The bureaucracy in New Zealand seems determined to keep organ donations at a woefully low level. They even argue that the rights of relatives should trump the rights of the deceased who has consented to donate organs.

Now some countries have managed to increase the rates of organ donation. Israel has had a 68% increase in organ donations after they put in place a policy to give donors 40 days lost wages, plus expenses. The number of people who died on the organ waiting list dropped from 124 to 105.

Israel has also said those who sign up to become organ donors, will themselves be given priority if they find themselves in need of an organ. A great way to increase the number of donors and save lives.

Iran, not normally a country you cite for good policy, they eliminated their waiting list for kidneys in 1999 – 11 years after they allowed organ vending. The donors receive up to $4,500 for being a donor – either from the recipient, or if they are poor from a charitable trust.

So what is the attitude of NZ officials. John McCall is on the National Ethics Advisory Council and Critic reports him saying:

McCall strongly opposes the idea behind LifeSharers, describing it as “absolutely abhorrent. We don’t discriminate on what treatment is offered to people based on their beliefs or what they may or may not have been willing to do under different circumstances.”

Eric Cramption notes:

But he’d be willing to discriminate against those donors who prefer that their organs go to organ donors.

McCall on organ markets says:

“I find the idea of organ markets abhorrent. Where commerce has had things to do with organ donation, terrible things happen. If you make it legal it’s still open to exploitation, and I think trading organs for money is fundamentally ethically untenable. The people who are most exploited by that tend to be the poor.”

The terrible things that have happened are more people get organs, and stay alive. The price of McCall’s ethical views being forced on us is people die.

Crampton notes:

I wouldn’t much care if he found LifeSharers repugnant if it were just his personal opinion; I find it repugnant that some folks are willing to accept donor organs but refuse to be donors themselves, but that’s a value judgment. But it puzzles me a bit what set of ethics gets used to decide that his ethics should trump mine. His abhorrence gets to set policy. Lovely.

Exactly. And again, the price of such repugnance is people dying because we do not have enough organ donors. I find unnecessary deaths repugnant.,

NZ Herald reported:

A West Coast man committing his 18th drink-driving offence when overtaking a police car has told a court he didn’t stop because he did not want to have to leave his motorbike to the mercy of thieves.

Overtaking a Police car is rather stupid. Doing it while drunk is even more stupid. Refusing to stop another step up the dumb ladder, and then claiming you were worried your motorbike would be stolen takes the cake.

Longjohn William Sheenan, 64, had a breath-alcohol level of 943mg when he finally stopped after a 1.6km pursuit on December 18, Greymouth District Court was told yesterday.

That is well over double the limit.

Judge Raoul Neave said that the 24-year gap between Sheehan’s 17th and 18th drink-driving offences had saved him from jail. …

“You have not previously offended this century and I am prepared to accept that this was one-off lapse of judgment, although a very silly one. I also accept that you have done your best to put your chequered past behind you.”

The Judge is probably right to give him the benefit of the doubt, as 24 years is a long time.

However if I had to lay money on it, I’d say Mr Sheenan has driven drunk many times over the last 24 years, and just hasn’t been caught. Very very few people get done for drink driving the only time they do it.

According to ALAC:

Police estimate that each day in New Zealand, approximately 5,923 compulsory breath tests and 2,743 mobile breath tests are undertaken and 100 people are charged with drink driving (New Zealand Police, 2010).

So on average there are 8,500 breath tests a day. Now if each day there are 850,000 motorists driving about, then you get breath tested on average 1 in 100 times. Based on my experience, it is even less often that that.

So if you drink drive once per month, then you could easily go a decade without being caught, on average.

Now also consider that to have racked up 18 drink drive convictions, the possibility he has driven drunk over 1,000 times. Of course there are other factors, such as Police may target you if known to be a problem, and bad driving may get you pulled over more often. But still 18 convictions still implies a huge number of times driving when drunk.

The AA quotes US research that

An American study quoted by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) found that drink drivers in the US have driven drunk on average 87 times before being caught.

As I said, I think Mr Sheenan is fortunate to avoid jail, especially as he refused to pull over.

A guest post by Peter Freedman:

When last counted, more than 500,000 Kiwis were living in Australia. Why do so many of us fly across the Tasman to live in the camp of our bitterest sporting rival?

