Captions below please. As always funny, not nasty.

Parliament has passed a law requiring unions to hold a secret ballot to vote on strike action. This is highly desirable, as no employee should be heavied or threatened with consequences based on how they vote – which can happen, if it is a show of hands.

Now most unions do operate secret ballots. But, not all. And making it a requirement rather than an option, seems basic common sense. Unions get a number of special powers under our law, so a basic requirement around secret ballots of members is hardly onerous.

Yet Labour, Greens, New Zealand First, the Maori Party and Mana all voted against requiring unions to hold secret ballots. I can understand them saying the bill is not a priority. But to actually vote against it can only be interpreted as saying they support unions not having to hold secret ballots when voting on strike action.

And yes I would have no problems requiring any company that votes for a lock out to have their board (if they have one) vote by secret ballot on it.

Reuters reports:

Equivocal no longer, US President Barack Obama has declared his support for gay marriage in a historic announcement that instantly elevated a polarising social issue to a more prominent role in the 2012 race for the White House.

On a personal level, its good to see Obama to have the guts to say what I suspect has been his actual position for a long time. It is a position I agree with (except I would probably not have the state involved in marriage at all, and just have the state register partnerships and allow people to call it a marriage if they want to, under whatever religion they may follow).

What is interesting is the potential political impact of Obama’s announcement. The US is split around 50/50 on this issue, but those against are vehemently against and will be highly motivated to turn out and vote if the election is pitched as a referendum on the gay marriage issue.

Of course it is in fact a decision for states, not the Federal Government, but Presidents appoint judges who rle on the constitutionality of various laws for and against gay marriage.

But Obama has the future on his side. He noted:

Obama touched on that in the interview.

He said he sometimes talks with college Republicans on his visits to campuses, and while they oppose his policies on the economy and foreign policy, “when it comes to same sex equality, or, you know, sexual orientation, that they believe in equality. They are more comfortable with it.”

There is a huge difference of views on issues such as gay marriage and gay adoption by age. Under 30s tend to be  massively in favour and over 60s massively opposed. That indicates that with the passage of time, there will be a clear majority in favour. But that may not be the case in 2012.

So a bold risk for Obama to announce this in election year, and I await with interest to see how it impacts the US elections.

The Herald reports:

Ms Bennett said there were men in the benefit system who had fathered numerous children, but they escaped much of the criticism. Some had up to eight children to different mothers – and even if they were employed they could not afford child support.

“We talk about teen mums a lot and yes, they are left with the babies. But you hear of older men with multiple children and they actually prey on young women as well,” Ms Bennett said. “I’m not sure we actually identify that as the problem that it is.”

The deadbeat dads are the ones who walk away leaving the mothers with the baby, and the taxpayer with the bill. Good on Paula for focusing on them.

Last night, Mr Craig released the international research he based the claim on – including a survey of behaviour such as one-night stands by an academic at Bradley University in which NZ came second to Finland. Another was the 2007 Durex Global Sex Survey of 26,000 people nationwide, which found NZ women had an average of 20.4 sexual partners – well above the global average of 7.3.

The Durex Sex Survey is not a scientific poll, but a self selecting survey.

Stuff reports:

Angela said her grandson contracted HIV from his mother during birth. The mother decided to tell the centre he had the virus on April 24, and two days later the centre told her “we don’t want him here”.

Robinson said he has been dealing with the centre for a couple of weeks, working to help them understand that the boy posed no risk to other children.

He met with the centre on Friday with the boy’s paediatrician, but said it was a “really dysfunctional meeting”.

“They didn’t want to listen to any of the facts. They completely dismissed the doctor like he had nothing to add to the conversation,” Robinson said.

“They have been wilfully ignorant to the facts and then allowed hysteria to occur.”

It is hysteria. There has never been a case of social transmission through normal childhood activity.

“This is a community that has started to get into a hysterical witch hunt and is refusing to listen to the facts about HIV and is really persecuting this boy and his family.”

