Paul Easton at Stuff reports:

Serial protester Benjamin Easton has been warned he could face jail, after failing to complete community work for bashing a Wellington street with a sledgehammer.

Easton appeared in the Wellington District Court today, after finishing just five of 80 hours community work for disorderly behaviour and endangering public safety.

I’m surprised Easton hasn’t managed to do 80 hours of community service. It is not as if he doesn’t have the time to do it, as you know having a job is uncool.

Easton replied that a jail sentence would not be “in the public interest.”

He had lodged a fresh appeal against the convictions with the Court of Appeal, he said.

Judge Butler said jailing Easton would be premature, considering the new appeal.

I’m pretty confident what the results of the appeal will be!

3 News reports:

Prime Minister John Key has been quoted as telling US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that New Zealand would “welcome the opportunity to cooperate with the US in the next conflicts”.

The comments were posted on the US State Department’s website on Friday last week but went unnoticed until host of TV3 show Media 3, Russell Brown, wrote about the comments on his blog.

According to the transcript, Mr Key said: “New Zealand warmly supports the United States rebalancing towards the Asia Pacific, and we welcome the opportunity to cooperate with the US in the next conflicts.”

In response, Mr Brown writes: “What the hell sort of thing is that to say when we’ve just buried several New Zealanders, killed in the dying days of a long and ultimately fruitless war at the behest of the US?”

“This isn’t Key saying something feckless off the top of his head, as he sometimes does – someone else wrote, or at least read, that line. I’m surprised it hasn’t been regarded as news, frankly.”

New Zealand journalists alerted Brown to the transcriber’s error on Twitter, revealing the quote was incorrect.

An audio recording of the meeting proves Mr Key did not say New Zealand would back the US “in the next conflicts”. It’s clear – to New Zealand ears, at least – that he is saying “in that context”.

In several places in the transcript, Mr Key’s words are listed as being “inaudible”. “The Prime Minister’s diction appears to have rather defeated the State Department’s transcriber,” writes Mr Brown.

Heh. Just as well someone spotted the error, so if there is some future conflict the US can’t point to it and say “You promised you’d be there” 🙂

Stuff reports:

The Conservatives hired Research First to poll Helensville voters on the issue of gay marriage and gay adoption.

About 89 per cent said their MP should consult their electorate over conscience votes and vote the way voters wanted them to, it found.

While the majority did sat y they want their MP to vote as they say (no surprise), there are a few things to note about the poll. If you look at the small print on the pamphlet, it is actually a poll of both Helensville and Rodney electorates.

The full poll results are online on the Conservative Party website. It was done by Research First.

I blogged last year my criticisms of the poll done by Research First for the Conservatives in Rodney. It purported to show Craig ahead of the National candidate and had serious flaws such as mixing results from an unprompted question with a prompted question. It is a matter of record that Craig lost the seat by over 12,000 votes.

I’m pleased to say that this poll is, in my opinion, much sounder than last year’s Rodney one. In fact in some areas it is more transparent than almost any other poll report. There are also some areas you can be critical, and I’ll get into those also, but first I’ll highlight the really good stuff that Research First have done with this poll.

1. The full report has been made available online.
2. They disclose their call-back policy – a laudable six times.
3. They disclose their response rate, and detail the reasons for non-response. This is an A+ level of transparency. I don’t think I have seen another NZ poll report that does this.
4. They disclose their demographic breakdown, and what variables they weighted on.
5. They include the full questionnaire as an appendix to the report.
6. The question order appears to be sound, with the question on marriage vs civil unions at the beginning of the poll

UPDATE: Forgot to mention one other issue which occurred to me. Respondents were told up-front that the poll was on gay marriage, and this led to around 100 people saying they didn’t want to take part. This may have impacted the results a bit also, as it is more likely those with strong views on the issue will want to take part. Ideally, in my opinion, you want to tell respondents generally what the poll is about (such as saying “on a current political issue) but need to be careful not to be too specific as it may then become a bit self-selecting.

