I’ve been at NetHui for the last three days, enjoying many discussion ranging from online harmful communications to the future of video on demand. One of the highlights was a panel on state surveillance and it included the former GCSB Director, Sir Bruce Ferguson. Sir Bruce gave more details about how the GCSB had operated than I had previously heard in public.

Tracy Watkins reports:

Sir Bruce Ferguson, former boss of the secretive Government Communications Security Bureau, said he was told years ago the best way to find out what was going on in Wellington was to join the Koru Club, then spend a couple of hours there on a Thursday or Friday night.

Heh, so true.

In a surprisingly candid speech to the internet forum NetHui in Wellington yesterday, Sir Bruce also lifted the lid on how the GCSB believed it could get away with spying on New Zealanders for so many years, despite legislation specifically banning it from doing so.

He confirmed that about 50 of the 88 cases identified in an inquiry earlier this year as potentially breaking the law against spying on New Zealanders had happened under his watch.

“I received a warrant signed and duly checked by the inspector of warrants and the head of either the police or Security Intelligence Service and the boss [the prime minister]. It comes to me and it asks specifically for help from the GCSB to spy on a specific target . . . they have to convince me in that warrant the reason why they’re doing that and that means they have to show they have reason to believe that person is acting against the security of the state.

“They then have to ask by name for the people in GCSB who may be able to help them – the specific specialist by name. I then sign a warrant or agreement in that warrant to second those individuals. I second them to the asking authority, be it the SIS or the police. So I’ve now seconded them, as far as I was aware, to that organisation.

“They go across there, they do what is required by the SIS or the police and they finally finish the task and come back. At no stage . . . was I ever aware or made aware of the outcome. That wasn’t my business.”

I regard this as a pretty significant revelation, for two reasons. The first is that most of the cases we have heard about do not seem to involve the GCSB itself intercepting communications. It involves a GCSB employee effectively being seconded to another agency to assist them.

The second interesting thing is that the GCSB doesn’t retain any data from those cases. The staffer helps the other agency do their job, but doesn’t report back – so hence there are no GCSB files with data from NZers. They remain with the SIS or Police.

Tom Pullar-Strecker at Stuff reports:

Dial-up internet services and many devices that rely on them such as older burglar and medical alarms and fax machines are a step closer to the junk heap after a review of the Telecommunications Service Obligation, which guarantees minimum phone and internet services.

Copies of the White Pages directories will probably no longer be automatically delivered to homes, but phone users should continue to get the option of “free”, unmetered local calls, according to a discussion paper on the future of the Telecommunications Service Obligation, made public yesterday by Communications Minister Amy Adams.

A price cap which limits increases in phone-line rentals to the rate of inflation may be removed in urban areas that are deemed to be subject to sufficient competition, but could remain and might even be tightened to ensure prices fall in real terms elsewhere, the paper said.

The obligation, which is an agreement between Telecom and the Crown, was last updated in 2001.

Changes are needed because the Public Switched Telephone Network and eventually most copper-based communications services are expected to be superseded by internet telephony and the ultrafast broadband network.

The UFB network cannot support low-speed data devices, including dial-up internet modems and other household devices that Telecom and copper network owner Chorus are duty-bound to support at present.

The discussion paper said 114,000 homes were still reliant on dial-up internet for web and email access last year, though that is forecast to drop to 41,000 homes by 2015.

I’m not sure we even need a TSO anymore. It played a useful role when we had a monopoly, but I’d prefer the focus to be on improving competition.

The Guardian reports:

Three senior judges have ruled that the public has no right to read documents that would reveal how Prince Charles has sought to alter government policies.

The high court judges have rejected a legal attempt by the Guardian to force the publication of private letters written by the prince to government ministers.

