Stuff reports:

Eight Auckland men, all but one named Singh, have had their trial for alleged electoral fraud moved to the High Court because of the “public interest” in the case.

Labour Party candidate Daljit Singh was charged in mid-2010 with forging voting documents in Auckland’s super-city elections.

It’s been two and a half years since the election, and only now is the trial being moved!

Daljit, a justice of the peace, is charged with election fraud over the alleged forging of change of address forms for hundreds of voters in south Auckland.

Singh was backed by Labour and stood for the Papatoetoe Community Board.

Singh has also been at Labour Party fundraisers since his arrest.

The men were going to face trial in the Manukau District Court but the case was moved to the High Court today.

Justice Timothy Brewer said the case had been transferred “because of the public interest factor”.

He set a trial date for October 14 and remanded all the men on bail.

I find it unacceptable that this case takes three years to go to trial. Even worse it will be held after voting starts in the 2013 local body elections, for alleged offences for the 2010 elections.

We need to get serious about the way electoral crimes and breaches are dealt with in NZ.

To be fair to the Police, in this case they are not the log jam. They arrested Singh in 2010.

But it has now been 18 months since the 2011 general election, and the Police appear to have done nothing with the 20+ cases referred to them by the Electoral Commission.

John Stringer blogs:

Nazism largely succeeded due to mob mentality.  We are seeing some of the same pressures pervasive amongst liberal dogmas and social engineering being applied in the West, where if you disagree you’re pilloried and abused. There is even a whole glossary of semantic bully words to describe conservative dissidents (homophobes, sexist, bigots, archaic, unprogressive, intolerant, opposed to equality).

John is effectively comparing the Nazis to those who dare to argue against him. Not a winning strategy. Any comparison to the Nazis is offensive and ill-considered unless someone is actually out there committing genocide and the like. Calling someone a name is not comparable. Not even in the same universe actually.

Let’s remember, Hitler’s politics was Socialist before it was fascist.

Yes, but socialism and liberalism are very different things.

The Christian church was prominent among the few who stood up against this 1930s “progressive” ‘new morality’ hope and change wave, and then shielded the Jews at peril of their own lives. History repeats.

Is John saying he is risking his life by arguing against same sex marriage? Does he see himself as a brave martyr risking the mob burning down his home?

Also on a historical note, while there were many brave Christians who risked their lives to save Jews, the record of the Christian churches as a whole was very mixed.

It is utterly historically inaccurate to understand Nazism as a conservative movement, which it patently was not.  It was radical, violent, self-righteous, liberal, progressive, new; it threw away, mocked and persecuted the old order

Oh yes, the Nazis were liberals and progressives. For someone who is meant to be complaining about the use of language to demonise, John does the exact thing he complains about.

Newflash to John. The Nazis executed Germans for being homosexuals – they didn’t allow them to marry. They banned gay organisations, they burned impure books, they arrested 100,000 homosexuals for being homosexuals and thousands perished in concentration camps. This is not liberalism.

In 1936 Himmler created the “Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion”. Does that sound like something a liberal regime would do, or a “conservative” one? The correct answer is actually neither as labels are inadequate for the Nazis, but oif John is going to play that game, well I’d say 99% of people would say such an office sound more conservative than liberal.

John says the Nazis were liberals and the wonders why he gets verbally abused by some. You get verbal abuse when you say outrageous  offensive things such as the Nazi were liberals. Don’t say stupid offensive things, and you won’t get so much flak.

White Roses or red blood.  Read more about that historic movement and lessons we can learn for today, here White Rose. 

John praised White Rose for fighting Hitler. I agree they are heroes. Quite inspirational.

One of the founders of White Rose was Hans Scholl. He was executed at the age of 24 along with his sister. Many Germans revere them and their bravery and convictions.

