Sunday Star Times New Property Section

On Sunday 20 Feb, the Sunday Star-Times will re-launch itself. This is rumoured to be in response to falling ratings.

The pdf above tells us that they will have an eight page tabloid property section.

Their news count has been under half that of the Herald on Sunday, so the rumour is their news section will go to 18 pages. Patrick Gower has tweeted stuff he has heard such as a big Anthony Hubbard column on page of A section; Richard Boock on back of sport, Megan Nicol-Reed on back of Focus, and Rod Oram on the back of a tabloid business section. Also Jon Hartevelt as new political columnist, working from the Fairfax Parliamentary hub.

There is also talk most other columnists except Michael Laws have been dropped.

We’ll find out in six days.

Deborah Coddington writes in the HoS:

It’s election year and this year’s panacea is to close the gap between rich and poor. Expect more of this zeitgeist because some Kiwi journalists have just caught up with a silly book published in Britain two years ago called The Spirit Level.

Actually I have no problem with closing the gaps. I think that’s an admirable objective, but I suspect my aspirations are vastly different from those of some of my colleagues.

Because when most people talk about closing gaps between rich and poor, they want to drag the successful down to the level of the lowest, whereas I’d lift everyone up to the top, if I could.

Indeed. Any excuse to whack the rich pricks, which is why they have latched onto The Spirit Level (whose findings are shown in The Spirit Level Delusion to be cherrypicked to get the results they wanted).

If the gaps are really to be closed, spirit-levellers would have to go further and place handicaps on successful people to ensure they don’t find ways to break the mould.

Clever brains like Sam Morgan’s, for instance, which enabled him to come up with Trade Me, would have to be dulled with drugs.

Fashion designers like Denise L’Estrange Corbet, who sees beauty where I see bolts of cloth, would have to be blinded. Cut out Kiri Te Kanawa’s voice box – I think you get my drift.

I’m not a fan of the saying, “celebrate our differences”, but in this context it seems appropriate to trot it out. And why can’t we aspire to something higher than the middle common denominator?

It’s about time someone started championing the rich and successful in this country – they’re a persecuted minority.

I can only imagine the hate mail Deborah will get in the next edition of the HoS.

But she has a point. As a society we celebrate someone winning $1m in Lotto using blind luck, but condemn someone who after 30 years of 70 hour weeks, earns $500,000 a year as a chief executive.

Received by e-mail:

Dear David Farrar,

Recently you banned me from your Kiwiblog website stating:

[rest of e-mail deleted by DPF due to copyright complaint by the troll]

I am unsure of the legal requirements for public forums and will be seeking some legal advice concerning the matter. If I am not reinstated as a blogger on your site, I will undertake a test case against Kiwiblog for limiting peoples right to voice an opinion on a public forum. I will also inform the media of such action. …

[rest of e-mail deleted by DPF due to copyright complaint by the troll]

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Todd.

You know if Todd has stopped his e-mail with his apology, I probably would have relented and let him back in after a period of suspension.

But threaten me with legal action for your right to comment on my blog. Well fuck that. First of all you show yourself to be very very stupid – my blog is not a public forum. It is my private property, and I allow people the privilege of commenting here at my discretion. I would greatly enjoy any court case where someone tries to gain a legal right to comment on my blog – it would be hilarious.

Todd also threatened to expose what I did in banning him to the media. Well I’ve done that for him. For those who wonder why Todd got booted, feel free to wade through the 280 comments in this thread, especially from around 5.30 pm onwards .

First time I have had someone threaten to sue me for their “right” to comment here. I really didn’t think there was anyone that stupid around.

UPDATE: Todd says he was going to expose me to the media, but when I blogged his complaint letter so the media could see it, he then decided he did not want it public and filed a copyright complaint with my ISP. Hence I have removed most of his e-mail from the post. The remaining sections fall under fair use provisions.

Stuff reports:

A senior National MP has been confirmed as the next High Commissioner to the Cook Islands.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully announced today Civil Defence Minister John Carter would take up the post in August.