Cabinet ministers have conceded that the prince’s private letters – dubbed “black spider memos” because of their scratchy handwriting – contained the prince’s “most deeply held personal views and beliefs” that could undermine the perception of his political neutrality. …

Grieve had argued that disclosure of the 27 “particularly frank” letters between the prince and ministers over a seven-month period would have seriously damaged his future role as king. The attorney general said there was a risk that the prince would not be seen to be politically neutral by the public if the letters were published.

“This risk will arise if, through these letters, the Prince of Wales was viewed by others as disagreeing with government policy. Any such perception would be seriously damaging to his role as future monarch because if he forfeits his position of political neutrality as heir to the throne, he cannot easily recover it when he is king,” Grieve had said.

This is almost Orwellian. It is not the publication of his letters that would damage his political neutrality. It is the fact he is in fact in no way politically neutral. His letters are what damage his political neutrality, not their publication.

The argument for the monarchy is that it provides a politically neutral head of state. It clearly does not. Prince Charles appears to be somewhere between Labour and the Greens in his political views. Good on him, but why should he get to become King of New Zealand?

Duncan Garner on Radio Live talks about the planned coup for Labour, and how he had two sources – one inside and one outside the caucus. He says the strategy is death by 1,000 cuts.

The key is that Robertson wants Shearer to remain Leader, so he can lose – and Robertson takes over after the election. So his faction wants to keep Shearer there. But other factions know their best chance is to move now.

Listen to the whole seven minutes piece.

I think I’m going to order a giant carton of popcorn for the next few days!

UK Labour is joining Australian Labor in reducing the influence the unions have on their parties. This should be contrasted with NZ Labour which is moving in the other direction and has given the unions a direct vote in the future Labour Party leadership.

The Independent reports:

Trade unions will no longer be allowed to enrol three million members a year to Labour ranks, Ed Miliband will announce on Tuesday in a dramatic effort to draw a line under the crisis gripping the party, following allegations of corrupt practice in candidate selection.

The Herald reports:

Sir Owen Glenn is adamant his $2 million inquiry into family violence in New Zealand will go ahead, and says accusations that he hit a woman in Hawaii more than a decade ago are completely false. …

He told Campbell Live last night the accusations were fabricated by the American woman, his former personal assistant, to extort money.

He implied she had psychiatric issues and said she re-ignited the claim 10 days ago hoping for another payout.

He continues:

Two Hawaiian policemen knocking on his door at 1.30am said the woman had filed an assault complaint against him and took him into custody. He was released on bail the next day. The woman dropped her claims, and the case never went before a judge, he said.

“There was subsequently no case to answer. If both parties agree there is no case to answer, it’s no contest,” he said.

However, he said she then filed a lawsuit against him for unfair dismissal.

“She was a case of extortion, I said I wouldn’t pay her out. But [the employment mediator] said ‘look, have a small settlement, whatever I can get it down to’ so I agreed to that in the end only because of the length of time and the harassment etcetera, but I only paid that strictly – and it’s in the court papers – for payments of her psychiatric bills.”

The settlement was $80,000 as opposed to the $300,000 she was seeking.

Inevitably, I imagine she will sell her story to a media outlet.

Mount Cook and SH 80 to the Hermitage – from Peter’s lookout. New Zealand landscape photography by Sarah Sisson.

I really should post one of my images again soon, but I keep finding nice ones by Sarah during my travels through the archive.

The beauty of this image is that up-and-coming landscapers like @Beautox and @FredInTheGrass can’t replicate it – some wandering greeny task-force have bowled the infestation of wilding larches that give this scene its Nordic Autumnal vibe….

Cheers – Todd

Free Wallpaper Download

You may download the large version of today’s image from this link:   Password = wwp

Thanks for your support!

Cheers – Todd [www.sisson.co.nz] 

Duncan Garner has tweeted:

I won’t out my original source Hooton. They’re still leaking despite ‘all being behind’ Shearer.

and also:

I’m not going to get into this, except to say my source is within the caucus.

