The Herald reports:

About 55,000 low-paid workers, mainly women, are about to get one of the biggest pay rises ever after details of a historic pay equity settlement are revealed today.

The deal will cost the Government over $500 million a year when fully implemented in five years, assuming it is signed off by union members and the Cabinet.

That is a lot of money. It is around a third of the annual operating allowance for new spending in any one year.

The settlement will mean hefty pay increases from July in three government-funded service sectors that employ mainly women on low rates: aged residential care, home support, and disability services.

The Herald understands that for the primary litigant, rest home caregiver Kristine Bartlett, it will mean an increase from about $16 an hour to about $23 an hour – more than 43 per cent.

The deal allows for annual increases over five years to $27 an hour.

Overall, pay rises will range from $3 an hour to $7, depending on the work and experience.

Labour and Greens have pledged to keep crown spending to under 30% of GDP. This extra $500 million a year in spending will mean they have $500 million a year less for their promises.

The NZ Taxpayers’ Union is looking for a communications and engagement assistant:

We have an exciting opportunity for a junior to intermediate communications professional, who wants to work for a pressure group in the heart of Wellington politics. The role is based in our Wellington office, but also covers our sister group, the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance.

We seek an energetic individual who wants to develop their communications skills within an organisation where no two days are the same and communications contribute to the national political environment. You’ll gain experience in a fast-paced, communications-led environment, where accuracy and attention to detail is a must in responding to the political agenda and issues of the day.

This role will see you providing valuable support to spokespeople, researchers, economic staff and volunteers. You will assist in turning economic and research projects into compelling campaigns and communications suitable for a public audience. You will also be involved in internal communications with donors and supporters who make our work possible.

Your responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:

• Execute campaigns and initiatives that underpin the organisation’s strategic objectives;
• Identifying opportunities in the media for comment and contributions of messages which reinforce the organisation’s campaigns;
• Collaborate with stakeholders, including donors and members to promote engagement, support and fundraising efforts;
• General correspondence;
• Social media monitoring; and
• External communications including drafting stories, media releases and blog entries.

As a proactive thinker and creative individual, you will be looking to forge a communications career within a nationally known organisation, whilst being supported by experienced communicators. The position is ideal for someone interested in a career in corporate affairs; politics; lobbying or the not-for-profit sector.

You will need to be comfortable with being part of a team that is not always sitting in the same location as you and will be able to build strong relationships through virtual communication tools.

A relevant tertiary qualification or proven interest/experience is an advantage. Advanced social media, MS Office and Outlook skills are desirable, as is an interest in politics. You must be a skilled writer – both in accuracy and ability to write persuasively.

As a self-starter with outstanding written and verbal communication skills, you will be comfortable engaging with a variety of stakeholders, including high net worth individuals.

A great fun job. You get to attack corporate welfare, expose government waste, campaign for lower taxes and apply the blow torch to high spending local Councils.

Hekia Parata released final NCEA achievement data and the results speak for themselves. I have done a summary below:

The increase in Pasifika achievement has been massive, as has the lift for Maori achievement. And if you look at it by deciles, those studying in the lowest decile schools have had the biggest increase in achievement rates.

Having more kids leave schools with some educational achievement is a very good thing. It gives them greater opportunities going forward, and can make a huge difference long-term to society.

Kristian Niemietz writes in The Independent:

Genuine question: what’s exceptional about the NHS?

The fact that it’s universal, that it provides care to everybody irrespective of ability to pay? Standard fare. All healthcare systems in the developed world do that, with the US system being the only major exception.

The fact that it is generally free at the point of use, with very little out-of-pocket spending? Nothing special either. Plenty of systems are, or where they have modest co-payments, they exempt people on low incomes and/or with high health needs.     

The fact that it offers modern technology and modern medicines? Meh. All healthcare systems in the developed world do that, and plenty of them are more innovation-friendly than the NHS.

The fact that it runs on compassion and solidarity, rather than self-interest? Give me a break. Of course it runs on self-interest. Let’s do an experiment: let’s cut doctors’ pay by a quarter or so and see how many of them would still turn up to work.

Now, if it delivered impressive outcomes, that would indeed be a reason to be proud of it. The Swiss have good reasons to be proud of their healthcare system. They have the lowest rate of (healthcare-related) avoidable deaths in Europe, possibly in the world.

The Dutch have good reasons to be proud of their system too. It is an exceptionally generous system which offers fast access to a broad range of treatments.

