Up in the aerie smiling as I hear notes waft in through open windows, a child capably if wobbily playing Happy Birthday on trumpet, followed by Hot Cross Buns (the climactic two a penny three a penny rendered in staccato blasts), …
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fieldspun thoughts: Mais non, Emma Bovary – c'est moi
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Thousands of Auckland bus commuters may once more face disruptions from industrial disputes.
Bus drivers and cleaners have “over whelmingly rejected” a pay offer from NZ Bus at a stop work today, said a union spokesperson.
The 900 bus drivers and cleaners in the Auckland Combined Union had called for a work to rule.
On Wednesday threatened industrial action which was estimated to affect up to 80,000 Auckland commuters was averted after the union and NZ Bus reached a compromise pay offer.
The drivers were seeking an increase of 6. In response the company said it would lock them out.05, only $1.8 percent this year, taking the starting wage from $14. .05 more than the minimum wage, to $15 an hour, the union said.75 after nine months of service.30 after three months employment before peaking at $16.9 percent increase over three years which he said was exceptionally fair in this economy.
NZ Bus operations manager Zane Fulljames said they had offered a 9.
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Mr Fulljames said the lockout had been put in place as the company could not operate safely or reliably if the workers were working to rule
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A simpler, cheaper system for housing Ministers will save thousands but still cost at least $1.5 million a year.
Prime Minister John Key today announced changes based on a review of the ministerial housing system prompted by a controversy last month.4 million a year – an average of $83,000 per minister.
The current system costs $2.
The cost of maintenance, rates, insurance and other costs for Crown-owned house was $1.
Savings under the changes announced today were estimated at $893,640, but that included no longer having to maintain Crown-owned properties – Mr Key has put off a decision on selling them for now.3m a year.
Some MPs rented properties to colleagues who then used their allowance to pay for them while the owner lived in another taxpayer-funded residence.
The review was sparked after details of housing claims released last month raised concern about how allowances were being used.
Mr English paid back the difference – of about $12,000 – between what he had been claiming as a minister and what he would have been able to claim as an MP.
Also Deputy Prime Minister Bill English was targeted for claiming almost $1000 a week in expenses, including $700 a week in rent, to live in his own house which has been leased to the Government as an official residence. The payment replaced the parliamentary allowance.
Under the changes ministers who stayed in the same home they were already claiming the $24,000 parliamentary allowance for would get a maximum $30,000 per year.
Other ministers would make their own arrangements and pay for it out of a fixed payment of $37,500 a year – equivalent to a market-based estimate of rent and a small contribution to other costs.
Other ministers would make their own arrangements and pay for it out of a fixed payment of $37,500 a year – equivalent to a market-based estimate of rent and a small contribution to other costs.
Properties leased by ministerial services would be retained until leases expired to avoid penalties. .
“This isn’t a system designed around one minister.
“The crown got a multi-hundred-thousand dollar saving today,” Mr Key told reporters.”
Mr Key said some ministers would be out of pocket by as much as $10,000 a year. This is a system designed to give greater value for taxpayers and greater clarity. .
“The review notes that if ministers purchased the equivalent services for their accommodation directly, the average cost is $48,295 per year, so the new rates do not, in most cases, cover the full cost. My view is they can make do with less. .
Mr Key did not think ministers had been double dipping, even those who rented out properties they owned while living elsewhere funded by the taxpayer.
Mr Key did not think ministers had been double dipping, even those who rented out properties they owned while living elsewhere funded by the taxpayer.
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Michael Jackson’s family has arrived more than hour late for the pop singer’s funeral, keeping 77-year-old Elizabeth Taylor and other celebrities waiting on a hot summer evening.
A police escort ushered the motorcade of 31 cars, including Rolls-Royces and Cadillacs, to Forest Lawn Glendale on Thursday.
The motorcade from their Encino compound departed more than a half-hour after the funeral was to begin.
The planned start of the service came and went as the crowd of about 200 awaited the arrival of Jackson’s parents Joe and Katherine and the singer’s children.
Other mourners included Barry Bonds, Macaulay Culkin and the Rev.
