Stuff reports:

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has warned that planned Foreign Affairs job losses and the closure of overseas posts will cost more in the long run than they save.

A State Services Commission report last year said the ministry was looking at slashing 200 jobs out of almost 1000.

An announcement on the details is expected soon.

Peters, a former minister of foreign affairs who negotiated a big increase in funding for the portfolio, said a “slash and burn exercise” would seriously affect this country’s overseas trade.

He said the move was a “serious, retrograde step” at a time New Zealand was desperately trying to increase its export trade.

Phil Goff has also joined in the bleating, arguing that more bureaucrats in MFAT will increase exports. If only, it was so simple.

As it happens exports have been growing quite nicely. In the last three years, they have increased 15.1% to $46.1b. That’s pretty good considering the wobbly global economy. Why have they increased?

Well exports to China have increased 169.5% to $5.6b. The dollar increase of $3.5b makes up 59% of the overall increase in exports.

It was three years ago we signed a Free Trade Agreement with China. An agreement that Peters as Foreign Minister not only refused to vote for, but actively campaigned against with a newspaper ad campaign urging people to sign up in opposition to the FTA.

So Peters’ record is having opposed the China FTA which saw exports to China increase 170%, and instead his solution is more bureaucrats in MFAT.  I doubt I have seen a more moronic economic prescription in recent times.

Most readers will have seen the video on TV news of a three year old girl at Wellington Zoo quite unaffected by a lion trying to maul her through the glass. Ultra cute.

This video from overseas is even better. Watch the lion literally try and get its mouth around the little toddler, but stopped by the glass. The toddler is quite sanguine about the lion trying to eat him.

I could not believe One News the night before last, when during an (un-necessary) live cross, one of their reporters said how they were hoping to get live footage of the hearse going by (after the ballooning tragedy). I actually yelled at the television – which I do not do often. That was silly and tacky.

I’m not alone it seems. Throng blogged yesterday:

Sarah Batley’s live cross on One News tonight was utterly disgraceful and disrespectful to the 11 people who died tragically yesterday in the hot air balloon crash in Carterton, their families and their friends.

Desperately hoping to be live while a hearse drives past with bodies of the victims is incredibly distasteful, offensive and unnecessary.

NewstalkZB reports:

The tertiary education union is criticising plans for a Destiny Church ‘university’ – saying it makes a mockery of public education responsibilities.

The Church plans to build its own village in South Auckland which would include schools and a university.

TEU President Dr Sandra Grey says public universities all provide accredited evidence based high quality public education.

She claims in all likelihood Bishop Brian Tamaki’s university will do none of those things.

Calling it a plan, is giving Bishop Tamaki too much credit. All we have is a press release. He probably has no idea what an institution needs to do to become a university. The Education Act in s162(4)(a) specifies they must do all of the following:

(i) they are primarily concerned with more advanced learning, the principal aim being to develop intellectual independence:

(ii) their research and teaching are closely interdependent and most of their teaching is done by people who are active in advancing knowledge:

(iii) they meet international standards of research and teaching:

(iv) they are a repository of knowledge and expertise:

So up until now, I’m agreeing with the TEU that a Destiny university won’t qualify. But then a swipe at the Govt for some reason:

Dr Grey says the combination of this proposal and the Government’s Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement threatens to open the floodgates for dozens of foreign privately-owned, extremist ‘sham’ universities.

Oh please. A “combination” of this proposal and the proposed TPPA? That is clutching for straws. Is Destiny foreign-owned? Is anything in TPPA going to change the law and criteria for any bid by Destiny?

TPPA could well have something about not discriminating against foreign universities who wish to set up here, but that does not mean the provisions in the Education Act would not apply to then.

Don’t get me wrong. I have reservations around TPPA – especially the intellectual property chapter being pushed by the US. But debate on TPPA should not just be scare-mongering, linking it to Destiny Church.

Well this is called playing the trump card. Ports of Auckland have said:

Ports of Auckland has advised the Maritime Union of New Zealand – Local 13 (MUNZ) that it does not find the counter-offer tabled on 6 January attractive, and that while it will continue with collective bargaining, it is proceeding with a proposal to contract out its labour force. …

“I welcome the opportunity to discuss these matters further with MUNZ when mediation resumes on Thursday. However, we’ve run out of time. Without rapid changes towards substantially more efficient labour practices, more customers and more jobs will be lost in the coming weeks.

