Workers in the North Otago town of Oamaru seem pretty happy with their life, going by a story in this morning's Otago Daily Times newspaper...
A planned 4-hour protest outside Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean's office on Saturday (to campaign against the 25c/hr minimum wage increase) had to be cancelled after just two people turned up, one being the protest organiser herself! ;-)
The protest was to coincide with nationwide demonstrations over the Government's decision to increase the minimum hourly rate from $12.50 to $12.75 from April 1 and called for a minimum rate of $15 an hour.
Protest organiser Rebecca Anderson was disappointed with the response in Oamaru, despite having spread the word it was on.
The Oamaru protest was to have been part of a national campaign organised by Unite, a private sector community union.
Ms Anderson must be disappointed that only one other person was willing to give up their Saturday to join her in the minimum wage protest attempt. Surely she must have more friends and family than that??.
The town of Oamaru has a reasonably solid population of around 13,000, and the meeting was promoted during the week in the local media...
Prime Minister John Key delivered his speech to the nation this afternoon, at the opening of Parliament for 2010. It was billed as the National Party leader's most important speech of the year, but aside from a few highlights has largely failed to live up to those hyped expectations.
* GST increased to 15%, but with no introduction of any exemptions (which reduces its efficiency). If there has to be taxes in some form, a consumption tax is one the better options as everyone has to pay it (many people avoid paying income tax, either through Labour's 'Working for Families', or through trusts and other structuring of their personal finances).
* Changes to property taxation, and the way depreciation is taxed (but no Land Tax because National was scared of upsetting property investors).
* Some reductions to personal (and company?) tax rates, but will have to wait until May's budget for details. Currently the top 10% of all income earners pay over 75% of New Zealand's net tax, while around 40% of people pay no income tax at all.
* No extra funding for many Government agencies for the next few years.
* An "action plan to unlock New Zealand's petroleum potential", and opening up land locked up under the guise of conservation for mining.
* I am cautiously interested in the 'Whanau Ora' initiative of social services delivery, provided it isn't restricted to being a race-based programme.
* Stricter monitoring of standards in education, and demanding better performances from the crap teachers and schools currently failing our kids.
* Reform of the welfare system, which hopefully will translate into more than just talk. Getting people away from the idea of welfare dependency, stricter benefit rules, increased testing. As John Key points out in his speech...
"In 2010, New Zealand taxpayers will fund an estimated $7.6 billion of benefits and income support, not including Superannuation. This amounts to $20.8 million every day, or $867,500 every hour. It is critical we ensure this money is spent effectively...
...I need to be able to look taxpayers in the eye and assure them that their hard-earned wages are not being used to support those who lack the will or desire to work as hard for their living as their fellow New Zealanders."
* Reaffirming the goal of concluding all Treaty of Waitangi settlements by 2014.
' Negatives and missed opportunities in John Key's speech
* Labour's 'Working for Families' welfare regime (described by John Key as "Communism by stealth") won't be abolished, although National will tinker with the system slightly. WFF recipients and beneficiaries will be compensated for the 2.5% increase in GST.
* No Land Tax. Claims by Property Investors that this would have meant higher rates aren't quite true. NZ property prices are artificially inflated thanks to the current system. A land tax would contribute to a reduction in property investment, and a reduction in prices. This would allow more kiwis to buy their own homes, and the rental market would be forced to come down to earth.
* Opening up of land for mining and exploration will unfortunately be balanced by replacing it with other land not currently protected under 'Section 4'.
* A Conservation Fund will be established to direct some royalty income from mining on crown land towards conservation projects. Designed to appease the Greens but won't.
* Government spending will continue to increase. Billions of dollars more will be thrown at education, health, roads, etc...
Of course it is a better programme than we would have seen had voters allowed Labour and its mates the Greens and NZ First to continue running New Zealand.
However Key's speech this afternoon wasn't as bold as might have been expected, considering the PM said beforehand he expected the policy programme could erode his political popularity. The pressure is on to prove this year that he is not simply a 'do nothing' Prime Minister.
* UPDATE: TV1 and TV3 6PM News Ultimate Maths Fail
Both of the country's major tv news bulletins failed with basic mathematical calculations tonight, when trying to illustrate the effect a 2.5% increase in GST would have on certain consumer goods. (TV3 also made a secondary mistake in their graphic by losing track of the decimal point).
As the post by Steve Biddle at Geekzone points out, How can you trust either network to deliver us accurate news when they're unable to calculate a basic maths equation?
(It's actually the third financial misstep at 3 News in the last month. It miscalculated the extra amount someone on the minimum wage will receive per week, and confused "million" with the slightly larger "billion" when talking about an education spending item).
The practice of cash-for-stories by the media is largely confined in New Zealand to the women's magazines and the occasional story in the Sunday papers.
