This cartoon from 1957 sums up the nature of a lot of NZ local councils.

Councilors usually have to decide which will make their lives easier — keep the people, the Ratepayers, happy or submit to the wants of the bureaucrats: the two are often not compatible.  In the KCDC the present mayor and all present councilors except David Scott decided to opt for the latter (and we know what happened to him as a result).

Back in 2015, we recommended watching the British comedy series Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister as they showed how the the civil service influences, manipulates and cajoles elected government members.

A letter sent by Kathy White, a Waikato Regional Councilor to the Mayor of Buller-

Dear Garry

Many thanks for your letter to Carl Johnson and others about the concerns of people whose water supplies are affected by a pending 1080 drop.

I’m the Waikato Regional Councillor for Taupo-Rotorua. I currently have complaints in with Carl about five incidents in the King Country alone, where livestock has been killed in 1080 drops and the agencies have either not reported the deaths or they have falsely reported the deaths and/or circumstances. One of these cases unfortunately involves my own council.

I was involved in the writing of the Waikato region aerial 1080 report, and was part of the WRC 1080 working party. My council in the last triennium unanimously voted to include within the scope of our regional plan change, ways to better protect water during aerial 1080 operations. This came about after discovering hundreds of people whose water supplies were poisoned who had not been notified or given an alternative supply of water during the DOC Southern Coromandel poison drop in 2015. DOC’s answer to this was that they were not required by the MoH to walk the streams to identify water takes.

The government soon after brought in the RMA Exemption Regulations for 1080, and resource consenting by regional councils has been abandoned. Without funding, councils do nothing about 1080 complaints.

You are right to battle on behalf of your ratepayers and to demand proof of the need for these operations. I have just done the same for the Pihanga-Kakaramea drop.

Up in Kaeo, when they asked for proof of approvals, they discovered 75% of them were not accurate or were obtained from the wrong people. They managed to stop the drop and go back to consultation. Food for thought.

Kind regards

Kathy White

… the manner of deciding the winner when the game is tied even after a super over must be addressed, either by the number of wickets lost in the 50 overs; the winner between the two in the round robin; or the place in the table after the round robin stage. —Cricket expert, Neil Smith

By Roger Childs

Even the most die-hard English fans would concede that their team was fortunate to win the World Cup Cricket trophy on their own. It was tied after 50 overs and tied after the “super overs”. Now the experts declare that the umpire erred in giving the English a total of six runs, after a very lucky deflection off Ben Stokes’s bat. He and Butler hadn’t crossed at the time of the deflection, so they should have gained just the five runs. There does need to be a rule change on chance deflections.

Reality and concerns

Nevertheless, the die is cast – England has the trophy and we were runners up. Before the “super over” stage started, it was made clear that if this resulted in a tie, the decision would be made on the basis of the team scoring the highest number of boundaries. That was England, so they have the trophy tucked away in the Lords cabinet.

However, questions remain on various issues. 

Boult’s first ball hit English opener, Jason Roy on the pads and the New Zealand team went up in a leg before wicket (lbw) appeal. The English umpire said “not out” so the Black Caps asked for a review. It showed that the ball would have hit the off stump high up. It was called “umpire’s decision” but, like hawkeye in the tennis where a millimetre on the line is “in”, even a ball hitting high on the off stump in a decision review should be out. The umpire in this instance however, was unmoved and stuck with his original decision.

As regards the Stokes ricochet, it seems incredibly unfair that a deflection off a batsmen running between wickets can count against the fielding side.

Rule changes needed?

The rules regarding overthrows should be amended to something along the lines of “if the ball hits any part of the batsman or his bat as part of an attempted run out, it immediately becomes dead ball, with no overthrows.” That would be fair and anyone who saw that final would surely agree.

As regards reviews, if an lbw review shows the ball “coming on” to hit the stumps, it should be out. Hawkeye is not questioned in tennis rulings and neither should the review process be queried in cricket.  If that was accepted, it would take the issue of possible umpire bias out of the equation.

Furthermore, as Neil states above, the way of deciding the final outcome in the event of ties needs to be looked at.  Doing it on the basis of boundaries implies that fours and sixes are more important than single, twos and threes. This does not seem fair and looking at the number of wickets conceded would be a much more acceptable process.

