Kiwiblog

Lincoln Tan at NZ Herald reports:

A Muslim women’s group is expected to tell a public forum tonight that the burqa is not a requirement in Islam and it is “an affront to human dignity” for women to be forced to wear it.

Excellent. Meaningful change should come from within.

The group’s founder, Zainah Anwar, said on its website: “I find the burqa really disturbing.

“There is enough literature to show that the face veil is not a requirement in Islam.

“In a conservative, patriarchal Muslim context, face veiling really symbolises women’s invisibility and inferior status.

“That a woman should not be seen and heard, and should she venture into the public space she must be as invisible as possible, is an affront to human dignity.”

It is also quite unfriendly. If you are looking for a location and want to ask someone for directions, you won’t be asking someone who won’t even show you their face.

Note I have absolutely no issue with head scarves – just those which cover the face so you only see eyes.

The view was supported by the head of Islamic studies at the University of Auckland, Zain Ali.

He said the burqa was more a cultural requirement than an Islamic one.

“The Islamic requirement is for modest dressing, but what has happened in many parts of the Muslim world is that the burqa has been accepted as a norm for that modest dressing,” Mr Ali said.

“But the burqa is almost dehumanising and it robs the personality and the ability of someone to express themselves.”

Again it is good to see the debate happening amongst the Muslim community.

However Malaysian businessman Zulkifli Hamzah, who is in Auckland to help set up a Muslim “Obedient Wives Club” branch, said followers of Islam understood “women and men are not equals”.

“Everything has a structure and for a Muslim, the man is seen as the leader of the family or household.

“If a woman is told to wear a burqa or hijab so she does not tempt other men, then she should obey.

Oh my God. thank goodness he is not a NZ citizen is all I can say.

“The issue is not whether it is a cultural law or religious law, it is the husband’s law.”

My advice to Kiwi men is to not try that line to settle marital arguments.

The club’s founders, Malaysian-based business group Global Ikhwan, support polygamy, and claim their moral attitude is in line with Islamic teachings for building strong families.

The club encourages women to submit to their husbands and meet all their sexual needs because it believes sexually fulfilled men are less likely to stray so marriages are less likely to break down.

Unbelievable.

The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand said it did not support the movement and that the club’s views were “interpretation of Islam to the extreme”.

They are, and that is why it is good more moderate views will challenge those extreme views.

Charlie Gates reports at Stuff:

A controversial “boot camp” for New Zealand’s worst young offenders should be scrapped after new figures show a high reoffending rate, a Labour MP says.

The military activity camps (MACs) were launched in 2009 by Prime Minister John Key. The eight-week course includes a wilderness camp, education and drills.

It is held at Te Puna Wai youth residence near Christchurch and costs $36,000 for each participant.

Fifteen of the 17 people who attended the first two trial MACs have reoffended, and four of those are in prison, the figures show.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said eight of the 15 offended less frequently and nine committed less-serious offences.

The boot camps sounded a worthwhile exercise but my first reaction to this story was if they don’t work, then one should accept that. But I then saw that these are just the results of initial trials, and later on read:

The new figures do not include a breakdown of offences or information regarding the 10 people who graduated from the first official MAC in November or a second quake-disrupted camp in February.  …

The later trials had more support for participants, she said in an email to The Press from a spokesman.

“The concept trials of MAC helped us to develop the programme, but didn’t include the follow-up support, mentoring and supervision that’s built into the actual MAC programme as it will continue to run,” she wrote.

“These are the toughest young offenders to work with. We are never going to get 100 per cent of these young people never reoffending 100 per cent of the time, so let’s get real about that, but it’s about steps in the right direction.”

I wouldn’t rush to conclusions based on just 17 people from initial trials. However if the re-offending rate doesn’t improve with later camps, then one should consider a different approach. But I’d like to see at least a couple of year’s worth of data involving at least 100 participants.

I noticed that the Electoral Commission is consulting on four proposed party logos.

Yes NZ is getting its own Tea Party. Seems to be an anti-ETS party.

Mana’s proposed logo.

The latest incarnation of the direct democracy party. Not a bad logo though.

And we also get our own Pirate Party. Not the Somalian types. The bit torrent types.

Vodafone frustrates me. Some of the time they give great customer service – especially if you engage with their Twitter people who several times have sorted problems out for me within minutes.

But at other times the customer service is sub-standard.

In January I moved apartments. As part of that I gave both Telecom and Vodafone advance notice. Telecom scheduled the phone number to transfer for a specific hour on a particular day.

