The Herald reports:
Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini were each banned for eight years by the FIFA ethics committee last night in a stunning removal of world soccer’s most powerful leaders.
FIFA President Blatter and his one-time protege Platini were kicked out of the sport for conflict of interest and disloyalty to FIFA in a $2 million payment deal that is also the subject of a criminal investigation in Switzerland.
Good. This starts to restore a modicum of faith in FIFA.
FIFA’s ethics judges decided that Blatter and Platini broke ethics rules on conflicts of interest, breach of loyalty and offering or receiving gifts.
Platini took $2 million of FIFA money in 2011 approved by Blatter as uncontracted salary for work as a presidential adviser from 1999-2002.
Another story gives the context:
A state of denial is a virulent affliction for football’s lake-dwellers – and Platini has a bad case of it. He cannot see how accepting $2 million from Blatter shortly before he (Platini) agreed not to challenge Blatter for the Fifa presidency might offend the sensibilities of those who think transparency and accountability are vital attributes of governing bodies.
if it looks like a bribe, sounds like a bribe and smells like a bribe, it probably is a bribe.
The suggestion it was for work done 10 years earlier is almost laughable. A few issues with that:
We all knew Blatter was corrupt, but sad that Platini has been found to also be corrupt. He was seen as one of the white knights, but it seems all their knights are just shades of grey,
The latest monthly data is here.
In the last year 25,180 people moved from Australia to NZ. In 2008 that number was 13,120.
In the last year 24,570 people moved from NZ to Australia. In 2008 that number was 48,880.
So net migration for the last year has been an inflow to NZ of 610. In 2008 it was an outflow of 35,760.
So twice as many Aussies moving to NZ, and half the number of Kiwis leaving to Australia.
Fairfax score their 2015 predictions:
That’s actually 21 predictions, but possibly the Winston one was a joke, so we’ll score them out of 20.
I’d score a few of them differently. They are:
9. ACT leader David Seymour will graduate from under-secretary to ministerial rank. See what we mean! We get it right, he gets the offer from John Key and what does he do? What does he do? He turns it down! And why? To press on with a bill that hasn’t even made it out of the ballot yet? Is this just to annoy us David?!! As the auditor put it, when increasing our initial score on this one, “to have to predict an MP would turn down a ministerial role is just downright unreasonable”. 9/10
Sorry but that is 5/10 at best. The simple fact is he is not a Minister. Yes he turned it down, which is why I’d give 5/10 but 9/10 is too generous.
10. After February, National will not score more than 50 per cent in any mainstream New Zealand-based polls.0/10 It was a struggle at times but they did edge above it from time to time in defiance of our tips and history. So 0/10.
Not disagreeing with the score but will point out they lost this one with the first poll of 2015 – Roy Morgan in January had 52%. Every Herald poll this year was over 50% also.
12. The Budget will focus on poverty, including incentives for those moving from benefits into training or work, but will not lift base benefits beyond indexation. Yes, yes and mostly. The take-out from the Budget was the move to help the lower paid but and while the base benefits – unemployment sickness etc – didn’t move the Government did give $25 more to beneficiaries with children. 7.5/10
I thin 7.5 is a bit high. I’d go 5/10 as clearly wrong on the base benefits and that was the one specific in the prediction.
Labour will be scoring at least 35 per cent in polls by the end of the year. Hardly at all, to be sure, though the last UMR Research poll scraped in. 2.5/10
I’m sorry but you’re now counting internal polls from parties that are not publicly published?
In other polls They maxed at 32% in TVNZ, 32% Roy Morgan, 33% Tv3 and 31.1% Herald. That’s a 0/10
Ron Mark will take our gallery bureau’s inaugural Mallard Shield for most ejections from the House. 10/10. As certain as an All Black victory over Georgia that one. But we take the points where they come.
I’m sure he did – would be interesting to know how often.
The NZ Herald ran a number of stories earlier this year alleging Middle School West Auckland was bribing kids with KFC, had bullying issues, behaviour problems, safety and drug issues etc etc.
