Deidre Mussen at The Press reports:

Pike River’s mine manager job-hunted in the minutes after its fatal November 2010 explosion despite knowing power and communications had been lost, the inquiry into the deaths of 29 men has heard.

His revelation prompted one of the dead men’s mothers to call out: “This is while my boy was dying, Jesus Christ,” before she fled in tears from the royal commission into the tragedy.

Former general manager Doug White began giving evidence in Greymouth District Court yesterday, his second time in the inquiry’s witness stand.

Commission lawyer Simon Mount said White emailed two people at 4.02pm and 4.03pm on November 19, 2010, less than 15 minutes after being told communication and power had been lost to the underground West Coast mine. It exploded at 3.45pm that day.

He was the mine general manager and he had been told the mine had lost power and communications, and he carried on with his e-mail!

I would have thought the general manager would immediately drop everything else, and personally co-ordinate the efforts to establish what has happened in the mine. A loss of power and communications is no minor incident.

Stuff reports:

A Christchurch pair who described themselves as “friends with benefits” were forced to describe their sex lives in court over charges they falsely claimed $173,000 in welfare payments.

A jury found the pair not guilty of all charges after treatment from Housing New Zealand (HNZ) that a welfare advocate described as “cavalier and cruel”.

Margaret Campbell and Bill Seconi, who were evicted from their homes, said the charges and trial caused “unbearable stress” and were “demeaning”.

The pair lived near each other in HNZ homes from about 2003 to late 2009.

They described their relationship as a friendship with occasional sex.

“We were friends with benefits,” Campbell said.

But the Ministry of Social Development and HNZ claimed the pair were concealing a “marriage-type relationship” and falsely claiming benefits. The pair were then evicted from their HNZ homes and had to defend the charges in court.

Things are more complicated than they used to be. It is relevant to welfare entitlements whether or not someone is married or has a partner who supports them.

Once upon a time a sexual relationship would be pretty conclusive proof of a “marriage-type” relationship, but today it may just be friends with benefits. Trying to define when FBs becomes a relationship can be difficult.

Stuff reports:

Parliamentary Service was working hard to provide technology and he had asked officials to explore voice recognition software. “That technology is something we are working on right now. That doesn’t have to wait for a Parliamentary Service Commission,” he said.

Smith also accused Mathers and Green party whip Gareth Hughes of politicising the matter and making public the details of a private meeting.

So it is not a dispute over technology to help her do her job, as it appeared yesterday. That is being provided. It is a dispute over hours.

Each MP gets funding to cover 80 hours of staff time, or two full-time equivalent workers, a week.

Mojo Mathers estimates she needs 1000 hours a year for electronic note-taking required for her to participate in Parliament through a laptop on her debating chamber desk.

The Speaker has suggested the other 13 Green MPs pool their support budgets to give some of their unused support hours to Mathers.

Now I do support Mathers being given extra hours, but this can’t be done at the whim of the Speaker. All Electorate MPs gets 120 hours a week and all List MPs 80 hours a week. To give Mathers extra hours you need to set up a third category of MP, and publish a formal determination specifying the criteria to qualify, and what the extra support hours or funding will be.

It is worth noting that the Green caucus as a whole gets 56,000 hours of support staff a year, plus $1.88 million of funding. The 1,000 hours is less than 2% of their overall hours and a party that consists entirely of List MPs rarely uses all its allocated hours up.

Again, I support a change to the funding rules to cater for a situation like Mathers. But the Greens could have chosen to work with the Speaker to establish a time-table for changing the determinations, rather than do a hatchet job on him.

In the Stuff report on the Urewera trial:

Christopher Stevenson, for Signer, said his client was out of New Zealand during about a third of the time that the training camps were allegedly held.

He asked if they were really a cohesive group and were they really ”training camps”, or were they wanangas, devoted to teaching and learning?

Oh yes, it was a wananga. Hell, I’m surprised they didn’t get TEC funding.

Danyl at Dim-Post blogs:

Last time I looked, smart-phone penetration in New Zealand was around about the 5% mark. But I guess Key’s kids and all his staffers have them, so that’s everyone in the world of the Sun King.