I was hoping Vodafone could arrange for my DSL connection to transfer the same afternoon as the phone transfers. But alas I was told they could not even log my job into their system until the Telecom transfer was done!

Then once the job was logged I was told there would be a 10 to 15 working day delay until my DSL connection was transferred.  In the end it took 16 days (including weekends) to get my DSL working again.

Now this wasn’t the end of the world as I had a vodem, and could survive on mobile broadband even though it is not as fast. So I got through the 16 days okay.

But then I got the bill for the vodem. And on top of the normal $50 monthly charge was $602 of excess data charges!

As I only used the vodem because my DSL connection was not available (which I was paying for incidentally) I e-mailed Vodafone on the 7th of March asking them to consider remitting the excessive usage charges as it was their own inability to reconnect my DSL within a couple of days, which caused the excess data charge.

I go an auto-reply which said:

We appreciate that you have taken the time to write and you can be assured that we will be in touch as soon as possible.

And apart from a further acknowledgement, I’ve never heard back.

The $600 I got whacked is reason enough to be less than happy. But that is not even the biggest issue for me. If I had got a reply saying this is our decision, then I would at least have a decision on which I can base my future purchasing decisions.

But just getting no reply at all is incredibly frustrating. I don’t have the time to spend hours on the phone being transferred from person to person while trying to find out what has happened. I expect a major company to have a system which ensures customers’ letters are replied to – especially those seeking a refund.

UPDATE: Vodafone have contacted me and the issue has been resolved satisfactorily. My thanks to them for this. I use Vodafone for my mobile phone calls and texts, plus as my home ISP, and also as data for my Blackberry, ipad and Vodem. Most months they get $300 to $500 from me, which is fine – but I did object to an extra $600 in the conditions outlined.

[DPF: Welcome to Kokila Patel, who has kindly offered her services as a sub-editor. In future Kokila will post all the general debate threads (which should make them more reliable) plus other regular posts such as the What's on Backbenches, Q+A, The Nation etc. My thanks to here for helping out, and please make her feel welcome

As you can see there are two general debate posts today as I didn't co-ordinate on what day I would stop and Kokila would start - so you get a choice for one day]

Just had a quick look through the list of MPs, and worked out who entered Parliament in which prime ministerial era. Didn’t take too long to do. quite a diversity in the House. My calculations are:

1. Holyoake – 1 (1%)
2. Muldoon – 1 (1%)
3. Lange – 9 (8%)
4. Bolger – 18 (14%)
5. Shipley – 1 (1%)
6. Clark – 52 (43%)
7. Key – 40 (33%)

So that is 75% of MPs entered the House when Clark or Key was PM.

Holyoake

DOUGLAS, Roger

Muldoon

GOFF, Phil

Lange

ANDERTON, Jim
CARTER, John
DUNNE, Peter
KING, Annette Faye
MALLARD, Trevor
MCCULLY, Murray
ROBERTSON, Ross
SMITH, Lockwood
WILLIAMSON, Maurice

Bolger

BARKER, Rick
BROWNLEE, Gerry
CARTER, Chris
CARTER, David
DALZIEL, Lianne
DYSON, Ruth
ENGLISH, Bill
HENARE, Tau
HIDE, Rodney
HODGSON, Pete
MAPP, Wayne
O’CONNOR, Damien Peter
ROY, Eric
RYALL, Tony
SMITH, Nick
TE HEUHEU, Georgina
TURIA, Tariana
WONG, Pansy

Shipley

ARDERN, Shane

Clark

AUCHINVOLE, Chris
BENNETT, David
BENNETT, Paula
BLUE, Jackie
BORROWS, Chester
CHADWICK, Stephanie (Steve)
CHAUVEL, Charles
CHOUDHARY, Ashraf
COLEMAN, Jonathan
COLLINS, Judith
COSGROVE, Clayton
CUNLIFFE, David
DEAN, Jacqui
FENTON, Darien Elizabeth
FINLAYSON, Christopher
FLAVELL, Te Ururoa
FOSS, Craig
GOODHEW, Jo
GOUDIE, Sandra
GROSER, Tim
GUY, Nathan
HARAWIRA, Hone Pani Tamati Waka Nene
HAYES, John
HEATLEY, Phil
HOROMIA, Parekura
HUGHES, Darren
HUTCHISON, Paul
JONES, Shane Geoffrey
KEDGLEY, Sue
KEY, John
KING, Colin
LOCKE, Keith
MACKEY, Moana Lynore
MAHUTA, Nanaia
MORONEY, Sue
NORMAN, Russel
PARKER, David
PEACHEY, Allan
PILLAY, Lynne
POWER, Simon
RIRINUI, Mita
ROY, Heather
SHANKS, Katrina
SHARPLES, Pita Russell
STREET, Maryan
TISCH, Lindsay
TOLLEY, Anne
TREMAIN, Chris
TUREI, Metiria
WAGNER, Nicky
WALL, Louisa
WILKINSON, Kate

