Kiwiblog

No Right Turn gives us a great example of the difference between an academic theoretical analysis, and understanding the real word.

He blogs on income distribution:

So, the median income is around the decile 5 boundary of $23,000 a year. …

So, 78% of us don’t even pay the middle tax rate, and the top tax rate is utterly irrelevant to 91% of the population. Remember that next time the government or the media talk about “middle-income” tax cuts – they’re not talking about you, or most of New Zealand. Instead, they’re only talking about themselves.

The Standard have made the same mistake also. You see in New Zealand, we have these things called families and households. What No Right Turn sees as a mass of poor people who will be unaffected by tax cuts, are spouses, older children, many students and even parents of those who do earn more than $23,000 a year, or even $48,000 a year.

If a family has one parent earning $60,000 a year, and one on $15,000 part-time, they both benefit from a change to the 33% tax rate. Because they are a family!!

Likewise most students still get some support from their parents. The income deciles are for adults aged 15 and over, so that covers Year 11 to 13 at school plus full-time tertiary students. And many of those students will have higher salaries once they are not studying.

There are also those on benefits who don’t pay any net income tax. Remember 76% of net income tax is paid by 10% of the population.  But if you are retired and earning just $25,000 a year, that doesn’t mean you are against tax cuts, because you are happy that your adult children will benefit from them.

So ignore the stupid stats and graphs about individual incomes. They are relevant to academic theory, rather than the real world. Household Family income is what affects most people. Now as of June 2009, the median household income was around $64,000. 30% of households have income over $93,000.

If a household is a couple with at least one child, the median annual household income is around $75,000.

Here is what would be a more useful stat. Of households or families that have at least one adult in full-time work, how many of them have at least one adult earning over $48,000 (the threshold for the 33% rate).  It will be a lot more than 22%.

The Government has done something novel as part of a consultation. It has actually released a draft bill for purposes of consultation. This allows people to give feedback on precise details. The bill is based on the criminal procedure simplification project, so will be controversial within the legal profession.

The bill divides offences up into five categories of seriousness. They are:

1. punishable by fine only
2. punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment not exceeding 3 years
3. an offence punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of more than 3 years that is not a category 4 or 5 offence
4. an offence listed in Schedule 1 of the bill (rape, wounding, kidnapping, arson etc)
5. an offence listed in Schedule 2 of the bill (murder, treason, MP corruption, slave dealing etc)

It is proposed that the first two categories be dealt with by way of judge only trial. No Right Turn is hotly against this, and says it is a breach of the Magna Carta.  He concedes that minor offences do not currently have a right for jury trial, but says a punishment of three years is not minor.

The current law does not allow jury trials for charges where the maximum term is less than three months, so in effect the proposed change is to move the threshold from less than three months maximum, to a three year maximum.

I blogged back in May on this, and listed the offences I could find that would then be tried by a Judge only. They include indecent acts in public (two year max), aggravated assault (three years max), assault with intent to injure (three years max), assault on a child or female (two years max), and theft of less than $1,000 (1 year max).

I am comfortable with the threshold lifting from less than three months, but am not sure if three years is about right or too far. So I did some research.

First of all I thought, what do people actually charged with these offences end up serving. It is almost impossible to ever get the maximum sentence.

The percentage of convictions for an offence listed above, that even got a custodial sentence was very low – ranging from 3% for minor assaults to 15% for male assaults female. This is from Stats NZ 2008 stats.

Then we go to the Ministry of Justice conviction and sentencing report for 2006. Of the 15% who get a custodial sentence for male assaults female, the average prison term is six months. With parole it means out in three months. So 85% get no prison term, and 15% serve an average three months in jail (and these are probably people who have dozens of offences chalked up by then). Is that serious enough to need a jury trial, considering the delays that mean for the victim?

A minor assault has an average prison term of just 1.9 months, so on average out in 30 days.

For theft, only 6% of convictions get a custodial sentence, and the average sentence is 5.6 months so out in 90 days.

Only 2% of cannabis use convictions are custodial, and the average sentence is 0.9 of a month.

Now I have not checked every single offence with a maximum penalty of three years or less, so I am open to persuasion that a threshold of two years or even one year could be more appropriate, but for the most common offences, the resulting penalties are overwhelmingly non-custodial.

The Minister estimates this change would reduce the number of jury trials by around 1,000 a year. It would be useful to have that broken down by type of offence, so one could see what different it would make to have the threshold at say two years instead of three.

Finally, I was interested in what other OECD type countries do – where do they draw the line?

• France – jury trials reserved for most severe crimes only
• US – Supreme Court has interpreted the constitutional right to trial bu jury as only applying to offences with a maximum sentence of six months or more
• Australia and UK – no threshold as far as I can tell
• Austria – serious criminal cases only
• Belgium – grave crimes only
• Canada – only for crimes with a maximum sentence of five years or more
• Germany – no juries, but lay judges alongside professional judges
• Greece – a panel of three judges and four lay jurors
• Italy – only for serious crimes like murder, and a panel of 2 judges and 6 laymen
• Japan – From May 2009 jury trials resume but only for severe crimes
• Singapore – death penalty cases only
• Israel – no juries (as British did not trust the locals)

I find it interesting the countries with a jury made up of judges and lay people. Do teh Judges dominate the lay members of the jury?

No Right Turn criticises some of the recent appointments to the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

While I don’t endorse his language and descriptions, I do agree with him that the appointments look too politically loaded. Generally National has been much better than Labour in this area, and this is the first set of appointments which look unbalanced. It may be that each individual is qualified, but to have four out of nine members with a political background is not desirable.

The one that puzzles me is Brian Neeson. Brian quit National and actually stood against John Key in 2002. Generally parties don’t have a lot of time for people who quite and break their written word not to stand against the official candidate. So why is National appointing Neeson? It is hardly rewarding a supporter.

No Right Turn really needs to lighten up sometimes. He proclaims journalism has hit a new low, as Audrey Young blogged about a chicken.

I’m with Big News on this. NRT fails to understand the difference between what a journalist writes for their newspaper, and what they may blog about. Audrey’s story was not published in the NZ Herald. Audrey has done hundreds of hard news political stories. A whimsical blog about an escaped chicken is not a low.

Personally I like press gallery blogs that give us a bit of a light hearted look behind the scenes. I thought Audrey;s blog was very funny. An extract:

The talk of Parliament today has not been Hone Harawira’s future, John Key’s boycott of the Dalai Lama, or Phil Goff ending the 20-year consensus on monetary policy.

