The Grey Shade

The Last Post

2005-01-20T13:03:00.000+13:45

Unfortunately Grey Shade is no longer with us.

He died in his sleep on Wednesday morning after battling against illness for some years. He will be greatly missed by his family, friends and all who knew him.

Requiem in Pace

Global Warming and Kyoto

2004-12-31T14:58:00.000+13:45

Genius proposes a somewhat draconian solution for global warming. It's a refreshing change from the "holocaust denial" of some right-wing commentators but goes further than is prudent and, more importantly, further than necessary.

Genius suggests that we should treat oil (and presumably other fossil fuels) similarly to cocaine or other harmful substances and simply use all necessary means to prevent "pushers" from harvesting it. If only life were that simple. We did of course come up with a (hopefully) successful cold turkey solution to the use of CFCs but this was relatively non-controversial, the science was clear-cut and undeniable and the economic costs minor. Global warming is complex and ubiquitous and the economic impact of cutting down on fossil fuels is substantial. More importantly the opposition to freezing oil production will not come only from third world oil despots but also from Western oil companies. If we contemplate a preemptive strike against the middle-east oilfields must we launch our first cruise missiles from the gulf of Texas?

Genius rightly calls for more evidence before deciding on a future course of action but it is notoriously difficult to predict human actions 100 year ahead. This link gives a good summary of the current evidence. The IPCC originally split the question into two parts -
(1) What is the likely future increase in human CO2 emissions with time
(2) What will be the global temperature response to thechanged levels of CO2 emissions.

The first question was addressed by the IS92 model scenarios. These modelled global fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions to 2100 under different population, economic and technical assumptions. The scenarios do not anticipate any specific policies (such as Kyoto) but do involve assumptions of future technologies impacting on nuclear, Biofuel and solar prices and supply. The mid-range scenario (IS92a) is the most likely and this would lead to the following by 2100
(1) a trebling of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel
(2) a temperature increase of 2.5 C degree
(3) cumulative (1990 to 2100) CO2 fossil fuel emissions of 1500 Gt
(4) a "committment" to a further 2.5 degrees of warming even if all fossil fuel consumption stopped at 2100.
(5) an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 730 ppmv (cf 360 ppm 1990).
(6) a sea level rise of 64cm by 2100.

The second question the effect of increased CO2 emissions is complex. Not all CO2 emitted remains in the atmosphere and atmospheric warming is a complex process. The question is addressed by a second set of models whuch operate over a longer time span. IPCC introduced a second set of scenarios which envisage stabilising atmospheric CO2 concentrations at various levels. The S650 scenario stabilises CO2 concentrations at levels from 350-750 ppmv (mid-range 550 is just on twice the pre-industrial level). Greenpeace suggests that this could lead to a temperature rise of 2.0 C degrees from 1990 to 2100 and a further 0.6 degrees long-term. Sea-level rise would be about 33cm by 2100 or about 1m long term. Effects on agriculture and natural ecosystems would be material (we are long past the point of doing anything about that) but not catastrophic. We can achieve this by keeping total CO2 emissions to 2100 materially below the IS92a prediction of 1500 GtC and reducing more drastically in subsequent years eventually reaching a value of about 3 GtC/yr. We can make up for inadequate cuts in one decade with proportionately deeper cuts in the following decade and so we can afford to negotiate sound policies, do the science and allow orderly economic transitions.

Global CO2 emissions are currently about 6.2 GtC per year from a population of 6.4 billion. Annex 1 (industrialised) countries account for 3.7 GtC from a population of 1.1 billion. A post-Kyoto regime would then express future limits as a fraction of these levels. Future industrialised countries can be brought in by pro-rating the base (2000) populations to the mean limit for current Annex 1 countries. If we then adopted standard limits of 80%, 70%, 50%, 30% and 15% of the baseline by 2030, 2050, 2100, 2150 and 2200 respectively China would, for example, probably come into the scheme around 2030 with a notional baseline of 4370 GtC/yr and hence an initial target of 3496 GtC/yr from 2030. If China's emissions grow at a rate equal to gdp growth (about 10%) over the same time they would have grown to about 5000 t/ha by 2030 and so China's participation would be essential. On the other hand a more stringent target than that suggested would be unfairly restrictive to the emerging economies. If we assume the above structure and make reasonable assumptions as to GDP growth in non-Annex 1 countries then the total emissions to 2100 are close to 1090 GtC which corresponds to the IPCC S650 stabilisation scenario.

The scenario outlined is a natural progression from Kyoto. It makes relatively minor savings (compared to IS92a) in
the first half of the twenty first century but requires more substantial cuts subsequently. Kyoto will lead to the establishment of a "Carbon market" and to the imposition of Carbon taxes by at least some governments. It will also simplify/reinforce the use of countervailing sanctions against "unfair competition" from non-Kyoto countries should this happen. A large part if not all of the global economy will operate a regime where CO2 emissions carry a known cost and this will favour the emergence and development of alternative energy, energy saving and CO2 sequestering technologies in an economically rational way.

DPF takes exception to my use of the term "holocaust denier" to describe "global warming sceptics". I can only reiterate here that I consider "holocaust denier" morally neutral as it makes no value judgement that the holocaust was "a good or even remotely defensible thimg" but merely a mistaken belief that it did not happen. It is guilty of gross error, obstinate refusal to consider evidence and absurdity but nothing else. The holocaust denier is above all absurd in his reusal to face the obvious. There are of course many global warming sceptics who ask entirely legitimate questions and, of course, the evidence for global warming is much less clear-cut than that for the holocaust yet there are some global warming "deniers" who refuse to accept evidence in front of their eyes, treat every disagreement between "experts" as a refutation of the scientific concensus and every agreement betwen those experts as evidence of conspiracy that they cut a figure scarcely less absurd or pathetic than the classic holcaust denier.

Tax and Welfare - A Window of Opportunity

2004-12-19T15:11:00.000+13:45

In an earlier post I mentioned that I was reworking figures on Universal Basic Income schemes taking into account the impact of the Working for Families package. I have now completed the analysis and you can download the results from this spreadsheet and Word document. The interesting thing is that it now looks as though the transition could be made (ie in FY 2008) to a Basic Income system with almost no one losing from the transition. The exception is income-splitting married superannuitants with more than $40,000 other taxable annual income each and (even then the worst case is an increase of $110 at an "other income" of $60,000 each - compared to $360 if we reintroduced the surtax). This is for a system that automatically includes a universal student allowance, reduces mean effective tax rates for most New Zealanders to 39% (from typically about 50-70%, marginal can be over 90% see SageNZ), can be converted to a strict UMR system with all income subject to an effective marginal rate of 36% (33% if we index NZ super to cpi rather than average wage) in another 20 years of normal growth).
The Working for Families package did a lot of good things but has generated a ruinously high set of marginal effective rates for families on moderate to higher incomes. Something has to be done to fix this and it looks like a Basic Income / Flat Tax option could be the answer.

UPDATE 22/12/2004
If you're not familiar with the concepts of Universal Basic Income (aka Basic Income, Negative Tax or Universal Marginal Rate) I'll try and give a brief outline (you can download the documents on the sidebar if you want more details. Basic Income systems look at the combined effect of Welfare (menas-tested benefits) and Income Tax and "reanalyze" it into a Basic Income component (the level of benefit paid to someone with zero earnings) and an "effective income tax" which includes both tax and abatement of the benefit. To take a simplified example imagine income tax was charged at 20% for the first $20,000 and 30% thereafter and that unemployment benefit was paid at $12,000 per year abated by 60% of earned income. Then under a Basic Income analysis we would say the combined scheme had an effective tax rate of 80% (20% tax plus 60% abatement) for the first $20,000 and 30% thereafter. Under a Universal Marginal Rate (or Basic Income / Flat Tax) scheme we would introduce a single flat tax rate of 40% (or whatever was needed to balance the budget. The graph above shows the effective tax rates that will apply to a number of different NZ families by 2008. Note that these are the AVERAGE effective rates. The four child family earning $80,000 doesn't pay 76.8% on just the last few dollars (as it happpens their top marginal effective rate is 88%) they pay $61456 total.

Pro Populi Libri

2004-12-10T09:39:00.000+13:45

I was going to title this "God 2 Bigots 0" but that seemed unseasonably negative. So here's a warm "God bless us all" to everyone but especially the good Dominican friars and their distinguished guest.

Treaty and Constitution - Further Thoughts

2004-12-01T16:26:00.000+13:45

My earlier post has drawn some references from Holden Republic and Other Che. Che refers to my work as an overanalysis with some justification. Certainly it is a premature analysis but I "analysed" only a small portion in fine detail. My intention was

1) to illustrate what a "constitution giving effect to the treaty" might look like
2) to identify issues that such a constitution must address
3) to offer a specific solution (the codification of "Mana Whenua") to some of these issues.

The position of the Treaty of Waitangi is closely analogous to that of the US Declaration of Independence. It is an affirmation of the principles that drive us and that define the sort of society New Zealand ought to be but it's language is too imprecise to be enacted as law or to form a constitution. The founding fathers did not seek to "exlude the principles of the declaration from the constitutional debate" or let the declaration remain "slightly aloof" from the whole thing. They did the hard work and developed a legally sound framework that gave practical effect to the principles of the declaration. And where necessary the "inalienable rights" to life and liberty became rights that could not be forfeited "without due process".

I do not understand why the NZPSA or anyone else should wish to exclude the treaty from the "constitutional debate" for it is the treaty issues that are of the greatest urgency. Nor, I hope, is it a desire to confine the discussion of treaty issues to a specific group for ALL constitutional issues require a broad concensus for successful resolution.

What I would most like to see is some Maori opinion on these issues (even if it's just to tell me to butt out of matters I don't understand). I've opened this Blog to public (anonymous) comments so please fire away.

Treaty and Constitution

2004-11-24T13:18:00.000+13:45

The Government has finally started the long process of reviewing the NZ constitution and the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in it. This process will take many years and will require "buy-in" from all NZers but, as a start, I present some of my own thoughts here.

The conventional view of NZ's current constitution is that our law arises from common law, statute law and convention. Some matters of law are sufficiently fundamental that we accord them the status of "constitution" although there is no explicit category of "constitutional law" defined within the law itself. Changes to "the constitution" (eg the Supreme Court or the electoral system) are normally enacted by legislation. In some cases a supermajority and/or referendum may be required.

Other models are possible. We could equally well hold that our current law arises from pre-Treaty Tikanga Maori and that the Treaty of Waitangi simply expresses the willingness of the signatory chiefs to permit Pakeha settlement and/or amend traditional custom within the authoriy of their Rangatiratanga. If we use such models, however, we are taking the path of revolution (bloodless or otherwise) for we break the chain by which contemporary law is grounded in its antecedents and strip the law of its historical authority. Whether or not these are replaced by other antecedents a period of considerable legal and constitutional uncertainty would inevitable ensue.

The constitutional uncertainty associated with any revolutionary change of model (quite apart from its intrinsic undesirability) precludes a stepwise approach to constitutional change. Since it is the expressed view of the government (and of many other interested parties) that "treaty" issues should be resolved before other, less urgent contitutional matters; there would be little prospect of getting majority public support for revolutionary change (and particularly the above example); and there is adequate flexibility within the scope of "evolutionary" change I consider only constitutional changes enacted by law and preserving continuity of the rule of law and sovereignty.

In an earlier post I wrote that

It seems clear to me that the Maori concept of "rangitiratanga" (after ceding "kawanatanga") means something more than the English concept of "ownership" but somewhat less than the English concept of "sovereignty". If we are to embody the Treaty principles in a New Zealand constitution then perhaps the first step must be to define that difference (Mana whenua? Ancestral Rights?). But we must define them in terms which are clear and acceptable to a broad concensus

Perhaps it is time to look at that extra factor (or factors) now. Under pre-treaty Tikanga, the Maori concept of "Rangitiratanga" encompassed the political (kawanatanga), proprietary (possession) and spiritual (mana). The English term "sovereignty" has some ambiguity but normally means something very close to kawanatanga. Under British law the Sovereign is considered the source of land title but does not actually possess individual parcels of land by virtue of sovereignty. If we apply these definitions to the Treaty of Waitangi (Maori version) then the following principles result -

1) Kawanatanga was explicitly ceded to the British Crown and is now vested in the New Zealand parliament.
2) Rangatiratanga to whenua (kainga and taonga) was explicitly retained but, in the context of (1) this would have to interpreted as possession + mana whenua (ie excluding kawanatanga)
3) Whenua could (and would) be sold to the Crown by free negotiation.
4) Individual Maori became equal British subjects (and New Zealand citizens).

Applying the same definitions to the English version gives us

1) Sovereignty was ceded to the British Crown and is now vested in the New Zealand parliament.
2) Maori retained possession of "Lands, Estates, Fisheries, Forests and other Properties" for "as long as they wish to hold them"
3) Land could only be sold to the Crown (later waived).
4) Individual Maori became equal British subject (and New Zealand citizens).

The differences between these two versions need not be great. There is no issue of substance in point (1). While sovereignty may sometimes be used as a translation of Rangatiratanga that is not it's normal (or legal) meaning. The "powers vested in a governor" in 1840 differed from "the powers of a sovereign" only insofar as the former were granted by delegation. The courts and the Waitangi Tribunal have consistently treated "Kawanatanga" as the powers of a sovereign government including the power (if not the right) to breach the treaty or to legislatively extinguish treaty rights.

The lists of properties in the two versions of point (2) do not correspond precisely but it is the clear intent of both versions that the lists should be exhaustive and the specific wording of neither is restrictive. The Maori concept of "Rangatiratanga" (even after cession of "Kawanatanga") is broader than the English "possession". I tentatively suggest the term "Mana Whenua" be used to describe those aspects of "Rangatiratanga" that are not automatically included in "Sovereignty" or "possession". The word "Whenua" should be interpreted to include land, inland and coastal waters, the foreshore and seabed, riverbeds and lakebeds to the full extent consistent with pre-treaty Tikanga.

Both Maori and English versions envisaged Land sales to the Crown who were then entitled to sell it on to third parties. The Crown subsequently waived the right of preemption at which stage Maori could sell direct to anyone. Most Maori Land is now held in trusts which have severely restricted rights to onsell the land (although most of it has already gone). In practice, however, alienation under British law has applied only to "possession" and those rights encompassed by possession under British Law. Neither version addresses the fate of "mana whenua" following alienation but the obligation of local authorities to consult with iwi exercising mana whenua (kaitiakitanga) under the RMA applies to all land - not just Maori land. It would seem reasonable therefore to assume that mana whenua is not and never has been alienated since 1840. This is a critical area to resolve - particularly in the light of the Foreshore and Seabeds Act.

So a set of constitutional principles giving effect to the treaty might look something like below -

1) Sovereignty (Kawanataga) was ceded to the British Crown by the Treaty of Waitangi and is now vested in the parliament /people/crown/constitution of New Zealand subject to established convention.

2) The Treaty of Waitangi allowed Tangata Whenua to retain "Rangatiratanga" over their full whenua (lands, forests, inland and coastal waters, foreshore, lake, river and seabeds and fisheries), kainga (villages) and taonga (all other physical or intellectual property) according to pre-treaty tikanga. All rights appurtenant to customary Rangitiratanga were thereby retained except for -
2a) Rights which necessarily form part of the Sovereignty (Kawanatanga) ceded to the Crown or which both parties clearly intended to be so ceded;
2b) Rights which were unavoidably incompatible with British Law;
Treaty rights retained specifically include -
2c) Full title (Treaty Title). A Treaty title has the full legal status of a fee simple title and originates from the date of the Treaty. Land transferred to non-Maori before the treaty will have a pre-treaty status determined by Tikanga and the new owner will acquire a Treaty Title if they owned the land before the Treaty. All land title in New Zealand is derived from treaty title and thence from customary Rangatiratanga at the time of the Treaty. The original Treaty Title so derived shall, once legally determined and vested in a legal person or persons, be held to have been the continuous property of that person(s) from the date of the treaty until its subsequent alienation.
2d) Mana Whenua. These are rights appurtenant to Rangitiratanga according to pre-treaty Tikanga but which do not form any part of Sovereignty or title according to British law. Mana Whenua status and its appurtnenant rights are independent of title and remain the unalienated and continuously held property of the traditional holders. Rights appurtenant to Mana Whenua shall (without restriction) include -
2d(1)) Kaitiakitanga - the right to be recognised as legal guardians of any whenua.
...
3) The government of New Zealand shall maintain mechanisms for
3 a) legally determining the hapu, iwi, whanau or other group of person or persons holding customary Rangatiratanga over any Whenua
3 b) legally vesting all "Treaty title" and/or "Mana Whenua" interests in a legal person or persons which -
3b1) is/are appropriately equivalent to or representative of the traditional owners or holders of those rights;
3b2) meets the required legal standards for governance, administration and accountability to shareholders or beneficiaries in the case of incorporated persons
3b3) identify or provide a means for identifying all shareholders or beneficiaries in any incorporated persons
3c) maintaining contemporary and historic records of all matters determined or established in 3a or 3b.

That's probably enough for a start (I'll look at the issue of Breaches and redress later). The bits in Italics are those that I consider may be controversial to some Pakeha or which are incomplete principally because of my ignorance. I realise that it's a little soon to be doing this sort of thing now but I felt there were some useful concepts for debate in here. If you have other views on these matters please share them. If you are Tangata Whenua or simply less ignorant of things Maori than me I hope you will forgive my presumption and any offence I may have inadvertently given. If I have made some foolish (or for that matter not-so-foolish) error then I beg that you will take the time to set me straight.

Welfare Work and Kids Update

2004-11-20T13:08:00.000+13:45

I've had an interesting E-mail correspondence with Phil Sage over the original post (below) and the Universal Marginal rates (or Basic income) system I alluded to. It transpires that here may be an error in the specific proposal I drew up (see sidebar link for pdf document) - fortunately in the right direction.

I estimated the total tax base from a treasury table which I assumed showed the taxbase for all income taxpayers (including companies). It now appears that the table may have shown the taxbase for individuals only. If this is true it would be possible to have more generous benefits and lower tax rates than I suggested.

I have EMailed Treasury for confirmation and will do a revised and updated version of the document when I hear back.

Watch this space.

Welfare, Work and Kids

2004-11-14T14:25:00.000+13:45

There have been a number of postings over the Blogosphere following Judy Turner's press release on children born to parents on benefits. The usual suspects DPF (with lots of comments), NZPundit and Genius predictably support Judy Turner's position while NRT (no less predictably) takes the opposing view. Since Judy Turner is the United Future social services spokeswoman I thought I'd take a look from the middle-of-the-road, common-sense, pro-family perspective.
The objections to beneficiaries having children seem to be that

(1) They are turning the benefit into a lifestyle choice.
(2) They are exposing their children to poverty.
(3) They are bringing up children who will be a net liability to NZ as a whole.

The first objection is based on the "child allowance" component of the benefit. This is slightly under $3000 per child whether on DPB or unemployment benefit (somewhat less in real terms than the old universal family benefit which was set at 1 pound per week in 1946). This amount is however paid to low and middle income earners (with children) as well as beneficiaries. It cannot therefore incentivise a parent with existing children to go on a benefit. Nor does an additional child reduce the financial incentive for a beneficiary parent to find work. The child allowance reduces the financial disincentive for beneficiaries or low-income wage earners to have children but it does not make it financially advantageous.

In NZ we try to minimise child poverty and benefits (particularly for families) are set at a level designed to achieve that. The circumstances of low-income working families are little different to beneficiaries so any objection to beneficiaries having children should, to be consistent, also apply to low-income working families. This point is strengthened by considering that many working families may, in fact, be classified as beneficiaries. Consider a single-income two-parent family with two children paying $200 pw rent in Napier. If they earn $560 per week they will still be eligible (just) for an unemployment benefit of about $7 per week (plus accommodation supplement and family support). They would have a disposable income (after rent, tax and benefits) of $359 pw but would be classed as beneficiaries (if they bothered to apply or were already on it). On the minimum wage ($320 per week?) the unemployment benefit would be $175 per week and the disposable income $329 pw. With incomes of $80 pw or less the benefit is unabated at $343 pw and the disposable income will range from $246-299. Single-income two-parent beneficiary families with two children, living in secondary centres and paying $200 pw accommodation costs, therefore have weekly disposable incomes in he range $246 - 359 (with most over $300). On the average wage ($40,000 py) the disposable income increases to only $414. Hardly enough to define the difference between poverty and plenty.

Similarly with the argument that it is desirable (from a national perspective) to limit the fraction of the next generation born to the lower socio-economic groups. Leaving aside the dodgy historical ancestry of eugenics, any reduction in births in one group must be offset by an increase in other groups or lead to an overall reduction in the birth rate. NZ's birth rate is already below replacement and there is no evidence of a baby boom amongst the rich. Nor is there any practical policy I can imagine (much less accept)that might promote such a boom. Given our current demographics our children are our future and the solution to child poverty is to get rid of the poverty not the child.

Most families make decisions about family size and spacing based on a complex mix of health, social and financial issues including the optimum age for the mother to give birth, closeness of age of children, age of parents when children are grown up, magnitude of generation gap between parents and teenage children, relative preferences for permanent (vasectomy, tubal ligation) and temporary contraception and minimising the period of maximum economic sacrifice (when youngest child is under 5). Most of theses considerations are just as valid for beneficiaries as for wage and salary earners and there seems little reason to expect the minimal difference in disposable income between "beneficiaries and low-middle wage earners" to be a dominant consideration.

If we consider our couple in Napier again but assumed they started off as a young two-income couple earning (say) $480 and $360 pw and paying rent of $120 pw for a small flat. When the wife became pregnant they used their savings to put a deposit on a house taking out a fixed-rate interest-only mortgage for most of the price. Suppose the husband's income remains steady at $480 pw and his wife stays at home bearing two more children at two year intervals but finally returns to work (part-time earning $200 pw) when the youngest child starts school. The couple will have achieved the Kiwi goal of home ownership and successfully raised a family of three children but will have been eligible for (and presumably received) an unemployment benefit of between $42 and $64 per week. All 3 children will have been born on the benefit. The weekly disposable income for the family drops from $566 before they buy the house and the mother leaves work to have the first child to $320 immediatlely after. The disposable income (while on a partial benefit) rises to $323, $355 and $389 with the birth of the three children. When the mother returns to part-time work their disposable income rises to $467, enabling them to convert to a table mortgage and have their house debt-free well before retirement. It would be absurd to suggest that they should have deferred having the second and third child until they were off the benefit as this would mean waiting till each child turned five before "starting" the next one. This would have increased the total period of benefit eligibility (and depressed disposable incomes) from 9 to 15 years.