This was in response to this comment from the PM:

“It really doesn’t matter if there is a street frontage there … We are living in an age where kids have iPads and smartphones. That’s the modern generation … and they actually don’t want to walk in, for the most part, and be in a very long queue and be waiting for a long time.”

So is Danyl right that only 5% of Kiwis have a smart phone, basically John Key’s kids and staffers?

The World Internet Project New Zealand disagrees, and hey as they actually surveyed 1,255 random New Zealanders, I tend to go with their numbers, being:

Usage of smartphones and other handheld wireless devices has grown apace, from 7% of Internet users in the 2007 sample, to 18% in 2009 and 27% in 2011. This is clearly a strong trend that will continue into the future.

So not really 5% and just some staffers and kids then, and hasn’t been for the last five years. Note that WIPNZ found 86% of NZers aged 12 or older are Internet users, so the smart phone penetration rate for all over 12s would be 23%. Also note the survey was six months ago.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

Speaker Lockwood Smith has told deaf MP Mojo Mathers she must pay for the $30,000 technology to speak in Parliament out of her own budget.

Green MP Mathers made history when she became New Zealand’s first profoundly deaf MP in November.

She will give her maiden speech in the House tomorrow, which will be translated by sign-language interpreters.

But Smith has told the Green Party that Parliamentary Services will not pay for the electronic note-taking equipment which Mathers needs to take part in debates.

This has already caused outrage on Twitter. My stance is that I think Parliamentary Service should fund the note-taking equipment if it is essential to allow Mathers to participate in the House.

However I note that so far only one side of the issue has been reported. We do not know what the reasoning is behind this decision – just what the Greens have said is the reason. It would be helpful for the Parliamentary Service to explain the decision.

Finally i would also point out that there is no question of Mathers personally paying for the note-taking equipment. In fact the taxpayers, through Parliamentary Service, will be paying either way. The Greens receive a total of $5.64m funding over this parliamentary term to support their MPs, so this represents around 0.5% of their funding over the next three years.

However if the equipment is funded from the Greens allocation, then they can’t spend that money on other things such as staff, research, advertising. And they have a quite legitimate view that having an MP with a disability shouldn’t cost them a portion of their budget.

UPDATE: The Herald reports further info:

However, the Speaker’s office said Dr Smith and Parliamentary Services did not have the authority to approve the extra funding.

“He would have to go to the Parliamentary Service Commission, he’d have to go to the Government and ask for additional funding to do what she wants because its not part of the appropriation,” a spokeswoman said.

Dr Smith would raise the issue at next month’s Parliamentary Service Commission meeting.

The Speaker is holding a press conference at 3.30 pm also on this issue.

Parliament has announced:

• A draft version of speeches made by members of Parliament, called the Draft Transcript, is now published to the Parliament website within 2½ hours of members’ speeches being delivered in the House.
• The final version (subject to minor correction), called the Daily Debates, is now published to the Parliament website debate by debate—you no longer have to wait for the whole of the day’s proceedings to be ready for publishing. When the Daily Debate is published, the Draft Transcript is removed.

This is a great step forward. To be able to see a transcript of speeches within 150 minutes will be very helpful for scrutinizing what MPs say. Combined with the In The House service which gets videos onto You Tube within an hour or so, and we have excellent transparency.

The next step is select committees – eventually I’d like them to be reported to the same detail as the House is. But a first step would be to broadcast the public sessions of select committees and make them available by webcast and on digital TV.

