NZ should sign the UN Global Compact on Migration

One of the foundations of New Zealand foreign policy has been support for international institutions and international law. Now, the National Party is opposing that foundation over the UN Global Compact on Migration, saying that "it's not for the UN to tell NZ what to do", and threatening to withdraw from it if the government signs it. So what does this evil UN compact do?

having read the final draft version, the answer seems to be "what we're doing anyway". The Global Compact is a non-binding agreement - an aspiration statement more than anything - written in pure business quack-speak rather than the legal language of UN treaties. It basicly says that orderly migration is good, and better when migrants are welcomed by the societies they move to. It sets out some broad principles which should govern it - including human rights and national sovereignty - along with a series of objectives and "actions to be considered" in achieving them. Most of these objectives and actions are completely unobjectionable, and things New Zealand does anyway. So there's stuff like making it easy for migrants to know whether they'd actually meet the legal requirements to move to your country (duh), opposing people smuggling, and reducing the scope for migrants to be exploited. Plus boring things like working towards portable social security, mutual recognition of skills, and making it easy for migrants to send money back to their families. Through this, there's a constant focus on human rights, gender, and the rights of children, but this echoes actually-binding treaties NZ is a party to, like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and Convention on the Rights of the Child.

So what's controversial? National says it "treats legal and illegal migration in the same way". This doesn't seem to be the case. The principles section makes it clear that states may distinguish between regular and irregular migration status, including in the implementation of their commitments. And this is made clear in the section on providing basic services to migrants:

We commit to ensure that all migrants, regardless of their migration status, can exercise their human rights through safe access to basic services. We further commit to strengthen migrant-inclusive service delivery systems, notwithstanding that nationals and regular migrants may be entitled to more comprehensive service provision, while ensuring that any differential treatment must be based on law, proportionate, pursue a legitimate aim, in accordance with international human rights law.

What is a "basic service" is undefined, but New Zealand is already a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which requires us to recognise the right of all persons, without discrimination, to social security, health, education, housing, and an adequate standard of living (developing countries get to decide the extent to which they implement these rights for non-nationals. Developed countries like NZ don't). So, to the extent that we see this as an obligation, its one we signed up for fifty years ago. As for what it actually means, I'd interpret it as ruling out UK-style "hostile environment" policies (under which illegal migrants - or people who have forgotten their papers - cannot even rent homes or open bank accounts, let alone get jobs, go to school, use the hospitals, or receive benefits, in an explicit attempt to starve them out). We can't leave illegal migrants to starve in the street, or punish their children, but under that provision it seems lawful to treat them in the same manner as tourists or make them subject to the same residency requirements for services as citizens - or at least, no more unlawful than it is at present.

Iain Lees-Galloway says there's some areas of concern, such as "having identity cards for migrants, and what could be viewed as regulation of free speech". The former is an objective to implement the right to a legal identity by ensuring that both nationals have proof of nationality and migrants are issued adequate documentation at all stages of migration. The specific actions make it clear that this is largely an obligation on source countries to make it easy for people to get passports, birth and marriage certificates etc, rather than some Orwellian requirement to give migrants ID cards to mark them out from the rest of the population. As for the free speech stuff, suggested actions include enacting or maintaining anti-hate crime legislation and to cease public funding for media outlets that systematically promote xenophobia, racism and intolerance. We already have obligations to do both under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, so its hard to see any problem here.

So what's the real problem with this compact? Simple: it says immigration detention should only be used as a measure of last resort and outlaws leaving migrants to drown at sea. Racist countries such as Australia and much of Southern Europe hate this. And their racist discourse has been picked up and used locally by the National Party. Its kindof disturbing that they have those sorts of friends, but that's National for you. And so now they've become a party which explicitly opposes a rules-based international order. Except for trade in dairy products, of course.

Après moi, le déluge

Consequences of National's austerity, part 287: the public service forgot how to deal with (and was not funded for) a change of government:

Public servants responsible for the transition between governments failed to support new ministers as no-one had planned for a full scale, new administration.

