Fiji has released what is basically the final constitution for next year’s elections, and thereafter. It is embedded below.

The constitution is a vast improvement over the former constitution which was racially divisive. It has many laudable aspects to it.

I blogged in March on the draft constitution and said:

• Explicitly rules unconstitutional any future coups, or immunities for future illegal actions. A valiant attempt to stop the coup culture. But the wide role five to the military allows them to intervene in future and claim it is constitutional
• Clearly defines Fiji as a secular state with freedom of religion, and that religious beliefs are subservient the the constitution and laws.
• All citizens are equal, regardless of racial background.
• A comprehensive bill of rights but the freedom of speech section has a long list of limitations which could in fact lead to fairly restricted speech.
• A 50 MP proportional representation Parliament, with one national list. Was previously proposed to be a 45 MP Parliament with four regional lists.
• No hereditary upper house
• A four year fixed term
• A neutral President appointed by Parliament. President is Commander-in-Chief, not the PM as originally proposed. President may not be a member of a political party
• An independent Judiciary
• The PM appoints the Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces.
• The role of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces is “to ensure at all times the security, defence and well-being of Fiji and all its residents”. I think that is far too wide a role, and can be used to justify the military doing almost anything they want, so long as they believe it is necessary to the “well-being” of Fiji. It is not their job to decide. Their job should be to protect Fiji from external threats.
• Grants immunity to all those involved in past coups etc, and this section can never be amended or repealed.
• Constitution can only be amended by a bill in Parliament that is then ratified by a three quarters majority in a referendum, and unclear if it needs three quarters of those voting or three quarters of all registered voters

The major problem with the constitution is the process, not the substance. It has been decided upon by the Commodore, and will be proclaimed by him without any public vote. Furthermore it is very very difficult to change it in future, and the clauses dealing with immunity are stated to be beyond amendment or repeal. So you have a document proclaimed by one man, that will be supreme law, and parts of it can never ever be changed even if 99% of Fijians want it.

But the reality of Fiji is they have imperfect choices. The constitution is generally very good, and greatly superior to what they have had in the past. It allows for elections next year, and hopefully a path back to democracy.

The true test for Fiji will come if there is a time the Commodore contests an election, and does not win. I suspect he will win next year, but then he will have an opposition who can criticise him more vigorously, a Parliament that provides the opposition with a voice, and hopefully a more free media. That means that his current advantages may not last forever.

Not that I have a view on whether or not he should remain PM. That should be a judgement of the people of Fiji based on how good a job he does as PM in growing the economy, providing good education and health, uniting Fiji and the like.

2013 Fiji Constitution by Cam Slater

Tim Worstall at Forbes quotes a headline on the Fukushima power plant:

Tepco admitted on Friday that a cumulative 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium may have leaked into the sea since the disaster.

He says:

Most of us haven’t a clue what that means of course. We don’t instinctively understand what a becquerel is in the same way that we do pound, pint or gallons, and certainly trillions of anything sounds hideous. But don’t forget that trillions of picogrammes of dihydrogen monoxide is also the major ingredient in a glass of beer. So what we really want to know is whether 20 trillion becquerels of radiation is actually an important number. 

Yes. I have no idea if that is situation normal or a Chernobyl.

To which the answer is no, it isn’t. This is actually around and about (perhaps a little over) the amount of radiation the plant was allowed to dump into the environment before the disaster. 

And he does a comparison:

That comparison being that the radiation leakage from Fukushima appears to be about the same as that from 76 million bananas. Which is a lot of bananas I agree, but again we can put that into some sort of perspective. …

We can do this slightly differently and say that the 1.45 trillion bananas consumed each year have those 15 Bq giving us around 22 trillion Bq each year. The Fukushima leak is 20 trillion Bq over two years: thus our two calculations agree. The current leak is just under half that exposure that we all get from the global consumption of bananas.

