Kiwiblog

The SST headline is:

Plot to grab Epsom as Hide’s Act falls apart

Except there is no plot. The story doesn’t talk about any plot. This is not the fault of the journalists who wrote the story – sub-editors pick headlines. So what does the story say:

NATIONAL is deciding whether to stand a credible candidate and grab back the Epsom seat from Act’s Rodney Hide.

National is not deciding, in the sense of making a decision. Of course many in National are discussing Epsom, but decisions on whether to vigorously contest Epsom will not be made in the next few days or even weeks. You never decide strategically important things in the middle of a media storm.

Around the middle of 2011 is when National will make decisions about what sort of campaign to run in Epsom. You don’t decide these things 14 months before the election.

With Act’s credibility in tatters over the David Garrett fiasco, National is worried endorsing Hide next year would upset Epsom voters, particularly women. That has put pressure on National to stand a strong candidate or risk voters ignoring any tactical voting option.

National has in fact never endorsed Rodney. National has always stood a candidate. The issue is whether the candidate primarily pursues the party vote (which most candidates are expected to do), or also campaigns aggressively for the electorate vote (which only happens in a few seats not held by National).

My expectation is that National will have a strong candidate, regardless of what sort of campaign is run.

Some party insiders believe the anti-Act mood is so strong that Epsom voters could decide “stuff this, I’m voting for National anyway”. The Act brand is so discredited that there is already talk in National about a new far-Right party.

Unless Fairfax is going to start talking about the Greens as a “far -left” party, could they please not use that term about ACT.

It is quite possible that voters in Epsom will vote for a National candidate, even if not explicitly seeking their votes. I actually don’t think the decision rests with National – it rests with the voters in Epsom. And I think they will make their decision quite rationally. If voting for Rodney looks like it will significantly increase the chances of National retaining Government, then they will – as they did in 2005 and 2008. If however it looks like voting for Rodney will not help the centre-right greatly (if if ACT is polling at below 1%), then his chances are not so good.

But these are decisions that people reach in the election campaign, not 14 months before.

So Rodney’s challenge is to use the next 12 months to get ACT polling well enough, so that Epsom voters will tactically vote. But this will need a blemish free performance from ACT and Rodney. And there seems little doubt that a couple of the “scorpions” within ACT are determined to destroy the party, so long as they can have “utu” on Rodney. This was made clear in the e-mails Whale oil blogged. And they may succeed – time will tell.

Len Brown must have a lot of money to spend, as his TV ads have even been appearing in Wellington. Its his money, so he can spend it how he likes – but TV seems a costly medium for a local campaign.

Whale Oil points out in this edited video, that Len’s rhetoric and actions are somewhat inconsistent.

The HoS editorial:

Attorney-General Chris Finlayson stayed away from the House as the first-reading debate began on the bill repealing the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

It was a gracious gesture: although the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill is in his name, he wanted Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia to be first to speak to it.

It was a fitting acknowledgement of the role she played in wrenching the 2004 legislation from the jaws of history.

Which shows that one MP can make a difference.

Unfortunately, some try to depict the repeal as an act of surrender to Maori demands that ancient entitlements be honoured in modern law. But that is very far from being the case.

The 2004 act was a sledgehammer response to a Court of Appeal decision that had not “given” Maori anything: it had suggested that Maori might be able to seek customary title in the Maori Land Court to parts of the foreshore and seabed.

The Clark Government pre-empted that right; the act now before the House restores it. To quote Turia, it reopens a door that was slammed shut.

That is for me the key aspect – that Maori New Zealanders have had restored their right to go to court.

In any case, for those seeking customary title, the bar is set high: applicant iwi must demonstrate virtually uninterrupted exclusive use and occupation of the areas since 1840; areas to which title is granted cannot be sold; and free public access must be preserved.

Which is one reason why Hone Harawira is not supporting it. He thinks that the entire foreshore and seabed should be in Maori title. I believe the correct test is what the Court of Appeal set down – uninterrupted exclusive use and occupation since 1840.

I’ve twice blogged on how the OECD teacher pay stats actually show teachers are paid more generously in NZ, than most other countries, when you take GDP/capita into account. Our problem is the overall wealth of the country – not what proportion we spend on education.

Both Kerre Woodham and the HoS editorial pick up on this point.

Kerre writes:

Teachers claim they are poorly paid in comparison to other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). David Farrar of Kiwiblog makes the point that we’re all poorly paid in comparison to other countries. It’s because we don’t earn as much as everyone else. It’s all about gross domestic product (GDP).

When you do the sums, as Farrar did, New Zealand teachers get paid more than almost every other country in the OECD compared to GDP per capita. They certainly get paid far more than the median wage – as well they should.

And you know what – if the unions would agree to performance pay, I’d be the first person to be advocating big pay rises for the good teachers – the top ones should be on $100,000.

The HoS editorial:

The problem is that the Government is not short of priority issues right now: recovering from the biggest economic meltdown in living memory and funding recovery from an earthquake that has upended life for about half the people in the South Island are two that spring to mind.

This is not to say that the teachers’ claims are without merit. And plainly the Ministry of Education recognises that, since many of them have been conceded, in whole or in part.

Others, including an increase in the employer contribution to members’ Kiwisaver funds and a 4 per cent wage claim while other wage settlements (and the inflation rate) are running at less than 2 per cent, look remarkably like the demands of a sector out of touch with reality.

Remember that the Government is running a huge fiscal deficit. Every dollar more of government spending has to be borrowed, and will be a burden on today’s kids who will have to pay it back.