So if it was MP. The question is, which one. We can’t know for sure, but logically one would expect it to be an MP who:

1. Was not a supporter of Shearer in the ballot vs Cunliffe
2. Has been demoted by Shearer since then
3. Was a supporter of the “man ban”
4. Has little to lose by leaking as they are likely to retire at the next election, or prior to that

One can’t blame Chris Carter for this one.

Vernon Small at Stuff reports:

David Shearer has pushed the Labour Party into dumping its controversial “man ban” proposal that could have preserved some electorates for women-only candidates, but a related move to ensure that by 2017 at least 50 per cent of its MPs are women is set to go ahead.

This is the policy that if used in the past, would have seen Labour gain no male List MPs in 1996, 1999 and 2002.  Michael Cullen would have failed to be elected as an  List MP, under this proposal. Daft.

But the party’s stance on the party list remit appears to have caused confusion among MPs with some saying the effective “quota” had also been dropped, while others said there was no change to the proposal.

A spokesman for Mr Shearer later confirmed it was unchanged at this stage.

It says a lot when Labour’s own MPs don’t even know what the situation is.

Mr Shearer announced the U-turn on the “man ban” rule ahead of the party’s weekly caucus of MPs that insiders said was at times acrimonious, with supporters of the move targeting list MP Shane Jones in particular over his comments.

That would be the gelding comment.

That, in turn, sparked a flurry of rumours late on Monday about a possible leadership spill, emanating from both the Left and the “blokes” wings of the party.

Labour has more factions than MPs!

The Press editorial comments:

To hoots of derision from almost every quarter, the Labour Party’s proposal to exclude men from consideration for selection as candidates in some electorates – the so-called “man ban” – has been ditched.

The wonder, of course, is not that it was ditched, but rather that an proposal so maladroit ever saw the light of day with a party endorsement in the first place, and, having done so, that it took some time before Labour leader David Shearer could find his voice and move to quash it.

They’ve known about this for eight months!

The whole fiasco surrounding the proposal was another indication of division and disarray within Labour. It somehow gained the endorsement of the party’s national council as an idea for discussion at the national conference without Shearer, who is a member of the council, being aware of it. Even if he was not present at the council meeting that discussed it, he should have been able to rely on the good sense of his colleagues to scupper an idea that was such an obvious non-starter.

Then, by some unexplained misfortune, the idea leaked into the public arena by way of a popular blog deeply unsympathetic to Labour. Then, rather than seize the initiative and rapidly scotch the proposal, Shearer ducked reporters’ questions, dodged television interviews and dithered until yesterday, when the matter was finally laid to rest.

It is hardly original to note that if this is the way the party conducts its own affairs, it will need to work a lot harder to present itself as a potential alternative government.

Could you imagine them having to respond to a disaster like the Christchurch earthquake? Would it take them five days to agree to comment on it?

This is a fascinating table from a speech by bill English today showing how highly re-distributive the NZ tax and welfare system is. Basically what this shows is that the top 5% of households pay 47% of net tax in New Zealand. Households up to $60,000 income receive more in welfare on average than they pay in tax, Yes, they are effectively paying no tax.

Now I’m not complaining about this too much. I’m happy to some extent to help working lower income families when they have kids to look after. But when political parties complain that we need to hike taxes on rich pricks, then bear in mind that our tax and welfare system is already highly highly re-distributive. The debate should be on how we allow Kiwis to keep more of their income, not how to take more off them.

Bill English noted:

Estimates of net income tax paid by household income, before and after Budget 2010, indicate the system has become more progressive over this period, Mr English says.

Households earning less than $60,000 are generally expected to pay less, in percentage terms, towards net tax in 2013/14 than they were paying in 2008/09. 

Conversely, households earning more than $150,000 are generally paying more of the net tax than they were in 2008/09.   

“It’s appropriate to maintain a tax and income support system that helps low and middle income households when they most need it.

“But people who call for even greater transfers to low income families, or who call for the top tax rate to be raised, need to be aware of how redistributive the tax and income support system really is,” Mr English says.