I can’t answer for the other 499,998, but here is why Mr and Mrs Freedman, Sacha, the huntaway and Sunny the Golden Labrador became Australian residents.

BTW it is bloody expensive flying a dog across the ditch, far more expensive than flying yourself. The two dogs travelled in the same plane as we did and it was uncanny to listen to Sunny barking her head off as we taxied down the runway.

A main reason we chose Brisbane was because of the weather. We were sick to death of grey Wellington days and rainy southerly blows.

Not that it doesn’t rain here, but at least it is warm rain. To date we have escaped the floods – at one stage we thought about living in Ipswich, but changed our minds, thank goodness.

Brisbane has hot, rainy summers and warm, dry winters. So far the temperatures we have experienced have ranged from around 22 degrees (when true Queenslanders complain about the cold and reach for their long johns) through to 38 degrees, which is bloody hot. When it is that warm Queenslanders grab for a beer and head for the beach.

The lifestyle is great in Queensland. It is so laid back you sometimes have to give a Queenslander a kick to ensure he is still breathing.

The populace is generally welcoming. Get ready to be continually calling “darling” “sweetie” and “love” by the women behind the counter.

We had been here less than a day when a supermarket staffer kept calling me “darling”. Carolyn looked at me sideways with a quizzical “I know he can be a fast worker, but surely not THAT fast”.

They are also very generous. The first Easter we were here, the Commonwealth Bank stuffed up our payments and left us with no money. Cheekily, I went next door and asked a guy I had never met whether he could tide us over for the long weekend.

“No trouble.” He grinned , taking out his wallet. “A hundred be enough?”

I offered Carolyn’s engagement ring as security.

“What would I do with that?” my new mate laughed. “Just pay me back when you can.” We did.

Also Queensland is wonderfully egalitarian. I haven’t seen a Ferrari or a Rolls Royce in two years. A few Porsches and BMWs, but most Bananalanders drive good ordinary cars.

The cost of living is cheaper than NZ in many areas. You can buy a loaf of bread for $1 and two litres of milk for $2. Bananas are cheap except during the floods when the price rocketed to $13.99 a kilo. You can now buy a kilo for 99c in some fruit shops.

Not that Queensland doesn’t have its faults. There are some right wierdos here. When we arrived we bought a car from a great guy in Kingston, between Br isbane and Beenleigh, where we live. Later we decided to trade down to something smaller and naturally went back to the same place.

But our guy had gone and been replaced by Abbott and Costello. They made an offer for the car, then toddled off for a few minutes. When they came back they pretended never to have met us.

“What car? Who are you people? Why do you think we have seen you before?”

Police can be a problem, as I think I have mentioned.

But the fauna is wonderful. To wake up at around 4am to the sound of kookaburras, to see cockatoos and even the occasional koala in the trees is a magical experience.

And sport is everywhere. As a kiwi who has adopted Australia and has no intention of returning, I support Australian teams so long as they are not playing Kiwis. With one exception.

I will never, ever, support the Australian cricket team.

Everything has its limits.

I have a t-shirt that says “I support two teams – New Zealand and anyone playing Australia”. I now make an exception for when Australia plays against the English rugby team.

Have updated the page listing social media details for MPs.

For those into stats, here are the percentage of MP on each social medium for the four larger parties:

• Websites – National 86%, Labour 34%, NZ First 25%, Greens 14%
• Facebook – Greens 100%, Labour 94%, National 83%, NZ First 63%
• Twitter – Greens 93%, Labour 71%, National 48%, NZ First 38%

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs:

On March 8, British teenager Azhar Ahmed posted the following to his Facebook account:

People gassin about the deaths of soldiers! What about the innocent familys who have been brutally killed.. The women who have been raped.. The children who have been sliced up..! Your enemy’s were the Taliban not innocent harmless familys. All soldiers should DIE & go to HELL! THE LOWLIFE FOKKIN SCUM! gotta problem go cry at your soliders grave & wish him hell because that where he is going..

For posting this, he was arrested and charged with a “racially aggravated public order offence”. That charge was dropped when he appeared in court – perhaps because even the Yorkshire police could understand that “British soldiers” are not a racial group – and instead substituted with one of using a telecommunications network to send a grossly offensive message. He will face trial in July, and it is unclear what sentence he may face.