Except even that’s overstating it. For the banana consumption does indeed get into our bodies: the Fukushima leak is getting into the Pacific Ocean where it’s obviously far less dangerous. And don’t forget that all that radiation in the bananas ends up in the oceans as well, given that we do in fact urinate it out and no, it’s not something that the sewage treatment plants particularly keep out of the rivers.

Invaluable context.

News.com.au reports:

His campaign flyers which promise to “process Australian resources in Australia” and to “create jobs and exports” are printed in China.

Read the fine print on the back of the campaign leaflet and you will find that they were printed in the DongCheng District in Beijing, by Palmer’s company, Queensland Nickel which operates his Nickel and Cobalt mines.

Busted.

This reminds me of the 1990s when the Alliance campaigned on banning second hand car imports from Japan, to protect NZ jobs.

We took delight in pointing out their campaign bus was a Japanese 2nd hand import. Anderton’s response was along the lines of that was the only one they could afford. Never dawned on them that maybe that is why they shouldn’t ban other people from buying them!

Rob Kidd at Stuff reports:

An Auckland woman who quit work after being slapped on the bum and repeatedly sexually harassed has been told by the Employment Relations Authority it was partly her own fault, the ERA ruling the woman did not do enough to ensure her own safety.

The decision has caused outrage among employment experts who said the decision was unusual.

I contend it has not caused any outrage with employment experts and I am not sure it is that unusual.

“It’s absolutely astonishing. She’s the victim and they turn round and blame her,” said former Green MP Sue Kedgley, one of the founders of the National Organisation for Women.

“It’s an incredibly sensitive issue and they’re trying to shift the responsibility from the person carrying out the harassment to this rather vulnerable young woman.”

Sue Kedgley is not an employment expert.

There are three parties involved here. The woman, the other staff who allegedly harrassed her and the employer. All the ERA has said is that the employer can’t be held liable if you never ever tell them what is happening so they can put a stop to it. Employers do not have spy cameras in the workplace where they can monitor everyone.

Monaghan rejected her personal grievance claim because she had not complained to her bosses.

That gave the company no chance to stop the harassment.

She just walked off the job after a couple of months. Now I accept it can be difficult to decide to complain about sexual harassment as if you do, it can create hostility at work. But again how can you hold an employer accountable for something that you never ever tell them about?

The Herald reported:

Pre-pay mobile phone users are reaping the benefits of a price war described by Telecom chief executive Simon Moutter as “a bit of a bloodbath”.

Consumers have been advised to shop around for deals and not get locked into long-term contracts as a three-way contest between Telecom, Vodafone and 2degrees is creating a lot of movement in prices.

Announcing its annual results yesterday, Telecom said it had picked up mobile and broadband customers.

The firm this week relaunched its Skinny mobile brand, previously aimed at teenagers and young adults.

It has now been rebranded as a mainstream “no-frills” option in the mobile market, Mr Moutter said.

It gives a $16-a-month combo of texts, calls and mobile data, which is $3 less than similar 30-day deals from Vodafone or 2degrees.

But Vodafone gives more calling minutes, and under 2degrees’ deal, any unused minutes are added onto users’ limits for the following month.

Excellent. Price wars are great for consumers. Government policy should always focus on how to increase competition in a sector – not how to destroy it!

Telecom said yesterday that it had gained 92,000 customers during the first half of this year, about 48,000 of them pre-pay customers. It now has about 1.8 million clients.

Telecom is doing well going from a monopolistic utility company to a competitive retailer.

Stuff reports:

Georgina Beyer, the world’s first transsexual mayor and MP, warns New Zealand is not ready for a gay prime minister and may be seeing a social conservative backlash.

With the Labour leadership up for grabs, it raises the question of whether Grant Robertson, the gay deputy leader, could be elevated to head the party, making him a strong possibility for prime minister.

But Beyer, who was an MP for eight years until 2007, said Labour needed to be realistic.

“I don’t think we’re ready yet,” Beyer said. “It’s not because Grant isn’t capable, I think he’s very capable . . . but the stigma that rests over those of us who are out, proud and gay who get into public office becomes untenable because you never shake it off and you get pigeon-holed.”

