Posts by Keir Leslie
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Hard News: About Campbell Live, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
I actually don't think it's at all strange for us to expect a major corporation to act in a social responsible manner. There's no obligation on consumer (or citizens) to watch a rapacious capitalist entity ripping apart civil society and go "oh well that's just maximising shareholder value what can you do". We're quite entitled to say: this is a crappy move.
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It's not the multiple candidacies that's the problem but the unclear law about how to handle them, no? Just require that if an MP is ever returned for two seats indicate within a fortnight which seat they'll sit for, and if they don't they vacate both. Assuming that the MP has been returned for an electorate at a by-election, then they will surely sit for that electorate, and then you get someone in on the list.
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I think there's precedents from the 19th century UK parliament of candidates being returned for multiple constituencies - they tended, I think, to require a choice of which one to represent before being seated. (Unsure if any were ever elected while already members, which would be the direct analogy.)
Certainly India allows candidates to contest from multiple constituencies - Modi stood in Vadodara and in Varanasi, for instance - and then requires them to resign from one within a fortnight of the results. I'm not sure if that's a codification of prior practice or an explicit change.
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From what I can make of it, for most of that time the block lay with the unpaid volunteer who had what was a pretty dumb idea in the first place., Chris Matthews.
I dunno if that makes it any better though - Little should have had a campaign manager / treasurer that were on top of this sort of thing, especially given that Little and his campaign manager were both in a room with Cohen. If he didn't, that was pretty poor form.
More broadly, yeah sure it's a minor thing*, and we're noticing it because Andrew Little has been very good up until now. But the Labour party keeps giving away minor things and they add up. Unforced errors like this just shouldn't happen, and they keep happening, and John Key loves it.
* Although I suspect it's the kind of minor thing that hurts, because it undercuts Little's attempts to articulate himself as straight-talking, honest, a fair-go kinda guy. Also, what is it with the Labour Party and leadership races for causing egg on face? There was Cunliffe's secret trust/donors, Little's unpaid bill, Shane Jones' public donors, etc.
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Speaker: Public art is no place for committees, in reply to william blake,
How is Parekowhai not a regionally relevant artist? Ditto Kregar, for that matter.
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Speaker: Losing cultural treasures under…, in reply to Stephen Judd,
But aren't all rights* artificial goods we've created for public policy reasons? And while copyright as such is artificial, the right to be paid for your labour isn't!
* I mean, even if the underlying principle isn't artificial, the specific expression of any given right is highly artificial.
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I have seen it argued that it is not possible to renounce copyright, or give a license to the world at large, on death as that would give the other heirs a reason to challenge the will, particularly if the copyright represents a very large amount of money. (In the same way that it's surprisingly hard to leave all your worldly possessions to the dog, and leave nothing to your family heirs.)
I have absolutely no idea if that is true, or if it is true in NZ, and it would, obviously, depend on the case.
I suspect that the cost of challenging the will would be out of proportion to the value of any copyright under discussion. (If you do have a copyright worth enough to have a inheritance fight over, you can afford a proper lawyer.)
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There's a governance review for CCC this year (well, this year coming.) Hopefully some of these issues can be dealt with then.
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Banks Peninsula has two community boards, no? Lyttelton/Mt Herbert and Akaroa-Wairewa.
Oh well: Christchurch should have twice as many councillors as it currently does, and probably half as many community board members, given the unwillingness to give them any real power.
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Legal Beagle: Wellington Super City? Not…, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Looks like garden variety racism to me, tbh.
Also: NZ needs strong regional governance structures and it needs small responsive local structures. It's struggled to find a balance to date and the poverty of the official debate on the issue makes me doubt it will ever get there.