Quote of the day

. . . At the end of the day, as long as you marry the person you set out to marry, then your wedding was a success. . .  from a post on a Victorian Steampunk wedding – with wonderful photos – at Ruffled.

How it should be

Our great-nieces came to visit yesterday.

One’s 18 months-old the others just nine weeks.

They both brought their parents with them, one also brought an aunt, the other brought a grandmother; another set of grandparents and a great-grandmother arrived too.

All day all the adults helped to look after the wee girls – cuddling, reading and singing to, and playing with them.

There was always someone to share the care with the parents, keeping an eye outt to ensure the wee ones were safe and happy. There were lots of laughs and lots of love.

This is normal for our family.

The shame and tragedy is that it isn’t normal for all families.

Making it normal for all children to grow up in a loving home with the loving support of wider family and friends ought to be the goal of the Green paper on vulnerable children.

But how do we achieve that when loving, supportive families aren’t the norm for far too many parents?

Does he know what he’s suggesting

Sean Plunket is with the majority who don’t support the sale of the Crafar farms to foreigners.

But does know what he’s suggesting when he writes:

 . . . So my suggestion to the Occupy diehards: pick the nicest of the 16 Crafar farms to camp on, pack up your mung beans and your hacky sacks in your old kit bags and occupy some land to highlight an issue that really matters to so many New Zealanders. . . 

The right of the protesters to occupy public spaces has been subject to debate. That would not be the case with the farms – they are private property.

Regardless of the nationality of the owners, anyone who tried to occupy the farms could be charged with trespass.

It’s possible Plunket has got his tongue in his cheek but even so his comments will add to a growing concern among farmers that the public don’t understand that the property rights which apply to small areas of land in town apply just as much to large ones in the country.

January 29 in history

904 – Sergius III came out of retirement to take over the papacy from the deposed antipope Christopher.

1676 – Feodor III became Tsar of Russia.

1814 – France defeated Russia and Prussia in the Battle of Brienne.

1834– US President Andrew Jackson ordered first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labour dispute.

1842 Auckland’s first Anniversary Day regatta was held.

1845 “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe  was published in the New York Evening Mirror.

1856 Queen Victoria instituted the Victoria Cross.

1860 Anton Chekhov, Russian writer, was born (d. 1904).

1863 Bear River Massacre.

1874 John D. Rockefeller Jr., American entrepreneur, was born (d. 1960).

1880 W.C. Fields, American actor and writer was born  (d. 1946).

1886 Karl Benz patented the first successful gasoline-driven automobile.

1891 Liliuokalani was proclaimed Queen of Hawaii, its last monarch.

1916  Paris was first bombed by German zeppelins.

1939 Germaine Greer, Australian writer and feminist, was born.

1940 Three trains on the Sakurajima Line, in Osaka collided and exploded while approaching Ajikawaguchi station. 181 people were killed.

1944  USS Missouri (BB-63) the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy was launched.

1944 Approximately 38 men, women, and children died in the Koniuchy massacre in Poland.

1944 In Bologna the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio was destroyed in an air-raid.

1945 Tom Selleck, American actor, screenwriter and film producer, was born.

1949 Tommy Ramone, Hungarian-born musician and record producer (The Ramones), was born.

1954  Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host and actress, was born.

1989 Hungary established diplomatic relations with South Korea, making them the first Eastern Bloc nation to do so.

1996 President Jacques Chirac announced a “definitive end” to French nuclear weapons testing.

1996 – La Fenice, Venice’s opera house, was destroyed by fire.

1998 In Birmingham, Alabama, a bomb explodes at an abortion clinic, killing one and severely wounding another.

2001 Thousands of student protesters in Indonesia stormed parliament and demanded that President Abdurrahman Wahid resign due to alleged involvement in corruption scandals.

2002 In his State of the Union Address, United Statses President George W. Bush described “regimes that sponsor terror” as an Axis of Evil.

2005 The first direct commercial flights from the mainland China(from Guangzhou) to Taiwan since 1949 arrived in Taipei. Shortly afterwards, a China Airlines carrier landed in Beijing.

2006 – India’s Irfan Pathan became the first bowler to take a Test cricket hat-trick in the opening over of a match.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

Have you noticed . . .