“We’ve worked now for 11 months to achieve the changes needed, but the Union does not appear to be taking the issues seriously,” he said.

Gibson says the Port’s last offer remains its best and final offer. It includes a generous 10 per cent rise on hourly rates, performance bonuses of up to 20% on hourly rates, and the retention of existing benefits and entitlements in return for a new roster system that will provide increased operational flexibility while allowing workers to plan their rosters a month in advance.

As it signalled before Christmas, in parallel with the collective bargaining process, the Port is progressing plans for redundancies as a result of the loss of the Maersk and Fonterra business, and will begin a consultation process this week over a proposal to contract out its labour force.

Mr Gibson said that if the proposed contract labour model was to proceed, he expected that the majority of affected employees would continue to work for the Port as employees of the selected contractors.

The average wage for a wharfie there is $91,000 a year. It is likely to exceed $100,000 a year under the POA offer.  Many people would kill for such a job.

Labour wants to change the law so Ports of Auckland do not have the option of contracting out its labour force if this is more efficient. Their policy is that any contractor should be forced to offer the same terms and conditions. This would mean that the union (which is affiliated to the Labour Party) remains much more powerful.

Martin Robinson writes in the NZ Herald:

New Zealand rugby players come in all ages, shapes and sizes, and both sexes. Players vary greatly as regards their skill levels, commitment and training schedules. Rewards for players are extraordinarily unequal, as most actually pay to play while a very few are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Is this fair or unfair? Should the Labour Party, the Greens or the Occupy Auckland movement campaign for more-equal payment of rugby players? Should the “greedy” All Blacks be forced to hand over some of their colossal income to the more impoverished fellow players? Should the Government intervene to reduce this glaring disparity in rewards?

Reducing the pay of All Blacks and spreading it among the less well rewarded rugby players, even if it is a good idea in theory, poses immense practical problems. Would the All Blacks agree to a significant pay cut? If they did, the team would become a 2nd or 3rd XV of players who were willing to play for the reduced reward.

We would never beat the Aussies, and maybe the All Blacks team would disappear. So the equality campaign would have succeeded in narrowing pay differentials, but at the cost of destroying the world’s greatest rugby team.

But the players would finally all be equal.

Inequality and the poor will always be with us. People vary greatly in their talents, work ethic and attitudes. Some people are lucky, others are unlucky. Whatever any government does, the lucky and hard-working will tend to be wealthier than the unlucky and lazy.

Every family is unequal. Both my brothers are much richer than I am, but I don’t envy them or think there is anything unfair about it. I don’t regard them as greedier than I am.

I am the poor relation. If I had worked harder, invested more wisely and spent less time on holiday, I would have more money in the bank, but they are the choices I made. I don’t regret anything so I’m content with our financial inequality. When I met my brother on holiday on the Gold Coast, I stayed in a motel-cum-backpackers while he stayed in the Sheraton.

He should have complained to the Government that his brother had been too successful.

New Zealand is an unequal society, just like every human society, just like every family. An equal society is impossible, an unworkable nightmare involving zero incentives and gross unfairness. Why should a cleaner be paid the same as a surgeon? It’s a ridiculous idea. I’ve cleaned toilets at the minimum wage but I don’t think it was unfair that I was paid less than when I was a teacher.

The All Blacks and some chief executives earn mega-salaries but they also pay stacks of tax. New Zealand’s tax and benefit system transfers many billions of dollars from rich Kiwis to poor Kiwis year after year.

In fact if you have a couple of kids you don’t even pay net tax until you earn around $55,000 or more.

The way to reduce poverty in New Zealand is to increase exports, improve workers’ skills and productivity, create more wealth and jobs, and then raise the minimum wage.

If New Zealand is becoming more unequal, the answer is for us poorer ones to work and save harder and smarter in order to even things up.

How outraegous. He has overlooked that it is all society’s fault.

