Kiwiblog

After a three month break due to the paucity of polls post-election, Curia’s regular monthly newsletter returns.

The average of the public polls has National a massive 27% ahead of Labour and easily able to govern alone. The gap at the election was 11%.

Australia sees Labor on 60.5% for a 22% lead.

In the United States Barack Obama has a net positive rating of 31% and we compare this to Bush and Clinton in their first 100 days.

The UK Labour Party is 14% behind the Conservatives who are projected to have a 1000 seat majority on these results.

In Canada the Conservatives are down to 34%, just 2% ahead of the Liberals.

We also carry details of polls in NZ. There are details of polls on job sentiment, the Labour leadership, relationships and the Government’s handling of the recession.

A new feature this month compares the right vs wrong direction poll ratings for New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the US and the UK. There is a massive difference between countries.

If you would like to receive the full newsletterby e-mail go to http://listserver.actrix.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/polling-newsletter to subscribe yourself.

NZPA quotes Rodney Hide:

ACT leader Rodney Hide wants the controversial Internet copyright law repealed and says he will recommend that to the Government.

“It’s one of the stupidest new laws imposed by Labour and I am taking steps to get rid of it,” he said at his party’s annual conference in Auckland today.

“It should be repealed…it is fundamentally flawed because it breaches the principles of natural justice. It makes people guilty without trial and that is wrong.”

Go Rodney.

Pablo at Kiwipolitico looks at how the change of Government may impact the SIS:

The new Parliamentary Intelligence and Oversight Committee has been announced, and it has the potential to be a milestone for intelligence oversight in NZ. Tariana Turia and Rodney Hide were appointed by John Key (who chairs the committee), and Russell Norman was chosen by Phil Goff (who also serves on the committee). Turia and Norman lead parties that have had their members spied on by the SIS or Police, and Hide has opposed on libertarian grounds the expansion of security based constraints on civil liberties (he opposed passing of the Terrorism Suppression Act, among other things). Thus three out of the five new members have been critical of the intelligence services, which is in stark contrast to previous members during the Fifth Labour government. Although the possibility of their being coopted cannot  be discounted, there is an equal if not greater possibility that their appointment signals a shared belief by Mr. Key and Mr. Goff that the time has come for a review of the way intelligence operations are conducted in NZ.

Interestingly while Goff nominated Norman, John Key had to approve the nomination in advance. So there does appear to a deliberate decision to do things differently to under Helen.

Lets hope so. There are already signs that moves in that direction are afoot–Mr. Key’s request of the SIS Inspector General to report to him on the domestic spying programme and SIS Director-General Warren Tucker’s apparent commitment to more transparency being two examples.

It is almost unprecedented to have the PM intervene on behalf of a political opponent of his, and order a review of the SIS’s actions in relation to that person. The outcome of the inquiry will be interesting.

The Dom Post’s editorial on Thursday was about Colin Feslier and the misleading over Winston’s car:

This newspaper has never found Mr Feslier, a former Radio New Zealand journalist and press secretary to Labour cabinet minister Margaret Wilson, easy to deal with: he dithers, he stalls and he obfuscates. But it is one thing to be unhelpful and another to mislead. No-one could read his email exchanges with journalists and colleagues and conclude that this was not his purpose.

Harsh language, but true it seems.

His sins are not in the same league as those of the former Immigration Service spokesman who was found a few years ago to have “deliberately dissembled” over the existence of the infamous “lie in unison” memo, but they are indicative of an unhealthy culture that has developed within some, but not all, parts of the public service as the number of spin doctors employed by government agencies has mushroomed.

And the lie in unison memo was covered up also in an internal whitewash.

Presumably, Mr Feslier acted as he did because he wanted to spare his bosses embarrassment over the 10 weeks it had taken them to try to reclaim public property from Mr Peters property that might still be unaccounted for if the news media had not asked questions.

But it is not his job to burnish his bosses’ images or to shield them from legitimate public scrutiny. Nor is it his job to deny the public access to information it is entitled to have.

Hopefully OIA requests will also be dealt with in a more timely manner.

