Took part in the Wellington Round The Bays this morning. Very crowded with 12,000 taking part. Great weather, so was spectacular sights going around the bays. Love how the local residents get into it and set up unofficial showers.

I did the 7 km track only, but if things go well will try the longer distance next year. An easy way to help raise some money for the Malaghan Institute.

One commentator said that the ALP caucus has to choose between a leader they hate and a leader Australia hates.

One pundit has the count as 68 for the leader Australia hates and 26 for the leader the caucus hates with 7 undecided.

Yvonne Tahana at NZ Herald reports:

Public arts and culture funding to the tune of $1.6 million will partly pay for the New Zealand’s Got Talent reality television series.

Developed by Simon Cowell, the series is famous for discovering unlikely star Susan Boyle in the British series. It will screen on TV One.

Government agency New Zealand On Air said its support was a smart use of the public purse.

Chief executive Jane Wrightson said it was a “wonderful opportunity for many types of New Zealand performers to entertain a nationwide audience”.

I like the US and other country versions of the show. However I’m not convinced that a NZ version should be funded by NZ on Air. I suspect the show will be a ratings hit anyway. I’d much rather NZ on Air was funding shows like The Court Report. Of course to be fair to NZ on Air, TVNZ is refusing to apply for funding for shows that used to be on TVNZ7, because it doesn’t want to screen them on a weeknight. So the fault is not NZ on Air, but it does suggest the model needs looking at if taxpayer funding is going on shows such as New Zealand’s Got Talent.

From Twitter.

Overnight polls have shown that only Kevin Rudd could beat Tony Abbott, but Rudd’s leadership style is so disliked that Gillard looks likely to beat him by a 2:1 margin. Basically many Labor MPs would rather lose their seats and lose government, than have Kevin Rudd as leader again.

Maori TV has in many ways been a success story. They have managed to avoid the culture of excess that their predecessor Aotearoa TV had. They have managed to capture ANZAC Day in a way no other broadcaster has. They had some of the best debates in the election campaign, and I understand their election night coverage was very good. Native Affairs is a must watch show for those interested in politics, and they had great Rugby World Cup coverage.

But there is one big elephant in the room. The elephant is that almost nobody is watching them. And when we invest $50 million a year into them, it is an elephant that should not be ignored.

Generally broadcasters who have very small audiences use figures such as weekly cumulative, monthly cumulative or even annual cumulative. This means that if you watch one show for 10 minutes in a month, you are counted as a viewer. I do not find these stats very useful or informative.

There are two stats which give a far better idea of how a channel and how a programme is doing. The first is the AUD% which is how many people out of the approx 4 million 5+ NZers watched a show. From that AUD% figure you can work out how many people were tuned in at a particular time.

The RWC Final against France in October had the highest AUD% ever – around 50%. One News typically is at around 13% and Shortland Street around 12%. The Prime Evening News is around 4%.

The other figure is SHR%. This is the percentage of people watching television (including Sky) at that pont in time – so effectively the market share. So outside of prime time, the AUD% will be lower, but the SHR% may stay the same.

Now I have an extract of the Neilsen data for earlier this week. Here is the AUD% and SHR% data for Maori TV for prime time for the half hour spots starting at the times shown:

• 6.30 pm – 0.0% and 0.0%
• 7.00 pm – 0.0% and 0.1%
• 7.30 pm – 0.1% and 0.2%
• 8.00 pm – 0.0% and 0.0%
• 8.30 pm – 0.0% and 0.1%
• 9.00 pm – 0.0% and 0.1%
• 9.30 pm – 0.0% and 0.0%
• 10.00 pm – 0.1% and 0.5%

A 0.1% AUD means around 4,000 people were tuned in. A 0.1% SHR means only 1 in 1,000 people watching TV during that half hour, were watching Maori TV.

This was Wednesday this week. Yesterday was a but better with one show getting a 0.7% audience at its peak and a 0.5% audience overall, which was 19,100 viewers.

But in my opinion that isn’t good enough, for the investment that the taxpayer puts in. Especially when you consider 15% of New Zealanders are Maori (not that it is for Maori only – I watch several shows on it).

This post isn’t to knock Maori TV. As I said at the beginning I think they do some great stuff, and they should be applauded for it. But they do need to do something about their viewer stats, rather than rely on the false comfort of cumulative stats.

