The Herald reports:

Wally Haumaha was appointed Deputy Commissioner in May in a statutory appointment that is singed off by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.

In reality, applicants were assessed by a panel comprising State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes, Deputy Debbie Power and Police Commissioner Mike Bush, and they sent a short-list of two to Police Minister Stuart Nash.

This is an aspect the media have not focused on much.

The report doesn’t say Haumaha was the preferred candidate. Just that he was on a short-list of two.

Did the independent panel determine that Haumaha was the preferred candidate or was he in second place, and was he personally chosen by his “mate”, the Police Minister.

I hope the independent inquiry covers this issue.

The Electoral Commission reports:

At the end of the Option, 52.4% of Māori voters were on the Māori roll and 47.6% were on the general roll, compared with 52.8% and 47.2% at the start of the Option period.  There have been net increases of 1,200 on the Māori roll and 4,015 on the general roll.

So not a huge change but still slightly significant in that this is the first option in many years where the net movement was away from the Maori roll.

Previous results are:

• 2013 – Maori roll went from 54.8% to 55.3%
• 2006 – Maori roll went from 55.4% to 57.6%
• 2001 – Maori roll went from 51.1% to 55.4%
• 1997 – Maori roll went from 49.9% to 53.6%

So the reduction to 52.4% is the first reduction under MMP.

I think this is probably tactical. Now Labour holds all seven Maori seats again, there is less interest in them.

There are currently seven Māori electorates and that number could increase, decrease or stay the same.

After the number of electorates has been calculated by the Government Statistician, the Representation Commission will be convened to determine the electorate boundaries and the names of the electorates for the 2020 and 2023 general elections. 

I don’t expect any change but it is possible.

More likely is the number of general electorate seats will grow.

Eric Crampton found this in the consultation document on banning plastic bags.

Now the PM has said climate change is the most important issue of our lifetimes.

Yet the ban on plastics bags is highly likely to lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and to have a greater negative impact on the environment overall.

If you buy an organic cotton bag, you’ll have to use it 20,000 times to have less impact than single use plastic bags.

So a typical Government policy – makes you feel good, but actually makes things worse.

The Auckland Council did a survey of Waiheke residents on what they thought of the Council and Auckland Transport. Some findings:

• Only 7% think Auckland Council listens to the Waiheke community
• Only 9% think Auckland Council communicates well with the Waiheke community
• Only 8% think Auckland Council makes positive decisions for the Waiheke community
• Only 9% are satisfied with the performance of the Auckland Council over the last 12 months

Huge anger on Waiheke about the Council. They will get a chance next year to do something about it.

As the Guardian reports:

The former foreign secretary refuses to apologise for writing that a Muslim woman wearing the veil resembles “a bank robber” and that it is “absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes”. 

Now let’s be clear. Johnson was not calling fir it to be banned. He was criticising it, using humour.  Rowan Atkinson has commented:

Atkinson wrote in a letter to The Times: ‘As a lifelong beneficiary of the freedom to make jokes about religion, I do think that Boris Johnson’s joke about wearers of the burka resembling letterboxes is a pretty good one.’

He added: ‘All jokes about religion cause offence, so it’s pointless apologising for them. ‘You should really only apologise for a bad joke. On that basis, no apology is required.’

If it was a joke about any other religion, there would be no issue. But in the madness of the UK, the Met Police even got a legal opinion about whether they could arrest Boris for his joke.

Anyway the media are camped outside his house, and Boris comes out with a tray of tea. He offers tea to all the journalists, but refuses comments on the controversy, saying he came outside on a humanitarian mission as they had been there for so long.

Classic.

Stuff reports:

ACT leader David Seymour has a new bill that would see 20 MPs slashed from Parliament and the number of electorates reduced to 54.

If you do reduce the number of MPs, you do need to reduce the number of electorates or you get regular overhang. But a reduction in the number of electorate seats by 25% will mean the average electorate will be a third larger. In cities not an issue, but will mean some huge rural electorates. They’ll be twice the size of what they were under FPP.

I don’t actually support a reduction in number. We actually have fewer MPs than most countries our size.