Now I agree that one should not face court charges for saying offensive things on the Internet. The threshold should be if you are promoting actual violence or crimes. So for example saying “I hate Jews” should not get you in court (it should get you on the front page of the newspaper though) but saying “We should kill the Jews” should get you in court. Saying “I wish all Jews were dead” doesn’t meet the criminal threshold though (in my opinion).

However it is a pity that Idiot/Savant did not also mention this story, which I blogged on. Also in the UK, a 21 year old student was actually jailed (not just charged) for 56 days for gloating when a black footballer collapsed on the field, saying he hoped he was dead, and also using racial abuse when people challenged him.

Now both these cases had defendents say pretty offensive stuff. I don’t think either should be in court. But does Idiot/Savant think it is okay to send people to jail for saying something racist, but wrong to charge people for saying all British soliders should die and go to hell?

My suspicion is that I/S is more a defender of offensive speech he politically agrees with, than of all offensive speech. If not, I welcome his views on the above case.

UPDATE: A few people have said I am being unfair to say that I suspect I/S is more a defender of speech he agrees with.  He has often defended the right of people like David Irving to be heard, so my comment was unfair and I retract it with apologies.

However I do think that considering how often he posts on this issue, his lack of comment on the UK jail sentence for a racist offensive tweet was unusual. As he did not condemn the jailing, I thought he might actually support “hate speech” laws as many on the left do (which motivated the post – to challenge him on this issue), but having checked he blogged in 2004 that he did not, so really the post was un-necessary.

This weekend has almost become play overload central. I’ve got plays Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Originally I only had A Shortcut to Happiness at Circa on Saturday night, but  then Downstage had the premiere for Live at Six (reviewed here) on the Friday night. Went with DC Girl, and we both thought it was terrific.

Then I suddenly realised I was at Coromandel for Easter and unable to make the premiere of Floral Notes, so shifted that to today. With three plays in one weekend, I was hoping they would all be very good, and so far I’m pleased to say it is two out of two.

The first thing you notice in entering Circa One is the stage set up as a typical NZ hall. It looks the part absolutely with the chairs, and the little sliding doors into the kitchen with the zip. The other half of the stage is a lounge in the home of Ned. The two sets are back to back on a rotating floor, which makes the set changes very easy.

A Shortcut to Happiness is a Roger Hall play. Now I’m not saying that this guarantees it will be a good play, but let’s just say I’ve yet to discover a Roger Hall play I didn’t enjoy. It is not by coincidence he is arguably New Zealand’s most successful playwrights. The play started with a tribute to Grant Tilly who died this week. Tilly was one of the founders of Circa, and had worked with Hall and others since the 1970s.

The two principal characters are Natasha and Ned, played by Elena Stejko and Peter Hayden. Natasha is a Russian immigrant who makes money cleaning and teaching dancing while trying to improve her English so she can become a music teacher. Ned is a widowed retired accountant who turns up to her classes.

Hall provides plenty of laughs as Natasha attempts and often gets wrong common Kiwi phrases, such as “from the bottom of my heart” being “from my bottom to my heart”.  Stejko is from the Ukraine, so playing a Russian immigrant is natural for her. From my experience of Eastern European women, she captures the characteristics wonderfully, including I have to say their beauty. When she changes from her dancing clothes into her cleaning clothes, the transformation is amazing. Even Glee Girl, who went with me, commented that she had the most incredible legs.

But the play is not just about Ned and Natasha. The rest of the dance lessons group provide great laughs. Jane Waddell portrays Coral the middle aged man-eater who also has designs on Ned. You also have the golf buddies Janet and Laura, and the young Sebastian who charms all the ladies, causes much tensions also.

But by far the funniest couple had to be Bev and Ray, played by Carmel McGlone and Tim Gordon. Bev is an uptight organic food eating University of the Third Age student, and Ray her hen pecked husband. McGlone is simply a comic genius – not with what she says, but her facial expressions and body language. Her performance alone is worth seeing the play for.

The play (including interval) is two and a half hours long, which is normally past my comfort zone. I generally prefer 90 – 110 minute plays. But it is a sign of how enjoyable the play was, that I never got restless. The plot advanced at a steady pace, and you were eager to see how it all works out.

