Curtains for Dunedin City Council ? *gulp —October elections [grey area]

Received. [spoof or sting] . . . . . w o r r i e d
Thu, 2 Jun 2016 at 8:20 a.m.

[all-comic.com]

Urgente: Annoucemente’

The first June meeting will be held on the first of June, the first.

Minutes: Of the last meeting.

“Cull de Mare”

OK Good Idea!

Agenda: Item 22, Delete Item 21- Agreed unanimously or unani(kleinefieldmausly) as you would.

The Question:

Is there a wait for Meals on Wheels?

No not only is there no weight, but also no taste, no colour, no nutrition and no hope of any for 15 years and lets hope no right of renewal!

Question Der:

Postulate: In a letter received Tuesday last, a Miz Dr, Prof. Mc El Hone suggested that the main reason for de sea level rise is now steam.

Steam is gumming up the atmosphere and so the cold weather we have been receiving lately is now unable to get away causing bloody cold weather now described as “Global Cooling”.

Dr Professor Earl, Count and Pons Hagfish, the owner of a large number of scenic hotels in de districk and manager of a number in serious question in de Pacific has written and questions the Comite’ thus: My business is suffering, all of my marketing and advertising has been geared towards the concept of Dunedin and the Peninsula as the new Sunny Gold Coast. Sunny because of the “Global Warming” mantra and Gold coast because the expected sea level rise would take the shoreline to Clyde, the Shotover river and Bendigo abandoned goldfields!

Now your Comite’ is debunking the sea level rise as a giant furphy and that the climate is actually so cold as to suggest “Global Cooling” I am now forced to market Dunedin, as in the past, a place where refrigerators are not required, a meat safe will do!

This is a huge capital saving for Scenery hotels, as we do not have to place a minibar in each room and if we leave out the window glass the meat never defrosts! Wines are cold and at room temperature of -20 degrees, no ice machine is necessary.

There are some problems however.

Patrons are found frozen stiff in the hallway and in the foyer. Ice skates are necessary for trips to the car park. Chains are necessary on delivery trucks and cabs to and from the airport. The planes have skis and the pilots wear balaclavas.

In order to improve this I have a very important and well considered plan to eliminate “global cooling”.

M’sieur Rollande de Gurgelars, VC and Public bar, International medaille D’ore, Croix de G.U.R and house bar stands with open hands and speaks.

M’sieur de Hag-fish, your commente’ is much desired, your wisdom and more importantly your desire for a quid are legionarre’s disease throughout Aotearoa.

Please sally forth and unburden yourself.

Hag-Fish replies, Le Comte, Sally was the fifth, not the fourth, but not to worry, I will commence from the finish.

We the Secenery Circle propose that a law be imposed, firstly on all households in the greater Dunedin area including Kate Wilson’s fiefdom and Cr Noone’s rurality, Cr. Hall’s trucks and Mayor Cull’s uncleaned mudtanks, to ban, eradicate, censure, drop off the perch and if necessary obliterate and immolate all items which could be roughly described as Kettles.

Kettles will include any item capable of boiling water to steam, whether working operational or not! This includes but is not limited to Railway Steam Engines, Pots, Pans, Kettles, Hot Water cylinders, Zips, Teesmade, Coffee machines, Lawrence Yule and headmasters.

Headmasters?

Oui, they are always letting off steam, particularly the dean of Kings High.

In this way, we believe that the absence of steam will enable the cold air around Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland to escape and we can get back to comfortable “Global Warming” and Dunedin can be the Riviera of the southern hemisphere again, just like it was in February. Our marketing campaign featuring bikini clad sealions, brown skinned natives, (cabbage) Palm trees, Coconuts etc. will again be relevant and we can turn on the air conditioning at Forsyth Banned to ensure noone dies of heatstroke!

Is Cr. Noone dying of heatstroke?

No not now, that is the problem we are trying to rectify!

Le Comte, rises, thanks Earl Hag-Fish and whispers into his Iphone to Craig’s Investment partners ….

