Bomber Bradbury vs Imperator Fish

Oh dear, there's something terribly wrong when Slater starts cheerleading your cause.

Today, Whailoil reported:

Scott Yorke and Martyn “DBD” Bradbury have been having a one sided battle of wits. I say one sided because Scott has all the wits and Martyn is just a half-wit, or if I am feeling especially unkind, which I am, a fuck-wit.

Anyway Martyn got upset again at Scott and wrote a vitriol filled post. Scott has responded with a post of his own. In that post he proposes a Deed of Settlement for their dispute.

It is a piece of genius. I particularly like the resolution process that involves dueling.

[...]

Scott wins, it was a comprehensive victory. His post and attacked Deed of Settlement is the finest piece of Blog-taliation I have ever seen. It is fit for Boing Boing.

This should be reason enough for Scott Yorke at Imperator Fish to reconsider who exactly is the butt of his jokes... perhaps he has:

Have you ever been involved [in] one of those endless disputes on the internet that you just can't seem to escape? It's like one of those schoolyard fights where the first person to walk away and say they've had enough is labelled a coward and loser by the other, even if the reason why you want to walk away is because the other person is talking gibberish, and because it is three in the f**king morning and you just need to sleep. It's okay to sleep sometimes.

I have not yet reached that point in my exchanges with Martyn Bradbury, but I fear things are escalating. To recap, he wrote a post about me, I wrote a post mocking him, we had an exchange on Twitter, and now he has written another post about me. My immediate reaction is to want to taunt him further, particularly with regard to his claim that Cameron Slater is my new best friend (a claim that anyone who actually reads my work will find as entertaining as I do), but I suspect that lefties labelling each other as friends of Slater may be something similar to the phenomenon known as Godwin's Law.

As an outside observer who has no vested interest in either side winning, this all seems rather tedious to me. What sparked the dispute off and the main issue here is whether the Greens and Labour can work together, which is something Bomber thinks is a trivial matter:

While Scott York bitches about the little things, (imperatorfish is latin for 'so much effort, so few laughs'), conventional wisdom for Labour has been not to compete with the Greens but with the Greens recent success perhaps Labour needs a new strategy?

I mean, how does one compete with Metiria's speech at the conference? This is simply one of the best political speeches on social justice ever given.

Metiria's speech was very good, but I'm not sure how exactly Labour is meant to compete here... by giving good speeches as well perhaps. I think that's exactly what David Shearer has been doing.

I also don't think the complete brain fart on twitter by some Labour MP's is such a small thing. It points towards possible difficulties in forming a working relationship between the two parties, which is imperative if New Zealand is to get moving again. Imperator Fish made the same conclusion as The Jackal:

There will always be some rivalry between Labour and the Greens, because they are competing for the same group of voters.

But if Labour and the Greens are going to form a government after the 2014 election, they will need to learn to work together, rather than quarrel over things that don't matter.

A couple of senior Labour people have been using Twitter this weekend to attack the Greens and Russel Norman because (oh the horror!) the Greens may or may not have changed their policy on mining.

This makes Labour look like a pack of clowns, and turns many supporters off. It should stop.

Fomenting division between the Greens and Labour might suit a Mana supporter I suppose (it certainly suits rabid National propagandists), but ultimately it's damaging to the entire leftwing, and should not be promoted by anybody who wants to see an end to National's reign of failure that is destroying New Zealand.

There are no winners in this battle.

Dirty dairying in New Zealand

Yesterday, the Dominion Post reported:

Figures obtained from the 17 regional councils and unitary authorities reveal that since July 1, 2008, there have been 151 prosecutions involving more than 300 charges against 198 companies or individuals for unlawful discharges of dairy effluent affecting land or water.

Three entities were prosecuted twice: the Crafars' company Hillside Ltd, Awarua Farms Ltd and Philip Woolley.

Every council provided details of the parties prosecuted and their sentences, except Otago Regional Council, which refused to supply the information as it could not be sure it was "unequivocally accurate".

Environment Court-imposed fines collected from offending parties totalled at least $3,260,825.

