Marsden is Here

This is very much not what I am supposed to be doing today, but I got sidetracked. Submissions close 27-04-2025 (two days from post).

The COVID-19 Inquiry is assessing key decisions made by the New Zealand Government in 2021 and 2022 in the following areas:

* Vaccines, including mandates, approvals, and safety
* Lockdowns, especially the lockdowns of late 2021
* Testing and tracing technologies (like RATs or the COVID-19 Tracer app), and public health materials (like masks).

In relation to these topics, we need to hear from you about your COVID-19 experiences and how you think the Government should respond to pandemics in the future.

My household got off relatively lightly during the lockdowns - I continued to be able to work from home (although at reduced efficiency) and we were able to keep track of our family and social circles via the internet. My wife has a weakened immune system and she was able to get the vaccine early, about the 3rd tranche if I recall correctly. We had no concerns about the safety of the vaccines. I recall some public debate about the time it took to get vaccines approved for use in New Zealand when they were already in use in other countries, but I also understand that those responsible were trying to follow the official, legal processes as best they could.

In my view the government did the best it could with the information and resources it had. In hindsight of course mistakes were made - mistakes will always be made in a novel situation - but these can be taken on board for future emergency planning. Strictly speaking some legal powers were stretched to/past breaking point; this showed up weaknesses in our system which can be fixed. That these were able to be called out through the courts and acknowledged after the fact I consider a good sign of the strength of our political and legal systems.

Between my wife and several immunocompromised friends we had good reason to try and keep on top of what was known about the virus at any given time. I feel that our distance as a country from the rest of the world and the relatively small impact here has led to many New Zealanders believing that the worldwide pandemic, which is technically ongoing, "wasn't that bad" overall and a sense of complacency. It might have helped had numbers from elsewhere been held up more for comparison with our own numbers.

Closing the borders and extensive isolation measures until vaccines could be rolled out was very much the correct thing to do, I believe that had the previous National government still been in power they would have been "relaxed" about the risks to New Zealand and this would have led to many more deaths. While our household is fortunate in that only one relative has died with Covid as a contributing factor, many of our friends, especially those with relatives overseas, were not as lucky and we share their grief.

I was surprised to learn via events during the pandemic that NZ health workers are not required to be fully vaccinated as a matter of course (something which should be easy to remedy), and at the sheer amount of anti-vaccination, anti-science, anti-government bile which was loudly spilt from some quarters. I understand that these people were and are very much a minority but I am not sure what can be done about it in a future event without the media voluntarily refraining from amplifying their disinformation. It may take an educational campaign on a multi-generational time scale to shift the baseline of New Zealanders understanding of medical science upwards.

Re-reading the submission brief it strikes me that "how the government should *respond to pandemics in the future*" is placing the emphasis in the wrong place. The government needs to be responding to the *possibility of a future pandemic* right now, taking the weaknesses that were exposed in our preparedness and remedying them, fine tuning the tools that were of necessity wielded bluntly this time so that they can be invoked more delicately next time.

There needs to be massive investment in our health system in particular so that it has spare capacity available both for preparing (practising) for the event of another pandemic or similar event, and for responding to an actual event. This includes raising public awareness and mainstreaming of personal health activities like masking and keeping vaccinations up to date. Broader free or very subsidised access to mask, vaccinations and tests (especially the useful all-in-one Covid/RSV/Flu ones), and strong support for employees, especially public-facing / health / food workers taking leave from work while sick, and a culture of not having to work until your body is so run down that it can't effectively fight an exposure.

In the case of an actual event future governments need to be willing to invoke the big guns (border closures, lockdowns, quarantines, vaccine mandates) early and hard. Citizens need to be prepared to "buy into" those actions.

One last thing that sticks in my head from this pandemic was people trying to get back to New Zealand. Next time there needs to be a plan to bring people home ASAP, whether that is purchasing commercial tickets for those who can't afford it or running entire government chartered flights empty out and occupied back, and sufficient quarantine space available.

Before we get to my submission, here are some guides to writing your own.

* Emily Writes: How to make a submission against the Treaty Principles Bill
* No Right Turn: Submit to defend te Tiriti!
* Green Party:
Make a submission - Treaty Principles Bill
* NZCTU: How to make a submission on the Treaty Principles Bill
* PPTA: How to make a submission on the Treaty Principles Bill
* Greenpeace: Treaty principles bill submission guide
* Honour The Treaty: Submissions

And the official online submission form.

