Simon Bridges announced:

The first reflagging of a foreign charter fishing vessel as New Zealand-registered is good news for foreign crews fishing in our waters, and for New Zealand’s international reputation, say Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy and Labour Minister Simon Bridges.

The Ukrainian fishing vessel FV Mainstream, chartered by Independent Fisheries, was today officially reflagged, bringing it under New Zealand labour, and health and safety laws.

The reflagging, carried out by Maritime New Zealand, required Independent Fisheries to ensure the vessel fully complied with New Zealand maritime rules and the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992. Reflagging also requires the crew to have appropriate New Zealand-equivalent qualifications.

“The Government is committed to making it compulsory for all foreign charter fishing vessels to be reflagged by 2016, following concerns raised in a Ministerial inquiry last year into safety, labour, and fishing practices,” says Mr Guy.

Mr Bridges says reflagging brings the crew of foreign charter vessels under the protection of New Zealand law in terms of labour conditions and health and safety.

This is a welcome step that one ship has already reflagged.

The conditions on some FCVs was akin to slavery. There was physical and sexual abuse as well as multiple breaches of NZ laws (which could not be enforced). It had to end, and I’m proud the Government decide to do so.

Not all FCVs were a problem. In fact as I understand it the Ukranian ones had relatively few problems. It tended to be the Korean ones than used Indonesian labour. What will be interesting is when they reflag – if they do at all.

Gavin White from UMR blogs:

Some of you may have seen some of our research commented on in the media earlier in the week. The research has been interpreted as supporting Gareth Morgan’s campaign on cats, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as clear cut as that. 

In other words, don’t believe the spin of a campaign that selectively quoted the results.

The media reports focussed on one statistic: the fact that 54% of New Zealanders supported some form of controls that would reduce the future population of cats, once told that an Otago University study estimates 1.12 million native birds are killed by domestic cats each year in New Zealand. The question cannot, however, be treated in isolation: the other questions in the survey make clear that the sorts of controls people are actually prepared to have are actually pretty mild.

So what were the full results.

• 62% believe that all cats should be neutered or spayed.
• 57% think that cats should be banned from areas near wildlife reserves, forests and national parks
• 53% believe that all cats should be registered and microchipped
• 42% consider that all cats should wear bells
• Just 12% believe that cat owners should not replace their cats when they die
• Only 7% think that cats should be kept indoors at all times of the day.

This reflects I think the common sense approach of New Zealanders. Only 7% agree with the more extreme proposals from Morgan, but a bit over half agree with some of the more moderate stuff.

Gavin also points out:

In the question on banning cats from near wildlife reserves, forests and national parks, I suspect that many people would have used a reasonably narrow definition of the word ‘near’ (e.g. within a few streets of the park boundary).  It would be stretching the case to say that the poll supports banning cats from whole suburbs or towns (like Karori, which is adjacent to the Zealandia wildlife reserve, or Ohakune, which is near the boundary of Tongariro National Park).

A very good point also. It’s good to have pollsters commenting on their own research publicly – they are often the one best placed to know what limits there are in interpreting what it means.

Peter Dunne blogged:

This government prides itself on a business like approach to issues. It likes to cut through quickly and resolve issues before they get too bogged down in red tape. For many New Zealanders, this pragmatism is welcome, coming after years of stultification and wariness under successive previous governments.

A lot of this change is due to the attitude and style of the Prime Minister, who is focused on achieving things and making a difference. In general, it is an approach which has worked well and probably explains in part at least why the government remains so popular in its fifth year in office.

But, as a couple of recent examples show, there is a danger that the cut through which has been one of the government’s hallmarks will become a major problem for it.

Take the case of the Sky City Convention Centre proposal. There is no doubt Auckland needs a world class convention centre, and that in all probability, Sky City is arguably in the best position to develop such a facility. No problem with that, subject, of course, to the specifics of the deal stacking up. But as the Auditor-General’s report shows, while there has been no impropriety in the process followed by the government, it did play very fast and loose at times.