What has the whole complex in a frenzy is a chicken on the loose – one I have just captured in image- but only my cellphone.

It is a Leghorn according to the chicken specialists in the Beehive in ministerial offices who have been emailing each other about it all day.

It was let loose a week ago with four other birds by some idiot protestor.

The others have been captured by the SPCA but the fourth one, nicknamed Tegel by the security guards, has eluded capture.

Having worked at Parliament, episodes like that would provide light relief.

Audrey also contributes some chicken crossing the road jokes:

John Key: I haven’t had any advice on that but I’m pretty relaxed about it crossing the road.

Phil Goff: I too have chickens and I know what a difficult decision it can be for chickens when it comes to crossing roads. Labour was perhaps too strict on chickens and we are re-examining our chicken policy, though it should be remembered that it is every chicken’s right to cross the road so long as it does not interfere in the rights of others.

Tariana Turia: In the spirit of manaakitanga, the Maori Party would like to offer a home to the chicken in our offices – after it crosses Bowen St – and its hapu.

Sue Kedgley: Leave it run free range on the mound and give the eggs to Bellamies.

Rodney Hide: Officials have estimated that 108.5 hours have been wasted by the public servants in Wellington gazing out of window onto Bowen St to see the chicken crossing the road. My colleague Heather Roy, the Minister of Consumer Affairs, will deal with it.

Heh, not bad.

Big Day Out has withdrawn the invitation to Beenie Man, which is the right thing to do.

Prior to that, No Right Turn blogged (as I did) that he did not agree with Charles Chauvel’s call to ban Beenie Man from entering New Zealand. He says:

In case Chauvel has forgotten, we are a country which supposedly respects freedom of speech. And that liberty applies to people we disagree with as well as those we like. The widely accepted limit on freedom of speech is “shouting fire in a crowded theatre”. While Beenie man’s music is hateful, like David Irving’s, it simply does not reach that standard. I am not denying the social consequences of his hate, but they are far too distributed and distant to provide a justification for censorship.

Now as I said, I agree with NRT that banning Beenie Man on the basis of some previous songs is inappropriate. But it has got me wondering – where do you draw that line, the so called shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

Wikipedia says:

The lyrics to some of his songs have been criticized for inciting the murder of homosexuals, with lyrics such as, “I’m dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays”[17]. In “Mi Nah Wallah”, he says he would like to cut the throats of all gay men.[18] In “Bad Man Chi Chi Man” the lyric instructs listeners to kill gay deejays, and in “Han Up Deh”, the lyric suggests hanging lesbians with a long piece of rope.

Now since 2005 he hasn’t performed such lyrics. He claims that by homosexuals he meant pedophiles – old men picking up young boys. Personally I regard that excuse as disingenuous considering one of his lyrics is also about hanging lesbians. But the fact is he has not sung such lyrics or advocated such acts since 2005.

The question I ponder is, what if he still advocated such actions through his songs. Would that be sufficient reason to bar him entry?

I think of the comparison to David Irving, whom I also did not think should be banned. Irving is an anti-semite and a Holocaust denier. But he doesn’t actually advocate the executions of Jews. If someone actually did actively advocate the extermination of Jews, I would say that crosses the line.

Now likewise, if Beenie Man still actively advocated the murder of gays and lesbians, I think that would cross the line. There is a difference between mere bigotry and actual incitement to violence.

I’d be interested to hear NRT’s thoughts (and others) on where he thinks the line is. Of course to some degree the line might be like spam – hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

Well the silence from most left blogs on the shame of Taito Philip Field has been illuminating. Public Address just did a one line post on their discussion board announcing the verdict. Red Alert remains strangely silent. The various Labour Party members blogs have said nothing much. Of course this is similiar to their comments at the time. Nowhere did they call out for their party to do the right thing and stop defending Field as a man of integrity whose only crime was to work too hard.

There was one notable exception. No Right Turn has, not surprisingly, covered Field in detail from the very first allegations, and decried both Field and his apologists.He was the first to suggest Field’s action represented criminal offending – back in Sep 2005.

Some extracts from what he said back then:

On 8 August 2006:

It’s official: the Labour Party supports corruption. That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from Helen Clark’s refusal to consider internally censuring corrupt MP Taito Philip Field. …

I expect all political parties in New Zealand to take a hard line against corruption, and when this sort of case comes up, to condemn it and any member involved. Labour’s refusal to do so sends a clear message: that they will turn a blind eye to corruption in order to retain power. This is simply unacceptable, and such a party is not worthy of anyone’s vote.

And on 15 August 2006:

As for the argument that a by-election would threaten the government’s majority, what of it? There are some things more important than being in government – and maintaining the integrity of our political system against corruption is one of them. If Labour can’t stay in power except by looking the other way on this sort of thing, then arguably it shouldn’t be in power at all.

Also of interest in a post from Bryce Edwards, who quotes David Lange in 1997 highlighting dodgy electoral spending and donations returns from Field in 1996. Even back then people were raising issues.

UPDATE: Another honourable exception to the silence was Jeremy Greenbrook-Held. He said in July 2006:

I’m embarrassed that I’m a member of the same political party as this man, and, for the record, would love to see a full privilages committee inquiry into his conduct as an MP. It is not worth loosing Margaret Wilson as speaker to cover this up.

No Right Turn blogs:

The UK government has just announced an ambitious plan to meet its 34% by 2020 climate change target. The details look like nothing less than a green revolution:

Now you may look at this and think hey the UK is going for a 34% by 2020 target, so why not have NZ go for a 40% by 2020 target.

But here is the key difference. This is about how much below 1990 levels you can get. Now as of 2007 NZ was around 20% to 25% above 1990 levels. So in fact we would be having to go from 120% of 1990 to 60% of 1990 – in other words cut our emissions in half in just a decade. It simply can not be done without shooting a hell of a lot of cows.

The UK in 2006 was already 20% below its 1990 level. So the UK has to just go from 80% to 66% (a 14% reduction on 1990 levels), while NZ would have to go from 120% to 60% (a 60% reduction on 1990 levels).

This is why I call a 40% target by 2002 madness. It ignores where we are at today. It would lead to a huge number of jobs destroyed, and could well lead to increased emissions from other countries as they would take up our drop in agricultural production.

a massive investment by electricity companies in home insulation – £3.2 billion over four years to insulate 7.5 million homes.