Robinson said the boy’s brothers, who are at primary school, were also being discriminated against, even though they don’t have the virus.

About 20 parents went to the school, demanding the brothers be removed, he said.

“The principal had to send them home for fear of their safety, not because he agreed with the parents.”

And that is an even lower level of sanity.

I thought this nonsense was 20 years in the past. I recall how proud I was of New Zealanders when Eve van Grafhorst moved to New Zealand because of hysteria in Australia over the fact she was HIV+.

The Director of Child Health at Auckland District Health Board, Dr Richard Aickin, said HIV could not be transmitted through social contact, sharing utensils, kissing, hugging or sharing baths.

“If another child has an open wound or cuts themselves simultaneously with another and is exposed to infected blood, then any blood from the infected child would have to firstly, contain viral DNA. This is unlikely in a child with an undetectable viral load,” he said.

“Secondly, the virus would have to be able to survive the journey from the infected child to the non-infected child and thirdly, somehow manage to enter the non-infected child’s blood stream.

“There has been no documented case of transmission of HIV from one child to another in a day care or school setting. This we believe, supports our opinion that the transmission risk is miniscule,” Aickin said.

I am confident those hysterical parents in Whangarei are not representative of most New Zealand parents.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs:

Save the Children has released its annual State of the World’s Mothers report [PDF], showing that New Zealand is the 4th best country in the world to be a mother. This is an improvement from last year, when we ranked 6th. Its a legacy of the Clark government, and its policies around paid parental leave and early childhood education that we do so well on these sorts of indices. But as the Scandinavian countries above us show, we can do better; sadly, the present government just doesn’t seem to regard it as a priority.

So we improve in 2011 over 2010, and this is nothing to do with the present Government, and all to do with the Government that got chucked out in 2008. Sure.

As it happens, if you actually read about the report, most of the factors have little to do with Government. They are:

• Lifetime risk of maternal death (NZ is 32nd)
• % of women using modern contraception (NZ 9th)
• Female life expectancy at birth (NZ 10th)
• Expected years of formal female schooling (NZ 1st)
• Maternity leave length (NZ 38th)
• Maternity leave wages (NZ 1st)
• Ratio of female to male earnings (NZ 8th)
• Participation of women in govt (NZ 9th)
• Under 5 mortality rate (NZ 23rd)
• Pre-primary enrolment ratio (NZ 18th)
• Secondary enrolment ratio (NZ 3rd)

It seems why we are 4th overall is because we are not very low down in any factor.

The worst place to be a mother incidentally is the Niger. Among more developed countries is it Alaania.

Michael Field at Stuff reports:

Labour’s Mangere MP Su’a William Sio is facing a rebellion from a big group of his own Samoan people who plan to stand their own candidate against him.

Sio, who holds the seat with a 15,159 vote majority, recently went on ethnic radio and spoke out against fundraising efforts by Samoan groups in his electorate.

Many, mainly church groups, routinely visit to raise money from Auckland Samoans.

Sio said the fundraising was an economic burden on Samoan families in New Zealand.

His comments coincided with a fundraising bid by the people of Safotu, in Savai’i, who were in Mangere to raise money for hospital improvements.

Around $110,000 was raised for the hospital that serves 50,000 people in the powerful Gagaifomauga political district in Samoa, which has three seats in Samoa’s parliament.

According to the Talamua news website (www.talamua.com) Sio’s comments outraged one of Gagaifomauga’s tulafale, or orators, Tuilo’a Anetele’a.

He called on all descendants of the Gagaifomauga district who were eligible voters for the Mangere seat not to support Sio anymore, and in the 2014 election.

“Rather, we will find a candidate to support and to run orator against Su’a in the upcoming general elections,” he told a large gathering in Mangere.

I have to say I don’t think Sio’s comments were unreasonable. It is good to give, but when it becomes an expectation it can prove difficult for some families in New Zealand. It is all about a balance.