Similarly, with the Hobbit movies. No-one seriously opposed making the movies here, and the government would have been roundly criticised if let the opportunity slip through its fingers, but as the various documents recently released show, the government’s enthusiasm for the movies being made here did get in the way of the facts from time to time as deals were struck to ensure the right outcome.

There is a time-bomb warning to the government here. Support for the cut through approach will wither if it is seen to be a standard proxy for bending the rules or doing special deals to achieve the desired outcome. While the government is not immediately vulnerable on this issue, the clock has started ticking.

I think at the heart of what Dunne is saying, is that Governments should not be seen to be picking out individual companies to do “deals” with. There is a difference between measures which favour a specific sector such as relaxing RMA rules, making mining easier, tax rebates for films – and “deals” with specific companies.

In the two cases cited, there were unusual circumstances for both, which won’t generally apply across the board.

The Hobbit “deal” was basically triggered by the malign acts of an Australian union official who was trying to blackmail the production through an international boycott. The union represented almost no actual New Zealanders and was trying to muscle its way in. If MEAA had never triggered a global boycott, then the crisis that caused the deal would never have eventuated. It was an own goal. But the key point, is that it was forced on the Government. And in the end the agreement they came to with Warners did not apply just for that production or that company.

The proposed (not yet agreed) Sky City deal for some regulatory changes in return for building a $350 million convention centre is a deal with just one company. This is not ideal. But the reason it is that way is because we have a law that prohibits any further casinos in New Zealand – there is a monopoly in Auckland – Sky City. Hence there is only one company you can negotiate with if you want to negotiate regulatory changes in return for more investment. If I had my way I’d get rid of the silly ban on more casinos so we have multiple operators.

Anyway the point I think Peter Dunne was making is that these two cases should be exceptions, not the rule. And I agree with him.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

Prime Minister John Key’s refusal to attend the funeral of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is a “mind-boggling political blunder,” a former MP says.

Former Green MP Keith Locke says Key is wasting an opportunity to rub shoulders with leaders in the increasingly influential region.

I’m really not sure how news worthy it is that a former Green MP disagrees with the PM. If it was a current MP, maybe.

I thought Keith Locke was against leaders who abuse human rights. I guess he thinks it is okay, when they are of the same ideological persuasion.

Aaron Leaman at Stuff reports:

An intoxicated Hamilton clubgoer has been prosecuted for taking the law into her own hands – literally – during a routine bar check.

Galloway, 36, was drinking at Hamilton’s Shenanigans Irish Pub about midnight on May 18 last year when a constable entered the bar to carry out a liquor licence check.

In what her lawyer termed “a grossly stupid act”, Galloway groped the officer’s groin as he made his way through the bar.

Galloway was ejected from the bar, prompting her to yell abuse and suggest the officer was enjoying the attention.

In explanation, Galloway later said she did not realise her victim was a police officer and she had “been doing this to men all night“.

If you ran this story without mentioning the city, I reckon most people would guess it was Hamilton 🙂

The charge carries a maximum sentence of two years’ jail. Judge Connell declined to impose a fine, instead opting for a sentence of community work.

Incidentally if the genders were reversed I suspect the patron would be in considerably more trouble.

Stuff reported:

A 6-year-old girl with violet hair has become the unlikely poster child for the transgender people’s rights after her United States school barred her from using the girls’ bathroom.

The family of Coy Mathis has filed a civil rights lawsuit against her Colorado school over the issue, which has become a cause celebre since hitting the headlines last week, CNN reported.

Coy was born a boy but according to her mother she started expressing herself as a girl at the age of 18 months.

When the behaviour continued, the parents sought medical advice and were told that their child was transgender – a little girl in a boy’s body.

Though they diagnosed Coy as having a gender identity disorder, doctors recommended against surgery until she was older.

Which is the correct decision. Any decision on surgery should be made by Coy when she is older, not her parents.

When the child was in kindergarten at Eagle Elementary School in Fountain, Colorado there was no problem because Coy was allowed to use the girls’ bathroom.

But in December school officials told the family Coy could no longer use the girls’ facilities and would have to use the boys’ or nurse’s bathroom instead.

