Kiwiblog

Martin Kay at Stuff reports:

As far as numbers go, the hikoi that arrived at Parliament in the icy wind and rain to protest against the Marine and Coastal Area Bill was a faint shadow of the huge outpouring of emotion against the law it will replace.

In 2004, more than 20,000 people marched to oppose the Foreshore and Seabed Act amid angry scenes that culminated with activist Tame Iti spitting at the feet of deputy prime minister at the time Michael Cullen. By the time the crowd reached Parliament, the momentum had fuelled an unstoppable grassroots movement that gave birth to the Maori Party and, a year later, its dominance of four of the seven Maori seats.

Yesterday’s protest, by comparison, was a sedate affair, with a little over 300 people marching in silence before staging a mock tangi on Parliament’s lawn.

The hikoi was around 1.5% the size of the original hikoi.

But regardless of size, those marching have every right to protest that this law doesn’t give them what they want. They think Iwi and Hapu should have customary title to the entire foreshore and seabed, rather than only the areas where there has been exclusive and unbroken use since 1840.

Must have been nice for a hokoi to turn up to Parliament and not be called haters and wreckers and have the PM declare she’d rather meet with a sheep.

The worst “abuse” they got was Chris Finlayson who was asked what he got out fo the hikoi, and he answered “I got wet”

One of the justifications for raising the purchase age to 20 is the argument that youth drinking is worse now than in the past.

A reader has sent me a report by the Foundation for Advertising Research, which has the latest data from ALAC in it. A couple of stats readers may be interested in.

Average age of initiation of drinking by youth aged 12 – 17

• 2006/07 – 13.8 years
• 2007/08 – 14.1 years
• 2008/09 – 14.3 years
• 2009/10 – 14.6 years

A pretty clear trend there, and what most would say is a good one.

Prevalance of 12 – 17 year olds who are drinkers

• 2006/07 – 52%
• 2007/08 – 52%
• 2008/09 – 50%
• 2009/10 – 32%

And that’s a dramatic drop in the prevalance of young people drinking.

Percentage of all 12 – 17 olds who drink more than once a week

• 2006/07 – 9%
• 2007/08 – 9%
• 2008/09 – 7%
• 2009/10 – 3.5%

Again a good trend.

Percentage of all youth 12-17 that consumed 5 drinks or more on the last occasion

• 2006/07 – 21.3%
• 2007/08 – 22.9%
• 2008/09 – 19.5%
• 2009/10 – 15.0%

Again a nice downwards trend.

Again all these stats come from ALAC – the Alcohol Advisory Council.

There’s been a number of news stories on the Government’s Telecommunications Amendment Bill, which is currently before the Finance & Expenditure Select Committee. A typical story is this one at Computerworld.

The telecommunications sector is always somewhat controversial, but this bill has attracted criticism from just about everyone – telcos, ISPs, the Commerce Commissions and user groups. This post is aimed to explain what the debate is about, and reflects my views.

It is worth noting that most of what is in the TAB is not controversial, and is generally well supported.

Three aspects which are controversial are:

1. a “regulatory holiday” for the local fibre companies until 31 December 2019.
2. “re-averaging” the costs of local loop unbundling and unbundled bitstream, which will lower the wholesale cost in rural areas but increase the wholesale cost in urban areas by around 20%
3. possible structural separation of Telecom if they win the majority of regions for fibre rollout

In this post I will leave (3) for now as that little baby is so complicated it needs its own post. I want to focus on (1) and (2) and these will apply (if passed) regardless of whether Telecom wins most of the regions for urban fibre, or the lines companies led by Vector win most of the regions.

You may ask why would the Government consider giving the future fibre companies an exemption from the normal regulatory oversight of the Commerce Commission? Well the short answer is because the companies bidding to be future fibre companies have asked for it.

Okay well companies ask for lots of things from the Government. Many companies would like to be exempt from the Commerce Commission until 2010. Why would the Government agree to this?

The answer is because then the bidders will make better bids. They value having a regulatory holiday, so they will agree to roll out more fibre for the same subsidy. It is what Sir Roger Douglas (very perceptively) said was a regulatory subsidy instead of a greater direct financual subsidy.

Now before we talk about the pros and cons of this approach, you need to know the background. In the 2008 election National pledged $1.5b towards having ultra-fast broadband rolled out to 75% of NZ over the next decade. This was a lot of money (Labour committed only $300m – 1/5th of what National did) and it was in my opinion a great policy.

