Geoffrey Miller has gone back through Simon Lusk’s Master’s thesis on Ecampaigning, and makes some observations.

Stuff reports:

Labour has announced plans to scrap secondary tax for workers with more than one job – but National says it’s already implementing the policy.

In the current system, those with more than one job often pay a higher rate on their secondary income.  It is expected they claim a refund on the wash-up at the end of the financial year.

However, Labour says this is too complex, overpayments are often not claimed back and the system hits hardest those in casual work.

Within five years of taking office Labour would develop an alternative to secondary tax. In the interim, it would implement special tax codes until an Inland Revenue computer upgrade comes online.

I’m not sure you can call this a policy. At best it is a desire. A policy would be an announcement of the alternative. All they have announced is that at some stage before 2020, Labour will develop an alternative.

However, National’s revenue spokesman Todd McClay said they were already going ahead with the policy.

He said IRD’s Business Transformation plan will “address the PAYE system, including secondary tax and end-of-year square-ups.”

And that work is due to be completed by the end of 2015, well before 2020.

Stuff reports:

The Conservative Party says dirty politics have become dangerous politics after a candidate’s car hoardings were set alight. 

New Lynn representative Steve Taylor says his neighbours alerted him to the fact that the political signs – which were affixed to a trailer – were ablaze.

Fire fighters put out the blaze. 

The car had been parked at Taylor’s home, where he lives with his wife and two young children. 

Flames could easily have reached the house, Taylor said. 

“This is a wilful act of destruction and very risky to my family as we live in a fairly bushy area. It could easily have reached the house while we were sleeping.”

Thanks to the two nearby fire stations and a quick-thinking neighbour, this wasn’t the case, he said. 

Taylor said he believed the motive was political.

Of course it was political. While some billboard vandals are apolitical (attack all), it has been noticeable this election that parties of the right have been massively targeted in co-ordinated attacks.

Stuff reports:

A new politician has been dragged into the saga of Donghua Liu’s funding of political parties.

National’s Coromandel MP Scott Simpson received a $5000 donation from the controversial Chinese-born property developer for his 2011 election campaign, after meeting Liu about 10 times, including a couple of dinner dates.

The donation was declared in Simpson’s post-election return, and has been uncovered by the Sunday Star-Times during a forensic trawl of donations to MPs.

The donation was declared in 2012. It has been sitting on the Electoral Commission website for a couple of years. There was nothing to uncover.

And I presume a “forensic trawl” is a fancy name for going to the Electoral Commission website and reading the returns online.

The Economist has published an updated list of the most liveable cities in the world. The top 10 are:

1. Melbourne
2. Vienna
3. Vancouver
4. Toronto
5. Adelaide
6. Calgary
7. Sydney
8. Helsinki
9. Perth
10. Auckland

Auckland scores the following:

• Stability 95
• Healthcare 95.8
• Culture & Environment 97
• Education 100
• Infrastructure 92.9
• Overall 95.7

The bottom city is Damascus!

Nice to have a city in the top 10. I do like Melbourne, but do have to rave about Vienna. I love Vienna, and if I had to live in Europe, would choose Vienna.

Claire Trevett goes out with Bronagh and John Key:

We go along the edge of the rose gardens and across the road to Rosie cafe. There is a fish and chip shop nearby but Key says he rarely visits. “Body’s a temple. Write that down.”

At Rosie they place him on the corner where he can be easily seen from outside. He’s good advertising. The Keys are clearly regulars. Key asks a waitress about her upcoming wedding and advises on dates. “Go for October. Snare him early.”

Heh.

Key still does his physical training drills, assisted by the boys, at 5.40 several mornings a week. He’s doing a bit of boxing, flailing at a punching bag. He won’t say who he imagines when he’s punching it. 

The boys are his DPS guards.

But Bronagh can get her own back. After Key insists his body is a temple for the fifth time, she says “more like a warehouse”. He laughs and says, “There’s a reason she’s restricted to 600 words a day.”

She also reveals what is possibly the real reason the Max versus Key snr golf game idea was rejected. “Max can whip him. The beautiful thing is Max doesn’t really practise.” Key is highly competitive and doesn’t like to lose. In an attempt to regain ascendancy, he has a putting lesson lined up for the next day.

Key is meant to be a 15 handicap, so Max must be pretty damn good.

It turns out Bronagh also has quite the sense of humour. She mimics a teacher they had at school dubbed “Screaming Skull”.

The mimic emerges again when talking about Key’s handyman abilities. Key’s mother warned her he was useless at DIY. She puts on the late Ruth Key’s Austrian accent: “John is USELESS at fixing things round the house,” she says. “He’s going to have to do a good job because he’s going to have to pay someone else to do everything.”

