Dean Knight at Laws179 blogs on the legal situation around the waterfront:

Much has been made of Murray McCully’s so-called “nationalisation” of the waterfront for RWC party central, through the exercise of reserve powers under the special legislation for the Rugby World Cup. 

The legal position is, however, very different.  While some regulatory approvals for standard event-based activities may be fast-tracked through a special process under the RWC 2011 (Empowering) Act, the RWC Act does not give the Minister the ability to “take control” of the waterfront.  The Minister’s statutory role is reactive only, namely, considering applications made to and assessed by the independent RWC Authority. Any ability for the government to “take the lead” on the party central activities must have been garnered collaboratively, and does not come from the exercise of power under the RWC Act.

In any event, the applications presently being made urgently are conjoint applications from the Ministry of Economic Development and the Auckland Council’s events team.  These applications were, I understand, in the process of being prepared collaboratively before the Minister’s announcement. And the fast-tracked approvals currently being sort are largely mundane. …

The legislation also provided for an even more expedited process “in circumstances of urgency that, for good reason, were not foreseen”.  A higher threshold was required (necessary to “secure public safety”, to “avoid seriously compromising” the RWC, or to “provide support for” RWC organisers). 

A different, and more expedited, process was provided for. Rather than being determined by the RWC Authority, the RWC Authority only assesses the application and makes an recommendation to the Minister for the RWC.  There is no obligation to subject the application to a participatory process.

The decision about whether the approval should be granted then falls to the Minister for the RWC.  He must consult the Minister for Economic Development and other relevant Ministers.  He must take account of (but is not bound by) the recommendation of the RWC Authority.  His decision is final.

That’s all.  They are the only “special” powers under the RWC Act.  The Act does not provide any power to assume control over or nationalise events.  The Minister’s role is reactive, as ultimate decision-maker, once an urgent application is made. And then only after the independent RWC Authority has scrutinised it.

A great op ed in the Australian by Mark Steyn:

TO be honest, I didn’t really think much about “freedom of speech” until I found myself the subject of three “hate speech” complaints in Canada in 2007.

I mean I was philosophically in favour of it, and I’d been consistently opposed to the Dominion’s ghastly “human rights” commissions and their equivalents elsewhere my entire adult life, and from time to time when an especially choice example of politically correct enforcement came up I’d whack it around for a column or two.

But I don’t think I really understood how advanced the Left’s assault on this core Western liberty actually was. In 2008, shortly before my writing was put on trial for “flagrant Islamophobia” in British Columbia, several National Review readers e-mailed from the US to query what the big deal was. C’mon, lighten up, what could some “human rights” pseudo-court do? And I replied that the statutory penalty under the British Columbia “Human Rights” Code was that Maclean’s, Canada’s biggest-selling news weekly, and by extension any other publication, would be forbidden henceforth to publish anything by me about Islam, Europe, terrorism, demography, welfare, multiculturalism, and various related subjects. And that this prohibition would last forever, and was deemed to have the force of a supreme-court decision. I would in effect be rendered unpublishable in the land of my birth.

This is why we must resist any so called hate speech laws in New Zealand. The threshold for intervention against speech should and must be very high – such as directly advocating violence.

Fourteen-year-old Codie Stott asked her teacher at Harrop Fold High School whether she could sit with another group to do her science project as in hers the other five pupils spoke Urdu and she didn’t understand what they were saying. The teacher called the police, who took her to the station, photographed her, fingerprinted her, took DNA samples, removed her jewelry and shoelaces, put her in a cell for three and a half hours, and questioned her on suspicion of committing a Section Five “racial public-order offence.” “An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark,” declared the headmaster, Antony Edkins. The school would “not stand for racism in any form.” In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said they took “hate crime” very seriously, and their treatment of Miss Stott was in line with “normal procedure.”

I thought this must be made up. But sadly it is true.

The head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal was interviewed on the BBC and expressed the view that homosexuality was “immoral,” was “not acceptable,” “spreads disease,” and “damaged the very foundations of society.” A gay group complained and Sir Iqbal was investigated by Scotland Yard’s “community safety unit” for “hate crimes” and “homophobia.”