Temperatures hovered at 90 just before sunset, with some mourners fanning themselves with programmes for the service.
The air was scented with smoke from a devastating wildfire that was about 10 miles distant from the cemetery. Al Sharpton
The delay meant that the 77-year-old Taylor and others were kept waiting on a muggy night at which temperatures hovered at 90 just before sunset, with some mourners fanning themselves with programs for the service at Forest Lawn Glendale. The equipment raised the possibility that the footage would be used for the Jackson concert documentary “This Is It.
A large, blimp-like inflated light, the type used in film and television production, and a boom camera hovered over the seating area placed in front of the elaborate marble mausoleum. Nearly double the number of media credentials, 435, were issued to reporters and film crews who remained at a distance from the service and behind barricades.”
About 250 seats were arranged for mourners over a green surface.
“Can you please put these flowers on his grave?” she told him.
Maria Martinez, 25, a fan from Riverside, California, who was joined by a dozen other Jackson admirers at a gas station near the security perimeter, gave a handful of pink flowers to a man with an invitation driving into the funeral. . Martinez said she picked them from a nearby park.”
The man consented, adding, “God bless. I’m not going to be able to get close, so this is as close as I could get to him.
Michael Jackson will share eternity at Forest Lawn with the likes of Clark Gable, Jean Harlow and W.”
Glendale police said all was going smoothly early in the evening and there were no arrests. Fields, entombed alongside them in the mausoleum that will be all but off-limits to adoring fans who might otherwise turn the pop star’s grave into a shrine.C.
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Jim Bolger is the biggest spender on domestic travel perks available to former prime ministers and governors-general, racking up $36,000 in expenses in 2008.
An Official Information Act request from has revealed that five former prime ministers and four former governors-general had taxpayer funded domestic travel.
Mr Bolger has a number of high profile roles including chairing New Zealand Post.
Former National prime minister Jim Bolger spent $27,191 on chauffeur-driven cars, $5562 on self-driven cars and $3400 on domestic airfares.
Sir Michael Hardie Boys spent just $1404 on air travel and $4646 on chauffeur-driven cars.
Sir Paul Reeves was the most expensive former governor-general with $28,100 in expenses – $22,794 in chauffeur-driven cars and $5306 on domestic flights
The second most expensive governor-general was Dame Cath Tizard with $14,083 on chauffeur-driven cars and $2707 on airfares.
Sir Geoffrey said in a letter to that he had used the VIP transport service and domestic airfares concession for his work as Law Commission president.
The second highest former prime minister was Sir Geoffrey Palmer with $26,055 made up of $14,187 on chauffeur-driven cars, $10,078 on domestic airfares and $1791 on self-drive cars.
In 2008 work on the War Pensions Project and the review of liquor laws had required a great deal of travel above his normal expenditure.
This arrangement had been approved by the Auditor-General when he took up the position in 2005.
The least expensive former prime minister was Mike Moore, who spent $660 on domestic airfares, $2812 on chauffeur-driven cars and $5947 on self-drive cars.
“When I was practising law in the private sector I did not use these concessions in connection with my law practice,” Sir Geoffrey said.
Helen Clark, who left Parliament earlier this year to run the United Nations Development Programme in New York, spent $9681 on just chauffeur-driven cars.
Mr Moore was prime minister for two months in 1990.
Former Governors-general and former prime ministers’ domestic travel expenses 2008.
The information does not include other expenses such as international air travel subsidies available to former long-standing MPs through Parliamentary Service.
Former PMs Domestic Air Chauffeur-Drive Self-Drive Total
Geoffrey Palmer 10,078 14,187 1791 26,055
Mike Moore 660 2812 5947 9420
Jim Bolger 3400 27,191 5562 36,153
Jenny Shipley 9345 2972 2687 15,004
Total 23,484 56,842 15,987 96,313
Former Gs-G Dom Air Chauffeur-Drive Total
Paul Reeves 5306 22,794 28,100
Cath Tizard 2707 14,083 16,790
Michael Hardie Boys 1404 4646 6051
Silvia Cartwright 6335 9324 15,660
Total 15,752 50,848 66,600
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An air traffic controller, who was making ‘inappropriate conversations’ on the phone at the time of a mid-air collision over New York’s Hudson River, which killed nine people including a Kiwi pilot, is to be disciplined.