Income tax rates should be lowered, not increased.

Questions for Oral Answer – 2pm to 3pm

Questions to Ministers

Today, Labour are asking 4 questions to ministers on topics ranging from Solid Energy, resourcing of Child Youth and Family, consultants costs and the stock standard question from David Shearer (Potential ex Leader of the Opposition). The Green Party are asking 2 questions to ministers about Skycity and Mining with New Zealand First and Mana asking 1 question each.

Pasty Question of the Day

Today’s pasty question of the day goes to question 5 from Shane Ardern to the Minister of Health which askes,

What is this Government doing, as part of Better Public Services, to ensure that New Zealand children are better protected from preventable diseases such as whooping cough and hepatitis B?

Members Orders of the Day – 3.00pm to 6pm and 7.30pm to 10pm

1) Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Bill –  Mark Mitchell – Committee Stage

This bill seeks to remove the right of people to wear gang patches and other such symbols on government premises such as a local  hospital,school or other government owned buildings such as a Work and Income place. This bill was originally created by the Hon Tood McClay prior to him becoming a Minister in the John Key lead government and is based upon the original bill used in Whanganui which allowed the council to ban gang patches being shown and used in areas around Whanganui. Recently, during the second reading of this bill, Schools got included as a area that gang members will not be able to wear there patches  as a result of submissions to the select committee.

At the second reading of this bill, it passed by 69 to 51 with Labour, Greens, Mana and the Maori Party opposing the bill.

Mark Mitchell gave a really emotive speech during the second reading of the bill which summed up why this bill is required. Feel free to view the video here.

2) Gambling (Gambling Harm Reduction) Amendment Bill – Te Ururoa Flavell – Second Reading

This bill was introduced in September 2010 by Te Ururoa Flavell. It seeks to allow “local authorities, in consultation with their communities, to reduce the number of, or even eliminate, pokies from those suburbs and towns where they are particularly concentrated or doing particular harm”. This bill since the first reading has been rewritten to make some changes to the bill to be able to waterdown some of the effects of the original bill with a deal done between Hon Chris Tremain and Te Ururoa Flavell last week to ensure National Party support.

At the last reading of the bill it passed by use of a personal vote with 83 MPs in favor and 7 against. A list of who voted for and against can be found here.

3) Employment Relations (Statutory Minimum Redundancy Entitlements) Amendment Bill – Continuation of 1st reading – Sue Moroney

This debate is a continuation of the 1st reading of this bill with around 4 speeches left to go. The purpose of the bill is to add a new clause to the Employment Relations Act 2000 in order to allow for redundancy payments to workers to are dismissed.

4) Electricity (Renewable Preference) Amendment Bill – 1st reading – Moana Mackey

This bill is designed to bring back a 10 year ban on the creation of thermal generation of power. This 10 year ban was originally removed in the Electricity (Renewable Preference) Repeal Bill 2008. The 10 year ban on thermal generation of power was apart of the original Emissions Trading Scheme. Expect some attacks on Labour over the 72% percent rise in power during there time in Government.

NZ Polemicist blogs in support of the Pakeha Party:

The “Pakeha Party” that you cite may well be moronic and ignorant.

However, political parties based on an exclusive race and ethnicity already exist in New Zealand. Maori Party is one.

And time and again, some ambitious Pacific Islander politician proposes the Pasifika party. Last time, before such Pasifika party could be launched and consolidated the leader had to go to jail on corruption charges (Taito Field). I hear the rumors that ambitious NZ First MP Asenati Taylor plans a Pasifika party.

Even though some may find the idea of race based political party vomit-inducing, but the truth is that in New Zealand we already have these parties. It is people’s democratic right to be able to form a racial political group (as long as it does not preach hatred towards another race or ethnicity)

So, why should we judge, mock or resent a bunch of White New Zealanders who want to huddle together and launch a political party that will predominantly look after the interests of marginalized White people, for example?

