Stuff reports:

A Kiwi teenager radicalised online planned to ram a car into a group of people in Christchurch and then stab them.

The teenager wrote a goodbye note to his mother, then started a violent incident, but has since told a psychologist when it began he “decided not to hurt anybody because he did not have the means to kill enough people“, Crown prosecutor Chris Lange told the Christchurch District Court at sentencing on Thursday. 

“The reason no-one was hurt was that he did not have access to knives,” Lange said. But there was significant premeditation, and hostility towards non-Muslims. 

So the reason this didn’t happen is because he didn’t think he could kill enough people to make his suicide worthwhile.

After his arrest, the youth told police he was angry and had “done it for Allah”. He had left school at age 15, become socially isolated, and converted to Islam. 

He presumably is still under the age of 18.

The court has adopted a rehabilitative approach to the teen’s sentencing, with Judge Stephen O’Driscoll releasing him on intensive supervision with a list of conditions and a warning that if he breaches the conditions or reoffends, he will likely be sent to prison.

If he reoffends, he may kill a dozen people so I hope the supervision is very good.

Lange said even though the youth had been treated for months by the youth forensic psychiatric team, he was still seen as a high risk of reoffending, and a risk to family members and members of the public.

So we’re letting him out on supervision!

He urged intensive supervision be imposed because prison would mean limited access to the rehabilitation and socialising programmes he needed. The strict conditions proposed for the intensive supervision were “almost unheard of”, he said.

That sounds somewhat reassuring.

Newshub reports:

The Green Party “didn’t even think” of objecting to New Zealand First’s waka-jumping bill during negotiations, so now its hands are tied in supporting it.

A screenshot from a private Young Greens Facebook group reveals during negotiations Labour asked the Greens to provide a list of New Zealand First policies the Greens don’t support. The Greens “didn’t even think of the waka jumping bill”, and as a result of a failure to raise its opposition, the party has to support the bill. 

Wow that is a high level of incompetence. They fought bitterly against the bill twice before and didn’t even think about it this time!

The Greens supported the Bill through its first reading. When she launced her campaign, co-leadership candidate Julie Anne Genter signalled she may not support the Bill through the further stages.

Yet the post from the Young Greens says:

Caucus has indicated it will support the bill regardless

So this means that it doesn’t matter how good the arguments against are, or what is submitted to the select committee. The Greens caucus have decided nothing will shake them from supporting a bill which would have stopped the party from entering Parliament in the first place.

Stuff reports:

The Department of Internal Affairs suggested a tightening of the rules around ministerial grants of citizenship after the case of tech billionaire Peter Thiel came to light.

Then-minister Peter Dunne was interested in the proposed reforms, which included an open citizenship register, but did not manage to enact them before leaving Government.

An open citizenship register is a good idea. We should know who is and is not a citizen of New Zealand. It would also be helpful with checking eligibility of candidates for election.

I hope Labour pursues this idea.

Stuff reports:

The Human Rights Commission is calling for the marriage of minors to be outlawed in New Zealand.

The call for a debate on the age Kiwis should be able to marry was echoed by women’s organisation Shakti, during a Justice Select Committee hearing on the Marriage (Court Consent to Marriage of Minors) Amendment Bill.

Currently, anyone aged 16 or 17 in New Zealand can marry with parental consent. 

ln 2016, 30 children aged 16 or 17, married in New Zealand. That number was 48 in 2015, and 42 in 2014. …

The proposed bill would mean those cases of marriage where one or both of the parties are aged 16 or 17 would have to go through a court process for approval before they can go ahead with the marriage.

Human Rights Commissioner human rights advisor Joanna Maskell said the commission wanted to see the bill further amended to stop anyone under the age of 18 getting married.

I support the bill as necessary to protect 16 and 17 years olds being pressured into marriage by their families.

But maybe the simpler option is simply to make the age at which you can marry to be 18, not 16. 18 is the age you get most of your “full” rights such as voting.

Would anyone be harmed at having to wait until 18 to marry?

Stuff reports:

During his press conference on Thursday to announce a ban on Australian ministers having sex with their staff, Turnbull said he accepted that Joyce had not breached any ministerial entitlements or standards and “the real issue” was the “terrible hurt and humiliation” he had caused his wife, four daughters and new partner.

“Barnaby made a shocking error of judgment in having an affair with a young woman working in his office. In doing so, he has set off a world of woe for those women and appalled all of us,” Turnbull said in a late afternoon address.

So are Ministers banned just from bonking their own staff, or any staff?

