Posts by Kyle Matthews

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  • Legal Beagle: Referendum Fact Check #1,

    The list candidate and unsuccessful electorate candidate with the greatest number of electorate votes;
    The list candidate and unsuccessful electorate candidate with the next greatest number of electorate votes;
    and so on, and so forth, until there are no electorate candidates left on the party list, at which point the remaining list places are filled from the remaining list members in the order in which they were arranged by their party.

    Effectively you're forcing all candidates to run in an electorate. By the time you got down to 'no electorate candidates left on the party list', not many parties would have seats left to allocate. Maybe national if an election was held now and they didn't stand in the Maori electorates?

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…,

    Why can’t NZ provide insurance as a public utility for its own people?

    Well it can. But it needs to be tied into the international insurance market. New Zealand simply isn't big enough to cover for a significant insurance event like what's happened to Christchurch. Like individual households join together in an insurance company to spread the risk, so do insurers join international backing schemes to spread their risk - buying insurance for themselves.

    It would do no good if they didn't - all our insurance companies would need to be bailed out by the government when something big happened and then it's not insurance, it's just the government paying for everything again. At least at the moment some is being covered by overseas.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Legal Beagle: Good news, everybody (for everybody),

    Yes, it gives them more of a chance of “coming through the middle” in the Maori electorates, but this has to be balanced by the possible loss of party votes, and for a big party like Labour party votes are what determine their eventual power in parliament.

    Personally I think even if Labour does take back some Maori seats, it's of limited value.

    It will mean more to the party and the Maori wing of it, but in terms of parliament it won't mean any difference at all - just less list MPs.

    I can see a future where Labour cedes the electoral vote in Maori seats to Maori party once they've got some sort of likely coalition understanding with them.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…,

    Just saw Megan saying her bit on TV1 news. Spiffy.

    +1. Good job.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Muse: OFF TOPIC: This Is What Your Brain…,

    Well, yes – up to a point. But you know something, it’s never going to happen until someone shows a grain of Fran Wilde’s ovarian fortitude and says “the time is now ”.

    Politically, do we think it matters who does it? Should it be a straight, married, National Party female? It seems unfortunate, but it feels likely that the personal life of the person who puts it forward may impact upon whether it passes, and how nasty it gets getting through.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…,

    Why not in that case sell the land to govt, get a cash payout from the insurer to use your own builder etc, move the house and get it fixed after it’s moved and plonked in place.

    As David says, that's likely to be a solution that some will take up. Still some big losses in there though. Moving a house is about $20K? Plus he'd be moving the house, he'd have to build new foundations on whatever piece of land he was moving it to, the insurance company isn't likely to do that for him given their attitude to date.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Legal Beagle: Good news, everybody (for everybody),

    What is the status of the Maori Party - Hone deal not to run against each other then? In the scrap bin?

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: And we may never meet again ...,

    Russell, while you deeply dislike these people, you (and correct me if I’m wrong here) do seem to hold a great deal of respect for hardware and software companies such as Apple and Microsoft that have facilitated this sea change, companies who make billions of dollars of profit facilitating people’s desire to share media.

    This doesn’t make much sense given that Apple are a leader in the legal digital music market.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Legal Beagle: Mana update,

    You can display “ribbons rosettes and streamers” on your person or on a “vehicle in party colours”.

    How can our electoral laws have been updated umpteen times in the last couple of decades, but this bit of language still be stuck in the 1960s?

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…,

    Andrew Geddis picks up the story today at pundit, and follows through to explore what happens if you don't take the deal:

    Now, we can't say for absolute certain, and the Minister himself may not yet know for sure, but I think it's pretty clear that there won't be anyone allowed to stay living in the Red Zone. That's certainly the implication of this news story. So folks who won't sell voluntarily will, I suspect, find themselves selling involuntarily after 9 months.

    Except, here's the rub. If your land is acquired compulsorily under the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011, you get compensation under subpart 5. And that compensation is determined by the Minister in accordance with s.64.

    And s.64 makes it crystal clear that "in the case of the compulsory acquisition of land, [compensation is determined] as at the date of the compulsory acquisition"; meaning "the Minister must determine compensation having regard to its current market value as determined by a valuation carried out by a registered valuer."

    So, here's the position those in the Red Zone face. They can accept one of the Government's two offers of compensation at 2007-values. Or, in nine months time, they can face the high probability that the Government will force them to sell at the present value of a quake-ravaged piece of land on which no-one may build in the midst of a sea of demolished houses.

    (I think that's double-fucked if you don't).

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

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