The plain fact is that the average secondary teacher salary is now more than $71,000 or $1365 a week. It has risen since 2000 by more than 45 per cent – almost twice as fast as wages in the public sector as a whole (24 per cent) and the private sector (25.3 per cent).

It is provocative but misleading for teachers to compare pay rates with colleagues internationally: salaries have to be reckoned against GDP per capita for international comparisons to be meaningful – that’s why our teachers earn 82 per cent less than their Luxembourg counterparts. And our spending on non-tertiary education is the same as or higher than the OECD average in terms of GDP.

And the solution, as I have said before, is to increase our national wealth. And the way you do that is not big pay increases for doing the same job. It is by improving our productivity.

To put it bluntly, teachers need to stop disrupting the lives of students so close to end-of-year exams, prioritise their demands and get back to the bargaining table. They got 4 per cent last year and 4 per cent the year before. Parents and everyone else may take the view that teachers aren’t doing too badly.

Who else has had a 45% increase in their salary since 2000? And I don’t mean through promotions – I mean for doing the same job?

The HoS reports:

Disgraced MP David Garrett is ready to quit Parliament for the good of the Act Party.

Garrett said last night it was “very much more likely” he would stand down from Parliament before the next election. “I am in a very dark place right now,” he said.

To be fair to Garrett, he has done the right thing in quitting ACT – and so quickly. Unlike others who went to court to fight for their right to remain, he has put the interests of his party ahead of himself. I also give kudos for his resignation statement which said:

I can do nothing to change the past. For any number of reasons, I wish I had not done such a stupid and dreadfully hurtful thing in 1984. When my wrongdoing was revealed, the worst aspect of it all for me was reading the letters written by the mother and sister of the dead boy whose identity I used to obtain the passport.

As a result of my own actions, my political career is almost certainly over, but that is not my greatest concern. The worst aspect of all of this for me is that those who have seen fit to do so have opened the wounds of the boy’s mother and sister all over again. As the person who inflicted those wounds in the first place – however unwittingly – I must take ultimate responsibility for that.

I wrote letters of apology at the time – letters I realised were woefully inadequate, but there was nothing else I could do. I wish to reiterate my profound regret for the distress and hurt my thoughtless actions inflicted on two women, one of whom is elderly. I am simply unable to imagine how it must have felt at the time they first learned of what I had done, and I am equally unable to imagine what they must feel now.

I still well recall my horror when I read the letters from the boy’s relatives, one of them in the handwriting of a clearly elderly lady. I do not think I have ever felt worse.

There is certainly no excuse for what I did, and I make none.

His statement reeks of sincerity.

I have little doubt Garrett will resign from Parliament, and not try to stay on as an Independent MP. And this was before the extra complication the HoS reports on:

Their willingness to put the party’s interests ahead of their own came as a Howick woman, who met Garrett on an internet dating site, revealed he tried to woo her with a McDonald’s dinner and a private viewing of the film Casablanca.

A McDonald’s dinner? No wonder it didn’t work out!

It’s not exactly a surprise but congratulations to Kris Faafoi for winning Labour’s selection to be their candidate for Mana.

Kris will become the MP for Mana (Labour have never not held the seat). I look forward to his maiden speech.

Also congratulations to Fran Mold on her new job as a press secretary for Phil Goff.

UPDATE: A Labour Party member writes about what happened in the comments:

As a local party member I have seen some stitch ups in my time but this was a disgrace and once again the Mana Labour party is lumbered with an out of town drop in candidate.

We should be used to it by now I guess, but it really gets my goat. Almost the entire leaders office staff including the chief of staff and leaders secretary were there today, you had a group of staff including other press secretaries and advisors counting to floor votes and “checking” membership details. They even tried to stop one longtime member in her 70s from voting – she still has Michael Joseph Savage on her kitchen wall and these upstarts tried to say she wasnt Labour!

These Goff staffers brought with them affiliated union members to stack the votes in favour of Faafoi.

The whole thing was a set up and it was a race based selection. Well, Phil Goff has got the man he wanted but he has lost my support and the support of many others in the process.

Ouch, that is not a good look.

The Herald reports:

The Act Party has been “thoroughly” discredited and its ministerial positions should be removed, Labour leader Phil Goff says.

Now I have been critical, both on this blog and on radio, of Rodney’s decision not to force Garrett to make his offending known before the election. It was an error of judgement, and ACT have been damaged by it.

But I’m sorry, it is just too much to have Labour get sanctimonious on this, and declare that because of this, Rodney is unfit to be a Minister.

Need I remind people of Taito Philip Field – the MP found to have committed numerous corrupt practices while a Labour Minister and MP.

Field’s offending was not 26 years before he became an MP. It was while he was an MP. Field’s offending was not incidental to him being an MP – it was corruption in the course of his MP duties. And it was corruption aided by his Ministerial colleague who rubber stamped almost every immigration application made by Field.

And what happened when allegations were made. The Labour leadership defended Field. They said he was only guilty of working too hard.

And even after the full scale of his offending was made clear by the Ingram Report, the Labour leadership still defended him. If Rodney Hide is unfit to be a Minister, then Helen Clark and Michael Cullen were equally unfit to be Ministers.

Even worse, Labour never booted Field out for his criminal offending. He only got booted out when he talked of not standing for Labour.

And the final indignity came after he was found guilty of 11 charges of bribery and corruption (and 11 of perverting or obstructing the course of justice). Labour not only refused to apologise for the huge shame Field was, but they refused to even accept he was guilty. I’m not making this up – go check the records. The only comment they would make is they “acknowledge” the verdict.

