- Local Columns

July - Plains Profile

nospam@example.com (SG Staff) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:10:46 +1200

Plains Profile

July 2010

Crown land will be required to meet ‘good neighbour’ obligations in regional pest management strategies.

This means all land owners in New Zealand will be bound to control pests, such as rabbits and wilding trees, so that they don’t ‘spill over’ and affect their neighbours.

The cost of established pests to our economy runs close to $1.9 billion a year - $1.15 billion of lost production and $719 million in directly preventing pests from arriving in New Zealand and managing them once they are here.

We want to ensure that the Crown meets its obligations as a responsible landowner and to develop a unified approach to pest management for all land.

A proposed Pest Management Plan of Action to support this approach has been released for public consultation. The Plan of Action looks at ways to ensure our pest management strategies limit this cost, and meet the needs of today and challenges of tomorrow.

This will help drive a new national policy direction which will further strengthen and align pest management plans as they are developed. MAF has been working closely with regional councils, industry, Maori, the science community and other government departments to design the proposed improvements.

These include streamlining and simplifying pest management strategies; establishing a central "toolbox manager" to ensure that effective and safe pest control tools are available in future; providing a way to assign lead accountability for a pest issue where this is unclear; improving role clarity; a national system for measuring effectiveness of pest management.

Work still needs to be done to ensure that pest management strategies deliver the best protection possible and impose equitable costs on all landowners.

Submissions to the proposed National Plan of Action 2010-2035 close in 19 July 2010.

For more information go to www.biosecurity.govt.nz/biosec/consult/pmpn-plan-of-action2010-2035.

July - Hauraki Herald

nospam@example.com (SG Staff) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:41:09 +1200

Stroke Group’s ‘winter warmer’

The Stroke Support Group in Thames does a fantastic job and recently celebrated with a Mid-Winter Christmas lunch.

Visitors and members tucked into tea and biscuits on arrival and a polished performance of items from the musical group ‘Close Proximity’ with John Mounsey at the piano.

Roy Fisher, celebrating his 80th birthday, was invited to blow out candles and cut his cake. Needless to say the cake was enjoyed by all present, along with a hearty roast dinner (cooked by Kitty Bowman) followed by traditional treats—trifle, Christmas pudding and cream.

This was a great function—thank you for all of your hard work throughout this year.

Learning to live with stroke

Stroke affects people in many different ways. Most want a stroke service to help them achieve a good life; enable them to take part in a rehabilitation programme; to learn more about stroke, return to a chosen place to live, and resume work; learn about support in the community and gain understanding from the community.

Help is available. The Thames Stroke Support Group is affiliated to Stroke Foundation New Zealand and offers support and assistance. Please contact Raywn Antonovich on 868 2801.

More for Mental Health

We continue to invest in mental health with an extra $174 million over the next four years. Several new and exciting mental health initiatives will be announced shortly. These are in addition to new initiatives announced last year such as services for eating disorders. The bottom line is we are spending more on mental health services and providing more services to the public than ever before.

June: Coromandel Chronicle

nospam@example.com (SG Staff) — Fri, 28 May 2010 11:34:44 +1200

Women and girls please dig out those unwanted bra’s to help create the world’s longest bra chain and raise awareness of breast cancer.

The Bra Chain is a Girl Guiding New Zealand Guinness world record attempt, organised by Dargaville Guide Leader Robyn Martinovich.

It does not matter what condition the bras are in – and whether there’s one or 100 – it all helps!

I have a couple where the underwire has popped out and have sent them along.

Bras can be bagged and dropped off at my office in Thames (614 Pollen Street) or post to PO Box 215 Thames 3500.

Come on Coromandel, together we can help Robyn and the Girl Guides to break this record!

Meanwhile with children settled back in the classroom after the first term, it’s great to see schools continuing to roll out National Standards. This will make sure primary and intermediate schools regularly assess their students’ progress in reading, writing and maths, and that this essential information is provided at least twice a year.

One in five children leaves school without the basic skills they need to succeed in life. This is more than a shocking statistic. It represents the names and faces of our future families, communities and workforce. Our children deserve better.

National Standards will identify children who are falling behind so that teachers and parents can help them catch up before it’s too late.

National Standards is an important step towards these goals, and will help make sure that all children get the skills they need to succeed. However, parents taking an active interest in their children by listening to them read and encouraging them with their writing and sums, makes the biggest difference.

June: Plains Profile

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Fri, 07 May 2010 12:53:39 +1200

Farmers will welcome the rain, but much damage has already been done after three years of drought. Recovery will take some time until the pasture is there and the costs of a drought have been met.

A higher payout is a start but no quick fix. Even with the recent rain, cold weather following the rain means pasture growth is slow, and drought-related problems will continue.

Given the vital role farmers play in the health of our local and national economy, weather conditions and farmers capacity to cope is a continuing concern.

In terms of the budget, protecting New Zealand’s billion dollar primary export industry is a priority, particularly at our borders.