Again heh.

When I ask Key later who gets which half of the cappuccino, he replies, “I won’t answer that on the basis your headline will be ‘Key likes a bit of fluff’.”

I love his sense of humour.

Stuff reports their top five:

1. Colin Craig, property developer
2. Chistine Rankin, former Head of WINZ
3. Garth McVicar, founder of the Sensible Sentencing Trust
4. Melissa Perkin, lawyer, executive director of the New Zealand Bar Association
5. Edward Saafi, biomedical scientist, PhD and MBA.

Regardless of politics and policies, I have to say that’s a pretty strong lineup.

Stuff reports:

Only a day after the country’s biggest teacher union walked away from the Government’s flagship education policy, secondary school teachers have agreed on an interim deal over it.

Today the Post Primary Teachers’ Association, representing about 18,000 secondary school teachers, reached an interim agreement around how the teaching roles would work as part of the $359 million Investing in Educational Success initiative.

Good to see there is one union not against their members being able to take up roles that pay $10,000 to $50,000 a year more.

The Herald reports:

As they did ahead of the 2008 and 2011 General Elections, the New Zealand Police Association yesterday released its policy document “for the future”.

Included in the proposals was a sterner stance on defendants’ refusals to co-operate with statements and evidence.

“The Police Association believes government policy to improve the effectiveness of the criminal justice system should … amend the law relating to criminal procedure and evidence to allow judge and jury to draw such inferences as appear proper from a defendent’s refusal to answer questions or give evidence,” the policy document reads.

“The incentive to silence greatly obstructs the ability of police, the courts, and most importantly victims, to ascertain the full truth and receive an explanation for an offence.”

“No one can make anyone talk but if you refuse to speak … then they should be able to comment on that,” association president Greg O’Connor said.

“No one is going to force you to speak, but the judge might say, ‘one might have thought if you were innocent, you would want to talk.’ It’s really about going along with the UK.”
In the United Kingdom, which shares New Zealand’s common law legal heritage, “a judge or jury may draw ‘such inferences as appear proper’ from a defendant’s refusal to make statements of give accounts to the police or court, while providing that a finding of guilt cannot be based solely on such inferences”.

“New Zealand should adopt a similar reform,” the association policy states.

The right to silence has been in the common law since the 1600s.

There are two aspects to the right to silence.

1. The right to actually not answer questions. Most other participants in a trial must answer the question posed to them, or face jail for contempt.
2. The right not to face adverse comment in court on the fat you have exercised the right to silence

As far as I know, no one wants to change the first part, just the second.

I suspect that juries, even if told not to, do mark a defendant down if he or she remains silent. But plenty of defendants have been found not guilty who have remained silent, so the impact is presumbly minor.

UK law does indeed the court to make adverse comment on a defendant remaining silent, but states the jury must be told no conviction can be be made solely on silence.

Stephen Franks makes the case for adopting the UK law:

I’m sorry that some in ACT have reneged on the policy I worked for in Parliament, according to Stuff.

 That policy to end the “so-called right to silence” (Ted Thomas J’s description of it) took into account the UK experience after ending it more than a decade earlier. It considered the academic writing on both sides (retired NZ judges from both sides of the  left/right spectrum considered it to be a poseur right). But mostly it flowed from my determination to focus our policy back on to increasing the availability to courts of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Most of the lay opposition to its abolition is out of a misconception that a right to silence would be replaced by a rule forcing people to give evidence. It would not. An accused could remain silent still. The only change could be that the court is permitted to recognise and draw inferences from a failure to expose yourself to cross-examination.

 Such a reform would simply recognise a common sense reasoning that probably finds its way into many (but unfortunately not all) jury findings despite vain judicial instructions not to take it into account. That reasoning is that the person in the court in the best position to know what really happened involving him is the defendant. If he has counsel hounding other witnesses with potentially spurious theories about what happened but declines to offer his own evidence, or to expose himself to questioning, then the court is deprived of the most direct account of the truth.

Mike Sabin has a members’ bill to allow adverse comments on silence to be made, where a victim is aged under 12.

Of interest is that former defence lawyer Russel Fairbrother called for a law change in 2008 when a Labour MP, as did Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

Overall I’m not convinced though. The change to the UK law might not be a bad change in itself, but it might be the start of a slippery slope where the right to silence gets eroded more and more.

Stuff reports:

Recently I was watching Larry King interview Anna Paquin, who’s said repeatedly that she’s bisexual, and wondered what you thought of it.

