There’s been a huge increase in the number of staff employed in Ministerial (and Under-Secretary) offices.

In 2008, there were a total of 286 staff in the last year of the Clark administration.

In 2017, there were 275 staff in the last year of the Key/English Government.

In 2018, the number of staff has grown to 312, a 13% increase.

I’ve divided staff up into five categories. They are:

1. Managers (Chiefs of Staff, Senior Private Secretaries)
2. Comms (Press Secretaries, media, comms staff)
3. Political (Advisors)
4. Portfolio (Portfolio Private Secretaries)
5. Admin (Private Secretaries, Exec Assistants)

So how has any category changed since 2017:

1. Political staff up 13 from 38 to 51, a 34% increase
2. Managers up 6 from 28 to 34, a 21% increase
3. Portfolio staff up 22 from 122 to 144, an 18% increase
4. Comms staff up 2 from 40 to 42, a 5% increase
5. Admin staff down 6 from 47 to 41, a 13% decrease

So the biggest percentage increase has been political staffers, all paid for by the taxpayer. I’m of course not against political advisors in ministerial offices. But I am against a 34% increase in them.

The biggest offices are:

1. Prime Minister, 34 staff
2. Twyford and Hipkins, 15 staff each
3. Parker, 14 staff
4. Clark, 13 staff
5. Peters, Sepuloni, Nash, Martin and Shaw, 12 staff each

Dirt on th’ Gath Philistines #3

Day 1 on the dig was very heavy work as we restored site to last season’s condition after ‘over wintering. In Israel, trees and weeds grow prolifically. A tree in the middle of the site was cut to a stump in 2017 and on arrival this season was well over 10 feet high with vicious hooked thorns on it sharper than anything in NZ and several inches across. These thorns stick as well as ACT politicians do to Dancing with the Stars.

All winter growth has to be removed so the site is back to 2017 condition. A huge Bedouin-style shade tent is erected over the entire site to shade the archaeologists while digging. Work would be impossible without this. The shade tent is erected with large PVC poles which are sturdy but light and anchored with metal stringers and ropes. Only after all this is done, can excavation begin. It takes a whole day to tidy and prepare the worked archaeological site. Day 1 is usually the hardest as there is no shade and lots of grubbing to do. It is utterly exhausting. Below left you can see the site after it has been cleaned all day by 50 people. The tent shade is raised and lowered every day, as is the shaded communal food eating area.  All metal tools are removed from the site and transported away at the end of each day. So there is a lot of daily pack-up and pack-down.  Note the tree stump, centre. The pylon in the background is part of a large nearby electricity station often targeted by Palestinian incendiary devices.

Gath (pronounced “Gat”) has been excavated since 1996. The director of the dig is Israeli archaeologist Dr. Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv, a world expert on the Philistines. The site manager for him this year is Dr Jeff Chadwick. Gath is located in the Shephelah of the Judean high country and sits astride the main copper trade route west-east into Jordan. The topography West to East is: The Mediterarnean Sea, the Plain (where the Philistines dominated), the low foothills of the Shephelah (Sh’Fay-lah) where Gath is situated on the last main spur, and the high country of Israel behind.  The Philistines came in to Canaan from the sea as “The Sea Peoples;” the ancient Hebrews from the east via the Jordan. Gath dominates the Elah valley, a major west-east corridor.

Dig ‘Digs’

In 2018 the crew are domiciled in a residential school at Kibbutz Menahem which is only 7 minutes’ drive from the Tell. This enables us an extra 30 minutes archaeology a day than was possible last year, as we are much closer. It’s very basic for a residential school (well below NZ standards) but does the trick. The kibbutz provides us with very healthy kosher communal meals every day. We are residing dorm-style 4 or 5 to a room with our own shower and loo per unit, which is very nice and is heavily used. Everyone is so dogged-tired each day, luxuries are not missed.

Below: The school at the kibbutz Menahem and a Philistine weather vane at the top of the Tell.

Up at ‘Sparrow Fart’

Each day starts at 5am. We excavate till 9am when we break for breakfast onsite under a shade canopy we erected at 5am. This is fresh vegetables, yoghurts, fruit, coffee/tea, buns, and rice mixes, hard boiled eggs and cheese. We start early as this gives us several of the cooler hours to get work done. It becomes very hot very quickly. We leave the site at 1pm, pack down, and head back to the kibbutz for pottery washing and then ‘pottery reading’ and other lab duties. There is lunch, followed by lectures and then dinner at 7pm.  It’s a full long day but very gratifying and engaging. I attend every lecture my body allows and find these fascinating: the Sea Peoples, Archaeology 101, ancient Semitic languages, Iron-Age metallurgy, archeo-biology, Canaanite religions.

