I’ve been leaked a copy of what may be National’s most popular policy – extending the new 90 day probation period (which starts today) to Parliament.
The policy, which will require a change to the Electoral Act, will allow voters to sack an MP if they feel the MP is not working out. There will be two ways this could happen.
If 10% of an electorate MP’s constituents sign a sacking petition within 90 days of an electorate MP’s election, then their seat falls vacant. It is thought unlikely to be used often, due to the cost of a by-election. This will discourage opposition parties from using the provision recklessly, but allows the voters to take action if an MP is clearly just not working out.
The provisions around List MPs are harsher. A petition to sack an MP from their list spot can be lodged at any time. However it must be signed by at least 500 members of the party that MP represents in Parliament. This will provide an incentive for List MPs to better represent their party’s interests.
The policy has been approved by Cabinet, but not yet gone to Caucus, where there may be some resistance. However the case will be put to MPs that this just puts them on a level playing field with parliamentary staff who are on a effective permament probation period. Staff who work in a parliamentary or MPs office can be dismissed without cause at any time, under a provision in their employment contract called “irreconcilable differences” which is a fancy term for “am sick of you”.
This photo is from earlier in the week. It’s once again part of the Hauraki Gulf, but taken before dawn.
Click for larger, higher res image
The effect here on the waves is caused by the long exposure (motion blur) of 30 seconds, reinforced by a 3-stop ND filter.
It appeals to me as a kind of peaceful, quiet, scene
Expects howls of outrage from the press gallery, when they learn that their free rent is going to end in the budget, as part of Government moves to trim the cost of Parliament.
The gallery currently enjoy free office space in the Beehive Annex, totalling around 600 square metres. With wellington office spare exceeding $300/square metre, this could reduce the cost of Parliament by $180,000 a year.
What is unusual, is that the Greens are supporting this move. Russel Norman has pointed out Fairfax made a A$165m profit last year, APN made A$103m and Mediaworks A$50m, and that it is outrageous for struggling Kiwi families to subsidise these Australian corporates.
I understand that a deal has been done over the vacant Labour list spot. Expect an announcement later today that Judith Tizard has accepted the vacant list spot, and will be sworn in on Thursday 7 April.
However in a deal with Labour, she will resign her seat in May, and then Louisa Wall will come in. The other four higher placed list candidates have agreed to also stand aside.
This allows Tizard to make the valedictory speech she was “robbed” of, and also take part in the committee debate on the new Section 92A of the Copyright Act, which she originally authored. She wants to defend the original section, and explain why it was done. After that she will step aside and let Wall in.
Stratos announce:
PERIGO TONIGHT!
Lindsay Perigo is back with a brand-new TV interview show discussing philosophical, political and cultural topics with a special guest every week.
Tonight’s guest is Stephen McIntyre, former president of the National Organisation for Marijuana Law reform. With the recent police raids and arrests of cannabis growers, Lindsay and Stephen will dissect the issue of whether or not marijuana should be de-criminalised.
Join us for a half-hour of intelligent discourse.
This should be good. I’ve just set My Sky to record my first Stratos programme. Somewhat annoyingly it does’t give a series record option.
Those who have played Angry Birds will like this video. I especially like the giant eagle at the end.
Edward Gay in the NZ Herald reports:
Two women who discovered they were sleeping with the same man poured maple syrup in his bed, cooked his shoes in a microwave and threatened to make public explicit photographs he had sent them.
I wonder how long you have to cook shoes for in a microwave until they are done, and what happens to the shoes?
They then blackmailed the man – whose name is suppressed – by threatening to send photographs of his genitals to his workplace, bank and a cafe where his daughter worked unless he paid them $4000 each.
This is where they went wrong. If they had just stuck to the maple syrup and the shoes, then no jury would convict them. But blackmail is not good.
They would have been better with the maple syrup to tie him to the bed first, and then pour the maple syrup over him and the bed. If in a really bad mood, you also then leave a dog or two in the room!
Crown prosecutor Fletcher Pilditch said the offending was premeditated and serious.