Scholl incidentally was earlier arrested by the Nazis and accused of various offences including a same-sex teen relationship when he was 16.  The Daily Mail reports:

During their interrogation neither of them cracked, but Sophie explained that Hans’s long drawn-out ordeal at the hands of the Gestapo years earlier over what they termed his ‘sexual deviance’ was ‘the most important reason’ for her subsequent decision to defy Hitler’s regime. 

So I’m not so sure Hans or Sophie Scholl would really appreciate John’s portrayal of liberals (such as supporters of same sex marriage) as akin to Nazis.

I had to giggle. Scoop’s Werewolf has a patsy interview with Green Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown.

I wondered who interviewed her. It was former Green MP Sue Kedgley!

One commenter suggested next they could have Joe Karam interviewing David Bain!

Almost as bad as the recent fellating interview with Russel Norman the Daily Blog ran, where the first question was:

The first thing I want to ask is how frustrating is it to be the co-leader of a political party that is constantly criticized for challenging the orthodoxy, only to be vindicated in that challenge later down the track?

Yes I’m serious, that was the first question!

It’s like asking someone “How do you cope with being so awesome and right on everything”. If that is journalism, God help us.

The Telegraph reports:

“This is possibly the most deluded measure to come from Europe since Diocletian tried to fix the price of groceries across the Roman Empire,” Mr Johnson said.

Tony Ryall announced:

As at 8.30 this morning, 100,000 New Zealanders have pre-registered their interest in buying shares in the Government’s partial share offer of up to 49 per cent of energy company Mighty River Power. …

“This compares with the ten days it took for pre-registration to reach the 100,000 mark with the Contact Energy share offer in 1999.

Superb. And there are 16 days still to go.

I wonder when Labour will announce their policy on whether they will compulsorily acquire any shares purchased by New Zealanders and return the companies to 100% government ownership?

All will they say, after all their huffing, that in fact they will do nothing to change the level of private shareholdings if they win the next election?

If Labour are going to have a policy of compulsory nationalisation, they should make this clear before the offer document is tabled.

Cathedral Square, Christchurch at night with full moon and fire poi guys (and gals?). Post first Canterbury earthquake. Photography by Sarah Sisson

Sarah made this image in October 2010, after the first Canterbury earthquake.  We were both amazed at how well the city was rebounding from those first earthquakes – Cantabrians had done an incredible job of getting most of the core CBD landmarks up and going even within 6 weeks of the quake.  We have a gallery of Christchurch CBD images up on our stock photography site from that October shoot that some of you may find to be a pleasant use of five minutes.

Sorry for posting and running last week – I forgot about my Canon v Nikon question.  Beautox nailed the answer – yes it was made on the Canon.  And we’re great thanks Bob – must catch up soon!

Free Wallpaper Download

You may download the large version of today’s image from this link:  Password = freewallpaper.

This image is available  as a canvas print. on our  website.

See you next week – and thanks for all the great comments last week!

Cheers – Todd [www.sisson.co.nz] 

Greenpeace is a strident campaigner against big oil, and especially against BP.

A spy has sent in this photo of the Rainbow Warrior being filled up at the weekend – by BP!

Why isn’t the Rainbow Warrior running on biodiesel?

I guess it is the old maxim of a group saying “Do as we say, not as we do.”

Sir Keith Holyoake is New Zealand’s third longest serving Prime Minister. His statue is in Molesworth Street outside the building that used to house the States Services Commission.

Photo from Nigel Roberts.

As our 3rd longest serving Prime Minister, his statue should have been in Parliament Grounds along with Seddon and Ballance. Ballance was Premier for only two years!

The Labour Government in 1987 refused to allow Holyoake’s statue to go in Parliament, despite the wishes of the Holyoake family for it to be placed there. They placed it outside the SSC Building on the basis he had something to do with establishing them. A petty and pathetic decision I thought.

Anyway the building it is outside no longer houses the SSC. It is now Rugby House, the home of the NZRFU. It is bizarre to have Sir Keith outside the building of a private sporting body.

