Andrew Geddis writes at Pundit:

Does the right to free speech extend to shouting at a woman to take off her burqa in a supermarket? If not, why not?

A good question.

For example, the Supreme Court, in a couple of cases calledBrooker v Police and Morse v Police (I’ve posted on them in passinghere and here), has indicated that the offences of “disorderly” and “offensive” behaviour now need to be applied in ways that are properly respectful of the rights of individuals to express their (often unpopular or inconvenient) views on social and political matters. Such expression should only be criminalised where it poses some threat to public order that exceeds the bounds of what a properly tolerant citizen who is mindful of the rights of others should have to bear.

The threshold for speech to be criminal should be very high indeed.

Now, here’s the question for us (where “us” are nice liberal folks who share in the positive values of tolerance and respect for others). Why should Ms Rappard’s particular expression of views that we find quite distasteful attract a criminal conviction and fine?

Well, it can’t be the views themselves, can it? Because if it is, can we distinguish Ms Rappard’s actions from (say) a Maori kaumatua who tells a visiting tourist to take off a t-shirt that he believes has an image that misappropriates or demeans part of tikanga Maori?

Well, maybe we could do so, on the basis that the burqa has a particular religious importance and meaning for the student above and beyond that which a tourist would feel for a mere t-shirt. However, isn’t it precisely that religious importance and significance that so upsets Ms Rappard? So the symbolic value of the burqa works both ways here – it both increases the impact of the expression on the student, but also increases the “value” of the expression to Ms Rappard. How can we privilege the right of the student to wear what she wants for religious reasons over Ms Rappard’s right to express her views on that student’s public attestation of her faith?

I agree saying take off your burqa should not in itself be something you can not say.

So if it isn’t the views in and of themselves that warrant criminal sanction, maybe it’s the way that they were expressed. No matter how strongly you feel on an issue, approaching a stranger while they are going about their daily business and personally insulting them (“dirty Muslim”) by shouting into their face just ought not to be allowed.

Let’s say that’s the problem here – by targetting the student and personally “attacking” her, Ms Rappard crossed over the line into deliberately victimising her in a bullying manner. (Looked at in this way, the current case has a lot of similarities to this other tricky line-drawing exercise from earlier in the year.)

OK – but this standard then has implications for (say) protestors at the next National Party conference. Surely anyone so incensed at National’s performance in government who walks up to a delegate and shouts at her or him “Tory scum! You should be ashamed of what you are doing to New Zealand!” has acted in an “offensive” a way as Ms Rappard did. Or, again, can we privilege certain kinds of shouted insults (into the faces of ordinary political party members seeking to attend their organisation’s meeting) over and above others (into the faces of students while they are doing their weekly shopping)?

I think you can distinguish the two. Having protesters shout abuse at you as you attend a party conference is par for the course – you are there to take part in a political conference that of course attracts diverse opinions.

However if I was wearing (for example) a National Party t-shirt at my local supermarket and someone came up to me and started abusing me and yelling in my face, I’d be very unimpressed. However I’d tell them to go copulate themselves rather than call the Police!

That’s bad, and I am sorry the student felt that way. But here’s the crux of the matter – whose fault is it that Ms Rappard’s expression had this impact? Is it Ms Rappard’s, because she has so contravened generally accepted values of civility that the hurt caused was both entirely predictable and beyond that which should be permitted? Or is it the student’s, because she is failing to display the sort of resiliance and tough-mindedness needed to live in a society with multiple, conflicting views on how the world should be? 

In other words, who should be expected to be “tolerant” here? Ms Rappard, by refraining from expressing vehemently her views on the student’s religious choices? Or the student, by just sucking up Ms Rappard’s boorish behaviour and carrying on with her life?

A good point.

So here’s the question we (where “we” are nice liberal folks who share in the positive values of tolerance and respect for others) face. Can we find some way to draw a line that allows us to get all the good things we want out of a commitment to free speech, while still saying that Ms Rappard’s particular behaviour ought to attract the sanction of the criminal law? Or, are we forced by our commitment to tolerance and respect for others to agree with Ms Rappard’s assessment of the Court’s verdict?

The guilty finding was an example of political correctness ”gone mad”, she said.

”Telling a woman to take a burqa off is in my mind not offensive,” she said.

