Social Development Minister Paula Bennett is pleased to announce the successful applicants to the Fresh Start Innovation Fund.

“Nine providers have received funding to make a real difference with young offenders, particularly with young Maori,” says Ms Bennett.

“As part of the Fresh Start policy for young offenders, the Innovation Fund supports new ideas or programmes that offer a different approach to working with at risk young people,” Ms Bennett says.

Providers in this round will receive a combined total of almost $402,700 funding, out of more than $3.3 million awarded to 43 providers to date. …

“My thanks to independent selection panel chair Katherine Rich and to Sue Bradford who helped assessed the applications and recommended the successful programmes,” says Ms Bennett.

Good to see that Paula will involve someone who is a harsh critic of her policies, and is in fact standing against her. And also credit to Bradford for being constructively involved.

Former Greens MP Sue Bradford today confirmed she will stand for the Mana Party in the Auckland electorate of Waitakere against Social Development Minister and sitting National MP Paula Bennett.

That is great news for Paula, as Bradford will split the left vote with Carmel Sepuloni.

Meanwhile, Maori broadcaster Willie Jackson has decided not to stand for Mana in Tamaki Makaurau against Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples.

And that is good news for Sharples. I think the risk of him losing was much greater if Jackson stood as Jackson would be competing with Sharples for votes.

He was also concerned he would split the vote in Tamaki Makaurau and enable Labour candidate Shane Jones to win the Maori seat.

And Willie knows Shane is the most right wing Maori MP in Parliament (after Jami-Lee Ross).

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

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

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

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

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

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

So this is an absolute own goal in my opinion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The chances of a broad-based Left-wing party rising from the ashes of Hone Harawira’s meltdown with the Maori Party have been dashed after he made it clear that any group he led would have to be Maori-focused.

Former Greens MP Sue Bradford – who has been closely associated with speculation that a new party was being planned – said the prospect of one being in place for this year’s election were now slim after Mr Harawira indicated he wanted a “more Left-wing Maori Party”.

Ms Bradford has said she would be interested in discussing a more generalist party that campaigned on a broad range of issues, but Mr Harawira’s comments suggested he was not interested.

I never thought Hone would want to lead a non Maori party. Maori nationalism is what he is all about.

There is a way they could try and do it – copy the Alliance structure. Have Hone as Leader of the “Mana” party and Sue as Leader of the “Left” party. The Mana Party could become a constituent part of the Left Party and that would mean if Hone retains his seat, then the Left Party would gain a List MP if they received around 30,000 party votes.

However that would mean that Hone’s party is subservient to the left party, and bound by the rules of the left party with regard to how they determine policies, list ranking, leadership.

A Maori former solo mother who recommended free contraceptives for beneficiaries is defending her group’s report against charges of Nazi-style racism.

Sharon Wilson-Davis, a solo mother of three by the age of 21, was a member of the Welfare Working Group which proposed radical changes to the welfare system in a report last month.

Former Green MP Sue Bradford said the group seemed to be “looking to Nazi Germany for inspiration, with its underpinning ‘work makes free’ philosophy, attempted eugenic control of a portion of the population, and its potential racist implications for Maori”.

Sue Bradford is just doing hysterical name calling. Her hysteria stands in contrast to the quiet dignity of Mrs Wilson-Davis, whom Sue has effectively called a Nazi. I guess that makes her a Maori Nazi.

The group recommended work-testing almost all beneficiaries, including sole parents with no children under 3, and applying the work test after 14 weeks for parents who have another child after going on welfare. This was the only point on which the eight-member group disagreed.

The group also proposed “free long-acting reversible contraception” for parents who are receiving welfare”. Pharmac has fully funded a long-lasting hormone implant called Jadelle since August.

I’m not convinced on work testing at 14 weeks, but do agree one should not encourage parents already on full-time welfare from having further children. They have the right to do so of course, but there is no “right” to remain on welfare for 20 years when you are capable of working.