“That wasn’t a safe environment for her,” said Coy’s mother Kathryn Mathis, a nurse.

“It set her up for a lot of harassment and it wasn’t a place where we were able to let her be because we want her to be safe and we want her to be healthy.” …

The school said its decision “took into account not only Coy, but other students in the building, their parents and the future impact a boy with male genitals using a girls’ bathroom would have as Coy grew older”.

Kathryn Mathis is not blind to the possibilities but fears the district will stigmatise her daughter at a crucial stage in her development.

The sad reality is that life is going to pretty difficult for Coy Mathis regardless. I can see the school’s point about concerns for other students. It’s pretty difficult to explain to six year olds about trans-gender. But whichever set of toilets she uses, it means you have to explain to the other kids why, and it is likely she’s going to face some teasing or worse.

Which is why in the end, when both choices are imperfect, I’d go with what the family wants.

The Truth editorial:

Labour and the Greens need to come clean on asset sales. We know that both parties oppose asset sales. We get that. They have spent a considerable amount of taxpayer cash recruiting staff and manipulating for political purposes the Citizens Initiated Referendum process to try to re-litigate the 2011 election. …

Investors and voters need to know if Labour intends opposing the sales in actions and not just words.

Will Labour commit to forced buy-back of the shares, essentially a re-nationalisation of the asset. Before readers poo-pooh that suggestion remember Air New Zealand.

Helen Clark even flirted with securities laws by advising on national television for Mum and Dad investors to keep their shares in Air New Zealand…that everything would be alright. As we know everything wasn’t alright and some weeks later the government forcibly acquired as many shares as it could and left about 25% of shareholder mired without any sort of say in the company.

Would Labour do this again with the listed power companies…and if so how much would they pay for the shares…The listing price? The market price (unlikely)?

Labour and their hangers-on who oppose asset sales need to clarify before even a single share is sold what their intentions are.

I agree. Labour, as the potential next Government, has a duty to announce its policy before the offer document is issued. Will they buy the shares back or not, and at what price?

The Age reports:

Former opposition leader Denis Napthine is the state’s new Premier after Ted Baillieu resigned under internal pressure and after the shock resignation of embattled MP Geoff Shaw.

Mr Shaw, who is facing a police probe for misuse of his government car, quit the parliamentary Liberal Party on Wednesday morning, kickstarting a frenzy on Spring Street that reached fever pitch just before 7pm after he finally released a statement.

“I believe my actions reflect the general loss of confidence Victorians are feeling in the leadership of the government,” Mr Shaw said.

Nonsense. Shaw is a rorting MP who has been caught out.

The Baillieu government had been rocked by scandal this week over fresh revelations regarding Tristan Weston, the former police adviser to Deputy Premier Peter Ryan, and secret recordings of conversations he had with Mr Baillieu’s chief of staff, Tony Nutt, and Liberal Party state director Damian Mantach.

Mr Baillieu referred the case to the new Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.

Facing poor polls for nearly a year, leadership speculation has been bubbling, with Planning Minister Matthew Guy most often named as the next in line.

A poll last June had the Coalition on 52% and Labor 48% in Victoria. But Baillieu had poor personal ratings at 29% positive and 54% negative.

A much more fun political party than the one I just blogged on below is the Canadian Rhino Party.

Operating within the tradition of political satire, the Rhinoceros Party’s basic credo, their so-called primal promise, was “a promise to keep none of our promises.”^[1] They then promised outlandishly impossible schemes designed to amuse and entertain the voting public.

And:

The party claimed to be the spiritual descendants of Cacareco, a Brazilian rhinoceros who was elected member of São Paulo‘s city council in 1958, and listed Cornelius the First, a rhinoceros from the Granby Zoo, east of Montreal, as its leader.^[4] It declared that the rhinoceros was an appropriate symbol for a political party since politicians, by nature, are “thick-skinned, slow-moving, dim-witted, can move fast as hell when in danger, and have large, hairy horns growing out of the middle of their faces.”

