Maritime workers boosted by international support

Workers on the Maritime Union picket line at the Port of Napier were told early this morning that tens of thousands of dollars of solidarity donations were flooding in from around the world.

A hardship fund is being set up to look after the workers, many of whom are casual workers, as they face a tough Christmas.

A round the clock picket has been held since 6am Saturday and will continue until resolution of the dispute.

Rain has not dampened the spirit of the workers who are receiving strong support from local people.

Groups of workers have been arriving from around North Island ports today to relieve the picket line.

Maritime Union General Secretary Trevor Hanson says some local workers have spent nearly every waking hour on the picket line, and have been told by the Union to go home and get some rest.

“The level of commitment here is incredible.”

Mr Hanson says the workers have the full support of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) that represents millions of workers around the world.

“The ITF have identified the Port of Napier as a port that is attacking secure jobs, and this is already having a major effect on shipping in the port.”

Mediation takes place today in Napier between the Union and management.

ACC figures ‘accounting trickery’

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union says ACC Minister Nick Smith and his handpicked board chair, John Judge, are being deliberately misleading in their assessment of ACC’s financial situation in order to undermine the scheme.

The call is in response to the Minister and the ACC Chair’s scaremongering today over the scheme’s future.

EPMU national secretary Andrew says the figures are based on deliberate accounting trickery.

The Minister of ACC and the Chair of the Board are being deliberately misleading when they claim that the cost of multiple future years’ ACC should be funded out of existing reserves.

“This is a softening up exercise to try and slash ACC and at the same time increase levies on workers and employers.

“The figures provided by John Judge, a Business Roundtable member and senior partner of one of the world’s largest accounting firms, Ernst & Young, refers to estimates of future costs and talks about them as if they should be funded in a single year.

“This is akin to saying that a person’s mortgage should be paid out of a single year’s income.

“This is a blatant accounting sleight of hand, and in the nearly forty years that ACC has been operating it has never done this.

“ACC was set up to make sure that people harmed at work or injured in their own time didn’t suffer the lottery and the indignity of personal injury lawsuits and this principle must remain intact.”

The EPMU is New Zealand’s largest private-sector union, representing 45,000 workers across eleven industries.

Subnational Family and Household Projection

All 16 regional council areas of New Zealand are projected to have more households in 2031 than in 2006, according to projections released by Statistics New Zealand today. This is based on the ‘medium series’ of the 2006-base subnational family and household projections. By comparison, the population of three regional council areas is projected to be smaller in 2031 compared with 2006.

The higher growth rate in the number of households compared with the population is due to a projected decrease in average household size for all regional council areas and territorial authorities. This reflects an increasing proportion of one-person households and a decrease in the average size of family households.

These trends are driven mainly by the general ageing of the population. Average family size is projected to decline largely because of an increase in the proportion of ‘couple without children’ families (which contain two people) and a decrease in the proportion of ‘two-parent’ families (which contain about four people, on average).

The Auckland region is projected to account for almost half of the national increase in households between 2006 and 2031, increasing from 466,000 to 726,000. Over the same period, it is projected to account for 62 percent of New Zealand’s population growth. By 2031, 35 percent of all households in New Zealand will be in the Auckland region, up from 30 percent in 2006.

The Car Crash At Towai This Afternoon

Two people have died after a crash involving four cars on State Highway One just south of Towai.

Initial indications are that the crash occurred after a northbound car crossed the centre line colliding with a southbound car. Two other cars following both these vehicles have been caught up in the accident.

The female driver and male front seat passenger of the northbound car died at the scene.

There were six other people in the three other vehicles. Several have been taken to hospital with moderate injuries.

The deceased were Korean tourists travelling to the Bay of Islands. Police are in the process of identifying and contacting their next of kin before their details are being released

Police have closed the road to traffic and along with other emergency services are in process of completing the scene investigation and clearing the area.

Punters To Get Their Obama Millions Now!

The country’s leading election bookmaker Centrebet will today begin paying out millions of dollars in winnings to punters who backed US presidential-elect Barack Obama to win the long race to the White House!

Centrebet media chief and political analyst Neil Evans said it was the “right thing to do” despite long-running conditions of election betting that punters don’t get paid until the inauguration, or swearing in, of the successful candidate!

“Obviously, the political system and betting landscape for the presidential race is a lot different to a major election book in Australia!” Evans said.

“Here, we pay out on the party that provides the Prime Minister or Premier. So you either back Labor or Liberal, and two days after the election is claimed, the swearing-in takes place, and everyone gets paid. The US presidential book was an individual candidates list that had as many as 40 runners right from the outset last year! You back the candidate firstly to secure their party’s nomination (which took around a year to run), then of course a final head-to-head battle at the ballot box to win the White House. People were always effectively backing the individual, not the party, and that is why we’ve made this quick decision!”