He said the pair should be jailed, and proposed a term of between 12 months and two and a half years in prison.
Justice Woodhouse said he gave the women credit for their early guilty pleas.
“I do not consider the harm to the complainant or to his family from this offending will be long term,” he said.
“Any long-term harm will occur from the complainant’s conduct, which was morally reprehensible.”
But despite this, the women’s conduct could not be condoned.
Sounds like the Judge is not too sympathethic to the complainant.
Stories of revenge upon cheating exes are welcome in the comments!
iPredict now has all 70 electorates listed so let’s look at what the market is saying about the probability of each seat being held:
So there are seven seats which are rated greater than 30% probability of changing hands – one held by ACT, one by United, three by National, one by Maori Party and one by Labour. Only four of the seven are deemed over 50% probability, with Ikaroa-Rawhiti deemd most likely to change hands.
There are a further eight seats deemed between 20% and 30% likely to swap hands. One is held by Hone Harawira, two by the Maori Party, three by Labour and two by National.
Anna Leask at NZ Herald reports:
South Auckland’s top cop has been commended for turning his district’s crime statistics from the worst in New Zealand to some of the best, and will now take his methods nationwide.
Counties Manukau district commander Superintendent Mike Bush was named yesterday as the new Deputy Commissioner of Police. …
“He achieved great results in what is not only the country’s biggest police district, but the one that is the most ethnically, socially and economically diverse. On his watch the district went from having some of the worst crime statistics in the country to some of the best.”
Police Association president Greg O’Connor said the reaction among officers to Mr Bush’s promotion was positive.
“Mike is a very popular choice. He’s a guy who’s more than come up through the ranks … He really has done the work.”
I’ve only heard positive feedback to this announcement. The job is not a popularity contest, but it is good to hear that the senior Police roles are supported by the rank and file.
Two, maybe three, jobs are up for grabs in Labour. They are Chief Whip and Education Spokesperson, and also possibly the curent jobs held by whomever gets Chief Whip.
Let’s look at Education Spokesperson first. Who are the possibilities:
Looking at the above, I’d have to say the most likely option would seem to be Shearer keeps the portfolio, but perhaps get an associate. Kelvin Davis is a viable alternative.
So who will be Chief Whip. This is technically elected by Caucus, but unless the Leader is incompetent they will take soundings on who is a preferred candidate, and nominate someone they have trust in. If the junior whip becomes senior whip (which is normally what you would expect), then you will need a new junior whip also. So who might be in contention for either job:
Presumably we’ll find out on Tuesday who gets what.
This is amazing footage, from the Daily Telegraph:
The footage shows the devastation wrought to the fishing community of Kesennuma by a 33ft tsunami triggered by Japan’s strongest ever earthquake.
The port, around 300 miles north-east of Tokyo and formerly home to 74,000 people, was left in ruins after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami struck on on 11 March 2011.
You really need to watch this. At first things don’t look too bad as the first wave hits and a few cars start floating away. But as the water volume increase and increases it turns into an unstoppable force which rips buildings apart.
The Timaru Herald reports:
“I like Allan Hubbard”.
That’s what Prime Minister John Key told an audience of more than 350 people at a public forum in Timaru’s Caroline Bay Hall last night.
Mr Key spent 90 minutes answering a number of questions, ranging from the earthquakes to the economy to the environment. However, for parts of the meeting he had to weather a barrage of interjections from staunch Allan Hubbard supporters.
Staunch is an under statement. With some of them, you gain the impression that if Mr Hubbard was filmed hacking a dozen pre-schoolers to death with a machete, they’d insist he did nothing wrong.
Mr Key answered questions from all comers at the event, hosted by the Timaru Herald.
He replied to questions from Timaru Herald readers about topics ranging from his renewal of a contract for BMWs, to taxes, the Tuhoi terror raids, asset sales and earthquake recovery.
After the meeting, Mr Key was mobbed by people who wanted to get their picture taken with him.
