Danyl Mc tweeted today:

So I’m guessing your polls now have soft-National voters leaning towards the Greens?

Danyl is not the only one convinced that my choice of topics is driven by “polls”, especially those secret ones only a few people know about.

Presumably this is because I blogged today whacking at the Greens on fracking and also on a climate change scandal overseas.

Now the reality is I decide what to blog basically when I read a news item, or if someone brings something to my attention by way of blog comment, twitter or e-mail. I don’t have a library or inventory of stories held in reserve, which I release based on what the polls are indicating.

And a simple check would show that the fracking story only appeared in the media today, and the climate change story was alerted to me today via a comment in a blog thread.

But even if one puts that to one side, what I find equally fascinating is that Danyl and others think that I have a belief that me blogging something can actually drive swinging National voters away from the Greens. As if a couple of extra blog posts from me of fracking will suddenly push the Greens down 2% in the next round of polls. I’d love to have such power, but the reality is the impact from blogging is modest.

My choice of topics in a day generally receives about as much thought or pre-consideration as deciding whether to stand up or sit down at the toilet. I don’t think about it much except when I am up against the deadline!

Sometimes there will be themes to what I blog, and they are pretty obvious. I obviously campaigned against the Electoral Finance Act, campaign for a republic, for VSM, for keeping the alcohol purchase age 18 etc. I’m starting to campaign on the foreign crewed fishing vessels issue, and will keep blogging on that when there is material to do so.

But to those who think my choice of blogging topics is influenced by secret polls, well I’ll probably never convince you otherwise because you are of course certain you are right and have the ability to read my mind. To be honest, I don’t want to convince you. It is far more amusing to sit back and consider how much time you spend on trying to psycho-analyse my choice of topics, and what you think that means the polls are showing.

A very good video on the power of social media, with lots of amazing facts and figures. One example was how it would take over 110 years to read everything on Wikipedia, and if it was a book would be over one million pages in width.

Also one clip is essential reading for Mark Unsworth. He will know which 🙂

wattsup with that blogs:

Earlier this evening, Peter Gleick, a prominent figure in the global warming movement, confessed to stealing electronic documents from The Heartland Institute in an attempt to discredit and embarrass a group that disagrees with his views.

Gleick’s crime was a serious one. The documents he admits stealing contained personal information about Heartland staff members, donors, and allies, the release of which has violated their privacy and endangered their personal safety.

An additional document Gleick represented as coming from The Heartland Institute, a forged memo purporting to set out our strategies on global warming, has been extensively cited by newspapers and in news releases and articles posted on Web sites and blogs around the world. It has caused major and permanent damage to the reputations of The Heartland Institute and many of the scientists,  policy experts, and organizations we work with.

A mere apology is not enough to undo the damage.

In his statement, Gleick claims he committed this crime because he believed The Heartland Institute was preventing a “rational debate” from taking place over global warming. This is unbelievable. Heartland has repeatedly asked for real debate on this important topic. Gleick himself was specifically invited to attend a Heartland event to debate global warming just days before he stole the documents. He turned down the invitation.

Gleick also claims he did not write the forged memo, but only stole the documents to confirm the content of the memo he received from an anonymous source. This too is unbelievable. Many independent commentators already have concluded the memo was most likely written by Gleick.

What is it with the left in the US and forged memos.  You think they would have learnt from the forged documents about Bush during the Vietnam War. It is not hard to detect forgeries, and often to work out who the author is.

Both software and other language experts have said that the forged memo resembles strongly Gleick’s normal writing style. Add on motive and the fact he is the only person who claims to have been sent a copy of it, and you do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to work it out.

Anne Gibson at NZ Herald reports:

The controversial plan of containing three-quarters of new housing development within Auckland’s existing city boundaries is being revised.

Auckland Council has eased up on its vision of squeezing residents up closer by keeping 75 per cent of new housing on existing land and just 25 per cent outside the limits within the next three decades.

Instead, it is now discussing a 60/40 split, which the development sector is hailing as a victory after intense opposition and lobbying and independent reports which criticised the original scheme as unworkable.

Well it was. Plus the impact on house prices would have been huge upwards pressure.

