Throng reports:

SKY’s brand new entertainment channel, THE ZONE, will have local fans of Science Fiction, Cult, Fantasy, Superhero and Horror genres battling for the remote.

Launching this November, THE ZONE’S line-up will include some of the planet’s most anticipated premiere series including Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain, Defiance featuring New Zealand’s own Grant Bowler and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, along with a mix of modern and classic series including drama and comedy, movies and the odd documentary.

THE ZONE, made right here by Kiwis for Kiwis (with the occasional Kiwi appearance too), will be available to all SKY’s domestic customers at no extra charge as part of SKY’s Basic package and will also stream live from launch on SKY GO, so fans won’t miss a minute of the action wherever they are.

Yay, yay, yay. I’ve campaigned (and lobbied) for some time for Sky to bring the Sci Fi channel to NZ. They’re gone even better, by producing a customised channel – and including it for free to the basic package. Hell, I would have paid for it.

THE ZONE has a fairly broad remit for acquiring programmes, our rule of thumb being that anything which could feasibly promote itself at Comic-Con has a place on the channel.

That’s a great rule of thumb.

I’m more excited about this, than I am about the election!

Stuff reports:

Labour’ deputy leader and finance spokesman David Parker has stressed the party’s egalitarian roots in a scene-setting speech at its election-year congress.

“I am an egalitarian politician,” he said.

Parker stressed Labour’s commitment to a balanced economy and greater equality of outcomes.

Equality of outcome is basically a socialist and communist policy.  You can justify pretty much any intervention by the Government on the basis of wanting equality of outcomes.

Fighting for equality of opportunity is very different. I’m all for equality of opportunity. But equality of outcome is very different. Equality of outcomes means reducing the outcomes for people, rather than increasing the opportunities.

The Daily Beast reports:

Yet another group of studies shows vaccines have very low risk of side effects—and no link to autism. When will anti-vaxxers finally wake up?

Probably never. They’re like the anti-fluoride brigade. A local example is former Green MP Sue Kedgley:

Health officials and the medical establishment have decided that vaccination is such an essential public health tool that New Zealanders should simply accept its benefits without question, and have even implied that the unvaccinated are a risk to the health of society. At the same time they have dismissed those who question or oppose it, as dangerous, extreme and irresponsible.

Only because they are.

My own interest in vaccination began when I gave birth to my son 14 years ago. Whether or not to vaccinate our children was a hot topic at our regular mother’s group meetings, but eventually I had my son vaccinated.

Shortly after receiving his triple MMR vaccine at 15 months, he developed a horrendous incident of croup — to the point where he was taken to the emergency department. He subsequently developed a weakness in the chest which led to childhood asthma, which fortunately, through my various remedies, he has managed to shake off.

At the time I said to my doctor, I am certain the croup was triggered by the vaccination, but the doctor dismissed my suggestion as ludicrous, and certainly never forwarded it as an adverse reaction to the Centre for Adverse Reactions, which records significant adverse reactions to vaccination. I was convinced it was, however, and my son has never received another vaccination since.

It’s like the father who is convinced his child’s cancer was caused by the wifi network at their school.

I discovered, to my horror, that 23 vaccines, including vaccines that were given to babies, used thiomersal — a substance that is 50% mercury, one of the most toxic substances.

Kedgley does what most anti science nutters do. She refers to the presence of toxins, without mentioning their level. They may be at less than one thousandeth the safe level, but hey who cares about science.

Given these adverse reactions, and the acknowledged risks of vaccinations, it is alarming that the government has been quietly increasing the number of vaccinations our children receive before they are five, without any public debate or inquiry.

So this Green MP was against kids having more vaccinations.

Green Party policy today is very nuanced on vaccinations it seems because:

Our official position is influenced by the fact that we do not have a firm policy on it as we don’t have consensus from our members.

Anyway back to the main article:

The AHRQ study played out like this: 20,478 articles or meeting abstracts were identified by an electronic dragnet, of which 3,208 had enough about vaccine safety to warrant a closer look. These were really clawed through and mostly discarded for faulty (or absent) study design, missing information, or else use of non-US approved vaccines. Once whittled down, they were left with 67 studies—typical fallout in the world of the systematic review, though one that sometimes raises questions from those first hearing of the approach.

They then worked through a rating system that quantified just how good the evidence, pro or con, was for each vaccine of interest: measles-mumps-rubella (often called MMR) which uses weakened though still-live viruses; the chicken pox vaccine (ditto); and killed or genetically engineered vaccines against influenza, hepatitis, meningitis, and several other conditions.