This would be a great opportunity for the Government to move Sir Keith’s statue to Parliament Grounds. In fact I think all Prime Ministers who served three full terms or more should have statues in Parliament Grounds. It would be good to have statues of Muldoon and Clark there also – preferably next to each other 🙂

Anyway there is a small problem with reclaiming Sir Keith for Parliament. His statue was accidentally sold as part of the building.

The Government could buy it back, but maybe there is another solution.

Why not commission an iconic rugby statue or sculpture and do a swap? Place the rugby sculpture outside Rugby House and move Sir Keith to Parliament?

Matthew Backhouse at the Herald reports:

The philanthropist’s Cats To Go website was initially met with outrage from cat lovers, but responses to questions in UMR Research’s monthly online survey show the public may be coming around to his views.

Not really. The survey showed that the moderate proposals have support – as they should. But there is total rejection for his more extreme proposals.

The survey of about 1000 people found more than half supported neutering all cats, registering and microchipping all cats, and banning cats from areas near wildlife reserves, forests and national parks.

This is not surprising. And if Morgan had campaigned on those issues solely, then I’d say he would have got a far better reception.

But two of the measures Dr Morgan advocates were met with far less support, with only 12 per cent agreeing cat owners should not replace them when they die and 7 per cent agreeing cats should be kept indoors at all times.

And these measures were at the core of his campaign. His website is called Cats To Go – not Cats To Be Registered.  The top infographic on his site says “Make this cat your last”.

Far from endorsing his views, this poll is a total rejection of his extremism.

Venezuela President Hugo Chavez has died.

I don’t care that he had economic policies I disagreed with. People are entitled to have different economic policies.

I do care that he oversaw a massive loss of press freedom in Venezuela and a huge increase in human rights violations.

Chavez was a shining example of the wisdom of term limits (which he got abolished). But it seems nature dealt him its own term limit.

Power often corrupts, and too often those in the top jobs get obsessed with doing everything they can to hang on to power for life, rather than doing the best job they can do  over say ten years, and then retiring.

Chavez shut down almost every major independent media source in the country. If you can control the media, you can keep control of the country.

Worth reading this 2010 article by Christopher Hitchens who actually met Chavez. It seems his paranoia was very real.

Hamish Fletcher at NZ Herald reports:

International investors could be scared off by a Court of Appeal decision yesterday which saw Inland Revenue notch up another big win, say tax specialists.

Alesco New Zealand lost another leg of its stoush with the IRD yesterday over whether a funding structure used to buy two other companies was a tax avoidance arrangement.

The amount at issue in the Alesco case is $8.6 million, but yesterday’s judgment could have implications for other tax avoidance disputes with the IRD where hundreds of millions of dollars are estimated to be at stake.

Decisions in these cases were awaiting the outcome of the Alesco litigation, the Court of Appeal said.

University of Auckland Business School senior tax law lecturer Mark Keating called yesterday’s decision a “slam-dunk” for the IRD.

“If there’s an imaginary line that you cross between tax planning and tax avoidance, then IRD have been taking cases that go closer and closer to that line,” Keating said.

“The [corporate] taxpaying community are basically waiting for a case where the IRD overstretch and there were a number of people who hoped and believed that Alesco would be that case.”

Ernst & Young senior tax partner Jo Doolan said yesterday’s judgment was an “alarming result”.

“It reinforces the feeling of many inbound investing corporates that the NZ tax environment is too uncertain. It may discourage them from continuing to do business here,” she said.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t accept the argument that companies will not invest here if they are not allowed to avoid paying tax.

I’m all in favour of lower tax rates to encourage investment. But I’m also in favour of plugging tax loopholes.

I think it is commendable that IRD has been very effective in making sure companies don’t avoid paying tax purely through use of artificial mechanisms that have no commercial basis except tax avoidance. They managed to get the banks to cough up an extra billion dollars or so, and I understand APN (owners of the Herald) are also in court and fighting over $50 million or so of disputed tax.

