Andrew blogs at Grumpollie:

The problem with calling cell phones doesn’t really lie in the cost of calls. For a polling company, calling a cell phone doesn’t cost that much more than calling a landline. The problem is the complexity and cost of employing dual sampling frames when the proportion of cell phone users without a landline is still very low. If the purpose of calling cell phones is to reduce non-coverage of likely voters, then you may actually need to ‘screen out’ those you call on cell phones who also have a landline (because they are already covered by the landline sample frame).

If we assume (hypothetically) that 6% of eligible voters have cell phones and no landline, that means that 94% of the people you call on a cell phone will not be eligible to take part (again, because they are already covered by the landline sample frame). This is where the cost would really begin to build up – all those interviewer hours required just to screen people out (eek!).

It is worth recalling the stat – you’d have to call almost 17 cell phones to find 1 person who doesn’t have a landline.

At the moment such a small proportion of New Zealanders have a cell phone with no landline that party support would need to be dramatically different among those people for this particular type of non-coverage to influence the poll results for party vote (eg, support for Labour among cell phone only voters may need to be twice what it is among landline voters for the party vote result to shift by more than, say, the margin of error).

Also a very useful point to recall when people raise the cellphone issue.

Let’s say National is at 48% amongst landline users and only 40% amongst cellphone only users. If you poll landline users only then you get National at 48%. If you poll both landline and cellphone only users you would have National at 47.5%. Not a huge difference.

Also worth noting almost all polling companies weight by age so any differences between landline and cellphone users which are due to different age profiles get compensated for anyway.

When the proportion of people with cell phones and no landline is considerably larger than it is today (like it is in some other countries), then it will definitely make sense to employ a dual sampling frame approach.

The results of the census will be interesting to see how the proportions have changed.

Neil Miller writes in the HoS on 10 benefits of drinking beer:

1. Beer lessens the constant anxiety of watching the Black Caps bat.
2. After beer, Gareth Morgan’s constant lectures become slightly less annoying.
3. Beer enables people to hold strong opinions on every issue without resorting to research.
4. Without beer, no one would date in the provinces.
5. Television beer ads employ all young Kiwi actors not talented enough to be on Shortland Street.
6. The Government gets lots of money from beer through excise tax, GST and company tax on anyone who manages to make a profit.
7. Frank Zappa said “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team or some nuclear weapons.” Without beer, New Zealand would only be half a real country.
8. The late-night takeaway food industry depends on beer for patronage.
9. Beer production provides the main ingredient in Marmite.
10. Drinking a frosty beer annoys President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Professor Doug Sellman.

Heh, an excellent list.

Another HoS article focuses on the drop in beer consumption in NZ.

Statistics NZ figures reveal beer sales have dropped from 181 litres per adult in 1973 to 79 litres last year. This figure marks the lowest level of beer sales since World War II.

But what about the drinking crisis in NZ?

And before you claim people are just drinking more of other alcoholic products, overall alcohol production is down also.

Rodney Hide in the HoS describes 10 ways Government policies hurt poor people:

1. The Government funds the very best schools for rich kids’ education. The price of entry is the cost of a house that’s “in-zone”. Poor families can’t afford it. They are locked out of decent schools and their kids are consigned to third-rate institutions.
2. Rich girls are subsidised to attend university and become teachers, accountants and lawyers. Poor girls are subsidised to drop out of school and have babies.
3. The rich teach their kids to work hard and be smart to succeed. The Government teaches poor kids their land was stolen and that to prosper they must work on Treaty claims in hope of winning it back.
4. Rich boys start work on graduate wages. Poor boys are shut out of the job market by the minimum wage.
5. Solo mums face the highest effective marginal tax rates in the country. The rich have tax planners and offshore accounts.
6. Metropolitan Urban Limits restrict the supply of land and inflate the value of existing homes. That’s great for families who already own a house or two. It’s bad for the poor. The Urban Limits shut them out of ever owning a house. The poor are never able to accumulate capital and establish the sense of pride and belonging that home ownership brings. They are tenants for life.
7. The Government subsidises the winnings of rich horse owners. The gambling of poor people is taxed through the TAB and pokie machines.
8. The ballet and the orchestra are subsidised. Smoking and drinking are taxed.
9. Poor neighbourhoods are crime-ridden. The rich live behind locked gates and security patrols and say tougher sentencing and increased policing don’t work. The poor struggle to protect their meagre possessions and to keep their children from the clutches of gangs and drug dealers.
10. The Resource Management Act, occupational safety and health, and our labour laws protect established business from upstarts who can’t afford lawyers, human resources consultants and three tiers of management devoted to compliance.

