This data comes from MBIE. Margins are well over double what they were a few years ago.
There is obviously not sufficient competition between retailers in NZ. You shouldn’t see that sort of margin increase when there is. This may be because people don’t tend to shop around enough, and just fill up at the local.
But regardless the Government should be looking to see what it can to get better competition, so margins reduce to their normal levels.
Stuff reports:
There are no immediate plans for New Zealand to host its fourth Commonwealth Games, the country’s Olympic Committee secretary general Kereyn Smith says.
Good.
The best way to have a Government lose hundreds of millions of dollars, or billions of dollars is to host a Football World Cup, then an Olympics Games and then a Commonwealth Games.
Stats NZ reports:
There were 2,824 new dwellings consented nationally in July 2015, up 24 percent compared with July 2014, Statistics New Zealand said today.
“This was the highest number of new dwellings consented in a month since March 2005,” business indicators manager Neil Kelly said. “It was boosted by apartments and townhouses, flats, and units.”
New dwellings consented in July 2015, compared with July 2014:
- nationally, up 542 (24 percent) to 2,824
- Auckland, up 267 (31 percent) to 1,116
- Waikato, up 85 (40 percent) to 296.
In seasonally adjusted terms, the number was up 20 percent from June 2015.
It’s good to see the growth in consents, as that is a pre-requisite to increasing the supply of houses and apartments, and reducing pressure on prices.
I always prefer annual data to monthly. Here’s what the annualised data looks like.
So consents fell pretty consistently from 2004 to 2009. They were then level at around 25,000 for around three years, and in the last two and a half years have increased by 75% or so.
The Flag Consideration Panel has announced the four designs that will be voted on in the first referendum. Their job is now mainly done, and time for New Zealanders to vote which ones they prefer, for the second referendum.
I like them all. I’m not sure what order I’ll rank them in. At the moment my order of preference would be No 2 (left to right), No 1, No 4 and No 3. But I my change my mind. No 3 is growing on me. However at the end of the day i think the silver fern is our national symbol, and has been for over 100 years. It’s what kiwis around the world use and regard as representing New Zealand, and I would like it on our flag. However as I said, I like all the design above.
Kevin Norquay writes at Stuff:
Here’s a New Zealand team that could win the Rugby World Cup, all made up of leftovers from the All Blacks.
Do I hear you say “that’s mental?” You are so right, it is mental and that’s why this team could win the title.
For a start, they would not be scarred by the pressure of defending the cup – something that’s never been done.
This team would have a point to prove – left out of the All Blacks, they would be out to claim rugby scalps.
So who would be in the left overs team?
That would be a pretty damn good team.
I remember in Dunedin the club leagues often had a University A and University B team compete in them, and the final would often be between them. Wouldn’t it be fun if a second NZ team could compete in the World Cup, and the final was the All Blacks vs New Zealand B 🙂
The Herald reports:
Auckland’s SkyCity casino has become the latest employer to abandon zero-hours contracts.
The company, New Zealand’s biggest single-site hospitality employer with almost 3500 staff on its Auckland site, has agreed to give its 800 part-time and on-call staff guaranteed hours of at least eight, 16, 20 or 32 hours a week, at their choice.
Good to see. Note it was done by negotiation.
“In the past it’s been a much more confrontational relationship between the unions and the casino,” he said.
“They genuinely took a constructive approach to us this time around. I think we managed to make a bit of progress on things that we wouldn’t have done previously.
“What’s going on in the background in the public arena is, of course, the zero-hours campaign. Also there was just an acknowledgement that they wanted to do what’s best by their employees… I think it’s just a realisation that part-time and zero-hours contracts are quite costly when you allow for engagement and training costs.”
He said the company still employed some genuinely casual staff as well, but had agreed on mechanisms by which they could become permanent part-time workers.
It’s important not to confuse casual staff with zero hours contracts.
Casual employment agreements are vital flexibility for both employer and employees. There is no obligation of the employee to work any particular hours, and no obligation on an employer to guarantee any hours.
Zero hour contracts are where it is one sided, where the employee must make themselves available to work as the employer demands, but in return has no guarantee of any minimum hours.