The Japanese and the Israelis have good reasons to be proud of their systems. They achieve phenomenally good survival rates for cancer and stroke.

And then there are the French, German and Belgian systems: not spectacularly good in any one particularly category, but consistently good across the board.

The NHS? Nearly always in the bottom third of the league tables, usually about on a par with the Czech Republic and Slovenia.

I’ve never used the NHS but don’t know that many people in the UK who rave about it. Most of them constantly complain about it.

Stuff reports:

More than half of all New Zealand drivers have ticked “donor” on their driver licences, official figures show.

The NZ Transport Agency figures come on the back of 100 submissions on a Ministry of Health-led review aimed at improving organ donation rates, and looking at what role the licence register should play.

Barring the 75-plus age group, willing donors were in the majority for every age group, when compared with those who indicated no, or left the space blank.

Released under the Official Information Act, the figures break down the number of donors out of the country’s There are 3.5 million licensed drivers, of whom 1.9m have indicated “donor” on their licences.

Last year, there were 61 dead organ donors. 

Making the driver licence system an effective register is one of the proposals the ministry has suggested in the review. It says this could be done through better information, and more opportunities to update donor preferences.

It should be a register of donor decisions, not preferences.

The current system is basically a cruel hoax. You tick the box thinking it means that if you end up in a situation where you can donate, it will happen. But in fact ticking the box is meaningless. The hospitals often don’t even check the database. They ignore what you have indicated, and force your family into deciding.

Stuff reports:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared victory in a referendum that grants him sweeping new powers, as opposition parties alleged massive fraud.

With 98 per cent of ballots counted, the state-run Anadolu news agency had Turks approving the most radical constitutional overhaul since the republic was founded 93 years ago by 51.3 per cent to 48.7 per cent. The election board’s official tally is yet to be released. A win would give Erdogan authority to appoint ministers and top judges at his discretion and call elections at any time.

But as the president was calling “Yes” campaigners to congratulate them, broad swathes of the opposition were alleging foul play. Erdal Aksunger, the deputy head of the CHP, the largest opposition bloc, said Anadolu was “manipulating” results as it announced them.

Turkey is going from a parliamentary democracy to rule by “strongman” like Russia has. A sad end to a once great country that was a beacon of stability in the world.

Frances Martel reports:

A poll released this week among Venezuelan nationals found that 75 percent of Venezuelans reported losing “at least 19 pounds” in 2016, while 93 percent of Venezuelans said they do not have the money to secure three meals a day for themselves.

Stunning news for public health activists. We just have to implement socialism in New Zealand and we also can get rid of obesity and slash our average weight.

The Living Conditions Survey, organized in part by three national universities, also found that 83 percent of Venezuelans were below the nation’s poverty line.

But those 83% are now all equal.

A poll released in September found that 15 percent of the nation relied on garbage, most from industrial businesses like groceries and restaurants, to eat. Over half of Venezuelans said they had experienced going to bed hungry, and a similar amount said they were forced to take days off from work to search for food.

That situation has not improved — on the contrary, video surfacing this year appears to indicate that scavenging in garbage dumpsters for food has become so popular that Venezuelans now stand in line in front of dumpsters to look for food.

More recycling and less food waste – great environmental achievements also.

Desperation has also fed crime in one of the most violent countries in the world. The Miami-based El Nuevo Herald published a report last month detailing new robbery tactics growing increasingly popular among Venezuelan youth. Gang attacks on people leaving markets have become more common

Forcible redistribution.

Maduro also created a government unit called the CLAP (Local Committee for Supply and Production) to monitor the distribution of food packages in urban areas. Anti-socialist groups have accused the CLAP of distributing the food only to known government supporters and threatening not to feed households that have expressed opposition to socialism.

What could go wrong with a government committee deciding who gets food and who doesn’t!

Maduro announced this week that he would expand the CLAP program to government salaries, meaning government workers would be paid with CLAP food packages. In some cases, government workers would receive ration tickets to be used at government-controlled markets for food.

Another great leap forwards.

A guest post by Julie Chambers:

On April the 7th Nick Smith claimed the primary function of the land at Point England is for grazing cattle.  That, he claimed justifies this land being subdivided and sold.

This Reserve has been used for grazing because in the 1990s Housing New Zealand paid no rates and Councils of the time were not permitted to spend Reserve Contributions outside the areas they were collected. Poor suburbs had no or little money for investment in parks and open spaces. Leasing to farmers was the best option.

Now days those parts of this Reserve are used ten times more by shorebirds, than cows. The shorebirds nesting in this Reserve are at risk of extinction.  The cows, dogs and people using it are definitely not.

Saying this reserve is only used by cows is like saying Eden Park is only used by lawn mowers.

The rest of the land at Point England has significant value for a wide range of people and is well used as sports grounds and open space.  It is really surprising the Government plans to take sports fields from the community by legislation. The ‘housing benefit’ of this Bill is totally questionable, given ‘the numbers’ and the potential costs of this development.  However this post focuses on the environmental losses.

The Point England Development Enabling Bill rezones land that is eligible for internationally recognised protection under the Ramsar convention without any consideration for the environment. Wildlife is not even mentioned in the Bill.  

The Wildlife Act protects dotterel from hunting. The maximum penalty for killing protected wildlife is a $100,000 fine and up to a year in jail. Killing a Northern New Zealand dotterel is an environmental crime. I think destroying their nesting habitat and wilfully putting predators in their midst is even worse because it is not killing just one bird but dooming a local population forever.

Is it less of a crime because an iwi might benefit? – I don’t know, but if I commit a crime to benefit an iwi it’s still a crime.

Ngāti Pāoa are not environmental criminals, this Government on the advice of the Local Government and Environment Committee will be responsible. We can’t fine or put our own government in jail for this crime, all members of the public can do is plead the case for saving the birds. This bill sets an ugly precedent, pitting iwi against the environment and the local community. It needs to be stopped.

An iwi CEO told media “We would look to repatriate the place the [dotterel] are originally from through restoration and revitalisation”. This has been repeated.

Just in case anyone believes this is possible, it is not.   First we do not know where the Point England dotterel were born. Many of them could be second or third generation locals. Second you cannot tell a bird (Northern New Zealand dotterel) where to nest. The most you can do is get permission from DOC, then move a nest a metre or two (usually to avoid a spring tide event). You can use decoys and audio lures for birds that nest together in flocks. Dotterel do not nest in flocks, they are very territorial because their chicks are precocial (feed for themselves) just like kiwi.

Just to be clear – dotterel nests cannot be moved, if this building goes ahead their chicks are not likely to survive either the construction phases of this development, or the domestic pets that will move in later.

We ‘public’ have no longer any ability to decide the fate of this reserve.  The Select Committee currently reporting on this Bill could advise the Minister and MPs on a better way for iwi to get fair settlement; how the communities could keep their recreational land and how New Zealanders can preserve their special nature reserves. 

All the people wanting to save these birds can do now is ask these Members of Parliament – Please will you do the right thing for the nesting dotterel, the future of this species, the roosting shorebirds and the health of the Tamaki Estuary”?     Will they?   Will Nick Smith listen?

Shaun Lee / Julie Chambers
Save our Parks from Development
www.saveourreserves.org.nz

The NY Times reports:

New Zealand has long wanted to be a tech hub, but distance was an issue. Now, at a moment of political upheaval around the globe, that isolation has become a selling point.

A municipal program to fly in 100 developers next month — wine them, dine them and offer them jobs — was expected to draw 2,500 applications. But the recruitment effort, called LookSee Wellington, was besieged with more than 48,000 entries, including workers at Google, Amazon, Facebook, M.I.T. and NASA. At one point so many people checked out the program that the website failed.

For all sorts of reasons, New Zealand suddenly makes sense. The cost of living is less than in San Francisco. Commuting is less wearying. And American politics, “Brexit” and the Islamic State are on the other side of the world.

Come to Wellington, come to New Zealand.

Newshub reports:

Green MP Julie Anne Genter has shared an “incredibly insensitive” email she received from a member of the public.

The email, posted to Facebook, appeared to blame Ms Genter’s tragic miscarriages on fluoride in the water supply.

“I read in the paper a little while ago that you had two miscarriages,” it reads. “Therefore I thought I would send you this information on fluoride. People don’t realise how toxic fluoride is, even at low levels.

“I presume that is because the dentists will be extremely embarrassed if it is found that they are wrong.”

This is just awful. How could the person who sent this think it was anything except appalling. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Julie Anne has taken this far better than I would in her situation. I’d want to do physical damage to someone who sent an e-mail like that to me or my partner, if we had suffered a miscarriage.

UPDATE: Michelle Dickinson has a wonderful response on her blog.

A weird press release from a group claiming to represent Graduate Women:

Only women pay taxes on the products they use to deal with menstruation. Sanitary products such as tampons are taxed as non-essential, luxury items at 5%. So are maternity pads.Only Women Bleed – and Loose out on Education Because of It!

First of all it is lose out. Secondly there is no 5% tax on so called luxury items.

Only women pay taxes on the products they use to deal with menstruation. Sanitary products such as tampons are taxed as non-essential, luxury items at 5%. So are maternity pads.

Yet some “luxury items” are tax exempt such as edible sugar flowers and alcoholic jellies – but not tampons!

Again this is not the case in NZ. As far as I can tell this is the case in the UK. It goes to show how sensible we are having a no exemptions clean GST.

But what a weird press release from this group. They put out a release condemning something which doesn’t exist, and say they represent graduates!

Claire Trevett writes:

The reason is it very quiet is because this all looks suspiciously like National’s ‘Cabinet Clubs.’

At least, they used to be called Cabinet Clubs but underwent hasty name changes after controversy over them in 2014 and are now known as Anything But Cabinet Clubs.

National said the Cabinet Clubs (which also existed when the party was in Opposition) were harmless groups of supporters run by individual electorates who would pay to go and hear MPs, ministers or sometimes even the Prime Minister bang on for a while at a party fundraiser.

It was standard fundraising fare, they said.

However, Labour was very critical deriding them as ‘cash for access.’

Haworth claims the distinction between the Cabinet Clubs and his President’s Club is that the President’s Club is run by the party and donors are not paying to attend events with MPs at them.

However, sometimes MPs might happen to stumble upon the same events as President’s Club members. Just by coincidence, you know. It is, after all, hard to have a policy announcement without an MP to announce it. …

Haworth has also claimed since Labour is in Opposition no ministers are not involved, unlike National. That is ridiculous.

The whole point of the President’s Club is to set up a long-term framework for funding the party from regular donations.

Labour presumably expects to be in Government at some point in the future, at which point it will have ministers and they will likely do what all ministers do – make policy announcements and help to fundraise.

What Labour is trying to say is that ‘donor’ is only a dirty word when it is a National Party donor.

Spot on.

The Herald reports:

An Auckland Councillor has laid a complaint with the Human Rights Commission over a sign in the window of an Avondale shop banning people wearing burkas from entering.

The sign on the door of Coffee and Gems 2 Go says the shop has a “No Burkas, No Hoodies, No Sunglasses, No Helmets” policy.

According to the Companies Office, the store sells coffee and second hand jewellery.

Sounds perfectly reasonable. They are saying customers have to show their faces. A very reasonable protection measure.

Cathy Casey, who represents the Albert-Eden-Roskill ward, told the Herald when a local woman sent her a photo of the sign on Thursday she thought “that’s not right” and believed it may be discriminatory and illegal to stop someone from entering a shop because they are wearing a burka.

“It looks as though the business is basically flouting the Human Rights Act. I’ve checked the Act and it says you can’t discriminate on the grounds of religion and the grounds of sex.”

They’re not. First of all the burka is not a religious requirement. A tiny tiny proportion of Islamic women wear them. Secondly the burka is not being singled out. The sign clearly lists other dress elements that block visual identification.  If they listed other forms of hijab such as headscarves then that might be discrimination. But it is absolutely fine to say we need to see your face for you to enter this store, and list what isn’t allowed.

After forwarding the photo to the Council’s compliance team Casey contacted the Human Rights Commission about the sign.

So it is a politician complaining, not an actual customer.

“I’m not questioning the motives of the business owner. I’m just saying that it doesn’t feel right that you should be discriminating [against] that particular group of women.

“I’ve never met the owner of the shop so it’s not really about them. It’s about the issue. The issue is: is any shop owner above the law which says you can’t discriminate in this way?”

It is not discrimination. If a religious group claimed that their religion requires them to wear balaclavas, that would not mean you can enter a store with a balaclava.

The Washington Post reports:

The Facebook event invitation left little doubt about the protesters’ feelings toward pro-police speaker Heather Mac Donald.

They accused her of “neglecting the state sponsored genocide committed against black people” and said she represented “white supremacist and fascist ideologies.”

And just in case people didn’t get the point, organizers photo-shopped devil horns onto her picture.

The last words on the invite, which has since been deleted, offered instructions to like-minded Claremont McKenna College students and others: Show up wearing black and “bring your comrades, because we’re shutting this down.”

They were true to their word. On Thursday evening, about 250 protesters chanted “black lives matter” and other, more choice phrases at the entrance to the Athenaeum, a campus building where Mac Donald was slated to speak, according to a YouTube video of the demonstration. (Warning, it contains strong language.)

Blocking buildings on the California campus is an arrest-able offense, but seeing the sizable crowd, campus officials decided not to force the issue and instead live-streamed Mac Donald’s event.

“We jointly concluded that any forced interventions or arrests would have created unsafe conditions for students, faculty, staff, and guests,” Claremont McKenna College President Hiram E. Chodosh said Friday in a statement. “I take full responsibility for the decision to err on the side of these overriding safety considerations.”

The demonstration was the second time this year that a large-scale protest has targeted a conservative speaker on a college campus.

Once again the totalitarian left succeeds in preventing free speech on campus. It is one thing to protest against views you don’t like, but quite another to try and ensure the speech never occurs by disrupting it.

The College authorities could of course stop this. They could say that if you use force to prevent other students from accessing a building to hear a speaker, then you will be dismissed from the college.

Have just read the sentencing notes of Michael Waripouri. An awful awful killing. The victim died a horrible death.

One part that struck me was this:

You have been convicted of 91 offences, and sentenced to imprisonment for 40 of them. Relevantly, they include convictions for kidnapping, injuring with intent, various forms of assault, possession of an offensive weapon and threatening to kill. 

To be fair to Waripouri, the convictions occurred a long time ago. But what still strikes me is that someone can have 40 imprisonable offences and be out at large.

Jack Shafer at Politico writes:

Observers have been waiting for more than a year for Donald Trump to stop acting like a beer hall bouncer and start acting more presidential. On Wednesday, that wish came true, as Baby Donald completed his transformation into a standard chief executive of the United States by espousing many of the hallmark policies one would have associated with President Hillary Clinton.

My Politico Playbook colleagues discerned Trump’s recent policy shift in their Thursday tipsheet. Previously, Trump said NATO was obsolete. Now, he salutes it, Clinton-style, as a “great alliance.” Previously, he lavished kisses on Vladimir Putin and Russia. Now Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have taken a Clintonesque stand against Russia, admitting to low levels of trust between the two nations. Then: No war in Syria. Now, Trump is bombing Syria with the sort of glee Clinton would have brought to the mission. And on and on it goes, with Trump adopting Clintonian stances on Chinese currency manipulation (doesn’t exist!) and the Export-Import Bank (for it).

Hillary Clinton’s presidency would have been a family affair, with Bill and Chelsea mobbing the White House with their advice; Trump has seated daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner at on his roundtable and acts on their guidance. Hillary Clinton would have recruited pros from Goldman Sachs; Trump has brushed the rafters of his administration a beaming gold with guys from Goldman. Hillary Clinton would have gone to war with the Republican Congress, vowing to campaign against them once they refused to pass her legislation; Trump has come close to realizing that goal, telling the leader of the troublesome House Freedom Caucus, “Mark, I’m coming after you.”

Remember how Trump’s surrogates said during the campaign that a Clinton presidency would be too hobbled by the ongoing FBI investigation to govern effectively? Instead, we’ve gotten a Trump presidency tainted by an FBI investigation of several of his top campaign aides. During the campaign, Trump beat on Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen with the baseball-bat fury of Joey Ramone. “To a certain extent, I think she should be ashamed of herself,” he said. That statement is now inoperative, replaced with the “I like her, I respect her” statement he gave to the Wall Street Journal. Reappointing her to the Fed is not outside the realm of possibility.

Elsewhere on the Clintonification front, Trump through his legislative bungling has preserved Obamacare, which he vowed to repeal, and is ready to make common cause with Democrats to pass an infrastructure pork bill. Had Clinton gone shopping for generals to stock her administration, she might have filled her cart with the likes of H.R. McMaster, Jim Mattis, and John F. Kelly.

Trump of course was for many years a liberal NY Democrat. His daughter and son-in-law were the same and it looks like their faction is winning dominance in the White House.

The Herald reports:

A bill designed to protect teenagers from forced marriages will go before Parliament.

The private member’s bill by National MP Joanne Hayes changes the consent requirements for 16 and 17-year-olds who wish to marry.

Currently parental consent is needed in such cases. This would change to require an application to be lodged to the court and the consent of a Family Court judge.

“This bill will address the concern that some 16 and 17 year olds may be being force into marriage,” Hayes said.

