The Herald reports:

A prominent Bangladeshi-American blogger known for speaking out against religious extremism was hacked to death as he walked through Bangladesh’s capital with his wife, police said Friday.

The attack Thursday night on Avijit Roy, a Bangladesh-born US citizen, occurred on a crowded sidewalk as he and his wife, Rafida Ahmed, were returning from a book fair at Dhaka University. Ahmed, who is also a blogger, was seriously injured.

Police have named no suspects in the attack. Roy was a prominent voice against religious intolerance, and his family and friends say he had been threatened for his writings.

Similar attacks in the past in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 160 million people, have been blamed on Islamic extremists.

About 8.45pm on Thursday, a group of men ambushed the couple as they walked toward a roadside tea stall, with at least two of the attackers hitting them with meat cleavers, police Chief Sirajul Islam said.

The attackers then ran away, disappearing into the crowds.

Two blood-stained cleavers were found after the attack, he said.

Roy had founded a popular Bengali-language blog, Mukto-mona, or Free Mind, which featured articles on scientific reasoning and religion.

So he was hacked to death because he opposed religious extremism and supported scientific reasoning.

All brutal deaths are sad, but I find especially sad when people are killed because of what they say – ie they are targeted speciifically.

Matt Nippert writes:

An analysis of electoral finance declarations shows more than 80 per cent of donations to National Party candidates were channelled through party headquarters in a loophole described as akin to legal “laundering”.

This statement is not correct. They did not go through party hq at all, or even near party hq. Some people donate to the *local* electorate committee and the local committee, if it has excess funds are paying the levy to hq, will partially or fully fund the local candidate’s campaign. It has nothing to do with party hq.

Electoral law requires candidates to reveal the identity of donors who contribute $1,500 or more, but political parties can keep donors secret even if they give up to $15,000.

There is a case for a lower disclosure limit for donations to electorates, rather than the main party. However it would be difficult to word such a law, as they are part of the same legal entity.

National Party president Peter Goodfellow strongly rejected any suggestion that donations to candidates from the party were used to obfuscate the source of funds.

He said the practice had more to do with time-frames around candidate selection and a longer-term fundraising cycle. “National is fundraising pretty actively throughout the three-year election cycle. People are donating to support a race before there’s even a candidate selected,” he said.

Mr Goodfellow said these donations were therefore impossible to tag to candidates and, “as our people often really give to the party”, were not be subject to the $1,500 declaration thresholds for candidates.

That’s a fair point. Even sitting MPs are not confirmed as candidates until election year – sometimes only three months before an election. So any donations prior to then *must* go to the party.

But it is fair to say that some donors prefer to give to the local party, rather than direct to a candidate’s campaign fund, because it does mean they can donate more than $1,500 without disclosure. However if they do so, they can not dictate how the electorate uses that donations. It might just as much go towards paying their levy to National HQ, their contribution to the party vote campaign, to covering local expenses or towards the candidate’s campaign.

Murray Deaker writes:

Dalton must realise that his use-by date has been and gone. I believe he has made three fundamental errors that mean many sailors and certainly a large number of sports journalists have lost respect for him.

Dalton should never have called a lay-day during the last America’s Cup.

It should not have been his call. It should have been the sole right of Dean Barker to make that call, as skipper. Barker didn’t even know that Dalton had made the call. Dalton made the call for commercial reasons … some of the key sponsors hadn’t arrived in San Francisco and he wanted them to see the final victory. This decision, on its own, is so bad it should have led to his resignation.

Second, Dalton should never have been on the boat as a grinder. Russell Coutts pointed out the folly of this to Dalton in a public debate before the event began.

Winston Macfarlane was recognised as a much better grinder, being stronger, younger and more focused.

Third, Dalton lost his focus and some of his behaviour off the water in San Francisco, meaning he lost the respect of his team.

If Team New Zealand is to survive it will do so only if Dalton resigns. He has had his day and it is unbelievable that there is no one on the board of Team New Zealand prepared to tell him so.

The decision is one purely for Team New Zealand, except …

If this was a private syndicate, we would have no right to know anything. However, this is a team that revels in the title Team New Zealand, that raises money because it uses the name of our country and that thrives on our support, our patriotism. That comes at a cost. We need to know the facts and we need to know why the next challenge will lead to a success, not another failure.

