The Court of Appeal has expanded qualified privilege from Lange vs Atkinson and laid down a new defence against defamation. They state:

Eighteen years later however, we consider it is again time to strike a new balance by recognising the existence of a new defence of public interest communication that is not confined to parliamentarians or political issues, but extends to all matters of significant public concern and which is subject to a responsibility requirement.

That’s great for media, and publishers like Kiwiblog.

The other alternative would be to deny the defence altogether to anyone other than the mainstream media but we do not consider that drawing such a distinction would be justified either as a matter of logic, policy or principle. Non-media commentators have an important role to play.

The Court of Appeal explicitly states the defence should be available to publishers outside the mainstream media. Again good for Kiwiblog.

Building on the English and Canadian case law, we consider the elements of
the new defence should be:
(a) the subject matter of the publication was of public interest; and
(b) the communication was responsible

So what is responsible:

Relevant circumstances to be taken into account may include:
(a) The seriousness of the allegation — the more serious the allegation, the
greater the degree of diligence to verify it.
(b) The degree of public importance.
(c) The urgency of the matter — did the public’s need to know require the defendant to publish when it did, taking into account that news is often a perishable commodity.
(d) The reliability of any source.
(e) Whether comment was sought from the plaintiff and accurately
reported

(f) The tone of the publication.
(g) The inclusion of defamatory statements which were not necessary to communicate on the matter of public interest.

A very useful decision.

The Australian reports:

Staff allege Ms Husar performed the revealing leg-crossing move made famous by Sharon Stone in the film Basic Instinct in front of a Labor frontbencher, BuzzFeed News has reported this morning. …

Staff allegedly told Mr Whelan that Ms Husar would often talk about sex and engage in inappropriate sexualised behaviour in the office.

“Several employees reported that you would discuss in the office who you found attractive and who you wanted to have sex with or who you have had sex with including references to Members of Parliament and Members of Staff,” Whelan reportedly wrote in his letter to Husar.

The letter details an allegation from a staff member that on 19 June 2017 at approximately 7.05pm while in Labor frontbencher Jason Clare’s office, Ms Husar performed the revealing leg-crossing move made famous by Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct.

“It is alleged that you and [a staff member] attended Mr Jason Clare’s office at Parliament. Mr Clare was sitting on the floor playing with his son. [The staff member] alleged that he was sitting opposite you and that on three occasions you spread your legs, revealing that you were not wearing any underwear. [The staff member] felt that your conduct was deliberate, proactive and targeted towards Mr Clare.”

This morning, Mr Clare said the allegation that Ms Husar had performed the Sharon Stone move in his office was “categorically untrue”.

Maybe he didn’t notice, which is why she did it three times!

Others allegedly said Husar purchased multiple topless firefighter calendars and placed them on employees’ desks.

Can’t say I’d find that offensive but imagine if a male MP handed out female model calendars to staff – he’d be lynched.

Some extracts from the 2nd reading speeches:

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Freedom of speech, tolerance of dissent, and respect for democracy are core Kiwi values that are worth fighting for. National opposed this bill at first reading, at select committee, and we will do so at every stage of the Parliamentary process. The right of voters—and voters alone—to dismiss MPs was established 330 years ago with the Bill of Rights. The powers in this bill, for a party leader to dismiss an MP, have no place in a liberal democracy like New Zealand.

That is the fundamental change. No longer is it up to the voters. A party leader with caucus support can expel an elected MP (including electorate MPs) from Parliament under this law.

Late last year, Mr Shaw stated that the advantage of the supply and confidence agreement was this, and I quote him, “Green MPs will not vote for anything they do not agree with.” That is exactly what is happening here. This betrayal of core values could not be more serious. A founding Green co-leader said of the same bill, in 2001, that it was the most Draconian, obnoxious, anti-democratic—

Hon James Shaw: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Dr Smith has now brought the memory of Rod Donald into this debate and into question time a number of times. I think this is the fourth time that I’m aware of—

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would you get to the point? Is there a point of order here?

