I don’t think you could make this up. The Herald reports:

Labour leader David Cunliffe says he’s sorry that he’s a man because men commit most family violence.

He told a Women’s Refuge forum in Auckland today that Labour would put an extra $15 million a year into refuges and other groups supporting the victims of family violence. But he started his speech with an apology.

“Can I begin by saying I’m sorry,” he said.

“I don’t often say it. I’m sorry for being a man right now, because family and sexual violence is perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children.

I look forward to David Cunliffe also apologising on Waitangi Day for being a European, and apologising on World Poverty day for living in a leafy suburb and being rich …

Mr Key said he was not sorry for being a man, saying “It’s a pretty silly comment from David Cunliffe”.

“The problem isn’t being a man, the problem is if you’re an abusive man. I think it’s a bit insulting to imply that all men are abusive.

Indeed.

ABC News reports:

President Obama is considered to be the worst president since World War II, narrowly beating out George W. Bush, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Obama was the choice of 33 percent of those polled for the selection of worst president, the largest percentage of any of the 12 presidents since 1945 when the war ended.

The poll asked people to name both the best and worst presidents. The results are quite interesting.

Best Presidents

• Overall 35% Reagan, 18% Clinton, 15% JFK, 8% Obama, 55 Eisenhower
• Republicans – 66% Reagan, 6% George HW Bush, 6% JFK – Reagan is the undisputed Republican hero
• Democrats – 34% Clinton, 18% JFK, 18% Obama, 6% Reagan, 6% Johnson – no one stand out candidate but Clinton well ahead
• Independents – 36% Reagan, 17% JFK, 16% Clinton, 8% Eisenhower, 6% Truman, 4% George HW Bush, 2% Obama – Obama not rated by independents

Worst Presidents

• Overall 33% Obama, 28% George W Bush, 13% Nixon, 85 Carter
• Republicans – 63% Obama, 14% Carter, 5% Nixon, 5% George W Bush – Obama probably suffers a bit from being the incumbent. I’d rate Carter as far worse.
• Democrats – 54% George W Bush, 20% Nixon, 6% Reagan, 4% Obama
• Independents – 36% Obama, 23% Bush, 14% Nixon, 9% Carter

Stuff reports:

The Maori King’s son has succeeded in his bid to avoid drink-driving and theft convictions after his lawyer argued it was likely to bar his succession to the throne.

Korotangi Paki, 19, appeared in the Auckland District Court this afternoon charged with drink driving, two counts of burglary and one of theft.

Judge Philippa Cunningham discharged Paki without conviction on all charges but imposed a special condition that he provide the court evidence he did not have an alcohol problem or if he did, that he had addressed it with counselling. …

The burglaries and theft happened in March while he was on bail and the judge noted it had also occurred after a night of drinking.

So he was already on bail, and kept on offending.

The trio was ordered to each pay prosecution costs of $400 and were discharged without conviction.

Paki also applied for a discharge without conviction today.

His lawyer Paul Wicks QC told the court a conviction would impede his ability to accede to the throne.

Potential successors had to have an unblemished record because of the custodial responsibilities involved as King.

“The chiefs around the country are often heard to say [heirs to the throne] have to be ‘whiter than the dove’,” Wicks said.

Well he isn’t, regardless of the discharge.

I don’t care that he is the son of the Maori King. If he was the son of the English King, and got off on the same basis, I’d be equally disapproving.

3 News reports:

“Would slippery John like to confirm why the education budget is 2.3 percent lower today when he took office?” rebuts Mr Cunliffe.

I thought this couldn’t be right, so I checked.

In 2008 Vote Education was $10.78 billion.

In 2014 Vote Education was $10.12 billion.

So maybe David Cunliffe is right. Has National cut education spending?

Nope.

A bit of detective work determines that in 2008, Vote Education includes tertiary education. In 2014, it is a separate vote. Very tricky, eh.

So what is Vote Education in 2014, if you include tertiary education, as was done in 2008.

That adds on $3.04 billion to make it $13.16 billion. That is not 2.3% lower. That’s 22.1% higher!!

3 News reports:

It has been revealed top Hollywood studios asked for access to a controversial government-run internet filter – so they could stop Kiwis accessing pirate and torrent websites.

RadioLIVE reported the Motion Pictures Distributors Association wanted access to the Internal Affairs child pornography filter, so they could block access to copyrighted material.

But they were knocked back by the Government and Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne says that it is partly because internet service providers refused.