The decision is not final. The Council is talking 60% to 70% and there is a big difference between those numbers. I thought 50/50 was a good split but 60/40 would be okay. 70/30 would still not be workable in my opinion.

The city definitely needs to intensify, and will. But the city also needs to grow outwards – the population growth makes this essential.

Katie Chapman reports at Dom Post:

Wellington’s rubbish collection service could face the axe as the cost of rubbish bags looks set to increase again.

The cash-strapped Wellington City Council is once again proposing to increase the price of yellow rubbish bags.

The council will also consider getting out of the rubbish business altogether, as it struggles to compete with private wheelie bin operators. …

In a review of waste collection services, the council would also consider whether it should get out of rubbish collection entirely, as private bin companies increasingly took over the market.

Up to 40 per cent of Wellington households had wheelie bins through private companies, Mr Mendonca said.

“It’s a bit of a strategic question of whether the council needs to be in the business.”

I hope the Council does look at whether a public sector operator is necessary, if private competitors have already taken care of 40% of households.

Our apartments don’t use the council service. What do others use?

Jared Smith at Stuff reports:

Opponents of the oil drilling practice of fracking are unmoved by a report showing the controversial process does not cause earthquakes.

The GNS Science study – commissioned by Taranaki Regional Council – was released yesterday in response to growing public and media scrutiny of fracking.

“There is no evidence that hydraulic fracturing activities in Taranaki between 2000 and mid-2011 have triggered, or have had any observable effect on, natural earthquake activity,” the conclusion states.

Neither would there be any earthquake caused by long-term deep injection activities.

The earthquake study follows TRC’s report last year stating fracking posed no meaningful risk of contaminating Taranaki fresh water.

However, Gareth Hughes, Green Party spokesman on energy and fracking, said the process should be halted “in the interests of caution”, including an investigation by the parliamentary commissioner for the environment.

Once the Greens decide something is bad, no amount of science can convince them otherwise.

TRC’s director of environment quality Gary Bedford said fracking is a slow process and being 4km underground the rock creates a “back pressure”.

“You can’t get a runaway fracking activity,” he said.

Fracking causes a “shift trigger” in the earth of a few millimetres, whereas an earthquake along a fault line would travel hundreds and thousands of miles, Mr Bedford said.

“There’s no sensible comparison between the two.

But plenty of unsensible comparisons.

GNS studied 3300 earthquakes in Taranaki from 2000-2011, focusing on areas within 10km of any fracking location and occurring within three months of fracking activity. Only one quake – at Kaimiro near Inglewood – happened right on the 10km boundary and it happened three months later.

Mr Bedford said Kaimiro was an active fault line and earthquakes had happened before fracking took place there.

Who needs GNS with their scientific witchcraft? How dare they actually do a scientific study? The Greens have spoken and said fracking is bad. It must be stopped immediately, because they know best.

Stuff reports:

As her child lay sick and vomiting at home a Morrinsville mother went to play pokies to teach her partner a lesson.

Days later her daughter was dead from a traumatic brain injury.

Well that sure taught him a lesson.

The police, who initially treated Sage’s death as a homicide, have never been able to charge anyone over her death and, last April, closed their investigation, saying there was not sufficient evidence to warrant an arrest.

But yesterday Waikato Hospital doctor Peter Heron told coroner Peter Ryan that he did not believe the minor injuries described by Sage’s mother Kelly Percy and stepfather Adrian Wilson-Minimita could have caused the damage he saw when treating her.

“I find it unlikely,” he said. He believed a more major injury occurred closer to the time of her death.

I think the good doctor is right. Children do not tend to die from minor injuries.

But outside the court, speaking exclusively to the Waikato Times, Ms Percy said she and Mr Wilson-Minimita never did anything to intentionally harm Sage. However, the pair said they would definitely do things differently if they were to do it over again.

They were hoping to do that by winning back custody of the son taken off them after Sage’s death; he was 10 months old at the time.

“We want to be a family,” Mr Wilson-Minimita said.

NOOOOO.

Just days before Sage’s death, Ms Percy went to play the pokies to teach Mr Wilson-Minimita a lesson for staying out all day playing pokies. This was despite Sage still vomiting. Another night the pair went out drinking, taking Sage along.