The Herald reports:
A domestic air fare war is underway, after Qantas low-cost carrier announced it would launch new routes to regional New Zealand.
Jetstar is using $9 fares to promote the unveiling of Nelson, Napier, New Plymouth and Palmerston North to its regional network. Air NZ responded immediately, matching the $9 fares on its ‘grabaseat’ website.
I love competition.
It now costs more to park at airports than to fly out from it!
Obviously they won’t last for ever, but price competition will make them a lot cheaper than they have been.
The Guardian reports:
The Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker said on Sunday that building a wall on the US northern border with Canada was “a legitimate issue for us to look at”.
Asked in an interview on NBC if he wanted to build a wall on the Canadian border, the Wisconsin governor cited his experience talking to voters “including some law enforcement folks” in New Hampshire, an early voting state in the Republican primaries. Such people, he said, were concerned about terrorists potentially crossing over from Canada.
“They raised some very legitimate concerns, including some law enforcement folks that brought that up to me at one of our town hall meetings about a week and a half ago,” Walker said. “So that is a legitimate issue for us to look at.”
So a 2000 km long wall on the southern border and one of the same size on the northern border.
But what about the east and west coast? Terrorists could come in by boat.I think they need a 100 metre high wall along both coasts.
New Zealand may have to look at this also. We have no wall preventing Australian terrorists crossing over the Tasman Sea by boat.
“I worked digging wells one summer, which is kind of like a metaphor for government work – that’s where you start from ground level and you work down rather than up and when you succeed you fail, because when you find water they fire you. Not a great incentive programme!”
– Brian Tracy
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:
Labour’s associate education spokesman, Kelvin Davis, has attended a charter school fundraiser – despite his party being bitterly opposed to the controversial schooling model.
The $250-a-seat fundraiser was for a school run by the He Puna Marama Trust in Whangarei.
Charter or “partnership” schools are publicly-funded but privately-run, and are strongly opposed by education unions.
Labour has pledged to scrap charter schools and its education spokesman Chris Hipkins has frequently attacked the model during Parliamentary question time.
Despite this, Mr Davis, the party’s associate education (Maori education) spokesman, attended the fundraiser with fellow Labour MP Peeni Henare.
That was despite leader Andrew Little asking them not to.
Good on them. They know that some charter schools are making a real difference with Maori kids who have been failing in the public school system. They decided to stand by their constituents, rather than their party.
He Puna Marama is considered by government as a successful example of the charter school model, used most recently by the Productivity Commission as a case study of why New Zealand should privatise social services.
It gained favourable NCEA marks last year, with at least 85 per cent of students achieving across all NCEA levels.
Yet Labour wants it closed down.
However, the trust has drawn criticism from the Labour Party and teachers’ unions, who say its schools are funded at a higher rate than state schools, which is unfair.
False. They get the same or less funding of a state school of the same size, decile and age.
Working class lawyer Micky Savage writes at The Standard:
Back then Rugby was king in New Zealand. All Blacks were deities and were instantly recognisable. Test matches were waited with anticipation for weeks in advance. The whole country used to shut down while test matches were being played. And provincial and club rugby was watched by huge numbers.
Now things are different. More kids play soccer than Rugby. The game is highly professionalised and commercialised and the All Blacks suck huge resources out of the game.
They suck resources? I’d suggest it is the money the All Blacks and Super teams make that allows the NZRFU to fund other levels of the game. But I’m sure Mr Savage knows best.
Club rugby, once the backbone of the game, is now nothing more than a talent spotting opportunity. Provincial rugby is nothing more than Sky TV filler. And All Black games can only be seen if you have large amounts of money to buy a ticket or can afford a Sky TV subscription. Watching the All Blacks is no longer a working class pursuit and is more entertainment for the wealthy.
Thanks to ACT and other like minded MPs, working class fans of the All Blacks can watch the games at their local pubs.
Things have also changed for National. Instead of keeping politics out of sport they are now happy to politicise the All Blacks on every possible occasion. Yesterday’s announcement of the All Black team for this year’s world cup is a classic example. Parliament was opened up at the request of the Rugby Union. Ministers were there en masse seeking every opportunity to take selfies with All Blacks. And John Key was obviously in his element.
