut that back”.

Presumably as the GFC is over.

Ardern said Labour still believes that bringing the SFO into an organised crime agency is the right approach.

I’m surprised Labour is still pushing their 2008 policy. OFCANZ are the wallies that botched the raid on Kim Dotcom, and have made other major mistakes in recent years. The SFO is not perfect but advocating they merge with OFCANZ is the worst thing you could do for helping detect serious fraud and ensure a conviction.

Ahipara – Southern End of Ninety Mile Beach

Often when you step out onto a beach or stretch of coastline in the early hours of the pre-dawn you have to make quick decisions about what you might hope to capture in terms of a photograph as you can be steered away in a certain direction which may or may not work at the expense of another opportunity.  The magic light which exists in these moments passes by very quickly.

I will always remember stepping out onto this most southerly end of Ninety Mile Beach and immediately seeing the amazing reflections of the sky and clouds which seemed to stretch on forever up the coastline. I made a quick decesion to focus on these and set about capturing this photograph.

Click on the image for a larger view of this photograph.

Free Wallpaper – Desktop or iPad

I hope you enjoy this photograph – you can download it as a free Desktop Wallpaper HERE and please share with your friends.

Cheers

Richard [richardhume.com]

This christmas carol was performed at the Young Nats Christmas Party, and is very funny (if somewhat harsh):

‘Twas the night before Christmas, all through Parliament House
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse
Press releases were sent and all committee papers shifted
In the hope urgency would soon be lifted

National MPs were soldiering on at their workstations
The Labour ones on leave or taking vacations
When down on the Forecourt there arose such a cry
I thought Tana or Richie had just scored a try

I peered out the window and squinted my eye
And caught a glimpse of a huge sleigh flying by
Could that be Winston in the red suit?
He shouldn’t be driving, he’s pissed as a newt!

And as for those reindeer tethered in rows of three?
Not immigrants – of course – but members of the Winston First Party!
Winston slurred “Go, Tracey, Barbara, Andrew, Dennis, go Prosser 
go Asenati – but not you Brendan, you mum-robbing tosser!

Belching smoke, up the steps they hurtled past startled EAs
Drunk Santa, his backbench, all spouting political clichés
The senile old codger was mumbling about immigration
And protectionist trade barriers which would ruin our nation

Winnie’s wine boxes and Asians merge in his conspiracy theory
And like his voters, I find myself growing increasingly weary
But Winston was not to be the night’s only odd apparition
Along came a stranger one, with a far more sinister ambition

I was seeing the ginger-haired ghost of Christmas Past
with a banshee-like Aussie whine, sounding half-arsed
but it was Russell Norman proposing sweeping banking reform
and claiming fracking is making the globe rapidly warm

Joining Russell’s a woman in a $5,000 ensemble
Who despite the flash outfit, still seems a complete womble
It was Metiria Turei banging on about gambling harms
Printing money, marijuana and nationalising all farms

Apart from Metiria, impersonating Winnie Mandela
There was a virtual Commune of Green MPs wallowing in failure
Gareth Hughes as Chief Whip struggles to motivate
While the rest of them – all Vegans – just sit round and flatulate

These green-tinged ghouls want to take us back to 1930
Their policies would see us on horseback, poor, unwashed and dirty
Russell’s fiscally unsound, but still wants the Treasury
Whereas Turei would be happier with something more leisurely

The Greens are not workers, they’re intellectually lazy
And that Catherine Delahunty is just batshit crazy 

And as for Labour, I hear you ask? Is there actually any Opposition?
Well, now you mention it, that is an interesting proposition
They seem to be demoralised, missing, all given up
Maybe with their new leader they realise they’ve been sold a pup

As for their Leader, Mr Cunliffe, he just can’t shut his gob
He’s constantly making proclamations like an overly theatrical snob
And though the election may go down to the wire
As for Cunliffe, despite what he thinks, he’s not the Messiah

But worryingly a dark future may still come to fruition
The devil beast, some call it, or Frankenstein’s Coalition
If Russell, Winnie, Cunners and Harawira
Unite to impose a reign of terror

Luckily an alternative exists to this nightmare vision
One led by John Key, and Kiwis will make the right decision
And next time Cunliffe attacks Paula and Tau for being Westies
John will send Judith Collins round to crush his testes

The moral of this is that in 2014 the country could be on track
Or ruled by the coalition of idiots who want to drag us back
So, if you want a unified government that’s smart, sound and rational
For heaven’s sake go blue and Party Vote National!

