Two Americans emigrate to New Zealand from Colorado,
USA.
We talk about
our life in Nelson, New Zealand.
August 2009 | Blog home | October 2009
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We've been followed by the exact people we were escaping! I can't really speak for Don on this one, although I suspect he agrees. It's frightening but I'm keeping a close eye on them, I just hope the stronger forces of good win out in the long run.
Focus on the Family has found a cause a long way from Colorado Springs: the group was the financial backer of the call for a recent referendum about the anti-smacking legislation that passed in 2007 that cost $9m in public taxpayer money. You may recall I posted about the new law in March of that year. The bill passed in May and ever since there has been talk about getting it repealed, especially in light of the change in political parties in the 2008 election.
The aim of the bill was generally to give legal bite to child abuse cases. People opposed to the law felt that government shouldn't tell them to deal with their own children. Those are pretty simplistic summaries of positions, but the latter position has evolved in the past two years in the latest effort to have the bill overturned.
A petition was presented to parliament in May 2008 and in August it was decided that a referendum would be held. This past June 2009, taxpayers learned they would be charged $9m - in the middle of this awful worldwide recession where government jobs and benefits for people are being cut!! - for the referendum where every voter is sent a ballot. Here was the question: "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?"
Sounds pretty right-winger doesn't it, all spun like that. Of course, that's not what the law says, but you wouldn't know that from the way the question was spun so tightly. People seemed pretty divided at the time the legislation passed - although to be fair I believe the majority leaned against the anti-smacking legislation - when the results of the referendum came in, 87.6% of people voted "No" to the question and 11.81% of people voted "Yes". Voter turnout was 54.04% of about 3 million ballots. It's in how you ask the question, isn't it.
What's come to my attention since the referendum ended is that Focus on the Family, the group that initiated the referendum, got funding from the American Christian organisation of the same name (based in Colo Spgs). Hmmm.
As reported by 3News: "Many organisations in New Zealand get funding from all sorts of places," says Larry Baldock of the Kiwi Party [initiators, their political party]. "Focus On the Family here is a branch of the worldwide organisation, so it's possible they get funding from them - but that's had nothing to do with this referendum."
What I saw on a report on 3News kinda says it all: of all the cases they tracked over the past 2 years since the law has been in place, only 14 reports of abuse were of parents just slapping their kids lightly, NONE of which became charges. There were more than 2,400 child abuse reports. Sounds like the law is working and that heaps of parents who choose to slap their kids aren't being hunted down, wrongly arrested, charged and tried!!
Still, where there's a religious movement behind it, somehow the facts get lost. Call me jaded from being an American living through the last two decades with the religious right, I'll wear that badge. Our country is now out $9m for a law the Prime Minister says he won't change regardless of the outcome of the referendum (uh, cuz it's working!!), and now Focus on the Family has a lovely foothold in my new back yard. Didn't I move to get away from all this garbage?
It seems a change is coming for consumers who prefer credit card use over other options. Since the policy doesn't come into effect until next April it is hard to know the full impact. Bottom line it sounds as if some regulation has been removed to ensure a more competitive market. Great, we've seen how well that works based on the US lending practices. Based on what I read it feels as if the only benefit will be for business (retailers and banks specifically).
Currently retailers aren't able to pass on their credit card interchange fees on to consumers - although i'm sure they do unofficially via high prices on goods. So now retailers will be able to single out those who use credit cards and add a fee to the transaction. The fees will need to be clearly posted so consumers are aware. It will be interesting to see how this is used by businesses.
I'm curious how this will benefit the consumer at all. Yes, they will have the ability to make choices on where they shop based on the amount of the fee but I certainly don't think prices will come down for those who don't use credit cards. Seems it is just another way to make a bit more money.
My perception is that most kiwi's use EFTPOS (direct debit) and I'm not positive but I don't think the new policy applies to them. Since they are a direct debit from an account it seems to already be a very efficient process with limited transaction costs - but who knows, the article below does mention this might apply to "specific types of cards."
Anyway, more on this once the policy takes effect. Here a couple articles about this from the NZ Herald - a bit repetitive but they cover the main points.
