Vernon Small reports:

The Greens have dumped their call for quantitative easing – or printing money – after it became an electoral liability for the party and a future Labour-led government.

Green co-leader Russel Norman yesterday confirmed the u-turn after Monday’s release of the joint Labour-Green-NZ First-Mana report into manufacturing left the policy out of the mix.

Prime Minister John Key and other Government ministers have latched on to the plan to ‘‘print money’’ to paint the Opposition as economically radical.

Norman said it was never Green policy but was included in a discussion paper, issued last October.

This suggests they were not advocating it. This is far from the reality. Russel Norman was constantly tweeting that we should be printing money, and providing examples of other countries that were doing so. There is no doubt that the Green’s proposed Finance Minister thinks we should be printing money. The only thing that has changed is they have agreed to stop talking about it in public.

But if a Labour/Green Government got into office, and couldn’t get the books to balance, what do you think is more likely – that they’ll cut spending or print money?

And enjoy Clark and Dawe as they explain what the Greens mean by quantitative easing!

Stats NZ has announced:

The number of abortions performed in New Zealand decreased in 2012, Statistics New Zealand said today. A total of 14,745 induced abortions were performed in New Zealand in 2012, 1,118 fewer than in 2011.

The general abortion rate (abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) decreased from 17.3 per 1,000 in 2011 to 16.1 in 2012. This rate is the lowest since 1995, when it was also 16.1 per 1,000. The lower abortion rate indicates that the decrease in the number of abortions was due to fewer women having abortions, rather than to changes in the size or age structure of the population.  

This is good. Abortion should be safe, legal and rarer.

The general abortion rate peaked in 2003 at 20.8. It is now 16.1, and has been dropping every year since 2007.

The ration of abortions to live births is 193 per 1,000, down from a peak of 247 in 2003. So it isn’t so much that there are less pregnancies, it is more than there are fewer abortions.

The drop appears to be amongst women having an abortion for the first time. The raw numbers have dropped 25% since 2003. However the numbers for women who have had two or more previous abortions have increased 4% since 2003.

Some differences by age also. The number of abortions for 11 to 14 year olds has dropped 43% since 2003 (from 89 to 51) and for 15 to 19 year olds dropped by 34%. However only a 10% drop for 25 to 29 year olds. This suggests to me that sex education for younger NZers is proving more effective.

The Listener has a lengthy article based on a submission by Michael Littlewood to the constitutional review. Well worth buying the latest issue for the whole article. A few extracts:

In the past three years, I have been tracking down my family’s roots and I now know the names and origins of all 32 of my great-great-great (GGG) grandparents. Fifteen were from England, 10 from Ireland, four from Scotland, two from Wales and one, a Maori, from New Zealand. 

The individual form in the 2013 Census, like others before it, had three questions on race. Question 11 asked: “Which ethnic group do you belong to? Mark the space or spaces which apply to you: New Zealand European; Maori; Samoan; Cook Island Maori; Tongan; Niuean; Chinese; Indian; Other such as Dutch, Japanese, Tokelauan. Please state.” Based on the nationalities of my GGG grandparents, I suppose I should have chosen New Zealand European and Maori, but I really do not feel I “belong” to those “ethnic groups”. Given that “belong” is as much about perception as DNA, I chose Other and wrote “New Zealander”. 

But ticking that box has a great effect on policies and funding.

But what would they have made of my answer if I had chosen “New Zealand European” and “Maori” as I suspect they wanted? The significance of the answer to this ques- tion diminishes over generations. It is now irrelevant and it’s time the statisticians real- ised that. If your grandparents were born in New Zealand, perhaps even your parents, you are surely a New Zealander, regardless of your racial background. It’s wrong for the census to ask me ques- tions about my feelings, which is what question 11 really does. It’s also wrong for whatever reason to slice and dice New Zealanders according to their feelings about ethnicity. I understand the wish of statisticians to continue asking the same questions from census to census so they can look at changes over time, but it’s time to stop asking New Zealanders a question about their feelings on race. 

