Posts by Phil Lyth
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The anonymous donations issue in general elections has been fixed. Looking at the returns just published, anonymous money over $1,500 has to be paid to the Electoral Commission. Haven't yet found one example yet where that has happened.
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Kim Workman is currently part of the team at the Institute of Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. His profile makes interesting reading, and the rest of the team are pretty stellar too.
Kim's Rethinking Crime And Punishment newsletter is worth subscribing to.
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I am wondering why Corrections has not applied for an extended supervision order for Stuart Murray Wilson. He would seem to be a prime candidate. It would allow for conditions to be imposed for up to 10 years as appropriate, all the way up to and including 24/7 monitoring - meaning people with him, as opposed to surveillance.
ESOs do come with quite strong judicial safeguards - which may or may not be included with anything Collins pushes through under urgency..
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Hard News: This Is Not A Complicated Issue, in reply to nzlemming,
it's very difficult to make them do anything
Sometimes it can work, if approached positively and with an understanding of where the right places/people to start with. Going at it like a bull at a gate is almost always a recipe for failure.
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Technically, the appropriations were made in the 2011/12 Budget back in May last year, including Vote: Parliamentary Service and Vote: Office of the Clerk. The Votes are broken down into various sub-categories. As and when need arises through the financial year, the Government can and does approve additional monies which are in turn approved by Parliament as Supplementary Estimates.
Yes, it is important that public money is spent for the purposes for which Parliament appropriated it. But as #eqnz and #rena showed us, the system has the ability to cope with the new and unexpected.
Ask yourself this: if Mojo had been a National MP, would Lockwood have made sure that officials found a way to work through the issues and come up with a solution before the first sitting day of 2012? Of course.
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Hard News: Media Mathematics, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Innumeracy
Then there's the fourth dimension: news-os (yes, Fairfax's West Island subbies strike again.) As I was saying, newsos report on square acres / square hectares. Um, it's already a measure of area. Don't need to square it.
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Hard News: Media Mathematics, in reply to Sacha,
except for sporadic promises of torture :)
almost always civil
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Hard News: Media Mathematics, in reply to john Drinnan,
Welcome John. The debate here can be robust but always civil. Looking forward to your participation.
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Hard News: Media Mathematics, in reply to Russell Brown,
At least you agonised.
Journos seems to have an innate capacity to make a mess of percentages. Typical is 'numbers have fallen 300%' when what they really mean is 'numbers are only 25% of the previous level'. Averages and other stats measures too.
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Hard News: Media Mathematics, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
must remember, five
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-)