Credit card surcharge now OK, says regulator
3:30PM Wednesday Aug 12, 2009
Credit card giant Visa has settled out of court with the Commerce Commission over price fixing claims, but the result means merchants can now start imposing levies on shoppers using credit cards.
Visa has agreed to a series of moves designed to improve competition and disclosure and will pay out $2.6 million towards the commission's costs in pursuing the issue. The commission will drop its High Court action against Visa where it said that its so-called "interchange fee" rules breached the restrictive trade practices provisions of the Commerce Act. Court action is also under way against a range of banks and other credit card companies.
Credit card issuers will now be able to individually set the interchange rates that will apply to transactions using their credit cards, subject to maximum rates determined by Visa. These rates will be publicly available. But merchants will no longer be prevented from applying surcharges to payments made by credit cards or by specific types of credit cards. They will also be able to encourage customers to pay by other means. Visa will open its network to non-banks if they meet certain financial and prudential criteria. Commission chairman Mark Berry welcomed Visa's "initiative in approaching the commission" and said the agreed changes would improve competition between companies that provide credit card services to retailers in New Zealand.
The commission also has claims against ANZ National Bank , Bank of New Zealand, Westpac New Zealand , ASB Bank , Kiwibank and TSB Bank in relation to interchange fees in the Visa scheme, which continue, as does its claim against those banks, MasterCard and The Warehouse Financial Services in relation to the MasterCard rules.
These are expected to be heard at the High Court in Auckland in October this year. Each time a Visa or Mastercard cardholder makes a purchase, the retailer pays a fee to their own bank as part of the payment authorisation process. That fee is comprised mainly of the interchange fee, which is paid to the cardholder's bank. The retailer is not allowed to recover the fee from the cardholder and therefore all customers bear a cost in higher prices regardless of how they pay.
In 2003, the Reserve Bank of Australia moved to regulate the level of interchange fees, reducing the fees over time from 0.95 per cent of transaction value to less than 0.5 per cent. Public and private competition enforcement actions have also been brought in respect of interchange fee arrangements in other jurisdictions, including the US and the UK.
Shoppers face extra cost for card use
4:00AM Thursday Aug 13, 2009
By Isaac Davison[shortened for brevity]
Consumers using credit cards could soon face higher costs after a Commerce Commission ruling gave merchants the right to charge levies.
Credit card giant Visa has settled out of court on claims of price-fixing made by the commission, and has agreed to improve competition and disclosure. As a result merchants will no longer be prevented from applying surcharges to payments made by credit cards or by specific types of cards.
When the change takes effect next April, merchants will also be able to encourage customers to pay by other means.
The commission said there was no limit to the surcharges merchants - usually retailers or service providers - could apply. Shoppers would have to decide whether a surcharge was acceptable.
It was too early to say whether any new costs might be passed on to the consumer, but suggested that, in a difficult economic climate, any increased fees would put pressure on the retailers to make up that money.
The commission also has claims against ANZ National Bank, BNZ, Westpac New Zealand, ASB Bank, Kiwibank and TSB Bank in relation to interchange fees in the Visa scheme, which continue, as does its claim against those banks, MasterCard and The Warehouse Financial Services in relation to the MasterCard rules. These are expected to be heard in the High Court at Auckland in October.
Also, it's Angela's birthday today!
Once again I'll repeat my disclaimer from parts 1 - 3: the content I am sharing with you on earthquakes is NOT my own writing, I have compiled it from a few sources I want to cite up front: most of the content is from Eileen McSaveney. 'Earthquakes', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 21-Sep-2007,
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky/NaturalHazardsAndDisasters/Earthquakes/en
A bit of text was also found at the GNZ site, http://www.gns.cri.nz/index.html
Engineers have a saying: ‘Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do.’ Destructive earthquakes have taught New Zealanders hard lessons in designing safe buildings. Attention was focused on weaknesses in building construction, especially poor building standards and the lack of any provision for earthquake-resistant design. A change to the building code recommended standards of design and construction so that buildings could resist the horizontal motions created by ground shaking.
