Friday, November 19, 2004
Un-bridaled power
The government’s announcement that it will rush the Civil Union Bill through early in December is yet another outrageous wielding of parliamentary power.
The government has announced that the Second Reading of the Civil Union Bill will be held on December 2, and it wants to pass the Bill into law the following week.
More than 6,000 submissions were received by the Select Committee reviewing the Bill, and at least 90 percent of those opposed the Bill.
The committee was not due to report back to parliament until 23 December, and as recent as two days ago chairman Tim Barnett was saying there had been no request to report earlier. This was obviously a lie.
In the event, it is probable that MPs will receive the Select Committee's report less than 24 hours before the debate. And going by what has happened in the last few occasions when select committees have dealt with contentious social topics, the report will be a 6/5 split, with Labour and Green MPs on one side, and all other parties on the other.
This is the second example in only a week of the government using a heavy hand to push through issues which are highly contentious.
Many MPs have not had time to properly consider what’s at stake in the Civil Union Bill. In fact, some MPs on the committee have said that even they have read only the submissions of those people who appeared before them.
The opinions and research of many thousands of people who took a great deal of time and effort to write to the committee, but for various reasons were unable to make a personal appearance, lie unread and ignored.
If this Bill is passed, it will cause untold harm to marriage and family in New Zealand. A civil union will be equivalent to marriage in virtually all legal respects, while its companion Bill – the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill – will make all relationships legally equivalent to marriage, whether registered or not.
In that sense, the Civil Union Bill is completely unnecessary. Once the two are passed, there will be no legal reason why anyone in New Zealand should marry.
The Civil Union Bill is also another case where NZ is out of step with Australia. That government recently revised the Marriage Act to say explicitly that marriage is only between a man and woman; it also stated that same-sex marriages contracted elsewhere will not be recognised in Australia.
The government’s announcement that it will rush the Civil Union Bill through early in December is yet another outrageous wielding of parliamentary power.
The government has announced that the Second Reading of the Civil Union Bill will be held on December 2, and it wants to pass the Bill into law the following week.
More than 6,000 submissions were received by the Select Committee reviewing the Bill, and at least 90 percent of those opposed the Bill.
The committee was not due to report back to parliament until 23 December, and as recent as two days ago chairman Tim Barnett was saying there had been no request to report earlier. This was obviously a lie.
In the event, it is probable that MPs will receive the Select Committee's report less than 24 hours before the debate. And going by what has happened in the last few occasions when select committees have dealt with contentious social topics, the report will be a 6/5 split, with Labour and Green MPs on one side, and all other parties on the other.
This is the second example in only a week of the government using a heavy hand to push through issues which are highly contentious.
Many MPs have not had time to properly consider what’s at stake in the Civil Union Bill. In fact, some MPs on the committee have said that even they have read only the submissions of those people who appeared before them.
The opinions and research of many thousands of people who took a great deal of time and effort to write to the committee, but for various reasons were unable to make a personal appearance, lie unread and ignored.
If this Bill is passed, it will cause untold harm to marriage and family in New Zealand. A civil union will be equivalent to marriage in virtually all legal respects, while its companion Bill – the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill – will make all relationships legally equivalent to marriage, whether registered or not.
In that sense, the Civil Union Bill is completely unnecessary. Once the two are passed, there will be no legal reason why anyone in New Zealand should marry.
The Civil Union Bill is also another case where NZ is out of step with Australia. That government recently revised the Marriage Act to say explicitly that marriage is only between a man and woman; it also stated that same-sex marriages contracted elsewhere will not be recognised in Australia.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Reserve Bank warning over external debt
In a little-noticed press release yesterday, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Adrian Orr warned that the rise in New Zealand's external debt in recent years stresses the need for policies to promote the soundness of the financial sector.
"New Zealand is a reasonably prosperous nation. We can take on a certain amount of debt with comfort, and in some cases it is sensible to do so. The growth in borrowing in the last decade has not, in itself, raised the odds of a major financial crisis. But if things do go wrong, the losses from such a crisis could be severe - and more so now than they would have been, say, 10 years ago.
"The Reserve Bank's interest in this area stems mainly from two features of borrowing behaviour in New Zealand. First, New Zealand relies heavily on funds borrowed from offshore, and a large and increasing share of these funds is channelled through the banking system...[and] Australian banks now own 85 per cent of New Zealand's banking system assets...
