“Hey Clint” was calling me a liar on Twitter yesterday because on Newstalk ZB last night I scoffed at (presumably his) the spin that the Greens had not done a u-turn on the printing money policy, ad I cited what Russel Norman said on Q+A. Clint is arguing their policy was a “proposal” which is different to a policy under the Green Party constitution.

This is a degree of subtltly that I am sure was lost on 99% of the public, and it seems even his own leader. Listen to this audio of him on with Susan Wood. She says to him “Why the backdown and change of heart” and he accepts the premise of the question – it is a backdown or u-turn.

And let’s look at the transcript of Q+A to see whether the average person listening would have taken this as a discussion document or a firm policy:

Well, today the Green Party’s releasing a proposal around the exchange rate.

So in Greenspeak, now when they propose something – that doesn’t mean they support it or it is a policy. It just means they want to talk about it.

SHANE                         So just so we’ve got it clear – you want the Reserve Bank to go out and print some new money to buy some earthquake bonds off the government. The government then would use that money to help with the Christchurch rebuild – help build the sewers and the streets and that type of thing – and also to go towards saving for our next disaster.

DR NORMAN              That’s right.

When your party’s finance spokesperson and co-leader says they want the reserve Bank to go out and print some new money, it is clearly a policy. It has been advocated by your most senior politician. Not a single person listening to Q+A would have taken this as something the Greens were not committed to. Arguing the dropping of it is not a u-turn is ridiculous and desperate spin.

Also Dr Norman himself has spent months on Twitter highlighting other countries doing QE, and lamenting NZ is not doing the same.

SHANE                         Can I ask you will Labour support this policy?

DR NORMAN              We have spoken to Labour and given them a heads-up about what we’re talking about today.

So Dr Norman doesn’t in any way say “No, no this is not a policy. It is only a discussion document”.

Yet for me pointing this out, a Green spin doctor calls me a liar. More Muldoonist smears.

What To Do When The Internet is Down? infographic by GlitchAgency.

 

I can relate to the be thankful for 3G tethering!

Kate Shuttleworth at NZ Herald reports:

A privileges complaint has been laid with the Speaker of Parliament over the behaviour of two veteran Labour MPs at last week’s Law and Order Select Committee.

Committee chairwoman Jacqui Dean is unhappy with the way Trevor Mallard and Phil Goff behaved during the appearance of Police Commissioner Peter Marshall and Deputy Commissioner Mike Bush.

Labour MP Trevor Mallard stormed out of the committee during a fiery exchange about the eulogy given by Mr Bush at the funeral of former detective inspector Bruce Hutton in April. …

Mr Goff argued with Ms Dean and swore after his questions about police redundancies and station closures were stifled.

Mrs Dean said both outbursts were unacceptable.

I understand Goff used the F word, which is definitely not allowed in Parliament.

Mr Mallard said: “The only comment I will make is the fact that Jacqui Dean has been public [about the complaint] is an indication that she’s not taking it seriously.

“You either let the Speaker decide if you’ve got a case or you make a fuss about it publicly, you don’t do both,” he said.

Does no one in Labour think about their record before they open their mouth? So according to Trevor you shouldn’t make a fuss about privilege complaints if you are serious about them. Well let’s look at some recent cases:

Here’s his own leader David Shearer just a few days ago:

New Zealanders are still none the wiser as to who leaked the Kitteridge Report. All we have is an MP who has resigned as minister but refuses to cooperate with the inquiry. The matter cannot lie here. This is why we have taken the matter to the Privileges Committee to get to the bottom of who leaked the report.

So according to Trevor’s own words, David Shearer is not serious about his privileges complaint as he went public about it!!

And if we go further back we have:

• 10 Oct 2011 – Press Release by Phil Goff about how Labour is laying a privileges complaint against the PM over comments in the House
• 1o July 2011 – Press Release by Trevor Mallard about how Labour is laying a privileges complaint against Bill English over comments in the House about asset sales 
• 30 July 2009 – Press Release by Clayton Cosgrove about how Labour is laying a privileges complaint against ACT MP David Garrett over comments in a select committee 
• 7 July 2009 – Press Release by Grant Robertson about how labour is laying a privileges complaint against Nick Smith over comments in Parliament relating to ACC redundancies

Trevor gets an F for consistency!

