David Fisher in the Herald reported:

Avatar producer says the Prime Minister’s visit to Los Angeles helped the film industry put a face to the country’s pro-film initiatives and was one of the reasons he will be back to make the sequels. …

“It’s not just two old film-makers,” said Landau, recalling the October dinner with Prime Minister John Key. It included some of Hollywood’s most influential players from major studios including Disney and Warner Bros at “chairman level”.

“People in Hollywood were able to see there is a face behind government, a face behind initiatives. We’ve all gone to countries where things get muddled in bureaucracy.

“He was very personable. He spoke about the big picture of New Zealand, and not just about the film industry, and the role the film industry could play in that.”

“It really spoke to the studio heads and said New Zealand is a country which is committed to making production work. The evening went extremely well from a Hollywood standpoint.”

And the impact on NZ:

It is a section of the community which, according to the briefing given to Mr Key before his trip, helps contribute $3 billion revenue to the economy. While the figures appear to include everything from television broadcasting to cinema works, the briefing said the area attracting the biggest grants and most publicity – screen production and post-production – grew from $313 million (0.25 per cent of GDP) in 2005 to $638 million (0.47 per cent of GDP) in 2011.

And that is excluding any tourism benefits.

Landau said those working in the industry were the driving force for him and Cameron to return to New Zealand for two sequels to Avatar.

While scenery and incentives were often cited as the greatest inducement, with Mr Key highlighting a “workforce which is not heavily unionised”, Landau has a simpler explanation.

“We didn’t come here for the location. We came here because of the industry and the support it gets from the Government. Avatar – we didn’t film on location at all. We’re coming back to New Zealand to film Avatar [2&3] because of the people.”

He said there was an excellence which, for example, was reflected in work done by Sir Peter Jackson’s Weta studio. He urged a visit, saying “you owe it to yourself” to see cutting-edge, high-quality work. “They’re continually advancing everything here.”

I’ve heard this from a lot of people, that the NZ way of doing things is a major attraction.

Landau said the growth was to the benefit of the communities in which the films were made. “The spending is so diverse. When a film comes to New Zealand, they might hire 200 local crew. But they might also put up 100 people at local hotels. Those people have to go out and eat.

“People on the production have to go and use the local stationery store. They have to go buy lumber to build with. They have to bring in a caterer on the set. It goes on and on and on.

“This isn’t just someone coming in making widgets and the spending only goes to widgets. The economic impact of a film on a community is quite significant.”

He rejected claims of low wages. “When we came here, we looked for the best of the best.”

He rattled through names of those he had met and hired, listing those outside Wellington brought in to work on Avatar. He also rejected concerns about youth workers being vulnerable.

“We’re not looking to find the youth but for those who might be out there doing that, and to those who are criticising it – the youth are your future.

“If those people don’t have the opportunity today, they will never have the opportunity in the future.”

Almost all destroyed by an Australian union that only represented a few dozen New Zealanders.

Tony Wall at SST reports:

Some of Destiny Church’s most senior members have defected, upset at Bishop Brian Tamaki’s calls to hand over money for his “City of God” in South Auckland.

The Sunday Star-Times has learned that Tamaki’s obsession with building the new facility in Druces Rd, Manukau, has caused a schism in the church, with some of his staunchest followers deserting him.

Janine Cardno, the church’s media spokeswoman for many years, left last year, along with Paul and Michelle Hubble, who had been with Tamaki since 1990. …

Tamaki has called on church members to contribute $1000 each to help renovate the warehouse that will house church facilities, including a school.

The departure of Cardno is seen as particularly significant. She and her late husband, Neil, moved from Rotorua to help establish Destiny in Auckland in the 1990s, and Neil, a former TVNZ employee, pioneered Destiny television.

The church helped Janine through her grief after Neil died in a road accident in 2005. She was the public mouthpiece for Tamaki, defending him against criticisms over his lavish lifestyle. She declined to comment on her reasons for leaving.

The Hubbles also declined to comment, but a close friend said they had become disillusioned with Tamaki’s vision for the “City of God”, as it seemed he was putting buildings ahead of people.

“There was an announcement made that they wanted everybody to raise $1000. They weren’t happy about that, because they could see families in the church that would struggle to raise that amount of money.

“They personally knew of couples who were thinking, ‘We can’t raise the money, what can we sell?’ You shouldn’t have to do that. At what point do flash buildings become more important than actually looking after those people?”

In a New Year’s Eve sermon, Nelson’s Destiny Church pastor Martin Daly said: “I love reading the Destiny Church Facebook page [and families] going without Christmas presents ‘cos they’re saving up for their $1000 grand slam offering for the promised land that’s gonna bless the people of South Auckland.”

I wonder what this new City of God will be called? Brianville?

Adam Dudding at the SST profiles Gareth Morgan:

Setting aside the unprovoked Yank-baiting, let’s have a quick recap of the people to whom Morgan has recently offered free, potentially unwelcome, advice.

Cat-owners, obviously, and he embellished his position by telling The Atlantic magazine: “The most oft-heard and erroneous utterance we get here from cat owners is, ‘Oh but my pussy only kills rats and mice, he’d never harm a native bird.’ As you can see this denial verges on explicit stupidity.”

He told Wellington’s Phoenix football team (which he part-owns) it needed to start playing a more “attractive” attacking game (the team has since performed even worse than usual). Fans who disagree are “pathetic” and “don’t know much about the game anyway”, he told Radio Sport.

Last year he told the Greens they don’t understand economics, urged farmers to abandoned “environmental retards” Federated Farmers, and suggested the government totally restructure the tax and welfare systems.

He’s co-authored books setting the record straight on climate change (it’s happening), public health (it needs reform), the world’s fisheries (they’re running out), and the finance industry (it’s ropey). When his investment company, GMI, launched its own KiwiSaver fund in 2007, part of his pitch was that all the other providers were doing it wrong. When challenged last year about the fund’s underwhelming performance, he said investors and the financial media were ignorant.

Taking an interest in the world is one thing, but the sheer breadth of Morgan’s claimed areas of wisdom, and the fact that his personal wealth allows him the time to run around sharing it, have seen him become arguably New Zealand’s biggest know-all.

Everyone is ignorant and pathetic except Gareth it seems.

