The Herald reports:

A leading New Zealand doctor has called on the Government to follow Australia’s example to cut child welfare payments to families who do not vaccinate their children, saying the policy would help protect the most vulnerable in our society.

Dr Lance O’Sullivan, who was named New Zealander of the Year 2014, said all parents – no matter their income – should be compelled to vaccinate their children.

“I think the bottom line for me is we need to have strategies and initiatives that will protect our children, and in particular vulnerable children, and by definition that would be children living in welfare homes,” he said.

“This is not and shouldn’t be seen as a welfare benefit bashing sort of idea, I would see this as a proactive idea to ensure those very vulnerable children are protected by a best practice decision, which is immunising children. We know that if you have children immunised they’re going to have reduced disease and burden of disease.

“The vaccine preventable diseases that I see in my practice and in my community are worrying. We see children with pneumonia, and other serious infections that we know should be non-existent, or at least very rare, in our communities and in our country.”

His comments come after Australia announced a new policy to be introduced next year that would cut a number of child and family benefits from parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. The legislation – dubbed ‘no jab, no pay’ – has been met with a mixed response.

I don’t support compulsion, but I do think parents should bear the financial consequences of their decisions.

It is worth noting the immunisation rate for two year olds has increased from 76% in 2008 to 93.5% today,which is a massive increase. And very pleasing is the fact the Maori and Pacific rates are the same or higher at the European rates – as they are groups that used to have much lower rates. Maori rate has gone from 73% to 93% and Pacific from 81% to 97%.

December can’t come quickly enough!

Transtasman writes:

In the same week, there was a much more significant event in NZ journalism, with the editor-in-chief of the NZ Herald Tim Murphy announcing he is stepping down. The question might well be asked why somebody in his prime (Murphy is just 51) is leaving what many in the trade believe is the top journalistic post in the country. While the John Campbell story got a front-page lead in the Weekend Herald with another full page devoted to it inside, the Murphy departure rated a single column on page three of the paper. Murphy, who took the helm at the Herald when he was 37, is the youngest person to edit the paper, the 18th editor in a publication 151 years old and for long enough with the largest circulation in the country.

I do think Tim Murphy leaving is a big blow to journalism, but hopefully he will pop up elsewhere in the media world.

Murphy is very very popular with the Herald staff, and under his reign the Herald has significantly boosted their investigative journalism capacity, and also expanded well into data journalism.

He’s also very approachable, and interacts well on Twitter, in a way few other major editors do.

He’s as impartial as any media figure I know. Couldn’t even guess how he votes. He took a principled stand to campaign against the Electoral Finance Act in 2007 and 2008, but has also not held back in holding this Government to account.

His departure is a loss, but also an opportunity for others to step up.

This is one of the views from the top of The Nut in Stanley. We only popped in there to grab a bite on the way to Smithton, but were very glad we did. They have a chairlift up to the top of The Nut, which is basically a flat mountain. You can then do a two km loop around the top, getting great views in every direction.

A very tranquil area.

Can just see some of Stanley below. It is a small 500 population tourist town – a few souvenir shops and cafes.

The lobster at the Stanley Hotel attracted us in. Very reasonably priced, and very nice for lunch.

The Ministry of Health has published data on cancer survival rates in NZ. They show survival rates are increasing over time (which is good), and have a huge amount of data on survival rates for different cancers, including demographic breakdowns.

People may be interested in which cancers have the best and worst survival rates, so I have charted them below. Note these are averages, and a lot depends on how early a cancer is diagnosed.

The survival rate after one year for all adult cancers is 78%. The only ones below 50% after one year are Pancreas, Lung, Oesophagus and Liver.

The least lethal cancer after one year is testis cancer. Still rather not have it!

More grim looking five years out, but still a 63% survival rate after five years for all adult cancers.  For five cancers the survival rate is below 20% – pancreas, lung, oesophagus, liver and brain.

Seven cancers have a survival rate of over 80% after five years – testis, thyroid, prostate, melanoma, breast, Hodgkin Lymphoma and Childhood.

Stuff reports:

Gaioz Nigalidze’s rise through the ranks of professional chess began in 2007, the year the first iPhone was released. In hindsight, the timing might not be coincidental.

