He will do this very discreetly, so as not to draw attention to his somewhat desperate yearning for a title, but as his mates know, he has long fancied being called Sir Alfred Grumble and the missus – just quietly – would like to be known as Lady Grumble.

Meantime he has had a look at newspaper coverage of the events that have turned Sir Fred into plain old Fred.

He refers, of course, to Fred Goodwin, the former boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland who was Sir Fred Goodwin until this week.

Many ratbags are given knighthoods, a matter that profoundly mortifies your hard-working member for Eketahuna North. And many knights go on to become even bigger ratbags.

But titles are removed only from your Class One ratbags: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, for example, Soviet spy Anthony Blunt, and Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu (who lost his honour the day before he was executed).

So what has made Fred a Class One ratbag?

The NZ Herald is somewhat sparse with its background on the feller.

The Herald gives us a bit of background on the feller.

Goodwin, nicknamed “Fred the Shred” for his ruthless management style, became a pariah after the government bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland in 2008, at a cost so far of 45.5 billion pounds ($NZ86.5b) on it.

Is that it?

Governments have bailed out lots of banks and Alf imagines that if you did not have a ruthless management style, you would not get to be boss of a bank, let alone the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Herald goes on to say that Britain is on the brink of recession once again, and attention accordingly has returned to the behaviour of bankers blamed for the financial storm, particularly at RBS.

The British taxpayer owns 82 per cent of that outfit nowadays.

And so –

Amid growing calls for Goodwin to be punished further, the government announced late Tuesday that he would be stripped of the knighthood awarded him by Queen Elizabeth II for services to banking in 2004.

A statement from the government said Goodwin “had brought the honours system into disrepute”, adding that “the scale and severity of the impact of his actions as CEO of RBS made this an exceptional case.”

But in a previous post, Alf highlighted the small fact that Fred became a national pariah after it emerged he was allowed to retire at 50 with a £703,000-a-year pension, at a time when the RBS was needing a £20 billion taxpayers’ bailout after his time in charge.

And let’s not forget why The Daily Mirror dubbed Fred “The Shred” Goodwin “Fred The Bed”.

He copped that title after trying to gag the media and hide some rumpy-pumpy from City watchdogs – as well as his wife.

His promotion of his mistress, a married mother with a young child, invited questions about favouritism, professionalism and judgement.

Accordingly, Alf was bemused to read in the NZ Herald today that some people think the stripping of Fred’s knighthood marks a new high in `banker bashing’ sparked by the financial crisis.

Actually, it seems some business figures are asking if the banker bashing has gone too far.

Perhaps that’s because the annulment of Fred’s knighthood came at the end of a week when political pressure had also forced the RBS’s current chief, one Stephen Hester, to waive his £963,000 pound annual bonus.

Whatever the reason -

The former head of the business lobby group CBI, Digby Jones, said: “There is a whiff of the lynch mob on the village green about this.

“Fred Goodwin has not been charged with, nor had anything examined in a court, nor found guilty of anything.”

Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors, also expressed concern about “anti-business hysteria” in the decision to remove the honour.

Sir Jackie Stewart, the former Formula 1 world champion, reckons his friend Fred has been made a scapegoat.

“No single person or even any single bank created the biggest financial recession in modern times. To have this stripped I think is poor for the constitution and very dangerous for the future,” Stewart told BBC TV.

But Alf doesn’t think banker bashing can ever go too far and anyone who sympathises with bankers should try persuading some of the hard-hearted bastards to cough up a loan when it’s desperately needed.

In the case of Eketahuna, of course, we can’t even persuade the buggers to set up shop here, to look after townspeople’s money for them and do what bankers are supposed to do for their customers.

Accordingly Alf has a jaundiced view of them and is taking some smug satisfaction in agreeing with those who say Fred Goodwin’s fate should serve as an example to encourage the banking industry to put its house in order.

Whoa. Make that a nice bit of brouhaha The Boss and his cabinet colleagues have got us into, because Alf had nothing to do with it.

He was at home in Eketahuna at the time.

If he was summoned to Wellington to help sort things out, he would tell the Maori Party where to get off in language of the sort that is apt to upset Mrs Grumble, if she hears it used.

But he is somewhat lacking in the tact department and The Boss, who is much more conciliatory towards Pita Sharples, Tariana Turia and their gang, no doubt has his reasons for trying to remain on good terms.

But hey – there’s got to be a limit to the concession business.