. . .  that the mess you decided not to clean up last night always becomes far messier by morning?

Saturday’s smiles

A minister and his parish at a very poor area in rural Southland  spent months collecting cones, cutting firewood, baking cakes and catering to raise money to paint the outside of the church.

When they eventually raised enough they bought some paint  and a working bee got cracking on a weekend morning to do the work.

When they were about half finished they realised that they were going to run out of paint before the church was fully painted.

The preacher said, “It’s a water based paint, just thin it down with water.”

They continued painting and thinning until the colour started losing its depth and when they finally finished it was striped – going from dark, through medium to light.

The minister and the other amateur painters stood back to get a good view of the church so they could admire their work.

As they did, clouds rolled in, the heavens opened and it began to pour with rain.

They ran back to the church for shelter and when they got there found that the rain had washed all the newly applied paint off the building.

They were understandably upset that all the money they’d raised and work they’d done had been wasted.

They were discussing what to do next when there was a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder and a voice from the sky said, “Repaint, repaint and thin no more.”

Rural delivery surcharge for parcels

Our rural delivery bloke called in a few weeks ago to ask if we’d mind if an extra mailbox was added to the row at our gate for the people in the new house up the road.

New Zealand Post had decreed there would be no extensions to the mail routes because of rising costs and our gate would be the nearest existing stop to the new house.

Now the company is increasing all parcel post rates and adding a $2.80 rural delivery charge to cover the cost of petrol.

I can’t argue about cost recovery and user-pays but I wonder if they’ll also increase charges to senders of junk mail?

Without junk mail fewer stops would be required because not everyone gets mail every day, but with junk mail the driver has to stop at all boxes which must add to delivery time and therefore fuel used.

Quote of the day

. . . When other sales of land to overseas owners are considered, and the safeguards written into the consent considered, the outcry over this bid has been disproportionate.

Its real importance to New Zealand is the extent to which it strengthens ties with a market fast becoming this country’s most important economic lifeline. – ODT

For only some of the 99%

The occupy movement was supposed to be supporting the 99% – the majority they reckon weren’t the very rich.

But those in Auckland obviously don’t include the homeless among the poor they purport to want to help:

Meanwhile, several homeless people have taken issue with the Occupy protesters, for ruining what they say is their home.

Several spoken to by Radio New Zealand say they can’t stay in any of the parks around the city now.

Mount Roskill resident J. D. Simon says he has taken in 13 homeless people, many of whom are now camping on his lawn.

Oh the irony.

The faux homeless who have homes to go to have pushed out the genuine homeless people who don’t.

While on the subject of the occupation, Chris Trotter asks the questions of the day:

. . . Did anyone ever consider asking the Mayor if he and his staff could identify any wasteland in the city that could serve as a camp ground? Or if there were areas that could be turned into community gardens? Did anyone ever think of asking Aucklanders to help Occupy Auckland grow food for families who were struggling to feed their kids? . . .

Practical help, rather than aimless protest – now there’s a radical idea.

It wouldn’t have looked as exciting on TV as resisting police. But it would have made a difference and done it without inconveniencing the genuine homeless.

January 28 in history

1225 Saint Thomas Aquinas, was born (d. 1274).

1457  King Henry VII, was born (d. 1509).

1521 The Diet of Worms began.

1547 Henry VIII died. His nine year old son, Edward VI became King, and the first Protestant ruler of England.

1573 – Articles of the Warsaw Confederation were signed, sanctioning freedom of religion in Poland.

1582  John Barclay, Scottish writer, was born (d. 1621).

1624 Sir Thomas Warner,  founded the first British colony in the Caribbean, on the island of Saint Kitts.

1706 John Baskerville, English printer, was born  (d. 1775).

1724 The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented in the Senate decree.

1754 Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coined the word serendipity.

1813 Pride and Prejudice was first published in the United Kingdom.

1820 – Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich discovered the Antarctic continent approaching the Antarctic coast.

1827  French explorer Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville sailed the Astrolabe through French Pass and into Admiralty Bay in the Marlborough Sounds.

1833 William Seward Burroughs I, British soldier and administrator, was born (d. 1885).

1841 Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh-born explorer and journalist, was born (d. 1904).