Work done by the NZ Institute concluded that investing in ultra-fast broadband, would result in significantly higher economic growth, and there is evidence from other countries to back this view up.

Now the cost of rolling out fibre to 75% of NZ is hard enough to estimate, let alone what the direct commercial returns will be on doing so in ten years time. The amount of subsidy needed to achieve the 75% target was estimated at $1.5 billion, but this was an estimate. An opposition does not have the resources available to get a precise projection, and even when you do have access in Government to Treasury, even then projections can be wrong.

To some degree one was never going to know until the actual commercial negotiations conclude, whether $1.5b was enough. InternetNZ did try to get some idea of how much it would cost to reaach the goal of 75%, and what would be the best way to go about it. They (which includes me)  commissioned a report from Network Strategies, a specialist economics consulting firm, which is here.  It was published in 2008.

The report concluded that the cost of fibre to 75% of NZ was around $3.3b if one utilised existing utility companies for at least half of it, and that the government’s contribution would need to be around $1.75b. So the $1.5b was a pretty good estimate, but may be not quite enough.

So this takes us back to why the Government is seeking to legislate a regulatory holiday – it makes it more attractive to its potential commercial partners, and helps close the gap. So the motivation is good – to save the taxpayer money.

However that does not mean it is the right decision. If there is a funding gap between the 75% target and what you can achieve with $1.5b, I would rather it be dealt with directly, not indirectly by way of regulatory holiday. Options are to increase the $1.55b on offer, or to reduce the coverage area from say 75% to 70% or push out the timeframe from say 10 years to 12 years etc.

The concern over the regulatory holiday is that whomever wins the contract, will be exempt from the Commerce Commission regulating access to their services until 2010. The Government will be relying just on the contracts they had to regulate the price, However this places Crown Fibre Holdings in the unenviable dual role of being an investor and a regulator. Also 2020 is almost nine years away, and that is a lifetime in the Internet world. The costs and prices of fibre and data may have changed massively in that time. Many people are very nervous about what could happen in the next nine years. This is partly because of the lessons from the past with Telecom (note again they may not be the fibre companies).

Now the Minister has pointed out that as the local fibre companies can not be owned by a company that will provide retail services over them, then it is less likely there will be a need for regulation, as the fibre companies should operate on an open access platform to all providers. But a lot of devil is in the detail. For example you could have Chorus (if they win) saying it will operate a volume discount scheme that only Telecom Retail will qualify for due to its size.

The Minister also says that as the fibre products will be competing against the regulated copper and that the challenge will be ensuring uptake, which will keep prices down also. I suspect Steven is right on the prices – but from my thinking why remove the safety net of the Commerce Commission, in case you’re not.

Now the other major change is that the calculation of costs and hence prices for the current copper based broadband services is to change from deaveraged to reaveraged. At present the costs and prices reflect the fact it is cheaper in urban areas than rural areas. The Government is proposing to legislate to change this, which means the price of broadband over copper will increase in urban areas. The estimate I have seen is by 20%.

So again why would you do this? The answer is the same. It means those bidding for the fibre contracts will be motivated to invest more money into them. Because if the price of broadband over copper increases, then you can be confident that more customers will switch over to broadband over fibre.

So again the rationale is quite understandable, but again that does not mean it is necessairly a good thing. It means people in urban NZ will pay higher prices than they should for broadband over copper for the next six years or so. Should the Government be effectively tilting the playing field to favour fibre over copper?  Again I’m in favour of tilting the field by way of Government subsidy, but not in favour of tilting the field by interfering with a regulatory regime that actually has worked very well in the last few years.

As I said, in a separate post, I’ll cover the possible structural separation of Telecom, and how this may result in a really great outcome or a really lousy outcome, depending on how the structural separation is done. And the consequences of getting it wrong will reverbate for a couple of decades. This is not something to rush.

Claire Trevett at the Herald reports:

Labour was last night refusing to comment on allegations one of its MPs is the subject of a police inquiry following a late-night incident.

The complaint allegedly relates to an incident involving a young man.

And Vernon Small at the Dom Post reports:

Labour MPs have closed ranks and are refusing to comment about allegations that police are investigating an incident involving a senior Labour MP.

Stuff.co.nz understands the complainant was an 18-year-old male who has had links to Labour.