If you want to draw on mine as inspiration for your own personalised submission go right ahead, but please write something unique, don't cut and paste from this without making it clear that you are quoting from another submission :)

( Submission )

Read my thoughts from previous years

This year ANZAC Day in New Zealand exists in the shadow of the Christchurch Mosque attacks, which have seen ANZAC events around the country cancelled or changed due to what seem to be mostly abstract "security concerns", and for many members of my FB circles in the wake of the latest Sri Lanka bombings.

The words I want to quote today are from a Sri Lankan New Zealander connecting their experiences of both of these events.

In the immediate aftermath of the Christchurch attacks, I found it hard to articulate to my Pākehā friends how the emotions I felt were different to theirs. For many here, it was a loss of innocence in the belief that their country was a safe haven. For me, it was a stark reminder of what the world could be if you took your eyes off the ball even for a second.
-Chamanthie Sinhalage-Fonseka

Lest we forget, the world still has a long way to go. And in a time where major powers are again (still) locking innocents and civilians in internment camps on ethnic grounds (USA, China) and the "first" world continues to turn a blind eye to ethnic cleansing in third world countries deemed to have no useful resources (throughout the African continent) while continuing to support, enable and actively participate in wars and killing in others (the Middle East) I have to wonder, what sacrifices now would we need to make it stop?

These evening I posted a lengthy comment on a Stuff.co.nz opinion piece titled Andy Towers: New Zealand doesn't have a culture of youth drinking, my words stewing overnight and this morning after the first wave of commenters apparently failed to read and comprehend even the first two paragraphs. I'm happy to say some more intelligent voices had arisen in the meantime.

Quoting substantial chunks of the piece because I don't expect the above link to last forever...

I'm tired of headlines in recent years declaring New Zealand has a "youth drinking culture".

I'm tired because this claim is a lie. Not the part about youth drinking; that definitely happens. The lie is that we have a youth drinking culture. Drinking is not a 'youth culture' issue; it's a New Zealand culture issue.

A potted history of New Zealand shows we've always had an alcohol problem...
...
In 2012 we had an opportunity to change. The Law Commission had reviewed our history of drinking and it recommended substantial law changes to reduce alcohol-related harm. These recommendations were wholeheartedly supported by much of the general public, many community groups, and almost all health professionals and the police.

What happened? The politicians we voted for decided against change. All of the evidence-based recommendations for change were ignored, including those that would reduce harmful outcomes in youth.

At no time have any of today's youth voted on legislation that has given rise to our current binge drinking culture...
...
Is there any light at the end of this tunnel? Yes. Recent statistics show youth appear to be changing our country's drinking culture by themselves. Ministry of Health statistics show the proportion of past year drinkers among those aged 15-24 dropped from 84 per cent in 2006 to 76 per cent last year, with the most substantial drop among those aged 15-17 (from 75 per cent down to 57 per cent).
...
Youth drinking culture should not be something we complain about anymore. We should instead complain about New Zealand's drinking culture. We are responsible for the drinking culture that our youth are navigating but they at least appear to be contemplating change.

Should current trends continue, youth in the 2020s might well be correct to complain about the appalling drinking culture of middle-aged and older New Zealanders.

My comment:

No one denies we have a problem with young people unable or unwilling to match their drinking to their limits, and the strain this puts on our health services and communities. But to blame them for following in the footsteps of older relatives, to somehow "know better" despite their constant exposure to this being the way things are done when you reach a certain age is to deny our own responsibility. It is to pass it off with a genial, perhaps nostalgia tinted "well that what I was like at that age" instead of standing up responsibly and saying to the next generations "I did these things and they were /stupid/ things, please be better."

To draw parallels with another article* I read very recently (on another site) it is like blaming tenants for the state of the countries cold, damp housing stock when it is ...
- landlords and
- a succession of governments who put the least-well-off in our society last, backed up by
- a cultural belief that living in an icy or mould-infested flat is a rite of passage that happens to everyone when they go out on their own so people just need to harden up
... which keep it in that state.

[* link was not included in original comment to improve the chances of making it through moderation but I will put it here The Spinoff: The other housing crisis]

Preloading has been mentioned ... this is known to have increased alongside tighter regulation about who can be served and the growing expense of bar drinks compared to buying from the supermarkets or bottle stores. Without addressing the /reason/ people are drinking (I suggest because it is one of the few socially accepted/sanctioned ways to be seen to rebel) making it harder for them to drink in what should be safe spaces simply moves the activity elsewhere. Much like passing a law forbidding the homeless to take shelter in a particular area does nothing to address the actual social ills which have left them not even looked after by our so-called social welfare system, simply lets people feel that something has been done. The problem still exists, it has just been moved "out of sight, out of mind".