Sell Briscoes! Sell Coffee Club, Sell Starbucks.

Pam Demonia reigns.

The Curtain comes down.

[ends]

—

Related Posts and Comments:
18.5.16 Measuring sea level at Dunedin #DUD
1.5.16 Hospital food according to Gurglars
25.2.16 CELEBRATE !!! Greater Dunedin has DIED #boombustcycle
11.1.16 Un hôtel. Dunedin.
5.6.15 WEATHER is not climate change; this is not the 100-year flood

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Election Year —this post is offered in the public interest.

[clockhousetheatre.com]

█ In a spot . . . . .

NZ child poverty rates “stagnating”

### dunedintv.co.nz October 30, 2014 – 5:57pm
NZ child poverty rates haven’t improved since 2008
A new report from UNICEF shows child poverty rates in New Zealand haven’t improved since 2008. That’s prompted calls from locals for more governmental action to address the issue. And it seems even kids in Dunedin are feeling the effects of poverty. Video

### unicef.org.nz 29 October 2014
UNICEF cautions child poverty rates are “stagnating” in New Zealand
An international report by UNICEF has found that child poverty rates in New Zealand have barely changed since 2008, despite similar sized countries significantly reducing child poverty during the recent recession. UNICEF also revealed that youth unemployment has increased and more New Zealanders admit they do not have enough money to buy food.

The report, Children of the Recession, studied the impact of the global economic crisis on child wellbeing in 41 OECD and EU countries. It highlights the fact that the current and future lives of children have been – and are being – neglected in the global response to the Great Recession.

█ Read the full Children of the Recession report

Deborah Morris-Travers, National Advocacy Manager for UNICEF New Zealand, said: “The report shows that child poverty rates in New Zealand have stagnated, reducing by just 0.40 per cent since 2008. At the same time, Finland and Norway, states of a similar size to New Zealand, have reduced their child poverty rates by 4.30 and 3.20 per cent respectively. This strongly suggests that the government needs to review its approach to addressing child poverty and make policies for children a priority. There are many good examples of successful policies being implemented internationally, highlighting that child poverty is not an inevitable result of the recession if governments implement appropriate policy responses.”
Read more

—

Related Posts and Comments:
9.12.13 UNICEF NZ statement on child poverty monitor
29.8.12 Beloved Prime Minister ‘Jonkey’ speaking #childpoverty
17.2.12 Salvation Army: The Growing Divide
23.11.11 Last night, did John Key watch Inside NZ (TV3): Inside Child Poverty
26.10.11 2011 Voices of Poverty: Research into poverty in Dunedin
9.1.11 Detroit: “Make no little plans”

Auckland Council report on pokie grant distribution

### NZ Herald Online 5:51 PM Monday Aug 11, 2014
Poor losing out on pokie cash
By David Fisher
Money tipped into pokie machines in the poorest parts of Auckland doesn’t come back to those communities in gaming grants, new data shows. In contrast, the wealthiest areas gamble far less but take a disproportionate amount of money out of other areas. This has been greeted as proof of a long-stated but never-proven claim about pokies – that the poor get poorer but the rich get richer. The Auckland Council research is behind a challenge to government plans to ringfence 80 per cent of pokie grant distribution inside large regional areas. Instead, it wants a special system for distributing pokie grants inside Auckland which will allow the poorest areas to benefit from money gambled locally. […] Overall, the study found all of Auckland missed out to the benefit of the rest of New Zealand. The $214.6 million put into pokie machines would have made $61.6 million available for grants, on industry averages after expenses were taken out. Auckland got $35.2 million.
Read more

● David Fisher is a senior reporter for the NZ Herald.

—

Auckland Council Regional Strategy and Policy Committee
07 August 2014

Gambling Working Party – new regulations for the distribution of class 4 (pokie) gambling grants to communities

File No.: CP2014/14759

Purpose
1. To report back on a gambling working party’s deliberations regarding new government regulations to control the distribution of grants from class 4 (commonly known as “pokie”) gambling, and present recommendations based on feedback from the working party.