Stuff reports:

Disgraced former MP Taito Philip Field has been ordered to pay more than $27,000 to the Solicitor-General for unpaid work carried out on his homes.

Field was found guilty of 11 counts of bribery and 15 counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice in 2009, after he accepted work on his houses from Thai nationals in return for immigration assistance.

He was sent to jail for six years.

Following the case, the Solicitor General applied for Field to pay the money back – an amount he said was $58,000. Field argued it was only $15,000.

It is alleged the four New Zealand properties involved were sold at a profit of $387,500 after being held, on average, for about 18 months.

In a judgement released today, Judge Rodney Hansen ordered Field to pay back $27, 480 – the cost of painting and plastering at the properties, as well as the cost of tiling, painting and plastering at a home in Samoa.

Hopefully that money will make its way to the immigrant labour that worked for free or below minimum wage on his properties.

Tom Pullar-Strecker reports:

Record companies have asked for three Kiwi internet users to be hauled in front of the Copyright Tribunal and fined under the controversial “Skynet” copyright law for allegedly pirating music.

Previously the Recording Industry Association (Rianz) had limited itself to sending more than 2700 warnings to people it believed it had caught illegally sharing music through peer-to-peer networks.

There was surprise in July when it emerged the association had chosen not to take action against any of the first three internet users who had received third and final “enforcement notices” under the three-strikes regime.

But Justice Ministry spokesman Nathan Green confirmed that Rianz, which represents big labels, including EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner, had now bared its teeth by making an example of three others who had received their final notices.

“Three applications for an order requiring payment to a rights owner under Section 122(O) of the Copyright Act 1994 have been received from the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand,” he said.

From a policy point of view, I’m glad we now have some cases going to the Tribunal. It means we may learn what the Tribunal will regard as sufficient proof of infringement, what they regard as an acceptable defence (if one is offered), and what they regard as an appropriate penalty (within the legislation).

Rather rare for me to praise Winston, but I all thoroughly approve of his action in Parliament last week:

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) : I wonder whether I could ask the leave of the House to move a motion without notice regarding the 100th birthday of Nancy Wake, the Allies’ most decorated female war hero. This is her 100th birthday today.

Mr SPEAKER: Just to get it clear, the member is seeking leave for a motion to be moved without debate to commemorate that occasion. Is there any objection to that course of action? There is no objection.

Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS: I regret the collective lack of preparation on this, frankly. I move, That this Housecommemorate the 100th birthday of Nancy Wake, the Allies’ most famous and decorated Second World War hero, remembering that she was, after all, born in New Zealand of both Māori and European background. It is, perhaps, a matter of disappointment that we, as a country, have not acknowledged her in the way that France, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom have.

I’ve blogged on Nancy Wake often in the past. I knew of course she was born in New Zealand. but didn’t know she was part-Maori. Her parents were Charles Augustus Wake and Ella Rosieur, and it appears Ella’s grandfather Charles Cossell married a Maori “maiden” called Pourewa in 1836 – one of the first ever marriages between races in NZ.

Her biography says that legend has it that Hone Heke wanted Poueewa for himself and had threatened to kill Cossell and Pourewa, but was himself killed before he could.

Adam Bennett at NZ Herald reports:

The partial sale of Mighty River Power has been delayed until next year, Prime Minister John Key confirmed this afternoon.

Mr Key said the sale would now take place in the period from March to June and would be followed by the partial sale of either Genesis or Meridian later next year.

This is a significant decision. While MRP will still be floated, the chance of having all five sales before the 2014 election is diminished. National would ideally like them all completed so that 2014 is not about any further asset sales, but other issues. So Labour will be happy with today’s decision. They will also be more likely to get the signatures for their petition completed in time, so that the petition is validated before the first sale. They will then use that to call for a further delay (which of course will not happen).

I guess the Government wasn’t confident that if they did not delay, that legal action wouldn’t force a delay anyway. So this is probably a case of making a virtue out of necessity.

This is also a win for the Maori Party. They will use the delay as proof that being constructively engaged with Government, is better than total opposition to everything as Mana does.