After all the rigmarole, they found what any pediatrician already knew: the MMR causes fever. Fever, in a child, can provoke seizures. They found zero evidence to support a connection between MMR and autism or other neurologic problems.

Zero evidence. Zip.

Indeed, there is nothing surprising about the AHRQ article or the IOM’s review. Rather, the surprise is that groups as important and as busy continue to re-re-re-review the same data to reach the same conclusions, all because of the relentless countervailing force of the anti-vaccine crowd.

Because they never give up. They have a world view that Gaia made us all perfect and we should never let science interfere with Gaia’s grand plan – even if that means kids dying of preventable illnesses.

But nothing the scientific, evidenced-based, reality-based, rational world can do will change the minds of those who are not working from the same basic premise where science trumps belief. For them and millions of others, belief trumps science. To try to win them over on the merits of the argument is doomed to failure and even derision: the accusations that the latest study is rigged, that the scientists involved actually are only “scientists,” that the real evidence, long suppressed by the orthodox view, shows clear and incontrovertible evidence that vaccines are killing and maiming people left and right.

Very familiar.

I suggest people attend their local Meet The Candidate meetings and ask them for their views on vaccinations. If they start spouting nonsense about how they cause autism, and there is a conspiracy – then that makes it easy – don;t vote for them or their party.

I’ve had raised with me an interesting issue. If Laila Harre becomes an MP, will she be treated as a party leader, even though she only get in through the combined Mana-Internet alliance? Will both Hone and Laila get a leader’s salary?

This involves a fair bit of taxpayer money. As a party leader her salary would be $162,200 instead of $147,800 – an extra $14,400.

On top of that she would get an extra $100,000 leadership funding for her parliamentary office. So the taxpayer would be paying an extra $114,400 a year or $343,200 over a three year term.

So what does standing orders say about what constitutes a party – SO 34(1):

Every political party registered under Part 4 of the Electoral Act 1993, and in whose interest a member was elected at the preceding general election or at any subsequent by-election, is entitled to be recognised as a party for parliamentary purposes. and

That would suggest she won’t be recognised. But recall that the Mana-Internet agreement expires six weeks after the election. Then read this clause SO34(2)(c):

Independent members, or members who cease to be members of the party for which they were originally elected, may be recognised, for parliamentary purposes as members of a component party in whose interest those members stood as constituency candidates at the preceding
general election if they inform the Speaker in writing that they wish to be so recognised.

So Laila splits from Mana six weeks after the election, and then the Internet Party is a recognised parliamentary party. And that means she gets an extra $114,400 a year of taxpayer funding.

Very neat eh. This helps explain why the agreement lapses just six weeks after the election.

A reader e-mails:

I suggest this decision by serial offender Judge Phillippa Cunningham strengthens the case for John Banks to argue for a discharge without conviction on the electoral fraud charges,  A few points:
 
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/10229216/Maori-Kings-son-avoids-conviction
 
Stats have come out this week confirming police almost never investigate Electoral Act complaints (either local or national).  Burglary is typically investigated, at least on the surface.  Often goes no further due to lack of evidence.  Same with theft.  Drink driving is essentially always investigated, given the evidence is collected live at the scene of apprehension.  This demonstrates the seriousness with which the police see burglary, theft and drink driving as opposed to electoral fraud charges and the regularity with which they lay charges.
 
The charge John Banks was found guilty of carries a max of 2 years imprisonment.  Burglary carries a max of 10 years and is a serious crime.  Theft under $500 is 3 months max.
 
There are a host of other arguments in terms of the relative seriousness of the two scenarios, including Paki’s relative youth, Paki’s prior convictions/youth Court notations, burglary offending committed complicit with 3 other offenders, Bank’s prior clean record (as I understand).  I won’t go into them all.
 
But it is interesting to compare the two cases given both could argue they have ‘futures’ that a conviction may put the kibosh on (royalty v political).

It will be interesting to see the decision of the court, in August.

Labour’s 21st century schools policy is here. The summary:

• put in place a programme that provides an affordable option, available to all schools, for Year 5-13 students to have access to a portable digital device, in the classroom and at home.
• commit $25 million to provide teachers with professional development during the 2016 and 2017 school years to assist them to make the most effective use of digital devices in the classroom.
• partner with schools, local government and communities to put in place infrastructure that will allow students, particularly those from low-decile schools, who do not currently have internet connections to use their portable devices to access the internet at home.
• develop a comprehensive plan for rebuilding out-dated and worn-out school buildings, so that every school has access to modern learning environments by 2030.

This looks a very sound policy. It is very much in line with the unanimous recommendations of the Education and Science Select Committee inquiry into 21st century schools, that was chaired by Nikki Kaye a couple of years ago.