Mrs Wilson-Davis, whose Strive Community Trust runs work transition programmes for sole parents in Mangere, said on Tuesday that she supported both proposals to encourage young women to “make wiser choices”.

“Fourteen weeks is the same as paid parental leave. You are going back to work, and if you don’t like it, don’t have another child,” she said.

“What are your choices? We have a contraceptive device that is totally subsidised, so that when you are in better circumstances, if you have work or if you meet a lovely man and he’s willingto support you, fine, have twins, have whatever. But not while you are in this situation.”

The reality is 90% of families do take account their ability to pay their bills, when deciding whether to have further children. It is relatively rare now-a-days for families to have more than three kids.

Mrs Wilson-Davis, 56, was raised by her grandmother in Otara and left school at 14 because she was embarrassed by not having the correct uniform or money for books.

She married her first boyfriend at 16 because “all I wanted was to have my own place”.

When she was 21 her husband left her and their three children. She transferred to the night shift at a factory to pay the mortgage, and asked cousins to stay so they could feed the baby at 3am.

She said many young women had children because they wanted to be loved.

Welfare made people feel useless, she said, but she had seen huge changes in the women who came on her trust’s course for sole parents.

One she cited was Taina Matthews, 49, a former battered wife who is working for the trust and completing a social work degree.

“I think of one woman who was cowering in a corner when she came in. Now she has blossomed.”

So this is whom Sue Bradford is effectively calling a Nazi?

Talk of a new Left-wing party is gathering steam, with veteran activist Sue Bradford confirming behind-the-scenes discussions and revealing she would consider leading it if asked.

Expectations are growing in Left-wing circles that renegade Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira could be the lightning rod for a new movement if the rift between him and the Maori Party hierarchy ends in divorce.

This poses a challenge for both National and Labour. An extra ally for Labour isn’t good for National.

But on the other hand can you imagine Phil Goff trying to lead a Government where he could only pass laws if he can get Metiria Turie, Sue Bradford, Hone Harawira and Winston Peters to all agree.

An alternative welfare review group will call today for raising welfare benefits by as much as 50 per cent to meet the basic needs of jobless families.

The alternative group, chaired by Massey University social policy expert Mike O’Brien and including former Green MP Sue Bradford, says current benefits of $194 a week for a single adult or $366 for a sole parent with one child are “simply too low to live on”.

It calls for restoring benefits “as a first step” to the proportion of the average wage that applied before they were cut by up to $27 a week in 1991. That would mean raising the single dole by 53 per cent to about $296 a week and lifting the benefit for a sole parent with one child to about $536 a week.

I have some questions for the alternative welfare working group:

1. Is pepsi more popular than coke where you come from?
2. Is the gravitational field strength also 9.81 m/s^2 on your planet?
3. Is the sun a yellow sun, meaning Kal-El has his full powers or a red sun, meaning he is just a normal human?
4. Does the fertile soil on your world allow you to grow the money on trees, or do you plant seeds in the ground?
5. Is the speed of light 299,792 km/s in your dimension?

Claire Trevett in the Herald reports:

Sue Bradford and Matt McCarten have rejected speculation they are about to start a new left-wing party – but neither will rule out doing so at some future point. …

Yesterday, both Ms Bradford and Mr McCarten said there were no current moves to do so and they had not discussed the idea with each other.

However, both believed there were virtues in the idea.

What I find interesting is that neither McCarten or Bradford see the Greens as a suitable vehicle.

The left-wing activists who stormed the Sky City Hotel last Sunday in an inevitably futile attempt to force their way into the National Party conference should take a good hard look at themselves.

The noisy fracas with security guards inside Auckland’s Temple to Capitalism certainly got the activists what they wanted – top-of-the-bulletin coverage on that evening’s television news. But if they think such tactics are going to mobilise public opinion against the Government’s just-released package of workplace law reforms then they should think again.

Their actions were widely viewed within the Labour Party as unhelpful, though no one was saying so publicly.

Sue Bradford and John Minto charging a Police line just sends people into the opposite direction.