A fair bit of truth there.

Bevan Hurley at HoS reports:

A peace activist was detained for 48 hours before being sent back to New Zealand for trying to enter Israel on a tourist visa.

The point being she was not a tourist and lied.

Amy Thomson, 26, was held at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on February 26. She tried to enter the country for a three-month voluntary internship at a non-government organisation promoting peace.

Thomson said the Israel Palestinian Centre for Research and Information told her she should claim to be a tourist.

Well that says a lot about them.

Israel, of all countries, has every reason to be vigilant about who can enter their country. Lying is a bad way to get in.

Suspicions were raised when Israeli immigration authorities saw she had recently visited Lebanon, which is in ongoing conflict with Israel.

Ha, I had just come from Iran when I entered Israel and had also been to Kuwait, Egypt and Turkey. so I also got a lengthy interrogation. I didn’t mind so much as she was cute 🙂

Thomson was questioned for eight hours about her visit to Israel, who she knew, and her intentions.

During which time she lied. They can spot liars. And how stupid is this – Her Linked In profile refers to her intended internship.

One interrogator mockingly congratulated her for winning a $500 prize for an essay she had written on Iranian politics which appeared on the Massey University website.

Oh my God – Mossad know how to use Google. The fiends.

“I felt humiliated and ashamed. Eventually it seemed to me that he had found something out and knew that I had lied about something.”

Exhausted, after a 24 hour flight and 12 hours questioning, Thomson admitted that she was to work for a non-governmental organisation.

Should have said that from the beginning, and applied for the correct visa.

She said she regretted not being honest but it was a valuable experience.

“I know what it’s like for the Palestinians to deal with what they deal with every single day.”

Oh Good God.

Rob Portman is a Republican US Senator. He was short-listed to be the Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012 and is seen as a credible contender for the GOP nomination in 2016. He has held numerous senior executive roles in the US Government and is an influential figure.

He has just become the first Republican US Senator to back same sex marriage. He explains why in his own words:

Two years ago, my son Will, then a college freshman, told my wife, Jane, and me that he is gay. He said he’d known for some time, and that his sexual orientation wasn’t something he chose; it was simply a part of who he is. Jane and I were proud of him for his honesty and courage. We were surprised to learn he is gay but knew he was still the same person he’d always been. The only difference was that now we had a more complete picture of the son we love.

At the time, my position on marriage for same-sex couples was rooted in my faith tradition that marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman. Knowing that my son is gay prompted me to consider the issue from another perspective: that of a dad who wants all three of his kids to lead happy, meaningful lives with the people they love, a blessing Jane and I have shared for 26 years.

I wrestled with how to reconcile my Christian faith with my desire for Will to have the same opportunities to pursue happiness and fulfillment as his brother and sister. Ultimately, it came down to the Bible’s overarching themes of love and compassion and my belief that we are all children of God.

Love and compassion is far more attractive than bile and hate.

One way to look at it is that gay couples’ desire to marry doesn’t amount to a threat but rather a tribute to marriage, and a potential source of renewed strength for the institution.

Absolutely.

I’ve thought a great deal about this issue, and like millions of Americans in recent years, I’ve changed my mind on the question of marriage for same-sex couples. As we strive as a nation to form a more perfect union, I believe all of our sons and daughters ought to have the same opportunity to experience the joy and stability of marriage.

Nicely put.

Portman’s change of view is sincere, I have no doubt. There is a wider political aspect to this though. If the Republicans don’t moderate their positions on some of these issues, then they will find it harder and harder to win elections.