The MP who was the subject of the allegations did not return calls, and Labour sources said last night that senior MPs were in crisis talks over the issue.

After reflection, I’m not going to allow comments on this post. I don’t want people speculating here on whom the MP is, or whom the complainant is. This applies to General Debate also.

If there is a police inquiry, that will lead to a conclusion.

UPDATE: The Herald reports:

Labour MP Darren Hughes has just confirmed he is the MP at the centre of allegations about a police investigation relating to a late night incident, but says he has “done nothing wrong”.

Mr Hughes confirmed a complaint had been laid with police about him and he was cooperating fully with police.

“I have done nothing wrong and I have full confidence that the legal processes will lead to the right outcome.”

It is worth stressing again, that there is an allegation/complaint but the Police have not yet decided whether to prosecute.

UPDATE2: NewstalkZB reports:

Our political editor Barry Soper understands the police searched Deputy Leader Annette King’s house.

The young man at the centre of the allegation was a Youth MP at Parliament for a Labour list MP last year. The alleged incident on March 2, NewstalkZB’s been told, took place at Mrs King’s Haitaitai home where Mr Hughes lives.

A reminder that in certain circumstances it is illegal to identify the complainant, so no speculating on names.

There’s been an interesting court case as to what constitutes a charity. Paul Matthews of the NZ Computer Society blogs:

As many of you will know we’ve been embroiled in a debate with the Charities Commission over the last year or so as to the educational nature of our activities. Earlier this week the High Court released their ruling, dismissing our appeal.

Without going into huge detail, in short we are of the view that we exist for the advancement of education, in various forms and in various contexts. When you break our activiites and purposes down we think it’s very hard to draw any other conclusion.

After all, in its purest form professionalism is simply education and the application of that (ie. experience) plus ethics.

If we exist for the advancement of education then by definition we are “charitable”. In practice this means two things. People can donate to our programmes (such as KiwiSkills, a programme focused on increasing the country’s digital literacy levels), and we don’t pay income tax on activities (although we still pay GST, PAYE, FBT, ACC etc).

So what did the High Court decide?

The Charities Commission granted us charitable status when we first applied. They reviewed our application in detail then agreed with us that we clearly existed for the advancement of education.

Some time after this decision the Commission began re-looking at charities they thought were in “grey areas” with a view to establishing precedents and after their investigation they concluded that we weren’t charitable after all. While we see our purpose as advancing education and our mandate wider than just our membership, they disagreed.

We appealed this decision to the High Court, and had our day in court. I must say, regardless of outcome our lawyers represented our position well and we got our day in court.

The High Court ruled on the appeal earlier this week, refusing to overturn the Commission’s decision.

What are the implications of this?

We’re still looking at this in detail, however the interpretation appears to suggest that if the result of having particular knowledge or skills imparted is that professionals or “the industry and profession” become more educated or skilled, this is not regarded as Educational under the Charities Act.

One of the primary reasons we appealed the Charities Commission ruling is because we were deeply, deeply concerned about this precedent, which is likely to have a significant impact on other education-focused organisations.

So NZCS conclude:

Frankly, we think this definition is daft and a law change is most likely necessary to clarify this. While we’re most likely not going to appeal the decision, we will be writing to the Minister responsible for this area expressing our very serious concerns.

Another organisation caught up in being deemed non-charitable is the National Council of Women. That one is less controversial as they are fairly overtly political – they submit on almost every single bill that goes through Parliament.

The Government has sensibly announced there will be even tighter spending restraint in this year’s budget, due to the impact of the earthquake. It’s not going to be slash and burn, just very tight fiscal discipline.

This should be no surprise. But what is interesting is that Labour still are 1000% opposed to any spending restraint. You have to wonder what could cause them to actually adopt fiscal restraint.

The 2008 recession wasn’t enough.

The global credit crisis wasn’t enough

The first earthquake wasn’t enough

The double dip recession wasn’t enough

The second earthquake wasn’t enough

I have this vision of a meteor hitting New Zealand and wiping out 90% of NZ, and still Labour’s response will be you can’t cut spending.

Even worse is Labour’s preferred coalition partner – Winston. He’s just come out promising it will cost no more than $10 to visit the doctor for oldies. National has ruled Winston out, but Labour would be forced to agree to his demands as the price of forming a Government. So you can add hundreds of millions of extra spending to the deficit.