The raw numbers quoted by Judy Turner are difficult to put in any sort of perspective. That 26,000 women currently on a (major?) benefit have (at some time in the past) had children while on a benefit does not give much of an idea of how many beneficiaries are getting pregnant at any given time. There is also the question of definitions alluded to earlier. A person with a dependent family may be employed full-time (and not necessarily at sweatshop rates) and still be eligible for an (abated) unemployment benefit or DPB. Such families are presumably included in Judy Turner's figures although we would not normally consider them beneficiaries.

The 2003 Labour Force Survey gives a breakdown of employment type versus number of dependent children and by the age of the youngest dependent child.

This shows that

(1) About 83% of all families with dependent children have at least one working adult

(2) Single parent families account for about 28% of all families with dependent children but 77% of non-working families (neither or sole parent not working).

(3) two-parent households have similar numbers of dependent children (on average) regardless of employment status (both employed=1.82, one employed=1.90, neither employed 1.93)

(4) unemployed single-parent families have a similar number of dependent children to two-income families (1.80) but employed single-parent families have significantly smaller families (1.50).

I have done some further analyses on these figures which you can view in this spreadsheet. This suggest that

(5) two-parent families have high (94-96%) "Primary Employment Rates" (at least one parent working) regardless of the age of the youngest child or number of children. Families with very high numbers of "dependendent children" may be an exception but the numbers of such families are low and may include (eg) retired families.

(6) "Secondary employments rates" (both parents working) are lower (~75%) for families with youngest child over 5 and much lower (47%) for families with any child under 5. There is a specific preference for families with exactly one parent working where the youngest child is under 5 but an aversion for such families where the youngst child is 5 or over. This may reflect current financial incentives for two-income families combined with practical obstacles to providing full time childcare (for pre-school children) when both parents work.

(7) "Employment rates" for single parent families increase consistently with the age of the youngest child and decrease consistently with the number of dependents. The actual rates are usually lower than the secondary rates for two-parent families and approach them in inly the most favourable cases (1 child, or youngest child between 15 and 18). This probably reflects reduced financial incentives (compared to two-income families) and reduced options for sharing childcare with partner.

In a society where the two-income family is the norm single-income (whether one or two-parent) families will naturally tend to be relatively poor. But not too poor to give their children a loving home, a decent education and caring values. Ever since Rob Muldoon discovered that you could buy more votes with age care than child care (and fund it on the never never), NZ has made disproportionate public provision for the dependent aged compared to the dependent young. The "working for families" package will help restore some of the balance (at least it converts the poverty trap to a "reasonably comfortably off trap"). United Future's income-splitting policy would also help but only a complete move to a universal "basic income" system will restore complete fairness to families (and others). Such a move would have the interesting side effect of eliminating the (increasingly artificial) distinction between beneficiaries and workers thereby making Judy Turner's press release and this posting impossible.

[Greyshade signs off in a puff of logic]
UPDATE
(1) Some of the figures in my original example used the wrong rental value. I've corrected the values now. The differences weren't material but my apologies.

(2)Sage has posted referring to this item. He suggests that I have come to conclusions at variance with the evidence I present. I'm not quite sure what conclusions that would be. I certainly don't endorse the current compressed incentives for low-middle income families to work. FWIW the examples I quoted are based on current (ie fy2005) tax and benefit rates. The working for families package will improve the margins as they come in over the next three years. The respective "disposable incomes" for the example family I gave ($200 pw rent, etc) on annual earnings of $4160 and $40,000 will increase to $370 and $554 respectively compared to 299 and 414 at present but the marginal "effective tax rate" is still 75% (compared to 84%). Note also that the example I gave of a "beneficiary family" earning $560 a week before tax and benefits was for one parent working full time (and one caring for children) fulltime. Having raised my own family that way (and paying an AVERAGE 40% tax at the same time) I can assure you that this is no "hammock road".

I don't accept that the problem has been caused by "successive governments pushing up the base benefit levels because this simply hasn't happened. This reference gives a good background to historical changes in NZ Social Welfare policy and it's quite clear (eg from Fig 3 P23) that the net benefit for a sole parent with one child is much the same now as it was in 1950. The biggest change in NZ society has been the move from single-income to two-income families as the norm.

Many families wish to invest at least one "Full-time parent equivalent" in childcare at least while the youngest child is under 5 and that seems a perfectly reasonable choice. But it creates a relatively limited time of economic vulnerability for that family (unless they have particularly high earning potential). The case for a universal benefit over this period seems at least as strong as that for people aged over 65.

Ils sont foux c'est Belgiques

2004-11-09T13:29:00.000+13:45

I thought about calling this post "Red Neck of Democracy III" but decided that might be confusing. Nonetheless this sorry European example reinforces the lessons I tried to enunciate following the US election.

1 Freedom of thought means freedom for the thought we hate

2 Democracy means counting alike the votes of the wise, the ordinary or the foolish; the liberal, the conservative or the fascist and votes for the good, the evil or the merely human.

3 It is the liberal's duty to confront evil counsels in the marketplace of ideas, to fight ignorance with knowledge, folly with wisdom and darkness with enlightenment. It is neither our duty nor acceptable for us to use the tools of repression against our opponents however hateful their views may seem.

Belgium does not seem to have learnt these lessons. The right-wing Vlaams Blok party standing on a dual policy of racist xenophobia and Flemish independence was convicted of "racism" and the sentence is now before the appeal court.
The countries of Europe have good reason to fear a repeat of the 1930's and their paranoia at the emergence of "ultra-right" parties is understandable. But this issue demands a cool, considered response. To respond from fear or panic is to invite the very disaster feared.

Let those who think it proper to initiate violence against the National Front, coerce or punish those who do not share their private agenda or to ban a political party they dislike reflect on this (San Diego Union Tribune)

The party's share of the popular vote in elections has gone from under 10 percent in 1999 to 24.1 percent last June. A poll released in September pegged the party as the most popular in Flanders for the first time.

The Red Neck of Democracy II - The RR Strike Back

2004-11-06T13:34:00.000+13:45

I have already written about what I hope is the big picture on the USA elections. Like Just Left I hope I have expressed my admiration for the positives of the world's greatest democracy. Equally now, I must declare my liberal values and my opposition to the policies of the present US Government while, of course, acknowledging the legitimacy of its victory and its constitutional right to pursue those policies.

Exit polls and other evidence seem to suggest that it was conservative "Evangelical Christians" who swung the polls to Bush. It would seem that Christians came out to vote (and to vote for Bush) in unprecedented numbers both in the swing states and in safe republican states. On the other side liberals and racial minorities turned out in force mainly in the swing states. The net result was a slight EC gain to the republicans (Iowa and New Mexico captured, New Hampshire lost) but a more substantial gain in the popular vote.

It is easy to adopt an elitist stance and sneer at the "deluded superstitions" of these "moral crusaders" or of Bush voters in general. It's even easier when you read of polls showing that most Bush voters believe Saddam Hussein had deployable WMDs and orchestrated the 9/11 attack on the twin towers. Easier still when a woman tells a BBC reporter she's voting for Bush "because Kerry's daughter is a lesbian". But it's wrong. The message has (Karl Rove and Ruper Murdoch notwithstanding) gone out. The "deluded" voters have been told the truth but they are committed to voting the same way they have always done and use "facts" to rationalise their prejudices rather than to inform their opinions - they were never going to vote for Kerry any way.

Nor are the religious necessarily dumb or morally blind. They may be highly motivated and intolerant of the views of others but they are not all stupid. Jimmy Carter (Liberal, former Democratic president, Nobel Peace laureate and Kerry's intellectual equal) was a born-again Christian from Georgia (and he was defeated by a divorced Republican actor from California - where was the religious vote then?)
What was different this time is that the Religious Right was driven by a single issue to vote and to all vote the same way. That issue was Gay Marriage.

I believe, as do many other bloggers of both the left and right, that a couple's right to have their union recognised by the law should not be dependent on gender. Nor do I believe that the law should maintain the ridiculous fiction that such a "Civil Union" is not a marriage. But I believe that this state must be brought about with the broad consent of the public. We must persuade those of a contrary view that we seek no more than is fair and that their own marriages are devalued less by extending the same right to loving same-sex couples than by heterosexuals who marry wantonly, carelessly or ill-advisedly. Such a change in law, when it comes, should be enacted by parliament rather than judges.

In 2003 the Massachussets Supreme Court (Goodridge) held that laws barring same-sex couples from marrying violated the Massachussets constitution. This led to a vigorous conservative campaign to amend the Federal Constitution. This campaign claims that the present constitution requires all states to give "Full faith and credit" to marriages conducted in any state and that Massachussets can now become the "Gay Gretna Green" of the USA. Others argue that common law allows states to refuse to recognise marriages from other states with different marriage laws. The amendments proposed, however, would override the state constitution so as to nullify the Goodridge decision completely rather than simply preventing its "export" to other states. This amendment gained Bush the overwhelming support of the Religious Right even though it is beyond his power to deliver it. Adding a referendum on the amendment to the ballot in key states helped guarantee that conservatives turned out to vote.

Perhaps there is a simple way forward that will satisfy all (or at least most) parties. Let Congress endorse a minimal amendment which simply formalises the existing common law precedent that a state may refuse to recognise a marriage contracted in another state with different marriage laws where those laws conflict with strongly held local public policy. This does not infringe on the traditional jurisdiction of any state legislature or constitution. The State of Massachussets may accept the Goodridge finding or amend their constitution. Any state may pass its own law on Gay Marriage or Civil Unions in accordance with their own constitution. Those states which do not allow such unions will not be forced to recognise them when contracted in other states.

Such an amendment will, in fact, preserve the status quo intact but removes the (overstated) risk that "judicial activists" might alter it in future. It should be possible to get bipartisan support and hence the 2/3 majority in both houses. The subsequent ratification referenda could coincide with the 2006 mid-term elections and, if successful in 38 states the amendment would be passed. The marital law issues can then be left with the states where they belong and federal elections can go back to being about the things that the federal government does.

The Red Neck of Democracy

2004-11-05T15:32:00.000+13:45

The reelection of George Bush is a salutary reminder for liberals (in any sense of the word) that democracy includes "rule by people who are wrong" no less than
freedom of thought includes "freedom for the thought we loathe". We must reflect that the religious right, neoconservatives, bigots and the simply stupid have the same right to determine the direction of a country as any of us. Governments are human institutions and no constitution can guarantee the wisdom or moral character of the government of the day. The purpose of the constitution must rather be to safeguard those freedoms and values that Americans (and New Zealanders) hold most precious against a government that does not respect or understand them or one that simply finds the constitution "too finely nuanced".

There are weaknesses in the American system. There are causes for concern in the dynamics of current support for the Bush administration and the Republicans generally and it is appropriate to look at them in some detail (but in a later post). It is not without precedent and not the end of freedom, civilisation or the world as we know it. Rumsfield, Cheney and Wolfowitz are no more sinister than Joseph McCarthy. The Southern Baptists are neither more numerous nor more bigoted than in the pre-civil rights era when they were the Southern Democrats. The judges appointed to the Supreme Court in the next years will be eminent jurists (whatever their politics) and certainly no worse than their predecessors who gave us Dredd Scott v Sandford. The current crop of Republican representatives and senators are no more politically opportunistic or constitutionally insensitive than their forebears who tried to impeach the president on spurious grounds barely three years after the death of Lincoln.

They wish to know whether the President has betrayed our liberties or our possessions to a foreign state. They wish to know whether he has delivered up a fortress or surrendered a fleet. They wish to know whether he has made merchandise of the public trust and turned the authority to private gain. And when informed that none of these things are charges, imputed, or even declaimed about, they yet seek further information and are told that he has removed a member of his cabinet.

deja vu n'est ce pas.

The "checks and balances" of the separation of powers is at best an uncertain safeguard as "divided" governments (Republican President with Democrat Congress or vice versa) is by no means the norm and will not apply for at least the first two years of Dubya's second term. There are, however, other important safeguards.

The constitution limits what laws Congress may pass and what executive actions the President may take. The government cannot pass the Family Marriage Amendment (outlawing same-sex marriage) without a 2/3 majority in both houses of congress and ratification by 38 states. He may be able to start another war but will struggle to gain the congressional and public support he got for Afghanistan and Iraq - besides the US military have their hands full enough already.

The States have considerable autonomy and the federal government's role is circumscribed by the constitution. Bush may block federal funding for stem cell research but the State of California can (and will) pick up the slack. There will be no need for the "Bicoastian" States to secede or join the "United States of Canada" (Thanks Hans). Their State governments will ensure that life goes on pretty much as it would have under a Kerry presidency.

I don't think there will be a mass exodus of American liberals to Canada or NZ (welcome though they would be). Americans are optimists - perhaps that's the difference that separates them from European Social Democrats. Liberal Americans no less than conservatives are individualist rather than collectivist. They instinctively seek the opportunities of soaring alone above the safety of the flock. And they know that Dubya too will pass.

For that is the greatest safeguard of all. No President can serve more than two terms. Perhaps America can expect four more years of deficits, fiscal mismanagement and inappropriate tax redirection to the rich - but the economy will survive it. Maybe we'll see further encroachments on civil liberties - but they can be repealed. Maybe we'll see further intransigence on global warming - but we already have the numbers for Kyoto and Bush's term ends the same year as the first commitment period starts. Maybe we'll see further military adventurism - but first the US has to disengage from Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps with just a modicum of luck...

And then maybe we'll see some good things. It took Nixon and Kissinger to end the Vietnam war. Is it impossible that Dubka and Sharon might finally find a road to peace in the Middle East? And perhaps Kyoto won't matter if someone invents a technological fix to the global warming problem - cold fusion (ok not in four years), affordable photovoltaics or CO2 sequestration from coal gasification for instance. Who knows? It migh \t even be an American.

Life will go on

2004-11-04T13:59:00.000+13:45

The coin has landed. This time it didn't quite land on its edge although it teetered a bit before it settled down. Nevertheless, while it was in the air the final result remained unpredictable until the final tumble was cut short by the coin hitting the ground. Compared to 2000 the result may seem like a landslide but, in fact, there has been remarkably little change. This is the 15th presidential election since the (2nd world) war and I have summarised the results of these elections on this excel spreadsheet.

Very little has actually changed. Depending on the final outcome in Iowa and New Mexico, Kerry may have actually gained a net state (New Hampshire) but lost a net 7 electoral college votes to reallocation. Ohio and Florida remain in Republican hands by margins far below the MOE of any opinion poll but (this time) clear of the much lower margin of error for an actual election. Nevertheless it is unusual for the electoral college to be particularly close. This will be only the third time since the war that the successful candidate has failed to get 300 electoral votes (the other time was 1976 when Carter defeated Ford by 297 to 241 electoral votes. Past winning Presidents have secured more than 400 electoral votes in 7 of the 15 elections since 1948 and Nixon and Reagan both scored near clean-sweeps when standing as incumbents (1972, 1984).

Bush's popular vote lead looks like about 3%. If this holds up when all the votes are counted if will be an improvement on 2000 (-0.5%) but still the fifth lowest margin since the war and the worst performance by an incumbent president except for Ford, Carter and Bush Snr (who all lost).

Finally the turnout. I couldn't find a source of voting-age populations (or even total populations) for all 15 elections so I've used total populations and assumed 75% are of voting age. That shouldn't be a bad estimate for the period 1980-2004 and should certainly be fine for comparing turnoutd between elections. The 115 million (if that's what the final figure is) is high by US standards but not as high as the hype might suggest. In fact the turnout would seem to be fairly constant at about 50% and the current figure (52%) would be lower than the 1992(Clinton v Bush) and much the same as 1984 (Reagan v Mondale). Heaven help America (or at least the American election boards) if they ever get the 80% turnout we expect for our national elections.

UPDATE
I've now got more up-t-date figures on provisional counts. Final figures could still change a little in either direction but not much. It now looks like the total vote was 120 million and this is being claimed to be 59.6% of eligible vote. I've used % of Voting Age population which gives a slightly lower % (55.8%). This makes the turnout slightly higher than 1992 (55.1% of VAP) and the highest since 1968. With some votes not yet allocated Bush has 59.2 million (51%) and Kerry 55.7 million (48%)which means both candidates have scored moe votes than any other candidate in history. The Electoral College is now down as 286 to 252 though this could still theoretically change.

Redirect for Holden Republic

2004-10-31T19:41:00.000+13:45

My link to The Holden Republic was going to an old site which is not completely updated. On the basis of a quick spot sample I'd say that's also true of most NZ blogs. The followingis the text of an EMail from Lewis.

Hi there,

Yeah the holdenrepublic.orcon.net.nz should be re-directing to my new URL, blogger just kept publishing to the old account, hence the confusion.
So yes, holdenrepublic.org.nz is the right one.
Regards
Lewis Holden

l'État, c’est nous
www.holdenrepublic.org.nz

You might care to check your link.

Religion, Culture and other Disabilities

2004-10-31T13:41:00.000+13:45

The recent case of the Muslim woman who is unwilling to give testimony with her face uncovered presents a complex series of issues which will test the wisdom of the Judge burdened with deciding how to handle the matter. Unfortunately much of the commentary surrounding this case has been distressingly simplistic, insensitive and xenophobic.

It is, of course, a central plank of our justice system that the parties may confront and cross-examine the witnesses who testfy against them. Ideally this should happen in open court, the witness should be fully visible to all parties so that their demeanour and body language may be assessed, and all questions and answers should be subject to the rules of evidence. But there are circumstances where this ideal cannot be attained or can only be attained at an unreasonable cost to the witness.

A quadriplegic patient may exhibit very little "body language" no matter how much of their face and body is visible. In some neuromuscular disorders the patient may have no control of all or most body movements or facial muscles and may be unable to speak normally. Such a patient has no body language and no way of indicating demeanour other than by the content of their answers which may be given via (eg) a blow-tube activated computer screen. In an extreme case a patient may be able to communicate only by a single muscle (eg twitch the left eyelid) and may be able to answer only Yes (one twitch) or No (two twitches). Such a witness would be able to respond only to leading questions whether on direct or cross examination.

All of the above examples provide unavoidable difficulties far more serious than those resulting from a female witness wearing a burqah and yet they would normally be considered competent witnesses. Their testimony would be disallowed only where their mental competence, ability to hear and understand the questions or exercise full conscious control of their "answers" (particularly for the Yes/No example)were in question. The exceptions would require the judge to determine that it was unsafe to allow their testimony under the circumstances - it would not be enough merely to show that the circumstances tilted the playing field for "the games lawyers play".

There are other situations where the difficulies could be resolved but only at a clearly unacceptable cost to the witness. A burn or severe trauma patient with a fully bandaged face or full bodycast would, as a witness, present at least comparable problems to a burqah. The witness could be forced to have the bandage/cast removed while testifying but this would compromise the witness's treatment and such compulsion would be obviously unacceptable. Similarly a severely immune-compromised patient could not be safely forced to appear in open court and would presumably be allowed to testify by video link.

And then there are the vexed circumstances where the damage done to the witness is psychological and is the consequence of religious, cultural, political or idiopathic (nothing to do with savant:)) conviction or psychological condition (eg Acute Anxiety Disorder). In these cases the judge must determine

1) the sincerity of the proclaimed belief / condition
The judge must be satisfied that the condition or belief is genuine. There is no way that either side should be able to use the veil as a tactic to hide a witness that comes across badly.

2) the extent of the damage that will be done to the witness if forced to testify normally

3) the extent to which the pursuit of justice or the position of either side will be damaged if the witness testifies under special conditions (eg veiled)
Note that justice and the interests of either side are not the same thing. Just consider the legal maxim "never ask a question if you don't know the answer". The judge may well wish to give more weight to something that effects the jury's ability to assess the truth than to something that merely complicates he legal tactics of defence or prosecution. But they both matter.

4) the extent to which the pursuit of justice or the position of either side will be damaged if the witnes does not testify at all

5) any means by and the extent to which the damage in (2)-(4) may be mitigated.

The judge will (rightly) pay no attention to -

1) Whether the witness's belief is rational

2) Whether the view is religious, political, cultural or idiopathic

3) Whether a religious view conforms to canon
Theologians may debate how many angels may hide behind a burqah but the law (in the words of Porcius Festus) "will be no judge of such matters"

4) What the Q'ran or any other authority says
Even if you take Q'ran as an inviolable authority you still have to decide what "modestly dressed" means. Ashraf Choudhary, most modern Islamic scholars, Jacques Chirac, this writer and no doubt, dear reader, yourself believe that it does not imply a full burqah but the only relevant belief is that of the woman herself.

5) Whether the witness's beliefs are indigenous, majority, minority or unique
need you ask why?

6) What consideration Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia or any other islamic country would extend to the cultural sensibilities of Kiwis
Our concern is for New Zealand values

I am confident the judge will use his best efforts to balance his duties to protect the welfare of the witness, the pursuit of justice and the right of the accused to a fair trial. In doing so he may (presumably) consult both counsel for an agreed solution (eg witness testifies unveiled on video link and is cross-examined by a female lawyer. Her face is pixilated out on the view shown to everyone else.) None of these principles are, however, absolutes and a blind adherence to standard procedure is not necessary. Witnesses do suffer discomfort - the judge can only ensure that the level of discomfort is not unacceptable or more than necessary. The defendant's right to a fair trial is fundamental and anything that makes it harder for defence counsel to assess the witness's demeanour and body language (including the fact that the witness is from a foreign culture) does some damage to that right. There is, however, a certain threshold quantum of such damage which must be inflicted before the trial can be considered unfair or the verdict unsafe. If it were not so rape victims and children would not be allowed to testify behind screens or by video link and the likes of Stephen Hawking or the late Christopher Reeve could never be considered competent witnesses in a criminal trial.