Cactus Kate blogs:

Emotional abuse isn’t reported as is an horrific physical beating of a woman or kiddie with an instant death resulting. But it is definitely more prevalent and just as damaging. It isn’t a lower class, race or low incomed phenomenon either. Not all emotional abuse leads to physical poundings but all physical poundings seem to start with continuous emotional put-downs. It is statistically difficult to measure emotional abuse but we all can spot it when we see it in others.

Emotional abuse often can lead to physical abuse also. I’ve seen some people so emotionally abuse their partners that they lose all confidence in their own abilities, and become dependent on their partner. This means they then tolerate more and more shit from them, as they are too scared to be by themselves. And sadly, sometimes they will then even tolerate physical abuse.

I know of females who are otherwise successful intelligent high earning and achieving members of society putting up with some of the above. They are the sort of people you wouldn’t think would take to being abused at this mental level. Yet they put up with it. They don’t have to. No one is forcing them to stay.

I’ve seen their Partners, who are supposed to be the number one best friend and often father of their kids, subject them to abuse where they question their own worth. I cringe when I see the hate in the abusers eyes where even there are witnesses to their abhorrent behaviour. Say anything and you cease to be on the guest list. But it is very hard to sit there quietly listening to the mental warfare. I don’t want to watch it.

I’ve seen unstable women behave as badly towards my male friends. Men deal with it differently and usually suffer in relative silence but when a woman emotionally blackmails a man by threatening to commit suicide if he leaves her, the sort of mind games at that level is hopeless to comprehend and impossible to counter. When she’s flaunting the fact she’s rooting around on him when he isn’t there, flirting with his friends, loudly saying his appendage isn’t big enough, sexual performance isn’t good enough or he doesn’t have a high enough income while she spends all his money. All designed to emasculate his existence and control him from a woman’s position of physical weakness.

The first and only time a boyfriend upset me with a derogatory comment I didn’t even talk back, I threw all his clothes off the fourth floor balcony at Princes Wharf into the street, waited til he went to retrieve them then chucked his cellphone at him gloriously hitting him smack in the middle of his head. I didn’t see the point of subsidising him to hang around if he was going to at least be pleasant.

On the purely evil emotional level I’ve known of deadbeat Dads unsuccessfully harassing mistresses into abortions and pretend to then be an advocate for solo Mums against the “evils” proposed by the likes of Paula Bennett. The most disgusting sort of hypocrite as they’ve damaged more lives than any proponent of controlling the welfare state will. Heaven help them when that child finds out the truth as to how little his or her father wanted them to be born.

The Dom Post editorial:

As new Labour leader David Shearer embarks on the daunting task of reconnecting his party with the people who used to vote for it, he could do worse than take note of recent developments in Britain.

There, Liam Byrne, the British Labour Party’s spokesman on work and pensions, has written an extraordinary article calling for a radical rethink of the welfare policy his party first introduced almost seven decades ago. …

Byrne lauds him for his vision, but says he would be worried by the way his system has “skewed social behaviour” by creating long-term dependency. “For him ‘idleness’ was an evil every bit as insidious as disease or squalor,” writes Byrne. “He wanted a responsible government taking determined action to create work, but a responsible workforce too.”

Michael Joseph Savage, the architect of New Zealand’s welfare state, believed everybody, as a right of citizenship, was entitled to “a reasonable standard of living in the days when they are unable to look after themselves, whether it be because of old age or physical infirmity”. However, he also believed in the dignity of the working man.

It is inconceivable that Savage and his colleagues ever viewed welfare as a valid alternative to work, as some of their successors appear to do.

Labour campaigned at the last election that working poor with children will get an extra $10/week and those not working with children will get an extra $70/week. What an awful incentive and message they were sending out.

In New Zealand, as in Britain, the challenge for Labour is to reconnect the party with the working man, and woman.

A good start would be for David Shearer to announce the scrapping of their 2011 policy to pay beneficiaries $70/week more to not be in employment.

Stuff reports:

A prominent Canterbury balloonist and friend of the pilot of the balloon at the heart of Saturday’s disaster in the Wairarapa has cautioned against speculation over the cause of the tragedy.

Martyn Stacey, of Methven, was also at pains to stress that the sport is safe.