It is a charter school, so hence of course ideological opponents are out to plant these stories.
Anyway the ERO has just published their New School Assurance Review Report. They don’t find anything to do with KFC, bullying, drug issues etc.
Some extracts:
Middle School West Auckland has made a successful start to operating as a school that aims to provide a strong learning foundation for emerging adolescents. The curriculum is a model that the sponsor is successfully using in other Villa Trust schools. It uses project-based learning and incorporates a number of projects that are designed to provide broad coverage of the essential learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum. The afternoon programme provides opportunities for te reo Māori and kapa haka, sports, the arts, and trips related to project work.
Sounds pretty standard.
Students respond positively to teachers’ high expectations. The students we talked to were very positive about the school. They reported that they get plenty of individual help from their teachers, and that, while some of the work is hard, they enjoy the challenge and variety of learning in this way.
Very different to what the media reports portrayed, which were based on second hand allegations.
The school has faced significant challenges during the year in regard to changes in staffing and in their shared occupancy of the Henderson site. School leaders have demonstrated resilience and a clear commitment to building an inclusive, learning-focused school culture. They acknowledge the need to provide Māori learners with an environment and programme that builds learners’ language, culture and identity. Strengthening this aspect of school provision is an ongoing challenge.
Basically there was a big of a fall out with the school they shared the site with.
A significant proportion of students who have previously been disengaged from schooling have enrolled at the school.
The kids at this school are the ones most at risk of falling through the gaps.
Improved attendance at school has been a significant and pleasing outcome this year for many of the students.
Can’t learn if you don’t go.
Students at Middle School West Auckland are enjoying a model of teaching and learning that supports and challenges them. Good systems are in place to support learners and their families and to build a school culture based on mutual respect.
Looks like a solid start.
I wonder if the NZ Herald will give the ERO report the same prominence in reporting as the unsubstantiated allegations?
Liam Hehir writes in the Manawatu Standard:
In January, the first public poll of the year showed National with 49.8% support, Labour on 29.1%, the Greens on 9.3% and New Zealand First on 6.9%. That looked pretty good for National. Unfortunately for the party, it all went downhill from there.
In February, the government came under attack over the possibility of taxpayer funds for SkyCity’s new convention centre. TV3’s Patrick Gower declared that Andrew Little had hit “the political jackpot” and that the the prime minister’s trouble with the deal was a “a great issue to attack the Government on.”
To make matters worse, Jacinda Ardern accused the government was “out of touch” on paid parental leave.
In March, a by-election was held in the safe National seat of Northland and Winston Peters managed to beat out the government’s candidate. Dr Bryce Edwards asked whether this represented “some sort of tipping point” against National. Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei said the result was proof of an “an increasingly out of touch Government“.
In April, we had “Ponytail-gate”, with the prime minister admitting to having upset a waitress by repeatedly yanking her hair. It was a failed attempt at a“bit of banter” said the Prime Minister but Metiria Turei pointed to it as “a sign of how out of touch John Key has become.” Leftwing columnist Dita DeBoni was already cross with the prime minister about other things, but questioned whether this could be “the straw that broke the back of John Key’s popularity.”
In May, we saw the election of James Shaw as a new Green Party co-leader. This was the government’s worst nightmare, because Shaw’s private sector experience, open attitude towards business and ability to tap into the public’s frustration with politics-as-usual was just what the Greens needed to break out of their leftwing cul-de-sac. In her speech to the party conference, Metiria Turei stated that the government is “out of touch” no fewer than three times.
In June, senior government minister Stephen Joyce was rocked by revelations of truly extravagant expenditure by MBIE. Hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were wasted on things like high-tech screens, signs and even hair straighteners. According to Labour MP David Clark, this kind of spending showed “just how out of touch the Minister has become.”