This sounds a lot. But the UK economy is 20 times the size of the NZ economy. So in NZ terms that is the equivalent of spending 160 million pounds over four years or NZ$409 million.

And National’s 2009  budget announced $320 million over four years for home insulation. So in fact the UK commitment is only 25% greater.

Idiot/Savant blogs on the bill promoted by Labour to supress school assessment information:

There are a number of problems with this. In addition to being “class-based” (that is, targeting information based on its content or type rather than the interests its release might prejudice), it also categorically forbids release. And that has never been part of our OIA regime. While the OIA allows information to be withheld if there are good reasons for doing so, it doesn’t make it mandatory, and an organisation can always just release information if they feel like it. This amendment would forbid them from doing that. It effectively recreates the Official Secrets Act specifically for schools. The “justification” for this – that the public might “misunderstand” or “misuse” the information – is decidedly authoritarian.

This is a nasty regression from Labour, and one which undermines a fundamental part of our freedom of information regime.

I made a similiar point yesterday – this proposed law would make school assessment data more secret than security and intelligence data. The Government has the discretion to release security and intelligence data, but Labour want school assessment data to be prohibited from ever being released.

Such a wonderful commitment to open government and accountabilty for the $6 billion we spends on schools.

No Right Turn cries out:

Not content with turning Auckland into a dictatorship to prepare it for National’s Wellington-imposed gerrymander, the government is now planning a wider assault on local government democracy, with Environment Minister Nick Smith threatening to appoint administrators to run eight councils if they don’t improve their handling of resource consents.

The Minister certainly has this power (the relevant section is s25 of the RMA), but it has never been used, and for obvious reasons. Local authorities are democratically elected and accountable to the people. Replacing them, even in the area of resource consent planning and processing, with an unelected administrator removes that accountability. It silences local voices and crushes local democracy. And that is simply not acceptable in a democratic society.

I always enjoy having a diehard supporter of the Electoral Finance Act talk about silencing voices and crushing democracy. I mean really.

Nowhere in the rant does Idiot/Savant offer any criticism of the Councils for the reason they are being threatened with Administrators. It is because they are consistently breaking the law and failing to process resource consents in time. Local bodies are not above the law, and frankly it would be a good thing for them to suffer consequences for sticking it to everday residents by not processing resource conensts within the time frame set out in law. This is not crushing local democracy – this is ensuring local Councils are not above the law.

Also NRT fails to grasp that the Minister has not appointed Administrators. He is using his power to do so as a threat, so that they improve their performance and start obeying the law. This is a good thing.

No Right Turn has died of shock, upon finding he agrees with ACT MP David Garrett on how it is “incomprehensible” that the police officer who shot Naitoko is not facing charges.

Garrett says:

While not charging the officer concerned with manslaughter is probably justifiable, it seems incomprehensible that the officer is not facing charges under the Arms Act for failing to properly identify his target

The Herald on Sunday editorial also touches on this today.

The Herald reported yesterday on various donations to candidates and included:

A mystery entity called Toorak Chambers also gave $3000 each to National MPs Simon Bridges, David Bennett, Todd McLay, and Lindsay Tisch.

When questioned, one of the recipients said it was linked to the National Party and referred the Herald to the party’s headquarters.

They today cleared up the mystery:

Meanwhile, the mystery of $3000 donations to several National MPs from “Toorak Chambers” has been cleared up. Toorak Chambers is an incorporated society which owns a building in Hamilton.

The “donations” were effectively a dividend from profits to the members – National’s central North Island electorate branches.

As a political party is an unincorporated society, major assets such as buildings are always vested in an incorporated society as this is a legal body corporate. So basically the “donations” are rental income. Nothing sinister at all. Toorak Chambers even has its accounts online. The constitution is also online, making it very clear it is the property arm of the CNI Region of the National Party.

Nothing wrong with the Herald reporting of Toorak Chambers. It was responsible, and once they had the full info, they published it.

No Right Turn jumped to conclusions:

National’s response to the Electoral Finance Act, or any attempt to regulate political donations, is to claim that transparency is enough. Then, in practice, they evade and undermine that transparency, using corporate fronts to shield the identity of donors. These are the actions of a dishonest, hypocritical, dirty party with something to hide.

We await the unreserved apology. I am not holding my breath.

I’ve spent a bit of time discussing parts of the Royal Commission report that are not that flash (I should note I am a strong supporter of the overall direction of one Council and an elected Mayor with enhanced powers), so here is where I spell out what I would do.

First of all I would scrap the at large seats, or at least reduce their number. Ten at large seats is a huge amount and what it means is that you may have say 50 people standing for 10 positions, and in that scenario it becomes name recognition only – not informed decision making.

It also means that an area such as Manukau could end up with only 2 Councillors out of 23, despite being 30% of the Region.

Plus it will be confusing to have people vote for three sets of Councillors – local Councillors, ward Councillors on Auckland Council and at large Councillors on Auckland Council.

No Right Turn has a model that works well with no at large, and 1 to 6 Councillors per ward, which has equality of representation.

My second decision would be to have local Council boundaries and Ward boundaries the same. The Royal Commission allows them to be different which is confusing.

My third decision would be to have more, yet smaller, local Councils (and in fact don’t call them Councils as that confuses them with the Auckland Council, so I will call them Local Boards).

The local boards should be small enough to not need further wards underneath them. I quite like the 11 council/board option in the RC report.

If you had 11 smaller boards and wards, then each of them could elect two Councillors each (if their boundaries were adjusted so populations were similar enough) to the Auckland Council. And each of them would have perhaps just half a dozen members.

Finally you have the Maori reps. Putting aside my personal views that long-term these take us down the wrong path, I think it is inevitable the Council will have some as they have been recommended. But under the current proposal, their number is way too high as you have one per 30,000 residents compared to one per 120,000 in the main wards.

However if one gets rid of the at large seats, then the correct number of Maori seats would be around 1.5 – so say two Councillors elected off the Maori roll. I don’t think mana whenua should directly appoint a Councillor, but can live with a Maori roll election as we do have the precedent.

So in total my principles would be:

1. Abolish at large Councillors
2. Ward boundaries for Auckland Council should match local Council/Board boundaries
3. Have more, smaller local Councils/Boards
4. Have local Councils/Boards small enough so that they in turn do not need another set of wards beneath them
5. Have a Maori roll ward with one or two Crs, but do not have direct appointment by mana whenua

As I said I am supportive of most of the Royal Commission’s recommendations, but the representation model they have devised is one that can be improved upon – in my opinion.