Officials were caught on the hop after last year's general election, having planned for change no greater than a Cabinet reshuffle - that caused problems like being unable to supply laptops and mobile phones and a lack of experienced staff for incoming ministers.

State Services Minister Chris Hipkins ordered the review after frustration about the level of staffing and administration support ministers received from Ministerial and Secretarial Support Services (MaSS) upon taking office.

The KPMG report, obtained by RNZ under the Official Information Act, found there was a shortage of skilled ministerial staff and IT support, which "affected some ministers' ability to get their offices up and running in a timely way".

There's a problem of institutional decay here - restructuring got rid of experienced staff who knew how to handle a change of government, meaning the organisation as a whole didn't really know what to do. But the core problem seems to be underfunding: National decided that the 2017 election would lead to no more than a reshuffle, and funded accordingly. I'm not sure whether that's just arrogance or not giving a fuck, but either way it is not acceptable. Like elections, changes of government are fundamental to a democracy, and its a core capability that needs to be retained. And the obvious answer is to fund and prepare for a full change of government each election, just in case. If it doesn't happen, then some of that money will be saved - but the institution will retain the skills, and that seems to be important here. Except, of course, to penny-pinching austerity-freaks who don't care what happens if they're not elected.

Legal advice and freedom of information

The UK government was found to have committed contempt of parliament today, and will be publishing its full Brexit legal advice as a result (and as a desperate attempt to keep government ministers out of the clock tower). Meanwhile, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson argues that legal advice to the government should be published as a matter of course:

There is no political “convention” more misguided and less examined than the supposed rule that legal advice to ministers must remain confidential. This is the basis for the government’s refusal to publish the attorney general’s advice on Brexit, instead releasing a summary. The refusal relied on the theory of attorney-client privilege – namely that counsel’s advice to a client is confidential to that client who has the sole discretion over whether to publish it. Ministers, however, are no ordinary clients.

Ministers expend taxpayers’ money when instructing counsel to provide an opinion on the law – a law that everyone is entitled (and indeed presumed) to know. In so doing they act not for their personal interest but on behalf of the people whose interest they are bound to represent. In any true democracy, the public should be able to see that advice, to discuss and debate it, and since it is not infrequently proved, later in court, to have been wrong, to expose its errors before the government acts unlawfully or mistakenly.

And he's got a point. Fundamentally, its our advice after all: ministers work for us, we have paid for it, so we have a right to see it. Publishing it or making it available under freedom of information laws will mean we will know what Ministers think the law means, whether it accords with public understanding, and whether they have been warned they might be breaking it. It will increase both public understanding and the accountability of ministers and officials. But Robertson goes further: as a lawyer, he knows lawyers will argue whatever the client wants them to, so he suggests that the instructions for legal advice also be published. That way, people can know whether ministers are asking whether an action is legal, or whether it is "arguably" legal (or as John Key would have put it, "pretty legal") - and there is a world of difference between the two. We expect a higher standard from government than mere "arguable" legality, particularly where human rights are concerned.

I don't think this is a good idea in the context of litigation (at least until it is finally resolved), but should apply absolutely in the case of ministers and officials seeking advice on the lawfulness of a particular policy. What harm could arise? They won't stop doing that, especially if its legally required as part of the policy process. The only foreseeable "harm" is to limit the ability of government to play fast and loose with the law. And IMHO that is not a "harm" at all.

Redacting their dirty laundry

Earlier in the year, in response to a litany of abuse by EQC, MBIE, and others, the government initiated an inquiry into the government's use of Thompson and Clark Investigations, New Zealand's private anti-left-wing spy agency. In September, after Stuff exposed how the Police also used Thompson and Clark, they announced their own inquiry. As I understand it, the inquiry is now completed, but the report has not yet been released publicly. But the police have released their internal correspondence about it under the OIA.