The best tax system is low rates, broad base and few loopholes.

The Press editorial:

The decision of a coroner not to hold an inquest into the suicide of a New Zealand soldier in Afghanistan is beginning to look unfortunate.

While it is not unusual for coroners to decide not to conduct inquests into deaths that have already been subject to a well-run and thorough investigation, this decision appears not to satisfy members of the dead man’s family that the circumstances of their relative’s death have been adequately dealt with. A coroner, having decided not to hold an inquest, is entitled to change his or her mind.

The solicitor-general, as the chief executive of the department in charge of coroners, may also overrule the coroner’s decision. One or other of them should do so and a proper independent coroner’s inquiry should be held.

I’m not convinced that the coroner has made the wrong call. As the editorial says, it is unusual to have a coronial inquest when some other body has done an investigation. The fact some family members are upset is not a reason in itself. An inquest shouldn’t be seen as some sort of appeal board.

The causes of suicide are complex and it is seldom that any one factor drives a person to it. A long and detailed investigation into the soldier’s death has been conducted by a military court of inquiry. It has reported on the immediate circumstances of the death, which involved an emotional relationship contrary to military discipline.

The soldier’s family is dissatisfied, however, claiming that questions about the wider circumstances, including allegations of continual bullying and harassment of the soldier because of his homosexuality, have not been properly answered.

It is incredibly sad that the solider killed himself, and that somehow this outcome wasn’t avoided.

However from what I have seen the major issue wasn’t the fact that he was homosexual. It was that he had an unrequited attraction to another solider and told him about it – which obviously made things difficult. The original story said:

Later in the evening, Sergeant H, who family say Hughes did not get along with, confronted Hughes about the incident where he had embarrassed Trooper A.

According to the report, Hughes broke down, admitted he was gay, and had feelings for Trooper A.

Sergeant H organised a meeting between himself, Hughes, and Trooper A, where Hughes admitted to Trooper A he had concocted the incident with the female chef and reiterated his feelings for the trooper.

This is an issue which isn’t intrinsically tied to sexuality. If the attraction was to a female solider, it would also be problematic.

Few of us can control whom we are attracted to. I certainly can’t. But you can control whether or not you act on it, or tell people about it. In a number of former jobs I’ve had colleagues I was attracted to but would never have told them that as it would have caused problems in the workplace.

This is not to say the fact Hughes was gay and the attraction was to another male didn’t make the situation more stressful. I’m sure it did, and it is of huge regret that he ended up taking his life.

The report into Hughes’ death, prepared by an inquiry team that travelled to Afghanistan and interviewed 47 witnesses, does not record any instances of Hughes being bullied, mocked or humiliated, but his family suspect that was the case.

I think you need something more than suspicion, to claim the Army inquiry was inadequate. There is no proof at all that it was.

Now the issue is slightly muddied by the fact the coroner who declined to do an inquest wrote a submission to Parliament against the same sex marriage bill. There is a seperate debate you can have about the wisdom of a quasi-judicial officer doing that. But I don’t think that means he has necessarily made the wrong decision in not holding an inquest. Unless there is some proof that the Army inquiry was inadequate or missed vital evidence, I think the decision is the right one.

Joe Bennett writes in the Dom Post:

Boffins at the University of Otago have tested the blood of 3000 randomly chosen people over the age of 15.

Seven per cent of them had diabetes. That’s over 200 people. A further 18 per cent had early signs of diabetes. That’s over 500 people. Together, they’re more than a quarter of the people tested. That’s an epidemic.

Meanwhile, across the ocean at the University of California, more boffins have been bent over the test tubes and the stats. As you’d expect, their study dwarfed the local one.

They analysed the incidence of diabetes in 175 countries. Effectively that means everywhere. And they found that if the amount of sugar in a national food supply goes up, so does the incidence of diabetes. …

As for education, every youth in the country has been bombarded with dietary advice from here to my Aunt Fanny. They’ve been told about five-plus-a-day, the evils of burgers, the wonder of veges, the joys of exercise and the way to radiant health. The result: the chubbiest generation in the history of our species.