“They were not prepared to agree to that extension and in any case it would have shifted the mandate somewhat from DIA’s primary focus on preventing sexual abuse of young children.”

The child pornography filter is a voluntary one.

It is good to see the Government knocked the request back. If I want a filtered Internet, I’d live in China.

When the voluntary DIA filter was introduced, many of us were nervous that one day other groups would try to extend it beyond the narrow remit of child abuse images, and try to have it block all material that different groups want blocked. As it is voluntary, that can’t happen easily – ISPs would stop using it. But beware the day when a political party proposes making it mandatory.

The Herald editorial:

Most parents willingly pay the donation. Most school boards of trustees also go to great lengths to ensure that pupils are not discriminated against if their parents do not pay. They are also fully aware of the financial circumstances of the community from which they draw their pupils and, in the case of schools in poorer communities, gain an injection of equity from decile-based funding. A donation that represents just over $1 a week should be affordable to all but the most strapped household. On that basis, Labour’s policy may have rather less appeal than it hopes.

The fact that schools will still be allowed to charge activity fees “for the actual costs of extra-curricular activities such as school camps” adds to that likelihood. The danger is that many will accept the $100 per pupil, but then use other targeted fees to lift the payment from parents. Keeping track of this when it might involve a mountain of costs, such as van rentals for school teams or up-to-date technology, would be extremely difficult. If other fees become commonplace, little will have been gained for parents.

That is the worry – parents end up paying twice. They pay the $100 through their taxes, and still get stung for say $100 through activity fees and the like.

The Herald reports:

Slingshot has just made it a lot easier for its customers to access television and movie streaming websites like Netflix and BBC iPlayer that are normally blocked to this country’s internet users.

For the past 12 months Slingshot has offered a service called Global Mode, letting households with international visitors sign up and have access to websites such as Netflix which are blocked in some parts of the world.

The service was seen by some as a ruse, allowing New Zealanders to access these websites simply by telling their internet company they had a cousin from Minneapolis staying with them.

Slingshot, the country’s third-biggest internet company, is now unblocking about two dozen international sites for all of its customers to access. They won’t need to claim they are playing host to overseas visitors.

“No beating around the bush. This is to watch Netflix, this is to watch BBC iPlayer, this is to watch Hulu, this is to watch Amazon Prime,” Slingshot general manager Taryn Hamilton told the Herald.

Superb. The WWW is global. Geo-blocking is not compatible with it. Business models that rely on geo-blocking will fail. Think of the planet as one big hungry for content global market, and go sell to it.

The Dom Post editorial:

Something is seriously wrong at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Diplomats must speak with one voice when dealing with foreign states. In the case of the alleged Malaysian sex offender, they did not. The official line was that the Government wanted Malaysia to waive Muhammad Rizalman’s diplomatic immunity. But informally the diplomats were apparently telling Malaysia the man could go home.

This is either wilful disobedience or extreme incompetence. It is hard to believe that any diplomat would knowingly subvert the Government’s expressed wishes and policy. Sacking would be the only possible punishment. But the incompetence is just as serious, and on the face of it should also lead to dismissal.

I don’t think you make employment decisions on the basis of editorials, and also you decide on the basis of someone’s overall job performance, not just one stuff up. However I do agree this is very serious.

One astonishing revelation is that the ministry’s chief executive, John Allen, did not know the key details about the Malaysian fiasco until last Friday. He says this was the result of the ministry’s policy of “compartmentalisation” of information. This policy has clearly gone too far if it means that an extremely serious situation is kept from the ministry’s own boss. “Compartmentalisation” on that scale is madness.

I agree. MFAT has a secrecy culture that goes to extremes, and in this case is madness.

There remains a suspicion, after all, that the present shambles has its roots in the disastrous restructuring of the ministry under McCully’s watch. That “redisorganisation” led to a revolt of the ministry’s most senior staff and then to an apparently botched witchhunt ordered by State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie.

The whole project was misconceived and mismanaged, based as it was on the principle that the ministry could operate with far fewer experts. 

I argue quite the opposite. I think this shows why change was necessary. Some (not all) MFAT staff regard themselves as a law unto themselves. They think foreign policy is their exclusive preserve, and the wishes of the Government of the day has little to do with how they do their jobs. Yes Minister struck close to the truth here.

I suspect this is why John Allen wasn’t informed. He may be the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, but’s he not a life-ling diplomat – so he wasn’t told.

Stuff reports:

Labour is planning two major education announcements, expected to include a plan to provide iPads or laptops to school students, at its three-day congress starting in Wellington today.

