How Brown now Gor­don? UK PM turns Fuji front­man – 01 Mar 2008 – NZ Her­ald: World / Inter­na­tional News

I don’t write the Her­ald head­lines con­trary to claims at The Stranded. I checked this story and it turns out it is about Fiji NOT Fuji.

Any­way, British Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown’s image is being used to pro­mote hol­i­days under the mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship in Fiji – as UK trav­ellers to the coun­try are being told to be pre­pared for riots, and not to talk pol­i­tics. Of course the advice being given to tourist is com­plete bol­locks. Riots my arse. Fijian’s just don’t riot.

They also have the gump­tion to inter­view Laise­nia Qarase, for­mer Fijian prime min­is­ter, who described Down­ing Street’s back­ing for the tourism cam­paign as “odd…the coun­try is quite unsta­ble and we have a regime that is dic­ta­to­r­ial and unde­mo­c­ra­tic”. Yeah right, it was dic­ta­to­r­ial and unde­mo­c­ra­tic AND cor­rupt under his government.

Any­way here is the offend­ing image.

For those look­ing for great hol­i­day they can go to Fiji’s vis­i­tors bureau to check out some good deals.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

‘Dead’ man wakes under autopsy knife – 01 Mar 2008 – NZ Her­ald: World / Inter­na­tional News

CARACAS – A Venezue­lan man who had been declared dead woke up in the morgue in excru­ci­at­ing pain after med­ical exam­in­ers began their autopsy.

Car­los Camejo, 33, was declared dead after a high­way acci­dent and taken to the morgue, where exam­in­ers began an autopsy only to realise some­thing was amiss when he started bleed­ing. They quickly sought to stitch up the inci­sion on his face.

“I woke up because the pain was unbear­able,” Camejo said, accord­ing to a report on in lead­ing local news­pa­per El Universal.

Awwwwww, I bet it was excruciating.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

Hous­ing own­er­ship low­est for 50 years – New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

Wel­come to 9 years of hard Labour and their won­der­ful hous­ing policies.

Home own­er­ship is down to its low­est level in 50 years, accord­ing to a new report.

Twenty years ago, almost 74 per cent of Kiwi house­holds owned their home, but that fell to just 67 per cent by 2006, accord­ing to the Cen­tre for Hous­ing Research, a research agency set up by the Hous­ing Corporation.

Home own­er­ship is at a level last seen in the 1950s, accord­ing to the lat­est cen­sus fig­ures analysed in the hous­ing report.

A dou­bling in median house prices since 2002 and the worst inter­est rates in a decade are push­ing the dream of buy­ing a home fur­ther out of reach – espe­cially for the poor, young and sin­gle and most of all, sin­gle parents.

Fewer peo­ple under 40 are buy­ing their own homes. They are also tak­ing longer to do so – and it is cost­ing them rel­a­tively more, accord­ing to Pro­fes­sor Philip Mor­ri­son, author of the report.

Is this some sort of Tory plot to embar­rass Labour? Well no it it isn’t, the report has been issued by Cen­tre for Hous­ing Research, a research agency set up by the Hous­ing Corporation.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Helen’s zeit­geist goes miss­ing – Columns and com­men­tary – The Domin­ion Post

Chris Trot­ter just 4 short months ago was lustily singing on the stage the hor­rid new Labour cam­paign song. Now he is openly foment­ing a coup against Helen Clark.

Prime Min­is­ter Helen Clark’s fast-dwindling coterie of media allies tell us it would be mad­ness. The throng of polit­i­cal jour­nal­ists hang­ing around John Key agree. But what, exactly, is mad about the idea of replac­ing Helen Clark with Phil Goff?

Accord­ing to the lat­est Fairfax-Nielsen poll, Labour is now more pop­u­lar than its leader. That sug­gests the Government’s cat­a­strophic num­bers are being dri­ven by Miss Clark’s unpop­u­lar­ity not the party’s.

This marks an impor­tant shift in the electorate’s response. For most of the past eight years the prime min­is­ter has con­sis­tently out­per­formed her party in pop­u­lar­ity. She was Labour’s great­est asset, the wind beneath its wings. She has now become the lump of lead on its back.

