Chris Cillizza writes:

US President Donald Trump delivered a strong speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, an address sure to embolden both the chief executive and Congressional Republicans who support him.

Here are some notes on the best and the worst of the night that was.

WINNERS

• Donald Trump: This was the best “big” speech he has given as president. It may well have been the best speech Trump has given since he entered politics way back in June 2015. Trump didn’t walk away from his decidedly dark vision of the current state of the country but his overall tone was more conciliatory and optimistic than I’ve ever heard him.

Trump hit a few very nice notes: His condemnation of threats against Jewish community centres at the start of the speech was a very nice grace note and his honouring of the widow of the Navy SEAL killed in the recent Yemen raid was remarkably powerful moment.

The tribute to the Navy SEAL and interaction with his widow was incredibly moving.

• Steve Bannon and Ivanka Trump: If you are looking for the two biggest influencers in terms of what Trump said and how he said it, look no further than Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, and Ivanka, the president’s eldest daughter. The unapologetic nationalism and indictment of the political system was pure Bannon. The push for paid family leave and focus on education was all Ivanka.

An unlikely combination.

LOSERS

• The devilish details of replacing Obamacare: In the runup to the Trump speech, Republican members of Congress voiced hopes that Trump might give them guidance about how he’d like to replace Obamacare. What Trump did talk about – lowering the price of prescription drugs, keeping the pre-existing conditions provision – are widely popular idea. The issue, of course, is how to pay for all of this if you strip out the rest of the elements of Obamacare.

• People rooting for Trump’s imminent demise: He’s not going anywhere, folks. And that speech suggests he might have more upside than almost anyone thought.

He’s here for 202 more weeks or even 410.

David Lee, Wellington City Councillor, is standing for the Greens in Ilam.

Real dedication to Wellington.

So he will spend most of the year campaigning in Christchurch, but being paid to be a Wellington City Councillor.

Stuff reports:

But a close look at the statements announcing the aspiring MPs reveals many are singing from the same song sheet – to a suspicious degree.

Take National, which appears to have tapped into a rich vein of “proud boys” for its electorate candidates.

Current MP and Hutt South candidate Chris Bishop, a “proud born and bred Hutt boy”, is in good company.

Northland candidate Matt King declares himself “a proud Northland boy”, while the biographical notes for Waikato candidate Tim van de Molen note he is a “proud Waikato boy”.

However, Labour has been a particularly egregious offender, with no less than seven candidates using near-identical phrasing in their pledges to fight for their would-be constituents in Parliament.

Hutt South candidate Virginia Andersen was the first to start the trend in October last year, saying: “Hutt South is made up of strong communities and I will be working hard to make sure those voices are heard loud and clear.”

She was followed by Maungakiekie candidate Priyanca Radhakrishnan the next month: “Maungakiekie is made up of many strong communities and I will be working hard to make sure these voices are heard loud and clear in Wellington.”

Well done Fairfax. You have discovered that political parties use press release templates. Who would have guessed.

Each party has a staffer at HQ whose job it is to do a press release for each of the 71 candidates selected. And no surprise, they use a template. Each one is varied as appropriate as the candidate wants, but of course most of them will have phrases in common.

Patrick Whittle writes:

A ban on Muslims is not racist. Nor is raising concerns in New Zealand, as elsewhere, about immigration – or indeed questioning the very idea of “multiculturalism”.

For many liberal-minded people these very statements could themselves seem racist. But the term “racist” no longer has concrete meaning, beyond being simply a slur for anyone who questions the progressive consensus on culture or race.  

And yet in this period of “post-truth” and “alternative facts” it is doubly important that we apply real meaning to the words we use in political debate. And with our own Race Relation Commissioner demanding review of legislation on acceptable and unacceptable forms of speech, we need to draw a clear line between “hate crimes” and “thought crimes”. The accusation “racist!” is all too often used to simply silence debate.   

Yes, Donald Trump’s attempted travel ban on citizens of certain Muslim-majority countries is irrational, idiotic, hypocritical and wrong. And yes, it’s undoubtedly designed to pander to his more xenophobic supporters, many of whom almost certainly hold racist views. But the proposed ban itself isn’t racist, at least not if this word has any true meaning.

