November 2010

Yesterday on Radio Live, Matthew Hooton raised some interesting points about the Pike River mining disaster and lays the blame for the disaster squarely at the feet of Helen Clark and her cabinet. (Thursday 25/11 listen after 3:15pm)

To my knowledge the design of this mine was entirely predicated by the interference of green politics. The Helen Clark led Labour cabinet approved the Pike River mine but with some design contraints that probably have led directly to the deaths of 29 miners.

Due to the location, the conditions of the access arrangement required special consideration for the environment, such as a need to minimise tree felling and a requirement to reinstate all above-ground areas after mining ceases. Opponents of the mine strongly criticised the approval of the access agreement, noting that the coal is not intended for domestic use but simply a commercial operation, and thus should not have been allowed to go forward in a sensitive location. Forest & Bird also criticised the fact that the Minister of Conservation chose to ignore the report from the Department of Conservation stating that the mine would be damaging to the local environment. Greenpeace Aotearoa New Zealand also criticised the project for furthering the use of fossil fuels instead of developing sustainable alternatives.

Those protestations by the green movement and together with the constraints placed upon the operation by the Department of Conservation and its minister (Chris Carter) at the time, meant that Pike River mine was built in a highly unique way, with a method that well may be proven to have led to the build up of gases to such a critical level.

By insisting that the mine entrance be placed outside Paparoa National Park and also, information suggests, veto-ing the boring of a second ventilation shaft because of a blue duck living in the area meant that undue risks were placed on the miners. They had to tunnel from below the actual seam of coal and through more than 2kms under the National Park in order to gain access to the resource. Normally mines are built atop the mineral to be extracted, if normal mining operations are being undertaking, thus boring down onto the resource, but also allowing lighter than air gases such as methane to escape. By having to mine from below the resource and by failing to allow a second ventilation shaft because of a stupid duck, they may have killed those miners.

This is the only mine in the world that has its entrance BELOW the resource and mines up and towards the resources. Methane, a lighter than air gas had nowhere to go. The mine operation is described in Wikipedia, clearly showing the contraints placed upon operation.

The coal is mined 200m underground, at 800m above sea level, quarrying coal from the Brunner coal seam. The coal is taken from the mine via a ‘drift’, a gently-sloping 5 degree tunnel 2.3 km long. This tunnel has taken large amounts of dynamite to create, as the rock is described as being up to four times harder than concrete. Since the coal face will be located higher than the tunnel entrance, removal of material to a processing plant 10.6 km away will be via a slurry pipeline (with a 35% solids share).

Another major feature of the underground works is a 110m-deep ventilation shaft. After local ground conditions were found to be worse than expected, it was excavated with a raise-bore system excavating the 4.25m ventilation shaft from a 0.35m pilot drill shaft. Access to the top of the ventilation shaft is by helicopter only, even during construction, as conservation restrictions do not allow roads to be built to reach this point.

Make no mistake, conservation restrictions placed upon the company by green politics and the enviro-fascism of Helen Clark have led directly to the deaths of these 29 miners.

If normal mining methods had been allowed or even open cast mining then 29 miners may well be alive today. Helen Clark, Chris Carter, Greenpeace, Forest and Bird and the Department of Conservation may well have blood on their hads by making politically expedient decisions that protected trees and ducks over hard-working miners.

Three boys in an aluminium dinghy drifted 1300 kilometres across the South Pacific, resorting to drinking seawater and devouring a seagull to survive.

On Wednesday, a New Zealand fishing boat in a lonely part of the ocean spotted the tiny boat carrying the three Tokelauans who were thought lost forever.

They had eaten just one seagull in 50 days adrift.

“We got to them in a miracle,” first mate Tai Fredricsen of the Bay of Islands said from the Sanford tuna boat San Nikunau yesterday as it headed to Fiji with its extra cargo.

The boys, Samuel Perez and Filo Filo, both 15, and Edward Nasau, 14, had disappeared from Atafu Island on October 5. An extensive search by a RNZAF Orion failed to find any trace of them.

All I can say is that they were lucky fellow Tokelauan Kris Fa’afoi was there to help rescue them. I bet they are looking forward to a feed of McDonalds.

Kris Fa'afoi at the rescue of 3 Tokelauans

In the dying days of his less than stellar career as Helen Clark’s lickspittle commissioner, Howard Broad, has taken to utttering complete nonsense.