Trot­ter opines the rea­son behind her loss of zeit­geist.

At the level of day-to-day exis­tence, how­ever, the irri­tants are any­thing but vague.

We recoil in hor­ror from ris­ing food prices and falling prop­erty mar­kets. The banks swal­low more and more of our income, and the IRD seems to claim most of what’s left. Our friends migrate (usu­ally across the Tas­man) from where they regale us with sto­ries of huge salaries and unlim­ited career prospects.

Peo­ple don’t need to be told that, when a 1kg block of cheese cost $17, and a litre of petrol a buck-seventy, some­thing has gone very seri­ously wrong.

But what? And why? Those are the ques­tions New Zealan­ders would like their prime min­is­ter to answer.

For months they’ve been wait­ing for her to acknowl­edge their unease, and, if pos­si­ble, offer an accu­rate diag­no­sis of it.

They have waited in vain.

Miss Clark is no Bill Clin­ton: she can­not look her sup­port­ers in the eye and say, “I feel your pain”.

At heart, the prime min­is­ter is a dili­gent and rather unin­spir­ing pol­icy wonk, who has never really under­stood that pol­i­tics is not about the head, but the heart.

The vot­ers are sim­ply not in the mar­ket for “tonnes of pol­icy”. What they’re in the mar­ket for are tones of empathy.

In that respect, at least, Peter Dunne is right about New Zealand’s race for the Bee­hive being sim­i­lar to the Demo­c­ra­tic Party’s race in the United States for the White House.

In their affin­ity for polit­i­cal man­age­ri­al­ism, Helen and Hillary are alike. But, do Mr Key’s speeches echo our own electorate’s hunger for “Hope” and “Change” in the way Barack Obama’s echo America’s?

Yes, in a strange way they do. Mr Key may not be as effec­tive a speaker as Mr Obama, but his per­sonal polit­i­cal nar­ra­tive (poor boy raised by a solo mum, who tran­scends his hum­ble ori­gins to achieve remark­able suc­cess) is strik­ingly sim­i­lar – and so is the way vot­ers have loaded their deep long­ing for fresh expla­na­tions and new begin­nings on to the young challenger’s shoulders.

Labour’s cau­cus needs to get its head around this – and soon. Because the longer it delays replac­ing Miss Clark as leader, the more time it is allow­ing for the vot­ers to con­vince them­selves (if they have not already done so) that Mr Key is the prime min­is­ter they are look­ing for.

Trot­ter is now openly deri­sive of Clark, the momen­tum has moved and Clark must now watch for the knife-men as well as try to turn an uncon­vinced elec­torate. The next polls, if they don’t show a bounce, will be her death knell as well as for the party. Any party that builds its suc­cess off of the back of a cult of per­son­al­ity will plum­met sureer than a helicopter’s glidepath.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

YouTube – Win­ston Peters lying to New Zealand

[video:http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=g7QbDCyeJkc]

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Ok, here is the rea­son for light blog­ging yesterday.

First up we all know the ex-missus took the car and house keys to Welling­ton with her. Then the taxi to take the kids to school took an hour to get here, then the ute wouldn’t go in reverse. Finally a mate needed some­one to urgently take a Toy­ota Land­cruiser to Whitianga….why? No idea but when a mate is in need you help out.

Soooo….Grandma Wha­le­oil picked the kids up and took them to the Remuera HQ’s of Whaleoil-land. I went and picked up the Land­cruiser and drove to Whitianga…the GPS and Google Maps both said 2 hours 30, I proved it could be done in 1 hour 55.

At 19:15 my mate arrived from Wai­heke Island via heli­copter, I gave him the keys to the Land­crusier, he gave me the keys for the car he left at Ard­more, I put on the life-jacket (always a lit­tle dis­con­cert­ing) and jumped in the chop­per and headed back to Ard­more. A pleas­ant and fas­ci­nat­ing 30 min­utes later I was on the ground and head­ing to pick the kids up. I was home by 21:00.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Edi­to­r­ial: An idea whose time has come – Edi­to­ri­als – The Domin­ion Post

Watch out Mas­ter Faaaraaaaar, the Appren­tice is grow­ing strong.