It was Glee Girl’s first play in Wellington, and she also thought it was a great performance. I can’t think of too many people who wouldn’t enjoy it. It runs at Circa until 26 May.

UPDATE: I forgot the funniest line of the play. During an argument, Natasha challenges Ned saying “Don’t you hope I will sleep with you”, and his response was “Well yes, but only in the sense that I also hope I will win Lotto”. It was hilarious.

The SST reports:

A self-described “little old Chinese lady” has waded into the racism debate, saying she has suffered decades of racial abuse.

Victoria Beck, 70, said she has been abused in the street, told to go back to Asia, and even been hit by passers-by, despite calling New Zealand home for most of her life. And the situation was worsening, she said.

“As a little old Chinese lady, I am the target of much more physical, verbal and emotional abuse today.” …

Her complaint came after Blues coach Pat Lam suffered racist attacks on internet message boards and talkback radio because of his team’s failings.

Beck said she was not surprised at the attacks against Lam and his team. She migrated here with her family at the age of six and was given an English name to ease the transition. She later took on her husband’s surname.

But having an English name did not stop the racism, she said. “I want people to know how damn vicious some whites are here. The root of it has always been a colour division.”

She recalls being pushed into the gutter in Auckland’s Parnell by a group of young people who told her to “go home, Asian”.

Growing up here, she said, neighbours would scrawl racist remarks on the footpath outside her home. “I felt shame as if there was something wrong with me, my family, my race,” she said. “Chinese have long been a despised minority here.”

My gut feeling is that Chinese New Zealanders probably suffer the worse overt racism in New Zealand. It’s ironic as they generally have the highest employment rates, educational achievement and lowest crimes rates.

The SST report:

A generation of young, educated New Zealand women is being lost to the workforce because they can’t afford childcare.

Many tertiary educated and trained mothers are deciding to retrain as teachers or nurses, professions that offer more flexible work options. …

New Zealand has one of the lowest workforce participation rates for women in the 25-34 age group compared to the rest of the OECD.

Labour’s early childhood education spokeswoman Sue Moroney said the government’s reluctance to look at the issue was causing skills and talent to be lost to the workforce.

Nordic countries such as Norway and Sweden had the highest participation rates, and also spent the most on childcare, and had generous paid parental leave provisions.

I went looking for research on this, and found this paper. It’s 40 pages long and has every stat you can think of on workforce participation by women, written by a (then) Treasury boffin.  One thing he noted was:

The previous section has shown that differences between countries can be attributed in part to differences in the participation of, and prevalence of, different types of families. At least some of the difference between countries, however, might simply be due to the definition of “participation”. We illustrate this by comparing participation rates in New Zealand to those in the highest-participating countries in the OECD, the Nordic countries.

In official statistics, women on paid parental leave should be counted as employed, even though they are not working.21 Nordic countries have amongst the most generous paid parental leave provisions in the OECD

That is worth remembering. In these statistics, you are counted as still being in the workforce if on paid parental leave, so there is no surprise there is a correlation. They modeled for this impact:

The maximum effect of these differences in paid parental leave can be modelled by assuming that women take the maximum leave available for all their children and adjusting the reported participation figures to reflect this. Figure 24 shows that after this adjustment there is a marked ‘dipping’ in participation rates in the Nordic countries. When adjusted, the profile of women’s employment rates in these countries loses its n-shape, and becomes much more like the profile in New Zealand. The difference in participation rates of women aged 25 to 39 years is also markedly reduced after adjustment.

So extending paid parental leave makes the stats looks better, because women on paid parental leave are counted as being in the workforce. But whether it actually makes a significant difference to the number of women actually being in paid work, is far less clear. Some other interesting stats:

Among New Zealand women, the presence and age of children, being a sole or partnered mother, and level of qualifications have a strong effect, and each factor has an effect which is independent of the other two. Mothers with different combinations of these characteristics have widely varying participation rates. At one extreme, for example, sole parents with a pre-school child and no school qualification have a participation rate of only 32%. At the other extreme, partnered mothers with a child aged 10-17 and with a post-school qualification have a participation rate of 91%.

