If you are in Memphis, you have to see Graceland of course.

If there is one word to sum up the mansion Elvis used to live in, it would be tacky. In fact it may be the most tacky place I’e ever seen.

Don’t get me wrong – it was great to visit, and see a part of musical history. But carpet on the walls – you have to see for yourself!!

The entrance to Graceland.

An official national monument, just like Mt Rushmore!

This room wasn’t too tacky.

A photo of his parents, beneath his own photo.

The dining room.

The pool room. You’d go blind!

The Jungle Room.

A couple of the out buildings house his several hundred awards.

One of his iconic suits.

A memorial plaque to his twin brother who was stillborn.

His grave. It was originally in a public cemetery, but people kept trying to steal his body, so they moved it here – which is appropriate.

Across the road is his museum of automobiles.

And also his two planes, this one named after his daughter.

I was 10 when Elvis died, so never knew him at his prime. He was a somewhat sad figure when he died, destroyed by years of prescription drugs – somewhat like Michael Jackson.

For those not alive in the 1950s, it is hard to fathom not just how massively popular he was (his appearance on the Ed Sullivan show got over 86% of the viewing audience!) but also how controversial. His dance moves were seen as scandalously suggestive, and he was denounced for corrupting a generation. Today his dance moves look positively tame compared to Britney Spears and Rihanna prancing around in bondage gear.

If you are in Memphis, you do have to do the Graceland tours. However I strongly suggest you do not pay extra for the so called VIP pass. It does allow you to queue jump, but the queues were not too bad anyway, and the two extra tours (the grounds and Lisa-Marie’s) are pretty average.

The automobiles were a highlight – very cool. The mansion itself fascinating, in that someone would choose to make their home so tacky. The airplanes fairly average, but somewhat amusing such as gold plated seat belts!

A great quote in this Herald article:

Thoughts of a Labour/Green alliance running the country has given CEOs food for thought.

Asked if Green Party co-leaders Russel Norman and Metiria Turei have added sufficient heft to the Opposition to make a credible potential government, Paul Ravlich, chief executive at Siemens, said: “God, I truly hope not.”

And that about sums up the views of the majority of CEOs who took part in this year’s survey.

One CEO said: “The resulting commercial and business naivety is scary. Their energy policy is a constitutional outrage – The Greens are akin to selling rat poison under the Coca Cola brand – the branding of the Greens as ‘green’ belies their position as hard left.”

This is harsh, but not entirely unfair. The Greens fundamentally do not like economic growth, as they see it as exploiting the planet and people. They used to rail against it. Now they talk about a “richer” New Zealand and lots of “Green jobs”, when in fact their policies are huge massive subsidies for those jobs which will destroy probably 2 – 3 other jobs for every job it creates.

One CEO said: “The Greens have become the Alliance Party in drag. Their naive economic and trade policy thinking threatens to put at risk achievements made on the trade front through the effective bipartisan efforts of both Labour and National.”

Exports to China have trebled since the China FTA. An increase of say 30% would be remarkable, but we got an increase of 200% and more. Yet Greens and NZ First voted against the FTA, and campaigned against it. Imagine how many jobs would have been lost if they had got their way.

John Drinnan reports:

APN News & Media is gearing up for a subscription model at the nzherald.co.nz website.

The APN board is expected to approve the new model, which is planned to be in place by this time next year and marks a shift to subscriptions accounting for a bigger share of revenue. Chief executive Michael Miller said this week that the time was right to move ahead.

“Ten years ago it was foreign for people to pay anything for digital. Publishers – traditional ones or otherwise – relied on an advertiser-funded model,” Miller said.

“Now people pay for apps every day or for subscriptions to broadband. People are used to paying for digital content.”

A key decision would be how much content to make available for free before charging people for access.

I know a lot of newspapers have gone for paywalls. But apart from specialist newspapers like NBR, I’m not sure how many are actually making money out of them. In a small market like NZ, I think there are considerable risks.

The Herald reports:

Maori fishing quota holders will be exempt from legislation designed to protect migrant workers on foreign chartered vessels from exploitation.

The seven-year exemption has been attacked as “privileged” by Act MP John Banks but defended as essential by the iwi involved.

I’m with John Banks on this. Some FCVs have been little more than slave ships, and it is repugnant we have allowed it to continue. I was very proud of the decision by the Government to require vessels which fish NZ quota to be flagged in NZ – which means NZ law will apply to them.