So yes Rodney made a mistake, and yes ACT is damaged. But for fucks sake the last thing we need is a lecture in ethics from the party that gave protection and defence to a corrupt MP. If Labour ever get around to actually apologising for their defence of Field, then maybe they get to be taken seriously on ethical issues.

The Dom Post reports:

Roy Southward got more than he bargained for when he bought an office block – he found himself the proud new owner of a taxpayer-funded statue of former prime minister Sir Keith Holyoake.

Mr Southward, whose family trust has bought the State Services Commission building on Wellington’s Molesworth St, said “we were surprised it was part of the package”.

It was all the result of an oversight when the building was sold to its first private owner, AMP Capital Property.

The bastards privatised Sir Keith’s statue – paid for by taxpayers.

Former National MP Rob Talbot, who served under Sir Keith, said the fact that it was in private ownership “is a real historic mess and something should be done about it … Action should be taken to get the statue in public hands and put it where it rightfully should belong – in Parliament Grounds”.

I agree. Sir Keith won a massive four consecutive elections and was one of our great parliamentarians – he should be in the grounds of Parliament.

The Herald reports:

The share of the population of developing regions whose people live in extreme poverty is expected to fall to 15 percent by 2015, down from 46 percent in 1990, according to the United Nations. The gains stem largely from robust economic growth in countries such as China and India, the world’s two most populous countries.

That is a huge drop for one generation.

As leaders will hear next week at a Un summit in New York, the overall success in cutting extreme poverty is patchy from region to region. According to the World Bank, much of Asia already has met or is on its way to meeting the goal, and Latin America is on track to more than halve its rate from 11 percent in 1990 to 5 percent in 2015; sub-Saharan Africa is likely to fall short at a projected 38 percent.

The problems in Africa often relate to poor governance.

Change came as it did to many villages in China – through an idea and a road. A local official thought the area’s forested mountains and waterfalls could draw tourists, so he drummed up funding to pave the dirt track that was the sole path in and out of Chongdugou. Today almost all the village’s 350-plus families are involved in tourism.

In the 1990s, “people could only feed themselves, and some even starved. Children could not afford to go to school, and many could not even finish primary school,” said Liu Jiandang, a 41-year-old former farmer. “Now, we’ve got paved roads, new houses, phones and vehicles. I run a hotel that can host 20 to 30 tourists and some rooms have TV sets, air conditioners, hot water and bathrooms.”

How selfish of the village. Do they have any idea what their carbon emissions should be. They should go back to starving in poverty.

Good God I made 16 posts yesterday. Fridays are meant to be relaxed!

On the 9th of September I blogged this open letter from a reader:

As we are all aware the people of Canterbury have suffered a terrible disaster, many are operating on adrenalin alone, many face weeks if not months of uncertainty and disruption.

Both the NZRU and the CRU are in an almost unique situation where you can offer the people of Canterbury a brief respite from their woes, with that in mind I have a suggestion.

On the 25th of September you have an afternoon game scheduled between Canterbury and Wellington, why not make attendance at this game free of charge for anybody who wants to come along.

Why not offer the people of Canterbury the chance to forget their problems for a couple of hours, perhaps you could take around donation buckets for those who wish to contribute to the mayoral fund, no pressure should be put on anybody to contribute and many of those who turn up will have lost everything, however there will be others who can and would donate.

Stuff reports:

Canterbury rugby is opening the doors of AMI Stadium to the public as their way of providing some much-needed earthquake relief.

Canterbury union chief executive Hamish Riach today announced that next Saturday afternoon’s Canterbury-Wellington ITM Cup match in Christchurch would be free admission.

The offer is in response to the earthquake disaster in Canterbury and has been made possible thanks to support from the CRFU, NZRU, CRFU sponsors AMI Insurance, Tui, TicketDirect and AMI Stadium managers Vbase.

“The Canterbury region has gone through a lot recently and rugby and its partners are absolutely delighted to give this high-profile game to the community free of charge,” said Riach.

Well done Hamish, and all the companies listed who worked together to get the game made free. I hope those attending enjoy it (and lose narrowly .

And congrats to the blog reader who authored the open letter – a good idea which came to fruition.

Over the next few days I will blog a series of posts focusing on whom I think will be good candidates to support in various elections.

I start with the Wellington Regional Council. In my Wellington constituency there are five seats. Note you do not need to vote for all five.

The candidates are:

AITKEN, Judith
BABER, Sally
BRUCE, Paul Green Party
BUCHAN, Dianne – Independent
FINNY, Charles
GIBSON, Michael - REFORM
LAIDLAW, Chris -  Independent
LIPSCOMBE, Chris - Labour
McDAVITT, Terry Joseph - Independent
PONTER, Daran -  Labour
RAINEY, Bill -  Independent
WILDE, Fran - Independent

I endorse without reservation Fran Wilde and Charles Finny. Fran is the current Chair, a former Wellington Mayor and is one of those people very good at making things happen, not just talking about it. I forgive her, her former life as a Labour MP.

Charles Finny in his time with the Wgtn Chamber of Commerce transformed it into a dynamic part of Wellington. He is very focused on the wider Wellington Region (and would like a reduction from the current 11 or so Councils we have). Charles has vision and strategy.

I don’t know her, but generally have heard okay things about Sally Baber.

If you’re of the left persuasion you should vote for Chris Liscombe over Chris Laidlaw.

