The Herald reports:

A disabled Gisborne man has been arrested after allegedly deliberately driving into a marae, causing several thousand dollars worth of damage, before attacking a passer by’s car and threatening to set himself alight at a petrol station.

How is he disabled?

At some point, the vehicle became stuck in a ditch and the man, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, made his way on to State Highway 2.

So can he walk without it? He made his way to SH2.

When a concerned motorist stopped to give the man assistance, he smashed a wing mirror from the person’s car and was left behind when the vehicle drove off again.

Seems pretty active there.

Soon after, the man was given a ride to Gisborne by another person.

Some time later, he entered a service station and left without paying for a pack of cigarettes.

Again pretty active.

I am curious as to whether the man is deemed so disabled he is unable to work, because from where I am looking, he seems to be pretty capable.

Stuff reports:

John Lord once walked into a federal government building with $2 million in cash in his backpack to pay his taxes for the cannabis he sells. 

Due to federal laws, he couldn’t get a bank account to bank his drug profits. It’s different now. His customers still have to pay cash, but he can now transfer money to the Internal Revenue Service come tax time.

Lord is the chief executive of Livwell – the largest marijuana dealer in Colorado, one of a few states that have legalised cannabis.

He sells in excess of $80 million worth of product annually. He won’t talk profit margins.  

Not too bad for a one-time Te Aroha dairy farmer. He moved to the States back in 1998, first to manufacture and sell baby products. He sold that business in 2008. Cannabis is much more lucrative.

Lord has a staff of 500, owns 20 retail stores and is acquiring more this month.

500 staff is a pretty large business.

“The business itself has grown. The company pays full health care, which is a big deal over in the States. We have a retirement plan for employees, paid leave and we try to train and hire from within so it gives our employees the chance of climbing the ladder.

Sounds better than being a black market operator.

But like any good drug dealer, he knows his products inside out, not least because he uses it.

“It’s not a product that had touched my life. I was ambivalent to it. I was aware of its existence. I just wasn’t interested in trying the product then. 

“I was 54 when I first tried it. I use cannabis topically every day. I’ve got a busted up knuckle from rugby days.”

He’s not the only senior citizen who uses the products. Every week, a bus load from the local retirement village hobble into his stores to stock up. 

Heh, the best outing of the week.

Not only have the gangs gone, Lord said crime has dropped in Colorado. And alcohol consumption is down.  

“Just a couple of months ago, cannabis taxes exceeded alcohol taxes in the state by double. It’s huge,” he said. 

Lord has a vested interest but I’ll be very interested to see an analysis of the change in crime rates, health problems etc after say three years of legalisation.

“New Zealand and Australia controversially legalised prostitution and the world was going to come to an end and it simply did not and so society was mature enough to handle it. The same has happened with cannabis in Colorado and several other states and we just haven’t had the social problems.

“Those who are using the product are usually those who were traditionally using the product prior to legalisation anyway. And those people are now using a safe product, at a safe retail store and a well-lit-up car park outside and a security guy standing there and not a dark alley somewhere. It’s made for a safer situation for something that was existing anyway. 

It sounds like it has worked well, but again this is a vested interest.

As of a month ago, the Colorado Cannabis Industry was directly employing 25,500 people in legitimate, high-paying jobs.

“It became a little difficult for politicians who were perhaps feeling out of their depth, once they understood there were a huge number of genuine jobs coming from this and people were not sitting around in a circle singing Kumbaya and were doing a great job, with prospects, with benefits, all of that sort of thing. 

“It’s been interesting watching the evolution of the politicians in their regard to the industry.” 

Local law enforcement is with the industry, too. 

“The local police have embraced the legalisation completely. If they go to break up a party, they usually put their backs to the giggly guys in the corner and watch the drunkards in the other corner. And I think you would find every policeman would tell you that.

Probably true, but the mix can turn some people very aggressive.

“It’s a polarising topic. Other people sell alcohol. Other people milk cows. I grow cannabis. You can turn around and rail on any industry. You can turn around to somebody brewing beer and say: your product causes all sorts of social problems. With cannabis, we are finding way less social problems compared to alcohol and the great Colorado social experiment is proving that.”