So, if people cannot be taught to do themselves good, they will have to be forced. We need to set a date by which New Zealand shall be sugar-free: 2025 feels about right. Then we need to work towards it.

Bennett is being satirical, but I suspect there lobby groups will soon be pushing for this!

Money’s always a good place to start. There needs to be a tax on sugar, a tax that rises automatically and drastically at the start of every year. That’ll get them yelping.

Next comes plain packaging. We all know the sophistication of the marketing buggers, how they hook kids on to brands by association. Well, brands will be dead.

In the fizzy-drinks business, for example, there’ll be no more Pepsi or Coke or Fanta or Mountain Bloody Dew, with their pretty colours and their brand insignia. No, they’ll all just come in plain metal tubes labelled “Flavoured Sugar-laden Poison”.

Schools will become sugar-free zones. In the period before abolition, lollies will be hidden from view in dairies and sold only to over-18s. Anyone supplying sugar to minors will be liable to a fine or a term of imprisonment.

Parents eating icecream in front of their kids won’t just get a finger-wagging. They’ll have their kids taken into care. And it will all be enforced by us, the sugar cops.

Joe shouldn’t write the Green Party manifesto for them!

Miles Godfrey from AAP at Stuff reports:

If you’ve ever viewed Twitter as a gauge of public opinion, a weathervane marking the mood of the masses, you are very much mistaken.

That is the rather surprising finding of a new US study, which suggests the microblog zeitgeist differs markedly from mainstream public opinion.

“Twitter users are not representative of the public,” Washington DC think tank, Pew Research Center, concluded.

Experts in Australia, where Twitter comment is regularly used in media reaction to major new stories or a method of interaction for television programs, agreed with the US findings.

“While Twitter can give you a good idea of the extremes of how people feel about certain topics, when it comes to measuring opinion of the general public about major issues, it’s pretty useless,” Laura Demasi, of marketing firm IPSOS Australia, told AAP.

Pew Research’s study examined eight major US news events, including November’s presidential election, and compared views expressed on Twitter with national polling. …

The study highlighted a decision made in California’s Federal Court which ruled that laws barring same-sex marriage were unconstitutional.

Almost half of the Twitter conversations about the verdict were positive, eight per cent were negative and 46 per cent were neutral.

But wider public opinion on the decision was more mixed – with 33 per cent saying it was a positive ruling, 44 per cent negative and 15 per cent neutral.

The reason, Pew Research Center says, is that only a “narrow sliver” of the population use Twitter.

A recent study by French social media analysts Semiocast showed there were 140 million Twitter accounts in the US – more than one third of the population.

But users tend to be younger and lean more toward the political left than right, the study said.

This story is a useful reminder, with relevance in NZ.

I enjoy Twitter, and you get some great humour there. But it is not a proxy for the overall population.

It’s one thing to take a few quotes from Twitter, but media should be careful about generalisations such as saying “The decision was heavily criticised on Twitter”.

The other area media should be careful about, is choosing whom to quote. I recall one episode of Seven Sharp where the tweep they quoted on a Christchurch issue was the local campaign chair for Labour. Of course, there was no mention of that.

The NY Times reports:

Unemployment in the 17-nation euro zone climbed to 11.9 percent in January from 11.8 percent the previous month, according to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

For the 27 nations of the Union, the jobless rate in January stood at 10.8 percent, up from 10.7 percent in December. All of the figures were seasonally adjusted.

Even though the EU is not that major a trading partner for us anymore, their woes will impact us. If Europeans are unemployed they are not spending money on imported goods from China. If the Chinese economy doesn’t grow as quickly as previously that impacts us both directly and via Australia.

