Frank Newman: Do councils do what they say they will do?

The Local Government Amendment Act 2002 brought sweeping changes to local authorities. Most significantly councils were given the powers of “general competency” and their mandate widened to encompass environmental, economic, cultural and social “well-beings”.

But it also prescribed the manner in which councils would engage with the public, including the need to prepare a 10 year plan (called a Long Term Council Community Plan or LTCCP). Presumably the purpose of the LTCCP was to enable the community to see with some degree of certainly what their council was planning to do over the next decade as guardians of their community assets and what it was likely to cost them as ratepayers.

Frank Newman: News flash! Foreshore and seabed protest march

TVNZ reports; “Anger over Maori claims on the seabed and foreshore has brought hundreds of people onto the streets of Nelson. The march was organised by the government's political ally United Future party which believes the issue could divide the country. Those involved said they fear becoming second class citizens if claims to the foreshore are successful.

“If we create rights for some New Zealanders and not others, then we start down a very sure and slippery slope to anarchy," says leader Peter Dunne.

That story was dated July 28, 2003, http://tvnz.co.nz/content/209059/2556418/article.html

Karl du Fresne: Thanks for setting it out so clearly, Tuku

In Friday’s Dominion Post, Tainui iwi chairman Tukoiroirangi "Underpants" Morgan obligingly provides all the reason anyone needs to be deeply suspicious of the foreshore and seabed legislation.

Commenting on the announcement that Labour had withdrawn its support for the government’s Marine and Coastal Area Bill, Morgan reiterated that the legislation still had Tainui’s backing.

The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley: The Abdication of the West

From Cancun, Mexico, Dec 10, 2010: I usually add some gentle humor to these reports. Not today. Read this and weep. Notwithstanding the carefully-orchestrated propaganda to the effect that nothing much will be decided at the UN climate conference here in Cancun, the decisions to be made here this week signal nothing less than the abdication of the West. The governing class in what was once proudly known as the Free World is silently, casually letting go of liberty, prosperity, and even democracy itself. No one in the mainstream media will tell you this, not so much because they do not see as because they do not bl**dy care.

Frank Newman: Foreshore and seabed hearings a farce - outcome predetermined

Saturday’s Dominion Post reports, “While some changes would be recommended to the [Coastal Area Bill] the bill reported back from the committee would be fundamentally the same, he [Te Ururoa Flavell] said.”

This is outrageous comment from the Maori Party Whip and member of the Maori Affairs Select Committee. How is it that Mr Flavell is able to state that outcome when the committee is still hearing submissions? It’s because Mr Flavell and the other voting members of the Select Committee have already made up their minds. It’s probably more accurate to say he has never changed his mind, despite the almost total opposition for the Bill.

Ron Smith: Korea: the war that never left

Seoul is a bustling modern city of 12 million people, with a veritable forest of sky scrapers and a sleek modern transportation system. It is also the capital and undoubted hub of the 12th largest economy in the world, with a GDP per capita of nearly $30,000 (which is slightly larger than that of New Zealand – though, of course, the size of the South Korean economy is much larger).

Allan Peachey: You be the judge!

I am going to do something a little bit different for this edition of “Breaking Views”. I am going to report on two things I came across while overseas recently, one from the United States and the other from the United Kingdom. I shall report on them without comment and allow readers to draw their own conclusions or make up their own minds.

Owen McShane: Retro Rail Alert

The New Zealand Government recently decided to follow the example of Montreal and Toronto by amalgamating the six City councils and the single Regional Council of the Auckland Region to create a united “Super City” of 1.4 million people.
Like similar amalgamated bodies, the new Auckland Council, which came into being on the 1st November, 2010, has fallen for the notion of regionally determined smart growth built around a huge investment in heavy rail.

Mike Butler: How can the troubled coastal area bill bring lasting peace on the foreshore?

Some Maori Party supporters claim the customary title criteria in the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill are too tough, the Human Rights Commission says the bill is discriminatory, and the Coastal Coalition claims customary title criteria are too easy. Why? A closer look reveals that the bill is worded in such a way that it can be interpreted as both tough and easy. The word “exclusive”, for instance, has been redefined to allow a wide range of other users, and “uninterrupted” allows interruptions. Even the word “tikanga”, or the Maori way of doing things, allows for evolution, so that tikanga in 2010 includes things unimagined in 1840.

Ron Smith: More on academic ranking

I cannot resist a footnote to my last posting. It has now come to my notice that the latest world university rankings, which placed Harvard first, Oxford and Cambridge Universities joint sixth, and the University of Auckland 143rd (the only New Zealand placing), placed Alexandria University of Egypt, just behind at 147th. Alexandria University was also fourth-ranked in the world in the category of ‘citations’, which probably skewed the overall assessment, very substantially.

The explanation for this rather surprising outcome turns on the presence in Alexandria of a particularly enterprising academic, Mohamed El Naschie, who apparently published, during the review period no less than 320 of his own articles in a scientific journal of which he was also the editor.

Owen McShane: National Policy Statements Need Close Watching

A common complaint has been that the RMA was let loose on the Public without Government providing sufficient National Policy Statements to keep council on the straight and narrow. There is an old saying "Be careful what you wish for."

The Quality Planning web site announces that the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement 2010 (NZCPS) will replace the NZCPS 1994 on the 3rd December, 2010. The NZCPS 2010 sets out policies on coastal issues including protection of outstanding natural features and landscapes, planning for subdivision, use, and development, protection of biodiversity and water quality, and management of coastal hazard risks.