Hon James Shaw: Yes, there is. I’m offended and I would like him to withdraw and apologise. It is called waving a dead man’s hand—

James Shaw doesn’t like his hypocrisy being highlighted. Shaw said Green MPs will not vote for anything they don’t agree with, yet this is now exactly what they are doing. Did he lie, or was he just naive?

And Nick Smith did not even mention Rod Donald by name. He is quoting what Donald said on an earlier bill. It may offend the Greens to be reminded of their hypocrisy, but tough.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH: A quote for Mr Shaw’s benefit from the parliamentary Hansard “the most Draconian, obnoxious, anti-democratic, insulting piece of legislation ever inflicted in this Parliament”, yet it is now to become the law with the votes of people like Mr Shaw. We also heard evidence from officials at select committee that this bill breaches the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Only six months ago, I heard the member in this House quoting the importance of those treaties and human rights, yet today is the vote on a bill that tramples on those very rights.

The Green position now on human rights is they’re in favour of them, unless WInston tells them not to be. Pathetic poodles.

The lack of integrity from New Zealand First on this bill is no better. When a National MP left for New Zealand First Mr Peters totally backed him, saying it was his right and he was not elected to swear an oath of blind allegiance to any political party. Mr Peters’ principles are as shallow as a bird bath. If an MP leaves a party for New Zealand First, that is their constitutional right. But if an MP leaves New Zealand First for another, he calls it a constitutional outrage.

The only reason we have this bill is Peters is incapable of managing a caucus. Of his 55 or so former MPs, he has fallen out with 28 of them (at least). The problem isn’t them, it’s him.

GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: And we do have concerns about party caucuses being able to remove MPs from Parliament. So, yes, this was a difficult decision, but it has come about because we’ve decided that this new Government must succeed and we must support it in good faith to succeed.

This suggests that Winston convinced the Greens he would collapse the Government if they didn’t vote for the bill. They blinked and now he can do this over and over again.

CHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): This bill is a constitutional affront. It’s not just me who says that. It’s not just my good colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith who says that. Academics from around New Zealand say that, human rights experts from around New Zealand say that, and the Green Party leaders from yesteryear say that. The only party in Parliament that has consistently voted against constitutional affronts like this bill is the National Party of New Zealand. …

What else did we hear from Miss Ghahraman? Well, we heard a lot about child poverty, and, I think, neoliberalism—the bȇte noire of the left was mentioned about 45 times. We heard a lot about oil and gas. We heard a lot about housing and poverty. I’ll tell you what we didn’t hear much of. Not much about the bill. Not much about the Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill. Golriz Ghahraman is a human rights expert. She is fond of telling us she’s worked around the world on human rights matters and she’s got a constitutional law degree and all sorts of things. Heaven knows we’ve heard a lot about that in the last nine months. She could not mount a single proper argument in favour of this legislation other than to say, “We’ve done a deal and we’ve sold our soul! We are unprincipled and we going to vote for this legislation!”

With all her work defending genocidal leaders, surely she could at least have managed to defend this bill!

Stuff reports:

The Commonwealth joined other election observers in urging Zimbabwe to release results of the presidential vote as soon as possible to reduce the tensions, saying delays will increase speculation that results were manipulated. The electoral commission said the results would come “very soon.”

Of course the results are manipulated. It doesn’t take five days to count votes. It takes a few hours. Any election result that isn’t released in real time, is probably being forged.

The Electoral Commission are probably trying to decide what margin of victory for the President is believable. This is quite a tough job for them.

If they choose a margin too high, then it is even more obvious the results are fake. No one will but an 80 – 20 result.

But if they choose a margin too close, such as 51-49, then the results may inspire the Opposition and the Government may not be seen to have a strong enough mandate.

So the ideal result to forge is probably around the 55% to 45% mark. Looks realistic, but not too close.

Mike Hosking writes:

He has done an exemplary job. In fact I would, just for a moment, argue that he’s done a better job than Jacinda Ardern.

Not that, to be fair, it’s comparing apples with apples. She’s fronted nine months of government, he’s fronted six weeks. He’s introduced no real policy, he’s always had the luxury of being the fill-in. But he’s clearly taken it seriously, he has defended his government’s position well, and he has toned down his madness.