It is apparent that the Government, John Key and Steven Joyce particularly, have not realised the depth of feeling against Team New Zealand. If the Government funds Team New Zealand under its present leadership and structure, it will pay for it at the polling booths. I could not bring myself to vote for any party supporting the current bunch.

String words, but ones shared by many.

Does Team New Zealand have a future? Unquestionably. But that future must be without the baggage of the past.

There is no question Barker’s days with Team New Zealand are over. Yet no self-respecting man would tolerate the way he has been treated.

I believe Dalton is past it and before his reputation is completely tarnished, he should resign.

Clearly the board needs new direction and strength. This can only happen with a clean-out there as well.

There should be no doubt an the minds of anyone involved in TNZ that the rank and file of New Zealand sports fans now view you as a dysfunctional, unstructured group that has hopefully had its last hand-out from the Government.

I hope they can sort themselves out, but like Deaker I don’t want any taxpayer money going towards them unless they look like a professional focused team that has a very real chance of winning the America’s Cup, and bring it back to NZ with the economic returns it would generate. At present they should be on their own.

Leonard Nimoy has died aged 83. he is of course immortalised as the original Spock, whose cultural impact is almost incalculable.

Before he was an actor, he served in the US Army for two years. He appeared in many TV series and films in minor roles before Star Trek including appearing with William Shatner in an episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

He played Spock from 1966 to 1969 in Star Trek, and in the first six feature films. He also appeared in the two JJ Abrams movies, as the elder Spock. He actually invented the Vulcan salute.

Both the generation who grew up on Star Trek, and the generation since will mourn his passing. Live long and prosper no more.

Alexander Bisley interviews Grant Elliott for the Guardian:

On the topic of Australia, New Zealand’s fellow World Cup hosts, where does Elliott stand on the controversial sledging that caused such a storm during India’s pre-World Cup visit there? “I like to see emotions in cricket. You don’t mind sledging as long as it’s not personal. If it gets to that personal side then it’s just childish, like you’re in a playground again, six years old. I don’t mind it because I think it brings out the emotions in players. I think the public want to see emotions, they want to see a battle, they want to see a fast bowler versus someone who’s trying to hit him out the ground. So I quite like those battles. If there’s a couple of verbals, like I said, if it doesn’t get personal, that’s fine. It’s just the heat of the battle. Obviously the umpires are there to make sure it doesn’t get to a level that’s unacceptable.”

David Warner was fined for his part in an ugly on-field spat with Rohit Sharma during that Tri-Series, and Elliot is keen to stress there is a line that must not be crossed. “You have to keep reminding yourself of the spirit of cricket and not take it to that level…I was brought up in the Johannesburg league system, so that was pretty hairy. I started playing league cricket when I was 14, so the abuse that we got was definitely not acceptable.”

I see sledging like caption contests. They should be funny, not nasty.

The all time best sledge and retort in my view was:

McGrath: “Why are you so fat?”

Brandes  “Because every time I fuck your wife, she gives me a biscuit.”

The entire Australian team were in hysterics at that.

A close second is:

Rod Marsh : “So how’s your wife & my kids?”

Ian Botham : “The wife is fine but the kids are retarded”

The nastiest sledge I have heard of was the teams that made choo choo sounds at Chris Cairns, referring to his sister’s death in a train crash. That is just nasty and sick.

Liam Hehir writes in the Manwatu Standard:

My brother and I grew up on the same family farm but now live in different parts of the country. We are independent of one another, we are busy pursuing different priorities and each of our lives is truly our own. That doesn’t mean that the familial bond between us is meaningless.

If he makes some request of me, I would always give it very serious consideration.

As it is with families, so it is with nations and there is a natural affinity between those countries that share a Britannic inheritance. Winston Churchill spoke of the common bonds of the “English speaking peoples”. New Zealand historian James Belich has written of it as the “Anglo-World”. The term that seems to be vogue now is the “Anglosphere”.

But whatever you call it, it is a very real phenomenon. Some historians say that future generations will look upon the Anglosphere as we look upon the ancient Greeks and Romans – an interlocking group of nations and cultures forming a common civilisation. Along with Britain and the United States, its core members comprise Canada, Australia and New Zealand – as exemplified by the “Five Eyes” security alliance.