Naturally, he claims to know what he’s up to.

Apparently, behind the provocations and the droopy moustache lies the coolly calculating brain of a trained economist who still believes in the miracle of the market and the rationality of people – just so long as they’re well-informed (which isn’t to say he’s a fellow-traveller with the free-market fanatics of the ACT party, whom he considers “mad” and “disgusting”).

Questioning the status quo “is just a natural effect of being trained as an economist. You tend to be looking at the public good.”

His methods, as irritating as they may be, are simply about efficiently disseminating high-quality data. “You basically scatter the chooks and then you say, ‘Calm down. I’ve got your attention. Now look at the evidence.’ “

If only that was the case. But in reality his cat jihad is the exact opposite of what you’d expect from even a primary school economist. The most basic thing in economics is you look at both benefits and costs. Morgan has just done a rant about the cost of cats, and ignore any benefits. That isn’t high quality data. That is low quality polemics.

Eric Crampton does what Morgan didn’t, and applies economics to the cat issue. Eric also linked to a website showing with great humour how lethal cats are. Far far more effective than what Gareth Morgan did.

Also Claire Browning at Pundit exposes some hypocrisy:

Gareth’s speech to our 2012 conference was a doozy. A cautionary tale of the “green extreme”, on how “tub-thumping activism” was giving conservation a bad name, he rounded off by telling a 14 year old girl (a guest of ours, who stood up and bravely, passionately challenged him in front of a room of 300 people) that her question was “pathetic” – and somewhere in the middle of it all, offered this:

“2. … polarization of views on conservation – if you’re pro-conservation you’re anti economic growth. This needlessly alienates huge numbers of people from conservation that should be our constituency.”

“Considered conservationists need to have the courage now to disown publicly this behavior,” he said, and ensure that those responsible for it were marginalised.

Shouldn’t you at least practice what you preach? Browning also points out:

Gareth’s playing politics. He wants something moderate, if we’re lucky; he’s flying a kite for something extreme.

For better or worse, he’s started a predator-free New Zealand debate. Yay! I wish it were PFNZ we were debating, not cats! I agree with him: “some of the debate has been pretty facile” – chiefly, the information on his own website.

But there’s no use (my friend and former colleague Nicola) whiningabout how the results of this are “frankly disturbing” – rambling about how some of your best friends are cats, etc. He threw a grenade, and lit a fire – he is the grenade, his own wee self-contained incendiary device. Not much cause for complaint about the results, and Gareth sure isn’t complaining.

What we’ve also got is a sort of low-grade civil war in which – redubbing his own words to our conference – “if you’re pro-bird, you’re anti-cat”. And what’s really disturbing here is the lack of policy smarts about it.

Having found your problem, is the response well-targeted? Is it a proportional response? Benefits vs costs?

From the people who weren’t Gareth, we learned what those of us with cats already know: there’s no basis to vilify all cats. Not all house cats are hunters (I’m not offering this on my own observation, although this is also true). Even among those who are, overall, imperfectly, it probably works out:

And Claire provides lots of links.

Having your son earn you lots of money doesn’t make you an expert on everything.

This is not to say I think Morgan is of no value. I’m reading his book on Antarctica at the moment, and it is pretty good. I’ll do a review when I have finished. But any value from his energy and contributions is fast disappearing as he becomes just an angry ranting rich guy. Morgan should practice what he preaches and actually provide us with high quality data.

Richard Boock reviews his performance as a team owner:

If a presentation was to be made on “what not to do as a pro sports team owner”, Morgan’s example this season would be front and centre. It was funny enough when he started rebuking the local media for not being sufficiently sycophantic in their reporting, and threatening to take games away from Wellington unless more people attended. As a Twitter pal mentioned, it was like he was channelling Basil Fawlty, berating folk for daring to complain.

Still, Morgan’s most recent strategy, attacking his own fans’ views as “pathetic”, and “unsophisticated”, and suggesting many didn’t understand the game, was staggeringly funny even by his standards. Forget the pot and the kettle for a moment, the idea he thinks anything positive will come from slagging off his own customer base is standup comedy material. What will he do next to fans? Threaten to lock them out?

One could almost make a comedy show from it indeed!

The best article I have read on Paul Holmes is from former Labour President Mike Williams in the Herald on Sunday. It’s a great read, and what I really enjoyed about it is that it is about Holmes the person, not the broadcaster. Williams has been friends with him for almost 50 years.

Also an interesting read is the 1973 Listener interview with Holmes.

Matthew Hooton at NBR writes:

The wreckers of Labour’s November conference are again destabilising David Shearer’s leadership. They are likely to keep doing so all the way to the election.

Ahead of the conference, Mr Shearer was subject to an either controlled or spontaneous avalanche of criticism from across the left establishment, including Labour-connected press galley journalists, the Herald’s Tapu Misa, Helen Clark’s hagiographer Brian Edwards, the left’s poet laureate Chris Trotter and the anonymous and semi-anonymous writers and commentators atThe Standard. 

As might be expected from New Zealand’s most-read and most influential left-wing blog, The Standard is a more collective effort than its right-wing rivals.

And what has he been reading there:

For some time, blogs have ceased to merely report grass-roots political activity: they are now where much grass-roots political activity actually occurs, with hundreds of different perspectives being put forward on various topics.

A generation ago, political reporters hung around dire regional conferences to get a sense of what the grassroots were feeling.

With little happening at today’s stage-managed conferences, it makes sense that they now observe the postings and comments on blogs such as Whaleoil, Kiwiblog and The Standard to get a sense of grass-roots opinion (noting, as always, that conference delegates and blog writers tend to be further to the extremes of the parties to which they purport allegiance).

Even with that proviso, the extreme language at The Standard about Mr Shearer is unprecedented, and it is again being ramped up.

A nickname for Mr Shearer has emerged: Captain Mumblefuck. His intelligence and admittedly poor diction are derided.

We are told he is a bully and coward for demoting Mr Cunliffe, and a puppet of Trevor Mallard and Annette King. He is accused of appeasing the middle class, his 100,000-house KiwiBuild policy is criticised as a veneer for public private partnerships and he is widely suspected of having a secret neoliberal agenda. 

Elsewhere, based on research by Mr Trotter, some even hint he may be some sort of agent for foreign intelligence services.

