Obama’s no.1 priority

Guess what the first thing Barack Obama wants to do as US President? Pull US troops out of Iraq? No. Help end the economic crisis that the US is suffering at the moment? good guess, but no. Something to do with helping American families out of poverty? No.

The correct answer: Sign into law a bill, to give mothers the right to kill their innocent unborn children (through abortion).

Abortion was first legalised throughout the United States in the 1973 Roe v. Wade case(several states, including California and New York had passed their own laws legalising abortion before Roe), when some liberal activist judges in the Supreme Court found abortion to be a fundamental right under the US constitution, and legalised abortion up to birth (and during birth with partial birth-abortions), striking down all state laws restricting abortion as unconstitutional. Since that time, the membership of the Supreme Court has changed to include more conservative judges, and the Roe verdict has become diluted, with the court now allowing some restrictions, such as parental notification laws, waiting periods, infromed consent laws, and more recently a ban on partial-birth abortion. Some “pro-choice” advocates have began to worry (with some justification) that Roe might be overturned, and thus each state will be able to choose their own abortion laws, and that some conservative states will pass very restrictive abortion laws.

In order to prevent this happening, the pro-abortion group NARAL Pro-Choice America are lobbying for Congress to pass a Freedom of Choice Act to codify the Roe verdict into legislation. I have long seen this as a pipe dream, as in order for it to become law, it wil need to pass both houses of congress, including stopping a filibuster in the Senate (and this will require 60 Senators) and a pro-abortion President willing to sign the Bill into law, all at the same time. However, the electoral math facing the Republicans this election is awful, with the Republicans having to defend 23 Senate seats this election (against only 12 for the Democrats), including 5 when the incumbent is retiring, and the Republican Party is in very bad shape in the polls at the moment, thanks to the war in Iraq and the recent economic downturn. And this makes it very likely that the Democrats (who are overwhelmingly “pro-choice”) will not only retain their majority in the House, but significently increase their majority in the Senate as well. And a filibuster proof Democratic majority in the Senate is no longer a pipe-dream, but a serious possibility (although it will still be difficult to achieve). If this occurs, then the Freedom of Choice Bill might actually get to the desk of the next President, and if the next President is Barack Obama, it will become law. This means that in order to overturn Roe v. Wade, conservatives will not only have to stack the Supreme Court, but have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and majority in the House and pro-life President, all willing to vote for a Bill to explicitly remove legal protection for abortion, at the same time. In other words, passage of this Bill will be a massive obstacle to overturning Roe.

But that is not all the Bill will do. It would also re-legalise partial-birth abortion, and remove all the waiting period, parental notification, and informed consent laws in place today. As well as mandating taxpayer funding of abortions. In other words it will effectively reverse everything the pro-life movement has gained over the last thirty years.

If this sounds despairing to you, there is still some good news. Barack Obabma is not President yet, and we might have John McCain as President instead. And McCain has a very solid conservative record on abortion, including publicly stating the Roe “should be overturned” and as President he wants to turn America into “a nation of traditional values that protects the rights of the unbron” (which is the main reason I want him to be President). And at the moment the balance on the Supreme Court is very close, with the new Bush apointees John Roberts and Samuel Alito (both of whom have conservative records on abortion, although it is unclear if they will go as far as overturning Roe) joining the very conservative judges Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas to make up a conservative block of 4 judges, and these judges along with conservative leaning swing judge Anthony Kennedy (although he doesn’t go as far as wanting to overturn Roe) has enabled the Supreme Court to support the partial birth abortion ban, as well as several other conservative rulings. And amongst the liberal block of judges two are even older than John McCain (namely John Paul Stevens whose turning 88 this week, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg at 75), and it is a safe bet that in the next 8 years at least one, if not both wil die or retire. And if McCain is President, the replacement judge he appoints could be the 5th judge needed to overturn Roe, and what a glorious day that will be. Even if Roe isn’t overturned, the Supreme Court could become a lot more conservative. However, McCain will still need to get his judges past a Senate, which will have a Democratic majority, at least until 2012.

In short this US election could have a big impact on the future of abortion in the United States.