In the US, support for same sex marriage is:

• 18 – 29 70%
• 30 – 39 60%
• 40 – 49 55%
• 50 – 64 48%
• 65+ 32%

Now I can near guarantee you that those 70% of under 30s who support same sex marriage will not decrease as they get older. If anything, it will increase. So in just 10 years I expect we’ll see something like:

• 18 – 29 75%
• 30 – 39 70%
• 40 – 49 60%
• 50 – 64 55%
• 65+ 45%

Nick Smith said:

It is essential that more land is made available for housing to improve supply and affordability in Auckland, Minister of Housing Dr Nick Smith said today in releasing the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment report ‘Residential Land Available in Auckland’.

“This report shows a worrying trend of reduced land availability and soaring section prices in Auckland over the past decade. It highlights that with projected population growth, Auckland will need about 13,000 additional homes per year over the next three decades and that with changing household make-ups, the biggest growth in demand will be for smaller households,” Dr Smith says.

So how is the Council doing?

• The number of new sections available to be built on today is 1900 – significantly less than the 15,000 previously reported.
• The land ready to be subdivided has a capacity of 14,500 sections, compared to the Council’s development strategy target of seven years supply of 32,550 sections.
• The land in the pipeline for subdivision has a capacity of 54,500 sections, with the Council’s development strategy target being 20 years supply of 103,500 sections.
• “This report shows Auckland needs double the supply of land to meet the Council’s own targets.

That last point is crucial. They are not even on target to have half the land they need for their own targets. And their own targets are well below what is needed also.

The draft unitary plan projects:

• 280,000 new homes within the current urban limit
• 90,000 new homes in greenfield areas outside the current limit

So they are not on track to have even half the land they need for their draft unitary plan. But how realistic is it to have 280,000 new homes within the current urban Auckland?

The Government’s further concern, detailed in this report, is that Auckland’s plan will require the building of 4000 high-density dwellings every year for the next decade and 10,000 per year after that. This compares to 830 higher density dwellings consented last year and an average of 2674 per year over the past decade.

Does anyone think Auckland Council can consent 4,000 high-density dwellings a year let alone 10,000 a year?

Officials are cautious that this can be achieved, particularly when previous intensification targets set by Auckland planners a decade ago were not met.

In other words they’ve failed to meet even past modest targets, so its madness to think they can meet their targets either for intensification or for greenfield developments.

Lindsay Mitchell blogs:

The private members bill legislating for an increase of taxpayer-funded Paid Parental Leave (PPL) from 14 to 26 weeks is back in parliament today. Bear in mind, if lobbyists get 6 months it’ll only be a matter of time before they want 1 year.

The main argument goes that bonding and breastfeeding are so important they should be encouraged as much as possible.

If you look at how mothers are behaving after a birth most already appreciate that.

NZ statistics analysed data from 2002 -2005 when the provision was for 12 weeks PPL.

Did most mothers return to work when their leave entitlement ran out?

No.

4 months after starting PPL only 12.5 percent were back working – at 5 months, only 33 percent.

30 percent had not returned to work after 18 months.

So very very few mothers go back to work the moment PPL runs out. Hence the arguments about giving more bonding time are over-hyped. An extension will simply be another tax and spend income transfer.

The Telegraph reports:

Sources have confirmed that the Coalition will not attempt to implement the Prime Minister’s plan for a 45p per unit minimum price.

Is that all? Labour MPs here were talking $2 a stand drink minimum price!

One Treasury source described the Prime Minister’s plan as “a remarkably stupid idea”.

I’ll just point out that the public seem pretty supportive of same sex marriage, and they can vote for or against MPs on the basis of their vote. 41 electorate MPs voted for it, and 30 against.

This week’s quiz is here. No guesses!

Amelia Wade at NZ Herald reports:

For the first time, Aucklanders will this year have to request a copy of the White Pages telephone directory.

The decision came after 75 per cent of Aucklanders wanted the chance to “opt in”, according to a survey conducted by Nielsen and commissioned by Yellow.

