Kiwiblog

I recall the days when the most feared US agency was the CIA. Now it is the TSA.

This video shows them frisking a six year old girl. Madness. In fact 99% of the new airport security measures do nothing apart from piss customers off. Strengthening cockpit doors is the only vaguely sensible thing they have done.

I booked airfares to the UK this week, as I have a mate’s wedding to attend in July. Even though it cost me slightly more, and is slightly longer, I am flying via Hong Kong both ways – just to avoid having to go through a US airport.

The photo is from The Press, and for those who can’t recognise him from that view, yes that is the PM (and Kate Wilkinson).

Captions below please – as always they should be funny and not nasty.

UPDATE: Some of my favourites to date are:

• Here do I swear
  By hand and by mouth
  Fealty to Gerry
  King of the South.
• Like this five times a day & no bacon sandwiches.
• Not to be outdone by Air New Zealand, Jetstar begins filming its new safety video.
• PM responds to Treasury advice on Superannuation.
• False alarm – it was just Gerry walking past.

Giles Brown at The Press reports:

The mother of a Christchurch man wrongly imprisoned for rape says her anger at the injustice will never fade.

The Ministry of Justice said yesterday it would pay Aaron Farmer $351,575 compensation for spending two years and three months in prison after his conviction in April 2005.

Farmer, 41, who has been diagnosed with autism and other disorders, was released in June 2007 after the Court of Appeal found that his trial lawyer did not present a potential alibi witness.

Although a retrial was ordered, a new method of DNA testing excluded Farmer as a suspect before it could go ahead.

Associate Justice Minister Nathan Guy unreservedly apologised to Farmer yesterday.

“New Zealanders on the whole enjoy a fair and effective criminal justice system. However, the system is not infallible,” he said.

This is a scary case. An innocent man got sent to jail on such flimsy evidence. Even without the DNA evidence, he should never have been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

I suggest people read the report by Hon Robert Fisher QC. It is only 20 pages, but damning. He says:

In summary, it has to be said that even before turning to the various obstalces to the Crown’s case, the positive evidence upon which it relied was remarkably thin. It relied upon nothing more than a visual identification by the Complainant of a kind that is notoriously unreliable and some rather unremarkable coincidences.

Fisher also notes six inconsistencies between the rapist and Farmer. Plus the notoriously unreliable visual identification had the victim say she was only “90% sure it was him”. When did 90% sure become beyond reasonable doubt?

Generally the test for compensation is that on balance of probabilities the person is innocent. Inthis case, Fisher has concluded that Farmer is “innocent beyond reasonable doubt”. This makes it all the more a worry that he was ever found guilty between reasonable doubt.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

ACC Minister Nick Smith has asked for an urgent report after it emerged that a senior ACC doctor is suing a sexual abuse victim for $250,000.

The woman, who blogs under the name Jax, says she was denied counselling for sexual abuse, and posted comments about Sensitive Claims Unit senior medical adviser Peter Jansen on a website. …

Ms Sepuloni asked Health Minister Tony Ryall, who was standing in for Dr Smith, if the ACC minister would investigate.

“Does he think fair treatment includes a senior medical adviser at ACC, Dr Peter Jansen, suing an ACC claimant, a victim of sexual abuse, for $250,000 for speaking her mind on a blog about the appalling treatment of sexual abuse victims under his watch?” she asked.

Jax says her blog has only 15 followers. “So let me see if I get this straight … a blog of 15 followers has done more than $250,000 worth of damage to a man who has never granted a single woman seeking compensation for sexual abuse a mere percentage of that amount?”

I don’t know how many followers Jax has, but what she may be over-looking is that if you google “Peter Jansen”, her blog comes up high on the first page of results. This means anyone searching for info on him, will probably see her blog.

I also note that Jax has blogged many many times or Dr Jansen. One of her comments is:

I am not stupid or dumb. Dr Peter Jansen who implemented these “INHUMANE” changes is hoping if he makes things too damn hard we’ll either go away or kill ourselves like two people I know already …

Accusing someone of hoping that claimants will kill themselves is pretty highly defamatory (in my opinion) unless one can prove it to be true. Some of her other comments are as bad.

Jax has every right to rail against ACC. But she would be better to attack the organisation, not individuals within it. It is not totally surprising that Dr Jansen has responded with a lawsuit.

While the lawsuit is not surprising, it is ill-advised in my opinion. The publicity from the lawsuit will result in many many more people knowing about the comments, potentially increasing the damage to Dr Jansen.