Corrupt theiving scum

I don’t use words like this to describe people very often, but I will today to describe a organization that has well earned that title: the Labour (or Liarbour) Party.

The New Zealand Herald has outlined confidential strategy notes (read “secret plans”) from the Labour Party to steal more money from my taxes for its re-election campaign:

In a private session on election strategy, run by President Mike Williams, delegates were advised to distribute pamphlets on KiwiSaver produced by the Inland Revenue Department and on Working for Families produced by Work and Income.

They were also advised to tell voters when handing out the pamphlets that National voted against both measures.

… such publicity has never before been directly tied to political campaigns, and in the context of the new Electoral Finance Act, the move could be seen as inappropriate use of Government publicity

David Farrar says “let us remember here that this is not a low level campaign worker thinking “Hey why don’t we grab a hundred KiwiSaver pamphlets in case we run into people interested in them. This is the Labour Party’s most senior campaign official telling every MP, candidate and campaign activist to use taxpayer funded material as part of their election campaign”. And you can bet $824 524 that the cost to WINZ of producing the pamphlets, as part of Labours election campaign, won’t be included in Labours election spending limit.

Idiot/Savant at No Right Turn blogs (and for once I agree 100% with him): “It is the same basic contempt for the law we see in the US political system, the same desire to win at any cost no matter what it does to our democracy. And by just proposing it, they’re encouraging this attitude, and further undermining the very necessary controls we have on party election spending”. Idiot/Savant also disscusses the possibility that this advertising could breech the Electoral Finance Act.

Idiot/Savant comments in a related post on Kiwiblog (see comment at 2:37pm here) how s/he has already been informed by Labour that it’s all just a misunderstanding, and was just an idea pitched by one enthusiastic delegate, without information on how the idea was recieved. To be frank, I don’t believe anything Labour says. And there is no reason why we should, given its record, including promising the auditor-general before the election to include the pledge card as a campaign expense, only to reverse this position just days latter (just days after the election).

Ever since Labour decided to steal $824 524 to illegally fund its election campaign (and doing so despite being warned three times by the Chief Electoral Officer that such material would have to be included in its campaign expenses for overspending, which it illegally refused to do), and rewrite Electoral Finance laws for partisan political purposes, and now, it has shown complete contempt for democractic principles, and a willingness to do whatever it takes, no matter how un-democratic or un-ethical, to win. Although Helen may not (yet) have gone as far as locking opponents up in concentration camps, the level of respect she shows for democracy is similar to those third world dictators who do, and one suspects at times like these that she would consider doing so if that was the only way to retain power, and she would get away with it.

If so, Helen Clark really does have the same level of belief in democracy as Robert Mugabe. And that is why she must be voted out this election. Fortunately, in publishing this story on the front page today, the NZ Herald has helped do that.

Demography and the future of MMP

Peter Dunne has released a good press release, which looks at the future of MMP in New Zealand. It confirms what I thought for some time- demography would doom MMP, eventually turning it into a supplementary voting system.

The number of seats in Parliament is fixed at 120 (but goes above this when overhangs occur). But there is no fixed number of electorate seats. There are 16 general seats allocated for the South Island (it was 25 under FPP), and the number of North Island general seats is calculated, by working out how many times the population of the North Island general role is to one sixtenth of the South Island General role (i.e. if the North Island general role has 47 people to each 16 on the South Island general role, there will be 47 North Island general seats, as is currently the case). The number of Maori seats are calculated in a similar way.

The problem is that the population of the North Island is increasing faster (both in numerical and percentage terms) than the population of the South Island, thus leading to more general electorates, which have increased from 60 in 1996 when MMP was first introduced, to 63 now. Also significent is that the number of Maori seats has increased from 5 to 7, and is likely to increase to 8 or 9 in 2012 (they narrowly missed out on a eigth seat this time) thanks to increasing number of Maori choosing to be on the Maori role instead of the general role. The increased number of electorates, means fewer list MPs (as the number of MPs is fixed at 120, barring overhang seats).