Until we (and that umbrella is going to be pretty much include everyone reading this article) stop implicitly or explicitly allowing intoxication to be used as a social get-out-of-jail-free card to excuse abusive (self or other) behaviour, *whatever the age group* young people are going to continue going through their growing years immersed in the idea that it's OK to drink heavily and do stupid shit once you hit a certain age, and the problem is not going to go away.

Fortunately as the author of the piece notes the generations coming through now may be on the way to changing that culture for their kids, who may be our grandkids ang great-grandkids. Will you help or hinder them?

Today I added my body to a Women's March here in Christchurch, a sister and supporting event to one focused on Washington, DC. Because,
- as their manifesto says, Women's Rights are Human Rights and I support that. Both in the specific and in the general sense that improving women's rights will by extension improve the lot of (at least) every other marginalised group containing women
- and I feel it is important for progress that men are seen to be supporting that, because sadly many men are still more likely to listen only to other men
- but also on another level because I feel it's also important for the well-being of men that women are seen and treated as equal.

Here I just want to pull together a few threads from around the internet on why I think there is still a long way to go in western, particularly New Zealand society.

1. From an early age boys have been told to "don't be a girl", teased for being "girly" or put down for "hitting like a girl" in response to failure, asking for help, or expressing any "negative" emotion except anger. As well as indoctrinating the idea that women are somehow less than men in both boys and girls from an early age this negative approach to dealing with emotions also contributes to New Zealand having one of the highest rates of youth suicide (especially among young men) in the developed world.

Things are getting better on this front (I believe) but there are generations of us still alive who need to challenge those ideas within ourselves and strive to do and teach better.

2. If a little boy pulls a little girl's hair "it means he likes you". Not only is the reverse not held to be true, this normalises attack (physical or emotional) as a form of showing affection. Follow the chain and you get coercion seen as a valid form of obtaining affection in the form of sex, women criticised for not responding positively to catcalls or unwanted advances, and "he only hits me because he cares".

Again, NZ has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the developed world.

3. There's this thing about queer/gay being used as a slur. Why is it that being romantically/sexually attracted to men is percieved as a bad thing by other men?. I'm theorising here, but coming back to my first point could it be that being attracted to men is something women do, so it is another accusation of girliness? Or could it be, as beautifully laid out here that a lot of men are afraid that a man attracted to them will subject them to the same form of unwanted attention they know they give the "objects" (women) of their affection (or even passing interest)?

I believe that in our hearts we men (most of us anyway) know that this behaviour is wrong because we become uneasy at the idea of it being turned on us. Knowing that it is our responsibility to try and
- firstly face up to the discomfort and accept when we are called out on it, then try and do better.
- secondly publicly represent and model for that better behaviour
- the hardest of all (and I fail at this often myself; pick your battles): call our friends and family out on it and support others - whatever their gender, orientation or colour - when they call others out on it in our presence.

If men can step up and do this instead of passively supporting the status quo, then fairness for women (and intermediate/null genders) will come a lot faster than if they have to keep wading through us every step of the way.

~~~
With all that off my chest, here is the gallery from todays march.

Victoria Square to Cathedral Square

Submissions to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) close tomorrow (March 11) barely two months after the treaty was signed and text made available. About 3am on Monday morning my brain decided it was time to write something, but Ithen got distracted by actually reading MFATs National Interest Analysis (NIA) (the better to make an informed submission. It of course paints a far rosier picture of the expected outcomes.

This post has three parts:
1. Useful links
2. The text of my submission (done through the online form)
3. Other rant triggered by reading the NIA (this was going to be rants but I have run out of time :( )

