The hard bit in writing about David Lange is selecting which stories to leave out, there are so many. When I called on him at his Mangere home in late June, although he was quite unwell we immediately entered our informal competition of funny one-liners.
Interested in my recent trip to Singapore he recalled meeting Lee Kwan Yew years ago while under instructions from his Foreign Affairs advisers to question Lee’s policy of detaining prisoners without trial. Not an easy subject to broach. Lange approached by way of Lee’s fine legal training and how that squared with this policy, which Lee then cheekily justified on the basis that "it had now been brought to his attention that it was no longer acceptable to shoot them."
The ability to laugh with and at government policy is a great help in preventing the bureaucratic excesses of Wellington based waffle turning into widely hated rules for the public. Lange joined me as my deputy chair at the LTSA where we set about humanising this department which had the great goals of saving lives on the road but had got offside with its public via dictatorial leadership and rule making. Humour turned out to be our best weapon.
Indeed at the first board meeting he attended we were all a bit nervous at the entry of the great man, none more so than a rather bolshy senior executive the board were tussling with. With a great flourish Lange pulled his board papers from his satchel onto the table where before our disbelieving eyes he got them from the unopened courier pack. He hadn’t read them and let us all see! No sooner had I got everyone back onto the meeting, when Lange nodded off, to the visible relief of the senior executive who returned to his normal bolshy ways. I tried not to notice but after a while one of Lange’s eyes opened like a crocodile and he proceeded to ask the most piercing question of the bolshy executive, fairly skewering him on his own weak answer. Lange had made his point, his presence was to be valued and it was.
At one Transport Minister’s meeting, following a long diatribe of rubbish interspersed with phrases such as "hard wired departments" given to us by some departmental flunky, Lange turned to the bureaucrat and asked him, "Are you by any chance a vegetarian?" which put the policy neatly into its correct context.
He did not seem to wield much influence with this last government and I think it hurt him that he had no more access to or ability to alter even minor policy changes than the next bloke, but he never complained.
We both spoke against the poorly sited Ngawha prison in front of a packed audience at Kaikohe about four years back. Typically the department of Corrections toadies who showed up had no knowledge of te Reo, in which at least half the meeting took place, so they failed to get the feel of the meeting which was much more interesting and humorous than they thought. We walked the streets of the town before the meeting and people approached Lange with a real affection and he returned it by recalling their names from many years before when he practiced law in the town.
He opened his law practice in the aptly named Grand Building in the early seventies in an unlikely partnership with runaway business success, Charles St Clair Brown and with National aspirant Jim McLay elsewhere in the building. A bit later I started my engineering business in the much less grand basement of the same building, next door to a massage parlour. Rumours that the big rolly-polly lawyer upstairs was being groomed for leadership of NZ, reached me but I dismissed these in my daily struggle to grow my own business.
Not many years after I felt gratified that my practice had grown and his had disappeared, but the real message was that I was still a struggling engineer and he was the Prime Minister, and what a PM he was. Thanks to the huge levels of disaffection generated by Muldoon and coupled with the political flash in the pan of that other great humorist, Bob Jones, Lange emerged to entertain and ultimately frustrate the country. The first Lange government definitely did things that make our lives better now.
Their re-election really was endorsement of their policies, but what the following shambles showed was that without driving leadership the best of teams can founder and they did. What a country we might have been if we had taken the flat tax option? No one really knows but fortune favours the brave, and the country bravely followed him into power, only to be baffled by his meek relinquishment of that same hard won power.
WAYNE BROWN.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Exporters Desperately Needed
NZ’s dreadfully low export income as a percentage of total economic activity just has to be boosted. Aussie exports are nearly three times higher as a percentage of GDP than ours. It appears that most political parties accept that exports need boosting, but although many politicians want to do the right thing, there is debate about what that right thing should be.
Realistically the Government doesn’t have that many levers but it is pleasing to see that they are thinking about using some of them, albeit a bit tentatively. To get more exports you have to do something different to encourage those that can export to do so, as more of the same policies will only leave us with more of our poor export performance.
Not everyone can respond to the call for more income earned offshore, but as one who can, I can report that incentives do work. I just love it (not) when some suit from one of the big accounting firms, screams "return to Muldoonism" when some form of tax incentive for export income is announced, especially as the suit is normally used to charging outrageously for his time with no offshore income risk at all.
Back in the early nineties, my engineering firm won the design of the precast panels at the prestigious Hong Kong Jockey Club and with it some follow up work in mainland China in the early days when such work was a risk to get paid. Various government agencies such as Tradenz applauded us but could offer nothing in the way of encouragement for this extra risk, no payment guarantee system or tax incentive was on offer, so we pulled back to make easier money from the busy home market where we could at least knock on the door of any dodgy payer.
If the government of the time had really valued that offshore income over locally earned income then they would have done something about it. Well, maybe the low export receipts and our high external trade deficit may mean that now they will.
If there is a greater value to NZ to have income earned offshore either by exporting real goods or intellectual property, then that income should receive a tax benefit to encourage business to move that way. That’s what the high growth countries like Ireland have been doing.
Similarly it’s about time our exporters got the same level of marketing support that our competitors do. Just show up at a trade fair and look at the flash displays of our Aussie competitors. A quick chat reveals that they get a one for one subsidy for these costs, and what do we get? Up till now the answer is bugger-all.
In theory there is a fund somewhere at NZ Trade and Enterprise but it has always been given out before the year even begins. Imagine if welfare was like that! "Sorry there’s no more money for the DPB this year because last year’s pregnancies were greater than expected and used it all up."
If it makes sense to help export marketing to get more export income then there shouldn’t be a limit to it. In the real world more selling investment means more sales and therefore more income! If the first dollar invested in offshore marketing support makes sense, then so will the last. This policy should be applauded. This is not welfare, which is often described as social investment. If it works the government will receive more overall tax anyway – Win/win.
While they are at it, a payment guarantee system and use of government funds as the working capital part of a high growth export strategy will not only speed up export growth but also earn good economic returns to the government. Not a subsidy, just good investment in Kiwi export growt! Surely this is better for us than sending our superannuation dollars away to grow American companies. Another win/win and we need every one of them we can get.
WAYNE BROWN
Realistically the Government doesn’t have that many levers but it is pleasing to see that they are thinking about using some of them, albeit a bit tentatively. To get more exports you have to do something different to encourage those that can export to do so, as more of the same policies will only leave us with more of our poor export performance.
Not everyone can respond to the call for more income earned offshore, but as one who can, I can report that incentives do work. I just love it (not) when some suit from one of the big accounting firms, screams "return to Muldoonism" when some form of tax incentive for export income is announced, especially as the suit is normally used to charging outrageously for his time with no offshore income risk at all.
Back in the early nineties, my engineering firm won the design of the precast panels at the prestigious Hong Kong Jockey Club and with it some follow up work in mainland China in the early days when such work was a risk to get paid. Various government agencies such as Tradenz applauded us but could offer nothing in the way of encouragement for this extra risk, no payment guarantee system or tax incentive was on offer, so we pulled back to make easier money from the busy home market where we could at least knock on the door of any dodgy payer.
If the government of the time had really valued that offshore income over locally earned income then they would have done something about it. Well, maybe the low export receipts and our high external trade deficit may mean that now they will.
If there is a greater value to NZ to have income earned offshore either by exporting real goods or intellectual property, then that income should receive a tax benefit to encourage business to move that way. That’s what the high growth countries like Ireland have been doing.
Similarly it’s about time our exporters got the same level of marketing support that our competitors do. Just show up at a trade fair and look at the flash displays of our Aussie competitors. A quick chat reveals that they get a one for one subsidy for these costs, and what do we get? Up till now the answer is bugger-all.
In theory there is a fund somewhere at NZ Trade and Enterprise but it has always been given out before the year even begins. Imagine if welfare was like that! "Sorry there’s no more money for the DPB this year because last year’s pregnancies were greater than expected and used it all up."
If it makes sense to help export marketing to get more export income then there shouldn’t be a limit to it. In the real world more selling investment means more sales and therefore more income! If the first dollar invested in offshore marketing support makes sense, then so will the last. This policy should be applauded. This is not welfare, which is often described as social investment. If it works the government will receive more overall tax anyway – Win/win.
While they are at it, a payment guarantee system and use of government funds as the working capital part of a high growth export strategy will not only speed up export growth but also earn good economic returns to the government. Not a subsidy, just good investment in Kiwi export growt! Surely this is better for us than sending our superannuation dollars away to grow American companies. Another win/win and we need every one of them we can get.
WAYNE BROWN
Even Pills Link Back to Events in the Big Countries
I’m kicking off this week with the conflicting claims over the big drug companies withdrawing flagship medical research funding supposedly because of the success of Pharmac in reducing general drug costs in NZ.
Pfizer recently cancelled $70m funding for Auckland Cancer Society University based research here and followed with stern warnings delivered to NZ government representatives at a recent Pfizer funded US conference where it spelled out the link between low pill prices here and continued drug company funding of medical research in NZ. At much the same time various medical professionals chorused that research here was being put at risk by Pharmac, whose crime is to dramatically cut drug costs for Kiwis by very effective bulk buying. The public could well be wondering if this is all as bad as it sounded. Pfizer did not call attention to its $715million of recent fines in the USA for a subsidiary misbranding medicines, nor whether this fine payment caused the limit to their research budget. As Pfizer pays for many clinicians to attend various conferences in Hawaii and Florida there are doubts to the independence of some clinician statements of support.
It’s not that simple folks.
USA’s phenomenal capital growth since the late 80s has resulted in quite a change in the list of top companies. They used to be the big telecos and oil companies like AT&T and Exxon, but not any more. That list of big hitters is now dominated by fortunes built on patents and copyright. We all know that Bill Gates and Larry Ellison are super rich, but so are the drug companies. Software programs and pills and potions share one thing – both are characterised by selling prices many, many times the cost of production. These high prices (that create the massive wealth of these corporations) are justified by the costs of developing the software and the pills. Fair enough, but these sale prices also cover enormous marketing and lobbying campaigns often backed by a US government determined not to put this patent backed wealth at risk. George W has just prohibited his own US government from doing a Pharmac bulk buy to drive down domestic US drug costs!
Such huge gaps between sales price and unit production cost has its risks for the companies involved. Pirating versions of both pills and programs is very appealing and countries such as Indonesia and to a lesser extent Russia and China have been quick to fill the commercial gap. For example a program selling for $299 at retail can be bought in these markets for perhaps $5 and still return very high margins to the pirate producer. Pills which often sell for over $20 each, (but as subsidised medicines you don’t see this cost) can be produced for cents if you strip out the research and marketing components.
In order to protect these huge values USA mandates that countries enjoying favourable trading rights with them must recognise these patents and copyrights. Countries like Russia and Indonesia then have to value the additional costs and lost revenues against other benefits of trade agreements. This pressure to come into the fold slowly leads China to more Western trading behaviour. For those products where the patents have expired (and Pharmac has been very good at shifting to generics) other pressures are brought to bear, and this is where the research funding is offered or withdrawn. It influences the market in the receiving country.
Do we really have NZ based research unavailable elsewhere or is it just good marketing for Pfizer and others to be seen to invest here to support the notion of huge drug development costs? Do we save more with cheaper drugs than what we would gain from the research funds? Are those supporting the big drug companies free of their influence? And lastly look at what the pressure from Africa has done to drop HIV drug costs to save the drug barons from looking heartless.
We need to be very cautious in responding to upset University researchers and defensive US drug lobbyists. It’s possible that a free trade agreement like Australia’s could actually reduce our range of pills and price them off our shelves. Next week the real risks in Free Trade Agreements during the war on terrorism.
Wayne Brown
By the way, why do judges get honours for just doing their job?
Pfizer recently cancelled $70m funding for Auckland Cancer Society University based research here and followed with stern warnings delivered to NZ government representatives at a recent Pfizer funded US conference where it spelled out the link between low pill prices here and continued drug company funding of medical research in NZ. At much the same time various medical professionals chorused that research here was being put at risk by Pharmac, whose crime is to dramatically cut drug costs for Kiwis by very effective bulk buying. The public could well be wondering if this is all as bad as it sounded. Pfizer did not call attention to its $715million of recent fines in the USA for a subsidiary misbranding medicines, nor whether this fine payment caused the limit to their research budget. As Pfizer pays for many clinicians to attend various conferences in Hawaii and Florida there are doubts to the independence of some clinician statements of support.
It’s not that simple folks.
USA’s phenomenal capital growth since the late 80s has resulted in quite a change in the list of top companies. They used to be the big telecos and oil companies like AT&T and Exxon, but not any more. That list of big hitters is now dominated by fortunes built on patents and copyright. We all know that Bill Gates and Larry Ellison are super rich, but so are the drug companies. Software programs and pills and potions share one thing – both are characterised by selling prices many, many times the cost of production. These high prices (that create the massive wealth of these corporations) are justified by the costs of developing the software and the pills. Fair enough, but these sale prices also cover enormous marketing and lobbying campaigns often backed by a US government determined not to put this patent backed wealth at risk. George W has just prohibited his own US government from doing a Pharmac bulk buy to drive down domestic US drug costs!
Such huge gaps between sales price and unit production cost has its risks for the companies involved. Pirating versions of both pills and programs is very appealing and countries such as Indonesia and to a lesser extent Russia and China have been quick to fill the commercial gap. For example a program selling for $299 at retail can be bought in these markets for perhaps $5 and still return very high margins to the pirate producer. Pills which often sell for over $20 each, (but as subsidised medicines you don’t see this cost) can be produced for cents if you strip out the research and marketing components.
In order to protect these huge values USA mandates that countries enjoying favourable trading rights with them must recognise these patents and copyrights. Countries like Russia and Indonesia then have to value the additional costs and lost revenues against other benefits of trade agreements. This pressure to come into the fold slowly leads China to more Western trading behaviour. For those products where the patents have expired (and Pharmac has been very good at shifting to generics) other pressures are brought to bear, and this is where the research funding is offered or withdrawn. It influences the market in the receiving country.
Do we really have NZ based research unavailable elsewhere or is it just good marketing for Pfizer and others to be seen to invest here to support the notion of huge drug development costs? Do we save more with cheaper drugs than what we would gain from the research funds? Are those supporting the big drug companies free of their influence? And lastly look at what the pressure from Africa has done to drop HIV drug costs to save the drug barons from looking heartless.
We need to be very cautious in responding to upset University researchers and defensive US drug lobbyists. It’s possible that a free trade agreement like Australia’s could actually reduce our range of pills and price them off our shelves. Next week the real risks in Free Trade Agreements during the war on terrorism.
Wayne Brown
By the way, why do judges get honours for just doing their job?
Electoral Winners and Losers - Come What May
Recently I found myself seated beside an earnest conservationist from Jamaica who informed me of life there including the shockingly high number of 1471 annual murders at 5-7 per day. Attempting to keep the conversation going I remarked that among our eclectic politicians we had a Rasta MP, Tandoori Nachos or whatever. She was shocked, exclaiming that although Rastas come from Jamaica they would never let them into parliament there. On further informing her that we also had sex change MPs and gay cabinet ministers, she left shaking her head in disbelief either at me for making it up or at NZ for allowing it.
This lead me to think about what a wide range we have in parliament which is actually more diverse now than the population that it represents. We have Muslim MPs who would do away with their own party colleagues if gay, we have mung been Greens, old fashioned reds, blue rinse right wingers, brown parties and even a couple of actual businessmen, though how they sneaked past is unexplained.
Regardless of who wins this election, though, there are some members who will win in any case, some who will lose, and lots who will happily return as party voting fodder glad to hang around for the fancy parliamentary pension. Fortunately there will be a few who fate will force onto the job market, but with MMP lists this will not be as big a category as many voters would like.
Up where I live in the Far North we will most likely end up with five MPs, although few expect that this will help much. Hone Harawira looks likely to arrive by defeating Dover Samuel, hence boosting the number of business savvy MPs, as will the arrival of Shane Jones, either by list or defeating Hone Carter who will survive on the National list. The list will see Dover back for probably one more round than he needed and if the electorate once more shows its nutty side by giving 5% to the Greens then Air New Zealand can look forward to carrying Sue Bradford North for the weekends, although how exactly that helps the electorate is far from clear.
New arrivals into the two main parties contain a couple of really valuable looking additions to the political bloodstock. Labour’s new man Shane Jones will be a winner, whether the party triumphs or not. His business success, mana and leadership of things Maori and his broad cross cultural appeal mean that he will either be a formidable first time cabinet minister or if Labour lose, he will be a very likely heir to the throne. John Tamahere is the likely loser from Shanes’ arrival as the Labour party will now have an alternative to JT’s black and white appeal and one who can make the folksy and blokey quotes without the entertaining but damaging derogatory remarks about his team mates.
New Nat, Tim Groser’s international trade experience is sorely needed by the country as a whole regardless of which side wins. Jim Sutton’s outburst on learning of Groser’s new career said a lot for the skill he will bring.
John Key is another who wins whatever the result. He will be Finance Minister in a National government if we get one and will be heir apparent if we don’t. Again like Shane Jones, the country needs people like this.
Winston Peters will always appear as a winner whatever the election brings. He will at the very least continue to provide employment opportunities to at least two of his siblings directly and if the coalition discussions drag on his lawyer brother Wayne will also do very nicely. He does have a couple of cabinet worthy MPs surprisingly enough and they could upset the plans of one or two within National or Labour if the game plays that way. Brian Donnelly has probably got the makings of a good Minister of Education and that could see Bill English move elsewhere in a Nat/NZ First government, or the incumbent shift in a Labour/NZ First team. Losers from this could be John Carter having to accept another round as whip.