The Dom Post editorial:

Sometimes there are no good options; just choices between uncertain, least bad and bad options. Such is often the case for social workers dealing with the victims of child abuse. …

However, it is appropriate for Ms Bennett to reopen debate on the “whanau first” childcare policy implemented by the 1989 Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, as she did at the weekend. The central tenet of the act is that children should not be separated from their extended families, cultures and ethnic backgrounds except as a last resort.

It is a noble sentiment but one that sugarcoats a harsh reality. Child abuse is learned behaviour. Children who are abused are more likely to grow up to abuse their own children than children raised in loving homes. If a father or mother has been abused it is likely that their brothers and sisters were also abused. Placing the victims of child abuse in the care of aunts and uncles sometimes perpetuates the abuse. It can also make it easier for abusers to gain access to their children.

I think, sadly, the current approach is not working, in that too many children who get removed from their nuclear family, still suffer abuse with their extended family.

The Press reports:

Angry business owners unable to reach their central Christchurch premises for a month broke through a Civil Defence cordon to vent their frustrations.

About 100 protesters gathered outside the Christchurch Art Gallery yesterday, holding placards reading “We are about to lose everything”, “Stop ruining our lives” and “In fear of Civil Defence”.

They pounded on the building’s windows and demanded answers on the fate of their businesses before a group of about 30 broke through the inner-city cordon past three soldiers.

I tend to think that in principle business owners should be allowed to access the buildings their businesses are in, so long as they are prepared to assume all the risk of ignoring civil defence advice.

This would mean signing a piece of paper stating what the risks are, waiving their right to be treated in a public hospital if injured, to claim ACC, to have anyone rescue them if anything falls on them, and also acknowledging that any private life or disability insurance will be null and void as they deliberately chose to go into an unsafe area. Oh yes they also waive any welfare payments being made to their spouse or children, should they die while in the building.

Also they should have to pay the cost of a police escort to near their building.

There are two practical issues with  my solution. The first is that as far as I know you can not legally opt of of being covered by ACC, public hospitals and the welfare state. So if a business owner does go in and get injured or killed, the taxpayer is left with the bill.

Secondly even if they have agreed not to be rescued, our culture wouldn’t allow someone to be left to die trappped in their building. Just as we rescure the stupidest sailors and the stupidest trampers, we would feel obliged to rescue someone who has entered an unsafe building against advice.

Spoke to the Lower North Island Young Nationals, on campaigning, at the weekend. Major focus was to make sure you enjoy the campaign, and things you can do to make a difference.

Got an unusual collection of objects for my thank you gift. It was a box of chocolates, a bottle of powerade, a pen, a bottle opener on a key ring, 10 paracetamol and two condoms.

Makes a difference from the normal bottle of wine!

Special guest Emeritus Prof Jim Flynn – world renown for his work on IQ. Also the Childrens Commissioner.

Panel:

• Charles Chauvel (Lab)
• Michael Woodhouse (Nat)
• Catherine Delahunty ( Greens)

Topics: Libya, paid parental leave, NZ books and book month, and more..

Backbenches are giving away an e-reader wed night also.

Filed live in the Backbencher from 9.10 pm on Wednesday.

This is the infamous video of Casey Heynes, who lashes out with a very nice lift and throw, after being bullied by other students. When you see the actions of the student doing the bullying, you don’t feel one ounce of sympathy for what then occured to him.

As millions around the world cheer Casey on, it is worth remembering what the sadness of what he has endured. The Herald reports:

Casey Heynes, 16, says he has been bullied nearly every day at his school, Chifley College, St Marys, in western Sydney, but could take no more when Year 7 student Ritchard Gale tormented and attacked him last week. …

Casey said his outburst was a “build-up” of more than three years of being attacked verbally and physically by other students.

“They used to slap me on the back of the head and said I was a fatty and to lose some weight.

“I’ve been duct-taped to a pole before as well. They target me because I don’t retaliate.

What is awful is that the school has never detected the bullying before now, and also that Casey didn’t feel he could go to anyone in authority about it.

Casey told A Current Affair he had been bullied almost every day at school and even contemplated suicide a year ago when the taunts became too much.

“I started putting myself down and all the crap just kept piling on,” he said. “That’s when I contemplated suicide.”

And sadly some kids do committ suicide due to bullying. More New Zealanders die from suicide than in car crashes.

