Stuff reports:

Sir Douglas Myers, the long-time chief executive of Lion Breweries and Lion Nathan, has passed away. He was 78.

Myers was one of New Zealand’s most prominent businessmen, having worked his way up through Lion Nathan to build a personal fortune estimated to be worth $900 million.  

In 2008, he was diagnosed with bowel cancer and spent much of his later life fighting the disease. In 2013, he revealed that the cancer had returned fiercely. Doctors told him he had only a matter of months to live.

He exceeded the expectations, but sadly it was just delayed.

MP Paul Goldsmith, who co-authored a biography, The Myers, said Myers was passionately committed to improving the country’s economic performance for the good of all Kiwis.

Myers devoted much of his time to supporting the reforms begun in 1984 by the Fourth Labour Government.

Myers said: “I realised that gaining personal satisfaction was dependent on living in a place where everyone could get satisfaction. In a large country, like Brazil, it is possible to tolerate extremes in living standards. Not so in New Zealand. It’s too small; relationships are too intense. So I was convinced that everyone had to strive to be better, to be more productive, so the whole community moved forward. It’s not good enough to live in a beautiful country.

“That’s why you’ve got to kick against the pricks, and get off your chuff and do something. The main beneficiary of the [New Zealand economic reforms of the 1980s], as I saw it, was the average Kiwi.”

Myers was a staunch and consistent advocate for improving New Zealand’s economic performance.

Myers was also a philanthropist, setting up the Sir Douglas Myers Scholarship which awards Year 13 students $100,000 to study at Cambridge University.

He also gave millions of dollars to Auckland University’s Kenneth Myers Arts Centre, and supported the university’s Business School.

My thoughts are with his family and close friends.

UPDATE: A nice piece on him by Jane Phare in the Herald.

Catriona MacLennan writes:

Lawyers continue to peddle rape myths on behalf of their clients.

These myths include:

* Women who consent to sex at night wake up in the morning regretting it and make false rape complaints to cover their regrets.
* A woman who has had sex once with a man has consented to sex with him forever.
* “No” said by women doesn’t mean no and “real men” will keep pressing for sex.
* False rape complaints are common.
* Women’s behaviour or clothing are a justification for rape as men are “led on” by skimpy female clothing.
* Women who are drunk or have used drugs are to blame if they are sexually violated.
* Teen rape is not rape but “adolescent experimentation”.
* Women make up false complaints of rape against famous men to try and extort money.

In promoting these myths, lawyers are disregarding their primary ethical duties. These are not to the client, but rather to the court and to the administration of justice.

The Lawyers and Conveyancers Act states in section 4 that every lawyer must comply with the fundamental obligation “to uphold the rule of law and to facilitate the administration of justice in New Zealand”. 

Both the act and the Conduct and Client Care Rules governing lawyers specifically state that the overriding duty of a lawyer is to the court. 

Obligations to clients are secondary.

Ms McLennan seems to be arguing that if someone is accused of rape, then their lawyer should not be allowed to offer a defence related to consent.

Why not just save time, and say you go straight to jail if accused of rape.

I mean what could possibly go wrong?

It is not that I disagree that some of the above statements are wrong (blaming rape on what someone wears) or uncommon, but that the particulars of an individual case should determine what is allowed in court.

False complaints of rape are certainly not common, but they are not unheard of. The prevalence rate is very hard to quantify, but a number of studies have concluded around 2%.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand should adopt Australian rules and make it illegal not to vote, former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer says.

Palmer, who ran the country as head of the Labour Party from 1989 to 1990, told Radio NZ’s Guyon Espiner that voter apathy had led to Trumpery and Brexit.

“Democratic government around the western world is in some sort of crisis,” Palmer said in the hour-long interview, which is part of new RNZ series The 9th Floor.

“Look at the level of voting in the 2016 New Zealand municipal elections – hardly anyone votes. And yet we’ve got a supercity in Auckland with enormous powers – why would they not vote?

“It’s quite hard to understand. Are they turned off by it? Do they think it doesn’t matter?”

Voting in both local government and parliamentary elections should be enforced, Palmer said.

I disagree. We want more people to vote but you want voters who are informed voters, rather than voters who are voting just to avoid a fine.

