Drawn

A ballot for a member's bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn:

• Rates Rebate (retirement village residents) Amendment Bill (Ruth Dyson)
  

Its a boring but worthy bill, fixing up a wrinkle in legislation which means that people living in retirement villages (through e.g. a right to occupancy, effectively home ownership) aren't eligible for the rebate which retired people living in their own home get. I have no idea whether National will support it as a sensible idea, or try and vote it down out of sheer spite.

Another show trial

Another day, another show trial for an opposition MP for calling the Speaker on his bias. This time, the target is Ruth Dyson, who in various tweets supposedly called the Speaker "incompetent, biased, doesn't like the job, lazy, sexist, doesn't give a toss". Sadly, truth isn't a defence in National's kangaroo court. Meanwhile, in doing this, National's Deputy Speaker made it clear he thought Dyson was guilty, effectively pre-determining the outcome. But natural justice doesn't apply to National's kangaroo court either. Instead, there'll be a show trial, followed by conviction on a whipped vote and a forced, insincere apology. Its an abuse of power reminiscent of the days of absolute monarchy. But that appears to be how National wants to run the country.

National's Deputy Speaker also complained that the opposition's allegations of bias had damaged the public's opinion of parliament. Bullshit. You know what damages the public's opinion of Parliament/ Show trials. And if National wants to stop the House being perceived as lower than dogshit, a place we wouldn't piss on if it was on fire, it should start by stopping them.

Again, if the Speaker feels his reputation has been impugned by these comments, he should sue for defamation. The fact that he is instead demanding a show trial before his own kangaroo court tells us everything we need to know about the merits. He is biased (and incompetent, and lazy etc). He is National's Speaker, not Parliament's.

Credit where credit is due

Two weeks ago it emerged that several MPs had enjoyed a "last hurrah" on the taxpayer, booking international travel using their unjustifiable travel rort before the rules were changed. Now Ruth Dyson, who had booked herself a taxpayer-subsidised trip to Ethiopia, is paying back the subsidy for her trip - all $16,000 of it:

Labour MP Ruth Dyson says she is paying back the cost of a recent private trip to Ethiopia for herself and her husband because it is no longer appropriate for taxpayers to subsidise such trips when so many Kiwis are struggling to make ends meet.

“When I applied for funding for the trip in July last year, it was before the rules were changed, and the subsidy was perfectly within the rules,” Ruth Dyson said.

“However, I felt uncomfortable about the subsidy all the while I was overseas, and when I got back yesterday I informed Labour Leader Phil Goff I would be repaying the subsidy of just under $16,000, and making a statement about it. Phil said he believed my decision was the right one.

Good on her. The world has changed, and MPs need to recognise the new political reality: that international travel needs to be justified, and that we are not going to fund their extravagant private holidays. Now, if only Shane Ardern, who seems to have enjoyed a similar holiday on the taxpayer, would do the same...

Protecting Canterbury's rivers

Earlier in the year, the government abolished democracy in Canterbury, replacing the elected Environment Canterbury with unelected dictators and cancelling this year's local body election. While ostensibly about governance, the imposition of a dictatorship was all about the water; "sorting out" water rights in Canterbury means giving all the water to National's farmer-mates, so they can suck the rivers dry and fill them with shit, turning them into open sewers and the lakes into giant effluent ponds.

But National didn't just do violence to democracy - they also brutalised the rule of law as well, intervening in the current process to impose a Water Conservation Order on the Hurunui River to remove the decision from the fair and impartial Environment Court and put it in the hands of their crony dictators. The dictators would also gain special rights, existing only in Canterbury, to "vary" existing WCOs to allow farmers to take more water and spew more pollution - a fundamental violation of the purpose of those orders.

Now Labour's Ruth Dyson is proposing to put a stop to that, with a bill to repeal those special provisions and restore the status quo around Water Conservation orders:

A new private member's bill from Labour Party MP Ruth Dyson hopes to address concerns about water conservation orders in Canterbury.

[...]

"If it is drawn, and it gets through, it will repeal the section that lets the commissioners intervene in water conservation orders. I hope the National Government will at least let it get to select committee, but I'm not holding my breath."

Hopefully it will be drawn, and the quicker the better. And the same goes for Brendon Burns' democracy restoration bill. The people of Canterbury deserve democracy, and the full protection of the law for their rivers.

In the ballot XXXIII

Another batch of Member's Bills currently in the ballot. Previous batches are indexed here:

Crown Minerals (Protection of Conservation Land Listed in the Fourth Schedule) Amendment Bill (Metiria Turei): would amend the Crown Minerals Act 1993 to require an Act of Parliament to remove land from the protection of Schedule 4. Land would still be able to be added by a simple Order in Council. This would prevent selective excisions to allow mining, and reflects the current regime for national parks.

Fisheries (Precautionary Approach) Amendment Bill (Kevin Hague): Originally a government bill put forward by Jim Anderton in 2008 and then discharged, this would amend the Fisheries Act 1996 to require decision-makers to take a precautionary approach in decision-making where information is absent, uncertain, unreliable, or inadequate. The most significant effect of this would be to shift decisions on the total allowable catch under the Quota Management System in a more sustainable direction, reflecting the international consensus towards precautionary environmental management contained in a number of international agreements to which New Zealand is a party. It's a sensible measure, but the fishing industry - which thinks that fishing is sustainable until the last fish is caught - hates it.

Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill (Ruth Dyson): Amends the RMA to tighten the criteria for the granting of requiring authority status (allowing a company to compulsorily acquire land under the Public Works Act) by re-inserting a "public interest" clause. This was originally in the law, but was removed by the Resource Management Amendment Act 1993. Since then there have been several dubious grants of requiring authority status for private profit - most notably in the case of Central Plains Water Ltd for its unsustainable Central Plains Irrigation Scheme.

As usual, I'll have more bills as I acquire them.