The bill would reduce the size of Parliament to 100 (from 120), reduce the size of the executive to 20 (from 31, including ministers outside Cabinet and parliamentary under-secretaries), and reduce the number of electorates to 54 (from 71), meaning the Māori seats would be abolished.

I do support reducing the size of the executive though. It is massive at 31. I’d have a Cabinet of 12 and up to eight Ministers outside Cabinet.

Each prospective MP would also have to stand in an electorate – whether they were list or electorate MPs. If they lost in the electorate, they could still get into Parliament on the list, but they would have an established electorate office, and would be expected to actively help people within their electorate.

I’m okay with list only candidates.

If the changes were to come into effect, the bill states they would be confirmed by referendum.

A previous referendum on the number of MPs being reduced to 100 had overwhelming support.

Seymour said he expected to get the support of NZ First and Winston Peters, as Peters had long talked about reducing the number of electorates by abolishing the Māori seats, and cutting Parliament to 100 MPs.

Peters is famous for saying things he has no interest in actually doing.

Radio NZ reports:

The latest update on MPs’ expenses, leaked to Newshub, shows the National Party leader spent nearly $114,000 on travel and accommodation in April and June.

The expenses were due to be released publicly on Thursday.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she asked Ministerial Services to clarify exactly who had access to the National Party’s expenses, and it had been confirmed to her that only the National Party caucus did.

“We’ve had it confirmed that no-one in Labour ever actually had access to that information and it would be improper if we would have,” she said.

“The only groups as I understand who will have had access will be the opposition themselves and the Speaker.”

Ms Ardern said she has no need to seek assurances regarding any actions by Speaker Trevor Mallard.

“He is impartial. He doesn’t attend caucus. He presides as an officer of Parliament. It’s a really serious allegation to suggest he could be involved in any way.”

Mr Mallard denied being the source of the leak and was personally looking to ensure the information did not land in the hands of anybody it should not have.

I have no idea who leaked the info, but I would caution about assuming it was a deliberate leak.

I can recall at least two “leaks” which occurred when someone left a folder by accident in the parliamentary cafe. Someone from the other party finds them, and gives to the media.

Or human error. An e-mail sent by accident to the wrong person. The fact the outcomes from the Knowledge Wave summit were pre-ordained was revealed because an e-mail from a Labour Minister was sent to my then boss by mistake.

Going further back, there was a glorious few months in the 1990s when Labour strategy documents were being regularly e-mailed to Mike Moore, the former opposition leader. Up until the meeting when he mentioned he wasn’t on e-mail and they realised they had been e-mailing them for months to a National Party staffer of the same name.

The best one though was when Parliamentary Service set up the printer options wrong for the Labour Whips Office. One of their printer options was for a printer that was actually in the National Whips Office. For many months the Labour Whips would print out documents and have them appear on the National Whips’ printer. Would have loved to have seen their faces when they realised it.

So it may be a deliberate leak from a PS staffer, or someone in National, or someone in the Speaker’s Office (no I don’t think it is the Speaker). But it may also just be someone was careless and they documents by accident got to the hands of someone who then gave them to Newshub.

A fascinating study in the UK:

Despite significant regional government aid, the north of England and Wales lag the south in output per person, educational attainment, and other social indicators (e.g. Crafts 2005, Geary and Stark 2015, 2016). Value added per person is more than 40% higher in the south. The fraction of 18 year-olds winning admission to Oxford or Cambridge is double in the south.

Using information on surnames that were northern (including Welsh) or southern in origin in pre-industrial England, in a recent paper we show that the decline of the north is entirely a product of the sorting of migrants by ability into a high-ability south and low-ability north over the last 200 years (Clark and Cummins 2018). 

Migrants out of the north have had high abilities, and migrants into the north low abilities. As a consequence, those of northern English origin– as opposed to those still living in the north – show no disadvantage in outcomes at the national level in modern England. The disadvantages observed among those still in the north are completely compensated by the advantages seen among those with northern surnames in the south, where they are an elite.

The policy implication of this finding is that despite poorer social outcomes, those living in northern England and Wales do not face social or economic disadvantages relative to those living in the south.

Fascinating study.