A Labour/Green government will be a real leap of faith and almost certainly require a heap of work from Labour to settle business which would justifiably wet its proverbials over some of the Green’s odder and trade unfriendly ideas. They just don’t get the fact that China is more important as a market than the bead makers of the Kalahari.
Pity the oddsmakers at the TAB.
Wayne Brown
This lead me to think about what a wide range we have in parliament which is actually more diverse now than the population that it represents. We have Muslim MPs who would do away with their own party colleagues if gay, we have mung been Greens, old fashioned reds, blue rinse right wingers, brown parties and even a couple of actual businessmen, though how they sneaked past is unexplained.
Regardless of who wins this election, though, there are some members who will win in any case, some who will lose, and lots who will happily return as party voting fodder glad to hang around for the fancy parliamentary pension. Fortunately there will be a few who fate will force onto the job market, but with MMP lists this will not be as big a category as many voters would like.
Up where I live in the Far North we will most likely end up with five MPs, although few expect that this will help much. Hone Harawira looks likely to arrive by defeating Dover Samuel, hence boosting the number of business savvy MPs, as will the arrival of Shane Jones, either by list or defeating Hone Carter who will survive on the National list. The list will see Dover back for probably one more round than he needed and if the electorate once more shows its nutty side by giving 5% to the Greens then Air New Zealand can look forward to carrying Sue Bradford North for the weekends, although how exactly that helps the electorate is far from clear.
New arrivals into the two main parties contain a couple of really valuable looking additions to the political bloodstock. Labour’s new man Shane Jones will be a winner, whether the party triumphs or not. His business success, mana and leadership of things Maori and his broad cross cultural appeal mean that he will either be a formidable first time cabinet minister or if Labour lose, he will be a very likely heir to the throne. John Tamahere is the likely loser from Shanes’ arrival as the Labour party will now have an alternative to JT’s black and white appeal and one who can make the folksy and blokey quotes without the entertaining but damaging derogatory remarks about his team mates.
New Nat, Tim Groser’s international trade experience is sorely needed by the country as a whole regardless of which side wins. Jim Sutton’s outburst on learning of Groser’s new career said a lot for the skill he will bring.
John Key is another who wins whatever the result. He will be Finance Minister in a National government if we get one and will be heir apparent if we don’t. Again like Shane Jones, the country needs people like this.
Winston Peters will always appear as a winner whatever the election brings. He will at the very least continue to provide employment opportunities to at least two of his siblings directly and if the coalition discussions drag on his lawyer brother Wayne will also do very nicely. He does have a couple of cabinet worthy MPs surprisingly enough and they could upset the plans of one or two within National or Labour if the game plays that way. Brian Donnelly has probably got the makings of a good Minister of Education and that could see Bill English move elsewhere in a Nat/NZ First government, or the incumbent shift in a Labour/NZ First team. Losers from this could be John Carter having to accept another round as whip.
A Labour/Green government will be a real leap of faith and almost certainly require a heap of work from Labour to settle business which would justifiably wet its proverbials over some of the Green’s odder and trade unfriendly ideas. They just don’t get the fact that China is more important as a market than the bead makers of the Kalahari.
Pity the oddsmakers at the TAB.
Wayne Brown
Disasters and How We Make Them Bigger
Is it just the better TV coverage, which makes it seem like a new disaster invades the living room each week or maybe is there something happening out there that we haven’t quite noticed, especially with this unseasonally good winter weather?
Just this year we have had Asian Tsumanis, Bay of Plenty floods and landslides, London bombings, daily Iraqi tragedies (with and without bombs), floods in Europe and now the horror of the New Orleans fiasco.
Ever since the 9/11 New York terrorist attack the world seems to have embarked on a
drive to maximise the impact of adverse events. Not content with just concentrating on potential terrorist attacks, the Bush administration decided to invade another country at the same time as it set about reducing environmental protection both at home in the States while also turning its back on the Kyoto agreement.
The flooding of New Orleans after the storm actually veered away is a monument to dumb central administration planning. The levees simply were not high enough and US Army Corps of Engineers resources to upgrade them were taken away to support foreign wars at a time when laws were eased to allow further development of the storm surge reducing wetlands.
The slow response from the President reminds us of 9/11 where he sat listening to kiddie’s stories for seven minutes before anything registered. The lack of timely US government action triggered worse trouble than anyone imagined, namely the outbreak of home grown Iraqi-like behaviour from the heavily armed locals, enjoying the absence of local troops, deployed to the real Iraq.
What will happen here in the event of a major disaster?
Well the effectiveness of disaster response depends most on the leadership and decision making skills of whoever is in charge, coupled with flexible planning and clear communications. This needs fore thought and imaginative political choice well ahead of the event.
Not much of that is evident back here in NZ. We have handed disaster control to unknown bureaucrats in regional councils. These people are not faced with difficult decision making in their daily lives, content with planning meetings and make believe training of probably the most unlikely of catastrophes.
They lack the regular experience of controlling complicated organizations and instead revert to whatever is in the rulebook in the mistaken belief that the rulebook writers could foresee the event. New Orleans saw that with anthrax medicine sent in to an area needing flood relief.
Chain of control does not easily revert from Police and military heads to regional council officers, especially when Mayors and other dignitaries enter the fray, often to divert attention from any previously questionable decisions.
My own experience when a hospital envelope containing white powder burst in front of me does not auger well for how a disaster here might turn out. Suspecting anthrax, Fire and Police were called. A squabble over control of the site broke out between safety-clad firemen and gung-ho Police. No signs of regional council involvement were evident and the evidence was contaminated then lost. The antidote medicine was not available at the hospital and generally it was lucky for all that it turned out to be a hoax.
I wrote of the possibility of volcano activity hitting Auckland and got wide interest from readers but no inputs from authorities. Given the lack of progress on traffic problems or the separation of stormwater from effluent one would seriously question the choice of local government to lead any real disaster.
A small panel of skilled citizens whose daily lives involve sorting out big complex service problems would seem to be a better solution than mandating plodding bureaucrats to tackle what could quickly become very threatening situations, as we have seen in New Orleans. They would operate like a risk management committee on our behalf, free of the territorial behaviour that dogs most branches of civil service.
Worth a try, eh!
Wayne Brown
Just this year we have had Asian Tsumanis, Bay of Plenty floods and landslides, London bombings, daily Iraqi tragedies (with and without bombs), floods in Europe and now the horror of the New Orleans fiasco.
Ever since the 9/11 New York terrorist attack the world seems to have embarked on a
drive to maximise the impact of adverse events. Not content with just concentrating on potential terrorist attacks, the Bush administration decided to invade another country at the same time as it set about reducing environmental protection both at home in the States while also turning its back on the Kyoto agreement.
The flooding of New Orleans after the storm actually veered away is a monument to dumb central administration planning. The levees simply were not high enough and US Army Corps of Engineers resources to upgrade them were taken away to support foreign wars at a time when laws were eased to allow further development of the storm surge reducing wetlands.
The slow response from the President reminds us of 9/11 where he sat listening to kiddie’s stories for seven minutes before anything registered. The lack of timely US government action triggered worse trouble than anyone imagined, namely the outbreak of home grown Iraqi-like behaviour from the heavily armed locals, enjoying the absence of local troops, deployed to the real Iraq.
What will happen here in the event of a major disaster?
Well the effectiveness of disaster response depends most on the leadership and decision making skills of whoever is in charge, coupled with flexible planning and clear communications. This needs fore thought and imaginative political choice well ahead of the event.
Not much of that is evident back here in NZ. We have handed disaster control to unknown bureaucrats in regional councils. These people are not faced with difficult decision making in their daily lives, content with planning meetings and make believe training of probably the most unlikely of catastrophes.
They lack the regular experience of controlling complicated organizations and instead revert to whatever is in the rulebook in the mistaken belief that the rulebook writers could foresee the event. New Orleans saw that with anthrax medicine sent in to an area needing flood relief.
Chain of control does not easily revert from Police and military heads to regional council officers, especially when Mayors and other dignitaries enter the fray, often to divert attention from any previously questionable decisions.
My own experience when a hospital envelope containing white powder burst in front of me does not auger well for how a disaster here might turn out. Suspecting anthrax, Fire and Police were called. A squabble over control of the site broke out between safety-clad firemen and gung-ho Police. No signs of regional council involvement were evident and the evidence was contaminated then lost. The antidote medicine was not available at the hospital and generally it was lucky for all that it turned out to be a hoax.
I wrote of the possibility of volcano activity hitting Auckland and got wide interest from readers but no inputs from authorities. Given the lack of progress on traffic problems or the separation of stormwater from effluent one would seriously question the choice of local government to lead any real disaster.
A small panel of skilled citizens whose daily lives involve sorting out big complex service problems would seem to be a better solution than mandating plodding bureaucrats to tackle what could quickly become very threatening situations, as we have seen in New Orleans. They would operate like a risk management committee on our behalf, free of the territorial behaviour that dogs most branches of civil service.
Worth a try, eh!
Wayne Brown
Rewards for Effort?
Two regular issues that got lots of reader support were continuing coverage of Air New Zealand’s lack of customer focus and the regular oddities from our judiciary, both producing reader’s tales of woe and warnings for me to watch my step in case I ever land in front of some judge unhappy to have their authority questioned.
The column predicted that last year’s election would be made close by National’s tax cut call responding to the last budget and also picked the difference to be Helen’s single minded tenacity which saw her back as New Zealander achiever of the year. The economy looks to have peaked, the Reserve Bank Governor looks panicky and Cullen is grumpy about Australian banks not paying their share of taxation.
The opening column last year was the first of a long line of media questions about Jonathan Hunt scoring our top honour, as well as getting to take his eating disorders to London on the taxpayer. Chatting last year, David Lange told me that Hunt getting the order of NZ for flattering the PM (who didn’t need it) had so devalued his own holding of this honour that he had written it out of his autobiography.
Back from offshore business I downloaded this year’s honour’s list to see what lessons could be learned. Well if we thought last year’s was odd, this latest list seems odder still. Whoever is on the selecting committee did quite well with the sports section making better choices than the Halberg Awards group and no doubt gaining public support for honouring our sporting heroes. (Anyone remember the old days of amateur sport when all that Meads and Whineray got was a gong?)
But after sport the list gives us no idea what the Honours committee values at all. In a society completely dominated by technology there is no mention of it at all. The constant supply of clean water, sewerage, electricity, telecommunications, data, radio and TV signals, fuel, open highways, hospitals, schools and all the paraphernalia of a modern society has gone un-noticed by an award system that focuses on arts, culture and other luxuries totally reliant on the pillars of technology, engineering, business and the taxpayer.
What do we make of the top ward to the CEO of Air NZ just before he sacks hundreds of the government’s union supporters and heads off to Australia to work for one of the banks that Cullen reckons are ripping off the taxpayer? If Ralph Norris was to get an award it would be for his work at the ASB, not for Air NZ which remains a shocker.
Many of us would love to support our national carrier but its international service ignores business and the company milks the local monopoly. Senior service staff are disgruntled that management tell them that personality doesn’t matter (in a service industry!).
Sadly most of Air NZ’s faults are easily and cheaply fixed but it’s just not happening. The government sacked the board of Tairawhiti Health for a lot less than Air NZ are guilty of. I presume that because politicians don’t pay for their tickets and fly first class anyhow, they may not be aware how bad things are.
Oddly another top performer from an Aussie bank seems headed for control of TVNZ. Does this mean that Cullen doesn’t mind not getting that tax?
As for two more judges getting awards, that just shows me how out of tune I (and all you readers) must have become. One judge called counsel together before Christmas to say he would not be bullied by this column, before reserving his decision for three months. What perspective suggests that a few hundred words in a Sunday paper is bullying and imagine having the luxury of three months to make a decision in business or anything.
As for this year, well I predict another electricity supply crisis that will see ministers scurrying for cover and if you really want an award there looks to be a gap for anyone who can compose whale music for the nose flute, provided of corse that it is not a commercial success.
Wayne Brown
The column predicted that last year’s election would be made close by National’s tax cut call responding to the last budget and also picked the difference to be Helen’s single minded tenacity which saw her back as New Zealander achiever of the year. The economy looks to have peaked, the Reserve Bank Governor looks panicky and Cullen is grumpy about Australian banks not paying their share of taxation.
The opening column last year was the first of a long line of media questions about Jonathan Hunt scoring our top honour, as well as getting to take his eating disorders to London on the taxpayer. Chatting last year, David Lange told me that Hunt getting the order of NZ for flattering the PM (who didn’t need it) had so devalued his own holding of this honour that he had written it out of his autobiography.
Back from offshore business I downloaded this year’s honour’s list to see what lessons could be learned. Well if we thought last year’s was odd, this latest list seems odder still. Whoever is on the selecting committee did quite well with the sports section making better choices than the Halberg Awards group and no doubt gaining public support for honouring our sporting heroes. (Anyone remember the old days of amateur sport when all that Meads and Whineray got was a gong?)
But after sport the list gives us no idea what the Honours committee values at all. In a society completely dominated by technology there is no mention of it at all. The constant supply of clean water, sewerage, electricity, telecommunications, data, radio and TV signals, fuel, open highways, hospitals, schools and all the paraphernalia of a modern society has gone un-noticed by an award system that focuses on arts, culture and other luxuries totally reliant on the pillars of technology, engineering, business and the taxpayer.
What do we make of the top ward to the CEO of Air NZ just before he sacks hundreds of the government’s union supporters and heads off to Australia to work for one of the banks that Cullen reckons are ripping off the taxpayer? If Ralph Norris was to get an award it would be for his work at the ASB, not for Air NZ which remains a shocker.
Many of us would love to support our national carrier but its international service ignores business and the company milks the local monopoly. Senior service staff are disgruntled that management tell them that personality doesn’t matter (in a service industry!).
Sadly most of Air NZ’s faults are easily and cheaply fixed but it’s just not happening. The government sacked the board of Tairawhiti Health for a lot less than Air NZ are guilty of. I presume that because politicians don’t pay for their tickets and fly first class anyhow, they may not be aware how bad things are.
Oddly another top performer from an Aussie bank seems headed for control of TVNZ. Does this mean that Cullen doesn’t mind not getting that tax?
As for two more judges getting awards, that just shows me how out of tune I (and all you readers) must have become. One judge called counsel together before Christmas to say he would not be bullied by this column, before reserving his decision for three months. What perspective suggests that a few hundred words in a Sunday paper is bullying and imagine having the luxury of three months to make a decision in business or anything.
As for this year, well I predict another electricity supply crisis that will see ministers scurrying for cover and if you really want an award there looks to be a gap for anyone who can compose whale music for the nose flute, provided of corse that it is not a commercial success.
Wayne Brown
Defence down under
Anyoldhow I’m still going to tackle a difficult issue, being DEFENCE and how the Aussies have got it wrong, as have those commentators who think that NZ has the same terrorist profile as Australia.
Like most NZ governments this one has done plenty locally to annoy the average punter from tax rate rises to foreshore squabbles and so on, but you’ve got to admit that Helen and the team got it right with regard to Iraq.
The decision to invade Iraq on the basis of trumped up evidence will be seen in the future as the dumbest thing that USA has done in the last 50 years. It won’t look that good in the UK either but they are smart enough to distance themselves from it, but not the Aussies.
At the drop of a hat Australian foreign minister Downer reminds NZ that in his opinion we are not spending enough on defence, as if a further percentage point of GDP would make some difference. He seems quite unaware that unlike Australia we don’t have nearly 200 million angry Muslims a short boat ride away, nor have we invaded any Muslim countries recently without UN mandates to do so.
He even made this claim during his last visit here that was supposed to influence our government to unbundle the local telephone loop to help the Australian government owned Telstra Clear penetrate our market. Not surprisingly the local loop remains unbundled.
Various Australian leaders have affirmed that the USA underpins Australian defence policy and blithely expect American troops to drop in to sort out any problems that may arrive. Well that assumes that these expected problems will not occur at the same time that American forces are busy with their own problems at home. It’s a fair bet that any terrorist threat big enough to worry Australia will be hyperactive in USA at the same time.
In May this year I spent a week in Washington DC being addressed by various experts on USA global international policy. I listened carefully all week long for mention of this part of the world. New Zealand warranted one mention during a debate on guns and butter diplomacy. Australia to my amazement, and to the horror of any of their leaders who might find out, never got a mention once in the whole week. To put this in perspective Israel was constantly on the lips of the locals, followed by such allies as Pakistan, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The European Economic Community and China obviously took up several sessions but for all the blind obedience of Australia they got no mention at all by our hosts.
What has the USA gained from the Iraqi invasion? Hard to know especially when it was never explained what it was they wanted. Better oil access and better relations with the Middle East? Oil just hit $50 a barrel and even the most ardent US supporters of freedom and elections are unwilling to holiday in Iraq to check on progress.
What about Australia? Well they are certainly better known now in the Middle East and in Muslim parts of the world. Are we? I checked this with Muslims from places such as Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and even Senegal. Most knew very little about New Zealand but all felt quite good about us. They seem to share a bond with us as unimportant countries themselves, also ignored by their much larger and more important neighbours.
At the time of writing it is unknown who has won the Australian election and that will make a difference. Last election, Howard’s ability to turn back a boatload of refugees was a winning formula, but what if a hundred boats come, followed next day by two hundred and so on. World opinion won’t allow them all to be shot or imprisoned. How do you deal with this? It’s not all that unlikely as any traveller to Indonesia will affirm. There are thousands of boats and millions of people jammed into that country and they know how empty Australia is and another percentage point spent on defence won’t help.
What will help is a bit of diplomacy and avoiding confrontation unless the UN mandates it. Thanks Helen.
---------------
Interesting that Russia has affirmed the Kyoto accord the week after my column on global warming. And to the barristers who pointed out that they no longer dress fancily for court, did you see them dressed as penguins in paradise on Pitcairn?