Stacey, the Aoraki Balloon Safaris operator and Balloon Aviation Association of New Zealand president, was a close friend of pilot Lance Hopping, who was killed along with 10 passengers in a fiery crash in Carterton early on Saturday morning. …

“It’s a shock to the whole community. What we’ve got to reiterate now is that ballooning is safe. People have to understand that ballooning is a major tourist operation.”

The deaths have been a major international story. They even made the Drudge Report which gets 30 million views a day. It was reported in UK and Australia also. The reality is that no one will be wanting to book a balloon ride in New Zealand for some time. In fact, it may damage the practice internationally for a period of time.

My flatmate has a voucher for two to do a balloon ride in the Wairarapa. Even though I’ve done one before in Egypt, I’m like “Don’t invite me to go with you”. It is a bit creepy thinking that if she had redeemed them this weekend, it could have been her up there.

In another close call, I’m horrified to see this video of a bungee cord snapping over crocodile infested waters.

I wondered where this happened, and it was at Victoria Falls over the Zambesi, where I spent Christmas Day. I saw several people bungee from that bridge, and almost did one myself. As I had done a bungee before at Skippers, I didn’t feel the need to do a second one.

Horrified to see the cord snap, or somehow not be secured correctly. A miracle the young girl survived. She had to swim to shore with the cord still tying her legs together.

Anyway going back to the ballooning:

There had been only three fatal balloon accidents in New Zealand in the past century, he said.

“You’ve got more chance of drowning or being run over by a car.”

I’m not sure that is the case. It’s like when people say elephants kill more people than sharks. What is a better comparison is how much time do people spend in the vicinity of elephants compared to swimming with sharks, and what is the fatality rate.

I’m not sure how many people balloon a year, and for how long, but to compare to road deaths, you need to compare per (say) million hours of an activity.

In NZ let’s say three million people spend 10 hours a week driving. That is 30 million hours per week, or 1,500 million hours per year. If 300 people die in car crashes then that is 0.2 deaths per million hours.

Now I have no idea how many people balloon in NZ every year. So I’ll guess some figures just so one can do a potential comparison. Please note these are not actual figures, and I am not saying ballooning is or is not more safe than driving. Just showing what a proper comparison would be.

Let’s say there are 50 ballooning operations in NZ. Also assume each goes up once per day (tends to be sunrise) with 10 people in them, and they stay up for an hour. That is 500 person hours a day which is 3,500 a week and 175,000 person hours a year.

Now if car fatality rate is 0.2 deaths per millions hours (or 1 death per five million hours), then you would expect one ballooning death around every 30 years, for ballooning to be safer than driving.

How with three accidents in the last century that could suggest they are of equal risk. But only if just one person died in each accident, and that is unlikely.

It would be great if someone somewhere (maybe an insurance company) calculated and published the fatality incidence rates for everything from driving to cycling to bungee jumping to ballooning to rafting to safari touring on a per (million) hours basis. That would be an interesting comparison.

It only took a couple of blog posts pointing out his donations from the Maritime Union, and Len has leapt into life on the issue of the militant industrial action by the union. Better late than never, I say. The Herald reports:

Auckland Mayor Len Brown has issued an ultimatum to the Maritime Union in the bitter industrial dispute on the city’s wharves, saying there must be more flexibility in work practices to make the port more productive and profitable for the council.

Excellent. It is not just a matter of being more profitable for the Council – it is also being productive and competitive for its customers. They do have choice, and have been using it to desert Auckland.

Mr Brown – a member of the Labour Party who received a $2000 donation from the Maritime Union towards his 2010 election campaign – yesterday said the board and management of the 100 per cent council-owned port company had his full confidence but he refused to express confidence in the union, which he was not responsible for.

It is good he has now backed the Council owned company.

In a sign that he is standing up to the union, which is set to strike again tomorrow for 48 hours, Mr Brown said it was time to review some of the decades-long work practices to reflect the increasing and changing trends of the international shipping market.

The practices are probably little changed from the 70s.

Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe said the union had offered to investigate changes to improve productivity …

Ha, offered to investigate. How stupid does he think Ports of Auckland management are, that they don’t realise that is no commitment at all.