Independently but simultaneously, the magazine of GALHA (the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association) called Islam a “barmy doctrine” growing “like a canker” and deeply “homophobic.” In return, the London Race Hate Crime Forum asked Scotland Yard to investigate GALHA for “Islamophobia.”

Got that? If a Muslim says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for homophobia; but if a gay says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for Islamophobia.

Two men say exactly the same thing and they’re investigated for different hate crimes.

I encourage people to ask candidates and parties where they stand on introducing hate crimes legislation in New Zealand. Don’t think there are not groups lobbying for them, because there are.

Sue Moroney announced for Labour:

Labour will require schools to use recognised assessment tools and teacher judgement to:

1. Determine the New Zealand Curriculum level a child is achieving.

Sounds like saying will determine how a child is doing against a national standard.

2. Show a child’s rate of progress between reports over the course of a year.

Sounds like the current requirement to report to parents against a national standard

3. Identify children not achieving within the curriculum level appropriate to their year at school.

Oh my God, that’s labelling them failures.

4. Decide and report the next learning steps.

5. Report this information in plain language to parents at least twice a year.

Wow almost identical to the current requirement to report progress against a national standard for their year twice a year to parents.

So what is the major difference between Labour and National’s policies?

Basically it is just that Labour will not have schools send their assessment data into the Government, hence preventing the media from being able to report on the number of students at a school who are meeting the national standard. That way those evil league tables are prevented.

And that is what this whole fuss has always been about. Opponents of national standards have been intellectually dishonest because the unions have always made clear that if the Government changed the law to remove school assessment data from the Official Information Act, then opposition to national standards would cease.

So Labour’s policy is effectively to keep national standards but to not have the Government have any idea of how well a school is doing, in case that information got made public. God forbid prospective parents know how well a school is doing.

I understand that for the first time ever, the Crown has filed a Treaty of Waitangi claim against an Iwi.

The Government is claiming that Ngai Tahu sold them dud land in Christchurch and they want Ngai Tahu to buy the land back 🙂

Heh. Someone has done a Downfall mashup about the Rugby World Cup organisation. Not the best Downfall parody out there but still pretty funny in parts, and topical.

Wonders will never cease. The NYT has run a column praising Sarah Palin. Why? Read on:

Let us begin by confessing that, if Sarah Palin surfaced to say something intelligent and wise and fresh about the present American condition, many of us would fail to hear it.

That is not how we’re primed to see Ms. Palin. A pugnacious Tea Partyer? Sure. A woman of the people? Yup. A Mama Grizzly? You betcha.

But something curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa. Along with her familiar and predictable swipes at President Barack Obama and the “far left,” she delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide.

Really? What did she say?

The next day, the “lamestream” media, as she calls it, played into her fantasy of it by ignoring the ideas she unfurled and dwelling almost entirely on the will-she-won’t-she question of her presidential ambitions.

This is a problem in NZ also. Too much reporting focuses on “process” stories rather than “policy” stories.

She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

Funnily enough, I’ve sometimes made a similar point to her last point. Very large corporates sometimes start to resemble Government Departments as they become entirely process-driven, and lose their innovation.

In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.

The recent spending cuts agreed to, will not in fact reduce the deficit. They will just stop it growing as fast.

Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.

Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.

“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”

Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?

That is a fascinating message she is pushing, and more nuanced that I thought Palin was capable of. I still think she is more likely to not run than run. To run and get the nomination, she needs to give Perry supporters a reason to choose Palin over Perry. As polls show Perry could beat Obama but Obama would thrash Palin, that is a tough job – but she is starting to mark off a niche area.

The Listener has done a a big five page article on Phil Goff’s leadership, and the problems around it. This is not anything out of the ordinary.

What is unusual is they have profiled the five pretenders to the throne (Cunliffe, Parker, Little, Jones and Shearer) and the five pretenders have all posed for photos for the article.

Boy talk about having your eyes firmly focused on the future.

An interesting article on the NZ Computer Society website on what we need to do to increase our innovation potential.

The summary:

1. Finish fixing ICT education in schools
2. Government needs to understand the potential of technology
3. Significantly increase the number of R&D Internships available
4. Excite kids (and their parents!) about IT as a career
5. Activate student communities to drive a change in culture
6. Support and change the mindset of our entrepreneurs
7. Act professionally
8. Internationally align ICT degrees and link them closer to industry
9. Help grow professionals through mentoring and development
10. Get Ultra-fast Broadband in place

Sounds a pretty good list to me.

