It's true ...

http://www.huttcity.govt.nz/Council/The-Mayoral-Office/Media-Releases/Community-Committees/

I have been appointed to the Hutt City North/Eastern Community Committee. What that means is I am now formally representing the wishes of local residents on council related issues in the Eastern and Northern areas of Lower Hutt (From Waiwhetu, through Waterloo, Fairfield, Naenae, Park Ave, Taita, Pomare, Stokes Valley, and Manor Park.)

I'm still getting my head around what happens next - I'm only acquainted with one other committee member, and have met another once or twice. But I like the look of the committee - it has a younger, fresher look than the previous committee. (Either that or as I age I'm starting to think you can still be 'young' until later!)

I have some issues that I see the committee advocating on behalf of the local community that I've heard through my network of local friends, but I realise as the lowest of the low (in terms of democratic pecking order) that influencing will take a united and committed committee.

What this does mean is I can't publicly be too partisan, or strongly advocate for one party ahead of any else as I am a representative for all of the residents - so the focus of this blog will have to change from National Politics to local issues.

Visit Melbourne

But don't take a that Ball of Wool:

Who paid for this poll?

I'm not surprised to see a poll showing two-thirds of New Zealand oppose Easter shop trading. After all, the poll is from Research New Zealand who say:

"Many government agencies rely on our insights to develop policy. Several of New Zealand's more significant businesses also use our findings to plan their direction."

And since when has a Government Agency decided that less regualtion is good for us?

The client list of Research New Zealand is here.

And the responses - you can easily get the answer you want by asking the right questions as people tend to give answers consistently. For example:

Do you think families need to spend more time together?
Do you think there is too much commercialisation of solemn religious holidays?
Do you think that each of us setting aside a few days of personal reflection on morality would be good for New Zealand?
Do you support retaining the ban on shops opening at Easter and Christmas?

If you want the opposite result:

Do you think that Government must treat all religions equally?
Do you think that Government should accede to the wishes of churches?
Do you support the right of individual businesses to operate free from unnecessary interference from Government?
Do you support removing the ban on shops opening at Easter and Christmas?

(With apologies to Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn)

Go the Church ...

After 20 years, some reporter has discovered that a pharmacy that leases it's shop from the Catholic Church is prohibitted in it's lease from selling condoms. Well, it's the Catholic Churches property, and the pharmacy agreed to the conditions in the lease - so what's the issue?

Probably the same as when McDonalds in New Zealand let it's frachises not display an issue of a giveaway teen magazine because of a controversial article about sexuality. A certain dreadlocked Green MP berated McDonalds because "Young people have a right to know about sexuality" and he thought they should be able to get that information from a private company that has young children frequently on the premises - not from their parents, or through school education. And now no McDonalds has that magazine available to teenagers to cover other issues.

The only way to stop the ban is to close the pharmacy - then locals won't be able to get their medicines and health products. And everyone loses.

Back to the 80's...

When it comes to politics, only the Greens and ACT are radicals. All the other parties - to different degrees - want to keep the status quo. And much of the current government economic policy is the result of the work of Sir Roger Douglas.

So, it came to me as a surprise that ACT are promoting their links to Sir Roger. But after reflecting on the decision to bring back Sir Roger, it dawned on me that ACT has a major problem.

Since 1995 New Zealand has steered away from radical reform and kept the status quo - just fiddling around the edges a bit. And in the past twelve years New Zealand has done okay - not fabulous, or good, but well enough that there is no widespread political or public support for change.

ACT needs to jump start a groundswell for change - and bringing back the arguements over the 1980s is probably a strategy that will work. Few can argue that the programme that Douglas promoted was better than the status quo. And it's not a difficult arguement that New Zealand is slowly slipping back into it's Keynesian type economic policy that dominated from the 1950s to 1984.

But at the same time, it's a big risk - the upheaval in the 1980s was damaging to a lot of people. Lots of employees in state trading companies lost their jobs, lots of protected industries closed. And when a worldwide speculative boom ended, New Zealand had it's worst recession since the 'slump' of the early 1930s - far worse than experienced elsewhere in the world.

But at this time, ACT doesn't have much choice but to take risks - it's lost a lot of voters to National and hasn't won them back. A lot of potential ACT voters have left these shores for Australia and beyond. And it's never a popular policy to remind people that the Government can't give you something for nothing - it's had to take it from someone else who earned it.

Cheap headline

Editors know what sells newspapers - and a 'scandal' about politicians with their snouts in the trough always makes for a great banner. So, it's no surprise that the Dom Post lead today with the news that four MPs who are retiring from politics are going on an overseas trip.

I think it should be noted that even if the trip costs $15,000 per MP that each of the four retiring politicians are earning several times that amount before the election - and that if we're paying for them, they should be required to complete the duties of MPs until the election. Otherwise they should resign from Parliament and allow others to take over.

One of those duties is to act as leaders for New Zealand - meeting with foreign parliamentarians and politicians, and building trusting relationships with other nations. Obviously, this may involve MPs having to travel overseas - as it does in a number of other jobs. In most industries it's common for long distance flights to be completed in Business Class so that executives can be more refreshed and ready to do business on arrival.

Although Marion Hobbs comments didn't help, this trip is a legitimate use of the MPs time - the MPs should not be made to feel guilty about completing their duties.

The Wikipedia Jesus Game

Okay, Chaucey told me this one:

If you're bored, go to Wikipedia and click on the link to a random article.

Then, try to get to the Wikipedia page for Jesus by clicking on links to other articles in less than five clicks (i.e. six degrees of separation).

For example:

Eretmodus > Lake Tanganyika > Tanzania > Christianity > Jesus - in just four clicks!

Warning: Addictive.

The week in review ...

Blogging has been a bit lite of late as I came down with a flu last week, then had a couple of interesting meetings I needed to prepare for. One is totally confidential so I can't mention anything about it - and the other I won't mention until I know what the outcome is.

Anyway, the past week has been an interesting time.

Labour's attack on John Key over the Treaty settlement timetable wasn't overly effective, but it was certainly a sign that they're getting active for the election. Labour have decided to stop defending the indefensible and get on the front foot - about time, too. It was never National that was sleepwalking to victory, more Labour sleepwalking to a landslide defeat.

I doubt that Key's stumble will be anything more than a beltway issue, but it does rally the Labour troops and give them some ecouragement. But if Labour are going to continue on a strategy of character assassination then it will eventually backfire - no-one likes a bully. One reason why John Key is popular is that he only appears to make reasonable criticsms of Labour, rather than sinking to petty personal politics.

The other big issue of the week also had National on the back foot. It was the media who were critical of the Government's last minute "pulling the rug" from under the Canadians bid for Auckland Airport, when it should have been John Key and Bill English leading the charge. It looked like National were concentrating on what message would be popular, rather than what message is the right one to say - that foreign investment in New Zealand is not a bad thing, and discouraging it by undermining confidence in Government policy puts the economy at risk.

Finally, Labour still has a big problem with it's own Electoral Finance Act - fast becoming the albatross round it's neck. The purpose of the bill was to prevent groups not seeking election from influencing elections by buying lots of publicity, but now the Act has got them so bogged down in defending there own breaches. Because its a law they promoted so vigorously only their breaches will now be noted andany National Party mistakes with authorisations and addresses will be glossed over. It's the hyprocrasy, stupid!