Now that she’s married to a man (“happily, monogamously,” she added), King asked if that means she’s a “non-practicing bisexual.” She answered, “I don’t think it’s a past-tense thing.”

I’m a straight married guy and I think pretty broad-minded about this stuff, but I’m confused because I thought the definition of bisexual was someone who slept with partners of either sex.

So what does that even mean, to be a monogamous, married bisexual? If she’s married to a man and never sleeps with women, doesn’t that make her straight? – Confused straight man

The article has an answer, but here’s a shorter one. Your sexual orientation is about whether you are attracted to the opposite gender, your own gender, or both (or none). It is very different to whom you actually sleep with.  You can be bisexual, but happily married to one person and monogamous.

NewstalkZB reports:

The Dunedin City Council has laid a complaint with police following an internal investigation into alleged fraud.

Council CEO Sue Bidrose says the fraud totals more than 1.5 million dollars and centres around the sale of more than 150 vehicles from the council fleet.

Citifleet team leader Brent Bachop died in May, Deloitte was engaged by the council two days after his death, when staff identified apparent discrepancies in the fleet.

This is almost unbelievable. Auditors can’t and are not expected to pick everything up, but checking the fixed assets schedule against the actual assets is pretty routine.

The Remuneration Authority has published its determination for travel and accommodation allowances for Ministers and MPs. This is the first time they have been set by an independent body. Prior to this, the Speaker and the Minister for Ministerial Services determined them. So it is good to have this now with an independent body.

What are the significant changes.

• Cap on MPs’ Wellington accommodation increases from $24,000 to $28,000, the level it has been at since 2007. This increase reflects the 18% inflation we have had since 2007.
• Cap on Ministers’ Wellington accommodation increases from $37,500 to $41,000, the level it has been at since 2009. This increase reflects the 11% inflation we have had since 2009.
• Daily limit for hotels in Wellington increases from $160 to $190 for MPs and from $200 to $240 for Ministers. Again both these changes are near identical to the inflation level since 2007, so in real terms just a catch up.
• Daily limit for hotels in Auckland and Christchurch increases from $180 to $210 for MPs and $290 for Ministers.
• Spouse or partner travel was previously unlimited but is now capped at 20 trips a year for MPs and 30 for Ministers, and also now restricted to travel to accompany the MP on official business.

One section of Nicky Hager’s book stated I had organised a Princess Party, and had dialogue from some unnamed people about getting girls drunk, with an implication I was part of that conversation.

I was not the organiser of the party, and was not a party to the conversation. Yet Hager published this as fact. It is reasonably defamatory as various people have smeared me over it.

I did attend a party in 2011 in Palmerston North held the day before a party conference. I was not the organiser. I invited two friends along, of similiar age to myself. Off memory it was called a Princess Party, because the Royal Wedding was occurring around then. As a Republican, I’m an unlikely organiser.

The e-mails have been released by Whaledump, and I quote from then below. I’m redacting the names of the participants, but of course the source e-mails are on Whaledump.

Name 1, 4/26, 12:02am

my email doesn’t get read

lol

Apparently Pinko is the main driving force behind the Princess party

Now this e-mail is presumably why Hager thought I was the organiser. But he gets it totally wrong. They are laughing at the fact that someone thinks I am the organiser. This is the problem where you write a book on stolen e-mails, and don’t verify, fact check, or interview a single person for it.

One must note the irony of the comment about e-mails not getting read though 🙂

————————-
Name 2, 4/26, 12:03am

well i was going to say i have cleared the field for you, given you the most likely targets and will get them drunk for you
————————-
Name 1, 4/26, 12:03am

he has invited [REDACTED] to it and to the one the next night
————————-
Name 2, 4/26, 12:03am

righto, good cleint recruitment

he asked if he can bring Name 3, which i said yes to
————————-

Yep, I got invited to a party, and invited two friends to it – both of a similiar age to me – one male and female. I had no role in the conversation reported in the book. Yet the book reports me as the organiser, and implies I was involved in the conversation.

If Mr Hager is doing reprints of his book, I would appreciate it if he could make the appropriate corrections.

And perhaps this is a lesson to everyone out there, not to take everything in the book at face value. If he has got this wrong, what else has he got wrong? Again this is what happens when you don’t verify anything or give people a chance to respond.

UPDATE: I actually blogged on the party in 2011. To quote me:

Had a very fun night in Palmerston North last night (a sentence which some might say was unlikely to ever be uttered by me) watching the Royal Wedding. Yes I’m a Republican, but I can still enjoy a good wedding. The dress code was tiaras for women and black tie for men.