But the transition period should and must be the same for all.

Ngapuhi’s Sonny Tau, who is the spokesman for iwi chairmen around the country on the issue, said the 2020 exemption was essential because without it Maori fishing interests guaranteed under the Sealords deal would be severely devalued.

Not a single iwi could afford to buy a ship, which was why fishing ventures with foreign vessels were key, Mr Tau said.

“If you reduce the capacity and you take out foreign chartered vessels in this country … that will … drive down quota prices. It will become uneconomic for a lot of the smaller iwi to even open an office to be involved in fishing.”

The purpose of the fisheries settlement was to allow Iwi to develop fishing jobs, skills and income. Not to sub-contract the quota to slave ships.

Different industries have a variety of favourable and unfavourable market conditions. Fishing is no different.

Under the law change, NZ quota can still be fished by foreign crewed vessels. They just must be flagged in NZ.  Under current NZ law they were required to pay NZ minimum pay rates anyway so in theory the flagging in NZ should not increase the costs – unless the FCVs have been breaking the law (which is clear)

Fran O’Sullivan writes:

Shearer’s fortunes were not helped by the latest TV3 poll in which Labour slid 2.1 per cent to a 31 per cent rating. The results will inevitably increase tensions with the usual suspects calculating what leadership permutations might work if Labour continues its poll slump and its leader – now on to his third chief of staff – can’t lift his game.

The permutations of different leadership combinations: Deputy leader Grant Robertson, David Cunliffe, Andrew Little and Shane Jones all in the mix together with David Parker for the top trio of roles: leader, deputy leader and finance spokesman.

They all have important attributes.

But personally, I’ve never been able to understand why Labour MPs chucked Goff out so quickly after the 2011 election. He has always been an excellent performer and would have driven hard against Key over the past 18 months and made the dents Shearer couldn’t.

It probably gets up Labour’s nose to say so but there is no reason to throw out a seasoned performer (who is clearly light years better than many of his colleagues) simply because he has been in Parliament since his 30s.

Let’s face it, John Howard – who like Goff was a Cabinet minister – before becoming Leader of the Opposition then being rejected by colleagues, rose again to take the Australian Liberals through to win the 1996 election and reigned successfully as Australia’s Prime Minister for four terms before being thrown out of his own seat.

So Fran seems to be saying Labour should go back to Goff.

I think this is unlikely, but not impossible.

They key is that the caucus is shit scared of having a membership-wide vote, in case Cunliffe wins it. So Shearer will only go when a deal is worked out (if it can be) between Robertson, Little and Cunliffe.

Stuff reports:

Labour says it will repeal the controversial GCSB law if it wins the next election.

Sounds like a clear policy. If you read that, you would think that means they will return the law to its current state.

A Labour spokesman confirmed this afternoon the party would commission a review of the legislation and implement any changes that came out of that although the new law would remain in place until that process was completed.

So they’ll keep it for a bit, and then are they going to repeal it?

Well read this Herald story:

“We would have an independent review and legislation would come out of the review. The current legislation would need to be repealed, modified or whatever.”

So in fact Labour are not promising any sort of repeal. They are saying we will review the law after the election and maybe make some amendments to it then. They can’t details what actual changes they want.

This is what Hone broke the law to fight against. That terrible Government providing houses to low income families in Northland.

Hat Tip: Keeping Stock

Stuff reports:

A former Cleveland school bus driver, Ariel Castro, today pleaded guilty to hundreds of charges of kidnapping and raping three women he held captive and will serve life in prison, the culmination of one of the most sensational criminal cases in the United States in recent years.

At a court hearing, Ohio prosecutors in turn agreed that Castro would not be eligible for the death penalty. The agreement means Castro will not stand trial, sparing the women the trauma of testifying about their abuse by Castro over about a decade. …

Castro pleaded guilty to 937 counts of the 977 charges against him, including kidnapping of the three women and the young girl, and serial rape of the women.

The full sentence is life without parole, plus 1000 years.

Guess he won’t be bothering the parole board anytime soon. Good!

A great little video by Disney in 1943.

Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan

The Memphis Zoo was ranked No 1 zoo in America in 2008, so decided to give it a visit. Definitely worth visiting, if you are into zoos. Good variety of animals, and most (not all) in fairly spacious surroundings.