I disagree. I think it is up to the MP how much they pigeon-hole themselves. There is a spectrum when it comes to gay and lesbian MPs. At one end of the spectrum you have MPs like Chris Carter and Georgina who were very much identity politicians whose persona was around being the first gay MP or the first transsexual MP.

At the other end of the spectrum are MPs like Chris Finlayson who is an MP who happens to be gay. He doesn’t believe his sexuality defines him as an MP, it is just part of who he is.

Grant Robertson is somewhere in between those two extremes. He does promote “gay causes” but has been careful not to let them define him. He is more at the “MP who is gay” end of the spectrum than “gay MP” end.

So I don’t think Grant’s sexuality would pigeon-hole him. It is not to say it will have no impact at all, but I think it is relatively minor.

Beyer said it was possible the debate over gay marriage, which became legal this month, had invigorated social conservatives, meaning New Zealand was less ready for a gay prime minister now than it was a year ago.

Actually I think the legalisation of gay marriage has helped Grant. If it remained illegal then he would be asked constantly as a party leader (if he won) whether he wants the right to marry. He would of course say yes, and the stories would focus on that, and that would pigeon hole him as being into politics for his own agenda, rather than the agenda of the wider group Labour aspires to represent.

John Tamihere, a former Labour MP turned radio presenter, said New Zealand could, in theory, accept a gay prime minister, but it would have to be someone whose sexuality was not core to their reason for entering politics.

Tamihere sums it up well.

Brian Rudman wrote:

Let’s hear it for Auckland councillor Sandra Coney. After a three-month slugfest with the bureaucrats, she has forced them to concede the politicians’ right to see background information and legal advice held by the bureaucracy. …

At the beginning of June, and concerned about the haste involved in preparing the draft Unitary Plan, Ms Coney became aware that a team of senior outside Resource Management Act lawyers and advisers had been commissioned to review the document and ensure it was legally accurate and complied with all relevant legislation and statutory requirements.

As a councillor, responsible for making decisions about the document and eventually approving it, Ms Coney requested a copy of the expert review. She also wrote to chief executive Doug McKay saying, “It is astonishing that I should be expected to participate in workshops and meetings on the Unitary Plan, and make decisions about the UP, but I am denied access to information that the staff have.”

She said she was not a member of the public but “a member of the governing body” and “I consider it essential to my governance role that I am able to access what I believe I need to make good decisions. I believe that the people who elect me would expect I can access any information held by the council and accessible by staff.”

Three weeks later she was told, not by a bureaucrat but by Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse, that the bureaucrats wouldn’t hand it over. Chief planning officer Roger Blakeley then wrote refusing her access under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, which she argued was not only irrelevant but ridiculous, as one of the clauses he used as justification was the need to protect “free and frank expressions of opinions by or between or to members or officers or employees”.

I am of the view that a director (or Councillor) should have legal access to pretty much any information they wish to have, so long as it is not personally sensitive (ie staff HR files). You are responsible for an organisation and it is up to you, not the staff, to decide what you need to know.

Having said that I think a director should not be getting involved in operational matters and any such requests should be rare and for a specific purpose. However the decision is for them, not their peers or the staff.

So good on Sandra Coney for standing up for her rights. Her request seemed more than reasonable.

The Herald reports:

Ms Odgers said on Twitter that she wanted to join Labour so she could vote for MP David Cunliffe to win the leadership: “He represents ambitious, successful, white middle class achievers unpopular with peers.”

Heh.

Asked how the party would respond to an application by Ms Odgers, who was not a member of any party, Mr Barnett said: “That’s a good question.”

As she is a declared supporter of David Cunliffe, any rejection of her membership would suggest the NZ Council is pro-Robertson!

NZ Herald quiz is here.

Stuff reports:

With the furore over his cat campaign fading from memory, Gareth Morgan is about to try telling us what we should be eating.

Dr Morgan’s past activities have included confirming the cause of climate change, deciding which fish to catch and eat, proposing solutions for the country’s welfare and tax policies, and voyaging to the Antarctic to raise awareness about issues in the far south.

