The Herald reports:

Banking in regional New Zealand was front and centre for New Zealand First at it annual conference today, with delegates backing its party to push for Kiwibank to bought back by the Government and make it the mandatory bank for central and local government.

Wow this is a special level of stupidity.

Kiwibank is owned by NZ Post (53%), NZ Super Fund (25%) and ACC (22%). All three are owned 100% by the Government so Kiwibank is already Government owned.

This is of course the party that had an MP that denounced the “fact” that the Reserve Bank was foreign owned.

Mike Hosking writes:

The original intent was to have a rockstar as our tech guru, but with “Labour Recruitment Incorporated” in charge, we have no one – and a person out of a job.

And a political drama that in the end involved Handley, Clare Curran, Chris Hipkins, Grant Robertson, Megan Woods and, of course, Jacinda Ardern. 

Handley is bitter, which is one of the sadnesses of the whole affair, given it was Handley, if you read the messages, who did the contacting, who showed the enthusiasm. He’s clearly a Ardern fan and wanted in on the stardust. 
And having been exposed to their particular style of operation has been eaten up, and spat out.

He learnt the hard way that politicians who are your friends are politicians first and friends second, unless you knew them before they were an MP.

Which once again leads you back to asking: just why is it that Ardern’s style of leadership appears to be so shambolic and Machiavellian.

She refused to deal with Curran in the first place the way she should have. Curran excused herself eventually after seeing what she was doing was beyond the pale.

The party was ordered by Parliament’s Speaker no less to produce the paper trail.

They mucked around, stalled and procrastinated. Hipkins failed to do so, and Robertson showed up and did a half baked, give the fingers to the Speaker, sort of job.

Then Ardern gets dragged in having claimed she had nothing to do with it, only to have text messages, emails and now Whatsapp messages showing she was very much involved, and very much interested.

Ardern claimed there was only one text message and an unsoliciated e-mail. There were 11 text messages, the e-mail was unsolicited and her staff had also been approach by the Labour Party President.

Why? Why oh why didn’t she, when asked, just clear the decks and tell the truth? 
What was she trying to hide? What value did she think she had in feigning no interest, and no contact?

She’s up with a drama that’s lasted weeks, that has hijacked her New York trip, that has an aggrieved and angry bloke who was once a fan. The job is still vacant and the chances of it ever being filled being, pretty much, zero. 

Yep almost certainly the job will be abolished.

And to add insult to injury, despite all of this not a single one of them, not Ardern, not Robertson, not Curran, only Woods had been courteous enough to actually pick up the phone and say sorry to Handley.

That is just simply bad manners, they don’t know how to behave. And perhaps we can conclude they don’t know how to govern either.

People can reach their own conclusions.

The Herald reports:

Two of the country’s most high-profile prisoners have been awarded $1000 each in compensation after a wrongful strip search.

About 200 prisoners, including Arthur Taylor and Phillip John Smith were strip searched in Auckland prison in October 2016 after a group of inmates attacked staff.

Four prisoners in C block of the division attacked prison officers – two of four prisoners were armed with shanks – leaving one officer requiring hospital care.

Taylor and Smith did not take part in the assault – both were situated in A block – but were among the number searched in the bid to find weapons and homebrew.

“Neither has a history of violence,” Justice Mary Peters said.

“Neither has ever been found to be in possession of a weapon.

“Neither has ever been associated with a gang.”

The plaintiffs were embarrassed and humiliated, she said.

The strip searches of Taylor and Smith on October 21, 2016, were “unlawful and unreasonable”, in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, she said.

Justice Peters said ordered the Attorney-General to pay to Taylor and Smith compensation of $1000 each.

Doesn’t it make you feel great to be a taxpayer.

The Herald reports:

The cost of the Government’s Criminal Justice Summit has inflated to over $1.6 million and numbers reveal nearly $1m was spent on consultants alone.

Justice Minister Andrew Little originally planned for the two-day summit to cost $700,000 but figures from last month’s event highlight a major blowout.

Happens when you spend other people’s money.

But wait until you see the details.

“The breakdown of costs from the summit show the final bill included $970,660 on consultants, $26,592 on an MC, $65,800 on gourmet catering and $101,528 on international speakers, the total was $1.625 million.

$27,000 on an MC. Are you kidding me. Did they hire Oprah?

But Little was “satisfied” with the cost of the summit.

“It was a two-day summit. It was several hundred people,” he said.

