Sky News in Australia is reporting live the 6.0 aftershock in Christchurch.

Hopefully this will be the worst of the aftershocks. The reporter is saying you could see balconies bouncing up and down.

Talking of the quake, kudos to Phil Goff and John Key for travelling down and visiting an emergency shelter together. A very nice reminder of how those things which unite us, are more important than those we disagree on.

View Christchurch earthquake: Where the land shook in a larger map

The NZ Herald has been mapping the quakes on Google Maps. Real nice use of social media. God, you can only empathise with the locals. While logically one knows the first quake is the strongest, psychologically it must be very upsetting – especially for kids and pets.

news.co.au reported:

1747: God they would not stop talking. I think they may regret agreeing to answer questions also. Tony Windsor said something which speaks volume.

He basically said one reason he went for Labor is because he thinks they will not hold another election until three years are up. When asked why he thinks the Coalition would be more likely to want an early election, he replied because they would win it!!

So one of the Independents has said that the Government is so unpopular it would lose a second election! Watch the Coalition put the pressure on in the next few weeks. Also watch for them to target winning those seats back next election with the line that a vote for them is a vote for Labor.

1706: UPDATE: And as expected and predicted Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor have pledged supply and confidence to Labor, who squeak back for a second term, and Julia Gillard remains Prime Minister.

Even more importantly I just made $1,000 on iPredict 🙂

I note the 2 party preferred vote is still split right down the centre – 50.01% Coalition to 49.99% Labor.

1708: Windsor says the major issue that decided it for him was the fact Labor was committed to a nationwide fibre rollout, and the Coalition was not. Ironically in NZ last election it was National that committed $1.5B to a fibre rollout and Labour only $300m to general broadband.

1604: A press conference with the Independents is due to start at 3 pm in Australia, or 5pm in NZ.

Bob Katter has broken ranks though to announce he will support Abbott (as I predicted a few days ago). So it is 74-74.

All the signs are the two other Independents will go with Labor. Gillard will have her skills tested governing with such a weak mandate, and will be hoping there are no by-elections.

Abbott will be treated as an unsuccessful hero by the Coalition and remain Leader – for now. However at some stage they may reconsider if he is whom they want to go into 2013 with – if the Government lasts that long.

Sunday was a glorious today. We did nothing. Often when I am on holiday, I try and fit heaps in, on the basis I may not be back for a while. This can sometimes mean you finish the holiday more tried than when you started.

So Sunday consisted of mainly drinking in the apartment, with the occassional meal break. Superb.

Monday we went down to Circular Quay, as we had a lunchtime cruise planned. We had some spare time, so decided to visit the giant rugby ball.

The inside is set up Kiwi style, with a bar, stools, couches and can hold 150 at a time. Then the interior interior becomes a stunning video. You get to see a giant Umanga pick up the ball and kick it, some stunning NZ scenery etc. If the rugby ball comes near you, definitely go see it. Aussies were leaving it, and going straight to the RWC ticket box.

The botanic gardens and Sydney Opera House. I do regard Sydney as having the most spectacular harbour in the world – partly because it is so huge.

This is the most expensive real estate in Australia. You couldn’t buy any of these places for under A$20 million.

Kirribilli House, the Sydney residence of the Prime Minister. I’ve been there, and it has a premier view of the harbour. Some PMs have been criticised for spending so much time here, rather than at The Lodge in Canberra. But really why would you spend more time in Canberra than you had to, especially with this waiting for you?

This just amused me. I’m sure it is a breach of some OSH regulation.

The bridge that needs no introduction.

The 12x optical zoom actually worked very well in snapping these folks walking over the top of the bridge.

The cruise lasted two hours. We had an open bar package, which provided some unhealthy incentives. By the end of the cruise I was almost in favour of banning them.

Met up after the cruise with Paul W – a fairly regular commenter here, whom I hadn’t seen for over a decade or so. Enjoyed a wide ranging chat.

Then went home and drank lots of water.

Media were told this morning that the PM’s trip to Europe to meet David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy has been cancelled.

It would have been a tough call. A huge amount of planning would have gone into the trip, and it is not the sort of thing you can just reschedule for a month down the road.

But I think the right call. If the trip was scheduled even a week later, then one might have been able to do it. But going overseas within a week of the earthquake would have led (unfairly) to a perception that the earthquake is less important.

