The Herald reports:

Beneficiaries who refuse or fail drug tests while applying for jobs will have their welfare cut from mid-2013 under the Government’s next round of welfare reforms.

The National-led Government says there are now no consequences for drug-takers who opted out of job applications when faced with a drug test.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett told the Herald the new Welfare Reform Bill would have new requirements for drug testing, but the finer details were still being finalised.

National’s pre-election policy document said beneficiaries who did not apply for a job because a prospective employer asked them to take a drug test would have their benefit cancelled.

If they took the drug test and failed it, they would also be sanctioned.

Mrs Bennett said the requirements would be introduced to Parliament later this year and were expected to be implemented in July 2013. She expected the rules to apply to anyone on the new Job Seekers benefit.

It will be interesting to see the final details of the policy. If it merely states that if you refuse to apply for a job because of a drug test, then that is fair enough. If all job seekers are expected to be tested regularly, then I’d say that could be pretty intrusive. I would be surprised if it is the latter.

A sensible editorial from the NZ Herald:

The careless language and loose accusations in ACC’s internal exchanges were probably the reason the minister took drastic action. It was an insight into a culture that has been been too hard on some categories of claim, especially those requiring surgery, as Herald investigations had found. Too many rejections of those claims have been reversed on appeal.

But it would be too easy to replace that culture with one at the other extreme. ACC cannot be an automatic entitlement with no questions asked. It is an unusual system, copied by no other country, in its uncritical attitude to the cause of injury. “No-fault” compensation may be a good way to save lawyers’ fees but the same unquestioning principle could not be applied to medical assessments. When ACC seeks a second opinion, though, its medical officers must not influence it as they clearly tried to do in the Pullar case.

ACC is funded by employers, motorists and taxpayers as insurance against sudden disability. It offers cover that ordinary commercial insurance provides elsewhere. Since New Zealand has to be competitive it is vital that ACC’s costs are not out of line with workplace insurance in other places. It has to ensure it is paying out only for genuine injuries and for loss of income only for as long as the claimant is genuinely unable to work.

Exactly. You don’t want ACC assuming all long-term claimants are rorting the system, but equally you don’t want ACC just paying out lifetime earnings to anyone who thinks they are eligible.

As a public insurer, ACC has to be rigorous.

But it should also be sensitive, fair, considerate and dignified in its dealings with people and its discussions about them.

That is as far as the culture change need go.

It is a tough balancing act, but that is it – to be rigorous and fair.

An interesting column by John Roughan on John Key:

Labour, however, staked its whole campaign on opposition to asset sales.

The Opposition did far more than Key to ensure the election was a referendum on them.

Mercifully, I wasn’t here to see what happened but it seems to be agreed National was returned despite its programme, not because the nation was reconciled to it.

Labour and the Greens were sufficiently heartened by opinion polls then and since to oppose the sales all the way to the enactment of the necessary legislation this week.

Polls continue to find most people against the idea but the Government has not suffered very much.

Its polled support is down to around 47 per cent, which is high considering the state of the economy and the steps it is taking.

The election result and everything that has happened since can be explained, I think, by Key’s business credibility.

The voters have responded like small shareholders in a large company when a good chief executive proposes to sell some lucrative assets and they know they will lose him if they vote against it.

Shareholders in this situation can quite comfortably accept decisions they don’t much like or barely understand, because they like the chief executive, trust him, respect his judgment and want to keep him.

Leaders can make unpopular decisions, so long as the public believe the leader has a honest belief in their policies. John Howard was a great example of this – winning four terms despite introducing what was an unpopular GST, taking part in Iraq and a refugee policy which at the time was very unpopular.

When someone like Key looks at a profitable state-owned enterprise he doesn’t simply see a stream of future dividends as most people do – and as the Greens did when they calculated the sale of power companies would be a net loss to the public.

Key looks at those properties and thinks of the cost of the capital he is having to borrow for other public purposes.

Because he is running a country, not a company, he thinks the best use of his capital is in public services that cannot operate profitably and attract private capital.