Day 1 Tell Tour

On Day 1, however, after the site is cleared and cleaned and the shade tents erected, we are guided to the top of Tell-es-Safi (Gath) by Professor Maeir as we are all too tired to excavate which begins properly on day 2. Aren explains the 360° view and the history of the site as well as previous excavation areas up on the Tell. This spans Chalcolithic habitation right through to modern Arab settlement up to 1948 when the village was abandoned and later deconstructed as part of the National Park. But it is the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age (1200-1100BC) that brings us all here.

Of particular interest is the photo below. Note the modern city in the middle background. There is a prominent hill on the right with broken trees on top, and a rise on the left (trees, dirt, and trees).  This is the historic site of the battle of David and Goliath. The Philistines were camped on the right, Israel on the left. David and Goliath met in the space in between in a classic late-Mycenaean champion’s duel (see the Iliad).  A small river runs from Gath down this valley and beyond, and it is from here that David selected the 5 stones to combat Goliath (who had 4 large brothers).

After Goliath fell and was decapitated, the very super superstitious Philistines (as were most ancient people) fled up this valley away from the more powerful Hebrew God whose boys can slay their fiercest war champions) towards where the picture is taken and to relative safety at Gath. This is the biblical valley of Elah. So in 1000 BC you can imagine Philistines routing up this valley directly towards you.

Below: Tell-top excavations from previous years. We are now digging in the lower city where we will find more domestic material (less elite or cultic ritual stuff). We are also actively searching for the gate of Gath. I’m sure we are close.

Here are some other perspectives of the Elah valley from the other direction. I am excavating a few metres from ‘David’s brook’ and frequently take shade breaks in the brook which is bone dry this time of year and completely brown. The image at left was taken in winter. David selected his 5 stones from here, thus the gloved 5 fingers.

We walked to the top of the Tell from the north side. It has sweeping 360° views and we stand on human occupation levels that span at least 4000 years. There is history and scattered pottery sherds everywhere.

Early Bronze/Canaanite (3,500 – 2,050 BC).

Late Bronze/Canaanite (2,050 – 1,500 BC).

Iron Age I & II/ Israelite (1,200 – 586 BC).

Philistine (Ps) (1,200 – 830 BC). Destroyed by Hazael of Syria (see 2 Kings 12:17).

The Ps were eventually subsumed into local culture as Canaanites (ca. 830-586 BC) and were carried away by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. This is when Daniel of the ‘Lions Den’ story was taken as well. They disappear as a culture while the Jews, suffering the identical fate, and repeated pogroms, maintained their culture until the present day, even restoring their nationhood and land (in 1948). But that is another story entirely.

No excavation on Day 1. Next post: Days 2-5 at Gath and some remarkable finds.

Stuff reports:

The Green Party says New Zealand is not truly subscribing to the rules-based order by purchasing new military planes with increased combat capability.

On Monday, Defence Minister Ron Mark announced the Government would buy four Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft from the US Government at a cost of $2.3 billion.

The planes, which have enhanced weapon and submarine-hunting capabilities, will be delivered from 2023, with the cost spread out to 2026, and would replace the fleet of ageing P-3K Orions.

Mark said the P-8s were the only choice, and would strengthen the Government’s Pacific reset.

Seems like a good purchase. We have a big area to look after.

Mark and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have spoken extensively about the growing threat to the global rules-based order. And it seems part of New Zealand’s response was to ensure the NZDF is combat capable, and has interoperability with its traditional allies.

Also sensible.

But Green Party defence spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said New Zealand needed to move away from investing in war industries if it was serious about upholding the international rules-based system.

“We need to move away from following the old world order of the US, UK, Australia and diverse from investing in the war industries and focus on what we can do best, instead,” Ghahraman said.

This is bizarre. Having military capability is not in conflict with a rules-based system.  It is what allows you to enforce one.

UN Security Council resolutions are meaningless, unless they can be enforced.