From Stuff:

Transport Minister Steven Joyce has made the introduction of drug tests for drivers his “top priority”.

A bill, which would give police the power to stop and make drivers have a roadside test for drug impairment, is before Parliament’s select committee.

Drafted by the previous Labour Government, the bill failed to get through the select committee stage in 2007.

Mr Joyce has now put the bill forward again and believes it will be passed by the middle of the year.

It certainly is a serious problem:

An ESR study between 2004 and 2008 found 52 per cent of drivers that died in accidents were under the influence or alcohol or drugs.

What I don’t know if how any testing will determine if the drug use was recent (ie is currently impairing the driver) or historical. Off memory cannabis can remain in your bloodstream for weeks or longer.

The ODT has a story of a student who made free money from his interest free loans. Now there were bank loans, not the government student loans, but the principle is the same in terms of highlighting why it is a bad idea.

Of course the interest free bank loans are a deliberate loss leader to try and get students to join their bank, hoping they will remain with them. And it tends to work as a strategy.

At school I banked with Wesptpac after winning a bank account (and some money) in an Australasian maths competion. But at university went with BNZ for the interest free overdraft and have stayed with them ever since.

John Armstrong covers the divisions within ACT over their u-turn to support the gang patch ban bill:

All such talk of free expression seemed to have been conveniently put to one side last week, however, as Act executed a 180 degree about turn and voted for a private member’s bill banning gang members from wearing their patches in public areas within the boundaries of Wanganui city – a bill Hide had previously described as “rubbish”.

The concession was made in the hope of securing a far bigger gain – passage of Act’s “three strikes and you’re out” bill. However, this pragmatic decision to back the gang patches bill promoted by the National MP Chester Borrows has been greeted with dismay by some party members.

Angry responses have been posted on blog sites from activists saying they did not stuff envelopes or knock on doors during the election campaign to see the party backing laws curbing individual rights – be they those of ordinary citizens, gang members or whomever.

And some of those activists have bene involved since the beginning.

Act is hoping that its voting for Borrows’ bill will make National – and particularly the more liberal-inclined Justice Minister Simon Power – look more kindly at the part of the new Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill which is Act policy.

In its current state, the bill is an amalgam of both parties’ positions. They are reasonably compatible when it comes to sentencing someone convicted of a first or second violent offence. Where Act and National differ markedly is in the case of someone committing a third such offence.

Under Act’s provisions, a violent offender would go to jail for 25 years minimum without parole full stop. National’s position is less severe in allowing judges to exercise discretion.

Armstrong is one of the few to catch on that the difference between National and ACT is only at the third strike.

Armstrong concludes:

A high-profile measure of that added-value will be the wording in the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill when it emerges from Parliament’s select committee.

If the bill shows National has heeded the wishes of its support partner to some degree, then trampling over the rights of gang members in Wanganui will be seen by most, though not all, of those in Act to have been fully justified.

There will be pressure for there to be some sort of compromise between National and ACT on what happens with a third strike.

Fran O’Sullivan focuses on Muray McCully:

Cabinet Minister Murray McCully is under strict orders from his boss to do “whatever it takes” to ensure the 2011 Rugby World Cup is an outstanding success. …

The timing of the tournament couldn’t be better for New Zealand. Amid the incessant doom-and-gloom talk, it is easy to overlook the fact that in just over two years 60,000 to 70,000 visitors will likely track here for a contest that has the potential to generate more than $1 billion of economic activity and pump more than half a billion dollars into the New Zealand economy.

That is what goes with the territory of being host country for the world’s third-largest sporting contest.

It hasn’t really sunk in how big the event has become.

The RWC organisers have so far done a stirling job by opting for 13 venues that have capitalised on their pledge to the International Rugby Board to provide a “stadium of four million people”, and ensured that virtually all regions of New Zealand have an opportunity to drive extra business.

That has gone down very well.

The rapport between McCully and Groser is palpable, with either politician easily able to represent the full range of New Zealand’s interests in their meetings with other foreign or trade ministers either at home or overseas.

For instance, it was McCully who fleshed out the timetable for the recent announcement of negotiations on the bilateral trade deal with Korea during the visit of Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yu Myung-hwan to Wellington in January.