And he looks at the Maori seats:

Given the now extremely low threshold that establishes whether a New Zealander is Maori or not, it is hardly surprising that the number of Maori MPs representing electors on the general roll significantly exceeds the number of MPs in Maori seats. In 2013, 16 “Maori” MPs represent electors on the general roll compared with just seven separately elected Maori MPs.

I think the distinctions between Maori electors and others, and between Maori MPs and others, are now indefensible. I’m not suggesting we ignore public policy issues of direct concern to Maori. We do not need a female roll and female MPs to ensure issues of concern to women are addressed; nor do we need an Asian roll and Asian MPs to address the needs of the Asian com- munity. That there are still issues of concern to Maori does not justify a Maori roll and Maori MPs. In 1840, the Treaty signatories did not directly contemplate separate repre- sentation in a Parliament of New Zealanders, but even if they had, that is no justification to continue race-based separatism in 2013.

Sadly some people do push for there to be female quota MPs, and no doubt a female roll!

Tracy Watkins at Stuff reports:

The person known only as “A” in relation to a legal challenge to the Paula Rebstock-led inquiry into the unauthorised release of sensitive Cabinet documents came into contact with the documents in a clerical role, the Appeal Court has heard.

This is a significant revelation. Most people had been assuming that Person A was a diplomat – an MFAT professional. And while no civil servant should be condoned for leaking “sensitive Cabinet documents”, there was a reasonable amount of sympathy for Person A on the assumption that they were an MFAT diplomat directly affected by the proposed restructuring.

But that assumption is wrong. So does this mean other common assumptions re Person A and the leak could be wrong.

1. Could the assumption Person A works at MFAT be wrong? Might it be someone from elsewhere in the public sector?
2. Could the motivation then be not personal or professional, but purely political and partisan?
3. How does someone who is in a (presumably not highly paid) clerical assistant afford the cost of legal action to stop the report in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal?
4. Could someone else be paying the bills, or assisting with them?

NZ Herald media columnist John Drinnan and Labour Party Deputy Leader Grant Robertson.

Hugh Pavletich e-mailed:

The scale and quality of new housing is best illustrated within a large normal housing market such as Houston ( refer … Houston Association of Realtors … latest monthly report ) , where housing cost is at 3.0 times annual household incomes, as the latest Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey illustrates , coupled with Houston Area New Homes Source .

Last year the new residential build consenting rate for Greater Houston was 15 units per 1000 population per annum (90,000 units for a population of 6.1 million), while the United Kingdom was 1.85 units per 1000 population per annum (about 117,000 units for a population of 63.1 million). So on a population basis, there is in excess of 8 times the new builds in Houston, with the size of the Houston new builds likely well in excess of 3 times the size of the British.

The square footage or metreage of new residential building in Houston is therefore likely to be in excess of 24 times as much as the British (by multiplying the quantity and size).

Lunatic ideological British style urban planning (which still has its dwindling numbers of Luddite Malthusian  adherents in the Antipodes surprisingly), is therefore in essence, a deliberate poverty creation programme.

No wonder people are flocking to Houston to live.

New fringe starter housing should be available for young New Zealanders at about $NZ1,000 per square metre all up, or slightly below that. In other words, new starter housing of 150 square metres at about $NZ150,000 … 200 square metre for $NZ200,000 … and so forth …

Sadly, New Zealand Local Government “institutional failure” ( degenerate … just like the British LG sector as explained by the UK Daily Mail some years ago ) has artificially driven new homes costs to $NZ2,500 + plus per square metre on the fringes of earthquake hit Christchurch and $NZ3,500 + per square metres on the fringes of Auckland.

I hope to visit some developments in Houston when I am over there.

Kate Chapman at Stuff reports:

The Government is promising more reform of non-casino gambling after a watered-down bill was reported back to Parliament yesterday.

Internal Affairs Minister Chris Tremain and Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell are due to announce a harm-minimisation package tomorrow.

