Kiwiblog

Following on from the earlier ratings for each media organisation, these are the ratings for each person listed as a full-time member of the gallery.

Now again I want to stress that these are subjective ratings of journalists by MPs and press secretaries. A low rating is not necessarily bad, just as a high rating can mean you never offend anyone. Also for the avoidance of doubt the ratings are not my personal views, which would be considerably different.

These are the top ten rated journalists. The full list of all 34 is over the break for those who want it, but I prefer to focus on the top ratings.

Colin James tops the ratings, and NZPA has all three of its main staff in the top ten. NZ Herald has two, and Radio NZ’s Jane Patterson and ZB’s Felix Marwick (who sadly is leaving I think) also score highly. Jane Clifton and Marie McNicholas also there. Not that I think it is a factor, but five women and five men each in the top ten.

The range of scores show there is no unanimity with every journalist in the top ten having someone who gave then a two or lower.

The journalist with the lowest standard deviation was Tim Fookes with a 1.8 S.D. and the largest standard deviation was Guyon Espiner on 3.1 followed by Vernon Small on 3.0 – so opinions varied greatly on them. The party breakdowns may be interesting.

The Nats top ten go from Peter Wilson to Jane Clifton. Claire Trevett and Rob Hosking are the only two in the Nats top ten, not in the overall top ten.

You can see in the table the breakdown for each party’s responses, plus the weighted average. The full set of data is over the break also.

Labour respondents have a very different top ten. Colin, Felix and Marie are on it, as with the Nats, but the five Radio NZ reports all are included, as is Scoop’s Gordon Campbell and TVNZ’s Fran Mold.

Those with the biggest difference between National and Labour ratings are Rob Hosking (2.2), Claire Trevett (2.1) and Audrey Young (1.9) in terms of a higher Nat rating. Those with a higher average Labour rating are Gordon Campbell (4.0), Brent Edwards (3.5), Jon Hartezelt (3.1), Marie McNicholas (2.5) and Liz Banas (2.3).

These are the top ten by Third Party respondents.

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Whale Oil has blogged the court summons he has received from the Police alleging breach of name suppression law.

He is due in court on the 5th of January. If he pleads not guilty, then it might be held over for hearing at a later date. He is seeking pro bono lawyers.

The Police have charged him over a post which they allege identifies the “musician” and for a post which they allege identifies the sportsman. In the latter case, they also allege his post identified the alleged victim.

The two charges of breaching a name suppression order are under s140(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 1985.  The maximum fine is $1,000 per offence, but this can be for every day the breach continues (if proven).

The charge of identifying the alleged victim is under s139(1), but also has a maximum fine of $1,000.

So even if Whale is found guilty, it would just be a fine at this stage. If it later turned into an issue of contempt of court, then a jailed whale would be a possibility

A fascinating article in The Guardian, which I saw tweeted by Public Address. It is from someone in the room with the Heads of Govt, and makes it very clear China went out of their way to sabotage the Copenhagen conference. The title is:

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room

As recriminations fly post-Copenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed

And then the article:

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.

This says a lot about the so called environmental NGOs that fell for China’s trick hook line and sinker. They are so anti-west that they don’t know what to do, when it is not the West’s fault.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as “a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries”.

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.

Yes China controls a few Governments by blocking UN Security Council action against them.

What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world’s most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his “superiors”.

This wasn’t even the Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was someone with no ability to decide anything at all.

To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. “Why can’t we even mention our own targets?” demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil’s representative too pointed out the illogicality of China’s position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord’s lack of ambition.

China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak “as soon as possible”. The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.

Now will we hear this from Greenpeace, or even the Greens? Of course one could do a deal without China, but it would be pointless as their emissions growth would dwarf any reductions the rest of the world manages.

Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China’s negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity (“equal rights to the atmosphere”) in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.

This article from Mark Lynas, should be carried in every newspaper that has covered Copenhagen.

Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China’s century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower’s freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.

I suspect this article is going to be quite catalytic, and may lead to a trade backlash against China. Time will tell.