I think it is fair to say that far nicer thing are said about David Shearer on Kiwiblog, than at The Standard.

To pressure him, a false rumour was spread in recent days that Mr Shearer planned to announce this weekend a membership and union vote. The motivation is because most Standardistas are confident he would lose.

In anticipation, people are being encouraged to join the party for the very purpose of voting against its leader and for the candidate, Mr Cunliffe, bizarrely seen as far left.

Internal fanaticism
This sort of internal fanaticism has been seen before, including when Don Brash’s supporters were undermining Bill English and when Paul Keating took out Bob Hawke. The strategy can work because, as Mr Hawke observed, it has a terrifying logic. 

If I recall correctly, Matthew was one of those internal fanatics he is citing, so he knows what he is talking about 🙂

If a challenger’s faction, even a minority, is utterly determined to make life impossible for the incumbent, then eventually the leadership or even prime ministership ceases to be worth holding.

Labour’s new rules make the strategy even more likely to succeed and have created a risk of chronic instability. With members and unions now having the power to choose the leader, whichever faction happens to be in the minority will spend its time not taking the fight to the dreaded Tories, but signing up new members and manipulating union personnel.

The new rules put Labour at constant risk of old-fashioned Leninist entrism. Already, party bosses report infiltration by former members of the Alliance who have no interest in being part of a modern social democratic party but want to recreate Labour as a replica of their old far-left ideal.

Mr Shearer has a big speech this weekend. He would be well advised to throw some red meat to his far left to settle them down a bit. But the subversion by Mr Cunliffe’s supporters will continue all year. There is another meltdown ahead.

Interestingly, Mike Smith (who works in Shearer’s Office, and is a trustee of The Standard) did a relatively mild post chiding another Standard author for telling porkies about the Labour leadership.

The response has been a virtual lynching of Mr Smith for daring to criticise another author.

My general advice to new CEOs is that their first initiative should be to abolish their company’s HR department. This will make them very popular with their staff and generally enhance their operational effectiveness. Each section manager should be capable of basic HR management and just have a lawyer or two on call for the difficult stuff.

But Google may be an exception to my rule. Stuff reported:

A few years ago, Google’s human resources department noticed a problem: A lot of women were leaving the company.

Like the majority of Silicon Valley software firms, Google is staffed mostly by men, and executives have long made it a priority to increase the number of female employees.

But the fact that women were leaving Google wasn’t just a gender equity problem – it was affecting the bottom line. 

Unlike in most sectors of the economy, the market for top-notch tech employees is stretched incredibly thin. Google fights for potential workers with Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and hordes of startups, so every employee’s departure triggers a costly, time-consuming recruiting process.

If employees are good, most employers are highly motivated to keep them.

Google calls its HR department People Operations, though most people in the firm shorten it to POPS.

The group is headed by Laszlo Bock, a trim, soft-spoken 40-year-old who came to Google six years ago.

Bock says that when POPS looked into Google’s woman problem, it found it was really a new mother problem: Women who had recently given birth were leaving at twice Google’s average departure rate.

At the time, Google offered an industry-standard maternity leave plan.

After a woman gave birth, she got 12 weeks of paid time off. For all other new parents in its California offices, but not for its workers outside the state, the company offered seven paid weeks of leave.

So in 2007, Bock changed the plan.

New mothers would now get five months off at full pay and full benefits, and they were allowed to split up that time however they wished, including taking some of that time off just before their due date.

If she likes, a new mother can take a couple months off after birth, return part time for a while, and then take the balance of her time off when her baby is older.

And did it work?

Yet it would be a mistake to conclude that Google doles out such perks just to be nice. POPS rigorously monitors a slew of data about how employees respond to benefits, and it rarely throws money away.

The five-month maternity leave plan, for instance, was a winner for the company. After it went into place, Google’s attrition rate for new mothers dropped down to the average rate for the rest of the firm.

“A 50 percent reduction – it was enormous!” Bock says.

Excellent. No laws needed. Just good incentives. An extra two months paid leave is a cheap price for keeping an employee, rather than losing them and the costs (actual and opportunity) of getting a replacement.

Under Bock, Google’s HR department functions more like a rigorous science lab than the pesky hall monitor most of us picture when we think of HR.

At the heart of POPS is a sophisticated employee-data tracking program, an effort to gain empirical certainty about every aspect of Google’s workers’ lives – not just the right level of pay and benefits but also such trivial-sounding details as the optimal size and shape of the cafeteria tables and the length of the lunch lines.

In the last couple years, Google has even hired social scientists to study the organisation.

The scientists – part of a group known as the PiLab, short for People & Innovation Lab – run dozens of experiments on employees in an effort to answer questions about the best way to manage a large firm.

How often should you remind people to contribute to their 401(k)s, and what tone should you use?

Do successful middle managers have certain skills in common – and can you teach those skills to unsuccessful managers?

Or, for that matter, do managers even matter – can you organise a company without them?

And say you want to give someone a raise – how should you do it in a way that maximizes his happiness?

Should you give him a cash bonus? Stock? A raise? More time off?

A science and research based approach to HR. Great stuff.

The group ran a “conjoint survey” in which it asked employees to choose the best among many competing pay options. For instance, would you rather have $1000 more in salary or $2000 as a bonus?

“What we found was that they valued base pay above all,” Setty says. “When we offered a bonus of X, they valued that at what it costs us. But if you give someone a dollar in base pay, they value it at more than a dollar because of the long-term certainty.”

In the fall of 2010, Schmidt announced that all Google employees would get a 10 per cent salary increase.

Setty says Googlers were overjoyed – many people cite that announcement as their single happiest moment at the firm, and Googlegeist numbers that year went through the roof. Attrition to competing companies also declined.

Not all companies can afford to do that, but if you challenge is staff retention nice to know what works – not one off bonuses, but pay increases.

Audrey Young at the Herald profiles new Minister Michael Woodhouse:

He avoided scandals and soapboxes in his first term as an MP, and has spent all of his second term in the highly demanding and important job of Chief Government Whip.

But to parliamentary inmates, his promotion came as no surprise.

From the moment he arrived in 2008 with a large cohort of new arrivals he was earmarked for higher office.

Yep – few are surprised that “Woody” is a Minister. He has always been well regarded.

