Posts by Alfie
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Polity: Too much to swallow on the TPP, in reply to Russell Brown,
What planet is Key on? In some countries this level of treachery which will cost the country tens of millions each year for zero gain would inspire revolution.
Rod Oram also finds this backdown hard to believe.
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Speaker: Protesting private prisons, in reply to Steve Barnes,
[redacted for commercial sensitivity]
I think you're onto something here Steve. Think for a moment what would happen if this group took over Serco's Mount Eden contract. After all, Serco pretty much let them run the place already so just cut out the middle man. This group has plenty of enforcement experience, there wouldn't be any riots, they'd be better at covering up deaths and injuries and they'd probably do the job for less than the $30m a year Serco charges.
Call it extreme privatisation and the Nats would probably go for it.
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Polity: Too much to swallow on the TPP, in reply to Naturesong,
Pottery, textiles, leather industry ... the list is long
Pardon? Could you possibly add some context to that list.
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Speaker: Protesting private prisons, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
The paltry outlay for 120 subscriptions to Private Eye (one for every MP), could have saved this country a fortune!
Damn right Ian! As a former subscriber to Private Eye I've read numerous damning reports about Serco over the years, from incompetence and mismanagement to outright taxpayer fraud.
Despite their obviously poor performance at Mount Eden, the company somehow scores top marks in NZ's official figures. David Fisher explains in the Herald.
Under-fire jails manager Serco has been rated at the highest levels of capability and safety despite allegations of violence inside Mt Eden prison.
It also appears to do its own performance management reviews - and to tell the Department of Corrections when its pay should be docked.
The figures published by the Department of Corrections as Serco's "Key Performance Indicators" for Mt Eden show it has exceeded its target levels in every area.
That old private companies do it better mantra is getting a little tired.
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To be honest, the whole TPPA thing scares me silly. I'm still waiting for Grosser or any government MP to tell us what's actually in this for NZ. The only hint so far has been the very distant possibility of better access to the US market for our primary produce. But anyone following the flood of milk products hitting the international market knows that's just not going to happen.
Gay Keeting wrote an exellent piece in the Herald last week about the probable impact of the TPPA on Pharmac.
The Obama Administration wants to save US$16 billion over 10 years by changing their law to bring their data exclusivity for biologics down to the middle range (seven years) and prohibiting evergreening. Yes, even the Obama Administration wants to change the laws "fast track" would make the rest of us live by.
I also recommend Toby Morris' Pencilsword in RadioNZ's The Wireless because our fellow citizens could sure do with a call to action on this issue.
The Nat's obscene race to ratify the TPPA while at the same time keeping the details secret from the very people they are elected to serve, has to be motivated by ideology rather than common sense.
So c'mon National... before you sign away our children's futures, convince us that this isn't some sort of appeasement to your big business mates in the US. Explain to us why the TPPA is a good thing. And could you do that before you cede control of NZ's sovereignty in perpetuity?
Because from where I'm sitting, that just seems dumb.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to chris,
I understand the economic benefit of foreign students, but I fear you may have missed the point of my post Chris. These "students" are selling $26m worth of property. While I've known lots of students in my lifetime, not one of them had access to that kind of crazy wealth.
Now it's possible that they have stupidly rich parents, I grant you -- Max Key flaunt it if you've got it types. But isn't it also possible that students are fronting for (and thereby effectively concealing the identity of) wealthy offshore owners? Because to my mind, that scenario is what the government's soon to be enacted local bank account & IRD number housing legislation will surely encourage.
Note also that this couple threw $370k to the Nats. Again, that's not overtly student-like behaviour.
Their company has been registered in NZ since 2002 and the directors' addresses are in Hong Kong. Students for 13 years? Yeah, nah!
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The Herald reports that a couple of wealthy National Party donors are selling more than $26 million of property in Auckland. Their names are Zhao Wu Shen and Susan Chou, but obviously, I wouldn't want to read anything into that.
What interested me is that both people are listed as students on the electoral roll. WTF?
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Hard News: About Campbell Live, in reply to Sacha,
I thought it was a Dutch company?
You're partly right Sacha. It was bought by Warner Bros last year.
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John Drinnan reports that TV3's news rating are on a downward slide.
Nielsen TAM ratings show a big slide since January last year, when the two news shows were nearly level-pegging. Today, TVNZ says the gap between them is the widest it has been for 10 years.
On Tuesday, One News attracted 42.1 per cent of the 25-54-year-old audience and 3 News had 14.8 per cent, says TVNZ.
While TVNZ no doubt cherry-picked the figures used in those quotes, Mark Jennings remains optimistic, publicly at least.
"News ratings will always be cyclical and I have seen them ride up and down a lot in the last 20 years," said Jennings. "Our turn will come again.
Personally, I doubt that. In ditching NZ's top current affairs show and reducing their Sunday bulletin to 30 minutes, TV3 effectively jettisoned any commitment to be a serious news contender. Almost half the stories on their 6pm news show now qualify as entertainment news which, as John Key has stated, is what the sheeple want.
But wait... TV3 has plans to boost the lead-in to the news with a new 5:30pm soap. They've asked NZ on Air for around $10m to fund the show which will be produced by Eyeworks -- formerly owned by Julie Christie, now a part of Warner Bros. How many of us want to see $10m of govt funding go to a US company to produce a bloody soap?
Weldon and Christie's decision to head downmarket may well have come back to bite their collective bums. And if that's the case, you'd have to say that karma can be a bastard.