Colin Espiner reports:

The Government is considering cancelling unemployment benefits after a year and forcing beneficiaries to reapply.

This may be a step in the right direction but I would have thought a time limit on benefits would be more effective.

Other changes under consideration by the Government are understood to include work-testing for domestic purpose beneficiaries whose youngest child has turned six,

This will be known as the Phil U policy on Kiwiblog

compulsory budgeting advice for beneficiaries who claim frequent grants,

Sensible.

and part-time work obligations for some sickness and invalid beneficiaries.

There are very few people who can not work even two hours a day. Kids should not grow up in households where no adults work at all. A work culture is vital to stop inter-generational dependency.

Harris is on a sickness benefit because he has a medical opinion saying he has cannabis addiction. He must get reassessed by a doctor every 13 weeks, but Work and Income said yesterday that it could not force him to undertake drug or alcohol rehabilitation under existing laws.

Rehabilitation programmes exist for sickness beneficiaries addicted to drugs, but the department cannot force them to attend or withhold their benefit if they refuse.

Well that would be a good law change also.

This week’s quiz is here. Spolers over break

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I blogged on Friday the topline data from the survey of MPs and Press Secretaries on the press gallery. I’ve now got the breakdown by party and by type of respondents.

The question asked about institutions was:

For each media organisation please give them a rating from 0 to 10 for how well you think they do in their parliamentary reporting.

This should take account of all relevant factors – accuracy, fairness, thoroughness etc.

Now again these are highly subjective ratings from the subjects of the stories written. So a low rating may just mean that an MP or press secretary feels that organisation has been too tough on them (and members of the public may feel they are not tough enough).

There were 70 responses. 39 from National, 22 from third parties and 8 from Labour. One did not specify. 46 respondents were MPs and 24 were press secretaries or comms staff.

National respondents ranked the Herald highest, followed by NZPA, Newsroom, Radio Live and Newstalk ZB. The five lowest were SST, Scoop, Radio NZ, Fairfax and Prime TV.

Labour respondents ranked the five top as Scoop, Radio NZ, Newsroom, Newstalk ZB and NZPA. The five bottom were NBR, TVNZ, SST, Prime TV and TV3.

Comparing differences between National and Labour respondents, those most ranked higher by National than Labour are NBR (2.2 difference), TVNZ (1.7) and NZ Herald (1.6).  Those ranked higher by Labour than National are Scoop (3.3) and Radio NZ (2.9).

Those ranked evenly by both National and Labour are Fairfax (0.0 difference), SST (0.3), Maori TV (0.4) and TV3 (0.4).

Third Party respondents ranked the top five as Maori TV, Radio NZ, NZPA, Scoop and Newsroom. The bottom five were TVNZ, TV3, Fairfax, SST and NZ Herald.

Third party respondents rated TVNZ, TV3, Fairfax and the NZ Herald lowest compared to the two big parties. This may reflect a view that the four big media do not give them enough air time?

I have given each outlet a weighted average. This is based on National being 58/122, Labour 43/122 and Third Parties 21/122. When weighted the top five become Newsroom, NZPA, Scoop, Radio NZ and Newstalk ZB. The bottom five are SST, TVNZ, TV3, Fairfax and NBR.

Finally I look at the difference between ratings from MPs and press secretaries. The four outlets significantly rated by MPs than press secretaries are Scoop, Maori TV, Radio NZ and Newstalk ZB. The three outlets rated significantly higher by press secretaries than MPs are NBR, Newsroom and NZ Herald.

Tomorrow (if I have the time) I’ll blog results for individual journalists.

The Herald reports:

United Future leader Peter Dunne has given up on his annual list of worst-behaved MPs, saying Speaker Lockwood Smith’s reign has ushered in a new era of dignity and propriety.

To be fair, I think the absence of Winston helps also. But the House has been a far less toxic place this year.

Mr Dunne did honour Labour’s Trevor Mallard with a lifetime achievement award in bad behaviour “for services to melodrama, fisticuffs, and generally aberrant behaviour”.