I think Ms Rappard is a pretty despicable human being to start shouting abuse at someone just because she disapproves of her head scarf. She should be ashamed of herself. However I don’t think it should be a matter for the Police unless the behaviour crosses the line into threatening.

What would have been better would be if other people at the scene rounded on Ms Rappard and told her how awful her behaviour was.

This is updated to take account of the Roy Morgan polls, One News Colmar Brunton poll and Fairfax Ipsos poll. So basically 61 seats for the centre-right, 60 seats for centre-left and Maori Party would hold balance of power.

There is a very interesting Employment Relations Authority determination just published between AUSA and its former general manager.

The determination itself is basically about how AUSA almost went bankrupt, and the General Manager didn’t keep the Executive well enough informed. They were deemed justified in sacking him for this. They will be pleased their actions were justified by the ruling. In fact they seem to have followed better process than many other employers.

But what really struck me from the determination was this extract:

The Office of the Vice Chancellor (OVC) informed that in order to assist AUSA to be “a progressive and sustainable student organisation that delivers high quality services to students”, it was prepared to amend the 2012 Services Agreement to include funding of the NZUSA and SJS levies.

That is beyond outrageous. NZUSA is a political lobby group that gets involves with highly contentious non-core student issues such as asset sales. To have Auckland University agree to fund NZUSA is nuts. I can only presume that Auckland University has so much money it can spend some on funding lobby groups. well the Government should remember that the next time the university claims it needs more taxpayer funding.

Even worse, the Parliament of New Zealand passed a law mandating that membership of student associations must be voluntary. Having the university fund AUSA for its membership of NZUSA is a clear subversion of the law.

As I said, the easy thing for the Government to do is use this as an example every time the tertiary sector claims it has not enough money. What next – will Auckland University also start funding Greypower on behalf of its mature students?

This audio is hilarious as a truck driver is called about using his engine brakes in town too much. Listen to the end for a twist. The audio is now after the break as it may have been interfering with other links.

Continue reading »

The left oppose the ideas of PPPs, and specifically a PPP model for prisons. They would have you think that private prisons will be profit motivated penal institutions that don’t invest in rehabilitation etc.

The reality is that the last private prison we had (Labour tore up the contract) did much better than the state prisons, and the Herald looks at the new Wiri prison:

Inmates moving through the country’s new $300 million prison will be able to track their path to freedom.

As they get closer to the main gatehouse, they are nearing their release date.

The jail, which covers 17ha at Wiri in the southwest of Auckland, is laid out according to the prisoner’s journey.

Factors deciding where they are on the site include the seriousness of offending, length of sentence, level of risk and behaviour within the walls.

“The design mirrors your own personal journey,” says John Holyoake, transition director from private British-owned corrections operator Serco New Zealand.

“So the highest level of security is farthermost from the exit. The concept of punishment has been removed. Instead, this is about rehabilitation and reintegration.”

Isn’t this what the left should be supporting?

Inmates will have computers in their cells, with streams of viewing available: free-to-air television channels and educational information, designed to enhance their vocations or careers once they are out, Holyoake says.

Not exactly hard labour or D block is it.

Those involved in Wiri says it breaks the mould in terms of new prisons because it is a public-private partnership (PPP) between the Department of Corrections and SecureFuture comprising builder Fletcher Construction, maintenance specialist Spotless and operator Serco New Zealand with a 25-year contract. Buildings are designed by architects Mode Design of Australia and Peddle Thorp, working with Beca and SKM.

Excellent.

Double-bunk and single-bunk rooms in the three more secure house blocks at the men’s prison are 8.6sq m in size.

“This will be the world’s best new prison,” says Holyoake.

Near the gatehouse, things are quite different at the cluster of low-security residences.

“Up to 24 prisoners will live in each of the residences, two levels high, almost like a motel unit. They will have their own bedrooms and a budget to buy their food and some people will be learning social skills they never had. Some of the people in here will be working on the outside too,” Holyoake said.

I’m all for rehabilitation, when it works. Some prisoners can not be rehabilitated, but those who can be are worth investing in.

Audrey Young at NZ Herald reports:

The Labour Party conference in Christchurch this weekend looks set to approve a remit that will require its list to “fairly represent” gays and lesbians among candidates.

Does Labour think gays and lesbians are under-represented in its caucus?