I also note the rhetoric about moving away from the US, UK and Australia. I disagree. While we certainly should make independent decisions (and we do), it is ridiculous to not recognise the special relationships we have with those countries.

Not content with their earlier smear on me (since retracted) that I was involved in sending white feathers to Auckland Councillors (the entire story was fictious – no one sent or received a white feather), the Spin Off now smears me as a racist and supporter of white supremacy.

Hayden Donnell is unhappy that the Free Speech Coalition raised $50,000 to challenge Phil Goff’s dictates about who can speak or not at an Auckland Council owned venue.

Donnell says that anyone backing the FSC must be either confused (code for hypocrisy), a racist or a free speech absolutist.

Donnell ignores the fact that Chris Trotter is an FSC member, and instead smears me who not only isn’t a member, but I haven’t even donated a cent to the FSC. I didn’t even know it was being formed until after they announced it. My “crime” is I blogged in support.

Donnell has set up a fallacy so he can smear people as racists, because of course no one is a free speech absolutist. I’m not. I don’t think one should be able to say “kill the buddhists” or “go and have sex with two year olds” or “bash a Croatian”.

My view is that Government censorship of speech needs to have a very high threshold – basically inciting violence, riots etc. And Goff was acting in a Government capacity as Mayor of Auckland.

My view seems to be much the same as Idiot/Savant of No Right Turn, who of course does not get smeared by The Spin Off.

Now Donnell purports to find examples of hypocrisy from me, so that readers will conclude I am a hypocrite or a racist or both. It’s a disgusting piece from him designed to smear me, and even worse is they get funded by sponsors to do their smears – including government agencies.

Donnell’s first example against me is:

Or the time Free Speech Coalition supporter David Farrar called for the government to take away Homebrew Crew’s grant money after they released an anti-government song, saying “They’re entitled to call [John Key] what they want, but I’d rather not have the taxpayer fund it”.

Donnell seems to be either very stupid or very malicious as he actually quotes me defending Homebrew’s right to call John Key a c**t. My only objection is having taxpayers fund it.

It is possible Donnell is so stupid that he doesn’t recognise the difference between Government censorship and funding. But I suspect he does, and he conflates the two to make his smear.

There are thousands of things I don’t want the Government to fund. But there are probably none of them that I want the Government to ban. I don’t want the Government to fund The Spin Off, but I don’t want them banned either.

Or when time Farrar wrote sympathetically about efforts to sanction Kim Dotcom for leading a “fuck John Key” chant.

Nowhere did I call for Dotcom to face legal sanction. I pointed out the left probably would, if it was someone chanting the same about Clark. I did mention the video had been complained about to the Advertising Standards Authority. This is a self-regulatory scheme that has no enforcement powers. People choose to comply or not. So no hypocrisy.

And when he wavered on whether Immigration New Zealand should deny a Visa to Odd Future on the grounds of incitement to violence.

Which if you follow the link you’ll see I actually say:

However having said all that, I don’t think the ban was the right call. I’d have them perform in NZ for those who want to listen to them

So in fact I have been entirely consistent with my views. The post by Donnell is designed to portray my as a hypocrite, a racist and a supporter of white supremacy – all because I don’t think Phil Goff should decide who gets to speak at Council owned commercial venues.

Now as I said this is not the first time The Spin Off has smeared me. I let it go the first time, but I reluctantly conclude they are going to carry on doing so. So I am going to respond more aggressively in future. If they smear me again, I will be contacting every one of their sponsors and asking for a personal meeting to explain why I think they should not sponsor a site that repeatedly smears me. I will be happy to fly up and down New Zealand to meet them all.

I will also encourage others to do the same.

I don’t want people to do this yet. I am reluctant to take the final step. I actually enjoy much of the content on The Spin Off and have respect for some of their staff. But it is because they do a lot of good journalism, that I won’t tolerate their smear jobs on me. It doesn’t concern me at all when I get smeared on The Standard or The Daily Blog because to be honest that probably increases my reputation with most people. Hell it is almost a badge of honour to have Bradbury call you silly names.

But The Spin Off needs to decide whether they want to stand by stuff such as this final paragraph in relation to me:

Except for when they’ve done and said things that make it look like many of them do want limits on speech. Because if you don’t make an exception for those things, it can look like some of them aren’t free speech absolutists at all – and that they just want the boundaries of acceptable speech moved to include overt racism and white supremacy.