On Saturday (NZT Sunday), Nigalidze, the 25-year-old reigning Georgian champion, was competing in the 17th annual Dubai Open Chess Tournament when his opponent spotted something strange.

“Nigalidze would promptly reply to my moves and then literally run to the toilet,” Armenian grandmaster Tigran Petrosian said.

“I noticed that he would always visit the same toilet partition, which was strange, since two other partitions weren’t occupied.”

Petrosian complained to the officials. After Nigalidze left the bathroom once more, officials inspected the interior and say they found an iPhone wrapped in toilet paper and hidden behind the toilet.

“When confronted, Nigalidze denied he owned the device,” according to the tournament’s website.

“But officials opened the smart device and found it was logged into a social networking site under Nigalidze’s account. They also found his game being analysed in one of the chess applications.”

Sadly this is going to get harder to prevent and detect. Imagine Google Glass built into your normal glasses. Or someone in the audience having a smart phone and communicating through blinking or some sort of code.

Future tournaments may have to be in glass cubicles with one way glass, and sweeps for technology.

“The basic problem is that it’s incredibly easy to cheat with a phone,” says Nigel Short, an English chess grandmaster who once was ranked third in the world and is now 60th.

“You can have some application running on your phone, and it’s quite easy to conceal… my dog could win a major tournament using one of these devices. Or my grandmother. Anybody could do this.”

“A friend of mine recently joked that his mobile phone will beat Magnus Carlsen,” Short said, referring to the Norwegian chess prodigy who is currently the world’s No 1 player.

“I said, ‘What are you talking about? My microwave could beat Magnus Carlsen.'” …

Short said penalties have to be even harsher than those for Olympic athletes who abuse drugs because smart phones alter the playing field even more than steroids.

“The difference is, if I were to take drugs – some sort of steroids or whatever – I will still never be able to win the 100 metres or the Tour de France because I simply don’t have the physique for this,” he said, “but any club player could win an international tournament if he’s using this sort of device.”

Yep a smart phone doesn’t just help you in chess, it basically makes you unbeatable as computer power is now so great it can analyse hundreds of moves ahead.

The cheater should have a life ban.

Once again, NZ is one of the better places in the world for women, or men, to live.

The Centre for Policy Studies a 15 page report on why every serious environmentalist should favour fracking. Some extracts:

• Shale gas can not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also reduce a deadly pollution known as PM2.5 that is currently killing over three million people each year, primarily in the developing world.
• As both global warming and air pollution can be mitigated by the development and utilisation of shale gas, developed economies should help emerging economies switch from coal to natural gas
• Shale gas technology should be advanced as rapidly as possible and shared freely.
• PM2.5 is a horrific environmental problem. The Health Effects Institute estimated that air pollution in 2010 led to 3.2 million deaths that year and the pollution is getting worse as global use of coal continues to grow.
• China will be producing more CO2 per person than the US by 2023. If the US were to disappear tomorrow, Chinese growth alone would bring worldwide emissions back to the same level in four years.
• To mitigate global warming, it is essential to slow worldwide emissions, not just those in the developed countries. And we feel this must be done without slowing the economic growth of the emerging world.
• PM2.5 kills more people per year than AIDS, malaria, diabetes or tuberculosis.
• Compared to coal, shale gas results in a 400- fold reduction of PM2.5, a 4,000-fold reduction in sulphur dioxide, a 70-fold reduction in nitrous oxides (NOx), and more than a 30-fold reduction in mercury
• The net result is that CO2 produced per kilowatt-hour of electricity from gas is only one third to one half that of coal

A very compelling case – using fracking to get shale gas, instead of coal, will save hundreds of thousands of lives, and reduce greenhouse gas emission by a half to two thirds.

Yet the Greens are trying to get fracking banned!

Stuff reports:

In her letter to Henry, Blue said female representation in Parliament had been stuck at around 30 per cent since the first MMP election in 1996, and even went backwards at the 2014 election.

In her letter to Henry, Blue said female representation in Parliament had been stuck at around 30 per cent since the first MMP election in 1996, and even went backwards at the 2014 election. 

