According to overseas-based Kiwi blogger Cactus Kate a memo circulated to staff at the New Zealand Herald and other APN titles telling journalists to adopt a “more conservative editorial approach”. The memo, apparently sent to staff from the company’s Sydney headquarters follows a decision to cut the company’s budget for legal action and defence to zero.

According to Cactus Kate, APN instructed editors to spike any stories that could trigger legal action or are otherwise risky.

The New Zealand Herald has never been considered the nation’s hardest newspaper, but Cactus Kate’s APN Chicken Out says the company is no longer participating in ‘real media’.

This creates an enormous news gap in the nation’s largest city – one that television and radio seem equally unable to fill. Bloggers alone can’t fill the void left when a major newspaper decides not to do its job properly.

Update: If you are a journalist or have other relevant skills and would like to take part in a project to develop an online alternative to the Herald please get in touch.

In the last hour I checked the size of the front page of six news web sites using http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com. Here are the results:

• Fairfax’s Stuff – 1.7MB
• The New Zealand Herald – 450Kb
• The Sydney Morning Herald – 940Kb
• The Australian – 874Kb
• Radio New Zealand News – 88Kb
• ABC News Radio – 294Kb

So you can read the Radio New Zealand News page 200 times and still download less data than a single read of Stuff.

While these numbers may not be important if you’ve got a nifty broadband link and an unlimited download plan, they make a huge difference when you are on the end of a slow link or paying through the nose for each megabyte of data.

None of the sites attempted to show one of those awful TV style advertisements during this test. I hate to think what they might add to the totals.

Update: The National Business Review weighs in at 398Kb.

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When they want to create something that looks like a grass roots campaign, but isn’t, big companies often turn to a strategy known as astroturfing. The Drop the Rate campaign that began yesterday with support from Consumer, Tuanz and 2degrees is a classic example.

At first sight it’s aims are laudable. Lord knows New Zealanders pay way over the odds for mobile phone services. Ostensibly the campaign aims to put pressure on Vodafone and Telecom to cut the mobile termination rate or MTR. This is the amount one phone company has to pay another when customers call between networks.

There’s no question New Zealand’s MTRs are high by international standards. That’s only part of the reason why mobile phones are far more expensive to run here than in Australia – or just about anywhere else. It’s also a major brake on the economy – calls that could be made, possibly should be made, are going unmade because of the high costs involved.

Yet despite it being worthy in principle, there’s something phony (or should that be phoney?) about the Drop the Rate campaign.

For a start, there’s an expensive PR company behind it.

Who is paying Matthew Hooton’s fee? Good on him for getting the job, but you can bet your bottom dollar Exceltium isn’t collecting money from cake stands and sausage sizzles for this work.

Second, 2degrees doesn’t want to talk about the MTRs it pays to Vodafone and Telecom and has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure grass roots, that’s real grass, not astroturf, New Zealanders don’t get to know the rate.

Of course no-one can blame 2degrees for taking part in this kind of stunt. Telecom and Vodafone play hardball. And both can be less than snow-white in their marketing and political lobbying.

Campaign gets wide media coverage

Hooton certainly proved his PR skills. The Kiwi specialist press was full of the story. At The National Business Review Chris Keall expressed some weariness about the campaign in 2degrees again a little sneaky on MTRs at the National Business Review. The story got a good run in the New Zealand Herald and the Dominion Post.

At Computerworld Rob O’Neill seems more willing to take the campaign at face value. His Drop the rate mate’ campaign targets MTRs offers no comment. Paul Clearwater at The Line reports that Vodafone disputes the information on the campaign’s web site in ‘Drop the rate mate’ campaign begins. Telecommunications Review has a couple of stories on the campaign. The un-bylined Public campaign to lower Mobile Termination Rates is little more than an announcement while Sarah Putt’s “Rates are already falling mate” – Telecom gives the main telecommunication carrier’s dismissive response.

Update: Computerworld reports on Hooton’s attack on Telecom and Vodafone in Mobile termination row goes nuclear. The story finishes;

Hooton has words for Telecom, too, as the MTR debate goes white hot.
“Telecom now seems to be saying that it needs to rip off mobile consumers in order to fund more investment in the industry,” he said. “Good luck to Telecom arguing that a cosy duopoly leads to more investment in services and coverage than a more competitive environment.”

My opinion: Hooton proves he is a worthy campaigner against the arrogance of Telecom and Vodafone – clearly he was the right man for the campaign. Despite this, I’m still not comfortable with the astroturfing.

Things might not look too hot at the moment, but pretty soon knowledge worker skills are going to be in demand again and the employers who showed a dark side during the recession will struggle to fill vacancies.

Despite the recession, New Zealand still has a severe shortage of building industry skills and there are pockets of the IT business where vacancies have remained since the global economic meltdown began.