This is a return to normality after the embarrassing charade played out under the Labour Government when its Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, sat outside the Cabinet and not only “didn’t do trade”, but reserved the right to oppose deals like the Chinese free trade agreement which did not fit with his party’s agenda.

Even worse the Foreign Minister was running large newspaper ads trying to stir up opposition to the deal, before the ink was barely dry from the PM signing it.

Both McCully and Groser favour a shake-up at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to ensure greater concentration on the relationships likely to bear greatest economic fruit for New Zealand and/or bolster the country’s presence on the world stage.

The foreign affairs establishment is already kicking back at plans to bring NZAid back within MFAT’s firmament and ensuring more of the aid is directly tied to New Zealand’s interests. McCully has not handled this issue as smoothly as he could. But overall he has made an impressive debut in his prime portfolios.

It’s good to have Fran writing on an issue other than why National should cancel the tax cuts

Three good posts worth checking out on Whale Oil:

1. A graphic of what a trillion dollars in $100 notes looks like compared to a person.
2. His discovery that one of the entrants for Miss Tui works for Rodney Hide. He even supplies instructions on how to vote for Miss Samantha Rodgers.
3. Some great quotes from question time yesterday.

Today’s Dom Post editorial:

The annual cost of claims paid out by ACC has grown 12 per cent a year, and is expected to top $3 billion this year. A more generous approach to funding physiotherapy, adopted in 2004, was expected to cost $8.9 million, but has been growing at nine times that. This financial year, it is expected to be $139 million.

An extension of the medical misadventure provisions in 2005, when they cost $42 million, was expected to increase costs by $8.7 million a year. Instead, this financial year, ACC expects to spend $82 million. The real cost of the 2007 extensions to the scheme in 13 areas, estimated to cost $75 million a year, is, according to the Government, still unknown.

It is amazing this info never came out earlier.

The options the Government has are to raise levies, cut costs, cut cover or, most probably, a combination of the three.

Yes, but also to move out the date for full funding from 2014.

The trick for the Government now is to reform the ACC scheme so it is affordably workable but still delivers on the social contract.

It’s about saving ACC. Labour’s planned $47 a week levy increase for the average household must not be allowed to occur.

The Dom Post reports:

A planned regional tax that threatened to add up to 10c to every litre of fuel will be scrapped. …

Transport Minister Steven Joyce will ditch the tax when he announces changes to transport funding next week. He said yesterday that a package of announcements would be made, including funding alternatives to the controversial 10c-a-litre tax introduced by Labour.

The Government was not convinced the regional tax made sense, Mr Joyce said. The tax and other increases to fuel levies planned for the next three years would mount up for motorists.

“In the Auckland region, by 2011 there’d be a 14c-a-litre extra tax and so we really wanted to have a close look at that.”

The fuel tax plan gave regional councils the power to charge up to 10c a litre on petrol and diesel to fund roading and public transport projects. Many councils around the country have already put a lot of work into the scheme and have all but spent the potential proceeds.

Keep cost increases down is laudable, but like the newspaper I am unsure where the funding will now come from.

I’m possibly one of the few advocates for a greater fuel tax. Why?

Well all proposed new roads get evaluated a cost:benefit formula. Now I have not checked recently but I think we only fund projects that say have a 3:1 or even 4:1 or grater benefit to cost ratio.

We also then have the Government hand pick certain roads as more important than others, because of limited funds.

So what I would do is to specify all roads over a certain benefit to cost ratio be automatically funded. 1:1 might be too low as there is some uncertainity over the calculations, but say fund everything over 1.5:1. And then have the fuel tax automatically adjust to be able to fund those projects. That way there is no cherry picking, we get better roads, but also motorists are paying the full costs of a roading network.

I would not fund public transport from the fuel tax. I support public transport but beleive it should be funded from general taxation as a competing priority like other public good expenditures.

Funding them both from petrol tax turn it into a battle of roads vs trains (for example) and it is not a choice. Unless we stop growing we are always going to need both more roads and more public transport. They complement each other – they are not substitutes.

Anyway I will be interested to see what the Government does.