Four out of 34 Labour MPs are gay or lesbian, which is around 12%. An exact population prevalence is unknown but most studies seems to conclude around 3% to 5% of the population are gay or lesbian. Hence there is no way you can conclude that Labour is under-represented or that gays or lesbians are not fairly represented at present.

At present, the constitution says there shall be no barriers to nominees on the grounds of sexual orientation or marital status. But a remit proposed by the party’s ruling New Zealand Council would require the list-ranking committee to pro-actively ensure that its list fairly represents “sexual orientations”, as well as tangata whenua, gender, ethnic groups, people with disabilities, age and youth.

A general obligation for list ranking to try and ensure a caucus has diversity is a good thing, but when you start listing out every possible demographic it can start to get ridiculous. Why no mention of gingas – the most discriminated minority in New Zealand?

The New Zealand Council is also proposing a Maori-only list ranking committee to rank its Maori candidates for the next election.

Of course. And will the non-Maori candidates be ranked by a non-Maori only list ranking committee?

I would again point out that Labour has seven Maori MPs (well after the by-election they will) out of a caucus of 34. That means over 20% of their caucus are Maori – which is significantly higher than the proportion of Maori in the adult population.

This is not a bad thing – far from it. But it does mean that arguing you need measures to have more Maori candidates ranked highly is misplaced.

Under another remit, Labour’s list-ranking committee decisions will also have to aim for a caucus of at least 45 per cent of women next year and at least 50 per cent in 2017. 

I’ve blogged here how this policy would have in the past seen Labour rank Michael Cullen, Jonathan Hunt, David Parker, Shane Jones and Andrew Little in unwinnable slots.

Quotas are very inflexible. This policy, if adopted, means that new candidates who are male will basically have no chance of getting a winnable list spot.

The Press editorial:

But the poll has brought home the harsh reality that it was always going to take more than just the replacement of the maladroit, tongue-tied Shearer with the clever, experienced, articulate Cunliffe to improve Labour’s fortunes. And for all his touted virtues and supposed preparedness for the role, Cunliffe, in his first few weeks in the leadership, has been less than assured.

He has not got the better of Key in the House. A publicity stunt designed to highlight difficulties young people have buying an affordable house in Auckland backfired when the chosen example was a 23-year-old complaining about not being able to afford a pricey house in one of the more salubrious suburbs that he was not sure he was going to live in anyway.

Yeah I loved how Labour campaigned for the right of 23 year old property investors to buy a half million dollar home with a less than 10% deposit.

In a speech to trade unionists, Cunliffe was heard breathing fire as he told them what they wanted to hear on industrial policy, which he shortly afterwards cooled down considerably for more general consumption. Skirmishing with the Government over the SkyCity convention centre deal, he has been studiously evasive over what Labour would do.

Say one thing to one audience, and another elsewhere and hope no one notices.

None of this may be particularly significant but it points up a shallow opportunism and an unsettling lack of substance in what Cunliffe has so far offered.

National’s continuing high ratings in the opinion polls are almost certainly attributable to satisfaction with the Government’s handling of the economy, the core issue in any general election. On that score, the Government has done well, with growth, inflation, unemployment and the country’s finances looking good, certainly by international standards, and likely to remain so. Cunliffe has not yet presented any reason for voters to believe a Labour-led government would do any better.

As far as I can tell Labour’s economic policies are for more tax, more spending, more debt and more inflation.

Stuff reports:

Nicole Sutton knew her life was ebbing away as she huddled next to her dead companion in horrendous conditions near the summit of Mt Taranaki.

As a blizzard raged around their snow cave for a second night on Sunday, Ms Sutton texted police to tell them she didn’t expect to survive till morning.

Miraculously, rescuers reached her alive early yesterday morning, but she died in their arms.

Her partner and climbing companion, Japanese man Hiroki Ogawa, 31, had died during the night as the atrocious conditions thwarted rescue attempts.

Miss Sutton, 29, from Auckland, was texting police and rescue teams during the ordeal giving them directions.

 Like many New Zealanders I followed this story for two days, hoping they would be rescued in time, but two nights in a blizzard is just too much for almost anyone.

A sad reminder of how dangerous even New Zealand mountains can be. As far as I can tell, this was not a case of under-prepared – it was simply a case of the conditions turning so treacherous. The fact rescuers took so long to be able to reach them gives you an idea of how bad it must have been.

