Claire Trevett reports:

A poll on capital gains tax out this week provided the first glimpse of the political impact of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s handling of the Christchurch mosque shootings.
The Reid Research poll was commissioned by Business NZ, and intended to gauge public support for capital gains tax.
It began on March 15 – the same day as the terror attack. It ran until March 23 – two days after Ardern announced the detail of gun reforms at her post Cabinet press conference.

As part of it, the 1000 polled were also asked which party they supported.
Those figures showed Labour very nearly cracked the 50 per cent mark for support.
Once those who did not give a choice of party are taken out, Labour was on 49.6 per cent, National on 41.3 per cent and NZ First and the Green Party were languishing on 2.3 per cent and 3.9 per cent respectively.
In the last Newshub Reid Research poll from February, Labour was on 47.5 and National was on 41.6 per cent.

The poll literally started (by chance) on the day of the Christchurch terrorist attack. It is no surprise that Labour has gone up. The PM handled the attack very well. Labour should in fact go up in the polls when they do stuff well. And responding well to such an attack is of such importance, that I don’t begrudge any poll boost. To be blunt they deserve it.

But what is interesting is it was relatively modest. Here’s what the changes are from the last poll in February:

• Labour +2.1%
• National -0.3%
• NZ First -0.6%
• Greens -1.2%

So the increase for Labour has been mainly at the expense of NZ First and the Greens, who are both under the 5% threshold.

Those in National looking for a silver lining are pointing to the likes of US President George Bush, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Norway’s former leader Jens Stoltenberg who led their countries in times of great trial, but ended up losing elections on bread and butter issues such as jobs and taxes.

Labour are in a good position at the moment, but as the focus goes back on issues such as Kiwifarce, CGT, drug funding etc things could well change.

Newshub reports:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Scotland Yard says the Australian has been taken to a police station and will soon appear in court.
Assange claimed political asylum at the embassy since 2012, but British police say the Ecuadorian government has withdrawn asylum and invited them in.

Julian shouldn’t have bitten the hand that protected him.

It will be interesting to see what happens now. His arrest in the UK is over breaching bail but he doesn’t face substantive charges there. He has been charged with rape in Sweden and there is speculation the US may have laid charges against him related to Wikileaks.

The rape charges in Sweden are not clear cut and some have effectively expired. Again not clear if the Swedish Government will proceed or not.

There is always a limit to free speech. I’m against any changes to our current laws, but that doesn’t mean I think all speech is acceptable.

Stuff reports:

The man was swearing and saying that Muslims were terrorists, according to the post. He also told Muslims at the mosque “we all need to leave” New Zealand, the post said.

Yelling out to victims of a terrorist attack that they are the terrorists and need to leave New Zealand is disgusting.

“He was there for about 15 minutes, he also kicked and tried to damage some of the memorial items along Deans Ave in front of the masjid.”

Also disgusting.

Armed police have been stationed outside the mosque since the attack. Police were present while the man was yelling abuse, but did not arrest him. A spokeswoman said officers made the decision not to “potentially inflame the situation at that significant location”.
Police were now actively looking for the man. He could face a disorderly behaviour charge, the spokeswoman said.

It was the wrong decision. A charge of disorderly behaviour would have been appropriate.

The Herald reports:

For months, Shana Grice had been telling police that her ex-boyfriend was stalking her.
The 19-year-old had caught him trailing her in her car and creeping into her bedroom after stealing a spare house key, breathing near her as she hid under her comforter and waited for him to leave, prosecutors later said. Then there were the seven phone calls from a blocked number in one day, with silence on the other end, according to the Argus.
Michael Lane was told to leave her alone, but Grice was punished, fined for wasting the authorities’ time.
Then, in August 2016, Lane killed her – cutting her throat in her home in England and setting her bedroom on fire, according to local news reports.

They fined her for reporting his stalking. What the hell is wrong with them. Maybe they were too busy investigating people for hate speech!

After an investigation from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) into the Sussex Police Department’s response, two officers – one of whom has since retired – will face disciplinary action next month, police said today. Another officer will face “internal misconduct proceedings,” and three others have received “management advice and further training.”
“When we looked at the circumstances leading to Shana’s murder, we felt we may not have done the very best we could,” Sussex Police Assistant Chief Constable Nick May said.

No shit Sherlock. May not have done the very best!! And those involved get a slap on the hand.

Grice reported Lane to the police for stalking at least five times before her death – and so had 13 other women, according to BBC News.

This was a preventable death. Appalling.

A guest post by David Garrett:

Since  the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act came into force  in June 2010, the sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole (LWOP) for murder has been a sentence available to New Zealand judges. On 15 occasions since June 2010, LWOP was either applied for by the Crown, or was the mandated sentence under  the three strikes regime. In none of those 15 cases was LWOP actually  imposed. In short, the judges have simply refused to impose a sentence which  was intended by parliament in the majority of those cases to be virtually mandatory.
 