The first interesting point: while there's some talk of cooperation with the SSC's inquiry (even though they are not covered by it), the police's own internal inquiry only happened when they are kicked into it by DPMC after direct questions were asked to the Prime Minister about the Stuff story. Which suggests a lack of willingness to be proactive on the issue.

As for the rest, there's a lot of redactions in there, ostensibly under s6(c) to prevent prejudice to the maintenance of the law because of the inquiries underway by the SSC and Police. I've blogged about that particular issue here, and I will be taking the opportunity to challenge those redactions. Hopefully a clear ombudsman's ruling will end that bullshit forever. Some of the redactions are supposedly under s9(2)(h) to protect legal privilege, which is interesting, given that the participant who is obviously a lawyer - Sarah Baddeley - is acting for SSC, not the police, so there's no solicitor/client privilege. And because the police haven't followed good practice and identified the reasons for each redaction, it means that everything has to be challenged (and if they haven't documented the reason for each patch of black, well, I doubt the Ombudsman will be very impressed).

But what's interesting is what they redact. Because there are repeated mentions of areas where police have worked with TCIL, "known areas", and potential areas the inquiry could touch on. These are all redacted. It is clear the police are aware of issues, and are simply trying to keep them secret.

Lock them in the clock tower!

Three weeks ago, the UK parliament voted unanimously to order the government to release its full legal advice on Brexit, so that it would be available to them ahead of their "meaningful vote". The government subsequently refused to obey, providing only a summary and a Q&A session with the attorney-general. And so parliament is now moving to punish them for contempt:

A cabinet minister is at risk of being suspended from parliament and missing next week’s crunch Commons vote after Labour and the DUP accused ministers of holding parliament in contempt for failing to publish the full Brexit legal advice on Monday.

The fate of the minister – likely to be either David Lidington or Geoffrey Cox – will be in the hands of MPs after John Bercow, the Speaker, declared there was “an arguable case that a contempt has been committed”.

Bercow said he would accept a contempt motion from Labour, the Democratic Unionist party and four other opposition parties, allowing MPs to debate the matter on Tuesday before the beginning of the five-day debate on whether to endorse the Brexit deal.

But suspension isn't enough. This is a deliberate and pre-meditated refusal to deliver information in response to a parliamentary command. The obedience of the executive to the legislature is the fundamental bedrock of the Westminster system, and the government's refusal to obey is a direct attack on the UK's constitution. The Minister should be imprisoned until they produce the information, just like any other person guilty of a similar contempt of court. Lock them in the clock tower!

Climate Change: National are still dragging their feet

The terrible news on the climate recently - the IPCC report, the UN report on rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and the background drumbeat of places burning, flooding, or otherwise being struck by climate-induced disaster - has caused some to hope that the National Party might finally get it and vote to save humanity when the government's Zero Carbon Bill comes before the House. But if a speech climate change spokesman Todd Muller and regional economic development spokesman Paul Goldsmith gave in New Plymouth last week is anything to go by, National are still foot-draggers:

National are supporting a steady approach to climate change policy based on broad science, technology and a clear understanding of what other countries are doing, as opposed to ideology, climate change spokesman Todd Muller has said.

[...]

[National] wanted to ensure deliberations were informed by broad science, and available technology was recognised when sectors transition away from current activity, as well as having a clear line of sight on what the rest of the world are doing, particularly NZ's trading partners, he said.

And then we have the usual excuse-making: NZ's emissions are just 0.17% of the global total, strong action will undermine the economy, we shouldn't do anything until everyone else has. They specifically oppose acting against the gas industry, and they specifically oppose reducing cow numbers.

This is the same old mantra we heard when National was in office. The world is literally burning down, and rather than joining the fight, they're worried about how saving it might upset the status quo and put their donors and cronies out of business. Which means their policy is literally to let it burn.

In the current situation, this is simply not a credible position. And if the government is thinking of compromising with them for the appearance of unity, they should think again. "Compromise" with foot-draggers is actively dangerous to the climate, in that it locks in failure for the long run. Rather than making a deal which is not worth making and which cannot responsibly be kept, the government should legislate a strong target, and defend it at the next election.