In 2011 Labour said it would spend $75 million over four years to put laptops into the hands of 31,000 year 7 to year 13 students in low-decile schools, but it is expected to drop the plan to target the policy and make it universal at a much higher cost.

This sounds like it could be quite a good policy. I think we should be aiming for every student to have an Internet capable device they can learn on.

Labour is also tipped to announce plans to upgrade schools and reallocate the $359m that the Government earmarked in January for specialist teachers and principals.

But I don’t want it either or. Paying out best teachers more, to share their success is also vital.

It seems incredible that both Rolf Harris and Jimmy Saville both abused scores, if not hundreds, of young women and girls, and only decades later has it come to light.

It makes you wonder what were the circumstances that allowed them to get away with it for so long. Here’s my 2c on it:

1. The times. Nowadays if a celebrity perved on you, more and more girls would kick them in the nuts (as they should) and Facebook or tweet what happened. Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, it was far harder to tell people
2. Their charity work. They often preyed on girls while doing charity work. That probably played on their guilt, that they didn’t want to say anything in case it harmed the charity
3. Would they be believed? They didn’t realise hundreds of other girls had had the same thing happen to them. Why say anything, if you’ll not be believed.
4. The Police. The UK Police seemed to have a see no evil, hear no evil attitude in those days, when it comes to celebrities.
5. Institutional cover ups. The BBC, the hospitals and others had all heard the rumours. Some were open secrets. Rather than act on the rumours, they preferred to just hope they weren’t true. They were wrong.

Could this happen in NZ today? I hope not.

One can only feel for the scores of victims who had to spend decades thinking that this had happened to them only.

UPDATE: National MP Maggie Barry has revealed that Rolf Harris groped her when she was interviewing him, when she was in her 20s. Again, so many victims.

The Herald reports:

A former Labour Minister intervened three times in the immigration bid of Donghua Liu including waiving the English language requirement for the millionaire businessman.

Damien O’Connor, in his role as the associate Immigration Minister, wrote three letters to Liu’s advisor Warren Kyd – the former National Party MP – before deciding to grant residency against the advice of officials the day before the 2005 election.

This is highly unusual timing. Why would you make the decision the day before the election? Most Mnisters will only make the most urgent of decisions once the election campaign is on, and Parliament has risen.

Even more unusual is that Damien O’Connor was fighting for his political life is a marginal seat. To take time out from campaigning the day before the election, and instead doing non-urgent ministerial work is very odd.

The West Coast MP has said he cannot remember why he granted residency to the businessman whose links to both National and Labour have created political waves this year.

Surely he remembers a case so compelling that he felt he had to make the decision on what could have been his last day as the Minister.

Some pressure groups would have you believe NZ was near the bottom of the world when it comes to the environment and climate change. They seem to regard anything less than abolishing carbon from New Zealand as treason. But the planet and climate section of the Good Country Index has NZ as 7th best out of 125. That’s not something you’ll hear from the Greens.

The Government has announced to combat domestic violence. They include:

• Establishing a Chief Victims Advisor to the Minister of Justice to advise on the needs and views of victims of crime, including domestic violence victims.
• Testing an intensive case management service to provide specialist support for domestic violence victims at high risk of serious harm or death. 
• Establishing a nationwide home safety service to help victims who want to leave a violent relationship. The service will offer practical support such as safety planning, strengthening doors and windows and installing alarms.
• Reviewing the Domestic Violence Act 1995 to ensure it keeps victims safe and holds offenders to account.
• Exploring the possibility of a conviction disclosure scheme, which may allow a person to be told whether their partner has a history of violence.
• Trialling mobile safety alarms with GPS technology for victims, so they can notify Police of an emergency, and their location.
• Introduce legislation to change the Sentencing Act, which will allow courts to stipulate GPS monitoring of high-risk domestic violence offenders who can’t currently have this condition imposed upon them.

I think the last one especially could make a real difference. What I would do is allow the person who has a protection order to be alerted (and the Police also) if a convicted offender who has a protection order gets within x hundred metres of their house.

The Government will also explore whether prosecutors should be able to invite the judge or jury to draw an adverse inference when a defendant refuses to give evidence in sexual violence cases. Current law only allows the defendant, the defendant’s lawyer or the Judge to comment on a defendant’s failure to give evidence.

I’m not in favour of having a different standard of rights for some criminal cases.

To remind us of how real domestic violence can be, former National MP Jackie Blue writes of her experiences:

Dr Blue’s experience began 31 years ago, when she was 27. She had just graduated and was working as a locum in Auckland surgeries.