Now United Future has calculated based on these trends, and new population projections, that in 2026 we will have at least 10 Maori seats (sounds reasonable to me), and up to 97 general seats (sounds a little to high for me, 80 would be a more realistic figure, but I haven’t seen the data). This leaves us with only 13 list MPs. Of course we will end up with more than 13 list MPs, we will just have lots of overhang seats, distorting the proportionality of MMP. Eventually voters will get wise to the idea that giving a Party vote to Labour or National no longer increases the number of seats these parties recieve, so will give it to other right-wing or left wing parties, leading to (if nothing is done) a supplementary membership style system, with far more MPs than currently. When is a good question, and will ultimately depend on demographics, and how many voters choose the Maori role (if it remains), and I am sceptical of the 97 general electorates by 2026 theory, but it is an issue of when, not if.

United Futures proposed solution is abolishing the Maori seats. This would certainly help, probably setting the problem back a decade or more. But as long as the population of the North Island increases faster than that of the South Island, the basic problem will remain, and the demographic clock over MMPs future will continue to tick. A much more sensible long term solution is to fix the number of electorate MPs at 75, and number of list MPs at 75 (with no Maori seats, which I oppose in principle). This will involve increasing Parliament to 150 MPs, but this is a lot smaller than the size Parliament could eventually become.

Also of note in the press release is that our total population is growing fast- it is projected to be over 5 and a half million people in 2026, growing by a third in twenty years. And many of the New New Zealanders will be Asian (take that Peter Brown), with Asians coming to make up 14.2% of our population. The Maori population, is the only one which can not grow by immigration, but will still grow thanks to high birth rates to 14.7%, up only 0.1% from where it is today. And shortly after 2026 there will be more Maori than Asian New Zealanders. Maori loosing their biggest minority status will definately have an impact on race relations, although what remains to be seen. What could have a bigger impact is, if thanks to immigration, Maori begin to fall as a proportion of the population. One group that will almost definately fall as a proportion of the population is NZ Europeans/ Pakeha, although they will still remain a majority, could be a 60% one instead of a 75% or so one. This too will have an imapct, which remains to be seen.

Why Clinton and Obama are unsuitable to be US President

Find out right here.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama confirm what I already knew about them. They both support the legalised murder of innocent unborn children. Frankly, any candidate who supports the legal murder of unborn children for no reason other than inconvenience to the mother is unsuitable for any political office which involves making descisons on the abortion issue, for the same reason that any candidate who wants to gas jews or commit any other form of genocide is unacceptable. Sadly, in many countries of the world, including New Zealand, the pro-abortion culture has become so widespread that pro-life voters have to choose between the lesser of two evils. In the US, most of the Republican Party is still pro-life, and US voters have a real choice between a pro-abortion President (Obama, or if a miracle happens Clinton) and a pro-life one (McCain).

Laughably, both candidates claimed to be christian. They obvioulsy belong to a new christian church of liberalism, in which “thou shalt not kill” means “thou shalt kill the unborn”, and “thou shalt not commit adultery” means “thou shalt allow, and have sex education in schools to encourage, sex outside marriage”.

This is my first blog post on the US election, an issue that I have not blogged about so far because it is too difficult to predict the outcome. But with real clear politics average polls showing Obama within 7 points of Clinton in Pennsylvania, the last big state left to vote, it is increasingly clear he will be the nominee, and that the race will be close (with the averages showing McCain has a tiny 0.4% lead over Obama, and leading Obama in Ohio, Florida, and more narrowly in Pennsylvania, three important swing states). I will blog more on the US election as the race develops.

The election 7 months out

Today is 7 months and 1 day until the last day the election can be held. And hopefully 7 months and 1 day until Helen Clark and her corrupt cronies get evicted from the positions of power they have abused to steal money for their last election campaign, and then rewrite electoral finance laws for their own partisan gain this election.

