What this reveals is that he must be quite clever to gain that amount of wealth, and succeed in both economic and political arena.  As a banker, you can also safely assume that he is highly financially literate. So lack of knowledge can hardly used to explained Key's comparison of wage gap between Australia and New Zealand:

Loyalty dictated John Key take the support option. To loud guffaws from the Labour benches, Key told Parliament that he had been advised that the gap between gross average weekly earnings in Australia and New Zealand, adjusted for purchasing power parity, was $160.25. "That is certainly a lot less than it was in 2005, when it was $187.60."

Indeed it is. But National did not win the 2005 election. It was elected in 2008 when - according to Key's own figures - the income gap had narrowed to $138.

There are two things that I definitely did not expect - 1. how did he become a millionaire? 2. I am actually very surprised to find out that the wage gap actually decreased - at a quite considerable rate, at the time when Labour was at the helm until the recession. I guess this is just another example of misconception that the right-wing biased media has created.  You thought you know the very essence of politics, but in fact you only know the facts as being digested and manipulated by others.

New Zealand’s has experienced serious changes even before it is implemented. As the centre-right wing national government gets elected in 2009, the scheme has undergone a hasty review, and several changes were resulted.

One of the major issues that will eventually topple this ETS is the removal of caps on total amount of emissions allowed nationally, and by sector. Government is responsible to supply unlimited amount of emission units at a fixed price of $25 per unit until 2012.

Now this is a very weird thing to do by a government which proclaims itself as “pro-market”. The reason for a cap isn’t just limiting the country’s total emission, but providing a market mechanism that provides financial incentive for cleaner sectors to emerge.   By removing such cap the scheme becomes no more than a new type of tax, since there is no limit on the amount of emissions, businesses can go on as usual, and the cost of this new “tax” is conveniently  transferred to end users – i.e. every day consumers.

And this appears just like what has happened.

The effects of ETS are further reduced by not having agriculture sector included in the scheme until 2015. As the country’s largest polluter, agriculture accounts for nearly half of the total greenhouse gas emissions.  This isn’t a sign that such issue is being treated seriously in New Zealand.

No wonder this ETS receives very little support – consumers absolutely hate it, even  politicians don’t agree. From the very right wing Act Party, which highly doubts the existence of global warming, to the very left environmentalist Green Party, all voted down for such scheme.

But such scheme does provide a good example to rest of the world though – how it should not be done. I highly doubt the ETS will last as its current shape for long - a major overhaul might just be an election away.

However, I have to say that, after watching all three games, it is clear that there is still a huge gap between All Whites and other teams. The team almost defended their way out of every march. It is a tactic but victory is not achieved through just defend. This kind of explains All Whites ability to draw with other international teams, but it is extremely rare to see a victory.

There is still a long way to go, but what All Whites achieved is exceptional - it generated a huge national  interest on soccer and encouraged the widest imagination. This is quite similar to the situation after socceroos' performance in 2006' world cup, and we could also see soccer on its way to become one of the national sport in New Zealand.

Making my feeling worse is the price hike on almost everything. I only left the country for 3 month but everything seemed to have its price increased for several rounds, and I'm hearing the GST is also on the price hike list.

It's very difficult to avoid paying GST, it exists everywhere in people's daily economic life, making it one of the most effective revenue gathering machines for the government. There are many ways to avoid paying too much personal income tax, and tax on specific goods is more likely to decrease demand rather than increase the taxation revenue.

But of course this isn't all about revenue gathering. This is because Mr Key wants to give people tax cut, more specifically, the high income earners. In his speech made to parliament,  Key states that low income earners will be compensated through a upfront increase on benefits and working for families programme, but the trouble is, there's still very little details to see whether the compensation is enough to offset the GST increase.

