Sweeping changes are on the cards for the New Zealand’s liquor laws.

Justice Minister Simon Power has released the Government’s reform package, which he says adopts most of the Law Commission’s legislative recommendations.

In the mix is restricting alcohol content in RTDs to five percent and making it an offence for anyone other than a parent or a guardian to supply alcohol to a minor.

Also proposed is to give communities more power over the distribution and operation of liquor outlets and increasing penalties for those that breach their license.

The day of the 24 hour liquor licence is set to become a thing of the past. Under the proposed law change, national default maximum hours would be set, 7am to 11pm for off-licences and 8am to 4am for bars, clubs, and special licences.

The only way operators will be able to avoid the new regime if is a local council decides to set its own local alcohol plan that permits different trading hours.

The Government adopted 126 out of the Law Commission’s 153 recommendations. Rejected are proposals to increase the purchase age to 20. Instead it will be split, with 18-year-olds able to enter bars but not able to purchase from off-licences until they turn 20.

Other rejected ideas were a requirement on supermarkets to only display alcohol at one point in the store, an increase in the excise tax, an increase in the fine for breaching a liquor ban and giving bar staff the power to confiscate false proof of age documents.

There is to be a crackdown on the way alcohol is promoted, advertised, and marketed. Under the proposed changes it’ll become an offence to promote alcohol in a way that appeals to people under the purchase age. This will cover any promotion including TV advertising and billboards.

The Government is also planning to strengthen the offence of promoting excessive drinking making it apply to any business selling or promoting alcohol. It would mean promotions involving free alcohol would not be permitted.

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Paul the Octopus, born in Weymouth, lives in Germany, set to become the ambassador for England’s bid for Soccer World Cup

21 August 2010
Paul the oracle octopus has become an ambassador for England’s bid to host the 2018 football World Cup.

Paul, who spends his days in an aquarium in Germany, became a hit at the World Cup in June and July when he revealed an uncanny knack for predicting the outcome of matches.

The two-year-old creature, who was hatched at a Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, England, has joined David Beckham, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton and singer Sting among the bid ambassadors.

England is one of five bids to host the 2018 tournament and one of eight bids to host the 2022 tournament. The hosts for both tournaments will be announced in Zurich in December.

This is unacceptable but I suppose things like this do happen from time to time.   I can’t believe the volume involved in the United States, millions of eggs……more than we eat in New Zealand in a month…or more! OMG

Half a billion eggs have been recalled in an investigation into a salmonella outbreak in several states of the United States.

Two farms in Iowa that supply millions of eggs under a variety of names in 14 states have made the recalls.

Food regulators say salmonella cases have increased threefold since May. They say 2000 cases were reported between May and July, roughly 1300 more than usual.

Salmonella poisoning can be deadly for people with compromised immune systems, but no deaths have been reported.

Bacteria growing both inside the egg and on the shell can be passed from seemingly healthy chickens.

Copyright © 2010, Radio New Zealand

If you guessed some freak of linguistics like “onomatopoeia,” “dybbuk,” or “benzodiazepine,” you’re barking up entirely the wrong arboriform growth.

Take it from Jon McLoone, director of business development for Wolfram Research, the company behind popular mathematical modeling tool Mathematica. McLoone was inspired to investigate the English language’s hardest-to-guess word after his six-year-old daughter asked him how she could beat her Hangman computer game.

To find out, McLoone wrote a program that would play Hangman with all 90,000 words in the dictionary, attempting to guess each one in a semi-random way similar to a method a good human player might use. In total, he simulated some 15 million Hangman games, tying up several office PCs for a weekend in the process.

“Difficult,” for example, isn’t very difficult to guess at all, taking on average 3.3 wrong guesses per game — not even close to losing. Contrary to his expectations, McLoone found that shorter words were harder to guess than longer words, and the fewer pieces you use in your Hangman drawing, the truer that gets.

And the hardest of all? “Jazz,” which topped the rankings in all the variations of the basic game he tried.

McLoone also lists the top 25 hardest Hangman words, according to his program. Words with double Zs or Fs, like “buzzer” or “faff” rank high, but he suggests players pick longer words to fool their opponents.

“You can’t beat “powwowing,” “bowwowing,” and “huzzahing” for entertainment,” he suggests.