One possibility for the Government is to only sell minority stakes in three SOES, not four (Air NZ is not an SOE), which could still be done before the 2014 election. There is a case for the time being very bad for Solid Energy, and also a case for not selling Genesis (which I will blog on later this week). Both of these companies are pretty small compared to the others.

The SST profiles Alwyn Poole’s plans for charter schools with John Tamihere:

Starting his own school cost Alwyn Poole his home.

He knew buying the century-old property amid the ranks of private clinicians on Auckland’s blue-blood Remuera Rd was a necessity; he had to set up somewhere affluent enough that the parents could afford $12,000 fees. A decade on, Poole and his wife Karen are still renting, but Mt Hobson Middle School’s Victorian villa has been oversubscribed for the past eight years.

Poole reckons the school’s core principles – small class sizes, focusing on the individual, using outside experts – work well. It has the academic results, the ERO report and, importantly, that bulging roll to prove it. Last year, he says, the marketing budget was a mere $300 (spent on new business cards) because the school doesn’t need to spruik for pupils.

So he believes himself perfectly placed to run the first charter schools in New Zealand – and surprisingly, given the right-wing genesis of charter (or “partnership”) schools, his partner in this enterprise is the former Labour minister John Tamihere.

In the US, the biggest supporters of charter schools are in fact African-Americans.

Even more surprising is the concept: not aimed at middle-class parents lusting after extra clarinet lessons and a debating society, but to the children of Henderson, West Auckland, and with an intention to provide them with a private school education, but without the fees.

Superb.

Poole and Tamihere, with the Waipareira Trust, want to establish four 50-pupil middle schools on a single West Auckland campus.

The project envisages a central hub with an indoor sports hall, auditorium and offices, with, it seems, some sort of business manager at its heart. Each school would have its own principal responsible for academic affairs.

Quite a smart idea. All sorts of innovations are possible when freed from central planning.

Each year, Poole’s school receives $1300 per student from the Government in funding, but pays it back in GST on fees. So his income is the $12,000 per year paid by parents for fees. A substantial proportion of that goes into paying the mortgage on the school property.

His argument is that because of the $8500 the Government pays for each state-educated pupil and the lower property prices in West Auckland, he could run exactly the same model there without charging parents anything.

Would he make a profit? He says not. “We have been as philanthropic as you can be [in selling their home]. Most people who are likely to become involved will do so without even a hint of a profit motive. I don’t think there are vast profits to be made from education in New Zealand.”

Anyway, he says, everyone makes money from education: teachers, unions, IT providers.

Some hate the fact someone may make money out of something, that they’ll fight against it on principle.

Critics of charter schools suggest that allowing business through the doors will mean the educational imperative becomes downplayed, conjuring images of a Dickensian private academy where 50 students cram over a single textbook and the proprietor swims in piles of money. “I understand that if you are compelling the children to go to the schools,” counters Poole, “but parents aren’t stupid . . . you have to trust them to make sound choices.”

Something the education unions and their proxies seem to hate – allowing parents to make choices.

If you ever need proof of the need of local government reform, have a look at the plan by the Auckland Council Maori Statutory Board.

The Government is saying that councils should focus on core responsibilities such as infrastructure and services. The local body politicians are fighting this and saying they want to keep Labour’s law which allows them to spend ratepayer money on absolutely anything at all.

Here’s a few of their 49 proposals:

• Auckland Council to advocate for, and grow community support for, compulsory te reo Māori in all Auckland Schools
• Auckland Council to support development of scholarships, residency programmes, overseas exchanges and career pathways for developing Māori Artists
• Auckland Council to advocate for the establishment of a Tāmaki Makaurau Education Forum to develop a long term education strategy for Māori in the region
• Auckland Council in partnership with Mana Whenua and Mataawaka advocate for programmes and activities that promote home ownership and financial literacy
• Auckland Council to support home insulation programmes to Māori homes

It is not the job of the Auckland Council to advocate for compulsory te reo in schools. It is not the job of the Council to create career pathways for artists. It is not the job of the Council to help develop an education strategy for the region. It not not the role of the Council to try and improve financial literacy of people. It is not the role of Council to support home insulations (unless they are the landlords).

