Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category

Is tertiary education really worth it?

Despite the general mood of anti-intellectualism, New Zealand has a relatively high rate of participation in tertiary education. However, for many, they attend university for reasons rather than enrich themselves or get a higher paid job. I once heard that a female university student said the sole incentive for her to attend university is the higher chance to find the "man" with "potential", financial potential that is.

So what kind of financial potential a university graduate may possess? In a recently published OECD report (PDF) on education, it is suggested in New Zealand, on average, a male university graduate would earn about NZ$ 170,000 more in his lifetime than those with only high school qualifications.

It may sounds like a lot but it's the earning increased in lifetime. Put that in context of a typical working life of a Kiwi (age 22 - 65), the average increase in wage works out like $80 a week, about 10% - 15% percent increase from the average wage in New Zealand.

Furthermore unless you are lucky enough to have rich parents,  you'll have to pay for your tertiary education nowadays. In my situation, I estimated that I need at least 12 years (4 years university and 8 years full time working) before I can reclaim the amount I invested in education. This estimation is actually too optimistic, as you are less experienced and earn less in first few years.

Inflation would make the repayment a bit faster, thanks to the interest-free student loan.  However, that does not help in the long run as your other costs would also increase.

The return rate for your investment in tertiary education varies, largely depends on how much financial support you get from your parents and the government, but 10% - 20% in the long run should be a pretty accurate estimate. It does not sounds too bad, but there are also risks. It depends the wider economic environment is tied up to your employment status, if you don't work, you no longer receive the return on your investment.

From a pure monetary sense, I would rather invest my money in real estate market than education. However according to MasterCard, there are things in life you just cannot put them in  monetary value. The report suggested three: people with tertiary qualification are generally more healthy, has more interpersonal trust, and are fairly interested in politics.

Provocation defence

One of the things I don't quite like about this society, is the trend to give over and knee-jerk reactions to a high profile but a single inccident/court case etc, and media are very good at creating a storm out of pretty much nothing.

The Weatherston case is likely to be one of such cases. There is clearly a logical fallacy here, Weatherston used, or abused the availability of  provocation as a defense, doesn't necessarily mean provocation defence  is flawed - in fact, I could argue this in the exactly opposite way, it has  proved that the defense is very reasonable and not accessible to people who want to get away with what they have done - therefore Weatherston failed.

There is no doubt to me that provocation is a geniune defence, I consider myself a pretty quiet and calm person all the time, but just like everyone else, I sometimes can lose my mind too.  Current law requires jury to assess whether the evidence could prove a "reasonable man" could be provoked, I think that's pretty much about right - no person at his/her right mind yell to others "come and kill me", however, imagine if one constantly abuses both physically and verbally, overpowered you,  and protection order does not work, are you still feeling confident that you won't lose your mind?

The defence in the Weatherston case, did not only argue the provocation, but also by paint Weatherston as a person with mental problems. This could be a even stronger arguement, however, 200+ cuts clearly do not qualify as a man who  temporarily lost self control, and that did not pass the jury.

Employing "foreigners"

Many Asians cannot be more familiar with the following situation: they are well or over qualified for a job, but were still turned down by employers because they either lack local experience or their qualification was attained from a university in their country of origin.

This has happened to generations of immigrants, even if they are already a proud NZ citizen - this is one of the things that makes you feel not that proud of your choice.

I don't really want to label it racism, but look at what happens when the tide is turned:  The new "Kiwi first" employment policy means a Japanese restaurant owner cannot recruit chefs from Japan because there already are people with "appropriate" skills available in NZ.  According to the report,  people with "appropriate skills" meaning they need to learn the difference between sushi and sashimi on job.

And yet many "Kiwis" are moaning in the discussion forum, saying people deserve a chance to learn, asking why don't they train kiwis on job?

The rumours that Asian people only employ Asian employees are totally untrue, at least in the Chinese community I know of. There is golden rule for any Chinese entrepreneur who wants to start a business here - a Kiwi receptionist is a must.  This is not because Chinese entrepreneurs cannot pass NCEA leavel 1 English, but people out there just don't want to deal with businesses that are not owned by "one of them".

Any employer would prefer people with local experience and knowledge while having suitable skills, however, if they cannot find any here, they ought to be allowed to employ from oversea. If my memory serves me right, it was this government which wants NZ to increase its productivity and become a global economy - not.

Napier Shooting

I am quite busy this month so I expect more time between updates in this blog. However, I still had enough time to watch the incident in Napier unfold.

Unlike a lot of backseat drivers who have never been to the site, I have no problem with how the police handled the inccident.  It is more than obvious that police wanted the gunman Jan Molenaar alive, otherwise AOS would storm the house before we know it. Unlike the Aramoana massacre, Molenaar snapped, but he poses no immediate threat to the public, therefore it's best to talk it out rather than end it with another life lost and put the Police in further danger.

The real problem of this tragedy, I think is the internal police procedures. I still prefer the polic to not carry any guns in daily patrols, but this incident was to carry out a search warrent, but the police failed to foresee the danger of such activity so failed to carry guns. It's the police authority failed to protect the safety of police force.

This was also the case in the death of Don Wilkinson. His fate was sealed when they decided not to carry guns.

Super City of Auckland

Earlier today the Royal Commission has published the long anticipated report on Auckland Governance. And yes, a super single city structure was recommended. For details see the report, if you are not that technical, just read the news, but don't expect to read it here as I'll only discuss the aspects of my interest.