Mr Savage overlooks that Labour MPs were there also, and in fact Andrew Little was invited to speak.
John Key’s treatment of the All Blacks is as cynical and calculating as Rob Muldoon’s treatment of the All Blacks in 1981.
Yes turning up to rugby games and events is much the same as the Springbok Tour.
And we live in a nation where urgent legislation can be passed so that at 5 am in the morning people can drink beer in pubs while watching rugby. And pubs could be open continuously for 69 hours.
A law backed by all but six Labour MPs. And good on them for doing so.
Got sent by a friend a copy of her e-mail to Amy Adams on her struggle to get rural broadband in Tamahere. It’s rather amusing, and with her permission I’m sharing it here:
Hi Amy
Just wanted to share with you my crusade for the holy grail (holy grail being first world internet speeds):
I live out on xxx in Tamahere, Waikato this has been a well established rural area with a lot more lifestyle blocks being built out here. We are only 7minutes out of the main city area.
We are hooked up to Sparks Rural Broadband Business unlimited plan. It’s the only broadband that is affordable and that we can get out here.
- A Naïve girl trying to make a difference
My first correspondence starts with trusting the automated voice with putting me in queue for 1hr+ for a ring back. After a solid few hours I get a call. I was currently out running errands. I explained my plight to the “fault and technical issues team” where I got told that it was outside their knowledge to run me through all the troubleshooting steps and that I would have to be put through to the technical team. I informed her that I would not be home for another hr and she said a techy from the technical team will give me a ring around midday. A whole day passed by with no call from Spark.
- Lets fight internet with internet, my experience with live chat
Round two begins a few days following when I was like bugger being put in a queue and leaving a call back to the merchants of chance and fate. I decided to hop on live chat hoping my internet speeds would support such a new age mode of online communication. But to my surprise the internet managed to give me that much. However the Spark live chat gave me nothing much in the way of advice:
00:00:03 Spark : Question:Really slow internet, lucky to get 0.5Mb when we should be getting 5Mb
00:01:10 Chris : ok
00:01:15 Chris : HEy xxx
00:01:23 xxx : Hi, just wanted to be talked through troubleshooting etc in the event you guys need to send a techy out. Our internet is slow and very patchy.
00:01:32 Chris : can you please confirm the number it’s on?
00:01:50 xxx : yyyyyyyy
00:03:23 Chris : Ok hold the chat and I’ll have someone from the residential team look at this!
00:05:31 xxx : Hi Nicole
00:05:58 Nicole : Hey There xxx. I can see you are having trouble with your internet.What is happening for you?
00:07:58 xxx : Well I moved in here beginning of July, and I’ve known this family for yrs and I know it’s always been rough getting decent internet out here but I recently discovered that given the new work on infrastructure out here we should be gauranteed atleast 5Mb speed. We’re lucky if we get 1Mb and that’s just to the one computer that’s ethernetted, wirelessly connected gets about 0.2Mb
00:10:52 Nicole : Thats not good xxx. This sounds like it is a bit more technical that we originally thought. I can organise for a Specialist to give you a call if you like.
00:11:19 xxx : Yea I was told some one would call me at midday…and here I am on here 🙁
00:11:30 xxx: would be nice if I got a call this time please 🙂
00:12:38 Nicole : Sure I will organise for someone to call you. They have a 32 min wait at the moment so it shouldn’t take to long. Whats the best number to call you on?
00:13:01 xxx : yyyyyyyy
00:14:45 Nicole : Great thats all booked in. Someone will call you shortly. Is there anything else I can help with?
00:16:41 xxx : no that’s it thank you 🙂
00:16:49 Nicole : Great have a good day 🙂
- Troubleshooting with the troublemakers
After an hr I receive a call from the techy to run me through all the troubleshooting. They also ran speed tests on the line to show that it’s showing speeds between 3.3-5Mbps. I reset the modem, try the modem in every known jack point in the house to run speed tests on all of them. Low and behold nothing was wrong on our end. The last and very inconvenient part was to test another modem on our internet or use our modem on a different internet connect to test to see if it was our modem crapping up. Otherwise so sad too bad no techy for you.