The Press reports:

Outspoken property investor Sir Bob Jones says Christchurch should replace its former central business district with “a massive lake”.

Writing in this week’s The Listener, Jones urges the city to build on its “garden city” reputation and abandon thoughts of resurrecting a high-rise CBD.

Under its central-city proposal, Christchurch would replace its destroyed building stock – described by Gerry Brownlee as “old dungers” – with “new dungers”.

“Here’s the answer,” writes Jones.

The Government should use its powers to seize all the central-city sites and “create a massive irregular-shaped lake” on the destroyed CBD land.

He suggested each former CBD site owner be allocated a lakeside site, its size reflecting the former rating value.

“Along the lake edge could be sandy beaches, with rafts anchored offshore to swim to,” he says.

“Elsewhere, perhaps, could be deeper coves with fixed diving boards and waterslides.”

Jones also suggested introducing trout and white swans to the lake, with a rebuilt modern cathedral as its centrepiece.

He said the world’s best cities, such as Vancouver, Sydney and Hong Kong, were all sited around lakes or harbours and it was not unheard of to create one retrospectively.

You know, that’s possibly the best idea I’ve heard for the Christchurch CBD. It may not be practical but it is visionary.

I also liked Sir Bob’s vision for Wellington to make Lampton Quay into a vehicle free mall.

Stuff reports:

Auckland data centre company Maxnet has launched a new internet provider, FYX,  that is designed to let people access online services that are not available in New Zealand, which could include online television services such as Netflix and Hulu.

FYX is aimed at heavy internet users. Instead of having traditional data caps, it charges $34.95 a month plus 34 cents for each gigabyte used.

Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Paul Brislen said he would save $50 a month if he changed to the service and FYX’s “Global Mode” could be a significant market development.

So 50 GB of usage would be $53 and 100 GB would be $70. Not too bad.

While it was possible for internet users to disguise their location to circumvent controls on accessing online services such as Netflix, which are usually restricted to specific territories because of their licensing arrangements with content providers, FYX was the first service to do this automatically for the user, he said.

Although it doesn’t name any sites specifically in its marketing material, FYX invites people to use the service to access services not available in New Zealand.

“We all know New Zealand is the best little country in the world. But sometimes being little means that we get passed over when toys are handed out by the international gods-of-cool-and-fun,” it said in a statement announcing the service.  

Now that is really useful. Location controls are nasty.

The Herald reports:

They may not have claimed ultimate victory, but the biggest winners of the elections in France and Greece were the parties of the extreme right.

Fringe parties, some of them routinely labelled “neo-fascist” until recently, have made stunning inroads into mainstream European politics, to the point that in France, Norway, Finland, Hungary and Austria they either hold or threaten to hold the balance of power. Governments are increasingly faced with the choice of either giving ground on hot-button issues such as immigration and Islam, or ceding power.

In Greece – its disastrous economy in the hands of European moneymen, its political establishment rotten with corruption and unemployment among the under-25s cresting 50 per cent – this general election has seen a host of extremist parties emerge.

The leader of Chrysi Avgi (“Golden Dawn”), Nikos Michaloliakos, would not have been given the time of day in most EU countries only a short while ago. An open admirer of Hitler (he has called him “a great personality of history”), Michaloliakos has adopted the Nazi salute and a version of the swastika as his party’s emblem. One of his candidates in this election remarked laconically: “Most of the money is in the hands of the Jews.”

I have always remarked that the extreme left and extreme right can be very alike, hence they both benefit from an anti-austerity backlash.

At the last election Golden Dawn polled a derisory 0.29 per cent; this time they are expected to crash through the 3 per cent threshold to end up with 7 per cent and a dozen MPs in Parliament. That will still put them a long way from holding power.

But they may stop a government from forming without their consent.

In the Netherlands the power of the far right was demonstrated last week when Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party, anti-Muslim and anti-EU, brought down the Government, wrecking a long-standing financial pact with Germany which had been one of the pillars of EU stability.