I’m sure Poor White in New Zealand far outnumber all the poor “colored” people put together. I would very much welcome a White NZ party that exclusively speaks for the rights of poor and marginalized White New Zealanders.

I would note though that the man behind the Pakeha Party is a convicted criminal:

When asked about claims he had a criminal background, Mr Ruck admitted he had been sentenced to 10 months in prison for stealing $40,000 of DJ equipment. He served five months in Paparoa Prison, he said.

“There is a small number of DJs in Christchurch who hate my guts, in my opinion because I’m better than them.”

Or they may hate you because you stole $40,000 of equipment!

He said he was sent to prison for a month on another charge for driving his scooter without a licence.

You would not get prison for that offence, unless there was prior previous offending.

Mr Ruck told APNZ he was a businessman running a company called 0199, which he said he set up to compete with the Yellow Pages.

He said he also had a bad credit rating.

Theft will do that to you.

He believed he didn’t have enough knowledge of New Zealand history or politics to run the party.

“To be honest I don’t even know when the next election is.”

It’s in July 2016. Start planning for it now, so you can peak for it.

The Civilian looks at some policies for the Pakeha Party:

• Make Christchurch the capital of New Zealand.
• Replace confusing Maori names with their white equivalents. Whangarei to become Wongaray. Kaikoura to become Cackaracka.
• Install Michael Laws as mayor of as many councils as he can logistically manage
• Haka to be performed in English and only by Chesdale Cheese ambassadors Ches and Dale
• Aoraki Mount Cook to be renamed Mount Cook Mount Cook
• Prosecute Maori for extinction of Moa
• Maori must stop dominating unemployment and prison statistics and give Pakeha a fair go
• Pakeha Television, broadcasting nothing but Friends

Heh.

Michael Fox at Stuff reports:

Justice Minister Judith Collins’ office has become embroiled in a Wikipedia war with ministry critic Roger Brooking.

Brooking is an outspoken critic of Collins and the Justice Ministry and was a prolific Wikipedia editor – now banned – under the username Offender9000.

Writing on his blog at the weekend Brooking said his entries had been slashed from lengthy articles to stubs of little more than a few hundred words.

He voiced concerns that Collins or her staff were behind the edits though admitted to Fairfax Media he had no proof.

This reminds me of the time when I worked in the PMs Office and a fervent Alliance activist publicly accused me of having used my Internet black box over-ride to block her from accessing the Internet. The reality was that Ihug just had an outage (I know as I was on the same ISP!).

In this case if Brooking has been banned from editing Wikipedia, it will be because he consistently broke the rules. It is quite hard to get banned. You have to be quite irrational, or consistently doing biased edits. Some people think Wikipedia is a forum for them to make people look bad. It isn’t.

A spokesperson for Collins admits to making minor changes but said they were up-front about who they were – claims backed up by Wikipedia logs and supported by a Wikipedia editor.

Comments from Collins’ office appear in the Wikipedia logs.

“I am Judith’s press secretary. Happy to help out by providing a more recent photo for use. As I have a clear [conflict of interest] … I won’t be editing content on the page but I may suggest changes which you can choose to take up or not and can provide further background material etc as requested,” the press secretary wrote in February.

That is exactly the way to do it. Be up front on who you are, and propose changes on the talk page, rather than make edits directly.

Brooking pointed to pages he had edited, including articles on legal aid, the police, corrections, Independent Police Conduct Authority and the Government Communications Security Bureau – which had been slashed.

“I thought New Zealanders had freedom of speech – according to the Bill of Rights we do. But Judith Collins and Chris Burns don’t seem to think so,” he wrote.

Speaking to Fairfax, Brooking admitted he had no proof but was concerned about the changes and the fact he had been banned from editing Wikipedia.

While Brooking bemoaned the changes he was often forced to defend his own entries and changes against accusations of bias by other editors.

Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can ignore Wikipedia’s rules. Mr Brooking is free to set up his own websites where he can say what he likes about Judith Collins. But he can’t pollute Wikipedia with his edits if they don’t comply.