NZTA, ANPR and privacy

Earlier in the month, we learned that NZTA would be trialling point-to-point speed cameras in the Waterview Tunnel. The cameras are a good road-safety tool to detect speeding, but they use automatic number-plate recognition (ANPR), and depending on how long the number plates are stored for and what is done with them, risks creating a UK-style database of people's public movements. So, I sent an OIA request to NZTA asking them for information about the system and any privacy policy or privacy assessment they had done for it.

The response is here. While they haven't completed the privacy work yet, there is some very good news about data retention:

In regard to the third part of your request, the system is being designed to hold an image of vehicles for the period of time it takes to travel between cameras. A second image will then be taken and only images of vehicles that have an average speed above the speed limit as well as being above the operating threshold (same as static cameras) will be retained by the system, all other images will be discarded. Infringement notices for speeding offences which are recorded by the cameras will be issued by the New Zealand Police.

Which seems pretty good: no storage, no database, so no huge privacy issue. We still need to keep an eye on it to ensure that it isn't subsequently modified to do those things, but if this is NZTA's default implementation of ANPR speed cameras and traffic counting, then we should be safe.

A compromised decision

Stuff reports on the government shelving its plans for a fisheries review after pressure from NZ First. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash is trying to present this as no big deal, but it basicly means that the status quo - under which the fishing industry engages in widespread criminal behaviour and is not punished for it - continues. But the worst bit: the pressure was apparently from Shane Jones. And Shane Jones is... not exactly clean:

Jones accepted thousands of dollars in donations from industry giants Sealord and Talley's in his last election campaign.

He has defended the industry against Greenpeace in the past, saying he won't stand to see an industry that provides good jobs for the regions "disfigured".

Where "thousands" is actually "tens of thousands": $10,000 from Talleys in 2017, and another $10,000 from Sealord when a Labour candidate in 2011. These donations create an appearance of a conflict of interest so severe that no sane person would let Jones anywhere near fisheries policy. No matter whether Talleys and Sealord expected any payback or not, any decision that Jones makes or any lobbying he carries out will be seen not just as tainted, but as purchased. It simply looks corrupt. And it is a perfect example of why we need both greater transparency, but also a ban on large donations.

What's special about Simons Pass?

Simons Pass is a hugely controversial dairy conversion on leased high country land in the Mackenzie Country. The leaseholders plan to stick 15,000 cows on some of the dryest land in the country, using irrigation to turn the tussock into grass. All of this requires the permission of the Commissioner of Crown Lands, but it was granted - against DoC advice, and against normal practice:

Greenpeace is questioning why a particular high country station in the Mackenzie Basin has had multiple discretionary consents granted to it by the Commissioner for Crown Lands against Department of Conservation advice.

A summary of discretionary consents presented to the Canterbury Aoraki Conservation Board (CACB) this week reveals DOC provided advice on 28 separate discretionary consent applications for Crown Pastoral Lease land in the Canterbury region between July 2016 and May 2018.

Of those, it appears all but eight followed DOC advice in some form. Five of those related to Simons Pass Station, a 9700-hectare high country station at the southern end of Lake Pukaki, which lodged seven of the 28 discretionary concessions.

The only times they followed DoC advice was when DoC approved the changes anyway. When DoC opposed changes (usually because they would have "profound and irreversible adverse effects"), they were ignored.

So, what's so special about Simons Pass? Why is DoC advice followed for other stations, but not this one? The Commissioner for Crown Lands owes us some answers.