However, most of the New Zealand public, are still largely uneducated about the full level of corruption within the Labour Party, and its willingness to cling to power at any cost to our democratic system, the latest manifestation of such corruption being exposed today (which I will blog about latter). Although they may be aware of the fact Labour stole $800 000+ last election for its pledge card, they probably are not aware of the fact Labour was warned three time by the Chief Electoral Officer to include the pledge card in its election expenses, which it failed to do, and thus got away with overspending. They may be aware of the Electoral Finance Act (EFA), but they probably believe it helped end secret donations, instead of allowing them to continue as “protected donations”. I believe that if everyone in New Zealand knew the full truth about the pledge card and Electoral Finance Act, Labour would be polling under 20%, if not worse.

However, since the beginning of the year, Labour has made a long serries of policy anouncements, ranging from a tagging crackdown, raising the school leaving age to 18, keeping Auckland Airport in New Zealand US hedge fund hands, and other areas, and this diverted attention from the EFA. Labour has, partly from more discipline and partly better luck, managed (with the exception of the Owen Glenn story) to keep bad news stories (many of which were self inflicted) like the EFA, Taito Phillip Field, David Benson Pope, Trevor Mallard punching Tau Henare and so forth of the front pages, and time has passed since the Anti-smacking Bill turned many voters of Labour. This is reflected in the latest poll.

The Roy Morgan Poll which came out on Friday, has the following results:
National 47% (54 seats, down from previous polls, but still strong)
ACT 1.5% (2 seats, Roger Douglas coming to them has helped)
United Future 0.5% (1 seat, strugling to avoid overhang)
Total centre-right 49% and 57 seats (by centre-right I mean National and likely coaltion partners).
Labour 34.5% (43 seats, down a bit, but with coalitions competitve)
Progressive o.5% (Jim Anderton manages to escape being an overhang)
Green 9% (this could be an overestimation, unless, as Steve Pierson suggests in the Standard comments, they have gained a bounce from opposing the FTA. 11 seats if they are really on 9%)
Maori Party 3% (7 seats if they win all Maori seats, creating an 4 seat overhang, and thus hold the balance of power).
Total centre-left (defined as Labour plus likely coalition partners) 47%, but 62 seats, helped out of course by the overhang which makes life difficult for National.

This poll confirms what I and Labour already know. Labour can still win a forth term. National can not rely on Labour making mistakes to win (and had Labour not introduced the EFA or supported the Anti-smacking Bill, the polls would be very different), but must rely on making its own success, by releasing good policy and selling it well, and educating the public more about the EFA and pledge card. This is not to say Labour will win, it still has big challenges in front of it, and must shake of the perception that is destined to loose, is tired out of ideas and on its way out, but it can still win.

The election is still competitive, and if we want a change of government we will need to campaign hard for it.

State funding and electoral finance laws: the solution.

The previous post, outlining the various forms of taxpayer funding for our elections turned out to be a lot longer than expected. It outlined the three forms of taxpayer funding for out political parties:
1) Broadcasting allocation.
2) Rorting the Parliamentary services budget, and spending it in election advertising.
3) Government advertising, when done for partisan purposes.

Previously, I was opposed to all state funding to political parties. This was because Labour was promoting the idea at the time, and I could see through their great scam, in which they justified taxpayer funding of parties on the basis it was needed to compensate for money lost due to people not giving anonymous donations through trusts, when the real reason was Labour needed money, as it had just paid back the $800 000+ it had stolen from the taxpayer in 2005. In the event, Labour droped the idea as it was too hard politically, but implemented an even worse scheme of de-facto state funding, outlined in the post below, where MPs and parties are allowed to spend their Parliamentary budgets, legally (instead of illegally as Labour did with its pledge card in 2005) on election advertising.

Now I am not opposed to state funding. However, it must be implemented in a way that is not done to any parties partisan politcal advantage, like Labours scheme. Any scheme which involves funding parties based on how much votes they had last election, means the incumbents gat the most, and disadvantages any parties which did badly in the previous election, and any new party, no matter how much support it has gets nothing. I also had concerns about it helping Labour and other parties which stole taxpayer money in 2005, as they would be short of money once they paid back their debts to the taxpayer. As the earliest any such scheme can be applied is the 2011 election, 5 years after the pledge card, this issue no longer applies.

