Update

Farmers and Climate Change

Farmers wanting to take a pro-active approach to the effects of climate change now have access to a comprehensive guide, mainly financed by MAF's Sustainable Farming Fund (SFF). "Adapting to Climate Change in Eastern NZ - A Farmer Perspective" includes case studies which explore how 12 farmers have managed their properties for sustainable outcomes. Besides offering a "friendly guide" on the implications of climate change, it includes recommendations on how to achieve greater resilience at both a farm and regional scale.

The guide can be downloaded from: http://kiwiwebhost.phage.net.nz/%7Ekauriman/download.html

We Like the Term "Kiwi"

Increasingly, it seems, the term "kiwi" is a badge of identity that we use both at home and when we travel, regardless of whether the countries we're visiting are familiar with the term or not. A recent BNZ survey showed that 64 percent of respondents refer to themselves as kiwis in Sydney as opposed to 54 percent right here in NZ. And in the UK, more than half the respondents (53 percent) said they preferred to be known as kiwis, compared with 43 percent who preferred the term "New Zealander". In New York, 36 percent of those surveyed said that they would call themselves kiwi compared with 35 percent in Tokyo.

Overall, NZers like the term "kiwi" when it is used to describe their nationality. Forty-one percent of respondents in the survey of 750 people (aged 18 and over) said they thought the term "kiwi" summed up the "spirit of NZ and NZers". Another 40 percent of respondents said the believed the term kiwi meant "the people who live in NZ", making 81 percent of us who recognise the term "kiwi" as summing up the country and its people.

Applications Open: Digital Strategy Community Partnership Fund

The aim of the Digital Strategy Community Partnership Fund is to support projects that build capacity to realise community aspirations through using Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The Fund of $20.7 million will be allocated over four years until 2009 and is specifically to assist communities with ICT content, connection and confidence.

Applications must be from ICT-related not-for-profit projects and come from new or existing grassroots/flaxroots community organisations, enterprises and agencies. Projects are to have identified partners who provide financial or in-kind contributions that match or exceed funding applied for. The projects will need to demonstrate that they can be sustained after funding from the Community Partnership Fund has ceased. Projects will need to have community support and be for community benefit.

Applications for funding involve a two-stage process. An "Expression of Interest" (EOI) application must be submitted and is ranked according to meeting set criteria. Successful applicants are then invited to submit a comprehensive application. The comprehensive application stage will commence in February and close in April with funds allocated in June, 2006.

The Digital Strategy website www.digitalstrategy.govt.nz has additional information on the fund, the strategy, case studies and other resources.

CommunityNet Aotearoa www.community.net.nz has a community focused Digital Strategy resource section at http://www.community.net.nz/HotTopics/Digital-Strategy/. This includes research on community ICT projects in NZ and overseas, information on lessons learned and partnering resources.

Also on CommunityNet is an IT & Internet How-to Guide with useful links and resources, at: http://www.community.net.nz/HotTopics/Digital-Strategy/PublicationsResources/

There are many overseas sites, linked from the Internet section in Links http://www.community.net.nz/Links/.

For questions relating to the fund or the form, please email cpf@digitalstrategy.govt.nz or ring 0800 824 824 (within business hours).

Home Electricity Wastage

Household appliances running on standby are consuming as much energy each year (at a cost of around $150 per year) as that produced by an average Waikato River power station, a report by building industry research and testing provider BRANZ has found. The Household Energy End-use Project report found that five types of home appliances - fridge-freezers, computers, stereos, televisions and video/DVD players - accounted for more than half of all household standby or baseload power consumption. Standby power is electricity used by appliances such as televisions and stereos as they "wait" to be used, while baseload power is electricity consumed by appliances kept on all the time, such as heated towel rails.

The report also provides a comprehensive overview of household electricity uses, with power measurements taken from nearly 14,000 appliances. It found that NZ homes have an average of 33 appliances, although one house had 82 appliances. The most popular appliance is the television, with nearly two per household.

