The Herald reports:

National MP Nicky Wagner has been confirmed as the winner of the Christchuch Central seat after the result of a judicial recount.

Last Saturday’s official result had Ms Wagner ahead of Labour’s Brendon Burns by 45 votes. Mr Burns requested a recount and the result, released today, saw Ms Wagner increase the winning margin to 47 votes.

The result of a recount for the seat of Waitakere is still pending. On Saturday’s result Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni won the seat by 11 votes ahead of National’s Paula Bennett.

Will be interesting to see the Waitakere result, which is taking a lot longer.

Good to have the win in Christchurch Central confirmed. It is amazing to have National hold both Christchurch and Auckland Central. Now just need Wellington Central for the hat trick!

My cunning plan for WC is that as Labour got fewer party votes than the Greens in WC, have Nats in 2014 tactically vote for the Green candidate with James Shaw winning it comfortably off Grant Robertson. That then triggers a civil war on the left akin to the Tutsi and Hutu conflicts, and National picks it up in 2017 from the remains 🙂

John Pagani blogs at Stuff:

The biggest change people are talking about is to remove the electorate winners’ bonus that allows a party winning one electorate seat to bring in other MPs. The loophole created the shoddy deals in Epsom and Ohariu by evading the rule that requires a party to get 5 per cent to get into Parliament.

As it happens no MP qualified for Parliament this way. The only List MPs are from parties that exceeded 5% party vote.

And why is it shoddy for National voters to vote for Peter Dunne but quite okay for Green voters to vote for Labour MPs in marginal seats?

The single worst feature of MMP is the quality of party lists and the frequency of MPs getting into Parliament with too little democratic mandate.

Lists must be compiled “democratically” but what does that mean? In practice, the people who put together lists are unaccountable. I’ve been involved in list selection in three different parties – small, medium and large – and I’m convinced that the missing ingredient is public input capable of vetoing backroom deals.

The best model is the Greens’ one, where the party’s high priests emit a draft that goes to members, who can rearrange it. This  resulted in Steffan Browning coming to Parliament this year, when the draft list had him unelectably low.

We need the public to have an opportunity for rearrangement of every party list. I am not a fan of so-called “open lists”, where voters can rearrange the list as they vote – they make  the ballot paper too long.

Why not have independently run primary list elections six months before the election? Individuals could get an independent mandate for their place on the list.

I can’t see open lists working, but requiring a party to let all members vote on the final list is a possibility.

Another improvement MMP needs is an increase in the proportion of electorate seats. We could easily have 85 electorate seats – 15 more than today, and consequently 15 fewer list seats –  without disturbing proportionality. That would give more local MPs, with the small parties still tending to keep their status intact. Eighty-five would leave room for about another five or 10 seats to be created with population growth, without needing to increase the size of the House.

John is wrong here on the numbers. If the House in 2002 had 85 seats (and assuming National and Labour won the same proportion), then Labour would have had a three seat over-hang. Also at 95 seats, Labour would have had a 10 seat over-hang and National a two seat over-hang.

Also the Maori Party has had an over-hang in 2008 and 2011, and an increase in electorate seats would possibly increase their over-hang also.

Ministries are big simply because party leaders need to hand out rewards. Now they’re getting even larger because the prime minister is struggling to cram in all his support partners. This is an abuse that we don’t need.

Repeating a lie told by Trevor doesn’t make it true. The Ministry is the same size as under Helen Clark. And in fact the 2011 Ministry has one fewer Minister from support partners than in 2008.

Ministers ranked below about 9 or 10 in Cabinet are not part of the real Cabinet anyway.

This is basically correct. Any group which has more than 10 or so members will inevitably form an inner circle.

Ten MPs would be enough to run super-portfolios, with another dozen as ministers outside Cabinet. That would help create pressure from new talent knocking at the door, and improve the quality of ministers. Most MPs would never make Cabinet – but voters don’t need them to.

This is basically what I have long proposed.

I would reduce the pay gap between MPs and ministers. If there were no financial penalty for losing their jobs, ministers could be fired and resign on a point of principle more easily. Support parties would see policy gains as more important than salary gains.

A highly attractive feature of MMP is it helps make Parliament more powerful relative to the government. If chairs of select committees were to enjoy as much responsibility and reward as, say, ministers outside Cabinet, then that would be an alternative career path for MPs.