I look forward to the video version!

Stuff reports:

Labour leader David Cunliffe believes the party can win the Rangitata electorate in 2014.

He said draft boundary changes, which give parts of Rakaia to Selwyn, mean the seat is “anybody’s game”.

I recall people saying Labour will win the seat in 2011 because of the South Canterbury Finance actions of the Government.  They didn’t get close. Jo Goodhew is a very effective and good local MP.

In 2005 she won the Aoraki seat off Labour by 6,937. In 2008 she won Rangitata by 8,112 and in 2011 won again by 6,537. Goodhew got around 56% of the total vote and Labour’s Blanchard 37%.

In the last election Labour polled well in Timaru but National was stronger in the Ashburton district.

Labour actually lost the party vote in Timaru, but their candidate did win more votes than Goodhew there. However Timaru makes up just one third of the electorate.

Mr Cunliffe, in South Canterbury to rouse the party faithful in Temuka, believes Labour can win Ashburton this time.

“Geraldine’s coming back in, we’ll have Point, we’ll have Temuka; I think we can win this seat.”

Rangitata is losing 1,600 people only to Selwyn around Rakaia. Geraldine and Temuka are not changing and included in the 2011 result.

It looks like three polling places are lost – Rakaia, Chertsay and Dorie. Adding them up Blanchard got 249 votes and Goodhew 676. Hence her majority would be expected to drop by around 427 votes, which is around 7% of her 6,537 majority.

Stuff reports:

Greenpeace is using the contact details from people who sign petitions to cold-call them and ask for donations.

The tactic has been labelled invasive, unethical and a possible breach of privacy by a Victoria University marketing professor.

Their parliamentary wing does much the same thing. The main reason the Greens spent tens of thousands of (taxpayers) dollars paying people to collect petition signatures wasn’t to actually have a referendum, but to harvest e-mail addresses for their database.

However, Greenpeace New Zealand fundraising director Michael Tritt said it would be “wrong” if it did not use the details people provided when they signed petitions.

Wrong???

“People aren’t silly. They know if they put down a phone number or email, there will be some form of communication.”

Not at all. Contact details on petitions were traditionally for verification. At the most they might expect a communication directly related to the petition such as an update on what has happened with it. They don’t expect to be called asking for money!

According to Greenpeace NZ’s 2012 annual report, its expenditure last year was $8.5 million. Of that, $2.7m was spent on fundraising.

Mr Tritt confirmed that was mostly to pay people to solicit money, but said for every dollar spent on fundraising, Greenpeace should get $3-$4 back.

It currently employs the equivalent of 50 fundraisers who get paid $18.40 an hour. They do not get commission but may get taken out for lunch if they had a good month, he said.

Of those, 20 were employed to call people at home, while 30 were “outreach campaigners” – street collectors sometimes uncharitably referred to as “chuggers”, or “charity muggers”.

So almost a third of what you donate to Greenpeace just covers fundraising.

Radio NZ report:

At a hui in Whanganui the party selected Ngati Raukawa treaty negotiator Chris McKenzie to contest the seat held by co-leader Tariana Turia who retires next year. Mr McKenzie has worked in Mrs Turia’s office.

McKenzie has been working for Turia as her senior advisor. Prior to that he was managing director of Raukawa Management Services and lead negotiator for the Raukawa Trust Board. he was originally a teacher, but moved into business and has just completed an MBA.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand has been named the world’s second best country to do business in, behind only resurgent Ireland in the annual list compiled by Forbes’ magazine.

The survey found New Zealand had the best scores among all countries for personal freedom and investor protection, as well as lack of red tape and corruption. …

Despite being the smallest economy to make the top 10, with an annual Gross Domestic Product of US$170 billion, New Zealand was one of the fastest growing last year with GDP jumping by 2.5 per cent.

Unless we vote for tax hikes, more debt and spending, and nationalisation.

The index is based on 11 factors, and the ranking for NZ for each is:

1. property rights – 2nd
2. innovation – 25th
3. taxes – 21st
4. technology – 24th
5. corruption – 1st
6. personal freedom – 1st
7. trade freedom – 10th
8. monetary freedom – 9th
9. red tape – 1st
10. investor protection – 1st
11. stock market performance – 36th

So the areas for improvement are innovation, technology and reducing the tax burden – plus improving the stock market performance.