I’m very supportive of this bill. Every year around 500 teenagers get married – mainly young women. I can’t see why anyone needs to get married before they are 18, but if so then it is sensible to make sure the marriage is truly willing.

David Seymour’s speech against appointing Winston Peters to the Intelligence and Security Committee:

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I have never heard a more solemn or subdued debate in this House, and I could barely hear the words of Gerry Brownlee, David Parker, Kennedy Graham, or Ron Mark through the chewing on dead rat that was stopping those words from getting out. Well, I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in opposition to this motion. I cannot think of a worse person in this House that could be nominated to such an important committee as the Intelligence and Security Committee.

We know that security is important and perhaps now more important than at any other time, with the various geopolitical tensions that we face, whether it be off the coast of North Korea, in Syria, or wherever else. We know that terrorism is changing its shape and is becoming harder and harder to detect and prevent. We know—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I will ask the member to sit down for a second. This is clearly controversial and painful for some members, but they must control their interjections to those that are appropriate. I am not looking at Mr Mark; I am looking at Mr Ball at the moment. You must not bring me into this debate.

DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you for your intervention, but I am not bothered by the squealing from New Zealand First—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member has now been here long enough to know that he does not comment on my rulings, and he will not if he wants to continue.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I apologise, Mr Assistant Speaker. What do we need in a member of a security and intelligence committee? Well, I would say that such a member should be diligent, should be collegial, should be honest, and, ironically, should be prepared to put New Zealand first. And what do we see in the characteristics of Winston Peters? This is a guy who has been called diligent. Well, I prefer the words of somebody else whom we are about to debate, Simon Upton, who said of his time in Cabinet with Winston Peters: “There was something genuinely sad about watching him arrive at Cabinet meetings with his papers unread, still tightly secured by their green Cabinet Office ribbon.” That is the person going on the most important committee in New Zealand, according to this motion. I have watched the same thing in the Finance and Expenditure Committee in the last 2 years, when he shows up with his papers unread, asking questions that would be embarrassing if only anyone could understand what he was trying to say, far off topic, to the bemusement of the officials before the Finance and Expenditure Committee.

I said that a member of this committee should be collegial. The least collegial person in this House is someone who has been sacked from three different Cabinets by three different Prime Ministers. That is the opposite of collegiality. This committee requires someone who is honest, not somebody who has been censured by this House—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member has just reflected on the honesty of another member. He will withdraw and apologise.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I withdraw and apologise, but putting the interests—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Mr Seymour, you cannot withdraw and apologise and say “but”, all right? Just make it absolutely unequivocal and move on to another topic.

DAVID SEYMOUR: I withdraw and apologise. Now, the next thing that you might want in a member of this committee is the ability to put New Zealand first. Well, the fact of the matter is that Winston Peters is like one of those old lags in prison—somebody who cannot retire, who cannot go nowhere else, because he has got nowhere else to go. The Rt Hon John Key—he could retire, because he has got other options. He has got other things to do. In fact, most members of this House have that, but Winston Peters is somebody who has absolutely nothing else to offer the world and is scared to leave this House.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member’s speech is concluded.

DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As an elected member, I have a right to speak in this House and time on the clock. Could you please explain—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member will resume his seat. [Interruption] The member will resume his seat. I will give the member an explanation. His speech has been terminated for repeated breaches of Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings. He had been warned twice, and he breached on a third occasion. I think the member knows about the three-strikes law. He is probably lucky still to be here.

What a pity David was cut off before he finished. Still a fine speech. An interesting point is that generally you can’t call another member dishonest, but what is the situation when the Privileges Committee and the House have found the member lied to the House previously?

Stuff reports:

Window washers could be stung with $150 spot fines under a new bill which passed its first reading in Parliament on Wednesday.

The bill submitted by National MP Jami-Lee Ross’, has support from National and Labour.

Ross wants windscreen washing at intersections to be made illegal, giving police the power to issue washers with $150 instant fines.

Excellent. Intersection window washers are a form of intimidation. They start washing your car even after you explicitly signal to them you don’t want them to, and then as you are stuck at the intersection, you are intimidated into paying them for a service you did not want, out of fear they may damage your car or worse if you do not.

Labour’s police spokesman Stuart Nash said it was a pragmatic solution to an identified issue.

The Green Party opposed the bill and MP Jan Logie said it risked being an “attack on the poor”.

Of course they are against it.