When the new National Government launched into its contentious ACC reforms, Mr Woodhouse made a strong impression as confident, articulate and knowledgeable advocate of the policy, much more so than more experienced MPs.

In the second term he was destined to get a select committee chairmanship or a whip’s role – both are considered stepping stones to ministerial appointment, but more so a whip. Plenty of select committee chairs don’t make ministers. But almost all senior whips do.

Whips have to manage the back bench and ensure that the Government doesn’t lose any votes.

They also have to make sure there is an objection or vote against any attempt by an Opposition MP to delay things. I recall when a previous whip failed to object to leave to debate Steven Joyce’s academic record, and the House ended up spending a couple of hours on that!

Just before entering Parliament Mr Woodhouse was chief executive officer of Mercy Hospital in Dunedin.

He was born and raised in Dunedin in a large Labour-supporting Catholic family, the fifth of nine children.

In his maiden speech he made mention of the story of the Sisters of Mercy and their founder, Irish nun Catherine McAuley, which he said “inspires and challenges me and forms the basis of my leadership ethos”.

He may be one of the first Dunedin MPs to claim he has both blue (National colours) and gold running through his veins.

He spoke of his gold-mining forebears, his great-great-grandfather James Woodhouse, who emigrated from Lancashire and in 1862 discovered gold at the junction of the Teviot and Clutha rivers near Roxburgh.

“No great wealth was passed down, however, as he purchased the Bannockburn Hotel and fathered eight children.”

I was at that hotel a few weeks ago!! A lovely place to have a drink in the sun.

Mr Woodhouse will take up the responsibilities of Immigration, Veterans Affairs and Associate Transport, the latter traditionally beingthe minister responsible for road safety.

As Immigration Minister he will be responsible for policy and not for the painstaking work of sifting through individual cases pleading for a discretionary ministerial decision.

That will be done by Ms Kaye in her new role as Associate Immigration Minister

Michael has the better side of that portfolio. A former Minister commented that most minister’s weekly papers come in boxes, while the Associate Immigration Minister usually gets a trolley!

Mr Woodhouse is the first Dunedin-based National Party minister.

About time!

The other new minister, Nikki Kaye, is profiled by Andrea Vance in Stuff:

National was looking to inject some youthful energy into its frontbench team. It chose Nikki Kaye, who is preparing to run, cycle and kayak 243 kilometres.

The rise and rise of Nikki Kaye has been well canvassed. Even the most casual of political observers could have picked her promotion to minister this week – although a fast-track straight into the Cabinet is an extra gold star.

Nikki is the youngest female minister National has had.

The next few weeks will be spent getting to grips with her new portfolios: food safety, civil defence and youth affairs. Associate immigration – where many of the operational issues are delegated – also brings a heavy workload. She also promises not to neglect her constituency. Despite months of training, a busy ministerial diary may force her to pull out of the Coast to Coast, although she’s anxious to compete. She has learnt to make time for family. “The last four years, it’s been 6 – day weeks. I don’t really expect that to slow down. In the last year I’ve got more of a personal balance. . . .

Nikki has only two speeds. Running and running faster 🙂

Political Correctness strikes again. Stuff reports:

In the annals of comedy history, Fawlty Towers is considered one of the greatest television programs ever produced. And from among its episodes, The Germans, in which hotelier Basil Fawlty clashes with visiting German tourists, is one of its most-loved.

And yet in an act which many will see as political correctness gone mad, if not actual cultural vandalism, the venerable BBC has censored a scene in which racist language is used.

In the scene, a hotel regular, the elderly Major Gowen (Ballard Berkeley), relates a conversation in which he corrected someone for using a particular racist slur, by suggesting they use another, equally racist, slur.

In the context of the episode, the line is clearly intended to mock the old-school British upper class for their inherent racism. In that sense, the joke is on Major Gowen, as it were, and not aimed at racial minorities.

I detest this sort of rewriting of episodes. People are mature enough to judge old comedy shows in the context they were made – and as reported the show is actually lampooning the Major.

The actual lines that are now censored are:

He kept referring to the Indians as niggers. No, no, no, no I said niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs.

I guess Archie Bunker will be banned at some stage also!

Michael Field at Stuff reports:

Fiji’s military regime says it is deporting a Catholic priest who had been the subject of abusive text messages and phone calls by military strongman Voreqe Bainimarama.

So what did he do to get deported?

Barr, who has lived in Fiji for 32 years, was long seen as a Bainimarama supporter but earlier this month he was subjected to a torrent of abuse after he suggested the Chinese flag could replace the Union Jack on Fiji’s planned new flag.

So let’s be clear on this. He has lived there for 32 years, and has actually been a supporter of the Commodore. His crime was to write a letter to the editor that joked about putting the Chinese emblem on Fiji’s flag (as the Commodore has taken so much money from the Chinese). That is not a deportable offence in Fiji!

But after he made the Chinese crack in a letter to the Fiji Sun, he got a phone call from Bainimarama himself.

“Then in a very angry voice he said that I should apologise to the people of Fiji for my letter concerning the Fijian flag in the newspaper,” Barr said in a letter he wrote privately to the Australian High Commission but which has been leaked in blogs.

Barr confirmed to Fairfax Media it was his letter.

“(Bainimarama) then called me ‘a f***** up priest’ and said I had become anti-government,” Barr said.

He repeated the phrase again and threw in a few swear words and told him to go back to where he came from.

“His tone was angry and really over the top.”

Minutes later he got a text message from Bainimarama: “I think you owe the people of Fiji an apology for your childish comments. You give all Catholic priests a bad name.”

Barr said he replied that he was not anti-government but disappointed at some developments.

He then got a reply from Bainimarama: “F*** U a***hole. Stay well away from me.”

Shortly later he got another text telling him to “start saying your goodbyes” and pointing out his work permit expired at the end of the year: “Go and be a missionary in China”.

If that is how the Commodore reacts to a semi-satirical letter to the editor, do you think there is any chance he will hand over power? Sure there will be elections, but will they be free or fair? Or will anyone who criticises him be deported?

Coup 4.5 has further details of the exchange:

There was yet another text message just as he was going to lunch which said: “Fuck U arsehole. Stay well away from me.” I texted back: “Thank you Sir for the nice words. If you want me to apologise I will do as you wish.”