Nikki points out that most of this policy is already underway:

Associate Education Minister Nikki Kaye says Labour has clearly not done its homework in the education area and is promoting “new ideas” that have already been put in place by National.

“Most of what Labour has announced today is already being delivered by the Government through its 21st century schools programme. We have a massive build plan underway to modernise school facilities, upgrade school broadband networks and partner with communities to provide digital hubs through those networks. Our Ultrafast broadband and rural broadband initiatives are delivering fibre broadband with uncapped data to nearly every school in New Zealand.

“Labour’s announcements today prove they have no idea what is already going on.”

Labour want to put money into professional learning development for ICT over the next few years. National has already invested $35 million in Professional Learning and Development, specifically targeted at learning with digital technologies.

Labour want to build an unspecified number of new schools and classrooms by 2030. Under the National government, hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent building new classrooms and upgrading older schools with the help of the Future Investment Fund, which Labour opposes. National has opened 12 new schools in the past three years in areas of growth.

And Labour wants to enable students to access the internet at home. Last year, National announced a change in policy to enable schools to extend their school internet to the surrounding area so students and families can access the internet from home.

It’s not a bad thing that National and Labour are broadly in agreement on steps to modernise our schools to take best account of the opportunities for  learning.

The Herald reports:

Labour will fund an extra 2000 teachers under its policy to reduce primary class sizes to 26 students by 2016 and secondary schools to an average of 23 by 2018 – a step expected to cost $350 million over the next three years.

Labour leader David Cunliffe has announced the policy at Labour’s Congress alongside a suite of associated education policies.

It will pay by scrapping National’s $359 million ‘Investing in Educational Success’ scheme, under which the best teachers and principals are paid more and used to help work with other teachers and schools.

This is a bad and disapponting policy, that flies in the face of reams and reams of international and national evidence.

Hundreds of studies have concluded that the quality of a teacher is the biggest influence on a child’s learning. The same studies have also concluded that the impact of class size is quite minor in comparison.

Labour’s policy is about politics, not education. Again there are hundreds of studies that confirm teacher quality is far more important than class size. There are meta-studies of meta-studies. This is not an issue there is serious dispute over.

Basically Labour has gone for quantity over quality, It’s one of their worst policies. Some of their stuff on 21st century schools is very good, but this aspect is basically appalling. Not the reducing class sizes in itself – but choosing to do that rather than fund an initiative to have great teachers share their success with other teachers.

Here’s what global expert John Hattie said on Q+A on this issue in 2012:

Well, we’ve certainly done many many studies looking at the effects when we reduce class sizes, certainly by the one or two that were suggested in New Zealand, and it’s very very hard to find that they make that much of a difference. The major question is why is it that a seemingly obvious thing that should make a difference doesn’t make a difference, and that’s what’s beguiled a lot of people over the last many decades. I think we have some good answers for that, but the bottom line is it hardly makes a difference.

SHANE Why is that?

PROF HATTIE Well, I think the major argument seems to be when you have teachers in class sizes, like, of 26, 27, 30 and you put them in the class sizes of, say, 18 to 23, and they don’t change what they do, that seems to be the reason why it doesn’t make a difference. So could it make a difference? Yeah, it probably could if we changed how we went about our teaching. But that doesn’t seem to happen. When the many many thousands, tens of thousands of teachers have gone from one size to another, they don’t change how they teach. So, no, that’s why it doesn’t make much of a difference.

A presentation by Professor Hattie here, find’s class size is ranked only the 106th most powerful influence on learning.  That’s 106th out of 130. Labour are putting  Now this is not his personal view. This is a summary of 50,000 individual studies and 800+ meta-studies.

From the NZ Initiative:

If you have ever bought a used car, you will be familiar with this problem. The seller, of course, knows whether the car is reliable, he may know the previous owners, and he would also be aware of any hidden flaws.

For you as the buyer, the situation is a bit more complicated. At first sight, a gem is difficult to differentiate from a lemon. With a bit of polish and some new car scent spray, you can put a nice gloss even on a dud.

In such situations, which economists describe as ‘asymmetric information’, markets do not work well. Buyers, not knowing whether they will get good or bad quality, have a reduced willingness to pay. But for the price buyers are prepared to pay, the owners of good quality cars would not be willing to sell them. As a result, we end up with a market where poor quality cars trade at low prices.

This is the dilemma described in George Akerlof’s classic paper ‘The Market for Lemons’, and it is here where ‘signalling’ comes into play. In order to overcome the problem of asymmetric information, the sellers of higher quality goods, whose quality is difficult to ascertain prior to use, need to find ways of showing their quality.