The issue of whether software should be patentable has been settled in New Zealand, and may soon be settled in the US. The Washington Post reports:

In a trio of Supreme Court decisions between 1972 and 1981, the court held that mathematical algorithms were not eligible for patent protection. Since computer software is little more than mathematical algorithms encoded in machine-readable form, most of the software industry assumed this meant you couldn’t patent software. But then, in the 1990s, a patent-friendly appeals court handed down a series of decisionsthat opened the door to patents on software. That triggered a wave of patenting that has drowned the technology industry in litigation.

In principle, the Supreme Court’s old precedents ruling out patents on mathematical algorithms are still good law. And today, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear an appeal that, for the first time in 30 years, will directly address the patentability of software.

The court that has to date decided the law is the little known United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. It was only created in 1982. Unlike the other appeal courts, its rulings are binding on the entire United States, not just one circuit. Only the Supreme Court can over-rule it.

Now the Supreme Court will have an opportunity to weigh in on the case. And while the high court could issue a narrow ruling based on the details of the patents in this case, it could also take the opportunity to fix the software patent mess more broadly. All it would need to do is to reiterate its earlier position that patents claiming mathematical processes — a.k.a. computer software — isn’t eligible for patent protection unless it’s tied to a specific machine or physical process.

Which is basically now the law in New Zealand.

The high court will be reluctant to do this because it would be disruptive. Reiterating that mathematical algorithms can’t be patented would call into question thousands of patents held by major software companies. And these companies could complain, with some justification, that the Supreme Court’s failure to rule on the issue for more than 30 years was a tacit acceptance of rulings by the Federal Circuit.

Still, the federal circuit cannot overrule Supreme Court precedents. And the federal circuit’s experiment with software patents has been a disaster. As the patent scholar James Bessen has argued, the patent troll crisis is really a software patent crisis. Software patents are far more likely to be involved in litigation than other types of patent. The result: According to Bessen’s calculations, troll-related litigation cost the U.S. economy $29 billion in 2011 alone. Reiterating that “pure” software can’t be patented wouldn’t just be good law — it would also save the nation billions of dollars in litigation costs.

The case will be watched very closely.

The Herald reports:

Still paying for your mobile phone calls and texts? It won’t be long before you’re in the minority.

Technology commentators say apps that allow free calls and texts from their smartphones are becoming so popular that paid calls and texting will soon go the way of the fax machine.

Popular apps include Viber, Skype and WhatsApp. Even Facebook offers free messaging and numerous websites allow text messages to be sent free to mobile numbers around the world.

I use WhatsApp, and it is very good. Only a small proportion of my contacts are on there, but as that grows I suspect it may become the dominant message app.

Of course if you have an iPhone, you can also send a iMessage instead of a text.

The Commerce Commission’s annual telecommunications market monitoring report shows mobile voice call minutes declined to 4.35 billion in the 2011/12 year, down from 4.40 billion the previous year and 4.44 billion in 2009/10.

The number of text messages sent was still growing but the growth had slowed markedly.

More than a billion more messages changed hands between 2008/09 and 2009/10. By 2010/11 and 2011/12, the growth was only 300 million.

“The market for voice and text is as dead as a dodo,” Brislen said. “It’s a matter of letting it all play out. All you need now is to buy a data pack.

“Vodafone is already offering unlimited calls and texting if you buy a big data bundle. That’s the writing on the wall.”

Data is king.

News.com.au has what they call the 22 shows most worth bingeing on. They are:

• Breaking Bad – started watching Season 1 on DVDs a few weeks ago, and damn good.
• Girls – I love how Hannah, the lead, is such an unsympathetic character.
• Mad Men – just finished watching Series 5 on DVD. Great one to watch from the beginning
• Homeland – first season rocked.
• Boardwalk Empire – yet to watch
• Downton Abbey – my parents love it. Yet to view myself
• The Sopranos – watched when live on TV – scheduled for a DVD binge
• Friends – very easy to watch reruns, which is just as well as it has been on TV2 non stop for 15 years!
• The Walking Dead – watched a few episodes, but not got into
• Friday Night Lights – never heard of
• The West Wing – have watched every episode at least six times. Love it.
• House of Cards – am beyond addicted. Kevin Spacey as Frank is compelling.
• Seinfeld – watched at the time, but not one for reruns
• NCIS – watching both live and older episodes
• House – watched live – excellent first few seasons but drifted off
• The Newsroom – too preachy
• Buffy – the first TV series watched from series beginning to end on DVD – lots of fun
• Arrested Development – not watched
• Game of Thrones – watched within hours of release
• Scrubs – mildly funny at first, but annoying
• Doctor Who – loved the Day of the Doctor
• The Wire – have got Season 1 to watch as friends insist I will love it, but yet to get into

The Herald quiz is here. I got 8/10 in 46 seconds but I think it should be 9/10 as they have the wrong answer to Q6 in my opinion!