- Phoneline outage, the cherry on top of the shitty Spark cake.
In the meantime our phone lines go down and we get told there’s been an outage in our area since the beginning of August. When we get a techy out to fix our phone lines, Brian the account holder and who I live with also relays issues with our internet, the techy checks our modem and runs a speed test. Essentially confirming what we all thought, it most probably isn’t a fault in the line but just the sad reality of being at the end of the exchange and that pretty much every house on this end would be getting these same shitty speeds. He also told us there is actually a Fibre box installed at the end of our road and that it may be worth investigating into when that would get installed. Even suggest we write a letter to spark….umm lol?
- Out of the Broadband pan into the Fibre.
Now we come to the events of today (24th August). I checked on the Chorus website and saw that Fibre was installed but not due to be connected until June 2017.
So I thought I’d give the RBI angle one more go (currently still on the phone and have been writing this email in between being put on hold. Also had to sort out all the penalties and extra charges they put on my mobile phone account despite them never sending me any bills or warnings or jackshit, I got those penalties waived so I guess they managed to fix at least a couple of their muck ups today, have been on the phone now for 2hrs and counting) So I’ve relayed this message to about 3 different people today:
“I have been through the ringer and essentially this is the situation. We are part of the RBI. I have confirmation that we should be getting between 3.3-5Mbps and it also shows 5+Mbps on the Chorus RBI map on their website. For the past 2 months I have lived here we have never clocked a speed close to 1Mbps and I want to understand why that is and how you can sink in that much $$ into infrastructure and us not see 1Mbps of a result”
- Finally I actually get put through to a “specialised RBI team” what ever that means, so is this salvation? Or just another mirage in the rural broadband desert?
I gave her the same speech, now being able to recite it and multitask checking whats on the news. Crazy about police cocking up the Burdett case!? She says she has to run her own speedtest as she cannot pull up the history of my phone conversation with techy at point 3. As I was put on hold for what I hoped to be the last time in the 2hrs I’ve been on the phone, she comes back to inform me that due to a fault that was just registered on our line scheduled to be fixed today she cannot do a speedtest. After 2hr 10mins on the phone I am waiting for a ring back in order to run said testing to be able to file an “investigation” to get a tech guy out (at this point my brain was fighting as to whether or not I should throw my phone across the room) and I should HOPE to get a call back later today confirming.
I did get a call back pretty quick so pretty stoked about that small victory. They’re going to send a techy out to check the exchange in 24hrs. Let’s see what happens, my bet is that there will be nothing wrong with the exchange and the speed is attributed to congestion and distance.
- What have I learnt?
New Zealand is a 3rd world country where farmers are too stupid to realise they’re getting ripped off, or if they do realise they’re too busy trying to sustain a dying dairy farming industry to be on the phone for hrs at a time, multiple days a week.
Spark customer service runs a competition to see how many teams you can bounce one issue around on.
Treat them like I treat my one night stands, never EVER expect a call back. Expectations only leads to heartbreak and a possible brain aneurism.
I can last approx. 1hr-1hr20 on the phone before I start swearing at them.
Please 2degrees come back to my life.
Sorry if this is harsh and some of it expecting too much of Spark. But after a week of getting no where and talking to about nearly every broadband related team with Spark I have a sore back from being bent over and fucked by bureaucracy.
A very disgruntled and dismayed New Zealand citizen
xxxxx
The Washington Post reports:
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s once-commanding lead in Iowa has shrunk to just seven percentage points, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has surged in the state whose caucuses will kick off the race for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, according to a poll released Saturday evening.
The Des Moines Register-Bloomberg Politics poll, considered the gold standard of Iowa surveys, found Clinton with the support of 37 percent of likely Democratic caucus-goers, followed by Sanders at 30 percent.
There is little doubt that Clinton’s campaign is in trouble, and that she is inspiring Democrats.
However that does not mean she will not win the nomination. She almost certainly will. It is more about how much damage she takes along the way.
It’s not good when the most left wing Senator in the United States is only 7% behind you. In May she led him by 40%.
What is interesting is the net favourabilities (with Iowa Democrats) for the three possible contenders:
Obama by the way is +79%.
