This week has probably been a real tough week for John Banks after TVNZ and Mark Crysell spent three weeks of muck raking work at the behest of Len Brown’s Labour flunkies. Bernard Orsman’s article isn’t much better and does himself a dis-service shopping tawdry tales Labour has been trying to get in the media for 3 weeks. He should ask himself why he is studiously ignoring both Brown and Williams using council resources and the spamming of council staff on the beg for money. John Banks had to face something that no parent wants to face and he dealt with it admirably.
Non-political people have commented to me how well Banksie handled himself in the face of an obvious hit. They say that you just know that Alex Banks got a boot in the arse, one he deserved. Now political people are weighing in and that is why I say that Len Brown’s campaign is over.
John Banks is a polarising individual, admired by some, hated – not too strong a word – by others. For my part, I have not changed my view of the man I attacked on The Ralston Group, the talk-back host I deplored on Radio Pacific or the Mayor of Auckland in his previous incarnation. But either he has changed or I have. I suspect it’s the former. Certainly the person I have got to know in the past fortnight is a very fine man indeed. Or maybe there are two John Banks, two sides to the one man – the father and the politician perhaps. I’d be happy to have the father continue as Mayor.
That people is an endorsement. Not only is it an endorsement it is an endorsement from Brian Edwards. That was the end paragraph. Now read this from the middle of the post.
Ten days ago I was one of five speakers at an Auckland Mayoral Fathers’ Breakfast at Sky City organised by Parents Inc., the organisation founded by Ian Grant. Each of us had seven minutes to give an inspirational address on fatherhood to the 750 men present. The Mayor of Auckland, formally hosting the event, spoke first.
I’ve heard a lot of speeches in my time and few have been memorable. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the seven minutes in which John Banks held that audience in the palm of his hand, enthralled. He did not, as his advisors have suggested, talk about his own traumatic childhood. He talked about the troubled kids he has met in the course of his job; kids on drugs, kids in trouble with the law, kids in borstals and prisons, lost boys and girls. A common theme, especially among the boys, he observed, was the absence of a father in their lives. These were boys without role models, boys who didn’t know how to be men. Fathers mattered and fathers had a responsibility to teach their kids the difference between right and wrong.
Delivered entirely without notes, the short address was spellbinding, extremely moving, and entirely met the inspirational criteria laid down by the breakfast’s organisers. When he returned to the table, I said to him, ‘If you could talk like that during your campaign, you would certainly be the first Mayor of the Super City.’
When the illuminati of the left feel so compelled to write posts such as this then you realise very quickly that Len Brown’s campaign is over. When Brian Edwards puts a spike in that hard you KNOW Len Brown’s campaign is over.
Popularity: 1% [?]
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Tagged as: Auckland • Brian Edwards • Human Interest • Ian Grant • John Banks • Mayor • Parents Inc.
There is nothing more annoying than when you travel on the motorway and discover some halfwit is going at 70, or on state highway one and there is moron travelling at 80, with a huge tail back being caused by one driver’s selfish decision to drive below the speed limit.
Slow drivers on open roads cause crashes. They force people that just want to travel at the speed limit to take tough decisions about passing, and some of these cause accidents.
So the Whaleoil transport policy is that there will be minimum speed limits on motorways and main roads. If you drive more than 10 km under limit when there is no good reason too (being old, dopey or useless is not a good reason) you should be fined for holding up traffic and creating anger among fellow tax payers who expect you to drive at the speed limit.
Given that the ratepayers of Albany Ward overwhelming favour using their cars for transport this is a sensible policy for them to support.
Responsibilities come with along with rights. If you want the right to drive on the main road, you have the responsibility to ensure you travel at a speed that allows traffic to flow.
Under Whaleoil’s transport policy people whinging about a minimum speed limit are classed as other people, and will be forced to become mandatory users of public transport.
And the impact of slow drivers on productivity is huge, so we need to stop slow drivers from wrecking the driving experience for the rest of us, as well as costing the economy.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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Tagged as: Albany • Auckland • Cameron Slater • Law enforcement • motorway • Road safety • Road transport • Traffic • Traffic law • Transport • Whaleoil
Len Brown used council emails to solicit support and funds and now Andrew Williams is using his council resources as a bully pulpit to assail political opponents.
He has just sent out an email and press release that breaks almost every rule as set out by the Auditor-General.He has tried to be clever by disguising his attack as a press release but make no mistake it is electioneering and worse it is electioneering using resources not available to his opponents.
Andrew Williams will be in no position to hold anyone to account after I dispatch him in Albany Ward come election day.
His angry, bully pulpit tactics have no place in the super city. Vote Slater to rid yourselves of the idiot Williams.
Popularity: 2% [?]