While others on the left have been quick to label National’s package as a “class war” being waged on the country’s workers, Labour has avoided using such over-the-top language.

When it comes to portraying National’s policy prescription, there is a danger of crying wolf. More so because much of the package is based on National’s 2008 election policy. That prescription pleasantly surprised some left-wing commentators for being so moderate and not a return to the Employment Contracts Act. They cannot now turn around and argue that the package released by Key last Sunday is designed to wage class war.

And many aspects will actually be welcomed by employees such as the ability to trade leave for pay.

Even the 90 day trial period will be popular with many employees I reckon. We’ve all seen new people hired at a workplace and within a week or two it is apparent they are not up to the job. It isn’t just the bosses, but the other employees, who often have to carry them until they finally leave.

Former Green Party MP Sue Bradford has abandoned plans to run for the Auckland super-city council, saying she has been left high and dry by her party.

The Green Party is gathering in Christchurch today for its annual conference. Ms Bradford will miss it for the first time in 12 years.

“I don’t have a role there,” Ms Bradford said. I’ve lost my place to stand with the Green Party.”

She had seriously considered running for a place as a councillor on the super-city board but had reluctantly backed out.

“I came to see that I didn’t have the support of Labour and the Greens.”

A pity in a sense. The thought of Sue as Deputy Mayor would have galvanised many people to vote, just to vote against her.

Greg Fleming, founder and head of the arch-conservative Maxim Institute, has clashed repeatedly with the Green MP in recent years. On smacking and prostitution reform Bradford describes the organisation as a “deadly enemy”, but Fleming says he’s sad to see a fellow ideologue go.

“The thing that’s been delightful about our friendship – and we’ve disagreed over almost everything – is that she’s actually very clear about why she believes what she believes,” says Fleming.

A nice compliment.

She says she had high hopes that Jim Anderton’s breakaway party could shatter the male-led old boys’ club of national politics. “But of course in New Labour I was right back into an old patriarchal model – with bells on.”

Bradford quit in 1990, barely a year after she had joined, and refused to take part in the Alliance because of bad blood with Anderton. She joined the Greens in 1998 only after they split from the Alliance.

(Asked about his brief political liaison with Bradford, Jim Anderton declined to comment.)

Sue just got out early. Jim made very clear later on that he would leave unless complete control of the party was ceded to him. McCarten and Harre refused, so he bailed.

While Bradford was able to eventually recruit both John Key and Helen Clark into her drive to remove the Section 59 defence, resulting in a resounding 113-7 victory when the third reading was passed, her inability to connect with the public has been labelled a “catastrophic failure of propaganda” by a source who previously worked for the Greens.

“It ended up being labelled a bill against smacking, which it never was,” says the source.

It did not start off like that. The original bill merely removed S59. But the final bill was a bill against smacking. It basically said you can use reasonable force in numerous situations except correction.

Turei defends the change, saying it has been a conscious process.

She does not openly criticise Bradford, but it’s impossible to hide Turei’s differences with the MP who unsuccessfully battled her for the leadership.

Turei explains the evolution in Green thinking: “I don’t want to
exclude people who don’t hold that old left-wing culture, that can’t relate to that old 1970s hard-core working-class struggle.”

While Turei insists that Green policy remains unchanged, she supports moving the party away from under Labour’s wing and into a position where they could – conceivably – work with National in the future.

Says Bradford: “I’ve always been clear that if we wanted to be a party that would enter coalition with National, I would leave it.

As I have said numerous time. The Greens will never choose a National-led Govt over a Labour-led Govt. But they need to be able to hold open that possibility to stop Labour treating the like a doormat.

The most I would ever expect to see between the Greens and National is an agreement to abstain on supply and confidence.

THERE’S ALSO the possibility of a return to politics – albeit not in Wellington. Auckland Supercity mayoral candidate and Manukau Mayor Len Brown has expressed an interest in having her around the council table.

