http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2007/11/dom-post-slams-government.html

This country needs a better system than MMP
This country needs a small second House
This country needs a powerful Select Committee process that is not controlled by party-politics of the lowest order.

he point is, this is all about Labour winning the next election at all costs.

They have already shown that they don;t give a toss about our civil liberties or human rights, only about holding onto power.

Plus I hear various commentators talking about how ‘reasonable’ Helen Clark is in a ‘it could never happen here’ sort of way. But it is happening here. To claim otherwise is to be in a state of denial.

I can’t see the coppers chasing down every person who puts out a newsletter saying “We think the [insert Government idea here] won’t work” or “[Insert candidate name here] is running for Parliament and he/she’s a top joker/sheila and will do wonders for our electorate”.

Never mind all the people who don’t give a fuck about politics getting shitty once they get caught up in it.

Perhaps it’s about time we started seeing the costs of developing and implementing legislation included in Bills when they come before the House.

No wonder Lynne Pillay was so evasive when asked about the timetable for reporting back the EFB in Questions to Members the other day.

“Questions to Members

Electoral Finance Bill—Select Committee Timetable

1. HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) to the Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee: What is the committee’s timetable in relation to the Electoral Finance Bill?

LYNNE PILLAY (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee): The House has referred the bill to the committee for report back by 25 January 2008. Further detail of the possible progress is committee proceedings, and is confidential until the committee reports back to the House.

Heather Roy: Does she believe that the Crown Law Office was correct in telling the High Court yesterday that this bill would not be reported back to the House until 25 January 2008, well after the bill is due to become law, and, in effect, by 1 January?

Madam SPEAKER: No, the member has no responsibility.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: Can I ask the member who chairs the committee as to whether she understands the constitutional propriety of a claimant down town using a political party in this House to tell a parliamentary select committee what its timetable should be.

Madam SPEAKER: That is not appropriate, either.

Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. That is entirely what is going on here. It is appropriate when this House is being called into question or is being challenged from outside that we should know the grounds on which it is being challenged. We know why this case is being brought. We know who is behind the complainant and who the plaintiff is, and we know what the plaintiff wants to know. But to use a member of Parliament to challenge a select committee to set its timetable is entirely constitutionally wrong.

Gerry Brownlee: The issue here is that there is an action currently before the courts. There is a matter that the court will have to hear and, presumably, rule on. Where the difficulty arises is that the courts have gone to Parliament’s programme—to the book that is published quite frequently—and have looked at the report-back date for this particular bill, and it says 15 January. So the courts have said that if this matter is to be heard on 25 November, then there is plenty of time for whatever judgment may arise from that to be considered before the matter is reported back to the House. The problem arises from the fact that the time in which a select committee reports back is pretty much in the hands of the committee and, in fact, in the hands of the chair of that committee. So the simple question is whether the select committee will be reporting this bill back to the House before the court can hear the submission by those who are putting the issue before the court, or whether the select committee will respect the process that the court has to go through. I do not think it is unreasonable that the chair of the select committee should be able to outline exactly what her thinking is on the role that the select committee has when there is this sort of action before a court.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: I do not remember the exact wording in the question, but it seems to me that the question asked for the select committee chairperson to comment on what Crown Law told the court. She bears no responsibility for that, at all.

Madam SPEAKER: The difficulty we have here, I think, is that this is a matter for the committee and not for the chair alone. It was on that ground that I felt it was inappropriate.

Hon Bill English: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think there is just a bit more to it than the issues you have considered. I mean, it is legitimate enough, but we often do have contention about process between Parliament and the courts. Sometimes it is Parliament’s correct role to ignore what the courts are doing, but this seems to me to be a time when Parliament could cooperate with the legal system. This is simply because the judge has made a decision on the basis of wrong information published by Parliament. Parliament has published a date for the report back. The court and the parties to those proceedings have relied on that information. The judge has published a decision. It seems to me to be somewhat churlish if Parliament says: “Well, it’s nothing to do with us. We have published information that’s misleading, and the court has made decisions on the hearings based on it, but it is nothing to do with us.” It is a simple matter for the select committee chairperson to state correctly when she, or the Government, intends that report back to happen, and then the legal process in New Zealand can follow through in the way that the judge and, I am sure, all the participants in the case intend. It seems odd that because Parliament will decide, on the basis of a very narrow technical definition, what a select committee chairperson is responsible for, we are going to frustrate the proceedings of the High Court, when Parliament was responsible for misleading it in the first place.