Oral Questions 2 pm – 3 pm

1. JOHN HAYES to the Minister of Finance: What progress is being made in rebalancing New Zealand’s economy towards paying our way in the world?
2. DAVID SHEARER to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement made with regard to the revenue from asset sales “I don’t know the exact number that they have in their books today”?
3. Dr RUSSEL NORMAN to the Minister for Land Information: Did New Zealand’s Free Trade Agreement with China influence his decision to approve the sale of the Crafar farms to the Shanghai Pengxin Group?
4. Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS to the Prime Minister: Does he have confidence in his Minister responsible for Whānau Ora in fulfilling the objectives set out in the Relationship Accord and Confidence and Supply Agreement between his party and the Māori Party dated 11 December 2011?
5. ALFRED NGARO to the Minister for Social Development: What reports has she received about proposed welfare reform in other jurisdictions?
6. GRANT ROBERTSON to the Prime Minister: Does he stand by his statement that “the PM’s Hour” on Radio Live on 30 September 2011 was an “election free zone”; if so, why?
7. Dr CAM CALDER to the Minister of Justice: What are her priorities in regard to bail laws over the coming three years?
8. Hon DAVID PARKER to the Minister of Finance: Does he have confidence in The Treasury?
9. CATHERINE DELAHUNTY to the Minister of Health: What is the total cost of legal action spent to date by his Ministry to oppose the claim that family members have the right to be paid to care for adult disabled children?
10. CHARLES CHAUVEL to the Minister of Justice: Do fire-fighters, ambulance officers, and the small number of other types of first responders legally required to attend and assist in accident and emergency situations deserve the same level of legal protection from assault as police and prison officers when they are carrying out their duties; if not, why not?
11. CHRIS AUCHINVOLE to the Minister for Racing: What announcements has he made relating to safety on racecourses?
12. CLARE CURRAN to the Minister of Broadcasting: Does he believe that appointing the Rt Hon John Key’s electorate chair Stephen McElrea to the board of NZ On Air was appropriate?

So today there are four patsies from National, five questions from Labour, two from the Greens and one from NZ First. The  prize for most grovelling patsy question of the day goes  to Q11 – What announcements has he made relating to safety on racecourses?

Labour are focusing on asset sales, Radio Live, and NZ on Air. All issues from last week, they are trying to keep alive.

The Greens are asking about the Crafar farms and disabled care giving. The one of the Crafar farms could be interesting as they are trying to tie it into the China FTA, in which case Labour will be the target of their attack, not National.

Winston is on Whanau Ora again, but with a more detailed question to the PM, so he may make better progress today.

Maiden speeches for Labour MPs are from 5 pm to 6 pm, being Dunedin North MP Dr David Clark, List MP Andrew Little, Wigram MP Dr Megan Woods, and Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene

10.5 hours remaining of the debate.

Government Bills 7.30 pm – 10.00 pm

1. Road User Charges Bill – third reading (continued)
2. National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill – third reading
3. Taxation (International Investment and Remedial Matters) Bill – committee stage
4. Customs and Excise (Joint Border Management Information Sharing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill – committee stage
5. Medicines Amendment Bill – first reading

The Road User Charges Bill was introduced in November 2010 and seeks to reform the road user charge system for users of diesel vehicles. It was opposed by Labour at first reading but supported at second reading, after select committee hearings.

The National Animal Identification and Tracing Bill was introduced in December 2010 and seeks to to establish a National Animal Identification and Tracing system in New Zealand. It was passed by a voice vote on first reading, and on second reading was supported by all parties except ACT.

The Taxation (International Investment and Remedial Matters) Bill was introduced in October 2010 and seeks to to reform the tax treatment of gains of New Zealand residents from income interests in overseas entities and gains of foreign residents from interests in New Zealand companies. It passed its first and second readings on a voice vote.

The Customs and Excise (Joint Border Management Information Sharing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill was introduced in September 2010 and seeks to enable border agencies to share information, change the thresholds and processes for administrative and petty offence provisions of the Customs and Excise Act. It passed its first and second reading on voice votes.

The Medicines Amendment Bill was introduced in October 2011 and aims to modernise Medicines Act 1981.

Photo from Setford. Hat Tip: Cactus Kate.

Captions should be funny, not nasty,

In my By the numbers blog at Stuff I look at the issue of what the party vote threshold should be for MMP. I note:

One of the most important issues is what percentage of the vote should a political party need to get, to gain list MPs in Parliament. Currently the threshold is 5 per cent. You can also qualify through winning an electorate seat, but I plan to discuss that issue in a seperate post.