He killed off the sugar tax madness and put a stake through the heart of future tobacco tax increases so for that alone we should thank him.

It would seem odd to think that it’s taken to the age of 70 something, and a second proper crack at government, to finally learn the lesson that if you tone yourself down, use the experience you have, use the undoubted brain power you have, and you actually come across as seasoned, insightful, reassuring, and impressive.

And occasionally highly entertaining.

Even more so when I looked at Jacinda Ardern’s Facebook post and she was talking to me like I was a baby.

Peters has done an excellent job, better than many would have thought.

Hey, its possible Peters may get another go at the top job before the next election!

Stuff reported:

The minister leading labour law reform has accused leading employer groups of running a deliberately misleading scare campaign, contributing to a plunge in business confidence.

BusinessNZ’s regional member groups have been running media campaigns claiming the Employment Relations Bill would slow business growth and make it difficult for employers to engage and develop staff.

Which of course it will. There are around 30 different key provisions and each and every one makes it harder for employers and better for unions.

Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said the employer campaign was “disproportionate” and was creating unnecessary concern.

Yet another Minister complaining that organisations are lobbying against Government policy they disagree with. They really don’t like dissent.

Our house is for sale.

We’re moving to a Wellington region rural property so Benjamin will have some chickens, alpacas and sheep to keep him company as he runs about!

Absolutely love our current house. It’s only 20 minute walk to the CBD and is an even shorter walk to Zealandia, the Botanic Gardens, Otari-Wilton’s Bush and Te Ahumairangi Hill.

The house was built in 1904 for Dr Duncan MacGregor and had a full renovation in 1998.

If you are looking for a four bedroom house (plus a study) in Wellington, close to town with great views, feel free to contact Tommys.

A balanced report on Lauren Southern by Luke Kinsella in Australia:

The event started at 8pm. Stefan spoke first, then Lauren, followed by a Q&A.

Neither speaker shied away from the touchy subjects we all avoid at dinner parties. The whole thing felt like a two-hour ode to Western civilisation.

Lauren and Stefan are on the front line of what’s called the “culture war” — a series of disagreements over the West’s acceptance of political correctness, immigration, feminism, gender theory and multiculturalism.

Lauren believes the left has won this culture war. So she’s fighting back with an army behind her — a growing online movement of people who, like her, are sceptical of the entrenched conventional wisdom surrounding these cultural issues.

“The first rule of multiculturalism is that you can’t talk about multiculturalism,” she said.

Everyone likes to think they’re speaking truth to power nowadays. Lauren and her audience believe their voices have been marginalised by a left-wing political and media establishment that prioritises what “isn’t offensive” over what’s “true”.

To automatically dismiss this online movement as an epidemic-level revival of racism seems careless and overly simplistic. Lauren and Stefan are echoing the concerns of potentially millions of Australians. Censoring them from democratic debate could be devastating.

Feminism, Islam and multiculturalism aren’t beyond criticism. Most polls suggest that the majority of women don’t even identify as feminists. Are we not allowed to question why? Or is that yet another topic that’s off limits?

There’s a fundamentalist brand of social justice out there that takes values like equality, diversity and acceptance to their perverted extreme. Lauren’s $67,000 security bill is evidence of it.

I think this hits the nail on the head. It is because of the attempted closing down of debate on these issues, that people like Southern have become so popular.

But I’d like to warn Lauren against adopting the tactics of her adversaries.

It takes years of study to fully understand Islam, political philosophy, feminism and immigration. Yet somehow, a 23-year old college dropout seems to have figured them all out?

Lauren is entitled to her opinions, but to pretend she’s some kind of intellectual authority is ridiculous. She might not claim to be an expert, but she is certainly treated like one. I hope her audience doesn’t blindly accept everything she says.

Her critiques of multiculturalism were interesting and not completely outrageous. But for Lauren to be treated like an expert by more than her own fans, she first must understand the arts of expertise: nuance, balance and compromise.

A useful critique. Just because Southern is willing to speak up on these issues, doesn’t mean she is right on them.

Lauren spares no time for discussing the ugly side of Western civilisation, or the beautiful side of multiculturalism. Everything is either completely bad, or completely good.