The Dom Post has covered the story about funding a third staff member for MPs with very large electorates.

Their story is a significant improvement on the beatup on TV3 last night. They correctly identify that this was part of the confidence and supply deal made last year. What they failed to do though is to mention that it was implementing a recommendation made by an independent reviewer of parliamentary resources. That is a key ingredient in this story.

They also confirmed that Tamaki Makaurau did not get any extra resource as it is relatively small. I am glad of that, because that was part of my criticism of the agreement last November, that it should not go to all seven Maori seats.

The Dom Post does make one clear factual error:

Under the coalition deal with the Maori Party, National agreed to fund extra staff members for the large Maori electorates, but the Cabinet extended the funding to include others in the same boat, such as Mr English and Mr Auchinvole, whose Clutha-Southland and West Coast electorates were equally vast.

Nope. The coalition deal always specified that extra resources should go to both the Maori electorates and electorates over 20,000 sq kms. Cabinet did not extend the funding beyond that deal. And that coverage is exactly what the Goulter Review recommended. Cabinet actually restricted the funding by excluding Tamaki Makaurau.

Having corrected the facts, it is worth now considering the merits of the decision. It is certainly open to criticism about whether or not it is a priority with belt tightening elsewhere due to the recession. But I would suggest some caution about just seeing this as a perk for MPs.

When you are an electorate MP, your electorate staff spend a huge amount of time working on constituent issues who are having problems with Immigration, WINZ, ACC, and other agencies. People might be amazed at how much time a good MP and their staff spend on constituent assistance.

Now people do like to actually go into an MPs office and meet with the MP or their staff. In urban areas this is easy as you can get to the office within minutes.

In rural areas it can take over an hour to get to the closest office – sometimes well beyond that. And almost every rural MP already has two offices (as they get funded for two staff) so constituents have less distance to to travel.  More offices actually means more travel for the MPs as they have to make appearances at all of them, but less for constituents needing assistance.

Now six of the Maori seats are huge. Te Tai Tonga is the entire South Island and Wellington. So a third staffer means you can have an office in Christchurch, Dunedin and Wellington. Even then constituents can end up having to drive hours to get to their MPs office.

The West Coast-Tasman electorate can take 13 hours to drive from one end to another.

Now as I said, one can criticise this as badly timed with the recession. However it is worth considering that in a recession more constituents end up needing to enlist the help of an MP when trying to get assistance from various govt agencies.

A nice story in the Herald:

People who still have jobs are reaching deeper into their pockets to help those who are being made redundant.

Churches and social agencies say individual giving is rising in the recession, even though some trusts have been forced to cut back donations.

Auckland City Mission fundraiser Alexis Sawyers said more people were giving to the mission, and some long-term donors who normally gave $50 were now giving $100.

It is going to be very tough for a lot of the families over the next couple of years at least.  Nice to see people stepping up to the challenge.

The NZ Herald reports:

A woman who was seven months pregnant when caught drink-driving for the eighth time went straight to the pub after a court appearance yesterday.

Call me judgemental but I think CYF should be grabbing the baby when he or she is born.

Her breath-alcohol level was measured at 994mcg per litre of breath – 594mcg over the legal limit.

Not sure what is more likely to do damage – the high levels of alcohol while pregnant, or the probability of a crash because you are driving while pissed.

It was her eighth drink-driving conviction and her 15th for driving while disqualified.

And just consider how many times she has actually driven drunk and/or disqualified. Several hundred probably.

Brown had denied the two charges but changed her pleas to guilty in January. She was remanded on bail only because she is the sole caregiver of her two children and is looking after her partner’s children while he is in jail, Rotorua’s Daily Post reported.

I have doubts they are particularly safe either.

TV3 just did a shock expose story on something that has been in the public domain since November 2008. Just because they didn’t do research doesn’t excuse them saying:

Had this not been leaked, it raises the question of whether National would have ever told anyone.