Also Dr Jansen may have overlooked that people are quite good at putting things into context. I doubt many NZers would jump to a conclusion about Dr Jansen, just because of the criticisms made by Jax on her blog. It’s not the Lancet. It’s one disaffected person’s opinion.

If I sued for every defamatory comment made about me online, I’d be in court at least once a week.

A possible compromise here might be that Jax refers to Dr Jansen only by title (removing her blog from google searches on his name) and he drops the lawsuit. I don’t know either of them, and they don’t know me, so I doubt my 2c of opinion is of any consequence. if it does go to court, it will at least be an interesting court case.

UPDATE: Dr Jansen has issued a statement:

“It is my belief, supported by independent legal advice, that I have been defamed. All that I am seeking is for the offending comments to be withdrawn and for a public apology to be issued. Money has never been an issue, this is about my professional reputation. If that redress is provided, I will of course halt the legal action that I have initiated as a private citizen.”

Dr Jansen also categorically denies the accusation made by Carmel Sepuloni MP in the House yesterday that he “accessed private information about a victim of sexual abuse and used it to initiate legal action”. He has asked the Chief Executive of ACC to initiate a review of the Corporation’s records to confirm this.

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Belinda McCammon at Stuff reports:

A leading political figure has given evidence about allegations of dog-napping and assault on a street in an upmarket suburb.

The man, his ex-wife and his new partner cannot be named because of strict suppression orders. Even the two dogs have name suppression.

How silly. Did the dogs ask for name suppression?

By the time this appears I’ll be hallfway to Napier. I’ve got a mixture of clients and friends to catch up with in the North Island, and driving is the more cost effective option, so I’m on the road for the next ten days or so. My schedule is:

1. Napier – Thu 14 to Fri 15
2. Mt Maunganui – Fri 15 to Mon 18
3. Coromandel – Mon 18 to Wed 20
4. Auckland Wed 20 to Fri 22
5. Hamilton Fri 22 to Sat 23
6. Wanganui Sat 23 to Sun 24

I’m not sure if there is a specific law against it, but I’m pretty sure the Government discourages you from blogging while driving, so there may be less material than normal.

I have to say I have been incredibly impressed with the way the Guys and MacDonalds have coped with the awful pressure of having had one family member charged with killing another.

Such a situation could tear so many families apart, but the reported comments of the families have without exception been just full of concern and support for each other, worry about the kids, and a desire to not pre-judge the criminal case.

In the Herald today for example:

Bryan Guy said MacDonald had been a “great” husband to his daughter and an “absolutely adored” father. “We’re proud of him, he’s part of the family,” he said.

“There is no finger pointing, no anger, just sadness and a lot of love, even for the man accused of Scott’s murder.”

The Guys have spent time with MacDonald’s parents Kerry and Marlene. “They came and saw us and came around to see how Anna was. It’s been really devastating for them and it may be harder for them than it is for us in a lot of ways,” Bryan Guy said.

How often do you see the widow of the victim and the wife of the accused support each other in court? It makes such a change from far too many court appearances where the family of the accused are spitting at the media etc.

There’s no happy ending for the two families – just different levels of sadness. But if any families are going to get through this okay, they seem to be the sort who will. They have my admiration for how they are dealing with such a horrific situation.

Tracy Watkins reports:

A new Treasury report says government agencies could save more than $230 million a year from back office functions.

The report, which follows a review of costs across the public service on things including property management, human resources, finance and ICT and found that they were higher in New Zealand than international bench marks, Finance Minister Bill English said.

“For example, the average office space per person in our public service is about 21 square metres compared with best practice in some New Zealand agencies of about 15 sq m. This is one of many areas where we believe there is room for improvement.”

That would also take some of the pressure off commercial rents in Wellington.

John Hartevelt reports:

Claims that the husband of a former Cabinet minister misused thousands of dollars worth of taxpayer-funded international travel are being investigated by the auditor-general.

Good. I have faith in that office to do a sound job, and check that any travel was within the rules.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

Fierce protest erupted last night as the Government rushed through legislation that could cut off internet users.

Opponents took to social media sites such as Twitter to revive the 2009 “blackout” protest that brought about the redrafting of the controversial illegal-file-sharing legislation.