But it seems most of the 'mainstream media' are coughing up cash today, to cover Waitangi Day commemorations at Te Tii Marae.
Ngapuhi elder Hama Apiata this morning demanded news organisations paid the tribe a monetary fee to attend the event. Stuff (Fairfax Media) and other organisations were told they had to pay a $500 fee, or they would not be allowed onto marae grounds, and their equipment would be confiscated.
Stuff reports that Maori TV and TVNZ both agreed to pay $1000 to let their cameras and reporters onto the lower Waitangi grounds (although Newstalk ZB reports only Maori TV paid the full $1000, with TVNZ paying a $500 'service fee').
The reports say TV3 and NZ Herald both initially refused to pay the fee, but both gave in with TV3 paying a 'koha' of $500, and NZ Herald paying an undisclosed koha (no details on whether this was also in cash, or perhaps by way of a couple of newspaper subscriptions and a nice set of steak knives?...) Fairfax Media claim they gave Ngapuhi a koha of just $20.
Late this morning, it seemed just Sky News/Prime TV and Newstalk ZB were holding firm to their principles of a 'free media', and refusing to pay cash to cover the ceremonies.
United Future "Party" leader Peter Dunne isn't known as the country's most charismatic or inspiring politician, but his latest blog post seems to have really offended Tumeke! blogger Tim Selwyn. (Although Selwyn does correctly point out that Dunne has a fight on his hands to retain Ohariu next election).
I certainly couldn't describe myself as a fan of Peter "party of one" Dunne, but he does sometimes come out with some good thoughts, and his most recent blog post contains a number of interesting truths about the so-called Green Party of Aotearoa NZ.
Dunne argues that despite the regular praise heaped on the Greens by the news media, the Green Party has actually "been our most unsuccessful small party under MMP".
He comes to this conclusion by arguing that "the usual hallmark of political success is being part of a government", which of course the Greens have spectacularly failed to accomplish, even under Hillin Cluck's watch!
First, no member of the Greens has ever held office as a Minister in a government.
That sets them apart from every other small party that has emerged under MMP. The Alliance, ACT, New Zealand First, the Maori Party and UnitedFuture have all had Ministers in government, able to push through key aspects of their respective parties' policies.
Apart from a short-lived term following the famous/infamous "worm" debate on State TV, Dunne has helmed a very small parliamentary party. Yet he has somehow managed to persuade the majority party that his one or two votes are useful and beneficial to forming a government.
And to give Dunne due credit, he has managed to extract more in policy concessions over the years than ACT's Rodney Hide has managed to get out of National in the current parliament with 5 MPs.
Dunne sounds frustrated but is correct in his assessment of the attitude of the self-proclaimed "mainstream" media towards the Greens. There is a definite media bias towards the Greens here, with reporters happy to repeat statements and assertions by the party's MPs verbatim, while often treating comments from other MPs with scepticism.
"... the news media and the commentariat have failed consistently to acknowledge this point, let alone draw it to public attention.
Moreover, they have actually gone to the other extreme and generally lauded the Greens for their 'success', although they have been noticeably light when it comes to pointing out what those successes have been."
A survey completed in 2008 by Dr Babak Bahador from Canterbury University looked at the media coverage of New Zealand's political parties in the 2008 election, comparing the level and tone of the coverage for each party.
The Greens received 32.6% positive media coverage, 49% neutral, and just 18.4% negative coverage. In comparison, National's positive media coverage was just 22.3%, along with 39.8% neutral and 37.9% negative coverage. Labour got 25.4% positive, 39% neutral, and 35.6% negative.
The most glaring evidence of msm bias in NZ was the finding that during the 2008 election campaign, every party received more media coverage than electoral support, except for National and ACT.
Stories specifically featuring the Green Party made up 7% of the stories during the election campaign. (The Green's other big political failure is the fact that their pre-election poll ratings have never translated into the same level of support on election day.)
Some have questioned whether the Greens can crack the 5% MMP threshold next election, with Jeanette Fitzsimons leaving the building, Sue Kedgley on her way out, and loudmouth Sue Bradford already gone.
Electoral statistics guru David Farrar blogged last year about New Zealand's 5% MMP threshold, and the effects on representation if the threshold was lowered or abolished altogether.
Even Winston Peters has been analysing the success (or otherwise) of MMP this week, with a speech to Political Science students at Auckland University. As usual, Peters has some bold claims, but manages to make a few good points...
The Royal Commission recommended that a hundred MPs in a new MMP system would work. We ended up with 120 because the two old parties reckoned that the 20 extra would put voters off the change.
In time, the Maori seats were supposed to go. We were all to be blended in ' as we should be!
It's time for MPs to become bold enough to introduce MMP as the Royal Commission recommended... Reducing the threshold to 4%, axing the separatist Maori electorate seats, and increasing the Parliamentary term to 4 years.
