Have a look at the profile of incoming Minister of Foreign Affairs, Murray McCully. In addition to being the nation’s diplomat, he is Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for the Rugby World Cup. Firstly, I had no idea that there should be a minister for professional rugby. Most importantly, I certainly hope that there is more to National’s foreign policy than rugby.

The fallout from losing my phone spent a little time going from bad to worse. Specifically, I received my phone bill from Vodafone. It seems that whomever found my phone decided to play a few games and buy a bunch of music on it. That was about the time that I learned that when I put a block on my phone, data was not blocked at the same time. I was being billed for about $120 of someone else’s usage.

I quickly called up the customer service department and explained my situation. The details were verified by the voice on the other end and a small rebate was offered, about $36. Not satisfied, I sent a request through the email form to explain what happened. Why was the data service not blocked? Why was I responsible for any of the charges, having reported the lost phone already? What is a customer supposed to do to protect against this? The response was returned quite quickly: a full refund was applied to my account and an apology offered. I was even given advice on how to protect myself and my phone in the future.

While I’m still disappointed about losing the phone, having to replace it and using my old, broken phone in the meantime, I can’t complain about the end result on the part of Vodafone. A bit of a fumble, but they came through in the end. As for the sample-of-one test of humanity’s goodness, unfortunately a fail.

The elections are all over. I’ve lost 2 and won 1 – nothing unanticipated. Time to heal and move on. The world is still turning and there is still work to do.

Remember the past and look to the future.

I’ve been overly political lately. I promise I’ll be fun again after the elections all end.

The election posters for this year have been more miss than hit. The Libertarianz have created a minor stir with “Legalise Smack”, but the award has gone to the Greens for their simple Vote for Us campaign. It’s been so popular that it’s drawn out the parodies – some good, some bad.

Parody is a very important art form. It should not be dismissed quickly. Obviously, care must be taken, but it’s an effective way to draw comparisons and criticise an argument. I’ve seen a couple good parodies and one really bad one. Starting at the top:

• Libertarianz: Vote for You/Yourself¹

This is as simple as it gets and effective as it can be.

• Act: Re-writing the script

The ad is a direct replica of the Vote for Us television ad, with the script changed. The Greens are upset about this, citing copyright. The original ad has been pulled from YouTube, even though the girl’s image was evidently replaced.

While I can see the rationale for the copyright claim, I also see the value of the parody. I don’t agree with the position that Act stands for, but the comparison is effective. After modifying the image, it should have remained, in my opinion, and the message could be criticised for the points it makes.

• Private Facebook: Kill cats to make green voters pay for their actions

I couldn’t find a huge amount about this, but a summary is available. Regardless of being a joke or not, this was pretty nasty. It’s been pulled from Facebook, rightly so. I agree with one of the commenters – if you think that a joke like that is funny, I don’t want to know you. If it was a real political sentiment, God help us all.

¹ I saw this while on the bus and I can’t remember the exact wording.

There is a segment of the election advertising that is devoted to change. Act is quite specific, “Change the government”. National opted for “Choose a brighter future”. Both are playing on the apparent fact that New Zealanders get bored after a while and vote out the incumbent. Change implies motion – there is a starting point and there is either a direction or an end point. However, the notion of change that is being pandered to doesn’t care for a direction. The change is more important than the result. Being someone who cares about the policies that the country will eventually implement, I would think that direction would be the important thing.

I am quite opposed to National’s approach. They have set up a platform of change based on keeping a lot of the work that has been done in recent terms – KiwiSaver (with modifications), KiwiBank, KiwiRail (not sold within the first year) and Working For Families. Having pledged that Peter Dunne’s United Future party would be a part of a National government, there is a further pull to the left for this center-right party. What this says to me is that National sees that the leftist policies of recent times are wanted by the public; these policies shall be adopted to win votes. Here’s the problem: this represents a shift contrary to National’s normal stance. Eventually, the party will have to realign to their base position – externalisation of services and assets. However unspoken, National represents a change. Voting for a change of Prime Ministerial face has longer-term consequences.

The 48th session of parliament was stellar. I was not overly happy with the government. There is justification for wanting some change, but the alternatives don’t seem to be an improvement. I don’t think that we need to change the government, we need to change parliament. Reading through transcripts on They Work For You is enlightening and scary. It’s amazing that any work gets done. I want to see a parliament where government works with opposition parties to develop policy that is balanced, reasoned and justified. If anything is going to be changed, can we start with some basics?

• End the extreme divisive mentality in parliament.
• End the slanderous/scandalous finger-pointing that the media feeds on and feeds us.
• And while we’re at it, repeal the parody/satire ban on the media. Politicians should be responsible for their own actions.

I voted at an advance poll on Saturday. The wind and rain were not friendly and only a few people dripped their way into the polling station while I was there. My first duty is done. My second duty remains – to encourage others to voice an opinion.

I’m actually not really referring about the amount of content I put here. Yes, it comes and goes with available time and mood, but nothing is really changing. What I am referring to is a few local sites that seem to have died off, to the detriment of the community.