A further 13 individuals have received community work sentences totalling 1650 hours. Two received sentences of community detention of three and six months.

For lesser offences involving dairy effluent discharges, councils have issued 1698 abatement notices and 1564 infringement notices.

Abatement notices require someone to stop any activity that contravenes the Resource Management Act, a resource consent or a council plan. Infringement notices impose an instant fine of $300 to $1000.

Prosecutions are taken only in the most serious cases, after councils have weighed various factors, including the actual and potential effects of the discharge, whether it was deliberate, the attitude of the offender, profits made from the offending and the efforts made to clean up or remedy after the discharge.

So the approximately $3.3 million collected in fines was only for the most serious cases. Being that regional councils have a disproportionate amount of farmers on their boards, who are less willing to seek prosecutions, it's likely that the problem is far worse than the figures represent.

Marty Sharpe also reports that there's been a reduction in the number of convictions, which fell from 51 in 2008-09 to 18 in the year to date.

The article also states that "abatement notices and infringement notices have also decreased, from 537 to 329 and 500 to 330." But I'm guessing this is also comparing 2008-09 figures with five months to June, which would actually constitue an increase in abatement and infringement notices for 2012.

More slaps on the wrist instead of convictions isn't going to solve the problem.

Fish & Game chief executive Bryce Johnson said water quality in lowland areas continued to decline and "after all these years of the issues around dairying and the environment the numbers are still very disappointing".

Mr Johnson said the agriculture sector needed to publicly commit to "mandatory, environmentally sustainable, best on-farm practice" with regular published audits.

It should also be dealing with its own poor performers rather than leaving it to ratepayer-funded regional councils.

These are good suggestions. It costs ratepayers millions of dollars per year to take dirty dairy farmers to court. These costs should be met by the industry. I would also suggest that the dairy industry should fund direct efforts to clean up the worst polluted waterways.

ACC's false police complaint against Bronwyn Pullar

ACC Chief Executive Ralph Stewart and Chairman John Judge.

Today, One News reported:

The police will not lay any charges over the Bronwyn Pullar ACC case.

Assistant Commissioner Malcolm Burgess said there would be no further investigation into the concerns raised in March following a leak of confidential information.

"After careful consideration of the evidence now available and a separate legal review of the facts we have determined that no offence has been disclosed," he said.

In March, ACC asked the police to review the circumstances around a confidential file that was mistakenly sent to Pullar last August.

The privacy breach was revealed earlier this year after Pullar, a former National Party figure, was inadvertently emailed the names and details of thousands of ACC clients.

The breach included the details of about 250 sensitive sexual abuse cases.

ACC laid a complaint over Pullar, accusing her of threatening to go public about being sent the confidential information unless the corporation promised to pay her a benefit for two years.

Pullar has claimed a recording of a meeting on 1 December 2011 between her, ACC staff and former National party president Michelle Boag shows she did not make the demands.

Clearly the complaint to the Police was not made in good faith. ACC would have known that Bronwyn Pullar had not tried to blackmail them, as the recording would have categorically proven.

It really amounts to ACC management making a false police complaint, which under the Crimes Act 1961 (PDF) is a serious offence:

112 Evidence of perjury, false oath, or false statement

No one shall be convicted of perjury, or of any offence against section 110 or section 111, on the evidence of 1 witness only, unless the evidence of that witness is corroborated in some material particular by evidence implicating the accused.

113 Fabricating evidence 

Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who, with intent to mislead any tribunal holding any judicial proceeding to which section 108 applies, fabricates evidence by any means other than perjury.

115 Conspiring to bring false accusation

Every one who conspires to prosecute any person for any alleged offence, knowing that person to be innocent thereof, is liable—
(a) to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years if that person might, on conviction of the alleged offence, be sentenced to preventive detention, or to imprisonment for a term of 3 years or more:
(b) to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years if that person might, on conviction of the alleged offence, be sentenced to imprisonment for a term less than 3 years.

So the real question is what will the police do about this false statement... and if they choose not to do anything, is that a result of Judith Collins' interference?