So having mentioned me more often than anyone else in the article, they imply and almost state that I am a racist who supports white supremacy speech as acceptable.

In 2006 I blogged on David Irving and said he shouldn’t have been jailed for holocaust denial. Does that mean I am a holocaust denier (despite two of my great grant parents perishing in it), or that I think holocaust denial should be acceptable? No. It just means I don’t think the state should prevent it.

The Herald reports:

DHBs want a tax on sugary drinks – warning the obesity epidemic could result in Kiwi kids living shorter lives than their parents.

The extraordinary letters sent to Health Minister David Clark are the strongest call for change so far from within a health system treating more obesity-related disease and tooth decay.

“For the first time in history, NZ children could live shorter lives than their parents as a result of excess weight and obesity,” Andrew Blair, chair of both Capital & Coast and Hutt Valley DHBs, told Clark.

Even if that is the case,a tax on sugary drinks will make no difference.

If we are generous and assume the following:

• A sugar tax reduces consumption of soda drinks by 10%
• There is no substitution (highly unlikely but we’ll be generous)

Then the average New Zealander will consume 3.2 fewer calories a day.

That means after seven and a half years of a sugar tax, the average New Zealander will lose one kg of weight!

Oscar Lau writes in Stuff:

Those people lucky enough to win the KiwiBuild lottery will buy their home at a heavy discount.

And when they sell it in the future, they’ll receive the full market price. That doesn’t make any sense.

To see why, let’s keep things simple. Suppose lucky Bob gets to pay only $500k for a KiwiBuild house that’s valued at $1 million in the open market.

After three years he decides to sell. If the market stayed flat, he’ll pocket a windfall of half a million, a parting gift from the Government. Even if the market plummeted by 50 per cent, he’ll break even.

It’s taxpayer funded lotto.

Bob’s twin brother Todd didn’t win the lottery. Yet he somehow managed to secure a loan to buy a similar $1m home in the open market.

Suppose he put down the same amount of deposit as Bob did. So he will have to borrow $500k more than Bob did, which means he’ll pay hundreds of thousands more in interest over the life of the loan.

When he decides to sell, of course there will be no parting gift from the Government. If the market plummeted, he’ll probably go bankrupt.

So Bob wins a double jackpot: huge savings in loan interest and immediate doubling of house value. Meanwhile Todd gets nothing, all because of his (lack of) luck.

And Labour say they want to help the most needy, when in fact they are giving random people huge windfalls.

There’s an easy solution to the double jackpot problem. And if the Government had cared to study comparable schemes from other parts of the world, they would have already found it.

It can be found in Hong Kong, which has been running a remarkably similar programme, known as the Home Ownership Scheme, since the late 1970s.

The basic principle is simple: buy at a discount, sell at the same discount.

Here’s roughly how it would work. When Bob decides to sell his house, he can either sell it in the open market or sell it to another KiwiBuild qualified buyer in the KiwiBuild secondary market.

In the first case, the new buyer pays the full market price; but Bob receives only half of it, with the other half (the originally discounted proportion) returned to the Government.

In the second case, Bob receives the full payment from the new buyer. But when the new buyer decides to sell in the future, she’ll have to follow the same rules as Bob did.

That seems a lot better than random people gaining huge windfalls.

The Herald reports:

Councillors have delivered a mixed verdict on the possibility Aucklanders could be levied another tax — nicknamed a “toilet tax” by opponents.

The Weekend Herald revealed today Auckland Council and the Government are considering the tax to pay for a $1 billion sewer tunnel running deep below our biggest city and aimed at allowing for future growth and significantly reducing sewage and stormwater overflows into harbours.

But the potential tax also comes hard on the heels of a 11.5c a litre regional petrol tax, introduced six days ago, and a bed tax for accommodation providers.

This is what you get with a Labour Mayor. Rates increases plus lots of new taxes.

Albany councillor John Watson said Aucklanders were being hit with a “double whammy” of new charges and asset sales — both over a short period and despite promises amalgamation would cut costs. He wanted an independent review of the Super City.

“When the Super City was set up the fundamental selling point to Aucklanders was that it would result in reduced costs. That hasn’t eventuated because we are now getting additional charges for services you’d expect to be included … in rates.”

Waitematā and Gulf councillor Mike Lee said too much money had been wasted on an IT budget blowout and a new council headquarters.