The Dom­Post must have had to swal­low a lit­tle pride and when Tane and his fel­low labour spon­sored blog­gers get up this morn­ing and read the paper they will spit their Hub­bards across the table.

Here is their editorial…oh and of curse it was a “inven­tive blog­ger” and mem­ber of the VRWC that came up with the “Idea whose time has come”.

Alas, the online auc­tion for an hon­orary con­sul­ship has been revealed to be the work of an inven­tive blog­ger rather than a For­eign Affairs and Trade Min­istry ini­tia­tive, The Domin­ion Post says.

The bid­ders who offered half a mil­lion dol­lars, Holden utes and assig­na­tions with super­mod­els in exchange for the posi­tion will instead have to earn the good opin­ion of For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Peters if they wish to add the title hon­orary con­sul to their let­ter­heads. The auc­tion was pulled by Trade Me after receiv­ing “a num­ber of com­plaints” and because the seller was unable to deliver the item listed.

But this is an idea whose time has come. And it is one that should be applied to a wider range of posi­tions than just hon­orary con­sul­ships. Instead of assign­ing plum diplo­matic posts to politi­cians who fancy a spot of OE before head­ing off to tend the flower beds and write indig­nant let­ters to the local news­pa­per, they should be auc­tioned off to the high­est bid­der. Sur­plus cab­i­net posi­tions should also be put under the ham­mer. Every­body knows there is barely enough work for 15 min­is­ters. The remain­ing ones should be flogged off, and so should national honours.

Who knows how much Jonathan Hunt or Rus­sell Mar­shall or their National pre­de­ces­sors Paul East or John Collinge might have been pre­pared to bid for the entree to Lon­don soci­ety that is pro­vided by being appointed high com­mis­sioner to the United King­dom and ambas­sador to Ire­land. Who knows what value Mr Hunt attached to being appointed to the Order of New Zealand along­side the likes of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and the late Sir Edmund Hillary. An auc­tion might have recouped the cost of the taxi fares Mr Hunt ran up dur­ing his 39 years in Par­lia­ment, though the bid­ding would have to have been fierce, given that he spent $29,000 in one year alone.

Of course, there are those who say an infor­mal auc­tion has long existed for hon­ours and that over­seas appoint­ments have more to do with ser­vices to polit­i­cal par­ties and the need to lever time-servers out of Parliament’s leather seats than the country’s diplo­matic needs.

But a for­mal auc­tion would be man­i­festly supe­rior. Not only would it widen the pool of bid­ders and direct funds to the con­sol­i­dated account rather than party cof­fers, it would also avoid the sort of con­fu­sion that now hov­ers over the most recent Offi­cer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, expa­tri­ate bil­lion­aire Owen Glenn. Did he get the hon­our because he gave $7.5 mil­lion to Auck­land University’s new busi­ness school or because he gave the Labour Party $500,000 and loaned it a fur­ther $100,000?

An auc­tion would also avoid the spec­u­la­tion that now sur­rounds Mr Glenn’s inter­est in being appointed hon­orary con­sul to Monaco. Was he respon­si­ble for the large anony­mous dona­tion NZ First pres­i­dent Dail Jones says appeared in the party’s bank account late last year but that Mr Peters says was never made? He’s not say­ing. In an open, trans­par­ent sys­tem there would be no need for con­fu­sion or obfus­ca­tion. Bid­ders could make known their iden­ti­ties and would receive the heart­felt thanks of the pop­u­lace, spared the cost of foot­ing at least part of the Government’s bill.

Let the bid­ding commence.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Fran O’Sullivan: Key run­ning into ver­bal dan­ger – 01 Mar 2008 – Pol­i­tics: New Zealand Polit­i­cal News, Analy­sis and Com­ment includ­ing 2008 elec­tion cov­er­age – NZ Herald

Fran O’Sullivan dis­cusses Key and warn­ing him not to sleep­walk to vic­tory. I don’t think he will, but Fran does give the warning.

National Party leader John Key gives all the appear­ances of being in cruise con­trol, coast­ing down towards the elec­tion on the back of a huge poll lead.