Regardless of the outcome on Sunday, the Black Caps can hold their heads up high. The New Zealand team was not expected to make the final and only limped into the semis. Before the tournament started, many pundits picked an Australia – India final. However, they were not at Lords last weekend battling for the World Cup, but we were. The Black Caps did the nation proud.

Last Friday, in response to our post the previous day reproducing the Official Information request replies, the following e-mail was sent to elected council members and staff:

Good afternoon all

You may have seen or heard about the article posted on the Waikanae Watch blog yesterday referring to an Official Information Request response that my team have compiled for [us] recently regarding funding for Housing for Older People.  https://waikanaewatch.org/

While the information provided in the letter, which has been published on the blog site, is technically correct in terms of the first two questions asked, (total income versus maintenance costs) it does not paint a fuller and more accurate picture of the funding model used for this portfolio of work.

[Our] blog asserts that the housing portfolio brings in more than it costs.  This is not correct.  When all of the indirect costs such as depreciation, rates, insurance, staffing costs and other internal allocations are attributed, the portfolio recovers only approximately 80% of total cost for service.  This percentage of course varies year on year depending on the maintenance and refurbishment work we undertake in any given year, however is in line with our current Revenue and Finance Policy.

While our response to the LGOIMA was technically correct, in hindsight I could have avoided the slant this blog has taken by providing a fuller response than just to those questions asked.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions arising.

Kind regards

James Jefferson
Group Manager Place & Space
Te Kaihautū Takiwā, Waahi hoki

Clearly, the KCDC is anxious to dispel the idea that the units make a profit; but what does it mean by “indirect costs such as depreciation, rates, insurance, staffing costs and other internal allocations”?

What does maintenance and and refurbishment do, if not deal with depreciation? The two aren’t the same; maintenance means tradespeople fixing things like plumbing, wiring, guttering, cracked paths and the like; refurbishment is at the least replacing old fixtures and fittings with new ones, maybe redecorating.  It probably won’t be comprehensive, though: unlike a retirement village, the council won’t be seeking increased unit valuations so it can charge the next tenant more.

Perhaps the council views deterioration and depreciation as two different things?  Does it apply a fixed depreciation rate to all the units regardless?  In standard accounting thought, with buildings this is 1% of the original cost a year, but that is an arbitrary thing and not necessarily real.

Rates?  The council would be paying rates to itself — unless it has to remit the portion that goes to the Wellington Regional Council, regardless.

Insurance, yes, but what does the council insure — a basic fire and extraneous perils policy, the cheap form of insurance; or comprehensive full replacement?

Staffing costs — does this mean having someone go around making periodic inspections,  plus the cost of billing and receiving payments, receiving maintenance requests and arranging for a tradie?

In any event, the council’s accounting team seem to have decided upon revenue being only 80% of costs.  That is reflected in the OIA response that Cr Jackie Elliott got in May on the subject:

Jackie Elliott doesn’t think much of the standard of the units: “The market rents would be minimal for a one or two bedroom sized semi-detached unit, usually without a carport or garage. They are pretty pitiful inside and out, all need a major upgrade including double glazing and new floor coverings.  And all over 30 years old.”

Your editors can’t verify the comment about them being “pitiful inside and outside” from first hand experience, but it’s apparent that they can at least be described as basic and dreary.

What the council is careful to omit is any consideration of appreciation of the land values, which would be quite significant and almost certainly well in excess of the alleged bottom line ‘deficit’ figures in response to question 2 shown in the Official Information response above.

Why is the council worried?  Probably because it wants to sell them off, which we suspected was the case in a post in April last year.

A mixed fence (slats and trellis) with two-tone colours, topped with flowery plants and more beside the footpath (sidewalk).

In its on-going propaganda war with the anti-1080 movement, the Department of Conservation makes all kinds of extravagant claims about its members; among other things, that they represent the gun lobby, are anti-establishment, and engage in threatening behaviour — none of which are true, but unfortunately they get repeated as if they were by the automatically pro-government Mainstream Media.