In the case of used car markets, a credible signal for the quality of the car would be a warranty. If the buyer is confident that the car is not a lemon, he could promise to cover all repairs for the next couple of years. In doing so, he could justify charging a higher price.

Such quality signals are far more widespread than you may first think. Advertising is the most obvious example.

If you have ever wondered why companies hire celebrities to endorse their products, think about it this way: The reason why actress Andie MacDowell promoted L’Oreal was not because it had stopped her from ageing but because she was worth it. Paying her handsomely signalled that L’Oreal was serious about the quality of their products. For the same signal, the company could have also publicly burned $100 notes as well (but it would not have looked so good).

Academic titles fall in the same category. Some of us get them because we are interested in learning and knowledge. The real value of a PhD lies elsewhere, however. It signals that you are capable of achieving things that require a sustained effort. That’s why people get PhDs – and that’s why companies hire PhDs.

Doctorates, warranties and Andie MacDowell may differ in many ways. One thing they have in common: They are strong signals.

Next week is T for Tax.

From the interview on The Nation:

If Internet-Mana get there and you need their numbers will you use them to form a government or will you rule them out?

We’re not doing any pre-election deals with anybody.

I’m talking about a post-election deal. Will you work them in government? Voters want to know.

I’ve been quite frank with we will have our door and phone line open to whoever wants to change the government. I’ve ruled out the Conservatives, I’ve ruled out the Act party, I’m not ruling out talking to anyone else but frankly I’d be surprised to see anybody, perhaps other than the Greens and NZ First around the cabinet table.

You’re not ruling it out thought, you’re not ruling out Internet-Mana because I want to pick up on this, Phil Goff, one of your senior MPs, says that Internet-Mana deal is a rort and Dotcom is buying influence. Chris Hipkins calls them unprincipled sell-outs. These are your MPs. David Shearer says Internet-Mana is going to end badly. Stuart Nash calls him a discredited German. Yet you won’t rule out

I’m not here to defend Kim Dotcom or Internet-Mana. What I am here to do is to campaign for the Labour vote and to change the government.

It is very clear that Cunliffe is not willing to rule out Cabinet posts to the Dotcom Party, despite the views of his colleagues.

Now does that mean that Laila Harre and Hone Harawira could be ministers in a Labour led government or will you rule that out?

No, it does not.

Will you rule that out?

I think that’s extremely unlikely.

Extremely unlikely they’ll be ministers?

Extremely unlikely.

If anyone thinks Hone Harawira will happily sit on the backbenches, they don’t know him very well. He will demand to be Maori Affairs Minister, at a minimum.

The Herald editorial:

The Government ensured some good will come from nature’s devastation when, under urgency, it passed the West Coast Windblown Timber (Conservation Lands) Act. This was necessary because the Conservation Act makes no provision for timber recovery in such a circumstance. Notably, Labour’s West Coast MP Damien O’Connor and Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirakatene supported the legislation, going against their party’s stand.

They could not convince other Labour MPs that the interests of the West Coast should take precedence over support for the position taken by the Greens.

The policy differences between Greens and Labour shrink by the day as Labour moves left.

Their stand was right. Conservationists have some qualms about the logging of the high-value trees, especially in terms of the removal of vital nutrients from the forest ecosystem. But it is surely possible to take logs without seriously disturbing the biomass. Indeed, removing some of the trees will probably aid regeneration. Additionally, the legislation contains enough safeguards to suggest appropriate care will be taken.

It’s a win-win. Helps the forest regenerate, and creates jobs.

Cyclone Ita felled an estimated 20,000ha of forest and caused significant damage to a further 200,000ha. In all probability, only a small part of that will be removed. Nonetheless, hundreds of jobs will be created both in the logging and the processing of the timber. That, and the safeguards, mean the public good associated with exploitation far outweighs any concerns about the impact of the logging.

Nor is the protection of native forest being compromised. That Labour and the Greens declined to see as much suggested they were concerned about more than just the felled timber. Several references to the conservation battles that culminated in a halt to the logging of these forests confirmed as much. Probably, they worried that the exploitation of the timber without dire consequence being the cue for the resumption of selective logging.

There is no suggestion of that. Felled timber is being removed from low-grade conservation land for a limited period. Nothing more. This is surely a practical response to an event dictated by nature, and one that benefits one of the country’s least prosperous regions.

It is a practical response. Very sad that Labour joined the Greens in opposing what is pretty common sense.

Stuff reports:

Children whose knowledge isn’t up to scratch when they start school should be tested so the funding they require can be measured, a new report on child poverty says.