Key

ADAMS, Amy
ARDERN, Jacinda
BAKSHI Kanwalkit
BEAUMONT, Carol
BOSCAWEN, John
BRIDGES, Simon
BURNS, Brendan
CALDER, Cam
CALVERT, Hilary
CLENDON, David
CURRAN, Clare
DAVIS, Kelvin
DELAHUNTY, Catherine
FAAFOI, Kris
GILMORE, Aaron
GRAHAM, Kennedy
HAGUE, Kevin
HIPKINS, Chris
HUGHES, Gareth
HUO, Raymond
JOYCE, Steven
KATENE, Rahui
KAYE, Nikki
LEE, Melissa
LEES-GALLOWAY, Iain
LOTU-IAGA, Sam
MACINDOE, Tim
MCCLAY, Todd
NASH, Stuart
PARATA, Hekia
PRASAD, Rajan
QUINN, Paul
ROBERTSON, Grant
SEULONI, Carmel
SHEARER, David
SIO, William Su’a
TWYFORD, Phil
UPSTON, Louise
WOODHOUSE, Michael
YOUNG, Jonathan

In my By the numbers blog at Stuff, I look at the woes of Julia Gillard as Labor drops to a 69 year low in the opinion polls there. It is predicted that an election on that poll result would see the Coalition with 115 seats to 43 for Labor.

A new satirical/humour site which is worth checking out – Get Fact.

They also have a presence on Facebook.

Back on 6 May, Darien Fenton announced:

Staff for Members of Parliament will now face the 90 day no rights trial period, unless they are employed to work for Labour, says Darien Fenton, Labour’s spokesperson for Labour Issues.

“Labour does not believe that 90 day trial period is fair, justified or needed and our caucus has unanimously resolved that no Labour MP or manager will accept a 90 day trial period as part of the employment of any new staff member,” Darien Fenton said.

I replied:

This is hilarious hypocrisy, because Darien has forgotten to mention one key thing.

All parliamentary staff who work for an MP or a parliamentary party (even if they have worked there for 20 years) are effectively on a permament probation period where they can be dismissed at any time, regardless of performance.

In every employment contract there is a clause called “irreconciable differences”, which states that if your MP or Leader declares they have irreconciable differences, you lose you job in return for a payout.

So Labour trumpeting that their staff are protected from the 90 day probation period is meaningless, as Labour MPs can (and have) sack their staff at any time without any need to prove it is a justified dismissal.

The question that should be asked of Labour is why do they campaign to deny other employers the same rights they have as MPs to dismiss their staff purely because they no longer have confidence in them.

Now this exchange motivated me to find out how many staff have been sacked by Labour MPs under the parliamentary permanent probation period where you can be sacked at any time if your MP decides they no longer like you. The employment records for the Parliamentary Service are exempt from the OIA, but those from Ministerial Services are not, so I asked how many staff were dismissed from 1999 to 2008 under the irreconcilable differences clause.

They only had records from 2003 to 2008, but in those six years, 10 staff were sacked under that clause. So the hilarity of Labour saying we won’t use a 90 day probation period when they on 10 occasions used the parliamentary permanent probation period.

The mean duration of employment of those 10 staff was two years and one month and the longest serving staffer had been there six years and seven months. So a Labour Minister used the irreconcilable differences clause to sack someone who had worked there for almost seven years, rather than do what every other employer has to do which is to prove a dismissal is justified on the grounds of performance and risk litigation.

Labour is against all employers having for 90 days, what all their MPs (and all MPs) have permanently – a grievance free dismissal process.

Sustainable Coastlines have only had two years of operation and in that time have motivated more than 12,500 volunteers and school students to remove over 95 tonnes of rubbish from coastlines and this event will play a big part in making this work continue.

It is hosted at the Hilton Auckland Hotel’s stunning waterfront location on Saturday 23 July, tickets include a three-course seated dinner, full beverage package and entertainment from top artists who support the cause.

Performances from:
• World-renowned concert pianist Michael Houstoun on the grand piano.
• Barnaby Weir – the incredibly talented lead singer of The Black Seeds and Fly My Pretties fame – with his critically acclaimed acoustic set.
• Aotearoa’s top jazz ensemble Nairobi Trio.
• Popular local jazz and funk legends Grand Central Band.