“Watercare did the massive upgrade of Project Manukau, the Waikato pipeline and Project Hobson, and they were all on the books about the same time, but it was easily affordable to take on that debt. Not anymore.”

Rodney councillor Greg Sayers said Mayor Phil Goff hadn’t lived up to his campaign pledge to find 3 to 6 per cent savings from the council budget.

“This would amount to between $70 million and $140m … enough to pay for the new wastewater infrastructure and meaning Aucklanders would not have to pay Phil Goff’s toilet tax.”

Sayers is spot on. Off memory Goff’s savings drive has found around 0.4%, if that.

The Dom Post editorial:

Without the possibility of offence we would be a bland, totalitarian state devoid of interest, imagination and ideas.

Superbly stated.

Controversial Canadians Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux have built an impressive global profile by testing the boundaries and pressure points of that ecosystem. They are variably described as far and alt-Right commentators and provocateurs. They want to visit New Zealand and offer their polarising views on, among many things, immigration, gender and feminism. …

We believe that what they are likely to present may qualify as offensive to some, but will fall below what the great majority of Kiwis would regard as hate speech.

Absolutely.

Those groups concerned about potential insults against their religion or sexual orientation should instead be comforted that this country allows such a breadth of opinion without reacting with hatred or oppression from other parties, including the state. As happens in some parts of the world.

Healthy, robust debate is as essential to our democracy as the right to vote, possibly more so.

Yep, but a point sadly lost on Saziah Bashir who writes at RNZ:

That there needs to be a debate on Islam in New Zealand is itself a ridiculous proposition because when was the last time we needed a national debate on any other religion, despite the violence some so-called members of that religion may be perpetrating somewhere in the world?

So Bashir says no one should be allowed to debate Islam. This is despite there being 2,043 seperate Islamic terror attacks in 2017 which killed 16,367 people and wounded 14,360 more.

And as it happens other religions get scrutinised and criticised all the time also. This is as it should be.

Dirt on th’Gath Philistines #2

2018 Israel archaeological excavation at biblical Gath (home of Goliath)

By John Stringer on site at Tell es-Safi, west of Jerusalem.

[It is not kosher to publish excavated objects before they are properly processed and published as part of the excavation, so I’ll not do that without permission. But you’ll get some generic images; and where I get permission from Professor Aren Maeir I will provide Kiwiblog readers early bird images of some of the fascinating discoverers where that is permissible].

First Impressions

LeGuardia Hotel make that “Le Giardia” Hotel

The hotel I am staying in, is not a good first impression. The Russian on the desk is Basil Fawlty in a dress…with an overused cellphone.  “You cannot check-in until 2pm!”  It is 9am.  So I leave and go walkies. Tel Aviv is a busy, grimly, rundown, quickie modulated-concrete pop up city. Arriving back dead on 2pm she says “another 40 minutes.”  Decidedly unhelpful, unsmiling and uncommunicative, she takes phone calls and chats while we’re trying to process check-in. This takes twice as long as it should. The eftpos takes 5 attempts to work. I have to ask for a receipt but never get one because the printer isn’t working.

The room is up three flights of that ghastly sharp-edged corporate marble that hotels so like.  There is no lift. Quite how older people are expected to haul their luggage up these steps is beyond me.  Ms Millennial Russian Cellphone does not offer to help.  She shouts at an Asian woman who is cleaning down a corridor.

The shower leaks into the toilet area. The clock doesn’t work. A light switch is broken. I cannot find any channel on the TV at all.  There is no “Hello Welcome to Tel Aviv” smiley smiley guest folder. Online I am told there is a mini bar.  There is an old fridge by the bed, but it is empty.  It is not switched on.  There is a jug, but no cups to use or coffee or milk. So, you use the jug as a water bottle?  There is no toilet paper holder.  I booked this hotel because it advertised a free shuttle to/from the airport.  There is no shuttle and I’m down $150 shekels for the cab to this Wonderland.

In a sentence:  DO NOT STAY AT LEGUARDIA, TEL AVIV. They asked me for an online review.  There it is.

Carmel Market

Newsroom reports on a number of problems with the 2018 census.

The bottom line is:

Yesterday’s media statement said Stats NZ was delaying its first release of data from October to March of next year because of lower-than-expected response. The department’s “interim calculations” showed at least 90 percent of people had “full or partial” information in the census, down from 94.5 percent five years ago.