Twice the pair took Sage to a doctor, but left before being seen.

Need there be any further reasons?

Tom Pullar-Strecker at Stuff reports:

Sky Television is considering creating a new type of set-top box that would do away with at least some scheduled television channels and instead let people watch programmes whenever they chose.

The move could make traditional television listings largely redundant. Chief executive John Fellet said an example of a channel that could benefit from the change would be the Discovery Channel, which features programmes such as Man vs. Wild, starring Bear Grylls.

Instead of broadcasting programmes at a certain time via satellite, viewers would select programmes from a “pool” and they would be streamed to their television over ultrafast broadband.

The set-top boxes would be integrated with social media, so they could recommend programmes based on people’s past tastes or what their friends were watching.

Sky could make programmes available at any time as it had already bought the rights, Fellet said. “Going to a `pool’ concept, which can only really happen with UFB, is an easy decision.”

This is no doubt the future. I like the idea of using social media to recommend programmes.

If Sky were really smart they would look at incorporating video-conferencing software into their set-top boxes, so that people can video-conference by simply pushing a button on their Sky Remote. If they manage that, they’ll have customers for life. Imagine if you can do a six way video-conference through your TV by merely pushing the “V” button and then a short-cut key per individual you want to link in.

Even better, think if you can split the screen between TV and video-conference so you and some friends can remotely watch the same show and discuss it as you view it – as if you were in the same room.

A year ago, at 12.51 pm Canterbury was hit by the second earthquake. The first one was on 4 September 2010.

By pure coincidence on both days I was flying to Australia on the redeye flight, so found about both in airport lounges.

I recall after the first earthquake thinking how it was a minor miracle that no one died, and partly putting it down to the timing at 4.35 am, when most were asleep in their beds.

The second earthquake was not so well timed. It was technically less powerful than the September quake, but it was centred closer to Christchurch and was centred at half the depth. The combination of the timing, the earlier damage and the location led to 185 human beings losing their life.

There is much one can say about what has happened since, with the $30 billion estimated price tag, the decisions on reconstruction etc. But I don’t think today is the day for that. Today I just want to say to those in Canterbury that a year on we have not forgotten, and we will not forget.

Business Week tells a story that should shame us:

On March 25, 2011, an Indonesian fisherman named Yusril became a slave. Yusril (which is not his real name, to protect his identity) is 28, with brooding looks and a swagger that compensates for his slight frame. That afternoon he went to the East Jakarta offices of PT Indah Megah Sari (IMS), an agency that hires crews to work on foreign fishing vessels. He was offered a job on the Melilla 203, a South Korea-flagged ship that trawled in the waters off New Zealand. “Hurry up,” said the agent, holding a pen over a thick stack of contracts in the windowless conference room with water-stained walls. Waving at a pile of green Indonesian passports of other prospective fisherman, he added: “You really can’t waste time reading this. There are a lot of others waiting and the plane leaves tomorrow.”

Yusril was desperate for the promised monthly salary of $260, plus bonuses, for unloading the fish. His young wife was eight months pregnant, and he had put his name on a waiting list for this opportunity nine months earlier. After taking a bus eight hours to Jakarta, he had given the agent a $225 fee which he had borrowed from his brother-in-law. Other fishermen had taken debts from loan sharks to cover the fee, and a few had sold their possessions, such as livestock, or land. The agent rushed him through signing the contracts, at least one of which was in English, which Yusril could not understand.

The terms of the first contract, the “real” one, would later haunt him. In it, IMS spelled out terms with no rights. In addition to the agent’s commission, Yusril would surrender 30 percent of his salary, which IMS would hold unless the work was completed. He would be paid nothing for the first three months, and if the job was not completed to the fishing company’s satisfaction, Yusril would be sent home and charged over $1000 for the airfare. “Satisfactory” completion was left vague. The contract only stated that Yusril would have to work whatever hours the boat operators demanded.

The last line of the contract, in bold, warned that Yusril’s family would owe nearly $3,500 if he were to run away from the ship. The amount was greater than his net worth, and he had earlier submitted title to his land as collateral for that bond. Additionally, he had provided IMS with names and addresses of his family members. He was locked in.