The all-inclusive tickets are $150, while discounted tables of ten are also on offer at $1300 – perfect for getting friends and clients together for an epic night out which supports a great cause.

Click here to buy tickets.

All proceeds will support coastal clean-up, riparian tree planting and educational projects with schools and volunteers around the country.

The evening was a huge success last year and with a limited capacity they are expecting to sell out, so get in quick.

Fred Tulett in the Southland Times reports:

Prime Minister John Key has confirmed one of three Israelis killed in the Christchurch earthquake was carrying multiple passports but is refusing to go into further detail because it is not in the national interest.

The police national computer has been under scrutiny in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake in February because of fears Israeli agents loaded software into the system that would allow backdoor access to highly sensitive intelligence files. …

The Security Intelligence Service ordered the checks as part of an urgent investigation of what one SIS officer described as the suspicious activities of several groups of Israelis during and immediately after the earthquake.

Three Israelis were among the 181 people who died when the earthquake destroyed most of Christchurch’s central business district on February 22. One was found to be carrying at least five passports.

On Sunday, February 26, Mizrahi’s body was recovered from the van and taken to the morgue where, during routine identity checks, he was found to be carrying at least five passports.

Meanwhile, the search and rescue squad dispatched from Israel had arrived in Christchurch but the offer of help was rejected by New Zealand authorities because the squad did not have accreditation from the United Nations.

According to Israeli newspaper reports, the squad was being funded by the parents of two other Israelis killed in the earthquake, Ofer Levy and Gabi Ingel, both 22, who were said to be in New Zealand on a backpacking holiday. The parents made repeated public appeals for the Israeli team to join the rescue, appeals that were dismissed by the New Zealand authorities until squad members were discovered in the sealed off “red zone” of the central city.

Readers may recall I had some minor involvement at the time. I blogged on 4 March:

As a disclosure, one of the dead Israelis is a close friend of one of my good Israeli friends – in fact the person who hosted me in Israel in November 2009. He approached me for assistance in getting a favourable decision made on getting the Israeli team admitted, and I put them in touch with the appropriate MFAT officials. I have no criticism of the MFAT officials who were very responsive and helpful, my criticism is of the ultimate decision maker, which I presume is someone in Civil Defence.

The family I was trying to help is the Ingel family. Their son, who was killed, is not under any suspicion at all of Mossad involvement. I have absolutely no doubt that the parents just genuinely wanted to maximise the chances of finding their son alive.

In terms of the other dead Israeli, with the alleged five passports, I have no first hand knowledge or involvement. The number of passports he had is not confirmed, and many Israelis do have multiple passports due to travel restrictions. I’m not aware of a suggestion that any of the passports were under a fake name, which would suggest something different.

I did become aware some months ago that there were suspicions over the Israeli who was killed in the van. But the evidence is very circumstantial – multiple passports, only a few tributes on a Facebook page etc. At the end of the day, I don’t know anything beyond what is in the paper, and that isn’t enough to make a conclusion on.

The PM is saying it is not in the national interest for him to comment. That to me suggests that the Government does think there may have been improper behaviour, but can’t prove it. And you don’t generally have Governments speculate on these issues unless they have proof.

Adam Bennett at NZ Herald reports:

National and Act are working on a deal under which Act would not stand candidates in marginal seats, including New Plymouth and Waimakariri, to increase National’s chances of winning them.

This is sensible and not unusual. Off memory most elections there have been some seats where ACT doesn’t stand a candidate to avoid splitting the centre-right electorate vote. One of the nice things about MMP is that you can still contest the party vote, without needing to stand in an electorate.

Act’s new candidate in Epsom – John Banks – said while he was not privy to such discussions, “Waimakariri would have been held by a National Party member of Parliament today if it wasn’t for the Act Party candidate last election”.

“I don’t make those decisions. I’m not on the campaign committee and I’m not on the Act board so I can’t speak with any authority but would it make sense, for instance, to lose the seat of New Plymouth to Andrew Little, a future leader of the Labour party, likely to be the leader of the Labour Party post the election, to lose that seat held by Jonathan Young because we put up an Act candidate?”

Mr Banks indicated Act would consider a more general policy of not standing in marginal seats. “I would not want to dislodge any high-quality National Party MPs from their marginal seats by way of putting up an Act candidate.”

Very sensible stuff from Banskie.

Talking of electorates a source within Labour informs me that nominations for Epsom have not closed yet, but will next week. If someone stands against Parker it will go to a selection meeting. I suspect Epsom Labour Party has few members and few union affiliates in the seat, so my guess is the Head Office wishes would prevail easily. Of course yet to have it confirmed Parker is seeking Epsom.