So why do we need state funding of political parties:
1) To help ensure fair elections. If a political party does not have wealthy donors, and is short of cash, it may not be able to get its message out to the public, as it does not have the financial ability to do so (election campaigns are very expensive today). The lack of money will disadvantage it, and not give it a fair chance in the election.
2) To provide parties with an alternative source of money to big business, and wealthy donors.
The main objection to state funding is that people have to pay out of their taxes to fund parties they don’t like, but only a small fraction of your tax money will be needed for this purpose.

However, the state funding must be done fairly, not an incumbent protection rort as the current laws is. So how should it be done. There are three general possibilities:
1) Parties get given money based on the number of votes recieved last election. I oppose this method, as the incumbents always get the most, and disadvantages new parties, who get nothing. Alternatively, it can be done based on current polling (which may not be too accurate), whcih avoids these downsides, but the big parties still get the most, and one off poll-increases (like what happened to National after the Orewa speech) can skew the results.
2) Each registered Party gets the same amount (e.g. $100, 000). This has the benefit of allowing all parties to be treated equally, but gives strong incentives for pressure groups to register as political parties, and some parties can cheat the system, by splitting themselves up.
3) An independent body can decide the results, like how the electoral system decides broadcasting allocations. This is better than the above ideas, but if a party has a guarenteed source of income, it will have to worry about pleasing the commission, and not its members and supporters for money (not a good thing), and may still advantage incumbents.
4) My solution. The party gets x dollars (say $10) per registered member. The system is clear, transperant and fair. This way a Party with 500 registered member gets $5 000. It encourages people to join and get involved in a political party, and forces political parties to listen to their members, as if they leave, the money goes down. In order to avoid interest groups registering as political parties, all the money must be spent on direct election advertisements, and no more than x amount on a single issue (this will hurt single issue parties, like the legalise cannibis Party).

With state funding, there will be no need for the broacasting allocation, which can be abolished. I oppose the broadcasting allocation as it stands, because it restrcicts free speech (by limiting the amount of money political parties are allowed to spend). We can also get rid of the laws that allow parliamentary communications to be used for advertising, and place very tight limits on what parliamentary service can approve, and ban any Parliamentary service money being spent after the dissolution of Parliament (there is no need, as legally there are no MPs with parliament dissolved). And we can place tight rules on government commmunications within three months of an election. It will also solve the problem of financially poor parties having their message drowned out by the bigger ones, not by quietining the voices of thefinancially bigger parties, but by giving a louder voice to the financially smaller ones.

Which brings me to the final issue-spending limits. I have always opposed spending limits to third parties, on the basis of free speech, hence my opposition to the Electoral Finance Act, but refrained from opposing spending limits for political parties, as it seemed too radical, and could lead to financially big parties swamping the advertising market, drowning out the voices of the smaller ones. But with state funding, it gives small parties are louder voice, thus harder to drown out.

And there is plenty of evidence that democracy can function very well without spending limits. Supporters of the Electoral Finance Act were good at pointing to the US as an example of democracy without spending limits. Ironically, the Electoral Finance Act moves us closer to the US with electoral finance laws. But there are several very democratic countries without spending limits, showing democracy and free speech can go very well together, namely Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, in addtion to the United States (see Graeme Edgelers comment at 4:31 here). Of course all the money must be transparent, and its sources made public (except for very small donations), with no anonymous donations through secret trusts, or “protected donations” (the Labour Party method of recieving anonymous donations by having them diverted through the Electoral Commission, written into the Electoral Finance Act, thus giving lie to their claims of opposition to secret donations).

The removal of spending limits, protected donations, parliamentary services budget being rorted for electioneering, and introduction of state funding, gives good blance to the issues of transpearancy, free speech and a level playing field in elections.

State funding

One of the big issues of electoral law, which was ignored by the Electoral Finance Act, as Labour had it in the “too hard basket” politically, is the issue of state funding of political parties. One of the realities, is that we have de-facto, if not de-jure state funding of political parties, as shown by taxpayer funding of a NZ First election advertisement recently.

I have posted my thoughts on Electoral Finance laws here, but in that post did not disscuss the issue of state-funding.

