Kiwiblog

1. Employment Relations (Workers’ Secret Ballot for Strikes) Amendment Bill – Tau Henare
2. Smart Meters (Consumer Choice) Bill – David Clendon
3. Minimum Wage (Mitigation of Youth Unemployment) Amendment Bill – Sir Roger Douglas

Tau’s bill requires all votes on strike action to be secret ballots. In theory almost all unions do this anyway, but there has been some dispute on the West Coast recently about whether this does always happen, so it will be good to have it a legal, not a voluntary, requirement to prevent intimidation.

David Clendon’s bill is inherited from Jeanette and regulates the use of smart meters. Not sure of all the details, but it looks to be worth supporting at first reading anyway so a select committee can look into pros and cons.

Sir Roger’s bill will allow the Government to set a different level of minimum wage for younger workers. I welcome it as there is pretty clear evidence that the huge increase in youth unemployment is bext explained by the scrapping of the youth rate for the minimum wage. National will be nervous about being seen to be “cutting wages” but I hope they will support it to select committee, so arguments can be heard about the linkage.

Rather than cut the minimum wage for any current workers, what I would do if I was the Government is just use it to increase the youth minimum wage more slowly than the adult minimum wage.

There are three spaces available, so an MP has an almost 1 in 10 chance of having their bill drawn.

The draw is at midday.

Paul Quinn won the ballot so his Electoral (Disqualification of Convicted Prisoners) Amendment Bill will be introduced and go to a first reading.

I’ve asked for a copy of the bill. Presumably it bans all prisoners from voting, not just some of them as is the case presently.

If you do a crime bad enough to go to prison, I think it is repugnant that you still vote. I even think there is a debate to be had about whether there is a period of non voting for those released from prison, if they were convicted of very serious offences.

UPDATE: The bill is here – Electoral _Disqualification of convicted prisoners_ Amen. At present only prisoners serving a term of three or more years are disqualified, and this would extend the disqualification to enrol to anyone currently in prison.

Not sure how this will look as have cut and paste from an e-mail, but here are the bills in the ballot for midday today.

Two of the above bills are substantially the same in substance. A preliminary ballot will therefore be held to determine which of them is to be entered into the main ballot.

These two bills are:

The Dom Post editorial:

The never-ending litany of what human beings do to animals every year in this country makes the average person feel sick. But a group of people delights in the thought – and the act – of torturing animals, sometimes someone else’s pet.

If National’s Tauranga MP, Simon Bridges, is lucky, such persecutors will face greater jail time in future. When Parliament resumes, he will put into the members’ ballot a private member’s bill to increase the maximum penalty for wilful ill-treatment of animals from three, to five years’ imprisonment.

His rationale is simple. “A tougher penalty,” he says, “would … be in line with increasingly clear research that those who do serious harm to animals are much more likely to perpetrate family, as well as other violence. In addition, the research shows that psychopathic offenders, often as first offending, demonstrate a propensity for cruelty through abuse of animals”.

Mr Bridges is right. The FBI in the United States has recognised the connection since the 70s, when it analysed the lives of serial killers.

Such individuals have their wiring seriously mucked up. I can understand why people commit most crimes, but can’t understand how anyone can get pleasure from torturing animals.

It is to be hoped Mr Bridges has the luck of the Greens in having his bill chosen from the ballot. Or he might be able to persuade ministerial colleagues whose portfolios touch on the subject – such as Corrections Minister Judith Collins or Agriculture Minister David Carter – to sponsor his measure as a Government Bill. This initiative is overdue and such support would give it heft.

It will be good to see the penalties increased, regardless of how it happens.

The Herald reports:

A first-term National Party MP is seeking cross-party support for a law change for harsher penalties in cases of extreme cruelty to animals.

Tauranga MP Simon Bridges has drafted a private member’s bill to raise the maximum penalty for wilful ill-treatment under the Animal Welfare Act from three to five years in prison.

Mr Bridges said tougher penalties for animal abuse were backed by research showing cruelty to animals was an early warning sign of more psychopathic violence later in life.

Murderer Antonie Dixon was an example of this, said Mr Bridges.

“It is time to get tough on really serious animal cruelty. The public’s attitude has hardened on this and so should court sentences,” said the former Crown prosecutor.