Blue questioned whether lawyer and public servant Vicky Robertson, who is the new chief executive of the Ministry for the Environment would have been described as a “former hockey player” in a media headline if she was a man.

There was still “a lot of work to be done,” Blue said. 

There definitely is still significant sexism in NZ, where women in work get judged far more on what they wear, look like etc. However this example from Jackie Blue is not a good one, as I am sure a former NZ representative rugby player would also get a headline of “Ex All Black becomes Chief Executive”. In fact David Kirk is almost always referred to as an ex All Black, even in the context of his very successful business career.

The article I saw at Stuff said this about Vicky Robertson:

A rising star at the Treasury is quitting to head the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) as it prepares for overhaul of the Resource Management Act.

The State Services Commission on Tuesday confirmed Vicky Robertson, who is deputy chief executive at the Treasury, had been appointed chief executive of MfE, replacing Dr Paul Reynolds, who quit last November. …

The mother of two is a former national hockey (Black Sticks) representative and has competed at national level in mountain biking.

At Treasury Robertson was responsible for the corporate and financial operations, as well as monitoring the Crown’s commercial investments and debt management.

Robertson, the first woman to head Treasury’s tax unit, was seconded to the United Nations Development Programme in New York in 2010, where she led a strategic and structural review of the organisation.

The sporting mention was minor, and I think of interest.

If there was anything I would criticise it is the mention of being a “mother of two”. You don’t see many male executives described by how many children they are the father of.

UPDATE: It has been pointed out that the reference to “mother of two” comes from Vicky’s own bio on the Treasury website, presumably authored by her.

Stuff reports:

Les Munro, the only surviving pilot from the Dam Buster raids, has presented his medals to New Zealand in a special hand-over ceremony in Auckland.

Munro, who celebrated his 96^th birthday last Sunday, had originally intended to put the medals up for auction to fund the upkeep of the Bomber Command memorial in London’s Green Park.  

However, British businessman Lord Ashcroft in March made a donation to the RAF Benevolent Fund in return for Munro withdrawing his medals from auction and giving them to the Museum of Transport and Technology (Motat) in Auckland.

That presentation took place on Wednesday at Motat where the veteran squadron leader’s medals, flight logbooks and associated memorabilia will be kept.

Those in attendance included Lord Ashcroft, Prime Minister John Key, members of the RAF Bomber Command and Kevin Lynch, the British Consul General.

The ceremony took place under a lit-up Lancaster bomber aircraft, which was used by the RAF in World War II.

It was a fitting location for the medals to be kept as Munro piloted a Lancaster during the World War II raids in May 1943.

“I flew all but one of my operations in a Lancaster,” Munro said.

“So I am comforted by the thought of my medals will be situated within proximity of the plane.

“I appreciate very much indeed they will have some relationship.”

Lord Ashcroft presented Munro with the medals at Wednesday’s ceremony, after personally collecting them from a London auction house and delivering them to New Zealand.

In his speech, Lord Ashcroft talked of his personal involvement with returning the medals to Munro.

“I’m sorry if I sound a little emotional,” he said.

“I am a hard-headed business man but this is my passion.”

Key acknowledged Lord Ashcroft calling him a “true unsung hero of New Zealand”.

“Without that donation I don’t think there would have been any chance the medals would have actually stayed in New Zealand,” Key said.

Indeed, big thanks to Lord Ashcroft.

There is a video at Stuff with an interview of Les Munro.  He may be 96, but he is in fine form, and talks passionately about why he wanted to help the Bomber Command Memorial. A very fine New Zealander.

NZ Herald also reports:

Mr Munro said he had felt compelled to put his treasured war memorabilia up for auction to raise money to help with the maintenance of the Bomber Command Memorial in London after visiting the site in 2013.

“Why should I worry about this?,” he asked the gathered crowd, including 12 veterans of the RAF Bomber Command. “And then I remembered the 617 Squadron lost 130 men on the 15 and a half months that I spent with them. That’s an abnormal loss for an ordinary squadron, greatly in excess of what a normal squadron would lose.