An armadillo. Not seen one before.

Iconic Chilean Flamingos

In the aviary some of the birds are not caged off, so they are literally flying around you, and will even land on you.

They had up posters of drawings from local school kids. Is that not an awesome drawing for someone at school?

Two black bears. very playful.

A gray wolf. Their species almost became extinct.

A polar bear enjoying a bath.

Some Amish visitors. Well I think they were Amish, but they also spoke in a non-English tongue.

A mighty gorilla. Best not to arm wrestle him.

One of their two rare giant pandas.

Enjoying a dip.

A Kimono Komodo Dragon.

A West African Crowned Crane.

A Crested Coua.

A Von der Decken’s Hornbill

A Green Aracari. That beak would hurt!

A Beautiful Fruit Dove, well named.

A meerkat in typical pose.

A red panda. I want one!

And of course no zoo is complete without lions.

Stuff reports:

A legal battle to stop Christchurch’s landmark cathedral being demolished has been lost.

In a decision released today the Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court decision clearing the way for the Church Property Trustees (CPT) to continue demolishing the quake-damaged Christ Church Cathedral.

The decision will come as a blow to those campaigning to save the Cathedral, who have been pinning their hopes on a favourable outcome through the courts.

The CPT resolved in March last year to partially deconstruct the cathedral to bring it down to a safe level, but the lawfulness of its decision was challenged by the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust (GCBT).

It sought through the High Court a declaration that the decision to deconstruct the cathedral was a breach of the trusts upon which the CPT holds and asked the court to set aside that decision.

But the High Court found that CPT was entitled to deconstruct the damaged cathedral, provided the deconstruction was undertaken for the purpose of constructing a new cathedral on the same site.

The High Court made a declaration that, while the cathedral trust required there to be a cathedral on the site, the building did not necessarily have to replicate the cathedral as it stood before the earthquakes.

Unhappy with that ruling, the GCBT decided to challenge the decision in the Court of Appeal, but it has unanimously upheld the High Court’s decision and rejected all three of the arguments put forward by GCBT’s lawyers.

What a waste of time and money. I hope the Anglican Church gets full costs against GCBT.

The decision is a decision for the Anglican Church. Not for Jim Anderton, or anyone else with a contrary opinion.

The Press editorial:

Contrary to the assertions of opposition parties, the changes Prime Minister John Key has made to the Government Communications Security Bureau bill are not merely cosmetic.

Among other things, the changes will require the GCSB to make an annual report on the number of warrants and access authorisations it gets and pro-actively tell the inspector-general of intelligence, whose post has itself been beefed up, whenever it has acquired a warrant to spy on a New Zealand citizen or resident.

In addition, while rejecting the opposition call for an inquiry now into the GCSB, the bill will require a review of its operations, and those of the Security Intelligence Service, the domestic spy agency, a couple of years from now and thereafter every five to seven years.

The GCSB will also have to make an annual report on the number of times it has been called on to help the police, the SIS and other agencies use its specialised surveillance equipment.

If any expansion is required of the agencies that can call on the assistance of the GCSB, new legislation will be needed rather than, as had been proposed, merely executive action. The Prime Minister has also promised to make it clear that the collection of metadata – information about the time and location of a call rather than its content – will be treated as communication and require a search warrant.

All these changes make substantial modifications to the bill as it was first presented to Parliament. While they have not been enough to persuade opposition parties to support the bill, they are sufficient to satisfy Peter Dunne, formerly a strong critic of the bill, which means it will pass.

I agree that the changes are not inconsequential. I note that Labour seem unable to articulate what actual changes to the bill would make it acceptable to them. I think they just hope this will be finally be the silver bullet that gets them out of the poll doldrums. Bit sadly for them, people are more interested in policies on jobs, hospitals and schools than this.

Pete George points out the recent protest action against the bill was organised by Mana’s Martyn Bradbury and Greens’ Max Coyle. I think it is safe to conclude both fall into the camp of would never ever support something done by this Government. The meeting they organised was interesting though:

Labour MP David Cunliffe sat in the front row last night. His party leader, David Shearer, watched unnoticed from the rear of the hall with Labour’s finance spokesman, David Parker.

