From the Forest & Bird website:

Coal is the dirtiest fuel – burning coal is the single largest global source of greenhouse gases, which are causing climate change. Burning coal also causes air pollution which has a direct effect on people’s health.

As well as the carbon released when coal is burnt, trapped methane (another greenhouse gas) is also released when coal is mined. For example Pike River Coal’s planned coal mining over the next 20 years will release trapped methane equivalent to more than all the dairy cows on the West Coast.

Maybe Forest & Bird want to now use a different example.

Just been re-reading the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System which recommended MMP. Was surprised to read that at the time MMP was recommended, women made up only 13% of the NZ Parliament (which was horribly low) but in Germany which had MMP, they were only 10% of the Federal Parliament.

I guess it is a useful reminder that the electoral system by itself won’t determine how diverse the Parliament is.

In fact in 1986 NZ had higher female representation in Parliament than the UK, US and Canada (FPP), Australia (PV), Malta and Ireland (STV), Israel, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Austria and Switzerland (Party List) and Germany (MMP).

The only countries cited as having greater female representation in 1986 were Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

Bernard Orsman at the NZ Herald reports:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown wants ratepayers to believe free entry to the city’s 24 swimming pools will cost $5.5 million when it cost $6.7 million to provide free entry to six swimming pools when he was mayor of Manukau City.

Mr Brown is relying on a study by the international consultancy KPMG, which arrived at the $5.5 million figure on the assumption that there would be no change in patronage and operating costs and increased revenue from things such as spas, saunas, icecreams and chips.

Despite the assumptions, Mr Brown has included the $5.5 million figure in the draft long-term budget, which includes four options for funding swimming pools.

This is massively misleading, to project a cost for 24 free pools to be less than the cost for six.

The assumption of no increase in patronage, if entry is free, is absolutely daft. KPMG should be ashamed to put their name to such a work, unless they were instructed by the client to make that assumption.

I’ve had a Blackberry for around six years. It was great with the no cost Blackberry Messenger, the secure e-mails through Blackberry servers, and the normal smartphone functions. I got to experience why it was also known as the crackberry as it was highly addictive.

But sadly the time has come to say bye bye to my Blackberry. I have a Blackberry Bold, and it is less than three years old but it just craps out so much. Almost every day, after a few hours use, it starts to freeze up. At first for a few seconds, then for minutes then indefinitely. The only way to fix it is to remove and replace the battery. This is bad enough, but doing so suddenly drains the battery to near empty, and your phone then dies for the rest of the day unless you have a charger.

A number of other Blackberry users say they experience this also, so it seems to be a design fault. Even worse if someone calls you while your blackberry is having a pause, the phone never rings. Or it does ring but stops you being able to answer the call. I figure more calls are being blocked than getting through.

So this week I plan to buy a new smartphone. My intention is to get an iPhone 4s. I would like to wait for the iPhone 5, but Apple have not announced a date yet and even another three months of my Blackberry will send me mad.

The reason I am looking at the iPhone 4s is partly the features, but also partly that I have a iPad and iPod so easy to synchronise data and applications between all my devices.

However welcome thoughts from readers as to what they recommend. Does someone want to make a case for upgrading to the latest Blackberry or perhaps to get an Android?  Or should I join the 102 million people who have purchased an iPhone in the last year?

And if anyone has secret info that in fact the iPhone 5 is going to be released in the next month, let me know and I’ll suffer and delay my purchase.

I blogged yesterday a report from Select Committee News that Mojo Mathers suggested to  Radio NZ at the Commerce Select Committee that they consider charging international internet users of the Radio NZ website. I commented:

This is a very bad idea. The Internet is global and any attempts to charge people based on their location is flawed. It means New Zealanders who are travelling overseas would not be able to access Radio NZ for free. It means expats would be locked off from it. It also would encourage spoofing of IP addresses.

Mojo Mathers has said that she did not suggest that, in fact she asked no questions to Radio NZ. Select Committee News has confirmed they made an error, and the question came from Committee Chair Todd McClay.

