Posts by Richard Love
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Speaker: Naked Inside the Off-Ramp, in reply to Matthew Poole,
The very real consequences of disestablishing NZSIS and/or GCSB and withdrawing from Echelon...should be sufficient to win that argument on the day
I wouldn't be so sure. In the 1970s, it was equally unthinkable, by non-radicals, that we could declare ourselves nuclear free.
Sure, there is probably an argument for having an intelligence agency. But it doesn't need to be one whose primary function is as an outpost for the NSA.
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Dunne initiated a number of worthwhile amendments to the bill, more than anyone else managed, but one person versus 59 can only do so much.
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He could have always voted against it. And then the government would have had to propose entirely new legislation (or go to a snap election, I suppose).
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The 2003 GCSB Bill was not proposed as a response to Sept. 11. The first reading of the 2003 Bill was in May 2001, before Sept. 11.
Also, note that it took 2 years for the passage of the previous bill, because there was a desire to get it right with cross party support. And the main problem with the 2003 version was that we subsequently found that the GCSB was secretly ignoring its legislation.
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Hard News: Fluency, ease of manner - and…, in reply to Glenn Pearce,
It wasn't a debate, it was an interview. JC should have been there to ask questions to elicit facts, basic journalistic skill.
Unfortunately, JK wasn't there to answer questions. He was there to give illusion of answering questions. There is little that JC could do about that.
What JC could have done was a pre-recorded interview with both Key and somebody opposed to the bill, say somebody from the Law Society. Ask a question of Key. Ask a question of the Law Society. If either party waffles on about something inane, instead of answering a question, then edit it out, and their opponent's argument will stand.
Of course, Key would never agree to that.
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Why is subjective
The reason why someone spies might be subjective. But there can be objective differences between the reasons why two different people have spied.
"Because I want to sell a story to a magazine" is clearly different to "because I want combat a subversive threat to the state".
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There doesn't appear to be an objective measure that defines one spying as innocuous tattle and another as a threat to personal freedom.
Who is doing the spying and why is an objective difference.
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How much difference is there between the NZDF spying on Jon Stephenson and a journalist with a telephoto lens spying on a B-list celebrity?
A journalist with a telephoto lens is not an arm of the state.
And of lesser importance, a B-list Celebrity! Naked! Sunbathing!, is not a journalist (Jon Stephenson) attempting to question the state's account of its actions.
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Legal Beagle: MMP Review: Trusting Voters, in reply to Andrew Geddis,
The constitutions of all registered political parties (including their candidate selection rules) are available here, in accordance with s.71B of the Electoral Act
That is true, but it is a relatively obscure place and the actual list selection information is buried in among all the other party rules.
I think it would be better if it there was a more transparent and accessible reporting of the procedures used by the parties. Perhaps, when the lists are published at election-time, a declaration of how the list was generated should be included with the list.
On the other hand, Graeme, is right. If parties just do this, and voters really care, then those parties that don't will be punished at election time. So the onus is really on those parties who think that they will be advantaged by more transparency. The difficulty (and point of failure of this sort of market) will be if no party thinks they will be advantaged by such moves. Which is when you need your market to be regulated...
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You can get that at the supermarket these days? Awesome!
Haven't you noticed those little potplants and cacti supermarkets sell.
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Sacha,
The actual legislation will almost surely specify that both cut and whole fresh fruit and vegetables will be exempt.
That's pretty much what every other piece of legislation that makes a category called "fresh fruit and vegetables" does.