Inequities over staff increases

One of the unfortunate consequences of MMP is the larger area of electorates. The difficulty and added expense of servicing them has not been recognised by extra resources for their MPs.

However, thanks to one of the clauses in the agreement between National and the Maori Party  that will change.

All Maori MPs and all MPs in general seats which cover an area greater than 20,000 square kilometres will be entitled to an extra staff member, equivalent to three full time out of parliament staffers.

The Electorates which will benefit from this are:

Name	Area sq.km
Te Tai Tonga	161,443
Clutha-Southland	38,247
West Coast-Tasman	38,042
Te Tai Hauauru	35,825
Waitaki	34,888
Ikaroa-Rawhiti	30,952
Kaikoura	23,706

Waiariki	19,212
Te Tai Tokerau	16,370

Hauraki-Waikato

12,580

Tamaki Makaurau

730

The MPs representing them are Rahui Katene, Bill English, Chris Auchinvole,  Parekura Horomia, Jacqui Dean, Colin King, Tariana Turia, Te Ururoa Flavell, Hone Harawira,  Nanaia Mahuta and Pita Sharples.

The area the bigger ones cover definitely justifies more help. But there are 21 general electorates which cover bigger areas than Tamaki Makaurau.

That raises the question of why an electorate covering a relatively small area of 730 square kilometres needs an extra staff member if these, which are bigger, don’t:

East Coast	13,649
Taranaki-King Country	12,869

Northland	12,255
Rangitikei	12,189
Wairarapa	11,922
Taupo	9,101
Selwyn	7,854
Napier	6,866
Rangitata	6,826
Whanganui	5,948
Invercargill	5,617
Rotorua	5,535
Waikato	4,947
Coromandel	4,653
Tukituki	4,277
Dunedin South	2,702
Waimakariri	1,757
Otaki	1,728
Whangarei	1,628
Hunua	1,266
Bay of Plenty	1,188
Rodney	1,051
Helensville	865

 

Lucky or blessed?

 

“Aren’t we lucky?” I said.

“Aren’t we blessed?” she responded.

She wasn’t nit picking, she was pointing out the important differences between being lucky and being blessed.

I thought of that while we were driving through the Mackenzie Country on Friday and stopped to look across Lake Pukaki to Mount Cook:

I also thought of this from Katherine Mansfield:

It was one of those days, so still, so clear, so silent you almost feel the earth itself has stopped in astonishment at its own beauty.

Psychosclerosis sightings

Cases of psychosclerosis abound.

Chris Trotter’s and Steve Braunias  must have been in the grips of it when writing their columns in last week’s Sunday Star Times.

Then Michael Cullen played Muldoon.

Monkeywithtypewriter  spotted a serious outbreak at The Standard.

Simon Cunliffe had such a bad attack that the ODT added this to the end of his weekly column:

Simon Cunliffe is assistant editor at the Otago Daily Times. His views are entirely his own.

And Inquiring Mind came across classic symptoms in a letter to the editor.

But all is not lost. It is possible for those suffering from psychoslerosis to overcome their affliction as Chris Trotter shows:

Who is served by an ideology that refuses to recognise that crucial aspect of the human spirit which refuses to accept the brute statistical reality that many are called but few are chosen?

Are we socialists, in our drive for an absolute equality of outcomes, really willing to descend to the level of a certain species of crab which will, when collected in a bucket, seize and haul back into the doomed mass any individual that attempts to escape its fate by climbing out?

Should John Key’s mother be condemned for instilling in her son the notion that, with lots of hard work and a little luck, he could transcend his state house roots?

Is that why so many other New Zealanders raised in state houses voted against Helen Clark’s Labour-led government last Saturday?

Because, somehow, they had got it into their heads that she would be happier if they never left them? Never climbed out of the bucket?

Or, God forbid, that Labour’s social-democratic state was actually about seizing them in its claws and dragging them back down into it?

But alas, he’s had a relapse in today’s SST.

I can’t find it on line but in his column he shows an inability to see past his own prejudice which is a classic symptom of psychosclerosis.

He’s writing about the deal between National and the Maori Party. He reckons Maori are betraying their roots but if he wasn’t afflicted by psychosclerosis he’d be able to see it as the historic opportunity for progress which is how those with a more positive outlook regard it.

McGlashan sees red over TV blue

Singer Don McGlashan gets full marks for imagery in explaining his anger over TVNZ using his song Anchor Me while showing a montage of National leader John Key’s election victory.

In an angry letter to the network, McGlashan said he had never voted National and “would rather have sex with a very ugly crayfish than let them use my music”.

TVNZ’s agreement with the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) to play a range of New Zealand music at a set fee gave it the right to use the song, but I can understand that how someone with McGlashan’s political leanings would be unhappy about it.

However, I’m having trouble thinking of another song by a New Zealander which might have been used that would not offend a musician because all the ones I can think of lean to the left too.