Key has done at least a couple of these in Christchurch also, hosted by The Press. I think giving citizens the opportunity to hold the Prime Minister to account, is very important. I hope these forums will become a permament feature of politics in New Zealand.
I had to smile at reading of this Waitara couple:
They haven’t talked for two years and she allegedly stabbed him with a lolly jar, but they still live together.
The saga of a warring Waitara couple continued in court yesterday with the woman vehemently denying that she stormed into her partner’s bedroom, broke his lolly jar and stabbed him with it. …
The jury learned how the two still lived together, sleeping in separate bedrooms, and that Leathart dropped her off at court before giving evidence against her.
From the witness box, Leathart said the two had been together for about 12 years.
Each day he would head inside promptly at 6pm for his dinner, or she would put it in the bin.
So they won’t speak to each other, but she still cooks him dinner, and he dropped her off at court before giving evidence against her.
I think the court should sentence them to remain living together 🙂
The NZ Herald editorial:
Video images of a 15-year-old Wanganui schoolgirl being kicked to unconsciousness by another girl in her class, have moved the Prime Minister to have all schools review their attitude to bullying.
“I worry about bullying,” he said, “I worry about youngsters going to school and being intimidated …” His concern sounds genuine, not driven by an opinion poll. If schools find it a little galling that he thinks they need this reminder, they should make the best of it.
They may have given a great deal of attention to bullying in its various forms, and devised carefully considered policies to guide their response to it, but this is their opportunity to assess whether the policy is working and give further thought to alternatives.
I thought the PM wrote to all schools was a good idea. It isn’t about finger pointing, but it would ensure that at the next board meeting there is a discussion about the current anti-bullying and activities, and whether they can be improved.
But sadly the NZEI gets all defensive, and puts out a PR saying:
Schools don’t need to be bullied into action
The education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa says the Prime Minister is misguided to think that schools alone can stop bullying, as the root cause often lies well beyond the classroom.
John Key is instructing the Education Minister to write to all schools reminding them of their responsibilities and demanding they review their anti-bullying policies.
“Schools take bullying very seriously and encourage a zero-tolerance approach. They don’t need to be bullied into action,” says NZEI President Ian Leckie.
You know this really pisses me off. How dare Mr Leckie compare a letter from the Prime Minister to bullying, such as we saw with the 15 year old being beaten up. That just screams to me that the NZEI does in fact not give a fuck about bullying, if they just see it as a term to bash the Prime Minister with.
Leckie should be ashamed of that press release. It trivialises the issue.
Claire Trevett at the NZ Herald reports on the post frontbench press standup in Dunedin:
Behind him, they nodded like bulldog toys in the back of car. When he announced he had unanimous support from his frontbenchers, it set off a Mexican wave of determined head nodding.
They also laughed. When an apparently ridiculous question about Mr Goff’s support levels was asked, they laughed scornfully as one. When Mr Goff made a joke they again laughed as one, too loud and too long.
Some overdid it. David Cunliffe stood glued to Mr Goff’s side when they arrived and when he was asked how he would have handled it had he been Labour’s leader, he announced “I’m delighted to say I’m not the leader of the Labour Party.” He went on, further announcing that the actual leader of the Labour Party was “right here and he has my full support”.
Afterward, he was again glued to Mr Goff’s side. He nodded so hard when Mr Goff said he had unanimous support that he risked a dislocation. When Mr Goff was asked how he had tested his unanimous support, it was Mr Cunliffe who answered first, yelping “because we told him” and shaking his head in disbelief at the suggestion a show of hands might have been required.
I’m trying to think of what the scene best resembled. It reminded me of the 60 minutes interview by Steve Kroft with Bill and Hillary Clinton in 1992. You know the one – where they are trying to look like the relationship is perfect, but they are just trying a little bit too hard to be genuine.
But on the positive side, it worked for Clinton!
AAP reports:
Cash is falling out of favour, the use of cheques is virtually non-existent, debit cards are gaining but we haven’t quite made the leap to paying by mobile phone.
The use of cheques is falling out of favour, with fewer than 40 per cent of the study’s respondents saying they had made a payment by cheque in the past year.