I think it is unhelpful to compare the Freedom Party with the Golden Dawn. There is a huge difference between being anti-EU and anti-immigration and being neo-nazis. Let’s look at the various parties.

France – the National Front (or Front National) has no MPs in the National Assembly or the Senate and only got 4% at the last elections. However it routinely gets around 15% in presidential elections. They got 18% in 2012, 10% in 2007 and 17% in 2002 (when they came second).  They were very anti-semitic under Jean0Marie Le Pen, but less so under daughter Marine who has even praised Israel. They advocate France should leave the euro, and reintroduce customs borders.

Norway – not sure why Norway was mentioned because as far as I know, there are no far right parties in their Parliament.

Finland – the True Finns got 19% at the 2011 election, and were almost the 2nd largest party. They are eurosceptic and anti-globalisation which is not really far right. They also support more progressive taxes. A nationalistic party but in no way neo-nazi.

Hungary – Jobbik is Hungary’s third largest party and got 17% in 2010. In 2006 they had an electoral alliance with a far left party ironically. They do use fascist symbols and have had a number of anti-semitic incidents.

Austria – Jorg Haider’s Alliance for the Future of Austria is a break off from the Freedom Party. Both have become less extreme in recent years.

Netherlands – Geert Wilders leads the Party for Freedom. They got 16% in the last election. They are eurosceptic and anti-immigration but in no way neo-fascist,.

Greece – Golden Dawn did get 7% this week and has strong fascist symbols and salutes. Their leader has been convicted of illegal possession of explosives. Their youth wing has organised white power concerts and the original party charter required members to have Aryan blood.

So overall I’d say Golden Dawn is an outright fascist party. Hungary’s Jobbik is neo-fascist. The Austrian parties and the French National Front were neo-fascist but not necessarily are today. And I don’t see the Norway, Finland or Netherlands parties as being any more extreme than say NZ First.

A welcome reality check from the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association CEO at Stuff:

It seems as if opposition to the industry wants Kiwis to believe they can either have a country with a clean-green image or one that supports hydrocarbon exploration. But we don’t need to choose. We can have both.

We can have both, and in fact do have both.

To say oil and gas exploration is 100 per cent risk-free would be untrue. Like many other industries we cannot responsibly provide foolproof guarantees.

What we can do is work hard to ensure we have best-practice models, that we eliminate risks at every turn and implement the best technologies to ensure wells have little environmental impact and are as safe as possible from the risk of incident. We are more concerned about constructing a steel reinforced fence at the top of the cliff rather than providing an ambulance at the bottom.

New Zealanders travel on planes every day. The pilots and mechanics triple check the engines; ground staff prepare each plane for flight over and over again. But there are no 100 per cent guarantees the flight will proceed without incident. We see some horrific stories about plane crashes. But because the odds of a plane crash are so small, we continue to board planes every day to get from A to B.

When lobby groups and politicians call for something not to occur unless it is guaranteed to be absolutely safe, then they are really calling for it to be banned because they don’t like it. There is no industry or activity that can ever be totally safe.

For decades the industry in New Zealand has run largely unnoticed. There have been no major incidents and the last death was in 1996. Few industries can claim such a record. Block offers have passed us all by without a hikoi in sight, and hydraulic fracturing has been carried out for 20 years without a single incident.

20 years, yet some are calling for it to be banned.

The oil and gas industry is no Johnny-come-lately. It has been a part of the economy for more than 100 years, is the country’s fourth largest exporter and provides 7000 well-paid jobs nationwide.

I wonder how many people would be without a job in a New Zealand with no mining and no drilling? A lot.

In Taranaki we have become part of the community. And the benefits of successful finds can be seen throughout the region.

Don’t just take my word for it, go and visit Taranaki. Go down to the local pub or club, find some of the industry workers and chat to them about the oil and gas industry; about the jobs they and many of their family have; about the swimming pool sponsored by Todd Energy; or this year’s children’s book festival sponsored by Origin.