Children in poverty “do not leave their daily life circumstances at the school gate”, says John O’Neill, author of the latest report from independent charity The Child Poverty Action Group.

I agree. But considering the primary teachers union is against even national standards, I can’t imagine they’d ever go along with testing all five year olds. But I say it is essential you do know their capacity when they start school.

Teachers could already identify students with learning problems – the challenge was getting the funding to help fix it, Post Primary Teachers’ Association president Angela Roberts said.

“The thing we like about decile funding is that it acknowledges some schools require greater resources than others.”

But taking a step back and reassessing how much it cost to educate a child and then adding in all their other needs would be a better funding system, she said. “Funding is about the needs of a kid, not the location of a school.”

I agree. The decile system is a blunt tool. It would be preferable to individually assess each pupil, and have funding dependent on what their needs are.

The Herald reports:

Google has been accused of misinterpreting a European court’s “right to be forgotten” ruling by deleting links to apparently harmless news articles in a bid to whip up anger against “censorship”.

Articles about a former Merrill Lynch banker, the singer Kelly Osbourne, a football referee involved in a controversial penalty decision, and a “foul-mouthed” former president of the Law Society were among the first tranche of web stories to be removed from search results, it emerged yesterday.

The move by Google comes weeks after a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice which upheld the “right to be forgotten” and sparked a debate over how to balance freedom of expression and public interest with the right to privacy.

Details of the first article to be “hidden” by the search engine created a backlash against the court ruling yesterday, but by last night there were growing questions about how Google was handling the take-down requests.

Ryan Heath, spokesman for the European Commission’s vice-president Neelie Kroes, said that Google’s decision to remove a BBC article by the economics editor Robert Peston about the ex-Merrill Lynch boss Stan O’Neal – one of those blamed for helping cause the global financial crisis – was “not a good judgement”.

He said he could not see a “reasonable public interest” for the action, adding that the court ruling should not allow people to “Photoshop their lives”.

That’s exactly what the court ruling allowed. Good on Google for making people aware the impact of the ruling.

Describing Google’s actions as “tactical”, he added: “It may be that they’ve decided that it’s simply cheaper to just say yes to all of these requests.”

Of course it is cheaper. do they really think Google is going to hire 200 lawyers to spend hours or days on each request considering the merits extensively. Of course not. They will take the option with least legal risk, and act on almost all requests – because that is the position the stupid European Court has put them in.

Privacy campaigners accused the internet giant of playing “silly political games” in an attempt to undermine the ruling. Jim Killock, executive director, Open Rights Group, said: “The ruling was clear that results that relate to articles that are in the public interest shouldn’t be removed.”

Who decides the public interest? Google? I don’t want Google deciding the public interest. The decision should be made by individual publishers whether to keep content on the Internet, and not by search engines on whether to index it.

Google is struggling to deal with the volume of demands. Around 70,000 requests for links to be removed have been made in the past month – more than 8,000 [8,497] of which were from Britain – it emerged yesterday. If all demands were met, more than a quarter of a million [267,550] web pages would be deleted – around 34,000 [34,597] as a result of complaints made by people in Britain.

This is why Jimmy Wales called the ruling the biggest threat to free speech on the Internet.

70,000 requests being made per month. If each request takes an hour to consider, then that is 70,000 hours of staff (probably lawyers) time needed per month. So around 450 lawyers needed just to deal with the requests. Sheer madness.

Emma Carr, acting director, Big Brother Watch, cited Google’s decision to remove a link to the blog, which featured “wholly accurate and legal content”, as highlighting “exactly why the ECJ ruling was ridiculous and detrimental to freedom of the press in Europe.”

And Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales, a member of an expert panel set up by Google to help it deal with the controversy, condemned the European ruling as “an utter and complete disaster” and branded it “a major human rights violation”. The judgment is “clear and direct censorship of the worst kind,” he said.

It is. But here is the sad thing. If this was a court ruling in almost any other place, the law could just be changed to over-rule the court. But pretty much the only way to get rid of this, is by leaving the EU and the jurisdiction of the European Court.

It is not just Google which is being swamped with demands for links to be removed. The rate at which the BBC is receiving requests for stories to be deleted from its website has prompted the broadcaster to issue new guidance on “unpublishing” content.

David Jordan, BBC director of editorial policy and standards, said: “Sometimes the people we feature in our news reports want the news about themselves to be erased so they can obscure the events they were involved in, or the comments they made to us and stop others finding them.”

The new guidance states that material on the BBC website is part of a “permanently accessible archive” and will not be removed or changed unless there are “exceptional circumstances”. It adds: “Removing online content, particularly news items, risks the accusation that we are erasing the past or altering history.”