The extent to which a witness for the prosecution appearing in a burqah, behind a screen or on a video link depends on the specific circumstances of the case and there is no automatic assumption that a burqah would preclude a fair trial. If (as it seems) uch a decision would break new ground in New Zealand law then I would certainly not be surprised to see it decided in a higher court if a consensus decision is not reached.

Where are they now?

2004-10-29T15:37:00.000+13:45

In 1994 Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres were jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize for concluding the Declaration of Principles for peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine. A year later (and just 9 years ago by the Hebrew calendar) Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a national terrorist's bullet and today Yasser Arafat lies critically ill in a Paris hospital. Perhaps the old fox may elude even this most implacable of enemies but, if it is not to be, then he too must, like his Jewish counterpart, leave the conclusion of his legacy to his successors.

The original peace proposal came about because both sides recognised that they had fought too long, that no peoples should have to endure 50 years of war, death and the bitterness that bred more war, death and bitterness. That was ten years ago. Too much water has flowed under the bridge in that time. And far too much blood.

The Knesset has finally moved to implement that peace agreement (at leat in Gaza). It is not enough but it is an important beginning. That move has divided Ariel Sharon from much of his Likud party but brought him closer to mainstream Israeli opinion and to the Labour Party. It is fitting that Peres may have a more important role in the end-game (if such it proves to be) of the peace process he began. Liberals may find it less palatable that Sharon should be at its centre but that is not important. All that matters is that peace is achieved with honour and goodwill to both sides. It matters little by whose hands.

It is of course too soon to expect peace, but it is not too late to hope. Not just because that peace will make the whole world safer but because the people of Israel and Palestine have already suffered far too much. May that peace be the legacy of those who have died, the reward of those who bring it to pass and the hope of future generations of all nations in the middle east and in the world.

In Defence of STV

2004-10-26T13:21:00.000+13:45

This morning's DomPost has a somewhat intemperate if not positively spleenful diatribe by Michael Bassett entitled "STV is flawed madness". Leaving aside the vexed question of whether flawless madness would be preferable, it seems to me that the practical problems encountered with STV are not the end of the world. They ought not to have happened but they have been overcome without injury to the democratic process. The people have voted. The votes have been counted and the counts have been audited. The mayors and councillors elected by STV may, indeed, justly claim a more legitimate mandate than that of, for example, John Banks in 2001 under FPP. Experience with FPP voting technologies in the USA show that it could be much worse.

Bassett's article lists a series of advances that had been made over the years

We fought for a standard system of enrolment at the central and local levels instead of maintaining local rolls where many names were duplicated and others were missing altogether. We fought for a ward system so that locals were guaranteed involvement in decision-making that affected them. And when voter turnout to polling booths dipped below 10% in some areas by the early 1980s, we introduced postal voting. Participation rates leapt, then subsided to levels that are still many times higher than in the good old days. Labour's goal was always to make the system as simple and local as possible to encourage people to participate in civic affairs.

and then asks

What on earth decided the present Labour Government to play games with these basic principles in the recent election?

This is pretty misleading. The change to STV (where it happened) had no effect whatever on enrolment, wards or postal voting. Perhaps the author only intended the question to apply to the last "principle" (keep the system as simple as possible) and the ambiguity was accidental but then again - perhaps it wasn't.

Michael Bassett's specific objections to STV are that it is too complex, too many spoiled or blank ballots, the particular version used in NZ was the wrong one, second preferences of elected candidates get less weight than those of excluded candidates and that the final results were incomprehensible. I suspect, however, that his real problem is with any proportional system that threatens the two party monopoly.

STV is not, of itself, particularly complex. It has been used successfully in Australia and Ireland (inter alia) for many years. I don't believe that New Zealanders are any less intelligent than Irishmen or Aussies (even if we do earn a little less). Michael Bassett is, however, making a reasonable point when he questions "running different voting systems at the same election" particularly when the STV and FPP ballots looked very similar and often occurred on the same page. It would be interesting to know whether spoiled ballots for the DHBs were higher for those centres where everything else used FPP. Of course, the risk of spoiled ballots for STV depends on how rigorous the rules for valid voting are. If all the measures suggested here were adopted I suspect that the overwhelming majority of those spoilt ballots would have been valid.

Blank ballots are a slightly different matter. A voter might conceivably be put off voting by the perceived complexity of the system but a blank ballot will be generated only when a voter votes for one local body (or referendum) but not another on the same sheet of paper. If they didn't vote for anything they wouldn't (usually) send their vote in. It is hardly surprising that the DHB elections (no wards, no real power and large numbers of candidates the voter has never heard of) would be prime candidates for blank ballots from electors who voted for their Mayor or City Council on the same sheet. this would have happened regardless of the system but, in fact, all DHBs were STV.

In any event the total impact of spoiled ballots, blank ballots and reduced turnout appears minor. The Wellington mayoral election (under STV) had 268 informal votes and 1046 blank ballots out of 53,483 papers returned while the neighbouring Hutt City mayoral election (under FPP) had 83 informal votes and 1282 blank ballots out of 26,018 papers returned. The informal votes are a slightly higher percentage under STV (0.5%) then FPP (0.3%) but it's a pretty small number in any case. The blank ballots were a higher percentage in Hutt City (5%) than Wellington (2%) but this may be due to reasons other than the voting system. The total informal votes for councilors (summed across wards) were about double those for mayor at 563 (1.1%) in Wellington and 171 (0.7%) in Hutt City.

There are major differences in counting procedure for STV electing only one candidate per "electorate" and STV electing several candidates per electorate. The voting procedure is exactly the same in either case but in the single member instance only the lowest polling candidates are excluded. This makes it effectively equivalent to (but quicker than) the exhaustive ballot system used in the French presidential elections or by most political parties to elect their parliamentary leaders. It is also the system used in Australian lower house elections. With multi-member electorates (eg council wards) STV redistributes both the total vote of excluded (lowest polling) candidates and the "surplus" votes of elected candidates and is an (approximately) proportional representation system. This is the system used for the Australian senate.

There are only very minor differences in the way votes can be counted within either of these variants (single member or multi-member) and there is nothing unusual about the specific calculation algorithm adopted for New Zealand. Nor, to the best of my knowledge, was the electoral calculator module responsible for any of the counting problems encountered.

The claim that second preferences of votes for winners counted for less than those of winners is specious. Under STV every vote always counts as a full vote in total. If the quota is 2000 and candidate A receives 3000 votes in the first round then only A's surplus (1000) votes is redistributed. This means that A's 3000 votes will all be distributed but will count as 0.33 votes each. If you voted for A then your vote counts as 0.67 for A (minimum to elect A) and 0.33 for whoever you gave your second preference to. If A had been the lowest scoring candidate with (say) 300 votes then A would be excluded and all 300 votes would be redistributed. A vote for A then counts as 0.0 for A and 1.0 for the second preference. Under FPP a vote for a very popular candidate (who will get in anyhow) or a very unpopular candidate (who has no hope) will both be "wasted".

The last claim - that the presentation of results is confusing - is fair enough. All the required information is available from the calculator output, it's just a matter of presentation. David Farrar gives an excellent example of how this can be done. Hopefully city councils and mainstream media will follow this lead.

However, it is the second last paragraph of the Bassett article that really got to me

The early Labour Party experimented with proportional voting at local elections , then reeled back when they saw the results.

I don't know what the historical incident referred to is but the only legitimate goal of any voting system is to fairly reflect the choice of the voters. Not (not EVER) to produce an outcome acceptable to Labour or any other political party.

Sanctuary and Politics

2004-10-19T16:35:00.000+13:45

In 1849 a philosopher was expelled from Belgium and France because of subversive views and political activities and came to Great Britain. Despite pressure from Prussia and other european nations the British government refused to expel him because they believed in freedom of expression. The British government was no more enamoured of these philosophies than their european neighbours nor were under any covenant or obligation to accept this refugee. They simply stuck to their liberal principles and did "the right thing". Today Karl Marx's grave is a tourist attraction in Highgate Cemetry.

In 2002 an Islamic politician and scholar, expelled from Belgium, France and Switzerland for alleged political activities came to New Zealand. The NZ Refugee Status Appeals Authority examined the previous allegations against him and rejected them. The SIS (under pressure from undisclosed other countries)issued a security risk certificate allowing him to be deported in spite of the RSAA ruling. Ahmed Zaoui has remained in prison since that time amidst repeated litgation over that certificate and its review. During this litigation it has become increasingly apparent that alleged secret evidence held by the SIS contains nothing of substance beyond the allegations that have already been discredited by the RSAA.

The Sock Thief and The Whig have pointed to a Herald article on Zaoui's party (the FIS) and suggest that he should be deported because his politics are objectionable. Lord Russell (an altogether nobler Whig) would have found Karl Marx's politics no less objectionable and a far more credible threat but put human decency, freedom of expression and a conviction that dangerous ideas should be confronted by counter arguments rather than suppression first. I do not believe that this (or any recent) NZ government is any less committed to human rights or freedom of expression and we have the additional argument of international obligations under the Refugee Convention. What is on trial is whether they have the moral courage of their earlier British counterpart.

The New Zealand Way

2004-10-16T17:33:00.000+13:45

No Right Turn has an interesting post on the Third Way. I think it's interesting to consider this in a New Zealand context given our much younger history. First, however, let me acknowledge that I am speaking only of the post-treaty history of NZ government economic and social policy. It includes the Maori perspective only insofar as Maori have been a part of those policies. I accept that there is an important Maori story of a much longer history but it is a different story and one others may be much better qualified to tell. There is also a Maori dimension to New Zealand's future which I do not specifically address in this post. This is in part because I will deal with it later and in part because the latest opinion polls give me some hope that Orewa was an iceberg we will safely negotiate.

The Blair/Schroder pamphlet NRT links to contains the following quote -

The politics of the New Centre and Third Way is about addressing the concerns of people who live and cope with societies undergoing rapid change - both winners and losers. In this newly emerging world, people want politicians who approach issues without ideological preconceptions and who, applying their values and principles, search for practical solutions to their problems through honest well-constructed and pragmatic policies. Voters who in their daily lives have to display initiative and adaptability in the face of economic and social change expect the same from their governments and politicians.

Compare this to Michael King's description of our first Liberal government (1891-1912)

Their unifying belief was in a dominant role for central government in the nation's affairs, but on pragmatic rather than ideological grounds. Private enetrprise was weak in New Zealand. Only the government could assemble sufficient capital to extend the country's transport and communications infrastructure.

The legacy of the Liberal government included a strong State sector (12 new departments), land reform (large stations broken up into smaller holdings), income tax, compulsory arbitration and targeted old-age and widow's pensions and universal suffrage. Compulsory free secular education had already been established in 1877.

The seeds of a centralised "Welfare State" were thus sown before the turn of the 20th century and the basic economic model served for the best part of a century. The changes brought in were a response to the opportunities afforded by refrigeration enabling New Zealand farms to export meat and dairy produce rather than just wool. The more intensive farming was conducive to smaller farms worked by their owners rather than large stations with separate land-owning and labouring classes. The class system was thus largely strangled at birth in New Zealand unlike many other new world countries where it merely shifted to a different elite.

The welfare state was greatly extended by the first Labour Government in 1935 but the changes were changes of degree rather than of kind and the motivation of Savage, Fraser and Nash was no less pragmatic than that of Ballance and Seddon. Again quoting Michael King -

Real progress was not made until the [NZ Labour] Party abandoned its programme of socialisation, particularly the threat to nationalise land and until it had convinced the electorate at large that it was not made up of fanatical reformers. By the time Labour took office in 1935 it had become apparent that the party, like most of its supporters, wanted to 'improve capitalism, not ... abolish it'.

The National Party eventually became the government in 1949 and ruled for all but six of the next 35 years but did not reverse any material part of the Social Democratic framework they inherited. The Muldoon government (1975-1984) was arguably the most interventionist government in New Zealand's history.

The owner-operated farm remained the driving force behind the New Zealand economy prior to the UK joining the European Union in 1973 (and the expiry of subsequent transitional arrangements for NZ). The Social Democratic model created by the Liberal and Labour governments proved an effective tool for managing this economy and ensuring that the benefits of our relative prosperity were widely enjoyed. The model was left largely intact by successive National and Labour governments and full employment, social security, free health and education were widely perceived to be part of our national birthright.

But this economic model could not last forever. Improved technology reduced farm labour requirements while New Zealand's overall population expanded. An increasing urban population created demand for more imports than could be financed from farm commodity exports. Much of the marginal land enthusiastically converted to pastoral farming (often with government subsidies) proved to be unsuitable for sustainable conversion. Even, without the loss of the UK market the need for economic diversification would have asserted itself. The UK accession to the European Union, precipitated our problems and a crisis was reached in 1984 under the newly elected Labour government of David Lange.

The government response to the crisis was with a series of measures that could well be characterised as a neoliberal revolution. Certainly these measures are classic "Washington Consensus". Specifically -

1) The exchange rate was floated
2) Income tax rates were reduced and GST introduced
3) Import controls were abolished and Tariffs reduced
4) Micro-economic controls and regulations were relaxed
5) Government assets were privatised

The supporters of these reforms within the Lange government were split between ideologues (eg Roger Douglas) who saw these moves as a first step on a neoliberal highway and pragmatists (David Lange) who saw them as a "necessary evil". This split became highly publicised and contributed to the government's defeat in 1990.

The incoming National government was similarly split between ideologues (Ruth Richardson) and pragmatists (Jim Bolgier). They introduced a second round of (generally harsher) reforms including -

1) Benefit cuts
2) The Fiscal Responsibility Act
3) The Employment Contracts Act
4) State spending cuts
5) More Asset sales.

Again, these were pretty much one-off measures. The election of a minority governmen in 1993 and tne subsequent introduction of MMP made it highly unlikely they would progress further even if the natural pragmatism and caution of Jim Bolger did not. The Clark government has rolled back some of the changes made by Douglas and Richardson and there is no immediate prospect of NZ making any further radical moves to the right economically.

We have much freer trade, a more competitive and less regulated economy then we had before 1984. We have an Employment Relations Act which is more Worker and Union-friendly then the ECA but is a very far cry from the regime we had before the ECA (Compulsory Unionism, National Awards, Compulsory Arbitration). We have had an eonomic system based on pragmatism but that has looked awfully like Social Democracy for almost a century followed by a brief period of "neoliberal reform". For the last decade (or very near) we have seen what may be a new pragmatic economic consensus emerging. This new concensus strikes a balance between fair redistribution of income and low tax rates not greatly different to that described as third way in England or Germany.

New Zealand must now trade in the global market to survive. We must adapt to those economic niches where small size and isolation are not too great a disadvantage and fully exploit those areas wheere we have natural advantages. We must produce a widely diversified range of high value products rather than a small number of bulk commodities. This means that we can never return to the economy or society we had before 1985. But just how much do we need to change?

The reforms between 1985 and 1993 include many measures which were obviously necessary and which are very unlikely to be reversed. These measures mainly relate to regulation. The pre-1985 regulatory regimes seem quite bizarre when we look at them now from a mere twenty years perspective. I cannot see that we will ever return to licensing milk vendors, granting import licences from government departments or requiring Japanese car manufacturers to smash the tops of the spark plugs on the engines they exported to New Zealand assembly plants so that they broken plugs could then be drilled out and replaced with legitimate Kiwi-made ones.

The reforms also included committment to greater transparency of government accounts, more rational control of departmental expenditure and separation of responsibility for monetary policy. Experience would suggest that these changes were mainly positive and they are unlikely to be reversed.

Changes to labour laws were also dramatic. Under the old law union membership was compulsory and union coverage was rarely contestable. Wages and conditions were defined in national awards negotiated between the union and an employer's representative (or imposed by arbitration). The Employment Contracts Act changed all these practices and adopted a model in which the employer-employee relationship becomes a simple contract (subject to statutory minimum conditions and the right to collective agreements). The ECA was repealed by the present government and replaced by the Employment Relations Act. Despite the orgy of ink-letting that surrounded this last move the ERA and ECA differ only in detail and both are light years away from the old system. Compulsory unionism and national awards seem most unlikely to return.

The top rate of income tax varied from 46 to 67% over the 1948-85 period. (Before 1948 the top rate of income applied to a taxpayer's entire income rather than just the portion over the threshold making comparisons difficult). For most of the period the rate was over 60%. In the reforms this rate was reduced to 33% but this was partly offset by the introduction of GST. A new top rate of 39% was introduced in 2000. The tax cuts were financed by reductions in government expenditure including social welfare benefits but the basic structure of the Welfare State remained. New Zealand is a less equal country than it was twenty tears ago but not greatly so. The "Working for Families" package may well restore much of this equality as it comes into force. New Zealand continues to recognise the need to look after the unfortunate and the value of state-provided health and education services. We also recognise that these things have to be paid for and that their is a balance to be struck between lower taxes and better services. The only real dispute is over where that balance is.

The final feature of the reforms was asset sales. For various historical reasons the New Zealand government owned a lot of assets (Banks, Airline, Railroads, Hydro stations, Telecommunications, Postal services, etc) which didn't need to be owned by the state. Many of these were sold off - partly for cosmetic book-keeping reasons and partly for an ideological belief that the private sector could manage these assets better. Subsequently the Government has reacquired a part share of Air NZ and the railway track as a result of distressingly clear proof that the private sector couldn't manage them better. It's likely that the government will continue to take a pragmatic and ad hoc approach to the question of monopoly regulation and state ownership. There is little enthusiasm for renationalisation and little left to privatise.

The New Zealand (Pakeha) economy and society between 1891 and 1985 could be characterised as Social Democratic but was really a pragmatic (within a general humanitarian liberal ethos) adaptation to particular external market conditions that are no longer with us. The reforms between 1985 and 1993 could be seen as a neoliberal (or even neoconservative) revolution. That was, no doubt, the intention of some of the architects and would have been the result of a continued trend in that direction. It seems more likely, however, that the reforms were a "jump to the right" rather than a change of direction. That we will now travel forward with an economy much better adapted to trading on a rapidly evolving global market but with a society, direction and values no less compassionate than before. This may or may not be the "third way" but to most New Zealander's it is "our way".

Dear Helen

2004-10-14T16:38:00.000+13:45

The following is the text of an open EMail I have sent to the Prime Minister -

Prime Minister

Last night TVNZ screened an item on the continued incarceration of Ahmed Zaoui and his possible deportation from New Zealand. While this documentary added little new to the debate it reinforced a growing sense of unease among many New Zealanders.

Such unease is inevitable when a man can be incarcerated for two years without being charged with any crime; when the government strives to overturn the carefully considered decision of the Refugee Status Appeal Authority and other courts and above all when the case depends on evidence so secret that ( it is asserted) its credibility, substance or even existence cannot be tested in open court.

The unconscionable time Ahmed Zaoui has spent in prison is now largely beyond the government's power to rectify (provided the government's latest appeal and the Inspector General's review are dealt with as expeditiously as possible) but, even at this late stage, freeing him (under whatever consitions are necessary) would mitigate the injustice.

The RSAA determined that Ahmed Zaoui was entitled to refugee status under the Refugee Convention and reached this determination after fully considering his convictions in and deportations from France, Belgium and Switzerland; his alleged breaches of NZ immigration law and the unclassified summary of evidence against him presented by the SIS. The only circumstance under which this decision might be overturned without offence to due process is if the classified material disclosed new credible and substantial new evidence which would probably have reversed the RSAA decision had it been available to them. The strictures the Court of Appeal has placed on the Inspector General's review seem to do little more than give effect to this requirement.

It seems unlikely that the Supreme Court will have any more enthusiasm than the Appeal Court for the position that a secret administrative review can lightly or narrowly overturn the open decision of a judicial body and, to that extent, the Crown's appeal may not be a bad thing but the potential for further delay in a case that has already taken far too long outweighs the advantages of having our highest court adjudicate on the Inspector General's powers. Besides the likelihood of a general constitutional review (which can hardly fail to address the Crown's exceptional abilities to restrict fundamental liberties) raises the possibility that any such decision may subsequently require relitigation.

It is, of course, the matter of secret evidence that goes to the heart of our unease in this matter. This unease is not helped by the fact that no credible or material new allegations have been put forward following the Appeal Court's earlier ruling that Ahmed Zaoui was entitled to a summary of allegations against him. Nor has anyone privy to the evidence made an unequivocal statement to the effect that such evidence exists. Nor have they revealed the nature of the alleged security risk to NZ. If, as seems likely, it is just a matter of how NZ (or the SIS) is viewed by foreign secret services then let us be viewed as a country that puts the values we are defending before the mechanics of defending them. The French secret service, at least, know we are not as soft a touch as they thought.

The present law for secret evidence means the Government is, in effect, saying to the people "Trust us, we are your guardians". I would trust your government before some of its predecessors but any government truly worthy of that trust would know better than to ask for it. If I may take the liberty of paraphrasing your own words -

If we relax our vigilance and turn a blind eye to secret trials by a government we trust, with what moral authority do we reassert it when those same measures are taken by a future government we do not trust?

Prime Minister, I was proud to hear our country playing the part of a friend to our allies that was prepared to tell them they were taking the wrong turn. It is in the same spirit that I write to beg that we do not defend our country by abndoning the values that make it worth defending.

I have posted a copy of this letter to my blog and would be happy to publish any reply with your permission.

UPDATE

Reply received as follows

Kia ora,

Thank you for your e-mail message. It is difficult to respond to
the many e-mail messages received. We do however read
everything that is sent and if a unique issue has been raised or
new information presented we will respond as soon as possible.

Naku noa, na

Dinah Okeby
Private Secretary

Fair enough.

The Brain Drain

2004-10-14T10:56:00.000+13:45

Was David Richwhite part of the "Brain Drain" of NZs brightest and richest who left because of oppressive red tape, high compliance costs and excessive tax burden?

The Gunsmiths of Peshawar

2004-10-13T16:41:00.000+13:45

The Michael Palin documentary last night showed a fascinating insight into a part of the World unfamiliar to most Westerners. His travels along the Himalayas started off in Peshawar (North-West Pakistan) close to the Khyber Pass and the border with Afghanistan. It was not surprising that one of the main local industries was guns but the numerous small "Mum and Dad" gunshops were not selling the wares of perfidious European gun-runners. Everything they sold was made locally by hand.