That comes after a weakened version of Mr Flavell’s Gambling Harm Reduction Bill was reported back from the commerce select committee.

Prime Minister John Key said National and the Maori Party had found “some common ground”.

“I think the way Te Ururoa would see it is that . . . he’s got some wins.”

The bill aimed to return the proceeds of pokie machines to the communities they were made in and give local authorities more control over gambling operations.

But the committee rejected the plan to return 80 per cent of profits, instead allowing for regulations to ensure more of the proceeds returned to the same geographical area.

It also ruled out imposing the use of pre-commitment, player tracking, or other harm-minimisation devices, saying it would be “premature to mandate specific approaches”.

And it ruled out removing horse racing from the list that could receive gambling profits.

Labour reserved its decision on supporting the bill but the Greens will now vote against it.

I don’t like the status quo in terms of the relationships between some of the pubs, gaming operators and charitable trusts that distribute community funding. It is seriously flawed.

However what was proposed in the original Flavell bill would have almost led to political corruption. It proposed that local authorities be out in place of handing out money from pokie machines in their areas. That would have been terrible. Could you imagine the patronage as local Councillors give money out to various local groups, in return for their support.

So what were some of the changes made to the bill:

• Requiring councils to take over the distribution of funds – no submitters supported this, including the councils. It would have been a significant extra burden for them and would have politicised the grants process. It is a no brainer that this was deleted from the Bill.
• Requiring 80% of proceeds to be distributed locally – this makes sense in principle, but 80% may not be the right amount, and the mechanism set out in the Bill (to require it in gaming societies’ licence conditions) was rather inflexible. The revised Bill allows the same thing to be achieved through regulations, which can be changed much more easily. There is no suggestion that the Government won’t proceed with regulations, so this is not a question about the policy, just the mechanism.
• Requiring the use of harm minimisation devices – again, the Bill would have imposed this on societies through their licence conditions. The revision enables regulations to be made instead, which would actually allow a nationwide policy, rather than setting it through individual licences. Regulations are also more flexible to allow for new technologies as they become available. Again, the Bill has simply been changed to provide for a different mechanism, not to water down what Flavell is seeking.

Flavell has actually actually achieved some very significant policy changes, compared to the status quo. His bill has been re-drafted almost totally, but that is because with respect it was very badly worded – as many members’ bills are – as they don’t have PCO and government departments able to do it for them.

By focusing on the outcomes, rather than the mechanisms, Flavell has managed to get a pretty good victory – especially as his original bill could easily have merely been voted out as unworkable.

It will be interesting to see what the Greens do with their lobbying bill. The bill as worded is unworkable and draconian – something even they acknowledge. It would make some tweets between MPs and some members of the public on policy issues an offence. Will they compromise on the mechanisms proposed to get a bill that is workable, or will they insist on no significant changes leading to it being voted down? It is far easier to grand-stand than to actually achieve a workable solution.

Kiwi Dirt Biker has done a NZ equivalent of the UK site which shows how much tax you’ll pay over a 43 year career.

Housing would be a lot more affordable if we were paying less tax!

He has also done a page which compares your difference in lifetime tax based on the 2007 tax rates and the 2013 tax rates.

If you earn $100,000 a year you’ll end up with $273,000 more cash in the hand than if the 2007 tax and ACC rates still applied.

Stuff reports:

The Government has stepped in to help the city council with its consenting problems, sending in a team of technical experts to speed up the flow of consent approvals.

But a wholesale takeover is looming next week if the council cannot convince authorities it should not have its consenting accreditation revoked.

Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson yesterday authorised a five-strong team from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to join the Christchurch City Council’s consenting department and to make changes to its processes as required.

How bad is the problem?

The council is receiving about 40 new building consents each day, but has a backlog of about 1700 historical consents that it needs to clear.

Sixteen consenting officers, four managers and nine administration staff worked over the weekend to begin clearing the backlog and staff are now being rostered on six days a week, but additional resources may still be needed if the council is to address IANZ’s concerns by the June 28 deadline.