He is not known as the smil­ing assas­sin for noth­ing. But he earned his stripes in the cut-throat world of inter­na­tional forex deal­ing, not politics.

Labour might still be able to trip him up if it is of a mind to ditch Helen Clark and con­vinc­ingly sell its poli­cies while Key stays immersed in “me-too-ism” mode; per­suade vot­ers that Key’s “George Bush-style” ver­bal mishaps are not gaffes at all but evi­dence of a hid­den “New Right” pol­icy agenda.

Or trick Key into mis­han­dling the planned “neu­tron bomb” Labour is telling “the belt­way” it will dis­close – just which senior National MP allegedly con­spired to bring Don Brash’s lead­er­ship down by leak­ing his pri­vate emails to Nicky Hager at the 2005 election.

Per­son­ally, I don’t think Key is that dumb to allow Labour to play silly cards like those. The “neu­tron bomb” will be a damp squib against National and will only be a neu­tron bomb for Labour’s poll rat­ings. Labour unbe­liev­ably, along with their client-blogs still think that per­sonal attacks and smears will wash it with the pub­lic at large. i would have thought they would have learned by now. Alas they haven’t.

Right now Key’s great­est ally is Helen Clark. It is the Prime Minister’s suc­ces­sive polit­i­cal mis­judg­ments which have cost Clark her posi­tion as New Zealand’s “most pre­ferred prime min­is­ter” and sent Labour’s own rat­ings into a death spiral.

It was Clark’s inner cir­cle, par­tic­u­larly her chief of staff Heather Simp­son, who com­bined with the party cen­tral to plun­der some $800,000 of tax­pay­ers’ funds to help Labour win in 2005. Labour was ulti­mately forced to pay the funds back after a damn­ing auditor-general’s report. The party has been on the back foot ever since.

But Clark didn’t learn. Her kitchen cab­i­net then put up the hap­less for­mer min­is­ter Mark Bur­ton to intro­duce the obnox­ious Elec­toral Finance Act which the Her­ald rightly labels “an assault on democ­racy”. It was another polit­i­cally inept step which will con­tinue to dog Labour right through this elec­tion year.

Last week’s sur­real run of events illus­trated just how far she has become detached from the bedrock com­mon sense which char­ac­terised her ear­lier years as prime min­is­ter. The events included Clark pub­licly shun­ning Labour’s major finan­cial donor Owen Glenn at the open­ing of the Uni­ver­sity of Auckland’s new busi­ness school and sub­se­quent labelling the Her­ald as a “Tory paper which had shown no char­ity to Labour dur­ing its 91 years of existence”.

It has become a tru­ism in the Welling­ton belt­way that Labour will never roll the woman who has suc­cess­fully won them three elec­tions. But the Cab­i­net Min­is­ters who were ruth­lessly dis­patched by Clark for minor mis­deeds and the back­benchers who face the prospect of los­ing their jobs fol­low­ing an elec­tion defeat will make their own calculations.

In 1996, Michael Cullen – now deputy to Clark – led a dep­u­ta­tion ask­ing her to stand down to ensure an orderly lead­er­ship tran­si­tion. Clark refused and went on to tri­umph in 1999. But that was then and this is now.

If Clark’s mis­cal­cu­la­tions con­tinue the odds that she will face a sec­ond dep­u­ta­tion will increase.

And now for the warn­ings about the inher­ent nas­ti­ness of Labour.

But if Cullen, with his supe­rior man­age­ment skills, took on a care­taker role the elec­toral focus would sharpen.

He is the politi­cian Clark sends in to han­dle the tough jobs when infe­rior min­is­ters fail. He has defused the fore­shore and seabed issue and is now back­stop­ping David Parker whose pig-headedness on cli­mate change issues is paving the way for a major dust-up with New Zealand business.

Impor­tantly, Cullen has Key’s mea­sure. This was evi­dent in Par­lia­ment where Key sat like a stunned mul­let when Cullen took him to task over a news­pa­per report that quoted the National leader say­ing “we would love to see wages drop” dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion he held in North­land about the gap­ing wage dif­fer­ences between New Zealand and Australia.