She had had to repeat two years of her medical degree, partly because she had taken up bridge and was busy playing in tournaments.

“I felt I was the dumbest doctor in New Zealand,” she said. “I had low self-esteem, and I was probably overweight too, and I didn’t think I was attractive.”

She met a small business owner, nine years older, who “totally charmed me”.

“He made me feel quite special, put me on a pedestal,” she said. “I had never really had a long-term boyfriend at that stage. He was my boyfriend and I could say that, and he was reasonably presentable and reasonably sociable to the outside world, so you know, it was a good match.”

He gave her jewellery and other gifts. He moved into her home and gave her a blue sapphire engagement ring.

But his business was struggling.

“If anything, I supported him,” Dr Blue said. “I paid the groceries and things like that. He didn’t pay any rent.”

He took bridge lessons, but he didn’t like it and he made her stop playing too.

That is probably the first warning sign. It is very common for abusers to try and control their partner’s lifes, and only have them do activities they are involved with. Their aim is to make them dependent on you. People should bail out at this early stage, if their partner is controlling like that.

“So I moved away from the bridge circle of friends that I had,” she said. “His friends became my friends.”

Another classic sign, sadly.

After a few months they visited Napier to stay with Dr Blue’s sister and her husband, a doctor. “They had one of those really big old homes,” Dr Blue said. “They had a lot of antique furniture, really nice stuff, so the place looked really opulent.

“We were in bed on one of those evenings and I was talking, and he just bashed me on the side of the head for no reason. He clearly felt really threatened by the surroundings.”

It’s very sad what happened to Jackie (and many others). I also feel a bit sad for the guy that he is so threatened by success, that he resorts to violence to cover up his own inadequacies.

He started putting her down with comments like: “You’re fat and ugly and you’ll never have children.” 

This is also a very sad and common warning sign. Their aim is to make you feel you’ll never get anyone else, and so will tolerate them bashing you.

The breaking point was a barbecue where people asked Dr Blue about her job. “They were just asking about the work I did and they were quite interested, interested in me,” she said.

“On the way home we were driving into the carport, he picked a fight, I was driving, and he just bashed me on the side of my face quite a few times.

“I walked in and told him to clear out, bugger off. I phoned the police.”

He left. Police came promptly, but she decided not to lay charges. “I just wanted the whole thing finished.”

He tried to revive it, ringing her and sending flowers to the Herne Bay surgery where she had become a partner. But he got nowhere and eventually moved to Australia.

Just weeks after the relationship ended, Dr Blue met the man who is now her husband. 

A happy ending for Jackie, but many others end in death.

A Stuart Munro commenting at Pundit has a solution for Labour’s woes:

Labour’s problems are readily solved – you black-bag Armstrong and Gower and beat the everliving crap out them. You beat them so badly that doubt is expressed that they will ever walk again, and so that they tremble whenever they see a political discussion.

It might seem excessive – but the alternative is allowing Key to use the GCSB and a thoroughly corrupt and compliant media to circumvent the normal operations of democracy. I’m somewhat attached to democracy and do not take kindly to its organised subversion.

And is this a one off desire for violence by Mr Munro. No he advocated killing the Prime Minister in May.

And in 2011 he said on Scoop:

We should not protect our politicians. Let them get what they have earned. The massive redundancy in the profession ensures their positions will be filled almost instantly. Look at Rodney – a replacement was found even before anyone got around to shooting him.

So who is Stuart Munro:

A former fisherman then civil servant (with MAF)

This guy was a so called neutral public servant!!!

He talks very tough online about beating up journalists and killing MPs. I suspect in real life he is scared of his own shadow.

Stuff reports:

The Government’s flagship youth welfare programme is making significant inroads toward lifting educational achievement, a new report has found.

The best results were achieved when teens on the Ministry of Social Development’s youth services programme achieved NCEA level two in their first 12 months.

The numbers were not so good when the 16 and 17-year-olds were trying to achieve that level after being enrolled for longer than a year.

The programme involves providers working directly with about 3000 young people who are on benefits, or unemployed and not receiving any education or training.

Among its goals is for youth to “not be on a benefit or receive a custodial sentence” for three months after the end of their school year or training course.

The young people involved must participate in education, training or work-based learning and budgeting, and are given little control their benefit.

The ministry will release its first evaluation of the programme today. An early copy shows two-thirds of the teens had made marked strides in education, leaving school with at least a NCEA level two qualification.