Australia is already showing signs a severe shortage of IT skills could hamper companies and government departments as early as next year. For example in Demand for ICT professionals on the rise, bottom is in Stan Beer at iTNews reports; “The bottom in ICT employment has been reached and demand for skilled jobs is once again on the rise, according to the latest market survey from a major technology recruiter. The news adds to a growing list of evidence of a return to health of the ICT jobs scene.”

A week earlier ITNews covered a report from Australia’s largest recruiter Peoplebank saying the demand for contractors was rising. A similar story appeared in CIO magazine in June with Seek Employment noting the overall job market was stabilising with IT consultants in high demand.

Australia’s ITNews reprinted a story from Britain’s Computing newspaper on July 7 saying the antipodean nation is busily recruiting IT specialist in the UK to meet a shortage.

On a related note, The Australian reported on a skills shortage in research organisations in Upgrade ignores skills shortage. And the New Zealand Herald reports there are many shortages in engineering.

The New Zealand edition of CIO magazine carried a report which suggests the majority of employers in the IT sector still face a skills shortage despite the recession. Despite downturn, opportunities remain for APAC IT candidates suggests one in four tech employers expect to increase their headcount this year. The story singles out specific skills in business analysis, datawarehousing, ERP (Oracle/SAP), web development and infrastructure (architecture) as being of particular interest.”

Some shortsightedness is in evidence in IT training budgets slashed at ITNews which suggests employers have slashed skills spending and can expect to see a serious skills vacuum by 2112.

What does this mean?

First, it’s a safe bet the skills shortage will return to Australia in the next year or so and to New Zealand soon after – the two countries are effectively a single market for knowledge workers. If anything it could be worse than before for a couple of reasons. Many skilled workers will have drifted off into other occupations or even early retirement. At the same time employers have cut back on training during the recession. While there are increased numbers of people taking tertiary courses in technology and similar subjects, many won’t enter the workforce in time for the recovery and they’ll have knowledge, but little experience, which means only a handful will hit the ground running.

Employers who behaved cut back staff, skimped on training or held on to skilled workers and pushed them too hard during the recession will all suffer once the skills shortage kicks in again. Knowledge workers will be able to drive better bargains – and recent experience will teach people to look beyond the pay packet.

Image via Wikipedia

Until the end of the 20^th Century, financial literacy was optional for knowledge workers. Sure there were always people who understood how money worked, but they were usually either senior managers or company accountants.

Nowadays you need to understand basic economics – even if it’s only so you know when to bail out of a failing company, how to look after your personal investments or just navigate through the global financial crisis.

More to the point, knowledge-based skills are now central to the commercial world. So knowledge workers need to be worldlier.

You’ll have to do the hard stuff yourself. At the absolute minimum you should make a point of reading local business news stories every day. Start out by reading about companies that are either partners or direct competitors to your employer or your own business.

Make a point of relating what you read about business up and downs, share price movements and similar news to what you personally know about the company. Pretty soon you’ll realise you probably know at least as much as the so-called professionals – at least in your own niche.

If you’re in Australia. I advise you also read either BRW (http://www.brw.com.au) or the Australian Financial Review (http://www.afr.com.au). You don’t have to carry newsprint around – both publications have good web sites. Though you will have to pay for the content and it isn’t cheap. Buying the printed newspapers is far cheaper than subscribing online and you only need to buy the print paper when you’ve got enough time to digest it.

The feature stories are where you’ll learn the most because feature writers are less inclined to assume you know all the background and jargon.

If you’re strapped for time, the weekend edition of the Financial Review is your best bet. It has the strongest financial features of any local publication.

These days The Australian has a strong business section, though it tends to run fewer features than the AFR. The Australian’s content is available online for free – in fact the web site often includes breaking stories throughout the day that do not necessarily appear in print.

New Zealand’s strongest business publication is The National Business Review. A lot of the paper’s best material doesn’t appear online. I personally recommend its features. While both the New Zealand Herald and the Fairfax newspapers including the Dominion-Post have busy-looking business news sections, they compare poorly with the the Australian business press. Frankly they are seriously under-resourced.

Which means it can pay to look overseas to understand local events. I subscribe to The Economist (www.economist.com) and Businessweek (http://www.businessweek.com). Again, both have good web sites – though only paying subscribers to the print editions get to see the best stuff. And, like the Financial Review and BRW, both offer plenty of background.

Pure online financial news services (for example Bloomberg www.bloomberg.com) tend to be written for insiders – you’ll get the news, but fewer explanations. On the other hand, their news is more up to date.

Of course, there isn’t enough time to read everything published in all these publications. Learn to be selective. Pick out the juicy bits and move on. Apart from your own niche interests, make a point of reading the big picture and currency stories to get an idea of where the Australian or New Zealand economy as a whole is heading.

Ex-pat kiwis looking to return home may need to rethink their plans with unemployment set to rise sharply. The latest Hudson Report, Hiring Expectations says New Zealand’s employers don’t expect to be taking on many new workers in the coming months and many expect to cut staff numbers.