Just so people understand, Select Committee News is not published by the Office of the Clerk. It is a private publication that summarises select committee hearings, and puts out a newsletter you can subscribe to. They also provide a subject matter search, so you can get alerts just for your area of interest.

I’ve found SCN to be a hugely valuable resource, and normally highly accurate. The error in this case was seemingly caused by name plates being in front of the wrong MPs, and of course with 35 new MPs, it takes a while for reporters to recognise them all.

I have updated the original post.

UPDATE: Todd McClay has texted:

My question was in relation to possible charges for online content not their normal broadcasters. Ie they have some great series, programmes etc that whilst they should remain free to NZers, as with BBC, could be on a fee paying basis for foreigners. Just as you can buy BBC dvds, or programmes from overseas radio and news services. They have huge amounts of content which is not even digitized yet. 

Good to have the clarification.

I blog a bit of context around the Preferred PM ratings at Stuff.

I also note that on the 3 News poll the CR would have 60 seats, the CL 60 seats and the Maori Party 3 seats. So they would get to choose the Government, and either way it would have a bare two seat majority.

I couldn’t work out why Trevor would regularly buy tickets for Homegrown. I did have suspicions he was in it for the profit. But this photo from the Dom Post suggests that possibly Trevor’s interest is not entirely financial 🙂

Tina Law at The Press reports:

Another Korean-owned fishing vessel berthed at Lyttelton has been embroiled in claims of unpaid wages and human rights abuses of its crew.

Slave Free Seas, a charitable trust set up to help crew on foreign-owned fishing vessels in New Zealand, has filed papers at the High Court in Christchurch alleging the 35 Indonesian crew of the Melilla 201 are owed more than $1 million in wages, which it says they are entitled to under New Zealand law.

Lawyer and Slave Free Seas spokesman Craig Tuck said crew had also complained about verbal abuse and general ill treatment from Korean officers.

I’ve read a report documenting some of the abuses that happen on these boats. They are horrific and should not be happening in our waters. The problem is not our law – it is the lack of enforcement of it.

I think the problem is so bad, that independent observers could be warranted on all foreign crewed boats.

Kate Chapman at Stuff reports:

State housing should be a stepping stone and was no longer about a home for life, Prime Minister John Key says.

His comments followed a protest in the Auckland suburb of Glenn Innes over the weekend.

The protesters were unhappy that state house tenants have been made to leave their homes as part of the Tamaki Transformation Programme, which will upgrade existing houses and build additional ones.

That is Glen Innes incidentally.

Few people want to move house against their will, but when you are a tenant, this happens from time to time.

Key said the Tamaki redevelopment had been planned for a long time and started under the previous Labour government.

“It’s all part of a programme to make sure that we can house what is a very large and growing list of people that need to get in state houses, they’re in real need often living in very poor conditions in garages and areas of deprivation.”

Many people were in state houses that no longer met their needs, such as elderly single people in three or four bedroom homes, he told TV One’s Breakfast programme.

There will always be a limit to the number of state houses available at any time. Hence, one should try and help as many low income families as you can, by making sure that the family size and the house size are aligned.

National was changing the mentality that people were entitled to stay in a state house for life and had brought in fixed-term tenancies.

“In a way it’s a great stepping stone, or platform, if you like; help people in real need, allow them to move on.”

Those in the most need could continue to stay but it was about the relative need of others waiting for a state house, Key said.

Some tenants are no longer poor, and are paying market rents. It makes total sense for them to find a private sector landlord, and let a low income family get the benefit of a state house.

This is a Bryan Bruce production I approve of! The media release gives the background:

Bryan Bruce, the writer and director of the documentary THE CASE AGAINST ROBIN BAIN which screened as an INVESTIGATOR SPECIAL on TVNZ has posted a Youtube video tribute to the man whose reputation was attacked by his son’s defence team during David Bain’s second trial.

