Posts by James Littlewood*
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Golly, a quick google of “BBC licence fee” reveals two things.
1. 145 pounds. Ouch.
2. The following spends (pounds) of the licence revenue for 2010/11:
- TV: 2.3b on 10 channels
- Radio: 600m on 16 stations
- Web: 200m
- Other: 400m (digital broadcast, new tech, ops & … licence fee collection)That’s about a 3.5b spend on 62m Brits = about 56 ea. (pounds) (most of whom would not have paid)
$80m (for TVNZ7) / 3.5m kiwis = about $22 ea. (effectively all of whom paid through tax)Add in whatever it costs to run two Radio NZ stations.
Also, what the hell ever happened to TVNZ6? That had tons of the sort of programmes of which Tom Semmens was bemoaning the absence. Presumably that all came out of the same $79m?
Did I do that right?
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That broadcasting license fee ($35 per year if I remember right) looks a good deal from out here eh what?
You bet. I gather from conversations with former NZOA board members that they were actually highly effective in collecting. While lots of people I knew then as youngsters (aaah yes) tended to evade it, apparently, they picked up about 90% of the total payable. The BBC sent folks here to see how they did it.
Happy to be corrected on that if anyone knows better.
It's cancellation was the last vengeful act of the tired, outgoing National gummint in 1999.
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There's a lot of assumption here that pollies who stick around for ages and get good playing politics are axiomatically of high quality. Crikey, some long termers have written entire doctoral theses whilst allegedly representing somebody or something. What a joke.
It's also fair that running for reasons other than to get elected might seem slightly kookie. But seems insignificant compare to the issues of quality, representation & democratic freedom expressed here.
BUT: What if you were an anarchist, and you wanted to destroy the government to which you were hoping to be elected? Oh, wait. That's the National party.
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Hard News: A storm in any port, in reply to llew 40,
don't think that the 'market model' is the real culprit
Maybe not, but the opposite (state controlled) might well be a solution, creating benefits for the economic viability of POA, for the ports network as a whole, and as a fundamental piece of macro-economic infrastructure.
Maybe it's less about ownership, and more about unifying the ports of NZ into a single network. Just as Ak City is now creating a single public transport network. Finally!
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@merc Better than arterial hemmorhaging.
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the market model seems to be working fine for Tauranga
Maybe. But aren't people getting injured - or worse - at that workplace?
Also, I think Tauranga is a larger port with greater capacity. Lucky them. No Aucklander in its right mind wants our port extended, and Ak Council has recognised this.
So, the market model that delivers success for one and not for (and at the expense of) the other would seem to me to be problematic.
The whole thing's a shambles: sinking ships, striking workers, unsustainable pricing strategies: what's wrong with this that wouldn't be fixed by grouping all 7 NZ ports into one single state run monopoly?
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Here's an irrelevant but related joke: they turned the old customs house into a duty free store.
Only, it's true. That's Auckland forya.
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the various ports are trying to cut each other's throats
Exactly. The market model has been tested and shown wanting, yet again. This time, it's for something as seemingly purely commercial as shipping ports.
Why can't Auckland let Whangarei or Tauranga or whoever wants to run its port do so, and pay a licence to Auckland in return for Auckland not running its own?
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According Rudman:
- Cost of offloading a container in AK: about $200
- Same service in Sydney: aboiut $400The more I think about it, the more it seems that Ak Council's requirement of doubling POA's ROI to 12% is pie in the sky, CEA or not.
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More importantly, in terms of this discussion, here's a petition for NZParl to do the right thing.