Whale Oil failed in his case (at least so far) and is up for some eight thousand of dollars in fines and fees. To me it was clear that his actions were breaching the law, but it’s the considered opinion (Thanks Kiwiblog) of Judge Harvey that really matters here: “The remaining nine charges having been …
Continue reading “Name suppression – the judge’s findings and how to do it properly”
The Tax Working Group is due to issue their report this week. Here are the things I’ll be looking for as I judge their proposals: Simple. Paying tax is an administrative burden, and compliance takes time and money. A great tax system will be very simple to understand, have no room for lawyers and accountants …
Continue reading “What I’m looking for from the Tax Working Group”
I’ll be on Kathryn Ryan’s Nine to Noon program on Radio NZ at about 9:20am Monday 22nd. There are a few potential topics to cover – including why NZ is a good place to be right now, what businesses can do to manage through the recession and the Social Innovation camp next steps. We’ll see …
Continue reading “5 Recent posts that I like – and a new page”
From this great illustration of the average US Postal Service residential customer’s mailbox we can glean some interesting facts. Amongst them is numerical evidence as to why I don’t check my mail very often. There are almost 200 billion pieces of mail delivered to the (and Wolfram Alpha couldn’t deal with any of this) 111 …
Two astonishing reports on education from McKinsey. The first shows the effect that the USA’s poor schools have had on their economy – and was just released. It finds the economic loss in the order of US$2,400 billion to $4,200 billion of GDP in 2008 alone. That’s more than enough to compensate for the current …
Continue reading “Two McKinsey pieces on education – do read them”
As we progressively lose our freedoms on the internet, it was timely to have a read of some of the excellent material written by Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society – it’s part of the Harvard Law School and has the delightful url of cyber.law.harvard.edu – as it was started from a seminar …
Via the NBR I hear that ISPs can snoop on us from April the 5th. S92 was nothing. The Telecommunications (Intercept Capability) Act, coming into full force on April 5, will let the Police, SIS and the GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau) execute search warrants on internet service providers to grab users’ data Right now …
A nice rant by Bernard Hickey against the rushed Auckland electrification decision. I’m not arguing with him on the rushed aspect, nor on the specifics of this particular decision, which seem to be remarkably absent. However the comments have unveiled a cars versus buses versus trains versus whatever war. Let me copy my comment on …
Continue reading “Trains, buses and cars – we need them all”
After reviewing the raw output from the 6 groups, let’s now turn to the published “Top Twenty” list, and some quick comments. Job Summit – Top Twenty Core Workplace and Employment Issues 1. Retain and Upskill – the nine day fortnight Retain jobs by reducing wage costs while firms earnings are down. Retain jobs short …
Continue reading “Dissecting the NZ job summit output – Top twenty”
The Government sponsored Jobs summit was on Friday, and on the beehive website you can read the input documents, breakout descriptions, attendees, power point bullet outputs and a top 20 laundry list. So lets get to it. I believe a summit was a good idea – the depression looms, and that also the focus on …
Continue reading “Dissecting the NZ Job Summit output – Group outputs”
#blackout Section 92A of Amended New Zealand Copyright Act comes into effect on the 28th of February, 2008. The chilling effect of 92A has been reported here before – one email to an unused address, and a family’s internet connection was switched off. It is pleasing that MP’s from all sides have indicated that this …
Good news – the NZ Government wants to look at reducing the drink driving limit from 0.8 g/l to 0.5 g/l. It’s been 0.5g/l in Australia for years – folk over 40 will remember Peter Brock always had had 05 on his car, as that was the limit for drink driving. But is it the …
Continue reading “Alcohol and driving: make it 0.0% or forget it”
A huge reduction this year in NZ road fatalities, continuing a fantastic series. What’s stark is the reduction since 1987, which is around about the time, as I recall, when the advertising campaigns really stepped up, drink driving was finally perceived by most people as a bad thing and random stops came in: These stats are …
Its always food to see new blogs. However if you are going to launch a new blog, like aotearoarenamemovement and newmasses did this week, then please make it easy to read. I don’t mean the content, but the design. White words on black background simply isn’t that easy to read. And for the Aotearoa Movement people, if …
At BHP Billiton sites you have to be able to blow 0.00 on an alcohol breathalyzer before walking into any facility. This is not only to prevent operators of machinery from causing harm, but also to prevent poor decisions being made by anybody that could also cause harm. It’s a very real rule, and jobs …
Lance Wiggs 