On this I agree with the BBC.

Look at that trend!

The summary of the monthly polling newsletter is:

There were a whopping seven political polls in June – three Roy Morgans, a One News Colmar Brunton, a 3 News Reid Research, a Herald DigiPoll and a Fairfax Ipsos.

The average of the public polls has National 23% ahead of Labour in June, up 5% from May and up 9% April. The current seat projection is centre-right 67 seats, centre-left 53 which would see a centre-right Government.

In Australia Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s approval ratings fall from +6% to -11%, but despite this Labour increases their two party preferred lead to 10%.

In the United States the country direction gets more negative and President Obama’s approval ratings fall in all three major policy areas. 

In the UK Labour has a narrow 4% lead over the Conservatives but Ed Miliband continues to have awful approval ratings, dropping to -45%. Scottish independence polls show the no vote ahead by 3% to 19% with an average 12% gap.

In Canada the Conservatives are now projected to win more seats than the Liberals, despite being behind in the polls.

The normal two tables are provided comparing the country direction sentiment and head of government approval sentiment for the five countries. A new third table has been added, comparing approval ratings for opposition leaders in the four countries that have one.

We also carry details of polls in New Zealand on coalitions, Team NZ, Maui’s Dolphins, most important issues, MMP, tax cuts, National’s leadership, the Mana/Internet alliance, political fundraising, capital gains tax, cannabis and immigration, plus the normal business and consumer confidence polls.

This newsletter is normally only available by e-mail.  If you would like to receive future issues, please go to http://listserver.actrix.co.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/polling-newsletter to subscribe yourself.

 

The Herald reports:

National MP Maggie Barry says more than a dozen New Zealand women have approached her to say they were also indecently assaulted by disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris — and one is considering an official complaint to police after decades of silence.

Ms Barry revealed yesterday that she was groped by Harris in a Palmerston North recording studio when she was working as a journalist.

This is the great thing about being brave enough to reveal what someone like Harris did to you. Suddenly everyone else who has had it happen to them, doesn’t feel quite so alone. It’s great that they now have someone they can share their stories with – of course would be greater if this had never happened. If a dozen have contacted Maggie Barry, how many scores more may be out there?

Former TVNZ makeup artist Lee Howden told RadioLIVE she was also sexually assaulted as she did his make-up for an on-air interview. She said she fled the room after he put his hand into her underwear.

While she never reported the incident, she was inspired to come forward after hearing Ms Barry’s account and was prepared to make an official police complaint.

Good.

Stuff reports:

A four-day working week promoted by one of Britain’s top doctors is a “radical” concept worthy of debate, considering the importance of a healthy work-life balance, a Canterbury health leader says.

A business leader in the region, however, says the idea is “nonsense” and imposing a rigid standard would be a backwards step.

Professor John Ashton, the president of the United Kingdom Faculty of Public Health, told British media this week that “a mal-distribution of work” was damaging people’s health.

Ashton called for Britain to phase out the five-day week, saying it would help combat high levels of work-related stress and illness.

Too many people were working “crazy” hours and a significant number of people were not working at all, he said.

“We need a four-day week so that people can enjoy their lives, have more time with their families and maybe reduce [workers’] high blood pressure.”

Why stop at four days? Think how much better off we’d be if we only worked three days a week? Or two days? Why not one day a week?

Canterbury Medical Officer of Health Dr Alistair Humphrey, of the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB), said it was “a challenging and thought-provoking idea” worthy of debate.

No its’ not.

Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce chief executive Peter Townsend said it was “nonsense” to suggest a four-day working week would solve everyone’s problems.

“I get a bit tired of people who just put straight lines in the sand. That is not how the world works these days. You deal with things on an individual basis. If someone in your workplace is [showing] signs of stress you deal with it,” he said.

“A young couple that might be paying off a mortgage with no kids might want to work 60 hours a week. It is all about being accommodating and flexible.”

Exactly. the idea of a law that sets a maximum working week for everyone is socialist nonsense.

Auckland manufacturing company Manson Marine & Engineering allows its staff to opt for four-day weeks once a month. Staff work 10-hour days that week and earn an extra 12 days off a year as a result.

That’s a great example of flexibility – at an individual company level.

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister John Key has signalled possible loosening of euthanasia laws, saying he would sympathise with “speeding up of the process” of death for a terminally ill patient.

He told Family First director Bob McCoskrie in a public interview at a forum in Auckland yesterday that euthanasia would be “a legitimate thing” to speed up death for a terminally ill patient who was in pain.