It is very easy for people in Auckland and Wellington to demand an end to certain industries, because they are not large employers in cities. But go out to Taranaki or the West Coast, and you’ll see how important they are to regional economies.

Oral Questions 2 pm – 3 pm

1. DAVID SHEARER to the Prime Minister: Is it still a fundamental purpose of his Government to narrow the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia, and to grow local wages in New Zealand?
2. TODD McCLAY to the Minister of Finance: What recent reports has he received on the economy?
3. Hon DAVID PARKER to the Minister of Finance: In dollar terms, what is the shortfall in the tax-take for the nine months to March revealed in yesterday’s Financial Statements compared to October’s pre-election update?
4. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN to the Minister of Finance: How much has been raised to date by the Earthquake Kiwi Bonds and, at this rate, how many years will it take to cover the Government’s estimated $5.5 billion liability resulting from the Canterbury earthquakes?
5. Hon TAU HENARE to the Minister for Social Development: How will Budget 2012 provide greater support for young people most at risk of long-term welfare dependency?
6. Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises: Does he stand by the Prime Minister’s statement regarding asset sales that “We are not going to do anything tricky there”?
7. Dr JIAN YANG to the Associate Minister of Health: How is the Government expanding its programme to reduce rheumatic fever in vulnerable communities?
8. Hon ANNETTE KING to the Minister of Housing: Does he stand by all his comments regarding housing?
9. JULIE ANNE GENTER to the Minister of Transport: What is the plan to pay for the Government’s transport expenditure given that the Ministry of Transport’s Briefing to the Incoming Minister warns of a funding shortfall of $4.9 billion if high oil prices and low GDP growth continue?
10. MARK MITCHELL to the Minister for Economic Development: How is the Government improving value for money in its procurement of services for the public sector?
11. DARIEN FENTON to the Minister of Labour: Does she stand by her statement that “I do not want to see unnecessary change for change’s sake. Rather I am looking to put in place pragmatic solutions as we implement our manifesto commitments and let employers, employees and business focus on what they do best.”?
12. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS to the Prime Minister: Does he still have confidence in the Minister for Social Development and the Associate Ministers for Social Development; if so, why?

Today there are four questions from National, five questions from Labour, two from the Greens and one from NZ First.

Patsy of the day goes to Q7 – How is the Government expanding its programme to reduce rheumatic fever in vulnerable communities?

Labour are asking on wages, tax revenue, asset sales, housing and employment law.

Greens are on earthquake bonds and transport. NZ First appears tp be on Whanua Ora.

General Debate 3 pm – 4 pm

The weekly free for all. 12 speeches of five minutes each on any topic. Let’s guess how many times Trevor Mallard will mention Simon Lusk!

Members Bills 4 pm – 6 pm and 7.30 pm – 10 pm 

The first bill should get done before the dinner break. The second bill may not take up much time so we should get to the third bill and possibly the fourth.

The Employment Relations (Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill was introduced in February 2010. It seeks to  require unions to hold a secret ballot vote of their members to approve a strike before undertaking any strike action. It passed first reading without dissent on a voice vote. However some MPs have argued the bill is unnecessary as unions are already holding secret ballots.  The Transport and IR committee backed it, but Labour and Greens were against saying it could allow employers to take court action against unions. At second reading National, ACT and United Future backed it with 64 votes and Labour, Green, Maori and Progressive against. It passed committee stage 61 votes to 59.

The Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill was introduced in November 2009 by Amy Adams (Nat) and is now in the name of Michael Woodhouse (Nat). It seeks to increase the transparency and public accountability of third-party businesses that collect funds on behalf of registered charities, by mandating disclosure of how much money actually goes to the charity. It was supported by all parties at first reading, and after amendment by the Commerce Committee also by all parties. It also passed second reading on a voice vote.

The Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill was introduced in September 2010 by Te Ururoa Flavell. It seeks to allow “local authorities, in consultation with their communities, to reduce the number of, or even eliminate, pokies from those suburbs and towns where they are particularly concentrated or doing particular harm”. National and Labour have indicated they will both back it to at least select committee. I expect many references to Sky City in the debate.

The Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill was introduced in November 2010 by Kennedy Graham and seeks to create a register of pecuniary interests for Judges.

The Depleted Uranium (Prohibition) Bill was introduced in September 2010 by Phil Twyford and seeks to ban the possession, use, sale, manufacture, testing and transit of uranium in all conventional munitions and armour within New Zealand and by agents of the New Zealand government.

The Wellington City Council is consulting on its long-term plan, and one of the things they have proposed is cutting funding for Te Papa from $2.25m to $1.0m. This is a very stupid thing to do in my opinion.

Before I get to the substance, a note on process. The City Council only told Te Papa on the day of their Council meeting that they were proposing a funding cut of 56%. That borders on incompetence. You don’t pull surprises like that on institutions without warning. There should be regular communication on issues such as funding.

Now why is the Council trying to cut funding by 56%? It is because they are spending too much money elsewhere, and are trying to keep rates from increasing too much. I support keeping rates down, but the problem is not the long-standing funding to Te Papa, but all their new spending projects.

A key issues is that 70% of the Te Papa funding does not come from residential ratepayers but from the Downtown Levy. This is a levy on basically tourism businesses such as hotels, restaurants, bars and the like.  The tourism sector are perfectly happy paying this levy. In fact they are up in arms that the Council is proposing a reduction. What the Council in fact is trying to do is to spend the Downtown Levy on general Council spending rather than Te Papa which generates an economic return.

How big an economic return do Wellington businesses get from having Te Papa in Wellington?

An economic assessment by Market Economics calculates a contribution to Wellington GDP of $91m a year.  50% of all visitors to Wellington visit Te Papa. On average there are 560,000 international visitors a year. 14% of domestic tourists and 4.7% of international tourists cite Te Papa as the main reason they came to Wellington. This represents a tourism spend in Wellington of $58.9m.

You can see why tourism businesses are so happy to pay the levy, and are pissed off at the Council for cutting it.

At an absolute minimum the Council must keep the $1.575, funding from the downtown levy going.

Is there a case for the other $675,000, which comes from ratepayers? Well 450,000 of Te Papa’s visitors are from within Wellington Region. It is used extensively by locals. But further because Wellington is lucky enough to have Te Papa here, we probably spend less on other galleries and museums.

The WCC spends $8.4m on museums and galleries (excluding Te Papa) which is $18.72 per person in the region. If one includes the other Councils, it will be more, but not massively so as most of the institutions are in Wellington City. Auckland Council spends $56.2m which is $37.82 per person in their region. I think Wellington ratepayers do pretty well out of the $675,000 they are being asked to fund Te Papa.

So I hope Councillors do the right thing and reverse the spending cut. Not because I am against spending cuts. But because Te Papa brings in a huge amount of tourism revenue, and cutting tourism spending is a false economy.

What is interesting is that almost all the Councillors generally seen as on the right are against cutting Te Papa’s funding – because they understand that economically it is a silly thing to do. The Councillors who have been voting in favour of cutting the funding have generally been from the left – including the three Green Councillors (including the Mayor). Is it because the Greens want less tourists to come to Wellington as it is “bad” for the Environment?

Eric Crampton blogs:

There isn’t any real-world evidence on the effects of cigarette plain packaging legislation, mostly because nobody’s really done it yet. What we have are a bunch of surveys of smokers and non-smokers on how cigarette packaging makes them feel, whether they think different designs are more or less likely to encourage them to smoke, and the like. In other words, a bunch of hypothetical musings in low consequence environments.