Budget 2010 provides additional capital funding of $6.7million and operational funding of $14.3 million over four years to develop a Joint Border Management System (JBMS).

This will replace ageing border clearance systems and improve efficiency and bio-security protection at the border, and provides a single point of entry for importers and exporters. The new system will be a collection of shared services, hosted by New Zealand Customs Service, to support the clearance of passengers and goods across our borders.

The Budget also confirmed $45 million (over four years) for the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, which has so far united nearly 30 countries to work on producing more food with fewer emissions.

A New Zealand initiative, the Alliance will equip our agricultural producers with the latest research, both here and overseas, on agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. The potential for economic and environmental gains from this initiative cannot be underestimated.

Coromandel Chronicle

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 10:55:00 +1200

The opening of the Harray Track is a great example of community collaboration, but best of all giving our young people a positive boost, helping them to see a clearer pathway forward.
Establishing the framework for the future of New Zealand, makes sure that pathway forward has somewhere to go.
New Zealand spends more than it earns. Over the past five years the economy has become hopelessly lopsided, with too much low-quality government spending and Kiwis borrowing too much.
Over-investment in property is not healthy for our economy.
Why? Because it pushes up house prices which push-up our debt to the rest of the world. It also makes it harder for people and young families to buy homes.
Our focus is on tilting the playing field towards productive investment, exports and new jobs. We’ve set out a balanced programme to achieve this – including options to reform the tax system in this month’s Budget.
Tax is a powerful lever to boost economic performance. Our starting point is that lower personal taxes across the board will give families more choice, and help them get ahead.
The right mix of taxes will help our export and import-competing sectors – the parts of our economy that earn New Zealand’s living with the rest of the world – and create sustainable jobs.
Personal tax cuts across the board, changes to the taxation of investment property and a possible rise in GST are options being considered for the Budget, to be delivered on 20^th May 2010.
Our Government’s tax package is focused on lifting this country’s economic performance, being fair to taxpayers, helping Kiwi families and providing jobs and incentives for our young people to stay in New Zealand.

Coromandel Chronicle

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:20:00 +1200

Coromandel Chronicle
April 2008

Over the past eight years the Government bureaucracy (administration) has grown out of all proportion to those parts of the state sector that actually serve the public.
How do we know that?

Here are some examples:

Since 2000, the number of teachers in state primary and secondary schools has grown by 12%. But over the same period, the number of people employed in the various education bureaucracies has grown by 40%.
Since 2000, the number of nurses and doctors employed in district health boards has grown by 28%. But over the same period, the number of people employed in the Ministry of Health has grown by 51%.
Since 2002, the service delivery part of MSD, namely Work and Income and Child Youth and Family, has gown by 23%. But over the same period, the policy analysis, research and corporate units of MSD have grown by a whopping 109%.
Treasury reports show that between 2000 and 2006, employment in government departments that mainly provide services grew by 34%, while employment in policy departments grew by 72%.

To get a picture of the whole state sector we need to look at survey data from the Quarterly Employment Survey, which shows that since 2000 the number of bureaucrats has grown from26,200 to 36,000.

That growth in numbers represents an increase of 37%. And yet, over the same period, the number of other state sector employees grew by only 10%. In addition, this survey shows that the number of jobs in the economy as a whole grew by 22%, which means bureaucrats are increasing as a proportion of the total New Zealand workforce. We now have a situation where 1 in 50 workers in the economy is a bureaucrat.

Moreover, it's not just that the number of people employed in the bureaucracy has grown markedly but that their pay has grown markedly as well.

Treasury reports show that between 2000 and 2006, personnel costs for government departments that mainly provide services grew 69%, while in policy departments these costs grew 142%.

The Labour Cost Index shows that total labour costs for bureaucrats have grown faster than total labour costs in the private sector. This means increases in pay and conditions of bureaucrats over recent years have outstripped increases in the private sector. It is important to include conditions because these are often more generous in the state sector. For example, 42% of full-time permanent employees in government departments are currently getting five weeks annual leave.

Perhaps the most revealing statistic is this: the fastest growing sector in the economy since 2000 has not been agriculture, it has not been retail trade, transport, manufacturing, personal services, or finance and business services. No, the fastest growing sector in the economy since 2000 has been government administration.

Although the state sector puts out a lot of financial information, there is a marked lack of meaningful information about what is actually achieved, and that has to change.

Kiwi households are tightening their belts, local and central government needs to do the same.

Plains Profile: April 2010

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:04:43 +1300

Rural communities, like those on the Hauraki Plains, are a big part of our economy. They earn two thirds of New Zealand’s export dollars and provide 1 in 9 jobs.

Yet many people living outside main cities are stuck in the dial-up age. To do simple things like send emails, read news online or do a Google search is tedious and slow. You wouldn’t dream of being able to download information for a school project, or book concert tickets online.

Rural businesses cannot operate as effectively as they need to, in order to keep leading the world, lifting the value of what they produce and boosting our local economies.