Another feature of GST is that it treats every one equally, people all pay for the same rate. Statistics New Zealand says GST increase to 15% is likely to affect the CPI by a 2%+ one off increase, theoretically at least. What would really happen after the increase is still subject of a debate. Many New Zealand businesses advertise goods price ends with .99 just to make the price more appealing.  Many businesses will be facing a not so tough choice - whether to absorb the 2.5% increase themselves, or add it to the current price.

Well one of the phrses or excuses businesses just love to use is " we have to make profits".  So my guess is that the actual increase is likely to be more than 2%. Low margin and low price goods are more likely to get a $1.99 to $2.99 type of price hike as businesses are already sturggling making profit on those goods. Statistically, the overall increase would not be that huge, but the fact that troubles me is that low priced goods are more likely to be daily necessities.

I can't really quite understand the ideology behind this tax structuring apart from making high income earners happy. Yes this does give people more choice, as they got more money in hand - whether by more it means another 50cents or $50 in hand, is another problem. However, there are some choices people just don't have the choice, we all need food survive regardless whether you are high or low income earners.  The idea of removing GST on foods and petrol has been floating around for quite some time, but the government seems to have very little interest in it.

Capital gain tax is another thing government isn't very keen on. Speculating on real estate did make a lot of people rich, but that's at the expense of putting even more people at miseray. And most importantly, a healthy economy needs real economic activities,  new money has to be made - in the form of goods or services.  Prosperous property market sounds good, and looks good on GDP, but that's not real economy. It's unsustainable and who knows if he or she isn't the unlucky one or the greatest fool?

Government's very little action on these area does suggest me something they didn't tell. In his election promise John Key said he wants oversea kiwis back to their country and keep the young ones here. However, as a young adult myself,  the outlook of  me to stay in this country looks fainter every day, stuffs this government is doing, or not doing is making a graduate student  more difficult to make a decent living out of average wage.

Base my experience I support this measure. As a still relatively  inexperienced and cautious driver I have never attempted to do either. I don't know how others managed to do two things at the same time, but for me, using cellphone removes my eyes from the road, it's no different than driving blindly. No need to prove how dangerous that is.

However, cellphone really is just part of the problem.  People do and can be distracted by all sorts of things while driving. But most importantly, I usually find that it's where your mind is, rather than where your eyes are that makes the difference. I have found  little evidence shows that such law change can reduce the road toll, but plenty on how bad mood can influence driving performance. Talking over the cellphone, although using the hands-free set, can still take people's mind off the road.

The only solution  that can genuinely reduce the road toll is to ban cellphone use altogether, but no government at its right mind would adapt this measure as it would likely to be very unpopular among voters.

But I was more interested in the role of Chinese government in regard to leaders like the Dalai Lama and Mrs Kadeer.  Kadeer was not a well-known figure before the unrest in Xinjiang in July this year, before that if you refer that name to a Chinese, he or she is more likely to have very little or no knowledge on who she is.

People sometimes joke that Chinese government regularly award two awards that are even more important than the Nobel, namely GFW's Web Choice award and Chinese Government Recommended Award - if you know a website is blocked by the Great Firewall of China, you know it's a website worth to visit. Similarily, if Chinese government blames someone, you know he or she is worth to listen to.

A state like China needs enemies - if you go back in history, at any point of time, Chinese government always propoganda at least one enemy of the state to its people - the Dalai Lama, oversea chinese democracy movement, "oversea anti-chinese forces" and so on.  This is a bit like Bush administration, it's the only way to divert people's attention.

However, for the speech itself, I was in fact quite disappointed. It was a good introduction for her positions on some issues, but nothing else was there but more of a blame game.  I still think that her popularity is largely due to the help for the communist government, in real life, she's no way near the Dalai Lama.

And here's the list.

