Posts by Matthew Poole
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I wouldn't worry about a Blackwater-style shift to the contracting model in the NZ defence sphere.
What about a shift to a US-style military-industrial-complex with the use of PPPs?
I have no problem with some functions being performed by civilian personnel who are, despite being non-uniformed, employed by the military, particularly things like back-office IT. I do, however, have a very serious problem with the private sector operating or owning any capital military assets. Even the most ardent libertarian believes that the state has a duty to provide militarily for the defence of the nation, and I consider that duty to not extend to enriching the private sector beyond the ordinary competitive processes for supply for consumable and capital goods.
The US military and its relationship with the private sector is endlessly corrupt. The opportunity for corruption just increases when you have private companies bidding to not just build, but also operate, aspects of the fixed military establishment.To the comment about civilian medical personnel, until such time as field medics are no longer required I don't see how that role could be civilianised (dictionary suggests civilised. *chortle*).
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Well yeah, the gifting of $billions to mega rich idiots who somehow have managed to lose even more than that.
Is it still a gift if they pay it all back, plus some? Coz that's what the banking sector, at least, is now projected to do.
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Warner Bros did not put any requirements on us to do anything. The New Zealand Government has recognised that there were employment issues that needed to be sorted out, and we are going to move to clarify those.
In which case, why the urgency? Why the frantic, unseemly need to ram this change through almost literally overnight, rather than taking a measured, considered approach?
I guess it could just be that National can't help themselves, and cannot envisage changes to employment legislation taking place through the normal process - could lead to outcomes that're good for workers, and we can't be having that! - but it smells very bad that this is being done as a hastily-written, under-examined amendment to a very fundamental piece of employment legislation. -
The Bryson decision seems to have sent a cold shudder down the spines of some in the film industry (probably without good justfication). I'm pretty sure the intention of the legislators is to prevent another such case.
I don't think equivocation such as "pretty sure" is even necessary in this case. It's obvious that Bryson is weighing heavily on the learned legal minds of Key et al, and this law is meant to stop it happening again. It's even possible that the very existence of this new section means that nobody will try and bring a Bryson-type case again.
But lawyers (no offence) are nothing if not devious. Pending an actual judicial decision on what the new section means, I don't think the Bill does much to clarify the situation. -
@Scott, I certainly see what you're saying, and read that way I can see where your view and mine diverge. The problem I have with the interpretation you propose is that the Bill's (non-existent) language around judges examining the contract for service doesn't preclude a conclusion that, actually, it's an employment agreement.
Were a judge to look at a contract for service that was really an employment contract in drag, as was pretty much the case with Bryson as I understand it, I can see at least one avenue for the judge to find that the person is "party to, or covered by, an employment agreement that provides that the person is an employee". After all, the determination that a person is an employee under s6(1)(a) is a matter of fact under s6(2).
The "good" solution would've been a separate Act, not just an amendment, with s6(4) of the ERA amended to include the name of that Act, and the new Act actually setting down categorically who was and wasn't a contractor in the film industry. But that would take time, and time doesn't exist when you're trying to ram through a politically-expedient drafting error under urgency.
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Russ, I just noticed you closed the Anatomy of a Shambles thread, after only a week. That IS a record. The Thread of Doom took 2 years and spam to achieve that status. We're getting better at this ;-)
To be fair to Russell, it was two years after the ToD started before he got the capability to close it to comments. Silencing the ToD was his first exercise of the ultimate power.
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If one, just out of interest, wanted to read this, so-called, 'Thread of Dooooom', where would one find it?
You've been warned. It's considered to be PAS's ultimate self-referential discussion. If posts ever turn toward matters of copyright, someone will inevitably say "It's turning into one of those threads!" and that's normally enough to settle things down. The "all threads turn to copyright" dictum is like a Godwin's Law for PAS.
It's over 2,000 comments, but after about the first 15-20 pages it gets pretty dire. I posted the opening story, and I stopped reading it after about 20 pages of comments! It also has the dubious distinction of being the first thread that Russell closed to comments; on the day he finally got the power. -
Here be Dragons!
It's all Matthew Poole's fault. He started it, mum!
Actually, blame Russell. He asked me to write a guest piece about Lessig's lecture. And, having re-read it just before, rather eloquently I did write it, even if I do say so myself.
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Films are very expensive.
They don't have to be. Plenty of films are made on budgets of under $100k. Sure that's not nothing, but it's not millions either.
I'm going to stop talking on this point, now, and *gesture vaguely in the direction of the Thread. Of. Doooooooooooom*, before we adhere to Public Address' law that any thread on any topic will eventually become a copyright thread.
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Learn something about the entertainment industries.
Music's lost decade: Sales cut in half .CNN
Yeah, about that. Without going into the details, revenue is down, unit sales are way, way up. This equation works because units sold are mostly digital singles at USD0.99 or thereabouts, not CDs at many multiples of USD0.99.
RIAA haven't caught up with it not being the music industry's inalienable, deity-granted right to have eternally-increasing revenue figures. That doesn't mean the industry is dying, just changing.But, yeah. *gestures vaguely in the direction of the Thread of Doooooooooooom* (I giggled at that one)