But he said he would not vote for a bill proposed by Labour MP Maryan Street that would allow any adult suffering from a condition likely to cause their death within 12 months to request medical assistance to die.

“If it’s the same bill, I’ll oppose it because I think the way that bill was structured is not good law,” he said. “In the world that I live in, in my head, it’s a conscience issue. So when someone says to me ‘euthanasia’ I think of the person that is terminally ill, that is going to die, and in a tremendous amount of times and in my world, euthanasia is a legitimate thing in that situation.”

I agree.

He said modern medical practice was to give terminally ill patients pain relief and allow the natural process of death to occur.

“The palliative care would not do anything to prolong their life or to shorten their life. What I would say is in that scenario I … could understand the speeding up of the process,” he said. “The bill goes a lot further than that. In the situation where grandma is 92 [and people just want her to go], that’s not acceptable.”

I’m not sure the Street bill does do that. Regardless I would hope it would be sent to select committee, so NZers can have their say on the issue, and the bill can be given as many safeguards as possible.

Labour leader David Cunliffe declined to comment on the issue yesterday and Ms Street did not return calls.

This is one reason people like John Key – he will give his personal opinion on an issue – even if to an audience where almost everyone disagrees with him.

Rolf Harris gets 69 months for 12 offences against young girls, and Andy Coulson gets 18 months for phone hacking.

Mike Hosking writes:

I bet Labour wishes it wasn’t election year.

Or if it has to be election year, I bet Labour wishes it was January again and they could start all over.

Labour’s in a mess.

They look in no shape at all to compete, far less win an election.

Up until about now I’ve been running the line that’s generally run in election year when it comes to polls and predictions.

The line is that, “there’s still a lot of water to go under the bridge”, the line is, “a week is a long time in politics”, the line is, “the polls will tighten”.

Well as we sit here now this morning I feel less and less of that is true.

It looks increasingly possible that a lot of what appears might happen, actually will happen, even though it’s July and the vote’s in September.

One of the things I think will happen is that Labour won’t break 30 per cent and quite possibly will do worse than that.

And Hosking says they are mainly responsible:

But as much as they will hate hearing this, much of their problem is of their own making. The trick at least in part to political success is giving people what they want. And quotas on lists, more tax, stopping people cutting up trees that are blown over, isn’t it.

And that’s before we get to Trevor Mallard and his moa. How inexplicable is that? No one of that experience raises something that nutty, this close to a poll, in a party with this much trouble, without knowing what they’re doing. And what he’s doing is taking the piss. I could’ve seen past it if Trevor closed it down, said nothing, apologised, put it down to a mad moment.

But he took my Seven Sharp colleague Jehan Casinader into the bush, and talked about what sized moa he would like to see, and what sort of noise they’d make. He looked like someone who’d been let out on day release.

Tracy Watkins also touches on the moa:

Labour needed Trevor Mallard this week like it needed a hole in the head.

Mallard’s blurt about bringing Moa back from the dead was a gift to National who gloried in the treasure trove of one-liners about dinosaurs and extinction.

Ironically, Mallard’s grand Moa plan coincided with a morning tea shout to mark him and Annette King celebrating three decades in Parliament.

Even Mallard’s Labour colleagues couldn’t resist the Jurassic Park comparisons.

Bizarrely, there was also a school of thought that Mallard might actually be a genius because people were finally talking about Labour.

That must surely be the definition of clutching at straws, but it is symptomatic of the trough Labour has found itself in that generating any sort of chatter round the water cooler – even when it invites ridicule – is an improvement.

I encourage Trevor to keep it up!

Labour certainly can’t be blamed for going into the election without a plan to put to voters.

Its economic strategy is far-reaching, including a capital gains tax to smooth out the peaks and troughs in housing, monetary policy reform to address currency pressures, raising the pension age to address the long-term sustainability of government finances, and compulsory KiwiSaver to mimic Australia’s hugely successful scheme.

The policy has been deliberately crafted to show that Labour is capable of making some tough choices and to underscore its fiscal credentials.

But National has done such a number on Labour’s economic credibility that many voters still don’t trust it with taxpayer money.

Labour doesn’t help itself when it tries to attack National as spendthrift for running up debt and deficits.

Given that the global financial crisis and Canterbury earthquakes are still fresh in everyone’s minds Labour ‘s attack lines just come across as sly and dishonest.

Their attacks on National for having six years of deficits are bizarre. Every single decision to restrain spending by National, was vigorously attacked by Labour – and then six years later they claim they would have got out of deficit faster. That’s why they have no credibility – they treat the public as idiots.