However the Herald disagrees with The Press and wants more changes. However they also say the changes are substantial:

The Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill will be an improved piece of legislation when it is amended by Parliament. The changes go much further than the “cosmetic” tag attached by the Greens. Two stand out. The first dictates that the country’s foreign intelligence agency will be the subject of an independent review in 2015 and an automatic review every five to seven years after that. A five-year review echoes the situation in Australia. It also goes quite some way towards satisfying the call by Labour and the Greens for an independent inquiry into the country’s security services, even if they wanted this to precede the passage of the legislation.

The second important alteration states that if a government wants to expand the domestic agencies which the GCSB will be able to help beyond the police, the Security Intelligence Service and the Defence Force, it will have to get the support of Parliament for another amendment bill, rather than Cabinet simply ticking it off via regulation. That negates the possibility of the likes of Customs, the Immigration Department or Inland Revenue using the GCSB’s sophisticated cybersecurity equipment without a considered debate on the ramifications. 

I think that last change was very important.

According to the Prime Minister, the bill represents “a balancing act between national security and doing our best to keep New Zealanders safe, and the privacy of New Zealanders”. Considerable reservations voiced earlier this month by the Privacy Commissioner, the Human Rights Commissioner and the Law Society confirmed the first draft fell far short of this objective. The changes in the bill as reported back yesterday and those achieved by Mr Dunne improve that situation somewhat. It is a real shame, however, that they do not go further. The public deserves stronger reassurance.

In another story the Herald notes a further change:

The activities that the GCSB undertake in assisting the police will be subject to review by the Independent Police Complaints Authority under changes to the GCSB bill, which was reported back to Parliament this afternoon by the Intelligence and Security Committee.

It is one of the few changes to the bill in the committee’s report that has not been previously announced.

A further useful addition.

Stuff reports:

A growing number of technology startups are being threatened with lawsuits over broad patents they allegedly, and inadvertently, infringed.

The founders of three small startups went to Washington DC  this week to lobby members of the United States Congress to change the patent system.

“This is the single worst thing to happen to me since I started the company,” says one of the CEOs, the founder of a five-person e-commerce startup that was targeted by a firm he calls a patent troll. He is so concerned about retaliation from that firm that he asked that his name not be used for this story.

He says that being targeted by a patent lawsuit is worse than times he’s lost clients or run out of money. It’s even worse than having to do without a salary for the last year. He admits he’s fortunate that his wife has a steady job that allows them to support their children. But the possibility that a patent lawsuit he regards as frivolous could destroy his company keeps him up at night.

The firm has raised about a million dollars from investors. The CEO says that after paying his employees’ salaries, his top expense is legal bills. And the vast majority of those legal costs relate to a single patent lawsuit.

The entrepreneur says he didn’t copy the plaintiff’s technology; indeed he’d never heard of the firm until it started making legal threats. He describes the patents he is accused of infringing as extraordinarily broad. The complaint claims the firm infringed one of the plaintiff’s patents by using a wireless device, a database and a website to synchronize data and perform common e-commerce functions-things that hundreds of web startups do. “Anyone is at risk for that,” he says. “And it never gets more specific.”

We had this occur in NZ many years ago. DET, a Canadian firm, wrote to scores of NZ companies demanding they pay them licensing fees as they had a broad NZ patent for e-commerce systems that are multi-transactional and multi-language and multi-currency. Yes, it was that broad.

We got it disqualified on a technicality – they had mixed some dates up. But if not for that, then it could have been an even bigger threat to NZ companies online.

Thank goodness the NZ Government and Parliament has agreed to exclude software from being patentable. Software should be protected by copyright over code, but patents are far too broad a tool for protection with software as inevitably all software builds on what is already out there.

Stuff reports:

In the past financial year, Wellington City Council made about $16m from on-street parking and permit fees, and about $8m more from infringement notices.

Parking revenue in the 2010-11 financial year was $25.8m.

That’s big money – around $100 per person.

Transport portfolio leader Andy Foster said he thought people would appreciate the new “customer-friendly” technology being investigated.

One of the initiatives was a text message service that reminded people when their parking meter was about to run out, and gave them the option of topping up via their phone.

That would be excellent. I use my cellphone to pay most times, and would love that service.

Both being political geeks, we of course had to visit the Clinton Presidential Centre and Library. Is easy to get to, next to the Arkansas River.

The car used as Clinton’s car during his terms as President.

A replica of the Cabinet Room and table.

Me trying out Clinton’s chair which has a slightly higher back than the others.

The replica oval office.