The replacement Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill, which aims to stamp out internet piracy, is expected to pass through its final stage today. The new law would allow copyright owners to ask for a six-month suspension of the internet accounts of those who repeatedly infringe by sharing protected material. …

In November the select committee suggested a change to allay fears. Although the legislation still has a provision that allows for disconnection, this can only be enacted on the recommendation of the commerce minister by an order in council. It must be proved that other sanctions such as warnings taken over a two-year period had not proved effective.

Up until this week, the Government had followed pretty much a model policy process in rewriting S92A, but the decision to pass it through the remaining stages under urgency has led to the backlash, and has in fact over-shadowed the many positive changes the bill makes to the current law. It is, to be blunt, an own goal.

It ironically happens the same day as my blog post with Grant Robertson about over-use of urgency – which the Herald has reported on.

I’m quite understanding the Government has a big legislative agenda and needs to use urgency to clear the order paper before the election. But in this case they could have avoided unnecessairly alarming people by not having included the third reading of the law in the urgency motion, and having that debated the following sitting week.

To put things in context, I want to cover the process to date on the bill, and also the policy changes from the current law which was passed by the previous Government and Parliament. The previous Parliament passed a law requiring ISPs to have policies to terminate Internet access of repeat copyright infringers. This provision was thrown out by the Select Committee, but stuck bakc in by then Minister Judith Tizard (and supported by both major parties – kudos to the Greens who voted against).

The previous law was unworkable and would have led to ISPs having to act as judge, jury and executioner and people would have lost Internet access on the basis of unproven and untested allegations. The blackout campaign (which I helped with) resulted in the new National Giovernment suspending s92A from coming into operation, and they set up a process to amend it.

As I said, the process up untul this week had been pretty first class. It was:

1. Set up a working group to consider options
2. Working group proposes a policy
3. Feedback sought on proposed policy, changes made
4. Minister releases cabinet paper on proposed policy
5. Feedback given to Minister on proposed policy, changes made
6. Minister introduces bill
7. Select Committee hears submissions
8. Select Committee makes changes and reports back
9. Further submissions are made to Minister asking for “technical improvements” by way of SOP at Committee of the Whole stage
10. Minister agrees and introduces SOP

As I said, up until now the process has been consultative, considered and in my opinion at every stage the bill has got better and closer to what Internet users want (but still not ideal – I will cover that later). The process has stretched out over two years, and has been far from rushed.

The bill was reported back from Select Committee on 3 November 2010. So it has been sitting them for five months waiting for a second reading. And then suddenyl we have second reading, committee of the whole stage and third reading in (almost) one day. This is what has led to the protests – the public don’t like having multiple stages of a bill gone through in one day.

As I said, Im not arguing using urgency to progress the bill – just don’t do all remaining stages in the one urgency session – that is hat has turned what should be a good news story into a bad news story.

Now let’s turn to the substance of the policy of the bill. As I said previously, it is a big improvement over the former law. And the really nice thing is that at every stage we have managed to get some further wins  but that is perhaps a reflection of how bad the old law was.

Here’s what I blogged in response to the Cabinet paper:

Good:

• Three notices needed within 9 months to go to Tribunal
• Users can stay anonymous and send response via ISP
• Users remain anonymous at Tribunal stage unless they lose
• Notices must be sent to ISPs within 20 days of alleged infringement, so a huge number can not be collated over months and then piled into an ISP
• Rights holders will have to pay a fee per notice, to cover their admin costs in issuing the notices
• Termination/Suspension is an option only for courts, not the tribunal (or ISPs)
• Termination is defined as suspension of that account for up to six months so law is clear
• A new definition of ISP to be drafted for S92A only, which will be narrower then current definition which includes employers, bloggers etc.
• ISP given statutory protection where they comply with the Act and any court orders
• Law not to come into effect until six months after amendments passed
• 92A to be available for P2P infringing only, and material under 92C excluded from gambit of 92A

Not so good:

• Time between 1st and 2nd notice can be as little as 10 working days and 10 again between 2nd and 3rd. That means you can get to strike three in a month.
• The fee rights holders pay to ISPs is set by Govt and will not include capital costs of modifying systems
• No sanctions on right holders for false notices
• Termination/Suspension is still an option

Overall I have to say a huge improvement over the original 92A, and even a slight improvement over the discussion proposal.

And then in response to the select committee:

Overall the changes made by the Select Committee to the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill represent an improvement. I’m especially pleased that they have effectively shelved for now the termination provisions, as I thought that would set a bad precedent. What are the changes?