Like most NZ governments this one has done plenty locally to annoy the average punter from tax rate rises to foreshore squabbles and so on, but you’ve got to admit that Helen and the team got it right with regard to Iraq.
The decision to invade Iraq on the basis of trumped up evidence will be seen in the future as the dumbest thing that USA has done in the last 50 years. It won’t look that good in the UK either but they are smart enough to distance themselves from it, but not the Aussies.
At the drop of a hat Australian foreign minister Downer reminds NZ that in his opinion we are not spending enough on defence, as if a further percentage point of GDP would make some difference. He seems quite unaware that unlike Australia we don’t have nearly 200 million angry Muslims a short boat ride away, nor have we invaded any Muslim countries recently without UN mandates to do so.
He even made this claim during his last visit here that was supposed to influence our government to unbundle the local telephone loop to help the Australian government owned Telstra Clear penetrate our market. Not surprisingly the local loop remains unbundled.
Various Australian leaders have affirmed that the USA underpins Australian defence policy and blithely expect American troops to drop in to sort out any problems that may arrive. Well that assumes that these expected problems will not occur at the same time that American forces are busy with their own problems at home. It’s a fair bet that any terrorist threat big enough to worry Australia will be hyperactive in USA at the same time.
In May this year I spent a week in Washington DC being addressed by various experts on USA global international policy. I listened carefully all week long for mention of this part of the world. New Zealand warranted one mention during a debate on guns and butter diplomacy. Australia to my amazement, and to the horror of any of their leaders who might find out, never got a mention once in the whole week. To put this in perspective Israel was constantly on the lips of the locals, followed by such allies as Pakistan, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The European Economic Community and China obviously took up several sessions but for all the blind obedience of Australia they got no mention at all by our hosts.
What has the USA gained from the Iraqi invasion? Hard to know especially when it was never explained what it was they wanted. Better oil access and better relations with the Middle East? Oil just hit $50 a barrel and even the most ardent US supporters of freedom and elections are unwilling to holiday in Iraq to check on progress.
What about Australia? Well they are certainly better known now in the Middle East and in Muslim parts of the world. Are we? I checked this with Muslims from places such as Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and even Senegal. Most knew very little about New Zealand but all felt quite good about us. They seem to share a bond with us as unimportant countries themselves, also ignored by their much larger and more important neighbours.
At the time of writing it is unknown who has won the Australian election and that will make a difference. Last election, Howard’s ability to turn back a boatload of refugees was a winning formula, but what if a hundred boats come, followed next day by two hundred and so on. World opinion won’t allow them all to be shot or imprisoned. How do you deal with this? It’s not all that unlikely as any traveller to Indonesia will affirm. There are thousands of boats and millions of people jammed into that country and they know how empty Australia is and another percentage point spent on defence won’t help.
What will help is a bit of diplomacy and avoiding confrontation unless the UN mandates it. Thanks Helen.
---------------
Interesting that Russia has affirmed the Kyoto accord the week after my column on global warming. And to the barristers who pointed out that they no longer dress fancily for court, did you see them dressed as penguins in paradise on Pitcairn?
Crying Wolf on a Big Scale
Given concerns over our relationship with Bush’s USA, coupled with worries over radical Moslem attacks in England and Iraq, it is worth revisiting how this sorry state started.
Back in 2001 the new Bush administration’s world view was characterised by the following tenets strongly held by the neo-conservatives at its heart:-
The US had a unique opportunity due to its unique power and it had the capacity to project force.
Negotiation was not a part of the process of influence.
Unilateralism meant "do not compromise", hence devaluing the influence of alliances with other allies.
The only threat that could be identified was China
The threat of the rogue states of Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea from Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) would interfere with US influence.
Hence Iraq was the focus. "Get rid of Saddam" then influence events to secure Israel’s future and solve the Gulf oil states’ instability. Force regime change elsewhere!
Then 911 happened!
Suddenly USA saw a new threat, rogue states aligned with Al Qaeda. Paranoia set in. US could not defend its cities nor deter this new threat!
The 2002 Axis of Evil speeches set the tone linking Iraq to terrorists, hence they must have WMD, hence the need to attack to defend.
What did US Intelligence think or know? They thought chemical and biological weapons were there but were wrong. They did not think nuclear WMD were there, nor did they link Iraq to Al Qaeda, but were over-ruled.
The Bush administration lied about nuclear WMD and the Al Qaeda link and were caught lieing, hence devaluing US credibility.
So where does that leave things? Well Libya oddly has returned to the fold, Iran has elected a defiant leader, North Korea has ignored the US threats and Pakistan is somewhere in the middle having supplied Iran with nuclear centrifuges bit now being a declared US ally, something that we are not. Iraq is a mess politically and militarily and the US needs a way out.
This will be difficult. The three tolls to fix situations like this are Force, Negotiations and Sanctions and these are not all in good shape now. Remember "Shock and Awe". Well that has certainly devalued the US force capacity as a threat for a while. Negotiations require an ideological change at the centre and this is too big a dead rat to swallow. So sanctions? Well that needs others to be involved and needs the US credibility that it so readily burned when attacking Saddam in the first place.
The US cried wolf and now they have a problem. Did the UK lie too? Probably but even if that answer is no, recent events in London suggest that plenty think that they did.
All this is very pessimistic, deservedly so as the Iraq situation won’t get any better without more troops and the news clips at home of continuous death will drive the US home and then to failure in the Middle East. Oil prices continue to rise and it is getting harder for Blair to commit to further troop activity given the threat at home. Are the Aussies worried? Certainly at some levels they will be.
What can we do? Continue supporting the UN sanctioned Afghan action and quietly support the Iraq civil rebuild will prove valuable as will our independent credibility which sooner or later will come into play as "honest broker".
Why is this important now? Well we have an election, which is being fought with debate at the detailed level of how it affects each of our pockets and fuel prices are a big and growing part of those pocket problems.
The outgoing US ambassador raised the issue and was right to do so. We should see and hear well-reasoned responses from our leaders, free from simplistic slogans. We do have a part to play and so does the UN at some stage, and this is not the only big security risk. There are 19,000 experienced Russian nuclear military staff without really interesting alternative jobs and fifty nuclear sites there that are mostly but not all secure.
How will a coalition that might contain the Greens or NZ First react when and if some of the security worries appear a bit closer to home?
Do our politicians from all sides appreciate what happens when you promise something that you can’t deliver? Hopefully the coming political debate might answer some of these questions, but if TVNZ insists on using one of its celebrities to ask the questions we’ll never know. Bring on Sainsbury.
Wayne Brown
Back in 2001 the new Bush administration’s world view was characterised by the following tenets strongly held by the neo-conservatives at its heart:-
The US had a unique opportunity due to its unique power and it had the capacity to project force.
Negotiation was not a part of the process of influence.
Unilateralism meant "do not compromise", hence devaluing the influence of alliances with other allies.
The only threat that could be identified was China
The threat of the rogue states of Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea from Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) would interfere with US influence.
Hence Iraq was the focus. "Get rid of Saddam" then influence events to secure Israel’s future and solve the Gulf oil states’ instability. Force regime change elsewhere!
Then 911 happened!
Suddenly USA saw a new threat, rogue states aligned with Al Qaeda. Paranoia set in. US could not defend its cities nor deter this new threat!
The 2002 Axis of Evil speeches set the tone linking Iraq to terrorists, hence they must have WMD, hence the need to attack to defend.
What did US Intelligence think or know? They thought chemical and biological weapons were there but were wrong. They did not think nuclear WMD were there, nor did they link Iraq to Al Qaeda, but were over-ruled.
The Bush administration lied about nuclear WMD and the Al Qaeda link and were caught lieing, hence devaluing US credibility.
So where does that leave things? Well Libya oddly has returned to the fold, Iran has elected a defiant leader, North Korea has ignored the US threats and Pakistan is somewhere in the middle having supplied Iran with nuclear centrifuges bit now being a declared US ally, something that we are not. Iraq is a mess politically and militarily and the US needs a way out.
This will be difficult. The three tolls to fix situations like this are Force, Negotiations and Sanctions and these are not all in good shape now. Remember "Shock and Awe". Well that has certainly devalued the US force capacity as a threat for a while. Negotiations require an ideological change at the centre and this is too big a dead rat to swallow. So sanctions? Well that needs others to be involved and needs the US credibility that it so readily burned when attacking Saddam in the first place.
The US cried wolf and now they have a problem. Did the UK lie too? Probably but even if that answer is no, recent events in London suggest that plenty think that they did.
All this is very pessimistic, deservedly so as the Iraq situation won’t get any better without more troops and the news clips at home of continuous death will drive the US home and then to failure in the Middle East. Oil prices continue to rise and it is getting harder for Blair to commit to further troop activity given the threat at home. Are the Aussies worried? Certainly at some levels they will be.
What can we do? Continue supporting the UN sanctioned Afghan action and quietly support the Iraq civil rebuild will prove valuable as will our independent credibility which sooner or later will come into play as "honest broker".
Why is this important now? Well we have an election, which is being fought with debate at the detailed level of how it affects each of our pockets and fuel prices are a big and growing part of those pocket problems.
The outgoing US ambassador raised the issue and was right to do so. We should see and hear well-reasoned responses from our leaders, free from simplistic slogans. We do have a part to play and so does the UN at some stage, and this is not the only big security risk. There are 19,000 experienced Russian nuclear military staff without really interesting alternative jobs and fifty nuclear sites there that are mostly but not all secure.
How will a coalition that might contain the Greens or NZ First react when and if some of the security worries appear a bit closer to home?
Do our politicians from all sides appreciate what happens when you promise something that you can’t deliver? Hopefully the coming political debate might answer some of these questions, but if TVNZ insists on using one of its celebrities to ask the questions we’ll never know. Bring on Sainsbury.
Wayne Brown
Friday, January 26, 2007
Dead Whales and Disturbing Behaviour
It’s certainly a sad sight when a pod of disorientated whales loses its way, runs aground and most of the whales die slowly on the beach, as has happened recently in several isolated places.
Those good souls who work to relaunch the few survivors gain our support for their caring efforts, but the weird behaviour that takes place concerning the remaining dead whales rivals the whales’ own odd behaviour in getting beached in the first place.
Suddenly an empty beach now has tonnes of dead whale meat to be dealt with. What to do?
Rational people would see that here is an unexpected food resource coupled with bones available for carving, tool making and so on. This is exactly what indigenous people would have thought in the days before government departments were available with diggers and tractors.
Indeed rational people of today, if there are any left who are allowed to have an input into the dead whale opportunity, would see that here is a whole pile of fresh meat to be cut, chilled and exported to Japan to earn foreign currency and reduce the pressure on supposed scientific slaughtering of whales to meet the Japanese delicacy market.
The whale carcass also offers local employment opportunities with carving, scrimshaw and other high value tourism industry products. In particular such actions immediately reduce the environmental pressure on the beach itself.
Well, none of this occurs! Instead, in a triumph of politically correct ritual over sensible resource use the dead whales are lined up and hastily and thoughtlessly buried by those high priests of PC, the Department of Conservation aided and abetted by a handy hired tohunga.
This group then leave congratulating themselves on their wise ways completely oblivious as to what happens next. This part is really interesting and I have witnessed at first hand the devastation that follows as the whales rot, the beach becomes polluted and often much worse environmental damage ensues, all while the burying party remain blissfully unaware of what is going on in their absence.
A pod of about 60 whales beached on Whatuwhiwhi peninsula a few years back. Following the partly successful attempts to relaunch the whales DoC officials insisted on the obligatory burial of the more than 50 dead whales bodies left behind. No meat or bones removal was allowed and diggers arrived and under DoC instruction the a series of over 50 holes were dug, the whales were placed in them, covered with sand and all left.
The site of this mass burial is on a flat sandy area between the open sea and a large wetland. Dunes nearby provided some wind shelter to nesting areas for native birds enjoying the peace of this remote site. Any normal citizen must first obtain an earthworks permit in order to excavate more than 50 cubic metres and it certainly involves more than that to bury 50 whales, but DoC did not, nor did they bother to find out whose land they were excavating, merely assuming that it was their’s to control, when in fact it turns out to be privately owned land.
Periodically after heavy rain the large wetland on the landward side of the whale burial field would flood across the flat sandy area choosing a myriad of small runnels as its path to the sea. At the next flood after the whale burial, however the escaping water finds a convenient new path to the sea provided by 50 neatly lined up holes which were never backfilled properly and by now are only partly filled by rotting corpses.
Instead of a gentle flow across the flat sandy area this flood disgorges through the new whale burial channel, which completely changes the long established stormwater runoff pattern in this fragile area for ever. Not content with this change in its stormwater flow the new channel starts eroding across the beach at an alarming rate noted only by the local land owner and friends. Within a year several hundred metres of the coastal dune is gone and the bird nesting areas with them.
Is Doc worried or even aware, let alone sorry? Well, no is the correct answer to that. Surely the whales never meant this to happen. Could we contemplate a rational response?
While we are onto government official’s real response to the environment, is there anyone at Ministry of Fisheries who understand that kahawai have disappeared since they announced that it would move to quota and the fishermen went about mass catches to establish quota?
Those good souls who work to relaunch the few survivors gain our support for their caring efforts, but the weird behaviour that takes place concerning the remaining dead whales rivals the whales’ own odd behaviour in getting beached in the first place.
Suddenly an empty beach now has tonnes of dead whale meat to be dealt with. What to do?
Rational people would see that here is an unexpected food resource coupled with bones available for carving, tool making and so on. This is exactly what indigenous people would have thought in the days before government departments were available with diggers and tractors.
Indeed rational people of today, if there are any left who are allowed to have an input into the dead whale opportunity, would see that here is a whole pile of fresh meat to be cut, chilled and exported to Japan to earn foreign currency and reduce the pressure on supposed scientific slaughtering of whales to meet the Japanese delicacy market.
The whale carcass also offers local employment opportunities with carving, scrimshaw and other high value tourism industry products. In particular such actions immediately reduce the environmental pressure on the beach itself.
Well, none of this occurs! Instead, in a triumph of politically correct ritual over sensible resource use the dead whales are lined up and hastily and thoughtlessly buried by those high priests of PC, the Department of Conservation aided and abetted by a handy hired tohunga.
This group then leave congratulating themselves on their wise ways completely oblivious as to what happens next. This part is really interesting and I have witnessed at first hand the devastation that follows as the whales rot, the beach becomes polluted and often much worse environmental damage ensues, all while the burying party remain blissfully unaware of what is going on in their absence.
A pod of about 60 whales beached on Whatuwhiwhi peninsula a few years back. Following the partly successful attempts to relaunch the whales DoC officials insisted on the obligatory burial of the more than 50 dead whales bodies left behind. No meat or bones removal was allowed and diggers arrived and under DoC instruction the a series of over 50 holes were dug, the whales were placed in them, covered with sand and all left.
The site of this mass burial is on a flat sandy area between the open sea and a large wetland. Dunes nearby provided some wind shelter to nesting areas for native birds enjoying the peace of this remote site. Any normal citizen must first obtain an earthworks permit in order to excavate more than 50 cubic metres and it certainly involves more than that to bury 50 whales, but DoC did not, nor did they bother to find out whose land they were excavating, merely assuming that it was their’s to control, when in fact it turns out to be privately owned land.
Periodically after heavy rain the large wetland on the landward side of the whale burial field would flood across the flat sandy area choosing a myriad of small runnels as its path to the sea. At the next flood after the whale burial, however the escaping water finds a convenient new path to the sea provided by 50 neatly lined up holes which were never backfilled properly and by now are only partly filled by rotting corpses.
Instead of a gentle flow across the flat sandy area this flood disgorges through the new whale burial channel, which completely changes the long established stormwater runoff pattern in this fragile area for ever. Not content with this change in its stormwater flow the new channel starts eroding across the beach at an alarming rate noted only by the local land owner and friends. Within a year several hundred metres of the coastal dune is gone and the bird nesting areas with them.
Is Doc worried or even aware, let alone sorry? Well, no is the correct answer to that. Surely the whales never meant this to happen. Could we contemplate a rational response?
While we are onto government official’s real response to the environment, is there anyone at Ministry of Fisheries who understand that kahawai have disappeared since they announced that it would move to quota and the fishermen went about mass catches to establish quota?
Coroner
You really have no idea how many dreadful presentations that the average health board director has to sit through. For some reason this sector is home to some of the most uninspiring drones that were ever fed by the taxpayer (although to be really fair, Ministry of Transport are the current champions of official uninspiring drivel). It should be possible to make helping the public live longer, fuller and better lives seem exciting and uplifting but sadly this is seldom the case. Endless pie charts and screeds of statistics hide humanity from the discussion in many cases.
Oh, for someone with passion and if there is a God, a sense of humour to liven the debate, fill us with enthusiasm to face the daunting task of lifting the population’s health!
Well the other day I settled in to an earnest session of clinical leaders all pumped up and primed to do just that, Lift the Health of Aucklanders.
It got off to a fairly positive start and I was certainly impressed with what our clinical leaders were prepared to tackle in the face of ever-present financial pressure. Glancing down the list of presentations to come my heart sank at the sight of the District Coroner on the program set to address us on our responsibilities to his office.
A more dreary subject I could not think of and like many I had grave (sorry) doubts as to whether this person would keep us involved.
Well, ain’t life full of wonderful surprises some days! The District Coroner turned out to be the drollest, driest, wittiest and most informative speaker I have sat through in a long time. I had no idea that the official in charge of reporting of deaths could manage to be informative, caring, educational and hilarious all at the same time without in any way reducing the required dignity needed for his task. Compare that with the hand wringing nonsense that passes for journalistic enquiry into student newspaper articles or reports of celebrity coke sniffing.