I was hoping that after the RWC, Maori TV would rate better. Part of the idea of their hosting bid, was to get people used to tuning into Maori TV. And it did work for the RWC. Since then though, people have gone back to not tuning in.

I don’t have the magic solution for increasing ratings. If I did, I’d be rich. But it is a shame to see $50 million being spent on a channel which produces some really good programmes, but gets viewed by so few people. It is good to have a quality public broadcaster, but it would be better to have one that was watched regularly by more than 0.1% of the population.

Whale Oil has blogged on an interesting case:

Todd McDonald aka The Jackal has been told to sling his hook by the Press Council because he won’t reveal who he is. He complained last year about the NBR and the Otago Daily Times.

It is of course not proven that Todd is The Jackal, but Whale lays out a pretty convincing case. The Press Council ruling is what interests me:

Requests from the Press Council for an address; phone number; driver licence details or car registration (Mr McDonald said he was homeless and lived in a car) were all refused.

Amazing how good his Internet connection is for someone who lives in a car and is homeless.

The Press Council determined not to rule on Mr McDonald’s complaints. They reasoned that they should not rule on a complaint where the complainant had not provided any detail as to their bona fides.

If a newspaper were to publish material or a letter to the editor under the same circumstances (without establishing, or having the means to establish, the credentials of the commenter/letter-writer) the Press Council might very well say the newspaper was at fault. The same principle applied. If the Council accepted the complaint it was lowering its standards to a level it wouldn’t want a newspaper to practice.

I absolutely agree that the Press Council should only accept complaints from people who are prepared to verify themselves. There are enough trolls out there who abuse the Press Council and BSA complaints system, without adding to it by allowing people to file complaints from effective anonymity (such as providing a name and no contact details).

In my column at the NZ Herald I label the MFAT restructuring the first deep cut.

Stuff reports:

Former cabinet ministers Sir Douglas Graham and Bill Jeffries, and two other former Lombard Finance directors, have been found guilty of four charges of making false statements.

The verdicts, delivered in the High Court at Wellington this morning, also included one set of not guilty verdicts for Graham, Jeffries, Lawrence Bryant and Michael Reeves. They were allowed bail without conditions.

Sir Douglas was visibly shaken and some members of the men’s family were in tears after the hearing. …

Lombard Finance was put into receivership in April 2008, owing $125 million to 4400 investors. Secured creditors were expected to be repaid less than 24 cents in the dollar.

I know several family members of the directors, and less well a couple of the directors. Regardless of what the actual penalty is, the actual conviction itself will be what is hardest to live with. They are all people whose reputations are very important to them.

I don’t think any of them ever set out to do wrong, but it is a reminder that the obligations and liabilities on directors are significant. I’ve been a company director of a couple of companies. Not ones listed on the NZX or in financial services, so the complexity and risk is much less. Despite that though, I take the legal obligations as a director incredibly seriously and probably to the occasional annoyance of management will read financial documents very carefully, and even do my own series of checks on them, ranging from does everything add up to does the variation in realised revenue from a product match the variation from budget for total number of that produce.

A lot of people think it is easy being a director. If everything goes well, it can be a very good role to have. But if things go badly, you never want to be relaying on the line “That was the responsibility of management”. You can’t interfere in operational issues, but you can make sure you have asked the right questions, and be prepared to refuse to sign something until you are satisfied you have done everything that could reasonably be expected of you.

I don’t know the specifics of what went wrong at Lombard. I suspect that its situation was little different to most finance companies. However as some investors have said, having high profile persons on the board does attract investors, and makes people think a company might be safer than it is. I can quite understand the  views of investors  – they are the victims who lost money in Lombard.

I think calls for Sir Douglas Graham to lose his knighthood are uncharitable. He did not get it for services to finance companies. He got it for his contribution to Parliament, Government and Maori. But again, I can understand the views of the investors who lost their money.

The lessons for the future might be that investors should not rely on the presence of high profile board members in deciding whether to invest, and high profile persons should think very carefully before accepting directorships, as they will be in the gun if things go wrong, and they haven’t done everything they could.

Sent to me by e-mail:

Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse.

Heh.

Seamus Boyer at Stuff reports:

Balloonists have rejected as “unnecessary” calls for an urgent maintenance review of all hot-air balloons after an investigation into the Carterton disaster.