The official stats say:

Compared with a year ago, the unemployment rate increased in nineteen Member States, fell in seven and
remained stable in Denmark. The largest decreases were observed in Estonia (11.1% to 9.9% between
December 2011 and December 2012), Latvia (15.5% to 14.4% between the fourth quarters of 2011 and 2012),
Romania (7.4% to 6.6%) and the United Kingdom (8.3% to 7.7% between November 2011 and November 2012).
The highest increases were registered in Greece (20.8% to 27.0% between November 2011 and November 2012),
Cyprus (9.9% to 14.7%), Portugal (14.7% to 17.6%) and Spain (23.6% to 26.2%).

The NZ unemployment rate is 6.9%. Too high, but better than most of Europe.

Energy News (paywall) reports:

It’s official – Max Bradford is the best Minister of Energy this country has seen in 45 years.

The eponymous architect of the 1998 reforms – which famously separated networks from retailing and completed the four-way split of ECNZ – received 23 per cent of the vote in our recent poll.

We asked readers to name the `best’ energy minister going back to 1977, when the former mining and electricity departments were combined into a single ministry.

“Good lord,” Bradford said by phone from Bangladesh last week, where he is leading a World Bank project to help improve the effectiveness of the country’s parliament. “I would have thought I would have been the most infamous.”

What is interesting is when you look at power prices in the last 20 years.

The Bradford reforms clearly worked. Power prices dropped for around three years – something that had never happened before. Then Labour’s policies started to impact and prices soared.

Most select committees of Parliament have limited power. They have an important role but hey report back to the House or the Executive, which tends to make the final decisions.

But one committee is different – the Regulations Review Committee. This committee has been given some special powers. It tends to be non-partisan and chaired by an Opposition MP (Maryan Street currently).

The Regulations (Disallowance) Act 1989 has a s6(1):

If, at the expiration of the 21st sitting day after the giving in the House of Representatives of notice of a motion to disallow any regulations or any provisions of any regulations (being a notice of motion given by a member of Parliament who, at the time of the giving of the notice, is a member of the Committee of the House of Representatives responsible for the review of regulations),—

(a)the notice has not been withdrawn and the motion has not been moved; or

(b)the motion has been called on and moved and has not been withdrawn or otherwise disposed of,—

the regulations or provisions specified for disallowance in the motion shall thereupon be deemed to have been disallowed

What this means is that rather than requiring the House to debate and vote on disallowing a regulation, the disallowance is automatic if moved by a members of the Regulations Review Committee unless the Government agrees to debate and vote on the motion to disallow within 20 sitting days.

This happened for the first time on the 27th of February. The regulations partially disallowed were the Road User Charges (Transitional Matters) Regulations 2012 as they were found to “make some unusual or unexpected use of the powers conferred by the statute under which they are made and that they contain matter more appropriate for parliamentary enactment”.

Charles Chauvel was the MP who placed the motion on the order paper, and got them disallowed. This would have been with the support of the Regulations Review Committee. Presumably it also had the tacit support of the Government.

I suspect in the past the Government itself has merely amended regulations when the Regulations Review Committee has recommended they do so. It is a first to use the automatic disallowance process.

Greg Ansley reports at NZ Herald:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard is spending much of this week in western Sydney, trying to win back support in the vast suburbs of two million people that could destroy her Government in September. …

Chifley is one of Gillard’s key battlegrounds: it recorded an 11.6 per cent swing against Labor in 2010, and is now among a series of former blue-ribbon Labor seats under real threat of falling to the Opposition on September 14.

If polling is accurate, an exodus of voters across western Sydney could alone be sufficient to bring down the Government.

Losing West Sydney is like losing West Auckland for NZ Labour. They have nine seats at risk in Sydney, and they really can’t afford to lose any seats. They have 71 seats in Parliament and the Coalition has 72. They only remain in power through the Independents anyway.

What voters are making abundantly clear is that, at this stage at least, anything is better than Gillard: Abbott may also be heartily disliked, but a rush from Labor in the opinion polls points to a landslide for the Coalition..