The issue is the agreement to fund an extra staff member in Out of Parliament offices of MPs whose electorate is larger than 20,000 sq km or is a Maori seat. I’ll come back to the merits of the policy later. But first the total beatup that this was some sort of secret only revealed by leaked documents. Have a look at the actual supply and confidence agreement signed by National and the Maori Party on the 16th of November 2008. It says:

The challenges of servicing the disproportionately large size of the Maori electorates will be addressed through immediate implementation of the recommendation from the March 2007 report of the Committee of the Third Triennial Review (Goulter report).

There is inequity in respect of the support that Parliament provides the very large electorates compared to the very small ones. One comparison is between Te Tai Tonga (147,000 sq km) and Epsom (22 sq km).

So this was as public as you can get. The supply and confidence agreement was massively reported on at the time. TV3 has stuffed up big time by painting this as some sort of hidden initiative.

The other aspect totally lacking in the TV3 story was what this decision was based on. As the supply and confidence agreement states, it was recommended by a neutral independent reviewer (John Goulter) in March 2007. And what did the Goulter review say. On page 92:

“That all Maori constituent Members of Parliament and each constituency Member of Parliament with an electorate in excess of 20,000 sq km in area be entitled to the services of an extra staff member to equate to three full-time equivalent out of Parliament support staff members”

So this was a open and public decision to implement the recommendation of a neutral expert reviewer. That does not mean it was a good decision (in fact I disagree with aspects of it), but TV3 were dishonest with their portrayal of it as National MPs voting them and their allies more money in secret. They even listed the MPs names with dollar signs next to them as if they were personally getting the money. In fact they are merely getting permission to hire a third staff member.

Now as it happens this issue has been reported on before – by myself and Home Paddock. Despite both being Nats we have been critical of the actual policy because of an inequality. The smallest Maori seat, as Home Paddock pointed out on 16 November is Tamaki Makaurau being only 730 sq kms in size. So why include that in extra resources?

I’d personally blogged twice on this issue previously. I actually commented when the agreement was announced:

I would rather decisions like this are made through the Parliamentary Service Commission. But this was recommended by the Goulter review, and two offices are not enough for some of those large electorates.

I didn’t like the idea of funding arrangements being decided bilaterally, but noted the fact it had been recommended mitigated that.

Then I linked to Home Paddock’s post and commented on 18 November 2008:

It is hard to justify a third staffer for Tamaki Makauru, when it is so much smaller than the other Maori seats.

I went on to propose the policy should be based on size only, so should be:

To be fair to all large seats, the agreement should be modified to be either:

1. Only three of the Maori seats and four general seats over 20,000 sq km
2. Five Maori seats, and four general seats over 15,000 sq km
3. Six Maori seats and six general seats over 12,500 sq km
4. All seven Maori seats and 27 general seats over 730 sq km

So you actually had a couple of Nats four months ago criticising the policy, before the media had even run a single story on it.

Really TV3 actually stuffed in every regard. The story they should have run is on the inequality of including Tamaki Makaurau when it is not a large seat. That is the legitimate issue you can criticise the decision over. I’d like to ask John Goulter (who made the recommendation) why he included them.

But instead of doing analysis they tried to portray this as some sort of secret hidden decision that only came to light due to a leak. They either did not know or decided not to mention that it had been announced four months ago. And they also neglected to mention it was implementing the decision of a neutral independent reviewer. A highly relevant fact.

UPDATE: looking more closely at the TV3 story, it looks like the Government decided not to fund Tamaki Makaurau for a third staff member (they only list the other six Maori seats), despite the recommendation and agreement it be all Maori seats. If correct, that is a good thing. It also means the story is then even more of a beat up.