That’s $800,000 per day. I’ve organised many many conferences. That level of spending is hugely extravagant. It was almost $3,000 per participant.

The Herald reports:

The Government has moved to establish an independent body tasked with addressing miscarriages of justice.

Justice Minister Andrew Little has introduced a bill to the House which would establish a Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) – an independent body for addressing miscarriages of justice.

Good to see them follow through on this. The legal system does get it wrong sometimes and an independent commission is a better option than the current process of Ministerial review.

Currently, if a person who has been convicted of an offence believes they have suffered a miscarriage of justice, they may apply to the Governor-General for the exercise of the Royal prerogative of mercy.

If this bill is passed, the CCRC would refer cases back to the appeal courts. It would not, however, determine guilt or innocence.

Again, sounds good.

Stuff reports:

Motorists are set to take another hit on their wallets, with the Accident Compensation Corporation proposing a double-digit rise in motor vehicle levies.

ACC said it planned to increase its levy on petrol by 1.9 cents a litre and raise the average annual levy on car registrations from $113.94 to $127.68 a year.

The increased charges would apply from next year and would represent a price rise of 12.1 per cent on its existing levies.

ACC cited increased costs for care and support workers “resulting from the pay equity settlement agreed by Government” as one of the reasons why its levies needed to rise.

ACC is also planning to increase levies paid by workers by 2.5 per cent, from the existing rate of $1.21 for every $100 of liable earnings to a new rate of $1.24.

A 12.1% and 2.5% increase hits employees who are also motorists.

But levies on employers would decrease 6.9 per cent, from $0.72 to $0.67 for every $100 of liable earnings. 

Good news for me as an employer!

The Herald reports:

New Zealand’s electoral freedom ranking would likely take a hit if the Government adopts the so called Waka Jumping Bill, according to the organisation in charge of the World Electoral Freedom Index (WEFI). …

National MP Shane Reti wrote to the Foundation for the Advancement of Liberty, the organisation that puts together the annual list, earlier this year, asking how the bill would impact on New Zealand’s ranking in the WEFI.

New Zealand was ranked 39th on the most recent electoral freedom ranking – one place below Australia. Ireland topped the list and Brunei came in last place.

In response to Reti’s request for comment, the Foundation’s Head of Research José Antonio Peña said: “Any new rule which objectively increases the power held by the political party apparatus would most likely weaken the MPs’ individual standings as representatives of his or her constituents.

“This and any distortion of the voter’s will is seen as a regression by WEFI standards and will certainly reflect on the country’s performance in upcoming editions.”

Well done Labour and Greens.

by John Stringer.

It’s official.  Further to the earlier stories here at KB on this schism (here), dozens of Anglican parishes across NZ, lots of vicars, and hundreds of worshippers (including entire congregations, like St Stephens Shirley) are breaking away.

“Clergy signal move for new Anglican diocese”.

It’s a nationwide development. Blenheim, Canterbury, Waipa, Nelson. The denomination will divide over conscience and theology, as happened to the Methodists years ago (Anglicans decide much more slowly).

Kiwibloggers will recall Winston had some things to say about some of this. “Winston wanting to steal the cathedral off the Anglican Church.”

The schism is over the canons of the church and the sanctity of Scripture as the guide to what Christian life and morality is.  The catalyst has been the intrusion of same-gender “blessings” ‘by God,’ voted for approval inside Anglican churches at a recent Synod. A proviso was also voted in, that parishes may dissent and the church could live wth two steams of “truth” (“agree to disagree“).  But for many that is a line too far. “There cannot be two truths” as many parishioners have argued.

The STAR leads with the story on its front page today. “A breakaway Anglican diocese could be established…parish clerics from across the country (will join) to establish a new national diocese.”

In Canterbury alone, nine clergy have resigned across seven parishes: St Johns Latimer, St Stephens, St John’s Woolston, St Savior’s, St Nicholas, St Christophers, St Marks Rakaia.

While many remain, such as the historic St Paul’s Papanui, the congregations are adamant they still disagree and will not support same-gender blessings ‘by God’ in their churches, by their new vicars, or in their buildings.  They are clear, they embrace and accept gay worshippers, but cannot reach as far to condone active sexual unions between people of the same gender as “blessed” by God and won’t allow those rituals within their churches as an issue of conscience.