In July, the Labour Party ruffled feathers by releasing analysis that it claimed showed too many people with Chinese-sounding names were buying property in Auckland. Press gallery veteran John Armstrong reported that the controversy was “just what the doctor ordered” for Labour. The Greens weren’t exactly comfortable with the tactic, but Metiria Turei did at least announce that the prime minister was “painfully out of touch” on the subject of housing.
In August, the Trans Pacific Partnership reared its ugly head. There were protests about New Zealand’s involvement and the prime minister was too dismissive of these for the taste of The Dominion Post, which declare him “badly out of touch” on aspects of the deal.
James Shaw showed he was up to the task by decreeing that the government to be “out of touch” on economic sovereignty. Not to be left behind, Metiria Turei declared John Key to be “out of touch” for not expanding Māori Language Week to a full month.
In September, the media spotlight fell on the government’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Duncan Garner slammed the prime minister for not keeping with public opinion on the issue. “The longer the PM digs his heels in the longer he looks out of touch,” he warned.
This was also the month when the government had to do an embarrassing u-turn on including Red Peak flag in the flag referendum, after Andrew Little declared it to be “totally out of touch” on the matter.
In October, the government should have had a pretty easy month for the government – we won the World Cup! Unfortunately, the government was revealed to be paying consultant Paula Rebstock $2,000 a day for her work in overhauling CYFs. Andrew Little declared that this illustrated how “out of touch” the government is.
In November, there was outrage in Parliament over John Key claiming that Labour was backing supporting rapists, child molesters and murderers in the Australian detainee row. When several women MPs stormed out of the debating chamber in protest, Rob Hosking of the National Business Review informed us that would “hurt National” given that “a huge part of Mr Key’s success has been his appeal to women voters“
This was also the month that Labour had its conference in Palmerston North. According to blogger Martyn Bradbury, Annette King and Grant Robertson both gave amazing speeches that “made National look out of touch.”
And in December, the last public poll of 2015 was released. Out of touch National had 51.3% support, Labour 31.1%, the Greens 8.2% and New Zealand First were on 5.7%.
Such a great column I couldn’t bare to trim it.
Interesting how the opposition’s strategy is to repeat the mantra the Government is out of touch as often as possible, hoping it will resonate. The problem for them is that having an opposition that is out of touch call others out of touch, doesn’t really resonate. The same goes for the media.
Stuff reports:
Inspirational schoolboy Jake Bailey, whose prizegiving speech made worldwide headlines, has beaten acclaimed Kiwis to win the quote of the year title.
The Christchurch Boys’ High School senior monitor was the “clear winner” of Massey University’s 2015 Quote of the Year after receiving an unprecedented 77 per cent of the public vote. …
The secondary school student was the first winner in four years whose quote was unrelated to the world of politics.
The winning quote – “Here’s the thing – none of us get out of life alive. So be gallant, be great, be gracious, and be grateful for the opportunities that you have” – came from his heartfelt speech that went viral on social media.
Very good advice indeed.
Chris Totter writes:
What makes me reluctant to award the accolade of Politician of the Year to John Key, however, is his apparent lack of interest in the lives of the 50 per cent of New Zealanders who don’t vote for the National Party, and for whom John Key is not the preferred Prime Minister. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that true political greatness is to be measured by what a politician (and government) does: not only for the lucky and the strong, but also for the weak and unfortunate.
Now, at this point you may be thinking that I’m about to bestow the accolade upon someone from the Opposition’s ranks. You would, however, be wrong. Because 2015 has not been a year in which anyone from the Opposition parties has offered the weak and the unfortunate very much at all – not even that most subversive of emotions — hope.
No, the politician I have in mind is the one who labours away in the engine-room of Key’s Government. The one who keeps the wheels of the economy turning, and international investors smiling.
Solid achievements, both, but I am more disposed towards him because, unlike his boss, he has been giving long and arduous thought to the plight of the weak and unfortunate among us. More than this, he has been thinking about them in a new and intellectually challenging fashion.
His approach has been called actuarial, because his calculations are all about the risk and the cost – both individually and collectively – of not making the weak stronger and their misfortunes less determinative; of not organising the right sort of state intervention at the right time.