Hon Dr Michael Cullen: First of all, let me come back to the simple point: a question was asked of a select committee chairperson, a question for which she is not responsible. She is not responsible for what the High Court was told by Crown Law. If anybody is responsible, it is me, as Attorney-General. Secondly, of course, the only report-back date that can be in the public arena is that date by which the committee has to report. The committee at this point cannot say that it is reporting back on such-and-such a date. The committee may or may not do that; that is within its own competence at the present time. I also say that one of the issues in this case is whether the High Court can consider a matter that is a proceeding before Parliament, and I would hope that colleagues might support Parliament over politics of a party matter in that sort.

Madam SPEAKER: I thank the members, but the matter is not as simple as it has been put. This is a matter for the select committee. It is not a matter for the chair of the select committee—or of any select committee—to prejudge what a select committee will do. That ruling is according to the Standing Orders. “

What’s the bet that it says that members of the Exclusive Brethren Church are forbidden to conduct any political activity, and must register, and wear yellow stars……..

Problem solved, eh, DPF? Would you have any issues with that?

Your point about the Declaratory Judgments Act is an interesting one, but I suspect you have missed the effect of these words “The jurisdiction hereby conferred”. Section 10 therefore only applies if the jurisdiction to grant declaratory relief is conferred by the Act itself. The appropriate section is section 3:

Where any person has done or desires to do any act the validity, legality, or effect of which depends on the construction or validity of any statute, or any regulation made by the Governor-General in Council under statutory authority, or any bylaw made by a local authority, or any deed, will, or document of title, or any agreement made or evidenced by writing, or any memorandum or articles of association of any company or body corporate, or any instrument prescribing the powers of any company or body corporate; or

such person may apply to the [High Court] by originating summons … for a declaratory order determining any question as to the construction or validity of such statute, regulation, bylaw, deed, will, document of title, agreement, memorandum, articles, or instrument, or of any part thereof.

Sorry, we live in interesting times. Things will have to get a lot worse before they might get better, and they might never get better. Next time there are commies in power all over the place you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll have learnt their lessons from history and there won’t BE another “fall of the Berlin Wall”.

Stupid, stupid rightwingers. All these decades that you’ve been looking for ways to better your lot and the lot of your children, the right conditions to prosper, (free market, etc.), the hard Left have been busily filling all the posts where it really, really matters in the long term – journalism, education, legal circles, social policy, even the “churches”. Here we were at the end of the Cold War, thinking that Marxism was terminally discredited and gone for ever. Sorry guys, it was a classic, classic, classic, Trojan Horse ploy. The Marxists are inside the gates and everywhere you look.

This is the same all over the Western world. Our only hope is that N.Z. will lead the way a little prematurely and the rest of the free world will wake up in time, particularly the Aussies.

“We are opposed to the government’s legislation because it’s anti democratic and we will repeal it if we are the government. The media are now getting interested in it – expect more coverage over the next few weeks as the legislation comes back to the House.
Regards
Bill English”

Cheers Bill

I also find it unbelievable that the other parties such as Winston first and Dunny boy and the Greens would want to have a bar of this bill as overall it tilts the playing field towards firstly the ruling party then the main parties with the most MP’s and it manifestly disadvantages smaller parties.
It is probably the nastiest attempt to get around MMP ever seen because of the way it tilts the spending power of the incumbent.

Hang on, weren’t your lot complaining about Hone Harawira’s comments about breaking the law?

I think that what has happened here Tane is that your (and other Labour apologists) reasoning is being used. You know – like it was OK for Labour to overspend in the 2005 election becasue other parties were doing it. So it’s OK to break the law as long as you are not the only one.

Besides, if spending and extra $800K didn’t effect the 2005 election then distributing 10,000 flyers at a cost of perhaps $100 will not have any impact at all.

The current government is consumed with self-interest. Nothing matters anymore, nothing, except a fourth term. And Clark, in true Muldoon fashion, has shown that she will stop at nothing to achieve it.

Reason. The members are conflicted.

A search of the web defines Conflict of Interest as follows

“A conflict between a persons private interest and public obligations”

Now would anyone like to explain how the MPs are no conflicted.

They want to get re elected. This legislation will assist those who support it to get re elected

Your comments please.

The Nats are apparently sitting on a mountain of cash and they can mount a decent campaign against this socialist crap. Do you think that Labour are just going to sit back and let the Nats spend this money to win the next election ? I don’t think so – they get away with this and they will try something else to further stack the deck in their favour. Now is the time for action – not after these Bills go through.