Thanks to LLU

Congratulations on the increased competition brought about by LLU, now Whangarei residents are to get 10Mbit/s symmetrical service from $20/month. (Hattip: ComputerWorld)

Of course this breakthrough is actually nothing to do with LLU - how does LLU have anything to do with the provision of a new Wireless ISP? And that is the point.
LLU was not only a confiscation of private property rights, but it was an entirely unnecessary one. Telecom's main competitor, Vodafone, doesn't even have a fixed line business. So yeah - unbundling the copper loop is really necessary for competition.
There is already fiber based competition in those areas that actually warrant competition, even the likes of developments in Manakau are being trialled with fiber to the home deployments. Why is it that it is up to Telecom to perform all this infrastructure? Because the other Telco's can see that they can just sit back and be able to wait and use it - they have seen that there actually isn't the amount of price gouging going on that is claimed, and they might as well let someone else take the capital risk of investment when they will be able to use it just as if they had made the investment.
And then if Telecom makes the wrong call in the eyes of history, then the "new" players will blow them out of the water by investing in alternative routes.

Like Wi-Max.

Progressive Ideology

From the NZ Herald: (As spotted on Kiwiblog)

The only party that did not spend election money illegally, the Progressives, says it was not hard to keep within the rules during the last campaign. And when it was unsure, it asked the office of the Auditor-General himself, Kevin Brady. Former list MP Matt Robson, who could perhaps still be in Parliament if the Progressives had dipped into leader Jim Anderton's parliamentary budget, said "there was no ambiguity"

As much as I dislike the actual policies of Jim Anderton - this just helps to reinforce my belief that he is one of the only remaining parliamentarians who actually stands by his principles.
Good on you Jim - now all that remains is for you to pull support from any party who is too corrupt or stupid to follow the same guidelines you did...

A Fairy Tale for Our Times

Because this was way too good to leave buried as a comment on kiwiblog!

Copyright: Kiwi_Donkey

“Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who’s the most popular of them all?”
“’Tis you, O Queen, wise and fair
Your judgement puts you in the clear
The people love you just and true
They do not turn to anyone new.”

The Queen received her due with grace
While peace and beauty showed on her face
Until a grunt disturbed her royal self
And she turned to see her finance Elf
“My Toiler! Banisher of all my cares
What news have you for my sweet ears?”

“None good, your Majesty,” replied the Elf
“The cupboard’s bare and so is the shelf
I’ve robbed Peter to pay Paul
Put the middle class in Thrall
Let taxes rise, put on new charges
Gathered windfalls, cut at margins
The roads are old, crime is rising
People are sick and business crying.”

“But what has happened to the cash we raised?”
Cried the Queen. If that is gone I’d be amazed.”

“Some went to the old woman who lives in a shoe,
And more to pay those telling her what to do
Some I kept to help the future old
Locked in my treasury is that last bit of gold
But most we spent as you told us to
A fritter here, a brainstorm there, and soon it’s through.”

“WHAT!” cried the mighty Queen with rage
“I must have gifts for the public mind
Handouts and favourites at every stage
Are necessary to keep them blind!”

At this the mirror stirred to life
“O Queen, the situation has changed
Your hope for love is hitting strife
From the woods, a new man arisen
Is treating your programmes with derision
Your reign so popular, wise and fair
Is now being seen as just hot air
Around him gather both good and mean
To take the throne from the spendthrift Queen.”

“How dare they challenge me, I am Snow White!
And to prove it I’ll smite with all my might.
Send for my dwarfs! Abandon the law!
If we can’t win fairly, we’ll have a war.”

So in came Smarmy, Angry, Sleepy,
Prissy, Dancer and Little Creepy
And last of all that mighty twit
Now known to all as the hypocrite

“Advance!” cried the Queen in a harsh tone.
“Find that man who claims the throne
Hack him down ‘till you reach bone
Do not rest until he doth moan
‘enough’ and retires from the fray
So that unfettered we may have our way.”

At the end of the day the dwarfs returned
Beaten, battered, broken and burned
Angry would no longer talk
At the thought of strife did Sleepy balk
Dancer still muttered, “he lied”, “he lied”
While Smarmy had just ducked and dived
Prissy was found behind the throne
His only weapon a wounded tone.

The hypocrite had fought with gusto
Fuelled by an antipasto,
Scampi and wine, consumed legato
But while his blows intended pain
They missed the target and hit John McCain.

And as for little creepy, that nosy squirt
None could tell whose side was worst hurt.