An exclusive op ed by Luke Malpass and Peter Saunders:

When Prophecy Fails: The Spirit Level and the Illusion of Scientific Socialism

By Luke Malpass and Peter Saunders

A couple of Sunday’s ago, on TV One’s Q&A programme, there was a substantial interview followed by a panel discussion about a new book called The Spirit Level by British academics Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. The book claims to ‘prove’ that more equal societies perform better than less equal ones on a range of social indicators including crime, life expectancy, social cohesion, drugs, literacy and obesity.  It concludes that a radical redistribution of incomes would improve the quality of life for everyone, rich as well as poor.

This followed a forum held at Victoria University, Wellington last November to discuss the controversial book, and numerous glowing reports about the book and its authors in the New Zealand Press.

This book has been welcomed by many on the left. In New Zealand, a number of Labour politicians are pedalling it, while in Britain Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee even describes Richard Wilkinson as the 21^st century’s equivalent of Charles Darwin!  The left loves the book because it seems to provide scientific backing for their political instincts, ‘proving’ that income inequality is ‘a bad thing.’  But in reality, the book is seriously flawed, and serious left-leaning academics have begun distancing themselves from its claims.

One problem is that the income statistics are faulty.  As reported in the press, the book says Japan is the most equal country in the world.  This is crucial, for Japan performs very well on nearly every social indicator.  But the income data for Japan exclude single-person households and the self-employed, such as farmers.  More complete data supplied by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development shows Japan is actually the 13^th most unequal of the 30 OECD nations.  This alone is enough to undermine most of the statistical claims made in the book.

A further difficulty is that the authors ignore some key countries which don’t fit their hypothesis.  They claim to include all the rich nations, but they leave out affluent but unequal countries like Hong Kong and South Korea, and Singapore is missing from many of their graphs as well.  These countries all perform well on the social indicators yet have high income inequality.  If they were included, as they should have been, the authors would struggle to maintain many of their claims.

Their book also ignores social indicators where equal countries tend to perform badly.  They compare homicide rates, but not suicides; teenage births but not divorce rates; government foreign aid budgets but not private charitable donations; drug abuse but not alcohol consumption.  Taking these alternative measures, it could easily be ‘proved’ that equal countries perform much worse than unequal ones.       

Perhaps the worst aspect of the book is the analysis of comparative statistics.  The authors present a series of graphs plotting the income distribution in each country against selected social indicators, and in each case they claim to show problems getting worse as we move from less to more unequal countries.  In fact, however, most of their graphs show no such thing.

One plots the homicide rates of 23 countries against their income distribution.  In 22 of the countries, the homicide rate is very similar (indeed, more unequal countries, like Singapore, Britain and New Zealand, actually have lower rates than more equal countries like Sweden and Finland).  One country, however, stands out: the USA has a murder rate three times higher than the others – and the USA is a relatively unequal country. 

Wilkinson and Pickett allow this one case (what statisticians call an ‘extreme outlier’) to distort their whole graph.  Even though there is no association between income inequality and homicide rates across 22 countries, they conclude from this one case that there is.  They even suggest that Britain could reduce its murder rate by three-quarters if it had Swedish levels of income inequality, yet Sweden’s homicide rate is higher than Britain’s!  

Many of their graphs are skewed in this way, and the problem is compounded by their failure to look for the possible influence of third variables.  For example, they compare infant mortality rates across 50 US states and find those with the greatest income inequality have the higher rates.  But the more unequal states are also those with bigger African-American populations, so is it income distribution or ethnicity that is causing the problem?  When one of us looked into this, we found that ethnicity is 18 times more powerful than income distribution in predicting a state’s infant mortality rate.  When we published this finding, Wilkinson accused us in The Guardian of being a ‘racist’!

It is true that, on the indicators they select, the Scandinavian countries tend to perform better than the Anglo countries.  But this is not because the Scandinavians have a more compressed income distribution.  Rather, it reflects deep historical and cultural differences between the two sets of nations.  We know this because when we look at other countries outside these two blocs, there is no association between social outcomes and income inequality.  Countries like Austria, France, Greece, South Korea and Singapore vary widely on their income distributions but show no pattern on the social indicators.  The claim that inequality causes social pathology is a red herring.