And we will have gone over the bounds of good sense, surely, if the buyers of shares in our SOEs find their investments have Treaty commitments attached.

Alf refers, of course, to Maori Party threats that it could walk out on National over the removal of a Treaty clause in state asset sales plans.

Prime Minister John Key has been trying to mollify the Maori Party’s members.

But it’s hard yacker.

Dunno what the bloody Treaty clause is doing in the legislation, come to think of it, but it was stuck in there on Geoffrey Palmer’s watch, and let’s not forget that Geoffrey could be a bit of a tosser on these matters in much the same way as Chris Finlayson has become a hand-wringing tosser when dealing with Maori.

Anyway, the folks in the Beehive have become somewhat antsy after –

Co-leaders Tariana Turia and Pita Sharples yesterday said they would consider walking out on their deal with National if a clause which protected Treaty of Waitangi principles was not extended to new legislation that will cover partial state asset sales.

The Herald explains today that the Government will release a consultation document on the issue today before a series of hui next week on our wonderful plans to sell minority stakes in four energy companies.

But this bloody Treaty clause has become a sticking point when it comes to maintaining good relations with Pita and his mob.

The clause is section nine of the State Owned Enterprises Act and requires the Crown not to act in a manner inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

So what principles are they, exactly?

Alf has never been satisfied on this point.

Regardless of the vagueness of it all, The Boss seems keen to sort things out to the satisfaction of our Maori Party mates.

After the Maori Party co-leaders’ comments, Mr Key said he was confident a solution would be reached but section nine could not be part of the new legislation.

“I’m extremely confident that the Maori Party will remain part of the Government over the course of the next three years …
but we can’t carry on with a very general clause under the mixed-ownership model. It just doesn’t work.”

Alf wants to know how the bloody thing works now, under the SOE model.

For his part, The Boss says (a) the Government is committed to meeting its Treaty obligations but (b) it can not impose Treaty obligations on private-sector shareholders in the mixed-ownership companies.

Again, Alf asks what exactly are these obligations?

The Boss has mused on the possibility of a more specific clause being used which would make it clear that private shareholders are not bound.

He said section nine was “largely symbolic” and the Government could not find a single instance in which it had been used since it entered the law in 1986.

A more specific clause it not a bad idea, at first blush.

Alf certainly won’t be buying any of the shares if some namby-pamby wishy-washy Treaty commitments and obligations are attached to them.

But sure enough, Pita is playing hardball on this.

Dr Sharples rejected the prospect of a narrower clause. It was important to retain the wording of section nine because it was all-encompassing and covered water and other natural resources which Maori were negotiating with the Government over.

“Unless the Treaty clause is kept in there to protect and keep that interest there, then we are going to be up the lake without a paddle.

“If it is taken out or reduced to a more particular clause and not left to apply generally, then it weakens the power of that Treaty clause and it will not give us the protection required.”

This carry-on gets Alf’s dander up, and is exacerbated by that stuff about negotiations over water and other natural resources.

What’s to negotiate?

Tariana is as stroppy as Pita, so we can’t try to divide and rule.

She said –

“If they remove section nine there will be no reason for them to consult with Maori over these issues so they will actually be denying that the Treaty exists and we are not prepared to accept that. We have to be vigilant and if it comes down to the wire, the Maori Party will have to consider its position with the Government.”

Oh, bliss.

If removing section nine means there will be no reason for us to consult with Maori over these issue and if it further means we will be denying that the Treaty exists…

Well, in those circumstances Alf would be just a teeny bit tempted to become as huffy as Pita and Tariana, but on the other side of the argument, and insist the clause must go or he will resign.

In accord with that instinct, Alf would have lauded councillor Rob Vinsen for recommending councillors’ salaries be linked to meeting attendance.

And he would have excoriated anyone who rejected the proposal as a trough-swiller. Or an oinker.

The self-serving antics of the city’s councillors are apparent in the NZ Herald’s account of what happened:

At yesterday’s full council meeting, councillors voted to keep their pay by salary only, rather than a split between a salary and a meeting allowance.

According to the Herald, Wanganui councillors with no extra responsibilities receive $25,581 a year.

Councillors were given the option of considering whether to retain a smaller salary along with an allowance for every meeting attended.

Ha!

This Vinsen feller obviously believes in ratepayers getting value for money.

Councillor Rob Vinsen moved a recommendation that the council switch to a split salary-allowance model.