Executive summary
2. The Minister of Internal Affairs has recently acquired the power to make new regulations specifying the amount of class 4 grants money that must be returned to the area from which it came, and to set out how areas will be identified and defined for that purpose
3. The Minister recently announced that regional council areas will be used as the areas into which grants must be distributed, and the rate of return to those areas will be 80%. New regulations implementing that decision are expected to be issued later this year.
4. A gambling working party, established by minute REG/2013/10, has reviewed information regarding class 4 gaming machine proceeds in Auckland, and the current rate of return of class 4 grant money by local board area.
5. The new regulations could increase the amount of grant money flowing to community and sport groups in Auckland as a whole, but there are significant inequities in the distribution of class 4 grants within the region that the Minister’s proposal would not overcome.
6. The working party has developed a proposal which would address those inequities by defining areas, within Auckland, for the return of class 4 gambling grants.

Recommendation/s
That the Regional Strategy and Policy Committee:
a) endorse the working party’s proposal to define areas within Auckland, as presented in the appended map, whereby a proportion of grants derived from the proceeds of class 4 gambling in those areas would be returned to them
b) endorse the option of advocating for a 90 percent return of grant money to the defined areas, instead of the 80 percent currently proposed by the Minister of Internal Affairs
c) endorse the option of advocating for a different rate of return to the area identified as CGI on the map (comprising the City Centre and Gulf Islands), of either 40 percent or 45 percent
d) delegate to the chair of the Regional Strategy and Policy Committee to write to the Minister of Internal Affairs advocating that the proposed regulations be amended in accordance with the committee’s response to recommendations (a) to (c) above
e) note that the grants data for Auckland will be published on a web portal
f) note that the findings of the working party will be reported to local boards.
Read more

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

UNICEF NZ statement on child poverty monitor

“The Monitor tells us that 159,000 children (60% of those in poverty) are living in poverty for long periods of time. Living in persistent poverty will undermine a child’s physical, mental, emotional and social wellbeing with the potential for long-term damage.”

UNICEF NZ Statement on Child Poverty Monitor
Monday, 9 December 2013, 10:05 am
Press Release: UNICEF

UNICEF NZ Statement on Child Poverty Monitor, Released Today by OCC

The inaugural Child Poverty Monitor, released today (Monday, 9 December) by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC), JR McKenzie Trust and the NZ Child and Youth Epidemiology Service at Otago University, contains some deeply concerning figures. However, it is an important step forward for tracking how well New Zealand is doing in giving children the standard of living they need.
Deborah Morris-Travers, UNICEF New Zealand Advocacy Manager, said, “It’s of significant concern that 10% of Kiwi Kids – twice the rate of the New Zealand population as a whole – are living in severe poverty.
Read more at Scoop

Welcome to the First Child Poverty Monitor Technical Report
Monday, 9 December 2013, 9:44 am
Press Release: Child Poverty Monitor

Welcome to the First Child Poverty Monitor Technical Report

This Technical Report marks a new step in monitoring child poverty and social health indicators in New Zealand. It began with a partnership being established between the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, the University of Otago’s New Zealand Child and Youth Epidemiology Service (NZCYES) and the J R McKenzie Trust. This partnership saw a gap in publicly-available child poverty measures, and is addressing this gap by compiling, publishing and disseminating annual measurements on child poverty in New Zealand.
Last year, the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group (EAG) on Solutions to Child Poverty recommended that a suite of measures capturing different aspects of child poverty be measured and reported annually. We are fulfilling this recommendation. This new Technical Report builds on the Children’s Social Health Monitor (CSHM) produced by the NZCYES since 2009. We have added additional indicators that enable us to monitor child poverty in New Zealand. Along with this full Technical Report we have produced very high level information on the key measures of child poverty, which are available at http://www.childpoverty.co.nz.
We want to promote the common use of rigorous measures of poverty, so we can stop debating about the measure and start fixing the problem.

