Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Russell. My thoughts exactly. It seems to contradict the implaccable "it is clearly always illegal" line.
Yes. Now if I could find a legal basis for it, I'd be a happy man. For the true emergency situation envisioned in the credit card contract, the defence of necessity would apply, and would negate criminal liability under s 76 (although the spending should still be validated), but for mere convenience, I just don't see it.
Section 25 of the Public Finance Act allows expenditure without appropriation in emergencies, but that section only applies if—
(a) a state of emergency or state of civil defence emergency is declared under the Civil Defence Act 1983 or the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002; or
(b) a situation occurs that affects the public health or safety of New Zealand or any part of New Zealand that the Government declares to be an emergency.
And section 26A allows transfers between appropriations in certain circumstances, but it doesn't go so far as to allow spending outside of any appropriation.
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we usually do people the courtesy of presuming they're arguing in good faith.
I assumed we were. Arguing someone has missed the point can most certainly be an argument made in good faith - although I'm intrigued to know:
1. why there is only one point; and
2. what that point is.Because for the most part, I thought my point was 'Here, I looked through all the law, and extracted some bits out for you so you didn't have to, so that people could better understand the legal situation and take that into account when making their assessment of the whole thing.'
Of course, that isn't really a point at all so I suppose that means I have missed the point. Pray tell then Internet, what are the points?
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Private prosecution...
But only for stuff in the last two years.
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Just saw an advert for the very good Generation Kill miniseries, by the makers of The Wire. Coming soon. Well worth watching.
Definitely.
And as I noted here, the coming soon bit is the slot The Pacific currently occupies.
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Tory lawyer misses the point.
Which is...?
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The auditor general also said that Heatley had been incorrectly advised by Parliamentary Services, as had other MPs.
That was about a specific use of the Parliamentary Travel allowance (the housing stuff, and wine etc. will have been Ministerial Services, not the Parliamentary Service). The allowance allows MPs to fly for free in New Zealand, and allows their partners and kids a specific number of trips to Wellington to see them.
For a long time, it allowed MPs' kids under 5 an unlimited number of trips to Wellington to see their MP parents. At some point this changed, and they were treated the same as other kids. The Parliamentary Service did not update its advice, and kept telling everyone that under 5's had unlimited travel to and from Parliament.
I believe it has been changed back.
I do find it ironic that having a crack and claiming what you think you can get away with isn't an offence -- but intending to pay it back is.
I'm not so sure that was correct. Having a crack wouldn't be theft (and nor would taking with the intention to pay it back), but the section 76 offence isn't so limited. I wonder whether the Auditor-General was specifically considering that offence or whether it may have been focussed on other things.
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Is ignorance a defence in New Zealand then?
Ignorance of what?
I knew this was Giovanni's car, but didn't know it was illegal to take it? No.
I thought this was Giovanni's car, and he'd given me permission to use it, but it turned out I'd taken his neighbour's car? Yes.
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And this was going to be a short post.
Stupid quotes:-)
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They're probably a bit worried they may have created a rod for their own back.
By passing the Official Information Act in 1982? I'm not sure we can blame Key for that.
Chris Carter challenged her to check with Ministerial Services since he was operating on their instructions. As far as I know, no one has checked but it is still being reported as a rort. Shame. By the time it is validated the damage will have been done. Again.
I haven't checked ... but if it were true that the Australian Government requires foreign ministers in their country to hire limousines, why has no-one else ever done this? Because it seems like the type of thing that would get onto Stuff's rolling update. Is Chris Carter the only minister we've sent to Australia over whatever the period this OIA covers is? Perhaps that's the real story that's being missed ... the New Zealand government is completely ignoring Australia :-)
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Stuff's rolling update is getting petty.
They're now leading with David Cunliffe and a staff member staying a night in separate rooms at the Westbury Hotel in London at a cost of $1470.
Stuff's rolling update is a rolling update. They're not leading with anything, they're just telling you the latest thing ever so slightly out of the ordinary they've found. When the find the next thing, it will be at the top.
It's data. There was a discussion here a while back about how more data was a good thing. What we choose to do with the data is up to us. They're just trawling through the 7000 documents of it so we don't have to.