While the recent Q&A panel were sceptical, Professor Jonathan Boston, who chaired the Victoria University forum on the book, was quoted last year as saying: ‘We can have some confidence that more equal societies – other things being equal – have better social outcomes across a range of measures. It may not be absolutely conclusive, but I think it’s reasonably persuasive.’  He’s wrong.

Left academics and politicians have long flirted with the idea that socialism can be made to look ‘scientific,’ and that is why they are drawn to this book.  But all the book really does is dress up political dogma in the garb of science.  Arguments about redistribution are moral, not scientific ones, and this book does nothing to change that.  Don’t let any academic tell you otherwise. 

Luke Malpass is Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent studies. Professor Peter Saunders is Senior Fellow at the CIS and is author of the book When Prophecy Fails: A Critique of the Spirit Level.

I’ve started reading the book and it is one of the most complete demolitions I have ever seen. The book specifically responds to the latest claims from the authors of the Spirit Level in defending their work.

You can purchase the book at the CIS website. The Spirit Level has become the bible for socialists, and to be blunt we need more people who can point out how flawed the cherry-picked research that makes it up is. Remember all the Eastern European states (before the Soviet empire collapsed) had little income inequality, but were hardly prosperous paradises.

Also of interest may be this op ed which appeared in the Australian last week.

Phil Quinn has an amusing take on the fictional press conference:

I would like to extend my heartfelt apologies to the members of the Australian Rugby Union contingent for my behavior at the corporate facilities at North Harbour Stadium during the Wallabies’ frankly unconvincing win against Italy on Sunday.

My conduct was unbecoming a government minister, let alone one charged with the duty of hosting overseas guests even if those overseas guests happen to be Australian.

The barrage of abuse I hurled against not only the playing fifteen, but the very character of Australia and Australians — while at times hilarious and often technically accurate — was not acceptable, and for that I sincerely apologize.

“Cheating convict scum” is not an expression I should have used.  If I had my time over again, I would allude to Australia’s past as a convict colony, along with its historical propensity to violate the rules and spirit of rugby, in a more dignified fashion.

I have called James O’Connor — who I can confirm is absolutely not Justin Bieber’s gay twin — to apologise directly.  Similarly, I tweeted an apology to Quade Cooper — whose name is spelled Q-U-A-D-E  and not Q-U-N-T as I may have implied a few dozen times on Sunday.

Heh.

Peter Luke writes in The Press:

Perhaps the most awkward moment in my now extinct career at The Press concerned 9/11, the 10th anniversary of which is tomorrow.

Peter was in the press gallery for my first few years in Parliament. He was, and is, a top bloke. He was also a excellent journalist who had a real flair for political reporting. It was a sad day when he moved back to Christchurch to be their leader writer.

Journalism inevitably has its moments of embarrassment. I recall in my first year in the job in 1986 covering, well into the evening, an industrial dispute involving local bus drivers.

As we went to print, it was clear that the next day there would be a drivers’ strike. Whether I had downed a few drinks at the Media Club before crawling home I can’t recall.

But that might explain why passing motorists the next morning gave me puzzled stares as I sat at the bus stop for the bus which was never going to come.

Heh.

Having followed politics for so many years, it has often been asked of me who were the MPs that I most respected. So, in my final column, here is my assessment.

Michael Cullen. Simply the wittiest and smartest politician in recent history.

Jim Bolger. The most under- estimated prime minister I have come across. He made up for his lack of education by having an innate ability to relate to the aspirations of ordinary Kiwis. And, as many civil servants discovered to their cost, his image of being a simple King Country farmer did not mean that he would not understand their reports and unfailingly point to the flaws in them.

Rod Donald. His ability to combine his Green politics with political pragmatism was uncanny. We used to meet up weekly for a drink, initially at the Font Bar at the Heritage Hotel. Younger reporters would be puzzled when they took a message from Rod asking if we would be celebrating “communion” that afternoon.

Jim Anderton. One of the hardest politicians to interview (he can talk non-stop). But in the years of Rogernomics he had the courage of his convictions which must be admired.

Then there is the enigma which is Mike Moore. Just before heading overseas to campaign for the top World Trade Organisation job Mike summoned me to his Parliamentary office.