Labour and the Greens think so too – that is why they haven’t undertaken to buy back the assets Key will sell. And not many of us would want them to. It is a curious thing that while there is heavy opposition to privatisation there is no public enthusiasm for nationalisation.

Indeed. But Peters is saying nationalisation will be a bottom line. Of course he once said no baubles of office also.

Claire Trevett at NZ Herald reports:

The Labour Party wants a ban on electioneering on election day to be scrapped, saying it was “puritanical” and “from a bygone era.”

Labour’s General Secretary, Chris Flatt, told the justice and electoral select committee it was time for the ban to be reviewed and there was no logical reason for all election advertising to disappear by midnight the night before.

He said provided there were laws to prevent intimidation of voters, there was no reason why electioneering should not be allowed on election day as was permitted in Australia and several European countries.

“The puritanical view in New Zealand could be reviewed, especially in light of the number of people who make up their mind to vote in the last week of the election campaign, and the 12 per cent who make up their minds on the day itself.”

I think the fact so many people make their mind up on the day is exactly why you don’t want people accosting them as they go to vote, handing out propaganda and the like.

I do have some sympathy for Labour’s views. The regulations around election day should be reviewed from first principles. With advance voting becoming more common, that has an impact also. And the suggestion that even discussing the weather on election day could be illegal, as it may deter someone from voting was a bit ludicrous.

So I do support a review, but I don’t advocate removing all restrictions as Labour do. I think that would inevitably lead to inappropriate pressure being put on people to vote.

A related issue is whether we should allow exit polls, as many countries do. They are currently banned.

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the latest NZ Herald Digipoll.  The centre-right has 62 seats on this poll, the centre-left 56 and three for the Maori Party.

This is the second quarter of performance stats for opposition MPs. The post of the first quarter stats has the full explanations and methodology.

First looking at the parties, there is a small difference in terms of press releases. NZ First average the most, then Greens, then Labour. We see the same with news stories, with NZ First highest, then Greens and then Labour.

However when it comes to asking written questions, Labour are out in front of the other parties, with Greens and NZ First well behind.

For press releases, the five top MPs are Winston Peters, David Shearer, Russel Norman, Metiria Turei and Hone Harawira – the five party leaders. Turei is now doing far more than in Q1. After the five party leaders, the next two MPs are Clare Curran and Grant Robertson.

The MPs who have done the least releases are Rino Tirikatene, Parekura Horomia, Louisa Wall and Megan Woods who have done two each.

For news stories, the top five MPs are David Shearer, Winston Peters, Russel Norman, Kevin Hague and Hone Harawira. The next time Winston claims the media do not report him enough, recall he had only six fewer stories than the leader of the party which got four times his support. Also interesting that Kevin Hague has had more stories than Andrew Little.

The MPs with the least news stories (as indexed by Google News) are Rajen Prasad (1), Raymond Huo (1), Denis O’Rourke (2) and Su’a Wiliam Sio (2).

For PQs, the top five MPs are David Cunliffe (415), Phil Goff (197), Iain Lees-Galloway (190), Darien Fenton (189) and Annette King (91). It is pleasing to see the abusive fishing expediations by Mallard and Hipkins in Q1 have not been repeated. The level of use is now pretty good.

14 Opposition MPs did not ask a single written PQ this quarter. Incredible that there is nothing they wish to find out in their portfolios.

This shows the output of each MP compared to the median. The simple average is just that. The weighted average applies a weighting of 1/2 to news stories, 1/3 to press releases and 1/6 to PQs. Also to discourage abuse of PQs, the maximum number of PQs counted is 12 time the median, or 200% weighted.

So overall the top of the league table goes to Winston Peters, then David Shearer, Russel Norman, David Cunliffe and Metiria Turei.

The big moves up are Megan Woods (+24), Clayton Cosgrove (+22), Shane Jones (+21) Metiria Turei (+20), Kevin Hague (+20), Catherine Delahunty (+20).