I don’t think you can over-estimate the importance of the improvements being made here. This is the stuff that will make a huge difference in 15 to 20 years time.

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister John Key holds a clear advantage over his rivals on social media heading into September’s general election.

Key has almost three times the followers on his Facebook page and Twitter account than all other party leaders combined. 

His official Twitter feed has 110,000 followers; almost 10 times as many as the next most followed party leader on Twitter – Russel Norman of the Greens with 11,500. 

Labour leader David Cunliffe commands a Twitter audience of 9926. 

How does this compare to other countries? How many Twitter followers per 1,000 populations do the PMs and Opposition Leaders all have. Here’s their followers per 1,000 population:

1. John Key (NZ) 25.0
2. Steven Harper (Canada) 13.8
3. Justin Trudeau (Canada) 11.2
4. Tony Abbott (Aus) 13.0
5. David Cameron (UK) 11.1
6. Eed Miliband (UK) 5.1
7. Bill Shorten (Aus) 2.8
8. David Cunliffe (NZ) 2.2

So the NZ PM has twice as many Twitter follows per capita as the Canadian, Australian and UK PMs. And David Cunliffe has fewer followers than any of the other opposition leaders.

On Facebook, Key’s official page has 149,873 likes, while the official pages of all the other party leaders combined have 45,038 followers/likes. 

Interesting the leader with the 2nd most “likes” on Facebook is Winston Peters.

Privacy Commissioner John Edwards blogs:

The biggest thing in the privacy world just now seems to have exploded into the collective consciousness out of nowhere. For those of you with TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) syndrome, here’s the spoiler. The issue is not as clear cut as you might think. I’d like to hear a range of views about how we should approach this in New Zealand.

Since May 13, when the European Court of Justice ruled that Google in Spain should break links to an old newspaper story about the plaintiff, there has been much criticism, astonishment, suspicion, relief and applause, depending on which side of the fence (or the Atlantic) the commentator comes from.

I’m one of those fairly unimpressed with it.

Could someone in New Zealand assert a right to have links removed from a Google search on their name? Our law differs in some key respects from European law. For example, we don’t have the concept of “data controller” or “data processor”, and there are a number of other differences.

The first hurdle would be territoriality. Google could be expected to argue that their search engine and the algorithms that compile and order results are not within New Zealand’s jurisdiction. The ECJ decision might offer some assistance to a litigant on that point, as might this June 13 decision of the Canadian Supreme Court which is a more influential source of jurisprudence to our courts.

Google has a .co.nz domain name registered in New Zealand. If you search for a mechanic or painter in your town, the ads that lead the search results will tell you pretty clearly that Google has a place of business here, and those points might provide the beginnings of an argument that Google should be subject to a range of domestic laws – from the Fair Trading Act, to the Copyright Act, to the upcoming Harmful Digital Communications Act. Should privacy be any different?

Google could of course close down its local office, and run its NZ operations from say Australia.

A number of other arguments would then ensue as to the liability (if any) that Google should have for content hosted on sites to which it is only providing a link to. What is the extent of Google’s obligation under the multi-qualified information privacy principle 8 in our Privacy Act?

An agency that holds personal information shall not use that information without taking such steps (if any) as are, in the circumstances, reasonable to ensure that, having regard to the purpose for which the information is proposed to be used, the information is accurate, up to date, complete, relevant, and not misleading.

What is the onus if a New Zealand person asserts a right of correction (a term which is defined as including deletion) under information privacy principle 7?

My views is that people who want data about them on the Internet corrected, should go to the actual publisher of the data, and not hold the search engine liable for the data published by someone else.

Does the “purpose” element of the non-retention principle (principle 9) absolve search engines of the obligation to proactively purge old content? Should I issue a code of practice which spells out the respective rights of search engines and individuals?

I’m going to leave these questions until I am presented with an actual case to apply them to. There are many other authorities around the world grappling with the same difficulties.

I want my search engines to locate all content that is on the Internet, that the published has been asked to be indexed.

It may be that a case will come before me to determine before the issue comes to the Court or to Parliament. Someone might argue that Google should break a link to personal information that has been published online from a data breach, or that it is in breach of a Court suppression order. If I do have to determine such a case, in addition to weighing the various rights of privacy against the rights in the NZBORA, I will need to take into account the matters specified in s.14 of the Privacy Act. That means that, among other things, I have to have due regard to “the protection of important human rights and social interests that compete with privacy, including the general desirability of a free flow of information and the recognition of the right of government and business to achieve their objectives in an efficient way”.