1855 The first locomotive ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the Panama Railway.

1855 William Seward Burroughs I, American inventor, was born (d. 1898).

1863 Ernst William Christmas, Australian painter, was born (d. 1918).

1864 Charles W. Nash, American automobile entrepreneur, co-founder Buick Company,  was born  (d. 1948).

1864 – Herbert Akroyd Stuart, English inventor of the hot bulb heavy oil engine, was born (d. 1927).

1871 Franco-Prussian War: the Siege of Paris ended in French defeat and an armistice.

1873 Colette, French writer, was born (d. 1954).

1878 Yale Daily News became the first daily college newspaper in the United States.

1887  Arthur Rubinstein, Polish pianist and conductor, was born (d. 1982).

1887  In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, the world’s largest snowflakes were reported, being 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick.

1890 Robert Stroud,  American convict, the Birdman of Alcatraz, was born (d. 1963).

1896  Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent became the first person to be convicted of speeding. He was fined 1 shilling plus costs for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thus exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h).

1901 Wellington blacksmith, William Hardham, won the Victoria Cross - the only New Zealander to do so in the South African War.

1902The Carnegie Institution was founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

1909 United States troops leave Cuba with the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base after being there since the Spanish-American War.

1912  Jackson Pollock, American painter, was born (d. 1956).

1915 An act of the U.S. Congress created the United States Coast Guard.

1916 Louis D. Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

1917 Municipally owned streetcars began operating in the streets of San Francisco, California.

1918  Harry Corbett, English puppeteer (Sooty), was born(d. 1989).

1921 A symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was installed beneath the Arc de Triomphe to honor the unknown dead of World War I.

1922 Knickerbocker Storm, Washington D.C.’s biggest snowfall, causes the city’s greatest loss of life when the roof of the Knickerbocker Theater collapses.

1929 Acker Bilk, English jazz clarinetist, was born.

1933 – The name Pakistan was coined by Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan and is accepted by the Indian Muslims who then thereby adopted it further for the Pakistan Movement seeking independence.1934 The first ski tow in the United States begins operation in Vermont.

1935 David Lodge, English author, was born.

1935 Iceland became the first Western country to legalize therapeutic abortion.

1936 Alan Alda, American actor, writer, and director, was born.

1938 The World Land Speed Record on a public road was broken by driver Rudolf Caracciola in the Mercedes-Benz W195 at a speed of 432.7 kilometres per hour (268.9 mph).

1943 Dick Taylor, English musician (The Rolling Stones and The Pretty Things), was born.

1944 Susan Howard, American actress, was born.

1955 Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, was born.

1958The Lego company patented their design of Lego bricks.

1964 A U.S. Air Force jet training plane that strayed into East Germany  was shot down by Soviet fighters near Erfurt ; all 3 crew men are killed.

1965  The current design of the Flag of Canada was chosen by an act of Parliament.

1977 The first day of the Great Lakes Blizzard of 1977, which severely affected and crippled much of Upstate New York, but Buffalo, NY, Syracuse, NY, Watertown, NY, and surrounding areas were most affected, each area accumulating close to 10 feet of snow on this one day.

1980 USCGC Blackthorn (WLB-391) collided with the tanker Capricorn while leaving Tampa Florida and capsizes killing 23 Coast Guard crewmembers.

1980  – Nick Carter, American singer (Backstreet Boys), was born.

1981 Ronald Reagan lifted remaining domestic petroleum price and allocation controls in the United States helping to end the 1979 energy crisis and begin the 1980s oil glut.

1981 Elijah Wood, American actor, was born.

1982 US Army general James L. Dozier was rescued by Italian anti-terrorism forces from captivity by the Red Brigades.

1985 Supergroup USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) records the hit single We Are the World, to help raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief.

1986 Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart after liftoff killing all seven astronauts on board.

2002 TAME Flight 120, a Boeing 727-100 crashed in the Andes mountains in southern Colombia killing 92.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Xeonophobia – an unreasonable fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.

Friday’s answers

Thursday’s questions were:

1. Who said: “Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.”?

2. What is the common name for Didelphimorphia Phalangeriforme?

3. It’s premières crevette in French, gambero crudo in Italian and gamba crudo in Spanish (I couldn’t find it in Maori), what is it in English?