Brian Gaynor writes at NZ Herald:

Why does New Zealand Post continue to flounder while Deutsche Post, the German postal provider, has significantly outperformed the Frankfurt sharemarket in recent years and Royal Mail, the UK mail operator, has just had an extremely successful IPO?

A brief assessment of the three post providers shows that the two European companies have clear e-commerce driven parcel and logistics growth strategies whereas New Zealand Post has been adversely affected by the requirement to contribute substantial capital to Kiwibank, its 100 per cent owned subsidiary.

Kiwibank has never paid a dividend, off memory.

Royal Mail’s core operation is the collection, sorting, transportation and delivery of parcels and letters in the United Kingdom. This service operates under a “one price goes anywhere” principle on letters and parcels within the domestic market.

It also owns GLS (General Logistics Systems) which operates a substantial parcel business in 22 European countries.

Royal Mail, like Deutsche Post, has taken advantage of the huge increase in online purchases by individuals and businesses.

That is the future. Not letters.

Royal Mail’s share price closed at 5.96 on Thursday giving IPO participants a capital gain of over 80 per cent and resulting in a sharemarket value of 5.9 billion.

Austrian Post, PostNL in The Netherlands, bpost in Belgium and SingPost in Singapore are also listed on stock exchanges.

Unfortunately the story in New Zealand is far less optimistic even though New Zealand Post reported net earnings, before one-off gains from the sale of assets, of $45.4 million for the June 2013 year. The problem is that the group’s core postal services reported a net loss of $51.5 million for the latest twelve month period (see table).

The focus is on Kiwibank:

No one would argue against the importance of parcels but what investments has NZ Post made in this area? What has it done to capture the e-commerce trade?

For example, parcels were mentioned only thirteen times in the group’s 2011 annual report whereas Kiwibank was referred to 197 times.

One of the problems with NZ Post is that Kiwibank is soaking up most of the group’s surplus cash and seems to be squeezing out the traditional postal services.

A possible solution:

The reality is NZ Post is asset rich but cash poor because Kiwibank, the group’s best performing operation, doesn’t pay a dividend and will require $100 million of additional capital. As a consequence NZ Post does not appear to have invested heavily in its parcel business, which has the best long-term postal growth prospects.

Thus the company has two choices. It can either focus on Kiwibank and let its postal operations decline with more and more branch closures and staff layoffs.

The other alternative is to partially monetise its Kiwibank shareholding by selling a minority stake to the Crown, a trade buyer or through an IPO. This would give NZ Post cash to invest in its parcel business, fund its ongoing commitment to Kiwibank and pay a higher dividend to the Crown.

Sadly, will never happen.

Transparency International has found the NZ public sector remains the least corrupt in the world. The top 10 countries are (100 means perfect):

• New Zealand 91/100 (+1)
• Denmark 91 (+1)
• Finland 89 (-1)
• Sweden 89(+1)
• Norway 86 (+1)
• Singapore 86 (-1)
• Switzerland 85 (-1)
• Netherlands 83 (-1)
• Australia 81 (-4)
• Canada 81 (-3)

At the bottom is Afghanistan, Somalia and North Korea on 8.

Stuff reports:

A Labour MP has accused Kapiti Expressway workers of being “extremely offensive” to Maori by eating their lunch at a wahi tapu site as historical human remains lay nearby.

Darien Fenton said at a transport and industrial relations select committee meeting yesterday that the workers were spotted eating their lunch at the wahi tapu site at El Rancho, Waikanae, which includes the Takamore urupa, and a macrocarpa known as the Maketu tree.

You’re not allowed to have a sandwich under a tree now?

Ms Fenton told the committee she had spoken to two women from Te Ati Awa. “[They] understood the site was tapu until the archaeologists had finished their work, yet we found workers having lunch onsite which was extremely offensive to local Maori.”