“Being a councillor comes with responsibilities, and the first one is that you should attend as many meetings as possible.

“It’s a basic responsibility to the ratepayer,” Mr Vinsen said.

You don’t do much in Wanganui local body politics without bumping into Michael Laws, of course.

And sure enough, Laws comes into this story.

Councillor Hamish McDouall disagreed with Vinsen

..saying he was concerned the issue had become personal, referring to Councillor Michael Laws’ poor attendance at meetings.

A poor attendance from Laws?

Surely not.

Uh, oh.

Maybe Laws has been a tad lax in the attendance department.

In the first year of this electoral term, Mr Laws attended 10 of a total 36 meetings. He did not attend yesterday’s meeting.

But what other reasons could there be for voting against Vinsen’s proposal?

Hmm. Here’s another chunk of McDouall”s rationale –

“There are many reasons why people have difficulty attending all meetings. I was late today because I had child care issues. Councillor [Clive] Solomon has a busy job as a surgeon. Councillor [Allan] Anderson was away for some time because he was ill. Are we going to penalise these people?” Mr McDouall said.

But wait. There’s more.

Councillor Nicki Higgie said council needed to ensure it was as easy as possible for employed people to stand for council, and an attendance-based pay structure might dissuade them from doing so. She also noted that more than half her council work took place away from the council table.

In the upshot, Vinsen’s recommendation was put to the vote and only Vinsen and Councillor Ray Stevens voted for it.

Shame on the others.

Or so Alf was going to argue until Mrs Grumble brought the small matter of his own pay to his attention.

If it’s good enough for city councillors to be paid according to their meeting attendance, she wondered, isn’t it good enough for members of Parliament to be similarly recompensed?

Damn. Maybe she’s got a point.

And maybe someone will seize on it real fast.

Hence your long-serving member has decided not to write about what happened in Wanganui.

He is looking for something else to rail against this morning and if he can’t find an issue to kick around he will wander down to the Eketahuna Club to learn what his mates are talking about today.

The Boss and his advisers remain relatively chirpy but are a bit bothered about what might happen in Europe.

As he said in his State of the Nation speech the other day, the Government is still on track to get back into surplus in 2014/15 but it would push out the date if the global economy went into meltdown.

The upcoming Budget Policy Statement in February will forecast a surplus in the range of $300 to $500 million, he said.

But referring to the possibility that the Europe debt crisis could push the world back into recession, he said: “If the absolute worst happened and there was a major shock to the global economy, the Government would look at whether retaining that surplus target would actually harm the economy by forcing a sharp reduction in demand…”

And –

Mr Key said the most likely outcome was that European countries would manage through the crisis with the Euro intact because it was in their collective interest to do so.

“But that is by no means guaranteed.”

Nope.

But while the Europeans are sorting things out in their patch, economist Nouriel Roubini is warning of Iran triggering a global recession, too.

Roubini, of course, is nicknamed “Dr. Doom” for his gloomy predictions in the run-up to the financial meltdown four years ago.

Now he is saying the fallout from the Iranian crisis could last the rest of this decade.

Roubini, widely acknowledged to have predicted the crash of 2008, sees tough times ahead for the global economy and is warning that without major policy changes things can still get much worse.

He also warned that a conflict with Iran over its controversial nuclear program could lead to a global recession.

Roubini is a professor of economics and international business at New York University.

He spoke in an interview this week with The Associated Press at a dinner on the sidelines of the gathering of global big-shots gathered in Davos to discuss business, the economy and what-have-you.

Looking at economic prospects this year, he agreed with the International Monetary Fund’s latest forecast that the global economy is weakening.

Actually, he said he might be “even slightly more bearish” on its prediction of 3.3 percent growth in 2012.

“There are lots of sources of uncertainty from the eurozone, from the Middle East, from the fact that the U.S. is not tackling its own fiscal problem, from the fact that Chinese growth is unbalanced and unsustainable, relying too much on exports and fixed investments and high savings, and not enough on consumption. So it’s a very delicate global economy,” Roubini said.

He said the biggest uncertainty is the possibility of a conflict with Iran over its nuclear program that involves Israel, the United States, or both. That could lead oil prices now hovering around $100 a barrel to spike to $150 per barrel, he said, and lead to a global recession.

That’s the thing about bloody economists.

They are always banging on about uncertainties.

Still, those uncertainties never stop them making their predictions.