~~~
Online submission form (very limited life expectancy) (you will need to complete the verification at the bottom of the page and then click the "Make an online submission" button below to actually get to the form)
The NIA (pdf)
MFAT TPPA subsite

~~~
I felt it best to make a measured submission just highlighting a few points of concern.

As a member of the public who has been following the no TPPA actions but has also found the time to read the NIA (but not the earlier published fact sheets) I would still like to express some some concerns about the process and implementation of this treaty.

1. I understand that there is always an element of confidentiality required in trade negotiations but the secrecy surrounding this one - and indeed continuing for years after ratification seems to have be unprecedented. Combined with the very short amount of time allowed for public, expert, and opposition party representative examination of the text and consultation I find it difficult to have confidence in the benefit to New Zealand of any legislative changes which may be required.

2. Speaking of benefits it is not at all clear from the NIA /how/ the people of NZ generally benefit from the signing of this treaty. "Economic growth" and a forecast boost to GDP are presented as as self-explanatory benefits without justification; but this would only be the case if the wealth generated flows to those who are less-well off.

As it stands this treaty would appear to deliver the most benefit to
- those who are /already/ established enough to partake in international trade and
- a small minority of future SMEs producing exportable goods/services who manage to become established against the now-increased competition from our trading partners.

In short this treaty seems to offer no great benefit for the majority of NZ citizens and business while exposing them to economic attack by better-resourced established competitors from abroad.

3. Following on from that if the NIA is accurate the ISDS clauses have been well ring-fenced to protect "public-good" issues but it still seems to be a risk that if a local company were to come up with a disruptive technology or process which could challenge established players but would require tweaks to our - or our treaty partners - legislation to implement effectively (a recent examples from the news might be the taxi service Uber) the established players would be able to use the ISDS or the threat thereof to hinder implementation in an anti-competitive fashion.

I am hopeful that the government of the day would have the fortitude to support our business and accept the costs required to set an example which would prevent this happening a second time; if nothing else this would quantify "the actual costs of responding are unknown" (NIA p55)

~~~
Nevertheless as it seems that the implementation of the legislative changes required is a foregone conclusion I

- would strongly support a clause which only brings the changes into /effect/ at the point the treaty comes into force in a form substantively like it's current form, rather than incurring the front-loaded costs and "giving away the farm" the having nothing to negotiate with should other parties decide /not/ to pass it through their respective legislatory procedures in it's current form.

- look forward to the strengthening of NZ's environmental protection, labour protection and transparency legislations to bring them in line with the treaty obligations as explained in the NIA.

~~~
Rant time.

The NIA is very bullish about the amount of consultation carried out

9.2 Public consultation process
The consultation process for TPP has been among the most extensive a New Zealand Government has undertaken for any trade negotiation. Throughout the negotiation process the MFAT, together with other government agencies, has been active in engaging with a wide spectrum of stakeholders on TPP.
...
Throughout the negotiation there were two public calls for submissions. MFAT invited initial public
submissions in October 2008 on entering into negotiations with the US to expand the P4 agreement.
A second invitation for public comment was made in 2011 following the expressions of interest from other countries to join the TPP negotiations (Canada, Japan and Mexico) to better understand the views and interests of New Zealanders with regards to these three economies.
MFAT received 65 responses to the initial invitation for submissions, which expressed a diverse
range of views on the TPP
...
Following the second invitation for public comment in 2011, MFAT received fifteen responses. Thirteen were from business (including business councils) and industry organisations. Two were from other governments - Canada and Mexico.
...
Extensive public outreach and consultation took place throughout the negotiation of TPP, using printed, emailed and website information, supported by extensive briefings, discussions and correspondence with key stakeholders on New Zealand’s negotiating objectives and process.

A primary portal of information on the negotiations was the MFAT website, and dedicated internet column, “TPP Talk”. TPP Talk was regularly updated with the status of negotiations. Both the website and column
encouraged feedback on TPP from the public. In seeking views on TPP, the Government sought to encourage debate on the issues, including links to groups holding a range of views on the MFAT website.
...
Hundreds of meetings took place, including with business groups, iwi, local councils, health sector
representatives, unions, NGOs, Members of Parliament and individuals to seek input on the TPP and
to help ensure a high quality outcome that reflects stakeholders’ interests.
...
In a new initiative that reflected the level of public interest in TPP, MFAT also made provision for
stakeholder engagement with regard to the two TPP negotiating rounds held in New Zealand. With
regard to the round of negotiations held in Auckland in December 2012, the Ministry organised a
stakeholder programme attended by 72 New Zealand participants as well as other stakeholders from overseas.

... and so on.

Strangely I do not recall /any/ of the relevant ministers or officials saying in response to the noTPPA movement and media coverage "Hey, here is where you can go to get more information and to have your say." Apparently the broader public of New Zealand (or other parties) are not considered "stakeholders" in our international treaties.

We know who other treaty partners considered stakeholders from the mega-companies and lobbyists who got to peek at the proceedings and drafts. I wonder who in NZ our government actually considered important enough to be a stakeholder?

I'm going to be generous and assume whoever produced this analysis is so blinkered that they actually believe this number of submissions is a reasonable outcome rather than a failure to communicate.

Moreover I believe that an organisation believing in or proactive about public consultation would have opened another round more recently than five years ago, given the increased public profile of opposition to the matter under consideration.

After all I am one of the lucky ones; not only did I not lose anyone directly in the quakes I even benefited materially from the "repairs" to my home*. My life and work were mostly unaffected and since have continued on a generally upwards trajectory.

*( Like many the assessment was questionable, the workmanship left something to be desired in places and the scope was "tightened" several times between assessment and implementation meaning some things which probably should have been done rather than others were not. But my claim was acted on (un)fairly quickly and my home was still in better condition when they finished than before the quakes.)

If I only paid attention to my own situation or that of people like myself that might leave me content. But my social circles contain many who were not so fortunate. Their homes, lives, families, studies, health ... have been massively disrupted and I do not choose to disregard their experiences and those I read of from further afield. For so many people the past five years have been one battle after another; not all quake related but certainly quake-exacerbated, and so much of it seems to have been unnecessary.

