Posted on

New Zealand’s Golden Day at Beijing

After many days New Zealand finally tastes success at Beijing. Two gold medals a silver and two bronze. The most medals New Zealand has ever won at the Olympics on single day. Perhaps even more exciting is that they were across three different sporting events rowing, cycling and shot put. When you consider that there are only four million people in the country and it is difficult and expensive for New Zealand sports people to get international competition “it is no mean feat “ and the athletes are to be commended for their sacrifice dedication and achievements. To read more
Click here

Our day did not stop there the All Blacks beat South Africa and the Warriors our NRL team won

Posted on

Is that too much to ask?

The opposition are saying that if they become the government there will be an active programme to force people on benefits into paid work. The government has a scheme titled working for families where people with young families are paying reduced levels of tax. What people need to decide is……. do people respond better to incentive or to threat. The withdrawal of the benefits was advocated by the governments in the 90’s and had limited success and yet the opposition would see this “tried and failed” option as viable in the year 2009. The same opposition is suggesting that the public service needs to be reduced.  An  “off benefits and into paid work” would seem to be a very people intensive measure, and may in fact mean more public servants need to be employed. Other considerations might be if people have their benefits withdrawn because the fail to move into paid work what do they do?…. Turn to crime… We need to think carefully about our next votes and consider the big picture not just what is best for ourselves. Is that too much to ask?

Posted on

Oil Prices Trend Down

For some time now oil prices have been trending down rather than up. It make a difference and with the grocery voucher between 6cents and 10 cents it seems too good to be true. Filling the car is still expensive but not as bad as it was. The question is will it stay down? The present conflict in Russia does not look good and could cause supply problems. Lets hope for the sake of the people who live in the conflict zone some solution can be found quickly and no more loss of life will result. We then may also benefit with continuity of supply to the European areas  and consequently to the world.

Posted on

Is there a Secret Agenda?

As the New Zealand election campaign hots up it seems that the opposition may not be revealing all that they intend to do if they are elected to government. Over the last week ent the opposition held their annual conference. Some IT savvy individuals recorded parts of conservations that took place during the conference. The audio was made available to the main TV news links.

The audio was played in the news listening to the audio which was also captioned it was not difficult to infer that

·        There will be major asset sales at some stage

·        The opposition is not as unified as it purports to be

·        Some of the present legislation currently in place may well be repealed.

All this despite giving many reassurances to the contrary in recent weeks. The spin doctors have been busy trying to counter the “damage”. The incident must leave a lot of doubt in the voters mind.

Posted on

Are tax cuts real?

The New Zealand general election is now only about 14 weeks away. The main parties are talking tax cuts. The government having already revealed their policy and the opposition inferring they will up the offer by the government.  However the opposition states they will be borrowing money for infrastructure. It seems to me that they are “trying to hood wink the voters” there also seems to be a strong possibility they will sell Kiwi Bank one of only to New Zealand owned banks in the country. The voters of New Zealand will need to carefully consider how they will vote as this election may well be more important than most people realise. Will tax cuts give us more spending power or just be a way of getting us to pay more insidious forms of indirect tax.

Posted on

Insurance claim rise to 50 million dollars

Insurance claims have continued to rise to more than $50,000,000 after this week’s storms, Arborists in the North Island have had to emloy extra people to meet the demand created by thousands of trees felled by high winds.
From Horowhenua to Upper Hutt dozens of trees fell on houses and other buildings and thousands of others are blocking roads and access to homes

Posted on

Storm will cost tens of millions

During the recent storm in New Zealand the P&O cruises ship Pacific Sun was hit by 7 metre swells and 50 knot winds when it suddenly rolled 600km north of Auckland. Forty-two people on the cruise have received medical treatment.

The storm has continued to lash New Zealand as it has moved down the country towards the South Island. It has been confirmed that the person lost has drowned while trying to cross a river and it seems likely that her husband who is also missing may have also drowned. Some initial estimates of the damage caused by the storm put the costs at millions of dollars.

Posted on

50,000 Homes with out Power

The last 12 hours the North Island of New Zealand has been buffeted by winds of up to 150k and heavy rain. There have been more than 50,000 homes without power as tress blew down and crashed through power lines. The speed on the harbour bridge was lowered to 60k and people were told to stay at home and not venture out unless necessary. We are fortunate that there has been now loss of life although there is damage to property. The storm has passed its peek and it is more settled but forecasters are predicting a possible repeat next Wednesday.

Posted on

General Election

The fever builds towards the next general election. Each day the news papers are featuring those with political aspirations and what the have or have not done. With an MMP system those who want to gain power are very keen to get the party vote and are keen to discredit those who would take it away from them. To be honest it is getting a bit hard to take and there is a long way to go yet ….months and months. The leader of the opposition had his photo in the main news paper this morning and a story about being one of the richest people in NZ. It won’t make me vote for him. Wel at least it looks kie it might be a decent day. Hope so….

Posted on

Rough weather

The weather has been wet cold and rainy for three days. There has been thunder lightning and cold wind. Had to work inside the last few days. Worked on the computer most of the time produced some multimedia resources.
Petrol down again great news