It was a hilariously mixed group of people. Three out of the five Kiwiblog editorial team were in attendance, plus I’d guess half the Don Brash coup committee. A wedding can be a good uniter 

We also had members of the Monarchist League and Republicans, so it was a very good fun night. Debating the constitutional reform at 1 am is so much more tolerable after many bottles of champagne.

Somewhat sad that it was a party, and I’m debating constitutional reform at 1 am at it. Also a very different impression to what Hager’s book implied.

Dr Jennifer Lees-Marshment has published a book recommending New Zealand create a Ministry of Public Input. The synopis is:

As political leaders acknowledge the limits of their power and knowledge, they seek a diverse range of public input into government, but this raises profound practical and democratic questions as to how we ensure that public input is collected and processed appropriately and what political leaders are supposed to do with that public input. Through interviews with government ministers and practitioners this research shows how politicians are becoming deliberative political leaders; integrating constructive input from inside and outside government into their decision-making. It also argues that we need to develop a permanent government unit to collect, process and communicate ongoing public input such as a Ministry or Commission of Public Input. By improving public input systems; acknowledging the limits of their own power and knowledge; and devolving solution-finding to others, politicians achieve change that lasts beyond their time in power. Public input is not irreconcilable with political leadership; it is essential to it.

I was one of those interviewed for the book. I think the idea of a Ministry of Public Input, to work across Government, is worth considering. In theory each agency should be doing this anyway, but Jennifer proposes an all-of-Government approach.

A summary of her book is online here.

Those she interviewed include around 51 current and former Australian, Canadian British and Ministers including a dozen current NZ Ministers.

The Herald reports:

He said Dr Tucker told him about Slater’s request for the documents on July 26, the day he received it.

Mr Goff said Dr Tucker said he intended to release that day, “and I hit the roof”.

He had told Dr Tucker it was “unbelievable that you would contemplate doing anything like that – that draws you right into the political arena”.

He said Dr Tucker then agreed to delay the release for a week.

Now think about this.

Phil Goff told the media and the public he had not been briefed on a security issue.

He had been.

The SIS told him that they planned to release the briefing note, after redactions, as it had been requested under the Official Information Act, and there were no legal grounds to refuse it.

Goff hit the roof and heavied the SIS into delaying the release. He thinks that documents showing he was briefed when he claimed not to have been, should not be released to protect him.

And Labour are trying to claim some sort of moral high ground!!

The Herald reports:

David Cunliffe would like to remain Labour leader and take the party into the 2017 election, even if the party loses at the September 20 election.

“In general, and with any new leader, you go through a learning curve,” he said.

“I think there is a very strong argument that it would be a waste of time, energy and resources to go through that process and start again.”

Asked if he planned to stay on no matter what the result, he said, “Unless I feel like I have done such a bad job that it would be in the interests of the party for me not to put myself forward – if that question arises.”

If Labour gets a lower vote percentage that they got under Goff in 2011, then I can’t see how he can make a case for staying. If he gets Labour into the 30s, then his position is strengthened and he probably can carry on despite the lack of confidence from his caucus. If Labour’s results is between 27.5% and 30%, that is the uncertain zone.

Stuff reported:

Epsom, New Zealand’s richest and whitest electorate, shows it can get down and dirty during this election campaign.

Epsom actually is below average in terms of “white” people. 73.5% of the electorate say they are European or NZer compared to 78.8% average for NZ. So not only are they not the whitest, they are not in the top 10, 20, 30 or 40. They are 47th out of 63.

Also incorrect in terms of income. Their median income is the 2nd highest in NZ, not the top.

Sir Peter Gluckman has released a review of scientific evidence on fluoridation.  It is a readable 67 page report and co-authored by the Royal Society of NZ.

Some useful extracts:

There is compelling evidence that fluoridation of water at the established and recommended levels produces broad benefits for the dental health of New Zealanders. In this context it is worth noting that dental health remains a major issue for much of the New Zealand population, and that economically and from the equity perspective fluoridation remains the safest and most appropriate approach for promoting dental public health.

The only side effect of fluoridation at levels used in NZ is minimal fluorosis, and this is not of major cosmetic significance. There are no reported cases of disfiguring fluorosis associated with levels used for fluoridating water supplies in New Zealand.

For the future:

Given the caveat that science can never be absolute, the panel is unanimous in its conclusion that there are no adverse effects of fluoride of any significance arising from fluoridation at the levels used in New Zealand. In particular, no effects on brain development, cancer risk or cardiovascular or metabolic risk have been substantiated, and the safety margins are such that no subset of the population is at risk because of fluoridation.

