By: Larry Williams | Friday, November 02, 2012 4:39 PM

THE WEEK THAT WAS

ON HURRICANE SANDY

The super storm dominated the headlines this week. It ripped through the eastern seaboard of the US causing tens of billions of dollars worth of damage and taking around 80 lives.

Communities, towns and cities on their knees. Sandy packed a punch. Already the climate changers are on the bandwagon.

Al Gore was first cab off the rank to blame it all on climate change. Gore can see more bucks being made. He's right of course. It does have something to do with the climate. I suppose the climate had something to do with the storms hundreds of years ago too.

 

ON US ELECTION

The consensus is that Obama is on track to secure his second term. Certainly the exposure and the way he has handled the storm hasn't done him any harm.

My gut feel is that Obama will win but I think its far from a done deal. The result depends on which poll and which media outlet is feeding the story. They skew towards their favourite.

The electoral college vote system can be a funny thing. If Romney can takeaway just a few key states, which are line calls right now, then Romney could win.

That is a fact.

One thing that could hurt Obama is that in 2008 there was a massive turnout of ethnic and young people backing him. They may not turn out this time round.

But I still think Obama will get across the line.

 

ON HOUSING

The Governments response to housing affordability might miss the mark.

The key area is lower cost housing. Entry level housing. That is what has to be addressed.

Freeing up some land and fast tracking the resource consent process will not create lower cost housing by itself.  It will not deliver low cost, large scale housing developments.

What is needed is a partnership with central and local government to build low cost entry level affordable homes.

The rest will look after itself. Its called supply and demand.

Peoples expectations need to lower as well. First home buyers need to set their sights lower. You don't start in Ponsonby, Parnell or Remuera.

 

ON SAS

The PM had to deny a report that our SAS troops had been redeployed to Afghanistan to carry out a "revenge mission" for the killings of five New Zealand soldiers.

The claim was made by Jon Stephenson a journalist in Afghanistan.

The PM rejected the claim outright and there it ends.

If Mr Stephenson thought he was going to get much support for his 'shock and awe' claim he was dead wrong.

I think the majority would support the SAS tracking down the insurgents that killed the Kiwis and dispatching them.

Its what soldiers do.

 

ON WINZ

A damning report into security failures at the Social Development Ministry finds the department failed to appropriately test its systems and underestimated the risk to privacy.

Four employment investigations are also underway.

The privacy breach was revealed last month, with a blogger able to access the information of 7,300 items of data from a Work and Income kiosk, including the personal information of 1432 people.

This is the most basic of blunders. Its is gross incompetence. To fail to separate the kiosk computer from the rest of the Winz system is beyond belief more so after they were warned. Heads will roll.

But I still smell a rat.