Law tag

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.

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.

Interestingly a pledge card to help fund the Darnton v Clark lawsuit has sold for $700.

A taste of the questions,

Wow, i am really interested in this piece. You don’t happen to have one of Winston’s illegal items for sale as well do you?
No. Winston’s last election pamphlet looked a bit creepy and I didn’t want it in the house.

Are these the same tired old promises, and are these pledges ever likely to be fulfilled?
The promises are not worth the paper they’re printed on. Rest assured though that the paper they’re printed on was very expensive.

Do the pleges work? I have heared this descibed by people as electioneering
The only people who have described this as electioneering are the Chief Electoral Officer, Wellington District CIB, the former Solicitor-General, the Auditor-General, and Pete Hodgson.

The money, as said, goes to the Darnton v Clark lawsuit. Bernard Darnton is the leader of the Libertarianz party, and taking Helen Clark to court over the illegal use of parliamentary funds (which has just recently been made legal with a bill shoved under urgency - yay for open and free democracies!).

David Farrar has said that there was also another pledge card up for sale to help fund the Labour whip-round. It only accrued $30.