Last week, new information became public about potential stat-juking by our Police. The practice of reclassifying crimes as “incidents” has the effect of artificially reducing the apparent crime rate. This practice occurred mainly in the Counties-Manukau police district, which operates in the electorate of then-Police Minister Judith Collins. That is, of course, troubling on a number of levels.
Updated.
This past week has seen both mainstream media and political blogs of all persuasions, opine with fact-free ranting on the reversal of the burden of proof in sexual offence cases.
A bit of a plea . Sexual Violence is a sensitive issue. The least that ought be done, by those releasing policy around it; the media reporting it; the bloggers opining on it; and us, the individual’s commenting on it; the least we can do is try and make sure we have our facts in order first. Please?
I am really sorry to see the return of the Worm this election. It’s bad enough we have way more polling than we need, interfering with democratic process. Now we have even more of the same, with the way the Worm is to be implemented. [Updated]
Palestine in in the news again for all the wrong reasons. A one sided relentless series of Palestinian civilian deaths suggests that Israel is not acting in legitimate self defence.
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The Herald on Sunday is reporting that South Auckland police have doctored crime statistics for the area by reclassifying burglary offences as less serious offences.
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Today the Green Party launched the first of it’s election priorities in Hamilton at 11. 00 am. The focus is on building a cleaner, fairer, smarter New Zealand. The Internet Party is onboard with a new environment policy. There are differences between these 2 parties and Labour on oil and gas exploration. Equality continues to be a key priority for the Green Party. [Updated]
National’s desire of increasing its support among Pasifika is understandable in an MMP world. But John Key’s and National’s selection of socially conservative candidates in South Auckland in an attempt to be attractive to some socially conservative voters is more than a little disingenuous.
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If you ever wanted an entertaining, succinct, yet devastating critique of the media handling of Climate Change then John Oliver’s recent attempt from his Last Week Tonight show should be compulsory viewing.
Reposted from Polity. Here is Vernon Small this morning: The Government rejected plans to include beneficiaries in a package to help families with […]
The NZ Defense Force have been defending themselves in a defamation case against some grossly inaccurate claims that they made about reporter Jon Stephenson back in 2011 (and that John Key recklessly and foolishly chimed in on). They have been forced to concede that their claims were inaccurate. But a hung jury about how defamatory the claims were is causing it to proceeding to second trial. It looks like legal maneuvering by the NZDF has failed. My view is that the NZDF are being completely stupid about owning up to their screwup.
Rob Salmond presents the David Farrar / Steven Joyce / John Key argument that 2011 non voters are a National-leaning bunch. Then he shows that a better look at their own data undermines their claim. This matters because it helps us understand which bloc has more to gain from voter mobilization efforts in 2014. This means the left has a lot more to gain than the right from mobilization in 2014.
This morning Labour will be announcing it’s Digital Economic Upgrade (ICT policy). “Streamed live to the world” at 8am. As a dedicated member of the programming fraternity and often aghast at the stupidity of the how the government treats the digital community, I want to hear this.
So I will live blog some of this as it goes through.
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It’s headline news again: Labour is trying to take away men’s rights and exile you all to a desert island. If you believe David Farrar, that is.
Rob Salmond has been looking through the newly released Ministry of Social Development’s Household Incomes Report. It really is invaluable.
Tania Billingsley’s public comments and her suggestion that Murray McCully should resign as Minister of Foreign Affairs are cogent and compelling. For his failure to look after New Zealand’s interests and for his inept handling of issues for Tania he should resign as Minister.
Tania Billingsley has waived her right to name suppression in the case against the Malaysian diplomat accused of attempted rape – and a Minister of Foreign Affairs who wants the finger pointed at anyone but him.
She’s spoken to 3rd Degree about it, and I think she’s a big damn hero.
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Kiwi voters are going to be offered clear election choices across a wide range of policies that matter. This is clear from Labour’s mini-Manifesto, released at the weekend Congress. As promised Labour’s offerings are positive and forward-looking. Besides education, there are policies on work, economy, schools, children, jobs, homes, environment, democracy, health, living costs and budget – put the commitments together and it’s a recipe for positive change.
As was generally expected by anyone who’d been watching the actual economy rather than just the dairy exports, business profits are lower than expected. And there aren’t the jobs and pay increases in our “rockstar” economy. So consumer spending measured by GST is low as well. Meanwhile the price inflation keeps increasing government costs. So we are already on track for a large deficit next year rather than the government’s much-touted imaginary surplus. You have to ask why we deserve a government that appears to live more in a universe of wishful thinking than reality.
Since 2012 I’ve been going to Labour conferences as “media” rather than as a delegate. This is in large part because I have been avoiding the hurly burly of being involved in Labour party campaigning. But this was my first Labour congress as media. The Saturday was as boring for me as it was for Vernon Small. Watching other people doing housekeeping is seldom of much interest to outside observers as it is for those doing the housekeeping. The Sunday was more fun.
If the aims of National/ACT’s education policy were, genuinely, to to improve the learning, education and career choices for our children, including the ones that are failing at present, they would not be following policies which have signally failed to achieve any of these goals, anywhere else they have been tried.
New Zealand has almost no leverage in 21st century trade talks because we have gave it away in the 80s and 90s. The 12 country TPP is better thought of now as a bilateral US/Japan deal with as many hangers on as would like to hang on. The trapping are still of a 12 country deal, of course. The TPP club is Barack, Shinzo, and nobody else. That’s realpolitik.
The number of reported domestic violence incidents is increasing but amazingly the number of prosecutions is going down at the same time allowing the Government to claim that it is getting on top of crime. And the release of the latest statistics give added support to David Cunliffe’s and Labour’s proposals to treat the issue with urgency.
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Education has become a major election issue. And after Labour’s announcements at this weekend’s congress there is a stark divide, between the enrichment of the few or the advancement of the many.
At Rob Salmond’s briefing to Labour’s Congress over the weekend, he made a point about National’s performance in recent campaigns, which was later picked up in David Cunliffe’s speech.
National has dropped six percent each time. For those interested, here is the data that sits beneath this claim.
It is no wonder that John Key is worried when 3 months out from an election they are sitting on less than 50%, with dead and dying coalition partners.
One of the most prominent battlegrounds in this election campaign will be education. Both large parties know our kids deserve better than the two-tier education system we currently have. Both have clear, costed plans they think can help. And now the public can choose. Actions, of course, speak louder than words. Both John Key and Bill English have chosen to send their own kids to private schools. Asked why John Key said “Their schools have smaller class sizes and are better resourced than most state schools.”.
This post was put up at Imperator Fish on Sunday evening. It looks like Hekia Parata was following Scott’s script today. 🙂
Sure we need a better class of wingnut commenter, as is frequently suggested here. However surely it is more important that we get a better quality of government minister than ones who think that evidence based policies means only the evidence about how well their party is doing in the polls?
Remember when John Key explained why he sends his children to private schools….. and now the Nats and Parata are saying that such advantages don’t work for all Kiwis.
Rob Salmond got enthused over the Labour congress this weekend. We heard a superb set of politics emerge about education, always a core theme for Labour. We got not one but two treats in the form of speeches from our leadership. Both David Parker and David Cunliffe did great speeches, sending everyone home in exactly the right spirit of both pride and optimism. And we now know the campaign slogan…
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