Slavery may be too harsh a term, but serfdom at least.

What followed, according to Yusril and several shipmates who corroborated his story, was an eight-month ordeal aboard the Melilla 203, during which Indonesian fisherman were subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the ship’s operators. Their overlords told them not to complain or fight back, or they would be sent home, where the agents would take their due. Finally, Yusril and 23 others walked off in protest when the trawler docked in Lyttleton, New Zealand. The men have seen little if any of the money they say is owed them for their work. Such coerced labor is modern-day slavery, as the United Nations defines the crime.

The owners of the Melilla ships did not respond to requests for comment.

The experiences of the fishermen on the Melilla 203 were not unique. In a six-month investigation spanning three continents, Bloomberg Businessweek found cases of debt bondage on the Melilla 203 and at least nine other ships that have operated in New Zealand’s waters.

Now let us be clear. What is happening is illegal under NZ law. The problem is now the law. The problem is enforcement and monitoring. Around half the quota went to Maori interests as party of a treaty settlement. The idea was to allow Maori to resume their traditional fishing activities, not to make money out of Indonesian slaves.

Note, that non-Maori quota holders are also doing the same.

On that boat, the Korean officers had hit Yusril in the face with fish, and the boatswain had repeatedly kicked him in the back for using gloves when he was sewing the trawl nets in cold weather. Most unnervingly, the second officer would crawl into the bunk of Yusril’s friend at night, and attempt to rape him. Sanford CEO Eric Barratt said that his company’s New Zealand observers, which they placed on all of their foreign-chartered vessels (FCVs), reported that those ships “don’t have any issues with labor abuse.”

Amazing.

The boatswain would grab crew members’ genitals as they worked or slept. When the captain of the ship drank, he molested some of the crew, kicking those who resisted. As the trawl nets hauled in the catch—squid, ling, hoki, hake, grouper, southern blue whiting, jack mackerel and barracuda, along with occasional high-priced bycatch like orange roughy—the officers shouted orders from the bridge. They often compelled the Indonesians to work without proper safety equipment for up to 30 hours straight, swearing at them if they so much as requested coffee or a bathroom break. Even when not hauling catches, 16-hour workdays were standard.

Again, this is happening in our waters.

3 News is fast becoming the place to go with secret or illegal material. The secret recordings in 2008, the secret taping in 2011 and now the McCully hacked e-mails.

The e-mails that appeared on 3 News appear pretty ho hum – in fact I’d argue will help McCully’s popularity.  They are about cost cutting, wasteful “crap” and how someone went to Noumea just to do a 12 minute presentation. I think most people will be glad we have a Minister wanting to reduce waste.

Personally I thought the Cactus Kate version of the e-mails was far better 🙂

Stuff reports:

New Zealand researchers believe fewer people would take up smoking socially if smoke-free rules extended to areas outside bars.

The researchers from Otago and Massey universities carried out 13 in-depth interviews with people aged between 19 and 25 in Auckland and Dunedin early in 2011.

Their results have been published online in the journal Tobacco Control.

A study of 13 people? God help me.

The researchers noted that, as with all small scale qualitative research, their study had limitations. 

No kidding.

An interesting new venture called Power Gift. It is a marketplace for gift cards. You can sell gift cards you have been given, swap them for others you find more useful or even buy discounted gift cards.

They guarantee transactions and cover shipping fees for secure sign on delivery postage.

At the moment they have a $50 Marbecks card for $37.50 and a $132.94 Westfield card for $120. Looks some good bargains to me.

Claire Trevett reports at NZ Herald:

Labour leader David Shearer has begun wooing potential coalition partners – including dinner with NZ First leader Winston Peters and calling an end to the Cold Shoulder War with Mana leader Hone Harawira.

Mr Shearer confirmed he had eaten dinner with Mr Peters last Wednesday at Wellington’s Trade Kitchen restaurant. He said it was an impromptu dinner after they appeared together on a TV3 show.

“It was just a getting together and having a bit of chat, as you’d expect.”