Police swooped on addresses in Remuera and Mangere this morning arresting the 46 year old motel and property manager.

The arrest follows an eight month investigation into the man’s activities by Police and Customs.

He will face charges including organising and promoting child sex tours to South East Asia and dealing in children for sexual exploitation.

It’s the first time a charge of organising a child sex tour has been laid against an individual in New Zealand.

The man was arrested shortly before he was due to leave the country for Thailand and will appear in the Manukau District Court today.

Allied Nationwide collapses into receivership

Allied Nationwide Finance (ANF), the finance arm of Allied Farmers Ltd, has collapsed into receivership after missing a payment on debenture securities yesterday.

ANF is covered by the Crown deposit guarantee scheme.

The events unfolded during the day but ultimately ANF advised that its directors decided this afternoon to request that its trustee, New Zealand Guardian Trust (NZGT), appoint receivers.

Lillian says:- I suppose this was over some length of time so why wasn’t it picked up earlier, money is evidently easy to take from an employer here in New Zealand there have been a number of hands in the cookie jars lately…..

Auction company manager jailed for theft

A Turners Auctions manager in Napier has been jailed for stealing $166,000 from the company.

Dianne Cynthia Marshall, 52, was sentenced in Auckland District Court yesterday to one year and eight months’ prison for taking cash from the company’s bank deposits and hiding her actions by cancelling receipts and delaying deposits, a news website reported.

Her lawyer Roger Chambers said she had not spent the money on luxuries but medical bills, food and repaying a loan.

- NZPA

Binge drinking not a youth problem, says expert

Raising the alcohol purchase age from 18 to 20 will be a conscience vote for the National Party, but an addiction specialist says either way, it will not change New Zealand’s drinking culture.

Justice Minister Simon Power said the legislation was due to have its first reading before Christmas.

A report from the Law Commission released in April made 153 recommendations on reducing the harm caused by alcohol, including tax increases and a wide-reaching tightening of rules around the sale of alcohol.

It also included raising the drinking age and the limit of blood alcohol for drivers.

But professor Doug Sellman of the National Addictions Centre today said Government plans to raise the off-license purchase age to 20 are not focusing on the underlying problems of binge-drinking.

“There is a key strategy on the part of the Government to label New Zealand’s drinking culture as a youth problem.”

Professor Sellman said 92 per cent of “problem drinkers” were over the age of 20 and this is where the Government needs to put its attention.

Keep it 18, a group representing young people and opposed to raising the drinking age, said National’s decision to move to a conscience vote would make things easier for the group.

Spokeswoman Jenna Raeburn said lobbying MPs individually would help Keep it 18′s campaign.

The group’s Facebook page currently has 6995 fans and Ms Raeburn said most of those people are New Zealanders.

She said members have been lobbying MPs and it is “going pretty well”.

“Most MPs we have been talking to are really open to talking to young people,” Ms Raeburn said.

Asked which MPs supported keeping the drinking age at 18, Ms Raeburn said she could not say.

Keep it 18 is made up of the youth wings of the National, Labour, Act and Green parties.

By Derek Cheng

Newly promoted Act deputy leader and minister John Boscawen (L) is introduced by Rodney Hide at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Confidential and leaked documents of Heather Roy’s statement to the Act caucus when she was dumped as deputy leader portray Act leader Rodney Hide as an abusive, intimidating bully who had been trying to discredit and humiliate Roy into quitting for months.

The 80-odd pages of speech notes obtained by the Herald outline Roy’s defence of allegations against caucus concerns about her behaviour, and are an attack on Hide’s leadership in a heated caucus meeting yesterday to try and save her deputy leadership.

She paints a picture of a fractured party that has been consumed by in-fighting while pretending to be unified.

In her speech, Roy pleaded her colleagues to keep the status quo and seek outside help to grow as a team and regain a collegial spirit. She said that she had the “guts to do what’s right” and challenged her colleagues to do the same.

“I am a competent minister. I have not embarrassed Act.”

But Roy was displaced as deputy leader by John Boscawen and stripped of her ministerial portfolios of consumer affairs, associate defence and associate education.

Article continues below

On August 3, Hide raised allegations of misconduct and accused Roy of being a poor performer as a minister and the party’s deputy leader. Roy was absent at the meeting.