Under the headline ‘Employer hiring expectations tumble’, Niko Kloeten at The National Business Review writes; “Unemployment looks set to jump – a new survey shows 24% of New Zealand employers are looking to shed permanent staff in the next three months.” The NBR says the figures are the worst since the first Hudson Report was published in 1999.

Things are particularly bad in the IT sector. IT Brief (a trade publication) reports; “The sector has entered into a cautious phase as businesses around New Zealand continue to downsize, recruitment specialist Hudson says.” The company’s recent report showed the IT industry had experience a 28.4 percent decline.

In ‘Employers’ hiring expectations plummet’ The New Zealand Herald quotes Hudson executive general manager Marc Burrage saying; “”With cost and demand pressures on businesses mounting, some employers have had to rapidly reassess their workforce strategies. We are seeing some employers talking to their employees about reductions in salary levels or offering flexible working practices, such as job sharing, to help retain the talent they’ve worked so hard to develop.”

Last night a large number of my neighbours switched off their power for Earth Hour. It didn’t appear to be a particularly unusual event.

That’s because there have been at least four major power cuts in my North Shore suburb since I moved there at the end of 2004.

In the last five years, the power would have been off for roughly one day in every year. I’ve also seen two disruptive power cuts while working in Auckland’s central business district. In at least one of those cases, the city, and my newspaper, lost an entire day’s production.

Earlier this year the upmarket suburbs of Newmarket and Parnell suffered two more power cuts. The New Zealand Herald covered the story on February 19 in Power restored to Auckland suburbs saying shop keepers’ confidence in Vector (the local power company) was at an all time low.

As we shall see, that is saying something.

Not good enough

To be frank, it just isn’t good enough. Admittedly things in Auckland aren’t as bad as, say, Manila or Jakarta, but for a first world country like New Zealand, frequent power cuts are not a good look.

Ten years ago when US President Bill Clinton visited Auckland for the APEC meeting he brought a portable electricity generator. It was parked outside his chic city centre hotel on the back of a large, dark, unmarked truck that some locals dubbed the ‘stealth generator’.

In any other major western city, Clinton’s precaution might have seemed over the top. His hosts probably would have been insulted.

But Auckland is different. A year and a half before the leader of the free world flew into New Zealand’s largest city, the locals were checking their shopping change by candlelight when the Auckland’s lights went out and stayed out for almost six weeks.

Wikipedia entry on 1998 Auckland power crisis.

Even now, more than ten years after that blackout, many Auckland residents fear their city’s power supply is still not secure. With good reason because at 8:30 on 12th June 2006 the power went off again. Half of Auckland including the entire CBD was without power for over four hours. Some parts of the city suffered a longer outage.

Wikipedia entry on 2006 Auckland power cut

The problems are partly a result of over zealous free market reforms. The greed and arrogance of power company managers are also a factor.

There’s an obvious parallel here with the global financial crisis.

And then there are New Zealand’s ridiculous planning laws. These have ensured no new power stations have been built to meet booming demand. Thankfully this looks set to change with the new Kaipara gas-fired power station finally getting the green light. But that’s only the start. More, much more, is needed.

The robust networks needed to transmit power from where ever it is generated into the city are still frequently held up by endless bureaucracy and over the top planning processes.

At the time of earlier crises, Auckland’s power supply depended on four cables: two gas-filled cables and two oil-filled cables. On 22 January 1998, one of the gas-filled cables failed. Power wasn’t disrupted as the remaining three cables took up the load.

On 9 February, the second gas-filled cable was cut. The power went off and Mercury Energy Limited, which operated the cables, asked its customer to voluntarily reduce power consumption by 10 percent.

On 19 February, the emergency started in earnest when a fault in one of the oil-filled cables caused both remaining cables to shut down, cutting off all power to the city.

Mercury repaired one of the cables quickly, but it could only supply a reduced load. Power rationing was introduced to the city centre, which saw rolling two-hour power cuts.

At 5.30pm on Friday 20 February, the final cable failed. Mercury issued a statement that it “could no longer supply the Central Business District with electricity”. A limited standby cable managed to provide power to the district’s two hospitals and other emergency services.

For more than five weeks the nation’s largest city was plunged into chaos. Many businesses had little choice but to close down temporarily. Others relocated staff to other New Zealand cities or even flew them to Australia.

50,000 workers affected

At least 50,000 workers and 8,500 businesses were affected. The costs were estimated at around $NZ400 million, though that figure does not include tourism, international trade and financial services. In a small nation like New Zealand, the shut-down was serious enough to tip an already fragile economy into recession.

Who knows how much investment hasn’t happened because of the flakey infrstructure?

At the time of the blackout, Jim Macaulay, chairman of Mercury Energy, the company that supplied Auckland’s electricity, told the media, “It’s the most incredible, freakish bad luck you could ever imagine.” However, the government inquiry into the blackout found that there were many warnings that such an event could occur.

Well, it could happen again. Earth Hour should have acted as a reminder to people living in a city where power and light can’t entirely be taken for granted.