I think this is just stupid. Is John saying Jim Anderton stayed a Minister because of the salary, rather than his ability to contribute?

The Dom Post reports:

An embittered David Cunliffe is refusing to rule out quitting Parliament altogether as leader David Shearer moves to finalise his front bench.

It is understood Mr Cunliffe has been offered a front bench seat and a senior portfolio but has balked at his proposed ranking.

Offering Cunliffe anything less than his current rating or portfolios, always runs the risk of a refusal.

Labour has been allocated eight front bench seats in the new Parliament and it is likely Mr Cunliffe has been offered either the sixth, seventh or eighth slot.

The top places are likely to be taken by Mr Shearer, deputy Grant Robertson, Jacinda Ardern, finance spokesman David Parker, Shane Jones and Clayton Cosgrove with the remaining two slots open to Mr Cunliffe and his running mate, Nanaia Mahuta, or possibly Ruth Dyson or Maryan Street.

So lets look at this from Cunliffe’s point of view. You’ll accept Shearer, Robertson and Parker all being ranked higher than you. But if the story is correct it is proposed that two other MPs would be higher ranked than Cunliffe, such as Jacinda Ardern or Ruth Dyson. Cunliffe would have a fair point to ask why any of those named deserve a higher ranking than him.

Now of course it is at the discretion of the leader, what ranking to give out – but it is also at the discretion of the MP whether or not to accept.

Meanwhile, former list MP Stuart Nash, who is close to Mr Shearer, has been offered the role of chief of staff.

He said he wanted to discuss it with his partner first, and would give Mr Shearer his answer by Sunday.

“It’s a really exciting opportunity, because I believe David Shearer can take us to victory in 2014.”

That’s a smart move. Labour really are on their way to rebuilding.

Answers Tomorrow at 7 am

In April I blogged:

This means you could have a cabinet of 12. The Speaker looks after Parliament, and one Minister per major agency. One could have associate ministers outside cabinet who get delegated some of the specialist areas within an overall portfolio.

Yesterday Trevor Mallard blogged:

New Zealand has a ridiculous number of Ministers for a country our size.

It had got slightly worse under MMP but this government has taken it beyond absurd with 80% of the non National confidence and supply partner members bought off with a Ministerial post, and the final one on a promise of getting one during the term.

It would have been nice to have Trevor speak up when he had influence. I’ve long said we should have a smaller Ministry. It was in fact Helen Clark who increased the size of the Executive to 28. Key has just maintained it at that size.

I spent three years as a whip which included cabinet committee experience in the 1980s and the nine years as a Minister in the Clark government.

I saw lots of weak, and some frankly useless Ministers. Most, but not all, were in the second half of the rankings. They often caused more work than they added value. There was an enormous amount of time wasted explaining what was either obvious or buried in papers that if they had been read hadn’t been understood.

Trevor should name names! 🙂

I tend to divide Ministers up into three camps – leaders, administrators and bumblers.

The ideal Minister leads their portfolio and ministry. They impose the Government’s policy agenda on the ministry, listen to officials but do not always follow their advice. The number of “leader” Ministers in a Ministry does tend to be rarely more than a dozen.

Hence why I’d restructure the state sector into 12 super-ministries as advocated in my linked post. That way each super-ministry is likely to have a “leader” Minister who will apply strategic leadership to the portfolios within. Also there are probably only a dozen great CEOs in the state sector, so you get benefits at the CEO level also. Finally it reduces Cabinet from 20 to 12, which makes it a more effective decision making body.

The “administrator” Minister is probably the most common type of Minister. Unlike Trevor I would not call them useless. Their problem is more they just do what their officials tell them to. They do not apply external political judgement to issues, and hence as Trevor alludes to they need rescuing from time to time.

If there were just 12 Ministers in total, I think the paperwork would be too much. It is not that Ministers are not busy. Hence I’d have all full portfolios held by one of 12 Cabinet Ministers but maybe still have say eight Associate Ministers outside Cabinet who get delegated specific areas. This makes them a good training ground for becoming a full Minister, but still reduces the Ministry by eight or so.

I think we don’t need more than ten or a dozen Ministers. They should all be in Cabinet. And to trial talent we should use three or four Under Secretaries who report directly to the relevant Minister.

