Popular swimming spots contaminated; Mike Williams gives up plum posts; house prices levelling off; under-qualified school principals appointed by "anti-intellectual" school boards; IT has lost its lustre for tertiary students; slow start to Christmas shopping

Swimmers at nearly a third of the country's most popular swimming spots risk getting campylobacter and ear, eye and skin infections, reports the Herald. A new Consumer New Zealand survey found 29 percent of beaches, lakes and rivers have bacteria levels high enough for the Environment Ministry to recommend staying out of the water. Among the swimming spots ranked "very poor" were Ocean Beach stream in Northland and Kawakawa Bay south of Auckland.

Outgoing Labour Party leader Mike Williams has resigned from the boards of Genesis Energy, the New Zealand Transport Agency, and GNS Science, reports the Herald. Prime Minister John Key said Mr Williams should stand down from the Government-appointed boards because he was there "purely for political favour". "He isn't appointed because of his commercial ability or commercial nous, he's there because he was a friend of Helen Clark, he was the Labour Party president."

The worst of the house-price fall could be behind us, with a leveling off of price drops in the latest figures from Quotable Value. The November price drop was the same as October's--the first time since August last year that prices have not dropped more than the previous month, reports the Dominion Post. The national average house sale price is now $375,408.

An education researcher says "illiterate, sexist and anti-intellectual" school boards are appointing under-qualified candidates to principal's jobs throughout the country, reports the Press. Keren Brooking of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research found one in five primary school principals had no qualification higher than a two-year teaching diploma, and only 8 per cent of boards chose principals for their leadership abilities.

The number of graduates coming out of tertiary institutions with IT qualifications has halved in the past four years, leaving huge gaps in the job market. Since the dot-com bust, IT was seen as a second-rate career choice, said University of Auckland computer science professor John Hosking.

Christmas shoppers are putting off their purchases till the last minute, according to the Dominion Post. The low spending figures in November, coupled with Christmas Day falling on a Thursday this year, suggested shoppers were waiting till the last minute, said Paymark, which handles electronic transactions.