“Oh, no,” said the Queen to her finance Elf
“If you want something done, do it yourself”

And so she mounted her white charger
Rode to battle with great ardour
Galloping into filth and muck
Keeping going due to luck
Wielding claims both real and fake
And looking back not at her wake
Where sewers flowed and nightmares gathered
And with shapeless heaving the evil blathered.

Who knows the end of the fair Queen’s plan?
Perhaps she will strike down her man?
But however much she strives and conquers,
If she thinks the mirror approves, she’s bonkers.

Don's sentiments worth repeating verbatim

Hattip: Stuff

Dr Brash said he was not denying many people identified strongly with their Maori ancestry, but it was wrong to argue the Government had failed its Treaty obligation if Maori were over-represented in negative social statistics.

"If Maori New Zealanders die more frequently from lung cancer than non-Maori do, for example, it is almost certainly because Maori New Zealanders choose to smoke more heavily than other New Zealanders do," he said.

"Similarly if there are relatively few Maori at the Auckland Law School - and that despite preferential arrangements for Maori - that is not a failing of the Government, but a result of decisions made by individual Maori.

"Nobody would suggest that because there are relatively few European New Zealanders in the All Blacks, there has been a breach of the Treaty."

On what basis do you dispute this? The only way I see is by avoiding the issue (again) and claiming that it is not the way the Treaty works. Maybe - but that is a diversionary tactic to the point. Give the responsibility to the decision maker - and maybe the decision will be different.

"But everybodies doing it"

Hattip: Stuff
As a further refutation to Labour's cries of dismay over the Auditor General's pending report into the Parliamentary services funding misspending - it is interesting to look at the ruling against Westpac - and more interestingly the comments made by the Commerce Commision regarding their prosecution:

Commerce Commission General Manager Geoff Thorn said some people had commented that non-disclosure of the charges was common practice in the New Zealand banking industry at the time.

"The commission is not swayed by that argument.

"The behaviour clearly was widespread, but illegal actions can not be justified on the basis that others were doing it too."

Once again we see the points in general practice that:
Ignorance of the law is not a defence
Lack of clarity in the law is not a defence
Past occurances of the same offence is not a defence against gettting charged this time
But I'm only one of many, is definately not a defence.

Given that everybody else has to play by these principles - the politicians had better start too.
Maybe it is time for more names like Lafayette and Robspierre to be entered into history.

Airline Services Agreement

I'll admit to being terribly surprised today at finding out that the third largest provider of trans-tasman flight services is effectively bound by a non-competition agreement.

Emirates, which provides around 12% of the trans-tasman flight capacity is bound in its Airline Services Agreement (which allows it to fly to New Zealand) to not materially affect the interests of New Zealand's national carrier (IE Air New Zealand). Most worrying however (given that a number of old bi-lateral airline services agreements apparently contain these clauses - that was an eye opener) is that New Zealand officials have recently sent communications to Emirates reminding them of this obligation.

If any one can find the reference to this - I believe it was actually Phil Goff from whom this missive was sent; at which point given this Governments posturing over increasing competition giving it the right to effectively confiscate private property, Labour really needs to explain why it is enforcing anti-competitive practices just because it has a shareholding in another enterprise.

I recently opined on how the Labour Government was continuing its march towards ensuring the utopian Socialist collective hidden beneath the veneer of capitalist endeavor (catch-22). It would seem that it wasn't far wrong.
Tags: catch-22, Labour, air services agreement, AirNZ, nz, new zealand, Socialism

Congratulations Labour

So what do these companies have in common:
BNZ (twice)
Origin Pacific
Air New Zealand
Feltex

other than being iconic New Zealand brands? Which others can you name that should be included?

[Edit] Add to the list as an exception:
Georgie Pie

The Phishers are getting good!

I'm impressed - note how even once you follow the link in the email the URL looks like a paypal URL on first glance.
Just remember folks - if you get an email like this it is always better to just type the URL yourself - following links is going to get you in a world of hurt!

Prohibition, because it works?

Hattip: Stuff

A survey commissioned by the Greens earlier this year found pies, doughnuts, chips, fizzy drinks and oversize cookies were the staple items sold in school canteens.
Shock, horror?

"This fund combined with new nutrition guidelines being worked on will require schools over the next few years will only allow schools to sell food and drinks that are healthy."
Now the main point here is that those kids whose parents devolve the responsibility of food provision onto their kids will continue to do so - which is the root cause of this issue. Those parents that actually care enough to provide food rather than money tend not to have a high incidence of their children overindulging in these types of foods.