I’m a fan of both. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. But I do think you need cultures that can integrate into “Western civilisation”, rather than be hostile to them.

The followers of this online right-wing movement have an astounding level of certainty in their ideology. Certainty is comforting for people who desperately want to understand the world.

Like her radical left-wing enemies, Lauren understands half the story of whatever she talks about (Islam, feminism, multiculturalism), and thinks it’s the whole story.

Nevertheless, Lauren represents a large number of Australians who feel they have no voice. There was a genuine feeling of persecution emanating from her audience.

Considering so far in 2018 there have been 1,184 Islamic terror attacks in 46 countries killing 7,158 people it is absolutely rational and reasonable that large numbers of people want to debate Islam. Telling them that you can’t do so, makes the problem worse.

Lauren, Stefan and their crew of right-wing internet commentators may not realise it, but they hold considerable power over a generation of young conservative contrarians.

They criticise the left for being intolerant towards differing opinions and yet, I saw that same intolerance in their own audience; the same dogmatism, anger and stubbornness displayed by Lauren’s supposed arch-enemies: the social justice warriors.

You can become that which you fight against.

She did manage to convince me about one thing: the Australian media is wrong to describe Lauren as “alt-right” — a mistake I myself have made.

Lauren has some very controversial opinions and she has engaged in some very provocative antics. But she simply doesn’t meet the criteria of alt-right. Associating Lauren with the alt-right makes a good headline, but it’s just not true.

The alt-right is a white nationalist movement with links to Neo-Nazism. The term “alt-right” was coined by a man named Richard Spencer, who is considered the movement’s leader.

Spencer supports the creation of a country exclusively for white people. He’s opposed to interracial relationships. And he supports abortion rights, partly because of their capacity to reduce the African population.

To lump Lauren in with Spencer is lazy and uncharitable. Whereas Spencer believes different races can’t coexist, Lauren believes different cultures can’t coexist. Spencer takes pride in the white race; Lauren takes pride in Western culture.

And culture is very different to race. You can’t choose your race. Race has an influence on culture but they are again very different things.

If you care about defeating the alt-right, don’t use the label as a cudgel to describe every right-winger on the internet. We should reserve the label for whom it actually applies.

Do we want to become the boy who cried alt-right?

I think the battle is almost lost. The bar for being called a Nazi now is so low, that it is meaningless.

Patrick Gower writes:

The plan to change the name of Victoria University to Wellington University is one of the most breathtakingly stupid ideas I have ever seen.

Tell us what you think Paddy.

It is gutting because ‘Vic’ is a cool nickname – it is an institution in so many ways.

It is appalling because the idea to replace it is so lame – plain old ‘University of Wellington’.

And the student association would become UWSA which is even lamer.

And it is a disgusting waste of money from taxpayers and student fees that will go on the re-branding – millions and millions of dollars will be spent changing signs and letterheads.

It will cost many millions more for decent rebranding campaign, locally and internationally.

The cost is already in the hundreds of thousands.

The Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor and University Council need to realise it is not their university, and it is not their money to throw away.

The name belongs to everyone – the students and teachers both past and present and to the good people of Wellington.

At a minimum VUW should survey all staff, students and graduates.

Barry Soper writes:

The endorsements from Kingi came on the Linked-in career website who gave him her tick of approval on all the skills he’s listed as having. She’s the only one to endorse him for firearms, security and workshop facilitation, so if the endorsements mean anything, she knows him better than the others.

So can she be an impartial adjudicator of whether the process to appoint him was above board? It’s even questionable whether the Minister who gave her the job, Tracy Martin, who was on the board of New Zealand First when Haumaha had a crack at getting into Parliament for the party, should have been in charge of that process.

The requirements for an inquiry head should have been pretty simple. You need a lawyer who:

1. Doesn’t know Wally Haumaha
2. Doesn’t or hasn’t worked for the Police

Tracey Martin managed to appoint someone who failed the only two criteria – independence. Was this deliberate or just incompetence?

TVNZ reports that she acted on behalf of TPK to monitor Police development of the Maori Potential Framework. This must have meant she worked closely with Haumaha. She was on two Police recruitment panels. She’s also worked with Mike Bush, and a key focus of the inquiry will be what he knew, and whether he shared it.