Agreed.

To make an obvious point, “Muslims” are not a race (although many of the travel embargo’s supporters probably don’t realise this). The seven countries originally singled out in Trump’s executive order are home to a wide range of “races”, and for his actions to be truly racist, he’d have to single out a particular people – Arabs, for example. Needless to say, a ban on all Arabs would also include American allies such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, where – surprise, surprise – the USA (and its President) have strong business interests.

To the average xenophobic bigot, of course, this is just hair-splitting – the fact that “they” have a different language, religion or culture, plus a different skin colour, is enough to distinguish “them” from “us”.

The difference is important. No one can choose their race. But religion is a choice, a belief.

Unfortunately, this simplistic conflation of culture and race – of mistakenly assuming that people’s behaviour and beliefs are somehow linked to the colour of their skin – is not the sole preserve of narrow-minded right-wingers. Although they don’t realise it, many anti-racist liberals think and argue in the same way, especially when they dismiss any criticism of “other” cultures’ practices as racial prejudice.

 

But by being too ready to slap the term “racist” on anything that challenges their own admirable (but often naive) beliefs about multiculturalism, liberals inadvertently play into the hands of populist demagogues. “Racist” has become a vacuous term – one that is now treated as just so much white-noise by the right.

Yep.

It is not racist to ask how people from different cultural backgrounds, with potentially widely differing beliefs and attitudes, should be expected to co-exist in a given society. Nor is it racist to disagree over the best means of creating a harmonious multicultural/multiracial society.

The furore surrounding the ban on Muslims, for example, has served to further cloud the genuine and much-needed debate about how countries should best integrate or assimilate large numbers of immigrants who may hold vastly different religious, political and social beliefs.

And the US has generally done very well in integrating immigrants. It is in Europe, that integration has failed in some areas.

Much modern multiculturalist belief eschews criticism of “other” cultures. In the Port Hills case, and the much more serious Cologne one, this leads to a tragic irony – that by attributing groping to cultural misunderstanding, progressives imply that what is unequivocally wrong in one culture may in fact be acceptable in another. In other words, that sexual assault is only a crime against “our” women but not “their” women. This is a genuinely racist attitude, one brought about by the unwillingness of many  progressives to think deeply about their self-proclaimed anti-racist beliefs.

There is a real double standard.

Stuff reports:

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has to revisit a decision over whether a longer runway safety area is needed if Wellington Airport extends its runway, a court has ruled.

In a decision released on Tuesday the Court of Appeal has agreed with the NZ Airlines Pilots’ Association (NZALPA) that the CAA must consider if longer runway safety areas (RESA) can feasibly be constructed, and also consider the use of arresting systems if appropriate.

The Court of Appeal found that in ruling that Wellington’s existing 90 metre safety area as compliant and appropriate for Wellington Airport’s proposed extension, the director of the CAA “made material errors in law”.

Under international aviation rules, regulators must ensure that airports operate with RESAs of at least 90m, and if “practicable” of at least 240m.

The court ruling is quite interesting. It says the CAA needed to seriously look at a 240 metre RESA and only if it concluded it was impracticable, look at shorter lengths.

When the matter came before the the High Court, Justice Karen Clark ruled that what was “practicable” was a balancing exercise between safety considerations and the cost and difficulty involved.

However the Court of Appeal decision differed from Justice Clark, saying that while cost had some “limited relevance” in considering what was practicable, the real test was what was able to be constructed.

“[C]ost is not a predominant factor to be balanced against the requirement of promoting safety; given its removal from the amended primary legislation, “reasonable cost” is now a factor of subordinate importance,” the Court of Appeal decision said.

This means, if not appealed, the CAA has to redo its consideration of what length RESA is required and if it is more than 90 metres, this would significantly add to the cost of a runway extension.

The hysterical Dom Post editorial:

Could money be about to wash over New Zealand politics in a way unprecedented in the modern era?

No, there has been no change in how much you can spend as a third party.

Last year, the court decided (rightly) that a satirical song about former Prime Minister John Key should not have been censored before the 2014 election. But it also upended a longstanding assumption that only political parties could broadcast partisan TV and radio advertisements in the three months before an election.