All of the panel members and ourselves conclude that the efficacy and safety of fluoridation of public water supplies, within the range of concentrations currently recommended by the Ministry of Heath, is assured. We conclude that the scientific issues raised by those opposed to fluoridation are not supported by the evidence. Our assessment suggests that it is appropriate, from the scientific perspective, that fluoridation be expanded to assist those New Zealand communities that currently do not benefit from this public health measure – particularly those with a high prevalence of dental caries.

There were five members of the expert panel, all professors in scientific fields. There were also three international reviewers from Australia, the UK and Ireland..

Tooth decay is responsible for significant health loss (lost years of healthy life) in New Zealand. The ‘burden’ of the disease – its ‘cost’ in terms of lost years of healthy life – is equivalent to 3/4 that of prostate cancer, and 2/5 that of breast cancer in New Zealand. Tooth decay thus has substantial direct and indirect costs to society.

That’s a stunning stat, I had not seen before.

Like many elements that affect human health, fluoride is beneficial in small amounts and toxic in excess. More than 500 years ago, the physician and alchemist Paracelsus first stated the basic principle that governs toxicology: “All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.” In other words, for substances that have beneficial effects on health, “the dose differentiates a poison from a remedy.” Fluoride clearly benefits dental health when used topically or ingested in small doses, but in very high doses it is poisonous, and has been used as a component of pesticides. Similar examples can be found among beneficial health promoting vitamins, including vitamin D, which in high doses is an effective rodenticide
used to eradicate rats and possums, and in humans can cause musculoskeletal and renal disease.

This is also a key quote to remember when the anti-brigade breathlessly go on about how fluoride is a toxin.

National announced:

Better-than-expected progress in reducing crime and having more young people attain higher qualifications means these two Better Public Service targets will be made more challenging if National is returned to government after the election.

The two targets are among 10 this Government has set to ensure the money invested in public services actually delivers demonstrable gains for New Zealanders, National Party Finance Spokesman Bill English and State Services Spokesman Jonathan Coleman say.

“For too long, governments have considered that spending more money equates to fixing problems, even when the evidence shows that simply isn’t the case,” Mr English says.

“That’s why our Government considers results rather than more spending as the best measure of the effectiveness of public services.

“In 2012, we set measurable targets in 10 challenging areas to improve the lives of New Zealanders, particularly the most vulnerable, and it’s pleasing that our six-monthly updates show good progress.

“In two targets, the results have been so much better than anticipated that we’re lifting the bar so we aim for even more improvement.”

The new targets are:

• Raising the proportion of 25 – 34-year-olds who will have advanced trade qualifications, diplomas and degrees by 2017 to 60 per cent – up from 55 per cent in the current target.

• Reducing the total crime rate by 20 per cent from June 2011 to June 2017 – up from the current target reduction of 15 per cent.

I think it is a very good thing, that when a target is met, you don’t just rest on your laurels, but then make it a more challenging target.

The Herald reports:

Richard Dawkins, the atheist writer, has claimed it is “immoral” to allow unborn babies with Down’s syndrome to live.

The professor posted a message on Twitter saying would-be parents who learn their child has the condition have an ethical responsibility to “abort it and try again”.

His comments were dismissed by charities and prompted fury online from opponents but he insisted his stance was “very civilised” because foetuses do not have “human feelings”.

It’s an incredibly tough decision for any potential parents. Unhelpful to label whatever decision they make as immoral.

He claimed that the important question in the abortion debate is not “is it ‘human’?” but “can it suffer?” and insisted that people have no right to object to abortion if they eat meat.

I’m pro-choice but I don’t accept that analogy.

The Herald reports:

Labour’s support among the elderly has slumped despite making free GP visits for pensioners the centrepiece of its election campaign launch recently.

A breakdown of the party vote according to age suggests a dramatic fall from 29.3 per cent among pensioners in last month’s poll to just 17.6 per cent in today’s poll.

Once the poll results are broken into age groups they are simply indicative.

But what makes the movement more credible is that New Zealand First, which assiduously courts the grey vote, has gone from 4.7 per cent support among the over 65-year-olds last month to 8.9 per cent of the older vote in today’s poll.

We can estimate how significant these changes are.

We don’t know how many over 65s were in the poll sample of 750, but let’s estimate 200.

A fall from 29.3% to 17.6% has a 99.3% chance of being a true fall, and only a 0.7% chance of being just random sample differences. So it is safe to conclude Labour has fallen in support from over 65s despite their bribe.

An increase from 4.7% to 8.9% has a 94.8% chance of being a true increase, so it is likely they have gained support from over 65s.