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Tagged as: Albany • Andrew Williams • Auckland • Bully pulpit • Cameron Slater • Politics
I’ve been reading the discussion document for the proposed changes to the child support regime. It took me forever to find the thing – god knows I spend far too much time on the IRD website as it is, so I honestly thought I knew my way around the site. Apparently not. Anyhow, I found it eventually, and so can you: http://www.supportingchildren.ird.govt.nz/
The first thing I noticed is how much more complicated the proposed new formula is for calculating child support liability. Currently, you take the paying parent’s income, deduct a living allowance, and then multiply it by a percentage (dependent on how many kids you’re paying for), and hey presto, there’s your child support bill. Under the new formula, you take both parents incomes, deduct a living allowance for each of them, and use a progressive system to calculate an amount which apparently represents the cost of looking after the children. Then, you multiply this figure by the paying parents income (after the living allowance), and divide by the sum of both parents net incomes, to find the total liability. Very complicated indeed. One wonders if the additional money allocated to the IRD to investigate tax fraud cases will end up being used to employ more staff in the Child Support Department instead…. but more likely, you’ll just have to wait on hold longer when you try to call them.
Now, before I go on any further, I want to clarify a couple of things. Firstly, I agree that the child support regime needs an overhaul. The current system doesn’t reflect the additional costs that a non-primary caregiver incurs in caring for their child – after all, it costs Daddy just as much to provide an extra bedroom for Little Johnny as it does for Mummy. It’s also not fair that some parents pay an absolute fortune in child support, and then the custodial parent does everything they can to prevent access. I absolutely believe that fathers should, in all but the most extreme cases, be allowed - nay, encouraged – to have a relationship with their children. It is, after all, in the best interests of the child to have a loving relationship with both parents.
But, I’m sorry, I’ve got a few problems with the proposed changes. Firstly – the new formula, being based on both parent’s incomes, doesn’t seem to allow for the scenario where a parent is paying child support to several ex-partners. I’ve searched the entire document to find a clause specifying how such a situation should be treated – to no avail. If another reader can point me to such a clause, I’d be most appreciative. But on the face of it, the proposed formula simply doesn’t allow for such a scenario – and it should. If some casanova sires children by multiple mothers, he should take responsibility for all those children.
Secondly, under the proposed formula, if the custodial parent’s income increases, the child support liability decreases. Thus, if the custodial parent works harder to get a payrise, their ex – not themselves, not the child, but their ex – benefits. This just doesn’t seem right. It would reduce the incentive for custodial parents to be productive – after all, why strive for a payrise if you won’t benefit from it?
Finally - under the proposed changes, child support will decrease for EVERY SINGLE parent with full custody. I haven’t done the calculations yet for shared-custody arrangements, so I can’t comment on those – I will endeavour to do these over the next few days. I’m sure a great many paying parents will be quite happy with this, but bear in mind that many custodial parents count on the child support payments in order to meet the costs of running a household and looking after their kids. Substantial decreases in child support payments will cause extreme stress to those who will now have to find other ways to meet their financial obligations. It’s not difficult to imagine how the kids could end up missing out.
Please refer to the following table, to see the effect of the proposed new formula on child support payments. Please note that all payments are based on a non-custodial parent who has no dependents living with them, and no shared care:
| |
25 k, 1 child |
25k, 2 children |
40k, 1 child |
40k, 2 children |
70k, 1 child |
70k, 2 children |
100k, 1 child |
100k, 2 children |
| Current formula |
1,951.56 |
2,602.08 |
4,651.56 |
6,202.08 |
1,0051.00 |
13,402.08 |
15,451.56 |
20,602.08 |
| New formula |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Custodial parent <16,054 |
1,520.82 |
2,147.04 |
4,070.82 |
5,747.04 |
8,400.00 |
12,474.80 |
11,766.30 |
18,240.54 |
| Custodial parent 40k |
1,472.95 |
2,122.96 |
3,832.83 |
5,627.77 |
7,729.75 |
11,878.22 |
10,747.88 |
16,826.08 |
| Custodial parent 70k |
1,347.56 |
2,091.77 |
3,431.15 |
5,272.60 |
6,906.88 |
10,812.90 |
8,942.38 |
13,927.08 |
| Custodial parent 100k |
1,219.31 |
1,911.74 |
3,065.88 |
4,799.72 |
5,746.62 |
8,949.92 |
7,344.50 |
11,438.50 |
Gotta say – the deadbeat dads are gonna love Peter Dunne for this one. And one can’t help but wonder why he’s so insistent on making life harder for single parents?
Popularity: 4% [?]
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Tagged as: Child custody • Child support • Family • Parenting • Peter Dunne • Social Issues