There are two quite separate and discrete routes to an LWOP sentence: 1) under the  “three strikes” regime for second and third strike murderers; or alternatively, 2) by the application of s.103(2A) of the Sentencing Act which, quite separate from the three strikes (3s) regime, allows a judge to sentence an offender to LWOP for murder regardless of his prior history  if no lesser non parole period would satisfy the purposes set out elsewhere in the Sentencing Act.
 
There have been three cases where LWOP could reasonably have been imposed pursuant to s.103(2A), and 12 cases where murder was a second or third strike offence. In the first category –  the three cases under s.103(2A) – LWOP was an entirely discretionary sentence. In the twelve  3s cases the story is quite different – the 3s regime made LWOP mandatory in each case unless what has become the “manifestly unjust” judicial escape clause – it was never intended to be such – was invoked. Miraculously, on all 12 occasions where the 3s regime mandated a sentence of LWOP, various judges have found it would be “manifestly unjust” to actually apply the law as written.
 
The s.103(2A) cases
Let’s look first at the discretionary sentence cases where the Crown has sought a sentence of LWOP pursuant to s.103(2A) of the Sentencing Act. The first such case was Jeremy McLaughlin, who killed a 13 year old girl, the daughter of his previous partner, during a  burglary of her home. McLaughlin had been  found guilty of the manslaughter of a 14 year old boy in Australia in 1995, and had served 12 years in prison for that crime before being deported back here.
 
In November 2011, McLaughlin broke into his previous partner’s Christchurch home  to burgle it, and there encountered Jade Bayliss, aged 13. McLaughlin strangled and killed  Jade before leaving with various household items from the house, and then burning it down. Bizarrely, he admitted burglary and arson, but denied the killing.
 
In the High Court, Justice Panckhurst said it was “simply fatuous” to claim that McLaughlin had burgled and then burnt down the house, but that he had not also killed Jade. His Honour said that McLaughlin was “on the brink” of being imprisoned for the rest of his natural life – but then he declined to do so, sentencing him instead to life with a minimum non parole period (NPP) of 23 years.  If he gets out on his first parole application, he will still be under 60 years of age – well able to kill for a third time.
 
So, a person who has killed not one but two young persons will almost certainly be released from prison with 15 or 20 years of life still to enjoy. I suspect many people will think that is “manifestly unjust”. But McLaughlin was convicted of a manslaughter, and then a murder. Perhaps two murders would be enough to trigger the LWOP sentence? Well, apparently not.
 
Paul Wilson aka Paul Pounamu Tainui was jailed in 1995 for the murder of his 21 year old girlfriend on the West Coast – having earlier tried to shoot her in front of witnesses  with a shotgun which misfired. While in prison, Wilson met David Bain, and later became the groomsman at Bain’s wedding. He also underwent 300 one on one sessions with a psychologist.
He was granted parole in 2011 on his fifth application. It is clear from reading the Parole Board’s decisions declining his applications – the last in June 2010 – that they were wary of him. Although three psychologists assessed Wilson’s risk of offending as low – but much greater if he was in “close or intimate relationships” – the Board of its own motion had Wilson assessed according to an assessment tool known as the psychopathy checklist. The “expert” who prepared that report thought Wilson could “effectively manage his low actuarial risk of reoffending….”, and Wilson was duly  released in January 2011.
 
For a time all went well. The Board monitored Wilson’s progress and was happy with it. Several years after his  release Wilson met a young “spiritual teacher”  called Nicole Tuxford, who both socialised with him, and tried to help him.  Wilson apparently became infatuated with Tuxford, and became enraged when he learned she had a boyfriend. He lay in wait for her in her home, and when she returned, he raped her and cut her throat multiple times after tying her up. So, two murders, both of young women with whom he was infatuated. A clear case for LWOP you would think? Sadly No.
 
At trial, Justice Mander rejected the Crown’s application for LWOP under s.103(2A), and instead imposed a life sentence with a minimum NPP of 28 years, meaning Wilson would be over 80 when he became eligible to apply for parole. He was also sentenced to Preventive Detention for the admitted rape of  his victim, but that additional sentence is effectively meaningless. Is allowing him even the possibility of another release on  parole justice? Not in my book. In 28 years memories will have faded, and God knows who we will have on the Parole Board; it might be headed by a retired Green MP.
 
The three strike cases
As noted above, there have been 12 cases of murder as either a second or third strike offence. As written, the three strikes sections of the Sentencing Act mean that those 12 ought to have all been sentenced to LWOP – being the maximum possible sentence – unless in any case such a sentence was “manifestly unjust”. Absurdly, in all 12 cases, the judges have defied the clear will of Parliament and found that NONE of those murderers ought to face the full force of the law.
 