The parents of Nicole Sutton have said the couple died doing what they loved, and that is some consolation for losing loved ones so early on. Almost identical words were used at the funeral of one of my school friends who died when he was around 21 – also on Mt Taranaki. In Tommy’s case, he slipped down the mountain – so at least it was a near instant death.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand is among the top 10 best places to be a woman, according to a worldwide report on gender equality.

It ranked seventh out of 136 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2013, with narrow gaps between the sexes in the health, education, economic and political sectors.

New Zealand was at number one – equal with several European countries – for educational attainment, which included literacy rates and enrolment in primary, secondary and tertiary education.

In terms of educational achievement, women are not just at a par with men, but streaks ahead.

It would be interesting to see a large table of countries for men also. I don’t mean to suggest that in most areas men do not have advantages – they do. But in some areas such as education, health, life expectancy men constantly do worse and it would be interesting to see what the gaps are in different countries.

Talia Shadwell at Stuff reports:

A bright light of the Wellington arts and theatre scene has been extinguished with the death of lyricist, writer and choreographer Paul Jenden, friends and collaborators say.

Jenden, perhaps best known for his hit Hairy Maclary Show and annual Circa Theatre pantomimes with Roger Hall, died in Wellington Hospital on Saturday evening after a long battle with leukaemia.

I’ve loved Jenden’s work, and would always get excited if I saw he had been involved in a production.

Close friend and collaborator Gareth Farr said Jenden was a tireless worker with a broad creative reach.

Although he was known for his wicked sense of humour and effervescent productions, he was a private man.

“He was just the most genius lyricist and writer,” composer Farr said. “I cannot think of anything I have enjoyed more in my life than working with him.”

Jenden introduced Farr to musicals and, over the past decade, the pair had collaborated on Troy The Musical and The Nero Show. Their working relationship culminated in one final offering this year: C – A Musical, which dealt with Jenden’s personal five-year experience of cancer, and starred his partner Louis Solino.

I saw that play – it managed to both be very sad and funny.

I’ve blogged the latest Fairfax/Ipsos poll at Curiablog.

National are up 1.9% to 50.2% and could govern alone on that poll. Not a bad Labour Day present for the country.

Stuff reports:

A credit union offering “Loans For Ladies” and encouraging women to go on shopping sprees and have makeovers has sparked fury on social media from the company’s target demographic.

Customer-owned credit union NZCU Baywide launched a website called Loans For Ladies just over a month ago, encouraging women to borrow any amount from $1000 to $50,000 for “an all-day makeover, a shopping spree, or that second car you’ve always dreamt of – anything goes honey!”.

Sprinkled among the retro-style imagery and garish colour scheme are inspirational messages such as: “Cinderella is proof a pair of shoes can change your life.”

Oh dear. I think a marketing executive needs a new job!

The Herald on Sunday has an exclusive interview with Luigi Wewege, prior to his departure from New Zealand. Extracts:

Wewege says he had no idea of the intimate sexual detail Bevan Chuang supplied in an affidavit released last week. Wewege will criticise his friend and former boss John Palino but the line of answers he supplies stay mostly as straight as the crease on his trousers.

“All I ever knew was that the mayor made propositions towards her. I never knew the extent. I never knew there were any sexual relations between the two of them.”

Wewege says he ran into Chuang at a mayoral interview for John Palino at a TV station a few months ago. He hadn’t seen Chuang for a while, he says, and she told him she had been propositioned by Len Brown. He says these claims – that Brown hit on Chuang in the Ngati Whatua room and had been exchanging texts with her – were enough to spark his concerns.

And:

What I will categorically say is that John Palino simply did not know the revelations of what was in the affidavit. I certainly don’t think he knew that there was any form of sexual relations between Bevan and [Len].”

The overall interview isn’t too bad for Wewege, but other stories are not so good.

Kathryn Powley writes in the HoS:

Bevan Chuang claims Luigi Wewege knew of the relationship between her and Len Brown in July, three months before the election.

Text messaging between Chuang and Wewege in July and August refer to the relationship. Texting on July 31, in which Chuang discusses why she does not want to be involved in a plan to reveal her relationship with Brown, concludes, “and it won’t help my future by saying I’m involved in an extra-marital relationship?”

