Current Events category

Whenever I say to people that breaks aren’t a law requirement, they think I’m lying and pulling their leg. But, err, I had to study employment law to get my Certificate in Management so, yes, it’s true, unless my teacher was lying to me, but I’m even looked it up myself, and there is no provisioning for your smoko breaks. The Department of Labour merely encourages them.

So it is good to hear that finally, they are putting it into law. I’m a bit unsure why it wasn’t there in the first place, considering it was Labour that put in the current law in 2001. It will require two paid 10 minute coffee breaks and a 30 minute unpaid lunch break for every eight hours someone works. It’ll also provide for breast feeding mothers to have breaks to breast feed or express milk and have adequate facilities to do so.

And it’s about time. Seems like a subtle attempt to get you to vote for them (but then so does everything proposed during election year), but good none-the-less. Now my friends will no longer be in disbelief that their breaks aren’t in law.

It appears we all love to free-load off other peoples religions. The current trend based on the census suggests that by the time the next one rolls around we will be a non-Christian nation. Which then leads on to the question, why have Easter and Christmas off in law if only a minority actually are Christian?

So here could be a solution. Count up the days we get off due to religious reasons in law (4), and then give that to everyone that they can use for whatever reason, the main one being for Religious Holidays. They can still use these for Easter and Christmas if they want even if they are Athiest. They should not roll over and have to be used between the 1st of January through to the 31st of December, otherwise you lose out. It should also be no-questions asked, and employers should be prepared that they may have to close on Easter and Christmas anyway, especially if there are too many staff taking the day off than there are to replace them.

So there, everyone can be happy that they still get a holiday and can possibly shop on those days.

Yesterday we had John Key give out his promises to act on youth crime. The policies were good, if they leave school early then give them (limited) free education at Polytech and other tertiary providers, or they can go off to work. Basically, encouraging them to do something with their lives rather than bum around at home bludgeoning off the DPB forever.

Helen Clark on the other hand this morning announced changing the education age. The school leaving age is currently 16, but she wants to change it so then you have to stay in education until you are 18. You can go to work, but you have to be in education as well. But then Clark hasn’t even said that they would subsidise going to Polytech for younger students, which Key has. Does she expect these people to get a student loan? Where is the incentive?

Did she forget that sometimes work provides decent qualifications. At least Key allows for education or work, unlike Clark’s education or education.

Key then went on to say what he would do to curb youth crime. A modern day boot-camp sounds good, but not sure about extending jail sentences. Look at our jails, they are a joke. All that it’ll teach them is that if you ever need accommodation, food and shelter for free you just commit some form of crime. Awesome. At least the boot-camp system isn’t a one off “go to boot camp” and then run off again to do more crime with your new found boot-camp abilities, but is followed up with support and mentors.

I think Clarks raised leaving age is supposed to have the intention to curb crime, but no, we already have people truant and disruptive under the age of 16, it would just make things worse if they were to stay in the education system for longer when they would probably be happier just getting a job.

If anything, whatever Clark says now will fall on many deaf ears. How long has she had in office, and how long were the warning signs there? This year we have already had 10 homicides, many of which were caused by youth. And she’s only addressing this now, after eight years?

The only legal means of having your view about politics on the internet is through a blog.

• Bill limiting election campaigning passed – NZ Herald
• Electoral Finance Bill passed into law – Stuff
• Electoral Finance Bill passes into law – TVNZ/One News
• Electoral Finance Act now law – Kiwiblog

From 1st of January 2008, the Electoral Finance Act will come into force. It already has people going out to be test cases for the new law, with Tim Shadbolt’s campaign against the funding cuts to Southern Institute of Technology being the gray area. This definitely will not be going away.

It wasn’t a great day for Labour at all anyway. Both TV3 and TV One’s latest polls have National governing alone. Now, One News/Colmar Brunton’s Poll tends to lean towards National while the 3 News/TNS poll tends to lean towards Labour – having both with National over 50% should have the Labour government worried. Especially as it’s friends the Greens are polling under the 5% threshold.

Today Michael Cullen announced $15 tax cuts, despite the One News/Colmar Brunton poll yesterday showing that it won’t be much of a benefit to anyone. Then there was the negative of Trevor Mallard pleading guilty to fighting in a public place, and subsequently apologising in parliament.

It could be a very long 2008 for Labour as it counts down to its eviction from the government seat.

I have been quiet about this. I’ve tried to write stuff but have found that I do not know enough about this bill for comment. But now I believe I know enough about what this bill does to free speech, something I’ve been particularly focusing on, possibly due to David Farrar et. al. cries that it is what this bill prohibits.

I noticed my friends have now joined the The NZ Herald’s blatant support for the National Party kind of irritates me group on Facebook, but I wonder just how much they know about the EFB. The group was based around the cut email from the Greens in the NZ Herald, which David breaks down and shows what is in fact mostly untrue.

So, onto the free speech thing, let’s consult the bill.

Section 5.1 says what an election advertisement is;

In this Act, election advertisement—
(a) means any form of words or graphics, or both, that can reasonably be regarded as doing 1 or more of the following:
(i) encouraging or persuading voters to vote, or not to vote, for 1 or more specified parties or for 1 or more candidates or for any combination of such parties and candidates:
(ii) encouraging or persuading voters to vote, or not to vote, for a type of party or for a type of candidate that is described or indicated by reference to views, positions, or policies that are or are not held, taken, or pursued (whether or not the name of a party or the name of a candidate is stated);

Notice how it says any form of words or graphics, or both? So that counts everything. Then it is to say anything that persuades voters to vote or not vote for a party or candidate or any combination, or a type of party or type of candidate. Type meaning what views, position or policy they may or may not have. So in general, anything to do with politics is an election advert.

Section 4 defines publishing;

publish, in relation to an advertisement, means to—
(a) print or insert in a newspaper or other periodical published or distributed in New Zealand; or
(b) issue, hand out, or display; or
(c) send to any member of the public by any means; or
(d) deliver to any member of the public, or leave at a place owned or occupied by a member of the public; or
(e) broadcast; or
(f) include in a film or video displayed to the public; or
(g) disseminate by means of the Internet or any other electronic medium; or
(h) store electronically in a way that is accessible to the public;

So that means almost everything (as everything, which was (i) on the list was taken out last week).

There are exemptions, but only one that really applies to you, me and the internet,

(g) the publication by an individual, on a non-commercial basis, on the Internet of his or her personal political views (being the kind of publication commonly known as a blog).

So that means that posting on a blog that is non-commerical without putting your name and address to the end of every politically focused post is the only legal avenue to post your political views online. Chris Finlayson of National had tried to take out the blog reference in the parenthesis (so everything non-commercial on the internet is exempt) but, unfortunately, my friends favourite party, the Greens, had helped shoot that clause down.

As mentioned earlier, you can freely do stuff that these don’t allow so long as you file a statutory declaration (put your name and address at the end of it), but if you spend more than $12,000 on a party, or $1,000 on an individual, you’ll have to register as a third party.

Now, my main issue with the blog exemption is that there is no definition for a blog. The bill says a “kind of publication commonly known as a blog,” but this is the government we are talking about – what do they know what the modern, common definition of a blog is? A blog can be in audio, video as well as the typical text (as my blog is). Not all stuff on YouTube is a video blog, so what counts as a video blog on that, or is a video blog something not on YouTube but in video, chronological format? What about Audio blogs (podcasts)?

Why doesn’t anything else get to be exempt from the internet, such as forums, IRC and email?

The bill is going for its third and final reading this week, at this stage it may pass. At which point I can’t see myself voting for any party that does vote for this bill. Some people think that this bill is just prohibiting anonymous donations, this is in fact wrong, it still allows for anonymous donations there is just a limit on how big the donation can be.

Oh dear, the Electoral Finance Bill is back and has been amended, but apparently not in a good way.

Go over and read David Farrar’s takes on the new bill, as he is actually backing up his claims with what the bill is saying. See his post on 19 problems still remaining (or appeared in the new version), and Discolsure Requirements.

Interestingly, non-commercial blogs (like mine) are exempt, but as Inventory2 pointed out on KiwiBlog,

Commercial blogs - does this refer to both the blog and the host site, the blog itself, or the host site?

It’s also a wonder if a commercial blog is considered so if it has something like Google AdSense to help fund website costs.

It’s also interesting that emails are classed as election advertising. I’d like to know how they plan to enforce this without stepping into the Privacy Act. I’d also like to know why non-commercial blogs get away scot-free, yet non-commercial emails don’t. And why do YouTube videos all get caught out as well despite people not really making money out of them?

David will be updating his blog (hopefully today) that will clarify these and a few other points. I don’t have time to read 150 pages of the bill. I do support the notion that it prevents people with huge wads of cash from getting in on the act (i.e. Exclusive Brethren), but why must the impinge on the rights of everyone else as well? There’s also a strange sense of inconsistency as to what entails election advertising that breaks the law.

On a more interesting note, people seem to be accusing David of being wrong about things like megaphone use, when the wording is so terribly broad. At least the Greens are going to help reword this to be a bit more specific (as in, people who go around in cars with giant megaphones, and not Joe on the side of the street-corner).

I forgot about Californication last night, but it was flicked on TV so I watched the last 10 minutes of it. By the rate Family First were going, I was expecting to see a sex scene within five seconds of watching the show. Alas, one didn’t happen until 2 minutes in. But even then it was just some simple boobs with a carefully placed hand to hide the really dirty part of a womans body.

Then it went into the sex, (”I want a fuck” she said, how unpredictable). Pants go off the main character and then we see the doggy style. It was sort of like porn but with both characters (?) taking center stage. Then, she started getting into it, pushed him back and he hit his head on the wall, picked up the painting that fell off, and they both threw up.

OK, so 9.30pm perhaps felt a wee bit too early for such things, but then there was that sex scene in NZ dramedy Rude Awakenings, and that was on before 9.30. Didn’t hear anything about that. Also, there was a TV show on TV One where the second scene of the first episode was two guys having sex with both characters being in full view (whereas later in the episode there was a sex scene with a man and a woman, but the camera was limited to above the chest). Recently, there was Eating Media Lunch on TV2 which had a woman having sex with a chicken (a re-enactment of the sex tape shown a police party).

Of course though, there are numerous instances of sex on TV (these days we even have breasts shown during the 6pm news) but these are the things I sort of expected to hear something from Family First. Maybe though they’ve now shifted their bed time from 8.30pm to 10pm and are getting grumpy and irritable from the lack of sleep.

To be honest though, Californication wasn’t that funny so probably won’t end up watching it again.

(PS, I find it rather ironic that Burger King dropped their ads from the program. Their ads are just women in bikini’s with the Burger King logo slapped at the end! One was even banned for having too many sexual overtones.)

By now I was supposed to have written an article about the WSU elections and how dubious I feel about the Waikato Diablos but seeming elections are on now and I am not Nexus I won’t.

But what I will tell you is that the WSU elections are now being held from now until Wednesday. Take your student ID to the voting stalls, there’s one at the Village Green and one outside of Management School.

It looks like Gordon Copeland has said “To hell with you” to Richard Lewis and Brian Tamaki.

Earlier this week Brian Tamaki, Bishop of the somewhat controversial Destiny Church, announced that the political wing - Destiny NZ - will be de-registered. But then he announced that there will be a new Christian political party and the leader of the now gone Destiny NZ, Richard Lewis, will be co-leader with yet to be named partner.

This took Gordon Copeland off guard, but he still announced that he was the “secret” co-leader (not long after).

The downfall (if you can call it that seeming the new political party doesn’t even have a name) continued, with Copeland saying that it was pretty bad, especially since now he has aligned himself with the worst Church to be aligned with. His supporters urged him not to be with them.

It’s funny how now anyone aligning themselves with Destiny Church is almost performing political suicide. It also concerned me how John Key (leader of National) kept handling the question about forming a coalition with the new Christian party. You could pretty much see he wanted to say “no,” so why didn’t he?

David Farrar the other day posted an interesting clip. The Daily Show, a satirical news program from the US, has discovered the satire ban on images captured in-house. See David’s site for the full video clip (now Whangarei is known as the cultural-backwater of New Zealand – and to you Americans, the a in “Whang” sounds like the a in “car”, not like the a in “fang”). The clip wasn’t that funny, but at least they know about it.

Now, the story has reached Slashdot.

One comment (out of the swathes of bad comments) stuck out:

By coincidence, there was a programme on TV yesterday about the origins of democracy (in Athens, 400BC). One point that came across strongly was that when democracy is strong, states are willing to put up with more criticism.

As democracy weakens, states clamp down on their critics and introduce more extreme punishments for transgressors.

This sounds like a good example of this kind of action - sadly it seems to be getting more common across the world, not just in NZ.

The only MP who’s in my good-books over this issue is Rodney Hide, as he was against it all along. Bad-books include all of Labour and all of National – especially by their flip-flopping over the issue.