Stuff reports:

A UK politician has been left red-faced after the secret life of his wife was exposed.

Tory MP Mike Weatherley, 53, was at a loss to explain how he did not know his wife, Carla Weatherley, was a prostitute.

The Sunday Mirror claims that as Mr Weatherley was campaigning to join parliament earlier this year, his wife was working at a south London brothel .

According to the Daily Mail, Mrs Weatherley previously worked in three brothels in Brazil and now charges £70 ($150) an hour for sex.

I’m not sure what is worse. Finding out that your wife is a prostitute, or finding out that she only charges £70 an hour.

John Key said on Q+A:

JOHN Yes in the case of EQC, so the Earthquake Commission has enormous funds, 15 billion dollars, largely invested offshore very logically, because of course if there is an earthquake you don’t want those funds invested in the country that’s affected. They have about six billion in cash. So this is well and truly affordable from that perspective.

But if one goes to the EQC latest annual report they say:

EQC has custody of the Natural Disaster Fund, around $5.6 billion of public money.

The EQC balance sheet and statement of equity also use the $5.6 billion figure. I can’t see another $9 to $10 billion hiding in the accounts. Possibly it is a reference to their reinsurance, which is treated as an expense. But I can’t find out the total value of any reinsurance. In the notes to the accounts, they mention:

Legislation recognises that EQC’s premiums may be inadequate to meet its liabilities in any one year by enabling it to set aside any annual surplus free of tax in the Natural Disaster Fund and, in the case of a very severe catastrophe (that exceeds both the Fund and reinsurance recoveries) by providing for a Crown Guarantee. The Commission currently has the capability to cover a 1‑in‑1000-year event with an estimated value of up to $8.1 billion before having to call on the Crown Guarantee.

That is still some way off $15 billion.

Now it is possible the PM was given the wrong figure. But it is also possible the $15b is correct, and I am just missing something.

If anyone can clarify, that would be useful.

UPDATE: A government official has e-mailed to say that the EQC report is correct – reinsurance kicks in after the first $1.5b of costs, and if you take that into account the total value of the fund is a bit over $8 billion. They also say that at this stage the best estimate of the call on the fund is $1 billion.

The Herald reports:

First, the power of nature. Now the power of Facebook.

Students are using their social networking skills to pull together a volunteer army of more than 1300 to help out the shaken Christchurch community.

An entrepreneurial Canterbury University student created a Facebook event page that brought 300 students, carrying shovels and wearing gumboots, on to the streets of Halswell and Hoon Hay ready to help affected residents yesterday.

The event page, Student Volunteer Base for Earthquake Clean Up, has 1356 people willing to help and the number is climbing rapidly as 5000 invitations are awaiting students to reply.

University student Sam Johnson created the Facebook page to gather the support of students during their extra week of holidays.

“We have a spare week to do some good for the community. It’s the perfect opportunity to come out and do something decent,” he said.

Kudos to Sam Johnson for the initiative, but equally to all the students who turned up to help. Canterbury can be very proud of its students.

The Facebook page is here.

TV3 reported on their efforts also.

The truth is out there, and exposed on this blog site – BoB PaRKeR ENGiNEeREd tHE CHRiStCHURCH QuAKES.

I am amazed the media have not reported this story!

Phil Quinn is a former Labour staffer and Porirua City Councillor. He is worried about Labour selecting Kris Faafoi:

Mana is once again up for grabs and there are two serious candidates seeking the nod.  One of them, Kris Faafoi, is a press secretary to Phil Goff, Labour’s current leader (and, full disclosure, an old mate of mine — although we haven’t spoken in a while).  I am sure Faafoi is a tremendously capable guy, but his candidacy annoys me.  Here’s five reasons why:

1.  I have seen a letter he has sent to branch members.  The complacency and sense of entitlement reflected therein is reason enough to vote for anyone but him.  His candidacy, judging by his letter, is entirely about him, and the local party members are expected to fulfill the role of fawning pawns.

2.  He is neither fish nor fowl.  Faafoi is neither a local candidate with strong Party credentials nor a celebrity vote-magnet.  I am not someone who rejects outright the idea of parachuting in well-known identities to contest by-elections, and Faafoi , a former TV reporter,  has pretensions toward such a category — but he falls way short.  His fame is ankle-deep and is worth precisely no votes for Labour.