No Right Turn says:

Back in 2006, the (then-Labour) government passed the Appropriation (Parliamentary Expenditure Validation) Bill, which retrospectively validated Parliamentary Services expenditure in the wake of a nonsensical, retrospective reinterpretation by the Auditor-General. The rabids in the sewer (and some supposedly outside it) preached revolution.

Today, the (now-National) government introduced the Appropriation (2007/08 Financial Review) Bill, which among other things retrospectively validates various items of unapproved, unappropriated expenditure.

Will we see the same outpouring of outrage from the sewer, or will they finally admit that such retrospective validations are standard procedure and happen almost every year? Hmmm, I wonder…

This is one of the more desperate rewritings of history.  Yes validations are common place, but Idiot/Savant deliberately overlooks the vast differences with this one.

Also he continues to smear and lie about the Auditor-General. The Auditor-General warned parties before the 2005 election about their spending. They ignored him. The opinion of the Auditor-General was backed up by the Solictor-General. And what was truly despeciable is that the Government and certain scyophantic supporters attacked the Auditor-General time and time again claiming he was wrong – and then they went and passed a law which killed off a law suit that would have resulted in a Court deciding if he was right or not.

It is bad enough to attack an Independent Officer if Parliament for doing their job, but to attack them and to support a law change that would stop a court case over whether they are correct is disgusting.

As for the other issue of validation, here are what made this case different:

1. The MPs voting for validation had personally gained (in a political sense) from the illegal expenditure. They were not disinterested participants. This is totally different to a minor breach by some junior official in a department.
2. Not all parties had agreed to pay the money back, and in the case of NZ First never paid it back.
3. The MPs voted down an amendment that would have allowed the Darnton vs Clark lawsuit to continue, so that a court ruling could have been obtained on whether or not the pledge card was illegal.
4. The MPs who voted to validate kept claiming the expenditure was legal and like Idiot/Savant attacked the Auditor-General, rather than accept the ruling.
5. The Auditor-General had explicitly warned MPs before the election about their expenditure, and they ignored his advice

No Right Turn is claiming that National has given an edict for 10% spending cuts across the board. I don’t know if he is deliberately misrepresenting the situation, or genunely does not know the difference between identifying potential savings/cuts and automatically cutting them.

The actual article he quotes, makes it clear the Government has not mandated 10% cuts:

The Government has denied having an overall target for cuts from its current “line-by-line” review, and the advice to public sector chiefs stops short of saying cuts of that magnitude will be made.

What the Government has said is:

Using your detailed knowledge of both the department and sector … can you identify the spending that delivers the lowest value for money, say, the bottom 5 per cent and 10 per cent.

To be honest this should happen every year, not just in a fiscal crisis. The scandal is that this never happened under Labour it seems.

This is not saying every programme in that bottom 5% or 10% will be cut. Iit is saying we want you to go through those programmes of the lowest value so we can then discuss which ones remain and which ones do not.

Anyone who has ever worked in the real world will have been through such an exercise themselves. Even non profits regularly do this – identify the lower priority programmes so a decision can be made on whether to do them or not.

If No Right Turn’s hysteria is correct, then every Government Department will have 10% less funding in the budget in May. I would be willing to bet that not a single Department will have 10% less funding.  English has said that generally the cuts have been around 1% to 2%.

NRT also tries to keep repeating the lie that one has to cut this spending to pay for the tax cuts:

And all so National’s rich friends can get their tax cuts.

And again this is not true. National’s tax cuts were fiscally neutral due to the reduction in KiwiSaver subsidies.

Finally we have the best comedy line of the week:

contrary to the right’s propaganda, there is precious little fat in the public service to trim

Hilarious. NRT should try talking to some peopel who actually work in the public service. They are full of stories about waste and fat.

Normally I’d just comment on the post, but as No Right Turn doesn’t allow comments, I have to respond here.

In a tribute to Jeanette Fitzsimons, Idiot/Savant says:

But I also like her because she’s an unashamed wonk who seriously knows her stuff. It’s a rare quality in a politician – Bill Birch reportedly didn’t even know how to read a graph

Now I have no idea where the hell that comes from, let alone why I/S would repeat something so stupid, but I can’t let it go unchallenged that Bill Birch was some sort of lightweight politician who had no grasp of policy or detail.

Quite the opposite in fact. It is well known that when he was the (junior) Finance Minister to Winston’s senior role as Treasurer, Birch took care of all the detailed stuff, and Winston read the executive summaries.

But his eye for detail went far beyond that. I used to flat with Treasury staff, and I remember one story of the first time they had to sit in on a Birch bi-lateral.

The general rule of thumb at Treasury was that a vote analyst should only worry about stuff greater than $2 million.

Anyway in the first bilateral, not only does Birch go into every line in detail, demanding it be justified, he recalled the previous year they had stuck away $500,000 in some contingency account, and asked if that was still needed, and if not, he wants it back.

Now imagine how stunned the vote analysts were, that the Minister of Finance knew their votes to an even greater detail than they did!

So the suggestion by I/S that Sir William did not know his stuff, is ludicrous and preposterous. One could well criticise him for his policies, but to suggest what I/S did, is more a reflection on him that he spoils a nice tribute to Jeanette with an un-necessary and inaccurate swipe at someone who hasn’t even been in politics for a decade.

It appears to be the first occassion in NZ that the Police have accidentially killed an innocent bystander – Halatau Naitoko.

Your first sympathies are with the family, whose grief will never totally fade.

In my case there is also considerable sympathy for the Police involved. As the NZ Herald writes today, it appears they were forced to open fire to protect other’s lives. All the Police involved will feel awful at the loss of innocent life.

It goes without saying that there must be a fully independent inquiry (which the IPCA) of what happened, and also a determination of whether there is any criminal culpability.

I disagree with Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn who argues the Police shooter must face trial. He is actually arguing for a trial regardless of the facts. He is actually arguing for Police officers to have less rights than any other NZer.

I believe we should wait for the facts to be established, before you can possibly know whether or not this is a criminal offence. Having said that there will be some suspicion about what is and is not a fact. I recall the tube shooting in London a few years ago. Initially it seemed the Police actions were quite justified. Later it emerged it was a terrible terrible stuff up, and the facts were very different to what we first thought.

So I’m not going to place too much reliance on initial reports (including today’s one quoted above) and wait for the full investigation.

I’m also going to remember that the person who has major shared culpability is the gunman whom the Police were engaged in a firefight with.