Which is great. Why should political parties be the only ones who can advertise on radio and TV?

It concluded that while the parties could still do so, using a limited pool of state money, anyone else could join them. That opens the way for significant spending by outsider groups, and perhaps an onslaught of the “attack ads” that blanket the airwaves in the US.

No, as the third party spending limits are unchanged. The only change is that a third party could spent some on their money on radio and TV now, as well as newspapers, direct mail, Internet, billboards etc,

If this interpretation is right, such third-party pressure groups will face a $315,000 spending cap for the three months before the election, and no limits on spending at all until then. (By way of comparison, the NZ First Party had $200,000 in state funds to spend on TV and radio ads before the 2014 election).

A false comparison. A party contesting every electorate can spend $2.98 million on advertising as well as the $200,000 in state funds. The limit for political parties is far higher than third parties. As a matter of free speech, I don’t think there should be any limit on third party spending. The link between amount spent and impact is pretty low (ask Colin Craig and Kim Dotcom).

The vast majority of third party spending comes from unions trying to help Labour and attack National. If they want to run ads on radio or television, they should be able to.

Once upon a time there may have been a case for broadcast ads being so powerful, they need to be restricted. But this is long past. All forms of advertising should be treated the same.

If I was running a third party, and someone gave me $300,000 to spend on political advertising, I wouldn’t spend a cent of it on television advertising. I’d spend it all on video adverts on Facebook where you can target voters with huge precision.

So the Dominion Post, and Professor Geddis, are creating much ado about nothing.

It’s not clear that the airwaves really will be swamped in partisan ads funded by vested interests this year, but it’s alarming that they might be.

Almost as alarming as the fact third parties can use carrier pigeons to distribute flyers.

Whoever wins the 2017 election should urgently fix this and other anomalies in the law.

No urgency at all. A non existent problem. All it does is allow third parties a greater choice of mediums to advertise on. The only fix needed is to remove the restrictions on parties being able to use broadcast media for advertising – beyond their state allocation.

If various Labour supporting unions want to waste their money on television adverts against National, let them do so.

Newshub reports:

Labour’s deputy leader Annette King is retiring – and has thrown her support behind Jacinda Ardern to replace her. 

“After some reflection, I have decided to step down from the deputy leader’s position in the Labour Party,” she announced on Wednesday morning.

Ms King is a long-serving MP for Rongotai, and Labour’s health spokesperson. Ms King told Newshub “there has been absolutely no pressure on me to stand aside at all”.

Yeah right.

A poll comes out showing them at 26%, which would mean almost no List MPs. They have realised they can’t win with Little, so they are hoping the celebrity star factor of Ardern will give them a boost.

“I actually think that Jacinda is ready to be the deputy. Having that win in Mt Albert – having a base – being grounded in an electorate is really important. And she has worked hard, she’s stood in seats that are unwinnable, and she’s won, and she’s ready, and I think she’ll make a really good deputy.”

Stood in unwinnable seats? She’s stood in Auckland Central the last two elections, which is a historically safe seat for Labour – but has been unable to win it for Labour.

Ardern’s roles to date within Labour have been:

• Youth Affairs 2008 – 2011
• Youth Justice 2008 – 2011
• Employment 2011
• Associate Arts 2011, 2013
• Social Development 2011 – 2013
• Children 2012 –
• Police 2013 – 2014
• Corrections 2013 – 2014
• Arts 2013 –
• Justice 2014 –
• Small Business 2014 –
• Auckland Issues 2015 –

Stuff reports:

An Auckland woman has been filmed refusing to wear a seatbelt because she said it doesn’t fit across her waist.

The driver questioned the point of wearing it, and said that if she was fined it could be seen as discrimination against overweight people.

“I can’t fit it, so what’s the point of wearing it. If they’re going to give me a fine for not fitting my seatbelt, that’s just being racist, to the fat people,” she said.

Oh dear, I did giggle when I read it. I never knew being fat was now a race.

I would also point out you can get a seat belt extender for around $20.

The Herald reports:

It launched with huge fanfare, with its hosts literally singing and dancing their way onto our screens. But Three’s new venture The Project has taken a major hit in the ratings since launching last Monday.