So NZ Anglicans dissent, disagree, some are leaving, some are staying. It’s nothing new, actually.  Rev John Wesley was an English Anglican minister. He did not want to leave the Anglican fold but was eventually forced to do so over theology and conscience. He reluctantly formed “the Methodists” with his brother Charles Wesley (the famous hymnist) and many other dissenting Anglicans. That was in 1868. The Salvation Army later formed out of the Methodists. Horses for courses.

Of course, the Anglicans themselves (the Church of England) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534. Such are the rainbow colours of the human church diversity, as colourful and varied as church stained-glass windows.

Sanitarium went on to sponsor the Ozzy cricket team and the NZ All Blacks and introduced collectors’ cards in 1942. Remember those? The Maori cards, the vintage cars, the steam locomotives.  I still have some of the albums from the 1970s. Ah nostalgia over a bowl of Weet-bix.

Newsroom reports:

Speaker Trevor Mallard has suggested sweeping changes to the use of Parliamentary urgency, effectively abolishing the practice in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Currently, the Government can put the House into urgency with a simple Parliamentary majority. Mallard’s proposed changes would require a 75 percent majority before the House goes into urgency.

On top of that qualification, the bill under urgency would have to pass each stage of the legislative process with a 75 percent majority. 

This would effectively abolish urgency in all but the most extreme cases, where there was some bipartisan consensus.

This would be a very worthwhile reform. It means bills could not bypass select committee unless 75% of the House agrees it is urgent.

It can be useful for times when Parliament is required to formulate urgent legislation. Mallard gave the example of a law to address a problem with improperly sworn in police officers. 

In 2013, it was discovered that 63 police officers had not been technically sworn in, making some of the actions they had undertaken as officers illegal. Parliament went into urgency to retrospectively validate those officers’ oaths. 

A suitable use of urgency.

Urgency also allows the house to sit for extended hours: from 9am until midnight. In rare cases of “extreme urgency,” the house can run through the night. 

Extraordinary urgency needs the permission of the Speaker and is incredibly rare.

Thanks to changes in standing orders a few years ago (supported by Trevor Mallard), the House can do extended hours without using urgency. The Government can extend one sitting a week so the House sits 9 am to 1 pm the next day.

Any changes will need to pass Parliament’s Standing Orders Committee, which is set to review how Parliament functions next year. 

Each Parliamentary term it reviews standing orders (the rules which govern how the house works) and makes necessary changes. Those changes take effect when the next Parliament is sworn in, so any changes made next year will not take effect until 2020. 

Mallard will need support of his Parliamentary colleagues if he wants his reforms to pass. 

It would be nice to get bipartisan support for this.

But Brownlee told Newsroom he would be unlikely to support Mallard’s reforms. 

He said he would like to see the final proposals first, but there was already limited time for debating legislation in Parliament and removing Parliamentary urgency would slow the legislative process down.

17 hours a week isn’t a lot as Brownlee says but having more extended sittings is preferable to using urgency which can bypass select committee scrutiny.

Mallard said he would look to substitute urgency with a streamlined process allowing relatively uncontroversial bills to be allocated extra time in what is known as “extended sitting”. 

Currently, the house uses extended sitting hours to sit on a Wednesday or a Thursday morning. This extra time is generally used to debate Treaty bills, which are relatively uncontentious and pass through the House unanimously. 

Mallard proposes expanding this provision to incorporate other uncontroversial bills, such as legislation consolidating existing laws, bills that incorporate law made in the courts into Parliamentary legislation, and bills recommended by the Law Commission.

“My suggestion is if you’ve had a good process like a green paper or a white paper or a Law Commission bill or whatever then they should be allowed to go into ‘extra time’” Mallard said.

You could have regular extending sittings on Wednesday and Thursday mornings which gives 25 hours of House time a week instead of 17. As they would be fairly uncontroversial, select committees could meet at the same time.

Stuff reports:

The murder rate has hit a 40-year-low, police say.

Figures to June 2018, put the number of murders in New Zealand in 2017 at 35 – a rate of seven for every million people. Police said, however, that as investigations were on-going  in some of those cases, the data would continue to change.

It was likely to take up to two years before figures stabilise.

Murder rates peaked in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, with the worst year being 1986 when there were 24 murders for every million people, with 79 murders in total.

The rate of 7 and absolute number of 35 is the lowest since 1977. While murders are a sub-set of violent crime, they are by far the worst.

1959 is the last year in which there were no murders.

I thought it would be interesting to look at what the murder rate was for each recent Government. Not because the Government are in any way responsible, but to give an idea of how rare homicides were during each era.