Mate, he said, in winter you’re officially having to go out into the cold for a smoke. But Mike told me I would be free to use his office, against the rules, for a smoke, to the point where he said where his cigarettes and ashtrays were stored, not to mention where the booze was.

I hope Peter enjoys his retirement.

Gordon Campbell at Werewolf writes:

If the yet to fully mature brain of the average 16 or 17 year old really did justify withholding the vote until 18, then arguably….the same exclusionary logic should apply at the other end of the age spectrum as well. Yet there is no groundswell for excluding people from voting on cognitive grounds, as their brain function begin to decay. …

None of this directly addresses the question of senile dementia – and here, Barrett offers some sobering statistics. “ A person over 80 has a 20 % likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It is estimated that by 2050, some 147,000 New Zealanders of a projected population of 4.6 million will suffer from dementia (mostly Alzheimer’s.) ” That is almost the double the projection of 75,000 similar sufferers in 2026, and 3.5 times the 41,000 (in a population of 4.3 million) in 2008.

That marks a significant shift, to numbers that could be politically decisive.

I think this is already a significant issue.

Early research indicates that at the last election, 4.067107% of voters were affected by senile dementia.

Stuff reports:

The Government will use special powers under Rugby World Cup legislation to take control of the Auckland waterfront set aside for the celebrations during the tournament.

Rugby World Cup Minister Murray McCully will this afternoon outline his intention to tomorrow call up reserve powers available to him under the Rugby World Cup Empowerment Bill.

It has been revealed, ahead of the announcement, that McCully has ordered Government officials to write a new plan to manage the waterfront beyond its own Fan Zone at Queen’s Wharf.

The plan, which turns responsibility from the Auckland City Council over to the Government, will expand management measures and create more space for partying.

“Some of my critics have been suggesting I should take responsibility, well I am. I am stepping in to a space that the Government has not previously occupied,” McCully told Stuff.

“We’re getting on the front foot here and showing a determination to provide a larger footprint and a wider range of measures to assist with the management of crowds and the delivery of amenities.”

About 200,000 turned out to the Auckland waterfront for the opening of the Rugby World Cup on Friday night. Only about 12,000 were allowed in the Queen’s Wharf fan zone, where there were no problems.

McCully said he felt the preparations for outside of the Queen’s Wharf area – made by the Auckland City Council’s responsible group – were “thoroughly inadequate in respect of the crowd control and amenities”.

“It would be fair to say there was not adequate provision made for toilets and for other amenities and that was a significant contributing factor to the problems,” McCully said.

“Neither were there proper arrangements for the flow and management of people which led to difficulties.”

The new Government plan was being finalised this afternoon and McCully had been advised the only way to give the new plan legal effect was via special reserve measures in the RWC Empowering Bill.

So as I understand it the Government was managing the Queen’s Wharf fan zone and the Council the rest of the waterfront, and as with any split responsibility things fall through the cracks.

I imagine the thinking of the Minister is that if the Government is going to be held responsible for what happens on the waterfront, they want to be able to manage it. Who wants to be held accountable for something they do not control?

Of course the risk is that if problems continue, the accountability will clearly be with the Government. So it is quite a ballsy move.

Hopefully any problems will be minimal, so as many fans as possible have as great a time as possible.

In the debate on the Alcohol Reform Bill, Lianne Dalziel has just said that it is outrageous that you can buy a bottle of wine for less than $2/standard drinks.

So this is a sure sign that Labour, if Government, will legislate to ensure wine costs at least $16 a bottle.

First of all Phil Goff attacks John Key for not speaking te reo at the World Cup Opening Ceremony. For fucks sake, how politically correct can you get. I loved the ceremony and thought it was stunning and made me proud to be a Kiwi. But I think it is fair to say the Maori culture was not under-represented in the ceremony, so really why get obsessed over such tokenism over whether or not John Key said kia ora.

But I think Goff has managed to get even more stupid, with his claim that whomever was the Minister for bad manners has committed a sackable offence.