But what interested me is the role of other Councils

Since news of the council’s consenting crisis surfaced last week it has received offers of help from around the country:
Invercargill City Council has offered to assist with processing consents and has undertaken to approach other councils in the region to see if they can also help.

Selwyn District Council has offered to share its expertise.

The Auckland Council has created a Christchurch rebuild team where staff will work extra hours processing consents.

Professional Building Consultants in Auckland, which is contracted to help the council, will increase its capacity to process consents.

This could be a model for the future.

Each Council sets the rules around consents for their area, but that doesn’t mean that that same Council has to be the body that assesses applications against rules. As we see above, many Councils have staff experienced in assessing and approving consents.

Short of the threat of losing accreditation, there are little incentives for Councils to issue consents on time and for a reasonable price. They are a monopoly service.

But what  if Councils could compete with each other? What if say there were half a dozen Councils that provided consenting services on a nation-wide or even regional basis?

Think if those needing consents could (for example) choose to go to the Hamilton City Council rather than their local Council, because the Hamilton City Council can do the consent in 12 days instead of 30 days? Or they could choose the Tauranga City Council to get a consent, as they charge $400 instead of $750?

We don’t provide incentives for most Councils to consent on time – just a stick. I’d love to see some competition emerge to get those incentives right.

Susan Chalmers writes at ADSL:

The Copyright Act was to be reviewed five years after the 2008 amendments. Today, such review would also extend to the more recent Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act 2011. …

The acceptance by some Governments of digital copyright policies advanced by the rightsholder community would go to suggest that anachronistic conceptualisations of copyright remain deeply entrenched in law and policymakers’ thinking, and that how the Internet actually works does not. A good example lies in the aforementioned temporary electronic copy language, which is present in nearly all US free trade agreements.

This language likens a physical copy to a virtual one, which, if actually recognised, would become a problem for Internet Service Providers of all stripes. This is because Internet traffic is transmitted from point A to point B by making “temporary copies”. We can think of copying as how the Internet “breathes”.

Strictly applied, the right would pretty much make the Internet illegal. Approaches like this indicate that the way we are thinking about adapting copyright to the Internet is, as Professor Rebecca Giblin has put it, applying “physical world assumptions” to “software world realities”.

Doing this ignores the complexities of the Internet, and policies formulated in this way usually generate bigger problems and greater costs than those they are meant to alleviate.

Copyright laws come from the age where copying was a physical act, and it is the physical act that is regulated. This does not work well in a digital world.

This is in no way arguing against copyright as a legitimate intellectual property right. I argue that laws and policy should focus on the use, not the copying.

As part of normal practice, jurisdictions develop principles that help organise and direct their legislative reviews. For example, in reviewing exceptions and limitations to copyright, Australia recently released its Copyright and the Digital Economy discussion paper. Listed therein are five framing principles for reform: “1) acknowledging and respecting authorship and creation, 2) maintaining incentives for creation of works and other subject matter, 3) promoting fair access to and wide dissemination of content, 4) providing rules that are flexible and adaptive to new technologies, and 5) providing rules consistent with Australia’s international obligations.” (Australian Law Reform Commission, “Copyright and the Digital Economy (DP 79)”, Discussion Paper, June 2013.)

They seem like good principles.

If we accept that there should be a review of New Zealand’s copyright law, then what should the guiding principles for that review be?

The principles listed above are all good and we would do well to use them as a base in developing our own set. Flexibility seems to be a highly desired characteristic of next generation copyright law. The traditional utilitarian principle behind copyright also remains relevant – that creators should be incentivised by reward in order to create works the public can consume. Copyright has always been a balance between the author and the public good.

Perhaps it is time to add another party to the balancing act: the Internet. Copyright policies, when they relate to online activities, are Internet policies too.

Given the importance of the Internet to modern society, it stands to reason that the impact on the Internet of copyright policies should factor into the equation. The best copyright laws and policies would work with the Internet, and not against it.