When Lockwood orders him to apologise, you can actually see the supressed rage in his eyes!!

The Herald does find a few insults though:

Labour’s Moana Mackey apologised for referring to Hekia Parata as “Lady Parata” and “her royal highness”. National’s Paul Quinn was pulled up for calling Labour’s backbench “monkeys”.

I’d rather be called Lady Parata than a monkey I have to say – well if I was a female Parata that is!

Some apologies:

SHANE JONES
For saying of Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee, “the notion of him and energy is a mathematical impossibility”.

PHIL HEATLEY
For claiming another “fiddled the books” in ACC and Housing; for wishing the Speaker would use a 90-day eviction order on Trevor Mallard.

Heh.

RODNEY HIDE
For North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams’ “madness”, for calling Trevor Mallard “the angry one”.

Isn’t truth a defence?

JOHN KEY
For claiming Green MP Metiria Turei thought Phil Goff was “racist”. She had said his speech was “the worst kind of politics”.

So worse than racism?

Jeanette responds to Federated Farmers:

Federated Farmers thinks Green co-leader Dr Russel Norman and I have different opinions on herd homes and factory farms.

However, Russel and I both have visited a herd home and have the same opinion on their benefits. We both oppose the factory farming proposals in the Mackenzie Country.

Herd homes are open, light and airy and the cows are free to move around. They are not used 24/7. Even in filthy weather the cows are outside for at least the four hours it takes them to eat their daily ration of fresh grass.

Then they are off the paddock, protecting the soil from pugging in wet weather and sheltering in the herd home where they have a ration of hay or silage to eat at will. When the weather is fine and the soil reasonably dry, the cows are outside all the time. Using a herd home as part of a pastoral farm results in much less nitrous oxide emissions from the wet soil. …

The factory farms being applied for in the Mackenzie Basin are the opposite. The cows will be indoors 24 hours a day for eight months, perhaps in cubicles most of the time. All feed will be brought to them, so it will require additional energy to produce and transport.

The Mackenzie Basin is a place where for much of the year no feed can be grown locally and the weather is inhospitable for cows.

On Twitter, Federated Farmers argues that it is the “principal” (I think they mean principle) that matters, not the scale. They’re wrong: it’s both.

I am amused that Jeanette responds to a tweet on Twitter with a column in the NZ Herald!

Environmentally, scale can be everything. 180 cows might have a manageable impact on water quality, but 18,000 cows is a different ball-game. It is precisely the scale of dairying in New Zealand – the sheer numbers of cows, the intensity of stocking rates, and the resulting effluent and emissions – that is turning what used to be seen as a “clean green” wholesome industry into a major polluter.

It’s also the principle. Farming outdoor cows (that occasionally go indoors) is fundamentally different to a factory of indoor cows (that occasionally go outdoors). Animal welfare is an issue of principle, not scale – farm animals should live meaningful lives on farms, not in factories.

We agree with Fonterra and Forest & Bird that intensive dairying is completely unsuitable in the fragile Mackenzie Country. We also agree with the Prime Minister that factory farming threatens to undermine our competitive advantage from our grass-fed, World SPCA-approved, clean and green dairy farming. We agree with the Otago tourism and residents’ organisations that have called factory farming in the Mackenzie ‘insanity’. It’s a recipe for disaster. The principle is all wrong and the scale makes it worse still.

The debate continues!

Again I recall how Helen Clark proclaimed that there was nothing of substance to the issue, and attacked the NZ Herald for “banging on” about it.

This non-issue is now estimated to cost $11 billion to fix.

The Government has proposed that efforts shift from the tribunal that assigns blame, to just fixing the problem:

Cabinet will consider in the New Year the previously announced proposal where homeowners who drop legal action would agree to shoulder about 64 per cent of the cost of repairs and councils 26 per cent.

The Government would chip in 10 per cent. It would also guarantee loans to ensure owners had access to funds with lower interest rates for those on small incomes and the option of paying off through their estate for older people.