Down the bottom of the league table is is Rajen Prasad for the second quarter running whose activity is 14% of the median. Next lowest is Denis O’Rourke at 24%, Raymonds Huo at 25%, Parekura Horomia at 33%, Brendan Horan at 33% and Mojo Mathers at 34%.

The big moves down have been Trevor Mallard (-24), Chris Hipkins (-16), Mojo Mathers (-16), Maryan Street (-15),

Note that of course these stats are quantitative, not qualitative. Just because an MP is being reported in the media, doesn’t mean it is positive publicity.

Whale blogs:

Tomorrow I have a special treat for readers.

John Pagani and I will be hosting an hour of morning talkback at NewstalkZB Wellington.

Sean Plunket is away and so we are doing a filler spot for him. It will be no holds barred crossfire from the two of us with talkback.

Unfortunately for Auckland listeners you will have stream it live if you want to listen to me smack up Pagani…again. Wellington listeners can tune in on 89.3FM 1035AM.

Whale and Pagani on air for an hour together should be like sticking a mongoose and a rattlesnake in a small container and watching the mayhem.

Highly recommended listening. They are on from 11 am to 12 noon tomorrow (Monday).

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the latest Roy Morgan poll. National has now gone up 3.5% over the last two polls.

Readers might enjoy this clip from Parks & Rec, with Ron Swanson on govenrment and taxes.

A good article in the SST:

Kiwis need to give a little more of themselves to help others.

And to incentivise organ donation, there are calls for the Government to help fund funerals, bump people up the transplant waiting list and even pay for live donations.

New Zealand has one of the lowest donor rates in the western world, with 8.7 donors per million people, according to 2010 figures from Organ Donation NZ. This compares with France’s rate of 23.7, Britain with 16.4 and Australia with 13.5. …

Canterbury University economics professor Eric Crampton said organ donation was something New Zealanders didn’t really think about, even if they ticked that option on their driver’s licence.

“Nothing around the driver’s licence scheme really helps to encourage an informed decision,” Crampton said. Even if a person has indicated a willingness to donate organs, they need to be in a hospital intensive care unit when they die to be eligible, and next-of-kin consent is still required. “Doctors seem reluctant to assign a terminal patient to a scarce ICU bed in hope the patient’s family will consent to donation.”

Doctors still feel the need to ask for explicit consent from family at what is the “worst possible time”, Crampton said. “It’s no surprise that half of families asked decline.”

Methods of incentivisation are effective in other countries, including payment towards funeral costs. That would also encourage people to discuss the issue with their family when making a will, he said.

Compared with the cost of long-term dialysis, subsidising funerals is relatively cheap. “WINZ helps defray funeral costs for the poor. Why can’t we also defray funeral costs of those helping to save others’ lives?”

Another effective measure in Israel is compensating live donors with up to 40 days’ lost wages and expenses. Expenses such as travel are covered in New Zealand, but not wages. National list MP Michael Woodhouse has proposed a private member’s bill to give donors the equivalent of 80 per cent of their earnings using the same formula applied to income support for ACC recipients.

A Sunday Star-Times reader poll showed overwhelmingly that families should not overrule the deceased if they have indicated on their driver’s licence they want to donate organs.

From a sample of 1029, 87 per cent were adamant the deceased’s wishes must be followed. Eight per cent said it was OK to overrule and 4 per cent didn’t know.

“Your organs belong to you, not your family. If you have signalled that you want to be an organ donor then that wish should be honoured,” was a typical response.

“I would be most upset if my family was to override my wish to be a donor. Perhaps we should all take time to discuss our wishes,” wrote another reader.

While that poll is not a scientific sample, the result is so over-whelming I suspect the vast majority of NZers agree that families should not get to veto the explicit wishes of the deceased.

All these other measures talked about are laudable, and I support. But most of all we need a law change to give priority to your wishes, should you die and have consented to organ donation.

The HoS reports:

Forty per cent of landlords have increased their rents in the past six months, and many by up to 10 per cent, a survey shows.

The survey, run by Landlords.co.nz and Mike Pero Mortgages, found 26.2 per cent of the 614 investors surveyed who had increased their rent had done so by 6-10 per cent.