The Herald reports:

Allowing children up to the age of 12 to cycle on footpaths with an accompanying adult “has merit”, a new report by the New Zealand Transport Authority (NZTA) has concluded.

Simon Kennett, NZTA senior project manager, said the report recommends children up to the age of 12 and an accompanying adult should be able to ride on the footpath.

Kennett said the NZTA believes children cycle at a lower speed than teenagers and adults, and are typically more obedient of the rules. Changing the law would also enable children to be educated about safe cycling on the footpath.

This seems very sensible to me. You really don’t want young kids on the road and allowing them to use footpaths allows them to build up their bike skills and confidence.

Cycling rates in New Zealand have plummeted from around 12 per cent for primary school students in the 1980s to 2 per cent in 2014, partly because of busier roads and safety concerns.

Would be good to reverse that.

Stuff reports:

Wellington City councillors splashed out $1 million to buy a forest in Tawa despite council officers objecting to the purchase.

Community environmental volunteer group Friends of Tawa Bush Reserves asked the council to bid for the Forest of Tane to save it from developers.

The forest, which comprises 32 hectares of rural-zoned land on the western hills above Tawa, contains 20 hectares of managed pine forest ready for harvest, with the balance in regenerating native forest.

So most of this forest is just a commercial crop of trees.

Minutes from the public-excluded meeting in February, where councillors voted in favour of the purchase, show council officers recommended they did not submit a tender and instead work with the new owners to negotiate a shared walking and cycling connection.

Sounds sensible.

It is also understood the reason the mature pine trees were not milled by the previous owner was because it would cost more to mill them than the milled logs would be worth.

This loss is believed to be one of the reasons some councillors were opposed to the purchase.

Wow has the current owner done well then. Found some people stupid enough to buy a crop that will cost more to harvest than to sell!

Stuff reports:

Every winter Sarah* and Mike make the choice between groceries, or clothes for their children.

Born 14 weeks early, Destiny has a weakened immune system and gets sick easily. Last winter, she missed a whole term of school due to sickness.

Poverty has been labelled the key driver for respiratory illnesses that are weighing on New Zealand’s economy to the tune of $6 billion each year, according to figures from the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation.

But with a family of eight, the $500-odd they get from Work and Income and Mark’s part-time job as a teacher aide only goes so far, Sarah said.

A family of eight?

Maybe have fewer kids. I am all for a welfare system that allows a couple, no matter their income, to support say a couple of kids. But six kids? Surely there should be some personal responsibility about having more kids than you can afford.

538 have analysed the statements of the 100 US Senators on Trump’s air strike in Syria.

Overall 79 Senators support Trump, 15 have no clear position and six are opposed.

By party 63% of Democratic Senators are supportive, 27% have no clear position and 10% are opposed.

For Republicans 94% are supportive, 4% no clear position and 2% opposed.

Stuff reports:

At present plant research company Scion based in Rotorua carries out GE trials on radiata pine trees, but the plants are destroyed afterwards.

At its Grasslands site in Palmerston North, AgResearch scientists have developed GE ryegrass that yields 50 per cent more but lowers methane levels in livestock. The plants will be shipped to the United States for testing because of New Zealand’s strict laws.

So GE ryegrass can lower our level of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, yet we can’t even test it in New Zealand. Madness.

The Washington Post reports:

The U.S. Senate confirmed Neil M. Gorsuch to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, capping more than a year of bitter partisan bickering over the ideological balance of the nation’s highest court.

On a vote of 54 to 45, senators confirmed Gorsuch, 49, a Denver-based judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He will become the 113th person to serve on the Supreme Court and is scheduled to be sworn in Monday.

Justice Gorsuch is just 49 years old. He is likely to be on the Supreme Court for 30 or more years.

The age of the existing Justices is:

1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg 84
2. Anthony Kennedy 80
3. Stephen Breyer 78
4. Clarence Thomas 68
5. Samuel Alito 67
6. John Roberts 62
7. Sonia Sotomayor 62
8. Elena Kagan 56

It is not impossible that the Supreme Court could go from the 4-1-4 balance of the last couple of decades to a 7-2 conservative majority that could last for 10 – 20 years.

The Law and Order Committee of Parliament has recommended:

Sale and supply of firearms and ammunition

• 1 that the law be amended so that a firearms licence is required to possess ammunition, unless the person in possession of the ammunition is under the immediate supervision of a firearms licence holder (page 7).
• 2 that the law be amended so that a firearms dealer’s licence be required to sell or supply ammunition by way of a business (page 7).
• 3 that the law be amended so that dealers be required to keep records of sales of ammunition (page 8).
• 4 that it create a Police registration process for websites that wish to facilitate the buying, selling, or trading of firearms, parts of firearms, or ammunition online. It would be an offence to operate such a website without current registration (page 8).
• 5 that the permit to procure process be extended to cover the sale or transfer of all firearms (page 9). Definition of military-style semi-automatics
• 6 that the Police investigate the creation of a category of restricted semi-automatic firearm (rifle and shotgun) to replace the MSSA firearm endorsement category (page 10). Effectiveness of licensing, training, and registering firearms
• 7 that firearms prohibition orders be implemented in New Zealand (page 12).
• 8 that the Police Arms Manual guidelines on determining who is fit and proper to possess firearms be codified within the Arms Act 1983, with any necessary modifications, to improve the overall certainty and consistency of the licensing process (page 13).
• 9 that it implement a stand-down period after revocation of a licence, before a new application for a firearms licence can be made (page 13).
• 10 that the Arms Act 1983 be amended to clearly state that a gang member or prospect must not be considered a fit and proper person to possess firearms and therefore must not hold a firearms licence (page 15).
• 11 that the law be amended to require the Police to record the serial numbers of all firearms possessed by licence holders upon renewal of their licence or inspection of their premises (page 16).

Criminal offending with firearms

• 12 that it review the penalties in the Arms Act 1983 (page 18).
• 13 that the law be amended so that where a dealer has committed an offence under the Arms Act 1983, the court must treat this as an aggravating factor at sentencing (page 18).
• 14 that the Police undertake further work to determine appropriate security standards for “A” category firearms (page 19).
• 15 that the law be amended to make it clear that the secure storage requirements must be met to the satisfaction of the Police, before a licence or endorsement can be issued (page 19).
• 16 that it extend the power under regulation 29 to allow the Police to enter premises to inspect the security of “A” category firearms (page 19).
• 17 that the Arms Act 1983 be amended so that failure to comply with the storage regulations must result in revocation of a firearms licence (page 19).

Reducing the number of grey firearms

• 18 that it clarify the amnesty in section 10 of the Arms Act 1983 and extend it to include MSSAs, “A” category firearms, and the handing in of firearms to the Police (page 21).
• 19 that the Police develop policy guidance so that, under the amnesty, when people hand in firearms that are unlawfully in their possession, or report firearms lost, stolen, or destroyed, the Police will have the discretion not to prosecute for the possession offence, subject to police inquiries not revealing offending other than breach of lawful possession of firearms(s) under the Arms Act 1983 (page 21).

Importing firearms into New Zealand

• 20 that it ensure that visitors who have imported firearms and have been in the country for up to twelve months for a sporting holiday or competition should have the export of the firearms checked by the Police when they leave New Zealand (page 24).

The recommendations were backed in full by the National, Labour and Green MPs on the committee, and in part by NZ First.

Niall Ferguson writes:

The term “lone wolf” is a misleading one. No one becomes a jihadist all by himself, just by watching beheading videos. As my wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, argues in a powerful new report, jihad is always preceded by dawa — the process of non-violent but toxic radicalisation that transforms the petty criminal into a zealot.

The network of dawa takes many different forms. In the UK a key role used to be played by the organisation al-Muhajiroun (the Emigrants), which the jailed Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary led before his arrest. But there are many less visible organisations — Islamic centres with shadowy imams — busily spreading the mind poison.

The actual act of terrorism may be a loan wolf attack, but the radicalisation is done communally.

The problem is that it’s very hard to stop a network such as this one flourishing when it can operate even in jails. Figures published by the Ministry of Justice show the number of Muslims in prison (for all types of offence) more than doubled to 12,255 between 2004 and 2014. One in seven inmates in England and Wales are Muslim. Guess what goes on inside. Clue: it’s not like an episode of Porridge.

This problem isn’t going away. Ask the French. About 8% of the French population is Muslim, which is roughly the proportion the Pew Research Centre projects it will be in Britain by 2030. The French authorities estimate that they have 11,400 radical Islamists. And about 60% to 70% of the French prison population is Muslim.

Wow.

There is no point in denying that this ideology has its foundation in Islamic doctrine. However, “Islam,” “Islamism,” and “Muslims” are distinct concepts. Not all Muslims are Islamists, let alone violent, though all Islamists—including those who use violence—are Muslims. I believe the religion of Islam itself is indeed capable of reformation, if only to distinguish it more clearly from the political ideology of Islamism. But that task of reform can only be carried out by Muslims.

Muslims are not the problem, Islamists is – a significant sub-set.

In Western countries, dawa aims both to convert non-Muslims to political Islam and to instill Islamist views in existing Muslims. The ultimate goal of dawa is to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with the rule of sharia law.

Dawa is to the Islamists of today what the “long march through the institutions” was to twentieth-century Marxists. It is subversion from within—the abuse of religious freedom in order to undermine that very freedom.

Yep.

So President Trump authorised a strike of around 60 missiles against Syrian air force assets, after their air force used chemical weapons.

This is a pretty normal response to a situation like this. Even Nancy Pelosi is supporting it. Hillary Clinton in fact called for action against Assad. The fact Trump gave the orders excites lots of people, but it is a pretty conventional and proportionate response to a brutal dictator’s use of chemical weapons.

It will of course solve nothing, but it isn’t meant to. Perfect is the enemy of good. Or a better saying is it was the least bad option. Doing nothing would have consequences also, as having no consequences for use of chemical weapons would give some bad incentives.

There are risks. It could drag the US further into the conflict and while Assad is bad, arguably ISIS is worse. And weakening Assad may help ISIS. So is this a one off strike of an active attempt to regime change, which could encourage Russia to get more involved.

Ironically many have said Trump is in the pocket of Putin, yet his first major foreign policy and decision is to strike at a Russian ally.

The Greens of course have said no action should have been taken with UN Security Council approval. While in an ideal world that would happen, it was clear that Russia would never ever allow this, So the Green position is that there should be no consequences for the use of chemical weapons on children unless Putin agrees!

I am no Trump fan, to put it mildly. But reassuring to see a reasonable and proportional response to Assad, which makes the Trump presidency seem a little less scary.

National has announced:

Paulo Garcia has been selected by local party members as National’s New Lynn candidate for the 2017 General Election.

Mr Garcia is a lawyer with over 20 years’ experience. Originally from the Philippines, Mr Garcia has lived in New Zealand for over a decade and considers himself a proud Kiwi Pinoy. He co-founded the New Zealand Philippines Business Council and in 2012 was appointed an Honorary Consul-General for the Philippines.

“It’s a great honour to be chosen by National and especially our local membership here in New Lynn,” Mr Garcia says.

“One of the things that drew me to New Zealand was its reputation as a place where anyone who worked hard and cared about their community could get ahead.

“New Lynn is full of people who live this attitude. It’s a community I’ve come to know well, a really positive mix of born-and-bred New Zealanders through to brand new Aucklanders.

“I’ll be working hard to earn their trust to serve as a strong local voice in a National Government that knows how to deliver.

“I’m standing for National because it’s a party that welcomes diversity and understands the needs of New Zealanders of all backgrounds no matter where you live or where you’re from.

National does not have and never will have quotas yet has managed to have a caucus that is more diverse than Labour, when it comes to ethnicity. National has 10 MPs of Maori descent and also MPs of Samoan, Cook Island Maori, Sikh, Korean, Indian and Chinese descent – and now a candidate of Filipino descent.

Radio NZ has announced:

What is it like to run the country? What does it mean to make a ‘captain’s call’?

And what does leadership look like from the 9th floor of the Beehive?

Only six people alive today know what it’s like to be Prime Minister of New Zealand.

In a landmark new series for radio and podcast, RNZ Morning Report presenter, Guyon Espiner, talks at length with five of our six former Prime Ministers about political events and decisions that have shaped New Zealand over the past thirty years.

Sounds a good series.

RNZ will release a new episode of The 9th Floor each week over five weeks from Friday 7th April with content posted first on the RNZ website. Online versions will run between 50 and 75 minutes and will be available on radionz.co.nz, iTunes, and all usual podcast platforms. Radio episodes, almost an hour long, will be broadcast two days later after the 7 am news on Sunday Morning with Wallace Chapman.

The interviews will be released in chronological order, starting with Sir Geoffrey Palmer (1989-1990) posted online this Friday and on air Sunday 9th April.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer will be followed by Mike Moore (1990), Jim Bolger (1990-1997), Dame Jenny Shipley (1997-1999), and Helen Clark (1999-2008). …

The 9th Floor can be viewed online at www.rnz.co.nz and an edited radio version will broadcast on RNZ National just after the 7 am news on Sunday Morning with Wallace Chapman.

Mike Moore’s interview may be almost as long as his Prime Ministership!

Stuff reports:

Unpaid internships are being taken up by students and graduates, but their lack of legal rights could lead to exploitation, some employers say.

Internships are not defined in the Employment Relations Act so unpaid interns are considered volunteers and are not protected by employee rights, only human rights.

Businesses should not let unpaid interns do work that is integral to its success, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) manager of employment relations policy Jivan Grewal said. …

AUT is a university in favour of internships, Director of the AUT Internz programme, Ella Monahan said. 

She said 89 per cent of its degrees require students to undertake compulsory short term internships within the industry they are studying.

AUT students studying business and nursing do 10-week internships to gain real world experience.

Former AUT business student Terina Ngata said she was unfairly forced to give up her part-time job at a call centre to do an unpaid full-time human resources internship for nine weeks to qualify for graduation this year. 

Originally from Wellington, Ngata was left with no income to pay her rent in Auckland, but she was lucky to get financial help from her partner, she said. 

“They were not willing to give me weekend work so I had no income stream. Obviously I had no choice because I had to do it in order to graduate,” Ngata said. 

“It is really hard for students to find companies that are willing to pay them.”

I’d caution against the view that taking on interns is a way of a company getting cheap labour.

In the past I have had people approach me wanting to intern at Curia. They want to learn first hand how a polling company works. In the past I have agreed to this, but probably wouldn’t in future.

While interns may not be a financial cost, they are a cost in time. As the business owner I might spend 10 to 20 hours with an intern taking them through everything I do, and explaining how it all works. That is 20 to 30 hours I am not writing questions, writing reports, meeting clients, doing pitches etc. If you cost my time at $200 an hour, then that is say $5,000 or so opportunity cost to me.

And any work the interns do tends to be stuff existing staff could have done anyway, and quicker. I mean this with no criticism to any intern. Just experienced staff are are normally much quicker at stuff, as they know what to do first time.

So yeah there may be some employers who exploit or benefit from interns. But there are a lot of employers who take on interns as a way to help the intern, and don’t really benefit from it at all themselves – in fact it effectively is a cost to them.

Stuff reports:

It’s either parking or rates, says Wellington City Council. 

Council officers are proposing a 50 cents an hour increase in city parking fees, which they say have not increased for 13 years.

A report by the council’s revenue and finance working party recommends establishing a new hourly fee of $4.50 per hour for parking within the CBD – up from the current rate of $4.

The increase would create $548,000 in additional revenue and, if it was not implemented, it would translate to a 0.2 per cent increase on rates, the report shows.

I’m not against parking fees going up. Arguably they should increase even more. But you shouldn’t be increasing them as a way to avoid a rates increase. They should be set at a level that reflects the value of the space they take up. In other words user pays.

CBD space is very valuable. So maybe a shop side park should cost $6 an hour. People could then choose to pay it, or use public transport or Uber. But the correct figure should be an economic decision, not so much a political one. Parking rates should be set the same as commercial rentals – what the market price is.

The Herald reports:

Dropping the Overseas Investment Act, giving local government the GST from all new home builds and performance pay for teachers are among the more radical policies advocated by economic think-tank The New Zealand Initiative which launches its election year manifesto today.

Manifesto 2017 is effectively a highlights package of reports and research the NZ Initiative has released in the five years since it was born of a merger between the Business Round Table and NZ Institute.

The aim was to try to focus debate on the issues that matter in the election, said executive director and Manifesto author Oliver Hartwich.

“Politicians in the last few elections have had an enormous amount of side-shows to deal with, from Kim Dotcom to teapot tapes. But really, when has the country had a proper discussion about where it wants to be in the future?” he said.

The Manifesto was designed to challenge the Government and opposition parties to consider big ideas that would fix some of New Zealand’s long-term structural problems.

The manifesto is here. The summary of recommendations is:

Housing and Planning:

• Abolish all rural-urban boundaries
• abolish all height and density controls
• strengthen property rights by introducing a presumption in favour of development into the Resource Management Act
• incentivise councils for development by letting them capture the GST component of new buildings
• introduce Community Development Districts.

Education:

• Create an attractive career structure for teachers
• provide tailored professional development for teachers
• monitor teacher performance and introduce performance based appraisals
• evaluate systematically the impact of interventions on school performance
• expand school clusters as a means of sharing best practice.

Foreign Direct Investment:

• Abolish the Overseas Investment Act. There should be no FDI regime subject all investors, domestic and foreign, to the same rules
• protect New Zealanders’ property rights, including the freedom to sell to whoever they wish. In cases of public interest, appropriate compensation must be made.

Regulation:

• No new law or regulation shall be introduced without a cost-benefit assessment that demonstrates real gains for the public and costs fairly shared
• Regulatory reform cannot be delegated to a junior minister but needs real commitment from the prime minister down.
• The regulatory culture should shift from one of ticking boxes and managing risk to encouraging greater flexibility and innovation.

Social Policy:

• Social policy is not a silo and should be regarded as a whole-of-government task.
• Fixing New Zealand’s housing affordability crisis is crucial to addressing both income-related poverty measures and inequality concerns.
• To provide all New Zealanders with good life opportunities, special attention needs to be paid to education. More targeted support for students from lower deciles should take precedence over untargeted programmes such as interest-free student loans.
• Taxes and regulations should not choke off employers’ incentive to create jobs for the available skills or deprive those with those skills of the incentive to work.
• The government’s plan to trial new ways of delivering social services such as social bonds is laudable.

Local Government:

• Local communities should share the benefits that accrue to central government from extractive industries and growth. Local government should receive financial benefits for creating economic growth (and suffer a loss when it does not).
• Central and local government need to better define their responsibilities to preclude cost-shifting and blame games, and enhance accountability.
• Special economic zones would increase flexibility and regional variability of economic policy

Many many good proposals there that would make a real difference. Even if you don’t agree with all of them (who would), I’d be interested to read comments about which ones you do agree with.

The Telegraph reports:

David Miliband has said he “grieves” for Labour as Jeremy Corbyn faces a mutiny over the party’s failure to expel Ken Livingstone over his remarks about 
Hitler and Zionism.

The former Labour leadership contender said he never would have “believed the day” when when anti-semitism and Labour “were being discussed in the same sentence.”

His comments came as the Jewish Labour peer Lord Levy revealed he is considering his membership of the party. 

Mr Livingstone refused to apologise 
last night after a disciplinary panel found him guilty of bringing the party into disrepute – but failed to expel him, 
instead ruling he will be suspended from holding office for a year.

Jewish Labour members and MPs have rounded on Mr Corbyn for failing to push for a stricter punishment.

Lord Levy BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m very upset with the party’s attitude, I do not believe there has been a zero tolerance policy towards anti-Semitism.

If they had zero tolerance towards anti-semitism they’d have to expel their own leader probably!

Stuff reports:

A tyre-slashing vigilante who took a screwdriver to more than 100 cars in a bid to stop people parking for free near Wellington Airport says he is proud of what he did.

“I had an effect when no-one else did,” David Francis Johns told the psychologist charged with evaluating his state of mind for the court ahead of his sentencing on Wednesday.

His actions earned him a 22-month jail sentence.

Normally I’d say a jail sentence is too harsh for tyre-slashing, but as you read on:

Johns told the report writer it was the freeloaders he could not stand, and did not like his suburb being used as a car park.

Even when told that a number of the cars whose tyres he slashed did not belong to people using the airport, his response was that they should not have parked there if they knew there was a slasher about.

So no empathy or remorse at all – he says he is proud of what he did and would do it again. Jail may be the only way to give him the incentive to stop.