“I do support Len Brown for mayor and think he’s a great guy, and I live in Manukau at the moment,” she says, non-committally.

“Standing for council would be a big job and I think the process of forming tickets and who will be on those tickets will be tense. I don’t want to cut off the option, I’m quite open to it, but that does not a campaign or ticket make.”

Not yet, but Deputy Mayor of Auckland must be a tempting prize for a woman who quit national politics partly because she never got to be a Minister. I can’t imagine Sue would want to just be a Councillor, so if she is on the ticket, it will be fair to assume she has been promised the Deputy spot.

Sue Bradford: That tension is always there in our Green Party, as it is in green parties around the world… I think that some of the people on the more blue-green, or conservative side of the Green Party will be feeling probably quite relieved that I won’t be a Green MP anymore.

Yet Green party supporters on this blog attacked me when I suggested Sue’s departure pointed to some splits in the party. They insisted it was just about her not winning the co-leadership.

Julian Robbins: Is the Green Party losing its radical edge?…. Is it coming into a sort of comfortable middle age, a professional phase where it tries to be less risk-taking?

Sue Bradford: I think that’s absolutely true…. We did have a real radical cutting edge [in 1999]… I think that we have, to some extent we have begun to lose a little bit of that differentiation with the other parties in Parliament – in terms of being a little less willing to take risks; a little less willing to be radical and “out there”; and the sense that too many political parties – including perhaps our own – are focused on winning the middle ground voters and not seeing the voters out to the sides – in our case, out to the left, and to the environmental left, as being as important as the voters that are in the middle and to the right.

Not exactly a vote of confidence in the leadership.

Julian Robbins: Is the party really ‘fine’? I would have thought that at a time when the Labour Party is at a lower ebb and climate change as an issue as an item is at the top of the agenda, that the Green Party should perhaps be doing much better than it is. Why isn’t it doing much better?
Sue Bradford: …I’ve just given some of the ideas that I have about that. I think that part of the reason for that [lack of political success is] is that we’ve lost the radical edge and we’ve lost some of the points of differentiation with the other parties…

Bradford’s valedictory speech could be interesting.

MP SUE Bradford threatened to resign from the Greens if they became a swing party which could go with either National or Labour, party sources have revealed.

Bradford’s resignation last month was not just because she was disappointed at her defeat by Metiria Turei for the job of woman co-leader, as Bradford claimed.

It also reflected her disillusionment with what she saw as greater readiness by co-leaders Turei and Russel Norman to deal with National. Bradford, said a party source, “wanted to stay staunch”, and wanted the Green Party to remain left-wing.

I don’t think Sue had much to worry about there. Of course her definition of left-wing may be very different to most.

When Sue resigned, I said it indicated that things were not too harmonious in the Greens, and certain supporters howled at me for daring to suggest this.

Bradford’s resignation follows a serious disagreement with the party over strategy and ideology. During the campaign for co-leadership, according to party sources, Bradford was accused of attempting to blackmail the Greens with her threat of resignation.

Blackmail is a strong word. Was that another MP who used it?

It is understood she told the caucus in either late 2007 or early 2008 that she would quit the party if it went further down the track as a swing party, ready to go with either of the two big parties. Her resignation was simply following through on that threat, a source said.

But they never mentioned this at the press conference.

The list MP was originally a Marxist radical and spent many years in militant activity for the unemployed. Although she abandoned Marxism, she never quit being a radical.

I thought she was more Maoist than Marxist. One has to keep the different communist sects distinct. Locke and Norman are also former Marxists.

She and a minority in the party fought the trend to widen the appeal of the Greens to include a broad cross-section of voters, including National supporters.

If the Greens only take votes off Labour, it doesn’t help the left a lot.

Anyway maybe Sue will elaborate in her valedictory speech to Parliament.

Sue Bradford announced last week that she is leaving Parliament, citing disappointment at losing the co-leadership contest. It’s an honest statement and she is to be admired for that. She did not add that she is unhappy at the direction the Green Party is headed, but there is no doubt that she would have steered a very different course from that intended by the current leadership. Perhaps she saw little place for herself in the new, unaligned, Green Party.