At present the Government has no liability – it all rests with developers and local Councils, and as many developers have used shelf companies, the Councils are often the only ones left to pay up. So I would have thought 26% from Councils was better than 100%!

But Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast today said the Government was not shouldering enough of the burden.

“The Government of the time changed the legislation that allowed different practices… that allowed the use of untreated timber,” she said on Radio New Zealand.

“They argue they don’t have a legal liability, they certainly have a moral and ethical liability. We are talking about upwards of 90,000 New Zealanders living in homes that leak, we’re talking about not just the psychological problem with that, but of course significant respiratory problems.”

Ms Prendergast said councils would be willing to re-engage – she proposed councils and government contributed 25 per cent each.

I’m not wild about taxpayers having to fork out $1 billion, let alone $3 billion – especially when debt is massively increasing and defecits are likely for the next seven years.

Not that wild about paying through rates either, but as least local Councils are somewhat more solvent than the central Government.

Saw Avatar last night. The best description I can give of it, is that the experience was similar to when I saw Star Wars for the first time.

The film’s visual impact is top class. That by itself is reason to see it.

The plot is a wee bit two-dimensional. Gaia loving tall smurfs battle evil mining company to save the planet. Now that is a wee bit harsh as a summary, but in the end the action and visuals make up for the plot deficiencies.

Well the year is almost up, so unless there is some upset in the next nine days, I can review how I have done on iPredict. I’m number three in terms of net worth, which isn’t bad.

The events that I predicted correctly were:

1. That the Electoral Finance Act would be repealed by May 2009
2. That the price of 91 unleaded petrol would be more than 156c at end of Feb
3. That Helen Clark would leave Parliament in 2009
4. That Michael Cullen would leave Parliament in 2009
5. That Phil Twyford would not be Labour’s Mt Albert candidate
6. That Melissa Lee would be National’s Mt Albert candidate
7. That Labour would win the Mt Albert by-election
8. That the OCR would not increase before July 2009
9. That the anti-smacking referendum would not be cancelled
10. That variable mortgage rates would be less than 6.5% in June 2009
11. That the unemployment rate would not decline in June 2009
12. That Christine Rankin would remain a Families Commissioner past August 2009
13. That there would be no disconnections under S92A before September 2009
14. That the VSM bill would pass its first reading
15. That Obama’s approval rating would not be negative on 4 November 2009
16. That the Government will change the name of Wanganui to allowing both Whanganui and Wanganui to be official

The events that I will have predicted correctly by 1 January 2010 (unless something major happens) are:

1. Winston Peters remains sole Leader of NZ First in 2009
2. Annette King remains Labour Deputy Leader in 2009
3. The Foreshore & Seabed Act is not repealed in 2009
4. Phil Gof remains Labour Leader in 2009
5. A second Minister will not depart in 2009
6. Jim Anderton will not announce his retirement in 2009
7. The National/Maori Party agreement will not terminate in 2009
8. The National/ACT agreement will not terminate in 2009
9. That Robert Mugabe will remain President of Zimbabwe in 2009

So did I get any wrong? Well I like to say no, but the lawyers say yes.

I lost around $250 on my prediction that Frank Bainimarama would remain Interim Pm of Fiji. I maintain that he did remain PM at all times and never surrendered power. iPredict’s lawyers say that he was removed from power by the Supreme Court of Fiji, Again I say they had no ability to remove him (as shown when a day later they were sacked) and that the substance of the stock was about whether he would relinquish power.

Anyway 25-1 isn’t too bad, even though 26-0 would have been better

A health warning for those with musical talent, but this nine minute video of John Key on The Edge with JJ and Dom includes him singing Snoopy’s Xmas. Stuff has an amusing story here.

What I found amusing was how they got him to do it by saying Helen wouldn’t sing on air for them, and he replied that is probably why she lasted nine years

He also was in at The Rock, and they have audio of him here. It’s also pretty damn funny and he answers some non-PC questions such as:

Would he rather travel with Rodney Hide or Hone Harawria?
and Can women parallel park?