New Fisk

Middle East dictators always end up bringing their western allies down – and now they've got their coils in the White House
To unlock the diplomatic mysteries behind the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, take a look at Syria

Inquiries, the OIA, and the Privacy Act

The Sunday Star-Times had a significant story yesterday about unprofessional behaviour by MPI staff regarding environmental activist Pete Bethune, where they had referred to him in a derogatory fashion in internal emails, apparently because of his opposition to illegal fishing (which MPI is supposed to police). They even went so far as to refuse to act on complaints of illegal fishing in a marine sanctuary - a crime - simply in order to prevent him from being able to say complaining had been effective. The behaviour exposed is grossly unprofessional, and shames the New Zealand public service. Bethune is owed an apology for it, as is the New Zealand public. But there's another aspect to this, and that is that MPI refused to release some of the information they held about Bethune:

Following Stuff inquiries, Bethune asked the Ministry to disclose information it held on him, as required by the Privacy Act.

Acting deputy director John Walsh wrote back confirming Bethune was the subject of emails between staff and Thompson & Clark. But he declined to release them because they were part of the evidence passed to the SFO and SSC inquiries.

The legal grounds for withholding here is s27(1)(c) of the Privacy Act. The problem is that it may not actually apply to inquiries.

The issue is covered in the Law Commission's reviews of the Privacy Act and the Official Information Act (which has an identically-worded withholding ground). In the review of the Privacy Act, the Commission notes that the focus of the provision is the criminal law, but they suggest that it may be broad enough to apply to investigations (though they don't really address non-criminal ones). In the OIA review, the Comission's attitude has hardened:

The question is how far beyond the court process the maintenance of the law ground can extend. A number of agencies indicated that they use it to prevent prejudice to an inquiry or investigation which they are undertaking... We have doubts, which are shared by the Ombudsmen, about whether the “maintenance of the law” ground is appropriate in such cases. Its wording does not readily accommodate this use.

In the end, they recommended a separate withholding ground for formal, statutory inquiries. That recommendation has not yet been implemented, so any agency which purports to use s6(c) to withhold inquiry information under the OIA is likely acting illegally. That means you, NZDF.

The Commission's OIA conclusions about the lawfulness of using "maintenance of the law" provisions to withhold inquiry information are likely to also apply to the Privacy Act. Firstly, because of the identical wording and similar contexts. Secondly, because the OIA includes rights for legal persons to access and correct information about themselves broadly mirroring those of the Privacy Act, with similar withholding grounds. It would be odd if legal persons had stronger access rights than natural ones over their personal information. But most importantly, it is because privacy access rights are stronger than freedom of information access rights. The right of a person to access information about themselves is stronger than the right of a random member of the public to access that same information. So it would be odd if "maintenance of the law" was interpreted more narrowly in the OIA regime than the Privacy Act one.

The upshot of this: Bethune should challenge that withholding decision, as should anybody else who has this "inquiry" bullshit pulled on them under either Act.

Hutt City Council ignores the law

The Hutt City Council has abandoned its plans to protect Significant Natural Areas (SNAs):

Hutt City Council has abandoned plans to use the District Plan to protect biodiversity on private land, with the city's mayor Ray Wallace issuing an apology to Eastbourne residents.

The issue over Significant Natural Areas (SNA) had proved highly divisive, with residents claiming the council plan was a land grab.

[...]

After six hours of heated debate, the Hearings Committee rejected the use of SNAs and agreed that the council should work in partnership with land owners to find ways protect native bush.

At 11.30pm, Hutt Mayor Ray Wallace called a council meeting and issued a public apology to landowners.

This is illegal. The RMA requires local authorities to protect areas of significant indigenous vegetation and significant habitats of indigenous fauna and to control land use for that purpose. When the New Plymouth City Council ignored those obligations to "work with landowners", they were ordered to do it properly by the Environment Court. Forest & Bird have said they will pursue a similar case against Hutt City, and on past precedent, they'll win. Sadly, the bill for that victory will be paid by all Hutt ratepayers, rather than the noisy propetarians responsible for this illegal decision.

