Perth

Labour said that boat people will never come to NZ. Even now David Shearer is insisting that NZ is too far for boat people. And yet some have turned up, albeit lost off Australia, but carrying placards nonetheless expressing their desire to come here.

A ramshackle fishing boat carrying 66 suspected asylum seekers from Sri Lanka has arrived in Australia – carrying passengers holding a sign saying “We want to go to New Zealand”.

The overcrowded wooden fishing vessel carrying men, women and children was spotted off the coast of Geraldton, about 400km north of Perth in Western Australia.

It is believed to be the first boat to have travelled so far south in recent years. Most asylum seekers arrive near Christmas Island, more than 2000km north, where they are usually intercepted.  Read more »

Not so well by the looks of it:

Aucklanders sitting in traffic this morning might not be surprised to hear the city is the third most congested in Australasia.

Mapping and navigation technology firm TomTom has just released its first congestion index, showing Auckland commuters spend 92 hours each year caught in peak hour traffic on average.  Read more »

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

Len Brown should bid against the Aussies for the base for a US Carrier Group. the economic benefits would far outweigh a silly taxi race around Pukekohe:

A report for the US military contains a recommendation to expand America’s defence presence in Australia by massively expanding a base in Perth for a US aircraft carrier and supporting fleet.

The report’s authors will give testimony before Congress’s Armed Services Committee on Wednesday in the US.

The CSIS was directed to consider how the US military could undertake the “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region announced by President Barack Obama last year in response to China’s increasing influence.

The third option in the report – formally titled US Force Posture Strategy in the Asia Pacific Region: An Independent Assessment - details moving a US carrier strike group to the HMAS Stirling base in Perth.

The strike group would include a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, a carrier air wing of up to nine squadrons, one or two guided missile cruisers, two or three guided missile destroyers, one or two nuclear powered submarines and a supply ship.

“Australia’s geography, political stability, and existing defence capabilities and infrastructure offer strategic depth and other significant military advantages to the United States in light of the growing range of Chinese weapons systems, US efforts to achieve a more distributed force posture, and the increasing strategic importance of south-east Asia and the Indian Ocean,” says the report.

An ad for the Central Institute of Technology in Perth, Australia. Watch out at the end…some squeamish types may get a bit upset.

No doubt some hipsters here will attempt a lame copy cat video.

The Police are in the news again, and again for all the wrong reasons.

This time it is a detective who said to a conference on Asian Crime that "People who could be blindfolded with a shoelace" could not be trusted.

Apparently he also slagged off Sue Bradford, now that I can forgive, but the racism needs to be addressed. 

I read with increasing increduality this morning that the Accident Compensation Corporation is investing millions of our money in a satellite.
[quote]The ACC has taken a 25 per cent stake in privately-owned firm NZLSAT which hopes to launch a satellite into space with the possible backing of the Defence Force, which may become a $100 million customer.

NZLSAT got the green light from the Government in 2005 to put a satellite into orbit in a space reserved for New Zealand by the United Nations, 158 degrees east of the Meridian.

The company was set up in 2003 by the Economic Development Ministry’s former manager of radio spectrum, Katharine Moody and Auckland businessmen Paul Hannah- Jones and Alan Jamieson, who between them still own half of the company. They hope to launch a satellite by 2010 at an expected cost of US$165 million.

ACC took a quarter share in NZLSAT late last year, as did investment bank ABN Amro, according to records held by the Companies Office.[/quote]

WTF, why is ACC spending our tax dollars investing in Russian technology for a satellite that has only a "possible" customer?

It sounds like a rort to me.