The economic decline of the north of England and Wales has been regarded by many policymakers as a market failure that requires government intervention to correct. Part of the justification for the huge proposed expenditures of HS2, for example, have been the need to revive the economy of the north.

We show using the evidence of surname origins, however, that the decline of the north is purely a product of regional sorting by economic ability, and not the consequence of any market failure. The northern population, given its characteristics, is doing as well as the equivalent population in the south. There is no regional problem requiring solution in England.

Not sure policy makers can do much about it, unless they ban internal migration.

HDPA writes:

The case of Wally Haumaha is one that defies all political understanding.

It’s got so out of hand, but could have been solved so easily.

At the very start, all the Coalition Government needed to do was force Haumaha to resign his job as Police Deputy Commissioner. Problem solved. But for some reason, the Government instead formed a rolling maul and began protecting the man.

Six weeks later, the Government has a weeping sore of a saga to deal with. No one’s coming out of this one looking good. Not Haumaha, the woman originally appointed to investigate him, the Police Minister, the Prime Minister, Winston Peters nor New Zealand First.

All they had to do was tell him to quit. They can’t technically fire a Deputy Police Commissioner. But they could’ve strongly suggested he resign – which happens all the time in politics.

Here’s what Helen Clark would have done.

1. Helen tells Heather he has to go
2. Heather talks to DPMC and they create a job for him as a senior advisor on Maori offending to work across the justice sector on the same pay as Deputy Police Commissioner
3. Heather talks to the Police secondee in the Police Minister’s office and says The Deputy Commissioner no longer has the confidence of the PM
4. The secondee talks to the Commissioner
5. The Commissioner talks to the Deputy Commissioner and says look position no longer tenable, but there’s a role for you in DPMC on same pay
6. Deputy Commissioner resigns, and no need for an inquiry – all sorted nicely within a few days

This is pretty much what Helen Clark did with Peter Doone. It is how good political management works. Note that nothing is in writing and the PM is removed from implication by having her work others.

So, why didn’t they?

All guesses point to New Zealand First.

Wally Haumaha’s name has been linked to that party so many times, it’s created the impression that NZ First and Peters are protecting him.

Only because they are.

It’s an unfortunate perception for Labour because it reinforces the belief that the real power in this Coalition Government lies, not on the ninth floor of the Beehive, but on the seventh.

Again, only because it is.

A guest post by Carrick Graham:

Kiwiblog’s May post ‘A DHB with money to burn’ suggested someone OIA MidCentral DHB about how much money they have wasted on the opposition to the Dannevirke New World application to renew its liquor license.

Having lodged a few OIAs over the years, I fired off an OIA to MidCentral DHB, asking for a copy of any briefings, reports or communications to the DHB Board, the DHB CEO or the DHB Leadership Team on the costs of the objection and appeals.

I sent the response received from Deborah Davies, Operations Executive, Primary, Public and Community Health at MidCentral DHB onto Kiwiblog, which was highlighted in the post ‘More on the DHB with money to burn’.

The response said (and you can see the response here).

1. There was no communication of any kind to the DHB Board around the costs of this legal action.
2. There was no communication of any kind to the DHB CEO around the costs of this legal action.
3. There was no communication of any kind to the Executive Leadership Team around the costs of this legal action.

It was then with some surprise to read the press release ‘Appeal over angle of shelves appalling waste of public money’ by the New Zealand Alcohol Beverage Council. In the release by Nick Leggett, says:

“I couldn’t believe that when I originally requested all emails involving the case from MidCentral, I was told there were more than 1000 emails between staff on the topic.”

Wait a minute, an official response to me on 25 June from the MidCentral DHB stated that there were no communications.

Then, a second official response was received from MidCentral DHB dated 6 July, again signed by Deborah Davis, a member of the Leadership team. It stated that:

“Dr Kenneth Clark has advised that he has not received or sent any communications, emails, briefings, memo, reports, or letters relating to the case”.

Then we see a Stuff article ‘Health boards ‘wasted’ $90,000 trying to stop supermarket changing alcohol shelf angles’. In the article Deborah Davies says “the cost had been shared by the other organisations because they “considered the matters… were of national significance”.

Sounds like there has been a fair bit of discussion about this issue at MidCentral DHB.