Democracy, trust, and populism

There's an excellent piece in The Guardian today on why we stopped trusting elites. The short version is that democratic society depends on trust: trust that elected representatives are actually representing us, rather than their donors; trust that officials are telling them what they need to know rather than what they want to hear (or worse, what the officials want them to hear); and trust that the media are doing their jobs and telling us the truth. Corruption and deceit destroy trust. And when enough of it has been destroyed, people stop believing in the system and its representatives entirely. If politicians are just self-serving on-the-take arse-coverers who try to lie their way out of trouble, their spokespeople paid liars, and the media obedient little stenographers for the above, then people stop paying any attention to them. And then anyone who promises to sweep the whole steaming pile away looks like a good bet - even if they drop a few steaming piles themselves (or, in Trump's case, are pathological liars).

In the UK, assorted political and media scandals have doused trust in politicians and institutions in petrol and thrown it on a raging bonfire (I'd throw the betrayal of the Iraq war in as the basis of that bonfire). Globally, Wikileaks, Snowden, the Panama Papers, and the Great Financial Crisis has done the same. In NZ, we had just recovered from the great betrayal of Rogernomics and Ruthanasia (thanks in part to the public revenge of electoral reform) when we were hit by the police rape scandal, The Hollow Men and Dirty Politics and now Hit & Run (Nicky Hager seems to have an eye for finding these things), which have eroded trust in law enforcement, politics, and the defence forces (who really do seem like institutionalised liars). The damage here is nowhere near as great as the UK, probably because we're a small country and our establishment is nowhere near as corrupt and self-serving as theirs. But the seeds are there.

What can be done about this? I'm actually optimistic, in that I think trust can be earned and restored. Governments which behave openly and honestly, which do what they say they are going to do and are responsive to voters will better preserve the credibility of politics. Officials and media can protect their credibility by very obviously doing their jobs: by providing free, frank and fearless advice (and then releasing it, so we know they've done it), and pursuing power and holding it to account respectively. But the key to all of these is transparency: being honest, and being seen to be so. The consent of the governed on which their legitimacy is based is not a one-off thing; it needs to be earned every single day. And the moment our institutions fail to earn it, then we can - and should - take revenge.

Climate Change: What you can do about it

As part of its series on climate change, Stuff is asking for people's stories about what they're doing about it. Which is great, in that it will help spread the word about obvious things people can do to reduce their emissions: use public transport, use the most efficient car you can afford (and switch to an electric at the next replacement), insulate your house, support electricity companies which only use renewables, eat less or no meat and dairy, cut down on or eliminate air travel, have fewer or no children and so on.

But fundamentally, that's not enough. Most obviously because not everyone will do it, but more importantly because most of our emissions are simply not of a nature that is directly responsive to the actions of consumers. For example, 95% of our dairy production is exported. So even if we organised a nationwide dairy boycott, it wouldn't matter to them. 40% of our electricity and 80% of our coal and gas is consumed by industry - again, not responsive to us, because we're not their customers. Around 20% of our fuel consumption is by the road transport industry. We're not their direct customers either. While there's some scope for consumer action to influence these sources (e.g. pressuring supermarkets to use only clean transport providers), it is less effective than direct action.

But while these large polluters are effectively immune to consumer action, they can be controlled by policy and regulation. Dairy emissions can be controlled by the RMA (or less effectively, the ETS). Industrial emissions can be reduced by direct regulation and higher carbon prices. Road transport emissions can be reduced by regulating the efficiency (and eventually, the fuel type) of the trucks they are allowed to use. And of course, regulation can be used to make it easy for consumers to do the right thing as well.

Which brings me to my point: the most effective thing you can do as an individual to fight climate change is pressure politicians to take strong action. Emissions can be reduced - will only be reduced - by strong policy, which can only be implemented by government. The good news is that politicians depend on you for their jobs, so we have direct leverage here. While polluters can donate to them, only people can vote. As for how to pressure them, you can do it directly, by emailing your MP, or with friends, by joining or supporting groups like 350, Generation Zero, and Greenpeace. The campaigns and protests of these groups and others like them have changed policy, and the more voices they have, the bigger the changes they can push. But above all, vote. Vote only for parties who commit to strong action (and actually do so when in office). Do not vote for deniers, foot-draggers, chickenshits or compromisers. Our future depends on this. Your children's and grandchildren's futures depend on this. So act like it, and vote for a government which will save us, rather than one which pretends there can still be a "business as usual".