• The definition of an ISP has been narrowly defined to cover traditional ISPs and exclude universities, busineses and the like who might provide Internet access but are not really ISPs. This is a good change
• The definition of file sharing has been tightened so it won’t cover downloading a single file off a website etc. Has to involve using file sharing technology. Also a good change.
• Those given notices have an extra week now to challenge them – also good.
• ISPs are no longer required to consider whether to accept, reject or refer on challenges to rights holders – all challenges get passed onto rights holders
• No lawyers at Copyright Tribunal hearings unless very good cause. Yay.
• Now for the bad one – they have recommended that an allegation from a rights holder will constitute burden of proof which must be rebutted. This is dangerous. Google has given evidence that around 30% of the notices they have received in the US are false or incorrect. I think the Copyright Tribunal should be left to its own devices to decide if an infringement notice from a rights holder meet burden of proof. Different rights holders may establish different levels of reliability. I hope the Government will consider amenemdents to this at committee of the whole stage.
• The committee have said that any damages should include a punitive element, and not merely compensation. I partially agree. Compensation only would not provide any disincentive. However any punitive damages should be linked to the level of lost revenue. I see it like the IRD with 100% penalties. If you download $100 of music then you could get fined say $200 and if you download $500 of movies then the fine may be $1,000. But if the punitive damages are unliked to the offending then you may have someone fined $15,000 for downloading one song.
• The provisions for a Court to order an Internet account to be suspended for six months have themselves been suspended. The Minister can activate them by order in council, but only if other penalties are seen not to have worked. Not a bad compromise. I’d rather no provision at all, but this is a lightyear better than what was in the law passed by Judith Tizard and Parliament in 2008.

 In relation to the third to last bullet point, we got a further partial victory on this with the Minister introducing a SOP to clarify that you don’t need to prove yourself innocent. Rick Shera has said that the SOP may not fix the problem entirely, but it is an improvement.

I said in my last blog post:

The Greens have said they support the bill going forward, but think Internet suspension should be out of there entirely – not just held in reserve. I agree.

The Greens have consistently voted against termination being an appropriate punishment, and I support them on this issue. Over the years I’ve had several meetings with initially Nandor and then Gareth Hughes on this issue, and they have been excellent to deal with.

Chris Carter and Hone Harawira also voted to remove termination, so pleasing to see them vote with their consciences outside a party whip.

Amongst the opposition, Clare Curran deserves recognition for moving Labour from having supported the original S92A, to a policy position where Labour is against termination as a response to copyright infringement. At select committee they did a deal with the Government where the termination option was “put on ice” as a compromise and I think that’s a good example of an Opposition being constructive and gaining improvements in a bill rather than just engaging in rhetorical opposition that achieves little.

It would have been nice to get termination removed entirely. But over the last two years we got it changed from ISPs terminating upon accusation, to having a tribunal process. We then get termination removed as a “punishment” for the tribunal and restricted to the courts only. And finally got even that suspended as a punishment, so that it can’t be used unless there is an order-in-council to reactivate it.

Overall I’d say those on the “Internet side” got around 80% of what we wanted, and the rights holders didn’t get anywhere near what they wanted. Their biggest “loss” is the fact they will have to remimburse ISPs for their costs if they want an infringement notice sent to their customers. this will provide a significant economic incentive for rights holders not to file hundreds of thousands of notices.

Overall I think Simon Power has done well on this issue, with the exception of the use of urgency for the remaining stages. The policy process of the last two years was good, and the changes made to the law have overall been beneficial.

Again it is a pity that what had been a good news story for the Government has turned into a bad news story, due to the use of urgency.

Once the bill passes into law today, that isn’t the end of the issue. MED will be working on some regulations around the law, and one essential one will be setting the cost per complaint notice that rightsholders have to pay to ISPs. If it is set too low, then it would punish ISPs and encourage a huge torrent of complaints.

There is likely to be some sort of consumer guide to the new law also, so people understand what may happen if they download copyrighted material without paying for it after 1 September.

New Zealand’s first Net Hui is in Auckland from Wed 29 June to Fri 1 July 2011. I’m somewhat gutted that I can’t attend it, as I will be in Englnad for a wedding.

Professor Lawrence Lessig has just been announced as a keynote speaker – it is worth attending just to hear him. But there is so much more than that. The streams are:

• Access and Diversity
• Digital Citizenship
• Governance & Legal
• Government and Openness
• Innovation and Emerging Issues
• Education

The draft programme is here, and you can register here. The cost is only an insanely low $30.