Which is in contrast to his statements.

The HoS editorial:

With any luck, New Zealand has seen the last of Luigi Wewege and his style of politics. He told the Herald on Sunday in an interview when we tracked him down this week, that he is leaving the country and has friends in Washington DC who are “appalled” that he is suffering opprobrium for dishing dirt on Auckland Mayor Len Brown.

And the Sunday Star-Times reports:

Naked photos of the woman who had a two-year affair with Auckland Mayor Len Brown were used to force her to go public with her story.

The pictures were sent by a member of rival John Palino’s campaign team in the run-up to the grubbiest local body elections in living memory.

Bevan Chuang alleges nude photos of her were released by Luigi Wewege, who was part of the team campaigning for John Palino to become mayor of Auckland.

The journalist who broke the story of the affair, Stephen Cook, said an email arrived from Wewege, Chuang’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, a week before the story ran.

It contained three naked images of Chuang, with messages such as “love you” and “miss you” scrawled on her body in lipstick. Chuang had taken photos of herself on her phone and sent them to Wewege.

The images arrived at a point when Chuang and Wewege had fallen out because she was resisting his pleas to go public with the story.

The email did not contain a message, but Cook said Wewege was aware of his plans to set up an X-rated website.

“He’s the ultimate love rat, you’d have to say. He’s trying to humiliate her,” Cook said, adding he had no plans to use the images and considered them a gross breach of Chuang’s privacy.

His actions speak volumes. May future women be fore-warned.

This is the story that just keeps developing. While the current focus is on Wewege, Team Brown won’t want the story to remain on the front pages. He’s still cancelling functions, his office is in turmoil, and the inquiry from the CEO has yet to get underway, let alone report.

Andrea Vance wrote in 2012:

Alastair Campbell, Britain’s ruthless bad-boy of spin-doctoring, has a set formula for surviving a political scandal.

If your minister’s woes make the papers for 11 days straight they have to go.

John Banks rode it out. Shane Jones made a half-hearted effort, but lasted barely a week.

Has been around two weeks now, and still some way to go I say. The challenges for Len Brown are:

• What will the inquiry reveal and conclude?
• Has he said anything during this scandal that is false, that will be contradicted at a later stage?
• How to get back to being the Mayor, able to turn up to public functions without risking members of the public yelling abuse
• Sorting out his office
• Hoping that the identity of the mystery texter is not revealed to be someone close to him or his office

The Herald reports:

So, will it end with a whimper or a bang? Paul Ehrlich, the American scientist who first scared the pants off the world with his alarmist 1968 book,The Population Bomb, is ringing the bell again about the fate of the planet. Back in New Zealand for a lecture tour with the doomsday label “Avoiding Global Collapse”, Ehrlich argues the show could become messy – and sooner than most of us would wish.

Earth, he says, has too many people consuming too many things and imposing far too much stress on land and water that only unprecedented cultural change provides any hope of averting catastrophe.

“I think the odds of avoiding collapse are about 10 per cent,” Ehrlich said. “But I’m prepared to work hard to make it 11 per cent, because I’ve got great-grandchildren.”

Ehrlich has been wrong so often and so dramatically it is not funny:

Ehrlich says he’s had a hammering from critics over the years since The Population Bomb appeared. The book opened with the bald statement: “The battle to feed all humanity is over” and went on to predict hundreds of millions of deaths from starvation in the 1970s. Today, he says, of the planet’s seven billion people, around a billion are hungry or malnourished.

Over four decades, somewhere in the order of 200 million to 400 million people have died from starvation or disease. He wasn’t, he says, wrong about that.

But he did come famously unstuck with a bet he took with Julian Simon, a freemarket economist who argued that Earth could cope with more rather then fewer people. In 1980 they bet on the future price of a basket of metals. If the cost rose over a decade, reflecting scarcity in a crowded planet, Ehrlich would win. If it fell – indicating great strides in triumph of human ingenuity – Simon would come up trumps.

“Simon was running round saying the ecologist won’t bet. Well, finally we thought we may lose the bet but what the hell, we’ll shut him up for 10 years.”

Ehrlich lost the bet and, he concedes, some credibility. He maintains that the commodities market was in a slump at decade’s end, which tilted the odds towards Simon. “Another two years and we’d have won.”