At the start of this year, he strode purposefully into his attack on the country’s cats, and will soon try to sort out the nation’s eating habits.

Where would we be without Gareth to solve all our big issues for us. Is there any issue at all he isn’t an expert on?

According to New Zealand Doctor, Dr Morgan and Mr Simmons are “set to challenge the food production, processing and marketing industries as well as health professionals, policymakers and the Government”.

The book will urge a tax on foods that don’t reach two stars for health and quality in a nutrition-profiling system to be agreed by health officials, industry and food standards authorities.

How about a tax on books that don’t meet quality standards?

Denmark of course led the world with a tax on food, as Gareth proposes. The tax lasted around a year before being scrapped as a miserable failure which failed to change any eating habits, encouraged cross-border trading, endangered jobs and was a bureaucratic nightmare for producers and retailers. I expect that means it will soon become policy of Labour or Greens in NZ!

Stuff reports:

Tens of thousands of women have been given a new weapon in the fight for equal pay after a landmark court decision.

Both sides of the debate have called the Employment Court’s ruling on Thursday a “significant” shift, which is likely to give unions more power to fight employers over gender discrimination.

Even when it isn’t gender discrimination!

The Employment Court has ruled women in female-dominated industries can now compare themselves to men in other industries requiring similar skills when pushing for pay equality.

Employers had argued women workers should only be compared with men in the same industry doing the same work and warned a broader view would be “unworkable”.

However, the court rejected the employers’ interpretation, claiming they could “simply perpetuate discrimination in rates of pay to women”.

This is a fairly radical extension of the law. The law was passed so that if an employer had men and women all doing exactly the same job, and they were paying the men more than the women, it would be illegal.

The court has now interpreted this as saying now they no longer have to be doing the same job, or even be in the same industry. It can compare the job of say a teacher to a police officer and decide for all of New Zealand that teachers must all be paid the same as police officers!

Currently industries traditionally considered “women’s work” could continue to pay women poorly simply because a small group of male co-workers shared their low wages, the court said.

This is the key point. There was no evidence at all that male workers doing the same job were being paid more. In fact they were not.

One can debate about whether or not courts should have the power to declare workers in one industry must be paid the same as workers in another industry. I don’t think they should. But what is galling is there has been no debate in Parliament and no law change.

TerraNova executive director Terry Bell said the company was still considering whether to appeal the court’s decision.

I hope they do. Such a radical and far reaching decision should be made explicitly by Parliament.

Tracy Watkins at Stuff reports:

That puts the leadership in limbo for the next three weeks while up to 50,000 voting papers are sent out and candidates make their pitch at a series of meetings across New Zealand.

I suspect it will be far fewer than that. It is widely known Labour has less than 10,000 members despite my best efforts on their behalf.

The six affiliated unions may have another 30,000 to 40,000 members between them but as I understand it most unions are not letting their rank and file members vote – just their union delegates, which are far fewer in number. By restricting it to delegates it will allow that union to promise its support more easily to the candidate who offers that union the most legislative favours.

Each delegate votes individually, and in secret, but make no mistake they will have been told the view of the union leadership about who to vote for and I predict that no union will be a close vote – the candidate the hierarchy supports will get at least 80% of the vote from that union. What is possible is different unions could vote different ways depending on what each has been offered, but Helen Kelly has already said they are talking to each other.

The new rules were an attempt by the party’s grassroots to rein in caucus after a widening rift over policy and direction. But they could drive an even deeper wedge if the party and caucus back opposing candidates and cancel each other out, because the caucus vote counts for only 40 per cent of the total.

That makes Labour’s union affiliates, whose votes count for 20 per cent, the potential king makers and could deliver the caucus a leader that a majority of MPs don’t support.

This will be the first time that corporate bodies will get to directly elect the leader of a political party. Imagine the fuss if for example you had business organisations getting a vote for a political party leader.