That means about one in 10 people didn’t take part, which has been described by University of Auckland professor of statistics Thomas Lumley as a “very serious” drop, The Spinoff reported.

A 10% non completion rate is unacceptable. It would not be unfair to say this is a failure by Stats NZ which has real consequences.

The statement said data for “small populations, subgroups and small geographies” will be “improved” and the quality of census data would be supplemented with administrative data.

Not good enough. This is why we have a census.

The Minister of Statistics should call for an independent review of this failure, to ensure the next census has a much higher participation rate.

Also we should not be given spin for months about how great the census went and then find out only now, how bad the participation rate was.

The last Australian census had a 96% response rate. They regarded 93.3% as the minimum required.

The Canadian census had a 98.4% response rate.

A better way to look at it is the non response rate. In Canada is was 1.6% and in NZ it was 10% – six times higher.

Stuff reports:

“Hillary Clinton is up to something.”

So says Michael Goodwin in the NYPost, who believes that all the political signs point to a potential 2020 run by the failed, two-time candidate.

Goodwin’s case is pretty direct: There’s no clear front-runner, she’s got a seasoned campaign team, she’s raising tons of money and giving it to progressive groups (the same BernieBro’s who opposed her in 2016’s primary), and the large field would let her take advantage of the “Trump” dynamic in the primary:

“A crowded, diverse field diminishes the chances of anyone knocking her off. Recall how Trump outlasted 16 GOP rivals by having a committed core of supporters that grew as the field shrunk. Clinton could be in a similar position — unpopular among many, but also unbeatable by a single opponent,” Goodwin writes.

I doubt anything could make Trump happier than Clinton being the Democratic nominee again.

There is indeed no front runner though. The top six candidates on prediction markets are:

1. Senator Kamala Harris, 19%
2. Senator Bernie Sanders, 16%
3. Former VP Joe Biden, 14%
4. Senator Cory Booker, 10%
5.  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, 10%
6. Senator Elizabeth Warren, 10%

Personally I think the Dems would be best to nominate a Governor with an actual record of achievement. It should be someone who has done more than make angry speeches against Trump.

The Herald reports:

A judge has dismissed indecent assault charges against a man, accepting he was sleepwalking at the time after getting drunk.

The Herald on Sunday can finally reveal the story of Tristan Corey Scott after fighting to have his name suppression lifted.

It is the fifth known case where sleepwalking or parasomnia has been used as a defence in a New Zealand court and it is cropping up more around the world.

I’m incredibly sceptical. It seems like a get out of jail card to me.

But the mother of the two teenage girls who were indecently assaulted in the latest case told the Herald on Sunday the verdict was “atrocious”.

The teenage girls, who were sleeping in separate bedrooms, gave evidence that they awoke to find Scott in their rooms, touching their legs, according to court documents.

Even if he was sleep walking, sleep groping is another matter.

The court heard that Scott, who lives in Wellington and works in IT, had been drinking heavily.

Scott, 35, has a previous indecent assault conviction from 2011 after pleading guilty to molesting a woman who was also asleep in her bed. He had been drinking alcohol prior to the incident.

This and a third alleged instance that did not result in charges, in which Scott entered a darkened house uninvited, were cited by police as showing a propensity to enter rooms where women were sleeping.

The fact he had a previous conviction for indecent assault, says a lot.

But Scott’s lawyer argued that the earlier incidents could be other examples of parasomnia.

Or it could be examples of when he gets drunk he tries to feel people up.

District Court judge Jim Large found that the girls were indecently assaulted by Scott, but dismissed the charges saying he was not conscious of what he was doing because he was in a state of automatism by way of parasomnia, caused by excessive drinking.

So now everyone who gets trollied will say it was parasomnia.

But the teenagers’ mother does not believe that Scott suffered an episode of parasomnia, which meant he was incapable of knowing what he was doing.

“For me, he just got drunk to the point he did things he shouldn’t have.”

Her daughters were disappointed, she said.

As they should be.

Police told the girls’ mother that the prosecutor took issue with aspects of the decision relating to parasomnia and wanted to appeal to the High Court but following a review by the Deputy Solicitor General this did not proceed.

Why?

Stuff reports:

A new commission to review alleged miscarriages of justice will go to Cabinet within weeks, after a series of delays and questions over funding.