The Judges in the High Court at least have some excuse for their failures – they are bound by the precedents set in the Court of Appeal, most notably  in the cases of Justin Vance Turner, and Shane Pierre Harrison. Let’s look at those cases in turn.
 
Turner was the first second strike murderer. He viciously beat a girlfriend in 2011 causing her serious brain injuries. He was jailed for what many would think was an absurdly light term of three years and four months for that, and given his first strike warning.  In February 2015, while on parole, he was convicted of murdering a homeless man. The circumstances of the murder were horrific, with Turner jumping on the much older man’s head until it bounced off the pavement.  Turner was assessed as having an “alarmingly high” risk of reoffending. LWOP then, as required by the 3s law? No. The sentencing judge instead thought a ridiculously light 15 year minimum NPP was sufficient. The Crown appealed that sentence to the Court of Appeal.
 
In the Court of Appeal, the Judges embarked on what has become the familiar legal contortions to find that the 3s regime doesn’t actually mean what it clearly says. Despite the phrase “manifestly unjust” having already been what lawyers call “judicially defined” for the purposes of  a different section of the Sentencing Act, the Court of Appeal decreed that that phrase has a completely different meaning when applied to 3s cases. Worse still, they have inserted an extra limb to the test, claiming that parliament “must have intended” that such a sentence would never be grossly disproportionate when compared with similar cases.
 
In coming to this conclusion, they are being what is known as “wilfully blind”, by citing my third reading speech on the Bill, but completely ignoring the several instances where the question of disproportionality was discussed during the Committee of the Whole stage.
 
In short, I explained to the House on numerous occasions that disproportionality in sentencing under 3s was the whole point  of the regime.  If a person kept offending violently it was intended that their sentences get exponentially worse.
After concocting a test which is directly contrary to the intention of  parliament, the Court of Appeal rejected the Crown’s application for LWOP for Turner on the grounds that because of his age, he would likely spend up to 50 years in jail, and parliament “cannot possibly have intended that”. That is exactly what parliament intended in 2010, for a vicious thug like Turner, with 111 previous convictions – yes, you read that right, one hundred and eleven previous convictions – many of them for serious violence. The Court did graciously impose an extra two years on Turner’s NPP. He will still be a relatively young man when he is released, as he almost certainly will be, if not on his first application.
 
The other Crown appeal was in the case of Shane Pierre Harrison, a charming looking gang member with a face covered in tatts and half his teeth missing. Harrison was 46 when convicted as a second strike, of being a party to the murder of a rival gang member. Harrison has been a gang member since he was a  teenager. He also has a conviction for manslaughter, albeit long before the 3s regime was introduced. At 46, Harrison is 16 years older than Turner, and given his lifestyle, he is unlikely to make old bones, and therefore LWOP would probably mean a much shorter time in prison for him. But no, the Court found that in his case also, LWOP would be “manifestly unjust”, and in about 10 years time (he was sentenced three years ago to a minimum NPP of 13 years) he also will be up for parole.
 
The first case where murder was a third strike was that of Dylyn Davis, who severely  beat his young girlfriend and left her to die while he went around trying to establish an alibi. His two previous strike offences were aggravated robbery and injuring with intent to injure. He killed his victim a mere five months after being released from prison for his second strike offence.
 
Under the 3s law, Justice Davison was required, if LWOP was manifestly unjust, to sentence Davis to a minimum NPP of 20 years, unless that also was manifestly unjust. As it happened, the judge kicked for touch, and largely on the grounds of Davis’s age, refused  to impose LWOP – which might have led to a term of 60 years – but imposed a minimum NPP of 20 years, which was confirmed on appeal.
 
I believe that what has occurred in most if not all of the 15 cases where LWOP was either available or supposedly mandatory  is nothing less than outrageous judicial activism, with our judges not simply ignoring the clear will of parliament, but going directly against it.
 
The next test of course will be Tarrant who, when inevitably found guilty – unless he is either found unfit to plead or succeeds in running an insanity defence – will be eligible for LWOP pursuant to s.103(2A). Will 50 murders be enough to cause the judges to do their clear duty? Who knows; Tarrant is about the same age as Davis, and might spend  60 years or more  in prison if LWOP is imposed on him. Time will tell. Since  the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act came into force  in June 2010, the sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole (LWOP) for murder has been a sentence available to New Zealand judges. On 15 occasions since June 2010, LWOP was either applied for by the Crown, or was the mandated sentence under  the three strikes regime. In none of those 15 cases was LWOP actually  imposed. In short, the judges have simply refused to impose a sentence which  was intended by parliament in the majority of those cases to be virtually mandatory.
The

The Guardian reports:

Benjamin Netanyahu was on track on Wednesday morning to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, despite his Likud party winning the same number of seats as his rivals.
With 97% of votes counted, both Likud and the Blue and White party, led by former army general Benny Gantz, had won 35 seats in the 120-seat parliament, the Knesset.
However, results showed Netanyahu would be in a much better position to form a majority governing coalition made up of nationalist, far-right and religious allies. Gantz had fewer potential factions to partner with.