Nandor makes clear there must be considerable tension over direction and leadership.

Sue was a sometimes controversial figure, but there is no doubt that she has played a key role in the early development of the Parliamentary Greens. She has also played an important role in Parliament, but that is all about to change. Despite her brave face, life after Parliament will be hard to adjust to. Once gone, she is unlikely to get any support from the Greens during this difficult transition, and I hope that her personal support system is strong. She will need it.

Ouch. To be fair almost all former MPs find it pretty hard after Parliament.

The Old Left element of the party, once so influential, will be scarcely represented once Sue has left. Keith Locke, considered by many to be the archetypical communist, is actually nothing of the sort. While he is the oldest member of the Green caucus, his mental youthfulness and his sense of empathy have prevented him from becoming sufficiently doctrinaire. With this new influx, the Green Party is likely to become a more emphatically ‘green-wing’ party than has been possible in the past.

A point I made.

I took the view that it was potentially beneficial to the Greens as replacing Bradford with Clendon strengthens their environmental brand and if they are smart they could get as much as 10% of the vote if they position themselves as “greening” the Government no matter if it is National or Labour.

I stressed that the Greens will always support a Labour-led Government over a National-Led Government if one is possible. But if only National can form a Government, the Greens might be able to go beyond their current co-operation agreement to an abstain on supply and confidence agreement.

I understand Matt McCarten saw the move as potentially beneficial to the Greens also, and their ability to work on both sides of the aisle so to speak.

Andrew Little saw it as good for Labour, as Labour could pick up social justice voters from the Greens. I responded that this doesn’t actually help Labour win office, just as National picking up ACT voters doesn’t. And it can actually backfire if the Greens drop below 5% (as they have done in last night’s TVNZ poll). Also I have some doubts that Goff-led Labour will be more convincing to social justice voters than the Greens.

The real benefit to Labour would be if the Greens pick up some centrist voters who were previously put off by Bradford. For that will grow the left’s vote.

Chris Trotter sees the departure of Bradford as being the death of the left as the Greens go middle class.

He’s done a follow-up post today, which has some interesting observations:

The dangers inherent in the Greens’ educative model are demonstrated in their policy on the Treaty of Waitangi. Though the signing of the Treaty, like all historical events, is the subject of multiple, and often sharply contradictory, interpretations, the Greens have adopted an unequivocal and quite inflexible interpretation of the Treaty’s meaning. So much so that when some of their own members, unconvinced by the official party line, openly questioned it’s accuracy, they were deemed ineligible to stand as Green candidates by the Party leadership.

That the dissidents’ views on the Treaty of Waitangi were actually more in tune with those of the majority of Pakeha New Zealanders was an “inconvenient truth” to be overcome by – yes, you guessed it – a taxpayer-funded traveling road-show which would take the “true” meaning of the Treaty directly to the ignorant Pakeha masses and educate them into full conformity with the Greens’ historical interpretation.

This authoritarian aspect of the Greens’ political style is nowhere more apparent than in their so-called “consensus-based decision-making” constitution. Described as a means of “seeking positions that the maximum number of people can support, rather than a simple majority”, what these rules actually make possible is the ability of a tiny minority to over-rule and/or subvert the will of the majority.

In practical terms, it allows the leadership of the party, either directly or through their surrogates, to prevent the membership from directly challenging the Green Party caucus’s political strategy and tactics. Rather than promoting the open contest of conflicting political options, it fosters the cobbling together of compromises. Also, by imposing enormous emotional pressure on dissenters, it drives opposition below the surface of party affairs – a situation which, once again, privileges those in senior positions, and makes rank-and-file challenges to official party policy extremely difficult.

That is an interesting analysis of how the much vaunted consensus system actually can favour the hierarchy.

Len Brown says he would relish the opportunity to work alongside Sue Bradford on the Auckland Super City Council.