• Sustainable Wellington Transport had only a few posts in a short burst of activity. Transport happens to be one of my pet interests, so I have been watching for more content for a while. The group of authors includes several city and regional councillors alongside a couple private citizens. I can imagine them being busy, but I’d love to see some activity, even if it’s just media releases that can induce feedback.

• Mount Cook Mobilised is a blog about my suburb. I was raised to care about my environment and I do my best to follow through on that. There seems to be 3 facets to this organisation. The blog refers to a paper newsletter, which I’ve seen a single issue of, and also points to a wiki. The wiki/blog combination can be very powerful, but both seem in relative infancy so far.

• Option 3 was put together during a submission process to discover the best alternative for bringing commuters and travellers into Wellington from the north. Options 1 & 2 were/are large roading project. Option 3 is for sustainable transport. The discussion about Transmission Gully continues, but the Option 3 site seems to have died off.

What do I hope to achieve by talking about this? I’m not sure. I have started to get in touch with the councillor-authors of Sustainable Wellington Transport about adding releases to the blog and I could realistically start editing the wiki myself to encourage development, but I’m not sure that anything is going to kick-start these websites. One can hope, and make noise.

The New Zealand Cartoon Archive played host tonight to a panel discussion of political cartooning in modern New Zealand. It was tied to the current installation of engravings by William Hogarth and attempted to answer the question of whether modern cartoonists carry the same strength and capacity to deliver commentary as Hogarth had several centuries ago.

The three cartoonists each spoke about his work in terms of publication, intention and technical details. Several examples were presented, explaining in a concrete fashion the approaches taken. The audience was presented with a range, from striking single images that cause instant recognition of an idea to intricately detailed works that require analysis, and maybe a history lesson.

It was a fascinating session, binding tightly the realms of politics and entertainment. This is a good thing.

On Thursday of last week, I gave an oral submission on the “Draft Walking Plan”: to a city council sub-committee. I was relatively happy with how it went and it seemed to be well received. After speaking, I was asked 3 questions based on my discussion of inline skating and 1 question on my prior written submission regarding pedestrian signals. Being somewhat prone to reasoned answers, I wanted to expand on 3 of them here.

I don’t remember the order of the questions and I’m in danger of mis-attributing questions to councillors, but I think the question/answer pairs are the most important part.

The city council has considered an approximated distance that translates to 25 minutes’ travel time as a range for active mode transport to the city. How far would that be for inline skates. (Celia Wade-Brown)

In my original answer, I stated that the surrounding hills restrict the access to central city. The area is more limited than a time-based range would allow for. I stand by this answer, but provide a caveat. There are at least two feasible paths that circumvent the hills that can be used as corridors that allow longer trips to be viable.

• Evans Bay/Oriental Bay has a continuous, flat footpath along the waterfront. It is easily handled in low-wind conditions, although there are sections of narrow and/or rough surfaces.

• Riddiford St and Adelaide Rd provide access to Newtown and slightly beyond. Construction is a current limitation, but should be completed shortly.

• For some people, it is possible to pass through the Mt. Victoria tunnel. It is quite steep on the city side and not for everyone.

Can you convince me that it’s safe? (Helene Ritchie)

Well, no. Nothing is inherently safe. This was my original answer, adding a comment about our knees being our bumper. Again, this is still true, but I’d like to be a little more explicit.

Safety is multi-variate. It depends on the driver’s/skater’s ability to anticipate and react to dangerous situations, avoiding if possible or mitigating damages otherwise. Experience and attention are major factors for anticipation and reacting. On the other hand, when evasive action must be taken, environmental factors come into play as well as some features of the vehicle. In the case of inline skates, wet or rough conditions become dangerous very quickly, but stopping is often not necessary, given the ease of side-step manoeuvring. I recommend to students that they stay on the footpath under normal circumstances.

Don’t you think that you’re suggesting over-engineering a solution? (Jo Coughlan)

My complaint was regarding having to push a button to receive a pedestrian signal. At busier intersections, a hold-off period of nearing 30 seconds is required or the signal will become activated during the following light phase. I believe that this is an indication of pedestrians being second-class citizens. I also believe that Cr. Coughlan’s question is intended to keep pedestrians in their place.

From an engineering perspective, treating pedestrians as equal partners in the transport equation is the easiest option. The signal shall allow for pedestrians to cross during every light cycle. If there are no pedestrians crossing, traffic proceeds as normal. Otherwise, people may safely cross with minimal delay. There is no extra engineering required. This is a common situation in Canada.

After my 10 minutes had passed, I watched several other submissions from the gallery. A couple of people submitted on the “Draft Cycling Plan”. Helene Ritchie repeatedly asked a question that was not adequately answered by the submitters. She described a generic accident that happens from time to time where a bus knocks down a cyclist in a very narrow section of road. Cr Ritchie asked what should happen in that situation.

My reply would be surprisingly simple. The bus is not to overtake the cyclist unless it is safe to do so – end of story. If the driver does not see the cyclist, it is less reckless and a bit more negligent. Responsibility is responsibility. The solution to prevent the situation from occuring is driver education. I have been on many buses that have been dangerously close to cyclists and an educational safety program is long overdue.

I found the whole process to be strangely enjoyable. I expect that I will participate again in subsequent submissions. Next time, I’ll try to take better notes.