Mr Broad said the “traditional model of policing” had “delivered a wave of criminals in to the system – an absolute wave”. He told reporters prison was for “serious offenders”.

“It’s tempting to use prison as a minor, intermediate sort of sanction.

“But the evidence seems to be that the `university of the prison’ is a fact and it exists and that we should do everything we can to avoid people going down that track.

“One of the worst things that you can do for an emerging young offender is to group them together with other emerging young offenders. The whole idea is actually preventing crime in the first place.”

Oh righto…it’s prison’s fault that criminals are there?

Judith Collins needs to put this fool on gardening leave. His solution to policing seems to be very Monty Python.

Clayton Cosgrove seems to be very dim too…he is still harping on about police numbers even after getting comprehensively slapped around by Judith Collins in the house on this very issue.

Since everyone else has taken leave of their senses to go have a cry, I’ll take up the debate. Seriously its rotten bad luck and all that, and terribly sad for 29 families but really to suspend discussions and daily life is really just sooky behaviour.

Now, let there be no more carping, mewling and whining from Labour about privatisation anymore. They have now embraced it. I think they announced this during the Pike River disaster in the hope it would fly under the radar. But for other sooky media, bloggers and politicians it just may well have. Rumour has it that Cunliffe had two speeches… one when the news was buried by other events, and another that didn’t signal any economic changes.

Labour will make bold changes to the economy including allowing public-private partnership for transport, considering an “inbound transactions tax” and allow private shareholders to own shares in subsidiaries of state owned enterprises, finance spokesman David Cunllffe said today.

In a speech to the Institute of Policy Studies in Wellington Mr Cunliffe said Labour would not go on a spending spree, but would reduce net debt and build a stronger capital base.

He said private equity in SOEs’ subsidiaries would not dilute taxpayer equity or lead to wholly or partially privatising the SOE.

In some respects this is a little strange because they pulled out of endorsing PPPs and now they are back in.

Predictably there are some upset pinkos which means this policy is actually a good one from Silent T.

It is good in the sense that it finally removes the scales from the eyes of Labour with regards to privatisation. No Right Turn points out the details behind the policy on privatisation.

Which is technically correct – instead we have a partially privatised subsidiary. But by permitting that, he effectively gives away the farm. To point out the obvious, Kiwibank is not an SOE, but a subsidiary of one (NZ Post). And this policy means he has no objection to selling it to rapacious Aussies. More generally, by allowing part-privatisation of SOE subsidiaries, he removes any grounds to prohibit it in the SOEs themselves. The result is to open up space for National to do exactly that.

Yep, good idea. Move ACC to be a subsidiary of an SOE. Kiwibank is already primed under Labour’s policy….I’m sure there are even more. Time to get cracking.

In fact make one big SOE…call it…oh I don’t know…something like…NZ Government Limited…then make all other departments subsidiaries of the new Super SOE….presto…and all under Labour’s cool new privatisation policy.

Then the government can post out share certificates in the all the new SOE subsidiaries and let people decide for themselves whether they want to maintain “their” investment in those SOE’s or sell them down.

A Chris Christie smackdown of a whiny teacher.

The similarities with NZ are striking. The teacher unions here are asking for another 4% pay rise after getting 4% every year for the past three years.

Note how this smackdown is done Tolley.

With the news yesterday of the arrest and charging of two mates from a group of six good friends associated with interesting property arrangements to do with ACC it is with some concern that more information has come to light about the business practices of one of the six.

This story is becoming a poisoned chalice for anyone involved.  I wonder if Malcolm Mason actually declared the $160k and paid tax on this money? Will the IRD now chase the tax (plus penalties on this corrupt dosh) after all income by any means is liable for tax (and GST???) – failure to declare means that the penalties must be quite high – oh dear.

And with the media playing spot the missing name today it wasn’t too long before the tipline was running hot again.

The Bayleys principal in Wellington who is mentioned in the Dominion Post currently has an exclusive RFP in market for 13,000m2 of office space for the Department of Labour.