3. I gather from well-placed sources that Faafoi first considered becoming an MP two weeks ago.  Call me old-fashioned, but the Labour Party should not reward such fly-by-night ambitions with (nominally) safe seats.  If he has harboured no political ambitions for all but two weeks of his charmed life, then it begs the question: how much time has he dedicated to learning about public policy and preparing himself for Parliament?  None, I would venture to guess.

4.  The Porirua/Mana electorate has been treated like a prison-bitch by the Labour Party for too long.  Outsiders like Faafoi, Laban (the retiring member), Kelly and his predecessor, Wall, have represented the seat since its creation.  If Faafoi thinks that having family members in the electorate adds up to something, then he is more naive than I thought (and I thought he was quite naive to start with).

5.  The NZLP should stop looking at 20-year old census data:  Mana is not the overwhelmingly Islander-dominated seat they think it is.  Since the expansion of the electorate for MMP, it now encompasses large white, middle class suburbs of the kind Labour ought to be very nervous about (from the formerly marginal seats of Kapiti and Western Hutt).  The instinct to back Faafoi purely on ethnic grounds is patronising and simplistic — but it is also strategically misguided.

This should be wringing some warning bells, when it comes from someone with no interest in the outcome, yet knows the electorate well.

I have nothing against Kris, but it is obvious the fix has gone in for him to win, with his replacement as Chief Press Secretary already lined up.

If I was a Labour delegate in Mana, I would find it hard to go past Josie Pagani. Josie would appeal to all sections of the electorate, and would seriously help Labour’s rejuvenation.

I’m not saying this as some sort of cunning double plan, where I am trying to get some Tory mole in place, or some doofus. Josie will be a serious pain in the butt to National if she wins.

All I am saying to delegates is to keep an open mind, and decide on the performance of the two candidates – don’t let Head Office decide for you, who will be the MP for the next 20 years or so.

Oh dear. Whale has the photos and a story. Some clever Labour activists were out campaigning for Len Brown. To maximise publicity for Len, they parked his sign written van outside a popular nightclub.

Not so smart, is they left an e-mail printout face up on the dashboard in plain view – and a civic minded citizen took a photo.

Whale summarises:

Now we known with­out a shadow of a doubt the paid Labour staffers are help­ing Len Brown’s cam­paign and that they think that the left wing cam­paign on the North Shore is “bizarre” and has “fac­tion problems”.

Nice of them to share this with the world.

The Dom Post reports:

Sky Television chief executive John Fellet says he hopes Sky can persuade at least three or four internet providers not to charge customers to download programmes and movies from its soon-to-be-launched internet television service, iSky.

If Sky makes the material available on servers which are open for peering, then that should allow NZ ISPs to exempt them from data caps.

Mr Fellet revealed a few more details of the service, which he said would launch in mid-November and would be free to Sky customers who had signed up to the equivalent pay-TV channels.

Sky will stream three sports channels and a selection of news channels. Subscribers will also be able to download 200 movies to watch at any time from a catalogue that will change each month, and catch up on movies and many programmes they may have missed on Prime and other “basic” Sky channels.

Great, I look forward to this.

One industry source said iSky put internet providers in a quandary. Sky was being “hard-nosed” and there was little in it collectively for internet providers to offer iSky unmetered, though some ISPs might steal a march on rivals by doing so, given Sky’s hold over key broadcast content.

Vodafone and Orcon are among those believed to be considering letting customers access iSky without that contributing to their monthly broadband data caps. Orcon spokesman Duncan Blair confirmed it was in discussions.

Vodafone doing so, would help keep me as a customer. Their e-mail quality has been crap lately, so we need some sweeteners!

Sky has this time spent about $4m so it can host the content on its own computers in New Zealand. That means internet providers will not need to pay for capacity on the Southern Cross cable to serve up programmes to customers, making the option of unmetered downloads more viable.

Mr Fellet said that, initially, Sky would only directly profit from iSky by also serving up pay-per-view movies for viewing on computers. It would not sell its “adult” pay-per-view programmes online, at least at first, he said. That business was “slowly dying anyway” as a result of the preponderance of free pornography on the internet.

No wonder the Ministerial credit card expenses have been dropping 🙂

Stuff reports:

A beer drinkers’ society warns it faces bankruptcy if it loses its dispute with DB Breweries over a shandy-like lager which most of its members do not drink.