This will leave his Northland seat vacant but the Government can avoid a by-election if the seat becomes vacant within six months of the election date.

75% of Parliament has to agree, but I am sure they will.

John Carter had massive popularity in Northland. It is one of the poorest areas of New Zealand, but he has always had huge majorities. The reason is because he is probably the hardest working constituent MP of this generation.

I recall one giving John a lift up to Palmie. He spent the entire time on his cellphone calling back constituents to give them updates on the issues they had raised with him.

If John brings the same vigour to his job as High Commissioner to the Cooks, I suspect he will be just as popular over there as he is in Northland.

Clio Francis writes in the Dom Post:

A Kiwi beneficiary has travelled the world funded by the dole, spending nearly two years seeing the sights of Europe, Asia and Africa without his unemployment benefit being cut off.

In an international escapade that has left Social Development Minister Paula Bennett and Work and Income fuming, Peter Freedom, 34, has admitted seeing the world at taxpayer expense.

Mr Freedom left New Zealand for Australia on April 11, 2009, expecting his benefit would be cut off two weeks later. “I was just amazed when it didn’t,” he said from Dubai.

He visited Europe, the Balkans, Britain, North Africa and Asia before his benefit was finally axed late last month.

Work and Income head Mike Smith said Mr Freedom – previously known as Petrus van Druten – would be prosecuted for benefit fraud if he returned to New Zealand.

Good.

“Peter Freedom is a liar and fraudster who has abused the trust of New Zealanders. We will throw the book at him if he returns.”

Ms Bennett said Mr Freedom’s claim that he thought the benefit would “just stop” was pathetic.

“There is no excuse for continuing to claim welfare on an extended overseas holiday.

“New Zealanders will find the photos of Mr Freedom in front of Egypt’s pyramids hard to stomach and I have to say I do too.”

Mr Freedom used the nearly $28,000 – $287.12 a week, which later increased to $293.04 – to see some tourist meccas.

His favourites included the Pyramids of Giza, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower and bullfighting in Spain. “The trip was funded by the benefit,” Mr Freedom said. “What started as an accident soon became an opportunity.”

An opportunity to go to jail I hope.

Before he left New Zealand Mr Freedom had been living in Hawera, Taranaki. He said he was keen to work but when a job came up outside town and he asked Work and Income to stump up some money for transport, he was refused. “I just needed a little bit of help but I never got it.”

Yet he had enough money to afford an international air ticket.

His benefit was stopped last month as part of the Government’s Future Focus reforms, which require all people who have been on the unemployment benefit for a year to reapply.

Reforms which were opposed by certain political parties.

Yesterday on Twitter, an amusing tweet said “Uninstallation of Egyption dictator is 99.9% complete” and today it made 100%.

AP report:

Fireworks burst over Tahrir Square and Egypt exploded with joy and tears of relief after pro-democracy protesters brought down President Hosni Mubarak with a momentous march on his palaces and state TV.

Mubarak, who until the end seemed unable to grasp the depth of resentment over his three decades of authoritarian rule, finally resigned Friday and handed power to the military. …

Thousands from around the capital converged on the celebrating crowd in Tahrir, or Liberation, Square, the epicenter of the stunning protest movement that was started by a small core of secular, liberal youth activists on the Internet and turned into the biggest popular uprising in the Arab world.

The House of Saud may be having a nervous night tonight.

The people of Egypt have been freed. There is no justification for one man to rule as dictator for 30 years, and few should regret Mubarak going. Yes, he provided surface stability, but dictatorships almost always cause resentment and radicalism.

It is too early to know how the military will introduce democratic rule, and what risks this carries of an Islamist (not Islamic) Government being elected. But from what I could tell the Muslim Brotherhood was not the main organiser of the protests, and a vote against Mubarak does not mean it will be a vote for them.

Brian Edwards has been threatened with a defamation suit by lawyers acting for the Sunday Star-Times. I think the SST is over-reacting, especially as all Edwards has done is publish four sworn affadavits saying Amanda Hotchin did not speak the words attributed to her by the Sunday Star-Times. Edwards has been careful to say he does not know who is correct, and has mainly been calling for the SST to rebut the affadavits.