A Wikipedia editor with the username Gadfium told Fairfax Media via email that Collins’ office had been open about its contributions though they were told they should refrain from making further changes.

“They declared their conflict of interest and only edited the Judith Collins article to supply a requested photo,” the editor said.

The removal of a comment from an article about David Bain which it considered defamatory to Collins was “understandable” and the staff did not try to reimpose the changes when they were reinserted but “began a civil discussion at an appropriate page”.

I love it when an article quotes someone by their online alias. Gadfium is a long-standing and well known editor of Wikipedia. He makes the point again that the best practice is to discuss potentially controversial edits on the talk pages, not just have an edit war.

Gadfium said Brooking was blocked from editing because of concerns about bias and because he was also operating anonymous accounts, something which is not allowed.

When you start setting up anonymous accounts so you can say nasty things about someone on Wikipedia, you need to relax and get a life.

There is an interesting contrast between the Stuff article on this issue, and the NZ Herald article. The Stuff article includes the claims by Brooking, but includes an interview with a Wikipedia editor, goes into lengthy detail of what Collins’ office did do, and how they followed correct process. It also highlights how Brooking has been banned, and why. I think it is very well balanced.

By contrast the Herald article gives a very different impression. It doesn’t provide key details (which are important to those who know this stuff) such as the staff identified themselves on the talk page, and explicitly said they don’t intend to do edits etc.  I’m not having a go at the Herald article but I urge peopel to read both articles and reflect the entirely different impressions they leave. It shows how decisions on what to include and highlight can dramatically change the impression you get from an article.

Stuff reports:

Labour leader David Shearer is facing more destabilising rumours after batting off speculation all day that a letter of no confidence was being circulated among his MPs.

The rumour started circulating early in the day yesterday but the MPs named as being behind the move hotly denied it and Shearer said through a spokesman there had been no letter and the claims were rubbish.

Soundings among party insiders suggested there was no push on but the latest speculation will not help his leadership after earlier rumours of a leadership push before the end of the year.

The latest speculation followed a series of Labour crisis meetings over a so-called “man ban” in proposed changes to party selection rules which were withdrawn yesterday following a backlash from Labour’s MPs.

The rumours centred on a no confidence letter supposedly circulated by Labour MPs Clayton Cosgrove, Andrew Little and Shane Jones, but all three rubbished it.

Someone at The Standard said what they had heard was Little would stand for Leader with Jones as his deputy.

Cosgrove said the rumours had been started by National and told Fairfax the speculation was “absolute crap”.

He was 100 per cent behind Shearer’s leadership.

Little and Jones also flatly denied the letter.

Jones said he had seen no letter and no one had approached him to sign any letter.

Little is understood to have approached Shearer earlier to give him an assurance he had not been destabilising his leadership.

Insiders were saying there was no discussion about a no confidence motion during Monday’s caucus.

Reports from inside the David Cunliffe camp said he had contacted Shearer to assure him he was not behind any of the rumours and was not moving against him.

The old saying is it is never official until it is denied – as Kevin Rudd did. Rudd denied he would challenge right up until two hours before he did.

As I said last night, I don’t think there is currently a letter. However it is clear there is a destabilisation campaign underway. Just two weeks ago we heard a Labour MP telling both One News and Three News reporters that Shearer had 60 days.

An Auckland Labour source suggested the aim was to replace the current leadership with Wellington Central MP Grant Robertson, former party president Andrew Little and David Cunliffe in the finance role.

The unity ticket. The big losers would be Parker, and of course Shearer.

Rongotai MP Annette King also joined in the fight back accusing reporters of getting it wrong and running false rumours from Right Wing commentators.

As far as I know, no “right wing commentator” said anything about the rumour until Duncan Garner broadcast them.

United Future have sent this e-mail out to their members:

We sent out an email a couple of weeks ago asking that people print the email and return it to us to support our application for re-registration with the Electoral Commission.