The pair were spotted and it was reported by blogger Cameron Slater on his Whaleoil blog. Yesterday, Mr Shearer would not divulge what they discussed.

“That’s a private conversation, not a public conversation. We didn’t invite the world’s media and put a microphone in a tea pot.”

Mr Shearer also takes a more generous view towards Mana leader Hone Harawira than his predecessor Phil Goff did. Mr Goff had ruled out working with Mr Harawira in a coalition, saying he did not believe he could be trusted.

However, Mr Shearer said although he had not specifically discussed it with Mr Harawira he had talked to him at events and it was “perfectly amicable”.

This is sensible stuff for Shearer. He is unlikely to be able to form a Government in the future without Peters and Harawira. A Labour-led Government is likely to be a Labour-Greens-NZ First-Mana Government. Of course Peters and Harawira have polar opposite views on certain issues, but that won’t stop them accepting Ministerial positions.

Jamie Morton at NZ Herald reports:

A Bay of Plenty motelier says his business was unfairly smeared by a disgruntled guest on review website TripAdvisor – prompting an industry outcry about similar cases.

Tony Drinkwater is getting legal advice after his Kaimai View Motel in Katikati was criticised online by a patron who, he says, arrived just before midnight and began banging on doors.

On checking out, he refused to pay the $195 a night he had been quoted for his group of four. He argued he should pay only the $160 rate given on the Automobile Association’s travel website.

The dispute “got a bit nasty” when the man refused to sign his credit card slip and threatened to write a bad review of the motel on TripAdvisor, which claims to be the world’s largest travel site, with more than 50 million customer reviews.

Mr Drinkwater said the man later cancelled his credit card and is trying to get his money refunded.

But he was more annoyed a review had since appeared on TripAdvisor describing him as “dishonest with pricing”, while adding the rooms in the four-and-a-half-star motel were “very basic”.

Under “Room Tip”, the patron wrote: “No good room, go for another motel.”

Mr Drinkwater said TripAdvisor had refused to delete the review, “even though I gave all of the details and it clearly showed that this review is deliberately malice and deliberately false”.

“If you look at our other reviews, we’ve got a fantastic reputation.”

While Mr Drinkwater posted a response to the review, the website’s guidelines prevented him posting material to back it up.

I have found TripAdvisor excellent for selecting where to stay. I make a point of not just going off the ratings but also reading the reviews.

Yes some customers may leave an unfair review, but the solution is not to try and get that review removed, but to encourage all your other customers to leave reviews. Unless you are doing something wrong, your good reviews should easily dominate the bad reviews and aspiring customers will not place undue weight on the bad ones.

His lawyers were investigating whether he had a case against the website.

No, don’t do that. TripAdvisor can’t be expected to judge who is right or wrong when it comes to a review. If you threaten lawsuits, then you risk such sites closing, and that is unfair to those of us who use them. Also the site will become less useful if owners can bully bad reviews off the site. As I said above, the response to a bad review should be lots of good reviews.  You could even have a computer available at checkout logged into TripAdvisor where people can do their review as they check out.

The Dom Post editorial today:

When David Shearer became Labour leader at the end of last year, he touted himself as a fresh face for the party and promised a “fresh vision for New Zealand”. So far, his face has barely been seen by most of the voting public and his vision, if there is one, remains hidden from view. …

By contrast, Mr Shearer has yet to tell voters in any great detail how, if at all, a David Shearer-led Labour Party is different to the one under Mr Goff. His stated vision of a “clean, green and clever New Zealand” is so platitudinous as to be almost meaningless. It would have some resonance if Mr Key was advocating a dirty, polluted, dumb New Zealand, but he is not, and nor is anyone else.

Mr Shearer needs more than a slogan to make a real impact in what is after all a contest of ideas. Where does he stand, for example, on Labour’s promise to extend the in-work tax credit to beneficiaries, a reckless policy that undermined the party’s claims to fiscal responsibility and which alienated many of the workers it claims to represent? Or the plans to remove GST on fresh fruit and vegetables, introduce a capital gains tax and raise the age of retirement?