Not surprisingly Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn thinks Israel is the source of all evil, and he has found someone who argues that Israel is guilty of war crimes (this is the same Israel that phones people up in advance of bombing any nearby buildings). So who is the person I/S places great reliance on:

Unfortunately for them, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories – begs to differ:…

Who to believe? Random ranters, or an internationally renowned human rights expert, tasked by the UN with monitoring the implementation of international law in the area? Tough question…

Citing the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories as an internationally renowned human rights expert would make you think he was some sort of Sir Kenneth Keith (who is internationally renowned).

But this is the UN Human Rights Council at work. Arguably the most hypocritical disgusting apparatus at the UN. So when they appoint a “special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories” they actually appoint the biggest Israel hater they can find anywhere.

The rapporteur is Richard Falk. And what do we know about Mr Falk:

1. He supported the Iranian revolution and attacked Jimmy Carter for labeling the Ayatollah Khomeini a religious fanatic. His love for Iran is shown with thsi quote “Having created a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics, Iran may yet provide us with a desperately-needed model of humane governance for a third-world country”
2. He is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist
3. He argues that Vietnam war protesters were entitled to bomb facilities in the US as a form of protest
4. It is no surprise then that he supports suicide bombings as a valid method of struggle.
5. Compares Israel to Nazi Germany

So Mr Falk is a huge champion of human rights – the right to suicide bomb, and the right of that nice peaceful human rights loving Ayatollah.

His views should be given the same respect as, well what I/S calls the sewer.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn wants the UN to decide if NZ is meeting its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

He explains:

It will allow individuals to bring complaints directly to an international body. So for example, if the government hadn’t decided to change its mind, the “Herception heroes” could have argued that PHARMAC’s refusal to fund their preferred drug violated their right to health, and complained to the UN about it.

I can think of nothing more ridicolous than having a UN panel, probably made up of representatives from Zimbabwe, Iran and Russia deciding whether or not the NZ Government should fund Herceptin.

Idiot/Savant is sceptical of the planned policy to have maximum waiting times for A&E. He claims that in the UK, the response to such targets was:

The policy is based on UK Labour’s attempts to improve quality in the NHS by introducing these sorts of absurd targets, and Ryall claims that policy was a success, having led to a reduction in the number of patients waiting for than four hours from 23% to 3%. But that success was an illusion. As noted in Adam Curtis’ documentary, The Trap, faced with pressure to improve their statistics, NHS managers created a new and unofficial post, the “Hello Nurse”, whose sole purpose was to greet new arrivals to A&E so they could claim for statistical purposes that the patient had been “seen”. Faced with a similar target aimed at reducing the number of patients waiting on trolleys in corridors, they simply removed the wheels from the trolleys and reclassified them as beds.

I’m not sure whether to be appalled or impressed by the ingenuity – reclassifying trolleys as beds!

The targets were met, but the underlying performance didn’t change one iota. Mangers being managers the world over, the same is likely to happen here. It’s a general problem with this sort of empty managerialism and obsession with statistical targets: the statistical goal – measured patient “waiting time” – ends up taking the place of the real goal – patient care. And doctors and nurses end up spending all their time filling in performance spreadsheets rather than doing what they’re supposed to be doing: seeing patients.

Idiot/Savant arguments would be stronger, if the status quo had not failed so badly. Under Labour we have had $3.5 billion of exra funding for health, no targets for A&E, and the result has been 20% of people waiting for more than eight hours.

Why does he think throwing more money at it, without targets will work? Can he cite an example in the world where it does?

As I said yesterday, the benefits of targets are it creates transparency. DHBs can cost what the cost will be to meet the six hour target. Dedicated funding can be applied for. If the Government refuses, then people can hold the Government accountable.

Rather than clinging to the dead 80’s cult of managerialism, National should target the real problem: lack of resources. The reason people have to wait so long in A&E is because hospitals cannot afford to employ enough medical professionals to deal with demand.

And without a target to aim for, how on earth can one calculate what it would costs to have the extra staff?

The reason they are parked on trolleys in hospital corridors is because there is not enough space. But solving these problems would cost money, which National would rather give to the rich in tax cuts. It’s just a question of priorities – and National clearly rates redistributing wealth to those who need it least well ahead of ensuring that every kiwi has decent access to healthcare.

And now we just get the blind slogans, instead of intelligent analysis. Idiot/Savant is not stupid. He has read National’s fiscal package. He knews that the tax cuts are being funded almost entirely out of changes to KiwiSaver. Not from less spending on Health.

In fact National has pledged significant funding to train up more doctors, to set up 20 new surgicial wards etc etc.

The Herald editorial is supportive of the policy:

It is also all the more reason to welcome Health Minister Tony Ryall’s plan to impose maximum patient waiting times on emergency departments, and to hold district health boards and their management accountable for meeting them. His initiative is sure to attract criticism. Such targets are always something of a crude measure, if only because they fail to give sufficient recognition to quality of care, which should, ideally, be hospitals’ paramount concern.

The target are no silver bullet, but frankly we should be debating why we have never had them before, not be surprised that these minimum measures of accountability are being introduced.

But Mr Ryall can be excused for starting at this point. There is a sense that, while the Labour Government increased the health budget by more than $3.5 billion, too much of this was swallowed with little discernible increase in efficiency. There were neither quantitative nor qualitative improvements. At the very least, targets incorporated into performance agreements will lay the foundation for better results by increasing accountability in emergency department operations.

Indeed. The status quo has seen massive funding and little way to judge how well utilised that funding was. Now that is great if you are Minister of Health, but not good for patients and taxpayers. This si why I said Ryall’s policy was brave – it actually creates an accountability for him as as Minister that was previously lacking.

Idiot/Savant looks at what would happen if the Foreshore and Seabed Act was repealed. I tend to favour repeal of the Act, but also would like the Court of Appeal ruling to have been tested by appeal to the Privy Council or the Supreme Court. Maybe one can repeal the Act, legislate to allow the Supreme Court to hear an appeal from the Court of Appeal ruling, and then whatever the Supreme Court decides, forms the basis of negotiations between Crown and Iwi.

Adam Smith at The Inquiring Mind links to an article in The Times on the huge number of subtitling mashups done of the bunker scene from Downfall. Over 150 mashups have been done, including three by Whale Oil. They are Winston’s Downfall, Helen’s Downfall and Judith’s Downfall.