We broadly agree, but I’d call the Under-Secretaries Associate Ministers. Maybe could do it like the UK – Secretaries of State are full Ministers in Cabinet and Ministers of State are Ministers outside Cabinet.

It will be interesting if any of Trevor’s former Ministerial colleagues agree with his description of them as useless.  To spare the competent ones, he should name those he meant!

More importantly, he should lobby David Shearer to announce a policy to reduce the Ministry from 28 to 12 Ministers. That would be hugely popular.

For those that may need to call me (my preference is you don’t 🙂 ) my temporary mobile is +27 79 140 5085.

Stuff reports:

Wellington technology blog, ReadWriteWeb, consistently judged one of the world’s most popular blogs, has been bought by San Francisco digital publishing company Say Media for an undisclosed sum.

Major US technology website TechCrunch, which itself was bought for US$25 million last year, is reporting the deal is worth US$5 million – about $6.6 million in New Zealand dollars.

Run by Petone’s Richard MacManus since it was started in 2003, ReadWriteWeb has a staff of just under 20, most of whom are based in the US.

MacManus said the site attracted about 5 million page views and 2.75 million unique visitors each month.
It had begun looking for a potential buyer a few months ago, as it needed more resource to grow, he said.

He planned to increase the blog’s technology coverage, including of technology hardware.

Well done to Richard McManus. This is the great thing about the Internet, that someone in NZ can be globally successful from his house in Petone.

Stuff reports:

TV3 has confirmed it has poached TVNZ’s political editor Guyon Espiner.

He will work as a journalist for current affairs show 60 Minutes, starting in February.

Espiner has been TVNZ’s political editor since 2006 and also hosted the Sunday morning programme Q+A for the state broadcaster.

I can remember Guyon starting in the press gallery in the 1990s, but that just makes me feel old!

Certainly a coup for TV3 to pick Guyon up, and good to see them beefing up 60 minutes. I suspect Guyon will appreciate a less hectic lifestyle as his two roles of press gallery in Wellington and Q+A every weekend must have been draining.

These are protea, the national flower of South Africa, which is where I am.

This is a photo of the area that used to be called the Malay Quarter. Slaves from Indonesia and Malaysia were brought here by the Dutch East India Company. The houses are all similiar style here, and as slaves often could not read, they were painted very distinctive colours so they could recognise which house to go to!

This is one entrance to the “Company Gardens” which were created in 1650 by the DEIC.

Mummy with nine chicks.

Jan Smuts was Prime Minister of South Africa from 1919 to 1924 and 1939 to 1948. He was the only person to sign the peace treaties ending WWI and WWII and also to sign the charters of the League of Nations and the UN. He wrote the preamble to the UN Charter.

This is the Cape Town office of the President of South Africa, Tuynhuys.

Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia and De Beers. Many New Zealanders have got to study at Oxford through a Rhodes Scholarship. 7,000 students have gained one since 1902. Eligibility is restricted to former British colonies, the US and Germany. Only three NZers a year can be selected.

This is Sir George Grey, yes our Sir George Grey. As well as being the Governor and Premier of NZ, he was also Governor of Cape Colony (and South Australia twice). He served in South Africa between his two terms as Governor of NZ.

This is the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the legislative capital, Pretoria the administrative capital and Bloemfontein the judicial capital.

Why is it Parliaments are always surrounded by pigeons?

This statue is at Mandela Rhodes Place, and is made entirely from chicken mesh wire.

One of the many birds around.

This is known as the administration street, running next to the gardens, and linking up the Presidential office, the Parliament and various museums. A lovely area to walk around.

This is back at the waterfront, where I am staying. To celebrate Coke’s 100th anniversary here they constructed this from recycled coke crakes.

The view from the restaurant at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront where I had lunch. Was an atypical cloudy day for this time of year, but still some good views with Table Mountain in the background.

This is the Cape Grace Hotel, where I am staying. Highly recommended. The location is first class, the service excellent and the rooms are magnificent.

Statues of South Africa’s four nobel peace prize winners. Three of them are well known – Nelson Mandela, F W De Klerk and Desmond Tutu. The first winner though was Albert Lutuli in 1960. He was the first person to win it from outside Europe and the US.

These guys are just enjoying the sun. They seem to regard the jetties as belonging to them, as several of the jetties have seals sun bathing on them, or swimming next to them. I can see them from my hotel room which is amazing.