Stuff reports:

A former California Superior Court judge believes the three-strikes law in New Zealand could turn into a cancer.

Eugene Hyman has just resigned after 18 years presiding over cases in the criminal, civil, probate, family and delinquency divisions of the court.

In 1999, he presided over the first juvenile domestic violence court in the United States.

Mr Hyman, who is in New Zealand to visit friends, said part of the reason he had stepped away from being a judge was frustration at the legal system in California. He had often been forced to send people to jail with no parole for relatively minor offences under the state’s three-strikes law.

Hyman is a well known critic of the US three strikes law. However the NZ law is very different. You can’t get sentenced to jail with no parole for minor offences under the NZ law. A strike only applies to an offence with a maximum sentence of seven or more years.

New Zealand passed its own three-strikes law through Parliament last year. The effects of the legislation would not be felt for several years until offenders reached their third warning, but there was a risk that more and more offences would be added to the list of those that qualified for a strike, he said.

“By Californian standards, yours is pretty lenient, but has the potential to become cancer.

So in fact he is basically saying the NZ law is fine, he just doesn’t want it changed. Fine – neither do I.

The NZ Herald has done a demographic profile of what the Labour Caucus ccould look like, if they get 47 MPs (an increase of four). This is a useful complement to what the makeup of the Labour List is like. O’Connor complained that non-union heterosexual white males have little chance on the party list – and he was broadly correct on this – only two of the top 30 on the “effective” party lists were non-union heterosexual white males.

Now some will argue this is a good thing, as HWMs are over-represented in electorate seats, and the list is about balancing the overall caucus. This is broadly correct – the list is about overall balance – however it doesn’t remove the frustration felt by HWMs who do not hold an electorate seat. They(correctly) regard themselves as pushing shit uphill to get a winnable list place. And when your party holds very little seats outside the major cities, then a sense of grievance is even more understandable.

Anyway I’ve done a table below comparing the NZ Herald demographics of a possible 47 strong Labour Caucus, to the overall adult population, and measuring which demographics are under and over-represented.

Personally I don’t think it is important to have your caucus exactly proportional to the population. I think there should be diversity, but not quotas. However Labour does take demographics very seriously – women, maori, pacific, unions, rainbow etc al have reps on the list moderating committee.

Looking at the regional breakdown, and Labour is under-represented outside the major cities. Provincial NZ makes up 46% of the population but would be only 28% of a Labour Caucus.

In Auckland Labour is roughly proportional, but Wellington is their tribal home – one fifth of their caucus would be from there, despite it being just 10% of the population.

The NZ Herald says nine of their MP are former union officials. I could argue that in fact it is close to 20, but even if we go with the Herald figures, you have a massive imbalance regardless.

Less than 0.1% of the population have been fulltime unionists. Being a union official is not the opposite of being an employer. The contrast there is employee vs employer.

Somewhere betwene 20% and 40% of Labour’s caucus have been union officials. The equivalent in National would be if 20% to 40% had been employed by Business NZ, or one of the regional employers associations.

Around 11% of the caucus are gay or lesbian. While there is no universally acceoted figure for GLBT prevalance, the Kinsey 10% figure is widely seen as far too high, and most of the recent studies suggest 3% to 5% – I have gone with 4%. So there is an over-representation there.

But that is not to mean that those MPs would be there just because they are gay. Technically 25% of Labour’s front bench are gay – but those MPs Robertson, Chauvel and Street are all clearly (in my opinion) amongst the more effective Labour MPs and are there on merit.

HWMs (heterosexual white males) are predicted to be 36% of Labour’s caucus. And they make up 35% of the population so in fact overall Labour is spot on for HWMs. HWFs are slightly under-represented at 26% of the projected caucus and 36% of the population.

Maori and PI are both over-represented and Asians under-represented.

Once National releases its list, I’ll do a similiar profile of a likely National caucus.

How To Get A Guy To Notice You While You’re Having Sex With Him

What I love about this video parody is they get the tone and mannerisms of the actual “advice” shows, so spot on.

From its first week of operations Jetstar has managed to time and time again alienate and offend its own customers, and potential customers. I’m not even sure if the problem is fixable – their DNA seems to lack the customer service gene.

Personally I will not fly Jetstar in NZ. If a group in Auckland wants to fly me up to speak to them, I now make it a condition that I not be booked on Jetstar.

Their latest stupidity is in Stuff.

