Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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The New South Wales legislature has gone another way, passing a law that bans all psychoactive substances, including those yet unknown...
But, but ... Peter Dunne says that's impossible :-)
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Legal Beagle: All of these things are…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Not surprisingly, ACT doesn't want to increase penalties for financial, passport or electoral fraud.
Here is then-MP John Boscawen calling for strengthening financial fraud laws (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10562751)
Here is ACT voting in favour of increased penalties for Passport Fraud (http://www.knowledge-basket.co.nz/search/doc_view.php?d1=han/text/2002/06/11_118.html)
And Here is ACT supporting legislation to increase transparency of election financing at local elections (http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/debates/debates/50HansD_20130625_00000016/local-electoral-amendment-bill-no-2-%E2%80%94-third-reading)
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Legal Beagle: All of these things are…, in reply to Nick Kearney,
But if they had been done on three occasions by the same offender, who on each occasion had been convicted, then yes, they would have something in common with the policy.
ACT's three strikes for burglary policy does not work as you describe. The first two strikes do not have to have occurred on separate occasions.
And my point is not that these offences are likely to have been committed by the same person. I accept that this has not and almost certainly will not happen. These are not given as example of minor burglaries: one of the examples could be charged as attempted rape! Rather, they are given as examples of the breadth of burglary as an offence.
The ACT Party voted in favour of amending the law of burglary so that all of these things count as burglary. Why?
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Hard News: Gower Speaks, in reply to Steve Curtis,
So John Key and National are ‘masking’ their donations by using restaurants and other events, where participants are making donations or paying over the top for services.
Its seems a clear strategy to get around the election donor law
Not even close. The way it was structured increased transparency.
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Hard News: Gower Speaks, in reply to Russell Brown,
Fair enough. And they could say "given the margin of error, at 4.9% in our poll, New Zealand First effectively has a 50-50 chance of getting back into Parliament".
I have it at 46% :-)
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Hard News: Gower Speaks, in reply to Russell Brown,
I have some sympathy here. Explaining confidence intervals in a three-minute news item is not something I'd like to try and do.
"Our poll shows National is (highly) likely to have 56 to 58 MPs."
Not hard.
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I was pretty confident of two things:
a) that the US model, or something like it, was indeed where the National/ACT policy was eventually headed...
ACT has announced its opposition to incentive funding for schools:
Hekia Parata’s idea of giving bureaucrats more power to calculate how much schools should be paid shows the worst of National’s centralising instincts, according to ACT leader Jamie Whyte.
“Parents know how well schools are performing. It is also parents who pay the tax to fund the schools. It should be parents who have the power to influence school funding.
“No government can collect and process as much information as parents already have, and no government can know parents' varying preferences for their children's education. The Novapay debacle showed that government struggles even to install a centralised payroll system. Why should anyone believe it can develop a centralised system for calculating school performance?
“Schools should be funded based on how many parents choose to send their children there, and they should be able to use the funds as they see fit..
“Under a bulk funding model, schools that attract students from high needs areas can still get a top up for doing so, but the most important drive for them should be attracting more students.
“ACT is the only party that truly believes in parental choice and understands the funding policies required to achieve it."
http://www.act.org.nz/?q=posts/nationals-bureaucratic-instincts-on-show-in-education-reforms
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Field Theory: Drinking & Insomnia & the…, in reply to Rich Lock,
‘Useful’ in what sense?
In the sense of add to the occasion of the Olympics in a way that Hadyn suggested team sports do not.
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Useful Summer Olympic team sports: rowing.
Useful Winter Olympic team sports: bobsled. Also curling. -
Well said Russell.
An entire post criticising the opponents of a politician without basically once addressing their arguments? Isn’t this textbook ad hominem?