Happy birthday Elizabeth Taylor – 78 today.
This film showed during school holidays at the Oamaru’s Majestic Theatre and we galloped home through the gardens, kicking up leaves, pretending we were riding like Velvet.
Happy birthday Elizabeth Taylor – 78 today.
This film showed during school holidays at the Oamaru’s Majestic Theatre and we galloped home through the gardens, kicking up leaves, pretending we were riding like Velvet.
When I rang the Telecom desk for the second time in three hours yesterday because the mobile broadband kept disconnecting the bloke who answered was very helpful.
He also admitted the problem was the XT network.
Phone calls take precedence over data so if/when the system reaches capacity a single extra phone call pushes out the broadband connection.
“But we’re working fast to remedy that and add extra capacity,” he added.
Does this mean that XT has been more popular than the company thought it would be or that capacity was insufficient to begin with?
Whichever it is, I’m giving the company the benefit of the doubt for now and waiting hopefully for delivery to meet the promises soon.
After all, as Not PC points out, other telcos aren’t fault-free either.
The suggestion by Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce that student loans be tied to performance would be an improvement on the current system.
It is not in the best interests of the taxpayer or students to keep on paying loans to people who are failing significant parts of their courses.
With a limited amount of money available it should be going to ensuring high standards of teaching and helping students who help themselves, not funding those who fail.
Allowances are cut if students fail more than half their course in the previous year and that would be a sensible model to follow for loans.
Interest-free student loans were one of Labour’s election bribes. National came up with a better idea in 2005 but lost the election and swallowed the dead rat by promising to keep the loans in its 2008 campaign.
That doesn’t mean there can’t be changes to the system and stopping loans to those who fail would be a good place to start.
Helping people who graduate and work in hard to staff areas is better than propping up under-graduates who fail.
Voluntary bonding for health graduates is a good example of this and Health Minister Tony Ryall has announced the scheme will be widened.
South Canterbury has been added to the areas which are hard to staff and surgical nurses have been included in the list of hard to staff specialities.
Environment Canterbury and Waimate District Council have approved Oceania Dairy’s resource consent application for a dairy processing plant at Glenavy.
The plant plans to process approximately 220 million litres of milk and produce around 32,000 tonnes of milk powder a year. It is expected to be operational for the start of the 2011/2012 season.
It’s a $95 million development and the company is now concentrating on its $74.75-million capital raising.
Farmers have the option of being shareholders and suppliers or just suppliers. The company is also seeking investment from non-farmers.
Farmers who supply Fonterra have to own shares in the company. With Oceania farmers could supply the company without having to make a capital investment. That could be attractive to people starting in the industry or those already in dairying who want to lower their debt levels.
However, this is a new company and farmers will have to weigh up whether or not they can get a return from a company without a track record which would be close to or better than that from Fonterra.
Only suppliers can own Fonterra shares. Oceania offers an opportunity to invest in dairying for non-farmers but no investment is risk free and only time will tell if this company can succeed in export markets.
Most forecasters are expecting stability or a slight reduction in milk prices in the short to medium term. But most also recognise that the world is short of food and any company from New Zealand selling milk does so with the assistance of our reputation for high standards of food safety.