The Coroner dispensed a wide range of excellent commentary on death in our times. Road deaths are definitely coming down and he singled out separate carriageways on motorways (which avoid head-on crashes) and congestion (which prevents high speed) as two major contributors. I wonder what the proponents of ever more motorway building have to say to that!
He had harsh words for anyone foolish enough to support babies sleeping with parents (especially large drunken ones) on the basis of bonding or any other excuse, pointing out that babies need to sleep separately and peacefully on their backs.
Aucklanders should be pleased to note that only 10 murders were reported this year, which contrasts with my recent exposure to the Jamaican statistics of 5 killings per day.
Those calling for tougher sentences are probably unaware that there are now more jail hangings than during the time of capital punishment, although these days they are self inflicted.
For those continuously bombarding us with the dangers of boating, he noted that increased boating numbers were definitely reducing drownings as it is hard to get into trouble out of sight of others and the harbour congestion is mirroring the road congestion in actually making things safer.
The Coroner’s Annual Report is a mercifully short document full of interesting bits written in plain English, (how many organizations can say that!), and shows that the surprisingly low number of only one in seven deaths are accorded an inquest hearing and this number is falling.
Relatively few hospital deaths lead to an inquest with none from surgical or medical death but some from drug administration questions. Falls of the elderly are now a notable category but again unless there is a question of being pushed or not prevented then this is just another one of the ways we can end our days.
This refreshingly open approach helps us all face death as a normal part of our life journey. Bereavement care organizations can help one deal with death at the time rather than let it brew for later.
Coroners have attracted some negative publicity in recent years with some drawing very long bows linking deaths with all sorts of daft recommendations. I well recall having to fend off the prospect of all of the waterfront where I live being fenced off simply because an unwise coroner made such a recommendation because a drunk fell of the seafront to his death which actually saved the lives of those he was about to drive home through.
Great to see a positive contribution like this.
Wayne Brown
Oh, for someone with passion and if there is a God, a sense of humour to liven the debate, fill us with enthusiasm to face the daunting task of lifting the population’s health!
Well the other day I settled in to an earnest session of clinical leaders all pumped up and primed to do just that, Lift the Health of Aucklanders.
It got off to a fairly positive start and I was certainly impressed with what our clinical leaders were prepared to tackle in the face of ever-present financial pressure. Glancing down the list of presentations to come my heart sank at the sight of the District Coroner on the program set to address us on our responsibilities to his office.
A more dreary subject I could not think of and like many I had grave (sorry) doubts as to whether this person would keep us involved.
Well, ain’t life full of wonderful surprises some days! The District Coroner turned out to be the drollest, driest, wittiest and most informative speaker I have sat through in a long time. I had no idea that the official in charge of reporting of deaths could manage to be informative, caring, educational and hilarious all at the same time without in any way reducing the required dignity needed for his task. Compare that with the hand wringing nonsense that passes for journalistic enquiry into student newspaper articles or reports of celebrity coke sniffing.
The Coroner dispensed a wide range of excellent commentary on death in our times. Road deaths are definitely coming down and he singled out separate carriageways on motorways (which avoid head-on crashes) and congestion (which prevents high speed) as two major contributors. I wonder what the proponents of ever more motorway building have to say to that!
He had harsh words for anyone foolish enough to support babies sleeping with parents (especially large drunken ones) on the basis of bonding or any other excuse, pointing out that babies need to sleep separately and peacefully on their backs.
Aucklanders should be pleased to note that only 10 murders were reported this year, which contrasts with my recent exposure to the Jamaican statistics of 5 killings per day.
Those calling for tougher sentences are probably unaware that there are now more jail hangings than during the time of capital punishment, although these days they are self inflicted.
For those continuously bombarding us with the dangers of boating, he noted that increased boating numbers were definitely reducing drownings as it is hard to get into trouble out of sight of others and the harbour congestion is mirroring the road congestion in actually making things safer.
The Coroner’s Annual Report is a mercifully short document full of interesting bits written in plain English, (how many organizations can say that!), and shows that the surprisingly low number of only one in seven deaths are accorded an inquest hearing and this number is falling.
Relatively few hospital deaths lead to an inquest with none from surgical or medical death but some from drug administration questions. Falls of the elderly are now a notable category but again unless there is a question of being pushed or not prevented then this is just another one of the ways we can end our days.
This refreshingly open approach helps us all face death as a normal part of our life journey. Bereavement care organizations can help one deal with death at the time rather than let it brew for later.
Coroners have attracted some negative publicity in recent years with some drawing very long bows linking deaths with all sorts of daft recommendations. I well recall having to fend off the prospect of all of the waterfront where I live being fenced off simply because an unwise coroner made such a recommendation because a drunk fell of the seafront to his death which actually saved the lives of those he was about to drive home through.
Great to see a positive contribution like this.
Wayne Brown
Closing the Gaps
Does anybody remember Closing the Gaps? You know the Labour Government plan to eliminate the differences between Maori and Pakeha in health, wealth and other things. Well in spite of the government changing the name and distancing themselves from it, the program was remarkably successful and spread involuntarily across nearly all areas of state action.
Maori unemployment is at record lows and the life expectancy gap between Maori and Pakeha males is now less than between all males and all females, suggesting a coming new theme of positive discrimination in favour of men in health expenditure. That’ll be interesting to watch out for. Have the girls in power got the appetite for such a policy and could Brash bring himself to go ahead of a lady even if in a queue to see a urologist?
Somehow they managed to close the gaps between the two main parties at the same time, although it is not widely believed that this was an intentional policy move. That gap was almost gone by lunchtime as the saying goes.
The gap between the left testicle and the new right one has also narrowed catching Winston in a pincer move the likes of which Tauranga has not seen before.
The gap between Maori and Pakeha at Orewa seems to be about 8 months from Brash to Harawira speeches. Brethren closed their own gap on the rest of us then used that to close the gap to Labour while opening one with the Destiny Church with whom they share a gap to reality, a bit like the Greens.
The Greens closed the gap with the 5% threshold in a daring move to emulate the disappearing Act of Rodney Hide who got found by so many people in Epsom that he has come out to defy the pollsters, whose gaps went either way on alternative days, creating something of a credibility gap for them.
Voters now face a gap before we find out who actually won the election. The PM faces the task of closing the gap between the minor party’s expectations and what the main party can swallow. This could need some change in the gap between what the two main parties offered in tax relief, which in itself closed a long way from what was on offer on budget night. There are a few unexplained gaps in the student loans policy that will need more light on them at some stage too.
A worrying gap that has been exposed and which I have written about before, is the gap between town and country, which has certainly showed up this time. Not just the red/blue lines separating urban from rural but really odd things like where the Greens get their votes from, urban areas? It just doesn’t make sense that the Greens are not popular in the countryside where there still is an environment, but have good support in the cities where the environment has been paved over. I don’t get it!
The emerging coalition will actually have to address the town and country gap and hopefully we can look forward to seeing less lawyers and more farmers on government advisory boards and other central parts of keeping the nation going forward.
One of the hardest things to find is anyone who admits to voting in favour of MMP. Had my dad known it was based on the way Germans do things, he would have re-declared war. To find that this system has tied up two countries at once is bizarre.
Brash is possibly wishing he hadn’t highlighted his gap between his understanding of things Maori and coming to turns with the Maori party. The Greens are determined to close the gap between themselves and the cabinet table but not only United Future find this a problem.
Meanwhile the rest of us are worried about the closing gap between our incomes and the price of fuel. Given that the fuel price shot up after the New Orleans flood, has anyone heard about whether the billion dollar gap had something to do with Kyoto and hasn’t the weather been rotten since that blasted election.
When will it end?
WAYNE BROWN
Maori unemployment is at record lows and the life expectancy gap between Maori and Pakeha males is now less than between all males and all females, suggesting a coming new theme of positive discrimination in favour of men in health expenditure. That’ll be interesting to watch out for. Have the girls in power got the appetite for such a policy and could Brash bring himself to go ahead of a lady even if in a queue to see a urologist?
Somehow they managed to close the gaps between the two main parties at the same time, although it is not widely believed that this was an intentional policy move. That gap was almost gone by lunchtime as the saying goes.
The gap between the left testicle and the new right one has also narrowed catching Winston in a pincer move the likes of which Tauranga has not seen before.
The gap between Maori and Pakeha at Orewa seems to be about 8 months from Brash to Harawira speeches. Brethren closed their own gap on the rest of us then used that to close the gap to Labour while opening one with the Destiny Church with whom they share a gap to reality, a bit like the Greens.
The Greens closed the gap with the 5% threshold in a daring move to emulate the disappearing Act of Rodney Hide who got found by so many people in Epsom that he has come out to defy the pollsters, whose gaps went either way on alternative days, creating something of a credibility gap for them.
Voters now face a gap before we find out who actually won the election. The PM faces the task of closing the gap between the minor party’s expectations and what the main party can swallow. This could need some change in the gap between what the two main parties offered in tax relief, which in itself closed a long way from what was on offer on budget night. There are a few unexplained gaps in the student loans policy that will need more light on them at some stage too.
A worrying gap that has been exposed and which I have written about before, is the gap between town and country, which has certainly showed up this time. Not just the red/blue lines separating urban from rural but really odd things like where the Greens get their votes from, urban areas? It just doesn’t make sense that the Greens are not popular in the countryside where there still is an environment, but have good support in the cities where the environment has been paved over. I don’t get it!
The emerging coalition will actually have to address the town and country gap and hopefully we can look forward to seeing less lawyers and more farmers on government advisory boards and other central parts of keeping the nation going forward.
One of the hardest things to find is anyone who admits to voting in favour of MMP. Had my dad known it was based on the way Germans do things, he would have re-declared war. To find that this system has tied up two countries at once is bizarre.
Brash is possibly wishing he hadn’t highlighted his gap between his understanding of things Maori and coming to turns with the Maori party. The Greens are determined to close the gap between themselves and the cabinet table but not only United Future find this a problem.
Meanwhile the rest of us are worried about the closing gap between our incomes and the price of fuel. Given that the fuel price shot up after the New Orleans flood, has anyone heard about whether the billion dollar gap had something to do with Kyoto and hasn’t the weather been rotten since that blasted election.
When will it end?
WAYNE BROWN
China Syndrome
I normally never leave the country over the summer break. Mangonui jumps from sleepy coastal village to being jam packed with happy visitors and the mix of surf, beaches, boat trips and buzz makes it hard to leave. However this year China called and I had to visit various suppliers of our Surf brand Coastlines.
The contrasts couldn’t be greater. Suddenly the warm summer temperatures are replaced with real cold, even in Southern China. Embarrassingly for owners of a clothing label, we had to buy more clothes to combat the cold.
Everything is different in China. Different from what you’ve left, different from what you already know and expect and most of all different from the myths held by many back home.
I spend half of January in a communist country and half in a free market economy, half in a static but sound economy and half in a runaway bull market, half in a place where they control what you say and write and half where they don’t care, half in a high tech country and half in one struggling to catch up.
The strange thing is sometimes it’s hard to work out which of those describes NZ and which China.
These guys are serious about business. The scale of new factories is just mind- blowing and they’re not run on slave labour. Not far from our own factories some enormous new supply factories for Walmart have opened, creating serious local labour shortages, not unlike some places back here, but these factories are unbelievable, over 1km long, 100m deep, 5 stories high and looking more like hotels with palm fringed lakes. Rod Donald would turn in his grave!
China and Russia seem to have invented a new economic model mixing the best of central planning and the free market. The centrally mandated free market cluster zone model and it’s going to be hard to keep up with! Someone determines that an area will manufacture shirts or socks or whatever, and then they go for it with lots of local competition for international business. The sock city used to be rural villages only a dozen years ago and now the privately owned competing firms there make 2 billion pairs per year!
Town planning mandates areas for sensitive industries using chemicals and what we would term dangerous goods. One of our suppliers making surfboards is in such an area and surprisingly the environmental standards are way higher than here. Dust free factories with huge extractors pulling the dust past walls with running water and into closed loop scrubbers removing all residues for collection. Not what we are lead to believe at all.
The hotel brochures describe the incentives for opening new business in each local area. High start depreciation and low initial tax rates to get the business over those tough first three years. I compare that with the greedy development levies that local Kiwi councils extract from anyone foolish enough to try here.
The culture shocks go on all day, and even old China hands will tell you "that in China, every day you see something that you don’t see everyday."
The continuous escalation of eating exotica is one of the challenges that must be met by visiting businessmen. There were days when I longed for the simple but wholesome fare the workers received, but as a mark of respect I was dined on such choice but challenging items as pig’s womb soup, followed by barbequed lamb’s penises (small and chewy), then rounded out with fondued donkey.
One way or another we have to come to terms with China and we should be pleased that NZ has made progress nationally towards a Free Trade Agreement. They are already the fourth biggest economy and the transformation is just massive. We can run and hide, or join in and make the most of it.
Just when USA should be using all their wealth to protect their own economy, they are wasting their wealth at the staggering rate of $2Trillion on the war in Iraq, while China is buying up US Bonds to the value of $1Trillion. Let’s not make the same mistake.
WAYNE BROWN
The contrasts couldn’t be greater. Suddenly the warm summer temperatures are replaced with real cold, even in Southern China. Embarrassingly for owners of a clothing label, we had to buy more clothes to combat the cold.
Everything is different in China. Different from what you’ve left, different from what you already know and expect and most of all different from the myths held by many back home.
I spend half of January in a communist country and half in a free market economy, half in a static but sound economy and half in a runaway bull market, half in a place where they control what you say and write and half where they don’t care, half in a high tech country and half in one struggling to catch up.
The strange thing is sometimes it’s hard to work out which of those describes NZ and which China.
These guys are serious about business. The scale of new factories is just mind- blowing and they’re not run on slave labour. Not far from our own factories some enormous new supply factories for Walmart have opened, creating serious local labour shortages, not unlike some places back here, but these factories are unbelievable, over 1km long, 100m deep, 5 stories high and looking more like hotels with palm fringed lakes. Rod Donald would turn in his grave!
China and Russia seem to have invented a new economic model mixing the best of central planning and the free market. The centrally mandated free market cluster zone model and it’s going to be hard to keep up with! Someone determines that an area will manufacture shirts or socks or whatever, and then they go for it with lots of local competition for international business. The sock city used to be rural villages only a dozen years ago and now the privately owned competing firms there make 2 billion pairs per year!
Town planning mandates areas for sensitive industries using chemicals and what we would term dangerous goods. One of our suppliers making surfboards is in such an area and surprisingly the environmental standards are way higher than here. Dust free factories with huge extractors pulling the dust past walls with running water and into closed loop scrubbers removing all residues for collection. Not what we are lead to believe at all.
The hotel brochures describe the incentives for opening new business in each local area. High start depreciation and low initial tax rates to get the business over those tough first three years. I compare that with the greedy development levies that local Kiwi councils extract from anyone foolish enough to try here.
The culture shocks go on all day, and even old China hands will tell you "that in China, every day you see something that you don’t see everyday."
The continuous escalation of eating exotica is one of the challenges that must be met by visiting businessmen. There were days when I longed for the simple but wholesome fare the workers received, but as a mark of respect I was dined on such choice but challenging items as pig’s womb soup, followed by barbequed lamb’s penises (small and chewy), then rounded out with fondued donkey.
One way or another we have to come to terms with China and we should be pleased that NZ has made progress nationally towards a Free Trade Agreement. They are already the fourth biggest economy and the transformation is just massive. We can run and hide, or join in and make the most of it.
Just when USA should be using all their wealth to protect their own economy, they are wasting their wealth at the staggering rate of $2Trillion on the war in Iraq, while China is buying up US Bonds to the value of $1Trillion. Let’s not make the same mistake.
WAYNE BROWN
Can Councils and Government Really Be Pro Development?
Last year I was part of a State Services convened panel to look into ways that government could encourage innovation in business and service delivery. While fine in theory I could envision the horror of Departments of Innovation forming with innovation quota being allocated to all arms of government.
Innovation is not like that. It crops up in the most unlikely places and happens when it happens, not according to set times lines. The best that government and local bodies can do is not to prevent it with strangulation by regulation.
So, it was with some scepticism that I attended the local council’s Economic Development Summit.
Attitudes are the most important aspect of pro-innovative pro-development programs, so it is fine to see local and central government folk at least adopting a positive attitude, particularly in the face of a bureaucracy almost purpose designed to prevent innovation or development. We need to commend these first faltering steps as it means giving up some the control so beloved by council staff, and instead empowering ratepayers to actually have a go.
The mayor kicked things off in a positive way. (Why is it all mayors subscribe to the "never use a sentence when a paragraph will do" speech philosophy?). The PM herself followed endorsing this giddy message of business growth.
Then Parakura Horomia shuffled on stage to front the audience of so-called movers and shakers, surprising them all with an emphatically delivered message that Maori are on the move and are a commercial force to be reckoned with. They want to develop their assets, mostly land, and they mean to get on with it using partners where it is wise to do so. He probably under-estimated how ready the business audience was to embrace and support this message, never the less he made some great points worth repeating here.
Nearly all Maori of his age (50ish) had parents who earned their income from manual labour, but that is changing. Twenty percent of all qualifications earned in NZ last year were earned by Maori! Maori are the biggest fishing company in the South Pacific and the biggest group in meat exporting in NZ. They have been rated the most entrepreneurial people in the world, especially their women. Maori do Research and Development and they are starting to think globally.
Maori business success is NZ success! Surely this is the way to better living standards and better relations, but can we do it?