Luke Malpass at the NZ Initiative writes:

If someone asked you how much of New Zealand was built upon, what would your guess be? 5% or 10%? More? Less? And to what extent would this affect your views on urban development and expansion?

There is a widespread view that too much of New Zealand is being built upon: along with cows, the main thing we are growing are houses, and that not only are there too many houses but they are also eating into valuable farmland and nature.

There are many reasons for this view, but at a popular level the main reason might be that growth and development happen in areas where people tend to move or travel. People also tend to go where other people are and then complain about there being ‘too many people’. Many folk see new development and extrapolate out to development they cannot see, which often does not exist.

So how much of NZ do you think is urbanised?

About 9% of the United Kingdom is built up and 15% of the Netherlands. Even the United States, with more than 300 million people, has only 5% built on land.

And NZ:

A look at the numbers bears that out: less than 1% of New Zealand is built up, including landfill and highways. Clearly New Zealand is not filling up. Compared to other countries in Europe, New Zealand has very few people and very little land built upon.

The only developed countries that have a lower urbanised percentage than NZ are Iceland, Canada, Finland, Norway and Australia. In other words four countries than are half ice and the biggest island in the world!

The Dom Post editorial:

The dream is over, for the time being anyway.

A comprehensive study of Wellington’s transport options has concluded what has long been obvious to everyone except Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown: the light-rail system she promoted during her 2010 mayoral campaign is unaffordable.

The light rail scheme would have cost around $3,000 per household!

The study commissioned by the New Zealand Transport Agency, Greater Wellington Regional Council and the Wellington City Council puts the cost of turning Ms Wade-Brown’s dream into reality at $940 million. The alternatives canvassed in depth in the report are markedly cheaper.

The first – providing more bus lanes during peak hours and more priority traffic signals for buses – has a $59 million price tag. The second – a dedicated busway for bigger, modern buses separated from other traffic as much as possible – would cost $207 million.

Buses are often the most effective form of public transport. They are more flexible and cost effective. However the Greens don’t like buses because buses go on roads and roads are evil!

The bus rapid transit will cost under a quarter of the light rail option. It would result in $95m of time savings compared to $56m for rail. And critically it would lead to a 75 increase in public transport usage in the morning peak time while the rail option would not change the numbers at all.

So what else is planned about from a dedicated busway and bigger more modern buses? The Dom Post reports:

A second two-lane tunnel through Mt Victoria could be open to traffic within a decade.

The NZ Transport Agency has today revealed plans for a second Mt Victoria Tunnel and widening of Ruahine St and Wellington Rd to connect to the new $90 million Basin flyover.

Yay, a key step in the vision of having four lanes on State Highway One from the airport to Levin.

The plans for the second tunnel show it would sit directly along the northern side of the existing tunnel.

It would provide two lanes for east-bound traffic, along with a separate pedestrian and cycle facility linking to the flyover. On the Hataitai side of the tunnel, Ruahine St will become four lanes, and will also sport a pedestrian and cycling path.

Cool. If only they can get the tunnel to smell better!

As reported last week, Jami-Lee Ross has a bill which will remove the prohibition on temporary labour during a strike or lockout.

Now I don’t have a problem with employers being able to use temporary labour to remain operating during a strike. Without that ability, a union can cripple an employer.

However I do have a concern over the possibility than an employer would lock out current staff, and use temps to force them onto a new contract.

Personally I dislike both strikes and lockouts. I think it is incredibly hard to have a harmonious workplace if either side resorts to the ultimate action of a strike or lockout. I am happy to say I may even dislike lockouts a little bit more, as I don’t like employers trying to force current staff onto a new contract. A shift from a current contract should be one that is mutually agreed to.

There’s even part of me that wonders if employers should have the ability to do a lockout? But as unions have the right to strike, I guess you need an equivalent power for an employer.

But how often do we have strikes and lockouts?

The average numbers of strikes every year since 1986 has been 66. The average number of lockouts is 2. So very very few employers ever resort to a lockout, as it should be.

The average hides the dramatic change over time as this graph shows.