I look forward to the copyright review.

Stuff reports:

Labour MP Lianne Dalziel is set to enter the Christchurch mayoral race, Fairfax Media understands.

The Christchurch East MP has long been rumoured as the favourite to challenge incumbent Bob Parker for the mayoral chains, following her high-profile role as Labour’s earthquake recovery spokeswoman, and criticism of the current council.

Her declaration is expected later this week.

Dalziel has the backing of her party for a mayoral bid, despite dropping out of the top 20-ranked Labour MPs in a party reshuffle in February.

If she stands and wins, she will likely have to resign her Christchurch East seat, triggering a by-election.

Worst kept secret ever.

In March she was “99 per cent” sure she would not stand, but a month later it was revealed she had attempted to recruit Student Volunteer Army founder Sam Johnson as a potential running mate.

I don’t know why more MPs can’t be as honest as Maurice Williamson was and just say upfront that they are considering standing, rather than deny it one month and be trying to lien up running mates the next.

Last month she was still coy on a bid, but talked about the importance of an alternative council leadership that cut across political party lines.

She said at the time that she would consider standing if she got the “right” team behind her, but admitted it was likely to include candidates from the Left-leaning People’s Choice movement.

Their aim, is to get a Labour majority on Council.

I’ve been reading the Green party food policy. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. So much there that needs to be shared with the world. Here’s some highlights.

Studies show that the majority of the ecological footprint of food comes from food processing, storage, packaging and growing conditions. In addition plant-based diets are recognised as having a reduced impact on the environment as less land is used to produce the same number of food calories. For example, a cow eats five plant calories to produce one milk calorie, and ten plant calories to produce one calorie of beef.

Societies whose food energy comes mostly from starchy plants rather than livestock have smaller environmental impacts because they only require about a quarter the land area to produce the same number of food calories

From a global perspective, the current New Zealand way of life is not sustainable because the world cannot afford to follow our dietary and land use patterns. The typical Western diet could support less than 2.5 billion people – which is less than half the world’s current population.

So bye bye western diets, and hello plant based diets!

Promote, by labelling and education, dietary choices that have a reduced impact on the environment, recognising that these will differ in different places. For most people in New Zealand this will involve eating more locally grown organically produced seasonal food with less processing or packaging and eating less meat and animal fat.

You will eat your organic food, and like it!

Ensure that all food and drink advertisements screened on television meet the criteria for nutritious food that is recommended as a routine part of a healthy, balanced diet. 

This is the big one, The other two are more aspirational (if one can call turning the clock back 900 years aspirational), but this is a specific commitment – their policy is to ban all food advertising from television unless they deem it nutritious.

Goodbye to all advertising for Magnums ice-creams, among others.

You think you’ve seen nanny state in the post. Wait until we have a Green Party Minister of Food!

This is just one of many loopy Green policies I will be highlighting over future weeks. Please do not go and read them all yourself, as our mental health budget is already under strain.

The Herald editorial:

In politics, as in all spheres of life, timing is everything. Take the report into manufacturing released yesterday by the Labour, Greens, New Zealand First and Mana parties. When their inquiry began last October, times were uncommonly tough in the sector. Just last Friday, however, the latest BNZ-Business NZ performance of manufacturing index indicated that it was expanding at its fastest rate since 2003, and at one of the world’s highest rates. Equally, a tumbling exchange rate has eased many of the sector’s woes. In that context, the report’s talk of the killing of manufacturing seemed lame at best.

I’m surprised they scheduled to release it the next working day after the PMI index came out. The index is on a regular release schedule and better political management would have seen them make sure they avoid being too close to the release of any major manufacturing data in case it undermined their claims of a crisis.

Yet even if current conditions had mimicked those of eight months ago, the report would have been counted a barren exercise. Its three core recommendations are as flawed as they are predictable. The first wants monetary policy to be aimed at achieving a lower and more stable exchange rate, as well as a lowering of structural costs in the economy, such as electricity prices, and a refocusing of capital investment into the productive economy, rather than housing speculation.