As I said I look forward to some independent reviews.

The Herald reports:

Saudi Arabia has severed relations with Iran amid the furor that erupted over the execution by the Saudi authorities of a prominent Shiite cleric.

Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubair told reporters in Riyadh that the Iranian ambassador in Tehran had been given 48 hours to leave the country, citing concerns that Tehran’s Shiite government was undermining the security of the Sunni kingdom.

Saudi Arabian diplomats had already departed Iran after angry mobs trashed and burned the Saudi embassy in Tehran overnight Saturday, in response to the execution of Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr earlier in the day.

Allowing a mob to attack and trash the Saudi Embassy brings back memories of what they did to the US Embassy in 1979.

The Saudi executions were appalling, but allowing diplomatic immunity to be violated will isolate Iran.

Iran’s supreme leader warned on Sunday that there would be divine retribution for Saudi Arabia’s rulers after the execution of a renowned Shiite cleric, sustaining the soaring regional tensions that erupted in the wake of the killing.

There won’t be any divine retribution, just man-made retribution.

Iran carried out 694 executions in the first half of last year, according to an Amnesty International statement in July. Saudi Arabia, with a population nearly a third smaller than Iran’s, carried out 157 in 2015, according to Amnesty and media reports.

Both appallingly high levels.

I don’t believe any state should have the power to execute its own citizens.

Likewise I believe all religions should promote life, and never justify death for alleged sins.

Islam will never get past the fixation extreme elements have on causing death when Islamic Governments execute so many people.

The Dom Post editorial:

Finally, there is something to cheer in the international war against Isis.

The Iraqi army, famously the “cowards” of NZ First MP Ron Mark’s imaginings, took the city of Ramadi this week, capital of the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar.

That is an important turnaround from six months ago when Isis took the city at a canter.

Some of the army’s newfound cohesion and tactical nous is reportedly down to the training and equipment it has received from US troops; perhaps New Zealand’s small deployment of trainers has also played a role in the revival.

If so, that is gratifying: it hints that the US coalition, which toiled for months in Iraq and Syria with very little impact, might be having some useful impact after all.

It’s a beginning, but a useful one.

Back in New Zealand, Prime Minister John Key will surely draw some comfort from the victory in Ramadi – he has already declared himself “vindicated” after a brief trip to visit New Zealand’s troops in Iraq. But there could easily be more twists to come – this war has been bleakly unpredictable, while even an Isis in retreat poses a threat in Western cities.

Key presumably understands this: he has stressed his unwillingness to extend the New Zealand deployment, no matter how that undercuts his sometimes righteous rhetoric about fighting Isis.

The Labour Party, on the other hand, added to its recent record of vacillations before Christmas by floating the possibility of sending the SAS to the war, months after it had opposed sending trainers to Iraq.

I have no idea what their policy now is. They condemned sending trainers in, and now are talking about sending the SAS in.

Dave Armstrong writes:

When National list MP and former Palmerston North mayor Jono Naylor called for more than doubling the fine for littering, I cheered long and loud. On a recent Town Belt walk I picked up a plastic bag carelessly strewn on the track and during the next twenty minutes I was able to fill it to brimming with litter. The worst place was a concrete netball court that has been converted to a skateboard park. This is a wonderful community facility that has enormous social and financial benefits to the community, so why are there no rubbish bins there?

As much as I support Naylor’s abhorrence of litter, is punishing litterers more harshly, many of whom are probably young and not very wealthy, really an effective solution?

Works pretty well in Singapore!

I look forward to Naylor introducing legislation that taxes littering plastic bottle manufacturers and incentivises breweries that bring back bottle refund systems.    

The other major contents of my litter bag were fast food packets. Buy a hamburger and ask for it without packaging and you’ll get a very strange look. Paper and cardboard take years to break down in landfills. Yet we have the technology to create packaging that can be eaten or biodegrades almost immediately. I look forward to Naylor’s plan to hit fast food manufacturers with a paper and cardboard littering surcharge – let’s call it Jono’s McTax – while offering generous tax incentives to companies using biodegradable packaging.

Supermarkets provide you with plastic bags so you can carry your groceries home or to your car. Not to litter with them.

