Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Hard News: Media Mathematics, in reply to Phil Lyth,
I’m sure <grin> Graeme Edgler will correct me if I misquote him, but he makes the point that, while he knows NZ First got 4.07% of the party vote in 2008, he stills checks the figure every time before he writes it.
I generally only check when I'm quoting the exact number of votes: 95,356. Easy to end with a 96, because I'm usually also quoting the ACT number of votes: 85,496. I could work it out, as I remember the difference etc, but I figure people deserve more than that :-)
I also usually spell my name with five E's :-) But I almost never correct that, This seemed one of the rare occasions when it was appropriate, however.
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Legal Beagle: Cats and Coro II:…, in reply to Andrew Geddis,
Maybe so. But they didn’t do that. And so the BSA quite clearly decided, on their interpretation of s.69, that this just wasn’t an “Election Programme” as per the Broadcasting Act. Which is the complete opposite view to the Electoral Commission. So, with respect, you can’t say that the BSA and EC somehow came to different views because of the different question they were asking. They asked the same thing – “is this an Electoral Programme?” – and then simply applied different understandings of what the s.69 definition is aimed at.
I concur. The BSA and EC both asked "what does s 69 mean?" and came to different, incompatible views.
I think the BSA asked the wrong question, but I felt a long discussion about the reasoning of the BSA (which I consider flawed) wouldn't aid the point I was making through the post, which is about the EC decision, so rather than fully explain it, I noted that the BSA reached the right "result" and then pointed out why I thought that result was the correct one. I wanted to get the post out quickly, and even this shortish post from me was closing in on 1500 words, so left out my full thoughts on the BSA's decision.
In response to the query, I then more fully explained why I considered the BSA had the correct result, but had flawed reasoning.
Point being, the fact two different bodies asking the same question came to different answers indicates that there’s no real clear right or wrong answer here.
No dispute from me. But as one of those bodies shouldn't even have been asking the question, I'm happy to to rely on the other one until we hear from a Court.
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Legal Beagle: Cats and Coro II:…, in reply to Toby,
Not clear to me what time limit is. Am i being dim?
No. In my somewhat hurry, I didn't say. Any prosecution must be laid within six months of the broadcast.
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I was asked for a clarification on the different definitions of election programme, and why the BSA and EC came to different conclusions, it seems sensible to copy my reply over:
I didn't want to get into it in my post, but I think while the BSA came to the right result, they used the wrong reasoning. They'd used mine in the past, and I was surprised when they didn't use it again. I didn't make a big deal about it at the time because even if the BSA had concluded it was an election programme over which they had broadcasting standards jurisdiction, all that would have meant was that they have considered it against broadcasting standards, and I was pretty confident that there was nothing in the broadcast the breached the election programmes code, or any of the other broadcasting standards.
The dual definition of election programme is contained in section 3 of the Broadcasting Act:
"election programme,—
(a) in the definition of advertising programme and in sections 8 and 21, means a programme broadcast under Part 6; and
(b) in Part 6, has the meaning given to it by section 69"
sections 8 and 21 deal with the BSA, and Part 6 is about the EC.
The BSA decision is available here. You will note they adopt the definition in section 69, without mentioning that their jurisdiction arises out of section 21, and that they should therefore be assessing whether the programme was "broadcast under Part 6". They'd have reached the same result much more cleanly had they gone down that route.
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Having now received a copy of the (still embargoed) decision, there seems one other point to usefully note about the difference between the Electoral Act and the Broadcasting Act:
while both set up a process whereby the Electoral Commission acts as an initial screener of complaints, the Electoral Act allows the Commission to decline to refer a matter to the police if it considers the breach was inconsequential and that there is no public interest in reporting it. The Broadcasting Act does not include this “out” and requires that all breaches the Commission finds under the Broadcasting Act are referred to the police.
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Hard News: Finally, the Teapot Tape?, in reply to nzlemming,
Delicious, isn’t it?
Yes, but not really. The police have an exemption from this bit of the law for the purposes of investigation. Parliament sometimes doesn't stuff up completely :-)
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Hard News: Finally, the Teapot Tape?, in reply to Russell Brown,
The police saw fit to append this to today’s press release.
Editors note:
Police reiterate that it is an offence to disclose private communications unlawfully intercepted. This offence, is punishable by up to two years imprisonment where any person discloses the private communication, or the substance, meaning, or purport of the communication or any part of it, or discloses the existence of the private communication if he knows that it has come to his knowledge as a direct or indirect result of an offence against s216B Crimes Act
Did the police just disclose the existence of a potentially illegally-recorded private communication?
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Hard News: Finally, the Teapot Tape?, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’ve been considering removing the links from the post above because I’m about to go out and wouldn’t be in a position to respond with dispatch to any demand to remove them.
I note that although several journalists have published the links via Twitter – that was how I found out – the major news organisations are holding off.
Thoughts?
The major news organisations referring to the existence of tapes are behaving just as criminally as people publishing them.
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The UK cops raided a safe deposit facility and confiscated everything: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1222777/The-raid-rocked-Met-Why-gun-drugs-op-6-717-safety-deposit-boxes-cost-taxpayer-fortune.html
I don’t know whether the Daily Mail is any good, but that’s an awesome story!
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Hard News: The Mega Conspiracy, in reply to Pete Sime,
On a very brief one minute reading of the Extradition Act, where there is no extradition treaty, and the requesting country is not part of the Commonwealth, the Minister of Justice may make the decision.
We have an extradition treaty with the United States.