Lower Hutt

(3 members)

GLENSOR, Peter
GREIG, Sandra -  Independent
LAMASON, Prue
TERRIS, John - Independent
THOMAS, Rose - City Vision

Only really know Rose Thomas, who is worth voting for. Don’t know Sandra Grieg but she i President of the local Grey Power so that puts me off.

Porirua-Tawa Constituency

(2 members)

BRASH, Jenny - Independent
BURKE, John Brian - Independent
DONALDSON, Barbara
HANLEY, Pat- Independent

I’d support Brash as she supports Transmission Gully.Not a fan of Burke as he is a NIMBY when it comes to wind turbines. Donaldson sounds good. Hanley is from Pukerua Bay which probably means he is a screaming greenie.

Kapiti Coast Constituency

(1 member)

CHAPMAN, Ann -Independent
WILSON, Nigel

Not enough info to say. Feel free to share your views in comments.

Upper Hutt Constituency

(1 member)

JEFFERIES, Alan - Independent
KIRTON, Rex -
LAMBERT, Stephanie -
SWAIN, Paul -

I’d actually endorse Paul Swain. Yes I know also a former Labour MP, but I’ve actually served on a board with him and found him really good to work with. I think he would make a good contribution.

Wairarapa Constituency

(1 member)

BUCHANAN, Ian - Independent
CAMERON, Perry - Greater Wairarapa
McPHEE, Gary Hamilton -

Not enough info to give a preference. Again – feel free to comment.

Stuff reports:

Osama bin Laden would have more rights to own New Zealand’s coastland under new laws than Maori according to MP Hone Harawira.

The Marine and Coastal Area (Takitai Moana) Bill, which replaces the foreshore and seabed legislation, passed its first reading on Wednesday, and while four Maori Party MPs supported it, Harawira didn’t.

At a press conference at the marae at Auckland University today Harawira said: “If Osama Bin Laden was to come into the country – and that would be easy given the sort of people running our defence forces [a reference to the Stephen Wilce saga] – and buy a piece of the foreshore and seabed he would have more rights than Maori.

No he would not. He would have exactly the same rights as any other person (including Maori) who had purchased a parcel of land which includes a portion of the foreshore or seabed.

Hone is comparing the rights of Maori to the “common marine and coastal area” to the rights of owner or private land.  Again – he misses the core difference – people have purchased private title (including many Maori).

What Hone has done is like comparing the rights of Maori over a local public playground to the rights of a private owner of a section, and he is complaining that you can do stuff on private land, which you can’t do on the playground. He misses the point again that there is a difference between land you pay for and purchase, and land you do not.

As it happens, if an Iwi does gain customary title to part of the foreshore, they can do pretty much anything on it a private owner (who has paid for the title) can do – except two things. They can’t sell it, and they can’t exclude people from it. Both things that Iwi have said they don’t want to do.

The Herald reports:

Green MP Sue Kedgley this morning announced that she would not stand for Parliament at the 2011 election.

Ms Kedgley said after four terms she was pleased she had been able to put food, animal welfare and natural health issues on the political agenda.

I can’t think of a single issue I actually agree with Sue on, but I acknowledge she has been an effective campaigner for her causes, and probably has been part of the Greens’ electoral success – she appeals to the mums concerned about food etc.

I do recall interviewing her before the 2008 election, and she want on and on about the need for better public transport in Wellington, I remarked to her how great the new Snapper cards were, and Sue said that she didn’t actually have one. It confirmed my suspicion that she spends more time advocating for public transport than actually using it.

It will be interesting to see how the Greens go in 2011, without so many of their more “iconic” figures.

The Dom Post reports:

Former Wellington mayor Mark Blumsky has been appointed New Zealand’s new high commissioner to Niue, launching a career in diplomacy after a two-year absence from politics.

He is already involved in tourism development on the tiny Pacific island, and is there at present.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully said New Zealand and Niue were working closely together to help realise the island’s full tourism potential.

“In recent months Mr Blumsky has been leading the industry development project that was agreed as part of New Zealand’s assistance programme for Niue,” he said.

If Mark can do for Niue, what he did for Wellington, it will become a popular destination to visit.

Gerry Brownlee has made his first “gerryorder” as our Supreme Overlord. Contrary to rumours he has not jailed John Key and given himself the keys to the Treasury.

His gerryorder#1 extends Civil Defence powers until 29 November 2010. Specifically it maintains (despite the state of emergency being over) their ability to:

• evacuate, and to exclude persons or vehicles from, premises and places (including public places)
• enter on, and if necessary break into, premises and places
• make available prohibitions or restrictions on public access, with or without vehicles, to roads and public places
• make available powers to remove (and if necessary for that purpose to use force or break into) aircraft, vessels, vehicles
• make available powers to requisition property
• make available powers to direct or request persons to stop certain activities or to take certain actions
• make available powers to examine, mark, seize, sample, secure, disinfect, or destroy any property, animal, or any other thing

The Supreme Overlord denies that he will be ordering the compulsory disinfecting of Opposition MPs in Canterbury.

The Herald reports:

More than 40 Citizens & Ratepayers election hoardings have been defaced in the past four weeks, with 10 found on Tuesday alone. …

Mr Goldsmith said he felt the damage was “not just a random thing”.

“There is an element of organisation about it which we find disturbing.”

Information he received from an Official Information Act request revealed that a group apprehended by police at the end of last month, defacing billboards in Pt Chevalier, were targeting C&R hoardings.

Mr Goldsmith said he did not want to “drag the matter out”.

