Rodney Hide wisely has left Parliament behind him. But that doesn't mean he gets to pretend that he never was in Parliament.
According to the NZ Herald (which in turn cites TV3's The Nation ... sorry, Tim!), Rodney Hide has done with politics, is busy renovating his house and moving on with his post-Parliamentary life. Good for him.
Now we know why John Banks won't tell us about Kim Dotcom's donation. Blame the bloody lawyers ... again.
After two days of appearing on TV doing a very good impression of a befuddled senior citizen in the latter stages of senile dementia (as well as engaging in what is probably the most bizarre phone inte
Kim Dotcom and John Banks have quite different stories about their relationship. It might matter an awful lot who is telling the truth.
Politics costs money. Anyone who has had anything to do with any sort of campaign - be it to pressure the Council to fix the potholes in your street, or to get the leader of a political party elected as Prime Minister of New Zealand - knows this.
When National revealed its "law and order" policy before the last election, I wrote this post on it. Now that Judith Collins reportedly is preparing to introduce legislation to deliver that policy, here are some more thoughts.
Prior to the 2011 election, Judith Collins announced that National planned to legislate to permit the ongoing "civil detention" of offenders deemed at high risk of future sexual or violent offending even after their jail sentences were complete.
One of these cases is not like the other, one of these cases is not quite the same. Can you tell why?
So the police investigate a complaint by the Prime Minister against a member of the media, where it is alleged that a "private communication" was intentionally intercepted using a covert recording device.
Judith Collins is threatening defamation action against those who accuse her of leaking. But I thought you could say anything you wanted about MPs?
Just a very quick note on the announcement by Judith Collins that she will sue Trevor Mallard, Andrew Little and Radio NZ for defamation ... mainly because I've yet to see any commentary by those who ought to be talking about it ... and yes, Steven Price and Graeme Edgeler, I am looking at you.
The police decision not to prosecute Bradley Ambrose means we'll never really know what happened at Newmarket's Urban Cafe. And that suits everyone just fine.
The term "a Solomonic judgment" is often misused. The point of King Solomon's "they-get-half-a-baby-each" decision, after all, was not actually that cleaving the infant in twain would best serve the needs of justice, but rather that proposing this outcome enabled him to see who was the child's real mother.
Why is it that New Zealand's Supreme Court thinks that foreign law helps us know what our law should be?
Pretend you are a judge ... one who has worked your way up to sitting on New Zealand's highest court. And you have a case in front of you. It is a dispute between (at least) two parties, who want you to say what you think is the correct legal resolution to their conflict.
The Electoral Commission has to review six aspects of MMP (plus whatever else the public puts before it). Here's my thoughts on the first issue: the thresholds for representation in Parliament.
Of the issues that the Electoral Commission has to look at in its review of MMP, I predict the question of what threshold a party should have to attain before getting proportional representation in Parliament will be the most fraught.