There are basically four options for the threshold. They are to:

• (A) – Increase it
• (B) – Keep it at 5%
• (C) – Reduce it
• (D) – Abolish it

In general terms, the higher the threshold, the fewer parties will be in Parliament, and fewer parties will be needed to form a government. The lower the threshold, the more parties there will be in Parliament, and more parties will be need to agree to form a government. Also the higher the threshold, the more wasted votes you get.

Claire Trevett at NZ Herald reports:

The Law Commission has proposed ditching trials by a full jury of 12 in favour of trials by a judge and two semi-professional jurors to allow more evidence, such as previous convictions, to be used.

In a consultation paper on alternative trial systems, the commission sets out a range of proposals for change, especially in sexual offending cases.

They include replacing a full jury with a judge alone or a judge with two full-time jurors who would be trained in criminal procedure.

The paper said trials heard by either a judge alone or a judge with two trained jurors would allow many of the rules of evidence to be dispensed with, because a smaller pool of fixed-term jurors could be trained in criminal trial procedures in a way normal jurors could not.

Research showed jurors had “an array of myths and prejudices” that resulted in laws restricting the use of evidence which could be prejudicial, but professional jurors could be taught to put their own prejudices aside.

An example of the evidence that could be included under such a system was previous convictions of defendants. In August 2007, a law change allowed previous convictions to be used in some cases, but only when the strength of the evidence outweighed any risk of prejudice.

I think previous convictions should be known (partly because in today’s world, such information is difficult to hide, so better to provide it in context).

The idea of semi-professional jurors is worth considering. With so many people avoiding jury service, jurors are no longer representative of the population anyway. Training jurors up in criminal trial procedures has some merit.

I’ve not read the full paper, but will add it to my backlog of stuff to read.

You can read the paper and respond to it at this site.

Andrea Vance at Stuff reports:

Technology will replace face-to-face contact as the Government continues its squeeze on the public service.

Prime Minister John Key has met executives from internet giant Google as plans to shake up the public sector gather steam.

Virtual jobs will replace staff as the sector moves away from frontline services to call centres and online interaction.

Mr Key said yesterday that people wanted to use their smartphones to apply for passports and other tasks, rather than wait in line in offices.

“It really doesn’t matter if there is a street frontage there … We are living in an age where kids have iPads and smartphones. That’s the modern generation … and they actually don’t want to walk in, for the most part, and be in a very long queue and be waiting for a long time.”

Bring it on. I find it very frustrating if I can’t access something over the Internet.

The Electoral Commission has launched a website for the review of MMP. You can make a submission to the review online.

The review is not binding on Parliament, but will provide a set of recommendations. The timetable is:

1. Written submissions can be made up to Thu 31 May 2012, but if you wish to also make an oral submission then the deadline is Thu 5 April 2012
2. Oral submissions can be made from Tue 24 April to Fri 18 May 2012
3. A proposal paper released on Mon 13 August 2012
4. Submissions close on proposal paper Fri 7 Sep 2012
5. Report presented to Minister of Justice on Wed 31 Oct 2012

So I encourage people to have their say. If you remain silent, then you will be leaving it to unions and lobby groups to dominate the debate.

The issues the review will cover are:

• the thresholds for the allocation of list seats,
• list members contesting by-elections,
• the rules allowing candidates to both contest an electorate and be on a party list,
• the rules for ordering candidates on party lists,
• the effect of a party winning more electorate seats than its party vote share entitles it to,
• the effects of the ratio of electorate seats to list seats on proportionality in certain circumstances, and
• other matters referred to the Commission by the Minister of Justice or Parliament.

Two issues can not be considered, under the law which set up the review. They are the total no of MPs in Parliament, and Maori representation.

It is my intention to blog on each issue individually, and discuss the pros and cons of potential changes.

What I would also like to do is arrange some public forums in major centres, where a range of speakers can advocate for and against some of the significant possible changes. I think hearing a contest of ideas is one of the more effective ways to get people interested in the issues, and to come to a conclusion on them.

I don’t have the resources to do arrange the public forums myself, but am happy to work with some others to do so.

