Stuff reports:

When Labour leader David Shearer rattled through the names of his Maori MPs and the good works they were doing, it sounded like a slip of the tongue when he referred to Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene as “Tino” before correcting himself.

But more likely he was indulging in some word association, given that the Shearer family’s dog is called Tino Rangatiratanga. The “schnoodle” got its name because his daughter first spotted it on the internet on Waitangi Day.

Does this mean the dog can file claims with the Waitangi Tribunal? 🙂

Stuff reports:

A paedophile caught in a nationwide operation offered to pay a man $500 to experience ”sexual gratification” with a young boy, according to a police court summary.

The paedophile, Aaron Ellmers, 41, appeared in Hastings District Court this morning and pleaded guilty to a raft of child sex offences that the Crown has described amongst the country’s worst.

One of the offences involved Ellmers travelling to Christchurch where a man had offered an 18-month-old boy to him for $500.

The father was arrested and is facing charges related to the incident. He has name suppression.

I almost can’t believe that a father could sell sexual favours with his infant son. That is a degree of inhumanity that I just can not fathom.

I hope the father gets a jail sentence as long as the paedophile.

Ellmers had served a prison sentence in Australia before being deported to New Zealand.

He lived in Australia between 1999 and 2008. In 2004 he sexually abused an 8-year-old boy, whom he had groomed after befriending his parents.

He served five years in prison and was deported back to New Zealand in 2008.

In court this morning Crown lawyer Steve Manning said it was among the worst offending of its kind. He asked for the matter to be moved to the High Court as an application for preventative detention would be made.

Good. Sounds like a no brainer.

I was debating with my flatmate this morning which of the two is more evil and should be tortured for longer before being executed. We agreed the father is slightly more evil.

The United Kingdom Parliament has voted 400 to 175 in favour of same sex marriage. The exact breakdown by party is not know but it looks like Conservative MPs were roughly equally for and against.

The vote proportion is quite similar to NZ. We had the first reading pass by a 2:1 majority and National split almost 50/50 with 30 in favour and 29 against.

Some quotes:

In a lengthy Commons debate, which saw impassioned speeches for and against the bill, Margot James warned her parliamentary colleagues of the dangers of standing on the wrong side of history.

The MP for Stourbridge, who is gay, told the Commons: “I believe my party should never flinch from the requirement that we must continue this progression, otherwise we may end up like the Republican party who lost an election last year that they could have won were it not for their socially conservative agenda.”

James was a successful entrepreneur before she entered Parliament.

Sir Roger Gale, the MP for North Thanet, accused the prime minister of an “Orwellian” attempt to redefine marriage. “It is not possible to redefine marriage,” he said.

“Marriage is the union between a man and a woman – has been historically, remains so. It is Alice in Wonderland territory, Orwellian almost, for any government of any political persuasion to seek to come along and try to rewrite the political lexicon.

Historically interracial marriage was banned also. Historically it was illegal to be gay, so of course there is no tradition of gay marriage.

Nick Herbert, the former police minister who is in a civil partnership, mocked opponents of the bill. “Are the marriages of millions of straight people about to be threatened because a few thousand gay people are permitted to join? What will they say: ‘Darling our marriage is over, Sir Elton John has just got engaged to David Furnish’.”

Heh.

The vote details are sill sketchy, but it looks like the breakdown is:

• Conservatives – 126 for, 134 against, 5 abstain
• Labour – 217 for
• Lib Dems – 44 for, 4 against, 7 no vote
• Plaid Cymru – 3 for
• Greens – 1 for
• Democratic Unionists – 8 against

When the PM was Opposition Leader he said he would attend Waitangi Day at Waitangi as Prime Minister, for as long as he was PM. He has kept his word and as far as I know is the only Prime Minister to have attended 100%.

I think it is very good for the PM to attend. It is a chance for dialogue and discussion. Shouting past each other is not a substitute for fronting up.

However there is some obligation on the hosts to be good hosts. By that I don’t mean that Waitangi should be protest-free. That is not under their control, and protesters have freedom of speech.