A school can’t be everywhere at everytime. But a good school should have enough teachers around the grounds that they do get to see if bullying is happening, and making sure there are severe consequences for those who do bully.

In NZ, we have an almost-secret ballot. Generally no one knows who you vote for, but there is a way of finding out, if a court ordered it.

Each ballot paper has a serial number on it. On the matching “butt” is recorded the page and line number from the printed electoral roll of the voter it was issued to. And if one has the printed roll for that election, then it reveals the name of the voter.

These records are all kept securely, and only if a court orders it, are votes revealed. This will generally only be for cases of double voting or if votes are disqualified.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs about how there have been concerns in Samoa about the secrecy of theur ballot. Their chief electoral officer gave this example of why one might want to find out how someone voted:

[Tanuvasa] described a scenario where a court may order the Electoral office to find out who a person has voted for. “A candidate can go to court and say he has lost a fortune because people have said they have voted for me and I have given them money over the years. The candidate assumes that the people did not vote for him.

“How can you trace something like that that is so devastating on a person [candidate], the court can then order us to look into the votes in the presence of officials.”

I/S points out what this example is:

Yes, that’s right: Samoa’s chief electoral official thinks its acceptable and legal to examine ballot papers to see if corrupt candidates are getting what they pay for when they illegally bribe voters

That’s a stunningly bad statement for anyone to make, let alone the chief electoral official.

The BoP Times reports:

A war of words has erupted between former and current local National Party MPs over a controversial potential new law.

Former MP Bob Clarkson has accused current Tauranga MP Simon Bridges of toeing the party line over the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Bill, while Mr Bridges has said Mr Clarkson “doesn’t much like dealing with complicated issues like this”.

Mr Clarkson also said he tried regaining National’s Tauranga candidacy this year partly to stop the controversial foreshore legislation reaching law.

Bob is only one year older than Jim Anderton, so must be inspired by him.

I’m pretty confident that Simon’s majority will remain in the five figure range. He is extremely popular in Tauranga.

The Marine and Coastal Areas Bill is generating a significant level of angst – especially in provincial cities and towns.

The fact that Hone and others are campaigning against it, because they thinks the test for customary title are far too tough, indicates to me that the balance is about right.

As the NZ Herald reported, the actual difference in positions between National, ACT and Labour are not in fact great – they agree on a lot more than they disagree.

One major point of difference is that ACT believe the courts should set the test for customary title. This is an entirely legitimate view. What isn’t mentioned is that it is quite possible the courts (and it would probable y eventually be a decision of the Supreme Court lead by Chief Justice Elias) would set an easier test for customary title.

As readers will know, Labour has never ever said that they think Taito Philip Field was guilry of bribery and corruption. Their sole public statement to date has been they “acknowledge” the verdict.

It seems Field himself shares their view that he is not guilty of anything more than working hard for his constituents as he has appealed again. Belinda McCammon at Stuff reports:

Disgraced former Labour MP Taito Phillip Field has been granted leave to appeal his 2009 conviction for fraud, by the Supreme Court.

Field, who is currently serving a six year jail term, was found guilty of 11 of 12 charges of bribery and corruption as an MP over having Thai nationals carry out work on his properties in return for immigration assistance between November 2002 and October 2005.

He was also found guilty of 15 of 23 charges of wilfully attempting to obstruct or pervert the course of justice, alleging he tried to derail investigations into the work on his homes. …

In a judgement released by the Supreme Court today Field was given leave to appeal his sentence on the grounds of whether the Court of Appeal had correctly stated the test for corruptly accepting a bribe.

The Supreme Court sits in Wellington. I might sit it on that case once it is heard.

Few people are more enthusiastic advocates of free trade than me. I basically want to see a world without trade barriers.

The path to free trade is difficult due to entrenched interests. The best path is a multi-lateral agreement such as the GATT agreement which set up the WTO. Failing that, bilateral trade deals are worth pursuing. The China-NZ FTA, for example, has already led to a huge increase in exports to China. And CER with Australia is part of our economic DNA.

Personally I think bilateral free trade agreements are far too complex. My ideal FTA would be as follows:

1. Country A agrees that the businesses and residents of Country B can sell any goods or services they like to the business and residents of Country A, so long as they are legal in Country A.
2. Country B agrees that the businesses and residents of Country A can sell any goods or services they like to the business and residents of Country B, so long as they are legal in Country B.
3. There shall be no duties, tariffs or other barriers on exports or imports between Country An and Country B
4. ENDS

NZ is currently negotiating a free trade agreement, called the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, or TPP.