Aaron Bhatnagar blogs on how Waiheke Island and Great Barrier Island residents will be polled on whetehr they want to remain part of Auckland City, or transfer to the Thames-Coromandel District Council. I don’t think many do want to change but as 10% o residents signed a petition, the Local Government Commission is obliged to run a poll.

Paul Walker retires from blogging. A real pity – I enjoy all the economist blogs, even though they are not high traffic. Maybe if they all combined together?

Bryce Edwards has done a series of posts on the party that shall not be named. They are a fascinating background read. One day he should publish them as children’s horror stories

Finally Adam Smith scans in and blogs every day a good Letter to the Editor. Have a look at this one from the Co-vice-president of the Maori Party responding to Chris Trotter.

No Right Turn has blogged all the speeches from last night, including links to some of the papers for those interested in electoral issues.

Raymond Miller was especially interesting, on how by 2011 36% of voters will have known nothing but MMP. His paper had lots of polling data about attitudes to MMP broken down by various demographics.

Constitutional Law expert Professor Philip Joseph is now speaking on future constitutional challenges. He is outling five changes under MMP.

1. Indirect election of Governments. The public used to effectively elect the Government, and it would be known within a couple of hours of election night. Now the effect is to elect a Parliament and Parliament spends a few weeks negotiating a Government. He emphaised this means the public are often surprised by the Government that emerges such as Nat/NZF in 1996 and in 2005 Labour campaigned with the Greens but ended up appointing Peters and Dunne as Ministers – something no-one would have expected before the election.
2. Government formation. Only in 1999 was the shape of the Government known on the night as Labour and Alliance got 63 seats on election night and had said they would go into coalition together. Ironically they shrank to 59 seats when the Greens later qualified for representation.
3. Minority coalition Government. Four of the five coalition Governments have been minority Governments. Only National-NZF was a majority Government.
4. Collective responsibility. MMP has shown that collective responsibility is not a constitutional convention but merely a rule of pragmatic politics.
5. Government and Opposition reconfigured. These labels are more flexible now.

Joseph then touched on the issue of the Maori seats. He asserted that retaining the seats will inflate the parliamentary representation of Maori beyond their relative population base and will create a permament overhang that will skew MMP proportionality.

Professor Joseph pointed out there are currently 22 MPs of Maori descent, representing 19% of Parliament – well above the 14% of the general population that Maori comprise. Eliminating the Maori seats would have Maori make up 12.4% of Parliament, only 1.4% below their population share and hethinks the 2008 election will see even that small gap disappear – without relying on the Maori seats.

He also touched on the possibility of overhang in the Maori seats leading to a situation where National might get 50.1% of the vote, but be unable to form a Government due to the increased size of Parliament. This would create considerable resentment and a backlash.

Another challenge Joseph alluded to is that one day there will not be enough list seats to ensure proportionality. So long as the NI populations grows faster than the SI, then every five years the number of electorate seats will increase, and the number of list seats diminish. Already under MMP the number of list seats has fallen from 55 to 50.

Three solutions are identified:

1. Increase the size of the House to greater than 120
2. Abolish the Maori seats, and have seven more list seats
3. Reduce the number of electorates, which will increase the size of the largest electorates considerably

Finally Joseph looks at whether MMP will survive in light of National’s referendum pledge. He thinks it will as he doubts National will get the numbers in Parliament, even if they form the Government, to have the referenda.

Nigel Roberts is now talking on the alternatives to MMP. He is doing what I in fact did on my blog some weeks ago, and look at what would have been the results of the four MMP elections if done under MMP.

Roberts identified five problems with MMP as he sees it:

1. One seat threshold
2. Treating minor parties and independents differently
3. Overhang
4. Closed Lists
5. Backdoor MPs

He pointed out you can fix these without a referendum – only need for changing the system.

Says one seat threshold is unfair. Christian Coalition got no seats on 4.3% in 1996 yet NZ First got five seats on 4.3% in 1999.

With issue 5, could do as in Wales and people can be an electorate candidate or list candidate – but not both.

I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t confess to a small amount of pleasure in seeing Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn and Chris Trotter bash the crap out of each other. It’s like having a local Iran-Iraq war to enjoy

But that is unfair to both of them, as they are both two of the commentators from the left I appreciate the most, for their willingness not just to regugrgitate party press releases, but criticise others on the left when they see fit. Also there are some important issues being discussed amongst the name throwing:

Chris initially blogged on how the Greens’ consultation exercise was “avoidance behaviour on a truly disreputable scale” and “Really, the whole Green Party deserves a damn good smacking!”.

For what it is worth I agree with Chris on this point.

I/S responded in this post, saying:

Meanwhile, Chris Trotter goes absolutely feral at this exercise in democratic consultation, calling it “avoidance behaviour on a truly disreputable scale” and declaring that the Greens need a damn good smacking. But then, we all knew that he has a basic problem with democracy (one he even confirms today)…

The two links at the end are to the imfamous Trotter column on how Labour’s overspending was “couraegous corruption” and to a blog post this week saying maybe we should support Bainimarama’s proposed reforms in Fiji, rather than leave them to a new democratic Government.

And on this issue I am strongly with I/S on the courageous corruption issue, and also generally with him on the Fiji issue. Ironically several rightie bloggers are in agreement with Chris on Fiji.

Anyway Chris responds to I/S in this post called “The Multiple Personalities of Idiot Savant”:

The most disappointing aspect of “No Right Turn”, however, is Idiot Savant’s propensity to condemn individual’s with whom he disagrees for espousing ideas they do not subscribe to, and indulging in sins they have never committed.

I have been on the receiving end of these sorts of false charges more than once over the past few months. According to “No Right Turn”, Chris Trotter is an out-and-out opponent of democracy.

Now, that’s a pretty serious charge to level at someone who proudly describes himself as a social democrat, and who has, throughout his career, been an active champion of a host of democratic causes.

Chris is a social democrat, and he is right NRT does go overboard with his thesaurus when he disagrees with you. I’ve received a few of these myself.

But, and I say this with respect, Chris does sometimes appear to put too much emphasis on the “socialist” part of social democrat and not enough on the “democrat” side. We all can be guilty of pushing the ends justify the means inappropriately, but Chris does sometimes seem to treat the democracy side as maybe a means to an end rather than an end in itself. The pledge card and Fiji issues are legitimate examples of where he has gone beyond what I would regard as prudent advocacy. But anyway back to Chris’ defence:

The Sunday Star-Times column, once again, has been deliberately misrepresented by Idiot Savant. The substance of that column – the inadequacy of our electoral finance laws to prevent those with access to large amounts of cash from effectively “buying” an election – is completely ignored. Instead, Idiot Savant concentrates his attack on my willingness to forgive Helen Clark for using parliamentary services funds in a final, desperate, (and ultimately successful) bid to head off a cash-rich National Party poised to inflict enormous damage on New Zealand society.