The Labour-led Government promised a Criminal Cases Review Commission in its coalition agreement with NZ First last year. The Greens also back the proposal.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called for such a body “to fix the flaws in our justice system” in 2016, following a $2.5 million compensation payment to Teina Pora for more than 20 years of wrongful imprisonment.

Atleast Pora eventually got out and was compensated under the current system. I’d say the Peter Ellis case is a better example of why we need a Criminal Cases Review Commission.

But documents released under the Official Information Act show setting up the Commission has been beset with delays. Justice Minister Andrew Little has now pushed back the establishment to July 2019.

“The bill is well underway. Whether it will be this month or next month for Cabinet consideration I’m not quite sure. It has to be in the House this year. I expect it will be fairly soon,” Little told Stuff.

“We did a re-appraisal, and a more realistic timeframe for the Commission to open is July next year. That’s what we are working to.”

That sounds reasonable.

The Herald reports:

A group of New Zealanders behind a free speech campaign are proposing to take Auckland Council to court after successfully raising $50,000.

The Free Speech Coalition started its fundraising efforts following the Council’s decision to ban two Canadian far-right speakers from presenting at Council-owned venues – resulting in them cancelling their tour of New Zealand.

Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux were due to speak next month at the council-owned Bruce Mason centre on Auckland’s North Shore but Auckland Mayor Phil Goff made the decision to deny them access to city venues. …

Chris Trotter, who is supporting the Coalition, thanked every New Zealander who supported the cause.

“We had hoped to raise this money by 5pm Friday. However, within the first day of this campaign we have been completely swamped by people pledging money to the cause – from $5 to $5,000.”

Melissa Derby, another supporter, said they looked forward to setting a strong legal precedent.

“That shows the use of publicly-owned venue cannot be dictated by the political whims of those in power,” she said.

“For us this is not about helping these particular speakers, but in defending the rights of all New Zealanders to express and hear controversial views.”

The largest single donation was $5000, the next largest was $2500. In total, there were more than 700 donations in the last 24 hours.

That is a stunning result. And thank you to all the Kiwiblog readers who donated. I’m not part of the Coalition, but I am a supporter of their fight to defend our rights.

TOP announced:

The Board of The Opportunities Party (TOP) has decided to request that the Electoral Commission cancel TOP’s registration as a political party.

No surprise.

“The voting public demonstrated that best practice, evidence-informed policy is not of significant concern when deciding elections. When 20% of the vote moves in 48 hours simply on the back of a change of leader, with no improvement at all in policy being offered, what makes the New Zealand voter tick is clear.”

Telling the public they are dumb is not a good strategy.

Politics has always been about more than policy. Leadership is important. Without good leadership, policy is just words on paper.

The Herald reports:

Up to 8000 people will have procedures rescheduled ahead of Thursday’s nurses strike and hospitals are ramping up preparations to make sure they can treat those who are in urgent need.

Thousands of nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants voted to walk off the job on Thursday for the first time in 30 years after rejecting the latest pay offer from the district health boards (DHBs).

Capital and Coast chief medical officer John Tait, speaking on behalf of health boards around the country, said between 6000 and 8000 elective procedures would be deferred.

I guess this is what happens when pre-election rhetoric meets reality.

I never thought I would say this, but can we keep Winston on as Acting PM?

If we have to have a Labour-NZ First-Green Government, it is more tolerable with Winston calling the shots.

First issue on which he did well was on Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern where he said:

“Had we been asked… we’d have allowed them to come on the basis of free speech,” Mr Peters said in a post-Cabinet press conference on Monday.

“It’s one of the most fundamental freedoms that we have and we should be very careful who we expel on that cause, because the downstream historic record on that has been just disastrous.

Imagine how different the response would have been from Ardern. No way would she have said that. It would have been sopping wet stuff about needing to make people feel safe from people who say upsetting things etc.

Now as Peters is Acting PM, it is pretty unlikely Immigration NZ is going to refuse them visas. So good one Winston.

Then to top that, we have his response to the DHBs demanding a sugar tax:

Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters says he does not agree New Zealand should have a sugar tax, as suggested by the chair of two New Zealand DHBs, saying “people are capable of looking after their own lives”. …

Speaking this morning to TVNZ 1’s Breakfast today, Mr Peters said he does not support the introduction of a sugar tax, because “people are capable of looking after their own lives”.