"Second, a great deal of the funds raised offshore end up as household debt. In normal times, households are quite capable of managing their own balance sheets, and their decisions about spending, saving and investment may well be rational. But there is always a risk, albeit small, of a major economic shock that could leave many households without any income to service their debts.
"Ideally, households would have used the recent run of strong growth to build up a buffer against such an event; instead, they have tended to leverage up further and invest more heavily in a few domestic asset classes, especially housing. The result is that a major shock could result in more defaults and heavier losses for banks and other lenders."
In other words, New Zealanders have been using the good economic times as an excuse to spend up big, instead of being prudent and putting some aside for the future. (Household debt is now something like 130% of income - that's a worry.)
In a little-noticed press release yesterday, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Adrian Orr warned that the rise in New Zealand's external debt in recent years stresses the need for policies to promote the soundness of the financial sector.
"New Zealand is a reasonably prosperous nation. We can take on a certain amount of debt with comfort, and in some cases it is sensible to do so. The growth in borrowing in the last decade has not, in itself, raised the odds of a major financial crisis. But if things do go wrong, the losses from such a crisis could be severe - and more so now than they would have been, say, 10 years ago.
"The Reserve Bank's interest in this area stems mainly from two features of borrowing behaviour in New Zealand. First, New Zealand relies heavily on funds borrowed from offshore, and a large and increasing share of these funds is channelled through the banking system...[and] Australian banks now own 85 per cent of New Zealand's banking system assets...
"Second, a great deal of the funds raised offshore end up as household debt. In normal times, households are quite capable of managing their own balance sheets, and their decisions about spending, saving and investment may well be rational. But there is always a risk, albeit small, of a major economic shock that could leave many households without any income to service their debts.
"Ideally, households would have used the recent run of strong growth to build up a buffer against such an event; instead, they have tended to leverage up further and invest more heavily in a few domestic asset classes, especially housing. The result is that a major shock could result in more defaults and heavier losses for banks and other lenders."
In other words, New Zealanders have been using the good economic times as an excuse to spend up big, instead of being prudent and putting some aside for the future. (Household debt is now something like 130% of income - that's a worry.)
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Can this institution be saved?
When people think of couples on the verge of breakup they ask, "Can this marriage be saved?" There's a bigger question, however: "Can marriage be saved?"
Marriage is in trouble in the western world, assaulted by a fearful divorce rate, soaring cohabitation, sex and childbearing increasingly detached from wedlock, and now, thanks to gay activists, a fundamental redefining.
Not everybody is taking this lying down, though. Earlier this year, more than 3,000 people from round the world (including New Zealand), attended the 3rd World Marriage and Family Conference in Mexico. And a recent conference in Dallas, Texas, brought together almost 2,000 people for the eighth annual gathering organised by the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education. Researchers came, as did psychologists and therapists, pastors and church workers, social service providers, military chaplains, government officials.
Some important strategies are being formed, as this article outlines.
When people think of couples on the verge of breakup they ask, "Can this marriage be saved?" There's a bigger question, however: "Can marriage be saved?"
Marriage is in trouble in the western world, assaulted by a fearful divorce rate, soaring cohabitation, sex and childbearing increasingly detached from wedlock, and now, thanks to gay activists, a fundamental redefining.
Not everybody is taking this lying down, though. Earlier this year, more than 3,000 people from round the world (including New Zealand), attended the 3rd World Marriage and Family Conference in Mexico. And a recent conference in Dallas, Texas, brought together almost 2,000 people for the eighth annual gathering organised by the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education. Researchers came, as did psychologists and therapists, pastors and church workers, social service providers, military chaplains, government officials.
Some important strategies are being formed, as this article outlines.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Political correctness getting out of hand
This week’s announcement by Transit New Zealand of its intention to crack down on roadside crosses erected by family members to commemorate road deaths, is yet another example of the politically correct, bureaucratic nonsense which is increasingly crowding out the freedom and choice that Kiwis have always taken for granted.
So says Act MP Muriel Newman, who documents a whole list of recent government edicts that are changing the social landscape and culture.
Other examples include a farmer requiring a resource consent to plough his own paddock, and government plans to make trespassing on private property legal.
She notes that the Prime Minister was willing to send 76 public servants to France to bring home the Unknown Warrior, but wasn’t willing to send any more than 20 veterans to Monte Cassino to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the battle.