You can see the impact of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991. It brought to an end the era of three strikes a week. The 4th Labour Government say 176 strikes a year. 4th National Government saw it drop to 52. 5th Labour Government was 35 average and the first term of 5th National was just 19 a year, or one every three weeks or so. It’s good we have fewer strikes that in the past, but just a few years ago there were 60 in one year under Labour.

Anyway the number of lockouts is extremely low. For the last decade an average of only one a year. So any claims of employers locking staff out should be read in that context.

However if the bill gets through a first reading, and makes it to select committee a possible option to be considered is to remove the prohibition on temporary labour for strikes, but not for lockouts? I’d be interested to hear debate on the pros and cons of that.

To my mind, that could be a good compromise as it would discourage both strikes and lockouts. If an employer can use temporary staff, then a union is less likely to resort to a strike, which is good. Strikes should be a last resort. Once you’ve had a strike it is very difficult to have a trusting employment relationship.

However if you allow employers to use temporary labour for lockouts, that could encourage some employers (not many I am sure) to do a lockout – and I view that as undesirable also.

So repealing the ban on temporary labour for strikes, but not lockouts, would seem to be a good compromise.

Sunrise through the cave at Cathedral Cove, Coromandel Peninsula New Zealand. Landscape photography by Sarah Sisson

This beautiful scene was beautifully captured by Sarah during our very productive visit to Cathedral Cove last December.  A little warm beach action would not go amiss at present – I tells ya!

I’ve been chained to my computer for the past month (largely unconnected to the web) in order to write a behemoth ebook on the art of landscape photography.  It is off  for editing and design at present and should be back in the next few weeks – I’ll keep you posted….

Cheers – Todd

Free Wallpaper Download

You may download the large version of today’s image from this link:   Password = wwp

See you next week!

Cheers – Todd [www.sisson.co.nz] 

Vernon Small reports:

The Greens have dumped their call for quantitative easing – or printing money – after it became an electoral liability for the party and a future Labour-led government.

Green co-leader Russel Norman yesterday confirmed the u-turn after Monday’s release of the joint Labour-Green-NZ First-Mana report into manufacturing left the policy out of the mix.

Prime Minister John Key and other Government ministers have latched on to the plan to ‘‘print money’’ to paint the Opposition as economically radical.

Norman said it was never Green policy but was included in a discussion paper, issued last October.

This suggests they were not advocating it. This is far from the reality. Russel Norman was constantly tweeting that we should be printing money, and providing examples of other countries that were doing so. There is no doubt that the Green’s proposed Finance Minister thinks we should be printing money. The only thing that has changed is they have agreed to stop talking about it in public.

But if a Labour/Green Government got into office, and couldn’t get the books to balance, what do you think is more likely – that they’ll cut spending or print money?

And enjoy Clark and Dawe as they explain what the Greens mean by quantitative easing!

Stats NZ has announced:

The number of abortions performed in New Zealand decreased in 2012, Statistics New Zealand said today. A total of 14,745 induced abortions were performed in New Zealand in 2012, 1,118 fewer than in 2011.

The general abortion rate (abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) decreased from 17.3 per 1,000 in 2011 to 16.1 in 2012. This rate is the lowest since 1995, when it was also 16.1 per 1,000. The lower abortion rate indicates that the decrease in the number of abortions was due to fewer women having abortions, rather than to changes in the size or age structure of the population.  

This is good. Abortion should be safe, legal and rarer.

The general abortion rate peaked in 2003 at 20.8. It is now 16.1, and has been dropping every year since 2007.

The ration of abortions to live births is 193 per 1,000, down from a peak of 247 in 2003. So it isn’t so much that there are less pregnancies, it is more than there are fewer abortions.

The drop appears to be amongst women having an abortion for the first time. The raw numbers have dropped 25% since 2003. However the numbers for women who have had two or more previous abortions have increased 4% since 2003.

Some differences by age also. The number of abortions for 11 to 14 year olds has dropped 43% since 2003 (from 89 to 51) and for 15 to 19 year olds dropped by 34%. However only a 10% drop for 25 to 29 year olds. This suggests to me that sex education for younger NZers is proving more effective.