Eric Crampton quotes Big Think:

The wage premium paid to lesbian workers is a bit of a mystery. Sure, lesbian women are better-educated on average, are more likely to be white, live predominantly in cities, have fewer children, and are significantly more likely to be a professional. But even when you control for these differences, the wage premium is still on the order of 6%. …

Eric offers some theories on why this might be:

First, and most importantly, maternity risk. If an employer expects a lesbian employee to be less likely to take maternity leave, and if maternity leave imposes costs on an employer, then the employer will be more likely to hire and to promote the lesbian over the straight woman. What evidence do we have? Petit’s field experimentshowing that maternity risk is responsible for a fair bit of women’s lower average salaries.

How could this be tested in the data presumably available in the original study? Test whether the wage gap between lesbian and straight women is larger for younger women than for post-menopausal women. That will confound with age cohort effects, but there may be a way around it: use state insurance mandates on assisted reproduction, or state policies with respect to same-sex adoption. If some states require that insurers cover fertility treatments as part of an employer’s insurance package and others don’t, or if some states make it easier for lesbians to adopt kids, then we’d expect the wage gap between lesbians and straights to be smallest in those states that make it easiest for lesbians to have kids.

Second, testosterone and negotiation strategies. Women, on average, are less aggressive in wage negotiations. If testosterone correlates with aggressiveness in salary negotiations, and some evidence suggests higher than average testosterone levels among lesbians as compared to heterosexual women (though that evidence iscontested), then we’ve another candidate explanation.

I’d put money on the maternity risk variable. I’d only put money on the negotiations one at decent odds.

I go the other way to Eric. I think the theory of more assertiveness in salary negotiations is most likely to explain the gap.

A friend of mine, Chris Auld, is on the plane sitting in quarantine at Auckland Airport. He has been live tweeting what has been happening.

Looks like it is all okay, as they are being allowed off the flight now.

After having failed to get the residents of Oamaru, Christchurch, Wellington and Napier to pay for Auckland’s CBD rail loop, Len Brown has proposed half a dozen new taxes as possible ways to pay for the loop.

The proposed taxes include:

• Regional income tax – new income tax paid only by Aucklanders.
• Regional payroll tax – new income tax paid by Auckland employers.
• Regional GST – raising GST in Auckland.
• Regional fuel tax – raising petrol and diesel taxes across Auckland.
• Visitor taxes – nightly charge for hotel and motel rooms.

Ian Steward at Stuff reports:

After four years and four months, numerous pre-trial arguments, appeals and alterations, the remaining members of the group arrested in the Urewera police raids will finally face trial in Auckland today.

Of the 17 arrested across the country on October 15 2007, only four remain after a landmark Supreme Court judgment ruled out evidence that led to the dropping of charges against 13 co-accused.

The four remaining defendants – Tame Iti, Emily Bailey, Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara and Urs Signer – face charges of participating in a criminal group and illegal possession of firearms relating to camps held in the Urewera Ranges in 2006 and 2007.

I look forward to hearing the evidence.

The High Court at Auckland has been set aside for a three-month jury trial, though all involved hope it will not take that long for the mammoth case to be prosecuted and defended.

The Crown will call 75 to 80 witnesses and it is not yet known if the defence will call their own witnesses.

Iti’s lawyer Russell Fairbrother scotched rumours that the proceedings would be slowed through being translated into Maori, saying his client wanted the case prosecuted ”as efficiently as possible” and translation for Iti would not be necessary.

How unusual to be defended by someone who was a Government MP at the time of the arrests.

Photo from Stuff.

Captions should be funny, not nasty.

AP report at Stuff:

Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music’s queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behaviour and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, has died. She was 48.

Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen told KABC-TV that Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 pm in her room on the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton. Her body remained in the hotel and Beverly Hills detectives were investigating.

Houston’s publicist, Kristen Foster, said Saturday that the cause of her death was unknown.

I loved her music. What a huge loss to the music world.

It is very rare for a 48 year old woman to drop dead of natural causes, so sadly it will probably transpire it was an avoidable death.

Michael Field at the SST reports:

In a briefing paper for the new minister, the Ethnic Affairs Office said there was a push within some communities to have their cultural rights enshrined in law.