“I made it from photos and super 8 footage given to me by his brother Michael, and from interviews I had with friends and colleagues who knew Robin at the time of making my documentary,” Bruce explained.

“What emerges from the archival footage and the interviews is  the image of a kind and caring man – a very different picture of Robin to  the one painted of him at his son’s second trial.”

Bruce, a multi award-winning documentary maker whose most recent work INSIDE CHILD POVERTY screened on TV3 to critical acclaim, has a reputation for in-depth journalism. In his INVESTIGATOR SPECIAL he found no case could be made against Robin Bain that would justify the accusation that he murdered his family.

“You just have to follow the blood trail” Bruce said. “Whoever fought with wounded 14 year-old Stephen Bain in his bedroom that cold Dunedin morning in 1994 and strangled him to death, would have got that young man’s blood all over him. Robin did not have one drop of Stephen’s blood on his clothing when he was found lying next to a blood smeared rifle that did not have his fingerprints on it.”

“When Robin ‘s brother Michael first handed me a pile of mouldy VHS tapes back in 2010,  I seriously doubted we would be able to recover any of the images from them. But we did. And what clearly emerges is not only the story of a man who loved his wife and family, but images of his children who are obviously well cared for, loved and happy.”

“He was a man who with a dry sense of  humour, a dedicated teacher and a person who often put the needs of others before his own ” said Bruce

“As Joe Karam has seen fit to continue to further denigrate Robin in his recently released book TRIAL BY AMBUSH   I felt  it was important  the public ought have the benefit of what I learned about Robin Bain  in the course of my investigation – that he was a kind , gentle and much respected man” said Bruce.

 Bruce hopes that lawmakers will consider making changes to the defamation laws to give immediate  family members the ability to sue for defamation on behalf of their dead relatives.

“It is apparently OK in our country to speak ill of the dead. Currently you cannot sue someone who says vile things about your Mum or Dad, brother or sister after the have passed away. I think that’s wrong” said Bruce.

 “What happened at the Bain home in Every Street, on the 20th of June 1994 was terrible, but the on-going tragedy is that Robin , without a fair trial, continues to have  his reputation dragged through the mud of public speculation. I think most Kiwi’s in their heart know that’s not right” said Bruce.

The video below is the tribute to Robin Bain.

And there is also a tribute to Laniet Bain.

I’m glad Mr Bruce took the time to make these videos. The dead can not be resurrected, but their reputations can be. His work has done Robin and Laniet well.

By coincidence Martin van Beyen in The Press has just published his thoughts on Joe Karam’s new book. He attended all 58 days of the retrial, and has previously said he is “more than satisfied” that David Bain, not Robin Bain, was the killer.

A commenter alerted me to this book extract by Patrick Moore. First some background on Dr Moore. He was listed on the Greenpeace website as one of its founding members. He was a director of Greenpeace International for six years and President of Greenpeace Canada for nine years. He was on board the Rainbow Warrior when the French Government blew it up.

He says:

You could call me a Greenpeace dropout, but that is not an entirely accurate description of how or why I left the organization 15 years after I helped create it. I’d like to think Greenpeace left me, rather than the other way around, but that too is not entirely correct.

The truth is Greenpeace and I underwent divergent evolutions. I became a sensible environmentalist; Greenpeace became increasingly senseless as it adopted an agenda that is antiscience, antibusiness, and downright antihuman.

So how did this happen?

In 1982, the United Nations held a conference in Nairobi to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first UN Environment Conference in Stockholm, which I had also attended. I was one of 85 environmental leaders from around the world who were invited to craft a statement of our collective goals for environmental protection. It quickly became apparent there were two nearly opposite perspectives in the room—the antidevelopment perspective of environmentalists from wealthy industrialized countries and the prodevelopment perspective of environmentalists from the poor developing countries.

Sounds like NZ doesn’t it? Some (not all) are just anti all development.

