Sue has no clue on business

.

Sue Bradford has shown the Green Party ignorance about business by calling for Air New Zealand to “pull out of its job-shedding tail spin”.
.
You see, despite it being your money that rescued the airline after your government refused to allow Singapore Airlines to give it the capital injection it badly needed to survive, the Greens don’t really mind if you don’t get a return on that investment. Earth to Sue, the airline industry is enormously risky and generally a bad investment (largely because many of those in it do it out of love not money), Air NZ is trying to save itself by being more efficient.
.
She is concerned there hasn’t been consultation with the unions, which is slightly hilarious because, let’s face it, the unions aren’t going to say “well you’re right, all these departments really don’t do much good, so get rid of them and you can cut 20% of these departments because their practices aren’t up to world best in the airline industry”. Of course, if you read Air NZ's press releases, I doubt if too many of the jobs to be lost in the recent announcements are unionised - you see Sue, some of us don't want to join commie collectives with political agendas to represent our employment. I certainly never did - I had better things to do with my money that help get the Labour Party re-elected.

.
However she gets two things wrong in her funniest statement:
.
“We bailed out Air New Zealand because of the disastrous decisions of the former owners and management. We did not do this to see Air NZ become a mean, anti-worker company making more bad decisions.”
.
Well, no Sue. Air New Zealand was bailed out because for months on end Cabinet refused to agree to the recommendations of the Air NZ board, and officials, that Singapore Airlines be allowed to make a major capital injection into the airline which would have raised its shareholding from 25% to 49%. That would have enabled Air New Zealand to carry out the massive restructuring that Ansett Australia badly needed (which only could be carried out after Air New Zealand acquired 100% of Ansett), largely resisted by the Aussie unions and conditions put on the sale of Ansett (so they lost the lot) and to survive the downturn of post 9/11 aviation. The government stopped the private sector from operating because it sat on its hands, and Qantas and Richard Branson did very well out of that.
.
Secondly, besides the silly “mean anti-worker” comment – after all, if the employees didn’t like it, they wouldn’t stay, why is it a bad decision to become more efficient? Especially since whether Air NZ remains taxpayer owned or is privatised at some future date, this will indirectly benefit all taxpayers?

Compulsory pay digital TV?

.

Well it is what Steve Maharey reportedly means. This is about how TVNZ moves from analogue to digital broadcasting, as is happening in the UK and Australia. The UK is successful because the BBC and umpteen commercial broadcasters are using digital to launch a whole host of channels, many of which were not originally available on Sky - and the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 etc have got the programmes to do this! I bought this digital freeview box a few months ago for £70, and get around 30 channels, can pay for another 10 more if I wanted to, and get around 20 radio stations as well. Of course in the UK, being high density and relatively flat, it is pretty cheap to provide digital terrestrial TV.
.
The NZ Herald says the NZ government is keen on a BBC approach – which, of course, is utter bollocks, because it is not going to set up a commercial free TV broadcaster with a mammoth TV licensing fee. What it means is that two commercial free digital TV channels could be set up, with the intention that they be free to air and broadcast. The Herald suggests that:
.
“A factual channel could show high-end international documentaries, re-runs of One News and minority programmes with a high local content. A second channel primarily for children could screen serious drama and arts at night.”
.
Now setting aside the merits of the programming, much of which you can get on various Sky channels (although TVNZ has an enormous library of local programmes, of mixed quality), you have to ask a number of questions:
.
1. Is TVNZ digital TV just about supplementing the existing channels or is it also about broadcasting the existing channels in a digital format (which allows a degree of interactivity)? Elsewhere (UK, Australia) this is about phasing out analogue television, which ultimately makes sense, but for which there is no real hurry in New Zealand.
.
2. What is the platform? Is TVNZ seriously going to set up its own network of terrestrial digital TV transmitters across the countryside parallel to the current analogue network, just for two minority interest channels? Or is it going to piggyback off of Sky, or at least the Optus (or other?) satellites? Terrestrial digital TV isn’t cheap.
.
3. When it chooses its platform and standards, what will Canwest and other terrestrial broadcasters do? Is it appropriate for the state broadcaster to do this unilaterally?
.
4. Why should we be forced to pay for it? We’re not! I hear you cry – well you are. TVNZ is owned by you and pays dividends to the government that reduce its need to take so much tax. If these TV channels are going to be wholly subsidised by the commercial TVNZ channels, you’re propping them up by the loss of dividend. If they were commercial channels, then it would be different.

.

Of course NZ already has two digital TV platforms in commercial operation now - Sky digital nationwide and the Telstra Clear recently converted to digital, cable TV system in Kapiti, Wellington and Christchurch. You didn't have to pay for either of those. If TVNZ was privatised you wouldn't have to pay for this either.

Red Ken suspended

.

No not the shampoo, but the leftie Mayor of London who only ever redeemed himself partially in my eyes by introducing congestion charging.
.
He has been found guilty by the Adjudication Panel for England of bringing the office of Mayor into disrepute by his comments comparing a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard. The reporter is Oliver Finegold of the Evening Standard – the London paper that has waged an anti-Ken war since he got elected, and was re-elected.
.
Ken has been suspended from office for four weeks.
.
The Guardian reports the incident itself as follows:
.
Mr Livingstone had asked the reporter if he was a German war criminal and then, after learning that he was Jewish and had been offended by the question, compared him to a concentration camp guard.
.
The reason he did was he was “expressing his long and honestly held political view of Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail and Evening Standard.” according to the Independent (see I dont only read pro-Tory papers). The Daily Mail in the 1930s had written editorials criticising Jewish immigrants, being supportive of the British Union of Fascists and more recently has taken a conservative stance on asylum seekers.
.
Oh well, good – the man is into tax and spend, and is responsible for giving all children free bus travel, children being those under 16 – which means buses can be packed with obnoxious brats who are too lazy to walk. He got upset because Westminster City Council didn't want a statue of Nelson Mandela put up in its borough - rightfully so - why Nelson Mandela? The man who left South Africa with Thabo Mbeki, a man who denied that AIDS could be caught from HIV, that props up Mugabe's thugocracy and a corrupt ANC government that ever so gradually is slipping the way of Zimbabwe.

Labour's biggest asset - dependency

.

Bill Deedes, Daily Telegraph columnist, once editor (1974-1986) and Cabinet Minister under Harold Macmillan has written in the Telegraph this morning quite succinctly putting down the problem the Tories have, which, I believe, National also faces in New Zealand:
.
“When people talk to me optimistically about Conservative prospects under David Cameron, as many now do, I gently remind them of the huge dependency factor that Labour enjoys. Never before in our history have so many voters depended on a government for their jobs or their benefits.

.
Why should they vote Tory, any more than we would expect turkeys to vote for Christmas? The private sector in this country, which retains Conservative instincts, has waned. The public service element has waxed exceedingly. Labour today has a far bigger dependency vote than when it took office."

.

Indeed, think about how the Working for Families package does the same for Labour in New Zealand, as does the growth in public service "jobs" sucks up university students when they graduate.

Snow, foxes and where is Brian Tamaki?

It snowed!! For the first time during the day this year, in London.

I have seen foxes twice in the small park in the middle of my street too, and I'm only in Camden borough!

and where is Brian Tamaki? No, really, he maintained a very high profile running up to the election and for at least a year and a half beforehand - and now, with the party having got less than 1% of the vote (and no press release from it since September) - is it over, or is he making hay (=$$$$$$$) while he still can, or is something else going on? Even the pisstake site is down but is available cached on my mislocated lower sidebar!