In the midst of this radiating euphoria, and while some of us tried not to think of just how slowly things really happen when the bureaucracy decides to help, a few of the old worries surfaced. While encouraged to expand broadband it was pointed out that although now available nearly everywhere, the council don’t allow their building inspectors to contact the public via email.
Anti-mining quotes slipped from some of those on stage, yet we are encouraged to match the Aussies for productivity. Well, the main difference between Kiwi productivity of and that of our pro-Japan rugby mates, is that their main industry is digging things up and exporting them.
Much has been made of the recently reported figure of $1billion of farming exports from Northland’s 4500 farms, probably covering nearly a million hectares. What about the fact that Northland’s two mining companies using the area of about 5 farms produced $200million of product? Gold mines are on the menu. Can we face up to sense in good mining practice with our rather Luddite way of thinking?
A few years back an Australian prospector found a deposit of Cinnabar, (the ore body containing Mercury,) by tracing very high Mercury levels in a Northland stream until the level dropped. He sought permission to export this stuff, but was rebuffed by those opposing mining on the basis of danger to the environment. The result is no mine, no income but Mercury still here leaching into the stream. Is this innovative development?
Wayne Brown
Innovation is not like that. It crops up in the most unlikely places and happens when it happens, not according to set times lines. The best that government and local bodies can do is not to prevent it with strangulation by regulation.
So, it was with some scepticism that I attended the local council’s Economic Development Summit.
Attitudes are the most important aspect of pro-innovative pro-development programs, so it is fine to see local and central government folk at least adopting a positive attitude, particularly in the face of a bureaucracy almost purpose designed to prevent innovation or development. We need to commend these first faltering steps as it means giving up some the control so beloved by council staff, and instead empowering ratepayers to actually have a go.
The mayor kicked things off in a positive way. (Why is it all mayors subscribe to the "never use a sentence when a paragraph will do" speech philosophy?). The PM herself followed endorsing this giddy message of business growth.
Then Parakura Horomia shuffled on stage to front the audience of so-called movers and shakers, surprising them all with an emphatically delivered message that Maori are on the move and are a commercial force to be reckoned with. They want to develop their assets, mostly land, and they mean to get on with it using partners where it is wise to do so. He probably under-estimated how ready the business audience was to embrace and support this message, never the less he made some great points worth repeating here.
Nearly all Maori of his age (50ish) had parents who earned their income from manual labour, but that is changing. Twenty percent of all qualifications earned in NZ last year were earned by Maori! Maori are the biggest fishing company in the South Pacific and the biggest group in meat exporting in NZ. They have been rated the most entrepreneurial people in the world, especially their women. Maori do Research and Development and they are starting to think globally.
Maori business success is NZ success! Surely this is the way to better living standards and better relations, but can we do it?
In the midst of this radiating euphoria, and while some of us tried not to think of just how slowly things really happen when the bureaucracy decides to help, a few of the old worries surfaced. While encouraged to expand broadband it was pointed out that although now available nearly everywhere, the council don’t allow their building inspectors to contact the public via email.
Anti-mining quotes slipped from some of those on stage, yet we are encouraged to match the Aussies for productivity. Well, the main difference between Kiwi productivity of and that of our pro-Japan rugby mates, is that their main industry is digging things up and exporting them.
Much has been made of the recently reported figure of $1billion of farming exports from Northland’s 4500 farms, probably covering nearly a million hectares. What about the fact that Northland’s two mining companies using the area of about 5 farms produced $200million of product? Gold mines are on the menu. Can we face up to sense in good mining practice with our rather Luddite way of thinking?
A few years back an Australian prospector found a deposit of Cinnabar, (the ore body containing Mercury,) by tracing very high Mercury levels in a Northland stream until the level dropped. He sought permission to export this stuff, but was rebuffed by those opposing mining on the basis of danger to the environment. The result is no mine, no income but Mercury still here leaching into the stream. Is this innovative development?
Wayne Brown
Brazil Has Lessons for Us with MMP
The problems facing President Loula da Silva in Brazil offer us a few timely lessons heading into an MMP election, which is likely to require one of our two major parties to enter into messy coalition arrangements with either NZ First or harder still, a group of micro survivors.
Like NZ, Brazil has a greatly improved macro financial situation with falling government debt, inflation at a low (by their standards) of 6.5% and a string of 4 to 5% annual growth figures. Like NZ, their currency is at historic highs and they have had big growth in government spending. The tax take is described at Nordic levels of 38% but unlike NZ delivers African services.
The president’s problem is governing without a party majority. The first year after the election things went OK as the agreement with the alliance parties held for a while after their support had been purchased through placing many of their members on the various boards and commissions available. This gets peace for a bit but overloads important bodies with inexperienced members and performance slides.
The main party soon finds its policies compromised by these alliances. The compromises that sacrificed principals to get progress end up preventing progress, especially as members of the minor groups start a bidding war for more. Any of this sound familiar? Cycling ways and Commissioners for the Family?
Mistrust sets in, bad behaviour follows and now they face every conversation being taped and videoed and the main party finds itself contaminated with falling public confidence. If President Loula fails then who will run Ecuador, Mexico or Bolivia?
What this shows is how important the skill of managing such coalitions is, and it is fair to say that the Clark government has managed this process quite well, although the luck of having the mild United Future to balance the more feral Greens may not occur again, and whoever gets to partner Winston Peters can expect a much more challenging term.
Experienced Brazilian diplomats are urging more separation of government from the administration and reducing the bureaucracy, training less lawyers and more engineers. Common themes in growing progressive countries!
Over the next month or two much will be made of the experience of the incumbent Labour team versus the naïve enthusiasm of the National challengers. Good luck to voters in trying to sort through what will be a bewildering array of claim and counter claim.
Perhaps we could look at what is good and bad at present and how some of this might pan out.
I imagine that even National will grudgingly admit that our macro finances have been
competently managed and are in a relatively good position. For my money the two best things that the Labour government have done are staying out of Iraq and negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China (albeit not quite finished yet).
Not rushing into the Coalition of the blindly obedient to USA has resulted in our country being seen as distinctly different from our Aussie neighbours for the first time, particularly in Asia, the Middle East and South America (which accounts for most of the world’s population). The Australian/USA FTA that the Nats seem to wish to emulate is full of fish-hooks and there are all sorts of risks if they rush after Bush’s USA. Better relationships with USA in the future are more than just a good idea, but not at any price and maybe not now while they are on their "Middle East Muslim terrorist axis of evil"mission.
The size of government will definitely be a battleground for this election with Labour held to ransom by the internal union support and National pushing for a freeing up of employment legislation. Both sides of this argument will have an audience. The same will go for the Working for Families package seen by one side as caring democracy in action and the other as Nanny state knows best. The election will measure these support camps.
Both major parties will be watchful of landmine issues. For Labour the Building Act and Minister Carter’s steadfast support for his suboptimal department are a risk, as is Mulsim MP Choudry’s views on stoning the gay community. For National, Labour will be hoping Brash accidentally ends up in George W’s corner blindly committing us to years in Iraq.
Either way it promises to be an interesting journey to the polls with some of the small players so close to extinction that desperate measures might trigger electoral shocks. And then there’s the Maori party among whose members are some surprisingly business orientated members. Who knows?
WAYNE BROWN
Like NZ, Brazil has a greatly improved macro financial situation with falling government debt, inflation at a low (by their standards) of 6.5% and a string of 4 to 5% annual growth figures. Like NZ, their currency is at historic highs and they have had big growth in government spending. The tax take is described at Nordic levels of 38% but unlike NZ delivers African services.
The president’s problem is governing without a party majority. The first year after the election things went OK as the agreement with the alliance parties held for a while after their support had been purchased through placing many of their members on the various boards and commissions available. This gets peace for a bit but overloads important bodies with inexperienced members and performance slides.
The main party soon finds its policies compromised by these alliances. The compromises that sacrificed principals to get progress end up preventing progress, especially as members of the minor groups start a bidding war for more. Any of this sound familiar? Cycling ways and Commissioners for the Family?
Mistrust sets in, bad behaviour follows and now they face every conversation being taped and videoed and the main party finds itself contaminated with falling public confidence. If President Loula fails then who will run Ecuador, Mexico or Bolivia?
What this shows is how important the skill of managing such coalitions is, and it is fair to say that the Clark government has managed this process quite well, although the luck of having the mild United Future to balance the more feral Greens may not occur again, and whoever gets to partner Winston Peters can expect a much more challenging term.
Experienced Brazilian diplomats are urging more separation of government from the administration and reducing the bureaucracy, training less lawyers and more engineers. Common themes in growing progressive countries!
Over the next month or two much will be made of the experience of the incumbent Labour team versus the naïve enthusiasm of the National challengers. Good luck to voters in trying to sort through what will be a bewildering array of claim and counter claim.
Perhaps we could look at what is good and bad at present and how some of this might pan out.
I imagine that even National will grudgingly admit that our macro finances have been
competently managed and are in a relatively good position. For my money the two best things that the Labour government have done are staying out of Iraq and negotiating a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China (albeit not quite finished yet).
Not rushing into the Coalition of the blindly obedient to USA has resulted in our country being seen as distinctly different from our Aussie neighbours for the first time, particularly in Asia, the Middle East and South America (which accounts for most of the world’s population). The Australian/USA FTA that the Nats seem to wish to emulate is full of fish-hooks and there are all sorts of risks if they rush after Bush’s USA. Better relationships with USA in the future are more than just a good idea, but not at any price and maybe not now while they are on their "Middle East Muslim terrorist axis of evil"mission.
The size of government will definitely be a battleground for this election with Labour held to ransom by the internal union support and National pushing for a freeing up of employment legislation. Both sides of this argument will have an audience. The same will go for the Working for Families package seen by one side as caring democracy in action and the other as Nanny state knows best. The election will measure these support camps.
Both major parties will be watchful of landmine issues. For Labour the Building Act and Minister Carter’s steadfast support for his suboptimal department are a risk, as is Mulsim MP Choudry’s views on stoning the gay community. For National, Labour will be hoping Brash accidentally ends up in George W’s corner blindly committing us to years in Iraq.
Either way it promises to be an interesting journey to the polls with some of the small players so close to extinction that desperate measures might trigger electoral shocks. And then there’s the Maori party among whose members are some surprisingly business orientated members. Who knows?
WAYNE BROWN
Border Patrol
Given recent events at British Airports it is not surprising that we are all thinking about border issues and the rapid invasion of security into our travelling experiences.
I travel a fair bit on business and you can tell a fair bit about a country from the experience at the border.
The Yanks are fully paranoid and have been since 9/11 with levels about to rise off the scale again. No doubt they will have groups deep in the Department of Homeland Security plotting ways to ruin our freedom to travel about our own country back here and we will have border staff just waiting to pick up on the latest shoe X-ray technology. Sensible travellers will wear jandals at airports from now on.
What really is our biggest border risk? Probably it’s Asian bird flu, but we don’t seem to do much about that. On leaving or entering China everyone has their temperature read digitally as you cross the border. Those with a high temperature are checked by a doctor to see if bird flu really is the problem. Seems sensible to me and it is done with little disruption, so what do we do?
We greet our visitors and returning exporters from China with dogs!
Ambling towards the immigration line, following the long haul back from Hong Kong earlier this year an official Fido leapt at my trouser pocket excitedly. Before I could boot the damn thing off, I’m lead off to where the Mr Bigs get interviewed. A long wait ensued interspersed with detailed examination of my pockets, wallet and carry on bag, all the while being badgered by the tattooed Pom in the Customs uniform who is absolutely sure he’s nailed another Mr Big.
"You’re nervous", he accused me, mistaking growing anger for fear, although the discussion with a large burly fellow Customs official about rectal searching did induce a slight tremor. "The dog has been known to be wrong", I was told in the same tone that a Tui’s advert might be related. I was never told what I was suspected of having, but I can assure readers that international business is quite hard enough without contemplating carting illegal substances across a border.
What was the driver of this behaviour? Well, apparently this fellow had been star of some reality border show that I hadn’t seen, which must have disappointed him. Eventually in the absence of anything illegal, (not because it was hidden, but because it didn’t exist), I was allowed to collect my possessions which were thoroughly X-rayed, still without result and join my business partner who had been waiting an hour and a half for me, wondering what the heck has happened.
Customs lodge a report on each of these events, so I asked if I was to be stopped every time in the future. No reply, so I sought a copy of the report under the Official Information Act.
This reveals yet another area of over-employment curtesy of the taxpayer. Weeks later the Customs report appears with some lines blocked out. Why? Nothing happened!
Yet another group of officials are now needed. The Privacy Commissioner’s Office eventually respond weeks later, telling me that they cannot utilise email as it might not protect my privacy, and the amended Customs report arrives but still with one line hidden by thick black ink, apparently to avoid prejudicing any future court action! The lines that have been unblocked don’t really say much either, so I’m mystified by the purpose of the report, nor do I know what special border warning status, if any, that I now have.
The really odd thing is that I was a bit worried about the bird flu thing, but due to Customs dragging me out of the process I missed the Ag and Fish guys. You see, while wandering around the old part of a Chinese town we rounded a corner in a lane to find ourselves in the duck market! Obviously no transfer of disease occurred as I’m still well.
The Custom officer told me he was protecting my children! What from? If they were really worried out drugs and my kids, why not close down the P labs known to exist in the North. If it was marijuana he was worried about, that’s grown in Northland. No need to go to China.
Wayne Brown
I travel a fair bit on business and you can tell a fair bit about a country from the experience at the border.
The Yanks are fully paranoid and have been since 9/11 with levels about to rise off the scale again. No doubt they will have groups deep in the Department of Homeland Security plotting ways to ruin our freedom to travel about our own country back here and we will have border staff just waiting to pick up on the latest shoe X-ray technology. Sensible travellers will wear jandals at airports from now on.
What really is our biggest border risk? Probably it’s Asian bird flu, but we don’t seem to do much about that. On leaving or entering China everyone has their temperature read digitally as you cross the border. Those with a high temperature are checked by a doctor to see if bird flu really is the problem. Seems sensible to me and it is done with little disruption, so what do we do?
We greet our visitors and returning exporters from China with dogs!
Ambling towards the immigration line, following the long haul back from Hong Kong earlier this year an official Fido leapt at my trouser pocket excitedly. Before I could boot the damn thing off, I’m lead off to where the Mr Bigs get interviewed. A long wait ensued interspersed with detailed examination of my pockets, wallet and carry on bag, all the while being badgered by the tattooed Pom in the Customs uniform who is absolutely sure he’s nailed another Mr Big.
"You’re nervous", he accused me, mistaking growing anger for fear, although the discussion with a large burly fellow Customs official about rectal searching did induce a slight tremor. "The dog has been known to be wrong", I was told in the same tone that a Tui’s advert might be related. I was never told what I was suspected of having, but I can assure readers that international business is quite hard enough without contemplating carting illegal substances across a border.
What was the driver of this behaviour? Well, apparently this fellow had been star of some reality border show that I hadn’t seen, which must have disappointed him. Eventually in the absence of anything illegal, (not because it was hidden, but because it didn’t exist), I was allowed to collect my possessions which were thoroughly X-rayed, still without result and join my business partner who had been waiting an hour and a half for me, wondering what the heck has happened.
Customs lodge a report on each of these events, so I asked if I was to be stopped every time in the future. No reply, so I sought a copy of the report under the Official Information Act.
This reveals yet another area of over-employment curtesy of the taxpayer. Weeks later the Customs report appears with some lines blocked out. Why? Nothing happened!
Yet another group of officials are now needed. The Privacy Commissioner’s Office eventually respond weeks later, telling me that they cannot utilise email as it might not protect my privacy, and the amended Customs report arrives but still with one line hidden by thick black ink, apparently to avoid prejudicing any future court action! The lines that have been unblocked don’t really say much either, so I’m mystified by the purpose of the report, nor do I know what special border warning status, if any, that I now have.
The really odd thing is that I was a bit worried about the bird flu thing, but due to Customs dragging me out of the process I missed the Ag and Fish guys. You see, while wandering around the old part of a Chinese town we rounded a corner in a lane to find ourselves in the duck market! Obviously no transfer of disease occurred as I’m still well.
The Custom officer told me he was protecting my children! What from? If they were really worried out drugs and my kids, why not close down the P labs known to exist in the North. If it was marijuana he was worried about, that’s grown in Northland. No need to go to China.
Wayne Brown
Billionaires v New Zealand. Are We Ready?
Is anyone out there still interested in the big stories, the worldwide trends that might affect millions of people, shape the future for our children?
Sometimes I really wonder if New Zealand is actually connected to the rest of the World.
Last week’s papers showed that the most popular subject for our media commentators was Prince Charles being confronted with two pairs of flaccid breasts, a sort of mass meeting of meaningless charlies.
Yet there are major changes afoot, possibly a completely new historic period being entered into without anyone much noticing.
It was reported that there are now 700 billionaires on the planet. Ho-hum, you might say, but we still think of the newsworthiness of emerging democracies at a time when then nation state might just be starting to lose out to the power of the individual oligarch.
In the past such individuals have been inextricably linked to the state but not now. The top two humans by wealth have made it in their own time and the third has parlayed a small family fortune into a virtual steel economy of his own.
It is worth thinking about these guys and their impact.
Number one super-rich guy, Bill Gates invented the art of making billions from patenting software. It’s definitely the business model of Microsoft rather than the software that has done it, but he has done it and we all use his programs and most of us pay and pay to do so, protected by Uncle Sam and the US love of patents and copyright which form the basis for so much wealth there in pharmacy and software companies. His impact on our lives is so great that some historians (the rare economically numerate ones) are dating our calendars this year as the year 23AG meaning After Gates. We all sit in front of computers every day, yet these were not even available only 23 years ago. Has any nation affected us so much?