The latest Morgan poll, reflecting recent findings by Newspoll and Nielsen, said the Opposition held a crushing 9 per cent lead in the two-party preferred vote that determines Australian elections.

New allegations about the depth of corruption involving former Labor ministers, rolling out daily from hearings at the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption, continue to stain the party brand.

The level of corruption in Australian unions and Australian Labor is staggering. We have nothing like it (so far) in NZ. The Coalition have promised a judicial inquiry into union corruption if it wins the election.

News.com.au has a poll of 11 electorates in West Sydney:

If given the choice of four prime ministers, 39.2 per cent of voters would choose Mr Abbott, followed by Mr Rudd at 26 per cent, Malcolm Turnbull at 22.1 per cent, and Ms Gillard at just 13.2 per cent.

It is rare for an Opposition Leader to be ahead of an incumbent Prime Minister as Preferred PM. To be ahead in a Labour stronghold is even rarer.

If you add the two Liberals up they have 61% support and the two Labor contenders have 39%.

Yay. Now under 85 kgs so have lost 25 kgs and 5 to go.

The pace of loss is increasing as I get fitter. Now doing three runs a week, two gym sessions and one long walk. Wednesdays are my day off 🙂

The first 10 kgs took around 5 months to get to under 100.

Took seven months to lose the next 5 kgs to get under 95. A week of election parties didn’t help 🙂

A further six months to lose the next 5 kgs to get under 90.

And just six weeks to lose a further 5 kgs to get under 85. The end is in sight! The aim is to get under 80 by end of June when I head to the United States for five weeks.

The Herald reports:

Yesterday, the Catholic church in Scotland quoted O’Brien as saying that there had been times “that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal”.

I would have thought any sexual conduct at all was ipso factor below the standards of being a Catholic priest?

The ban on Catholic priests having sex of course didn’t apply at the beginning. St Peter, the first Pope, was married.

The ban appears to have been first promulgated in the Synod of Elvira in 305 AD. Here’s some of the other canons or laws it laid down:

• If a woman beats her servant and causes death within three days, she shall undergo seven years’ penance if the injury was inflicted on purpose and five years’ if it was accidental.,
• Christian girls are not to marry pagans, no matter how few eligible men there are, for such marriages lead to adultery of the soul.
• Catholic girls may not marry Jews or heretics, because they cannot find a unity when the faithful and the unfaithful are joined. Parents who allow this to happen shall not commune for five years.
• Christians are to prohibit their slaves from keeping idols in their houses.
• Landlords are not to allow Jews to bless the crops they have received from God and for which they have offered thanks.
• If any cleric or layperson eats with Jews, he or she shall be kept from communion as a way of correction.
• Christians who play dice for money are to be excluded from receiving communion.A woman may not write to other lay Christians without her husband’s consent.

I think it is fair to say that the Church has dropped some of their other edicts from 305 AD, and one day may do the same with the ban on priests marrying.

I always enjoy the quotes in the Southpark episode 6-08 where Father Maxi tries to persuade the Cardinals to stop priests sleeping with young boys.

FRENCH CARDINAL

What exactly do you suggest we change,Father Maxi.

 PRIEST MAXI

Well, for one, no sex with boys.

ANOTHER CARDINAL

The Holy Document of Vatican Law states that a priest, bishop, or cardinal cannot get married, so where are we to get our sex?

There’s some wisdom to those words.

And in case people say it unthinkable to change the church law, interestingly in 1970, nine German theologians wrote a letter calling for a discussion on the law of celibacy for priests. One of those nine was Joseph Ratzinger, now the Pope Emeritus.

Today is census day. However several hundred thousand people have already done their census online. I’m one of them, and it was very quick and easy to do.

The Herald reports the online system can only handle 200,000 an hour so there may be some delays today.

The census data will be used for all sorts of decisions in the future, such as population funding. One use of it also wil be in deciding electorate boundaries.