With that in mind, take another look at the responses received in the MidCentral DHB letters of 25 June and 6 July, particularly those relating to the Chief Medical Officer. You would think as Chief Medical Officer he would be aware that ‘other public health units representing 13 other health boards were reimbursing MidCentral $57,961 for High Court Costs.

But maybe not.

An explosive letter from Tuku Morgan to King Tūheitia. Morgan was the King’s closest confidante so there has obviously been a huge falling out. As far as I am aware Kiwiblog is the first media outlet to publish the letter, which has been circulating through Maoridom.

In the letter Morgan accuses King Tūheitia of being a puppet, and doomed to fail. He also makes accusations against others. Kiwiblog can’t verify the accusations of Morgan, so they should be treated as his views, rather than fact.

Tuku by David Farrar on Scribd

Michael Johnston, a senior lecturer in education at VUW writes:

For a time I have been observing from afar, with rising horror, attacks on open debate and free speech on university campuses in North America, the United Kingdom and Australia.

Speakers – usually, but not always, from the right of politics – have been harassed and assaulted by protesters and sometimes ‘de-platformed’ – a euphemism for being deprived of the opportunity to speak – by university administrations.

Until very recently New Zealand campuses were blessedly free of this phenomenon. Now, thanks to Professor Jan Thomas, Vice-Chancellor of Massey University, that has changed.

Now only has this never happened before, it has happened to a former politician who 40% of the country voted for.

What is almost as outrageous as the Massey decision itself is that, to the best of my knowledge, the other universities and their leaders have been virtually silent on the incident. As an academic, I am embarrassed by this silence.

Where are the other VCs? Where is the TEU? Where are the hundreds of academics who benefit from academic freedom?

The tactic of labelling an opponent’s point of view “hate speech” is a dishonest and craven attempt to write it off without contending with its substance. For the vice-chancellor of a university to use such tactics is, as current National Party leader Simon Bridges put it, “an absolute disgrace”.

Don Brash is opposed to race based seats on local authorities. So I suspect are most New Zealanders. So rather than debate the merits, the Massey VC labels such views as hate speech.

A less well-rehearsed argument in favour of free speech, and one especially important to the fundamental mission of universities, is that, for human beings, thinking is a linguistic process: to formulate ideas, the use of language is required. A complex line of thought must be formulated, revised, analysed, debated and reformulated. All of this requires the expression of ideas in language.

An attempt to restrain speech, then, is an attempt to restrain thought.

This is at the crux. How dare some of us think the wrong thing. We must be reeducated.

Learning to think inevitably involves encountering ideas we find offensive. In fact, to learn to think rigorously, we have to become accustomed to feeling uncomfortable – and even offended – and to maintain a spirit of reason in the face of that negative emotion. Deeply held ideas are, almost by definition, intrinsic to people’s identities. To challenge such an idea, therefore, is to challenge a person’s identity.

An environment in which people are enabled to develop the ability to contend with ideas that are alien or unpleasant to them comes at a price. That price is allowing people who may not be arguing in good faith to say things that are deliberately hurtful. (For the record, I do not believe Brash is such a person.)

The proper response, even to them, is not to silence them but to allow them to express their ideas and then to point out in a rational manner why we believe they are wrong.

This is the depressing thing with the debate on Maori seats and wards. There are good arguments both for and against them. But so often each side just accuses the other of being racists, rather than recognise that there are legitimate pros and cons to having Maori seats.

As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, universities are not supposed to be intellectually ‘safe’ environments. They’re supposed to be places in which ideas are put to the blowtorch of evidence and analysis.

They are, but no longer at Massey it seems.

Stuff reports:

Newshub Nation host Lisa Owen has been announced as John Campell’s replacement for RNZ news show, Checkpoint. 

RNZ Chief Paul Thompson said the broadcaster was delighted to have Owen join the team. 

“She is an outstanding journalist and broadcaster and her appointment reflects RNZs commitment to high quality, robust journalism,” he said.

I think this is a very good pick. I always enjoyed being on The Nation with Lisa. She is very sharp.