The Listener has a lengthy article based on a submission by Michael Littlewood to the constitutional review. Well worth buying the latest issue for the whole article. A few extracts:

In the past three years, I have been tracking down my family’s roots and I now know the names and origins of all 32 of my great-great-great (GGG) grandparents. Fifteen were from England, 10 from Ireland, four from Scotland, two from Wales and one, a Maori, from New Zealand. 

The individual form in the 2013 Census, like others before it, had three questions on race. Question 11 asked: “Which ethnic group do you belong to? Mark the space or spaces which apply to you: New Zealand European; Maori; Samoan; Cook Island Maori; Tongan; Niuean; Chinese; Indian; Other such as Dutch, Japanese, Tokelauan. Please state.” Based on the nationalities of my GGG grandparents, I suppose I should have chosen New Zealand European and Maori, but I really do not feel I “belong” to those “ethnic groups”. Given that “belong” is as much about perception as DNA, I chose Other and wrote “New Zealander”. 

But ticking that box has a great effect on policies and funding.

But what would they have made of my answer if I had chosen “New Zealand European” and “Maori” as I suspect they wanted? The significance of the answer to this ques- tion diminishes over generations. It is now irrelevant and it’s time the statisticians real- ised that. If your grandparents were born in New Zealand, perhaps even your parents, you are surely a New Zealander, regardless of your racial background. It’s wrong for the census to ask me ques- tions about my feelings, which is what question 11 really does. It’s also wrong for whatever reason to slice and dice New Zealanders according to their feelings about ethnicity. I understand the wish of statisticians to continue asking the same questions from census to census so they can look at changes over time, but it’s time to stop asking New Zealanders a question about their feelings on race. 

And he looks at the Maori seats:

Given the now extremely low threshold that establishes whether a New Zealander is Maori or not, it is hardly surprising that the number of Maori MPs representing electors on the general roll significantly exceeds the number of MPs in Maori seats. In 2013, 16 “Maori” MPs represent electors on the general roll compared with just seven separately elected Maori MPs.

I think the distinctions between Maori electors and others, and between Maori MPs and others, are now indefensible. I’m not suggesting we ignore public policy issues of direct concern to Maori. We do not need a female roll and female MPs to ensure issues of concern to women are addressed; nor do we need an Asian roll and Asian MPs to address the needs of the Asian com- munity. That there are still issues of concern to Maori does not justify a Maori roll and Maori MPs. In 1840, the Treaty signatories did not directly contemplate separate repre- sentation in a Parliament of New Zealanders, but even if they had, that is no justification to continue race-based separatism in 2013.

Sadly some people do push for there to be female quota MPs, and no doubt a female roll!

Tracy Watkins at Stuff reports:

The person known only as “A” in relation to a legal challenge to the Paula Rebstock-led inquiry into the unauthorised release of sensitive Cabinet documents came into contact with the documents in a clerical role, the Appeal Court has heard.

This is a significant revelation. Most people had been assuming that Person A was a diplomat – an MFAT professional. And while no civil servant should be condoned for leaking “sensitive Cabinet documents”, there was a reasonable amount of sympathy for Person A on the assumption that they were an MFAT diplomat directly affected by the proposed restructuring.

But that assumption is wrong. So does this mean other common assumptions re Person A and the leak could be wrong.

1. Could the assumption Person A works at MFAT be wrong? Might it be someone from elsewhere in the public sector?
2. Could the motivation then be not personal or professional, but purely political and partisan?
3. How does someone who is in a (presumably not highly paid) clerical assistant afford the cost of legal action to stop the report in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal?
4. Could someone else be paying the bills, or assisting with them?

NZ Herald media columnist John Drinnan and Labour Party Deputy Leader Grant Robertson.

Hugh Pavletich e-mailed:

The scale and quality of new housing is best illustrated within a large normal housing market such as Houston ( refer … Houston Association of Realtors … latest monthly report ) , where housing cost is at 3.0 times annual household incomes, as the latest Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey illustrates , coupled with Houston Area New Homes Source .

Last year the new residential build consenting rate for Greater Houston was 15 units per 1000 population per annum (90,000 units for a population of 6.1 million), while the United Kingdom was 1.85 units per 1000 population per annum (about 117,000 units for a population of 63.1 million). So on a population basis, there is in excess of 8 times the new builds in Houston, with the size of the Houston new builds likely well in excess of 3 times the size of the British.

The square footage or metreage of new residential building in Houston is therefore likely to be in excess of 24 times as much as the British (by multiplying the quantity and size).

Lunatic ideological British style urban planning (which still has its dwindling numbers of Luddite Malthusian  adherents in the Antipodes surprisingly), is therefore in essence, a deliberate poverty creation programme.

No wonder people are flocking to Houston to live.

New fringe starter housing should be available for young New Zealanders at about $NZ1,000 per square metre all up, or slightly below that. In other words, new starter housing of 150 square metres at about $NZ150,000 … 200 square metre for $NZ200,000 … and so forth …

Sadly, New Zealand Local Government “institutional failure” ( degenerate … just like the British LG sector as explained by the UK Daily Mail some years ago ) has artificially driven new homes costs to $NZ2,500 + plus per square metre on the fringes of earthquake hit Christchurch and $NZ3,500 + per square metres on the fringes of Auckland.

I hope to visit some developments in Houston when I am over there.

Kate Chapman at Stuff reports:

The Government is promising more reform of non-casino gambling after a watered-down bill was reported back to Parliament yesterday.

Internal Affairs Minister Chris Tremain and Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell are due to announce a harm-minimisation package tomorrow.

That comes after a weakened version of Mr Flavell’s Gambling Harm Reduction Bill was reported back from the commerce select committee.

Prime Minister John Key said National and the Maori Party had found “some common ground”.

“I think the way Te Ururoa would see it is that . . . he’s got some wins.”

The bill aimed to return the proceeds of pokie machines to the communities they were made in and give local authorities more control over gambling operations.

But the committee rejected the plan to return 80 per cent of profits, instead allowing for regulations to ensure more of the proceeds returned to the same geographical area.

It also ruled out imposing the use of pre-commitment, player tracking, or other harm-minimisation devices, saying it would be “premature to mandate specific approaches”.

And it ruled out removing horse racing from the list that could receive gambling profits.

Labour reserved its decision on supporting the bill but the Greens will now vote against it.

I don’t like the status quo in terms of the relationships between some of the pubs, gaming operators and charitable trusts that distribute community funding. It is seriously flawed.

However what was proposed in the original Flavell bill would have almost led to political corruption. It proposed that local authorities be out in place of handing out money from pokie machines in their areas. That would have been terrible. Could you imagine the patronage as local Councillors give money out to various local groups, in return for their support.

So what were some of the changes made to the bill:

• Requiring councils to take over the distribution of funds – no submitters supported this, including the councils. It would have been a significant extra burden for them and would have politicised the grants process. It is a no brainer that this was deleted from the Bill.
• Requiring 80% of proceeds to be distributed locally – this makes sense in principle, but 80% may not be the right amount, and the mechanism set out in the Bill (to require it in gaming societies’ licence conditions) was rather inflexible. The revised Bill allows the same thing to be achieved through regulations, which can be changed much more easily. There is no suggestion that the Government won’t proceed with regulations, so this is not a question about the policy, just the mechanism.
• Requiring the use of harm minimisation devices – again, the Bill would have imposed this on societies through their licence conditions. The revision enables regulations to be made instead, which would actually allow a nationwide policy, rather than setting it through individual licences. Regulations are also more flexible to allow for new technologies as they become available. Again, the Bill has simply been changed to provide for a different mechanism, not to water down what Flavell is seeking.

Flavell has actually actually achieved some very significant policy changes, compared to the status quo. His bill has been re-drafted almost totally, but that is because with respect it was very badly worded – as many members’ bills are – as they don’t have PCO and government departments able to do it for them.

By focusing on the outcomes, rather than the mechanisms, Flavell has managed to get a pretty good victory – especially as his original bill could easily have merely been voted out as unworkable.

It will be interesting to see what the Greens do with their lobbying bill. The bill as worded is unworkable and draconian – something even they acknowledge. It would make some tweets between MPs and some members of the public on policy issues an offence. Will they compromise on the mechanisms proposed to get a bill that is workable, or will they insist on no significant changes leading to it being voted down? It is far easier to grand-stand than to actually achieve a workable solution.

Kiwi Dirt Biker has done a NZ equivalent of the UK site which shows how much tax you’ll pay over a 43 year career.

Housing would be a lot more affordable if we were paying less tax!

He has also done a page which compares your difference in lifetime tax based on the 2007 tax rates and the 2013 tax rates.

If you earn $100,000 a year you’ll end up with $273,000 more cash in the hand than if the 2007 tax and ACC rates still applied.

Stuff reports:

The Government has stepped in to help the city council with its consenting problems, sending in a team of technical experts to speed up the flow of consent approvals.

But a wholesale takeover is looming next week if the council cannot convince authorities it should not have its consenting accreditation revoked.

Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson yesterday authorised a five-strong team from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to join the Christchurch City Council’s consenting department and to make changes to its processes as required.

How bad is the problem?

The council is receiving about 40 new building consents each day, but has a backlog of about 1700 historical consents that it needs to clear.

Sixteen consenting officers, four managers and nine administration staff worked over the weekend to begin clearing the backlog and staff are now being rostered on six days a week, but additional resources may still be needed if the council is to address IANZ’s concerns by the June 28 deadline.

But what interested me is the role of other Councils

Since news of the council’s consenting crisis surfaced last week it has received offers of help from around the country:
Invercargill City Council has offered to assist with processing consents and has undertaken to approach other councils in the region to see if they can also help.

Selwyn District Council has offered to share its expertise.

The Auckland Council has created a Christchurch rebuild team where staff will work extra hours processing consents.

Professional Building Consultants in Auckland, which is contracted to help the council, will increase its capacity to process consents.

This could be a model for the future.

Each Council sets the rules around consents for their area, but that doesn’t mean that that same Council has to be the body that assesses applications against rules. As we see above, many Councils have staff experienced in assessing and approving consents.

Short of the threat of losing accreditation, there are little incentives for Councils to issue consents on time and for a reasonable price. They are a monopoly service.

But what  if Councils could compete with each other? What if say there were half a dozen Councils that provided consenting services on a nation-wide or even regional basis?

Think if those needing consents could (for example) choose to go to the Hamilton City Council rather than their local Council, because the Hamilton City Council can do the consent in 12 days instead of 30 days? Or they could choose the Tauranga City Council to get a consent, as they charge $400 instead of $750?

We don’t provide incentives for most Councils to consent on time – just a stick. I’d love to see some competition emerge to get those incentives right.

Susan Chalmers writes at ADSL:

The Copyright Act was to be reviewed five years after the 2008 amendments. Today, such review would also extend to the more recent Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act 2011. …

The acceptance by some Governments of digital copyright policies advanced by the rightsholder community would go to suggest that anachronistic conceptualisations of copyright remain deeply entrenched in law and policymakers’ thinking, and that how the Internet actually works does not. A good example lies in the aforementioned temporary electronic copy language, which is present in nearly all US free trade agreements.

This language likens a physical copy to a virtual one, which, if actually recognised, would become a problem for Internet Service Providers of all stripes. This is because Internet traffic is transmitted from point A to point B by making “temporary copies”. We can think of copying as how the Internet “breathes”.

Strictly applied, the right would pretty much make the Internet illegal. Approaches like this indicate that the way we are thinking about adapting copyright to the Internet is, as Professor Rebecca Giblin has put it, applying “physical world assumptions” to “software world realities”.

Doing this ignores the complexities of the Internet, and policies formulated in this way usually generate bigger problems and greater costs than those they are meant to alleviate.

Copyright laws come from the age where copying was a physical act, and it is the physical act that is regulated. This does not work well in a digital world.

This is in no way arguing against copyright as a legitimate intellectual property right. I argue that laws and policy should focus on the use, not the copying.

As part of normal practice, jurisdictions develop principles that help organise and direct their legislative reviews. For example, in reviewing exceptions and limitations to copyright, Australia recently released its Copyright and the Digital Economy discussion paper. Listed therein are five framing principles for reform: “1) acknowledging and respecting authorship and creation, 2) maintaining incentives for creation of works and other subject matter, 3) promoting fair access to and wide dissemination of content, 4) providing rules that are flexible and adaptive to new technologies, and 5) providing rules consistent with Australia’s international obligations.” (Australian Law Reform Commission, “Copyright and the Digital Economy (DP 79)”, Discussion Paper, June 2013.)

They seem like good principles.

If we accept that there should be a review of New Zealand’s copyright law, then what should the guiding principles for that review be?

The principles listed above are all good and we would do well to use them as a base in developing our own set. Flexibility seems to be a highly desired characteristic of next generation copyright law. The traditional utilitarian principle behind copyright also remains relevant – that creators should be incentivised by reward in order to create works the public can consume. Copyright has always been a balance between the author and the public good.

Perhaps it is time to add another party to the balancing act: the Internet. Copyright policies, when they relate to online activities, are Internet policies too.

Given the importance of the Internet to modern society, it stands to reason that the impact on the Internet of copyright policies should factor into the equation. The best copyright laws and policies would work with the Internet, and not against it.

I look forward to the copyright review.

Stuff reports:

Labour MP Lianne Dalziel is set to enter the Christchurch mayoral race, Fairfax Media understands.

The Christchurch East MP has long been rumoured as the favourite to challenge incumbent Bob Parker for the mayoral chains, following her high-profile role as Labour’s earthquake recovery spokeswoman, and criticism of the current council.

Her declaration is expected later this week.

Dalziel has the backing of her party for a mayoral bid, despite dropping out of the top 20-ranked Labour MPs in a party reshuffle in February.

If she stands and wins, she will likely have to resign her Christchurch East seat, triggering a by-election.

Worst kept secret ever.

In March she was “99 per cent” sure she would not stand, but a month later it was revealed she had attempted to recruit Student Volunteer Army founder Sam Johnson as a potential running mate.

I don’t know why more MPs can’t be as honest as Maurice Williamson was and just say upfront that they are considering standing, rather than deny it one month and be trying to lien up running mates the next.

Last month she was still coy on a bid, but talked about the importance of an alternative council leadership that cut across political party lines.

She said at the time that she would consider standing if she got the “right” team behind her, but admitted it was likely to include candidates from the Left-leaning People’s Choice movement.

Their aim, is to get a Labour majority on Council.

I’ve been reading the Green party food policy. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. So much there that needs to be shared with the world. Here’s some highlights.

Studies show that the majority of the ecological footprint of food comes from food processing, storage, packaging and growing conditions. In addition plant-based diets are recognised as having a reduced impact on the environment as less land is used to produce the same number of food calories. For example, a cow eats five plant calories to produce one milk calorie, and ten plant calories to produce one calorie of beef.

Societies whose food energy comes mostly from starchy plants rather than livestock have smaller environmental impacts because they only require about a quarter the land area to produce the same number of food calories

From a global perspective, the current New Zealand way of life is not sustainable because the world cannot afford to follow our dietary and land use patterns. The typical Western diet could support less than 2.5 billion people – which is less than half the world’s current population.

So bye bye western diets, and hello plant based diets!

Promote, by labelling and education, dietary choices that have a reduced impact on the environment, recognising that these will differ in different places. For most people in New Zealand this will involve eating more locally grown organically produced seasonal food with less processing or packaging and eating less meat and animal fat.

You will eat your organic food, and like it!

Ensure that all food and drink advertisements screened on television meet the criteria for nutritious food that is recommended as a routine part of a healthy, balanced diet. 

This is the big one, The other two are more aspirational (if one can call turning the clock back 900 years aspirational), but this is a specific commitment – their policy is to ban all food advertising from television unless they deem it nutritious.

Goodbye to all advertising for Magnums ice-creams, among others.

You think you’ve seen nanny state in the post. Wait until we have a Green Party Minister of Food!

This is just one of many loopy Green policies I will be highlighting over future weeks. Please do not go and read them all yourself, as our mental health budget is already under strain.

The Herald editorial:

In politics, as in all spheres of life, timing is everything. Take the report into manufacturing released yesterday by the Labour, Greens, New Zealand First and Mana parties. When their inquiry began last October, times were uncommonly tough in the sector. Just last Friday, however, the latest BNZ-Business NZ performance of manufacturing index indicated that it was expanding at its fastest rate since 2003, and at one of the world’s highest rates. Equally, a tumbling exchange rate has eased many of the sector’s woes. In that context, the report’s talk of the killing of manufacturing seemed lame at best.