The full Executive Summary can be downloaded for free from the BRANZ website www.branz.co.nz or from the BRANZ Bookshop

Rotorua Air

One of the country's two most important tourism destinations, Rotorua, has such poor quality air at times that Environment Bay of Plenty has been forced to declare it a Local Air Management Area. With the classification in place, the regional authority is now obliged to introduce measures to improve air quality to the required standard by 2013.

Environment BoP will now establish a working group of community representatives to begin the process of identifying solutions to the problem. This could involve community education, incentives for high-efficiency wood burners, the promotion of alternative types of heating, or regulation.

Contact: Paul Dell, Group Manager Regulation & Resource Management - 0800 368 267

26 More Projects get SKIP Funding

A further 26 community projects have received funding through the third round of the SKIP (Strategies with Kids, Information for Parents) Local Initiatives Fund. The fund supports community organisations in promoting positive parenting and providing practical knowledge and skills on the effective discipline of children under five.

Over 90 projects have been funded so far, covering a wide geographical area and a variety of approaches. Some of the successful projects funded in Round Three include:

  • activities resulting from consultation with the Kaipara community, including community-based parenting workshops and fun days, a media campaign and a Children's Day celebration;
  • the introduction of positive parenting to the Auckland Tongan community through Tongan media and seminars for young parents;
  • the Father and Child Trust developing a parenting module for its current course and running a tantrum buster service; and
  • Dannevirke Family Services developing a support group for grandparents raising grandchildren and providing parenting programmes.

A full list of projects is on the SKIP web pages at www.familyservices.govt.nz and more information on funding rounds can be obtained by emailing skipinfo@msd.govt.nz (round four of the fund closed 30 September)

Youth Workers Role Examined

Finding out how the youth sector can be better supported and strengthened to help young people is the aim of a project being led by the Ministry of Youth development (MYD). A recent survey of 637 people and agencies working in the youth work sector identified a range of issues that they say have a negative impact on their work including: lack of job security, a lack of formal training opportunities, and difficulty accessing qualifications.

The Youth Workers' Workforce Development project, which began on 1 July, involves MYD partnering with people and agencies who work with young people, talking to young people and gathering and analysing information from the sector. The project will focus on those for whom youth work is their primary job - whether they be paid youth workers or volunteers.

Initially, the project will gather and improve information about the youth sector workforce. This will involve extensive consultation with the community and youth sectors. MYD will then advise the government on opportunities for addressing workforce development issues.

For more information contact: MYD Senior Policy Analyst/Project Manager David Mulholland, tel (04) 918 9596, email david.mulholland001@myd.govt.nz

Community and Voluntary Sector Research

Massey University has won a three-year contract to carry out extensive research about the community and voluntary sector. The research will provide information that will contribute to the understanding of the NZ non-profit sector and to a major international comparative study overseen by the John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The first phase will determine who and what makes up the community and voluntary sector. This will be done by developing definitions in collaboration with Statistics NZ. Information will also go out to the sector and government through conferences, meetings, newsletters and online. The final report is due mid-2008, with several milestone reports along the way.

For more information about the research project contact: Diana Suggate, email Diana.suggate001@msd.govt.nz or visit www.ocvs.govt.nz

Four Regional Councils Fund Tsunami Research

Four North Island regional councils are funding detailed research into tsunamis in an effort to refine emergency management plans. NIWA will carry out the work, to look further into sources of tsunami from the east and north and identify the danger spots along the coastline.

Twelve moderate size tsunamis have been recorded in the Auckland region over the last 150 years but older geological data shows larger ones have struck. The Auckland Regional Council says inundation modelling of the coastline to mimic tsunami behaviour is planned. This will help emergency workers identify which areas are in most danger and who to evacuate should a tsunami warning be received.

It should be noted that the work described in this article hasn't yet started. However, this is not the first time NIWA has done such work (it has worked with at least two of these regional councils before). Here a are couple of URLs that will give you some idea of the work that has already been done to date:

Roading Black Spots to Be Targeted

Fifty-four known "black spots" on the country's highways are to be targeted in a new multi-agency effort to reduce road fatalities. Treatment will include adding rumble strips to stop drivers falling asleep, removing poles or trees from the sides of roads and putting up signs warning drivers of dangerous stretches of road. The Ministry of Transport says the 54 "worst corridors" identified are so dangerous they can not wait for serious engineering work such as re-alignments or bypasses to be completed. It says work can be done right now within existing budgets to make those roads safer.

More information on the black spots locations can be found at: http://www.transport.govt.nz/business/land/land-transport/worst-corridors/index.php

Latest Union Membership Figures

A Victoria University survey has found that union membership in NZ in 2004 increased by 12,427 over the previous year. This builds on five years of strong growth with an overall 17 percent rise in union membership since 1999. The survey of trade union membership by the Industrial Relations Centre at Victoria University found 354,058 union members at 31 December 2004.

The rise in union membership is due to a number of variables, including:

  • unions are achieving a high profile with campaigns such as NZ's Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union's "5 in 05" push, helping create an environment in which employees feel more inclined to join unions; and
  • unions have been better organised and are making themselves more attractive in the workplace.

Most of the increase in union membership continues to be in established unions affiliated with the NZ Council of Trade Unions (CTU). Membership of CTU-affiliated unions has risen by 13,000.

2004 Business Finance Survey

According to the survey, in the twelve months to August 2004, over one-third of NZ businesses requested new finance. Ninety percent of these requests resulted in either some or all of the finance being received.

The survey results also show NZ businesses prefer debt finance, the majority of which comes from banks. Equity finance, which encompasses different forms of investment from friends and family to publicly listed shares, is much less common. Only 6 percent of businesses requested equity finance in 2004.

The report provides information on the current sources and amounts of debt and equity, businesses' use of assets as security for raising finance and the characteristics of the person responsible for arranging finance. It also includes data on investment in firm expansion and projected turnover growth. Twenty-two percent of businesses invested in expansion during their last financial year, with such investment being more common among larger businesses and manufacturers. The majority (76 percent) of businesses expected positive turnover growth.

A copy of the report is available via the Statistics NZ website www.stats.govt.nz

Have Your Say: "Cost of Capital"

A common method of calculating the cost of capital (both equity and debt) for all businesses has been proposed by the Commerce Commission, which it hopes to apply across all its operations. It has issued a draft Cost of Capital guidelines paper to generate feedback on its preferred methodology and its various elements, arguing that it needs "a consistent framework as a starting point for estimating the cost of capital across the Commission's various regulatory functions".

In applying the guidelines, the Commission says it will adapt them when necessary to accommodate variations in specific industries and firms.

Submissions close on 2 December. For more information, contact: Dinesh Kumareswaran - 04 924 3600; dinesh.kumareswaran@comcom.govt.nz and the draft guidelines can be found at http://www.comcom.govt.nz/Publications/ContentFiles/Documents/WACC%20Draft%20Guidelines0.pdf

NZSF Announces Further Timber Investments

The NZ Superannuation Fund (NZSF) has made three more timber investments:

  • timber management rights to the Tahorakuri property near Wairakei in the Central North Island (this property is 14,500 acres of mature Radiata Pine);
  • a timberland investment located in Washington State in the US North West (about 18,000 acres of Hemlock and Douglas Fir); and
  • a timberland investment located in Texas in the US South (about 45,000 acres of Loblolly Pine).

The value of the NZ Superannuation Fund as at 30 September 2005 was $7.6 billion.

The home page of the NZSF can be found at: http://www.nzsuperfund.co.nz/

Corrections and Maori

The Waitangi Tribunal has rejected claims of cultural bias by the Department of Corrections in the use of its "Maori Culture Related Needs" and "Risk of Reconviction and Risk of Imprisonment" tools. However, in an 18-page analysis, it said the Department designed and used the tools without sufficient consultation with Maori. The tools help to identify and assess offenders who are at high risk of re-offending and are intended to assist the development of programmes to reduce Maori re-offending.

The 18-page analysis can be downloaded from: http://www.waitangi-tribunal.govt.nz/

Creative industries Grow Well in Auckland

Auckland's creative businesses are growing faster than anywhere else in New Zealand, according to an Auckland City report. Of NZ's estimated 36,540 creative sector full time employees, 18,730 are located in the Auckland region, with 73 percent of these located in Auckland city. Full time positions in these industries in Auckland city have been growing at twice the rate of other regions in NZ. Auckland City defines the creative industries as: design (including graphic design, architecture, advertising and designer fashion); publishing (book, periodical and newspaper); music; performing arts; visual arts, crafts and photography; and screen production and radio (film, television, video, radio and digital media).

"Snapshot: Auckland's Creative Industries Report" can be downloaded from: http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/auckland/economy/creative/reports.asp#report

New Pacific Initiatives

These initiatives were announced as part of the recent Pacific Islands Forum meeting:

  • HIV/AIDS. NZ will provide a package of support of up to $12 million over the next three years. Support will be targeted towards putting in place the Pacific Regional HIV/AIDS strategy as well as other initiatives aligned to the Strategy.
  • Pacific Judicial Development Programme. NZAID and AusAid will each provide A$5 million for judicial education and development.
  • Customs. NZ will provide $1.4 million over two years to help establish a permanent home for the Oceania Customs Organisation Secretariat in Suva.
  • Avian Flu. NZ will provide $825,000 to support the South Pacific Commission and the NZ Ministry of Health's efforts to strengthen national preparedness and response to avian flu.
  • Kula II Fund. NZ will contribute US$150,000 to help cover the operating costs of the Kula II fund for an initial three year period. This is a new Pacific investment fund aimed at promoting investments in small and medium enterprises in the Pacific Islands.
  • Tokelau Trust Fund. NZ will be putting an additional NZ$3 million into the Tokelau Trust Fund later this year, bringing the balance of the fund to $19 million.
  • Small Island States. NZ will increase funding to the Forum Secretariat to enable the establishment of a unit to support the integration of the Small Islands States into regional cooperation activities.
  • Digital Strategy. Many in the Pacific region do not enjoy the benefits of access to telecommunications and the internet. NZ has offered to host the next Forum Communication Ministers meeting in the first half of 2006.

The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat website can be found at: http://www.forumsec.org.fj/

Latest World Corruption Index Figures

Research by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) suggests corruption is on the rise in some rich countries as well as poorer ones. The group's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) labels Bangladesh and Chad as the most corrupt places on the planet. The situation worsened in countries such as Costa Rica, Russia and Sri Lanka - as well as Canada and Ireland. But nations where perceptions of corruption are declining include Hong Kong, Turkey and even Nigeria.

At both the top of the list and the bottom, the index shows little change from 2004. Topping the list, the cleanest countries are Iceland, Finland and NZ, with Singapore (5) and Switzerland (7) not far behind. Australia ranks 9th. The UK is equal 11th with the Netherlands, Canada is 14th, Ireland 19th, with the US back at 17. Other countries of note are Chile and Japan (21), Spain (23), Fiji (55), Thailand (59), China (77), and India and Iran (88).

TI's survey asks businesspeople, academics and public officials about how countries they live in or do business with are perceived. The results are used to gauge how corrupt public officials are. The CPI does not deal directly with private-sector corruption.

The report and associated information can be downloaded from: http://www.transparency.org/

Wars "Less Frequent, Less Deadly"

Wars around the world are both less frequent and less deadly since the end of the Cold War, a new report claims. The "Human Security Report" found a decline in every form of political violence except terrorism since 1992. It found the number of armed conflicts had fallen by more than 40 percent in the past 13 years, while the number of very deadly wars had fallen by 80 percent.

The study says many common beliefs about contemporary conflict are "myths" - such as that 90 percent of those killed in current wars are civilians, or that women are disproportionately victimised. The report credits intervention by the United Nations, plus the end of colonialism and the Cold War, as the main reasons for the decline in conflict.

The report can be accessed from: http://www.humansecurityreport.info/

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