The investigation found the balloon should not have been in the air on January 7, when it crashed killing all 11 people in it.

The burners and LPG fuel system had not been correctly inspected, the balloon material had not been properly strength-tested, and a safety logbook was left incomplete, preliminary findings from the Transport Accident Investigation Commission show.

Though it is not yet known if these oversights caused the crash, they meant the balloon may have been in breach of Civil Aviation Authority standards, and therefore not “airworthy”.

The commission has recommended that the CAA make urgent checks on the maintenance of all 74 balloons in the country – a move that balloon operators have labelled as unnecessary and “knee-jerk”. …

Balloon Aviation Association president Martyn Stacey described the recommendation as a “knee-jerk reaction”.

“I’m getting calls from balloonists all over the country worrying if their balloons are safe. They’re saying it might have an effect on customers, and that is a worry.”

Ummm I think 11 people dying is what has had the effect on customers, and made people worry about whether their balloons are safe. I certainly would never fly in a balloon again in NZ, until the full report from the accident investigators is known, and I am confident any factors in the crash could not occur elsewhere.

The Balloon Aviation Association should see the recommendation as an opportunity to restore confidence in their industry, rather than an attitude of “We’re all right Jack”.

Martin van Beynen writes at The Press:

A juror from the second trial of David Bain wrote to the justice minister urging him not to pay compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

Bain, 39, was acquitted in 2009 by a Christchurch jury of charges he murdered his parents Margaret, 50, and Robin, 58, and three siblings Arawa, 19, Laniet, 18, and Stephen, 14, in June 1994 in Dunedin.

The juror wrote to then justice minister Simon Power in April 2010 raising, among other things, misgivings about the conduct of the jury during the trial.

Much of the letter cannot be reported because the law prevents the publication of material revealing the deliberations of a jury. The Bain juror also expressed concerns about the jury not having access to evidence that was suppressed until the verdict was reached and then released after the trial.

In the letter, the juror reveals three other jurors, of their own volition, visited Every St, where the murders took place, during the trial.

Jurors must reach their verdict only on evidence heard or seen in court. They must not make their own investigations during the trial.

Three jurors visited the street? My God.

The Justice Ministry has appointed retired Canadian Supreme Court judge Ian Binnie to provide the Government with a recommendation on whether Bain has shown on the balance of probabilities that he is innocent.

The ministry’s acting chief legal counsel, Melanie Webb, said the assessment of whether someone should be paid compensation for wrongful conviction and imprisonment was a separate matter from the decision of a jury in a criminal case.

“This is why the letter in question has not been given to Justice Binnie at this stage. It is now Justice Binnie’s role to advise on the basis of the available evidence whether David Bain is, at a minimum, innocent on the balance of probabilities and whether extraordinary circumstances exist justifying compensation.”

While interesting, this does not affect the process. A juror can hold a legitimate view that David Bain was not guilty beyond reasonable doubt, but did do it on the balance of probabilities. However for the purpose of compensation it is Justice Binnie who will effectively decide, not jurors.

Stuff reports:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) has confirmed it is cutting around 300 staff as Finance Minister Bill English says it’s crunch time for the public sector.

MFAT’s chief executive John Allen this afternoon said it would be cutting 305 staff.

My sympathies go out to those affected. It is never nice to go through such a major restructuring. However in my experience MFAT staff are very capable and competent, and the majority will find good opportunities elsewhere.

The news came as English said Kiwis were about to see the public service change.

English said the Government had last year told public sector chief executives to look at their own operations and ”tell us how they could be improved to deliver better services with little or no new money”.

The reality is that we are borrowing money to fund the Government, and this is not sustainable. There is a path back to surplus, but it can only be achieved by restraining Government spending. The alternative is to go down the path that Greece did, or to try the failed policies of tax more and spend more.

Allen said 600 MFAT staff would have to reapply for their jobs in new specialist roles. The ministry has 1340 staff, half of which are offshore

That is a huge restructure.

He also confirmed changes to remuneration including offshore allowances. Staff would be asked to make a “nominal contribution” to their living costs overseas.

They should not end up out of pocket for being posted overseas. But if for example it is calculated they are saving say $200 a week in living costs by not being in NZ, then that could be the basis of a contribution. It shouldn’t be based on what their actual overseas expenses are at that punishes those sent to expensive cities.