I’m surprised they scheduled to release it the next working day after the PMI index came out. The index is on a regular release schedule and better political management would have seen them make sure they avoid being too close to the release of any major manufacturing data in case it undermined their claims of a crisis.

Yet even if current conditions had mimicked those of eight months ago, the report would have been counted a barren exercise. Its three core recommendations are as flawed as they are predictable. The first wants monetary policy to be aimed at achieving a lower and more stable exchange rate, as well as a lowering of structural costs in the economy, such as electricity prices, and a refocusing of capital investment into the productive economy, rather than housing speculation.

Normally one can use an inquiry to at least come up with some new ideas or policies – but they have failed to do even that.

The report’s recommendation for a lowering of structural costs in the economy refers specifically to electricity prices. This is a clear nod to the Labour-Green proposal for a single buyer to purchase all electricity generation at what it deems a fair price. Presumably, this is seen as the forerunner of a greater emphasis on central planning. Manufacturers would, of course, applaud lower power costs. But what they would also get would be inefficiencies, unintended consequences and, if history is a guide, blackouts.

And I may be wrong, but I think most manufacturers need electricity to actually operate!

The opponents of national standards seem to have abandoned their stance that parents shouldn’t know if their kids are at the standard expected for their age. Instead they now argue that the Government shouldn’t collect any national standards data because moderation and assessment is not 100% consistent.

Now I’m sure it isn’t 100% consistent. But frankly I’m appalled that their response is to say scrap national standards than improve the data. It’s ideological madness. Think if their secondary counterparts were as bad, as NZEI seem to be. Considering every secondary student undertaking NCEA is largely internally assessed with significant variability between schools, you don’t hear the PPTA calling for NCEA to be scrapped and no data kept on NCEA pass marks for schools.

So next time an  anti national standards zealot goes on about the data being imperfect, ask them what they are doing to improve it, rather than scrap it.

But we see today that they really have no interest in anything that might make the data more consistent. The Herald reported:

The NZ Principals’ Federation, the Educational Institute, the NZ Association of Intermediate and Middle Schools and the Catholic Principals Association have called on school boards, colleagues and the organisations developing the ‘Progress and Consistency Tool’ (PaCT) to stop their involvement, including a trial this year.

So they are saying they won’t even trial a tool that would lead to more consistent data!

They say PaCT amounts to a national test and are concerned about how the data will be used.

That’s ridiculous. A national test is where all kids sit the same test. This is nothing at all like that.

The Ministry of Education has said it will make National Standards data more reliable.

Which is what they claim they want? This exposes that in reality they want no data on their performance.

The tool asks teachers to judge students’ National Standards levels by working through tick-boxes of illustrations representative of achievement outcomes.

The PaCT tool then generates a result for each student.

So how is that a national test?

“This narrow tool will take over teacher judgements and do it for them.”

No, it is a tool to guide the teacher so assessments are more consistent – the EXACT thing they have been claiming is wrong with national standards.

NZEI president Judith Nowotarski said the tool would undermine teacher professionalism, reduce teaching quality for students and cement a reliance on data from National Standards.

“It also opens the floodgates for other initiatives like competitive performance pay for teachers. There is no research evidence to show that when teachers receive performance pay it helps students learn better.”

Good God, their paranoia on performance pay means they will try and sabotage anything that allows an assessment of schools and teachers that are doing well.

A spokesman for the ministry said National Standards were not a national test.

“PaCT is an online, web-based tool which is being designed to help teachers make consistent judgments against the National Standards in reading, writing and mathematics. The tool will support teachers to make overall judgments about a student’s achievement and track progress over time.”

He said an advisory group had been set up to get teachers’ input into its design.

“The feedback received has helped its design and development.”

He said the tool included a framework for describing the steps that students typically take as they develop expertise in reading, writing and mathematics across the curriculum.

” Teachers’ judgments are key to judging a student’s progress and achievement and in PaCT the final decision is made by the teacher.”

So they claim there is not enough consistency with national standards, and when a nifty online tool is developed to help increase consistency – they boycott it on the grounds they don’t want comparable data in case it is used in the future in a way they don’t approve of.