“I then thought of the 1679 New Zealanders that travelled 12,000 miles to fight for King and country, for freedom and democracy, and gave their lives in pursuit of those objectives. I also thought of the $30,000-plus that our own Bomber Command Association donated to the erection of that memorial, and that our own veterans have an interest in the preservation of that memorial.”

It was his “underlying concern” that the memorial would suffer through lack of investment in maintenance, and that future generations, in particular Kiwi visitors to London, would not get the chance to see it in good condition.

I’ll go see it next time I am in London. I also suggest watching the video on the Herald’s site.

Also of note:

Squadron Leader Les Munro is the last remaining Dambuster from the original mission. He was last night awarded the French Legion of Honour for his bravery and commitment in World War II, adding to his list of honours.

Vive la France.

A very good ad by the UK Greens, portraying all the other parties as a boy band. Really well done,

The latest report or paper from the Taxpayers’ Union is on Auckland’s Taniwha Tax. And before people cry our racism, I’d remind people the first and most prominent critic of it was Shane Jones. Some key points:

• The provisions may affect the value of perhaps 18,000 properties, costing them up to $4.000 each
• The Archaeological Association says what Auckland Council is doing is not even necessary to protect heritage because it is already covered under specific legislation
• The Auckland Council has declared 3,600 sites as being of value to Mana Whenua without even establishing whether all the sites are genuine, still exist, or are ‘of value’ to iwi.
• The Mana Whenua provisions make cultural impact assessments (CIAs) compulsory for certain resource consents
• Where there is doubt, the Council will rely on the Mana Whenua groups to determine whether a CIA is required. That alone creates a vested interest, with CIAs likely to create a significant income stream to iwi, who are also able to determine to what extent they are required.
• The extents of the Sites and Places of Value to Mana Whenua have been defined by drawing an arbitrary 200m diameter circle around the centre point of all sites, and then requiring an additional 50m buffer around those circles, with which the rules are applies (i.e. a diameter of 300m, affecting an area of 7ha)
• The number of mana whenua sites of value could grow from 3,600 to 183,000
• A Cultural Assessment Impact report for a submarine cable in Waitemata Harbour took over four months and delayed the cable project significantly
• Sir Bob Jones has written of a building owner that had to consult 13 different Iwi to get permission to put a shop window in his building

The provisions should be scrapped.  There are existing laws to protect sites of heritage, without this regime.

A must visit if if the north of Tasmania is Cataract Gorge at Launceston.

It was created around 1899 as a Victorian garden. There are two cafes, a like, outdoor swimming pool, large grass area, and lots of trails and lookouts.

Also a chairlift to take you from one side to the other.

A view from the far side at the top of the Inclinator.

There’s around 20 peacocks all around the main cafe. They literally walk around the tables, hoping for food.

And in one of the playgrounds, you can see wallabies.

They have walks ranging from 5 minutes to 90 minutes to various dams and bridges. Liked it so much, we went there twice.

The Herald editorial:

Six months ago, any suggestion this country could co-host the Football World Cup with Australia would have been dismissed as the stuff of idle dreams. The event would have been seen widely as too big for New Zealand, while Australians remained chastened by the dismal failure of their bid for the 2022 World Cup. Much has changed in that short period, however. Consequently, Martin Snedden deserves full marks for the timing of his effort to galvanise a joint bid for either the 2026 or 2030 World Cup.

The most obvious occurrence has been the two countries’ superb co-hosting of the Cricket World Cup. This proved they could work well together to deliver an event that exceeded expectation on every level. It also suggested they could make the step up to the biggest sporting event outside the Olympics. …

The agenda for a co-hosting bid proposed by Mr Snedden, the head of the 2011 Rugby World Cup organising committee and now chief executive of Duco Events, would build astutely on this new-found positivity. He envisages, first, getting New Zealand stakeholders on board with the idea before convincing Australia of the wisdom of a joint bid. The first part is vitally important. Fifa is keen to support football in particular regions, as shown by the World Cups in the US and South Africa. But it must be convinced both countries will totally embrace the event and use it to build the game.

I admire the ambition, and agree the timing is good. The Cricket World Cup co-hosting worked brilliantly.