The TPP is now a brand new agreement. It is an extension to an existing agreement between Brunei, Chile, Singapore and NZ called the P4. Five additional countries are seeking to join it – Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Vietnam and the US.

Now New Zealand would gain immensely from free trade with the United States. One study estimated our exports to the US would increase by 51%. That’s an extra $2b a year approx.

So free trade with the USA would be great. But sadly free trade agreements are not as simple as the one I wrote above. They include areas which are not about reducing tarrifs, such as intellectual property laws. The United States wants New Zealand to agree to change our intellectual property laws, as part of any TPP agreement.

Top IT lawyer Rick Shera, has done a guest post at Public Address on what the US is asking for. I highly recommend you read his post in full. A summary is:

• Rights holders would be allowed to prevent parallel imports
• Massive extension of copyright terms, from life of author plus 50 years, to 70 years
• Circumventing a Technological Protection Measure (TPM) will to be a criminal offence even if the work it protects is in the public domain or you want to exercise fair dealing rights like educational use or current affairs reporting
• The return of guilt upon accusation three strikes Internet termination laws
• Forcing us to reverse the decision recently taken to exclude software from being patentable
• Introducing statutory damages (which give rights holders windfall damages up to 3 times their actual losses)
•  ISP policing of IP rights including a requirement for ISPs to give up their customers’ identities when they receive a mere allegation from a rights holder
• Criminal liability even where the infringement has no commercial value at all
• Pushing Courts to impose imprisonment as the default sentence for infringement even where no monetary benefit is obtained

Bloody nasty isn’t it. And it is not as if NZ is a country with weak copyright laws. The Property Rights Alliance do an annual index of property rights. Their 2010 report for New Zealand ranked NZ the 4th best country (out of 125) in the world for (lack of) copyright piracy.

The New Zealand Government position has been to reject these provisions, which is good. But at some stage, there will be some calls to be made and compromises to occur to get an agreement.

This will pose a challenge for free trade advocates such as myself. Is allowing the United States to rewrite our copyright laws, a price worth paying?

Well if it was a true free trade deal, where the United States agreed to phase out all (or at least the vast majority) of its tariffs, then yeah it might be. An extra $2b a year of exports would create a lot of extra jobs, extra investment, extra wealth and extra tax revenue.

But what if we don’t get the US to agree to let in our lamb, our beef, our wool, our milk, our fruit without restrictions? What if the lowering of trade barriers is modest at best? This can not be ruled out – the US/Australia free trade agreement was very modest in terms of lowering trade barriers.

Eric Crampton has blogged on the TPP agreement. I know Eric well enough to confidently say that he is probably just as big a fan of free trade as I am. However he is pessimistic about the TPP:

I suggested New Zealand might do best by sidelining the US for now. The biggest potential gains to New Zealand from a free trade deal with the States would be an opening of American dairy markets to New Zealand dairy products. But that won’t happen – a trade deal that would actually open up American dairy markets to New Zealand product would never make it through the Senate.

The actual economic impact on the US of allowing dairy competition would be minor overall. But it would create a political fuss in certain states which would make it very difficult for Obama to ignore.

Eric continues:

I’d put decent money that, if America signs onto the deal, there’d be years of costly arbitration before New Zealand had any kind of increased access to American dairy markets. For starters, American dairy farmers would argue that failure of the New Zealand competition authorities to prosecute New Zealand dairy cooperative Fonterra as a monopoly constituted a subsidy under US law and justified counterveiling duties. …

I don’t think the United States has any credibility on free trade when it comes to agricultural products. They can’t make time-consistent pledges. At point of signing it’s all friendly, then you’re straight into arbitration over whether you’re hurting US domestic competitors – never mind the benefits to American consumers who are paying double what Kiwis are paying for baby formula.

His solution:

And so it’s better that New Zealand sidelines America in the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations so the rest of us can have a serious free trade zone. Get a serious free trade zone, then look to widen it by inviting China. The threat of a Pan-Asian free trade zone that includes China is about the only thing I can imagine that would bring the States around on agriculture. Since New Zealand already has a free trade deal with China, it’s not implausible that China could someday join the TPP.