~~~
In some ways the February 14th aftershock this year was beneficial. Some people might have been in danger of believing the platitudes which will have been spouted today about how well we are all doing; how well the rebuild is progressing. Instead as PTSD kicked in and "old" responses rose sharply to the surface there was an up-swell of awareness that no, everything is not all right; yes, we still need help.

In the last five years we have seen proof (if there had been any doubt) that the insurance industry is more interested in holding on to its money than in meeting it's contracted obligations. We've seen the one locally owned insurance company which was by nature overexposed to the risk "bailed out" by the government then promptly chopped up; the "good" bit sold off to one of the same overseas re/insurance companies which fights determinedly to not return the money they have taken from other insurees in premiums over the years (IAG) and the "bad" bit put into limbo (Southern Response, which can only progress so far without the goverment actually stumping up some money to cover the work that needs doing).

We have seen that we have a government who are more interested in bottom lines and doing deals with those same insurance companies than in standing up for the rights of the people they purport to represent. More interested in a magical accounting "surplus" than in the wellbeing not only of Christchurch but of the entire country. Only interested frankly, to all intents and purposes to improve the lot of "people like them" no matter the cost to anyone else. Quick to promise financial relief but very slow to spend any money which would not already have been spent.

We have learnt that our EQC disaster recovery fund had already been plundered by the government (through simply directing it to put the money into government-issued bonds), and there is no indication this government has any plan to rebuild it against future need.

We have seen control of "Christchurch's Recovery" taken away from Christchurch from the word "help". Hijacked by people who are more interested in vanity projects (which they then turn around and demand the people of Christchurch make ourselves responsible for paying for) than in the places people live. More interested in cutting costs and corners than in the human cost or actual repair. More interested in being "in charge" than in delivering what a broken city needs.

Today, the 22nd, is a day for reflecting on what we have lost in and around Christchurch. Not just people and buildings but well-being, dignity and agency. So much of which has not been taken by the quakes themselves but by the deliberate actions and inactions of those who claimed the people of Christchurch would be "looked after".

For those outside Christchurch it might be worth thinking about, "if a major disaster struck where you are, what would you lose?"

Emma summed up neatly why in her earthquake anniversary post so I am going to borrow her words to finish. "Because this isn’t about the past, five years on. Things are still happening."

Environment Canterbury is currently seeking submissions on their Long Term Plan for 2015 - 2025. Locals may have found a print version in their mailbox over the past week or two. You can download the document and make submissions online at the Ecan Website

This is my first time being motivated enough to make such a submission. It may be a little wordy but I felt it important to convey a little of my personal perspective and background rather than a relatively context-less set of bullet points (which I couldn't have arrive at without writing all this out anyway).

( long )

Normally the news that a company like energy efficiency and insulation business Right House has gone into liquidation would pass through my radar with just a moment to pause in sadness for those whom have just lost their livelihoods. However this time there is an indirect personal connection - it was a telemarketing call from Right House house and the following obligation-free quote which made me decide that then was the time to start the ball rolling on actually getting grid connected solar installed here.