Number two billionaire, Warren Buffett, the Oracle from Omaha, is even more amazing having made his $40billion solely from investing! No invention, just investing like every other capitalist has been trying to perfect for centuries His company, Berkshire Hathaway, (which probably most of you have never heard of, especially if you’re an MP) has had 20%+ compound growth every year for over 40 years. That’s doubling your money every four years, OR over forty years giving you a return of $15,000 for every single dollar you started with!
This guy really should be listened to. Just think of the earning power needed to go from zilch to $40billion in 40 years. That’s a thousand million dollars every year. Thanks to our Holidays Act, 11 public holidays and taxation at 39% that means a profit of $7million every working day of his career or a million dollars an hour every hour!
Now, we should all be worried because Warren is worried. He’s worried about the US deficit. They’re losing over $3billion every day at present and the rest of the world is covering this debt. Just because the numbers are so big, doesn’t mean nobody pays when someone loses so much. What is the relative power of Warren Buffett to that of George Bush when one can bet $40billion of his money against the currency of the country supposedly run by the other guy (who won’t be in the job in less than four years, by when Warren will then have $80billion) ?
If Warren is right, and he has made a habit of being right, then what of a small nation of 4 million people at the bottom of the Pacific? We simply have to hope that we will weather the storm.
This is my whole point. The age of the Nation State might just be coming to an end. With all our accoutrements of democracy, over a hundred MPs, countless civil servants, umpteen government departments and invasive taxation we really don’t have the combined grunt of one single gifted billionaire investor and there are 700 of them.
Number three, the Indian steel magnate who owns and operates the global giant Mittal Steel is worthy of an article on his own.
We have at least created a billionaire of our own and good on Graeme Hart for his results. Another billionaire, Julian Robertson plays with golf courses here, yet we seem to be completely unaware as a country with how we should deal with these mega wealthy individuals.
The Overseas Investment Commission is a complete paper tiger and we should be debating our approach right now, this election year.
Wayne Brown
Sometimes I really wonder if New Zealand is actually connected to the rest of the World.
Last week’s papers showed that the most popular subject for our media commentators was Prince Charles being confronted with two pairs of flaccid breasts, a sort of mass meeting of meaningless charlies.
Yet there are major changes afoot, possibly a completely new historic period being entered into without anyone much noticing.
It was reported that there are now 700 billionaires on the planet. Ho-hum, you might say, but we still think of the newsworthiness of emerging democracies at a time when then nation state might just be starting to lose out to the power of the individual oligarch.
In the past such individuals have been inextricably linked to the state but not now. The top two humans by wealth have made it in their own time and the third has parlayed a small family fortune into a virtual steel economy of his own.
It is worth thinking about these guys and their impact.
Number one super-rich guy, Bill Gates invented the art of making billions from patenting software. It’s definitely the business model of Microsoft rather than the software that has done it, but he has done it and we all use his programs and most of us pay and pay to do so, protected by Uncle Sam and the US love of patents and copyright which form the basis for so much wealth there in pharmacy and software companies. His impact on our lives is so great that some historians (the rare economically numerate ones) are dating our calendars this year as the year 23AG meaning After Gates. We all sit in front of computers every day, yet these were not even available only 23 years ago. Has any nation affected us so much?
Number two billionaire, Warren Buffett, the Oracle from Omaha, is even more amazing having made his $40billion solely from investing! No invention, just investing like every other capitalist has been trying to perfect for centuries His company, Berkshire Hathaway, (which probably most of you have never heard of, especially if you’re an MP) has had 20%+ compound growth every year for over 40 years. That’s doubling your money every four years, OR over forty years giving you a return of $15,000 for every single dollar you started with!
This guy really should be listened to. Just think of the earning power needed to go from zilch to $40billion in 40 years. That’s a thousand million dollars every year. Thanks to our Holidays Act, 11 public holidays and taxation at 39% that means a profit of $7million every working day of his career or a million dollars an hour every hour!
Now, we should all be worried because Warren is worried. He’s worried about the US deficit. They’re losing over $3billion every day at present and the rest of the world is covering this debt. Just because the numbers are so big, doesn’t mean nobody pays when someone loses so much. What is the relative power of Warren Buffett to that of George Bush when one can bet $40billion of his money against the currency of the country supposedly run by the other guy (who won’t be in the job in less than four years, by when Warren will then have $80billion) ?
If Warren is right, and he has made a habit of being right, then what of a small nation of 4 million people at the bottom of the Pacific? We simply have to hope that we will weather the storm.
This is my whole point. The age of the Nation State might just be coming to an end. With all our accoutrements of democracy, over a hundred MPs, countless civil servants, umpteen government departments and invasive taxation we really don’t have the combined grunt of one single gifted billionaire investor and there are 700 of them.
Number three, the Indian steel magnate who owns and operates the global giant Mittal Steel is worthy of an article on his own.
We have at least created a billionaire of our own and good on Graeme Hart for his results. Another billionaire, Julian Robertson plays with golf courses here, yet we seem to be completely unaware as a country with how we should deal with these mega wealthy individuals.
The Overseas Investment Commission is a complete paper tiger and we should be debating our approach right now, this election year.
Wayne Brown
Big Night Out In The Bush
" Hi, you’ve reached Swamp Palace, the Oruru Community Hall Cinema. We are located at Oruru, 7 kilometres inland from Taipa, just stay on the tar-seal and you can’t miss us. Our program tonight is the Kiwi film, Number Two".
This is what you’ll hear if you dial 09 4087040 and Richard Weatherly, the local exhibitor gives an amusing account of what’s on offer for us locals.
Well, it was Number Two last weekend and it played to full houses in New Zealand’s most unlikely cinema venue. It wasn’t a great movie but the sell out audiences (it only takes 65) prove that we love to see stories about ourselves. Set in Mount Roskill it reminded me a bit about playing my senior Rugby at Te Papapa in Auckland back in the seventies along with my Maori and Pacific Island team-mates.
I’ve always loved the movies and have designed and built multiplex cinemas all over New Zealand, but it’s the old ones that I really love, the cinemas in the most unlikely places that survived the coming of television, which closed so many suburban and provincial screens.
Kerikeri boasts the Cathay, which was opened in the thirties by Bus Emanuel, one of the leading fruit growers among a group largely made up of well-off English expats who settled here from China to escape the troubles and start again. Just like today in the small communities lucky enough to boast a cinema, it was the movies that kept everyone informed, entertained and part of the big world.
In its day, season tickets were sold at the Cathay and dress was formal on a Saturday night. Woe betide anyone found sitting in one of the old China hands reserved seats. Long term operators, Doug and Pat Turner kept the cinema going through the lean years supported by a town pleased to keep such an asset going. It was enthusiasts like these and Richard Weatherly of Swamp Palace, who made the difference, multi skilling including providing the only discipline many kids ever got, in the case of Pat Turner. The Cathay now boasts an excellent restaurant and is up there with any of the art house in the cities.
If you are ever in the Far North give the Swamp Palace a go. You won’t believe that a cinema exists out among the farmland totally without surrounding commercial buildings of any type. Much larger Kaitaia hasn’t had a screen for years but Oruru, an almost non-existent village does.
Patrons often wait outside for the delightfully eccentric Richard and his dog to arrive. Ticket queues form in front of a sign indicating prices for local adults at $10 below a note to Aucklanders that they must pay $15. Slow banter over Eskimo Pies and the eating variety of Jaffas means that the start is often a bit late if Richard so chooses, but if you are late when he is not, expect a lecture.
A rush takes place for the front row upstairs allowing leg stretch room and a view clear of Rasta hairstyles. The seats are much the same age as the patrons and give a very good guide to the movie. Even ardent movie-goers found Lord of the Rings failed the backside test.
Before the movie kicks off Richard staggers upstairs and perches on the balcony to address the audience. "Thanks for coming folks. Tonight’s movie is set in Mount Roskill. Let me tell you that Mount Roskill has never looked that good in real life" and so on. " Next weeks movie is Kinky Boots by the team from Calendar Girls and The Full Monty, so you’ll enjoy it. Remember there is no screening on Good Friday. I’m not religious but the dog is!"
We are lucky to have a New Zealand Film industry so active at present, thanks to stalwarts like John Barnett and Peter Jackson on the creative side, but also thanks to those strugglers like Richard Weatherly who keep the small town movie-going experience still alive. Make sure you experience it.
WAYNE BROWN
This is what you’ll hear if you dial 09 4087040 and Richard Weatherly, the local exhibitor gives an amusing account of what’s on offer for us locals.
Well, it was Number Two last weekend and it played to full houses in New Zealand’s most unlikely cinema venue. It wasn’t a great movie but the sell out audiences (it only takes 65) prove that we love to see stories about ourselves. Set in Mount Roskill it reminded me a bit about playing my senior Rugby at Te Papapa in Auckland back in the seventies along with my Maori and Pacific Island team-mates.
I’ve always loved the movies and have designed and built multiplex cinemas all over New Zealand, but it’s the old ones that I really love, the cinemas in the most unlikely places that survived the coming of television, which closed so many suburban and provincial screens.
Kerikeri boasts the Cathay, which was opened in the thirties by Bus Emanuel, one of the leading fruit growers among a group largely made up of well-off English expats who settled here from China to escape the troubles and start again. Just like today in the small communities lucky enough to boast a cinema, it was the movies that kept everyone informed, entertained and part of the big world.
In its day, season tickets were sold at the Cathay and dress was formal on a Saturday night. Woe betide anyone found sitting in one of the old China hands reserved seats. Long term operators, Doug and Pat Turner kept the cinema going through the lean years supported by a town pleased to keep such an asset going. It was enthusiasts like these and Richard Weatherly of Swamp Palace, who made the difference, multi skilling including providing the only discipline many kids ever got, in the case of Pat Turner. The Cathay now boasts an excellent restaurant and is up there with any of the art house in the cities.
If you are ever in the Far North give the Swamp Palace a go. You won’t believe that a cinema exists out among the farmland totally without surrounding commercial buildings of any type. Much larger Kaitaia hasn’t had a screen for years but Oruru, an almost non-existent village does.
Patrons often wait outside for the delightfully eccentric Richard and his dog to arrive. Ticket queues form in front of a sign indicating prices for local adults at $10 below a note to Aucklanders that they must pay $15. Slow banter over Eskimo Pies and the eating variety of Jaffas means that the start is often a bit late if Richard so chooses, but if you are late when he is not, expect a lecture.
A rush takes place for the front row upstairs allowing leg stretch room and a view clear of Rasta hairstyles. The seats are much the same age as the patrons and give a very good guide to the movie. Even ardent movie-goers found Lord of the Rings failed the backside test.
Before the movie kicks off Richard staggers upstairs and perches on the balcony to address the audience. "Thanks for coming folks. Tonight’s movie is set in Mount Roskill. Let me tell you that Mount Roskill has never looked that good in real life" and so on. " Next weeks movie is Kinky Boots by the team from Calendar Girls and The Full Monty, so you’ll enjoy it. Remember there is no screening on Good Friday. I’m not religious but the dog is!"
We are lucky to have a New Zealand Film industry so active at present, thanks to stalwarts like John Barnett and Peter Jackson on the creative side, but also thanks to those strugglers like Richard Weatherly who keep the small town movie-going experience still alive. Make sure you experience it.
WAYNE BROWN
Does All the New Stuff Help Us Communicate?
The communication revolution that surrounds us seems like normal connection to some of the younger generation but is deeply confusing to many.
High speed internet, the almost universal use of mobile phones, eftpos and bank cards means one can travel anywhere at all and remain in touch with just these tools and a passport. Global roaming and global positioning mean that we can be tracked fairly easily as well, either directly or by following the electronic trail of our activities.
Most of these things that we take for granted were figments of the imagination only three decades back, yet their acceptance still leaves big areas of challenge to the way we live. Look at the dreadful congestion in our cities with governments struggling to respond to ever louder demands for more travel infrastructure at a time of dramatically rising oil costs and long term need to reduce fossil fuel usage.
Why do people still go to work everyday when modern firms link internationally by internet, cable, mobile and other technologies. Stay at home, enjoy life and work electronically. This piece was not written in the office of the Sunday Star Times but on a jet between here and Oz.
It is this strange ambivalence to technology that sees the contradiction between traffic and telecommunication unresolved. There would be no need at all for extra roading network expenditure if we dumped the need for face to face contact with what is already available on most mobile networks, especially the 3G versions. Oddly rural people adopt technology way before urban dwellers as the travel distances force them to.
Media is full of reports on the need for and provision of greater broadband speeds, yet stubbornly certain sectors seem determined not to adopt the widespread use of these enabling technologies.
I have often mentioned councils that just refuse to connect electronically with their customers, builders, ratepayers etc. One cannot electronically make appointments with any council staff in most councils, yet mayors never miss a speech-making opportunity to waffle on about the future. The health sector is bravely trying to get better connection between hospitals, patients and GPs but the sheer size of the challenge will take time. Unfortunately central bureaucracies like Ministry of Health have embraced the governments e-strategy so completely they think they have the right to send unsolicited book sized 10meg files of absolutely unreadable rubbish.
The ostrich award for head in the sand, back to the future approach has to go to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. I have just received their policy for us, the mug public. It notes " The investigation is done by letter. The Office has a policy of not using emails for correspondence about complaints because of security concerns: emails can often be seen by people who are not involved in the complaint".
You have got to be joking! Most concerns about privacy are about electronic new tech based information gathering, so the commissioner won’t go there! Do they assume that hard copy letters are invisible to people who are not involved in a complaint. Keep the emails and letters out of their hands! If they can’t keep their own emails private what are we doing paying them to set policies for modern life?
The same day I read this idiot policy, the Privacy Commissioner, Marie Shroff was waffling on at the Privacy Forum about the misuse of technology. It’s worst misuse is its non-use. Every day use of bank cards, eftpos and online purchases expose us to loss making risks greater than privacy risks so we need brainy solutions to skimmers and other clever crims, not backward snail-mail policies.
Basic email etiquette needs to be more widely taught. I receive some enormous computer clogging emails simply because some dumb firm insist on sending me their colour logos around otherwise simple messages. Regular users of hand-helds will testify to the difficulties sometimes in opening attachments, which could so easily just have been the ordinary email in the first place.
Let’s modernise and use technology to its fullest.
WAYNE BROWN
High speed internet, the almost universal use of mobile phones, eftpos and bank cards means one can travel anywhere at all and remain in touch with just these tools and a passport. Global roaming and global positioning mean that we can be tracked fairly easily as well, either directly or by following the electronic trail of our activities.
Most of these things that we take for granted were figments of the imagination only three decades back, yet their acceptance still leaves big areas of challenge to the way we live. Look at the dreadful congestion in our cities with governments struggling to respond to ever louder demands for more travel infrastructure at a time of dramatically rising oil costs and long term need to reduce fossil fuel usage.
Why do people still go to work everyday when modern firms link internationally by internet, cable, mobile and other technologies. Stay at home, enjoy life and work electronically. This piece was not written in the office of the Sunday Star Times but on a jet between here and Oz.
It is this strange ambivalence to technology that sees the contradiction between traffic and telecommunication unresolved. There would be no need at all for extra roading network expenditure if we dumped the need for face to face contact with what is already available on most mobile networks, especially the 3G versions. Oddly rural people adopt technology way before urban dwellers as the travel distances force them to.
Media is full of reports on the need for and provision of greater broadband speeds, yet stubbornly certain sectors seem determined not to adopt the widespread use of these enabling technologies.
I have often mentioned councils that just refuse to connect electronically with their customers, builders, ratepayers etc. One cannot electronically make appointments with any council staff in most councils, yet mayors never miss a speech-making opportunity to waffle on about the future. The health sector is bravely trying to get better connection between hospitals, patients and GPs but the sheer size of the challenge will take time. Unfortunately central bureaucracies like Ministry of Health have embraced the governments e-strategy so completely they think they have the right to send unsolicited book sized 10meg files of absolutely unreadable rubbish.
The ostrich award for head in the sand, back to the future approach has to go to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. I have just received their policy for us, the mug public. It notes " The investigation is done by letter. The Office has a policy of not using emails for correspondence about complaints because of security concerns: emails can often be seen by people who are not involved in the complaint".
You have got to be joking! Most concerns about privacy are about electronic new tech based information gathering, so the commissioner won’t go there! Do they assume that hard copy letters are invisible to people who are not involved in a complaint. Keep the emails and letters out of their hands! If they can’t keep their own emails private what are we doing paying them to set policies for modern life?
The same day I read this idiot policy, the Privacy Commissioner, Marie Shroff was waffling on at the Privacy Forum about the misuse of technology. It’s worst misuse is its non-use. Every day use of bank cards, eftpos and online purchases expose us to loss making risks greater than privacy risks so we need brainy solutions to skimmers and other clever crims, not backward snail-mail policies.
Basic email etiquette needs to be more widely taught. I receive some enormous computer clogging emails simply because some dumb firm insist on sending me their colour logos around otherwise simple messages. Regular users of hand-helds will testify to the difficulties sometimes in opening attachments, which could so easily just have been the ordinary email in the first place.
Let’s modernise and use technology to its fullest.
WAYNE BROWN
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Weird Marriages and Sensible Civil Unions
A recent Sunday TVNZ program presented three of the weirdest marriages without any sense of irony or awareness of the current brouhaha over what is or isn’t a marriage.
Firstly we watched as Carol Branch married convicted killer Scot Watson, years before they have any hope of regular contact. Ms Branch, who is already mum to four kids with different dads, saw nothing particularly unusual in this blossoming of this unconsummated affection and you had to admire her blissful view of the years to come.
Next we were treated to Ronald van der Plaat’s appalling "marriage" to his daughter who was forced to face years of indescribable horror, only to have this extended courtesy of his real wife’s wish to extend the pain by funding legal action initiated by her monster husband against her own daughter.