But what I do think is unacceptable is to keep the Prime Minister waiting for almost an hour, while you work out who accompanies him. It is rude, and inconsiderate. I doubt any other Head of Government would sit around for an hour while they have a silly squabble.

The fact that there are some strong personalities like Titewhai Harawira involved, is no excuse. Waitangi Day is once a year. They could have raised this issue months ago to try and get an agreement. Trying to change things at the last minute was always going to end badly.

While I am sure the PM will keep his pledge to always attend, it would be wise for the hosts to consider what responsibilities they have. Having the PM there is a privilege – not a right.

Chris Hipkins attacked the appointment of Sir Maarten Wevers to the Novopay Inquiry as not being independent as he is a former head of the Department of PM and Cabinet.

Chris, of all people, knows that DPMC is scrupulously neutral and serves all Governments with total professionalism. They are totally different to the PM’s Office which is political.

Inventory at Keeping Stock blogs:

We thought more of Mr Hipkins than this small-minded affront to a respected public servant’s integrity. Sir Maarten  Weevers was appointed as head of the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 2004 when Helen Clark was Prime Minister. Prior to that he had been a career diplomat who had served New Zealand with distinction both domestically and overseas, and during periods in which both National and Labour governed the country. He was also Private Secretary to PM David Lange at one point in his distinguished public service career. Sir Maarten retired from his DPMC role last year.

However Chris Hipkins slights all public servants  with this indirect attack on Sir Maarten’s integrity. It is a disgraceful slur by Hipkins, which we roundly condemn. Almost all public servants manage to achieve political neutrality and separate their personal and political beliefs from their work. Sir Maarten Weevers has proved that by serving New Zealand’s two most recent Prime Ministers in an apolitical manner.

I can’t think of anyone more independent than a former DPMC head. Probably a former Cabinet Secretary only (who reports to the DPMC head).

The irony here is that Chris Hipkins has history with Novopay that he is anxious to re-write. We blogged back in November that the first Novopay contract was signed when Chris Carter was still Minister of Education. And when it was put to Hipkins on the telly last week (we can’t find the video, unfortunately) that he had been involved when he was a ministerial advisor prior to entering Parliament in 2008, he was very quick to change the subject.

Heh I’m sure he was.

Labour, Greens, NZ First and Mana have their faux inquiry into the “manufacturing crisis”. It seems someone may have forgotten to tell the manufacturers.

Rob Hosking reports at NBR:

Manufacturing improvement dominates job market data

And in the story:

On an annual basis, average ordinary time hourly earnings rose 2.6% for the year, with the largest increase in manufacturing, up 2.9%, while retail trade rose 2.7%.

And:

On a weekly basis, the income improvement is even more pronounced. Average ordinary time weekly earnings rose 2.9% for the year, or about $29 a week.

Manufacturing ordinary time weekly earnings rose 4.1% for the year.

How inconvenient for the crisis.

I’ve been meaning to blog on the OIA review but have not had time to re-read the Law Commission report and see what parts the Govt is doing, and what has been kicked to touch. Idiot/Savant has though and blogs:

Back in July, the Law Commission published its review of the Official Information Act [PDF]. While it did suggest a number of important and useful changes to the Act – greater guidance from the Ombudsman, a new Information Commissioner to handle education and reporting, extending the Act to cover parliament and the courts – the overall thrust of the review was towards greater secrecy and less transparency. Given these conclusions, I would be quite happy if the review died quietly in a ditch somewhere and was forgotten.

And that is pretty much what has happened. Yesterday, the government finally published its response to the review, in which they said that tight budgets and existing legislative priorities ruled out the full rewrite the Law Commission wanted, and that they are just going to tinker around the edges a bit. Which given the Law Commission’s recommendations, can only be regarded as rearguard victory.

I/S also notes:

What we will be getting is better guidance from the Ombudsman, and an extension of the Act to cover the courts (both wins), combined with broader “commercial sensitivity” clauses (a loss, though Steven price thinks it won’t cover anything the Act isn’t already stretched to cover). The government will also be advancing changes around privacy in its review of the Privacy Act. So overall a narrow win, especially compared with the alternative.