Where do you think the balance should lie?

This is an issue that won’t go away.

NewstalkZB reports:

The Electoral Commission is saying nothing about apparent police inaction on breaches of the electoral law.

 Information provided by the Commission reveals that since the beginning of 2011 there have been 113 breaches of the Electoral Act that it’s referred to police for investigation.

Not one has resulted in a prosecution.

The Electoral Commission has declined to be interviewed about the matter.

The agency says what happens once it makes referrals, is a matter for police.

I’ve been going on about this since 2006. The Police failed to prosecute in 2005, 2008 and 2011. Three strikes and you’re out. Their non enforcement of electoral law, seriously undermines our electoral system. It’s time for another agency to be given the job.

The Herald reports:

Labour’s plan to help struggling parents by tackling school donations is a political ploy but at least it recognises the nonsense that donations are voluntary, says the principal of a decile one school.

Under Labour’s plan announced yesterday, state and integrated schools that agreed not to seek voluntary donations from parents would receive additional funding of $100 a student a year. The plan has an estimated cost of $50 million a year.

Labour education spokesman Chris Hipkins said it was expected to end requests for voluntary donations to the parents of about 500,000 school-age children. Most lower decile schools were expected to take up the offer. The Government says Labour is underestimating the cost of the policy and schools will pocket the cash but extract the same amount of money by bolstering so-called “activity fees”.

It’s not a bad policy – provide an incentive to schools to not charge so called voluntary donations. There is a risk that some schools will game the system though, but if it ever got implemented it would be interesting to see how many schools took it up.

NZ likes to say we have an independent foreign policy. The last few days have made it look like MFAT foreign policy is so independent, it is even independent of the NZ Government!

It’s almost like an episode of Yes Minister. The official letter says we want him extradited, but then some diplomats say “Don’t worry about the letter, it is just pro forma”.

Fortunately for the victim of the attack, the diplomat who was changed is now being returned to New Zealand to face charges. Kudos to the Malaysian Government for this decision.

Allen himself was told nothing about the incident until last Friday, which he said was created by Mfat’s strategy of ‘‘compartmentalising’’ information to limit its spread. He said he should have been told and that Mfat’s communications policy would form part of an independent review.

This is why MFAT needs a shake up. Some sections think they are a law amongst themselves. You don’t compartmentalise information away from the Chief Executive.

Business Insider reports:

The Good Country Index ranks 125 nations based on how much they do for others globally in seven areas: science and technology, culture, international peace and security, world order, planet and climate, prosperity and equality, and health and well being.

The ranking was created with the merging of 35 data sets produced by organisations like the UN, WHO, and UNESCO over a period of nearly 3-years.

“What I mean by a ‘good country’ is a country that contributes to the greater good,” Simon Anholt, an independent policy advisor who made the index, told Business Insider. “We’ve given each country a balance-sheet to show at a glance whether it’s a net creditor to mankind, a burden on the planet, or something in between.”

The top 10 are:

1. Ireland
2. Finland
3. Switzerland
4. Netherlands
5. New Zealand
6. Sweden
7. UK
8. Norway
9. Denmark
10. Belgium

5th isn’t at all bad.

Have to give full marks to Lou Vincent for his statement:

My name is Lou Vincent and I am a cheat.

I have abused my position as a professional sportsman on a number of occasions by choosing to accept money through fixing.

I have lived with this dark secret for many years, but just months ago I reached the point where I decided I had to come forward and tell the truth.

It’s a truth that has rightly caused uproar and controversy in New Zealand and around the world.

I have shamed my country. I have shamed my sport. I have shamed those close to me. For that I am not proud.

I lost faith in myself and the game. I abused the game I love. I had to put things right.
Speaking out. Exposing the truth. Laying bare the things I have done wrong is the only way I can find to begin to put things right.

The time has come for me to now face them like a man and accept the consequences, whatever they may be. …

Today is the day I offer my deepest apologies to the public and the cricketing world, to the loyal fans, to the dedicated coaches, staff and all players past and present. …

It is entirely my fault that I will never be able to stand in front of a game again. It is entirely my fault that I will not be able to apply my skills in a positive way to help future cricketers.

But it is entirely possible that I can use this moment to convince others not to be tempted by wrongdoing. To do the right thing for themselves, for their families and friends, and for the sport they love.

I accept my punishment and I thank you for [reading] my statement.

He has been banned for life. Hopefully that sends out a signal.

Will others own up to their part?