It goes without saying it is a very bad idea to bonk your staff. Not having the PM announce a ban on it, may cause more problems than the issue it is trying to solve.

Nationals sources said Turnbull’s savage admonishment only deepened their resolve to stand by Joyce, who faced a poorly co-ordinated push by some rebel Nationals MPs to oust him over the affair.

Things just look better and better for Labor at the next election.

CNN reports:

Six in 10 Americans, 61%, say they now have a favorable view of the 43rd President of the United States in the latest CNN poll conducted by SSRS, nearly double the 33% who gave him a favorable mark when he left the White House in January 2009.

• All +28%
• Women +30%
• Non-whites +15%
• Under 35s +19%
• Democrats +13%

Tracy Watkins writes:

National’s next leader may not even have put his hand up yet. Former police officer and hostage negotiator Mark Mitchell is emerging as the dark horse in what is currently a three-way race, even though he hasn’t yet declared his intentions. …

First elected to Parliament in 2011, Mitchell is a candidate in the mold of former prime minister Sir John Key, though they have very different backgrounds.

Mitchell arrived at Parliament with a successful career behind him and a to-die-for back story – he’s had violent confrontations with gangs and criminals as a police dog handler and member of the Armed Offenders Squad.

He was stabbed in the line of duty but after leaving police he sought out even more danger as a top international hostage negotiator, surviving a five-day siege in Iraq.

Mitchell set up the Threat Management Group to provide security to a logistics firm. It grew from 8 staff to 3,000 staff. He’s also been involved in over 100 hostage negotiations.

Mitchell and Joyce are yet to decide if they stand. The more candidates there are, the less likely it is that anyone can get 29 votes on the first ballot. So it could all come down to second and third choices.

Labour MP Louisa Wall took Fairfax to court because she was offended by a cartoon they published, alleging they incited hostility towards Maori and Pasifika.

The High Court has thankfully ruled that merely being offensive doesn’t make it illegal, and has dismissed the appeal.

The threshold for speech to be illegal should be very very high. I am glad the High Court has recognised this.

Radio NZ reports:

The government is considering scrapping the rollout of cameras on commercial fishing vessels altogether.

Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash said many in the fishing industry were unhappy with the camera proposal and all options were on the table – including dumping it entirely.

One of Mr Nash’s first moves when he became the Fisheries Minister was to put the brakes on the rollout of electronic monitoring of the commercial fishing fleet.

The former National government came up with the plan last year, saying it would protect the sustainability of fish stocks and act as a deterrent against illegal activity, like fish dumping.

On top of the effective scrapping of the world’s largest marine sanctuary in The Kermadecs, this shows that all the rhetoric from Labour and Greens on environmental issues is lagging well behind their actions.

In response to the petition demanding Bob Jones be stripped of his knighthood for writing a satirical column, someone has set up a counter petition demanding he be made a peer – Lord Jones of Melling!

The Herald reports:

A sexual misconduct scandal at Oxfam deepened as the charity’s former head of safeguarding revealed teenage volunteers at shops in Britain had been abused and overseas staff had traded aid for sex.

Helen Evans accused her bosses of ignoring her evidence and her pleas for more resources, forcing her to quit in despair. She said staff had been accused of rape and that sexual abuse by shop managers in British stores against young volunteers was covered up. In some countries 10 per cent of staff had been sexually assaulted by colleagues or witnessed abuse, she added.

Oxfam regularly publish reports telling us how evil it is that some people are wealthy. They should spend more time sorting out their own behaviour and less time campaigning against wealth.

There have been calls for criminal charges to be brought against Oxfam executives and staff if they had turned a blind eye to abuse overseas.

There needs to be accountability for what happened. We demand it for the Catholic Church and should demand it for Oxfam also.

My thoughts are with the staff in the National Leaders Office. They are all on event based contracts which expire with an election or change of leader.

So just four months ago they would have all gone through the process of reapplying for jobs, and in two weeks time they have to do the same. There are not many workplaces where you have such little job security.

I don’t expect the new leader will make massive changes to the staffing, but inevitably they always have some people they may want to bring in, so nobody can be certain until the leadership is decided.

In theory the caucus will decide on 27 February, but if the numbers are clearly with one candidate, then the decision may end up being made earlier and be more of a ratification.

A lot will depend on how many candidates stand. The more that stand, the less likely it is that any one candidate can clearly claim the 29 votes they need to be elected. But if it is a two person race, then things might become clear early on.