A police report reveals that those responsible were 26-year-old Pia McKay, a tutor at the University of Auckland, and 20-year-old Claire Stanton, a student at the university. A 16-year-old from Grey Lynn was also involved.

The police report said McKay accepted she had committed an act of intentional damage but said it was a political protest.

Ms McKay doesn’t seem at all remorseful. A concerning attitude for a university tutor.

And even worse, as Clint points out, she has been described as an AsiaNZ Young Leader.

UPDATE 1218: David Garrett has resigned as a member of ACT. He is taking two weeks leave to decide whether or not to continue as an Independent MP.

For my 2c David can not continue as an Independent MP. He is a List MP and got there on the ACT list. He may need a few days to come to this conclusion, but it is the only viable one.

Earlier: I’ve spent a couple of days thinking about this, and I have to conclude the future is bleak for ACT. Not terminal necessarily, but their brand may be too damaged to repair.

It was a critically bad decision to keep Garrett’s offending secret. While what he did was very bad (and one can only have immense sympathy for the family of the deceased infant, who are having to cope with all of this), it could have been handled, if prior to the election it was revealed. NZers do not expect MPs who have never made mistakes.

But keeping it secret, while one rails against crime and suppression orders means that ACT is seen as hypocritical. And the nature of the offence risks them being seen as a bad taste joke.

So how do they move forward?

An absolute minimum is that David Garrett must be removed as Law & Order Spokesperson. It is impossible for him to perform that role with credibility anymore.

But I don’t think that will even be enough. So long as David remains in the ACT Caucus, this will remain an issue. Some may say it is unfair (remember Trevor Mallard remained an MP despite being convicted of assault – while an MO, of another MP, and in the lobby of the debating chamber), but this is about political survival.

Also recall that there will not be inquiries into whether Garrett should have disclosed his Tongan conviction to the courts. I am sure he will face complains to the Law Society. The Tongan doctor is alleging a different set of facts to him, and more witnesses may come out about that. ACT can’t afford to have this dominate reporting on them for weeks and months to come.

If Garrett resigns, then Hilary Calvert would become an MP. She is well regarded within ACT (not a star, but a safe steady performer insiders say) and she is loyal to the leadership. It is a myth that she would be a vote for Heather.

So in my opinion ACT need to do that. However, that still leaves them some problems.

Rodney’s standing is damaged by this, and questions will be asked about why Garrett is deemed necessary to resign now, yet Rodney was happy to have him as an MP when it was secret. Rodney will need to acknowledge that this should have been made public before the election. Now to be fair to Rodney he was not the only person who knew of this.

Another issue, is where did this stuff on Garrett came from? If it did come from people with ACT, then it signifies that they have scorpions in their ranks who are happy to kill off the entire party so long as they can poison their target. As I understand it the number of scorpions is small – four or so. But they may need to be exterminated.

But even if you get past that, you have the very difficult challenge of re-establishing a brand for ACT that can attract support and allow Rodney to retain Epsom.

I would say ACT has mainly had three brands – low taxes, hard line law & order and perk busting.

Both of the latter two brands are destroyed or seriously damaged. That laaves the low tax brand. The problem there is that a minor party’s impact on tax policy is always going to be relatively small. And anything you do achieve the bigger party can get credit for,

What else can ACT build their brand on – they can go down the “Maori Party has gained too much path”. But Winston is already there, and he will always be able to push that barrow more effectively.

They can position themselves as the anti ETS party. But now 1 July has been and gone, and the world did not end, I am not sure if it will be much of an issue next election.

Maybe to some degree, one can’t draw up a path for survival at this point. But one can take a couple of steps in the right direction. See how you are doing, and then plan the next two steps. But any mis-steps are likely to be fatal.

Hard to blog Nat, as one gets so caught up just listening to him.

He just called IT industry a sausage fest – as only 10% to 30% are women. Much laughter.

Says no point going down path of blame for this. Says gender is just the tip of the iceberg. And it is a huge opportunity.

Talks about Myer-Briggs tests as a form of astrology

Say ICT industry all belongs to one of their segments (missed which one).

Says the things which drive away women, also drive away shitloads of men. We need more people fullstop.

He said too often programmers (not all) are arseholes, as we like Darwinian competition. Newbies given too many stick for mistakes.

I blogged a link on 31 August to two principals discussing national standards. One principal was a campaigner against them (and head of the Canterbury Principals Assn) and the other was a principal who supports the standards.

Duncan Garner reports on the abuse and bullying Donna Donnelly has received for daring to say she has no problems with national standards:

Tikipunga principal Donna Donnelly supports standards in numeracy in literacy. Neighbouring principal Peter Witana, an executive member of the New Zealand Principals Federation (NZPF), does not.

So he sent her a strongly worded email.

“It’s a type of bullying and I don’t accept it,” says Ms Donnelly.

Mr Witana told Ms Donnelly her support “reeks of arrogance and ignorance”, that she should be “sacked on the spot”, and that she should “get off her backside and look closer”.

Another principal told her to watch her back.

Witana is basically a union heavy. How dare he say she should be sacked, because she refuses to agree with the union.  If anyone should be facing the sack – it should be him. What sort of role model is he for pupils, when he is exposed as a ranting bully.

And Duncan reports in a follow up story:

But Donnelly continues to be targeted.

Another Northland principal Pat Newman also emailed  Donnelly for taking the spat to 3 News; he wrote;

“It was despicable. I am so sad that you call yourself a principal. When you left the Waikato the message from many of your colleagues was that you were the ‘best export they had ever made.’”