“As well, the official presidential inauguration is 11 weeks after the victory is claimed and that is way too long for punters to wait. We took nearly 8000 individual bets, amounting to around $2 million, on the US presidential race, and of course, thousands of clients of all shapes and sizes, were on the Democratic victor Barack Obama! After all that time, they deserve an early Christmas present – and here it is!”

Evans said a decision had been made to break with traditional election rules to pay out now, despite all this “sad talk” that Obama would continue to be under personal threat.

Obama closed a massively backed $1.06 favourite with Centrebet to win the White House, with the Republican John McCain closing a long $8.70 outsider!

Centrebet was the only bookmaker to field on all 50 American States, plus a series of break-out markets. Nearly $3 million in election betting in in the system at the moment, including nearly $400,000.00 in the NZ election book as Kiwis go to the polls today. National Opposition leader John Key closed a heavily-backed $1.10 favourite to end Labour leader Helen Clark’s era. She finished a $7.00 outsider!

Cullen To Chair NZ Post And Kiwibank

Political newsletter Trans-Tasman reports the Government will offer former Deputy PM and Finance Minister Michael Cullen the post of Chairman of the Board of NZ Post and its subsidiary Kiwibank, succeeding Jim Bolger who is due to retire this month. Cullen is announcing his retirement from Parliament today.

Earlier there had been speculation he would be offered the post of Chairman of Mighty River Power, but this might have conflicted with his role of advocate for iwi in Treaty of Waitangi negotiations. Dr Cullen’s resignation rounds off an outstanding Parliamentary career, which began when he was elected as MP for St Kilda in 1981, the same year Helen Clark entered the House.

His term as Minister of Finance was distinguished by the huge fiscal surpluses he racked up, the repayment of debt, and the creation of the NZ Superannuation Fund. He also bought back a majority stake in Air NZ, and in effect re-nationalised the railways.

Cooler Weather Heats Up Debate

Earlier this month a briefing paper for US government officials and environmental leaders on ways to “re-frame” the global warming debate in order to build stronger public support for climate change legislation, found its way into the hands of the New York Times (see Seeking to Save the Planet With a Thesaurus). Re-framing is a technique used by politicians to make radical ideas more palatable to the public by replacing controversial expressions with language that evokes empathy, cooperation, and a sense of interconnectedness. The concept is based on the work of George Lakoff (and others), a Professor of Linguistics at Berkley University and well known adviser to the environmental movement, who believes that if you control the language of a debate then you control the way that people think.

The report obtained by the New York Times had been prepared by the Washington-based public relations firm EcoAmerica. They explained that terms like “global warming”turned people off because they fostered images of “shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes”. The report suggested that rather than talking about

Family First Makes More FM Comp More Friendly

Family First NZ has offered to pay for a child to join their family on a dream holiday to Disneyland if they win the

Race To Benefit Victims Of Violent Crime

“The victims of Crime are you and I, as society declines, you and I pay”.

They may be the words of former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani but the father of murdered Tauranga woman Natasha Hayden-Brown believes a truer word has never been spoken.

Natasha Hayden-Brown was murdered on the 10th January 2005, her father, Tauranga businessman Brian Brown has sponsored a race to raise funds for the organization he says has helped his family enormously since the death of his daughter.

“Nobody asks to become a victim of a violent crime and when you do it is a very dark and lonely road.” Mr. Brown said.

“The Sensible Sentencing Trust helped us in our battle for justice and they help many other victims of crime so I thought it was time to ensure the public were aware of what this voluntary organization does – and hopefully we can raise a few dollars to help them in the work they do on behalf of all New Zealanders”.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust – Natasha Brown maiden will be held at Tauranga races on the 10th January, exactly three years after Natasha was murdered.

Trust Spokesman Garth McVicar said his organization received no Government funding and relied entirely on public donations to survive.

“Sensible Sentencing Trust has become the voice for Victims; we are now bringing a balance to what has become a criminal centred, offender friendly legal process. Our ultimate goal is to hold offenders accountable for the crimes they commit to ensure a safer society for all.”

Auck. Protest in support of democracy in Myanmar

GPJA supporters will be part of the protest at 2pm in Aotea Square this afternoon in support of the pro-democracy protests in Myanmar over the past few weeks.

Protests have taken place around the world in support of freedom and democracy for a population which has lived under brutal military rule for the past 45 years. Democratic elections were held in 1990 but the military refused to hand over power to the elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi who remains under house arrest.

It’s pleasing to see the level of international support for the people of Myanmar. Some is blatantly hypocritical such as that from George Bush whose US government has specialised in overthrowing democratically elected governments but elsewhere there is a genuine outpouring of support for the bravery of the people.

The people of Myanmar will eventually succeed but less blood will be spilled the more the rest of the world can show its active support for democracy. Aucklanders can do so at 2pm in Aotea Square today.