It should have been blindingly obvious that Kingi wasn’t suitable for this inquiry (she’d be suitable for many others).

This whole thing has been a mess from the start. Commissioner Mike Bush was on the panel selecting Haumaha for the job and it’s been claimed he apparently knew of his views on the Nicholas case and was warned about the damage that could be done if the promotion went ahead.

The Minister who recommended the appointment Stuart Nash has adopted the Sergeant Schultz approach about everything from the start, insisting he knows nothing but admitting if things had been different the outcome may not have been the same.

Kingi’s inquiry’s scheduled to begin next week and run for six weeks – let’s hope the outcome isn’t as confusing and muddy as the establishment’s been.

Well they now need a new inquiry head. I suggest a QC from the South Island to be safe.

A smoking gun from Bryce Edwards. He has been leaked an internal Green Party document that explicitly says they have been advised by the Cabinet Office that their confidence and supply agreement does not bind them to support the waka jumping bill.

Yet Stuff reported:

“We are doing this because the confidence and supply agreement holds us to it,” Davidson said.

That is a deliberate lie from the Green Party co-leader. She would have known that the Cabinet Office had advised they are not required to support the bill. But she lied and said they were required to, to try and placate their members.

And in case you think Stuff misreported, here is the official Green press release:

“We are doing this because the confidence and supply agreement holds us to it.” Marama Davidson said.

So the Green Party put out a press release they knew to be false, justifying their support for a bill that their members hate.

Bryce Edwards points out:

Then last week the party finally revealed that they would indeed vote for the legislation, even though they still opposed it. They justified this capitulation with the notion that their hands were tied by the coalition agreement that they signed up to with the Labour Party – especially the part in which they promised to deal in “good faith” with Labour to fulfil coalition agreements with New Zealand First.

It turns out that the Greens have always known that there is nothing in the coalition agreement they signed with Labour that obliges them to vote for the waka-jumping bill. A leaked Green Party caucus document from January, titled “Advice to caucus – Electoral (Integrity) Amendment Bill”, reports on official advice informing the Greens that there is nothing in their coalition agreement that binds them to provide support. …

The fact that the Greens have tried to tell the public the opposite therefore raises some big questions about why they’ve mislead the public on this, and what the real reasons are for their U-turn on the bill.

There are two main possible explanations: weakness or opportunism. In the “weakness” explanation, the Greens have acted like doormats – the leader of New Zealand First has simply demanded that the Greens vote for the bill, or there will be some sort of very negative consequence (perhaps even threatening to walk away from the coalition Government). In this scenario, the Greens have meekly rolled over and given away their principles easily.

Under the “opportunist” explanation, the Greens have demanded some sort of price for voting against their principles. Perhaps it was the oil and gas exploration ban. Perhaps there is an upcoming policy announcement about mining on conservation land, or a deal on the Kermadecs sanctuary. What other horse-trading deals are being done between the three parties in government?

The problem is we will likely never know. We now have an opaque Government in which the official coalition agreements aren’t the full story, and instead we’re being governed by backroom deals that the public isn’t allowed to know about. It seems therefore that the waka-jumping deal epitomises the continued decay of principled and transparent politics, and how even so-called principled politicians such as the Greens are willing to buy into it all.

I suspect the opportunist explanation – that the Greens and Winston have done a private deal.

Students at Victoria University currently wait on average for four weeks to see a counsellor, meanwhile the Vice Chancellor wants to spend $960,000 on taking a word out of the University’s name (which doesn’t appear to include physically changing signage)

— Reed Fleming (@reedfleming) July 30, 2018

Reed Fleming is one of many upset at the Council voting to change the name of Victoria University of Wellington.

There is a petition against the name change which has over 1,500 signatures to date. The Minister should only approve the name change is there is demonstrable support and in fact most submissions were against the name change. I note lots of well known lecturers have signed.

I’ve had a look at some of the research for the name change and it is fairly underwhelming.

If I wanted to do some high quality research on whether a name change would increase international student numbers I’d do an A/B test where you market the university as “Victoria University of Wellington” in half the countries you target and as “University of Wellington” in the other half. Then you can compare the change in enrolment numbers to the previous year to measure if a changed name has any impact.