4.Who wrote My Brilliant Career? and who wrote A Town Like Alice?

5. What are the first four lines of the Australian National Anthem?

Points for answers:

David got  two – one for # 3 for being close with the Maori answer and another for a good try with the anthem.

Gravedodger got three and a half with a bonus for extra commentary on the possums.

Andrei got one and a half and a bonus for being the only one to get raw and for confusing me with #5. Was there another meaning in the wording of the question that I missed?

Adam got two and a bonus for being the first to get Miles Franklin whose endowment funds one of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards.

PDM got a half plus a near enough with the anthem and on the right track with the kangaroo.

Teletext wins an electronic bag of apricots for five (though I think Opoosum is the American one.

I’ve been lenient over answers to #2 -  shrimp is near enough to prawn – though for the record shrimp is crevette in French; gamberetto in Italian; camarón in Spanish and kōura rangi, kōuraura or uraura in Maori. Only Andrei got raw.

Answers follow the break:

Crafar farm bid approved

Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson and Associate Finance Minister Jonathan Coleman have accepted the Overseas Investment Office recommendation to approve the sale of the 16 Crafar farms to  Milk New Zealand Holding Limited (Milk New Zealand), a subsidiary of Shanghai company Pengxin.

“It is clear that all criteria under sections 16 and 18 of the Overseas Investment Act 2005 have been met, therefore we accept the recommendation of the OIO to grant consent,” Mr Williamson said.

“We are satisfied that Milk New Zealand’s application for consent meets the criteria set out in the Act,” Mr Coleman said.

The approval follows the receivers, KordaMentha’s acceptance in late 2010 of Milk New Zealand’s bid for the farms.

Milk New Zealand’s acquisition will further support the supply of high quality dairy products into the Chinese market and help set the foundations for further economic and export opportunities with China.

Stringent conditions policed by the OIO will ensure that Milk New Zealand’s investment delivers substantial and identifiable benefits to New Zealand. These include investing more than $14m into the farms making them more economically and environmentally sustainable; protecting the Nga Herenga  and the Te Ruaki pa sites and improving walking access to the Pureora Forest Park and Te Rere falls.  An on-farm training facility for dairy farm workers will also be established.

If the application meets the Act’s criteria the ministers had little choice but to approve the bid.

But this won’t be the end of the matter:

A press release just issued by the Michael Fay backed Crafar Farms Purchase Group says the decision to approve the farm sale to Shanghai Pengxin Group was “wrong in law and, if not overturned by Judicial Review, sets up open season for any foreign buyers wanting New Zealand land.”

The Group said it is the highest New Zealand bidder ($171.5 million), offering $21.5 million more than the Government’s farming SOE, Landcorp.

The Group confirmed it would proceed with a Judicial Review launched earlier this week to try to stop the land from being sold offshore.

But the Herald puts the purchase of the farms into perspective:

The 16 Crafar farms have a combined area of approximately 7,893 hectares.

In the last two years, consent was granted for overseas persons to acquire 357,056 hectares of agricultural land.

Consents granted involving agricultural land by country of majority ownership, are:

* United States to acquire 25,306 hectares of farm land

* Germany to acquire 6,834 hectares of farm land

* Switzerland 9,727 hectares of farm land

* Australia 3,861 hectares of farm land

* United Kingdom 22,600 hectares of farm land

* Hong Kong to acquire 759 hectares of farm land

I don’t remember any fuss over any of those sales nor over the sale of a total of 650,000 to foreigners approved by Labour in the nine years it was in government.