Last night’s episode saw 100,000 viewers tune in, down 82,000 from its launch episode.

More concerningly for the broadcaster, ratings in its key commercial demographic (25-54) have fallen from 74,000 to just 36,000. A decrease of 51 per cent in just one week.

Around half the audience gone in just one week. What will it be at in one month?

It seems there is one way the audience stays high, according to Stuff:

A major lift, however, was given to The Project in the form of Henry.

On Thursday night, when Henry was a guest host on the panel show, 172,500 viewers aged 5+ tuned in to watch.

They should ask Paul Henry to become a permanent host on The Project. The only downside will be a huge increase in suicides in certain Auckland suburbs as Labour luuvies realise their choice at 7 pm is between Mike Hosking and Paul Henry 🙂

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister Bill English has downplayed a surge in demand for emergency housing grants, saying the government support is “flushing out” Kiwis in need of help.

The Government set up a special needs grant for emergency housing last year, following reports of a rise in homelessness.

However, while it planned to give out 1400 grants a year, 8860 grants were made in the last quarter of 2016 alone, Newshub reported.

This is no surprise. Once the emergency housing went from an advance to a grant, of course demand would skyrocket. Smash up your state house and get evicted, and you get put up in a motel for free!

The latest Roy Morgan poll is at Curia.

Richard Harman writes:

A former top Green official .and leadership contender in 2015 has resigned from the party because he believes it has lost its way and  he is now working with National.

Though he has not joined National, Vernon Tava is part of the campaign team for Erica Stamford – an old friend — who is standing for National in East Coast Bays.

As for the Greens, he said he began to part ways with them because he began to doubt whether the environment was seriously at the top of their agenda.

He also began to doubt that there was any genuine will on the part of the party to work with the Government whoever they were.

The Greens have given up on a constructive relationship with National. Their job now is to be cheerleaders for Labour it seems.

“When I stood for co-leader one of the great things about that was that we travelled around the country and I was contacted by a lot of the older, founder members who thought it was no longer the party of Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald.

“And the composition of the party did change very significantly with the collapse of the Alliance.

“A lot fo those people did move into the Greens and being people who had backgrounds in teaching, union organising, and they were people who were very good at working with an internal structure.

“I do feel that there was a point where the emphasis and the balance of the part shifted.

“I  had joined what I thought was an environmental party and I did find that on the whole, it was more of a socialist party.”

Yep. And remember this is not some junior person, but a former Northern Region Convener.

Tava says his fundamental question of the Greens was to ask how serious they were about the environment.

“Is it that we will only protect the environment when it feels good or will do what it takes to work with whoever is in Government.”

And he says that in 2012 the Greens began to change the way they dealt with the National Party.

“I was very disappointed, and I know some members and MPs were too, that a decision was taken to personalise the attacks against the National Party.

“When Russel Norman really started going after John Key, a lot of us were very unhappy about that.

“It was like we’d burned the bridge, and the party was traditionally always meant to be above the fray, and you didn’t hear Jeannette Fitzsimons or Rod Donald making personalised attacks against people.

I recall Russel Norman comparing John Key to Muldoon.

Stats NZ reports:

Migrant arrivals numbered 128,300 in the January 2017 year, a new annual record.

“About a fifth of all migrant arrivals were from Australia,” population statistics senior manager Peter Dolan said. “Almost two-thirds of the migrant arrivals from Australia were New Zealand citizens.”

 Visa types contributing most to the migrant arrivals were:

• work visas (42,400 – up 4,200)

• New Zealand and Australian citizens (37,900 – up 1,700)

• student visas  (24,300 – down 3,600)

• residence visas (16,700 – up 2,600).

I keep thinking migration is going to peak, but every month fewer NZers are leaving and more Aussies are moving here!

Stuff reports:

Spiritual leaders with access to children are not subject to police vetting, a loophole that urgently needs closing, according to a victim of historic sex abuse.

It is not a loophole. The state has no business telling private organisations what to do with vetting.

As it stands now, the law states that all State-funded organisations have to vet children’s workers. But despite a legacy of child sexual abuse scandals, the law does not cover religious institutions.

That is because they are not state funded. The last thing you want is the state regulating religions, as that encourages religions to get involved in the business of the state.

The law applies anyone in a government-funded agency that works with children, along with core children’s workers like nurses and teachers.

It also covers employees in religious groups’ programmes that receive State funding and teachers at religion-affiliated private schools.

So the law is not a loophole and not an exemption. If a religious programme is state funded, then the vetting is mandatory,

But all religious groups should screen leaders and youth workers too, Shelley said.

Why? Not all religions are the same.

Stuff contacted a range of religious institutions, including New Zealand’s Anglican, Catholic, Mormon, Presbyterian, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic and Scientologist groups, to ask whether they were vetting children’s workers.

Among those that responded; the Catholic Church’s policy requires not only police checks, but psychological testing for its clergy training to join the order.

Its social services staff are also vetted and it is currently drafting national guidelines for its smaller parishes.

Presbyterian and Mormon churches already have national policies to vet employees and volunteers with access to children, and the Anglican Church circulated a document to its diocese last year recommending the same.

So most churches are vetting on a voluntary basis, so what is the problem?

The Herald reported on a homeless mother of six. I have removed the link as the person named in the story and the person named in a Tenancy Tribunal decision are different people with the same name, which I acknowledged was possible. 

Arrange to interview job applicant at 10am, 30 year old Kiwi. No show and no phone call.
I bet the immigrant I'm interviewing next turns up

— DairyMan (@dairymanNZ) February 26, 2017

An Ashburton farmer complained on Twitter that once again a young Kiwi failed to turn up to a job interview, and made the point that the immigrant applicants tend to be more reliable. A point Bill English has said he hears all the time from employers.

@dairymanNZ @HdizzyDizzle Would offering more money or better conditions get non-twat Kiwis to apply?

— Iain Lees-Galloway (@IainLG) February 27, 2017

Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway immediately victim blames and concludes the problem is the farmer is not offering enough money.

@IainLG @HdizzyDizzle I think $50k and nominal rent is not a bad package.

— DairyMan (@dairymanNZ) February 27, 2017

Never mind the job pays above the average wage.

@dairymanNZ @HdizzyDizzle So why don’t you think you can attract the right people?

— Iain Lees-Galloway (@IainLG) February 27, 2017

Note the Labour MP still blaming the employer. Also note his implicit assumption.

@IainLG @HdizzyDizzle I can attract the people, I offered the immigrant the job. What makes you think an immigrant isn’t the right person?

— DairyMan (@dairymanNZ) February 27, 2017

Nicely called out. I hope all the immigrants in NZ who read this realise Labour thinks they are not the right people to get jobs.

@dairymanNZ @HdizzyDizzle And if the labour market had fewer people in it you would have to offer better terms to find the best applicant.

— Iain Lees-Galloway (@IainLG) February 27, 2017

Now ILG gets back to employer bashing. His answer is that $50,000 is not enough money for decent Kiwis to bother to turn up to job interviews for, and allowing immigrants with good work ethics to apply for such jobs is bad. The employer should have to pay say $70,000 or $80,000 until a young Kiwi is actually willing to turn up to a job interview on time.

The scary thing is that if Labour manage to get into Government, Lees-Galloway could be a Minister.

Claire Trevett writes:

If Labour leader Andrew Little was giving serious thought to replacing his deputy Annette King with Jacinda Ardern, he will likely have shelved it by now if he cares for his safety.

Ardern’s win in Mt Albert prompted fresh speculation Little should replace his steady pacemaker King with the crowd-pleasing sprinter Ardern as deputy for the home straight to the election.

There is sense in that. But King can not see it. King’s response was a quite astonishing and vociferous defence of her turf.

She claimed the talk around Ardern was ageist. She even went a little bit Trump, accusing media of having a vendetta against her.

Speaking to the Herald she questioned what Ardern could offer that she did not, other than relative youth.

Doesn’t sound like she is keen to stand aside.

Little could take the risk of upsetting the likes of MP Poto Williams and Maryan Street over his decision to recruit Willie Jackson to Labour, but he can not afford to get offside with King.

King has great loyalty in Labour and Little will not be able to replace her unless she recognises it is a necessary idea herself.

He somehow has to make it seem like it was her idea all along.

And that is now too late. Ardern would likely refuse if King was upset by it.

A very unsafe thing, to annoy Annette.

Terry Barnes writes:

When it comes to importing Kiwi products, however, there’s one outstanding Kiwi product Turnbull should have asked English about: The quality of Kiwi government and politics, writes Terry Barnes.

Australian politics have been an ungovernable mess for years, ever since John Howard lost to Labor’s Kevin Rudd in 2007.

Rudd got rolled by Gillard. Then Gillard got rolled by Rudd. Then Abbott beat Rudd. Then Turnbull rolled Abbott. And now Abbott seems to have turned into Rudd and is trying to toll Turnbull.

Unlike Wellington, gridlock now reigns in Canberra. Whether Labor or the Liberal-National coalition, governing parties trying to make even modest reforms and budget savings are savaged by opponents, and rent by internal political mismanagement and infighting.

Abbott in 2010 and 2013, and Labor’s Bill Shorten in 2016, won or almost won elections not with positive policies but by blocking governments at every turn and waging effective scare campaigns.

Key in 2008 was very different. He campaigned on how good New Zealand is, but how it could be even greater.

Whereas in New Zealand the consensus generally is for steady government featuring prudent economic management, the road to electoral victory in Australia is populist.

Oppositions, and minor parties and independents who control Australia’s senate, are making centrist yet moderately reformist government like New Zealand’s almost impossible.

Instead of taking collective responsibility for economic leadership by reining in the Australian budget deficit, populist senators happily shoot down any savings while demanding yet more government programmes and spending, and urge higher taxes and borrowings.

In hindsight Sid Holland did us a great favour in 1950 by abolishing the Legislative Chamber.

As Turnbull flew to Queenstown last week, his government’s childcare and disability reform package was blocked by crossbenchers wanting its lavish new spending but not cuts to existing programmes to pay for it.

The parties that hold the balance of power in the Senate have the power but not the responsibility. This is partly why Australia looks to continue with deficits for years to come, while NZ is back in surplus.

Helen Clark, Key and now English have pursued politically-challenging social, economic and welfare reforms, tempered by consensus-building and compromise in an MMP parliament. That keeps New Zealand politics reasonably centrist while Australia’s political agenda increasingly is fractured by angry and intolerant left and right fringes.

NZ Labour though is heading towards the angry intolerant left fringe.

Furthermore, governments run themselves far better in New Zealand. Key and English’s success has benefited from a highly-efficient back office led ably but unobtrusively from the Beehive’s ninth floor by prime ministerial chief-of-staff Wayne Eagleson.

Things get done, relationships with supporters and opponents are managed efficiently, and collegiality is more than a word. In Australia, unelected officials like Rudd and Abbott’s chiefs-of-staff, Alister Jordan and Peta Credlin, wrongly became controversial public players in their own right.

Political staff are a bit like poisoners – you can be a famous poisoner or a successful poisoner – but not both. They should never be the story.

New Zealanders should rightly be proud of the quality of their government, politics and even politicians.

If Malcolm Turnbull took home even just a few pointers from Bill English on how to run a country and manage a fragmented multi-party parliament effectively, his day in Queenstown will have not only been worthwhile, but might help him save his own embattled leadership.

I think our unicameral Parliament is an advantage. So is having no state governments.

The Herald reports:

Jailed former Heart of the City boss Alex Swney is teaching fellow inmates how to read and write.

Swney, 59, was jailed for five years and seven months in June 2015, after being found guilty of tax evasion and “sophisticated” offending spanning more than a decade.

The crimes involved more than $4 million.

It is understood he will be eligible for parole in May.

New Zealand Howard League for Penal Reform chief executive Mike Williams, a former Labour Party president, yesterday told the Herald on Sunday of Swney’s work with fellow inmates via one of the organisation’s peer-to-peer literacy programmes.

Good to see some good come out of Swney’s offending. Once he is released, I hope he can continue doing good.

The Herald reports:

Today’s Mt Albert by-election could – and should – have been New Zealand’s first online voting trial, claims a veteran Auckland councillor concerned change is being held back by political fears of activating young voters.

Experienced Waitakere councillor and former deputy mayor Penny Hulse says Auckland Council has been ready to trial online voting for some time and been pushing for it happen.

And she told the Weekend Herald that today’s Mt Albert by-election was the latest opportunity to go begging.

Government pulled the plug on online voting for last year’s local body elections over online security fears. There have also been frustrations within council that this month’s Howick by-election still didn’t have the option of online voting either.

I’m very cautious of online voting for parliamentary elections as our current system is extremely secure. But for local government elections, it should definitely be trialled. The current postal voting system is incredibly insecure. And all the concerns over e-voting security can be easily handled by merely using the Internet to deliver the vote, instead of count them. Imagine a system where you simply cast your vote over the Internet and its prints out you completed ballot paper in a secure room at the Returning Officer’s office. So you have a full audit trail, and the ballot paper now only has all the details of if it had been posted in, but all the additional info such as date and time completed, IP address etc which makes fraud detection much easier. Also you can notify the voter their e-ballot has been received so if it isn’t them, they know.

Council documents declare Hulse and Mayor Phil Goff “will be pursuing this” while a survey of 1259 people was overwhelmingly in favour of modernisation, with 74 per cent preferring online voting to a traditional postal system.

Hulse said the postal system is antiquated and the democratic process is being hamstrung by what she describes as “resistance” to making the voting system as relevant and accessible as possible.

The resistance appears to be the Government. If you want e-voting for local body elections, then the only way to get it might be to change the Government.

Missed this announcement late last year:

Rotorua’s Tamati Coffey says he gets approached constantly with ideas for new television shows, but he leapt at the chance to tackle an issue close to his heart.

Mr Coffey, co-owner of Ponsonby Rd Lounge Bar, is set to host a new TVNZ1 show Moving Out which is planned to screen mid next year.

The show is being produced by Faultline Films’ Amanda Jones who said the show would follow Kiwi families as they chose to move from Auckland’s rat race to the provinces.

Incredible. They hire someone who is an active Labour Party candidate to front a show that will air just before the election. Another reason to sell TVNZ.

11Stuff reports:

Changes to proposed spying laws have tightened the rules around obtaining warrants and placed more responsibility for the actions of New Zealand’s spies directly on the responsible minister. 

The details have been released in a report from MPs sitting on Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Select Committee, to Minister for National Security and Intelligence Bill English. …

The report from select committee recommends a number of key changes, following a process of hearing submissions from both experts and the general public. …

“One of the most significant changes is a two-pronged approach to national security in the warranting regime.” 

MPs have recommended that both the authorising Minister and the Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants must be satisfied the spying warrant is necessary for the protection of national security.

It was a change from the original requirement, which would have seen the Attorney General provide one half of the sign-off, instead of the Minister. 

“Being responsible for issuing warrants would ensure that the responsible Minister is aware of the day-to-day business of the agency, of which warrants are a significant component,” the committee said in its report. 

A Type 1 intelligence warrant authorises a spy agency to carry out what would be otherwise illegal activity, to collect information again New Zealand citizens and residents. 

Following that two-part sign-off, the warrant would also have to be deemed necessary to “identify, enable the assessment of, or protect against” one or more of a specific list of harms.

They included terrorism or violent extremism, espionage or other foreign intelligence activity, sabotage, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, serious crime and interference with information or information infrastructures of importance to the New Zealand Government.

I have to give full credit to Labour and Andrew Little here. They have constructively engaged submitters to come up with changes to the bill that will enhance protections, yet allow the security agencies to perform their jobs. It is nice to see there are still some areas where we get sensible bipartisan co-operation.

The full report of the select committee is here. Well worth a read to understand the complexity of the issues.

Sadly nothing could shake the Greens from their insistence that we should abolish the SIS and the GCSB. Despite them saying they recognise the changes being made will enhance protections for New Zealanders, they maintain their ideological opposition to even having dedicated security or intelligence agencies. To quote from their minority report:

The Green Party views terrorism as a criminal offence rather than a national security threat. It regards national security as a political goal, not an inherent individual right.

There you have it. The Greens do not believe in national security. Now imagine having them in Government with that view!