That made me think though that if you can use a different name for marketing in half the countries, you could do it for all of them – without changing the name domestically. It’s what you call a trading name. Keep the name domestically as VUW but when you market the university globally you can call it University of Wellington, and just have VUW in the small print. That is the best of both worlds.

The consultation has been pretty substandard also. Changing the name of a university is a huge issue. It impacts every student, staff and graduate. Just allowing people to do a submission isn’t enough.

If I was Chris Hipkins I would refuse a name change (if one is made, the decision by Council is draft) unless VUW does the following:

1. A survey of all current students on their preferred name
2. A survey of all current staff on their preferred name
3. A survey of all graduates they have an e-mail address of, on their preferred name

This can be done for just a few thousand dollars online. The survey results should not be the only factor in the decision, but they should be influential.  If 80% of staff, students and graduates were opposed, it would be folly to continue. But if say only 10% were opposed, then it might be all steam ahead.

Stuff reports:

Business confidence continues to slide, with ANZ saying the corporate sector is “in a funk”.

The ANZ business outlook for July showed a net 45 per cent of businesses were pessimistic about the general outlook for the economy, the most downbeat reading in the monthly survey since May 2008, when New Zealand was in recession and the global financial crisis was building.

The number of businesses expecting an improvement in their own activity was more positive in the survey, but has dropped to a net 4 per cent which are positive, the lowest since May 2009.

To have lower business confidence than when the economy was in recession is some achievement.

source: tradingeconomics.com

This shows the last 11 years. In four years we’ve gone from +70 to -40.

From Hansard:

Chris Bishop: When Dr Pauline Kingi was appointed to lead the independent inquiry into the appointment process around Mr Wally Haumaha, was she aware that Dr Kingi had publicly endorsed Mr Haumaha 23 times on LinkedIn, for every skill Mr Haumaha has listed on that website, and in some cases being the only person to endorse him, and that Mr Haumaha has endorsed Dr Kingi on at least three occasions for her skills listed on the LinkedIn website? …

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: This is important. Would you like to listen? The integrity of a highly respected public servant is being questioned; it’s important that her answers be placed on the record. She did confirm that she had, like many New Zealanders, set up a LinkedIn account when it was first launched, and that at time it was— …

Hon TRACEY MARTIN: It was common practice at that time—16 years ago—for Māori professionals to support each other on this new medium, through endorsement.

So the Minister’s defence of Kingi as the inquiry head is that she endorsed Haumaha 16 years ago when LinkedIn was set up as it was common practice for Maori professionals to support each other like this.

A pretty weak and patronising defence to start with, but then comes this:

Chris Bishop: Further to that answer, is the member aware that the endorsement function on LinkedIn was only invented and established in 2012, so references to LinkedIn profiles 15 years ago are an utter irrelevance?

Boom. Game over. It means either Kingi lied to Martin about the endorsements or Martin lied to the House about them.

If Kingi continues as the inquiry head, it will be seen as a total whitewash. She has personally endorsed the person whose appointment she is investigating. You can’t get a clearer conflict of interest.

It’s time for the PM to intervene. After all she is the one who actually appointed Haumaha.

Joel Maxwell writes:

Putting aside age and actual achievement, the key difference is that I chucked it all in to learn te reo Māori fulltime. Right there is the only thing I think I’ve ever had over a high achiever.

So here is my challenge to Bridges: chuck it in too, if only for a year. Don’t wait – do it now, and you can go back to politics with a good, strong foundation in your language.

I know, it sounds like a joke. But it is a serious question for all Māori. Is anything more important than the fight to save te reo?

This shows what a privileged world Maxwell lives in, if he thinks there is nothing more important for Maori than saving te reo.

I’m a fan of te reo. I prefer the te reo version of the National Anthem. I think it is good for New Zealanders to know some te reo and I’m happy for taxpayer funding of the Maori Language Commission and Maori TV.