If we’re stuck having Tariana Turia’s proposed legislation, let’s do some good with it. Set it up as an experiment. Implement plain packaging in part of the country, but not elsewhere. Then see what happens. If it seems successful after a few years, implement it everywhere; if it doesn’t, abandon it. Either way, publish all the results so we have a better handle on what works. So plain packaging in Christchurch but not in Dunedin, in Wellington but not in Rotorua. I’m sure there are plenty of folks who specialize in designing randomised control trials of this sort who’d be able to run things.

This is an excellent idea and one that plain packaging advocates should support. If they are sure it will reduce smoking rates, this is their chance to prove it.

If we apply plain packaging to the whole country at once, we have no way of knowing whether the policy does anything. A careful randomised control trial could tell us something useful.

Some measures you can not test geographically, but plain packaging is one you can. The Government should be pro-science and agree to trial it.

Stuff has the top ten ugliest buildings in the world.

I’m disappointed the New Zealand Supreme Court building hasn’t been included in the list. It really is appalling, and looks like a 1970s acid relic.

The inside is actually lovely, but the exterior still can induce minor vomiting.

Radio NZ reports:

Conservative Party leader Colin Craig says taxpayers should not be picking up the tab for what he says are the most promiscuous young women in the world to get free contraceptives.

I’m not sure if that statistic is correct, but if so can I just say how happy I am to be a Kiwi 🙂

“Why should, say, a 70-year-old who’s had one partner all their life be paying for a young woman to sleep around.

Well as far as I know women don’t get paid to have sex, well unless they are a professional. Most women have sex because they enjoy it.

They only get “paid” if they get pregnant and have a baby. Contraception means that generally will not happen, so I would have thought Colin would be all in favour.

“We are the country with the most promiscuous young women in the world. This does nothing to help us at all.”

This is like saying we are the country with the best oysters in the world, and something must be done 🙂

I do like how Colin rails against “promiscuous young women” and says nothing about men. It does take two to tango. I really thought we were past the age of casting them as the evil Eve type seductress.

A useful new upcoming service from NZ Post and DIA. RealMe identity verification.

It will be a four step process:

1. Apply online
2. Go to a PostShop and get photo taken
3. DIA confirms identity
4. Complete verification of address with NZ Post

This will then be an online identity that is about as secure as it can be. You’ll then be able to use it to interact with government, local government and private sector businesses.

No details or costs known yet. The cost will be a key factor in uptake. I’d like a more secure form of identification online, but what I currently have with the IRD and my bank works pretty well.

A reader e-mails:

I notice a number of US pollsters appear to adjust their samples to achieve a predetermined proportion of Republican/Democrat voters.

Would you be kind enough to do a blog post on this subject, citing the nature of the practice, the reasons for it, it’s legitimacy and whether or not it skews results.  It seems to me it does.  Also, to your knowledge is such a practice carried out in NZ?

Weighting is very common to help ensure the results are representative of the overall population. If (for example) 20% of adults are aged under 30 and they make up 15% of your responses (as say young people are out more and harder to get hold of), then you weight their responses by 20/15 or 1.33.

Normally weighting is done on demographics such as gender, age, area, income, ethnicity etc.

In the US some pollsters do weight by party identification. This is not really possible in NZ, as most NZers do not publicly declare their identification. The purpose of such weighting is to make sure a sample is not under-represented by Republicans or Democrats.

However there are dangers in doing so. What do you weight to? You see party identification levels change over time. As party gets more or less popular, more or fewer people identify with them, so if you weight by party ID you may miss that there is a trend of decreasing or increasing support.

In NZ there is no polling by party ID, but sometimes you may see a poll weighted by vote at the last election. This is an attempt to have the results reflect the voting population. The problem with this, is people do not always correctly recall who they voted for at the last election. There is a tendency for some to say they backed the winning party, even if they did not.

In my opinion the best thing is to have your sampling done in a way which means you do not have to weight by party identification. If your sample is picking up (for example) 65% Democrats and 35% Republicans there is probably an issue with your sampling, and while weighting mitigates that, it can mean you ignore the underlying issue.