The Manukau mayor has thrown his hat into the ring to lead the new local body, and says the Green MP would make a great councillor.

Mr Brown says he enjoys Ms Bradford’s company and thinks she is a great leader.

If Len is elected, he appoints the Deputy Mayor so that may be Sue Bradford. Of course Sue doesn’t like it when she isn’t leader, so she may have designs on the top job, not just the Deputy.

Imagine all the worthy projects Sue can think up for the ratepayers of Auckland to fund.

Green MP Sue Bradford’s sudden retirement from Parliament yesterday reflects little credit on her party. With typical candour she declares her decision was prompted by the party’s co-leadership election a few months ago, which she lost to a young Maori, Metiria Turei.

Normally this would sound like sour grapes but whatever one thinks of Ms Bradford’s politics, she does not seem to suffer from wounded pride or excessive self-importance. She is remembered for the indignities she was willing to suffer in the years before entering Parliament when she was pictured in every small protest sit-in, usually being carried away by the police.

This is true, but I still regard it as a bad look for an MP to bail out of Parliament just a few months after they got elected.

Being elected to Parliament is a huge privilege, and MPs are elected for a three year term. It is one of the downsides of MMP that List MPs especially are being shuffled into and out of Parliament outside the electoral cycle.

I think no MP should bail out of Parliament early, unless it is for ill health, or to take up an appointment.

When Jeanette Fitzsimons relinquished the female co-leadership this year Ms Bradford was clearly the strongest candidate to replace her, and she knew it. Ms Turei was barely known outside the party and Sue Kedgley, another previous campaigner who has found her feet in Parliament, seemed not to be interested.

I’m not sure I agree. First of all Turei was deemed the favourite to win at a very early stage. Secondly the skills at being a good legislator (which Bradford was) are not necessarily the skills of leadership. Leadership is about taking people with you – and I think Bradford has never shown much in the way of skills there.

So why did Ms Bradford miss out? It is reasonable to conclude the Greens wanted a different face. They are a party sensitive to demographic character, as evidenced by co-leadership from different genders. Ms Turei offered youth and ethnic diversity. In the four months since her election she has not shown much else.

A party that puts appearances before substance is making difficulties for itself.

The Herald overlooks another issue – maybe the biggest issue. Bradford has rarely been involved with environmental issues. Her causes are social justice. In fact some in the Greens had grumbled her fights for so called social justice diminished the Greens branding as an environmental party.

Russel Norman (who like Bradford used to be a communist – Marxist not Maoist though) also has a background more on the social justice side, than the environmental side. Since becoming co-leader his focus has changed – but nevertheless I think a combination of Norman and Bradford would have weakened the Greens brand as an environmental party – and I suspect this was a factor in Turei’s victory.

It’s basically because she lost the co-leadership election to Metiria Turei. Things are obviously not that happy in the Green camp.

More later.

UPDATE:

Some thoughts on Sue. Before she entered Parliament I thought she would be an atrocious MP – someone like Pam Corkery who was only good at protest and unsuited to actually making a positive (as in positive for their point of view) contribution.

I was wrong. She was in her first two terms a very effective MP. She was named Backbencher of the Year in 2000 by the NZ Herald. On select committee she asked useful and intelligent questions. She didn’t grandstand much. And she actually stood up a bit for small businesses – reasonably sympathetic to not burying them in compliance costs.

She also was a successful backbench legislator, getting three laws passed.

The anti-smacking law was one of those bills. Now I don’t think any worse of Sue because I disagree with the substance of the law. There are many laws I don’t agree with, and I don’t expect Green Party MPs to be promoting that many laws I like.

But where I am highly critical of her, is that she was fundamentally dishonest in her promotion of the law change. I think her rhetoric at times was as disgraceful as some of her opponents. And she basically lied when she said the law change was not about making it illegal to smack, when it was. She has since made quite clear that it was not just about stopping child abuse, but about legislating against correctional smacking.