Also John comments how having DPS means you never need dial a driver and they interview any boys wanting to date Steffi

And finally not including John, but The Rock puts the can men park better theory to the test, with video of their experiments.

1. Heather Roy recommends people see “A day in Pompeii” at Te Papa. I certainly plan to go, even though I have been to the actual Pompeii also.
2. Moana Mackey on Red Alert has photos of the wedding of James Coyle (my co-covenor of The American Politics Appreciation Society) and Deborah Mahuta. Congrats to them.
3. And in the cute photo competition, we have Lindsay Mitchell’s photo of her two week old kittens.
4. Six Revisions has the 15 biggest Internet scandals of the last decade.
5. Frog Blog celebrates 100,000 comments. Congrats.
6. Bernard Hickey reports that NZ has just had its first current account surplus since 1988, so that breaks a run of 82 quarters of deficits. But looks to be a one off due to the Aussie owned banks paying their back taxes.
7. Cactus Kate gives Red Alert and Trevor Mallard her Blog of the Year Award. One can only enjoy her reasons for doing so.
8. Roar Prawn blogs what she wants her mates to get for Xmas – always thinking of others
9. Eric Crampton lists some iPredict stocks where you can get a 1% to 2% return over two weeks.
10. Bernard Hickey hands out the Interesties Awards.
11. Steven Price talks name suppression and says that merely telling someone the name one on one is unlikely to be considered publication.
12. The Dim-Post celebrates Rage against the Machine topping the UK charts.

Chris Hipkins just doesn’t learn and continues to misrepresent. He blogged today:

My post yesterday on John Key’s non-answer to some of my written parliamentary questions certainly got the Key apologists worked up. When Key does finally front up with the answers I’ll post the info here and people can then judge whether they were fair questions to ask.

The Key apologists seem to have forgotten that National MPs used to routinely ask tricky questions of the then Labour government. One of their favourites was to ask about staff Christmas parties and presents. Most government departments do some sort of end of year function for their staff, so National’s questions were basically intended to find examples of where they’d gone a bit over the top so that they could shout from the rooftops about “waste”.

This is a red herring. I have not once said the Opposition should not ask questions. It is an important right. But responsibilities go with rights. And you look like a whining wally when you file 4,000 questions in one day, and then complain they are not all answered within the five day target.

Incidentally I am told staff in the Office of the Clerk were forced to work until 11 pm to get all the 4,000 questions asked by Labour MPs onto the website. This would not have happened if they were organised or considerate enough to lodge them over a period of time.

Chris again fails to mention he and his colleagues have asked almost as many questions to the Minister of Ministerial Services in two weeks, than Helen Clark had over three years. And he commits further truth abuses.

Interestingly, they aren’t so keen to answer now that the shoe is on the other foot. I asked a written question of each Minister that’s almost identical to one Brownlee, McCully etc used to ask and they have all come back with the same answer: “The question the member asks relates to an operational matter which is the responsibility of the Chief Executive.”

Interesting to note that when Labour was the government and National was the opposition the questions were OK, but now that National is in government they seem to think a lower standard of accountability should apply.

Chris must think people are stupid and/or do not know how to do searches of the PQ database.

Searching the 2005-2008 Government for the phrase “responsibility of the Chief Executive” finds Ministers used it 745 times. So when Chris tries to lie that there is some “lower standard of accountability” he is being a prize hypocrite.

For those who like percentages, the 2005 to 2008 Labour Government used that response to 1.4% of questions. The National led Government has used it 162 times, which is 0.7% of questions. So Labour used that response twice as often as National.

But it gets worse when you look at the Prime Ministers. John Key has not used that response once, for the 739 questions he has had (all portfolios).

Helen Clark got asked only 569 questions over three years (around one quarter of the number asked of Key per annum) and used the phrase Chris Hipkins complains about on 25 occassions, which is 4.4% of the time.

At this point I must mention that before he became an MP, Chris Hipkins worked in Helen Clark’s office. He in fact probably wrote or approved the very answers that he is now complaining about.

How lucky we are not in Parliament, so people can use the H word.