Another 42.5 per cent of those who had increased rents had done so by up to 5 per cent.

Sixty per cent had increased rents in the past year. …

He said a supply-and-demand equation was pushing up rents. A shortage of housing stock was prompting competition for rentals, which in turn made rents rise.

The only sustainable solution is to free up more land, increasing supply, which will reduce prices.

Audrey Young at NZ Herald reports:

Almost 59 per cent of DigiPoll respondents approve of publishing of the material, either by the Ministry of Education or the media or both. But 36.4 per cent believe comparisons between schools are unfair.

That’s a useful finding, but is also somewhat beside the point. Even if the majority did not support league tables, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t happen. The majority do not get to decide what information the minority are allowed to have. We live in a free and open society where all government data can be accessed by citizens, except for a few exceptions such as security issues.

But NZEI president Ian Leckie confirmed last night he had written to schools advising them not to release the information to the news media under the Official Information Act.

“It is unreliable information, it potentially disadvantages the education system.”

Any country that used league tables had gone backwards, he said.

He likened ranking schools by league tables to ranking the value of food by calories.

Now let us take that comparison. Let’s say it is true. That it is just as silly to rank schools by league tables as it is to rank food by their calories, rather than taste and protein also.

Now what Leckie is effectively saying that the Government should ban the publication of calorie values on all food. He is saying that because some people will make inappropriate food decisions based on the calorie values, then everyone must be denied information on the calorie value of different foods.

Now that is insanely stupid right? Of course it is. But that is the exact argument he is making with school assessment data. He is saying that no parent should ever be allowed to know a school’s assessment data, because some parents may make inappropriate decisions on them.

On Q+A this Sunday, National has set itself ten targets to reform the public sector in five years – is it a gimmick or a bold challenge? And with the asset sales legislation passed, is more public sector reform the right focus? What about our stagnant private sector?

Finance Minister – and Deputy Prime Minister – Bill English is live from our Wellington studio. He’ll speak to TVNZ Political Editor Corin Dann in Corin’s Q+A debut.

And the right to die. Is it time for a re-think? As a major anti-euthanasia conference is held in Auckland this weekend, we’ll consider the pros and cons. Alex Schadenberg, International Chair of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, will debate Labour MP Maryan Street, who’s drafting a new law to allow ‘end of life choice’. And we’ll cross to South Africa to Dr Sean Davison, who was convicted in New Zealand last year after assisting in his terminally ill mother’s suicide. What does it mean to make the hardest decision?

And finally, those asset sales. With Mighty River Power about to go on the block we talk to Mark Lister, Head of Private Wealth Research at Craigs Investment Partners. Will the SOEs be a good buy for mum and dads? Or are there fish hooks?

Joining Greg Boyed and Dr Raymond Miller of Auckland University on the panel this week are Massey University Vice-Chancellor and former Labour cabinet minister Steve Maharey and Auckland Chamber of Commerce CEO Michael Barnett.

Broadcast on TV 1 at 9 am

Two good articles by Simon Collins on welfare reforms. While not always agreeing with them, I almost always find his articles well researched and fair.

The first article is here.

Tough welfare reforms now going through Parliament may deter some women from seeing the sole parent benefit as a viable lifestyle – but at the risk of long-term harm to their children.

As with almost all policies, there is a trade-off. The reforms should deter some women from having multiple children while remaining on the DPB, but they may cause some hardship for some families. I don’t think the status quo was working or acceptable, so support the reforms.

Now she is pregnant again to a man she met only once.

“It was just a silly thing one night, I got drunk one night in town,” she says. “I was alone by myself that weekend, Antonio had gone to his family. I decided to go into Auckland City with friends and they showed me a whole life that I didn’t know.”

She considered an abortion but rejected it: “It’s a Maori belief, it’s a gift from God.”

A good example of the problem with the status quo.

New Zealand has among the world’s highest rates of sole parenthood, especially among low-income groups for whom the DPB may seem a viable lifestyle option. In the 2006 census, 25 per cent of all New Zealand children and 43 per cent of Maori children lived in sole parent families, compared with an OECD average of 16 per cent.

