Posts by Hilary Stace
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Beautiful day at the Wellington City Market yesterday. Got some delicious hazelnut pesto from the indoor market at Chaffers next door. My friend Margot from Fantail Grove makes it, and she comes to Wellington once a month to sell it.
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Can someone direct Roger Sutton to PublicAddress, please. He would find out a lot about Christchurch and its citizens' concerns here. Then he wouldn't have to act so surprised on television.
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Steven Joyce obviously isn't a details man. Grant Robertson has been trying to get some specifics from the Minister.
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Legal Beagle: The law may be that stupid, in reply to Richard Aston,
Whatever, I think it would be a good idea to have an inquiry into the whole gaming industry/ charitable trust thing. Time for some transparency. And to ask questions about why the community and voluntary sector should be so dependent on gambling and alcohol, and why isn't it funded properly?
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Legal Beagle: The law may be that stupid, in reply to Richard Aston,
My understanding is that there is a sinking lid of total NZ pokies. So if Sky City gets 500 more that means 500 fewer for the rest of NZ and consequently 500 fewer returns to the Department of Internal Affairs to distribute (ie 37% of 500 pokie machines' profit). Also there will be 500 fewer pokie machines for Pub Charity and the other trusts to get income from to disburse to community groups (my understanding is that each pokie machine makes a return to the govt and to a pokie trust). So when the the NGO applies to COGs or Pub Charity for a grant for its activities the total pool of money will be dramatically less after the SkyCity deal. However, there will be more money in the SkyCity community trust although not as much (ie the 2% as opposed to the 37%). The SkyCity terms and conditions are much tighter than for COGs and Pub Charity, so will be harder for some charities to function at all in an increasingly crowded contestable market.
There are some more ethically pure charities who do not seek funding from either gambling or alcohol and they could also be affected as with shrinking pokie profits the bigger NGOs will look to any other source of funds, including their trusts and philanthropists. Small charities and NGOs know it is a tough battle out there for the fundraised dollar.
However, I am willing to be challenged on these assumptions by someone with more knowledge of the gamblng industry.
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One of the best documentaries I have ever seen is Gerard Smythe's Out of sight out of mind about the de-institutionalisation of Templeton. For some fortuitous reason it did get a screening on free to air TV, just before Christmas 2004. However, I doubt that a recent documentary in that genre, Mental Notes, about psychiatric institution survivors, will get a TV release. For some reason programmers think we just want to watch reality TV shows.
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John Clarke knows what it is like not to remember important
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Legal Beagle: The law may be that stupid, in reply to Ross Mason,
Paul Holmes is on the trust that disperses the SkyCity funds to charities (the 2% or whatever as opposed to the 37% from non Sky pokies). He was going on the other day about what a wonderful job that is spreading the largesse around. However, the overall effect of the SkyCity deal will be a large amount less for all the other charities and NGOs that depend on their annual funding from the contestable Lotteries and COGs grants distributed by the Department of Internal Affairs (and the others such as Pub Charity).
Probably anyone who has ever been on a committee has had a go at applying for these funds. It is a horrible aspect of New Zealand that the community and voluntary sector depends for its survival on gambling. But this SkyCity deal will mean even less money in the system and hundreds of charities including those who work with disadvantaged children will have to curtail their activities or close altogether.
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That suggestion is in one of the David Fisher stories and is attributed to another MP who tripped, David Garrett. Just wondering whether there is any more to that part of the story as it is an interesting angle.
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I'm getting a bit confused about the ins and outs of this story but is this part correct or just rumour? This issue arose because when Kim Dotcom was having a bad time in prison he asked who the local MP was, and on learning it was his friend JB asked him to help him out. Whereupon the MP refused to admit knowing him. Consequently the previous good relationship is no longer.