A Labour/Greens coalition on the cards

Click image to enlarge

Today, Kiwibog reported:

What is scary is that in a Labour-Greens-NZ First-Mana Government, the Greens will probably hold the Finance portfolio.

I expect Labour will want to hold onto the money purse in any new government. But if that's not the case, Russel Norman couldn't possibly do any worse than Bill English...

National has been a complete economic disaster for New Zealand, with increased unemployment, increased debt, stagnant growth and a raft of other failures as a result of basing policy on neo-liberal hogwash.

David Farrar also reported:

May saw just three political polls published – two Roy Morgan polls and One News Colmar Brunton poll.

The average of the public polls has National 14% ahead of Labour, down from 19% in April. The centre-right has 59 out of 121 seats on the May average which would have the Maori Party hold the balance of power.

What rubbish! Farrar is completely wrong that the Maori party would hold the balance of power. In fact if an election was held today, a Labour Greens coalition would likely form the next government.

In the calculation below, I've been kind to UnitedFuture. It's more likely that Labour will take Ohariu off Peter Dunne, who only has a majority of 1646 votes.

* Parliament will have one or more overhang seats.

You might note that the % of effective Party Vote is different than the average percentage in the polling results. This is because the calculator has not taken into account all votes... only those for parties that reach the 5% vote threshold.

Farrar has assumed that all the current electorate seats will be held by National, when this is an incorrect way to make the projection. A number of electorate seats were won by the slimmest of margins and any movement in the party vote will also be reflected in the electorate vote.

Therefore a Labour/Greens coalition at 54 seats could potentially govern alone. A Labour/Green/Mana/NZFirst coalition on 65 seats would easily beat a Nat/UF/Maori coalition on 56 seats.

If an election was held today, New Zealand First would hold the balance of power.

h/t The Dim-Post

National caught cherry picking numbers... again

Today, the NZ Herald reported:

Mr Key has championed SkyCity's involvement in the convention centre deal since discussing it at a dinner with the firm's directors in 2009.

He has cited new jobs as one benefit of the centre, telling Parliament last month: "The SkyCity convention centre would create about 900 jobs in construction and 800 jobs working your way through it."

A press release from the Beehive set the number of construction jobs at 1000 and staff employed at the centre at 800.

[...]

The original Horwath report said 150 jobs could be created over a five-year construction period for a total of 750.

So John Key has been caught out blatantly lying again to promote gambling.

This in fact makes the entire deal for a convention centre in exchange for up to 500 additional pockie machines uneconomic.

The Ministry of Economic Development’s Feasibility study (PDF), into the convention centre (presumably based on the incorrect job figures), originally showed that the convention centre would provide around $397 million in economic benefit to New Zealand over 20 years.

However the economic benefits are greatly reduced with a reduction in real jobs.

The socio-economic costs associated with the deal between SkyCity and National are estimated to be in excess of $277 million. A reduction by 85% in construction jobs and around 50% less economy wide jobs means that the benefits do not outweigh the costs.

The convention centre should be put up for tender again. A better deal that does not include increased social harm and selling our laws to promote gambling should be negotiated.

Low Key... yeah right!

Last week, the Telegraph reported:

Ah, you might say, that’s because Kiwis have got away from the inherited inequalities and class hang-ups of the old country. Perhaps. Then again, their prime minister, John Key, had a hugely successful career as head of foreign exchange at Merrill Lynch. Leftie crowds occasionally gather at his house and chant ‘You don’t care, you’re a millionaire!’ (logic plainly not being their strong point).

[...]

His countrymen admire his modesty, affectionately calling him ‘Low Key’. You can see their point. He slipped discreetly onto my flight from Auckland to Wellington without anyone noticing. Kiwis like that sort of thing.

Low Key? The writer Daniel Hannan is obviously off the planet. ShonKey the honKey donKey perhaps, but nobody in New Zealand has called the Prime Minister "Low Key" before. This is a purely fictitious article.

Making shit up to promote brand Key, because there really isn't anything in the real world that's good about him.