It's quite similar to what I expected, but bit different from what I wanted (I'll talk about this later). A "supercity" looked inevitable, but I also expected that the current local councils structure will be maintained at some degree, it's common sense that one grand council will not work. There are two common misconceptions in the general public, and a right wing government actually fuelled them: first, bigger is better; second, this investigation is about cost cutting.

The objective of the commission, was cleared stated as:

to receive representations on, inquire into, investigate, and report on the local government arrangements (including institutions, mechanisms, and processes) that
are required in the Auckland region over the foreseeable future in order to maximise, in a cost effective manner,—
(a) the current and future well-being of the region and its communities; and
(b) the region’s contribution to wider national objectives and outcomes.

Most people tend to confuse the meaning of "cost cut" with "cost effective". In fact, in my opinion, one council that takes care of everything is not necessarily cost-cutting, and has the potential to actually increase the total cost.  However, with the right management, the super city council can be cost effective. This change will eventually save a bit of money in the short run, but will it be the sum that public sector killers (aka Nats) wanted? Not necessarily:

Preliminary analysis, which will need to be quantified in detail by the Establishment Board, suggests that adopting the Commission’s proposals for structural change will result in estimated efficiency savings in the indicative range of 2.5% to 3.5% of the total expenditure of the Auckland councils planned for 2008/09 (of around $3.2 billion). This represents estimated efficiency gains of between $76 million to $113 million per year.

113 million sounds like a lot, but when translated into rates, it's really not that many, at least I doubt it - the integration costs, as suggested by the commission, cost even more than that at around 200 million, and I also expect more people employed in the long term to manage such a large city. I can only see substantial cost saving from council owned organisations like water supply, that is likely to same a fair amount of money, but whether that saving will be transferred to you ... well, it's at local politicians' discretion, and that's bit scary, as a unified region is more likely to return a left leaning mayor, due to the majority of the population are  urban.

I agree with the Commission's decision to maintain the current local council structure in principle.However, I don't agree the functions though:

In addition to the elected governing body of the Auckland Council, local democracy will be maintained through six elected local councils operating within the unitary Auckland Council. Local councils will oversee the delivery of services by Auckland Council staff and will undertake local engagement in four urban and two rural districts.

My understanding of Auckland's current problem is, how should I put this, policy inconsistency and fragmentation, and kind of "too locally focused" way of thinking in each local council.  Auckland Region is more connected than ever, and policy of one district council will have direct impact on one or more other councils, and usually council act on their own rather than sitting together to find out the best solution for all.

However, one district plan, one spatial plan, and one long term council community plan will not solve this, in fact, there's a danger to make things even worse as the policy role is even more dictated. The people who understand local issues and needs are not mayors or councillors, but planners and other people who get in touch with the community every day. A single plan has the risk of more imbalanced development.

What I preferred was the super council acting as a over-guiding authority, each local council still makes its part of the district plan, but they come together under the guidance of the grand council and merge as one plan. The current proposal also does this, but it's bit over the top.

Local democratic participation is also important on local issues, so it worries me a bit that all community boards will be abolished.

For the rest of the functionalities of each level of governance, I agree with the Royal Commission.

But the arrangement and structure of the new councils is not that good. I really don't see the need for local councils to have councillors, a single (or three)  councillor from the grand council is more than enough to manage local issues and represent its local council in the region wide context - 22 local councillors for current Auckland city really sounds like a bad joke to me.

In general, I'm ok with the current plan, but there's sure a large room for improvement.

If you were interested in my opinion, here it is. Maintain community boards, but with a larger area, or use the current electorate system we have. Each community returns one grand council councillor,  this councillor is also the local council councillor, and should know the local constituency very well and know where the problems are. In that way we got  a better consistency of policies in different areas, while the local needs and identities (like Waitakere's eco-city) can be maintained.

Oh, and by the way, I don't see reason why National will not adapt the recommendations made by the commission. In fact, I have heard that the law change proposal is already finished, its just waitting for cabinet approval, which shouldn't be a problem at all.

flinging chopsticks

The Timaru Herald got a very interesting story (in weird way) on a racial clash in Timaru. The really interesting part is not the story itself, in fact, after reading the whole thing, I still don't know how it was started, maybe staffs of the Timaru Herald also need a bit of improvement on writing English, just like I do:)

It is how the witness described the event really amused me:

"Two of them [Asians] were in school uniform and an adult was with them. One had two baseball bats, [and was] flinging them around like bloody chopsticks," a witness said. He said as soon as the youth with the baseball bats appeared everything escalated. “It was just like a rat’s nest being disturbed by a fox terrier, they were going everywhere.

bezdomny ex patria's comment focused on the racial motivation of this witness recall:

...  why? I mean, why use this word “chopsticks” in your seriously warped simile? Could it be the Asian-ness of those doing the flinging around? Some bizarre stereotype of kung fu movies?
And to then follow that up with rats? Wow, you really are trying to reinforce the image of Timaru as a racist, redneck hole, aren’t you?

Well, it sure did a good job on reinforcing the image that I always had in my mind: rural parts of the South Island is the most racist part of NZ. If you are from there, no offence, the bad guys are always the minority.

However, as  a Chinese who get so used to racial remarks, I was really wondering, how did this comment made itself onto the paper, black and white? Regardless of racism part, this chopsticks comment is also factually flawed. It is a common sense that when you are in middle of a fight, you hold on with your baseball bats and smash you enemies as hard as you like, you don't fling them around like "blood chopsticks". I suspect that this witness either exaggerated the situation, or made the whole thing up.

For Timaru Herald, allowing such comments to be published on its paper, really shows how it lacks professionalism.