McDonalds provides you with packaging for your burger so you can take it away, not to litter with it.

Blaming them for litter is like blaming a theatre ccompany for litter if someone throws away their entry ticket after a show.

Sadly, I suspect Naylor will not adopt many of my suggestions. After all, it is supermarket, fast food and alcohol interests who litter the National Party with campaign funds.

Luckily we have a transparent electoral donation regime so we can see if this is true. It is not. I’ve checked the donation returns for 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 and there is not a single party donation to National from a supermarket, fast food or alcohol company.

Joseph Romanos writes:

Since shearer David Fagan’s knighthood was announced in the New Year honours list, there have been some surprisingly ignorant questions posed, particularly on social media.

Fagan? What about Dan Carter or Brendon McCullum? That’s a common sentiment.

Our honours system is disappointingly flawed, partly because it has become so political. However, the decision to knight Fagan was good.

Unlike our cricketers and rugby players, who compete in a massive media spotlight, and are supported by marketing and comms staff, shearers are semi-anonymous figures. 

Fagan won 16 Golden Shears crowns (the Wimbledon of his sport), plus 11 world titles. Yet he could walk down Queen St or Lambton Quay and hardly a head would turn in his direction.

I think it was a great call, knighting him.

I once asked farmer and former All Black captain Brian Lochore how shearing compared with rugby as a sport.

“Shearing at the pace they do in competition is very, very difficult,” he said. “There’s the hand-eye co-ordination and the whole body has to be working.

“You’re holding the sheep with your legs and your concentration has to be full-on. At that speed, if you make one slip, you’re gone.

“It’s physically very gruelling and then having to bend over like that makes it even tougher. David Fagan is up there with our greatest sportsmen.”

High praise indeed.

I love how our shearing champions come from places like Lawrence, Rakaia, Apiti, Frankton, Te Puke, Alexandra, Wellsford, Gisborne, Milton, Puhoi, Orepuki, Taumarunui, Pio Pio and Riversdale – far away from the flashing lights and big-city media.

Fagan is a Te Kuiti man, as is another New Zealand sports knight, Colin Meads. They sometimes run into each other at the pub on Friday nights and share a beer. Good down-to-earth blokes. 

Meads has for decades rightly been feted as one of our All Black legends. 

Now Fagan has found himself not on the farming pages but the front pages, not a television news curiosity, but a lead story.

Yes, the All Blacks were magnificent in 2015, and so were Lydia Ko, Lisa Carrington and others. 

But David Fagan sits comfortably alongside them in the pantheon of sports greats.

A very New Zealand Knight.

The Herald reports:

Chris Brown has reportedly been accused of punching a woman on Saturday morning in Las Vegas.

The 26-year-old singer is a suspect in a battery case after he allegedly struck the victim’s right eye with his fist after she reportedly snuck her mobile phone into his private party in his suite at the Palms Hotel and took a photo of him.

The victim has claimed she left the bash immediately after the incident, which took place at around 10:20 am, and contacted police a few hours later, according toTMZ.com.

Law enforcement officers have confirmed they are investigating the claims and Chris is the main suspect.

Meanwhile, the alleged incident comes less than a year after the rapper was accused of punching a man during a basketball game at the Palms Casino Resort last April.

All those prominent people who wrote in support of Chris Brown being given special dispensation to come to NZ, may want to rethink their stance.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi at Al Jazeera writes:

For Iraqis the year 2016 has been ushered in with their military’s capture of ISIL’s headquarters in Ramadi, capital of the nation’s Anbar province. In terms of what 2016 holds for the future, the military dynamics that led to the fall of Ramadi will serve as long-term harbinger of ISIL’s ability to endure in Iraq.

Upon first glance, the fall of Ramadi appears to mean little for the long term campaign against ISIL. The recent victory brings Iraq back to the status quo as of May 2015, when Iraqi forces took retook Tikrit from ISIL towards the end of April, but then lost Ramadi right after. It took the Iraqi forces several months to return to this status quo. Over all, the victory would appear as a loss, as the Iraqi state won back Ramadi, but utterly devastated the city in the process. 

However, in the long term perspective, the fall of Ramadi is a victory in terms of the lessons applied on the strategic-political level and the evolution of Iraqi military tactics, which signals a significant setback for ISIL.