This closeness is not based on race. An Italian American has little ancestry in common with a British Pakistani or an Australian Aborigine. There is no such thing as a “Canadian” or “New Zealand” ethnicity. Our familiarity is instead bound up in shared traditions like the common law, habeas corpus, trial by jury, free enterprise, private property, freedom of speech and, of course, the English language.

That we find ourselves fighting shoulder-to-shoulder is not because of any blood fealty, but because our shared culture leads us to see the world in similar ways.

A very elegant explanation.

Another occasion that comes to mind is the Malayan campaign during the Cold War. New Zealand participated in this British-led fight to save the South East Asian peninsula from the Communist yoke, contributing warships and airstrikes. It was a 12-year war of difficult jungle fighting and bombing but, unlike the Vietnam War, it ended with an Allied victory.

Today, Malaysia has a system of government modelled on the British tradition and remains part of our extended family through the Commonwealth. It is a flawed but functioning democracy that gives lie to the notion that Muslim majority countries cannot also be fundamentally free societies. The fight was worth it and we can be proud that our ancestors did their part.

Malaysia is better than many countries. I do wish they’d stop arresting their opposition leader on trumped up charges though.

Does this mean that we should follow our Anglosphere partners without question? No. New Zealand should only ever go to war when such actions are justifiable in the national interest. Our support should never be taken for granted.

I wouldn’t lend money to my brother for a business venture I would be convinced would fail. I also wouldn’t lend him money to do something illegal, like set up a drug ring. In the same way, New Zealand’s backing for any military intervention should always be subject to the same caveats.

Basically Hehir says you always treat requests from your “family” seriously, but you don’t automatically say yes to them.

Its boots on the ground… kind of. With the announcement that New Zealand is sending trainers to Iraq, 3News political editor Patrick Gower sits down with Prime Minister John Key to find out whether he expects retaliation, how long we’ll be there, and what the end goal is.

Then, as Australians fight abroad – and in the Liberal Party caucus –  Lisa Owen interviews Foreign Minister Julie Bishop about Iraq and whether Tony Abbott is on his way out.

And what is it actually like on the front line? We talk to a British man fighting with Kurdish forces about what’s really needed to defeat Islamic State and what happens if he gets captured.

We’ll discuss all this and more with our panel: Victoria University political scientist Jon Johansson and public relations consultant Matthew Hooton.

The Nation on TV3, 9.30am Saturdays and 10am Sundays.

Check us out online, on Facebook or on Twitter. Tell us what you think at [email protected] or text 3330.

The Nation is proudly brought to you by New Zealand on Air’s Platinum Fund.

NZ is now on the UN Security Council, and one of the issues before it is a draft resolution regarding Israel and Palestine.

I recently met with Dr Einat Wilf, who is a former Labor MP in the Knesset, a former intelligence officer, McKinsey consultant, and foreign policy advisor to Shimon Peres. She is a regularly published commentator and academic.

Her bio describes her as an atheist and a Zionist so we had a fun discussion over whether Judaism is a religion, a race or a culture. Her view was definitely not a race, and both a culture and a religion. There are quite a large number of “secular” Jews and she said that one definition of being a Jew is a belief in “up to one God” 🙂

We covered the normal range of topics such as the impact of the Islamic State, Iran, whether despositic dictators were better for the region than the status quo etc. But also quite a bit on Israel and Palestine.

Wilf is very critical of the draft Security Council resolution, which NZ appears to be supporting. She makes the point:

A Security Council resolution that is balanced, even-handed and has the potential to make a real contribution to peace. In its present form, the proposal is very specific on demands from the Israeli side, while leaving the obligations of the Palestinians and the Arab states up to “fair and agreed solution.”  

 This leaves all the issues crucial to Israel up for negotiation, while whatever concessions Israel could have offered to advance them, have already been predetermined. It further leads to a situation where at the end of the 24-month implementation period, if such a resolution is passed, Israel could be found in material breach of a United Nations Security Council resolution, while no Arab or Palestinian action or refusal to take action can be. There is no specific metric for Palestinian non-compliance, since the draft speaks of their obligations in the most general of terms. 

So the resolution appears balanced on the surface as it appears to have obligations on both sides, but the obligations on the Palestinian side are so general, that it is basically impossible for them to ever be found in breach.

