Kiwiblog

I did a brief interview with Radio New Zealand on the Christchurch name suppression case. I think it highlights the limitations of such orders. Name suppression is in place for a man who only a few days earlier was named in the media as wanted for questioning.

Now as Whale has pointed out with dozens of links, his name is all over the Internet, including the Police’s own website.  The Internet doesn’t allow for collective amnesia very well. If his name was in the news just the day before, it will be simple for people to find it.

In this case the Judge turned down name suppression, but defence counsel is appealing, which means interim suppression must be granted. I have no idea what the defence hopes to achieve.

I am not anti name suppression in all cases. It works very well in most family court cases. It doesn’t work well when the person is well known, and it doesn’t work well when the name was all over the media in the days  before suppression was granted.

Related to this, the Sunday News reveals:

The man at the centre of the investigation into Vanessa Pickering’s death had been questioned about the unsolved murder of a Christchurch prostitute.

The man, who has interim name suppression, was among those quizzed during the Mellory Manning inquiry, Detective Inspector Greg Williams said.

Manning was found dead in the Avon River just over a year ago.

That information is, in my opinion, far more likely to prejudice a jury and risk there not being a fair trial. If it goes to trial over Pickering’s death, and jurors recall he was questioned over another death, that will incraese the chances of a guilty verdict as who wants to let out a potential serial killer (note I am not saying he is – I am saying this is what jurors will fear).

So maybe instead of trying to supress the name, they should have suppressed the information about being questioned during the Manning inquiry. I wonder if this info was already public, and why did the Police release it or confirm it?

The SST also looks at whether the secrecy is putting the public at risk:

New Zealand’s name suppression laws are under fresh scrutiny, with two recent cases revealing the difficulties authorities such as police or schools face if they wish to protect the public from harm.

Last week, the Sunday Star-Times reported that a top Auckland primary school was unable to inform parents that one of its teachers had been accused of sex crimes against boys, as the man had interim name suppression.

Now, court documents show police were hindered by the name suppression granted to a man who was last year convicted of intentionally injecting his wife with HIV-infected blood.

The man was last month sentenced to eight years’ jail for the crime, but the Star-Times has learnt the man also had unprotected sex with a number of other women before his arrest. Police wanted to inform the women of the man’s offending and his HIV status to encourage them to seek HIV tests but were unable to do so because he had name suppression.

Not good.

On a related case, I reported from another blog that the person in the Palmerston North child porn case had his office in the same building as an unnamed early childhood centre. It turns out this is not the case, so any Palmie parents do not need to be concerned about any institution there.

The NZ Herald talks city transport:

Unlike the present agency, the Auckland Regional Transport Authority, the new body will not be responsible for public transport alone, it will also take charge of roading from local councils. Thus it will oversee everything from the big picture to the small details of where to put footpaths and bus stops.

On the face of it, the idea of having one body co-ordinating the approach to all forms of transport in the city looks like a good thing. Unfortunately, there is a significant downside. As a council controlled organisation, Auckland Transport will not be obliged to hold public meetings or issue agendas and minutes except when making bylaws. Effectively, therefore, many of the decisions about things that directly affect ratepayers at a local level will be made in secrecy by remote officials. …

The best thing that can be said about the lack of transparency envisaged by the bill is that it is not yet set in stone. Mr Joyce acknowledged as much when he said the balance struck between administrative burden and transparency was a decision made by officials and further thought would be given to these aspects after submissions on the bill were heard.

This sounds very much like preparing the ground for some important changes. They will be most welcome if they favour more openness.

I expect the Select Committee will make changes.

The Dominion Post supports drug law reform:

The Government’s quick dismissal of the bulk of the Law Commission’s work on drug use in New Zealand is regrettable.

Its unpalatability for the Government – and, no doubt, for many others – comes in its recommendation for flexibility when dealing with small-scale dealing and personal possession for use, and for less emphasis on conviction and punishment. The flip side of that is a recommendation for a greater focus on treatment, prevention and education.

The current laws are hardly working. We have the highest use of cannabis in pretty much the western world.

The Press is enthused over electric vehicles:

The notion that petrol-driven vehicles are nearing the end of their domination of the road seems doubtful to many. They have become used to stories of geniuses with plans for water-propelled engines being done down by Big Oil, and with expectations from reputable scientists that alternative sources of unlimited energy were close to being harnessed. Scepticism about electric vehicles becoming a practical option is, therefore, understandable.