He can never admit he is wrong. Predictions and proposed policies include:

• On the first Earth Day in 1970, he warned that “in ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish”
• In a 1971 speech, he predicted that: “By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people
• If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000
• “India couldn’t possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980
• “When you reach a point where you realize further efforts will be futile, you may as well look after yourself and your friends and enjoy what little time you have left. That point for me is 1972”
• The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate
• We must rapidly bring the world population under control, reducing the growth rate to zero or making it negative. Conscious regulation of human numbers must be achieved
• Ehrlich has floated the idea of adding “temporary sterilants” to the water supply or staple foods
• Has expressed support for government mandated sterilization of Indian males with three or more children

I think his record needs little comment beyond “fucking nuts”.

Stuff reports:

Auckland City Councillor Penny Webster has issued a public apology to National MP Mark Mitchell for embroiling him in the Len Brown scandal.

In a statement, Webster said she regretted comments by Mitchell about “skeletons” in Mayor Len Brown’s closet had been used “for political cheap shots” and character assassination.

It was revealed last week Brown’s camp were alerted to a sex scandal by comments made by Mitchell to Webster.

“I have decided to make a public statement to set the record straight when I saw him having to defend attacks on his integrity and character by Labour MPs in the Parliamentary debating chamber last night,” Webster said.

“The comment Mark made to me should never have been used for political cheap shots or a character assassination.

”It was not made at a cocktail party or as part of idle gossip. I was in a business meeting with Mark over electoral and council matters when our conversation turned to local government elections and the mayoral campaign. Mark made a passing comment, something like ‘scuttlebutt floating around for a while about the mayor having a skeleton in his closet. If there is a skeleton I hope that his wife and children know because families are always the victims in these sort of things’.”

Webster said she laughed, and said she was sure it wasn’t correct and Mitchell agreed with her.

“It was a generic conversation between him and I, and I deeply regret using his name in a later conversation with the mayor’s chief of staff.”

And Len Brown’s ratepayer funded spin doctors have been using it to try and divert media attention from the Mayor’s actions.

The Mayor still seems to think there is nothing wrong with providing a reference to a woman you are trying to bed, to help her get a job with a Council Controlled Organisation.

Talking of Len’s ratepayer funded spin doctors, Michelle Hewitson interviews David Lewis:

You did have to ask if there were going to be any further, um, troubles. So, are there any more girls? “No. Not that I’m aware of.” Has he asked? “Yes, I have.” And he said no? “Yes.” And he believes him? “Yes.” Well, he has to, doesn’t he? “Yeah.”

So that is an on the record denial via Lewis.

Stuff reports:

A 9-year-old’s comment about how “cool” it was to be on a benefit has changed a Huntly woman’s life.

Until six months ago, Judy Wilson was one of about 80,000 sole parents in New Zealand receiving a benefit.

She was devoted to raising her six children but, in her own words, she was also drinking, smoking, and not doing “anything”.

And she had been for close to 20 years.

“It was my nine-year-old that said, ‘It’s cool being on the benefit because you’ve been on it for so long, eh, mum. I’m going to go on the benefit too’.”

Wilson, 43, said she was “shocked” to think her circumstances would have such influence on her daughter, and the comments jolted her into action.

She started a six-week course at WINZ in order to pick up new skills and followed it up with another, more specific course, in caregiver training for about eight weeks.

Since July, she’s been working at Kimihia Home and Hospital in Huntly.

That’s a good outcome. I think we can not under-estimate the impact family has on a child’s expectations. If a child grows up in a household where no adult has ever worked, then they could well decide that work is an option, not a necessity.

The NZ Herald reports:

Crown Law will take over the prosecution of John Banks on a charge of knowingly filing a false election return.

Private prosecutor Graham McCready received a letter today from Solicitor General Michael Heron confirming he would intervene in the case.

This is bad news for John Banks, but good for an independent judicial system. The prosecution of a (former) Government Minister is obviously not something overly helpful to the Government, and it would have been easy for Solictor General to leave it as a private prosecution. But good to see that they will act independently when they think it is the right thing to do.

Banks has a judicial review of the District Court decision to send it to trial, so that has to be dealt with first.

Stuff reports:

The Australian Supreme Court is joining Facebook and launching a website with live videos and retired judges’ blogs in a bid to preserve the concepts of open justice and a fair trial in the digital age.