If you look just at those who are strongly favourable, and strongly unfavourable the net differences are:
Sanders supporters are more excited about him.
Sanders is also leading the polls in New Hampshire by 3%. So he could win both Iowa (1 February) and new Hampshire (9 February).
However after that it is Nevada and South Carolina, where Clinton should romp home. Sanders has little support outside a small geographic area. However the danger to Clinton is that if he wins Iowa and New Hampshire, the media attention he’ll get might move others towards him.
The Herald reports:
Two sisters in India were sentenced to be raped as “punishment” for their brother running away with a married woman from a higher caste in the latest caste incident to shock the country.
Meenakshi Kumari, who is 23, and her sister, 15, would then be paraded naked with their faces blackened through the streets, according to a ruling from the all-male village council.
The sisters have petitioned the country’s Supreme Court to be protected from the so-called “eye-for-an-eye” ruling from the village council in Uttar Pradesh state, 48km from the capital, New Delhi.
It’s the year 2015, and I can’t believe stuff like this is still happening.
Khap panchayats are the archaic systems of village justice that exist in much of rural India. They are dominated by the Jat caste and are almost always run by male village elders. The “courts” often order honour killings and sexual “punishments” and are frequently allowed to operate completely outside the Indian legal system, despite the Supreme Court labelling them “kangaroo courts”.
Here’s an idea. If you can’t get rid of these kanagaroo courts entirely, then how about announcing that any members of a village council that vote for a sentence that causes shame to their country, then have that sentence applies to them. An eye for an eye indeed.
So if these men are going to vote for rape as a punishment for dishonour, then see how they like it. I suspect after a couple of times where they have to endure their own sentences, they’ll stop making such outrageous decisions.
And no I’m not serious, but I am appalled.
The Herald reports:
Auckland’s two most exclusive state schools have looming roll dilemmas due to a property boom predicted to surge student numbers.
More than 1800 apartments will be completed in the Auckland Grammar zone within three years, with 600 of those also falling in the Epsom Girls’ Grammar area. …
Auckland Grammar’s headmaster Tim O’Connor said it was actively working with the ministry, including talks about the development of new schools.
“We have 2500 on the roll, that’s at capacity. And we don’t want to be any bigger than we are,” Mr O’Connor said. “But there’s no silver bullet. We have to be aware of demand and everyone understands that.”
Act’s Epsom MP David Seymour said he was opposed to zone shifts – he headed a campaign when two nearby schools proposed overlapping their zones into the area last year – and to intensification.
One idea was to make a rule so that students in new houses would not be included in the zone, he said. There was a need to balance the needs of people who lived in Epsom with the “interests of developers who want to develop property and sell an education with that property”.
At present wealthy families buy an Auckland Grammar or EGGS education by paying several hundred thousand dollars more for a house in the zone. This effectively makes those schools more expensive than the most exclusive private schools. However the money doesn’t go to the schools, but to the previous land owners.
Here’s what I would do:
This would get rid of the wealth barrier to schools like Grammar and EGGS. Having rich parents who can afford a house in Epsom would no longer be the only way to attend schools like that.
The Telegraph reports:
Jeremy Corbyn has been accused by veteran Simon Weston of “repugnant surrender” to Argentina for suggesting it should be given the right to jointly govern the Falklands Mr Corbyn, who opposed the invasion, said that there has to be a move towards “real peace” and that Britain must open a “dialogue” with Argentina over the future of the islands.
He said that under the arrangement the Falklands could retain their British nationality while a joint administration is put in place.
The comments were severely criticised by Mr Weston, who suffered 46 per cent burns after the RFA Sir Galahad was bombed during the 1982 conflict.
Mr Weston said: “It is a repugnant idea. I don’t see why it should happen given that the Argentines never had the islands. They have no right to them.
“It could cause civil war again by emboldening the Argentinians. It frightens me enormously because he claims to be such a supporter of democratic freedoms while what he is suggesting throwing the Falkland islanders right to democracy out.
“I don’t ever see him winning an election because his policies and his attitudes just won’t wash with the British public.”