The idea of a TPP without the US may sound implausible, but I think it is more important to have a high quality agreement that actually reduces trade barriers and doesn’t force IP law changes on us, then a free trade agreement that is more symbol than substance. John Key I believe wants this too – he basically told Japan to stuff off from the TPP negotiations, unless they were seriously willing to commit to a “high quality” agreement.

The same attitude should apply to the US. If at the end of the day we can’t get decent lowering of trade barriers, and they insist in trying to force draconian IP laws on us, then we should be willing to say that we’ll go ahead with Australia, Malaysia, Peru, and Vietnam joining the P4 – and leave the US for another day.

Sarah Harvey in the SST reports:

A JURY has set a new benchmark under the so-called “anti-smacking” legislation by acquitting a father even though he admitted tying his son to his wrist, shaving his hair off, and washing his mouth out with soap. …

The father and his new wife were found not guilty after a trial on 15 charges alleging cruelty against two children from his previous marriage. The children were aged 10 and under at the time.

The couple’s lawyer used Section 59 of the Crimes Act, the amendment championed by Bradford, as a defence.

The case tested the amendment and showed what a jury would allow in terms of “justified force” to prevent or minimise harm, or to stop the child engaging in “offensive or disruptive behaviour”.

Here’s the irony. If Sue Bradford has gone with the Borrows amendment, then the court case may have ended up differently. Bradford’s law bans any use of force for “correction” but allows “reasonable force” for other purposes such as preventing offensive or disruptive behaviour.

The Borrows amendment would have defined reasonable force for both correctional purposes, but also the other purposes such as preventing disruptive behaviour.

So this is an absolute own goal in my opinion.

“It is probably the worst thing I have ever done to my child, but I grabbed my tie that I wear for church and I tied his wrist to my wrist beside my bed so he couldn’t take off and go and kill himself,” the father told the Sunday Star-Times. “Then he did manage to loosen it, so I did tie it around his neck for only about 30 seconds. I admitted to those things in court, but given the circumstances and what I was trying to achieve – trying to stop him killing himself – I was found not guilty.”

He also gave his son a “number two” haircut to teach him a lesson after a couple of years of stealing from his parents.

He was found not guilty of the charges relating to those incidents, as well as incidents where he was accused of making his children have cold showers, and excessive time-outs. He said the charges were exaggerated, and in some cases fabricated, but admitted the tying, cutting the child’s hair and washing his mouth out.

The jury accepted the three acts happened, but the majority decided they were OK.

Here’s an interesting question. Under the proposed law changes by Simon Power, would these parents have been entitled to a trial bu jury? Depends on what the exact ahrges were I imagine.

Deanne Shilton, the lead juror in the case, contacted the Sunday Star-Times through a third party. She said she was “embarrassed to be a New Zealander” and felt awful for the couple for having to go through the case – particularly the heavily pregnant wife of the father, who was forced to climb several flights of stairs to court cells during any break.

Shilton said she contacted the couple after the case to say how embarrassed she felt. It was obvious to her from the start the couple should be acquitted. She said most, but not all, of the other jurors felt similarly. “Good decent parents trying to instil a sense of responsibility, honesty and integrity, as well as the action-consequence moral in their children have been put through a living hell for their efforts.” …

But Bradford said the incidents were abuse. “I’m not familiar with the details of the case but the sort of things you are talking about – to me they are all assaults against children. And I think it’s really sad that a jury would think that those kind of activities are acceptable.

Might I suggest that it is better to learn the details of the case, rather than just apply labels.

I don’t think anyone condones the listed activities as ideal parenting. But like the jury I would hestitate to turn the parents into criminals for their actions, considering how difficult it sounds like the children were.

But I also do wonder why were the children so disruptive? Look sometimes, a kid is just a “bad apple” and it is no fault of their family or environment. But sometimes kids can rebel against an overly harsh environment. At the end of the day, it is dangerous to make judgements from afar.

ICANN’s 40th public meeting has just concluded, and at long last .xxx has been approved. I’ll come back to that.

Bill Clinton (whose Administration effectively established ICANN) addressed the meeting and made the point that when he was first elected President in 1992 there were around 50 websites world-wide, and when he left office in 2000, there were 36 million websites.

I was talking to the LNI Young Nationals yesterday and talking about having to fax things in the days before the Internet, and apart from making me feel very old, I reflected that people who grew up in the Internet era have no idea how different the world was before we all got e-mail etc.