The Dom Post reports:

Zealandia wildlife sanctuary has asked Wellington City Council for nearly $3 million so it can keep its doors open.

The council has already provided funding of about $10.7m based on projected visitor figures that have never been met, and it is hesitant about providing a bailout of $950,000 a year over three years.

No.

I like Zealandia, but it has devoured far far too much ratepayer money.

I like this photo (from Stuff) of the Ministers being sworn in. I like the fact that a third of the front bench are woman (and two are Maori women) and indisputably all there on merit – not on the basis of quota or factional appeasement.

I also likes this response from John Key to David Shearer’s call to be on the Ministerial committee on poverty:

Mr Key wished new Labour leader David Shearer all the best in what was a “thankless” job as leader of the Opposition.

Mr Shearer had been “quite quiet” as an MP so it was difficult to tell how he might perform.

However, he rejected Mr Shearer’s call to widen a ministerial group on poverty to all MPs.

“I’m more than happy for David Shearer to be a part of the ministerial committee if he’s happy to give the Government confidence and supply.”

Heh.

On the serious substantive issue, both John Key and David Shearer would sincerely like to see less poverty in New Zealand. They agree on the aim, but the reality is National and Labour disagree strongly on the solutions. This is not always a bad thing – it means NZers get to choose whose policies etc they prefer.

For example National believes a key way to reduce poverty is to reduce the numbers on welfare. Labour however believes that you reduce poverty by paying those on welfare more.

One could argue shouldn’t we do both. Well, yes you can but the policies are not that compatible. The more you pay people on welfare, the harder it generally is to reduce the numbers on welfare.

Ultimately it is of course a bit of a balancing act. Few advocate abolishing the welfare state and having a Singapore system where families must support those not in work, rather than the state. And likewise few support having a welfare state where work is voluntary and you can just go on a benefit whenever you feel like it.

Transtasman has published its annual ratings for the 92 re-elected MPs. As usual, I do some analysis.

The overall average rating is 5.0 (+0.5 from 2010)

Average Ratings per Party

1. Maori 5.8 (-1.0)
2. National 5.2 (-0.2)
3. United Future 5.0 (-0.5)
4. Mana 5.0 (+3.0)
5. Green 4.7 (+0.9)
6. Labour 4.1 (-0.4)

Labour overall rated the bottom party, based on the MPs re-elected. The Greens are most improved of the parties with more than one MP.

Top MPs

1. Gerry Brownlee 9.0 (+1.0)
2. John Key 9.0 (nc)
3. Bill English 8.5 (nc)

The next four MPs on 8.0 are Russel Norman, Tony Ryall, Lockwood Smith and Murray McCully. They say about Gerry:

As Minister in charge of directing recovery from the devastating earthquakes in Canterbury, and faced almost daily with hard decisions, Brownlee has shown his true mettle. He has stood four-square behind the Govt’s determination to rebuild Christchurch, and has given back hope to those whose homes and businesses were torn apart. The job is far from done and Brownlee is expected to remain in charge for at least a year as the process of rebuilding gathers pace. What may have exercised a strong influence on the outcome of the election, as National harvested majorities in onetime Labour fiefdoms in Christchurch, was the conviction the Govt totally supported the city, transmitted through the Brownlee personality, and built around the extraordinary generosity in the payouts to citizens whose homes had been destroyed.

Bottom MPs

1. Rajan Prasad 1.0 (-3.0)
2. David Clendon 2.0 (-1.5)
   Darien Fenton 2.0 (-2.0)
   Louisa Wall 2.0 (-2.0)
   William Sio 2.0 (-1.5)
   Parekura Horomia 2.0 (-1.0)
   Melissa Lee 2.0 (-1.5)
   Colin King 2.0 (-1.5)

And Rajen Prasad was rated higher on Labour’s List than Stuart Nash etc!