Subsequent building code changes have added requirements to accommodate changes in building materials and design. For a moderate earthquake, the main aim is to protect a building from structural damage. For a major earthquake, however, the goal is to protect life by ensuring a building will not collapse and people can escape from it, even if the building itself is badly damaged.
City lifelines – water, sewerage and drains, gas, electricity, telecommunications and transport networks – are also threatened by earthquakes. Lifeline engineering aims at reducing both the damage and the time needed to restore services. In New Zealand several measures have been undertaken to protect utilities. Flexible joints or ductile pipes have been used for water pipelines across unstable ground to prevent rupture. Similarly, gas pipelines have been welded to prevent breakage, or replaced by polythene. Some Wellington bridges and overpasses have bearings or dampers to reduce movement, preventing concrete decks from collapsing.
The Clyde Dam in Central Otago is built to withstand intense shaking, even though it is in a region where the probability of a major earthquake is low. The dam is built across the River Channel Fault, and has been constructed with a specially designed slip joint. If the land on either side of the fault moves during an earthquake, the joint will allow sections of the dam to shift up to 2 metres horizontally and 1 metre vertically without the dam failing.
New Zealand is one of the few countries in the world with national government earthquake insurance for homeowners. In 1944, two years after earthquakes seriously affected Wairarapa and Wellington, a national commission was set up to cover damage from war and earthquakes. Cover for landslides, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and hydrothermal activity was added later. In 1993 war damage was excluded and the commission became the Earthquake Commission (EQC). EQC insurance covers homes and their contents up to a specified monetary limit, but not commercial properties or motor vehicles. Homeowners automatically get EQC cover when they buy fire insurance.
EQC maintains a natural disaster fund, invested both in New Zealand and overseas, and buys catastrophe reinsurance. EQC provides core funding for the GeoNet monitoring network, and funds hazard research and public education programmes.
To close this series, it's fitting that Te Anau - two hours from Milford Sound - had a small earthquake on Thursday morning.
Firstly, sorry for the long delay between blogs, it's been terribly busy on our homefront (relatively busy, of course) lately but things slowed a bit this past week and we are looking to a bit of time off work in October. Yay!
A story on TV3 reported that New Zealand has one of the world's highest prison populations for our size country and amongst developed western nations (what does this term really mean, seems slightly bigoted to those poor 'eastern' shlobs - another blog entirely). In fact, we are second!! Second to the US, and fortunately, a distant second:
Prison population rate per 100,000 of national population (Kings College London School of Law) |
|
USA |
760 |
NZ |
195 |
England / Wales |
153 |
Australia |
129 |
China |
119 |
France |
96 |
The story was more about how our politicians are to blame for our relatively high rate because they choose to imprison the scary criminals as the easiest course - mostly to pander to voters. The complainers blame the judges for going tough on criminals and locking up even minor offenders for short terms, but the judges say they are just obeying the laws in place - which puts it to the politicians. It usually ends up there.
The problem with us is that we are running out of prison space, with something like 500 rooms open but expected to fill by the early part of next year. One of the current strategies to stretch capacity is to start double-bunking criminals. WHA??? This isn't already being done? No, as a matter of fact it doesn't seem to be. That kind of setup comes standard in the US and possibly elsewhere, but here we still consider criminals human beings.
Interesting theory put forth - and extrapolating further, what might the New Zealand criminologist who made these allegations be saying about the US? Even so, the story said that we are currently locking up more people than we ever have in our history. Of course the total quantity of prisoners is only 8,500 people, which seems darn freaking low compared to what I used to hear about (isn't it in the millions in US?).
At least our saving grace is that compared to ALL nations, New Zealand sits 64th. I like that spot better.
If you didn't already see our esteemed Prime Minister on Letterman, here's a clip of his appearance. He did us proud! And it's not New ENGLAND, but New Zealand :). Letterman apologised for that after the ad break. He's welcome here anytime, he can stay on my air mattress if he likes, that's the way we do it here in kiwiland.
Link to youtube clip of Key on Letterman.