I like their abortion policy:

A candidate named Ted “not too” Sharp ran in Flora MacDonald‘s Kingston and the Islands riding with the campaign slogan “Fauna, not flora“, promising to give fauna equal representation.^[8] He also took a stand on abortion (promising, if elected, never to have an abortion) and capital punishment: “If it was good enough for my grandfather, then it’s good enough for me.”

And defence policy:

To strengthen Canada’s military, Sharp planned to tow Antarctica north to the Arctic Circle. “Once we have Antarctica, we’ll control all of the world’s cold. If another Cold War starts, we’ll be unbeatable.”

And best of all:

Rather than awarding money as prizes in the lottery, the winners would be appointed to the Canadian Senate.

And kudos to Belgium:

Offering to call off the proposed Belgium-Canada war if Belgium delivered a case of mussels and a case of Belgian beer to Rhinoceros “Hindquarters” in Montreal (the Belgian Embassy in Ottawa did, in fact, do this)

The war was due to Tintin having shot a rhinoceros!

Greg Ansley at NZ Herald reports:

Next week Daniel Nalliah will be taking his crusade against Muslim immigration and multiculturalism to the Australian Islamic Peace Conference at the Melbourne Showgrounds.

In the meantime he will be plugging democracy and the nation’s “Judeo-Christian heritage”, protecting the nuclear family, urging the pruning of big government and pushing for tax to be cut to the barest possible minimums.

Nalliah, a Sri Lankan-born fire and brimstone preacher who claims to have resurrected three people and to have been instructed to head down under by Jesus, is the leader of the nation’s newest political party.

Just another charlatan and mad fraudster.

He claimed Victoria’s disastrous Black Saturday fires was a retribution for the passage of new abortion laws, and lambasted Prime Minister Julia Gillard for “living in sin”

Yes Gillard should remain a virgin, as she is unmarried.

During the launch Nalliah called for the end of a multicultural Australia, a reduction in the intake of Muslim immigrants, and the defence of Judeo-Christian culture.

He is from Sir Lanka himself. I’d say if they are to reduce immigration, they should have started with him.

The Herald reports:

New Housing Minister Nick Smith is vowing to break the “stranglehold” of Auckland Council’s policy of containing urban sprawl – a policy he says is “killing the dreams of Aucklanders” by driving up house prices.

In his first major interview on how he plans to tackle the housing affordability issue handed to him in January’s Cabinet reshuffle, he said his focus would be on opening up land supply because land prices were the biggest factor putting home ownership out of reach of many Aucklanders.

“There’s no question in my mind that we have to break through the stranglehold that the existing legal metropolitan urban limit has on land supply,” he said.

Excellent. This is the first time a Minister has been this explicit.

The MUL is the enemy of affordable housing. No amount of subsidies, intensification, central planning, economies of scale can defy the reality that if the supply of land for housing is artificially constrained, then the price of land (and hence housing) will increase in line with demand. Arguing against this is like arguing against gravity.

“When we are looking at growth in Auckland of 2 per cent a year, we are going to need sections at the rate of 12,000 a year,” he said. “The metropolitan urban limit is a stranglehold on land that is killing the dreams of Aucklanders wanting to own their home and we have to work with the council to find the tools to increase that land supply and bring section prices back.”

If someone wants to be elected Mayor of Auckland, they should run on a policy of increasing the MUL, to reduce housing costs.

But Mr Brown said Aucklanders had already agreed on the city’s “compact footprint” through developing the first Auckland Plan, and Dr Smith should stop debating it.

He said the plan was based on “a model that is developing truly internationally competitive cities with strong economic bases to them and that give rise to outstanding transport operations within a more compact framework”.

“Have a look at Melbourne,” he said. “Have a look at Hong Kong. Have a look at London. All of those cities, by and large, are operating off what is regarded as best practice.”

Comparing Auckland, one of the world’s smallest cities, to London and Hong Kong – two of the world’s three global centres is ridicolous.