Every year, about 6.5 million phone books are distributed around New Zealand.

Research from Nielsen in 2010 found only 41 per cent of people aged 15 and over used the White Pages.

Mine go straight into the recycling box.

The pilot is being run just in Auckland this year, and the company is watching the reaction before deciding whether it will be rolled out nation-wide.

They should.

Audrey Young writes:

Chris Auchinvole’s speech on gay marriage was widely hailed as one of the best given by a politician in the debate this week on the legislation.

MPs from across the House say it was the best speech of his parliamentary career.

But for thousands of people on social media, the question was: “Who is this Chris Auchinvole?”

He is a 68-year old West Coast-based list MP for National who, until this week, did not know what “trending” was – until he was told that his speech was a hit on Twitter.

His executive assistance printed off 40 pages of comments from Twitter on the speech and that was only 1 per cent of the feedback, he said. There wasn’t a single negative remark.

“Could you be my grandfather?” “Where have they been hiding him?” and “Chris Auchinvole for Emperor” were some of them.

You can see some of the comments here. It was a great speech, and I’m glad so many people got to see his sense of humour, and also his compassion.

Mr Auchinvole insists he had no position on gay marriage until he sat on the select committee considering Louisa Wall’s bill legalising it.

“Hand on heart. It would be quite wrong to say I have any particular sympathy for any particular group. I don’t think that would be honest.

“I know it’s a funny, old-fashioned way of approaching things but I think you have to go with an open mind and be persuaded by argument. That appeals to my Scottish nature. Even if I felt it were wrong, if it made good sense you have to go with it.”

He said there was a big generational difference in the submissions the select committee received, with generally the older submitters saying definitively, “You cannot do this”, and the younger submitters saying, “Why on Earth can’t you do this?”

Sums it up pretty well. But good to have an MP who listens to the submissions. It is very true that Chris went from luke-warm to ardently in favour on the basis of what he heard. It is a good message to submitters that they can make a difference.

Mr Auchinvole said he was sympathetic to the older submitters because they, like him, were taught that homosexuality was immoral, illegal, and criminal.

“People’s reputations could be lost on the basis that people thought they were homosexual, and I always thought that was an injustice.”

He said that at the boarding school he attended over five years, “we lost boys at school”.

Five of 120 boys committed suicide, invariably in the holidays, because, he believes, they were gay.

“They were good guys, and it was awful. We liked them all.”

Such tragedies.

How inconvenient for Labour, Greens, NZ First and Mana who have been holding their faux inquiry into the manufacturing crisis.

Stuff reports:

The manufacturing sector is expanding at its best rate for a year, as it gets get a boost from the Canterbury rebuild and wider construction work, according to a survey.

The latest BNZ-Business New Zealand Performance of Manufacturing Index was up 1.1 points  to 56.3 points in February.

A figure above 50 indicates that the sector is generally expanding and under 50 that it is going backwards.

The latest figure was the highest reading since February 2012.

BNZ senior economist Craig Ebert said the result reinforced the bank’s view that manufacturing was not “in crisis”.

 “The figures speak for themselves. The way some people are talking, we should be witnessing a very weak, to plunging, PMI. In fact, it’s improved to a more positive level,” he said.

A funny sort of crisis.

Jo Moir at Stuff reports:

Evelyn Moody went back to work within seven weeks of each of her three children being born.

She had no choice, she said – having children was an expensive business, and she was the primary earner.

“I went back to work when each of my children were between 6 and 7 weeks old, after collecting every kind of leave I could scrape together,” she told MPs hearing submissions on a bill to extend paid parental leave from 14 weeks to 26.

The present provisions were not enough to keep mothers at home, and an extension would go a long way towards easing the financial burden, she told Parliament’s government administration select committee.

Umm, if she went back to work at seven weeks, then extending paid parental leave from 14 to 26 weeks will not have changed her situation in any way.

She should be arguing for paid parental leave to be at a higher level, rather than for it to be longer.

Once fully implemented, an extension of paid parental leave to 26 weeks would cost $145 million a year. That’s money we simply don’t have.