And for the 25 – 34 year old age group:

Compared to other OECD countries, New Zealand has a relatively high overall female participation rate. Yet, participation rates for women between the ages of 25 and 39 are conspicuously low by international standards. Few other countries show a dip in participation rates in the peak childbearing ages. This point of difference seems to be driven by a combination, in New Zealand, of relatively low participation rates among mothers with young children and sole mothers, together with high fertility rates and high proportions of sole parent families.

So arguably the welfare reforms which will discourage sole parent families to have further children, will increase the participation rates, as well as the increased work-testing requirements.

The research also notes (and this was done in 2005 when Labour was Government):

Differences in participation between countries may also reflect differences in government policies (such as tax and benefit policies) or social norms (such as the attitudes towards, and expectations of, women working compared to looking after their children). OECD countries can be grouped according to their pattern of women’s participation across ages, and these groupings to a considerable extent reflect similarities in the countries’ values, social conventions, institutions and recent histories. Not surprisingly, New Zealand’s profile is most similar to Australia and the United Kingdom: countries with whom we share a common heritage. The participation profile of New Zealand men, relative to the OECD, is also similar in many ways to that of New Zealand women, with relatively high participation rates for younger and older people, but relatively low rates for people aged around 25-39. These similarities support the case for the existence of particular “country effects”, which affect both women and men.

I think cultural issues are always significant.

The paper concludes:

How does all this inform the public policy question of whether, and how, to encourage the greater participation of women in New Zealand? Some initial thoughts are be hazarded here. Firstly, since different groups of women, and mothers, have widely differing participation rates, any policies which aim to increase the participation of women would need to be carefully focused. One type of policy is unlikely to work for all women. Also, since some groups of women already have high participation rates, policies which aim to increase this participation even further may incur high deadweight costs.

A very interesting paper. The issues are far more complex than paid parental leave.

The Herald on Sunday has a piece by Jack Tame on the US presidential race. It makes it sound hopeless for Mitt Romney:

He’s a corporate Ned Flanders. Polished, handsome enough, religious and so very wholesome – the kind of guy you wouldn’t take to Vegas.

Many will say it’s what America needs, that in a time of economic insecurity, policy should triumph over personality. The problem for Romney is, that’s not how politics work.

A lot of Americans simply don’t like him. Women, African-Americans, Hispanics, even far-right Republicans and Evangelical Christians say they will struggle to support their party’s own nominee.

The female vote is of particular concern. An ABC poll this week had Romney 19 points behind Obama among female voters. He has been tarred by the controversial birth control policies of the ultra-right and many female voters say Obama has a better understanding of women’s issues.

Romney’s African-American support isn’t much better. Facing America’s first black President he wouldn’t realistically have expected a large percentage of the black vote, but he might have tried. There are no high-ranking African-American staff on his campaign, and he has had few endorsements from high-profile black politicians.

Support among Hispanics, who make up 10 per cent of eligible voters, is now almost as grim. By way of a particularly unscientific and completely unrepresentative poll, I popped into a Spanish Harlem laundromat on the day of Santorum’s withdrawal, and ended up chatting with the Mexican proprietor.

“Amigo!” he said.

“Amigo!” I said.

“So … Mitt Romney or Barack Obama? Who do you want to be president?” I asked.

“With Obama, nothing has become better,” he said, “but I’ll still vote for him.”

Among Latin voters, polls have Obama as much as five times more popular than his counterpart-to-be.

So what do the current polls show?

Pollster has Romney and Obama both tied at 45.2%. Not bad for someone no-one likes. Pollster (which averages all the public polls) finds Romney has 46.7% unfavourability, and Obama has 46.1% unfavourability. So where are the stories on how unpopular Obama is?

Now don’t get me wrong. Obama is the favourite to win at this stage, but this article suggests the gap is huge, and Romney is doing very badly.

Traditionally all republican candidates do worse amongst women. The historical average is around 12%, so the current gap of 19% is greater. And no Republican candidate has ever had significant African-American or even Hispanic support.

Romney leads Obama by 26% amongst white men. That is not enough to win, but helps counter the weaknesses in other areas. Obama and Romney are neck and neck amongst white women, and that is the likely battleground.

Got e-mailed this, which is sort of funny.

And no I do not condone “theft” when the victim is rich. In fact I have always said that people should pay for copyrighted material when that avenue is open to them.

