Kiwiblog

Many will have seen the story about how two victims of sex abuse were named on a Ministry of Justice website.

Simon Power announced there would be an independent review to find out how this happened.

Rather than wait for anything resmebling a fact, Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni announced she had worked out who was to blame – the National Government of course.

The breach of name suppression of two sex abuse victims by the Ministry of Justice is a mistake that should never have happened and is another example of the National Government’s failure to protect the rights of  victims.

Simon Power says he will be asking questions of the officials tomorrow morning to ascertain how this mistake occurred, when really he should be pointing the finger at himself and his Government.  The slash and burn cuts that the National Government have continued to make across the public sector, are inevitably going to result in mistakes being made.  The funding cuts to resources and jobs across the sector – equate to, additional pressure being placed on those still working there – leaving them stretched beyond the limit.

Rather sad that two victims of sexual abuse have had their identies revealed, and that Labour merely sees this as an opportunity to smear National and continue their ideological arguments that the public sector should be immune from the impact of a recession.

So was it some over-worked staffer in the Ministry of Justice who made an error, and ignored the Judge’s supression order? Is Carmel’s smear attack justified?

Well this later story reports:

The Chief High Court Judge, Justice Helen Winkelmann, says the court failed to note suppression rules on a judgement which led to the publication of the names of two sexual abuse victims on the Ministry of Justice website.

Justice Winkelmann, in a statement this evening following her inquiries, said it was an error and she very much regretted it had happened.

I’m amazed Labour have not yet found a way to blame the Canterbury Earthquake on public sector staff cuts.

NZPA report:

Plans for Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to speak in Parliament during her visit to New Zealand this week have been opposed by the Green Party.

Ms Gillard, who arrives in New Zealand for the two-day visit tomorrow, will become the first foreign leader to speak in Parliament when she gives a speech on Wednesday.

She will speak in the debating chamber but not during a formal sitting of Parliament.

Speaking on Breakfast this morning, Prime Minister John Key said he had pushed for Ms Gillard to speak in Parliament but that there had been some opposition from the Green Party.

“You wouldn’t offer that opportunity to every leader, but Julia Gillard is not every leader, she is the Prime Minister of Australia,” Mr Key said.

“I think it’s only appropriate that any leader to speak in our Parliament would be an Australian because that is our most important, critical partner.”

Green Party Co-leader Russel Norman later issued a statement saying his party welcomed Ms Gillard’s visit and looked forward to hearing her address in Parliament.

However, he said the Greens thought that it was important her speech did not take place during a sitting session of Parliament.

“No one apart from New Zealand MPs has ever been allowed to address a sitting session of Parliament, not even our own Governor-General. It would set a precedent if the Australian PM does,” Dr Norman said.

“We think it is really important to maintain the democratic sovereignty of New Zealand’s Parliament, if we allow one Head of State to address a sitting session of Parliament, then we will inevitably allow other visiting dignitaries to do the same.

Dr Norman said changing the rule could “create a slippery slope” which could undermine Parliament’s sovereignty.

This really is pathethic behaviour from the Greens. The reason they are objecting is because a future Australian Prime Minister might be from the right, and they can’t concieve in their small little brains that it is more important to respect the role, than agree with someone’s politics.

Mature politicians can work with people from the other side of the spectrum. Key and Rudd were great examples of that. So were Howard and Clark.

Allowing the Prime Minister of Australia to address the NZ Parliament would be a very good way of highlighting the unique relationship we have with Australia.

Dr Norman also shows his ignorance of history by citing the fact the Governor-General can’t address Parliament as a reason why the PM of Australia should not. The ban on the GG is because they represent the Crown, and the Crown used to barge into Parliament and chop heads off MPs whom angered him or her. Hence, why the Commons is now off limit to them.

The latest press release from the Jedi:

The International Jedi Church, based in New Zealand, are terminating discussions with the Libertarianz Party due to significant differences in opinion.

The Jedi Church believes that the forthcoming census is extremely important so that we can manage our church resources effectively to our Jedi parishioners across New Zealand. In contrast, the Libertarianz Party is advising civil disobedience by encouraging people to burn their census papers.

It is noted that a recent response by Master Yoda, claiming to be of the Jedi High Council, was not an official response of Jedi Church NZ.

However, we concur with his thoughts. The Jedi Church believes in universal compassion. We advise that the leader of the Libertarianz Party, Richard McGrath, should “beware of the dark side”. Some freedoms create suffering for others. The Jedi Church believes we should live in a harmonious society, and that may necessitate some taxation and regulation.