For thinking about the half of the electorate who doesn’t vote for his party, my Politician of the Year for 2015 is Bill English.
High praise.
“Tax cuts should be for life, not just for Christmas.”
– George Osborne
The quote of the week is brought to you by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. To support the Union’s campaign for lower taxes and less government waste, click here.
The Herald reports:
New Zealand’s top consumer advocate says house buyers and sellers could have suffered from the alleged real estate agency price-fixing.
Suzanne Chetwin, Consumers Institute chief executive, expressed concern for parties involved in the massive house selling industry, with an annual $1.2 billion turnover.
Ms Chetwin was reacting to today’s announcement that real estate agencies across the country are facing charges from the Commerce Commission of alleged price fixing and anti-competitive behaviour.
Agents allegedly agreed that vendors – not the agencies – would have to pay Trade Me listing fees which increased in early 2013.
“From a consumer perspective, the actions of the real estate agents meant properties for sale were not being viewed as widely as they should and vendors were being asked to pay to have properties listed on Trade Me,” Ms Chetwin said.
“In that regard, real estate agents were not acting in the best interests of sellers or buyers, but trying to force Trade Me to give them a better offer for advertising,” she said.
Yep, and when they often get $20,000 or so on a house sale, they were complaining about a $100 or so listing fee.
The Commission alleges the parties agreed that vendors would have to pay the listing fee to have their property advertised on Trade Me, and that the agencies would not commit to any preferential or discounted listing fees with Trade Me.
Bayleys has agreed a settlement in principle with the commission.
Bayleys has admitted its conduct breached the Commerce Act and has agreed to settlement terms. None of the other agencies have settled.
If one has settled that strongly suggests the Commission has a strong case.
Under the Commerce Act, price-fixing agreements between competitors are illegal. If the charges can be proven, the real estate agencies face penalties up to $10 million, three times the value of the commercial gain from the agreement, or 10 per cent of the turnover of the company.
If the law has been broken, you want penalties that will be a deterrent.
The Press reports:
Under-fire Kaizuka Eatery and Garden Bar likely needs 21 extra car parks – not 62 – to keep trading as is, the Christchurch City Council says.
The council says it will assign a case manager to help the Cashmere business owners work through parking and liquor licence issues.
Kaizuka’s owners, Dwayne and Tiffany Vaughan, have been been locked in a battle with council over the issues for more than a year. Fed up, they considered closing. They believe the car park requirement is still unachievable, but having a case manager assigned was “positive”.
According to the City Plan, 10 car park spaces were required per 100 square metres of public floor area, but reductions could apply. The 800sqm bar had 18 car parks, so the Vaughans believed they needed 62 more car parks to meet resource consent requirements.
Whether they need 80 or 39 car parks, why is this a requirement at all?
There are dozens or bars in Wellington with no car parks. One can even argue better for a bar not to have car parks.
But why not leave it to each shop whether or not they have car parks, and how many? They have the best incentive to make it easy for customers to visit them, and work out the right number – rather than a Council blanket rule.
Mulitalo Filipo Levi from Middle School West Auckland writes:
It was with significant dismay and anger that I saw that a statement of an attempted suicide was repeated, even though that is not accurate. For the record, the following statements are important.
* It is a fact that children at MSWA were never bribed with KFC nor brought KFC on any occasion. We do have shared lunches but the only high value incentive provided was full sets of C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia for some children who had completed extraordinary reading tasks.
* There was no suicide attempt and to report that there was caused significant pain to a family who thought it was directed at them. If and when such occurrences occur in a school, they are of such importance that they should never be used for political point-scoring or to try to cause further damage.
* To the best of my knowledge, and I am there a lot, there has been no drug use within the school.
Relatively early in the year a group of families quite rightly raised concerns through a proper process. We met extensively and addressed those concerns and made changes as fully as we are able to under the terms of our contract with government. We even employed one of the group’s members to assist further within the school.