Newsroom reports:

Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage decided against pursuing a stringent examination of Chinese water bottling firm Nongfu Spring’s “good character” before approving the expansion of its New Zealand operations, official documents reveal.

So for all her rhetoric over how she had no choice, she actually decided not to ask questions.

When officials could not find the outcome of a key court decision on Nongfu Spring’s application of Chinese water quality standards, Sage decided against demanding further information and let the deal go through.

Green Party members have been duped.

When asked whether the OIO should have proactively sought the status of the legal action, Sage responded: “If you want to sit in this seat than perhaps you should stand for election.”

Wow. This is how a new Minister responds to a journalist asking a legitimate question.

If you can’t handle the heat, maybe you should get out of the kitchen.

The Herald reports:

Deputy Commissioner Wally Haumaha contacted a key witness to an alleged bullying incident after the Herald asked questions about accusations by three women working on a joint justice project.

The witness is a senior police officer who intervened in a heated exchange between Haumaha and one of the three women from Justice and Corrections who refused to work inside Police National Headquarters because of Haumaha’s alleged behaviour towards them.

One of the three women who walked out of police headquarters — and says one alleged incident was witnessed by the police officer whom Haumaha contacted last week — now plans to make a formal complaint about Haumaha’s alleged behavior.

The Herald can now reveal Haumaha allegedly called the lower ranking officer, who previously worked directly for him in the Māori Pacific and Ethnic Services division, one night last week to ask for his support.

This was several days before the Herald published the allegations.

The officer reported the conversation with Haumaha to his district commander who in turn alerted senior leadership in Police National Headquarters.

This is the story that just won’t go away for the Government. It looks pretty clear that Ardern wants him gone, but Nash and Peters want him to stay. Who will win out?

Graeme Edgeler writes:

The Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill is going through it’s final stages, and will likely pass this week.

The point of this blog post is pretty simple: it is to ask Labour MPs, New Zealand First MPs and Green MPs to consider supporting three particular amendments proposed by National.

These are not amendments that radically change the bill. They just give a bit of extra safeguards against the power being handed to party leaders and their caucuses.

First up is Chris Penk’s proposed amendment in supplementary order paper 69. It would require registered parties to have rules around the process they would use to seek to expel an MP from Parliament.

How can you vote against that? Surely the Greens will not vote against a requirement for the rules around a party expelling an MP to be known in advance.

NZ First will of course be against it, because Peters flouts his own party’s rules. He unilaterally announced the suspension of Brendan Horan, without a single clause of the NZF rules being followed.

So Peters will not want anything as pesky as rules to stop him expelling his own MPs. But have the Greens sold all of their souls to Winston, or just some of them?

In a similar line is Tim Macindoe’s proposed amendment in supplementary order paper 71. This would require that those rules would have to be provided to the Electoral Commission and available for public inspection.

Again how can anyone object to that? Transparency over what rules a party has in place if they decide to try and expel an MP from Parliament.

I also ask Government MPs to consider supporting Simeon Brown’s amendment in supplementary order paper 64. This proposes that the caucus vote to declare than an MP has distorted Parliament should occur by secret ballot.

This is quite vital to prevent a leader threatening MPs who don’t vote his or her way with also being expelled. Again are the Greens going to vote against secret ballots for expelling an MP?

Justice Minister Andrew Little has accused bill opponents of failing to engage with various safeguards he says are in the bill that would prevent it being abused – in particular the requirement that two-thirds of the caucus must support the leader. 

I think this is an unfair criticism – I engaged with them in both my written submission and oral submission, and the Academic experts Little criticised as having failed to do so engaged with them in their presentation to the Justice Committee – but now is his chance to meet his own challenge: making the caucus vote a secret ballot would add substantial weight to his argument that the were safeguards in the bill that would prevent a leader being able to silence opposition within their caucus.

Is Andrew Little the Minister of Justice for New Zealand or the Minister for Winston?

