Category: Misc

At the same time as New Zealand’s general election on November 26th 2011 it also held a referendum of the voting system. While only early results are back it looks like the vote was to keep Mixed Member Proportional ( MMP ) system and so there will be a review in 2012 of MMP. I thought I’d list many  of the possible options for changing MMP in a post for people. I’ll try to skip options that completely change the system however.

Local Electorates

• Completely get rid of and go to a list-only system
• Use a preferential voting system to elect members
• Have multiple member electorates and elect MPs via STV
• Abolish the Maori seats
• Change the formula for decided the number of electorates ( currently 16 in the South Island and NI and Maori seats in proportion )
• Loosen or tighten the requirements for electorates to have the same population
• Create other  electorates for other ethnic groups, overseas NZers, electorates that anyone can “move” to.
• electorate winners determined by Party vote ( eg if a party is entitled to 20 MPs then it’s 20 highest polling candidates are elected)
• Otherwise disallow the election of electorate MPs that would cause an overhang.

The Lists

• Strighter requirements for lists to be democraticly decided
• People can be on multiple lists
• List-only candidates not allowed
• Changes in how list-members who leave parliament are replaced.
• Regional lists and/or one covering the Maori Seats
• Make any MP that forgoes their position on the list to allow a person below them into parliament ineligible to stand in the next election

The list vote

• Threshold to be changed from current 5% ( usually reduced )
• Removal of exception from threshold for parties that win an electorate
• Winning a electorate reduces the threshold but doesn’t eliminate it ( eg : No Seats = 5% , 1 Seat = 4% , 2 seats = 3% 3 seats = 2% )
• Remove/Reduce threshold for parties representing Maori interests
• Change from Sainte-Laguë method for deciding seat allocation to another method
• Ability of people to reorder or otherwise influence the order in which their  party lists are ordered when they vote
• Ability to have a second choice if ones “first choice” party does not make the threshold
• Removal from lists of candidates that stood in local electorates but failed to win or complete ban on people being allowed to be on both list and stand in electorate.
• Only remove a losing electorate candidate from a list if they were previously the MP ( eg “thrown out by their constituents” )
• Allow people to vote across lists . Perhaps via a STV type system of (optionally) numbering candidates from multiple parties.
• Regional lists and/or one covering the Maori Seats
• Threshold is 1 electorate MP , no percentage threshold
• Electorate MPs elected for a party must exceed list MPs
• Increase/decrease in the number of list MPs
• Removal of separate list vote, just count electorate vote towards party-list quota.

 

Today the Sunday Staff Times obtained early copies of 8 wikileaks cables from the US Embassy in New Zealand and has put a copy of them online on it’s website.

Usual frank stuff but I notice that the 08WELLINGTON356 explicitly names the “Deputy Director of New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS)” which is illegal as explained by the Ministry of Justice site:

Apart from the name of the Director of Security, it is an offence to publish certain information regarding the identity of members of the NZSIS or that a person is connected in any way with a member of the NZSIS

It will be interesting to see if the SST gets prosecuted.

UPDATE : Philip Lyth points towards the 1969 legislation which specifies a $1000 fine for publishing the name. Possible this has increased in later amendments.

This place is very close to work and I’ve been meaning to give it a try for some time. It’s at 15 Swanson St in the Auckland CBD and is tucked in under the Stamford Hotel. It is pretty small with an outer room with the counter and a few seats and a small main room.

The interesting things is the “Gallery” bit. The café is a offshoot of an artists studio so there are several paintings by the artists on the walls (all for sale) and there is a studio out the back of the main room.

Food is standard coffee range with no surcharge for Soy milk and a selection is biscuits , slices and cakes. Pricing is a little cheaper than average (especially with no surcharge) at around $3.50 for a coffee (which is quite big) and $3 for most cakes and slices.

Service was prompt and fast (although it was pretty quiet when I was there) and felt a little more upmarket than usual. My coffee/cake was bought out on a nice hand-held tray to my table with a spork and knife.

I can’t remember the music so it was either non-existent or quiet (either of which is good) but there reading selection was pretty minimal with just half a dozen give-away magazines (like the Red Bulletin).

Apart from the reading selection I was pretty impressed and I’ll probably try it out as my regular for a while.

Update: I’ve just found their website which I missed previous. Has a better map and pictures than I do here as well as menu.

As a sort of New Year’s resolution I’ve decided to retire a few stories that I sometimes tell people. I suspect I repeat some of these a bit too often (and sometimes to the same person) and they are getting a little stale. Feel free to offer other suggestions.