1. Paul Walker looks at the case for private prisons from an economist view.  He concludes “So there is a case to be made for private prisons, but it may not be as strong as for other services currently provided by the government, and it is at its weakest for the case of maximum security prisons.”
2. Stephen Franks offers a solution to s92A – “compensate the customer whose ISP is obliged to interfere without adequate reason, and compensate the ISP for any reasonable costs of investigating copyright claims that prove to be unjustified”
3. Juha Saarinen writes that Brendan Battles is spamming again – text spam.
4. No Right Turn covers the appointment of Tariana Turia and Russel Norman onto the Intelligence and Security Committee. John Key had to agree to Norman’s appointment, so this combined with his ordering of a review into the monitoring of Keith Locke suggests he is acting far more openly on these issues than some of his predecessors including the immediate one.
5. Whoar blogs on a Swedish music model where you can “legally isten to a vast, growing catalogue of streamed tracks for free as long as you are prepared to endure around a minute of advertising per hour” or go for “a premium version, costing £9.99 per month, that suppresses the ads and offers exclusive content”.
6. Eric Crampton blogs for overseas readers on what New Zealand is up to  in terms of the recession. His conclusion: On the whole, Key’s National government has so far done a lot less harm than have others. Let’s hope it continues.”
7. Vic Law School has set up a blog – 15 Lambton Quay.
8. Green MP Metira Turei blogs on TelstraClear killing off the TCF s92A code and calls for s29A to be amdned to a notice and notice regime. I agree – and 92c should be notice and notice also.
9. Andrew Geddis at Pundit praises Steve Crow for his defence of free speech, comparing him to Larry Flynt noting “Anyone who has seen the movie The People vs. Larry Flynt will know that society doesn’t always get the heroes it might want. Specifically, those who push the boundaries and advocate strongest for the freedoms we all enjoy often are not the sort of folks we’d like to pop by our house for a beer and a BBQ.”
10. Bernard Darnton guest blogs at Not PC to propose we solve the recession by having a none-day fortnight!

The Dom Post has a sad story of the death of a two year old. They had a photo of the mum:

My first thought was that the mother looked very young, almost school age. It transpires she is 19. But what struck me was this:

The 19-year-old and her partner of six years

I can’t imagine there are many people who are still with the boyfriend they had when they were 13!

Trans-Tasman has some good advice for the Government in discussing the ACC funding issue:

Which may be why the Nats have gone coy on making Michael Cullen the Chairman of Mighty River Power’s Board.

They also recall John Tamihere’s famous comment about Cullen’s ability to “cut a deal on a piece of legislation, he can change a single word in a piece of legislation without those other bastards [coalition partners] knowing about it, and it melts down everything they wanted.”

If it happens with coalition partners, imagine Cullen running an SOE under a National Govt.

That is a good reason, plus the angry horde of National Party members who would encircle the Beehive and try to burn it down if they appointed Cullen as an SOE Chair this year.

The NZ Herald reports:

The Government has rescued about 120 jobs in community law centres that were threatened by a collapse in revenue from lawyers’ trust funds.

Justice Minister Simon Power received an emotional standing ovation from staff of the 27 law centres when he told their annual meeting that he would maintain their funding in the year starting in July at the same level as in the current year, around $11 million.

Speaks for itself. I think community law centres do a wonderful job so don’t mind the temporary assistance. It is important that people are able to understand their rights under the law.

The Herald has a scary headline:

Law changes could see open season on trees

This sounds very bad doesn’t it. And the opening paragraph:

Councils say they will not be able to stop people cutting down native bush and coastal pohutukawa in cities under planned changes to environment laws.

And this sounds even worse, It conjures up thoughts of scores of people maurading through cities choppng down native trees they don’t like. They even has this photo of a huge pohutukawa in a park.

But what is the law change really about. We see this in the third paragraph:

If the change goes ahead, landowners will be free to cut down any tree on their land unless it is listed in their council’s district plan.

So we have this misleading photo, headline and opening paragraph. What the law change is about is what citizens can do to the trees they own on the land they own.

A massive difference.

Brian Fallow writes on ACC. He bashes Nick Smith up a bit for calling the scheme insolvent (and I agree that was not the most useful contribution to the debate). But Fallow also concedes there are problems:

The briefing to the incoming minister highlights three troubling trends.

One is in the number of claims. In the 2007-08 year claims rose 4 per cent when the population grew only 1 per cent.

In the case of workplace accidents alone the number of claims per million hours worked has increased by 15.6 per cent over the past four years, and is now at the same rate as Australia (where the trend has been declining).

Secondly the proportion of claimants who return to work has been trending down, from 93 per cent in 2001 to 87 per cent six years later.

And the combined effect of more claims and high rates of inflation in the health industry have pushed ACC’s overall cost of medical treatment up an arresting 55 per cent in the three years to June 2008.