And lets face it - kids are crafty and greedy. If they have money and the school cafeteria doesn't sell pies - they will just get them from the Dairies. We saw this at the school cafeteria in New Plymouth where there were no sweets sold in the tuckshop. So kids just left school and went to the nearby dairy - yeah that was a great win getting children to sneak out of school grounds.

So the school even managed to persuade the dairy not to sell to children during school hours (and I'll bet you won't manage to do that everywhere). This didn't decrease the amount of kids spending their money on lollies though - it just delayed it until the end of the day meaning they didn't eat anything during the day, and then got their lolly fix. Again, a great win for everyone.

Lets face it - how many times has prohibition worked?
Tags: nz, new zealand, prohibition, food, subsidy

Unions argue that keeping their members informed illegal

Hattip: Stuff

I loved this gem in the latest update on the Distribution Workers strike:
The unions representing them are also taking legal action against what they allege are Progressive's attempts to "undermine collective bargaining" by sending a copy of its only offer – which was rejected – directly to union members instead of the unions.

Basically the unions are arguing that it undermines their power when information is sent directly to members rather than only being diluted via their "official channels first". Which of course is probably right. It is much harder to force people to give up weeks of their wages to fight against a proposal that they actually know the full contents of, and have the chance to get independent advice on.
Tags: nz, newzealand, union, progressive, strike, lockout

Labour scared of money they can't steal

It has been interesting to see the Labour party continue to try and smear other opposition parties on the basis of their funding. They have always tried to complain about how they need state funding of things like election advertising to stop the likes of National beating them purely through their "deeper pockets". We will ignore (for the moment) the hypocrisy of these statements with reference to Labour's Union backers, but instead now see Labour's reaction as they are challenged by a smaller party than themselves that is recognized as not having those deep pockets - the Libertarianz.

"I'd be very surprised to learn that the Libertarianz have the financial means to pay Mr Molloy's fees. This raises significant questions about who is actually backing this case and what their motives are."

And instead of helping to support those other parties that are in even more need of political funding than themselves - yes the Libertarianz cannot help themselves to $800,000 of the public purse like Labour - they belittle the fact that they have managed to find funding themselves for their worthy cause.

You see Labour's argument about their taking funds from the public purse to battle the deep pockets of National has one major flaw. Labour has the breadth of backers to combat National in purse - it is the smaller parties of the Greens, Progressives, Libertarianz et al. that should actually be the main recipients of the public election money under Labour's arguments. Look at all their arguments about state funding of electioneering and try to follow them logically as to whether that means the largest parties should receive any funding? By their own arguments neither Labour nor National should receive public assistance, or every party regardless of size should receive the same funding.

The latter case would certainly be interesting in terms of an actual level playing field where all parties had the same allocation and could only spend that allocation and nothing more. Might actually force an election to be fought on policies with the smaller parties having a real chance to get their policies across.

But that would require some actual decorum and integrity within our political process, and so is likely to remain a pipe dream. What would your ideal election funding source and spending restriction model be? And what concessions would you make to make that feasible?
Tags: nz, newzealand, politics, Labour, Libertarianz, funding, election

Peak trash theory?

With David Farrar recently pointing out the Greens (people not party) tendency to answer everything with a new "peak" theory - I wonder how long it will take for them to point out the following plan suffers from a peak garbage problem?
Florida county plans to vaporize landfill trash
Tags: trash, landfill, power, green

Speaker of the house

Thanks to the Maori Party, the Greens and even United Future for pointing out that question time in the house is exactly that - for answering political questions.

The main problem is they and many parts of the media are still pointing partial blame on this at the National Party - however the blame here really lies completely with Labour, and more specifically the Speaker; Margaret Wilson.

It has been documented many times before now the number of complaints about Ministers failing to answer a question put to them; instead being allowed to give anything from a personal attack on the opposition to an "I couldn't comment on that" as "addressing the question". And so the question time has both been allowed to degenerate, and in fact couldn't help but to degenerate to the mess it is now in.

The minor parties here have shown the way forward. Next time any minister fails to answer the question the procedure must be:
* Raise a point of order that the question has not been addressed
* When Margaret again fails to bring the minister to order, raise a motion of no confidence in the speaker
* If the motion fails, walk out.