The SST are refusing to, on the basis of a possible lawsuit by Hotchin.

I don’t know if the SST report of Mrs Hotchin’s words are correct or not. I will make the point that the reporter, Jonathan Marshall, is in the habit of recording his conversations as proof of what has been said to him. I do not know whether or not he recorded this particular exchange.

Mrs Hotchin has said it is too expensive to sue, and has instead effectively fought her side of the story on Dr Edwards’s blog. And I have certainly found it interesting to hear her side. However at the end of the day Brian Edwards can’t adjudicate on the veracity of the report, as he can’t compel a response from the SST.

Mrs Hotchin should file a formal complaint with the Sunday Star-Times, and if not satisified with their response, then complain to the press council. That would allow her affadavits to be tested against any evidence from the Sunday Star-Times. I am suspicious that she refuses to take this step – it does not need lawyers and costs basically nothing – it is her best chance of clearing her name.

But while Mrs Hotchin is not helping her own case by refusing to go down the route of the Press Council, I don’t think it is a good look for a newspaper to use nastygram legal letters to try and shut up a blogger – these are the tactics normally used by the subjects of newspaper investigations – not newspapers themselves.

The SST could simply have responded to the affadavits with an invitation for Mrs Hotchin to complain to the Press Council, and stating they are confident in their version of events.

Threatening Dr Edwards with defamation is also very stupid. It guarantees more and more people will know about the issue, and gets the story into the mainstream media.

Hopefully common sense will preval and Mrs Hotchin will go down the press council avenue for adjudication, and the Sunday Star-Times will keep its specialist defamation lawyers on a leash.

UPDATE: A reader has pointed out to me that the Hotchins themselves have been pretty quick to use lawyers also to threaten defamation. An (offline) HoS story reported in May 2010:

As with Amanda, few who know Mark are willing to talk on the record. Robert Alloway, managing director of Allied Farmers, the firm that absorbed Hanover assets in controversial deal at the end of last year, says the men behind Hanover have a reputation for sending out letters from law firm Chapman Tripp.

“They have deep pockets and aren’t afraid to reach into them. Whether it’s Bruce Sheppard, or me, or anyone saying anything you’d call an opinion, you’d get a letter. Typically I can set my watch by it. If it’s in a Saturday paper, I’ll get a letter on the Tuesday,” he says.

I also understand the Hotchins had their own law firm send lawyers letters to other media, threatening them if they repeated the SST story.

I’ve just looked at the seating plan for the House, and the Labour rejuvenation appears to have been somewhat of an illusion.

Phil Goff said that Grant Robertson had been promoted to the front bench, but in reality he is not. The front bench is traditionally the nine seats that are front row opposite their counterparts. Grant, who is ranked no 12 only, is on the cross-benches in between the Progressives and the Greens.

The nine front benchers for Labour are still all 100% former Ministers from the Clark Government. On average they entered Parliament 17 years ago. Three entered in the 1980s, four in the 1990s and only two after 1999.

Until that changes, they will struggle to be seen as a forward looking alternative.

Stuff reports:

Football reigned supreme at the Westpac Halberg Awards with judges and the New Zealand public agreed, 2010 was the year of the All Whites.

The round ball grabbed a hat-trick during last night’s Auckland bash – with rugby overlooked in all but one category – as Ricki Herbert was crowned coach of the year, the All Whites team of the year and the historic World Cup troop also named winners of the supreme Halberg trophy.

When three-time Halberg recipient Rob Waddell and special guest, Corporal Willie Apiata VC, announced the All Whites as the big winners, members of the team were fittingly presented with the trophy by John Adshead and Steve Sumner, coach and captain of the 1982 All Whites who reached the World Cup finals in Spain.

The team also received a personal tribute message from Fifa President Sepp Blatter.