The results at this stage are:

Right 65 seats

• Likud (right) 35 seats
• Shas (ultra-orthodox, right socially, left economically) 8 seats
• United Torah Judaism (ultra-orthodox right) 8 seats
• Yisrael Beiteinu (secular, right, Russian) 5 seats
• United Right (religious Zionists) 5 seats
• Kulanu (centre-right, economic issues) 4 seats

Left 55 seats

• Blue and White (centrist, liberal) 35 seats
• Hadash-Ta’al (communist) 6 seats
• Labor (centre-left) 6 seats
• Meretz (socialist left) 4 seats
• Ra’am-Balad (Arabic) 4 seats

Imagine governing with six parties!

The Herald reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has spoken of the moment she decided that gun laws had to change, and her shock at how easily it was to get destructive weapons in New Zealand.
In a sign of the importance of gun law reform, Ardern took the unusual step this evening of speaking at the third reading of the Arms (Prohibited Firearms, Magazines and Parts) Amendment bill, which is in the name of Police Minister Stuart Nash.
After an expedited process, the bill passed tonight with the support of all parties except for Act.
Ardern told the House about a briefing she had with Police Commissioner Mike Bush shortly after the terror attack on March 15, when he told her the gunman had obtained his firepower legally.

“I could not fathom how weapons that could cause such destruction and large-scale death could have been obtained legally in this country. I could not fathom that,” Ardern said.
“I could not hand-on-heart go down and face not just the media, not just the public, but the victims that had been left behind from this terror attack and tell them hand-on-heart that our system and our laws allow these guns to be available and that was okay. Because it was not.
“I made a decision after that briefing that I would go down that day and, without having the chance to question the Parliament, know that Parliament would be with me. And they were.”

On this issue I praise Ardern. It was IMO the right call. The law change won’t prevent bad people killing others in future. But it will make it harder for a killing of the scale we saw in Christchurch to happen again.

Ardern paid particular tribute to the National Party for supporting the bill.

Oppositions are not just there to oppose.

The Herald reports:

Labour and New Zealand First MPs have voted against a select committee inquiry into Pharmac despite desperate pleas from women with advanced breast cancer.
Malcolm Mulholland, the husband of Wiki Mulholland who has breast cancer, was at Parliament today to hear the outcome of the vote.
He was devastated to learn that Labour MPs had voted against the motion from National MP Michael Woodhouse at the health select committee.
He didn’t know how he was going to tell his wife of 20 years, who was one of a number of women with advanced breast cancer who have made emotional pleas over the past few weeks to the committee to push Pharmac to fund two drugs – Ibrance and Kadcyla – and hold an inquiry into the Government’s drug-buying agency.

“I’m just gutted,” he said.
Struggling to control his emotions, Mulholland read from a prepared statement.
“I’m deeply saddened by today’s decision by Labour not to support an inquiry into Pharmac.
“The result of this decision is that people with advanced cancer, including breast cancer, will die sooner than they should. Why? Because the New Zealand system of funding drugs is broken.”
He said the committee’s chairwoman, Labour MP Louisa Wall, had told him an inquiry into Pharmac would be launched and that all Labour members supported it.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has also said she would not stand in the way of an inquiry if the select committee opted to hold one.

If all the Government MPs voted against an inquiry, it will absolutely be because the Government told them to.

Newshub reports:

Getting his euthanasia Bill to its second reading in Parliament is a big win for David Seymour, according to Newshub’s Political Editor Tova O’Brien.
On Tuesday, the Justice Select Committee reported back on the ACT leader’s End of Life Choice Bill, which would give people the option to request assisted dying if they have a terminal illness or a “grievous and irremediable medical condition”.

As not all committee members agreed it should be passed, all MPs will have a chance to “resolve the broader policy matters” in the House, the committee’s report said.

There is a degree of politics in this. Much of the opposition to the bill was centered around that eligiblity was not just to those who had a terminal illness but also those with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition”. Some in the disabled community worried that merely being disabled could mean you are eligible etc.

Supporters of the bill, including the author, were happy to change the bill at select committee to narrow the eligibility. But as I understand it opponents of the bill didn’t want that change made, because it would make opposing the bill more difficult.

Not in politics such tactics are not uncommon. It is how it goes. But people should be aware that if the bill reaches committee of the whole stage, it is highly highly likely to have that eligibility narrowed – something the opponents had been asking for.