10 The Auckland Airport now has a cinnabon
9 We have the loosest slot machines in the Pacific Rim
8 Only a convenient 20-hour flight away
7 It’s like England without the attitude
6 Down there Leno’s on at 9 o’clock
5 Get the whanau together, stay in a bach, crack open the chilly bin and slap on your jandals
4 Visit in the next 30 days, I’ll pick you up at the Airport
3 70% of our energy is generated through renewable hydropower – look they don’t all have to be jokes
2 We drive on the left side of the road, like the British and Lindsay Lohan
1 Unlike most of the world, we still like Americans

Number one is clearly my favourite:)

I have to say that Bradford has been a highly successful parliamentarian. During her service she has managed get three of her private member's bill passed, including raise youth minimum wage in line with adult wage and the highly controversial Anti-smacking bill.

She has been a champion of representing people who usually don't have their voice in the parliament - the young and the unemployed.

And no, I don't regard her as an "extremist" in anyway. She is just simply a woman who has the principle and the guts to stand firm of what she believes. However, her fate was sealed since the anti-smacking bill, only 7 MPs voted against the bill, however, when the tide is turned, it suddenly becomes "Sue's own idea".  In my opinion this is directly responsible for her failed bid of the party leadership - the society is turning right, and her very extreme left image would damage the Green Party.

I actually agree with him this time. In a democracy people should be the utilmate ruler, and a binding referendum provides a check on politicans, preventing them from forgetting who voted them in the first place.

However, in order to make the referendum binding, there are some criteria the referendum you have to meet first - the most obvious one - people ought to at least know what it binds for. The last referendum question is by no contest, the worst example of this.

It was very clear from the start, Mr Baldock hijacked the smacking issue for his own political gains, and this time he didn't even bother to hide his intention - he wants the referendum to coincide with the next general election.

That's why a third player is needed.

I just browsed through 2 degrees mobile's pricing plan,  it's clear that they are targeting  low volume users just like me for now, and the pricing is very impressive in most areas, although there is still a gap to catch up with the rest of the world, but hey, somebody has to make a start.

The only downside is the expensive data charge, 50cents/mb. However, I would expect a data plan to come out pretty soon. Before that I'll keep two numbers.

I ordered the  promotional free SIM with $5, and can't wait to have it now.

BTW, The Herald has compiled an excellent table showing duopoly at work(PDF).

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.

In the interview, Mr Xue, now resides in Mt Eden Prison waiting for the sentencing, still insists his innocence and  believes someone else killed his wife, Anan Liu. During the interview he described the NZ police as "stupid" and "inefficient" for the obvious reason, which I kind of agree.

There was a lengthy conversation on His life with Anan Liu.  Xue  insists that he loved Anan Liu, and thinks she is still alive and dreamt her a lot even after he was arrested.

However, one specific part caught my attention - Xue mentioned an incident where he "accidentally"  threw a cellphone at her caused her nose to bleed. Liu immediately fled and reported to the police from her neighbour's house.  Xue "hated" what she did because he thinks that was "nothing big", and she lied to the police saying Xue abused her frequently. Mr Xue says "it happens in Chinese families everyday", and New Zealand "over-protected" women's rights.

What do you think? I know what I think, now I really don't have any sympathy left for him.

The rest of the conversation included details of his life in U.S. and in the cell, check the Chinese script if you are interested. I cannot translate the whole article due to copyright restrictions.

The fundamental problem of child abuse is the parents, not the law nor the children. I could still recall that some of people who oppose the bill even made a personal threat to the Green MP Sue Bradford: that left you wondering, if they don't even treat a human being, an adult in a proper manner, how do you expect them to take care of their children?

However, for this referendum, there is another problem, the question used for voting:

Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?

I'm not quite sure who was behind the basis of this question,  Clerk of the House finalised the question but I guess the basis of the question was the work of  some Christian fundamentalists, but I mean, can it get any more stupid  than this? This question carries a clear presumption that smacking (at least some kinds of smacking) is "good parental correction" - well if so, then what heck we are debating about? Should a good thing be criminalised? It's a no brainer question, even I can write something better than that:

Should the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 (Commonly known as the "anti-smacking legislation") be repealed?