I think Shearer has done the right thing by not rushing things. The election is two years and nine months away. However he does need to start laying some pegs into the ground. My suggestion would be that in the next six weeks he does a major speech where he outlines the values that will drive his policies, and announces a couple of Goff era policies he is dropping, and maybe one new policy of his own.

Newstalk ZB reports at NZ Herald:

The operator of Mt Eden prison has been fined $150,000 after a prisoner escaped.

The company, Serco, and the Corrections Department have carried out a review of security after notorious inmate Aaron Forden escaped from the prison in the early hours of October 10 last year.

The two groups say both operational security and the physical security of the building infrastructure have now been enhanced.

Department of Corrections Chief Executive Ray Smith says a portion of the payment to Serco for the management of Mount Eden prison is performance-related.

He says it’s appropriate to levy a financial penalty for the escape.

Either the prison operators will ensure there are fewer escapes, or they will end up running the prison at a loss. Incentives tend to work, and I suspect we will see their overall escape record compare favourably over the medium term to the public prisons.

When a prisoner escapes from a public prison, is anyone held accountable? Does anyone lose their job? Is anyone fined? Is there an incentive to invest money to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

Hat Tip: Whale Oil

First the good from the Dom Post:

New Zealand’s $3.5 billion investment in an ultrafast broadband network will reap economic benefits worth nearly $33b over 20 years, according to a study carried out by Bell Labs in the United States.

Alcatel-Lucent New Zealand chief executive Andrew Miller will present the results of the study at a Commerce Commission conference in Auckland today that is looking at barriers to uptake of the network, which will be available to three-quarters of homes and businesses by 2020.

Miller said the benefits included the “consumer surplus” – gains to consumers that aren’t directly reflected in higher incomes or GDP.

Bell Labs, which is owned by Alcatel-Lucent, estimated the gains in health and education at $5.9b and $3.6b respectively and said it would be worth $9.1b to the dairy industry in increased productivity.

The biggest benefit of $14.2b would come from helping businesses in general improve productivity, reduce travel expenses and make better use of cloud computing services.

I wouldn’t place huge reliance on the exact numbers as these sort of studies always tend to be rather optimistic. However I don’t dispute the overall conclusion that there will be net economic benefits from having the ultra-fast broadband go out to 75% of New Zealanders – that is why it is being done. The study shows that the benefits could be considerable. I think the reduction in travel and increased use of cloud computing will be major. When people can access files from home as quickly as from work, and when they can say do a six way video conference at the push of a couple of buttons, then some workplaces will reduce to meeting rooms only.

And the bad:

British actor Stephen Fry will not be the only one up in arms if internet providers don’t improve miserly broadband data caps, the Telecommunications Users Association says.

Fry labelled New Zealand broadband a “digital embarrassment” in tweets yesterday after finding he could only upload videos over the internet at a snail’s pace while working from a house in Wellington.

He is in the capital for the filming of The Hobbit.

It transpired that the connection he was using had been intentionally “throttled” down to a slow speed by Telecom because he had exceeded the data cap on the broadband plan – the amount of data that can be downloaded and uploaded for a fixed monthly charge.

Fry said restrictive data caps were “a disaster” for the economy.

But Telecom spokeswoman Kath Murphy said he had been using a plan that “clearly wasn’t suited to his needs”.

Comedian Raybon Kan consoled Fry, telling him: “Don’t think of it as the worst broadband in the world, think of it as the best dial-up”.

Heh.

Data Caps are a huge pain though. They fundamentally change the way you use the Internet as you are always thinking about what if exceed the cap. Some ISPs also have an effective daily data cap and will throttle your speed if you use to much data in a 24 hour period (even if well below your monthly cap).

The consensus at the 2011 Net Hui seemed to be that data caps are the biggest remaining issue for the NZ Internet community.  A great example of what we are missing out on is here:

Netflix’s Christchurch-born vice-president, Brent Ayrey, said in November that meagre data caps were one factor preventing the popular United States online movie and television service launching in New Zealand.The average customer in the US consumed a terabyte each month.

I’m on a 60 GB plan, which is the largest available from my ISP. You can double your data for extra money but still a long way off allowing Netflix to launch in NZ.