Public opinion also seems to be on Ardern and Seymour’s side, with a Newshub-Reid Research poll last year finding 71 percent of people supported the Bill, with 19.5 percent opposed and 9.5 percent unsure.
But the public will have a more official method of expressing their support if Winston Peters has his way.
“If it does pass, and make its way into law, then it goes out to you, the public, because Winston Peters is only pledging his support for this Bill if there is a referendum,” said O’Brien.
“So if it does all pass, and go through in that way, that will be tacked onto the 2020 election.”

As the select committee declined to make substantive changes, the right thing to do is vote for the bill at the second reading, so that the amendments dealing with eligibility and a referendum can be considered by all MPs. Then at third reading MPs can vote on if they are happy with the final bill.

GlobalPower rates all the militaries of the world on 55 factors.

NZ has the 88th most powerful just ahead of Slovenia.

The top ten most powerful are:

1. US
2. Russia
3. China
4. India
5. France
6. Japan
7. South Korea
8. UK
9. Turkey
10. Germany

Nick Smith said:

Stats NZ’s confirmation that the problems with Census 2018 is not just with the record low response rate, but a doubling in the partial response rate compounds the problems for the State Sector, says National’s State Services Spokesperson Nick Smith.

“We now know over 700,000 people or one in seven New Zealanders did not complete Census 2018. 

It is puzzling and bad news that the partial response rate increased so much. I understand why the overall response rate was down (not enough staff to follow up) but why did so many more people start but not complete the census?

“The problems with Census 2018 are so bad that consideration should be given to deferring the electoral boundary changes for 2020 and bringing forward the next Census to 2021.

I’d go a long stronger than say consideration should be given. National should clearly state they will not allow boundaries to be set on the 2018 census data (which they can do by making the Representation Commission inquorate without an Opposition representative).

The Herald reports:

The lawyer for a Kapiti councillor found guilty of indecent assault says the measuring of her client’s penis was a trial tactic that misfired.
David Scott is appealing both his conviction and sentence at the Court of Appeal in Wellington.
Scott was found guilty of indecent assault after he pressed himself against a female Kāpiti Coast District Council employee during a morning tea break in April 2017.
The 72-year-old was fined $1500 for the indecent assault.

During the trial last year, Scott’s penis was measured by a doctor with a wooden ruler to determine if it was the same length as what the victim felt pressing into her.
The measurement was suppressed.

Yes having your penis measured in court is probably a very bad idea as a defence strategy.

But as I understand it, this was a demand made by the defendant’s lawyer, not the prosecution, or the judge, and certainly not the jury!

So hard to see how this becomes grounds for appeal, but of course that is for the Judge to decide.

Crown lawyer at the appeal Simon Barr said none of the disputed decisions were fundamental trial decisions, but were all decisions of trial tactics or strategy.
He said those tactics were used by one of the most senior defence lawyers in Wellington who was well respected across the country.
“This was not a situation where there was a relatively junior trial counsel making decisions, quite the contrary.”

His original lawyer was Mike Antunovic. He is indeed one of the most experienced defence lawyers in NZ, having appeared before the Privy Council and all the courts below it.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back the Arms Amendment Bill.

Some of the significant changes are:

• An exemption for wild animal or pest control
• An exemption for airsoft and paintball guns
• An exemption for firearms collectors

It is expected to have its second reading, committee stage and third reading this week.

A very good op ed by Masih Alinejad and Roya Hakakian on the hijab:

In an interview for the April issue of Vogue Arabia, Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar said, “To me, the hijab means power, liberation, beauty and resistance.”
As two women who once lived with the mandatory hijab in Iran, we hope to bring another perspective to this complex matter by describing our experiences.
There are two vastly different kinds of hijabs: the democratic hijab, the head covering that a woman chooses to wear, and the tyrannical hijab, the one that a woman is forced to wear.
In the first kind, a woman has agency. She sets the terms of her hijab, appearing as ascetic or as appealing as she wishes. She can also wear makeup and fashionable clothing if she likes.

In the second kind of hijab, the woman has no agency. Where we lived, the terms were set by Iranian government authorities under a mandatory dress code that banned women from wearing makeup in public and forced them to wear a baggy, knee-length garment to fully disguise the shape of their bodies, over a pair of pants and closed-toed shoes.
For a while, the authorities even decreed the colours that women could wear: gray, black, brown or navy.

I like how they distinguish between the democratic hijab and the tyrannical hijab. And that is why having the PM wear a hijab after the terrorist attack was so powerful – she was showing empathy to Muslim women who choose to wear the hijab. It was not about the tyrannical hijab, but the democratic one.

We are pleased to see Omar proudly exercise her right to don the hijab. In an era when nativism is rising in the United States and in many other countries, it is important for those who support the values of a pluralistic society to stand up for the rights of their threatened minorities.