In the early days we debated complex issues openly and often. It was a wonderful group to engage with in wide-ranging environmental policy discussions. The intellectual energy in the organization was infectious. We frequently disagreed about specific issues, yet our ultimate vision was largely shared. Importantly, we strove to be scientifically accurate. For years this had been the topic of many of our internal debates. I was the only Greenpeace activist with a PhD in ecology, and because I wouldn’t allow exaggeration beyond reason I quickly earned the nickname “Dr. Truth.” It wasn’t always meant as a compliment. Despite my efforts, the movement abandoned science and logic somewhere in the mid-1980s, just as society was adopting the more reasonable items on our environmental agenda.

So how did the movement change?

The collapse of world communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall during the 1980s added to the trend toward extremism. The Cold War was over and the peace movement was largely disbanded. The peace movement had been mainly Western-based and anti-American in its leanings. Many of its members moved into the environmental movement, bringing with them their neo-Marxist, far-left agendas. To a considerable extent the environmental movement was hijacked by political and social activists who learned to use green language to cloak agendas that had more to do with anticapitalism and antiglobalization than with science or ecology. I remember visiting our Toronto office in 1985 and being surprised at how many of the new recruits were sporting army fatigues and red berets in support of the Sandinistas.

And hence why so many in the Greens are communists or former communists. At one stage almost half the caucus were former Maoists or Trotskyists. This is not a coincidence.

3 News tonight mentioned the Crafar farm sale twice tonight, during their piece on the latest political poll. The words used were:

“the courts stopped the Government selling the Crafar farms to the Chinese for now”

“its decision to sell the Crafar farms to the Chinese”

First of all, why are we describing the company buying the farms as “the Chinese”.

If say Walmart was purchasing something in NZ, would the news bulletins describe it as selling to “the Americans”. The whole phrase “the Chinese” reeks to me of portraying them as one amorphous group. Shouldn’t the sale be described as to “the China based company Shanghai Pengxin”.

But not only do they get the buyer wrong, they get the seller wrong also.

The Government is selling nothing. The receivers of the Crafar farms are selling them, so the creditors will get some of their money back. Twice on TV3 it was portrayed as a Government sale.

So the overall impression is the NZ Government selling state owned land to the Chinese Government.

An accurate wording would be “the Government’s decision to approve the receivers sale of the Crafar farms to the China based Shanghai Pengxin company”. I won’t hold my breath hoping that media use an accurate description though!

The Rudd v Gillard war is heating up, and Gillard supporters have leaked this video of Rudd as PM cursing and swearing when trying to shoot a video.

The latest estimate is:

• Gillard 45
• Rudd 40
• Undecided 18

The bookies have Rudd at $2.40 to $2.60 for Gillard as the PM going into the next election.

The real winner is Tony Abbott whose odds of being PM after the next election are $1.36 to $3.10 for Labor.

Prior to that we have the Queensland state election where the coalition is at $1.12 and Labor at $5.75 to win. The election is on 24 March and the latest polls has the coalition ahead by 16% on a TPP basis.

We all get frustrated when various sites are blocked because your IP address says you are from the wrong country. Well one NZ MP wants Radio NZ to do the same. Select Committee News reported:

Mojo Mathers (Green) asked RNZ whether people from all over the world are now listening to RNZ through the internet. Griffin responded that about 75% of internet customers are from New Zealand and the rest are from around the world. Cavanagh added that online broadcasting was hugely beneficial to RNZ as it enabled them to supply on-demand content and reach New Zealander’s anywhere in the World. Mathers suggested charging international internet users of RNZ and Cavanagh not sure about the idea.

This is a very bad idea. The Internet is global and any attempts to charge people based on their location is flawed. It means New Zealanders who are travelling overseas would not be able to access Radio NZ for free. It means expats would be locked off from it. It also would encourage spoofing of IP addresses.

UPDATE: SCN had the identity of the MP wrong – it was Todd McClay, not Mojo Mathers. See this post for details.