Now again to keep it simple, here are the percentages for parties and PMs in using the “responsibility of the Chief Executive” dodge:

1. Helen Clark 4.4%
2. Labour 1.4%
3. National 0.7%
4. John Key 0.0%

I do so hope Chris carries on whining like this. It is such fun pointing out the facts.

The Government has done something novel as part of a consultation. It has actually released a draft bill for purposes of consultation. This allows people to give feedback on precise details. The bill is based on the criminal procedure simplification project, so will be controversial within the legal profession.

The bill divides offences up into five categories of seriousness. They are:

1. punishable by fine only
2. punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment not exceeding 3 years
3. an offence punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of more than 3 years that is not a category 4 or 5 offence
4. an offence listed in Schedule 1 of the bill (rape, wounding, kidnapping, arson etc)
5. an offence listed in Schedule 2 of the bill (murder, treason, MP corruption, slave dealing etc)

It is proposed that the first two categories be dealt with by way of judge only trial. No Right Turn is hotly against this, and says it is a breach of the Magna Carta.  He concedes that minor offences do not currently have a right for jury trial, but says a punishment of three years is not minor.

The current law does not allow jury trials for charges where the maximum term is less than three months, so in effect the proposed change is to move the threshold from less than three months maximum, to a three year maximum.

I blogged back in May on this, and listed the offences I could find that would then be tried by a Judge only. They include indecent acts in public (two year max), aggravated assault (three years max), assault with intent to injure (three years max), assault on a child or female (two years max), and theft of less than $1,000 (1 year max).

I am comfortable with the threshold lifting from less than three months, but am not sure if three years is about right or too far. So I did some research.

First of all I thought, what do people actually charged with these offences end up serving. It is almost impossible to ever get the maximum sentence.

The percentage of convictions for an offence listed above, that even got a custodial sentence was very low – ranging from 3% for minor assaults to 15% for male assaults female. This is from Stats NZ 2008 stats.

Then we go to the Ministry of Justice conviction and sentencing report for 2006. Of the 15% who get a custodial sentence for male assaults female, the average prison term is six months. With parole it means out in three months. So 85% get no prison term, and 15% serve an average three months in jail (and these are probably people who have dozens of offences chalked up by then). Is that serious enough to need a jury trial, considering the delays that mean for the victim?

A minor assault has an average prison term of just 1.9 months, so on average out in 30 days.

For theft, only 6% of convictions get a custodial sentence, and the average sentence is 5.6 months so out in 90 days.

Only 2% of cannabis use convictions are custodial, and the average sentence is 0.9 of a month.

Now I have not checked every single offence with a maximum penalty of three years or less, so I am open to persuasion that a threshold of two years or even one year could be more appropriate, but for the most common offences, the resulting penalties are overwhelmingly non-custodial.

The Minister estimates this change would reduce the number of jury trials by around 1,000 a year. It would be useful to have that broken down by type of offence, so one could see what different it would make to have the threshold at say two years instead of three.

Finally, I was interested in what other OECD type countries do – where do they draw the line?

• France – jury trials reserved for most severe crimes only
• US – Supreme Court has interpreted the constitutional right to trial bu jury as only applying to offences with a maximum sentence of six months or more
• Australia and UK – no threshold as far as I can tell
• Austria – serious criminal cases only
• Belgium – grave crimes only
• Canada – only for crimes with a maximum sentence of five years or more
• Germany – no juries, but lay judges alongside professional judges
• Greece – a panel of three judges and four lay jurors
• Italy – only for serious crimes like murder, and a panel of 2 judges and 6 laymen
• Japan – From May 2009 jury trials resume but only for severe crimes
• Singapore – death penalty cases only
• Israel – no juries (as British did not trust the locals)

I find it interesting the countries with a jury made up of judges and lay people. Do teh Judges dominate the lay members of the jury?

The Herald reported at the weekend:

Making it a crime for adults to turn a blind eye to child abuse or neglect by others in their homes will help to prevent cases such as that of the Kahui twins, a child welfare advocate says.