“It’s a matter of education, it’s not just sugar – it’s a whole range of other things,” Mr Peters said.

“If we want to turn back the potential tsunami of obesity that’s coming, let’s be frank and open and look at a whole lot of products that are not good for people and try to turn people around by education.

The Herald reports:

The forced closure of an South Dunedin bar is an attack on its patrons, the publican says.

Following a hearing last month the Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority (Arla) has cancelled the Heffs Hotel’s on-licence and publican Stephen Clark’s managers licence.

Police alleged patrons were intoxicated and were argumentative and abusive when they visited the bar in March after an anonymous tip-off.

Last year the bar was forced to close for a week and Clark and duty manager at the time Jessie Matheson were banned from selling alcohol for six and eight weeks respectively.

There was a solemn mood in the bar when the Otago Daily Times visited yesterday, with many patrons saying they were devastated by the decision.

If a liquor outlet constantly violates the laws around alcohol sale, then it should and will lose its license. If you read the decision you’ll find:

• two previous suspensions
• a gang brawl on the premises
• has opened outside licensed hours
• the owner/duty manager intoxicated while in charge of the bar
• duty manager has no certificate
• on one occasion the duty manager was the cleaner!
• no food on the menu could actually be supplied, just five heat and eat meals
• the entire bar being full of intoxicated people after hours

At the second suspension, they were warned another strike would probably see the license cancelled.

The Free Speech Coalition has announced:

A crowd funding campaign has been launched to raise money to bring judicial review proceedings against Phil Goff and Auckland Council for their banning of speakers Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern at Council-owned venues.

A ‘Free Speech Coalition’ will collect funds for the legal action, and return them if the fundraising target is not met. The Coalition has been advised that the cost of engaging lawyers and proceeding with urgent legal action will be approximately $50,000.

New Zealanders who value free speech can pledge money to this cause at www.freespeechcoalition.nz.

With a few emails over the weekend, a dozen donors have already pledged nearly $5,000. This positive response has given the Coalition the confidence to open the campaign to the general public.

A supporter of the Coalition, Melissa Derby, says, “Standing up for free speech means standing up for speech you and I may personally find repugnant. We do not endorse these particular speakers’ views, but the general principle that people should be able to share, and be exposed to, controversial ideas.”

“Banning a pair of populists that together have over a million Youtube subscribers sets an extraordinary low bar for state censorship.””

“Council facilities, paid for by the general public, should operate as common carriers for people of all political views. They should not discriminate based on the personal views of politicians, nor should their use be subject to the whims of those who would threaten violent protest.”

Chris Trotter, who is also supporting the effort, says, “We accept the case for blocking genuine hate speech, such as incitements of violence or other illegal activity. But curbing free debate under threat of disruption is neither desirable nor acceptable in a free and democratic society. Truth is not afraid of trigger-words. Truth does not need a safe space. Truth is not a snowflake. Truth can take the heat and most certainly should not be forced to vacate the kitchen in the face of a couple of Alt-Right populists and a politically-correct Mayor.”

Donations can be made at www.freespeechcoalition.nz, or to the following bank account:
Free Speech Coalition
01-0527-0680196-00

No Right Turn also blogs:

Auckland Council apparently acted on this and cancelled their booking, ostensibly for health and safety reasons. Which is about as credible as Donald Trump saying his anti-Muslim ban wasn’t about religion. When the mayor of a city says they’ve given a direction, and what they want happens, I think we’re entitled to take their word for it.

The problem, of course, is that this is all illegal. Auckland Council is a body performing a public function and so subject to the Bill of Rights Act. Which affirms, among other things, both the right to freedom of expression, and the right to freedom from discrimination on the basis of political opinion. The Auckland Council’s actions are a prima facie violation of those rights and invite judicial review. And given Goff’s tweet, the outcome of such a review is likely to be ratepayer’s money spent on compensating Nazis for the breach of those rights, as well as an order that the council provide them with a venue (if they want one) on the same terms as any other customer.

Goff won’t care. Like police officers who beat suspects, he will face no personal consequences for violating these rights, and there’s no political downside for him because he’s picking on someone everyone hates. But we should care. Because if we let the mayor of Auckland decide what speech is acceptable in public facilities, then a future mayor may decide that they don’t like speech that we approve of.

Well argued.