But the FIFA World Cup is a different league. There are 853 64 matches (853 is for the qualifiers, 64 is for the final) to be hosted and the costs can be massive. Brazil spent almost US$15 billion on infrastructure for the 2014 World Cup.

It is estimated the US lost $9.6 billion on hosting the 1994 World Cup.

The history of recent World Cups is that FIFA walks away with a huge bank balance, and the host country a huge debt.

Stuff reports:

“At Google, we … have situations where two people doing the same work can have a hundred times difference in their impact, and in their rewards.

For example, there have been situations where one person received a stock award of US$10,000, and another working in the same area received US$1,000,000. This isn’t the norm, but the range of rewards at almost any level can easily vary by 300 per cent to 500 per cent, and even then there is plenty of room for outliers.

In fact, we have many cases where people at more “junior” levels make far more than average performers at more “senior” levels. It’s a natural result of having greater impact, and a compensation system that recognises that impact.”

This is how it should be. Pay based on performance and value – not on duties and titles and role in the hierarchy.

Bock admits that a policy to “pay unfairly” is provocative, and that it might be better characterised as “pay unequally.” In his view, it is actually more fair to pay a top performer significantly more than an employee with the same job title that produces less value.

Of course it goes against all the left calling for more income equality.

“Ten per cent of productivity comes from the top percentile, and 26 per cent of output derives from the top 5 per cent of workers,” O’Boyle and Aguinis write.

A good test for big companies:

Bock says managers at any company should ask, “How many people would you trade for your very best performer? If the number is more than five, you’re probably underpaying your best person. And if it’s more than ten, you’re almost certainly underpaying.”

The Daily Mail editorial:

Launching his party’s business manifesto last week, Ed Miliband extolled the virtues of British companies in fulsome terms, ‘from the multinational to the family firm’.

He promised a future Labour government would help them in ‘creating wealth, making profits, and providing jobs’, and asked the business community to join him in a partnership ‘to build a better future together’.

Yesterday the business community gave its answer. In a survey of FTSE 100 company chairmen, 70 per cent said a Miliband government would be a ‘catastrophe’ for the economy and 90 per cent believe he’d make a worse prime minister than David Cameron.

It is no surprise that the Daily Mail is against Miliband, and no surprise that most FTSE Chairs prefer Cameron to Miliband. What I find interesting is that 70% were willing to agree with the term “catastrophe” for a Miliband Government.

Miliband is no third wayer. His policies are closer to Michael Foot’s. But he may still get to be PM, with the support of the SNP.

Peter Dunne points out:

The Parliamentary Service is currently advertising for: 

• An Organisational Development Manager to join the People and Culture Leadership team
• A Senior Organisational Development Advisor
• A Senior Learning and Development Advisor to build people and organisational capability
• A Talent Manager for the People and Culture Leadership team
• A People and Culture Services Manager.

“These all sound like bureaucratic gobbledegook to me.

Me too.

The jobs may be justified, but the titles are meaningless.

It’s like the school that called their receptionist the director of first impressions.

Can people try to work out what these jobs actually do?

I think a Talent Manager is an HR Manager.

I’m not sure about a Senior Learning and Development Advisor but maybe that is what they now call library staff?

An Organisational Development Manager and Senior Advisor I can’t even guess at.

And the thought of a People and Culture Services Manager scares me!

HSBC Chief Economist Paul Bloxham was on Q+A on Sunday. Some extracts:

Well, we think it’s going to stick around for a while, yeah, because the New Zealand economy’s doing very well. In fact, we’ve been describing the New Zealand economy for quite some time now as a bit of a rock star. It’s been outperforming almost all of the developed world over the past 18 months or so.

And:

It’s a reflection of the fact that New Zealand is outperforming every other OECD economy over the recent period. And as I say, that’s why we’ve been describing New Zealand as a rock star. It was the fastest growing economy of the 34 OECD economies in the last year. And we think that situation’s going to continue this year as well.