Here’s hoping Dr Doom is dead wrong.

It says God locked out of Mt Eden prison cells

But God is omnipresent and can’t be locked out of anything, especially prisons from which mere mortals of the criminal persuasion can and often do escape.

The HoS’s impiety is compounded in the first sentence of the story.

God has been remanded without a chance of appeal at one of our toughest prisons.

As Alf’s astute constituents will have observed, that first sentence shows the HoS hacks are profoundly confused about what exactly has happened to God, because it implies He has been locked in, not out.

But if you bother to read on to find what God might have been banged up for, you find his omnipresence has not become flawed and he has been locked neither in nor out.

Rather, some of his latter-day disciples have had a disagreement with how things should be done in the pastoral-care department.

There’s a hint the clerics might have walked out on their prison work: the prison bosses say they have left attending to the pastoral needs of the inmates.

But maybe they were told not to come back.

Both the disciples and the prison bosses – like all of us – eventually will get to meet their Maker.

They will learn then what He thinks of how they handled the disagreement.

But as Alf found, you must get to the second paragraph of the HoS to get a whiff of what’s been happening –

Inmates at Auckland’s Mt Eden prison have had church services and one-on-one meetings with men of the cloth slashed since the jail was taken over by private firm Serco five months ago.

See?

This is all about the goings-on of a very few members of His earthly flock.

The “men of the cloth”, as the HoS puts it, seem to have got hot under their collars and given up on serving the inmates of this particular prison after a run-in with the prison bosses.

Serco admitted the prison had been using a temporary chaplaincy team since four permanent padres left in October after failing to agree with the company’s plans. Serco said the situation “isn’t ideal”.

Salvation Army prison visitor Collin Mellors said he rarely attended Mt Eden any more since it was taken over by Serco.

“I used to be there a lot but since it changed hands it has become a bit awkward to re-establish yourself,” he said.

“I know that a number of inmates are unhappy because the chaplains simply aren’t there to provide a friendly face.”

One long-term prisoner has told the Herald on Sunday many men felt they were being denied a spiritual lifeline.

“Since I found the peace of God, my lag is easier to do but the past few months have been hard for a lot of people in here,” the inmate, who has asked not to be identified, said.

“Church visits have been cut from once a week to about once a month and we can’t get to see a padre when we want to.”

The prisoner said he knew of at least 30 others who had been affected. He also claimed complaints to prison bosses had fallen on deaf ears.

The nature of the disagreement between clergy and prison bosses is not explained.

Not do we know for sure if the clergy quit or were shown the door.

But we do learn (from “full time” and “part time”) that the HoS has abandoned the compound-adjective.

And we learn that the jail’s two full-time and two part-time chaplains left their jobs not long after the takeover.

Serco’s Sydney-based spokesman Paul Shaw, not the clerics, is the source of this information.

“We are advertising for two full time chaplains for Mt Eden and expect the posts to be filled within weeks,” Shaw said.

“Of course it isn’t ideal, but at present we have a transitional chaplaincy team of six who are providing pastoral care, bereavement services and mass. They are based at local churches and their availability means we can quickly meet prisoners’ requests.

“The team will remain in place when the two new posts have been filled. We place a great importance on meeting the religious and spiritual needs of prisoners,” he said.

Oh, and according to this prison spokesman, only one complaint has been received about these arrangements and there are no outstanding requests for baptisms at Mt Eden.

Alf wonders to what extent the media’s aversion to privatisation comes into things.

Mt Eden – the HoS notes – became New Zealand’s only privately-run prison in August after Serco won a 10-year contract from the Government, valued at about $380 million.

Jarrod Gilbert, from the Howard League for Penal Reform, has seized on this while clucking about a situation of “great concern”.

“Before Mt Eden was put into private hands, there were concerns that this would lead to financial corners being cut and, as a consequence, inmates would suffer,” Gilbert said.

“If new measures like cutting the number of chaplains have been introduced so that a private management company can make greater profits, then I think a lot of people would be very worried about that.

“Alarm bells should be ringing. If they are cutting back on chaplains you have to wonder what else is going on.”

Alf doesn’t much care what is going on, actually, so long as the inmates remain locked up and – when they come out, as eventually they must do – they do not re-offend.

That will be the measure of the worth of privatised management.

As to the matter of God being locked in or out, depending on whether you believe the headline or the first paragrah, let’s get to grips with what God’s omnipresence means.