Stuff reports:

The Labour Department has closed its investigation into a complaint by Australian computer programmer Glenn Watson who claimed to have been pressured to work up to 120 hours a week at the Auckland studio of games-maker Gameloft.

Spokeswoman Ailsa Mannell “no substantial evidence” of a breach of health and safety laws had been found and no action would be taken against the French multinational.

Watson’s description of working conditions at the Auckland studio, where he was head programmer, was widely reported in computer games publications around the world after he blew the whistle on his employer in July.

He said he resigned after a four-week stint in which he worked 14 hours-a-day, seven days a week. Watson accused Gameloft of creating artificial deadlines to encourage a frantic environment among the 70 Auckland staff and said a junior programmer had worked for 24 hours in a single, straight shift.

Ha, I can beat that. In 2000/1 when rolling out a new database system, I actually worked a straight 60 hour shift, broken up only by showers. It is amazing what you can manage when there is a non changeable deadline approaching.

The reason the deadline was not changeable is I was booked to fly/drive around the country doing installation and training starting on Tuesday, so I worked Saturday morning to Monday evening without sleep to complete everything.

What was funny was that when I completed the final testing and documentation just prior to my flight to Auckland on the Monday, I landed at Auckland early evening and had to drive to Warkworth. But I got a call from a friend inviting me to a party. I actually declined initially, but then he put on the phone the attractive blonde (knowing my inability to say no to them) who pressured me into attending, so despite no sleep for 60 hours I then attended a party (drinking non-alcoholic) for a couple of hours before resuming the drive to Warkworth.

It’s quite interesting when you go long periods without sleep, the cycles you go through. Every 12 hours or so you have a really tough period for 2 – 3 hours when staying awake is damn hard, but if you push past that, then you feel fine for another 9 – 10 hours or so.

Beyond doubt the highlight of a trip to Africa is going out into the wilderness. Until you have seen giraffes in their natural environment grazing trees, had a lion stare at you from a few feet away or had a hippo swim towards you – you’ve not had the full experience.

I was very lucky with the four places I went to. They were all great, but also all different enough that each was special. Below I blog a comparison between the four places I stayed at. I had an excellent time all four of them – the differences are minor, so don’t sweat the choices too much.

I did find &Beyond consistently great, and many fellow travelers said they swear by them, and only stay with them. However the first place I stayed at, Tintswalo, was easily equally superb.

I stayed at four places, with stays ranging from two nights to four nights. With the benefit of hindsight I would make all my stays three nights each. Two nights is too short as it only gives you one full day in camp, and traveling every second day is exhausting. Four nights on the other hand can drag on slightly on the final day. That means eight safari drives in the same area.

What I intend to do in future, and would recommend, is three stays of three nights each. That’s nine nights in total and 18 drives.

Now to the four I stayed at:

With the location important to note three of the four sites were in private concession areas. That means there are few other people about, and the guides are allowed to go off the main routes, can drive with spotlights after sunset etc. Chobe National Park is more restricted with what you can do, but the quantity and diversity of wild life there is higher than other places – so it is a trade off. I recommend rather than one or the other, you include Chobe but also include some private concession areas.

All the accommodation was luxury. Where-ever you go, you should be comfortable. Tintswalo was the most luxurious, and Ngabexa my personal favourite as being under canvas fits the environment.

The amount of time you spend out on each drive varies. I think four hours is a good maximum as Tintswalo did. You get a bit tired beyond that. Nice to have a bit more siesta time during the day also.

Tintswalo and Chobe had pretty well formed dirt roads to drive on, and would often go at reasonable speeds. With Tintswalo you would often go off road and literally push your way through and over trees and bushes. The two Okavango locations tended to be less well developed roads – sometimes just slightly worn tracks through fields. These would be very bumpy, but that is part of the fun. Normally driving around 15 km/hr or so (which is good for spotting things). I did discover that even on those roads, they can do around 60 km/hr as when we had to drop some water off to a broken down jeep on the way to catching my flight. I was almost bouncing out of the jeep, but loving every minute of it.