More info\

Report: 2013_Child_Poverty_Monitor_Technical_Report_MASTER.pdf

****

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 09/12/2013
One in four Kiwi children living in poverty
By Ben Heather – Dominion Post
More children living in crammed homes are ending up in hospital, as a new report shows one in four children remain mired in poverty. A new rigorous measure of child poverty released today shows that about one in six Kiwi children are going without basic necessities. This could mean not having a bed, delaying a doctor’s visit or missing out on meals. It also shows hospital admissions for children with medical conditions linked to poverty are rising. Tens of thousands of children are admitted every year for respiratory and infectious diseases associated with living in damp, overcrowded homes. “I see these poor preschool children in crowded homes that are cold and damp coming in with skin infections. They are filling our wards,” Children’s Commissioner Russell Wills, a Hawke’s Bay paediatrician, said.

Children, particularly the youngest, remain the most impoverished group of New Zealanders, three times more likely to live in poverty than those past retirement age.

And the gap between those going without and the rest is showing no signs of narrowing, with children born to solo beneficiary parents by far the most likely to get sick or injured. But child poverty is also reaching far beyond beneficiaries, with about two out of five impoverished kids living in working families. Overall 265,000 children live in poverty, which is measured by children living in households with less than 60 per cent of the median income after housing costs.
The report, called the Child Poverty Monitor, was commissioned by Dr Wills after the Government rejected calls to start a comprehensive measure of child poverty.
Read more

STATE OF CHILD POVERTY (via Dominion Post)

█ 265,000 children live in poverty, defined by income.
█ 1 in 3 Maori and Pacific children live in poverty.
█ 1 in 7 European children live in poverty.
█ 1 in 6 struggle to afford basic necessities such as healthcare and clothing.
█ 1 in 10 suffer from severe poverty, lacking basic necessities and adequate income.
█ 3 out of 5 will be living in poverty for much of their childhood.
█ 51 per cent are from sole parent families. 60 per cent are from beneficiary families.

****

Radio New Zealand National
Nine to Noon with Kathryn Ryan
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon
Monday 9 December 2013
The inaugural Child Poverty Monitor ( 11′ 30″ )
09:35 Dr Liz Craig is a Senior Clinical Epidemiologist at the University of Otago.
Audio | Download: Ogg  |  MP3

—

Related Posts and Comments:
29.8.12 Beloved Prime Minister ‘Jonkey’ speaking #childpoverty
17.2.12 Salvation Army: The Growing Divide
26.11.11 2011 Voices of Poverty: Research into poverty in Dunedin
23.11.11 Last night, did John Key watch Inside New Zealand (TV3): Inside Child Poverty

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Beloved Prime Minister ‘Jonkey’ speaking #childpoverty

### ODT Online Tue, 28 Aug 2012
Universal child benefit a ‘dopey’ idea: Key
Prime Minister John Key has dismissed as “dopey” a recommendation from a panel of experts that a universal child payment should be reintroduced as a way of reducing child poverty. The expert advisory group brought together by Children’s Commissioner Dr Russell Wills to find solutions to child poverty released its recommendations today.

Group members include AUT accounting expert James Prescott, Major Campbell Roberts of the Salvation Army, Professor Ritchie Poulton of the Dunedin School of Medicine and Philippa Howden-Chapman, a public health expert.

Among [the group’s] recommendations for the longer term was a universal child payment for under sixes. The payment would be highest while the child was a baby, when costs were high, and would decline through childhood. Co-chair Dr Tracey McIntosh said the payment was about ensuring children had the best start in life. “Investment in the early years has a particularly strong link to better outcomes for disadvantaged children”.
Read more

Download report and related documents here:
http://www.occ.org.nz/publications/child_poverty

****

### ODT Online Sun, 26 Aug 2012
Child poverty costs country $6b a year: report
Child poverty is costing New Zealand $6 billion each year, according a new report commissioned by organisation Every Child Counts.