Some of what they had expressed was highly inaccurate and other points had a level of validity that we were not afraid to address. For some families the clarifications as to what our contract specifies around the level of academics, mode of provision and behavioural expectations meant that they exercised their right to leave the Pohutukawa site. For others, our response was just what they had looked for and they stayed and have seen significant progress for their children.
Responding positively to concerns and perceived failure is exactly what a good organisation should do.
Our first ERO report was good, and we expect the recently completed one to be the same. We work closely with that organisation and hope and expect they will tell us how to get better and better as is their job. As a staff and organisation we are resilient and expect to grow and learn on a daily basis. It is on those terms that we expect the same from the children and families that work with us. We are an organisation with very high expectations and aspirations for the young people.
It’s appalling that you can just make up allegations against a school, have politicians repeat them and media report them – despite them being false.
It is important to note we do not believe that that there are subject pathways and careers in New Zealand that some cultures are not capable of. Sadly it is the case in our country that “cultural awareness” is all too often used as an excuse for a lack of achievement by young people. Earlier this year, when confronted by University Entrance results, some Auckland principals chose to state that UE may not be for “our children”. By that they could only mean their predominantly Maori, Pasifika and lower-socio-economic students.
As a Samoan I found that offensive. Some politicians seem to believe that being culturally aware means excusing patterned failure and having lower expectations for children from certain races and social groups who have a massive historic achievement gap.
When the very supportive Maori Party MP Marama Fox visited our sister school in South Auckland earlier this year and asked a class how many wanted a university education, every student raised their hand. That is the level of aspiration that was imparted to me as a part of my “cultural awareness” as a young person and my “responsiveness” were the achievements I outlined above.
The education and lives of young people is not about political points scoring. It is about expectations of excellence and clear pathways of which I am a proud to be a part. There is a Samoan proverb which states “E le sili le ta’i ilo le tapuai”; “One cannot achieve without the help of many”.
It is my hope and prayer that we come together and help our children and provide an opportunity for academic excellence.
I look forward to the ERO report on them.
YouGov have published why they think their polls were out in the UK election. Their conclusions:
The younger age range within the samples over-represent those who are more engaged in politics and are therefore more likely to vote. As younger people, they disproportionately supported Labour, so having too many young voters in our likely voter sample skewed the overall result towards Labour. We believe we had the party voting proportions for this age group correct but that fewer of them actually voted than our sample suggested. This can be corrected in the future in two ways: a) interviewing the correct proportion of people who are less interested in politics, and b) weighting the sample to the expected turnout for different demographic groups. The problem with both of these is that, unlike in the US where detailed exit poll data is publicly available, in the UK no detailed information is available by which we can know the correct target proportions for each age group. However, we can make better estimates of them.
Youth turnout is low almost everywhere. And if you only get to poll the politically motivated youth, then you will over-estimate their likely turnout.
In NZ the Electoral Commission has released turnout by age, so pollsters should be able to take this into account when weighting.
The oldest demographic group, the over-seventies, were under-represented in our samples. They voted disproportionately for the Conservatives, and having too few of them in our samples skewed it slightly against the Conservatives. This can be corrected in the future in two ways: a) interviewing the correct number of over-seventies, and b) weighting the over-seventies in our samples to the correct target weights.
Elderly people vote far more than younger voters.
In NZ only 62% of under 30s enrolled, voted. For over 65s it is over 85%.
One cannot discount misreporting (“shy Tories”), but we can find no direct evidence for it. In this election, polling showed dissonance between the outcome which people (in aggregate) said they wanted, and their underlying party preference. There was a strong overall preference for a Cameron-led government over an SNP-influenced government led by Labour leader Ed Miliband, although stated voting preferences would not have delivered that. It is possible that this led to some respondent misreporting, if people wanted to express their party preference and not their actual tactical vote, but it is impossible to establish this objectively as we can never know how individual respondents really voted.