“This is about sending a message that Parliament thinks this offending is abhorrent to our society. It’s more than not okay, it’s an outrage.”

I hope all parties will support this bill, if selected. Increasing the maximum penalties is the only way to send a message to Judges that they should increase the penalties they are handing out, which are too light in my opinion:

For example, Wayne Williams, 34, was sentenced to four months in jail for beating his partner’s dog with a metal pole before strangling it to death.

And Peter James Cooksley, 48, shot a cat with a crossbow bolt through the abdomen for entering his house – but was fined just $500. Mr Kerridge said many acts of animal cruelty were committed by people to torment their partners, including a case where a man was sent to prison for 2 months for throwing three kittens against a wall.

The longest sentence ever given out has been 12 months, reduced to 10 months on appeal.

No Right Turn has his normal useful summary of new proposed private member bills:

KiwiSaver (Contribution Flexibility) Amendment Bill (John Boscawen): amends the KiwiSaver Act 2006 to add 6% and 10% contribution rates to the existing 2%, 4%, and 8% rates, improving flexibility for older earners close to retirement and young, high-income earners.

Can’t see anyone objecting to that except the computer programmers at IRD!

Tariff Act Repeal Bill (Roger Douglas): does exactly what it says on the label: repeals the Tariff Act 1988. In the 90’s National legislated to phase out all tariffs by 2006, but this was reversed by Labour in 2000 in the name of protecting local industry. Tariffs have remained fixed at their 2000 rates ever since. And so we pay an extra 26.5% for imported footwear, 18% for imported cane baskets, and 12.5% for imported skateboards (the full list is here), either as some sort of “luxury tax” or to protect businesses which can’t compete in a global marketplace.

ACT is putting its money where its mouth is on free trade here, and challenging the government (which supports the status quo) to move further to the right.

Good God it almost sounds like NRT approves. Well I certainly do. National recently froze tariffs in place until 2015. I’d love it if this bill was drawn out, as I think quite a few National MPs would want to vote for it.

Victims’ Rights (Victim Impact Statements) Amendment Bill (David Garrett): would amend the Victim’s Rights Act 2002 to prevent the courts from “censoring” victim impact statements. At present, such statements are limited to the actual impact upon the victim; Garrett’s bill – driven by the recent Weatherston case – would give victims free rein to vent their spleen against the offender and the justice system. Such material has no place in sentencing, and no place in our justice system; if they want to say it, then there is no reason why they should be given a privileged platform in a court to do so.

Simon Power has said he will be proposing a law change in this area, so it will be interesting to see how that compares to the status quo, and what Garrett proposes.

Good to see National MPs starting to get their private members bills in the ballot, with the result being two of them got drawn this week.

The first is the Fair Trading (Soliciting on Behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill by Selwyn MP Amy Adams. The notes explain what it will do:

The Bill requires professional third party collectors to disclose to potential donators that a portion of the donation will be retained by the collector.

This only applies if the proportion retained is more than 20 percent.

If the proportion retained is between 20 and 50 percent of the total donation then the collector must simply disclose that a portion is being withheld by them, but does not have to disclose the amount.

If the proportion retained is more than 50 percent then the collector must disclose the percentage being retained, to the nearest percentage point.

Transparency is a good thing. There have been a lot of horror stories about people donating money to what they think is a charity but finding out less than half gets to the charity. I can’t imagine anyone will vote against this bill going to select committee. WIll be interesting to hear what the charities say about it.

Rotorua MP Todd McClay had his Shop Trading Hours Act 1990 Repeal (Easter Sunday Local Choice) Amendment Bill also drawn. I can’t find a copy of it online, so this is based on reports.

This is a minor liberalisation, which will allow each local Council to decide whether or not shops are allowed to open on Easter Sunday.

This will be lots of fun because you get the unholy coalition of the union left and religious right joining forces to stop even the remotest sanity occurring over Easter Trading. Hopefully Todd’s bill will make it to select committee – the challenge will be getting it back out.

I find it hilarious that the actual public holiday is Easter Monday while the day retail shops can’t open is Easter Sunday. And that Easter Saturday has no significance at all, so people can’t even get a guaranteed long weekend off. The current law really is a dogs breakfast.

One space available and will be drawn at midday. The list of bills is:

Notices of intention have been received in respect of the following bills:

Would be good to see some more National bills in the ballot. It is harder when you are in Government, but am sure there can be more than two.