A couple live together in their family home. they think they don’t have to worry about CGT as it appreciates in value.

Sadly after a few years they split up, and both move into smaller apartments. They sell their old house.

Do they pay CGT on the difference between what they paid for it, and what they sold it for?

I’m looking forward to this debate, and not just because I am one of the guest judges.

You can signify attendance on Facebook, or just turn up.

Readers will have probably seen Labour’s advertisements for their campaign website on different online media. The actual advertisements are taxpayer funded and authorised by Chief Whip Rick Barker.

The site they take you to is a party funded site authorised by Chris Flatt. Both the advertisements and the site are clearly election advertisements.

The advertisements are legal under parliamentary rules, but as usual with Labour they push the rules to the absolute boundary. They have combined parliamentary and party ads and sites so they have the same look, slogans and feel. It is as close as you can come to have the taxpayer actually fund advertisements saying “Vote for Labour”. They’re doing it in an slightly indirect way.

All parties fund material from their parliamentary budget which is “political”. You can’t easily draw a line between political and parliamentary. But this current campaign is around 1% parliamentary and 99% political campaigning. As I said before Labour have a long history of pushing the rules to their limit, or as they did in 2005 beyond the limit.

I look forward to 26 August when the taxpayer funding tap gets turned off for parliamentary parties’ advertisements.

I asked on Twitter whether Labour were likely to use their “Ax the tax” bus in the election campaign. Lots of humourous feedback, but the best retort came within a few seconds from Revenue Minister Peter Dunne who said they were going to rename the bus to “Max the Tax”.

Whale has provided this new graphic. Thanks to Peter for the slogan, which I suspect we have not have heard the last of.

The Herald’s Sideswipe put together a few days ago this video comparing a Close Up story to a story on ABC News in the US.

It is quite common to base stories on overseas stories. But I’ve never heard of a story using basically the same script and words. Close Up have now apologised after an initial “No problems” response. Good to see they have backed down, and kudos to Sideswipe for the story.

A spy e-mails:

Labour’s leadership & council have selected David Parker for Epsom & told other prospectives to butt out.

Parker was the MP for Otago from 2002 to 2005 but lot it to Jacqui Dean. His new partner works for an Auckland Labour List MP, so a move to Auckland is certainly plausible.

Interesting to be in a party where the leadership decide selections. Epsom’s selection for National was determined entirely by 60+ local grassroots members.

With last night’s Epsom selection, National has now completed selections in all 63 general electorates.

Labour started their candidate selection much earlier and ranked their party list a couple of months ago. But they have yet to select candidate for ten or so seats. Now this is unusual with just 20 weeks to go. I suspect in some seats they are finding it hard to get a candidate as they have no chance of winning, and as the list is already ranked they can’t even offer a place as a consolation.

As far as I know (let me know if wrong), Labour are yet to select for:

1. Epsom
2. Hunua
3. Ikaroa-Rawhiti
4. Kaikoura
5. Selwyn
6. Tamaki
7. Taupo
8. Tauranga
9. Waikato

Who will they be?

Abby Walker is a Chch born, Ohio State PhD student in linguistics, and her current study is looking at a particular aspect of NZ English, and so involves doing experiments on NZers. She was actually back in NZ end of last year / start of this year, but earthquakes hindered data collection, and, now back in Ohio, she’s trying to collect data online.

http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~ajwalker/OnlineSpeakerRatings

The instructions are:

You are invited to participate in an online linguistics study entitled “Online Speaker Ratings”.  The study involves listening to 10 speakers and answering questions about them. We expect that it will take about 10 minutes to complete this study.

To participate in this study you need to have lived in NZ since you were 6 or younger, and you need to have not lived in a country other than NZ for more than 6 years. You will also need to be at a computer that can play .mp3 sounds at a comfortable listening level.

At the end of the study you will have the option of including your email address in a draw for a USD$50 Amazon.com gift voucher.

Readers are encouraged to help Abby out and complete her study.

Vote for Change is offering $10,000 for the best user generated ads.  $5,000 for the best ad (as judged by vfc) and $2,500 for each of two categories (video and non video) as voted by member of their facebook page.

Entries can be submitted to www.facebook.com/voteforchangenz (that is where entries can be submitted and voted on).  Deadline for entry is 7pm Sunday 24 July.

T&C are at http://www.voteforchange.org.nz/competitions/.

This is one of the entries so far. If you think you can do better, then submit away. And remember you can vote and get your friends to vote on which entries they like the most.

And this is another entry.