On the question of territory, the draft resolution leaves very little ambiguity.  It calls for a complete Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines with agreed, mutual swaps and on Jerusalem, it insists on a “shared capital” for both states.

Such specific and unequivocal demands of Israel could have been paired with equally forceful statements renouncing the Palestinian demand for the “return” of the descendants of refugees from the 1948 war — which would effectively turn democratic Israel into an Arab country with a Jewish minority.  But here, the resolution only asks for an “agreed, just, fair, and realistic” solution.

The demands for a right to return would effectively see the wiping out of Israel as we know it. If you want a peace settlement, then that needs to go off the table.

The resolution calls on all parties to refrain from actions “that could undermine the viability of the two state solution on the basis of the parameters defined in this resolution,” but then lists as its only example of such action “settlement activities.”  Settlement activity is the only specific action of any party that is criminalised in this text, whereas the text makes no mention of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, nor of suicide bombings, or racist or genocidal incitement. It never deplores the Arab boycott as illegitimate or unacceptable, and it doesn’t even specifically call for its end as part of a comprehensive peace.

Not much incentives for Israel!

Where it is specific

about Israeli concessions on territory, it is very vague about the “security arrangements” that will come after an Israeli withdrawal. The details are to be worked out in future negotiations, but one detail is already built in: “a full phased withdrawal of Israeli security forces.” Israel’s concerns that the West Bank, which overlook every major Israeli city and town, could become a base for Gaza-style rocket attacks, are not even a consideration.

This means that in a period where nearly every Arab regime has been threatened with an Islamic insurgency, or fallen to one, or just been ripped apart by civil war, Israel is expected to commit ahead of time to a security arrangement with zero Israeli military presence — and where any future military presence will automatically place it in breach of a UNSC resolution.

So why is NZ supporting this resolution?

I believe New Zealand can make a real contribution to peace and to the strength of the United Nations system by insisting that if such a resolution moves forward it will not “pick and choose” between the sides and the issues, but treat all of them equally and in equal measure and detail.

We campaigned on being independent and fair. I hope we live up to that.

The latest data from Stats NZ is interesting.

• Volume of alcoholic drinks available for consumption down 10 million litres or 2%
• Beer volume down 6.5 million litres
• RTDs down 4.5 million litres or 7%
• The amount of pure alcohol per adult has dropped from 9.6 litres in 2010 to 9.1 litres in 2014

So again the moral panic over how we’re drinking and abusing more alcohol is not supported by the data.

Photo taken at O Week at Otago. As always captions should be funny, not nasty.

The Wairarapa Times-Age reports:

The Wairarapa Chamber of Commerce is backing the super-city model.

In a statement on Wednesday, chief executive Steph Gundersen-Reid said their surveys showed 65 per cent supported the Local Government Commission’s draft proposal to create a Greater Wellington Council.

“We’ve listened to our members and engaged with the business community across the Wairarapa,” she said.

“Many of them support the proposal and understand that we must seize the opportunity to benefit the Wairarapa.”

Their surveys, conducted since December 2014, showed that most were in favour of some form of change to the current model.

A reader has e-mailed me some correspondence with the Chamber, which details they had a 20.6% response rate from their approx 220 members.

That means 45 replies.

The margin of error on 45 responses out of 220 for a 65% support is 12.5%.

To have the normal 95% confidence level, a sample of 136 would be needed. So the results are indicative but not conclusive.

As expected Winston Peters has announced he is standing in Northland, despite living in Auckland Central.

A key point is that as Peters is already an MP, if he did win, then NZ First gains an additional MP, who is their candidate for Invercargill.

So a vote for Peters is a vote for one fewer MP in Northland and one extra MP in Invercargill.

National’s selection is tomorrow night. It will be a decision of 120 local members, rather than executive fiat.

UPDATE: Peters say he has always been very concerned for Northland. If that is the case I look forward to media asking him why his party didn’t even bother to stand a candidate in Northland not just in the 2014 election, but also 2011 and 2008! Yes his party has not even stood there for the last three elections, and he claims to care about it.

Professor Robert Ayson (Strategic Studies, VUW) writes in the Herald:

And this brings us to the national interests that should be motivating New Zealand’s concern about ISIS internationally and its commitment to the coalition.