The Society of Beer Advocates (Soba), an organisation with about 500 members run by volunteers, has taken legal action against DB over the term “Radler”, which the brewing giant uses on a citrus-flavoured brand of Monteith’s.

DB has a trademark over Radler which Soba is attempting to have declared invalid, arguing that like pilsner or lager, the term is a generic name for a recognised style of beer over which no-one should have exclusive rights.

I agree with SOBA. It is a generic term.

A spokeswoman for DB said its application to trademark the term in 2003 was not contested.

DB does not claim to have come up with the term, acknowledging the German origins on its website, but bases its right to trademark it on the lack of public awareness of the origins, and the “considerable” investment in the brand.

My advice to DB is not to try and trademark generic terms, even if obscure. Go invent your own brandnames and trademark them.

Tony Abbott has done an open letter to the Independents in all the major newspapers.

I’m of the view that if your method of communication with the three men who will decide Government is through newspaper open letters, rather than face to face, then it is probably all over.

The possibly final issue being negotiated is over parliamentary reform, according to AAP:

The Coalition wanted the Speaker to be “automatically” drawn from the Opposition.

The document Labor has backed allows for the Speaker to come from either party or to be non-aligned.

If the Speaker does comes from a particular party the Deputy Speaker will come from the other side of politics. Pairing arrangements will be in place for both – meaning their vote will be cancelled out rather than lost.

“That will take away the need in the view of a tied vote for whoever’s in the chair to cast a vote,” Albanese said.

Further, both the Speaker and the Deputy will not attend their respective party room meetings.

I’m pretty sure the NZ Speaker does not attend caucus meetings, but the Deputy Speaker and Assistant Speakers do.

If they really need a neutral speaker, maybe we should lend them Lockie for six months, to show them what a good speaker does!

Questions during Question Time will be limited to 30 seconds and answers will be restricted to three minutes. They will have to be “directly relevant”.

I’m amazed there is no time limit on answers at the moment, and the limt they are going for is a whopping three minutes. In NZ the Speaker will cut you off if you go much over a minute I estimate.

A parliamentary budget office will also be established within the parliamentary library.

“It will be able to look at issues including costings, particularly from the Opposition but also individual members,” Labor’s house leadersaid.

Not a bad idea necessarily. However the current system where an opposition parliamentary party can have  Treasury staffer seconded to them works pretty well.

I suspect we will get a decision today, or tomorrow at the latest.

First we have this story:

A senior Iranian cleric, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, dismissed the Nazi Holocaust of Jews during World War II as a new “superstition” for the West, media reported on Saturday.

“The Holocaust is nothing but superstition, but Zionists say that people of the world should be forced to accept this,” he was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA.

“Americans and Westerners are affected by newly appeared superstitions such as the Holocaust,” he said according to ISNA news agency.

“The truth about the Holocaust is not clear, and when the researchers want to examine whether it is true or the Jews have created it to pose as victims, they jail the researchers,” said Makarem Shirazi, who is a “marja,” or among the highest authorities in Shiite Islam.

So he argues the Jews created the Holocaust. Either he is a retarded moron, or he argues this for a reason. I believe it to be the latter – to help recreate the conditions of the 1930s, so there can be another holocaust – this one with nuclear weapons on Israel.

People might say, it is just talk. Well Hitler was just talk when he started blaming it all on the Jews.

And then to remind us how nasty the Iranian regime (which is very different to the Iranian people) is, we have this story:

Iran has reportedly sentenced Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani – the 43-year-old Iranian woman who faces execution after being convicted of adultery – to 99 lashes in prison for “spreading corruption and indecency” after allowing an unveiled picture of herself to be published in a British newspaper. …

What has made the latest charges against her even more extraordinary is the fact that the unveiled photograph in question, published by the Times newspaper on August 28, was not actually of Mohammadi Ashtiani but of another woman, for which the paper has since apologised.

I am not sure what is more appalling – the fact that you can get 99 lashes for not wearing a veil, or the fact she got convicted of this “indecency” when it wasn’t her in the photo – a trivial fact to establish.

A friend has just made a very good point to me,

Think if the Christchurch earthquake had happened in a year’s time.

If Jim Anderton wins the mayoralty, he will spend over a year being an MP (and a party leader) and a mayor. Thank about what this means.

