By: Larry Williams | Tuesday, August 07, 2012 6:36 PM

The Olympics, issues surrounding water, bail laws and house prices are the subject of tonight's memo.

Olympics

Valerie Adams didn't have her best day at the office. 

Her silver in the shot put was for sure a great effort but she was going for gold. I'm guessing she might be a tad disappointed.

However, the woman from Belarus did throw the shot further than Adams has ever thrown it, so silver for Adams was probably a fair result. 

The Black Sticks go through to the semi's in the women's hockey after they held Germany to a nil-all draw. This was a great result considering Germany had thumped them earlier this year.

We are set for a silver in the sailing and tonight we have the mens triathlon.

Water

The Maori Party and the Government had a two hour hui last night to try and sort out the issues over water. 

The Maori Party wanted a pan Maori deal. The PM appears to have already ruled this out saying water issues should be sorted out "river by river, iwi by iwi".

The result is that Dr Pita Sharples is saying that he expects the Maori water rights wrangle to end up in court. He also boldly says that the asset sales will be delayed. Time will tell.

The Government says it will wait to get the Waitangi Tribunal report before making a decision on the IPO for Mighty River. This is surely semantics. Logic says that the IPO will and should proceed on schedule. Maori trying to screw another deal shouldn't bring the IPO to a halt.

Bail laws

23 people were convicted of murders committed while free on bail over a five-year period. 

Now that is bad enough, but it gets worse. A further 21 convicted of "homicide-related" offences committed while on bail. These included manslaughter, attempted murder and driving causing death.

Clearly a lot of these murders wouldn't have occurred had the judges sided with the police rather than the criminal defence lawyers.

The Bail Amendment Bill that about to be debated, one of its changes would reverse the burden of proof for serious violent and sexual offenders. Defendants would have to prove to the court that they would not be a threat to public safety if released on bail.

This can't come soon enough but it still relies on judges to get it right.

House prices

Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard says that house prices still look "overvalued and expensive". That has got to be an understatement.

NZ house prices are quite simply ridiculous. They are way over priced. You get much better bang for your buck in comparable countries. Paying a million bucks for an old villa in Grey Lynn will eventually come back to bite people in the bum. It's a recipe for disaster.

Photo: Photosport