Every Child Counts chairman Murray Edridge defined poverty as children missing out on needed goods and services including adequate housing, nutrition, warm clothing and healthcare.

Manager Deborah Morris-Travers told TVNZ’s political programme Q+A 25 per cent of children in New Zealand are living in poverty. She said it was concerning to see how poverty affected different ethnicities with 40 per cent of Pacific Island children and 27 per cent of Maori children living in poverty. The report, “1000 days to get it right for every child – the effectiveness of public investment in New Zealand children”, released this week, examines initiatives from the Netherlands which could be applied here. APNZ
Read more

Download report here:
http://www.everychildcounts.org.nz/news/1000-days-to-get-it-right-for-every-child-poor-child-outcomes-costing-the-nation-billions/

—

Household Incomes in New Zealand: Trends in Indicators of Inequality and Hardship 1982 to 2011 (Aug 2012)

Download report and related documents here:
http://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/monitoring/household-incomes/index.html

—

Related Posts and Comments:
17.2.12 Salvation Army: The Growing Divide
23.11.11 Last night, did John Key watch…(TV3): Inside Child Poverty
26.10.11 2011 Voices of Poverty: Research into poverty in Dunedin

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Salvation Army: The Growing Divide

Like a number of other religious and non-religious organisations, [the Salvation Army] are the embodiment of Martin Luther King’s observation that, while we are called to be Good Samaritans, after we lift so many people out of the ditch we start to wonder whether the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved.

### ODT Online Fri, 17 Feb 2012
Opinion: Straight talking on social justice
By Andrew Bradstock
Religious commitment is a powerful inspiration to act for social justice, writes Andrew Bradstock, of Dunedin. Today, the Salvation Army releases its 2012 “state of the nation” report. Called The Growing Divide, the report will be launched in four locations, with the Dunedin event hosted by the University of Otago Centre for Theology and Public Issues. Last year, the university signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the Salvation Army, and today’s event demonstrates the developing relationship between the two bodies. Now in their fifth year, these Salvation Army reports present an overview of New Zealand society, focusing on children’s health and wellbeing; work and income; housing; crime and punishment; and “social hazards” like alcohol, drug use and gambling. This year’s report examines the key indicators of the growing inequality in our nation.
Read more

• Andrew Bradstock is Howard Paterson professor of theology and public issues at the University of Otago and director of the University’s Centre for Theology and Public Issues.

Download:

> The Growing Divide (PDF, 924KB)

The Growing Divide and previous State of the Nation reports are available to view at: The Social Policy & Parliamentary Unit

****

Related posts:
23.11.11 Last night, did John Key watch… (TV3): Inside Child Poverty
26.10.11 2011 Voices of Poverty: Research into poverty in Dunedin

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

interest.co heats NZ housing debate – listen up

This is not just about the Accommodation Supplement that 320,000 New Zealanders received last year. Alex Tarrant’s full post prompts a sharp, sometimes shonky blogging debate. It raises critical issues that dog the consultation and drafting of Dunedin’s spatial plan but which never got a look in, and never will. Read the comments.

Our ‘first’ spatial plan should not have been rushed, given the time scale it must address. For ‘rushed’ substitute ‘superheated’, where respect and consideration are much diminished for existing patterns of living (good and bad), underlying and surrounding issues, Southern practices and philosophies, utilisation of natural and people-made resources, regional and global influences, and cumulative effects – and the real economics of PLACE-SHAPING that hinge on the recent actions of a badly-managed, far-from-smart city council that has manufactured a mountain of unsustainable debt.

—

### interest.co.nz December 7, 2011 – 04:12pm
Property
Accommodation Supplement: Landlord subsidy punching a big hole in govt books due to unaffordable housing, or an essential benefit?
By Alex Tarrant
The government is being urged to boost the supply of affordable housing to help wean people off a state rent subsidy which could cost NZ$2.2 billion a year – almost twice as much as official predictions – by 2016. But any fix could require a large up-front investment in state house building, and/or require action from the private and community sectors to help increase housing supply, and therefore affordability, at the lower end of the price spectrum.