That's the root of all the fuss is it?

I (and many others) actually believe that smacking is not a tool parents should be used to teach their kids as it is inherently bad,  but if the currently adapted question is being asked in the referendum, there is no way I could tick either yes or no. For that reason, I will not be voting in this referendum.

Nobody believed Nats would actually win this seat, but last night's result was still a surprise for me. Shearer did not just win the seat, but with a huge 63%:17% margin. Percentage wise, Shearer beat his predecessor, former PM Helen Clark and even Labour's performance in safe seats like Mangere.

However, this is not a serious set back for National as well. First Mt Albert has always been a red seat, secondly, the turnout was less than 50%, it appears that many right wing votes chose not bother to vote, as the result is inevitable. Lee's blunder to blunder performance and media stir up also contributed to this. If this was a general election, I believe the result would be quite different, Labour would still win, but with a smaller margin.

There were only two races last night, first was the race between Melissa Lee and Green's Russel Norman. As previous polls suggested, Green may have chance to beat National, so I was really wondering whether Mt Albert can humiliate National further by place Lee on the third place. However, it didn't happen though, but the margin between the two is very small, about 5%.

Another surprise race emerged from last night's result, the race between United Future's former deputy leader, Judy Turner, and candidates from other small parties.  Although Turner herself is not in the parliament, but as a member of a parliamentary party, being beaten by Bill and Ben and Legalise Cannabis should be something she didn't expect.

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.

This is more of a party contest now.

Unlike a lot of tories dreaming of getting an extra seat but have no vote in this, I happen to actually live in the electorate. You have to admit this is a very red seat, National never took it before, the last close call I could remember was in the 1990 election, but Clark still managed to hold on the seat despite Labour's poor showing nation-wide. If this is a National-Labour contest, I could see no chance for National.

But this is more than a two party contest, so National may got a chance, but just. It will depend on:

• Performance of Russell Norman, his ability to split hard left votes.
• How successful Nats could brand Shearer as the "national-lite".
• Turn out rate.
• Development of the supercity proposal.

It's still too early to call but I understand Labour does felt a bit nervous right now, many of residents got Labour polling phone calls recently, but that's understandable, given that the party has just lost an election, and Shearer is a relatively new face, therefore there are a lot of uncertainties.

For me, I do admire Shearer's career as a international aid worker, for that, I think he deserves this seat, as his skills of managing refugee camps would come quite handy as some parts of this electorate do give you a refugee camp kind of feeling. Although Clark was a successful Prime Minister, I do feel she owes quite a lot to her electorates, some areas didn't gain a lot from the economic development in the last few years.

Also although for most of the time I was very critical of the government here, this time I have to say, the health authority has done quite a a good job. The response was fast, open and transparent, it gave people confidence and assurance so they got no reason to panic.

However, I was totally shocked to see the ignorance of some people here in the country (quite a lot of them in the Herald discussion forum). "This is just a media hype", "it's fuelled by pharmaceutical companies", "normal flu kills more than this". They are demonstrating the total lack of knowledge on ..everything. That's fine, no one knows everything but the important thing is, those people got no interest to learn, but choose to remain arrogant - they just don't know how lucky they really are.

Although there is no reason to panic right now, people need to be aware and closely watch the development of the situation. This is a new H1NI strain (same as the Spanish flu) and most of us got no immunity.It may appears to be mild and not that pathogenic right now but if we just sit and let the virus spread, it is almost certain that this strain will mutate and who knows how this virus may evolve.

However, even to adapt the conservative version of death number, the overall mortality rate is about 5%, which is still significantly higher than normal flu mortality rate - I don't have the number here but if my memory serves, that number should be around 0.4%. Now you start to see why this thing needs to be controlled.

"We have 105 of them (Light Armour Vehicles), mostly parked in garages where they are in long-term storage. My own philosophy is Defence should have things they use and don't have things they don't use."