The hospitality was impossible to criticise. Everyone is so friendly and helpful. I give Nxabega slightly extra points for the fun we had on New Years Eve, with great hospitality from Megan and Dave – the co-managers.

With meals, you will also have nothing to complain about. Each place has a chef or chefs who will even make meals on demand. The challenge is to not eat too much.

I’ve included the trip advisor rankings and reviews. Again I would stress they are all excellent places to stay. Some of the reviews are years old, so I suggest anyone interested focus on more recent reviews.

It is worth noting that Nxabega was ranked 1st out of 40 in the Okavango Delta, and I’m not surprised by that. It was the perfect end to my trip. I’ll definitely be going back there. I’m keen to return to some of the other places also, but have to weigh that up against exploring new locations in Kenya and Namibia also.

The trips are costly. If it were not for the cost, I’d go there annually.

In terms of other things to do, outside the safaris – I would put Cape Town and Victoria Falls into the must see categories. Sun City was fun, but not a must do or see.

When will I return? I hope to do Latin or Central America in the next two years as have never been there, and that will cost a bit also. So realistically probably won’t get back until 2017, but will be something to look forward to.

Family First have released the results of some polling done amongst 16 to 21 year old New Zealanders by Curia. The summary is:

When asked “Do you think sex education in schools should teach values, abstinence and consequences such as pregnancy, or just teach safe sex?” only 19% supported just the ‘safe sex’ message currently being taught in schools, with one in three (34%) wanting ‘values, abstinence, and consequences such as pregnancy’ taught instead, and a further 42% asking for a combination of both – especially amongst older teens. The support for just the ‘safe sex’ message dropped even lower for the older teens. …

When asked “Provided it won’t put the girl in physical danger, should parents be told if their school-age daughter is pregnant and considering getting an abortion?” 59% of young respondents thought the parents should be told. 34% disagreed. More young men than women agreed, but both had majority agreement.

When asked “Do you believe an unborn child or foetus has a right to be born?” 56% of youth respondents said they believed an unborn child or foetus has a right to be born. Slightly more young women than young men agreed – 58% to 55%. Those aged 15 to 17 were strongest in support – 66%.

It was intriguing that young women were slightly more supportive than young men of there being a right to be born for an unborn child or foetus.

The parental notification results may surprise some, but thinking about it it is normal that most young people would expect to talk to parents about any unplanned pregnancy. The question did not specifically say “Should the law require parents to be told …” but at a minimum it makes clear that a majority thought parental notification should occur.

Note that of course the results do not necessarily represent my personal views.

Judy Callingham blogs:

Today  the Herald published a story lamenting the extra cost of local, free-range and organic foods, the very foods we’re being encouraged to buy and eat.  They estimate that the clean, green Kiwi options cost us on average 25% more. For people on a limited budget, that isn’t an option at all.

Indeed. So worth remembering that when people call for certain types of food (battery hen eggs, intensive pig farming) to be banned, the result hits the poorest in society the most.

The Taranaki Daily News got closer to the heart of the problem with a story headlined ‘Free food draws poor kids to class’.  It quotes principals from Taranaki schools who say that some of their students rely on their school to provide breakfast and even lunch, just to survive.

Poverty in New Zealand is a problem we often conveniently ignore, preferring to see our country as a land of milk and honey.  Unfortunately, milk and honey are off the menu for hundreds of thousands of Kiwis. More than 200,000 of our kids are living below the poverty line; over 48,000 of them go to school without breakfast. 

The poverty line is of course the relative poverty line. As the median income increases, the poverty line increases. A family may have their income increase more than the cost of living increase, but still fall below the poverty line because other people’s income has increased even further.

A relative poverty line is normally 50% or 60% of the median wage. I tend to think this is not that useful a measure of poverty – it is more a measure of income inequality – and they are not the same thing.

I find the most useful measure is the four-yearly Living Standards Survey by MSD. It actually asks a representative sample of 5,000 households questions such as whether they have stuff such as phones, cars, contents insurance, enough space, a computer, warm clothes, proper meals etc and whether they would like to have them if they could afford them. This measures actual deprivation over 42 criteria. They also ask if people do various things to save money such not filling prescriptions to save money, buying second hand clothing etc. It is (in my opinion) a far more sophisticated measure of families suffering deprivation due to low income, than merely comparing household income to the median household income.