At an emergency meeting two days later, when Boscawen officially gave notice of his intention to challenge the deputy leadership, Hide outlined six specific and four broad allegations against Roy, including “grave concerns” about her behaviour.

The broad allegations were: Act positions were stated without consultation with the leader, caucus or board; Roy had made a complaint about not wanting to meet with Hide; and that Roy had laid a formal complaint about breach of security against Hide.

Based on these, Roy was expected to face a censure motion at yesterday’s meeting, but this was dropped because it was considered that a challenge to the deputy leadership was sufficient.

But Roy had taken notes of the allegations and decided to formally rebut them at yesterday’s meeting.

She stated that she had been the victim of “Rodney’s vendetta” and that, since last November, Hide “has been determined to discredit me, irrespective of the effect on the party and our contribution to Government”.

“I have received many reports of his agenda being to humiliate and discredit me so as to have grounds to place me well down the party list at the next list selection meeting.”

She said Hide had spoken to Defence Minister Wayne Mapp and tried to have her removed as Associate Defence Minister, to which Mapp “protested vigorously”.

“It is very difficult for me to work when my own leader is determined to undermine me … and it is very clear to me that he has used others to further this agenda.”

She said she did not refuse to meet Hide, but only wanted to bring another person to the meeting with her.

“He routinely tries to bully and intimidate me and this is not conducive to a good working relationship. There was an instance recently where he was extremely angry at my staff, characterised by shouting abuse in offices and also as he stormed up and down the corridor.

“Since the November publicity over his taxpayer-funded travel, he has barely spoken to me and at many of the meetings we have had, he has indicated that I am not performing to the level he would expect … his tone during these discussions is menacing.”

She said the party president Michael Crozier thought it was fair to ask for another person to be present at the meetings between her and Hide.

She did not make a formal complaint about Hide taking a defence document from her office, but said she made an inquiry as to how she should have handled the matter.

“I was concerned he would take the paper away and copy it, which is why I said he could read it in my office, but not take it away.

“His purpose for wanting the document was to use it in a witch hunt against me.”

Roy was informed that she was perfectly entitled to take advice in that way, she said.

The Departmental Security Officer later wrote to her to say that there was no security breach when Hide took a defence document from Roy’s office.

“All ministers are part of the executive and there is a fundamental assumption of trust and confidentiality between ministers when exchanging information in the collective governance environment that makes up the executive,” the letter said.

Roy pleaded to her caucus colleagues to maintain the status quo.

“Act sees team leadership as primitive combat, with a need to destroy a colleague’s reputation to justify an otherwise inexplicable decision.”

If ousted, the public will confirm “prejudices about the nasty party, comprised of bullies”.

“I believe the right thing to do is to maintain the status quo … This should be followed by a constructive, well-managed process of continuous improvement, facilitated by experts as necessary, so that we can all rediscover our collegial spirit and improve individually as a team.

“I have the guts to do what’s right. I hope that you can each find that within yourself also.”

In a letter to caucus chair David Garrett and party president Michael Crozier last week, Roy said that the relationship between her and the leader was “tense”.

“It has become obvious by his actions that he has set upon a path to establish a foundation for humiliating me. After John announced his challenge for the deputy leadership at the end of the meeting, I realised that the intent to humiliate might have been thought merely necessary preparation, perhaps in the hope that I might fold my tent and walk.

“An unhealthy culture has emerged, characterised by combative interpersonal relationships, innuendo and side-deals, which is destructive to the integrity of the caucus as a whole.

“You should be aware that events since the 11 August meeting have borne out my concerns about the leader’s particular recent abuse of power and interference in my ministerial functions involving third parties.”

In an email to Hide on July 21, Roy informed him that she wanted to bring another person along to their monthly meetings.

“At the last few meetings I have found you confrontational and aggressive. In the interests of my safety I am no longer happy attending these alone. [Chief of staff] Peter Keenan has been present at some of these meetings, the subject matter has been pre-rehearsed and he is obviously there to back you up on points you wish to make. This creates an intimidating atmosphere and I feel I am in a disadvantaged position.”

Hide responded: “I am sorry to feel the way you do. We won’t meet. We can cover all the issues at caucus and at the board.”

By Derek Cheng