But there is a useful point that the current business models are very much geared towards the studios, and making their owners rich. It is the studios, rather than the artists, which are resisting moving to business models that are fit for today.

Luckily we are slowly moving towards studios using the Internet as a sales channel, rather than as the enemy.

A guest post by Peter Freedman:

Australians are incessant, almost pathological gamblers.

If two kookaburras land on a tree miles in the outback, it’s a fair bet that within minutes a bookie is making odds as to which one will fly away first.

Latest figures available show $69 a year is bet for every man, woman and child in Australia.

“Most forms of gambling are legal in Australia, and the activity is highly popular. The average adult Aussie will lose about $1,000 (US $679) on gambling each year. This means that Australians lose more money per adult at gambling than any other group on the planet. This number has increased 2½ times over the last 25 years. In fact, more money is spent on gambling than on sporting, cultural or entertainment events.” -world gambling review website.

Australia, with 360, has more racecourses than any other country in the world. Poker machines make up 56% of the gambling industry here. In Brisbane you can go to a race meeting every day of the week if you want. Within two hours drive there are courses at Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Ipswich, Beaudesert, Gold Coast plus two in the city, Eagle Farm and Doomben, the two just across the road from each other.

Gambling addiction is a huge problem, a 2010 report by one hospital showed 17% of attempted suicides were problem gamblers.

Recently the Gillard Government, cheered on by Independent Andrew Wilkie, threatened to introduce “mandatory pre commitment” for pokie gamblers. This would require EVERY gambler to set a limit before he, or she, said down to mindlessly pull a handle or push a button.

This was well intentioned nonsense. Firstly, it treated all gamblers as if they were addicts, and secondly, a gambler could set any limit at all, from $1 to a gazillion. The Lib/Nat coalition’s response was even worse: they proposed voluntary pre commitment. What’s next, asking every smoker to sign a piece of paper saying they wouldn’t take more than two puffs a day, but nothing would happen to them if they didn’t keep their promise?

The chartered clubs, a huge industry here, went ballistic. They rely on pokie revenue to such an extent that one club near where I live offers lifetime membership for $1. No, not $1 a year, a buck for the rest of your life!

But the clubs did a very clever thing. Rather than taking up the example of the billionaires of the mining industry and entering a full on war which made the newspapers lots of money in advertising, the clubs kept their powder dry and sat down and talked to the government. It worked and the legislation was watered down.

Wilkie went into a sulk, Abbott looked silly and, for once, Gillard pulled a handle and landed the aces. Labor backbenchers, reliant on gambling votes, heaved a huge sigh of relief,

Bookmakers are legal in Australia. In NZ they are not, except for the TAB, which can offer what is called “fixed prices”. “Tote odds” are also available.

Tote odds means the winners receive back all the money gambled, less taxes and the TAB’s take. That way the TAB doesn’t care which horse wins, the total payout is always the same.

A bookie sets his own odds relying on his skill and knowledge. So he hopes an outsider wins so he doesn’t have to pay out much. When a hot favourite gets rolled, the bookies smile.

The NZ TAB is, in my opinion, a rotten bookie. The moment a horse is subject to a decent bet it brings its price down. A good bookie, confident in his knowledge and ability would keep the price the same and invite a big punter to “have another go”.

There are legends of battles between big (and I mean BIG) punters and top bookies. One tells of a punter who put $250,000 on a 10-1 shot. Come again, smiled the bookmaker and put the price up two points. The punter wagered another 250k. The horse lost.

In my heyday I enjoyed a punt. Not big, the most I ever put on a horse was $200 at 10-1. It won easily.

I once collected over $3000 for a $10 bet. I bet that four horses in different races would all run a place at good odds and they all did.

Gambling can be fun or can lead to misery. The simple rule is: Don’t gamble money you can’t afford to lose.

Good punting!

I consider our gaming laws relics from Queen Victoria. Some changes I would make:

• Remove the TAB monopoly on sports betting
• Allow Internet gambling (esp as Kiwis just user overseas sites anyway)
• Allow any Casino operator that meets good character tests to set up a casino in a suitable area

Kids Magical Day Out from Ro Tierney on Vimeo.