Allen said the proposals created more flexibility, deepened expertise, and ensured appropriate representation – including non-resident ambassadors and smaller posts.

He confirmed they were also considering outsourcing some functions. That included a 24/7 call centre based in Wellington.

That’s quite a good idea. Rather than have each Embassy have a call centre, you have one global number for travellers in need of assistance?

The restructuring was expected to save $20-25m annually.

Excellent.

At Stuff I blog on the one electorate seat threshold for MMP, as part of a series on the possible changes to MMP. My conclusion:

Overall I think there is a case for removing the electorate threshold, but only if the party vote threshold is lower so that it is easier for parties to make it into Parliament. However, my mind is not yet made up on this issue, as if the threshold is made too low, then stable government is much more difficult, as we have seen in Israel.

You can comment at Stuff, or here.

I’ve been meaning to post on this report for a while, called The Sky is Rising. Their intro:

For years now, the legacy entertainment industry has been predicting its own demise, claiming that the rise of technology, by enabling easy duplication and sharing — and thus copyright infringement — is destroying their bottom line. If left unchecked, they say, it is not only they that will suffer, but also the content creators, who will be deprived of a means to make a living. And, with artists lacking an incentive to create, no more art will be produced, starving our culture. While it seems obvious to many that this could not possibly be true, since creators and performers of artistic content existed long before the gatekeepers ever did, we’ve looked into the numbers to get an honest picture of the state of things. What we found is that not only is the sky not falling, as some would have us believe, but it appears that we’re living through an incredible period of abundance and opportunity, with more people producing more content and more money being made than ever before. As it turns out… The Sky Is Rising!

Just as some in the industry said the VCR would be fatal to their industry.

Some data from the report:

• From 1998 to 2010 the global entertainment industry grew from $449 billion to $745 billion
• In the US the % of household spending on entertainment has gone from 4.9% in 2000 to 5.6% in 2008
• Employment in US entertainment industry grew 20% from 1998 to 2008
• The number of independent artists rose 43% in the last decade
• The number of books available for sale has gone from 0.25m to 3.0m in last eight years
• Song tracks for sale have gone from 11m to 100m
• Films production has gone from 1,700 in 1995 to 7,000 in 2009
• Global box office revenues up from $25.5b in 2006 to $31.8b in 2010
• Music sales up from 687m in 2003 to 1,507m in 2010
• Music industry revenue up from $132b in 2005 to $168b in 2010

And remember the last two to three years has seen a global recession, which makes these figures even more impressive.

The report is a superb read – not just for the stats, but the case studies of how people are making money through new business models, rather than the old gate keeper models.

This report should be required reading for the Commerce and ICT Ministers. It shows the Internet is not the enemy of the entertainment industry. It is merely changing the old world business models some can’t bear to leave behind.

For those who are keen followers of public law, which is basically the intersection of policy, law and Parliament, you may be interested in an upcoming book from Mai Chen, called Public Law Toolbox. Some of the early review comments are:

This book is unique. There is nothing else like it. It adds a new dimension to understanding the New Zealand government and how New Zealanders are governed. It is not a book that concentrates upon theory or gives detailed analytical accounts of legal doctrine. What it does is to look inside the engine of the New Zealand system of government and tell people how it works, up close and in detail. It is the perspective of an engineer in the engine room. – Sir Geoffrey Palmer

Mai Chen’s Public Law toolbox is a gift to our nation of monumental proportion! It is a comprehensive, authoritative, culturally insightful and intensely interesting body of work which is highly accessible and relevant for any professional, business, student and the layperson operating in New Zealand today. – Jenny Shipley

Mai Chen is uniquely qualified to write this book.

What she has produced is an accessible, easy to read guide that assists in the navigation of the operation of government which for many of us in business is at best a maze and at worst a minefield.

The book provides formidable evidence of the depth of Mai’s knowledge and experience and the examples cited are relevant and topical. I believe it is not only a “must read” for businesspeople in New Zealand  but it is also a “must keep” in that it is unmatched as an ongoing  reference tool on the subject. – Joan Withers

You can pre-order it from Lexis Nexis.

Readers may recall the publicity over a Tania Wysocki who was considering prostitution as a way to cover childcare costs so she could study to get off the benefit.