Otara administrator Delaney Papua, who turns 20 next month and is expecting her first baby in November, says going on the benefit seems to be just what you do when you get pregnant.

“All the people that I know that have kids go on it, so I kind of just assumed that you have to be on that,” she says.

And again, the challenge to break those expectations.

Another woman, Renee, became pregnant with a flatmate while on the benefit when her first two children were 8 and 5, and says it “was never a boyfriend/girlfriend thing”. She also thinks the new law is “fair”.

“If the law had been in place, I just would have been probably more cautious,” she says.

At another McDonald’s recently, she overheard two young mothers with babies talking about how they were trying to get pregnant again.

“I’m loving this benefit shit,” one said. “I’m going to have another baby, I’ll keep having them, it’s free money.”

And that is a very bad reason to have a baby.

In the second article, Collins reports:

A single-parent support group says some women are being driven to abort their babies because they are scared of the Government’s new hardline welfare laws.

Which is why free contraception is a good idea. Contraception is far preferable to abortion.

Julie Whitehouse, of the Auckland Single Parents Trust, says other mothers are going “underground” and trying to hide their babies from authorities rather than go back to work one year after giving birth.

This is a weird and illogical statement. Hiding your baby means you get no reprieve at all from work testing, rather than a one year reprieve. It also means they get no additional DPB. I suspect Ms Whitehouse doesn’t know what she is talking about – or her comments have not been communicated well.

Interviews with solo mothers who have become pregnant again while on welfare have found that most plan to respond to the new law as the Government intends – by taking more care not to get pregnant again, and by agreeing to look for work after a year if they do have another baby.

Excellent. The best outcome is taking more care not to get pregnant.

Capital Coast Health have announced:

 Capital & Coast DHB are reducing barriers to healthcare for parents of children under six by making visits to their doctor or nurse in this region free for under-sixes during business hours at your regular practice, and after hours at three nominated clinics across the region.

From 1 July 2012 all children under six who need medical care will get it for free, regardless of the time of day. Capital and Coast District Health Board have worked alongside Compass Primary Healthcare Network, Cosine PHO, Ora Toa PHO and Well Health PHO to ensure that whether it’s during working hours or not, children under six will get the health care they need without additional costs for their parents.

“When kids are unwell, it’s important that they get medical treatment quickly,” said Dr Andrew Marshall, Clinical Leader Paediatrics, Capital & Coast District Health Board, “Children under six can be especially susceptible to illnesses and can deteriorate quickly so it’s important that they get the right care, at the right time and in the right place; during the day that means your GP practice as they know you best and after hours there are three clinics across our district in Wellington, Porirua and Kapiti.”

I’m generally not a fan of “free” anything, as it distorts demand for a service. But I do make an exception for under six health care, as they are often unable to communicate what the problem is, and it is best to be safe and get them checked out.

Considering the tight fiscal times we are in, its pretty good that CCH has found the money to fund this.

John Shewan also talks about best and worst budgets:

One of the last big projects Shewan completed at PWC was to review New Zealand’s last 34 government Budgets.

The best finance ministers included Ruth Richardson, Michael Cullen and Bill English “all in their own way”, during different eras, Shewan said. Cullen, especially, was an “unsung hero” for holding government spending down early in his time as finance minister.

Bill Birch and Winston Peters were treasurers during a “non-reformist period of lost opportunities”.

Shewan said that one of the lessons of history was that, “You have to keep reforms going, otherwise you end up facing bitter medicine in the end.

Australia has managed that – continuous reform.

In the course of clearing up his office earlier this month, Shewan found a government booklet from 1981, from the height of the Muldoon era. There were 45 pages of incredibly generous tax incentives for business.

The bad old days, that some want to return to. They now call the loopholes and incentives “green jobs”.

“Without doubt” Muldoon was the worst finance minister of the past 34 years and did the most damage to the economy.

“But I don’t think he realised. I think he genuinely believed what he did would work,” Shewan said, even though Treasury and others advised against his decisions.