Mr Newman sounds like a spiteful 10 year old. He is also a Labour Party actvist who is seeking Labour’s nomination for Whangarei. Meet your future Education Minister!!

The vast majority of schools have just got on with implementing national standards. But consider if you are one of those principals. Would you dare to state a view that is contrary to the union? So do not be surprised when you only hear from one side of teh debate – the other side have been scared off.

The impact of the Tea Party movement on US politics is proving both good and bad to the US right.

The movement is fascinating because it really is what so many people in politics have called for – a grass roots movement that is not controlled by the establishment, that has no leaders – just a set of shared values. Now there are downsides to having no structure and no leaders (extremists etc), but the positive is several million Americans have joined this movement and are far far more enthusiastic at participating in it than they are with mainstream politics.

There is no doubt that the momentum generated by the Tea Party movement is part of the reason that the Democrats face losing the House, the majority of Governorships and possibly even the Senate. They are not the only factor, but they have generated a degree of hostility towards “Big Government”, that many incumbents are facing oblivion.

And not just Democrat incumbents. They have got bolder and bolder in challenging incumbent Republicans. They have won many victories in primaries. However this makes the job of winning the general election much harder. Harry Reid was 10% behind in Nevada against the mainstream Republican candidate but is now neck and neck vs teh Tea Party backed candidate.

And in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell just won the primary against Mike Castle who has held office within Deleware for around 40 years and was rated highly likely to beat the Democrats in the general election.

O’Donnell has been disowned by everyone from Karl Rove down. She has advocated against masturbation (equating it with adultery), has a history of bad debts.

But having said that, she may manage to win in the general election. Other tea party backed candidates have shown they can be competitive against the Democrats.

In Florida, the general consensus when Rubio beat Crist for the Republican nomination is that it would fall to the Democrats. 538 currently has Rubio on 40%, Crist (as an Independent) on 38% and the Democrats’ Meek out of it on 22%.

So it is possible that the Republicans will still win the Senate. The Tea Party backed candidates may win in the general election.But O’Donnell may end up as a ticking time bomb – exploding either before or after the election.

Have now had some time to go through the 70 page decision, which I blogged previously. There’s a lot of interesting issues there – some of which may affect other bloggers – and even the media.

This case is about whether or not a person behaved in a manner that breached the law and in doing so utilised some of the communications technologies associated with the Internet. It is not a case about whether or not the law should allow nonpublication orders. That debate must take place in another forum.

Such as blogs! The furore over Garrett is another example of the fading power to keep names suppressed. It seems that just because he admitted it in Parliament, doesn’t mean one can repeat what he said with immunity. But myself, along with every media outlet in NZ, decided the risk of prosecution was nil as it was the defendant himself who revealed what he had been charged with and got name suppression for.

And even if he had not, it was inevitable it would have ended up in the public domain, We saw this also in another recent case regard issues around a failed marriage of a political figure – the media never stated who it was, but made it very clear from heir reporting.

It is also to be noted that postings on a blog may come from a number of sources and usually include the administrator or supervisor of the blog site. However most administrators or supervisors of blog sites must hold some responsibility for the comments that are posted.

This is a warning that a blog owner can be held responsible for comments made on their blog. Unlikely to be held responsible if you are unaware of them, but if a comment is pointed out to a blog owner – and you refuse to edit or delete it – then you may face some liability.

This poses some dangers to blog owners. Let us say it is announced a politician got name suppression for urinating in public. Someone in General Debate might say “I reckon that is the sort of thing Simon Bridges would do”. Now as blog owner I have no idea who the politician is. If it turns out to be Simon Bridges, then I may be liable for the comment. If Crown Law contacts me and says you should take it down as it is Simon Bridges, then I’d take it down, but readers might then take that as proof it was him. And it means Crown Law have also spread the identity of the person with name suppression.

SO there may need to be some way blog owners can check out details of suppression orders, if they are to be liable for comments made on their sites. But do you allow all 200,000 blog owners to access some register of suppression orders? That may be self-defeating!

However the “conversation” differs from that which may take place over a cup of coffee or across a dinner table. The first difference is that the material that is posted upon the blog is posted primarily in the form of text.

Thus, unlike a conversation, the blog becomes a record which is preserved and available on the blog site until such time as it is removed by the person responsible for administering it.

And presumably this applies to Twitter and Facebook also.

Even if the blog were to be accessible by means of subscription
with a login and a password it could well in my view be subject to the same constraints.

At first I thought this was over-reach, but I then compared it to the Trans-Tasman newsletter which you need a login and password to access. If they broke a name suppression order, they would certainly be deemed a publication.

The Court has jurisdiction notwithstanding the fact that the server hosting Mr. Slater’s website is located in San Antonio Texas in the United States of America. This is because publication of information takes place where the material is downloaded and comprehended.

I don’t like this interpretation, as it effectively implies that if you publish material on the Internet, you are a publisher in every country on earth. This means I may have broken the laws of dozens of countries with my blog.

I believe that it should only be deemed to be published in the country in which the person responsible resides and or where the servers used reside. Otherwise you risk an Internet which ends up governed by the most repressive country.

Of course I can avoid travelling to certain countries, but I don’t want to travel to (for example) Indonesia and find myself arrested for something I said on my blog about Islam (for example).

In addition the evidence is that Mr Slater posted material to the Whaleoil site from New Zealand thus performing an act necessary for the commission of an offence pursuant to s. 7 of the Crimes Act 1961.