“As I was having lunch another text arrived: “Start saying your goodbyes Father Kevin James Barr, Australian national, work permit as a missionary, expiry date for permit 31/12/2013.” 

“I did not reply. Then came the final text: “Go and be a missionary in China”.

The Commodore seems rather unstable. Father Barr is 76 and spent almost half his life in Fiji. But an enemy of the state for simply writing a letter to a newspaper. Anyone who claims to support freedom of speech should be dismayed by this development.

Not a bad start to the year. Got 11/11 in the Herald’s first weekly politics quiz in 42 seconds.

No guesses either.

Karl du Fresne writes in the Dom Post:

John Campbell is a very talented broadcaster and a likeable man. But I believe he is dangerously wrong when he pooh-poohs the idea of objectivity in journalism, as he did in a recent interview with this paper’s Your Weekend magazine.

”I’ve never met a journalist who didn’t want to change the world and make it a better place,” the TV3 current affairs host was quoted as saying. ”Without exception that’s why they get into journalism. And yet when they get there they are asked to be dispassionate and objective.

”Who came up with that rule? It’s stupid.”

In fact that ”stupid” rule, which requires that journalists try to remain impartial and present facts and opinions in a balanced way, has underpinned good journalism in Western democracies for decades.

The importance of objectivity is recognised, if not always followed to the letter, by virtually all the world’s great news organisations, including the BBC. It’s also upheld by the bodies that adjudicate on journalism standards, including our own Broadcasting Standards Authority and Press Council.

There’s a very good reason for this. The requirement for balance is a vital check on the potential abuse of media power. If it were abandoned, journalists would be free to spin the news however it suits them – in other words, to exclude any inconvenient fact or opinion that doesn’t align with their own world view.

It’s a curious fact that those who argue that journalistic objectivity should be discarded – a view now routinely promoted in journalism schools – are almost invariably from the Left of the political spectrum. Yet the same people are the first to condemn Right-wing news outlets, such as the notorious Fox News, for making little or no attempt at journalistic balance.

A fair point. It is rather hypocritical to be a critic of Fox News for being unbalanced, but praise Campbell Live for proclaiming they are not objective.

It doesn’t seem to occur to them that objectivity, or more precisely the absence of it, can cut both ways. Being objective doesn’t mean, as is sometimes dishonestly argued, that journalists have to be timid or defer to those in power. Neither does it prevent them expressing shock and outrage when faced with obvious atrocities. But it does require reporters to acknowledge that in most situations there’s more than one side to the story, and that things are often more complex

And this is where I think John Campbell sometimes gets it wrong. 99% of NZers would agree that kids should not go hungry to school. But how to fix that is a complex issue, and any solution such as the state providing free food may have unforeseen side-effects. But if a TV show decides that “their”solution is the only solution and campaigns for that – well it is not serving the public well.

There is still a place for impassioned advocacy journalism of the type Campbell practices, as long as it’s clear to the viewer or reader that that’s what it is. But as a general proposition, the abandonment of journalistic objectivity would be disastrous. 

The challenge is making it clear when it is advocacy journalism and when it is so called balanced reporting. In print that is usually reasonably clear. In broadcasting far less so it seems.

Leighton Keith at Stuff reports:

Wheel clamper Daniel Clout claims police are making it impossible for him to do his job and he has complained to their watchdog.

His complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) includes transcripts from extraordinary video footage of clashes with motorists, police and a discussion with area commander Inspector Blair Telford.

Can the IPCA issue letters of commendation to the police officers complained about?

The police stance that his work was unauthorised was publicised late last year and he says he has been subjected to an increasing number of attacks from members of the public since then.

He claims police had been undermining his authority by telling people he was acting unlawfully, didn’t hold the required licence to do the job and that they could cut his clamps off.

Excellent public information campaign.

Other footage, shown by Mr Clout to the Taranaki Daily News, appears to show police were present when a man smashed his clamps with a wheelbrace.

That’s appalling. The man may have injured himself. The Police officers should have helped with the smashing.

Toby Manhire does a hilarious review of 2013 in advance. Extracts:

The appointment of Steven Joyce as minister responsible for Novopay proved a masterstroke. In mid-April, Joyce announced that the school payroll software would be abandoned, and replaced with Paula Rebstock.

Hekia Parata demonstrated her staying power, despite mounting dissent, which coalesced in a 10,000-strong march on Parliament, attended by teachers, parents, Phil Heatley and the Hansard transcribers. And how about those All Blacks?

Steven Joyce was appointed minister responsible for New Zealand cricket and other bat-based sports.

Not a bad idea!

Steven Joyce was appointed minister responsible for the royal baby (Denise!), as well as minister responsible for Marmite and other strategic breakfast spreads.

I sense a theme!

Labour lurched from crisis to crisis. Only the harshest critic could begrudge David Shearer his newfound contentment as a freelance motivational speaker, guitar tutor and editor of the popular “Things to Do in Mt Albert” blog.

David Cunliffe had already blown his chance after Patrick Gower discovered a recording device secreted in his beard. That left Grant Robertson a shoo-in for the leadership. Shane Jones won all the same, seducing everyone before him by weaving Harvard babble, Kiwi vernacular and preacher-speak into a single sentence. Scandal came soon after, and follows him into the new year.

I’d love to see Shane as the Labour Leader!

Steven Joyce was appointed minister responsible for appointing himself responsible for things. He swiftly moved to appoint himself minister responsible for Judith Collins.

Heh.

It was a surprisingly quiet year from Kim Dotcom. Apart from the revelation that he had for more than two years been storing data in the Prime Minister’s cerebrum – mostly pirated copies of the blockbuster film Johnny English – as part of his “MegaKey” project.

John Key defused the incident with a joke about the cricket. His poll numbers soared. As they did after he tried to get Obama to drink a yard-glass, and when he arrived at Question Time dressed as Bilbo Baggins.

Don’t give him ideas!

He was universally lauded for his decision to change his formal title from “Prime Minister” to “Chief Executive of New Zealand” – with the exception of a single damning editorial in the Southland Times and a handful of extremist bloggers – and there was broad support for his proposal to leverage the brand as”SkyCity New Zealand”.