In Jeremiah 23:24 God declares, “Do I not fill heaven and earth?”

This means God is present in all places, but He has no physical or material dimensions.

It is as spirit that He is everywhere, in heaven, earth and hell. Although it surpasses the understanding of creatures such as we are, who are limited and bound to material bodies, God Himself is present everywhere in His majesty and power.

Another of Alf’s sources explains it this way:

The universe that God created finds the Creator everywhere. He is everywhere present. There is no place that a person can hide and no chance that a believer will out of His protective care. He is everywhere present in His works and in His personality. This does not mean that God is the same as the universe – merely that His presence is everywhere in the universe. The truth of God’s omnipresence if comforting for the believer for no one can escape God’s notice.

The HoS hacks would do well to go back to Sunday school.

Alf would have second thoughts about expressing his thoughts on some matters if he was operating out of a house in – let’s say – Iran.

He is valuing his freedom of expression today having learned that the authorities there have arrested at least half a dozen journalists and bloggers.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, these arrests appear to amount to a pre-emptive campaign of intimidation to thwart protests surrounding parliamentary elections scheduled for March.

The arrests, including those of two prominent women whose blog posts are widely read in the country, were not reported by the official media.

Rights groups and people who know the detained journalists said the government apparently wanted news of the arrests to spread informally, to heighten the atmosphere of fear.

If the buggers who have been rounded up are the Iranian equivalents of Bomber Bradbury or the tossers at The Standard, Alf might not lose much sleep.

But in this case they could finish up being given death sentences.

The Iranian authorities are apt to react somewhat firmly, when they don’t like what they read, and don’t seem at all bothered about bumping off bloggers – or anyone, probably – who piss them off.

And so the Daily Mail reports –

Two Iranian bloggers are to be executed for ‘spreading corruption’ – as Tehran cracks down on freedom of expression in the run up to its parliamentary elections in March.

Dunno what the “corruption” thing is all about.

But the arrests of journalists and the imminent executions of the bloggers is the sort of thing that gets the US fuming about freedom of expression and civil liberties and all that carry-on.

And sure enough, as the Daily Mail tells us, US State Department mouthpiece Victoria Nuland has expressed dismay:

‘We are deeply concerned by the alarming increase in the Iranian regime’s efforts to extinguish all forms of free expression and limit its citizens’ access to information.’

She further said:

“Iranian courts confirmed death sentences for bloggers Saeed Malekpour and Vahid Asghari, both of whom were not accorded due process and now face imminent execution on charges of ‘spreading corruption.”

Alf gets a big chuckle out of the Americans banging on about due process, because he is aware of how they have locked up lots of people in Guantanamo without much regard for due process.

Oh, and the French are kicking up a fuss too.

The French government condemned Iran on Friday for a series of press arrests and for the death sentences confirmed for two Iranian bloggers and Paris called for “the revision of these unacceptable decisions.”

A Foreign Ministry statement said that France is “extremely concerned about the situation of bloggers Saeed Malekpur and Vahid Asghari who have seen earlier death sentences against them confirmed in past days.

France also “condemned with the greatest firmness” a recent wave of arrests of journalists and denounced these practices as an attempt to control the press ahead of legislative elections on March 2.

France has called on Iran to respect the international commitments it has signed in the relevant areas of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

Alf is sure the Iranian leaders will pay that request the same heed as it pays to all other bleats from the West for them to give up on whatever they are doing with that nuclear stuff.

The nuclear thing, as it happens, has got world leaders all wound up.

The death sentences for bloggers and round-up of journalists comes as Israel is urging the world to act quickly to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and the UN has urged the West to resume talks with the pariah state.

Moreover, in two days Iran’s parliament will debate whether to stop exports of oil to the European Union.

This would deny the EU a six-month phase-in of the embargo it decided should be slapped on Iranian oil as part of tough new sanctions aimed at forcing the curbing of its nuclear programme.

So what does Alf make of the media crackdown?

Actually, on occasions he is tempted to think he would conduct something similar here, if he was running the show.

That photographer feller who was involved in taping the PM’s conversation with John Banks certainly should have been locked up.

The same goes for the likes of Barry Soper, who have never paid Alf’s media statements the attention they deserve.

But death sentences seem a bit heavy, even for Bomber Bradbury, although a good question to ask is whether our society would be much better off without him, and at that point of the argument…

The Maori who have come out of the negotiations triumphant will be popping the champagne corks or their indigenous equivalent to rejoice.