Speaking later, she said that seeing workers eating on the sacred site, with recently discovered human remains from the burial site nearby, had shocked her.

We had better ban food from all areas in NZ where someone is buried. The Savage Memorial for a start.

“The simplest way to put it is . . . [people] should treat it like you’d treat a church, the sacredness of the church. The land is sacred in the same way to us.”

You can’t eat in church now? What about all that bread and wine?

NZTA Wellington Highways manager Rod James said the particular area at El Rancho fell under the jurisdiction of the Takamore Trust.

The site was not identified by the “mandated iwi” as tapu, they had written authorisation to start work at that particular site, and two iwi earthworks monitors were present, he said.

“Workers were assembling to be briefed by iwi and the archaeologist. We are not aware of any concerns about conduct from the mandated iwi.”

Good to see Labour focusing on the big issues of the day!

Stuff reports:

Labour has accused one of New Zealand’s top public servants of behaving like an “emperor” and warned he may struggle to gain a Labour government’s confidence.

Labour forestry spokesman Shane Jones questioned the decision of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to bring more than 30 officials to yesterday’s appearance before the commerce select committee.

The number of officials is a reflection of the huge number of areas MBIE has. If there is a question on immigration, then the energy person can’t really answer it.

Jones said the large team brought to the committee “hinted at the CEO’s vanity” and said Smol had a “lot of work to do” to create confidence from Labour MPs when they next took power.

“If that doesn’t change, by this time next year, then the Kaiser will learn it’s a different world,” he said.

So Jones is saying he may sack the CEO, and compares him to a German dictator. Charming.

The Herald editorial:

When bad news is delivered, there is always a temptation to shoot the messenger. Thankfully, that, by and large, has not been the case with this country’s sharp drop in international education rankings in an OECD survey that assesses the knowledge and skills of 15-year-old pupils in mathematics, reading and science in 65 countries. In maths, New Zealand dropped from 13th three years ago to 23rd, while in science the fall was from seventh to 18th. In reading, where this country also ranked seventh in 2009, there was a slide to 13th.

To her credit, the Education Minister, Hekia Parata, did not attempt to discredit the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) rankings. She chose instead to depict them as confirmation of the challenge ahead. It fell to think-tank the New Zealand Initiative to underline the rankings’ serious implications. This “Pisa shock” should, it said, be a catalyst to change education for the better. The institute pointed to the example provided by Germany, which in little more than a decade had achieved the sort of improvement that must now be sought by this country.

Hopefully those who resist change will now concede there is a need for change.

Broadly, the Pisa assessment identifies the lifting of teacher quality as the key to such a turnaround. The best-performing countries, it says, put a special emphasis on teacher selection, training, career incentives, and innovative teaching. When deciding where to invest, they prioritise the quality of teachers over classroom sizes.

Crucial.

The importance of excellent teaching comes as no surprise. People have become increasingly aware of this, and are keen to see high-quality teachers acknowledged and rewarded appropriately. Ms Parata has proposed the development of a new teacher appraisal system, a requirement for all trainee teachers to have a postgraduate qualification and, potentially, performance pay. The latest Pisa rankings confirm all would be welcome. It can be no coincidence that in world-leading Shanghai, performance-related pay for teachers is normal.

The time has come for it. Top teachers should be able to earn over $100,000 a year, just for being great teachers.

But implementing their findings on what works will require political will. The teacher unions will resist any change to a national bargaining system that rewards experience rather than excellence. 

The first thing that should go is the national bargaining system. Let each school pay its teachers what they want to. Let them compete for the best teachers!

As was inevitable, Nelson Mandela has died, aged 95.

I was fortunate enough to briefly meet him when he visited New Zealand in the 1990s. It was the typical two second greet and meet, but he had almost an aura about him that I have not encountered before or since. Former Governor-General Cath Tizard summed it up well:

He put his arm around my shoulders as we walked back to the terminal – and thereafter called me Cathy. What a lovely man he was. He quite enchanted everyone he met with his natural manner and simple charm. I was more in awe of him than of any of the queens, kings and presidents I had ever met.

Mandela had a special role in the world, for three reasons, I would say. One was his incredible personal humility and charm. The other two were his role as the leader of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and the other was his role as the first democratically elected President of South Africa.