There was an excellent response enabling us to submit the signed forms yesterday. The Commission has come back to us requiring some more signatures as they have issues with enough of the forms to take us under the magic 500 required. I can assure you that we have a lot more than the required 500 members, it’s the signed forms we don’t have enough of. We are trying to get the process completed as quickly as possible hence the urgency.

It’s up to you! If you are able to print, sign and date this email then scan and email it back to xxx we will be able to complete that part of the registration process.

Thank you for your initial response, it is greatly appreciated. Your assistance with this request will get the job done.

Many thanks, 

So looks like some of the forms were non-compliant, hence it may take even longer.

A reader writes in:

Basically, what’s happened to NZ tv drama?

This week The Almighty Johnsons returned and produced a dismal +5 rating of 3 . In its target audience of males 18-49 it rated just a 4, about half of the previous series.

Go Girls has ratings of 5 in +5. Blue Rose on TV2 was a fizzer, rating 3s and 4s in 5+. TV3s Harry did a dismal 3.

It’s a good question. NZ drama has rated well in the past, but at the moment it is all rating pretty badly.

Duncan Garner has tweeted:

Good source. Coup on in Labour. Letter of no confidence being circulated. It’s over for Shearer. Watch for his resignation.

If this is right, then a fascinating Robertson v Cunliffe battle for the leadership – unless they do a deal and one does Leader and one Deputy.

Or will Little stand also and try to be the candidate in the middle, who can appeal to both the left supporting Cunliffe and the ABC faction? If Robertson is seen as too tied up in the recent bad political management, Little could come through the middle.

UPDATE: Chief Whip Chris Hipkins denies there is a coup:

@Garner_Live Your source is full of crap. No letter. No leadership challenge. Stop making things up.

Now I don’t believe Garner is making anything up. I have no doubt a source has told him that there is a letter of no confidence.

However it is possible Garner is being played by someone in Labour trying to destabilise Shearer. This was the Rudd vs Gillard strategy – keep the speculation alive, so the leader is so weakened that have to go.

Whether Garner’s source is correct or not will become apparent with time. Fascinating to watch.

UPDATE2: Duncan Garner has said on Radio Live that Patrick Gower has the letter, and will show it on Nightline tonight at 1030.

UPDATE3: Garner now says Gower not on Nightline. He has tweeted:

Gower not on nightline… labour MPs denying letter of course… Text book coup, 60 day warning, man ban, letter, denials, denials, gone.

This makes me think that there is no coup letter (at this stage), but that someone in Labour has started a destabilisation campaign.

UPDATE4: Grant Robertson has tweeted he has contacted every Labour MP, and they all deny there is a letter. So I think nothing is happening for now. However, the fact someone in Labour is creating trouble is not good for them.

Around a year ago I purchased tickets for the Wellington production of “Yes, Prime Minister”, based on the famous TV series of the 1980s.

So with great excitement on Friday night I went along to the State Opera House to see the show.

However I left slightly disappointed.

Don’t get me wrong. It was a very good show, and I enjoyed it. It is definitely worth seeing if you enjoy politics and humour.

But it was also a reminder of how almost perfect the TV series was. The actors, the scripts, the mannerisms were sublime.

I spent the first 15 minutes of the show thinking that isn’t how Sir Humphrey would speak, that Bernard is too old, and that Jim Hacker not enough of a klutz.

After a while you do get used to the new cast, but they don’t gel quite as well as the originals.

The plot, which is needing a deal with a fictional Middle East state for an oil pipline to bail out Europe is well done, and has some classic elements of the show such as Sir Humphrey trying to sneak past Hacker that the deal will require the UK to join the Euro.

All in all, a good show, and a pleasant reminder of the TV series. But not in the same league.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand has rejected Japan’s claim to be legally whaling in the Antarctic as an attempt to reduce the global whaling treaty to an industry cartel.