“Ethnic communities are keen to discuss the development of a multicultural policy to entrench the civil, political, social and language rights of ethnic people in New Zealand,” the briefing says.

The head of the Ethnic Affairs Office should have never let such a loose briefing go to the Minister. A sweeping statement such as “ethnic communities are keen to discuss …” should not be used. Not all ethnic communities are the same. You can’t speak on behalf of all ethnic communities, especially on something so potentially controversial. If some people in some ethnic communities are keen to discuss something, you should say “Some members of the xxx and yyy ethnic communities are likely to want to discuss”.

The briefing paper does not specify what ethnic groups want entrenched in any constitution, but points to the main inputs coming from the Federation of Islamic Associations, the Indian Association and the Chinese Association.

Speaking from Saudi Arabia last night, NZ Federation of Islamic Associations president Anwar Ghani told the Sunday Star-Times that any changes his body would push for would have to be “simple and workable”.

When asked if that could include Sharia, he responded: “No, we are not talking about that.”

Instead the federation backed transferring statutory holidays based on Christian festivals to dates of religious significance in their own culture.

“If there was recognition, particularly from a faith perspective, to substitute the holidays so they can enjoy the festivities without taking their annual leave, those are the kind of things which we were looking at it,” he said.

“It has to be something simple which is going to work – we do not want to create layers of complications that might make it difficult as a nation for us to progress together.”

The Federation generally takes a very moderate and sensible stance on issues, and it is good to see their president say they are not pushing sharia law. The Office of Ethnic Affairs has effectively beat the issue up by accident.

As for the idea of having the dates of some holidays flexible, I think there is merit in looking at it. It may not be practical to do in some cases (such as where an employer shuts on a public holiday), but why should Muslims have to take annual leave for their religious holidays, and Jews annual leave for their religious holidays, while Christians get both Christmas and Easter off.

And Indian Central Association president Paul Singh Bains said an ethnic constitution would be wrong.

“It is sending the wrong message to policymakers. Once we are permanent residents here, or citizens, we are Kiwis.”

He dismissed any notion the Indian community wanted such changes. “There is no consensus for us to have a separate law,” he said, although he acknowledged some community beliefs did come from “ancient days”.

“We don’t think there should be a law for each community. That would make a nonsense of things.”

Excellent views.

Auckland Chinese Community Centre chairman Arthur Loo was unaware of the briefing paper or if anyone within his community wanted legislation protecting their cultural rights.

Loo warned against any of the potential policy changes in the briefing paper.

“As a New Zealander, I think it should be basically one law for everbody, a law that reflects New Zealand and its core values,” he said. “If you are talking about a `multicultural policy’, I can’t see it being any more than being a touchy-feely statement that we will be all embracing of different cultures, be welcoming and all that stuff.”

This is one of the danger of very small government agencies or offices. They sometimes attract staff who are ideologically passionate about what they see as the cause, and end up being more zealous in pushing for policy than the actual communities themselves.

I think it is a good thing about NZ, that the heads of our chinese, indian and islamic communities organisations have all said they want one law for all.

Deborah Coddington writes in the HoS:

Why the fuss over charter schools? Given the hysterical ranting from teacher unions, you’d think we were returning to caning on the backside.

It won’t be compulsory for students to attend what are, essentially, alternative choices for parents to state or private schools. A bit like kura kaupapa.

But unions don’t like parental choice. They like telling parents what to do. Robin Duff, head of the PPTA, published an opinion piece comparing these evil charter schools with epic failures such as the Pike River mining disaster, the Global Financial Crisis and the grounding of the container ship Rena.

Charter schools also cause famine in Africa I understand.

The commonality is that none are accountable. But charter schools are accountable to parents, something that many state schools are not.

If parents can choose to stay or leave a school, that is the best form of accountability.

While the PPTA and NZEI remain firmly wedded to collective agreements, it will be difficult to introduce incentives to keep brilliant teachers in the classrooms when they must move into management for higher salaries. In union land, excellent teachers shouldn’t get more pay than incompetent colleagues on the same level because that’s not fair.

I say let each principal decide for themselves how much to pay the teachers at their school, within a total budget.