This is that basically people changed their mind at the last minute as some Labour voters didn’t want Labour propped up by the SNP so chose Conservative as the lesser evil. Same in NZ where some left voters hated the idea of a Labour Government propped up by Kim Dotcom, so voted National.
Stuff reports:
Wellington’s commuter trains will be operated by the same company that runs Auckland’s rail network in 2016, after the capital cut ties with KiwiRail.
Greater Wellington Regional Council on Thursday selected Transdev Australasia as its preferred future operator for the passenger rail network that services Wellington, Hutt Valley, Porirua, Kapiti and Wairarapa.
French-owned global transport giant Transdev operates rail, tram and bus services in 19 countries across five continents, including Auckland’s passenger trains, Sydney’s light rail network and Melbourne’s buses.
In Wellington, Transdev will partner with Korean company Hyundai Rotem, which built the region’s new electric Matangi trains.
The regional council will now begin negotiations with the joint-venture to finalise terms before putting pen to paper on a 15-year contract in March, which will take effect on July 1.
Good for commuters to have a competitive contract which should see better services.
But the loser is the taxpayer who has to keep bailing out Kiwirail. As they lose business the cheques will get bigger. I doubt the Government could even sell Kiwirail as who would buy it?
The AFR reports:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership suffered a serious setback to being implemented by the pact’s lead economy, after the powerful United States Senate leader stunned trade watchers by declaring Congress should not vote on the accord until after next November’s presidential election.
The plan is probably to have the vote during the lame duck session of Congress between the election and the new representatives and senators taking office.
The White House is aiming to convince the Republican-controlled Congress to pass the agreement by mid next year, but unless Senator McConnell backflips on his vocal resistance, that goal will likely prove near impossible.
Yep.
Senator McConnell and Senate finance committee chair Orrin Hatch have misgivings over the deal the Obama administration struck among the 12 countries. They are particularly incensed by the US failing to secure a longer monopoly period for pharmaceutical drugs known as biologics.
The US pushed for as much as 12 years. Australian Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb successfully held the line at five years in the final deal, prompting Senator Hatch to last month accuse Australia of being “greedy”.
This is critical. The resistance in the US is because they think Australia and NZ got too good a deal with our negotiators were too tough.
It is possible Republicans are trying to bargain with the administration, to try and force the US back to the negotiating table with the 11 other countries or to extract concessions on domestic political policies.
There’s no way the deal can be renegotiated. It passes or it is dead. Concessions on domestic policies may come into play though.
Stuff reports:
The makers of Keytruda have been forced to amend trial data given to doctors, after overstating the benefits of the melanoma drug.
The ground-breaking new cancer drug is at the centre of a major PR campaign, by both the drug company and terminal cancer patients, to gain public funding through Pharmac.
Made by Pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), Keytruda is the brand name for Pembrolizumab – a biologic drug for terminal melanoma patients, that has produced promising results in early clinical trials.
Keytruda branding was understood to be a major feature of a recent New Zealand Society of Oncologists conference, where slides showing some of the latest clinical trial data were presented.
In a letter to conference attendees, Merck’s oncology clinical director Colin Yeoman said the headline on one of the slides was misleading.
It was able to be interpreted that 100 per cent of patients that had received the drug as a first-line treatment had had a postive response.
“MSD was concerned that using the heading from the presentation… ‘Duration of Response in First Line’ could be misinterpreted as the response in all first line patients,” said Yeoman in the letter.
“Our intent was therefore to clearly communicate that only the responding patients were represented in the [right-hand chart].
“Despite our best intent, having reviewed this and in the absence of published updated duration data for this patient cohort; the information on this slide does not support the 30 months claim. It does however, support that in responding first-line patients, the responses were durable.”
That unsupported claim was that “most patients that responded to first-line treatment were still responding at 30 months”.
So Andrew Little has vowed to over-ride Pharmac and fund this drug at a cost of possibly $100 million – and all on the basis of an incorrect PR campaign. He should be embarrassed.