Kerri Jackson at Stuff reports:

Small businesses that cannot afford to pay their staff a living wage should probably not be in business at all, a union leader says.

First Union general secretary Robert Reid said while the movement supporting a living wage of at least $18.40 an hour was generally targeted at large corporations and city councils, some undercapitalised small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) needed to think about their business practices as well.

“Why should a worker suffer for being employed by a business that maybe shouldn’t exist?

What an appalling statement. It shows the hatred for business that some union leaders have. Small business owners often spend months or years struggling to set up a business when they can’t even pay themselves a salary. And they create jobs for others, but Robert Reid thinks they are making their workers suffer if they pay them less than $18.40 an hour.

Catherine Harris at Stuff reports:

Campbell Barbour has lost count of the millions of dollars he has lost in interest payments, legal costs and lost opportunities as he tried to get consent for his company’s “Westgate” town centre in northwest Auckland.

The general manager of New Zealand Retail Property Group is also at the centre of a high-rise apartment project in Milford, on Auckland’s North Shore, to which locals have objected.

While the fate of the Milford apartments rests with Auckland’s debate about intensified housing, Westgate has gained all its approvals and work has begun. But it took seven years, and Barbour is bewildered by that.

It was not a project anyone objected to and, like a lot of developers, he was forced to refinance when the global financial crisis hit. A speedier consent process would have made a “huge” difference.

Seven years to get consented – and with no objections! The case for change is made.

An angler wrote on the Stuff news website that the move was a “power grab coupled with a water grab”, but a self-described greenie with an entrepreneurial streak said it had taken 18 months of jumping through local-body hoops for a consent to build an eco-residential project.

“I’d say National have hit the nail on the head on this one.”

Views on this issue will vary depending on if someone has actually ever tried to get a consent.

On Q+A this Sunday, NZ’s in the midst of a drought so how will it affect you and me and our pockets? We speak to the Finance Minister Bill English, and a climate scientist who says we have to no option but to adapt.

Also on the programme, is New Zealand set to become a world leader in energy? We speak to visiting economic geologist Dr Scott Tinker.

And the Catholic Church has a new Pope, we hear the view of a Kiwi Catholic.

On the panel this week is political scientist Dr Raymond Miller, former Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, and Tower Investments’ CEO Sam Stubbs.

Join host Susan Wood and political editor Corin Dann on Q+A at 9am this Sunday on TV One.

Martin Johnston at NZ Herald reports:

Obesity experts in New Zealand are dismayed at the legal clamp slapped on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s law to ban super-sized sugary soft drinks in restaurants.

They should have a large soda to drown their sorrows.

His law would have limited cups of sugary soft drinks sold at restaurants, cinemas and other food service establishments to 453ml.

That is approaching close to two standard measuring cups (500ml) and is well short of the large and super-sized sugar drinks sold in New Zealand fast-food shops.

McDonald’s “large” soft drinks contain 651ml and the biggest offering at Wendy’s is around 1200ml, although Wendy’s says it doesn’t sell many of these mega-drinks.

How evil. They must be banned, along with large easter eggs.

Fight the Obesity Epidemic spokeswoman Dr Robyn Toomath said it was a great shame the mayor’s bid to help halt the growth of New Yorkers’ waistlines had been thwarted.

Yes it is a great shame that human beings have been allowed to choose for themselves what size drink they want. We must protect them from themselves.

John Armstrong writes:

Taking over as Parliament’s Speaker after Lockwood Smith’s departure for the High Commissioner’s job in London was never going to be easy, no matter whom the Prime Minister hand-picked for the role. …

David Carter, Smith’s replacement, knows his initial months in the job will be judged by how close his management of the House follows the Smith doctrine.

Carter, however, has made it clear that when it comes to improving ministerial accountability, it will be done his way – not Smith’s.

The latter’s tougher stance on ministers’ answers benefited the Opposition. Labour then proceeded to push the boundaries, complaining that just about any reply did not properly answer the question.

Carter has his own solution – to embarrass the minister answering the question by immediately telling the Opposition MP to put the same question again. And again if need be.