But to say that there is nothing more important for Maori than te reo is basically bonkers. Here’s nine things I’d say are inarguably more important:

1. Lifting Maori educational achievement to the same level as non-Maori
2. Reducing the crime and imprisonment rate of Maori to the same level as non-Maori
3. Improving the health outcomes of Maori to the same level as non-Maori
4. Reducing the Maori unemployment rate to the same level as non-Maori
5. Reducing the domestic violence and child abuse rates among Maori
6. Concluding the historic Treaty settlements
7. Lifting incomes for Maori to the same rates as non-Maori
8. Reducing welfare dependency among Maori families
9. Reducing the material deprivation rate for Maori families

I blogged a week ago that I thought the appointment of Pauline Kingi as the inquiry head into the appointment of Wally Haumaha as Deputy Police Commissioner was unwise. I said:

Dr Kingi is well respected. But she has a current role advising Police on recruitment, which makes her a less than ideal choice to head an inquiry into the recruitment of the Deputy Commissioner. …

So Kingi is actively involved in selection of senior police officers, and she is handpicked by NZ First Ministers to review the selection of a former NZ First candidate as Deputy Police Commissioner.

But it turns out that the choice is even more flawed than I suspected. Newstalk ZB reports:

The head of the independent inquiry into Wally Haumaha’s appointment as deputy police commissioner appears to have publicly endorsed his skills and abilities online.

The Herald can reveal that Kingi, who is involved in selecting senior police officers, appears to have endorsed Haumaha on the professional networking website LinkedIn.

The site allows other users to endorse the skills and areas of experience of other members.

Haumaha has 15 skills and areas of experience, such as leadership and stakeholder engagement, that have been endorsed by others.

An account in the name of Dr Kingi, a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, is the only one to endorse all 15.

That account is the only one to endorse Haumaha in some skills, such as ‘security’ and ‘firearms’.

This makes the independent inquiry a farce. Dr Kingi should never have been appointed or accepted appointment. If you know someone well enough to publicly endorse them on Linked In, you know them too well to head up an inquiry into their appointment.

Haumaha is a former NZ First Candidate. The Acting PM chose a NZ First Minister to be responsible for the inquiry and the NZ First Minister chose someone who is fatally compromised due to their closeness to Haumaha.

It stinks of a cover up.

NewstalkZB reports:

Winston Peters is drawing parallels between Russian interference in the US election, and John Howard saying National was robbed at last year’s election.

The former Australian Prime Minister told the National Party conference over the weekend the result of last year’s election was “unjust and unfair”.

Peters is questioning how people can be okay with a comment like that, but not about alleged Russian meddling in the US election.

“Everyone’s dancing up and down about that, but someone who is a four-time Prime Minister is here criticising the makeup of this Government without being able to itemise and particularise what he’s actually talking about.”

Wow this is a new level of stupidity, even for the Minister for Putin.

John Howard commented nine months after an election that he thought the result was unfair.

Winston thinks this is equivalent to:

• Russia hacking the e-mail accounts of a political party and its campaign chairman
• State sponsored dissemination of fake news
• Attempting to hack voter registration databases
• Stealing voter data on 200,000 voters
• Paid advertising of $100,000 on Facebook to influence voters

Even for Winston and his slavish devotion to Putin, this is a new low.

Also the hypocrisy is rather great as Winston of course has been happy to offer opinions on the UK and Brexit. So by his logic he has interfered in British elections.

This is an amended version of Israel Archaeological Dig #14

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

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

I’ll sign off this blog series with this wonderful drone video of the whole Tell es-Safi/Gath site by my colleague Rev Dr John DeLancey of Pennsylvania, the other ‘dirt donkey’ in 82D.  His fascinating website is here http://biblicalisraeltours.com. And if you’d like to read more about Gath, this academic journal article below is full of information (order a full copy of Vol 80 ed. 4). It combines several academic opinions about Gath. Here’s a preview.

I’ve been asked to bring a team of Kiwis to Gath next year for 2019 June/July, so if you’re interested in coming, watch Kiwiblog later in the year for details.