We cannot afford to let our rural communities fall behind. That’s why we are accelerating the rollout of fast broadband services to rural and remote areas.

As a result of this plan 97% of all households will have access to broadband services of at least 5Mbps, with the remainder reaching at least 1Mbps. This will be light years ahead of where many in remote and not-so-remote areas are today.

A big part of our rural broadband plan is connecting fibre to rural schools ensuring 97 percent of schools and 99.7 percent of students will have access to broadband speeds of at least 100Mbps. The remaining – most remote – schools will achieve speeds of at least 10Mbps. This will help prepare every student for life and work in the 21^st century.

By connecting our rural businesses and communities with the world, fast broadband will encourage investment and help create jobs, boost wages and deliver the high-quality public services that families need.

Coromandel Chronicle: May 2010

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:03:37 +1300

The opening of the Harray Track is a great example of community collaboration, but best of all giving our young people a positive boost, helping them to see a clearer pathway forward.

Establishing the framework for the future of New Zealand, makes sure that pathway forward has somewhere to go.

New Zealand spends more than it earns. Over the past five years the economy has become hopelessly lopsided, with too much low-quality government spending and Kiwis borrowing too much.

Over-investment in property is not healthy for our economy.

Why? Because it pushes up house prices which push-up our debt to the rest of the world. It also makes it harder for people and young families to buy homes.

Our focus is on tilting the playing field towards productive investment, exports and new jobs. We’ve set out a balanced programme to achieve this – including options to reform the tax system in this month’s Budget.

Tax is a powerful lever to boost economic performance. Our starting point is that lower personal taxes across the board will give families more choice, and help them get ahead.

The right mix of taxes will help our export and import-competing sectors – the parts of our economy that earn New Zealand’s living with the rest of the world – and create sustainable jobs.

Personal tax cuts across the board, changes to the taxation of investment property and a possible rise in GST are options being considered for the Budget, to be delivered on 20^th May 2010.

Our Government’s tax package is focused on lifting this country’s economic performance, being fair to taxpayers, helping Kiwi families and providing jobs and incentives for our young people to stay in New Zealand.

Piako Post: March 2010

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:02:34 +1300

A new law aimed at further protecting victims of family violence comes into effect on July 1 2010. The Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Act strengthens the responsiveness of criminal justice agencies to victims of domestic violence.

Police will now be able to issue orders on-the-spot to ensure the immediate safety of victims by removing the alleged violent person from the home for a period of up to five days. The orders will be issued in situations where there is an insufficient basis to arrest, but where police believe there is a likelihood of domestic violence occurring and an order is necessary for the safety of the victim.

This will provide a period of safety in which victims can consider their future options, including the possibility of a court protection order.

Another important feature of the law is the amending of the Sentencing Act 2002, to enable the criminal courts to issue a protection order on behalf of victims in cases where an offender is sentenced for a domestic violence offence.

The law also:

Removes from the Domestic Violence Act the two-tiered penalty structure for breaches of protection orders, leaving only the maximum penalty of up to two years imprisonment.
Provides a penalty of up to six months’ imprisonment for failing to attend a court-ordered programme.
Repeals the statutory criteria that police have to take into account when considering whether to arrest, without warrant, a person who they suspect has contravened a protection order. This means the approach taken by police will be the same as for any other offence when an arrest without warrant is being considered.
Allows police to impose any conditions considered reasonably necessary to protect any particular person residing with the victim, such as children, new partners, or elderly parents.

This law provides useful tools in expediting the response of the criminal justice sector to domestic violence. The police safety orders will provide immediate protection for victims, while making it very clear to the person who has allegedly committed the violence, that their behaviour will not be tolerated.

Coromandel Chronicle: November

nospam@example.com (Admin) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:53:42 +1300

The Human Rights Commission and the New Zealand Law Society have come out strongly against the Electoral Finance Bill, saying it is bad legislation and should be withdrawn.

The Law Society recommends policymakers start again with better regard for the right of free speech.
We welcome the view that the public should get a second chance to comment on the re-worked Bill.

This Bill cannot be pushed through under urgency, it is too important to the fundamental democratic rights Kiwis enjoy.

This draconian legislation stops freedom of expression by limiting third parties ability to spend a miniscule $60,000 (that’s the equivalent of two full pages in the New Zealand Herald) in the entire year of the election. Labour wants to say whatever it wants while effectively silencing everyone else.

Organisations as diverse as Plunket, the Sensible Sentencing Trust, Forest and Bird and Grey Power have until now, been free to express their views in the year of an election. The Bill imposes rules requiring them to register with the government if they spend more than $5000 in an election year on publicity, with any political relevance.

While restricting the rights of others to debate Government policy, this government will spend millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to promote Labour Party policies.

People of all political persuasions are right to oppose this Bill. It represents an absolute lack of respect for the essential freedoms of democracy – that of being able to criticize the government freely.

We need your help to ‘kill this bill’ – voice your opposition urgently.

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