It is up to the people of the Falklands to decide who they want to be governed by. In their 2013 referendum, 99.8% of the population voted to remain British, on a turnout of 91.9%. But Corbyn would ignore that, and give Argentina joint control.
Stuff reports:
It meant players of the quality of Charles Piutau, Israel Dagg and Cory Jane all missed out, with Piutau the unluckiest of the lot after some compelling All Blacks form this year.
It says something about the strength of NZ Rugby when Cory Jane and Israel Dagg can’t make the top 30.
ALL BLACKS SQUAD:-
Hookers: Dane Coles (Hurricanes/Wellington), Keven Mealamu (Blues/Auckland), Codie Taylor (Crusaders/Canterbury).
Props: Wyatt Crockett (Crusaders/Canterbury), Charlie Faumuina (Blues/Auckland), Ben Franks (Hurricanes/Hawke’s Bay), Owen Franks (Crusaders/Canterbury), Tony Woodcock (Blues/North Harbour).
Locks: Brodie Retallick (Chiefs/Bay of Plenty), Luke Romano (Crusaders/Canterbury), Samuel Whitelock (Crusaders/Canterbury).
Loose forwards: Sam Cane (Chiefs/Bay of Plenty), Jerome Kaino (Blues/Auckland), Richie McCaw – captain (Crusaders/Canterbury), Liam Messam (Chiefs/Waikato), Kieran Read (Crusaders/Canterbury), Victor Vito (Hurricanes/Wellington).
Halfbacks: Tawera Kerr-Barlow (Chiefs/Waikato), TJ Perenara (Hurricanes/Wellington), Aaron Smith (Highlanders/Manawatu).
First five-eighths: Beauden Barrett (Hurricanes/Taranaki), Daniel Carter (Crusaders/Canterbury), Colin Slade (Crusaders/Canterbury).
Midfielders: Malakai Fekitoa (Highlanders/Auckland), Ma’a Nonu (Hurricanes/Wellington), Conrad Smith (Hurricanes/Wellington), Sonny Bill Williams (Chiefs/Counties Manukau).
Outside backs: Nehe Milner-Skudder (Hurricanes/Manawatu), Julian Savea (Hurricanes/Wellington), Ben Smith (Highlanders/Otago), Waisake Naholo (Highlanders/Taranaki).
Just a few weeks to go!
News.com.au reports:
IT’S less than two months old but the Australian Border Force became well known for all of the wrong reasons on Friday.
The force had planned to spot check people’s visas on the streets of Melbourne this weekend as part of its Operation Fortitude, but the crackdown was cancelled at the last minute amid angry protests in the Victorian capital.
The furore has left the combined Customs and Immigration unit accused of being “uniformed goons” by one senator and an MP has likened it to a Stalinist operation.
The Australian Border Force (ABF), founded on July 1, had its officers shoved into the spotlight by an overeager press release, which hinted at activities as dark as the organisation’s quasi-military uniforms.
An announcement Friday morning made clear that ABF personnel would patrol the Melbourne CBD with police “speaking with any individuals we cross paths with”.
Visas would be demanded and checked.
And the aim was to “target crime in and around the Melbourne CBD to make the city a safer place for everyone”.
This was startling news for the many who might not have heard of the ABF, except perhaps as the officials who stamp passports at international terminals.
The idea they could roam city streets pulling up and threatening people was deeply disturbing.
“Either the Border Force are doing racial profiling, in which case they should stop it, or they are hassling everyone, and they should stop that as well,” Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm said.
“We do not need any more uniformed goons.
“This indicates that the Border Force should be radically downsized and its workers allowed to do something useful for a living.”
Think about how awful this sounded.
You’re walking around the Melbourne CBD and some uniformed officers approach you demanding you can prove you are a citizen or resident of Australia, or have a visa. If you can’t produce proof, bang you are arrested and/or deported.
Think if you’re a Kiwi, and don’t have your passport with you.
They have later said they will only be interacting with people who come to the attention of the Police. But the original release sounded like a bunch of goons marching up and down the streets of Melbourne demanding to see your papers. A huge own goal.