These are pretty much all roles of the central Government. Those who advocate local Government should be able to do everything central Government does are proposing duplication, conflict and waste – all at the expense of ratepayers and taxpayers.

Worse of all, they undermine accountability. I want to hold central Government accountable for what they are responsible for, and local Government accountable for what they are responsible for.  You can’t do that very well when there is no clear lines of responsibility.

Kate Wilkinson announced last week:

The fortification of bread with folic acid will remain voluntary, Food Safety Minister Kate Wilkinson announced today.

A thorough eight-week public consultation process by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) resulted in 134 submissions, of which 88 supported voluntary instead of mandatory fortification.

“In making my decision in favour of voluntary fortification, I read all the submissions and the clear message is that people want choice,” Ms Wilkinson says.

I am pleased with this decision. Personally I hope bakers decide to include folic acid in the bread they sell, but it has to be a choice. Any other decision could have been a slippery slope.

Women’s red blood folate levels have increased in the past few years under the existing voluntary fortification. Between 2008 and 2011 the level of women with blood folate levels that put them at risk of having a neural tube defect (NTD) affected pregnancy has nearly halved.

“Folic acid plays an important role in reducing NTDs in babies, but fortification of bread is only one part of a wider package of initiatives.”

We encourage parents in New Zealand to vaccinate their children, but we don’t make it compulsory.  This is in keeping with that tradition.

The Herald reports:

The AA will take a cautious look at a bill which closes a drink-driving loophole.

Coromandel MP Scott Simpson’s Land Transport (Admissibility of Evidential Breath Tests) Amendment Bill, drawn from the parliamentary ballot last week, would widen the circumstances where a positive evidential breath test is admissible evidence in drink-driving prosecutions.

Under current law, a positive breath test is not admissible in evidence if the suspect opts to have a blood test, but there have been a small number of cases where police were unable to get blood tests after suspects had chosen to have them, and had not been able to fall back on breath test results to prosecute.

Mr Simpson cited one 2005 case, where police had struggled with a suspect whose blood sample was gained only after several attempts.

I believe there is also a problem sometimes with drug addicts whose arms are so wrecked that finding a vein to draw blood from is near impossible.

So the law change is pretty simple – they can use the breath test as evidence, if it proves impossible to get a blood sample. Not sure anyone will be against that.

The Herald reports:

A major conference bringing together the world’s biggest players in genetic modification opened to the angry chants of protesters yesterday.

The week-long international agricultural biotechnology conference is being described by those on both sides of the genetic modification debate as a significant event for GM – but for opposing reasons.

Organisers hoped the Rotorua conference would foster collaboration and provide more answers on how GM could assist in feeding a world population expected to double by 2050.

Nope. Those extra people just have to starve as GM is evil.

The chief executive of event hosts NZBIO, Suzanne Bertrand, said GM was one “tool” to advance research.

“New Zealand is feeding about 19 million people out of its agriculture and it is using the latest technology … it’s been using biotechnology for the last 20 years – without it, we would be nowhere,” she said. “Some people say we shouldn’t even touch GE, but as a tool for research it’s very interesting.”

There is huge potential, and none of the scare stories are yet to come true.

Jerome Konescni, who chairs the body that organised the international conference, argued that could not be done using organic food.

“The question I would ask proponents of organics is: if we have to double the world’s food supply by 2050, how are you going to do with it technology that … reduces production rather than increases it?”

But Greens MP Steffan Browning, who hosted an afternoon seminar against GE in a meeting room a few hundred metres away, called the view “rubbish”.

“If our population goes berserk, no system is going to feed the world. But organic and traditional means are going to feed the world better until we hit that point … GE is not going to do it.”

The Green version of “Let them eat cake”.

If the luddites succeed in banning GE, it won’t be the first time their policies have killed huge numbers of people. For years they campaigned on how biofuels must replace oil and demanded big subsidies for them. So farmers all around the world dug up their food producing crops and starting growing biofuel crops instead.