I wasn’t as negative on the Law Commission review as I/S, so I hope some of their other recommendations do make some progress. But it is fair to say it is not a legislative priority.

There is one major recommendation that has not been responded to, and I would like to see the Government adopt – that some information be pro-actively released. Often you don’t know what information is there to ask for.

I’d like to see an automatic pro-active release requirement for all Cabinet level information. It might be say six months after authorship to allow Government time to make decisions, and of course normal rules would apply for exemptions. but wouldn’t it be great to have all Cabinet  and Cabinet committee information automatically released in due course.

if the Government doesn’t pick this up, there could be an opportunity for Opposition parties to make this a policy, and implement it when they get a turn in Government.

Matthew Hooton writes in NBR:

David Shearer has again faced down his rival, David Cunliffe. Now he must decide what to do with him. …

Despite having been confirmed as party leader three times in a little over a year, Mr Shearer can have no confidence that Mr Cunliffe will accept today’s result by behaving any differently than his record suggests.

There is no point trying to unify the party by granting the New Lynn MP a senior role. The Clark/Cullen or Brash/English olive-branch approach just won’t work.

Mr Shearer should look instead at how Mr Key and Mr English ruthlessly despatched Dr Brash in 2006 as his model.

By getting him out of parliament altogether, Mr Key made sure Dr Brash could not become a focal point for any National MPs who were uncomfortable with the centrist direction he intended to take the party.

Any suggestion Dr Brash might ever return to the leadership was pre-emptively void and National was accordingly unified around the new direction Mr Key and Mr English had decided to take the party.

Mr Cunliffe and his crew have been a drag on Labour’s ability to unify for four years and there is no sign they have any intention of changing. The best way for Mr Shearer to unify the party is to cut his throat now by indicating he will never be returned to a senior role.

 If it leads to a byelection in New Lynn, so much the better. Byelections are always good for oppositions and Mr Shearer’s promise of 100,000 cheap houses is bound to be popular among Labour voters out west.

I disagree with Matthew on this. I think that Shearer should give Cunliffe a meaningful portfolio in the reshuffle, and offer him a path back the front bench.  Of course he can not return to the front bench immediately, but there should be a path back. The best thing to do would be to give him a chunky portfolio, but away from anything economic as that may allow him to upstage Parker.

Health wouldn’t be a bad pick for Cunliffe. He is a former Minister. No other health spokesperson (including Grant Robertson) has come close to ruffling Tony Ryall. If Cunliffe could hurt the Government on health, that would be the sort of win that would make it possible to then put him back on the front bench.

As always captions should be funny, not nasty. Even for Hooton 🙂

The Dom Post editorial:

 David Shearer thinks he is safe till the next election because his caucus has confirmed him as leader. It doesn’t necessarily follow. Mr Shearer is, in fact, on probation till the polls show a big lift for his party. If the polls don’t lift, the caucus could still panic and throw him out.

Mr Shearer has not yet convinced the voters that he is a plausible prime minister, even if his caucus has backed him. He is desperately inarticulate, unable to deliver a sound bite without a lot of rehearsal or an auto-cue. He can manage a good speech when his political life depends on it, as he did at last year’s party conference.

He can look tough and decisive when his back is to the wall, but mostly he still just blunders.

Trevor Mallard likens Mr Shearer to Norman Kirk, which is laughable. By 1972, Mr Kirk had become a poised and appealing politician. Unlike Mr Shearer, he was quick-witted and articulate, and thrived on hecklers.

I thought the comparison to Norman Kirk must have been based on some sort of internal competition for the most sycophantic remark!

The problem, of course, is that there is no obvious replacement, so the question is whether Mr Shearer can turn Labour into a plausible government even when doubts remain about him as leader. His big promises on housing have certainly helped Labour’s standing but serious questions have arisen about whether Labour could really build so many houses at the promised price. Many voters clearly think that the housing affordability problem needs bold action from the Government, but they also know that the Government is short of money.