In that spirit, we wholeheartedly stand with our Muslim sisters in the West and support their choices.
In return, we ask the global sisterhood to stand with Iranian women as they fight against the mandatory hijab.
We ask that American women support Iran’s most prominent human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes after defending the women who have defied the hijab laws with their peaceful acts of protest.

Disgraceful.

Just as Americans must distinguish between violent radicals and ordinary Muslims to successfully fight the former and honour the rights of the latter, so must they recognise that not all hijabs are created equal.
Omar and other Muslim women who benefit from the freedom that America has bestowed on them are especially well positioned to speak up for women forced into hijab.
By itself, the hijab is a mere piece of cloth. Tyranny turns it into a symbol of oppression. It is democracy, with its embrace of diversity, that turns hijab into an emblem of power or beauty for those who choose to wear it.

I like the part I bolded.

Stuff reports:

A man is accusing Immigration NZ of ageism after an official made a note of the 33-year age gap between him and his Filipina partner.
Wayne Greenwood obtained a document written by an Immigration NZ (INZ) officer that scrutinised the age difference and differing cultures between himself and his fiancée Liza Nofoaiga, whose residence visa application was later declined. 
“Ages of couple matches: No – there is a 33 year age gap,” the staff member wrote in early 2018 in a memo, obtained by Greenwood under the Official Information Act and provided to Stuff.

That’s not ageism. Immigration NZ is not saying that a relationship can’t be genuine if there is a 33 year age gap – just that it is less likely to be so. It is their job to establish if a relationship is genuine, or just an attempt to rort the immigration system.

Nofoaiga’s application was declined in September 2018. Greenwood said he was “gobsmacked” when he saw the internal document, which he described as ageist and discriminatory.
“It’s against everything that this country stands for. We’ve got a big age gap – there’s no two ways about that – but that’s our choice, and if that’s the way [Associate Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi] decided against us, that’s a breach of human rights.”

There is no human right to get residency in New Zealand, if you are not a citizen.

One of the requirements for residence visa applications is that the applicant’s sponsor must not have acted as a sponsor in one previous successful visa application.
Greenwood said that he had successfully sponsored the application of a Chinese woman in 2010, but they had since broken up.
He suspected that INZ believed his new partner was trying to use him to obtain residency, but he said that was unfair: “You cannot assume that.”

They can assume that, especially when it seems that is what his previous “partner” did.

A Reid Research poll commissioned by Business NZ has found:

• Only 23% think CGT should be a priority for the Government and 65% say should not be a priority
• 48% say CGT debate has harmed the Government, with only 33% disagreeing
• Only 32% support a CGT on business and farms with 54% opposed
• 39% support a CGT on property (excluding family home) profits with 50% opposed
• Only 4% support a CGT on KiwiSaver earnings with 90% opposed
• Only 19% support a CGT on shares with 69% opposed
• 25% said a CGT would change how they vote at the next election

Will the Government listen?

Newshub reports:

Supreme Court Justice Sir William Young will chair the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch terror attack.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the announcement on Monday, saying the inquiry will start considering evidence from May 13 and report back by December 10.

An excellent choice.

Justice William Young was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1991, to the High Court in 1997, and to the Court of Appeal in January 2004. He became President of the Court of Appeal in February 2006.
Justice Young was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court with effect from 1 July 2010.

He’s been a senior court judge for 22 years. Very widely respected.

I blogged over the weekend the critique by Troy Bowker on the unreliaiblity of the data proponents of a CGT have used to argue it will only affect a few rich pricks.

Dr Cullen has responded with a very political attack on Bowker’s column. Cullen is getting paid $1,000 a day to attack critics! Amazing.

Even more interesting is how much Cullen plays the man, not the ball, and ignores the details Bowker used. Let’s go through his response.

“Troy Bowker’s claims in today’s Business Herald about the reliability of data used by the Tax Working Group lack credibility”, says the Chair of the Group, Sir Michael Cullen.

This ignores the TWG’s own officials included disclaimers about the reliability of the data.

“Boiled down to its essence, his argument rests on one simple point: the data is derived from the Household Economic Survey (HES) which is a sample survey of households.
“Mr Bowker seems to believe a sample size of 8,000 is a small size on which to base conclusions. In fact this is a sample size some eight to ten times that of the main political polls. It has a high degree of accuracy.

Dr Cullen is conflating the overall sample size with the sample size for responses to particular questions. He specifically doesn’t address the fact highlighted by Bowker that 20 of the 50 categories have sampling errors of greater than 20%.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you have 8,000 households in the survey. But only 1% of them are farmers. Then the survey has only 80 responses from farmers so any data about the value of farms is based on 80, not 8,000 responses.

“In so far as it may provide an inaccurate picture around wealth distribution it is likely to be an underestimation of the assets of the very wealthiest, something which does not help Mr Bowker’s case at all.

Dr Cullen gives no basis for his assertion that it is an underestimation. And Bowker in his original column pointed out the survey is based on people’s estimates. They may over or under-estimate.