The World Bank has estimated that the push for biofuels has pushed 35 million more people into absolute poverty and resulted in 192,000 additional deaths a year.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand’s film and TV industry has risen to become one of our most lucrative – reeling in more than $3.23 billion last year.

The sector’s contribution to gross domestic product was $2.78 billion, representing 1.4 per cent of New Zealand’s total GDP, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report found. The sector also supported 21,315 fulltime-equivalent jobs.

This is great news, except for the Hobbit haters who organised a global boycott of The Hobbit – which would have led to productions fleeing overseas.

The New Zealand market for online movies and TV shows has increased by 55 per cent over 12 months.

Services like iSky and TVNZ Ondemand are rapidly gaining popularity, along with online movie services.

Overseas services available in New Zealand include Caspa, MovieFlix, Movieway, Mubi and Zune Video Europe-based services including Movieurope.

Quickflix New Zealand was one of the latest to enter the market, in March, with a monthly pay-as-you-go model.

More providers are expected to enter the New Zealand market with the increasing rollout of ultrafast broadband, increasing competition and consumer choice.

It’s great that more and more content is being made available for purchase online. The stats show people are keen to buy good movies and TV shows – so long as they can you know actually buy them.

Stuff reports:

The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah who turned his Unification Church into a worldwide religious movement and befriended North Korean leaders as well as US presidents, has died, church officials say. He was 92.

Moon died today at a church-owned hospital near his home in Gapyeong, northeast of Seoul, two weeks after being hospitalised with pneumonia, Unification Church spokesman Ahn Ho-yeul told The Associated Press. Moon’s wife and children were at his side, Ahn said.

Moon, born in a town that is now in North Korea, founded his religious movement in Seoul in 1954 after surviving the Korean War. He preached new interpretations of lessons from the Bible.

The church gained fame – and notoriety – in the 1970s and 1980s for holding mass weddings of thousands of followers, often from different countries, whom Moon matched up in a bid to build a multicultural religious world.

The church was accused of using devious recruitment tactics and duping followers out of money; parents of followers in the United States and elsewhere expressed worries that their children were brainwashed into joining. The church responded by saying that many other new religious movements faced similar accusations in their early stages.

Yeah, there is a reason for that.

The church was not all bad. They did some good with North Korea (where Moon had been a prisoner).But he did also serve 13 months for tax fraud in he 1980s.

Tracy Watkins reports:

The Cabinet is expected to press ahead today with the Government’s flagship asset sales programme after a landmark Waitangi Tribunal report.

But insiders are not ruling out a “short to medium” delay to the first share offering, as the Cabinet weighs up whether to push out the original timetable by just a few weeks – which would still allow for a pre-Christmas float – or delay the sale of the first shares until early next year.

Putting the part-float of state-owned energy companies on ice indefinitely is not on the table, sources say.

I never thought it was.

There were calls yesterday for the Government to delay the sales as Labour and the Greens step up their efforts to force a referendum on the issue before the next election.

They’re not quite there let. Obviously the Greens need to spend more taxpayer funding on hiring signature collectors.

I also look forward to the Greens and Labour announcing they are repealing or amending the anti-smacking law, as they have suddenly become fans of referenda trumping election outcomes.

In an urgent report a week ago, the Waitangi Tribunal called on the Government to put the first share float for Mighty River Power on hold until it had thrashed out a mechanism for recognising Maori proprietary rights and interests on waterways within power company catchments.

Controversially, the tribunal proposed a “share plus” option as one solution, possibly including super-dividends, board seats and even a right of veto for Maori.

But the Cabinet seems almost certain to balk at that option, given the power it would hand to iwi as minority shareholders to override bigger shareholders and management on strategic decisions. Government sources have confirmed there are concerns at whether the “shares plus” option is even workable.

What does that mean for the credibility of the Tribunal, if it has proposed an option that in workable?

The HoS reports:

Conservative Party leader Colin Craig thinks John Key is “too gay” for his Helensville seat and has said so in 20,000 letters to residents.