Two private members bills have been selected from the ballot.

The first is the Customs and Excise (Prohibition of Imports Made by Slave Labour) Amendment Bill by Labour’s Maryan Street. This bill comes from the NZ Progressive Bills Wiki, so it shows you do not need to be an MP to have a real input inti legislation. It simply “prohibits goods manufactured or produced wholly or in part by child labour”.

The second is the Te Rā o Mātāriki/Mātāriki Day Bill by the Maori Party’s Rahui Katene. This bill would make Mātāriki, or the Maori New Year, a public holiday – on the day of the next new moon following the day in which the moon rises in the months of May or June.

By coincidence the Greens are having a Mātāriki Party tonight, which they have kindly invited me to. So I guess they will be pleased the bill has been drawn (even though it is a Maori Party Bill) and there will be lots of organic beer being drunk to celebrate!

The Office of the Clerk is doing a ballot at midday to randomly select two private member’s bills from 24 put forward. The list is:

Only two National MPs have bills in the ballot. All three ACT backbenchers have a bill, as do all nine Green MPs. Maori Party has two, and Labour has eight.

Pardon the formatting – it is a cut and paste.

UPDATE: The luck of the Greens continues. Both draws picked a Green bill – Jeanette Fitzsimons’ Sustainable Biofuel Bill and Catherine Delahunty’s Customs and Excise (Sustainable Forestry) Amendment Bil.e

Labour List MP Charles Chauvel has submitted to the ballot a private members bill – credit-reforms-responsible-lending-bill.

It does four things:

1. allow pawn brokers to charge administration fees, thereby removing any need for high interest rates
2. require lenders to seriously consider the actual means of a prospective borrower and their ability to service the debt
3. allow for the prescription of maximum annual percentage rates of interest payable in respect of consumer credit contracts
4. restrict the right for a creditor to recover from a debtor any amount beyond the value of the goods sold subject to a security agreement.

Taking each in turn

Pawn Broker Admin Fees

I’m not sure what the original rationale for pawn brokers not being able to charge an admin fee, but seems to me flexibility is a good thing.

Lenders to assess ability of borrowers to service debt

I should start off by saying that I am well aware there are many very scummy companies that exploit people with cashflow problems by taking advantage of their desperation to get them to agree to loans that with compounding interest are crippling.

But I am hesitant about putting the burden of assessment on the lender, rather than the person borrowing the money. The borrower does have some responsibility themselves to judge their own capacity to replay. And you could end up with a lot of uncertainity as to what steps lenders must take to assess repayment. I don’t see this as being practical or necessarily desirable – lenders do have an incentive already to check repayment ability – so they can get repaid.

Maximum rates of interest

The proposal is that the Reserve Bank Governor can set a maximum rate of interest for borrowing. This is well intentioned but may have unintentional side effects. Let’s say you can currently get unsecured borrowing from scummy lenders for between 35% and 75% interest. And let us say the Reserve Bank says that the maximum you can charge os 50%. Now yes that will stop money being lent at 75% interest, but may push the 35% rate up to 50%. A ceiling often becomes a target. And you may also get scummy lenderss claiming greater respectability as their interest rates are “approved by the Reserve Bank”.

Creditor Recovery

I’m not quite sure how this clause will work in practice, so will update when I have worked it out. As I understand itm, this is a more minor part of the law change.

I have doubts over the practicality and desirablity of parts of the bill, but neither do I think the current law is working particularly well – many families are getting exploited.

If the bill gets selected from the ballot, I think it should definitely be supported to select committee so they can consider the issues and proposed solutions. Any support beyond that would depend on what changes get made there.

Generally I support most private members bills going to at least select committee for hearings. My exceptions are those that are:

1. Obnoxious (EFA type laws) and so bad not possible to make into good law.
2. Directly contrary to the Government’s policy (designed just to score political points)

The Herald reports on a bill by United Future’s Judy Turner that will allow DNA testing of children for paternity tests. At present a parent can block such a test for a child under 16.

The Government doesn’t seem that keen on it, but the Law Commission backed such a move in 2005.

I would make the point that a court ordered DNA test should only be ordered, if agreement can not be obtained.  It is a last resort, not a first resort.  But it is important that they can be ordered when paternity is in doubt.