If Robertson and Cunliffe do stand, it is highly likely it will come down to who gets the unions on side – and that is easy. Unions will vote for what is in their best interest, so the candidate who promises them (publicly or privately) the most favourable law changes to increase their wealth and power, will get their support.

My interpretation of the two days of hearings into the leak inquiry is that it was basically a SNAFU. By that I mean there was no malicious intent by everyone – just that many parties involved made incorrect assumptions, and/or didn’t check.

I think the first error was not an appreciation that this inquiry was a bit different to other leak inquiries as the major focus was on whether a Minister leaked it, not a government employee (like in the MFAT leak). When you are dealing with employees a leak inquiry is on far more solid ground – the employers have total authorised access to all work data around their employees – their swipe card records, their e-mails, their photocopier logs and the like. But Ministers and MPs are different, as are journalists when it involves their use of parliamentary resources.

So some criticism to DPMC for not seeing (but hindsight is wonderful) that this inquiry is different to others, and having more specific terms of reference and powers about what the inquiry should and should not be able to seek.

Some criticism also to David Henry for not setting clear processes around seeking of data with agency chief executives. It seems the approach as along the lines of let’s ask for everything we can think of, and up to them to say no. Again, no appreciation of the senstivity when dealing with MPs that they are not in the same constitutional position as employees.

And also some criticism for Parliamentary Service for not having clear policies on when data can and can not be released, and who should be consulted or approve any release. Also the fact that data was being exchanged it seems at pretty much a junior staff level. PS should have recognised the sensitivity of such requests and made sure no data was handed over unless it was operating on a clearly understood basis of who should be saying yes to what.

So no malice involved anywhere, just a lack of overall co-ordination both within agencies and between them. I hope Privileges Committee will have some useful recommendations on how to avoid a repeat.

Michael Forbes at Stuff reports:

Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown hailed it as a vote on which the city council would “show leadership”.

Councillors had spent more than two years arguing over the Basin Reserve flyover project, and yesterday – finally – was the day to declare whether they would support it to a board of inquiry.

But in the end, Ms Wade-Brown just couldn’t bring herself to do it – and she joined five other councillors in voting against the $90 million project.

She had barely left the strategy and policy committee meeting before her fellow councillors were accusing her of a “flip-flop”, of dithering and of being indecisive.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such extraordinary behaviour over one council paper,” mayoral rival John Morrison said.

Ms Wade-Brown began the meeting by saying she would have preferred a tunnel, but the best way to show leadership was to negotiate as many design improvements to the flyover as possible.

Absolutely.

After months of negotiations with the New Zealand Transport Agency, the council had done that, and she said she thought the agency would come up with a more pleasing design if the council offered support rather than digging its toes in and saying no.

Again, she’s right.

But then – after councillors had all made speeches, largely confirming their long-held views – Ms Wade-Brown asked to speak again.

“This is a lot better flyover [design] than we started out with,” she said. “But I just cannot support the flyover myself.”

So by her own words she voted against an act of leadership and her own recommended strategy!

Stuff reports:

Dozens of synthetic cannabis brands have been cleared for sale by health regulators, despite some containing chemicals linked to psychosis.

Note the difference between the drug being linked and a chemical within it being linked.

On Wednesday, the same day that police charged the first person with selling synthetic cannabis illegally, the Ministry of Health cleared nearly 50 shops to continue to sell similar, but approved, legal highs.

The ministry says 28 legal-high brands have now received interim approval. Approval was given if the brand had been on the market for more than three months without users reporting any serious adverse side-effects.

A sensible approach.

Grant Hall, of legal-high industry body Star Trust, said the brands received only a provisional tick and many would probably not pass the higher hurdle for permanent approval later in the year.

However, the bad side-effects associated with synthetic-cannabis products had been overblown, particularly when compared with alcohol, he said. “By any measure, these products are incredibly low risk.”

Yeah, there is almost a hysterical lynch mob mentality forming in some areas around them.

The products can be sold only through approved stores, with 46 shops receiving interim licences as of yesterday. Another 147 can continue to trade while their applications are being assessed.