But the comparison to Australian cities such as Melbourne is more sensible. Len Brown is saying that Auckland should be more compact, such as Melbourne and Australian cities are. So what are their urban densities? Demographia has this 2012 report:

• Adelaide 1,400 people per square km
• Brisbane 1,000
• Canberra 1,100
• Melbourne 1,600
• Perth 1,300
• Sydney 2,100

And what is Auckland? 2,400 people per square km.

Auckland has twice the urban density of Melbourne – which Len Brown cites as a model. If we increased the Auckland urban limit by 50%, then it would be the same as Melbourne.

Sam Boyer at Dom Post reports:

After 400 metres of running, climbing, and “hanging on like a limpet”, the country’s top cop came out smiling – and put 294 of his staff to shame.

Commissioner Peter Marshall completed the police physical competency test yesterday and, in doing so, the 59-year-old also showed up the hundreds of officers who were deemed unfit last week to hold frontline posts. …

The commissioner ran the course in 2 minutes and 56 seconds, earning himself a “gold card”. Because he holds a rank higher than inspector, he is not required to pass the test, but wanted to set an example.

“If I can do it, there’s no reason why others can’t do it. It was a matter of walking the talk. I wanted to be able to look operational staff in the eye and say that I’ve got it.

The current Commissioner seems to be near universally respected by the rank and file – which certainly has not always been the case for that role.

Completion times for the course are determined by an officer’s age and gender. The commissioner needed to get round the course in 3 minutes and 26 seconds, so he was 30 seconds under par.

To earn the star-performer gold card, he also needed to successfully scale the 1.8-metre-high wall.

“Anyone over 50 just has to tap it [the wall] … To get the gold card, you have to go over the top,” Mr Marshall said.

The wall was the most gruelling of the 10 challenges in the test, he said – especially with staff watching his performance.

The other tests were:

– Pushing a car trailer 10 metres

– Carrying a car wheel assembly 10 metres

– Running 200 metres

– Walking a five-metre right-angle beam, a metre off the ground

– Jumping a 1.8-metre long jump

– Running around cones and under and over hurdles for 30 metres

– Climbing through a one-metre-high window

– Climbing over a solid 1.8-metre-high wall

– Dragging a body 7.5 metres

– Climbing a 2.2-metre-high wire fence

Not sure I’d want to try that!

Stuff reports:

Eight Auckland men, all but one named Singh, have had their trial for alleged electoral fraud moved to the High Court because of the “public interest” in the case.

Labour Party candidate Daljit Singh was charged in mid-2010 with forging voting documents in Auckland’s super-city elections.

It’s been two and a half years since the election, and only now is the trial being moved!

Daljit, a justice of the peace, is charged with election fraud over the alleged forging of change of address forms for hundreds of voters in south Auckland.

Singh was backed by Labour and stood for the Papatoetoe Community Board.

Singh has also been at Labour Party fundraisers since his arrest.

The men were going to face trial in the Manukau District Court but the case was moved to the High Court today.

Justice Timothy Brewer said the case had been transferred “because of the public interest factor”.

He set a trial date for October 14 and remanded all the men on bail.

I find it unacceptable that this case takes three years to go to trial. Even worse it will be held after voting starts in the 2013 local body elections, for alleged offences for the 2010 elections.

We need to get serious about the way electoral crimes and breaches are dealt with in NZ.

To be fair to the Police, in this case they are not the log jam. They arrested Singh in 2010.

But it has now been 18 months since the 2011 general election, and the Police appear to have done nothing with the 20+ cases referred to them by the Electoral Commission.

John Stringer blogs:

Nazism largely succeeded due to mob mentality.  We are seeing some of the same pressures pervasive amongst liberal dogmas and social engineering being applied in the West, where if you disagree you’re pilloried and abused. There is even a whole glossary of semantic bully words to describe conservative dissidents (homophobes, sexist, bigots, archaic, unprogressive, intolerant, opposed to equality).

John is effectively comparing the Nazis to those who dare to argue against him. Not a winning strategy. Any comparison to the Nazis is offensive and ill-considered unless someone is actually out there committing genocide and the like. Calling someone a name is not comparable. Not even in the same universe actually.