Labour doesn’t have the luxury, as NZ First and arguably the Greens still do, of being niche parties that can make reckless promises. Labour has the burden of being taken seriously. Its policies matter because one day they might be implemented.

Minor parties can get away from promising pretty much anything, because they know they will never have to implement them. Personally I think there should be greater scrutiny of their policies. I’d like NZ to have an independent agency cost all parties’ policies.

I was fascinated to see Annette King commenting on The Standard several times, in different threads. In one comment she said:

I hope more colleagues engage on the Standard, a must read for me. Constructive comment and exchange of ideas would be of two way benefit.

This is quite remarkable considering David Shearer has said how he never reads the blogs, and his caucus and office have tried to poo-poo any influence they have.

I joked on Twitter:

The really impt vote in caucus was to select who would be sacrificial MP to post on The Standard. Annette got short straw 🙂

But I think there is substance behind the joke. Smart people in Labour know they can not afford to have the most read blog on the left remain a cesspit of anti-Shearer hatred. So they obviously decided on a strategy of waiting until Shearer wins the leadership vote and then do two things.

1. Have Labour-friendly authors post how it is time for people to accept the leadership is settled, and that it is time to focus on defeating National
2. Send caucus members into The Standard to make them feel less alienated and constructively engaged

It’s a pretty smart strategy. I could guess who came up with it. It won’t be a silver bullet as the depth of ill-well runs very deep. It isn’t just against Shearer, but also Mallard, Curran and more generally the old guard (which makes the choice of Annette to engage with them a very smart one). But I do think it will work in reducing the level of hostility and bile.

Stuff reports:

New Year honours should be scrapped and replaced with Waitangi Day ones, Labour leader David Shearer says.

He wants New Zealanders to make more of a celebration of Waitangi Day – our national day.

“We should celebrate it properly. All over the world, countries celebrate their national day. Surely we have as much – or more – to celebrate as they do.”

Mr Shearer wanted to hear more people saying “Happy Waitangi Day”.

Yeah, like that is going to happen.

Don’t get me wrong. It would be wonderful if it could or did. It would also be wonderful to have rainbows appear in the sky without rain.

There’s a difference between optimism and naivety.

Too often Waitangi Day was defined by conflict and Mr Shearer said he was tired of it.

“While there are legitimate issues to debate for Maori and Pakeha alike, Waitangi Day should be the day where we focus on what we have to celebrate as a country.”

I just do not believe it will ever happen. Waitangi Day is always going to be a focus on the Treaty of Waitangi, and the differing views on that. It is not a unifying document like the US Declaration of Independence. This is because unlike the latter which is aspirational, the former is a major part of politics and law – which means almost by definition it is not unifying.

This is backed up by the UMR poll showing only 23% believe the Crown and Maori relationship is healthy.

I believe we should keep Waitangi Day and it remains a day to both celebrate the Treaty which is the founding document of New Zealand, and to debate the role of the Treaty in life today. So I do not advocate scrapping Waitangi Day, or turning it back into New Zealand Day.

What I do advocate is that we establish a separate New Zealand Day. This should be a day to unashamedly celebrate the wonderful country we all live in, our many achievements, ourselves. It should be the equivalent of US Independence Day, Australia Day or French Bastille Day – a day of fun and joy. There are 364 other days to focus on what divides us – but I want one day to focus on what unites us. And that day will never ever ever be Waitangi Day. It hasn’t been for the last 40 years, and it never will be.

So what day could we pick for a New Zealand Day? Possibilities are:

• Passing of NZ Constitution Act 30 June (1852)
• Dominion Day 26 September (1907)
• Balfour Declaration 15 November (1926)
• Day we adopted the Statute of Westminster 25 November (1947)
• Full constitutional independence 10 December (1947)

A few amusing or not so amusing complaints to the BSA. First James Burford complains about this on Paul Homes show on Newstalk ZB:

Based on some of the conversations we have had over the last 40 minutes… when we talked about [name] becoming the editor of the Truth, we have had a text which says, “[name] running a publication called the Truth is a bit like making a pre-op tranny editor of the Woman’s Weekly”.

Heh, that’s really funny. I suspect Cam would find it great also. So what was complained about?

James Burford made a formal complaint to The Radio Network Ltd (TRN), the broadcaster, alleging that the use of the phrase “pre-op tranny” was pejorative and “perpetuates bigotry and hatred against transgender communities”. He considered that the host’s behaviour, in reading out the text message, was ignorant and offensive.

Oh, Good God. It was a jibe at Cam, not pre-op trannies.

TRN upheld the complaint under Standard 7 (discrimination and denigration). It said that the use of the word “tranny” was “common in some quarters” and that the text message was intended to be humorous. However, it agreed that the host’s use of the term was unnecessary in context and potentially offensive to the transgender community. Having upheld the complaint, the broadcaster said that the host had been counselled on the matter.

The host would not have been Paul – either Kerre or Wendl probably. Wonder who got their hand smacked?

We also have the complaint from serial complainer Allan Golden who having claimed the moon landings were faked, now says NZ cheats more at sports than Belarus and Jamacia. I think it is about time any complaints from him go straight into the round cabinet.

Wayne Lowry complains that a promo for Coronation Street during Breakfast TV showed a woman slapping a man in the face. The horrors.

And Richard McKay (hopefully not this one) complaints that TV3 called Stewart Murray Wilson the Beat of Blenheim saying “purposefully designed to cause hurt, injury and harm to Mr Wilson (and his kind)”.  Are his kind rapists? No they are all innocent victims it seems.

He referred to all other prisoners “as victims of both media and the public”.

Maybe it is the same Richard McKay?

Mr McKay was concerned that the items showed disregard for Mr Wilson’s human rights in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. He argued that, “The grooming of the public by TV3 against Mr Wilson (in collaboration and union with other broadcasters who hold to the same practices and ideology of separatism, hatred and contemptuous superiority) is a crime in New Zealand”.

No, rape is a real crime.

These nutty complaints are a good example of why I am nervous about any prospect of a Communications Tribunal for online publishers. I can just see a legion of nutters and malcontents doing daily complaints.

Danyl McL has a useful summary of what went wrong with Novopay. His summary is:

• Novopay is designed so that schools do everything online (presumably through a browser or thin client). When the platform was launched there were ‘significant issues’ with the online user interface (UI); for example, it wasn’t possible to submit time-sheets for part-time teachers.
• The work-around for problems submitting payments via the UI was for the schools to fill in a form and submit it to Talent2′s Novapay service desk via e-mail, and they’d manually enter the payment data into the system.
• But the service desk wasn’t staffed or trained for this – they were supposed to be supporting anonline platform in which the schools did almost everything themselves. So this created a huge backlog of manual payments for them to enter, many of which missed the payrolls.
• The service center also generated a vast number of errors in payments because it doesn’t have ‘robust quality assurance’ (I take this to mean there’s no verification when service center staff manually submit data: so if someone is being paid $20/hour and they work for ten hours, the manual system won’t prevent a service center staffer from accidentally paying them $2.00)

The failure of the user interface seems key. If that was working properly then schools would be entering all the data directly and more importantly being able to see a draft payroll batch and confirm it is correct.

The moment you can’t do that, and you have manual entries, help desks and the like and it turns into a logistical nightmare considering there are 100,000 pays per fortnight.

The inquiry will no doubt look into why the UI was not working before launch. Stuff reports:

Sir Maarten Wevers, the former boss of the Department of the Prime Minister is to head a Ministerial Inquiry into the botched handling of Novopay education payroll system.

Steven Joyce, who now has ministerial responsibility for Novopay announced that Sir Martin would head the $500,000 inquiry along with Murray Jack, chairman of Deloitte in New Zealand.

Can’t do much better than those two. I doubt they will sugar-coat anything.

Josie Pagani blogs at Pundit:

The most popular politician in France is Manuel Valls, the interior minister in Francois Hollande’s Socialist government.  While the President has an approval rating around 40 per cent, Monsieur Valls’ rating tops 75 per cent. Three quarters of the country loves him…and the other quarter are from his own party: Only 6% of his Socialist party like him. His own party call him a ‘Sarkozy of the left’ and a French Tony Blair. He could be the next Socialist president. The tangle has some resonance for left parties in every developed liberal democracy. The ideological cul de sac always results from asking working people for their vote but not their values. Monsieur Valls’ insight is that, when voters express concern about crime in the banlieue (suburbs), or support French military intervention against jihadist terrorists in Mali, they are actually motivated by left wing values – and the left should not abandon these topics to the right, as if only the right had a monopoly on what’s popular. He argues he is motivated by principle. Being tough on crime is consistent with left ideology. He once wrote in a book, ‘far from being illiberal, a hard stance on order and authority is the best guarantor of individual freedom.’ He’s not rejecting socialist principle, he is acting on it, he says.

And the lessons for NZ:

So consider left doctrine about crime, tax and welfare in New Zealand. Orthodoxy says the left should try to avoid these issues and stick to asking ‘but where are the jobs?’ To do otherwise, goes the doctrine, is to buy in to right wing ‘framing’ and ‘narrative’ as if potential left votes might be lured into a dreamworld of false consciousness from which the left’s only options are to persuade them they are wrong, or be less than frank about our real intentions.  Spotters of doctrinal error label any attempt to deviate from this line, ‘selling out’ and flirting with ‘Rogernomics’ or ‘Blairism’, as if opposing crime also implies you want to invade Iraq and hock off public assets.  The trouble with doctrine is it makes policy debate stale. It prevents the left from presenting the solutions of the future by locking it into the debates of the past.Fear of debate, and attempts to marginalise and demonise anyone who questions the doctrine, are actually revealing of a crisis of confidence in the left’s own principles

I don’t think we need to think hard about where those comments could be directed.

When the left is out of tune with voters on welfare or crime, or terrorism, it is policy and not the left’s values that are out of tune with the public. And that means having the courage to reform policy, make it practical and relevant, even when the choices are hard. What keeps parties in opposition is when absolutism gets confused with principle.  Ironically, US commentators have pointed out this same error is keeping the Republican Party in opposition. Speakers at a Republican conference recently were told not to talk about rape after the disasters during last year’s election when candidates like Todd Akin talked about ‘legitimate rape’. How can a conservatively moralising party get itself into a position where it can’t stand up and say clearly ‘we are against rape no matter who does it or how it occurs?’  It’s as absurd as the parties that invented welfare feeling unable to talk about reform and improvement of it.

Sensible food for thought for the left.

Well I have to say I liked it. Highlight was the suggestion that the person who accompany the PM onto the Waitangi Marae was Karen from Stokes Valley. One of many times I had a good laugh.

The three hosts had good rapport with each other and the items were interesting. Obviously enjoyed Heather DPA’s tour of the PM’s Office and how he has a sword instead of a panic button.

No it wasn’t in-depth critical analysis of the day’s issues. It was never going to be that. There are other shows for that. But I think a bit of humour isn’t a bad thing to get people watching.

It is of course one day only. The real challenge is to still be fresh and interesting a month down the track. It’s certainly done well enough that I’ve set it down as a series record on My Sky – something I had never done with Close Up (or Campbell Live).

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the results of the latest Te Karere Digipoll.

I read a column over the weekend about how the Maori Party was basically dead and they should accept Hone Harawira’s generous offer to let him become leader and merge with the Mana Party. With that in mind it is worth looking at what the results for each party.

Labour

33.5% party vote, with party vote on the Maori roll up 3.5% (from last poll in January 2012) and on the general roll (of Maori voters) down 13.1%.

On the electorate vote, Labour are 8.9% below what they got in the 2011 election.

Maori Party

27.5% party vote, with party vote on the Maori roll up 2.7% (from last poll in January 2012) and on the general roll (of Maori voters) up 7.7%.

On the electorate vote, Maori Party are 4.8% above what they got in the 2011 election.

Mana Party

5.7% party vote, with party vote on the Maori roll down 5.3% (from last poll in January 2012) and on the general roll (of Maori voters) up 0.2%.

On the electorate vote, Maori Party are 1.2% below what they got in the 2011 election.

David Shearer

They asked those Maori voters who said they would party vote Labour if they could name the Labour Party Leader. Only 34.7% could name David Shearer as Leader.

Of the 34.7% who could name him, they asked if they thought he was providing good leadership on Maori issues. Only 28.0% agreed.

Commentary

Labour has gained some support on the party vote from Maori on the Maori roll, but on the electorate vote they are polling well below what they got even in 2011. Also they have had a drop off in support from Maori on the general roll.

The Maori Party has increased party vote support with Maori on both the general and Maori rolls, and are polling higher in the electorate vote than they got in 2011.

The Mana Party has almost halved its party vote support from Maori on the Maori roll, and has also dropped in electorate vote support from 2011.

Two elements of caution. Maori voters tend to be harder to poll than non-Maori, so there is a greater chance of sampling errors which can impact accuracy. Also tensions around the Maori Party leadership occurred during the polling period and may not be fully reflected.

However even with those cautionary notes, I would say that those writing off the Maori Party are incredibly premature.  The poll shows they have retained and grown support, while Labour and Mana have stagnated or dropped.

The Dom Post editorial:

A good prison system should have three functions. It should keep the public safe from dangerous criminals, punish those who have seriously or repeatedly broken the law and rehabilitate offenders.

By and large, New Zealand’s penal system does the first two reasonably well. When it comes to the third, it has been an abject failure. …

But while the prison system is good at keeping inmates locked up – escapes are rare – it is not so good at preparing them to reintegrate back into society once they are released. The recidivism rate among former inmates is alarmingly high. Nearly 40 per cent of those freed from jail each year are back inside within 24 months of their release. …

That is why the Government’s to investigate the merits of “working prisons” should have the support of every party in Parliament.

Under the scheme, every inmate at Tongariro and Auckland Women’s prisons will be engaged in some type of work or rehabilitation activity for 40 hours a week. The scheme is already running at Christchurch’s Rolleston Prison, which has a contract with Housing New Zealand to refurbish earthquake-damaged properties.

Provided the expansion is carefully planned to ensure jobs are not taken away from workers in the community, it could have a significant effect. According to the Government’s figures, reoffending rates for inmates on Release to Work programmes are 16 per cent lower than for those who are not, and prisoners who undertake work in jails per cent lower.

Yet the Herald said the scheme will do more harm than good!

Mathew Dearnaley at NZ Herald reports:

Politicians are upset that an Auckland Transport bylaw may ban mobile election hoardings and put restrictions on others.

The council transport organisation, which is trying to standardise bylaws in time for this year’s local elections, says it does not believe vehicles used solely for political advertising should be allowed on city roads or in carparks.

But Labour’s transport spokesman, Phil Twyford, suggested yesterday that the organisation should concentrate on making its trains run on time. And Act’s John Boscawen said his party would oppose any such restriction “on people’s freedom of speech and to express, and to generate interest in the political process”.

Auckland Transport says in a position paper seeking public submissions by February 28 that its bylaws should support an objective of making roads effective for carrying people and goods.

It proposes that election signs be allowed on vehicles used for ordinary travel but not for the sole purpose of advertising, such as when towing trailer-mounted hoardings.

This is pathetic and ridiculous  Auckland has almost 1.4 million people living in it, and around 1.1 million vehicles. And Auckland Transport are trying to restrict cars used for political advertising, which would probably reduce the number of cars at any one time by oh around six or so.

As Phil Twyford says, they should focus on making the trains run on time, and not becoming political speech commissars.

