Mike's Minute: The pay equity court case is a "show trial"

If Grant Robertson thinks the Covid inquiry is a "show trial", then what is about to unfold at the High Court as of the end of this month can't be far behind.

A bunch of unions are taking the Government to court over pay equity.

Gary Judd KC: Regulation Review Committee's tikanga decision

The Committee probably went as far as it could

What the Committee did

The Regulation Review Committee decided (1) that making tikanga a compulsory subject for law students did not unduly trespass on personal rights and liberties, but (2) requiring tikanga to be incorporated in the other compulsory subjects was an unusual or unexpected use of the powers conferred on the New Zealand Council of Legal Education.

Judith Collins KC: Speech to the Law Association

Thank you to the Law Association for inviting me to speak this morning. As a former president under its previous name — the Auckland District Law Society — I take particular satisfaction in seeing this organisation, and its members, in such good heart.

As Attorney-General, I am grateful for these invitations to engage you — practitioners at the frontline of the profession — in discussion about New Zealand’s legal and constitutional framework. That is, how powers and responsibilities are shared across our system of government.

Today I wish to speak about a topic that has been front of mind for me recently — comity.

Gary Judd KC: Real estate agents who don't attend Treaty courses will lose their licence

What’s wrong with that? you may well ask. Nothing at all, the answer is, except: “REAA, it is none of your business; mind your own, not the licensees’”.

Guy Hatchard: What Just Happened to New Zealand? Apparently It is All Our Own Fault

In the short space of three years, New Zealand society has been transformed. Our economic circumstances, our health landscape, our political ideas, our attitude to the rest of the world, and crucially, our social cohesion have undergone a sea change. This change has not been a positive step of progress. How was this allowed to happen? Was this imposed on us, or did we do it to ourselves?

Guy Hatchard: The New Zealand Government Has Tabled Proposals to Appoint a Chief Wizard

How on Earth Did This Happen?

The Department of Internal Affairs has released a consultation document containing proposed changes to censorship procedures. Read a sobering commentary by the Free Speech Union here.

The proposals include the appointment of a chief regulator who will be empowered to decide whether online content (including social media posts) is ‘harmful’. To do so, he will be empowered to make up his own ‘guidelines’ without the input of parliament. The proposals will also allow fines exceeding $200,000 to be levied on those who don’t comply with his ideas.

So What Exactly Will the Regulator’s Draconian Powers Replace?

Cam Slater: Oh, So Now Human Rights Are Important?

You’d never have known that we had a Human Rights Commissioner during the excesses of the Ardern regime. She illegally locked us up and down, illegally banned Kiwi citizens from entering their own country and illegally sacked them from jobs because of her vaccine mandates which were demonstrably against the Bill of Rights. Paul Hunt, the keffiyeh-wearing apologist for violent regimes, was utterly silent even as Police assaulted and stomped on peaceful protestors in Wellington.

Now because a few people living in a boarding house had the misfortune of having had it burn down on them, he is all of a sudden incredibly concerned about the human rights of those few people.

Peter Dunne: The Ombudsman, The Controller and Auditor-General

The offices of the Ombudsman and the Controller and Auditor-General are two important independent statutory agencies charged with protecting aspects of the public interest against excessive or unnecessarily coercive actions by the government and its departments.

The Ombudsman’s office has the power to investigate approximately 4,000 public sector agencies across New Zealand. It does not have executive authority, but Ombudsman’s recommendations are normally taken very seriously by the government and rarely ignored.

The Controller and Auditor-General’s role is two-fold – responsibility for the annual financial audit of about 3,500 public bodies, including schools and other public bodies, and ensuring that government funding is both spent for the purposes for which it was appropriated, and in the best possible way. Like the Ombudsman, the Controller and Auditor-General is an officer of Parliament, meaning they report directly to Parliament, rather than the government of the day.

This week, both offices released separate highly critical reports on unrelated aspects of the government’s response to the pandemic.

Point of Order: Expect to hear heaps about supermarkets and child welfare changes

But few will notice the fate of sod-turning ceremonies

Uh, oh. We no longer have a simple sod-turning ceremony to kick off work on a new road, pathway or whatever.

The dignitaries who are invited to these photo opportunities will find they are attending something called a huringa nuku.

Peter Dunne: The dangers of our laissez-faire approach to government

Citizens’ rights are nominally protected through a Bill of Rights Act but that could be overturned by a simple majority and the cause of those seeking more judicial activism will not have been helped by the decision of the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade

New Zealand has a very simple system of government, based on the supremacy of Parliament as both the supreme lawmaker and the highest court in the land. It is a pragmatic approach, very much in tune with the “can do” attitude of our peoples.

Wendy Geus: Gang Rights Interfere with Our Right to a Safe Community

At the weekend Christopher Luxon unveiled National’s anti-gang policies, including banning gang patches in public areas and on social media sites, stopping gangs gathering in public and associating with each other and prohibiting them from accessing guns.

During his interview with their police spokesperson Mark Mitchell on Q&A, Jack Tame quoted the 2013 Bill of Rights (freedom of expression) as a reason National’s banning insignia in public places wouldn’t work. This was used by the High Court in 2011 to overturn Michael Laws’s 2009 legislation in Whanganui which banned insignia in public places.

Ardern says there is no ‘evidence base’ for banning insignia in public, forgetting perhaps, like Jack Tame, that in 2013 National successfully reversed the High Court’s ruling and brought in the law nationwide to prevent gang patches in government buildings.

Roger Partridge: A victory for democracy?

A week is not just a long time in politics. It is a long time for democracy.

Last Friday, Attorney-General David Parker released his advice on the Rotorua District Council’s proposals to rearrange local voting rights. The proposals found their way into a Government bill that passed its first reading earlier in the month.

To strengthen Māori representation on the Council, the bill proposes changes to the way the Council’s ten members are elected. Three would be voted for by voters on the general roll. Three would be elected by voters on the Māori roll. The remaining four would be voted for by all voters, whether on the Māori or general rolls.

However, there are only 21,700 voters on the Māori roll for the three Māori ward seats but 55,600 on the general roll for the three general ward seats. Consequently, voter representation under the proposed arrangements would not be proportional.

As Attorney-General, Parker was obliged to advise the Government on whether the bill is consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Not surprisingly, he concluded it was not.