Key’s com­ment does not make log­i­cal sense. But his propen­sity to man­gle his syn­tax or wrong word him­self gets him into trou­ble. This was evi­denced at last year’s National Party con­fer­ence with his embar­rass­ing ref­er­ence to a “Labour Gov­ern­ment that I lead”.

If Labour had not been immersed in the Owen Glenn affair, cour­tesy of a mis­judg­ment by party pres­i­dent Mike Williams, Cullen would have got much greater pur­chase with his claim that Key has a hid­den agenda.

Cullen will con­tinue to ruth­lessly mine Key’s lapses of brain-mouth co-ordination. These won’t mat­ter too much if and when Key gets to be prime min­is­ter. Polit­i­cal jour­nal­ists will just laugh with and at him, as they did with for­mer National Prime Min­is­ter Jim Bol­ger when he came back from each for­eign tour with a new accent. But in the cru­cible of an elec­tion year the stakes are much higher.

It will not have escaped Key’s notice that Cullen will also try to snooker National by unveil­ing costly but pop­u­lar poli­cies in his forth­com­ing budget.

Key needs a game­plan to deal with Labour’s dirt agenda and much more dis­ci­pline on the ver­bal front. If he can get on top of his weak­nesses the elec­tion is his. If not, Labour may yet have a chance.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Leader in wait­ing – 01 Mar 2008 – Pol­i­tics: New Zealand Polit­i­cal News, Analy­sis and Com­ment includ­ing 2008 elec­tion cov­er­age – NZ Herald

There is now open spec­u­la­tion of Clark’s demise and the take over of Phil Goff.

It was the first time in 12 years that the issue of the Labour Party lead­er­ship has been openly and legit­i­mately dis­cussed as a pos­si­ble neg­a­tive rather than an asset – the last time was when Clark saw off a coup attempt in 1996. Goff was the nat­ural sub­ject: he never says “no com­ment,” and he is the most likely to become the next Labour leader if Labour loses the next election.

For his part he played it per­fectly, con­firm­ing with con­vic­tion that Clark’s lead­er­ship was per­fectly safe, and say­ing the party had not wasted a sec­ond on “inter­fac­tional strife” – not that there were fac­tions any longer.

That is not doubted. But Goff is odds-on favourite to lead the party in Oppo­si­tion if Clark loses the election.

Qui­etly there is spec­u­la­tion that blood is already on the floor, specif­i­cally the Ninth Floor. But is Goff really the player? Audrey speculates;

THE NEXT LABOUR LEADER

PHIL GOFF
Best bet since Maharey announced he was quit­ting and Mal­lard wres­tled Henare in the cor­ri­dors of Parliament.

ANNETTE KING
More respected in the cau­cus and as able as Goff, but col­leagues know bet­ter than to ask. She would refuse. She has found love and will do noth­ing to com­pro­mise it.

AND THE NEXT GENERATION…

SHANE JONES
The per­fect can­di­date on paper, expert in Maori­tanga and Harvard-educated, but the first-termer is not expe­ri­enced enough and not steeped in party culture.

DAVID CUNLIFFE
Has won over the pub­lic for his strong lead­er­ship in health but has still not won over his cau­cus, who have as lit­tle regard for him as they do for his ego. Could be deputy material.

CLAYTON COSGROVE
The Mike Moore acolyte has won respect from the Left of the party for his abil­ity to put dif­fer­ences aside – but not that much respect.

DARREN HUGHES
Clever, witty and able but needs another six years under his belt to shake off the kid-brother image and show his seri­ous side.

MARYAN STREET
A clas­sic mod­ern Labour MP – policy-driven fem­i­nist with a strong human rights bent – not as scary as she sounds. Could be an a con­tender for deputy to Goff.

DAVID PARKER
Bright, method­i­cal, a details man but has too much of an aca­d­e­mic approach to the job.

ANDREW LITTLE
Ruled him­self out of Par­lia­ment next term but could do a Bob Hawke after 2011 if other lead­er­ship com­bi­na­tions have failed.