Under current law, there are two types of state funding for political parties:

1) The broadcasting allocation. This is money that political parties recieve from the taxpayer, to pay for TV and radio broadcasting promoting their party. The money is allocated by the Electoral Commission. Last elections allocations can be seen here. Parties are not allowed to spend money, other than that allocated on broadcasting. There was considerable controversy (largely overshadowed by the pledge card) when it was discovered after the last election, that National had spent more than it was allocated, as it (claimed to) not realise that the allocation was GST inclusive, and couldn’t pay the GST as it would involve overspending.

2) “Parliamentary communications” which involve telling people to vote for you. This was done illegally by Labour last election (the pledge card being the prime example), and all other parties, except the Progressives to some extent. Now, it is perfectly legal. A little known fact, is that at the same time Labour passed the Electoral Finance Bill, Labour passed another insidious piece of legislation, the Appropriation (Continuation of Interim Meaning of Funding for Parliamentary Purposes) Bill, which legalised the spending of parties (total $14.6 million) parliamentary budget on anything that does not explitly ask people to vote for that party legally, thus legalising the pledge card and NZ First’s recent election advertisement. This, combined with the EFA, is an astonishing gerrymander of our electoral laws, which allows the incumbents (i.e. Labour) to use huge amounts of de-facto state funding to protect themselves, while tight spending limits apply to their opponents. A good example is how under this law, and the Electoral Finance Act, an incumbent MP can use $60 000 of taxpayers money, telling their constituents what a good job they are doing for that electorate (as well as $20 000 of their own money), while his opponent can only spend $20 000. Talk about an unfair election. More information on this legislation can be found here.

For those interested in a basic sumary of this legislation, under the Bill, temporary definitions of what can be spent by parliamentary service (which are anything which does not explicitly solicit votes, ask for money or membership of a party, is legal, so the pledge card, because it did not say “vote Labour” on it, is legal) are extended until June 2009 (after the election), enabling Labour to legally steal $5.4 million of taxpayers money for its 2008 election campaign. You can see here the amounts of money parties can legally steal from the taxpayer for their election campaigns. Although all political parties can legally steal this money, the parties which won the most votes last election get the most free money (which protects the incumbents, and disadvantages those parties not in office). While National gets a slightly bigger parliamentary services budget to steal from than Labour, this is because it has to fund press secretaries e.t.c out of its parliamentary services budget, while Labour cabinet ministers don’t, so Labour probably has more money left over. Further, the legislation helps Labours partisan political advantage more, because it had to pay back (thanks to public pressure) $800 000 it stole previously from the taxpayer for its 2005 election campaign, leaving it short of money and in desperate need of free money to fund its 2008 campaign.

But this is not all. Worse, Labour inserted a clause into the Electoral Finance Act (clause 81(2)(g), saying that election advertising “does not include anything done in relation to a member of Parliament in his or her capacity as a member of Parliament”, which means that anything paid for by Parliamentary service, including advertising like the pledge card, is exempt from the spending cap. So Labour can legally steal $5.4 million of taxpayers money this election, and not have it count as part of their election campaign expenses (and thus be exempt from the spending cap). So Labour can this election, spend $2.4 million of their own money, and another $5.4 million of taxpayers money on their election campiagn, while their opponents (outside Parliament) are only allowed $2.4 million, with not one cent from the taxpayer. Talk about unfair.

It is facts like these that really make me wonder if there is any limit to the corruption in the Labour Party.

3) Sadly, this is not the end of taxpayer funding of the Labour Party election campaigns. There is a third type of state funding: Government advertising. This is mostly innocent things, like anti-drink driving and speeding campaigns, defence force recruitment and so forth, when the Government provides information to its citizens. However, they can be used for partisan political purposes. For instance, last election, large amounts of money was spent to infrom people of working for families (WFF). This policy was closely associated with Labour, which had made extending WFF a key election bribe. Last Australian election, the coalition used millions of taxpayers money to promote Workchoices, and improve its image, no doubt for partisan political purposes. Although the money can not be used for direct political advertising, and thus can’t fund anything like the pledge card, it can still be used for partisan purposes. The intention of Labour to do so was made clear last year, with the sacking of Ms Setchell from the Enviroment Ministry. Watch out for Government advertising on Kiwisaver and carbon neutrality this year.