And the downsides of the high dollar:

High currencies obviously have strong positive effects and they have negative effects as well. The negative effect, of course, is it does make your exporting industries a bit less competitive. It’s going to put some pressure on exporting manufacturers. What’s interesting at the moment, though, is that if you look at the data, actually, most of the exporters are still doing fairly well. Most of the industries are still doing fairly well. In fact, over the last year if you look at GDP, which is the broadest metric of activity in the economy, 15 of 16 industries all saw an expansion over the past year.

So not just construction.

At the moment, inflation is very low, and, in fact, you can think of the RBNZ being in a plum position, that is growth is strong, it’s running above trend, the unemployment rate is trending lower, but inflation is exceptionally low. It’s below the bottom edge of the RBNZ’s target band.

High growth, low inflation, falling unemployment – a very good combination. It won’t last forever, but it is good while it does.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand First is supporting a campaign for the referendum on changing the flag to first ask whether people want it changed at all.

Winston Peters said his party was backing a “fight for the flag” campaign by the Returned and Services Association (RSA).

“New Zealand First backs the RSA’s call for the first referendum to simply ask, ‘Do you want to change the flag?’ If the majority say ‘no’ then that should be it,” Mr Peters said.

The RSA and Winston are against changing the flag (as is their right), so they want a referendum process that will result in no change.

Basically they want a blind vote, where people don’t even know what the alternate design is. They’re scared that if New Zealanders get to vote on an alternate design vs current design, the public may vote for change. So they’re trying to change the process to stop there being an informed vote.

The Government got re-elected with a referendum as an election promise. I believe they should keep their promise. And I think New Zealanders deserve a referendum that is meaningful – ie a vote between two flags – the current one, and a proposed new one.

Above is the old flag of Canada, and the new one. I doubt even 1% of Canadians would now ever want to go back to the old flag, even though it was very controversial at the time. Canada now has a flag which the entire world recognises as a symbol of Canada. We can do the same.

Stuff reports:

Labour is calling for John Key to sack Simon Bridges as a Cabinet minister, after emails emerged showing officials gave him advice days ahead of the Northland one-lane bridge announcement. …

Labour leader Andrew Little said Bridges should be sacked not only as Transport Minister, but should lose all of his ministerial warrants, because of the emails. …

Little said that if he were prime minister and a minister acted in that way, he would have their warrants stripped.

“To get advantage for the purposes of an election, that’s a gross breach.

Generally Labour have been acting more intelligently and focused since the election, but this shows they’ve still got some way to go.

Crying wah wah wah because a Minister may have acted in a political way, and even more ridiculously claiming that this means they should be stripped of all their warrants is hilarious. And I suspect Andrew Little will regret his statement that he would sack a Minister in Government for the same.

I don’t believe that anything Simon Bridges did, is a breach of the Cabinet Manual. But regardless this is what you call a classic beltway issue. The number of people who get excited over this is miniscule. Mrs Jones in New Plymouth and Mr Smith in Hamilton want jobs, incomes, decent schools, good healthcare etc.

The sort of people who think this is great politics are the same sort who orgasm over who won question time in the House. I know, because I used to be one of them. One of the good things about leaving Parliament is you get a much better idea of what really matters to New Zealanders.

David Seymour said:

The Government’s largesse into rail is so big it deserves its own tax, the Railtax, according to ACT Leader David Seymour.

In response to Bill English’s admission Kiwirail may sink another billion dollars [1], Mr Seymour has called for a very simple transparency measure: a separate tax to pay for it.

“One billion is equivalent to the cost of knocking a percent off the company tax rate for the next four years, so let’s make the government’s choices transparent,” said Mr Seymour.

“Of the 28 per cent company tax rate, New Zealand’s businesses will pay 27 cents on the dollar for company taxes, and one cent for bailing out Kiwirail. We should separate out that one percent and call it the Railtax.

“Who knows, the business community may decide that’s a good deal.

“On the other hand, the Railtax would make it clear as day that if we stopped ploughing money into the nostalgia industry rail has become, we could cut the company tax rate by a whole percentage point.

That’s a great idea. Make people aware that their taxes are funding Kiwirail.

I suspect passenger (not freight) rail may end up as a 20th century curiousity. Driverless car in the next few decades may transform public transport.

I’d like Kiwirail to survive, but not at the cost of billions of dollars. We should have never brought it back from the private sector.