It will be fun watch­ing the destruc­tion. Per­son­ally I think that with the build­ing of a Cult of Per­son­al­ity around the pho­to­shopped image of Helen Clark may have con­signed Labour to self-destruction.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

John Arm­strong: Cabinet’s Action Man cops sack­ing back­lash – 01 Mar 2008 – Pol­i­tics: New Zealand Polit­i­cal News, Analy­sis and Com­ment includ­ing 2008 elec­tion cov­er­age – NZ Herald

Cun­liffe is “in charge now” and that is the core of the prob­lems now beset­ting Labour in Health. Has he over-stepped in Hawkes Bay?

In talk­ing tough, he has made the DHBs whipping-boys to some degree. They are going to take the rap when things go wrong, rather than the min­is­ter. The sack­ing of the Hawkes Bay board and Anderson’s appoint­ment thus serve also as a mes­sage to other DHBs about the lim­its of Cunliffe’s patience.

This is fine for Labour polit­i­cally when the DHB con­cerned can­not fight back – the case with Cap­i­tal Coast Health, where the community’s fears about the DHB’s capac­ity to pro­vide essen­tial treat­ments far out­weighed any sym­pa­thy for largely face­less board members.

It would seem to be the reverse in Hawkes Bay. The oust­ing of locally-elected board mem­bers by min­is­te­r­ial fiat has pro­vided a light­ning rod for dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Labour.

The strong com­mu­nity back­ing for the board and the accom­pa­ny­ing back­lash against the Gov­ern­ment have oblit­er­ated any faint hope that Labour might have had of recap­tur­ing the Napier and Tuk­i­tuki seats.

The main worry now for the party is what Cunliffe’s wield­ing of the axe in Hawkes Bay will do to Labour’s party vote not just in that province, but in provin­cial New Zealand as a whole.

Unfor­tu­nately fro Cun­liffe and Labour the locals are pissed and more will come of this.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Fran O’Sullivan: Tak­ing up the Peters media chal­lenge – 01 Mar 2008 – Pol­i­tics: New Zealand Polit­i­cal News, Analy­sis and Com­ment includ­ing 2008 elec­tion cov­er­age – NZ Herald

Fran O’Sullivan fact checks Winston.

Peters: “We have not made a deci­sion with respect to even hav­ing a con­sul in Monaco … It’s an ongo­ing mat­ter for con­sid­er­a­tion and has been for 12 long years.” (Par­lia­ment press con­fer­ence on Thursday).

Fact: In June 2004, for­mer for­eign min­is­ter Phil Goff cat­e­gor­i­cally ruled against appoint­ing a con­sul to Monaco say­ing there was “no proven need” for one.

Peters: “Since the for­ma­tion of New Zealand First, we have assid­u­ously at all times com­plied with the elec­toral law of this coun­try.” (Par­lia­ment press con­fer­ence on Thursday).

Fact: Auditor-General Kevin Brady believed NZ First was respon­si­ble for $158,000 of a total $1.17 mil­lion in unlaw­ful spend­ing of par­lia­men­tary funds by polit­i­cal par­ties at the 2005 election.

Peters con­tests this say­ing its expen­di­ture was pre-approved by Par­lia­men­tary Ser­vices and the Chief Elec­toral Office.

Peters: NZ First has “had no big busi­ness back­ing since its incep­tion”. (Close Up on Thursday).

Fact: NZ First’s elec­toral dona­tions returns indeed show the party has not come within cooee of attract­ing the big busi­ness back­ing which has swelled the cam­paign cof­fers of the main parties.

But Con­tact Energy – surely a big busi­ness – did give $10,000 to the party in 2003 and again in 2005.

Peters: “This is a party (NZ First) that has spent hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars on a great case to do with tax eva­sion in this coun­try and we don’t recall any jour­nal­ist or any media group join­ing us in these bat­tles.” (Par­lia­ment press con­fer­ence on Thursday).

Fact: New Zealand news media com­pa­nies – par­tic­u­larly the National Busi­ness Review, Inde­pen­dent and Tele­vi­sion New Zealand – between them spent hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars fight­ing injunc­tions dur­ing the 1990s to get the big wine box tax avoid­ance issue in front of the public.

It is true that NZ First paid for a sub­se­quent chal­lenge to the wine box inquiry commissioner’s find­ings right through to the Privy Council.