John Hartevelt reports at the SST:

A bigger, stronger Green Party says it will not be “tuakana teina” to anyone.

Green co-leader Metiria Turei is today set to stake out what the party plans to make of its increased caucus and party membership.

In Maoridom, “tuakana teina” describes a relationship between an older and younger sibling. In a keynote speech to the Green Party policy conference in Palmerston North today, Turei will assert that the party should expect to be in government in 2014, but not in a “tuakana teina” relationship with either of the major parties.

“What we have seen when Labour and National have negotiated deals, the small parties have been the receivers of whatever the bigger parties want to dole out but not necessarily decision making,” Turei said.

“We will be the ones who decide how we engage with government. From the outset, we need to make it really explicit that we are the ones that make the decisions.”

Very ballsy talk. It does pose the question though about what the Greens will do if Labour doesn’t agree to their “decisions”. Would they refuse supply and confidence?

An ad at Trade Me for senior and junior communications advisors says the roles are:

To support all aspects of corporate communications through innovative strategies and to facilitate the flow of internal information and communications.

The jobs are in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition.

Cactus Kate fisks claims by Russel Norman. She blogs:

Kermit has an academically lazy post on The NZ Superannuation Fund where apparently it has

“decided to take a $23 million bet on a property development company with significant exposure to China — a country where some reports say that there are 64 million vacant apartments”.

Kermit has got all confused comparing SHKP to pathetically run Landcorp in New Zealand and is worried about this

Kermit then has a Hickeyesque moment where he predicts the collapse of China because Hong Kong listed company SHKP is developing new cities and starts bagging the Super Fund for investing in it …

Is China the next big property bubble on the brink of collapse?

The Chinese Government has spent much of its massive export revenues on building brand new cities. Trouble is, not many Chinese people can afford the prices of new apartments and some of the cities have become ghost cities — their emptiness

Thank you for the concern Mr Frog.

Went along to Circa during the week to see Meeting Karpovsky with Apple Girl. The blurb for the show is:

Sylvia used to travel the world and its famous ballet theatres. Now she spends time alone in her wisteria covered attic filled with her daughter’s unwanted possessions and photographs of her favourite ballet dancer, Alexander Karpovsky – she has seen him dance 127 times. One day the silent Karpovsky mysteriously appears and begins to teach the stumbling Sylvia to dance…and to live.

Sir Jon Trimmer plays Karpovsky and he effortlessly dominates the stage. The fact he does it, despite only one word of dialogue, is a tribute to his acting and dancing.

Helen Moulder also excels as Sylvia. It takes a special skill to be able to pretend you can’t dance, when you can. Both Moulder and Trimmer give performances impossible to criticise.

The set is an essential part of the play. Proudly displayed in her attic are paintings of her silent companions – Petrouchka, Widow Simone, Albrecht & Giselle and Herr Drosselmeyer – all of them being the great Karpovsky. Also are boxes and boxes of her daughter’s unwanted belongings.

Sylvia is stuck between reality and fantasy, and you can sense there is some reason she has ended up that way. Karpovsky leads her down a path of self-realisation, to a point where she can accept the real world.

While the acting and dancing, set and lighting were all excellent, overall the play though didn’t quite resonate with me. While enjoyable to watch, I didn’t feel any emotional grip, and the “secret” of the finale was all too obvious. I just didn’t quite find there to be enough of a plot to dig into. However the play won many awards and plaudits the first time around, so others have had a much better experience with it – I suspect my lack of knowledge of ballet disadvantaged me.

Not easy this week. 65 seconds.

Simon Collins in the NZ Herald reports:

Professor Richie Poulton, director of a 40-year study which has followed 1000 people born in Dunedin in 1972-73, told the seminar that the study had found two separate groups of antisocial adolescents: an “early-onset” group whose bad behaviour began before age 5 and continued throughout their lives; and an “adolescent-onset” group who were led into bad behaviour by their peers but grew out of it.