In Wellington, 21 retailers can still legally sell synthetic cannabis.

Ten companies have also received interim licences to manufacture legal highs, seven to research them, and 23 to sell them wholesale.

That’s a surprisingly high number of manufacturers, researchers and wholesalers. I wonder what the total turnover of the market is?

Stuff reports:

University of Waikato boffins have been told to keep scientific facts out of the ongoing debate over fluoride.

Roger Stratford – an anti-fluoride campaigner and aspiring Hamilton City councillor – wrote to the university’s chemistry department this week to protest at “the degree of casual support emanating from the chemistry department in local papers in support of the practice [of fluoridating water]”.

“At Fluoride Free Hamilton we intend to limit the debate to the social science and public health aspects of fluoridation,” he writes.

“It would be appreciated if we could receive some confirmation from the chemistry department that it will remain publicly neutral on the matter.

Yes how dare we hear from chemists on chemistry. Next they’ll want to ban doctors speaking on the medical impact. Or anyone who has a different view to them.

Michael Mucalo, a senior lecturer and chairman of the university’s chemistry department said it was important for people to have scientifically accurate information on fluoride.

That was why the faculty would continue to respond in print to letters to the editor that called the science of fluoride into question.

“We have a moral right as academics to give our opinions on this,” he said.

“We want to comment on the science. If claims are made that seem outrageous, then we would like to speak up and give a balanced view.”

So they anti fluoride people want to make outrageous claims, and not have anyone respond to them?

Back in December 2011 I wrote:

On balance I think Shearer has a greater chance of leading Labour to victory, for reasons I have written about previously. But I will say that Shearer is a somewhat risker option. There is greater potential to wins over the hearts and minds of New Zealanders and get Labour’s party vote back into the mid 30s or highers. But there is also a greater risk that Shearer just can’t hack it, and Labour stays weak or gets weaker.

So why did Shearer fail? I think it is a bit superficial to say it is just because he was a nice man, not hard enough for politics. I think there were a number of factors.

1. Failed to capitalise on his background to portray himself as an “anti-politician”. The public love outsiders and don’t like insiders when it comes to politics. That is why both Don Brash and John Key did so well in the polls. Shearer needed to focus on being the Michael Joseph Savage type of leader who set out his vision for New Zealand, and didn’t spend every second criticising the Government. A classic example is he said he wanted to avoid “gotcha” politics yet for around 150 question times in a row his question to the PM has been a gotcha “do you stand by all your statements” type question.
2. Didn’t gather the right staff around him. I’m not blaming the staff, as they are often unfairly blamed for things. But is has been apparent that there were no senior staff with the authority and respect to impose the leader’s decisions on the wider parliamentary team.
3. The old guard remained in control. Shearer was their candidate to stop Cunliffe, but they remained dominant, which meant the caucus never unified.
4. No strategy. Labour’s major policies appeared to be focus group driven to respond to concerns about foreigners and the like. There was no over-arching strategy which was about having David Shearer known for three things he would do differently that could resonate with people.
5. No political management of the party. The change to the leadership rules, the further entrenching of union power, the man ban proposals all happened on his watch and undermined him. To be fair to him, normally deputy leaders take care of most of the party management issues and one can speculate as to why this didn’t happen in this case!
6. A lack of confidence with media and speaking. Shearer can be an excellent speaker when he is saying what he really thinks and believes. But too often he was having to promote policies which I think he was half hearted about. When you have to think about what is the correct thing to say – rather than to just speak from instinct, makes the job harder. It is a skill you can learn, and he struggled with. But when speaking more off the cuff to large groups he could be very persuasive.

I regard the first of my points as the most important. Labour should have developed a 33 month strategy around how to position David Shearer as the next Prime Minister, and then developed policies, communication plans and the like which all worked within that strategy. They needed to have major vision and policy announcements far earlier in the piece so the public would want to hear more and more of the man who would be PM.