“Mr Bowker does not help his argument by describing the CGT proposal as a ‘Labour’ one. In fact it comes from a clear majority of the Tax Working Group – a group of experts drawn from a wide variety of views.

Splitting hairs. Labour campaigned on a CGT and appointed a former Labour Finance Minister to chair it. They also appointed the members, knowing what some of their views were. And despite all that the overall CGT was still opposed by three of the members, and many key elements only passed on a narrow 6:5 vote.

“Finally, Mr Bowker continues to argue, like so many speaking for high net wealth individuals, as if only those people are hard working ordinary Kiwis.

Here he plays the man, not the ball, and asserts Bowker is speaking only for high wealth individuals. In fact Bowker was explicitly saying that many hard working Kiwis will be impacted by a CGT, even though they are not wealthy.

“The great advantage of the HES is that it gives us the most complete and available picture of the wealth of all Kiwis – including the many who have little wealth apart from their family home”, Sir Michael said.

But Dr Cullen’s CGT will impact those who have little wealth apart from the family home. If you have a home office you get impacted. If you take more than a year to build your new house you get impacted. If you have a lifestyle block etc etc.

Dr Cullen is effectively being paid $1,000 a day to act as a press secretary for Grant Robertson.

Stuff reports:

Sir Anand Satyanand offered to withdraw as head of the country’s largest ever state inquiry amid worries about a perceived conflict of interest because of his Catholic faith.
Documents obtained by Stuff show Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin rejected the former Governor General’s offer, instead asking him for a plan to combat any risk to the integrity of the Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and Care in Faith-Based Institutions. 
Child abuse survivors are calling for Satyanand’s resignation offer to be accepted. They say his position risks tainting the inquiry’s credibility – already mired in setbacks.

This is pathetic prejudice. Just as one shouldn’t treat all Muslims the same, it is also bigoted to treat all Catholics the same.

To suggest that someone can’t preside over the Royal Commission because they are Catholic, and some of the abuse happened in Catholic institutions, is nuts. This is defining someone’s entire being, on the basis of their religion.

Sure if Sir Anand had been a member of the clergy or a high official in the church, there might be a conflict. But merely being a Catholic is not a conflict.

Network of Survivors of Abuse in Faith-Based Institutions spokeswoman Liz Tonks said the group had doubts about Satyanand, and any other Catholic commissioner, to be “dispassionate and unbiased”. 

Which is sheer prejudice. It is saying that they believe Satyanand’s religion outweighs everything else and he is incapable of being unbiased. This is a man who was a Judge for 13 years, am Ombudsman for 10 years and Governor-General for five years. But because he is also Catholic that counts for nothing it seems.

A guest post by Andrei Krutskikh, Ambassador at Large of the Russian Federation, Special Presidential Representative for international cooperation in information security:

Against the backdrop of the habitual – even ritual – anti-Russia propaganda, some voices of reason have been heard lately among American experts. Of particular interest in this regard is the recent article by the Daily Beast titled “This Hotline Could Keep the U.S. and Russia from Cyberwar”. No doubt, for the professionals who have closely followed the development of the situation this publication will hardly be an eye-opener. What is important is that the article openly admits that the absence of a depoliticized expert dialogue between Russia and the U.S. on international information security is not only a road to nowhere but also a dangerous course fraught with further misunderstanding and a risk of a large-scale conflict.

Those are not emotional conclusions, but rather plain facts cited by American security officials who have formerly worked or still work at the administration, overseeing the issues of cyber security, i.e. by those who know the situation on the ground and, by virtue of their occupation, are bound to be utterly pragmatic.

If security officials and the expert community in the U.S. actually share this opinion, this is the case when it is hard to argue with the colleagues, even though they are “on the other side of the fence”.

Six years ago, in 2013, we managed to reach agreement on establishing a direct line of communication between Russia and the U.S. in the event of cyber incidents. Basically, the system was modelled on a similar mechanism that had been in place during the Cold War for dealing with traditional military incidents and enables a prompt information exchange at all levels from institutional to political.

Since its establishment, the communication channel has been used, and more than once. In fact, during the Obama administration, we maintained a vibrant dialogue on cyber issues both at the routine technical level and in the format of full-fledged consultations. Physical meetings of experts enabling them to engage in direct discussions on emerging issues were held. Even a special high-level bilateral
working group was established under the Russian-American Presidential Commission.

As for the operation of the “hotlines”, the most vivid example is the address of the American side during the U.S. presidential campaign in autumn 2016, in which the U.S. expressed concerns over the intrusion into its electronic infrastructure. Our response was prompt as usual, and an exchange of the relevant technical information took place. Our National coordination center for computer incidents, which is in charge of the line, as early as last December, announced its readiness to reveal the content of the correspondence to general public, subject to consent of the American side. We sent the relevant proposal to Washington through diplomatic channels early this year. The response was in the negative.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson offered an exhaustive
explanation on the issue at her briefing last week. For my part, I can only add to this that our proposal to publish the above-mentioned correspondence was an unprecedented step, an example of true transparency, which our partners tend to invoke so often. Russia has nothing to fear – nor do we have anything to conceal.