This is an article by Alan Simmons, co-leader of the Outdoors Party which wants 1080 banned:

The Department of Conservation continue to repeat the same old story about attacks on staff and how it is affecting their role in protecting our precious wildlife. NZ herald  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12249704

This article repeats the same old same old story as if their spin doctors have told them that if you repeat the story enough, people will start to believe it. But the opposite is happening and dislike for the Department continues to grow at an alarming rate.

You would think that wise heads in the Department could be thinking what’s going on?  What are we doing that has us becoming the most hated government department when we should be the most loved.

The Department of Conservation’s obsession with the aerial spreading 1080 has built a huge dislike of the department as predicted by advisors to the Minister Nick Smith when he rammed through legislation allowing the aerial dropping of 1080 without resource consents.  Nick Smith’s advice to cabinet included a statement that “Loss of local decision-making is not an effect of the proposed regulation that could be avoided, but rather its primary purpose.”

In my opinion if you take away the public’s right to be consulted, then you will get opposition and resentment as the public have no ability to express their feelings except but by protest.

Using Doc’s own statistics it has 35 incidents per year where staff are abused or threatened, out of a staff of 4000.  According to press reports, these are having an accumulative effect on staff and diverting them from their work. I would suspect the threats are mostly via social media and some to rangers in the field undertaking enforcement work, so how does this affect the other 3980 staff? Especially when OIA requests to police show few if any of these so-called threats are reported.

Read the rest

by Gill Ward and Elizabeth Coleman

“A part-time crane operator”

Greetings Literary Aficionados

I know most of you are into other genres as well as poetry which is the way to go!  Our next guest at Poets to the People is Trish Harris.

Trish is an advocate for all those who live with the experience of disability. She herself uses a wheelchair and calls herself a part-time crane operator. This covers her activity of loading her wheel chair in and out of her van. Oh my goodness – what a skill especially as Trish says ‘living in an unconventional body’.

She has written two books – a memoir with essays, and a poetry collection. I loved her poetry book it’s a sort of diary of a long hospital stay. It is something like a Reality Television show!  It is humorous and affectionate but with empathy and sadness as well. I am looking forward to Trish reading her own poems to us.

Eight women writers

She has also written, with Robyn Hunt, a small booklet, Here we are read us which introduces eight women writers from throughout New Zealand. Trish edited, produced and had the concept for this saying ‘they have something important that connects them – the lived experience of disability.’ You will soon find out that this experience does not define these writers. I am hoping Trish will bring some of these along as well.

You will be pleased to know I have sorted out the issues with the sound. Our new amplifier was gifted to us by a charming gentleman who would not wish to be named but I do thank him deeply for his generosity.

Film Festival

The film festival promises riches…  especially Marianne and Leonard (Cohen of course). He was of course a poet as well as a musician. 

Copies of the programme are at the libraries and also the Mahara Gallery.

So look forward to a session that will warm our hearts as well as our minds.

A devastating series of research papers has just been published, revealing that human activity can account for no more than a .01°C rise in global temperatures, meaning that all the human activity targeted by radical climate change alarmists — combustion engines, airplane flights, diesel tractors — has virtually no measurable impact on the temperature of the planet.

Finnish scientists spearheaded the research, releasing a paper entitled, “No Experimental Evidence for the Significant Anthropogenic Climate Change.”

The paper explains that IPCC analysis of global temperatures suffers from a glaring error — namely, failure to account for “influences of low cloud cover” and how it impacts global temperatures. Natural variations in low cloud cover, which are strongly influenced by cosmic radiation’s ability to penetrate Earth’s atmosphere due to variations in the strength of our planet’s magnetosphere, account for nearly all changes in global temperature, the researchers explain.

As this chart reveals, more cloud cover is inversely related to temperature. In other words, clouds shield the surface of the Earth from the sun, providing shade cover cooling, while a lack of clouds results in more warming.

This is further supported by researchers at Kobe University in Japan who published a nearly simultaneous paper that reveals how changes in our planet’s magnetic field govern the intensity of solar radiation that reaches the lower atmosphere, causing cloud formation that alters global temperatures.

Full story