The opposition and coalition parties need to bring some respect back into Parliamentary proceedings. Labour won't - it is not in their best interest. They are already seen with the most derision by the general public in terms of accountability and behavior. They can only win by dragging other parties down to their level. Here is hoping that the members of all other parties will have enough decency to stay above it, and show that the "highest court of the land" can be a place of genuine debate and thinking.
Tags: nz, new zealand, Labour, politics, swine

Mangere Bridge gets a chance to speak for all New Zealanders

Due to the inability of Labour affiliated people to observe the property rights of others, the people of Mangere Bridge now have the chance that Tamaki rejected.
That is to send a message to the Labour party in Wellington that they will not accept the endemic corruption that would appear to be steeped in their organisation, whilst simultaneously letting the Auckland City Council that their over taxation via rates is unacceptable.

Of course given the areas socio-economic status this would also equate to a message to the rest of the country that the people there are actually willing to stand on their own feet rather than relying on handouts for the majority of their per capita income.

I read with interest in the The Aucklander South the brave platform that Sylvia Taylor is standing on; "If I had my way, I wouldn't sanction social welfare for our kids under 20"
Reputedly there has been a number of South Ausklanders approach her in the past for this type of reform to help save the youth in those neighbourhoods.
It will be interesting to watch now that they are being given another chance to support that reform whether it will be taken, or prove to be empty rhetoric.

R&R

Along the vein of my favorite topic Rights and Responsibilities, we now have the drivel from the East and Bays Courier attempting moral outrage over a pensioners rent rise.

They exclaim loudly about the 261 percent increase Ken Cameron was suddenly faced with; and pull the reader in with stories about how will he pay his $165 per week rent bill with his $200 per week pension.

But they make the fatal mistake of actually explaining the facts around the circumstances which dissolves any sympathy someone should have for Mr Cameron. You see the reason for the change in Mr Camerons rent bill from $63 per week to $165 per week was due to him losing his income related rent status. Which is because he didn't fill out the form for it.
Or more accurately he did - but with the expression of "get lost".

So the one task that he was being paid $5200 per year to do was fill out a form. One form that was delivered to him, that he knew full well needed to be completed and that he didn't do. If he can't handle the responsibility of filling out one form, why should he expect society to give him the right to carry on living in that place? This is someone that we are paying over $15,000 per year for the simple task of carrying on living, and filling out a form.

Nice work if you can get it.
Tags: nz, new zealand, rent, R&R, politics

Abuse of parliamentary letter head, or wandering blog posts.

In my previous post I was actually intending to go a slightly different direction and bring up a few more areas specifically along the lines of HC's abuse of parliamentary letter head in making a submission about the tenanting house in her area, and the interference in judicial process not being isolated to the painting saga. In fact the latter isn't even limited to our own judicial process with documents obtained under the Official Information Act showing that they've even attempted interfering in Australian cases.

But without repeating the framework of the previous post I guess I'll now need to wait for another event before heading down that line. Would seem with the issues swirling around this Government I shouldn't have to wait too long for something pertinent. Maybe I should just wait for something specific like the speaker refusing to uphold parliamentary process again?
Tags: nz, new zealand, politics, law

Why do you always start with "PainterGate"?

OK - first I'll quickly vent that I despise the term and all the "Gates" anyway. Please can we find another way of referring to *all* those events except the actual WaterGate Scandal?

But more to the point why do all the right wing blog commentators always start their chronological lists of convention and law breaking by this Government and its officials with PainterGate? First issue I have with this is that no-one actually remembers that "scandal" for what it should be anyway. Ask anyone left / right / central / libertarian / indifferent what PainterGate was about and they will pretty much all tell you it was about HC signing her name to someone else's painting.
Which of course is the trivial and stupid thing it should have been about had HC not pressured the Attorney General about the open case using official parliamentary stationary, had HC not lied to police with regards to both the paintings whereabouts, knowledge of events, had HC not had a Secretary destroy the painting (which at that point was evidence) etc. If these were the issues brought to mind by the phrase PainterGate, then sure use it. Otherwise refer to the specific events which actually had some measure of real wrong about them. Who really cares about the "fraud" of signing her name to the painting - very few at a very academic level.

Second issue I have is when you are compiling these lists it is far better to start it from 1999 when Labour first took power - rather than waiting until 2002? This gives the impression that Labour actually waited until its 2nd term before its predilection for weighing self-interest over law and convention came to the surface.

