100% Pure my foot...

A Massey University freshwater ecologist has come under fire for criticising New Zealand's "100% Pure" marketing slogan.

When I was a kid, you could drink from almost any of the rivers in New Zealand, especially around my home town. Now, I wouldn't dare do that. Thanks to over-intensive dairy farming, the majority of New Zealand rivers are polluted. Dr Mike Joy's criticism is well-founded in fact, not marketing spin.

Some have called Mike Joy's public criticism "economic treason". How odd that they don't say the same thing about the government's asset-sale plans...

US Election Results

The following cartoon perfectly sums up the US presidential election. It was originally published at churchof.poisonedminds.com.

Predatory landlords

It's common knowledge that there is a shortage of housing in Christchurch. Thousands of homes were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable in the February 2011 earthquake. But that doesn't excuse the avaricious and predatory renting practices of Christchurch landlords.

While some defend this as market forces of supply and demand at work, let me point out that the market is, by definition, selfish to the point of pyscopathy. Most of the time market forces in rentals work fine, but in states of emergency, with suddenly and drastically restricted supply, they only favour the privileged and predatory.

In my opinion, the government should have legislated a rental price freeze in Christchurch following the earthquake: that would have prevented greedy landlords from inflating rents to ridiculous levels and putting families out on the street.

But, once again, the government acted in the interests of the wealthy and privileged, instead of in the interests of the people.

Corruption: it begins with the schools

This article shows that corruption begins with the schools: a uniform seller is being threatened with a High Court injunction for selling school uniforms. The sellers says that after selling uniforms for Manurewa High School for years, she was last year asked to bid for an exclusive contract and to detail "incentive options" for the school. In other words, she would have had to tender for the contract, and specify what kick-backs she was going to offer the school.

How this is not corruption is beyond me. The best thing to do would be for the Commerce Commission to smack the school board down, then for the parents to revolt and replace the entire board. New Zealand is one of the least-corrupt countries in the world, but how can we maintain that good standing if we allow stuff like this to happen?

Cowboy cops and their adventures in misconduct

This article in the Otago Daily Times provides further evidence about the fiasco that was the Megaupload raid. It describes how the police anti-terrorist squad was turned out to raid a family home despite a complete absence of evidence; how evidence from a member of the diplomatic protection service (the arm of the police that protects the prime minister) was suppressed to justify an airborne assault; and how police didn't follow their own procedures in planning the raid.

This is just more evidence of the cowboy mentality the New Zealand Police have. What I think happened was:

1) FBI asks NZ police for hlep
2) Managers in the NZ police get excited at the possibility of working with the FBI
3) NZ police decide that since they are finally playing with the big kids, they'd better show off as much as they can
4) Turn out the anti-terrorist squad to show how tough they are and that they are too big kids now!
5) Do whatever the FBI tells them to do, NZ laws and procedures be damned

Seriously, there are several top NZ cops who should be on the dole queue now: they've shown that they can't be trusted to follow the law or even their own rules. Get rid of them. They're a danger to themselves and the New Zealand public.

Suck on this, Air New Zealand

For once, the little guy has won! According to this article, a man who was over-paid a total of $70,000 by Air New Zealand, over a period of several years, does not have to pay any of the money back. Moreover, the court has awarded him costs: in other words, Air New Zealand not only doesn't get their money back, but they have to pay his legal bills as well as their own.

Normally, if someone is over-paid, I'd say that the honest thing to do is to give the money back. But in this case, not only was his salary never specified by Air New Zealand, but he queried the amount he was being paid several times over several years. Every time he queried his payment, he was told that it was correct. Almost a year after the over-payment was identified, they sacked him, saying they could no longer trust him!

It seems to me like he did all he could to do the honest thing. I suspect that when the over-payments became known to the bureaucracy, they sacked him to cover their own blunderings.

Whinging Dunedin airport

The management of the airport in Dunedin are complaining about people avoiding parking fees by parking in the nearby village of Momona instead of in the airport car park. It turns out that Momona is a private village that is entirely owned by the airport, including the roads. While you might think that this gives the airport the right to whinge about people parking there, the article goes on to say that the airport is considering putting up signs in Momona informing people that it is private property. In other words, they have made no effort before now to inform the general public that the roads in Momona are not public roads.

I've driven to Dunedin airport many times (I used to live in Dunedin) and I know that there are no signs near or in Momona that say anything to the effect that Momona is private property, or that the parking there is for residents only. They are complaining to the newspapers and police without having made any effort to inform the public of the facts. This is like complaining that no-one came to my party when I hadn't told anyone about my party.

They should instead have put the signs up first, then, if people were still parking there illegally after several months, complained to the papers. This way they just look like idiots.

Children in drugs houses

Another article where police decry children living in a house where drugs are present. In this case, the drugs were cannabis plants.

But the thing is, the vast majority of children in New Zealand live in a house with drugs present: alchohol and tobacco. But despite the fact that alcohol and tobacco are much more harmful to users and society than cannabis, the police say nothing about it.