It is time for the end of those doubts. The world’s major car manufacturers are investing hugely in electric-motor research and development and have based their plans for survival on using the technology.

How about nuclear powered cars

The ODT welcomes back the scarfies:

In the wake of cruise-ship passengers crowding Dunedin streets comes the hubbub and display of an entirely different species of wild life: the university year is about to restart.

The influx of students is already evident in shops, bars and restaurants, and the second-hand furniture traders from which yet another year’s batch of scarfie flats is furnished.

Once again the streets are alive with the sound of youthful excitement, bubbling with optimism, hungry for adventure.

The city is an altogether more vibrant place when, like the godwits, these scholars migrate south to continue their studies or begin a new chapter in their lives.

Having spent a summer in Dunedin, it is a lovely place when it is more tranquil, but there is nothing like the bustle of term time.

Shayne Currie writes his final editorial for the Herald on Sunday:

This is the 280th edition of the Herald on Sunday – and my last as editor. Some people will be relieved about this. Mike Hosking, perhaps. He’s not the paper’s biggest fan.

Charlotte Dawson has not really been a happy camper, either. She has always thought, wrongly, we have had it in for her and she takes particular offence at anything written by our irrepressible gossip columnist Rachel Glucina.

Thankfully, Hosking and Dawson aren’t the norm. In five years, we’ve grown our readership to more than 370,000, become the third-biggest newspaper in New Zealand, and won every major newspaper award.

It is no small thing to start a new newspaper from scratch. You need to earn every single reader, and the HoS has done very well in bringing back competition to the Sunday newspaper market. It is almost the only newspaper market in NZ where we still have choice.

Over the years we’ve become known as the property paper, the car crash paper, the Tony Veitch paper, the All Blacks paper and the Millie Elder paper. We don’t mind any of this.

We’ve always tried to adapt to what our readers want – and buy. Selling the paper is of utmost importance, and to achieve that it’s not always what might be considered the best, traditional journalism that makes the front page.

The front page has to excite, titillate and capture your interest within three seconds – we rely much more heavily on retail sales than a daily newspaper with its larger subscriber base. Of everything we do, the front page is always the most frequently discussed aspect of the HoS. (Except when we stuff up the crossword grid – then all hell breaks loose.)

That is a fair point about the lack of a subscriber base, so the need to give people a reason to buy the newspaper.

The worst thing we can do is be boring. A good guideline is National Radio. If its media commentators start tut-tutting about one of our stories, it usually means we’re on the right track. National Radio staff have no concept of working in a commercial market.

The point is, if we don’t sell the newspaper, we won’t have a product or pages to present the work of some of New Zealand’s best journalists and columnists.

The HoS is quite heavy with columnists, and relatively light on news reporting. But I actually quite like that as I get straight news reporting from other sources, and like getting analysis and opinion.

It will be interesting to see who gets appointed as the new editor, and what changes she or he may make to the paper.

The SST reports:

Prime Minister John Key might be on the wrong side of 40, married, and with a job that is more stressful than sexy, but that has not stopped Kiwis voting him as the country’s hottest politician.

The 48-year-old pipped (with 43% of votes) his much younger, and some would say more cosmetically appealing colleague, Tauranga MP Simon Bridges (33%), in an online survey of 700 Kiwis.

Friends and family of Simon Bridges have been keeping a non-stop vigil on him, since he received the news that a 48 year old father of two was judged hotter than him.

After multiple interventions and counselling, we think he will be okay and over time will recover. But members of the public are asked to help safeguard his mental health and not mention the poll results to him.

Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye took out the female title with 32% of the votes, followed by another National MP, Melissa Lee (24%), and young Labour MP Jacinda Ardern (19%).

Kaye said that although she thought it was “lovely” that she had been chosen as the nation’s hottest female politician, she was not sure whether it would help her love life. Kaye is single.

“Yesterday I turned 30 and I was feeling down in the dumps, I had the 30 blues, but this news has just made it all better – it has made my day.

“I just hope there weren’t too many of my relatives in the survey sample.”

Good God, I thought Nikki was the MP for Auckland Central, not the MP for Tasmania.

The HoS reports:

A kiwi salesman was stunned to receive a $1100 bill from Telecom for just 10 minutes of internet access from his laptop.

Michael Crake racked up the charges after using a computer fitted with a mobile broadband device while at Sydney airport.

Oh dear. He got clobbered with the outrageous $30 a MB that Telecom and Vodafone extort from users who roam overseas.

The price charged is massively higher than that faced by users from many other countries that roam. It has zero resemblance to actual costs.

But putting that aside, my bigger gripe is that the telcos do not do enough to inform people of this charge.

When you roam overseas it should flash up a huge warning that tells you what the cost will be on that network, and require you to confirm that you understand the price and accept it.

The ODT reports:

The Otago Conservation Board wants a national ban on the use of campervans and will lobby the Government to get its way.

However, opponents of the fledgling movement have labelled calls for the blanket ban “ridiculous” and “absolute lunacy”.

Absolute lunacy is too soft a reaction. Barking mad doesn’t even cover this.

I suspect the Government appoints some of the members of the tago Conservation Board. Any member who voted for such an insane notion should be regarded as too detached from reality to ever be listened to again, or appointed to any boards.

The NZ Herald looks at the TVNZ decision to bump John Key for Robin Brooke:

It is reassuring, in its way, that the Prime Minister could not commandeer the airwaves on state television on Tuesday to tell the nation about income tax cuts and a rise in GST. It speaks of TVNZ independence and editorial freedoms that should be valued, however questionable the actual judgment of those exercising them.

The Herald also looks at the drug law reform paper:

Mr Power’s problem with the Law Commission recommendations seems to stem from from the Prime Minister’s declared war on methamphetamine and drugs. Any relaxation would be perceived as contrary to that. It could also be argued, as John Key did yesterday, that softening the law on the possession of drugs for personal use would send the wrong message to youngsters. …

Given such political reality, there was a strong whiff of naivety in the commission’s suggestions. There was also, however, a solid strain of reason and rationality.

The commission, for example, is right to note that “while the harms and costs associated with alcohol are understated and misunderstood, those associated with illegal drugs are often generalised and overblown”. There is also much to say that drug policy should focus on dealing with problematic drug-users, rather than the many people whose drug use poses no serious threat to their own well-being or others.

I agree. that the focus should be on those drug use creates problems, rather than those who do not.

The Dominion Post talks about PHOs:

On paper, the last government’s decision to establish primary health organisations had a lot going for it. Bringing together doctors, nurses, midwives and other health professionals under one roof was a way to improve access to services and reduce overall health costs by reducing the need for hospital admissions.

In practice, as invariably happens when a government opens its cheque book, the results have been mixed.

A study by Capital and Coast District Health Board last year showed avoidable hospital admissions in the district have increased since 2003, but have fallen among people enrolled with PHOs. PHOs are also credited with increasing immunisation rates in some parts of the country and making visits to doctors more affordable for people in poor areas, although the latter is more likely to be a consequence of increased subsidies than the way the sector is organised.

However, some PHOs barely exist except on paper (their purpose is to channel money from district health boards to individual clinics) and their creation has contributed to a rise in administration costs.

Not exactly a stunning success.

The Press talks about Environment Canterbury:

For the second year in a row Environment Canterbury (ECan) is heading towards an overall rate increase well in excess of inflation.

Last year it approved a rise of 6 per cent, including a 10.6 per cent general rate rise, but if that decision prompted disquiet in the region, the questioning of ECan could well be even stronger this year. …

With the local body elections looming later this year, ECan ratepayers will be closely watching over coming months to see which councillors are prepared to identify areas where savings could be found, especially in the regional council’s bureaucracy.

We should have candidates sign pledges that they will not increase rates beyond inflation without voter approval.

The ODT looks at the merger of the Otago and Southland District Health Boards:

The way is cleared for the merger between the Southland and Otago District Health Boards with the Southland board’s 7 to 3 vote in favour.

Because Health Minister Tony Ryall is likely to back the proposal, the only remaining major issue is the speed of approval and whether the Southern Board will be in place early enough for this year’s local body elections in October. …

I suspect it will be.

The NZ Herald reports that Phil Goff as closed the gap in the latest poll.

He is now only 0.2% behind Helen Clark as Preferred Prime Minister.

The NZ Herald calls for a temporary fix for Queens Wharf.

Three options released yesterday by the Minister for the Rugby World Cup, Murray McCully, provide alternatives for this. The cheapest, at $23.9 million, involves removing the ugly sheds from the wharf and creating a temporary village. The two others, at $27.2 million and $31.3 million, envisage the sheds being refurbished for the “party”. That represents no choice at all, given the sheds will remain an embarrassing eyesore no matter how much they are tarted up. They must go.

The Press is concerned about Iran. I doubt the feeling is mutual

This week the bellicose Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, defied a string of United Nations sanctions resolutions and ordered the firing up of dozens of centrifuges to greatly increase his country’s output of enriched uranium. Although the product these facilities will produce is only to a level needed to run nuclear power stations and is not of sufficiently high grade to create nuclear weapons, it is a crucial technical step up in Iran’s nuclear programme. Having mastered the techniques required to produce this material, the next step to create weapons-grade material is a relatively simple one. And almost no-one believes Iran’s repeated denials that it intends eventually to take that next step. …

Iran with nuclear weapons, or military action to prevent it getting them, are highly undesirable alternatives. But if the world wants to avert them diplomacy must not be allowed to fail.

I think it pretty much already has failed.

The Dominion Post rails against pokie machines:

Gamblers pump about $1 billion a year into machines in pubs, RSAs and sports clubs. Of that, about a third finds its way back to the community via gaming trusts. (The rest is consumed by the Government, in the form of taxes, as well as by pubs and clubs and the gaming machine trusts.)

The majority of machines are concentrated in lower socio-economic areas. Newtown, for example, has 72. Khandallah, Thorndon, Kelburn and Wadestown have none. However, the proceeds are distributed evenly across communities. That means the people who frequent gaming machines in poorer neighbourhoods are subsidising the sporting and cultural pursuits of their neighbours in wealthier parts of town.

For this reason, and many others, tentative Wellington City Council proposals to gradually lower the number of machines in five “areas of concern” – Tawa, Johnsonville, Miramar, Karori and Newtown – are welcome.

I disagree. Gambling is effectively a tax on stupidity. the left always go on about how we should tax bad things more. Well stupidity is a bad thing, and if the taxpayer and community groups can make money from stupid people, then that is fine with me – so long as there is total transparency about odds – ie people know that over time they are almost certain to lose money.

The ODT looks at Sarah Palin:

Her popularity is as baffling as it is perhaps frightening to liberal intellectuals, Democrats – and, some suggest – to old-school Republicans whose most fervent wish is to retake the White House in 2012 and who fear her potentially divisive influence on the party. …

She may embody all the colourful hyperbole and grammatical integrity of a hastily penned country and western anthem, but down-home, emotive, illogical, God-fearing and at times disturbingly ignorant, she epitomises a certain cross-section of the electorate.

As such Mrs Palin is a potentially powerful influence on the future course of US politics.

Mainstream political forces will continue to dismiss her at their peril.

She may of course self-destruct at some stage. What will be interesting is how many GOP candidates ask her to appear with them in the mid-terms in November.

Simon Power must have a very sore kneecap after what was an un-necessary kneejerk rejection of pretty much everything in the Law Commission’s review of drug laws.

“There’s not a single, solitary chance that as long as I’m the Minister of Justice we’ll be relaxing drug laws in New Zealand.

Though he was “interested” in submissions on regulations limiting the supply of new drugs – including party pills – he had “no intention of changing the current rules”.

“I’m happy to hear what the submissions have to say but I have advised the Law Commission that I have other things on my work agenda.”

I’m surprised and somewhat disappointed by such a response – especially that Simon is generally seen as one of the more liberal and considered Ministers.

I’ll turn to the detail of the options put out by the Law Commission, but note at this point that to categorise them all as “liberalization” is in fact incorrect. The Police Association President Greg O’Connor was quite supportive on radio of many of the ideas, as was the Drug Foundation which aims to minimise harm from drugs.

Personally I’m far from convinced our current laws are working for low level drugs like cannabis. I’m hardline and back the Govt’s initiatives when it comes to drugs like P and Heroin, but am very open to the argument that instant offence fines from Police would be better than dragging people through court for minor possession offences.

I’m one of the few people of my age that has never even tried illegal drugs, so my advocacy of a different approach is not motivated by self-interest. Cannabis could be legal and sold at New World with coupon discounts, and I still wouldn’t smoke it. But at least 46% of New Zealanders have used cannabis and I’m not sure we want to drag two million New Zealanders through court if they were all busted.

Some of the options put forward by the Law Commission are:

• Move from a three tier system (Class A, B and C) to a two tier classification system, to more clearly distinguish between the very harmful and less harmful drugs.
• Rather than have arguments over whether drugs were for purpose of use or supply, have two different possession offences with a higher maximum penalty for the higher quantity offence.
• A formal cautioning scheme, with up to three cautions for personal use offences, with requirements to undertake an intervention session and counselling
• Option of infringement notices requiring a fine and/or attend a drug education session for less serious drugs
• Prohibit any new psychoactive substance from being manufactured, produced or imported without prior approval

Now some of the options the Law Commission put up are not things I would support. I’l plead guilty to not being too worried about the Bill of Rights implications that someone found with 10 kgs of Heroin has to prove it was for personal use, reversing the normal onus of proof.

But there are some options there well worth considering. The Police already use their discretion a lot for minor drug offences. I’d rather there was a formal statutory framework around use of cautions. I also like the idea of infringement notices rather than criminal sanctions for first or second time offenders, and greater use of referrals to drug counselling sessions.

Passengers on the 10.15 pm ferry to Waiheke Island last night were puzzled. The late night ferries go directly from Auckland to Waiheke. It is only during the day that some also go via Devonport.

So why was their ferry heading towards Devonport instead of Waiheke, meaning the 100 or so people on board would be late arriving? Was there some emergency? Was it a VIP in urgent need of assistance?

The speculation grew. The back story is that a certain politician had earlier in the evening got into the wrong queue at the wharf, and thinking he was heading to Waiheke, was on the Devonport ferry instead and ended up in Devonport in the late evening. Now he could have easily got the ferry back to Auckland and then catch the late (11.45 pm) ferry to Waiheke.

But instead it was suggested he could ask Fullers to divert the Auckland to Waiheke ferry to pick him up in Devonport. This appealed to him as it is far better 100 people are delayed 15 minutes than he is delayed 90 minutes, but he had a fear. What if Waiheke Island resident Michelle Boag was on board?

His diversion was sure to leak out if she was. So he calculated the odds, thinking it was highly unlikely Boag would be returning so late at night. Fullers couldn’t tell him if she was on board or not so he took a punt and the ferry was asked to divert all the way to Devonport to pick him up.

Everyone on board is peering to see who this VIP was. And Chris Carter bounds up the gangway onto the ferry, enters the cabin and exclaims loudly “Oh fuck, hello Michelle”. What very bad luck

Anyway we are glad to have confirmation that Chris is visiting New Zealand again, and am looking forward to reading his report on the three weeks spent checking on the St Kitts and Nevis elections of a few thousand people. I’ve been checking the Commonwealth website every day since their election and no report has yet to appear, despite reports for elections held later, already being up there.

UPDATE: Chris has given his version of events on Red Alert and in a comment here. Rather excitably I have been accused of failing to post Chris’ comment which he made at 11.03. But I have 100 witnesses to the fact I was not online then. First time commenters always go into moderation as an anti-spam device. From 10 am to 11.30 am I was a guest speaker to a Pol Sci class at Auckland University. And afterwards I had lunch with my fellow guest speaker Matt McCarten and then was driving to Warkworth where I have just arrived. So no great conspiracy – the comment was approved at the first opportunity.

The Dom Post has picked up the story and remind us:

In October 2006, Mr Carter reportedly called on navy helicopter to deliver a toothbrush he had left on the frigate Te Mana, moored near Raoul Island north of New Zealand.

Mr Carter, who was conservation minister at the time, was spending the night on the island to commemorate Conservation Department worker Mark Kearney, 33, who was killed in killed in a volcanic eruption.

The navy played down the flight, saying it was a scheduled flight between the frigate and the island, but according to a Herald on Sunday report at the time, could not detail what else the helicopter was carrying or supply details of the mission.

Also the Herald has a story here.

This week’s Dispatch from St Johnnysburg is online (but subscriber only).

I comment on the package this week:

Normally a programme like this would be greeted with howls of outrage from the left. A dozen unions would be announcing strikes. Scores of lobby groups would be howling in anguish. The rhetoric would be that the Government has turned into a combination of Roger Douglas and Ruth Richardson.

Instead the over-whelming message was that the reforms announced do not go far enough.

I also note:

Labour has never known how to try and paint John Key. Half the time they claim he is a do-nothing Prime Minister who won’t do anything unpopular, and half the time he is an evil uncaring rich prick oppressing the poor. And the problem is the two propositions are largely contradictory. Until Labour have the discipline to go down one path only, I suspect they will not change many people’s opinions of the Prime Minister.

The only discipline from Labour has been the constant references to “ordinary New Zealanders”!

Incredible. The bidding for the John Key flag doodle has reached $19,238. Now I suspect the bidding is more for the morning tea with John (and Pippa) than the artwork itself – I certainly hope so!

As at 6 am:

• Top Bid $19,238
• 188 bids
• Approx 250 questions and answers – many of these are hilarious. Well done to the TVNZ staffer answering them.
• 73,622 page views

The Cure Kids charity will be pleased, especially with five days left in the auction.

The Herald reports on Auckland options:

1. $23.9 million to remove the two 1912 cargo sheds and creating a cup village with temporary and hired structures
2. $27.7 million involves minor refurbishment of the sheds to provide covered space for the cup
3. $31.3 million involves significant refurbishment of the sheds with a focus on keeping one or both over the medium term
4. $97 million has a a $49.2m budget for a cruise ship terminal, plus $15.6m for wharf repairs

A dedicated website has the four options and allows feedback.

Meanwhile the Dominion Post reports on Wellington’s RWC plans:

A Rugby World Cup village on Wellington’s waterfront – centred around a yet-to-be-built wharewaka – will become the focus of celebrations at next year’s tournament.

More than 1200 partygoers will be able to pack into the building and a marquee next door, with the city council set to rent the wharewaka, or canoe house, its staff and its facilities for the event.

It will be the focus of Rugby World Cup celebrations, costing ratepayers about $150,000 – considerably less than a $100 million plan to build a party zone in Auckland.

Sounds good to me.

The Herald backs more mining.

The previous government tilted matters too far towards environmental protection. A more balanced approach acknowledges the untapped riches – put at 70 per cent of the country’s potential mineral wealth – tied up in the Crown estate. New Zealand can no more disregard that than it can afford damage to its environmental attributes.

A balanced approach also recognises that not all Crown land is the stuff of pristine scenery or majestic native forest. So large is the Crown estate – it occupies about 30 per cent of New Zealand’s land mass – that there is major potential for mining in selected lower-value areas using modern, relatively non-invasive extraction methods.

This land should not be off limits. Mr Key knows as much. Encouragingly, he is finally showing signs that he also knows the time for prevarication is over.

Even if one built a few dozen mines, they would still cover less than 1% of the conservation estate.

The Press also backs unlocking the land.

… the proposal, as outlined by Key, is sound and sensible, would not be a threat to any land that is really worth protecting, and has much to commend it.

It is not commonly known, though, that New Zealand also has considerable mineral deposits. A geologist’s report two years ago suggested that the in-ground value of metallic minerals and lignite in New Zealand is $240 billion and as the Prime Minister pointed out, in 2008 New Zealand’s third-largest export earner was oil. …

The Government’s careful proposal is not to give carte blanche to extracting this wealth, but rather to free up some of the land where sensitive and undisruptive activity could be undertaken. Some of the land is almost certain to have low or even practically non-existent conservation value. In the vast addition of land to the conservation estate that has taken place in the last decade or more, mostly at the say-so of politicians and bureaucrats with little consultation about it, there is bound to be some that does not need to be there. There can hardly by any objection to low-impact mining in those and other areas, particularly where the potential returns are so great.

This is key – Labour added vast tracts of land to Section 4 – some of which is just gorse. Do not assume all of Section 4 is high conservation value.

The Dominion Post calls for open justice.

Two similar cases, two different outcomes. Is it any wonder people are increasingly questioning whether there are two standards of justice – one for the wealthy, famous and influential and one for everyone else? …

Justice should be administered impartially, regardless of wealth or status. An open justice system and the right to freedom of expression are two of the foundations on which our society is built, as a Law Commission report on suppression made clear last year. “There should be no restriction on publication of information about a court case except in very special circumstances, or for compelling reasons,” it said.

And the ODT supports tax reform:

When all the rorts, loopholes and mechanisms by which a significant proportion of New Zealanders either avoid paying tax – or, quite legally, are not required to – are taken into account, few people would disagree with the proposition, put forward by the Tax Working Group, that the system is “broken”.

They might have varying views on the extent to which this is the case, and almost inevitably will diverge on what the appropriate remedies might be, but Prime Minister John Key and his Government, elected on a platform of tax reform (more popularly described as “tax cuts”) are on solid ground in at least beginning to address the associated issues.