Edgeler also proposes increasing the super-majority needed in a caucus from two-thirds. He points out that 18 National MPs could oppose a colleague being expelled, and that MP would still be expelled. Surely an 80% super-majority would be a better safe-guard (rounded down for caucuses of less than five). So the requirement for different size caucuses would be:

• 2 – not possible
• 3 – two MPs
• 4 – three MPs
• 5 – four MPs
• 6 – five MPs
• 7 – six MPs
• 8 – seven MPs
• 9 – eight MPs
• 10 – eight MPs
• 11 – nine MPs
• 12 – ten MPs
• 13 – eleven MPs
• 14 –  twelve MPs
• 15 – twelve MPs

So let’s see how Labour and Green MPs vote on these amendments. If they vote against, it shows they are so scared of Winston they will do anything he demands. If they vote for them, then at least they can say they have put some minor safeguards in place.

Matthew Hooton writes:

Labour’s media surrogates have loyally argued it’s all just a tantrum about the colour of the new Government. But the Government is not “new”.

It was elected nearly a year ago and business confidence did not sink to its current depths immediately.

This is true. In January business confidence was only -19 and stayed there until April when it hit -23. Then -27 in May, -39 in June and -45 in July.

The real problem is that Ardern, Robertson and the rest of the Labour crew were either incapable, too lazy or too distracted to do any policy work during nine years in opposition.

Can we choose all of the above?

The Government’s 100-odd working groups are designed to fill that gap, but their combined effect is to leave every area of policy open to radical change but with no real indication of the nature of that change or when it might happen.

We have no idea what taxes might be dreamed up by the Tax Working Group, let alone which will be implemented or at what rate.

The proposed independent Climate Change Commission means Parker and Nick Smith’s Emissions Trading Scheme might be replaced with something better or worse.

It’s unclear if the Government will streamline the Resource Management Act processes or expand the Auckland urban boundary.

On water, some sort of tradeable rights scheme seems inevitable, with Māori taking some percentage as with the fishing quota. But the Government is unable to indicate when it will happen, how it will operate or what it might cost.

Consequently, farmers and growers don’t know if their access to water will be restricted or a charge introduced. Potential new entrants, including iwi, don’t know if they might get better or cheaper access. Neither can invest until the policy is resolved.

Similarly, no one knows what Jim Bolger’s Fair Pay Agreements working group will conclude, with fears it will be the biggest reversal in industrial relations since Bolger himself abolished compulsory unionism in 1983.

Future immigration policy is unclear, despite its reduction being Winston Peter’s central political message for a quarter century. Almost every other important area of policy, including health and education, is equally up for grabs.

I think this is right. Business has no idea what the Government is going to do, which does reduce confidence.

Alongside its diversions and smears, the Government tried this week to launch a charm offensive, with Ardern and Parker’s “Trade for All” initiative and Robertson’s people pointing media to a speech he gave at SkyCity.

The former is an Ardern special. A year-along “conversation” about what trade means to you, complete with yet another “advisory board”.

This was billed as a major announcement!

Robertson’s speech was the usual precis of historic economic data combined with vague references to an Economic Plan, written in the style of a high school debating runner-up.

The Beehive PR machine needs to remember it’s communicating with investors and business leaders, not infants.

Business owners often have their livelihoods attached to their business. They want certainty and preferably good policies.

Oh dear.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand could follow the United Kingdom in bringing in age restrictions for online pornography and blocking websites which refuse to comply.

That would be incredibly dumb and ineffectual.

Martin supports the approach of the United Kingdom, which has ambitious – and controversial – plans to introduce mandatory age verification for pornographic websites later this year.

First of all the Internet is not just websites.

Secondly age verification is about as much protection as a leaky condom. Any person who wants to see porn just clicks on the “I am over 18” button.

If the aim is to protect people from accidentally viewing porn, then the issue isn’t websites. It is spam, phishing, deceptive links etc.

She made the comments after the Chief Censor began a major piece of research on New Zealand teenagers’ online pornography habits. Expected to be completed in December, the research will be used to inform Government policy, including possible regulation.

“We’re pretty excited about it,” Chief Censor David Shanks said. “We think it’s going to give us some potentially world-leading data on the New Zealand situation and teens and pornography.

I think I can guess the outcome. Shock horror, teenagers view pornography.

The UK Government has a policy which allows internet service providers to block porn websites unless people older than 18 “opt in” to use them. It plans to go further this year by bringing in age verification requirements for online pornography, which will include powers to block websites which don’t offer “age gates”.