The dark brown sugary soda drink known as Coke apparently equals Happiness, or so their marketing people like to tell us.
Now the soft drink giant is endeavouring to spread a little bit of happiness across the US with random acts of vending kindness.
The Coca-Cola Happiness Machine was installed recently in the cafeteria of an American college campus, with the reactions of students becoming a viral video hit.
Students using the normal-looking coke drink vending machine are initially surprised to receive multiple bottles of Coca-Cola, before the vending machine starts handing out (quite literally!) bunches of flowers, balloon animals, a pizza, and a giant sub sandwich.
The viral marketing campaign is part of Coke's global 'Open Happiness' campaign, and the company says many other similar stunts are planned, asking "Where will happiness strike next?"
New Zealand fans of the tv drama Lost will unfortunately have to wait a little longer to see the final season of the show, according to a post on Throng.
The final season of Lost begins on February 2nd in the United States on ABC. Hopes were raised last month that TVNZ was going to screen the opening episode less than half a day after its American premiere, after information in the broadcaster's Planit ad schedule.
The official response from TVNZ was that tapes of the episodes cannot be contractually released by the distributor before the show has been broadcast on ABC in all US time zones.
TVNZ told Throng that such a turnaround was just too tight for the distributor to "physically take the tape to a completely different location and feed them to us via Satellite in real time."
The network also says there would be issues timing out the schedule, promoting the show, and adding captioning in just a few hours.
These excuses are somewhat acceptable, although still disappointing. The NZ television premiere of Lost's final season has been scheduled for a week later, on February 10th. However that is still a big improvement on the 6 month+ delay that New Zealand viewers used to faced for US shows.
The one hole in TVNZ's excuses is that ABC is launching Season 6 of Lost with a double episode, whereas TV2 is apparently only playing Episode 1, following the premiere its new show Flash Forward.
That will put New Zealand fans 2 episodes behind America. One wonders whether TV2 could have overcome the problems outlined above with the breathing room of just a single episode? I suspect the gap between overseas shows and their New Zealand broadcast dates will continue to close in this high-tech, download-heavy era...
Former Ronald McDonald impersonator Gareth Hughes will take Jeanette Fitzsimons' list MP spot in Parliament next month, after the former Green Party co-leader announced she was retiring.
Hughes' claim to fame is being arrested while dressed as Ronald McDonald, during a protest against the use of 'genetically engineered' chicken feed. He stood for the Greens in the Ohariu seat at the last election.
I love this photo and headline caption from Stuff!
Air New Zealand's new 'Skycouch' seats have attracted a lot of international interest, but in all honesty failed to live up to their pre-launch hype.
Dubbed 'cuddle class', the new skycouch does offer lie-flat or curled-up seating for a couple of passengers, provided they buy a row of 3 seats.
There will be 11 rows of skycouch seats, with the arm rests fully retracting, and foot rests coming up to meet the seats in front and create a 1.75 metre-long couch. A thin mattress fits over the top.
Speculation has been going on for the last 6 months or more about how Air New Zealand's design team was going to "revolutionise" economy (coach) class for passengers.
Suggestions have included seats which reclined back to an almost lie-flat position, staggered seating, and lie-flat stackable bunk beds along the sides of the aircraft.
The reality proved somewhat less revolutionary, although they are still the world's first lie-flat seats in economy or coach class, and will suit couples travelling long-haul, and those with a small child.
A team of designers have been working on the project for three years. Air NZ's Chief Executive Rob Fyfe says the challenge he gave was to "have passengers able to lie down in economy, but I don't want the seat to take up any more space and I don't want people to have to pay any more for it."
I guess the catch of two passengers also having to buy the middle seat (albeit at half price) to get a lie down means that goal wasn't quite achieved.
However, Air New Zealand is predicting strong growth in the Premium Economy section of the market, the airline's also talking up a sideline licensing deal of the new seating designs with Boeing (to on-sell to international airlines).
Interestingly, investors seemed unimpressed with Air NZ's seating revamp, with shares slipping slightly on launch day.
And it will be interesting to see how long the "2 seats at standard price + 1 at half price" skycouch deal lasts. Presumably giving away 22 seats at half the going economy rate is fine while capacity is down, but that policy may come into question once planes start filling up again or the seats "fly out the door" as the airline hopes.
The new skycouch option launches in November, when Air New Zealand's new 340-seater Boeing 777-300 comes into service, between Auckland and Los Angeles. The airline plans to refit all its long haul aircraft in the skycouch configuration by 2012.
There will also be changes for all other flying classes on Air New Zealand. Regular economy/coach class will get bigger video screens for the personal entertainment system, plus iPod ports (yay!), and a narrow head cushion that attaches to the seat.