This may not seem much of a sanction, but it makes the answering of a question to the Speaker’s satisfaction something of a test of competence. …

The other noticeable change under Carter’s regime is to allow more latitude for interjections and barracking from all sides of the House – an acknowledgment that the chamber is the principal venue for the display of political passion.

Carter also deserves credit for keeping one of Smith’s time-saving innovations – blocking MPs from trying to table documents to make a political point when those papers are freely available elsewhere.

It is still far too early to say how Carter’s tenure will end up rating the in the long list of Speakerships. As far as the Opposition is concerned, the jury is still out.

What is clear is that Carter will apply the same approach he has employed throughout his political career – to quietly and slowly build respect among both political friend and foe for handling things in a commonsense, unfussy, and unspectacular manner.

I haven’t watched question time much in the last month. How do people think Carter is going as Speaker?

Michelle Grattan writes:

After an immensely long labour, Australian Communication Minister Stephen Conroy has produced a media policy mouse with a modest roar. …

It has a number of aspects but let’s deal particularly with some core controversial ones. A “public interest test” would be invoked when mergers or acquisitions threatened to reduce diversity. A Public Interest Media Advocate would make decisions on the basis of the test.

This advocate would also ensure that bodies dealing with media standards, most notably the Australian Press Council, met certain benchmarks for credible and effective self-regulation of print and online media.

Sounds a powerful role this Public Interest Media Advocate.

Whatever one thinks of the content of the policy, its preparation and presentation has been a shambles.

It was due months ago but held up by internal argument. Now minister Conroy has presented a take-it-or-leave-it package that he says must be through Parliament by the end of next week or the Government will drop it. The actual legislation will only be presented today.

That is outrageous, especially on an issue such as this.

The public will put the Government out of its misery in six months time.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key this morning released documents detailing Solid Energy’s ambitious expansion plans which would have required capital investment of $2-3 billion a year until 2021 or a total of up to $27 billion.

Key released the papers in response to Labour’s claims he misled the public about Solid Energy approaching his Government about a $1 billion investment to become the “Petrobras” of New Zealand, a request he says his Government turned down.

However, in his appearance before a parliamentary committee yesterday, John Palmer who was Solid Energy’s chair at the time, said while the company made the approach, there was never any expectation the Crown would bear the cost of the required investment and a figure of $1 billion was never mentioned.

I admire the ambition of the Solid Energy directors and staff, but this just shows again how unsuited it is to be owned by the Government.

When you are 100% Government owned, there are only two sources of funds for capital – the Government’s or borrowing. The Government’s contributions can be either direct capital investment or reduced (or no) dividends.

It is simply not possible that the desired expansion could be done purely through borrowing. A Government contribution was absolutely necessary and implicit.

Of course if private shareholdings were allowed, then Solid Energy may have been able to access capital without it coming from the Government. This entire episodes reinforces dramatically for me the undesirability of having these commercial companies state owned.

David Shearer was on The Farming Show and asked about whether he will go along with Winston’s policy to confiscate the shares of people who purchase Mighty River Power shares.

As before, he won’t rule it in or out. How can you fudge a policy of this magnitude?

But the best is yet to come. David Shearer explain why they are unlikely to buy the shares back because the proceeds from asset sales will be spent on schools and hospitals and they couldn’t afford to buy them back.

That’s a stunning implicit admission that the schools and hospitals would not be affordable without the asset sales. He also agrees that spending money from asset sales on irrigation would be money well spent but warns that most of the proceeds will go on schools and hospitals, not irrigation!

You have to listen to it yourself to believe it.

Later on is also a clip with Larry Williams on the car park tax. Now it is obvious to almost everyone that the Government is going to back down on this tax. So you’d think it would be a simple thing to do and say you will abolish it, if it is implemented.

Larry Williams asks him if he would wind it back – the equivalent of an easy pitch. And the answer is “We’ll certainly look at it”.

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The audio is embedded above. If that doesn’t work you can listen to them here. It’s great to have the Labour Party Leader talking about how the asset sales will be used to fund schools and hospitals!