I immediately started to wonder how he got that post - by that logic, New Zealand's whole defence force is simply a waste of money, nobody is going to invade us as far as we could tell, and all our forces sent oversea are largely non-combat forces. Defence is like a life insurance, you buy it, and hope that you or someone else will never use it (well in this case, some needed to be used for training purposes).

His comment worries me quite a bit, but the associate minister, ACT's Heather Roy, is even worse:

"The Defence Force doesn't necessarily need to own everything. It could work in a partnership where somebody else owns the land or owns the buildings and they lease it back."

Well, I have an idea for this government since they are in the mood of privatisation (where's the election promise?), how about ...  let's privatise parliament buildings, at least the debating chamber. Here is my reasoning:

1. The debating chamber is rarely used - no more than half of the year, so ... what a waste.
2. ... and Parliament doesn't have to own everything it uses.
3. so the chamber could be used to host picnics, or give a private company to run tours.
4. it costs less to tax payers - as tax payers only pay for the building when it is actually in public use.
5. it's also more efficient - if every minute use of the chamber costs money, I hope parliamentarians would keep their debate and squabbling succinct - although I know I put my hope a bit too high.
6. ... the current debating chamber is too much of luxury for politicians. A large garage would do anyway. or we can have the British house of the commons style, let the MPs squeeze in the seats.

So what are we waiting for, let's do it! I look forward to have my picnic on the speaker's seat.

In my opinion, although Cullen was not prefect, he did a fine job in the past 9 years. National was reluctant to admit that but they also know it for a fact.  He also did a fine job on his baby Cullen fund, I know it has a bit of trouble at the moment, but under the current economic circumstances, which fund is still free from trouble?

I haven't got time to check who is next on Labour's list but if my memory serves me right, the person should be Damien O'Connor. Not too bad, as long as we keep Judith Tizard, the minister responsible for holding PM's handbag out.

• Switch off your lights at 8:30pm on the night of Earth Hour
• Turn off any unnecessary appliances
• Spend your Earth Hour creatively: plan a candlelit dinner with friends, or play cards by candlelight
• Spread the word to neighbours, friends, family and colleagues
• Avoid driving anywhere for the view as this results in unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions - what we are fighting against!
• If you live in a tall apartment building, you are even more visible. Let your neighbours in other apartments know about Earth Hour and see if your building can have the fewest lights on. Perhaps you could talk to the property manager about turning off any ornamental lighting that is not needed for security reasons.

I think I'll enjoy this day if a substantial amount of people turn off their lights. Light pollution is so common in big cities, making astronomic observations more difficult each year. People no longer watch the sky - we don't know what we've missed.

Sure nobody expects to "save the earth" by turning off their lights for an hour a year. This is sure not the point, however, this is the least people can do to show that "we care".  Save electricity is just the first step, the most important thing, in my opinion is, save the wasted energy first. I'm doing that everyday, and I hope people can also do the following simple things:

• Turn off or put  your computer into sleep if you need to leave for more than 15 minutes;switch off the monitor if you need to level for 5-15 minutes;
• Switch off all the lights if you are the last to leave the room;
• Adjust the sound of your TV to a moderate level, you can hear from it, but it's not too loud;
• When the price and the quality are the same, use services/goods provided by green businesses - in fact sometimes you can find green businesses are even cheaper;
• Don't leave cellphone battery recharger on for too long;
• Use eco-bulbs if possible;

A common misconception is that people need to change their lifestyle back to stoneage man to be green. I'm not that kind of "greenie" who refuses to use anything powered by electricty, but I believe that  by just doing what you can to reduce unnecessary waste of energy you will also make a huge difference.

If you believe Global Warming is a myth or scam, I respect your opinion :) However, I still recommend you to reduce the wasted energy, even if there's no earth to save, at least to me, I enjoyed a substantial reduction of monthly power costs.