He explains the importance:

Whereas the battle for Tikrit primarily featured irregular Shia militias, the battle for Ramadi involved the (ISF), along with irregular tribal Sunni levies. This was not so much a battle for a city, but a battle by the Iraqi state to project that it still has a national army, and is willing to work with the Sunni tribes. …

On another level, the role played by national Iraqi forces in the fall of Ramadi also has implications for the creation of an inclusive sense of Iraqiness. A debate has ensued since the summer of 2014 as to whether one can claim that the Iraqi nation still exists. …

With the fall of Ramadi, the Iraqi military, which is featured prominently on this channel, can now also claim that it represents the national aspirations of Iraq. Again any Iraqi will know that the nation is divided among Kurdish Peshmerga and Shia militias. For the legitimacy of Prime Minister Haider al-Abbadi, the Iraqi military’s victory in Ramadi is a testament of his ability to preside at the helm of what remains of the Iraqi state and nation. 

So the importance is this was not a battle won by Shia militia against Sunni insurgents. It was the Iraqi military against ISIL.

What remains to be seen after the fall of Ramadi is the ability of the Iraqi military to develop a doctrine, or a series of lessons learned in the fighting that can be carried forward in the battle for Mosul. A BBC article revealed that the Iraqi military has benefitted from a learning curve during the months-long campaign to remove ISIL from Ramadi.

The Iraqi insurgency that erupted from 2003 primarily used hit-and-run tactics against US and Iraqi forces, tactics typical of a guerilla war meant to wear down the resolve of the enemy. As a result, the US training mission had focused on ensuring Iraq’s new military could deal with this type of combat.

ISIL is different type of insurgent group, holding cities and territory, which required retraining the Iraqi military forces in sustained urban combat, fighting street-by-street, house-by-house.

This transformation of training the Iraqi military from counter-insurgency to urban combat explains why it took so long to be deployed on the front lines, creating a security vacuum which the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi Shia militias filled.  

And as the Herald reports, the troops fighting in Ramadi include those trained by the New Zealand Army:

Iraqi troops trained by the New Zealand Defence Force were part of a force that has retaken the city of Ramadi from the Islamic State (Isis) terrorist group.

Defence minister Gerry Brownlee said the success was a result of the commitment to the Building Partner Capacity training programme.

“New Zealand and Australian trainers can take some pride over the successful action by the recruits.

“NZDF trainers have gone into a dangerous environment and professionally established a training operation which is upskilling large numbers of Iraqi troops to better equip themselves to fight.

“New Zealanders can be very proud of the work our troops are doing to professionalise the Iraqi security forces,” Mr Brownlee said in a statement.

It is worth recalling that Labour said the training was pointless and NZ First called the Iraqi army cowards.

This is only one battle, and there will be many more battles and some setbacks. But as the author writes, this was very important psychologically, and a key building block. And New Zealand played a small part in giving the Iraqi people a better chance of not having to live under a fascist theological barbaric regime.

Phil Wallington, Producer of Media Take writes:

I don’t suppose that you folks are at all keen to rectify mistakes or to publish retractions of factual errors.

That is the practice I have followed in my half-century as a professional journalist.

If you were so inclined, you might consider the attachment which might enlighten the readers of this benighted blog.

I suspect you will do nothing…

Start off with an insult and finish with one also. How to win friends and influence people.

It is my observation that blogs have been far far more willing to publish corrections or allow rights of reply, than traditional media outlets. I can’t recall ever refusing.

Anyway to the substance:

As usual Kiwiblog has the facts wrong.

Average viewers per episode (based on Nielsen data):

• Q+A 99,000 – No It’s 70,600 average viewers for the first play and a further 20,500 for the second play so 91,100 over the two plays.
• The Nation 49,000 – No it’s 22,900 average viewers for the first play on the Saturday and a further 34,400 for the second play on Sunday so 57,300 total over the two plays.
• Backbenches 25,400 – No it’s 17,500 average viewers per episode for the first play and a further 2,200 for the second play so 19,700 total over the two plays.
• Media Take 1,900 – No it’s 5,000 average viewers per episode (20 episodes) for the first run and a further 2,400 (13 episodes). As the last season wasn’t repeated in full you can’t really add these two figures together.