One is that we have an interest in the preservation, where it is possible, of the idea that recognised nation states (like us) retain a domestic monopoly on the use of force and that non-state groups (like ISIS) are denied that opportunity.

A second is that we have an interest in the preservation, where it is possible, of the international boundaries which separate one nation state from another and in preventing armed groups from violating those points of demarcation. The caliphate idea of ISIS is a direct challenge to this standard.

A third is our awareness that an unstable Middle East, where governments fear for their continuing existence, presents particular dangers to international security.

We talk rightly of Asia’s importance to New Zealand, and of the South Pacific’s, but the deployment of our forces much further afield often tells a different picture.

A fourth is that it is against our interests for a group such as ISIS to continue violent actions in Syria and Iraq which are then used to inspire overseas recruits and sympathisers, including to a very limited extent within New Zealand itself.

A fifth is that New Zealand needs a world where a significant number of states are willing, when it is necessary, to use force in the promotion and protection of collective interests.

A sixth is that we need leading western powers, who share many of our interests and values, to be willing to take leading roles in this endeavor. This does not mean we are going to Iraq because of some price of some club.

He continues:

I assume there are occasions when the use of force is both necessary and has some utility. Force can be a blunt instrument with unintended consequences. I cannot guarantee to you, and neither can the government, that things will be hugely better once the military campaign has been completed.

Nor can I guarantee that, once trained, the Iraqi forces will do their job nearly as well as we might wish. But I am convinced that it is not possible to deal with ISIS, at least in the short term, without the use of force being part of the approach.

Andrew Little’s talk of reconstruction and agriculture as a substitute for force is nonsense. You need both those things – but as well as force. ISIL will not give up dreams of a global caliphate because Iraq develops better agriculture.

Could there be blowback? Absolutely. But can we reduce the threat that ISIS poses to our interests and values without someone using force against it? I don’t think so.

So the only question is whether we just rely on everyone else for that force, or if we contribute a small amount through training.

But in baiting that trap the Opposition created one for themselves. They ended up in a position where there unwillingness to support even the dispatch of NZ forces for training undermined any sense that they regarded ISIS as a problem really worth worrying about.

As they have no solution, one can only assume they don’t see it as a problem.

They gave the clear impression that whenever someone mentions Iraq, it is all about reliving New Zealand’s correct decision not to join the 2003 invasion.

But now is not then. Same part of the world yes, but a different problem. Did that invasion create some of the conditions that ISIS has taken advantage of? Yes.

Does that guarantee that the use of force now will worsen the situation, and make ISIS stronger not weaker? I don’t think so. Should New Zealand be part of that effort? For me, the answer is yes.

You can be against the 2003 invasion, but in favour of military force against the Islamic State.

Look at that inflow from Australia. It is almost double where it has been historically. And the outflow to Australia is at a near record low in absolute terms, and probably is at a record low as a share of the population.

In the last 12 months, the net outflow to Australia has reduced to just 2,730, or around seven people a day.

At the end of 2008, it was a massive net 98 people a day or almost 36,000 a year.

Stuff reports:

The High Court in Auckland has also heard that Mona Dotcom was initially hesitant to donate money to the Internet Mana political party, at her husband’s suggestion, but eventually agreed the family trust would give $400,000. …

She believed Dotcom’s claims that his involvement with the Internet Mana party would eventually relieve the family of his threat of extradition, she said.  

This confirms what we all suspected but was denied by Dotcom.

The shame should fall on Laila Harre and Hone Harawira. They took millions from Dotcom to try and get into Parliament (or remain there), and must have known his motivation or quid pro quo was help with his extradition case. Dotcom’s wife confirms this is why he was doing it.

A multi-millionaire tried to buy his way out of extradition through a pet tame political party, and Hone, Laila and John Minto all lined up at the trough.

Hat Tip: Pete George

The Remuneration Authority has announced the new salaries for MPs, backdated to July 2014.

A key para is:

In 2014, the Authority’s payline at the level for ordinary members increased by 3.3%. For this year, the personal benefit of the travel entitlement to members and their families has been assessed at $3,200 per member, a reduction in the amount assessed in previous years, which takes into account tightened provisions around the personal use of travel by family members. Taking into account the change in value of the travel entitlement, this produces a package increase of 3.56% and a salary increase for ordinary members of 5.5%.