The controller’s supervisor, who was not in the building at the time as required, will also be displined, the Federal Aviation Administration says.
The FAA says it has placedboth employees on administrative leave in connection with last week’s deadly mid-air collisionbetween a small plane and a helicopter piloted by New Zealander Jeremy Clarke, in which eight other people also died.
The FAA says the controller was involved in “apparently inappropriate conversations” on the telephone at the time of the accident.
The FAA said on Thursday night it has begun disciplinary proceedings against the air-traffic controller who was handling the small planeand against a supervisor on duty at the time.
However, the FAA says that the employees’ actions don’t appear to have contributed to the accident itself. .
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The Green Party’s three-year campaign to allow cannabis to be used for medicinal purposes came to grief in Parliament tonight.
Their bill failed on its first reading, voted down 86-34 on a conscience vote.Its promoter, Metiria Turei, pleaded with MPs to let it through so it could go to the health select committee which could hear evidence of how cannabis eased the suffering of seriously ill people.”Sick and vulnerable New Zealanders are being jailed .”Many people already use it and they live in real fear of the law,” she said… let MPs hear their stories, let these people have their say.Ms Turei said they didn’t have to smoke it, they could use it in other ways to help relieve their pain such as making tea with it or using it as oil to rub into their limbs.”Under the bill, seriously ill people would be able to apply for a cannabis card, issued on a doctor’s authority and registered with the police, which would allow them to grow small amounts of it.National MP Jonathan Coleman, a doctor, said it would bring cannabis into mainstream society.MPs who spoke in the debate said they knew Ms Turei was sincere about relieving suffering but those who opposed the bill listed numerous problems they had with it.”We would be sending a signal that it’s okay.”You can’t make out it is a good thing, we need less drugs in society,” he said.”He said doctors would be swamped with demands for cannabis cards from people insisting they were seriously ill and needed it for pain relief.”He said doctors would be swamped with demands for cannabis cards from people insisting they were seriously ill and needed it for pain relief. .Labour’s health spokeswoman, Ruth Dyson, said the prescription drugs were “horrifically expensive” and although there were problems with the bill the health select committee should have a chance to consider it.
– By PETER WILSON,
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Four months after the Government’s Jobs Summit, with unemployment swelling, the Summit chairman is asking for patience before people judge its effectiveness.
Speaking at an American Chamber of Commerce lunch in Auckland today, NZX chief executive Mark Weldon said the purpose of the Summit had never been to spend vast sums of cash, nor to simply save jobs for the sake of it.
“The goal is not stopping job loss – that sounds a bit like [General Motors] where no matter how much money you throw at it, it’s a bad business. Rather it was to help create a stronger economy for the future.
The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research this week forecast unemployment would hit 7.The goal is to minimise the shock of structural transition [to a more productive economy],” said Weldon. And social development ministry figures show 1000 people are joining the ranks of the unemployed every week.2 percent by March next year.
The Jobs Summit’s top idea – a nine-day fortnight – has so far saved 345 jobs across 25 firms. The last official figures showed unemployment at 5 percent, or 115,000 people, a six year high.
He said there were many small initiatives still being worked on and the details of some, such as a streamlined process for medium sized companies to offer capital notes – a form of debt – to retail investors, would be released soon.
However, Weldon maintained that the he had always said the effectiveness of the Jobs Summit could not accurately be gaugeduntil 24 months had passed, after the global economy had stabilised and a comparison could be made between the employment paths of New Zealand and its peer countries.
While he would not give a prediction as to where he believed unemployment would bottom out, he said he was “extremely confident” New Zealand would perform as well, or even outperform, its peer countries in employment.
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Oscar-winning film-maker Peter Jackson is to head a major government review of the Film Commission – a body he once accused of making poor funding decisions.
The appointment was announced today by Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Chris Finlayson – with Jackson saying the review was timely in a rapidly changing international movie climate.
David Court, head of screen business at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, would work with Jackson on the review.