Climate Change: Too many cows

Bad news yesterday: the number of cows in New Zealand has increased again, to almost five million. The major driver is dairy expansion in the South Island, which is in turn driven by government-subsidised irrigation. Meanwhile, we've also learned that that dairy expansion is poisoning the water in Canterbury and to the point where its now giving people cancer:

Intensive dairy farming and nitrate-laden fertiliser are contaminating the Canterbury water supply, says Fish & Game New Zealand.

It is calling for no more cows to be allowed on the Canterbury plains and for the use of fertiliser to be regulated and reduced.

The group tested 114 drinking water samples from the Canterbury plains and found that over half of them were above the trigger level for increased risk of bowel cancer.

And that's not even getting into the effects of all their shit and piss on lakes and streams, or their excessive water use.

Cows are bad for the climate, bad for the rivers, and a direct threat to human health. We need less of them, not more. And if we are to have any hope of avoiding dangerous levels of climate change, we need central and local government to step up and start regulating the size of the herd down to within safe limits.

The exception that proves the rule

Stuff reports on the latest Independent Police Conduct authority report, into an incident of workplace bullying by police. And for once, its good news:

A police officer was sanctioned for serious misconduct after slapping one of his staff on the back of her head.

The Southern district police officer reported concerns in February about treatment she was receiving from her supervisor, including belittling comments made to her in front of colleagues and an incident where he allegedly slapped her on the back of her head.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) released a summary of the case on Friday.

[...]

"The officer's actions were found to meet the threshold for serious misconduct and misconduct, and he was sanctioned accordingly."

Its great that the police are acting on workplace bullying. At the same time, though, it highlights their refusal to act in much more serious cases, where police have been found to have illegally used tasers or pepper spray, engaged in dangerous driving, or assaulted prisoners. In most of these cases, officers face no sanctions whatsoever, let alone the criminal prosecution they deserve. So, this rare case of sanctioning an officer seems to be the exception that proves the rule: the police are primarily interested in protecting their own, rather than enforcing the law equally on all.

Justice for Yemen?

In 2015, Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen. In the three years since, they've bombed hospitals, used banned cluster bombs and white phosphorus, and indiscriminately slaughtered civilians. The architect of the invasion is crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (yes, the man who ordered journalist Jamal Khashoggi killed). He is currently visiting Argentina for a G20 meeting. And Argentina has just begun a war crimes investigation against him:

An Argentinian prosecutor has agreed to pursue a case against Saudi Arabia‘s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, over possible war crimes in Yemen, according to Human Rights Watch.

HRW petitioned Argentina's judiciary on Monday to use a clause in its constitution to prosecute Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, who arrived in the country to attend the G20 summit in Buenos Aires.

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of HRW’s Middle East and North Africa Division, announced on Twitter that a prosecutor has agreed to take up the case, and asked a judge to request information from Yemeni and Saudi authorities regarding alleged war crimes, and had also asked Argentina's foreign ministry whether the crown prince's diplomatic status might allow a legal proceeding to go forward.

“The Argentine judiciary, by taking steps towards a formal investigation, is sending a clear message that even powerful officials like Mohammed bin Salman are not above the law and will be scrutinised if implicated in grave international crimes," Ms Whitson said in an emailed statement to The Independent.

But we need more than scrutiny - if the evidence is there, we need arrest and prosecution. And we need bin Salman to be facing that threat not just from Argentina, but the entire world.

Show us the backdoor

Today the GCSB banned Spark from using Huawei equipment in its planned 5G network. The ban was imposed for "national security" grounds, but naturally there's no details. So we're supposed to believe that Huawei gear is too dangerous to be used in our networks, but we are forbidden from knowing how to fix it.