In actual fact this surfaced in the first *months* of their first term, where they cancelled the contracts with both Timberlands and the U.S.A. F-16 purchase contracts. What raised my heckles at that time was the comments that they did so "as they could without penalty". This event while quite crucial in viewing the subsequent events in a particular light is one that very few New Zealanders attach *any* significance to. The significance is one that I do not like discussing - mainly because it is one that the stability of the free market actually depends on very few people exploiting. Which is that *anyone* can terminate virtually *any* contract *without penalty*.

You see penalty clauses in contracts are unenforceable. By law. And the maximum that can be "recovered" by anyone for breach of contract by another party is their actual economic loss. No more. Because it is a civil not criminal breach.
This is why when you look at the contracts used in the construction industry these work on the basis of large bonuses for timely delivery, and not penalties for late delivery. Because unless actual economic loss could be shown (which would frequently be difficult) then the penalty would be unenforceable.

So the explicit statement made by the Labour party at the very start of their first term was that they would look at any law or convention, and weigh up the penalty of breaching it against their personal benefit.

Sound familiar to anything recent?
Tags: nz, new zealand, politics, Labour, Liarbour

Congratulations to the Distribution Workers Union

How does it feel knowing that you single handedly just managed to get 500 of your workers sacked?
I quite like the idea of having my groceries delivered direct from supplier to supermarket, so I'm quite glad the Distribution Union has pushed progressive towards this "novel" idea.

This would seem to be a fairly universal issue for Unions in that they believe that striking is their ultimate power. Without realizing it is frequently the means by which an employer can judge just exactly how useless to a business a certain segment is. Sure there are some sectors in which the Union actually has a true power, because its workers have real skill bases which are difficult to replicate. The irony is that those tend to be the professions in least <i>need</i> of a Union or representation.

So all that tends to happen in the low pay / low skill arena is that the Union progressively screws over its members both by taking and wasting their money directly, and by decreasing their usefulness to their employer.
Tags: nz, new zealand, union, strike

So which economy do you want to live in?

Hattip: Scoop
The Canterbury Manufacturers Association has recently gone on the offensive again against companies like IceBreaker that are proudly New Zealand owned and operated - at least as far as their high wealth operations are concerned.
The CMU is highly critical of the fact that they offload their low-wealth operations like the actual clothing manufacture onto countries like China, while retaining the design and patent operations locally.

I love Mr Walley's (from the CMU) quote:
“Yes, they may be registered in New Zealand, their shareholders benefit as do the people working on their designs but do they provide for New Zealand’s export development or contribute all they can to a reduction in the trade deficit?”

It is extremely hard to rebut a comment when it generally says everything you wanted it to in all but tone. The real question is where do we want to compete, where do we want to be as a country? I know that I would far prefer to be supporting that New Zealand company that has made the realisation that we want the high wealth value adding jobs in this country. And offload the menial, likely to be replaced through capital investment jobs elsewhere.
How are we going to reduce our trade deficit? Through increasing our labour productivity levels - something really not particularly possible in the jobs that Mr Walley wants to protect. But if the profits from IceBreakers Chinese operations are repatriated to here, then it is something highly possible. Mr Walley doesn't seem to understand that it is far better for our trade deficit to have each New Zealander earning the trade dollars from "10" Chinese workers, than only pulling in those dollars for their own work.

Mr Walley continues with "“‘Buy Kiwi Made’ is important in promoting New Zealand’s export and economic growth, it also means that you just might be buying your job, you are certainly supporting New Zealand values.”"
The question is which job do you want, and do you want your children to have - clothing design and architecture, or sitting behind a sewing machine?
Tags: nz, new zealand, trade, union

New Zealanders voting for what they want

Unfortunately it looks like this is increasingly diverging from what I would want.

The results from the Tamaki by-election for the Auckland city council are in; One corrupt Labour politician replaced by another Labour politician. There are now another 2500 people in Auckland that need to shut up and stop whining about the rates levels / increases because they just explicitly supported them.
The Auckland City Council just got the message that they are on the right track continuing to waste our ratepayers money thanks to you.

All 3 supermarkets near me have stopped stocking barn laid eggs. It would seem that despite people's rhetoric about wanting to ban cage farmed chickens they really just do not care. Given the eclectic collection of free range eggs that manages to survive I'm guessing it wouldn't have taken that many people supporting barn laid eggs for them to at least continue to be stocked. As it stands now the cages will be getting my dollar again because I'm not incensed enough to sacrifice 7 ECU's for the sake of 1 1/2 chickens happiness.
Tags: nz, new zealand, chickens