But these weapons were a very far cry from the handmade guns associated with PNG Raskols or Solomon Island warlords. They were made to the same specifications (and I suspect to much better quality) as their official military equivalents. You could buy anything from a hand-crafted AK47 to a micro-miniaturised "James Bond" gun concealed in a pen.

If anyone ever manages to fabricate a weapon of mass destruction from a few aluminium pipes then, for my money, it will be the gunsmiths of Peshawar.

Superman's Last Battle

2004-10-13T14:10:00.000+13:45

In 1995 Christopher Reeve was in the prime of his life both personally and professionally. He was in his early forties and had every expectation of living a further four decades, of further building on a distinguished career, of growing old gracefully with his chosen partner and watching his grandchildren grow up. Then a cruel accident left him totally paralysed and denied him those most basic of hopes which we all so lightly take for granted.

Christopher later admitted that he contemplated suicide in those first dark days and who would blame him? What better example could those who argue for "death with dignity" demand than a once-active man dependent on a machine for his breath and on the hands of others for every bodily function? But Christopher chose to "fight the unbeatable" rather than to accept the unacceptable and, in the nine years that followed, he left an imprint on this world deeper than the previous forty could ever make.

In the years following his accident Christopher Reeve devoted his life to promoting research into the palliative and therapeutic treatment of paralysis. His considerable fame and personal resources were matched by his willingness to devote his time and efforts to these causes without regard to the limitation or personal cost his condition imposed on those efforts. The practical results were considerable. The Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, The Reeve-Irvine Resarch Center and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center remain as important players in the battle against spinal cord injuries and disease. His lobbying has led to increases in federal funds going to spinal cord research.

But Christopher's greatest contribution has been as an inspirational example. His courage gives hopes to many thousands of others. His fight has given him only nine more years but they are precious years shared with a loving wife and family and with the world. Above all he has shown us that even the totally paralysed may know a purpose and quality of life finer than most able-bodied will ever know.

Why not Laurel and Hardy

2004-10-12T16:40:00.000+13:45

Is it just a sign of cumulative Anno Domini or is there some other reason why noone else has commented on the fact that John Howard's likely successors are Tim Abbot and Peter Costello.

Core Human Rights (III)

2004-10-11T15:39:00.000+13:45

I see that Dave agrees with me that freedom from discrimination is not a core human right (see earlier posts here and on No Right turn. My position is based on a specific view of core (or basic) human rights as the sort of thing we would like to see entrenched in a Bill of Rights rather than as ordinary legislation. They represent the boundary that separates, not the compassionate from the unfeeling or the social democrat from the neoliberal society but the acceptable from the unacceptable, the free from the totalitarian, the marginally civilised from the totally barbarous.

These rights are universal and, in practice, laissez faire. In granting them the state merely undertakes not to actively deprive its citizens of those rights or to allow others to do so. There is no undertaking that citizen's will be able to exercise these rights nor promise to facilitate them. The right to life does not, for example, confer immortality or even a promise of free medical care. Nor does the right to work guarantee a job.

Discrimination may of course be a breach of basic human rights if, for example, the state makes it unlawful for a negro to live in a certain suburb (as happened under apartheid). Similarly if a group of vigilantes were permitted to pressure the landlords in a suburb not to rent to negroes we might argue that this is also a breach of the same basic human right. If, however, no pressure is put on anyone but there happens to be a popular prejudice against letting to negroes then the net effect may be much the same. The state could prevent this by passing a law similar to the NZ Human Rights (or Race Relations) Act which makes it illegal for landlords to discriminate on the basis of race. It is not, however, immediately obvious that the state should pass such a statute or exactly what form that statute should take. If the state were to pass such a law it needs to consider

(1) whether a general prejudice which significantly impairs a negroes ability to obtain housing (and choose where they live), in fact, exists.

(2) whether the legislation proposed will overcome this problem

(3) whether an alternative policy would be more effective.

Failure to consider these points could mean the state was in breach of Article 29(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by unnecessarily restricting the landlord's exercise of property rights. Given this complexity it would be harsh to argue that a state was breaching basic human rights merely because they failed to pass such an act.

We can also argue that the right to join another person in a relationship and to formalise that relationship is a fundamental human right. Certainly it was a serious breach of human rights when the old NZ law imprisoned same-sex male couples for exercising this right (or just having casual sex) but that law is now repealed. Under current NZ law only different sex couples may be legally married but any couple may consider hemselves married, call their union a marriage, associate with friends who recognise them as married, join a church which recognises and blesses ther union as a marriage and sign a contract agreeing that their relationship is subject to the provisions of the marriage act. The maximum difference any change to the law can make (and the CUB doesn't go that far) is to have the law formally recognise their marriage (many opponents of gay marriages still won't).

The present law does discriminate against same sex couples, if only because of the greater trouble they need to go to to have their union recognised, but I don't believe it constitutes a "Basic Human Right". The Race Relations and Human Rights Act are desirable if not essential legislation (at least in NZ today) but they are less fundamental than the Bill of Rights. The CUB is also desirable, "flagpole" legislation and, if passed will place New Zealand in the forefront of liberal democracies. Should we allow fundamental breaches of Human Rights by returning Ahmed Zaoui to torture or death in Algeria (or leaving it to Malaysia to provide him the protection that was our responsibility under the refugee convention) we attack the foundation of human rights in a way 1000 CUBs will not redeem. Perhaps history will view this as an abberration of a mostly decent society but might we not equally justly be lumped in with the USA, Australia and the other victims of terrorist paranoia as part of the decade when the West forgot their values.

Waiouru Initiations

2004-10-08T14:14:00.000+13:45

Recent reports of "cadet abuse" at Waiouru have produced strongly polarized responses. Left-wing bloggers such as No Right Turn have reacted with horror. Right wing blogs such as SageNZ take the view that it's all part of turning cadets into real men. When I first heard the news three words lit up in capitals in my mind STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT.
This experiment showed how easy it was to corrupt good people into committing horrific acts simply by placing them in an environment where such behaviour was expected and permitted.

Now I'm quite happy to concede that the staff at Waiouru were skilled professionals and that they treated their charges harshly but properly. I'm willing to believe that the "sadistic" sergeant instructor is doing no more than he has to to bring his recruits up to the necessary level of toughness and ultimately to help them stay alive. But the instructor is an expert. He knows how far to go. And he doesn't rape or broom his trainees. Or bash their testicles to the tune of Jingle Balls. And anyone who simply hasn't got what it takes winds up out of the army, not out of the human race.

The problem was letting untrained cadets exercise unsupervised authority over younger cadets. The reported stories are exactly what you would expect to happen. The army was at fault, not for any abusive behaviour by the staff but because of inadequate supervision and a culture of silence which inhibited cadets reporting abuses to staff and proper investigation of those complaints that were reported.

Hopefully things have now changed and the army no longer allows this sort of abuse to happen. Whether the culture of secrecy and closing ranks to protect wrongdoers from the scrutiny of outsiders has also been discarded remains to be seen.

More on Human Rights

2004-10-08T13:40:00.000+13:45

I see No Right Turn takes issue with my previous post on the Human Rights Act. I suspect we differ only on a point of semantics and not one I would go to the wall for. I would like to avoid confusion between the "basic human rights" which I believe we would both like to see strengthened and entrenched in a new Bill of Rights Act and anti-discrimination measures. NRT asserts that "Freedom from Discrimination is a core human right" and of course it is, as is the right not to be raped, murdered or robbed. But as NRT states

There is however one significant difference between freedom from discrimination and other human rights. Where freedom of expression and the right not to be tortured etc are primarily about how people are treated by their government, freedom from discrimination or the right to participate in society is really all about how people are treated by each other. This explains the different legal approach - while it's fine to lay down broad principles (such as those in the BORA) to guide and bind government action, law aimed at individuals and backed by possible criminal penalties needs to be a lot more specific. And so we get legislation like the Human Rights Act, designed to protect and enable a core right, rather than simply affirm it.

Precisely, but so many laws are designed to protect and enable our rights rather than simply affirm them. So we have the Crimes Act to protect us from rape or murder and the Race Relations Act to protect us from racial discrimination. Why not the "Unlawful Discrimination Act" to outlaw the other forms of discrimination.

Real Human Rights

2004-10-07T16:07:00.000+13:45

I have long felt uneasy about the name we give the Human Rights Act and the Human Rights Commission. It's not that I disagree with the act or institution per se. I'm just not sure that the issue they deal with (unlawful discrimination) is really a "Human Rights" issue. Not at least compared to the rights to life, liberty, due process, freedom of expression, etc. Are we devaluing the currency in applying this term too liberally? At least, I used to think, real Human Rights are not an issue in NZ so maybe it's OK to use the term more broadly. It was a wake-up call to read Dave's post at BigNews on Positive Human Rights Culture. Dave points out that the Government's treatment of Ahmed Zaoui is a serious breach of real Human Rights and takes issue with the Government calling the CUB evidence of a "positive human rights culture".

Now, I don't know to what extent my views differ from Dave's on the background issues. I support the CUB (and gay marriage), I believe prisoners should have recourse to due process when mistreated (but much better not be mistreated in the first place) and should not be subject to retrospective legislation (see previous post). Subject to certain reservations about free speech, I support the Human Rights and Race Relations Acts. But I agree with Dave that we should reserve the term Human Rights to real Human Rights issues. To do otherwise makes abuses less visible and eternal vigilance more difficult and less certain of success.

Our anti-discrimination legislation prohibits certain forms of discrimination on the basis that (in New Zealand today) the legal limitation of the discriminator's rights by this legislation is more than balanced by the practical limitation to the victim's ability to exercise their rights which would occur in the absence of the legislation. This is a pragmatic decision and in another society or at another time we might choose to outlaw quite different forms of discrimination. Under the present law we may not discriminate against employees, residential tenants or in the provision of essential services on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, political views or age but we may discriminate on the basis of star sign, hobbies, hair colour, height, weight or breast size unless these are held to be surrogates for race, gender etc. The law presumably considers that systematic discrimination on these grounds is unlikely and that for every boss who would seek to hire a personal secretary with a 38C bust there is another whose wife would hire him a 30A. The rules apply in only one direction. A person averse to working for Jews, renting a house from an ACT supporter or shopping at an Indian grocery may indulge their prejudices with impunity.

Real human rights are based on fundamental principles and apply universally to all times and societies. We rarely have difficulty in agreeing on these principles. Sometimes we may not like the result when these principles are applied to specific cases but that is because our gut reactions are not thought through. Mature reflection will show us that a compensation award to criminals is a consequence not of a bad law or an activist judge, but of prison officers behaving badly. And that's why we need to uphold human rights and the rule of law - unless we would have our own rights conditional on the gut reactions of others. It's why we should enshrine them in a stengthened and entrenched Bill of Rights. And it's why we should stop confusing it with perfectly good but non-universal legislation.

Prisoner Compensation

2004-10-05T16:42:00.000+13:45

I see from No Right Turn that the Government has announced its policy on Prisoner Compensation. The policy announcement appears to address two separate issues.

(1) How to prevent prisoners getting compensation payments or failing that making absolutely certain they don't benefit from them.

(2) How to try and get money for victims of crimes when perpetrators "come into money"

The first part of this policy deserves all the opprobium NRT heaps on it but nonetheless contains a kernel of sound policy. In fact, if you strip away all the excess spite, fearmongering and verbiage youare left with a very sound policy reproduced in full below -

"Stopping the breaches is the most effective way of stopping compensation payments"

Unfortunately much of the rest of the policy runs counter to this nugget of common sense. Apparently it will be ok for corrections staff to break the Human Rights Act, Privacy Act and the Bill of Rights provided the breaches are not "exceptional cases". (Exceptional for whom). And even then nothing happens if they can stop the prisoner complaining "at the earliest opportunity".

Not surprisingly we need to spread the net a bit wider for the second part of the proposal.

Victims will of course be able to bring civil claims for damages not only when the offender receives state compensation but also for any other windfall gains such as inheritance, the proceeds of any book written, or even winning lotto

Should a prisoner gain compensation the government will suspend the statute of limitations, hold the money in trust for any victim that may bring a successful claim and "take measures" to assist the victims bring their claims.

Now I don't have any problem with victims getting compensation whenever possible but this issue has nothing to do with prisoner compensation. The victim of a criminal who is sentenced to a prison where they obey the rules is no less deserving than a victim whose attacker is sent to the Kiwi version of Abu Ghraib. We have long recognised with accident compensation that adversarial damages claims are a much more effective way of taking money off defendants than delivering it to complainants. Why then is this the preferred model for obtaining victim compensation under this policy?

The statute of limitations is there for a reason. Physical evidence degrades. Exhibits get lost. Witnesses forget or their memories get corrupted. Or they die or leave town. Justice becomes increasingly expensive and increasingly uncertain as time progresses and the law has recognised this by imposing a six year limit for civil cases. None of the above processes stop just because the defendant is in jail.

By far the best time to assess criminal damages is at the original trial. The factors affecting damages will almost always be relevant to sentencing and the additional costs for the trial judge to make a damages (reparation) award are minimal. Under current law the judge often declines to make such an award because the accused lacks the means to pay. This law could easily be changed and the victim would then have the same right as any other creditor (we could even make them a preferred creditor) if the prisoner subsequently receives money from any source. This debt (and other debts) could be protected by amending the insolvency act so that bankrupts going to prison would not be eligible for automatic discharge until three years after release (ie the period of bankruptcy would be "frozen" while the bankrupt was incarcerated). This seems much preferable to overriding a statute of limitations. It also removes any element of retrospection since the compensation order is made by the trial judge at the time of original sentencing.

The Ultimate Trivial Pursuit

2004-10-01T14:31:00.000+12:45

First Against the Wall has a very amusing item on the Sydney police capturing a sock thief at the very time when we are told The Sock Thief is in Sydney. My first reaction was to marvel at the thought of NSW's finest mounting a nocturnal stakeout on a clothesline in the outer wilds of the Mosman and Cremorne district just to crack a case of transtasman petty larceny (hosiery, used). My second was to wonder how Jarrod had come across this remarkable news scoop. And then I realised. He was googling.

Always a believer in empirical verification, I tried a google on "Sock Thief". There was a news item about a sock theft at the top of the list, but in Chicago. There were many other links including a gratifying number to the Blog of we all know and love. I then tried "Sock Thief" Sydney and bingo there was the article at the top of the list (with FATW's post close behind).

BTW had anyone out there heard of Senator Simon Greyshade. Apparently he is a senator, not of the USA but of the Vorzyd sector in a certain faraway long-ago galaxy. His enduring claim to fame is as the original owner of Anakin Skywalker's speeder.

Just Wars, The UN and Iraq

2004-09-30T16:55:00.000+12:45

Following the military intervention by the USA and its allies in Afghanistan and Iraq and the relative inaction of the World in Rwanda and Darfur it seemed appropriate to take a step and look at the general principles governing when or whether armed intervention is permissible (or mandatory).

The Just War

Western civilisation has, over time, built up the concept of "the Just War". The principles of a "Just War" may be summarised as -

1) A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.

2) A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.

3) A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.

4) A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.

5) The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.

6) The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.

7) The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.

or look here for a fuller discussion.

Of course we might choose to dispute some of these. (2) for example, would seem to suggest that it's not OK for a group of citizens to overthrow their legal government and that a government may do what it likes to its people. Most of us would dispute that and accept that there is a point at which a state loses authority and at which rebels opposing a state may gain it and that even in the absence of any organised opposition some human rights violations are so serious that it is not morally tenable to permit them to continue. But we need to think very carefully before acting on these grounds. A clear "moral case" could have been made for intervention in East Timor many years ago (Fretilin had the support of the population and the Indonesian government did not) but had the West done so would the peace (if there was peace) today be better than that achieved by peaceful engagement.

Justification by Outcome

A simpler approach is to say that a war is justified whenever the outcome after the war is better than it would have been without the war. But better for whom and who is to judge this. If every potential belligerent is permitted to judge whether their war will "make the world a better place" then we are simply returning to the law of the jungle. To make matters worse the actual outcome will not be known until it is too late. A belligerent may create an unmitigated disaster and then plead that it wasn't meant to end that way. A war which is "justified by outcome" will meet condition (5) of a just war but may fail all the others.

It is of course possible for evil actions to have good outcomes just as well-intentioned actions all too often cause harm. The eventual outcome in Iraq (and I offer no prediction) will be precisely the same regardless of whether the USA was motivated by a genuine concern for Iraqi human rights or whether it was a naked grab for Iraqi oil with a chance to make a fast 20b for Halliburton as a bonus.

Ideally there should be a supranational body that determines whether the use of force is justified in any circumstance. If we allow the USA to play judge and jury in its own case then we create a future environment where less friendly powers may do the same at our expense.

The United Nations

The United Nations Charter provides us with a quasi-legal framework for resolving disputes peacefully. In article 2 of the charter all member states give up the right to go to war except as mandated by the Security Council under articles 41-49 or for individual or collective self-defence (article 51).

Where action is mandated by the Security Council it is the responsibility of the Council to consider the Just War principles and all other matters. Article 51 is very restrictive and allows action only "if an armed attack occurs against a member state".

The greatest weakness of the United Nations is that the Security Council is subject to a veto by any permanent member. This means that the council is all too often paralysed because a single state holds out against the majority. But it is a weakness that is capable of reform. It just needs enough pressure to be exerted on the permanent members.

Afghanistan

There is no doubt that the war in Afghanistan was a response to an "armed attack on a member state". It might be argued that the government of Afghanistan was not responsible for those attacks and that the response should have been directed specifically against Al Qaeda. It would, however, be militarily impractical to attack Al Qaeda without engaging Afghani forces.

More importantly, the action was duly authorised by the Security Council and so did not weaken the UN or the USA's alliances. We still don't know whether Afghanistan will end up better off than before, but we can hope. Al Qaeda has been weakened and denied a sanctuary but they are far from finished. There is still a good deal of unfinished business. The war in Iraq may well be one of the main reasons why that business is unfinished.

Iraq

The ostensible justification for this war was preemptive self defence. This justification fails to satisfy Article 51 as no "armed attack on a member state" had occurred. It might satisfy the conditions for a "Just War" if there was a general and reasonable belief that Iraq had WMD and was about to use them (or give them to terrorists) and that the risk was too imminent to allow peaceful resolution. We now know that there were no WMD and I, at least, find it very hard to believe that either George Bush or Tony Blair really thought the risk so immediate that they could not risk pursuing a peaceful settlement.

The United Nations resolution 1441 calls on Iraq to comply with earlier resolutions on disarmament and cooperation with weapons inspectors but does NOT authorise the use of force by anyone in the event of non-compliance. The USA tried to get such a clause inserted and failed. The resolution simply requires the inspectors or anyone else to report any further breaches and for the council to reconvene when any such report is received. Further, the fact that Iraq had no WMD means they were in substantive compliance with the earlier resolutions. The breaches were procedural or documentation failures. Iraq's human rights record is irrelevant in this regard none of the resolutions had anything to do with human rights.

That leaves justification by outcome. It may yet be that Iraq will be better off without Saddam (it would after all be hard to be worse off). But this does not necessarily make the action wise or just. We may applaud the Magna Carta while deploring King John or the Bill of Rights while believing in the rightfulness of the Jacobite succession. Had the USA/UK alliance proclaimed "justification by outcome" at the beginning of their adventure they might have retained some of the moral high ground but they said they were going after WMD, and then that they were authorised by resolution 1441. To plead "Justification by Outcome" only when their previous reasons have been discredited has no credibility.

If we are to determine that the war in Iraq is justified by outcome we must look at all the outcomes. The final outcome in Iraq lies in the future but what of the "collateral damage" to the United Nations, to the Western Alliance and the Rule of Law between nations. These may in time be rebuilt and perhaps sooner than the chaos in Iraq is cleared but this will take more good will, humility and wisdom on all sides than has been evident so far. And who is to say that the damage done to the UN was not a partial cause of that body's inability to act in Darfur. If so the casualties of Bush and Blair's adventure stretch far beyond the borders of Iraq.

Green Drug Policy

2004-09-29T16:33:00.000+12:45

The Greens have just announced their new drug policy. The fine details are left open but it's good to see an emphasis on consistent treatment of all drugs (including alcohol and tobacco) and expert evidence-based assessment of which drugs get which legal treatment.

See also

A simple solution for STV confusion

2004-09-28T11:08:00.000+12:45

Holden Republic and Kiwi Pundit have both commented on the confusion caused by STV voting and, in particular, voting with a mixture of STV and FPP. It occurred to me that there could be a simple solution.

STV only needs a sequence and there is no (mathematical) reason why it shouldn't allow ties. I assume that ballots with 3 candidates marked A 2,B 3,C 10 or A 1, B 2, C 2 (and the remaining candidates unmarked) are currently informal but they needn't be. A 2, B 3, C 10 defines exactly the same ranking as A 1, B 2, C 3. A 1, B 2, C 2 defines a similar ranking but with B and C tied for 2nd. The computer program that counts the results could either randomly break the tie or apportion the vote between the tied parties (or whichever of them are still live). A 1, B 2, C 2 would then count as a vote for A in the first round. If A then drops out the vote becomes 0.5 of a vote each for B and C (if both are still live).

Adopting this system means that ticks can still be counted. A voter who ticks A, B and C and leaves the rest unmarked is simply treated as if he had put a 1 beside each ticked candidate.

The N Word

2004-09-27T13:21:00.000+12:45

I was a little disappointed in the 20/20 item on Nuclear power. It came across as a technical case for nuclear power (pushed by a small number of "experts") counterbalanced by an emotional case against (well presented by Rob Donald). In fact, a more balanced polling of technical experts in the New Zealand electricity industry would have revealed a more sceptical view of nuclear energy - at least for New Zealand. It's not that there isn't an urgent need to reduce (or at least hold) CO2 emissions or that replacing fossil fuel power stations by nuclear power won't do that. Expanding or at least retaining nuclear power in the USA, Japan, France and Britain may be a good idea (at least in the short term) but introducing it to New Zealand makes much less sense.

The risk of a Chernobyl accident is not the main issue. Nuclear power plants can be made safe enough (at a price). The waste problem is more serious - humanity simply has no precedent for safeguarding dangerous materials for the millenia required. At the very least it is a substantial external cost which has yet to be paid. The real problem for NZ, however, is one of scale. We simply don't justify the technological infrastructural overheads that are required to establish a nuclear industry.