This is simply bullshit. If Huawei gear is backdoored to e.g. route traffic back to Chinese state security agencies so they can read it (you know, like US stuff is), then the best way of protecting our security is for the details of those problems to be widely publicised, so that they can be fixed. There's no benefit to the public in keeping security flaws secret. The only people that benefits are the people who want to exploit those flaws: hackers, criminals, and spy agencies like the GCSB (or more likely, their foreign masters, the NSA). And if exposing Chinese backdoors causes the NSA's Chinese equivalent to expose American ones, allowing them to be patched, then again, we all benefit.

More generally, exposing and publicising bugs and security flaws makes the world a safer place. An agency genuinely interested in our security would do that. The fact that the GCSB doesn't - well, you can draw your own conclusions about their purpose.

For a lower MMP threshold

Yesterday we learned that the government was thinking of having a referendum on lowering the MMP threshold in 2020. But in his comments on it, it turns out that National leader Simon Bridges already supports a much lower threshold:

“My view is, we looked at this in government and we thought four per cent was about right, but I’d kind of say if you’re going to four per cent, that is tinkering actually, four to five per cent,” he said.

“Why not have the courage of your convictions, let’s throw this out there, why not two or three per cent? Actually let’s be genuinely democratic.”

And its a good question. Because parties which get two or three percent of the vote are every bit as deserving of democratic representation as those which get five or ten or forty. There is no democratic justification for excluding them, and even the Electoral Commission fell back on snobby concerns about a "need" to keep small parties out in the cold because they were "ineffective" or "extremist". On the former, I think the Maori Party, Progressives, United Future, ACT, and their respective supporters would all beg to differ; on the latter it is simply absurd fearmongering, rooted in a snobby view that some voices simply shouldn't be heard, even if there are enough votes to elect them (that this view was propounded by an unelected body simply adds insult to injury).

The ideal threshold is none at all (let the modified Sainte-Laguë method fall where it may!) or whatever it takes to win one seat - a level which would make the "coat-tailing rule" redundant and allow it to be repealed. But any reduction is an improvement. Dropping it to two percent would make a huge difference, and if the opposition really supports that, they should get together with the government, pass a law, and save us the cost of a referendum.

(If you're curious, Graeme Edgeler has been calculating the no-threshold results for every election since 2008. You can see his 2017 results and links to the rest here. A 2% threshold would not have changed the last election, but would have seen the Conservatives elected in 2011 and 2014, NZ First in 2008, Christian Heritage in 1999 and the Christian Coalition in 1996. The reason why there is so little change is of course because the one-seat "coat-tail" rule has moderated the undemocratic effects of the threshold, and helped keep our parliament proportional).

Still not their priority

Earlier in the month, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court's ruling that National's prisoner voting ban is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act. And now, the Greens are formally calling for it to be repealed:

Green Party Justice spokeswoman Golriz Ghahraman timed the Wednesday call to coincide with the first time women were allowed to vote 125 years ago.

"Today is 125 years since New Zealand women first went to the polls, yet to this day there are New Zealanders still denied from casting their vote", Ghahraman said.

Ghahraman argued that taking the right to vote away from prisoners excluded them from properly engaging in society, which in itself harmed rehabilitation.

"We know that prisoners being disengaged from their communities is an impediment to them being rehabilitated and reintegrating effectively once they are released, which should be the key focus of a system of justice," Ghahraman said.

She believed all prisoners should be able to vote - not just those with short sentences.

(There's a strong argument from JustSpeak here on the issue)

As for the response, in Parliament today the government said that they hadn't even considered the issue and that it wasn't a priority for them. Which tells us everything we need to know. This government is not committed to fundamental human rights, and is quite willing to violate them for political profit. As for what to do about it, the answer is clear: Parliament is clearly unwilling to protect our human rights or obey the Bill of Rights Act. So we should repeal s4 of the BORA, take the job off them, and give it to the courts instead.