This is a disgrace. No child in this country should go hungry. No New Zealand child should be cold or ill-clothed or living in an unhealthy or overcrowded house.  No child should be denied an education just because learning is too hard when you arrive at school cold, wet and hungry – if you get there at all.

I agree no child should go to school hungry. However the reasons why more children are going to school hungry is more complex than just assuming it is because they can’t afford it. Even using Judy’s figures, 3/4 of those with incomes below the poverty line do send their kids to school fed. So how do they manage to do so, yet not other families?

Over the last 20 years, the welfare state has given more money to those on welfare who have children. I don’t have exact data (yet), but the level of support has increased beyond inflation.

The government has prioritised a number of policies to stimulate the economy in an effort to get us out of the current recession. None of these policies, to my mind, tackles head-on the most urgent task of all – eliminating ‘child poverty’.

This should be the number one priority. Nothing is more important. Nothing is going to stimulate the economy better in the long run than having our kids grow up healthy and well educated.  It’s a damn sight more important than ultra-fast broadband and super-highways.

Without an growing economy, then we do not generate sufficient tax revenue to help lower income families.

So long as child poverty is based on the flawed relative to the median income measure, we will never “eliminate it” unless we wish to have an economy such as those of the old eastern bloc where doctors could only be paid so much more than parking wardens.

What we can do is use the more sophisticated measures of deprivation, such as the living standards survey and set out to reduce certain indicators within it (such as the proportion of families who say they miss certain meals because they can’t afford it).

‘Child poverty’  is a misleading term. It implies that the only people affected are the children.  But every child living in poverty is part of a household that is also living in poverty.  Whether that’s the result of generations of welfare dependency or a lack of jobs is not the issue.  The issue is how to break the cycle and get these kids into a situation where we can be confident they have a better future – by giving them a better present.

Breaking the cycle is the key. The problem is that it is a problem often that takes a generation or more to fix, as income is merely part of the problem. Education, child abuse, parenting skills are all part of a very challenging mix.

This photo by Maritime NZ, at the Herald, shows that the Rena has finally split in two.

Inevitably it means more containers will be lost at sea, but not necessarily all the remaining ones. It looks like they may be able to continue moving the containers off, once the weather improves. However it will be much riskier I suspect.

You look at that photo, and think that is not a place you would want to be.

You’re the Mayor of Auckland and one of your largest commercial facilities in paralysed with industrial action. Even worse, it is a facility owned by your Council.

Over several weeks you have seen Auckland’s economy get battered after first Maersk and now Fonterra announce they are abandoning Auckland for Tauranga and Napier, due to the militant industrial action taken by the Maritime union.

So it should be a no-brainer to come out publicly and lean on the Maritime Union to stop driving businesses away from Auckland. I mean ever Wellington’s Celia Wade-Brown stood up for the wellington creative industries when a militant union looked set to destroy them.

So why has Len been so silent and non-commital? It didn’t make sense.

Well it didn’t, until I read at Whale Oil that the Maritime Union was one of Len’s donors. They also donated to Mike Lee.

I guess that was one of their better investments.

Stuff reports:

Eleven people are dead after a hot air balloon burst into flames and smashed to the ground near Carterton this morning.

Wairarapa District Health Board spokeswoman Jill Stringer said 11 people – all of those on board – died when the balloon came down near the Clareville showgrounds north of the Wairarapa town. …

An emergency centre had been set up in the town’s Fire Station, Carterton Mayor Ron Mark said.

Police, fire officers and victim support were there, tending to families of the victims.

Mark said he understood those on board were a mix of locals and visitors to the Wairarapa.

It was a small community and many would have know some of those on board, he said.

A horrific and terrifying way to die. My thoughts are with families and friends of the deceased.

I’ve gone up myself in a hot air balloon (in Egypt). It is an amazing experience, and should be a safe one. I guess we will find out from TAIC and the Coroner what went wrong.

Bryan Leland writes in the Dom Post on global warming:

Although the world did warm by about 0.7C between 1975 and 1988, there has been no significant warming since then. All the major temperature records show that global warming has flattened off.