The law basically states there will be 16 South Island electorates. Their average population is used to calculate the number of North Island electorate and Maori electorates. There are currently 16, 47 and 7 respectively.

We won’t know until the census is done, and the Maori option is done, but there could be up to three new North Island electorates and one new Maori electorate. If so, that would mean 74 electorate MPs after the next election and 46 (down from a target of 50) List MPs.

I blogged on the 20th of February on Colin Craig’s call for MPs to vote on same sex marriage in accordance with the wishes of their electorate. He was reported as saying:

Mr Craig said that if he was elected, he would vote for gay marriage if his electorate demanded it, in spite of his strong opposition to the law change.

I asked:

Okay so does this mean if Colin Craig was an electorate MP and a poll showed the majority of his electorate support abortion on demand, Colin Craig would vote for the law to be abortion on demand – no matter how strongly he personally feels it is murder?

I’d like to see an answer to that question. Would Colin Craig vote for abortion on demand if a majority of the electorate backed it?

Colin has kindly responded to the question and sent in a guest post, where he outlines his views on the role of referenda and what should happen if an MP and their electorate do not agree. His response is:

This question, of course, could be proposed for various controversial socially liberal pieces of legislation, and is really a question of “how do I see democracy working, and how does representation happen”. So in a nutshell here is my view:

Government initiated referenda: (including general elections). The people vote and their will is done even if there is a single vote in it.  I believe these should be limited to major issues such as elections, constitutional/ electoral arrangements, and major social changes (such as redefining marriage). However, as this is at the discretion of government, it could be used more extensively if the government saw fit.

Citizens initiated referenda: Such referenda are proposed by the citizens themselves. Our party policy is that where such a referenda achieves two-thirds support from the voting public it should be binding on government.  Existing legislation needs amendment not only to bring in the binding aspect, but also to limit proposals to simple questions in the affirmative. 

Vote in Parliament by List MPs: In my view a list MP should always vote consistent with the Party Policy. If no policy exists (such as on redefining marriage for National MPs) then the best option would be for them to consult with members of the party and thereby accurately represent the membership. As our Party has three clear policies on abortion (“Proper Application of Existing Law”, “Free and Informed Consent”, and “Parental Consent for Minors”) which are all aimed at reducing the number of abortions, no Conservative Party List MP would vote for abortion on demand.

Vote in Parliament by Electorate MPs :

A challenging situation could arise if a Conservative Party candidate is elected as the MP  for an electorate. He is then being sent to parliament to represent an electorate (not a party). I do believe that an MP is required to faithfully represent those who sent him even if he does not agree with them. A simple servant-master situation.

If the electorate required the MP to vote in a way that was against his conscience (and “yes” abortion on demand is against mine), he has in my view the following options:

1. To vote as directed by the electorate (against his own conscience)
2. To abstain on the issue
3. To go back to the electorate and negotiate with them. If there is an impasse then to offer his resignation.
4. To ignore the electorate and vote as he pleases

The first and last options (1 & 4) I believe to be incorrect choices. The first, because it breaches conscience, and the last because it usurps the servant role of the representative (it would be unfaithful to those who sent him). This leaves only 2 & 3 as options in my view. Personally I would elect the third option.

To close then, “no” I would not vote for “abortion on demand” but I would recognise that as an electorate MP this might require my resignation. If so then I would be pleased to stand aside so that a representative who was “more in tune” with the electorate could take my place.

A simple case of the people wishes being done and that my friend is democracy.

It’s a thoughtful nuanced response. I understand the attractiveness of (3) but I wonder about the practicality. How do you determine what is the opinion of the electorate? Is is through random polls like my company does? Is it based on write in responses? What is the response is 51% one way and 49% the other? do you take into account intensity of feeling? And how exactly do you negotiate with an entire electorate?

But it’s good to have had Colin elaborate more fully on his views of how referenda and MPs consciences and electorate wishes should work together. Lots of stuff to consider there.