That will cost far more than a convention centre!

Excellent satire. At least I hope it is satire.

Teuila Fuatai at NZ Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key shared tales of his Jewish mother’s escape from Nazi-controlled Austria at the United Holocaust Memorial Day event this morning.

Mr Key addressed a crowd of about 200 people, which included Holocaust survivors, politicians and Israel’s Ambassador to New Zealand, Shemi Tzur, in Auckland.

His mother, born in Vienna, Austria, moved to the United Kingdom in 1938 with her brother. She moved to New Zealand after marrying a British soldier.

She did not speak any English and left her own mother in Austria when she fled, Mr Key said.

My father and his mother also left in 1938. Sadly not all my family managed to get out.

He spoke of his mother’s pain over the Holocaust.

People often asked: “Why is it that I can’t speak German?

“The simple answer is my mother refused to teach me.” She “did not want to reflect on her history”, Mr Key said.

I didn’t even realise my father’s side of my family was of Jewish ancestry until I remarked one day how a schoolmate was Jewish and how he seemed so normal.  And never once did we talk about what happened with my grandparents. I can only imagine how awful it was.

ZB reported:

Newstalk ZB’s Allan Lee says it was a moving event, with Mr Key speaking passionately and without notes.

He says it’s personal for the Prime Minister – his mother was an Austrian Jew and was forced to leave as a result of the Nazi invasion.

“She never wanted to talk about it and he told the audience today that his mother, whenever he tried to question her about it, she would just not answer. So he’s never really found out the full story of what happened to her.”

Mr Lee says Mr Key also spoke about Holocaust, saying people who deny it happened can only be described as mad.

And to prove this point, we have the lovely intellectuals at Stormfront who reacted to the PM’s comments with:

When the evidence stacking up against the Holocaust, makes the world realise it was a plot to secure Israel and that we must teach the truth…

Will the UN then change the day to UN Holohoax Memorial Day?

What sad people.

One of may favourite podcasts is Skepticality, produced by the Skeptics Society.  They apply science and logic to a multitude of topics – from so called business success conferences, to health quacks, to religious claims to unusual occurrence odds.

The last episode I listened to have a great section on organic food. Their summary was:

• The most dangerous bacteria in America’s food supply is E. coli, which is found in abundance in cattle manure, a favorite “natural” fertilizer of organic farming.)
• The evidence for the superiority of organic food is mostly anecdotal and based more on irrational assumptions and wishful thinking than on hard scientific evidence.
• Organic food does not offer special protection against cancer or any other disease.
• Organic food is not “healthier” than food produced by conventional farming, using synthetic pesticides and herbicides.

A key useful line was that “natural” in no way equates to “safe” and “artificial” in  no way equates to “unsafe”. In fact often it can be the other way around. You can not generalise. Many poisons are natural, after all.

With that in mind, I saw this blog by Green MP Steffan Browning:

They do note, however, that the area of land certified as organic still makes up just 0.9 percent of global agricultural land. I am reading that as a good opportunity for a lot more growth in organics – the other 99.1%.

There is definitely demand for change. This month also saw 25,000 people demonstrating in Berlinagainst industrial agriculture. I particularly like their chant “If you persecute farmers, animals and bees, you won’t become MPs!”

I absolutely agree with the Association of German Dairy Farmers that only if “farmers and citizens stand up together for reform of agricultural policy can we keep our farms operating and ensure that at long last we produce healthy food under conditions of fairness.”

So Steffan Browning repeats the myth that non-organic food is not healthy. He also seems to imply he wants all agriculture in the world to be organic.

As is well documented (with scores of references) at the Wikipedia article on organic food, the vast scientific consensus is that there is little or any difference in taste, no significant difference in nutrients or heavy metals. A review of 50 years of evidence concluded “there is no good evidence that consumption of organic food is beneficial to health in relation to nutrient content” and “There is no support in the scientific literature that the lower levels of nitrogen in certain organic vegetables translates to improved health risk”.

There is also no evidence that organic foods carry a lower risk of cancer according to the American Cancer Society.

Now when it comes to issues such as climate change, the Greens insist that we must follow the scientific consensus and act to mitigate against global warming. And, they are right. We should accept the scientific consensus.

But when it comes to other issues such as organic food, they point blank refuse to endorse the scientific consensus, and preach fear and doubt and cherry pick the odd study to back their near-religious view that organic is better.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against organic food. If you want to pay 40% more for your food, and it gives you peace of mind – good on you. but I object to MPs and parties denigrating science by insisting that organic is safer and better.

John key gave today his first major speech of 2013. Some good sections to it, and a fairly major policy announcement. Extracts:

So here in New Zealand we have to be a magnet for investment.

That’s investment by individuals and small businesses as well as big businesses; and it’s investment by people from overseas as well as Kiwis.

The more investment we get, the more jobs will be created.

That’s not to say there won’t also be jobs lost.

In any three-month period in New Zealand, between 100,000 and 200,000 jobs disappear, and between 100,000 and 200,000 new jobs are created, as businesses start up, expand, contract and close altogether.

The labour market is a very dynamic place.

But the only way net new jobs can be created is by private investors putting their money into businesses in New Zealand.

Governments can encourage investment but they can also discourage investment.

A government can load up big costs and uncertainties onto business.

It can make people unwelcome because they are considered to be the wrong nationality to invest here, or in the wrong industry.

And it can lock up the resources of the country.

That would certainly discourage investment.

The fluid nature of the labour market is worth reflecting on. We are decades beyond the jobs for life NZ once had. Jobs get created and disappear on a daily basis. And it is investment that leads to more jobs.

But the big changes we are making this year are to industry training and, in particular, to apprenticeships.

Under Labour’s wasteful management, up to 100,000 people a year listed as being in industry training were in fact “phantom trainees” who achieved no credits and in some cases were no longer alive.

Heh.

1. From 1 January next year, we are going to combine Modern Apprenticeships and other apprenticeship-type training under an expanded and improved scheme called New Zealand Apprenticeships. These new apprenticeships will provide the same level of support, and the same level of subsidy, for all apprentices, regardless of their age. Fewer than half the people doing apprenticeship-type training are actually funded as proper apprentices, through the Modern Apprenticeship scheme, and we are going to change that.