Whale Oil has actually met with and interviewed her, and done a three part series on her situation, which is a fascinating read. His blog posts are:

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3

The Dom Post reports:

Wellington City Council has spent more than $350,000 defending legal proceedings that protester Benjamin Easton has taken over road changes that saw a bus route put through Manners Mall.

The figure was revealed in council documents put before a High Court judge in the latest of the cases.

I almost wonder if Easton is secretly hired by the Council’s lawyers as a money making device for them, and they pay him a 10% commission 🙂

The judge was told Mr Easton was homeless after his unemployment benefit was stopped and he was put out of his city council flat because he had not paid his rent.

His current legal action also relates to losing the flat.

He also has a claim against the attorney-general and the Social Development Ministry about his benefit being stopped.

Alternatively, he could go get a job.

Australia Labor are having a nightmare campaign. Rudd resigning does not help Anna Blight. Then they have one candidate who is a 20 year old Brisbane student and trade unionist who is standing for Gregory, and has never ever been in the electorate – and worse says he may not have time to go there before the election!

Maybe the ALP should spin Gregory as being along SH1 from Brisbane, as NZ Labour did with an out of towner with Tauranga – it is only 1,000 kms away:-)

But the real nasty stuff is a 19 year old candidate Peter Watson who has been sacked. He was sacked originally for comments made a few years ago, but it seems his views have got worse, if anything:

Mr Watson also blamed Jews for the deaths of millions of people and said racist people were discriminated against.

This is a statement he put out:

As for what I believe in, I believe in the original values of the original labour and union movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

The Australian labour movement and the Commonwealth were both founded on the principles of preserving the Australian continent for the White European working man. 

That is why the labour movement supported the White Australia Policy and the deportation of Pacific labourers back to their native homelands. 

As an old labour socialist, I am opposed to multiculturalism, globalisation and to economic rationalism. 

It is a disgrace that successive labour governments have embraced those principles at the expense of working class socialism and White Australian Nationalism. 

The Australian continent must always be for the White working man and his family.”

How the hell does someone like that get selected by Labor? Even in the least winnable of seats, a political party should vet their candidates and you know ask them basic questions such as are you a neo-nazi?

Clio Francis at Stuff reports:

A second pensioner lay dead in a Wellington council flat for at least eight months – and was found the same year as fellow tenant Michael Clarke died.

An investigation by The Dominion Post has revealed that Wiremu Whakaue died in his one-bedroom flat in Adelaide Rd in 2009, but his body was not discovered until March 2010.

I do not believe the City Council should be a housing provider. I do not think it is their role, and further more they seem to be very bad at it.

Assistance with housing needs is the responsibility of central Government, not local. City Councils should not be building hospitals or schools, they should not be providing welfare benefits and they should not be providing housing.

Their apartments should be sold to Housing NZ, where tenants would enjoy subsidised income related rents, or to community housing providers who will keep rents at the same level. Both would ensure, I am confident, that tenants are not lying dead for almost a year in their properties. The City Council should focus on the responsibilities it has that no one else has, rather than try and be a landlord.

At 1 am in in Washington DC, Australian Foreign Minister has resigned from the Cabinet after reports that Gillard was considering sacking him on Tuesday, to bring the leadership speculation to a halt. The SMH reports:

Kevin Rudd appears to have launched an audacious pitch for the Prime Ministership with a dramatic resignation from his foreign affairs portfolio in Washington.

In a press conference at 1am, United States time, Mr Rudd told reporters he did not have the confidence of Prime Minister Julia Gillard or his Cabinet colleagues. Mr Rudd said that made his position as Foreign Minister untenable.

“While I am sad to leave this office I am sadder still that it has come to this,” Mr Rudd said, ending his media conference without taking questions.

Mr Rudd’s decision is a dramatic escalation of Labor’s leadership stoush. In a pointed reference to his caucus colleagues, Mr Rudd said they needed to consider who was the best candidate to defeat Opposition leader Tony Abbott at the next federal election.

“There is one over-riding question for my caucus colleagues and that is who is best placed to defeat Tony Abbott at the next election,” Mr Rudd.

It sounds like Rudd does not have the numbers to beat Gillard, but he may put it to a vote on Tuesday. He is twice as popular as her with the public, but many of his colleagues would rather lose their seats than have him as leader again.