The Dom Post reports:

Most of the Ministry and Foreign Affairs 600 staff will have to reapply for their jobs under a restructuring proposal that could see up to 300 jobs go and lucrative allowances for staff on overseas postings whittled back to boost pay packets back home.

Staff will be told on Thursday about proposals to cull up to 50 diplomatic positions by closing embassies in cities including Stockholm and Warsaw, and downsizing others.

Worth stressing that these are options, and no formal plan has been presented yet.

Labour MP Phil Goff said he would be alarmed at any moves to slash New Zealand diplomacy abroad.

But sources say a bottleneck at the senior management level had seen a drift of younger, talented staff to positions in the private sector, because MFAT’s system for deciding promotions barred many of those staff from getting a better position if someone more senior than them applied.

They also fingered the perks associated with overseas postings, which acted as a strong incentive for senior staff to stay on, and helped create a huge imbalance between the pay packets of workers back in Wellington, compared with their colleagues overseas.

One source said diplomats and staff seconded to overseas missions had all their expenses covered including school fees, accommodation, transport and travel and also received an allowance equal to 20 per cent of their salary if their spouse was not working, plus extra allowances for each child.

Once salaries and extra support were taken into account, some senior diplomats were receiving equivalent to $500,000 a year, while staff back in Wellington received rates considered below average for the public sector.

The overseas postings certainly are prized.

Some of the jobs that are set to disappear from overseas posts include drivers, chefs and administration staff, a number of which are seconded from Wellington and receive the same allowances.

And presumably locals can be hired to do these non diplomatic jobs.

It will be interesting to see what John Allen proposes on Thursday. The quality of staff at MFAT is generally excellent – they are one of the top public sector ministries. But it doesn’t mean that no changes should be made to improve performance.

Okay I blogged yesterday that I will be replacing my Blackberry with a new smartphone.

A related issue is do I stay with Vodafone. Here’s how I am currently connected:

• Home Internet – Vodafone (through Ihug)
• Work Internet – Xtreme (they are in my office building, which is handy)
• Blackberry – Vodafone
• iPad – Vodafone
• Mobile Internet – Vodafone (Vodem)

I am a bit exposed having my main four connections (I rarely go into the office) all with Vodafone. Hence my thinking has been to swap my Vodem for a T-Stick. This provides me with a backup network when Vodafone is down.

Also when travelling, I have often found Vodafone 3G signals hard to get (and GPRS is next to useless for me). In large parts of Ponsonby and St Marys Bay in Auckland I struggle to get Vodafone 3G. Sometimes you get a signal for a bit but somehow it gets overloaded and drops you to GPRS.

Sort of related to that, my Vodafone Blackberry hits a few black spots around Wellington. It always loses a call if driving up the hill to Khandallah. Also loses signal in parts of the CBD sometimes.

I’ve heard that XT is pretty good since they sorted their problems out – faster and with more coverage.

So should I stay with everything on Vodafone, or go to Telecom for some connectivity – and if so, for the phone or for the mobile internet or both?

2 Degrees is a possibility also. They tend to be cheaper, but I am more focused on speed and reliability than price.

What would be great would be a telco that would sell me say 100 GB a month, and allow me to use it over all four devices (laptop, phone, mobile internet stick, ipad). I hate it that I have to buy say an extra $20 of data for my iPad for the last three days of the month, when I have 25 GB unused on my landline etc.

I’m definitely not planning to change my home Internet (have been Ihug since 1996) or iPad (unless there is some bundled package for data across all devices). But I am open to going elsewhere for my smartphone and my mobile internet stick. Views welcome.

Catherine Harris at Stuff reports:

Moves are afoot to abolish the title of race relations commissioner, which minority groups and critics say could downgrade the position’s importance.

An amendment to the Human Rights Act introduced to Parliament late last year would abolish the title, although the duties would still be done by a human rights commissioner. …

Justice and Ethnic Affairs Minister Judith Collins said the bill would give commissioners more flexibility as they grappled with a wider range of issues not covered under old legislation.

“The leadership role the commission has in protecting and promoting race relations and equal employment opportunities will remain the same. There will still be fulltime commissioners leading these areas of work.”

I tend to be supportive of the change, and will outline why.