The Jedi Church encourages all who believe their spirituality is innate, those who “feel the force”, should consider answering Jedi to the religion question in the forthcoming census. We note that the only issue the Jedi Church has with Statistics NZ, is that they require we pay for the data when other religions have the data published free of charge.

The Jedi Church was started by Reuben Jackson, in February 2003, in response to Statistics NZ claiming that Jedi was not an valid religion. Jackson took offence that Statistics NZ should make any such judgement of the validity of any religion, noting that Satanists, Witches and Scientologists were all treated as valid religions by the government department. Thus a website, www.jedichurch.org, was established to be the home of the Jedi religion, where the Jedi followers could meet and discuss their faith. The Jedi Church now has over 10000 registered members internationally, and over 1600 Facebook friends. There are new ministries of the Jedi faith starting all over the world continuously.  The Jedi Church website ranks #1 on google searches for phrases like “Jedi Religion” and “Jedi Faith”. In the 2006 census over twenty thousand people answered Jedi to the religion question in the census. The census is important to monitoring the growth of this popular religion. The Jedi faith is serious and is not a one time census anomaly.

The Jedi Church looks forward to entering into discussions with other political parties who do share our values. Winston Peters and Rodney Hyde should not apply.

Official Website of the Jedi Church NZ
www.jedichurch.org

2006 Census Jedi Breakdown in NZ
http://www.jedichurch.org/webapps/i/4448/5930/204814

It will be interesting to see how many Jedi declare their religion in the upcoming census. Interesting that last census 7% of Nelsonians declared themselves to follow the Jedi religion. Canterbury has the smallest proportion of Jedi, and they have had around 3,000 earthquakes in the last six months. Is there a link?

Heh, that is rather unfortunate placement of stalls and signs.

At Harcourt Park in Upper Hutt this weekend is a world invitational jousting competition.

There will be foot combats, seige engines, jousting and archery. Should be a fun day – especially if you have kids.

There’s also a competition for best costume.

The Age reports:

THE Coalition has opened an emphatic 54-46 per cent two-party lead in an Age/Nielsen poll that shows Labor’s primary vote and the Prime Minister’s popularity sliding.

This is the biggest lead the opposition has had over the Gillard government in Nielsen polls and – depending on preference allocation – probably its best result since early 2005. The Coalition’s two-party vote is up 3 percentage points since November, with Labor’s down 3 points.

On first preferences Labor is at 32% to 46% for the Coalition and 12% for the Greens.

Gillard still leads as Preferred PM 51% to 41% for Abbott, but (outside election campaigns) the incumbent PM almost always polls highest as Preferred PM. Key out polling Clark from Opposition as Preferred PM was a rare exception.

Back Benches is back in Wellington on Wednesday. At the Backbencher Pub at 9.10 pm. Come early for a pre-show drink or two.

MPs are:

• Annette King, Labour
• Chester Borrows, National
• John Boscawen, ACT
• Metiria Turei, Greens

Dear Stuff/Dom Post,

Parliament resumed last week. So where is our weekly politics trivia quiz?

If it does not appear soon, the suicide rate amongst political geeks may skyrocket.

Stuff reports:

Internal Affairs is looking into whether Telecom may have breached spam laws by sending text messages to customers that did not include instructions on how customers could unsubscribe from receiving such messages.

Telecom said its approach was “common practice”, meaning Internal Affairs’ ruling could have an impact on text and email marketing promotions run by other firms.

Victoria University law student Hamish McConnochie drew attention to the texts, promoting Telecom’s pre-pay top-ups and roaming services, claiming they probably fell foul of the Unsolicited Electronic Messaging Act, passed by the last Labour government in 2007. The act states that all commercial electronic messages must include instructions on how recipients can unsubscribe, unless they have reached an “arrangement or understanding” with recipients that these need not be included.

Telecom sent customers text messages in November telling recipients that unless they objected then, Telecom would deem they had agreed future text messages from the company need no longer include an opt-out message.

Spokeswoman Anna Skerten said those messages created such an arrangement. But Mr McConnochie said simply not responding to that text did not meet the threshold for an agreement under the act.

It’s arguable either way, but for my 2c I think an “arrangement” not to receive opt out instructions must in itself be something you opt into, not just decline to opt out of.

It will be interesting to see what DIA decides.

Clio Francis in the Dom Post writes:

Taxpayer-funded globe trotter Peter Freedom is just one of 658 long-term beneficiaries whose welfare payments have been axed in a government crackdown.

The long-term dole collectors – estimated to have pocketed millions of taxpayer dollars – had failed to reapply for their benefits or actively look for work after receiving payments for more than one year.