“All the awards, for the players, for the staff, are all great, great honours,” All Whites goalkeeper Mark Paston told Fairfax Media.

I recall the way the country came to a stand-still for each of the games. They truly were our national team.

By coincidence I met Mark Paston on Wednesday night. To my great embarrassment I didn’t recognise him, and asked him what his role is at Telecom (we were both at a Telecom hosted event). A hell of a nice guy I have to say.

I told him how their victory over Bahrain in November 2009 made my Middle East trip much easier, as when in Iran heaps of the locals went out of their way to say how delighted they were that New Zealand has beaten Bahrain (most Iranians have antipathy towards Arab states).

While Richie McCaw is a legend, I thought Ryan Nelson was hard done by not getting the individual spartsman of the year award.

It’s into the world of beetles today & that famous gardener’s friend:

Click for larger, higher res image

It’s been a glorious morning watch the sun rise over a very still Hauraki Gulf.  Hope you all have a pleasant day too.

A very amusing excon.ange of press releases, highlighted by Eric Crampton. The sequence is:

1. Libertarianz announce they seek an audience with Jedi Religious Leaders as 1.5% of NZers state that as their religion, greater than Ratana has.
2. Yoda on behalf of the Jedi High Council declines the meeting citing fear, selfishness and greed as manifestations of the dark side
3. The Libertarianz respond suggesting Yoda is a hoax and claiming to be in touch with the true Jedi
4. Finally the Sith Conclave put out a release saying the Libertarianz are too mediocre to each dark side greatness. They also claim credit for destroying the Alliance in 2002 (yay)

Went to see Nitro Circus at the stadium last night, and what a great night it was.

Most of the performance is done on bikes and motorbikes as they jump onto and off ramps. But they also use kids trikes, skateboards, roller blades, skiis and most amazing of all a wheelchair.

Seeing a paraplegic soar down a ramp, and then launch into the air, perform a forward roll in the wheelchair and then land on the next ramp and sail down to the finish is just amazing. I did quip about whether he was a paraplegic before or after he started working for Nitro Circus.

If you have kids, take them along – they’ll love it.

Yes another year has gone by.  Guess the number of stoppers and the percentage or number of stelvins. the count will be on 16 February.

The shareholders of The Rock will want to thank Sue Bradford and Carol Beaumont for promoting their win a bride competition.

NZPA report:

A radio contest to win a Ukrainian mail-order bride has come in for more flak – this time from an MP within Parliament.

Labour’s Women’s Affairs spokeswoman Carol Beaumont this morning said she was ”appalled” by the contest.

In a blog on Labour’s Red Alert site, Beaumont added her criticism to that of the former Green Party MP Sue Bradford for the promotion.

”It is a reminder that there is still an attitude towards women in NZ that is deeply troubling – that they are commodities to buy and to own,” Beaumont said.

”The reality is that there is still a long way to go to achieving genuine equality for women in New Zealand. There are still stereotypes, put downs and discrimination.”

The contest, run by MediaWorks’ The Rock radio station, will see the winner flown to the Ukraine for 12 nights, given $2000 spending money, and offered their choice of a bride from an agency.

”If you’re interested in holy matrimony with a potentially hot foreign chick, fill it out to the best of your abilities,” the competition application form says on the station’s website.

The radio station is promoting the contest on air as ”morally bankrupt”.

This is the same radio station that also married off total strangers to each other in another competition (ironically the marriage is still going well a decade later), so why are people surprised over this competition?

Ben Heather in The Press reports:

A law passed for Canterbury’s earthquake recovery is an “unprecedented” surrender of parliamentary power, allowing the Government to make laws by decree, a group of Auckland lawyers say.

In an opinion from the Auckland District Law Society’s public issues committee, the Canterbury Earthquake Response and Recovery Act was labelled one of the most “extreme” laws passed in New Zealand history.

“(It) is a virtually unprecedented abdication of power by the legislature in favour of the Crown.” The law surpassed powers given to government after previous quakes, such as Napier’s 1931 quake, despite the quake being less substantial, the committee said.