Tim Ball: There Is No Water Shortage

There is no shortage of water. Amounts available vary regionally and change over time as precipitation amounts vary. Demand also changes with increases in population and economic development. Crude estimates indicate water use per person per day is 15 liters in undeveloped countries and approximately 900 liters in developed countries. Throughout history humans have developed remarkable techniques and technologies to deal with these issues. Few of these attempted to reduce demand, most worked to increase supply.

Ron Smith: Of Politics and Scholarship

In August of 2008, the New Zealand Centre for Political Research published a review of mine on the subject of the New Zealand system of academic assessment: Performance-Based Research Funding (PBRF), and its manifest defects and absurdities*. I was reminded of this a few nights ago when I was present in the Great Hall of Parliament to see the launch of a new book, Palmer: The Parliamentary Years, by a colleague, Raymond Richards. The Palmer biography is the product of more than ten years’ work and is a substantial piece of scholarship, which has received very positive reviews and has already been nominated for a New Zealand Post Book Award. At 470 pages it is also substantial in a more literal sense. For those interested in the history of the 1984-90 Labour Government, this account of the crucial role of Sir Geoffrey Palmer, firstly, as Deputy Prime Minister and then, as Prime Minister in his own right, is absolutely essential reading.

Lindsay Mitchell: The Spirit Level comes to NZ

The New Zealand Herald reports NZ academics and analysts broadly supported the Spirit Level thesis that,

"The greater the gap between rich and poor, the more likely people will grow up a drug user, a criminal, less educated, obese, pregnant while a teenager, even less trusting of others."

Allan Peachey: Great Principals Must Be Great Teachers

I found what I thought was a particularly insightful description of leadership in a book that I have been reading recently. The book, incidentally, is ‘Spinning Wheels: the Politics of Urban School Reform” by Frederick M. Hess. The description is from Tom Kean, a former governor of the State of New Jersey in the United States:
"True leadership takes time. A desert thunderstorm strikes with a flash and a roar, releasing all its water and energy at once. But the flashes quickly fade, and the water is mostly lost in runoff. Effective leadership takes the time to allow efforts and skills the chance to sink in, as opposed to the flash-flood phenomenon of high-visibility attempts at quick fixes."

President Vaclav Klaus: The Climate Change Doctrine is Part of Environmentalism, Not of Science

It is a great honor for me to be here tonight, getting a chance to deliver the inaugural lecture of the Global Warming Policy Foundation to such a distinguished audience. Even though it may seem that there is a whole range of institutions both here and overseas which bring together and support those who openly express doubts about the currently prevailing dogma of man-made global warming and who dare to criticize it, it apparently is still not enough. We are subject to a heavily biased and carefully organized propaganda and a serious and highly qualified forum here, on this side of the Atlantic, that would stand for rationality, objectivity and fairness in public policy discussion is more than needed. That is why I consider the launching of the foundation an important step in the right direction.

Mike Butler: Tribunal’s twisted history

Research into the life of the first New Zealand Company colonist to step ashore at Petone on January 22, 1840, made me read a lot of 19th century New Zealand history -- both that written close to the period, and the substantial re-writing done by the Waitangi Tribunal from the late 20th century on. The First Colonist - Samuel Deighton 1821-1900, which is advertised on this website, draws upon his letters and other primary sources, early settler histories, biographies, more recent histories, and Waitangi Tribunal reports. I expected tribunal reports to deal with history, but I did not expect them to be finely crafted arguments in support of the claims they purport to investigate. Taxpayers should be outraged that a government-funded body is writing a new history in which the Crown is depicted as deceitful, settlers rapacious, and Maori as helpless victims in need of compensation.

Ron Smith: Sheep and Nuclear Waste

Greenpeace and other activists recently spent almost a week chaining themselves to railway lines, dressing up as sheep and blocking roads in a determined, but ultimately fruitless effort to block a shipment of nuclear waste from France to Germany. It would have been much more in the interests of German tax payers and energy consumers (not to mention the German police) if they had spent only a fraction of the time they devoted to the imaginative planning of fresh stunts, to attempting to understand the nature of the material whose transportation they condemn and the extensive arrangements that are made for its safe storage and ultimate disposal. Here are the basic facts for those interested in nuclear power and the use of civil disobedience by those who oppose it (and I speak as one who has actually been to the plant in France, where the material originated, and to the Gorleben facility, where it now is). And if any reader has a friend in Germany, it might be a kindness to pass this on.

Mike Butler: Disingenuous or dim?

Pressure from the Coastal Coalition seems to be having an effect on Tukituki MP Craig Foss, who, in his latest Backing the Bay newsletter, calls us to look at the “true facts” about the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill. Anyone who uses the phrase “true facts” is probably in the habit of dealing with “false facts”, so his little bit of finger wagging about “misinformation being put about by people who should really know better” could well be applied to the National Party, the source of most misinformation on this issue.

Allan Peachey: Quality Principals the Key to Quality Education

In my last column I wrote about Michelle Rhee and her attempts to rescue the Washington DC public school system from endemic failure, and her focus on the view that effective teaching can overcome all types of disadvantage and poverty. And she wanted a situation in which a school principal would have to assess the effectiveness of a teacher without tenure to determine their ongoing employment. Of course, one of the most frequently raised arguments against performance pay for teachers is that principals are not competent enough or cannot be trusted to assess the effectiveness of teachers. That is a contention that I encountered often during my career but one I never accepted as having validity.