The Green Party has called on the government to see whether spending on the Accommodation Supplement could be more effectively spent elsewhere, with the party touting construction of more state houses as one solution to problems of housing and rent affordability. Co-leader Meteria Turei has attacked the Accommodation Supplement in Parliament as a subsidy for landlords. Turei told interest.co.nz high house prices, with constrained supply, meant higher rents and therefore costs to the government through the rent subsidy.

Meanwhile, the government’s Productivity Commission, which is currently investigating issues of housing affordability in New Zealand, has had the issue of the Accommodation Supplement, and the possible hit to the government’s books, raised with it by the Salvation Army.
Read more

—

One (sample) blogger, right or wrong…

by PhilBest | 08 Dec 11, 11:08am (at Tarrant’s thread)

The fact, observable everywhere in the world where there are urban growth containment policies, is that the escalation of urban land prices under this racket, is always greater than the ability of people to “trade off” space to keep within what they can afford.

The few remaining undistorted markets in the world, have a LOWER median multiple house price AND a far larger average amount of space per person. A one-eighth of an acre section in NZ or Britain, costs literally several times as much as a 1 acre section in many US cities (regardless of pre-or-post-crash conditions. The US cities without urban land rackets had no price bubble).

The result of fringe homes being $150,000 houses on $250,000 sections instead of $150,000 houses on $50,000 sections; is that a decent apartment near the CBD is $1,000,000 (almost all of which represents gold-plated land value) instead of under $200,000 as it is in the undistorted market.

The biggest irony in all this, is that FAR LESS people have the “choice” of living near the CBD, under the “inflated land price” model. Economist Jan Brueckner says in a paper entitled “Urban Growth Boundaries: An Effective Second-Best Remedy For Unpriced Traffic Congestion?”:

“…failure of the Urban Growth Boundary to appreciably raise densities near employment centres is the main reason for its poor performance, and this failure will persist regardless of whether the city has one or many such centres…”

There are numerous other similar academic findings from economists listed HERE: http://www.performanceurbanplanning.org/academics.html

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Last night, did John Key watch Inside New Zealand (TV3): Inside Child Poverty

Did you????

http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/Inside-New-Zealand-Inside-Child-Poverty/tabid/59/articleID/4761/MCat/342/Default.aspx

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

2011 Voices of Poverty: Research into poverty in Dunedin

—

Between July 2010 and April 2011, Presbyterian Support Otago (PSO) interviewed eleven families who were representative of their client base. The intent was to gather information on the changes the families either experienced or put in place to mitigate the effects of the increase in GST (1 October 2010, from 12.5% to 15%), rising prices and an uncertain economic environment as New Zealand moved out of its recession.

During the course of the interviews the government instituted the Future Focus policy direction and, allied to this, the Welfare Working Group reported on possible directions for consultation. Behind both of these initiatives was an expectation that all people of working age who are currently dependent on the government can, and will, be encouraged into paid employment.

Ensuring that families and individuals have sufficient income to meet their basic needs (food, clothing, warm housing and medical care) is a priority; whether those families and individuals are on a benefit or a wage.
Can We Do Better 2008

As in previous reports PSO noted that juggling income, debt, inadequate housing, health and transport difficulties and parenting responsibilities is how people below the poverty line live their lives.

The report concludes with recommendations for action by government, local bodies and the public sector. Has the landscape changed? For New Zealand – yes; we have been through a recession and survived. For the “voices of poverty” – no; for many, their landscape is as bleak as it ever was and for some the future doesn’t look great either.

• Has the Landscape Changed? 2011 (PDF, 7.17 MB)
• Can We Do Better 2008 (PDF, 1.52 MB)
• Old Cold and Costly 2004 (PDF, 2.98 MB)
• How Much is Enough : 2003 update (PDF, 137.16 KB)
• How Much Is Enough : 2002 research (PDF, 4.15 MB)

Source: https://otago.ps.org.nz/resources

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr