Trans-Tasman doesn’t give ratings to the new MPs as there hasn’t been enough time but they do make some comments on them. Most of the comments are just on their background, but some are on their prospects.

The more substantive comments I have highlighted her.

Labour

• Tamati Coffey –  A former broadcaster who rates himself higher than others.
• Paul Eagle –  Solid, reliable and experienced.
• Marja Lubeck –  Lawyer and former union worker. Won the respect of employers and unions.
• Kieran McAnulty –  Smart and sensible.
• Willow-Jean Prime – highly regarded in the party.
• Deborah Russell – Possibly the smartest new MP in the House for a decade. Watch her get promoted and very quickly.

National

• Lawrence Yule –  Accomplished local govt politician but they don’t always transition well.

NZ First

• Jenny Marcroft –  Award-winning broadcaster and a trained teacher, should be an asset to the party.

Greens

• Chloe Swarbrick –  Plenty to say for herself.

Stuff reports:

The Parade in Island Bay rang with chants of “paint it back” as hundreds of protesters marched against plans to spend an additional $4.1m revamping a Wellington cycleway.

Protest organiser Vicki Greco, of the Island Bay Residents’ Association, told the crowd on Sunday that residents were working to bring legal action against Wellington City Council, which opted for an eleventh-hour “common sense” solution from Mayor Justin Lester despite the majority of residents supporting a return to pre-cycleway design.

Councillor Diane Calvert, who holds the council’s community planning and engagement portfolio, said Lester’s solution satisfied 31 of 34 requirements, as laid out by the residents’ association.

But what are the three it does not? Not all requirements are equal.

UNFULFILLED RATEPAYER ASSOCIATION REQUIREMENTS 

1. No raised platforms to be included in the design – rejected on engineers advice that raise areas made cyclists safer by stopping cars coming onto The Parade at speed from side streets.

2. The cycle lane will be on the carriageway side of the parked cars, not kerbside – rejected 

3. Within the shopping area the current shared space is to be retained – rejected, with footpath width is 4.6 metres, no business were deemed to lose any outdoor dining space.

I’m of the opinion that the way the road used to be was way safer for cyclists than with the new cycleway.

Transtasman has published its annual ratings for most of the 121 MPs. As usual, I do some analysis.

The overall average rating is 4.9 (+0.6 from 2016), which is a significant increase. Average Ratings per Party

1. ACT 5.5 (-1.5)
2. National 4.0 (+0.3)
3. Labour 5.0 (+0.9)
4. Green 4.8 (+1.3)
5. NZ First 4.5 (+1.4)

Note that the 2016 comparisons are all MPs in Parliament. The 2017 data is for existing MPs, but not the new MPs.

Top MPs

1. Jacinda Ardern 8.5 (+4.5)
2. Bill English 8.0 (-0.5)
   David Parker 8.0 (+2.0)
3. Amy Adams 7.5 (-1.0)
   Simon Bridges 7.5 (nc)
   Christopher Finlayson 7.5 (nc)
   Steven Joyce 7.5 (+0.5)
4. Anne Tolley 7.0 (nc)
   Andrew Little 7.0 (+0.5)
   Trevor Mallard 7.0 (+3.0)
   Grant Robertson 7.0 (+2.5)
5. Nikki Kaye 6.5 (+1.0)
   Paula Bennett 6.5 (-0.5)
   Chris Bishop 6.5 (+1.0)
   Judith Collins 6.5 (+0.5)
   Julie Anne Genter 6.5 (+1.0)

Bottom MPs

1. Rino Tirikatene 2.0 (nc)
   Melissa Lee 2.0 (nc)
   Jian Yang 2.0 (-1.0)
2. Nuk Korako 2.5 (+0.5)

Top Labour MPs

1. Jacinda Ardern 8.5 (+4.5)
2. David Parker 8.0 (+2.0)
3. Andrew Little 7.0 (+0.5)
   Trevor Mallard 7.0 (+3.0)
   Grant Robertson 7.0 (+2.5)
4. David Clark 6.0 (+2.5)
   Chris Hipkins 6.0 (nc)
   Stuart Nash 6.0 (+1.0)
   Damien O’Connor (-1.5)
   Phil Twyford 6.0 (+0.5)

Top Third Party MPs

1. Julie Anne Genter 6.5 (+1.0)
2. Winston Peters 6.0 (-1.5)
   James Shaw 6.0 (nc)
3. David Seymour 5.5 (-1.5)
4. Shane Jones 5.0
   Ron Mark 5.0 (+1.0)
   Eugenie Sage 5.0 (+1.0)

Biggest Increases

1. Jacinda Ardern +4.5
2. Trevor Mallard +3.0
3. David Clark +2.5
   Nanaia Mahuta +2.5
   Grant Robertson +2.5
   Scott Simpson +2.5

Biggest Decreases

1. Poto Williams -1.5
   David Seymour -1.5
   Winston Peters -1.5
   Jonathan Coleman -1.5
2. Jian Yang -1.0
   Michael Woodhouse -1.0
   Nick Smith -1.0
   Gareth Hughes -1.0
   Alfred Ngaro -1.5
   Kelvin Davis -1.0
   Amy Adams -1.0

Group Ratings

1. Ministers 5.4 (-0.8 from last Govt)
2. Cabinet 5.7 (-1.0 from last Govt)
3. National frontbench 6.8 (-0.6)
4. Labour frontbench 6.2 (+1.1)
5. Labour backbench 3.3

So the Labour frontbench has improved and National frontbench dropped, but National on average still rates higher.

Overall 53 MPs got a higher score, 18 MPs stayed the same and 18 MPs got a lower score.

A reminder these are the opinions of the three authors at Trans-Tasman, not mine.

The Herald reports:

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones wants welfare payments to be cut if beneficiaries refuse to take part in his new Government work programme, which will look to plant trees and build up a railway network for tourists.

Jones will take four projects to Cabinet for his Working For Your Country scheme before Christmas, which will give beneficiaries a chance to work for at least the minimum wage in industries such as tree planting, riparian planting or regional railway development.

“In order to plant one billion trees, in order to deliver on riparian planting, in order to prepare a workforce for recapitalising the railways, the ne’er-do-well nephs will be required to take those jobs,” Jones told the Herald.

“If they are unwilling, then I will spend every thinking and waking moment ensuring they do not fall back on the dole and be permitted to do jack, while the rest of us are out there working.”

Sadly for Shane this is the exact opposite of what Labour and Greens want. They want fewer sanctions for beneficiaries that don’t seek or take up work.

Shane is good at the talk. But it will probably be just talk.

Stuff reports:

US Senate Republicans passed a $1.5 trillion (NZ$2.1 trillion) tax bill early Saturday morning (US local time) that bestows massive benefits on corporate America and the wealthy while delivering mixed blessings to everybody else.

After a frantic round of negotiations, Republicans came together in near unanimity behind the landmark legislation. The final vote was 51 to 49, with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) the lone GOP holdout. Democrats unanimously opposed the bill.

The measure still has to be reconciled with an earlier House-passed version before being sent to President Trump. Yet in getting the bill through the Senate, Republicans succeeded where they failed earlier this year, when their efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act collapsed in mortifying fashion.

This time, urged on by donors and fearful of facing voters in next year’s midterm elections without a legislative achievement to show, Republicans said time and again that failure was not an option.

“The American people wanted change,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). “We were able to deliver.”

The centrepiece of the GOP plan is a move to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 20 per cent, starting in 2019. The Senate tax bill would also temporarily cut tax rates for families and individuals until 2025.

It’s a big win for Trump and the drop in company tax rate from 35% to 20% is huge. This will put pressure on NZ to lower its rate of 20% as more and more companies do decide where to locate based on corporate tax rates.

The downside for the US is they are running a huge deficit, and this will increase the deficit. When you have a surplus, absolutely you should cut taxes. But the US political system seems unable to control on reduce spending, so this just increases the deficit and debt which makes an economic crash in the future for the US more likely.

Stuff reports:

Barnaby Joyce, the deputy prime minister booted out of Australia’s Parliament because of his dual New Zealand citizenship, has claimed a stunning byelection win to return to his seat.

Joyce’s staggering win in the seat of New England is being touted by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as the biggest byelection swing to a sitting government in the country’s history.

In what will be a major shot in the arm for the Australian government and could restore some confidence after a grim few weeks, Joyce appears to have lifted his primary vote by at least 10 points, meaning after the distribution of preferences he will have as many as seven in 10 votes in the New South Wales seat.

That’s a huge swing and result. It indicates voters don’t think the balance of power in Parliament should change due to the by-elections caused by the dual citizenship fiasco.

The Herald reports:

Disgraced MP Todd Barclay has just enjoyed a two-month sun-filled tour of Italy, Croatia and Greece all while receiving a $3000 a week taxpayer-funded pay packet.

The former National MP announced in June he would not stand again after the “phone tapping” scandal – but under Parliament’s rules he still receives his salary until December 23.

That means Barclay will have pocketed a total of $80,000 of taxpayer money, before tax, over six months.

Oh for Fs sake, this is just getting nasty and vindictive.

His job ended in September. Yes he effectively gets three months redundancy – as done every other MP who retired. Where are the articles on Metiria Turei’s $3,000 a week since the election?

This week it was reported that Barclay had taken a job with the Japanese owners of Queenstown’s Millbrook Resort, the Ishii family. His London-based role is as international business affairs secretary for the family’s Japanese design and software company, Too Corporation, Mountain Scene reported.

So he’s got off his chuff and has gone and got a job in London and has had a holiday between jobs. Why is this news?

Under Parliamentary policy someone who retired would still be paid until three months after polling day – up to December 23.

All 34 MPs who resigned or lost their seats at the 2017 election still get paid for three months – about $40,000 in total, or $3300 a week, before tax.

Former MPs and party leaders Peter Dunne and Te Ururoa Flavell defended Barclay, saying departed MPs have an entitlement and how they use it is their business.

Te Ururoa Flavell said despite the circumstances Barclay was entitled to his salary and “it was up to the individual concerned how they spend their money”.

Dunne said MPs ceased to be employed on election night.

This is just a nasty gratuitous hounding of Barclay. Turei also resigned under a cloud. Yet she doesn’t get these nasty articles about her $40,000. No she gets pity articles and nominations for New Zealander of the Year.

Apologies for late post

I’m no Winston fan but really who cares what he said to Susan Devoy in 1987.

I tend to agree with Peter Williams that this should never have been reported:

 During Dame Susan’s session, conducted by veteran sports journalist Phil Gifford, she made some comments about the deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters.

Now they were not especially complimentary comments, but neither were they malicious. It was a fun night, with lots of awards and lots of laughs.

It was a privilege for us media types to have Dame Susan – who I regard as a very distinguished New Zealander – among us. It was even more pleasurable to be sitting beside her, with Phil Gifford one chair over.

So when I heard that a former editor of the New Zealand Herald had sent out a tweet quoting Dame Susan talking about Winston Peters, without any context at all, and that Dame Susan had to leave the function to attend to the follow up calls from hungry media inquiries, I was – to say the least – quite angry.

This was a pleasant, harmless and – I thought – relatively innocent night out.  What was said there was, I would have thought, off the record. Chatham House rules and all that.

The Washington Post reports:

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and court records and people familiar with the contacts indicated he was acting in consultation with senior Trump transition officials, including President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, in his dealings with the diplomat. 

So those indicted so far are Trump’s Campaign Chair, Deputy Campaign Chair and his National Security Adviser.

Who thinks it will stop there?

Duncan Garner writes:

Green MP and human rights lawyer Golriz Ghahraman and her party learned a tough lesson this week about truth, honesty and spin. 

Be upfront. Tell the truth. Don’t massage and carefully manipulate your image and public reputation when it ain’t entirely true. 

Yep that is the key issue. Honesty.

But when it counted, international war crimes prosecutor, putting dictators behind bars, sounded way better than a defender of murder, rape and pillage in a vile genocide. 

Yep. And even in the one case where she was on the prosecution team, she has massively over-hyped her role. She wrote how she put heads of state on trial as if she was the main prosecutor. In reality she appears to have been pretty junior (an assistant prosecutor, which is below the prosecutors, deputy prosecutors senior assistant prosecutors). She was a small cog in a big team.

Her CV she sent around the Green Party read: ”My work as a lawyer for the UN and in NZ have focused on enforcing human rights and holding governments to account. I have lived and worked in Africa, The Hague and Cambodia.”

No mention that in Africa and The Hague, she defended evil men when she wasn’t taking weird holiday snaps with them. Who takes photos with war criminals?  Poor judgment.

Had she been upfront from the start it would be no big deal. Defence lawyers are crucial. To get dragged into an argument about defence lawyers here is a waste of time. It’s a total diversion. This is not about defence lawyers. This is about battling the truth. 

Yep those defending her by saying we need defence lawyers are throwing red herrings at us.

No wonder her leader James Shaw said sorry this week for getting it wrong twice. Shaw, like the rest of us, assumed she was doing god’s work. You can’t blame him.

When he got it wrong, why didn’t Ghahraman fix it? Why didn’t she put The Guardian right three weeks ago when it made the same mistake? Why would she? 

Truth is Ghahraman looks embarrassed to be defending those responsible for genocide. She looks embarrassed to have been on the side of defending some of the most evil war criminals this world has seen. 

She wanted her role minimised because Rwanda was ugly. Up to 1 million Tutsi slaughtered. Raped, murdered and pillaged. Almost 1 million dead in just 100 days as the world sat hopelessly by. Want to see what powerless and useless looks like: Google the UN and Rwandan genocide. 

With all the ferrets and weasels trying to trip you up in Wellington it pays to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

But, no, she should not resign as an MP. 

I agree she should not resign. I have never said she should. On a harsh political level, she does more damage to the Greens remaining as an MP. Whenever she talks about human rights in future people will recall the photo of her beaming away next to her client convicting of citing genocide.

Sadly she has shown a serious lack of contrition. She should have said sorry rather than been so offended by the expose. 

One emailer told me this week I was attacking her because she’s a “woman with lovely brown Persian skin”.

What? 

Telling the truth is colour blind. 

Yeah I have had the same. Various nutters have alleged I targeted her because she is a woman, because she is a refugee, because she is Persian etc etc. They live in a world where they think those attributes give you immunity.

Jo Moir writes:

For a Government vowing to be the most transparent and open the country has ever seen, it really did get stuck in the mud this week. 

That 38-page secret coalition document that’s stored in a not-so-secret safe in Winston Peters’ office has caused all sorts of headaches, for the prime minister in particular, who has been visibly frustrated about the position she’s been put in.

On Monday, it was revealed the prime minister’s office was refusing to release the document that NZ First leader and deputy prime minister Peters had previously described as “a document of precision on various areas of policy commitment and development”.

The longer they resist releasing it, the worse it is for them.

So why has the Government spent the whole week battling headlines on this and undergoing forensic-style questioning in the House over who did and didn’t have access to the document, and other trivial matters like its font size?

Because Ardern resorted to a political operative approach rather than the one she’s better known for, honesty.

Over time, former prime minister John Key nailed the art of just saying he got it wrong, throwing his hands in the air, shrugging his shoulders and moving on.

The public appetite for that approach far exceeds the spin-doctoring one that was used this week by the Government.

Yep.

The excuses used by Leader of the House Chris Hipkins and Ardern for why they ended up giving unnecessary select committee concessions to National because they didn’t know their numbers in the House were simply farcical.

Their insistence it was better to give National concessions and avoid a vote for Speaker Trevor Mallard to ensure he was elected unanimously was utter nonsense.

The Government would have saved themselves weeks of headlines if they’d just admitted they weren’t 100 per cent sure of their numbers, asked for a vote and come out the other end with their Speaker and their integrity intact.

They blatantly lied.

The TLDR version of the David Fisher story on the GCSB’s Project Speargun is that the PM said he canned it in March 2013 but it wasn’t formally discontinued until September 2013.

This is being hyped up as something significant, when it is not.

A senior staff member in the PMs Office told GCSB the PM didn’t want the project to be put up to Cabinet for funding as it was too broad. It took a while for the project to be officially terminated and the funding formally discontinued. Anyone who knows Government knows this is pretty common.

It was stopped in March 2013 and formally terminated in September 2013, both long before the farcical “Moment of Truth” from Kim Dotcom.

Rich Lowry from National Review writes:

The president of the United States wakes up some mornings seemingly determined to convince as many people as possible that he’s unsuited to high office.

Fortunately for him, he has a Twitter account allowing him to act on this impulse immediately and without any filter.

Yep. So many terrible tweets. But maybe it is a deliberate strategy to distract people? Because every time he does it it then dominates headlines for days.

He followed up with a tweet calling for the firing of “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough on the basis of a noxious conspiracy theory. (A woman with a heart condition died in Scarborough’s district office when he was a congressman. Ever since, a kooky fringe has accused him of murder.)

It’s difficult to exaggerate how mind-blowing these tweets are.

If a friend on Facebook shared the fake Muslim video, you’d hesitate to credit any of his opinions going forward, let alone bestow on him the biggest megaphone on Planet Earth.

Yep.

Yet Trump’s presidency operates on a largely separate track than his Twitter feed and his other off-script interjections and pronouncements. His domestic policy is so conventional that it could have been cooked up by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell—and, in fact, it was. He’s pursued a largely status quo foreign policy, except more cautious than Barack Obama’s and, especially, George W. Bush’s. …

The defining feature of Neil Gorsuch and Trump’s other judicial nominees is a firm commitment to interpreting the Constitution and the laws as written. Trump has rolled back Obama administrative actions on immigration (DACA), the environment (the Clean Power Plan) and health care (the so-called CSR payments) that at best pushed the envelope of executive authority and at worst were frankly unconstitutional. Just this week, Trump won a court fight confirming that, no matter what his critics might hope, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is indeed an executive agency whose director is to be appointed by the president in the event of a vacancy.

It is difficult to see how Ted Cruz would have governed any differently on any of these issues.  …

On the legislative front, even as Trump outdoes himself with outlandish tweets, he is getting closer to his first major victory, in pursuit of a stereotypical Republican policy goal. If there is a safe assumption to make about any GOP president, it is that he will seek deficit-financed tax cuts. Trump is reliably conforming to the pattern.

I’m all for tax cuts but they need to be matched by spending cuts. They should not be financed by borrowing, but by surpluses.

Barry Soper writes:

Ardern said all the things she wanted to achieve could be achieved by simply being a minister which she’d be happy with. Well two months later she was Prime Minister but with the old political maestro calling the shots.

And if she for some reason can’t go on calling them herself then the coalition deal sees him stepping up to the plate – Prime Minister Winston Peters, unlikely but possible, which many have said he could have achieved in his own right if he’d remained on the National Party team.

This isn’t in the public version, so presumably Barry (who is close to NZ First and has many sources there) is referring to what is in the secret version.

No wonder Labour are desperate not to release it. It shows how desperate they are to retain power.

Linked to this is Politik noted:

In another sign that the Government is beginning to have to deal with reality was the absence yesterday of Labour’s Deputy Leader, Kelvin Davis while the Prime Minister herself was out of Wellington. (As has been the case with Prime Ministers on Thursdays for some years now). Davis has been a weak performer in Question Time, and Opposition MPs interpreted his absence as a sign that the Government wanted him out of the firing line and not deputising for Ardern at Question Time. Instead, that role was given to the House’s veteran Question Time master, the deputy Prime Minister, Winston Peters.

So Davis is no longer allowed to be Acting PM!

The Herald reports:

New Zealand business confidence dropped sharply in November with uncertainty around changing government policy, a softer housing market, and difficulty getting credit seen as likely causes. The kiwi fell about a quarter of a US cent.

A net 39 per cent of businesses were pessimistic about the year ahead, the lowest level since early 2009, and a decline of 29 points from the previous month, according to the ANZ Business Outlook.

This is a huge drop. In August it was +18% and now it is -39%. I can’t recall such a dramatic fall since the GFC. But this is not due to external shocks but because the policies of the new Government are so bad.

If business confidence remains low, it means investment will drop off, and there will be fewer jobs. You may see unemployment rise.

So the new Government has a real challenge ahead to stop this happening.

A brand is a powerful thing in politics. It is a sentence that sums you up. Politicians work very hard on their brand. It’s like the TLDR version of your CV. Some examples are:

• John Key – raised by a solo mum in a state house, made a fortune overseas
• David Shearer – worked for UN in war zones
• Jacinda Ardern – raised as a small town girl in Morrinsville
• Rodney Hide – perk buster

Golriz Ghahraman’s brand was the refugee who put heads of states in three continents on trial for war crimes. It was a powerful attractive brand. I believed the brand, as did almost everyone. It is a much much more sexy brand than career defence lawyer.

It’s not that one job is good and the other is evil. That is what her defenders want the argument to be. It is about misrepresentation – deliberate fudging of her career so that she would benefit from the more glamorous brand.

Now it was no accident that the brand was someone who put heads of states on trial for war crimes. It was a story that almost everyone who followed politics believed.

Now I’m going to detail here how often Ghahraman had wrong or misleading details published, and how she never ever did anything to correct them.

First you need to understand candidates and MPs read the stories written about them. They do so religiously. Most have Google Alerts on their names. It is implausible in the extreme that she never read any of the stories on her that were inaccurate. In one case she didn;t even correct the interviewer.

Now some MPs take issues of accuracy very importantly when it comes to their background. As an example I know one MP who once had a profile of them appear in the Herald and there was a very minor mistake in it – the profile said the MP had a double degree but in fact they had one paper to go on their second degree. Not exactly a major thing but still inaccurate. The mistake was entirely the newspaper’s who had just assumed. But despite that, this MP e-mailed the reporter and pointed out the inaccuracy.  That is what conscientious MPs do.

Now let’s look at all the times that the wrong information has been published, and nothing at all was said.

In chronological order:

1. Nov 16 – Green newsletter. Says “worked as a lawyer for the UN, putting on trial politicians and military leaders accused of committing human rights atrocities.” (no mention of defence work, implies prosecution only)
2. Unknown date. Lush. “She went on to work as a lawyer for the United Nations in Tribunals for Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and Cambodia, trying those accused of committing human rights atrocities.” (trying those clearly implies prosecuting)
3. Jan 17 – Herald story on her just announced candidacy says “She worked as a prosecutor at United Nations tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, where heads of state were on trial for mass atrocities. After getting her masters degree in International Human Rights Law at Oxford University she also worked on the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia.” (totally false and never corrected)
4. Jan 17 – Stuff story says “After graduating and working as a prosecutor for the United Nations in Cambodia and in tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia Ghahraman returned to New Zealand in 2012” (very clear impression she prosecuted in all three)
5. Jan 17 – Wikipedia says “She worked as a United Nations prosecutor, who worked on tribunals in Rwanda, Cambodia, and at The Hague” (wrong and only corrected after election in September)
6. Feb 17 – Impolitikal article written by Ghahraman “Eventually, that nine-year-old refugee girl ended up prosecuting heads of state for the United Nations.” (no mention of defence work, use of heads of state implies prosecutions in multiple countries. There was one head of state tried in Cambodia but not clear if she even worked in that case). UPDATE: Appears she did.
7. April 17 – her confidential CV to Green members doing list ranking said “my work as a lawyer for the UN and in NZ have focused on enforcing human rights and holding governments to account. I have lived and worked in Africa, The Hague and Cambodia.” (misleading, as most people will read that as having prosecuted the governments in Africa and The Hague, not defended them)
8. May 17 – James Shaw to NZIAA “Golriz is now a human rights lawyer who
   worked as a prosecutor at the United Nations tribunals for Rwanda and the
   former Yugoslavia. She also worked on the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia. (totally wrong)
9. 31 May 2017 – Radio NZ “has worked at the United Nations’ various ad-hoc tribunals “putting world leaders on trial for misusing their powers“. (she put no world leaders on trial. She defended some, and helped prosecute some Khmer Rouge officials)
10. 1 July – James Shaw in a second published speech said “Golriz Ghahraman … who puts war criminals on trial at the International Court of Justice in the Hague.” (totally wrong – she was defence team at the Hague)
11. Mid 2017 – The Villainesse – question to Golriz was “You already have a very impressive resume – an Oxford grad, human rights lawyer and prosecuting for the United Nations including working on the tribunals for Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Cambodia. Was getting into politics just the next step?” (Ghahraman never corrects the question to point out she was not a prosecutor for two of those. Also in an Orwellian move The Villainesse has edited the story to remove reference to prosecuting)
12. 24 August 17 – Stuff “Ghahraman, a human rights expert and constitutional lawyer, has appeared as a lawyer at genocide and mass human rights violation trials in Tanzania, Yugoslavia and Cambodia … If elected, Ghahraman hopes to continue holding leaders accountable” (probably the least significant of her fudges – but still clearly leaves impression she was only a prosecutor)
13. Sep/Oct – Radio NZ has a story with a photo of her at the Rwanda Tribunal which they label as “Golzriz prosecuting at the Rwanda Tribunal“
14. Oct 17 – Guardian said “representing the UN in tribunals prosecuting some of the world’s worst war criminals, including perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.” (total opposite of the truth)
15. Nov 17 – maiden speech said : “I saw that at the Rwanda Tribunal, at The Hague and when I prosecuted the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Holding politicians and armies to account for breaching their powers. Giving voice to women, and minorities who are most viciously targeted by abusers.” (misleading as implies she was holding the politicians and armies in Rwanda to account, rather than defending them)

Now maybe the mistake happening once or twice could be a genuine mistake. But only the most demented people could look at this and not conclude there was a deliberate effort to leave the impression she was a prosecutor, not defender in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.

She even let her own party leader twice make false speeches about her background and never ever went to him and said “Hey that isn’t correct”. Instead James is left to take the blame, as is some anonymous staffer for the Greens website (MPs always approve their party’s online CVs in my experience).

Not once before the election was anything published in a significant forum that informed people she was not a prosecutor in all three cases. Only after the election did this information appear.

It seems the only information out there which accurately portrayed her was the very bottom of her Linked In profile. But how many people proactively check out a linked in profile of a candidate and compare that to the numerous media stories that ran with the inaccurate profile.

What has made it worse, in my opinion, is the total lack of contrition. She’s damaged her own leader, she’s damaged the Greens, and she’s still blaming everyone but herself. She even defends the smiling selfie taken with the convicted genocide inciter.

The Dom Post editorial:

Another extremely bad signal about openness has been sent by the Minister of Open Government, Clare Curran. She says she doesn’t see a need for an overhaul of the Official Information Act. However, she says she would dust off the 2012 Law Commission review of the Act, a report  which was ignored by the previous National-led government.  

Curran’s ignorance in this area almost defies belief. She has spent nine years in opposition and apparently doesn’t know that the Law Commission recommended a complete rewriting of the Act, and for very good reasons.

And No Right Turn is also unhappy:

Ignore that its Hipkins answering on her behalf, and focus on that OIA request. It specifies the information it is seeking and the timeframe it is being sought over. It is immediately clear to any reader what information is being sought. To refuse it as lacking “due particularity” is utterly baseless and unlawful, and I expect the Ombudsman will tell her that in due course. That would be bad from any government Minister, but Curran is the Minister of Open Government. And it is clear from her reported response to this request that “open government” is not something she believes in or practices. Instead, she is undermining it in her own office, right from day one.

Seeing this, and her previous behaviour, I have no confidence in this Minister to actually open up government or produce anything useful in her portfolio. And if this is how their Minister is going to act, the government might as well remove the portfolio entirely, because its clearly a complete waste of our time.

I think Ministers are finding it far easier to be sanctimonious in opposition than actually walk the walk in Government.

Stuff reports:

A decision to stop parents being able to send their children to school before their fifth birthday was announced by the Education Minister before it had been through the Cabinet process.

Under the previous government, cohort entry was introduced which allowed schools to adopt an optional policy of letting pupils start school up to eight weeks before their fifth birthday.

Labour opposed starting school at 4-years-old and last week Education Minister Chris Hipkins revealed to Stuff that schools who wanted to adopt the policy at the start of next year could continue to do so, but legislation would be passed next year limiting cohort entry to children over 5-years-old.

This policy change will mean some parents won’t be able to have their kids start school at age six.

If a school does cohort entry (which many schools will do, as it can be easier for kids and teachers to have a cohort of kids start together, rather than say a new one every few days), then you may do a cohort every three months or so.

Now if you can’t enrol your kid until they are five, then it means you may have to wait until the kid is say five years three months for the next cohort, rather than go in at say four years 11 months and two weeks.

So Labour’s change will mean less flexibility for parents and some kids being blocked from entering their local school until they are well past their fifth birthday.

Legislative changes usually go through Cabinet, or at least a Cabinet committee, before an announcement so advice can be sought from ministry officials.

Through written parliamentary questions Kaye found Ardern received no reports or briefings on the issue before Hipkins announced the policy change.

That meant there “could not have been a Cabinet paper on the law change which is startling given it affects thousands of children”, she said.

“It looks like Mr Hipkins unilaterally made the decision to change the law without going through the proper Cabinet process.”

So the policy was announced on the hoof, with an advice or analysis on impact for families.

Mike Yardley writes:

 “We got wrong. Badly wrong. And despite the warnings and legal challenges we rode roughshod over District Plan rulings and ploughed on with a defective Local Alcohol Policy (LAP) that became a cot case, clocking up over $1.3 million dollars in costs to the council, with nothing to show for it.

“Hubris trumped common-sense and we unreservedly apologise to residents and ratepayers for this shambles, which we pledge to avoid repeating again.” 

This is the statement that the Christchurch City Council should in all good conscience be issuing to the public, as they seek to the turn the page on the multi-million dollar train-wreck that their junked LAP represents.

Yes they should apologise for ignoring the law and thinking the legislation allowed them to ignore having an evidence basis for their policies.

On Thursday, in a public-excluded session, city councillors voted to abort their provisional Local Alcohol Policy and start afresh. Council staff will now prepare options for a brand-new draft LAP, with an expectation that it becomes operational within 18 months. But as is the case in so many council matters, the tail will wag the dog as regulatory policy is crafted.

Councillors will be hoping like hell that council staff will take stock of the fundamental flaws in their previous still-born LAP and not set the stage for another multi-million dollar legal stoush. Council policy officers cost the ratepayer a fortune by thumbing their nose at regulatory decisions emerging from the Independent Hearings Panel into the Christchurch Replacement District Plan.

Frankly, the individuals responsible should have been sacked. But if the next Local Alcohol Policy process is to avoid becoming an action-replay of the previous profligate debacle, pandering to zealotry should be avoided at all costs.

It is ominous that Canterbury’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr Alistair Humphrey, has already waded in, telling The Press that “the original LAP was good,” hoping the new one will be similar.

This is the guy who compares food companies to cocaine cartels. If he thinks the original LAP was great, that tells you everything about it.

James Shaw in a speech to the NZ Institute of International Affairs in May said:

Members of this audience may be interested to know that one of those
candidates, Golriz Ghahraman, is, at number ten on the list, almost certain to
become the first Member of Parliament who started her life in New Zealand as
a refugee.

Having fled Iran in 1990 as a child, Golriz is now a human rights lawyer who
worked as a prosecutor at the United Nations tribunals for Rwanda and the
former Yugoslavia. She also worked on the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Cambodia.

So either Shaw was misled or lied to by Ghahraman or Shaw himself lied.

This is no longer an issue just for Ghanraman. It is now an issue for the entire Greens and Shaw. Did she mislead them or did they mislead us?

She claims she never saw her web page that the Greens published. I doubt this having worked in Parliament. Time for them to come clean.