The damage was huge and took a long time to fix.

“I’m sad we haven’t learnt from those mistakes,” Shewan said, given the huge blowout in government spending between 2004 and 2008.

“That will be another era that will be judged extremely harshly when government spending grew 60 per cent. It takes a long time to recover from that,” he said.

In the early 2000s, the Clark government enjoyed huge Budget surpluses. “And in my view Michael Cullen did a good job in keeping a lid on spending between 1999 and 2005,” he said.

But in 2005 the government campaigned to bring in massive spending increases such as interest-free student loans and Working for Families, which led to significant “middle class welfare”.

“Often the worst policies are the ones announced on the hoof during an election campaign with no consultation,” Shewan said.

Interest free student loans are a prime example.

However Shewan gives credit to Cullen.

“Cullen is an unsung hero for being ruthless in stopping fiscal promiscuity in the early period of the Clark administration,” Shewan said.

“He was a clever and talented guy, for whom I had great respect though I crossed swords with him [on some issues].”

Cullen did salt money away in the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, when the Government was running big surpluses. …

Present finance minister Bill English had come in during an extraordinarily challenging period, when the economy was already heading for the rocks, even before the Global Financial Crisis hit, then the GFC did hit, followed by the Christchurch quake.

“He has achieved basically zero growth in government spending – that’s a huge achievement,” Shewan said.

It would be interesting to see his ratings for all the Budgets.

Stuff reports:

Wellington ratepayers have spent more than $350,000 defending doomed legal action by serial protester Benjamin Easton, sparking a rare bid to declare him a vexatious litigant.

Council lawyers have written to the solicitor-general trying to block the self-proclaimed “unemployed political busker” from filing endless court proceedings and appeals. …

The move to block him from the courts is considered a “drastic restriction of civil rights” by the Law Commission and “measure of last resort”.

Only seven other people have been declared vexatious litigants since 1965.

But the council says its bid is justified.

Figures made public under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act reveal that ratepayers forked out $319,932 on legal action involving Mr Easton in 2009 and 2010 alone, with thousands more going on GST and expert witnesses. …

A letter to Crown Law from council lawyers Phillips Fox says the council has been subjected to a continuous stream of litigation from Mr Easton and aligned group The City is Ours. His pleadings were often incomprehensible with “no realistic prospect of success”, the letter says.

A judge had described his arguments as “convoluted, long-winded, tortuous and circuitous”. He refused to accept adverse decisions, simply filing new appeals with higher authorities after each successive loss.

Although the council was a main target, other defendants drawn into his many proceedings included Radio New Zealand, the Broadcasting Standards Authority, the Human Rights Commission, the Broadcasting Commission and Bank of New Zealand.

He had also threatened proceedings against the New Zealand Fire Service and Environment Court, and threatened judicial complaints against several judges.

“The council is becoming increasingly concerned that the ratepayers of Wellington are funding the defence of Mr Easton’s persistent and repetitive litigation.

I think there is a point at which you have to say no more.

Mr Easton told The Dominion Post he would challenge any such application and embarrass the council.

“I’m going to slaughter them because they’re cheats.”

He defended his right to bring matters of public interest before the courts, but dismissed the justice system as biased and “corrupt”.

“I’m an untrained, uneducated litigant and they don’t want that kind of litigant beating their top lawyers. It’s really easy to point the finger at me and forget that what I’m saying is right.”

Asked why his court cases had repeatedly failed, Mr Easton said he was prevented from presenting crucial evidence that proved corruption and unlawful decision making by the council.

“I have the evidence and the evidence is not being aired.”

Somehow I doubt that.

James Weir at Stuff reports:

New Zealand should move to a low-level land tax and cut personal tax rates, retiring PricewaterhouseCoopers chairman John Shewan says.

He also says the “elephant” of rising national superannuation costs means a rise in the GST rate to 17.5 per cent in coming years was “almost inevitable”.

Shewan had his last day as PwC chairman yesterday. PwC partner Jonathan Freeman has been elected the new chairman.