If Bradford had promoted her law change more honestly, my previously high opinion of her would have remained. But I think she did herself and the country a disservice on that issue – and again I am not talking about the law change itself, but the way she conducted it.

Regardless I hope she has a happy career outside Parliament. Maybe she will stand for Mayor of the Auckland Super City?

This has exposed some unhappiness within the Greens. No matter how much you sugar coat it, an MP bailing out of Parliament with over two years to go is a bad look. Lots of MPs lose leadership contests, do not get selected for Cabinet, are not ranked as high as they want.  Almost all see their term through.

There is a wider issue, which I have alluded to before also. Green voters voted for a Green list with Jeanette as Leader and Bradford as an MP. I am not a fan of having significant changes so soon after an election. It almost stretches to false pretences. If there is to be a managed change of leadership it should be in the final year of the parliamentary terms, not just a few months after an electoral mandate has been granted.

@suebr is STILL a good candidate for NZ’s first political assassination. (watch sue run to the Police because of a death threat, stupid cow)

For those who do not know Twitter, the reference to @suebr means it will get seen by user “suebr” which is Sue Bradford herself.

While I am not sure I would classify the tweet as a literal death threat, even implicit threats of violence should have no part in our discourse.

Dave at Big News names the user as Henk van Helmond, formerly of CYFSWatch, based on some good detective work.

The media door-stopped van Hermond and his response is reported by the Herald:

CYFSwatch is run by Henk van Helmond, who yesterday wrote that though the threats had come from his account “it seems my password was hacked”.

Yeah, Right.

IrishBill at The Standard dives into the gutter as usual and tries to link the actions of van Hermond to the anti-EFA campaign and me personally and sees something sinister in the fact I did not report the original Sunday News story, implying somehow I condone such threat of violence.

As usual he could not be more wrong. I’m not sure if I have revealed this publicly before, but in 2007 there were similar threats made by someone with the CYFSWatch site (and my response is here) – maybe even the same person. Back then, their identities were tightly kept.

Someone from CYFSWatch commented on my site. Due to the threats that had made against Bradford, I passed on their identifying information (IP address) to Sue Bradford’s office and explained the Police could use this to trace them.

Bradford’s office in time passed this into the Police, and they contacted me and I provided the Police with information which allowed them to obtain from the ISP, the identity of the person holding the account which had made the threats.

As I said I don’t think I’ve ever blogged this info before (I think I did mention it once in a comment) but as someone too cowardly to even post under their own name is trying to link me to condoning or encouraging this sort of activity, I need to set the record straight.

UPDATE: Idiot/Savant also jumps into the gutter. Again someone who hides behind anonymity tries to smear someone who does not. You never tend to get these sort of smears from people who blog under their own name. That is because blogging under your own name forces you to think about consequences (well except for Whale!) of what you say on your own reputation.

The Government will consider adopting a Green MP’s bill to prevent confusing and ambiguous referendum questions, Prime Minister John Key said today. …

Today Green MP Sue Bradford said she was hoping her bill to prevent confusing questions would be drawn out of the next ballot.

The Citizens Initiated Referenda (Wording of Question) Amendment Bill required the Clerk of the House to allow only referendum questions which were “not ambiguous, complex, leading or misleading”.

Where a question was not allowed a person would be able to re-write it until it met the criteria.

Firstly I am suspicious about all this sudden concern in the wording of referenda questions. There have been far more ambigious questions in the past. I suspect this is politicians finding reasons in advance to ignore the result of the referendum – because they know the public do not like the new law.

But putting aside the suspicious rationale, it is worth considering the merits of Bradford’s bill. On the face of it, it would make referenda more useful and hopefully harder to ignore.

But it does give huge powers to the Clerk of the House. Now the Clerk is not the sort of person who would abuse such powers but Bradford’s bill is asking her to make subjective judgements, not objective judgements.  It is very subjective as to what is leading or misleading.  Any decisions made by the Clerk could lead to political attacks on that office – and that would be regrettable.