Barry Soper writes:
After the counting of almost 1.6 million votes, or just on 49 per cent of the eligible voters, the Kyle Lockwood, black, white and blue design’s been chosen. In my book it’s the right one of the two that in reality stood a bolter’s show of making the final cut.
The black over the red is sensible. Black is the colour New Zealand’s known for on the international sporting stage, from the All Blacks, to the Black Ferns to the Black Caps to name just a few of the standouts. Red on the other hand denotes the blood we’ve spilt at home and in foreign theatres of war, most of it needlessly.
To say that changing our flag is in some way disrespectful to those who fought in foreign climes is bollocks.
Having travelled to every battlefield we’ve fought on around the world, some of them with our old diggers, the story almost to a man was they went away to fight for a sense of adventure. The flag, King and country never came into it.
The thousands of those who didn’t make it back home lie in graves marked, not by the New Zealand flag, but by a silver fern.
The silver fern is the global symbol for New Zealand, and I’d love to see it on our flag.
Let’s now hope this is the first leg of the trifecta. We’ve chosen the right flag to go up against the current one, let’s now take this one in a lifetime opportunity to show we’re a country with our own identity and ditch the Union Jack.
I love our history and heritage with the UK, but I think having their flag on ours makes us look like a colony, not an independent country.
One can only hope that Labour can now finally move on from its feeble opposition to the money spent and the way the referendum was conducted and climb on board it’s own policy of getting rid of the current flag by referendum.
No chance sadly.
The Press reports:
Canterbury’s newest model of leadership, touted as a New Zealand first, could not have happened a year ago.
The Mayoral Forum, a group comprising Canterbury’s 10 mayors and the chair of commissioners at Environment Canterbury, is celebrating its first victory almost a year after first meeting to devise the Canterbury Regional Economic Development Strategy.
Its digital connectivity programme, led by Timaru mayor Damon Odey, resulted in the collaboration with Spark to fast-track its rollout of 4G wireless broadband across the region.
In the past, relationships between some of Canterbury’s councils had been strained – but now forum chair Dame Margaret Bazley said all were on the same page.
“It’s probably the first time it [the forum] has ever been done in New Zealand,” she said.
“Certainly the other regional councils are looking with great interest as to how we got mayors to work together.”
The Canterbury Regional Economic Development Strategy, which brought together the region’s leaders to build a vision for the future, also coordinates input from business leaders and South Island iwi Ngai Tahu.
Seven programmes were outlined, with one mayor leading an initiative with a region-wide focus.
Now that the broadband rollout is secured, other initiatives on the horizon include welcoming international visitors, beginning with the first direct flights from China which arrive next week.
Also on the way are broader initiatives around transport planning and attracting migrants to the region.
Unlike Auckland’s super city and similar proposals to amalgamate in Wellington and Hawke’s Bay, the forum was conceptually looser – it encouraged the leader of each territory to look outside their own patch, and each take responsibility for one part of Canterbury’s future.
Basically they have assigned portfolios to each Mayor, so they try to get a good result for the region as a whole, not just their district.
May be a very good model for other regions.
Stuff reports:
A new law plans to ban children under 16 living in the European Union (EU) from social media unless they have parental consent – but New Zealand experts say it won’t have the desired effect.
EU Parliament introduced the change to the proposed data protection laws last week.
If the new legislation is passed it will raise the age of consent for websites to use personal data from 13 to 16.
It would mean millions of teenagers under 16 would be forced to seek permission from parents whenever signing up to a social media account, downloading an app or even using search engines.
The proposed changes would also put Europe out of step with other parts of the world.
The law is due to be negotiated between member states on Tuesday before a vote.
Almost all major social media services, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Google, currently have a minimum age of 13.
It’s a stupid law that will be counter-productive.
Even the minimum age of 13 is counter-productive as millions of kids get around that by changing their date of birth. Entire classes of eight year olds are on Facebook.
Rather than ban kids too young, you should let them join showing their real age, but use that to protect them. So let a nine year old be on Facebook, but block them from adult groups and from unsolicited messages.