Chief Justice Marilyn Warren said on Monday that the concept that justice must be done and seen to be done was a “fundamental tenet of Australian democracy.” …

Judges could not engage in public discussion about their decisions or controversial legal issues to maintain their independence and impartiality. But the court’s website could feature blogs from retired judges “to create greater community understanding around controversial issues.

“This will represent a historic shift away from traditional judicial reluctance to explain or defend judicial decisions that are made in accordance with the rule of law,” Chief Justice Warren said.

I really like the idea of having retired judges blog on legal issues. It is a great way to improve understanding of our legal system. The Ministry of Justice and judiciary in NZ should look at doing it here.

“Communication judges” – Justices Simon Whelan, Anne Ferguson and Jack Forrest – and the court’s communications manager, Anne Stanford, would soon meet to discuss the current website, which was “clumsy, difficult and sometimes impossible to navigate. It is contemplated that other than the judges, no-one over 30 will be allowed to participate in the meeting.”

New media forums, including on tablets and smart phones, allowed the public to access a more views about court decisions online. But it was important for the court to directly engage with the public, as newspaper circulations declined and courts faced greater scrunity than ever before, with decisions “constantly reviewed, questioned and critiqued.” …

The Supreme Court already streamed judges’ sentencing remarks in criminal trials in a bid to “fill the void left by” fewer court reporters: “When web-streaming is used the community can check for themselves what transpires in the Supreme Court and see and what the judiciary actually do when they administer the law.”

I’d love to see that here also – streaming of all sentencing decisions, along with all decisions available online.

UPDATE: Note it is a state supreme court, not the Australian High Court.

Stuff reports:

Wellington’s road of national significance is expected to create more jobs, reduce travel times and save more lives than previously thought.

The NZ Transport Agency also predicts its major roading project between Wellington Airport and Levin will return $3 billion in benefits for a $2.5b spend.

The agency last crunched the numbers on the Wellington road of national significance, known as the Wellington Northern Corridor, in 2009 when the project was announced.

Since then, it has come up with more detailed designs for many of the project sections. It has also obtained resource consent for the Transmission Gully highway and the McKays to Peka Peka expressway.

The agency now believes the Wellington Northern Corridor will deliver 865 additional permanent jobs to the Wellington region, whereas it previously estimated 650.

It is predicted construction will have generated 8000 jobs by the time all of the sections are complete in 2022.

This is expected to peak in 2018 when 1000 people will be busy putting the road together.

It is also now believed the road will shave 40 minutes off the trip between Wellington Airport and Levin during the morning peak by 2031, compared with earlier forecasts of 35 minutes.

40 minutes faster is a huge time saving.

The number of fatal and serious crashes is also expected to drop from 140 to 100 in the five years after construction is complete. The predicted cost of the project is now $2.5b, in 2012 dollars, which is down slightly from the $2.6b projection made four years ago.

The benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of the project has also been bumped up from 1.1 to 1.6, meaning that for every $1 spent the project will return $1.60 in benefits.

Fewer crashes and deaths. Cheaper construction costs and greater benefits. All sounds good.

This is the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Porirua City. They’re both in their 30s, and great to see some youthful leadership.

Stuff reports:

Porirua has the country’s youngest population and now it has the youngest heads at its helm.

Porirua Mayor-elect Nick Leggett, 34, and already New Zealand’s youngest mayor, has named 35-year-old Ana Coffey as his deputy.

She was elected to her second term in the Western ward in the local body elections earlier this month.

Mr Leggett this morning said he had chosen his deputy on merit, but but her youth didn’t hurt the city’s reputation as ”young, diverse, and progressive”.

She had four young children so was a good voice for the city, which had plenty of young families, Mr Leggett said.

”There are very few people with young kids in local government.”

Leggett and Coffey are not the youngest Councillors though. That is Bronwyn Kropp who got elected at the age of 19 in 2010 and re-elected in 2013 at the age of 22. And she has shown you can be a good Councillor at a young age. The Kapi-Mana News rated her:

Another high-rating rookie, Ms Kropp was the only councillor, aside from the mayor, to receive perfect marks for work ethic and responsiveness. Praised as an effective voice for youth, she was also commended for her maturity and passion.