Let’s remember, Hitler’s politics was Socialist before it was fascist.

Yes, but socialism and liberalism are very different things.

The Christian church was prominent among the few who stood up against this 1930s “progressive” ‘new morality’ hope and change wave, and then shielded the Jews at peril of their own lives. History repeats.

Is John saying he is risking his life by arguing against same sex marriage? Does he see himself as a brave martyr risking the mob burning down his home?

Also on a historical note, while there were many brave Christians who risked their lives to save Jews, the record of the Christian churches as a whole was very mixed.

It is utterly historically inaccurate to understand Nazism as a conservative movement, which it patently was not.  It was radical, violent, self-righteous, liberal, progressive, new; it threw away, mocked and persecuted the old order

Oh yes, the Nazis were liberals and progressives. For someone who is meant to be complaining about the use of language to demonise, John does the exact thing he complains about.

Newflash to John. The Nazis executed Germans for being homosexuals – they didn’t allow them to marry. They banned gay organisations, they burned impure books, they arrested 100,000 homosexuals for being homosexuals and thousands perished in concentration camps. This is not liberalism.

In 1936 Himmler created the “Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion”. Does that sound like something a liberal regime would do, or a “conservative” one? The correct answer is actually neither as labels are inadequate for the Nazis, but oif John is going to play that game, well I’d say 99% of people would say such an office sound more conservative than liberal.

John says the Nazis were liberals and the wonders why he gets verbally abused by some. You get verbal abuse when you say outrageous  offensive things such as the Nazi were liberals. Don’t say stupid offensive things, and you won’t get so much flak.

White Roses or red blood.  Read more about that historic movement and lessons we can learn for today, here White Rose. 

John praised White Rose for fighting Hitler. I agree they are heroes. Quite inspirational.

One of the founders of White Rose was Hans Scholl. He was executed at the age of 24 along with his sister. Many Germans revere them and their bravery and convictions.

Scholl incidentally was earlier arrested by the Nazis and accused of various offences including a same-sex teen relationship when he was 16.  The Daily Mail reports:

During their interrogation neither of them cracked, but Sophie explained that Hans’s long drawn-out ordeal at the hands of the Gestapo years earlier over what they termed his ‘sexual deviance’ was ‘the most important reason’ for her subsequent decision to defy Hitler’s regime. 

So I’m not so sure Hans or Sophie Scholl would really appreciate John’s portrayal of liberals (such as supporters of same sex marriage) as akin to Nazis.

I had to giggle. Scoop’s Werewolf has a patsy interview with Green Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown.

I wondered who interviewed her. It was former Green MP Sue Kedgley!

One commenter suggested next they could have Joe Karam interviewing David Bain!

Almost as bad as the recent fellating interview with Russel Norman the Daily Blog ran, where the first question was:

The first thing I want to ask is how frustrating is it to be the co-leader of a political party that is constantly criticized for challenging the orthodoxy, only to be vindicated in that challenge later down the track?

Yes I’m serious, that was the first question!

It’s like asking someone “How do you cope with being so awesome and right on everything”. If that is journalism, God help us.

The Telegraph reports:

“This is possibly the most deluded measure to come from Europe since Diocletian tried to fix the price of groceries across the Roman Empire,” Mr Johnson said.

Tony Ryall announced:

As at 8.30 this morning, 100,000 New Zealanders have pre-registered their interest in buying shares in the Government’s partial share offer of up to 49 per cent of energy company Mighty River Power. …

“This compares with the ten days it took for pre-registration to reach the 100,000 mark with the Contact Energy share offer in 1999.

Superb. And there are 16 days still to go.

I wonder when Labour will announce their policy on whether they will compulsorily acquire any shares purchased by New Zealanders and return the companies to 100% government ownership?

All will they say, after all their huffing, that in fact they will do nothing to change the level of private shareholdings if they win the next election?

If Labour are going to have a policy of compulsory nationalisation, they should make this clear before the offer document is tabled.