There is another issue with weighting. Sometimes it means you can exaggerate the error in a small sample. Let’s say you have a poll of 500 and 10% of the population is from (say) Timaru. Now if for some reasons only 20 responses were from Timaru, then they would get a weighting of 2.5. Now that small sample of 20 has a huge margin of error, and you have just compounded it by weighting.

Overall weighting is (in my opinion) a good and necessary thing to do. But I prefer to do it only on known factual demographics.

Trevor Mallard blogs:

Every now and again infighting gets so bad in the Nats that some gems are delivered to me. In this case it is a set of their Board and Board committee minutes.

Except they were “leaked” to numerous people, not just Trevor.  As I understand it they were posted to numerous journalists, and a few MPs.

And as I understand it, there was no leak. Just a theft. One board member never received his board documents in the mail, and it was his copy that got posted to various people. So it looks like someone took them from his letterbox. This is very plausible as his name was on them, and you would never leak documents with your own name on them. So no, there isn’t someone leaking to Trevor. Just a politically motivated theft.

Trevor is very excited by the negative references to Simon Lusk. This is amusing as just a year ago Trevor was insisting that Simon was actually working for Campaign Chair Steven Joyce, and was a loyal National Party servant. Trevor’s theories never seem to worry about consistency.

One item in the leaked minutes which I found interesting was that the Young Nats signed up 715 members on Auckland tertiary campuses over Orientation weeks. That’s a huge achievement.

Thomas Lumley at Stats Chat blogs:

In an earlier post I looked at male youth suicide rates in the US before and after the drinking age was raised in July 1984, and said that expecting a decrease in road deaths made sense.  It does make sense, but it seems that it didn’t happen in the US.  …

The graph shows road deaths per 100,000 people by age group (from CDC), and there isn’t anything prominent that happens in 1984 or 1985.  The pattern is pretty much the same for ages 15-19, 20-24, and 25-34.  The younger two groups would have been affected by the law (with its supporters usually arguing that the youngest of the groups is the real target) and the oldest group would not have been affected.    You can think of all sorts of explanations for why a difference might not have been seen (for example, the US is bad at detecting and deterring drunk drivers), but the data has to be disappointing to people who want a change in the drinking age.

The move in New Zealand to go to a split age may, in my view, increase the road toll. Why? Well 18 and 19 year olds will no longer be legally able to purchase some alcohol at an off-licence and take it home to drink. They will be forced to head out to bars to drink.

Now in Wellington this might not lead to an increase in drink driving, as it is such a compact city. But in Auckland it could well do so, and in more rural areas, I think is highly likely to. A split age will send out some bad incentives.

Question 2 in the House today:

DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by all of his statements?

Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) : Yes, I stand by the statements I make, but, of course, I do not stand by the statements David Farrar makes.

Can I just say that I think it is a pity he doesn’t – I say very sensible things. 🙂

The Timaru Herald reports:

Sanfords has labelled Winston Peters’ claim that 40,000 litres of oil spilled into Timaru harbour last week as “deeply bizarre”.

“I don’t know where he got his figures from. They don’t stack up,” Sanfords Deepwater manager Darryn Shaw said.

The incident is believed to have occurred after a Sanfords’ deep-sea vessel the San Enterprise had a mechanical failure in one of its internal pipes on Wednesday.

NZ First leader Mr Peters remained adamant yesterday that at least 40,000 litres of oil was spilled into the harbour. He would not reveal the basis for his claim when contacted by the Herald.

“It comes from an impeccable source,” Mr Peters said.

Environment Canterbury (ECan) coast and waterways safety manager Evan Walker reaffirmed the initial assessment that up to 4000 litres of oil were spilt in the incident.

So Winston’s source is now impeccable. Is this like his impeccable source about the fleet of Mercedes that WINZ owned?