As well as the replicas there was a huge amount of info on both the Clinton presidency, but also demographic changes in the world and US during his eight years as President. My favourite section was reading some of the personal correspondence to and from him. And yes there was a section on his impeachment. Of course as it is his library it was written reasonably favourably to him.

The museum also had a temporary exhibition of dresses by Oscar de la Renta, who designed dresses for both Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush (and many others). He was also a personal friend of the Clintons. Auckland Girl made me attend, but actually some of the outfits were amazing – and was well worth seeing.

One of many gifts to the Clintons.

After Little Rock, we drove to Memphis and went to see their number one ranked attraction. No, not Graceland, but Sun Studio. This was the home of rock and roll – where Elvis was found and first produced. Ironically Elvis was originally rejected as not good enough!

A picture of Sam Phillips, who owned Sun Studio. It was the Memphis Recording Service. He released Rocket 88 in 1951 by Ike Turner – the first rock n roll single. He also produced for BB King, Howling Wolf, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.

This is the actual recording room. It is still used almost every night by local musicians to do recordings. Ironically for a couple of decades it was used as an office, but luckily the owners never changed the internal structure so as it became famous, it could go back to being a recording studio. Was amazing being in the room where so many legendary songs were recorded.

The tour guide was a local musician, and was a great guide. You got played parts of various original recordings, and heard about the history.

A photo of the impromptu million dollar quartet. By chance Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley were in the studio at the same time, and they did some impromptu jamming – which Sam Phillips recorded without them knowing (Elvis was on a different label by then). They had Johnny Cash pop in also, and this iconic photo captured them together.

We then went to the Graceland RV Park. They have a service where if you go into town to dine at Marlowes, they pick you up in a pink Cadillac.

The interior of Marlowes. They are legendary for their ribs. Just be warned – only ask for the half plate size.

And going with more of a beach theme, today’s pic is of our native Oyster-catcher

“Jump”

Click for larger, higher res image

The Herald reports:

More changes to electoral laws will be made before next year’s election including closing a loophole which enables parties to hide donations until after election day.

Excellent.

Ms Collins also intended to clamp down on the use of undisclosed loans after the Electoral Commission raised concerns that making loans which were later written off, rather than donations, could be used to dodge disclosure requirements.

Which is what the Conservatives did.

Justice Minister Judith Collins also indicated she would look at bigger changes after the election, including whether police should continue to handle electoral offences.

This follows complaints that the police rarely prosecute and are slow to deal with cases.

The Police have failed to do effective enforcement in 2005, 2008 and 2011. I’m disappointed they will be left respnosible for enforcement in 2014 but at least the Government hasn’t said no, and so this may be the last election we have where parties and candidates (and voters) can break the law with almost no consequences.

Stuff reports:

A Christchurch 5-year-old has been hospitalised with severe facial burns in a child abuse case that has shocked police and social agencies.

A man in his 40s is accused of holding a fan heater to the side of the boy’s face, causing third degree burns from his eyebrows to his chin.

Police have charged the man with wounding with intent to cause the boy grievous bodily harm over the weekend incident at a house in the city’s northeast.

He appeared in the Christchurch District Court on Monday and was remanded in custody without entering a plea.

The man, who has name suppression, will next appear on August 6.

Detective Sergeant Darren Folau, of the police child protection unit, said the injury was “horrific”.

The boy would require major surgery, including skin grafts for the disfiguring burn, he said.

How can a human being do that to a five year old?

There are times when biblical justice seems desirable, and maybe having a heater held to his face for say a couple of hours, would convince him of why you should not torture children?

Left Dallas to drive to Hope and then Little Rock. Had lunch at a cafe on the way and was amused to have business cards for bails bondsmen on the cafe counter.

Also found amusing that the road named after President Bush (41) is a toll road. Very apt for a Republican!

We then got to Hope. It is a very small town, and very proud of the fact it is the birthplace of not just Bill Clinton but also Mick Huckabee. They served as Governors for 23 of 28 years from 1979 to 2007. It is very small with fewer than 20,000 people there.

They have a quaint little museum at the train station. Mainly on Clinton but also on Huckabee a bit, and Hope. You learn a lot about Clinton’s early years, his Uncle Bucky (his dog was named after him) who was a substitute father. His grandparents, and how it was his grandfather who was a storekeeper who treated all customers with equal respect that had such an influence on Clinton being so anti-segregation.

