Posts by Matthew Poole
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Also from the Greens' dissent:
We were also told by submitters who had worked in private prisons that money was saved through the use of improperly trained casual staff, the moving of prisoners at risk in order to reduce staffing costs, and the constraining of career structures in order to reduce wages and conditions.
I guess that reduced wages and working conditions fits in with basic right-wing dogma, but it's hardly good for the economy. What happened to trying to narrow the wage gap with Australia?
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The Select Committee report is interesting reading. From the Greens' minority dissent:
committee heard submissions from staff that reinforced the necessity for the greatest levels of transparency and caution in managing such an intensive environment in a privately-managed prison—for example, claims of 80 percent higher prisoner-to-prisoner violence and 60 percent higher levels of prisoner-to-staff violence.
We were told by officials that the cost of the private Auckland Central Remand Prison was $57,280 whereas the cost of public remand prisons was $52,280, inclusive of property overheads.
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I'd rather Key had declined to be honest
He's a politician. Declining to be honest goes with the territory.
Oh, you meant... Right ;)Sorry, comma pedant needed to be exercised. Maybe that should be exorcised?
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I think we can assume Lily Allen will not be performing. Well, not musically anyway.
From the article: "I finish up my dates in March..." BDO is in January, so an on-stage appearance from Lily is entirely on the cards even with her announced departure from music.
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It's not uncommon in IP law for the UK cases to be cited - most of the relevant acts share a common root.
In some cases, the teachings of UK cases have been followed by an NZ court, and thus become part of NZ law directly.
Well, it's not all that long ago that we lost the Privy Council as our highest court, so for a long time our judicial systems were tied intimately. Any PC ruling (on any subject, not just IP law) made before we got our own Supreme Court is binding on all lower NZ courts until such time as a ruling from SCONZ diverges. And because we share a common law heritage, it's not at all unusual for rulings from appellate courts in Australia, the US and Canada to be cited in arguments here. They're not binding, but they are persuasive to varying degrees - the higher the court, the more persuasive the ruling, especially if there's little in the way of difference in matters of fact or statute. They will also cite rulings from NZ courts, for the same reason and the same values of persuasive. After all, when you've got a common legal heritage it would be silly to ignore the ponderings of experienced legal minds just because they're from "over there."
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For the Germanically-impaired, "Alle zusammen" means "all together". And Klebstoff is aus Deutsch for glue.
That's very good. No sense of humour indeed. -
Oh, and as for double-bunking, it's not just prisoner safety that's an issue. It's a big one, to be sure, but understandably the corrections officers are more concerned about their own safety. Putting two people into a small room that, by necessity, has a single, restricted access point, is begging for even greater numbers of assaults on guards. The only question is whether it's a guard or a prisoner that dies first.
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I've been trying desperately to find the reference, and can't, but I read not terribly long ago that New Mexico (I think) is looking at spending more on sending in the state police to put down riots at privatised prisons (possibly just one) than the projected savings from the privatisation.
In the event that this ideological desire - and Keith, I really don't think it's about the money because the state will be paying for the capital works no matter who's doing the building - bears fruit, the contracts need to have absolute indemnity clauses that require the operator to bear every last cent in costs associated with restoring order in the event of a riot. Every minute of police time, every tear gas grenade, every last stitch and wound dressing for injured police officers (ACC be damned, riots in privately-run prisons shouldn't cost the taxpayer a cent). Won't happen, of course, because that would be against the philosophy of "privatise profits, socialise losses", but it should. -
Unless the reproduction is in some way different to the original it is arguable that no new copyright work arises in the reproduction.
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But ultimately though it's for a court to decide. I'm not aware of any NZ case law on the issue.There'll be precious little case law on it in any jurisdiction that "matters" (ie: that constitutes "persuasive" for NZ courts), I suspect. It's the kind of thing that'd be settled long before it made it before a judge.
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Kyle, that certainly fits with what I was taught in an IP law class. Copyright in a direct copy vests with the copier, and that applies whether or not the copied work is in or out of copyright. However, if the copied work is under copyright you're then on the hook for contributory infringement as well as direct infringement, and the courts will almost invariably assign your rights to the original holder if it goes that far. So you end up with absolutely nothing - no proceeds, and no rights.