So more people are claiming, workplace accident rate is increasing, rehabilitation rates are declining and costs are massively blowing out.

And since then:

The Department of Labour’s most recent quarterly report card on ACC says: “The three-month rehabilitation rate, return-to-work rate and long-term claims pool are continuing to show negative results, indicating clients are staying on the scheme longer, thus increasing outstanding liabilities, particularly weekly compensation.”

And who is driving the cost increases:

Another $200 million was the result of court rulings (about asbestos) and legislative changes to increase the scheme’s coverage, on top of $600 million in Cabinet-approved policy decisions.

The Labour Government did.

“The previous Government wanted to increase ACC benefits take-up and coverage. Now the new Government wants greater cost control.”

The shift in focus is fair enough.

But ACC is a civilised and cost-effective approach to dealing with the injured. Why undermine confidence in the scheme, unless you plan to undermine the scheme itself?

I don’t think the scheme is being undermined. It is the previous management of the scheme that is being highlighted as lacking.

NZPA reports:

A candidate who stood for the Human Rights Party in last year’s general election is refusing to submit his campaign expenses and says he is waiting to be arrested.

Anthony Ravlich stood in Auckland Central and gained 67 votes, 0.2 percent of those cast in the electorate.

Today he released an email he had sent to the Chief Electoral Office, telling it he was not going to complete the election expenses form “as a matter of principle” because his party’s policies did not receive any publicity in mainstream media.

Compliance with the law is not optional, based on whether or not you like the media coverage you got.

At least he has it all now. He won’t go to jail – he will be fined though.

I’ve been looking back through what Labour said when they established the NZ Super Fund in 2000, and it is gold. Their protests about the Government moving to reduce the level of contributions into the fund are hypocrisy of the highest order.  Let me quote from Dr Cullen’s Q&A when he launched it:

How will the government pre-fund future New Zealand Superannuation costs if there are insufficient surpluses?

The government will make contributions to the Fund from available surpluses. Where these are insufficient for making the required contribution a reduced contribution would be made.

John Key and Bill English are doing exactly what Michael Cullen said would happen. Not only do we have an insufficient surplus – we have a decade of deficits.

This also shows up those morons who argue the Fund is not funded out of surpluses, but is just like any other competing area of expenditure. In Labour’s own words:

The government will make contributions to the Fund from available surpluses.

And further:

What level of surpluses will the government need to run to pre-fund future NZS costs?

The actual contribution will be determined by the size of available surpluses. Future governments may, however, decide to make contributions at the required rate even when surpluses are less than this rate.

Once again a clear statement that the contributions are determined by the size of the surplus. And while they have indicated that yeah if the surplus drops a wee bit, you might have a slightly higher contribution than the surplus – there is absolutely no suggestion that if you are running a $6 billion deficit you’ll put in a $2 billion contribution.

Labour’s hypocrisy on this could almost enter the Guinness Book of Records.

But wait there is more:

What are the benefits of setting up a fund versus paying off debt?

We are balancing two fiscal priorities in paying down debt and pre-funding superannuation. It is important to keep government debt low and we have set out long-term objectives for debt that will ensure that it remains low. However, we believe we can achieve these debt objectives and smooth the costs of superannuation at the same time.

So the fund was linked to keeping debt low. Debt is now projected to increase by around $80 billion or so. It is set to treble in less than a decade.

Debate is now over.

TelstraClear have killed off the TCF Code of Practice designed to try and get workable process around the deeply flawed s92A. They have said they will veto the code at the TCF Board. TCF rules allow any board member to veto.

I was initially pissed off at TelstraClear, because all the hundreds of hours of work put into the code are now wasted. But upon reflection, I think they have have done the right thing by stepping back and saying this law is just so bad, we can;t make it workable through a code. Their submission explains:

TelstraClear considers that there is a fundamental problem with the TCF being a party to any code of this nature, which is that the code would be based on flawed legislation. …

In TetstraClear’s view, any industry code would simply be an attempt to tidy up poorly drafted legislation. TelstraClear does not consider this to be the responsibility of the TCF. Indeed the best outcome would be if s92A was repealed. Failing that, it should be amended to address the above concerns:

So there will be no TCF code. The other ISPs can continue work on the code as an unofficial grouping, but it would be madness to have s92A come into force with no code in place.