It has been some years since I wrote a cheque out. I do have a cheque book somewhere, but Internet Banking is not just so much easier, but you get a record of whom you were paying and why by using the three reference fields.
Gwynne Dyer writes:
So why is this “coalition of the willing” (which has yet to find a proper name for itself) doing this? Don’t say “it’s all about oil”. That’s just lazy thinking: all the Western oil majors are already back in Libya.
I remember nutters insisting the Iraq war was about oil. The cost of the war has been many many times more expensive than any oil pumped from Iraq – and regardless the US is paying the same price as everyone else for Iraqi oil.
Maybe it’s just about local political advantage, then. French President Nicolas Sarkozy was the driving force behind this intervention, and he faces a re-election battle next year. Is he seeking credit with French voters for this “humanitarian” intervention?
Implausible, since it’s the right-wing vote he must capture to win, and saving the lives of Arab foreigners does not rank high in the priorities of the French right.
True. Having said that Sarkozy’s opularity has increased due to his leadership on this issue. but I don’t think that was the motivation.
British Prime Minister David Cameron was the other prime mover in the Libyan intervention. Unless the coalition Government he leads collapses (which is quite unlikely) he won’t even have to face the electorate again until 2014.
And this will be long forgotten, unless the conflict is still ongoing in which case it will be very unpopular.
As for United States President Barack Obama, he spent weeks trying to avoid a US military commitment in Libya and his Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, was outspoken in denouncing the idea. Yet there they all are, intervening: France, Britain, the US and half a dozen other Western countries, strikingly unaccompanied by Arab military forces, or indeed by anybody else’s.
There is no profit in this for the West, and there is a high probability (of which the interveners are well aware) that it will all end in tears.
So why are they doing it?
So why have the Western countries embarked on this quixotic venture? Indians feel no need to intervene, nor do Chinese or Japanese.
Russians and South Africans and Brazilians can watch the killing in Libya on their televisions and deplore Gaddafi’s behaviour without wanting to do something about it.
Even Egyptians, who are fellow Arabs, Libya’s next-door neighbours, and the beneficiaries of a similar but successful democratic revolution just last month, haven’t lifted a finger to help the Libyan revolutionaries.
They don’t lack the means – only a small fraction of their army could put an end to Gaddafi’s regime in days – but they lack the will.
Indeed, they lack any sense of responsibility for what happens to people beyond their own borders. That’s normal.
What is abnormal is a domestic politics in which the failure to intervene in Rwanda to stop the genocide is still remembered and debated 15 years later.
African countries don’t hold that debate; only Western countries do. Western countries also feel guilty about their slow and timorous response to the slaughter in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Nobody else does.
Sad, but largely true.
Why is it only Western countries which believe they have a duty to intervene militarily, even in places where they have no interests at stake, merely to save lives?
My guess is that it’s a heritage of the great wars they fought in the 20th century, and particularly of the war against Hitler, in which they told themselves (with some justification) that they were fighting pure evil – and eventually discovered that they were also fighting a terrible genocide.
Of course not all in the West have this view. Keith Locke said in Parliament:
Five important Security Council members—Germany, Brazil, India, China, and Russia—did not support the UN resolution. They were reluctant to support military intervention in Libya, and the Greens share their concerns. Although we fully identify with the democratic forces in Libya and do not wish to see them crushed, we see a lot of problems with the military intervention as it is evolving right now.
They identify with the democratic forces, but won’t vote to use force to protect them from being slaughtered by Gaddafi.
Generally military force is the last resort. But it is a resort. With the Greens, they seem unable to support military action, no matter how noble the cause.
This photo is from the ODT. As always, captions should be funny, and not nasty. Note Trevor’s man bag (might be strap from crutches) and I honestly don’t know what Parekura is doing.
Claire Trevett in the NZ herald writes:
Former Labour MP Judith Tizard is denying she is playing games by refusing to quickly kowtow to the Labour Party’s hints she should refuse the list seat left empty by the resignation of Darren Hughes. …
She had checked with Parliament’s officials and was told Mr Hughes had not yet formally resigned so the process to replace him had not yet begun.