Martin said she was not interested in wholesale bans on online content because they did not work. But she supported the UK Government’s approach, saying she was interested in any policy which helped to protect young people.

The UK approach is basically wholesale bans.

Filters always have a false positive rate. That is why they should be opt in, not opt out. There is no shortage of filters that parents can subscribe to, or install on their children’s devices.

Shanks said new regulations may not be required at all, or they could be part of a range of s

olutions including education for young people.

Education is a much better idea. It is awful that kids do get bombarded with porn. But this is more a spam issue, than a website issue. The key is not filters, but educating kids on how to handle this, and never click on the links etc as most of them will be infected sites.

The survey of internet pornography use will ask if teenagers look at online pornography, how often, what sort of content, why they are looking at it, and how they are viewing it. It requires parental consent, but the participants will fill out the survey anonymously and privately.

Will be interesting, but again there is a big difference between wanting to protect teenagers from unsolicited porn, and stopping teenagers from accessing porn themselves.

InternetNZ has a useful blog on why this is a very bad idea.

Stuff reports:

A new members’ bill would allow employees to take up to three days bereavement leave after losing a pregnancy in a miscarriage.

The bill, in the name of Labour MP Ginny Andersen, would make miscarriage an explicit grounds for three days of bereavement leave.

Currently the law is somewhat ambiguous on the issue, with employers being able to decide whether or not a miscarriage constitutes bereavement.

The law gives a right for bereavment leave if the deceased is a partner, parent, child, sibling, grandparent, grandchild or parent in law. For other bereavements it is up to the employer but a key factor is the closeness of association.

So adding on a miscarriage suffered by you or your partner seems very sensible. And before this becomes an abortion debate, can I point out the huge difference between choosing to end a pregnancy and wanting it to continue but having a miscarriage.

The law was drafted after a group of women who felt they had had “quite poor treatment” from their workplaces after having  miscarriages visited Labour’s Clare Curran.

“I worked with the group of women to understand what their experiences were and drafted the bill.”

This is my only reservation. Is a law change needed. I’d hope any employer would give bereavement leave to who has suffered a miscarriage (or their partner). But if some people have had difficulty, this this is a worthwhile law change.

At a minimum I’d hope all parties would at least support it to select committee stage, so MPs can hear evidence about how widespread any refusals have been. Certainly based on media stories to date, there have been quite a few refusals, so again the bill seems very worthwhile.

Simon Jeans is an Australian lawyer specialising in immigration. He was appointed as a member of the Australian Migration Review Tribunal & Refugee Review Tribunal so could be considered an expert. As a member he made decisions on migration and refugee visa applications so this is an area he has specialist knowledge of.

Last week he tweeted Green MP Golriz Ghahraman to disagree with her statement that no human right is absolute (she was supporting the deplatforming of Southern) and said what Ghahraman wasn’t true as some human rights are absolute such as the right not to be tortured.

In return Ghahraman blocked him on Twitter. He had never been blocked before, let alone by an MP. And merely for saying the right not to be tortured is an absolute right. So he started to scrutinise Ghahraman, and has now done this blog post.

In it has casts serious doubts on her claims about her life in Iran. Some of these issues have been canvassed previously, and as I recall Ghahraman has conceded where she lived was never bombed, but she visited relatives in Tehran that was bombed. Jeans points out that even Tehran only had bombing for a relatively brief 52 day period. So hard to match that up with the statement “Most of Golriz Ghahraman’s childhood memories are of war“.

Others previously have scrutinised these claims, but what is somewhat different here is Jeans is a expert lawyer on Iranian refugees as he has represented Iranian refugees since 1994, and has sat on a tribunal deciding on applications.

He also disagrees with her portrayal of her family as refugees and asylum seekers saying if they were allowed to leave on holiday, they were not regarded by the Iranian Government as hostile to the regime. But against that is the fact they were given asylum by the NZ Government, indicating they must have had a credible case.

I’m not sure the blog posts tell us anything we didn’t already know, which is at best a well documented tendency to exaggerate. But there is perhaps a lesson in this, about not blocking fellow human rights advocates on Twitter, just because they disagree with you.