There are very stringent conditions on the sale:

• The individuals with control of Milk New Zealand must continue to be of good character
• Milk New Zealand must invest a minimum of NZD $14m in the properties
• Milk New Zealand and their associates must not acquire an ownership or control interest in milk processing facilities in New Zealand unless a 50% or more ownership or control interest in those facilities is held by non-overseas persons
• Milk New Zealand must establish an on-farm training facility for dairy farm workers and must meet the capital cost of establishing this facility
• Milk New Zealand must give two scholarships of not less than NZD $5,000 each year to students of the on-farm training facility with the first two scholarships to be awarded by 31 December 2013
• Milk New Zealand must use reasonable endeavours to assist Landcorp to extend its business to, and market its products, in China
• Milk New Zealand must provide public walking access over Benneydale Farm and Taharua Station, in consultation with the Department of Conservation  and the New Zealand Walking Access Commission
• Milk New Zealand must take reasonable steps to protect and enhance existing areas of significant indigenous vegetation and significant habitats of indigenous fauna and flora on the properties
• Milk New Zealand must register a heritage covenant in respect of the Te Ruaki pa site on Tiwhaiti Farm
• If required by the Office of Treaty Settlements, the Applicant must transfer the Nga Herenga pa site (approximately 1.6ha located on Benneydale Farm) to the Crown for nil consideration.

The third point, restricting ownership or control of milk processing here to no more than a 50% share, should allay concerns about food safety and standards.

The OIO’s recommendation is here; the decision summary is here  and background information here.

The only question I’m left with is why the receivers insisted on selling the operation as a whole rather than offering up individual farms.

They say they would not have got as much that way but I find that difficult to believe. The demand for individual farms would have been much greater than it was for the whole operation and therefore the price ought to have been higher.

 

Food safety’s the key

It’s not just growing demand for food but safe food which makes New Zealand dairy products and the land which produces them so attractive:

It’s not just New Zealand’s temperate climate and ability to grow lush green  grass that has caught the eye of Chinese investors.

Our ability to produce high quality milk cheaply and efficiently is matched  only by our ability to do so safely.

As an analyst for NZX, Susan Kilsby has compiled a report on the booming  Chinese dairy industry. She says for the Chinese, it’s all about food  security.

“It’s not just setting up the farm, it’s also the security of supply chain  from the time the milk leaves the cow to the time it reaches the consumer  product at the end,” she said.

Our reputation for food safety is priceless and something we must do everything in our power to safeguard.

I don’t have any problem with the sale of farm land to foreigners as mandated by current legislation. But we do need to ensure that any food which is produced in, and marketed as from, New Zealand conforms to our standards.

 

Quote of the day

The most distracting political battle will be over who leads the opposition. Elbow work between Winston Peters and David Shearer has already begun, and although the Green Party has been slow to start it will not be long before Russel Norman’s Australian accent will be heard decrying foreign ownership of NZ land. If the battle turns up the heat on the Govt, democracy will be served: if not, the only winners will be Key – and, probably, David Cunliffe. – Trans Tasman

Old rules don’t fit new media

The mainstream media is being very careful to not divulge the contents of the so-called teapot tapes.

But it wouldn’t take anyone who knows their way around the internet long to find the YouTube clip of the conversation recorded between John Key and John Banks.

The MSM is constrained by police advice it is an offence to disclose private communication unlawfully intercepted.

That could apply to websites based here but lots aren’t. It’s all over Twitter and some blogs also have links to the clip or enough information to help people looking for it.

And people are looking:

Yesterday evening the top search terms for this blog were:

Search	Views
teapot tape transcript	49
teapot tapes transcript	21
blair mayne	7
mona blades	7
youtube teapot tape	7
you tube teapot tape	5
key banks tea tape transcript	4
teapot tapes transcript 26 january	4
teapot tape download	4

Whether or not the old rules apply to new media might be debatable but the coverage the tapes are getting on the internet show that there is enough uncertainty to leave old media at a disadvantage.

However, without divulging the contents almost everyone agrees there was nothing of great moment on the recording.

That has led political opportunists to say that proves John Key was wrong to make an issue of it.

On the contrary it shows he was motivated not by a desire to hide something but by principle.

All of us, whether or not we are public figures, ought to be able to have a conversation without the risk it might be recorded and made public without our knowledge or permission.

January 27 in history

1186 Henry VI, the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, married Constance of Sicily.

1343 Pope Clement VI issued the Bull Unigenitus.

1606  Gunpowder Plot: The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators began, ending with their execution on January 31.

1695 Mustafa II became the Ottoman sultan on the death of Ahmed II. Mustafa rules until his abdication in 1703.

1756 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer was born  (d. 1791).

1785 The University of Georgia was founded, the first public university in the United States.

1825 The U.S. Congress approved Indian Territory clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the “Trail of Tears“.