His role in the anti-apartheid struggle was controversial. While the struggle was noble, the tactics changed from civil disobedience to armed struggle. Reasonable people can disagree on whether it is legitimate to resort to violence, if you are not allowed to vote on the basis of your race, and there is no prospect of change. For my 2c, I don’t think resorting to violence was the right decision, but I may have thought differently if I was a black in South Africa in the 1950s and 1960s.

He spent 27 years in prison. Upon his release he was elected President of South Africa in their first democratic elections. And his remarkable legacy is that he preached peace and reconciliation, not revenge. Let me tell you that if my political enemies kept me in jail for 27 years, then the last thing on my mind coming out would be peace and reconciliation. I would have a very long list of names I wanted utu on.

Of course post-apartheid South Africa is far from ideal. It has many challenges, partly because so much of its population were kept out of decent education and jobs for generations. But if any other person bar Mandela had become their first President, I think it would be far far worse. He was elected at the age of 75, and in an act of unification made F W De Klerk his Deputy President.

Acts that greatly unified the country included reaching out to the widow of apartheid founder Hendrik Verwoerd with forgiveness and reconciliation, and also urging black South Africans to get behind the previously despised Springboks.

Mandela is not a saint, but he was a symbol, and he played the major role in eventually peacefully ending apartheid, that made the world a better place.

Stuff reports:

Sevens fans oblivious to the sport being played on the field need to start paying attention as organisers look to “transform” Wellington’s biggest party and make it more Olympic.

The centrepiece of Wellington’s sports and events calendar needed to change ahead of the rugby code’s debut at the Rio Olympic Games in 2016, general manager Marty Donoghue told a Wellington City Council committee yesterday.

“We’re at a point when we need to transform.”

That move is being supported by veteran rugby commentator Keith Quinn, who says the party has overtaken the tournament.

After the meeting, Mr Donoghue – who has spent just three weeks in the tournament’s top job – said the idea was to still have the party and costumes but to put more emphasis on rugby.

A worthy aim, but good luck with that.

Increasing the rugby and family zones was a way to enhance the sport aspect, and potentially attract new audiences.

One small problem with that.

The family and rugby zones were both used at this year’s tournament, and tickets for the 2014 event have been the first in years not to sell out within minutes, with about 3000 still available yesterday.

No one wants to be in the nana section.

The move to focus on sport was backed by Quinn, who ranked the Hong Kong and Dubai events ahead of Wellington’s because they focused more on the rugby.

“The Wellington Sevens is very good, but it’s at its best on a sunny day on the second afternoon, when the crowd finally does focus in on the last stage of the semifinals and the various finals . . . Sometimes I have felt that the party has distracted the crowd from the event, the sports event.”

I think many who attend have the view that the rugby distracts the crowd from the party.

Stuff reports:

Tens of thousands of workers have been sacked under the 90-day-trial period, with many let go because they “did not fit in”.

Figures published by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment show about 69,000 employers took on at least one new staff member in 2012 under the legislation.

That’s 59% of employers.

It is not known how many workers were dismissed during the 90-day-trial period, but the figures revealed 27 per cent of employers said they had fired at least one new employee during or at the end of their trial.

This means at least 18,000 people lost their jobs in the first three months of employment last year, with the actual figure likely to be much higher.

When asked why they had dismissed staff, most employers said it was because they were unreliable or had a bad attitude. Other reasons included employees not having the necessary skills, not getting on with colleagues, and not fitting in.

The law has been widely criticised by unions and the Labour Party, which says it will repeal it if it is elected next year.

If Labour don’t repeal it, the unions can vote in a new leader!

Until we gained the trial period law in 2009, we were I think the only country in the OECD that didn’t have a grievance free trial period.

In terms of dismissals during the period, 56% said it was because the employee was unreliable and had a bad attitude. 51% said it was because they did not have the skills to do the job.

But Hospitality New Zealand Wellington president Jeremy Smith praised the trial period, claiming it had been positive for both employers and employees.

Mr Smith, who owns several bars and hotels including The Old Bailey, St Johns and the Cambridge Hotel, said he had hired dozens of staff he would not otherwise have considered.

Because of the transient nature of hospitality, it was often difficult to check references so a trial period “levelled the playing field”.

“We’re in a position now where we’re a lot more comfortable giving people an opportunity.”

And this is backed up:

Labour Minister Simon Bridges believed the legislation was working well.

In 2012, more than 131,000 people were employed on a trial period and nearly a third of all employers who used the trial period said they would not have hired their most newest staff member without it, he said.