And a final picture below shows site supervisor Dr Jeff Chadwick during final image capture of the D2 site at the end of season 21 (2018).  And below that I have added some graphic extrapolation to help understand the site. This is only one area of current excavations –D2, of Areas D1, Areas Y, K and M. We have only penetrated the soil of a tiny percentage of Gath which remains a huge site, one of the largest in the world, certainly the largest in Israel. You can clearly see the Iron-Age Philistine ‘E’ gate construction over older Bronze-Age Canaanite levels (what I dubbed the ‘Nixon Water Gate’) and the brown cross walls and soil infills in between, to block the pathway of the 830BC besiegers. The pile of stones at right is perhaps the foundations of a protective tower at the NW corner. I began and cleared the triangle pit this side of the ‘E’ structure, but that is as far as I got before excavations finished for the year. My main square and the subjects of these posts is the square to the right of Jeff, where the black/white measuring stick lays.

In the next month or so, the senior archaeologists will present a considered hypothesis about these diggings and then publish. The ‘E’ is possibly much later (late Iron-Age Philistine) and the buildings (where 82 C and 82D is noted below) could be either Canannite or Philistine.  Dr Jeff reports…”Shalom from Israel, Area D team 2018! …Our final aerial and “cherry picker” photos are in, and are they spectacular! And we’re seeing amazing things that weren’t visible ‘on the ground’ even a week ago. As Eric would say – “This changes everything!” … I’ll get back to you with the latest info. It’ll be a bit different than it was on tell tour. (Oh, we do still have a gate – it just all makes more sense now.  )…”  This is how archaeology works.  Educated people with the data present working hypotheses and then equally well-informed peers argue the toss. And somewhere in between we arrive at the truth based on the evidence, and then we find something else which up ends the whole ancient pie cart (one of the Murphy Laws of fieldwork).

Ciao4now.  –John Stringer. Christchurch.

The Guardian reports:

A former board member of the Charity Commission, John Purkis, said the regulator should be worried that the IEA’s director told undercover investigators posing as US beef farmers that the IEA was “in the Brexit influencing game”.

Shock horror. A think-tank says it wants to influence public policy. Quick lock them up.

In footage recorded secretly on behalf of Greenpeace, the IEA’s director, Mark Littlewood, spoke to an undercover reporter posing as a representative of a potential US beef farming donor.

So Greenpeace has gone from fighting for the environment to fighting organisations that are pro-markets.

Littlewood told the would-be donors that a supposedly independent report on the future of agriculture, for which the IEA was seeking £42,500 in funding, would conclude that US beef should be allowed to be sold in the UK.

This is about as astonishing that a CTU report will call for more powers for unions or a Taxpayers Union report will call for lower taxes.

The IEA is a longstanding free market thinktank. It supports US beef being sold in the UK because it supports free trade – not because US beef farmers also want it.

It also exposed how in May the IEA arranged for real US donors with agricultural interests to have a private meeting at the IEA’s offices with Steve Baker, the then Brexit minister.

Shock horror, think tanks can arrange meetings with Ministers. So can non think tanks. So can just about anyone.

An IEA spokeswoman said it was confident it had acted in accordance with the charity regulations. She said: “We do not act in donors’ interests, except to the extent that they have an interest in pursuing free trade and free markets.” She added it makes “independent editorial decisions and then seeks funding … it is surely uncontroversial that the IEA’s principles coincide with the interests of our donors”.

Donors support organisations where their interests coincide. You’d hardly donate to an organisation you disagree with.

What a silly little attempted beatup.

Disclosure: I was went on a drunken boat cruise on the River Thames with a bunch of libertarians. I think the boat cruise was organised by the IEA. I wasn’t so drunk that I fell into the Thames, but was happy enough that I can’t recall for sure who was paying for the drinks.

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will officially return from maternity leave early on Thursday.

Ardern will take up the reins as prime minister again at midnight,  when Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters leaves the country. …

“The Prime Minister will resume her duties from the time my plane takes off on midnight on Wednesday night,” Peters said.

Ardern won’t be back in Wellington until the following week, but with Peters flying out of the country there was really no choice but for her to take up the reins again as Peters departs.

Because otherwise Kelvin Davis would become Acting Prime Minister. Labour have wisely decided that even a few hours of Kelvin as Acting PM is too great a risk so wham we get a midnight handover.