If Labour had got Darren to do his formal resignation on Friday, then Tizard would have been forced to make a decision by now. As I read the Electoral Act, someone offered a list place must affirmatively acceppt the place or it will be offered to the next person. There is no provision for someone to say “I’ll decide in a few days”.
So if Labour had got Darren to formally resign, then Tizard would have had to make a decision by now, as the Electoral Commission would be under an obligation to fill the vacancy.
Judith is obviously loving keeping Phil Goff, and the country, on tenterhooks – and why wouldn’t she. I imagine she’s loving the fact she can drag it out. But the solution lies with Labour – get the resignation in to the Speaker asap.
Reuters reports:
More than half of British women pay for themselves on a first date, even though men still want to pay, according to a survey.
A poll of 1924 adults for online bank first direct found that 58 per cent of women expect to split the bill on a first date, double the proportion of men (29 per cent).
Additionally, 14 per cent of women think it should be whoever suggested the date.
Only a quarter of women said that they thought men should pay for a first date, while three per cent said they themselves should foot the bill, suggesting that women feel they should not be beholden to men, but that men should also pay their way.
Male respondents, on the other hand, believed that chivalry isn’t dead, with 55 per cent expecting to pay the full bill on a first date, and men spending, on average, more than women.
I follow the offer twice rule. I always offer to pay the bill. If the date offers to pay, I say that it isn’t necessary. If they offer again, then you split it.
Sometimes, the date has insisted on paying the full bill, and I can’t say I have a problem with that. Generally this happens when they earn considerably more than me!
Rebecca Stevenson at Stuff reports:
Auckland mayor Len Brown should “just do it” and build the proposed $2 billion city rail loop, former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett says.
Mr Kennett was in Auckland yesterday discussing his leadership of Melbourne and the lessons that can be applied to New Zealand’s largest city as it attempts to become super-sized.
As the architect of the “Kennett Revolution” when he came to office in 1992 he drastically cut state spending in Victoria, “offered 50,000 public servants opportunities beyond the public sector” and turned the city into one of the world’s best event cities through an investment programme which included building the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Kennett was one of the great Premiers of an Australian state. I always hoped he would become Prime Minister one day.
The former premier said Mr Brown needed to choose about five key projects for the supercity from the “wordy” 30-year Auckland Plan out for public discussion.
He recommended a national convention centre, cruise ship terminal, a Pacific region office of the United Nations, an Aussie Rules franchise and to “turn the city to the sea”, reversing Auckland’s inward-looking design.
Not so sure about an UN office, but I like the idea of an Aussie Rules franchise – that could become huge.
Mr Kennett said he opposed borrowing for operational spend but approved it for infrastructure investment. He would not hesitate at all to borrow money to build the link because over time it would add to a less congested city.
“Two billion spent today is chicken feed in 20 or 30 years. I’m currently advancing a new underground rail system for $100b. In 50 years that will be a drop in the bucket.”
I agree that borrowing for infrastructure is good, while borrowing for operational spending is bad. And if Len wants the CBD rail loop, then he should go for it regardless of the Government.
Tracy Watkins in the Dom Post reports:
The figures, to be issued by State Services Minister Tony Ryall, largely relate to the core public service and will show numbers have dropped to about 35,900 from about 38,800 in 2008.
But some parts of the public service are excluded because they are considered frontline. There has been a rise in some occupations, including 1400 more teachers, 1000 more nurses, 500 doctors, and police.
If those numbers are correct, I can’t see Labour getting much traction with their campaign against the changes the Government has made.
Public Service Association national secretary Brenda Pilott said there was no way the Government could cut spending further without cutting services.
The PSA might be correct (obviously at some point, services would be impacted), but the problem for them is that they have made the same claim for the last two years.
He would not say what might fall into the “nice to have” category, but the Government had already chopped things such as community education classes
Oh I had forgotten about those. Remember all the fuss the Oppoosition made about the basket weaving courses no longer being free.