Anyway back to .xxx, this top level domain was proposed around five or six years ago, and was accepted by ICANN for contract negotiations. Once an application has been accepted, the contract negotiations are normally routine. However several Governments were very oppossed to .xxx and at the Wellington ICANN meeting in 2007 managed to derail the process and a majority on the ICANN Board turned down the final contract for .xxx

The .xxx applicant sought an indpendent review of the Board’s decision, and won their case with the International Centre for Dispute Resolution who found ICANN had not treated them fairly. This is not binding on the ICANN Board, but by a majority vote the ICANN Board (now chaired by NZer Peter Dengate-Thrush) approved in principle reconsideration of the .xxx application.

A number of Governments remain oppossed to the .xxx domain, generally with the backing of conservative religious groups. Generally their position is that it legitimises adult content on the Internet. Personally I think it is a stupid argument as a domain name is just an identifier. An adult website which is called sjporn.xxx is the same content as if it is called sjporn.com. And you know the Internet already has a fair amount of porn without .xxx.

Ironically the allies of the conservative religious groups in oppossing this domain, has been some elements of the porn industry. They are worried that if .xxx is created, then the US Congress might pass a law saying all adult websites must register in .xxx.

This is a possibility, but not a large one to my mind. Congress did once interfere in domain name matters and passed a law creating the kids.us domain. It was designed to be a safe place for kids and can only have kids friendly content, and can only link to other sites in kids.us.  Last time I checked there were around seven names registered in it.

One other reason some of the porn industry is against .xxx, is because to register in .xxx, you will need to be a “safe” porn site. You will lose your domain name if you have illegal content such as child porn or bestiality on your site. Also if you have malware on your site or if you do not have secure credit card processing. Also a portion of each domain name will go to cybersafety funding.

So .xxx could over time be come to be seen as a quality rating for adult sites, and most adult sites may feel pressured to move there for commercial reasons. Or it may flop and only get a few thousand registrations. But the ICANN Board have done the right thing in again approving the application for contract negotiations, so that they get a chance to succeed or fail.

I couldn’t view the service as it was broadcast, but various parts of it are on You Tube.

Hayley Westenra doing a moving rendition of Amazing Grace.

The PM’s speech

And you can also view the entire memorial service via TVNZ here.

The UN may just have authorised the third gulf war. I think the UN made the right call to stop Gaddafi using his air force against the opposition. If he re-established control over all of Libya, hundreds or even thousands of Libyans may have been executed.

But there is no guarantee this won’t happen anyway. It’s one thing to defend unarmed protesters, but a bit different when it is an effective civil war.

If the no fly zone is not effective, then pressure will go on, for more active intervention – and at that point you have a full war.

Gaddafi would lose that fight very quickly, but the aftermath could turn out to be more akin to Iraq than Egypt.

Last night’s debate was hilarious. All six speakers were very funny, and in the best tradition of celebrity debates, many cutting lines were uttered. $3,000 was raised by the press gallery for the Red Cross.

The teams were MPs – Darren Hughes, Annette King and Simon Bridges against Pinky Agnew, Guyon Espiner and David Townsend. Darren Hughes does wonderful impersonations of Jim Bolger and Trevor Mallard – seriously good. Pinky Agnew also produced some wonderful poetry.

Some of the lines from the deabte included:

• Thanks to Duncan Garner and Guyon Espiner for being here in their roles as co-chairs of the John Key Man Crush Association
• David Townsend is so old his IRD number is 7
• Annette King had a tryst with Gerry Brownlee and she said it was like having a wardrobe fall on you with the key sticking out
• Annette and Phil have been in Parliament for 30 years – around the same length of time as Hosni Muburak
• Barry Soper couldn’t make it tonight as he is at the Justin Bieber concert in Sydney looking for his next wife
• Kris Faafoi remembers delivering the first Evening Post on Porirua in 1860
• Is anyone else alarmed that Nick Smith strolls past an all girls school every day in his togs
• A lot has been said about Hilary Calvert. All I will say is you are what you eat, and she eats fruit and nuts
• National made Winston Treasurer, and he thought the current account was his electricity bill
• Darren Hughes is Shane Jones right hand man
• What would Phil Goff say if he was alive today

As I said, it was a great night, and the debate was superb. I’d encourage the gallery to make them semi-regular – perhaps every six months to raise money for a good cause.