"I could go on and on, but in spite of that I will finish on a note of optimism: the problems we have had with taniwhas now appears to be being brought under control. If you recall, it was a taniwha that held up the construction of State Highway One near Mercer, at a cost to the taxpayer of some millions of dollars. Well, that problem looks like it may have been solved. It now appears that the real problem is not with the taniwha – which we now know live under any bridge or in any bend of any waterway – at all, but with their keeper. If the keeper is paid the going rate of around $20,000, he is able to keep his taniwha happy, and happy taniwhas do not object to developments!
"It is no wonder that potential investors look at New Zealand and shake their heads!"
This week’s announcement by Transit New Zealand of its intention to crack down on roadside crosses erected by family members to commemorate road deaths, is yet another example of the politically correct, bureaucratic nonsense which is increasingly crowding out the freedom and choice that Kiwis have always taken for granted.
So says Act MP Muriel Newman, who documents a whole list of recent government edicts that are changing the social landscape and culture.
Other examples include a farmer requiring a resource consent to plough his own paddock, and government plans to make trespassing on private property legal.
She notes that the Prime Minister was willing to send 76 public servants to France to bring home the Unknown Warrior, but wasn’t willing to send any more than 20 veterans to Monte Cassino to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the battle.
"I could go on and on, but in spite of that I will finish on a note of optimism: the problems we have had with taniwhas now appears to be being brought under control. If you recall, it was a taniwha that held up the construction of State Highway One near Mercer, at a cost to the taxpayer of some millions of dollars. Well, that problem looks like it may have been solved. It now appears that the real problem is not with the taniwha – which we now know live under any bridge or in any bend of any waterway – at all, but with their keeper. If the keeper is paid the going rate of around $20,000, he is able to keep his taniwha happy, and happy taniwhas do not object to developments!
"It is no wonder that potential investors look at New Zealand and shake their heads!"
Skin is in for computers
It sounds like an April Fool's Day joke, but it isn't. Microsoft, that imperialist of the information-technology world, has actually succeeded in patenting the human body as a computer network. Microsoft is proposing is to use the skin's own conductive properties to transmit the data needed to create such a network.
Many people today carry a range of portable electronic devices, each with its own keypad, speaker, display, processing unit and power supply. The idea behind the patent is to get rid of some of these items. If such gizmos were networked, it would be possible to have, say, just one keypad for a mobile phone, an MP3 music player and a PDA. The keypad might even be a person's forearm.
Microsoft suggests using the body to generate power for the network, too. A “kinetic power converter” in the wearer's shoe or wristwatch would produce electricity in the same way that an old-fashioned self-winding watch extracted energy from its owner's normal movements.
It sounds like an April Fool's Day joke, but it isn't. Microsoft, that imperialist of the information-technology world, has actually succeeded in patenting the human body as a computer network. Microsoft is proposing is to use the skin's own conductive properties to transmit the data needed to create such a network.
Many people today carry a range of portable electronic devices, each with its own keypad, speaker, display, processing unit and power supply. The idea behind the patent is to get rid of some of these items. If such gizmos were networked, it would be possible to have, say, just one keypad for a mobile phone, an MP3 music player and a PDA. The keypad might even be a person's forearm.
Microsoft suggests using the body to generate power for the network, too. A “kinetic power converter” in the wearer's shoe or wristwatch would produce electricity in the same way that an old-fashioned self-winding watch extracted energy from its owner's normal movements.
I had to post this, even if only because of the title
A canary in the coal mine
The Arctic seems to be getting warmer. So what? A scientific team of some 300 scientists have spent the past four years investigating the matter in a process known as the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA). The group, drawn from the eight countries with territories inside the Arctic Circle, has just issued a report called “Impacts of a Warming Arctic”, a lengthy summary of the principal scientific findings.
“Climate change in the Arctic is a reality now!” insists the head of the team, Robert Corell, an oceanographer with the American Meteorological Society. “The Arctic is now experiencing some of the most rapid and severe climate change on Earth.”
This article in The Economist is actually fairly balanced, looking at both the backers and the nay-sayers of global warming.
A canary in the coal mine
The Arctic seems to be getting warmer. So what? A scientific team of some 300 scientists have spent the past four years investigating the matter in a process known as the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA). The group, drawn from the eight countries with territories inside the Arctic Circle, has just issued a report called “Impacts of a Warming Arctic”, a lengthy summary of the principal scientific findings.
“Climate change in the Arctic is a reality now!” insists the head of the team, Robert Corell, an oceanographer with the American Meteorological Society. “The Arctic is now experiencing some of the most rapid and severe climate change on Earth.”
This article in The Economist is actually fairly balanced, looking at both the backers and the nay-sayers of global warming.