Intervening in the International Court of Justice case brought by Australia against Japan on Monday, Attorney General Chris Finlayson said the treaty’s purpose was not the protection of commercial whaling.

Instead Finlayson told the ICJ in The Hague that the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling was intended to be for the conservation and development of whale stocks.

Its key article eight on “special permit” scientific whaling, which is being argued before ICJ, did not give carte blanche to any member country to sidestep the rest of the treaty, he said.

Under the article, Japan currently issues its whalers with permits to kill up to 935 minke whales, 50 fin whales, and 50 humpback whales in the Antarctic.

Over 26 years more than 10,000 whales have been killed in the programme, including 18 fin whales, but the humpback quota has been suspended.

Japan told the court last week that article eight unambiguously said decision-making power on permits rested with the state party concerned.

Finlayson said Japan had tried to sew together snippets of the article to construct a blanket exemption from other parts of the treaty.

“Far from creating a blanket exemption, the words create an obligation on the contracting government to operate within the words of the convention when issuing a special permit,” Finlayson said.

Japan’s claims that their whaling is scientific research is farcical. You don’t need to kill 1,000 whales a year for research, and you don’t turn the whales into food, if it is for research.

I don’t have a problem with whaling, if it is sustainable. But I do have a problem with Japan not honouring its international commitments.

Judith Collins has announced:

Justice Minister Judith Collins today announced the Governor-General has declined Scott Watson’s application for exercise of the Royal prerogative of mercy.

“After thorough consideration of all the relevant material, I advised the Governor-General that Mr Watson’s application be declined,” Ms Collins says.

Mr Watson was convicted of murdering Ben Smart and Olivia Hope who were last seen boarding a yacht in Endeavour Inlet, in the Marlborough Sounds, in the early hours of 1 January 1998.

Following unsuccessful appeals to the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council claiming his innocence, Mr Watson applied to the Governor-General for exercise of the Royal prerogative of mercy.

“In 2009 the Ministry of Justice engaged Kristy McDonald QC to provide advice on Mr Watson’s application,” Ms Collins says.

Ms McDonald considered not only Mr Watson’s original application, but also additional material that was provided by Mr Watson and his legal team between the submission of his original application and December 2012.

In 2011 Ms McDonald provided a report on the key issues raised by Mr Watson’s application and in March 2013, she provided a further report responding to matters raised by Mr Watson’s lawyers from her original report.

Ms McDonald concluded that nothing provided in support of Mr Watson’s application created a real risk that Mr Watson was wrongfully convicted.

I’ve read several books on the murder of Ben and Olivia, and I think Watson was the killer – so am pleased with this decision.

The Q+A notes:

A main ground of Mr Watson’s application was his submission that two key Crown witnesses (Guy Wallace, a water taxi driver, and Roslyn McNeilly, bar manager) hadmade statements changing their trial evidence relating to the identification of Mr Watson.

Ms McDonald considered the information provided by Mr Watson in support of this submission, as well as interviewing both witnesses. She advised that the information provided by Ms McNeilly and Mr Wallace in support of Mr Watson’s application was not “fresh”. It would not have added significantly to the identification evidence both witnesses gave at trial, and had to be viewed in the context of the other trial evidence, including the DNA evidence which suggested that two hairs found on Mr Watson’s boat came from Ms Hope.

Watson was convicted in 1999. His non-parole period is until July 2016. That doesn’t mean he will be released at that stage – just that he can be.

Hayley Dixon at the Daily Telegraph reports:

Doctors from the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) believe that they have now pin-pointed the moment the trend went global after an episode of Sex and the City which aired in 2000.

The pubic louse, or Pthirus pubis, have plagued humanity for thousands of years, with archaeologists discovering specimens in the UK as far back as the 1st century AD.

From 1997 to 2003, incidence of the lice dropped from 0.41 per cent to 0.17 per cent, and sexual health clinics around the world have reported that the once common complaint is now extremely rare.