News.com.au reports:

THE most senior Family Court judge in England and Wales is set to rule on a case involving a baby who could become the first in the country not to legally have a mum.

Andrea Vance writes:

But there was plenty of chaos going on back home – most of it right in the heart of Ardern’s own Government.

Revelations about Meka Whaitiri’s bruising set-to with her press secretary were by far the most serious. Allegations that enraged by a missed photo call she injured the woman are serious enough for a party whose founding values are standing up for the worker.

But, add to that the unconditional and blind support of employment minister Willie Jackson – without even a cursory examination of the facts.

Yep a Minister left a press secretary bruised because of a missed photo op, and Labour MPs say they support the Minister unconditionally.

Then came geek entrepreneur Derek Handley, chaperoned by arch-Tory Michelle Boag. He first embarrassed the Government by overtaking their process of releasing communications about the chief technology job he won, and then lost.

Further documents revealed the fingerprints of Labour party president Nigel Haworth and former apparatchik GJ Thompson. Ardern was more heavily involved in the process than previously let on. 

While in the House distancing herself.

The Wally Haumaha appointment scandal continued to dog the Government. The links between NZ First and the former cop and one-time candidate should preclude any of its MPs from being involved in the investigation into his promotion.

And there is probably more to come out on this phone call that Peters denies ever occurred.

The Greens didn’t cover themselves in glory either. In a week that held a low bar for political principles, the sight of the Greens shamefaced voting for Winston Peter’s waka-jumping bill was pretty dispiriting. 

Labour abandons it principles of supporting abused workers. Greens abandon their principles of allowing MPs to dissent. And NZ First stay true to their principles of putting Winston first.

Mike Hosking writes:

But what we didn’t realise is she had an ad agency in tow – that you and I are paying for. 

A crew of three, from some agency called Augusto, which has a New York office. And basically they just wandered around filming her, and photographing her. 

And it’s not unusual for a leader to be photographed, but normally it’s the office staff who do it. You know, get the ol’ phone out and take a few snaps. 

She had a whole ad agency with her, and she’s defending it. Because they’re building up library stock and you know what they’re building up library stock for. They’re building it up for the election, and the election campaign. 

And we know this because the PM accidentally told the truth and said the filming was for “campaign stuff”.

You and I have paid for an ad agency of three people, and what do you reckon that costs?

Ardern says it’s not expensive. But she wouldn’t have a clue, because she doesn’t give any numbers.

A film crew of three for the best part of a week could well cost over US$15,000.

The Herald reports:

The Green Party is launching a campaign today to get the community behind changes to the welfare system.

And what would these changes be?

“Increasing the baseline amounts for benefits is pretty clear. That increase hasn’t followed wage increases or inflation for far too long.

Not a good start when she gets a basic fact wrong. Benefits do follow inflation. They are adjusted every year.

If you were to link benefits to wage increases, this would massively increase the cost to taxpayers – probably by over a billion dollars a year.

And removing sanctions which we’ve been very, very vocal about, which is about trying going away from that punitive or punishing approach.

Which means no work testing. You can remain on a benefit for ever and never have to even open a paper to look for a job.

“Changing the threshold for benefit reductions. There are so many people who want to work, even part time, while raising young children in particular. But those incentives are just really clumsy, confusing , messy, and they don’t make it worth it,” Davidson said.

This is a legitimate issue but means people on a benefit and working part-time could end up earning more than someone working fulltime.

The Greens would also look at combining the in-work tax credit and family tax credit and making them less discriminatory.

This means paying the in-work tax credit to people not actually working.

They also wanted Work and Income to stay out of people’s personal lives by “moving towards entitlements based on individual needs rather than a blanket policies around starting new relationships and losing entitlements”, Davidson said.

This means you could be living with a millionaire as a couple, and still claim a sole parent benefit.

She said the party had been working to get to a point where it could launch the campaign, and now was the time.

This is indeed the time. I want everyone to know what the Greens want the Government to do.

by John Stringer, Christchurch. Answers tonight 5pm.

Audrey Young writes:

But the party-hopping bill passed in Parliament ahead of the party’s convention can barely be called an achievement, let alone qualify as a proud one.

It has been Parliament at its worst – indulging a powerful politician with an obsession with defectors.

This is a law passed to benefit just one New Zealander. Winston. He has a pathological inability to manage his caucus, so he bullies everyone into passing a law to allow him to expel his colleagues when he gets sick of them.

It was only when party-hoppers left New Zealand First rather than joined it that the notion became objectionable, to Peters. 

Yep.

The most pernicious effect of the new law is not the actual expulsion of an MP from Parliament. Rather, it is the chilling effect it will have on strong, independent thought and voice of MPs within parties and within Parliament. In turn that will have an impact on the selection of MPs.

The most damaging effects of the law will be invisible and immeasurable.

Who will criticise a party’s direction, if their colleagues can expel them for doing so?

Dissent has been a strong theme throughout Peters’ career.

He talked about in his maiden speech in 1979 when he lambasted people whom he saw as destructive critics who criticised for the sake of it: “Opposition, criticism and dissent are worthy pursuits when combined with a sense of responsibility. They have a purifying effect on society. Areas in need of urgent attention can be identified and courses of action may be initiated. However embarrassing to community or national leaders, the results are enormously beneficial to the total well-being of the community. The critic I am [condemning] has no such goals. He sets out to exploit every tremor and spasm in society, the economy or race relations, seeking to use every such event as a vehicle to project his own public personality.”

An unkind person might say that Peters has gained power in New Zealand politics by becoming the sort of critic he so despised in his maiden speech.

Had never seen that quote from his maiden speech – he is describing modern day Winston perfectly.

That would be unfair. While his plasticine principles on electoral law have bent to whatever suits his party at the time, the party has been consistent on many issues and much of the time it is a constructive player.

That is being rather generous.

Claire Trevett reports:

Jacinda Ardern hired an advertising agency to photograph and film her New York trip.

In the past, New Zealand Prime Ministers have had a staffer from their offices take photos, but Ardern had a crew of three from agency Augusto’s New York office.

They have been used on social media and Ardern told the Herald on Sunday some would also be used for campaign purposes.

So every other PM just has an office staffer double as the photographer. But Jacinda needs three staff from an advertising agency to film here – and hey taxpayers pay the bill.

Ardern defended the decision to contract the agency. She said Augusto’s fee would be paid for out of Labour’s Leaders’ Budget, a pool of taxpayer-funding which political parties can use for communications purposes.

“They did social media for us, they did a bit of work on the last campaign and so they’re doing work for us now, helping build up our stock footage and stuff. Campaign stuff.”

Parliamentary funding can be used for communications yes. But not for “campaign stuff”. This is their campaign agency, funded by taxpayers. So the PM has just admitted they plan to break parliamentary funding rules.

But it gets worse than that.

Look at Labour’s 2017 donation return. They declare a donation of $18,274.41 from Augusto Limited.

So Labour is spending taxpayer money with Augusto, and Augusto donate it back to Labour, or provide campaign services at a discounted rate.

The bottom line is Labour are using taxpayer money to buy services off a company that in turn is a donor to Labour. That is an incredibly bad look.

This is not new territory for Labour. Their general secretary in the late 80s floated the idea of having the Government give some contracts to Labour’s advertising agency, as Labour owed them lots of money and was having trouble paying. The then leader Geoffrey Palmer vetoed the idea.

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.