2. We are going to boost overall funding for apprenticeships. The current top-up for Modern Apprentices will be redistributed across all apprentices, regardless of age, as an extension to their learning subsidy. In addition, overall subsidy payments will be increased by around $12 million in the first year, rising over time. Increased funding for apprenticeships will allow industry training organisations to invest in the quality of education for apprentices, lower fees for employers and encourage growth in the uptake of apprenticeships.

3. We are going to boost the educational content of apprenticeships. At a minimum they will require a programme of at least 120 credits that results in a level four qualification.

4. We are going to set clearer roles and performance expectations for ITOs, and give employers other options if their ITOs don’t perform; and

5. To lift the profile of, and participation in, apprenticeships, we are going to give the first 10,000 new apprentices who enrol after 1 April this year $1,000 towards their tools and off-job course costs, or $2,000 if they are in priority construction trades. The same amount will also be paid to their employers.

The Govt estimates this will lead to 14,000 more people doing apprenticeships in the next few years.

We need more houses built in New Zealand, at a lower cost.

That means we need more land available for building, more streamlined processes and less costly red tape.

This doesn’t require the Government to spend a lot of money. We are already a huge player in the housing market and I’m very wary of spending more of taxpayers’ money.

But there are plenty of private sector investors who want to invest in housing – if only we can remove the roadblocks that are slowing down the process and driving up costs.

It’s ridiculous, for example, that developers can wait six to 18 months for a resource consent.

It’s ridiculous that we allow councils to demand almost anything as a condition for the consent.

And it’s ridiculous that we allow them to charge whatever fees they want.

Unless these sorts of issues are dealt with there won’t be more affordable housing built.

Labour’s so-called ‘plan’ to build 100,000 houses doesn’t do anything to fix the actual cost of building – so will either fail miserably, deliver dwellings that people don’t want to live in, or require massive taxpayer subsidies.

It’s dishonest and it doesn’t stack up.

Far better to reduce the cost of housing for everyone, than introduce Housing Lotto when 10,000 lucky people a year get a taxpayer subsidized house by having their names drawn out of a barrel. And yes – that is their actual policy!

… overseas investment in New Zealand adds to what New Zealanders can invest on their own.

It creates jobs, boosts incomes, and helps the economy grow.

Overseas capital can make things happen here that wouldn’t otherwise happen, grow businesses that wouldn’t otherwise have the means to grow, create jobs that otherwise wouldn’t exist, and pay wages that are higher than they would otherwise be.

So it’s sad to see the Labour Party that was such an advocate of trade and investment in the past somehow turning into the number one defender of Fortress New Zealand.

Indeed.

So as you can see, we’ve got plenty on.

But I can guarantee you one thing – Labour will oppose almost all of it.

And the few things they might find to like, Russel Norman or Winston Peters will vehemently oppose.

And that’s the irony of the New Zealand Opposition in 2013.

They criticise the Government for being too hands-off; and yet between each of the Opposition parties they oppose every hands-on change we make to encourage investment, growth and jobs.

Tax changes – they oppose.

Major roading projects – they oppose.

A free trade agreement with the US – they oppose.

RMA changes – they oppose.

90 day trials – they oppose.

Work expectations for beneficiaries – they oppose.

Oil and gas exploration – they oppose.

The Hobbit legislation – they oppose.

A national convention centre – they oppose.

Every piece of legislation or policy we have developed to encourage growth and jobs they have opposed.

And that’s because there is only one type of activist government they know – the big-spending and big-borrowing kind that we know so well from the Labour Party and the Greens.

It’s called “chequebook activism” and New Zealanders know it well because they’ve seen it before.

As a country we are still paying for it – literally.

It means big, wasteful and unaffordable spending, charged to the taxpayer’s bill. And it means Labour and the Greens meddling and choking off private sector investment.

Good to see the PM pointing out the inconsistency. There is a balance to be had when going on the attack. You need to both talk up your plans, but also point out the alternative. The announcement on apprenticeships was a nice anchor for it.

It will be interesting to see what Shearer announces tomorrow apart from the fact Labour will be “hands on”!!

Michelle Cooke at Stuff reported:

For many people it is just a famous, comical quote, but some passengers on a New Zealand-bound flight did not see the funny side in Wynand Mullins’ T-shirt, which read “Prepare to die”.

In hindsight, Mr Mullins says his T-shirt, with a popular quote from the fantasy film The Princess Bride, may not have been the best clothing choice for a flight, but he believes the reaction of Qantas was over the top.

Mr Mullins, a Kiwi living in Sydney, was one of the first to board his Auckland-bound flight on Sunday evening. While other passengers took their seats, Mr Mullins was approached by a flight attendant who said some people on board were intimidated by the words on his shirt.

The shirt had a large name tag which read: “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

The line is one of the most memorable from the 80s movie The Princess Bride.

I can’t believe someone complained about that. Unless you were in fact the killer of Inigo Montoya’s father it obviously doesn’t apply to you!

A great film. Have watched it a dozen times at least.

Alasdair Fotheringham at NZ Herald reported:

As an ex-presidential consultant, a former adviser to the World Bank, a financial researcher for the United Nations and a professor in the US, Artur Baptista da Silva’s outspoken attacks on Portugal’s austerity cuts made the bespectacled 61-year-old one of the country’s leading media pundits last year.

The only problem was that Baptista da Silva is none of the above.

He turned out to be a convicted forger with fake credentials and, following his spectacular hoodwinking of Portuguese society, he could soon face fraud charges.

So this media darling was never checked out, for over a year?

Here’s a sample article quoting him from Reuters:

Portugal needs to renegotiate its bailout package or risk social problems spinning out of control soon, a U.N.economist dealing with southern Europe told a local newspaper.

The Expresso weekly on Saturday cited Artur Baptista da Silva, coordinator of a group set up by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to monitor debt-ridden southern Europe, as saying Portugal’s bailout programme was yielding “very bad results” and some of its terms had to be changed.

The government and the lenders insist no change of terms is needed and that the programme is “well on track” towards reducing the public deficit. They rule out any need for debt renegotiation to avoid parallels with Greece’s crisis, which has already caused a debt writedown.

But Baptista da Silva said Portugal, which has slid into its worst recessionsince the 1970s after applying tough tax hikes and spending cuts dictated by last year’s bailout, doesn’t have much time.

