Parliamentary elections in The Netherlands

On 22 November Holland is electing a new parliament. And as befits the Dutch of helping each other as much as possible with making the right choice, there are now not one but two election guides, where you can figure out what party you should vote for. (Unfortunately only in Dutch)

The "Stemwijzer" is a straightforward proces where you give your opinion on 30 policy ideas and then compares your answers to the party manifestos, which then yields a voting advisory.
(The Netherlands have a party list system, not single electorates, so policies are supposed to count more than personalities in the voting booth as you have no say over who gets elected individually to parliament. Parties get seats according to their percentage scores).
The Stemwijzer advised me to vote GroenLinks, which is a leftist green party. No surprise there.

The second guide is called "KiesKompas", which follows largely the same method - including the some of the same questions, but adds your opinions about individual party leaders, how you perceive their trustworthiness and rate their capability.
The result is less a direct voting advice but gives you a position on a double axis (left-right, progressive-conservative) and how close you are to the parties placed on the same grid. Clicking on the party name lists an interesting comparison of your answers with the party manifesto items.
My result here was closest to the PvdA (Labour).
They are great tools for citizens. I would recommend something similar should be set up here in NZ for the next election.

Punk: Attitude

Rialto Channel last night showed "Punk: Attitude", a documentary by Don Letts. It's a rich cornucopia of sound bites by a huge coterie of ageing punk rockers from the early 70s to the almost present, with a, to my mind, biased slant towards American bands and a less than subtle snub to the British punk rockers.
There is a complete transcript here.

It was telling that many an essential mover and shaker at the time, such as John Lydon, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, were all missing from the interviews. Which was kind of a shame and it was left unexplained.
But it was good to hear it confirmed, even if this is a somewhat uncharitable take on it, that UK punk rock basically was killed off by Americans on smack - the hippies' revenge?
Don Letts made the excellent "The Punk Rock Movie" (watch it online here) in 1978, which was actually a far more interesting look at the contemporary subcultural phenomenon than this 2005 "update".
But it was fun to see all those aged, balding wrinklies (pretty much what I stare at in the mirror in the morning too), but the women still looked excellent: Siouxsie Sioux, Chrissie Hynde and especially the ever wonderful Poly Styrene and Ari Up.
There are quite a few memorable quotes (and David Johansen has to be seen to be believed). My favourite came from Henry Rollins when commenting on the "hardcore punk" scene that came after as:

"Guys touching each other, sweating, flesh, pectoral muscles. Very homo-erotic. You say, fellas, stop fighting. Get a room. Get it over with"

Never look at another price tag again

This week came the rather astonishing news that the local tax take (rates) by the Auckland City Council demanded from Waiheke Island homeowners has shot up to $10,000,000. This is a staggering figure, considering there are only about 8,000 residents, but the increase can't come as much of a surprise after the latest official revaluations that have led to incredible rate rises.
The tax generated on the island has a very limited link to services provided to the island, witness the shocking state of the island roads, their poor and incompetent maintenance, a limited waste collection, negligeable streetlighting, lack of footpaths, or any other things city dwellers take for granted (and complain loudly about when they go awry). Most other city services, such as planning applications, resource consents and public transport, are all user-pays and thus recover their cost without a cross-subsidy from local tax.

The $10 million a year figure has locals already thinking about what they could use this sum for to spend on island-only purposes by breaking away from the City Council, de-amalgamation in local body speak, and the Waiheke Gulf News had some intriguing comments about that (sadly not online).
I am, of course, a full supporter of UDI, and have voted that way in the last local elections. Anti-de-amalgamation (is that a double negative?) candidates darkly predicted that rates would go up steeply if we broke away - which they promptly did even if we didn't!

So now it's all on the agenda again:
- Throw the Council off the island - and the Auckland Regional Council too for dereliction of duty by failing to prevent a ferry monopoly and allowing the competition to be bought by Fullers.
- Re-establish our County of Waiheke - complete with Count and Countess!
- Take local control over planning and resource use and development.
- Deal directly with central Government on larger issues such as Civil Defence, health, policing and transport provision.
- Reform the completely inequitable local taxation system along the lines of local income tax rebates and a share of the locally generated GST, as I have policy wonked before (item 3).

Waiheke Independence Party anyone? Wippies for short?

Fullers woes

With fuel prices locally at almost year lows due to a combination of lower world market prices and a higher New Zealand dollar against the greenback, private car users have been reaping the benefit of lower prices at the pump. $1.47 a litre is well down from $1.76 only weeks or months ago. So everybody has been climbing into their cars again, since public transport companies have been steadfastly refusing to lower their fares, as you would expect since they earlier raised prices due to fuel cost increases.
I wrote to that effect to the local island newspaper, which published my letter as the leading entry on the letters page - thank you very much, Simon - and sent a copy to Fullers Ferries for a reaction:

Sir,
Now that the diesel price is back where it was 12 months ago, can we expect a commensurate drop in the ferry fare prices in time for October (hiked because of fuel price increases, according to your literature at the time)?
Regards,

It took Acting Operations Manager Michael Fitchett six days to reply. And unfortunately I can't tell you what he wrote back, due to Fullers communications policy "to freely respond to questions in a confidential manner with customers".
That's a pity. But in short the reply was that the diesel price reduction has not been that dramatic it would impact on fares and they didn't know where it would go in the future (and hence, I presume, it's better to hedge your bets on your side of the balance sheet than on the side of your customer).
So in all, public transport prices only go up. They will only go down if faced with competition and that is, helas, not on the horizon for our island service.

The public transport gods have been particularly cruel this last week. Five of Fullers vessels are currently out of service for various reasons, including annual service and general engine failures, resulting in chaotic timetabling, lateness in arrivals and departures, and plenty of irate passengers who were denied boarding on several occasions as far too small vessels have to do commuter runs they were not designed for.
Even the "Ferry Users Group", memorably described by one of my fellow commuters as a floating Rotary Club, not normally known for militant or even slightly disrespectful criticism, pointed to a less than satisfactory maintenance regime at Fullers. Abject abuse of monopoly while running your resource into the ground is what I would call it.

I can't feel sorry for Fullers since I'm still expected to pay a first class fare for a cattle class service - and guess who will be paying for all the repairs and necessary future fleet upgrades?

UPDATE 26 October: The Waiheke Gulf News reports Fullers will give us a $50 discount on November's monthly passes (normal price $300) for putting up with the inconvenience. Pity that can't be made permanent since the diesel price has come down by that amount.