The first step of course was googling up solar installers in NZ and sending off for more quotes. when it came down to it though two I already had bookmarked gave the best results. A shout out here to CPS Solar (Canterbury based) who provided a lot of useful information and food-for-thought in our conversation. Definitely consider them.

My choice though has gone to Solar City despite the fact they they were the tardiest in replying to my enquiry. I'd like to write a bit about why.

First off is their innovative Solar Care offering. For $0 or $1000 down they will install panels on your house and sell you the electricity generated for a fixed monthly cost for the next 20 years. (You then use or sell excess power into the grid.) This effectively locks in the cost to you of that much power for the next 20 years, and the contract is set so that the cost-per-unit is probably lower than you are being charged now.

Personally I think projects like this are what the major generators should be doing, to conserve hydro and fossil-fuel (ugh) generation for night time and winter use. But of course they don't make money by providing people with cheap power :-/

I was almost sold on this, it works out very well for both the homeowner (who gets rapid access to solar without massive expenditure or worries about insurance, monitoring etc of the panels) and for the company who get regular cashflow (instead of constantly having to chase new installations) and to depreciate the value of the solar panels on their books :). Had I investment properties I would be having Solar Care systems installed ASAP. Any of my home-owning/paying-off friends I strongly recommend taking a look.

However the desire and years of expecting to outright own the installation asserted itself and I was unable to bring myself to deviate that far from the plan. What actually sold me on a fixed install from Solar City installation was not the price but the opportunity to become involved with / contribute to a new initiative they are setting up with the University of Otago to (quoting the flyer)

Conduct a comprehensive study into household and commercial solar energy use, to better inform and guide the nation towards a 100% renewable energy future.

(As a bonus, "Customers will have the opportunity to beta test new technologies in the energy efficiency and solar space." Eh-heh-heh ...)

This will involve a period of monitoring before the installation which is fine because for me "starting the ball rolling" on a project like this means I have a 12-18 month horizon in view for actually affording and completing it. This is something I make clear of my requests for quotes but find a lot of companies have difficulty with - and their pressure (and oft-times effectively bribes) to commit sooner is something which I find distinctly off-putting.

Companies, I am (charitably) sure that you are genuinely interested in making sure your customers get good value for money but if you want my custom please do me the courtesy of understanding that I know and understand my own values, finances and finance options and that I am not undertaking such a large project on the spur of the moment. If I am not the typical customer in this, well that is simply a sad observation on today's society.

Another issue where I have struggled to reach common ground with all the companies I have talked to is my desire to install more generation capacity than is "economically efficient" for me. (The generators don't pay a terrific amount for home-solar production fed into the grid and these tariffs have only been dropping.) The concept that I might have broader, non-economic goals like future-proofing the amount of generation on my roof (nominally economic), or happily working towards overall lower power prices for everyone else by feeding cheap power into the grid and setting an example for wider home generation is completely foreign.

(I've had to temporarily throw in the towel on that one, but the system I am getting is eminently extensible at a later date by the addition of more panels and micro-inverters.)

~~~
Speaking of finance options this entire post / mini-rant was actually triggered by a quote from the Right House article.

But the business had not had the demand for their services, from home insulation to energy advice, that it had hoped for, Fisk said.
"I think that has been influenced by whether people are getting offer subsidies to insulate their houses," Fisk said.
The company failure may seem "counter-intuitive" when there is a housing boom especially in Christchurch and Auckland, he said.
Asked if the government cuts to home insulation subsidies in 2013 had affected Right House, Fisk said he believed it had "some effect".

Now this is a Stuff article so don't assume that quote from the liquidator (probably not yet familiar with the company finances) is entirely in context. It's obviously being played a bit by the reporter and as such I believe it reflects a wider feeling that the only reason people might be interested in getting into solar (and more broadly other technologies) is the money. That's a meme I'd really like to squish out of society's group consciousness because there are so many wider possibilities once you broaden your view from what is purely best for the individual.

[tangent]For example Christchurch (City Council) is currently looking at painful rates rises and having to privatise some of it's utility assets to afford the costs of the earthquake rebuild foisted on us by the national government. But we could build a new asset as a (somewhat seasonal) electricity generator right alongside the rebuild to offset some of that cost if only by generating some of the power required. I think most households and businesses would be happy to have some council-owned panels on their roof in exchange for the promise of lower rates increases (or the offset in lower electricity costs).[/tangent]

It is true that for the majority of homeowners (unlike well-privileged, mortgage-free, no-dependants self) the availability of subsidies will probably have a significant impact on the affordability calculations. (And part of the genius of Solar Care is how it simplifies that calculation.) It is good business for eg. an installer to point out the available options which may make what they are selling more affordable.

[aside]If you have a mortgage with Kiwibank also check out their Sustainable Energy Loan (link not guaranteed to be current).[/aside]

But I don't believe it is broadly good that our consumerist, buy now (worry about paying later) culture tries to rush people into accelerating financial plans that should be taken time over and focuses on the monetary payback value of long-term purchases to the detriment of other values. And just like if your business relies on the government topping up your employees wages because you don't pay them enough to live; if your business relies on pressuring people into making financial decisions for cashflow perhaps you should take a hard look at how sustainable it / its growth path really is. When I look at who I give significant amounts of my actually-earned money to, you better believe I'm taking that into account. Often it is through [your business'] salespeople that I have the most direct experience of that.

[aside]No I'm not a fan of commission sales, why do you ask?[/aside]