Jetstar’s treatment of two high-profile disabled campaigners has been condemned as unacceptable by Disability Issues Minister Tariana Turia.

Tanya Black and Dan Buckingham – presenters of TVNZ disability show Attitude – had been due to fly from Auckland to Wellington yesterday morning but were not allowed on to their aircraft after they were told they each needed to fly with their own caregiver.

After an embarrassing standoff of 20 minutes or more, they ditched Jetstar and bought new tickets to Wellington on Air New Zealand.

Jetstar told The Dominion Post it would be apologising, and refunding their fares. It confirmed part of the airline’s concern was about how they might get to the toilet on the hour-long flight.

They had one “care-giver” between them, which is more than adequate. The chances of them both having to go to the toilet at the same time on a one hour flight is pretty much nil.

I recall when Ansett started up in NZ. They knew they had to gain market share, so they went for superb customer service. Everytime you flew with them, they personally thanked you for supporting their airline. They had the exact attitude an under-dog should have.

Jetstar seems to have developed an attitude normally found reserved for the Belarus Government. They seem to treat customers as a distraction. You can almost imagine they moaning how easy it would be to fly these planes about if there were no passengers to slow things down.

In a first for the blogosphere, Kiwblog and Red Alert have teamed up to do co-ordinated posts on the use of urgency.

Both the current and former Governments have been criticised for their use or over-use of urgency – which is the provision that allows the House to sit for extended hours, and sometimes bypass the select committee process.

I wanted to do a proper study of the use of urgency since 1999, and Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson kindly agreed to help supply the information (which comes from the Parliamentary Library). We agreed that it would be good to do co-ordinated posts on this issue as we think that both parties should commit to less use of urgency.

It’s important to note that not all urgency is the same. Some uses of urgency (to sit on a Wednesday morning for example) are relatively benign, while other uses (by-passing select committees) are bad and should be done only when strictly necessary.

Hence, this analysis goes well beyond just the headline figures, and examines the use of urgency in depth.

There are effectively four parts to the parliamentary cycle. Year 0 is the brief period after an election and before the calendar year ends. Year 1 is the first full year of Government. Year 2 is the mid year and Year 3 is the portion of the third year that falls before an election. Generally we have compared Year 1s with Year 1s as they have different profiles. The year after an election is often very busy implementing election promises. Year 3 is often not so busy.

 The total number of hours the House sat was a record 624 in 2000 – the first year of a new Government. National’s total number of hours in 2009 was below the average for the former Government. However in 2010 the House sat for 600 hours – a record for Year 2, but only nine hours more than in 2001.

Where there is a difference is the number of hours spent in urgency. National had the most hours in urgency in both 2009 and 2010. However be aware that this includes time which would normally be ordinary sitting hours. For example the House normally sits for 6.5 hours on a Wednesday. Under urgency it sits for 13 hours. All of those 13 hours count as time under urgency, even though 6.5 of them were normally scheduled anyway.

As the sitting week is normally 17 hours, I’ve tried to estimate how many “extra” hours occurred each year due to urgency. They do clearly show that National has been using urgency the most to gain additional hours – 73 hours in 2010 and 66 hours in 2009. That is equal to almost eight additional weeks of sitting time over two years.

The House used to meet for 34 weeks a year, and in recent years has been 29 to 31 weeks. One solution to reducing urgency could be to schedule more sitting weeks.

Now let us look at what was done legislatively during these sessions

 The number of bills passed is not necessarily a good or a bad thing. If you like the bills it may be good, if you do not like the bills it may be bad. In terms of quality of law making, it is also subjective. If you pass very few laws it may indicate a Government not able to deliver policies, but if you pass too many laws they may not be getting the attention they deserve.

The total number of bills passed averaged 95 for Year 1s, and 113 for Year 2. Not a big difference between Labour and National Governments.

But it is in the area of bills passed without going through a select committee, that National should attract the most criticism. In 2009 and 2010 it passed 10 bills without giving the public the chance to submit on the bills at select committee stage. Sometimes there may be a good reasons to do so (Canterbury Earthquake etc), but the total level is far too high. The power to bypass select committees should happen very very rarely – it was only 1 – 2 times a year under Labour.

People unhappy with the level of bypassing select committees, should let their local National MPs know. Note that in 2008 National also passed seven bills into law without select committee – now again some of these could be justified as implementing clear election promises or a simple repeal – but 17 bills bypassing select committee in just over two years is frankly an outrageous level. National needs to not just look at these bills in isolation, but about the collective total and the message it sends. 