So a 3.6% increase. All pay rises for MPs are unpopular but with inflation at below 1% this one will be more so.

The MPs only have themselves to blame though. On multiple occasions I have submitted that the law should be changed so that the Remuneration Authority sets salaries for an entire parliamentary term, rather than annually. There is no need for annual adjustments in a low inflation environment. They should be set three months before each election and apply for the whole term.

Maybe the backlash to this increase, will finally see a change. I don’t begrudge MPs getting well remunerated for what can be very tough roles. But they go through a needless annual round of pain and vitriol by having annual increases.

This shows the new salaries for each type of MP, and the increase in total salaries which is $1.22 million more.

Of interest is the Labour Deputy Leader and Senior Whip get paid more than the Green and NZ First party leaders.

Michael Littlewood from the Retirement Policy and Research Centre has a commentary on redesigning NZ Superannuation. He says (and I agree) that we should not just look at one issue in isolation or just the cost.

He highlights eight key design features that should be agreed on. They are:

1. Universal or means-tested (I favour means-tested if the administrative costs of doing so are not prohibitive)
2. Age of entitlement (I favour increasing it and tying it to life expectancy)
3. Residency test – how long should someone live here to quality. The current threshold is ten years and I think it should be higher. It used to be 25 years.
4. The level. Currently is 43% of the net average wage for a single person. Set at 66% of  the after-tax national average wage for a couple.
5. How to revalue? Is indexed to both CPI and the average wage.
6. How to pay for it? Pay as you go and partially pre-funded. Should it be both? What should the mix be?
7. Payments to single people? Why does a married couple get less than two singles living together?
8. Overseas pensions? The rules for deducting overseas pensions are inconsistent

ACT’s proposal to have an expert panel devise a number of schemes that would go to a vote, would be one way we could have a debate on, and decide these issues.

Stuff reports:

Council of Trade Unions (CTU) president Helen Kelly has been diagnosed with lung cancer.

In an email to trade union colleagues last night, Kelly said she would be undergoing additional tests to determine the prognosis.

Hopefully it has been detected at Stage 1 where the prognosis is a lot better than at later stages. If you get diagnosed at Stage 1 the one year survival rate is 70% while at Stage 4 it is 15%.

I hope Helen is able to have successful treatment, and continue her strong advocacy for many years to come.

Family confirmed Kelly was not a smoker and had never smoked.

Around 15% of people with lung cancer have never smoked. This is why it is important even  non smokers get a check up of they have symptoms such as a persistent cough.

There is a an excellent publication on lung cancer at Pfizer, for those who want more information. Curia did some of the research for it.

The Herald reports:

Auckland business leader Sir Stephen Tindall is making a last-gasp plea to Auckland Mayor Len Brown and councillors to halt further reclamation of the Waitemata Harbour for port use until a full study of the economic, social and environmental impacts is complete.

In an open letter to Mr Brown and councillors this morning, Sir Stephen is calling on the politicians to use all their powers to stop two large wharf extensions into the harbour at the end of Bledisloe Wharf.

I’m against extending it further into the harbour. In fact I think long-term it should be moved – I don’t care where to, just out of the CBD and prime waterfront space. There are far far better things you can do on a CBD waterfront than store cars and logs.

The order paper is here.

Oral Questions 2.00 pm – 3.00 pm

1. IAN McKELVIE to the Minister of Finance: What progress is the Government making in building a more competitive and productive economy as one of its priorities for this term of Parliament?
2. Hon ANNETTE KING to the Minister of Health: What advice has he received on the Health budget for 2015/16?
3. SCOTT SIMPSON to the Minister for Social Development: What reports has she received on the latest valuation of the benefit system?
4. JAMES SHAW to the Minister of Finance: Does he have confidence that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund is living up to its commitments to ethical investment as outlined in its Responsible Investment Framework?
5. KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI to the Minister of Transport: What work is the Government doing to provide better transport connections between Auckland International Airport and the Greater Auckland area?
6. CHRIS HIPKINS to the Minister of Education: Does she stand by her decision to approve the Whangaruru Partnership School; if so, why?
7. JACQUI DEAN to the Minister for Primary Industries: What Government support is available for farmers and growers along most of the East Coast of the South Island since a medium-scale adverse event was declared on 12 February 2015?
8. DENISE ROCHE to the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety: Should the minimum wage be enough to live on?
9. Hon PHIL GOFF to the Minister of Defence: What rules of engagement, if any, has the Government set for the New Zealand Defence Force personnel operating in Iraq if they come under attack?
10. TRACEY MARTIN to the Minister for Food Safety: What reports, if any, has she seen regarding food safety issues in kindergartens, play centres and kōhanga reo?
11. Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR to the Minister for Primary Industries: Does he have confidence in his department?
12. BARBARA KURIGER to the Minister for Women: What reports has she received relating to the prevention of family and sexual violence in New Zealand?

