Blog highlights
I reckon these two good posts yesterday are worth sharing.
Anna at the Hand Mirror on charity for poverty:
The advent of Kids Can is both crass and tragic. Ensuring kids have enough food and clothing is no longer a non-negotiable social responsibility we all share, but an optional activity for the charitably-minded, like buying a raffle ticket to support a local sports team. Smiling celebrities lend their support, and grateful children given sporadic meals pose for pictures. In addition to making an online donation to Kids Can, you can buy a $2 scratch and win ticket, or buy a product from a range of commercial sponsors. Consume your way to social justice.
Southern Rata from g.blog on Simon upton and elderly relatives:
I was having a brief conversation with our local National candidate after a meeting, congratulating him for National’s policy emphasis on the protection of breast-feeding. (I don’t know how firm their commitment is, but any support deserves encouragement). I was talking about breast-feeding as an necessity for survival in times of natural disaster and other upheaval, and he volunteered that he was really worried that people these days did not have the basic life skills to manage in a major depression. Being a generation behind me, he didn’t have that familial link to depression-forged frugality that is part of the experience of most baby-boomers, and he didn’t seem to be too aware of the grassroots sustainability movements that so many Greens are part of, but I thought it was an interesting comment.
October 24th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Speaking of chatting to the local National candidate, I was at a meet-the-candidates with Phil Heatley last night. The event was in the McLeod Bay hall at Whangarei Heads, a venue which was central to the community-led resistance to Mighty River Power’s failed efforts to fire-up the Marsden B coal fired power station.
I asked Phil about National’s plans to streamline the Resource Management Act. In particular I was asked him about their plan to require some groups to raise large sums of money and post them as a bond before being allowed access to the Environment Court. (This is obviously extremely worrying for Community Groups.) To my surprise Phil Heatley said that this was not National’s Policy!
When I countered that I was certain it was, he said that he hadn’t heard about it and it wasn’t in the briefing notes he’d been given.
I must say I was a bit surprised that a sitting National MP wasn’t better informed, especially given the importance of National’s RMA reform proposals to those in the audience last night. But maybe the more important point is what other unpopular policies are being left out of the briefing papers National gives to its candidates.
October 24th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
It is my understanding that it most certainly is National’s proposal. Sorry I cannot recall the document/news item I read it in.
Apropos frugality.
Born just at the end of WW2, living near a small rural town with older parents and older relations I absorbed many of their words and attitudes, especially relating to the depression and a general “make do as best we can” mantra. It is, sadly, clear to me now that there are far too many people who seem to have no idea about managing with less “bling” or “stuff”. About home nursing of children with their usually minor ailments, about vege gardens, sewing, knitting, whatever.
I hope this current downturn is not so severe that we as a nation need to revisit some of those measures.
October 24th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
M W is the spokesperson on transport and even HE doesn’t know the Nats policy on road tolling! So how they think they can run a country!
October 24th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
joy:
Yes the bonds thing is definitely national policy. It’s in the Resource Management policy and they call it ’security for costs’. It allows the court to make a group post a bond equivalent to the amount of money which would be awarded against them in costs if they were to lose their case.
The policy says this will happen if ‘the merits of an appeal are weak and there is a real risk of costs not being paid’.
Obviously this is a major worry to Community Groups who rarely have enough money to pay lawyers and expert witnesses for themselves let alone raise enough money in advance to cover the costs of the other side.
In practice ’security for costs’ will be another hurdle for community groups to jump over. They will have to persuade the judge that their case has merit (it’s not clear how) before getting their day in court. This will of course take precious time and resources, may well incur extra legal costs and will not apply to the large corporations they typically oppose.
macro:
Maybe National High Command made the judgment that road tolling would be unpopular with voters and so left it out of M W’s briefing papers?
To be fair to Phil Heatley, he did make a better effort to explain party policy than some other candidates at the meeting I attended. Although he was a bit naughty at times, for example trying to persuade the audience that the importance of reforming the RMA was to remove the hold-ups to the renewable energy projects that National was just dying to get started.
October 25th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Odie
re:
>
>>In practice ’security for costs’ will be another hurdle for community groups to jump over. They will have to persuade the judge that their case has merit (it’s not clear how) before getting their day in court. This will of course take precious time and resources, may well incur extra legal costs and will not apply to the large corporations they typically oppose.
>
Here’s the rub you see.
In a criminal case before the District or High courts, there is a pre-trial hearing to determine if there is a case to answer. Not a bad idea, it makes the crown establish that it is worth the court’s time and the peoples’ money to hold the trial.
What is being suggested here is that the same be applied to the Environment Court. This will stop people whose only real issue is NIMBY syndrome from taking up the time of the Court to deal with a non-existent ‘real’ issue; as well as the ‘defendant’ having to expend money (which will end up in the consumer’s bill) on defending it.