“With the adolescent-onset group, do not do group interventions, because they are peer-driven. The last thing you should do is put them with other young people,” he said.

“So boot camps are wrong, prisons are wrong, for that group, and any other form of hanging out together, because essentially what you learn is a lot of new tricks.”

Judge Becroft said he was reassured by Professor Poulton’s talk because New Zealand’s youth justice system tried to keep young offenders out of the justice system where they would meet other offenders.

“Eighty per cent of the young offenders in New Zealand are not charged, they are dealt with by police diversion in the community. They do not come to court, which is the worst place for them,” he said.

“There is no country in the world that matches that rate, and it works best. It’s just good, firm, community-based creative intervention led by police and the community.

I agree that every effort should be made to keep youth offenders out of court, unless their crimes are so serious (murder or rape) that there is no alternative.

But going back to the work of Professor Poulton, youth offenders are broadly two categories – the early onset offenders and the adolescent onset offenders. For the latter group, the keep them away from court and prison prescription is best.

But for the early onset offenders, the reality may be that once a clear pattern has been established, then the needs of protecting the community take precedence.

The NZ Herald editorial:

Parliament and the Greens ought to have made necessary arrangements long before she came to deliver her maiden speech this week. Neither side can escape blame for the unseemly public argument it became.

Parliamentary Service had provided her with technical equipment to receive an electronic transcript of what was said in the House, but had not provided a person to write the transcript.

Speaker Lockwood Smith thought the Greens would assign someone from their support staff, the Greens thought Parliament would provide. When the Greens discovered otherwise this week they made the most of it.

It should have been sorted out earlier, and I agree neither side escapes blame.

They succeeded in embarrassing Dr Smith, who sounded heartless until he explained that additional staffing for a member was beyond his statutory power to provide. But the Greens should be embarrassed too. Having put a deaf person high on their list, they ought to have foreseen all her needs in Parliament and taken more responsibility for her assistance.

It was not unreasonable to think the party would provide her assistant. Ideally, the person would not only transcribe speeches but be alert to comments, interjections and nuances of particular interest to the MP and her party. A public servant might not be ideal. Doubtless the party does want its member to be assisted by one of their own but it wants additional funding for it.

The Greens get 56,000 hours of funding, and only 1,000 hours are needed for transcription. What would be interesting is to find out whether the Greens are using all their hours currently and really can’t manage to cover the transcriber themselves, or whether they could – but just wanted to make the Speaker look bad?

Michael Fox at Stuff reports:

The Sensible Sentencing Trust is set to launch a campaign to toughen bail laws after the murder of an Auckland teen, allegedly by a man on bail.

The hard-line law and order lobby group also wants judges to be subjected to annual performance reviews and the right of serious offenders to apply for bail removed under a campaign dubbed ‘Christie’s Law’.

The campaign comes after the death of North Shore teen Christie Marceau who was stabbed to death in her parents’ Auckland home last November. She died in her mother’s arms.

Akshay Anand Chand, 19, has been charged with her murder.

Chand was on bail having previously been charged with kidnapping Marceau, and despite opposition from police and Marceau’s family, the judge released him on bail to live at an address near her house.

Judges can never get it right 100%, but wow was that a bad decision.

The trust says a number of murders have been committed by offenders on bail and in association with the Marceau family, wants “to send a very clear message to judges”.

The trust is also recommending that judges undergo an annual performance review and for police to have the power to veto a judge’s decision to grant bail.

Ummm, no. I prefer not to live in a police state.

It has also called for amendments to the Bail Act including the removal of the option of bail for defendants with a history of violence which involved a sentence of more than two years.

Now that is a far better proposal.

The trust also wants an automatic inquiry after serious breaches of bail similar, to that carried out after police shootings.

Depends what is deemed a serious breach of bail, but certainly at a minimum any breach of bail which leads to a killing should be fully investigated.

The trust has written to Birkenhead MP Jonathan Coleman, seeking his support for the campaign.

Northcote. The seat’s name changed in 1996.