Public Address | Cafe | Legal Beagle: All of these things are quite like each other

Sacha

Wed, 23 Apr 2014 19:57:09 +1200

These certainly aren't my economic priorities

same for 99% of New Zealanders. Now, how about we ignore all but 1 in 100 words from the silly libertarian feckers?

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 23 Apr 2014 19:21:05 +1200

Somehow I doubt ACT is returning to its ‘classical liberal’ roots
Politico-speech for either baldness
or not dyeing their hair?

Kumara Republic

Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:44:57 +1200

I doubt this proposal is even intended to have actual policy value. I think it’s a pretty transparent play for sympathetic media coverage TBH.

Somehow I doubt ACT is returning to its ‘classical liberal’ roots as it claims to be doing – it’s always been more economically libertarian than it…

WH

Wed, 23 Apr 2014 10:51:44 +1200

I doubt this proposal is even intended to have actual policy value. I think it's a pretty transparent play for sympathetic media coverage TBH.

New Zealand is fortunate not to have the kinds of problems you read about in the US media. It's good to see things evolving there.

I'm…

tussock

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 17:06:56 +1200

Three strikes laws are abhorrent. If the penalties on burglary or whatever else are too soft, raise them for everyone.

That doesn't actually do anything but put more people in prison, but at least it would keep certain ACT party donors (the private prisons, duh) happy without forcing the law…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:45:37 +1200

Incidentally, you can read about Texas’ recent efforts to reduce prison populations here.

That was an interesting article. The aim was to save money, but the method was to reduce re-offending rather than simply punishing. Pity it took them so long when that approach has been in place in other…

James Littlewood*

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:19:29 +1200

Psycho Milt is right. As an elitist group of white-collar anarchists, ACT are completely rational.

Euan Mason

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 11:46:04 +1200

I was there, I am scarred, I still feel unease when I see someone dressed like Thatcher.... EEEEEK!..... Collins

Kumara Republic

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 11:16:24 +1200

On those points, it seems a case of do as ACT says, not as ACT does.

WH

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 11:08:33 +1200

I can understand your desire to engage with this proposal in a sincere way, but this looks like one of those election year trojan horse jobbies.

ACT is pretty hostile to the interests of most New Zealanders, and I'd be careful about giving it or any of its policies an…

Steve Barnes

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 10:51:10 +1200

And that very sus law went up in smoke with the 1981 Brixton riots.
The suss law was the main cause of those riots. Many minorities were being singled out by the police who were using this law, Vagrancy Act 1824, as a "weapon" to quell public disquiet at the…

Bart Janssen

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 10:04:17 +1200

Because putting people in jails frequently and for a long time has been shown again and again to reduce criminal offending … no wait.

Arguing about the breadth of crimes this might apply to is utterly beside the point.

Kumara Republic

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 09:59:20 +1200

…and here is ACT’s main flotation device, Alan Gibbs, calling for privatising schools, hospitals, and roads…

Alan Gibbs, Don Brash and others who think NZ should rain-dance for a Singaporean cargo cult conveniently like to forget that Singapore can get away with a lot of things because it's a de facto…

Kumara Republic

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 09:46:36 +1200

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 )

Fixed. Those parentheses can throw a few…

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 08:33:24 +1200

...and here is ACT's main flotation device, Alan Gibbs, calling for privatising schools, hospitals, and roads...

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 08:21:16 +1200

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…

Psycho Milt

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 08:13:39 +1200

But they're not, are they. They're generally an odd mix of conservative and libertarian policies, but they come with rational explanations for them. We may strongly disagree with the rational explanations or consider them based on completely false premises, but we don't have to act like it's Kiwiblog and someone…

Geoff Lealand

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 22:26:58 +1200

Because their policies are generally a stream of deranged gibberish?

Kumara Republic

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 21:53:56 +1200

here is a bit about the Sus Law back in the UK back in the day.

And that very sus law went up in smoke with the 1981 Brixton riots.

Steve Barnes

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 21:02:36 +1200

Not for the first time have I been perplexed and bewildered by “New and Improved ” laws.
here is a bit about the Sus Law back in the UK back in the day.

1824 legislation
The power to act on “sus” was found in part of section 4…

Psycho Milt

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 20:49:00 +1200

...for all those who acted as an accessory to the offence by voting for them.

Not that I'm a fan of ACT, but why does the mere mention of its name cause otherwise sane people to immediately issue a stream of deranged gibberish?

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 19:56:24 +1200

Not surprisingly, ACT doesn't want to increase penalties for financial, passport or electoral fraud.

I think that the latter should attract not only a long jail sentence for the perpetrator, but for all those who acted as an accessory to the offence by voting for them.

Ian Dalziel

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 19:51:05 +1200

Lag time is the Big time...
With a guaranteed incarceration period, and a steady, if not increasing, flow of inmates, any self respecting Private Prison Partnership could start looking ahead – looking at going for those big work contracts... looking after number one...

Leopold

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 19:18:56 +1200

`As through this world you ramble
You'll meet some funny men
Some will rob you with a six-gun
Others with a fountain pen...
But as through this world you ramble
As through this world you roam
You'll never find an outlaw
Drive a family from their home'
Pretty Boy Floyd…

Nick Kearney

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 19:17:19 +1200

Well I guess to the suspicious I guess the answer would be because ACT could then introduce three strikes to basic, simple offences (drunks scaling a fence etc).

I'd like to think I'm right in saying three-strikes for burglary was not even in contemplation back then.

And hopefully I am…

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 18:47:39 +1200

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…

Kumara Republic

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 17:38:32 +1200

What about the burglars who happen to be dressed in neatly pressed suits, drive expensive late-model cars, and peddle 'bulletproof investments'? Or private investigators? Or secret agents planting bugs?

Nick Kearney

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 17:22:45 +1200

But none of those those scenarios (independently or together) were done on three separate occasions, by the same offender, who on each occasion was convicted of the offence, were they? So they actually have nothing in common with ACT"s policy, because they are one-off offences.

But if they had been…

Public Address

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 17:22:45 +1200

Discussion from blog post.