• Muldoon Government 12.7 murders/million
• Lange/Palmer Government 21.2
• Bolger/Shipley Government 16.4
• Clark Government 13.2
• Key/English Government 10.3

So a big increase in the late 80s, and a good downward pattern since.

The British newspapers are all reporting that one of the two “tourists” who has been charged with the Salisbury poisoning is a GRU Colonel who has been decorated by Putin.

The fact that Putin personally trotted them out to explain they were tourists can leave no doubt that he personally signed off on the attempted assassinations.

The evidence now is pretty overwhelming.

1. The man poisoned was a Russian defector and double agent
2. The nerve agent used was developed in Russia
3. The two men charged spent barely two hours in Salisbury and were seen walking past the home where the nerve agent was spread
4. Novichok was found in the hotel room the two men stayed in
5. Their passport file included a telephone number for Russian Ministry of Defence

Surely it is time for New Zealand to take some action and expel some Russian diplomats.

I want people to understand that not only did the Greens vote for the waka jumping bill, they voted against every amendment put forward by National. Many of these amendments would have made the bill slightly less undemocratic. A principled Green Party would have voted for them. But they sold out as poodles to Winston.

Here’s what they voted against:

• Allowing any expulsion of an MP by a leader to be subject to judicial review
• Mandating any vote in caucus to expel an MP be by secret ballot
• That parties are required to have rules around expulsion of MPs and that they be registered with the Electoral Commission
• That party rules around how an MP is expelled that are changed don’t take effect until the next Parliament
• That the names of the MPs who voted in favour of expulsion (if not a secret ballot) be required as part of a statement
• That the notice from a party leader expelling an MP be published in the Gazette within five working days
• Increasing the threshold for expulsion from 75% of MPs to 95%

So the Greens voted against secret ballots, against judicial review, against party rules around expulsion being made public and against a higher threshold.

Remember this when they start lecturing on democracy.

The Herald reports:

The incident involving former Government minister Meka Whaitiri and a staff member allegedly left bruising to the upper right arm of the staffer and photos of bruises were produced to the inquiry, a draft report leaked to the Herald shows.

The incident occurred because Whaitiri was unhappy at not having been alerted to a photo opportunity at a media standup with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a lunch break at a function in Gisborne.

A missed photo opportunity. How horrific. I guess for this Government, nothing is more important.

The staffer originally told the inquiry that Whaitiri had pinched her arm but changed that to grabbed.

“It was hard and it scared the living daylights out of me,” she said.

In other parts of her evidence, she said: “She was definitely angry, and was definitely mad that I had screwed up. It scared me a lot and I didn’t want to return to that [work environment].”

The Herald editorial:

There can be no doubt the Derek Handley saga is a train wreck that is now threatening to derail confidence in the Government. …

However, yesterday the PM found herself having to fend off accusations she had misled Parliament over her own communications with Handley, Finance Minister Grant Robertson was forced to correct his answer in Parliament over emails between Handley and Curran, and new Digital Services Minister Megan Woods was clearly forced to finally call Handley to apologise for the “impact this has had on him and his family”. She also had to retract her statement there had been a confidentiality agreement with Handley over his financial settlement.

What a shemozzle.

So four different Ministers have misled Parliament, either by accident, or deliberately – Ardern, Robertson, Curran and Woods. That must be a record for one issue.

The public needs to be confident there is no political interference in a public appointment. And what about the Government’s assurance it was going to be more open and transparent? At least one commentator yesterday said Ardern had been “economical with the truth”.

This is a serious black mark for the Government. The overall unease around communication, competency and transparency over this issue is now raising questions about the PM’s leadership and the Government’s integrity in general.

I’ve been listening to a podcast on the Clinton impeachment.

Clinton still maintains he never ever told a lie about having sexual relations with Lewinsky as he claims she had sexual relations with him but he did not have sexual relations with her.

It seems the sort of pin pricking argument Ardern now uses to say she didn’t mislead the House on Handley and didn’t mislead the public on NewstalkZB when she denied cutting ties with Curran.

Stead Nuku has become a third striker. Is he some poor shoplifter being given a disproportionate sentence? Let’s look at his case.

Strike 1 – assaulted a prisoner in the exercise yard. As the victim was lying on the ground, he kicked him. He then wrenched his arm in an arm lock, causing it to break. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to break his legs and other arm.

Strike 2 – assaulted prison officers with sharpened implements.