• Kicking down door at work
• My day as a court witness
• Co-Worker electrocuted and comes back for more
• Co-worker at Gang Party
• Co-worker mugged on 1st day in Auckland
• Colour-blind co-worker and windows
• My Uncle meets Bill Gates
• Stories about crazy head of the company I used to work for.
• The day I meet the guy from the Fraud Squad

The above are all retired until Jan 1st 2015 unless specificly requested.

I’m not sure why I suddenly seem to be publishing a food blog but I have a few tech articles up my sleeve which should get posted in the near future. But for now I have another review of one of my regular food haunts.

The Bluebird is a vegetarian and vegan cafe is locate in the Valley Road shops on Dominion road, across the road from the foodtown supermarket. It is own and run by the
New Zealand Sri Chinmoy Centre which is a group/church/whatever of followers of spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy .

The shop is on two levels, downstairs there is seating for around 20 and a counter at the back where you can order. Upstairs seating is about the same but includes a couple of couches and low tables. Normally you order and pay at the counter and the food is brought out.

The menu (also on the website) is completely vegetarian with about half of items being vegan. The standard item is a bowl which has a base of Baked potato, mashed potato, baked kumara or brown rice with one of about 8 toppings. This comes in 3 sizes ( $9, $12 and $15) and I’ve found that the medium size is more than enough for a main meal.

The sample pictured is a medium size ( $12) meal. The base is rice, the topping is Mexican beans with sauce and there is cheese on top. The meal also comes with some bread.

A large meal pretty much fills the bowl to the top.

Drinks include water (free) and various phoenix soft drinks , juices and some  smoothies (although I keep forgetting to check if they do Soy smoothies).

Other mains includes a rotating array of salads, hot-pots, Lasagna, pies etc. These may or may not be available each day. Apart from the bowls which are always available you just have to see what is at the counter.

Sweets include the very nice apple crumble (which comes in a bowl) along with a couple of cakes and a small selection of slices at normal cafe prices.

There is the usual range of coffees (50cent Soy-milk surcharge) plus some herbal teas.

The general ambiance of the place is very quiet, music is quiet background (although a video on low volume showing Sri Chinmoy performing weight-lifting sometimes plays upstairs). The female staff are usually dressed in Saris and service is usually efficient and polite.

The opening hours are a little mixed. Mon/Tue: 10 am – 8 pm , Wed: 10 am – 3 pm, Thu/Fri: 10 am – 9 pm , Sat: 10 am – 2.30 pm , Sun: Closed. Plus they sometimes close for a week or two while they all go off to do whatever stuff Sri Chinmoy members do.

I’ve been going there for around 6 months and I quite like it (going around weekly these days). It seems to be quite popular (a little crowded on Friday nights at least) but the food is nice and quite good value for money (although it isn’t in the budget category) and I really like a nice quite place where I can just read my book over a meal.

Another person at work had a flyer for this place so I thought I’d try lunch there. The full name is “Sal’s Authentic New York Pizza”. They appear to have only recently opened (ignore the “since 1975” bit).

As you can see from their website they are just a little counter and oven on a central Auckland street. They have a couple of tables out the front on the footpath you can stand at to eat but I just took my food back to the office. When I was there (1pm on a weekday) there was one guy most making the pizza and another guy (from New York, although I didn’t catch if he had previous pizza experience) mostly serving.

I ordered a slice of Cheese Pizza ( $5 ) and 3 Garlic Knots ( $2 for the 3 ) which got put in the oven for a couple of minutes to re-warm them.

The pizza and knots were a good size and pretty good in general quality. Certainly filled me up for lunch. Service was friendly and fairly fast.

The only bad note was the guy serving didn’t wash his hands between fixing a rubbish bin outside and handling food a minute or two later. That’s the sort of thing that makes some people freak out and he needs to make sure he washes his hands next time.

However I’ll probably visit again, although there are a couple of other good Auckland CBD pizza options.

Update

I receive and email from Nick Turner (Director of Sal’s Pizza) in response to the above post. The email is fairly long so I won’t reproduce it here but he has explained the linage behind the “since 1975” tagline which I am satisfied with and with respect to the less than perfect food handling I saw he says:

Because we are always striving for perfection with our product, service and
cleanliness, obviously we are unhappy about the handling of the rubbish bin
before food. We will continue to ensure this does not happen again, and
continue to maintain our Grade A health certificate.

As I said originally I enjoyed the pizza at Sal’s and intend to go back there.