Radio NZ supports SM?
Monday, October 31st, 2011I’ve just listened to all four of Radio NZ’s primers on the various options for the referendum and noticed an interesting thing. (I found them on the Morning Report segments: the Supplementary Member on is here, for example. I couldn’t get the relevant links on the special RNZ election page to work). They are generally […]
Political protesters
Monday, October 31st, 2011Interesting that both our major parties’ election events had speeches interrupted by protesters over the weekend. Protesters reportedly urged John Key to “stop the war against the poor”, began to unfurl a banner and tried to throw something onto the stage. A protester at Labour’s transport policy launch called out to ask what the party was going to […]
Told you so
Friday, October 28th, 2011High Court agrees with me You might remember that I argued (here and here) that the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s decision to uphold complaints against TVNZ’s documentary on the Aramoana massacre on grounds of taste and decency and children’s interests, was wrong. The High Court has agreed with me. It has upheld TVNZ’s appeal. (I should […]
NZ Lawyer column
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011In my recent NZ Lawyer column, I reverted to a blog format: Let’s face it. You’re busy people. You have short attention spans. So let’s move to a blog format and you can graze the bits you find most interesting. Pride or prejudice?Some of you may have seen my star turn on TV One News unpacking […]
Staggering bunk from Collins over surveillance bill
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011Apparently, Police Minister Judith Collins has a law degree. That was not evident during her performance on Morning Report today. Was she deliberately misleading us, or did she simply not know what she was talking about? She said: Actually, video surveillance has been used by the police with the support of the Court of Appeal […]
NZ tops OIA study
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011A new international study ranks NZ number one for freedom of information. Countries around the world were sent information requests relating to their budgets. We passed with flying colours. A depressing number of other countries flunked.
Submission on the Video Camera Surveillance Bill
Thursday, September 29th, 2011Felix Geiringer and I drafted a submission on the Bill, and got it in with 5 minutes to spare before the midnight deadline. (Hope you enjoyed your opportunity for public input, people.) Here it is: Submission to the Justice and Electoral Select Committeeon the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill SUMMARY OF VIEWS We […]
Video camera surveillance and the Urewera defendants
Friday, September 23rd, 2011I’ve been spending spare moments in the last few days trying to get my head around the Supreme Court’s decision (available here; it’s R v Hamed). I’m not sure I really understand it. But then, that puts me in good company: Attorney-General Chris Finlayson and the Police Association’s Greg O’Connor don’t seem to understand it either. What I’m really interested in […]
Did the Crown breach the suppression order in the Ureweras case?
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011The Crown tells us that as a result of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Urewera case, there is no longer sufficient evidence to justify the continuation of the proceedings against a number of those charged solely under the Arms Act… That is, the Crown has revealed that the Supreme Court has ruled some […]
A thought
Monday, September 5th, 2011It’s worth pausing to reflect that Valerie Morse went to the lengths of burning a flag at an Anzac Day dawn ceremony to shake us out of our complacency and start questioning our involvement in foreign conflicts (the banner she was trying to draw attention to specifically mentioned Afghanistan). Nicky Hager’s book suggests that we […]
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