~~~
Disclaimer: this has not been any sort of solicited promotion and I have no connection (yet) to any of the mentioned companies except as outlined above. (Haven't even signed and returned the quote.) :p

Over the weekend I was asked (paraphrasing) what I thought the point of a party leader was, if not to make elections all about them and take a fall when the party doesn't do well.

The answer is not simple. Fundamentally I don't believe "leaders" as the term is generally used are necessary in a properly functioning representative democracy. If all our votes are supposed to carry the same weight, all our representatives functionally have to be equal and work together as equals.

That said sometimes you need someone to be a casting vote, and once you have sorted out the division of labour (portfolios) you need someone who is responsible for the overview, for the task of speaking for the whole and being able to explain how it is all working together so others are not needlessly distracted from their tasks. A representative of representatives, a minister of ministers, maybe a first-among-equals. You could call this person a "Leader" but that is something of a misnomer. It is not actually their job to "lead" as such.

I have written before quite strongly about my feelings that our representatives are elected to serve not to rule.

The other way I see you might legitimately have a leader in politics or in the broader case is when someone stands up and says "this is what I stand for and this is what I am trying to achieve" and a group of other people stand up and say "we agree with this person and we are going to follow him and support him (wrt these issues)". I see no problem with similarly-minded representatives forming "blocks" like this and electing someone to convey their vision.

In this case if what the leader is trying to achieve ultimately proves unpopular, then clearly they will lose that position. And practically the group should then fragment into groups (including individuals- groups of size 1) which are clear on the differences but also on the similarities.

Unfortunately this sort of leadership only works on a relatively small scale over fairly well defined issues, because after a certain point some people who support the leader in principle will actually have a sufficiently different vision that friction and fractures will start to occur and then other people will start trying to pressure people to "toe the party line" and it's all downhill from there. This is how we end up with entire parties of representatives who do not personally actually represent us but at the end of the day vote the way they are told to by a powerful few.

In New Zealand, and particularly in the Labour Party at present, we traditionally have neither of these. In fact the opposite. We have had a series of leaders unpopular with some significant number of their supposed supporters, who manipulate and scheme to have them them replaced and in doing so have them take the fall for those "supporters" own inadequacies and cock-ups. There is no common purpose for these leaders to espouse because the party is not, can not work together to common purpose. That is why I don't believe Cunliffe should be forced to resign for Labour "losing" the election because that will not resolve the issues. It is simply not his fault that the party is so fucked up internally and making it "his fault" will not solve anything. Any replacement is simply going to be another talking head being set up to be cut off.

The same sort of fractures simmer beneath the surface of National as well but National is currently led, by a small group who have a very clear idea of what they want and how they are going to get it and sufficient force of ... personality ... to keep their underlings in line and on message. And New Zealanders love a strong leader (bully), especially if they personally are not the ones being told what to do. We're all for someone who "gets on and does things" and who brandishes the traditional kiwi measures of success - nice car, box seat at the footy, bach, ability to jaunt of overseas for a holiday ... without looking too closely at how they got there or how they are staying there.

We're so shallow.

If a real leader is to emerge within Labour it will be someone who leads their followers away from Labour. Maybe what is left will be able to sort themselves out and find someone they can agree to stand behind. Then when the dust settles after National has its next bloodletting maybe we will have a spectrum of minor parties who can all work together and NZ as a whole might see that there is nothing to fear from a government consisting of multiple parties none of which is a clear "winner". And if we can make that shift as a society we'll be the better for it.