If the earthquake had occurred during the week, the Mayor would probably be in Wellington attending Parliament. The “first citizen” would be missing in action, around a third of the time.

I think the earthquake reinforces that being Mayor is not a part-time job, that you can do along with two other jobs.

Jim Anderton should use this opportunity to change his position, and announce he will resign as an MP if he is elected Mayor. Christchurch needs a full-time Mayor in the months ahead.

UPDATE: Seems the Herald got it wrong, and the reference to earthquakes by Anderton was about him leaving Labour.

The NZ Herald reports:

Christchurch mayoral aspirant Jim Anderton told CTV on Friday that it would take an earthquake for him to lose the election race against incumbent mayor Bob Parker.

So God just filed his vote early.

iPredict shows that Bob Parker’s chances of beating Anderton increased three-fold in the aftermath of the earthquake. So Jim may have got what he claimed was necessary for him to lose.

Having the iPad on the flight over was wonderful. I read around 25% of the Man in the Iron Mask. Seen the movies, and always wanted to read the original. The expiry of copyright means all the great classics are available for free to read.

Customs went very quickly. The only mishap was getting the luggage into the taxi. My duty free bag of two 1 litre bottles of rum got knocked onto its side. One bottle smashed and the other rolled onto a drain cover and then dropped into the sewer – unbroken. We could see it floating there. They cost NZ$20 each duty free and the replacement costs A$40 each – and for only 750ml. I was laughing when it happened though – the sight of the bottle floating there will prove too tempting for some homeless person 🙂

We went down to Circular Quay in the evening for dinner. The RWC giant rugby ball is very noticeable, from a large distance away.

The Sydney Opera House, with the Opera Bar below it where we drank and ate. Wellington is a great city, but the inability to have mass outdoor dining is something I miss, and love being able to do in other places.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge dominate the landscape.

This is the studio room at the Opera House. We went to see the Late Night Lounge, which was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the Chooky Dancers and Madame Lark with her ability to mimic bird calls was excellent.

Sadly we were all a bit stuffed from being up at 4 am to catch the red eye, so we took off a bit before midnight (which was 2 am NZT) and missed the final segments. But was a good end to the day.

AP report:

A Detroit-area woman who was removed from a jury for commenting about the ongoing case on Facebook has a longer writing task ahead: a five-page essay about the constitutional right to a fair trial.

A judge ordered the essay for Hadley Jons, three weeks after she wrote on Facebook that it was “gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re GUILTY”. The trial, however, wasn’t over.

I wonder how stupid you have to be, to think it is a good idea to announce on Facebook you have decided the verdict before even hearing from the defence?

Matt McCarten writes:

It can be boring when someone talks about themselves. Today I’ll take the risk.

I know I get into scraps and sometimes overstep the mark in clipping my opponents – and there’s always a few of them waiting impatiently for my demise.

They may not have to wait too much longer. I was diagnosed a year ago with the killing kind of cancer.

I’m only sharing this as the news seems to be getting out and some people seem to think I’ll soon be taking to my bed and softening my political views.

No such luck, I’m afraid. Most cancer sufferers think they can beat the odds. Why should I be any different?

Again, words are so inadequate. I both like and respect Matt McCarten and am incredibly saddened by his news.

I hope Matt stays around to see a Labour/Green Government elected. I reckon that is on track for 2020, so no skivvying off before then 🙂

The HoS reports:

Becoming a republic would be the “making of New Zealand as a country” and we need to start talking about it now, according to Labour leader Phil Goff.

In the most direct call for change from any senior politician yet, Goff said the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign was the logical transition point.

“Succession of the monarchy is the time to have a head of state who is a New Zealander,” said Goff. “We need to start the conversation now. Don’t rush it. Fully consult the people of New Zealand. It’s a major change and needs a reasonable consensus.”

Now, Goff has told the Herald on Sunday that when he was foreign minister and trade minister, people he spoke to, particularly in Asian countries, were often confused that New Zealand’s head of state was from another country.

He said discussion about becoming a republic would be a lengthy one that dealt with issues around the Treaty of Waitangi and the flag.

“Let’s begin a formal process now,” said Goff. “Where do we want to be in 20 years?”

It’s nice to have a political leader who will not just say this is a question for the future, but who recognises that we should be starting a process to decide now.