Cameron did not deny he uploaded the material. If the site was registered to someone not in NZ, and the uploading was done by someone not in NZ, then there would be little the legal system could do. Lance Wiggs blogs on ths point:

What if the author of the overseas site is unknown? What if the site is hosted in multiple places around the world? What if the site that received emails and published names was Wikileaks.org? What if there was a global site called NameSuppression.org, with a nz.NameSupression.Org sub-domain? The owners could be shadowy, the location ever in doubt and the publisher untouchable.

It can’t be long before this occurs, and then what shall we do in New Zealand? Block the site as the Australians tried to do with Wikileaks? Go after anyone that links to the site?

The issue of links is also interesting. Back to that later.

Constable Traviss also gave evidence of a “posting” on Mr Slater’s blog which is known by his “nom d’internet” of Whaleoil.

Heh I think we have a new legal term!

The internet allows everyone to be a publisher.

I do wish people would capitalise Internet.

Many bloggers prefer to differentiate themselves from mainstream media and rather than post what may be described as “hard news” prefer to post comment or articles that put a “spin” upon a particular story or alternatively offer an opinion (which may be of considerable strength and sometimes of pungent articulation).

Did Judge Harvey just call bloggers hot and spicy?

One feature however that differentiates a blog from say, a newspaper, is that a blog occupies a continuum of comment where a particular posting or item may start on one day but may continue and develop over a period of time. In many respects this continuum may have an impact upon the context of the publication or posting.

This is an interesting observation, as it meshes with something I had been reflecting on. Newspapers tend to always write stories to be read “stand alone”. So they will mention background context in every story. So even after their 20th story on David Garrett, they will re-state how he is an ACT MP elected in 2008 etc.

Blogs tends to assume that readers have read what they have said previously, and/or that they follow current affairs closely enough, that they don’t bother to supply all the background detail. This may be one reason why blogs are popular – you get to the meat of the issue.

But it does mean, as Judge Harvey stated, that blogs are more a continuum of comment, and posts can’t be treated as stand alone.

That comment seems to suggest that the effectiveness of an order made pursuant to s 140 is limited to publication in New Zealand. That is perfectly correct.

To suggest that a non-publication order pursuant to s 140 would have extra territorial effect is nonsense.

Of course such orders can not have extra-territorial effect, but in terms of futility, a publication on an overseas blog (or even newspaper) is just as capable of undermining the suppression order.

In the present case the availability of the material from a server located in San Antonio, Texas in the United States has little relevance. The evidence before me is that the material was able to be read and comprehended in New Zealand (thus constituting a publication) and the material was uploaded on the Whaleoil blog by Mr Slater present in New Zealand at the time.

What would be interesting is if Slater had a co-blogger who was based overseas. Would Slater as administrator be liable for what the co-blogger writes on a server is Texas? What if the co-blogger was the domain name registrant?

Judge Harvey himself gets into this:

But what of the person (A) who makes a suppressed name available to a person (B) beyond the jurisdiction, and B posts the name on a his or her blog or website in a country other than New Zealand? Without specifically deciding the point, according to the decision of Hammond J in Re X the communication between A in New Zealand and B overseas could fall within the concept of a private conversation between individuals and may therefore would not fall within the scope of s. 140(1).

This is not a definite ruling, but an interesting indication that merely telling someone overseas details of a suppression order might not be an offence. Even if it was, it would be incredibly hard to prove of course.

The fact that the information is available on the internet and accessible to people in New Zealand who may subscribe to the blog or know of the webpage does not present any element of novelty. In 2000 the day after the non-publication order was made in the Lewis Case, Mr. Lewis’ name was published in the Australian newspaper which, a couple of days later, was available in newspaper rooms in New Zealand and probably on the Australian website of the day.

A case Judge Harvey is well acquainted with.

While not relevant to the finding of fact in a particular case, it is relevant to our law makers when reviewing the law.

Following from that is the New Zealand based blogger who may embed a link to the off-shore blogsite which contains the suppressed name. One should be cautious in such circumstances that one does not become involved in “publishing” by way of hypertext link. In the case of Universal City Studios v Reimerdes and Corley, a Court made an order that the defendant’s website was prohibited from directly providing files which contained the DeCSS code which enabled the circumvention of copy protection algorithms on DVDs. When the defendants posted links on their websites to other sites that provided DeCSS either by way of direct download via the link or by means of an extra few websites, the Court held that utilising this device was a “distinction without a difference” to offering a direct download. I have no doubt this point or something like it will fall to be decided in this country in some future case.

This is the aspect that may have implications for bloggers and media. I raised this issue last year also at the R v Internet seminar. Consider a case where say Whale Oil again breaches a suppression order, and this is reported on by media and/or other blogs. In order of decreasing risk, you have possibilities:

1. You mention Whale has (allegedly) broken another suppression order provide a link through to the actual post which allegedly breaches a suppression order.
2. You mention Whale has (allegedly) broken another suppression order and provide a link through his blog, but not the actual post which allegedly breaches a suppression order.
3. You mention Whale has (allegedly) broken another suppression order and on your blogroll you have a link through to his blog.
4. You mention Whale has (allegedly) broken another suppression order and have no links to his site anywhere at all.
5. You mention a “notorious blogger” has (allegedly) broken another suppression order.

All of the above actions could lead to a large number of people finding out the name of a suppressed person.

(1) is something which to my mind does cross the line, and would be unwise to do. But how different is that to (2). If you provide a link to his blog, it will probably be on the front page and discoverable within seconds. So (2) may get you in trouble with the law also.