Oliver Hartwich at the NZ Initiative has had an essay published on Why Europe Failed. The forward is by former Australian PM John Howard who notes:
Oliver Hartwich has written a compelling essay, Why Europe Failed. He lucidly identifies the essentially undemocratic character of much of the European project. Political elites, unaccountable to national electorates, impose decisions on tens of millions of people without any real fear of rebuke. Hartwich provides a sobering analysis of an ageing Europe, overburdened by the size of its welfare state.
Some quotes from the essay:
Contrast this with the only one statistic in which Europe leads the world by a mile: The EU’s 28 member states account for 54% of global spending on social welfare.
But that is almost a by the way. The key thing:
Europe’s problems are more fundamental. Its elitist structure of governance has locked its political institutions into paralysis. Its economic model of a mixed market economy is unable to keep up pace with more dynamic world regions. Its demographic changes will test the limits of its expanding welfare state. And all of this is happening against a background of increased security concerns on Europe’s borders with Africa, the Arab world, and Russia. Europe is being challenged on many fronts at once, and even this is an understatement.
He looks at the European Parliament:
The first problem is the most basic one: Unlike national parliaments, the European Parliament does not have the right to initiate lawmaking procedures. This is not a triviality. Parliaments are often called legislatures because that is what they are there for: to legislate. The European Parliament can neither make laws on its own (it needs the European Commission, i.e. the executive branch of the EU, to do that), nor easily remove the executive (it needs a two-thirds majority). In effect, the European Parliament hardly deserves its name. It is a toothless parliament by the standards of most democratic nations.
If you abolished it, would anyone notice?
Europe’s political and economic problems will soon be exacerbated by its ageing society. In a number of European countries, birth rates have been very low for several decades. The replacement fertility rate, that is, the fertility rate at which populations would remain constant over time, is 2.1. That means if women have, on average, 2.1 children over their lifetime, then every generation would be replaced by a new generation of the same size. The current average fertility rate for the EU, however, stands at just 1.58. This means the next generation will be about a quarter smaller than the current generation. If the trend continues, this new generation will be succeeded by another generation that is another 25% smaller.
Breeding yourself out of existence.
The consequences of these demographic changes will be severe. It will be difficult for European nations to service their debt, let alone repay it, with both shrinking and ageing populations. There is only so much that increased productivity can do to compensate for a collapsing workforce.
In other words, more countries may go the way of Greece – welfare commitments that their economy simply can’t provide.
Hartwich’s conclusion:
The standout reasons for Europe’s decline are its elitist political system and its inflated welfare state – and the interrelations between these two. Europe no longer rules the world. Nor can it hope to regain the dominant position it once enjoyed. Europe’s decline is entirely self-inflicted. It is a continent that first destroyed itself in two world wars. It then weakened itself by inflating the activities of the state while creating a bureaucratic, isolated, and elitist superstructure in the form of the EU. It also wrecked its monetary system by introducing a common currency that was never going to work and caused more problems than it ever solved.
In many ways, Europe is a case study in how not to conduct one’s economic and political affairs, which makes it all the more worthwhile to pay attention to European affairs so we do not repeat their mistakes here.
But don’t hold your breath. Short-term political gains through welfare spending is too tempting for politicians anywhere and too beguiling for voters.
Greece is only the first European country to effectively go bankrupt. It is unlikely to be the last.
Celia invites Aucklanders to Wellington in the Herald:
We freed up downtown Wellington from restrictive minimum carparking requirements in the 90s and now more than 40 per cent of our population growth is downtown – where you can walk home from a late night out at karaoke or the ballet.
Wellington’s inner and outer Town Belts constrain urban sprawl and give us the bonus of great views, awesome mountain biking and a resurgence of birdlife spreading out from Zealandia so kaka regularly fly over Treasury, rather than biodiversity being confined to the outer edges of the city.
I’ve seen kaka in trees on our property several times. Zealandia has made a huge difference.
Getting into town for work is easy and it’s even easier to get around on foot. You can knock off half a dozen meetings a day without needing a taxi.
Yep. The maximum walking time to get anywhere is 30 minutes within the CBD.
According to data from CoreLogic, the Auckland region saw an increase in average property prices of 17 per cent to $840,165, during the 12 months to June. Wellington is sitting at $459,366, up 1.5 per cent over the same period.