So the simple step of requiring a reapplication after a year on the dole, has reduced its numbers by 658. Why wasn;’t this done years ago?

 Sunday Star Times New Property Section

On Sunday 20 Feb, the Sunday Star-Times will re-launch itself. This is rumoured to be in response to falling ratings.

The pdf above tells us that they will have an eight page tabloid property section.

Their news count has been under half that of the Herald on Sunday, so the rumour is their news section will go to 18 pages. Patrick Gower has tweeted stuff he has heard such as a big Anthony Hubbard column on page of A section; Richard Boock on back of sport, Megan Nicol-Reed on back of Focus, and Rod Oram on the back of a tabloid business section. Also Jon Hartevelt as new political columnist, working from the Fairfax Parliamentary hub.

There is also talk most other columnists except Michael Laws have been dropped.

We’ll find out in six days.

Deborah Coddington writes in the HoS:

It’s election year and this year’s panacea is to close the gap between rich and poor. Expect more of this zeitgeist because some Kiwi journalists have just caught up with a silly book published in Britain two years ago called The Spirit Level.

Actually I have no problem with closing the gaps. I think that’s an admirable objective, but I suspect my aspirations are vastly different from those of some of my colleagues.

Because when most people talk about closing gaps between rich and poor, they want to drag the successful down to the level of the lowest, whereas I’d lift everyone up to the top, if I could.

Indeed. Any excuse to whack the rich pricks, which is why they have latched onto The Spirit Level (whose findings are shown in The Spirit Level Delusion to be cherrypicked to get the results they wanted).

If the gaps are really to be closed, spirit-levellers would have to go further and place handicaps on successful people to ensure they don’t find ways to break the mould.

Clever brains like Sam Morgan’s, for instance, which enabled him to come up with Trade Me, would have to be dulled with drugs.

Fashion designers like Denise L’Estrange Corbet, who sees beauty where I see bolts of cloth, would have to be blinded. Cut out Kiri Te Kanawa’s voice box – I think you get my drift.

I’m not a fan of the saying, “celebrate our differences”, but in this context it seems appropriate to trot it out. And why can’t we aspire to something higher than the middle common denominator?

It’s about time someone started championing the rich and successful in this country – they’re a persecuted minority.

I can only imagine the hate mail Deborah will get in the next edition of the HoS.

But she has a point. As a society we celebrate someone winning $1m in Lotto using blind luck, but condemn someone who after 30 years of 70 hour weeks, earns $500,000 a year as a chief executive.

Received by e-mail:

Dear David Farrar,

Recently you banned me from your Kiwiblog website stating:

[rest of e-mail deleted by DPF due to copyright complaint by the troll]

I am unsure of the legal requirements for public forums and will be seeking some legal advice concerning the matter. If I am not reinstated as a blogger on your site, I will undertake a test case against Kiwiblog for limiting peoples right to voice an opinion on a public forum. I will also inform the media of such action. …

[rest of e-mail deleted by DPF due to copyright complaint by the troll]

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Todd.

You know if Todd has stopped his e-mail with his apology, I probably would have relented and let him back in after a period of suspension.

But threaten me with legal action for your right to comment on my blog. Well fuck that. First of all you show yourself to be very very stupid – my blog is not a public forum. It is my private property, and I allow people the privilege of commenting here at my discretion. I would greatly enjoy any court case where someone tries to gain a legal right to comment on my blog – it would be hilarious.

Todd also threatened to expose what I did in banning him to the media. Well I’ve done that for him. For those who wonder why Todd got booted, feel free to wade through the 280 comments in this thread, especially from around 5.30 pm onwards .

First time I have had someone threaten to sue me for their “right” to comment here. I really didn’t think there was anyone that stupid around.

UPDATE: Todd says he was going to expose me to the media, but when I blogged his complaint letter so the media could see it, he then decided he did not want it public and filed a copyright complaint with my ISP. Hence I have removed most of his e-mail from the post. The remaining sections fall under fair use provisions.

Stuff reports:

A senior National MP has been confirmed as the next High Commissioner to the Cook Islands.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully announced today Civil Defence Minister John Carter would take up the post in August.

This will leave his Northland seat vacant but the Government can avoid a by-election if the seat becomes vacant within six months of the election date.

75% of Parliament has to agree, but I am sure they will.

John Carter had massive popularity in Northland. It is one of the poorest areas of New Zealand, but he has always had huge majorities. The reason is because he is probably the hardest working constituent MP of this generation.