 As I said earlier, not all urgency is the same. Urgency sessions which extend past Thursday into Friday and Saturday are the “worst” as they seriously disrupt MPs scheduled activities in their electorates. The number of urgency sessions in 2010 is slightly more than in 2001 and 2004, but the number of Friday and Saturday sessions is reduced.

This indicates the Government is using urgency to extend sitting hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays, but generally avoiding Friday and Saturday sessions. This puts pressure on select committee attendance and means MPs have to stay at Parliament until midnight instead of 10 pm (or 6 pm on Thursday) but apart from that isn’t too bad.

Extraordinary urgency is very rare, as it needs the permission of the Speaker.

Urgency normally takes precedence over all other business, so it has traditionally meant that question time and/or private members day is cancelled. Indeed, it has sometimes been suggested that Governments go into urgency to avoid question time. But as you can see the number of question times is as high or higher in 2009 and 2010 than it was in 2006 and 2007. This is because the Government has deliberately sought to include provision for question time in urgency sessions. This is commendable, and it would be good to have standing orders change so that question time always occurs, regardless of urgency.

So what’s the overall position in terms of the current Government and urgency:

1. The total number of sitting hours in 2009 and 2010 are consistent with 2000 and 2001.
2. The number of hours spent in urgency were higher in 2009 and 2010 than any other year, reflecting an increase in the average number of hours the House sits each week, but fewer sitting weeks.
3. The total number of bills being passed is not significantly changing
4. National has so far passed 17 bills under urgency, bypassing select committees. This is a massive increase on past practice. Labour on average only passed 4 bills per term under urgency bypassing select committees. Such a high level of select committee circumvention undermines good parliamentary practice.
5. Thoe House has gone into urgency more often than in the past, but the number of urgency sessions extending beyond midnight Thursday have not increased.
6. Despite the increase in the use of urgency, the number of question times has stayed constant, as the Government has generally maintained them during urgency

Some thoughts or recommendations for all parties and/or MPs and to consider for the future:

1. That standing orders be changed so that a bill can bypass select committee stage only with approval of the Speaker (as is needed for extraordinary urgency).
2. That standing orders be changed so that question time automatically carries on, even if the House is in urgency
3. That the number of sitting weeks be increased, hence reducing the need for so much urgency, from 31 to 33 by reducing the number of two week recesses from five to three.
4. That standing orders be amended to distinguish between “extended sitting hours” which would merely extend the sitting hours on Wednesday and/or Thursday and full urgency (where you specify particular bills, and the House keeps going until they are disposed of)

 I quite like the suggestion Grant has made, that you could have the House sitting as the Committee of the Whole on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. This would free up House time more for first, second and third readings.

The Herald reports:

Treasury boss John Whitehead took World Bank and International Monetary Fund officials out for pricey dinners just a few months after State Service Commissioner Iain Rennie warned top public servants against doing just that.

Dr Whitehead’s credit card expenses were published this week and show that last month he spent $292 on dinner for three at Wellington waterfront eatery Foxglove with World Bank executive director Jim Hagan.

I’m sorry but this is almost embarrassing. I’m all for responsible use of credit cards, but running a story about spending $95/head at dinner entertaining the Executive Director of the World Bank is ridicolous.

Foxglove is a medium priced restaurant. Far from the most expensive. Should we take the World Bank Executive Director to Uncle Chang’s instead?

Or alternatively have him out for dinner, and then when you get to desserts, tell him “I’m sorry but NZ is so poor, we can’t pay for dessert”.

$95 doesn’t mean there were bottles of expensive wine drunk. $20 for an entree, $40 for a man and $15 for a dessert is $75 so  arguably they had one bottle of $60 wine. I doubt the World Bank executive Dinner is going to regale colleagues in Washington about the awesome night out in Wellington – yeah we had five courses, two bottles of port plus a couple of strippers – all for $95 – it was better than Vegas.

It is good to have scrutiny of public sector spending. In fact I support having all Government payments listed online. But I don’t regard $95/head for the Executive Director of the World Bank as inappropriate or even newsworthy.

Stuff reports:

Greenpeace spokesman Steve Abel said protesters were sending a message that the ship, and deep-sea drilling, were not welcome in New Zealand waters.

Don’t speak for all of New Zealand please.

Prime Minister John Key said the Government wanted to know what powers police had inside New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone. “You’re in an interesting space in the economic zone. There’s also issues about that boat, which is a foreign-flagged vessel … if that was happening on dry land, then the police would be in a position to do something about it.