The act was passed unanimously by Parliament in September and gives the Government the power to change almost any law to aid the earthquake recovery.

As noted, was voted for by Labour and the Greens. I think it is great that the Opposition had such high trust in the integrity of John Key’s Government that they could vote for such a law, knowing that the Key Government would not abuse the powers voted to it.

Personally it would have been more desirable not to leave it all to trust, and to have had the Earthquake Act specify which Acts could be amended by Order in Council (rather than merely stating which ones can not).

So far, 14 changes, called orders of council, have been passed, amending everything from social security to the building code.

None of these decisions required parliamentary consent and they cannot be challenged through the courts.

The committee claims the law could technically be used to exempt police from prosecution or raise GST with only passing reference to the quake.

A more appropriate response would have been to amend legislation when required through Parliament, it said.

Here the ADLS get a bit unrealistic. Certain things had to happen quickly.

However, Canterbury-Westland Law Society branch president Allister Davis said the act was necessary and the committee’s view was “short-sighted”.

The act would expire in April 2012 and so far powers bestowed on the Government had not been abused, he said.

“Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary legislation.”

I guess you get a different view of constitutional proprieties, when your house is in the earthquake zone.

1. Rob Salmond at Pundit warns of reading too much into short-term polling trends
2. Whale enjoys the irony of the Greens not making the Botany ballot as they were stuck in traffic
3. Whowuddathort tells the story of two Phil Goff’s with numerous examples
4. No Right Turn exposes the join Australia Movement soliciting foreign donations

A lengthy video interview at 3 News by Patrick Gower with Tariana Turia talking about Hone Harawria. A key line:

“He has no respect for our authority. He has no respect for this environment. He doesn’t have any respect for the coalition agreement that we all signed up to and that we all agreed to. And he has no respect for the party itself,”

If Hone wants to survive in the party, then he is going to have to convince his colleagues that he is capable of respecting them, and not just doing what is best for Hone.

Dave Burgess in the Dom post reports:

Intoducing legislation to reduce or cap the number of taxis in Wellington would be a move back to the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s and will not happen, Transport Minister Steven Joyce says.

The Government’s position goes against that held by Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, who has said that limiting taxi numbers was an area for lobbying the New Zealand Transport Agency, which issues taxi licences.

The Taxi Federation also supported a cap on the 1237 taxis licensed for Wellington.

“The Taxi Federation regularly is nostalgic for the good old days and periodically says it wants to restrict the number of taxis,” Mr Joyce said. “I notice they never volunteer to reduce the numbers in their own fleets.”

A good point, and nice to see the Minister resisting a step back in time.

The lack of action in cutting cab numbers may disappoint a significant number of Wellingtonians, if a poll on dompost.co.nz is anything to go by. Three- quarters of the 664 respondents said they believed there were too many taxis in the city.

“At different times there can be too many, but I notice that whenever you are looking for a cab you are never too worried about the number of taxis,” Mr Joyce said.

“You get more concerned if you aren’t looking for a cab and you see them around.”

Also often you don’t just want any old cab, but one from a company you trust. Some taxi firms are very much a matter of using only as a last resort.

The SMH reports:

The mother of a 14-year-old girl at the centre of an Australian “sexting” scandal that has seen three boys convicted of underage sex crimes has called for Facebook to be banned for under-18s.

Yeah that will work – try to kick 10 million+ teenagers off Facebook. Good uck with that.

The boys responsible avoided serving jail time after pleading guilty in the Bunbury Children’s Court to raping a girl over 13 and under 16, and are now registered sex offenders despite being aged 15 and 16 themselves.

In court it was revealed the boys had been drinking when they convinced the girl to sneak out on a Friday night, on August 27 last year, and meet them in a local park.

The boys then brought her back to one of the 16-year-olds’ homes where she was plied with vodka and gave the boy oral sex. She then had intercourse with his other two friends in the bedroom. The sexual acts were filmed on a mobile phone and sent to others.

And so we blame Facebook for this? I blame the kids involved – not the Internet or Facebook.