This is the house Clinton was born in. His father (a soldier) died in a car accident three montsh before he was born, So his mother moved in here with her parents.

This is his old bedroom.  Butch Cassiddy was his childhood hero.

After Hope it was a short drive to Little Rock. We checked in at the RV park and went to dinner. Trip Advisor said the best restaurant was Ashley’s at the Capital. The prices were okay so we headed there.

The food and service was superb. Highly recommended. Our waiter had been there many years and had served President Clinton (or Bill as he said he was always told to call him) well over 100 times. This is and was his favorite restaurant. The hotel was also his HQ for his presidential campaign. It is a lovely hotel.

We had some drinks after dinner up on the mezzanine balcony. Wonderfully warm, and very classy. Drank far too much wine. We then left the hotel to walk back to the RV, and we were both saying how lovely it would be to stay there. We got around 200 metres down the road before we persuaded each other we should stay there. We headed back and inquired if they had any spare rooms. They did, but only their suites. The price was out of our range. But then they said they could provide them for the price of a normal room.

So ended up staying in this room, rather than the RV. No complaints at all. We decided to abandon the 8 am start and headed to the Clinton President Library around 11 am.

Little Rock is a great city. Only there one day and night, but it had a great vibe.

Transtasman on how the parties may have responded to the Seddon earthquakes:

How did our political parties first react to the earthquake swarm which hit Wellington on the weekend?

National: John Key says he’s relaxed about it, while Stephen Joyce drafts law forbidding Geonet to broadcast anything about earthquakes which could hurt NZ’s international reputation. Float of shares in 49% of southern alpine fault planned. Cut to EQC funding because “it sends the wrong message.”

Peter Dunne: After weeks of tough bare knuckle negotiations, agrees to support National’s ban on Geonet broadcasting, so long as people write a couple of reports.

Labour: In a sulky huddle debating whether the fault line should have a boy’s name or a girl’s name. In the meantime, David Shearer to issue press release saying the fault line should give him a fair go and stop being so mean.

Greens: Blaming earthquake on John Key, fracking, John Key, gambling, John Key, the Reserve Bank, John Key, John Key and John Key. Oh, also blaming it on negative politics and nasty personal attacks.

ACT: Didn’t see any earthquake. Can’t remember. Denies any earthquakes exist, anywhere, and says anyone who thinks such a bizarre thing could happen came in on a cabbage boat.

NZ First:Winston Peters hints at documents revealing true extent of Govt involvement in earthquakes, suggests he has them: then he hasn’t, but knows they exist; then denies all and blames media. Goes away for a few weeks till media forget and start writing “At least Winston isn’t boring” columns. Rinse and repeat cycle again.

Very good.

The Herald reports:

A capital gains tax on property makes little sense unless it also applies to the family home, says Finance Minister Bill English.

Speaking at today’s Mood of the Boardroom event in Auckland, English told the country’s top business leaders the government was maintaining its “clear position” on the capital gains tax debate.

“We’re not supporting the extension of the current capital gains tax,” he said.

“The overseas experts who tell us we need it all say that it should be comprehensive on all capital gains. And if you don’t do the whole thing then it probably doesn’t make much difference.”

I broadly agree with this. My position on Capital Gains Tax is this:

1. We should have a comprehensive capital gains tax (many capital gains are already taxed, but not “incidental” ones)
   
2. There should be no exemptions, including the family home. To do so will just encourage tax avoidence by giving each family member a home etc.
3. Other tax rates (income and company rates) must drop by at least as much as the extra revenue a CGT would generate for the Government.

You need to do all three together, to get a broad based low rate tax regime – which is what is best for economic growth. What you shouldn’t do is bring in an exemption riddled CGT and use it as a way to screw taxpayers over for more money to fund extra spending – which appears to be Labour’s policy.

The Herald reports:

Destiny Church has had an application to open a charter school declined by the Ministry of Education.

Church spokesman Richard Lewis said they were told on Tuesday evening the application to turn their existing private school into a charter school for years 1-13 had been turned down.

Good. I have no problem with religious groups sponsoring charter schools, and in fact many excellent schools in New Zealand have a religious element to them.

But Destiny Church is too cult like for me. There is a difference between a broad based religion and a cult. Destiny isn’t absolutely a cult, but it has cult-like tendencies.