A short two minute film of 200 primary school kids (sponsored by NZ Post) to go to Peter And The Wolf which was running in Wellington as part of the International Arts Festival. Ro Tierney tagged along with one of the schools from Porirua to capture their experience.

Some had never even been on a bus to the city before, let alone see a show like this, and it shows looking at their reactions. A cool reminder how most kids love new experiences.

This photo, sent in by a reader, was taken after the “white pride street march” at their after-party.

Doing the Nazi salute is Kyle Chapman of the “Right Wing Resistance”, plus the leaders of Blood and Honour, Kaos Skins, National Front and South Island Skinheads.

You’ll note the Swastika as well as the Nazi salute. It is a useful reminder that these morons are not about pride in anything, but about hate. They venerate a regime which killed people of the wrong race and/or colour.

I wonder if any of them are in paid employment? I find it hard to believe.

Had a great time last night at “Live at Six” at Downstage. It is an invigorating mix of interactivity and technology, that wonderfully depicts how our television broadcasters differently deal with a scandal involving one of their own.

The play formally starts at 8 pm, but if you turn up early to the Downstage bar from 7.30 pm, you see the “scandal” in question. You’re even invited to record it yourself, and upload it.

This is the video I shot of a “tired and emotional” Jane Kenyon collapsing in the bar of the Qantas Media Awards. Kenyon is the lead anchor for One News. Helping her up is Nick Dunbar of 3 News, who used to work with her at One News.

Do be warned that if you do turn up early to see the incident, then you may end up featured quite prominently on the screens in the theatre itself. Yes, they use the actual footage from that night, rather than the same stock footage. This is very impressive when you consider they have just a few minutes to do it in.

Then when the play starts you see the news teams of TVNZ and TV3 at work in deciding how to report the story. Is it even a story that someone fell over in a bar? Well it is, because the video gets placed on the Internet, and is all over the blogs (they even have a line when they realise it is now up on Whale Oil).

TV3 of course is gleeful at the story. Michele Amas plays news boss Sue Austin and she is absolutely ruthless, yet endearing, in exploiting this to the hilt. A highlight is when Kenyon, played by Jessica Robinson, goes on the roof of TVNZ for some fresh air (she can’t leave the building). Sue yells for them to not just get a zoom lens on her, but to make sure they get a camera down the bottom in case there is a splat to cover.

As you get the idea, it is a very cynical, yet hilarious (and some would say accurate) depiction of the media. They also use social media very effectively in the show. You see blogs, Stuff, You Tube, Tweet Deck, Skype etc. But they manage to use them in a way which they are natural parts of the plot, not just gimmicks to show they are with it.

Tim Spite was hilarious as 3 News news reader Gordon Miller. He was happy to go along with anything his boss proposed, unlike the conflicted Nick Dunbar (played by Derek Fontaine) who is friends with Kenyon and wants her treated fairly.

On the One News side, Donogh Rees was captivating as corporate executive Karen Adams. A former news presenter herself, she was now the woman managing the crisis for TVNZ, and was a first class manipulator. Phil Vaughan played Tim McGregor, Kenyon’s immediate boss, who wanted to do the right thing, so long as it didn’t muck his day up too much. Jessica Williams was great, as usual, in the lead role.

You also had the strange competitive friendship between the two news editors, played by Eli Kent and Barnaby Fredric.

The show was pretty much flawless. The script was excellent, and the actors were superb. The running time at just under two hours was just right, and they had the interval at just the right point. While most of the focus was on the character interactions, the plot has a couple of very nice twists at the end which you don’t see coming.

Their use of technology was excellent, and it is a tribute to their support staff, that they managed to do it with no hitches.

It was my first Downstage play since they had a six month hiatus. A great production to lead off with, and an excellent night’s entertainment. Highly recommended for a fun night out.

The Herald politics quiz is here. Got 8/10 in 45 seconds.

The Herald editorial on paid parental leave:

The Government has the right to apply a veto at the third reading if it deems any piece of legislation would have more than a minor impact on its finances. This power springs, quite validly, from the necessity for the Government to be separate from Parliament because only it spends money. …

National should be prepared to allow the legislation to go through a select committee. It could then gauge public sentiment. It might also find that trade-offs and compromises produced a bill that was affordable. And it would be spared the embarrassment that would come from exercising its powers in a dubious manner to ignore the will of Parliament.