New Zealand already generates about 1/3 of its electricity by burning fossil fuels. We should certainly not increase our greenhouse gas emissions from this source and we probably need to reduce them over the next decade or two but we do not need to reduce them to zero. There should be little objection to maintaining fossil fuel stations (we already have plenty - or would if the national grid had sufficient capacity) as reserve power for dry years. Not all fossil fuels are equal - coal produces roughly twice as much CO2 per MJoule as oil while natural gas produces about 20% less CO2 than oil.

New Zealand can meet its near-term requirements for electricity by expanding wind power (already happening), energy conservation and biomass. None of this requires any new technology but we might have to review our power pricing objectives to make them all happen. Electricity prices in NZ are only about 60% of the OECD average. This distorts the market so as to inhibit uptake of a number of technologies (heat pumps, solar water heating, wood-fired space heating, double glazing, high-efficiency light bulbs, etc) which have the capacity to replace electricity or otherwise reduce electricity consumption.

The 20/20 programme raised the longer-term prospect for replacing motor fuels with hydrogen (from electrolysis) and suggested that even if we could meet our ordinary needs we couldn't do this without going nuclear. However, if we replace fossil fuels with hydrogen produced by electricity generated from fossil fuel we do not materially increase our overal emissions. Further, hydrogen production provides a new form of energy storage and would let us generate a larger proportion of our power from wind (or other intermittent sources).

We shouldn't get too hung up on long-term power needs. It is likely that additional technologies will come onstream in the next 20 years. Photovoltaics can already produce solar electricity at about four times the standard price. If this price can be brought down we have an effectively unlimited supply of clean renewable energy. The current price of photovoltaics includes the cost of batteries. This cost component largely disapears if surplus power can be fed back to the national grid. Then (the real bolter) someone might crack the problem of controlled nuclear fusion. Or find a way of permanently sequestering the CO2 from burning coal. Whatever happens we may get our planning wrong and we may wind up burning more fossil fuel than we hoped and paying a Carbon Tax - or we might incur an unplanned cost in some other way. But that won't melt the polar ice cap and in an imperfect world we're always likely to pay something for past planning errors.

New Zealand is Nuclear-Free for a good reason. We don't like nuclear weapons and we don't like the hazardous technologies that go with them. Nuclear power shares the same tecnologies and provides a dangerously easy route to nuclear weapons proliferation (India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea). The world would be a safer place if these technologies were confined to the industrial powers that already have them. We allow the use of other nuclear technologies such as radio-isotopes and particle accelerators because they do not share the technologies needed to make nuclear weapons and do not require us to adopt any such technologies to support them.

If we did have a nuclear power station we'd have to import the fuel here and export the spent fuel (or reactor core) overseas (to Japan?). This leaves us open to environmental (or terrorist) disaster. We'd still need facilities for short-term storage of high level waste until it cooled down sufficiently to be exported. Finally the World's reserves of high-grade uranium ores are quite limited. Without breeder technology, less than 1% of natural uranium can be "burned" and this makes it uneconomical to mine low-grade reserves. Better to leave the world's dwindling stock of naturally fissionable uranium to be burned by those nations who have already sunk the costs and risks of developing a nuclear industry.

UPDATE
SageNZ has pointed out (comments below) that an article in the SST which suggests that there would only be about 3 years supply of Uranium in the World if all electricity were produced by nuclear power. Like Rich, I suspect there probably is somewhat more Uranium available than that but it IS quite limited if we use non-breeding technologies. This is because you need quite high-grade ores (or easily concentratable ores) to get a net (never mind cost-effective)energy gain if you are using non-breeder reactors (and therefore burn only 0.7% of the Uranium). Uranium is quite an abundant element but high-grade ores are scarce.
Breeder reactors burn all the Uranium which means
(1) the high grade ores give 140 times more power per tonne of uranium (so SST 3 years becomes 140)
(2) low grade ores (which are abundant) become economic making the resource very large (millions of years)
Unfortunately this is an expensive technology and poses huge proliferation and security risk. If the World generates a significant fraction of it's power by this cycle then it will be awash with more weapons-grade fissile material (Plutonium) than Kazhakstan has ever dreamed of.

This technology can give us all the energy we could ever use - at a price. But so do renewables. NZ's total current electricity production could be met by photovoltaic panels covering less than 0.02% of our land area using existing technology.

The mind boggles!

2004-09-27T11:53:00.000+12:45

According to todays Dompost,Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) was barred from entering the USA because there was "some other Youssuf Islam" on a no-fly terrorist name list. Now Islam may not be quite as common a surname as Mahommed but it's still pretty common. Is every Yusuf (however spelt) Islam in the world to be denied entry to the USA because one person of that name is allegedly a terrorist? Or should middle initials be compulsory?

Would the Americans attempt to keep out all Fred Smiths if that name had appeared on the list? Or is Smith "not a terrorist name".

Or is this part of a cunning plan? Surely out of all the John Kerrys in the world there must have been at least one or two in the IRA.

UPDATE
The Dompost article was sourced from Time. The original article seems to be ambiguous as to whether the listing was really meant to be Cat Stevens (albeit spelt differently) or someone else. I still don't understand how a 19,000 name list can fail to hit an awful lot of people who just happen to have the same name as a "terrorist suspect". Names like Mahommed, Ali, Ibrahim are very common in Islamic countries and names like "Mahommed Ibrahim" must be so common they're almost bound to be on the list and will affect hundreds of innocent travellers if they are.

RE-UPDATE
It appears reality has already trumped my speculation about other names on the list (OK Edward Kennedy not John Kerry but..)

The Campaign Manager Did It

2004-09-27T11:50:00.000+12:45

Hot off scoop. John Banks' campaign manager has confessed that he was behind the NBR "pamphlet" distribution and resigned.

Who's a Terrorist

2004-09-26T16:54:00.000+12:45

With the "War on Terrorism" in full swing and overlapping with other more conventional wars (The Iraq War and the Afghanistan War) there seems to be some concern over the labels we attach to the various sides. There is a view that if you call an Afghan or Iraqi taking who takes up arms against the occupying forces or the regimes they support an "insurgent" or "rebel" you are some sort of "Terrorism Denier". This is, of course, utter rubbish. Not every opponent of the American occupation is a "terrorist" and even if they are, that doesn't stop them also being "insurgents", "rebels" or even "freedom fighters".

Terrorism has nothing to do with the cause you are fighting for. It is an illegal tactic directed against civilian rather than military targets with a view to intimidating a government or civilian population into a course of action favoured by the attacker rather than the legitimate military goals of securing a military objective, denying a militry objective to the enemy or reducing the enemy's ability to fight. Terrorist acts may be committed by insurgents or governments, rebels or loyalists, invaders or defenders and regular or irregular forces. For example -

1) The twin towers bombing was the worst of many vicious terrorist acts carried out against peaceful Western democracies.

2) The Beslan murders were a smaller but even more vicious terrorist attack.

3) Bombing infrastructure in Belgrade with the objective of inducing the Serb population to overthrow Milosevich was an act of terrorism.

4) Bombing urban areas is an act of terrorism if the "collateral damage" is disproportionate to the military value and the attacker knew or showed reckless disregard for this fact.

5) Setting off a bomb in a crowded marketplace is an act of terrorism.

6) Setting off a bomb alongside an enemy army vehicle or in a queue of enemy soldiers, police or recruits is not an act of terrorism.

7) Sinking the Rainbow Warrior was an act of terrorism unless the DGSE believed (and not even the Shadow knows what evil lurks in the fevered imaginations of intelligence services) it was a potential threat to their ability (not will) to conduct the Mururoa tests

8) Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the biggest terrorist acts of all.

This is not just a pedantic exercise in semantics. Never forget George Orwell's words

Unless words have specific, precise identifiable and common meanings how is it possible to conceive of ideas such as freedom, oppression, resistance and the like. If it is no longer possible to formulate abstract ideas and communicate them then action and creativity are no longer posible and control is absolute and complete ... Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime, literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

Is Tax Sustainable

2004-09-25T17:00:00.000+12:45

SageNZ quotes Murray McCully reporting that total government tax revenue has increased from 30.2 billion in 1999 to 42.5 billion in 2003 and asks whether the 40% increase is sustainable. The short answer is (mostly) yes. In 1999 GDP was 101 billion and in 2003 it had grown to 126 billion (a 25% increase). The growth in GDP includes inflation and population increase (which government revenue needs to match for sustainability) and real growth (which needn't but can afford to match). Revenue would have increased to 37.7 billion just to match gdp growth leaving a net increase of only 4.8 billion (about 12% over the four year period). In fact this increase is all reflected in the surplus - government expenditure has remained constant at just under 28% of gdp.

The government has therefore held expenditure as a proportion of GDP but increased taxes or allowed taxes to rise by about 4% of gdp or 5 billion dollars. This includes about 3 billion to cover future superannuation liability and about 2 billion which (along with future revenue growth) could be returned to the public. SageNZ and Murray McCully would no doubt like to see this returned as a reduction in the top tax rate (Murray even suggests an 18% flat tax) but imho most New Zealanders would prefer it to be returned through the sort of measures in the Working for Families package, improved health and education services and universal student allowances. 1999, after all represented the endpoint of a massive redistribution of purchasing power from beneficiaries and low to middle income earners to the wealthiest. And we (or at any rate most of us) didn't vote for that.

It's also hard to argue that a 39% top tax rate is damaging economic growth. The last four years have been some of the highest growth years in our history (and we've actually caught up some of the ground on Australia). Besides Australia has a 47% top tax rate, New Zealand had a 33% top rate only for the period 1988-1999. Before that the level was 48% and for most our post-war history it has been over 60%. The decision on whether we want lower taxes or a "decent society" should be based on the preferences of the NZ public. History suggests we will advance the cause of growth far better by scrutinising the quality of public expenditure than blindly adoption a low-tax, low-spending strategy.

I Was Just Wondering

2004-09-25T15:02:00.000+12:45

Perhaps the upcoming US presidential elections should be conducted without Texas, Georgia, South Carolina and a few other former hardline "confederate" states. After all, as Donald Rumsfeld says

Well, so be it, nothing is perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet.

Freedom of Speech and Defamed Politicians

2004-09-24T13:36:00.000+12:45

Auckland mayoral hopeful Dick Hubbard is to sue the NBR for their attempted "hatchet job" on him. Kiwipundit thinks this is dreadful and sees it as a threat to press freedom.

Imagine what would happen if every politician who was ever defamed by a media outlet decided to sue. No newspaper would risk printing negative stories about politicians, at least not about ones who were rich enough to afford good lawyers.

I am not an NBR reader and, living south of the Bombay Hills, did not receive an anonymous copy of the article in my letter box. I am not, therefore, qualified to discuss the specifics of this case. I happily leave that to the jury. What I take issue with is the suggestion that politicians should not be allowed to sue for defamation.

Western democracies, some more than others, value freedom of speech. The USA has the strongest possible protection in law with the first amendment to the constitution stating that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech" although freedom, in practice, is less absolute than the simple wording might suggest. Yet the USA (like all other Western democracies) has similar defamation laws to New Zealand. If any person (including the press) publishes defamatory lies about any other person then they will be liable to pay damages.

Defamation laws are as likely to be a defence against repression as a vehicle of it. At the height of the McCarthyist era John Henry Falk brought a successful libel case against a vigilante organisation that had blacklisted him not because of his politics but because (in the best witchfinding tradition) he had opposed their blacklist. The libel case allowed the alleged facts to be properly investigated and they established that

(1) John Henry Falk was not a communist or communist sympathiser (whether that should have mattered is not the point)
(2) AWARE knowingly and maliciously set out to destroy his career with a pack of lies

These facts would have remained matters of public conjecture had it not been for the defamation case.

Defamation suits have long been considered the appropriate way to defend one's reputation and failure to sue was often considered an admission that the defamation was true. In 1976 Jeremy Thorpe was accused of a homsexual relationship (probably true) and of trying to murder his ex-lover (less probable). He was then forced to resign as leader of the British Liberal Party (it was 1976). In fact, the main reason for the forced resignation was that he refused to sue for defamation. His party felt (probably correctly) that this refusal "proved" the truth of the homosexual affair - and even if it didn't the voters would see it that way.

In bringing a libel suit Dick Hubbard exposes his personal character and his record as a businessman and employer to searching public scrutiny. He presumably knows that - if he didn't his legal advisers will have told him. Perhaps his willingness to be cross-examined suggests that his record really is clean and that the material in the NBR article(s) really is false. At the very least let's suspend judgement until the court case.

Some commentator's have wondered whether Bush could sue Michael Moore over Fahrenheit 911 (or what about CBS over those memos). He could. It wouldn't be great tactics at this stage of the campaign but how about after the electon? If, however, Bush were to sue he would have to show (at least on balance of probability) that the alleged facts were untrue. In practice, he'd have to deny the charges on oath and subject to cross-examination. He'd have to tell us exactly where he was during those National Guard years and exactly when and why he didn't take those medicals. For my money he won't sue. And neither will John Banks (though I'm not sure who he would be suing for what).

The final argument is that the press should have a licence to print untruths in case they (like CBS) were caught with a story they thought was true but turned out not to be. NZ Law already provides protection for media (or anyone else) who act in good faith on matters of public importance. Lange v Atkinson established a defence of qualified privilege for a journalist publishing falsehoods that they genuinely believed to be true unless they act "maliciously" or with a "reckless disregard" for the truth. It may be argued that the limits of how much checking a journalist needs to do or how "reasonable" their belief must be is as yet inadequately tested in case law but that is an argument for clarifying the current law, not disallowing a politician's right to sue, or decrying those brave enough or wronged enough to try.

Update
Kiwipundit has updated his post responding to this post. He raises two legitimate (although not entirely new) points. That journalists should not be forced to disclose their sources and that a wealthy candidate might use his wealth to intimidate other less well-heeled candidates as well as professional mainstream journalists. The first point (non-disclosure of sources) is viewed sympathetically by the courts and a journalist will be able to testify that they relied on an (undisclosed) source and to the steps they took to check the story in establishing a defence of qualified privilege. They may also subpoena any relevant witness or document if they use a defence of truth. Further a politician's right to sue for defamation is limited to allegations of fact - we may call John Banks an overbearing bully or Dick Hubbard a sanctimonious waffler with impunity.

The issue of money is a much wider one. Arguably we can never have true justice when one party to a dispute cannot seek redress (or defend themselves) without incurring ruinous expenses. Certainly any move which reduces the cost of justice to individuals is to be applauded. But there are significant balancing factors with political libel. If a politician were seen to use a vexatious libel suit to intimidate a poorer opponent or (worse) an impecunious citizen blogger the public would likely react by
(1) contributing generously to the opponent's defence fund
(2) wreaking an appropriate revenge on polling day

Dick Hubbard did not sue a defenceless orphan. He sued a mainstream newspaper which has the means to contest his action, has probably profited significantly from the relevant articles and certainly has the resources and clear duty to get its facts right.

That's a Wrap

2004-09-21T13:31:00.000+12:45

So we now have a concession from CBS that the memos "might have been forgeries". We can safely assume that the grotty images posted are the only copies CBS has and that their unimpeachable sources were anything but. Clearly this whole sorry affair should never have happened - but it did. As the credits roll let's look at the roles/futures of the protagonists

Dan Rather: Surely now is the time for a long-desrved and long-overdue retirement.

American Journalistic Standards: Have been AWOL for too many years - perhaps they will now report for duty.

George W Bush: This man has had the luck of the devil. This incident has (in the eyes of too many voters) discredited his opponents and the earlier allegations about his TANG service (based on officially realeased documents). And he hasn't even had to perjure himself with a denial.

Karl Rove: Was not behind the original leak to CBS. He is , however, behind the rumours that he was.

John Kerry: Has won a fourth purple heart for collateral damage. Injuries may be fatal.

Oh and what about that $10,000 prize: There was nothing in the terms about the memos being genuine -just so long as they were reproduced on a 1972 typewriter. If anyone out there has an IBM Executive Model D (or Selectrix Composer) with a TH key I'd be happy to split the proceeds.

Royals and Foxes

2004-09-20T17:25:00.000+12:45

While I have always subscribed to the view that "He prayeth best that loveth best all creatures great and small" I have generally regarded fox-hunting as a barbaric but remote practice. Something that was neither of immediate concern to New Zealand nor near the top of the list of evils afflicting this unhappy world. Last night I happened to hear the subject debated on BBC world and was reminded just how alien a species a traditional British Tory is to a New Zealander (and no doubt to most British). Suddenly it wasn't just about foxes any more. It was about a pompous windbag being able to declaim that "in the home of democracy itself [well they did get universal suffrage in 1928] the government is putting vermin ahead of individual liberty" without anyone in an international panel crying "bullshit".

Today we learn that the current and future monarch of New Zealand are both apparently prepared to put the interests of their own privileged class ahead of their constitutional duty and the clear wishes of the majority of their subjects and their duly elected representatives - to say nothing of (I suspect) the near-unanimous view of Her Majesty's New Zealand subjects. This is deeply disturbing to those of us who have tempered our distaste for the corrupt (and unNZ) privilege represented by the monarchy, with respect if not affection for the personality of the incumbent.

The argument that hunting is a town versus country thing and that "Blair doesn't understand the country" is a crock. Hunting splits people who own country estates and apartments in Belgravia from everyone else - and the country would get by just fine without them. Nor is their any merit in the "individual liberty" claim . Dog-fighting has been illegal in Britain since 1885. If it is a crime for working-class men to watch two dogs tearing each other apart, why should it be legal for the gentry to watch a whole pack of dogs tearing a hapless wild animal apart? One might as well argue that the legal age of consent denies the individual liberty of paedophiles.

Nor is anyone banning people from riding to hounds - just from inhumane killing. Drag hunts (where nothing gets killed) are already popular in England and many other countries (including NZ). True they tend to demand higher standards of horsemanship than many traditional hunts but there is no reason why lower-grade drag hunts could not be set up for gentlefolk who were too old or too drunk for the real thing.

If the report of the Queen's (or Prince Charles') positions on a law that is only bringing England into line with Scotland, New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries should be confirmed then their fitness to be the monarch of New Zealand (or leader of the Commonwealth) comes in to question. Perhaps the Republic needs to roll on a little faster.

Typewriters, memos and bloggers

2004-09-13T15:51:00.000+12:45

There's been a lot in the local blogosphere (and not just from the usual suspects)about the memos featured on the CBS (60 Minutes) programme. Most right wing blogs (DPF is an honourable excepion) seem to be taking it as gospel that the documents have been forensically proven to be forgeries and the only remaining question is whether John Kerry typed them personally or got someone else in his campaign team to. Left wing blogs are much more dismissive of the "forensic evidence".

Having (unlike, I suspect, most NZ bloggers) actively authored numerous memos, letters and technical documents over the relevant period (1972-3). I thought I might have some contribution to add. In those days very few of the people who wrote memos or documents could type so it is hardly surprising that Lt Col Killian could not. We hand-wrote rough drafts, put them in our out-tray and waited for an immaculately typed and laid-out copy to appear in our in-tray for checking and signature. No doubt the procedure was similar in the TANG.

Any copy of the CBS memos that I have seen show evidence of substantial (up to 50%?) spatial distortion and coarse pixelation (to 60dpi or worse). This is consistent with passage through a low resolution Fax or hand-held scanner but makes it impossible to judge the precise font or to tell whether letters are, in fact "kerned" (half pixel overlaps don't count).

The specific alleged pieces of evidence I have seen raised are -

1 Coincidence of exact MS Word Times New Roman font - but is it? Sure you can produce something very similar to the memo font by reducing MS Word Times New Roman to 60 dpi, but you could do the same with virtually any font (certainly any New Roman font) when you butcher the resolution that far.

2 Proportional spacing - unusual on 1972 typewriters. But on the other hand it did exist. The TANG may have bought one or more brand new IBM Selectrix typewriters in 1972.

3 Headline Centering - according to my wife (who did this sort of thing for a living at the time), you fold the paper (very lightly) in half to locate the centre; measure half the width of the heading (if necessary print the whole heading out on a separate sheet) and mark with a very light pencil. Then put the paper in and slide the carriage to the correct position before typing.

4 Kerning - This would be a smoking gun if you could show it happened, but you can't. The low resolution means that the images are randomly "blurred" by 1/120 inch (at least) and this obscures any kerning.

5 Superscripts - This one gets really interesting. Typewriters (even quite old ones) often had special keys for fractions (1/2, 3/4, etc) and some golf-balls also had special keys for the ordinal suffixes (th, st, nd). It would therefore be a simple matter to do high quality suffixes (similar to typing TM as Ctrl-Alt-T in Word with standard settings). Word automatically superscripts (at least with my settings which I believe to be default) ordinal suffixes and so we might expect to see superscripts whenever the ordinal is typed without a space (111th) but not when it is typed with a space (1 st). In fact no such pattern exists. The May 4 memo has no spaces in ordinals yet superscripts one of them and leaves two unchanged. Given that (manual) superscripting in Word is a pain it seems hard to see why someone would go to the trouble of doing it twice (in the four memos) but not elsewhere. If the superscripts were done automatically why bother removing them unless you had realised that they gave the game away (and then surely you'd be more careful). If done on a typewriter it would be equally easy to type superscripted or not (providing the right golf-ball was installed) so the inconsistency is easier to understand.

The real point, though, is that the CBS memos didn't add anything new. Material about Dubya's (eg less than heroic service has been around for some time and CBS could have made the same points with less suspect (if only because of low resolution quality) material. But of course, they couldn't have taken the credit in that case. The real Achilles heel of the "mainstream" media may be the "you heard it here first" syndrome rather than partisan bias.

Poverty and Inequality

2004-09-10T15:46:00.000+12:45

Just Left has an interesting post on income equality.
No Right Turn has already noted that the survey quoted is too old to reflect the actions of the current Government, but I'm more concerned with the wider issue of the relevance of income inequality.

I pointed out in comments to Jordan's post that real poverty can be measured by looking at what people would spend an extra dollar a week on if they were given it. If people are strict economic rationalists then they will use whatever money they have on their most important needs first. A really poor person will not be able to meet all of even their most basic needs (eg feeding their children adequately) and would therefore spend their additional dollar on these basic needs. Better-off people will have already satisfied the basic needs and would spend the money on something less critical (eg put it towards a home computer and internet connection to help the kids learn more). The very rich will only have entirely frivolous things (eg always drive the latest model Porsche) left to spend the money on. In economic terms we call this the "Marginal Utility of Expenditure" and it will generally (more or less) fit a single falling curve when plotted against income.

If a society had a fixed amount of income to distribute then the falling marginal curve would imply that everyone should get an equal share. Any person with more than their share would have a lower marginal utility than anyone with less than their fair share and, in consequence, redistributing income from the person with the most to the person with the least will lead to a net increase in "total utility". Real societies don't have fixed amounts of income to distribute and, in practice, redistributing income from high to low earners will act as a disincentive to earning and reduce total income. Policy therefore needs to strike a balance between maximizing utility of income by redistribution against the loss of income by disincentivisation.

I was interested to see that at least one commentator thought it OK to tax a (rich) person so that a poor person could feed their children adequately but not just because "his marginal utility is higher than mine". I accept that the latter phrase lacks the emotional appeal of the former but it is really just another way of saying the same thing (for a large enough difference in marginal utility). I would assume that the commentator means that they are only willing to be taxed so as to help really poor people rather than everyone with higher marginal utility.

Of course the need to balance disincentives against redistribution ensure that we would never take taxes off any taxpayer to help everyone who was on a higher marginal utility - that would be tantamount to complete equalisation. Whether, however, we can set a threshold level of poverty (or marginal utility) is another matter. The difference in marginal utility between the very rich and someone just above the threshold may be greater than that between an average taxpayer and the poor.

Suppose we have a society of three people (A,B and C) earning 0, $500 and $1000 respectively per week and suppose that we need at least $300 per week to sustain an "acceptable" standard of living (ie threshold marginal utility corresponds to $300 per week on the standard curve). We must redistribute at least $300 to A and can raise this only by taxing B and C. Suppose we adopt a flat tax of 20% and take $100 from B and $200 from C. B might now argue that he now has only $400 and that he would have had $300 had heearned nothing. His effort in earning $500 has left him only $100 per week better off. If we took the whole $300 from C then B would be left better off by $200 than A and C would be $200 better off than B - but which is the fairest? In neither case is C's money actually going to B. Pragmatically the second solution is likely to cause the least "disincentivisation" (both B and C keep 40% of their earnings) and also gives higher total utility.

Jordan also talks of inequality from the point of view of an inclusive society and appears to contest Rodney Hide's suggestion that we would all be better off in a society where everyone had more money even if it meant greater inequality. I beg to differ. The thing about Rodney's suggestion is that it has nothing to do with the real choices facing us or that we faced in the recent past. The poor did not just become relatively worse off compared to the rich in the late 80s and early 90s they became worse off in absolute terms. The increase in the gap between rich and poor may have resulted in part from the propensity of the rich to "leverage their wealth into income" as one commentator suggested but Occam's Razor would suggest that active government policies of cuts in top tax rates, benefit cuts, reductions in government services, the ECA and cuts in minimum wage rates probably had more to do with it.

My main problem with the concept of relative (ie distributional) poverty is that I don't believe that the poor (or anyone else) measure their perceived position against some statistical median. Surely the only real people they can measure themseves against are those with whom they most commonly come in social contact - their family, friends, workmates and neighbours. In most cases these people are likely to come from a similar income group to themselves. An unemployed factory worker in Otara is unlikely to come in contact with a stockbroker in Remuera and how, therefore, will he feel socially excluded by the disparity in their incomes?

To the extent that the gap between the aspirations and reality of our disadvantaged can be blamed on unrealistic expectations rather than unacceptable reality, we should look for the cause of those aspirations. In my view it is not to be found in the real or perceived lives of our affluent but in the prevalence of commercial mass media and an advertising industry that devotes obscene amounts of money to selling the single message that "your life sucks". Perhaps our nostalgia for the "good old days" owes more than a little to the non-commercial TV we used to have. Perhaps the "cultural colonisation" that commercial TV and its associated consumerism-gone-mad has brought us cuts deeper into our society than we realise.

What is important is that we retain the most important of our Kiwi values. That we respect the human and civil rights of all citizens and that "participation" in our society does not have a price tag or come with first and second class versions. A decent, inclusive society need not mean that any person may (regardless of their talents) freely choose their walk in life or that people from different walks of life should enjoy the same disposable income. Rather it means that we should all alike walk tall and that all should be valued alike regardless of circumstance or fortune, and that influence, justice, freedom or equality should never be for sale. Whenever I hear the BRT or local Chamber of Commerce bemoan the "Tall poppy syndrome" I feel a surge of hope. Kiwis know how to honour real heroes (Edmund Hilary, Fred Hollows, Peter Jackson) but we also know that an oaf with money is just a rich oaf. If we can hold on to this a little income inequality may not matter.

Alcohol, Tobacco and Cannabis - Class D drugs?

2004-09-05T16:00:00.000+12:45

Willie Jackson's Eye to Eye (watch out for the coming new treats from TVNZ - Hand to Hand, Mouth to Mouth, Nose to Nose, Cheek to Cheek and Navel to Navel) featured the continuing debate on decriminalising cannabis. The defenders of the status quo don't seem to deny that cannabis does no more harm than alcohol or tobacco but claim that MPs who support both Smoke-Free legislation and decriminalisation of marijuana are sending kids a "tobacco bad, pot good" message.

I got to wondering whether we shouldn't look at the general law on drug abuse before applying it to specific instances. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 does not consider normal recreational use of substances - in effect it assumes that any non-therapeutic use is abuse. Cannabis leaf, codeine syrup, barbiturates, valium and paracetamol are all class C drugs (moderate potential for harm) but are subclassified as C1 to C6 according to the relative likelihood of therapeutic use as opposed to abuse. There is little doubt that alcohol and tobacco would also be C1's if the criteria of the act were applied to them - although it could be argued that tobacco should be a class B drug given its high addiction potential.

In practice, alcohol and tobacco have been exempted from the provisions of the MDA by the simple expedient of not submitting them for classification. Instead they are regulated through separate acts which provide no criminal sanctions against manufacture, possession, use, non-commercial supply or licenced sale to an adult. This is not the way the law should work. If we wish to allow any recreational drugs (and we obviously do) the law should define general criteria and apply them consistently to all substances.

I would respectfully suggest that we might accomplish this by amending the Misuse of Drugs Act to provide for a new class D (low to moderate potential for harm) of substances which -

(1) have an overall potential for harm similar to class C substances;

(2) have a substantial potential for non-therapeutic use with no or little harm to users; and where

(3) the overall social advantages of the less regulated environment clearly outweigh any increase in the potential for harm arising therefrom.

The regulatory regime for class D drugs would be the same as that for alcohol as provided in the Sale of Liquor Act. The legislation could specify that alcohol, tobacco and cannabis were all class D drugs or (better) could provide an open process for submitting any substance (including alcohol, tobacco and cannabis) for (re)classification by an independent "Substance Classification Board". The new act could also specify that it supercedes the Sale of Liquor Act with respect to any class A, B, C or D substance. All class D substances would be liable to excise duty at a rate to be determined by the Minister of Customs.

Smokefree and Drink Driving laws should also be generalised but these are separate issues. I would, however, envisage a bar where you could (legally) buy a plate of hash brownies, a pack of Pall Mall filters and a pack of Rothmans "Greens" (I know - but they would) with a round of drinks. You could consume the drinks and the brownies on the premises but would have to take both the cigarettes and the pot home. If you drove home (and were unlucky) you might get stopped and tested for proscribed (instant fine) or "deemed impairment" (serious trouble) levels of alcohol, THC and amphetamine (or whatever).

The primary issue is not intergenerational, class or race (though it may seem that way). It is an issue of consistency and proper application of the law. It is proper that the law should operate consistently from general principles to specific outcomes. It is not proper to make or manipulate the law on an ad hoc basis to produce outcomes preferred by those in power. Nor is it proper to enact separate and unequal laws to regulate competing products which differ only in the political clout of the vested interests behind them.

One law for all substances!

Chris Trotter on the Treaty

2004-09-03T14:46:00.000+12:45

The Dominion Post has an article by Chris Trotter ostensibly about "Margaret Mutu's threat of war" but, in fact mostly about rubbishing the Treaty of Waitangi. His tactic is to accept the most extreme interpretation of the Treaty and then use that to suggest that the treaty cannot and should not have any legitimacy.

I would be the first to concede that the plain text of the treaty (in either language) is not suitable for a constitutional document. The same, of course, is true of the ten commandments, the sermon on the mount, the Gettysburg address and the American declaration of independence but that does not diminish their value or relevance.

The claim that lies at the heart of Trotter's (and maybe Mutu's) case is that the reference to Tino Rangatiratanga in article 2 of the Maori version of the treaty means that Maori (chiefs) retain "Sovereignty" regardless of article 1. In Trotter's words -

In the minds of the chiefs who signed the document, New Zealand was nothing more than a geographic expression. Their tribal territories, like the territories of the princes, bishops and margraves of the Roman empire, remained sovereign and inviolate.

The "Roman" model Trotter alludes to was also used in the British empire (particularly in India) but is specifically excluded by Article 3 of the Treaty which (in either language) grants the "rights and privileges of British subjects" to "nga tangata maori katoa o Nu Tirani" (all the Maori people of New Zealand). The common people in the Roman (Indian) models remained subject to their local prince, bishop or margrave (or rajah) and certainly did not enjoy the rights of Roman citizens.

The exact meaning of "Rangatiratanga" and "Kawanatanga" to the Treaty signatories must remain matter of conjecture - not least because both words were, at the time, recently coined but it seems reasonable to suppose that their meaning would approximate -

Rangatiratanga - The traditional powers and rights of a "tribal chief"

Kawanatanga - The powers exercised by a "Kawana" such as the Governor of New South Wales.

Maori are promised tino rangatiratanga in article 2 with respect to lands etc but it is not mentioned in article 1. Any tenable interpretation of the whole treaty must recognize that kawanatanga is subtracted from rangatiratanga (in the fullest sense of the term) and tbat which is promised to Maori is what is left. Trotter's demonizing assertion that

Tino rangitiratanga - the sovereign powers of the tribal chieftains - was in no way diminished by their recogniton of kawanatanga

implies that kawanatanga is a nullity. It is an interpretation that the vast majority of Maori do not demand, is not accepted by any judicial authority in New Zealand and has no chance of ever being accepted as any part of NZ law or constitution. The Waitangi Tribunals report on the Foreshore and Seabed Policy specifically states that -

It is clear that kawanatanga gives the Crown the authority to make the present policy and enact it as legislation.

Of course the Government has a duty to respect rangitiratanga (and justice, fairness, etc) but these duties do not deny their authority.

It seems clear to me that the Maori concept of "rangitiratanga" (after ceding "kawanatanga") means something more than the English concept of "ownership" but somewhat less than the English concept of "sovereignty". If we are to embody the Treaty principles in a New Zealand constitution then perhaps the first step must be to define that difference (Mana whenua? Ancestral Rights?). But we must define them in terms which are clear and acceptable to a broad concensus.

That a minority of Maori have been driven to reject concensus and make aggressive (or even taiha-rattling) demands for extreme interpretations of sovereignty is unfortunate but understandable given the raw deal they have historically received. Chris Trotter's "Bring it on" response is no less unfortunate and a great deal less forgivable.

Face to Face with Destiny

2004-09-02T16:37:00.000+12:45

I found last night's Face to Face featuring Brian Tamaki a little disappointing. From a purely intellectual perspective it was a strange and wondrous thing to see someone talk down Kim Hill but it would have been so much better to see Brian asked the really big questions.

I feel the inteview did establish Brain Tamaki's homophobia (or at least the strength of his belief in God's homophobia) but the session on tithes was particularly disappointing. Kim wasted the time in an arid discussion of the Morality/Theology of tithing rather than going for the real questions -

"Well Brian, how much did your church raise in tithes last year?" "And what did you do with it?" (Televangelists should always be confronted by auditors).

And if you're going to allude to a chapter in Hebrews which apparently suggests tithing is no longer appropriate for Christians why not, under the circumstances, explore exactly what money Abraham tithed to Melchisedec when he, according to St Paul, foreshadowed the replacement of the Levitical priesthood by Jesus.

According to Genesis it was the loot recovered when Abraham rescued the Sodomites from their enemies - in other words Abraham fought as well as prayed for his neighbours in Sodom. How does Brian Tamaki square up to that.

The Cloak and Dagger of Parliamentary Privilege

2004-09-02T13:04:00.000+12:45

Winston Peters is at it again (see also David Slack). What possible grounds could there be for publicising Peter and Coral Shaw's experience with Edwards (David McNee's killer)? The reason is obvious - there are enough rabid homophobes out there who will

(a) jump to the conclusion that Peter Shaw was Edwards client in yet another assignation that went wrong
(b) applaud (and vote for) Winston as a fearless exposer of faggotry in high places.

The rest of us may very well conclude that Winston is the sort of weasel that gives vermin a bad name - but we already knew that anyway.

Winston may believe he is following in his Mentor's footsteps but Colin Moyle was a political opponent and current front-bench MP when Muldoon outed him - Peter Shaw is an innocent bystander. And few historians would call that Rob's finest moment.

Winston has attempted to give his cynical malice a gloss of "legitimate public interest" by alleging a cover-up - that someone leaned on the police to drop the case. Too make such an allegation without any evidence to back it up is fatuous nonsense even by Winston's standards.

I do not know and do not wish to know why Coral and Peter Shaw chose not to press (or continue) charges in this case but it is their right to do so. It is also normal police practice (although not legally mandatory) to drop a case if the victim does not wish to pursue it. There is simply no basis for alleging anything improper or unusual in the police dropping this case. It is a flimsy attempt to disguise the gratuitous character assassination by innuendo of a private individual.

Unfortunately Peters knows all too well that "you can fool some of the people all of the time" but OTOH even weasels despise weasels who deny their essential weaselness.

Peter Dunne, David Irving and Brian Tamaki

2004-08-27T15:36:00.000+12:45

NRT has a recent post about an article by Peter Dunne calling for free speech for David Irving and Brian Tamaki. Now, at first blush, there might appear to be a case for David Irving (although NRT rightly wonders why Peter Dunne would seek to make it now) - he was after all denied entry into NZ and thereby the opportunity to express his views here. If you look into it, though, David Irving (whatever the rights or wrongs of his original German conviction for defamation) played silly buggers with Canadian immigration authorities and is the author of his own misfortunes. The Minister has no duty to bend over backwards (or forwards) and waive the good character requirement of the act (as long as they're consistent when a similar case arises with a left-wing or zionist activist).

Brian Tamaki is another matter altogether. I'm not aware that anyone is trying to censor his message. Indeed it got the sort of media coverage David Irving (much less the average citizen) can only dream about.

The nasty twist in Peter Dunne's article is in the words

prohibiting or ridiculing the expression of their views will simply reinforce the stereotyped images we have of both.

"prohibiting or ridiculing"- no. No! NO!!!

To prohibit the expression of Brian Tamaki or David Irving's views is wrong - not because it reinforces our stereotyped views of them but because freedom of thought means "Freedom, not for the thought of which we approve but for the thought we hate". To ridicule those thoughts OTOH is perfectly right and proper. It was the ridicule that Reuben Ship and others poured on McCarthyism that exposed the absurdity to which Peter attributes its fall. I, no less than Voltaire, will oppose to (well at any rate until) death any who seek to prohibit Brian Tamaki from spreading his ideas but I will oppose (and already have) those views with every legitimate means of discourse (including ridicule) at my disposal. And I will gladly hold the coat of anyone else who does the same.

Peter, come back to the light side. Please.

More on Constitutional Reforms

2004-08-26T15:35:00.000+12:45

I see there has been further posting on the (NZ) Blogosphere. Holden Republic has posted a carefully considered (and mostly supportive) analysis of my earlier posting on constitutional reforms from a republican perspective. David Farrar has responded to No Right Turn's post on dropping the threshold, which was also one of my proposals.

I'd like to point out that
(a) I am a republican but my proposals actually work just as well if (or while) we remain a constitutional monarchy.
(b) I'm quite happy with MMP (sans threshold) but again my proposals work equally well with any more or less proportional voting system.

I don't believe the fears of the "threshold defenders". Even if we did get four or five extremist parties with 2-3% each it's much more likely they would cancel each other out rather than form a Communist-National Front-Destiny NZ-Libertarian-Maori Independence grouping committed to the advancement of the "extremist point of view". When the Germans had the MMP system selected for them after the war the threshold was included to keep out the "nutbars". I suspect that the framers of the new German Constitution had a rather specific nutbar in mind - and (while it may have been magnanimous to gloss over the fact) the Nazis had over 30% of the vote when Hitler came to power. Even then it was the politicians (not only in Germany) who were willing to deal with the Nazis that were the real problem.

However if the threshold is controversial why not switch to STV. With modern technology the complexity of voting need no longer be an issue. STV imposes a significant hurdle to very small parties getting in but allows voters extended choices between candidates within parties. It also means that a centre party that is preferred by 5% of the voters but acceptable to 90% will do better than an extremist party which also has 5% support but is detested by 80%.

It seems that there is quite widespread support for the fixed parliamentary term (though some would prefer four years to three), and for the formal election of the PM by parliament. Could this be the beginning of a concensus?

Please let me know your views - particularly if you disagree.

Political Correctness and Liberalism

2004-08-24T23:27:00.000+12:45

No right turn refers to the application of the term "Politically correct" to left/liberal causes. That this is happening is hard to dispute but it is a palpable misuse of the term and ought not to beguile a liberal (and particularly an anarcho-liberal) into approval of the more or less stalinist
attitudes to whch it is more accurately applied.

The word "correct" has strong connotations of objectively measurable conformity. Thus something may be said to be factually correct or historically correct if it comforms to actual reality (ie the facts asserted are true, the historical events described did, in fact happen as described). If we speak, however, of correct speech, spelling, grammar, etiquette or behaviour we imply conformity to a supposed authoritative standard. To state (in a positive manner) that a particular position is "politically correct" is to invoke a supposed single authority against which the correctness of political views may be measured. A liberal denies the legitimacy of any such authority. Indeed even a non-liberal might argue that politics, by definition, involves multiple competing views and that the anti-pluralism of "political correctness" is oxymoronic.

The latter part of the 20th century saw rapid advances in many liberal causes (gay rights, racial equality, women's liberation, etc) but not all advocates of these causes were liberal. There were also authoritarian feminists / gay rights / equal opportunity /etc advocates who followed the illiberal path of suppressing opposing views rather than engaging them in the "Marketplace of Ideas". The term PC was originally used to lampoon their authoritarianism and in particular the favoured Orwellian tactic of regulating language as a means of controlling attitudes.
Certain elements of the right (who have always been happy to invoke the authority of "right-thinking" or "God-fearing" people) have recently misappropriated the term to attack the concepts of equality, women's rights, gay rights, etc themselves rather than the supposed pompous antipluralism of their authoritarian left avocates. This linguistic theft should be resisted.

Had the CUB included a provision to outlaw "gender-exclusive" language (eg "Man and Wife") from any marriage ceremony it could be properly attacked as "Political Correctness". Had it sort to outlaw any form of marriage which was not available to all couples regardless of gender, race, creed, etc it might have been called something much worse. But it does not. Any heterosexual couple who prefer a conventional marriage may have one. Any individual, couple or group who prefer to remain legally single may do so. The CUB is entirely permissive rather than prescriptive in its effect and as such it can never be "Politically Correct". Peter Dunne, at least, should know better.

Spooky Deja Vu

2004-08-24T15:12:00.000+12:45

It was kinda' spooky (even for the corporally challenged). First we watched Brian Tamaki and his blackshirts (the So Straights?) in a mass parade on the streets of Wellington - then we switched over to Prime for the final of Cross of Fire (mini-series based on the real life downfall of a corrupt Ku Klux Klan leader in the 1920s). The marching blackshirts were replaced by marching whiteshirts (or white knights in nightshirts) but the social dynamics were the same and so was the message of hate and intolerance so obscenely wrapped in supposed "christianity".
It may be that Brian Tamaki stands above the venial corruption of Grand Wizard Stephenson. It may be that he faithfully accounts for all the tithes paid into his church and expends them only (at least according to his beliefs) on the Lord's business. (It may even be that there are real Nigerian philanthropists who genuinely seek to give large sums of money to deserving recipients over the internet). But if not, he would not be the first televangelist to prove a fraud and a hypocrite. Nor is he the first leader of the religious right to set fire to the cross with Jesus still on it but that assuredly is the act we witnessed last night.

Separation of Powers

2004-08-23T13:46:00.000+12:45

In an earlier posting. I dealt with the questions of a written constitution, sovereignty and conventions. I concluded that we cannot (short of a revolution) avoid parliamentary sovereignty but we can enact (and even entrench) "constitutional provisions" which allow us to specify the mechanics of our system of Government. In this posting I'm looking at some specific ways in which we could fine-tune our current government mechanisms without requiring any revolutionary change to our constitution.

IMHO (for reasons covered elsewhere) we should not look to dramatic constitutional change. The worst problems of "unbridled power" arise from executive dominance of parliament rather than the other way around and are (or can be) largely fixed by MMP and some minor associated constitutional changes which I discuss here. The purpose of these changes is twofold -
(1) To make it much harder for a government to capture parliament
(2) To make it easier for a legitimate government to govern without a captive parliamentary majority.

The changes are -

(1) Lose the threshold. The present 5% threshold gives undue prominence to the outcomes in particular electorates and distorts voting patterns in the party vote. It also creates the risk that parties with substantial (nearly 5%) do not get represented which is undemocratic. (Try National 42%, NZ First 3%, UF 1%, Act 1%, Labour 38%, Green 4%, Alliance 4%, PC 1%, MP 3% with Act, Green, Alliance and MP failing to win electorate seats). If we lose the threshold people can concentrate on voting naturally (ie for the candidate and party they like best) and a genuinely representative parliament will result. The threshold also encourages aggregation to larger parties (eg the split of Greens and the PC from the Alliance COULD have reulted in both Greens and Alliance getting 4% with no electorate seats - OTOH a voter should be able to vote green without having their vote counted as red, brown or electric purple. (Mind you it's even tougher if you want to vote grey).

(2) Formalise parliament's role as an "electoral college" choosing the executive. This could be done by exhaustive ballot to appoint a Prime Minister who would then appoint the rest of cabinet (or we might have parliament directly elect the Attorney General as that is a constitutionally separate positon). The same procedure could be used to appoint the Speaker although this might conventionally be done by concensus. Parliament would hold a ballot following each General election or if the government is defeated on a confidence issue. A lost confidence vote would require a parliamentary ballot for a new Prime Minister but the old executive would remain in office until its successor is elected (or the old executive reelected) at that ballot. This is close to the "Swedish model" mentioned by No Right Turn but specifies a parliamentary voting procedure rather than relying on the speaker's discretion. If we retain a titular HOS (President or Governor General) than the law could specify that, when appointing/replacing a PM, the HOS must act on the speaker's advice that the house has voted to elect the new PM.

(3) Adopt a fixed parliamentary term. The Electoral Act would specify something like "a general election shall be held on the second Saturday of November in the year 2005 and at three-yearly intervals thereafter". This would be the only time general elections can be held or parliament dissolved. (A no-confidence vote simply means that Parliament conducts a new ballot for the Government).

(4) Limit the size of cabinet to (eg) 12. We used to manage with much smaller cabinets (than the present) in the 50s and 60s and the new State Service arrangements should greatly reduce the need for "Departmental" cabinet ministers. "Operational" departments now have CEOs who are supposedly accountable for the performance of their departments and who are directed (in writing) by cabinet to implement specified govt policies. Appointing a minister in charge of each department appears to duplicate the CEOs function and dilutes accountability. If there is a need for ongoing oversight I'd like to try using select committees. The committee chairs would be an alternative career step for MPs who miss out on cabinet. Committees also allow us to tap into the talents of opposition members and retain greater continuity of experience when governments change.

(5) Relax the rules of collective cabinet responsibility. At the very least the rules should not apply to a Minister voting in the house or advocating in caucus. The minister is wearing his or her MP's hat at these times and it is constitutionally wrong for the cabinet manual to override the MP's duty. I have no particular quarrel with barring a cabinet minister from disclosing cabinet proceedings or campaigning against collective cabinet policy outside the house.

(6) Allow parliament to delegate executive authority to the government - particularly with regard to financial appropriations. The notion that the ability of the govt to raise taxes is a major constitutional issue is an anachronism. The full range of political views espoused by New Zealanders (or covered within the greater Blogosphere) encompasses passionate differences as to how much the govt should tax its citizens (or for what purposes) but does anyone deny that the govt has a right to raise taxes or suggest that it ought not to pay its day to day expenses as they fall due? In the 21st century we might reconsider the convention that a govt falls if defeated on a "financial matter". OTOH this is less critical with a single house since a parliament of a mind to play silly buggers with supply would presumably have the numbers for a no-confidence vote anyhow. (At least the "Whitlam scenario" where the upper house blocked supply until the GG dismissed the govt doesn't arise).

(7) Entrench as much of the constitutional arrangements as is possible (basically the bits relating to the electoral system, role of parliament, speaker, HOS, judiciary, etc) along with a Bill of Rights. This could and should include the role of the Treaty provided that the entrenched provisions are securely founded on a broad concensus (which has yet to be built). To entrench (by a simple majority) a strongly contested interpretation of the treaty (or anything else) is to invite a future legislative challenge to those provisions (eg repeal by a simple majority) to the detriment of our entire constitution.

League Tables Don't Matter

2004-08-19T14:18:00.000+12:45

Don Brash's recent Australian speech (see Just Left and No Right Turn) includes the old chestnut that NZ will become (or already is) a "failed state" because we are slipping down the international GDP league table. I shall leave the questions of whether and why we are, in fact, so slipping to Jordan and Idiot and ask why it, in fact, matters. In the 1950s NZ was near the top of the international league today we're around the middle of the "developed nations". This simply reflects the fact that -

(1) Japan and most of Europe have recovered from the ravages of WWII
(2) We no longer have an automatic high-price market for "all the meat, wool and butter we can grow"
(3) NZ has significant natural disadvantages (eg remoteness from markets) and our major natural advantage (low-cost pastoral agriculture) is undermined by the present world trading order.

In addition a number of former third-world countries (emergent economies) are achieving very high GDP rates as they develop and in the near future we will probably be overtaken (in GDP per capita) by Korea and many of the new EEC members. Further down the track we may be passed by Malaysia and Thailand (Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong are already ahead). But this is a good thing. These countries are our friends and neighbours and we should applaud their good fortune. And they'll want to buy food, textiles and timber and they'll want to take holidays to exotic spots where sheep graze in lush pastures, you can ski in majestic snowy mountains, the sky is blue and the air and water are transparent.

Don Brash suggests that our best and brightest will inevitably leave us for Australia (presumably leaving an unskilled rump of our population that will lack the acumen to do any more than join the "failed" Pacific Island states in the queue for AusAID handouts and expatriate remittances). There will, of course, always be those stellar talents that can shine only on a larger stage than NZ can offer and they will inevitably leave us (for Australia or elsewhere) just as others leave Timaru for Auckland, Cairns for Brisbane or Sydney for New York. No doubt our problems in recruiting or retaining nurses or teachers will depend to a considerable degree on the relative rates of pay for their professions on each side of the Tasman. But not directly on the per capita GDP.

The CIA Factbook (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook) gives a "cost of living equivalent" per capita GDP comparison of over 200 countries. According to this source Australia ($28,900) is about 33% richer than NZ ($21,600). This pales into insignificance compared to the range within (the old) European Union which ranges from Luxembourg ($55,100) through Norway ($37,700), Denmark ($31,200), Ireland ($29,800) down to Italy ($26,800) and Spain ($22,000). There is no mass exodus of bright Italians (or Frenchmen) to Luxembourg or of Spaniards to Norway even though the differences in GDP are much greater than that between NZ and Australia.

An even more extreme example is the Cook Islands with a GDP of only $5000 per capita (less than a quarter of NZs). Cook Islanders have an absolute right of entry to NZ and many of them do, in fact, live here. The population movement is, however, in both directions and the population resident in the Cooks is stable. The population density in the Cook Islands is almost 90 per square km, twice the world average, three times that of the USA and about six times that of NZ. If there were no legal barrier to settlement within the combined borders of NZ and the Cook Islands (ie non-Cook Island New Zealanders were allowed to settle in the Cooks) then the population of the islands would, presumably be higher but, even as it is, the population density shows that the Cook Islands are disproportionately preferred as a residence by the combined population.

Evidently money isn't everything.

Fighting History

2004-08-18T15:39:00.000+12:45

I'm interested that in all the discussion of the relative merits and electoral chances of past and present National and Labour leaders no one seems to have noticed a simple rule that has held with a single exception throughout (at least) the life of the current National Party. That rule is that a leader who has fought a previous election will always defeat an opponent who has not. The results of all the elections since 1935 are as follows where * indicates a leader fighting their first election -

1938 Savage beat Hamilton(*)
1943 Fraser(*) beat Holland(*)
1946 Fraser beat Holland
1949 Holland beat Fraser
1951 Holland beat Nash(*)
1954 Holland beat Nash
1957 Nash beat Holyoake(*)
1960 Holyoake beat Nash
1963 Holyoake beat Nordmeyer(*)
1966 Holyoake beat Kirk(*)
1969 Holyoake beat Kirk
1972 Kirk beat Marshall(*)
1975 Muldoon(*) beat Rowling(*)
1978 Muldoon beat Rowling
1981 Muldoon beat Rowling
1984 Lange(*) beat Muldoon
1987 Lange beat Bolgier(*)
1990 Bolgier beat Moore(*)
1993 Bolgier beat Moore
1996 Bolgier beat Clark(*)
1999 Clark beat Shipley(*)
2002 Clark beat English(*)

The solitary exception to the above rule was the 1984 election where a dynamic young David Lange defeated the senescent government of Robert Muldoon. On no fewer than 11 occasions (including all three elections contested by Helen Clark) the rule dictated the outcome. On the other 10 occasions both parties fielded new (1943 and 1975) or veteran (1946,1949,1954,1960,1969,1978,1981 and 1993) leaders.

If Don Brash is to win in 2005 he needs to emulate David Lange. Perhaps he too can rejuvenate his own party. Perhaps he can project the same dyamism (though obviously not the youth) but that is not enough. The key to the 1984 result was the state of the Government which had squandered its political capital and the wealth of the country alike, was racked by internal dissension and weighed down by the ruins of failed projects and, above all, bore all the hallmarks of a government and prime minister whose time was up. The present government shows no such signs (nor should it in only its second term). If Don Brash fails in 2005 will he remain to contest the 2008 election or will National offer up yet another new leader to the imevitability of defeat?

The Treaty, the Court and the Constitution

2004-08-15T17:47:00.000+12:45

There have been some interesting posts on the above themes from antipodean journal, No Right Turn and Just Left. FWIW here are some of my own thoughts on he subject.

There are three separate political threads developing at very different rates but all running into the same tapestry and in danger of getting knotted.

Firstly there is the issue of republicanism. Few New Zealander's feel this to be the burning "affair du jour" but most of us acknowledge that there is something vaguely anachronistic about owing allegiance (however symbolic) to a foreign monarch. We also have to recognize that republicans are a majority among the young and "demographic evolution" will eventually make them a clear majority amongst all New Zealanders. Besides as long as we use someone else's monarchy the decision may be taken out of our hands (as could easily have happened with the Privy Council). But there is no particular urgency. Most Republicans are probably willing to defer any decision to (eg) the next succession.

Then we have the issue of the electoral system and separation of powers. The old FPP electoral system (largely) guaranteed a majority government which in our "unary" system can exercise "unbridled power". In fact the NZ version of the Westminster System is not unary - we do have a separation between executive and legislature but a separation that is vulnerable to party manipulation. With MMP we have an opportunity to make that separation stronger and to make minority governments (what's wrong with a government that can't get everything it wants) the norm. The challenge is to define the proper role of the two branches of government and clarify/fine-tune the relationship between them to ensure that minority governments can govern effectively while retaining legislative and ultimate authority with parliament. Undue speed is the last thing we need, here. We are progressing to a system that can give us a genuine democracy but the former and wannabe power-brokers are getting reckless.

The Treaty issue is a narrower one but it has now assumed an urgency that we cannot deny. Prior to the "foreshore and seabed" issue and Don Brash's opportunistic abandonment of the previous bipartisan concensus the "Waitangi Process" was working and on track to a future where historic breaches were settled, contemporary breaches not contemplated and a broadly accepted and clearly understood concensus view of treaty principles well established in New Zealand jurisprudence. How soon has it turned to custard?

The trouble is, these threads interact. The treaty involves the vital issues of sovereignty, citizenship, indivual rights and the roles of the two races/cultures in NZ society but falls far short of a complete constitution. A republic would give us the opportunity to effect a separation of powers by a directly elected executive (ie the USA system) - if that's what we want. Some Maori believe that a republic extinguishes the Crown and is thus a threat to the Treaty. The electoral system and the roles of parliament and the executive are intimately linked to the issue of separate Maori seats (with FPP they're clearly needed, with MMP they're probably not but, OTOH do no harm).

A complete new constitution addressing all the relevant issues (and addressing them in a way we approve of) would be nice. But from whence does it derive its authority? The "unwritten conventions" of the Westminster system derive their authority from the weight of history - 700 years since Magna Carta, 300 since the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights and (in New Zealand) over 100 years of Universal Suffrage. There is a clear but unwritten limit to the powers of a democratic state. If the state crosses this line it destroys its own legitimacy and stands in peril of overthrow or must defend itself by force. Oliver Cromwell, Adolf Hitler and Robert Mugabe all crossed that line and retained power by force. Richard Nixon crossed the line and fell. But in all these cases there is little dispute that or where the line was crossed.

The executive branch of the government may not unilaterally repudiate the checks and balances placed on it by the legislative or judicial branches, the state may not interfere in the fair running of elections, use its powers to abrogate the rule of law, grant immunity to persons clandestinely committing crimes on its behalf or maintain a private army to harrass or intimidate its opponents. These acts all strike at a government's claim to "represent the people" and so destroy the basis of its authority. That line exists independently of any written constitution - there is after all no provision of the US constitution that expressly prohibits the president authorising covert operations against his electoral opponents, or using executive pardons to protect the perpetrators when they get caught. Yet we all know that "He can't do that". The USA constitution provided a specific mechanism for calling Nixon to account - but that depended on non-partisan action by congress. (I'm not sure I'd count on the present congress to impeach Bush if he had committed Nixon's crimes.) Under the Westminster system a simple no confidence vote brings an erring government down.

Countries with written constitutions may employ a complex web of checks and balances and separation of powers between institutions but these safeguards are all too often corrupted or abused by gaming politicians so that they may unreasonably restrain or seek to overturn legitimate governments (Clinton, Whitlam) while proving inadequate defence against genuine evil (Adolf Hitler). What ever constitution we may have, our freedom rests ultimately on each citizen's duty of eternal vigilance. Perhaps the greatest danger of institutional safeguards is that they may persuade us to the lie that we might pass that burden on to other shoulders and thereafter rest in peace.

A written constitution allows more specific restrictions on the powers of government but it can do so with no greater authority than that of the act whch created it. The passage of years and accumulation of precedent may strengthen an act (including an act creating a constitution) in law and reduce the likelihood that it will be lightly repealed but, ultimately, a future parliament has the power to unmake any law made by the present parliament. We are no victorious revolutionary army watching the surviving redcoats sail back home (or listening to the tumbrils bearing the aristocrats to the guillotine), we are an established nation with a legal heritage to preserve and the only conceivable way for us to create or modify our constitution is through an act of parliament. Such a "constitution act" should rest securely on a broad concensus or it is unlikely to survive long enough to acquire the gravitas of maturity.

Rohan is concerned about the fact that we have no constitution that can limit the power of parliament but it is very doubtful whether this is possible. A "constitution act" may "entrench" itself (in whole or part) by specifying that it can only be amended by a 75% majority but the legal validity of such clauses is highly dubious. Better to concentrate on ensuring Parliament is broadly representative of a well-informed public and is not captured by the executive or any other narrow-interest group. The "Unbridled Power" Geoffrey Palmer and others warn of refers to excessive power vested in an executive which controls a clear majority in parliament through a block-voting government caucus, which is itself dominated by a block-voting cabinet that is hand-picked by the Prime Minister. An MMP parliament will (usually) exhibit a reasonable dispersal of power. We could encourage this by (eg) -

(1) limiting the size of the cabinet (Microsoft board has 10 directors );
(2) abolishing the threshold for party seats ( a party getting less than 0.4% would still round down to 0 seats);
(3) modifying the doctrine of collective cabinet responsibility so that it does not restrict parliamentary advocacy or voting on legislation by individual ministers;
(4) fixed electoral term. Parliament votes in government and can remove government only if it votes in a successor.

The treaty cannot of itself bind parliament. It has a 160 year history but as the "founding document" of NZ, not as a constitution or even as a legally binding contract. Indeed it was consistently ignored over most of that history. The founding document of the USA is the Declaration of Independence. It is no less revered than our own Treaty but it would be absurd to treat it as law. True, the "inalienable right to life" would forbid the death penalty but what punishment could be given to a criminal without infringing the equally inalienable rights to liberty, or the pursuit of happiness? And what about those words "among which" - what other inalienable rights do we have? Or should the court simply make its own judgement as to which truths are "self-evident"? The treaty is equally unsuitable as a constitutional / legal document not because of the "motherhood" principles it states but because of the practical details on which it is silent.

NRT quotes a draft provision that would have enacted the treaty as part of the Bill of Rights. I don't believe this would have been a good idea. IMHO the government of the day "passed the buck" by leaving it to the courts to determine what the "principles of the treaty" were. To have invited them to interpret the "spirit and true intent" of the entire treaty from the plain text of the two (English and Maori) versions as the basis of an entrenched bill of rights would have been a "hospital pass". It's asking a great deal to consider such a provision non-controversial and to entrench controversial materials is to invite legal challenge to entrenchment itself. This is particularly foolish with "minority issues" since entrenchment may be particularly ineffective in such issues. The present parliament, for instance would divide (on strict party lines) 101:19 on a simple question of whether to "confiscate" Maori rights to ownership of the Foreshore and Seabed. (Labour(51), Progressive(2), NZ First(13) for the bill, UF(8) were for a slightly different version and National(27) wanted outright confiscation without any of the mitigating measures in the bill). Entrenchment simply won't work against this sort of majority.

We are left faced with the harder task of defining a new set of "Treaty Principles" which are clearly stated in proper legal form, capture the "spirit and true intent" of the Treaty and have the support of a broad concensus among and between Maori and Pakeha. The enduring principles so agreed may then be enacted as all or part of a new (entrenched) bill of rights. Non-enduring matters (such as redress of historical breaches) may be addressed in separate legislation. Other constitutional matters (electoral system, republic, etc) can be safely left to other legislation (and times) as our overall constitution remains firmly grounded in the jurisprudence and history of the Westminster tradition.

I believe (or at any rate advance the narrative that) the original treaty was signed in a spirit of trust, mutual respect and goodwill and a common vision of a shared future. Today the trust is gone but the shared vision remains and the respect and goodwill may yet be salvaged. The concensus we build can no longer rest on the luxury of trust but to build an understanding between people of goodwill in the absence of trust is the thing the law does best.

Connections

2004-08-14T13:50:00.000+12:45

I was pondering about connections individuals have to the various pieces of land we call home. Don Brash reckoned it was the lump he got in his throat when he landed back in NZ after an OS tour but I'm not so sure. There are so many other things that can effect your emotional state on a long flight - the length and class of travel, the degree of pre-travel stress, the effects of sleep deprivation, cramped seating, strained bladders and the number and strength of complimentary emotional stimulants consumed all play their part. On the occasion I remember, coming back to NZ after a three-year absence, I definitely didn't get a lump in my throat when the plane touched down. It was when some bastard slipped that schmaltzy number "Welcome Home" into the Muzak stream that I lost it. Fortunately other passengers don't look backwards when they're queueing to get off aircraft and I had plenty of time to compose myself before actually deplaning. But these are ties to an abstraction not to a specific place. We identify ourselves as New Zealanders because that is part of who we are rather than because that is where we live, and we retain that allegiance wherever we may travel.

Those of us who are relatively recent (second-generation) Kiwis may retain connections to distant places - I remember visiting my grandparents ancestral home in Ireland and the attachment I felt to that place at the time. Maybe it was an illusion, perhaps I would be none the wiser had I been shown a completely different place, but it felt real.

And then there's the place (or places) where we grew up. The old home where our attachment is built on childhood memories. My parents spent most of my childhood in Fiji so, for me, this attachment lies in yet another corner of the globe.

These attachments to foreign places may bring a degree of affinity to their respective countries. I am proud of my Irish heritage and retain a vaguely exasperated affection for Fiji but this in no way lessens my commitment to New Zealand. They are linkages of another kind.

Those who live or grow up in the place that has been their ancestral home for many generations may develop a deeper attachment to that place as the depth of ancestral connection is reinforced by personal childhood memories. These people are "indigenous" to that place and have a powerful special realtonship to it. But that special connection is to a specific place not to an entire nation. If they get a lump in their throat it is not at an international airport but at the first glimpse of the vale, isle, glen, hill, lake, river, mountain or beach that they call home. That attachment is a thing quite separate from nationality or citizenship, nor does it depend on ownership.

It is also not, of itself, a racial concept (although, in practice, few non-Maori could claim "indigeneity" to any part of NZ). I wonder if some form of legal recognition of this attachment might provide a way forward in our current "racial crisis". More later.

The McNee Manslaughter - a question

2004-08-12T18:15:00.000+12:45

Does anyone know what the effect of a hung jury is in a homicide trial where manslaughter is conceded but murder is contested? It would be somewhat perverse if juror(s) demanding a murder verdict would jeopardise the manslaughter conviction if they stuck to their guns. On the other hand, I've never heard of a case where a defendant was found guilty of manslaughter but the question of murder was left undetermined.

Free Speech at any Price

2004-08-09T13:05:00.000+12:45

I see (No Right turn, Aug 6) that the government is to review the law on 'Hate Speech'. I don't believe anyone has ever expressed the case for free speech better than Oliver Wendell Holmes' dissenting opinion in Abrams v USA 1919.

"...Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power and want a certain result with all your heart you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition. To allow opposition by speech seems to indicate that you think the speech impotent, as when a man says that he has squared the circle, or that you do not care whole heartedly for the result, or that you doubt either your power or your premises. But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas-that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. Every year if not every day we have to wager our salvation upon some prophecy based upon imperfect knowledge. While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country. I wholly disagree with the argument of the Government that the First Amendment left the common law as to seditious libel in force. History seems to me against the notion. I had conceived that the United States through many years had shown its repentance for the Sedition Act of 1798 (Act July 14, 1798, c. 73, 1 Stat. 596), by repaying fines that it imposed. Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, 'Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.' Of course I am speaking only of expressions of opinion and exhortations, which were all that were uttered here, but I regret that I cannot put into more impressive words my belief that in their conviction upon this indictment the defendants were deprived of their rights under the Constitution of the United States. "

Not free speech at any price then, but curtailed only in response to an immediate threat of actual harm. Otherwise "leave the correction of evil counsels to time". If only our politicians can display as much wisdom.

New Improved Effective Tax calculator

2004-07-23T17:34:00.000+12:45

There is now a new improved "effective tax rate calculator" see sidebar link to activate. This performs all calculations for Income, Benefit (DPB or unemployment), Family Support (including Child Tax Credit), Accommodation Supplement and Student Loan repayment. All figures are calculated for the fiscal years 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and are compared withwhat they woud be with a zero income. The final (take-home) income is calculated as Income+Benefit-Tax+Family Support+Accommodation Supplement-Student Loan Repayment, the net value of work is calculated as the difference between Income+Benefit-Tax+Family Support+Accommodation Supplement using the actual Income or setting Income to zero. The effective tax rate is calculated by scaling the value of work against actual income.