Top Labour MPs

1. Annette King 6.0 (-0.5)
   David Parker 6.0 (-0.5)
   Phil Goff 6.0 (nc)
   David Cunliffe 6.0 (+0.5)
   Lianne Dalziel 6.0 (+0.5)
   Jacinda Ardern 6.0 (+1.0)
   Grant Robertson 6.0 (+1.0)

Top Third Party MPs

1. Russel Norman 8.0 (+3.0)
2. Tariana Turia – 6.5 (-.10)
3. Metiria Turei 6.0 (+1.5)
   Pita Sharples 6.0 (-1.0)
4. Peter Dunne – 5.0 (-0.5)
   Hone Harawira – 5.0 (+3.0)
   Te Ururoa Flavell 6.0 (-1.0)
   Gareth Hughes – 5.0 (+2.0)

Biggest Increases

1. Hone Harawira +3.0
   Russel Norman +3.0
2. Michael Woodhouse +2.0
   David Shearer +2.0
   Gareth Hughes +2.0

Biggest Decreases

1. Rajan Prasad -3.0
2. Paul Hutchison -.2.0
   Sue Moroney -2.0
   Darien Fenton -2.0
   Louisa Wall -2.0

Group Ratings

1. Ministers 6.3 (-0.3)
2. Cabinet 6.4 (-0.7)
3. National frontbench 7.2 (-0.7)
4. Labour frontbench 4.8 (-0.2)

I blogged a while back on the Supreme Court blog that has been started up. Two of the posts were quite critical of the Court’s decision on the Urerewa case, including former Judge Ted Thomas who noted:

The Chief Justice’s unnecessarily wide statement that the police cannot do anything that is not authorized by statute is based on a misunderstanding as to the way police powers developed.

and

The Chief Justice also held that an unlawful search is necessarily an unreasonable search. I believe that the view of the majority in Jefferies to the opposite effect is correct. Tipping J was not amiss in describing the contrary view as “absolutist” (at [226]).

Now it is not unusual for lawyers to disagree or even Judges to disagree. However when a number of lawyers state the Chief Justice was plainly wrong in comments she made, you do take notice. And I have heard lots of criticism over that judgement from others in the legal community.

But it was just once case, so i thought. Until I watched The Court Report last week, and they had no less a person than top QC Jim Farmer on, voicing his concerns (most diplomatically and respectfully) about the performance of the Supreme Court. dr Farmer’s comments come from a blog post he made back in August.

My criticisms, if I can express them with respect, are limited to 2 recent cases.  
The first relates to the superficial way in which the Court dealt with the important competition law issues that were rightly brought to it in Commerce Commission v. Telecom (the 0867 case).  As (losing) counsel in the case, I do not comment here on the outcome – indeed from the point of view of the Commerce Commission wanting to establish a precedent that clarified the law that may not have been that important – but I think I am entitled to endorse the views of many others practising in this important area of law and policy that we were entitled to much better principled guidance than we received in the short Judgment that was delivered.

Dr Farmer said on TV that the top court should be perhaps hearing fewer cases, and giving them more consideration as befits their role as the final arbiter of the law. Their judgements should clarify, not confuse the law.

We see this again in the NZSC blog on the above case:

Interestingly, the Chief Justice preferred the view that error of law is reached “whenever a body entrusted with a determination of fact has reached a conclusion that is clearly wrong or is unreasonable.” This wording, and in particular the emphasis on the fact-finding nature of the decision-maker, is surprising.

And NZ Lawyer Online reports:

I can’t recall a time when our most senior local court – the Court of Appeal before 2004 and the Supreme Court since then – has been the subject of so much criticism.

This suggests to me that the dis-satisfaction is not just the normal disgruntlement, but that there are real issues with the quality of the decisions of the Supreme Court. That is not to say the decisions are wrong, but that they are not providing the clarity of the law which is so vital in a country of laws. The criticisms are also that basic errors of fact are being made also:

Tax barrister Geoff Harley spoke a couple of weeks ago to a large gathering of accountants and lawyers. His topic was the Supreme Court’s decision in Penny and Hooper v Commissioner of Inland Revenue [2011] NZSC 95. He said the Court had got the facts wrong (in [3], [11], [14], [35], and footnote 7 of the judgment), and he proceeded from that platform to criticise various aspects of the Court’s reasoning.

Writing in the latest part of the New Zealand Business Law Quarterly, Paul Scott, a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, was highly critical of the Supreme Court’s decision in Commerce Commission v Telecom Corporation of New Zealand Ltd & Anor [2010] 1 NZLR 577. Justice Blanchard has said extrajudicially that the decision in that case has aligned New Zealand law with that of Australia and has widened section 36 of the Commerce Act 1986. Scott says bluntly, “The decision has done nothing of the sort. The Supreme Court has missed the point, misread Australian law, and taken a wrong turn…” He adds that the decision “is also internally inconsistent”.