So according to Phil Goff, heckling the Australian rugby team is a sackable offence. Let’s contrast that to the list of what Phil Goff and Labour have said are not sackable offences, helpfully compiled by Whale Oil:

• Watch­ing porn on tax­pay­ers ticket
• Tiling your house with immi­grant labour
• Per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice and corruption
• Tak­ing home a drunk teenager who sub­se­quently runs naked from your house.
• Los­ing your lug­gage three times so you can get a new suit each time
• Tak­ing ille­gal dona­tions and lying about it
• Forg­ing paintings
• Speed­ing through the coun­try­side like an African dictator
• Buy­ing a set of golf clubs and a bike on the taxpayer
• For­get­ting you were briefed by the SIS and then lying about it
•  Steal­ing $840,000 from the tax­payer to fund your re-election campaign
• Con­tin­u­ally break­ing elec­toral law
• Claim­ing you had sold the sky­hawks when you had done no such thing
• Hid­ing ACC blowout from PREFU

There are probably many more than this that readers can add to that list.

Goff would do well to reflect that it is sometimes better to not comment on a story. The Minister for Bad Manners story was already getting massive media and blog coverage. He achieved nothing  by sticking in his 2c worth, except to make himself look stupid and hypocritical.

The same goes for the te reo story. How many votes does Goff thing he will win by whining that the PM didn’t speak in Maori. It just reinforces all the negative attributes the public sees in him.

Some lobby groups are issue driven, and legitimately criticise the Government for things they disagree with. There are other groups that become so partisan than no matter what, they just attack the Government.

Alcohol Action has just shown today that it is now obsessed with attacking the Government, regardless of the situation.

They put out two press releases today.  The first was at 11.01 am:

Government in urgency, set to bury their weak Alcohol NON-Reform Bill by the end of the week

 Is the Government trying to bury its impotent response to New Zealand’s heavy drinking culture by quickly and quietly passing the Alcohol Reform Bill under cover of the Rugby World Cup?

 “It looks as if the Government wants the Alcohol Reform Bill done and dusted by Friday,” says Alcohol Action spokesperson Prof Doug Sellman.

So in this press release, Alcohol Action attacks the Government for trying to pass the alcohol reform bill this week. They incidentally got their facts wrong – all the Government has done is schedule the second reading for today – there is no urgency planned for this week for the bill.

Then a second press release at 12.46 pm:

Government working hard, but not to pass their weak Alcohol NON-Reform Bill by the end of the week, or by the end of the year …

“The situation is worse than we originally thought and it now looks as if the Government will leave the Alcohol Reform Bill still hanging at the end of this current Parliament,” says Alcohol Action spokesperson Prof Doug Sellman.

So now in this press release, they attack the Government for not getting the law rammed through in the dying stages of Parliament.

They stand exposed as a lobby group who will attack the Government, no matter what the Government does. So why should they be listened to, when the Government knows that nothing they do will please them.

Just had monster hail storm in Wellington. The noise was amazing, and within minutes turned Wellington white.

The roofs and roads are all white.

This is my outdoor balcony. The hail is close to an inch thick on it.

Another view out to the left of the stadium.

And this is the roof of the indoor balcony.

Danya Levy at Stuff reports:

Australian media have dubbed an unnamed Government minister as the “New Zealand Minister for Bad Manners” after he allegedly made a scene in the official Australian box during the Wallabies opening Rugby World Cup game. …

The newspaper quotes insider “Jeeves” as saying “He booed and abused the Wallabies all game”.

“He was yelling out, ‘f–ing cheats’ and other offensive remarks, and then when the Wallabies started to get on top, he suddenly left.”

The Australian Rugby Union representatives and their partners in the box were “gobsmacked”, the newspaper said.

One of the Australians had asked a local government official who the man was, saying his behaviour was “right over the top”.

“The local suit replied: ‘Sorry. I can’t do much about it. He’s a government minister,'” the newspaper said.

iPredict have stocks on who will be identified as the Minister. Current probabilities are:

• Jonathan Coleman 65%
• Other/None 35%
• Wayne Mapp 2%
• Steven Joyce 2%
• Phil Heatley 2%
• Murray McCully 2%
• Craig Foss 2%
• Gerry Brownlee 0%
• Tim Groser 0%
• Bill English 0%

UPDATE: Ministers Coleman, Mapp and Williamson have all categorically denied it was them, and said they think the story is made up. This may be right, as it was an anonymous second hand story.