But if you force them to pretend to be 18 to join up, then you teach them to lie about their age, and lose the ability to protect them.
So the proposed new law in Europe will actually harm kids, not help them.
Stuff reports:
A recidivist bank robber has escaped an indeterminate jail sentence and will instead spend nearly five years behind bars.
Steven Kurt Peri appeared for sentencing at the High Court at Auckland on Tuesday, after earlier pleading guilty to the aggravated robbery of a West Auckland bank.
For his conviction he received a second strike warning, meaning that he became ineligible for parole and must serve his entire sentence.
The Crown asked Justice Ailsa Duffy to consider Preventive Detention, an indeterminate sentence which means a prisoner may never be released, to protect the public from him.
That sentence is reserved as punishment for the most serious of crimes, committed by people who are deemed likely to reoffend on a similar level.
However on Tuesday Justice Duffy said although Peri had made threats, he had never been violent to his victims, and had offered “insight and understanding” into his recent offending.
In May 2011 Peri was sentenced to three years and nine months for three bank robberies. That was his first strike. If he didn’t get parole he would have got out in February 2015.
Four months later he did another aggravated bank robbery with a gun.
Prior to this:
Justice Duffy told the court on Tuesday that Peri had been deported to New Zealand from Canada after carrying out a number of aggravated robberies there.
So he is a committed recidivist. He got four years and 11 months this time and is not eligible for parole.
If he does the same again he’ll get a third strike and get an automatic 14 year sentence with no parole.
Stuff reports:
A new Saudi-led Islamic alliance to fight terrorism will share information and train, equip and provide forces if necessary for the fight against Islamic State militants, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Tuesday (Wednesday NZ Time).
Saudi Arabia announced earlier on Tuesday the formation of a 34-nation Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism, a move welcomed by the United States which has been urging a greater regional involvement in the campaign against the militants who control swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.
“Nothing is off the table,” al-Jubeir said when asked whether the initiative could include troops on the ground.
This is potentially a very good thing.
ISIL wants Western troops on the ground as it fits their vision of a great war between different religions. If ground forces are needed, a coalition of Islamic nations is a far far better option.
A number of Islamic countries are fighting ISIL but it can be un-coordinated, and each having their own agenda such as Turkey who are more focused on the Kurds.
A statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA said the new coalition would have a joint operations centre based in Riyadh to “coordinate and support military operations”.
The states it listed as joining the new coalition included Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and several African nations.
The list did not include Shi’ite Muslim Iran, the arch rival of Sunni Saudi Arabia for influence across the Arab world. Tehran and Riyadh are ranged on opposite sides in proxy conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
A pity Iran is not included, but one step at a time.
The Herald writes:
She was brave and inspiring, sharing something as personal and private as her death for the advancement of a human right.
Instead of spending her last months quietly with family and friends, she spent them in a legal battle – fighting for the right to choose how she died.
For that courageous effort, the late Wellington lawyer Lecretia Seales is theHerald’s New Zealander of the Year. She died, aged 42, on June 5 from brain cancer. Her death came just days after learning she had been unsuccessful in her High Court bid for the legal right for a doctor to help her end her life. She wanted the right to not die a painful death.
As the result of the debate she prompted, Parliament began the first public inquiry into the issue of medically assisted dying.
Her husband, Matt Vickers, fights on – determined to ensure her personal sacrifice wasn’t for nothing.
Her family and friends say Lecretia was a private person. Mr Vickers said she would have found this accolade “over the top, because she was only doing what was right”.
But, as her friend Cate Honore Brett writes today, it is utterly fitting.
A good choice. She used her death to try and give other New Zealanders a choice about what they would do in her circumstances. Even if you disagree with her on the issue, you should respect her willingness to try and have some good come from her situation.
J.J. Abrams delivered. As one reviewer said, this is the Star Wars film you are looking for. It is the best of the series and I predict will break pretty much every box office record on the planet.
The detailed review with spoilers is over the break, along with thoughts on all those unanswered questions.