Stephen Franks has noted:

The skids are under our Supreme Court in its current form.

Last night’s Court Report on TVNZ 7 would look innocuous to non-lawyers, but Dr Jim Farmer QC’s open public criticism of the Court’s quality is highly significant. Dr Rodney Harrison QC was there for balance, but his defence of the Court was lame.  That three QCs were discussing the problem on TV at all is extraordinary in NZ. Our legal establishment has discreetly enforced the conventions against lawyer public comment that might undermine respect for the courts in which they practice. Concerns about judicial quality have been inhouse whispers only.

Dr Farmer’s anxiety was made public in a post on his website in August. There too he was careful, to the  point of parody, to emphasize his respect for the Court. But what he says is a mild version of the worries widely expressed among eminent barristers.

Judges too are deeply frustrated. Court of Appeal judgments are commonly more useful than the superior court  judgments that supersede them. Instead of simplifying and clarifying, too many Supreme Court decisions add complexity.

It was very unusual to have such an eminent QC raise his concerns about the court in such a public way. The concerns should not be brushed aside.

Of course only the Court itself can take note of the criticisms. Appointments are until age 72, unless there is very serious misconduct.

But there is also an avenue open to the Government, if they wish to take heed of the concerns. Section 17(1)(b) of the Supreme Court allows the Attorney-General to appoint a sixth member of the court. Perhaps it is time to do just that.

UPDATE: I got two cases mixed up. The blog post is on the recent case Vodafone v Telecom, whereas Jim Farmer’s comments related to an earlier and unrelated case (Commerce Commission v Telecom). Also the Supreme Court blog authors have e-mailed to stress their article was on a narrow technical area of the law, and should not be seen as criticism of the Supreme Court or Chief Justice.

In my By the numbers blog at Stuff, I suggest a rejuvenated front bench for Labour, which would reduce the average time since they entered Parliament from 15 years to just 6.5 years. My picks are:

• David Shearer
• Grant Robertson
• David Cunliffe
• David Parker
• Andrew Little
• Phil Twyford
• Carmel Sepuloni
• Damien O’Connor
• Shane Jones

Radio NZ reports:

Mr Goff has restated his commitment to seeing out this term in Parliament and says he intends to stand again in 2014.

Oh good God. That will help the rejuvenation – not.

Who on earth would he want to stay on as a backbencher? Does he intend to outlast Ross Robertson?

John Armstrong writes:

Shearer will bring change by making the party less hostage to the political correctness that still plagues its image. He is interested in things that work, rather than whether they fit the party’s doctrine. Shearer will not fight old battles merely to make the party feel good about itself.

He will make the party’s various groups – union affiliates, Labour women, Labour youth, Maori, Pasifika, gays and so on – start working for the party rather than feeding off it.

He will promote on merit, not quotas. He intends to transform a seriously flabby political institution into a slick political machine.

It sounds great if he can achieve it. Less politically correct, less doctrinaire, and less identity politics with a focus on merit.

Stuff reports:

Her parliamentary ambitions are over, but Annette King may now turn her thoughts to the Wellington mayoralty.

Mrs King scotched suggestions last year that she would run for mayor, when Celia Wade-Brown narrowly defeated Kerry Prendergast, but is not ruling out standing in 2013.

If Annette runs, I can’t imagine she would lose. Would be fascinating to have a Labour MP challenge an incumbent Green Mayor.

Bad enough this story, which has been around for a while:

An Afghan woman who was jailed for “forced adultery” after a relative raped her, and then officially pardoned after an international outcry over the case, is still in prison nearly two weeks after a judicial panel announced she could go free.

At least she no longer has to marry her rapist. But still, so incredibly fucked up.

Now we have the Saudis:

Rights group Amnesty International has described as “deeply shocking” Saudi Arabia’s beheading of a woman convicted on charges of “sorcery and witchcraft” saying it underlined the urgent need to end executions in the kingdom.

Saudi national Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was executed on Monday (locall time) in the northern province of al-Jawf after being tried and convicted for practicing sorcery, the interior ministry said, without giving details of the charges.