My figures are from Neilsen data for late November/early December. I presume Mr Wallington has data for the entire year. It would be great if this was publicly available. I tried to get annual data off NZ on Air but they refused. I am of the view that they should publish average ratings for ever show they fund.

The differences between my data and Mr Wallington’s is minor for the first three shows. There is a larger difference with Media Take. But I am happy to accept these figures as accurate, but would welcome anyone with access to the data for the full year being able to independently verify it.

So the cost per viewer hour is out in every case.

Using Mr Wallington’s data, the cost per viewer hour would be:

So the cost per viewer hour is:

• Media Take $6.51
• Backbenches $1.54
• The Nation $0.39
• Q&A $0.23

I don’t think it impacts my conclusion.

In 2015 Media Take averaged 5,000 viewers across 20 episodes in a 10 pm slot or later most weeks. Shows on MTS often draw numbers like these so why single out Media Take? 

I wasn’t looking at the channel it was on. I was looking from a taxpayer perspective about value for money. NZ on Air has a limited budget. I support their role in funding good current affairs shows. However spending almost half a million dollars on a show with such tiny viewer numbers is hard to justify. Maybe we’d be better off giving that money to one of the existing shows so they can do more in depth reporting, or to a show that missed out of being funded. There is an opportunity cost to funding shows with such small numbers of viewers.

It’s rare that series are funded by NZOA for MTS (the network favours one-off docs) but in comparison here are some other numbers for other MTS NZOA series (first run only).

I’m unsure that MTS should get any funding from NZ on Air for shows. The reason for this is thar MTS is already completed state funded. The entire channel gets (off memory) $50 million a year or so. They already have the ability to put on shows that are not commercially viable because they are not commercially funded.

Behind the Brush (8 pm) average viewers per episode 4,700

Songs from the Inside (9:30 pm) average viewers 28,000

Te Araroa Tales From The Trails (8:30 pm) average viewers 25,500

Haka Warriors (8 pm) average viewers 4,100

As I said I don’t think the comparison is with other shows on MTS. The comparison is opportunity cost is whether you could get a better impact by spending $500,000 a year elsewhere.

I have no issue with the quality of Media Take. But having said that I have not watched it on MTS. But when it was on other channels I did, and liked it. But I do have an issue with spending almost $500,000 a year on a show that has less viewers than a large blog gets by lunchtime every day.

I’m also a fan of Backbenches, but their numbers are pretty dismal also. I’m not sure that is providing great value for money either. Ratings should not be the only measure of success for shows. In fact the reasons we have NZ on Air is to allow funding of non-commercial shows. But if you are funding a show only around 1 in 1000 people are watching, then it is unlikely it is having the desired impact.

From PR person Mark Blackham:

1. Flag campaign launch — Government

2. 1080 scare — Ministry for Primary Industries

3. TPPA trade agreement — Government

4. SAFE calves campaign — Dairy Industry

5. Rates increase — Auckland City Council

6. Reduced milk payout — Fonterra

7. Foreign driver issues — New Zealand Transport Authority

8. Zero tolerance on speeding campaign — New Zealand Police

9. Red Peak flag campaign — Government

10. Return of Christmas Island detainees — Government

11. Roast Buster report by the Police Conduct Authority — Police

12. Cricket World Cup — Cricket World Cup Organisers

13. Release of Chinese ownership list — Barfoot & Thompson

14. Solid Energy bankruptcy — Government

15. Mount Eden prison fight mismanagement and its contract — Serco

16. Funding melanoma medicine — Government

17. Roast Buster report by Chief Social Worker — CYF

18. Fruitfly operation — Ministry for Primary Industries

19. New wharf — Ports of Auckland

20. Match fixing allegations — New Zealand Cricket / Saudi Sheep Deal — Government

I’d put the 1080 scare first, as that had potentially far more dire consequences of getting it wrong than any other.

Graeme Edgeler blogs:

I’ve got a simple idea. We should repeal New Zealand’s most racist law.

Sections 30-36 of the Maori Community Development Act 1962(originally the Maori Welfare Act) are laughably offensive.

Early last year there was a rash of instances of tourists having their car keys taken off them by people who had decided they were unsafe to drive. It stopped after a few instances, with police (and even the Prime Minister) warning against it.

What few of the people quite rightly objecting to the mild vigilantism probably realised is that the law actually specifically provides for circumstances when people can have their car keys taken away from them.

If the driver is Māori.

Or if the driver is non-Māori, but is in charge of a vehicle near a meeting place, or a lawful gathering of Māori.

It is also illegal to serve alcohol at a gathering of Māori. A Māori Committee can grant a licence to serve alcohol at a gathering of Māori, but only if that gathering is not for the purposes of a dance.

Māori wardens are empowered to enter hotels and to order quarrelsome Māori to leave.

This reads like it comes from one of those lists of ridiculous laws that are still in force, when New Zealand usually seems to be represented by a claim that it’s illegal to fly with a rooster in a hot air balloon (which I’m pretty sure isn’t true).

But it’s worse than a ridiculous law. It’s a racist law.

It has no place in New Zealand. It should never have been the law. And it certainly shouldn’t be law now.

There are a bunch of MPs who do not currently have a bill in the members’ ballot. Well, here’s an idea for you: propose the repeal of sections 30-36 of the Maori Community Development Act. I’ve even drafted a bill for whichever MP wants to take this up.

There’s 20 or so MPswho don’t have a bill in the ballot. I hope one of them picks this one up.

Stuff reports:

France is “not finished with terrorism”, says President Francois Hollande, who has used a New Year’s message to defend controversial plans to strip citizenship from those convicted of terrorism offences.

Controversial? With whom? I’d say hugely popular.

Under the plans, French-born dual passport holders could be stripped of their nationality – a sanction currently applicable only to naturalised citizens.

You can not leave someone without citizenship under international law. But if they have chosen to retain citizenship of another country and have chosen to become a terrorist (and get convicted of terrorism), I’d be all for stripping them of citizenship and deporting them after their sentence.

The proposals, yet to go before the French National Assembly and Senate, have divided Hollande’s ruling Socialists and drawn veiled criticism from his Justice Minister, Christiane Taubira.

It will be interesting to see how the vote goes on it.

Fairfax do their annual list of 20 political predictions:

1. Phil Goff will win the Auckland mayoralty, triggering a by-election in his Mt Roskill seat.

2. Immigration will be the big issue of 2016, in NZ and worldwide, under the twin pressures of terrorism and rising unemployment.

3. One party leader will be replaced – or signal they will go.

4. The Government’s books for 2015/16 will show a deficit when the numbers are known in October, and the 2016 Budget will include significant spending on reform in the area of Child Youth and family.

5. John Key will wind back his shock-jock appearances, but only after one final dare involving dancing, underpants and a street corner.

6. The current flag will triumph easily, taking 60 per cent of the vote to head off the black and blue silver fern Kyle Lockwood design in the March referendum.

7. Significant steps will be taken towards allowing the medicinal use of cannabis.

8. A visit to New Zealand by United States President Barack Obama will be scheduled for 2016. Golf anyone? 

9. Pharmac will get more cash allowing it to fund new drugs, such as Keytruda, but the Government will stay out of decisions on specific drugs.

10. New Zealand will send SAS troops to Iraq, and not only as VIP protection. 

11. The review of security services will see the GCSB and SIS get greater powers of surveillance.

12. The freshwater issue will spark up, causing a headache for National MPs and putting their relationship with the Maori Party under stress.

13. ACT leader David Seymour’s “end of life choice” bill will be drawn from the ballot (relying on chance makes this a particularly fraught prediction) and then pass its first reading.

14. At least one MP will announce their engagement to be married.

15. Labour candidate Michael Wood will be sworn in as MP for Mt Roskill – but will not be the first to win a by-election this year.

16. Labour leader Andrew Little will firm up his plans to run in the Rongotai seat now held by Annette King.

17. Speaker David Carter will head off to foreign diplomatic pastures, opening the way for Gerry Brownlee to inherit the wig of office.