The submission on the code are very interesting, and I hope MPs look at some of them. Take this submission from the leading IT jurist in NZ – Judge David Harvey. Judge Harvey is also the former Chair of the Copyright Tribunal so about as authoritiative as you can get on this area:

This section is poorly drafted and makes a number of unsupported assumptions, but in essence it suggests that an Internet service provider must develop a policy to cancel an existing contract as a result of copyright infringement.

The reality of the matter is that the cancellation or termination of the contract arises at the behest, not of the Internet service provider, but of copyright owners. Without significant justification in normal circumstances this could amount to an interference with economic relations and raises significant issues about the sanctity of contract.

Judge Harvey further concludes:

section 92A is unnecessary and gives rise to a situation where a person may be deprived of rights under a contract without proper legal process.

Does the Government really want to persist with s92A bearing in mond those comments, and that there will now be no TCF code?

If it had been Parliament’s intention to provide for a process whereby contract termination should take place, Parliament should have provided such process by legislation after proper consultation with all interested parties.

This is basically TCL’s point. You can’t ask private players to determine these rights when the law is so silent on details.

The Australian ISP Association has commented:

As mentioned above, we are aware that a concerted worldwide effort has been made by rights holders in the music and film industries over the past two years to lobby for the introduction of a ‘notice and disconnect’ scheme along the lines of that proposed in the Code. In spite of that, no ‘notice and disconnect’ scheme has been implemented anywhere in the world.

Yay, we could be first. In fact that is why the US groups are pushing so hard – they want us to be an international template.

In all jurisdictions (except France) where the introduction of ‘notice and disconnect’ schemes have been considered and consulted on by Governments, there is now a general move away from any scheme which requires ISPs to terminate internet accounts, on the basis of an allegation of infringement from rights holders.

The whole world except Judith Tizard has realised what a bad idea this is.

Auckland University says:

The main problem is in Section 92A of the Copyright Act which we believe should be removed from the Act or, if it is to remain in some form, then substantially redrafted with input from stakeholders as would have happened during a select committee process.

The Auckland District Law Society:

Section 92A represents a mechanism whereby the copyright holder, an unrelated third party, can interfere with the contractual rights between an ISP and a customer, where the customer is identified as a repeat copyright infringer. Under common law, that could, without significant justification, amount to the tort of interference with contractual relations.

This law is just as flawed as the Electoral Finance Act. When the former Chair of the Copyright Tribunal, the Auckland District Law Society and the country’s largest university says the law needs to repealed or amended, it is time to do so.

National did the right thing by delaying the introduction until a code could be completed. But we now know that unless the law is amended, a code is not going to happen, so time to introduce a bill amending or repealing the clause.

UPDATE: Also worth reading the submission from the Society of Authors. They are as pro-copyright as anyone, yet they say:

The NZ Society of Authors is concerned about the introduction of the proposed s92A of the Copyright Act 1994. Whilst we strongly support the need for measures to control repeat copyright infringement we feel that this clause is not ideal – it has been hastily written and we recommend the need for further discussion.

We feel that should Section 92A be implemented, it is imperative that the Code of Practice be effective and respectful of the rights to freedom of expression.

Radio NZ has said no disconnection should occur without a court order unless there is an independent body established by the Government to rule on any disputes.

And Internet giant Google has also made a submission:

Section 92A puts users’ procedural and fundamental rights at risk, by threatening to terminate users’ Internet access based on mere allegations and reverse the burden of proof onto a user to establish there was no infringement. …

Copyright law is often complex and context sensitive, and only a court is qualified to adjudicate allegations of copyright infringement. Indeed, in Google’s experience, there are serious issues regarding the improper use and inaccuracy of copyright notices by rights holders. In this context, the responsibility should not fall to ISPs to determine cases of infringement.

It is very relevant that Google has testified that many rightholders notices are inaccurate and indeed improper.