Idiot Savant’s insouciant defence of National’s “right” to plunge New Zealand into racial strife, if that is what 50-percent-plus-one of “the people” want is interesting. It suggests that democracy and majoritarianism are one in the same thing. That if you can secure a temporary majority in the House of Representatives, then there is no moral obstacle to you sweeping away the rights of whole categories of citizens whose parliamentary defenders find themselves temporarily in the minority - even to the extent of causing those citizens real and lasting harm, and passing laws that make it next to impossible for them to ever again reclaim their rights (I’m thinking here of the whole Rogernomics/Ruthanasia episode).

It seems to me that an ethical distinction should be drawn between actions that tend towards the safeguarding of people’s rights, and actions which tend towards their demise. And that those who indulge in the former are much less deserving of condemnation than the latter. Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeus corpus during the American Civil War. Does that make Lincoln an enemy of democracy? If Idiot Savant is to be consistent, then he would have to argue that it does.

And this is what concerns me. That anti-democratic actions which “safeguard people’s rights’ are held up as acceptable. And who decideds what actions safeguard people’s rights? Not the majority of the people, but presumably Chris and his fellow travellers? I think it is incredibly risky when you become so convinced that the rightness of your views, over-rides democracy.

The Lincoln example is a red herring. There is of course debate about Lincoln’s actions, but even putting aside the near universal acceptance of greater state powers in times of war, as far as I am aware he never defied the Supreme Court or was impeached for his actions – as provided for under the law. But trying to rationalise Labour’s over-spending (in the face of three pre-election warnings by the Chief Electoral Office) on the basis of Lincoln’s civil war actions is ridicolous.

On Fiji, Trotter is on somewhat stronger (but still shaky grounds IMO) responding:

Once again Idiot Savant seems to be operating in a totally mechanistic ethical universe. Bainimarama staged a coup d’etat – ergo he is a bad man. And, anyone who defends his actions is ipso facto also a bad man. But this completely overlooks the reasons for Bainimarama’s coup. It suggests that a corrupt government, plus a constitution that makes it virtually impossible to deal effectively with government corruption, plus a record of reactionary military intervention against any democratically elected government foolhardy enough to try – should all be ignored. Likewise the appalling track-record of Australia and New Zealand in relation to the coups which preceded Bainimarama’s. Indeed, Idiot Savant’s ethical universe is so mechanistic that even raising these issues, and suggesting that a different approach by the NZ government might actually result in democracy being restored to Fiji earlier than under the current policy, is enough to earn you the label of an anti-democrat.

Chris concludes:

I simply cannot believe that the same person/people who post the eminently sensible and thought-provoking commentaries on select committee hearings, government reports, economic trends and vexing legal issues, are also responsible for these unpleasant and ill-considered attacks. If he/she/they are, then Idiot Savant would appear to be suffering from a very serious case of multiple personality disorder.

He/she/they should see someone about it – soon.

Now to be fair to Chris, I sometimes also wonder how we get the calm legal analysis and the implicit approval for people to desecrate Margaret Thatcher’s corpse once she dies, from the same person. However I don’t think name calling is particularly helpful. I more generously just note Idiot/Savant is umm very emotional passionate on certain issues such as climate change, and Margaret Thatcher  etc.

In the final chapter (to date) I/S responds:

So, according to Chris Trotter, I’m mentally ill for calling him on his undemocratic tendencies. I guess that barb struck home, then.

Ouch.

More troubling is Trotter’s attitude to electoral democracy and the rule of law. Despite characterising himself as a social democrat, he makes excuses both for overthrowing governments by force and for evading electoral spending limits. Neither attitude is consistent with democracy.

On the former, the overthrow of the Chilean government on September 11 1973 wasn’t wrong because (to put it crudely) Allende was on the left and Pinochet was on the right; it was wrong because usurped and denied the will of the Chilean people, as expressed through free, fair, and democratic elections. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to Fiji. Fiji’s electoral system is far from perfect, and should be improved – but it is good enough to convey popular legitimacy. The Fijian government was not engaged in wide-scale human rights abuses or genocide; it was simply pursuing policies the military leadership did not like. I didn’t like them either, but there was still absolutely no justification for a coup.

Only in the most extreme circumstances should the military get involved in politics. To be fair to Chris I don’t think he has argued otherwise – he has been pointing out some inconsistencies between how NZ has responded to the four coups. The real tragedy IMO is that we were unable to prevent the first coup in 1987.

I/S continues:

On the latter, the purpose of electoral spending limits isn’t to prevent the right from buying elections, but to prevent anyone from doing it, on the basis that money interferes with a free vote. The fact that in 2005 National was quite legally evading those restrictions by spending up large before the three-month limit kicked in highlighted the fact that the law was in desperate need of reform, but it did not justify breaking it. As any kindergarten teacher will tell you, two wrongs don’t make a right, and “they’re doing it too” is no excuse. Neither do I accept his argument that violating electoral law was necessary in order to “head off a cash-rich National Party poised to inflict enormous damage on New Zealand society”. This is dangerous logic, which has been used to justify a hell of a lot more than electoral overspending, and its more than a little reminiscent of Kissinger’s infamous “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people”.

Yep. And finally:

The link between the two positions (in fact, all three) is arrogance. Trotter thinks he knows better than the Fijian people what sort of government they want, and he thinks he knows better than the New Zealand people what sorts of policies we want, and he’s quite willing to countenance extreme measures to impose his vision on us. That’s not democratic – in fact its the exact opposite. Democracy is predicated on the moral equality of all people – everyone has interests, and no-one’s interests count for more than anybody else’s, so we get “one person, one vote”. Once you give that away, and start saying “your interests are illegitimate so we can overturn them if we don’t like them”, you’re giving away the farm. And of course you don’t have a leg to stand on if it happens to you (and here I note that Trotter would be screaming to high heaven if the BRT hired Blackwater to overthrow the government and give itself a tax cut. But that just shows his hypocrisy).

In a democracy, the proper judge of the consequences of electing a particular party is not Chris Trotter, but the electorate as a whole. Sometimes we get it wrong and we make a mistake, just like we did in 1990. But that’s our right, and the joy of democracy is that it is self-correcting: if we make a mistake and elect a government which does things we really don’t want, we chuck them out and get someone better – just like we did in 1999. It’s an imperfect system, but its far, far better than the alternative of coups and self-appointed philosopher-kings deciding what’s good for us and what we “really” want without bothering to actually ask.