I've also created a link to a pdf document which uses this sort of analysis to highlight the inequities in NZ's present system and to suggest improvements. I also e-mailed this document to all the parties in parliament at the time (Maori Party weren't and I couldn't find an EMail address and have received replies from Labour and NZ First.

Are you paying too much.

2004-07-15T18:31:00.000+12:45

As you may have already gathered I'm interested in the issues of income tax versus benefits. The new link to the right points to a calculator which combines information on an individual family's tax liabilities and entitlements to various benefits. The output displays income tax liability, "main benefit" (DPB, Unemployment, etc), and family assistance entitlements for the current year and for the next three years according to the latest budget. These figures are then compared with what they would be if you had no earnings to calulate the net value (to you) of your earnings and your "effective tax rate".
Feedback welcomed.

ONCB Poll

2004-07-13T18:02:00.000+12:45

The latest ONCB poll has already drawn posts from Just Left, David Farrar. The figures shown here are compared to the 2002 general election (in parentheses)

National	43%	(21)
Labour	39%	(41)
Green	5%	(7)
NZ First	5%	(10)
Act	3%	(7)
United	2%	(7)
Maori	2%	(0)
Progressive	0%	(2)

The poll certainly leaves the next election wide open but we need to consider three separate things that are going on.
(1) Midterm shrinkage of minor parties. The smaller parties have consistently polled poorly in midterm but increased their support in the election campaign when they get more exposure. The combined vote for parties other than Labour or National was 38% (33% for the parties in parliament at present) at the general election compared to 18% in the latest poll. They may well get most of this back at the next election.
(2) An overall left-right swing. The combined Labour-Green-Progressive-Alliance-Maori
vote has gone down from 51% at the general election to 47%. The combined National-Act vote has gone up from 28% to 46%. This corresponds to about a 10% swing.
(3) National has drawn voters from ACT, NZ First and United. Although it's difficult to differentiate this from the combined effects of 1 and 2.
If the two major "blocs" come up about even but support for the minor parties (in particular NZF and UF) returns to about 2002 levels then the ability of the major parties to compromise will become critical.

We live in interesting times.

Bowling for Columbine and Welfare Reform

2004-07-12T14:58:00.000+12:45

I watched "Bowling for Columbine" last night with memories of National's proposed welfare policies still fresh in my mind. This lent a particular piquancy to the story of the Michigan six-year-old who took a gun to school and killed another child. His mother had been thrown off welfare and forced to work two minimum-wage jobs in another city as part of Michigan state's welfare reforms.
Now I'm not so naive as to believe everything Mike Moore alleges about the Bush administration, the GOP or neoconservatives in general, but the basic facts outlined above are a matter of record. The statements that Lockheed Martin are being paid to administer the welfare reforms and that at least one of the mother's employers was receiving a tax break for participating are also (to the best of my knowledge)uncontested.
It is also hard to deny that the Bush administration and much of the American right is tainted by more than mere greed -
(1) There may be innocent explanations to some of the Cheney/Halliburton stories nut surely there is at least a stronger prime facia case for a special prosecutor than Whitewater.
(2) There seems little doubt that George Bush was guilty of at least insider trading in the early 1990's but escaped the consequences because of his father's position. The amounts involved were much larger than in Whitewater.
The readiness of the American ruling classes to chase a fast buck, of the mainstream American media to lionise the rich and hold the powerful beyond suspicion and of the American public to equate wealth and power with fitness to be given more wealth and power makes it all too easy to see how reforms like the privatisation of health, prisons, education and welfare become policy (cherchez l'argent mes amis) over there. It would be a tragedy if "cultural colonisation" led to countries like New Zealand, where we demand (and, I believe with few exceptions, get) higher ethical standards from our politicians, adopting the same flawed policies.
In New Zealand a solo mother with a six year old child would get an annual net income of $14,716 (excluding accommodation allowance). She can earn up to $80 a week without any loss of benefit for a total annual income of $18,001. If, however she get's a full-time job earning (say) $20,000 per year (about $12 per hour, many full-time jobs pay less) her final take home pay will be $21,662. Even if the state (or someone else) pays the full cost of childcare, transport, etc the extra $3660 is not an adequate reward for working full time. If we want to encourage solo parents with young children to go out to work then letting them hang on to a bigger share of their earnings is likely to be far more effective than coercive measures.

More on the parole debate

2004-07-09T14:20:00.000+12:45

Don Brash's Orewa II speech has generated a public debate which has shed more heat than light om the issues. If we really believe that it's always a good thing to make sentences tougher, then we could save a lot of time by setting a minimum penalty of life without parole for all crimes. If we take a more balanced view then a more thoughtful analysis is in order.

If (at present) a prisoner is sentenced to 12 years imprisonment then
(1) their normal civil rights will be suspended/restricted for that period;
(2) they will spend at least 4 years (1/3) in prison.

The actual severity of the sentence will also depend on
(3) the type of prison the prisoner is sent to
(4) the actual time served before parole
(5) the restrictiveness or intrusiveness of the parole conditions.

which are all outside the control of the sentencing judge. At one level, Don Brash's entire arguent can be seen as one of semantics. Do we call the above sentence 12 years or "4 years followed by a supervision period of 8 years"? On the other hand we might legitimately ask -
(1) Is the balance of power between the sentencing judge and the parole board (and hence between punishment and rehabilitation) about right?
(2) Is a fixed ratio of minimum time before parole to maximum sentence appropriate regardless of whether the latter is 20 years or 6 months ?
(3) Are parole boards too close to the Corrections Department (eg Are prisoner's released earlier than appropriate because prisons are overcrowded? Is the evidence of prison staff to parole hearings used as a lever to help control prisoners?).

I would welcome an informed debate on these questions but I don't see too many signs of it yet/

Three problems, three policies, three questions

2004-07-09T13:41:00.000+12:45

Could some of the Brashophiles, National insiders or other right-wing cheerleaders out there please enlighten me on the following -

(1) Would you wager a fish dinner (well, make that a chocolate fish) that Orewa III will NOT be about immigration (or refugees)?

(2) Can you remember any particularly pithy quotes leading National politicians may have had to say about Winston Peter's "Three problems, three policies" campaign?

(3) CAN WE FIX IT?

Double Jeopardy

2004-06-23T15:47:00.000+12:45

The Criminal Procedures Bill is about to begin its path through Parliament (Double Jeopardy Debate Begins). Among other things this bill will allow for retrial of aquitted defendants under some circumstances. Civil libertarians may be concerned about this change but knee-jerk responses need to be avoided.
I have always felt the more important issue was whether juries correctly apply the standard of "proof beyond reasonable doubt" in the first place. In scientific investigations a trial investigating (for example) the efficacy of a new drug is considered "significant" only if the statistical probability that it's results could have arisen by chance is greater than 1 in 20, and the drug's efficacy would be accepted only when confirmed by significant results from a number of independent studies conducted by multiple researchers under varying circumstances. Even then few scientists would say that the efficacy of the drug was proven "beyond reasonable doubt".
Juror's are denied the luxury of waiting for further results. It is the prosecution's responsibility to investigate thoroughly before the case comes to trial. A thoughtful juror who judges that the defendant is "90% probably guilty" should demand an aquittal but will come under enormous pressure from other jurors who don't know the meaning of the word, "doubt". This is not helped by the knowledge that a wrongful acquittal can never be remedied coupled with the (largely erroneous) belief that a wrongful conviction can. It would help if all juries were more thoroughly instructed on the meaning of reasonable doubt (any doubt that a reasonable person might seriously entertain) and specifically warned against applying the lesser standard of "balance of damage" ("better to acquit ten guilty men than to convict one innocent man"). It would also help if a "not guilty" verdict were called "not proven" (which is what it is).
Actually I quite like the idea of a two-stage process for criminal proceedings. The first stage would be conducted as at present but the jury would decide whether each charge was "proven" or "not proven". Majority verdicts might be allowed. A verdict of "proven" would then proceed to argument on sentence (just as a guilty plea does now). A verdict of "not proven" would lead to a second stage in which both counsel and the trial judge could resummarise their cases (but not present new evidence). The jury could then (after deliberation) bring in a new verdict of "not guilty" (if they were satisfied that the accused was innocent on the balance of probabilities) or leave the verdict as "not proven". A "not guilty" verdict would then be a positive finding of innocence and would normally entitle the accused to costs and to protection against double jeopardy. The Crown would be able to appeal a "not proven" verdict (and possibly gain a retrial) under more or less the same conditions as a defendant can appeal a "proven" verdict but could appeal a "not guilty" verdict under only very limited conditions.
I'd be interested to hear other bloggers thoughts.

Is this the "Dodgy Dossetter"?

2004-06-23T12:35:00.000+12:45

OK, I shouldn't have said that. Nice spirits don't make snide ad hominem attacks on people but some puns are so ripe and juicy one just has to pluck them. TVNZ has run an explosive (estimated yield about half a damp squib) story (see Allegations against Winston Peters, link pinched from David Farrar). Apparently an affidavit from Ross Meurant's former partner, Yvonne Dossetter, held by TVNZ has been mysteriously leaked to parliament. The said affidavit alleges that Meurant told Dossetter that he (Meurant) had received money from Simunovich Fisheries for Winston Peters at the time of the fisheries select committeee investigations.
I was just wondering -
(1) whether there was anything in the affidavit that wasn't hearsay;
(2) whether the "Omnibus Bill" is going to extend spousal immunity / privilege to communications between Ross Meurant and Yvonne Dossetter;
(3) whether an affidavit has any practical significance when spousal immunity makes perjury impossible to prove;
(4) which way Ian Ewen-Street, David Carter and Winston Peters are voting on the Omnibus Bill.
The Grey Shade is no fan of Winston Peters but this allegation was a crock when it was floated up earlier this year and looks like proving an older and smellier crock this time.
Good to see the Speaker's response, though.
.. 'Speaker Jonathan Hunt says that David Carter can't simply write back to him asking him to investigate. He says the MP must spell out the case against Peters, or the select committee he chairs must make a recommendation'
The Bunter, at least, was not born yesterday.

Status Anxiety, The American Dream and the Decent Society

2004-06-18T14:34:00.000+12:45

I see No Right Turn has already posted an item on this subject but I was also inspired to write about the Status Anxiety program on TV One last night. The program explored the link between the transition from monarchy to democracy (or "meritocracy") with a growth in unhappiness arising from increased expectations. People living under a monarchy had no or little hope (and therefore no or little expectation) of advancement. People living under a democracy know that anything is possible and that it's their own fault if they don't achieve it. That seems more than a little facile - the logical extension of this belief is that slaves are the happiest of all men. In fact, people living under a monarchy do have aspirations (however modest) and succeeded or failed in meeting them according to their luck or ability. English (or Scots) men who succeeded far beyond reasonable expectations for their social standing include Oliver Cromwell, William Shakespeare, Francis Drake and Robert Burns. Others tried but failed tragically (Wat Tyler, the Tolpuddle Martyrs). In focussing on the USA as the sole example of "Democracy" the program used a grossly non-representative sample.

Is the USA really less class-ridden than the UK? Even in the early 20th century the British aristocracy had little difficulty determining which American heiresses were suitably bred to rejuvenate their flagging family fortunes (Van der Bilt Yes, Simpson No). And what are the odds on the USA electing a humble grocer's son (much
less a grocer's daughter) president.

Are the (unnamed) European democracies more compassionate than the USA only because they remain aristocratic? England and France gave their monarchs the ultimate facelift 127 years before and 17 years after the American Declaration of Independence respectively. The constitutional monarchies in the Netherlands and Scandinavia have values very close to those of the New Zealand "Decent Society" which Jim Bolgier never quite got us back to and to describe them as "class-ridden" or "aristocratic" is bizzare.

Is democracy the only thing leading to increased expctations? What about the role of mass consumerism? Does the bombardment of our airwaves with an endless stream of images promoting unattainable aspirations (the "content breaks" as well as the commercials) have no role in this contagion of discontent? Does the difference between the BBC and Fox account for any of the differences between Britain and America? Are the non-Anglophone Europeans at least partially protected from trans-Atlantic cultural colonisation? Can the New Zealand experience of moving from a BBC model to the most crassly commercial shed any light on these questions?

The main social difference between America and the liberal European democracies is in the nature of their dreams. The American dream is about "success" (ie succeeding at becoming rich, famous ansd powerful). The liberal dream is to be happy and a liberal is not happy with prosperity stolen from the poor, ripped from a ravaged landscape or purchased with a mortgage against our grandchildren's future. New Zealand used to be firmly in the liberal camp and I suspect most of us still are (as individuals) but we have a recent history that suggests a flight towards the conservative economic agenda currently dominant in America (but opposed by many Americans).

Perhaps the hallmark of our dreams is the choice of heroes we choose to look up to. Any country has its share of passing banalities among its heroes but if we look at those that remain after the usual parade of sports stars, rock stars, film stars, beautiful people and TV personalities have passed we may get some idea of a nations psyche. American lists will include Bill Gates (not because he was the father of the PC revolution but because he made more money than any one else) and Donald Trump (because that's how I'll live when I'm rich). The BRT and others frequently bemoan our failure to honour our captains of industry and mutter darkly about Tall Poppy Syndrome but I have never heard a New Zealander try to knock down our genuine achievers (Ernest Rutherford, Kiri Te Kanawa, Edmund Hillary, Peter Jackson) and those such as Hillary, Peter Blake or Fred Hollows who have added service to humanity onto their achievements are universally admired. We do not begrudge the rich their wealth if they have come by it honestly and they may enjoy its fruits with our blessing but we reserve honour for genuine achievement. For the record Greyshade's three most admired people of the twentieth century are Mother Teresa, Mahatma Ghandi and Nelson Mandela.

What are they afraid of?

2004-06-11T20:24:00.000+12:45

Had last night's "State of the Nation" program been on the state of street lighting in the Nations inner cities I'm sure Gerry Brownlee and Stephen Franks would have been among the first to point out that "honest citizens have nothing to fear from improved lighting". How strange then that they should react with such vehemence to a program which honestly set out to enlighten us about our country's history and constitution and, in the process, demonstrated as nothing has ever been demonstrated before just how badly we need it.
That being said I would have no hesitation giving Stephen my vote for ACT leader (were I eligible) on the strength of this gem -
"the claim that Maori paid more in income tax than they received in tax funds, when the amounts reportedly received were only cash distributions -- that ignored twice as much in tax-paid services."
In the 2003 fiscal year Cash Benefits paid to all New Zealanders, Total Income Tax Revenue and Total Government Expenditure were 13 billion, 26 billion and 39 billion so when he accuses TVNZ of comparing the Maori share of Income Tax (26b X f where f is the Maori share of the economy) with the Maori share of Cash benefits (13b X f) he implies that the correct target should have been the Maori share of total Government Expenditure (39b X f) and so introduces an almost exactly equal error in the opposite direction. I expect ordinary hypocrisy from any politician but this sort of Precision Hypocrisy requires a certain Chutzpah.

Could this be the start of a beautiful friendship?

2004-06-11T14:50:00.000+12:45

National's Simon Power deplores the high effective marginal rates for some families following the budget (see norightturn). Labour's Steve Maharey points out that these effects are inevitable with any targeted family (or other assistance) program and that the budget has merely raised the threshold at which they occur.
They are both more or less right (Simon shouldn't have included ACC deductions since these provide an income-related private benefit but they don't make much difference to his argument) but neither of them say where they stand on making these (and other benefits) universal - which is the only way the problem can be avoided.
It can be done. A (pre-budget) analysis by your favourite spectre indicates that a "Universal Marginal Rate" system whereby everyone pays a tax rate of 39% on all taxable income but receives a "Universal Income" roughly equal to current benefit entitlement (according to family size and location) would cost about 6 billion to implement (5-10 years tax reform at current rates). This would give similar benefits to the budget for middle to higher income families but would extend to any income and eliminate the high marginal rates Simon so rightly deplores. The same scheme can be made fiscally neutral by increasing the tax rate to 45%. This make all high income earner's worse off (compared to the 39% rate) but the couple in Simon's example would need to earn over $200,000 before they received a net tax increase (compared to the current system).
It's not realpolitik to expect this sort of change to be made overnight. The outcry from middle to high income DINKs (Double Income No Kids) - or single-income childless couples who can split their income for tax purposes -is always going to drown out the gratitude of the relatively limited number of taxpayers affected by the high effective marginal rates but, at the end of the day, it's just plain unfair that a single-income family with three dependent kids earning say $100,000 has to pay the same net tax as a single person with no dependents on the same income, or $7500 MORE than a DINK couple earning $50,000 each. Would it be too much to ask for a bipartisan (or multiparty) accord that a universal marginal rate system is at least an ideal to work towards? At least that way we might hope that future changes would advance us towards that goal (as the current budget does but a simple increase in base benefit levels or reduction in nominal tax rates would not). The Greens and Alliance have traditionally favoured universal benefits and United Future could hardly oppose so obviously family-friendly a policy. If National and Labour have also discovered the problems of excessive effective marginal tax rates we could really be onto something.

Taxes and Government Spending

2004-06-06T15:59:00.000+12:45

There have been a number of interesting Blog postings on (to name a few) No Right Turn, David Farrar, about Government spending as a % of GDP. Your favourite phantom was inspired to take a closer look at the breakdown of the numbers (to peek beneath the veil as it were) with some interesting findings. The most recent year I could find the detailed figures for was the year ending June 2003. The government's total revenue for that year was 43.7 billion or 34.0% of gdp.

The fact that most struck me is that only 6.2 billion (the "Net cost of Goverment-produced services") was spent on the traditional function of "governing the country". Rather more than one could lay the spectral fingers on at short notice but less than 5% of gdp. Add in another 3.6 billion for "Social Assistance Benefits in Kind" provided by government departments to get the "Final Consumption Expenditure" of 9.8 billion (about 8% of gdp). This figure represents the complete costs of running core government services including the salaries, stationery, accommodation, travel, coffee, red tape and paper-clip budgets of all government departments, courts, judges, police and defence forces, prisons, members of parliament, ministers, parliamentary and ministerial offices and more specifically -

(1) The cost of keeping Ahmed Zaoui in prison;
(2) The cost of operating and manning speed cameras;
(3) Official receptions for VIPs;
(4) Fees, Purchases, koha and other payments made to external consultants, lawyers, accountants, Kaumatua, etc;
(5) CEO expense accounts;
(6) Meal allowances for Security Intelligence Service agents;
(7) Any other pet peeve you wish to nominate.

The remainder of the tax take goes on Interest (2.6 billion), Social Assistance Benefits paid in Cash (13.2 billion), Other transfer payments (13.4 billion - mainly for the health and education systems) and a 4.5 billion Current Account surplus.

In other words the Government did NOT take 43.7 billion from the private sector and tip it down a black hole - it took 43.7 billion from the private sector and -

(1) gave 13.2 billion straight back in cash
(2) spent 17.3 billion on education, health, etc services which would have otherwise fallen on households
(3) paid 2.6 billion interest on public debt (some of it to households)
(4) laid aside 4.5 billion savings for a rainy day
(5) spent just over 6 billion on all core government operations.

The Net aggregate Tax take by the NZ government is actually very modest. The impact of the tax/social spending system has more to do with the facts that -

(1) the 17 billion that the state spends on education, health, etc on behalf of its citizens may not be spent in quite the same way as the citizens would choose to spend it themselves.
(2) the 30 billion paid in (cash or kind) benefits do not accrue to indivual households in proportion to the tax they pay and so the overall system leads to a redistribution of income between households in the private sector.

I'm not convinced that the first of these two (the loss of personal choice in spending) is that important. No one chooses to be sick, most people take private health insurance (and thereby abdicate their future spending choices to the insurance provider) whenever state provision is not available and the large increases in tertiary education fees have not prevented increasing number of New Zealanders from taking up tertiary education (often with large student loans).

Some people (particularly on the right) may object to any form of income redistibution but I suspect most New Zealanders approve of a reasonable, fair system of redistibution which appropriately balances need, ability to pay and preservation of incentives to work harder (or otherwise increase gross income). There is a good argument that we could have a much fairer and effective redistribution regime than we presently have but let's focus on those issues rather than spurious red herrings (NZ is overtaxed, inefficient Government expenditure is throttling growth, individuals are denied choice by State provision of health and education) or by a mindlessly bleated chorus of private spending good, state spending bad.

The Precautionary Principle or Pascal's Wager

2004-05-24T15:29:00.000+12:45

I was thinking - for no particular reason - about the "Precautionary Principle" propounded by environmentalists and others. Essentially it says that we should err on the side of "safety" when introducing (eg) a new technological development that might harm the environment. Instinctively it certainly seems right but is it strictly rational? ..and how far should we take it? Suppose a development is going to yield economic benefits worth $1 million but has a small chance (p) of doing $1 billion worth of environmental or other damage - shouldn't we (rationally) accept the development if p is less than 1 in 1000? Or does the Precautionary Principle mean that we show set a lower threshhold of say 1 in 2,000? - or 1 in 10,000? - or 1 in 1 million?

Pascal's wager similarly uses an apparently rational risk benefit analysis to settle a non-rational argument. It states that believing in God is a "wager" with an infinite payout (eternal salvation versus eternal damnation) and that we should therefore do so regardless of how high we consider the odds against it. The problem with this argument is that it can be applied just as easily to a belief that Satan is the real god and Christian's are going to hell, or that God exists but gets really cross with people who insist on believing in him in spite of all the evidence he left to prove he didn't.

Perhaps the real reason behind the precautionary principle lies in Greyshade's Law which states that

"No credible risk analysis can contain any assessed probability which is materially lower than the probability that the assessment is a load of bollocks"

Along with its first footnote

"The incidence of clinical schizophrenia is about 1 in 100. The probablility that any one belief you (or anyone else) may hold at the moment is in fact a paranoid delusion is materially greater than one in a million."

So maybe we should -
(1) use rational risk benefit analysis to guide decisions but look really closely at the underlying assumptions and science
(2) pay particular attention to claimed low probabilities - lightning does strike twice in the same place amd the chance of 1 in 100 year floods in consecutive years is much greater than 1 in 10,000.
(3) make sure that no material factor has been left out but disregard unreasonably remote possibilities - if you try to include everything that anyone mighi or ever could possibly consider you will never get a sensible result.