 

I pay for NZ Firsts election campaign

Thats right, I am paying money to help NZ First fund its 2008 election campaign.

But I am not doing so by choice. I am doing so because I am paying taxes to the Government, which are being stolen, legally or illegally, by NZ First, to fund its election campaign. A copy of its latest election advertisement, which appeared in the Dominion Post and possibly other newspapers can be seen here. It is an election advertisement.

Lets apply Annette Kings law of common sense. Is it an Election advertisement? The law (section 5 of the EFA) states anything that is “encouraging or persuading to vote … for 1 or more specified parties”. The specified party is NZ First, which has its logo, and picture of its leader on the advertisement, and the name NZ First is mentioned three times in the advertisement. It clearly statesNZ First policy, and why they hold those policies. The questionare at the bottom, designed to add a legal facade to the advertisement by asking people to send in their views on the issues, so disguising it as a questionare to consult people on the policies. Unfortunately for NZ First, the arguement that it is a questionare instead of an election advertisement is rather weak, as it seeks to persuade people (clearly by its language, i.e. “don’t you agree?”) to support those policies. It looks like an election advertisement, reeks of taxpayer funding like a NZ First or Labour election advertisement, and according to both the EFA, and law of common sense, is an election advertisement.

If it is election advertisement, then it is illegal, because it does not have the correct authorisation required by section 63 (2) (a) of the EFA. So NZ First has broken the Electoral Finance Act (which it voted for).

Day of shame

Yesterday was a day of shame for New Zealand. We signed a free trade agreement with China (or Chaina).

You may be asking, whats so shameful about that. Imagine if New Zealand had signed a free trade deal in the 1930s with Nazi Germany, and obtained that trade deal by being silent on the fate of Germany’s jews. Would that be shamefull. If so, then yesterday is shamefull for NZ. We have made it clear that our human rights consceince has a price tag on it.

Make no mistake. Chaina’s human rights record is very bad. Chaina is a authoritarian dictatorship, with a long history of human rights abuses, including killing and imprisoning pro-democracy and Tibetan protesters, persecution and murder of Falun Gong practitioners, and the forced abortions on many Chinese women. It is the heir to the evil totalitarian states of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.

Not that this should worry Helen Clark, who has shown her attitude to free speech and democracy clear with the Electoral Finance Act and pledge card.

I’m not saying the free trade agreement is bad. It is clearly a good thing, and David Farrar has pointed out many reasons why. It is just shamefull that it is signed with the blood of innocent people.

Cindy Kiro

If anyone doesn’t know who she is, she is the Labour Government Childrens commisioner, who appears more interested in helping her extremist ideology than children.

She is most remembered for her strong support for the Anti-smacking Bill. In fact her support for this Bill is so strong, that she made a big fuss about the “horsewhip” case (presumably not mentioning the fact that the child tried to hit his father on the head with a baseball bat before the horsewhip was used) but completely silent on the case of Ngatikura Ngati, who was beaten for days with an oar and basball bat, causing serious injuries. So much for helping stop child abuse.

She spends alot of time out of the country, so much so that she failed to deliver two major reports last year. Unlike David Farrar, I think this is actually a good thing, as when she is in the country she seems determined to damge it, and the reports probably aren’t worth reading anyway, except for comedy. Sadly, one of the things she still had time for was to defend the rights of taggers to graffiti on other peoples property.

On the topic of flights, Cindy Kiro supports a ban on men sitting next to unaccompanied children on flights to stop child abuse. Presumably, she thinks all men are violent pedophiles. However, statistics show women are more likely to be child abusers than men.

So what does she believe to be the big three issues facing children today? child abuse? No. How about education? Not that either. Maybe health? No, its poverty (not a bad choice), and then climate change and religous fundamentalism.

I actually agree religous fundamentalism is a threat facing children. Her religous fundamentalism.