Looking back over the past weeks and to the weeks ahead – to rate the noteworthy, the cringeworthy, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the truly amazing.
We all lose when tech giants get a free hand
In the past few weeks our two major broadcasters have announced cuts to news and current affairs shows. Securing advertising for mediums with smaller and smaller viewerships as digital platforms take over was always going to be difficult but is it a level playing field?
Meta, previously known as Facebook and Google do not pay their way here. They don’t contribute anywhere close to an acceptable amount of tax – all of their profits are sent directly back to home base in the US. Both have illustrated an inability to present truthful news and one of them has been involved in far too many data leaks.
If we are handing out free rides to overseas media companies, then how can our local ones even compete? Well, they can’t as the recent cuts illustrate. Sure, advertising revenue could be down due to economic conditions but digital media dominates the news sphere now and unless we regulate it further and tax those companies doing business in New Zealand, it will keep growing and strangling our own journalism.
0 stars – we need to create a level playing field so Kiwi businesses can compete.
Water leaks take ages to fix in the capital
A month or so ago I was talking with a contractor in Wellington who was telling me about the issues with water leaks being fixed. I thought little of it until I read a recent news story outlining just how worrying those wait times are.
“Wellingtonians wanting to get the leaks on their streets and properties fixed are waiting 17 times longer than other cities, new data shows.
“While those in the other major centres, Auckland and Christchurch, have to wait only two days and 7 hours or 18 hours, respectively, Wellington city centre residents wait roughly 40 days for their ‘non urgent’ leaks to get fixed.” (Source: “Wellington leaks taking 17 times longer to fix than other cities,” by Ryan Anderson, 10th March, www.stuff.co.nz).
According to Wellington Water, the reasons involve a mixture of outdated infrastructure in dire need of attention, rising costs, and health and safety requirements. None of this helps the region as it also deals with water shortages. Seems like we need a few people to step up and sort it out.
1 star – a real issue in acute need of resolution.
Registration loophole creates big headaches
Straight from the “I didn’t even know that was possible’ files comes the story about an Auckland woman who has become ensnared in a ruse whereby her name was used to register a vehicle by someone else. The police contacted her parents looking for her as the car was connected to a missing person case. Not only was the car not the woman’s but she didn’t own a car at all.
So why was her name attached to it? Because there is a loophole whereby people can register cars in other people’s names – something that reportedly affects around 300 Kiwis a year. It’s also a bit of a mission to sort it out when you’ve had your name used to obtain a registration.
“’They said they would have to see if I met the criteria to de-register, and they weren’t able to sort it on the phone.’
Waka Kotahi staff read out an email and physical address that had been registered along with Valerie’s name on the vehicle, and they weren’t hers. ‘The email had the words ‘cash it up’ in it. It didn’t sound very legitimate.’ The physical address, meanwhile, was for a supermarket in West Auckland.” (Source: “‘That’s not my car’: Auckland woman caught up in missing persons case,” by Jonathan Killick, 10th March, www.stuff.co.nz).
After a lengthy process involving obtaining a police report and paying for a new license, the issue was finally resolved.
2 stars – looks like a system that needs a little bit of fine tuning.