Strike 3/1 – approached another prisoner from behind with a large metal
shank, hidden in cloth. Used this to strike the victim to the head. Victim suffered five lacerations to his head, ranging from one to four centimetres in size.

Strike 3/2 –  approached another prisoner from behind with metal shank. Stabbed the victim with it repeatedly. Stabbed the victim not fewer
than 12 times. Inflicted seven wounds to his back; four to his arm; and one behind his ear.

The three strikes law means for his third strike he gets seven years without parole. The Judge says otherwise he would have got five years and one month and a non parole period of three years and five months.

As it happens both sentences are trumped by the fact he got preventive detention, so is indefinitely jailed until he is deemed safe (but thanks to three strikes no less than seven years away). That is because this 26 year old has a massive 68 convictions as an adult (and five before that).  17 of the 68 convictions are for violence.

So it isn’t three strikes and you’re out, but 17 strikes.

The Judge notes:

You said you had wanted to be a “lifer” since the age of 18, and you admired prisoners who frightened other prisoners and guards. You said when you commit an offence of violence, you intend to cause the
victim “maximum damage”. You said also you owe “love and loyalty” to the Killer Beez gang.

Sounds like a poster child for why we should relax the bail and parole laws, eh!

In the House today, Chris Bishop said:

I can also reveal that Mr Haumaha was not the preferred candidate of the panel. The Cabinet paper proposing his appointment does not state that he was the preferred candidate, but he was appointed anyway by the Prime Minister. The big question is “Why?”, particularly in light of what happened next.

This is a big part of the mystery. Why was Haumaha appointed by the Prime Minister despite not being the preferred candidate?

Today I can also reveal that Winston Peters rang Wally Haumaha after the inquiry into his appointment was announced. He gave him assurances, or words to that effect, that things would be OK. That is deeply, wildly inappropriate. Mr Peters needs to explain who invited him to the marae, why he rang Wally Haumaha to assure him that things would be OK despite an inquiry into his appointment, and why he thinks Mr Haumaha should stay in the role while he is subject to two separate investigations, with a third on the way. Until those questions are answered, this scandal will continue to dog the Prime Minister and her Government.

If this is correct, this is huge.

We know Haumaha has multiple links to NZ First and was selected as a candidate for them in 2005.

Peters as Acting Prime Minister appointed a fellow NZ First Minister to be in charge of the inquiry into him. If Peters did assume Haumaha that “things would be okay” then his decision to appoint Tracey Martin is deeply problematic, to put it mildly.

UPDATE: Peters has put out a statement denying he rang Haumaha after the inquiry into his appointment was announced. It is unclear if he also held up a No sign.

Stuff reports:

Housing Minister Phil Twyford’s package of tenancy law reforms would likely drive up rents by causing some landlords to get out of the market, officials have told him.

Officials said while most of the tenancy law overhaul and other changes to the rental market considered by the Government would not have much of an effect on their own, their cumulative weight could lead some landlords to sell their properties to owner-occupiers.

Because owner-occupiers typically have less people in a house than renters, this could lead to a further shortage in rental properties – and higher rents.

This is not unexpected. The Government really doesn’t seem to understand that increasing costs leads to higher prices.

Stuff reports:

The Court of Appeal has upheld a decision not to allow Stuff Ltd and NZME to merge.

The full judgment has not yet been publicly released, but the court said in a public “minute” that the companies’ appeal against a Commerce Commission block on their merger had been dismissed.

NZME and Stuff Ltd have been ordered to pay the costs of the appeal.

So the proposed merger has been found to be illegal under competition law by

• The Commerce Commission in a draft determination
• The Commerce Commission in a final determination
• The High Court
• The Court of Appeal

Time for them to give it up.

What will now be interesting is what happens when the Herald introduces a paywall. Will Stuff follow suit?

Stuff reports:

Woods said the analysis used by MBIE “does not take into account the fast pace at which the rest of the world is changing” with large emitting countries such as China and India making rapid progress to cut carbon.

I’m not sure which universe the Minister is in, but in this universe here’s the reality.

The FT reported:

China’s carbon emissions are on track to rise at their fastest pace in more than seven years during 2018, casting further doubt on the ability of the Paris climate change agreement to curb dangerous greenhouse gas increases, according to a Greenpeace analysis based on Beijing’s own data. Carbon emissions in the country, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, rose 4 per cent in the first quarter of this year, according to calculations by the environmental group based on Chinese government statistics covering coal, cement, oil and gas. If that pace continues it would be the fastest increase since 2011.