The NZ Herald tells the story –

Far North iwi Te Aupouri will celebrate a major milestone tomorrow when it signs a two-part deal which gives it a hand in governing 90 Mile Beach.

Treaty Negotiations Minister Christopher Finlayson says he hopes it brings much-needed economic development to one of the most impoverished areas in the country, while a tribal negotiator said the iwi will work hard to move Te Aupouri to a brighter future.

If co-governance arrangements are the secret to boosting economic development, perhaps we should proliferate them around the country.

Come to think of it, bit by bit we are proliferating them around the country but it is being done somewhat insidiously and the Government does not brag too much about this path to brightening our future.

In this case, says the Herald, Te Aupouri is the first of four iwi in the region that will sign individual settlements but collectively settle issues of overlapping interests.

The tribes – Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa, Ngai Takoto and Ngati Kuri – are known as the Te Hiku Forum when they group together.

The beach is one of the collective issues.

The deed of settlement to be signed at Te Kao’s Potahi Marae recognises Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa, Ngai Takoto and Ngati Kuri will have 50 per cent membership on a new beach co-governance board.

The Northland Regional and Far North District Councils will fill the board’s remaining share of seats.

So what does this mean, in terms of representation?

Oh, yes.

Half the seats at the management table will be held by local government people representing the interests of the whole population in that neck of the woods, both Maori and non-Maori.

The other half will be held by iwi representatives who will be batting only for local iwi.

“The public” are being seriously short-changed.

After this craven surrender, Finlayson was full of flannel about how over three years he had come to like and respect Te Aupouri people but the area faced huge problems.

A helicopter ride where homes without running water and power were pointed out to him was something he would not forget.

“It’s a beautiful part of the country. On the coastline, for example, are some wonderful beaches and beach properties, and you go inland a couple of miles to visit the marae and you see the most appalling poverty.

“Hopefully this settlement … is a part of what’s going to be very much a focus on the Far North.”

But providing running water, electricity and what-have-you hardly requires co-governance arrangements.

Was there any more of this 50:50 stuff in what transpired up north?

Certainly there was. The deal includes giving the iwi-

*Membership of a new Te Hiku Conservation Board, which will have equal public membership and work with the Department of Conservation.

* A joint share of 21,283ha of Crown forest land on the Aupouri Peninsula.

Oh, and we should brace for more surrenders in the future, because another regional tribe, Ngati Kahu, pulled out of the Te Hiku Forum unhappy with terms.

The tribe has applied to the Waitangi Tribunal for binding recommendations to force tribal ownership of government-owned land.

But let’s get back to the thing about developing the economy and giving Maori brighter lives.

How does that work?

In his previous post on this subject, Alf pointed out that revenue now collected by the Crown from tourist buses which use the land will go to a joint Crown-tribal body.

This body will spend the money on projects to regenerate flora and fauna.

Increasingly as the co-governance idea catches on, therefore, we can expect Crown revenue to be channelled into deals that give half the dosh (and maybe more) to iwi.

Are you happy with that?

Or complacently indifferent?

They are not so clever when it comes to captaining cruise liners, apparently.

Alf was delighted to read that that New Zealand is proving a favoured place for European immigrants trying to escape the economic downturn.

This reflects well on the country: it’s a great place to live in, although not too many of the migrants have yet discovered that Eketahuna is the best part of the country to live in.

It also reflects well on the Government in which Alf is proud to serve: our economic management obviously is superior to that of the governments in the countries from which the migrants are coming.

Or rather, these migrants obviously believe we run a good shop.

But the Herald today published some dastardly stuff about costs of living increasing in New Zealand and wages not increasing to match, while Australians enjoy longer lives and lower unemployment.

Figures included in Statistics New Zealand’s annual report, New Zealand in Profile 2012, compared the living standards of New Zealand and its five main tourism markets: Australia (1,111,000), the United Kingdom (220,000), the United States (188,000), China (132,000) and Japan (79,000).

New Zealand has higher unemployment levels than Australia, with 5.3 percent of the working population unemployed in Australia compared to 6.8 percent in New Zealand.

People are also living longer in the Lucky Country. The male life expectancy at birth in New Zealand is 78.8, compared to 79.4 across the Tasman, while the female life expectancy at birth here is 82.7, compared to 84.4 in Australia.