I don’t actually think at the end of the day Chris probably disagrees with much of what I/S says. In fact I would hope few NZers disagree with his conclusion. Chris I think has a tendency to think aloud (Hell if people could read my thoughts, I’d be in all sort of trouble and sets out to be provocative.  He goes too far in pushing the boundaries, in my opinion, especially with the courageous corruption column, and shouldn’t be too surprised when people respond with passion and even anger to some of what he says.

Anyway a good victory for the blogosphere that we can have such a full and frank exchange.

Idiot/Savant takes a principled stand on the suspension of Shawn Tan by the EPMU, due to his candidacy for ACT:

That’s just not on. It’s unfair, it compromises the right of everyone to participate directly in our democracy, and if the political shoe had been on the other foot – if Tan had worked for Business NZ and was standing for Labour – they would be shouting this to the heavens.

Indeed you could just imagine the outcry. It would probably be led by, umm, unions such as the EPMU.

But quite apart from being unfair and hypocritical, it is also illegal. “Political opinion” is a prohibited ground of discrimination in the Human Rights Act. Employers are forbidden from refusing to employ someone, offer them less favourable terms and conditions and opportunities, or terminate or subject them to any detriment, on the basis of their political beliefs. While there is rightly an exemption for work of a political nature, it only covers political advisors to politicians or candidates, or employees of a political party. And as the Electoral Commission noted a few weeks ago, the EPMU isn’t the Labour Party.

And that case goes to court on Monday incidentally.

S21(1)(j) is the section in the Human Rights Act that prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of political opinion.

The Electoral Act also goes to some length to protect the rights of people to stand for Parliament. s52 deals with how ever state servants are allowed as of right to stand for Parliament, with some provisions about how they are only temporarily stood down.

I/S concludes:

The EPMU should give Tan his job back. And otherwise, they deserve to be taken to the cleaners over this.

It would be a fascinating court case. Presumably the EPMU would not represent Mr Tan against the EPMU. I suggest he joins UNITE!

There are many many issues I disgaree with NRT on, and some of his posts enrage me, as I am sure mine sometimes enrage him. But posts like the above is why he remains the most respected voice on the left in the blogosphere.

No Right Turn has some useful quotes from the Royal Commission on the SM system. Incidentally one friend IM’s me and asked me what does SM stand for apart from as part of BDSM. When I replied it was supplementary member they giggled that it was almost as dirty

NRT is upset that a story described the Royal Commission as viewing SM as having “real merit”, and quotes them in rebuttal. However when I look at the conclusion, I think “real merit” is not an unfair description, Of course it was not the preferred option, but here is the Commisison’s conclusion:

2.114. Conclusion. The Commission recognises that SM has considerable appeal. It improves on the plurality system in a number of ways. First, it would give representation to significant minor parties. Second, because almost all of the list votes would count towards the election of candidates, electors in safe seats would have a more effective role than under the present system. Third, it would enable the parties, particularly major ones, to protect a limited number of particularly able members in marginal seats. Fourth, it would provide a way of increasing the number of MPs but avoid the disruption to constituency boundaries that would be caused by a significant extra number of single-member constituencies. Fifth, it would, because of the list, be likely to enhance the representation of Maori voters as well as voters belonging to other special interest or minority groups. Sixth, it would lessen somewhat the disproportionality between major parties.

2.115. Nevertheless, the Commission is of the view that SM does not go far enough in meeting the fundamental objections to the plurality system in respect of the relationship between seats and votes. Those objections would still be powerful under SM, even though minor parties might be somewhat better off. We are reluctant to rule out SM altogether, however, until we have seen whether either MMP or STV can overcome the objections to both plurality and to SM without introducing too many disadvantages of their own.

They said they are not ruling out SM, listed many benefits from it, but said it doesn’t go as far as MMP or STV in terms of the relationship between seats and votes. Yor can quibble over whether you describe that as “real merit” or “some merit” or “worth considering” but their conclusion is a good summary of the pros and cons.

And that is what I was seeking to do yetserday – get some debate going on the pros and cons, and looking at what the impact would be. If a majority do want a referendum, then I would rather it on MMP vs SM (or MMP vs STV) than MMP vs FPP. My concern is that FPP may win, and that would be a backward step.

No Right Turns blogs on Helen Clark’s see no evil policy:

Despite clear Cabinet guidelines about the declaration of interests and a separate (but sadly confidential) process for Ministers to declare interests, Clark insists that it is nothing to do with her, but instead a question for the Registrar of Pecuniary Interests. This is simply false; the question of whether Peters has failed to properly notify Parliament of his interests and the question of whether he has failed to properly declare and manage his interests as a cabinet minister are completely separate.

Nothing is more squarely a duty of the Prime Minister but to judge how her Minister’s handle interests.

Clark says Peters can keep the money. Under s2.79 of the Cabinet Manual, gifts of more than $500 must be relinquished unless the Prime Minister permits them to be retained. According to Clark, the gift paid for a legal case which served a substantial public interest, and so she has no problem with it being retained. This isn’t unreasonable, given the frequency with which MPs are involved in legal action, and it is nice to have it made clear.

Unfortunately, Clark entirely evaded the question of whether giving a minister $100,000 when you wanted a job from them created a conflict of interest. The answer is obvious, and it is shameful that she refuses to state it and stand up for proper standards in the executive.

This is very significant that Clark has approved Peters keeping the secret $100,000 donation. She knows that Owen Glenn was lobbying Peters to be given a diplomatic appointment and that Peters had discussed the issue with her.

I am surprised people have not wondered why Owen Glenn would decide to donate $100,000 to a secret legal fund for Winston Peters. What was his motivation?

Well let us look at why he donated to Labour. He said he liked their policy of supporting a free trade agreement with China. But NZ First is totally opposed to that agreement, so he did not donate because he likes their policies I presume.

Maybe he just liked Winston, and wanted to help him. Strange though that he never mentioned it in all his meetings with him.

It would be interesting to have someone ask Winston the dates of all his meetings or conversations with Owen Glenn, and when he first raised the issue of Consul.

It would also be interesting to know when Brian Henry received the money and first talked to Glenn about a donation.

I am not saying there is a linkage, but the timings would be useful for people to be able to make a judgement call.