The Herald reports:

Winston Peters has ignored gracious farewells to Bill English, instead launching a withering attack on the departing National leader …

Asked if he had any kind words for English, Peters said: “I’ll leave those nice words to you.

This reveals far more about Winston than he probably intended. I am so so happy that National did not end up shackled to him.

When it is time up for Peters, I hope people are as gracious about him, as he was to English. You reap what you sow.

I’m announcing my candidacy for Leader of the NZ National Party. We’re going to need strong & decisive leadership if we’re going to win in 2020. I’m that person.

— Judith Collins (@JudithCollinsMP) February 13, 2018

Judith has just announced she is standing, the first to declare. The race has begun.

A good report by NZIER on the number of DHBs we have in NZ.

They compare us to British Columbia which has the same population as NZ, but six DHBs instead of 20. Even NSW has only 15 for a population of 7.6 million.

A key point is we simply don’t know how much of Vote Health is being spent on administration of DHBs. They say:

Getting a clear sense of how much is spent on DHB administration is difficult. Administrative costs are not published in DHB annual reports.

The Auditor General in her Reflections from our audits: Governance and accountability report of 2016 provides a set of observations as to the importance of public reporting. She notes that accountability enables trust in government and needs constant attention. This means residents can see how their taxes and rates have been used.

The information reported by DHBs needs to give a complete and accurate account of the use the entity has put public funds to, if DHBs are to meet the spirit of the
Auditor General’s observations.

The Government is going to find demand in Vote Health always exceeds cash available. Reducing the number of DHBs could free up money for more health services.

Media are reporting that Bill English is making an announcement at 11.30 am today, and it is expected to be that he is going to resign as National Party Leader.

UPDATE: Bill English has resigned, effective on 27 February. He will leave Parliament in March.

Very pleased for Bill English personally. He clearly could have remained Opposition Leader, but after 27 years in Parliament, its a good call for him and his family to step down.

It isn’t such good news for National. English had high favourability with the public, and is very well known. The new Opposition Leader should not underestimate the challenge ahead of them, especially against a first term Government.

It will be very interesting to see how many MPs stand for leader. Potentially there are six or seven who would be credible candidates, but I suspect not that many will stand.

Lloyd Burr writes:

Forget Judith Collins, Simon Bridges, or Nikki Kaye. Or any of the other possible leadership contenders in parliament for National. 

The one to watch isn’t even an MP yet. 

Her name is Nicola Willis.

Poor Nicola. MPs, and aspiring MPs, hate being labelled a future leader. It’s like a kiss of death. You normally have to put up with it once you are an MP, but unusual to have a journalist call you out before you are even an MP.

She’s young, she’s smart, she’s articulate, and she’s photogenic. 

She’s an incredibly hard worker, and she’s socially progressive, and an environmentalist. 

She’s not a right-wing conservative. She’s a centrist. Unlike the current crop she doesn’t speak fluent politic. She can talk to the everyday Kiwi. 

She’s also a mother to four young kids, and had them while she was climbing the ladder of the biggest dairy company in the world, Fonterra.  

Having four young kids while holding a senior corporate job is no mean feat.

I’ve hosted a number of debates and events where Willis represented the National Party. 

Every time she was an impressive debater. Far better than the drivel that dominates Parliament; there’s empathy, warmth, and compassion, but also toughness and ruthlessness. 

Nicola is a very impressive debater. I am looking forward to seeing her in action in the House in due course.

Stuff reports:

A sexual harassment scandal at the Human Rights Commission could undermine public trust in the organisation, an advocacy group says.

On Sunday, Stuff revealed a young American woman cut short her internship at the commission after she was groped by the organisation’s chief financial officer at a work party.

The commission investigated a sexual harassment complaint against Kyle Stutter, which resulted in disciplinary action. However, three months on, he remains employed there as chief financial officer. He threatened to sue if he was identified.

The alleged harrassment is:

At this point, Stutter began dancing with her, before advancing on her without her consent and groping her breasts and private parts, she said, despite her trying to push his hands away.

Groping someone’s breasts and private parts without consent could be sexual assault. It is certainly at the very serious end of the spectrum of sexual harrassment actions. It’s not like an off colour joke, or inappropriate speech.

The HRC is very good at telling others how they should behave, but it seems not so good themselves at ensuring a safe workplace. An apology and having to undertake counselling seems like a wet bus ticket.

Of course we only have one side of the story, but the fact that a former HRC intern is so upset by what happened suggests there is a need for improvement.