Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today.
TODAY'S MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
BNZ and Westpac kicked off the week with mortgage rate cuts. Details are here.
TODAY'S DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
There are no changes to report today.
FAST DECISION FOR FULL COVERAGE
Broadband and mobile coverage is getting a fast kick-along, even if some eyebrows have been raised on how quickly the law change has been pushed through. Currently 325,000 people can get access to rural broadband. With the new $150 mln commitment through to 2020, the job will rid us of most rural mobile black spots and get full UFB services to key tourist spots. Only Labour opposed the drive. Interestingly, it will open up the ease with which jobs can be done from anywhere in the regions. But will it really stop the drift to Auckland?
FIXED TEN YEAR RATE
From 2016, NZ passports will be valid for 10 years, again. When they are back, the 10-year adult passport price will cost $180 (including GST). But because a child’s appearance can change significantly over time, the child passport will remain valid for five years "as is international convention". New 'encouragement' will come with the change to do passport application processing online - so that means you will need to get a 'verified' RealMe accounts set up.
PAST TIME FOR CHANGE
There are only about six weeks left in the open consultation around changing the flag. The current flag was adopted in 1902 and the real New Zealand has changed completely since then. We are no longer a colony and we should expect our flag to reflect the independence and confidence we have built for ourselves. I hope the 'conservatives' fail to block change. I'm with the Prime Minister on this one (not often I say that).
HALF WAY
The US Senate has voted 62 to 37 with bipartisan support to give the US President 'fast track' authority to negotiate both the TPPA and the big trade deal with the EU. That is half way. The final approval needed is from the US House of Representatives. That might be a closer run thing.
TAURANGA TO BE A UNIVERSITY TOWN
A new University of Waikato campus in central Tauranga is on track with commitments of key land and at least $30 mln in cash signed up today. All up it is a $96 mln project.
WHOLESALE RATES STABLE
Wholesale swap rates moved very little today. The 90 day bank bill rate is unchanged at 3.49%. Government bond yields were unchanged as well. Direction from offshore will be absent tomorrow as well as New York will be on holiday (and London may be also).
NZ DOLLAR REVERTS
The New Zealand dollar has wobbled in quite a wide range today settling back to where it opened. As of late this afternoon it is at 73 USc, 93.4 AUc, 66.5 euro cents, and the TWI-5 is at 77.1. Check our real-time charts here.
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10 Comments
Lets get diverted into a flag debate then. Keep the current great flag.
The Union Jack is a great symbol of our cultural legal and rights background. (and note: my ancestry is not british)
The expanse of blue indicates the vast pacific it is set onto.
The stars represent the scattered lonely islands that are our place in the world.
Found this on the flag referendum website.
I stand for When marooned in a roadside halt in the Northern Territory, I was intrigued to read the following verse on the noticeboard. Although it refers to Australia it recognises that in the course of three centuries the flag has acquired a mana of its own:
Our flag bears the stars that blaze at night
In our Southern sky of blue,
And a little old flag in the corner
That’s part of our heritage too;
It’s for the English, the Scots and the Irish,
Who sailed to the end of the earth;
The rogues and the schemers
The doers and the dreamers
Who gave modern New Zealand birth
And you who are shouting to change it
Who don’t seem to understand
It’s the flag of our law and our language
Not the flag of a faraway land,
Though plenty of people will tell you
That when Europe was plunged into night
That little old flag in the corner
Was their symbol of freedom and light.
It does not mean we owe allegiance
To a forgotten Imperial dream
We’ve got the stars to show where we’re going
And the old flag to show where we’ve been.
Nice poem thanks for sharing KH.
Some history on the NZ flag
1834 - 1840 The Flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand
New Zealand's first flag was designed by a senior missionary of the Church Missionary Society, sewn up by an Australian and voted on by 25 Maori Chiefs from the Far North. It came to be known as the Flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand in recognition of the title used by the same chiefs when they met again at Waitangi to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1835. To Maori, the United Tribes flag was significant in that Britain had recognised New Zealand as an independent nation with its own flag, and in doing so, had acknowledged the mana of the Maori chiefs.
Full Story»
1840 - 1902 The Union Jack
Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840, the Union Jack replaced the Flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand as the official flag of New Zealand. The new Lieutenant -Governor, William Hobson, forcibly removed the United Tribes flag from the Bay of Islands, however, some Maori, including Hone Heke, believed that Maori should have the right to fly the United Tribes flag alongside the Union Jack, in recognition of their equal status with the government. Heke's repeated felling of the flagstaff at Kororareka between 1844 and 1846 was a vivid rejection of the Union Jack, which was viewed as a symbol of British power over Maori.
Full Story»
1902- present The Current Flag
At the end of the nineteenth century the blue ensign with the Southern Cross was a flag for maritime purposes only but it had gradually come to be used on land, even though the Union Jack remained the legal flag of New Zealand. With the outbreak of the South African War in 1899 and its associated patriotism and flag-waving, the confusion surrounding the correct flag was an embarrassment to Premier Seddon. In 1902 Seddon instituted the Blue Ensign with the stars of the Southern Cross the legal flag of New Zealand.
Full Story»
Maori are not an independent nation Icon. They gave it some thought in 1935 but you should read the treaty. In 1940 they signed independence away to become British citizens. Great deal for them, especially given the tragedy of the musket wars. Why would you think Hobson, who was there then, remove the other flag.
They did like the United Tribes idea behind a solitary King, hence the current "Maori King and Maori Queen". And it suited some of the influential tribes at the time who were rapidly sweeping across the North Island in a manner not dissimilar to the Khans of Mongolia.
just as the British Citizens also appealed to others for much the same reasons - then the musket peoples armies were supposed to defend them if they signed. Sadly it didn't protect them from greedy and corrupt militia, or kangeroo courts who always took the white mans world over that of a native.
Also what I find disturbing about much of the Maori propaganda is that they fail to mention the rigid hierarchy inside the tribes. If you were born common then you were always at the beck and call of your "betters". If you were born to the ruling families then you were the leader of the tribe and that's all that mattered, each family had skills and a place, and when you were born that set who you were. You could fall down the hierarchy or sleep your way up it or be outcast and far game for any wannabe warrior or hunter during a famine. the ruling families always made the big decisions, did the representing, decided the future of the tribe - everyone else is expected to fall in line. That's why your parents and location of family is so important, that's why keeping the power over others was so critical - and why when the white folks showed up with another way of life, it was so attractive.
Oh come on KH....Hobson was sent here as the British Consul.....he was a fibber of huge proportions......as a French, English, Maori, Irish, Scottish descendent I know my family history and the events that occurred too!!
And on becoming British citizens with the signing of the Treaty we were all granted the Queens protection and the 1688 Bill of Rights, Magna Carte, Habeas Corpus and other Constitutional Rights....it is the longest running Tui add isn't it!!
Heke didn't like the Union Jack and Hobson didn't like the 1935 flag. You have made your pick as to who you like. Doesn't prove your point. Go read the treaty.
Got no british ancestry here, and it goes back far enough in the Kaipara to know of the horrors of the maori on maori war well before the treaty.
British justice, with all it's faults trumped the musket war approach any time and surviving maori knew it. Too late to stop the genocide, but an important part of the tidy up.
Great flag we got out of all that. Lets keep it.
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