National: Five patsies on the economy, benefits, Auckland transport, drought and sexual violence

Labour: Four questions on health budget, charter schools, Iraq and biosecurity

Greens: Two questions on NZ Super Fund and minimum wage

NZ First: One question of food safety

Government Bills 3.00 pm – 6.00 pm and 7.30 pm to 10.00 pm

Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill – 1st reading

This bill confirms and validates unappropriated expenditure and validates excess net asset holdings for the 2013/14 financial year.

Introduced: December 2014

This bill is not debated.

Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill – first reading

The bill amends the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 (the EEZ Act) to overcome unintended effects of Section 162 of by allowing existing petroleum operators who have applied for a marine consent to continue their operations until the application is decided and any subsequent objections or appeals are determined.

Introduced: February 2015

The debate can be up to two hours.

Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill – first reading

The bill amends the Bail Act 2000, the Sentencing Act 2002 and the Parole Act 2002 to enable the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police to require community-based offenders and bailees, if they are subject to conditions prohibiting the use of drugs or alcohol, to undergo drug and alcohol testing to ensure compliance with these conditions.

Introduced: July 2014

The debate can be up to two hours.

The Herald reports:

Mr Cunliffe confirmed to the Herald that he “made a cellphone call or two” on loudspeaker while driving to Massey University in Palmerston North.

“A cop pulled me over, I got an infringement notice and I regret it,” he said.

Mr Cunliffe said the phone was on “hands-free” mode and he “didn’t realise it was an offence”, though he clarified that he was holding the phone with one hand.

Umm, the definition of hands-free is that it is not in your hand!

Personally I think the law is a stupid one. The law should be about if you are driving safely and not distracted, rather than singling out specific devices such as phones. Eating a pie can be just as distracting, for example.

But not a good idea for MPs to break the laws they passed.

The Herald reports:

Convicted killer and X Factor contestant Shae Brider is not asking for mercy or pity, but says his success on the talent show was simply “tearing down another wall” to escape a life he left in a prison cell years ago.

However, his victim’s mother says the show’s producers should have ensured the full facts of the crime – including his seriously assaulting three other people on the same night – were fully disclosed to audiences.

Brider, 29, was sentenced to 8 years in jail for his part in the manslaughter of Jeremy Frew, 16, in Wanganui in 2004.

He was one of four charged with Jeremy’s death after what the judge described as a “rampage of violence” where the group assaulted Daniel Grey, Greg Parnell and Robert Kerrigan on the same night.

On Tuesday, Brider’s successful X Factor audition was broadcast with a segment describing the crime.

“I met some dudes and we went to a bonfire,” the Masterton man told the show. “There was a commotion with two of them and one of them stabbed the other one and he ended up passing away.”

Brider admitted he served six years in prison but no further context was given to the story.

What Brider said on television minimised what they did that night. It sounded like he was just unlucky to be caught up in a fight between two friends.

Jeremy Frew’s mother, Donna Travers, said the family should have been notified the episode was going to air and ensured the facts were told correctly. “It’s devastating for us, it revictimises us. My sister and my daughter were watching it and they had no idea it was going to be on.

“What really got to us the most was that he said Jeremy was his friend. That was the worst thing that guy could have said. My son was scared of him and his mates and he said it on the day he was killed.”

You can only feel sorry for the family.

Brider said he moved to Masterton out of respect to his victim’s family, and prison was life-changing for him.

Apart from a driving offence, he had remained clear of convictions since his release.

Now married, he works at a Masterton service station, where he said customers supported him.

It is a very good thing that Brider has turned his life around, and like the family I have no issues with the fact he is on X-Factor. But it is unfortunate that he is underplaying what happened.