I agree with all four editorials – a fairly rare event

The Herald reports:

Television NZ bumped Prime Minister John Key from its prime-time current affairs show so it could feature former All Black Robin Brooke saying sorry for groping a teenage girl. …

John Key’s office has refused to comment on the Close Up show’s decision not to talk to the PM about his state of the nation speech.

Instead, most of Tuesday’s show was devoted to host Mark Sainsbury interviewing Brooke about his explanation for the New Year groping incident in Fiji, a story that has featured in newspapers.

Close Up ignored the changes the PM foreshadowed to the tax system.

Mr Key’s chief press secretary, Kevin Taylor, said: “It is TVNZ’s editorial decision for the programme and we will not be saying any more about it.”

But it is understood the Prime Minister was surprised by the decision to ditch a scheduled interview with him just two and a half hours before it was due to go out live.

Such “bumping” is common in television entertainment shows when they run out of time or there are better offers.

From a ratings viewpoint, sadly I guess more people would tune in to Robin Brooke. But having already pencilled in the PM, I am surprised they didn’t find a way to include both. It is meant to be a news and current affiars show after all.

John Armstrong writes:

No politician enjoys confessing to having broken a promise – especially one made during an election campaign when credibility is very much the issue.

The Prime Minister has now shown himself not to be exempt from that rule of thumb.

Having flagged a hike in GST in the Government’s economic statement on Tuesday, John Key was yesterday hammered by Labour for having categorically ruled out such a move in the lead-up to the last election.

“National is not going to raise GST. National wants to cut taxes – not raise taxes,” he told an impromptu press conference in the 2008 campaign, the video of which is receiving heavy play on the internet.

Key could not have been clearer. But his response yesterday was to argue he had been talking at the time in the context of fiscal forecasts which showed the country’s accounts sinking into deficit for the next decade. What he had been saying, he insisted, was National would not raise GST as a means of reducing the Budget deficit.

Key should be asking himself why he bothered to mount this defence. No sooner had he done so than Labour dug up quotes from Finance Minister Bill English seemingly similarly ruling out increasing GST after receiving Treasury advice shortly after the election to do so and then clearly reiterating that position in a speech two months later.

Given Key and English were almost certainly genuine in their holding that view at the time, it would surely have been more advisable for the Prime Minister to have been straight up and down yesterday and instead argued along the lines of “that was then and this is now”.

Rather than getting a ribbing from Phil Goff in Parliament, Key could have turned defence into attack, arguing that raising GST was now necessary to remedy what English describes as New Zealand’s “lopsided” economy – one suffering from too much consumption by debt-ridden households at the expense of much-needed savings and investment.

The question is whether Labour’s highlighting of this broken promise really matters all that much. It is not in the same league as cutting national superannuation or selling state assets after promising not to do so. At stake, however, is the Prime Minister’s credibility.

Key’s trust rating is extremely high, judging from polls scoring such attributes. Tax hikes are never popular, however. Key has to overcome public suspicion that any rise in GST will leave people worse off.

I understand a 2.5% rise in GST will probably lead to a one off inflation increase of 2.0%. In recent years our inflation rate has been around 3%, so I’m not sure how much people will notice.

I think they key will be the details in the May budget, as to the “compensation” through tax cuts, benefit adjustments and WFF support.

The label of a “broken promise” may be the bigger issue, even though there is a defence around the context of the statement.  There is probably a lesson there about being careful with pre-election statements – it is tempting to rule things out, but often wiser to be more subtle and say things like “That is not in our tax policy” rather than “We will not do that”.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand has for the first time designated four international terrorist groups which are not listed by the United Nations, Prime Minister John Key says. …

The groups are Somalia-based Al Shabaab, Spain’s Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, of Colombia.

I am sure the four groups are now in panic talks after having heard of the NZ Government’s action against them. They will probably announce their surrenders in due course.

Another year gone already!

The consumption pattern has been:

1. 2003 – 325 bottles (0% stelvins)
2. 2004 – 393 bottles (0% stelvins)
3. 2005 – 392 bottles (3.8% stelvins)
4. 2006 – 456 bottles (17.7% stelvins)
5. 2007 – 496 bottles (21.9% stelvins)
6. 2008 – 512 bottles (46.9% stelvins)
7. 2009 – 517 bottles (76.3% stelvins)

I hasten to add these are not all mine, but from a group of us!

People are welcome to guess (by 18 Feb) the total number of stoppers, and also the percentage that are stelvins.

As one says to the teacher, I have a good reasons for the late smart – but I can’t recall it!