I recall one giving John a lift up to Palmie. He spent the entire time on his cellphone calling back constituents to give them updates on the issues they had raised with him.

If John brings the same vigour to his job as High Commissioner to the Cooks, I suspect he will be just as popular over there as he is in Northland.

Clio Francis writes in the Dom Post:

A Kiwi beneficiary has travelled the world funded by the dole, spending nearly two years seeing the sights of Europe, Asia and Africa without his unemployment benefit being cut off.

In an international escapade that has left Social Development Minister Paula Bennett and Work and Income fuming, Peter Freedom, 34, has admitted seeing the world at taxpayer expense.

Mr Freedom left New Zealand for Australia on April 11, 2009, expecting his benefit would be cut off two weeks later. “I was just amazed when it didn’t,” he said from Dubai.

He visited Europe, the Balkans, Britain, North Africa and Asia before his benefit was finally axed late last month.

Work and Income head Mike Smith said Mr Freedom – previously known as Petrus van Druten – would be prosecuted for benefit fraud if he returned to New Zealand.

Good.

“Peter Freedom is a liar and fraudster who has abused the trust of New Zealanders. We will throw the book at him if he returns.”

Ms Bennett said Mr Freedom’s claim that he thought the benefit would “just stop” was pathetic.

“There is no excuse for continuing to claim welfare on an extended overseas holiday.

“New Zealanders will find the photos of Mr Freedom in front of Egypt’s pyramids hard to stomach and I have to say I do too.”

Mr Freedom used the nearly $28,000 – $287.12 a week, which later increased to $293.04 – to see some tourist meccas.

His favourites included the Pyramids of Giza, the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower and bullfighting in Spain. “The trip was funded by the benefit,” Mr Freedom said. “What started as an accident soon became an opportunity.”

An opportunity to go to jail I hope.

Before he left New Zealand Mr Freedom had been living in Hawera, Taranaki. He said he was keen to work but when a job came up outside town and he asked Work and Income to stump up some money for transport, he was refused. “I just needed a little bit of help but I never got it.”

Yet he had enough money to afford an international air ticket.

His benefit was stopped last month as part of the Government’s Future Focus reforms, which require all people who have been on the unemployment benefit for a year to reapply.

Reforms which were opposed by certain political parties.

Yesterday on Twitter, an amusing tweet said “Uninstallation of Egyption dictator is 99.9% complete” and today it made 100%.

AP report:

Fireworks burst over Tahrir Square and Egypt exploded with joy and tears of relief after pro-democracy protesters brought down President Hosni Mubarak with a momentous march on his palaces and state TV.

Mubarak, who until the end seemed unable to grasp the depth of resentment over his three decades of authoritarian rule, finally resigned Friday and handed power to the military. …

Thousands from around the capital converged on the celebrating crowd in Tahrir, or Liberation, Square, the epicenter of the stunning protest movement that was started by a small core of secular, liberal youth activists on the Internet and turned into the biggest popular uprising in the Arab world.

The House of Saud may be having a nervous night tonight.

The people of Egypt have been freed. There is no justification for one man to rule as dictator for 30 years, and few should regret Mubarak going. Yes, he provided surface stability, but dictatorships almost always cause resentment and radicalism.

It is too early to know how the military will introduce democratic rule, and what risks this carries of an Islamist (not Islamic) Government being elected. But from what I could tell the Muslim Brotherhood was not the main organiser of the protests, and a vote against Mubarak does not mean it will be a vote for them.

Brian Edwards has been threatened with a defamation suit by lawyers acting for the Sunday Star-Times. I think the SST is over-reacting, especially as all Edwards has done is publish four sworn affadavits saying Amanda Hotchin did not speak the words attributed to her by the Sunday Star-Times. Edwards has been careful to say he does not know who is correct, and has mainly been calling for the SST to rebut the affadavits.

The SST are refusing to, on the basis of a possible lawsuit by Hotchin.

I don’t know if the SST report of Mrs Hotchin’s words are correct or not. I will make the point that the reporter, Jonathan Marshall, is in the habit of recording his conversations as proof of what has been said to him. I do not know whether or not he recorded this particular exchange.

Mrs Hotchin has said it is too expensive to sue, and has instead effectively fought her side of the story on Dr Edwards’s blog. And I have certainly found it interesting to hear her side. However at the end of the day Brian Edwards can’t adjudicate on the veracity of the report, as he can’t compel a response from the SST.

Mrs Hotchin should file a formal complaint with the Sunday Star-Times, and if not satisified with their response, then complain to the press council. That would allow her affadavits to be tested against any evidence from the Sunday Star-Times. I am suspicious that she refuses to take this step – it does not need lawyers and costs basically nothing – it is her best chance of clearing her name.