Cathedral Square, Christchurch at night with full moon and fire poi guys (and gals?). Post first Canterbury earthquake. Photography by Sarah Sisson

Sarah made this image in October 2010, after the first Canterbury earthquake.  We were both amazed at how well the city was rebounding from those first earthquakes – Cantabrians had done an incredible job of getting most of the core CBD landmarks up and going even within 6 weeks of the quake.  We have a gallery of Christchurch CBD images up on our stock photography site from that October shoot that some of you may find to be a pleasant use of five minutes.

Sorry for posting and running last week – I forgot about my Canon v Nikon question.  Beautox nailed the answer – yes it was made on the Canon.  And we’re great thanks Bob – must catch up soon!

Free Wallpaper Download

You may download the large version of today’s image from this link:  Password = freewallpaper.

This image is available  as a canvas print. on our  website.

See you next week – and thanks for all the great comments last week!

Cheers – Todd [www.sisson.co.nz] 

Greenpeace is a strident campaigner against big oil, and especially against BP.

A spy has sent in this photo of the Rainbow Warrior being filled up at the weekend – by BP!

Why isn’t the Rainbow Warrior running on biodiesel?

I guess it is the old maxim of a group saying “Do as we say, not as we do.”

Sir Keith Holyoake is New Zealand’s third longest serving Prime Minister. His statue is in Molesworth Street outside the building that used to house the States Services Commission.

Photo from Nigel Roberts.

As our 3rd longest serving Prime Minister, his statue should have been in Parliament Grounds along with Seddon and Ballance. Ballance was Premier for only two years!

The Labour Government in 1987 refused to allow Holyoake’s statue to go in Parliament, despite the wishes of the Holyoake family for it to be placed there. They placed it outside the SSC Building on the basis he had something to do with establishing them. A petty and pathetic decision I thought.

Anyway the building it is outside no longer houses the SSC. It is now Rugby House, the home of the NZRFU. It is bizarre to have Sir Keith outside the building of a private sporting body.

This would be a great opportunity for the Government to move Sir Keith’s statue to Parliament Grounds. In fact I think all Prime Ministers who served three full terms or more should have statues in Parliament Grounds. It would be good to have statues of Muldoon and Clark there also – preferably next to each other 🙂

Anyway there is a small problem with reclaiming Sir Keith for Parliament. His statue was accidentally sold as part of the building.

The Government could buy it back, but maybe there is another solution.

Why not commission an iconic rugby statue or sculpture and do a swap? Place the rugby sculpture outside Rugby House and move Sir Keith to Parliament?

Matthew Backhouse at the Herald reports:

The philanthropist’s Cats To Go website was initially met with outrage from cat lovers, but responses to questions in UMR Research’s monthly online survey show the public may be coming around to his views.

Not really. The survey showed that the moderate proposals have support – as they should. But there is total rejection for his more extreme proposals.

The survey of about 1000 people found more than half supported neutering all cats, registering and microchipping all cats, and banning cats from areas near wildlife reserves, forests and national parks.

This is not surprising. And if Morgan had campaigned on those issues solely, then I’d say he would have got a far better reception.

But two of the measures Dr Morgan advocates were met with far less support, with only 12 per cent agreeing cat owners should not replace them when they die and 7 per cent agreeing cats should be kept indoors at all times.

And these measures were at the core of his campaign. His website is called Cats To Go – not Cats To Be Registered.  The top infographic on his site says “Make this cat your last”.

Far from endorsing his views, this poll is a total rejection of his extremism.

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez has died.

I don’t care that he had economic policies I disagreed with. People are entitled to have different economic policies.

I do care that he oversaw a massive loss of press freedom in Venezuela and a huge increase in human rights violations.

Chavez was a shining example of the wisdom of term limits (which he got abolished). But it seems nature dealt him its own term limit.

Power often corrupts, and too often those in the top jobs get obsessed with doing everything they can to hang on to power for life, rather than doing the best job they can do  over say ten years, and then retiring.

Chavez shut down almost every major independent media source in the country. If you can control the media, you can keep control of the country.

Worth reading this 2010 article by Christopher Hitchens who actually met Chavez. It seems his paranoia was very real.