Justice Minister Simon Power announced yesterday that the Government will make a raft of changes to child abuse laws, including a new offence of “failing to protect”.

It will make adults criminally liable if they do not intervene or tell the authorities that someone else in the house is abusing or neglecting a child or other “vulnerable” person, such as the elderly.

It is sad that this law is needed, but it is.

Th Auditor-General has just ruled that four members of the Canterbury regional Council illegally voted on a resolution that affected them financially (more than normal members of the public).

The report is very interesting for those who deal with conflicts of interests, and doesn’t reflect well on the Councillors. They are somewhat lucky that the AG decided not to prosecute on this occasion.

I blogged yesterday about how Chris Hipkins forgot to mention that he and his colleagues had submitted almost as many written PQs to John Key as Minister of Ministerial Services in December 2009, as Helen Clark had over three entire years. Clark as MS Minister averaged 1 question a week and they bombarded Key with 128 in two weeks.

But it gets worse than that. A search of the PQ database finds that Labour submitted 4,000 questions across all portfolios on the 16th of December.

Even worse Trevor Mallard whined that the online system “doesn’t appear to have the capacity to deal with a number of people who like me work to deadlines. System alternates between dead slow and dropping out.”

Of course the system doesn’t cope with 4,000 in one day. Hell it normally takes three months to have that many questions asked, and Labour filed them all in one day – and in the week before Xmas.

Now again it is important that the Opposition can gain information from the Government through PQs. But that doesn’t mean you have to be inconsiderate jerks about it, and file 4,000 questions in one day, which is almost done as a spiteful act to force people to work massive amounts of overtime just before Xmas. So much for the worker’s party! There is no reason at all their questions couldn’t have been submitted over a number of weeks. It is either incompetence or spite to file 4,000 in one day.

The right to ask written questions is an important one, and I would not support any limit on how many questions can be asked by an MP or Party, But there does need to be some incentive for MPs to not file 4,000 questions in a day, and to consider the cost of collating all this information.

The costs are quite considerable. Many Depts have entire teams of staffers who do nothing but answer these questions, so the more there are, the more staff you need. And as each answer is in the name of the Minister, it has to be checked for accuracy. Generally each answer will be compiled by a Departmental staffer, checked by their manager (at least), also checked by a staffer in the Ministers office, and finally seen and approved by the Minister.

I suggest Ministers do what Max Bradford used to do. He worked out the costs of staff time (say $70 an hour) in responding to questions and as part fo every answer, would include the estimated cost of answering the question.

This would allow the media, and others, to then add up over say a year the cost of all the questions from a particular MP or party. This doesn’t mean the MP will necessarily ask fewer questions, but it means they will have an incentive to consider how reasonable their questions are.  And the public can consider whether the cost of all the questions for an MP, was good value in their opinion.

Colin hands out his awards:

• Politician of the Year: John Key. Highly commendeds go to Simon Power, Tony Ryall, and Tariana Turia
• Idiot of the Year: Rodney Hide. Highly commended to Hone Harawira.
• Worst Performance by an MP: Melissa Lee. Highly commended to Ashraf Choudhary
• Loser of the Year: Richard Worth.
• Backbencher of the Year: Jacinda Ardern. Highly commended: National’s Nikki Kaye.
• Most Improved MP: Gerry Brownlee. Highly commended: Steven Joyce.
• Least Improved MP: Bill English.
• Begrudging MP Who’s Annoying But You Have To Respect Them MP: John Boscawen.
• Simply Most Annoying MP Without Redeeming Qualities:  Chris Carter.
• The I-Told-You-So Award for proving the media wrong: John Key

Colin’s rationales are quite amusing.

Colin Espiner reports in The Press:

Information obtained by The Press shows Marcia Harris and her husband, former gang leader Darryl Harris, have claimed unemployment and sickness benefits continuously since 1984.

25 years without working.

They are one of about 300 couples who draw about $1000 a week in benefits from the taxpayer and are the subjects of a government audit.

So why work if you can get taxpayers to give you $1,000 a week?