But while Mrs Hotchin is not helping her own case by refusing to go down the route of the Press Council, I don’t think it is a good look for a newspaper to use nastygram legal letters to try and shut up a blogger – these are the tactics normally used by the subjects of newspaper investigations – not newspapers themselves.

The SST could simply have responded to the affadavits with an invitation for Mrs Hotchin to complain to the Press Council, and stating they are confident in their version of events.

Threatening Dr Edwards with defamation is also very stupid. It guarantees more and more people will know about the issue, and gets the story into the mainstream media.

Hopefully common sense will preval and Mrs Hotchin will go down the press council avenue for adjudication, and the Sunday Star-Times will keep its specialist defamation lawyers on a leash.

UPDATE: A reader has pointed out to me that the Hotchins themselves have been pretty quick to use lawyers also to threaten defamation. An (offline) HoS story reported in May 2010:

As with Amanda, few who know Mark are willing to talk on the record. Robert Alloway, managing director of Allied Farmers, the firm that absorbed Hanover assets in controversial deal at the end of last year, says the men behind Hanover have a reputation for sending out letters from law firm Chapman Tripp.

“They have deep pockets and aren’t afraid to reach into them. Whether it’s Bruce Sheppard, or me, or anyone saying anything you’d call an opinion, you’d get a letter. Typically I can set my watch by it. If it’s in a Saturday paper, I’ll get a letter on the Tuesday,” he says.

I also understand the Hotchins had their own law firm send lawyers letters to other media, threatening them if they repeated the SST story.

I’ve just looked at the seating plan for the House, and the Labour rejuvenation appears to have been somewhat of an illusion.

Phil Goff said that Grant Robertson had been promoted to the front bench, but in reality he is not. The front bench is traditionally the nine seats that are front row opposite their counterparts. Grant, who is ranked no 12 only, is on the cross-benches in between the Progressives and the Greens.

The nine front benchers for Labour are still all 100% former Ministers from the Clark Government. On average they entered Parliament 17 years ago. Three entered in the 1980s, four in the 1990s and only two after 1999.

Until that changes, they will struggle to be seen as a forward looking alternative.

Stuff reports:

Football reigned supreme at the Westpac Halberg Awards with judges and the New Zealand public agreed, 2010 was the year of the All Whites.

The round ball grabbed a hat-trick during last night’s Auckland bash – with rugby overlooked in all but one category – as Ricki Herbert was crowned coach of the year, the All Whites team of the year and the historic World Cup troop also named winners of the supreme Halberg trophy.

When three-time Halberg recipient Rob Waddell and special guest, Corporal Willie Apiata VC, announced the All Whites as the big winners, members of the team were fittingly presented with the trophy by John Adshead and Steve Sumner, coach and captain of the 1982 All Whites who reached the World Cup finals in Spain.

The team also received a personal tribute message from Fifa President Sepp Blatter.

“All the awards, for the players, for the staff, are all great, great honours,” All Whites goalkeeper Mark Paston told Fairfax Media.

I recall the way the country came to a stand-still for each of the games. They truly were our national team.

By coincidence I met Mark Paston on Wednesday night. To my great embarrassment I didn’t recognise him, and asked him what his role is at Telecom (we were both at a Telecom hosted event). A hell of a nice guy I have to say.

I told him how their victory over Bahrain in November 2009 made my Middle East trip much easier, as when in Iran heaps of the locals went out of their way to say how delighted they were that New Zealand has beaten Bahrain (most Iranians have antipathy towards Arab states).

While Richie McCaw is a legend, I thought Ryan Nelson was hard done by not getting the individual spartsman of the year award.

It’s into the world of beetles today & that famous gardener’s friend:

Click for larger, higher res image

It’s been a glorious morning watch the sun rise over a very still Hauraki Gulf.  Hope you all have a pleasant day too.

A very amusing excon.ange of press releases, highlighted by Eric Crampton. The sequence is:

1. Libertarianz announce they seek an audience with Jedi Religious Leaders as 1.5% of NZers state that as their religion, greater than Ratana has.
2. Yoda on behalf of the Jedi High Council declines the meeting citing fear, selfishness and greed as manifestations of the dark side
3. The Libertarianz respond suggesting Yoda is a hoax and claiming to be in touch with the true Jedi
4. Finally the Sith Conclave put out a release saying the Libertarianz are too mediocre to each dark side greatness. They also claim credit for destroying the Alliance in 2002 (yay)