“If it’s not negotiated now, then in six months’ time, we’d have to do it on our knees. All the projections that we’ve done for the economy, debt, unemployment leads us to believe that Portugal will be in serious difficulties in terms of social control in half a year,” he warned.

He said as many as 2 million Portuguese out of 10.6 million were living below the poverty line, surviving on less than 7 euros a day. Unemployment is at record highs of over 16 percent and social strife has grown in the past few months.

The proposed renegotiation would save Portugal 10 billion euros ($13.1 billion), according to the economist.

Hilarious that they made him into the leading spokesperson against austerity, and took a year for someone to find out he was a con artist.

Matthew Jones wrote in the NZ Herald:

I read with astonishment the contribution on Friday from Julie Fairey who seemed unaware of the facts of minimum wage increases and their dire, unintended consequences.

There is little doubt that we desire higher wages and higher standards of living for our society but this cannot be done through legislation.

The effects of a minimum wage increase, despite their good intentions, have led to those whom it is intended to help being unemployed or finding it more difficult to find jobs and learn skills as the incentive to hire gets legislated away.

American Samoa had a terrible case of this when the federal Government increased minimum wage up to US$7.25 an hour, in some cases an increase of $4 an hour.

This is good isn’t it? High incomes and more economic demand as Julie Fairey “argues”. Well no, what happened was a mass exodus of jobs, one fishing and canning company slashing thousands of jobs on the island nation, sending them to the US state of Georgia.

Those earning around US$4 an hour now had nothing and American Samoa lost enormous job-creating investment that now headed to a small town in southern America where more skilled labour can justify the higher costs.

There is only one sustainable way to lift wages – productivity.

You could increase the wage to $100 per hour, surely even a diehard socialist could see the damage it would do. But the principle is the same at every level. The ripple effect of these job losses caused by such intervention in the market can be devastating.

The damage tends to depend on where the minimum wage is set, in relation to the median wage.

Although many who study minimum wage come up with differing opinions about the amount of job losses due to minimum wage increase, the most devastating is surely what is unseen.

What we don’t see is the entry level jobs that could have been created if legislation did not distort the market, jobs that would have allowed those unskilled, maybe currently on the dole, to earn an income and provide them with hope for the future.

Have you ever wondered where those ushers went from movie cinemas? Or window washers at service stations? Bag packers at supermarkets?

There is no point in the employer hiring if the cost is greater than the value produced. This is a law that tells employers to discriminate against the young and unskilled.

It is no coincidence that youth and minority unemployment is much higher than the national average. And indeed no coincidence that it was not always like this.

Absolutely not. There was a strong correlation between youth and adult unemployment for around 25 years up until the abolition of the youth minimum wage in 2007.

Audrey Young interviews David Clark. Some extracts:

What’s been the most rewarding part of the past year?

Representing the local constituents in Dunedin North and being able to make a difference in specific situations where they have fallen through the cracks for one reason or another, or the system hasn’t quite served them properly, and having the ability to intervene and raise questions with local agencies or the relevant minister and to get the support they need for their circumstance.

The private member’s bills have been pretty satisfying, too, particularly getting the one Mondayising Waitangi Day and Anzac Day through to select committee and hopefully beyond.

I don’t think the Monday issue is a big issue, but I do think the change mooted by Clark is sensible.

What MP outside your party impresses you?

Kevin Hague [Green]. Kevin is impressive in that he has been able to walk a line where he is seen as very reasonable, but also is able to challenge injustices where he sees them.

I have a lot of time for Kevin Hague also. He’s very good at working with others to advance issues he believes in.

Name one of your heroes outside politics.

I guess this sounds a bit cheesy but ultimately the Biblical Jesus is something of a hero to me, unsurprising given that I’ve got a background as a minister of religion. He was someone who stood up for the poor and vulnerable and was concerned about social justice issues and not afraid to take on the authorities of the day to ensure fairer outcomes for those who were struggling.

I wonder how many ministers or ex-ministers have been MPs over the years? I can think of half a dozen at least.

Cactus Kate blogs:

Meet Sharissa Naidoo.

Sharissa Naidoo, 25, and her partner have been renting together for four years and say they are desperate to buy their first home.

“The concern is if we’re wanting to start a family and move into a house that’s more than one bedroom, we can’t afford that,” Naidoo said.

Naidoo recently graduated with a Masters Degree in Sociology.  

She is now sick of renting and expects the net taxpayer (you) to underwrite a home for her to live in with her “partner” (hate that word) of four years.

 

All of this, not even one year after her graduation ceremony in May 2012.

Natalie Akoorie at NZ Herald reports:

Mr Gostmann was dismissed without notice from Independent Refrigeration and Electrical in Whakatane in August last year after making a series of costly and serious errors.

In one of the incidents an apprentice asked Mr Gostmann if cables had been isolated when they had not. The cables short-circuited when the apprentice went to move them and he narrowly avoided electrocution.

So almost killed someone.

When Mr Gostmann was interviewed for the senior position early last year, he told Mr Faber he was a refrigeration engineer with 15 years’ experience in South Africa. But when he could not perform basic duties alarm bells rang.

Incompetent.

When Mr Faber made inquiries with Mr Gostmann’s former employers in South Africa he was told Mr Gostmann was merely a handyman.

Lied.

His only qualification in the industry was the equivalent of a two-week course completed for immigration papers and that a reference from his former employer was actually signed by an unwitting office person.

Unqualified.

ERA member Rachel Larmer also accepted evidence that Mr Gostmann’s named referee was someone who worked at a supermarket, rather than at a coolroom and display refrigeration manufacturing company in South Africa, as stated on Mr Gostmann’s curriculum vitae.

However, she criticised Independent Refrigeration for not attempting to improve Mr Gostmann’s poor workmanship through a performance management or monitoring process.

He lied about his experience and was unqualified – and it is their responsibility to improve his performance?

She also said the company should have carried out more thorough reference checks but acknowledged Mr Gostmann was 50 per cent to blame for his dismissal because his work was not up to standard.

The reference was effectively false, and again this is the company’s fault!

She told Independent Refrigeration to pay $10,304 to Mr Gostmann for distress compensation.

Incredible.

Who would want to be an employer?