Apartment prices have been almost static for the past few years.
Here’s an interesting question: What percentage of Wellington jobs are in the public sector? 30 per cent? 20? It’s actually 15 per cent. With our rapidly expanding innovation sector, Wellington is becoming more high-tech town than public sector.
The IT, gaming, film and cultural sectors are all booming.
Wellington has the highest concentration of web-based and digital technology companies per capita in New Zealand with 7373 people working in the ICT sector and Wellingtonians are twice as likely to work in ICT as people in other regions
Didn’t know it was twice as high here.
Wellington has more than 300 cafes, bars and restaurants, and claims more places to eat and drink per capita than New York.
And they range from the great curry and kebab shops to the top class restaurants such as Logan-Brown and Hippopotamus. And it’s nice to be able to easily get a drink at 2 am if you want to carry on the conversation.
Our events calendar is packed. This month we had Visa Wellington On a Plate, the country’s largest culinary festival, teamed with Beervana, and LUX fusing light and kinetic art. September brings The World of WearableArt™ Awards Show, one of the world’s biggest stage spectacles and a showcase of completely unbridled international design imagination. Coming up we have the 30th anniversary of the New Zealand Festival, the pre-Olympic Games Sevens Wellington and many other premium events provide a good excuse for you to check out what else the capital has to offer.
Almost too many at times. You bounce from film festival to comedy festival to foreign film festivals.
It’s all so easy to get around. If you fancy a swim, kayak or paddleboard at lunchtime, you just wander down from your office. Or head into the Town Belt hills for a walk or a mountain bike. And back in time for that 1pm meeting.
One of the few cities in the world where you can mountain bike during your lunch break.
So Celia is right, Wellington is a great place to live and work. Just please, don’t all come at once.
Stuff reports:
A journalist’s bid to interview convicted double-killer Scott Watson behind bars has been approved, but a date is yet to be set.
Department of Corrections deputy chief executive corporate services Vincent Arbuckle on Friday confirmed that an application from journalist Michael White was approved.
I predict Scott Watson will say he is innocent, and someone else did it.
This will make major media headlines as newspapers rush to report the shocking news that someone in prison has claimed they are innocent.
I also predict the interview will not ask Watson about his 48 previous convictions, or his assault conviction during his time in prison.
I further predict media stories will not focus much on:
Instead it will all be about Watson claims he is innocent, as if that is newsworthy.
The Herald reports:
Aucklanders won’t be able to choose their next council at the click of a mouse.
Local Government Associate Minister Louise Upston confirmed that the country’s biggest city wouldn’t feature in a trial of online voting for next year’s local body elections.
Officials from the Super City are some of the biggest supporters of a digital voting revolution, but Auckland Council’s catchment has been deemed too big.
“A trial that includes all of Auckland and its approximately 1 million electors is simply too large to adequately mitigate these risks,” she said.
I understand the nervousness about having such a big Council s part of the trial, but by excluding Auckland you also run the risk that the trial is uneconomic.
If the Government was willing to contribute towards the costs of a trial, then I think it would be fine to say Auckland is too big to take part. But as the Government has declined to contribute costs, then excluding the largest Council in NZ runs the risk that the trial will not occur.
Stung by a dismal 36 per cent voter turnout in the 2013 elections, Auckland Council has lobbied hard to introduce internet voting.
But its campaign has failed. Applications are now only being sought from smaller councils to provide a range of voting systems.
So far, Porirua, Rotorua, Palmerston North, Matamata-Piako, Selwyn, Marlborough and Whanganui councils have confirmed that they want to be part of the trial.
So four cities and three districts. I’m not sure if they will be able to make it economic. I hope they can, because if there is a sucessful trial, I expect 90% of Councils would then offer an online voting option in future.
Auckland Council bosses are not happy about being sidelined as they consider the council is well placed to take part.
“We were disappointed the Government decided to exclude the council from the online voting trial,” manager democracy services, Marguerite Delbet, said.
The council had been actively working to introduce online voting and this year asked the Government to allow it.
Auckland’s size is a risk, but also a benefit. They have a more well resourced voting unit than most Councils, and I think would have addedvalue to teh trial.