Australia’s GDP per capita is higher, at US$54,000 compared to US$31,000 in New Zealand. The Consumer Price Index is higher in New Zealand, at 5.3 percent compared to 3.6 percent.

And so on.

When word gets around about these comparisons, we may no longer attract the influx of Europeans who are now coming here.

But whoa.

One element of the story at Stuff was a bit more disturbing.

It tells us -

Italians and the Irish are leading the influx as European job markets stall.

There were 50 per cent more Irish migrants in the year till last November than in 2010 (1545 compared with 1030) and 29 per cent more Italians (160 compared with 124).

Alf has no problem with news that the Wellington Irish community is flourishing as the jobseekers arrive.

According to one of the newcomers:

“It’s dismal [in Ireland]. There’s just absolutely no work at the moment in construction, and so many other industries.

“People talk about the recession in New Zealand but it’s absolutely nothing compared to what’s going on at home.”

It was “unbelievable” how many Irish people had come to live in Wellington since he arrived.

And the Irish do make a nice drop of whisky.

Fair to say, Alf is relaxed – by and large – about the Italians, too.

But he adds a proviso.

He is relaxed, depending on what jobs they can get.

Italian chefs, fine.

Italian fashion designers, fine.

But just think of what might happen if one of the buggers comes here brandishing the sorts of credentials that result in his taking command of one of our inter-Island ferries!

But they have stretched the truth when telling us in a headline: Woman forced to walk home at 2.30

Good grief. An image was immediately conjured of jack-booted fiends coercing the woman to walk home at dead of night.

Heavily armed, perhaps.

The first paragraph laid it on even thicker – not only was the hapless woman coerced into making this walk, but – it seemed – she had been ill.

A Christchurch woman says she was forced to walk home at 2.30am after being discharged from Christchurch Hospital.

But no.

Read on and you find she chose to walk home.

Here, according to Stuff, is what happened.

First of all, Rosalie Thomas, 59, suffered an angina attack and was taken to hospital about two weeks ago.

There was an element of reluctance in her being taken for treatment (even though, presumably, the ride was free).

“I didn’t want to go to hospital really, but the paramedics said I had to, so I went in quite late,” Thomas said.

“I was in a nightie and dressing gown and didn’t have any money or my phone on me.”

She was discharged about 2am

… and had “no way to get home”.

By her own account, a nurse told her to call a taxi and ask if she could pay them later,

…but I rang one company and they said `no’,” she said.

“Then after about half an hour they said they would give me $3.40 to catch a bus, but I would have to wait until the buses started in the morning.”

So there we have it.

She was given a bus fare, but would have to wait for the buses to start running.

She opted not to do this.

Thomas said she did not want to “sit in the waiting room for hours”.

“I was stressed out and I just wanted to get home to my own bed,” she said.

And so she walked to her Linwood home.

Nobody stopped to help her during her walk, she said.

“I’m just really concerned that this is a big safety issue,” she said. “Someone else might have been attacked or something.”

Not if they opted to sit in the waiting room, unappealing though that might be.

“I must have looked ridiculous walking down Moorhouse Ave at that time in my dressing gown.

“Anything could happen and maybe I was just lucky, or maybe I looked a bit mad so people avoided me.”

Fair to say, she probably did look mad.

So what has the hospital got to say?

Oh, dear.

For starters, we are given that crap about privacy, even though the patient implicitly abandoned any entitlement to privacy by going to the media.

Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) Christchurch Hospital quality manager Shona MacMillan said she could not comment on an individual patient for “privacy reasons”.

But MacMillan did go on to point out that Canterbury District Health Board encourages patients to let them know, preferably in writing or by calling customer services via the main hospital telephone number, if they are not happy with any aspect of the care provided to them.

She also said staff made “every attempt” to help with transport, including providing access to phones to call relatives and friends.

But maybe not in this case, eh?

If a patient is elderly or physically unable to get home and does not have any family member or friends available to pick them up, the CDHB will explore other options, which can include assistance with a taxi fare, MacMillan said.

By walking home, of course, the patient in this case demonstrated she was physically able to get there.

Oh, and there’s another option.

“If the patient is well enough to organise their own transport but have no family or friends able to collect them at a particular time, they are welcome to wait in the waiting area until they have someone available to collect them.

“If not, staff can help with contact details and timetables of public transport providers, including bus services.”

So let’s agree that it probably was not much fun, wandering home from hospital in night attire at that time of the morning.

But let’s forget about being forced to walk home.