We are ready to open the correspondence for examination by the general public both in Russia and the U.S., the mass media, and experts, so that they could draw their own conclusions on what really happened. But at the moment, we cannot publish this data because of the refusal of the American side. The pretext for the refusal was the so-called “sensitivity” of the data. It is highly unlikely, however, that any information that is more “sensitive” for the U.S. than for Russia could be found there.

Frankly speaking, this approach rather shows that they unsure of their position, since it would be much harder to disseminate information accusing Russia of “having a hand” in cyber intrusions if true facts were made public.

However this is not the end of this absurd story. We decided to directly address the US audience about the Moscow view on the situation around the “hotlines” and proposed a number of the leading US mass media to publish this article. We told them: we just give you “direct speech” and you comment on it in any way you like. If you don’t like our proposals, if you don’t believe us – put it on paper and let the readers judge.

First, these media showed the interest in the matter, asked us for the details, claimed that they were ready to publish the article. However, then they apparently got a stop light and refused, giving no explanation. They got cold feet maybe.

This is a matter of emotion while we want to be pragmatic. I once again
agree with our U.S. colleagues (Michael Daniel, Chris Painter and Luke
Dembosky), whose opinions were referred to in the article, that it is not enough just to set up emergency hotlines. For them to work effectively there should be a dialogue between those who maintain their day-to-day operation as well as a broader conversation on issues related to international information security.

Officials in Washington often say that, allegedly, there is “not enough trust” for this. The question is why would there be any trust if you keep avoiding any discussion on the matter? We have repeatedly proposed to hold bilateral consultations, but all our proposals have been rejected. At times things get absurd, as a year ago in Geneva, when the U.S. canceled a bilateral meeting two hours before it was supposed to begin, even though the delegations were already there.

One might think that talking face to face seems so appalling to our partners that they would rather transmit their grievances through the media.

However, this issue is beyond routine politics, mutual poking or any subjective factors. Today, just as 50 years ago, we talk about preventing a cyberincident from escalating into a full-scale military conflict between Russia and the United States. If the established emergency “hotlines” bolstered with dialogue between experts stall for political reasons, we will face the risk of another Cuban Missile Crisis, only this time it will be triggered by information and communication technologies, not warheads, and events will unfold in a matter of minutes, leaving little time for both sides to make their decisions. It sounds like a science-fiction film, but actually it has long been our reality.

I want to believe that the U.S. recognizes this as well as Russia does. At
least, the opinions expressed by the U.S. experts provide us with reasons for hope. We also seek the same openness, democracy and constructive dialogue as we cooperate with the U.S. on cyber issues at multilateral fora. This year, two dedicated negotiating mechanisms are expected to be established to deal with international information security: the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG), which all the UN Member States can join, and the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE). It is interesting to note that even though the first one is being established on Russia’s initiative, and the other, de jure, on America’s; in fact, both groups were first proposed and sponsored by Russia, while Western countries were
sceptical about the UN track and took every opportunity to criticise it.

Nonetheless, the reality is that the UN will now have two groups working in parallel, and it is essential that we define today the principles of their interaction.

We do not believe that getting into “gladiator fights” on international
information security is the right option to pursue at the UN. Russia, just like any other state, is interested in ensuring that these groups work in a complementary, non-adversarial, constructive and cooperative manner.
Out of common sense we suggest that it would be best to “share the burden”. According to this plan the OEWG is to focus on major political tasks concerning the majority of the international community: the rules of responsible behavior of states in the information space, confidence-building measures in this field, assistance to developing states and the future format for the negotiations on this matter (a standing committee of the UN General Assembly or Security Council, or some other option).

As for the GGE, it could in its turn address, as a matter of priority, an
equally important, yet more specialized issue of applicability of the existing norms of international law to the information space.

Harmonization of efforts is the second pivotal principle of coexistence of the two groups. Their discussions should be non-politicized and pragmatic, and there should be complementarity rather than competition between their outcomes. The mandate of both the OEWG and the GGE demonstrate that the groups are to address an enormous set of issues, which can only be achieved with constructive engagement of all participants.

I would like to stress that back in November 2018, we offered such plan – a kind of programme of joint actions – to the United States. We suggested, as we had done many times before, that we should meet and discuss these matters. As before, we have not received any reply. There is not much time left before both groups set to work. We can only hope that our partners’ common sense prevails and they will take advantage of this window of opportunity before it closes. We stand ready to engage in the dialogue.