Then how about (3). The only difference between (2) and (3) is someone has to go from looking at the main body of your blog, to the sidebar with a blogroll, and click through to follow the link. (3) is not far from (2) and (2) is not far from (1).

So how about (4) and you provide no links at all, anywhere on your site. Well, 95% of people who do not know the URL of Whale Oil will go to Google, and his blog comes up first. Same thing if you search on his name only. So I am not sure (4) is very far removed from (3). This would mean that every media outlet that named Cameron or his blog, could be at some risk – especially if they have any links at all in their archives to his site.

But what if they don’t even mention his name, or his site’s name at all. Well even scenario (5) can lead to lots of people who will find out the identity of a suppressed name. You see in this example Whale Oil is so well know as the site which has breached previous orders, that there are probably 100,000+ people who upon reading in the newspaper “A controversial blogger has revealed the name of the /musician/politician/sportsman who did ….” that they will know exactly which site to go to to find out, and then of course tell all their friends.

So maybe the only way to stop it, is to have a law where it is illegal to even mentioned that a suppression order exists, let alone it has been breached. But that is draconian, and would not be accepted. So where do you draw the line?

Some of the charges have a name published under the heading “Interesting Name.” Mr Thwaite argues that this means nothing. Mr Burns responds by arguing that one must look at the context of that particular publication taking into account that further information is available on the blog site relating to the case involving the particular name which has been displayed in another place on the blog site.

Mr Burns argues that because the blog is in the nature of a continuum that it is clear to the reader that the name relates to another article on the site and it is merely a matter of marrying the two.

This brings up an interesting possibility. What if you never ever posted on the actual substantive story relating to a suppressed name, and just posted the name by itself?

Or you can find some other way to refer to the person with name suppression. The mainstream media do this quite often. In one story they report an entertainer has been granted name suppression, and in another they report that so and so has been dropped from TV. Will they get treated as a continuum  or only blogs?

Similarly with the pictogram. The information can be decoded in the same way that an aggregation of information may lead to the identification of a person by way of a process of elimination – another form of interpreting a particular code or solving a puzzle. The use of phonetically coded information (which is how the pictogram resolves the name) is not unknown to Mr. Slater. I venture to suggest that the words “Whaleoil Beef Hooked” on the “masthead” of his homepage provides an example.

Ha. I wonder how many times the Judge had to try it out loud with an Irish accent before he worked it out – it took me a few goes

Mr. Slater also maintains a certain amount of control over the content that is published. He was asked “You’ll just publish it anyway?” He replied “If I agree with it. I won’t publish something I don’t agree with” – an ironic answer in light of the freedom of expression argument which his counsel has advanced.

Not really ironic in my opinion. In the comments section, Cameron does allow contrary views to be posted all the time – in fact I’ve never known him to censor a comment. His comments were, I suspect, referring to what appears on the front page or main posts of Gotcha.

The evidence is also clear from some of the posts by Mr. Slater that his campaign was going to go beyond legitimate protest and criticism and was going to enter the realm of “electronic civil disobedience” by the publication of certain names that were the subject of non-publication orders.

I quite like that term “electronic civil disobedience”!

The judgement answers a number of questions about our name suppression laws and will I imagine be cited often in the future.

It does however leave unresolved potentially larger questions for the future – such as liability for linking, and whether communicating suppressed details to an overseas blogger would be an offence. Of course that is because those questions did not have to be answered in this particular case.

I look forward to seeing what changes to name suppression laws are proposed by the Government, in response to the Law Commission’s report.

NZCS Chief Executive Paul Matthews (Chair), Web guru Nat Torkington, CPIT Head of School Alison Young, TUANZ CEO Ernie Newman and Orcon Founder Seeby Woodhouse

What does the future look like:

Seeby: points out innovation is not just computers – many farmers are innovative and have never used a computer. Has been on three year restraint of trade sabattical from ICT industry so has given him lots of time to think. There are soft and hard trends. A soft trend is a share market going up three days in a row, But no guarantee will go up four days in a row. An ageing population is a hard trend, so Orion likely to do well as they specialize in healthcare technology.

Also things happen in cycles, so can do well if you understand the cycle.

To quote George W Bush we vastly mis-underestimated Moore’s Law, which is computing power and storage doubles every 18 months. Believes we are at the start of the stick on a hockey stick. Going from 1 MB to 2 MB not big but going from 250 GB to 500 GB is significant – means can store your entire photo collection etc.

Thinks cellphones will become instant translation devices, will allow travel anywhere.

Nat: Talking open source and the web. Encyclopedia Brittancia was an icon on authority and respect. Not to say Wikipedia is, but certainly EB no longer is.

Also says services over mobile are the most exciting things for improving people’s lives.

Ernie: Talking on telco. Copper, mobile and fibre. Copper competition is about as good as it gets – have the standard regulatory environment. Telecommunications is so much an eoconmy of scale that natural end point is a monopoly if you have no regulation.

Mobile was two duopolists. Very geographically separated market. 2 degrees has shaken this up, and all three networks now using same technology. Things good so long as termination rates come down and 2 degrees stay in the market.

Fibre: Say aim should be to 100% of NZ, not 80%.

Attacking BusinessNZ saying they have always argued against the interest of the majority of their members, and have opposed every move the Commerce Commission has made to have more competition.

Missed Alison’s contribution as I was handing out demerits in General Debate.

Seeby talking about my favourite topic – GPS location services on mobiles. Gave example of if at a sports game in a stadium, you can zoom in and see which aisle and row each of your friends are in, so can easily meet up etc.