We need a national drugs policy that is evidence-based, that is based on reality rather than ideology. So many lives have been destroyed by the prohibition of a plant that is, on the balance of evidence, fairly benign, that we simply cannot continue as we have been. Something must be done, the drug laws must change.

MPs setting their own salary - in secret

Yet another thing to get grumpy about is the salaries paid to Members of Parliament (MPs). This article tells how the New Zealand parliament is investigating a bill that would put more power in their hands to set their own salaries. While this is already ridiculous (I wish I could set my own salary, unfortunately I can't and have to negotiate based on my performance - you know, actually work for my money) the hearing is being held in secret.Now, I'm all for paying MPs well, as a preventative measure against corruption (New Zealand has very low rates of corruption, which is one of the things I love about it), but as the people who employ the MPs, and pay their salaries via taxes, we have the right to hear what is being said when they set their salaries. We should have a right to have a say in the salaries directly, but in one of the few cases of consistent parliamentary unity, MPs have always retained that power for themselves.

Stupidity from the Immigration department

Will Ricketts is a member of the band The Phoenix Foundation. Despite the group being flown around the world to promote New Zealand music, Ricketts is being denied New Zealand citizenship. This is despite the fact that he has lived in New Zealand since the age of two. The reason? Over the last five years, he hasn't spent at least 240 days of each year in New Zealand. Because he was being flown around the world to promote New Zealand music. He has been told that he can pay $470 to appeal the decision, but the Immigration department will fight it anyway.

So, the government is happy to use him to promote New Zealand, but don't want him as a New Zealand citizen. This isn't just a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing, it's a case of the right hand belonging to a completely different person on a completely different planet! This is obviously a case where discretion should be applied, yet the idiots in immigration refuse to use it.

This brings to mind two of my favourite aphorisms:

1) Slavish adherence to rules and regulation is a sign that one has nothing better with which to occupy one's mind

2) You don't need common sense when you have rules

Police screw up, refuse to accept blame

A brief post about this story: the police obtained a warrant to search the computers of someone suspected of downloading kiddie porn; they waited too long to execute it, so even though they found illegal material, the guy has walked free because the search was illegal. Police refuse to accept that they were responsible for the stuff-up.

This is yet another warrant stuff-up on the part of the police, and yet again they are denying responsibility. If we are going to grant the police the power to destroy peoples' lives then we have the right to expect them to perform with the highest levels of competence. Otherwise, they are a threat to our liberty, rather than the guardians of it.

On another matter, I remember seeing Greg O'Conner on TV as the police association spokesman when I was in high school, and I'm closing in on 40 now: isn't it time for someone else to have a go at that job? Someone who has a bit more credibility than he does?

Car clampers

This article talks about a clamped motorist who turned the tables on the over-zealous clamper who put no less than three clamps on his car. Somehow detaching the clamps, he drove off, then texted the clamper saying it would cost him $150 to get the clamps back.

The motorist was charged by the police, but discharged by the court. Even the police prosecutor and judge said that three clamps on one car was over the top.

But this raises a larger issue of the point of clamping. Let's say that a car is occupying a parking spot illegally. Towing the car away frees up that spot for others to use (hopefully legally). But clamping a car has the exact opposite effect: the car cannot be moved without removing the clamps. This ties up the parking space even longer, as the driver has to contact the clamper, wait for them to return to the car, hand over the money (if they can even get the cash), then wait while the clamp is removed.

Clamps are entirely a mechanism for generating revenue.

Peter Tohu (the motorist in this story) is my Hero of the Week!

Moaning property investors

This article is about landlords complaining about how long it can take to get a hearing with the tenancy tribunal. They are asking for government action to protect their investments. I have a couple of problems with their argument:

Firstly, the article itself states that many complaints aren't forwarded to the tribunal because the complainants (the landlords) don't include supporting evidence. So, basically, the landlords just expect the tribunal to rule in their favour, because they ask them to. They don't seem to appreciate that it is a court of sorts, and therefore evidence must be produced.

Secondly, the landlords seem to be expecting the government to remove the risk in their investment choices. Let me make this very clear: the risk with any investment lays with the investor! Basically, the landlords are asking the government to transfer this risk away from them.

The idea that property is a low-risk investment is a myth promoted by greedy real estate agents and greedier property speculators. If you want a risk-free investment for your money, put it in the bank. In fact, the whole concept of property being a low-risk investment is what has driven the price of housing to unreachable heights, while simultaneously jamming the world economy in the toilet for the last four years.

Meanwhile, this article describes how some landlords are squeezing poor tenants and using the accommodation supplement to jack up rents: when the landlord finds out that the tenant is getting the accommodation supplement, they simply increase the rent by that amount. In other words, tax payer money is being used to enrich greedy landlords.

Can anyone tell me why we should listen to landlords' complaints of hardship?