“The citizen… practiced acts of witchcraft and sorcery,” Saudi newspaper al-Watan cited the interior ministry as saying. “The death sentence was carried out on the accused yesterday (Monday) in the Qurayyat district in al-Jawf region.”

God, where do you start.

1. There is no such thing as sorcery
2. Hence sorcery should not be a crime. It’s like making astrology a crime.
3. Executing someone for a fictious offence is barbaric

For those who missed it, the post before this one was by Jadis, one of my guest editors. As it happens I disagree with Jadis on this, and think Shearer will lead Labour into the 2014 election. Hell if Labour didn’t roll Phil Goff for non-performance, then Shearer has nothing to worry about.

I actually think he has a very decent chance of becoming Prime Minister.

I’m on holiday until early January so Jadis will be doing the odd guest post, as well as possibly other guest editors.

I’ll still do a bit of blogging, but will be less regular.

Bryce Edwards has an interesting piece on the Herald online.   Bryce suggests it is a bold move to elect Shearer in the hopes he can go head-to-head with Key.  Bold to the degree that Bryce suggests Shearer needs to perform within the next two years or he is gone; rolled by Robertson. I give Shearer eighteen months.

My learned Labour contacts suggested to me before the vote even took place that it didn’t really matter all that much who was elected Leader of Labour.  Their view was that the victor would never be the next Labour Prime Minister.  We are seeing Labour lurch from Phil ‘fill-in’ Goff to another fill-in guy.  Shearer’s going to find it tough.  He’s backed more by Labour’s old guard but without the real depth of relationships (or indeed institutional knowledge of the Party) while needing to reach out to the more progressive members of the Party.  Shearer has a timeline worse than English ever had.  Shearer may not even see an election.

And, despite the lauding of his CV and comparisons to Key, Shearer is no Key.  Key had the opportunity to develop from the more helpful part of the electoral cycle, and proved himself head-to-head with Cullen first.  Shearer has been rather clumsy in his debates to date, and that was against Cunliffe.

Let’s also take a look at Grant’s stellar record.  Well, does he really have one?  This is a guy that everyone likes.  I do too.  BUT has he really performed.  He’s held two very substantial portfolios in the last term, Tertiary Education and also Health.  He didn’t make any real public inroads into either portfolio area and certainly didn’t execute any great hits on Ministers, particularly Ryall in Health.  Indeed, Health is usually relished by opposition parties because constituents come to opposition MPs with stories of hardship and difficulty within the health system.  Usually, opposition MPs can pummel the Government with these stories of poor performance, waiting lists and more.  Where was Grant on those stories?  Biding his time, flying below the radar awaiting that moment where the “nice guy” can take over.

I suspect Grant will be a competent Deputy.  He is good at organising people, taking on a role very much like a deputy Principal while Shearer shines in the public sphere.  But why choose a guy like Grant to be your Deputy?  He’s a likely contender to your own leadership who as the Deputy can stoke the fires at home (in the Leader’s corridor and in the House) while you take a nice road trip around the countryside letting the voting public get to know you.

And then there is Cunliffe.  He can wait, watch and receive.  Wait for it to turn to custard.  Watch the Shearer lack of political experience while Robertson undermines. And, receive the “we should have chosen you” and “come to my office for a chat” conversations that will inevitably occur.

And news just broken that the 34 Labour MPs have elected David Shearer as the 13th Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party. Grant Robertson is his Deputy Leader.

Commiserations go out to David Cunliffe, who ran a strong campaign. I hope Shearer retains him in Finance (or better).

I think this is a good decision for Labour. Shearer gives them an opportunity to make a clean break from their past. The challenge will be for that break to be substantive, not just symbolic, so I await his announcement of shadow cabinet and portfolios with interest.

If I was advising Shearer, I would have him read up on the leadership style of Michael Joseph Savage when Opposition Leader. Savage did not spend all his time attacking the Government and blaming them for everything from the weather to global crises, but went up and down NZ speaking of his vision for a better New Zealand.

I think David Shearer is a very decent man. I probably won’t agree with most of his policies (but possibly more than I have with Labour in the past), but I think and hope he will run a clean campaign to be Prime Minister and give New Zealanders a good choice.

UPDATE: Chris Hipkins has been elected Senior Whip, which I suggested was likely a few days ago. Darien Fenton is the Junior Whip. I presume Ross Robertson will be their nominee for Assistant Speaker.