First let me say I am a supporter of there being a Human Rights Commission. Sure there may be individual cases where I disagree with a Commissioner on an issue, but I think it is a good thing to have a body dedicated to protecting and advocating for our rights.

It is worth noting that rights are not absolute, and sometimes is a balance. The right to free speech is weighed against the right to not have someone foster racial hatred, as (for example) the Nazis did. The right of an owner to run their business the way they want is balanced against the rights of employees not be sexually harassed at work.

The Commission currently has eight Commissioners, five of whom are part-time. There is a Chief Commissioner, a Equal Opportunities Commissioner, a Race Relations Commissioner and five others.

Now by signalling two areas out to have a dedicated Commissioner, you basically say these types of rights are more important than others. Hence you then get demands for a disabled rights commissioner, a sexual orientation commissioner etc etc. I’d even considered advocating for a Free Speech Commissioner. I am sure some would like a religious discrimination commissioner too, to protect rights of religiou, s minorities.

The trouble with that approach, is you create silos within the human rights arena, and have the perception of some rights are more important than others.

So I think a better model is to have one Chief Commissioner, and all the other Commissioners are general commissioners. Now certainly within that the Chief Commissioner would allocate commissioners to act in certain areas of expertise or specialisation. The idea is that the Chief Commissioner would have more flexibility,  and as certain areas of human rights gain prominence, be able to allocate more resources to them without needing to change the law.

I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, but think the mooted change is superior to the status quo.

If however the status quo prevails, then I might start lobbying for there to be a Free Speech Commissioner – someone to argue for the rights of individual and the media to free speech, to advocate that  copyright laws should not stop  satire and parody, that privacy laws should not stop the truth coming out, that electoral laws should encourage public participation and that defamation laws should not be used to stifle fair criticism.

I blogged yesterday on Patrick Moore’s views on what has happened to Greenpeace. From the same source, I want to today blog on his modern environmental beliefs, and encourage debate of which ones people agree with. They are:

• We should be growing more trees and using more wood, not cutting fewer trees and using less wood as Greenpeace and its allies contend. Wood is the most important renewable material and energy resource.

• Those countries that have reserves of potential hydroelectric energy should build the dams required to deliver that energy. There is nothing wrong with creating more lakes in this world.

• Nuclear energy is essential for our future energy supply, especially if we wish to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. It has proven to be clean safe, reliable, and cost-effective.

• Geothermal heat pumps, which too few people know about, are far more important and cost-effective than either solar panels or wind mills as a source of renewable energy. They should be required in all new buildings unless there is a good reason to use some other technology for heating, cooling, and making hot water.

• The most effective way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels is to encourage the development of technologies that require less or no fossil fuels to operate. Electric cars, heat pumps, nuclear and hydroelectric energy, and biofuels are the answer, not cumbersome regulatory systems that stifle economic activity.

• Genetic science, including genetic engineering, will improve nutrition and end malnutrition, improve crop yields, reduce the environmental impact of farming, and make people and the environment healthier.

• Many activist campaigns designed to make us fear useful chemicals are based on misinformation and unwarranted fear.

• Aquaculture, including salmon and shrimp farming, will be one of our most important future sources of healthy food. It will also take pressure off depleted wild fish stocks and will employ millions of people productively.

• There is no cause for alarm about climate change. The climate is always changing. Some of the proposed “solutions” would be far worse than any imaginable consequence of global warming, which will likely be mostly positive. Cooling is what we should fear.

• Poverty is the worst environmental problem. Wealth and urbanization will stabilize the human population. Agriculture should be mechanized throughout the developing world. Disease and malnutrition can be largely eliminated by the application of modern technology. Health care, sanitation, literacy, and electrification should be provided to everyone.

• No whale or dolphin should be killed or captured anywhere, ever. This is one of my few religious beliefs. They are the only species on earth whose brains are larger than ours and it is impossible to kill or capture them humanely.

Some will claim Moore is no longer an environmentalist, but they will belong to one of the fundamentalist sects which are anti-development. But I’d like to hear reasons why the approach above is wrong, if they can be based on science, not fear.

Oh, and a topical cartoon below by Blunt: