It sets out to fine people who camp outside specific areas or incorrectly dispose of waste and will try to improve information available to freedom campers with consistent signage and a website.
Obviously people who are incorrectly disposing of waste should be able to be fined. However banning freedom camping ruins a good thing because of a small minority. Green Party MP Kevin Hague says that’s there’s little evidence about the size of the problem and he suspects it’s relatively small.
If people dispose of waste correctly, are they causing that much harm by camping outside of camp grounds?
Kevin Hague said the smart approach was to create more places with toilets and rubbish facilities. “While there are some ratbags who don’t care, for the most part these people who rent these campervans would look after our environment if they could.”
Do you think freedom camping is a big issue? If someone leaves only footprints are they doing anything wrong?
Labour accidentally left a server open for anyone to have a look around, and people looked. Using a website that checks what other sites are hosted on a specific web server, Cameron Slater (Whale Oil) says he found that Labour’s healthyhomeshealthykiwis.org.nz was hosted on the same server as lets-not.co.nz. Healthyhomeshealthykiwis.org.nz turned out to list the files and directories on the server. Drilling down, Cameron found that backups were on the server which contained records of donations and email addresses from Labour’s mailing lists. He explains further in a video on this post.
Stealing?
Comparisons to someone stealing something from an unlocked house (or in one comment I read, looting quaked houses in Christchurch) seem misguided. This is more like someone from Labour standing on the street and accidentally including email addresses and donation information in handouts.
Release of personal information
Cameron was going to, but now has said he won’t release the personal information of individuals obtained from the server, a decision which I support as there is no public interest in identifying the Average Joe donator or mailing list subscriber.
National’s involvement
John Pagani (former senior adviser to Labour leader Phil Goff) was apparently given access to the logs (I’m not sure why it seemed like a good idea to Labour to further spread the access logs, complete with IP addresses) and says that the second IP address to access one of the backup files was 202.20.0.120 which resolves to mail.national.org.nz—a National party mail server. So if that’s true, National knew of the security hole in Labour’s website. In the perfect world, even though it’s not their job to, they would have informed Labour, but apparently chose not to. John continues that the logs prove that National tipped Cameron off about the gaping security hole as Cameron appears to be the next person to access this specific backup file. This is plausible, but isn’t proven by the logs. Neither of the above excuse the fact that the server should have been secure to begin with.
Credit card information
Labour says that “no credit card details were held on the site. All people whose privacy may have been compromised have been informed.”
Flo2Cash who handle Labour’s credit card payments say: “All donor credit card data is fully encrypted… the Flo2Cash system… is completely isolated from the Labour Party website… the recent Labour Party website breach has not resulted in any compromise of donor credit card data.”
Do you think National should have let Labour know about the security hole, or, if they did: tip Whale Oil off about it?
Today in the post we received New Zealand Post’s “lifestyle survey”, a controversial data collecting tool that’s recently been in the news because the information collected is used to market your address to other companies. The survey is sent to 800,000 households by post and 125,000 by email and asks 56 questions about various things, split into sections on your interests, vehicles, home, finances, shopping habits and travel. New Zealand Post sells names and addresses of respondents, “but not the information they provided in the survey”, for companies to use once. Information is also used to furnish New Zealand Post’s direct marketing tool named Genius which says it helps clients “gain deeper insights and understanding into your customers, particularly around wealth, life stage and lifestyle”.
2009 version
Reports ordered by the Privacy Commissioner concluded that the 2009 version breached privacy principles and violated marketing industry standards for not providing “adequate, non-misleading information about the survey’s (primary) nature and/or purpose” and asking respondents to answer questions about their partners”. Professor Malcolm Wright, head of communications, journalism and marketing at Massey University say that it shouldn’t be called a survey but “an opportunity to join a direct mail database”. Auckland University former marketing lecturer Linda Hollebeek says that a lot of people won’t be aware that New Zealand Post is shifting into a more commercial strategic direction including the compiling of databases for on-selling to marketers.
Wave around a chocolate bar (or $15k) to get what you want
Privacy Commissioner, Marie Shroff argues that people are often dazzled by competitions and giveaways and might foolishly give away personal information. I think this has been shown to be true by numerous research projects where people are happy to hand over their passwords for a chocolate bar, pen or for the chance to win a trip overseas. Close Up in conjunction with NetSafe offered a Moro bar up for grabs for anyone on Auckland’s Queen Street who was willing to answer a short survey, of which the first question was “what is your password?”. 59% of people gave their password (about half of people use the same password everywhere) and those conducting the survey said that the answers to other questions suggested the majority of passwords were legitimate. You can watch the full video here (apologies if it’s blocked in your country). The shorts for tonight’s episode of Fair Go (22nd June 2011) shows a man on the street asking people personal questions, which I’m guessing most people answered. If you’re interested in the New Zealand Post survey it will probably be interesting to watch.
New Zealand Post thinks they’re being clear
John Tulloch, New Zealand Post’s communication manager said the survey states numerous times that it’s optional and the information “could be used by other companies”. I call bullshit.
(I’ve uploaded the full version of the survey here (pdf).)
Spot where New Zealand Post states “numerous times” that the information could be used by other companies. Hint, about once.
The top paragraph states: “New Zealand Post wants to help you receive more relevant mail. We invite you to complete this voluntary survey and tell us about you and your household, so we can help tailor the messages that you receive. These messages will be from companies with products and services related to your interests” (emphasis is theirs).
I’m not counting this one because I don’t think this is clear that companies will actually be given your information. For example, Fly Buys forwards material on behalf of places you’ve shopped at, but the shops never see your personal information. Nor am I counting the text at the bottom of the page: “in addition to receiving selected offers addressed to you through the mail…” as this doesn’t state at all that those offers won’t be from New Zealand Post.
The one time I’m counting (and only other time in the whole form sharing of information is mentioned) is the fourth small print bullet point under “Here’s how it all works” which states:
Privacy: If you participate in The New Zealand Lifestyle Survey, your name, address and other information you supply (including your email and telephone numbers if you tick the boxes below), may be provided to companies and other organizations from New Zealand and overseas to enable them to provide you and/or your household with information about products and services relevant to your responses to this survey. New Zealand Post may also use that information for the same purpose.
Sure I’ll give them that they’ve made it clear that the survey is voluntary (mentioned about four times on the front page). But they only say that information may be provided to other companies, even though that’s the primary purpose of the survey. There is no mention of the information being sold in the whole form.
KiwiSaver will be affected by National 2011’s budget, but it will still be a worthwhile scheme for nearly everyone under 65 to be in.
The member tax credit from the Government (which doesn’t apply to under 18s) accruing from July 2011, is going to be cut in half from $1 per $1 matching to 50 cents to $1 matching. So to get the full match you’ll have to save about $20 a week ($1040/year) and will get a $10 match ($520/year) from the Government.
To balance this out, minimum contributions will be raised for employees and their employers to 3% from April 2013 (the other employee options will stay as 4% and 8%).
However the employer contribution will be taxed from April 2012 (the 2% minimum will end up being about 1.34-1.79% depending on your tax rate, the new 3% about 2.01-2.685%).
This will affect the un/self-employed because their tax credit will be reduced with no balancing employer contribution. Increased employer contributions will benefit people planning to buy a first home using their KiwiSaver savings as they’re unable to withdraw member tax credits anyway. A likely reduction in pay rises because of the increased employer contributions will affect KiwiSaver and non-KiwiSaver employees.
Standard and Poor’s says that the changes “could push New Zealand further into debt and would need to be part of an overall package to boost national savings.”
The $1000 Government kick-start, the up to $5000 first home deposit subsidy and the requirement of being in the scheme for at least a year before you’re able to go on a contributions holiday are staying.
The kick-start, tax credit and employer contributions are still free money.
Ramit Sethi has an excellent book called I Will Teach You To Be Rich which is available from Amazon and The Book Depository—who have free shipping to basically everywhere. He recommends young people invest about 10% of their income and take advantage of available employer/tax benefits. Eg. contributing the minimum into KiwiSaver, getting the employer match (and if necessary topping up contributions to $1040 to get the $1040/$520 government match, but set it up so it’s done automatically each pay period), then invest the rest of the 10% in a non-KiwiSaver scheme. The main benefit of a non-KiwiSaver scheme compared to KiwiSaver is laxer withdrawal rules—the withdrawal age is likely lower, plus if it’s employer based, employers may contribute a higher amount than in KiwiSaver)
I like SuperLife as a KiwiSaver fund provider because of, among other things, their AIMAge Steps fund which automatically re-balances asset allocation from assets like shares to assets like cash as you age. Mary Holm has a book called The Complete KiwiSaver which is from 2009 but will still be largely relevant to making decisions about things like funds and providers.
Some people in New York want people in the healthcare industry to be banned from wearing ties and jewelry after research has shown that neckties worn by doctors and other medical personnel are carrying infection-causing bacteria.
In 2004 researchers at the New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens found that nearly half (47.6%) of neckties worn by clinicians harbored “potential disease-causing bacteria”. Clinicians included physicians, physician assistants and medical students at the teaching hospital. For comparison they also tested neckties worn by security personnel. The odds were 8 times greater that a clinician’s tie would be harboring bacteria compared to the security personnels’ ties.
The researchers said that there’s no direct evidence that neckties transmit infections to patients, however a health center in St. Louis “saw a 50 percent drop in reduction in infections when a hygienic dress code was provided” (which I am assuming included other rules, including the banning of ties). A hospital in Indiana has had no reported instances of hospital-acquired infection because of their hygienic dress code.
Patients who get MRSA, which is a huge problem in hospitals, have average stays that cost almost twice as much and are for almost twice as long compared to non-infected patients. New York’s cost of medical malpractice insurance continues to rise as a result of awards paid out because of “preventable medical mistakes”, which includes infections acquired in the hospital. Senator Diane Savino says that “adopting a hygienic dress code for medical professionals means less infections, less lawsuits, lower medical malpractice premiums and more lives saved.”
Apparently this is too nanny state for some people even though the benefits for patients, hospitals and insurers could be significant and dress codes are already enforced in hospitals and elsewhere.
Sue Wells “released” figures on her blog regarding the likelihood of another earthquake in the near future (23% chance in Canterbury within the next year, between 6 and 7 on the Richter scale).
Some people said that it’s horrible to release statistics because they thought the earthquakes were over. February’s quake taught us the importance of not being complacent. It also taught us that the Richter scale does not accurately measure disaster or loss of life, that it could be a 4 or a 5 earthquake that we should be concerned about.
Context should be given with statistics so people reasonably prepare, rather than worry. Sue Wells provided appropriate context for the statistics saying that she had no information on “Mercalli scale or g-force or depth”. The information was appropriately attributed to a CERA meeting at the top of the post and more specifically to Roger Sutton in the comments.
“Those figures might not have seen the light of day for at least another couple of weeks if Cr Sue Wells had not included them in her blog at the weekend.” Information is empowering and should not be held back behind closed doors.
Some people are unhappy and are calling it celebrity tourism. They’re angry that they aren’t able to see their city but “important people” are.
However all of these people had a reason for being in the red zone. Prince William spoke at the earthquake memorial. Rachel Hunter and Russell Crowe were both fundraising for the earthquake appeal. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard came to experience what their Australian personnel were dealing with over here.
It’s unfair to say they were just there to push past residents to have their little look.
Gardening
There is currently a debate going on regarding whether people who are paid to care for plants should be caring for them in the red zone… A business owner, who I’m assuming was actually in the cordon accessing his business for a similar time that the gardeners were there, took a photo of City Care workers… working. Business owners are confused as to why City Care workers are allowed in an outside area that would’ve been approved as safe when they’re not allowed in their buildings that have either been deemed unsafe or that they aren’t able to access because of surrounding buildings.
The different parts of Christchurch’s recovery aren’t going to line up in a nice timeline and tidying up of gardens would have to happen eventually. The glass, food… still lying around the city and in businesses is likely to be around or inside buildings that aren’t accessible or otherwise would’ve already been cleaned up. “David Lynch, who gave The Press the photos, said the businessman wanted no unnecessary work in the red zone.” This seems like a selfish mentality of ‘if I can’t get into the red zone NO ONE SHOULDDDDDDD!!!@44$%@11@’. The recovery is in progress. What’s able to be done is being done.
A safe and carefully planned public tour of the city should happen and the media tours have shown that is possible, however that doesn’t mean that other recovery work should be hijacked until then. Issues around the earthquake are always going to have opposing views. I’m sure if a public tour goes ahead there will be business owners talking to the media about the security of their buildings.
“The Press could not contact Deputy Mayor Ngaire Button yesterday.” As a Stuff commenter put it, maybe she was tending to some plants. But it seems like some of the complainers should take up a hobby too.
Depending on whether you want MMP to stay or go. (Click for larger versions)
Alongside the general election this year on November 26th, voters will also be voting on whether they support the MMP voting system or would prefer to change to another system. There will be two parts to the referendum (both are optional, so someone could vote for neither parts, both parts, just the first part or just the second part):
Should New Zealand keep the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system?
I vote to keep the MMP voting system
I vote to change to another voting system
If New Zealand were to change to another voting system, which voting system would you choose?
I would choose the First Past the Post system (FPP)
I would choose the Preferential Voting system (PV)
I would choose the Single Transferable Vote system (STV)
I would choose the Supplementary Member system (SM)
If at least half of the voters vote to keep MMP, there will still be an Electoral Commission review of it in 2012. If at least half of the voters vote to change the voting system, Parliament will decide if there’s another referendum in 2014 (Stuff has reported it as 2016, but it’s 2014 on the Elections 2011 website) to choose between the most popular alternative (according to the second part of this referendum) or MMP.
STV is probably the only other roughly proportional voting system, with the number of MPs elected reflecting the total share of the party’s votes across the country. However some people might feel their STV vote is useless because if they are in an electorate that predominantly supports, say, National, their vote for a, say, Green MP won’t “count” towards the Green party at all unless the Green MP wins that electorate. MMP is still the best system and results in a proportional and representative Parliament.
It’s arguable that few people actually know how our current or past election systems work(ed), even after having them in place for years. No information explaining the different systems was included in the flowchart’s mail out, except saying that more information will be, I assume mailed out (what about the trees?!@11@), closer to election day and that information is also available on the Elections website. However, most people are inherently lazy and are unlikely to seek out additional information themselves. This will probably benefit the status quo.
Tweeting on election day
The Electoral Act prohibits “electioneering” on election day (midnight-7pm), meaning it’s illegal to distribute statements likely to influence voting decisions. The fine for electioneering on election day is up to $20,000. Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden says that social networks (Twitter, Facebook…) are covered by the ban and will be checked on election day for influencing material. He says “For a long time, the law has allowed for campaign-free election days, and my sense is that New Zealanders like it that way and so it’s not really in people’s interest to do things like tweet and breach the rules.”
This is stupid.
Amanda Palmer quite accurately compares Twitter to a bar. It can be great and you can find some really interesting people using it, or sometimes you can have inane conversations about nothing. The bar analogy also works for how tweets are shared. Tweets are only “sent” to users that “opt in” to receiving them, just like someone opts in to a conversation in a bar. Maybe they overhear part of a conversation, or are aware of it because their friends are involved, but they can choose to ignore it or join in themselves. This is just like Twitter: you could be aware of a conversation or tweet because of search, through someone you’re following on Twitter, or looking at profiles, but you’re able to ignore the tweet, unfollow or block the users involved if you don’t like it.
Social networks are clearly different to someone erecting an election sign in their front yard and tweeting to a relatively small number of users who have opted in to receiving your tweets shouldn’t be considered ‘seeking to influence the public’ even if it is about who you’re supporting in the election.
In Canada, Twitter users are unhappy about a law that bans the premature transmission of election results—mentioning election results in Montreal in the east before the booths have closed in Vancouver in the west, with a fine of up to $25,000. Users of social networks realized that this applied to them and for their May 2nd election protested against the rule by tweeting the results of the election using the hashtag #tweettheresults.
It would be awesome if something like that happened here (but I obviously wouldn’t condone it).
You might want to skip this post (about abortion). Need help? In New Zealand, you can call Lifeline on 0800 543 354 or Youthline on 0800 37 66 33.
A Tauranga schoolgirl had an abortion “arranged” by a school counselor without her parents’ knowledge. Her mum, angry at not being informed, spoke to the media. This promoted calls for girls under 16 to require parental consent to go through with an abortion. Under the Care of Children Act there is no age restriction to give consent to an abortion. In 2004, then opposition MP Judith Collins tried to change this, but it didn’t pass.
Youthline rightly says that everyone should have access to confidential health services regardless of their age. They say that it can’t be assumed that the family home is a safe and loving place. They stress the importance of youth having a strong support network, which may include a counselor who they can talk to in confidence. There’s a risk that vulnerable youth won’t reach out if they fear that their parents will be told. Talking with a counselor about a pregnancy doesn’t mean that a girl won’t talk with her parents about it, she might just need some reassurance first. Not wanting her parents involved doesn’t mean a girl is going it alone. Maybe she feels more comfortable talking with a friend’s mother, the father’s parents or other extended family and that should be okay.
“I’ve been on a board of trustees of a large Auckland school and I’ve seen how some girls were treated by their parents when it was thought they had brought shame on the family. They were physically punished, sometimes to the extent CYFS had to be notified.”
Maybe those calling for this change have a bigger target in mind—discouraging abortions all together. If the parents are informed, maybe the hope is that they will put a stop to the abortion.
Garth George cites a dubious study by Dr Priscilla Coleman that claims there is a link between abortion and mental health:
…a thoroughly scientific study in 2006 by Dr Priscilla Coleman, a research psychologist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, refuted a long-standing contention that teenagers are better able to handle an abortion than dealing with an unplanned pregnancy.
The study found that adolescent girls who had an abortion were five times more likely to seek help for psychological and emotional problems than those who kept their babies.
The study also found that teenagers who had abortions instead of carrying the pregnancy to term were also more than three times more likely to report subsequent trouble sleeping, and nine times more likely to report subsequent drug use.
Dr Coleman pointed out that, while having a child as a teen might be problematic, “the risks of terminating seem to be even more pronounced”.
“The scientific evidence is now strong and compelling. Abortion poses more risks to women than giving birth.”
Trying to replicate Dr Coleman’s results, researchers concluded:
Because of the potential for confounding, published research claiming to find relations between abortion and poor mental health indicators should be subjected to scrutiny and reanalysis. Using the same data and conducting the same analyses as CCSR (2009), we found that their results were not replicable, nor did our numbers approach theirs in the case of 15 mental health disorders. Moreover, we found little support for the abortion-as-trauma framework. Instead, our findings suggest that structural, psychological, and sociodemographic risk factors associated with both having an abortion and having poor mental health drive a relationship between abortion and mental health. Therefore, policy, practice, and research should focus on addressing the correlates of having mental health problems, such as violence and prior mental health problems.
“We were unable to reproduce the most basic tabulations of Coleman and colleagues,” Steinberg said in a statement released with the paper. “Moreover, their findings were logically inconsistent with other published research — for example, they found higher rates of depression in the last month than other studies found during respondents’ entire lifetimes. This suggests that the results were substantially inflated.” (via)
“…the TFMHA [Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion] reviewed no evidence sufficient to support the claim that an observed association between abortion history and mental health was caused by the abortion per se, as opposed to other factors.” (via)
What life will an unwanted baby have? What is its future? What is the mother’s future? How likely is it that a cycle of teen pregnancy will start?
It’s up to parents to keep lines of nonjudgmental communication open with their children, to be involved with them and to talk with them, but parents should be grateful that their children don’t have to rely on their peers for advice and that there are professionals accessible to their children that they can talk with about things that they don’t feel like they can talk with their parents about.
The people who made TEDxEQChCh possible.Rubble from demolished Christchurch buildings on the stage at TEDxEQChCh.The tweet cathedral: Kunst Buzz (in the in the Netherlands) developed this piece of art of the ChristChurch Cathedral. Made out of a random selection of almost 1000 #eqnz tweets (approximately 98,000 characters) it was on display in the lobby.There was a TEDxJapan poster for signing in the lobby to show our support for them.
Now today, you’re part of a truly remarkable global phenomenon. Around the world, thousands of people have been gathering in meetings to experience the power of ideas. The surprising thing about today’s meeting is that we here at TED have had almost nothing to do with it. We lent our name, our format, a few simple guidelines and some of our content. But the really hard work to make today happen has been down to your local organizers. And we’re truly in awe of the passion and dedication they’ve shown to make something like this work. Thank you to you too for taking the time out to come and be part of this exciting conversation about our shared future. Please write and tell us what you make of the event today. But for now, on with the show. -Chris Anderson
Kaila Colbin thanks the alcohol sponsors who’ll make sure everyone’s too sloshed to care if this all goes badly and admits that TEDxEQChCh is probably the most cumbersome event name ever. The event opened with a performance from Joe Castillo, who was beamed in from overseas, and Ariana Tikao.
Lessons learnt:
Change has to start on a grassroots level. That means every single one of us. CERA etc. are full of smart people, but they aren’t going to read our minds. Do we want decisions to be made for us?
Give the displaced residents control over condemned buildings. If they want to, we need to let them into their yellow and red stickered buildings for a short period of time if they sign a waiver. They need to be there when their building is demolished. People need to be able to go through the rubble piece by piece and recover what they want from their home or business.
Give the displaced residents control over their rebuild—phone numbers of builders and workmen working on their new home so it gets built or repaired quickly. Let them manage the process and funds themselves.
Let’s make sure we have a record of what people are feeling. People will want to look back on memories recorded in the years to come.
We want more green, people, pedestrians and trees in the new Christchurch. We want less traffic.
Fill in the gaps that have been created. They can be more than a Wilson’s car park. Some gaps will have to stay gaps because they can’t be built on again, but this gives us options for amazing green community spaces.
We don’t want to be a city of commuters and consumers. We want to be a city of communities.
The first thing to fix is the building codes. Can we retrofit buildings with rollers so they roll with earthquakes like San Fransisco did with their City Hall?
Christchurch and San Fransisco both saw neighborhoods band together. Let’s train rescue and recovery teams in all neighborhoods. Give them the skills they need to help each other get through.
Context
Bob Parker
Bob Parker is here at the Aurora Centre for the third time recently. The first two times were for memorial services because of the earthquake, but this time it’s for something optimistic. Ideas are being shared about how we will move forward.
Hugh Nicholson
“We need to grieve and acknowledge what we’ve lost before moving on. The hardest thing is seeing an empty city—it’s not buildings, cafes and cars that make a city, it’s the people that live, work and breathe within it. As Nicholson has been walking within the central city he’s had to look twice, it’s disconcerting that almost all of the buildings in the central city are unstable or on a lean.”
Hugh’s wearing the central city’s uniform—a hi-vis vest. Christchurch is the only city in the world where you wear a hi-vis vest so you don’t stand out. His love affair with brick is now over. He showed photos of behind the cordon. The photos don’t do the devastation justice. There is rubble on all sides of you, including underfoot. There’s the smell of rotting food. The central city is silent except for the birds singing. There are no people. A photo was shown of workmen busting out the windows of the Brannigans building because the glass was deemed too hazardous to stay.
About 10,000 people attended the Share An Idea community expo. 40,000 ideas were shared.
How long should a building last? 100 years? What will be our perfect city in 100 years?
After Hurricane Katrina, Architecture for Humanity lived in the area and witnessed the issues around re-homing misplaced residents. In Biloxi, Architecture for Humanity got homes designed and built in six weeks. We need a community led design process. Even the craziest ideas are important, like solar powered camels. People care about the small things like: how do I get my business started, how do I get home? There needs to be transparency.
“Follow your heart, break the rules, get it built.”
Coralie Winn
There was already a problem with gaps in the city, but the earthquakes Christchurch had made it worse—“the gaps now are that much bigger and will remain empty that much longer”. Gapfiller proposes that we use those spaces well. Temporary solutions that fill those gaps. The temporary offers us innovation. What incentives could there be for landowners to offer up their land? Possibly a rates rebate. A travelling bar in Melbourne works out of a shipping container. Pallet art fills a vacant space overseas. In a Christchurch gap: 31 bands played, 12 films were shown. The gaps were filled by poets, circus people, galleries. The vacant spaces were used. Gaps were filled.
Marcus Spiller
The New Zealand economy is flexible and Christchurch is blessed with high value businesses. “We need to leverage innovations, skills, infrastructure and leadership.” “After the quake Christchurch will be better equipped, better skilled and still more innovative…”
James Howard Kunstler dissects suburbia. To make ourselves feel better we use nature band-aids. You know what the last sentence was at some design meetings—“fuck it”. Let’s build places worth caring about. There’s not enough Prozac in the world to make people feel okay about going down some blocks. We don’t have to have a craft fair to get people to come to good public spaces.
Opportunity
Rod Carr
We must remember our past. Acknowledge those who have created our world. What was it that caused us to want to be here? Christchurch is the gateway to the South Island. This city is still open for business. AMI Stadium will be functioning in February. The university has over 2000 running courses with 15500 students enrolled. We have the amazing revamp of our airport. Let’s not scare the world away, discourage tourists from visiting or define ourselves by what happened on February 22nd. Let’s define ourselves by our response. When our children look back, the defining moment should be us understanding the importance of what we can do for our city, not what the city can do for us.
Karen Blincoe
There’s nothing wrong with dreaming. People have dreamt about creating utopia for their city. Masdar city in Abu Dhabi will be carbon free, totally self sustainable with people traveling around by electric vehicles. Using shadow of buildings to cool spaces. Planned to be completed in 2016 but now 2020/2025 costing $22 billion USD. “Cities are not the problem, they are the solution” – Jaime Lerner.
10 principles of sustainable cities:
Rediscover the city
Redefine city value
Involve everyday experts
Break down silos
Redistribute urban decision making
De-design urban planning
Promote corporate urban responsibility
Go global
Embrace chaos, crisis and change
Encourage passion in urban leadership
She wants to come back and say ‘I can use Christchurch as an example for a sustainable city’. Cities are like living entities with a soul, heart, mind, body. We need to react in the short term but plan for the long term.
Hugh Morrison
We all entered a world of uncertainty after February 22nd. But we also entered a world of opportunity. Huge collaboration and enormous leadership will be needed. Let’s have a clear and shared milestone. The uncertainty is around our homes and where we work.
Christchurch has about 190,000 homes. 5,000 with no insurance. There are homes over the $100,000 ECQ cap. 60% of those homes will be rebuilt. 40% repaired. There has been just under 300,000 building claims, meaning there’s been multiple claims because of the earthquake—it’s reached every house. Hugh Nicholson’s house (previous speaker) is ruined, but he’s still going. Questions homeowners have: will my house be rebuilt? Is the land okay? If I get relocated, where do I move to?
Building owners, tenants, workers and visitors are all linked.
Old data – 4,300 buildings in the city. 1,000 red stickered, 1,100 yellow stickered. Rest green. 42% of Colliers clients said their buildings were either demolished or red-stickered. Catching up on the fine print of insurance isn’t a happy time or conversation. Insurance and financials are complex for building owners. Without a city plan business owners can’t move forward.
How to create certainty? When is this going to happen? What’s the framework to put my framework around? A programme for building certainty should cover the home, workplace and playground.
10 step programme to building certainty
Land retirement decision – July 2011
Rebuild or repair decisions – December 2011
Residential zoning plan – February 2012
Deliver on ‘Project Restart’ – end of October 2011
Central city plan – February 2012. Probably the most critical plan ever developed.
Demolition penalties post – June 2012
Charter of seed CBD property owners – 2012 build
Government tenants commitments – 2012 build
Government contribution to QEII facility – February 2012
Government contribution to Arts & Entertainment precinct – February 2012
Greening the ghetto. In an emotionally charged talk, MacArthur-winning activist Majora Carter details her fight for environmental justice in the South Bronx — and shows how minority neighborhoods suffer most from flawed urban policy.
Daniel Cullum
Wants to mobilize the young people in the city to rebuild Christchurch but maybe not in the usual way. The human spirit in the city is still strong but has taken a hit. The young people now have an opportunity to rebuild the human spirit of Christchurch.
Barriers for young people to help rebuild:
Isolation. We need to be connected.
Time. On top of school, job etc. It’s difficult for young people to get involved with the community.
Expectations (of themselves). It doesn’t have to be massive.
Dan’s one year t-shirt challenge challenges young people to wear the same shirt for a year (Dan has an ‘I am Dan’ shirt), get sponsored for doing it and donate money to the causes they care about. The city is being rebuilt for young people and the generations after. Even if your idea is simple—like wearing the same t-shirt for a year, run with it.
Humanity
Grant Schofield
Grant explains what walking is to a passing car who thinks he and his kids were walking because their car must be broken down. Kids of today are used to sitting—the new normal. Sitting in front of the TV, in cars—to school etc. Children are 30% less active on weekends.
Grant’s children’s school is putting a fence around the school to keep predators out. They’ve never had a problem with predators. They have a staggered end time because of the huge amount of parents picking up their kids in cars.
Kids need to be outdoors and in constant motion. When you confine kids they suffer badly in all ways. Our kids might be the first generation in human history that was a shorter life span than their parents do. The paradox of this risk aversion is in the long run they’re less able to handle risk. The prefrontal cortex develops during childhood. When is risk better developed? When a kid is six and climbing up a tree, or at 15 behind the wheel of a Subaru. Five when they’re having a fight with the kid next door, or learning about fighting when they’re 25 at a bar. When there’s a huge benefit from a risk, it’s a no brainer. Successful parenting should be based on the number of band-aids used that week, not how many activities you’ve taken them too. The kids are up for it. The parents should be too. It’s easy—hang the car keys up, open the backdoor, kick the kids out and open a bottle of chardonnay. Free range parenting is essential for kids’ health and development.
How did we get here? We became car dependent and built cities for cars and not people. We can redevelop Christchurch where local living is normal. Where kids have a place and permission to range around the neighborhood. We saw this immediately after the earthquake. The children came outside because there was no TV, computer. Neighborhoods connected when utilities were off. Let’s re-imagine Christchurch as a city that doesn’t have just physical change, but social change too. Let’s lead New Zealand into this change. We’re not building the city for us, but for our children, their children and their children again.
Grant Ryan
“Let’s compare San Fransisco to Hamilton”. If our vision of Christchurch is like Hamilton with a smaller river people won’t want to come here. It’s worth being iconic rather than boring. Grant compared Wollongong vs the Gold Coast and Leicester vs Oxford and said that “cities that are innovative, creative and iconic thrive whereas those that are boring do not”. Some cities are such great places to live that people choose to live in the city and commute outside it for work. Grant asked who was here that wasn’t born in Christchurch. A huge majority. They’ve moved and stayed here. We’d be poorer if it wasn’t for those people. When you have a full CBD great ideas come to life.
We should cross off anything that is too expensive, but also anything that’s too boring. People need to want to say to each other once we’re done “have you heard about Christchurch city?” because of how great it is.
We don’t want to be known as the city that got slapped by a couple of earthquakes, but the city that came roaring back from them.
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels rockets through photo/video-mingled stories of his eco-flashy designs. His buildings not only look like nature — they act like nature: blocking the wind, collecting solar energy — and creating stunning views.
Let’s change the idea that a sustainable city is a boring city. The Chinese character for crisis is made up of the Chinese characters danger and opportunity. Christchurch has an opportunity. Bjarke sent a personal message to the audience at TEDxEQChCh that was very well received by the crowd.
Sacha McMeeking
Sacha got the audience to hug their neighbors in the audience. She said that’s what it felt like after the earthquake. The project of rebuilding is ours. We are our own creators. We’re talking to the powers that be. 10,000 people had a linear conversation with the powers that be last weekend at Share An Idea. They have to make decisions that will affect us and our children based on that linear conversation. CERA is populated with good and talented people. This is going to be a decade or more of a collective journey to our future. We have the common trajectory of a sustainable and vibrant city. We’re here not just for recovery, but for transformation and change. We have already experienced the incredibly moving experience of the Christchurch pledge.
How do we want our children to learn, play, know each other?
“Democracy—some assembly required.” “One original thought is worth a thousand mindless quotings.” “Collaboration is the new black.” “What is the most important thing in the world? It is people, it is people, it is people.”
Andie Spargo
You know you live in Christchurch when…:
Every house is a crack house.
Where’s my [item]? It’s on the floor.
A group of students appear on your street and you don’t call the police.
Comedy is watching something happen to someone else. But what if something bad happens to you?
Christchurchians used comedy in the weeks after the quake too, with the ‘You know you live in Christchurch when…’ Facebook group and with the ‘Show us your long drop’ website. A giant rock destroys your house? Are you angry? Yeah. But do you sell the rock on Trade Me in a hilarious auction? Hell yeah.
Things Andie has learned from the earthquake:
The Earth is made up of plates.
Earthquakes were once measured using the Richter scale. In Christchurch we use the HMDIJPIMP scale—the ‘How much did I just piss in my pants scale’.
Drop cover and hold is still the recommended advice from Civil Defence. If you’re in Christchurch, when there’s a 3.0 and over you pause. 4.0 over you pause and hold… your wine glass. 5.0 you pause, hold your wine and put a status update on Facebook. When there’s a 6.0 and over you drop, cover, hold, and scream.
It’s now okay to go to the toilet in your neighbors backyard.
Trips to the doctor are free if they’re earthquake related.
People with 4WDs are now getting to go off road everyday. When they go to work, the shops or back out of their drive.
Yoga is a really good way to calm my nerves, except when we have 5.3, downward facing dog becomes outside screaming scardy cat.
Munted.
A new drink: gin and tectonic. Pour gin. Wait for earthquake. Gin and tectonic.
When a 100 litre fish tank explodes on the floor, highly carbonated Soda Stream water is not the best way to save a catfish.
Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and move on.
James Lunday
We need to change the language we use: ”In the first quake the city got munted. It’s fucked now.”
“There’s no justice in the world. The ugly buildings are still standing. Can you give me a bunch of red stickers so I can run through town and slap them on all the ugly buildings?” “What you’ve created instead of American Pie is a huge donut. A bit stodgy on the outside, a little sweet on the inside, but not good for you. In the middle, fuck all.”
Let’s create new green networks based on nature. Give power back to the communities. Let them be self-reliant. Not being able to build on a space isn’t the end of the world. Gives freedom for open spaces.
Dresden, Germany and Hiroshima both came back from disasters. Remember that leaving memories is okay.
Is it worth resetting, rethinking, rediscovering, re-visioning, regenerating, renewing? Evolution is gone. There’s the opportunity to build a new.
“We live in faceless suburbia—blank meaningless little boxes. Retail centres with no soul. It’s disgusting and offensive and it’s wrecked the CBD. A district plan that is full of rules and regulations yet still delivers terrible outcomes. We have a city of commuters and consumers—is that an aspiration? We can create a city of communities.”
Let’s:
Set
Think
Discover
Vision
Generate
New
Let’s reinforce the villages. Make them real. Let’s turn ourselves away from the car.
With minimal cars you start to see the street. Not being able to build on a space isn’t the end of the world. Gives freedom for open spaces. Forget the CBD.
We’ve got the money, skill, passion and talent to create places to love and live in. There’s opportunity for new beginnings.
Possibilities
Paul Downton
Christchurch is undergoing a crash course in disaster planning and urban reconstruction. What happens to Christchurch is important to all of us, even if we live half a world away. Other countries will be watching our response for when it’s their time.
Everything adapts:
Things breathe where they could not otherwise breathe.
Stay warm where they would otherwise freeze.
Stay cool where they would otherwise be too hot.
Reproduce where they could not.
We build like a bird builds. We need to. When buildings come down it’s personal to us.
Buildings serve many purposes. The rate of change is really really fast. Cities are ecosystems.
Let’s encourage accidental meetings.
“The entire planet is becoming a village, and as a result, the smallest neighborhood or precinct must be planned as a working model of the larger world.” — Lewis Mumford
Helena Norberg-Hodge
Most economists are ecologically illiterate.
We’re going through a fundamental change in society. The highest priority is fundamental change to the economy, moving towards the localization of economic activity.
Opening up the economy of Ladakh with subsidized food, roads and fuel brought in from thousands of miles away destroyed the local market. There was unemployment and friction between people.
Worldwide there’s a split between the government and the interests of their people. The governments are pursuing an economic model that’s outdated. More trade, more export, more foreign investment—they say is the formula for prosperity.
The most inspiring movement is towards local food. People have 10x more conversations while shopping in the Farmer’s Market than in the supermarket.
A kinder, gentler philosophy of success. Alain de Botton examines our ideas of success and failure — and questions the assumptions underlying these two judgments. Is success always earned? Is failure? He makes an eloquent, witty case to move beyond snobbery to find true pleasure in our work.
According to your answer to ‘what do you do?’ people are either incredibly delighted to see you or seem to have something else to do. It should be a sin to come to a conclusion on who you should talk to based on their business card.
When you next see someone driving a Ferrari, don’t think they’re greedy, think that they’re vulnerable and need love.
We don’t envy The Queen. She’s weird. She speaks in a funny way.
There’s basically two kinds of self-help books: you can do it, you can make it, anything’s possible. And how to cope with low self-esteem.
The words ‘unfortunate’ vs. ‘loser’: we’re changing the belief in whose responsible for our lives. We’re in the driver’s seat. If you’re doing well that’s great. If you’re not, it leads to increased rates of suicide. People take what happens to them extremely seriously. They own their success but they also own their failure.
Someone may have slept with the wrong person. Taken the wrong substance. Passed the wrong legislation.
Success might be seen as having money or being renowned. You can’t be successful at everything. You can’t have it all. Any success has a loss. There’s going to be an element where we’re not successful.
Alain de Botton sent this message to TEDxEQChCh:
I don’t for a minute doubt that your TEDx is going to be a fascinating and highly useful affair. At a time of unprecedented upheaval and pain, ideas – which are at the heart of what TED does – are what will pull us all through and give meaning and direction to our efforts. I so wish I could have been with you today.
Gerry Brownlee
Connecting with the community is great. TEDxEQChCh is awesome because it’s Independently organized so everyone’s views can be shared.
Art Agnos
Knows that it’s extremely important what Gerry Brownlee etc. are doing. Showed footage of San Francisco’s 1989 earthquake. Said he is going to offer some common experiences that he went through and the city went through with the long term recovery process and the politics.
Start with strong building codes. Fight bureaucracy. Alternative channels of communication might have to be used.
Money is an issue. Red Cross raised $70 million dollars. Art only saw it being used on coffee, donuts and blankets. The rest of the money was in a bank far away. He had to fight to get access to the money donated to the city.
There’s always another alternative. When the city needed to use the convention center that was housing homeless people, they moved them to an aircraft carrier. The rooms and sleeping space were too small, but other crew areas were found on the ship that would be suitable.
Their City Hall is much like our Cathedral except it was badly damaged and didn’t collapse. Each piece of the building was marked, photographs were taken and it was taken apart piece by piece. The pieces were stored and rollers were installed in the foundations of the building so it would roll with the tremors. The building was then reassembled.
After watching people standing in lines trying to get access back into their homes for just a few minutes they invented new techniques on the spot. All their residences were tagged red yellow and green like Christchurch’s. If someone insisted on going into building and signed a waiver, they could go in for 15 minutes. It was a risk, but was important to kick start recovery process. People felt they were regaining control over their lives.
Soft take down measures were put in place. Residents could stand in the street and watch the building be demolished and taken down. They were allowed to search through the wreckage of the building floor by floor for things that they missed in the 15 minutes they had in their house when it was standing. The rubble from each house was stored separately in a landfill so homeowners had another chance to go through it. People need to be put first in the recovery process and these were important steps.
Strong emotions weren’t limited just to people who just lost their homes. They got children to write down feelings. People still go back and revisit what was written down.
They revamped their emergency plans with the understanding of what people will do to help others in their neighborhoods after a disaster. All sorts of people from neighborhoods were trained in teams and given valuable rescue and leadership skills.
Perhaps the greatest thing in long term recovery is not to automatically assume things should be put back the way they were.
The capital for a politician is popularity and it comes with doing good and meaningful things for the community, not just things to get themselves reelected. Art ended up losing a reelection after making tough decisions for the long term success of his city. The time frame for important decisions doesn’t necessarily line up with the election time frame.
He said to use the ideas we’ve heard all day. Fix the broken places in the city. And then the whole room stood to take an oath to promise to leave the city better than it was when we came into it.
Closing
We know that we’re not forgotten when people like Art come to talk to us.
The speakers the sponsors, the organizing committee, the volunteers. Wow. Thank you from everyone who was at TEDxEQChCh.
The TEDxEQChCh name tag and programme looking very flash.
The death penalty is nothing new but it caught my eye because of Osama Bin Laden reportedly being killed and because of the “let’s shoot the looters” comments I saw on a Christchurch earthquake Facebook page.
Let’s assume that Bin Laden was killed and buried straight away in the… ocean? This example is interesting as he wasn’t killed after he was sentenced to death by a court. However Obama said he: “…[made] the killing or capture of Bin Laden the top priority…”
Whether Bin Laden was killed intentionally or not I’m not sure. Now his body is in the water so we might not ever know. However I found the outpour of support for Bin Laden’s death and even the celebration resulting on sites like Twitter extremely interesting. And a lot of people were celebrating. I wondered if all of those people would support capital punishment in less extreme circumstances, like for the murder of one person? Or whether this event has changed their views to support the death penalty?
Did this bring about justice? I say no. A civilized trial would have created justice, in my opinion. Some said that the celebrations were justified because it symbolized the fighting and winning against terrorism. Because a figurehead of terrorism was downed. But Bin Laden was just that, a figurehead. Did he encourage hate, hurt and violence? Yes. Did he pull the triggers himself? No. Will someone take over his place leading Al-Qaeda? Yes.
More importantly, does this mean I’ll be able to take my bottle of water through airport security now?
The permanence of capital punishment is concerning. How sure would you need to be of someone’s guilt to support an execution? What if mistakes were made? Are a few false positives alright?
Does the death penalty grant relief to the suffering victim’s families?
This editorial in the New York Times says no: ‘In an open letter to the Connecticut Legislature, relatives of murder victims — 76 parents, children and others — wrote that “the death penalty, rather than preventing violence, only perpetuates it and inflicts further pain on survivors.”’ The death penalty deepens the wounds and the pain of victims’ families and the accused’s family. It creates more victims and continues the cycle of violence.
This page has stories from inmates’ families on how they’ve been affected by an execution. Bill Babbitt turned in his brother for committing a murder and was under the assumption that his brother would get the help he needed. His brother who was a paranoid schizophrenic was sentenced to death. Robert Meeropol talks about having both of his parents executed when he was six-years-old.
The death penalty makes it easy to “solve” re-offending without having to deal with the policies behind parole. It’s also easy to say prison officers would be protected, when in reality issues surrounding staff security need to be sorted.
Instead of putting forward the death penalty as a solution for crime, let’s create better policies. Policies that identify youth that are at-risk of offending. Better mental health services. Let’s remind ourselves that people released from prison need support starting well before they’ve been released to successfully assimilate back into society.
Alternatives to capital punishment might be the way out. Harris County, Texas, District Attorney Johnny Holmes says “you’re not going to find 12 people back-to-back on the same jury that are going to kill somebody when the alternative is throwing away the key.”
Is there a humane way to kill someone?
By poisoning with the lethal injection? Where are those drugs coming from?
Texas was reluctant to release where the drugs they use in their death row come from. Besse Medical, apparently. Feigning ignorance, Besse say they “…[have] no way to determine what its customers, including the Texas corrections department, does with its products.”
That article reports a shortage of U.S. made lethal injection drugs and says states have had to import from overseas. As overseas countries ban the export of those drugs for use in executions (“that supply dried up after the British government in November banned its export for use in executions”) and drugs are imported from dubious sources or drugs are reappropriated, concerns should be raised over the quality and efficiency of the drugs being used. Are they going to kill someone quickly and painlessly? Oklahoma is using an anesthetic, pentobarbital, that’s used in animal euthanasia solutions.
What level of training do the people administering the drugs have regarding administration or dosage?
Short answer: University of Miami researchers say none. It appeared prisoners were assumed to be successfully anaesthetised if they were given a standard dose of thiopental, but this wouldn’t be true if the drug was given incorrectly, the execution took longer than anticipated or the prisoner had anxiety or serious substance abuse issues. After analyzing autopsy data for 49 prisoners who had been executed, researchers found that in 43 cases the concentration of anaesthetic in the prisoners’ blood were lower than required in surgery. Out of those 43, 21 of the concentrations “were consistent with [the prisoner] being aware of what was going on.”
…the researchers, led by Dr Leonardis Koniaris, said: “We certainly cannot conclude that these inmates were unconscious and insensate.”
“However, with no monitoring and with little use of the paralytic agent, any suffering of the inmate would be undetectable.”
They add: “The absence of training and monitoring, and the remote administration of drugs, coupled with eyewitness reports of muscle responses during execution, suggest that the current practice for lethal injection for execution fails to meet veterinary standards.”
As a society we can do better than a primitive band-aid on the long-term problem of crime.
See also: an eye for an eye ends up making everybody blind.
The Freedom Camping Bill passed its first reading earlier this month and is now at the select committee stage.
National’s involvement
Today in the post we received New Zealand Post’s “lifestyle survey”, a controversial data collecting tool that’s recently been in the news because the information collected is used to market your address to other companies. The survey is sent to 800,000 households by post and 125,000 by email and asks 56 questions about various things, split into sections on your interests, vehicles, home, finances, shopping habits and travel. New Zealand Post sells names and addresses of respondents, “
KiwiSaver will be affected by National 2011’s budget, but it will still be a worthwhile scheme for nearly everyone under 65 to be in.
Some people in New York want people in the healthcare industry 
Probability
A Tauranga schoolgirl had an abortion “arranged” by a school counselor without her parents’ knowledge. Her mum, angry at not being informed, spoke to the media. This promoted calls for girls under 16 to require parental consent to go through with an abortion. Under the Care of Children Act there is no age restriction to give consent to an abortion. In 2004, then opposition MP Judith Collins tried to change this, but it didn’t pass.
The death penalty is nothing new but it caught my eye because of Osama Bin Laden 