Shewan said a land tax rate should be low, perhaps 0.5 per cent of land value each year, and be assessed like a city council rate, with an offsetting fall in the personal tax rate of a few percentage points.

“I still think that is the right thing to do,” he said. That idea was rejected by the Government when proposed by the Tax Working Group, which Shewan was part of. “I regret that,” he said.

High taxes on personal incomes were the most damaging to the economy for growth and jobs. The most efficient taxes were those people could not avoid, such as tax on spending like GST or tax on land “because you can’t hide it”.

I agree with a land tax, so long as other taxes are reduced to compensate. Land tax is both unavoidable, but also encourages better economic use of land, unlike income taxes which actually discourage labour.

New Zealand’s tax system was a “complete wreck” in 1984, but was now one of the strongest and most robust in the world.

The basket cases of Europe, such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, shared a common thread of poor tax systems, with high levels of tax evasion and fraud. “They regard paying tax as voluntary,” he said.

In contrast, in New Zealand most felt they should pay their fair share of tax. Shewan said he was “very proud” of the tax system here.

It is one of the better ones around, so long as we resist the stupidities such as GST exemptions for fresh fruit and vegetables.

Stuff reports:

Comedian Stephen Fry has attended a court hearing to support a British man appealing his conviction over a tweet saying he would blow a snowed-in airport “sky high”.

Paul Chambers, 27, from Doncaster, was convicted in May 2010 of sending a “menacing electronic communication” for a tweet that said: “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your **** together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”

Chambers has attracted the support of several British comedians and he was accompanied by Fry and stand-up comic Al Murray to his High Court appeal on Wednesday.

Fry said the outcome of the case would be “very important” for freedom of speech, the BBC reported.

I agree that it is. We all understand you do not joke about bombs at airports. But joking about them on Twitter is rather different.

“God I hope common sense and natural justice prevail,” he later tweeted.

Chambers was fined NZ$1962 for his tweet, which he wrote when a snowstorm closed the airport and stopped him from flying to Northern Ireland to visit a woman he’d just met.

The Guardian reported the tweet was seen a week later by an off-duty airport worker who passed it on to authorities.

This is the astonishing thing. If the tweet had been seen at the time and taken seriously, I could understand why they might proceed. But they saw it a week later. Massive over-reaction.

The Guardian said Mr Cooper said if jokes were tested in courts, poet John Betjeman may have thought twice about writing “Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough”, adding “and Shakespeare when he said ‘kill all the lawyers’.”

The Lord Judge replied: “That was a good joke in 1600 and it is still a good joke now.”

Sounds like the Judge has a sense of humour, and may let sanity prevail.

1. Tim Bennett, NZX CEO and Milford Funds manager Brian Gaynor on what the asset sales mean for the sharemarket.
2. Colin James on Mr Dotcom
3. Special two part investigation from Daryll Hutchison on how ground breaking NZ research into nano particles has the potentital to make hundreds of millions of dollars.
4. One of Mr Dotcom’s swimming mates, Vaughn Davis on the Dotcom phenomenon.
5. Bailey Mackey (Producer of The GC) joins Brian Edwards and Bill Ralston for the Sunday media panel to talk about Maori television.

Broadcast on TV 3 Saturday 9.30 am, repeated on Sunday at 8.30 am with the Sunday media panel

My column in the Herald (now published Thursdays) was on the members’ bill ballot. This was timed with four bills being drawn from the ballot. They are:

Dr Norman’s bill would ban foreign ownership of “sensitive land”. This is any non-urban land greater than 0.05 square kilometers!

Chris Auchinvole’s bill implements some recommendations from the Law Commission on  habeas corpus applications. Mainly seems to be giving Judges slightly more discretion in dealing with them.

Annette King’s would require the State Services Commissioner to approve local authority CEO remuneration packages, as they do for government departments. Technically a bit of a breach of the independence of local bodies, but worth supporting at least for first reading as may be a useful tool for keeping relativity between central and local government.

Todd McClay’s would ban gang insignia being displayed within government (central and local) premises.