One of the good things the NZ Herald does every three years is an extensive background piece on the Leader of the Opposition, and hence potential next Prime Minister. These stories take months to compile, but they are very useful at painting a picture of the person who may be the country’s next leader.

Their lengthy piece on David Cunliffe is here. It’s very interesting, and I especially like the section on him and Karen.

I am of the view that most MPs are in politics for the right reasons – because they sincerely think they can make NZ a better place. Around 10% to 15% are ratbags. The rest, one may disagree with their views and policies – but they are well motivated. I include David Cunliffe in this category.

While iPredict says he has only a 16% chance of becoming Prime Minister, a lot can happen in 77 days.

Here’s an extract from the article:

He met Karen Price, a law and music student, in the first week of the university year. Within six months they were engaged, a year later they were married; the bride was 19, the groom 21. They met at the “Knox [hostel] Hop” during orientation week. Her friend and his roommate went as a date and they tagged along as chaperones.

“I thought he was pretty dishy,” says Price. “He was tall, countryboyish with a long blond afro and a washboard stomach. I thought he was very attractive.”

Cunliffe: “We became part of a peer group that all got to know each other. I think we ended up going out four or five months later. We had some classes together; we were in the legal systems tutorial of Mark Heneghan, Dean of Law now. I think it’s fair to say the other kids didn’t get a word in edge ways.”

Prof Heneghan noticed: “It was nice to see them moving closer to each other and the little glances back and forwards,” he recalled in a 2013 interview. “They were pretty keen on each other right from day one. They were the strongest arguers against each other.”

Cunliffe talks first about her smarts (and his) when asked what appealed. “She was an outstanding student, [there was] a huge intellectual connection, very much a match of equals.” Prompted, he adds: “A lot of attraction as well, dashing Scandinavian good-looks on her part.

Very cool.

In April, she attended his 20th birthday “as a guest, not an item”, and in April he proposed. When he decides something, he moves fast, she says.

That’s very fast. From dating to engagement in less than a month, but sounds like they had been moving towards each other for most of the year.

The Herald also has 10 things you may not know about him:

1. He played Jesus in the school play.
2. His “little” brother, Stephen, is 6’7″ and an expert on the Patagonian toothfish.
3. He has a half-brother and three half-sisters.
4. His great-grandfather married King Dick Seddon’s sister.
5. He helped his half-brother, Bill, through a life crisis.
6. He scared the pants off Michael Laws when they were at Uni together.
7. He caught a salmon in memory of his father at the spot on the Rangitata River where he died of a heart attack.
8. He was voted most likely to be a world leader by fellow scholarship students at Atlantic College in Wales.
9. His father, a vicar, remarried eight months after the death of his first wife.
10. The William Cunliffe who died in the Brunner mine disaster of 1896 may be a relative.

There’s a follow up next weekend focusing more on his life since becoming an MP.

This is a major policy by Labour, that has had very little attention. It is now Labour Party policy that you have to prove your innocence if accused of rape.

Andrew Little said on the 2nd of July:

“A better measure would be to hand control of all examination of a victim to the judge with lawyers for both sides notifying the court which issues they want dealt with, along with shifting the burden of proof on the issue of consent to the defence.

This means that if two people have sex, and one person accuses the other of rape, then the accused must prove beyond reasonable doubt they had consent.

Now you might think this is just Andrew Little musing aloud. Not so.  He confirms in this tweet it is official policy.

Graeme Edgeler sums their policy up:

Labour’s policy is that: if the government can prove you had sex, that sex was rape, unless you prove it wasn’t.

— Graeme Edgeler (@GraemeEdgeler) July 4, 2014

Andrew Little says:

“This approach does not contradict the fundamental principle that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty – the basic facts of the case still have to be made out – but it does mean the prosecution doesn’t need to prove a negative, namely that there was no consent.

This is sophistry. If the act of sex is not disputed, just consent, then the defendant does have to prove themselves innocent.

I wonder how many hours it will take until Labour does a u-turn on their policy, once people realise its implications.

Rape is a terrible crime, and the court process is very hard on many victims, and I am sure it can be improved. But reversing the presumption of innocence and burden of proof is not the answer.

Air NZ reports:

Air New Zealand customers will be some of the first in the Asia Pacific region to be able to use their handheld portable electronic devices in non-transmitting mode for the entire duration of their flights following approval from the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority.

From 16 July the airline will allow the use of handheld portable electronic devices including tablets, smartphones, e-readers and mp3 players during all phases of flight provided the devices are in flight mode. Previously customers could not use their devices during the taxi, take-off and landing phases of flight.

Yay. No more having the Kindle off for almost half the flight.