Ummm the select committee stage is before the third reading. National can not stop the legislation from going to a select committee if Parliaments votes for it at its first reading.

The NZ Herald reports:

The Government has reaffirmed its keenness to implement charter schools despite a damning study which says they may do more harm than good to the under-achievers the Government is targeting.

Under a National-Act agreement, charter schools will be trialled in areas where education achievement is low – South Auckland, Christchurch East, and possibly Wellington.

A group of education experts at Massey University has investigated similar models to the proposed charter schools – Sweden’s “free schools”, England’s “academies”, and privatised schools in the United States.

Oh no, a damning study by the “education experts” at Massey. So who were these experts?

Convener Professor Emeritus Ivan Snook said the group used similar sources of evidence to the Government but came to different conclusions.

Oh Ivan Snook. Having Ivan Snook attack the Government’s education policy is as surprising as having Sue Bradford attack the welfare policy. Professor Snook has spent decades as a champion of socialism, and fighting almost every educational initiative since and including Tomorrow’s Schools. You can read his own version of it here.

Even Trevor Mallard when Education Minister commented:

Ivan Snook advises teachers to continue with their professional reading. I would endorse that advice, with the proviso that teachers find someone other than Ivan Snook to read.

For once I agree with Trevor.

The Press reports:

Dalziel said the housing shortage had hit breaking point and was rapidly snowballing into an “extreme crisis”.

“The Government has to intervene. It has the most extensive powers that any government has had since wartime,” she said.

“Gerry Brownlee is like Pontius Pilate by just washing his hands of all this.”

She said there needed to be a cap on rent increases to stop landlords taking advantage of quake-hit residents. 

Oh yes a rent freeze. That worked so well last time. Let’s look at the problem:

Recently disclosed Trade Me figures show demand for rental properties in Christchurch has increased 42 per cent, supply has dived 40 per cent and rent has climbed 15 per cent on last year.

Okay so supply has dived 40%, and Labour’s solution is a rent freeze. Now can anyone who has studied economics beyond primary school tell Lianne what the problem with her proposed rent freeze is?

The Government would not intervene in the issue, he [Brownlee] said.

“A rent freeze doesn’t increase supply and will never encourage new stock to come in. We won’t be moving to regulate rents but we most certainly are actively providing new housing.”

He “recognised there was a problem a couple of weeks ago”, but criticism that the Government had ignored the city’s housing crisis was “unfair”.

“Political opponents have raised issues, not solutions. The Government is taking action and we have outlined our plan of attack many times.”

Land on the outskirts of the city had been freed for potential subdivisions, more rapid consenting processes were being discussed, temporary accommodation services and assistance packages were available, housing villages were expanding and he had asked Housing New Zealand and the Christchurch City Council to accelerate repairs on quake-damaged homes, he said.

I await Labour also announcing a price freeze as their new inflation policy.

1. Natasha Smith reports on the work of political lobbyists
2. Metriria Turei, Claire Curran and NZFirst’s Dennis O’Rourke on the Greens lobbying bill.
3. Cameron Slater — “Whaleoil” — on the dark side of lobbying.
4. Mark Unsworth (Saunders Unsworth) and Auckland PR man Cedric Allen on how lobbying really works.
5. Duncan Garner with Bob Parker on why the Christchurch City Council is raising rates and what plans has the Government got up its sleeve for the Council.

Saturday 1030 – and repeated on Sunday 0800 – TV3

The Greens used to have a section called The Wild Greens, who carried out attacks on stuff they disagree with. The Herald reports:

Scientists have slammed the “senseless” destruction of hundreds of genetically-engineered pine trees during a break-in at a Rotorua plantation.

Scion planted 375 radiata pines last year to test herbicide resistance and study reproductive development.

The company said damage to the trees, which occurred over the Easter Weekend, will cost around $400,000.

Scion Chief Executive Dr Warren Parker describes this as a blatant act of vandalism designed to end Scion’s genetic modification research programme.

Now no one has claimed responsibility for the vandalism yet – which is not surprising, as they will presumably be arrested. But like with the stickers in the election, will there be links to the Green Party, and even the parliamentary wing?

Will the Greens come out and condemn this attack?