On a less horrific, but just as surprising note we followed that enigmatic old athletics coach and sometime hero Arthur Lydiard as he shared with us his relationship with his wife, a mere fifty years his junior. She seemed quite happy guiding him along behind his Zimmer frame. They seemed happy, and good on them, but fifty years is a hell of a gap. For a relationship separated by fifty years one party has to be a pensioner for the younger one to be above the legal age of consent. In the please take notice stakes, this seems to be right up there with Minister Gough’s brief flirtation with twelve and fourteen year old relationships having some redeeming feature.
Well, the bit I noticed was that unusual that these were, they were all OK by the current legislation and therefore all OK by those opposed to the proposed Civil Union that is supposed to threaten life as we know it.
How do the members of Peter Dunne’s United bunch of oddballs, rally drivers and
fundamental Christians feel about this?
What about our MPs who opposed the Civil Union bill on the basis that it threatened the sanctity of marriage. I’ll bet some researcher is trawling through the list of opposing MPs who quoted this, who have abandoned the sanctity of their wives for the sanctuary of their secretaries. What about live and let live. If Civil Union makes some people happier then what’s wrong with that? They’re not making it compulsory, or at least I hope not.
I’m pleased that both of our leaders of the realistically large parties chose to support this legislation. Helen Clark stuck forthrightly with her views and good on her. Don Brash wisely left his Calvinistic background behind him on this and showed a kinder understanding face that he might still need on some other human issues, which he has painted in black and white (or brown and white).
While we are on the tricky ground of moral issues there have certainly been some brave statements of late. Firstly Archbigot Whakahuiahuia Vercoe dreams of a future without homosexuals, (hopefully before the more likely future without Anglicans given their negative growth curve). Then don’t you just love it when he is joined by the Catholic primate in a diatribe against liberal attitudes in the very same newspaper issue that one of his own former Brothers gets seven years for vileness with young men. That ink is hardly dry before the issue of scriptural support for tithing for handsome charismatic vicars with flash motorbikes is before us for consideration.
It’s not my business what people do at a personal level and I would just rather let each of us battle on privately, but I am glad when the nation as a whole acts with restraint and some form of moral authority. Leaving Iraq to those in a rush was a wise decision, as was supporting The USA in Afghanistan where the approval of the UN made all the difference. Committing defence forces to rebuilding and peacekeeping whether it is in the Pacific or the Middle East is something we should all be proud of.
Those who provide their time abroad to aid in foreign areas of trouble show the real caring spirit that some of our moralists fail to show to our own people when pushing their judgmental barrows back here.
Firstly we watched as Carol Branch married convicted killer Scot Watson, years before they have any hope of regular contact. Ms Branch, who is already mum to four kids with different dads, saw nothing particularly unusual in this blossoming of this unconsummated affection and you had to admire her blissful view of the years to come.
Next we were treated to Ronald van der Plaat’s appalling "marriage" to his daughter who was forced to face years of indescribable horror, only to have this extended courtesy of his real wife’s wish to extend the pain by funding legal action initiated by her monster husband against her own daughter.
On a less horrific, but just as surprising note we followed that enigmatic old athletics coach and sometime hero Arthur Lydiard as he shared with us his relationship with his wife, a mere fifty years his junior. She seemed quite happy guiding him along behind his Zimmer frame. They seemed happy, and good on them, but fifty years is a hell of a gap. For a relationship separated by fifty years one party has to be a pensioner for the younger one to be above the legal age of consent. In the please take notice stakes, this seems to be right up there with Minister Gough’s brief flirtation with twelve and fourteen year old relationships having some redeeming feature.
Well, the bit I noticed was that unusual that these were, they were all OK by the current legislation and therefore all OK by those opposed to the proposed Civil Union that is supposed to threaten life as we know it.
How do the members of Peter Dunne’s United bunch of oddballs, rally drivers and
fundamental Christians feel about this?
What about our MPs who opposed the Civil Union bill on the basis that it threatened the sanctity of marriage. I’ll bet some researcher is trawling through the list of opposing MPs who quoted this, who have abandoned the sanctity of their wives for the sanctuary of their secretaries. What about live and let live. If Civil Union makes some people happier then what’s wrong with that? They’re not making it compulsory, or at least I hope not.
I’m pleased that both of our leaders of the realistically large parties chose to support this legislation. Helen Clark stuck forthrightly with her views and good on her. Don Brash wisely left his Calvinistic background behind him on this and showed a kinder understanding face that he might still need on some other human issues, which he has painted in black and white (or brown and white).
While we are on the tricky ground of moral issues there have certainly been some brave statements of late. Firstly Archbigot Whakahuiahuia Vercoe dreams of a future without homosexuals, (hopefully before the more likely future without Anglicans given their negative growth curve). Then don’t you just love it when he is joined by the Catholic primate in a diatribe against liberal attitudes in the very same newspaper issue that one of his own former Brothers gets seven years for vileness with young men. That ink is hardly dry before the issue of scriptural support for tithing for handsome charismatic vicars with flash motorbikes is before us for consideration.
It’s not my business what people do at a personal level and I would just rather let each of us battle on privately, but I am glad when the nation as a whole acts with restraint and some form of moral authority. Leaving Iraq to those in a rush was a wise decision, as was supporting The USA in Afghanistan where the approval of the UN made all the difference. Committing defence forces to rebuilding and peacekeeping whether it is in the Pacific or the Middle East is something we should all be proud of.
Those who provide their time abroad to aid in foreign areas of trouble show the real caring spirit that some of our moralists fail to show to our own people when pushing their judgmental barrows back here.
Buildings Not Cartoons That Inspire Real Religious Fervour
Is Religious Extremism just plain old bigotry just dressed up modern, and have we all been hoodwinked with the need to consider everybody’s feelings on everything?
I’m having trouble with worrying about how extreme Christians and Muslims feel about a cartoon. When the Catholic bishops drag the troops out to threaten TV3 over South Park but don’t seem nearly as active over priests involved in choir boy vileness, it just makes them seem like the Mullahs raging over a cartoon in a country most couldn’t find on a map, yet seemingly not nearly as upset when Iraq is invaded.
Given that the Iraq invasion was ordered by a fundamental Christian President without any particularly good reason and resulted in the deaths of thousands of Muslims, it really begs the question of whether religion at the extremes is the first sign of losing one’s perspective.
Are we heading for the wars of the Conquest again after centuries of indifference? Was the Reformation only a passing phase and could the nightmare of the Dark Ages be waiting somewhere behind the oncoming oil shortage? I hope not.
The bit that appeals about religions is the peaceful and iconic nature of the buildings. I like to occasionally sit by the window in our lovely old local church and gaze out the window at the harbour, while the service carries on around me. It’s peaceful and reminds me of my roots. Sort of nearest thing I can get to a marae. It is cultural for me rather than any blinding vision and the building is an important local symbol with a stronger emotive bond to me than any of our so-called, community council owned buildings. There’s the added bonus that the congregation all seem nice and caring and never drop hints of disapproval over my long absences.
While travelling overseas I’ve noticed the same nice calm in the mosques I’ve visited, all peaceful and contemplative without necessarily understanding the depth of belief that these buildings must have engendered to get them built. It’s the same with the cathedrals, vast structures that have often taken hundreds of years to complete, showing that generations must have held to the belief systems that valued such long-term superhuman effort and devotion to the construction task.
The Sunni destruction of the Shiite Golden Mosque in Sammara in Iraq and the response to it shows the depth of feeling over these buildings as powerful religious and cultural symbols. Rage was at the level expressed by USA at the time of the fall of the World Trade Centre, that powerful symbol of America’s true religion, Capitalism.
Extremists know the power of symbols. If you are going to attack a building choose one that generates real emotional heat and the response is immediate. No need to work hard for three months to get an anti cartoon movement. Just bring down a well-loved building and nobody questions the media for fully showing and publicising the attendant destruction regardless of whether that may upset believer’s feelings.
Mindless anger is what the extremists seek from their followers and the destruction of that beautiful old mosque tilted Iraq dangerously close to civil war in a flash, while accidentally taking the heat of the US invasion force. The speed of the widespread response compared to the manufactured trouble over the cartoons at least put some perspective around real versus imagined insults.
Rather than worry over TV and newspaper cartoons, the recent religious troubles should make us aware of which buildings here, if damaged could ignite real community anger and consider what responses we have planned to keep public order. Some misguided fool burning a well-known and loved marae, church or mosque would immediately inflame passions, which only well prepared leadership could control.
We have enough classroom arson each year to know that the loss of an iconic building is not just an outside possibility. Are we prepared?
I’m having trouble with worrying about how extreme Christians and Muslims feel about a cartoon. When the Catholic bishops drag the troops out to threaten TV3 over South Park but don’t seem nearly as active over priests involved in choir boy vileness, it just makes them seem like the Mullahs raging over a cartoon in a country most couldn’t find on a map, yet seemingly not nearly as upset when Iraq is invaded.
Given that the Iraq invasion was ordered by a fundamental Christian President without any particularly good reason and resulted in the deaths of thousands of Muslims, it really begs the question of whether religion at the extremes is the first sign of losing one’s perspective.
Are we heading for the wars of the Conquest again after centuries of indifference? Was the Reformation only a passing phase and could the nightmare of the Dark Ages be waiting somewhere behind the oncoming oil shortage? I hope not.
The bit that appeals about religions is the peaceful and iconic nature of the buildings. I like to occasionally sit by the window in our lovely old local church and gaze out the window at the harbour, while the service carries on around me. It’s peaceful and reminds me of my roots. Sort of nearest thing I can get to a marae. It is cultural for me rather than any blinding vision and the building is an important local symbol with a stronger emotive bond to me than any of our so-called, community council owned buildings. There’s the added bonus that the congregation all seem nice and caring and never drop hints of disapproval over my long absences.
While travelling overseas I’ve noticed the same nice calm in the mosques I’ve visited, all peaceful and contemplative without necessarily understanding the depth of belief that these buildings must have engendered to get them built. It’s the same with the cathedrals, vast structures that have often taken hundreds of years to complete, showing that generations must have held to the belief systems that valued such long-term superhuman effort and devotion to the construction task.
The Sunni destruction of the Shiite Golden Mosque in Sammara in Iraq and the response to it shows the depth of feeling over these buildings as powerful religious and cultural symbols. Rage was at the level expressed by USA at the time of the fall of the World Trade Centre, that powerful symbol of America’s true religion, Capitalism.
Extremists know the power of symbols. If you are going to attack a building choose one that generates real emotional heat and the response is immediate. No need to work hard for three months to get an anti cartoon movement. Just bring down a well-loved building and nobody questions the media for fully showing and publicising the attendant destruction regardless of whether that may upset believer’s feelings.
Mindless anger is what the extremists seek from their followers and the destruction of that beautiful old mosque tilted Iraq dangerously close to civil war in a flash, while accidentally taking the heat of the US invasion force. The speed of the widespread response compared to the manufactured trouble over the cartoons at least put some perspective around real versus imagined insults.
Rather than worry over TV and newspaper cartoons, the recent religious troubles should make us aware of which buildings here, if damaged could ignite real community anger and consider what responses we have planned to keep public order. Some misguided fool burning a well-known and loved marae, church or mosque would immediately inflame passions, which only well prepared leadership could control.
We have enough classroom arson each year to know that the loss of an iconic building is not just an outside possibility. Are we prepared?
Unchartered TV Waters
The imminent arrival of digital free to air TV in both satellite and terrestrial delivery forms over the next year or so means that it is probably time to take stock of what we have on offer to the viewing public at the moment.
Most people watch either analogue free to air showing a slightly ghosted version of TV 1, 2 and 3 or the clearer digital signal from SkyTV, provided the satellite isn’t having problems or severe weather gets in the signal’s way. Prime can also be picked up on UHF analogue after fiddling around with aerials but like the other free to airs, is also available on Sky’s pay package.
Next year’s arrival of alternative digital delivery of the free to airs will not only improve picture clarity but will offer a wider range of channels to everyone who buys a set top box. The point of this is that we are already in a multi channel world of TV viewing with Sky TV and this will extend to everyone next year.
What this means is that there is already a much wider range of TV watching on offer than just TVNZ’s programs, so it is sensible to look at the Charter and whether it is adding value and at what cost.
Quite a few viewers still seem to cluster around the three main free to air channels, but those less timid can experience way more than the supposedly intelligent watching promised from the Charter.
For example recently Maori TV screened a wonderful program on the annual journey North of an indigenous family whose nomadic lives are completely tied to the reindeer and the seasons in their harsh land. Most of this program was subtitled from whatever dialect they spoke to English, showing a broad canvas of interest from Maori TV that has definite appeal beyond just Maori themselves. Coast on Maori TV is an excellent music program and those who have let their prejudices get in the way of watching this channel are simply narrowing their experience.
If you are looking for something with a bit of bite for the business viewer go no further than Biz China on Sky 93 which shows CCTV9 with English versions of Chinese business programs. The intensity of Chinese business is almost scary at times, but this is the way of the future so have a look. American business channels have been exposed to us for a while and their culture of investment is well known and desperately needed here, but the Chinese have upped the ante.
What I am leading to is the much-vaunted charter. Ever see a short clear explanation of what it promised? Me, neither! Or how much it cost? Or did you see a sign like NZ on Air show, which tells you which programs are Charter programs? Do we even need it anymore when multi channelling on Sky is here and will be joined by multi channelling on digital free to air?
Apparently $50m has been given to TVNZ for the charter but also apparently only $25m has been used and that is hard to identify. We still don’t get to see free to air Aussie programs like SBS, currently run by former TV1 head Sean Brown, but hopefully that will show up next year in the free to air digital mix. Did the Charter bring us more local programs and where they high brow or what ever the Charter wanted? We just don’t know nor do we know where the money went.
TV companies pay around US$70,000 per hour fro license fees and it costs more for much of the local content, but this difference is funded by NZ on Air, so what about the Charter? Who administers it? Is it available to Canwest in the same way that NZ on Air is? Ask around in the industry and the one thing that becomes clear is that nothing is clear about the Charter.
The intentions are no doubt honourable, but is it doing what was wanted, and indeed what was wanted? We have enquiries and audit trails for all sorts of government expenditure and I’m sure that somewhere there is one for the Charter, but I’ve missed it and would like to know more. Is Charter money to be used for the new digital free to air channels? That may well be a very good investment. I’m fairly sure that I’m not the only person interested.
Wayne Brown
Most people watch either analogue free to air showing a slightly ghosted version of TV 1, 2 and 3 or the clearer digital signal from SkyTV, provided the satellite isn’t having problems or severe weather gets in the signal’s way. Prime can also be picked up on UHF analogue after fiddling around with aerials but like the other free to airs, is also available on Sky’s pay package.
Next year’s arrival of alternative digital delivery of the free to airs will not only improve picture clarity but will offer a wider range of channels to everyone who buys a set top box. The point of this is that we are already in a multi channel world of TV viewing with Sky TV and this will extend to everyone next year.
What this means is that there is already a much wider range of TV watching on offer than just TVNZ’s programs, so it is sensible to look at the Charter and whether it is adding value and at what cost.
Quite a few viewers still seem to cluster around the three main free to air channels, but those less timid can experience way more than the supposedly intelligent watching promised from the Charter.
For example recently Maori TV screened a wonderful program on the annual journey North of an indigenous family whose nomadic lives are completely tied to the reindeer and the seasons in their harsh land. Most of this program was subtitled from whatever dialect they spoke to English, showing a broad canvas of interest from Maori TV that has definite appeal beyond just Maori themselves. Coast on Maori TV is an excellent music program and those who have let their prejudices get in the way of watching this channel are simply narrowing their experience.
If you are looking for something with a bit of bite for the business viewer go no further than Biz China on Sky 93 which shows CCTV9 with English versions of Chinese business programs. The intensity of Chinese business is almost scary at times, but this is the way of the future so have a look. American business channels have been exposed to us for a while and their culture of investment is well known and desperately needed here, but the Chinese have upped the ante.
What I am leading to is the much-vaunted charter. Ever see a short clear explanation of what it promised? Me, neither! Or how much it cost? Or did you see a sign like NZ on Air show, which tells you which programs are Charter programs? Do we even need it anymore when multi channelling on Sky is here and will be joined by multi channelling on digital free to air?
Apparently $50m has been given to TVNZ for the charter but also apparently only $25m has been used and that is hard to identify. We still don’t get to see free to air Aussie programs like SBS, currently run by former TV1 head Sean Brown, but hopefully that will show up next year in the free to air digital mix. Did the Charter bring us more local programs and where they high brow or what ever the Charter wanted? We just don’t know nor do we know where the money went.
TV companies pay around US$70,000 per hour fro license fees and it costs more for much of the local content, but this difference is funded by NZ on Air, so what about the Charter? Who administers it? Is it available to Canwest in the same way that NZ on Air is? Ask around in the industry and the one thing that becomes clear is that nothing is clear about the Charter.
The intentions are no doubt honourable, but is it doing what was wanted, and indeed what was wanted? We have enquiries and audit trails for all sorts of government expenditure and I’m sure that somewhere there is one for the Charter, but I’ve missed it and would like to know more. Is Charter money to be used for the new digital free to air channels? That may well be a very good investment. I’m fairly sure that I’m not the only person interested.
Wayne Brown
Wipeout at Whangamata
When the Minister of Conservation summoned up the courage to kill off the marina at Whangamata, the decision was greeted with a predictable outcry from various quarters.
The gross overuse of the word "outrage" got yet another outing. Not content with this word being associated with cartoons that looked innocuous to most of us, marina proponents leapt onto their high horses howling "outrage" at a Minister actually using the powers granted to him. A former National Minister of conservation, no doubt embarrassed by years of missed opportunities to do something about the RMA, also chimed in opposing any Minister having a veto, just in case he ever gets the job back and has to make a decision.