18. An MP will find himself or herself giving evidence in court.

19. Pandas! 

20. Australia’s deportation of Kiwi criminals will hit the headlines again when one of them goes off the rails on this side of the ditch, placing New Zealand politicians in the firing line.

Some interesting ones. They are predicting at least two by-elections next year.

Not so sure that a party leader will signal retirement in 2016.Maybe in 2017.

Adelaide Now reports:

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he is willing to call an early election and campaign on a policy of cleaning up the union movement, after a royal commission found it infested by louts, thugs, thieves, bullies and perjurers.

In his final report, Trade Union Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon on Thursday recommended criminal charges be considered against 48 people and organisations and civil action taken in 45 other cases, but said this was just the tip of “an enormous iceberg”.

Mr Turnbull said a federal-state police taskforce would continue to investigate referrals from the commission. The Government will also move to establish a new registered-organisations commission to regulate unions and employer groups. The commission would have similar powers to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

The Government also wants the Senate to approve by the end of the month a bill to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Mr Turnbull suggested he could call an early double-dissolution election if the March deadline was not met.

“We are willing to fight an election on this,’’ he said.

“If this is not passed, if we cannot get the passage of this legislation through the Senate, then in one form or another it will be a major issue at the next election.’’

What will Labor do? The unions literally control the Australian Labor Party. Up until very recently it was actually illegal to join the Australian Labor Party unless you were a union member. They control branches, selections and factions. Will they insist Labor defend the indefensible?

In his report, Mr Heydon referred to widespread misconduct that had taken place in every jurisdiction in Australia, except for the Northern Territory.

He said the commission had only uncovered “the small tip of an enormous iceberg’’.

“It is clear that in many parts of the world constituted by Australian trade union officials, there is room for louts, thugs, bullies, thieves, perjurers, those who threaten violence, errant fiduciaries and organisers of boycotts,’’ he said.

“These aberrations cannot be regarded as isolated. They are not the work of a few rogue unions, or a few rogue officials. The misconduct exhibits great variety. It is widespread. It is deep-seated.”

It is very deep-seated.

The Herald reports:

Bill Cosby was arrested in the twilight of his life and career Wednesday and charged with a decade-old sex crime after a barrage of accusations from dozens of women made a mockery of his image as TV’s wise and understanding Dr. Cliff Huxtable.

Holding a cane, the 78-year-old comedian walked slowly and unsteadily into court on the arms of his lawyers to answer charges he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman less than half his age at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He had no comment as he was released on $1 million bail.

It’s good to see at least one of the 50 separate allegations against Cosby will be tested in court. It is hard to imagine that 50 different women have all conspired to allege such similiar behaviour over so many decades.

But the court case will be on this one allegation only. They may find it hard to find a jury who have not heard of all the other allegations, and hence are contaminated. They also may find it hard to find a jury that could be convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the guy who played the nice Dr Huxtable could be a monster. So who knows what the outcome will be, but from now on it is a judicial process.

The full list is at DPMC.

Very smart making Richie McCaw a member of the Order of New Zealand, rather than a knight. He deserved the top award (he is arguably the best rugby player in any country of any era), but avoids being titled as such a young age.

No other posts today as I’m at Disneyland 🙂

The Herald reports:

Victorian MP Cesar Melhem has been referred for possible corruption charges by unions royal commissioner Dyson Heydon who believes his hearings have only uncovered a small tip of widespread union misconduct.

In his final report released on Wednesday, Mr Heydon says thugs and bullies are involved in unions around Australia and misconduct has taken place in every jurisdiction, except the Northern Territory.

He says the misbehaviour can be found in any unionised industry, in any industrial union at any period of time.

“These aberrations cannot be regarded as isolated,” he said.

“They are not the work of a few rogue unions, or a few rogue officials.

“The misconduct exhibits great variety. It is widespread. It is deep-seated.”

He believes what has been uncovered is just the “small tip of an enormous iceberg”.

“It is clear that in many parts of the world constituted by Australian trade union officials, there is room for louts, thugs, bullies, thieves, perjurers, those who threaten violence, errant fiduciaries and organisers of boycotts,” he said.

This is no surprise to those who followed the hearings. The union movement in Australia is deeply corrupt, helped by the fact they effectively control the Australian Labor Party.