Normally one can use an inquiry to at least come up with some new ideas or policies – but they have failed to do even that.

The report’s recommendation for a lowering of structural costs in the economy refers specifically to electricity prices. This is a clear nod to the Labour-Green proposal for a single buyer to purchase all electricity generation at what it deems a fair price. Presumably, this is seen as the forerunner of a greater emphasis on central planning. Manufacturers would, of course, applaud lower power costs. But what they would also get would be inefficiencies, unintended consequences and, if history is a guide, blackouts.

And I may be wrong, but I think most manufacturers need electricity to actually operate!

The opponents of national standards seem to have abandoned their stance that parents shouldn’t know if their kids are at the standard expected for their age. Instead they now argue that the Government shouldn’t collect any national standards data because moderation and assessment is not 100% consistent.

Now I’m sure it isn’t 100% consistent. But frankly I’m appalled that their response is to say scrap national standards than improve the data. It’s ideological madness. Think if their secondary counterparts were as bad, as NZEI seem to be. Considering every secondary student undertaking NCEA is largely internally assessed with significant variability between schools, you don’t hear the PPTA calling for NCEA to be scrapped and no data kept on NCEA pass marks for schools.

So next time an  anti national standards zealot goes on about the data being imperfect, ask them what they are doing to improve it, rather than scrap it.

But we see today that they really have no interest in anything that might make the data more consistent. The Herald reported:

The NZ Principals’ Federation, the Educational Institute, the NZ Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools and the Catholic Principals Association have called on school boards, colleagues and the organisations developing the ‘Progress and Consistency Tool’ (PaCT) to stop their involvement, including a trial this year.

So they are saying they won’t even trial a tool that would lead to more consistent data!

They say PaCT amounts to a national test and are concerned about how the data will be used.

That’s ridiculous. A national test is where all kids sit the same test. This is nothing at all like that.

The Ministry of Education has said it will make National Standards data more reliable.

Which is what they claim they want? This exposes that in reality they want no data on their performance.

The tool asks teachers to judge students’ National Standards levels by working through tick-boxes of illustrations representative of achievement outcomes.

The PaCT tool then generates a result for each student.

So how is that a national test?

“This narrow tool will take over teacher judgements and do it for them.”

No, it is a tool to guide the teacher so assessments are more consistent – the EXACT thing they have been claiming is wrong with national standards.

NZEI president Judith Nowotarski said the tool would undermine teacher professionalism, reduce teaching quality for students and cement a reliance on data from National Standards.

“It also opens the floodgates for other initiatives like competitive performance pay for teachers. There is no research evidence to show that when teachers receive performance pay it helps students learn better.”

Good God, their paranoia on performance pay means they will try and sabotage anything that allows an assessment of schools and teachers that are doing well.

A spokesman for the ministry said National Standards were not a national test.

“PaCT is an online, web-based tool which is being designed to help teachers make consistent judgments against the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. The tool will support teachers to make overall judgments about a student’s achievement and track progress over time.”

He said an advisory group had been set up to get teachers’ input into its design.

“The feedback received has helped its design and development.”

He said the tool included a framework for describing the steps that students typically take as they develop expertise in reading, writing and mathematics across the curriculum.

” Teachers’ judgments are key to judging a student’s progress and achievement and in PaCT the final decision is made by the teacher.”

So they claim there is not enough consistency with national standards, and when a nifty online tool is developed to help increase consistency – they boycott it on the grounds they don’t want comparable data in case it is used in the future in a way they don’t approve of.

iSentia blog on the five most reported issues in May 2013. They are:

1. Budget 2013
2. Aaron Gilmore
3. Mighty River Power
4. Syria
5. Food and milk in schools

Tu is an intense drama.  A Maori East Coast family is torn apart both emotionally and literally by the shafts of love, strife and war.