I think Bryan means 1998. In 1975 the average temperature was 0.17c below the norm. In 1988 it was 0.18c above the norm and in 1998 it was 0.55c above the norm – the highest year on record.

I wouldn’t quite say there has been no significant warming since then. 1998 was an exceptional high. A significant warming trend did continue until the early 2000s. However as one can see it has tapered off in recent years.

There is a divergence of views about the leveling off. Many factors affect the global temperature. I think it is premature to conclude it disproves global warming, but certainly the longer the “flat” period continues the more the prediction models will come under scrutiny.

Regarding sea levels, the highly accurate sea-level gauges installed around Australia and on the Pacific Islands (including Tuvalu) in the early 1990s showed that sea level rise is small – less than 3mm a year – and that, in recent years, it has levelled off. The 3mm a year is consistent with the sea-level rise that we have experienced since the end of the Little Ice Age. So the only strange thing that is happening is that we cannot explain why the sea level is no longer rising.

The increase is only around 3 mm a year, but this is up from 1.8 mm a year for the previous century. It is not dramatic end of the world Al Gore type hysteria rises, but it is an increase. The graph shows:

On the basis of that data, I wouldn’t say the sea level is no longer rising. It is. An increase of 3 mm a year is not the end of the world, but if it acclerates, then it does post significant challenges.

The climate models predict that an increase in carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming purely because they have been programmed to do just that. The science tells us that if we double carbon dioxide from the present level it might cause a warming of about 1C. The climate modellers escalate this 1-to-3C, with little supporting evidence, and then, quite predictably, the models show a much higher rate of warming. But if you talk to the modellers, they will tell you that the big unknown is the effect of clouds because they cannot model them with any accuracy. There is more and more evidence that an increase in temperature brings an increase in clouds and this has a cooling effect.

This is the area of most uncertainty, as I see it. As Bryan says there is no dispute about the direct impact of increased greenhouses gases being around 1 to 1.5 degrees (off memory). What is disputed is whether the indirect effects will magnify that warming, reduce it, or not affect it. Most climate scientists say it will magnify it, but this is based on models. I bow towards the majority view, but with the caution that if the data does not fit the models, then the models need to be re-evaluated.

One good thing about the decision to try and have a post-Kyoto agreement be completed by 2015, to start in 2020, is that several more years of data should help us understand how significant a problem the level of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is. It definitely is a problem, but the magnitude of the problem will ultimately depend on the data of the next few years, and beyond.

The Washington Post reports:

A file-sharing group that considers itself a spiritual organization said Thursday that Sweden has recognized it as a religious community. According to documents provided by spiritual leader Isak Gerson, 20, his Church of Kopimism received that approval in late December. …

Gerson said in an interview that some of the church’s roughly 3,000 members meet every week to share files of music, films and other content they consider holy and regard copying as a sacrament. He said the church’s philosophy opposes copyrights in all forms and encourages piracy of all types of media, including music, movies, TV shows, and software. …

“Being recognized by the state of Sweden is a large step for all of Kopimi. Hopefully, this is one step toward the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution,” he said.

This could become a very popular religion. When is the next NZ census again? 🙂

NZ Herald reports:

Destiny Church has reportedly obtained resource consent to build its own “town” in South Auckland.

Bishop Brian Tamaki told his Rotorua congregation a contract had been signed and the church will take control of a three hectare block of land on Druces Road, Wiri, in December, One News reported.

“We had to get resource consent, meaning that the council would let us build our schools, our auditorium – basically building a town,” he said. “We got it.”

In the One News footage the self-proclaimed bishop outlined his plans for the town, which will include schools, a university and a massive auditorium.

The Destiny leader is now appealing for donations from his followers to help fund the town.

“Much of your seed is going to go toward the foundations of an offering toward our promised land, and that beginning is not going to come without a fruitful start financially,” Mr Tamaki said.

Destiny have every right to buy land and build what they want on it.  Of course any activities within that area are still subject to the laws of New Zealand.

I do feel a bit sorry for the followers who will all pour money in to help the Bishop buy the land, and then probably get charged massive rents to live there.