They have four children, three of whom are also drawing benefits.

What a surprise! What I can’t work out is how they get $1,000 a week, if at most they have one dependent child.

In addition, they have received $30,000 in special-needs grants since 2000, including $16,000 in the past two years.

Life must be tough on $1,000 a week.

Among the successful applications were grants to put new tyres on the couple’s 2007 silver Chrysler saloon and to fence a swimming pool at one of several properties the family owns in Christchurch.

Well the silver Chrysler must look its best, so of course the taxpayer should pay for new tyres. And if you own multiple properties, then again the taxpayer is who should pay for fencing the swimming pool.

Recent efforts to cancel Darryl Harris’ sickness benefit failed after he obtained a medical opinion stating he was addicted to cannabis.

Sadly, he probably is. But people can beat addictions – and I don’t see a lot of incentives for him to do so.

The opinion was from one of Work and Income’s “designated doctors” after the agency appealed against a medical opinion that Harris was suffering from “stress and anxiety” over being work-tested.

Oh the poor baby. He hasn’t had to work for 25 years, but the stress of being work-tested in itself made him so stressed out he was not able to work.

This year Marcia Harris was ordered to repay some benefits granted by Work and Income, including one to pay for her car to be released after being impounded. She was driving without a licence at the time.

Well that is hardly her fault. Society is to blame, so only fair us taxpayers pay.

Work and Income paid for the family to spend 10 nights at a Christchurch hotel, the Towers on the Park, in 2007 after their Islington home burnt down, a review of the family’s case found.

I am sure the burning down was a freak of nature, and had nothing to do with gangs. Hopefully the Towers on the Park was adequate for them It is only 4.5 stars and they may have suffered from it not being a five star hotel.

Since then the family has been transferred to a special “remote monitoring” unit. The unit deals with Work and Income clients deemed too dangerous for face-to-face meetings with staff.

If they are too dangerous to meet with staff, then maybe they are too dangerous to receive $1,000 a week?

Bennett said she planned to introduce pledges made by National during last year’s election campaign but shelved this year because of the recession.

They include work-testing for domestic purpose beneficiaries whose youngest child has turned six, compulsory budgeting advice sessions for beneficiaries who claim frequent grants, and part-time work obligations for some sickness and invalid beneficiaries.

The Government plans to suspend or reduce benefits for those who refuse to comply with requests to attend work interviews or take up work opportunities.

Can’t happen quickly enough.

Fed Farmers President Don Nicholson says the Mackenzie Basin dairy farming application should be given a fair hearing under the RMA. He notes:

Putting the location aspect aside as something for the commissioners, is “loose housing” a terrible corruption of the New Zealand “brand”, as Dr Russel Norman MP, the Green Party co-leader makes it out to be? Not according to his colleague, Jeanette Fitzsimons MP. His former Green Party co-leader was so impressed when she saw a “herd home” in action, that Ms Fitzsimons entered the following words on her website about good farming stories: “I must admit I was prejudiced about herd homes before I saw this one – NZ is known for grazing its animals outside all year round – surely we don’t want to coop them up in barns away from the light and the sun and the fresh grass? However now I’m a complete convert. The high roof is translucent and lets in lots of light. The overhanging sides are open so there is air movement through but rain and cold winds are kept out. The cows are free to move around, and there is fresh hay or silage under the eaves around the outside edges of the barn for them to feed at will. If I had any doubts about the animal welfare side of things, it was dispelled when I saw them waiting in the race to get back in again out of the rain.”

Don also notes the proposal is for 18,000 cows over 16 separate farms – not in one gargantuan farm.

The Herald reports:

A Crown research institute was justified in firing top climate scientist Dr Jim Salinger, the Employment Relations Authority has found. …

However, in his determination, authority member Leon Robinson said the dismissal was warranted because Dr Salinger had been given clear instructions at numerous meetings that others were to be used as spokespeople and he was to step back from that role.

At the end of the day,employees have to follow the legal instructions of their employers. Salinger refused to do so, and suffered the consequences.