If you are a property owner and want to participate in the process you have to sign a confidently agreement with Bayleys plus agree to pay a fee of 20% of 1^st years rent (norm 14%)

So this blogger asks;

• Why is DoL sourcing new office space secretly?
• The Bayleys commission will add $8 -12 pm2 to the cost of the rental over the length of the lease. Why the special commission rate for DoL leasing?
• Why is government office leasing not publicly notified by each deptment?
• Is it 20% of the gross or net rent? There is a huge difference! Gross is more favourable to the agent by about 20%

The Property Manager at DoL is John Langman at the National Office Wellington, the word is that he will not deal with any other Real Estate Agency.

Is this another ACC style property rort? And isn’t it curious that it features one of the main players of the nice bunch of six good mates.

Patsy has been really very brave today. She mentioned my blogger name in parliament and mocked Simon Power all in the same breathe. Simon Power wasn’t too impressed though, saying;

“And who cares what he has to say anyway”

Well, Simon Power, you will care what I have to say, you will care very much what I have to say especially over your betrayal with electoral reform.

I am putting you on notice that your disgraceful new law restricting the freedom of speech of all New Zealanders is going to cause you serious and personal repercussions.

If you do not change the law it is my intention to deliberately and repeatedly break the law. I will then dominate the media cycle for several months, and you may be certain I will be laying the blame squarely with you.

There are two aims of this action. One is to see your repressive law changed. The other is to destroy your political career.

One of my proudest moments as a blogger was labeling you FIGJAM and ensuring that it was recorded in NZ case law. It must gall you as a third rate conveyancing lawyer from a small provincial town that your legacy in law is as a nickname written by a judge in a 70 page judgement that had nothing to do with you. I will make sure that whenever I am talking to the media on the issue of your ill-conceived and anti-democratic electoral reform that I call you FIGJAM Power so the whole country knows your nickname.

At the time of John Boscawen’s EFB protest marches, John Key, as Leader of the Opposition at the time, did not attend a march, however he did send John a message to be read out to the protesters. In that message he said, with regard to the Electoral Finance Bill;

Labour is not listening. National is.
Today, I give you this assurance. If I have the privilege to be the next Prime Minister I will overturn this law. I will set about building a proper political consensus for fair changes to our election rules. I will listen to what people like you, and many thousands of others are saying.
You are fighting for a principle.
You are fighting for THE most important principle.
You are fighting for democracy.
I salute you
John Key

I was there when John Boscawen read out that message, and more importantly, I put it on Youtube.

Well John? What happened to your principles? Did you drop them along the way as you were fighting for democracy?

Why has John Key allowed Simon Power to sell out National and the thousands who marched for our freedom of speech and democracy?

Sure National repealed the law but they have effectively re-instated it. they have protected the hegemony of politician to pretend to speak for us and spend our money telling us what they think, yet prevent us telling them how we think.

What is even more ridiculous is the spending limits they have decided upon for standing for parliament. In the recent local body elections people were able to spend up to $40,000 to secure a ward councillor position. Yet Simon Power and his Labour party pals think that $25,000 should be the limit for an individual to spend trying to secure an electorate seat. Why the difference…are council seats more important that seats for members of parliament.

Yet another example of the paucity of Simon Power‘s intellectual abilities.

John Key - Enemy of Freedom of Speech

Hot from the tipline

A tax collector spotted in the wild in Ellerslie on Ladies Mile.

Hmmm…I wonder what the rules say about that?

“The operation cannot effectively or safely be conducted using overt means.. All speed measuring devices are to be operated in an overt manner. Hidden or camouflaged…

Clearly this officer is  in disregard of the Police’s own operations guides.

If anyone was pinged yesterday on Ladies Mile by Constable Hideypants then I think they probably have grounds for dismissal of the fines.

Tax-collector on Ladies Miles in Ellerslie

The problem with name suppression is that it can lead to aspersions being cast upon people who are innocent and because one person is afraid of his own name then people in a whole indutry can get smeared with crimes. Take the road rage guy;

The prominent financial industry figure accused of a hit and run road rage incident has lost his bid for name suppression but will appeal the decision in the High Court.

The man appeared at the Auckland District Court yesterday and is charged with wounding with reckless disregard.

Judge Greg Davis granted the man interim name suppression until the appeal is heard in the High Court.

The man is alleged to have driven his car over another man during an incident on Mt Eden Rd in September.

He is smearing a great many people by continuing to hide from his own name.

Fortunately we can help eliminate a great many from the suspect list by narrowing down the list to just those top finance industry figures who work for an interesting company.