Pamphlets arrived in locals’ mailboxes this week, urging them not to back Labour MP Louisa Wall’s same-sex marriage bill. They were accompanied by a signed letter from Craig. It gave prominence to a comment from a disgruntled local: “Colin, you should stand here because John Key is too gay for Helensville.”

What sort of political moron would actually use a quote like that in a pamphlet they authorise?

“There are people out there who simply don’t like to see their Prime Minister doing things like dancing on stage with transvestites, as he has done in the past,” he said.

The crime is the dancing, not the company he dances with 🙂

I note that in Helensville John Key got 26,011 votes and the 2nd placed candidate got 4,945. The Conservative candidate got 945.

Stuff reports:

The release date for the final film in The Hobbit trilogy has been announced.

It will follow more closely on the heels of the second film, the name of which has been re-titled.

The final instalment, titled The Hobbit: There and Back Again, will have its international release on July 18, 2014 – just seven months after film number two, which has been re-titled The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Warner Bros executive Dan Fellman said the studios wanted the final two films in the trilogy to be closer together.

”We wanted to have a shorter gap between the second and third films of The Hobbit trilogy. Opening in July affords us not only the perfect summer tent pole, but fans will have less time to wait for the finale of this epic adventure.”

This confirms my theory that the first movie will end with the finding of the ring, or maybe just after they escape the mines.

The second movie I think will end with the killing of Smaug.

The third will be the fallout over the treasure, the battle of the five armies and the linking to Lord of the Rings such as driving out the Necromancer (Sauron).

Stuff reports:

New Zealand’s Sophie Pascoe has won her second gold, and third medal, of the Paralympics with a world record time in the S10 100m butterfly.

The 19-year-old, who won gold in the S10 200m individual medley and silver in the S10 50m freestyle, set a new world record of 1:04:43, almost half a second faster than the world record she set in the heats.

She was not challenged in the final, beating out the silver emdal winner Oliwia Jablonska of Poland by four seconds while bronze went to Elodie Lorandi of France who was a further second back.

Pascoe now needs just one more gold medal to equal the three golds and a silver she secured in Beijing four years ago, and has three more events up her sleeve.

What a great achievement, and she is still so young. Here’s hoping for more medals.

Audrey Young at NZ Herald reports:

Trade Minister Tim Groser yesterday announced that New Zealand was joining an initiative to create a huge free trade region.

If the agreement succeeds it would cover an area with more than three billion people, 43 per cent of the world’s population.

Mr Groser has been in Cambodia this week for trade meetings hosted by Asean, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The countries which have agreed to the initiative are the 10 Asean countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and the Philippines – and six countries with which Asean has existing free trade agreements: China, India, Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

The final go-ahead will be given by leaders at a summit in Cambodia in November which Prime Minister John Key is expected to attend.

A few years ago our placement near Asia was a disadvantage. It is rapidly becoming a huge advantage.

8/10 in 52 seconds. Quiz here.

Stuff reports:

Michael Lafou was supposed to be hanging out with his mates playing computer games, but instead the teenager died cold and alone.

The 16-year-old Naenae College pupil sat near the Hutt River with friends and drank a concoction of booze – including straight bourbon, beer and RTDs – before his body was found on the water’s edge early on Wednesday, police have revealed.

They believe heavy alcohol consumption and the cold weather overnight may have contributed to his death.

His death came as MPs voted against raising the drinking age to 20 – a move that disappointed many in the health sector who deal with the consequences of grossly intoxicated teenagers.

He was 16, not 18 or 19. An age change would not have changed this sad outcome.

The death highlighted the dangers of supplying people under 18 with alcohol, Mr Hill said. “This is the harsh consequences of young people drinking.”

Absolutely. We need a culture change that you do not supply alcohol to those unable to purchase it legally. And the rest of the Alcohol Reform Bill changes the law to make it illegal for someone like Michael to be supplied alcohol without parental consent.

Bars and pubs were not at fault, and few liquor stores had been caught selling to underage people. Adults with access to alcohol were largely to blame.

Indeed. I hope they do find out who did supply the alcohol.