“No-one’s arguing that people don’t have a right to protest, but when it actually stops the company carrying out what it’s been legally granted the ability to do, then that concerns me.”

And that is the key thing. Protest is good. Protest which impedes people from exercising their legal rights is bad. That is protesters setting themselves up to be above the law.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams writes:

I understand why the top students in America study physics, chemistry, calculus and classic literature. The kids in this brainy group are the future professors, scientists, thinkers and engineers who will propel civilization forward. But why do we make B students sit through these same classes? That’s like trying to train your cat to do your taxes—a waste of time and money. Wouldn’t it make more sense to teach B students something useful, like entrepreneurship?

We could do with courses in that, in New Zealand. Adams elaborates on what he would cover:

Combine Skills. The first thing you should learn in a course on entrepreneurship is how to make yourself valuable. It’s unlikely that any average student can develop a world-class skill in one particular area. But it’s easy to learn how to do several different things fairly well. I succeeded as a cartoonist with negligible art talent, some basic writing skills, an ordinary sense of humor and a bit of experience in the business world. The “Dilbert” comic is a combination of all four skills. The world has plenty of better artists, smarter writers, funnier humorists and more experienced business people. The rare part is that each of those modest skills is collected in one person. That’s how value is created.

I actually think his sense of humour is more than ordinary, but his point is well made. If I look at my own business, I’m not a sucessful pollster because of my grades in Stats 211. It is the combination of skills and experience that has created value.

Fail Forward. If you’re taking risks, and you probably should, you can find yourself failing 90% of the time. The trick is to get paid while you’re doing the failing and to use the experience to gain skills that will be useful later. I failed at my first career in banking. I failed at my second career with the phone company. But you’d be surprised at how many of the skills I learned in those careers can be applied to almost any field, including cartooning. Students should be taught that failure is a process, not an obstacle.

and

Write Simply. I took a two-day class in business writing that taught me how to write direct sentences and to avoid extra words. Simplicity makes ideas powerful. Want examples? Read anything by Steve Jobs or Warren Buffett.

Learn Persuasion. Students of entrepreneurship should learn the art of persuasion in all its forms, including psychology, sales, marketing, negotiating, statistics and even design. Usually those skills are sprinkled across several disciplines. For entrepreneurs, it makes sense to teach them as a package.

That’s my starter list for the sort of classes that would serve B students well. The list is not meant to be complete. Obviously an entrepreneur would benefit from classes in finance, management and more.

Remember, children are our future, and the majority of them are B students. If that doesn’t scare you, it probably should.

Worth reflecting on.

The New Yorker has a feature on a political who-dun-it murder in Ecuador Guatemala. It’s a very long article, around 14,000 words, but absolutely captivating.

The way the author has told the story is masterful – he details all the major players, what happened, and slowly takes you to the conclusion – which is a huge surprise.

First class writing like this is all too rare. If you have half an hour to spare, read away.

Vernon Small at the Dom Post reports:

A Labour MP says the party’s new list is dominated by “self-serving unionists and a gaggle of gays”.

The party was the target of a bitter broadside from list MP Damien O’Connor, who opted not to go on the list, which he said was dominated by unionists and a gaggle of gays.

A gaggle of gays? Pretty insulting to his caucus colleagues.

Labour leader Phil Goff said he had “scolded” Mr O’Connor about the comments, which the MP had told him about, “although … it will probably help him no end on the Coast. He’s a pretty straight talker and he used West Coast language.”

I wonder what Robertson and Chauvel think of Goff saying that is “west coast language” which will help O’Connor “no end” on the coast.

O’Connor could have made the point that straight white males struggle to get good list rankings, due to the identity politics in Labour, without labelling people as a “gaggle of gays”.

O’Connor said he stood aside because he did not trust the list ranking process. “Frankly, I didn’t trust the system to give a straight-shooter a fair deal … It is dominated by self-serving unionists and a gaggle of gays.” …

“It does not truly represent the rank-and-file members and delivers a list that is not truly representative of those who vote Labour.”

So let us look at the effective list for Labour, and see if the substance of Damien’s comments are accurate. How many non-union straight European males (such as Damien) have list spots? In the top 15 effective spots, there is only one – David Parker. In the top 30 effective spots, there are only two – Parker and Nash.

So Damien has a legitimate gripe, but the way he has gone about expressing it does him little credit.