Derek Cheng in the NZ Herald reports:

The Government’s stalled reforms of the justice sector have been given an unusual lifeline with a proposal to take the controversial issue of the right to silence out of Parliament’s hands and leave it to a group of legal experts.

The Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill is likely to have its second reading this week, having spent a month on the order paper while Justice Minister Simon Power sought the numbers to pass it.

The bill is a shake-up of the criminal justice system and includes the removal of an accused’s right to remain silent and not have that held against them.

As it stands, the bill would require the defence to disclose to the prosecution before a trial all issues in dispute. Failure to do so would enable a judge or jury to infer that the accused is more likely to be guilty.

At present, a defendant can say nothing, leaving the case to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt.

The Labour, Green and Maori parties are strongly against the bill in its present form, but the Herald understands Mr Power has won the support of United Future leader Peter Dunne and Act MPs Hilary Calvert, Heather Roy and Sir Roger Douglas by removing the disclosure regime from the bill (Act MPs are not “whipped” to vote as a caucus).

The ability of a judge or jury to infer a greater likelihood of guilt from non-compliance would also be removed.

A new clause would allow the Rules Committee, a panel of legal experts chaired by Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias, to decide if a disclosure regime should be enforced, and if so, how.

I understand there is considerable tension in ACT over this bill.  If Calvert, Roy and Douglas vote for the the bill, they will be effectively crossing the floor against their party as the ACT Board has voted to oppose the bill, and it is also opposed by Leader Don Brash, former Leader Rodney Hide and Parliamentary Leader John Boscawen.

It raises one of the criticisms of MMP, where you have List MPs voting against the wishes of their party.

Now I have to say that by referring the disclosure regime to the Rules Committee, it almost guarantees it will not proceed as Dame Sian submitted on behalf of the high court, appeal court and supreme court judges against the disclosure regime. Interestingly the District Court Judges (who actually hear most of the trials) were in favour of a disclosure regime.

But even though it is unlikely to proceed, there are valid constitutional issues about whether something as fundamental as the right to silence should be decided by the High Court Rules Committee, rather than by Parliament itself. You normally delegate technical non-controversial issues to outside bodies – not issues affecting the Bill of Rights!

The other issue is about these changes being negotiated outside the select committee process, rather than through the select committee. Substantive changes at the committee of the whole stage are best avoided if possible.

The Dom Post reports:

Labour Party member and former Parliamentary staffer Sonny Thomas has admitted taking $4183.90 from his boss Phil Twyford and his wife, stealing a cash machine card to withdraw money and racking up food and drink bills in his name.

Thomas, 24, was Mr Twyford’s executive assistant and would buy food for him when he was unable to get his own.

Thomas bought over $877 of food and drink for himself while getting things for Mr Twyford.

He also went into Mr Twyford’s office while he was at meetings and took a credit card.

Using knowledge of Mr Twyford’s personal details and access numbers he guessed his PIN and withdrew $3560 over several months.

Thomas was asked about some extra transactions over the food and drink and said a mistake had been made and paid back $254.

He pleaded guilty to theft and fraudulently obtaining a financial advantage and Wellington District Court judge Michael Turner sentenced him to 250 hours community work and ordered him to pay back the money within a month.

Judge Turner said initially Thomas did not admit his wrongdoing when asked about the extra food and drink charges.

He said Thomas explained he had done it because he was helping an ill family member which was stretching his own financial means.

”You are a talented young man with a promising career in public service and politics which has been brought to an abrupt end,” he told Thomas.

Outside court Thomas apologised.

”I have made an enormous mistake under trying personal circumstances for which I am very sorry. No justifications can be made to excuse my actions,” Thomas said.

There are many great things about working in Parliament, but one of the not so great things is if you do something wrong, it is far more likely to be news worthy.

I’ve always got on fine with Sonny, and admired his commitment to politics. It is a shame he let himself down, as well as his boss and colleagues.

However there is a very good saying about let he who is without sin, cast the first stone. I basically divide people up into three categories:

1. Saints
2. Bad people
3. Good people who sometimes do a bad thing

I’ve yet to meet any of (1). Maybe that is just the circles I hang in 🙂

For my 2c, I think Sonny is very much in category (3). He’s a good person who did a bad thing. But that shouldn’t go on to define him.

At Stuff I blog on the train blame game.