“The NZ Film Commission is a vital and indispensable component of our film industry,” Jackson said. The pair will examine the Commission’s legislation and constitution, its functions, powers and finances.”
He and Mr Court planned to consult with a number of local film makers for the review.
“I’m examining forward to making positive and constructive suggestions to ensure it remains effective in what is a rapidly changing international movie climate.
Mr Finlayson said the review would look at the challenges facing the Commission in a rapidly-changing domestic and international film industry context.
The Film Commission was set up by statute in 1978 and the law has not been changed since.
Key issues were how the commission could help the film industry meet New Zealand’s cultural content objectives and reach a domestic and international audience. It provides loans and equity financing to New Zealand film-makers and helps market their movies overseas. It has an annual budget of around $25 million, with money coming from the government, lottery board grants and other income.
He once alleged it considered firing him from Meet the Feebles, and in 1997 he wrote a critique of the body slamming what he thought was inconsistent decision-making by inexperienced board members.
In the past Jackson criticised the commission.
Just last year John Barnett, the head of South Pacific Pictures, accused the commission of treating the local industry “like mushrooms, keeping them in the dark and feeding them on bullshit”.
Just last year John Barnett, the head of South Pacific Pictures, accused the commission of treating the local industry “like mushrooms, keeping them in the dark and feeding them on bullshit”.
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Prostitutes are locked in a battle for the streets with a community group that wants them and their kerb-crawling customers gone.
Residents of south Auckland suburb Papatoetoe have declared war on street-walking hookers and formed The Papatoetoe Community Patrol to drive them and their clients out of infamous red-light area Hunter’s Corner.
A 2005 report by the Prostitution Law Review Committee estimated there were 423 sex workers in the Counties Manukau Police District, with 150 on the street.
The patrols come as the Manukau City Council tries for a second time to make street prostitutes illegal, following a failed attempt in 2006 by Manurewa MP and former police minister George Hawkins.
“These people are unregulated.
The Papatoetoe community group scares off the hookers’ customers by breaking up their negotiations and warning them of the potential health dangers of sleeping with prostitutes.
In just over a year, three members of the 15-strong patrol group have been assaulted and they’ve had to change their patrol car three times because prostitutes have lashed out with weapons. Some of them carry diseases, so there’s a risk not only to the client but also the client’s partner,” patrol member Stephen Grey told .
“They take to them with rocks, take to them with shopping trolleys, take to them with crow bars, kick them, kick the tail lights in.
“The cars we use get considerable damage on them,” Grey said. .”
He said the group had “broad shoulders” and wouldn’t be deterred.
The group is also sending the prostitutes’ clients letters, tracking them down through their car registration plates.
“Ultimately we’d like the legislation changed so selling sexual services in the street is illegal,” Grey said.
Grey said the group had sent “hundreds” of them.
The letters contained in pink envelopes alert them to the fact they’ve been spotted and warn them of the dangers of their late-night activities.
“We don’t send the letter unless we’re absolutely sure they are negotiating with a street worker or they have picked a street worker up and we have two or three people in the car to confirm that,” he said.
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Some recipients had contacted the group to deny they were kerb-crawling but Grey said the patrol was careful about who they send them to.
“We’re really upset this is happening,” she said.
Prostitutes Collective national co-ordinator Catherine Healy said she found the group’s actions “astounding”. The men aren’t law breakers, assuming they are seeking someone over the age of 16. “It’s harassment.
Healy said the patrol groups’ actions were not the solution.”
There had been similar action taken around the country, Healy said, but this was the first time a “formal, organised group” had targeted street workers.
Grey said the patrol’s actions were a last resort, borne out of frustration with authorities not solving the issue.
Grey said the patrol’s actions were a last resort, borne out of frustration with authorities not solving the issue.
“We’ve had enough of the activities of these street workers and the body waste they leave behind, the condoms they leave lying around and the activity that goes all night long,” Grey said.
“It’s (also) the way they go about their soliciting. Some of them place themselves in residential areas.
“They work there all night and every car that goes by, they yell at, and if the car doesn’t stop they yell abuse at the car and this goes on all night.”