The Dom Post reports:

An estimated 4000 Kiwi revellers have marked Waitangi Day in London with the annual pub crawl around the city’s Circle underground line – and won police praise for it.

The event, marked in London for decades, began with a minute’s silence for Jacob Marx, 27, a Kiwi lawyer killed in London last week. He suffered fatal injuries when a sign outside a shop in North London’s Camden Rd fell on his head.

Young men then bared their chests in a chilly London for the traditional haka while others caroused in Kiwi-themed costumes, dressing as sheep, Marmite jars, Fred Dagg, EQC inspectors or Kim Dotcom.

Confronted with the spectacle, bemused Londoners took to Twitter. Alex Johnson wrote: “Kensington is overrun with thousands of Kiwis in sheep outfits. Apparently it’s the Waitangi Day Pub Crawl. Weird, but go #newzealand!”

Police looked forward to the annual celebrations, Inspector Bruce Middlemiss told 3news.

“The crowd have been fantastic, absolutely fantastic. There aren’t too many nations who can have 5000 people on a pub crawl and result in no arrests. It’s been extremely good-natured and New Zealand should be very proud of them, I think.”

Excellent. Kiwis do know how to have lots of fun but not be pillocks.

This is in marked contrast to last year when a Kiwi complained to the New Zealand high commission of being ashamed by the display of debauchery.

Actually it isn’t in contrast at all. The Police said almost the same thing last year. The only contrast was last year one lone person e-mailed in an inaccurate description of the pub crawl. It was later shown that he had said on Facebook that he intended to complain about the pub crawl before it had even occurred!

I recall this story because the Dom Post ran a massive front page story on the basis of this one inaccurate unsubstantiated complaint, and how by the end of the day their online version of the story had basically backed down on it as hundreds came forward to say it was well behaved – including the Police.

Sophie Speer at Stuff reports:

Seven bespoke puppets of the “most influential” politicians in the Beehive will join old favourites when The Backbencher reopens in Wellington this month.

But owner Alistair Boyce is not saying who the MPs are – and each puppet will be unveiled by the politician it was modelled on, to give them “a right of reply”.

Spontaneously combusting tea towels caused a fire which gutted the Molesworth St pub and restaurant – a favoured haunt of political types – last June.

Work is on track to reopen the bar with a private function on February 12, followed by a soft public opening by the end of that week.

Yay.

Not only is the Backbencher my local, I am by definition its oldest patron as I went for a drink there on the day it first opened in the early 90s, as it was 100 metres from Red Cross House on Hill Street where I was then working. And one of their displays even features some of my more mischievous work of the mid 1990s!

So will be great to have it back again, and to see what changes have been made to it.

Political panel show Back Benches would again be filmed in the bar, with Prime screening 20 episodes, hosted by Wallace Chapman, from April.

Also a welcome return.

Kate Chapman at Stuff reports:

Prime Minister John Key is set to receive a frosty reception at Waitangi this week amid infighting and anti-asset sale speeches.

Ngapuhi leaders are trying to replace Titewhai Harawira from her job of escorting him on to the Waitangi lower marae. But she is vowing to keep the role.

Unless the kaumata are willing to physically tackle Titewhai to the ground, I’d say she’ll stare them down and will end up escorting the PM, as she has for the last 15 years or so. And if they did try to physically prevent her, you can imagine the wider Harawira clan would join in a pitched battle. You could almost sell popcorn!

The annual celebrations will be further complicated by revelations Maori Council co-chairman Maanu Paul will make a speech about the water rights court battle which threatens to delay the Government’s asset sales agenda.

The Supreme Court heard from both sides during a hearing last week.

Mr Paul said he was “very honoured” to be able to speak at the marae. The Maori Council would hold a meeting in Waitangi today to discuss what the speech would say, but water would be the main focus.

I think no-one will be surprised that a body that has taken the Government to court, will inevitably get up and say how awful the Government is (unless they agree to what the Maori Council wants, which seems to be some free shares for them).

UPDATE: My prediction of Titewhai is looking a good one. She just walked the Governor-General on!