My name was lent to a group of mainly surfers opposing the granting of the marina license, so I suppose I ought to clarify my position. I certainly don’t buy into the envy group who oppose any sign of wealth in society and therefore oppose marinas as they might show up the objector’s own poor economic performance. In the right place I support marinas and would most likely take up a berth on one here in Mangonui if that ever becomes an option.
However, I regard good surf breaks as taonga or true national treasures and the Bar at the mouth of the Whangamata Harbour is one of our best, right up there with Raglan, Ahipara and Kaikoura. We have few enough of them and have already lost a few to ill-considered boat ramps such as at North Reef in Takapuna.
I took the trouble to read the engineer’s report on the Whangamata Marina. I am an experienced civil engineer and can tell a report written carefully by an engineer who has not been given a sufficiently large budget to fully investigate a proposal. I’ve written a few myself and they are full of phrases like "don’t consider it a high probability", "may not occur" and other prevaricating words that let the engineer get paid by the client without actually committing to paper anything that might come back to bite him.
I searched for a clear unequivocal statement that the construction of the Whangamata marina would not damage the surf break at the Whangamata Bar. There was no such statement! In the event that the marina is built and the surf disappears will they fill in the marina. I don’t think so, so why take the risk?
The only way a competent engineer can be sure is to build a hydraulic model of the harbour, flush it with tidal and storm flows and see what happens, then change the model to reflect the new marina and do all the tests again to see if anything adverse happens. To the best of my knowledge this never happened.
Much is made of the time taken and money spent by the marina proponents, but the unfortunate thing is that the money was spent on lawyers, not engineers. Harbours don’t know about laws but they do know about physics and environmental change.
This shows up the whole sorry state of our environmental considerations and processes here. Foolishly, they are dominated by the legal profession. Newspapers write of how could the Minister interfere with judicial process. Well, I’m glad he did, as the judiciary have no place in the environment. They are not suitable trained and have no understanding of the impacts, so often make dumb decisions and this was one of them.
The marina proponents should be offered the opportunity to prove that nothing adverse would happen to the surf, and if they really believe that and agree to reinstate the harbour as it was at their expense if something happens to the surf break, then I would support the marina getting approval. In the meantime the Minister has fended off the risk.
He is right to get coastal development looked into. I am in favour of suitably safeguarded development, particularly of those places already compromised so that we can leave alone those wildernesses that do exist. We also need to look at the growing restrictions on Kiwis actually getting to the coast, which is being locked up by owners who need to be reminded that we all live together here.
Wayne Brown
The gross overuse of the word "outrage" got yet another outing. Not content with this word being associated with cartoons that looked innocuous to most of us, marina proponents leapt onto their high horses howling "outrage" at a Minister actually using the powers granted to him. A former National Minister of conservation, no doubt embarrassed by years of missed opportunities to do something about the RMA, also chimed in opposing any Minister having a veto, just in case he ever gets the job back and has to make a decision.
My name was lent to a group of mainly surfers opposing the granting of the marina license, so I suppose I ought to clarify my position. I certainly don’t buy into the envy group who oppose any sign of wealth in society and therefore oppose marinas as they might show up the objector’s own poor economic performance. In the right place I support marinas and would most likely take up a berth on one here in Mangonui if that ever becomes an option.
However, I regard good surf breaks as taonga or true national treasures and the Bar at the mouth of the Whangamata Harbour is one of our best, right up there with Raglan, Ahipara and Kaikoura. We have few enough of them and have already lost a few to ill-considered boat ramps such as at North Reef in Takapuna.
I took the trouble to read the engineer’s report on the Whangamata Marina. I am an experienced civil engineer and can tell a report written carefully by an engineer who has not been given a sufficiently large budget to fully investigate a proposal. I’ve written a few myself and they are full of phrases like "don’t consider it a high probability", "may not occur" and other prevaricating words that let the engineer get paid by the client without actually committing to paper anything that might come back to bite him.
I searched for a clear unequivocal statement that the construction of the Whangamata marina would not damage the surf break at the Whangamata Bar. There was no such statement! In the event that the marina is built and the surf disappears will they fill in the marina. I don’t think so, so why take the risk?
The only way a competent engineer can be sure is to build a hydraulic model of the harbour, flush it with tidal and storm flows and see what happens, then change the model to reflect the new marina and do all the tests again to see if anything adverse happens. To the best of my knowledge this never happened.
Much is made of the time taken and money spent by the marina proponents, but the unfortunate thing is that the money was spent on lawyers, not engineers. Harbours don’t know about laws but they do know about physics and environmental change.
This shows up the whole sorry state of our environmental considerations and processes here. Foolishly, they are dominated by the legal profession. Newspapers write of how could the Minister interfere with judicial process. Well, I’m glad he did, as the judiciary have no place in the environment. They are not suitable trained and have no understanding of the impacts, so often make dumb decisions and this was one of them.
The marina proponents should be offered the opportunity to prove that nothing adverse would happen to the surf, and if they really believe that and agree to reinstate the harbour as it was at their expense if something happens to the surf break, then I would support the marina getting approval. In the meantime the Minister has fended off the risk.
He is right to get coastal development looked into. I am in favour of suitably safeguarded development, particularly of those places already compromised so that we can leave alone those wildernesses that do exist. We also need to look at the growing restrictions on Kiwis actually getting to the coast, which is being locked up by owners who need to be reminded that we all live together here.
Wayne Brown
Winston the Diplomat
I was in Sydney when Winston Peter’s appointment as Foreign Affairs Minister was announced and it was interesting to see the relatively wide and moderately scathing coverage that it got. Other than the shock (to them) defeat of the Aussie Rugby League team by the Kiwis, it is unusual to read much about NZ while absent for a few days and on return it is a bit like a memory gap when people chat of events not reported overseas.
Sydney papers warned readers never to under-estimate Helen Clark who had pulled off the unusual coup of a coalition government without the Greens or the Browns.
A string of Winston’s ill timed epithets graced the international pages and no doubt lifted both his international profile and the concerns of Asians over the anti-immigration excerpts, as well as business leaders reading his xenophobic anti foreign trade quotes, designed for short term gain at home but now likely to lead to long term explanation abroad.
It is fair to say that while Winston is undoubtedly a risky choice as Foreign Minister, it is a bit rich for the Aussies to crow, given their own choice of the accident prone Alexander Downer, widely known at home as Lord Downer of Baghdad, and recently appointed as an honorary wine baron in South Australia.
This is the same Downer who regularly upsets Indonesia and Malaysia, and whose visit here last year representing the Australian Government, who as largest shareholders in Telstra, were looking to influence our leaders to unbundle the local telephone loop, thereby exposing telecom to more competition from Telstra and others.
Did this work?
Er, No actually!
You see, on stepping off the plane in NZ, Downer couldn’t resist taking a swipe at our government for not sharing the supposed military defence burden. Not surprisingly our cabinet told Telstra to travel and have sex as far as local loop unbundling goes. Downer’s remarks are just the sort of throw-away line that does damage if the mouth it is thrown from belongs to the Foreign Minister, and curbing this life-long habit will be Winston’s greatest challenge, most likely leading to his eventual undoing and possibly that of Clark’s carefully constructed coalition.
Remember Winston has been dismissed twice before, once in 1991 from being National’s Maori affairs minister and again in 1998 as Treasurer and Deputy PM. Anyway he does share Helen’s achievement of a place in our history books, hers as first elected female PM and third term Labour leader and his as first full time maverick to be a Minister on both sides of every opportunity.
No doubt Winston will enjoy the new role and without doubt he can be charming and entertaining with the ability to reach the ordinary citizens of both the countries he visits and our own Kiwi expats in a way that some of our foreign ambassadors do not (Jonathan Hunt springs to mind here). Our young citizens living abroad to gain experience are an undervalued asset. They are not lost to us but are opportunities to open doors abroad and later return with new found and much needed skills and international connections. Even Winston would approve of increased re-immigration of our talented youth.
Given his views on immigration and our low unemployment levels it was very interesting to go through the applicant list for a senior position in a high tech company which I chair. There were a surprising number of very skilled senior executives from USA and Europe willing to take pay-cuts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to come and work in NZ. We are that attractive to these people! Fortunately we got a good Kiwi so no house training was needed, but this balances the often heard need to pay through the nose to meet the supposed shortage of key executives. (Anyone listening at Air NZ?)
The above mentioned Testra paid through the nose to bring Sol Trujillo from the USA to Australia where he immediately declared war on the government who owns the company. It will be interesting to see how Lord Downer handles this situation and I’m sure Winston will love telling him over a whiskey, that seemingly essential tool of international diplomacy.
WAYNE BROWN
Sydney papers warned readers never to under-estimate Helen Clark who had pulled off the unusual coup of a coalition government without the Greens or the Browns.
A string of Winston’s ill timed epithets graced the international pages and no doubt lifted both his international profile and the concerns of Asians over the anti-immigration excerpts, as well as business leaders reading his xenophobic anti foreign trade quotes, designed for short term gain at home but now likely to lead to long term explanation abroad.
It is fair to say that while Winston is undoubtedly a risky choice as Foreign Minister, it is a bit rich for the Aussies to crow, given their own choice of the accident prone Alexander Downer, widely known at home as Lord Downer of Baghdad, and recently appointed as an honorary wine baron in South Australia.
This is the same Downer who regularly upsets Indonesia and Malaysia, and whose visit here last year representing the Australian Government, who as largest shareholders in Telstra, were looking to influence our leaders to unbundle the local telephone loop, thereby exposing telecom to more competition from Telstra and others.
Did this work?
Er, No actually!
You see, on stepping off the plane in NZ, Downer couldn’t resist taking a swipe at our government for not sharing the supposed military defence burden. Not surprisingly our cabinet told Telstra to travel and have sex as far as local loop unbundling goes. Downer’s remarks are just the sort of throw-away line that does damage if the mouth it is thrown from belongs to the Foreign Minister, and curbing this life-long habit will be Winston’s greatest challenge, most likely leading to his eventual undoing and possibly that of Clark’s carefully constructed coalition.
Remember Winston has been dismissed twice before, once in 1991 from being National’s Maori affairs minister and again in 1998 as Treasurer and Deputy PM. Anyway he does share Helen’s achievement of a place in our history books, hers as first elected female PM and third term Labour leader and his as first full time maverick to be a Minister on both sides of every opportunity.
No doubt Winston will enjoy the new role and without doubt he can be charming and entertaining with the ability to reach the ordinary citizens of both the countries he visits and our own Kiwi expats in a way that some of our foreign ambassadors do not (Jonathan Hunt springs to mind here). Our young citizens living abroad to gain experience are an undervalued asset. They are not lost to us but are opportunities to open doors abroad and later return with new found and much needed skills and international connections. Even Winston would approve of increased re-immigration of our talented youth.
Given his views on immigration and our low unemployment levels it was very interesting to go through the applicant list for a senior position in a high tech company which I chair. There were a surprising number of very skilled senior executives from USA and Europe willing to take pay-cuts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to come and work in NZ. We are that attractive to these people! Fortunately we got a good Kiwi so no house training was needed, but this balances the often heard need to pay through the nose to meet the supposed shortage of key executives. (Anyone listening at Air NZ?)
The above mentioned Testra paid through the nose to bring Sol Trujillo from the USA to Australia where he immediately declared war on the government who owns the company. It will be interesting to see how Lord Downer handles this situation and I’m sure Winston will love telling him over a whiskey, that seemingly essential tool of international diplomacy.
WAYNE BROWN
Who Are Our True Business Heroes?
I never met Michael Erceg, but he sounded like a good bloke worthy of a chat. Anyone who creates a business worth $620million in his own lifetime and succeeds internationally deserves discussion.
It would be easy to concentrate on the morality side of producing Alco Pop beverages and the well-known side issues of youth drunkenness, but this avoids confronting his undoubted abilities in business where he took on those two enormous incumbents, in the mature grog industry, Lion and DB, and succeeded brilliantly. The moral issues, after all, belong to Parliament and they have traditionally knighted the booze barons of the past, and proffered the baubles of high office to their current alcohol product supporters.
How did Michael Erceg do it? New presentations of old products, well priced and sold into the independent retail outlets with minimal marketing by piggy backing on the incumbents’ big budgets was the core strategy and it worked a treat. He then took the lessons learned here abroad get at the bigger markets, rather than just rest on his laurels.
Can any other Kiwi companies do the same?
Of course they can, but how many are? Sadly, not enough.
International investors tell us that with the possible exception of software (which has narrow investment appeal) there are simply nowhere near enough NZ companies with strategies to globalise their products in the fully scaleable high growth way that these investors seek. Instead of bemoaning the low cost production facilities in China, we should be using this capacity to take our ideas and designs to the world.
In an embryonic way I am involved in one of these in the clothing industry and it is exciting to say the very least, and we owe a debt of gratitude to the Michael Erceg’s of NZ who have more than balanced the low credibility given to Kiwi business abroad by the string of own-goals kicked by some of our highest profile business leaders.
The Warehouse is the latest in a long line who have served up disasters abroad. Air New Zealand’s dreadful foray into Ansett followed Fletcher’s UK Paper bomb, and Carter’s Chile con-carnage are just some of those we know about. Telecom looks to be reversing out of AAPT at the time that Telstra’s venture here is anything but Clear.
Do our leaders understand who our real business successes are? Graeme Hart surely is one of our best and bravest business brains and the Ullrich Brothers are a long term Aluminium success story worth telling to our kids. Are there any NCEA questions about people such as these, our real business heroes, without whom there simply wouldn’t be the economic growth to pay for the way we live.
There seems to be widespread confusion over what constitutes business success here. Awards are granted for simply being a competent CEO of a monopoly such as an airport or electricity lines company. Real business involves investing one’s own money in the venture. Not simply showing up with a CV.
Far too many of our main companies are the offspring of old quasi government organizations, again like airports, power companies and port authorities. They should be run efficiently, but they won’t produce the dramatic increases in wealth that the country needs.
Entrepreneurs like Erceg, Hart and the like can drive up our standard of living at a rate to match the changes in Asia and we need to applaud these people. There is too much of a central view that earning more than a cabinet minister is a bad thing. This is probably fair for those who, like Cabinet ministers only bring their toothbrush to the business, but those who invest their equity and take the risks deserve to be followed by the next generation.
Real opportunities have never been so evident with the growth of wealth in India and China, but just as truly the competition is getting stiffer every day and we will need to do better, particularly given the massive foreign current account deficit. The Reserve Bank will need more than interest rate tinkering to fend off the danger. A bit of leadership and celebration of the growth stories like that of Michael Erceg will help.
Wayne Brown
It would be easy to concentrate on the morality side of producing Alco Pop beverages and the well-known side issues of youth drunkenness, but this avoids confronting his undoubted abilities in business where he took on those two enormous incumbents, in the mature grog industry, Lion and DB, and succeeded brilliantly. The moral issues, after all, belong to Parliament and they have traditionally knighted the booze barons of the past, and proffered the baubles of high office to their current alcohol product supporters.
How did Michael Erceg do it? New presentations of old products, well priced and sold into the independent retail outlets with minimal marketing by piggy backing on the incumbents’ big budgets was the core strategy and it worked a treat. He then took the lessons learned here abroad get at the bigger markets, rather than just rest on his laurels.
Can any other Kiwi companies do the same?
Of course they can, but how many are? Sadly, not enough.
International investors tell us that with the possible exception of software (which has narrow investment appeal) there are simply nowhere near enough NZ companies with strategies to globalise their products in the fully scaleable high growth way that these investors seek. Instead of bemoaning the low cost production facilities in China, we should be using this capacity to take our ideas and designs to the world.
In an embryonic way I am involved in one of these in the clothing industry and it is exciting to say the very least, and we owe a debt of gratitude to the Michael Erceg’s of NZ who have more than balanced the low credibility given to Kiwi business abroad by the string of own-goals kicked by some of our highest profile business leaders.
The Warehouse is the latest in a long line who have served up disasters abroad. Air New Zealand’s dreadful foray into Ansett followed Fletcher’s UK Paper bomb, and Carter’s Chile con-carnage are just some of those we know about. Telecom looks to be reversing out of AAPT at the time that Telstra’s venture here is anything but Clear.
Do our leaders understand who our real business successes are? Graeme Hart surely is one of our best and bravest business brains and the Ullrich Brothers are a long term Aluminium success story worth telling to our kids. Are there any NCEA questions about people such as these, our real business heroes, without whom there simply wouldn’t be the economic growth to pay for the way we live.
There seems to be widespread confusion over what constitutes business success here. Awards are granted for simply being a competent CEO of a monopoly such as an airport or electricity lines company. Real business involves investing one’s own money in the venture. Not simply showing up with a CV.
Far too many of our main companies are the offspring of old quasi government organizations, again like airports, power companies and port authorities. They should be run efficiently, but they won’t produce the dramatic increases in wealth that the country needs.
Entrepreneurs like Erceg, Hart and the like can drive up our standard of living at a rate to match the changes in Asia and we need to applaud these people. There is too much of a central view that earning more than a cabinet minister is a bad thing. This is probably fair for those who, like Cabinet ministers only bring their toothbrush to the business, but those who invest their equity and take the risks deserve to be followed by the next generation.
Real opportunities have never been so evident with the growth of wealth in India and China, but just as truly the competition is getting stiffer every day and we will need to do better, particularly given the massive foreign current account deficit. The Reserve Bank will need more than interest rate tinkering to fend off the danger. A bit of leadership and celebration of the growth stories like that of Michael Erceg will help.
Wayne Brown
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