The play is based on the novel by Patrica Grace. Old Tu (Tammy Davis) recounts what happened to him and his brothers and family as they went to war in the 1940s.

The three brothers are Philomel, or older brother; Boydie and Tu. They’re played by Jarod Rawiri, Taungaroa Emile and Kimo Houltham respectively. Boydie is the flashy charmer. Philomel is looking forward to life with Jess (Aroha White) and Tu is the typical younger brother. Tina Cook performs wonderfully as their Ma, and Kali Kopae is the at home daughter taking an interest in the US marines stationed in Wellington.

The set is surrounded by audience on both sides of it, making it an unusual viewing experience, as you can see the reactions of those seated opposite.

It’s a hard show to summarise, as so much of it is caught up in the emotional intensity of the scenes. You spend the last 20 minutes almost on the edge of your seat – even though you sort of know the inevitable ending.

A great NZ production, that resonated with the audience.

Also reviewed at Theatreview.

Clare Curran released:

The Government’s refusal to break the stranglehold of pay-TV company Sky on the media market has contributed to the position MediaWorks finds itself in today, says Labour’s Broadcasting spokesperson Clare Curran.

This is bizarre. Clare seems to have a fetish against Sky TV. It seems they are responsible for everything bad in broadcasting (despite keeping Backbenches on the air) and somehow are magically responsible for Mediaworks taking on too much debt.

TVNZ has remained profitable, so blaming the receivership of Mediaworks on Sky TV is ridiculous, and scapegoating. In fact their problems are long-standing around their level of debt.

“Instead of throwing a $43 million loan at MediaWorks three years ago to bail them out of a short term sticky situation, the Government should have done what most other countries do and free up the market to enable free to air television to compete with pay-television.

I’ve never heard of a loan with commercial interest rates (now repaid) being referred to as throwing money away before.

And by “free up the market”, I presume the actual intent is to regulate against Sky for being too successful!

I notice Clare’s press release is not on the Labour website. Does her statement speak on behalf of the Labour Party? Do they also believe that Sky TV is responsible for Mediaworks having too much debt?

The .nz Domain Name Commission (note I am a director of it) is consulting on a revised proposal to allow registrants to register .nz domain names at the second level (anyname.nz) rather than only the third level (anyname.2ld.nz).

A major concern expressed by some submitters was that existing registrants could feel “forced” to incur extra costs in registering anyname.nz on top of their existing anyname.co.nz name.  To mitigate this issue, DNCL is proposing that existing registrants be able to reserve registration of the equivalent of their current name at the second level (for no cost for at least two years).   DNCL believes this modified proposal delivers significant benefits to registrants without disadvantaging those who do not wish to use a name at the second level.  There are also other changes to the proposal following the initial consultation.

If you’re interested in this issue, I encourage you to make a submission at the above link.

The report of the Labour/Greens/NZ First/Mana inquiry into manufacturing is here.

The best comment in the report was on page 24:

Manufacturing Strategy: submitters made it plain that there was little interest on their part in further “talkfests” about the future of manufacturing in New Zealand, or about the need for a “Manufacturing Strategy”, requiring further extended discussion

Which is ironic, as that is what the entire inquiry has been – a massive talkfest.

What is most hilarious is the major recommendations for macro-economic policy:

• a fairer and less volatile exchange rate through reforms to monetary policy
• refocusing capital investment into the productive economy, rather than housing speculation;
• and lowering structural costs in the economy, such as electricity prices

How amazing. By total coincidence the major macro-economic recommendations happen to be the pre-existing policy of Labour et al. They didn’t even have to think up any new policies.

Gerry Brownlee writes in The Press:

The Christchurch Town Hall is broken and unusable, and fixing it would be an expensive challenge, says the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery, Gerry Brownlee.

it would cost around $130 million to repair it, and insurance would cover only half.

In April 2012 we established the Christchurch Central Development Unit, of which the Christchurch City Council is a part, with the Crown and Ngai Tahu.