1832  Lewis Carroll, English author, was born (d. 1898).

1888 The National Geographic Society was founded in Washington, D.C..

1908 William Randolph Hearst, Jr., American newspaper magnate, was born (d. 1993).

1921 Donna Reed, American actress, was born (d. 1986).

1933  Mohamed Al-Fayed, Egyptian billionaire businessman, was born.

1939 First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

1941 Beatrice Tinsley, New Zealand astronomer and cosmologist , was born  (d. 1981).

1944  Nick Mason, English drummer (Pink Floyd),was born.

1944 The 900-day Siege of Leningrad was lifted.

1945 – World War II: The Red Army liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.

1951 Brian Downey, Irish musician (Thin Lizzy), was born.

1951 Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat.

1962 Peter Snell broke the world mile record  on grass at Cook’s Garden, Wanganui, in a time of 3 mins 53.4 secs.

1967 Apollo 1 – Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire during a test of the spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Centre.

1967 – More than 60 nations signed the Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space.

1968 Mike Patton, American singer (Faith No More), was born.

1973 Paris Peace Accords officially ended the Vietnam War. Colonel William Nolde was killed in action becoming the conflict’s last recorded American combat casualty.

1974 The Brisbane River flooded causing the largest flood to affect Brisbane City in the 20th Century.

1979 Daniel Vettori, New Zealand cricketer, was born.

1981 Tony Woodcock, New Zealand rugby union player, was born.

1983 Pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world’s longest sub-aqueous tunnel (53.85 km) between the Japanese islands of Honshū and Hokkaidō, broke through.

1984 Pop singer Michael Jackson suffered second and third degree burn on his scalp during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in the Shrine Auditorium.

1996 Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara deposed the first democratically elected president of Niger, Mahamane Ousmane, in a military coup.

1996 Germany first observed International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

2006 Western Union discontinued its Telegram and Commercial Messaging services.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Word of the day

Bonza  – excellent; very good, wonderful.

Track to surplus steeper

Uncertainty in Europe has made the track back to Budget surplus steeper but Prime Minister John Key says the government is still planning to reach that target in the 2014/15 year.

“Today I can confirm that we are still on track to post a surplus in 2014/15, and the upcoming Budget Policy Statement will show a forecast surplus in the range of $300 to $500 million in that year,” Mr Key said.

“Given the events in Europe, this surplus is understandably smaller than was previously forecast. But we remain on our tight fiscal track.”

It might be politically tempting to soften the target but it is much better economically, and in the country’s long-term interests, to stick to the goal of surplus as soon as possible.

The commitment was made in a speech delivered this morning in which he outlined the government’s priorities:

Our first priority is to responsibly manage the Government’s finances. In the world as it is today, the state of the country’s finances is all-important.

Our second priority is to build a more competitive and productive economy. That means an export-focused economy, which is selling more of what the world wants, at a competitive price, and is built on a solid base of innovation.

Our third priority is to deliver better public services to New Zealanders, within the tight budget the Government is operating under.

And our final priority is to rebuild Christchurch, our second-biggest city.

The full speech is here.

Is that all there is?

The so called teapot tape has been released on YouTube..

It’s not easy to hear what is being said by John Key and John Banks in their pre-election conversation because of the background noise.

But from what I could hear and understand there is absolutely nothing to cause embarrassment or upset to anyone.

If that is all there is, the Herald on Sunday and TV3 who had the tape and made such a fuss about it really need to look at themselves, their standards and motivation.

They inferred  implied the contents were politically sensitive and potentially embarrassing.

They told us it was in the national interest to release them. If that’s all there is it wasn’t. They are simply boring.

The HOS and even more so TV3 turned a non-event into a potential scandal and then someone from one of those media outlets or Bradley Ambrose, the reporter who, inadvertently or not, recorded the conversation, gave something to Winston Peters which enabled him to do what he does best – manufacture outrage to generate attention.

The only embarrassment is to the media who created an issue out of nothing.

I am not linking to the recording because I am unsure of the legal position but if you can’t find it you’ll save yourself 10 minutes and 46 seconds of boredom.

Whaleoil, Kiwiblog and Keeping Stock also have posts on the recording.