Sug­gest­ing the media are a spine­less lot hardly fits h the facts – but it does suit Winston’s story.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

NZ stu­dent loans reach all-time high – 29 Feb 2008 – NZ Her­ald: New Zealand National news

…and didn’t the left­ist all howl us down. Looks like that Debt mon­ster is going to be mak­ing a return this election.

The num­ber of stu­dents with loans reached an all time high in 2006, Sta­tis­tics New Zealand data released yes­ter­day shows.

The Sta­tis­tics New Zealand fig­ures – Stu­dent Loans and Allowances 2006 – showed the num­ber of stu­dents bor­row­ing under the Stu­dent Loan Scheme had increased by eight per cent from 2005 to 2006.

The num­ber of stu­dents who received an allowance in 2006 increased for the first time since 2002, but the num­ber of stu­dents who only received an allowance – not a loan as well – declined.

Oh well another bribe off of the back of the poor sup­pli­cant taxpayer.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Peti­tion for smack­ing ref­er­en­dum reaches Par­lia­ment – New Zealand, world, sport, busi­ness & enter­tain­ment news on Stuff.co.nz

The anti-anti-smacking peti­tion was deliv­ered to par­lia­ment today com­plete with 322,000 sig­na­tures. If a ref­er­en­dum has to be held, I bet Clark will try to put it off until after the election.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]

Porn comes out of the shad­ows – New Zealand, world, sport, busi­ness & enter­tain­ment news on Stuff.co.nz

Stuff are run­ning an online sur­vey to go with an arti­cle on pornog­ra­phy and a new book.

The tra­di­tional stereo­type of a porn user is a dys­func­tional mid­dle aged man in a grubby rain­coat, but that is being chal­lenged by an unlikely new­comer to the scene, accord­ing to a new book on pornog­ra­phy in Australia.

That new­comer, says author Catharine Lumby, is likely to be a woman aged under 35 who lives in the sub­urbs, votes for a pro­gres­sive party like the Greens, is in a monog­a­mous rela­tion­ship with a man and earns slightly more than average.

The book puts to bed a num­ber of myths about who’s doing pornog­ra­phy in Aus­tralia and what they are watch­ing, look­ing at, read­ing and click­ing on.

These include the belief that “no sane woman” would look at pornog­ra­phy unless she was forced to by a male part­ner, Lumby says.

“One of the myths (about pornog­ra­phy) sug­gests that women aren’t con­sumers but we have very clear evi­dence that there’s a grow­ing pro­por­tion of porn con­sumers who are women,’ she says.

“The sta­tis­tics are so high now that that (that myth) doesn’t seem correct.”

The ques­tion: Do you approve of pornog­ra­phy involv­ing con­sent­ing adults?

Choices to answer are: Yes, Yes – but noth­ing too hard­core and No.

The result so far are rather illu­mi­nat­ing. Basi­cally just under half of respon­dents are a bunch of prudes, nearly forty per­cent of us are no holds barred and almost 12% are a lit­tle squea­mish but will give it a go.

Add the to yes ques­tions together and that means that 51.1% of us approve of porn. Way to go NZ.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]

Pumpkin’s father caught in US – New Zealand, world, sport, busi­ness & enter­tain­ment news on Stuff.co.nz

Mur­der sus­pect Nai Yin Xue was found by police with his pants around his ankles and his hands tied with his own belt after being cap­tured by a group of angry Chi­nese Amer­i­cans. Not only that six of them were sit­ting on him while wait­ing for the cops.

“They had basi­cally taken his pants and tied his legs up and taken his belt off and tied his hands up, so he was very much in cus­tody by the time our offi­cers got to the scene,” he said.

“They had seen his and his daughter’s pic­ture in a Chi­nese news­pa­per and recog­nised him and took mat­ters into their own hands.”

“It’s not often you have some­body turned over to you tied up with their pants and belt.”

Xue was pur­ported to be a mar­tial arts expert but Cham­blee assis­tant police chief Mark Ben­der said he “didn’t give the police any resistance”.

I hope he tries to escape while in tran­sit over the Pacific.

Pop­u­lar­ity: 1% [?]