The Dom Post editorial notes:

However, Mr Shearer’s biggest failing was that he was never able to convey the impression that there was anything he particularly wanted to achieve as prime minister. On his watch Labour responded to public anxiety about the high cost of housing by unveiling proposals for a government home building programme, a capital gains tax and a ban on foreigners investing in the residential property market. The party responded to concerns about the high cost of electricity by promising to scrap the electricity market and put the industry back under the control of Wellington bureaucrats. Housing and electricity costs are both issues that resonate with focus groups but neither are the sort to excite supporters or persuade the politically undecided to get out of their armchairs.

As leader Mr Shearer was a stunt in search of a philosophy. The strategy concocted around him did not wash and, with the help of his colleagues, he rightly came to the conclusion that things were not going to get any better while he remained leader.

I think this is right. Shearer was meant to be a leader who could appeal to centrist voters, but instead his caucus and advisors pushed him to the left, so that Labour was pushing populist and nationalist policies that appeal to hard left and Green voters, and an overall policy agenda well to the left of the Clark/Cullen Government.

A woman called Lily Fontana posted on Facebook:

Just finished doing Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott’s makeup for the People’s Forum at the Broncos Leagues Club.

One of them was absolutely lovely, engaged in genuine conversation with me, acknowledge that I had a job to do and was very appreciative.

The other did the exact opposite! Oh boy, I have ever had anyone treat me so badly whilst trying to do my job.

Political opinions aside…from one human being to another…Mr Abbott, you win hands down.

This post, now deleted, has resulted in major stories. It fits with what so many people have said about Rudd – that he treats people awfully. It ranges from keeping people waiting for hours at a time, to abusing people for very minor problems. Another issue was:

In 2009 the Prime Minister was forced to apologise to a RAAF stewardess after it was revealed he reduced her to tears when the meal he requested was unavailable on a flight from Port Moresby to Canberra.

How you treat people on a personal level speaks volumes about character.

More bad news for Rudd is a poll showing he may lose his own seat.

It seems anyone who joins Labour by midnight can vote for the next Leader. Cactus Kate, amongst others, has joined so she can vote for David Cunliffe.

Dec 2011…

The Price is another Arthur Miller classic, with an excellent production put on by Circa Theatre.

It’s s small cast of just four, focusing on the relationship between two estranged brothers who have had no contact for 16 years. They finally come together to dispose of their long dead father’s possessions, which have been in storage for 16 years. The planned destruction of his old building has meant their shared history is resurrected, in a tense dramatic performance.

Photo by Stephen A’Court

Victor and Walter Franz are brothers, played by Gavin Rutherford and Christopher Brougham respectively. Victor is a poorly paid police officer whose wife resents their modest means. He was a gifted science student, but never had the opportunity to do tertiary education as he was caring for and supporting his father.

Walter is the seemingly successful brother, a fabulously wealthy doctor. The reasons for his estrangement with Victor are only hinted at initially, but laid out in the second act.

Jude Gibson played Victor’s wife Esther. She is almost ashamed of her husband’s lowly paid job, and doesn’t like him wearing his police uniform when off duty as it tells everyone how much he earns.

Finally you have what was for me the star of the show, Ray Henwood at the 89 year old Jewish antique dealer. Henwood was fantastic, and his performance alone is worth seeing the show for. A comedy delight.

All four cast played their roles well, with each character having sympathetic and unsympathetic traits. Your views on them change as the show goes on. The only slight negative was that the relationship between Victor and Esther wasn’t clear at the beginning, and you spend a fair bit of time trying to work it out.

The first half of the show, as is often the case, wasn’t as captivating as the second half. It made up for that with plenty of laughs from Ray Henwood’s character. There was also some added drama with a noticeable earthquake during the first half. Let me tell you a crowded theatre is not a nice place to be during an earthquake. The cast however just carried on with barely a pause, as the audience turned pale and started to look wistfully at the exits. Luckily the quake was relatively brief.

The second half is where the conflict is laid out in full, and there are twists and turns you don’t expect. The ending is a good one, albeit not the one I expected.

The Price is on until 7 September. If you like Arthur Miller’s other plays, you’ll like this one also.