New 'Spaceseats' in Premium Economy class will be enclosed within a hard shell 'cocoon', meaning reclining your seat doesn't impede on the space of the person behind you as normally happens now in Economy cabins.
A herring-bone layout with seats angling either inwards of outwards will also allow Premium Economy passengers to choose to have more personal space, or to interact with another traveller, including the ability to share meals.
There will be new contoured seats in Business Premier, with a thicker mattress and better seat lighting.
New oven technology will allow flight attendants to prepare fresh food 'on demand' for passengers... Steaks for Business travellers, Pizzas for Premium Economy, and Toasted Sandwiches in Economy (ordered via the onboard entertainment system).
However, I'm not sure about the planned new colour scheme. "A luxurious blend of chalk and deep ink colours", economy seats are black with a white back, and premium economy seats are chalk-coloured leather.
It all sounds nice and classy, but it also sounds like the kind of colours that would get dirty and damaged pretty easily.
An increasing number of celebrities are expressing their public disappointment at not being able to meet Wayne, an uber-geek billed as "one of New Zealand's best kept secrets".
TV3 news and entertainment reporter David Farrier describes him as "my manky pasty friend Wayne". His minders tell us that "Wayne is a hardworking employee of a large New Zealand media organisation, who works so hard, he simply could not be here." :-(
That hardworking attitude has meant many music and movie stars have missed out on their chance to meet the secretive kiwi lad. However a YouTube Channel has been set up for celebs to send messaes, after being saddened and disappointed that Wayne could not be here...
And many celebrities in Los Angeles have taken time out from their busy schedules this week to send a personal message to Wayne, who couldn't be with them for the busy week in Hollywood.
Stars disappointed recently include Ray Winstone & Mel Gibson, Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Jay Baruchel (Knocked Up, Tropic Thunder), Amanda Seyfried (Big Love, Mamma Mia), Gerard Butler (300, Phantom of the Opera), Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Channing Tatum (G.I. Joe, Step Up), and Brendan Fraser.
Youtube fan cuttyface says he finds the videos amazing, and really hopes "that one day Wayne is revealed to the world, gets out of the office and gets the fame he deserves."
The city of Dunedin in Otago, New Zealand is on the hunt for a new slogan. The city's marketing team have decided to drop the current nondescript slogan I am Dunedin, which it admits is getting a bit old.
The city is apparently planning a nationwide search for a new slogan and marketing strategy. The I am Dunedin slogan was introduced by the City Council in 2001, replacing the similarly nondescript branding campaign, That's the Spirit of Dunedin.
Dunedin is also known as 'The Edinburgh of the South', but its most recognisable slogan was in the late 80s/early 90s with the bubbly It's all right here, which came with its own catchy little campaign song.
However it was often confused with (or replaced by) the lacklustre 'It's alright here', or more recently by locals as 'It's a Riot here' after a run of late night street parties by the city's students (and friends).
(Unfortunately Otago University took the antics all a bit seriously, invoking 'Code of Conduct' clauses to kick students out, forcing the cancellation of the annual First Year Toga Parade through Dunedin's main street, cutting up sponsorship contracts with alcohol companies, and trying to buy up pubs close to campus with the stated intent of simply closing them down. In the words of their own marketing campaign, Get Over It!)
But Dunedin still wouldn't come close to winning the award for the country's worst city/town slogan. Te Puke probably scores New Zealand's top prize for its former pearler - Stop and taste Te Puke - which didn't go down well with tourists not used to pronouncing the town's name.
Hamilton's old slogan was a sign of self esteem, More than you'd expect. South Canterbury is also big on hopeful dreams. For years Rolleston has branded itself The Town of the Future, but the future has so far refused to move in.
Timaru tries to assure tourists the town still has a pulse with its slogan Feel the Heartbeat, while Mayfield somewhat optimistically informs motorists Blink and you will miss out. But there's no holds barred in keeping visitors in Ashburton, which loudly proclaims Whatever it takes!
There are some chirpier slogans around New Zealand though. Kerikeri goes the happy route, with It's So Nice They Named It Twice, while Matamata opts for comfort, You matter in Matamata.
In the Southland town of Tuatapere, large signs proudly declare it New Zealand's Sausage Capital, but to be fair I don't think anyone else is actually challenging for the title.
Invercargill has the more cryptic The City of Water and Light, perhaps referring to the fact that it's always raining in the south, but that doesn't deter the boy racers.
In Wanganui, they're still debating whether or not the town's new slogan should have an H in it (Whakit, it's still the same old place), although Wanganui used to have more optimism, telling people It's well worth the journey.
Some places don't even bother with a slogan, although Shag Point (south of Moeraki) could do with one. It's never really lived up to its obvious potential as a hotspot for young luvvin' ;-)
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