Council staff advised and played a significant role in developing the blueprint, ensuring it reflected what Christchurch residents told them. There was strong community support for a performing arts precinct, which was developed into an anchor project.

In 1974, Christchurch opened the premier performing arts facility of its generation.

The Christchurch Town Hall was state of the art for its time. The ultimate compliment was paid when in 1975 the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington was commissioned using the same architects and acoustic engineer.

A building younger than me, is not a heritage building.

Today the Christchurch Town Hall is badly torn apart.

What is left of it sits on some of the worst land from the geotechnical perspective in the central city – in part why it is so seriously damaged. It lies broken and unusable, and fixing it would be an expensive challenge.

We have a clear choice: try to recapture the magic of the past and patch up the town hall, as some want to do; or deliver modern facilities that could again have Christchurch leading the world for quality performing arts spaces.

The blueprint proposes developing an arts and entertainment complex with multiple theatres and performing arts spaces.

It would deliver auditoria of differing sizes, for multiple purposes, across a range of entertainment genres and with the performing arts community’s needs in mind.

This proposal encompasses the things Christchurch residents told the city council they wanted through the Share an Idea process.

It would incorporate space for our music schools.

It would have space for art house cinema and documentaries.

Performance spaces of varying sizes would take some risk out of mounting shows; if more seats were required, they would be at the same venue.

Sounds a much better plan to me, and something that would be used by many many more people than the old Town Hall.

But I have no doubt the Council will vote the other way.

Rob Kidd at Stuff reports:

A lawyer has won a harassment case against a blogger who launched an online campaign to ruin her reputation, setting a major precedent extending the scope of anti-stalking laws.

Judge David Harvey issued blogger Jacqueline Sperling with an indefinite restraining order to protect lawyer Madeleine Flannagan, a rare case in which the Harassment Act has been used to cover blogging. The decision now opens the door to victims of harassment on other online sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Sperling – who created colourful headlines when she outed herself as an ex-methamphetamine addict, ex-prostitute and ex-girlfriend of Michael Laws – was ordered to take down nearly 100 posts and comments from her blog which made derogatory references to Flannagan. …

A year ago, Flannagan and Brown unsuccessfully applied for a restraining order against Sperling, saying she had made numerous hurtful and distressing internet posts about them.

Judge Harvey ordered some posts be taken offline but ruled a restraining order was not required.

Flannagan took legal action a second time after Sperling renewed her online attacks. This time the lawyer won the indefinite restraining order.

Flannagan hailed her win this month as a “precedent-setting case”.

She said it was not the first cyber-bullying case tested by the Harassment Act but it was the first with a detailed judgment.

I’ve got a copy of the judgment, which is here – Flannagan Madeleine v Sperling Jacqueline jud 13052013. It’s an interesting case, as arguably action could have been taken for either defamation or harassment. The problem with defamation proceedings is they take a long time and can turn very expensive. In this case, Madeleine has achieved what she wants – which is (hopefully) and end to the harassment.

It’s good to see that the current law can be used effectively in online cases.

Stuff reports:

Presenters and staff at embattled MediaWorks will keep their jobs following receivers being appointed to the company, but the taxpayer – potentially owed tens of millions of dollars – will be the big loser.

At a press conference this morning receivers Brendan Gibson and Michael Stiassny of KordaMentha said they had been appointed by MediaWorks’ senior lenders to manage a transition in ownership.

Gibson said senior lenders – owed around $400m – were forming a new company and intended to retain all current staff.

“All the 1400 employees will keep their jobs. We’ll be moving to transfer their contracts at an appropriate time,” Gibson said.

Contracts and payments to suppliers would also be met, and current broadcast programming would be unaffected, the receivers said.

For now, no job losses. But hard to think there will not be some down the road as the receivers cut costs to the bone.

The fate of Mediaworks is perhaps a good comparative lesson for non-commercial broadcasters that are taxpayer funded. They’ve been whining about a funding freeze, while their commercial counterparts would sell their right arm to be able to have stable revenue.